Somewhere on a Patio

Out on the patio (we’d sit)
And the humidity (we’d breathe)
We’d watch the lightning (crack over canefield )
Laugh and think: this is Australia

Sounds of Then
Callaghan 1985.

It is a fine thing that in every era we have our unofficial anthems to strike the right mood in each scene of the national action. Well may we sing “God save the Queen” and “Advance Australia Fair”, as we can also sit and watch, and laugh and think our own mythological Australia into the foreground.

Of all the unofficial Australian anthems, the “Sounds of Then” says the most about the lackadaisical utopia that was Australia in the post war period. This ambrosian lament, with its scenes of hazy heat and humidity, has become an enduring and endearing refrain on the popular airwaves.

But why does it resonate with Australians so well? Why is it so affecting?
Anthems are nationalistic bravado, victory songs and declamations of entitlement and belonging. But unless they strike a chord at the heart of the national psyche, and express themselves in a sublimely poetic fashion, they can become jingoistic, or merely descriptive. So whereas “The Land Down Under” was perfect as a victory song, with its national icons and celebration of the ocker conquistador, the “Sounds of Then” has a more reflective and atmospheric pitch. But what was happening on that patio?

“Out on the patio (we’d sit)”. Indeed we do sit. Quintessential Australia, forever reclining on location. The inertia in that laconic pose, that determined stance, on an essential icon of Australian architecture, the patio (deck, verandah): open spaces, rolling out or jutting out the side of weatherboard houses, cantilevered or supported; viewing platforms to look at what, if not the terrain and sky of an expansive and intriguing natural Australia.

But why did we sit? We sat because “we come from a land of plenty”: obligatory weekends upgraded to long weekends, institutionalized and held up as major gathering points, nodes of sandy munificence in weeks of secure work environments with perks and fringe benefits. We sat because we could, and in sitting we reflect, long sweltering reveries broken only by showers of torrential rain and the light shows of electric storms.

But what happened on that patio? We sat in a perfect slouch, not like a monkey in a tree or a cat on a fence or a lizard in the sun, but like a human ever sat, in a stillness and in wakeful silence, in a place at the centre of a vital universe, eternal, at home, secure, in Australia.

But what happened on that patio? The humidity would gather over the course of a hot afternoon, a precursor to a flood of water falling from the sky, thrown by howling winds at a sleeting angle, and trees would reach out, appealing to the heavens in a cosmic drama. And piecing through this maelstrom, We’d watch the lightning (crack over canefield).

And the humidity (We’d breath). Naturally placed in this habitat, we suck in that humid air, and thereby belong organically; we become a biotype, a species of here, overcoming our alienation, our European strangeness. We wake up and forget our past and with it our fractured displacement.

But why did we laugh? We simply laughed. We laughed an existential joy, free of extraneous cares. We laughed for the adventure of the new world and this Australian arcadia, on that patio where we sit.

Rhapsody in Red - The Alhambra

In 711 Moslem armies invaded and occupied the Iberian Peninsular. Over the following centuries their rulers would battle not only the Christian Spaniards but each other. Eventually, there remained one group, the Nasrids, who would dominate the Andalusian region from their famed citadel built on a rocky spur overlooking Granada. This system of palaces and fortifications, contained within a walled city and known as the Alhambra, was built by the Nasrid Caliphs and their Vizers, state administrators who were also known to practice other arts and crafts such as poetry and geometry.

The Alhambra contains some of the most beautiful buildings in the world. With its unusually located palaces, courtyards and gardens forming a magical unity within its walled compound, this is a place to be dazzled.

The architecture of the Alhambra is unique in that there is an interconnectedness that is difficult to understand. Different palaces, although contiguous, are situated on different axes, alleyways and passages surprise as they appear and wind their way in unexpected directions, now taking a right turn, now going up a stair, always to arrive in another of the astonishing rooms, halls or courtyards of this magnificent palatine complex.

The Alhambra consists of a great number of architectural forms: there are the palaces where domes crown ceilings and cupolas indent walls; halls flow into internal courtyards that contain intricate tile work and stucco patterns on their internal fascia; and stairs lead to upper belvederes that have rustic vista’s to the marvelous gardens. There is an amazing intimate internality in this place, as antechambers lead to halls which open onto loggia containing refreshing pools, mini aqueducts running along the paved floor with water features and fountains taking centre place.

One seems to be entering a room because it has the intimacy of a room, and yet strangely, the proportions of a place of larger significance; it is in fact the Hall of the Kings, a magnificent chamber, and yet still a room.

To enter this mysterious room and behold the effect of ten’s of thousands of pieces of tile, stucco, wood and stone fashioned into a multitude of patterns and shapes of great variation, of arabesques and filigree, of vegetal motifs, of domes and three dimensional plaster shapes built into architraves and ceilings giving the impression of honeycomb and stalactites, a mesmerizing fantasy of medieval craft; and all this capturing light from the window and reflecting and refracting it into a floating whole so that there is a beautiful diffuse softness playing on the patterns and architectural features.

This room then flows seamlessly out into a courtyard where there is no recognizable distinction between the inside and the outside as the court is enclosed, itself with the same universal and seemingly endless geometric tile patterns and calligraphy depicting poetry and verses from the Koran, all above a rectilinear pool, itself enlarging and aestheticising the buildings, incorporated as all elements into the magical unity of this startlingly complex work of art.

The microscopic and multitudinous are as equally powerful as the singular and monumental in the quest for the infinite. And so the sublime pattern repetition and the endless, intricate and subtle variation of forms that constitute the Alhambra brings one to mind of the Mandelbrot set, a firmament encompassing life itself; quite simply, the myriad decorations and ornamentation of the Alhambra provoke astonishment.

The phenomenal effect of this artistry on the human spirit raises the question as to the intention of the architects in producing such an extravagant and breathtaking universe of geometrical design. The history of the Alhambra is nothing if not mysterious and there are scant direct records of the Nasrid Caliphs who built it, or any documents regarding the buildings themselves. So the books written on these fairytale palaces consist mostly of rational speculation and deductions from other sources.

One such speculation has it that the buildings are, amongst other things, a testimony to the influence of Sufism, a mystical form of Islam that proffers that the evidence of God and the sense of the infinite can be found in things of beauty. If the feeling of rapture that the Alhambra can inspire is anything to go by then it could well be accepted that the quest for the infinite may well be on a polychromatic tiled path through its labyrinthine interior.

The desire of human societies to build phenomenal edifices has been long thought to be a search for the absolute. To build a thing of such beauty and magnificence that it leaves the populace awestruck and confident of the authority of its rulers, both secular and religious. Whilst also being a tribute to the vision of the Muslim Sultans and the cultural achievements of their time, a building like this provided an opportunity for architects and artisans to build what can only be described as magnificent works of art. The architectural decoration of the Alhambra in Granada is a testimony to this.

When confronted with the Alhambra, one is awestruck. The emotional impact of the experience causes one to be transfixed, to be rendered immobile, to gaze blankly, to obliterate all other thoughts, to feel that one is, indeed, staring into infinity. Down through the centuries, people gazing upon the works here, have been given to rhapsodic outbursts, inspired to compose euphoric poetry, to write romantic prose and left in philosophic rumination.

Not having any forewarning of the magnificence I was about to encounter I walking through the gate unaware and innocent. I fell into a mysterious universe, “The Red Fortress”, the Alhambra, and was lost for several hours before I came to my senses and only committed to leave in the knowledge that I would be back the next day to let that place again draw away my thoughts, my psychic energy, and leave me affected to the core of my being.

To say I was innocent when I happened upon the Alhambra is bourn out by the state I was in seven hours later when I fell stunned through the Gate of Justice and sank into a swarthy twilit Granada. Oh Alhambra! What I have seen with these eyes!

I crawled into a cavernous Arabic eating house off the side of a crooked allay on the opposite hill. After eating shaslick, bread and homus I drew deeply on a Hooker, laid back on a silk-woven cushion, and reflected on the patterned cosmos plateaued in the distance.

Still Life

Things fall into place, and hold on,
With magnetic uncertainty

Chair grabbing floor
Basket clutching at the door

Cupboard up against the wall
Restraining cloaks in broken fall

Bed dead weights beneath white sheet
Bookends press with hidden feet

What frantic gravitational pull
Conducts this living still?