Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 13:03:20 +1000
From: jdalhsim-AT-netspace.net.au (Janet Dalgliesh)
Subject: Re: Closing ceremony puppets



>
>On this topic, for those in Australia: What's all the fuss about the
>inflatable kangaroos? Play to your strengths, I say, or you could end up
>with "Izzie" in Atlanta.
>


To understand the fuss, you have to appreciate that every single major
event we have here, including Commonwealth Games, World Expo, etc, has used
the (*&^*&^%)*& kangaroo as its emblem, to the point where it's become a
running joke.  So for those of us who were looking forward to something
which had been bruited as being "new and definitely not kitsch" - the
blowup kangacycles came as something of a disappointment!!

I hasten to add this is my own opinion, and I am aware that the rest of the
world still hasn't had enough of kangaroos and koalas.

I guess the  reason some of us feel uncomfortable with the same old same
old is that our international image is very dated. Many visitors here are
amazed that Australia is not a rural community with roos hopping down the
main street of every town, and everyone still riding horses.  We're a very
cosmopolitan nation, and somehow the use of the roo and the cockatoo
reminds us of how we saw ourselves twenty years ago.

There's so much more to Australia than roos!!!  And you certainly won't see
roos in Sydney, except at the zoo!

But I did like the inflatable Opera House shapes - maybe if we're lucky
we'll get more of that and less cute animals by the year 2000!  Either way,
I'm sure it'll go well, and I wish the organisers the best of luck.

Cheers, Janet

**************************************************
Janet Dalgliesh and Hugh Simpson

jdalhsim-AT-netspace.net.au

"I hear and I forget
I see and I remember
I do and I understand
....in the doing is the learning"

                Confucius




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