Last night I journeyed to Leichardt to see the new movie, Love and Mercy at the Palace Cinema in Norton St. Ostensibly a biopic about the life of The Beach Boys Brian Wilson, the film cleverly navigates two crucial periods in Wilson's life - the time during the gestation and creation of Pet Sounds, and a later time when the middle-aged Wilson was under the care of a radical (and possibly, criminal) therapist.

Insights are offered into the Wilsonian creative process and we see an innovator and enabler of extraordinary talent. In trying to break with the more formulaic earlier (yet highly successful) BB material, Wilson inevitably creates friction within the band and within himself.The ubiquitous cocktail of drugs and excess are simply too much for the sensitive and seemingly misunderstood soul of the younger Brian, who lapses into increasing mental ill-health.

During the course of Love and Mercy, my thoughts often flew to my departed friend, Robert Mumford. Robert was a huge fan of The Beach Boys and as the film progressed, I was reminded of conversations we had had two decades earlier. Somehow the minutiae of those rambling Mumford monologues have stayed with me to this day. It occurs to me now that Robert probably saw a lot of Brian Wilson in himself and his own circumstances in life.

So as the opening credits of the movie rolled, I resolved to watch this fine movie for both of us.

A few posts ago I mentioned that I was putting up a new shed, replacing the old and dilapidated garage that has been on the site since the early 1960's. The latter was rarely useful, having a rusty leaking roof and dangerously crumbling fibro walls. Renovating it would have been a waste of money and perhaps even hazardous.

Today the new shed arrived in prefabricated pieces (see below) although we can't do anything about erecting it until the slab is laid, hopefully next week. This is the first new structure I have ever built on this property, and even though it's a just a metal box (20 square metres), it will be mighty handy. The main house is small and I need a space for my library and maybe even a location for Tom to use for crafts and table tennis.

The nastiness of the debate over asylum seekers is a national disgrace and an international embarrassment. It is hard to find a time in the modern era when the level of discourse has been so wretched, irrational and selfish. That both major parties contrive in some way to pay lip service to policies that are both draconian and an affront to Australia's international obligations is appalling. Voices of dissent are generally mute, because the backlash against a politician not seeming to be tough on "people smugglers" (which is essentially a way of re-positioning the actual debate about displaced people) is real and intimidatory.

And at the head of it all is a hired thug in the Prime Minister, a man so unfit to lead a nation that others must wonder at the seeming lack of talent available to fill the job. If I could apply somewhere else for citizenship I would give it a serious thought.

The Pope's most recent encyclical (Laudato Si) excoriating Man's treatment of the planet, together with his withering attack on consumer capitalism, is a long overdue riposte from the oldest Christian Church. But it is, nevertheless, most welcome. At a time when such concerns are deliberately marginalized by the very interests they critique, a still powerful and widely influential voice like the Pope's is much needed to add balance.

Since the public space is so often hijacked nowadays by the trivial and the acutely temporary (iPhones, Kardashians blah blah blah), or is subject to the extremes of the oft-mentioned omnipresent newscycle, we truly need a place where serious things can be said by people who will be taken seriously. And we need to talk about them over an extended period of time.

I sway between an optimistic and a pessimistic position for the most part. I am happy to be an activist even if the odds are heavily stacked against me, but I despair of the ignorance and willful stupidity that seems so much a part of the human condition.

But Pope Francis offers hope, and that is good.

It's coming up to four years since I started working as a volunteer at Anglicare in Emergency Relief, and about three and a half years since I first played a song in the cafe. There is rarely a day when I don't look forward to going to work and even though it doesn't pay an income, it pays out grandly in other ways. It can be very humbling to work with people whose struggles are so great that their very presence in my office is a miracle in itself. It is uplifting to be a small part of a solution to whatever problem is being presented. And often as not, clients have many problems on many levels.

I have been trialing a few new songs at cafe though my capacity to add to the repertoire is slowing. There are probably about 30 or 40 songs that get regular play, with a few dropping in and out of favour depending on my mood and how the gig feels. The latter is a fuzzy concept, but I seem to know at least when not to do one. Now and then I get a request and sometimes I can find the song and learn it by the following week. I am constrained by my limited guitar-playing ability, so many songs I would love to sing and are quite within my range are out of the question.

I don't know how long I will remain where I am. Some decisions are in my hands and some are not. The next few weeks will determine how great my agency to act is. Unrelated events can conspire to create watersheds in our lives and how we respond holds the key to much more besides.

Last Sunday Tom and I and a group of friends went cycling down at the Penrith Regatta Centre. Built for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Rowing and allied events, the centre now operates as a public park and recreation space, when it is not being used for sports events.

A single lap of the rowing course is 5kms and we rode twice around the man-made lake, taking a leisurely hour or so. It was perhaps the greatest distance Tom has ever cycled. 10kms is not bad for a 9 year old. The winter weather was mild, the sky full of a blueness that only chilled air and warm afternoon sun can produce. Water birds danced and chattered noisily in the shallows. We will do this again, soon.

"We do not dislike everything that shines, but we do prefer a pensive luster to a shallow brilliance, a murky light that, whether in a stone or an artifact, bespeaks a sheen of antiquity."

So wrote Junichiro Tanizaki in his poetic essay, In Praise of Shadows, eight decades ago. Tanizaki was bemoaning aspects of the Westernisation of Japan and the excesses that this sometimes entailed. The Japanese tradition (perhaps state of mind) of Wabi Sabi, which privileged the natural and the simple (including ideas such as impermanence, humility, imperfection and asymmetry) stands fairly obviously in opposition to a sizeable chunk of modernity. The author explores the idea of shadow (on a simple level, the absence of bright artificial light) and the manner in which Japanese traditionally learnt to live with darkness or dimness before the advent of electricity.

My experience of Japan in the modern era has borne out the author's thesis. In spades. Japanese love lighting and especially fluorescent lighting. Sometimes shopping precincts will have discreet lighting and often classic-design plastic or paper lanterns, especially where there are bars, restaurants or noodle stalls. There is a subdued effect which is very pretty and speaks to a sense of place and mind. But most Japanese homes have a large central fluorescent light in each room and many shops are so bright that you almost blink upon entry. Cue Yodobashi Camera.

That doesn't mean you can't have both worlds living side by side and I suspect many Japanese do just that.

moon through thin blinds
slat-light screed of cool candescence,
my son's breathing

oh! cold-morning shoulders,
sun's rays dumb to deep shadow,
ice-grass crunching