Community Stable Complex

 

 

mango education

Last night, while the brown rice was on, and before reheating the night before's sweet potato curry, I read a deal of the latest Australian Poetry Anthology (volume 8), which arrived in the mail the day before. There are many mangoes in this book, I thought, that and Ernest Hemingway references. Those would be John Donne references I later realised. Flicking through again to confirm, I only found four mangoes, two of which are mango trees. But the poems with "mango" in them are placed close together.

On Radio National this morning, Fran Kelly interviewed a mango farmer representative from the Northern Territory (Leo Skirlos) about FIFO Pacific fruit pickers. As soon as the Vanautuans get off the plane they're heading straight to the quarantine camps, said Leo. There is no lurgy in Vanautu, there are other diseases, but no lurgy. How will you keep the workers safe, asks Fran. Oh, if a family gets it they'll be staying in the same hut. Fly in the workers, pick the fruit so it doesn't fall to the ground, give them the disease to take home. Ship the mangoes to Victoria. Keep the mangoes safe.

Screenshot taken while undertaking training
via the Australian Government Department of Health Covid-19 Learner Portal, April 2020

Joan Aiken

Whenever I see a Joan Aiken book in an op shop I buy it.
There is always a sentence in a Joan Aiken story that shows something from the world I never knew.
I wish I collected the examples I see.
The first time I noticed this was reading Five Children and It,
which isn't by Joan Aiken, it's by Eleanor Nesbit.
Whenever I see an Eleanor Nesbit book I haven't read I buy it.
If I did collect these examples, where would I store them?
In a card file, on this post? 'This post is a collection of examples of things from stories I've read about the world that were totally new.'
If I write it down I don't have to remember it, but I have to remember the feeling
or know where to look to find it again.
I have tried collecting things before. I came to the conclusion you only need two of something for it to be a collection. This is called desultory.
I promised to myself not to write in Google anymore.

- August 2019