Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson (1867 - 1922) was an Australian poet and writer. One of the most well known writers of his day in Australia, along side his contemporary A.B. "Banjo" Patterson (who I will have to write about some day as well), Lawson has become much less read in recent years. I came across his work quite by accident.
His ideas and sentiment are, needless to say, a little different from what has risen to the top in modern Australia. Lawson was a nationalist, and advocated in his writing for a strong Australia, and armed Australian populace. Some have cried foul, calling his writing's fascist or racist - These twits fail to realize that Lawson did not come from a world of government enforced equality, half-caf soy chai latte's, and celebrated diversity, he came from a much rougher, hard-scrabble place and time. I see him far more as a grand example of settlers attitudes on national strength and defense in the colonial years of Australia.

Poems of Henry Lawson

As Far As Your Rifles Cover

Do you think, you slaves of a thousand years to poverty, wealth and pride,
You can crush the spirit that has been free in a land that's new and wide?
When you've scattered the last of the farmer bands, and the war for a while is over,
You will hold the land – ay, you'll hold the land – the land that your rifles cover.

Till your gold has levelled each mountain range where a wounded man can hide,
Till your gold has lighted the moonless night on the plains where the rebels ride;
Till the future is proved, and the past is bribed from the son of the land's dead lover –
You may hold the land – you may hold the land just as far as your rifles cover.

EveryMan Should Own A Rifle

So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb,
Seeing visions "over yonder" of the war I know must come.
In the corner - not a vision - but a sign for coming days
Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize.
And in this, the living present, let the word go through the land,
Every tradesman, clerk and peasant should have these two things at hand.

No - no ranting song is needed, and no meeting, flag or fuss -
In the future, still unheeded, shall the spirit come to us!
Without feathers, drum or riot on the day that is to be,
We shall march down, very quiet, to our stations by the sea.
While the bitter parties stifle every voice that warns of war,
Every man should own a rifle and have cartridges in store!

How the Land was Won
The future was dark and the past was dead
As they gazed on the sea once more –
But a nation was born when the immigrants said
"Good-bye!" as they stepped ashore!
In their loneliness they were parted thus
Because of the work to do,
A wild wide land to be won for us
By hearts and hands so few.

The darkest land 'neath a blue sky's dome,
And the widest waste on earth;
The strangest scenes and the least like home
In the lands of our fathers' birth;
The loneliest land in the wide world then,
And away on the furthest seas,
A land most barren of life for men –
And they won it by twos and threes!

With God, or a dog, to watch, they slept
By the camp-fires' ghastly glow,
Where the scrubs were dark as the blacks that crept
With "nulla" and spear held low;
Death was hidden amongst the trees,
And bare on the glaring sand
They fought and perished by twos and threes –
And that's how they won the land!

It was two that failed by the dry creek bed,
While one reeled on alone –
The dust of Australia's greatest dead
With the dust of the desert blown!
Gaunt cheek-bones cracking the parchment skin
That scorched in the blazing sun,
Black lips that broke in a ghastly grin –
And that's how the land was won!

Starvation and toil on the tracks they went,
And death by the lonely way;
The childbirth under the tilt or tent,
The childbirth under the dray!
The childbirth out in the desolate hut
With a half-wild gin for nurse –
That's how the first were born to bear
The brunt of the first man's curse!

They toiled and they fought through the shame of it –
Through wilderness, flood, and drought;
They worked, in the struggles of early days,
Their sons' salvation out.
The white girl-wife in the hut alone,
The men on the boundless run,
The miseries suffered, unvoiced, unknown –
And that's how the land was won.

No armchair rest for the old folk then –
But, ruined by blight and drought,
They blazed the tracks to the camps again
In the big scrubs further out.
The worn haft, wet with a father's sweat,
Gripped hard by the eldest son,
The boy's back formed to the hump of toil –
And that's how the land was won!

And beyond Up Country, beyond Out Back,
And the rainless belt, they ride,
The currency lad and the ne'er-do-well
And the black sheep, side by side;
In wheeling horizons of endless haze
That disk through the Great North-west,
They ride for ever by twos and by threes –
And that's how they win the rest.

Service, of a Rough and Tough Society

I’ve had a volume of Robert W. Service poems, an old “Best Of” paperback, for quite some time. Used to be, I would pick it up from time to time, but would rarely read more than a few, already familiar, pieces. Then one morning, I picked it up and just started reading and came away as impressed with a body of work as I ever was with a few more well known selections. Service was a voice, not unlike Kipling, that was sophisticated enough to deal with the whole array of human affairs, in simple eloquence.

"The only society I like is that which is rough and tough - and the tougher the better. That's where you get down to bedrock and meet human people.” Robert W. Service 1874 - 1958

http://www.robertwservice.com/

The March of the Dead

The cruel war was over -- oh, the triumph was so sweet!
We watched the troops returning, through our tears;
There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street,
And you scarce could hear the music for the cheers.
And you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew between;
The bells were pealing madly to the sky;
And everyone was shouting for the Soldiers of the Queen,
And the glory of an age was passing by.
And then there came a shadow, swift and sudden, dark and drear;
The bells were silent, not an echo stirred.
The flags were drooping sullenly, the men forgot to cheer;
We waited, and we never spoke a word.
The sky grew darker, darker, till from out the gloomy rack
There came a voice that checked the heart with dread:
"Tear down, tear down your bunting now, and hang up sable black;
They are coming -- it's the Army of the Dead."
They were coming, they were coming, gaunt and ghastly, sad and slow;
They were coming, all the crimson wrecks of pride;
With faces seared, and cheeks red smeared, and haunting eyes of woe,
And clotted holes the khaki couldn't hide.
Oh, the clammy brow of anguish! the livid, foam-flecked lips!
The reeling ranks of ruin swept along!
The limb that trailed, the hand that failed, the bloody finger tips!
And oh, the dreary rhythm of their song!
"They left us on the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn't stop
On this, our England's crowning festal day;
We're the men of Magersfontein, we're the men of Spion Kop,
Colenso -- we're the men who had to pay.
We're the men who paid the blood-price. Shall the grave be all our gain?
You owe us. Long and heavy is the score.
Then cheer us for our glory now, and cheer us for our pain,
And cheer us as ye never cheered before."
The folks were white and stricken, and each tongue seemed weighted with lead;
Each heart was clutched in hollow hand of ice;
And every eye was staring at the horror of the dead,
The pity of the men who paid the price.
They were come, were come to mock us, in the first flush of our peace;
Through writhing lips their teeth were all agleam;
They were coming in their thousands -- oh, would they never cease!
I closed my eyes, and then -- it was a dream.
There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet gleaming street;
The town was mad; a man was like a boy.
A thousand flags were flaming where the sky and city meet;
A thousand bells were thundering the joy.
There was music, mirth and sunshine; but some eyes shone with regret;
And while we stun with cheers our homing braves,
O God, in Thy great mercy, let us nevermore forget
The graves they left behind, the bitter graves.

The Tramps

Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together,
And we sang the old, old Earth-song, for our youth was very sweet;
When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether,
Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet --
Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story;
When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale;
When peace unfathomed filled our hearts as, bathed in amber glory,
Along the road to Anywhere we watched the sunsets pale?
Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster;
There's hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so!
As on we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master,
And no man guessed what dreams were ours, as, swinging heel and toe,
We tramped the road to Anywhere, the magic road to Anywhere,
The tragic road to Anywhere, such dear, dim years ago.

The Men That Don’t Fit In

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.
And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.
He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

Certainty

I've been a minor fan of the author/philosopher/neuroscience PhD candidate Sam Harris for awhile now, ever since running across him in Seed magazine saying something like "The philosopher is more and more beholden to the neuroscientist". He's a very bright man, with interesting ideas, and a knack for writing them down.
An "atheist" (who doesnt like the term), he's been writing for the Washington Post's On Faith column occasionally for awhile now, which I just discovered, and in reading his archives I came across the following and quite liked it;

"September 11th, 2001, the day that nineteen pious men showed our pious nation just how beneficial religious certainty can be." Sam Harris

Food for thought.

Hate America? Jog On!

Independence day has just passed. I spent the day with a good friend and her family, cracking jokes, cooking, shooting off fireworks, eating good food and drinking good beer. Present were people of diverse faith, and diverse history, ancestry and political stance - We talked guns and beer and soldiering (her father is a retired Chief Petty Officer, her brother 7 days and a wake-up from shipping to boot for the Army and others present are planning to serve) and hunting and family and old HeeHaw routines ("And the storal of the mory is...") until well into the night. Our little (neo-)bohemian circle broke conversation long enough to chew food, swallow brew and migrate to the field out back to set off playful explosives in the grandest tradition. It was in all senses a great 4th of July - A celebration of independence, nation, tradition and future.
Going to college, surrounded by the young, fiery and easily influenced (or as my father would say; young, dumb and full of cum) I hear a lot of sentiment one way and another from my fellows. But one of the ones which consistently disturbs me is the old "I hate America" line. I really think the next well fed, well bred, affluent snot nose who says that around me is going to get busted in the mouth. Wont stop him from saying it - thats his right in this nation he hates - but I'll voice my opinion in return. It's not that I always agree with the current administration - Dont recall as I ever have, nor do I ever expect to - or even like them in the least. But I am fond of this country. The country is more than the actions of the sitting government, more than the ignorance of its citizens, more than the force of its commercialism. It is an idea - A shining, golden, god damned idea that we've made work longer than anyone else who's tried it recently. That counts for something. Dont like it? Leave it. Stop using its resources and go elsewhere. Particularly if you are a college student - Dont like this country? Dont believe in its ideals? Dont feel like its worth working on? Then why in the world would you want to get an education here?
Thats where I draw the line and separate myself - I am fundamentally disappointed in my country. I love, not hate, it, and am fundamentally disappointed in it. I am disappointed because of the ignorance of its citizens, the blindness and greediness of its leadership, and the "moral decline" of it all. Not moral decline in the popular sense, not in the "fags roaming the streets, teens getting pregnant, sex on TV" sense of moral decline - The decline in the ethos and morality that was written into the nations founding documents, the decline in the belief in and adherence to those ideals. That is a moral decline - Not homosexuality, not tits on the television, not a decline in faith and church attendance - The sheer pig-fucking ignorance with which we have come to do damn near everything we do as a nation; Vote, Shop, Educate, and Believe. And that is exactly why I am disappointed in my country - Exactly why I love it - Exactly why I want to get an education from it: Because revulsion has power here, spending money has power here, education has power here, voting has power here. It may be tarnished, it may be dim, but it has power still. And it will continue to do so until the very last person has given up on voting, settled into the ignorance of letting judges make law, and thrown their library card out with the rest of the trash in favor of whats on the History channel.
Dont like that? Dont want to fight for it? Thats fine. No one asked you to. Please, be our guest and go elsewhere. Go settle somewhere that is willing to carry your burden of choice for you, that will give you all the knowledge you need to live within its idealogical framework (but no more, and none that is uncomfortable or disquieting), and will protect you from the unpleasantries of history and responsibility.

“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”

—Samuel Adams

A Hat...

I grew up in a culture where a lot could be said about a man, without breath passing lips, by his hat. It always struck me as one of the more admirable things about cowboy culture, such awareness of identifiers. Its something a lot of people miss. As an adult, now part of no particular culture, I'm one of the few people I know who notices things like boots, belts, hats, etc. I live in a town where one of the major industries is providing training to first responders and soldiers. We are regularly overrun with Police, Fire, EMS, agents of three letter agencies and so on, and my friends are always somewhat amused (if not annoyed) when I will randomly point out an identifying characteristic of one of these folks, when we're out to eat or the like. I will notice a brand or type of boots, a particular choice or cut of garment, pocket clips for folding knives, "riggers belts" (heavy duty nylon webbing belt often w/ emergency rappelling attachments - Originally sewn up by bored Army parachute riggers), and quietly peg the bearer of said items as a whatever. By the same token, they have often also assumed I was one of their classmates because my more recent background, employment and habits lends me to many of their dress characteristics. But such things, such observation and awareness, are not the common product of the common culture - Far from it. If you want to say the unsaid, let people see the unseen, you have to scream it, or build a fire a'top it before most of them notice.
Being the gray-man, the unnoticed, has its distinct advantages, but sometimes it is simply boring. I'm at the point in my life where being boring is not what I want, and am fortunately in an environment where standing out (probably) wont make me an obvious mark on any predatory radar. College is fun like that.
I used to have a baseball cap I liked quite a lot. It said a lot about me. It was a cheap wally world cap with Stewie (the baby from Family Guy) and a proclaimation of "Victory will be mine!" across the front. I had restyled it after what soldiers and private military contractors have taken to calling "dont shoot me" hats: The hard button on top removed and replaced with a tab of Velcro for attaching an IR reflective marker, and with Velcro on the front and across the back for attaching other identifier, or morale, patches. Mine bore morale patches, as I have no need for identification as a ‘friendly”.
One of the morale patches mounted to the bill said Infidel in large capital letters. Going to a school with a fair number of Muslim individuals, I'd occasioned to wonder if this perhaps offended anyone, but have never given that line much consideration as, frankly, I dont care. Simply because, I am an infidel.

Infidel is in the common lexicon today as a word associate with extremist Islam and terrorism. Their justification for killing us is that we are infidels and wish to corrupt their pure and good society with our infidel ways (by for example, not stoning women to death for "daring" to be raped).
The word has a broader use than just in the context of Islam, but I think everyone’s idea, including my own, of it now is heavily involved with that context more-so than any other.
Context aside, the word means an unbeliever, someone who doubts or rejects the central tenants of a religion.
Now, I am not a man without belief, but I am most certainly a man without religion. I don’t have much use for it, and it separates me from my God more than it connects me. But, my infidelity is not to a religion, or even religion itself. My infidelity is thus:
If you are an enemy of Enlightenment, Spiritual and Intellectual Freedom, the Right of Personal Decision, an enemy of Science, and Medicine, I am your enemy. If you use religion to justify your hatred, and attempts to destroy, those things in which I believe, then I am your Infidel, and proud of it. My depth of infidelity and animosity towards you who would destroy the world of knowledge and light, for darkness and ignorant superstition, is beyond description - And I am unrepentant in my attitude and desire to see you struck from the earth.
If you are not one of those people, if you are not a destroyer, a bonder of people to ideas and decisions not their own, a cruel hand of ancient tyrannies, then we are not enemies and I am not your Infidel. In all likelihood, we share ideals, beliefs, and common goals.

There are few things in this world that I am prouder of than being an Enemy, and Infidel, of the destroyers of education and freedom. When I had it, I wore my marker with pride. All those who it offended, will have few greater and more dedicated an enemy. All those who embraced it, will have few greater and more dedicated a friend.
I need to get that hat back, or make another one.

Reading Down the Bones

I was raised "interesting". It did not seem so at the time, but what child ever really understands that their life may not be normal? It is in a nature of their very being to take whats put before them and run with it. What was put before me was a life in the outdoors, surrounded by art and books and guns, without other children, among the company of writers and cowboys, wetbacks and artists. And I thought that was how everyones life was.
In my grand old age of 22 I now wish I had paid more attention. But at the same time as I cannot fully grasp what I may have lost due to inattention, I dont think I can fully grasp how much I gained that I simply take as "the way it is", that yet few others have or could understand.

I have, through no organized intention, recently returned to some of the more interesting people of my childhood via literature. Now, I claim no particularly deep knowledge, connection, or friendship, with these men - Simply that I knew them, via my father, and ignored them in the way only children can adults.
Stephen Bodio was that weird guy with the dogs and falcons that my dad used to talk country living, guns and hunting with in the post office, gas station or coffee shop for what seemed like tedious hours to a six year old. I always knew he was a writer, but never really paid much attention until recently. While searching blogger several months ago I came across his excellent blog, Stephen Bodio's Querencia, much to my surprised delight. It has been a regular read ever since. At my parents home a few weeks ago, I was raiding their bookshelves for a few different volumes - Intending to borrow 10,00 Goddamn Cattle by Katie Lee, and Horseman Pass By by McMurtry, and whatever else I could lay hands on, I saw they had somewhere acquired a second paperback copy of Bodio's autobiographical work Querencia, so I nabbed that as well. It was, as its turned out, the only member of a foot-plus tall stack which I've read since taking it. Other reviewers have already said a lot about this work, and its depth, and power, which I dont disagree with, or feel like repeating. Correct they are that Querencia is a great work, a heartfelt memoir of a person, a place, and a time. It is that, and at least for me, much more. Filled with rich details of people, falcons, guns, hunting, the country, and simple day to day life in an incredibly unique place, Querencia, is more than a simple memoir of loss. It is a fundamental account of exactly its title, a querencia.
As a writer who firmly believes, yet also struggles with the idea, that the best writing is done scared, done aching and afraid of whats on the paper but knowing it would be unhealthy to quit, I was fascinated and moved by Bodio's writing. Writing so freshly on the heels of a great loss, and detailing not the loss alone but the life before it, must have been both painful and healing, and it shows in the words, some of which simply bleed. Further, as a native resident of the small mountain community Bodio describes, more than the words of hope and sorrow bleed for me - People, places, events I knew, or have known, since childhood are described in loving detail. Seeing these individuals and things through the fresh eyes of Bodio, writing as the outsider coming in, was immensely pleasurable at the same time as it was often sad. Querencia has earned a permanent place on my bookshelf as a work of great love, and a documentation of a place and time that also exists somewhat in my own history, which is now gone.

David E. Stuart was one of my father's professors during a return stint to college, working on an archeology degree. Being homeschooled I tagged along to many of my parents classes while they were finishing up their degree's and sat in on many lectures, including from Dr. Stuart. Recently I've been reading his novel Flight of Souls, and quite enjoying it. Having spent a great deal of time in Mexico (particularly the Mexico that was), his insights into 1960's Mexico and the life available to an American ex-pat there are probably second to none. His writing is not as vivid, or stylish, as other writers tackling similar topics, but it is none the less rich, compelling and rewarding. The benefit of his anthropological and archaeological background Stuart sneaks into the fairly taught, well crafted, story of intrigue, many details on place, and culture, both of the time and of antiquity.
Several years ago I gave my dad two of Dr. Stuarts non-fiction, autobiographical, works, The Guaymas Chronicles and Zone of Tolerance, which I never read but now think I shall have to pick up.

I am glad that in my childhood I did not entirely ignore the people around me, the adults of my parents social circle, and that they encouraged me to be among them even in my youth. I cannot ever remember being told I was not welcome at a table, or leaning on a corral fence, or gathered around a fire, even when I was the only child. And from that, I am thankful that as an adult I can return, with the experience of a couple more years, to the works those individuals have offered, and get so much from them. It is such a fundamentally satisfying experience to read a good author, a voice you can identify with, particularly when it is a voice you have actually been exposed to.

Left barber college, lookin' for knowledge...

"I left Barber College, Searchin’ for knowledge, Went to the university. I must confess, Sir, This lady professor She turned me on to anthropology. Now I’m a Homo Erectus, Got to connect this, Bone that I discovered yesterday.
Tyrannosaurus
Lived in the forest,
Died because its heart got in the way." Kinky Friedman & Panama Red

I was talking with an acquaintance the other day in the rock climbing gym about Erebus Crystals. Erebus crystals are a rare type of Feldspar found primarily on Mt. Erebus, Antarctica. They are one of the rarer feldspar types around, given that they are found in only one other location and are formed under circumstances still not positively known. Ejected from the volcano inside bombs of volcanic glass, which subsequently wears away exposing the feldspar Erebus crystals within, the crystals are rather prized by those who can obtain them (among the small number of people who go to Antarctica, an even smaller number are actually allowed on the volcano).
As someone who has always wanted to go to Antarctica, I was of course somewhat insanely jealous of Julien's little pile of green rocks - As I have been previously envious of Julien for simply going to Antarctica, being a phenomenal climber, etc. - and it spurred me to find out more about them and where or how I might get some. The logical answer is, of course, go down there and be doing something that would permit me access to the volcano.
So, off to the website of Raytheon Polar Services, the division of Raytheon contracted to provide all support services to the research operations at the U.S. Antarctic stations. Looking through their job listings I came across several very interesting jobs that I hope to be qualified for in ten years (provided I stay on my current path), several more I will never be qualified for if I even wanted to do them, a few that could be interesting if I felt like getting the required degree, and then one, one, for which I am already insanely overqualified for, already this far into a science degree. Hairdresser.
Yep, they need hairdressers at McMurdo station.
I should have gone to barber college.