Saturday, June 4, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
To Spell or to Poop; That is The Question!
I know I haven't written much lately (or, at all this year). But see, the thing it is really very difficult to type under water. The keys often fill with water and I have to leave my laptop on the beach for a few days to dry out. Also, my broadband runs quite slow in the EAC. I only recently found a quiet (dry) cove where I can think and write and no one will gawp at my tail or stick their fingers in my gills.
I finished my honors at the end of last year. I would have written about the experience except that I couldn't actually bring myself to think about it. It went off with very few hitches, with two exceptions. The first was the 18 year old hippie Israeli back packer who my house-mate moved into our living room two weeks before my project was due. She kept leaning over my shoulder as I was trying to edit suggesting that I mellow out until my house-mate asked her to pack up her (inexplicably creepy) Diego puppet and mellow out some place else.
The second hitch was entirely due to the fact that I do not (as my gracious and clever supervisor is always encouraging me to) organise myself particularly well and was still putting final touches on my project about an hour before it was due for submission.
After meeting my supervisor at 7.30 in the morning for a quick read and slight edit, I decided to make a detour past the library on my way to getting it printed (which I decided to do at Paddington office works because of the scary lines at the campus printers) and just do one last check. I shoved my USB stick into the computer (in a library that was still being renovated and it seemed that the giant beetle-like drill was tunneling directly into my sleep-deprived brain and not into the wall beside me) and everything seemed to be in order.
I walked the 45 minutes from campus to Office Works and got my project printed. I went to pay.
"Sorry, it says it's declined."
"Oh holy whales of tartarus!"
"What?" said the greasy haired printer lad.
"Declined, but by the power of gray skull I haven’t worked non-stop for eight months to be foiled now!"
"Do you have another card, Miss?"
"No it’s right here."
"What?"
"It's not missing, it's right here." I waved my debit card and it came dangerously close to being right under his nose.
"No I mean I was calling you miss."
"Oh I see."
"Maybe another one might work?"
"It's my only one. I just forgot to transfer funds."
"Would you like to use another card?"
"No, dear fellow, I would like nothing more but that option has been stolen from me by the cruel, twisted finger of the fates. Did you know all three hags share one eye."
"What?"
"Yep, one eye."
"I don't know what you just said. Maybe you would like to transfer some funds?"
"Eureka boy! Now you’ve got your thinking hat on."
So I transferred funds, paid for my copies and stood outside with the four booklets clasped in my hot (because it was Queensland in summer) hands. I almost cried. Here it all was, the sea-worthy, barnacled copies of my precious project. How many whales had I dreamt about, how many legs had I lost and coffins I floated out of?
If my mother is a fish, then that project was the mother effing net.
I handed it in and waited, and waited, and applied for my PHD and applied for an APA scholarship, and waited. My first class honors came in and I realised I still wasn’t sure if it was honours or honors. My PHD was accepted and my wonderful supervisor signed on for another three years of my gumpf and I got my APA, and there was much joy in the land and the people rejoiced (well, my parents rejoiced).
Then I got my feedback.
Spelling errors all over the place and, you got it, an intro that just didn’t seem to fit. Then I realised it. I have TWO disorders. Not only do I have the dreaded Ishmael syndrome but I also have (drum roll please) a phobia of spelling as a result of poor early education and the hands on approach my father took with my education.
Let me explain.
My father is a strange man, a stoic piece of work with a shot gun, service in Nam and a copy of the BBC mini series of Pride and Prejudice. In other words, he is a swirling mass of contradictions and this is why I love him.
However, as a child he would force me to read out loud from the dictionary, on the toilet. He rationalised that otherwise it was a waste of valuable learning time.
Here is a picture of Spelling on the toilet... isn't it scary?
Yes, gentle readers. I had to read out loud on the can. I recall the day fondly when I had to read the word ‘manure’. Oh wait, that wasn’t fondness, it was general abhorrence. And yet, my ol pappy could not be moved.
He would stand outside the toilet window watering the plants and occasionally shouting "Louder!"
To which I would respond with something like, "no not 'louder'. I’m only up to G!"
In any case I became quickly disgusted with spelling and coupled it with the evacuation of ones bowels. Perhaps this is why I like 'Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates' so much. And it's not just this, my housemate Sophia (who loves to inform me of her toilet habits and the glorious regularity of her intestines) thinks that it may be some latent emotional problem resulting from my early childhood (she is doing her masters in social work and recently learnt something about how happy pooping is a specific stage in our baby development). Usually this is when she will retrieve a photo of her at about age 4, on the toilet looking absolutely stocked to be alive and using her bowels."See, see how happy I am!" she will say. Sophia also loves to give me a hard time about this theory and will often ask me to spell something on the toilet.
This is how it will go,
Leviathan walks into the bathroom and closes the door.
Sophia - Hey darlin?
Pause.
Leviathan - Yes?
Sophia - How do you spell 'latency period'?"
Longer pause.
Leviathan - sigh.
So, I'm just gonna blame dad either way. Early childhood toilet issues or not, if I stick to this dictionary/toilet story I kill two birds with one stone. Birdy spelling and birdy pooping get whacked off the branch by the swinging bludgeon of my dad's generally confused parenting "skills".
Ahem, too much? I am often told I over share. Oh well. Onwards to the PHD. I hope my lower intestine survives the experience.
PS. On a weird side note, I just looked up what a fear of spelling is called on urban dictionary and got an add for this T.Shirt ...
Thus proving that the world conspires against me. So stuff it, I'm goin fishing instead.
I finished my honors at the end of last year. I would have written about the experience except that I couldn't actually bring myself to think about it. It went off with very few hitches, with two exceptions. The first was the 18 year old hippie Israeli back packer who my house-mate moved into our living room two weeks before my project was due. She kept leaning over my shoulder as I was trying to edit suggesting that I mellow out until my house-mate asked her to pack up her (inexplicably creepy) Diego puppet and mellow out some place else.
The second hitch was entirely due to the fact that I do not (as my gracious and clever supervisor is always encouraging me to) organise myself particularly well and was still putting final touches on my project about an hour before it was due for submission.
After meeting my supervisor at 7.30 in the morning for a quick read and slight edit, I decided to make a detour past the library on my way to getting it printed (which I decided to do at Paddington office works because of the scary lines at the campus printers) and just do one last check. I shoved my USB stick into the computer (in a library that was still being renovated and it seemed that the giant beetle-like drill was tunneling directly into my sleep-deprived brain and not into the wall beside me) and everything seemed to be in order.
I walked the 45 minutes from campus to Office Works and got my project printed. I went to pay.
"Sorry, it says it's declined."
"Oh holy whales of tartarus!"
"What?" said the greasy haired printer lad.
"Declined, but by the power of gray skull I haven’t worked non-stop for eight months to be foiled now!"
"Do you have another card, Miss?"
"No it’s right here."
"What?"
"It's not missing, it's right here." I waved my debit card and it came dangerously close to being right under his nose.
"No I mean I was calling you miss."
"Oh I see."
"Maybe another one might work?"
"It's my only one. I just forgot to transfer funds."
"Would you like to use another card?"
"No, dear fellow, I would like nothing more but that option has been stolen from me by the cruel, twisted finger of the fates. Did you know all three hags share one eye."
"What?"
"Yep, one eye."
"I don't know what you just said. Maybe you would like to transfer some funds?"
"Eureka boy! Now you’ve got your thinking hat on."
So I transferred funds, paid for my copies and stood outside with the four booklets clasped in my hot (because it was Queensland in summer) hands. I almost cried. Here it all was, the sea-worthy, barnacled copies of my precious project. How many whales had I dreamt about, how many legs had I lost and coffins I floated out of?
If my mother is a fish, then that project was the mother effing net.
I handed it in and waited, and waited, and applied for my PHD and applied for an APA scholarship, and waited. My first class honors came in and I realised I still wasn’t sure if it was honours or honors. My PHD was accepted and my wonderful supervisor signed on for another three years of my gumpf and I got my APA, and there was much joy in the land and the people rejoiced (well, my parents rejoiced).
Then I got my feedback.
Spelling errors all over the place and, you got it, an intro that just didn’t seem to fit. Then I realised it. I have TWO disorders. Not only do I have the dreaded Ishmael syndrome but I also have (drum roll please) a phobia of spelling as a result of poor early education and the hands on approach my father took with my education.
Let me explain.
My father is a strange man, a stoic piece of work with a shot gun, service in Nam and a copy of the BBC mini series of Pride and Prejudice. In other words, he is a swirling mass of contradictions and this is why I love him.
However, as a child he would force me to read out loud from the dictionary, on the toilet. He rationalised that otherwise it was a waste of valuable learning time.
Here is a picture of Spelling on the toilet... isn't it scary?
Yes, gentle readers. I had to read out loud on the can. I recall the day fondly when I had to read the word ‘manure’. Oh wait, that wasn’t fondness, it was general abhorrence. And yet, my ol pappy could not be moved.
He would stand outside the toilet window watering the plants and occasionally shouting "Louder!"
To which I would respond with something like, "no not 'louder'. I’m only up to G!"
In any case I became quickly disgusted with spelling and coupled it with the evacuation of ones bowels. Perhaps this is why I like 'Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates' so much. And it's not just this, my housemate Sophia (who loves to inform me of her toilet habits and the glorious regularity of her intestines) thinks that it may be some latent emotional problem resulting from my early childhood (she is doing her masters in social work and recently learnt something about how happy pooping is a specific stage in our baby development). Usually this is when she will retrieve a photo of her at about age 4, on the toilet looking absolutely stocked to be alive and using her bowels."See, see how happy I am!" she will say. Sophia also loves to give me a hard time about this theory and will often ask me to spell something on the toilet.
This is how it will go,
Leviathan walks into the bathroom and closes the door.
Sophia - Hey darlin?
Pause.
Leviathan - Yes?
Sophia - How do you spell 'latency period'?"
Longer pause.
Leviathan - sigh.
So, I'm just gonna blame dad either way. Early childhood toilet issues or not, if I stick to this dictionary/toilet story I kill two birds with one stone. Birdy spelling and birdy pooping get whacked off the branch by the swinging bludgeon of my dad's generally confused parenting "skills".
Ahem, too much? I am often told I over share. Oh well. Onwards to the PHD. I hope my lower intestine survives the experience.
PS. On a weird side note, I just looked up what a fear of spelling is called on urban dictionary and got an add for this T.Shirt ...
Thus proving that the world conspires against me. So stuff it, I'm goin fishing instead.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Because My Parents Sometimes Wonder Why I am The Way I am...
Sent to me today by my mother...
ok I have to share this one with you.
I went to Franklins supermarket this morning to buy a few things and while I was paying at the checkout, I dropped my bank card. The gentleman behind me threw himself down on his knees and started scrabbling around my ankles trying to find the card. I couldn't resist so I clasped my hands together and said 'Oh yes I will I will,' well he jumped up so quickly in a panic that he hit his head on the display stand and sent magazines slithering everywhere. Well I thought it was funny.
love Rainy
ok I have to share this one with you.
I went to Franklins supermarket this morning to buy a few things and while I was paying at the checkout, I dropped my bank card. The gentleman behind me threw himself down on his knees and started scrabbling around my ankles trying to find the card. I couldn't resist so I clasped my hands together and said 'Oh yes I will I will,' well he jumped up so quickly in a panic that he hit his head on the display stand and sent magazines slithering everywhere. Well I thought it was funny.
love Rainy
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
As I Lay Dying
"Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file." William Faulkner
Monday, October 18, 2010
IT'S OVER
So anyway PHD application is in, Honours project is in (all in a three days), I am in... an insane asylum
Monday, October 4, 2010
Hemingway and a Fish
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Drinking Moby, Reading Moby...
So, I sat down today to take a much needed break from writing my exegesis (the word garrote comes to mind) with a bottle of ice tea and a copy of The Passage. I open my tea and take a sip. Nice tea, fruity but a bit spicy. Intrigued, I do what all humans do when they have tasted something they like... I turn the bottle over. What do I find? The bottle I was happily sipping away at was owned by Moby. (Not the actual bottle obviously- like, it wasn't stolen from the gym with Property of Moby written on it) That's right, Moby. Apparently he owns a Vegan tea store in New York called Teany Teas and my friendly neighborhood coffee shop sells his teas by the bottle.
So, why am I annoyed, gentle readers? Well, cause Moby (real name Richard Melville Hall) is the great, great, great (or something) grandson of my old pal Herman. Hence the nickname...
Gimme a break, universe. Seriously. Why does my heart feel so bad... indeed.
Good tea though.
So, why am I annoyed, gentle readers? Well, cause Moby (real name Richard Melville Hall) is the great, great, great (or something) grandson of my old pal Herman. Hence the nickname...
Gimme a break, universe. Seriously. Why does my heart feel so bad... indeed.
Good tea though.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Gone Fishin'
The Leviathan has gone fishin' and for the next few weeks will be baiting hooks and reeling in her first draft...
Friday, August 13, 2010
Perfume
"In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages."
Patrick Suskind in "Perfume"
Patrick Suskind in "Perfume"
The Tangent Machine
My Call Me Ishmael Syndrome has made me a sufficient enough invalid that I feel I am well within my rights to begin my blog post with...
Where to begin?
(I suspect this will be something of an odd post. Particularly considering that I am sitting here with a jumbo glass of Berocca and a double strength latte. As the great bard says, pew pew!)
I have been staring at a computer screen for the last few days editing my short story for the QUT Postgraduate Writing Prize. It is now done, printed, sent. I gave it to a few of my very bright and talented co-workers last night (including my head honcho) and all the feedback was good. It was funny though as most of these peeps had already read my first draft (The Seagull) some time ago and while they all read it dutifully and handed it back uncrumpled I could read the lack luster disappointment on their faces. I could hear their minds screaming, but what is the point! You just seem obsessed with the beach, and whales, and shells and sand (which in my first draft I used 27 times in 1, 500 words). But this time around everyone came frisking back over to me, faces lit and hands outstretched.
"This girl holds the fire" they chimed in unison.
In the last few weeks work has been so mental that I have had to miss a week of class (even my Novel and Genre class which I fecking love) and work over forty hours in one week. I know what you are probably thinking, old Gen Y Leviathan, thinks forty hours is a big deal. Well I’m from farm stock, my friend! (I’m also from, like, three generations of jockeys and my Dad still wonders why my brother and I are short).
Tangent machine.
The only other person in Brisbane who seems to be busier and more frazzled than me is my good mate Barr Fletcher. Seems they have upped his hours of teaching at university (because he is a hero) and he is now a blur of tartan zooming its way around the city in a blur. He rang me throughout the day in four and a half minute bursts in between meeting with students and teaching. It was perhaps the oddest feedback I have ever received simply due to its delivery.
"Leviathan?" (imagine this in a thick Sterling accent)
"Yes, Barr." (imagine this in a scrawny, mangrovey sounding Aussie accent)
"Got ya story. Just read the first page. I’ve never been so fucking busy in my entire life, eh. I have all these students to see today and last week I lost my USB stick and I’ve just got four minutes spare and read the first page. So do you want feedback? How the hell are you anyway?"
In fact his campus life is beginning to sound more like the final scene in Perfume where Jean-Baptiste Grenouille gets ripped to shreds... minus the other bits... ahem (tangent machine).
Anyway, lovely friend that I am I sent him my short story again yesterday (as if he doesn’t have enough to do) begging him to unleash his lead penciled saber over my prose. Turns out, not much was needed however he did inform me that he now thought of me as a writer (to which I sent several expletives his way only to have another friend remind me that I was sitting beside a well stocked playground) and that he has been showing this blog in his classes.
Say what, Barr?!
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed but I am about as good at this writing caper as Paris Hilton is proficient in the ways of the hipster.
I have been in an abject panic since he told me, poised over my qwerty keyboard, sweating. Literally tens of tens of the city’s impressionable youth will be perusing my blog, combing over my prose while holding aloft a copy of Catcher in The Rye or The Bell Jar, giggling over my spelling mistakes and applying pop-psychology overviews to any post about my parents!
Oh Jesus! It's like being in highschool again when my year eleven short story got published in the yearbook and no one told me (or asked me). So on the day when the yearbook came out (I was too cool for yearbooks, joining anything... making friends etc)people kept coming up to me all day either complimenting me or asking if I was okay. I had no idea what the hell was going on till my fiend showed me my story (which was a futuristic piece about the possible death of my own brother) printed alongside a painting of a cheery group of half clad anime girls.
Tangent machine.
It's pretty sick, but! Thanks Barr... preciate the kudos.
After writing this blog I think there may be something in this tangent machine theory. Perhaps my inability to pen perfect first lines (or even okay ones)is more to do with the way my mind leaps, unbridled from one topic to the next. Who am I, Helen Razer? You just can't be a tirading tangent monkey these days. That was all left in the nineties with flannelet shirts, baby doll dresses, Winona Ryder and the ability to buy American Psycho in a bookshop. These days people need fixed, dignified prose with elegant, properly air brushed authors poised on wind swept cliff tops talking about how they write their books in between caring for Nicaraguan orphans and baking aubergines.
Crap... tangent machine.
Where to begin?
(I suspect this will be something of an odd post. Particularly considering that I am sitting here with a jumbo glass of Berocca and a double strength latte. As the great bard says, pew pew!)
I have been staring at a computer screen for the last few days editing my short story for the QUT Postgraduate Writing Prize. It is now done, printed, sent. I gave it to a few of my very bright and talented co-workers last night (including my head honcho) and all the feedback was good. It was funny though as most of these peeps had already read my first draft (The Seagull) some time ago and while they all read it dutifully and handed it back uncrumpled I could read the lack luster disappointment on their faces. I could hear their minds screaming, but what is the point! You just seem obsessed with the beach, and whales, and shells and sand (which in my first draft I used 27 times in 1, 500 words). But this time around everyone came frisking back over to me, faces lit and hands outstretched.
"This girl holds the fire" they chimed in unison.
In the last few weeks work has been so mental that I have had to miss a week of class (even my Novel and Genre class which I fecking love) and work over forty hours in one week. I know what you are probably thinking, old Gen Y Leviathan, thinks forty hours is a big deal. Well I’m from farm stock, my friend! (I’m also from, like, three generations of jockeys and my Dad still wonders why my brother and I are short).
Tangent machine.
The only other person in Brisbane who seems to be busier and more frazzled than me is my good mate Barr Fletcher. Seems they have upped his hours of teaching at university (because he is a hero) and he is now a blur of tartan zooming its way around the city in a blur. He rang me throughout the day in four and a half minute bursts in between meeting with students and teaching. It was perhaps the oddest feedback I have ever received simply due to its delivery.
"Leviathan?" (imagine this in a thick Sterling accent)
"Yes, Barr." (imagine this in a scrawny, mangrovey sounding Aussie accent)
"Got ya story. Just read the first page. I’ve never been so fucking busy in my entire life, eh. I have all these students to see today and last week I lost my USB stick and I’ve just got four minutes spare and read the first page. So do you want feedback? How the hell are you anyway?"
In fact his campus life is beginning to sound more like the final scene in Perfume where Jean-Baptiste Grenouille gets ripped to shreds... minus the other bits... ahem (tangent machine).
Anyway, lovely friend that I am I sent him my short story again yesterday (as if he doesn’t have enough to do) begging him to unleash his lead penciled saber over my prose. Turns out, not much was needed however he did inform me that he now thought of me as a writer (to which I sent several expletives his way only to have another friend remind me that I was sitting beside a well stocked playground) and that he has been showing this blog in his classes.
Say what, Barr?!
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed but I am about as good at this writing caper as Paris Hilton is proficient in the ways of the hipster.
I have been in an abject panic since he told me, poised over my qwerty keyboard, sweating. Literally tens of tens of the city’s impressionable youth will be perusing my blog, combing over my prose while holding aloft a copy of Catcher in The Rye or The Bell Jar, giggling over my spelling mistakes and applying pop-psychology overviews to any post about my parents!
Oh Jesus! It's like being in highschool again when my year eleven short story got published in the yearbook and no one told me (or asked me). So on the day when the yearbook came out (I was too cool for yearbooks, joining anything... making friends etc)people kept coming up to me all day either complimenting me or asking if I was okay. I had no idea what the hell was going on till my fiend showed me my story (which was a futuristic piece about the possible death of my own brother) printed alongside a painting of a cheery group of half clad anime girls.
Tangent machine.
It's pretty sick, but! Thanks Barr... preciate the kudos.
After writing this blog I think there may be something in this tangent machine theory. Perhaps my inability to pen perfect first lines (or even okay ones)is more to do with the way my mind leaps, unbridled from one topic to the next. Who am I, Helen Razer? You just can't be a tirading tangent monkey these days. That was all left in the nineties with flannelet shirts, baby doll dresses, Winona Ryder and the ability to buy American Psycho in a bookshop. These days people need fixed, dignified prose with elegant, properly air brushed authors poised on wind swept cliff tops talking about how they write their books in between caring for Nicaraguan orphans and baking aubergines.
Crap... tangent machine.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Whale Rider
This may be one of my absolute favorite first lines (as of yesterday when I read it)...
"In the old days, in the years that have gone before us, the land and sea felt a great emptiness, a yearning".
Witi Ihimaera in The Whale Rider.
"In the old days, in the years that have gone before us, the land and sea felt a great emptiness, a yearning".
Witi Ihimaera in The Whale Rider.
Email From The Sarge
Hi Sweetie,
just read you blog and I had a good laugh, thanks a lot. It got me
thinking about a book that I read many years ago called Sharks, Skates
and Rays (Shadows in the Sea) by Captain William McCormick and others.
Out of print but you may find one in the library or the second hand book
shop somewhere. I found it one of the most informative books about sharks.
Also, I don't remember giving you THAT advice.
Love Dad
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Richard Newsome and The Curse of The Leviathan
If you come here to regularly peruse the crisp dialogue of the lackadaisical Leviathan firstly, congratulations you have impeccable taste, and secondly you will know that I have (on occasion) embarrassed myself in the presence of authors (so far we have Charlie Higson, Gary Crew, Shaun Tan, Natasha Solomon, Michael Robotham and Morris Gleitzman - but the list is always growing).
The problem is I have the best job in the world. I work at a bookshop (and general hub of reading) in Brisbane where I regularly have to "liaise" with authors and publishing people. This is all very well and good (I have more than enough pencil skirts to make me seem eminently sensible) but I have this habit of freaking them out.
Last night my boss asked me to run an event with Richard Newsome, a Brisbane based author with a swag of awards and two books under his belt. Now, as I mentioned in my previous blog I am still somewhat under the weather and my voice has been dropping in and out like a radio channel in Dolby. So when I realised it was going to have to be a Q and A I had a mild panic (which was then somewhat nullified by a friend giving me a small plastic fox - long story, don’t ask).
Richard arrived and (having already image searched him, learning from my mistaken identity bungle with Morris Gleitzman) I introduced myself, he signed some posters and books and we waited for the guests to arrive. It was a pretty good turn out for a Tuesday night and my pal and colleague Rosie Blum was at my side providing much needed backup and apple pie. There were a few precocious kids with well worn copies of The Billionaire’s Curse and The Emerald Casket cradled in their laps and some star struck mums to boot.
I delivered my prepared speech (where I forgot to mention his swag of awards) and we got into it. I felt like Andrew Denton or worse (and maybe because I was wearing a pencil skirt) Jana Wendt. I found myself nodding knowingly at his comments and anecdotes, leaning against my palm in an act of profound numpty-ness and laughing like a banshee in need of a lozenge.
Occasionally my voice would break or a joke would fall a little flat (my jokes of course; his were hilarious) and I realised how much of my humor relies on a plosive delivery and emphatic hand gestures (because of the plague I could barely keep my head up let alone flail my hands about). I felt like the only joke that was going to work was, “I once caught a cold this big…” and I only thought of that one this morning.
Despite my cold, my squeaky voice and occasional omission of important information, it was a great event and Richard was a truly lovely guy (not to mention a talented writer). After the event he and his lovely little daughter Ella grabbed a copy of the Clementine Novels (a recommend from the leviathan), signed my book and disappeared into the night (well, okay not really. In fact we approached the Bastian of all great modern friendships ad came up trumps- we are now facebook friends).
So maybe I have broken my embarrassment streak (here's hoping) and am now being ushered into the glorious light of adulthood... nah, I doubt it.
On the way home I opened my copy of The Billionaire's Curse to read his inscription...
To Sarah, my great inquisitor. Richard.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
The problem is I have the best job in the world. I work at a bookshop (and general hub of reading) in Brisbane where I regularly have to "liaise" with authors and publishing people. This is all very well and good (I have more than enough pencil skirts to make me seem eminently sensible) but I have this habit of freaking them out.
Last night my boss asked me to run an event with Richard Newsome, a Brisbane based author with a swag of awards and two books under his belt. Now, as I mentioned in my previous blog I am still somewhat under the weather and my voice has been dropping in and out like a radio channel in Dolby. So when I realised it was going to have to be a Q and A I had a mild panic (which was then somewhat nullified by a friend giving me a small plastic fox - long story, don’t ask).
Richard arrived and (having already image searched him, learning from my mistaken identity bungle with Morris Gleitzman) I introduced myself, he signed some posters and books and we waited for the guests to arrive. It was a pretty good turn out for a Tuesday night and my pal and colleague Rosie Blum was at my side providing much needed backup and apple pie. There were a few precocious kids with well worn copies of The Billionaire’s Curse and The Emerald Casket cradled in their laps and some star struck mums to boot.
I delivered my prepared speech (where I forgot to mention his swag of awards) and we got into it. I felt like Andrew Denton or worse (and maybe because I was wearing a pencil skirt) Jana Wendt. I found myself nodding knowingly at his comments and anecdotes, leaning against my palm in an act of profound numpty-ness and laughing like a banshee in need of a lozenge.
Occasionally my voice would break or a joke would fall a little flat (my jokes of course; his were hilarious) and I realised how much of my humor relies on a plosive delivery and emphatic hand gestures (because of the plague I could barely keep my head up let alone flail my hands about). I felt like the only joke that was going to work was, “I once caught a cold this big…” and I only thought of that one this morning.
Despite my cold, my squeaky voice and occasional omission of important information, it was a great event and Richard was a truly lovely guy (not to mention a talented writer). After the event he and his lovely little daughter Ella grabbed a copy of the Clementine Novels (a recommend from the leviathan), signed my book and disappeared into the night (well, okay not really. In fact we approached the Bastian of all great modern friendships ad came up trumps- we are now facebook friends).
So maybe I have broken my embarrassment streak (here's hoping) and am now being ushered into the glorious light of adulthood... nah, I doubt it.
On the way home I opened my copy of The Billionaire's Curse to read his inscription...
To Sarah, my great inquisitor. Richard.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Carl Jung - First Line of Four
"The hypothesis of a collective unconscious belongs to the class of ideas that people at first find strange but soon come to possess and use as familiar conceptions".
Carl Jung in Four Archetypes.
Carl Jung in Four Archetypes.
Why a Spoon, Cousin?
http://justdessertsreviews.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/rubys-spoon-by-anna-lawrence-pietroni/
So, I may have lied about not doing any writing... sorry, baby.
So, I may have lied about not doing any writing... sorry, baby.
The 'C' Hole
I know, I've been a bad blogger.
I'm sorry, baby. I know, I know, I haven't been thinking of your feelings. I've been inattentive. I never called. I'm sorry, baby. I would never want to hurt you. I've just had stuff to do. No, don't cry. I hate it when you cry...
Ahem.
So, it’s been a while since I posted anything substantial that wasn’t a photo of a shark or a moaning session about a member of my family. This is because I have had three cold/flu/black plagues and a bout of gastro which left me face down on the living room floor for three days watching Lois and Clarke the New Adventures of Superman. It’s not just you, gentle readers (hi mum). You'll be happy to know that I have, in fact, neglected all writing related duties. A 360 degree fail on all counts with one exception. The exception being the reading of everything Carl Jung has ever written about myth criticism and archetypes. And all I can say about that is,
I am in the C hole.
I mean, what the hell, Carl. WHAT THE HELL!
Hang on, I'll be right back.
I'm back. I put the emergency Enya on. Give it a sec... there it goes. I am now taking a deep breath, pushing the stack of Jung books away and having what can only be described as a Wasp volume swig of gin.
Let me back up a little and explain.
I am looking at a few things for my exegesis to support my claim that the feminine cannot really ever be removed from a story. When a female character is absent from the text (as in the case of Moby Dick) it reforms and takes the form of a landscape instead. One of the ways I plan to support this claim is looking at Jung’s work on the female archetype and his critical work on myth.
I have found some interesting stuff so far. Especially with reference to mans relationship to the water. Yep, my old pal Jung has some interesting things to say about this subject. If by interesting you mean CONFUSING AS ALL HELL! For example (in regards to the story of Moses) Jung says this,
"This story is an amplification and elucidation of the legend of the seven sleepers and the problem of rebirth. Moses is the man who seeks, the man on the "quest". On this pilgrimage he is accompanied by his shadow. Joshua had is origin in the depths of the waters, in the darkness of the shadow-world..."
Um.
Agh.
*cough*
Whatever happened to the days of "Sarah, can you spell CAT?" and "Sarah, can you spell your name?" I miss those quite, simple times, when scraping your knee was the worst thing that could happen and a cardboard box could fill a day with endless amounts of excitement. These days I have to address radical interpretations of the subconscious mind and the stability of the collective unconscious.
Now, where did I put that gin?
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