At least none were stuck together

You know those delightful little urban myths that occasionally happen in real life? The hope for little miracles upon which Antiques Roadshow is based, where some innocent is happily browsing a bookstore or Seconde Hande Shoppe and comes across a quaint little trinket which just happens to be worth millions.

[Actually, I take that back about Antiques Roadshow. Its success is based on the audience's hope that Old Lord and Lady Picklenose will present their supposedly priceless Faberge eggs only to be told that these particular examples were a popular prize at fairgrounds during the 1970s. "Probably worth between 5 and 10 pound - to a collector" the expert will explain cheerfully while Sir Chumpbottom's greasy smile droops down around his tweed lapels.
Don't even try to deny that you've secretly shouted 'Sucked in, you greedy twerp!' when that happens. But I digress.]

My thing is old books. I love the way they smell, the cool old tooling covers, the quaint little drawings and poems inside along with the copperplate inscriptions and the exciting dates - if they have any. I know nothing about it, but I still love the feeling of treasure hunting when I go into second hand book stores, looking for either comics or a bargain.

So there I am, in Port Elliot, about twenty minutes away from raiding the famous bakery and scouring the shelves for something cool.

I come across this:


It really is a beautiful little item, about 8 by 10 inches. 1865. Unfortunately, it appears that most of the pages have long ago fallen out - it's just cover boards and title pages. Fortunately, it's full of old drawings and lithographs. Like this one:


And this one:


Nice, eh? Then there's a few different ones like this:


and, erm, this:


Now I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking "What marvellous drawings! What fine detail! I must see more!"
You're thinking that because that's what I was thinking too. Then I turned that drawing over and found, well, this:


No problem. Very artistic, right? Right. Artistic. Great composition, a wonderful example of early photography in the naturalistic form which ....



... ah, yes, see, this is also a fine example of, um, what's obviously a collection of artistic interpretations of the early twentieth century appreciation of femininity as exemplified by the emphasis on .....

R ... right.
Hrmm ... well that still doesn't mean that I haven't stumbled upon a grouping of art works which can be recognised as representative of an era famous for its lithography and the skill of its craftsmen and artists, many of whom were ...

Okay then. Maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe the collector just happened to have put all the racy ones at the front and kept the real groundbreaking artistic work at the ...


Nope. More naughties.
Okay, if the next one isn't sexy, then I definitely haven't stumbled upon some stone-aged secret spank book from a deceased estate.
Closing eyes, crossing fingers, turning page ... and it's ....

Oh.
Fucking great. Here I was, hoping to find a bargain first edition and here am, potentially handling the dried remains of millions of little 'first editions'. Gross.
Surely that's it.

Oh man. What is this stuff?
It looks like nuns were really the thing back then. I suppose they had to work out some way to spice things up - what with everything being taboo'n'shit. It's not like today with the internet and everything imaginable at the touch of a button. They probably didn't have a whole lot of weird fetishes or anything because it's not like ...



Does this book come with hand sanitiser?

A stifling review

Tim Winton's Breath

**spoiler alert**

Is just like Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo, but with Michael Hutchence swinging from a wardrobe door in the background.
No, not really an addition I would have made either.

A cutting review.

I know we all love it when I review children's books. I'm so witty. I'm so thoughtful. I'm so mean. How could I trash my peers so easily? Why would I say anything detrimental to that art of arts: writing? Why do I insist on shooting myself in the foot while punching my betters in the face? (Because, let's face it, they's published and I ain't).

Because they deserve it. I would expect the same and when I receive it, I will chew my knuckle in pain and make excuses and point fingers, but the reality is that you write for your readers, whoever they are. If they hate it and can articulate why, then that's your problem, not theirs.

***

Blade: Playing Dead and Blade: Closing In by Carnegie medallist, Tim Bowler, are the first and second books in a four part series. The story follows the eponymous Blade on his adrenalin-fuelled adventures around a present-day British capital city. Blade is a fourteen year old tough kid with university-grade street smarts and a past. He narrates the action in first-person present tense, addressing the reader as ‘Bigeyes’ (an excellent touch) and placing his captive audience squarely beside him with instructions to keep watch or admonitions to stop asking so many damn questions. His voice is original and believable and his modern day street kid lingo almost conceals the fifty-five-year-old author behind it, trawling chatrooms, blogs and networks, straining for the holy grail of young adult fiction: authentic, un-self-conscious cool.

The Blade books are, on the surface, gritty, exciting, compulsive reading. Blade himself is neck-deep in action from the first page; shoplifting, back-talking, battling rival gangs, mixing up with murder, crime and intrigue and doing it all alone. He refers to past events and tragedies while still hiding them from the reader, as though Bigeyes too, must earn his trust before he will elaborate on exactly what they have to do with his current circumstances.

The target audience (reluctant, young, mostly male readers) will appreciate the honest, uncensored action and violence. Nothing is glossed over or hidden for their protection: people get hit, beaten up, stabbed, shot and killed, but the story doesn’t call for gore and glorification of the violence. We experience see these shocking events through the eyes of a fourteen year old boy who isn’t happy about seeing them. The realism of the action flows through its restrained telling.
However, the gruff, mistrustful fourteen year old narrator does create a problem. Despite the attempts to explain his verbosity and thoughtfulness through his hidden past and some-time penchant for books, the entire mis-en-scene, as described in relentless stream-of-consciousness by Blade, is shallow and black and white at best. While this is a deliberate decision by Bowler to maintain the tough, realistic feel of the story, it does rob the audience of any real sense of the world in which Blade lives. He breaks into half a dozen houses and visits different parts of the city, but none really differentiate from the others. Setting feels entirely unimportant as Blade is either running from predators through identical streets, lanes and parks or hiding quietly from them in equally-interchangeable safe house locations. There is no real vivid picture painting going on, just minimalist exposition: dark, light, locked, un-locked, urgent, quiet. There are no colours, tastes or smells. Physical descriptions are limited to functional details relevant to Blade’s progress. The sparse prose certainly serves the purpose of not impeding the action, but action without place is just interpretive dance.

There have been better action sequences. Bowler hangs grimly to his formula throughout: trouble, escape, hide, repeat. A few of the afore-mentioned realistically portrayed acts of violence are sprinkled in for (slight) variation. Suspense is drawn from the reader like an expected curtesy rather than something the author has worked for. Blade spends about half of his time demonstrating his uncanny extrasensory perception (foresight, x-ray vision and mind-reading) and the other half making decisions based on completely ignoring those perceptions. Maybe there’s a reason for this confluence of sixth-sense and foolishness, but, two books in, no explanation has been forthcoming other than Blade’s irritating mantra, ‘Don’t ask how I know, I just know.’

This reluctance to outline base facts and the Blade series’ approach to character development and structure all point towards one clear fact: these books are a rip off. Rip. Off. A rort, a scam. A tricky little scheme to make money. The series is comprised of a series of four separate books, sold as such for $14.95 each. All released at once, each containing the covers of the entire set within their back cover.

The problem is that each book isn’t a stand-alone story, designed to be enjoyed both separately and as a part of the whole. The first two books, at least, contain only minor parts of a single story arc; they provide no solutions and implore the reader on their back pages to purchase the next instalment. There are only hints pointing towards the major points upon which the story hangs: where is Blade going and from where has he come? In order to learn the answers, young readers must spend the better part of simply to finish reading a story with all the markers of an urban thriller and none of the intriguing charm. Blade should have been sold as a single book. There are no chapters to divide events into manageable sections for younger readers and the tone and subject matter both point towards an audience of an age easily able to deal with longer texts. As an artistic exercise this series is the equivalent of selling four full-price tickets to one movie and just as reprehensible on the part of the producers.

Coupled with the current fashionable hysteria in Britain over knife attacks (Blade, predictably, is a master with a concealed weapon), the Blade series reeks of savvy publishers striking while the iron is plugged in and ready to press the party shirt of the Zeitgeist. Dividing a single B-grade story over four separate, full-priced novels is a truly masterful piece of marketing at the expense of artistic product and the pockets of reluctant readers.

***
GTH - Shippy, Squib and River are all kicking goals and being awarded points. It might seem like a rip off, but it's really not!

Sometimes I use the shard to pick my teeth

It's been a day for writing all around. The blog is really coming into its own name! Well ... the blog's author.
In keeping with the last post about the long essays I tend to bombard other people's comments pages with, I duly posted a long screed on Audrey's latest blog post (an article about the criminal human rights abuses that take place in Iran under the banner of 'religion') that actually concluded in an imaginary conversation between a Christian fundamentalist and a Muslim fundamentalist.
I present it for your puzzlement below:

Sometimes I think it's a good thing that fundamentalist christians and muslims hate each other SSOOOOO much, because can you imagine what it would be like if they actually got together?
FC: Ah think thayt women should NOT be allowed to drive! No suh!
FM: Me neither! Those dirty sluts are always choosing their own clothes and thinking their own thoughts! It drives me crazy!
FC: Ah'm with you pardner! Drahves me raht up tha wall! Women in public ... hrm hrm ... BLASPHEMY!
FM: Yes! Blasphemy! Stone them! Stone them to death!
FC: Really? You can do that?
FM: Yes! Our holy book says it's okay!
FC: Is that true? What a great idea! Where does it say that?
FM: It doesn't ... really. Strictly speaking ... but if you read it in the right way it does!
FC: What if'n a woman tries to find out what's goin' on and change that law?
FM: Stone her! To death!
FC: Awl Raht!
FM: Let's be best friends and lock up all the women!
FC: Put her there pal!
FM: Death to the infidel!
FC: Let's get some ribs!
FM: How about KFC instead?
FC: Deal!

But that isn't the only writing in what I promised would be a blog full of it. 327 sent me an excellent link to a writer called John Scalzi, a very successful freelance writer, who has just published an article called 'Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money'. As I wrote to 327 earlier, I'm quite proud to say that I both know and have followed most of the ten excellent pieces of monetary advice he sets out in the piece.
All except number three. And I'm darn proud of it.

And finally, after sharing a sad coffee last night with The Shorter Ginga before her departure for greener, quieter, more round-about-filled pastures this morning, I found myself heart-thumpingly awake and full of caffeinated vim at 2am. So I Googled myself of course (*insert smarty-pants reference to masturbation here*) and I discovered that my first ever properly published story, and also the reason Mele and I met, is now online in the form of a Google Book!

If you haven't read it before, then I must assure you that the main set piece is based upon a true story.

***

GTH - River and Milly went neck and neck with this one, so I'm awarding a point to each (from hazy boozy memory it is the Port Augusta chimney you're looking at there. But I'm also going to award double points to Jono for the most interesting comment. Thus is a new rule added to the GTH Points Tally! Yes, aside from guessing the picture, I'm giving out kudos to the person who leaves the most interesting comment. Correspondence will be entered into, bribes will be taken.

Franzy's Law #3

If your cookbooks don't have food stains in them, then you probably aren't doing it right.

***

I was in a book shop yesterday and saw Maggie Beer's foray into the cooking bible market Maggie's Food. It looks delightful and has an embroided cover and the recipes are divided into the seasons and there are whole sections on loquats and rabbit. It costs $125 and is around three inches thick. It looks as though it would be more at home on a lectern than bench top. Heck, it is a bench top. Only you wouldn't cook on a padded, porous bench top because it would soak up whatever you spilled into it. Same with Maggie's Food. It is such a beautiful object that you would hesitate before getting anywhere near anything sticky or decomposable. It is truly a tome to be treasured ... but not cooked with. If you were cooking your artichokes with waxy potatoes from the thing it would be a true pain in the arse to keep running out to the seminary to check how much verjuice to use.

So, get your cookbooks dirty, I say! Stand them up with the cutting board and let the sweet stains of chopped herbs and fragrant fresh blood splash the pages! Make the food your bookmarks! 'Have I cooked this before? Aha! The transparency of peanut oil! I remember now! It was delicious!'
And so forth.

Cookbooks should be designed like bathtime books, made of bendable durable plastic. But then they'd be too easy to wipe clean again ... hmm ...

The PhD Student's New Proposal

You're right! You're all right! It has been far far far too long between posts. Mea culpa! But I was working. As has been said on this blog before: the less frequent the posts, the more that's actually happening in my own backyard (ie. 2 well-swept square metres of concrete porch).

I have been workin' it and workin' it hard. The Proposal is finally out and over. For those who don't know the tortuous story, here is the condensed version:

A year ago my supervisor flicked me an email asking me to bring along everything I had for my exegesis (the mini-thesis one writes in conjunction with their creative work) and give the proposal (a speech about what your research is going to be on) a first run. I walked into the tute room with my bibliography and a few notes about the interesting news articles I had been collecting and, relying on my ability to speak in public, started telling everyone what I thought my research was going to be about.
I cringe even now. It was like one of those dreams where you're naked and can't find clothes. I didn't so much conclude my little speech as trail off. Everyone was very constructive about it, through their embarrassed shock at my lack of preparation, and I slunk away, promising to have "something more polished" to show my supervisors by the following fortnight.

Two drafts later: I still hadn't shown my face at any PhD meetings and I was having a Very Serious Meeting With Both Supervisors in which they were using words like "framework" and "methodology" and I was using words like "newspaper clippings" and "um". Finally an exasperated Jeri asked me: 'What sort of research did you do for your Masters and your Honours?'
'We didn't do any research. It was all creative writing coursework.'
I admired their extreme professionalism in that they didn't gasp in horror.

Then I got married.

Another quick draft later and I dragged my sorry arse into another meeting with Double Supervisors, seriously missing the glory days of being a sumo suit operator.
They liked it.
They understood it.
My half-baked idea about looking at class in young adult fiction made sense.
I rushed straight back to my study and slaved away, spewing 500-word-long sentences wondering when the emperor's new clothes were going to stop fooling people.

The presentation went well. People shook my hand afterwards. Two of the other academics who turn up to make sure you're not crazy actually made sure to congratulate me beforehand for finally taking a proper look at social class in literature. It is all done.

The week before the official presentation, I had finally completed enough of a draft to present in front of my colleagues again. A year after I stood up in front of my class and actually read out the sentence 'This is the hazier part of my thesis' (never were truer words spoken), I was able to regain some confidence and claim that social class can be used as a metaphor for the oppression experienced by the young protagonists of young adult fiction without anyone avoiding my eye afterwards.

However, I almost didn't go through with it. Just before I was due to give a 'dry run' presentation, a few of us were in the tea room, preparing warm brownness for my upcoming seminar. Another lecturer and supervisor saw me and said that she thought my proposal was very interesting, but that she didn't quite understand it. My heart turns to porridge.
'Oh?' I said, trying to sound non-suicidal.
'Yes,' she continued. 'I tried to read quite a bit of it, but it didn't really link up. There didn't appear to be any real cohesion between the sections.'
I edged towards the window, ready to make a break for the Tasmanian wilderness. A life of cold rain and hunting stray sheep awaited.
'I even tried clicking a few of the videos, but it still didn't ...' It was her turn to trail off.
Videos?
...
...
Ohhh. 'You mean my blog, you mean my webpage.'
'Well isn't that what you sent in the email to everyone?'
'No. I mean, yes, but the email had the proposal attached mmm anyway, yes I have it here, it's different I think we're starting ...'
In my piss-poor quest for publicity every email I send has the signature "Writing (click here!)" at the bottom. It almost had me living a self-sufficient lifestyle among the forests of Vaginal Euphemism Island.

***
I'd like to extend a massive congratulations to my great friend Stefan Laszczuk for winning the 2007 Vogel Literary Prize for his unpublished (but soon-to-be-published) manuscript I Dream of Magda. There were nicer photos around, but I believe this one is the funniest and the one he'd probably appreciate the most.
He was on the ABC news last night. They filmed him in his self-imposed uniform of t-shirt and backpack strolling along and then sitting on a concrete wall with a tiny notebook and pen to quickly scribble out some notes for the next prize-winning novel. The novel is about a young man who fantasises about the characters played by Maga Szubanski and so they also had a short interview with Magda herself, who looked very flattered and puzzled at the thought that someone had written a prize-winning novel staring her own creations. Media publicity is indeed a strange thing.
All ribbing aside, I am extraordinarily proud of him. And instead of feeling insanely jealous like I suppose one probably should in the ultra-competitive world of Australian literature, I am surprised to find that I'm inspired to continue writing my own work (which I haven't really had a chance at since Captain Proposal took over). No more! Back to blogging! Back to the novel(s)!

***
GTH - Aye, it's been too long in coming and The Other, other Sam does indeed take the prize. The photo was taken during my last grand final in 2004 by Trent, who was too slow to check the blog to win the points. It shows a Coopers Pale being drunk at The Pines Hockey Stadium in Gepps Cross and the shadow may well have been me. Speaking of grand finals, this year's hockey campaign is over as of last weekend. Beaten by Port the Nemesis again. Well, not beaten, but after a 2-all draw, the highest team goes through and it was them. Darn.
And for a little insult to injury, today I am going to watch my old team, the Div 4 Rhinos play in their own grand final to which they have pretty much cruised after thrashing the shit out of most sides in the division all year and which I had to hear about as I rehabilitated quick enough to have joined them on this perfect day for a final. Sunny, cold and a little breezy. The Knee would have loved it.

In the blogosphere no one can hear your audience groan

I might have said it before, but when the blogs go down in regularity, the work rate in real life goes up. A shame really, because I should have capitalised on the unforeseen popularity of the Guess The Header poser from last week. I'm actually surprised that people didn't guess more books, but I suppose that's only because I'm the one that sits there looking at them all the time.

I would like to extend some mad props to the hockey boys who zinged me with my own pet peeve before training on Tuesday night, thereby proving my theory right that I would regret bringing it up. Unfortunately I had been listening to Tool very very loudly and hence was in no state to understand what the hell they were talking about when they kept saying "That was so funny!" So, as promised on the night: Number 7: Contextless jokes.

A quick hi to Herr Rogers who also got me a ripper last weekend in similar circumstances:
'And what about that one: "I would never, ever drive stoned ... not unless I was really hungry."'
I thought that was a solid gold pearler. Pissed myself laughing, I did.
'Where did you get that?' I asked once my breath had been regained.
A short silence followed.
'That was you, actually.'
Oh.

The reason I'm so slow on the uptake is because I have been working and studying almost non-stop, apart from brief hockey and beer-related activities. The "good" news is that the PhD proposal presentation that I've been worrying about for nigh on a year has been rescheduled from mid-October to ... dum dum da dum ... a week-and-a-half's time! Wish me luck! Aargh!
When I received the email that broke this "wonderful" news, I was lucky enough to have my webcam running so you can see for yourself my reaction shortly afterwards:




And now, without further adodo

Guess The Header
Pretty anti-climactic really: Here are the pictures, as promised:



And the original source of all the trouble:

Points go to Nai for actually getting a title, Milly-Moo for turning her computer sideways and squinting and Neil for being a smartarse with the answer about counting the books and for being a spelling-nazi. I'm tempted subtract points from Trent for planning to come over and scour my bookshelves, but I'll leave them there because he admitted it and he's got a sore ankle.

****

In this week's GTH we return to a simple guessing-game: where was this photo taken? There is an important clue: somewhere in Adelaide. The winner will be the person who gets the closest.

Welcome to the Scrollhouse

Aaaah ... new blogdom.
No time for news, just a picture.