I stood outside St.Johns Anglican Church on Friday night and handed out my flyers for my mate Peter's World Premier Concert of his violin concertos, people thought I was handing out Christian literature and treated me with disgust and horror, I was glad to see the majority were repulsed by such seeming propaganda, only it was so embarrassing for me, a die-hard Luciferian, to be seen as some kind of bent Evangelist.
Inside the church that fool, Charles Poncenby, ever lurking in the shadows to stalk the object of his twisted desire, Peter, tried to make himself useful by attending to the refreshments, fussing like some old biddie from a "Carry On" movie, pouring out cool-aid cordial into a line of cups ready for the well-mannered classical music punters. It was all very hoity toity except some freak from the streets of Kings Cross got in there while Charles had his back turned and put a tab of acid into every plastic cup which the nice middle-class churchy types then quaffed with relish. As the violinists sawed manically away at their instruments till the wild cacophony shook the stained-glass windows, the sandstone walls melted, the wooden rafters warped and the audience clawed at their faces, tore at their hair and ripped their clothes off. It was a real knees-up and paganised the Christian site just as I'd hoped.
That was my outre fantasy, in reality the concert went off beautifully, the violins, the grand piano, and the piano accordian all so ethereal and evocative it brought tears to my eyes and made me very proud of my talented friend. I'm a fiend for rock'n'roll, for techno, for blues, soul and folk, but also very much for classical music, it soothes my ravaged, fucked-over soul. I was relieved to note that the Anglicans are not into idolatry, not only was there no altar, no dead J.C. hanging lugubriously from the walls, there wasn't even a crucifix in sight, thank nogod, I'm like Nosferatu when spotting one, I hiss and spit.
The church itself was the most beautiful edifice, carved sanstone, wooden ceiling and rafters, Gothic arches, stained glass and marble buttresses, amazing considering it was dedicated to something that doesn't exist, actually it glorifies the ingenuity of mankind, a product of how clever we are at creating great works of art. The accoustics caused the notes to hang liquid in the air and ring clear thru one's heart and when the gang played Australian folk tunes on violin, guitar, flute and accordian, I was transported back in time, to the era of the early colonial settlement at Sydney Cove. For this church was built by convicts and sat on the ridge above the Cove, and convicts congregated here for solace, no crucifix to remind them of their own tortures, just the beauty of their own handiwork to assure them they had some worth.
Tho trite and purple I can't help but gush, "This universe is so AWESOME, life so exciting, good and bad, it doesn't need a god or an intelligent designer to explain it all, it just IS, a natural phenomenon that we're all part of." (Cosmologists think the structure of the Cosmos may be something like foam, each bubble a possible universe with its own particular physics, so if you want to believe in a God made of Foam or spewing out the worlds like saliva from a giant super-intelligent frog then you're crazier than Beelzebub.)
If one is lucky enough to be safe, fed and sheltered it is possible to become clearly conscious of the wonders of existence, where music is the heartbeat soundtrack to all the action and elicits "the music of the spheres" to meld with one's breathing, and on Friday night the existential Acid Test of joy was passed with celestial colours.
Inside the church that fool, Charles Poncenby, ever lurking in the shadows to stalk the object of his twisted desire, Peter, tried to make himself useful by attending to the refreshments, fussing like some old biddie from a "Carry On" movie, pouring out cool-aid cordial into a line of cups ready for the well-mannered classical music punters. It was all very hoity toity except some freak from the streets of Kings Cross got in there while Charles had his back turned and put a tab of acid into every plastic cup which the nice middle-class churchy types then quaffed with relish. As the violinists sawed manically away at their instruments till the wild cacophony shook the stained-glass windows, the sandstone walls melted, the wooden rafters warped and the audience clawed at their faces, tore at their hair and ripped their clothes off. It was a real knees-up and paganised the Christian site just as I'd hoped.
That was my outre fantasy, in reality the concert went off beautifully, the violins, the grand piano, and the piano accordian all so ethereal and evocative it brought tears to my eyes and made me very proud of my talented friend. I'm a fiend for rock'n'roll, for techno, for blues, soul and folk, but also very much for classical music, it soothes my ravaged, fucked-over soul. I was relieved to note that the Anglicans are not into idolatry, not only was there no altar, no dead J.C. hanging lugubriously from the walls, there wasn't even a crucifix in sight, thank nogod, I'm like Nosferatu when spotting one, I hiss and spit.
The church itself was the most beautiful edifice, carved sanstone, wooden ceiling and rafters, Gothic arches, stained glass and marble buttresses, amazing considering it was dedicated to something that doesn't exist, actually it glorifies the ingenuity of mankind, a product of how clever we are at creating great works of art. The accoustics caused the notes to hang liquid in the air and ring clear thru one's heart and when the gang played Australian folk tunes on violin, guitar, flute and accordian, I was transported back in time, to the era of the early colonial settlement at Sydney Cove. For this church was built by convicts and sat on the ridge above the Cove, and convicts congregated here for solace, no crucifix to remind them of their own tortures, just the beauty of their own handiwork to assure them they had some worth.
Tho trite and purple I can't help but gush, "This universe is so AWESOME, life so exciting, good and bad, it doesn't need a god or an intelligent designer to explain it all, it just IS, a natural phenomenon that we're all part of." (Cosmologists think the structure of the Cosmos may be something like foam, each bubble a possible universe with its own particular physics, so if you want to believe in a God made of Foam or spewing out the worlds like saliva from a giant super-intelligent frog then you're crazier than Beelzebub.)
If one is lucky enough to be safe, fed and sheltered it is possible to become clearly conscious of the wonders of existence, where music is the heartbeat soundtrack to all the action and elicits "the music of the spheres" to meld with one's breathing, and on Friday night the existential Acid Test of joy was passed with celestial colours.
If you enjoyed this story please go to the WEB
address above and consider buying my book of tales about growing up
anarcho-queer, rock and roll punter and mystic adventurer in Australia and India
of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
