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Ku-Ring-Gai Creative Arts highschool talent night.
7pm.

Ku-Ring-Gai is an aboriginal word. The school is on a national park; land formerly occumpied by the tribe Ku-Ring-Gai.

Tanya Plain invited me to to the talent night; she's a dance teacher here. Since I had oh-so-many other social commitments, I decided to jam this one into my packed schedule.

I ended up drinking a nice Hunter Valley "semillion", which is a variety known as the Auzzie Reisling. The teacher I was drinking with was pleased that I was interested in wines. He says the wine I had is quite cheap... I still maintain it was good.

* * *

For reasons as yet unexplained to me, the child 2 seats ahead of me is wearing a shimmering fuschia short suit jacket; a double breasted zippered number with a long pink t-shirt and black sparkly flood pants with black sensible shoes. The coke-bottle glasses don't do much to help me determine if the child is an unfortunate girl or an effeminate boy.

The "children" are so excited. It's their big night. The girls are dressed in their most revealing outfits, with piles of makeup for the occasion. Did I show as much skin as possible in high school? Certainly not. I just didn't have the courage.

Some things don't change, of course, The cutest boy goes out with the pretty blonde with the clothes and makeup and cell phone. THey all hang all over each other. The girls giggling and snapping their g-string straps. OK, in my day it wasn't g-strings.

Other girls are awkward with their braces or their retainer-slur ruins their otherwise pristine rendition of Jewel's "Hands".

A couple of the dance troupes manage to pull off some solid performances. Many other opt for the cover song; "Superman", "under the bridge" and that sort. One group of boys did an outstanding Monty Python skit, "Japes and Trickery", aside from the one boy who couldn't hold back his laughter.

Chicago was a hot ticket, with "All That Jazz" and "Can't do it alone". The latter won the whole show, although I personally thought the tap show deserved at least a mention for their crazy costumes and polished perforamance. But what do I know? Politics. You'd think it was the oscars. To these kids, it IS.