 Reaching for the sky at Cottesloe |
Dance, the most graceful but least verbal of the arts, is something I am learning about fast, having accepted a part-time job with a ballet company.
My moves do not involve gliding around on the floor of practice space. My moves are more prosaic. I help shift tables, as a break from tapping away at a computer keyboard to write letters and material for the company’s website. While waiting for a reply, maybe, I have time to wrestle with questions. Why did I never, as a child, develop an interest in dance, apart from me bopping, jigging and jiving to the Beach Boys and Abba? Why do I, generally speaking, need a verbal component to appreciate the arts, such as drama and opera offer? And, er, what is art? I am not going to live long enough for a definitive answer on this third one. |
Let ‘em have it
 Balsamic… many people would prefer that to ballistic |
Such great news for Indians, however many hundred million they total today, that the nation now has nuclear submarines. And they can fire ballistic missiles, which is even more wondrous.
Well, good for about 2.7 per cent of the people, I suppose. You know, the ones who wear suits and ties and travel business class and wheel their bags into five-star. . . You get the picture. As for the rest of the population, who cares? Their lives have nothing to do with missiles. The countless millions with jobs or family businesses, cooking food for train passengers, or cleaning offices by night. And finally, the poor, for whom no international conferences or bankers’ dinners can bring an end to hunger and exhaustion. |
Pet project
 Tillie takes the lead as a conversation piece |
Blog, tweet, app, text….. If you’re reading this you are probably into 21st-century communication in a reasonable way.
But let me ask: Are we perhaps in need of reminding of the joys of simple one-on-one contact? If so, I suggest one-on-dog commitment. Stay on this leash for a couple of hundred words. Bold in a cheeky sort of way in since primary school, I am the sort to initiate chatting with most people I meet either on a street or in a park. “That university sweater you’re wearing . . . I have not only been there but was booked for speeding as I approached the entrance . . . ” Such opening gambits are my stock in trade. For nearly a year I have often had a four-legged aide to the business of meeting and exchanging a few minutes of conversation. Especially with dog owners. Our young friend Tillie is forthright, to put it mildly, in approaching creatures of either two or four legs. |