Halloween, A Holiday in Tasmania and a Tetun Dictionary

[tcpip]

All Hallows Eve was spent with the delightful Severina242, where I tested my skills with Polish cuisine. The feast was complimented with a lovely drink called Krupnik. It's the vodka version of mulled wine. It's dangerous, because it doesn't taste like vodka anymore, although the fumes can be pretty overwhelming. I can't wait to introduce Brendan to this one.

The following morning caseopaya and I were aboard the Spirit of Tasmania, for a brief (six day) holiday through an island of extraordinary beauty (unusual fauna, alpine rainforest) and history (aboriginal, convicts, mining, hydroelectrics). The combination of the two makes it no wonder that this is where the Greens are so strong.

Description of the journey is quite long, so they'll appear as comments...

A draft of the Cliff Morris' Tetun-English dictionary which I've transcribed is now available online. This is currently the single largest collection of Tetun words available online. It also has an excellent essay by Cliff Morris on the history and culture of East Timor. I hope my introduction can do it all justice.

I'm concerned that I'm losing my interest in music, or at the very least, live music. People like reddragdiva will affirm that I've been a bit of an afficiando for many years, with a wide-ranging (and possibly lenient) tastes. Recently Neil Young, The Human League, Lou Reed, Echo and the Bunnymen, Public Enemy, Carl Cox, The Killing Joke and even David Bowie have or about to visit Melbourne. My disinterest of their presence is disconcerting.

Fiction writers never get this strange. Did Mossad know about 9-11? Is that just too weird?

A Melbourne dining recommendation. Recently dined with severina242 at the Tandoori Times on Gertrude Street, Fitzroy. An excellent Indian restaurant with dishes to please all taste buds. If you are like me however and occassionally like a curry that makes you sweat all over, go flush red and enter a psychedlic fugue state where your ears ring, your vision is blurred and you suffer ekstasis, then this place has a lamb curry to go for. First timers will be given a rating of 1 to 10 in terms of spicieness. I found the 10 to be a modest introduction of what else is available. No, I didn't reach anywhere near my desired state - but apparently it is available as high as 25.

Yesterday went to see the entrants for the Archibald Prize with severina242, the annual award for the best Australian potrait piece of Australians "distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics" that has been running for 80 years. The judges gave it to Geoffrey Dyer's potrait of Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan. With a fiery orange background, the bald Flanagan in a tight black t-shirt and jeans and bold blue eyes was certainly impressive - even threatening. For the "People's Choice" I voted for Ian Smith's "Ray Hughes having predinner drinks with Ambriose Vollad and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler". It was in a cubist style, but with spatial-temporal distortions that are best described as "drunken".

I do like fine art ;-)

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The first ten hours was a ten hour boat cruise across the Bass Strait. Interesting enough once, but not to do a second time. Devonport (pop 22,300) is where the Spirit disembarks. A nice place to spend the first evening, but not too much to see here with the exception of the excellent Tiagarra Aboriginal Culture Centre, which includes some 250 rock engravings in the centre and surrounds.

Following Devonport it was along the north coast in a westerly direction, through Ulverstone (pop 9,780) and Penguin (pop 3,050). The latter town stretches it's tourist drawcard a little with penguin rubbish bins and a ferro-concrete penguin statue on the foreshore, but it's not too gaudy. In Burnie (pop 19,170) we stopped for lunch although everything seemed shut for the day. After passing no less than seven (yep, count 'em) shut restaurants who ironically ended up at a La Porchetta.

After lunch we turned south through farmland and state forest with the famous Cradle Mountain (1545m) invariably in view. A coffee break at Tullah (pop 270), a former mining town established in 1870 was accompanied by a nice view of the lake formed by Bastyan Dam. Then it was onwards through another old mining town (Rosebery) and a slight deviation from the highway to Zeehan (pop 1120, est 1882). Zeehan in the 1900s was known as "Silver City" because of its mining wealth and had a population of over 10,000 with 26 hotels (miners are hard drinkers, yes?). It's also famous for the Gaiety Theatre which, when it was established in 1899, was one of the largest theatres in the world attracting over a 1,000 people every night in the week following its opening. It's still impressive, but also rather sad and empty with some questionable restoration.

From Zeehan it was on to Queenstown (pop 2230, est 1881), which - quelle surprise - is another mining town, although the gold deposits which made the town in its heyday are long gone. Queenstown has a rather dubious claim to fame - the former rainforest hills surrounding the town are stripped bare and have been since the the 1920s. After travelling for some hours through beautiful forests it is devasting sight. Three million tonnes of timber was cut down to feed the furnaces and uncontrolled sulpher pollution from the smelters have created a showcase of environmental destruction which is only now beginning to shown the most meagre signs of recovery with some hardy ground cover making slight headway on some hills. The roads are also fairly dodgy and reminded me a little of some of those in East Timor.

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

If there is a next time in Tasmania can someone else do the driving so I can see a bit more of the scenery??? That is my only complaint about the trip - the driving was hard going. The gorge in Launceston was truly amazing.

I take it this means we won't be seeing the Bunnymen on Friday then? :) Was going to mention Bowie but it seems pretty pointless now too. But I know what you mean though, I keep seeing all these bands listed but the cost and the sheer sort effort required to go tends to turn me off. Though Carl Cox is great live.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Did Mossad know about 9-11?

Although the article claims that "[the five Israelis'] discovery and arrest that morning is a matter of indisputable fact", it most certainly is disputed.

This claim first surfaced shortly after 9-11, alongside the "four thousand Jews didn't show up for work on 9/11" fable. Both were propagated by Information Times, which credited the story to Al-Manar Television.

The "five celebrating Israelis" claim shows up in several places on the Web, but AFAICT all these reports are either unsourced or trace back to Al-Manar.

Reading from their own "About" section: "Al-Manar is the first Arab establishment to stage an effective psychological warfare against the Zionist enemy." Not what I'd consider a reliable source on this matter.

[ktwhoopi.livejournal.com]

i don't like my food to hurt me, i like to enjoy my food :P that being said, i am a total wimp when it comes to indian food, the hot stuff anyway, i can bear a little bit, and i don't let it stop me eating it, but if there is pain, me no eat-y!

Speaking as a lover of mulled wine

[erudito.livejournal.com]

It's the vodka version of mulled wine. It's dangerous, because it doesn't taste like vodka anymore, although the fumes can be pretty overwhelming. I can't wait to introduce Brendan to this one

Ah, but the advantage of mulling is that increases the flavour and decreases the alcohol!