just a long shot

Long ago, when I was still teaching at Penrith High, I bought Long Shot, by Aimee Mann, on EP. I liked it a lot, then forgot about Mann for about a decade and a half, though every so often the thought of her formed a partly coherent image in the back of my head.

Then, while at Nadia's uncle's place in North Bondi, I found two Mann LP's amongst his collection. And the rest is a kind of sweet history. In 12 months I have collected all of Mann's work, from Whatever onwards. I have been wondering what attracts me to her songs, though the answer was clear from the start. She writes well. Her lyrics have bite. The tunes are good, with great hooks and clever bridges. That's not to say she's a method writer who churns it out. Quite the opposite. She is a pop artist with gravitas, which is a rarity. She reminds me of a lot of the good writing from the seventies. Her influences were mine too.

Yesterday I ordered the soundtrack to Magnolia off Amazon. It cost 12 cents! (Should any album be just 12 cents?) I wanted it principally for two songs - Save Me and Wise Up, which are not collected elsewhere.

With artists I come to like, something goes 'click' and then I pay attention. I am paying attention to Aimee Mann.

when a child is ill

In a crisis, the word community,
gets scrubbed clean. It’s not that
it’s been hiding amongst gutter-lain leaves
and cans,
or minuted in the local rag,
Rather, it’s left to molder in the van of life's
fast-passing train, a kind of sweet yester-notion,
or rarely heard refrain, still resonating beyond
the clatter.

Yet scrubbed it is, like a sea-found Piece-of Eight,
or a faintly historic, though now outmoded, memorial plate.
So when it’s a child, those
late perspectives, the day-born absolutes,
fritter and recede,
leaving us with a newly blank date, a shovelful of nothings,
as if pure silence, or incoherence
can compensate.

thankyou

To all the hands that went into last night's benefit concert for Gracie and her family, to the performers who gave their time, to the childcare workers who toiled and who had already had a full day at the job, to those who baked and served, to those who held doors, moved furniture, cleaned up, to those who simply appreciated, prayed and cried.

Thankyou.

Here are the groups!

The eight groups for the World Cup 2010 were drawn this morning in South Africa. Australia is in Group D and has drawn the Germans, the Serbs and the Ghanains. That's another tough ask, though last time we did have Brazil. Muchly relieved we don't this time but the Germans are tournament specialists and Serbia won their group ahead of France.

Group G has been designated the 'group of death' and Group C seems to have the lightest load, so to speak. New Zealand have a big job ahead in Group F, where the opposition is uniformly strong.

Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France

Group B: Argentina, South Korea, Nigeria, Greece

Group C: England, United States, Algeria, Slovenia

Group D: Germany, Australia, Ghana, Serbia

Group E: Netherlands, Japan, Cameroon, Denmark

Group F: Italy, New Zealand, Paraguay, Slovakia

Group G: Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal

Group H: Spain, Honduras, Chile, Switzerland.

Pots of Fifa Gold

The seedings and 'pot' groupings for the World Cup 2010 Draw on Friday 4th have finally been released. If you are new to this process, Pot One contains the top seven ranked seedings(according to Fifa) plus the host country, South Africa. The other pots broadly reflect a geographical categorization. The final eight groups of four teams will be selected by drawing a team from each pot in succession, eight times over. The pots are:

Pot 1 (seeds): South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England

Pot 2 (Asia, Oceania and North/Central America): Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Mexico, Honduras

Pot 3 (Africa and South America): Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay

Pot 4 (Europe): France, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Greece, Serbia, Denmark, Slovakia


What's my favoured grouping for Australia? Here's one configuration.

England
Australia
Ghana
Slovenia

My nightmare grouping? One of many, includes:

Brazil
Australia
Ivory Coast
Portugal

All this will be settled a few days. Then we can get to discussing our chances of making the Round of 16.