Reveal Yourself
(Blackeyed Susans)
(Liberation)
(Pop)
Reviewed by Phil Bennett

This tantalisingly epic summary of one of the 90s moodiest and most lovable of Australian bands serves as a reminder to those who were there and a fabulous introduction to those who weren't.

Though never as revered as the Triffids or the Bad Seeds, trainspotters will be delighted to spy contributions from such luminaries as Kim Salmon (Scientists), Martyn Casey (Bad Seeds), James Elliott and James Cruickshank (Cruel Sea), Warren Ellis (Dirty Three), as well as Triffids main man Dave McComb.

With Rob Snarski's sonorous and dreamy vocals delivering songs written by fellow Susans, Dave McComb and Phil Kakulas, as well as his own alongside a host of interestingly chosen covers, the journey is sometimes haunting, occasionally mesmerising and nearly always extremely cool.

Volumes 1 and 2 of the discs contain 36 songs from throughout their history, including pretty well their best stuff such as Ocean Of You, Smokin' Johnny Cash, This One Eats Souls, and By Your Hand.

Volume 3 contains B sides and rarities and, though not as musically strong as the first two, contains some absolute gems such as the Go Betweens' Dive For Your Memory and Ricky Nelson's deathly dark Lonesome Town.

Volume 4 is a DVD of all their clips, rounding out a package that traverses an evocative and deeply rich soundscape to reveal the ins and outs of a truly outstanding and enduring unit.

A mighty fine listen indeed.

The Open Road
John Hiatt
(Shock)
(Singer/songwriter)
Reviewed by Phil Bennett

Having traversed blues, country and even New Wave, John Hiatt's career has always been a fascinating one.

As a singer/songwriter, he's one of today's finest, having been covered by artists as diverse as Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Jewel and Iggy Pop, and he has the ability to craft tunes and lyrics that are easy to grasp on to and which resonate with the human experience.

His new album, The Open Road, shows that after 35 years he's still not short on creativity as he reels off a new selection of highly memorable songs.

Returning to the elasticated groove of Bring The Family, which featured a killer rhythm section of Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner, this time he's got his hard working road band providing the crisp, distinctive musical backdrop.

Tracks like Haulin' cleverly cross the line between gritty blues and radio friendly melody, much like his earlier Thing Called Love, while Like A Freight Train is a high lonesome affair that invokes endless plains and vast distances filled with a mix of loneliness and the optimism of a free spirit.

With his gravelly, charismatic voice, ever dependable songwriting ethic and a band that punctuates the tunes with energetic performances, this album is fresh, fun and classy without being too slick.

Great stuff. Enjoy it.

DESTINATION SAIGON
WALTER MASON
ALLEN AND UNWIN
REVIEW BY ROSAMUND BURTON

In Destination Saigon Walter Mason has combined his sharp eye as a foreigner with the knowledge of a local and the result is exquisite. Having visited the country nine times over the last 16 years and also fluent in the
language, Walter Mason takes the reader on a sensational journey through modern Vietnam.

Each chapter of the book is a vignette of one of his experiences and the anecdotes are very funny. Being a large man he describes how, with Vietnamese frankness, he is often addressed as "Fatty". Also, the agony when with great regularity, flimsy furniture, particularly plastic café stools, collapses under him, and the subsequent embarrassment when all the waiters in a place gather to erect a stack of stools deemed sturdy enough to take his great weight.

But there are advantages in being the "fat foreigner", one of which is that his presence is thought to be very auspicious. Not only he is considered a guest of honour at a wedding he is taken to by a junior policeman who is meant to be escorting him out of the district, but his presence is also seen by the groom as a sign that his bride will bear him many "fine fat sons".

Within the wonderful humour of Destination Saigon the realities hit home hard. Walter Mason describes how incredibly fortunate he is considered to be because of the freedom which the West offers him, not to mention his wealth. In Vietnam, he explains, the richest person always pays, and invariably coming from Australia, he is the richest person. People are working 14 hours a day seven days a week simply to survive. One Vietnamese friend tells Walter that he does not allow himself the luxury of having big dreams because he knows that in reality not much is possible.

Walter Mason describes himself as "a passionate, devotionist, a believer in spiritual potential and a lover of most paths to the transcendent" and running through the book is a delight in the divine. He visits many Buddhist monasteries and regales the reader with many of the less than spiritual aspects of the monks' lives, as well as moments of pure devotion. He climbs up sacred mountains, discovers Vietnam's best known Catholic shrine to Our Lady, honours Kwan Yin, known in Vietnam as Quan Am, and even finds an old derelict Hindu Temple in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, which his friend, Kien, who owns a hairdressing salon, believes is dedicated to a god who is especially benevolent to hairdressers. Whenever he returns from a visit to it, business in the salon always picks up!

Between the soft chanting of ghosts, the mischievousness of fairies and a hysterical account of a night of karaoke with a group of fishermen this book is a gem.

MINDFULLY GREEN
A personal and spiritual guide to whole-earth thinking
STEPHANIE KAZA
FINCH PUBLISHING
REVIEW BY MARGARET EVANS

Perhaps it's a sign of how highly attuned a thinker can be to the energies of the world around them that explains the serendipitous arrival of some books just when you need them. Deepak Chopra is a master, of course, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama seems a dab hand too. Attuned they certainly are and they have some savvy marketing skills at their disposal as well.

Stephanie Kaza is less well known but her simply designed paperback Mindfully Green drew me immediately - and I think the reason is I, like so many of us, have been seeking solace and guidance after our world's so called leaders left us dangling at Copenhagen.

Climate change is here for us all to see - and, more to the point, feel. However we try to tax carbon use or trade it off in some convoluted way, deep down I think we all sense the cyclical weather patterns we have known since childhood are changing in ways we can't predict or understand. Our politicians are just tinkering at the edges and we have no choice but to accommodate the changing world in which we find ourselves. To accommodate it and to work in harmony with it.

Our greatest hope, suggests Kaza, is in forging a stronger connection with the Earth and in becoming more mindful of the impact on the natural world of how we choose to live our lives. She calls it the "green practice path" and outlines the challenges we face with such clarity and compassion for our human condition it seems the only path we could possibly choose. It is very comforting to "meet" a wise and serious teacher so aware of one's own misgivings. Her advice to us is both heartfelt and eminently practical.

As a Buddhist and a Zen Buddhist at that, Stephanie Kaza has an innate grasp of the interconnectedness of the natural world and all the creatures within it, from us mighty humans down to the humblest amoeba. She gives a vivid description of Indra's Net, the classic metaphor of the interconnected universe where an endless number of fishnets crisscross every plane of space and, at every junction, a multifaceted jewel reflects every other jewel in the infinite net. What a razzledazzle of light and energy where the slightest tremor in the finest filament is flashed from jewel to jewel! The more one dimensional "butterfly effect" is much the same idea.

Kaza, who is a professor of environmental studies in Vermont, subscribes to the "deep time" view of ecology which urges us to sense the systems behind the superficial changes we see about us. It's when we begin to understand those all-embracing systems that we can make more conscious choices and become, as Kaza suggests, "active agents in Indra's Net". Simply by suggesting that we each can make a difference both in the actions we take in our transport, food choices and energy usage and, equally, in practising an ethic of restraint - how many consumables do we actually need in our daily lives? - she restores that sense of empowerment that has taken a beating of late. At least, I found it so.

Kaza is a woman who herself finds solace in nature and shares with us her long walks among the redwood and oak forests of California and Vermont. It makes for some beautiful passages: "Sometimes I would find myself climbing an oak on the mesa for the big view of ocean and sky. Sometimes I would crawl close to a small spring nestled in moss, feeding the creek drop by drop."

Throughout, she shares with us her sincere admiration for the "deep view" so ingrained in Eastern philosophies and Zen Buddhism itself. I was delighted to find her own home is dotted with statues of Kuan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion, a quality so necessary for those who find the green path an obstacle course at times. I share with her a love of this great, serenely peaceful, goddess.

While Mindfully Green contains much that is thought provoking with many references to the author's Buddhist teachers and their works, I think it is Kaza's empathy with the consternation so many of us are feeling at this time that makes this book a little special.

I notice on the end pages reference to another Finch title, Spiritual Compass by Satish Kumar. If you are looking for a way forward that resonates with your deepest being, "a green practice path", I'd recommend both of these books.