Monthly Archives: June 2020

Yesterday: books and gumbo in that order

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Back at City Diggers after lunch with Chris T at Soco Kitchen (please book; COVID-safe capacity 14) I posted this on FB labelled “having a post-gumbo red wine.”

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I do indeed look suitably replete. And no wonder! Here is SoCo Kitchen’s gumbo:

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Before that I had been to Wollongong Library returning the crop of books I had had for months (except for two they posted to me when my reservations became available). The entire operation of visiting the library nowadays under COVID is rather like visiting a speakeasy in the Roaring 20s. Find the side door. Knock and wait….

And here are the books I returned. Quite a bunch, all but one really interesting and some outstanding.

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Now the ones I borrowed yesterday. Look how long the due-by dates are! Not expecting COVID to go anywhere soon, are they? It’s usually three weeks.

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I am going to frustrate you by not saying anything about the books yet. Perhaps you can try Goodreads out on them — they are probably all there.

I have quickly checked the books borrowed yesterday myself and it seems I am in for some good reads. My random choices quite often turn out well.

NSW Schools Spectacular(s)

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Other than Mongolian rock I have been featuring the NSW Schools Spectacular on my Facebook recently, usually with an expression of pride in the achievement these events represent on behalf of all the NSW state schools. Sadly: “It is with a heavy heart that we announce that the 2020 Schools Spectacular is cancelled.”

The NSW Schools Spectacular is an Australian variety show featuring more than 5,500 students from public schools across New South Wales and was performed annually at the Sydney Entertainment Centre (later known as Qantas Credit Union Arena) between 1984 and 2015, after which the venue was permanently closed. In 2016, it moved to Sydney Olympic Park, and found its new home at Qudos Bank Arena. — Wikipedia

Let me focus on just 2016.

2016 had some outstanding Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island input, particularly this young man, 16 at the time, Sebastian Kelly-Toiava from Macquarie Fields High School in Sydney’s southwest.

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Here he is showing amazing passion in the anthemic Took the Children Away by Archie Roach.

This story’s right, this story’s true
I would not tell lies to you
Like the promises they did not keep
And how they fenced us in like sheep.
Said to us come take our hand
Sent us off to mission land.
Taught us to read, to write and pray
Then they took the children away,
Took the children away,
The children away.
Snatched from their mother’s breast
Said this is for the best
Took them away.

And in the even more anthemic Treaty by Yothu Yindi, including sections in language.

In 2016 another of the featured singers was Fletcher Pilon from the NSW Central Coast.  At 14 he had won the 2016 Australia’s Got Talent, and that is in itself quite a story. The second video below tells it.  In the Schools Spectacular he performed Ed Sheeran’s I See Fire.

Now to his audition performance for Australia’s Got Talent. “In August 2015, 10-year-old Banjo Pilon, Fletcher’s brother, was hit by a car while skateboarding and died. After his death, Fletcher wrote the song ‘Infinite Child’ in honour of his brother.” — Wikipedia.

I challenge you to watch this dry-eyed.

I discover Mongolian rock!

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Well not really. It already existed before I came around, and its cultural roots long before that. But first: there are two Mongolias. The country Mongolia has a population of just 3.5 million.  Inner Mongolia (内蒙古) is an Autonomous Region of China, with a population of 25 million. Mongolia once dominated China.

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That’s a Persian painting of  Genghis Khan in 1213-14. We’ve all heard of him, but most of  us know very little about him, despite his creating one of the most extensive world empires ever.  The Mongolian rock group The Hu certainly remember him. 5,156,745 views — premiered Aug 23, 2019! (The band is from non-Chinese Mongolia. Look again at the population! They tour a lot, in fact were stuck in Sydney because of the pandemic.)

That is one impressive song and video!

In Chinese Mongolia one finds Hang Gai:

Also impressive. YouTube, by the way, warns us that CCTV-3 is “funded in whole or in part by the Chinese government.”  Um, I suspect I kind of  knew that, but it was the music I was interested in.

Another artist of Chinese Mongolian origin is Tengger. This video is part of a competition,  Singer 2018, which an English woman ended up winning. And this brings me to how I ended up watching all this.

Yesterday I posted on Facebook:

When you see comments like these — “One of the greatest artists alive and to have ever lived!” and “Appreciation and respect from USA. What a great singer!” — you sit up and take notice. Immediately I see the horse-head fiddle and know this is Mongolian, but in this case Inner Mongolia — that is in China. He [Tengger] really is AMAZING!

(The video below is the song that attracted those comments.)

And this is how I encountered Mongolian music just over a week ago, thanks to Michael Xu who posted some items from the modern Chinese music shows that appear on CCTV-3. (Trump never watches them. Xu Jinping probably does….) Then it just took YouTube’s algorithms to steer me to such as The Hu (Mongolian) and Hanggai (Chinese Mongolian), after which I told Chris Turner who was hooked, and yesterday Colin and Adam at Diggers. Overnight an ex-SBHS student said very nice things about one of my postings: “I doubt I would have ever come across that in any other way, as I have no connection to that culture or history and live in the philistine island oasis that is Australia.”

Now go back to 2011 and the London Proms: