Catsidhe

Last night I was a guest at the Chinese New Year concert at Hamer Hall, an event organised by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with the Chinese consulate. The concert was a good mix of modern and classical, East and West. Mindy Meng Wang's performance on the guzheng for The Butterfly Lovers was especially notable, and Li Biao's enthusiasm as conductor could not go unnoticed. The main part of the programme, Beethoven's 7th Symphony, is far from my favourite, but I do really like the dreamlike dirge of the second movement. There were also meet-and-greet functions before and after the concert, where one had the opportunity to meet various guests, organisers, and performers, along with vox-pop interviews from CCTV. It is certainly the season for such things, with, of course, the ACFS hosting our own concert next week.

As a sort of musical juxtaposition, earlier this week I wrote a review on Rocknerd for the most recent album, "Crocodile Promises" by The March Violets. Once a post-punk band from the early 80s, their company could also include groups like The Chameleons, The Comsat Angels, The Sisters of Mercy, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, etc. However, more recently, they have moved to a more alt-rock sound, which isn't wrong (bands should develop their sound), but it is different. The album positively thunders along and is a deeply emotional collection of songs, of which "Bite the Hand" really stood out to me. On a related note (pun not intended), I have been delving quite deeply in recent days into the older albums by The Comsat Angels with their often spartan instrumentation and bitter and bleak lyrical content.

It is has all rather suited my current mood. Music is a universal language of mood, both in the uplifting and sombre sense. The latter affects me every day; I seriously don't understand how people remain indifferent to the immediate conflicts (e.g., Gaza) or to longer-term downward trends (e.g., the climate). February 18, for what it's worth, was Bramble Cay Melomys Day, a on-going memorial and campaign for the first mammal species driven to extinction by climate change. Yes, I can enjoy music, culture, artistry, and beauty, whilst simultaneously being driven by such events. As a certain J. Cash once wrote, "I'd love to wear a rainbow every day, And tell the world that everything's okay. But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back. 'Til things are brighter, I'm the man in black".

In the past week, I have attended three significant community events. The first was a meeting of Linux Users of Victoria, one of the oldest Linux groups in the world (founded in 1993). It was their first in-person meeting for a while; it was the first meeting I have attended since October 2019, when, after fourteen years on the committee, I stepped down. It was a good meeting, covering interstate collaboration, new utilities, and Linux and AI. The following day, I chaired a committee meeting of the Australia-China Friendship Society, which was primarily a planning meeting for our upcoming concert with Shu Cheen Yu and the Lotus Wind Choir, which is promising to be quite a wonderful event with close to 150 tickets sold so far. Finally, today was the Annual General Meeting of the RPG Review Cooperative at the Rose Hotel. The Cooperative, which is now in its tenth year of operations (the namesake journal has been published since 2008!). The meeting itself was quick and efficient, we had a guest photographer in the form of Mike Parry, and Karl brought along his rules for Hippo Jousting for a knock-out tournament all because it was World Hippo Day.

As someone who has been on many management committees since the mid-1980s, I like to keep formal business short and to the point. Matters of debate invariably can be resolved before the meeting actually happens, and if someone thinks "we" (meaning "the organisation") should do a particular activity, that's code to me that they've volunteered to lead it. This tends to mean more people doing things rather than just talking about doing things. It's not as if every committee I've been on has been like this; I do recall one non-profit (which was nick-named "the committee of mis-management") who had a "country club" approach to running the group; paranoid of new members, their meetings would be an exercise in dreariness as they went through and decided action on each and every item of correspondence received, instead of having standing policy that the (paid) office secretary could apply. Unsurprisingly, that body is seems utterly moribund; even their website hasn't been updated in over four years.

The week hasn't all been such formalities, of course. Nitul organised two gatherings with friends in the Botanical Gardens on Friday and Saturday evening to watch and hear the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra play. On Friday evening, it was with the "Find Your Voice" collective, and on Saturday, it was "Fifty Years of ABC Classic FM". Both concerts were attended by thousands, and the performances were quite uplifting. I must also mention that I spent Saturday with Mel S. on an op-shopping excursion, one of our favourite mutual pastimes. As co-parent to my rats when I'm away, she was quite delighted when I brought them over for a visit, keeping us entertained for several hours. Mel is aware that more rat-parenting duty will be coming up soon, as I prepare for my next trip overseas.