Definitions

Definition 047 | Wild, Wild Life

Definition 047 | Wild, Wild Life

If you’ve been reading my essays for a while now, you might know a bit about my family in Canada—the birders of Southern Ontario, that’s them.

One of my sisters sent me a photo of the decorations going on their tree this year over there, which naturally enough included a lot of bird-related ornaments, gathered over many years. My dad and my uncle used to have a boxing day tradition of shopping for new ornaments, so the collection was pretty expansive by the time we were kids—and we had to be a bit careful around all that Czechoslovakian blown glass, I can tell you. But I think we did okay; most of it survives and is still being used by them & their own (careful!) kids today.

Not having kids, a tree, or ornaments here in Sydney myself, I decided to do pretty much the opposite of what I usually do for one of these essays: I took my longest lens, and my largest camera, and went looking for actual birds I could capture, and send to my mum over in a wintry lockdown in Toronto, to give her a bit of colour and summer light to enjoy for a while…

DEFINITION 46 | F*** CVD-19

Photography and Text by Vincent Baldensperger

Interdictions, restrictions, contrôles…
Humain d’ici ou là, tu t’adaptes, tu patientes, tu attends l’aube.
Et plus ces heures s’assombrissent, plus la Vie s’impatiente.
Révérence à 2020…
•••
Prohibitions, restrictions, controls ...
Human from here and there, you adapt, you wait, you wait for dawn.
And the darker these hours, the more impatient Life becomes.
Reverence to 2020 ...

DEFINITION 45 | Looks Like We Made It

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

I reached the grand old age of 55 last month. The number in itself is nothing special, but it’s the age that my sister Joyce died of a brain tumour in 2018. Dark humour has always been a part of my family and when I visited Joyce on her birthday, she gave me a rendition of Barry Manilow’s ‘Looks Like We Made It’. She of course meant she had made it to another birthday. She died less than two months later.

There is a naïveté that makes you think these things are more acceptable when someone is older, even just two years older. But as I reached 55, I realised that I feel no different than I did at 53, nor 43 for that matter. My dad passed away in 2019 pretty much of a broken heart, so to say that death is never far away from my thoughts is probably an understatement. I don't know if it's my age or recent events, but I find myself wondering how many more days I have left before I will wake up dead myself. Maybe mid-fifties are the age when these thoughts start to creep into your head more often, but my sister got 55 years, what makes me so special that I would deserve more?

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We took my mum away for a few days in October. It was the first anniversary of my dad's death and we didn't want her all alone and rattling around her house dwelling on it. While we were away, my wife Fe got word that the unit at the care home where she works had cases of Covid19. She knew there was a high risk she would become infected when she went back to work, but she, of course, went in anyway. Because while Joe public is fighting over toilet rolls in supermarket isles, carers, nurses and countless others are putting their lives on the line.

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Four days after she. went back to work, the symptoms started. A trip to the local testing centre confirmed she had the virus. Eleven days of cold and flu symptoms and we thought she was starting to get over it. But then it really hit. She spent the next three days flat on her back, too weak to do anything but be sick. Even now, three weeks on, she still gets tired doing small things. Nine elderly people from her unit passed away from Covid19.

Janel and Fe both had birthdays this month. Janel turned 13 and found the new normal for blowing out candles is not normal at all. I could mention how old Fe is, but I’d rather the candles were stored in the cupboard than in me.

It is almost December, and what should have seemed like a drag of a year has actually flown by in a flash.

So if you're reading this, almost a year into the Covid 19 pandemic, - It looks like you made it too!

DEFINITION 44 | THE 1200M MIND SPACE

By Patrick La Roque

We’d been raking the last leaves from our yard and had moved to pulling out the few dead remnants left in our garden (tomatoes mostly), when Heloise ran up to us with an iPad in her hands: “Joe Biden has won!”.

I didn’t react with any real joy or relief; just a sort of workmanlike acknowledgement: good, that’s done then. Like a checkmark on a long list of todos. It was only hours later that my senses finally caught up to the opposite reality of those words: he was out. We still had a chance at normalcy and kindness. 

Maybe.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre-Elliot Trudeau (yes, our current PM’s dad) famously said, during a meeting with Nixon in 1969:

“Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt,".

Sleeping with an erratic and enraged animal has been mind numbing these past four years. Witnessing such a profound derangement of every norm we took for granted—on human and political scales—has maintained us in a constant, unrelenting state of unrest. It’s been economically and psychologically exhausting. And now, despite the outcome, we’re forced to witness just how close we are to a complete destruction of the world order, as authoritarian levers are, predictably, being pulled one by one: the claims of electoral fraud and vilifying of the press and media; the firing of top administration officials and military leaders, replaced by loyalists; the complicit cabal of talking heads spewing conspiracy theories night after night, feeding the fables and frenzy of the misinformed.

There is no courage, no humility, no decency. No sense of duty. Only the raging fear and cowardice of a beast facing its demise.

...

I did a quick calculation this week: it’s been 255 days since I set foot in Montreal. We mostly exist within a 1200m radius of our home, in the suburbs. Sure we drive further on occasion—Jacob works at the supermarket twice a week—but beyond this, the circle is rarely broken. The circle defines our mind space now. 

In this year of dwindling horizons, I’m desperate for a ruffling of wind in our sail.
For new and old shores to appear;
for sacred illuminated lands;
for hope,
injected in poisoned bloodstreams.

Definition 040 | Chasing A Phantom

Definition 040 | Chasing A Phantom

If you were to stop by my apartment, you might think I was mildly obsessed. And you’d be right—but it’s not quite what you’d think, at first glance.

There might be a Phantom of the Opera poster on the wall. You could find a Phantom action figure, lurking on my desk. And, sure, I do have six (SIX?!) copies of the film—many of which actually contain two versions of it.

But, I promise you—there will be no songs about him, no Broadway or London cast renditions of anything. This isn’t the Phantom you’re thinking of; well, probably not, anyway…

DEFINITION 39 | “They played colourful music LOUD!”

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Words and images by Jonas Dyhr Rask

Amidst the now normalised depressing news regarding the pandemic, the politics and the slow depressing spiral of apathy that follows suit, I read something that hit me a little harder than all of the above.

It started at around age 3, I think. My dad would put the record on and I would be completely mesmerised by the sounds that hit me.
That was to continue all through my childhood and by age 13 I had heard that particular album with 4 people bathed in bright multicoloured, yet shadowy mysterious, lights so many times that I knew it note for note.

It was the sole reason why my only wish for my confirmation at age 14 was a red electric guitar with a Peavey amplifier.
All I wanted to play the colourful, yet heavy sounds of that album. As danish guitar virtuoso Søren Andersen so delicately put it yesterday - “They played colourful music LOUD!”

It shaped my youth.

It shaped my life.

HE shaped my life.

May you forever R.I.P
Mr. Eddie Van Halen.

And just like their music, I now do my photography bathed in bright multicoloured, yet shadowy mysterious, lights. Just like the cover of that epic 1978 album “VH”

All shots on X100V and X-Pro3 | XF35mm f/1.4

Definition 034 | Don't Get Around Much, Anymore

Definition 034 | Don't Get Around Much, Anymore

Like most of us, I’m finding this year hard.

I’m well aware that it could be worse, of course—Sydney (and New South Wales, and Australia) are comparatively speaking doing extremely well, with new cases under 20 per day for months now; meanwhile, to our south, Melbourne is in their second lockdown after case numbers went over 500/day for weeks on end.

But still, between my father’s passing earlier in the year, and the fact that the entire industry I’ve spent my career in is closed indefinitely, it’s hard to know what my purpose is at the moment. Mostly I try to stay safe, which means rarely leaving the house aside from walks in a nearby park or grocery shopping; so I see the same few blocks, and not much else…