Daniel Geale. A capacity crowd filled Derwent Entertainment Centre in Tasmania for Daniel Geale's first defence of his International Boxing Federation middleweight title. Geale is Indigenous and enters the ring with the Aboriginal flag, and has a map of Tasmania emblazoned in the Aboriginal colours on his boxing trunks, but in Tasmania he attracts a heartland crowd: anti-Greens and anti-Bob Brown. Passionate in their support for Daniel as a Tasmanian they sang along with the national anthem and knew all the words. It was as close as boxing ever gets to being sport. As well as musing on the crowd I had a chance to watch Geale perform. He wasn't at his best but is Australia's best pure boxer since Johnny Famechon.
Introducing the fighters.
Waiting to sing Advance Australia Fair.
Later this Week. A lecture on Kim Scott's Miles Franklin award winning novel That Deadman Dance for Melbourne Free University at the Alderman in Lygon Street, Brunswick. That Deadman Dance is more accessible than his earlier novels True Country and Benang; the prose is simpler and it's in the popular contact narrative genre. The context as such is immediately evident and there are sentimental moments. There are also continuing passages of majestic writing and evocations of wind, sea and sand that resonate long after reading.
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