Song to the Siren

Another bleak and cold autumnal dawn as the frangipanis become shrubby skeletons, as I fumble with the gas stove that seems to have only two settings - Microflame or Flamethrower.
It's one of those slow mornings when you need the haunting mystery of a band like This Mortal Coil and a splash of colour. Other bands like The Czars have covered Tim Buckley's beautiful Song to the Siren, but today it's the voice of Elizabeth Fraser of the loose collective of musos that were This Mortal Coil that gets me in the frame of mind for The Commute.

"When I'm as puzzled as a newborn child

I'm as riddled as the tide

Should I stand amid the breakers?

Or shall I lie with death my bride?

Hear me sing, "Swim to me

Swim to me, let me enfold you"

Here I am, here I am

Waiting to hold you"

from Song to the Siren by Tim Buckley 1970  

Air Mail

Forget retro '70's single fins, analogue cameras and Monkees style music. It's time to revive the ancient, totally manual arts of letter writing, postcard selection and air mailing. Sure, an email or a text is quicker. Sure, analogue is slower and less efficient - especially when you consider that you can send the one message to your 800 MyFace friends instantly. But that's the whole point. Hopping off the one way, snowballing quest for ever greater speed. For a little while anyway. 

Here at the Brine, we are doing our bit by searching out postcards that are so bland they are exciting in this post-logo mega-sponsored and branded world. Let's keep the world's postal workers in a job. So if you want to post the Brine, here's one of the places it should land. Happy writings. Bird is the word.

Brine     Time

PO Box 1289

Stafford  4053

Australia

Earth

Bird is the Word

Last Sunday was Fathers' Day here in Brineland. Also, there was a Jazz Festival, sunshine and a couple of small sliders on the points, making for gridlock reminiscent of the Big Smoke. Consequently, I couldn't find one car park between the rivermouth and the National Park, when I went to take the quad for a paddle mid afternoon.

As I'm sitting in the gridlock, sun is shining and the jazz vibes are pulsing, all of a sudden a bird lands it's poop neatly through my open window onto my boardies. Nothing to wipe them. Can't pull over. All I can think of is the Trashmen song "Surfing Bird" which featured on Family Guy not so long ago. And that it was good luck.

I go home and come back a few hours later (in fresh boardies). I score a car park right outside the entrance to the National Park. I carry the DVS quad to the third point and despite the crowd, score some beautiful walls until it was so dark I couldn't see the waves coming around the point. I left with a huge smile. Bird is the word.