Some artists of the 60s are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate the baby boomers. Here's a few:
Willie Nelson's missus sent him out the front door to practice his music out there. A truck hit him as he was singing on the road again!
Herman
Hermits: Mrs Brown you got a lovely walker.
Helen Reddy: I am woman hear me snore.
ABBA:
Denture queen.
(Artists,Boomers,Hits.)
A two sentence report in a recent copy of the Cairns Local News independent newspaper about a suspicious fire destroying an historic empty house on the Cairns Esplanade renewed old memories .
The house , it said , had once belonged to Dr Lesley Westerway. It just so happens that in l962 the writer of this post lived with his wife, two children and a Darwin dog , Rangi , named after the famous Rotorua Maori guide , behind the impressive ,occupied Westerway residence , which included a tennis court.
Rangi , part Beagle, used to steal balls from the tennis court and bring them home. Throwing them back , without informing the Westerways,did not stop the frequent thefts. In an act of desperation , some were kept hidden away to reduce temptation , but also probably reduced the number of hit outs on the court.
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| Ball girl Rangi in Darwin. |
The disappearing balls must have puzzled the Westerways.
We had a few laughs with some Canadian reporters and a Kiwi journo who dropped in for drinks when we told them about Rangi stealing balls from the smart adjacent doctor's residence .
We certainly did not mention that one of our household had a long record of stealing when the friendly former Darwin Police Court stipendiary magistrate ,Stuart Dodds , dropped in for a meal and a chat.
In any case , we moved to New Zealand along with our pinching pet and the disappearing and reappearing tennis ball mystery came to an end in Cairns.
As we drove overland from Cairns to Sydney to catch the MS Wanganella to New Zealand , Rangi disgraced herself by going for a run in Gin Gin ,Queensland, and rolled in something putrid. Phew !!! She was lucky not to have been abandoned in Gin Gin .
They draw attention to Indentured , a major new public art installation by Gail Mabo. The work illuminates the often unacknowledged and sometimes suppressed Queensland history of South Sea Islander indentured labour in the early colonial era, which is part of the artist’s matrilineal family heritage. In the installation these people become present and unavoidable in the Gurumbilbarra / Townsville CBD.
The installation - mounted on the façade of the 1887-built Bank of New South Wales building - is in direct conversation with the bronze statue, not 50 metres away, of Robert Towns, the namesake of ‘Townsville’. Towns was a leading figure in ‘blackbirding’ trade in Queensland in the late 19th century.
It is estimated that statewide, over 62,500 Melanesian people were trafficked and forced to work in the sugar cane fields and maritime industry, by unscrupulous characters like Towns, between 1863 and 1904.
Mabo is described as a multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, installation, printmaking and painting, her work often connecting Torres Strait Islander knowledge and political histories , including that of her own family, to manifest contemporary advocacy.
Our Shipping Reporter is a stirrer, especially of unusual souvenir teaspoons, some off long gone passenger ships . This blog recently ran a post about his major discovery in a Townsville market of a battered teaspoon , above, which featured former Australian Prime Minister , Harold Holt , who disappeared while swimming off Cheviot Beach, Victoria , in 1967, a memorial service for him attended by world leaders.
McDonald is described as an artist whose 20-year practice resolves around the intersection of sculpture ,consumer culture and environmental awareness ,ranging from microscopic jewellery to monumental sculptures .
Continuing, it says she is motivated by the evolving significance of objects as they traverse through time and ownership , and is fascinated by the historical function of items , particularly in imagining how their previous owners may have used the objects and the stories they carry .
Stirring Histories is a site specific and kinetic artwork taking audiences on a journey through layered narratives of North Queensland's sugar cane industry, through recognisable and kitsch implements that serve as a conduit to history, the commemoratve spoon .
It interrogates the essence of colonial exploration and reflects on Australiana , where remnants of a bygone era that once commemorated and paid homage , now overflow , found in op shops and scrapmetal heaps.
An unusual postcard - Greetings From CAMOOWEAL Q.-showing Australian Aborigines in full regalia posing at the roadhouse vehicle service station ,along with AMPOL oil signs , was recently found by our Shipping Reporter in Townsville.
It had been posted on December 30, 1972 by Queenslanders , having experienced "monstrous" heat , about to head for Darwin in the Top End .
The roadhouse owner , said to have been nicknamed Crockett, possibly after Davy Crockett, King of the American Wild Frontier, who wore distinctive headgear, is visible in a hat looking out from the dark doorway at the right .
Nowadays you can buy online Davy Crockett hats made from skinned raccoons and fox fur .
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(Abra,Centre,Vegetation.) |
