John Ralston Saul on Compass

[left]

John Ralston Saul was on compass tonight.
It was 10:45 and I didn't have any intentions of watching TV but for some reason picked up the guide anyway.

I was amazed to see that name in the TV guide. Remembering that Paul liked the author and people on hear occasionaly talk about him I put it on.

He was talking with the compass lady and this other author, David Malouf. They were having a conversation about society and how things have changed over the past 20 years.

David made interesting points about people coming together for celebrations, not in actual fact to celebrate, but rather to feel welcome. Just enjoying the company of people.

They made good points about people doing volunteer work and people seeming to participate in things more these days. The lady got it completely wrong and thought they were saying Australians are lazy

They talked about what people look for in life. The lady said "Gurantee" John and David disagreed. They said people are looking for "Security" but not gurantee. They said people would like the security of being safe and knowing that all is fine but that is different from gurantee. They said people were more after abit of mystery, rather then having the gurantee of everything working out according to plan.

It was obvious to see that Paul read Johns books.
Anyway, I will definatly be reading some of his stuff and I will check out that David Malouf guy too.

I don't know the reason for posting this, but I thought someone way be interested........

By the way, I think I spelt gurantee wrong, but it's late and spelling is not a high priority.

[dirtgirl]

I had every intention of watching that episode of compass but unfortunately i fell a sleep in front of the fire!!

Raulston Saul is an amazing thinker for our times as is David Malouf. I read one of Malouf's books a while back about a boy raised by wolves and his final intergration back into society - very well written and unusual!! Malouf also writes a fair bit of poetry which is worth checking out as well!!

BTW i agree with the notion that most people want security in their lives. Becuse we are all constantly exposed to constant change, people very uncertain and insecure. it's a sign of the times when change becomes a constant.

[somethingforkaty]

Oh man! I would have loved to watch that

I missed him on Triple J, AND when he came to sydney to do some seminars

[dirtgirl]

sounds like you need to get your act together Katy!

[singingcirclesaway]

in year 12 english last year, we studied one of david malouf's books, 'fly away peter', which i found to be really... well, good. it was all about innocence to experience, and i really got into it, which is unusual in itself, because i generally do not like books that we have to read and study as a class. we also saw malouf at a cafe up here, late last year, and the guy has quite a brain in there.

[somethingforkaty]

dirtgirl said:

sounds like you need to get your act together Katy!

Yeah tell me about it. I never listen to the radio so I'm never really up-to-date - i always find out of someone but generally too late.