Great memorials send a message (Kingston Whig-Standard, 11 Nov 2011, Page5)
Great memorials send a message
Kingston Whig-Standard
11 Nov 2011
It’s Capt. Nichola Goddard who makes me sensitive to the underlying, and sometimes conflicting, messages of war memorials. A friend, our sons’ Boy Scout leader, the 16th Canadian casuality of Afghanistan, I harbour a parent-like need for memorials to…read more…
- Approaching the Vimy Memorial from the front retraces the open-field route of the 10,602 allied soldiers – 3,598 of them Canadian – who died while taking the 61-metre high ridge in April 1917. “Canada Bereft,” also known as “Mother Canada, ” is the focal point of the monument, standing front and centre on the impenetrable Wall of Defence, her head bowed in sorrow.
Mother Canada was fashioned in the style of Michelangelo’s Pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome — Mary, with the crucified Christ supine in her lap. And like the Pieta, her sorrow — the sorrow she evokes in the beholder — is as startling as it is profound. How better to honour the 200,000 who died at her feet?
Last fall, on an extended stay in Sydney, Australia, we visited the Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Memorial — a gorgeous 1930s Art Deco building in Hyde Park.
- Designed in the 1920s by Sydney architect Bruce Dellit, the exterior of the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park in Sydney, Australia is a gorgeous example of 1930s Art Deco architecture.
From the same era as Vimy, the memorial was built to honour First World War veterans of Sydney’s home state of New South Wales (NSW), later expanded to include all Australian service personnel. Like Vimy, everything about the memorial is just as it should be.
A multi-storey rotunda dominates the building’s interior. Visitors are guided to the second floor Hall of Memory. Here, the building’s domed roof is adorned with 120,000 gold stars, representing each of NSW’S First World War veterans.
The centre floor area is open to the ground floor below, surrounded by a marble balustrade carved as a wreath. Through this Well of Contemplation, one looks down upon the Hall of Silence below, and sculptor Raynor Hoff’s “Sacrifice.”
Sacrifice depicts in bronze “the recumbent form of an Anzac whose soul has passed to the Great Beyond,” borne aloft on a shield by his grieving beloved: his mother, sister, wife and child. Daylight from the skylights above is reflected in a golden hue from the shrine’s bronze floor — representing the hope of tomorrow.
Like the Pieta, like Mother Canada, Sacrifice depicts, and evokes in the beholder, an indescribable sorrow. “Let silent contemplation be your offering” is the unnecessary admonishment inlaid in marble in the entrance hall floor. Again, how better to honour the dead?
Encouraged by the veterans who staff the memorial, we accepted two gold stars, similar to those in the memorial’s dome. On one, we inscribed Marian’s late father’s name — a Second World War RAF veteran who returned home to live a long, full life. On the other, we inscribed Nichola’s. We dropped these into the Pool of Contemplation.
Last November, on the occasion of the memorial’s 75th anniversary, these stars were collected, burned, and the ashes distributed at key Australian battle sites, including Gallipoli, the battle that “defined” Australia, as Vimy Ridge is said to have defined Canada.
While the message of the Vimy and Anzac Memorials is clear, there is, as one might expect, an ancillary museum at each. And while history that is ignored is fated to be repeated, I’m not certain how military history — from great victory to horrible loss — is to be presented without glorification of war — the antithesis, seemingly, of these great memorials.
Such mixed messaging is epitomized by a naval gun monument in Hyde Park, a toss from the Anzac Memorial. On one side, a plaque honours the seamen killed and wounded while on board the HMAS Sydney. On the other, a plaque honours the officers who led the in its destruction of the German SMS Emden.
If there’s a memorial that epitomizes clarity in messaging, it’s the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Designed, remarkably, by a Yale University undergraduate student, the monument remains steadfastly — militantly — a memorial, not to the war, but to those who lost their lives to it.
Two, 247-foot-long granite walls join at a 125-degree angle. At their extremities, they stand about eight inches high, at their apex, 10 feet high. Without prelude, the memorial begins with “Richard B. Fitzgibbon,” killed on June 8, 1956, at the time of the monument’s construction, officially the first U.S. casualty of the war. It ends with “Kelton Rena Turner,” officially the last casualty of the war, killed on May 15, 1975.
- The most striking feature of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is its unforgiving polished, black granite surface. The visitor can’t view the names of the war’s 58,000 deceased without seeing his or her own reflection.
In between are etched 58,266 names, including a second “Richard B. Fitzgibbon,” killed Sept. 7, 1965, the son of the war’s first casualty. They are one of three father/son pairings on the wall; there are three dozen pairings of brothers.
The memorial’s main feature is its strikingly unforgiving polished, black granite surface. The visitor can’t view the names without seeing his or her reflection. The design intent was to merge past and present; the effect is as if to demand: “See? See what you’ve done?”
And this, to my mind, is what war great memorials do.
They refuse us the glorification of war. They stand on guard against our dismissal of casualties with easy labels like “hero.” They ground us in our colossal failures as a civilization. They pull us back to the very essence of our humanity.
Lest we forget?
Great memorials make it impossible.
Outback Safari
I’ve written in the past that Marian and I are accustomed to being the oldest in the class. Five years ago, we did the Bronze Medallion and Bronze Cross swim programs at the ‘Y’ with a wonderful group of 13-year-old classmates. Last summer, we did the TESL certification with an equally wonderful group of freshly-minted Queen’s undergrads. Having signed-up for a three-day/two-night backpackers’ Outback Safari – a tour that includes two nights of sleeping under the stars in a “swag” – we figured it was a safe bet we’d again be anchoring the summer/fall end of the age range. And that was part of the attraction.
Ours was the first of the dawn hotel pick-ups in Alice Springs. We laid claim to a seat nearest the door of our 21-seater Toyota tour van – home for the next three days. This gave every last one of the 15 younger people who followed us onboard the opportunity to nod, in some cases say “good morning,” and in all cases to pose – in rapid succession – two unspoken questions: “Am I on the wrong bus?” and “What the hell are my parents doing here?”
A quick stop at the tour office for final registration and we were Uluru-bound. “Just two right turns down the road,” Sam cheerfully announced over the vehicle’s PA system; Sam, being our mid-20s Kiwi driver, tour guide, cook, relationship councillor, and all-round good friend. Two right turns, yes, and 460 km. of typically red, but, thanks to record rainfall, this year green desert.
As seen from atop Kings Canyon, thanks to record rain fall, the "Red Centre" has a decidely green hue.
One of the first things we learned about Sam is that music is big in his life. For the next three days, iPOD-fed tunes played on the bus’s speaker system in lock-step with the vehicle’s engine running, interrupted solely for group announcements. Sam offered to substitute other peoples’ players for his own, but warned of a three-tune probation. To my knowledge, no one risked the unceremonious and public rebuke of their musical tastes.
Having made the first right-hand turn onto the Stuart Highway, Sam shut-down the tunes and introduced an ice-breaker exercise. One-by-one, we ventured forward to take a backward-facing seat on the engine cowling. PA microphone in hand, we answered a series of questions: name, homeland, favourite Australian experience to date, favourite music and musician(s), and key skill to contribute to an outback camping expedition.
Sam went first; Alex was second. It was only later that we realized Alex, a native Italian, spoke virtually no English. Nonetheless, he confidently faked his way through the exercise. By the time Lauren, from Wales, wrapped up the exercise, we had heard from eight nationalities whose mother-tongue covered Kiwi, Aussie, “Pommie” (i.e. U.K.), and Canuck shades of English, as well as Taiwanese, French, German, Italian, and Serbian. English was almost common; by the end of the trip, Bruno, a former journalist on sabbatical from an ad agency in Milan, had graciously slipped into the role of simultaneous translator for his countrymen, Alex and Simone.
It wasn’t yet 8 a.m. when we finished the ice-breaker and the group’s energy returned to up-before-dawn level. Marian and I silently scoffed at what would be the first of Sam’s suggestions that we snuggle in and let his choice of tunes lull us back to sleep. Ah yes, thought I, trance-rap lullabies!
That said, whatever annoyance we might have felt with the incessant din was soon offset by Julie and Eva in the seat behind us. Delightful and lovely, from France and Germany, respectively, they quietly sang along with just about every song Sam played, no matter how inane and forgetable we judged the lyric. Their ability to do so became a topic of conversation on day one of the outing, and ended the trip as the source of much two-way kidding (I think they were secretly pleased when, bizarrely, a Four Seasons’ tune shuffled its way to the playlist late into our second day and we were able to join in).
Normally, I’m not a nervous passenger, but perhaps because Sam isn’t much older than our boys, or maybe because we recognized he’d been up even earlier than the rest of us, I found myself paying attention to his body language as he drove. When I saw him rubbing the back of his neck in the manner I do when I’m fighting nods at the wheel, I decided it was time to go forward for a visit.
"Kiwi Sam," our cook, relationship councillor, all-round good friend, and a remarkably gifted tour guide.
Sam had already told us he was from north of Auckland. When I asked him what brought him to the Outback, he told me he joined the New Zealand army at the age of 17 and served for six years, the last six months in Afghanistan. When he returned home from the posting, he quit the military and, I suspect, in his own way, his country. “We have no business being there,” was all he said, but I sensed there was a whole lot more unspoken. We commiserated on that point for just awhile before it was time to pull off the highway for the trip’s inaugural pit stop.
Kings Canyon was our first destination, approximately 200 km north and slightly east of Uluru. Yes, there is a canyon, but there couldn’t be one without the breath-taking escarpment in which it’s found, towering majestically and improbably over the table-top-flatness of the surrounding desert. The 6 km Rim Walk offered-up a challenging hike, rewarded at every turn with stunning vistas. The pathway routinely broadened and then narrowed again to single- or near single-file passage (one such narrowing featured prominently in the terrific Aussie movie, “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert).” The routine narrowing of the trail had the effect of continuously shuffling the group, which I took as an opportunity to reinforce names and other particulars before the ice-breaker introductions disappeared into a cerebral fog.
I have two theories related to the human condition. The first – of which I’m entirely certain – is that we all yearn to be friendly and unguarded with strangers, we just need permission to be so. Granting someone such permission usually requires nothing more than the willingness to be the first to say “good morning.” I test this theory routinely, which is my our boys were forming full sentences by the age of three months: “Dad, you talk to much!” That’s probably entirely true – the talking too much thing, that is – but I’m awed at how consistently a simple “hello” walks away with full credit for a wonderful, albeit fleeting, connection with a complete stranger. Sandy, my friend the scientist, says she much prefers marsupials, but, granted permission to be so, humans can also be quite likeable.
My second theory is an extension of the first, dealing with younger women and their relationship with creepy middle-aged males (CMAMs), a category into which, at least from their perspective, I’m at increased risk to be relegated. The permission theory still applies, but CMAMs are wise to recognize that, generally, the “simple ‘hello'” overture must be cautiously repeated several times over before it’s accepted as being string-free. As I discovered with the younger women with whom I worked for several years on organization of the Teddy Bear Picnic – the Teddy Bear Girls, as I so lovingly think of them – being a friend, without the burden of being peer, parent, or date, is enviable space to occupy.
Stairs and boardwalks aid the descent from atop Kings Canyon into the lush Garden of Eden.
I had most of the group’s names, countries, and cities of origin nailed down by the time we hit the Garden of Eden, a uncharacteristically lush section of the canyon that harbours a natural deep-water pool. Having weathered arid desert conditions to get there, most of the group opted to do a towel-clad, discreet-as-possible change into swimmers for a refreshing dip. Changing back into dry clothing in a similar fashion, I sensed that, while we might not know each other, the group was pretty comfortable with itself.
The proof and benefit of this came late in the afternoon as Sam made an unscheduled stop along the edge of the highway. The winds had picked up and we could see heavy lightning and rain in the distance. All hands pitched in to move our swags – a somewhat weather-proof bedroll into which one inserts a sleeping bag – from the roof of our tow-behind trailer, into the trailer itself. We then loaded up the trailer roof with fire wood we gathered from along the side of the road. As it turned out, we collected enough for our two nights’ of camping and to leave behind a sizeable contribution to the communal woodpile at our last site.
The greater proof and benefit came that evening as we made camp – in pitch darkness – somewhere in the million-acre holdings of Curtin Springs Station. I sensed Sam leaned on his military background as he orchestrated – with remarkable speed and great helpings of humour – the group’s rustling-up of an inviting camp fire and an over-the-coals dinner that was as elaborate as it was delicious. By the time the last of the dishes had been washed and again stowed in the trailer, everyone in the group could rightfully claim a contribution to the effort.
It seemed so natural, then, for us to fan our swags out on the ground, side-by-side around the campfire. There was a certain loveliness as Lauren, claimed the space on Marian’s far side. “I’m sleeping next to the Canadians,” she announced. There was a similar loveliness as Christine, the young German optometrist on my opposite side, and I coordinated the ultimately mundane task of safely stashing our glasses for potential quick access during the night, as well as the location of our “torch” should she or Lauren need it. Most especially, there was an indescribable loveliness when, with everyone comfortable snuggled into their swags, Julie from France – for no particular reason – launched what would become a laughingly-sung group chorus of “Frere Jacques.” How could this not be a great trip?
But by far the greatest proof and benefit came over the next couple of days as we explored Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park through its Culture Centre, through Sam’s award-winning interpretative commentary, and while hiking on our own. And yet I know my lasting memories of this spiritual well-spring are wrapped in memories of the people with whom we experienced it, and the snippets from their lives they gifted along the way.
Uluru at sunset (above) and sunrise (below).
I’ll remember the conversations that second evening as we waited for the sun to set on the rock; the muted conversations the next morning as we shiveringly awaited its return. I’ll remember the campfire games that second night – games I opted to forego in favour of simply soaking up the sight of people so clearly enjoying each others’ company. I’ll remember wee, tiny Ben from Taiwan, shivering by the campfire until Marian fetched and wrapped him with a sleeping bag. “Ya’ can take the mother out of the nursery…,” was Sam’s dry observation, but there was no mistaking the group’s tacit acknowledgment that there’s a time and place for motherly acts; I’ll remember the early morning 10 km hike around the base of the rock, warmed in equal measure by the rising sun and the quiet, comfortable conversation with Bruno and Martin from Paris.
Even small, mundane things like the communal clean-up after a breakfast spent watching the sunrise on Uluru added to the richness of our experience.
We arrived back in Alice Springs late in the afternoon of our third day, but not before stopping for a group photo atop the “Welcome to Alice Springs” sign. I suspected again that Sam relied on his military background in contriving the group’s pose to deliver an alternative message. Later that evening, when we had all reconvened for drinks and dinner at a local eatery, he commented that he doesn’t normally stop for a group photo, “but this group just seemed to gel so nicely.”
As we have in the past when we’ve been the oldest kids in the class, we come away wondering if our sense of the richness of the group experience would be the same if we were the ages of our younger travelling companions. Do they share our sense of the experience’s richness? Would we experience that same sense of richness in a group more exclusively of our own age?
In truth, once again this time, the warmth of the lingering goodbye-hugs told us we weren’t alone in our sense of it all. From the 20-something perspective: maybe, just maybe, having people their parents’ age along made for a more enjoyable ride. From our perspective: maybe, just maybe, anchoring the summer/fall end of the age range is also enviable space to occupy.
Our wonderful travel companions were (left to right) Bruno (Italy), Simone (Italy), Katie (England), me and Marian (Canada), Ben (Taiwan), Rad (Australia), Ana (Serbia), Christine (Germany), Eva (Germany), Martin (France), Alex (Italy), Basti (Germany), Lauren (Wales), Steffi (Germany), Lena (Germany). Missing from photo: Julie (France) and our tour guide and photographer: Kiwi Sam (New Zealand, of course)
A Town Like Alice
Marian and me on the outskirts of Alice Springs, a town we never expected to visit. Still 460 km across the red-but-now-green centre to Uluru.
Dawn, Alice Springs.
We’re sitting on the front step of our budget hotel, waiting to be picked up for our three-day/two-night “Backpackers’ Outback Safari.” For a series of reasons, beginning, perhaps, with declining levels of caffeine and no evident source of replenishment, the experience is feeling a tad surrealistic. More likely it’s because we’ve long-known of Alice Springs, but never expected to visit it.
Our intended destination is actually Uluru, Australia’s most famous natural landmark – once known as Ayers Rock, now having reverted to aboriginal ownership and name. Alice Springs is the nearest city to Uluru, but still leaves us with a 460 km. ground trip southwest, across what is normally this country’s “red centre.” As it happens, the Outback this year has posted its heaviest rainfall in recorded history. Desert red has turned to green scrub, stretching on seemingly forever.
Having arrived the previous afternoon, we were able to test Marian’s warmish literary memory of “A Town Like Alice” against the real thing. For me, Alice proved to be a town like Grande Prairie, Alberta, circa 1978, not just for its size and look, but for the apparent societal divide between aboriginal and non-aboriginal populations – and the evident associated issues.
A government poster advertising a long list of buying restrictions entertained us as we cooled our heels in the glacial bottle store queue. Then, in turn, I was carefully “carded” to ensure my name isn’t on the Northern Territory’s alcohol prohibition list.
This particular morning, we unexpectedly find the hotel owner at the front desk. He’s been up all night, he tells us. “Our dark friends were getting a little out of hand around town.”
Like Grande Prairie way back when, a visible minority sure takes the work out of identifying troublemakers.
Nostalgic longing for places unseen
Great works of fiction are always set in our own living rooms, says American academic and novelist Siri Husdvedt in the lead essay of her collection “A Plea for Eros.” Recognizing this, good writers sketch the room and leave us to the furnishings. Lesser writers load on detail, not recognizing that by doing so, they cheat us of the pleasure of a good read.
Husdvedt is absolutely right, of course. Every reader has had the experience of having a crystal-clear image of a main character or other essential element of a novel shattered by an incongruent Hollywood blockbuster. But I think Husdvedt understates the phenomenon on two counts.
Number one: how is it that we can take an historic or period piece, for instance, and set it so vividly in our living room when we have no context – experience – to do so? Secondly, how is it that we develop such a strong emotional attachment to what is nothing more than a mental contrivance, and carry that attachment for years after we’ve forgotten all other detail of the story?
I’ve come face-to-face with this phenomenon twice in the last year.
In March, we were wrapping up our second week of scuba training on Utila Island, part of the Bay Island chain that bookends the southern end of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, stretching from the northern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico to Honduras.
On what was to be our last Saturday on the island, our dive centre was offering a day-long expedition to Cayos Cochinos, an archipelago and marine biological reserve situated about two hours away by water. It was an expensive outing and we were torn on whether or not to participate.
In the midst of our indecision, we asked Lauren, one of the dive instructors, for her recommendation. “It’s the Caribbean the way you’ve always imagined the Caribbean,” was all she said. Yet, all of Madison Avenue couldn’t have fashioned a more persuasive response.
Through more years of reading than I care to mention, I’ve accumulated an image of the Caribbean. Throughout my adult life, it’s where I’ve always gone when I picture the perfect holiday. It’s where I’ve always gone when closing my eyes and imagining is as close to a holiday as I’m going to get. How could I resist, then, the opportunity to see it in real life?
The Caribbean as I've always imagined the Caribbean. Our captain nudged the diving boat onto this beach so we could enjoy a lunch of whole fish and Coco-Locos, a rum-filled coconut shell.
Fortunately, unlike the aforementioned Hollywood Blockbuster, Lauren’s description was spot on. Cayos Cochinos turned out to be the Caribbean exactly as I’ve always imagined it, and we had a day that was as close to my idea of a perfect holiday as I might ever see.
I’ve always said that it was music that kept me in high school, but the truth is my graduation from a small rural public school’s monthly “bookmobile” to the comparatively vast holdings of a regional high school library was just as instrumental (pun not intended).
Over the course of five years, at a pace of six to nine books per week, I read my way through the library – and most classes – beginning with all 58 volumes of the original Hardy Boys series.
I remember little in the way of detail of the formulaic stories: Teenage brothers Frank and Joe Hardy – with improbably-named pals Chet Morton and Biff Hooper – forever stepping in to solve mysteries for their detective-father, Fenton; Mrs. Hardy, never quite in the picture, save for baking cookies for the boys; Aunt Gertrude, even more distant.
And yet, since the age of 13, I’ve nursed a poignant, near-palatable longing for the remote, always blustery, always haunting headlands of the Bayport coast, the boys’ hometown. I’m tucked away in a towering crag, a sea breeze whipping my face, the surf crashing below; a group of smugglers surreptitiously maneuvering their mahogany runabout to a nefarious rendezvous in a secluded cove.
The funny thing is, I had no clue I was carrying any of that around with me until our first visit to Sydney in 2003.
It was a business trip for Marian. While she worked, I had two weeks of visiting one indescribably-beautiful beach after another. Two days before we were to depart, I discovered the Manly to The Spit Trail.
It’s helpful, I expect, if I first tell you a little bit about the Sydney Harbour. The Harbour is 16 miles in length, but its perimeter is 152 miles long. As it runs through the centre of the city, it’s difficult to get much further than a couple of blocks out of sight of an arm – or at least a finger – of the harbour. It also means that one has to be conscious of water when attempting dry land navigation from point A to point B.
From the headlands near the mid-point of the Manly to The Spit Trail, looking across the Sydney Harbour to South Head and the city centre. To the left, two Manly Ferries pass on their routes to and from Circular Quay, next to the Opera House.
Sydney is described as “the city of villages,” and Manly is the former village – now thriving beach-side town at the northern end of the harbour. Because the harbour is particularly wide at its northern end, vehicular traffic would be required to travel quite a distance to the west before being able to swing south to the city centre. The saving grace is a narrow “spit” of land not far from Manly that, with the addition of a heavily-trafficked bridge, forms what looks almost like a causeway – and short cut – back to town.
As the crow flies, the distance from Manly to The Spit is approximately 4 kms. But given that length-to-perimeter business I mentioned earlier, the trail that follows the headlands is 11 kms. I was somewhere around the mid-point in 2003 when I suddently realized I was walking the Bayport coastline. It was one of those “coming home” type of moments. The next afternoon, our last full day in Oz, Marian played hookie so we could walk the trail together.
From roughly the same spot on the trail, a view of North Head in the distance, and Manly to the left.
I really didn’t expect we’d find ourselves back to Australia anytime soon. But I couldn’t think of a better reason to return than to once again walk the trail, which we did a few weeks ago. I expect we’ll do it at least once more before we head back to Canada. Try as I might, there seems to be no satisfying my nostalgic longing for a place I’ve never seen.
(By the way, Will Ferguson wrote a wonderfully warm and funny Father’s Day piece in the Globe and Mail earlier this year on his reading the Hardy Boys series to his young son. See it at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-burden-and-the-glory-of-fatherhood/article1610030/print/)
OZ on Parade
A very large flat screen TV is the centerpiece of our Sydneyside living-room. I’m not sure exactly how big it is, but a corner-to-corner stretch consumes the lion’s share of my arm span. It would be incorrect then to say we are not big TV watchers, we just don’t do it very often.
Like Canada, Australia is a large country with a small population – only about 21.5 million, mostly clumped in relatively few urban areas. After a few weeks of infrequent TV viewing, then, one becomes conscious of seeing the same faces showing up on multiple channels and programs.
“Good News Week” became our instant AusCon favourite. Hosted by comedien/musician Paul McDermott and featuring a revolving cast of six comediens/performers, GNW combines a wacky-headlines-of-the-week game show with “Who’s Line is it Anyway?” It typically keeps us laughing out loud for 50-odd minutes of the hour-long show. When we’re not laughing, it’s usually because we haven’t kept up with the pace of delivery. We’re looking forward to attending a taping of the show next Saturday at the ABC studios downtown.
There is a striking difference in the comedy one hears on GNW and other Aussie shows compared to what we hear in Canadian or U.S. programming. One senses the broadcast environment here is uncensored by regulatory code and it’s certainly free of self-imposed political correctness.
The effect is that whit runs rampant. There are no laugh tracts. No subject is sacred. Who knew, for instance, that there were so many al Qaeda jokes? Those who resort to the easy, obvious jokes are greeted with evident distain. Profanity, when it’s heard, tends to make witty comments that much funnier.
Yes, intelligent humour seems to rule here, and for reasons I can’t explain, it would never be permitted on North American airwaves.
I was thinking about this yesterday as we hiked the “Parade” historical walking tour of downtown Sydney.
The Parade route is anchored by Oxford Street, widened in 1910 – 1914 to become one of the city’s first boulevards – a place to see and be seen. The street has hosted many parades: military, celebratory, ceremonial and political. But “Parade” also alludes to the gay rights movement that found its way out of the closets – and jails – of Australia onto Oxford Streets and environs in the ’70s and ’80s.
Although homosexual acts remained illegal in Sydney’s home-state of New South Wales until 1984, a plethora of restaurants, shops, bookstores, pubs and “back rooms,” according to our walking tour guide, clustered to form the “Gay Golden Mile” along – and near – Oxford Street.
Marian reads inscriptions on artist Annie Kennedy’s “Camp Stonewall,” which encircles the closed up “men’s convenience” (public washrooms) in Taylor Square. The monument honours the leaders of the gay rights movement in Sydney. Two of the inscribed tiles appear below.
Today, the Parade district is reminiscent of the Castor neighbourhood of San Francisco: more trendy and tasteful than flamboyant and rebellious.
A Gay Holocaust Memorial in Green Park brought back memories of our Sunday at Dachau two years ago, with one entire room of the museum dedicated to the enumeration of groups – including homosexuals – who were on the Nazi hit-list.
A funkier monument can be found in Taylor Square, at the convergence of Oxford, Bourke, and Flinders Streets. Artist Annie Kennedy’s “Camp Stonewall” encircles the closed up “Men’s Convenience” (public washrooms), and honours in words and looping audio recordings those who led the gay rights movement.
But Oxford Street’s urbane shops and somber monuments remain spiced with dashes of pepper. Amidst the many, many high-end women’s shops and men’s boutiques with names like “Aussie Boys,” are shops catering to virtually every sexual taste and preference.
We passed one sex shop called “SAX Fetish.” Right next door is a Thai restaurant.
What would you call a Thai restaurant that’s right next door to a fetish sex shop?
What else would you call a Thai restaurant that neighbours on the Fetish sex shop, but "Thai Me Up?"
Well, this is my point about the difference between Aussie-rules and North American humour. We’d be concerned about offending say, victims of sexual assaults. Here, the shop is humourously, delightfully, and unaplogetically branded “Thai Me Up.”
(For additional comment on the Aussie sense of humour, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZPuu_GUqHM)
A world turned upside down
Leave Pearson International and fly west, setting down in Vancouver. The local time is three hours earlier than Toronto. Continue west to Australia and you gain even more time, right?
Nope, you lose a full day of your life.
Writer Bill Bryson describes leaving L.A. on January 3rd and arriving in Sydney 14 hours later, on January 5th. “All I know is that for one twenty-four-hour period in the history of Earth, it appears that I had no being.”
From this disembodied state, one begins one’s acclimatization in Australia.
A 12-hour time difference between here and EST-bound home wouldn’t be difficult to contend with: A.M. is P.M and P.M. is A.M. Really, nothing to it. It’s the 13th and 14th hour of the time differential that’s a real mind bender – those few hours of the cycle when A.M. is A.M. and P.M. is P.M. I’ve learned to be more careful after calling a friend for an early evening chat, her time, only to discover mid-conversation that she was still sipping her morning coffee.
I’m getting better at doing the conversion without methodical mental calculation (e.g. “It’s noon here, which means midnight there, less two hours, which means it’s 10:00 p.m.”). But it still hurts my head to calculate the best time to call our son Levi, who works until the unfathomable wee hours of the morning EST, or our other son Ben at UBC (aforementioned EST calculation, less 3 hours).
Time isn’t our only source of disorientation.
Like the British, Australians drive on the left-hand side of the road. Ten years ago, we spent a week tooling around the English countryside in a rented car, and we’d like to think we weren’t a major threat to our fellow motorists.
With me behind the wheel and Marian navigating, I’d blindly obey her commands to “Follow that car!”, giving as little regard as I could muster to our relative location on the great motorway of life.
A view of downtown Sydney and its monorail, from Pyrmont Bridge, a pedestrian and bicycle route across Cockle Bay.
On only two occasions did our approach breakdown. In one instance, we circled a multi-lane roundabout three times before Marian selected an appropriate rear bumper to lead us on our way. On another occasion, at the end of a long day, on a very narrow street, I fell victim to instinct, moving to my extreme right to make way for an oncoming vehicle. Fortunately, he sized me up quickly (“Bloody colonial!”). Like two suspicious animals, we carefully maneuvered around each other, one never taking his eye off of the other, me, clearly more comfortable than he, in doing so in a counter-clockwise motion.
Despite that previous exposure, spared the liability – and potential weaponry – of a vehicle encasing us, we’re slower on foot and bicycle to adjust to left-hand living.
Three weeks on, we’re just able to bring ourselves to walk facing oncoming traffic on the right-hand side of the street. But vehicles are remarkably menacing when they are doing the counter-intuitive. It’ll be awhile yet before we overcome the sensation that oncoming vehicles aren’t yielding us our due clearance, and that vehicles approaching from behind are going to nail us in the backs. We continue to refrain from jay-walking – a concession to our lingering inability to evaluate the associated risks.
Equally difficult is acclimatizing to the “bear left” pedestrian protocol on busy, downtown sidewalks. It quickly becomes clear that, while native Aussies probably comply as much as native North Americans adhere to our bear-right upbringings, Sydney is a metropolitan city.
In the midst of what is undoubtedly New York City-like, me-first behaviour, one can observe what look like well-intentioned outflanking maneuvers being mounted on both the left- and right-hand sides of pedestrian flow, in both directions. Most intersections downtown have a notice painted on the curb, advising pedestrians to “Look Left” or “Look Right,” as the case might be, with an arrow pointed in the direction of oncoming traffic.
With three and one half months to do so, there’s no question that we’ll fully acclimatize. It’ll be just in time, I suspect, to return to Canada, again setting down in Vancouver, 15 hours later, but on the same day and a few hours earlier than our departure from Sydney.
Do ya’ think…?
One of the things that makes Circular Quay in Sydney, Australia such a great public meeting space is the ongoing entertainment.
Watching tens of thousands of people from all over the world wandering by is, on its own, pleasantly distracting, but thrown into the mix is a steady stream of offerings from amateur buskers and professional street entertainers alike. At any given time along the quay, one will find musicians to suit all tastes (or not!), jugglers, acrobats, “living” statues, and the like.
A contortionist was one of the professional-level street entertainers performing this past Sunday. We didn’t catch her name and missed all but the grande finale of her act: her squeezing herself into a 16 cubic inch box.
Of course, what’s really entertaining about street entertainers isn’t just the talent that’s the basis for their act, it’s also their banter with the crowd. Barely pausing for a breath, the unnamed contortionist delivered a rapid-fire commentary that was funny, occasionally off-colour, and clever enough to appropriately sail clear over the heads of the little kids in the crowd.
An unnamed contortionist squeezes herself into a 16 cubic inch box.
Double entendres aside, I thought her funniest line was delivered just before she exited the plexiglass box pictured above. “Gary,” she asked one of her assistants recruited from the crowd, “be honest: does my bum look big in this?”
For however long it’s posted, you can watch this segment of her show at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RatB5INWzLw. And yes, the video includes ALL of the same jokes.
A Taste of Kiwi in Oz
There was a pleasant feeling of homecoming last Monday as we took our first foray downtown from our temporary digs in the Forest Hills suburbs of northern Sydney.
After seven years, the names of the main public transit stops still had a familiar ring to them, concluding with Wynyard, a stone’s throw from Circular Quay. The quay, a large dock area, is the site of the first European footprint in Australia, but was likely doomed to be little more than a ferry terminal until someone thought to build an opera house between it and the gorgeous Royal Botanic Gardens next door.
On the opposite side of the terminal, many more thoughtful minds and at least one high-profile arrest were involved in the decision to transform – rather than raze – the industrial buildings – once a staple of urban waterfronts – into The Rocks, a delightfully trendy neighbourhood of high-end boutiques, galleries, and eateries that explodes into an artisan market on the weekend.
The Rocks, Circular Quay, the Opera House, the Botanic Gardens combine to offer what is in my mind one of the world’s truly great public meeting places. I’m certain we sounded like little kids as we explored and rediscovered. “Ooh, I remember being here…. Ahh, I remember this!”
But neither of us remembered the two-storey rugby ball.
The two-storey New Zealand rugby ball is a new - and temporary - addiiton to Circular Quay since our last visit to Sydney.
New Zealand will host the 2011 Rugby World Cup and its government is pulling out all the stops to promote tourism. We cooled our heels for about ten minutes before stepping into the inflated building for a whirlwind, multi-media tour of the other land down under.
We took our seats on the mezzanine level, pleasantly removed from the mob of school kids sprawling themselves on the floor below. We had a few minutes to marvel at how – with IMAX technology – the entire inside of the oval-shaped building was an animated living-room.
A fire was burning in the fireplace on the front wall. The landscape we could see outside the windows did a slow, unobtrusive cycle through the seasons. Books glided off the book shelf, opened up, and scrolled through pages of photographs of Kiwi rugby teams of yore. The projected image of a movie projector on the left wall click-clacked footage of historic rugby games on the projected image of a portable screen on the right wall.
At the appointed time, the movie projector stopped, the portable screen folded up, the room dimmed as the window curtains were drawn, and the show began.
The ceiling of the living room peeled opened and we found ourselves sitting on Circular Quay, seeing the Opera House and all of the sights we would have seen had we actually stepped out of the rugby-ball-building. A larger-than-life rugby player picked the room up, making us realize that we were inside a transparent rugby ball, and then booted us out into space. After a brief tour of the galaxy, we settle back down for a gentle landing in New Zealand.
Over the next ten minutes, our rugby ball transporter was carried across New Zealand by car, helicopter, in the mouth of a dog, underwater, on a snowboard, and on skies. As we travelled, a real-life host/interpreter shared the folklore history of his country.
Only toward the end of the presentation was rugby promoted. Up-close footage was played of the New Zealand All Blacks national team doing the Haka, a Māori traditional dance that it performs immediately prior to its matches. If you’re not familiar with it, don’t think dance, think aggressive, assertive, chest-beating, ready-to-kill war chant (watch a video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkxaBKd8SwA&NR=1).
A New Zealand troop performs a Haka before moving to more decidedly soothing Māori singing.
Our Australian friend Paul tells us that the Aussie team’s response to the Haka is to stand, folded-arm, unmoved, unperturbed. Occasionally, Aussie players will turn their backs on the ritual, a ploy that Paul says is intended to rile the Kiwis. I’m betting it’s to hide their wet pants.
The show concluded with us being booted back through space to Circular Quay. The ceiling of our transporter closed back in and we found ourselves again in the comfort of our living room.
We stepped out of the rugby ball in time to watch a troop of ten young New Zealanders in native costume do a short version of the Haka. They then sang three Māori songs. The musicality sent shivers up my spine – full-throated, lyrical harmonies capped by a heaven-sent soprano gliding ever so gently above.
It did the trick: on our first day of rediscovering Australia, we came home keen to visit New Zealand.
Taking a Caribbean Flyer
Prompted by a conviction that maturing sensibilities should be routinely shaken up, we swung north from Copan Ruinas, Honduras to the Bay Islands, off the country’s Caribbean coast. This is the cheapest place in the world to learn to scuba dive, we were told by several co-travelers. Doing so in warm water is a distinct bonus.
We arrived by ferry on Utila Island on a Monday evening, greeted by a spectacular sunset and the staff of Alton’s Dive Centre, our chosen scuba school and one of about two-dozen on the island. Our five-minute ride down the main street – really nothing more than a lane following the contour of the shoreline – was shared with three fellow Canadians, hailing from Toronto, Sudbury, and parts unstated. The predominance of Canadians amongst those we’ve met travelling in Mexico and through Central America seems to confirm that Canada escaped the worst of the global financial meltdown.
We fell in love with Utila immediately. Part of it was a much-needed break from street hawkers. “No, gracias” three- to four-dozen times a day begins to wear after several months. Part of it was our comfortably-basic accommodation and the memories it evoked of our favourite childhood cottages.
It was impossible not to fall in love with sunsets like this one, viewed from the front door of our room.
Being late bloomers, we’re accustomed to being the oldest kids in the class. Five years ago we did the Bronze Medallion and Bronze Cross swim programs at the ‘Y’ with a wonderful group of 13-year-old classmates. Last summer, we did the TESL certification with an equally wonderful group of newly-minted Queen’s undergrads. In both instances, initial in-class awkwardness gave way to an enriched learning atmosphere. That said, Marian hasn’t entirely forgiven our handsome young TESL classmate who, after several rounds of graduation celebration, said his goodbyes with a big hug and high-praise: “You’re just like my mom!”
By bedtime that first evening, we had put to rest all apprehension around finding ourselves in a younger, party-hearty environment. The focus here is on diving – safe diving. Lights, like noise and booze, are out early, ‘cause the day also starts early.
We were in class at 8 a.m. the next morning with Max, our diving instructor and a run-away from Manchester, England. As the week unfolded, in class and in the water, we discovered that Max is not only an excellent and supportive teacher, but also a great deal of fun.
Our sole classmate, initially, was Gordon, a terrific 15-year-old from Peterborough, Ontario. Gordon was here with his parents, Cam and Liz, and his younger sister, Edie. Cam, a long-time diver, completed his Advanced Open Water certification while we were doing the introductory program. Between classroom sessions and dives, we’ve burned up a few tanks of air, chatting parent and mid-life stuff with Cam and Liz.
For our first dive and subsequent classroom work, we were joined by Dave and Freya, a lovely mid-20s couple from London, England. We were also joined on the dives by Charles, an oceanic studies doctoral student from Quebec City. Charles is working on his certification as a Dive Master, before heading on to Resolute Bay in about four weeks and resumption of his thesis research. It was truly a pleasant group to be part of, one of those ones I always hope for when signing up for a course.
But what I really want to tell you about is flying…or at least as close to it, I think, as humans can get.
Buoyancy control is scuba’s foundational skill. Fully outfitted and with the right amount of lead strapped to the waist, the diver uses nothing more than the pitch of the body and gentle breath to glide bird-like through the underwater world. A regular breath, held for a prolonged instant, initiates a gentle ascent. A slight pause after exhalation prompts an equally gentle descent. Regular breathing allows one to hover in “mid-air” in a fashion my meditation friends would envy.
Hovering in the water, especially in tandem, is one of the foundational skills of scuba diving. Doing so while obeying the photographer's signalled order to stop producing bubbles - that is, breathing - was just that much more of a challenge.
The underwater topography here greatly contributes to the sense of flying. The Bay Islands are part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System that stretches from the northern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico to Honduras. It’s the second largest barrier reef in the world and, according to some websites, is also the second largest coral reef in the world. In contrast to the flat-bottom underwater worlds to which I’m accustomed, the undersea world here is like a flooded Rocky Mountain range. So much so, in fact, that one new diver trainee came off a boat last week, stuck is masked face in the water, and had to immediately return to the terra firma of the boat. It took a couple of days for him to overcome in-water vertigo before he could begin diving.
To better explain that fear: the peak of the reef in this area is referred to as “The Wall.” Its top is relatively flat, sits five to six meters beneath the surface, and consists of coral crags separated by pastures of that same coral pulverized to white, coarse sand. Visibility is breathtakingly good, which is why when one swims out over the top of the wall and the ground below suddenly plummets to nothingness, it’s impossible to avoid the panicky sense that you’re about to free-fall into an abyss. You don’t, of course. But what you can do, as we did, is glide down to a depth of 120 feet to explore the face of the wall – its coral and other marine life, mountain passes and valleys – as you slowly regain the surface.
The other thing that contributes to the sense of flying – and would also appeal to my meditation friends – is that the undersea world is three-dimensional. For safety, the buddy system is used during all dives. It’s a tad mind-bending getting used to looking up and down as well as side-to-side, front and back, to stay in visual contact with one’s buddy. It’s also a curious experience to pass over the top of another diving group, knowing they’re entirely unaware of your having crossed paths.
Per our non-existent itinerary, we completed our PADI Open Water certification last Friday. We so enjoyed our experience – the diving, the island, the people we find ourselves surrounded by – we’ve opted to stay for a second week to do the NAUI Advanced Scuba Diver certification. In the course of completing it, we did six specialty dives, including a night dive, exploration of a ship sunk to 30 metres, naturalist training for Marian and an introduction to underwater photography for me. We are now qualified to dive to 40 metres, the maximum depth permissible for recreational diving.
On our final Saturday on Utila, we did an optional day’s diving trip to Cayos Cochinos, about an 1 ½ hours from the dive centre by water. What convinced us to go was one of the instructors describing the chain of islands as “the Caribbean the way you imagine the Caribbean.” Our first dive, off the Roatan Banks, was a drift dive. We dropped in and allowed the current to carry us along the underwater ridge. When we resurfaced, our dive master raised a marker buoy that signalled the dive boat to retrieve us.
The Caribbean as I've always imagined the Caribbean. Our captain nudged the diving boat onto this beach so we could enjoy a lunch of whole fish and Coco-Locos, a rum-filled coconut shell.
The second dive of the day was in Lion’s Head, a secluded, protected and gorgeous bay with a flat sand bottom at five metres, interrupted by towering coral mounds, looking something like beautiful giant mushrooms in the underwater world. As the picture above attests, our chosen location for lunch was indeed the Caribbean the way I imagine the Caribbean.
Already we’re looking forward to four months in Australia this fall and the opportunity to further shake up our sensibilities, flying the Great Barrier Reef.
David Morris - Journeys 