September 15

Saturday September 15, 2007 12:30 PM Sydney NSW Australia

The following was written on September 18 when I finally turned on the computer and tried to begin catching up. At the moment I do not have Internet access, but hope to have that corrected (connected?) within a week.

We arrived in Sydney a little ahead of schedule. We went through Australian Immigration in the fastest time ever - just a few minutes. Almost no lineup and very efficient.

Customs was another matter completely. Here we were very lucky. While waiting for our luggage an official was walking among us, asked us a few questions, and stamped our form and said we should proceed through gate D as soon as we collected our bags. We didn't realize our luck until we saw the lineups for Customs. It was total chaos with hundreds of people milling about and no one knowing what to do next. But we bypassed all of this, went through gate D and were on our way.

More good luck. We followed the signs for Virgin Blue and ended up at a small counter where they would collect our luggage and forward it directly to the airplane in the Domestic terminal. Then a special shuttle bus took us to the terminal. We had a nice lunch of a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and a "long black" coffee. Then we went through security and found ourselves in a large concourse of departure lounges and shops.

One of the shops was a bookstore. I bought the following:

The War of the World (2006) by Niall Ferguson.
- This is a history book about the 1900's and the major wars of that century around the planet. "From the plains of Poland to the killing fields of Cambodia, he reveals how economic boom-and-bust, decaying empires, and above all, the poisonous ideas of race led men to treat each other as aliens."
The Revenge of Gaia (2006) by James Lovelock.
- Jim first showed me this book when he was with us in Australia last year. I have been meaning to read it, and finding it in softcover was just to good to resist. Ouch. I just looked at the price tag. $24.95 in Australia, $16. in Canada.
Three Dollars (1998) by Elliot Perlman.
- "Australia's outstanding social novelist".
The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997) by Richard Flanagan.
- I have read Death of a River Guide by the same author and thoroughly enjoyed it. While in Australia it makes sense to read a few Australian authors.
The Untouchable (1997) by John Banville.
- Banville is one of my favorite English authors.
Deep Simplicity (2004) by John Gribbin.
- Another book on chaos, complexity and the emergence of life.
Philosophical Classics. (2007) Edited by James M. Russell.
- "The thinking person's guide to great philosophical books."
The Rough Guide to Ethical Living (2006) by Duncan Clark.
- "Low-carbon living & responsible shopping"
The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006) by Michael Pollan.
- Another book on the food available to us in an age of fast-food.

9 books and I have only been in Australia a few hours. At this rate I will need a few containers to ship my books home. Here are the covers:




The Untouchable John Banville

I made a note to myself: "Nonfiction as a series of insightful comments plus narratives and a mind map". Now to follow-up on this later, but not too much later, before I forget what I meant. This was based on a quote from the Proust novel (p. 208)

"An ulterior unity, but not a facetious one, otherwise it would have crumbled into dust like all the other sytematisations of mediocre writers who with copious titles and sub-titles give themselves the appearance of having pursued a single and transcendent design. Not facetious, perhaps indeed all the more real for being ulterior, for being born of a moment of enthusiasm when it is discovered to exist among fragments which need only to be joined together ; a unity that was unaware of itself, hence vital and not logical, that did not prohibit variety, dampen invention. It emerges (but applied this time to the work as a whole) like such and such a fragment composed separately, born of an inspiration, not required by the artificial development of a thesis, which comes to be integrated with the rest."

We were met at the airport and were soon in a home with beer, wine, good food and great friends. What a glorious way to begin our visit to Australia. We had a momentary twinge when we only had 3 of our 4 bags, but when I checked at the desk it turned out it had come on an earlier flight and they were waiting for us to claim it.

We watched a new generation of butcher birds feed off the verandah railing and could hear whip birds in the distance. A few eastern rosellas landed on the tree in front of us. The butcher birds and the eastern rosellas were definite identifications and will be the first two birds so identified on this trip.

Dinner was barbequed swordfish steaks - delicious. Sweet potatoes (impressivley remembered) and fresh green beans.We then collapsed.

A. Morning Musings

8:00 am

Immediate	Description	Time
Literature	Continue reading "The Captive & The Fugitive", Vol. 5 of "In Search of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust	2 hr