More dfw + death in the kimberley

see BB at tumblr. See some guy. there's so much out there on the web about the sad news.

See below from today's The Age
In July M and I were on a helicopter operated by the same company, in the same location. They seemed very safety conscious. Scary. And sad.

Four die in Kimberley helicopter crash

• September 15, 2008 - 7:04AM

A male pilot and three young women are dead after a helicopter crashed in Western Australia's north yesterday, sparking a one-kilometre-long bushfire.

The tourist flight ended in tragedy when the aircraft, operated by Slingair Heliwork, crashed on level ground just before 1pm (WST) and burst into flames.

The three female passengers, aged between 19 and 20, and the 40-year-old male pilot died when the chopper went down 12 km from the Bellburn air strip in the Purnululu (Bungle Bungle) National Park.

The crash sparked a fire that grew into a blaze with a one-kilometre front, which park rangers have been trying to control into the night.

Police say two other helicopters flying in the area raised the alarm after they saw smoke and were unable to make radio contact with the downed chopper.

"It is not known at this stage whether there was any mayday call or any reason for the crash," a police spokesman said.

Slingair Heliwork, which operated the helicopter, has not been available for comment.

Its fleet of 50 aircraft are used for transport and scenic flights in the region, famous for its spectacular natural beauty.

Police and air safety investigators were at the scene and were being helped by Purnululu rangers.

Forensic investigators could not reach the area before nightfall, requiring that the bodies remain in the wreckage until daylight.

Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) fire duty officer Murray Carter said firefighters were battling the blaze in 40-degree heat but with little wind.

The department has four ground crews with water tankers on the scene but has had to suspend operations until first light.

"We're still hopeful that as the night cools and if things stay steady there will be no further problems with the fire side of things tomorrow," Mr Carter told AAP.

He said it's a difficult area for ground tankers, which is delaying firefighters getting the upper hand.

"We'll just try to get the fire out as quickly as we can."

Bellburn airstrip, where the helicopter went down, is a bush camp in the park, about 55 km by air from the township of Warnum, also known as Turkey Creek.

dfw RIP

The world is a less interesting place - David Foster Wallace is dead.

He was the author of Infinite Jest, a novel that changed the way I saw the world and that inspired me with its raw creativity.

He was the author of brilliant fictional short (and less short) stories: Philosophy and the mirror of nature, ...

He was a phenomenal essayist: Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley, David Lynch Keeps his Head, Host ...

He was funny: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Consider the Lobster, ...

He had greater insight into the male condition than anyone else I've heard or read: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Adult World (I), Adult World (II), A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life, ...

See the LA Times. See Salon. See NYT. See Silicon Alley Insider. See a 1997 interview. See a transcript of his 2005 commencement address at Kenyon.

He can no longer be my favourite living author. I loved his short stories and essays, but was still waiting for the follow up to IJ. It will never come. 46 was far too young.

My words are inadequate.

Blogstats

Blog stats are funny/weird. And very much so at the tail end of the long tail.

Feedburner tells me I've had 1,440 visits in the past 30 days and that I have had 21 subscribers (on average) over that time.
Sitemeter tells me that in August 2008 I had 702 visits, with 81 thus far in September.
Technorati still tells me I'm pretty much irrelevant.

Feedburner also tells me that 758 visitors came via a google search for "Rachael Taylor" (ie the Aussie actress who's girl #2 in Transformers).

Nice to know people appreciate my political insights and miscellaneous rants.

Google just totally dominates. I know that's trite but it is still true. Well over 90% of visits to my blog, it appears, are derived from google searches. Well well over 90%.

From Feedburner site analysis:

Top Search Engines

Search Engine	visits	Trend
Google Image Search	991	+325%
Google Search	84	-43%
AOL Search	5	+67%
Google BlogSearch	3	+200%
Yahoo Search	1	-90%

Cruden Farm

M and I visited the Garden Open Day at Cruden Farm in Langwarrin last weekend.

Cruden Farm was bought in 1928 by Sir Keith Murdoch for his wife, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. She still lives there and has nurtured a beautiful garden. Much of the garden was still asleep for winter last weekend, but there were beautiful daffodils by the lake. I think M and I single-handedly brought the average age down by decades. But I didn't particularly care.

Given my fascination/obsession with Rupert, it was fascinating to walk the paths trod by the Murdochs over the decades.

The origins of the garden date back to the late 1920’s when Keith Murdoch bought the farm for his new wife, Elisabeth as a wedding present. He suggested that they get the most notable of contemporary garden designers to redesign the garden. It then existed as a cottage with a small suburban garden containing garden beds that surrounded the house. It was Dame Elisabeth’s first garden, which she adored, and from then on they continued to develop it. Elisabeth was only 19, and her husband Keith Murdoch was a perfectionist and thought that they should have the most expert advice, so they called in Edna Walling. She was pioneer of landscape gardening in Australia and very gifted, but was not easy to work with and did not consult Elisabeth, much to her frustration.

...

Until recent years, Dame Elisabeth was intimately involved in the garden doing practical tasks like the planting, but perhaps her greatest achievement has been the creation of a beautiful lake in a parkland setting, which has become a habitat for the local wildlife, where willows grow and bulbs have naturalised to give a strong visual impact to the area. She had always wanted to have a body of water in the garden because she felt that water was an element that the garden needed to complete the landscape design. Observing water runoff coming into the property and flowing out of the paddocks again, confirmed her idea that it could be captured and saved and used to great effect to make the garden so much more beautiful. She confirmed this by getting an overview of the property from a helicopter, where she could see that this element was lacking in the landscape and that a lake would complete the circle of the garden.

Tim Moore

Looking forward to the new Tim Moore exhibition at Helen Gory Gallerie - opening next Thursday 11 September. Tim, who is a friend of a friend, does awesome hand-embroiderery of naked, middle-aged people. His first two exhibitions of embroidery (in Melbourne and Sydney) have been instant sell-outs - and the new one is heading rapidly in the same directions before it even opens.