I’ve been reading Alexandra Harris’s brilliant book, Weatherland: Writers & Artists Under English Skies, which feels about right for a time when the weather has become such a dominant topic of conversation. Aside from reminding me what it was like to live in England for a number of years, fighting my way through those grim, grey Novembers, I was much taken with Dr. Johnson’s sage advice that we, as rational beings, must be able to overcome the effects of the weather on our psyches.
“He that shall resolutely excite his faculties, or exert his virtues, will soon make himself superior to the seasons, and may set at defiance the morning mist, and the evening damp, the blasts of the east and the clouds of the south.”
Like so many of his moral exhortations, this was advice Johnson himself was never able to follow. Throughout his life he was troubled by the effects of weather and temperature, chastising himself for bouts of depression and procrastination.
It’s more than depressing for those people in places such as Lismore, who are struggling with yet another set of downpours after watching their houses and livelihoods swept away only a few months ago. When the weather has such tangible, destructive impact, it forces action and perhaps a degree of stoicism. When it’s just a matter of staying inside, day after day, the gloom slowly seeps into the soul – or at least that’s how I remember life in London. In Sydney it’s a different story. One is always conscious that the sun is lurking behind the clouds, awaiting its chance to make an appearance.
The wet weather is not exactly the kind of climate change we expected, but this year it’s been relentless. Will it persist, or are we in for a long, complementary period of scorching heat and drought? Either way, we seem to have entered a time of extremes in which the weather and the political climate have both gone a little crazy. Are the two connected? If it were possible I’d like to blame it all on the Morrison government. The age of Albo is off to such a steady start – even in the midst of natural disasters and economic crises – I’m almost nostalgic for those days of political outrage that came long so frequently under the previous administration.
I’ve delayed this week’s posting partly because I’ve been bsy in Adelaide, but also because I was waiting to see what the Herald would be posting. As it happened, they’ve managed to miss another week, which is frustrating for me, and always gets people writing, asking what’s going on. Answer: I wish I knew. My position is pretty simple – a column is something that appears every week, at the same time, in the same place. People read it every week for the pleasure of agreeing or disagreeing. By treating the art column as a feature article in competition for space with previews, profiles, etc. it loses its fundamental identity. As of this week, the paper has four art columns that have not appeared in print. The longer these pieces are held, the less topical they become. One of the shows discussed has already closed, even though I filed the review the week that it opened. I’ve already made my feelings known to Spectrum, so any notes from readers would be appreciated.
The movie this week is Thor: Love and Thunder, Taika Waititi’s latest installment in his ongoing project of transforming Marvel superhero movies into screwball comedies. Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is now so bizarrely conceived that I can’t tell whether his acting is really bad, or just made to look bad for deliberate comic effect. Either way, it certainly is comical, so long as you can overcome the incoherencies of the plot. If Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is fast-moving but stupid, Waititi’s Thor is equally fast-moving and almost too clever for its own good. A really successful film requires a certain steadiness at the helm, just like government, although I wouldn’t want to review a movie directed by Albo. It’d be all about living on welfare payments in a council flat in Camperdown. Ony Mike Leigh might make something from such material.