~ on a rubbery black floor

An evening full of teary eyes, projectile vomiting, hands grasping out of pain and fear, and an enema bravely endured. A night walk past looming piles of shadowy hard rubbish, the little black cat following in complete trust, as is her way. Two loads of faecal laundry drying now on the adapted frame of a play-pen. A simple dinner on toast: egg poached in a cyclist's trouser clip, mild salami, mayonnaise, salt and cheese...

And apple juice. Apple juice because apple juice is said to free you up down there. So much apple juice that her meagre dinner was scarcely touched - though I had sliced it into alluring sixths, though it had sprung from the wizened cloaca of sweet, sweet Boofhead, who has chosen this night to sleep, brooding, on eggs in the abandoned guinea pig enclosure – rather than on the shit-caked end of a branch that is her customary and cosy night habitat.

Ten minutes narrating The Owl Service in my poor Welsh accent – as decorative lacquer owls fly from their dinner plates, transmute into paper and thence to spectral flesh. While a strange non-corporeal will of ancient provenance makes a wife of meadowsweet, broom and oak. While the child, swathed in doonas, fades into sleep, clutching the little black cat who, having abandoned all hope of escape, has begun to purr.

Now I'm an isolated man in the suburb of Mt Waverley, caring for a mortal girl these past nine years. We are a happy, though chaotic household, but if it wasn't for my daughter I would never find the contact lens that regularly falls to the black rubbery floor of the bathroom - as I attempt to reconfigure myself at eight each morning.

I've a great deal on my plate – and because I can only concentrate on one thing at a time – difficulties often arise. My various helpers – of the social and psychological kind – encourage me to make use of iCal and the calendar on my phone and I obey with diligence – the organising, the planning – but I still forget important things. I still fail to hear phone calls (the child is useful in this regard) and consistently I muddle the various facets of my knotted, jumbled life. But the child must always come first, and tonight I felt like a legitimate father...

(And, at assembly on Monday, the child was named Student of The Week. As soon as they used the word 'smile' I knew it would be her. She also danced, with her quirky friend Megan, before the whole school, reinterpreting the choreography of a song the name of which I can't recall (though I've heard it a hundred times).)

For a little while I could forget the final touches I have to make on my play Ambergris which has a public reading at the Courthouse on Sept 1 – and also the difficult job of pinning down actors for the event. I could forget my ongoing war with the PERIN Court. I could forget all the many and varied jobs associated with Déjà Moo, the Ears live mini-album which is nearing release...

And for a little while, I could forget that I'm swatting wildly on the subject of methamphetamine (ugh) and the paucity of treatment options for the problem user. Though I have edited the past two issues of Whack (the official organ of the Harm Reduction Society of Victoria) this time it should be easier. I am only responsible for the words, while my looming replacement is governing the lay-out and design. Whack #29 will be available in a couple of months at all good needle exchanges and places of last resort. The theme this issue is 'Stimulants'. Ugh

A few days ago, as I and the soon-to-be-editor worked together at the HRV office, I initiated some small talk. L had been a stranger to me until recently. I knew he was based in the country and asked where exactly.

East Gippsland.

Oh? Like Bairnsdale? 

Yeah – he was surprised I'd guessed this – a town just near there 

What? Like Brufen? 

Yeah, Bruthen. Good guess. 

I used to spend time out there. I like Bairnsdale. 

It's where I'm from, he said.

I used to visit friends there. Don't suppose you know T? 

Yeah, I know T. 

 Really? Wow. That's amazing.

 I was closer with the daughters...

Not E? 

I went to school with E! 

E? Really? We know each other well.

Small world, is it not? I went on to describe how I used to visit a house in Clifton Creek, on a property run by a slightly paranoid survivalist type who stored weapons and built concrete bunkers.

I know that house, said L.

It's where I fell in love with my daughter's mother, said I.

That's where I spent my childhood. I grew up in that house.

Two near strangers in an office, discussing the layout of a magazine. What are the odds?

Enough for now. Suffice to say I'm determined to keep posting. I know I've said it before, but I mean it this time. I think.

~ arm in python

I heard a story the other day about a girl who, being thoroughly wasted, passed out on the couch in an unfamiliar house - to wake with her arm swallowed to the shoulder by an overly ambitious pet python.

When people intersect with drugs, when the safe day-time world is penetrated by heavy-lidded Morlocks on Kronic or Crack, on Krank or Can-D, bizarre complications often ensue – a phenomenon I'm quite certain is news to no reader of this blog. At present, I'm trolling the far oceans of abnormality for the best and most unlikely pharmacological tales as I'm editing a few issues of Whack Magazine - 'Whack' being the official (and mischievously named) 'organ' of Harm Reduction Victoria, the drug-users' advocacy group.

If you have one of these stories (or any interesting drug-related writing - fiction or not) I'd love to see it. Email it to sam.sejavka@gmail.com. If you dare. I'm also seeking imagery on the same theme. Payment is on publication (etc) and almost - but not quite - at normal commercial rates.

On Friday next week, Polly and her friend Ocean are performing in Snatches at RMIT's Kaleide Theatre . It's just a small piece - but an important (perhaps even critical) continuation of The Goitre Bird Cycle - in which the girls, while innocently fishing beneath a sewage outlet, encounter the baffling Starched Penultipope, and proceed to divest him of a fabulous treasure ...

As for me, life writhes and slithers ... like a tunneling snake of quantum uncertainty. For every tragedy, there is a boon, and though I still have plenty of good reasons to crumple myself like a piece of used tinfoil, other more mysterious, more beautiful and bountiful influences have eased the general havoc of my life.

Take, for example, Henry, the estimable and very musky billy-goat pictured below (with myself and Heronymous Posh, photographed by Suzi Q P Dhol). The pupils of his eyes are disturbing to behold: uncanny, ur-satanic, horizontal rectangles, the like of which I'd never before encountered. What's more, in rutting season, the hairy rump of of every nanny-goat in the paddock is reliably worn to bare hide by this proud, insatiable beast.

nb: the art at the top of the post is by Jenny Gameson.

~ killer zombies

On facebook, my old colleague Robert Chuter recently posted some images from a short film of the mid 80’s called ‘Killer Zombies’ made by Zlatco Kasumovic. The prosthetic work, done largely by Vivienne MacGillycuddy, was first class, but for the zombies themselves it was a test of endurance. These are polaroids of a mould of my head being taken.





The process resulted in this souvenir - my old head, wrought in plaster, which I think I’ve shown on this blog before. It still sits in a corner of my office. Like a death mask. Like – as it gathers dust, chips and scrapes – the image of Dorian Grey.



One of the hardest things to throw out ... one’s own head ...

Onto this cast the makeup artists layered up prosthetic devices of ... latex, I think, then painted, textured them etc. Ultimately they wound up looking thus:




Activity on our set, I think in the decaying Herald-Sun building on Flinders St, was curious enough to attract the attention of the press. The following clipping appeared in the early edition of the now defunct Herald. Despite the mistaken spelling, one of my favoured appearances in the written media.

~ do you believe in the pink and plump?

This morning I heard Rob Oakeshott phrase something rather eloquently on the science of Climate Change. To paraphrase, he asked would you take your child to the doctor if they were sick? Wouldn't you be negligent if you did not? If your car was malfunctioning, wouldn't you take it to a mechanic?

This is to say that we rely, sensibly, on experts to inform and advise us on subjects in which we are not conversant.

Why most of Australia - seemingly - wishes to dispute the overwhelming evidence provided by specialist authorities on climate science and economics beggars belief. The well has been poisoned, that is clear. Fearmongers are at large, conspiring with other agents of unreason. I see sallow-faced pamphleteers smacking their thin lips in sordid anticipation. And merchants, pink, corn-fed, redolent of baby powder, lining their wallows with profit ...

All of it working to muddle our heads on this most critical of issues. For all her faults, I feel deeply for Julia Gillard at this moment. She is facing a storm of sheer madness, the outrage of the greedy, the vitriol of the hateful - yet she is refusing to back down. I wish there was more I could do.

Science is science. It is method not opinion. The science that gives us life-saving drugs, microwave ovens, iphones, sophisticated crash-restraints, plastic, podiatry, GPS systems, X-ray machines, Predator drones and Zhu Zhu pets is the very same science that has been advising us, firmly, for decades, to act on climate change.

The scientist observes, measures, experiments and records. He or she examines the data, shares it with other scientists, and may draw conclusions. An hypothesis may result. The process is then repeated as many times as necessary. If there is sufficient evidence, a theory may be presented to the scientific community. The theory is then subject to review by peers and, if it is a good one, may be published in a journal.

But, no matter how much evidence accrues to back it up, it will only ever remain a theory - for in science nothing is certain. Will the sun rise tomorrow? It is not certain. Just very very likely.

This is the scientific (or empirical) method. It has brought us from the dark ages of fear and superstition to unparalleled levels of civilisation.

If we ask ‘do you believe in climate change’ we are asking ‘do you believe in science’.

Do you believe in science?

~ lichen in the face of adversity

With the last of the light, we drove to Thompson’s Dam, that vast body of water which supplies most of Melbourne’s water. Particularly during the drought, one was repeatedly shown evidence of its declining volume in newspapers and TV. The slopes of dark broken rock and the installation’s various towers and structures were therefore instantly familiar - none more so than the exposed strata along its shore, which, if the lake was not merely 42 per cent full, would not be visible at all.

But there were also the looming, crowded forests - the overwhelming verdancy of nature, everpresent and pure; ferns swarming the sides of the winding roads - ferns which, I am told, need centuries to become so large. Above all, there were the rolling columns of mist - for it was very cold - settling over the surface of the water, propagating among the ancient gums, attenuated in some areas, congested in others; obeying the inscrutable physics of the invisible winds. At any point we could have become characters in The Shining or The Evil Dead, or, perhaps most disturbing of all, that recent adaptation of Steven King’s The Mist.

Of course my eyes were drawn, as always, to the little things. The marginal things. Here are some photos. Taken in the rain.