Age Is Just A Number...

I recently read a snippet from Seven Sentences called Why Age Is Just A Number In Your Head and it gave me pause.

The premise of this short article is not simply that age is no barrier but that overcoming perceived obstacles like 'age' inspires others. And that opting out denies the world your dream.

Here's why I paused. Should the world really be waiting for me, to live vicariously through my dream? Or should they be working on their own?  And how should they divine where to draw the line between bravery and the just plain ill-advised?

I've been surprised by the extraordinary emerging courageously from what I thought to be ordinary. By the same token, I've also been gobsmacked by belief in attributes actually in absentia - making me sometimes wonder whether my own truths are really so self-evident - and also in this glib sense that one should be able to have whatever one wants.

In our world of instant gratification and easy celebrity, there have been many moments when I have listened to someone declare their passion, that 'this' is all that they have ever wanted, and been torn between cynical disbelief and tearful admiration (although mostly I sit somewhere - unmoved - in the middle).

But where does hard work and doing what it takes come in? What part does luck play? And where is the balance between heart-felt self-belief and pragmatic acceptance?

After all, we can't all be good at everything. Life is full of knocks so how do you determine which of your passions to keep getting up for?


Thomas Edison claimed that genius was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, Ralph Waldo Emerson liked to start with laughing often and loving much and Robert Frost was a firm advocate of the road less travelled. Even Albert Einstein seemed to subscribe to the view of a 'lucky few':

Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes, and feel with their own hearts.

But why this sense of scarcity? Is it really so difficult to dream?

Or is it owning it - taking responsibility and accepting all of the consequences - that scares us into silence?

A Litany On London Largesse...

Since coming back from holidays just over five weeks ago, I have been struck by how many great things there are to do in London, particularly when it comes to activities of the stage variety. And I have to admit that I've been a little lax in sharing this largesse with my lovely Gidday-ers so I thought I'd make this post a litany of my recent cultural adventures.

I'd been back not much more than a week when I popped down to Sadlers Wells to see Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty. Regular readers might remember my first Matthew Bourne experience last year and I was really looking forward to his take on this traditional tale.

And I was not disappointed. A combination of modern irreverance and gothic spirit cast their magic over the story and I found myself enchanted by Bourne's mastery all over again. There were moments of laughter and darkness and beauty throughout and I left the auditorium wondering whether I'd get an opportunity to see the balance of Bourne's Tchaikovsky triumvirate - Swan Lake and The Nutcracker - anytime soon. Sleeping Beauty has left Sadler's Wells and is touring so you may have the chance to see it somewhere near you.

Sunday before last I went to see Argentinian company Tango Fire's show, Flames of Desire. This had been inspired by a half price ticket deal in The Metro on my morning commute earlier the same week. 

For two hours the auditorium thrummed with passionate pas de deux, fleet feet and erotic attitude as the five couples, musicians and a rather smooth crooner brought the milonga (late night dance hall of Buenos Aires) to life. It was heart-stoppingly, breath-takingly brilliant. And when the cast - musicians, singer and dancers - took their curtain calls at the end, their absolute delight in the thunderous applause from the audience was as wonderful to see as the performance they had just given us.

And most recently, it was dinner and a show last Friday night with a friend. Again a deal dropped into my lap a couple of weeks ago and after a fabulous feed at Italian restaurant  Polpo near Carnaby Street, we took our seats for the greatest of musicals, A Chorus Line. 

While I'd seen the 1985 movie starrring Michael Douglas, I'd never seen the show. I am thrilled to report that this oversight has been corrected.

Because thrilled I was.

Every foot-tapping, fractious moment held me in thrall. The individual stories laid bare on the stage before the darkened auditorium: the pert, the cynical, the world-weary and the hopeful. The rediscovery of tunes I knew but had buried themselves in my memory. The cleverness of the choreography, entwining itself around the differences in shape, size, style and attitude of each dancer to create a whole truly greater than the sum of its parts.

And the culmination of all of this in the finale, 'One'. One moment in the presence of an amazing cast and the most quintessential show tune of all time - a 'singular sensation' of glamour and celebration and synergy. Which took A Chorus Line to my all-time top 3, sharing my trinity of musical favourites with Les Miserables and Chicago.

Such is London's largesse that I've managed to see all of these in the space of a month. Life may not always arrange itself so supportively - and cost-effectively - around my cultural interests, but let me assure you that I intend to grab every 'moment'.

Another Rainy Sunday...

I can't quite believe that I've been back five weeks. The days have flown by and it feels like much longer since I sat under that hot blue sky and felt the fierce Australian sun on my shoulders. Particularly since I have been rugged up at home this weekend keeping the chilly grey dampness outside well at bay.

This afternoon I've been watching Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. I've seen snippets of it before but have never sat and watched the whole thing through. What an amazing movie - kind of like Beaches and Thelma and Louise (enduring female friendship flicks) combined with The Help and To Kill A Mockingbird (for commentary on racial injustice). If you haven't seen these films, I'll let you google them for yourself to avoid this sentence getting a little 'link-crazy'. 

 

The four leading ladies are extraordinary and I can only surmise that there was some stiff competition during the 1992 awards season for while Jessica Tandy and Kathy Bates received nominations at the Oscars, BAFTAs and Golden Globes, the 'Whistle Stop Cafe' trophy cabinet remained strangely empty.

Rear: Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary Louise Parker
Front: Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy

There are times when I still find it difficult to believe that the era of black oppression and the Klu Klux Klan actually existed. But then prejudice is still prejudice no matter what the 'colour' and I think about Sarah's Key (which I saw recently at my beloved Phoenix as part of Holocaust Memorial Day) a film that tells the story of the 13,000 Jews rounded up by the French authorities in Paris in 1942 for transportation to Auschwitz and my visit last September to the old ghetto areas of Krakow and the camp itself.

And then I think about the recent 'burkha debate' that has reared its rather unattractive head in various institutions of 'learning' across Europe and of a recent book I read called The Cypress Tree (the Book Nook 2013 #3) by Israeli-born journalist Kamin Mohammadi and it seems to me we've not come so very far at all.

Anyway, the final credits rolled and I found myself wondering why I'd never watched this movie before. And it strengthened one of my 'resolutions' (for want of a better word - I don't really do resolutions) to branch out from my traditional favourites and to watch some older, unseen films when the comfy couch beckons again on another rainy Sunday afternoon.

A Symbol Of Freedom And Light...

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was great debate about whether Australia should become a republic. A survey was created (called a referendum) and all of the people in the land were invited to participate. The results revealed a nation divided with the vote to maintain Australia's colonial status quo snatching victory from the republicans  55/45.

But there was outcry. Some of the people suggested that the questions did not really present a clear choice between Republican-ism and Colonial-ism. And so while the Colonialists won the battle in 1999, the undercurrent of discontent around the Great Republican Question bubbled on.

And in the midst of this, there remained another question - the question of the flag and whether it was really fitting for our modern and multicultural nation.

I love the Australian flag.

I love how it celebrates our southern location and open skies with the Southern Cross constellation.

I love how it honours our Federation with the seven pointed Commonwealth Star - with six points representing the six previously self-governing states and one point representing the territories and any future states.

And I love that it also gives a nod to the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 to make the first modern settlement in Australia, 16 years after pioneering Englishman Captain James Cook sailed along Australia's eastern coastline.

But like most things in life, this is not a simple fairytale and our nation is still on its journey to find a happy ending. Does our flag reflect the indigenous, the discoveries of the Dutch (through explorers Willem Janszoon and Abel Tasman) and the emergence of a multicultural nation inspired by new horizons, the prospect of success borne of hard work and not least, the hopeful opportunity of the Gold Rush.

Is it really a reflection of our modern nation, whether it be colonial or republic?

And then earlier this week, I opened an email from Mum to find a poem that was given to her in the late 1970s by an ex-servicewoman she knew in Cairns. As I read it, I felt proud that our flag held such patriotism and passion in its thrall and my fierce republican heart couldn't help but recognise the validity - and poignancy - of her words.

 

KEEP THE FLAG

Our flag bears the stars that blaze at night

In the Southern sky of blue

And a little old flag in the corner

That’s part of our heritage too.

 

It’s for the English, the Scots and the Irish

Who were sent to the ends of the earth.

The rogues and schemers, the doers and dreamers

Who gave modern Australia birth.

 

And you who are shouting to change

You don’t seem to understand

It’s the flag of our law and our language

Not the flag of a faraway land.

 

Though there are plenty of people who’ll tell you

How, when Europe was plunged into night

That little old flag in the corner

Was their symbol of freedom and light.

 

It doesn’t mean we owe allegiance

To a long forgotten imperial dream

We’ve the stars to show where we’re going

And the old flag to show where we've been.

Out with the old and in with new? Suddenly it's not such a simple question.