The day was spent serving food to various tables of strangers for breakfast, lunch and dinner: a trifecta of restaurant shifts. My waking hours began somewhere around 4 AM, ended sometimes close to 1 AM, and were bookended by headaches. But in the middle of the day, as I drove from my day job to my night job, changing uniforms and switching name tags in the car, a full rainbow opened up in the sky.
It reached all the way across the city, from end to end, clear and bright, like it belonged just in that very spot.
And for five minutes, it was easy to believe that it had had always been there, all along.
I realized that it’s almost Christmas and I still haven’t posted pictures of our lovely little Christmas tree!
I really like putting up holiday decorations, but never did it when I lived on my own. There’s something nice about having another person around the house to help herald the changing seasons with.
Or maybe putting up Your First Christmas Tree Together is just a Hallmark moment for all newly-minted couples. Ewww! Anyway, Kim and I had fun putting up the (fake, K-mart) tree together, and I think it looks really great. No, I am not a girl! I just like Christmas, OK?? (click any of the pictures for bigger versions!)
My family’s tradition is that my parents gave all us kids at least one Christmas ornament every year, to eventually start our own Christmas trees with, and those ornaments make up a big part of the decorations, along with a few that Kim and I bought together while we were in America.
Kim also tied bows to our tree and even made chocolate Christmas ornaments in the shape of Australian animals! Here’s one of them that I haven’t eaten yet. It’s a kookaburra!
We also hung up icicle lights outside our house (scandal?), even though you can’t see them very well in this picture. Our mismanaged garden should give you a sense that it’s summer, though.
But what’s that lurking down the end of our hallway??
RAWWWR!!
Silly dinosaur, it is too warm for a Christmas scarf!
One of my wife’s favorite Christmas songs is this tale of a little kangaroo being kidnapped from a zoo by Santa Claus. It’s actually pretty adorable.
Written and performed by Aussie ex-pat Rolf Harris (of “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” fame), the song is an an Australian riff on Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and The Night Before Christmas. Since reindeer can’t cut it in the Aussie summer, Santa subs them out for kangaroos when making trips down under.
These are kangaroo bucks, or “boomers,” and they’re strong enough that it only takes six of them to pull Santa’s sleigh. Much more efficient than those puny “eight little reindeer.” And since it’s Christmas, and kangaroos don’t come in red or green, well, they might as well be white, the albino variety! Albinism is festive!
Curiously, rather than the night before Christmas, this story takes place on the day AFTER Christmas. After he’s finished delivering gifts (”pressies” as they’re called Down Under) in the Western Hemisphere, Santa spots a baby kangaroo that’s been stolen from its mother and placed in some cold Northern zoo, and being Santa Claus, he knows that the only thing this little joey could want for Christmas is to be reunited with her. Now, because it’s Christmas in Australia before anywhere else in the world, he’s already delivered Christmas pressies to all the Aussie girls and boys, but Santa makes a special trip back to return the lost Joey. Even as fast as Santa’s kangaroo-powered sleigh goes, they can’t make it back until December 26.
Good thing kangaroos don’t pay much attention to human holidays.
Besides having a rousing chorus that reportedly sends Australian children bounding excitedly around the house, the song is packed with charming little details: when Santa gets to sweltering Australia, he takes off his big, fur-lined boots, and the joey hops into one of them. It’s a cute touch, and actually pretty consistent with natural behavior, since joey raised by humans like to be carried around in bags and other things that resemble pouches. And when they fly over the Outback, Harris specifically mentions them passing Marble Bar, a tiny town in Western Australia which is adjacent to a geological site known as … The North Pole.
I find it hard to believe that there’s never been an animated Christmas special made based on this song, since it seems tailor-made for such a treatment. But maybe Aussies don’t go crazy for Christmas specials like the Yankees do. Anyway, it’s a very fun song and I think holds up well against other classic holiday tunes from all over the world. Add it to your X-mas playlist today!
Sub-freezing temperatures are troubling most of my friends and family back in the States. Everyone I talk to is tired of the cold.
Meanwhile, in Adelaide:
One of the great things about Adelaide is that there are a wealth of great conservation parks and nature reserves literally in the city’s backyard. This weekend Kim and I had a rare mutual afternoon off, and we decided to take advantage of the great, not-yet-scorching weather by hiking at the Black Hill Conservation Park, which is about a 20 minute drive from our house.
Not to be confused with America’s Black Hills (where I worked in 2003), Adelaide’s Black Hill was more yellow than any other color. I’d love to check it out during the spring or winter, but at this time of the year it’s all tinderbox dry. Still beautiful, though. Little lizards scrambled to hide from us, and other unseen creatures rustled through the tall, brittle grass all the way along the hike.
Though it looks more like a turkey, I think this is supposed to be an echidna greeting us on the sign at the trail entrance. Sadly, we did not spot any of the spiny anteaters on our hike.
We did see some Australian magpies, though.
These birds are as common as crows, but I far prefer magpies’ coloring and warbling.
We do still barrack (Aussie for “root” as in “root, root, root for the home team” … “root” as verb has a much ruder connotation down here!) for the Adelaide Crows when it comes to Australian Rules Football, though.
In terms of flora, we saw some small patches of purple wildflowers that Kim will have to remind me the name of. There’s also a part of the trail called Ghost Tree Valley (spooky!), which was home to some big Ghost Gums.
All in all, it was a pretty fun afternoon. We were very glad that we brought sunscreen, though! The sun was out in full force. Hopefully it doesn’t heat up too much this summer before we’re able to take a few more hikes, but already they’ve started to close some trails for the season. Crazy.
Scope out that view one more time:
You can see all the way to the ocean … maybe our next trip should be to the beach!
“Icicle lights,” those fancy Christmas designed to mimic the shape of icicles hanging off of rooftops, can be found all over Australia at this time of year, which is pretty hilarious considering that in Australia it’s now the beginning of summer.
I used to think all the Winter Solstice trappings of Christmas were odd when I was living in Southern California, when people would deck themselves out in scarves and sweaters to brave the 60° F (15° C) weather, and decorate their houses with big glowing snowflakes and inflatable snowmen. But at least in California it was actually winter, even if you had to look really hard and pretend to shiver in order to tell.
But here, we still have the snowflakes and the fur hats and the icicle lights, even though it is blooming SUMMER, and furthermore, even in winter it never, ever, EVER snows in South Australia. (There are rumors that once, on one day, there was an insubstantial bit of snow on Mount Lofty, but this exception proves the rule, doesn’t it? Also, it is probably a LIE.)
Here, your only chance of having a White Christmas is to head out to the salt plains in the middle of the desert. Like this:
(This is my Christmas present to the Internet: a shirtless picture of me. You’re welcome!)
But Christmas still has most of the cultural trappings that Americans or Europeans would expect. Nothing screams “Nation of Immigrants” more than steadfastly clinging to wintry traditions in the middle of summer, but over the years, the Aussies have managed to develop some of their own Christmas culture more suited for life under the Southern Cross, including their own Christmas Carols.
To whit: Australian Jingle Bells:
To me, this still sounds like an immigrant’s song (”oh we come from the land of the ice and snow …” no, just kidding), since the song is a parody of the original, and to my ears the lyrical theme is basically “Christmas Down Under is hot! Isn’t that strange?” But I reckon that native Aussies might hear it differently. At any rate, it’s a charming reworking of Jingle Bells, with plenty of Australian slang thrown in for good measure (and national pride!) Here are the lyrics, with my translation in parenthesis):
Dashing through the bush
In a rusty Holden Ute(Holden is an Aussie car company, and Ute = utility vehicle, or pickup truck) Kicking up the dust
Esky in the boot(An esky is a cooler and a car’s boot is what Yankees know as its the trunk) Kelpie by my side(According to my wife, “Kelpies are THE quintessential Australian cattle dog”) Singing Christmas songs
Its summer time and I am in
My singlet, shorts and thongs(Reassuringly, thongs here just means sandals. A singlet is a tank top)
CHORUS
Oh, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells
Jingle all the way
Christmas in Australia
On a scorching summer’s day
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells
Christmas time is beaut
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a rusty Holden Ute
Engine’s getting hot
Dodge the kangaroos
Swaggy climbs aboard (AKA a swag-man, AKA a tramp or a hobo. My wife says this is a reference to the legendary swag-man from the song Waltzing Matilda, and picking up hitchhikers is not an integral part of Australian Christmas traditions.) He is welcome too
All the family is there
Sitting by the pool
Christmas day, the Aussie way
By the barbecue!
CHORUS
Come the afternoon
Grandpa has a doze
The kids and Uncle Bruce
Are swimming in their clothes
The time comes round to go
We take a family snap
Then pack the car and all shoot through
Before the washing up
So there you go. I can’t quite get over the idea of going for a swim on Christmas Day, but my wife says that this song does a pretty good job of describing her childhood memories of Christmas (minus the kelpie and the swagman!). That’s actually more than I can say for the traditional version of Jingle Bells, which has always made me think of Christmas cartoons and 19th century carolers rather than anything from my actual experience.
In fact, I don’t think I know anyone, even in chilly America, who’s ever been dashing through the snow on one-horse open sleigh.
Unlike the states, Australia doesn’t have matinee prices for movies. If you want to see a film at a discounted rate, you don’t go in the afternoon, you go on a Tuesday. I’m not exactly sure how “Tight Ass Tuesday” started, but I’ll take a bargain when I can get one.
However, instead of seeing a half-price movie today, Kim and I saw a preview showing of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and paid full-price for the privilege. We had to forego tight-assedness to see this movie, but I thought it would be worth it, gentle readers, if I could review the movie before it hits in the States.
The short review? I learned my lesson — I should have been a tight ass.
Below is the longer review, which is spoiler-free for your convenience.
In some ways, Wolverine rather closely approximates the experience of sprawling out on the floor and reading a pile of comics from a late-’90s superhero series in quick succession. This isn’t exactly a good thing.
The movie is pieced together episodically, out of little set-pieces. These each feature oddly contrasting tones — ponderous, angst-filled, explosive or wacky you name it. Just like each issue of a comic might be completely different than the one that came before it, Wolverine frequently feels like a series of scenes clipped out of very different movies.
Every sequence also introduces or features different “guest stars,” the sort that would be highlighted a comic book cover (e.g., “In this issue: Agent Zero!”), only to disappear in the next issue. Just like that, characters enter the picture and exit ten minutes later. And when characters do reappear later down the road, it’s often as if they’ve been scripted by a different writer, who has forgotten their initial purpose of motivation. It’s as if the separate pieces of the film aren’t really allowed to communicate with each other.
As you’d expect, the plot is all over the place, but that’s works in the film’s favor. Though there isn’t much that’s surprising or shocking in the individual episodes, between the rotating cast of characters, shifting narrative tone and the frequency that the plot changes course, it’s hard to get bored.
The acting is actually quite respectable, considering the inherent goofiness of the material — the cast could have easily elevated this beyond b-movie level if only the script had been better.
Fortunately, none of the main actors had to participate in the prologue, set in the 19th century, which is overwrought and basically hilarious. Though it might have made a nice little period horror film by itself, tagging that story onto the beginning of this one and feels weird and unnecessary.
Even more puzzling is the opening credits sequence, which breezes through 150 years and four wars without so much as a line of dialogue. Apparently, the main characters never age and can survive anything, but for some reason filmmakers were not interested in making a movie about that. I wish they had scrapped the rest of the film and just expanded what we see in the credits!
Finally, If you don’t know what a mutant is in the Marvel universe, you probably will be very confused by this movie. But that might make it more enjoyable, since it doesn’t make a lick of sense anyway.
Kim asked me today what I will miss most about America when I return to Oz:
a). freedom
b). maple bars
or
c). bacon
The answer, of course is:
d). the freedom to eat bacon-covered maple bars.
Can you can get such a delightful concoction anywhere besides Portland’s Voodoo Doughnut? I don’t know, but you sure as shootin’ can’t get them Down Under. Woe and calamity!
Until I find I a reliable source of American bacon, all I shall know is buckets of woe.
I am smack dab in the middle of Australia at the moment. Kim and I took the Old Ghan railroad up to Alice Springs from Adelaide, a 24-hour trip, and like a lot of tourists we sort of expected Uluru (AKA Ayers Rock), the iconic symbol of central Autralia, to be close to the town. It is in fact 5,000 km from the town. That’s five hours drive at top speed. It is not close at all! We are in the middle of a two day expedition there, and so far things are good. My time at the internet is almost up, so I will have to write more later!
xo
It’s the middle of July, and every time I look at the calendar my eyes bulge out a bit, and I shake my head in disbelief; my Adam’s apple makes a long, exaggerated bob in my throat as I try to come to grips with the date. Imagine a “BWOINK” sound followed by a “whubawhubawhuba” and finally a deep, guttural “GUlp!” Imagine a hapless cartoon character, Dagwood Bumstead perhaps, being given a large bill at a restaurant. Imagine that after he pays the bill a small white moth flutters out of his wallet.
Somehow, it’s July. I feel like it should still be May! What happened to June?!
Well: I spent June traveling. That month has been converted to digital photographs and postcards, mostly unsent. I finally emptied my wallet of spare won and yen the other day, but changing the mental currency of a month spent traveling into something usable back home (wherever home is), turns out to be a trickier thing.
My writing is lagging badly, my personal correspondence has painfully dwindled, and even my poker game has hit a dry spell.
These are the effects of coming out of a Traveler’s Fog, of returning to a day-to-day schedule after weeks of hopping trains, consulting guidebooks and lugging backpacks down unknown alleyways. Two weeks after returning from Japan and Korea, I’m only now starting to emerge and get back into a groove.
At least I’m applying for jobs now and on Friday I finished putting this together for Australia’s Most Remote Zine Fair:
More details soon.
It’s 1:30 a.m. and I have spent a good aprt of the evening walking around the alleys of downtown Kyoto looking for a Tanuki (mythical badger) shrine. I’m too tired to write much, so here is a photo of Totoro, your neighbor and mine, at a Shinto shrine in the Fuji/Five Lakes region that Kim and I biked around yesterday. Also note the wasps’ nest in the statue’s eyebrow.
