But I’ll be eating here very very very soon.
Have I mentioned that I love being home in Sydney?
Now if only I didn’t have to work so hard and could take some days off to really enjoy it. Like, say, tomorrow, in front of the tellie what will be showing the first test against South Africa at the WACA.
Can’t have everything I spose.
Hope you’re all as happy as I am.
The best thing about being home—other than hanging out with my family—is the fruit. So far I have gorged on cherries, lychees, mangoes, passionfruit, sugar bananas, nectarines, peaches and . . . wait for it . . . mangosteens!
Mmmmmm.
My life is perfect.
I have a mountain of work, admin, packing, and correspondence to catch up on, but instead I am reading through my new favourite blog, Cake Wrecks, which I discovered via an old favourite blog, Jenny Davidson’s Light Reading. I’m sure all of you have been enjoying it for years. What can I say? I am slow.
So far it has led me to many pleasures but few top the delight of the world’s worst Dalek cakes. I confess that I laughed so hard I cried.
Then it led me to this. The making of the most incredible cake I have ever seen:
Apparently it took twelve days to make. Wow. Just wow.
I have decided that I will do all future signings my way and ignore Scott’s advice entirely. The only people who can tell me to hurry up when signing is whoever is running it. So there, Scott!
I hasten to add that crazy long signings are not a regular occurrence for me. They pretty much only happen at places like NCTE or TLA or on school visits. If I had lines like Scott gets routinely I would probably study how he gets through a line speedily while also managing to chat to those he’s signing for. He is a master. He does in fifteen seconds what takes me a minute.1
Thanks so much for your responses. They will keep me strong next time I have a long signing!
Over at Alien Onion, the blog of my Oz publisher, Allen & Unwin, there’s some talk about walking and reading at the same time.
It is a skill I wish I had. My few attempts have been sad failures. Thing is when I read I get so sucked into the story I have no idea what’s going on around me. Which is not good when there are other people around and, worse—cars. Once I walked into a light post. Let us not speak of it.
I suspect my problem is not just reading and walking at the same time but any kind of multi-tasking. I have a slow simple brain that struggles to do more than one thing at a time. Sigh.
What about youse lot? Are you more successful than I am at walking and reading at the same time?
In just a few days I’ll be back on the road—to Texas—winding up the HTDYF tour. I’ll also be promoting Love is Hell, answering all your questions, finding out what everyone’s fairy is, and converting those who need converting to the glorious ways of zombies.
Tomorrow I’ll be doing an appearance right here in Manhattan with many fantabulous authors. I did my very first YA author appearance at Books of Wonder. Way back in the olden days with Eoin Colfer and Scott. It was incredible. Peter Glassman (Books of Wonder’s proprietor) has been very good to me and Scott in the ensuing years. It’s always a pleasure to do a Books of Wonder event:
Do please join us! Also if you attend would you do me the favour of asking every author there to declare their allegiance on the zombies versus uni***n front? We have a right to know!
Then next Wednesday I will be in Austin, Texas, city of amazing food and people and music. Yum! This is my only event of the How To Ditch Your Fairy tour that includes Scott. I think we shall have fun. Not least because BookPeople is one of my fave bookshops in the entire US of A:
And then my last event of the tour will be in gorgeous San Antonio. Land of great boots and wondrous food:
And thus will end my HTDYF tour.
Or will it?
Stay tuned those of you who live in Sydney and Melbourne and possibly even Perth. There’s a very good chance that in February and March I will be doing a few events at home for my fabulous Australian publisher, Allen & Unwin. Actually the Melbourne event is not a possibility anymore—it’s an actuality! More info as I gets it.
Really looking forward to meeting some more of you in the next few days and weeks! Zombie power!
Over at Daily Kos, Meteor Blades (via Scott) has an article on accents in which he points out that, yes, everyone has one and quotes Geoffrey Nunberg being smart on the same topic:
It’s also a delusion. Or at least if your speech is like yourself, it’s because both are a work in progress. My own speech covers a lot more territory than it did when I was growing up in a New York suburb. Sometimes it shifts toward what people would hear as East Coast nondescript. And sometimes it gets pretty sidewalks-of-New York, particularly when I’m talking to friends from college days. (“Hey — you never used to talk like that,” my sister once said to me after she overheard me talking on the phone with one old friend.) But it doesn’t make sense to ask what part of that is my “authentic” voice. You grow up, you meet new people, you change the way you talk. If you still sound the same way you did when you were fifteen, you haven’t been getting out enough.
That’s my emphasis on the last sentence. Because, well, EXACTLY. People who travel a lot, live in other places, and pick up some of the local accents, aren’t freaks, they’re just paying attention. Accents are never set in stone unless your ears are clogged and you’re living in a hole in the ground. (And even then wouldn’t you pick up a worm accent or something?)
We are all hybrids.
That is all.
I’m sure you all know about it, but I am having a ball going through shorpy’s historical photos. Though there aren’t nearly enough from the early 1930s. Still. Dead fascinating.
To everyone who sent me the photo of the Aussie spider eating the Aussie bird: Why, yes, out spiders are tough. But our birds are not wussy.
One of the biggest culture shocks for me as an Australian living (some of the time) in the USA is voting. Every election year I’ve been here there have been voter intimidation and fraud scandals. Maybe I missed it, but that does not happen at home. Not every single election.
Seems to me that the aim in the US is to make voting as difficult as possible. Why? I don’t get it. I’ve had friends disallowed to vote because the official said they had the wrong ID. It didn’t exactly match the name on the voter rolls. As in, their driver’s license had their middle name spelled out in full, “Rachel”, but the voter roll had just a middle initial, “R”. I’ve heard of all sorts of arcane local voting rules that are aimed solely at keeping people from voting.
I find it incomprehensible because I come from a country where voting is made as easy as possible. In fact, you get fined if you don’t vote. Back home there are no books teaching you how to avoid having your vote suppressed.
Also what’s with the voting day being a Tuesday and then that day not being declared a holiday? I know people who have a really hard time getting off work in order to vote. Sadly they live in areas where early voting isn’t possible.
And what’s with all the different areas of the US having different methods of voting? Paper ballots here, mechanical machines there, electronic machines way over there, and goat’s entrails in the hinterlands. Wouldn’t uniform voting laws across the country so that everyone casts their vote in the same way make a lot more sense?
Again. I just don’t get it. At home we have an independent electoral authority in charge of the whole thing. And, like I said we don’t have voting scandals every election.
A country that makes voting hard is making democracy hard. Voting isn’t just a right, it’s a duty.
So you don’t think I’m entirely down on the USian version of democracy here’s what I like about the US system:
Fixed terms.
Brilliant idea. I wish Australia did that. One person in power for more than eight years is a really bad idea.
Allen & Unwin, my Australian publisher, has a blog: Alien Onion. (See if you can figure out why it is thus named.) And they has written a post welcoming me. I is dead chuffed. Thank ‘ee!
There’s also a preview of the Oz cover of How To Ditch Your Fairy. See if you can spot what’s different to the US cover.
Do check out the rest of their blog it’s the most lively fun publisher’s blog I’ve seen. With lots of excellent guests and pictures of cake. I think it will give you an inkling of why I am so ecstatic that Allen & Unwin is my new Australian home.
Pixelfish had this to say in comments. I could not let it languish there:
At what point did publishers start getting anal about the usage variations between the US and all other English speaking countries? Because my original copies of the Chronicles of Narnia had English spellings, but my new ones don’t and are in the wrong order. My Canadian copies of Harry Potter have the Britishisms intact, even though they don’t use all the slang, but the US ones don’t. I liked it better when US YA publishers let me find out MORE about the world instead of LESS. Part of the reason I read was to get away from my perfectly safe little Utah neighbourhood. But I digress . . . oh boy, howdy, do I digress.
I have no idea when that started. But it is a Very. Bad. Thing. I disapprove. HEARTILY.
Back at home I grew up with books with Commonwealth spelling and also with USian spellings. So Enid Blyton & Patricia Wrightson = colour. Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys = color. Though sometimes the punctuation would be changed.
I really hate the way many US publishers USianise things. I was just reading the US edition of an Australian book set in Oz with Oz characters. Except that the characters compared things to the size of a dime. (We don’t have dimes in Australia.) They discussed each others height in feet and inches. (Australia is metric.) The distances they drove were in miles. (Ditto. We have kilometres.) They used no Aussie slang. Everything that could be even a tiny bit confusing to a US reader was changed.
It drove me crazy. I stopped reading the book. I’ll read the Australian edition when I go home.
How stupid do publishers think readers are? We can figure stuff out from context. If we don’t know stuff we can look it up. Part of the fun of reading a book set in a different country is learning about the differences. Changing the spelling, adding “dimes” and “quarters”, removing all the local slang, wrecks the flavour and rhythm of the book. I think it’s a dreadful editorial decision and I wish they’d stop doing it.
Er, what you said, Pixelfish.
Many of you have been asking, “When is How To Ditch Your Fairy going to be published in Australia?” I apologise for not answering. For ages I did not know if it would be or not and then it sold and I was not allowed to tell you. But now I can!
How To Ditch Your Fairy will be published in Australia in late February by the fabulous Allen & Unwin. That’s right I am now published by the same house that publishes Ursula Dubosarsky, Margo Lanagan, Garth Nix, Penni Russon and Lili Wilkinson amongst many other fabulously wonderful Oz YA writers.
What’s more A&U are not only publishing HTDYF, they’re publishing the liar book too!
Keeping this news to myself has been excruciating!
Not only will the book be coming out in Oz next Feb, which is mere months away, but I may even be doing a few appearances in support of it. Possibly in parts of Australia other than Sydney or Melbourne. More details as soon as I have them.
As you can tell I’m very excited. I feel like I’ve found a wonderful home in Australia just as I have with Bloomsbury in the USA. I hope to be with both houses for many years to come.
Update: Several people have written to ask me whether the Oz edition will have the same cover as the US one. Yes, it will. The fonts will be slightly different and “colour” and “realise” wil be spelled correctly. It will also be a paperback not a hardcover.
I stopped studying maths in Year 7. Before that I’d made a bit of an effort but in my first year of high school (in New South Wales high school starts in Year 7) I downed tools. I was bored, annoyed, and couldn’t see the point so I quit. Technically I kept going to maths class—it was compulsory until the end of Year 10—but I failed each year and was never made to repeat. I didn’t learn anything new after Year 6.
At the time I thought it was excellent that I could get away with it. In class I read novels under the desk. I never studied and finished my maths exams quicker than anyone else cause I guessed all the answers. Thus giving me more time to read novels.
Now I regret it. My regret is very very very big. Because now I don’t have the underpinnings to understand even the most basic mathematics and science. (I also stopped studying science very early.) Writing the Magic or Madness trilogy was a nightmare. It’s very difficult to write a character who is a mathematical prodigy when you yourself are a mathematical moron.
My current regret, however, is fuelled by the Rethinking Basketball blog. Quentin who writes it is a numbers boy. He has all sorts of fancy formulas and statistics to map the performances of different WNBA players and teams. Like how to take defence into account when figuring out who the Most Valuable Player should be.
I understand almost none of it and that fact fills me with despair. If I could go back in time I would tell the bored and cranky twelve-year-old me that maths would come in handy later on and I should really pay attention to the nice man. (My Year 7 maths teacher was a sweetie, who did not deserve me as a student.)
But plenty of people—including my parents—were telling me that at the time and I ignored them. I probably would have ignored the adult me as well. Sigh.
So it’s now more than a little bit ironic that I am in the position of telling twelve year olds that they should pay attention in maths class. But you really really should. Who knows when or where it will come in handy. But trust me, it will. Don’t be as stupid as I was.
This has been a public service announcement. You are most welcome.
I’m lying awake with a nasty case of bunker brain. Sleep eludes and weird thoughts intrude. I’m trying to combat them by
b) trying to figure out how to describe the smell of flying foxes without using the words “musk” or “feral”.
Also I’m wishing I could draw.
How about you?
Garth Nix has written a clear and very smart further explication of his position in the comments of my post on the dread effects parallel importing will have on Australian publishing. If you’re at all interested in this debate it is a must read. Thank you, Garth.
Update: Some more smart commentary from Mr Nix in which he explains how international publishing works.
Some more thoughts on yesterday’s post:
Australia, like New Zealand and Canada and Jamaica and South Africa and many other mainly English-speaking countries, has had a long battle to publish its own stories by and for its own people. The majority of the books we buy and read are not by Australians but come from the UK and the USA. Creating our own publishing industry, which published Australian books was a struggle and to this day many Australian books are subsidised by the Australian government.
But despite all the obstacles and expenses there is an Australian publishing industry and it publishes many wonderful Australian writers. Peter Carey, now an internationally known writer, was first published by the University of Queensland Press. Well-known Australian YA writers like Margo Lanagan, Melina Marchetta, Jaclyn Moriarty, Garth Nix, and Marcus Zusak were all first published in Australia and that’s where they established their reputations. Their success in other markets came later.
If parallel importing had existed when they were first establishing themselves would they have been nurtured in the same way and gone on to the same kind of success?
I also wonder about the writers who are successful at home but have never made the transition to broader markets. What will happen to them under parallel importing? Will they no longer be published at all? Or be published by such small presses that it will be impossible to find their books?
And what about the Australian classics that are rarely, if ever, published or read overseas? Books like Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career, Henry Handel Richardson’s The Getting of Wisdom, Ethel Turner’s Seven Little Australians, Barbara Baynton’s Bush Studies, Sally Morgan’s My Place not to mention the works of Banjo Patterson, Ruth Park and Henry Lawson. What overseas publishing house will be interested in keeping them in print?
It’s also important to remember that those writers who are published overseas have to change their voices in order make sense to non-Australian audiences. As Nick Earls points out in his letter to Prime Minister Rudd against parallel importing, foreign editions of Australian books are not the same as the homegrown edition:
Also, it is common for changes—sometimes substantial changes—to be made before a book is published in an export market, particularly the US. Many Australian references are lost and idiomatic language is altered. These are compromises we make in order to be published in the US, and to communicate specifically with US readers.
Parallel importing must not be adopted.
Garth Nix is full of wisdom. He has written a very smart and wise and passionate argument against parallel importing. I agree with every single word.
Basically there are plans to allow booksellers to import foreign English-language editions of books into Australia without restriction. The argument is that this will bring down the heinous price of books. Australian books really are insanely expensive. I’ve seen mass market paperback for more than AU$20.1
However surrendering the Australian market is NOT the way to fix that problem. As Garth writes
I am surprised there is support for an “open” market in Australia because it would be no such thing. It would actually be a “surrendered” market. The entire publishing world still works on the basis of territorial copyright and it will do so for a long time to come, despite electronic editions and the Internet, of which I will have more to say down the page. This is particularly the case with English-language publishing. The USA and the UK have actually been strengthening their respective book copyright regimes, not surrendering them. What is “open” about Australian-published books not being able to be sold in the USA or the UK, but American, British or any other English-language edition from anywhere being able to be freely sold here?
Internet retailers would be able to sell books much much cheaply than real world booksellers because they don’t have to worry about attracting passing customers and thus can have their operations out in the much cheaper boondocks. Unlike the real world booksellers who not only pay higher rents but have to make sure their book shops are well-kept and inviting to customers. They also have to pay more staff. And the bigger the internet retailer—like Amazon—the easier it would be for them to sell books cheaper and wipe out all competition. Parallel importing would be a disaster for local booksellers. Just as it would be a disaster for local publishers.
It would also make it a lot harder for Australian writers to get published:
But besides the Australian publishers and booksellers, you know who would really be affected by a Surrendered Market? Beginning authors, like I was, twenty years ago, when my first book was published by an Australian publisher, and sold by Australian bookshops. That same beginning author, in a brave new world of a Surrendered Market, would likely have only small presses to go to here, or needs must go straight into competition against every English-speaking author in the world who wants to be published in the USA or the UK.
The majority of Australian writers will tell you how difficult it is to get published overseas. The introduction of parallel importing means that will be their only option.
Like Garth I am not speaking from narrow self-interest as the introduction of parallel imports is unlikely to have much of an affect on my career because I am primarily published out of the USA. But Australia is my country and I care passionately about developments that will dramatically reduce the number of Australian books in the world.
I have friends who have not been picked up by publishing houses in the US and the UK because their books are “too Australian” and not sufficiently “universal to have appeal outside Australia”. Whether that’s true or not (I can think of any number of extremely Oz books that have been published to great success in the US) it is true that if you are mainly submitting to a foreign market it will affect how you write. Killing off the local Australian publishing industry is going to kill off many uniquely and wonderfully Australian voices.
I think that will be a disaster.
You know the homesickeness has gotten silly when you watch this lovely video what’s been doing the rounds and making everyone smile and you burst into tears at the brief shot of Sydney . . .
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Recently the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra launched Sounds of Australia a collection of recordings to mark Australian history and culture. One of the most recent additions was “Most People I Know (Think that I’m Crazy)” by Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs.
Fair enough, thought I. That’s a song I’ve heard a million billion kajillion times and think of as being very Aussie. I also thought it was one of our first hits overseas. However, my extremely accurate research indicates that that might not be so. I’ve been asking several of my USian friends if they know the song. So far none of them do.1
So, do any of you non-Australians know this song? And if you did were you aware that it’s Australian?
For bonus points do you non-Aussies know “Eagle Rock” by Daddy Cool? (Try not to laugh to hard at the vid.) So far no-one I’ve asked, not even Scott, knows this one:
And how about Yothu Yindi’s “Treaty”? It could not be more Aussie. Hope it winds up in Sounds of Australia:
As should “From Little Things Big Things Grow” by Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly:
Version the most recent:
Version the original(ish):
Thank you non-Australians for participating in my extremely scientific survey.
Australia is now the most obese nation in the world.
I have been conducting a series of scientific experiments on how to cure homesickness. Here is my latest finding:
LISTENING TO MUSIC FROM HOME DOES NOT WORK.
In fact, it makes it much much worse. I have been listening to Oz music for the last four hours. Some of it music I don’t even like. So far I have cried 4.7 times.
I feel my findings are conclusive and I can now cease the experiment.
Next: The stabbing-your-hand-with-toothpicks cure.
Wish me luck.
Tasmanian marsupial lives that is. Scientists back home have discovered that marsupials really really really don’t like dingo pee. They avoid it like the plague which means that farmers and the forestry industry can stop poisoning wildlife in order to protect crops. Spray the wee around and the critters stay away and the crops grow unmolested. Everybody wins.
Apparently it also makes a really lovely perfume.1
There’s controversy right now in US women’s basketball because an American player, Becky Hammon, is going to play for Russia in the Olymics. The coach of the US Olympic squad, Anne Donovan, has called her a traitor. Others have different views: like how can Becky be a traitor when she was never asked to try out for the US squad despite putting up MVP (most valuable player) numbers and being one of the best guards in the world?
Mechelle Voepel writes a very smart and nuanced article about the furore:
It’s all fascinating to me on a lot of levels because it has made me think about so many things: what the Olympics really are, the ways the world has changed in my lifetime, the difference in thinking between “generations,” the bizarre economics of global women’s basketball . . . and, not least by any means, the amazing cult of Becky Hammon.
There are Hammonites:
The Hammonites are made up of these folks (Group 1), who include lesbians and straight guys. That Hammon effortlessly projects a confident, playful, tough-gal swagger is just more fuel for that fire.
Also among Hammonites are people (Group 2) who aren’t in the “Becky Babe Watch” mode but simply admire Hammon for her tenacity and fearlessness as a player, plus fondly see her as being like their daughter or granddaughter or niece. And lastly (Group 3), there are youngsters who just want to “be like Becky.”
The Hammonites are united in their belief that 5-foot-6 Becky always is underestimated—going back to her Colorado State days, her “undrafted” status (although it was because she got out of college in 1999, the year the ABL players were drafted into the WNBA) and her being “ignored” by USA Basketball.
I’m not sure where I fit in there. I don’t have a crush on Hammon, I don’t feel like she’s my daughter or niece, and I don’t want to be like her, but I admire her play. As a New York Liberty ticket holder I watched her play for years and get better and better and better. I certainly agree that she’s been consistently underestimated. in fact, Voepel leaves out what to me was the most egregious underestimation: Liberty coach Adabato never making her a starter, despite her earning it over and over again. She became a starter after he was fired and replaced by Patty Coyle.
The day I found out Hammon had been traded to San Antonio I almost cried.
Hammon is a joy to watch. She’s tough, smart and a gorgeous shooter and has a kind of physical charisma that is more commonly associated with men than women. She saunters, she grins, she commands the court. Part of it is the way she doesn’t let her lack of stature (she’s 1,68/5-6) get in the way. Our rookie point guard Lelani Mitchell (1,65/5-5) kind of reminds me of Becky though (as yet) she has none of that charisma. There are many reasons to be a Hammon fan. 
What’s most interesting to me about Becky’s decision to play for Russia is the economics of it. The money in women’s basketball is not in the US, right now it’s mostly in Russia. Hammon will be moving up from being a popular player on the winning CSKA team to being on the national team. There will be more endorsements and thus a lot more money.
We’ve all heard about women making 70% of what men make in the same jobs. But women in the WNBA earn about 1% of those in the NBA. Indeed, the worst-paid player in the NBA makes twice as much as the best-paid among the women. And, perhaps more astonishing, there are dozens of male players who make more than the total league-wide payroll of the WNBA.
(Photo credit: Gregory Bull, AP)
That’s a huge disparity and it’s the reason why the majority of the women play in more than one league. The WNBA in the (Northern) summer and Russia or Israel or Italy or wherever in the (Northern) winter. And many of the USians have non-American passports to get around the rules about the number of foreignors on a given team. Taurasi has an Italian passport, Sue Bird an Israeli one and as of the beginning of this year Becky Hammon has a Russian one.
I think part of the anger and discomfort around Becky’s decision is that in the past players who’ve come to play for the US or Australia (to cite the countries I know about) have come to escape oppression and to live a better life and earn WAY more money. The idea of the latter happening in reverse is startling. It plays on our fears of globalisation: the good jobs are moving overseas, along with the real economic power.
I’m sad that Becky never got the chance to play on the US Olympic team. Like Voepel I think she earned that opportunity last year when she turned in the best performances of her entire career (though sadly for San Antonio not New York). She came in second to Lauren Jackson in MVP voting and yet the US Olympic team still wasn’t interested. The US team has a ridiculous amount of talent to choose from. I don’t think Hammon’s absence is going to make much difference to Team USA, but I do think it will make a big difference to the Russians. I suspect that’s something else Donovan’s mad about.
Athletes don’t have a long shelf life. Hammon’s already 31. She has at most six or so playing years left. And then what? Earning as much as you can while you can and saving it in preparation for the many, many years of your life when you’re not playing is smart. Even if it means playing for a country not your own.
If it’s okay for countries like Australia and the US to add last minute “Australian” and “American” players then it should be okay for it to happen in reverse.
NB: The following post is not intended to be taken seriously. I do not want to change the way anyone speaks. Please stop sending me ranty emails and comments lecturing me on my presumptiousness and lack of understanding of the diversities of the English language. Thank you. Note to self: never write about language differences again.
So I just listened to John Waters going off about people who pronounce “picture” “pitcher”. That one does not bother me. But I cannot stand the way USians say “shone”. Seriously, it makes my ears bleed.
I should confess that for years I thought it was just Scott. He’d pronounce it all wrong when he was giving a reading and I’d be deeply embarrassed for him. I figured it was one of those words he’d never heard said out loud so he just didn’t know better. When I was little I had the same issue with “epitome”. But he’s a wee bit older than twelve now—time to pronounce “shone” correctly. So finally, a couple of weeks ago, I pointed it out to Scott, and taught him how to say the word properly.
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Justine, that’s how us Americans pronounce the word.”
“No way,” I said.
Scott is sometimes wrong about these things. He’s lived in Australia too long to be an authority about his own people. So I did some research. I asked everyone I know of the USian persuasion how they pronounce it. Tragically, Scott was right. Everyone in the entire country says “shone” incorrectly. I’m still stunned.
I’ve also been asking friends what hideous pronunications drive them spare. Top of the pops is “nuclear”. What pronunciations drive you insane?
Update: I’m dead pleased so many of you have entered into this in the spirit intended. However, some seem to be taking this WAY too seriously and to avoid flamewars—yes, there’s already been one ridiculously angry exchange—I’ve taken the liberty of deleting the cranky comments.
One of the many joys of English is that there is such a variety of accents and dialects and grammars. Everyone on this thread knows and loves that, including me. So please to hold your lectures. And, if someone does get cranky, please don’t respond in similar vein, okay? This is meant to be fun not a noo-kly-yar war.
I have occasionally intimated that I am not a huge fan of vampires. This is not entirely true.
When I was little I was a huge Anne Rice fan and read Bram Stoker’s Dracula many many times. I loved Lost Boys and Near Dark remains my favourite vampire movie. My love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is well documented and Suzy McKee Charnas’s Vampire Tapestry is one of my favourite books of all time.1
I’m just not a fan of the idea of dead people being sexy. This goes for zombies as well as vampires. Basically the older I get the more attached I am to life and the more unsexy death seems. Once people you love have died you start to see the whole vampire thing in a very different light.
It’s one of the many reasons I adored Narrelle M. Harris’s The Opposite of Life. It’s set in Melbourne and is a wonderfully accurate portrayal of the city. In my current horribly homesick state it might not have been a good idea for me to read it. Yes, I’m a Sydney girl but I love Melbourne too. And the whole book is so very Australian it got me all teary.
But I digress. What I most loved about the book was that the vampires were So Very Dead. There is a cost to being a vampire, a large cost. These vampires don’t just get to live forever looking young and pretty without any downside. I won’t say what the price is cause the way it emerges is one of the book’s many pleasures, that, and the fact that some of Harris’s vampires aren’t always glamorous. Some are middle aged, some plump, and one, Gary, is a really daggy dresser with a huge fanboy collection of vampire literature and DVDs. Gary the vampire. He’s fabulous.
Philosophically this is a book I’m in strong agreement with.
As yet, The Opposite of Life is only published in Australia. You can probably order a copy from most booksellers there. I recommend Galaxy Books in Sydney cause they’ve always been good to me.
I think the title says it all. Rather than me bore you with a description of same how about you lot cheer me up? Links to amusing sites, comics, whatever. Suggest fun reading, viewing, listening. Share an amusing anecdote. Make me think about something other than my not being in Sydney.
Yours in whingerland,
Justine
Several peoples have writ me saying, “See you at WisCon!” Alas and alack they will not. Scott’s niece Renee is graduating and we will be there to cheer her on. Go, Renee!
This is the second year in a row we have not been. I does not like it. WisCon is my favourite con in the whole world filled with all my favourite peoples. I love it so much that for a while there I organised the academic track and then the readings. I feel like I am a WisCon hometown girl. And here I am missing it again. Wah. Bad enough that I haven’t been to my real home in a year.
Hope everyone has fun without me. Even though that’s a little bit rude. I think you should all try to suffer for at least ten minutes or so. But, of course, because you’re all already in Madison you won’t even read this. Sigh.
I know some librarians read this blog occasionally. Well this is for you.
A play called “The Future Australian Race” is being performed in Melbourne at the State Library until this Friday. It sounds absolutely fantastic so if you can get there to see it, do so!
And for those of us no where near Melbourne there’s a podcast of The Book Show interview with the two playwrights Bill Garner and Sue Gore, who are both delightful. The play is about the relationship of Marcus Clarke, one of Australia’s first writers and the author of For The Term of His Natural Life and Sir Redmond Barry, the man who is best known for sentencing Ned Kelly. The two men met at the State Library of Victoria in the mid 19th century, where Barry was the head librarian and Clarke the sub-librarian.
The two men could not have been more different. Barry was a maker of lists. No, that’s too mild a way of putting it. This is a man, who before going on a long trip, made a list of every single item in his house down to the last teaspoon, who kept lists of every thing he ate, and every time he had sex (!). Clarke was not so much of a list person. According to Garner and Gore he’d start writing a list and quickly drift of into a line of poetry. The first historian of the State Libarian called him a “bad librarian,” as Gore and Garner put it: someone who’s “untidy and doesn’t keep a good catalogue.”
Listen to the podcast. It’s hilarious and fascinating. And if you can get to the play please do and report back on what it’s like cause I’m dead cranky I can’t go.
I’m now thinking of the librarians I know and I’m sorry to say quite a few of them are bad librarians. Messy, messy messy.
When homesickness eats at me I listen to podcasts. I listen to news broadcasts, talk shows, shows about sport, science, design, culture. I don’t care just as long as I’m hearing voices from home.
One of the my favourites is The Book Show1. Ramona Koval’s voice and sense of humour soothe me and the range of coverage is excellent: old books, new books, local books, o.s. books, books in translation, poetry, essays etc. etc.2
Last week was all poetry. They looked at five classic Oz poems. Beginning with one of my favourites, “Five Bells” By Kenneth Slessor:
The reading by Robert Menzies was gorgeous and the people commenting on it were smart and insightful. I first read “Five Bells” in high school, but I feel like I never really understood it until I listened to that show. Beautiful.
Made me wish I was back home because the Sydney he describes, the harbour he describes, I know it well and I miss it so much:
I looked out my window in the dark
At waves with diamond quills and combs of light
That arched their mackerel-backs and smacked the sand
In the moon’s drench, that straight enormous glaze,
And ships far off asleep, and Harbour-buoys
Tossing their fireballs wearily each to each,
And tried to hear your voice, but all I heard
Was a boat’s whistle, and the scraping squeal
Of seabirds’ voices far away, and bells,
Five bells. Five bells coldly ringing out.
Five bells.
Someone asked me what was the last thing I read that made me cry? At the time I couldn’t think of anything but I have an answer now: “Five Bells.”
Cricket Buzz just named its top 51 cricket blogs and I’m on the list!
Yay!
And also—how embarrassing! I have been very remiss of late when it comes to cricket blogging. I mean I haven’t mentioned the blessed sport since March and not written anything proper since January. Largely because (for reasons beyond my control) I have not been home since May of last year.1 Thus I have not been immersed in cricket culture and have not been keeping up with things such as the new Twenty20 Indian Premier League. 2
I like the idea of it in theory. But I hate the idea of it as a replacement for Test cricket. That will never happen! Or at least not in my lifetime.
I miss cricket. I must find ways to re-immerse myself. Or, I will, when this book is finished.
Like David Sedaris I am an ex-smoker.
I started smoking when I was twelve. I’d just seen Rebel Without a Cause and thought the way James Dean held a cigarette was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to do that. I wanted to be like him.
So I started smoking. For awhile I smoked Rothmans because they were featured on the cover of one of The Jam’s albums—a band I was way into but none of my friends had even heard of. But I soon moved on to unfiltered Camel cigarettes because they came in such cool packets—I smoked Gitanes for the same reason—and because I was sick of having to explain to people about The Jam.
I was such a cool smoker that I could blow smoke rings. Not lame, see-it’s-kind-of-a-whispy-circle ones, but the real thing. I could also, while in my brief roll-your-own phase, roll cigarettes with one hand. Not very good ones, but recognisably cigarettes.
I quit when I was fifteen after being shown a gruesome anti-smoking film at school that included smokers smoking out of holes in their throats, smokers with limbs removed because of smoking-induced gangrene, smokers’ lungs drippy black tar, and wizened low-weight babies being born because of their smoker parents.
None of those images got me to quit.
Oh, no, it was the very brief mention of how smoking makes you ugly: stains your teeth (I’d started to notice that), shrinks the capillaries under your skin causing premature wrinkling (close up of a twenty-five year old with lots and lots of lines around her mouth—even at fifteen I knew twenty-five wasn’t that old), causes your hair to thin, and your eyes to redden, eventually turn yellow and fall out of your head.
If I kept smoking I would turn into a hideous crone!
Quitting was dead easy given that I’d never liked the taste of tobacco and had the extreme good fortune not to have gotten addicted. I’d solely been attracted by the Hollywood movie cool-osity of cigarettes. But smoking did not transform me into a dead American male from Indiana, did not give me one iota of his coolness. I’d gone through three years of a habit I didn’t much like for nothing but yellow teeth, wrinkles and eyeballs that could soon depart my head.
Needless to say the fifteen-year-old me was very cross indeed and became the most vehement anti-smoker you can imagine, which is pretty much where I remain. Especially after seeing people, such as my grandmother, die painful smoking-caused deaths.
I have rejoiced as more and more cities and countries implement smoking bans. Our recent and glorious tour of Europe was especially fabulous because now even places I thought would never do it—France, Germany, Italy, the UK—have brought in excellently stringent smoking laws.
The glorious spread of non-smoking laws has made the countries that have yet to comply more and more intolerable. It was shocking in Austria and Switzerland to see people smoking pretty much wherever they wanted to. Especially as they mostly wanted to smoke in my face at restaurants.
I have now decided that I am only going to countries where smoking is banned in public spaces, or, at the very least, in restaurants. Sadly, this means I can’t visit Spain, which I’ve been wanting to return to for years and years. Sorry, Lawrence. There’ll be no China, India or Russia in my near future. Bulgaria is also off my list. In fact, smoking is so insanely out of control in Bulgaria that I have a suggestion:
Why not declare Bulgaria Europe’s smoking country? Then all the other European nations can ban smoking completely and their smokers can move to Bulgaria, where they can happily smoke in cinemas, hospitals, or anywhere else that takes their fancy. Burma can be Asia’s. Though China’s so big you’d probably have to give over a whole province for the smokers. Maybe two.
The US is also on the big side. Maybe it needs a designated smoking state. Dunno what state it should be, though definitely not New York or California. What do you lot reckon?
Australia doesn’t really have the population to support a whole smoking state. Plus every one of her states and territories have fabulous bits; I couldn’t in good conscience give any of them to smokers. But I am willing to cede them Fort Denison, though we’d have to tow it further out to sea so their fumes don’t get blown back into the city. Just think future school children would never be forced to visit Fort Denison again.
We’d all win!
This is one of the biggest selling songs at home right now, despite only being available for purchase online (but, sadly, only if you’re in Australia):
For context the apology by Kevin Rudd and Paul Keating’s Redfern Spech:
Here is the original song by Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly:
I so wish I was back home . . .
Which I can report is wonderful though cold. Great food, great gorgeousness, great people. Thank you, Luis and Maude, for showing us such a great time!
Several people have written to ask what on Earth we are doing galivanting about Europe. I could have sworn that I mentioned why at some point. But here it is again for those what missed it:
We are here to do research for Scott’s next book part of which is set in the European alps. As it involves air ships we went for a ride on a Zeppelin. We also came to attend the Children’s Book Fair in Bologna, to launch Extras in the UK, to get some writing done, to catch up with some of our European-based friends such as Coe Booth, David Moles and Ben Rosenbaum who are all in Basel at the moment, and to eat lots of wondrous food (see poll to your right).
Things learned on the trip so far:
And now I must return to having fun in Paris. As you were!
While we were in Rome we worked and we ate. I wrote four thousand words; Scott about thirteen thousand. I am thoughtful writer, who thinks about her words, okay? Or something. Like Scott had an immediate deadline and I did not. My deadline’s not till August, which is AGES away.
The eating was way more fun than the writing, not that it wasn’t fun. I like my four thousand words but not as much as I loved these restaurants:
Osteria dell’Arco
Via G Pagliari 11
06 854 8438This is a neighbourhood restaurant with a simple but elegant fit out. The owner was a total sweetheart whose good English made up for our non-existent Italian. The food was also simple but elegant. My favourite dish was home-made ricotta with roasted tomato and zucchini and intense wild mint. Though Scott’s artichoke soufflé was also pretty amazing. Way more artichoke than soufflé. Served with dried roasted artichoke. Though all the food was fabulous and the owner was very helpful picking a wine for us as neither Scott nor I know much about Italian wine.
I really loved the pace of this place. I never felt rushed. The long breaks between courses were very welcome. And we were given much help designing our vegie repast. The Waitress was also charming. She didn’t speak English (and why should she?) but did speak Spanish. Was fun getting to use my extremely rusty Spanish.
La Campana
Vicolo della Campana 18
06 6867820La Campana is very old school, which befits a place that’s supposed to be Rome’s oldest restaurant. The waiters were mostly older blokes and spoke almost no English. We muddled by on my Spanish and guess work, which made everything that much more fun. The place cooks only traditional Italian (mostly) Roman food. Everything we had was wonderful. My favourite dish was (again) a salad. A huge oval of mozzarella di bufala with tomatoes and rocket. The tomatoes were sublime: sweet and firm and probably the best tomatoes I have ever eaten. Their skin was mostly red with some green and yellow striping and the seeds a dark green. I’m desperate to figure out what they were. Yum! The cheese was also sensational and bears no resemblance to the substance of the same name I’ve had in Australia and the US. (We actually had the same tomatoes at lunch at Cantina Cantarini Piazza Sallustio, 12—a very simple mostly fish restaurant that we also enjoyed heaps).
I ordered the wine at every restaurant we went to La Campana was the only one where they had Scott taste it. I did say old school. They also automatically gave him the cheque.
Glass Hostaria
Vicolo Del Cinque, 58 Traselevere, RomaThis was our favourite meal. Prices were very reasonable and the food was adventurous, well-executed, and delicious. Definitely not old school. This time my favourite course was my main: monk fish with almond cous cous and yellowy orangey reduction that I cannot remember what it was but it was wonderful and a sprinkling of chili. The whole thing was amazing. Dessert was sublime. We both had the orange and pavlova dish. Which was several orange segments in a line with salt and paprika sprinkled on them and then a big round kinder-surprise looking meringue filled with orange gelato with a kind of sherberty mixture at the bottom. It resembled an egg and was deeply fabulous. Even the bread was amazing. It came on a long platter with two slices of each kind which ranged from regular sourdough through to black squid ink bread.
The restaurant has a really fun fit out with dangling lights and plenty of glass. Including the tables. The wait staff are young and lovely, though sometimes a wee bit confused. The sommelier was spot on though and we wound up having the best wine we’ve had so far on this trip: a 1999 Gaja Chardonnay “Gaja e Rey”. I want it again!
The chef, Cristina Bowerman, came out to talk to us because there was almost nothing on the menu for vegetarian Scott. She was utterly charming and organised a fabulous meal for Scott that included coffee quinoa and chickory. It turned out she trained in Austin and spoke well of the wonderful restaurant we’d been to there, The Driskill Grill. Her favourite restaurants in NYC are our faves: Per Se and WD-50.
I wish we’d had longer in Rome. We didn’t manage to get in at La Pergola, which some say is the best in Rome. But there were also gazillions of neighbourhood restaurants I wanted to explore. Oh, yeah, and I guess we should have checked out the Colosseum and the Pantheon and that stuff. Did I mention we were working? Novels don’t write themselves you know! And hungry writers cannot work. Their mind’s wander and they start typing the same thing over and over again. It was essential for our careers that good food be our priority.
In short: Rome is now on my list of cities I could live in.
For a city to make this list it must be pedestrian friendly, have really good food and wine, and I must have, you know, been there. The other cities on the list are: Sydney, Melbourne, New York, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Paris, Mexico City.
I’m also very fond of Bologna, Salamanca, San Miguel de Allende, and Dunedin, but suspect they are all too small to live in for more than three months or so. Bangkok, on the other hand, is a bit too big, though I’d definitely love to go back and stay for a few months. Such good food there! Yum.
Oh, look at the time. I must away to my next meal.
What are your favourite food cities?
Sonya Hartnett has just won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award given by the Swedish government for outstanding contributions to children’s literature. It comes with a prize of around USD800,000. No, I didn’t type that wrong.
Hartnett is not only one of Australia’s finest writers, she’s one of the best in the world. This is deeply awesome news.
This post comes to you because I casually mentioned that my insomnia had been cured and immediately got an avalanche of letters saying, “Tell! How? I must know!”
So now I tell.
It’s not easy and it doesn’t work for everyone. In fact, the sleep doctor who put me on this regime said that the vast majority of his clients cannot stick to it and thus never find out whether it works for them or not. That’s because it’s very difficult for most people. Especially those with children. On top of that there are a (small) set of people who are addicted to their lack of sleep and the drama of it, but cannot admit that to themselves, and thus cannot undertake a systematic change of their sleep habits.
With this regime you have to change your sleep habits and make them regular, which is really really hard:
There you have it: that’s what cured my insomnia. If you stick to it it’s very likely you’ll be sleeping again.
As I said, though, sticking to it is the hard part. Did I mention how difficult it is?
I was in the ideal situation to try it: I was living with people who were not disturbed by my getting up at 5AM every morning, who were also not disturbed by my being up half the night, and my being shitty all day long when I couldn’t take a nap to cope with not having slept the night before.1
I was also a research fellow at a university where I had no fixed office hours and taught no classes. My duties were to research and write and publish. Undertaking this regime is a lot harder if you work nine to five or even longer hours and if you have children, pets or other responsibilities.
On the other hand, if your insomnia is really bad anyways this regime is probably not a whole lot worse than what you’re already going through.
When I started out I went to bed at midnight and got up at 5AM. The first week I did not sleep more than an hour or two during designated sleeping hours, but after that my sleeping crept up to three, four and then the full five hours. Then I expanded my sleeping to six.
I stuck to the regime for a few more months. First I experimented with not doing the bath thing and was still able to sleep. Then I let myself sleep longer than six hours and miss the dawn walk. When that didn’t affect my sleep I started going to to bed when I felt like it not at midnight every single night. Eventually I was back to normal.
Now—almost seven years later—I sleep fine. I do occasionally have sleepless nights. But they don’t freak me out the way they used to. I’m not afraid of insomnia any more—I’ve had long bouts of it since I was a kid. I now know what to do if an extended bout happens again. It’s a good feeling.
I think part of what used to happen when I was locked into crap sleep patterns was that I’d be so wound up about not sleeping that it made everything worse. I’d lie in bed for hours waiting for sleep to come, getting angrier, and more depressed, and less likely to sleep. At the same time, in a weird way, I was addicted to not sleeping. It felt romantic to be up in the early hours writing when the rest of the world was sleeping. I was convinced that I wrote my best stuff when I couldn’t sleep. I even thought my red eyes and pinched insomnia face were romantic. After all lots of famous writers have struggled with sleep. Writers are meant to be miserable and tortured, aren’t they?
Having learned how to beat my insomnia, I also beat those stupid romantic ideas out of myself. None of my fiction written while suffering from insomnia has ever been published. All my published novels are the product of a happy well-slept author.
Is like this: I have always wanted cowboy boots ever since I saw my first pair on the feet of indigenous stockmen in the Northern Territory of Australia. Those boots were beaten up and weathered like you wouldn’t believe and I’d never seen such cool boots in my entire life. Want!
They were plain though. My fancy western boot lust didn’t develop until I saw my first rodeo. It wasn’t any of the performers who were wearing them but two women in the audience had on full cowgirl regalia and shiny, shiny boots. I am magpie. Shiny fills my heart with lust.
Over the years, I have tried on many pairs of fancy western boots and they have never been quite right. Not shiny enough. Not shiny in the ways I want them to be. Too high-heeled. Too pointy. Too pink. Too hurty on the feet. Or perfect and way out of my price range.
A few years back I heard that you could get cowboy boots handmade special to fit your feet and that you could have whatever design you wanted. I cannot tell you the joy in my heart when I learned of this possibility. Oh, bliss! Oh, joy! The family coat of arms on my very own boots! Want!
Then last year Penguin sent me and Scott to San Antonio for the TLA conference.1 San Antonio just happens to be the home of Little’s Boots, one of the best makers of western boots in all of the US of A. Clearly, it was time for me to have the boots my little heart pined for.
So, I set up an appointment and early last April I went in for my fitting, clutching a printout of the Larbalestier coat of arms. In Old French my surname means the crossbower, ie the one who uses a crossbow. “L” is the, “arbalest” is crossbow, and “ier” is er. Hence the great big crossbow on the coat of arms. I have no idea what the thistles are for. Because we are a prickly lot?
At the appointment I was asked a zillion questions. What kind of design did I want? I waved the printout of the crossbow. You want just that? In what colours? You don’t want any other design elements? Oh, I said. Look around the shop, they told me. I did. My eyes bugged out. 
I made many design decisions. Scott kept vetoing my more shiny desires.2 After about an hour the design was settled.
Then they started asking me about what kind of heel and toe I wanted. What ears? How high up my calf did I want the boots to go? What did I want the top of the boots to look like? Straight or with a little v? What kind of leather did I want? Some were out of the question—you don’t use crocodile or alligator or eel for fancy boots. So my choice was between calf and kangaroo. I tried on many different boots to make my decision. Walked around the shop feeling like a rodeo queen.3
After almost two hours of exhausting decision making, Dave Little started measuring my foot. I had not realised how many dimensions feet and calves have. This also took some time and involved Dave mocking my socks more than somewhat. (They’re cut to fit left and right feet and thus are way more comfortable than normal socks. They are also labelled with a little R and L, leaving Dave to suppose that we Australians are left and right impaired.)
Finally, we gave them a deposit of half the total. A very big total. These boots are not only the most expensive boots I have ever owned, they are the most expensive item of clothing I have ever owned. Six months later, Dave promised, my boots would arrive. And then, because he’s such a lovely bloke, he gave us a lift back to the hotel because we were running late for our next TLA appointment. Texas hospitality is no lie.
Dave was four months off on the arrival time. But the boots are even better than I imagined. They are the most comfortable footwear I’ve ever known. All other footwear are devices of torture in comparison. I may never take these boots off again. In fact, if it weren’t for Scott’s objections,4 I’d’ve slept in them last night.
I love my boots.
Now all I need is a Vivienne Westwood ballgown and my life will be complete . . .
The speech that Kevin Rudd delivered at Parliament house yesterday was even more moving than I could have imagined. I cried. I never thought this would happen during my life time. I’m so full of hope for the future I feel like I could burst.
Here’s the whole thing: the four minute apology and then the twenty minute speech. It’s really worth watching all of it.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Thanks to everyone who’s written to me from home and elsewhere. It’s wonderful to discover that yesterday’s historic events had an impact outside Australia. It was a great day.
Back home in Canberra the prime minister is making this historic apology on behalf of the Parliament and the Government of Australia:
Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations—this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.
Today I am proud to be Australian.
Sometimes it really sucks to be so far from home . . .
John Scalzi has some excellent advice for writers who are trying to make money out of said occupation. Go forth, read, take notes.
While I strongly agree with most of his advice, I have issues with two of his points:
3. Marry (or otherwise shack up with) someone sensible with money, who has a real job.
This is something that worked really well for John. I’ve met his wife, Krissy, and a more formidable, fun, amazing person I have yet to meet. And she knows from money. Seriously smart about it. I wish I had married Krissy.
But, really, this is Scalzi confusing his own excellent good luck with general advice for everyone. Not everyone’s going to meet a Krissy. I suspect there’s only one and she ain’t leaving Scalzi anytime soon. Not everyone has any interest in getting married or shacking up. And, call me a romantic, but taking into account someone’s money management skills is not something I was thinking about when I fell in love.
Not to mention the salient advice my mother gave me which was to never depend on some man1 to look after you. Make your own way in the world. Earn your own money.
8. Unless you have a truly compelling reason to be there, get the hell out of New York/LA/San Francisco.
Rubbish! Big city living can be cheaper than being out in the burbs or the bush. Food is usually much cheaper, clothes too. Pretty much everything, really, except accommodation. That’s a very big except, I admit, but the notion that everything is cheaper outside big cities is rubbish. Sure NYC and Sydney have some of the most expensive restaurants and produce in the world but they also have some of the cheapest.
Living in New York or Sydney or Melbourne or any European city also means you don’t have to have a car. Cars are hugely expensive and they’re only going to get more expensive (price of oil ain’t ever going down, people). You live on your big property in Ohio or wherever and you have to have a car. I am a strong advocate of car-less living.
Cities are where a lot of the writing work is. We are still monkeys and face-to-face interaction is often more effective than emails or letters especially when you are starting out. Obviously, contacts aren’t everything: you have to be talented and hard working. There are many writers who have built careers without ever living anywhere near NYC or Sydney or London or wherever. But contacts can lead to work and there are more of them in cities.
There are more people in cities which means you’re more likely to find people like you. Living someplace where you are the only person of colour/writer/science fiction fan/nudist/australian/sculptor can really really suck. Sure you can find those communities online, but a real life community is pretty wonderful too.
And, lastly, cities are fun. They’re bursting with entertainment and great people and awesome food and all sorts of unexpected joys and pleasures. All of which I find incredibly inspiring for my writing. I’m not even sure I’d be a writer without all that wonderful city stimulation.
Ironically, I write this from a rocking chair in the country watching red-bellied woodpeckers feeding. I don’t hate the country; I just don’t want to live here.
Thanks to everyone for all the photos. You are all the bestest and most wondrous people EVER! As Jeff Fenech would say, “I love youse all!”
It was kind of weird to see how many photos there are of me and Scott I never knew existed. Eerie even . . .
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly apologise to my sister, Niki Bern, as well as my good friend, Cat Sparks. I’m sorry I’m always so recalcitrant about having my photo taken. You were both right that some day I would be happy you both insist on documenting everything.
That said, I now no longer need to have my photo taken ever again. Hallelujah! I shall keep intact what tiny bit of my soul is left.
Because some of you have expressed curiosity here is one photo for every year Scott and me have been together. Enjoy! We certainly have.
2001: Our wedding day. Upstate New York. (Photo by Phyllis Bobb.)
2002: On the Woomera Prohibited zone in South Australia to see a total eclipse. (Photo by Sean Williams.)
2003: Goofing around with Adrian Hobbs in Newtown back home in Sydney. (Photo by Olivia Rousset.)
2004: At the SFWA drinks night. (Thanks Liza Trombi and Locus for sending the photo.)
2005: With Andrew Woffinden and Lauren McLaughlin in London. (Photo by Niki Bern.)
2006: At the Lake Hills Library in Bellevue, Washington. (Photo by Shelly Clift. Thanks!)
2007: On our way to the National Book Awards.
The death of Heath Ledger got me thinking about all my favourite teen movies seeing as how he was in one of my faves: Ten Things I Hate About You. And because thinking about fabby teen movies is more fun than thinking about talented people dying. I love ’em—almost as much as I love YA.
Here are my off-the-top-of-my-head favourites:
Bend It Like Beckham
Better Off Dead
Bring It On
Clueless
Dirty Dancing
Drumline
East of Eden
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Flirting
Ginger Snaps
Gregory’s Girl
The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love
Looking For Alibrandi
The Lost Boys (added because of reminders in the comments)
Mean Girls
Rebel Without A Cause
Saved
Say Anything
She’s All That (mostly for the dance sequence at the end)
The Sure Thing
Ten Things I Hate About You
The Warriors
The Year My Voice Broke
You may notice that I have omitted the John Hughes oeuvre. That is because I had the misfortune of rewatching Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Pretty in Pink recently. And, to be kind, I will simply say they do not stand up.
What are your faves? And why?
Regular reader, Danica, just wrote to ask me a series of excellent Oz related questions. Unfortunately I’m running around like a chook with its head cut off so I turn to youse lot, my Australian readers, to help her out. Here’s what she has to say:
So for my Comparitive Civilizations class, we need to plan a minimum three week trip to another country. Well guess what? My friend and I chose Australia. We figured the best way to get information on Australia would be to talk to a true Australian. So now here I am, using my spare block to sit in the library and write you an email. Should I be working on that Chem homework I haven’t done for the past two days? Probably. But this is more important.
Basically, I was just hoping you could tell me a few things. First off I wonder if you could suggest which part of the country we should travel in? Three weeks isn’t a lot of time and sadly we can’t see it all. Next, what are your favourite things about Australia? And no, you can’t say everything. Well you could, but I’d prefer a couple specifics. In the project, we have to include some historical and cultural facts. For example, I know voting is mandatory. Anything else particularly interesting we should know?
Finally, is there anything that we absolutely have to see or do, for our trip will suffer without these experiences?
If you love cities you can’t miss Sydney or Melbourne.
Now I must get back to work. Help her out, oh good and wise compatriots!
In the vociferous arguing about the ins and outs of who behaved worst over the second test etc etc there are people implying that criticising the Australian cricket team is unAustralian and whingey.1
Please! I love my country, I love cricket, but when the men’s team behave like dickheads they should be called on it.
People who play sport at a professional level are not exempt from the social contract. No one is. Writers (to pick a random example out of the air) shouldn’t behave like dickheads either. Recently I was at an award ceremony where the speeches of the winners were generous and moving. All but one. This one person got up to accept their award without a gram of graciousness. Their speech was about the importance of their book and the judges’ perspicacity in picking it as the winner. That speech left me not wanting to read anything by that writer. I don’t even want to meet that writer.
Very few people in this world achieve things without considerable help; acting like you did it all on your own is graceless and rude.
Ponting’s and the rest of the team’s arrogance and inability to admit that they ever do anything wrong makes me ambivalent when Australia wins test matches. Don’t get me wrong. I love for Australia to win, but, well, I love it a lot more when they’re gracious in victory.2
So, yeah, this debate isn’t just about cricket. It’s about how people should behave. How we should treat the people around us. There’s a reason that photo of Flintoff offering commiserations to Brett Lee has become so famous. It captures a moment of perfect grace:
Getty Images
I’ve had a few people writing to ask why I’m not commenting on the disastrous second test between Australia and India. There are several reasons. I’ve not been able to follow any of the cricket as closely as I’d like. I haven’t had time.
But mostly because I’m embarrassed. And, well, I think Greg Baum and Mike Coward have expressed what I feel about it so well that i don’t really need to add anything.
I will though: I’m sick of Aussie sportsmen (and, frankly, it’s the blokes, not the women) behaving like dickheads. I’m not Indian, so the bad behaviour of the Indians doesn’t make me ashamed, and, you know what? We’re the host country here. We should be behaving like hosts. What’s wrong with a bit of graciousness? The Aussie team of 1960-61 managed it up against that fabulous West Indies team. Why can’t our current team be more like them?
Look, unlike Mike Coward, I don’t think there was ever a golden age of well-behaved cricket teams. There’s always been cheating and sledging and arrogant behaviour.1 But it didn’t used to always be us. Right now the Aussie cricket team reminds me strongly of the English under Jardine back in 1932-33. It’s not a pleasant thought.
That said, I still wish I’d been able to see it . . . And I really hope the next two tests are less horrible with much better umpiring!
To be honest, when I first heard him say it I thought he was making it up. He has more than once tried to convince me something was USian or Texan that was merely Scottian. He likes to trick the dumb foreignor. But then I heard his nieces calling his mother “mee-maw”, so unless he briefed them ahead of time and they’re amazingly good actors, I’m ready to believe some Texans really call their grandmothers “mee-maw”.
Scott’s convinced that calling your grandmother “nana” is an Eastern European thing, but I know plenty of other Aussies with no Eastern European background who call their grandmothers “nana”.
So I’m driven to do some empirical research: Where are you from and what do (did) you call your grandmother? For extra credit: what do/did you call your grandfather? I called mine “papa”; Scott called his “grampa”.
My dad continues to send me photos from home. These two are taken from Bicentennial Park which is just round the corner from my parents’ house:
Yes, that’s the Harbour Bridge in the background there—that teeny arch.
I loves me some Rozelle and Blackwattle Bay . . .
Homesick, me? Don’t be ridiculous.
I cannot tell you how bizarre and funny I find this:
The picture does not capture how insanely long the queue was. As I walked past I was wondering what rare and amazing thing they were lining up for. Concert tickets? The best chocolate in the world? Gold statues of quokkas?
Nope. They was in line for ugg boots. Ugg boots! Who in their right mind would queue up to buy Ugg boots?
I shake my head in disbelief.
Because I’m still dealing with you know what I thought I’d share a couple more flowers from my parent’s place. I don’t know about you but they make me smile:
Gingerplant flower (photo by John Bern)
Gumnut flower (photo by John Bern)
Photos and news from home really make my day.
