Days Volume Two

* Growing up in Bondi On grass-clipping streets and median strips and cracked concrete that baked in heat and bitumen on roads that bubbled under feet, you hurled water bombs at the kids from around the street and went to the beach 'cos that's just what you did. And there you sat in groups beside North Bondi Surf Club or near the barbeques or down South on The Hill or in The Corner or at First or Second or Third ramps. And the milkbars were still standing and at Valis's and Raffle's and Bill's you drank thickshakes and played the pinnies and you ventured to Homestead chicken for special hot chips. And school came and thankfully went and the endless six weeks of Chrissie holidays fanned out endlessly in front of you and it was fish and chips in the sunset park after a day in the water and into the 9pm dark and into sandy feet station wagons and off home to sleep behind salt-coated windows and open fly-screen doors and the whole neighbourhood wearing worn rubber thong...

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos Although a sudden outgassing of CO2 had occurred at Lake Monoun in 1984, killing 37 local residents, a similar threat from Lake Nyos was not anticipated. However, on August 21, 1986, a limnic eruption occurred at Lake Nyos which triggered the sudden release of about 1.6 million tonnes of CO2; this cloud rose at nearly 100 kilometres (62 mi) per hour.[4] The gas spilled over the northern lip of the lake into a valley running roughly east-west from Cha to Subum, and then rushed down two valleys branching off it to the north, displacing all the air and suffocating some 1,700 people within 25 kilometres (16 mi) of the lake, mostly rural villagers, as well as 3,500 livestock. Worst affected villages were Cha, Nyos, and Subum.[8] Scientists concluded from evidence that a 300-foot (91 m) fountain of water and foam formed at the surface of the lake. The sudden amount of water rising caused much turbulence in the water, spawning a wave of at least 80 fee...

* Bondi Beach (pronounced "BOND-eye", or /'bɒndaɪ/) is a popular beach and the name of the surrounding suburb in Sydney, Australia. Bondi Beach is located 7 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Waverley Council, in the Eastern Suburbs. Bondi, North Bondi and Bondi Junction are neighbouring suburbs. "Bondi" or "Boondi" is an Aboriginal word meaning water breaking over rocks or noise of water breaking over rocks.[2] The Australian Museum records that Bondi means place where a flight of nullas took place. In 1809, the road builder William Roberts received a grant of land in the area.[3] In 1851, Edward Smith Hall and Francis O'Brien purchased 200 acres (0.81 km2) of the Bondi area that included most of the beach frontage, which was named the "The Bondi Estate." Hall was O'Brien's father-in-law. Between 1855 and 1877 O'Brien purchased his father-in-law's share of the land, re...

* I pushed my glass to the edge of the bar gutter and said to the bartender, "Gimme a Guinness and get yourself one too." I decided it was time to slow down and one way was to drink Guinness, since it took so long to fill a glass out of the tap. When the bartender finally brought it to me I saw that he had etched a harp in the foam with the tap nozzle. An angel's harp. I hoisted the glass before drinking from it. "God bless the dead," I said. "God bless the dead," the bartender said. I drank heavily from the glass and the dark ale was like mortar I was sending down to hold the bricks together inside. All at once I felt like crying. But then my phone rang. I grabbed it without looking at the screen and said hello. The alcohol had bent my voice into an unrecognizable shape. Michael Connelly The Lincoln Lawyer. Well, 19 years ago, when the world was young and laptops did not exist, when we didn't have mobiles and Google meant nothing, he had been an a...

* Redfern is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Redfern is located 3 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney. Strawberry Hills is a locality on the border with Surry Hills Redfern is subject to extensive redevelopment plans by the state government, to increase the population and reduce the concentration of poverty in the suburb and neighbouring Waterloo (see Redfern-Eveleigh-Darlington). The suburb is named after surgeon William Redfern, who was granted 100 acres (0.40 km2) of land in this area in 1817 by Lachlan Macquarie. He built a country house on his property surrounded by flower and kitchen gardens. His neighbours were Captain Cleveland, an officer of the 73rd regiment, who built Cleveland House and John Baptist, who ran a nursery and seed business. Sydney's original railway terminus was built in Cleveland Paddocks and extended from Cleveland Street to Devo...

* The morning air off the Mojave in late winter is as clean and crisp as you'll ever breathe in Los Angeles County. It carries the taste of promise on it. When it starts blowing in like that I like to keep a window open in my office. There are a few people who know this routine of mine, people like Fernando Valenzuela. The bondman, not the baseball pitcher. He called me as I was coming into Lancaster for a nine o'clock calendar call. He must have heard the wind whistling in my cell phone. "Mick," he said, "you up north this morning?" The Lincoln Lawyer. Michael Connelly. Well well, if it wasn't the dwarf skating out in front of the giant wave. He was shattered and yet inept. Curly haired, in the frame, lost, lost, and laughter full-tilt. Giant boxes, almost on legs, groaned across the geometric landscape. Stop writing that fantasy stuff that doesn't make any money and do the stuff that does, his daughter said. He grimaced at his own disengagement fro...

* Funeral Blues Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun: Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good. By W H Auden If there was anything to be had, anything at all, we would have mustered courage and faced the day. He had been promised everything. He thought he would never die. He thought the magic kingdom would be his and there would be reprieve from the fate o...

* Musee Des Beaux Arts About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well, they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling...