The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Izzie has been a bit of a culture vulture lately. It's time to stock up on lots of new experiences to feed the inner serpent which is going to be busy around the time of the witching hour of All Nano's Eve.

So it's just as well that one of the regular features on the culture calendar has been moved from May to October to take advantage of the mild and not so wild weather (since a bunch of sculptures on the beach were seriously trashed by storms last time)

Some samples of the sculptures

There's something wonderful about lurking around the beach on a sunny day and when there's lots of beautiful art to look at, it's even more magical.

The constraint of being required to recycle source materials keeps the works grounded and actually makes the art far more creative and quirky than the increasingly pompous and pretentious efforts that dominate its rival Sculpture by the Sea

Further up north there is another sculptural offering commemorating the Dutch sailing ship that dropped by for a couple of days exactly 400 years ago.
The skipper Dirk Hartog who was working for the VOC (Dutch East India Company) later got sacked by the evil VOC goblins for being such a snailish sailor.

But Izzie's hanging out for the commemorations of the 400th anniversary of the sinking of the Batavia which was the Titanic of its day. That will be in June 2029. If the ship had been grounded off the coast of California, there would be a Hollywood movie about it every five years.

Well another month has come and almost gone. It's scary how they seem to get faster and faster.
It's also amusing to think that back in the bad old days with no laptop and certainly no Portkey in the Lair I was posting online snippets far more frequently than now. It's not like there's even an excuse for more posting and less lurking. No evil toxic toads to drain the serpent soul, no 30 hours per week devoted to a job and another 20 devoted to 3 units studying. But maybe it's simply old age. Cyberia is no longer the bright and shiny place full of tempting treats and toys that it used to be. I guess when you hit the half century it gets harder and harder to deny the inevitability of mortality and the ancient real world begins to look rather more interesting.


But in some strange ways it has been the adventures in Cyberia that added to the appreciation of the other world.
I finally seem to have under control a past addiction to online courses.
It was like being a kid in a candy store or a glutton at the buffet. Just pile the plates higher and higher and never ask if it is even possible to gobble so much stuff let alone take time to enjoy each tasty morsel. I have rationed myself to just one at a time and actually kept to it this month.
Like with most things, the first experiences are the most formative. One of the first courses I took and still one of the best was called "Introduction to mathematical thinking". As well as learning fascinating stuff like formal logic and the art of deciphering much of the arcane mathematical symbols of "Godel, Escher, Bach - an eternal golden braid" (a definite desert island book for this serpent) the other really important thing I learned was that persistence, practice and constant vigilance usually win in the long run over innate talent without such grit. That a lot of what looks like natural ability is so often simply the result of years and years of practice.

The relevance of this to reality is rather simple. I no longer expect to pick something up quickly or give up when it becomes a struggle because that surely is a sign of total unsuitability. If it is difficult then it means that the old grey cells are getting a good workout. Of course the stuff has to be interesting in the first place or else there would be no incentive to overcome the frustration of making such slow progress.

So this meant that the last four Monday evenings spent learning the dark art of book binding could be enjoyed as a learning experience and a useful chance to learn something practical rather than a never ending exercise in frustration because everything is going so slowly and my efforts are not looking as magnificent as the folks at the next table.
But it did become increasingly obvious that even with following the maxim of "Measure 5 times and cut once" was still producing some definitely dodgy edges. A millimeter or two out here or there does not sound like much but it all adds up and looks ever so wonky.

It turns out that the man teaching the course used to be a carpenter and had to give it up for IT when his eyes were no longer up to the perfection in measurements required. Ha added that if he had been doing roofs and not furniture he could have gotten away with it for a whole lot longer.

So it's no longer possible to pretend that the beady serpent eyes are perfectly fine thank you very much.

So in spite of some incredible wonkiness, it was still fun and I have already signed up for the intermediate class. Most of the enjoyment came in no small part to just going with the flow and not expecting perfection. Of course anything to do with books is always a very big plus.
Meanwhile will need to get some glasses and a whole pile of practice measuring and cutting so that it will almost be on autopilot by the time the next course comes around.

In the meantime, the weeds are thriving and there's garlic, sweet potatoes and nasturtiums growing like crazy. Been making the most of the gorgeous mild winter weather to experiment with seeds and to see what pops up.


Still searching for some grand project to ignite the long dormant serpent spark plugs. Here's hoping to find something suitable before the solstice.

March is Culture Vulture month in this bit of Australia. Sculpture by the Sea is celebrating its 11th year at Cottesloe Beach and finishes tomorrow. I have attended all the previous years so it has become a bit of a tradition.

Some local artists who felt excluded have put together their own show at another beach down the road. Both are beautiful locations and have been on the serpent’s visit list since they first started.
Later in May another beach will host their version of 'sculpture by the sea' which has some very interesting rules. The official title is Castaway and all art works must be made from recycled materials. If ever proof is needed that constraints are conducive to creativity then the Castaway sculptures provide plenty.

These events conveniently coincide with the equinox so the last two days have been the perfect opportunity to drop by at both beaches to drool over the pretty bright shiny things and to indulge in some sunset watching.

( Bling on the beach )

Apart from sunsets at the beach, the other big Izzie ritual at equinox (and solstice) time is to get out the little green book to write the new batch of 3 month, 1 year and 5 year plans. This also involves checking through the old ones to see what sort of progress I’ve made since the last time. Was I ever so amused to see one wishful thinking item tucked neatly in the June 2013 to June 2018 list - “Visit to Europe”. It felt very strange and spooky ticking off that particular item today and made me very aware of the scary magical powers that such lists can unleash as it is not the first time this has happened. But that is a tale for another day.

Oh the Izzie had grand plans for the weekend. As is the case with all art exhibitions, the longer it goes on for, the less likely you are to see it due to the mistaken belief that there’s still plenty of time

Did manage to see the “Van Gogh, Dali and Beyond” show at the city art gallery just before Halloween. It was very strange being able to drool over some amazing paintings, especially Van Gogh’s olive trees. Anywhere else in the world you would have to jostle for a place in the crowd and could hope for a glimpse or two of the masterpiece at the most. On the day I visited I could have easily spent hours drooling over the gorgeousness up close and personal with hardly a human to be seen. There was ten at the most and that was when a guided tour came through
But there's something so incredibly tiring about visiting museums and art galleries so had to give up after nearly 3 hours or so with the intention of coming back again

Less than a month later the gallery announced that the remaining three shows in the six exhibition deal with MOMA of New York was going to be cancelled due to rising costs and lack of ticket sales.
The offerings at the Fremantle Arts Centre are not quite in the same league but now and again they do get a few gorgeous creations. The latest batch of shows are due to finish on 19th January. Was supposed to peek during a recent visit two weeks ago but spent too much time squiggling. So this Saturday was going to be the big catch up. Was also going to pay a visit to the gorgeous Carriage Cafe which is always an inspiring place for plotting and planning

( Sunshine on steroids )

The sizzling summer has well and truly arrived in dreary Dursleyville, WA
The mercury reached at least 38 and there’s apparently another 3 or 4 more such days in store. So the only reason to get out of the serpent sack this morning was the zombie job. It was warm at 8 in the morning but a normal sort of day. By noon or so it had become quite hot. Not horrid in that so far it is a dry heat. Not icky sticky muggy which is the real hell. But still if you are not careful you can get sizzled. Especially the poor cricket players out in the field in the middle of the day. Sure they get paid loads of loot but it’s still barbaric to be out and about in the full glare of the midday sun.

After 3 or 4 days of that the lot of them will be melted or simply sizzled to a crisp especially the Barmy Army all the way from wet and wintry England

It’s prudent to abandon all plans for pottering about in the city. Will be lying low for a while and simply slinking about in the lair watering the weeds and trying to keep them from getting sizzled to a crisp. After one such hot spell lost a ten year old macadamia tree that had taken 8 years before finally delivering big fat juicy nuts. So no desire for the same thing to happen again
This is the time of year for all the Christmas art and craft markets. Tonight there was one in the city full of strange, weird and very expensive stuff. The Izzie slinks about mainly for the atmosphere and inspiration as they are full of arty creative critters. Was especially drawn to one stall with lots of hand made books and journals including one with a very creepy gothic lady bearing the intriguing title “The Dark Arts”. Some of the journals were even made from envelopes accumulated from assorted bills. Now that was seriously scary indeed but a very clever way of reusing stuff that would have otherwise ended up in landfill.

Her neighbour was selling strange jewelry also made of assorted recycled items like keys, beads and bits of spoons. Especially interesting were the little skulls. Some were black and others were white. Ever so innocently asked what they were made of. The black ones were horn and the white ones bones. How appropriate. They were very very tempting but resisted the urge. But it is interesting to see the sort of stuff out there

Maybe the inner muse will be inspired. She’s been a bit neglected since the end of November. Maybe another chocolate crawl might wake her up. In the meantime will be doing mundane stuff like tidying up the Lair, attempting to keep the weeds watered and alive over the next few days of hellish weather, snoozing and doing a rather big catch up on posts and such in Cyberia

Today was party time in Izzieland. We saw the welcome return to civilized weather. Sunny but crisp and crunchy and a respectable maximum temperature of 27 celsius forecast and delivered
All the weeds are looking happy, lush and green. It was such a relief not needing to water them after last night’s rain
It was time for celebration. Got all snaked up and wore a most special emerald green hat for a visit to the old lurking grounds of a certain old lunatic asylum in Fremantle. It would be a day spent ruminating, plotting, planning and doing a whole pile of squiggly stuff that should have been done yesterday.

The rituals would begin with a detour to Buratti art gallery which presently has an exhibition of Aleister Crowley paintings and other esoteric art work.
Visited this place for the solstice only to find that it was closed over Christmas and would not reopen until Wednesday 2nd January 2013. So instead of gawking at assorted beastly art works had to make do with second best - a certain deck of cards.
But the lure of Wednesday 2nd being the very first opening day of the new year, I figured it was just too auspicious to resist. After all this is a day that has been devoted to matters concerning the invisible worlds for the last eleven years and that would be just the perfect entree before the main course in the Garden of Insane Delights

( The map is not the territory )

The Emissary of the Beast was in town this week. A strange collection of creepy paintings is doing the tour down under and dreary old Dursleyville is its first port of call. A sure sign that the apocalypse must be close at hand

This serpent read all about it in the local paper from Tuesday 27th November which stated that the show would be opening on Friday 30th. Uncultured creature that is the Izzie, did not realize this meant a proper evening cocktail party with canapes. So turned up at 3pm for a peek only to be told that this was indeed the case. But the nice gallery owner who was busy unpacking bottles and wine glasses let the Izzie have a quick slink to drool over the beastliness.
Duly visited the website as the little flyers announced there would be various lectures and other events over the duration of the exhibition

Delightful events such as the performance of a Gnostic ‘Mass’ courtesy of the local chapter of the OTO and the temptingly titled “Introduction to the Beast” given by a member of the aforementioned Order.

( The Summoning of the Beast )

As one contributor rightly said - to call The Beast the wickedest man in Britain if not the world when he was a contemporary of such paragons of virtue as Stalin and Hitler is really rather ridiculous and demonstrates a seriously strange sense of morality
There was a lot of quotes from The Beast himself. Seemed like he was never happier than when he was taking the piss out of the establishment in all its incarnations. He seemed far more like The Fool or the Court Jester than the Devil Incarnate. And then there’s the snark. There’s so much that you wouldn’t know where to start quoting

The inside cover of this book had a picture of him on a throne dressed in his ceremonial robes looking extremely fat and fugly presiding over some ritual sacrifice of a black cat and the image of a woman who escaped his evil clutches. He had a round moon face and an enormous pudgy nose and piggy eyes and looked exactly like the sort of monster that you would expect to find on the front page of “Der Sturmer”

Izzie was one of the very last people to leave the exhibition and just as we got to the stairs the curator handed over a copy of this blue book of The Legend as ‘a gift’

This was most appreciated indeed as the Izzie had already decided to be a good good serpent and to resist such delicious temptations. Thanks to the old toad, the days of indulging in such luxuries are over and must be resisted especially as nearly all this stuff is available for free online.

It must be an Omen

Izzie is still in lurking mode and spending lots of time these days either squiggling or lurking in Nanoland

But just could not let the day go by without mentioning two most delicious and spooky discoveries
The program for next year's Arts Festival came out last Thursday. The Izzie's beady serpent eyes nearly popped out of her head. Was sitting in Antz cafe with a bunch of quirky squigglers peeking at the paper for the occasional distraction
The Queen of Celestial Sirens will be gracing these shores with her presence next year. Been a long long twenty years.
Could not get to the concert hall quick enough to get our paws on a most precious ticket. But the evil Goth teasers have a pecking order where the friends of the festival get first pick and the plebs have to wait until Monday to get theirs. Such cruelty

Tried again at a different agency on Saturday. Looked all good for a seat in the fourth row until the inevitable question came up about a certain Friends of the Festival pass
Well today the long wait was over. Those juicy seats were long gone but still managed to snaffle one in the ninth row.

Strange how the Izzie had commented only recently that listening to Dead Can Dance music was the thing that finally had all the muses queuing for very productive weekend down south. Lisa must have been listening.
Decided to make a habit of doing the unplugged nanowrimo thing. So tomorrow morning will be devoted to getting from the spiral notebook to the pages of Scrivener.

And in a fit of total decadence also took the opportunity for another bit of indulgence

Wade DaviesThe American Zombie Hunter is coming to Oz. Last October he gave a talk about Pacific Islander sailors that was so fascinating it was worth waking up at 3 in the morning to hear it again
Must go dust off our old copy of "The Serpent and the Rainbow"

And then there's so much juicy stuff for next year's Writers Festival too. China Mieville and Margaret Atwood amongst others will be there.
Izzie will be a cheapskate as usual. As most of the expensive sessions with the big names are often broadcast later on Radio National so there's no need to spend at all

Such a feast of beasts. And between the television drama with the brilliant title "Devil's Dust" and the latest fix of incidents on Batavia's Graveyard, there's no end of evil inspiration

Tomorrow will be off to the Supreme Court for the last evening of the Divali festival. Was there this evening and even as an outsider one could sense the spookiness and magic. A festival of lights with a fire in a cauldron and a procession of drummers are always good ingredients for a bit of mystery and magic.

And soon it will be time to stop the slacking and get out there looking for a real (toad free) job :(

Today was a simply gorgeous chilly crisp and crunchy day. In spite of a 1am bedtime all the omens indicated the best of all possible days. The weather and the delicate light at this time of year confer a special kind of magic and nostalgia for the pale faint light of Europe. This time of year is the nearest we get to it. In summer there is a bleached out effect as the brightness of the light is so overpowering

Winter time is porridge time. No Uncle Toby 30 second powdered oats for this ever so discerning serpent. The six dollar bag of biodynamic kosher deliciousness from Kojonup is down to its last quarter. The usual ritual is to soak the oats in water overnight and then add milk in the morning. Very tasty and delicious and dirt cheap.

Sat outside facing west lapping up the sunshine with the Izzie in one chair and the bowl of porridge in another watching the birds and listening to a fascinating story about Woodside and its collusion with our Emperor Colin Barnett to trash yet more pristine beaches and land.

This speaker Geoffrey Cousins used to work for the Lying Rodent so was especially impressed by his admiration of Bob Browne and his excellent demolition of every single argument in favour of the James Price Point gas hub. Especially disgusting was the bullying tactics of our emperor towards the original Aboriginal owners of the land in the area. Sign up and we will give you 33 pieces of silver. If you refuse we will take the land anyway and you won’t get a single cent.

Colin Barnett is a disgusting goblin with no concept whatsoever of the sacred or sublime and an extremely inflated sense of his own importance. He is not only happy to trash Aboriginal sacred sites but has no regard for those of the white people either such as Hale House and the Esplanade which he wants to turn into a mosquito infested swamp. Betty’s bog not Elizabeth Quay will be the most accurate description of this abomination. But worst of all is the murder of many old Moreton Bay Fig trees

If only the Dementors had never preyed on the previous Premier ‘Good News’ Geoff Gallop and replaced him with an utterly arrogant smarmy git, then Labour would have won the 2008 election and spared us the Monsanto invasion and the trashing of so many sacred sites.
But back to the present moment. It was a gorgeous day and Izzie was one contented serpent in spite of the premonition that the old toad would be once desecrating our owleries with more of her filthy stinking howlers this day or the next. With a bit of luck the bosses from state HQ would be keeping her otherwise occupied in preparation for the big bad government box tickers.

( back on the road )

There’s more to life than battling bitchy cane toads. It is just such a pity that they are so invasive of both time and space. Toads with long sticky forked tongues and big black ribbons on their heads are even more monstrous. Worst of all is that all the grand plans for next year’s overseas adventures have to be put on hold. Even the annual slink down to the gorgeous Eden Vale cannot be counted on.

But it has not stopped the Izzie slinking about the art galleries, going to plays and watching weird movies and plotting assorted zombie adventures for August

Had two recent movies on the wish list and chose “Snow White” to see first as it likely has the shortest shelf life in the cinemas. One big advantage of the day job is the ability to take advantage of all those off peak specials. The cheap movies before 5pm is a favorite. It’s even better when the pimply young things behind the ticket counter give Izzie the senior’s discount.
Now if only the bus drivers would be so nice. Could save a fortune.

Snow White definitely could do with a lot more daggers and razor blades. It needs some serious slicing and dicing and half the film should have remained on the cutting room floor.
Loved the little Snow White as a twelve year old. She was pretty rather than beautiful and was far more convincing as a gorgeous caring soul than her later pale vampire incarnation.

But the real star of the show was Ravenna. From her Trojan Horse number to her strange tastes for flesh and milk baths and those wicked twisted magical powers. Now why Ravenna had blond hair just did not make sense. The pair of them should have swapped wigs. Loved the whole Dorian Grey stuff of sucking the vitality out of young virgin girls and turning them into shrivelled empty shells. She would make an excellent dementor. Those flocks of cranky birds and her costumes were also most impressive indeed. But aside from the magic mushrooms in the fairy forest, the rest of the story was pathetic. Gotten rather tired of Lord of the Rings and Narnia wannabees by now. Got so bored that the Izzie actually fell asleep several times during the movie.

Never even seen any of the Twilight movies other than those awful trailers and never got further than the first book but still could think of nothing but sparkly vampires every time the silly bimbo appeared. And yesss we know it is a fairy story but it is a bit hard to swallow that a pampered princess who gets locked in the north tower of Hogwarts is able to escape, navigate her way around the castle in the dark, slide down the sewers, escape the giant squid and swim to safety. The Joan of Arc ‘saving people’ thing got ever so tiring. The whole thing was definitely a very derivative painting by numbers affair. Too many goblins running the show.

The same day also paid a visit to a certain old lunatic asylum for the last days of the Shaun Tan Suburban Odyssey art exhibition. Unfortunately due to the presence of hordes of squealing rampaging beasties, the Izzie was not quite in the mood to appreciate the spookiness. Once again lots of crows and strange monster like beasties passing themselves off as trees.

But the big one we are saving for tomorrow. Friday 13th would have been perfect but had other unalterable plans that day. A certain beastly artist works have surfaced from the dungeons of darkest Paris to surface on the outskirts of suburban Perth. Well not quite. That place is far too Dursleyish to be deserving of his demonic doodlings
So far the grand plan for tomorrow is a morning with the dinosaurs of Scitech before pottering off to admire the art of other beastly creatures

Here’s hoping that it is a toad free zone