Olive and Lotti (Rachies ratties)

Me + Ramona, Olive, Lotti and Trumpet! Rat party!

Dad baptised my cousin Morris

Dad, Morris and Jethro praying after the baptism

Redhanwen played at Midnite Cafe in Dubbo. It was super fun!

Georgie vs Milly!

I guess Dad liked his gift

So did Jo! (It’s a ticket to see P J Harvey)

Rachie stylin her new hat

Spongebob shower scrub

I think Jo likes it!

The Christmas internal organ ham

Some nice sunsets out at Burrabadine

The most recent incarnation of Gilberts game

Water Slide!

A ‘fruit cake’ Jo and I made for Sophies birthday

Another cake Rach and I helped Jo do for a school thing

 I don’t mean to turn into a photo blog.. I just have no brain for writing a real post at the moment!

-Han

Hannah_Sunderland_interview_on_ABC_local_radio_Western_Plains_2011-12-09-80

First a newspaper article (pity they couldn’t get the name right!):

via ORANGE ARTS NOW: INDIE-FOLK HANNAH’S RETURN TO CANOWINDRA.

Indie-folk artist Hannah Sutherland will be returning to her music writing alma mater next week to highlight the end of season gathering of folk@canowindra

Hannah lived in Canowindra for three years, during which she “began writing songs in earnest,” says folk@canowindra’s brainchild, Nerida Cuddy, another noted singer-songwriter who’s been running the folk, poetry and acoustic music club at Taste Canowindra for the past two years.

Nerida, who also teaches music at the local primary school, describes the sessions, held on the first Sunday of every month, as “family friendly and open to anyone who likes or plays acoustic music.

“We get a lot of teenagers coming in who like to play their acoustic works for us.

“And we’re getting regionally popular, with people coming from Cowra, Orange, Forbes, Portland and Bathurst to enjoy our shows.”

Hannah Sutherland’s return to Canowindra – she now lives in Newcastle – coincides with the final work on her first studio EP, with the help and guidance of Mike McCarthy. She’s hoping to release the album early next year.

Says Nerida: “Her acoustic songs are a melodic meandering of introspection and the search for greater meaning and truth, with influences ranging from Sufjan Stevens to Bjork.” Some of the tracks from the EP can be enjoyed on her website, www.myspace.com/hanwenafen.

And the digital pre-release of the ep is finally available for sale online. Click the album cover below to check out the site.

track list
1. Tunnel 03:44
2. Betray 04:08
3. Good Company 04:11
4. Air 03:21
5. Aooo 03:13

tags
folk indie Newcastle

credits
released 23 November 2011
Violin and Harmonies – Skye Harrison
Extra guitar, banjo, harmonies and percussion – Mike McCarthy
Recorded and Mixed by Mike McCarthy

NO FACEBOOK IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR REAL HUMAN INTERACTION.
NO I MAY NOT EAT ONLY CEREAL AND BREAD.
NO I MAY NOT HAVE ANOTHER CUP OF COFFEE.
NO I MAY NOT WATCH ONE MORE CAT-RELATED YOUTUBE VIDEO.
NO I MAY NOT CONTINUE TO NEGLECT THE GROWING PILE OF WASHING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR, EVEN IF I DO HAVE ENOUGH SOCKS AND UNDIES TO LAST FOR AGES.

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you.  Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.  Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.  You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.  You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.  Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains.  You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.

The bloke who wrote this nearly 2000 years ago was probably one of Jesus’ younger brothers. He saw what it is to be true and faithful and patient. Truth is patient.

He has a lot of other interesting things to say. I expect he saw a lot of interesting things.

The recent Occupy Wall Street protests have aimed their message at the income disparity between the 1% richest Americans and the rest of the country. But what happens when you expand that and look at the 1% richest of the entire world? Some really interesting numbers emerge. If there were a global Occupy Wall Street protest, people as well off as Linda Frakes might actually be the target.

In America, the top 1% earn more than $380,000 per year. We are, however, among the richest nations on Earth. How much do you need to earn to be among the top 1% of the world?

$34,000.

Why stop there? Why not go further?

Every human on the planet is no doubt part of the top 1% of privilege compared to the other 99% of life on our planet. And even pond slime has its privileged position as part of the minuscule proportion of matter manifesting life as compared to inanimate matter on our planet. And perhaps our whole life bearing planet is in turn part of an even smaller proportion of privileged happenstance in a vast beautiful but barren universe.

But where does that get us? Very far from the point.

Probably less than 1% of the occupy movement are actually motivated by base envy.

The point is that with privilege comes responsibility. The old word for it is stewardship.

From those to whom much has been given, much will be required.

If it is very clear that the 1% are fucking it up (and it is!) then it is not wrong – in fact we have a duty – to remind them (us) that they (we) are answerable for what is being done with what has been given. And it is in the nature of things that we are always answerable downwards as well as upwards. If the cry from below is not responded to, then the thunder from above will have to be.

They is we, but let that not be a means of diluting responsibility. There might be a certain nobility in that on the part of those who have less, but it would be utterly despicable cowardice and worse on the part of those who have more. From those to whom most has been given. most IS required.

We had a spring party on Saturday night with fairy lights and big paper lanterns! The whole idea was inspired by a friend of ours Penny Volkofsky. There were pretty dresses and Sangria and cheesecake and good tunes and Tiki torches and lots of fun people! I did go to bed at like 10:30 though (thank you very much uterus.) but it was still a great party. I think the girls abandoned the party and went to the beach at like.. 2am or something?

Anyway, I’ll tell you about the stars.. We made the frames for the stars out of dowl (is that how you spell it? I have no idea..)  and then used these old sewing patterns to kind of paper-mache over the top! I can’t really remember whether it was Skye or Jas who found the MASSIVE collection of disposed-of patterns at the side of the road.. But I’m glad we’ve put them to such good use!

Also – What the HECK is floating in this glass of water?? 

Right now I am procrastinating (can you tell?). I have to give a seminar tomorrow about a design studio called “Big Active”. They’re pretty interesting, and it’s not that I’m scarred of speaking in front of a group of people, it’s just that I’m not very good at communicating my ideas and thoughts verbally at the best of times.. I just hope I can say what I want to say without forgetting anything and while making sense.

This photo of me in a pretty floral dress is for the benefit of Nerida Cuddy and Kate Bain.. I wanted to give them evidence of me wearing this dress.. Apparently me putting a picture of myself taken in the mirror in the bathroom on my blog is a hispter thing to do.. But I DON’T CARE! :p (I’m too cool and underground and alternative to worry about things like that)

And finally here is a photo of some of the ladies posing near the fairy lights.. (Spot Emma in the second one.. Hah!)

Tweaking a photo with Instagram does not make it artistic. Selective redefinition of terms like ‘creativity’ and ‘intelligence’ makes for category errors rather than creativity.

So – come to think of it – maybe iPhones DO enable artificial intelligence. (In which case we should stop playing with our digital appendages: even though its makes the logo bigger we really only need that because we’re going blind?) Forgive my grim wit please – but there IS something about AI coming which is self-deluding, profoundly unsatisfying, and a little narcissistic – not just a surplus of cognitive shallowness.

So there is more to us than what we think. Yep. Thank God. We are not men without chests – even though we have tried.

So we can be caught in our own traps. Yep. That has always been true too – thank God.

So the solution to the problem of making our own singular god which we then have to cringe before is to keep it pocket sized? Or eat it before it eats us? Become it before it becomes us?

With apology to Woody Allen and our mother who is the source of the dust from which we and our gadgets are born – ‘Artifice Wrecks’ might be the name of this story.

Which reminds me that we are children – not robots. Men – not mannequins. Children with a father – an artist who creates beyond our wildest imaginings – who gives us a hand in his creating.

Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will,–