Tag Archives: Paris

Tasmanian Writers Festival in Hobart

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Through last Friday, Saturday and Sunday I participated in workshops and attended discussion sessions presented by individual and groups of local, national and international writers.  Three wonderful days. The venue was perfect, the scheduling of sessions was well timed, the selection of guest speakers provided a rich cross-section of approaches and ideas, and the administration each day by the staff and volunteers associated with the Tasmanian Writers Centre was seamless and seemingly trouble-free.

In particular, I was alert for approaches by which I might turn my walk from the mouth to the source of the Derwent River into a fictional account once the walk is over. Throughout the weekend, I was reminded that the clichés of real life have no place on the page of a novel, that I must stop emphasizing the factual and place emphasis on the underlying emotional and troubling aspects of the story, and that links between the events of the walks could be made on the basis of association rather than chronology. Overall, it seems I should write to bind a reader to the experience not the facts, and that it is best to do so by following a chain of emotional connections. Easier said than done, however these ideas give me a basis on which to start thinking about how the story might unfold.

Memorable sentences from the Festival include:

  • Stand back from your real/true story and view it as a reproduction; as a photo or video made by someone else.
  • What is in memory is not necessarily real.
  • By assigning characters to aspects of the bush / the landscape we shape our own characters and beliefs.
  • Where you stand influences what you see.
  • Real experience is not necessarily a personal experience.
  • The unexpected makes the invisible visible.
  • Use secondary characters to make main character more plausible.
  • If you have a lot of backstory then you have started too late in the story.
  • It is better to write about something you are apprehensive about.

In one session, internationally renowned author Robert Dessaix remarked that he ‘liked himself in India’ and Paris but not in Rome. I liked myself at the Festival venue Hadleys Orient Hotel Hobart for the duration of the Festival.  I believe I will like myself even more in the vicinity of the Derwent River when I walk the edge during the coming days, on the first stage since April.  Spring has arrived!

On a camel, then on two different sailing boats, followed by a 900 mile walk

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Here is a little light relief with a piece of history which has nothing to do with my walk along the Derwent River. Blog follower Jo alerted me to the story of Zarafa. Have you heard the story of Zarafa?

In the early 1800s exotic animals from Africa and beyond were still sensational to the inhabitants of Europe so, over time, various animals were transported thousands of miles from their home territory to amaze strangers and for political purposes.

The giraffe Zarafa, when gifted to King Charles X of France in 1826 in 1826, became an international sensation in consequence of the challenges faced in her travels.  Zarafa’s journey started in the country of the Masai when she was loaded onto the back of a camel. On reaching the Nile River, she boarded a sailing vessel and travelled northwards to Alexandria. From here she was moved onto a larger boat, with a hole cut in the deck so her head could lift up and out, and sailed for 32 days across the Mediterranean to France. Finally she led by a man in a long walk from Marseilles to Paris over 41 days, and by all accounts she became healthier and more robust with each step.  Fed with the milk of three accompanying cows, Zarafa was considerably taller at the end of her journey.

You can read more at:

Apparently, Zarafa’s stuffed remains can be viewed in France at the La Rochelle museum. I would be interested to hear comments from any blog follower or other reader who has visited this museum and the remains of this giraffe.

Fashion progressed (or suffered) as a result of Zarafa’s arrival.  Apparently Parisienne woman piled their hair so high they needed to sit on the floor of their carriages, and men wore elongated hats and ties as the new trend of ‘a la girafe’ emerged.

From Wrest Point to New Norfolk on the Derwent River

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‘Have you got a red hat?’ friend An asked me. Recently she became Princess Pollyanna, an esteemed member of Hobart’s Scarlatt O’Hatters (http://www.hobartredhats.com/), and urged me to join particular excursions that have a connection with my walking project.  The delicious carrot being wriggled before my eyes was a ferry trip from Hobart to New Norfolk on the Derwent River.  I paid my membership fee to Queen Poppi and then found a common red beach hat (although others were wearing all manner of superb creations on their heads – are these the modern day ‘mad hatters’, I wondered). I donned a range of purple clothes and, as the newly appointed Lady Walkabout, jumped on the tiny water taxi ferry with 20 colourful new friends to be.

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The wind was strong and some swell across the River kept us bobbing.  However, the ride was comfortable and no one needed to bark at the fish over the side.  Sprays of salt water marked the windows and there were few opportunities to move outside into the clear moist air.  But the day was beautiful, the wind chopped waves dramatic and the panoramic scenery majestic.

What a thrill the journey was. After we left the jetty at Wrest Point Casino in Sandy Bay, a southern suburb of Hobart, we motored with commentary from our driver.  He pointed out environmental and historical features. This was a wonderful reminder of research and findings I made while walking the edges of the Derwent between the mouth of the River and Bridgewater Bridge, and I learned a few new details.

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The surprise sighting of a white sea eagle perched in a high tree against the cliffs in Shag Bay (an inlet between the Bedlam Walls – refer to my Stage 6 report) inspired the driver to stop and allow us outside to get a privileged view of this large bird.

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One of the great treats of the day was motoring underneath the very low Bridgewater Bridge (reminded me of travelling on some flat top boats in Paris where you feel sure the boat will become wedged against the bridge metal) and passing through without a bump or grind.

During our trip, at one stage hundreds of coots flew up from the water, we were accompanied for part of the journey by a small flock of sleek long necked swans, and in a small inlet a large family of pelicans were flying around.  Our eyes focused on all these birds.

As we continued on the Derwent River against landscape which I am yet to see on foot, it was clear my earlier belief that marshlands will prevent me from walking directly next to the River for most of the way from the Bridgewater Bridge to New Norfolk, is correct.  Occasionally it will be possible to walk on paths and grass, but mostly I will be tramping the hard road verges.  I was not aware the remains of a historic Lime Kiln sits beside the water, and it was good to see that I should be able to walk pass this on my way northwards.

As a result of this one-day excursion and from many car trips up and back to New Norfolk, I have a good understanding of the route. However, I realise that at foot level the world looks completely different and I look forward to finding out more in the near future.

understanding of the route. However, I realise that at foot level the world looks completely different and I look forward to finding out more in the near future.

More music close to the Derwent River

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One of my August blog postings extolled the magnificence of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus in a series of performances at MONA by the western shore of the Derwent River in the northern suburbs of the Greater Hobart Area.

Last night I travelled to another institution, the University of Tasmania, which has its lower boundary almost at Derwent River level on the western shore, south of the Hobart city centre. I was so pleased that to continue an annual visiting artist series, the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music had joined forces with the Hobart Organ Society to bring world renowned pipe organist John O’Donnell to Hobart.

John O Donnell organist

In the University’s Stanley Burbury theatre, the only neoclassical pipe organ in Tasmania was on show for an appreciative audience. Served up was a 1 and a ¼ hour nonstop magical program: Georg Muffat Toccata Septima; Arcangelo Corelli Concerto in C minor, op. 6 no. 3, arr. Thomas Billington Largo/ Allegro/ Grave/ Vivace/ Allegro; Johann Pachelbel Wie schoen leuchtet der Morgenstern; Johann Sebastian Bach Wie schoen leuchtet der Morgenstern(BWV739); Johann Sebastian Bach Sonata no. 3 in D minor (BWV 527); Johann Sebastian Bach Fantasia sopra il Chorale Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns haelt (BWV1128); Johann Sebastian Bach Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (BWV542)

I have listened to pipe organs being played in various places around the world but last night’s performance exceeded all expectations. In the hands of a non-expert, the sounds from a pipe organ can sound muddily mixed and your ears can feel assaulted.  Or the playing can sound lack lustre, colourless, and dull. Or irregular pacing can make me, as a listener, believe the organist hasn’t practised well enough and isn’t able to keep to the time signature.  That he or she isn’t as familiar with the musical piece as they ought to be before they play for public entertainment and pleasure.  In those instances there is minimal or no pleasure. But last night, John O’Donnell was nimble of finger across the keyboards, agile with his hip and leg movements to control the multitude of foot pedals, and most importantly made music with his touch. This wasn’t sound it was music. Lyrical. Magical. He made the composer’s scores come alive.

Listening to such music through headphones as you walk along, or blasting from a sound system in your own home, is no substitute for hearing the sounds in an environment where the acoustics work and the nuances of the music embrace you.  The concert was intense.  Intensely rich and beautiful.

I wondered on the effects of significant rivers in the lives of the composers from last night’s concerts.

17th century composer Muffat spent 6 years in Paris near the Seine River before settling in Vienna next to the Fluviul Dunarea. Corelli lived for a time early in his life near the river Po in Italy and later when settled in Rome, he had access to the Fiume Tevere that winds its way through. Pachelbel started life in Nuremberg through which the Reglitz flows. Later he studied at Regensberg around the Fluviul Dunarea, before moving to Vienna also on the same river, then Stuttgart on the Neckar river before settling back in Nuremberg against the Reglitz river for the rest of his life. Johann Sebastian Bach moved as a teenager to Luneberg next to the Ilmenau River. During Bach’s time in Weimar he could have accessed a number of rivers which enter into or are nearby to this city. When he was in Mulhausen, the Unstrut river and a tributary were close at hand. A multitude of rivers and tributaries flow through Liepzig where Bach spent 27 years.

I don’t want to mislead any readers. The connections between composers and rivers is a geographical one and I do not believe the rivers that they lived near had direct musical relevance. But the advantage of this tiny research to me was that I was able to understand a little more of the world’s geography and the interconnectedness of so many things; history, people, musical development. As a result, the experience of my project to walk along the Derwent River is enriched.

Est-ce que je suis un flâneur?

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Friend Ka suggested that ,in my walks along the Derwent River, I may have become what the French term, a flâneur.

I had never heard this wonderful word before, and with a little research discovered a great deal of information – and some very heavy stuff. After reading it all, I wonder – am I un flâneur, or not? The Oxford Dictionaries informed me a flâneur is “A man who saunters around observing society” and is derived from the French flâner meaning to ‘saunter, lounge’.

Wikipedia offered further information: “The flâneur was a literary type from 19th century  France, essential to any picture of the streets of Paris. The word carried a set of rich associations: the man of leisure, the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street.  The flâneur was defined by Larousse in ambivalent terms, equal parts curiosity and laziness and he presented a taxonomy of flânerie – flâneurs of the boulevards, of parks, of the arcades, of cafés, mindless flâneurs and intelligent flâneurs. The image below is by artist Paul Gavarni in 1842 and titled Le Flâneur.

Paul Gavarni Le Flaneur 1842

Wikipedia continued: In the 1860s Charles Baudelaire presented a memorable portrait of the flâneur as the artist-poet of the modern metropolis: The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world – impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito. The lover of life makes the whole world his family. Thus the lover of universal life enters into the crowd as though it were an immense reservoir of electrical energy. Or we might liken him to a mirror as vast as the crowd itself; or to a kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness, responding to each one of its movements and reproducing the multiplicity of life and the flickering grace of all the elements of life. Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life”, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1964). Orig. published in Le Figaro, in 1863.”

The website for The Arcades Project at http://www.thelemming.com/lemming/dissertation-web/home/flaneur.html explained that “Flâneur” is a word understood intuitively by the French to mean “stroller, idler, walker. He has been portrayed in the past as a well-dressed man, strolling leisurely through the Parisian arcades of the nineteenth century – a shopper with no intention to buy. Traditionally the traits that mark the flâneur are wealth, education, and idleness. He strolls to pass the time that his wealth affords him, treating the people who pass and the objects he sees as texts for his own pleasure. An anonymous face in the multitude, the flâneur is free to probe his surroundings for clues and hints that may go unnoticed by the others.  As a member of the crowd that populates the streets, the flâneur participates physically in the text that he observes while performing a transient and aloof autonomy with a ‘cool but curious eye’ that studies the constantly changing spectacle that parades before him (Rignall 112). As an observer, the flâneur exists as both ‘active and intellectual’ (Burton 1). The flâneur  has no specific relationship with any individual, yet he establishes a temporary, yet deeply empathetic and intimate relationship with all that he sees – writing a bit of himself into the margins of the text in which he is immersed. Walter Benjamin posits in his description of the flâneur that ‘He flows like thought through his physical surroundings, walking in a meditative trance, (Lopate 88), gazing into the passing scene as others have gazed into campfires, yet ‘remain[ing] alert and vigilant’ all the while (Missac 61). The flâneur is acutely aware, a potent intellectual force of keen observation – a detective without a lead. If he were cast as a character in the ‘drama of the world’, he would be its consciousness.”

The Paris Review at http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/10/17/in-praise-of-the-flaneur/ remarked: “the idea of flânerie as a desirable lifestyle has fallen out of favour, due to some arcane combination of increasing productivity – hello, fruits of the Industrial Revolution! – and the modern horror at the thought of doing absolutely nothing. But, as we grow inexorably busier – due in large part to the influence of technology – might flânerie be due for a revival?”

Am I … can I be a flâneur? Whatever the answer to this question I am so grateful for Ka introducing me to this fabulous new word and all its ideas.