The Dawns Here Are Quiet – Iso-Posts #8

11 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Movie Review, Writing Tags: , ,

I’ve been very overtired and surprisingly busy the last couple of days and, rather than ramble on a daily basis, decided to wait until I could form coherent sentences again. There’s been sadness too, with friends in hospital and another sadly dying – I can only presume from COVID-19 complications. Such is life.

It makes this Soviet-era movie all the more relevant, though the title is perfect – the dawns here in Hobart really are very quiet at the moment, and it’s a pleasant change from the usual early morning traffic noise! Hope you’re all well ❤

A zori zdes tikhie (1972)

The Dawns Here Are Quiet (1972)

Written and directed by Stanislav Rostotsky. Based on the novel by Boris Vasilyev.

This is a movie that I’ve been meaning to watch for ages but for one reason or another, just didn’t get to until it popped up on MUBI a few weeks ago. Despite being in self-isolation for weeks, I’ve actually found it hard to settle into a long movie. My concentration starts wandering after a mere 90 minutes and internet drop-outs have been causing more headaches than I could reasonably deal with. Here, the running time of 158 minutes was an issue and I decided to take the filmmaker’s advice and watch it in two parts over a couple of days.

As Russia’s nominee for what was then Best Foreign Language Film at the 1973 Academy Awards, this really is quite a remarkable work. Set in WWII, the story concerns a group of young women who are training to be an anti-aircraft unit, stationed at a remote outpost in Karelia near the Finnish border. Their leader (and the only significant male character in the film) Vaskov helps them adjust to their new lives and the first half of the film deals with them getting to know and appreciate each other as fellow soldiers and as friends. While I know it’s important character building, I did feel this section dragged a little for me. But his cameraderie comes into full play in the second half of the film, when one of the girls sneaks off to a nearby village to visit her mother and spots two German paratroopers. From there it becomes quite a well-paced drama, very Russian and at times, very dour.

Rostotsky was a protege of Sergei Eisenstein and here, it shows. The framing (particularly of the outdoor scenes) is glorious and mention must be made of the cinematography by Vyacheslav Shumsky. Also, great use is made of colour, with the day-to-day life of WWII being in drab (but at times atmospheric) black and white and the girls’ dream-like memories presented in full colour.

Some of the narrative rationale is a little on the nose in 2020, most notably that many of the girls’ dreams center around traditional heteronormative themes (they’re nothing without a good man who’ll look after them) and at times descends into a patriotic sentimentality that falls flat for me. But considering this was made in 1972 under Soviet control and the original book in the late 60s, I imagine it would’ve been considered quite radical at that time.

Filmically however, this is really worth watching if only for the beautifully framed shots around the lake. I understand the original theatrical release is just over three hours long but this cut has 30 minutes removed from its run time and is available on DVD. It was also remade as a feature film in 2015 and then extended to a four-part television series in 2016. This is currently playing on Amazon Prime AU but I haven’t seen this version so can’t comment. The unedited original movie is available on YouTube, Part 1 and Part 2 both with English subtitles.

Look it up and let me know what you think.

 

Overtired – The Iso-Posts #7

08 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Writing Tags: , ,

A very brief post today from me. I slept poorly last night and we’ve had an almost day-long internet outage and a couple of power outages too. Consequently, I’ve managed to do very little today and found it hard to concentrate on reading or sticking at any task.

Part of the reason I’m sure is a very interrupted night, considerable tossing and turning on my part – and Neko.

I love this little cat more than I ever thought I would or could but he’s like an alarm clock that reliably goes off every morning, but it’s impossible to change the time! It’s pretty amazing to think it’s less than a year since we first had him inside the house. It took him no time to toilet train and we’re able to easily keep him indoors from dusk until dawn now – much to the relief I’m sure of the local wildlife and other cats in the neighbourhood!

Neko’s a very affectionate little chap and although he’s had a lot of anxiety issues, he’s become an intrinsic part of the household, I honestly can’t imagine life without him now. It’s like a cross between having a toddler and a teenager in the house. Apart from food, he loves nothing better than climbing onto the bed at dawn and purring so much, he drools on me – what a great alarm clock!!!

It’s a full moon tonight so I’m heading off to bed early to beat the early alarm. I’ll leave you with him resting after a busy morning, demanding to be let out, demanding to be fed, eating, following me around the garden while I fed everyone else, getting bored and then falling asleep on a bale of straw among my empty pots ❤

 

 

Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary – The Iso-Posts #6

07 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Movie Review, Writing Tags: , , , ,

Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary (2019)

A movie review today because, let’s face it, I’ve been watching an awful lot of movies lately!

Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary (2019)

Directed by Jack Bennett

I find it difficult to believe that it’s 21 years since Galaxy Quest (1999) was released. Although I was living in the bush at the time and going to the cinema was approximately a 280 km round trip (almost 174 miles), I do remember watching this on video and being instantly taken back to my childhood and youth.

The whole movie was a love letter to people like me, who were the nerdy sci-fi aficionados, who literally grew up with Lost In Space (1965-1968) and Star Trek (1966-1969) as the Friday night prime time viewing options and went on to love shows like Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, and later Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) and my personal favourite, Babylon 5 (1993-1998). Rather than talk down to the fans, Galaxy Quest celebrated them – and this documentary in turn celebrates the film and the profound effect it still has on audiences everywhere.

Many of the cast were interviewed for this and it was particularly lovely when they spoke about the late, great Alan Rickman. Other highlights for me were the interview with Sam Rockwell, who was a relative unknown when he played Guy Fleegman and interviews with Brent Spiner and Wil Wheaton who were in Star Trek: TNG. It’s a very positive watch, which is a good thing right now in my opinion, and makes no apologies for any shortcomings one might find in the movie – also fine in my book!

I watched this delightful documentary last night. Because of the current situation with COVID-19, it’s gone straight to streaming rather than the promised cinema release. Here in Australia, it’s available on Amazon Prime.

Office Tetris – The Iso-Posts #5

06 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Festivals, Music, Produce, Recording, Teaching, Touring, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The simplest of dinners – sourdough rye, home grown salad and fresh home made sausages

As promised in yesterday’s post, here’s a pic of the finished meal and it was delicious. I was really pleased with the sausages – flavour and texture were perfect!

Today has been a day of choices, discoveries and some sadness.

I’d only realised last week I was out of seed of my favourite endive “Bionda a curore pieno” and ordered a packet online from The Italian Gardener along with Lettuce Leaf Basil for next spring/summer. That prompted me to check stocks of other seed and do a top up with my local suppliers, Seed Freaks. They specialise in open-pollinated and heirloom varieties and I’ve had tremendous success with their seeds.

Anyway, after my morning feeding of the beasts and chili/basil check, I was picking veggies for tonight’s dinner and weeding the silverbeet. There I discovered a clump of self seeded endives pushing up through the straw and I imagine there’s a few Bionda in there. This is one of my favourites – it’s tangy flavour and great texture add so much depth to winter salads. The extra seeds coming in the post won’t go astray, I’ll just plant a few more 🙂

Later in the morning, I decided to tackle the shoe-box that is my office. It’s served as my music rehearsal space and teaching area, sewing room, writing den and main library for over a decade – effectively three rooms crammed into a tiny space barely big enough to swing a cat! It was high time to rearrange things so I can add more bookcases and start making some hard choices about how to both make the best use of the space and discard bits and pieces I’ve had boxed up in there for what seems like forever.

I found photographs of friends, some of whom are no longer alive, cables (so many cables!), old guitar strings, jars of beads that I meant to restring, demo recordings, little cards from my son when he was small and festival programs going back years. I started to feel a sadness that life is never really going to be the same again, and uncertain about what the future might hold for people like me in the creative industries.

It was more that a little overwhelming. But I also acknowledge there’s nothing at all I can do about it but reorganise my space – internally and externally – keep going and make the best of what I have and what I’m capable of doing. It was wonderful to fit in the new/old bookcase, and realising I could fit a box of my fabric stash on top was a bonus. Certainly like playing Tetris, moving things from one room to another, but incredibly satisfying that it fitted (just!) and made me feel like I’d achieved something important by getting it all to work.

From the crammed shelves of my main film library to the wide open spaces of that empty bookshelf – with a box of fabric for good measure!

Despite my generally upbeat nature, I think it’s important and healthy to acknowledge when I feel down or sad. Sometimes in the past I’ve repressed those feelings with spectacularly awful results – I think it’s like that for most of us. So please don’t be afraid to talk about your fears or sadness with people who matter – and I believe we all matter!

It’s definitely colder today but I’ll leave you with this little image, one I see every morning – the silhouette of a small, grey cat who likes to sun himself on our east-facing doorstep while I’m getting ready to feed him breakfast ❤

 

Sausages! – The Iso-Posts #4

05 Apr 2020 1 Comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Cooking, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening Tags: , , , , ,

Despite everything that’s going on right now, I personally feel I have a lot to be grateful for. I have a secure roof over my head, plenty of food, the most practical person on the planet to be in isolation with (aka He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Listened-To), a rich life of the mind, animals and gardening to keep me active, comparatively good health and a swag of friends and family around the world who like to check in with me via social media. In many ways I feel I’m doing this pretty easy.

Here in Hobart, the days are getting shorter and Daylight Saving finished today. This is traditionally the end of summer and the start of autumn proper – and today didn’t disappoint! It was much colder, and this morning there was even a dusting of snow on kunanyi/Mt Wellington but it was good to run around outside and feel the crisp air of proper autumn again. But with the onset of cooler weather comes less light and I for one, struggle with shorter days. We can all get through this, but only if we do it together. If you’re struggling, please say so. Reach out to family, friends and let them know you need to talk!

A few days ago a farming friend put out the call that he had fresh organic beef for sale and was prepared to make a delivery run to those of us in the greater Hobart area. We very gratefully said yes, it’s topped up the freezers and meant I don’t have to worry about shopping again for a while. So with a load of meat in the fridge, today we got creative and made sausages!

There was some venison I’d put aside for this plus a bag of pork back fat and a pouch of salted sausage casings that I bought some time ago for just such an occasion. (They will keep for up to two years in the refrigerator). After taking a guesstimate of how much of the casings we’d need, I cut a length off, soaked them in warm water for a couple of hours and trekked off into the garden to gather some fresh herbs. Returning with this lovely bouquet, I peeled some fresh Tasmanian Purple garlic, thoroughly rinsed the skins and set up the mincer that attaches to the front of my stand mixer.

When I used to make sausages years ago, I did the whole thing with a hand mincer and stuffed skins with an old caulking gun frame I’d rigged with a special food grade plastic tube. Living in the bush was peaceful but hard work – things like this used to take me the best part of a day. Today’s effort was relatively small (only a couple of kilos of meat in total) but took only about an hour to mince and stuff the casings. We opted for a fairly simple sage & garlic mix with the venison but went a little bit further with the beef, with lots of oregano, chili, garlic and smoked paprika for a more chorizo-style but without the traditional fermenting and curing.

The end product looks and smells great and I discovered that I haven’t forgotten how to do links! The test will be how they taste tonight with some home grown salad and a slice of rye sourdough.

And on cleaning out the mincer attachment, it looks like there’s enough for me to make a large sausage roll that’ll make a very nice lunch 🙂

Meanwhile, there was a very disgruntled grey cat, who was quite upset he wasn’t invited in to taste test the sausage meat. Eventually though, all was forgiven and Neko curled up on a favourite chair with me to catch some afternoon sun.

Stay well everyone, and keep talking to each other over social media, text and phone calls – we can do this ❤

PS: Dinner was fabulous, the beef chorizo-style was suitably spicy and the venison sausages had all the warmth and depth without tasting gamey – I’ll put up a photo tomorrow 🙂

Lazy Saturday – The Iso-Posts #3

04 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

I love Saturdays.

It doesn’t matter if they’re sunny and I’m in the garden or wet and miserable and I’m curled up on the couch, I just love Saturday at home.

Given our current circumstances, there’s no other place to be – and today’s been what my late father would’ve called a “pearler”. That is, a beautiful example of what a Saturday should be.

It’s been very grey and wet most of today, so this morning’s feeding of the animals was fairly rapid and required a heavy duty raincoat and my trusty steel capped gumboots. No planting for me today and I didn’t see my new friend over the back fence, but I did stop off in the greenhouse to do my daily basil and chili inspection. Pictured below is a most unusual fruit on a chili plant I grew from seed. Looking back through my notes, it’s named as a multicoloured Bishop’s Crown (Capsicum baccatum). It’s supposed to have a more blocky base and finish up a fresh orange red, but I’m not sure if it’s been mixed with something else.

Chilies are notorious for cross pollinating and serious seed collection means hand pollinating with a brush and enclosing flowers in mesh to avoid contamination. I’m never usually that fussy as I don’t sell plants or seed anymore but I’m very curious to see what this becomes as it ripens and (most importantly) what it tastes like!

Speaking of taste, we decided to do a full Super Saturday roast, and as I type, the rich, delicious aroma of roasting venison is wafting through the house. It’s been in the slow cooker since this morning with half a bottle of shiraz, a head of garlic, some dried chili from last year, a handful of button mushrooms and a bouquet of fresh thyme, sage and oregano. The joint is sitting above the rich liquid on a trivet of halved onion and carrot and it’s almost time to go and prepare some potatoes and carrots for roasting and finishing the meat off in the oven, while I make a sauce from the slow cooker. The smell is intoxicating!

This afternoon I indulged myself in some of my favourite Saturday things. I bought some books (online of course) from my local independent bookstore, Cracked & Spineless. I love this place so much and besides going to the cinema, I miss visiting Richard and the overflowing shelves and stacks, but he’s going to do a delivery for me sometime soon. Definitely an essential service in these strange days!

I depleted the bank account further when I discovered a heavy duty KitchenAid stick blender on special. It’ll be perfect for winter soups, making single smoothies, small batches of salsa, wet spice mixes and sauces – and far easier to clean up than my big food processor.

Finally, I started reading the new biography of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and it’s pretty good so far. Ardern has certainly shown herself to be a compassionate and caring leader since she came to office! I’ll be reviewing it shortly for The Tasmanian Times and will put a link here when it’s published.

So, a lazy day of unusual plants, buying books and things for the kitchen, happily indoors out of the rain, reading a new book while anticipating a spectacular dinner. A pearler of a Saturday! The only thing that could’ve made today better is if there was proper Australian rules football on the radio or television. I miss my footy too.

What are you missing most? And what’s the first thing you’re going to do when things get back to normal?

Late afternoon and clearing skies

Making Friends Over the Back Fence – The Iso-Posts #2

03 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing Tags: , , , ,

Firstly, thanks for the public and private messages of support – it’s nice to be back writing again and rewarding to know that I’m not publishing into a vacuum! Secondly, I think I’m going to try and make this a daily writing practice for the next wee while to keep my skills up and to share bits and pieces such as movie reviews, gardening bits and pieces and any sage feline advice Neko might purr in my ear.

As I said yesterday, the weather here’s been really very mild for autumn and we had quite a lovely rain to top up water tanks and deep water gardens. I had to save some of the baby peas from drowning yesterday evening but still, the rain was welcome. The photo below is from my balcony, where I’ve had Egyptian Walking Onions and various salad greens over summer. Now I’m starting to strip the boxes for quick brassica crops plus spinach and corn salad for winter eating. The seed cubes are powering thankfully, full of endives, spinach, beets, red orach and more silverbeet. These will be the last greens I’ll raise outside until late winter/early spring.

In the greenhouse (apart from talking nicely to the still unripe chilies) I’ve been forcing on brassica seedlings that I hope to plant out in the next few days. The photo below shows the last dozen cabbages, a late season English Savoy. It’s a little late to be planting these but I’ve been waiting for them to show roots at the bottom of the tubes before putting them out. I plan to cover them with soda bottles (cut in half and with air vents) to make a mini greenhouse and force some more growth for at least a couple of weeks.

vegetable seed raising

English Savoy cabbage seedlings (note the basil still powering on!)

This morning, while I was inspecting the bed I want to plant these cabbages in, I heard a window open across the back fence. Despite having such a big and diverse urban farm (it’s about the size of a standard house block), I live surrounded by units, mostly occupied by students from the University of Tasmania, which is five minutes walk from my front door. I waved and shouted hello to one of the ground floor tenants, a fellow I’d seen a couple of times before. We chatted about the pandemic and how it was (and wasn’t) affecting us and we realised we were both on daily medication and had good supplies of our prescription meds. Immediately, we each offered to help one another out if necessary. I didn’t even think to ask his name but he knows I come down to feed our animals twice a day rain, hail or shine and he promised to ask if he needed anything and offered the same to my household. He told me he’s got the internet and his study but he has no view except across our yard and he enjoys hearing the chickens (who are being very lazy and not laying much at the moment). I’ll be picking extra fresh salad tomorrow and putting it over the fence for him 🙂

Stay safe, stay home and be kind everyone – we’re all in this together. I’ll see you tomorrow ❤

Self Isolationist Life – Notes From the Back Rows – The Iso-Posts #1

02 Apr 2020 5 Comments

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening Tags: , ,

Reflection of sunrise from my backdoor

I’ve been in self isolation for over two weeks because of the COVID-19 pandemic (I have multiple risk factors) but that doesn’t mean I’ve been sitting here twiddling my thumbs! Sadly, I haven’t written anything for weeks, so forgive me regular readers! I’ve been a little preoccupied what with one thing and another. Despite being at home, I’ve found myself incredibly busy, and by the end of the day I’ve been too tired to do much of anything.

It’s autumn here in southern Australia, though the weather has mostly been balmy these past weeks. In fact, it’s been so warm, basil plants are still putting on new growth in the greenhouse and I’ve taken to knocking off any new flowers on the chilies while waiting (impatiently, I admit) for the Habaneros to ripen.

I made a batch of fermented hot sauce last month and I’ve got another jar underway at the moment. This ridiculously simple recipe has become something of a staple here over the last couple of years and it’s perfect anywhere you’d normally use tomato sauce. If you’re interested in the recipe, it’s here in a blog post from a couple of years ago.

Meanwhile, I’ve been going gang-busters in the kitchen making stock for the freezer, something I like to do every autumn in preparation for the colder months. But family members went hunting just before I locked down so I had to find room for venison roasts and even more stock – it was like playing Tetris with the freezer! I resorted to reducing some of it down so I could fill ice cube trays with incredibly rich, condensed stock. I anticipate one cube will be enough to feed four!

It’s been equally busy in the garden, planting out a bed of garlic, loads of seeds for winter salad (spinach, brassicas, mache/corn salad, endives etc) and trays of peas and broad beans for late winter/early spring cropping. Yesterday I was trying to liberate the cabbages, beetroot and caulifowers from their layer of living mulch (aka weeds) when I pushed a little too hard and I’ve found myself today with very sore hands, a mark of the arthritis that always comes with the end of summer. Thankfully, it’s been raining today so I couldn’t have done anymore even if I’d wanted too!

Instead, I’ve rested up, done lots of stretching exercises, dipped a little into social media, watched some YouTube videos, played with the cat (who also thought it too wet to be in the yard) and called a former fellow student who’s up in NSW. We’ve never met in person (yet!) but it was lovely to chat about families, writing, gardening, putting food by and the joys of modern technology in these days of lockdown.

I DO miss going to the cinema and will be at The State as soon as they reopen but in the meantime, I’m enjoying watching movies online, catching up on reading and getting the garden ready for winter. It’s my hope that we’ll come out the other side of this difficult time with a greater appreciation for the things that matter and a willingness to tackle other important issues as a community.

In truth, I’ve really begun to think of my life and natural introversion as my greatest superpower (talking underwater is the other one, thanks for asking!) After six years of online study, an urban farm to deal with and a predilection for home grown/cooked/made cuisine, I don’t feel put out by being at home. Rather than “shut in”, I feel “safe” here at home.

Talk with you all soon. Meanwhile, stay safe friends and be like Neko (aka Lord & Master, aka The Cat Who Came to Stay) – stay home ❤

Lord and Master, Neko in his cat igloo