Sparks around the Fringe
Posted by: Fringe in Australia, Fiction, Politics, Queensland, Satire
During the past year or so, the Fringe has taken a well-deserved break, to be seen only rarely bouncing around others’ blogs and in the undemanding realm of Facebook. Post-viral annoyances from hell, a dreary bear market with more than obvious causes, political depression related to Anna Big Thigh’s trampling of grassroots democracy with forced amalgamations (likely to be the major cause of her undoing in the State elections early next year) and a surfeit of work all contributed to our ennui. Cartoon content is mostly in a hiatus, not for want of ideas - Kevvie Rudd’s pronounced piety provides lots of ammo as do the rest of the Old Guard Labor mannikins. Still, the effort required to pump out something, anything, when stricken with malaise and a clamouring backlog proved too much, even for the mighty Fringe. Enough whinging!
Now, we’re baaaack. Spurred initially by fury at Conroy’s internet censorship bungles, the flow has commenced in between massive work bouts and reading, not to mention domestic responsibilities - the peacock, scrub turkeys and cat demand their share of attention along with the establishment of a productive edible garden in case the big crunch really is looming. The pigeon pea plants, which grow into hardy shrubs, are doing so well we could just about survive on them alone - they’re delicious steamed and rolled in butter. The local king parrots like them too.
As one would expect, in our absence readership dropped off, yet now the rising amount of spam caught by Akismet and a comment here and there shows the Fringe is weaving itself into the blogosphere again. This time we’ll endeavour to maintain the flow, which, as Paul Rasmussen illustrates, is essential to development and maintenance of the craft of writing. He suggests to carry a journal around, something the Fringe has done all her life. To transpose from journal to blog however, to collate and collect all those notebooks or even the current one, a scribbled mishmash of sketches in prose and picture, is a frightening prospect.
There’s a fictional short story to write by next week - another deadline amongst a computer load of deadlines - but a welcome one, as it’s an opportunity to create a tale yet to be told. Sometimes stories emerge fully fleshed as one writes, or inspiration rushes in while relaxing in the shower or driving somewhere thinking nothing in particular, or most magical of all, in dreams. Often there’s multiple possible plot lines spewing from each of these activities - the question then becomes, which line to follow. The internal argument begins.
Sphere: Related Content
Entries (RSS)
November 30th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
You people are really lucky. Over here, they first buy over or blackmail the newspapers and TV channels to make them stop publishing articles against this sort of thing. Then they twist the arms of environmentalists to force them to cut down production. Sri Lanka is a democracy in name only. The government always finds a way to stifle opposition to projects like this. For dam building projects the usual tactic is to threaten power cuts and make the environmentalists look like traitors.
November 30th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
We’ve only got a delay in construction at this stage - some folks read this as the death knell for the dam, but others are more sceptical. We have to fight on, just in case. Pete Garrett, the fed minister is supposed to make a decision mid next year re environmental concerns.
I empathise with you about the corruption in Sri Lanka re environmental amongst other horrors though. Maybe I should start writing about it since they can’t stop me here
The more corrupt the government the harder it is to win, and if there’s forceful suppression, even worse. One virtually has to make it more expensive for them to do their dastardly deeds than not - corrupt governments respond to the power of filthy lucre.
Still, our state government ran right over the expressed wishes of 95% of the population in most of the communities in the state when it hammered in forced amalgamations - political suicide I reckon, and we’ll see how it goes at the next state election early next year.