Outwit, Outplay, Outlast!

We are in a slightly strange situation here in Australia at the moment. We have a general election coming up in less than a month and the two main candidates are debating on tv on Sunday. They have been forced to re-schedule the debate to earlier in the evening though, due to Sunday night also being the last night of the competitive cooking show Masterchef. I have watched Masterchef a couple of times and it's ok but I am puzzled as to its immense success, as I have always been puzzled by shows that involve this incredible idea of competition - Big Brother, The Amazing Race, Survivor etc., etc. I have never understood such intense feelings of competition. I don't mean to make myself sound noble - in fact I suspect my lack of competitiveness has probably done me in a bit professionally. At school even, I didn't 'get' games and the overwhelming sentiment attached to winning - much to the fury of my fellow classmates. But why do we want to watch people battle it out to the last, backstab their opponents and weep with the effort and frustration of it all? With Masterchef it's even been noted that the winners each night are not necessarily the best cooks overall but the ones who managed to present adequately to the judges on that particular night. So what really is it proving?

And what will I be watching on Sunday night? Probably a bit of the debate and then I'll turn off the telly, dejected that both Dr Who and Little Dorrit have finished up...!

Views from the couch

The floral wreath hanging in our living room window, reflected in the afternoon sun on our living room wall.

Random 5

(5.) Raffles Hotel, Singapore, photo courtesy of www.theodora.com

(5.) Shibuya, Tokyo, photo courtesy of me

(5.) The Black Forest, photo courtesy of www.whitewolfjourneys.com

(4.) Photo courtesy of www.tallulahbloom.wordpress.com

(3.) The Mad Men girls, photo courtesy of www.buttercuppunch.wordpress.com

(2.) Photo courtesy of www.flickr.com

(1.) The living room at 1164 Morning Glory Circle, photo courtesy of www.margaretlongdesigns.com

(1.) I would be very happy if my living room looked like this (the living room from Bewitched) or (2.) This.
(3.) I am developing a real penchant for clothes like this. Especially the full skirts. But how to wear them without looking like (a) a lunatic (b) I am in costume? The problem may be solved by the fact that my waist will never be small enough for the vintage dresses which always seem to be for sale on Etsy and the fact that I cannot sew (that well).
(4.) Gin, soda water and elderflower cordial is a very nice summer drink. And before you start to wonder where I'm going with that...chilled orange juice is also delicious :)

(5.) I need a holiday! Here beckons (as always), as does here (ditto) and also here.

How about you? What's your 'Random 5' this week?

Possibilities

Robert Kennedy - photo courtesy of www.saddleback.edu

Pete Seeger (right) with Bob Dylan - photo courtesy of the Austin Chronicle website

Peter, Paul and Mary - photo courtesy of www.marytraversblogspot.com

Joan Baez - photo coutesy of the BBC website

We have bought the DVDs of the second season of Mad Men. Now, if you're a regular reader here, you'll know that I am pretty near obsessed with this show. And being the deep thinker (some would say over-analyser) that I am, I have been asking myself: why? Why do I love this show so much? Yes, the clothes are beautiful. Yes, the sets are mesmerising in their period detail. Yes, the plots are thoroughly engaging. But is there something else? And then I realised - yes, there is. Innocence. If you know the show, you may well laugh at this juncture. Innocence? In that hot-bed of extra-marital activity of an advertising agency, Sterling Cooper? Are you kidding? Are you even watching the right show? But what I mean is, the overall innocence of the era. Hey, I am no fool. I am well aware that people throughout time are people. They have good motivations and they have thoroughly awful motivations. Sometimes in equal measure. But when I think of the early to mid 1960s, I think of it as an era of innocence, when Western society as a whole (and that is all I can really vouch for) believed that things were possible. I'm sure there are a million holes that you could poke in that argument. This idea was informed initially by what my mother has said about the era: "People believed in things. We thought we could change things." Now, my mother was no radical and neither am I. I am notorious, in fact, for not having strong opinions on matters political. But I love the idea that people thought things were possible. Folk music of the era spoke of it especially. People like Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary and Pete Seeger. Music, thanks to my Mum, that I was raised on.

Lately too, on this same theme, I have become fascinated by the story of Robert Kennedy, JFK's brother. And before I go any further, I know all about the stories of the Kennedys. The philandering, the extra-marital affairs, the apparently appalling attitude towards women. And I don't condone that for one second. But, recently, watching a documentary about Robert Kennedy, I was very interested to learn of the change he went through after his brother's assassination, how tragedy and absolute sorrow nearly broke him. But eventually, it didn't. He didn't live imbibed with hatred. His social policies, in fact, suggest the complete opposite. I love this quote of his from 1968:

"My favourite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

To me, it suggests that growth - not destruction - can come through pain and life's sometimes profound hardships. There is not always the easy fix which we sometimes seem to look for today, but solutions will come.

Do you agree with me? Do you think that more than anything we are blighted by cynicism now? Or are we, as Kennedy began to suggest, learning from all that's happened worldwide since the 1960s - as painful as much of it has been - to emerge in a better condition when all is said and done?

Treasures from the Thrift Store

"Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us."
- Oscar Wilde.

An ephemeral start to the week...

" Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck." - the Dalai Lama.

"The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all that. Unknown is what it is. Accept that it's unknown and it's plain sailing." - John Lennon.

"There are two types of women in this world - ones who like chocolate and complete bitches." - Dawn French (sorry if you don't like chocolate - I'm sure she's not referring to you :) )

Some more from my little blue folder of ephemera...three beautiful postcards from Tokyo's National Science Museum (which took on an interesting sepia tone when photographed in the hot afternoon sun) and three random, clipped-out quotes...