April 15, 2025 · Episode 16
44 Min, 28 Sec 

Summary

In this heavy yet heartfelt episode of Pain in the Arts, Breallyn and Lyndon step into deeper waters. They reflect on the life and legacy of their dear friend Salima, exploring the idea that every life — intentionally or not — becomes a living work of art. From grief to philosophy, from memory to meaning, they wrestle with whether we can curate our lives as we go, or only recognize the shape of it when we look back.

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Transcript

Breallyn: Welcome to Pain in the Arts. We’re so glad to have you with us. I’m Breallyn

Lyndon: I am Lyndon.

Breallyn: This week has been a pretty heavy one for us and I thought we should talk about it.

Lyndon: That’s funny ’cause I thought we shouldn’t.

Breallyn: It’s, as I said, heavy, which feels like it’s hard to hold and even harder to express. I think so, yeah, I think it’s important to talk about it because otherwise, otherwise it just all goes unsaid, doesn’t it?

Lyndon: Not necessarily. There’s always next week or the week after. Yeah.

Breallyn: I actually have an episode for next week as well, so both probably dealing with a similar thing, but let’s end the mystery. You’re wondering what we’re talking about. We, we had some sad news over the last week.

Remembering a Dear Friend

Breallyn: Our very good friend Sal has passed away. Now we’ve mentioned Sal before. When we were speaking about Chris and Sal, Chris the Deer Hunter, who we hope to have on the podcast at some point. In remembering Sal, it’s essential for us to reflect on finding meaning in the moments we shared with her.

Lyndon: He’s killed one deer. I’m not sure if Hunters’ would accept him into the fold just yet.

Breallyn: He did tell us that he likes to alert the deer to his presence and basically give them some exercise. He scares them

Lyndon: off the property and then they wait till he leaves and then they just stroll back in, I think.

Breallyn: But, Chris and Sal have been wonderful camping buddies of ours for a long time. And yeah, we had the funeral a couple of days ago. And yeah, it’s been just a kind of devastating time. For us, and obviously much more so for her family. So I wanted to talk about Sal a little bit today but also an idea that sort of has struck me as I’ve been thinking about her, but let me just talk about her for a minute.

Sal was just beautiful, such a generous person. She was so kind and funny and she just had such a great smile that when you say somebody’s got a smile that lights up the room, she really did. I don’t think many people have got that smile, but she absolutely did.

And she just was so calm. The antithesis to Chris always, who’s happy to make a joke on anyone. Sal was just generous and calm and kind. We loved her just so much and she was incredible. Mom and stepmom and a wife and an amazing nan as well. She’s been a friend of ours for, am I gonna say 30 years? That just sounds like a long time. Probably. Yeah. We love to camp with her. She’s one of the few people that we could camp with and I don’t know, but that just seems like for us, it’s like one of our highest sort of

Lyndon: litmus test.

Breallyn: Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Of a person. Could we go camping with them? We’ll often say, could we go camping with them? And usually the answer’s nah. Couldn’t do it.

Lyndon: Don’t wanna risk it.

Breallyn: But Chris and Sal were great. Yeah, that’s right. We could be in for a terrible time.

Lyndon: We’ve probably mellowed a little bit with that stuff.

Breallyn: Maybe. Do you reckon you’ve mellowed? I dunno,

Lyndon: I’m not sure. I’ve gone from four coffees to one, so that says something.

Breallyn: It says something yeah. But yeah, Sal was the person we wanted to camp with.

The Lasting Impact of Loved Ones

Breallyn: What I have come to think about and understand a bit better is something that I used to brush off a bit when I was younger, when people would say, especially older people, they’d say, oh, the people that we love and have lost, they’re always with us. And I would think, no, they’re not. They’re gone. That’s just a nice thing to say. It’s like a bandaid to put on your hurt.

But I actually do think of it a little bit differently now, the last few years I’ve come to understand that people are still with you, like the impressions that they have made, they are more like imprints in your life. They’re not just something that can float away. They do stay with you. They’ve changed the way that you live in some way. So therefore they are still there.

And I think, Sal is very much a part of our lives and always will be. And she’s with us always like in the way that she impacted us. And the memories of her will always come, like just in, when we see things in nature when we’re in the bush, we can still I can still hear her voice, her laughter, the way that she would express things. It’s indelibly there so I feel like that presence does continue a lot more tangibly than I used to believe it did.

Is Life Itself a Work of Art?

Breallyn: So I wanted to talk today about something that might be a bit of a tribute to our wonderful friend Sal. The topic that I’ve decided to bring is that life is art. And what I mean by that is that, and, it’s not a new idea, it’s that each one of us curate a life. So in some ways it’s like a living piece of art that we do create. But I feel like Sal did it really well. She had an ongoing battle with cancer that had pretty much lasted about 25 years, I think.

Time and time again she would figure out how she was going to face it what treatments she was going to do, which trials and so on. She would go through medical trials and that kind of thing. But within all that live a really remarkable life. And yeah, I felt like she did a great job.

And I think that it was intentional as well. I don’t think it just happened to her. I think she was really thoughtful about the things that she did and the things that she chose not to do and the things that, she put into her life and she managed to make the whole thing a work of art.

So what do you think about the idea of that it’s something that you can do more intentionally, like at the start rather than just at the end? As in as we go along with our lives can we cultivate our life work so that it is more like the piece of art we’d like to see rather than getting to the end of it and going now how does this look? Is it how I wanted it to be? Yeah.

Lyndon: I was hoping that was a rhetorical question.

Breallyn: Oh, it was a discussion point on my page.

Lyndon: It’s a very, it’s a very deep question to be, To be asking.

Breallyn: It’s a somber week this week, so we’re digging into the deeper elements of art.

Lyndon: Welcome to Pain in the Arts, where the fun never stops.

Breallyn: It’s called Pain in the Arts, not Fun in the arts.

Lyndon: That was a red herring. I think my first reaction or instinct is to say no. But then I reckon, I don’t know, I certainly have been envious of people that I think appear to have done that, so I don’t know how true it is. No one really says about their life that they had. It all worked out and it went to plan for a start.

And I know that a lot of the, I don’t do a lot of reading, but the reading I have done probably the most of is biographies of, or autobiographies of musicians. Mainly. And, even then, it’s not always a straight biography. It might be just a book that they’ve written.

I’m reading Jeff Tweedy, How to Write One Song. He’s written a couple of books. So Jeff Tweedy is the songwriter and singer of the band, Wilco and oh, yeah. Big fan of Wilco’s for a long time. Through this you get to learn a bit about him. And he’s just one of a number that seem to say that they didn’t know what they were doing, but they had a strong sense of what they should be doing, but they didn’t know what they were doing, if that makes sense.

So they have a conviction. But there’s no way they would’ve said, oh, I had this all planned from the start. I don’t even know if that was what your question was posing.

Breallyn: I think what I’m more getting to is this right? That it’s not just artists that have an artistic life. I think everybody does. I think that everybody’s life is. In some ways, like a piece of art and even the most uncreative people, they still live in a way. They still conduct themselves in a way that leaves impressions, that they choose certain things. They choose a way to live. They have values or principles that guide them. They create something.

Everybody creates stuff through their life and everybody through their relationships, impacts the world in all sorts of ways. And it’s the collective of all of that is like your life’s art. Sal was a science teacher. But she was also like quite artistic as well. She loved to draw and to make things with her hands. But much more than that, just all of the things that I guess a life is made of. She did well.

The things that were important to her, like making a home for her boys, that was important. And that was a mix of having stuff that they loved, one of her sons was sharing how for his 18th birthday, the whole study area living room was taken up with a big new hutch for his Bearded Dragon or something? Bearded Dragon.

For Sal that was important. Not having barren looking decor that meant nothing. It was much more important for her to have her son enjoy his pet and that be in the living space and for them to all enjoy that, so just lots and lots of things.

They have beehives in the backyard and veggies everywhere and things like that. Things that she would bring into light into her home and her life that make up the fabric of who she is, and the way she impacted people, the way that she would mother, the way that she would welcome guests.

All of these things, they’re threads of what makes a life. And yeah, my point is not that we like have this master plan, like a script that is the artwork of life. It’s that bit by bit with all of the little things that we do, all of the decisions that we make. We create that work of art. And it’s different for everybody, but we all have one.

But yeah, whether I guess how planned that is, and I don’t even mean in the grand scheme of I wanna make this achievement, do this, do that more like I wanna be this sort of person. How much can we plan that? How much does it just come about as we live? Yeah, I guess that’s my prompt.

Lyndon: Crikey was even longer than the first one. Yeah. I thought you were saying, can it be planned from the start? Yeah. Which I guess that is the question, but they’re saying, is the collective of what of what you’ve ultimately done with your life up to a point. Could that be considered art? Because, I dunno, I think you are now really taking license with the title art.

I think to a degree, when we went out to Central Australia we’re in the territory and saw on the map Johnny’s Zoo. And then when we were looking for Johnny’s Zoo, it was just desert fields of handmade little hutches, and then a sign that would say wombat, and you could look at that and go, that’s art.

So he’s left his mark for sure. He’s probably abused a few native animals and things and, but they had a bit of. I don’t know folk art, about it, but it wasn’t, I don’t know. I’m sure Johnny meant well and he’s contributed somehow. He got on the map, but

Breallyn: So you don’t think that the collective of life is like a worthy installation?

Lyndon: It’s through the eyes of the beholder, isn’t it? I’m just saying that’s life. And some people choose to look at life from a very negative point of view. And others, they see beauty in everything. And so I guess in that regard this is a thing that there are artistic works that aren’t necessarily pleasant, installations and paintings and even music. There’s all sorts of things challenging our idea of what art is. Yeah, it’s gonna fall into that broader category of art, if you like.

But it’s so broad that it doesn’t care whether you’re living the life of an artist or whether you are, leaving your mark just by, circumstance as a by-product. ‘Cause yeah, there’s lots of genuine great art that’s just done in people’s spare time and hobbyists and whatnot. And that’s all good as well.

Not everyone has to be living outside of the system or, outside of social norms and, subject to the folly and stresses of capitalism and, whatnot, in order to, make great art. There’s a lot of people doing that, making equally questionable things. I even know of PE teachers that are trying to write poems.

Breallyn: Maybe if we were considering like,

Lyndon: This is too heavy a subject. My, my little brain can’t deal with it.

Intentional Living vs. Performance

Breallyn: It’s good to wrestle with if we were all considering our lives as a work of art, like a performance of some description, maybe we would do it better. Not so much a performance, because that sounds inauthentic in some way, but it sounds rehearsed and as we know, because we keep getting reminded with t-shirts and so on. ‘life is not a dress rehearsal.’ It’s, you’ve gotta script it, perform it, edit it, and deliver it all in one moment.

So you just have to live it, but if we were more considered about the elements that we were wanting to weave into it, the way that we interact, the things that we put into each day of our lives are the things that we actually value rather than the things that were just the least difficult to do, maybe we’d get better outcomes.

Lyndon: See, everyone’s different. See, some people just don’t think that way, and other people do. For instance, I could reel off the names of probably 30 or 40 people right now that would never have this conversation. They won’t be listening to this podcast, but they won’t have this conversation because they

Breallyn: think we’re stupid, frivolous, whatever.

Lyndon: No, it doesn’t occur to them. They don’t care. And I would like to live like that, so they’re not gonna have this conversation about, oh, could I be more considered in this area and could I, do they go about their day, they just accept who they are. Who knows? Maybe that’s how a lot of people live in the highlands of, I don’t know, pick a highland anywhere in the world.

Breallyn: Whatcha talking about?

Lyndon: I’m just saying natives of countries. I dunno, Peru or pick somewhere. They’re just, tending to their flocks and growing their grains and enjoying life and family, that they’re probably not having this conversation either.

Breallyn: Maybe not.

Lyndon: And good on them.

Breallyn: Maybe they have a much better way of seeing things. I don’t know.

Lyndon: The through line with science and art that you’re talking about earlier is curiosity Of course. I know like when you’re at school, you, it’s easy to go, oh, science and art. That establishment says that they are worlds apart, there was so much bias towards doing maths and science, and arts was, it was for the people that weren’t serious about life, but we

Breallyn: didn’t have the brains for the science classes.

Lyndon: I don’t. I don’t think so. No. At some point you gotta choose, don’t you? It’s curiosity that. Drives both of those things. And I guess maybe that’s the difference of people that aren’t as curious about things, then they probably aren’t gonna have a discussion about whether they could live their life better. I don’t know.

Breallyn: But maybe they don’t need the discussion. Maybe they’re living life just fine. I don’t know. They don’t have to get all into the discussion or listen to the podcast. No, that’s right. But I would still argue that everybody has the same canvas to put an impression onto, that is a life.

And yeah, maybe some of those people are just busy, I don’t know, doing amazing things like fundraising for children’s hospitals or something like that. And impacting countless people along the way. Just because that’s who they are.

Lyndon: What about then people that have definitely historically left their mark on the world, but it’s been, let’s say it’s been a, disaster. What about Pol Pot and Hitler? Yeah. So that just then falls under art ’cause they’ve left their mark. Yeah. I don’t know.

Breallyn: I don’t know if it falls under art.

Lyndon: Life is Art.

Breallyn: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Disastrous piece of art.

Lyndon: Yeah. See, I don’t think there’d be many people that would even want to put it in the same sentence as art.

Breallyn: It’s nearly maybe that gets into though, does art have to be pretty and does it have to be good? Does it have to be, I. Aesthetically pleasing in some way, or

Lyndon: are you trying to get us banned?

Breallyn: No, but that’s, that’s definitely like a question that Art has asked, and lots of artists have asked that, they will create stuff that isn’t necessarily beautiful and that is like an anti-art. But saying what is art? We’re back to what is art? Cool.

Lyndon: I think the point you are making perhaps, it’s inspired by someone who we know personally and who has managed to live life like you were saying. Thoughtful and measured. And you can look at that and say she lived her life like the art that she was creating, and she’s left a mark. And I think to say that, observe that and leave it at that is good enough.

Breallyn: Episode end then,

Lyndon: but you take that as a template and then you can apply that to a bunch of different things, Looking forward and then saying, okay How’s it gonna look? Or how can we do that is much harder than looking back and going, okay, what has been, and then valuing it like that.

And that’s one of the difficulties I’ve had, I guess going to funerals over the past couple of decades, is that often they are a celebration of someone’s life as they should be. And I’m always thinking, man, I wish we could have had this, a couple of months beforehand.

And I know there are some people that are in a position where they’re, I was gonna say lucky enough, I guess that’s probably not the right word, but where they’re able to make that decision and they do have a big gathering and where. People have time to prepare themselves for that And they gather together and they’re able to tell them to their face.

Breallyn: Yeah. in a public forum. Yeah, I just always think it’s such a shame that, we’ve gotta wait until someone’s life has passed before we actually say all the things and notice all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I understand why it happens that way, but it, I just always have the same feeling

Lyndon: Yeah. You wish they were here and they should be hearing all these great things that people wanna say about them. Yeah, I think so. And I mean, I had I had that feeling at my grandma’s funeral.

Breallyn: Yeah. Maybe we should try to change things around. Obviously you don’t always know.

Lyndon: I’d be too worried that the people that turn up for mine would be. Too few

Breallyn: You say that, but yeah. Our friend Sal thought the same. She said, I just need to book this room because not that many people will wanna be here. And then it, we ended up in the overflow room. ’cause even though we got there quite early, we all already, the hall was packed and we were,

Lyndon: I didn’t understand why that woman was cutting in front of us and across the lawn. And I said, oh. And I just jokingly said to her, oh, you’re not gonna use the path. And then when we were sitting in the overflow, I saw her on the camera and I’m like, oh, she made it in. Ah, yeah. She must have had her heads up that it was getting full. Ah, look who’s here!

Breallyn: Sorry. We’re in the studio.

An Unexpected Interruption and Updates

Lyndon: I think you’ll need to explain the interruption. We are back. That we had suddenly had to stop.

Breallyn: Yeah. The, the sanctuary was breached. We had somebody walk in the studio doors, which isn’t common because once they’re closed everyone knows not to open them. But little Birdie had come home. She was on a camp, which was absolutely amazing. She’s been on camp for two nights and came back today.

She did so well. She’s had a great time. She’s done the ropes course and the what else? The Flying Fox and all these kind of activities, all the fun things to do on camp.

Lyndon: And I thought, this was gonna be an episode where we wouldn’t need to be talking about Birdie or, I know, I thought there’s a whole lot of things I didn’t think we’d be talking about today. So yeah.

Breallyn: So we’re back. this is. we’ve reconvened, but it’s several hours later. How long ago was it?

Lyndon: I don’t know, but I’ve missed my freakin’ gin and tonic window, that’s for sure.

Breallyn: Now it’s dinner time. we’ve got three, three other kids waiting for dinner. Some someone’s sick and needs to get to a gig and play drums.

Lyndon: Oh my gosh. what was good that happened in that break? it was good that Birdie came home and had a great time, but also what had been weighing heavily on us was the fact that we sent your hard drive by courier door to door that was meant to be there last Friday, and it just went off radar. No communication. That was very, stressful.

Breallyn: It’s been stressful. I’ve been in tears and for those who haven’t been up with the journey so far, this hard drive was in my Mac computer. Which died and before it died, it was my main computer that I worked on for years. With all my writing, all my uni work, all my personal work.

Lyndon: But you thought it was backing up to time machine that I did years and I thought it was backing up to time machine, but I didn’t know the time machine drive power had been disconnected or turned off at some point.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: And so there was neither

Breallyn: did I, ’cause I don’t look at those sorts of things. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. So that was like seven or eight months of work that wasn’t

Lyndon: solid work gone, wasn’t backed up.

Breallyn: And then at least, and the computer died and we have had no idea whether it’s survived at all. And mind you, this computer’s then been sitting in what I like to call the elephant graveyard. Which is. Little collection of three or four computers.

Lyndon: They’re all iMacs.

Breallyn: all iMacs, which have died. And I call ’em the elephant graveyard because don’t elephants have like wonderful memories?

Lyndon: So it’s just like dead. Oh, so you are living in hope, dead memory that sitting, you’re living in hope that they’re, they can be revived.

Breallyn: Yeah, absolutely.

Lyndon: They’re all old IMAX too, just to be fair, no one needs to stand up for Apple, but they were from 2009 I think. Wow. And yeah, yours died. Mine that I had at the studio was slowing down somewhat. And we had another one here that I think was my older studio one, I can’t remember. But anyway, but once yours died, I was like, that’s it. We’re not risking any of these other ones.

Got it out, was gonna hand deliver it to the data recovery people in the city that sort of got waylaid on the day and they had a really good system for sending you hard drives in and, I thought they do this every day of the week. Must be fine.

Breallyn: What could. Possibly go wrong.

Lyndon: And then when it did go wrong, I thought, why did I do that? I knew I should have hand delivered it. Anyway, so in the break, long story short or long story, long probably I put in the tracking details, which hadn’t worked for a week. And lo and behold, I’m stress still thinking about it. Lo and behold, it had been delivered while we were in that break, which is unbelievable.

Breallyn: Oh my gosh. I literally have been feeling, I was like, stomach churning sick about this for so long. I still feel like that because while the hard drive has been located is in the right place, has been delivered there,

Lyndon: they still might not get anything off it.

Breallyn: That’s right. Yeah. They might contact us sometime next week and just say, yeah, nah, sorry, it’s,

Lyndon: or what if they say. There’s a 50/50 chance it’s gonna cost three and a half grand to find out.

Breallyn: For those listeners who haven’t subscribed to Patreon yet.

Lyndon: I’d shoot that elephant, with a tranquilizer of course.

Breallyn: Oh gosh. Honestly, it’s, yeah. I just wanna know one way or another now, cause I’m tired of feeling sick about it. yeah. So that happened. So stay tuned for next week’s episode.

Lyndon: There was some more good news. What happened? Yeah. This is good news for me. No one else will care about this. Okay. But, I’ve spent a week doing SEO and metadata stuff for our website.

Breallyn: I do know this, not my forte because you have told me every step of the way

Lyndon: And I’ve been putting code into chat, GPT and it telling me things like it. Okay, here’s your poetic and lyrical response. I’m like, why are you giving me, I don’t want a lyrical response. When have I ever asked for that? Yeah, so when we had that little break before I managed to, fit the last pieces of the puzzle together with that. And so now I think I have got some working code that I can put onto our episode pages on our website. I deserve that. Gin. Gin and tonic which we haven’t had,

Breallyn: Yeah. And I must say we really know how to make the creative life sound sexy, don’t we? There’s data recovery and wrangling with,

Lyndon: but part of it is the world we live in now. we did our episode on calm marketing and that’s all well and good, but I think if you are gonna go the route of having a website, then it’s pointless to a degree if it can’t be found online.

Breallyn: Yes. As a copywriter, I agree.

Lyndon: Better to do it all now than later and then have to, be putting code into, hundreds of pages that already exist and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, absolutely. Maybe someone will tell me. Yeah, you can just do that. Takes five minutes, but I’ll,

Breallyn: once you find that hack, that’ll be great. Oh, in fact, we could run a course on it.

Lyndon: On a hack.

Breallyn: Yeah. On how to do all this stuff.

Lyndon: We could run a course on how to be hacks.

Breallyn: Watch and learn.

Lyndon: yeah. Anyway, so I’m in a slightly better mood, although I’m sure you’ll bring it down now with your back to this.

Breallyn: Nah, I’m over it. Topic. I think we just wrap it up now.

Lyndon: I don’t even know what you’re talking about, but it was just too heavy and then you, brought up Hitler and that really took a turn.

Breallyn: I’m pretty sure that was you. What’s you did have, did

Lyndon: you have more points Don’t you have a wrap up point you need to remind me? What were we talking about?

Final Reflections: Is Life Art?

Breallyn: We were really just talking about, look, is the way we live a life, a piece of art in itself? Is it is our life, literally our life’s work? Because we are creating something, not just with, I guess our, output of work as such, like artistic work or even just other people’s work, but all of the little threads, all of the things that we do like the way that we cook or the relationships we have, or how well we drive, just everything that goes into our lives.

Is that a work of art in itself? And I was thinking about it, thinking that. I can see that it is in so many ways. And then you, I believe I say it isn’t brought up and the despots of the world and said, ah,

Lyndon: this is what happens when we have our one rule, of this show of do we have a rule, one rule of the podcast? Yeah. Which is you bring a topic to the table and the other person doesn’t know about it. Oh. So we couldn’t convene and, try and find a middle ground or but that’s part of the fun is that you bring a topic and then it’s like first impressions by the other person. It’s if you play a song to someone that you’ve just written, it’s like the first impressions count for a lot.

Breallyn: Yeah. Fair call.

Lyndon: I think. But,

Breallyn: I think we can argue it both ways really. Is life a work of art? yes and no.

Lyndon: But it is one of those topics where there isn’t an answer.

Breallyn: No, of course not.

Lyndon: So I don’t like it.

Breallyn: No, we’re not into answers. We don’t bring answers or

Lyndon: No, I know. I’m not saying that we have answers, but I’m saying it’s a bit of a hypothetical, isn’t it? Or it’s just a point. It is. I don’t know.

Breallyn: It’s, but I think it’s a point that’s worth thinking about because I feel like for, me anyway, if I was to think about, Ooh, is my life a bit of a work of art? If I, am I curating something? Am I, have I got this collection of moments, of every moment I live? Is it a living installation of me and my expression?

Then I think I will be more mindful in some instances than I would otherwise be, and I will think about the threads that I want to bring in than the things that I wanna spend my time on, like the. The makeup of my day, how much of it is made up in the things that are important to me, and how much, how much beige is there that I don’t wanna see in there anymore that I’d prefer to replace with something else.

Lyndon: Yeah, I think it’s a good mindset or it’s a good approach. You, do that anyway. And I do it to an extent, but I think just to look at it as a point of contemplation. I just feel, oh no, I’m trying to live a simpler life and now it’s putting all this pressure on me for it to be,

Breallyn: to every moment be a performance.

Lyndon: To be one. No, just that it should, leave a wonderful mark and then, and that’s pressure enough. But then you go, what about all the people that leave a massive skid mark on the world, go, that’s art too. why? Like, why should I have all the pressure when I wanna create something beautiful and then someone can just eff everything up and that be called art? Nah, I’m not into that. I don’t. Yep.

Breallyn: Strong point. Fair enough.

Lyndon: And I think that, in a way that’s it devalues what artists, like, why they make art, and, why they’re so driven and why they, they do sacrifice to input things into the world and to reflect back to people to, reflect humanity back. Into society and say things through art that can’t be said in words. And, it’s, it is a considered life.

For people that go through life and don’t do that, it doesn’t mean that they have no value. It’s not what I’m saying, to then frame what they’ve done as, art it’s just different I guess. And I dunno, I just think that’s why I was saying earlier, it’s such a, broad sort of statement. I like the sentiment, I just wouldn’t call it art. I’d say that’s life. Yeah.

Breallyn: Keep them keep the words meaning. Two different things.

Lyndon: yeah, if you think about art, it is such a broad church. And if you think about life that also is, arguably even broader. So to put the two together, it’s nearly I don’t know, it’s too much. It’s too much. And, it doesn’t serve either of them, I don’t think.

Breallyn: Yeah, I think your point is good, like that what artists are trying to do is take, certain parts of things and almost brush away all the bits of life and try to express it in a way that we can all see it more clearly. Whereas the other everydayness stops us from seeing or experiencing. Those important pieces as clearly.

Lyndon: That’s one of the reasons I like that book. That’s just over there within your reach.

Breallyn: You’re big on the books at the moment.

Lyndon: Not really.

Breallyn: You mentioned one nearly every episode, I reckon.

Lyndon: Is it just you showing the entire I’m not, I’m a finisher. And a lot of these books, they’re not like novels where you pick them up and you read ’em from start to finish. Especially this one what’s it called? The obscure, the

Breallyn: Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Lyndon: It’s a dictionary of obscure sorrows. I’ve probably mentioned it before, but it has a lot of the, a lot of the words in it are an amalgamation of two or three words together to create a new word to describe an emotion that there isn’t a word for.

Breallyn: Yeah, not even an emotion. I love this book.

Lyndon: Yeah, it just depends like a situation or the feeling, the one of the, I’ve forgotten the word, but for instance the feeling you get when you. Finish the last page of a novel and you have to say goodbye to the characters that are in it. there’s a term for that. and I think what’s great about that, in a way it’s that’s what the arts does for a culture.

Yeah. it, it’s giving opportunity for the listener or the observer or the reader to, to feel something that they might otherwise not have been able to feel or to express something or to be reminded of something. It’s all the, little gaps that we know exists, but that we don’t always get a chance to, live in them So I’m explaining it really poorly. ’cause believe it or not, I’m not great with words.

Breallyn: You are all right, Mr. Songwriter. Yeah. you’re pretty good. Yeah.

Lyndon: it’s a labor of love.

Breallyn: Indeed. I only have one last thought, and this is Just going with the, go with it for a moment. That, that we’re making a piece of art with our lives, and that is that

Lyndon: no pressure, everybody

Breallyn: like it or not, it’s happening. it’ll never be finished. Like it’s a, work that we don’t stop creating. As in the piece is not finished, we just stop when we can’t continue any longer. So there’s always gonna be more left. To do more details to fill in more words to say and, more influence to have all those things. There’s always more, I guess in that realm of possibility and potential. But it’s gotta be left, somewhere else on another plane somewhere.

Lyndon: Yeah. I know that is sad.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: It’s something I know that,

Breallyn: but hopeful too, I think

Lyndon: I, I know for me, I like the idea that, I’m able to sit down and play guitar and I can do that, for as long as I physically can do it, But then to think that there’ll be a point where that ends is yeah. and I think about it for me, but I think about it for everyone really. Yeah. But especially, and we all feel that, particularly when musicians die because their music meant so much to us, or, like that’s an, obvious one, but that’s just sad at the time. ’cause you go, okay, that person they can’t input, into the world anymore.

Yeah. And, every now and then, I think it happened to me this week. I thought if Jimi Hendrix was still alive, I wonder what he’d, what music would he be doing? Do you know what I mean? What would he be doing? Yeah. Would he still be innovating or would he Yeah. Or would he just stick to his sound?

Breallyn: Sure. Yeah. I think one of your favorites, Neil Finn Ha has continued to just put out He’s not dead. No, I know. Like on the other hand has just the music that he’s coming out with now, writing and producing now is just beautiful and still within the same flavor of, what we’ve always loved about his style, but it’s, a fresh take. It’s, new for a new world that, wasn’t here 30 years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: He’s a unicorn. That guy.

Breallyn: Yeah, he’s amazing.

Lyndon: I remember seeing him at the Geelong Performing Arts Center with, remember Damien took me shout out to Damien Murphy, who is a good man. Anyway, he decided, Hey, Damien. Yeah. He decided to shout me a ticket, and I caught the train down. Anyway, not the point. Point is, saw, Neil Finn, His wife was playing bass. And then at some point he hops on the piano. There was a grand piano on stage. Plays a bit of piano. And you’re like, oh yeah. okay, so he’s pretty good on the piano.

Breallyn: What can’t he do?

Lyndon: And then he played, he goes, oh, this is the first song I wrote And he plays and sings that on piano. And it was a real orchestral sort of piano. Like it wasn’t a pop piano piece. Wow. and I was like, hang on a minute. What? the rest of us are playing chopsticks and he’s playing something like that. Yeah.

So he is, very accomplished. But yeah, you’re right though. Yeah, he is. I like how you’ve, yeah, you’ve picked me up. Now you’ve steer, steered the conversation onto that’s we’ve got to Jimmy Hendrix and we’ve got to Neil Finn and

Breallyn: Great, let’s end it there. ’cause they’re the highest pinnacles.

Lyndon: How long should we ponder this art is life? I used to have a bracelet that now I’m trying to remember what country they, they were from. There were these girls that came to our school And they were from, I’ve forgotten the country they’re from…

Breallyn: somewhere in Europe ish?

Lyndon: no,

Breallyn: Africa-ish?

Lyndon: No

Breallyn: Indonesia ish?

Lyndon: No.

Breallyn: Any part?

Lyndon: Chile. Chilean,

Breallyn: Americas?

Lyndon: I think these girls were from Chile. Anyway, she, she did a bracelet for me and it said, music is life. Oh, yeah. But you could read it. So it said, music is life. Life is music. Yeah, Which was very cool. Yep. Back then, I liked it it was this. Unbroken circle, which meant something to me. Music is life. Life is music. I like that. Yep. I like that.

Breallyn: But you’re not prepared to go with art. Not gonna get a brace is life. Life is art.

Lyndon: I’m not gonna get a bracelet on the other hand that says, art is life. Life is art. No, maybe not just yet. Fair enough. Okay. Remember there, I don’t know if you remember this, but you could get these bracelets and it said, what would Jesus do?

Breallyn: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: And I remember someone saying that they had one on the other hand, just to balance it out. That was what would my wife do? Oh, no. What would my wife do? WW MW. I love the idea that, so what would Jesus do? So he said, And then on the other hand, what would my wife do?

Breallyn: So not like the devil, but the wife is the antithesis to Jesus. Yeah. Awesome.

Lyndon: It was very, funny. I don’t know. I’ve never forgotten that. But I dunno where it came from. Probably Homer.

Breallyn: So would this person would

Lyndon: or the Simpsons

Breallyn: have to like go with both of those things? Like only if something was, would’ve been okayed by Jesus and his wife. But yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: Then he could do it. Okay. Yeah. I think so. I think so. So either one had, would have the power of veto over the situation. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. That is good. I think that’s a good spot to leave this episode.

Breallyn: Okay. Completely irrelevant to the,

Lyndon: is it?

Breallyn: Oh. feels All right. I feel like thanks for listening.

Lyndon: We, I think, I feel like we’ve left the world in a better place at that point.

Breallyn: All right. Maybe. Let’s hope so. that’s what we would like to do. We hope we’ve lifted your listening time. Life is precious and short and very sweet. So we hope you have a wonderful week and we’ll be back with another topic next time.

Lyndon: We’ll see you then.

Breallyn: Bye now.

Lyndon: We won’t see you then. We’ll be back then.

Breallyn: We’ll be back. Then we’ll see each other.

Lyndon: Okay. that’s true.

Breallyn: Yeah. See you then Lyndon.

Lyndon: Alright. Bye. Won’t see you in the meantime.

Breallyn: No, we can see each other. We just can’t talk about anything important in case we miss any gold for our podcast.

Lyndon: You’ve been listening to Pain in the Arts. You can visit our website, www dot Pain in the arts life. We have transcripts up there now. So if you want the transcript of an episode, you can head on over to the episodes page and you’ll find it there. Leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast. Just leave us a review. Please do. But if you’re gonna star us, make it five. Yeah.

Breallyn: If you wanna leave a one star apparent helps. Just text us at the

Lyndon: very least. It’ll make me feel better when I’m doing all this stupid coding. And of course you can sign up to our patreon, patreon.com/painintheArtsLife, and you can subscribe for free. Or you can choose one of the tiers that we’ve got there. You’ll find one that suits you. We’ve got a couple of extra podcasts if you are part of the cottage tier, I believe it is. You’ve got the cabin, the cottage, or the castle. Yep.

Breallyn: I wouldn’t mind being in the castle.

Lyndon: The castle’s pretty good. You get a shout out in the audio book in the castle. Oh yeah. Among other things. You get a home cooked meal from us if you’re member of the castle, right? Don’t remember. Agree to that. Read, read the fine print. Brea, you are cooking right?

Breallyn: Spaghetti. It is.

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