If you didn’t read this week’s post “Drowning in Excellence” I will read it to you, dramatically and enthusiastically, below. 👇
Reading commences as soon as you hit play. Enjoy!
Notes from the Captain
When I was a small Janeen, I was obsessed with the water. I have distinct memories of hanging onto my Dad’s shoulders as we waded into the deep end of the Illfracome town pool (which was in my memory a bore-fed hole in the ground?) and moving from the shallow end to the deep end involved a step down from some kind of wooden board under the water. You could not see in the water. Welcome to outback Queensland!
Toddler’s memories are unreliable—never forget they can forget. And make up. And do.
But my Dad’s shoulders and me hanging onto his neck, that’s a key water memory. I used to put my feet in his hands and he’d flip me into the air to come down with a splash. The water was my safe and daring place.
As I got older, I did a lot of breath holding and underwater flips without him, seeing how many I could do in a row without taking a gasp. I’d flip off the side of the pool and into the water. I taught myself to dive from the blocks, even though I was terrified, and jumped off the 3 meter board at the Tamworth City Pool on one incredible day, wearing a yellow one-piece. I loved swimming carnivals at school—even though I was a slow slow swimmer—and would get burned to a crisp with stunning regularity. (I wonder if that’s tied to my melanoma? I’m laughing here, but not because I know it to be true.)
I loved summer and I loved it because of swimming.
I love The Swimming Song. It is an instant teleport to summers as a teen in Australia, and I’d wanted to write something about it for a while. Perhaps I read too much into it, perhaps I didn’t, but I love the idea of devoting yourself to something for a period of time to learn it all. To try all the angles. And that’s what I’m banging on about in the video. That’s what I was banging on about in the post.
It’s all connected, crew. Everything.
Wanna go for a swim?
Get your togs1 on. Go swimming. Swim everywhere. Try all the strokes, the dives, the locations. Get salt water on your skin, wring out your towel before you put in in your bag. Swim! Yes, the threat of the might drown exists, but we dive in and we go anyway. Life is risk. RISK IT ALL. Go swimming.
Swimming, if nowhere else, right now in this metaphor.
Your Captain, Janeen 🫡
Thangs from this episode…
👩✈️ The Swimming Song
I didn’t know much about Loudon Wainright III before last week, and I read some stuff about him and now I sort of wish I was still in the dark. Yes, he is Rufus and Martha Wainright’s dad if your were wondering, but it was things he has said about his daughter, Martha (or more accurately, songs he’d said were about her) that made me frown.
‘I was promiscuous – that’s murder on marriage’ - The Guardian, 2022
Loudon Wainright III - AV Club Interview, 2010
Here’s a cover of The Swimming Song by the Avert Brothers.
👩✈️ Not Waving but Browning. Not Drowning, Waving.
As I mentioned right at the start of today’s video, there was an Australian band I remembered from the 80s called Not Drowning, Waving. I went and listened to some of their music this week - moody for the most part - and did not recall any of it. I think the name just always stuck because I thought it was so clever.
Clever or not, the band’s name was derived from a poem written by British poet, Stevie Smith and from her 1957 poetry collection of the same name. It is one of her most famous poems.
Not Waving but Drowning
By Stevie SmithNobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
👩✈️ How to do a Cannonball
You know how—it’s human instinct to want to splash innocent pool tanners. When I was a kid, it was called ‘bombing’, but I don’t know if that’s an Australian thing? Cannonball seems less… inflammatory, even though still war-like. Ploppies? No. Not ploppies.
If you don’t know how to do a cannonball and create the biggest splash possible, as I stated in the video you need to make yourself as spherical as possible (shape matters), get some height (if you’re a bit heavier that helps), and then just go for it. People talk about different techniques, but from a physics POV, if you’re going for the biggest splash you just gotta be like an actual cannonball—DENSE, HEAVY, AND ROUND.
Wikihow - How to do a Cannon Ball
Thanks for listening/watching and sharing this week. If you want to chat about any of the concepts in this week’s post—or just in general—feel free to leave a comment for the Captain (it me.)
Do. Make. Be.
🫡
Shameless Podcast Plug
Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈
Here’s Apple
Australian slang where I’m from for swim suit. It’s regional I think.
Behind the Streams, Ep. 44: "Drown"