more ramblings

On Easter Sunday, trying to flee religion and holidays and other unmentionables I betook myself en voiture towards the hills with a vague plan to bush-walk, but I just drove windingly and listened to various items on the radio, film reviews, art discussions, discussions about the influence of Walter Benjamin, about the rising influence of the religious right in Oz politics, with half an eye out for places to stop the car and walk, I haven’t bush-walked for years and obviously wasn’t prepared, didn’t have any maps with me, or water, though I have a swag of bush-walking maps here, and galleons of bottled water. Then I realised I was running low on petrol and wound myself back to the city, finally back to the Market Bazaar where I picked up money owing, bought an old two-dollar book and took a large lunch alone at a window bench and read some pages of the book, Frank Kermode circa 1969 writing on Walter Benjamin writing on Kafka and Proust, Benjamin had this clever idea that the asthmatic ever-out-of breath Proust’s long-winded style was an antidote of sorts, an ideal space where one never had to stop to draw breath in one’s rambling reflections. Be that as it may, I stumbled back to the car feeling exhausted strangely, hot between the legs, bit of a bowel problem and a familiar touch of rash in the heat, just as well maybe I didn’t go walking but I need it, so home I came and some trouble with the foster-lad which I’ll pass over, and the poor wee tiny dog’s got a kinked back and’s in terrible pain, so a trip to the vet’s in the offing, early next week, and waiting for me was the atheism stuff, yes quite interesting, a whole bulletin board of expert and other commentary on Flew’s apparent conversion, is it really such a big deal, he’s eighty-one, getting soft in the head but hey we’re all living longer, hale and hearty and wits aplenty, and anyway Flew’s reasons for ‘converting’ seem a bit weak, invoking a god of the gaps because we can’t explain the origins of life and maybe the origins of the universe itself, pre the big bang, so roll out god to make these big things happen that we can’t explain then roll him back into his celestial closet, sorry not a he.