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reetings from Australia.
Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.
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We lived from our youth up in brotherly
community of goods; money, books, and collectanea, belonged to us in
common, and it was natural to combine our labours. I am a camera with its shutter open, quite
passive, recording, not thinking. It seems to me that the real clue to your sex-orientation
lies in your romantic feelings rather than in your sexual feelings. If
you are really gay, you are able to fall in love with a man, not just
enjoy having sex with him. Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good
physique, and not too much imagination. What irritates me is the bland way people go around
saying, 'Oh, our attitude has changed. We don't dislike these people
any more.' But by the strangest coincidence, they haven't taken away
the injustice; the laws are still on the books. |
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The 4th day of January, 1688, we fell in with the Land of New Holland in the Lat. of 16 d. So m. having, as I said before, made our Course due South from the Shoal that we past by the 31st day of December. We ran in close by it, and finding no convenient anchoring, because it lies open to the N.W. we ran along shore to the Eastward, steering N. E. by E. for so the Land lies. We steered thus about 12 Leagues; and then came to a Point of Land, from whence the Land trends East and Southerly, for 10 or 12 Leagues; but how afterwards I know not. About 3 Leagues to the Eastward of this Point, there is a pretty deep Bay, with abundance of Islands in it, and a very good place to anchor in, or to hale ashore. About a League to the Eastward of that Point we anchored January the 5th, 1688, 2 Mile from the Shore, in 29 Fathom, good hard Sand, and clean Ground.
New Holland is a very large Tract of Land. It is not yet determined whether it is an Island or a main Continent; but I am certain that it joyns neither to Asia, Africa, nor America. This part of it that we saw is all low even Land, with Sandy Banks against the Sea, only the Points are rocky, and so are some of the Islands in this Bay.
The Land is of a dry sandy Soil, destitute of Water, except you make Wells; yet producing divers sorts of Trees; but the Woods are not thick, nor the Trees very big. Most of the Trees that we saw are Dragon-trees, as we supposed; and these too are the largest Trees of any there. They are about the bigness of our large Apple-trees, and about the same heighth: and the Rind is blackish, and somewhat rough. The Leaves are of a dark colour; the Gum distils out of the Knots or Cracks that are in the Bodies of the Trees. We compared it with some Gum Dragon, or Dragon's Blood, that was aboard, and it was of the same colour and taste. The other sorts of Trees were not known by any of us. There was pretty long Grass growing under the Trees; but it was very thin. We saw no Trees that bore Fruit or Berries.
We saw no sort of Animal, nor any Track of Beast, but once; and that seemed to be the Tread of a Beast as big as a great Mastiff-Dog. Here are a few small Land-birds, but none bigger than a Blackbird; and but few Sea-fowls. Neither is the Sea very plentifully stored with Fish, unless you reckon the Manatee and Turtle as such. Of these Creatures there is plenty; but they are extraordinary shy; though the Inhabitants cannot trouble them much, having neither Boats nor Iron.
The Inhabitants of this Country are the miserablest People in the world. The Hodmadods of Monomatapa, though a nasty people, yet for Wealth are Gentlemen to these; who have no Houses and skin Garments, Sheep, Poultry, and Fruits of the Earth, Ostrich Eggs, etc., as the Hodmadods have
...
William Dampier's account of his first visit to the shores of New Holland
(Australia) in the Cygnet; The Discovery of New Holland,
Chapter 16 Source
The biographical headnotes in every
sophomore [literature] anthology suggest the importance of
Petrarch's love for Laura, of
Dante's love for Beatrice, of
Wordsworth's love for Annette, but never are we told [in textbooks]
that Oscar's love for
Bosie informs some of his prose...; that
Whitman's love for Peter Doyle influenced his prophetic theory of
comradeship; that AE Housman's unrequited love for A.J. Jackson
contributed to the bitter but restrained sorrow of much of his poetry
…; or that Edna St Vincent Millay's frequent references to Sappho
or Lesbos are not prompted by her love for Eugene, or that
Tennyson's love for Arthur Hugh Hallam prompted him to write that
most 'universal' of sentiments: 'Tis better to have loved and
lost/Than never to have loved at all.'
Rictor Norton in 'Ganymede
Raped: Gay Literature – The Critic as Censor', Gay
Sunshine Journal #23, November 1974 Source
January 4
is the 4th day of the year in the Gregorian
calendar, with 361
days remaining (362 in leap years).
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In January – Dogon tribe, Republic of Mali
The Dogon are a group of people living in Mali, in West Africa, and there are about 300,000 Dogon people living today. They are most noted for their descriptions of the Sirius star system.
Funerals are held for those who died during the year. Every 12 years or so the dama dance is held to induce souls of recently departed to leave the local environs and join those of the ancestors. About every 60 years the Dogon celebrate the most important funeral of all, the Sigi. It involves all the Dogon villages and takes about six years to complete. It commemorates the death of the first human and initiates a new generation of males into the Dogon secrets.
Masked men come from the bush into the village, then the village erupts in celebration, noise, dancing, theatrics. The dances mime and often satirise Dogon culture. Masks represent everything: animals, trees, spirits, celebrities in Dogon culture. The neighbouring Fulani and Mossi people are often parodied, as are white people (who are represented by red masks each with a hooked nose, fluffy beard and lank hair). A colonial administrator is represented with a pad and pen. An anthropologist is satirised by a masked actor who sits imperiously on a chair and asks silly questions. A
'tourist' has a 'camera' and pushes others out of the way for a clear view.
The Dogon people, it has been said, scorn tourists and their passion for recording their culture.
"What is the point?" they ask. "Do they not have any stories of their own?"
