sydney tonight

Well, Sydney did Earth Hour tonight: billed as a "commitment to reducing global warming". So, a lot of the lights of the city were turned off for an hour tonight. Don't think anyone else in the world did it. Did they?

Annette and I dug out a few candles and turned off our lights and most other stuff for an hour from 7.30 pm till 8.30 pm. Well, a little bit before and after, an Earth Hour And A Quarter.

Although the lights were supposed to go out around the CBD, I walked up the street to the ridge around 8.20 pm and noticed that, while some of our streets seemed quite dark, the city was still a bit lit. I waited till 8.30 and not much happened, no great flood of light again. I met a neighbour who wondered as well. I said maybe it's because it's a Saturday and not many building lights would have been on anyway. Anyway, I got to talk to some of the neighbours I hadn't really met before.

Annette had decided she would stay home, so she wasn't with me. She was watching the World Championship swimming and wanted to see that gorgeous French swimmer, Laure Manadou, win the 400. Which she didn't. An American won. Yet again. Oh well. But the Yanks don't seem to be quite as arrogant as they used to be, so you don't mind it. They are good at the moment. And the Australians aren't quite so arrogant, either. Well, nothing to be arrogant about, really. Australia isn't winning that much. Though the Aussie girl's relay win was enjoyable. Good to see swimmers from Sweden, Korea, Tunisia, etc, win something over the last week. And it's only a splash in a pool.

Comments

Meredith Jones said…
I thought the earth hour was a bit of a non event. We wandered up the hill too but nothing seemed much different. I think the reason the city lights didn't flood back on at 8.30 was because most office buildings turned everything off on Friday nights - at UTS that's was we did. Twas good that Centrepoint Tower was turned off though...
01/04/2007, 20:00
Post a Comment

Popular Posts

vale Jackson Mac Low 1922-2004

Belatedly, wanting to acknowledge the passing of Jackson Mac Low last week. There's an obituary at The New York Times and here's more info on Mac Low . The poem below is from his series of Light Poems. 1ST LIGHT POEM: FOR IRIS -- 10 JUNE 1962 The light of a student-lamp sapphire light shimmer the light of a smoking-lamp Light from the Magellanic Clouds the light of a Nernst lamp the light of a naphtha-lamp light from meteorites Evanescent light ether the light of an electric lamp extra light Citrine light kineographic light the light of a Kitson lamp kindly light Ice light irradiation ignition altar light The light of a spotlight a sunbeam sunrise solar light Mustard-oil light
Read more

Questions, but no answers: while editing a manuscript

I’m in the process of editing something so all these strange questions come for me. I have no answers. Well, not exactly. And not while I’m in the midst of this process. What might a book be saying or declaring? Is what it’s not saying as important? But how can we know what it’s not saying? Does a book actually say anything? Didn’t someone write? Well, did they? OK, does even the writer know what they re saying? Could you write a book about what the book isn’t about? What are the words not saying? Is it the words, each of them, or the phrases, or the sentences or lines? Who is or isn’t in the poem? Who is knocking on the door to come into the poem? (Oh, so, here’s a metaphor!) Who doesn’t give a shit? Are these simply random, stumbling questions? Are any questions random? Is it a return of the repressed? What are the book’s gestures? ‘Wo es war, soll ich werden’, anyone? Is the book a symptom of something? So, the book
Read more

here and now

Image
There’s a new anthology of Australian poetry just hit the decks. I think the official publication date was early January, but there were plenty copies in bookshops before Christmas. I bought one in one of my favourite bookshops, Kinokuniya, in Sydney, in December. There’s some discussion about it going on Laurie Duggan’s blog , especially about the cover. I’m not so keen on the cover but others I know think that it’s fine. And there is always going to be the usual argument about who is in and who is out, and why. I've been left out of enough anthologies and been in a few (I'm in this one, for instance), and have said my piece on that a few times too many in the past, so perhaps it's not the place to join that discussion for the moment. I’m more interested in John Kinsella’s comment in one of his introductory essays (you can read all of this essay on the Penguin website ): “The publication or presentation of innovative verse-novels, prose poetry, hypertextual poetry, multim
Read more