bilateral kellerberrin

Well it was sunny and warm yesterday. The wonderful “opening rains” seemed to have run their course. Unfortunately I spent most of the day indoors in front of one of these infernal machines trying to sort out logistical issues with the Expanded Cinema event I’m planning for the Kellerberrin Cinema. Seems like there is no-one who has a 16mm-350watt-xenon-arc-lamp-projector in Western Australia. Well, I reckon there is one out there, and we will find it! (Incidentally, if you are reading this, maybe you googled “16mm-350watt-xenon-arc-lamp-projector” to see what price you could get for yours, as you want to sell it in the “quokka,” look no further, you have found a buyer right here).

It’s a shame to waste precious sunlight hours in a dark cave illuminated by an incandescent screen, when, pretty soon, it’s going to be nothing but cold cold cold. But that’s just an excuse. I’ve become so accustomed to my drifting “lifestyle” here, the only rhythms being night, day, hunger, and my daily writing session. A sort of priveleged vegetative state. So you can imagine my irritation when the IASKA folks, who have created this opportunity for me in the first place, want me to start thinking about logistics, and such marginalia as what the exhibition on 28th May is going to be called.

But! Snap out of it! This is May! Everything is different now. That open-ended stuff is just blinkered hippy April talk. Remember, May is bringing home the bacon, May is getting shit together, May is yep I’ll sort that out, May is hitting the bullseye, May is we’re gonna be making some changes around here, so get with the programme. May is Jo Debney’s milky clock that stops for no dawdling schoolchildren. May is going to teach you a lesson, May will build character, May might seem tough but it’ll be good for you in the long run.

While we’re waiting for those changes to be implemented, here are a few folks I met yesterday:

Margaret. She was heading into the chemist as I emerged, blinking from the gallery. Straight up, she asked me if I’m making some good art while I’m here. It didn’t seem like it to me as I stood there thinking about how to answer her question. I started talking about this website and how I am writing about the people I meet and what they say, but I don’t think she really got it. Certainly, she didn’t seem to grasp that, if that’s what I’m doing, then SHE might be in it the next day. Come to think of it, nobody has really expressed any anxiety about being (mis)represented in my writing. Then again, I’m yet to receive a “comment” on this blog from someone within the town – all my commenters are in Sydney or Perth, so far. I wonder what kind of impact that full page in the Pipeline newsletter actually had? I must do a survey of the town to see how many people actually use the internet. Perhaps I need to run a how-to-use-the-net workshop. (see, May is all about action and implementing plans!)

Anyway, back to Margaret, who is a painter. She does all sorts of different subjects, landscapes and portraits and so on, and prefers a style a bit like Georges Seurat (a “pointillist”). Margaret links this “points of light” approach to Aboriginal dot painting. I wonder if she really believes there is a connection, or if that’s just a way of explaining pointillism to people who might never have seen any of it (“you know, lots of dots, like Aboriginal painting”). Apparently, Huseyin, the Turkish artist who was here in January used a lot of Margaret’s paintings in his massive local-painting-bricolage. Margaret said she is a big supporter of IASKA and comes to all the openings.

Margaret also said that Kellerberrin is a ghost town, compared to what it was once like. Of course, the empty shops, the expanding farms etc. But what got me from Margaret’s account was the chewing gum vending machines. She said that during the war, there were chewing gum machines fixed to the outside of buildings, for the American troops, who would stop on their way through town and buy gum. Can you believe that? Kellerberrin’s contribution to the war effort was chewing gum.

As I was finishing up with Margaret, Nordic Tony rocked up. He was decked out in a long sleeved shirt tucked in and everything. He looked very “presentable”. He stood there as if he wanted to talk, so I said gday, but then he said “just wanted to say gday” and went off into the chemist.

Later I saw Jeff at the co-op. It was only early arvo, so I guessed (correctly) that he’d been working “tradesman’s hours” at the abs (abbatoir). Yep, he’d switched to day shift. (There are 2 shifts – Jeff (one guy on one shift) slaughters 900 sheep a day. Are there really THAT MANY sheep lining up to be eaten?) He was covered in grease. He said there had been a break down at the abs, something to do with machinery. Today’s sheep would have to wait til tomorrow.

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One of the other posture-debilitating activities I’ve been doing, is designing a set of 6 coasters for Bob down at Foil Print in Cunderdin to print up for me. These coasters will each feature someone I’ve met, and they will advertise the blog. That way, when someone like Margaret asks me what I’ve been doing here, I can hand her one. Something tangible. And even if she never logs on, she can use it to avoid a sticky mark on her table cloth.

Oh yeah, one last thing. I have bought a new domain name for the blog: www.kellerberrin.com ! Can you believe it, that name wasn’t taken! It works already (try it!) but I still have to tinker with the internal links, as it seems that no matter where you go within the site, it always displays www.kellerberrin.com in the browser’s address bar (ie not www.kellerberrin.com/may4th or whatever)…