The Tall Man

I finished reading this book a couple of days ago but wanted to blog about it today on November 19, exactly four years after Cameron Doomadgee's death, the event around which this book is based. He died while in police custody on Palm Island, an Aboriginal community off the north east coast of Australia.

Doomadgee was arrested one morning for drunkenly swearing at the tall policeman Christopher Hurley. Forty minutes later he was dead.

I share journalist Mark Dapin's sentiment:

This book is everything it should be: a sad, beautiful, frightening account of one man's pointless death, interwoven with the brutal history of Palm Island and a golden thread of Aboriginal mythology. Every sentence is weighty, considered, even, restrained. Every character is explored for their contradictions, every situation observed for its nuances, every easy judgement suspended... It is The Tall Man's triumph that Hooper finds the common humanity in the accused and the accuser, the police officer and the street drinker, the living and the dead.

I read this book in a few days, a testament to the absorbing story but more so to Hooper's writing. She is present in the narrative but never intrudes. She provides just enough space – between the protagonists' motivation and her own – for readers to inhabit and make up their own minds.

It's not a space I want to inhabit. It's not a series of events I enjoyed reading about. But as a white Australian I feel it is a history that I cannot turn away from just because it makes me feel uncomfortable, just because it makes me feel ashamed.

Earlier this year Kevin Rudd formally apologised to indigenous Australians. His speech began:

I move that today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on their past mistreatment.

The Prime Minister's apology for past cruelties was way overdue. But what of the mistreatments that are ongoing? Or is that the subtext of Hooper's book's title? The tall man, aka the middle finger, extended.

You

This is my favourite zine. It's called You and has been distributed by Luke You free every week since November 2001.

One of the best things I did when we were in Newcastle was take part in a letter writing marathon. People were invited to handwrite letters that would then be distributed in the zine's hallmark brown paper bag with Y-O-U stamped on the front.

Participants wrote down their addresses and yesterday afternoon my package arrived with two zines inside. 

"Wouldn't it be funny if one of these was my letter?" I asked PJ as we carefully undid the staples from the top. And lo and behold, one was.

"Dear You," it starts. "Do you recognise my handwriting? It hasn't changed since I first learnt to write." Which is true.

My sister E's filing cabinet at work

Physical Graffiti

Our friend J is visiting from the US. He is here to introduce his family and friends to his new lady friend, whom I will meet tomorrow night for the first time when they come for dinner.

On Friday PJ and J spent the day in Melbourne, tagging the streets with their bodies.

Environmental Parties

Today marks the end of National Recycling Week. 

From Farmdoc:

Thomas L Friedman, in Hot, Flat, and Crowded, labels events such as National Recycling Week, Walk Against Warming, and Earth Hour, as environmental parties – whereas what is really needed, what is essential and critical and vital, he says, is an environmental revolution.

In our household we are big recyclers, though it's not something we are huge advocates for. We believe more so in reducing our waste output. Living in the country our options are limited for things such as bulk buying and public transport, but we do our best.

Our best is not the best, but we are on our way. As is energy economist Joan Pick who has been on her way – only on foot – since 1973.

Since then she has run or walked approximately 217,929 kilometers - the equivalent of nearly five and a half times round the world.

She said: "Some people criticise me by saying I ought to get out more but that's one thing you can't say about me - I'm out all the time!"

For My Niece

Happy 8th birthday Indigo!!

This video reminds me of you and the graceful way you move through the world.

The Great Confirmer

My post earlier today about The Yes Men's latest action reminded me of Maurice, who was my imaginary friend growing up.

Maurice was an old, balding, portly man who never said much. In fact, he only ever said a single word: yes. My mum called him The Great Confirmer.

Should I climb the Japanese Maple even though we've just been called in for dinner? Yes. Do you think it would be OK if I borrowed my sister's jumper even though she's not home? Yes. Should I lick the meringue mixture off both beaters even though I'm only allowed to have one? Yes.

But Mum would use him against me: Maurice, should Meg clean her room? Should Meg brush her teeth and go to bed now? Should Meg bring her washing down from the laundry basket?

I am reading Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man at the moment, and thinking about The Yes Men am also reminded of something she wrote:

Lawyers have a term for the tendency of Aboriginal witnesses to agree with whatever is put to them so as to be polite, avoid conflict and get off the stand as quickly as possible - it's called "gratuitous concurrence."

Good Times

My brother-in-law and I once discussed the idea of a newspaper in which no bad news would be printed. A couple of days ago, The New York Times issued such a paper, a stunt initiated by The Yes Men.

From the media release:

Early this morning, commuters nationwide were delighted to find out that while they were sleeping, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had come to an end.

If, that is, they happened to read a "special edition" of today's New York Times.

In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street.

Articles in the paper announce dozens of new initiatives including the establishment of national health care, the abolition of corporate lobbying, a maximum wage for C.E.O.s, and, of course, the end of the war.

The paper, an exact replica of The New York Times, includes International, National, New York, and Business sections, as well as editorials, corrections, and a number of advertisements, including a recall notice for all cars that run on gasoline. There is also a timeline describing the gains brought about by eight months of progressive support and pressure, culminating in President Obama's "Yes we REALLY can" speech. (The paper is post-dated July 4, 2009.)

"It's all about how at this point, we need to push harder than ever," said Bertha Suttner, one of the newspaper's writers. "We've got to make sure Obama and all the other Democrats do what we elected them to do. After eight, or maybe twenty-eight years of hell, we need to start imagining heaven."

Kill Bill

Billy, left, was getting worse. She had stopped laying, had gone off her food and was becoming increasingly antisocial. Unfortunately PJ had to kill her yesterday. I asked him how he did it, thinking I wanted to know, but when he said he wasn't going to tell me I was pleased.

Instead of letting Cuba and Dirt eat her, in case they too became sick, PJ put her in the compost. If she couldn't provide us with eggs, then let her decomposed little body turn to soil and help make our vegetables grow.

All day I have been thinking of these Monbiot words:

Darwinian evolution tells us that we are incipient compost... I like the idea of literal reincarnation: that the molecules of which I am composed will, once I have rotted, be incorporated into other organisms. Bits of me will be pushing through the growing tips of trees, will creep over them as caterpillars, will hunt those caterpillars as birds. When I die, I would like to be buried in a fashion which ensures that no part of me is wasted. Then I can claim to have been of some use after all.

Talking (About) Books

It's hard having three sisters, I'm always getting my memories mixed up with theirs. I was going to write that when I was younger I subscribed to a magazine called Ranger Rick, but I think that was my sister K. As I grew older I subscribed to Smash Hits, Mad Magazine, Fast Company and then Vogue Living.

Oh the joy of ripping open a package with my name on it!

Earlier this year I subscribed to Creative Nonfiction, whose issue number 35 I have just finished reading. It is an exciting mix of essays and blog entries on a wide range of topics. To give you an example, here is a mashup of ten of the first sentences:

Many Travel Stories Begin as an Attempt to Impress Pretty Women. I'm a little... out of the loop. There are two wooden figures on my husband's desk. Sachiko must be considered "different" here in Japan. One day in 1934, he sequestered himself in his family's greenhouse in London to perform an experiment. Two five-inch syringes with bright orange caps have been placed atop the white linen of the grand banquet table, like little sterile centrepieces. We know exactly where the spill occurred: 44.7°N, 178.1°E. On a cold spring day in 2002, I found a damp and crumpled piece of paper on a beach near Reykjavík, Iceland. The facts are indisputable.

It's not just the words of the book that spoke to me, but the book itself. Here, I'll show you what I mean:

Guest Blogger: ETG

A fortnight ago I invited a reader of this blog, ETG, to be the inaugural Guest Blogger in the Land of Meg. Ladies and gentleman, without further ado I present to you her post:

We have been cleaning out my grandfather’s garage. He died five years ago and now we live in the house that he shared with my grandmother. The garage has to go, being a relic of the age when Asbestos was considered the wonder product.

There was so much stuff in there to sort through. Sure, some of it was ours and a lot of our stuff was pretty easy to quickly assess and discard (unused paper plates from our engagement party in 1998??) but grandfather’s stuff was another matter altogether. As well as holding the sentimental value of things belonging to the only grandfather I got to know, these were the props of his story, the backdrop to his territory.

Where would you find grandfather? He was either in his armchair reading the newspaper or in the garage. This multitude of jars, tins and boxes were his collection. He had plans for this stuff. Who knows how many jars full to bursting with different sized nails, different sized screws. A 1920s fire extinguisher. His RAAF duffle bag. A shoemaker’s last, a paper bag of rubber soles, a jar of shoemaker’s tacks. Then a smaller paper bag of smaller rubber soles—for Grandma’s shoes. Who knew he repaired shoes?

It is all now amassed in the driveway. Some of it will just have to go to the local recycling centre being either unrecognisable or unusable but a lot of it will be kept, refashioned or reused by my father and me. Or just placed somewhere in memory of a man with plans.