Latest Gunning Weather: Keswick IGUNNING4 Weather Station Now Live!

My Weather Station IGUNNING4 at Keswick, Gunning, atop the brick dunny (built in 1926 by the Caldwell Brothers)

My latest gadget is a wireless weather station. I have installed it atop the old brick dunny in the backyard (which now functions as part of the chook pen).

It may be an old man thing to be interested in the weather, but there is something that happens as one ages: the phases of the moon, the speed of the wind, the rainfall, all these things seem to matter more as one ages.

I don't think I ever consciously thought about the weather until I was in my 40s. Now I check the weather regularly to decide on how to dress and whether or not to take an umbrella. 

The setup for my weather station is simple but practical. It is a Digitech IC0348 Touch Screen Wireless Weather Station with USB PC Connection from Instrument Choice. I used the recommended software "Easyweather" and joined Weather Underground to share my weather station's information.

The latest weather information for Gunning is now available from my weather station via Weather Underground.

The Art of Reading: Great Books and the Liberal Ideal

Dr Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001)

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mortimer Adler was Editor-in-Chief of the Great Books series, and a proponent of a liberal education in the Western tradition. This work is in the same vein, but it is what Adler refers to as a "practical" book. In the introduction he notes the fun that was made of his book title, with a spoof How to Read Two Books written shortly after by Erasmus G. Addlepate. As I started reading the book, I felt like I was being taught by an "old school" teacher who had to go through the basics before getting to the point some time later in life. But therein lies the charm of the work - by the end, I felt I had been reading John Stuart Mill's On Liberty - all the ideas were lining up, my liberal education had been delivered correctly, and I understood why I do what I do. What struck me most is that the four stages of reading, from elementary to syntopical, lead one to being able to organise a literature review. If ever there was a book that teaches how to systematically, and practicably, go about conducting a literature review, this is it. The process seems almost absurd when spelt out - much like Aristotle's Poetics - it reads like:

1. Select two eggs.

2. Suck.

But that would be so wrong! There is so much here, I am pleased it was my first read for the year, and I intend to add some of the techniques to my daily journalling practice (or maybe even keep a separate book journal). The two appendices are helpful. The first provides an updated list of the Great Books of the Western World (most of which are available online free these days). The second provides a series of tests on each of the levels of reading. This was designed to be "exemplary" but it was also a bit of fun, with some interesting text on Mill, Newton, Dante, et al. For anyone interested in classic works, this book is a useful guide to the art of reading, but also desktop research. One interesting change to my reading habits has resulted. Adler states that part of the fun of owning a book is that you can write in the margins. For decades I have cringed at the thought of doing this - my books are all catalogued and covered - but in Adler's book, I took out my sharpened pencil and begin to make margin notes. I suppose it is fine if I do this in pencil. And it will certainly make it easier to relocate quotes, instead of using my typically ineffective method of remembering page numbers for important quotes. I am a devotee to the Great Books cause. I was pleased to note that Adler writes that he has limited knowledge of the great books of the eastern world, and this was his main reason for not introducing "Eastern" works (a little Orientalism goes a long way), but given the work was written in 1940 and then revised in the 1970s, it was ahead of its time. There is something about the liberal democratic ideal and reading that Adler points to time and again, and while my own ideals have been systematically destroyed through practice, Adler paints an honourable picture of liberalism as it is rarely practised these days. This is not an easy book, and for some it might be off-putting, but for me, I learnt more in this volume than I have in the last five years.

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The inside story on life in wartime Shanghai and Hong Kong

Shanghai, 25 March 2016. Photo by Michael de Percy.

Lust, Caution by Eileen Chang

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This collection of short stories focuses on life during the Second World War in Shanghai (and partly Hong Kong), including aspects of the Japanese occupation. Eileen Chang lived through this period in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and while many of the stories are about mundane everyday life, the issues of culture, imperialism, intrigue, gender roles and relations, class, and love provide an interesting ethnography of the times. The trajectory of the plots are noticeably different to male and western authors, with no noticeable climax and conclusions that peter out and fade away somewhat like a 1960s pop music hit. That is not to say that the stories are unresolved - they certainly are - but that the resolution occurs as a phase in the life that otherwise continues on. Yet each story projects a form of melancholy that I suppose reflects the wartime situation - somewhat like Hemingway's ever-present tragedy that is inescapable in almost all of his writing. While visiting Shanghai for the first time in 2016, I read W. Somerset Maugham's work On A Chinese Screen. Maugham tried to show a side of everyday life for local inhabitants that was otherwise ignored by the imperialists. Chang provides the inside story, and while the stories have all been translated into English, one does not feel that there is anything missing from the work. Chang was prolific, and I will try one of her novels in the near future.

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