bLOGOS/HA HA: What goes around comes around

David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.

10 July 2013

What goes around comes around

The earliest graffiti that we recall is from a time when graffiti was rare, the 1950s. It had probably been painted a decade or two earlier. In large white letters on the red bricks of the railway arch over the road at Golden Square. It said PIG-IRON BOB.

Parents told the story and school reinforced it. Before the war, against the protests of the workers, Bob Menzies sold Our Scrap Iron to the Japs and they'd sent it back as Bombs on Darwin. PIG-IRON BOB

On Sunday night, the ABC Australian history series, Chris Masters' The Years That Made Us, referred to this episode.

They showed this image from 1946. We noticed the young boy looking at that simple effective poster, and wondered if he understood (when we did not, back then,) why these two word-things were linked: PIG-IRON

A political protest in Darlinghurst, Sydney, 18 September 1946.

Bruce Howard Collection_National Library of Australia

detail

A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

someone looks at something ...

LOGOS/HA HA

Also, we made a quick note (see below) to seek out later another fleeting PIG-IRON image. A wharfie looking at a bicycle wheel. So simple, so profound: what goes around, comes around.