artistic licence
rob Ingram doubts cIty culture can compete wIth the
noble arts of wIfe carryIng and husband draggIng.
Well, no, We didn’t get to see
Masterpieces From Paris at the National
Gallery of Australia. Our city friends
just shook their heads in dismay. They
had warned us, of course, that when
we moved to the country we’d become
cultural pygmies, that we’d live a flat,
grey existence with no blinding flashes
from Cezanne or Gauguin — nor yet
Placido Domingo or the Sydney Dance
Company, for that matter.
Cultural stimulation, they told us,
promotes one of the four types of
wellness that contribute to quality
of life. Its lack leads to repressed
emotional wellbeing and an impaired
sense of social cohesion and inclusion.
But, hey, we have attractions out
here, too, and sometimes there’s just
too much going on for us to go to.
The one time we might have been able
to get down to Canberra turned out to
be the weekend of the National Wife
Carrying Championship plus the
world’s first Husband Dragging event,
all at Singleton in the Hunter Valley.
Average Australian males who looked
like they’d had wives on their backs
since the trip to the altar, carried their
partners, legs over shoulders, along
a 220-metre course. As married life
itself is not without obstacles, various
logs, limbo bars and a watercourse
had to be negotiated. The Husband
Dragging event required women to
flip their partners off bar stools, then
drag them backwards along a slippery
vinyl runway to the ‘home’ zone where
a set of chores were to be completed.
Trackside at the Singleton
Showground, I felt a distinct sense
of social cohesion and inclusion.
Emotional wellbeing, a sense of
empowerment and the welcome
brisk breeze of changing perspectives,
told me “Yes, you are enjoying
a cultural experience... and a Pluto
Pup at the same time.”
Okay, there’s high culture and there’s
a slightly more popular culture... but
who’s to say one is better than the other?
I didn’t actually need to undertake
a statistical analysis utilising zero
order correlations and multivariate
regressions to understand the feelings
of belonging and social connection
that came rushing to the fore when
the Dunedoo Bush Poetry Festival
— now there’s high culture! — shared
a date with the Central West Husband
Obedience Trials.
This is virtually a sheepdog trial
with woman as the domineering
handler and husband as the eager
kelpie relaying the cringe and
challenge of every command.
Choosing from a menu of chores,
the bossy women shout commands
like ‘Tea!’, ‘Newspaper!’ or ‘Tissues!’
and the eager little husbands dart off
over the 25-metre course to where
the requisites are stored, and return
with them, begging for approval.
When they finish, they get a biscuit
and heel at the mistress’s feet.
Now I’ve seen Don Giovanni, the
opera; Giselle, the ballet; and Blue Poles,
the painting — and I felt no greater
sense of wellness and inclusion than
I did at the Husband Obedience Trials.
Do we perhaps have a subgenre of
culture that actually replicates the
benefits of the posh stuff?
Anyhow, we don’t feel like cultural
pygmies out here and we don’t suffer
from repressed emotional wellbeing.
We didn’t get to see Masterpieces From
Paris, but Dunedoo has just staged its
own Art Unlimited exhibition. Nothing
from Paris, but artists from the US,
Canada, Spain, the Netherlands,
Portugal and the UK came begging for
wall space to hang alongside artists
from Coolah, Coonabarabran and
Coonamble. Great event... pity you
missed it, city slickers. *
The bossy women shout commands like ‘Tea!’, ‘Newspaper!’ or ‘Tissues!’ and the eager little husbands dart off over the 25-metre course.
the Country squire column has appeared in every issue of Country Style since its inception 21 years ago. Rob ingram lives in a former
courthouse, police station and jail in the ns W Central West village of Cobbora near dunedoo — as he says, “it’s better to do time in my jail
than somebody else’s”. Rob chose Cobbora for its serenity and beauty. it has just been named the site of a new open-cut coal mine.
