Ibn 'Arabi.

(a poem of) Ibn 'Arabi.

My heart is open to all winds
It is a pasture for gazelles
And a home for Christian monks,
A temple for idols
The Black Stone of the Mecca pilgrim,
The table of the Torah
And the book of the Koran.
Wherever God's caravans turn,
The religion of love shall be my religion
And my faith.

(Muhammad Ibn 'Arabi, Mystic, philosopher, poet, sage
Spain, 1165-1240)

Hannah and her sisters.

"How would I know how the Nazis came to be, I don't even know how to operate the can-opener."

Meanwhile, back at Zaphod's Other Head.

Readers from Zaphod's Other Head are no doubt overjoyed that I am back again, and my email seems to be arriving! Readers on the other two lists I'm on ... sorry, I post and post but it never arrives. I'll keep trying. Write to me privately if there's anything in particular you want to talk to polly people about.

It's raining. Good for the Karris. They need a lot of rain to grow.

Hats on.

There's some sunshine at last.

We're going to a outdoor screening of an Inuit film, at the Bugsplat Forest Park. Picnic starts at 6.30pm, screening at 8pm. I'm making a salad, and we'll be meeting up with Lilly.

Good news. I have secured five days off in a row during the time that Ms Mia and Stephen are to visit. I'll be working the first day they arrive here in Bugsplat and then.. free until the 3rd.

Readers at Zaphod's Other Head should know - we've posted several times, no show, for quite a few days now, maybe even a week. Likewise at the other couple of lists we're on. It's miserable.

Fame's sparkle, gracing our table.

Fame came to dinner, in a pretty boy skin.

And when our guest laughed, and it was the pretty boy lovely fellow we invited home laughing PLUS it was fame itself, the history of fame, the silver masks of the Townsville Twin Cinemas circa 1980... laughing as well. He was obviously used to admiration and adulation an backstage shenanigans and airplay. He had a habit of fame.

I was surprised by the tickle of response in us (me, us, and also, me & gray, us) to it's power. I remembered when I was 19, first encountering wealth, real wealth, not the 'wears the latest Sportsgirl frocks' wealth, wealth that equates to power.

How weak at the knees it made me! And of course I was ashamed afterwards, having always believed myself immune. How shameful it is to be so vulnerable ~ to be. suddenly, a pack animal.

Aside from all of that, he's a really lovely person.
We'll be seeing more of him.
:~)
And no, I won't be telling you his name.

:P

Smile. Say thank you.

The last few days, with all the amazing artists in town, have been strange and wonderful.

The Bugsplat Visitors Centre, weary of raffles and white elephants, did the catering for the Bugsplat Sculpture Walk's Residency Dinner on Friday, and the morning tea the following day.

It went really well. It was very hard work. I've been doing running errands, organising wine and cheese, dinner parties and morning teas. The menu for the main residency dinner had 14 items on it, There were two amazing cooks and three beautiful waitresses from Bugsplat, and it was a big success. And me, in charge. We made lots of money and everybody praised us. I'm a bit scared of praise. It feels so limiting. I don't know what to do with it. I was taught well though. Smile and say thank you. It's the wormy way it tunnels into me that I don't like, and the way I feel afterwards - pompous and distracted.

Now that all the artists have gone home I am a bit sad. One of my favourite Australian writers, Kim Scott, was here (in Bugsplat!!!) for days and days, and I really liked him in person. I was too busy to even listen to him talk, though we did have a couple of discussions with him about his dietary preferences and accomodation...

Petunia has been busy too. Maybe he'll write about it in his blog.
*poke*

Today I shall have coffee with Honey at the Chewitup Cafe in town, pay the Bugsplat Visitor Centre's phone bill with the money raised by the catering, and return the various spoons, forks, knives, ladles, tupperware containers, tableclothes, plates, soup bowls, bread plates and butter dishes to their various owners. Anybody missing a can opener?

John Kinsella's Vegan Dessert.

The poet John Kinsella came to Bugsplat this morning, and left in a cloud of outrage in the afternoon, apparently, or so I'm told. I was heartbroken that after all these decades (eighties AND nineties AND whatever we're calling this one) of fangirldom, the closest I got to an intellectual exchange with the darlin' was eating a hand-delivered serving (thanks me gorgeous Rock & Roll Bitch) of the vegan dessert (Raspberry and Pear Filo Tart with vanilla sorbet) that Lilly had made in his honour.

Lilly and he had a bit of a tiff at the Bugsplat Book Club Luncheon, but I'm sure they'd have been great friends - if only they'd met at around a campfire. Meanwhile I wrote a poem called "John Kinsella's Vegan Dessert".

ps. Bugsplat Sculpture Walk is now looking for a poet.
pps. I don't think "John Kinsella's Vegan Dessert" is quite what they've got in mind.

Hit and myth.

9 Bugsplatians and one dazzling artist, the sculptor, Francoise, had dinner at our house last night in the first of what will be several dinner parties for Francoise in Bugsplat, in which he will develop a myth of Bugsplat - to create his sculptures around. I really wish I'd just been attending, rather than hosting the dinner party. There was Nadia and Troy, Lanie, Naomi and Pete, Nance and Dan, Francoise, Gray and me. I was anxious and miserable most of the time, smiling brightly under my new short haircut. Now it's over, I might actually enjoy it.