Bagman's Gazette - Punctuation is Optional

Bullamakanka is a bent and twisted old man who does not have a cat. He does have five goannas though and a possum who lives in the wall. None of them help with the writing, the lazy buggers.

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Bagman's Gazette - October 2007

What’s all this about Magic

October 31st 2007 04:56

Well, magic is what makes the difference between a business report and a great novel.

Both are probably fiction, but, when you read a business report the reaction is often, “You’ve got to be joking.” While a great novel caresses your belief, molding it around the words, gently folding it to encompass a total world beyond reality. Origami of the soul. Where a single strip of wrinkled brown paper can contain the essence of a beautiful young lady.

Can you drive through a rainbow? Yes, I have done it. I have yet to find the words to do the experience the justice it deserves.
I could write a thousand words about it. But to understand the reality you would have to read them in a fraction of a second.
Writing pins words and experiences to the page.
Magic releases the words to form an alternative reality, albeit, a fleeting one.
As a writer you enter the world of shamanism. You become the story teller and the story becomes the world. You hold that world in the palm of your hand, and yet, if you try to grasp it, it will wither and die.
As a shaman it is your job to release the words, give them meaning and life beyond the page. Set them loose to stalk across the imagination, taking no prisoners, but rather, capturing spirits, tagging them with another life and releasing them back into the wilds of the mind. The same spirit, true, but changed with the magic of words.

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Posted By: Bullamakanka - Category: Writing, Editing

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Magic III

October 30th 2007 23:05

The full moon has been a time of great magic for thousands of years of mankind’s existence. Every month it is born, grows, fades and dies. It marks time, seasons, tides, fertility.

The moon symbolises the life cycle of man. The Celtic calendars were originally lunar.

The moon, in many cultures, is the symbol of the female deity.

And then there is the lunatic. Yes the full moon is wont to drive men mad.

Magic dwells in the moon.

All this in a lump of rock that can’t even produce its own light.

Magic dwells in the moon. Despite the well known scientific fact that magic is not real.

The moon is for lovers and the magic that it has, lends itself to the magic of lovers entwined.

Being in love and making love under a full moon is a magic that defies all science.

The moons pale light, reflection of the sun that it is, shames the light of day with its gentleness, its soft caress. The light of the moon, stolen from the sun, reflects the moon’s magic.

Do you believe in magic? Or, is it all just chance and coincidence?

I bought my wife a telescope for Christmas some years ago. She likes to look at the night sky.

While I was setting it up for her one night, I focused on the moon. Well, it was a full moon that night and it was a crystal clear winters night. Why pass up the chance, eh.

No sooner than I had the moon in focus, the Russian space station slid across the field of vision, almost dead centre of the moon.

I ask you, is that magic or what?

What are the chances?

Magic, or, just coincidence.

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Posted By: Bullamakanka - Category: Tales, Writing, Editing

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Magic II

October 28th 2007 02:39

Love is a form of magic. The first meeting, the first fleeting touch, the first kiss. These all are magical moments. But being in love can lead to other magic in the natural world.

There was a girl. I met her at the beach. Love is such an easy thing to fall into at seventeen. It’s the magic, you see. We had good times together.

At one point she invited me to spend a weekend in the snow. This was as a part of a church group she belonged to. Ah, the magic of young love. Of course I said yes. Well, you would, wouldn’t you. A weekend in the mountains, alone with the girl you love. Well, her and a dozen other people, her parents included.

Still, the possibilities are endless. At least the hope of endless possibilities is there. Alright, alright, I had no hope of being alone with her. But the magic is that when I looked into her eyes, we were alone.

But all this is just an aside to the real point, the real magic.

There was a carload of us, packed like sardines, which is a great way to travel when the sardine next to you is the girl you love.

It was raining as we climbed towards the pass that would take us to the cabin above the snow line. The rain turned to cloud, then we broke through the cloud. Ahead of us, in air so clear it sparkled, was a rainbow.

Not the type of rainbow you get just anywhere. This was the type that lovers get, right there in front of you, the type with the pot of gold at the end.

Lovers deserve, rightly or wrongly, the magic that goes with being in love. But then, there are the little bonuses that happen independent of the rest of the world.

There it was, the rainbow, right in front of us. The magic was there too. We drove through the rainbow. The fleeting colours. We were in the rainbow, then it was gone. An instant of magic that lasts a lifetime.

The magic, ah yes, the magic, that stayed in my heart. And as magic is real and there really is a land over the rainbow, I now live in OZ.

And the girl? Well, she is still there although her name has faded into the mists of time. She is still part of the magic in my life.

Dreams mp3

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Posted By: Bullamakanka - Category: Tales, Writing, Editing, Poetry

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Magic (LINK)

October 26th 2007 15:10

Magic is not real. Science says so, this is of course incorrect.

In an infinite universe anything is possible. But you don’t have to go as far as that to find magic.

Give a little girl a stick with a paper star on the end and, well, magic exists. The cat becomes a frog. It doesn’t matter that the frog resembles a cat, it’s still a frog.

Give a boy a bit of string, a plastic soldier and a handkerchief, not only do you get a paratrooper, you also get two whole armies and the airplane.

Mind you, magic is a bit harder with adults. Or perhaps it’s just that adults just won’t admit that while they are sailing that remote control sail boat that they are really standing on the deck. The salt spray in their face. Man pitted against nature.

Magic exists. It has existed from the dawn of mankind. The memories are imbedded in the genes. This is often call racial memory. Well, that’s the excuse science uses to deny the magic.

Dingos don’t bark.

I was installing solar power modules on the roof of a house in the forest near Trentham in central Victoria. It was early in the morning and so foggy I could hardly see the ground.

The owner of the property had two pure bred Alpine Dingos. Beautiful dogs.

Dingos don’t bark, but, they do howl.

Sitting on the roof, in the fog, surrounded by the phantom forest in the mist, I discovered the magic that drove mans ancestors to draw on the walls of a cave.

The dingos started to howl.

My entire world became that of the hunted, the prey in a primordial forest with nothing but a stick for a weapon. Adrenaline flooded through my body.

Death was near.

Hey, this was real. This was magic.

Adrenaline - noun: A catecholamine secreted by the adrenal medulla in response to stress (trade name Adrenalin); stimulates autonomic nerve action.

That’s what science says.

My body said, your gonna die unless you move very fast.

Blood inside a living human should not be that cold. Every nerve sensitive to the faintest sounds in the surrounding forest, barely discernible in the fog, and the smallest movement of air on the skin.

Death was near, being alive was never so clearly defined as at that moment.

Yes, magic exists. Close your eyes, reach out and touch it.

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Posted By: Bullamakanka - Category: Tales, Writing, Editing

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Freedom

October 22nd 2007 11:54

A gate is a division
Is one side in and the other out
One side safe the other not
Locked in Locked out
Which side am I
The side with the key
The side with the keyhole
Does it matter
Can I not
Just turn around
Walk away

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Posted By: Bullamakanka - Category: Poetry

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