Musical Dispatch from the Front – Books and Money – August 2025
Frank Baarda
Hei igjen mine venner (Norwegian - Hello again my friends)
Wat een opluchting! (Dutch - what a relief!) - Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong has unequivocally stated that Australia does not sell weapons to Israel. The F-35 fighter jet components it provides Israel with are non-lethal, she reassured us.
For as long as I can remember Trygve Gulbranssen’s trilogy graced my parents’ book shelves. When I recently stayed at my sister’s in Vermont (Vic) the three large ornate volumes stared at me … lees me! (read me!). So I took the first volume home to Yuendumu and now am half way through it.
What
I’m reading is a translation from Norwegian into a semi-archaic florid Dutch.
It is a multi-generational patrilineal saga of the Bjørndal’s. The first book
is titled En eeuwig zingen de Bosschen (Eternally the forests sing) and
covers the period 1760-1810.
A recurring theme in the book is that money is a dangerous infectious disease and that hate and revenge should be God’s prerogative.
From a life of self-sufficient hunting in the forest, the Bjørndal dynasty gradually graduated to full blown greedy commercial exploitation of people and the environment. The felling of trees, to be floated to the city for profit and the acquisition of land by merciless mortgage foreclosure became Dag Bjørndal’s modus operandi. The accumulation of wealth and power became his raison d’etre. He was admired, feared and hated all at once.
You can't always get what
you want
But if you try sometimes, you might find
You get what you need …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv9sDn_2XkI
I have witnessed the infection and spread of the money disease in Yuendumu. Spear throwing used to be a major event at Yuendumu Sports Weekend. I remember when some contenders refused to participate because we wouldn’t or couldn’t match the prize money offered at another venue. It has been downhill ever since.
From page 261 – ‘Musical Dispatches from the front’
Yuendumu Voices - Reflections on the Intervention
Bruno Wilson (9:42) “… In here we always share, but with the Income
Management it started to it be selfish”
In June, Red Kangaroo
Books ran their Anh Do competition:
Win a signed copy of The Happiest Refugee plus the complete Wolf Girl
series (Books 1–11) by Anh Do.
To enter, tell us the name of a book that has made you feel happy — in 25 words
or less.
This was my winning entry:
‘Kultitja, Linda Wells’ well written page-turner memoir.
The triumphant final paragraph (which I won’t spoil) made me feel very happy’
Linda’s ‘Memoir of an outback schoolteacher’ features a several pages visit to Wendy B. in Yuendumu. Our copy of Kultitja is signed to ‘Dear Wendy, Kultitja extraordinaire …’
When Linda read Wendy’s ‘Lest They Be Lost’ she concluded that it is ‘Deceptively simple, surprisingly profound.’ Talk about hitting the nail on the head!
Meanwhile ‘Musical Dispatches from the Front’ has been printed and I expect the first batch in the mail within a fortnight.
Books and Money … I estimate that writing my own trilogy has earned me 27 cents an hour so far, which I’m told is better than the average author.
You can help me boost my earnings by buying my latest:
$55 plus an optional $10 for postage …
F. Baarda
BSB 015 881
Account No- 550272713
Ref- Your name
Please provide or remind me of your postal address,
Til neste gang (Until the next time)
Franklin Marinussen
PS- On BBC radio I heard a discussion on the wildfires in Greece. A lady who had relatives in Greece mentioned that much of Greece’s rural landscape had been replaced by what she called a monoculture. The monoculture of tourism.
And now for some nice music from Zimbabwe –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV6bpfHYLV4
Kudzoka Kwababa - Tendai Manatsa & Selmor Mtukudzi