Saturday 2/4/05. Melbourne → Highl&s (via Whittlesea, Kinglake West, Flowerdale, Strath Creek.

Dennis haz strtd on a new seereez kalld ‘Song of th Earth’. Margaret iz doin mor potry.) → Ruffy (whr
w had a meel & red th ppr) → T@ong ((c ‘10/2/05’ – 18/2/05’ p17) via Buntings Hill rd, Gooram, Galls
Gap rd → Strathbogie, Too Rour, Lima East, Swanpool. X2 beerz @ th pub (lemn skwsh 4 H) & now
w r @ our sual • @ a pknk tabl 1k way x th kreek. 6pm. Its a butefl barmy evenn.) Sundy 3/4/05. Il
papa dide (21/4. rplaced x Benedict XVI (Ratzinger (c ‘Oct 27’ p21)) “a simple humble worker in
the Lor-d’s vinyard” (hiz werdz) hoo in hiz new kpasty az th ownr of truth haz lredy warnd of th
danjrs of rl@v-zm (‘truth’ az ntrprtd x uthrz (22/4. in prktis th bslute/rltv dstnkshn bkumz a ssue of how
powr iz xrsiz-ed (c ‘Danyo Reserve’ p15))) & ego (22/4. Nietzsche ndrstood & makes trnchnt komnt
on this kind of posture (23/4. ie th xrsize of humbl powr)).) vrnght nleeshn tornts of HYPERBOLE &
CLICHÉ (18/4. & woz ↓ wth HUMBL POMP & SERMNY). Th vatikn spokesmn Dr Joaquin Navarro-Valls
sed hiz last wer-dz “I have looked for you. Now you have come to me. And I thank
you.” wer probly rfern 2 th yung ppl hoom he had met O th O durin hiz rain & meny 000z of hoom
had ssembld in vgil in St Peters ‫ٱ‬. Th Age knkerz wth a hedline ‘Pope leaves dying message for the
world’s young’. It iz stonshn th@ ny1 kood kum up wth such a poltkl & rdkulus ntrprt8n. It ndk8s th
rainj of xpriensz nvailb 2 meny az it iz bvius 2 me th@ th pope woz +rsn hiz god. W left T@ong (brth•
of Michael Joseph Savage (1872-19-40) hoo livd in th ‫ ٱ‬til 1893 & woz prime mnstr of NZ (kiwil&)
1935-1940. W found a plark rmmbrn him nxt 2 a minor (now prv@ized) lane korld ‘Savage Lane’) →
Baddaginnie (long bak roadz; whr w arksd 4 drekshnz) → Violet Town (long Harrisons rd whr w sor
meny Eastrn Rozellaz (Platycerus eximiu-s); red ppr in main st (2 th skreechn of Sulfur Crestd
kokr2z (Cacatua galerita)) & th wheezn & kree-kn of Gang Gang kokr2z (Callocephalon
fimbriatum); 2 kofeez kost $5.70; I hav ritn thiz ntry in th litl park wth a toilt nxt 2 th kofee shop; w r
hedd wst → Rushworth) …. → Rushworth (1.35. On th way H sed I woz bein przumshs 2 say I new
wot il papa had ment but wot xktly woz I przumin? Woz I przum-in mor than w do wenvr w klaim 2 no?
(eg if I say I no this iz a good (or bad) paintn evn b4 I hav foun-d out if uthrz (eg krtks or xprts) gree
wth me?). I m ritin @ th kerbside tabl of th kafé (rkmndd x th petrl @10dnt) whr I bort a truly orfl
hambrgr. Kmpair il papaz last werdz wth thoze of jzuz of nzarth az rpo-rtd x Matthew 27. 45-50 whr
he iz sed 2 hav kride out wth a loud shout : ” Eli, Eli, lema sabachttha-ni?” whch meenz “My
God, my God, why did you abandon me?” & a bit l8r gave a loud kry & breethd hiz last; or
az rprtd x Mark 15. 33-37 hoo givz th same kkount; or x Luke 23. 44-45 hooz l8r vrzion kntrdikts th
mmreez of both of thm klaimn hiz last werdz wer “Father! In your hands I place my spirit!”; or x
th time Johnz vrzion 19. 28-30 iz ritn or trnskribed or trnzl8d hiz last werdz whch r rp-ortd 2 hav bn (in
rdr 2 make th skrpture kum true) “I am thirsty” & “It is finished” …. → Mitiamo (pub (15/4. Iv bn
here meny timez eg. “Thursd ay 1 8/3/99 . …. I’m at Mitiamo in the pub, about to have a fish tea for $8.00. Saddle
sore, but wouldn’t have got here at all if I hadnt bought a sort of seat cover which consists of jelly in a bag so that you
wobble as you sit on it. I did locate the guy from Port Fairy (Adrian Hansen see 7/3/99) much to his surprise. When peo-ple
give you their address they don’t really mean for you to visit. Still it was fun doing the detective work, and as it happened I
needed to go to the bike shop anyway to get the seat cover as I can barely sit down. The big event was my first puncture on
the road and I did OK to patch it. A tiny thorn had done the damage – so much for notions of riding in the real desert wh-ere
you get 3-corner jacks. Echuca was a downer. When I’m on a bike I’m even more inclined to avoid big towns than when in
the van. Everybody here is talking about the article in today’s paper how Mitiamo is statistically the poorest town in Victor-ia.
They don’t seem to mind. They reckon they might be the best at evading tax. While I remember : the Belgian kid I talked to
a few days ago saw a guy on the road carrying a full size cross with the long end supported by two wheels so that it rolled
on the ground behind him. I’ve just set up behind the tennis court and the kids are still playing. Not for long though as there
are no lights and its getting darker. There is a station at Mitiamo and passing grain trains make a reassuring hum. Today Iv’e
travelled 94ks at 16ks/h, highest speed 27ks/h and spent 6 very painful hours in the saddle, never mind the cushy seat.
Frid ay 19/3/9 9. Back in Melbourne after 84ks at 16ks/h in 5 hours in the saddle, top speed 37. Rode out of the poorest
town in Victoria after being woken by a crow cawing almost into my ear just outside the tent. Being woken by large, noisy
birds has been a feature of this trip. Once or twice its been kookaburras, very close on the Goulburn river, but usually
cockatoos. As I left I meditated on how little money means as Mitiamo is as neat and as friendly a place as I’ve been in.
Watched the kids training on the footy oval last night and marvelled at their excellent spirits. Felt perfectly secure zipped up
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in my tent on the rec. reserve behind the tennis courts. Had the bike out of the rain in the shed toilet as there were
intermittent showers all night.”) klozed ↓ 5 weeks go so I koodnt get th 2 stubeez I wood hav liked. Erlier th
bak roadz knspired gainst me so th@ I woz goin in Os & wood hav mist seein th last ¼ of th magpize
(Gymnorhyrnae) vs th kroze (Corvi) game evn if it had bn opn. Bsidez th pize (18/4. & now th@
Rocca haz gon out wth Achilles thr goze th seezn (20/4. Buckley wont b bak, Davis haz a bustd rist,
Didak iz kronik, Ca-meron Cloke jumps 2 erly)) lost x a gole. H rknd it woz il papaz folt. W r @ Terrick
Terrick (c ‘3/6/03 – 12/6/03’ p16) Nshnl Park. 6.08.) Mundy 4/4/05. Th sky kleerd durin th nite & th
starz wer brliant in th drie air. A ¼ moon +d 2 th glow. Xotk berdz I koodnt dntfie profside snrize. I woz
thinkn O il papa. Gi-vn th h&ikap of prvlj & th dvoshn of th faithfl he led a dmirbl life & I xpkt wil hav
meny mraklz trbuted 2 him & dklaird a saint in rkord time. I m shor in hiz last daiz he woz knshz th@
nly a week go w wer rmmmbrn th deth of jzuz of nzarth. I 1dr if he new th@ a slave (I think
SCHIAVO meenz slave in tal-ian) dide durin th week. Long b4 krstianty bkame th rljn of THE EMPIRE
it woz th rljn of th SLAVES OF ROME. Jzuzs last werdz (all verzionz hav ekode ↓ 2 us ovr 2000
yeerz; il papaz last werdz hav made nwzppr hedlinez & wil b rmmbrd x chrch storianz; SCHIAVO
(nuthr // iz they both had tubez : 1 4 breethn & 1 4 feedn) sed 0. If it iz true az jzuz klaimd th@ th 1st
wil b last & th last 1st then th slave wil b ofrd th ↑ pzishn @ th CELESTIAL tabl …. → Pyramid Hill (th
staishn mastr (trane will rzume sr-vice in 2 weekz) sed w shood vizt th nersn home (18/4. oh how
hapy & wth wot grace & dgnity th old laideez in th nersn homez wood die wth a few 00,000z dvoted
dmirerz prayn outside th wndow sil but orl they ask iz th@ sum1 hold thr h& (prfrbly @ home)) & th
sprmrkt so w bort grapes & dil & ppr & dr-ove past th home) → (goin wst) → Boort (red ppr ovr kofee)
→ (lunch @ 1pm x th rodeside long th Avoca rvr (beetz kisn tarmaks) sumwhr nrth of th Boort-
Wycheproof rd (nrth of Bunguluke (c Vic Roa-dz Cuntry Drktry map 28 H x 2)). Noted in th ppr th@ il
papaz last werd iz now sed 2 hav bn AMEN) → …. Wycheproof (lookout, krap) → Birchip (Mallee
Bull) → Beulah (muralz) → Brim (2 stubeez; here ovrnite; th lake whch Iv nvr cn wth H2O in it iz stil
dry (c ‘21/9/02 - 3/10/02’ p8) ; I kan heer th horntn flutey korl of a Pied Butcherbird (Cracticus
nigrogularis); mite reed a bit of Roberto Calass-oze (18/4. had 4gotn I had prmsd mslf nevr 2 reed
nuthr Calasso book so 2day I → (th rseet → DI-aCnAdSrTeRaO) LfOrVaEnCkE wthout fnshn it) ‘K’,
pub x Alfred A Knopt © 2005. ISBN 1-4000-4189-9). Tuesdy 5/4/05. Ystrdy evnn w got torkn 2 th
farmr hoo ownz th prprty sOn this rzrv (Brim Community Park). He iz O our age. Hiz wife dide 12
munths go & in 3 munths hiz farm (sheep) will hav bn in th same famly 4 100 yeerz. He haz 2 shair
farmrz but thrwize hez x himslf az hiz nly child a dortr hoo did her dip. ed. @ Melb uni O th same time
az K8 runz a vry sksfl grfk dzine bizns in Melb. Sh duznt want him 2 sel up az sh sez sh iz moshnly
@@cht 2 th famly home. He sez th lake nxt 2 whch we r prkt haz bn dry since 1995 but pria 2 th@ he
had nevr known it wthout wrta. It iz fed x Yar-riambiack Creek whch iz nusual in th@ it iz a → of th
Wimmera rvr (neer Horsham) & ndz up in th lakes (long dry) O Hopetoun. Bak 2 il papa. H sez hiz
werdz “now you have come to me” may hav bn rfrn 2 deth az just b4 sh dide Vi had sed sh woz
tired of waitn & H had ntrprtd her 2 hav bn rfrn 2 her kumn deth (c ‘Oct 27’ pp12-13). Knsdr th folwn :
@MZ → MLKULEZ → SELZ → ORGNZ → HUM-ENZ → ?. W kan knseev th@ orgnz mite ‘rkgnize’
selz (eg if u njktd th rong kind (eg hair or livr) → bone marrow they mite b rjktd) but w knot mgine th@
selz mite ‘no’ wot n orgn duz. Humenz hav sum nolj of how orgnz kopr8 or how selz r rranged 2 make
orgnz but it iz nknseevbl a orgn kan ‘rkgnize’ a human bein. In a // way it iz knseevbl th@ shood w b
part of a gr8r bein (prhps joynd in lngwj) th lam-nt of jzuz of nzarth & il papaz werdz of gr@itude
mght hav bn (or ‘iz bein’ since th kmparsnz th@ kn-stute time r human) herd & r kceptd but it iz not
knseevbl (givn th skemata I hav uzed) th@ they kood hav known hoo they wer +rsn & whthr they
kood b herd. In so far az w r part of ? (if w r) w knot no hoo w r. It may b I pas sum obleek kmnts on
thez m@rz in ‘IN TRANSIT’ (I hav nly 2 bound kopeez & hav lent 1 2 DIaCnAdSrTeRaO hoo haz gon
on a rkaeljkl dig in china wthout rternn it) so I wil nsert a ferthr long kwote dskribin th msdvntchrz of th
‘I’ persona (c ‘21/3/05 – 25/3/05’ pp3-13) wen w get bak 2 Melb. (15/4. So here goze : “Dear reader,
what a wonderful opportunity to launch into deep phi-losophy. And yet if I were to embark on that
course it would not be from a noble desire to further kno-wledge but from the baser motive of wishing
to put off for a little longer the inevitable necessity of fac-ing the central issue of my life. Nor can I
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keep fooling you forever with quaint stories about possums and the outback. ¶ The fact of the matter
is I’m dying : ¶ Oh, death! / where is your sting? / in my head I hold a thousand bees / each with
a mightier sting than thee ¶ It may take days or it may take a lifetime but I can’t escape the brutal
truth any longer. I am dying of age. My prognosis is 100% fatal. I have been dying from the day I was
born and I’m no closer to escaping my fate now than I was then; if anything the noose tightens. It’s
not as if I’ve given in without a fight. For years I pounded up and down the footpaths of Coburg and
Preston in one set of priceless Reeboks after another. I enter-ed the Big M marathon and had a bash
at a triathlon. The quest for immortality has a price : arthritis in the hip and a compacted disk in the
lower back. And I’m still dying. ¶ Assuming of course that I’m not already dead. There was a time
when I could actually feel that my body was inhabited by someone else. Later I had a recurrent
dream that I was in another person’s brain. You get these problems after a brain transplant. There is
unfortunately a real possibility that I am one of the living dead – a zombie. Simone Weil would like to
see a landscape as it is when she is not there, because normally, wherever she is she disturbs the
silence of heaven and earth by her breathing and the beating of her heart. I see every landscape as it
is when I’m not there. Us zombies are like that. Externally I look just like you or me but internally I am
lost; I have no fixed points; I am on shifting ground and at the mercy of deceptions. I am quite
capable of returning your greeting with a normal show of conviviality. I can give you your hullo’s, your
g’days, your how are ya mate, just like anyone else; because I have made a st-udy of convention. But
as I drift apart inside bit by bit like a dismembered astronaut in space the effort of keeping up
appearances can make almost impossible demands on my memory. My biggest fear is that if the
mask slips you may be able by looking into my eyes discern that I have no soul, that I don’t exist. I
don’t mind telling you these things on paper because that is part of the special relationship of an
author to his readers; just as long as I don’t have to live with the expressions on your faces when you
see that I’m dead. The strategy I use is to perfect an algorithm of a personality to disguise the
absence of a real one. The algorithm consists of a quite limited number of simple behavioural rules
which have a very general application. For instance no matter how inane the drivel that you tell me I
always look into your face and reply with the single phrase ‘that’s amazing’. The upshot is that people
are so keen to talk to me that they do not scrutinize my face. So I don’t have to worry about express-
ing a wide range of emotions or remembering the appropriate facial mobility that goes with them. Triv-
ial and unexpected events catch me out sometimes : like giggling at the news of a relative dying. But
I do lead a modest social life with several articulate though unobservant friends. Not bad for a bloke
with a reputation for screwing sheep, is it? ¶ While on that subject, a Turkish friend of mine tells me
that in the village where he grew up most boys lost their virginity with a donkey; a custom which is pr-
evalent in other parts of the Mediterranean too. His father assures him that when he was serving in
the Turkish infantry in the first world war the mules that the army used to carry supplies had a habit of
always turning their hindquarters towards any man in the vicinity wearing a uniform. If the Anzacs had
known they could have won the war by driving herds of mules and donkeys into the Turkish front line-
s. Mind you, the Turks might have retaliated with sheep and cattle dogs. As it was, the contest was
clean with honours even, except for Simpson who managed to get hold of a donkey. I put that last bit
in because I don’t want to be hauled over the coals by some multicultural watch-dog organization
clai-ming that I’m biased. I have nothing against foreign customs. They give a cosmopolitan flavour to
the inner suburbs even though I must say it does sound a bit incongruous to hear, above the
clattering of trams, the braying of a donkey coming from the back of the Anatolian Club in Brunswick
Street. Aga-in, I hasten to emphasize I’m not pointing the finger at any specific ethnic group. After all
there is a long Australian tradition of shearers screwing sheep (why do you think some take so much
longer to shear a sheep than others?) and everyone knows about the drover and his dog….The
British have similar practices, otherwise how can you account for the saying : ‘kicks like a mule’.
Think about it. The Maoris and Kiwis, of course, would screw the leg off a chair. ¶ Meanwhile, as all
ot this is going on, my dear defacto is making me read one book about the holocaust after another,
and watch videos too. Can you imagine that. Here I am unable to prove that I exist, writhing in
extremitas of spiritual tor-ment, trapped in a world of pederasts and leg-screwers, probably dead or at
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the very least committing gradual suicide and she attacks me with the full might of the U.S. of A.
holocaust industry. How insen-sitive can you get. ¶ they say / Hitler’s scientists discovered a
cheap method / of making paper out of Jews // on that paper / some good books were written /
but they were anti-establishment / so Hitler had them burnt // it was / a round about way / of
burning Jews // however / the ashes were scattered in a fertile valley / and from them grew a
great forest / which Hitler ordered to be chopped down / and made into paperbacks // the
paperbacks / consisted of propaganda / so Hitler forced all German libraries / to keep them on
the shelves // the Americans / bombed the libraries / turning them into heaps / of smoking
rubble // and if there is a moral to this story / don’t ask me what it is ¶ I don’t mind admitting that
at this particular present moment in time a nas-ty situation is developing in respect to our
cooperative, loving and caring, creative relationship. The heart centre, the place of unconditional love
and coming to terms with what is, the yin and the yang of our sensitive, non-sexist, non-stereotyping
interface is a bit wobbly. ¶ “The marriage is over shithead”, she said the other day. “You can pack up
your rubber fannies and go find another place to park.” ¶ We’re still together. It turned out to be just
another domestic. When she said ‘marriage’ she wasn’t kidding. We had a ceremony a long time ago
: there were no documents and it wasn’t official. I was still in jail learning to be a pastrycook and she
was an idealistic social worker. The correction services wouldn’t allow us to get married but we had a
ceremony anyway. It was performed in secret by the Uniting Church minister. The vaginas, a truly
excellent collection from all over the world ranging from top quality rubber whoppers made by the
German sex-aids industry to dainty little self-lubricating pla-stic Hong Kong specials for the tourist
trade, were a wedding present from the boys in the remand wing. I’ve still got them in a carton under
the bed. ¶ As I was saying, she makes me watch all these holocaust shows when all I want to watch
is footy. I already see so much stuff about the Jews on the telly I might as well be living in Tel Aviv.
Every night it’s the same : a few more Arab terrorists shot up by the Jews. Last night’s terrorists were
disguised as two fifteen year old school girls in full school un-iform. The night before they shot a
terrorist through the eye with a plastic bullet who was disguised as an eighteen month old baby. Why
do I have to watch all the holocaust stuff from half a century ago when I can see how the Palestinians
cop it right now. Her answer is that they’re only killing a few ev-ery now and then and the rest they’re
just kicking out of the country or burying alive, or blowing their houses up, or keeping them
blindfolded in prisons, or breaking their arms with rocks; which is nothing compared to the six million
or more Jews that were killed. And she’s right. Even if they killed every Palestinian in Palestine it
wouldn’t be as many. ¶ Still, I wish she’d leave the education kick and get back to the sorts of
activities she used to do : strewing condoms in front of visiting American sailors, making NO GLOVE
NO LOVE placards for the Prostitutes for Peace Collective, which she had orga-nized, and so on. ¶ It
started with her changing her name to Naomi Knoflemacher which was a bit of a comedown from
Jedda Honeyant. But as it turns out it was her original name. She is no longer pre-pared to deny her
past. She reckons man is an historical being. All news to me. It means that I am living with what might
be the only red-headed Jewish Aborigine in Australia. Not very well received by the girls at the
community centre I’d think. Haven’t been seeing many of the boiler-suit brigade around lately. She
herself has swapped her boiler-suit for designer ripped jeans. And bigger changes are yet to come.
There is a jacket and skirt set in the wardrobe. It’s her outfit for the job interview she’s going to. It’s
one of those natty little suits with padded shoulders that all the female executive types wear who
drink cocktails with stockbrokers in New York on the TV ads. The job she is going for is pretty high
powered. She’d have to advise the premier on women’s issues. No surprise that the boiler-suits from
the centre are beginning to avoid us. ¶ I’m wondering if there’s going to be room in this new scheme
of things for me. I’ve been getting a distinctly superceded feeling. Since getting her PH.D. she’s
started hanging around with the other lecturers. I don’t get a look into that social set. Some ma-
thematics whiz by the name of Heimi Goldstein picks her up in the evenings and off they go for ano-
ther one of those interminable seminars. ¶ “Don’t wait up sweety. Be back in a few days.” ¶ She al-
ways calls me ‘sweety’ in front of others. But she can’t pull the wool over my eyes as easy as that.
Those workshops and conferences have become so regular that she’s home only about once a
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week. The smirk on Heimi’s face as he picks her up tells the story. My theory is she doesn’t live here
at all. It’s so long since she’s been here two days in a row I’m not really sure if she’s ever lived with
me. What if she stops paying the rent? I couldn’t afford it out of my sickness benefits. I’d be turfed
out. That’s it : she lives with Heimi, probably always has. She just pays the rent here : I’m a kept man.
Th-ere’s nothing that undermines your confidence more than living with a woman who’s on the way
up in the world. ¶ Maybe she visits here only because she’s still connected with the school she
started. She collected the holocaust books and videos for the school library. It’s one of those
alternative style schools run by the collective. It’s not so much that they’re tremendously interested in
education but they applied for a grant and now they have to spend the money. They’ve already had
grants for ever-ything else. I suppose no government can resist an application for funds from an
aboriginal women’s support group devoted to alleviating the lot of battered wives and incest victims.
The school is for their kids all of whom are victims of sexual abuse. They do three core subjects :
Women in Society, an Aboriginal language, and Holocaust Studies. These are filled out with options
such as Personal Gro-wth, Loving Relationship Training, Rebirthing and Hands On Computer
Training which consists of playing games like Pacman. You can tell by the presence of Holocaust
Studies that my dear defacto was already rediscovering her roots when she set the place up.
Convincing the boiler-suits to have it on the curriculum must have been as hard as pushing shit up hill
with a stick. Give credit where it’s due : the educational substance of the course can be attributed
entirely to her. Those boiler-suits are real fruitcakes. There’s one who believes that anything which is
longer than it is wide is a phallic sym-bol. How’s that for flaky? The only benefit to me is that I get the
use of a video recorder. The school has so much equipment donated to it by industry and various
benefactors that they don’t know where to store it let alone how it works. They have three VCRs and
two computers in a school of seven tea-chers and five students. They can thank my partner for that ;
she’s their expert for submissions and applications. ¶ Meanwhile I have to face the inevitability of
death. ¶ At my back I always hear / Ti-me’s winged chariot hurrying near (Andrew Marvell) ¶ I
could block it out simply by going over to the window and looking down into the quadrangle. There is
always some pathetic little drama being played out down there. I could forget all about Heimi and the
smirk on his face. I could forget Naomi, the centre, the boiler-suits. In fact, I’m not sure if they exist
anyway. It’s so hazy : as if they were fig-ments of my imagination. The trouble with brain transplants
is that your thoughts might not be your own. And yet a dying man must compose himself. A list of
priorities must be drawn up. Certain eternal questions must be answered before the great void
swallows everything up : a task I haven’t finished because I haven’t even begun it. ¶ In the limited
time left to me here are some of the things I’m not going to think about : the laws of life, the time-
space continuum, the total self and the firm inner core, the centre of self or finding the centre of self
or any other centres, psychic healing and inner growth, karma, reincarnation, the phallocentric
universe, linear earth experiences, living in the now even if it’s the only time there really is, letting go
and letting it all hang out, interrelating skills, post traumatic str-ess disorders, deprogramming, the
Young Women’s Deinstitutional Working Group, Ronald Reagan’s prostate gland, sensitivity training,
the one million sexual abuse victims that live in Melbourne, loving and caring hard core porn,
harnessing the power of the universe by using pyramids, psychic flow, the rings around your anus,
the J-curve and the mega learning curve, stop-start situations, stress manag-ement consultants,
anything that is on line in house or state of the art, Queensland peanut farmers, estate agents car
salesmen and journalists, the feminization of poverty, clitoral versus vaginal orgas-ms, the sex lives of
seals worms insects and any thing else that comes up in nature documentaries, hardware software
feedback or anything in a time frame or in mode, different mind sets, aboriginal land rights, gays
lesbians transexuals, the America’s Cup, tycoons, Bob Hawke crying and Hazel’s facelift, curved
space, genetic engineering, steroids, the power or the womb, penis envy, earth moth-ers, scrotums,
the value of the dollar and the deficit, vitamins, multi-culturalism, Arnold Schwartzen-egger’s sexual
appetite, other people’s sexual preferences, how many aircraft carriers would fit up Bush’s arse, can
a souffle rise more than twice, oscars gold logies grammies and Miss Universe co-ntests, wombats
koalas and galahs, whether a tomato is a vegetable or a fruit, the death of Phar Lap, giant pandas,
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anything that is quintessential and all bottom lines, which came first the chicken or egg, cold fusion,
biomass, aural sex, the Abominable Snowman, the Pritikin diet, iridology, self-esteem ed-ucational
kinesiology, naturopathy and healing hands, Katmandu, whether Charles Manson should be paroled,
whether its better to look at or focus on things, psychiatrists, schizophrenics, hookers, needle
exchange programs, restaurants, the tourist industry, Rock Hudson, erections, the difference between
a crow and a raven; and I could go on adding to the list practically anything I can think of excepting of
course the eternal verities, the discovery of which is proving harder than I had anticipated. ¶ TV deb-
ates have taught me that prejudice, ignorance, fashion, crass emotionalism, vehemence, stupidity al-
ways triumph over intelligence, careful reasoning, deference to facts, even-handedness, scholarship,
moderation. Cheering and clapping win the day over argument every time. Which brings us to the pi-
votal consideration, debated by lunatics in institutions all over the world, whether truth exists indepen-
dently as an absolute Platonic entity or whether it is a matter of consensus. ¶ The broad oulines of
the argument were established two thousand years ago and a spirited debate has raged ever since.
In one corner we have the absolutists championed by Plato who claimed that eternal truths or ideal
forms as he called them really exist. The only problem is we can never actually see them or appreh-
end them, or for that matter even focus on them, because we are imperfect. It is our sad lot to glim-
pse them only as blurred shadows on the walls of our caves. As we lounge about gnawing bones,
scratching our armpits, and screwing our wives without even waking them up, we infer from the pant-
omime on the wall that there must be something out there that casts the shadows : the absolutes, the
higher platitudes, backlit by a radiance as brilliant perhaps as God himself. Pythagoras was of a like
opinion with the addition of musical notes and triangles. The opposition in the other corner is led by
Aristotle. He believes that everything is relative. It is all in the eye of the beholder. Truth is a matter of
consensus. Significant support for his view is provided by our very own Bob Hawke who lends
convic-tion to the argument by shedding bucketfuls of tears. ¶ I don’t like to boast but I know the
answer to the problem already. They’re all wrong : the truths are in fact generated by the media. I lost
my grip on reality for awhile once. I thought men were not rapists, that women weren’t incest victims,
that thir-teen year old Palestinian girls weren’t terrorists, that addicts were also dealers. I actually
believed that peace bombs were horrible weapons of war. I was a callow youth then and hadn’t
developed the hab-it of watching telly fortyeight hours a day. Even before the days of TV we only
spent 10% of our time doing anything, the other 90% was spent inventing all kinds of plausible
explanations for why we did it. That’s the nature of the human animal. Now even that 10% is spent
watching the box. All I ever do is press and release the remote control button. I’m in action mode
when I’m sitting on my arse with my eyes glued to the screen. I don’t have to give explanations for my
actions because that’s done by the telly too. As well as a zombie I’m a media freak. Pray for me. ¶
the doctor / pulled out my wis-dom tooth / and told me / I’d be none the less wise for it //
furthermore, he said / my children will have no wisdom teeth at all : / the environment of
modern man / leaves jaws insufficiently developed for wisdom teeth / nor will they be any less
wise for the absence // but I wonder / how carefully he looked inside my head / perhaps there
was nothing there / as wise as my wis-dom tooth / perhaps that’s what he meant / I am further
confused by the suspicion / that with-out my wisdom tooth / I lack the wisdom to understand
the situation // even the nurse distur-bed me / when she told me that the doctor / had his
pulled out / long ago ¶ I have to make an awful admission. I’m sitting here stark naked. Picture me
from the perspective of the classic out-of-body experience, directly from above. I am naked and life
size. You cannot see the expression on my face because my face isn’t on top of my head. My right
hand is holding a stubby of beer. Next to my right knee is a plastic bucket half full of yabbies. To my
left there is another bucket with a couple of empties protruding from a litter of yabby shells and legs.
On my left lying on the couch is the remote control. My left hand is holding what appears to be a strip
of toilet paper. It is a letter from Naomi Go-ldstein nee Naomi Knoflemacher alias Jedda Honeyant. I
am reading it. It is one of the low points of my life on earth. The letter reads : ¶ Dear Shithead, ¶ by
the time you get this I will be on a plane to Europe. Me and Heimi have decided to have a
honeymoon after all. I will not be seeing you again. Knowing that you couldn’t get a job as a
6
speed hump I did the right thing and paid the rent six months in advance. ¶ Good riddance,
Naomi. ¶ It was a lie when I said we were still together ; I couldn’t face reality. ¶ Now I ask you to
return to your position plastered up against the ceiling looking down at the top of my head. Notice that
next to me on the couch beside the remote control is a very fat exercise book. It is open at page 156
(20/4. I m kwotn from p156 of 1 of my nly 2 bound kopeez of ‘IN TRANSIT’). It is volume II of my
autobiography. I am going to let you read it. Now you can be even more involved in my life and I can
save myself a lot of hard work, as the autobiogra-phy is already finished. All I have to do is get the
typist to continue on with the biography from where she left off with the book. So here goes, verbatim.
I dispense with the quotation marks. ¶ As I said before I am stark naked. You see me stand up and
you notice that the letter drops from my trembling hand. I walk slowly into the adjoining room over to
the wardrobe and look inside. The natty little two piece suit is gone. I raise a hand to my head and
stand very still as if transfixed by an awful thought. Suddenly I rush towards the bed spilling beer as I
go and dive underneath it. The box full of fannies is gone too. I stumble back shattered to the main
room and get another stubby from the fridge. Notice that my physique is nothing to brag about :
classic ectomorph. I slump down and pick up a pencil and exercise book. I turn to a page half filled
with writing. I am writing the story of my life. Here it is, word for word, exactly as I am writing it. Again
I delete the quotation marks. ¶ The road to madness slopes down ever so gently. It is not signposted.
The steps you take along it are all small. The emotional st-orms, dramas, the violence so evident to
the bystanders are not indications of insanity but of the con-tact that remains with reality. The sane
man does not go gently into that good night – but rages. ¶ Meanwhile you walk – I walked – down
that gentle path. The path to oblivion ¶ softly, softly goes the moon / high above the clouds /
gently, gently falls the rain / on the sleeping town / silently the lovers meet / in each others
arms // as the breathing of the night / Jesus guards the child ¶ The phantoms of the earth
stroke your tired brow, insinuate invisible fingers into your knotted brain. Their seductive powers
smooth away twists of contradiction, unravel the loops of paradox. In exch-ange they exact a price :
the price is your identity. ¶ I heard a chill traveller / pass by my window / and his voice told me /
to follow // we came to a hermit / alone in the desert / he was praying / and did not hear us //
we passed by a teacher / in a college of learning / surrounded by stu-dents / he could not see
us // we came to a pool / of clear limpid water / and saw the reflection / of the cold still night ¶
To the casual observer you appear more colourful even more alive than be-fore. Your immediate
family find you unpredictable and fear that you may become violent. Only the most perceptive will
notice that your bluster and your erratic behaviour constitute a veneer that hides the nothingness
inside you. He will note that you occupy the same space but less substantially than before ; that your
eyes which once were a window into your soul have become opaque as if to hide an appalling
emptiness. ¶ when you die / you don’t know / that you are dead // people mistake your antics /
for movement / hollow sounds / for words // you believe / yourself in motion / you hear
yourself / speaking // people think you still / have the same shape / you still smell / the same //
and you too / can be convinced / that you are one person / still, as before // and all ar-ound
you / the dancers / continue to dance / the children still / laugh ¶ The phantoms beckon you to
join them. You have noticed that at times you become totally invisible or if visible you have ceased to
exist. The difference is academic. By now you are only a copy of a human-being and it becomes very
important to disguise it. Wearing outlandish clothes, a caftan or wrapping yourself in a flag, makes
people notice but it doesn’t take long to realize that it’s your clothes they’re looking at not you. Their
glance goes straight through you as if you were a pane of glass. Mind you there are advan-tages to
being a wraith. You can hear people’s thoughts, which is fine, if you like living in an echo ch-amber. It
gets a bit harder when you start hearing screams and the thoughts of monsters and murder-ers. ¶ So
let us return to my youth long ago when I thought that women got pregnant by sitting under trees. ¶
As the train pulled out of the station, the train I had been deposited in by Dick O’Tool after a sleepless
night after that final cataclysmic argument with my father, I knew that I was at a turning poi-nt in my
life. Some awful things happen to human beings and I’ve had my share of them. On top of everything
else I’ve had two involuntary sex-change operations. I’ve been struck by lightning. I’ve been shat on
7
by a pigeon. I do not rate my train journey to Sydney along with these, and yet it weighs more heavily
in my deeper consciousness than the others put together. ¶ Why? What was so special about a
journey that on the face of it was uneventful. As I said I knew that it was a turning point in my life ; but
so what? Many people can look back at a pivotal event in their life more dramatic than a train trip
from Melbourne to Sydney. It is true that I was dishevelled and in a state of intense confusion. I had
not slept for several days and am unable to say whether during the trip I was asleep or awake.
Perhaps there is a borderline state between the two. My eyes were open and I could see that the
other passengers were trying to disguise surreptitious stares that every now and then they cast in my
direction. I realized that the stares were caused by the fact that I had drawn attention to myself by
walking backwards when I went to the toilet and later when I got a drink of water. The reason was I
did not want to wear out the toes of my shoes. Shoes last much longer if the soles are worn down
evenly. I had already previously caused stirs at the local shopping centre in Coburg by this practice.
There are other idiosyncracies of my behaviour I could describe which would be equally untrue. An
author owes it to his readers to keep them entertained. I put in the part about walking backwards for a
bit of colour : to set the mood as it were. If only it were that easy to describe what was really going
on. ¶ There is a school of thought claiming that certain experiences cannot be described because
there is no language available to describe them. The insights of mystics and the spirits that hermits
meet in the deserts may be so extraordinary that they have no labels in the world of the market place.
Langu-age is after all a product of consensus. There are things I could tell you that you simply
wouldn’t bel-ieve : like the time I met God. Not the vague theoretical god of the theologians,
philosophers or other emotional midgets that hang around universities and write books. Not some
animating spirit as desc-ribed by Spinoza or a Jungian archetype that lurks in the common
subconscious. But the real God : the one that speaks with a voice like thunder and walks on the
waters. So it may be that it is impos-sible to explain the significance of the train journey. ¶ The more I
think about it the more I am convin-ced that it would be a futile attempt. The dual hurdle of
experiences that cannot be described and events that you will not believe cannot be overcome. The
journey I was on had no precedents in my earlier life, not even remotely analogous experiences
which with the help of a huge imaginative leap could have guided me through these times. Because
you also have no analogous experiences in your life I know I cannot describe that journey to you. ¶
According to Borges there are events that fall out-side the common measure of time. Time is a direct
measure of consciousness. It is a measure of change within the consciousness ; a tool weilded by
individual minds of self exploration either of the individual consciousness or the common
consciousness of mankind. It is a description of one aspect of consciousness. Music is another
description, particularly of man’s common consciousness. The creature mankind is outside time as
time is one of its products, used by it to define and explore the direction of its consciousness ; and
the direction it will take. Hence time is an act of will. Since time is secondary and consciousness is
primary all eternity could conceivably find expression in an instant of consciousness. So how can I
describe an even that happens outside time? ¶ What I can tell you is that though I didn’t walk
backwards and no one cast meaningful looks at me I was in constant comm-unication with a good
number of passengers in the carriage. Our communication was carried out in silence as it was non
verbal and the casual observer would not even have noticed signs of mutual recognition. The
conversations I was having were by body language. The study of body language is now common
place in institutions of higher learning and has become just another item in the bag of tricks used by
school teachers and salesmen to get their message across but in those days it was understood only
by a few foreign scholars and I had to discover it for myself. The amazing thing was to find how many
of us were unknowingly communicating in such a way. For me it was a discovery of crucial
importance because it was the only way I could converse without it being picked up on the receivers
my brothers had hidden about the house and which were in the possession of the police and the TV
crews who were monitoring me. Also since the messages they transmitted into my brain were and
could only be verbal I felt that if I trained myself to communicate entirely by body language I would be
gaining a measure of freedom from their attempts to control me. Most experts now recogn-ize that
8
90% of the real communication that goes on between people is with body language ; but at that time I
was breaking new ground. I must say, even though it sounds conceited, that in the sheer number of
messages I leant to interpret I was ahead of my time. I took particular note of minute chan-ges in skin
colour and of pupil dilation. When I shook hands I could gauge skin temperature and det-ect small
fluctuations in electrical conductivity in the dryness or sweatiness of the hand. I even learn-ed to
secretly measure a person’s pulse during the handshake. I could detect changes in people’s smell in
the course of a conversation carried out in body language. More recently I have learnt to tell which
nostril a person is breathing through at any particular moment. As you may know people bre-athe
through the right nostril when they are thinking predominantly with the left hemisphere and the left
nostril when they are using the right hemisphere. The nostril in use makes the higher pitched sound.
With training you can learn to pick that up. After a while you practically become a mind reader. At the
time of the journey my knowledge was still rudimentary and relied largely on hand signals. ¶ A tap on
the nose meant ‘you are one of us I greet you’. Ruffling the hair on the back of your head meant ‘they
are all around us pretend you haven’t noticed me’. A small slap on the thigh with the palm of the hand
meant ‘do not speak on any account in case the receivers pick it up’. Rubbing the ball of your hand
against your eye meant ‘they might be onto us’. Rubbing both your eyes simultaneously meant ‘they
are definitely onto us cease all communication’. Rubbing your balls meant ‘form a circle and drag in
the moll’. Rubbing your hands together in a hand washing motion meant ‘there are no facsimiles in
the immediate area but be careful’. Crossing your legs and tapping the ground urgently with the
bottom foot meant ‘ warning there is a transmitter somewhere very close’. Crossing your legs and
wiggling the higher foot meant ‘they are transmitting now’. Alternatively it could mean ‘I’m busting for
a leak’. Resting your chin in the palm of your hand meant ‘they are beaming straight at me but I am
blocking them out’. Bringing your left hand to your nose and making an exaggerated sniffing noise
meant ‘I have just spotted a replicator’. Two brief tugs on an earlobe meant ‘there are also aliens
here’. And so on. These are just some ot the signals that were in use then. As it’s become apparent
that they could be learnt by everyone including the replicators, facsimiles, all other kinds of copies of
people, and even aliens, it became necessary to change them. Before body language became a scie-
nce you could rely on it being the only true language. Now every salesman can learn little tricks like
crinkling the corners of his eyes when he smiles. If you are keen you can easily practice how to do
things like dilate and contract your pupils by using bio-feedback techniques. But I am getting ahead of
myself. There were times when I walked down the passage of the carriage that I was in a frenzy of
communication with everyone around me. At other times the transmitter in my head was going so
loudly that the best I could do was close my eyes, put my head in my hands, and only barely manage
to prevent myself from screaming. ¶ As I remembered it , the realization that the world was divided
into real people like me and into copies of people, was not a sudden one. Flashes of enlightenment
have visited me on many occasions but the knowledge that not all people who looked like humans
were genuine came to me slowly and only after much verification. The further refinement that these
copies could be divided into replicators, facsimiles, simulacra, homunculi, doppelgangers, robots and
so on was gained by communicating in body language with real people. It all happened in those
naïve days when body language could be relied upon to be honest, before the copies of people had
learned to imitate it. My main task was to keep in contact with the rest of humanity against the efforts
of the imitations to overcome and then supplant us. By the time I was heading for Sydney I had
realized that my brothers and my father and even my mother were almost certainly replicators
themselves. It was even possible that they were the leaders of the replicators or somehow connected
with their produc-tion. That is why it was so important for them to control me : I was the only one who
knew them well enough, who had a clear perception of how they had betrayed humanity, and who
could be a threat to their plans. I knew that I was not one of them. I knew that I could never return to
the house of my chi-ldhood. This was no ordinary journey ; this is no ordinary train. ¶ My lifelong
mission to evade and then triumph over the automatons continues today. Bear with me for awhile,
innocent reader, while I try to give a small insight into the magnitude of the task. The stakes are
enormous. To survive, the automatons must feed on the human spirit itself. It is their only food and
9
their only source of power. They are emotional cretins who dissect, label, manipulate and finally
digest the human soul without the faintest intuition of the breadth, the intensity, the colour, the beauty
and perversity, of its emotional sweep. The penalty for losing the war with the morons, as I shall call
them henceforth, is to become shadowy insipid imitations of human beings ourselves. The reward of
victory is the continued free use of our imagination. The problem is how to tell the real humans from
the imitations. The manufacture of morons is being constantly refined as earlier models are
superceded by more sophisticated ones : ¶ now Im going to demonstrate / how to build a man //
the framework is made / from a petrol-eum extract / light and strong / no tendency to go
chalky as is the case with bone / nor is it brittle like fibre glass / and easy to mass-produce
with available techniques // it must be ass-embled carefully / though specialist training is not
required, / each part is numbered / a reas-onably intelligent person / can put it together by
following the code / a code book is provided // joints are not a problem / as was the case with
metal pins / we use flexible swivellers / of polyestered wood / there is no corrosion //
refinements to the transistor / and research on micro circuits / has led to a kidney machine /
smaller than a cigarette lighter / held to the spine by a powerful electromagnet // the aorta /
digestive system / alimentary canal / are made from plastic reinforced with vegetable fibre /
the colours / are purely for ease of identification // the wiring is highly sophisticated / with an
allowance for error / short circuits are eliminated by complete insulation // we did have a
problem with the heart / though essentially a pump / pres-ent engineering has not produced a
substance / which can expand and contract for a sustain-ed period / without developing
molecular fatigue / this is overcome by using the heart of a pig / an animal of similar weight to
man // sexual organs are immeasurably superior / to anything our fathers dreamt of /
university research has produced / a new highly sensitized elasto fibre / the whole kit
designed / to make it possible for our model to copulate with himself // vision is controlled by
a zeik / programmed minuscule computer / shutter speed of one in one thousand of a second /
automatic adjustment for lighting and glare / this man can stare into the sun / wi-thout
damaging his eyes // needless to say / the memory bank is perfect / fully photographic / stored
on micro file // a short wave receiver / allows communication at all times / static is non
existent / there is also a transmitter / so he can give as quickly as receive // in the unlikely
case that servicing may be required / the cranium cavity / leaves ample room for access // if he
doesn’t suit your taste / the package deal includes / a reassembly tool kit / at no extra price ¶
The good old days when you could pick a moron because he didn’t blink when he looked into the sun
are over. Nor do they ooze black liquid when shot ; that was never more than TV fiction. The modern
moron is made out of human tissue like you or me and the electronic circuitry has been replaced by
real nerve fibre. That is why they are able to use current bio-feedback techniques to learn such con-
vincing body language that they have become better at it than us. Hence their tendency to seek jobs
in the PR industry. ¶ The man in the street hasn’t got a chance in buckley’s of picking a moron from a
human. But if you have spent a lifetime at it as I have, with the help of intuition and sharp
observation it can be done. I believe I have developed a kind of sixth sense for picking them. ¶ The
key to detect-ing the morons comes from the fact that their manufacturers, being aliens, had to base
their designs on observations of what constitutes human beings rather than on any innate sense of
what it means to be human. So while external appearances could be copied perfectly, even to the
extent of imitating the infinite variability of physical types by applying the mathematics of chance and
random scatter, personality presented problems. Their first approach was to catalogue the sum total
of human behav-iours and portion it out to various morons by the use of the same random
mathematics they had used to vary outward appearance. The results were so bizarre that they were
instantly recognizable. News readers burst out in uncontrollable laughter at the most inappropriate
story. Mothers spanked their teenage children. People were seen to cry when they won lottery prizes,
and so on. The aliens soon realized that human behaviour was ordered by invisible underlying
principles to which they had no direct access. Their solution was to comb the libraries of the world to
find out what these principles were. From Freud they got the ego, the id, the super ego and the
10
subconscious. From Jung they learnt about race memory, the common unconscious, the archetypes
and the sixteen basic person-ality types. From Bernie Neville they learnt about the psyche and its
division into Appolonian, Prom-ethean and Dionysian syndromes. The new model automatons that
these efforts led to were very co-nvincing and are the immediate predecessors of the modern moron.
Current morons no longer have to be separately manufactured. They have learnt to breed in the
sexual manner and produce offspr-ing. That’s why they are sometimes known as replicators. To
some of them sex is no more than a Latin numeral however. It gives them big problems at the best of
times and they tend to rely heavily on books of how to do it. Sometimes they get it all wrong : like
screwing armpits instead of fannies ; male morons have been known to screw each other and even
cats and dogs for that matter. By and large though they get by. Rearing little morons again gives
problems but they can handle these too with books. The over-reliance on how to do it books is just
one little pointer that can help you to detect them. I have no doubt that if a book was written on how
to blow your nose or how to have a shit some moron would buy it. ¶ It is worth noting that morons
have learnt such subtle human qualities as spon-taneity, imagination, creativity. Careful observation
will show you however that they do not really pos-sess any of these qualities but have learnt rules of
behaviour which make them appear to have them. They actually go to schools where they learn the
rules. Consequently their spontaneity is just a little bit tempered, their imaginations are insipid, their
creativity pedestrian. The morons having no meas-ure by which to judge these attributes, believe that
they are extremely well-endowed in them. They practice diligently at enhancing them. ‘Every day in
every way I get better and better’ said Coue, a French moron. They even practice a form of religion in
which they repeat idiotic little doggerels. Here is one by a moron called Willis Harman : ¶ I am not
separate / I can trust / I can know / I am res-ponsible / I am single-minded ¶ To the morons, who
you must remember have no sense of poetry, this is a kind of prayer. According to Simone Weil, who
is no moron, ‘What is thus brought about by thought direction is in no way comparable to the genuine
attribute. If I say to myself every morning : ‘I am courageous, I am not afraid’, I may become
courageous but with a courage which conforms to what, in my present imperfection, I imagine under
that name, and accordingly my courage will not go beyond this imperfection. It can only be a
modification on the same plane, not a change of plane.” Such is the fate of morons. ¶ It may surprise
you that morons do sometimes believe in god. The god they believe in is invariably one of those
insipid, simplistic intellectual constructs as with the university types. It has to be an abstract entity
because the only faculty they really do have in the same meas-ure as humans is a capacity for
conceptualizing. They are great at analyses, verbalizing and shuffling ideas and categories around.
They are not so good at vision, very poor of hearing, weak on inspirat-ion, emotionally constipated
and always boring. To give credit where it’s due their philosophers do recognize that in matters
regarding the psyche the abstractions and theories they believe in are only metaphors of a reality to
which they cheerfully admit they have no other access. Freud’s egos and ids, Jung’s sixteen
personality types and so on are seen to be only models of possible realities. Con-sequently the
morons are able, while preserving the outward appearances of humanity to be very fle-xible in
behaviour and when necessary ruthlessly opportunistic. Lack of deeper commitments makes them
dangerous adversaries. They can adjust to the most sterile living conditions simply by changing their
set of rationalizations. As our morally bankrupt civilization hurtles towards inevitable destruction the
morons are actually thriving and threaten to overcome us by weight of numbers alone. What the
moron philosophers cannot grasp is that for them since they have no souls their theories are not met-
aphors or models of the psyche but constitute a genuine, and their only reality. The fact of the matter
is that they just can’t tell shit from clay. ¶ Before I go on I will tell you that I know what your’e thinking.
Your’e thinking about the effrontery of a man with a brain transplant and a surgically embedded recei-
ver in his head claiming to be able to distinguish between real people and facsimiles. The
pretentious-ness if it! The irony has not escaped me : sometimes when I feel low I wonder if I haven’t
got it the wrong way round. I’ll tell you about my frontal lobotomy another time. ¶ Back to the journey.
My eff-orts to communicate with my fellow passengers by hand signals does not explain its
importance to me. I was already into body language before the trip. I put that material in as padding.
11
How can I im-press you with the significance of a journey which lasted an instant or a lifetime while I
was neither asleep nor awake or for that matter either, if I don’t fill up a few pages with writing. I
suppose that as my next sighting of my old man was along the barrel of a rifle it is appropriate I
should tell you that it was on the trip that I first heard Freud’s famous dictum that a man does not
grow up until he has mur-dered his father. No one actually said those words on the train but I heard
them loud and clear as if uttered by a very large man right in the middle of my head. That’s also of no
importance. ¶ What I would like to talk about is those spirits, those phantoms deep in the earth that
were calling me, from whose ever more insistent embrace no train journey was ever going to deliver
me. But you wouldn’t understand. ¶ I would also like to tell you about my relationship to my
surroundings at that time ; I mean to the whole physical world. As the phantoms were taking away my
soul the world was rushing in to take its place. I think the word to describe it is – implosion. But I
could talk to you till the cows come home, I could talk till the last ball of the postponed final test, that
has been extended to six days so as to get a result in case of rain, has been bowled and you still
wouldn’t understand. ¶ Have you ever had a dream that consisted entirely of a rush of sound? One
of those dreams where you are in an instant in the grip of a huge chord played by an organ or
orchestra of infinite dimensions, as it the finger of God was being drawn along the rim of your mind,
and you manage to wake yourself up just in time to prevent the vibration of the notes shattering you
into smithereens. Here is another dream. This is a dream which has no visual imagery nor any sound
but consists only of a visceral musical emotion, which envelopes you in a seductive poignancy as
thick as treacle from which you wake up just in time to realize that you had almost lost your soul. If
you have dreams like this perhaps with the help of your imagination you have some idea of what I
mean by implosion. ¶ There is no fence or border that separates your psyche from the world around
you. The chaos of sight and sound, of wind and air is kept at bay only by an act of will and the grace
of God. Should your faith waver for a tiny instant you will be annihilated. ¶ That was the struggle I
was engaged in as the train pulled into Cen-tral Station, Sydney. I came awfully close to losing it. ¶
Meanwhile in a parallel universe or alternat-ively at a different time in our own miserable world Jim
Brown is or was on his way north to Broken Hill. How different a journey that is or was or could be to
my own….”). Ncidntly the toilt blok here haz kold showrz. Durin our mornn daliance H lookt out th
wndow & sor a guy leann gainst hiz kar neer the blok lookn in our drkshn. He woz wern a skarlt rodeo
type jakt & a kowboy h@. …→ Antwerp → Nhill (az w wer havn lnch x th ½ mty lake I lookt ↑ branchz
of th red gum & sor 2 frogmouth (Podargus st-rigoides)) → Goroke → Edenhope → Langkoop → (†
th SA/Vic brdr) → a • nxt 2 a pine plant8n O 2kz short of th Naracoorte-Penola hghway. On the way H
arkst if I thort thr woz nythn ftr deth. Sr10ly thr iz no life ftr deth coz deth iz th nd of life x dfnshn
thrwize w woodnt no wot w ment x deth. Lso thr r no ‘thingz’ ftr deth – u kan point @ thingz bkoz they
r (w make thm) sepr8 from us. Nor kan u say su-mpthn ‘iz’ ftr deth koz 2 say it ‘iz’ (lso a pointn or
placin in frunt of the gaze, hence rdukshnst) blongz 2 life & lngwj. Sum say thr iz singn & harp playin
ftr deth & sum say thr r meny verginz & sum say thr iz fire. I m nklined 2 say thr may b a way-of-bein
(18/4. but w 4m theez werdz in th O az w no it) (a st8) but I hav prolbmz wth “iz thr nythn ftr life?” koz
th nswr 2 th@ iz deth (bsence of life) & I hope its per-mnnt. Wenzday 6/4/05. Th ٠ I ment 2 make but
ddnt get aO 2 ystrdy wth th diagrm : @MZ → MLK-ULEZ → SELZ →ORGNZ → HUMENZ → ? iz
th@ if u r nklined 2 uze th werd god (whch I m not) 2 dskribe th possblty th@ w r part (or in th
prcess of bkumn part) of sumptn gr8r than spr8 nd-vdualz then it makes mor sens 2 think of
him az havn @rbutes whch r x10shnz of th HUMEN prsnalty (ie 1 hoo heerz & mite nswr like th
1 jzuz of nzarth, th pope & th nshnt prfets mplord) than az a prncipl, or a rool, or a lor of
naychr as a kemst or a fizzst (18/4. Einstein (‘There’s a wond-erful family Stein, / There’s Ep, there’s Gert, and
there’s Ein. / Ep’s statues are junk, / Gert’s poems are bunk, / And nobody understands Ein.’) : “I cannot conceive
of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we
experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that
survives his phys-ical death : let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such
thoughts.”) mite wen thinkn O mlkulez or sub tomik partklz tho in th ayj of 1drful teknljkl
cheevmnts meny of us favor th mor rduksh-nst dfnshn …. From our possie between the Glen
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Roy Conservation Area and a local sand mine (operating through the night under arc
lights, with trucks coming and going) we went to Penola, past acres of vineyards
(Coonawarra), one stretch of which was flanked by about ½ k of rose bushes smothered
in bri-ght red roses. Penola was the spot where Mother Mary McKillop (made a saint by
the late pope, who (20/4. he made so meny now they hav 2 make him 1) is already rec-koned
for sainthood himself) set up her first school for the poor. In Petticoat Lane, the historic
district of the town, stand the two cottages of Christopher and Ellen Sharam, parents of
15 children and grandparents of 56. Ellen mar-ried her 30 year old husband at 15 and
produced 4 sons by 21, at which age she was pregnant again with her first daughter. Her
last child was born when she was 41. The original cottage was built in 1850 & the second
one added next door to cope with the continuous stream of children, some or all of
whom probably attended Mother Mary’s school, built in 1857. The town was founded as a
private venture by Alexander Cameron in 1850, “the King of Penola”, and his
entrepreneurship was carried forward by John Riddoch, “the Squire of Pen-ola” who
planted the first vines in the area. By 1863 Penola boasted the second largest library
outside Adelaide. Christopher Sharam, by the way, was a boot-maker whose wares were
of such quality and workmanship that they attracted buyers as far away as Portland. His
nickname was “Long Christie”. Another res-ident was the Reverend Moses Gabb, who
literally built the methodist church in 1908. From Penola (coffee & paper) we headed for
Robe, another historic town, this time on the limestone coast with lovely old stone
buildings. Its very quiet, as SA school holidays don’t start till Vic. ones finish. Tonight we
are at the jetty on Guichen Bay, having done a small walk around the town & Cape
Dombey, where colonies of pigeons live in the pitted limestone cliffs. We also saw a big
flock of yellow tailed black cockatoos on the drive here, as there are plenty of pine
plantations in the area. Both Penola and Robe are particularly well-kept towns and Penola
could well set the standard for historical preservation and interpretation – the local
information centre has a rich and extensive display. Robe has a good one, too, which
mentions (18/4. it lso sez th@ Adam Lindsay Gordon hoo had bn a plice troopr, ruf-rider on pastrl
st8nz, dairdvl, had 1 hors racez & woz up til then aust-raliaz most faimus poet & hoo kmitd suiside in
Melbourne @ th ayj of 37 in 1870 had livd in th 9 4 ‫ ٱ‬yeerz & sed th@ Robe woz “the little town
where I learned to live again”. Here iz a sampl of hiz vers (from ‘Whisperings in the Wattle-
boughs’) : “Oh, gaily sings the bird, and the wattle-boughs are stirr’d / And rustled by the
scented breath of spring : / Oh, the dreary, wistful longing! wistful longing! / Oh, the
faces that are throng-ing! / Oh, the voices that are vaguely whispering!” Nuther thing it
mnshnz iz th@ thr woz a cannery in Robe which spshlized in canned mutton, canned black swan
(Cygnus atratus) (th sOn ‫ ٱ‬woz swampy) & canned parrot (Psittaci)) that some 20,000 Chinese
disembarked here and walked to the Victorian goldfields to avoid the Victorian
government’s poll tax. (16/4/05. Lucky for them there was no equivalent of Phillip
Ruddock or Amanda Vanst-one or they’d all be still sitting in the holding pens on Nauru).
Speaking of Ch-inese, John had a fillet of Red Emperor for lunch. Therzdy 7/4/05. If w think
of god (2-3/4. a wel known Melbourne dntity & vlnteer drug kownslr (kordn 2 ‘The Big Issue’ no. 226,
pp17-19) hoo smtimez korlz himslf ‘Cock in a Frock’ & hoo @ th ayj of 16 yeerz & 9 munths woz givn
1 of th last govt fundd fruntl lbotomeez in oz sed : “Well, I found God, didn’t I? And not that
Christian bastard of a God, but a God of my own understanding, that I choose to call
God.”) az n x10shn of th bioljkl O then it iz posbl w r kmprbl 2 th orgnz in thr rl8nshp 2 us. They hav
thr dffrnt funkshnz nkmprhnsbl 2 chuthr. Sum of us mite b ment 2 b leedrz, sum folwrz, sum prviderz
of lngwj, sum saints. Thr mite b chozen tribez or evn a naishn chozen 2 bring dmokrcy 2 th midl eest
(23/4. kngr@ul8nz & thanks 2 Michael Leunig 4 yor rtkl on p9 of ‘Insight’ in 2daiz ‘Age’) & 2 spred
ordr & jstice O th O. Meny put up thr h& wth klaimz o
f a speshl role & nolj of godz @rbutes, in prtkular hiz 6ual prfrnces (21/4. Benedict sez god reknz gaiz
r good 4 0). Only prolbm, if w r 2 b true 2 th skema I hav prpozed, iz w hav no way of nowin th@ th
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rolez w klaim hav bn ssignd 2 us x him. But in pushn th naljy I may myslf b gilty of klai-mn nolj of godz
@ributes – I DO NOT. …. Thoz of us hoo hav xprienced pifannies (komn in th US of A whr a mjrty hav
had born gain psodez), vzionz or th nolj of bein wer w shood b, r przmshs 2 kredt thm 2 th 1 god 4 w
dont know how ↑ or ↓ w r in th ordr of thingz & it may b thr r meny (or 0) hghrar-keez of godz hoo
dtrmin our dstneez & sum of thm may b daemonz hooz prpoz iz 2 test & knfuze us. & az 4 th saints &
th mirklz they per4m my krdulity iz straind les x th posblty of mas histria (23/4. a mor mazin fnmna
than any mirkl), poor rportn & skribez mskwotin (meny mirklz wil b rportd in pol& (22/4. I kan majn th
trafk jam of em sholdr 2 sholdr goin ↑ th naro stairway on their neez @ Aušros Vartai in Vilnius (c
‘Vilnius → Melbourne’ pp1,5&6,9)) in th neer future). Az I sed (c ‘21/3/05 – 25/3/0-5’) I do not dsmis
mraklz out of h& but I bet Ill nvr c ny1 raizd from th ded …. Tonight we are at the Stony Rise
camping area (5 spots cleared from dense coastal vegetation at the end of a long narrow
entrance track about 3ks from Robe, in the Little Dip Conservation Park). We can hear
the ocean. Today we walked the town tracks and beaches. John had a fillet of Boarfish
(much lauded by the locals). I noti-ce he is returning in his writing to a favourite theme –
that the lower echelons in the basement filing room have no idea who or what the files
are meant for, not unlike the tea ladies who work at CIA (20/4. in th oz jnseez th top gize lso
hav no id-eer) headquarters. Kate left a message on John’s mobile to say she and Gary are
moving to Churchill in a fortnight’s time. In the historic Robe cemetry we saw the grave
of Thomas Christian Backler, the Robe town crier who died in 1902. The headstone gave
his name and the punchline that he was known as “Tom the Snob” – there’s one epitaph
that didn’t pull its punches! … I m not sayn w kant no wot th upr eshlnz r up 2 (18/4. az I m not
prpaird 2 nmn8 nkapciteez any mor than @rbutes 2 evn a hypothetkl rdukshnst god – lest I b
JUJD (23/4. last nite FnL wer teln us (thru th wndow of Joes Garage in Brunswick st) th@ Freud dide
in a train goin thru a tunl. If this iz true (I dont bleev it) it mee-nz, sez H, th@ he dide nside hiz own
symbl.)). I m sayn th@ in th nlikely evnt sum1 iz privy 2 god(z) th rest of us woodnt b abl 2 no (& w
woodnt no wat w ment x ‘2 no’) he woz nlss he dun mrkalz & pos-bly not evn then. W kan nly juj x
humen @rbutes : if he drank like a fsh, shagd like a rabt, woz a blio-nair & woz goin strong @ 150
wed probly say he woz th 1, & if he woz a setk in th dzrt feedn on wild huny & grashprz wed say he
woz th Oy 1. Yes, I m goin in Os – wlkum 2 th labrnth! Fridy 8/4/05. Yst-rdy H rkond I woz tryin 4 th
theery of verythn. If so it meenz Im getn vrnvolvd & hav lost me way. My aim iz 2 pas kmnt on how
uthrz speek not 2 ofr pnions mslf. Sum say u kan c th O in a grain of s& (note Borgesz ‘Aleph’
(c ‘21/3/05 – 25/3/05’ p14)), uthrz th@ th part iz nkapbl of nowin th O. Wittgenstein sez wot kant
b sed iz best left nsed. Th trip haz a week 2 go but this iz a good • 2 fn-sh off th ritin 4 th piece I m
putin out. I dont wont it 2 get 2 long az it haz bn mainly n xkuse 2 prvide a frame 4 th nxt dsgustn
pisode from ‘IN TRANSIT’.

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