The Festive Season ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds; While visions of sugar-plums … [Read more…]
Deck the Halls ‘The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.’ The late Johnny Carson, comedian & former host of The Tonight Show. My Christmas tree has landed and my apartment is now … [Read more…]
Enticed by Black Leather ‘You watch the white line and try to lean with it . . . howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica . . . letting off now watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and … [Read more…]
All Hallows Eve Halloween wasn’t always orange pumpkins, plastic skeletons and job lots of candy. At this time of year Christmas trimmings and Halloween decorations are fighting for shelf space in megastores. And while nobody was paying attention, Halloween surreptitiously crept over most of October and Christmas decided to manifest early. In my … [Read more…]
Venus was her name Goddess on the mountain top Burning like a silver flame The summit of beauty and love And Venus was her name She’s got it Yeah, baby, she’s got it … Venus by Bananarama For centuries artists have been enamoured by the mythological goddess Venus. Sandro Botticelli’s Venus is … [Read more…]
A Dog’s Life During our city’s pandemic Shutdown restrictions, I’ve been getting to know my neighbours. By that I mean the local dogs and their owners. Subsequently, I’ve come to the conclusion that only the dogs are living their best lives. Cats are a different matter. My neighbour’s cat has taken to the … [Read more…]
The Perils of Netflix ‘If we humans disappeared overnight, the world would probably be better off.’ Sir David Attenborough – the British Naturalist, after observing beasts of every species for nearly a century. I no longer own a television. It was an elegant piece of equipment with superb clarity and great sound but … [Read more…]
The Zen of Happiness Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it. David Lee Roth, American rock musician. To be sure there are people who are largely unscathed by our global pandemic and their happiness seems unblemished. … [Read more…]
The Very Rich Are Different ‘Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful …’ F. Scott Fitzgerald A few days ago, … [Read more…]
Wine Snobbery ‘A man cannot make him laugh – but that’s no marvel: he drinks no wine.’ William Shakespeare Some time ago I was at a dinner party for eight and it was getting late. The hostess had got herself ossified on neat Scotch as she prepared a delectable … [Read more…]
Ritual Madness The Ancient Greeks were enthralled by opposing forces and heavily invested in two of their gods, Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo was the god of reason and wisdom – devoted to logical thinking, patience and duty. Dionysus was significantly more adventurous and dealt in the realms of imagination, play and chaos. Dionysus – … [Read more…]
Cake in the Time of Pandemic ‘I’m known in Melbourne for this elegant, sophisticated pastry – the croissant – and the cruller is the exact opposite. It’s a super naughty New York street treat … there is nothing refined or elegant about it.’ Kate Reid, proprietor of Lune Croissanterie In 2020 … [Read more…]
Finding a Soulmate Unbroken happiness is a bore: it should have ups and downs. Moliere Some folk secretly hope that hiding in the wings is their one and only soulmate. Many spend their lives looking for this very special person, believing that once they find the one they will live happily ever after. … [Read more…]
Publish and be damned Well some people try to pick up girls And get called assholes This never happened to Pablo Picasso He could walk down your street And girls could not resist his stare and So Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole … Pablo Picasso lyrics by The Modern Lovers The … [Read more…]
Naked in Leopard Skin Born into Italian aristocracy in 1881 and heiress to a fortune made in cotton, Luisa Casati managed to run up personal debts of $25 million. She and her sister had been orphaned when both parents died and Luisa was only fifteen years old. The Marchesa Casati was a devotee of the … [Read more…]
Cleopatra’s Erotic Vagrancy Cleopatra V11 – born around 69 BC – was an object of fascination and gossip even in her own time. She was a child goddess who was married off to her brother and became Egypt’s queen at eighteen. After many poisonings, killings, plot twists and turns, Cleopatra went on to … [Read more…]
Romancing the Mushroom pine mushrooms live a thousand years in one autumn Den Sutejo 1633-1698 (translated by Makoto Ueda) Autumn in Melbourne is a fine time to take a trip to the Prahran Market and visit the wild mushroom man, Damien Pike. For many years he’s been sourcing and selling mushrooms. Much … [Read more…]
The Insanity of Love ‘Marriage is the tomb of love.’ Giacomo Casanova Some time ago I went to hear Alain de Botton – philosopher and author speaking about modern relationships and love in Melbourne’s gloomy town hall. I’m not sure our drafty town hall is conducive to love. The couple in … [Read more…]
My Favourite Horror Child Eloise and I go way back. At about seven I discovered six-year-old Eloise. She was parent-free, running amuck in the Plaza New York with her nanny, a pug and a turtle. I didn’t find it strange that Eloise exercised with champagne bottles, as my sister and I had hidden … [Read more…]
Venus in Steel He has the slimy assurance, the gross patter about transcendence through art, of a blow-dried Baptist selling swamp acres in Florida. And the result is that you can’t imagine America’s singularly depraved culture without him. Robert Hughes on Jeff Koons. Jeff Koons has always been a divisive … [Read more…]
Phoenix Rising ‘Hope. It’s like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It’s a fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. And it’s the only thing in the world keeping me afloat.’ Tahereh Mafi Moira Finucane … [Read more…]
Book Dreaming I’ve often been asked – what are the books that meant a lot to me growing up. This is a difficult question because there are so many books I love. And I often revisit books, usually classics, I already know are going to transport me. In winter there’s pleasure to be had in … [Read more…]
Freud’s Cigar ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.’ Dr Sigmund Freud 1856 -1939. In my novel The Scandalous Life Of Sasha Torte, Sasha is introduced to the famous Austrian neurologist Dr Sigmund Freud, at The Sperl Café in Vienna. Sasha Torte – world famous Tasmanian pastry chef – is very taken with … [Read more…]
My Life as a Nightclub Cocktail Girl When I was a child, my mother used to play vintage movie songs and the lyrics to Gigi were: The night they invented champagne It’s plain as it can be They thought of you and me The night they invented champagne They absolutely knew That all … [Read more…]
The Problem With Henry ‘I swear again, I would not be a queen For all the world.’ Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife. Shakespeare, The Life of King Henry the Eighth. King Henry VIII has been receiving bad press for centuries. Shakespeare, along with later writers and playwrights, got in … [Read more…]