Sam Cutler

Unworthy thoughts

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 16:20:38 +1000

Today I had THE most unworthy thoughts about my ex. The new man in her life is going to jump out of an airplane and she’s going to be watching - well I hope he lands at her feet in one piece (and alive) because that was NOT what I thought a few hours ago. I dislike that I am riddled with envy and jealousy and the weakest purile resentments BUT I LIKE that I confront these feelings, taste their bit

terness and sorrow, and am prepared to take possession of them and recast them so that they lose their grip upon my imagination. To be ‘in love’ is (for me) as much a via dolorosa as an ode to joy - I suffer and through my suffering (I hope and believe) I Iearn in part what it MEANS to be a human being. This ‘road of discovery’ that is a life, how complicated it all is !!! LOL Not sure, to be completely honest, that I particularly enjoy it !!!! What to do ? As my old mum used to say: In the absence of orders to the contrary - continue !!!!! ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪

The light from long-dead stars

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:14:23 +1000

I live in a cabin in the hills in that stretch of country that constitutes the hinterland of Byron Bay. The cabin is based upon a Tahitian design and has a large glass window beside which I have positioned my bed. I can lay in bed and look directly out the window at the dizzy panoply of a trillion stars in a sky that is as sparkling as that found at night in the dessert far from human habitation. This is because there is very little background luminosity where I live – essentially my place is surrounded by forests and fields. At night the country here is as black as a black witch’s soul except for the light from the heavens – the light of long dead stars which has taken (sometimes) billions of years to reach us here on planet earth. This morning I was awake at four thirty and instead of getting up immediately I luxuriated in my bed and spent a happy half hour as I wondered about things like the nature of existence and looked at a sky full of incandescent diamonds. And I observed in front of my eyes the whole perfect umbilical connection between man and the stars, the development of our species back through space and time, to some far off distant originating comet that had visited our galaxy, been captured by the sun’s gravitational pull and had eventually became the earth. The beautiful earth our receptive host upon which our species after millions of years has evolved. Here before me, as plain as the nose on my face lay the answer to the perennial question why are we here? The night sky benevolently beamed the answer ! We are here because several billion years ago a star died for us. With that strangely gratifying thought I dragged myself from my bed into the cold cabin and hurriedly got dressed and did what the English do – I made a cup of tea before settling down to write.

the balance restored

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:35:30 +1000

It’s midnight on Tuesday evening in Sydney. I am sitting along in front of the embers of a dying fire in perfect peace and quiet after a lovely evening with friends. All of the emotional turmoil of the last months seems as nothing as I stare contentedly into the depths of the glowing coals - how fraught and ‘busy’ the ‘inner workings’ of the mind can become; how distanced from coherence; how fluently the ancient language of sorrow can speak in seductive tongues ! How foolish we can be when we too often listen only to ourselves. These last few hours I came back to the world unsure of where I had been. I felt that I had returned from those sad journeys that needed to be revisited for the last time - the profile of the journey’s mountains to be remembered, the consequences of the cumbersome clouds drenching the spirit to be carefully noted. As the fire died and I saw each and every sorrow die, finally I was calm; with the work completed the balance restored;and finally, once again, I could feel content before I went to sleep to dream.

♡ ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪

time for a re-think

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 07:48:46 +1000

The Australian swimming team has not done very well at the Olympics - to use a strange phrase “they tanked”. Meaning the pressure of expectations (their own and others) got to them and they weren’t in the right ‘frame of mind’ to swim competitively. Have a look at their coaches and the sports psychologists around them, LISTEN to the ‘sage words of wisdom’ that sprouted from the collective advisors

to the team. Not worth a tinker’s cuss !! Hyper-competitive bullshit of the crudest variety spoken by people who haven’t got a CLUE. All of them UP TIGHT bogans (that’s what we call rednecks) who can ONLY think competitively and are unable to handle losing in any way shape or form. Then look at the man who has won MORE swimming golds than ANY man EVER. He was recently busted with a bong !!! YES !!! He smokes grass. The Australian swimmers need to re-focus their efforts - go to Nimbin (home of Australia’s best grass) and hang out before the Rio contest. Get in touch with themselves, learn to RELAX, and take it as it comes. THEN perhaps they’ll see what winning’s all about - it’s a STATE OF MIND. The kids in London don’t have a clue, their coaches don’t have a clue - they think it’s ONLY about winning !!!! Poor deluded souls I feel sorry for them - it’s about COMPETING with the right ‘mind set’ kiddies - time to GROW UP !!! Then, maybe, you’ll start winning ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪

Taken for a ride

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 10:10:40 +1000

TAKEN FOR A RIDE - TRUE CONFESSIONS of a ‘COPTERPHOBE

I got in a helicopter two days before Altamont loaded with the Dead’s PA speakers, outside their rehearsal space in Novato, right by the heliport. It went 20 feet into the air and came crashing back to earth with a spectacular thump. It was overloaded and I almost had a heart attack and narrowly missed being crushed by the speakers which slid

forward when the copter took off. I swore I would NEVER get on another one. Time passed (as it does LOL) and Watkins Glen was happening. Would I like to ride in a helicopter and see the massive traffic jams on the interstate highway? NO was my initial reaction BUT I told myself NOT to give in to silly phobias and to get into the bloody thing. We swooped over miles of parked cars on the interstate and it was all I could do NOT to vomit. In the backstage area, after we had landed I was as sick as the proverbial dog and swore that I would NEVER get in a helicopter again. (NEVER say never !!) The years rolled by and my helicopter phobias increased as various people I knew died in crashes. NEVER never never I told myself get in a helicopter. Then my Aussie friend Paul offered me a ride and before I knew what I was doing I had said yes !! I shocked myself !! So the die was cast and my friend’s daughter Caitlin said she wanted to come too. Went to the Gold Coast heliport, got on a thing that looked about as substantial as a mosquito and took the ride. Did I “like it” ? No !!! LOL BUT it was interesting to confront all those ‘years of fears’ and to see them for the irrational paradigm that they are. I mean I have lost dearly loved friends to cars, but I drive. Several friends died walking, but I walk. So I went for a ride in a helicopter and put it all in perspective. Another fear defeated (kinda LOL) and an amazing experience seeing the East Coast of Australia from the air - there were whirlpools in the ocean which I had never seen before. I felt like I was watching the Pacific have sex with Australia !!! LOL Was I glad to get my feet back on the ground ? DEFINITELY !!! I was also glad to have ‘tamed’ one more little ‘kink in my psyche’ that I no longer need to feed. I am OVER that phobia (thanks Paul) now there’s only a couple of million others to go !!! LOL love and smiles on the surface of the earth to all of us who are ‘grounded’ ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪

Remembering Jerry Garcia

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 07:07:22 +1000

In remembering this very complex man I would (of course) like to do justice to (firstly) his musical memory. For me no other guitar player has EVER come close to Jerry. It wasn’t a matter of his technique (there were more technically gifted players) but rather what (through his music) he managed to ‘do with my head’ when he played. Garcia was a master alchemist of ‘musical moo

d’ and could and did take me on inner journeys that were beyond my ability to describe. His was music for ‘stoned people’ and in those days we were all ‘off our tits’ letting him lead us through gardens of earthly and heavenly musical delights. I ALWAYS felt ‘safe’ with Garcia in the sense that I felt I could ‘surrender’ to his music and after a long and discursive musical ‘journey’ he would both whip me round the universe at great speed and generally ‘blow me away’ before gently depositing me back at the beginning of the musical journey. He was for me the master of improvisation and a man of exquisite musical taste. On a personal level as a Tour Manager, there was never a man easier to work for, though he could be absolutely scathing should something happen of which he disapproved. His ‘core criteria’ for our gigs (and I did over three hundred with him) was “is this going to be FUN?” - if the fun came FIRST then the rest, he believed, would naturally follow. He was RIGHT!! He had to make some hard calls in his personal life and I am convinced that his life as a musician became almost too much to bear but who am I to judge the man ? To this day I listen to him play every day - his music says it all. He was a wonderful and VERY human man. RIP Jerry and THANK YOU - one love ♥

on the beach

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 08:43:31 +1000

This morning I got in the bus and had to drive in the dark to my favourite beach at New Brighton - the next beach north from Byron Bay.In the pitch dark just before dawn I made my way to the beach and sat beside the Pacific Ocean and thought about a million things, not least the span of my own life across the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. I was born (1943) in the midst of the titanic struggle between competing totalitarian systems (Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan) and the ‘liberal democracies’ - a war which engulfed the world and was a battle for supremacy ultimately based upon the productive power of the economies of the combatants - World War Two, which has been called the ‘war of the factories’. In the end the productive might of the United States and the allies overpowered that of Germany and Japan and a ‘new world’ was born from the ashes. The liberal democracies saw Communism as the new threat to their economic hegemony and the cold war began. Slowly after several decades both the capitalist democracies AND the communist totalitarian models began to adapt to changing circumstances, and sitting beside the Pacific I began to think of how they had evolved. The two major powers strike me as having many characteristics of the Fascist state model, where the political elites serve the same interests as the major players in their economies - there is a ‘convergence of perspective’ where those who are elected have prioritised the interests of their economies OVER those of their populations. Banks and major corporations and the excessively wealthy have gained disproportionate power in the ‘Pacific economies’ to such an extent that the ‘voice’
of the popular elected ‘will’ has been reduced to irrelevance. The military industrial complex (which Eisenhower warned about) is now in the ascendency in both the United States and China. The political elites of both countries now exercise a control over their populations which is unprecedented in its scope and reach and power. The nuclear-industrial complex in Japan not only controls the levers of political power in that country, but is busy polluting the very ocean beside which I am sitting as I write this post. I have the sense that the next few years are going to be critical politically and economically AND socially and that a massive ‘drama’ is beginning over the Pacific region. Slowly but surely the interests of the ‘common people’ (of the masses) of the world are being suborned and diluted in the face of a new ‘state struggle’ which is emerging. An evolving form of neo-Fascism is in place with draconian laws in support that will be used to quell dissent and to protect the interests of capital, be it in China, America or Japan. The sun rises in front of me and once again the choices for the human race become crystal clear. Either we find a way to live with one another or we shall perish together under the burden of our competitive and ultimately destructive economic choices. The control which the contemporary state possesses is analogous to that exercised by the Fascists states of WW2, and in some respects it exceeds those powers. What is the artist to do ? In China they are being arrested and imprisoned for speaking out ? In Japan they are leading the way against the nuclear-industrial elites. And in America, Britain, France, Germany where are the warnings from artists about the emergence of the ‘new world order’ which is slowly but surely reducing the human race to little but ‘units of consumption’ whose views are irrelevant to those in power ? Where are the artists who can SEE the re-emergence of the fascist model ? The battle under way between Romney and Obama neatly encapsulates this struggle for the future. Will the interests of the ‘common people’ prevail or will the interests of the military industrial complex, the banks and capital ? Sitting on a beach listening to the diurnal roar of the ocean I cannot divorce myself from the way the world is heading any more than I can hope to exist without food or shelter. From whence will come the equivalent of Orwell’s prescient ‘1984’? The work of the imagination which will show people what is happening to their world ? Each and every artist has a simple choice. To address these issues or to ignore them. One things remains abundantly clear to me - we cannot simply ‘wish them away’.

the olympics

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 00:32:26 +1000

A few hours before the opening of the London Olympic games of 2012 I wish to remember the Olympic games of 1936 in Berlin. It was at these games in Berlin that the ‘tradition’ of the Olympic torch was first invented by the Nazi Regime. The torch was carried from Mount Olympus in Greece to the games and the Olympic flame was lit for the duration of the games – this Nazi invented piece of Olympic ‘theatre’ remains a part of the Olympics to this day. It was at the Berlin games that the Nazi regime wished to demonstrate to the world not only its legitimacy but also the superiority of its Aryan athletes over those of other nations. One man, Jesse Owens, ruined their plans. Owens, an African American, won four gold medals. Initially he won the hundred meters, then he went on to win the two hundred meters. Hitler was outraged and refused to present Owen with his medals. Owen then went on the compete in the broad jump against all comers. A German athlete and Owens were the last two men competing and the lead changed hands several times as first one and then the other increased the distance that they jumped. Finally Owens triumphed in a leap which broke the Olympic record and remained that record for decades. In an extraordinary act of both courage and athletic comradeship the German loser ran around the stadium after the completion of the event arm in arm with Owens whilst the largely German crowd chanted Owens name much to the annoyance of the Nazi leadership. One of the final events was the four by one hundred meter relay. In the American relay team there were two Jewish runners. The Nazis objected to their participation and in a craven act of obsequious betrayal of the Jewish athletes American officials substituted Owens and another African American runner to take their places. Owens protested to no avail to the American officials but was forced to run. The team won the gold medal and thus Owens personal tally was four gold medals. A deeply unhappy Owens was then forced to make track appearances at a series of meets throughout Europe by the American team, and finally he left in disgust and returned home a hero. On the night of a ticker-tape parade in his honor in New York City, Owens and his wife could find no hotel willing to allow them to rent a room. When they finally managed to get a room it was on the specific understanding that he and his wife would only use the service entrance of the hotel. Because he had refused to participate in the track appearances following the Olympics, for which he was not being paid, The American Athletic Union stripped him of his amateur status in retaliation. Unable to earn money or appear in sanctioned races Owens was forced in a final indignity to race in America against horses. He won those races too. He never competed in an amateur sanctioned event again and several years later under pressure from the American tax authorities was declared bankrupt. At the original Olympic games in ancient Greece warring states put aside their differences so that athletes might compete in a peaceful environment. The modern Olympics have become tarnished with multi national business and politics intervening. Jewish athletes were murdered at the Munich games. Nations boycotted the Moscow Olympics. Huge corporations sponsor the games and monopolize the television coverage so that their products might gain maximum exposure. In an ironic absurdity the ‘official food supplier’ to the London games is McDonalds a company that serves up food that no self-respecting athlete would consume. And yet, for all their faults, the Olympics still holds a special place in people’s hearts all over the world. Over 200 nations athletes will be competing in London, NOT 200 nations !!! My single hope is that people might yet understand that individual athletes are competing in a spirit of friendship and camaraderie and that national medal tallies are contrary to the spirit in which the games should take place. The opening ceremony is in a few hours time. If it features either Paul McCartney or Elton John I’ll be tempted to throw up, but none the less along with a billion other people who it is estimated will be watching on television I’ll do my best to enjoy the show. One thing’s for sure, I’ll be remembering Jesse Owens, a true Olympic hero. Here’s another things that’s almost certain - it being England it will rain.

another day in Paradise

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 10:27:41 +1000

This morning I did something I usually NEVER do - I turned the radio on and listened to the news. Various items about the world economy and then a piece about how applications for gun permits had shot up in Colorado following the slaughter of the innocents at the Batman movie. May I say this. America seems to be gripped by an endless cycle of gun-related violence and with each demented episode of death and destruction the only response seems to be even MORE weaponry being acquired by the general population. The rest of the world watches this madness with sad incomprehension. What kind of society allows the demented and deranged access to high powered semi-automatic assault weapons? If EVER there was a time for American introspection and re-assessment it is NOW but unfortunately we are in the midst of an American presidential election and the candidates seem powerless to act. What a terribly sad situation - my heart goes out to ALL the innocent people who have been slaughtered by gunfire. WHEN will the world LEARN that violence ONLY results in MORE violence in a seemingly endless cycle. And THEN (thinking this) I remembered why normally I don’t turn on the radio in the morning - because the news is SO depressing. I wonder (sometimes) where one can find the energy to continue living in what can appear to be a sewer-filled cess-pit of hatred and cruelty, and I am reminded as I set out for a short morning walk of the words of Stendhal: “every day the reasonable man starts out on the search for happiness”. I dedicate my morning walk to those who will never have the luxury of ‘the search for happiness’ because their lives were cut short by an armed madman and my heart goes out to those who loved them. On my morning walk I need have NO fear of being shot by a ‘random nutter’ because in Australia the gun has been taken OUT of society. Here we generally live in peace with one-another. I wish that Americans could see and understand what this means - NO generalised fear or paranoia and an all-pervasive sense of communal well-being. Wake up America - you should TRY IT - one love ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪

the perils of Paradise

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:22:51 +1000

The bus is empty with everything stashed in my cabins and put away “ship-shape and Bristol fashion” and she drives like a young colt now a couple of hundred books have been removed, along with clothes and tools and camping gear and Gawd knows what else.

Even living in a bus the urge to accumulate weaves its insidious black magic. I was astounded to discover that I had eleven pairs of trousers, forty-one T-shirts, nine towels, eight pairs of shoes, knives and forks sufficient for a banquet, two compasses, three large torches, and eighteen shirts! Add to that a black suit, a dinner suit, four jackets, a down jacket, a cashmere overcoat, umpteen socks scarves and pairs of gloves, and seven hats and you get the picture. Every item of clothing is black and I have enough clothes until the day I die. I can be the best dressed man at my own funeral !

With an empty bus, frisky and ready to tear up the road like a sports car, I headed for Byron Bay, ten minutes away down highways which have seen better days. The road upon which my place is located is an amalgam of repairs that have inexorably joined together so that the whole surface is corrugated with more lumps and bumps than the face of a fighting Saturday night drunk. It’s more a narrow rutted path than a road and in a bus one drives in such places without due care and attention at one’s peril.

Proceeding cautiously I was amazed at the manic velocity of the people who passed me on the road. The local plumber in his truck rattling all his pipes and fittings in the back as he fish tailed it past me in a cloud of dust and gravel; a postman on the smallest motor-cycle in the world; a grim looking woman with two kids who were (I assume) late for school as she drove like a formula one maniac and hurtled round a blind bend without a care in the world.

I let them pass me by as I am now letting the world pass me by, for I have no desire to overtake anything or anyone. I’m still working out whether I’m overtaking or catching up with myself ! As an editor once told me, and it’s now a sign that you see on the highways in Australia: “don’t die for a deadline”. Well I have no dead lines, only “live lines” and in the year ahead thousands of them will be cajoled into some kind of coherent order! That’s the speed I’ll be traveling.

In Byron I sent some post-cards and got on the internet and was astounded to discover that I had well wishes from some two hundred people on Face book. I like Face book. It keeps me in touch with people all over the world. As I sat in the café clicking ‘like’ for the umpteenth time my friend from London whom I have known since India days, called me from his holiday home in Norway and we spoke face to face on Skype. It was wonderful to see his smiling face and to know that life was treating him kind.

At the moment there is no internet where I live and that’s cool - an hour a day in a café is enough for me. The rest of my time I have books to read and my writings to attend to – more than enough to keep me occupied. Here where I live, solitude my sacred friend, accompanies me as I hunt contentedly in the forests of language and do my work. The austerities of the soul are blessed with breath taking views of the surrounding countryside and assuaged by the melody of the rains. I am freed from the simple prejudice of my eyes and ears and can feel afresh all that surrounds me. As Burroughs would mordantly observe of life on this planet, “the only applause is from hysterical Geiger counters”.

Nomad no more

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:21:32 +1000

After several years of living in a bus, wandering wherever my fancy dictated, I have made the decision to get ‘settled’ and to live in one place where each day I would great the dawn from the same position on this beautiful earth. Providence and dear friends have directed me to the Byron Bay hinterland of Northern New South Wales in Australia - a special version of Paradise. Today (as the saying has it) is the first day of the rest of my life !

In a tropical garden abundant with fruit (oranges, lemons, avocados, even bananas) I am the grateful tenant of two exquisite cabins – the one in which to sleep and take possession of ‘those endless things of the night’ and the other as my ‘day cabin’ in which to write and dream those dreams which belong to the light of day. Here I shall write and live with my ‘genteel poverty’ assuaged by a wealth of nature’s beauty of such startling fecundity that I can feel nothing but blessed.

A radical change of ‘life-style’ was what the doctor ordered, given that I had experienced a suspected heart attack and that I was almost seventy. Enough of gallivanting about like some teenage rock and roller, he opined; time to work out what I wanted to be when I (finally) grew up. Driving a bus from pillar to post, ridiculous! What would happen if I got ill and needed assistance, if I had a heart attack somewhere out in the vast wilderness which is Australia? The doctor fixed me with his sternest expression and emphasized the words, settle down.

Every doctor I have ever spoken to somehow has always reminded me of my mother! It must be the unremittingly sensible nature of their advice – they invariably seem so smug and are, in their quiet way, so damned ‘annoyingly correct’. Well I spent over fifty years ignoring my mother’s advice, and had a hell of a lot of fun as a result, but time has moved along and now the ‘age of being sensible’ has arrived. I never thought I’d live to see the day and tried my best to ensure that it didn’t happen, but arrive it did and now I am a nomad no more.

So I shall no longer visit friends, they shall have to visit me. The bus will have it’s rusty bits attended to, have a bit of a make-over, and then it will be sold to make way for something more practical and (dare I use the word) sensible. I shall get into a routine where I rise (as I always have) at dawn and write until around ten. Then I shall go to either Bangalow or Byron for a morning coffee and a look at the newspapers. I shall sit in the sun and watch the world go by.

I have two books to finish by the end of the year, a blog to write, my friends all over the world to correspond with, and several pieces I have committed to deliver to various magazines. It’s full steam ahead!

Before I close, put on the Grateful Dead and have a cup of tea and sit on the deck to enjoy the view; I cannot leave without paying tribute to those dear friends whose love and care has brought me to this place. A trillion thanks are insufficient for their generosity and kindness. To the lady whom I love, I can only say that I carry you forever within the city of my heart. To my sons I am happy to be less than two hours away from where they live – now that you know where I am, come and visit your father!

Altamont re-remembered

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:52:19 +1000

December 6^th came and went with me driving through a pretty part of Australia, admiring the scenery, plodding along in the bus whilst trucks and cars zoomed past me on improbable missions at impermissible speeds. People just GOT to go fast, it’s in their DNA, but I am a ‘dawdler’ – wanna go fast get a Ferrari, wanna enjoy the scenery, drive along in a bus that’s happiest at seventy miles per hour, which down here we call a hundred kilometers an hour. I stopped and made a cuppa and spent a few minutes sitting beside the road thinking about what had happened forty two years ago.

When an event is a major success everyone (naturally) wants to have a share in the ‘glory’ – it takes a ‘disaster’ to sort out the ‘men from the boys’. Altamont was a monumental miscalculation on the part of so many people (myself included) and it has entered the mainstream meta-narrative of the sixties yet very few people have any real idea of what happened. Gimme Shelter, the documentary, gives some indication of the palpably antagonistic vibe on the day, and whilst it captures the killing of Meredith Hunter, it fails (in my opinion) to offer a coherent account of the overall tragedy. No documentary could do such a day ‘justice’ and (perhaps) no book

could do so either. BUT, there is something inherently unsatisfactory in simply putting an event like Altamont into the ‘too hard’ basket. And sitting beside the road staring at the gentle hills of Northeast Victoria, I had this idea. Somewhere in America a post graduate student of contemporary history should do their PhD thesis on Altamont. It’s an event that is crying out for the analytical skills of the historian. It would be of great interest to me personally as I did a degree in contemporary history, and have always enjoyed that complex intersection where the historian’s skills meet popular culture. Let’s see what the historians make of Altamont. They’ve done the Pearl Harbors and the Kent State Killings and enough nonsense has been spoken about Woodstock to fill several libraries – let’s see what they make of this seminal event. For myself, as the years pass, the memories fade and everything I have had to say I have said in my book on my times with the Stones. It only remains to add that Mick (on the day) was a man of immense personal courage in the face of a very real and present danger, and for that (if nothing else) he has always had my deepest respect.

a thought

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:50:03 +1000

Parked in a field at the Strathbogie Outdoor Education Center in the middle of rural Australia attending the Entheogenesis Australis conference along with 500 or so other people with like-minded predelictions. We’re a herbacious lot with dreads and contentment very much in evidence. A chilly dawn greeted the sleeping campers and I listened to two birds calling to one another across the valley meadow unusually peopled by tents and cars. One bird would sing, the other would whistle a response, and slowly the tune they sang together would be mutually modified to their joint satisfaction. I made a cup of tea, and wondering where the bird song was coming from, I wandered between the tents towards the end of the camping grounds. I found one of the ‘birds’ lying in a hammock with dread-lock hair as long as my legs merrily whistling in response to his feathered friend. The bird would call out and hammock man would respond and back and forth the melody of loving coexistence between human beings and the animals would ring out across the valley. It was an enchanting scene and I wordlessly squatted beside the man and followed his song as the bird’s happy cooperation took the melody whence it might within the confines of his range. I thought of the free form explorations of jazz musicians, of Ralph Vaughn William’s ‘Lark Ascending’, of the unique and glorious song

of each and every one of us which lays beyond words in that special place where some of what we feel can be accessed solely through silence. The sun, penetrating through the trees, cast morning shadows as a pale remaining moon sighed it’s farewells in the brightening sky. Wordless, as when I had arrived, I left my friend in the hammock singing with the birds and wandered back to the bus. People were stirring and soon it would be time for the first talk of the day, something about the difference between being ‘high’ and being ‘fucked up’. The path to supra-consciousness can be fraught with difficulty, with manic inner struggles and severe psychic ‘dislocations’, or it can be relatively ‘easy’. Each of us makes our choices and through those choices a modicum of discovery can become our lot or sometimes rabid terrors. Simplicity seems to be key to processing both the pleasant and the uncomfortable inner experience. The more analytical and ‘cerebral’ thoughts that one struggles to bring to bear the more unlikely is a sense of tranquility and rest. Hammock man had it all when it came to waking up to the day and being on a natural high. Kick back in a hammock. Relax. Share a song with the birds and let the Universe simply know how glad you are that you’re still alive. After that beginning, the rest will naturally take care of itself.

The 12 hour day:

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:34:01 +1000

There can be very few things that Winston Churchill and I would have ever agreed upon. My mother called him a ‘drunken warmonger’ to his face and I have considered him a proto fascist ever since he publicly proposed the gassing of dissident tribes in the Yemen in the 1920’s. One thing tho, surprisingly, we both came to the same conclusion about was the day being divided into 24 hours. Churchill, in his youth, and during the war years of WW2, was a proponent of the 12 hour day. He would be awake for eight hours and then sleep for four, and repeat this in his daily life ad infinitum. He insisted on getting undressed and preparing himself for bed and wore silk pyjamas to sleep. I also get undressed but prefer to sleep ‘as nature intended’.

There are advantages to sleeping every eight hours, as opposed to every sixteen. Sleep is twice as frequent and thus the mind is rested at shorter intervals and one can maintain a level of ‘alertness’ that is not available to those who live their lives in that quiet desperation that comes from feeling permanently tired. One also finds oneself in that slightly delicious position of being awake whilst most others are asleep which has the advantage of ‘resting’ oneself from the endless shennanigans of one’s fellow human beings. Conversly, of course, one is asleep whilst others continue with the motley, but as I spent the better part of my first three years on the planet fast asleep during WW2 I realized in later life that my being asleep had little or no effect on what was going on around me. Churchill learnt his unusual way of sleeping from his experiences in the Boer War at the end of the nineteenth century, and I learnt mine serving in the ‘trenches’ of rock and roll in the Twentieth. From wildly disparate backgrounds, we arrived at similar conclusions !

Agreement is possible even with those we are tempted to hate. There is always some form of common ground, even if it only be the common ground of this earth upon which we all exist. It only remains for me to observe that by agreeing with the ‘drunken warmonger’ on ONE thing I have managed my sleep needs more or less admirably and had that one thing in life a writer needs – substantial periods of peace and quiet ! It has also had some amazing effects upon my sex life but I wont go there – it would be simply too much information.

WHY ??

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 09:42:49 +1000

Born curious we are !! If everyone on the planet asked themselves “why?” about something or other a couple of times a day, which is a reasonable enough supposition, then that’s a total of 14 billion “why’s?” a day or to put it another way, 5110 Billion “why’s” a year !!! The problem is not the questions, the problems arise because of the answers we come up with. If only ten percent of the answers are wrong (and who gets 90% correct in exams?) then that’s 500 billion incorrect answers! No wonder the world’s such a mess, it’s the sheer volume of incorrect answers that are leading us astray! Which leads me to wonder whether I should stop asking questions immediately and form some kind of lobby group to persuade others to do the same. No more questions until we have answered all the ones we’ve already asked, correctly! That should take long enough to see me long gone, safely tucked away and off the planet, and keep everybody productively occupied for decades.

That having been said, there is one question that has always intrigued me, but I’ll call it a ‘conundrum’ rather than a question so that I don’t add to the absurd total that humanity is already laboring to deal with. Why (there’s that bloody word again) do people always want to live in the same place? You know in a house or a flat in some neighborhood, or a place in the country where they settle down, raise kids, tend gardens and all that stuff. It beats me (that conundrum) it really does. With the price of a house the equivalent of a King’s ransom who but a fool would spend their whole life paying for such a place? Why (I cant get away from it!) would you want to spend your life looking at the same scene? Seeing the same neighbors? Living a regular ‘ordered’ existence? I live in a bus and I just don’t understand ‘normal’ life. Why ?

I’ve been a wanderer all my life. Since I was a little boy of six and camping in the woods in post-war Britain (No not the Boer War! World War Two!) I’ve hated being in a house. Perhaps I hate buildings because I saw so many of them bombed flat in the war. Who knows? I don’t sleep well indoors – I sleep better when I know the skies are there for me to open my eyes and see. When I am surrounded by fresh air, fields and open countryside. I’m a natural nomad – I wander following no dictate of the seasons or my fellow human beings, I just go where I wish. This is (as my mother frequently remarked when she was alive) totally irresponsible and childish but I’ve been this way all of my life. A misfit. I’ve never had a ‘proper’ job and managed for years as a rock and roll tour manager, and now I’m a writer. They seem (to me) tasks fit for a peripatetic life-style of little money and plenty of freedom. I’ve never owned a house and never will.

My bus is an alternative ‘land yacht’. I sail down the high-ways and bi-ways with the independence of a solo sailor. I visit friends, park outside, we have a meal or a party and then I walk (or sometimes crawl) to the bus and crash, by which I mean sleep. Seems perfect to me. I want to be in Sydney off I go like a mechanical turtle carrying my house with me. In Melbourne I parked amongst the busses outside the Crown Casino and no-one bothered me or even knew I was there. I was ‘discovered’ by a security guard having a morning cup of tea, offered him a cuppa, and we had a civilized chat and became friends. He told me he was happy for me to stay where I was. The whole of Australia is my playground. I am registered disabled (a broken back from a motor-cycle accident) and live on a small pension. When I get short of money I simply stay where I am.

So here’s my advice to the ‘youth’ of today. Don’t bother with buying a house – it’s a rip-off. Ask yourself “why bother?”. Scrape the funds together and get a small bus. Mine costs $30 a week for registration and comprehensive insurance – that’s my rent (in effect) $30 a week! Find yourself wonderful places to park all over this incredible country. Have a network of friends that stretch from Cairns to Adelaide and beyond. Develop a skill that can travel with you, like being a busker, a circus artist, a pavement artist, a writer a painter a jeweler. Wake up when you will where you will. Be as free as the black fellas that owned this land before it was invaded. Notice how they are constantly pushed to settle down and live in houses ? Keep an eye on the weather and the bush-fires, watch out for the wet season, and all will be well. And every time you pass some poor people who are doing it hard trying to pay the rent or to raise their kids and pay a mortgage, ask yourself the dread question – why ?

The romantic.

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 19:30:48 +1000

Up before dawn and I fancy I can hear the shivering birds rustling their feathers as they wait to wake up. I sit in a friend’s garden listening to the sounds of empty trains speeding to the suburbs so that they might bring the wage slaves into the city on their return. In the distance a siren wails in answer to some poor soul’s troubles. A cat sighs it’s lonely-infant drone in the alley at the back of the garden. The stars blink knowingly and send little stabs of light to comfort those who seek their comforts beneath the blankets of the night. It has been over a week since I have written anything. It has been impossible to focus on the work. My mind has been on other things. This morning, watching a sleeping world, I have been remembering a love from long ago that turned from all that was perfect and possessed of a startling divinity to an incoherent desperate mud in my heart. The pain has long since been parked in an area of my memory where it cannot actively harm me and yet once in a while it will re-surface to re-amaze me with its sad intensity. For over thirty years I have carried this feeling deep within the city of my heart. It has re-emerged, brought forth from the mud of my memory by the experiences of a friend told to me through her bitter helpless tears. How desperately sad it is to love someone and to finally realize that one’s love will never be returned. That the loved-one’s life will glide forward on its effortless path being content in its self-sufficient superiority whilst blissfully ignoring all the unreciprocated feelings bottled up inside one’s soul. How maddening this can be! How devastatingly cruel it feels. How as worthless we weigh the value of ourselves and in despair wish that we could obliterate the memories that only recently we held to be so dear. That I too have suffered is little comfort to one who is beyond comforting. The struggle to synthesize feelings of utter despair and make of them something else is the loneliest of tasks which can only be approached from within. Slowly and inevitably we arrive at a way of dealing with the deepest pain whilst our friends sadly acknowledge that they are powerless to offer anything tangible as support other than their unconditional affection. And then one day many years later I will find myself before dawn in a garden beneath the stars. I will remember a love of my own from over three decades ago as if it were yesterday. The pain will still remain in all its pitiless gaudy glory and will not be denied, yet I have somehow managed to survive. My suffering friend will awaken from her restless sleep and comes to see what I am doing in the garden. I will look at her with the saddest eyes and we will cry silently together and share all that is beyond words. Then we will go on. The dawn will break and the birds will sing. Life will continue though now informed by a deeper apprehension of its infinite dimensionality. As our suffering recedes and our spirits rise we will remember together what we have lost and accept that we will never be able to forget it. And though we still might shed some tears, in some strange and unfathomable way we will embrace our pain and make of it a friend so that we might continue to love and to hold dear those whom we adore. That’s what friends are for. © sam cutler 2012

Boats babies and dreams.

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 19:24:00 +1000

An idyllic week has slipped through my unemployed fingers – I have written nothing. I’ve been helping to care for a sixteen week-old baby and I’ve been dreaming sailing dreams on Scotland Island.

Auggie, the baby, lives with his mother and father on the island. Mum’s an old friend and one of Australia’s most gifted songwriters. Dads away in Queensland getting something or other together and will be back in a week. It seemed a good idea to visit and help-out. Being a mum on an island has some challenges attached and an extra pair of hands can come in useful at times. Even if they belong to an old rock and roller, who ostensible knows little about babies! Except that this rock and roller knows as much about babies as he does about rock stars – which is plenty!

I have two sons and looked after each of them when they were babies as my wife at the time was completing a PhD at Oxford University. Like John Lennon I wanted to have the experience of caring for my baby children and that’s what I did. So when it came to looking after Auggie, all those wonderful warm and loving memories of babies (they smell good enough to eat!) came flooding back to me. It was effortless, and it surprised me how easy it was to slip back into the role. How I naturally knew when to pick him up after a feed and walk around with him draped across my shoulder whilst I gently patted his back in a regular beat and he gurgled contentedly and gave me a fart or a belch in appreciation. How babies love moustaches! They like to lay back and have their feet tickled with the moustache, and if they can touch it with their fingers they love to see if it’s real or false and tug at it with a ferocious strength.

To stare into the eyes of a tiny baby. To receive the illumination and bottom less trust of its smile. To see this little man unconcerned about the adult cares of the world. To care for this eating and drinking leviathan devoted to consumption laying back so full of milk he can take no more as it dribbles happily over his grinning chin. This peeing and pooing machine with no concern but the consumption of food and getting ride of its waste products. This little Buddha.

What a blessing it has been to care for him and such friends we have become with long and involved conversations-of-the-eyes, where words are superfluous and inadequate to the task of expression. To gain the love of a baby, it’s tender trust, to bond and protect such a tiny vulnerable little person; is a fine and noble experience and I have grown this week in my heart, immeasurably. The miracle of humanness has reminded me of how vulnerable we all are on this planet – how we need one another to survive. Babies bring this truth home with startling clarity. Without the love and nurture of adults they wouldn’t last a week.

And then there are those lovely souls from which the babies arrived! Their mothers. To see the connection between a mother and baby child is such a wonderful tableau of devotion that even the most hardened old rocker would melt into sentimentality. I salute the mothers of the world (I always have!) for their love and devotion. Seeing Auggie and his mother reminded me of my own mother who died a few years ago. What a noble woman! Her husband had an incurable bone disease passed through the male line and so she decided not to have children but to adopt a child. She got me and I was loved as well as she was able for which I am eternally grateful. Looking at little Auggie reminded me of that woman’s selfless devotion and by extension the selfless devotion of mothers all over the planet. Yay mothers! Yay women! We’d be lost without you! Which leads me by extension to the whole business of ‘navigation’, the art of not being lost.

Each morning before dawn I have sat on the deck of the house in which I am a guest and watched the sun slowly illuminate the passage between the island and the mainland. About a hundred meters away from me sits the prettiest yacht at its moorings, a trim and organized fifty-foot boat that looks just the perfect vessel for a single-handed sailor. The pleasure of looking at the boat has triggered many memories and some wistful dreams. And it has reminded me of an achievement by a slip of a girl, who not so long ago was just a baby. An achievement of stunning audacity, courage, endurance and skill. The sixteen-year-old girl to whom I am referring has just completed a solo-unassisted circumnavigation of the world in a sailing yacht. The girl in question is Dutch, and in order to even leave Holland she had to fight a battle with the childcare authorities who thought the whole enterprise was reckless and not in the child’s best interests. Various professional sailors, and the girl’s parents, supported her right to undertake the mammoth journey, and many experts gave testimony as to the girl’s nautical skills. The court eventually gave its consent and the journey began.

The next time you try to find an address in the city, look for a friend’s house in the country, even try to remember where you put your favorite earrings; think of a slip of a girl who sailed alone around the world. The achievement almost beggars belief. How long did it take you to learn to drive a car? To learn to read, to study for exams? By the time this girl was sixteen she had all the necessary skills (and there are hundreds of them) to circumnavigate the globe in a tiny boat. This amazing girl is going to be one heck of a mother! And I think of her mother. How amazing is she! To give her daughter the necessary skills and then to support her in the endeavor. What must the mother have been feeling as she stood on the dock and watched her daughter sail away, heading for the distant horizon?

My week on the island has taught me so much. It has re-kindled my belief in hope and trust. How puny and pathetic we are if we cannot live with these essential ingredients as part of our lives. Years ago (in the crazy sixties) we used to say, “there’s no hope without dope” and believe it to be true. Now I know that it aint necessarily so. That all one has to do is stare into the eyes of a little baby, to look at a beautiful yacht and dream. We are surrounded by a million and one encouragements to hope. All we gotta do is trust in ourselves, trust in our own indomitable spirit, trust in the amazing capacity we have to overcome the most extraordinary challenges, and then all will be well. Life is like what someone said about art. It’s 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. Scotland Island has made me feel ready to get back into the work, thanks to the example of an amazing lady, a slip of a girl, and a beautiful baby. And not forgetting a pretty little boat that has inspired me to dream each morning at dawn of all the journeys I have yet to make - those epic journeys, which still call to me within the city of the heart.

Me and the spiders.

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 19:21:44 +1000

I am sitting at my desk in a sweet little cabin on the hill above my friend’s house on Scotland Island, on the Pittwater about an hour north of Sydney Australia. Out the window the ferry plies its trade taking people across to the mainland, yachts slap about at their moorings and a grey day welcomes the night’s departure. It’s raining gently; a pair of madly colored Lorikeets are sweet-talking one another and rubbing their heads together on the deck railing less than a meter from my nose. In the distance clouds roll over the hills and the trees are dripping with perspiration, which steams above the forest heading skywards. It’s a good place in which to find myself and my mind is at ease.

I awoke before dawn and had intended to make my way to the house below for a cup of tea but a large spider had fenced me in with his spider’s web across the exit from the deck. There it sat, in the middle of its web, with malevolent arrogance a lord of its domain and ready to pounce on some unsuspecting prey. With a piece of twig I chopped at the web and removed it as the spider scuttled to safety. I made my cup of tea, returned to my deck had the morning cigarette, and watched as the spider began to repair the damage. I remembered something that happened years ago.

I was about to immigrate to Australia with my wife and two

sons, and some fool had told my eldest son that Australia had the ten most poisonous spiders in the world and the ten most poisonous snakes. He was six years old and very worried and constantly asked me “daddy why are we going to Australia?” and I did my best to re-assure him. His grave little face told me he remained unconvinced and I agonized over my poor son thinking his father was taking him to the most dangerous place on the planet.

Several months later we arrived “down under” and found a house and soon we settled in. We’d been in the house for about three weeks when we decided to play a game of cricket in the back yard with the boys. All four of us with bare feet played on the lawn in the back yard with my wife the enthusiastic bowler. We were having fun. Something, I thought it was an ant, bit me on the foot and it stung a bit but we carried on and had a quality hour mucking about as families do.

That night in bed my foot itched a little but I thought nothing of it and managed a good night’s sleep. When I awoke I was aware of my foot – it felt like a mosquito bite and I wanted to scratch it. I looked at the foot but there was nothing to be seen. As the day progressed I became aware of a throbbing in my foot – I could feel my blood pulsing around my ankle. Slowly a pain started to develop and with it my foot-consciousness increased – it was as if my mind was being dragged down through my leg and into my right foot where I had been bitten. By the Tuesday afternoon (I had been bitten on a Sunday) I was in pain and starting to worry. My wife, the daughter of an eminent surgeon, suggested I call my father-in-law.

I described what had happened and the subsequent symptoms and he listened sympathetically on the telephone. When had I been bitten, he wanted to know. I told him three days ago and he scoffed “she’ll be right” meaning (I think) that if I weren’t dead by now all would be well. His re-assurance had a hollow ring to it and we left it that I would call again should the pain get worse. By Thursday I was really hurting and knew something was seriously wrong. My wife muttered Aussie sentiments about ‘whinging poms’

under her breath meaning I was basically making a fuss about nothing. No sympathy there. By Saturday I was in agony.

On Sunday, a week after I had been bitten, I could stand the pain no longer and a friendly neighbor drove me to the Royal Brisbane Hospital – the largest hospital in the Southern Hemisphere. I hobbled into the emergency area and a doctor asked me what was the problem. I explained I had been bitten on my foot and he came around the desk to have a look. Within five minutes I was lying on a gurney with a saline drip in one arm, a morphine injection gratefully received in my other arm, and a room being prepared for my admission. The doctor told me, you’re in serious trouble, but not to worry, you’re in good hands. All I could think of was that foolish obituary which said “I told you I didn’t feel well” and I swooned into the morphine as I was placed in a crisp hospital bed on the ninth floor.

That evening a Professor Gough, a world authority on bites of unknown origin, came to see me about eight o’clock. I was as smashed as could be on the Morphine and pain was no longer a consideration. He examined my leg carefully and pronounced that I had been bitten by a white tail spider. In an absent-minded professorial way he mumbled, we’ve has some amputations this year. My blood curdled. Amputations ! You mean they chop you’re leg off ? He re-assured me unconvincingly and then went on to tell me of a girl who’d been bitten in Papua New Guinea, on the face. She had walked for six days to the nearest hospital and they were unable to help. She had then been evacuated by plane to Brisbane where they were now re-building her face. The thought made me weak with fear. The good professor continued to look closely at my leg and pointed to what appeared to be a spot on the front of my thigh – it looked like a black-head. What’s that ? Noticed that before ? I hadn’t. He mumbled something and shuffled off and I was left alone having been told that I was to be operated on in the morning. More morphine calmed my severely rattled brain. I was very scared.

The good professor arrived at about six in the morning to check up on me, and drew back the covers of the bed. There was a hole in my thigh (where the black head had been) into which I could have easily placed my thumb and I thought I could see my leg-bone. The bed was soaked in puss. He was not amused and nurses scurried about cleaning me up and doing his bidding. Morphine calmed the pain and the panic and a pre-med sent me off to la la land

and an operation.

White tail spiders cause necrosis of the flesh. Without treatment the bite produces a gangrenous reaction and affected limbs have to be removed. The poison had entered my system just above the right ankle and then traveled up my leg to exit (mercifully) on the front of my thigh. Had it continued on its destructive way and gone into my torso above the femoral artery in my groin it would have been likely that my leg would have had to been amputated. I lay in a post-operative morphine-induced bliss unable not to cry because I still had two legs.

What has taken you minutes to read flashed through my mind in a second as I watched the spider re-build his web. I had no idea what kind of spider he was though I sensed that he was not to be messed with. For three mornings he’s built a web across my path from the deck and for three mornings I had chopped it down. Patiently he had re-built the web. I considered my feelings about the spider. Should I just kill it ? I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it even though I cannot claim to be a friend of spiders. No, the spiders was simply doing what spiders do.

Even in Paradise there’s problems. I considered the spider and realized that the spider was not considering me. He’d anchored one of his ‘ropes’ on the deck and was busy anchoring another. I chopped down the ropes with a twig, and so that the spider would get the message, poured the remains of my tea on him. It was the most aggressive thing I could think to do. He shook himself and crawled away. I’m sure he was righteously pissed off.

Living with spiders presents us with all kinds of conundrums not least of which is whether to kill the ones that are poisonous. I remembered feeling spectacularly stupid when my son came to visit me in the hospital – he stood there with the same expression on his face he had conjured up when he was six years old. He’d reached that point in his life where he was simply never going to believe anything I said about spiders ever again. What to do ? As Ned Kelly (Australia’s favorite outlaw) said in the seconds just before they hung him, “such is life”.

On Scotland Island.

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 19:16:46 +1000

A busy week will encompass such an enormity of sensations that one’s fair challenged to experience the simple truth of the finger nails growing. The brazen rush of events, the tumult of sensory disinformation – the very business of living can overwhelm the gladdest tyranny-of-self and leave the sensibilities diluted of feeling. And then, like an unexpected glade in an otherwise delusional forest, the antidote appears accompanied by the soft slap of tiredness against the wall of the day. One hour’s driving from the central business district of Sydney the allopathic dilemmas of daily life recede and we are graced upon Scotland Island with recovery. It’s a short ferry ride to sanity. Benevolently the world allows us to breathe again, to sigh inwardly; and as the soul shivers in its recoveries we are glad of each and every single pulmonary reinforcing infusion of air. Before us, as we cross the water, with very little apparent effort the poisons of our preoccupations now recede and we re-enter that state of grace where with each inward breathe we become, once more, whole. The view from the island at night jewels the surrounding world and places us at the center of a crystal where we stare bemused into the kaleidoscope of our surroundings. The velvet resonance of the surface of the water vibrates like the deep cloth of the night shivering between the stars. Solitude, fecund in its majesty, enwraps us in her trillion faceted silence and the beat of the heart of existence tames, once more, our restless souls. Here, the gracious nurturing world is feeding me. The gentle Gnostic feast of the waves, limping to the shore on the most benevolent of tides, smiles for me the similar song of blood calmly infibulating my heart. I feel joined to the rhythm of the sea, with the strings of the ocean orchestra enamoring in the shell of my ear those sensibilities redolent of ancient archetypal music. No silence was ever more profound than this. No sound more pure. No moment more perfect. And a million perfect moments come to this when the gift of gratitude once more informs my life. I have paused and in so doing made myself available. All that was hitherto observed now becomes singular and participatory. I am at one, indivisible and whole; re-integrated with the mystical agenda. Here I can relax and feel content, and I am ready to embrace the sacred salient charms of these my days. © sam cutler 2012

Leaving Korea

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 19:14:26 +1000

In the last hour before departure I’m a happy man. The bag’s packed; all I have to do is prepare my head for the next steps on the journey. I am leaving Korea after a spectacularly non-eventful forty-eight hours. Korea was closed. Literally. It was the Korean New Year national holiday, nothing was open. It was a miracle the hotel was open and with only a skeleton staff on duty. I couldn’t get a bottle of water or a coffee whilst I was here. The bar was closed. There was no room service. Even, the lady behind the front desk helpfully explained, all the brothels were closed, as the national holiday was a ‘family day’. Very considerate, I thought, but all I wanted was a coffee not an orgasm.

Korea is suitable inscrutable. It was minus five degrees outside, bitterly cold, and 28 degrees in my centrally heated room. The temperature in the room could not be lowered any further. The desk clerk came to adjust the room temperature. He opened the windows! A freezing gale blew into the room, the temperature plummeted and after a few hours I managed to have the window open at just the right aperture so that the temperature was bearable.

I woke up this morning with a throat so dry that a sour orange at breakfast wouldn’t restore it to its normal state.

Everything, the desk clerk had assured me, was closed. She was right! I spent $140 on a long taxi trip to the temple – the temple was closed! The two monks who lived there, and the family who looked after them, were nowhere in sight. The only thing to be seen and heard was two large black mastiffs on chains that barked deliriously if we attempted to go anywhere near to the entrance.

It was all a wonderful lesson. The Jimmjillbangs were all closed. These are the traditional spas with communal baths so beloved of Koreans. Maybe they were open (somewhere) but I couldn’t find one. Even the ubiquitous 24-hour 7-11’s were closed which to me was unprecedented. There was nothing for it but to spend the 48 hours in Korea in my hotel room, and to get on with it. It was not a problem. I finished HYPERSPACE by Michio Kaku which confirmed me in my opinion that art has done more for the imagination of physicists than mathematics; and I returned to Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse. No television, just reading and fasting.

Other than two inadequate breakfasts, I have eaten nothing since I have been in Korea.

In thirty minutes I leave for the airport, and I return to my beloved Australia. I’m even looking forward to dinner on the plane, and to finishing Hesse’s wonderful book. What a writer ! How painstakingly precise he is in the way that he describes his character’s feelings – building each aspect of his character’s personalities with delicate charm and gothic architectural dimensionality. How real his characters seem to me, a born skeptic when it comes to the inhabitants of the novel. Yet still I am not ‘invested’ in their destinies. I await the moment in the book where I shall irrevocably care about what happens to the protagonists, and I can feel this change in me slowly dawning. Within a couple of chapters I shall have them in my soul for ever, these Hesse-created people. They’ll be flying with me somewhere over the Northern Territory on the way to that place I call my home.