Films and Molly Meldrum

It's almost too cold to go out, so I put on four layers of clothing and stepped gently around the sticky wet leaves on the ground. The past few days of rain and the sudden winter chill has made outdoors an obstacle course not for the faint hearted. I saw a wonderful German film called Pheonix at ACMI on Saturday, interesting use of silence or rather, absences of dialogue throughout the film and a great plot that circulated around facial reconfiguration and identity (or lack of it) and today I saw The Wailing, a Korean film with references to The Exorcist and other horror movies you might have seen, except this film combined humor and horror and I wasn't sure how to feel given this unusual combination of bumbling police officers and strange, mutilated bodies, the Japanese other, Shamans and demonic possession. I've also just met Molly Meldrum. He was sitting in the Richmond Plaza with a friend and accompanied by his young, male carer. I told him I'd only ever seen him one other time in the two years I'd lived in Richmond and that he was recognisable as an Australian icon, to which he replied that he thought he was an 'Australian nuisance'. He had lost weight since the first time I'd seen him and looked really well. What a lovely, softly spoken man. It was interesting finally meeting him. I've fed the doves that are always hungry and I've looked at the hundreds of leaves that need sweeping up, but I'm not going to attempt to do that, because it will be almost impossible. So, I'm glad to be home with the heater one. Keep warm folks, I'm about to make a spinach, tomato and cheese quiche.