Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Not half an hour ago, my mother came home with some shopping. She beckoned me into the kitchen after my stint on the treadmill, and showed me a beautiful gold pendant, with a guardian angel.

She then said to me that this was a present from me to my newborn nephew Leon. She said she would buy me a card and then asked me if she would like me to give it to him tonight, or when I next saw him. I faltered and said decided it was probably time to speak my mind.

I very, very gently explained that I wasn’t fully well yet (just a flare-up of my chronic illness – nothing major, but draining nevertheless), and that when I could, I would indeed organise to visit Leon and parents. I said that my brother would know that the present she bought for me to give to Leon would be recognised as something that I would never pick out because:
- I very rarely shop for jewellery made of anything precious
- I would never choose anything with a religious symbol – my brother was very well aware of my atheism (something my mother chooses over and over to ignore)

I said that I had spoken to a good friend @lluke and explained that I’m not close to my brother, and even less so to his wife. After Luke’s excellent advice and upon hearing that the mother was really struggling with her new role in motherhood, I felt it best to wait a month or so before visiting again (as it happens, I did get semi-bullied into visiting when the new parents were in post-natal care at the Grand Hyatt in the city centre (!!!)).

My brother’s in-laws are very flamboyant, and not particularly welcoming. They are also quite xenophobic and have taken the view that they have welcomed my brown brother into their family as some sort of act of superlative charity. At the end of the day, I am extremely happy that they do accept my brother and do not make his life hell. In fact, they rather like him.

They like me less so, which is fine by me until I am in the same room. My brother’s wife is extremely close to her parents and though my mother cannot admit it, she is struggling for a place in their new family. She struggles to do things to show that she is, essentially, just as good as them. I told her she doesn’t need to be so performative, but she insists she is not. My partner and my father have both noted at some stage that there are elements of her behaviour that betray her in this respect.

So, what to do? How am I to display in a manner that is both true to myself and takes into consideration what the new family want? I have bore my mother’s insinuations as best I can that I need to visit Leon NOW NOW NOW. After the somewhat explosive ‘chat’ in the kitchen, I think she will give me a bit more leeway, but not for long.

A sad world where one constantly needs to demonstrate one’s love materially. If I could be left alone with Leon, I would just hold him, and stroke him every now and then, and tell him I hope the world won’t be too rough with him. He would have no right to believe me – I who spend so much time in the realm of the unwell. Why can’t we love on our terms, and ours alone? Who is my mother to tell me how I should demonstrate my love to my nephew? Of course at this stage, my father piped in and then went on to tell me that I was sorely lacking in comparison to my partner.

All this over one gold charm meant for my nephew.

I forgot to post that at the end of January, I went to see the Horrors live (thanks @tephdee for selling me a ticket!). It was the same day I got back from a week in Sydney – my first proper time there.

Crowd-wise, I had a terrible experience. I was bullied by this horrible drunken yob who thought it fine to tell me off because he was thrashing his ugly body all over the place and right into my elbow. But cheers to the lovely strangers who stood up for me. Most of the folks there were respectful and stuff.

I couldn’t really see much from where I was, but holy fuck the lead singer. Lovely hair, eyes that draw you in…I was mesmerised by his stage presence. He’s a very charismatic lad. So much so that I must confess that I didn’t really pay much attention to the rest of the band members, and that’s very unusual for me. It was a damned fine gig.

The support act, the Fabulous Diamonds, took a bit of time to warm up to. Long, instrumental, psychedelic tracks. Eventually vocals would come in but not after several minutes. I liked that the drumming and keyboard parts were so minimalist – I mean in the classical music sense.

Got a few gigs coming up from next week onwards. Should be ace fun.

I thought these would be Potter’s take on various nursery rhymes but instead, they are portions of nursery rhymes illustrated, interspersed with Potter’s own. I didn’t find them particularly enthralling, and I really like nursery rhymes and the like. These two books really could have been just one, as they are really very short. Was she doing it for the money by this stage, assuming that I read them in their publication order?

Another Potter book about bullying! A cat gets teased by a mouse, so she teases him back. Not really sure how I feel about that. Again, not one of the greatest in the Potter tales – they’re a bit downhill after The Tale of Little Pig Robinson which was really good.

I warn you in advance, I’ve read the last four of the Potter books but I promise I have been doing some ‘real’ reading – I’m finally halfway through The Duchess, the biography upon which the film was based. I really wish I was ploughing through a novel at present, but I’m trying to get through my unfinished books.

Potter’s running out of ideas, it feels. I didn’t quite expect this to be as short as it was: basically a ‘fierce bad rabbit’ bullies a good rabbit but he gets his just deserts! Serves him right.

If you’re expecting more, that’s it. Of course the rabbits are exceedingly cute.

Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy is probably the most intelligently written children’s fiction/fantasy I’ve ever read. I didn’t find the first one The Northern Lights as easy to read as this one – it’s fast-paced and thoroughly interesting.

It can be confusing at times too – Lyra and Will live in alternate Oxfords and somehow end up in each others’ worlds and move between the two. With this, we also have a thinly veiled critique of the Catholic Church and some concepts relating to physics. Pretty heavy stuff. I read on Wikipedia that Pullman weaves Milton’s Paradise Lost through the trilogy. Sadly, I’ve not read Milton, so I can’t quite identify this.

Gobbled up two thirds of it one insomniac-riddled evening, or rather, morning. I honestly don’t know what took me so long to pick this off my shelf. Can’t wait for the third one, though I’ll be really sad when it’s over…will probably buy those other smaller companion books.

It’s also fantastic to read books for children that doesn’t talk down to them and treats them as the beings they are – capable of extreme intuition and intelligence.

This is the longest story out of all the Beatrix Potter tales. It starts off innocently enough – a pig goes to market to run errands for his aunts, as he is a sweet-natured little piglet. Alas, the market is riddled with dangers that a naive pig might not be ready for.

It also makes references to other famous literary works – poor Pig Robinson gets pretty much abducted by sailors and meets a cat that helps him escape – the cat of ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ fame. Pig has further adventures on Bong Island, and the reader is told that they should read Robinson Crusoe to find out more.

Anyway, it’s delightful and you should all go out and read it. It proved to be excellent respite from the postmodernist text I’m currently making my way through.

No one likes Ginger and Pickles and they are determined to run their store into the ground, despite their store being cheaper, and letting people buy things on credit.

Perhaps I’m just being a grumpy pseudo-Marxist, but what is wrong with these people/animals? Ginger and Pickles work hard and are generous to their customers. Their shop eventually folds and the townspeople are forced to shop at Tabitha Twitchit’s more expensive shop and she does not offer credit! Ginger becomes stout and Pickles becomes a gameskeeper (which immediately made me think of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, another novel about the difference between the various social classes).

Not one of my favourites from the Potter collection.

This is one of the sillier Beatrix Potter tales.

A cat invites a dog over for a party. The dog worries that she will be served mouse pie, and so sneaks her own pie into the cat’s oven to cook. Dog ends up eating cat’s pie, but then worries she has accidentally eaten a metal patty-pan in the process. Cat’s party is thrown into disrepute as she has to call the doctor for the idiotic dog.

I’m sure that this is all just a comedy of manners and very much indicative of the time Potter lived and for this reason, I’m not sure it really works as a story for children. One of the Potter tales I’ve least enjoyed, but then that could be because I was taught to suffer whatever the host(ess) served up.

Excellent revision and introduction on this important facet of Western cultural theory, with great everyday, down-to-earth examples. I already knew Catherine Belsey, its author, as an esteemed critic and am really pleased with how approachable she made everything sound. As a result, I now have passing knowledge on Lacan (less so on Lyotard, but that’s due to lack of exposure on my part).

I’ll be buying up more of these beauties for reading. It’s a great series.

I might have to start a new blog category just for the good Luke.

My brother’s wife just had a baby, and I have no idea about etiquette (one might argue I have no idea about etiquette full-stop but that’s another issue altogether). Are you supposed to visit them in hospital? Do you wait till they’re home? I’m not close to either my brother or his wife, and both her mother, and mine are going to be all over them both.

So I decided to ask Luke for his advice, seeing as him and his wife have just had their second child. The beauty of IM.

(15:35:09) me: i need baby help!
(15:37:54) the good Luke: hahaha
(15:37:56) the good Luke: sure
(15:38:10) the good Luke: when two people love each other very much
(15:38:15) the good Luke: …
(15:38:22) me: ROFL
(15:38:28) the good Luke: dammit, your silence called my bluff
(15:38:32) me: i was being serious!
(15:38:33) the good Luke: i got nothing

Like I said, funtimes.

Last year, I bought a joint subscription to the Adelaide-based Wet Ink and Melbourne-based Overland journals.

I’ve received all four issues of Wet Ink and must say the first issue was appalling. I didn’t find any of the contributions engaging, professional or enjoyable. The second issue is much better but there are still several pieces which have that not quite professional feel about them.

Overland, however, is a completely different case. All the pieces in the first issue received – fiction, articles, poetry, reviews – are of an extremely high standard and very thought-provoking. The piece I liked the least was one about blogging. The writer took a tone that I felt a little inappropriate – he was some sort of self-proclaimed expert on blogging and tried to explain the merits of blogging to a wider audience, but in so doing, came off as patronising. Especially when it can be assumed that Overland’s readership would be pretty intelligent and tech-savvy (for instance, the writer attempts to explain ‘trackbacks’ but not once does he actually identify them as such. Even the most basic of bloggers would be familiar with this term, surely?).

Am hoping to do another post on other Australian literary journals I’ve had the pleasure of reading a bit later. There are quite a few excellent ones about.

I was lucky enough las year to go to some Melbourne Writers’ Festival events. Apparently Melbourne is a designated City of Literature by UNESCO. I understand one has to bid and pay an exorbitant amount for this privilege.

The first event I went to with Ryan & T was a special screening of The Leopard at ACMI, directed by Visconti, and based on the novel by Lampedusa. Italian neo-realist cinema is quite a treat and I’d been wanting to see this film for ages but it rarely shows (and you can tell by the print, it’s not in fab condition). The Leopard is about a time in Italy when the aristocracy no longer enjoys the prestige it once used to – the working classes are tired of all the corruption and privileges afforded to this social class when in effect, they do so little for it and are lucky merely to be born in the right circumstances. The main character, played by an exceedingly debonair Burt Lancaster, is in an odd position in that he realises his nobility is on the way out.

I was hoping to read the novel before I saw the film, but time did not afford me that pleasure. Nevertheless, the film is an excellent piece on social history. A few of the ball scenes were a little long, but to be honest it’s hard to fault Visconti.

The second event was an all-day workshop with the American poet Emily Ballou, who has written a verse novel about Darwin. The workshop was held at RMIT City campus, which is pretty easy to get to via public transport.

This is probably one of the best workshops I’ve been to – she introduced me to so many exercises and prompts which is perfect for people who go through terrible bouts of writers’ block. We wrote poems based on…

- words plucked out of the dictionary at random
- picture prompts – a magazine page from National Geographic as inspiration
- taking an existing piece of literature and creating a ‘found’ text by striking out words from the given passage
- writing a stanza in addition to one written by the participant next to us

I have at least three poems from this workshop that I can work on, so I was pretty chuffed.

Last event, which I had so much fun at was the official launch of McSweeney’s 32, at The Toff In Town, in the city. All eventgoers got a copy of the beautiful quarterly – and they’ve never, ever launched outside of the States! Everyone seemed pretty excited.

The editor, Eli Horowitz was in attendance to talk to us, as were two of the contributors to read passages from their stories. Then there were a few acts – Suitcase Royale (surreal comedy act), The Bent Leather Band (instruments of electronic and leather-bound manipulation), and a fellow who read a cyberpunk manifesto (even though I swear one already exists, by Donna Haraway). There were some really cool steampunk furnishings on stage, too.

I didn’t get to go to as many events as I wanted, but the MWF was ridiculous fun. Bonus for being able to give Emily Ballou a lift to another MWF event, and she was adorably clad in Emily Dickinson-inspired attire (I believe she was reading her work). I really need to track down a copy of her verse novel on Darwin and recommend other poetry-inspired folk do so too.