I’ve recently bought myself a new single lens reflex camera, and I’ve been itching to try it out. So I went down town to photograph the young Catholic pilgrims that have come to Sydney for World Youth Day.
Let me state right now that I’m not a religious person, and that I’m not anti-religious either. I wanted to photograph the pilgrims, because I knew that they would be colourful subject matter due to the fact that many of them had wrapped themselves in their country’s flags, and it would be interesting to document the phenomenon.
I have to admit that my preconceived ideas, led me to believe that I could go and look at the pilgrims dispassionately as though they were just some picturesque folk who follow some anachronistic dogma rather than decent people with deeply held beliefs.
On the television news, I had seen a few reports showing the pilgrims playing music and it all looked a bit lame. So when I went down to Hyde Park near St Mary’s Cathedral in downtown Sydney it came as quite a surprise to me, how much I enjoyed the music and watching the people dance to it.
As I was watching a Spanish group of pilgrims playing the guitar and singing while about 50 people danced in a circle around them, a young neatly dressed Spanish woman came up to me and told me in broken English, that she was part of that group and that she wanted me to know that Jesus loved me the way how I was. I have a standard reply that I tell such people so that I don’t get involved in some long and tedious discussion about the Bible. I always say, ” thank you, I know”. That always puts a smile on their faces, and they leave me alone because they think I’m one of them. All the same, it did it gave me a warm feeling that someone wanted to share some joy.
Strangely enough, later on, I found myself thinking about why she had said what she had, to me, and the thought occurred to me that maybe because I was unshaven and sporting the generally unkempt look that I cultivate, she might have thought I was some kind of bum, full of despair and she wanted to up-lift my spirits.
This thought occurred to me because I know that in Europe most people take pride and care in the way how they look and they tend to dress a lot more fashionably and neatly than many people here in Australia. To compound matters, I tend to dress even more casually than most other Australians. I can imagine that many of these straitlaced young Catholics from Europe must think we’re so poor here, because so many of us just don’t bother spending that much money or time and effort on our grooming. Sydney is a generally a very relaxed and casual place, and many people have transcended the need to dress up all the time.
In my travels to various parts of the world I have seen series of painted statues on display in cities. In Denver, USA, a couple of years ago there were differently painted fibreglass cows, all over town as part of a series called “cow parade”. In Vancouver, Canada there are painted orca all over the place. The cows in Denver, were quite interesting, but the orca in Vancouver were lame, lame, lame!
Here in Sydney for World Youth Day, much in the tradition of the cow parade, there are Jesus Christ statues all over town that have been painted in various ways. I found that most of the painted Jesus Christ statues weren’t very well done, but I did find one that I thought was fantastic.
Covered in mirrors, this statue was called “Reflection”.
I suppose it is trying to communicate that we should reflect upon the life of Jesus Christ and the Scriptures. As I looked at this mirrored statue, I found myself thinking about how we as human beings tend to project our own concerns on the world. Although the Bible says God created man in his own image, I have a sneaking suspicion that man created God in his own image, and the mirrored statue seemed to be a metaphor of how our religions reflect who we are and how we see our place in the world.
Not very far from the reflection statue was a group of Filipinos who are being led in song by a Spanish priest, who played the guitar.
The priest had a beautiful voice, and the Filipinos sang along with him with a result that wasn’t as polished but not too different to the video below.
If the city of Sydney is to be inundated with large crowds of people from overseas, you really couldn’t pick a better bunch than young Catholics. So very different to the hooligan English soccer fans that plague continental Europe every year.
My last week has been very busy with cooking. I’ll be having some friends of French descent over this Friday night as a pre-Bastille Day celebration. There will be 10 of us in total, and I want to make sure that the food is of a standard that my friends have come to expect from me. I usually don’t make meals of the same ethnicity as my guests as I know that they will be comparing what I’ve made to what they grew up with.
One of my pet peeves is the way how Italians crap on about food and their mother’s cooking. So many Italians, I have met seem to think that not only their mothers are the greatest cooks in the world, but also that Italians are the only ones who know how to cook. I am so over the idea of the integrity of ingredients and the simplicity of flavours that I hear so many celebrity chefs on television harp on about. This Eurocentric chauvinism about food seems to deny the validity of complex flavours developed in the east, such as Indian and Thai cuisine. I just won’t have it.
To all you Italian guys out there, who were always going on about your mother’s food, get over it and move out on your own!
This now brings me to the French. Sure enough, some French food is fantastic but to be quite honest, I’m not interested in eating so much offal and saturated fats. I remember being quite shocked when I first looked in the bible of French cuisine “Larousse Gastronomique” at how much butter, cream and guts there was in so much of the so-called traditional French cooking.
I keep on hearing about how the French eat these high saturated fat meals, and that they have a low incidence of heart disease in their country. Some say it’s the red wine that is drunk with the meals that is helping ameliorate the effect of such a high-fat diet. I think the reality is, that years and years of eating high fat food has killed off all the generations of the people who can’t metabolise so much fat and what is left is a country that is populated with people who are genetically engineered to efficiently process fat.
As for me, I have been genetically engineered to efficiently accumulate fat so my body can produce cholesterol and store it for hard times by lining my arteries with it.
Since I am getting together with my friends for, what is essentially a French celebration, I thought I’d put aside some of my fears and prejudices and cook them a French meal.
Whenever I cook a dinner for a large group I always test the menu two or three times beforehand to make sure I don’t have any surprises on the night. Since I wanted to avoid fatty foods I thought I’d cook fish dish of John Dory with shellfish, saffron and merguez broth. Sure enough there was cream in the recipe, but I used about a quarter of what was specified.
Quelle horreur!
The end result wasn’t bad, but I felt that merguez overwhelmed the lightly flavoured fish.
Since trying my hand at the French sea food meal, I was asked by a friend of mine who is a professional chef to help him with the preparation of some Indian dishes that he wants to serve at his wedding in November. So I spent the whole of Saturday with Mark at his place, cooking enough food to totally stuff 20 people.
The idea of the dinner was to trial a variety of foods and then give a questionnaire to our 20 guests to see what they liked and didn’t like.
There will be about 150 guests at this wedding and it looks like Mark has made quite the rod for his back considering that he wants to do all the cooking. I have foolishly offered to help. It looks like it’s going to be one hell of a day.
On Sunday, my wife and I had a really lovely day sitting out in the backyard reading the weekend paper and drinking vodka martinis. Although it’s winter here in Australia, it’s not that cold, and since we light up the chiminea, it’s quite comfortable to sit outside all day.
Because I have discarded the idea of serving fish for my French friends, I’ve latched on to the idea of preparing poulet chasseur (hunter’s chicken). I spent Monday, trying out a combination of recipes, and I think I’ve come up with something that my guests will hopefully like. I’ll post photos and the recipe after the dinner.
The stuffed toy is the amazing, everlasting and very cantankeous “Magic Pudding” character from Norman Lindsay’s children’s book of the same name. The black dancing figure, magnet, is of Kokopelli a South Western American fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player who is also a trickster god and represents the spirit of music
I’ll be having a bunch of French friends over for dinner in two weeks time for Bastille day celebrations and I though I’d trail a meal I’m going to make for them, John dory with shellfish , saffron and merguez broth.
For you non-cognoscenti out there merguez are a sausage from North Africa that are popular in France. I make my own merguez from scratch and I thought you may want to try making them sometime, since most of you live overseas and are unlikely to ever come to my place for dinner.
The music I was listening to as I was making my merguez was my new favourite CD, Amadou & Mariam on their album Dimanche a Bamako
Ingredients
1 kg lamb
2-3 teaspoons harissa (you can test how hot you want it by frying up a little mince and tasting it)
5 large cloves garlic
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (pimenton)
1 teaspoon ground allspice
250ml iced water
Thin sausage skins
Method
Try and use whole spice for recipe as the flavours will be more intense. Put all the whole spices into a dry frying pan over medium heat. Keep the pan moving so that the spices are evenly heated. Take off the heat when the spices start smoking and grind them up in a mortar and pestle. When the spices are fine, add the garlic and pound it all together.
The meat should be cold.
Trim any skin from the lamb, but leave a good proportion of fat and cut it up into chunks.
Toss all the ingredients (no, not the skins as well) into a food processor and mince. Then spoon the mince into either a sausage maker (not necessary) or, the way in which I do it, a cloth reinforced piping bag (the sort of the used for icing cakes). Place the sausage skins over the end of your filling device of choice and fill them up. Easy!
Cook sausages slowly on low medium heat and don’t prick them, the fats inside help the meat cook and the flavour will be better.
I didn’t bother putting any photos of the merguez up because they just look like ordinary sausages.
I’ve got to clean up the garage today after the mess I created making a guitar case for a friend last week. I’m one of those people that leaves things all over the place and then I procrastinate putting it all away.
In the comment section of a previous post, I was asked by MtBrooks “And how did you employ the “batshit crazy foreigner” tactic to get of other trouble?”
Every now and again in my life, I’ve come across people who are almost Christ-like in their beaming warm countenance, trusting nature and overwhelming desire to be martyred.
Back in 1982, when I was in Chaouen, Morocco, I met one of those “not long for this earth” saints that I was referring to. He was a mousy blonde, shoulder-length-haired and bearded elf of a man from Montreal. Sort of like a neo-hippy Gelfling with a French accent.
I first came across the Gelfling in the cheap hotel that we were both staying at. The first indication I had that the Gelfling would be seen as the new white meat in town, was as soon as we stepped out of the hotel to go to the markets together. As is usually the case in Morocco, there were a couple of local guys hanging around the entrance ready to pounce on any hotel guests and offer their services as guides, with the ubiquitous chant of “gid! gid! gid!”
Finding your way around in Morocco isn’t all that difficult, most of the time. The towns are usually fairly small with the poorer neighbourhoods at the top of the hill, and the markets and commercial areas at the bottom of the hill. I’ve never felt the need to have any guidance when I’ve travelled so I just walked right by the guys who were offering their dubious services. I had taken about five or six paces when I realised the Gelfling was no longer with me, so I turned around, only to see him bailed up by the so-called guides.
There he was, patiently listening politely to the hustler’s banter. Deciding that he probably didn’t have the assertiveness to extract himself, I walked up to him and asked him if he really wanted those two guys to be following him around all day and expecting to get some kind of kickback from whatever he buys from the shopkeepers, and then have to pay out a “tip” for the honour at the end of the day? I could see that the Gelfling was conflicted about what kind of answer he should give me in front of the two “guides. As he dithered and struggled to come up with an answer that would please all parties without causing offence, I just said to him. “I’ll meet you up the markets” and walked off on my own.
I didn’t see the Gelfling for the rest of the day and when I was heading back to the hotel in the afternoon, I passed by a tea shop, where the two hustlers from the morning was sitting with a few of their friends drinking mint tea. One of them noticed me and nudged his friend who said something to his other friends (I’d bet it was something like, “watch this”) as they both got up and made their way towards me. One of the so-called guides stuck up his hand and barred my way, as he said to me,
“Why you say you no want gid?”
“It is our job!”
“In other country they keel you!” As he made a slashing gesture across his throat with his hand.
He then took a step forward and stuck his face right up to mine and with as much menace as he could muster, threatened me with, “we keel you!”
Without even thinking, I stepped onto one of his feet and pushed him over with my left hand displaying as much contempt as I could. I then spat on him and told him he was a dog in Arabic (wah-enta kelp!), and that I would kill him if I ever saw him again. They both knew I was serious, and they couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
The next morning as I walked out of the hotel with the Gelfling in tow, the two so-called guides were outside waiting, but as soon as they saw me, they made themselves scarce, quick smart. We had decided to walk out of the town to an old ruined mosque.
When we got to the very outskirts of town, the juxtaposition of the whitewashed houses with their blue doors against the deep green hills in the background made for quite the picturesque scene. The Gelfling got his camera out and took a photograph. As soon as the shot was taken and we got ready to move on, out of the blue this speck comes running to us from far off down the road. As this speck grew larger as it neared us, we could hear that it was yelling something at us. Within seconds, we had a Moroccan guy in our faces yelling and screaming at us.
“You take photo of my grandfather!”
To which the Gelfling, in his saint like manner, tried to explain that he was taking a photograph of the scenery and the Moroccan guy was so far away that he wasn’t even in the viewfinder when he took the photograph. The Gelfling then held out his camera so the Moroccan guy could see through the viewfinder thereby demonstrating the truth of what the Gelfling had said. The guy wasn’t interested in looking through the viewfinder and he just pushed it dismissively out of the way.
“You take photo of my grandfather!”
“The Koran say you not make picture of people!”
“You make picture my grandfather!”
“Give me film!”
All the hullabaloo was starting to attract a crowd, and I could see that the situation was going to get ugly very quickly so I grabbed the Gelfling by his shirt and tried to pull him away. The Gelfling being a good ambassador of western humanitarianism and decency pulled himself free from my grip and said, “no, no, I want to explain to him”.
Again, the Gelfling lifted up his camera and offered the Moroccan a chance to look through the viewfinder. This time, the Moroccan knocked the camera out of the way with such force that if it hadn’t been attached to the Gelfling’s neck by its strap it would have hit the ground. Once again, I grabbed the shirt of the Gelfling said “come on, let’s go, this is going to get real bad, very quickly.”
Unfortunately, the Gelfling seemed hell-bent on martyrdom and he continued to try and get the Moroccan to see reason. The Moroccan continued on ranting the same thing over and over again.
“You take photo of my grandfather!” “The Koran say you not make picture of people!” “You make picture my grandfather!” “Give me film!”
“You take photo of my grandfather!” “The Koran say you not make picture of people!” “You make picture my grandfather!” “Give me film!”
The little crowd of onlookers were starting to turn into a mob. Some of the members of the mob started shaking their fists and yelling at us and it wasn’t very long before they started hemming us in and jostling us. With an increasing sense of urgency, I kept on saying to the Gelfling, “COME ON, LET”S GO!” but he just persisted on trying to convince the Moroccan guy that he hadn’t taken a photograph of his grandfather. Which was the obvious truth.
The Moroccan guy just kept on ranting his mantra of,
“You take photo of my grandfather!” “The Koran say you not make picture of people!” “You make picture my grandfather!” “Give me film!”
By this time, the mob was about ten people deep all around us and some of them started pushing and jostling us even more.
Then all of a sudden, the Moroccan guy changed his mantra to, “you must pay money!”
“You must pay money!”
“I was only taking a picture of the mountain!”
“You take photo of my grandfather!” “The Koran say you not make picture of people!” “You make picture my grandfather!” “You must pay money!”
“You take photo of my grandfather!” “The Koran say you not make picture of people!” “You make picture my grandfather!” “You must pay money!”
It was at about this time that I noticed that some of the guys in the crowd were starting to pick up large rocks and I’d heard about foreigners being stoned (in the bad way that is) by mobs in Morocco before, so I decided to take the rapidly deteriorating and very dangerous situation into my own hands.
I just grabbed the mewling Gelfling by the scruff of his shirt and shoved him behind me, as I told him to ”SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Then with as much force as I could, I pushed the Moroccan into the rest of the crowd and he fell over backwards onto the ground. I then leant forward and drew a line in the dirt after which I drew my hand across my throat in a slashing motion and said to him, “if you cross the line I’LL KILL YOU!” I then grabbed a hold of the Gelfling and threw him into the crowd, which knocked about three or four of the guys in the mob out of the way.
The mob instinctively shrank away from us as I continued to shove the Gelfling through the crowd like a battering ram before he could regain his balance. By now, the mob had got the idea that I wasn’t going to be putting up with of any more shit from them and I was quite serious about hurting them.
Hell, I had just roughed up one of one of my own kind, what was I going to do to them?
Amazingly, we just walked away from the situation without a single rock or word being tossed in our direction.
I’ve noticed, more than several times, when I’ve been in the Third World that there seems to be the perception amongst some of the locals that people from countries with Western liberal traditions can be manipulated by their need to do the right thing and to be liked.
Unfortunately, sometimes, it’s useful to get in touch with one’s inner batshit crazy self and channel a little dormant aggression. I guess the question one has to ask oneself in such situations is, do I feel like being a victim today?
As for me,
I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
I’d rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would
Except my interpretation would sound more like this.
Last night my wife and I went to the wedding reception of Khaled and Nalan. The reception was held in a large (there were about 260 guests) beautifully decorated room with a live R&B band. Later in the evening, since Nalan is of Turkish descent (Khaled’s parents are from Egypt) there was the tradition of pinning money to the bride and groom.
It’s a lot easier than shopping around for a wedding present!
Just before midnight the real fun and joy began as the live band packed up and Turkish music was played over the P.A. There had been a fair bit of dancing when the band played but the place (as we say here in Australia) “went off” as the dance floor was jam packed as groups of Turkish men got up and did their dances. The dances were like a mix of Greek and Cossak dancing.
The men danced in circles with arms over each other’s shoulders like the Greeks but every now and again one of them would break loose to bust a few moves by bobbing up and down like a Cossak. Every one had a blast and it was a great wedding reception.
My recent post about immigrants got me thinking about my favourite Arabic song, Ya Rayah composed by Dahmane El Harrachi, performed by Rachid Taha on his album, Live.
Here’s the lyrics in English:
Oh Emigrant
Oh where are you going?
Eventually you must come back
How many ignorant people have regretted this
Before you and me
How many overpopulated countries and empty lands have you seen?
How much time have you wasted?
How much have you yet to lose?
Oh emigrant in the country of others
Do you even know what’s going on?
Destiny and time follow their course but you ignore it
Why is your heart so sad?
And why are you staying there miserable?
Hardship will end and you no longer learn or build anything
The days don’t last, just as your youth and mine didn’t
Oh poor fellow who missed his chance just as I missed mine
Oh traveler, I give you a piece of advice to follow right away
See what is in your interest before you sell or buy
Oh sleeper, your news reached me
And what happened to you happened to me
Thus, the heart returns to its creator, the Highest (God)
I’ve been a little too busy with work commitments and life to post anything of substance lately so I hope you will forgive me if ”I fake it” and post another music clip (the picture doesn’t change). These Kiwis ( Fat Freddys Drop) are amazing and hopefully you’ll agree.
Today’s video is of Champion Jack Dupree with King Curtis at the Montreaux Jazz festival in 1971 and it is without a doubt in my mind the greatest live blues I’ve ever come into contact with. I remember when I first heard Blues at Montreux back in 1980 I was so totally blown away. I felt that I had found some music that actually seemed to epitomise the best of what blues has to offer. Enjoy.
Over the last few years my wife and I have landscaped our backyard from a sterile and sun-baked wasteland of lawn into a beautiful oasis of colour and calm. I have my breakfast outside nearly everyday and my wife and I eat outside about two or three times a week throughout most of the year. Even in the cooler weather we light up the chiminea and sit out and enjoy the enviroment we have created for ourselves.
Recently I’ve been counting my blessings (doing the old “be here now” thing) and I feel that I’ve got it made. I’ve got a lovely wife; a great circle of friends; a nice little house that’s nearly paid off; my freedom and I live in a prosporous stable country. I think that the mood of Jamiroquai song “Corner of the earth” from the album “A Funk Odyssey“best describes how I feel when I’m blissed-out about such things.
I’ve also been thinking about Epicurus lately and how what he has to say has so much relevance to my life. He is quoted as saying “ It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly (agreeing ‘neither to harm nor be harmed’). And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.”
Epicurus promoted ethical reciprocity (treat others as you would like to be treated) 300 years before Christianity appeared and started to claim credit for such a concept. He also came up with a very useful little list (for this confusing consumerist, status driven, hero worshipping world we live in) of what is necessary
Freedom
A life free of pain
Shelter
Friends
Food
unnecessary but nice
A big house
Meat every day
Wealth
and what is totally unnecessary
Power
Fame
If you’d like to know a little more about Epicurus and a few other philosophers I like to recommend the following book by Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy
