Talking About the Weather

We need new names for the Australian seasons. autumn doesn’t seem quite right. The leaves do not change colours, although the weather does get cooler.

It’s autumn in Sydney; sharp sun-filled days, cloudless and dry; no rain; good for building.

The relentless rat-a-tat-tat of the jackhammer ruptures the air. Snap. The rock splits; fractures; cracks open. The breath escapes. A long slow phissing of rancid air sucked in however long ago by the rock and held captive for – not forever. Its dank secrets leak out unseen but not unnoticed. Its putrid smell a shroud that suffocates everything.

Take one sore throat
Add hot water, salt, and gargle.
Rinse.
Add hot water, aceto di mele, ginger and manuka.
Rinse and repeat.

Thunderstorms range in intensity from those that bring cooling rain after a scorching summer’s day, to severe storms so powerful that large trees and sometimes houses cannot stand in their path. One such storm occurred in Sydney’s eastern and city suburbs on the evening of 14 April 1999, producing massive hailstones of at least 9cm diameter and resulting in insurance losses of around $1.5 Billion in less than one hour. This is the most costly natural disaster (in dollar terms) so far in Australian history. Each year on average, several people die and over $100 million damage is caused, as a result of severe thunderstorm activity in NSW and the ACT.
Bureau of Meteorology NSW

From November 2002 to July 2003, many parts of China experienced the SARS epidemic and many people died of the disease. (More information Wikipedia). As SARS is transmitted by breaths, people had to wear medical masks (Picture) and stay at home, lowering the chances of speaking to strangers. I was in Beijing and experienced the SARS in its rampant (May – July, 2003). At that time, I realized how important life is, how important human communication is, and how important breath is. By contributing the breath, I would like to suggest: 1) breaths, as media connecting the outside and inside of bodies, is as much socially inscribed and subject to power as bodies themselves. Breaths can be under the surveillance and control of the medical institutions and the state regimes; 2) breaths symbolize communication, the relationship between self and other and, indeed, the possibility of more diverse society. Best wishes for all of you to breathe freely and healthily.

Hongwei Bao

At a certain stage in history, science began to compete with the gods in the interpretation of natural phenomena. The Greeks produced a classic analysis of the weather, Aristotle’s Meteorolgica, a text that would remain the standard reference on the subject for 2,000 years, until the beginning of the modern era. The philosopher explained atmospheric phenomena by the action of the sun, which causes ‘exhalations’ as it heats the Earth’s surface. Some of these exhalations, resulting from evaporation, are moist: others, composed of terrrestrial particles, are dry. the former are the origin - according to temperature and place - of dew, rain and snow, while the latter give birth to the winds. Exhalations interact with the four elements - earth, air, fire and water - each of which has its own qualitites, earth being cold and dry, water cold and wet, air wet and warm and fire hot and dry.
- from The Weather in the Imagination, Lucian Boia p.122

Where, if not from the Impressionists, do we get those wonderful brown fogs that come creeping down our streets, blurring the gas-lamps and changing the houses into monstrous shadows? To whom, if not to them and their master, do we owe the lovely silver mists that brood over our river, and turn to faint forms of fading grace curved bridge and swaying barge? The extraordinary change that has taken place in the climate of London during the last ten years is entirely due to this particular school of Art…at present people see fogs, not becuase there are fogs, but because poets and painters havae taught them the mysterious loveliness of such effects. There may have been fog for centuries in London, I dare say there were. But no one saw them, and so we do not know anything about them. They did not exist until Art invented them.
- Oscar Wilde, “The Decay of Living” 1889

air conditioning blows stale air at me. too much pointless talk and hot air around here. a weather conversation would be so much more interesting. wish i were in Iceland.

“I feel best when the weather’s nice and all that, but in fact I never feel bad even if the weather’s bad, except of course when I was at sea, that was nasty if you got caught up in bad weather.

When we were little kids, playing on the jetty here, two men were going out on a boat and we wanted to go with them but weren’t allowed. And then only one of them came back. They were only making a short trip but he weather changed suddenly. That’s the sort of thing that sticks in my mind, because I almost went.

There’s no question the weather’s changed. There was much better weather here in the old days, at least in my memories. The summer’s better and the winter’s tougher But then that rainy summer suddenly springs to mind, one, two, three. I was a cowherd for one summer with another lad I got confirmed with. It was damn wet, two or three days of rain almost everyweek. I hated that. And it affected everything even the cows milked less, for all I know they hated it too.”
Kristjan Larentsinusson
Born 1938, Stykkisholmur
Retired fisherman, Captain

from Roni Horn’s series Weather Reports You 

APEC is coming. Sydneysiders brace themselves. Last night I was kept awake by the beep beep beep of trucks moving back and forth re-painting road lines.

Sydney holds its collective breath–