Monday, October 05, 2015
Arise,
Ye New Arts Minister
I
happened to be in Mildura the other night (Friday 2 October 2015), to capture an historic occasion –
albeit in a Zapruder kinda way. New Arts
(and Communications) Minister Senator Mitch Fifield was at his first arts event
as Minister (or more precisely, and as it usually coincides, his first Opening
Night).
That
day’s Australian had run a story on Senator
Fifield’s thinness on the arts ground during his first two weeks. Oddly perhaps, Senator Fifield’s reply letter,
published in the next day’s Australian,
did not mention his then-imminent Mildura appearance.
While
the main reason he was in town was apparently a CW-state meeting of arts ministers,
this coincided with the opening festivities of the Mildura Palimpsest Biennale.
While neither attendance seems to have
any reason for being a secret, I may be naively underestimating the throngs of
poets, at al, who may have one-to-one implored, or en masse heckled the new
minister, had they known where to find him.
I
can report that Senator Fifield presents nicer in person than his press photos
make him appear (which look I’d call Country Town Beadle), gave a reasonable
speech, and then adjourned to the lawn near where I was sitting. I turned around to take a photo, which fortuitously was at
the precise moment he was handed, post-speech, his first glass of champagne.
The
photo’s resolution is appalling, but the trio’s body language speaks
plenty, I believe. The senator, the
drink-fetcher (probably his spouse or a staff member), and Mildura Palimpsest
Biennale curator Jonathan Kimberley (in blue jacket) all appear to reverently
focus on the full glass of champagne.
There appears to be an unstated ceremonial aspect to the moment – the imminent first sip will make it all official, marking the point at which there is no turning back; a future of frequent re-enactments of the same crisp scene, just with different backgrounds and lookers/hangers-on, now awaits the senator.
There appears to be an unstated ceremonial aspect to the moment – the imminent first sip will make it all official, marking the point at which there is no turning back; a future of frequent re-enactments of the same crisp scene, just with different backgrounds and lookers/hangers-on, now awaits the senator.
Whether
this same, refilled cup contains a sweet elixir, heady-brew, or Lethean coping-juice
should be ascertainable, I’d guess, by about the one-hundredth performance by Senator
Fifield of his now de riguer little set-piece.
