cankerbloxxom

My grandmother is in the garden sweeping up leaves and birds are singing. She is singing back at them, ‘PEW PEW!’ with every burst of song.

My mother yells at cockatoos. I talk to magpies. We’re so obviously related, sometimes it freaks me out.

Fuck you. Apart from two awesome trips overseas, you were shit. Good riddance.

I know I shouldn’t really start shit-stirring, but I would just like to address Grant’s comment that “…in the creative arts anyone over the age of 40 is a effectively dead.”

I would just like to point out that Milton wrote Paradise Lost, argued by many to be the greatest piece of literature in the English language, at the grand old age of 50. It was first published in 1674 when he was 66. He was blind when he composed it and dictated the entire thing to his aides.

Also there are hundreds of fantastic actors, screenwriters, directors over 40 who contribute to the creative arts, not to mention people like… I don’t know… say… Larry David, for example?

Anyway, the root of this debate springs from the death of a musician who many people admired. A person who, no matter what you think of their post-40 exploits, did make a significant contribution to Australian music and helped to pave the way for today’s musicians. So you know, I think yes, of course we have to pay attention to things that are new and different and iconoclastic in some way, but we also have to appreciate people’s lives & artistic contributions, when the time comes.