Grant Woodhams, Everyman

Last post we enquired as to the whereabouts of legendary ABC (Perth) weatherman
Grant Woodhams




Well, a simple Google™ did the trick:

GW won a "prestigious media award"


His Nats profile is here

His maiden speech is here


What a guy - isn't he simply wonderful!


lerevdr on Thu 26-May-2005 @ 18:49 e.s.t [permalink]
[2 Comments]

 A Conspiracy of Nature

Brother Tann was recently somewhat embarrassed
about commenting on the weather.

I hastened to reassure him that
'round here, we heart big the weather!

A Conspiracy of Geography™
bestows The Parish
with The Best Weather of the Whirl!

Warm air comes in from the ocean,
hits the cliffs, is pushed up into the mountains
and fat, wet clouds roil up the coast.

Tonight, however, is crystal clear
and the stars hang like diamonds
in the blue/black winter sky.

The Milky Way stretches like a rainbow;
the Southern Cross the brightest jewels in the tiara.

I stand in the street
and soak it all in;
I could do this all night.

What wonderment & awe it inspires!

We know so much about this whirl -
and that makes me proud -

we just don't know why…



PS: does anyone know what happened to
legendary ABC weatherman Grant Woodhams?


lerevdr on Mon 23-May-2005 @ 19:49 e.s.t [permalink]
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 Nick Nolte

Beloved Parishioners,

I have a Big Wet Spot
for Nick Nolte:



Doc in Cannery Row,

Cates in 48 Hours,

Jerry in Down & Out...,

to name but a few…

I love his gravel voice,
I love his jewelled sea;
his beauty and his terror…

And everyone wants to be him;



just for one day…


I have been reading his diary for some time now

and commend it unto you'all.

I'm thinking 'bout Manolo in "La Cage au Folles"; how 'bout you?

This post was prompted by running across this photo:



lerevdr on Wed 18-May-2005 @ 19:00 e.s.t [permalink]
[2 Comments]

 Rachels

Rachel Griffith is
The Bestest Prettiest Sexiest Actress of the Whirl!

especially when she does that smile.

She has The Most Beautiful Lips.

Her sexy eyebrows
remind me of Joan Chen



and 'Nonie - or am I just being suggestible right now?

Oh, no!
Now she has malaria
& is being held prisoner
in New Guinea
by a mad Frenchman
who looks like James Reyne…



Tori Amos has beautiful lips
in a bigger, more luscious kinda way

but I wouldn't kiss Tori Amos -
she'd write a song about me -

it'd be just like The Thorn Birds.

Ahhhh; Rachel Ward!



Yes, Parishioners, I would.

PS: Just heard an interview with Tori Amos on FBI -
she is a special person.


lerevdr on Thu 12-May-2005 @ 18:11 e.s.t [permalink]
[2 Comments]

 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Mr William Blake:

spiritualist,
visionary,
beloved of the Romantics,
disciple of Swedenborg,
Prophet of a New Age,
"Author & Printer"



wrote a "brilliant intellectual satire and revolutionary tract" entitled

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

in The Voice of the Devil he writes

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors:
1. That Man has two real existing principles, viz: a Body and a Soul.
2. That Energy, called Evil, is alone from the Body, and that Reason, called Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True:
1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

Now, doesn't that sort out the mind/body problem?


There is another section, entitled Proverbs of Hell
which contains several items of interest:

He who desires but acts not breeds pestilence.

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.

Exuberance is Beauty.

I like the last one best!


PS: this legendary phrase comes from A Memorable Fancy:
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite."


lerevdr on Wed 11-May-2005 @ 18:59 e.s.t [permalink]
[7 Comments]

 El Duende

Federico Garcia Lorca has a lovely turn of phrase.
(drop your favourites in the comments)



He is a terrible name-dropper, which makes him difficult to understand,
but he does adore Goya!

I have heard duende described as "that which sets the blood afire"
but I think it's more ethereal and profound.

Have you experienced El Duende?

Whoever inhabits that bull's hide stretched between the Jucar, the Gaudelete, the Sil or the Pisuerga - no need to mention the streams joining those lion-coloured waves churned up by the Plata - has heard it said with a certain frequency: "Now that has real duende !" It was in this spirit that Manuel Torres, the great artist of the Andalusian people, once remarked to a singer: "You have a voice, you know all the styles, but you'll never bring it off because you have no duende."

In all Andalusia, from the rock of Jaen to the shell of Cádiz, people constantly speak of the duende and find it in everything that springs out of energetic instinct. That marvelous singer, "El Librijano," originator of the Debla, observed, "Whenever I am singing with duende, no one can come up to me"; and one day the old gypsy dancer, "La Malena," exclaimed while listening to Brailowski play a fragment of Bach: "Olé! That has duende !"- and remained bored by Gluck and Brahms and Darius Milhaud. And Manuel Torres, to my mind a man of exemplary blood culture, once uttered this splendid phrase while listening to Falla himself play his "Nocturno del Generalife": "Whatever has black sounds has duende."
There is no greater truth.

continued below


lerevdr on Mon 09-May-2005 @ 18:10 e.s.t [Click here for more SALVATION]
[4 Comments]

 Vegemite

Just a quick note to consolidate these Vegemite™ entries -

I found I'd left out the magic word in the original post
and therefore couldn't link to it in the second.

Can you imagine eating a whole tablespoon of the stuff at once?



lerevdr on Mon 09-May-2005 @ 11:10 e.s.t [permalink]
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 Our Nights of Gethsemane

There's a lotta religion on tv these days -
I wonder why..?

The Second Coming the other night
Revelations coming soon
& I just watched Secrets of The Da Vinci Code.

Ah, The Da Vinci Code;
sounds like a pale imitation of Foucault's Pendulum
but I'll have to read it.

Now I'm watching Rosanna's little sister, Alabama Arquette, in Medium.



Does that count as religious?

Why is that Gene Wilder/Rowlf/Depardieu lookin' guy there, her husband?
He only complains.

But that is not why I write.

Parishioners know that, despite his lack of Belief,
I am an admirer of Mr Albert Camus;
in particular, his essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus)

I am haunted by the memory of a book I read
where the guy says he has a friend
who comes over to his place every few months
and just lies on the sofa (yes, 'Tish, it's American),
reads The Myth of Sisyphus and cries
for a few weeks
then goes back home.

Richard Farina?

That book about the alcoholic schoolteacher?
(what IS that book Pilgrims?)

Anyway, I found this translation here

(try translating this back into French!)

and reprint it below.

I would LOVE to discuss this
but, apart from personal notes, there is little to add.

This just slaughters me:

When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy rises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane.

Our Nights of Gethsemane…

isn't that beautiful?



lerevdr on Fri 06-May-2005 @ 20:24 e.s.t [Click here for more SALVATION]
[2 Comments]

 Pablo Honey

As Parishioners know,
I am a great lover of music -

MUSIC!

such as soothes the savage beast,
whose sound enlivens the hills,
such as breathes from the face of Zuleika,
is the brandy of the damned
and can be used for flight.

The physical evidence of my passion
is revealed by my freakish thighs -
such as seen only in Former Eastern Bloc weightlifters -
the result of powering pump organs
in large and acoustically unforgiving churches
for more than twenty years.



I had the great honour of being cantor of St Barney's
for several years before I left for the Orient
and I missed choir dreadfully.

Fortunately, a guitar is a little more portable than a choir
so I sang and played almost every day,
until I could, appropriating the lyrics of Brother Chuck Berry, claim to
bang a guitar such as to make The Singing Nun swoon!

Nonetheless, while I was Ministering to the Heathens
I missed a lot of western music.

more SALVATION below



lerevdr on Thu 05-May-2005 @ 18:43 e.s.t [Click here for more SALVATION]
[5 Comments]

 Google Bible Study

The companionable Mr Sun has a wonderful toy available for your enjoyment and edification - Google™ Bible Study.

lerevdr on Wed 04-May-2005 @ 13:16 e.s.t [permalink]
[5 Comments]

 Reservoir Prophets

I saw The Second Coming last night

and feel obliged to comment.

Fucking shithouse!

1. The Son of God would NEVER return as an Englishman.
2. Certainly not Jimmy Nail's dopey and annoying younger and stupider brother.
3. If one of the Parishioners began acting like that - even if somewhat intoxicated - I'd have him strapped down!
4. His only saving grace was that he worked in a video store - just like Pat Freestone!
5. The Son of God would NEVER be bossed around by some blowsy overweight English second-ugliest-girl-in-the-class; let alone be persuaded to eat the rat poison spaghetti (she called it "pasta") she made!
6. 'Twas a nice touch that her name was Judith.
7. 'Twas blasphemous that his pissed, pilled-up father tried to kill him.
8. 'Twas piss weak that he didn't revive his mate Peter.
9. Nice miracle though - we heart miracles!

I don't like the idea of Jesu being some (sub)normal bloke.
The Son of God is surely very special!
And, consequently, would gather unto him
a group of outstanding followers,
each possessing some especial talent.

YEA!

MY Jesu would have a posse!

Not like Brad Pitt's Ocean's Eleven -
although Clooney would be a good Jesu.

Not even like the Rat Pack version -
although Sinatra would be a good Jesu.

Because religion is not a scam.

MY crew would be more like Reservoir Dogs!

(& don't tell me this interpretation hasn't been tried
by a million punters before me -
on all the Tarantino stuff, for that matter…)

Because religion is Serious Business.

more SALVATION below



lerevdr on Tue 03-May-2005 @ 02:23 e.s.t [Click here for more SALVATION]
[3 Comments]