meta-cemetery-photographing vs cemetery-photographing

Thank you, my tireless readers, for pointing out that I just posted my story of our weekend at Dalby to Twin Parrots. Yes, I know that! It was not a cemetery-photography posting (which should indeed be reserved for Dead Centre of Queensland) but a meta-cemetery-photography posting (which belongs still in Twin Parrots).

The responsible and mature blogger at Dead Centre would not slag off the fine town of Jandowae just because they found it very hot in the middle of the day in summer there (indeed, what would any mature and responsible person have expected the weather to be?). However, the immature and irresponsible Twin Parrots blogger is free to take irrational dislike to Jandowae for failing to provide suitable weather.

Wambo Shire and its cemeteries

Well about a week ago, I'd never heard of Wambo Shire and now we've photographed four of its cemeteries: Bell, Jimbour Station, Jandowae and Warra. For the benefit of the equally-geographically-challenged, it's the area around Dalby which is west of Toowoomba.

Since last weekend was the Australia Day long weekend, we decided somewhat spontaneously to go up to Dalby and photograph some cemeteries. Although I've visited Dalby once a year or so for some years, I had never actually known what the shire was called.

Aside, according to the Lonely Planet, Dalby can claim the world's only monument to an insect (the cactoblastis), but the local tourist office doesn't seem to go overboard in promoting this unique attraction.

As it turned out, it was not a great weekend to visit Dalby. We started out at Warra Cemetery, west of Dalby. While we were there, the sky became progressively darker with low threatening clouds, which were a rather curious denim blue colour. We thought the storm might come before we finished the cemetery so we worked very quickly, but we finished before the storm came. Indeed as we were driving from Warra back toward Dalby, we could see the storm off to the south rather than on the road ahead to the east. We noticed the way dust was being pulled up by the storm and had a long discussion about why we don't get tornedos in Australia like the American mid-west.

Of course then the storm hit us and it was almost impossible to see through the driving rain so eventually we pulled off the road (not a lot of opportunities on this road) to wait out the storm. Anyhow eventually we get back to Dalby to find branches down everywhere, trees uprooted, etc. It turned out the town was hit by a "mini-tornedo", so much for our theory they didn't happen. And of course the power lines were down all over the place and the town had no power. So we checked into our motel and sat waiting for the power to come back on.

It was well and truly dinner time with no sign of the power being restored that we ventured out to drive around town in the hope of finding a meal in a town without power. Having established that there wasn't any premises with lighting in the main shopping street, we decided that driving down the highway to Oakey might be our only option. By chance we drove past the Dalby RSL on our way back to the highway and found it a blaze of light and full of hungry townsfolk, so we joined them. There were a lot of queues to order meals and drinks, but the staff were doing their best and eventually everyone got dinner.

Now I don't know if the Dalby RSL had its own generator (if so, it was a quiet one), but it was a curious coincidence that they were across the street from the Ergon building (the local electricity supplier). The Ergon building was also a blaze of light, but this was not so surprising as 1) they had a very noisy generator in their backyard and 2) it makes sense for an electricity company to be busy when the power is out. Was there a long extension lead from the Ergon generator to the RSL? Anyhow, eventually we returned to our motel to sit on the balcony in the moonlight until the power came back on around 10pm. However, power wasn't fully restored to the whole town until the next day.

Next day we were out looking for cemeteries. It wasn't realistic to photograph the Dalby cemeteries -- way too big for two people so we went looking for smaller ones. Now smaller towns generally have smaller cemeteries, so we aim for the smaller towns.

We had an easy start with Jimbour Station "historic" cemetery, small and recently restored so an easy exercise to photograph. However, we got a bit caught out at our next stop with Jandowae. Never having visited Jandowae, our extensive research prior to our trip extended to my remembering that Jandowae was (in)famous for its $1 land sale intended to reverse the declining population. (Never let it be said that our cemetery activities are entirely well-planned; we have our organised trips and our more spontaneous expeditions). Anyhow, the $1 land sale made us think it was a very small place, but it turned out to be a bit bigger than we expected in terms of size of the town and also the size of the cemetery. And of course we arrive at the cemetery in the middle of one of the hottest days and we fry in the cemetery photographing all those headstones. I was undecided if I was going to faint first or explode with spontaneous combustion. At least it was well-maintained and we didn't have to fight our way through the undergrowth and prickles.

Also in the category of curious coincidences, I was photographing a plaque about the planting of a tree in honour of the early pioneers of Jandowae when I noticed the date on the plaque. It was that very day -- I guess they did it early in the morning before we arrived.

Alas, we were not completely spared the undergrowth and prickles which abounded at Bell cemetery later that afternoon, when it was still frying conditions out in the sun. It is fair to say that, even at $1, you couldn't tempt me to move to Jandowae or Bell. Of course, they may be delightful places to live, but frankly I had a miserable time at both and have no desire to return. I have never appreciated my car airconditioning so much.

Supposedly there were cemeteries at Macalister, Kaimkillenbun, and Maclagan but we never found them. Admittedly in all cases, it was late in the day and maybe we weren't heart-broken not to find another weed-and-pest-infested cemetery so we didn't inquire too deeply. Maybe we will do a bit more research before going back (be organised).

Dead Centre of Queensland

Since splitting one's blog into multiple blogs is all the rage in the ex-DSTC community, I feel the need to maintain my credibility as a digital native by doing the same. So today I am pleased to launch my new blog Dead Centre of Queensland which will focus on our cemetery-photographing activities.

This blog (Twin Parrots) will remain as my non-cemetery-photographying blog. I trust my small but select group of readers (quality rather than quantity) will subscribe to both in order to remain abreast of my hectic lifestyle.

Now I realise some of my readers (being intellectuals of the highest order) will be wondering why a blog with as few posts as mine really needed to be split, apart from maintaining my street cred as a digital native. So the real reason is that I wanted to have a separate cemetery blog so I can publicise in the family history community, which might not be so interested in my book reviews and random thoughts on ticket scalping and the like. Also I think I have to project a mature and responsible image in the family history community (who after all have mums and dads etc buried in the cemeteries we might be photographing). So this way I can keep my more irresponsible and immature thoughts here on Twin Parrots.

BTW, do you like the name Dead Centre of Queensland? Obviously I did or I wouldn't have called it that. Anyhow, pop over there and take a look at my first post and add it to your blog aggregrator or whatever you use to subscribe with.

Thunderstruck - my movie of the year

Generally at New Year's Eve, I have a sort-of tradition of re-watching (and showing others) the best movie I saw all year (not necessarily a movie released in that year). This year's was Thunderstruck, a 2004 Australian film.

It's a comedy road movie about 5 AC-DC fans who pledge as teenagers to be buried alongside Bon Scott (dead lead singer of AC-DC). 10 years later, one of them dies and the other 4 (who are basically a bunch of losers) come together to keep that promise by driving his ashes from Sydney to Fremantle, contrary to his family's wishes. It's a very Australian movie, and one that might not translate too well for an overseas audience. It's also a very AC-DC movie, so knowing something about AC-DC is probably important -- certainly you won't understand the band of bagpipers at the end of the movie otherwise.

Now the amusing thing is that life does imitate art. As AC-DC was part of our teenage years, having watched the movie and being a bit interested in cemeteries, we decided that when we get around to the West Australian holiday we occasionally talk about, we would include a visit to Bon Scott's grave in Fremantle cemetery. Then I read in the newspaper recently that one of the new "tourist attractions" of Fremantle is ... you guessed it, Bon Scott's grave. The tourist information people couldn't understand why everyone had suddenly started asking about it, until someone figured out the movie connection. So, clearly we aren't the only Whacko Jackos to be inspired by the movie to visit the cemetery.

I notice that Thunderstruck didn't get much of a rating on IMDB, but it is a somewhat niche movie, and I guess I am right in that niche because I loved it and it's my movie of the year. So there!

Book review: "Renegades of Pern" but really musing on the Pern series a whole

I have just finished reading "Renegades of Pern" by Anne McCaffrey, one of the dragon series. Some months ago, I decided to re-read the entire series. Although I owned a number of the books, as usual, I could not find them, either lost in the clutter of the house or lent to people and never returned. But fortunately Brisbane City Council library has all of the series except one of the later books, so I have been mostly reading the library's books.

Of course, reading the Pern series has interesting sequencing issues, as the series hops back and forward in time somewhat. Does one read the books in the order they were written or in the chronology of Pern itself? I opted for the order in which the books were written, although towards the end of the series, I read a few out of order because I'd stopped caring.

Without a doubt, the Pern series starts well with Dragonflight and Dragonquest introducing the world of Pern, the Thread that threatens life on the planet, and the dragons that fight thread and the society that has evolved in that context. I'd call it good science fiction, but I know many people prefer to call it fantasy. Whatever.

The series then gets a bit too interested in minor characters IMHO (such as Menolly and the harpers) and the introduction of fire lizards seems a bit of a distraction to the main storyline. I find the abilities of fire lizards somewhat confusing, they seem to be able to do or not do useful things, based more on what is convenient for the plot rather than any consistent set of abilities. In fact, it's really Robinton the Masterharper and Piemur the apprentice, rather than Menolly who are the significant characters later in the series. Menolly floats in and out throughout the series, as if Anne McCaffrey was a bit embarrassed to have introduced her as a major character and then felt she couldn't drop the character, but really Menolly seems to be pregnant in the later books and doesn't contribute much at all. Anne McCaffrey has a lot of strong female characters, but Menolly seems to fade away compared with some of the others.

I initially thought the White Dragon was another "minor character" book, but later in the series Jaxom and Ruth the White Dragon turn out to be more major characters.

Then the series branches off into all different points of Pern's history. Moreta Dragonlady of Pern is quite a good free-standing story, but doesn't contribute anything much to the overall development of the series.

The series gets going again with Dragonsdawn, the story of the founding of Pern by a high-technology society and the events (Thread and earthquakes) that lead to the society's decay into a more low-tech society that we know from the start of the series. Again, from a sci-fi perspective, the evolution of the society in response to events is very good. Anne McCaffrey is back on form.

Then one is again lost in a tangle of novels and short stories about many of the minor characters at all points of Pern's history, sometimes re-telling the same events from their point of view. While it all adds colour, these stories don't tend to contribute much to the overall events of the story line.

Then we get All the Weyrs of Pern which despite its name is primarily focussed on the rediscovery of the Ancient's artifical intelligence system that begins to guide the people of Pern out of their feudal/medieval world back toward high technology. It's all a bit too easy with such a super-intelligent AI system telling them what to do. One has to be impressed that the AI system survived that length of time and one has to wonder why the ancients never bothered to seek its advice to aid them in their times of troubles -- it certainly has the answers for all problems from the re-invention of paper to the destruction of the Red Star.

Finally, having blown up the Red Star, you might think it was game over for the series, but that is not the case. There are a number of books, some co-authored with others, and frankly this is when I had to confess that I had stopped caring about what happened on Pern to a vast cast of minor characters. Renegades of Pern is one of these many stories, following various major and minor characters, re-telling events from their point of view. All a bit of a yawn.

So, the dragon/Pern series is well worth reading but you can stick to the main backbone novels that tell the end-to-end story and give a lot of the other stories that add a lot of largely irrelevant detail a miss, if you can't be bothered.

Helidon general cemetery, west of Gatton

Happy New Year!

Again, a lovely day to spend in the pool, but no, instead we go and photograph Helidon General Cemetery - 400 or so graves, mostly monumental but with some recent lawn beam graves. There was no columbarium which seemed a bit strange to me, as there is a crematorium at Laidley, which isn't that far away.

Helidon Cemetery has quite a nice position on the side of a hill with good views including the new Gatton bypass highway. The graves mostly face east (as is common in most cemeteries) except for a few that mysteriously face south. Perhaps those families had a different compass (and thought everyone else had got it wrong) or perhaps they belonged to some strange sect that liked being buried facing the south. Or maybe they were just mavericks who thought it would give people something to ponder on in the future (if so, it worked).

The cemetery is well-maintained (I think by the local shire council) and has good grass cover sprigged with little pink flowers, all rather pretty. There are some small trees and large shrubs which give it a pleasant ambience and provide a bit of shade, but it's still relatively open and therefore hot in summer when photographing. It has boundary fencing. On the driveway down from the road (Cemetery Road -- good name) down to the cemetery itself, there are a lot of tall gums, so at least you can park in the shade. There is a little waiting room shed-like structure with a few bench seats inside. Of course, being in Gatton Shire, it featured large ants which as always found my sandalled feet irresistable, despite generous dousing of said feet with Aerogard.

I think we can given Helidon cemetery a 3-star rating. More shade trees in the cemetery itself would have got it 4 stars and I am saving 5 stars for the first cemetery that comes with a coffee shop.

Culture & Camel Racing

Country Queensland never ceases to amaze me.

Yet again, a place I had never previously heard of, Tara Shire (to be precise), on the western Darling Downs with a population of 4000 people spread over 11000 square kilometres has confounded my expectations. Did you know it is famous for its annual Festival of Culture & Camel Racing? The next one will be held 4-5 Aug 2007.

It's not clear to me if there were originally two separate events, the Festival of Culture and the Camel Racing that merged, or whether Culture and Camel Racing are indistinguishable concepts in Tara. As evidence to support the second hypothesis, I note that another town in the shire boasts the Hannaford Gymkhana & Music Festival. Indeed the shire of Tara is awash with events.

I guess it shows that when you are about 300 km from any other form of entertainment, making your own seems a really good idea and presumably it builds community in the way we have lost in the cities.