Spatial Report 2: a little homage to William Carlos Williams, e.g., This is just to say / I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox / and which / you were probably / saving / for breakfast / Forgive me / they were delicious / so sweet / and so cold That’s out of the way, almost, more later. Activities spanning two days, 22/230602 1. Lost day, hot, spend ‘indoors’; visit from stranger, she liked the coloured rain (kitchen), a suspicious ‘liking’ 2. Football team won, two hours of mayhem on roads (cars, flags) 3. Dinner at ‘Moon Over The Water’ (and it was), twenty four kilometres from office, on coast (full moon, or thereabouts), phosphorescent sea (new experience) 4. Early morning walk to buy vegetables (newspaper sold out), eerily quiet, cafes trashed 5. Watched Shallow Grave 6. Did other things 7. Took ‘taksi’ to Palm Beach, stared at shelled Ghost City, noticed tourist in long blue frock 8. Did not see a turtle 9. Jetty has vanished (winter storm) 10. Continued conversation (with modest amounts of ‘good’ whisky, poured carefully over light blue ice cubes arranged in delicate glass tea-glasses) with S.F. (archaeologist, writing gothic novel) on impending film treatment: decided location was ‘spatially absent’) 11. Walked home: uneven footpaths; steep drops to side roads, pavement outside Mega-Supermarket ripped up, windows papered over 12. Dog missing from nearby roof (usually observed from kitchen window; instruction: stand before sink, open curtains (white with little green hearts), slowly turn head to right ten degrees, tilt head upward twenty degrees: hunting hound, he’ll be watching you back (remember Lacan’s shining tin on the water, or something) Definitions From The Outer Island 1. She-said: this occurs often (known as ‘a common phenomenon’) 2. He-said: ditto 3. House: Angelo Badalamenti, an underlying theme (a music score) 4. Balcony: a place to put a chair, needs regular mopping, useless in the summer sun, suitable for washing machine (slow rusting), excellent for clothes line (but not so good if directly beneath there’s the neighbour’s chicken coup) 5. Footpath: a romantic idea, especially loved by urban planners, redundant here (also, great place for parking cars) 6. Tree: "Walk on the delicate parts …" (A Footnote, William Carlos Williams) 7. Extract: as below (for The Janitor) Extract # 2 (‘Joy’ by John Barbour, 2001/2002) "… ‘Joy’ is then (a) work. (A) Work chosen. Work, which might give joy, in the working itself, in the making. The ‘joy’ therefore is not meant for me, it is the name of the labour — and, receiving the ‘fruits’ of labour is another thing altogether. I have been laboured for; or, at the end of the labour I was thought. This is, or takes on, a moment of wonder, as it is memory at work, or remembrance. I can think: I am remembered. Someone even knows where I am, where I can be reached. Where something made — with joy — can find itself. Joy is a sober work. And its sobriety, its strange calm presence, is an endless working, an infinite calamity, a struggle for goodness (rather than calmness), even an austerity (an austerity already fractured, blown apart; all desires for perfection end in tears), which, in terms of ‘beauty’ is terrible, is refined to hell (where no ‘need’ is needed) …" Comment: The above extract is referred to as ‘a serious breach of protocol’ (or prodigal), along the lines of, for example, "Your lovely hands / Your lovely tender hands / Reflections of what grace / what heavenly joy / predicted for the world / in knowing you - / blest, as am I, and humbled / by such ecstasy …" (Unnamed, William Carlos Williams .

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