High country - the dry high winter country

When I moved to Canberra, I discovered that I had come back to the country where I grew up—the dry, high winter country in the shadow of the mountains.

Here in the sky country the coastal plains, after rising through the lush, damp forests of the Southern Highlands, have finally given way to the lofty rocky sprawl of the Southern Tablelands, with its stunted trees and thin, shallow rivers.

The source of the Murray in the shadow of the mountains.

But I didn’t grow up in Canberra, but rather in the dry centre of Tasmania, where the Great Lakes and the mountains of the Western Tiers define the brittle, stony landscape.

Exercising in the gym of happiness

As though happiness consisted of no more than a technique – learning to meditate quietly or breathe in the endless gym of happiness.

I was watching a special on television recently about scientific research into happiness. That’s what I love about research—it can be carried out on anything and everything, profound or trivial, inexplicable or obvious.

The longer I watched it, the more unhappy I became. Something about it didn’t quite seem right.

The endless gym of happiness

The program focused on a Buddhist monk who was able to make himself happy simply by meditating. Brain scans showed what was happening.

Creative industries - applied arts and sciences

The Nineteenth Century approach to nature, arts, science and industry has many lessons for the modern creative industries in Australia.

In the gloriously ageing upstairs dining room of the Menzies Hotel in Sydney, reputably soon to be renovated, I came across a print of the Garden Palace, a vast building in the Sydney Botanic Gardens, which was the home of Australia’s first international exhibition in 1879.

This was the Australian version of the great Victorian-era industrial expositions, where, in huge palaces of glass, steel and timber, industry, invention, science, the arts and nature all intersected and overlapped.

The Musem of Economic Botany

The Garden Palace was built of timber and it burned to the ground in 1882 — but not before becoming the inspiration for what eventually became the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences — the Powerhouse Museum.

Life on a movie set

Is the world really just one big movie set? What is the dividing line between nature and society and reality, hyperreality and the virtual world?

Is the world just one big movie set? Where does reality stop and the virtual world begin? Or do they overlap?

In Brisbane recently I walked through South Bank and I was reminded of Umberto Eco’s Travels in Hyperreality, about idiosyncratic private museums in the US. South Bank is a massive theme park and, for anyone who knows museums, it is fascinating.

Life copies art

Queensland is full of theme parks – South Bank, the gated communities and private estates built by developers, even the restaurants. I went to a Belgian-themed restaurant, one of the familiar franchises which have opened in many cities – food theme parks.

Lines of desire

Not the prescribed paths of planners, architects and administrators, but instead the paths that suit those who make and use them most often.

When you seee a path—dead straight— worn in the grass diagonally across a field, you are looking at a line of desire.

The shortest distance between two points

Lines of desire appear everywhere. They are the paths worn by people who do not want to follow the prescribed walkways of planners and architects and administrators, but instead make the path that suits them best.

Pristine cities

Visiting old German cities, the compelling thing that strikes you about them is the sense of how brand new and pristine they seem.

Compare this to a city like Lyon, which is genuinely old and worn and dirty.

I don’t know if my visit to Europe was life changing or life threatening, considering the way Europeans seem to live.

In Germany, everything seems to have been bombed. The part that were most heavily damaged during World War 2 was the Altstadt, the most ancient and historical part in the centre of the city.

After the war, in a vast miracle of recreation, after the Trümmerfrau (the rubble women) had cleared the wreckage by hand, whole city blocks were built again from long-forgotten plans and drawings, unearthed in municipal offices and museums.

Remembering Dresden

Silly dogmas and empires and failed social experiments cannot withstand the power of the everyday, the desire to live long and quietly and productively.

The age we live in is one of small, short wars. It affects some of us in large ways, but most of us, hardly at all. This is a return to the norm, for the widespread horror of world war is unusual this century—at least, so far.

A lesson for our fragile times

When I was growing up, my experience of wars was handed down from a father too young to enlist, despite misguided attempts, and a batch of uncles, loaded up with decorations and unexpected survival. For me this legacy was a defining factor in my sense of history—as was the Depression for my parents.