Blanket Statements

Abstract painting has always been something I avoided. Despite the exploratory tack I desperately like to take with music, being relatively untaught in the art-realm I tend to cautiously stick to the knee-deep waters of photo-realism, where I can judge how effective a painting is purely by how much it looks like the thing I am painting.

The most exciting thing I found to draw in Bangalow… Nice place though.

The treacherous, murky currents further off-shore contain pretentious, vague beasts of prey, just waiting to pounce when an art student submits a blank canvas with the word “Future” written on it in sparkly glitter. I was going to say clear gelatine, but that might actually be profound, because in the ‘future’ while it is sitting in the garbage, a colony of ants will probably come along to eat the crystals and thus illuminate the word with their bodies… Apart from a woeful tale of artistic anguish and futility, the moral of the story here is that you can justify anything* with enough of an explanation.

*Indeed, I once told a concert audience that the piece I was playing; “Canteyodjaya” by Olivier Messiaen, was written when he was twelve years old and named after his pet axolotl. This is of course completely** untrue, not to mention utterly ludicrous, but, said with a straight face, it was met not with laughter, but with blank stares, approving nods and knowing smiles. Ironically, I later received one of my best gigs that day from a member of the audience who ‘liked the way I spoke (spake?).”

**probably and hopefully.

Axolotls can regrow vital organs, including parts of their brains.

But I digress.

Yes, I have taken my first steps into this notorious tide by taking up the palate knife rather than the brush and attempted a non-photo-realistic portrait. Due to the new lack of detail, and the often inadvertent, but welcome, special-effects of the palate knife medium, I am ashamed to say that instead of the usual 2-month effort, I completed this painting in 2 days; one session doing a rough background coat and the other the actual painting.

It is of Molly, the chocolate labrador, from Lake Cathie, on new years eve, with a blanket.

On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

Rant Warning. This is a rant. (It’s been a while)

“What fresh hell is this?”

That is my initial thought upon hearing any noise coming from outside.

You see, we have moved into what we thought was a nice and reasonably-priced apartment. During the inspection we saw a couple of cats and thought nothing of it (I’m very much a cat-person despite always owning dogs and indeed, the prospect of having a trio of someone’s pet cats around was actually an attractive feature), but within a few days of moving in the true colours came out: It’s not an apartment, but actually a crazy old man’s feral petting zoo.

Connect the dots and it makes a fish.

Allow me to introduce our subject. He is old, senile, indecipherable (both from a poor grasp of English and the nonsensical fragments that do make it past that particular filter), and only ever wears pyjamas and a dressing gown. But, oh my, most significant of all is the delightful personality cocktail of extreme paranoia with a twist of contradictory ineptitude that combine to make a world outside my window one that defies any sort of logic.

You see we have a cat problem. Problem is an understatement. Usually it means someone’s pet coming at night and sitting on your lavender bushes. At a more intense level it signifies a small group of cats that consistently like to sit on your porch. To the most extreme degree I’ve found on the internet it’s a group of feral cats that are attracted to some kindly old widow feeding the kitties out of kindness until they breed into a veritable hoard. That’s the extent of the problem for which there are ready solutions.

Solutions like Molly, the slightly-cross eyed chocolate labrador puppy with a penchant for annoying sleeping cats.

Unfortunately, our situation is much worse: not only is there is a massive flock of somewhere between 25-30 individual, feral specimens residing in our back parking area, but we have the aforementioned Pyjama-Man standing on Sauron-like guard almost literally 24/7. From all evidence it appears when he and his wife are not either out on their balcony lobbing meat at the cats (and my car until I moved from my parking space to the street) or out there feeding them from a large bowl, they must simply withdraw to just behind the thin curtains and watch.

Nothing escapes their notice or suspicion and whenever someone walks into the territory it is only a short matter of time before he appears, suspiciously inspecting the path they took on the lookout for traps and reverting whatever changes were made (even cleaning the area) to their original cluttered state to provide disguised shelters for the cats. For instance my only effort so far to help the problem was to spray deterring eucalyptus oil along the fence. Sure enough, later that afternoon, he was out there with a hose (it’s mostly a concrete space) watering everything in sight and ranting loudly (though presumably he didn’t think I could hear him). Similar attempts (or perceived attempts) by other neighbours result in the search-and-destroy mission or an unending hosing down.

The situation is such that he has continuously been told not to feed the cats by his neighbours (though I avoid him), landlord and real estate, but his response to this is a confusing mix of pure denial, saying he’s only feeding one single cat he ‘owns,’ the phrase “this is the way it’s been done for 25 years”, or my favourite, resigned outrage at the fact that the ‘spirit of kindness’ is dead coupled with a sad, rant-filled token act of driving away the cats ‘for good.’ He has done this tirade twice in the past two months … Cats are still there. You see, like the humble shark, the PM is most active in his activities after dark, which is when one of these illogical aspects come to the fore. Like clockwork, our stealthy hero waits until the silent hour of 1am before going out for the main feeding sesh, but then proceeds to make all manner of cat-talk, clapping, splattering, bucket splashing and other assorted noises for a further hour. Even if I turn on all the house lights to indicate I’m still awake he still does not relent in his not-so-secret ritual.

Gosh he’s out there right now. And probably as you read this as well.

Now the cats themselves are not your typical strays, but are born and bred ferals; scared and defensive towards humans, not desexed (there have been three separate litters in the past two months) and the subject of many illnesses and afflictions. Were the kittens taken early enough they could be fostered out and lead long happy lives. Yet Pyjama Man bothers not with this; he cares not for their health, only their legion numbers. Futhermore, his veiled boasting of owning a gun and his very unsound mind, make it disturbingly unclear as to whether anyone else is allowed to take any sort of veterinary care of his ‘non-existent’ cats. I’ve overheard him telling another neighbour he’d ‘give his life for the cats.’ One thing is obvious – attempted trapping of cats for any desexing, fostering program will result in their immediate liberation, one way or another.

Caaaats. Caaaats. Cats-cats-cats-cats-Caaaats.

So yes, he’s illogical, uncommunicable, unrelenting, paranoid, possibly unstable and fostering a massive hoard of unhealthy and uncontrolled feral cats, getting in car engines, killing wildlife, and spraying everywhere to the extent that would stun the most experienced Melbourne Cup plumbing contractor .

Sigh. Any suggestions welcome, though keep in mind the unstable, uncommunicable, and unrelenting part! Something tells me we’re moving again.

Rant over, thank you for either sitting though it or storming off. 😀