Macaque Attack!

I haven't stayed in many five-star hotels so I never really know what to expect but being attacked by a pack wild and vicious monkeys in the corridors was far from my thoughts when it happened last week in Bali.

We were staying in a resort hotel on a beautiful bit of coastline right in the heart of a monkey-filled forest. We'd seen monkeys around the grounds of the hotel---they were Balinese Long-Tailed Macaques (Macaca Fascicuiaris) We'd also seen a sign warning guests not to feed them. We know monkeys carry diseases and can be extremely vicious. Last year we had a close and uncomfortable encounter with a different species of macaques while bushwalking in Malaysia. The hotel employs two monkey wranglers who carry sling-shots to ward off troublesome monkeys.

A Balinese long-tailed macaque saying g'day or maybe selamat pagi.

Our room was on the seventh floor but that didn't keep the monkeys from coming to our balcony in search of food. Very sensibly, we kept the glass doors to the balcony closed.

A family of monkey's enjoying the view from our balcony.

A grumpy monkey challenging a smaller one.

Walking across the glass screen at the end of our balcony.

Monkeys are fun to watch. I've always had a soft spot for them tempered by the good sense not to get too close. When I was nine years old, living in Alaska, I helped a friend with his paper run. Part of it took us to an army barracks where there was a monkey in a cage---perhaps the first Arctic Monkey. The owner was a soldier who had gone off to the war in Korea and the soldiers didn't know what had become of him. They didn't know whether he'd return to his beloved pet. To make the story even sadder, the monkey had recently gone blind. I'm sure there's a children's book in this but I don't think I'll be the one to write it. I never knew how it ended.

This guy could see our fruit bowl but there was no way he was coming in.

The attack happened on the fifteenth floor of the hotel.

The monkey gauntlet: where we came to grief.

Jill and I were walking along an open corridor and there were monkeys playing down below. The young ones were chasing one another through flower beds and up and down trees doing as much damage as any adolescents on a rampage. There were at least twenty of them and I took out my camera and started snapping.

Quite obviously posing for me.

Some of the rest of the troop nit picking in the hotel gardens.

Some of the young monkeys came up to the walkway and climbed around the rafters. Everything was okay till I looked over a railing, not knowing that there were two monkeys just out of sight below. One of them let out a warning screech and then they both turned around and started screeching what I can only imagine was, "Get the guy in the cheap Balinese batik shirt! Rip him to shreds! Bite him into next week!"

Climbing into the corridor to see what the fuss was about.

Screeching monkeys appeared from everywhere. I backed away quickly but afraid that if I ran I'd be covered in monkeys. Jill was further from the action and ran along with a terrified woman. I backed around a corner into the building proper hoping for monkey wranglers with sling-shots.

This is when I knew I was in trouble.

Around a couple of corners, the monkeys kept coming---maybe a dozen of them. Then I heard Jill call out, "In here! I'm in the elevator! Quick!"

The leaders of the attack pack photographed by a rapidly retreating hotel guest.

It wasn't till the elevator doors closed and there were no monkeys in it with us that we breathed sighs of relief and laughed nervously. We looked around before getting out of the lift at our floor to make sure they hadn't watched the floor indicators and climbed down to greet us. They hadn't. We were safe, unscathed and with something to blog about.

I should add that Bali was wonderful. I don't know why we left it so long to go there. Maybe it was because everyone we knew had already been there---hardly a good reason. I'm sure none of them had the same experiences we did.

Accidental Mouseketeer

Annette Funicello and I were never close. We did have one thing in common, however: we were both on the hugely popular kids' variety TV show, The Mickey Mouse Club. Well, sort of...

The death of Annette Funicello from complications from multiple sclerosis last week---a news item sadly over-shadowed by the announcement of Maggie Thatcher's death---must have pulled quite a few heartstrings in my generation both in America and in Australia. 

These days with such a range of entertainment options for kids on many TV channels and even more on the internet it's hard to imagine one TV show having the impact The Mickey Mouse Club did. When it started in 1955 there were only three television networks in the USA and little in the way of entertainment for kids. The cast of the show, the "Mouseketeers", were a group of singing and dancing kids. Annette was one of the originals and, by the end of the show's run, the longest serving of all of them. She sang and danced but it was her winning personality that came across on television that made her the darling of girls and boys everywhere the show was broadcast.

                                          Funicello vuonna 1975

I didn't know Annette. I never met her nor was I ever at the studio where the show was produced. My appearance was entirely fortuitous and exceedingly brief. I was living in Spain in those days. There was no television and, even if there had been, I'm sure it wouldn't be broadcasting a show with American kids dancing around and singing songs about a mouse. 

In the summer of 1956 I spent a month at a summer camp in Switzerland. We spent a lot of time hiking in the most magnificent scenery. On a climb up to les Diablerets Glacier a couple of outsiders came along. Al and Jerry (dubbed by us Tom and Jerry) were a two-man film crew from The Mickey Mouse Club. It was their job to come up with footage for the "Newsreel" segment of the show and we were their story for the couple of days they were with us.. 

Happy campers, camp staff and film crew on les Diablerets Glacier.

In the photo above, Al is in the back row centre (in the hat) and Jerry to his left taking a picture of whoever took this picture. (I'm next to him with my face in shadow.) 

Me on the right with friends Michael and Danny.

I spent a part of two summers at this camp and fell in love with the mountains. On another hike (pictured below) we got a taste of rock-climbing, a sport that I took up seriously a few years later.

With Michael and another friend on the Swiss-French border.

But back to Mickey and Annette: A year or two after the les Diablerets climb I was back in America and happened to be channel surfing when I came across The Mickey Mouse Club in time to hear Annette say, "And now to some news from our Mouseketeers in Switzerland". Hardly breaking news but there we were -  a group of great friends looking happy and fit in a fantastic setting. Sad as it was to hear of the death of Annette Funicello it brought back wonderful memories.

Editing "The Yodeler", the camp newspaper, and, as always, struggling to find the words.

A digression of footnotes:

Footnote 1: I confess that I don't remember whether it was Annette who narrated the Newsreel or what whoever it was said but I think that our band of happy campers were dubbed "Mouseketeers".

Footnote: 2: I've spared you the story of the light plane that crashed on the glacier just before we got there and our watching the subsequent rescue of the injured pilot by another daredevil pilot.

Footnote 3: On the far right in the photo is Tom, the only one I had any contact with after that summer. He was a Harvard student at this time but later worked as some sort of secret agent and died in mysterious circumstances. The girl in the middle of the front row with her hands on her knees was my girlfriend, Robyn.

Goodbye Colosseum

Hurry, last days! If you want to see the Colosseum before it's dismantled at the end of February then now's your chance. This isn't, of course, the Roman entertainment centre of old but its brilliant re-creation, the "Legosseum" of Lego-master Ryan McNaught of the City of Melbournium. 

The Legosseum is at the Nicholson Museum at Sydney University. Entry to the museum is free and, if you can find your way to the Quadrangle, it's just inside the southern entrance.

I can't imagine how much time it must have taken Mr McNaught to create this marvel. It certainly wasn't built in a day. On four or five trips to the Museum (Did I mention that it's free?) I spent hours poring over the detail and discovering things I'd previously overlooked. There is so much to see both in the building itself but also the people, ancient and modern.

The "Legosseum" of Ryan McNaught at the Nicholson Museum...

I did enjoy seeing the real thing on a trip to Rome a couple of years ago but I think the enjoyment came more from imagining how life might have been in the year 80 AD when the Colosseum was completed than admiring the ruin itself. And it really is a ruin: over the centuries every bit of decoration that could be carried off was looted and, when that was gone, the site became a quarry and much of the original stonework also disappeared.

...and it's Rome counterpart.

To stand in a place where emperors and popes stood and where countless people and animals met their deaths for the enjoyment of the people really was a buzz. And so it is too with McNaught's more politically correct creation.

McNaught cleverly recreated not just the ruined Colosseum as it exists today but the Colosseum as it would have looked in its heyday, complete with gladiators and Roman soldiers and also modern day tourists..

The old with the new.

Next to the Legosseum is a re-creation of the Arch of Constantine, built a couple hundred years after the Colosseum on orders from the Emperor Constantine the Great after his troops won a decisive battle, a battle  which---had it been lost---might have hastened the end of the Empire. A good enough reason to build a triumphal arch. 

The Lego Arch of Constantine.

There's a bit of Lego-licence here as real Arch isn't immediately next to the real Colosseum.

The pre-Lego version of the Arch.

Not everyone loves Lego. Most parents have spent endless hours searching for pieces under carpets and furniture and retrieving them from over-filled vacuum cleaner bags. And Lego bits are the bane of bare feet. More than a few parents have had "bricks" and helicopter rotors surgically removed from their person. But who isn't impressed with some of the Lego creations we've seen on the internet? Have a look at the Lego recreation of Barack Obama's first inauguration. (Click here)

Lost to Lego: two young Legomaniacs contemplating their next creation.

Along with the Legosseum, the Nicholson Museum has lots of displays---static and video---of Roman antiquities as well as their collection of other ancient relics so, even after the Lego is gone, the museum is well worth a look. Despite its small size, the museum it prides itself on having "the largest collection of antiquities in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere."

Check with the Museum for its opening hours and then hurry on down.

Arnedillo: the Perfect Writers' Retreat

Do you have a refuge, a quiet place you’d retreat to if you suddenly had an important project and wanted to avoid life’s daily distractions? I don’t mean an upstairs bedroom or a friend’s granny flat but a totally different hidey-hole, in a different country. I have a few possibilities.

In my fantasy inspiration would strike and I’d come up with a cracker idea for a novel, an idea so good that I’d auction the publication rights and pocket a huge advance. Now all I need to do is write the book away from harassing phone calls from Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson who would be after the film rights. Where would I go? High up on my list of hideaways is my own Spanish Shangri-la: Arnedillo.

Arnedillo, La Rioja, Spain

Arnedillo (arnay-DEE-yo), population 477, is nestled in a valley high up in the mountains of La Rioja in northern Spain. Arnedillo is dry, bitter cold in winter and very much off the beaten path. And it’s picturesque. Why work in an ugly and depressing place? The town doesn’t have the sort of UNESCO-listed historical attractions that would draw mobs of international tourists so it’s a quiet place. It’s also crime-free (according to the locals) and it’s a long way from a beach. In short, the perfect place to settle down for a few months to work.

Spanish tourists do go there but these are Spanish tourists, mainly from nearby Logroño. The shops aren’t filled with souvenirs: no “Arnedillo a Noche” postcards, Chinese-made castanets or even miniature bagpipes with “Requerdos de Arnedillo” printed on them. (Forget the flamenco---this is flute, drum and bagpipe country.)

In addition to being a beautiful town, Arnedillo is steeped in history. The Romans were there when Spain was a part of the Roman Empire and since then the Vandals, Visigoths and Moors came and went. There are a few remnants of these conquering peoples but it was in the High Middle Ages that the town took the shape it has today. The town is protected by heritage orders and the valley itself has been declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO.

That tower is the little that's left of the 10th C castle of the bishops of Calahorra.

Okay so while I want to get away from major distractions I will need a few things to do to break up the boredom of writing. I like to walk and there are some lovely walks along the valley and up into the surrounding hills. There’s a tiny bit left of a ruined 10^th century castle and there are three hermitages up above the town that can only be accessed on foot. These date from the 10^th to the 16^th centuries and now look more like miniature churches than the hovels or caves the hermits would have lived in. No skinny bearded men raging against the evils of the world.

Vultures nest in the peaks around the town.

A bit of bird watching helps to break up the writing routine and Arnedillo has a colony of Griffon vultures that nest in a rocky crag above the town. The population of Griffon vultures in Europe had been diminishing but has come back thanks to public awareness interest. There was a bit of a hiccup a few years ago when the European Commission banned the leaving of carcasses out for the vultures because of the danger of spreading of BCE (Mad Cow Disease) but their numbers are growing again. These are magnificent birds.

Looking back along the Cidacos River to Arnedillo.

Still struggling with Chapter One and out of ideas I need another break. I think I’ll take a walk up to the town’s nevero artificial. No, I’d never heard of one either but some friendly people took me to see this one and explained its use. A “snow well” is the best translation I’ve found. It’s a stone-lined hole in the ground that neveros filled with snow in the winter. In summer the compressed snow and ice could be taken out though a bottom entrance---a source of ice all summer long. These apparently were common in Europe and the Middle East from at least 2000 BC. Where I grew up in New England, USA, you just waited for a lake or pond to freeze, sawed it into blocks and packed it in sawdust in a shed. Needless to say, industrial ice-making factories in the 19^th century and, later, fridges put the neveros out of a job just as happened with the ice-harvesters of New England.

There’s another walk to see dinosaur footprints but I’ll save this one for when I’m really stuck.

Iglesia de San Servando y San Germán

There are a couple of churches in town, both unlocked and generally people-free when there are no services. The grander of the two is the 16^th century Iglesia de San Servando y San Germán. This is just across a tiny square from the entrance to the lovely little boutique hotel where I’ve stayed and would stay again while I work on the novel. This is the Hospedería LasPedrolas.

17th Century organ in the Iglesia de San Servando y San Germán

Jill outside our hotel, the Hospederia Las Pedrolas.

Arnedillo does have three festivals dotted around the calendar and their own peculiar customs to celebrate them. One of them, in November, is la fiesta de San Andrés in which the streets are filled with smoke of burning rosemary and he (or she) who breathes is will be immune from sickness such as colds or the flu all winter.

It is also a gathering place in autumn for mycologists. One of the restaurants, Casa Cañas, hosts the annual Jornadas Micológicas de Arnedillo. For mushroom and funghi aficionados there are lectures, guided mushroom collecting walks and the restaurant serves mushroom degustaciones for those mycologists who have a gastronomic as well as scientific interest in their subject.

photo:  Casa Cañas

photo:  Casa Cañas

Arnedillo’s main attraction is its hot springs. At one side of the normally-icy Cidacos River, which skirts the town, water comes out of the ground at 52.5 degrees Celsius. The town has built a series of pools, one flowing into the next. By the time the water reaches the lowest pool it’s not too hot to get into so the usual procedure is to work your way up from the warm pool to the almost-painfully-hot one. Once in the hottest pool it’s very hard to move a muscle, even to get out, but somehow you feel good afterwards. There is a big hotel and spa on the outskirts of town with mud baths for those who believe in the medicinal benefits of the water and have a bit of loose change.

Arnedillo's thermal springs.

Anyway, Arnedillo would be one of my perfect retreats: good restaurants, good accommodation and just enough to do to kill the boredom but not enough to not so much that I couldn’t get my work done. At least that’s my fantasy.
I didn’t just happen upon Arnedillo by taking a wrong turn between Barcelona and Bilbao. 

Many years ago as a teenager living in Madrid, a young woman came to work for for my family. Charo---diminutive of “Rosario”---was not only an excellent cook and tireless house-keeper but she soon became a well-loved member of the family. Much of what we learned of the Spanish language and Spanish customs we owed to her.

Charo on the right and another friend on a picnic in the 1950s.

Charo had grown up in Arnedillo and moved to Madrid to work. We lost track of her for years after we left Spain but eventually found her living in Logroño in the Rioja region. She'd lived in England, been married and been widowed. To make the story short, I met up with her a couple of times on trips from Australia to Spain. She was still the lovely, intelligent woman I’d known all those years ago and the two of us were as close as ever. 

Jill, Charo and me in Arnedillo a few years ago.

Later, Charo's sister, Juli, contacted me to say that Charo had had a stoke and that she was looking after her back in their pueblo, Arnedillo. We visited her there a couple of times. Charo has since passed away but Jill and I have now been adopted by Juli, her husband, Roberto, and all their relatives and friends. Spaniards being the social animals that they are, on our last visit we were almost killed with kindness. 

Some of our Arnedillo family.

Roberto and I check the wine in his bodega and declare it ready for drinking.

At this point I'm having second thoughts about whether Arnedillo really would be the ideal hideaway. Maybe I'd better start thinking about hideaway No. 2 before inspiration strikes. But more on that at another time.

Mirror: The Art of Jeannie Baker

Jeannie Baker is the real thing. She's an artist, illustrator, author and film maker of great vision and dedication who over the past four decades has produced a series of wonderful picture books. The reason for this blog post is that those of us in Sydney have the rare opportunity to see the original artwork for Jeannie's book, Mirror.

These days picture book artwork usually begins as drawings or watercolours on paper or, more often, computer files created electronically using a digital art software package such as Corel Draw. In contrast, Jeannie makes meticulous constructions which are then photographed for the books. The books are wonderful but seeing the original artwork, quite literally, adds another dimension.

About her technique Jeannie says: "Where I can I like to use textures from the actual materials portrayed ­ such as bark, feathers, cracked paint, earth, knitted wool, tin so that their natural textures become an integral part of the work. The vegetation used is often natural. Using plants was a problem at first but I have learnt how to preserve them so they last and I add permanent colour."

The exhibition of the Mirror artwork is at the Blacktown Arts Centre till February 2nd. It's been touring Australia for the past two years and this is the end of the road. Don't miss it.

Mirror was published in 2010 won the 2011 Children's Book Council of Australia's Picture Book of the year, among other prizes.

Full credit to Walker Book Australia for tackling such a non-standard book

The book's unique design is really two books in the same cover. Open the cover and there is a book on the left, reading from left to right, and another, that reads from right to left. The wordless stories are of the lives of two families---one in Australia and the other in Morocco---as they go about their days. Turning one page at a time we can follow their parallel lives, one commuting through city traffic by car, the other going to the market on a donkey.

Sorry about my ham-fisted photographs. The works are in acrylic cases and, because of reflections from everywhere, haven't done them justice. Also some of them have lights built in and...well, seeing them in the flesh---and feathers, bark and fur---is the only way to see them.

Jeannie Baker signing a book for a young fan

Donna Rawlins and Jeannie Baker

At the opening of this final exhibition, editor and author Donna Rawlins summed up the unique place that Jeannie Baker's work holds today and why it will for many years to come. Don't miss the exhibition! If you liked the book you'll love the original artwork.

Photographs with permission from Jeannie Baker.