Beavers and brine

photo care of City of Beavercreek, Ohio

This week I'm getting into the Christmas spirit of sharing by talking up the talent that is out there in bloggoland. And because it's so tropical and stinking hot and flooding wet here in the monsoon latitudes, I thought that I would start with a shout out to the good folk of Beavercreek, Ohio, USA.
Apparently at this time of the year, it's so freezing cold in their land that they pour brine onto their roads to stop snow and ice bonding to the surface. Mad. More here. Meanwhile we are breaking out the sunscreen and the warm water wax.

Emo(h) Ruo

The Brinecave's pre-developer architecture imbued with all-weather natural stone elegance. On a rock out the front a local grom has painted the words "the future is a present - the past is now". Inside hangs a battered chipboard hi-fi speaker containing a Plessey 12" dual cone wired up to an analogue, mono National radio tuned to 4ZZZ, a pirate radio station run by university students, street urchins, anarchists and acid cassualties. Today they are broadcasting Russell Guy's epic radio play "What's Rangoon to You is Grafton to Me" - a tale of driving all night down the east coast of Australia from night to daylight, from one metropolis to another, from the past to the present.

"Eartha Kitt cooled off while The Low Heeled Boys took the edge off Tweed Heads and the lights of Murwillumbah disappeared into the rear view mirror. I made myself comfortable and a short time later saw Haley's Comet pass three times to the east. Mount Warning flashed a message and pretty soon I was in Rangoon trying to master the art of being powerless and completely stupid. The only way to travel."

Russell Guy What's Rangoon to You is Grafton to Me 1978

The view from the Brinecave's driftwood verandah. On a still day you can feel the unrelenting march of radio waves and if you look hard in the morning you might see the spouts of refugee whales blowing right to left, signalling the arrival of a new sou'easterly swell.