User:JackofOz


 

Zobacz też:

Contents

JackofOz  This photograph is not quite true to my own notion of my gentleness and sweetness of nature, but neither perhaps is my external appearance (A. E. Housman)
JackofOz
This photograph is not quite true to my own notion of my gentleness and sweetness of nature, but neither perhaps is my external appearance
(A. E. Housman)
This user is proud to be Australian.
This user is proud to be Celtic.
This user is of Irish ancestry.
Scotland This user is of Scottish ancestry.
This user is of English ancestry.
pno-3 This user is an advanced pianist.
This user is a member of the League of Copyeditors.
LE-0 This individual still maintains a shred of dignity in this insane world by adhering to correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalisation.
Wikipedia:Babel
en This user is a native speaker of English.
ru-1 Этот участник владеет русским языком на начальном уровне.
Search user languages
to¦go This user chooses to sometimes use split infinitives.
BOOK
This user is working on publishing a book.
This user loves writing, but can hardly find the time to do so.
This user enjoys reading non-fiction.
This user is interested in the Romantic period.
This user is interested in beauty.
This user loves Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
This user is interested in Russia and is capable of speaking in a Russian accent.
This user enjoys optical illusions, especially the impossible constructions of M. C. Escher.


This user loves the Autumn.
This user really enjoys dark and stormy nights.


This user is a member of the LGBT community.
abc This user loves vinyl records.
News This user reads broadsheet newspapers.
Kindness Campaign This user is a member of the Kindness Campaign.
This user's looking at you, kid.
Gone with the Wind Frankly my dear, this user doesn't give a damn.
"Surely this user can't be serious?"






Christmas is over, but there's no reason why we shouldn't continue the Christmas spirit indefinitely.

Therefore, MERRY CHRISTMAS and PEACE ON EARTH to men and women, and children, and dogs, and all other living creatures, of good will - and everyone else too.

Interests and activities

I'm particularly interested in:

I'm a kind of Reference Desk Regular (the best kind, naturally) - see a list of my esteemed colleagues here. I tend to hang out on the Language, Humanities, Entertainment and Miscellaneous desks these days. I occasionally put in an appearance at Mathematics and Science. I have never even visited Computing, and probably never will.

If you like, check out:

Achievements

I have created 105 new articles: my most recent stub is Arthur Dignam (21 August 2008).

On average, that’s about one article every fortnight since I started my first article on 13 June 2004. But it's not as regular as that. My most "manic" period was when I wrote 15 new articles in four days (27 February - 2 March 2006). At the other extreme, I’ve twice gone as long as six months without writing any articles at all. Not at all sure what this says about me ... but it’s not as if I'm being paid for this (damn!).

In no case did I plan to write the article I wrote. I never wake up thinking "I must write an article on X today". It just happens through some mysterious process. May it ever be thus.

Who the Hell am I?

My name's Jack and I'm a 5th-generation Australian.

I was born at a very young age, somewhere between the 31st of February and the 12th of Never. You can pin me down a little if I tell you I was born during the lifetimes of Ben Chifley, Arnold Schoenberg, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Albert Einstein, but after the deaths of Mahatma Gandhi, Al Jolson, Richard Strauss and George Bernard Shaw.

I live in Maffra (Gippsland, rural Victoria), where I share my life with my male partner. We were recently described as "Maffradites", an epithet we wear as a badge of honour. I moved here 18 months ago, having previously spent my life in Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Wagga Wagga and my birth-place Albury.

Jenny Randles defines the Oz Factor as "the sensation of being isolated, or transported from the real world into a different environmental framework...where reality is but slightly different, [as in] the fairytale land of Oz" [1]. I can certainly relate to that. Oz is also a nickname for Australia.

I strongly identify with my Celtic roots - Irish mainly, with dashes of Scottish (and a bit of English for good measure). My 2 adult sons are ethnically half(ish)-Russian (one more than the other), with dashes of Serbian, Polish and Jewish. You can read more about my family connections below.

Among other things, I have worked in the private health insurance industry (about which I have often said "Anyone who isn't confused by this business doesn't really know what's going on"). I'm currently in the process of reinventing myself. And I'm writing a book (but who isn't, these days).

I am a kind of poor man's polymath ... well, pauper's polymath, more like it. The term "Jack of all trades, master of none" was coined in my honour, personally. I have a degree in Mathematics and Russian from the University of Canberra, but my usage of either skill is depressingly low these days.

I like to take a broad intellectual view of issues and see them in perspective. I'm definitely a "glass half full" person and a "big picture" person. But seeing the big picture can sometimes cause me to sit on the fence, where I can listen, understand and accept opposing views without really knowing what I personally think of the issue. Then there are other subjects about which I have very passionate views indeed - as you might discover.

I'd like to think I have the artistic temperament and bohemian lifestyle of someone like Oscar Wilde ... if only this were true.

I am most definitely a "broadsheet" person, not a "tabloid" person.

When it comes to "Shakespeare", I am a strong supporter of the Oxfordian theory. The evidence for the 17th Earl of Oxford is, to my mind, compelling. By far the best I've come across is contained in Mark Anderson's 2005 book "Shakespeare" By Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, The Man Who Was Shakespeare. Another very detailed, but less readable, work on the subject is Charlton Ogburn's The Mystery of William Shakespeare (1988). But I read and debate the upcoming literature with interest.

I have thick skin and broad shoulders, but I am not as ugly as that might lead one to believe. (Moreover, as Konrad Adenauer said, "Thick skin is a gift from God".)

To anyone who dares to disgree with me about anything, I can do no better than quote the conductor Hans Richter: Up with your damned nonsense will I put twice, or perhaps once, but sometimes always, by God, never.

Despite, or perhaps because of, all that, it should be clear by now that I am a perfectly wonderful human being. (Oh, and apparently I'm also a horse - [2]).

But seriously, I try to be guided by the following words, which were written by Marianne Williamson (and not, as is often wrongly claimed, spoken by Nelson Mandela at his inauguration as President of South Africa, or at any other time) :

My Heroes

My heroes are all deeply flawed (like me, and everybody else). They include:

Serendipity, Coincidence and Synchronicity

Serendipity, first cousin to coincidence, and twin brother of synchronicity
(Phil Cousineau, Soul Moments, 1997)

My life has always been full of serendipity, synchronicity and coincidences. I'm sure these happen to everyone; maybe I just notice them more often. I've decided to start documenting some of the more interesting ones.

Who would I be if I weren't JackofOz?

Well, user names I considered included:

  • Agaponthus
  • Alberich Bonaparte
  • Arctic Heart
  • The Beastorn
  • Breakfast with Beasts
  • Brianette Bombshell
  • The Butterfly of Death
  • Chronic Low-grade Fame
  • Clyde Hairworth
  • The Cornish Ogre
  • Crackrag
  • Cryptic Triptych
  • Dabbling Dilettante
  • Delicious Sister
  • Descending Ducks
  • Ecclesiastes Eccles
  • Enoch the Roman
  • Fried Nocturne
  • Hiding in the Wings
  • Inveterate Lyre
  • Invisible Individualist
  • Jakarta and Fugue
  • Jangled Ganglia
  • Jimmy Crack Corn
  • Lime Diamond
  • Lubricious Doings
  • Lyrical Miracle
  • Man of Pluck and Dash
  • Minnie Ganderplast
  • Nigel Actually
  • Nessun Doormat
  • Not Always But Invariably
  • Octopus Nostrils
  • Peacocks and Pavlovas
  • Phoebe of February
  • Psychic Sidekick
  • Real Eye-Opener
  • River of Silence
  • Rocks and Raspberry Jam
  • Simeon Graveley
  • Sluglust Slutglut
  • Spaghetti Polonaise
  • Sun-ripened Henry
  • Superb Conceit
  • Supposed Nonexistent Injustices
  • Tequila Mockingbird
  • Third Bird
  • Tomb of the Unknown Shoulder
  • Toothless Totalitarian
  • The Truth About the Planets
  • Various Vegetables
  • Violet, Spider and Bruno
  • Voblik
  • Wanderlust Mazurka
  • Wizard Japes.

In the end, I opted for the first one that came to mind when asked to create a user name - JackofOz. But never fear, in my future reincarnations I will eventually assume all these user names, and I will keep adding new names from time to time. And yes, that indicates my belief that Wikipedia will be around for a very long time, so we may as well make it work as well as possible.

Oh, if anyone actually has one of the user names listed above (I could check, I suppose, but I'm too lazy), please let me know and I'll strike it out. That, by the way, is NOT an invitation to steal any of them, but I suppose I can't actually stop anyone; and if you do, you might do the right thing and give due acknowledgment.

My Favourites

Favourite Painting

The Abduction of Psyche (Le Ravissement de Psyché, or L'Enlèvement de Psyché; 1895) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau,

... closely followed by his earlier version Psyche and Amor ...


Acknowledgments to User:Masamage for bringing the 2nd one (the earlier version) to my attention

Favourite Opera Composer

Favourite Opera

Favourite Tenor

Favourite Playwright

Favourite Short Story

Favourite Short Poems

Favourite Spectator Sport

Favourite Films

My two all-time favourite films are:

Others I never tire of are listed here.

Favourite Film Directors

Favourite Composers

I include this list as a compromise. What I'd really like to do is list my favourite musical works, but it would be a very long list. I will do it some day when I have time. However you may be interested in Timeless Tunes for Tuneless Times.

An appearance on my list of composers does not mean that I necessarily like everything they wrote. And a non-appearance does not mean I don't like many of their works (eg. Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Delius, Dvorak, Haydn, Holst, Liszt, Mozart, Mussorgsky, Ravel, Schumann, Stravinsky, Wagner et al).

The following are the guys (and they are all guys) whose style and musical creativity I consistently resonate with: Johannes Brahms, Frédéric Chopin, Sir Edward Elgar, Gabriel Fauré, Leopold Godowsky, Percy Grainger, Enrique Granados, Leoš Janáček, Aram Khachaturian, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Gustav Mahler, Federico Mompou, Astor Piazzolla, Francis Poulenc, Giacomo Puccini, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Domenico Scarlatti, Franz Schubert, Jean Sibelius, Richard Strauss, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Giuseppe Verdi and ...

Timeless Tunes for Tuneless Times

This is an ever-expanding list of tunes that will never die. When I say "tunes", I mean tunes, not necessarily entire works. The basic criterion is that it's something you can whistle (ok, I know you can whistle Beethoven's entire Choral Symphony, but let's get serious).

Favourite Film Composers

Favourite Individual Film Score

Favourite Definition


Quaquaversal lucubration about pervicacious torosity and diverticular prosiliency in diatonic formication and chromatic papulation, engendering carotic carmination and decubital nyctalopia, causing borborygmic susurration, teratological urticulation, macroptic dysmimia, bregmatic obstipation, crassamental quisquiliousness, hircinous olophonia and unflexanimous luxation, often produce volmerine cacumination and mitotic ramuliferousness leading to operculate onagerosity and testaceous favillousness, as well as faucal obsonation, paralellepipedal psellismus, pigritudinous mysophia, cimicidal conspurcation, mollitious deglutition and cephalotripsical stultitiousness, resulting despite hesychastic omphaloskepsis, in epenetic opisthography, boustrophedonic malacology, lampadodromic evagination, chartulary cadastration, merognostic heautotimerousness, favaginous moliminosity, fatiscent operosity, temulencious libration and otological oscininity, aggravated by tardigrade inturgescence, nucamentacious oliguria, emunctory sternutation, veneficial pediculation, fremescent dyskinesia, hispidinous cynanthropy, torminal opitulation, crapulous vellication, hippuric rhinodynia, dyspneic nimiety and favillous erethism, and culminating in opisthographic inconcinnity, scotophiliac lipothymia, banausic rhinorrhea, dehiscent fasciculation, oncological vomiturition, nevoid paludality, exomphalic invultuation, mysophiliac excrementatiousness, flagitious dysphoria, lipogrammatic bradygraphy, orectic aprosexia, parataxic parorexia, lucubicidal notation, permutational paronomasia, rhonchial fremitus, specular subsaltation, crapulous crepitation, ithyphallic acervation, procephalic dyscrasia, volitional volitation, piscine dermatology, proleptic pistology, verrucous alopecia, hendecaphonic combinatoriality, microaerophilic pandiculation and quasihemidemisemibreviate illation.


I kid you doubters not. Look it up.

Favourite Word Book

That her father just happened to be my favourite violinist ever, Jascha Heifetz, is just one of those examples of serendipitous synchronicity that my life seems to be full of.

Favourite Silly Law

The following is part of Australian tax law, specifically s.165-55 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services) Act 1999 [6]:

For the purpose of making a declaration under this Subdivision, the Commissioner may:
a) treat a particular event that actually happened as not having happened; and
b) treat a particular event that did not actually happen as having happened and, if appropriate, treat the event as:
i) having happened at a particular time; and
ii) having involved particular action by a particular entity; and
c) treat a particular event that actually happened as:
i) having happened at a time different from the time it actually happened; or
ii) having involved particular action by a particular entity (whether or not the event actually involved any action by that entity).

Isn't that just wonderful!! The law is most definitely an ass!!

See also Prohibition of death for an equally absurd law.

Favourite Insults

There are so many delicious ones, too many to list here. Instead, they're here.

Favourite Quotes and Anti-Quotes

Again, too many to list here. See here instead.


"I like to admit my ignorance from time to time. It gives one a certain je ne sais quoi"
"I used to have a life insurance policy but I cashed it in when I got past a certain age. I figured, if I was ever going to die, it would have happened by now"
"Less lumen, more lux"
"William Cobbett had a genius for overstated understatement"

Miscellanea

Family Connections

I have Irish, Scottish and English ancestry. The furthest back I've traced my documented genealogy is the English line. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents were Thomas Sheather (1635-?) and Jane Allowe (1636-?) [7] (that's 12 generations).


I am directly or indirectly related by blood or marriage to:

High King of Ireland 1002-1014 (but which true son of Ireland isn't related to him!)
Prime Minister of the UK 1768-70
Pioneer of the Mittagong district (NSW) [8] [9]
Russian General; military commander during the Napoleonic Wars; hero of the Battle of Borodino; Governor of the Caucasus 1816-27. He was a character in Tolstoy's War and Peace, and in Prokofiev's opera based on the novel. Prokofiev's War and Peace was the first opera to be performed at the Sydney Opera House, a building that was the brain-child of Sir Eugene Goossens - see Nat Craig below.
Speaker of the WA Legislative Assembly
WA politician; Speaker of the WA Legislative Assembly; brother-in-law of Sir Luke Leake and uncle of George Leake [10]
Irish-Australian engineer; best-known for his work on the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme; eponym of the WA Federal electorate of O'Connor; suicided
Archbishop and Anglican Primate of New Zealand
Premier of Western Australia 1901-02
Pastoralist and businessman [11]
Inventor of the totalisator
President of the North Sydney Rugby League Club and official of the New South Wales Rugby League [12] The McGrath clan
"Father of Waverley Council". Mayor of Waverley 1940, 1943, 1949, and an alderman for 22 consecutive years (1933-55). [13]. Eponym of "Thomas Hogan Reserve and Bird Sanctuary" [14] [15] [16]. He is buried in Waverley Cemetery (A later Mayor of Waverley was Johnny O'Keefe's father Ray O'Keefe.) [17].
Sydney Head of the Australian Customs Service who in March 1956 was involved in the arrest of the composer and conductor Sir Eugene Goossens at Kingsford Smith Airport, Sydney, for importing pornography, thus ending his (Goossens') brilliant career. [18] p. 54
Fortunately, Goossens' brain-child the Sydney Opera House was built - see General Yermolov above for an interesting cross-connection.
Federal politician 1949-69; Minister for Defence, Works, Interior and Supply; missed his chance to become Prime Minister of Australia after the 1967 drowning of Harold Holt [19] [20]
Lord Mayor of Perth 1972-78
Governor-General of Australia 1974-77
Yugoslav-born Australian autobiographer ("It Can't Be Forever", Ginninderra Press, 2005; ISBN 1740272951) [21] [22]
She's 1st cousin 9 times removed of King Charles II, who, through his mistress Barbara Villiers, was the father of the 1st Duke of Grafton. The grand-daughter of the 4th Duke was Elizabeth Fitzroy (1826-1906), who married Henry Lee-Steere (d. 17 June 1899) [23], a close relative of the Lee-Steeres mentioned above. I guess this makes the Queen my second cousin's great-grandfather's son-in-law's uncle's relative's father-in-law's great-great-great-great-grandfather's 1st cousin 9 times removed.
Australian painter, who was married to my second cousin Wendy Whiteley (nee Julius; her mother Daphne nee McKenzie was the daughter of my grandmother's brother Stan McKenzie) [24]. Brett Whiteley twice won the Archibald Prize, named after J. F. Archibald, who is buried at Waverley Cemetery, not far from great-uncle Tom Hogan. He died of a drug overdose, alone in a motel. Their daughter was ...
Australian actress

To do


Wikipedia Experience

Wiki ranking:

My current edit count

Another count

Article traffic statistics

Awards and Honours

An Award
I award this Barnstar of Diligence to JackofOz for the endless
patience and care he takes in answering questions about all
manner of things great and small on all flavours of the Reference Desk. His knowledge, diligence, sense of humour and cool under pressure are an example to all of us mortals. Cheers! — QuantumEleven
I Seadog hereby award you (in the form of a box, The Dancing Happy Daisy award, for your countless (yet great) edits in many diverse subjects (and grammer fixings, Cheers!
The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
Your service to Wikipedia is most deserving of this barnstar. Good job! Sharkface217 21:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
An Award
Congratulations! Sluzzelîn hereby pins you with the NightFalcon’s award for having a “Z” in your name while at the same time managing to do lots of great work here on Wikipedia! Feel free to give it to anyone else who is doing lots of good work while still having a “Z” in their name! Sluzzelin
The Barnstar of Good Humor
For making critical comments about my buttocks, I award you this Barnstar. Bottoms-up! --Dweller 15:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)


User:Rockpocket very kindly gave me the great honour of creating Wikipedia:What would Jack do?.

Special pages