3.13.06: Adelaide: Surfing, cuisine, syntax, megafauna, last show

Went for another surfing bout yesterday. Last time was about a year ago in Perth. Mauro was the organizer, naturally. He's the most avid surfer. We had to drive south, to the bottom of the peninsula, about an hour away, where the actual sea was. Lovely beach, if a bit windy, and I could get up on the board as far as my knees and steer with them — and be hands free!

Saw llamas, parrots, kangaroos and some ibis as we drove back north.

Stopped at McLaren Vale winery area for an early dinner on the way back and fell out when I got back to the hotel.

More Aussie cuisine:

• Hundreds and thousands — (also known as freckles) — Tiny candy sprinkles.
• Spiders — ice cream in a soda.
• Capsicum — red or yellow peppers (not the hot ones.)

Here are some local election posters — Keep those bastards honest, Kate!:

Nice piece in 3 Quarks Daily on Trapped In The Closet. I’m jealous. It’s a lovely musing that begins with observations of this surprising pop phenomena and segues into thoughts about how our brains organize our thoughts and how we tell stories — with some words I’ve never heard before.

“…if it's true that it all comes down to syntax, then you could also say that human thought can be divided into two basic categories, paratactic and hypotactic. They are the two most elemental ways of putting thought together.”

Ganda cooked over 100 dumplings for everyone last night in her room after the show. Dana’s mom dropped off cupcakes that spelled “Here Lies Love”.

I went by the museum and took some pictures of their lovely dioramas — but was stopped for using a tripod. But I managed to get a few off before I had to put it away.

Tonight is the last show…until when?

Giant animals that used to live in Australia:

In Pleistocene times, giant "megafauna" inhabited Australia. These animals mysteriously disappeared in Australia about 15,000 years ago, including:

• The great rhinoceros-like Diprotodon, the giant kangaroo standing 3 metres (10 feet) high
• A giant marsupial wombat
• Megalania, a goanna 6 metres (12 feet) long
• Quinkana, a land crocodile 3 metres long
• Wonambi, a python 7 metres long
• The flightless birds, Genyornis (giant emu) and Dromornis, which matched the great Moa in size

Here they are seen in a kind of Antipodean garden of paradise.

Aboriginal stories which have been recorded throughout Australia indicate clearly that the animals were a part of the environment of early man on this continent, remembered with both fear and awe for generations.

The oral tradition goes back that far…15, 000 years! It makes written history seem — well, not worth the papyrus it’s written on.

Tonight’s show was the last one here. It was probably the best played one we’ve done. Really beginning to lock and rock on many tunes. Kind of sad to be putting the performances on hiatus for a while, but we’ll see. Got lots to think about — how the narrative can be transmitted without my talking bits — which are fun but kill the momentum, etc. etc.

Had a pot luck late lunch in Graham’s room…almost everyone brought food or cooked food in the hotel kitchenettes and we had loads of leftovers that we ate after the show.