Stories

November 10, 2023 - King of Kindness

 

Max Recracker

 

Kindness makes a difference … and you may not receive anything in return for your kindness – but don’t let that stop you being kind.  We all know how good it feels when we experience kindness.  And how on a bad day, it can turn things around. Revive our faith in the world.  And it’s not always obvious who’s struggling.  And if you are, coming up against someone who is being unkind can feel like the last straw.  And that straw isn’t always outwardly visible.  So it’s just safer for everyone if we all just be kinder.

 

(Clunk & Jam Second Edition, 2019.  Reposted from January, 2022)

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October 28, 2023 - Army of Ink Ride In A Pumpkin

 

army of ink ride in pumpkin

 

Sometimes I Wish I Wasn’t Me .

This little soldier finally realised that being the fairest isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and looking up to stars can be dangerous – especially when they fall.  And that ‘way up high’, ‘over the rainbow’ and ‘climbing the ladder’ are sometimes dangerous places to try and reach.  And too far away to possibly get there on time.

Footnote:   It’s such a competitive world.  There’s a strong current drawing us up, up and away from who we are – or are comfortable and content being.  Acceptance, popularity, success and fitting in, can feel so out of reach.  It can feel impossible to meet the expectations of others.   Until the question arises –  what and who determines our worth?  It’s also wise to question the notion that a sense of belonging exists somewhere outside ourselves.  And that bigger and the better and more determines if we are –  ‘enough’.   It’s potentially a hothouse for discontent.  Home?  Home can be a building, a place,  but it can also be a secure feeling within yourself. 

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September 25, 2023 - All That’s Good In Me

 

 

Vincent Fantuazzo talks about Dyslexia.*

‘All that’s good in me (self-portrait as son Luca)’.  Original in colour.

(Reposted for World Dyslexia Awareness Day)

 

 

Kicked out of school at 13, Vincent is still barely able to read or write.  After 20 years of isolation Vincent was diagnosed with dyslexia.  “I can’t tell you the months of the year in order or the alphabet.  I’ve tried to learn the times tables all of my life.  I’ve accepted that it’s not going to happen and that’s OK.  I can use a calculator and I’m getting along quite fine.”

“I was relieved that finally I knew I wasn’t stupid, there was just a processing problem in my brain which I could work with.”

* Article by Sue Smethurst in Weekend Australian Magazine (March 23-24, 2019)  Video from ABC’s Australian Story.

(Reposted from October, 2021)

June 10, 2023 - Keep Coming Back – Rise Up

 


Yoann Bourgeois

For his performance with Pink on ‘TRUSTFALL’ see Instagram here.

 

 

January 10, 2022 - Strength In Wild Imagination

 

 

Small is Good.

When the wild things contemplate eating Max, he tells them they can’t eat him because he’s a King.  “But you’re so small.”  They reply.  “Small is good.”  Explains Max.  “My powers are able to slip right through the cracks.”  “But what if the cracks are closed up?”  Ask the wild things.

“Then I have a recracker which goes right through that.”  “But what if they have some sort of material that recrackers can’t get through?”  “Then I have a double recracker that can get through anything in this whole universe and that’s the end.  And there’s nothing more powerful than that – ever.  Period.”

When Max tells the wild things he can make everything right.  They ask, “What about loneliness?  Will you keep out all the sadness?”  Max says, “I have a sadness shield, that keeps out all the sadness.  It’s big enough for all of us.”

( ‘Clunk & Jam Book, 2019.  Film, ‘Where The Wild Things Are’, 2009.  Original story and book by Maurice Sendak, 1963.  Reposted from 2011).

 

October 31, 2021 - Halloween Wink Wink

 

See article – Buy Into It – Or Not