Six Degrees of David Wenham
Mood:  a-ok

Okay, you all know the party game, "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". Somebody names an actor, then you have to link them to Kevin Bacon via other actors who've appeared in films together. It's based on that Stanley Milgram study from the 1950s, where he found that it takes an average of six people to link any two people in the world together.

So, for anybody reading this blog, odds are you can link yourself to David Wenham via six or fewer intermediaries. Even if you live on a remote Pacific atoll that gets visited by a mail ship once every five years.

Not too long ago, I was startled to discover that my degree of separation from David is one person. The link is Glenn Murcutt, who appeared in the film "Inside the Mind of the Architect", narrated by David. Back in 1993, at architecture school, Mr. Murcutt was our visiting studio professor. His work is utterly original and fascinating - he builds houses you could actually picture yourself living in. He uses simple building materials (recycled timber, corrugated steel), with linear forms and moveable shades designed to capture sunlight and allow for maximum windflow. His design motto (borrowed from the Aborigines) is "Touch the earth lightly", so his houses often perch on stilts and wind through existing trees. Tres cool.

Okay, so it probably doesn't count as a genuine Kevin Bacon link if David and Glenn didn't interact in the film. But, that's about as good as it gets.

Unless maybe when my cousins lived in Sydney during the 1980s, they had some random connection to David. But let's assume they didn't. It's a big city. I used to play roller hockey with this girl from New Zealand, and it drove her crazy whenever anybody said "You're from New Zealand? Hey, do you know Mary?"