Tony Martin on Lee Child

Wilcox (we're still friends — in fact, when he moved out, he really just moved round the corner) alerted me to this rather old — in technology terms — article Tony Martin wrote on The Scrivener's Fancy about popular fiction and the author Lee Child.

I rofled like a maniac rofler who was kicked out of Rofling University for being too damn good at rofling. In a sea of favourite bits, here's my favourite bit:

So, hang on, these literary cunts, they’re…what? Lazy? Slacking off? Leaving the reader to ‘do all the work’? I assume he’s referring to that half-arsed concept ‘ambiguity’, a concept that is, according to Child, completely devoid of enjoyment. Actually, I remember reading a lot of books where you didn’t have to ‘figure anything out’ and where ‘the work’ was already done for you. I used to love those books…when I was fucking five!

P.S. I inspired myself and got Less Than Zero from Blockbuster. I'm sick, so I got five movies to watch in bed after I finish a chunk of work I have to do. Review will follow. (Of the movie, not of the chunk of work.) 

Blogged down.

Does anyone blog anymore? All Twitter now, innit?

Sadly, I'm not quippy enough for Twitter. My real strength lies in long strings of various muddled strands of psychotherapy — Freudian, Jungian, Gestalt, psychodynamic, narrative, expressive, integrative — intertwined with my own beastly sadness (well, whose else is there?) and an unrelenting need — a need I've never not known — to unburden myself in writing of My Terrible Secrets. All swinging underneath a soundtrack of nose blowing, Labrador snores and Harry Neilsson.

But apparently people do still blog. In fact, three of my dearest have just produced blogs. Which made me miss this freaking nuthouse.

But then I have this inherent problem with my blog in that I want to tell the truth, and yet so many of the things I do are really quite against the law. Or, at the very least, morally ambiguous. I deleted a lot of, well, startlingly moving and ... jeez, I don't want to sound like a wanker, but what the hell ... life-changing writing on this blog already, because it was about drug use. But I'd still quite like to talk about [things that were probably too personal. Sorry, but I've deleted what I wrote here earlier. Because it was too personal.]

So I continuously ravel and unravel my security settings, stewing over whether my employers could possibly find me, which could in turn lead to a shameful cautionary tale on Snopes.com about employees and TMI on the internet. You know, stuff like this. Blerk!

If I could just be me it would be ok. If I was a proper writer, if my publisher wasn't giving me the "How about never? Is never good for you?" treatment, if I was a little less nutty and, more pertinently, if I got of my arse and wrote more stuff, then I could be me. (Although reflecting on the blog so far, I may have to thesaurus my way out of the words "shit" and "stuff".) But I'm a jobbing writer, and editor, and an occassional trainer in writing and editing. (An example of my training: "Listen up people! Don't do fancy nouns. Most nouns can be replaced by 'stuff' or 'shit'.") I write copy and I copy-edit clever books written by Important People.

[More deleted bits. That's why this post doesn't flow.]

My parents gave me a book my 26th birthday. I was not in a good state then — it was 1994; I was depressed, saving to go overseas in a McJob, drinking, shagging, experimenting, using my abandoned box of the pill (I switched to condoms) as a morning after pill, full to the brim with delayed adolescent defiance in, simultaneously, the uselessness and the importance of every object in the world, in opposition to what "the man" thought.

The book was The Penguin Book of Women's Lives, given, poignantly and hopefully, from my desperately worried parents. It is an excellent book full of extracts of women's autobiographies — I still have it.

My favourite extract was Emily Hahn's. It began:

Though I had always wanted to be an opium addict, I can't claim that as the reason I went to China. The opium addiction dates back to that obscure period of childhood when I wanted to be a lot of other things, too — the greatest expert on ghosts, the word's best ice skater, the champion lion tamer, you know the kind of thing. But by the time I went to China I was grown up, and all those dreams were forgotten.

[You guessed it! Gone. It was juicy too.]

But all I have is my stories. I don't want to give them up; I want to write them down. Shall I say, "Fuck employers! I have made steps to anonymise myself. I've tried. What the fuck more? Hey? What the fuck more?" Shall I?

This blog helped me once when I was very, very sad. The fact it's been so long between posts is because that sadness then became depression. A nice, old-fashioned breakdown. Wilcox left me — an effect of the breakdown rather than the cause, but the cause of a deeper breakdown.

Slowly, slowly, with therapy, and the unexpected love of dear friends, the low fog is rising. I want to move again. I want to adventure again. Emily Hahn did.

"Chances are, your grandmother didn't smoke cigars and let you hold wild role-playing parties in her apartment," said her granddaughter Alfia Vecchio Wallace in her affectionate eulogy of Hahn. "Chances are that she didn't teach you Swahili obscenities. Chances are that when she took you to the zoo, she didn't start whooping passionately at the top her lungs as you passed the gibbon cage. Sadly for you, your grandmother was not Emily Hahn." 

I will never be someone's grandmother.

Enough of all this. Back to my mates, and their new blogs. Zigsma has produced Ope Shope Hope, a brilliant ode to her op-shopping, a pantheon for super-duper discarded stuff. Zigsma has impeccable, pitch-perfect taste, which I envy and admire.

George McEncroe is my funny friend. I know she's funny because she has a job at being a comedian. She's just started her blog and is promoting  her new show, which everyone in the whole world should see.

It's on at Trades Hall from 28 Setember to 2 October. That's FOUR NIGHTS ONLY. Book here.

Then there's my friend Erica's new website  and blog. She's an artist who does complicated things with mathematics and x-rays and plastic toys.

Hey, that felt good. I might come back here. Even if no one reads it. In fact it's better if no one reads it.

Blasts from one's own past

Randomly, I started reading my old blog from years ago, and found this story. Wilcox was so sweet. This is from back in the thick of IVF — I was, admittedly, pretty nutty.

Don’t shoot anyone

The other day the guy in my local FoodWorks asked me what I was listening to on my iPod, then before I could answer he said, “I always get the feeling that you’re listening to someone saying, ‘Keep it together. Just don’t go crazy. Don’t shoot anyone.’”

I am aware I can look like a bit of a nutter sometimes – my iPod is basically stapled to my head, and I’ve a tendency to giggle and sing under my breath when I hear David Essex’s Hold Me Close – but I don’t think I fully realised the extent of it. It’s cause my brothers were so much older than me that I basically grew up as an only child, and I lived, and still do live, in My Own Little World. (See the spotty house description, below.) I notice everyone on the street, but I sometimes feel they can’t see me. I don’t like running in to people – I may be very distant, so far, far away, and it’s difficult to suddenly drop back in.

That’s sometimes. Other times I walk around so convinced of my own freckle-faced glamour that I’m surprised anyone can tear their eyes away. Although that’s not so often.

Anyway, I was premenstrual at the time (of the FoodWorks incident) so when I came home and told Wilcox I started crying. Then we stood in the kitchen while he patted my head and said, “You’re not a nutter. No one thinks you’re a nutter.”

52 Poems

Three recipes I've convinced myself that I "invented"

1. Mince Fried Rice!

Boil up some Jasmine rice. Right at the end, add yummy vegies such as cauliflower and/or broccoli and/or peas.

In a wok, fry up garlic, ginger, chilli, onion and/or shallots, mushies, zucchini and some beef or pork mince.

Cook it.

Add cooked rice and vegies.

Add soy sauce, oyster sauce, or whatever.

Cook it a bit more.

You're done! Turn off wok and enjoy!

2. Cauliflower Mushy!

Boil up cauliflower until it's mushy.

Drain.

Add salt and butter and garlic chives. Fuck it, add some parmesan if you want. Am I telling anyone? Am I your keeper?

You're done! Turn on So You Think You Can Dance and enjoy!

3. Anchovie and Caper Surprise!

Begin making tomato-based sauce.

At the initial fry-the-onions stage, add lots of anchovies and capers.

Finish making tomato-based sauce.

Add it to pasta or meat.

You're done! Watch The Bill on ABC2 because you missed it on Saturday and enjoy!


You're welcome!

Perkler!

Wilcox's old schoolbuddy Justin has set up this awesome website called Perkler.

You sign up, you list all the loyalty cards in your wallet (no disclosure of identifying details involved) and they collate all the perks you're entitled to but forgotten about, plus several others you might like to take advantage of but never heard of. It's kind of like LibraryThing, but for your wallet instead of your bookshelf, AND WITH MORE FREE SHIT.

Totally super.

Death of a Bird

An excerpt from the poem by A.D. Hope

She feels it close now, the appointed season:
The invisible thread is broken as she flies;
Suddenly, without warning, without reason,
The guiding spark of instinct winks and dies.

Try as she will the trackless world delivers
No way, the wilderness of light no sign,
The immense and complex map of hills and rivers
Mocks her small wisdom with its vast design.

And darkness rises from the eastern valleys,
And the winds buffet her with their hungry breath,
And the great earth, with neither grief not malice,
Receives the tiny burden of her death.

Why Martha would have been a good dog for Sigmund Freud

One of the great sadnesses of Freud's dying, apart from its natural conclusion, was that his beloved chow, Lun — who for years had fawned on him and followed him everywhere; who sat through Freud's every therapy session, sometimes to the discomfort of his patients — could suddenly not bear to go near him. By this time, the multiple cancers in Freud's mouth and jaw were allowed to thrive, because another operation would serve no purpose, except to prolong his excruciating pain. Freud was still alive, but bits of him, facial bits, bits of flesh inside his mouth, were dead. A cancerous lesion in his cheek turned into a gaping hole. He stunk. Flies gathered around his head. And Lun, his lifelong love, was suddenly afraid of him, and cowered in the corner.

This seems like odd behaviour from a dog to me. As far as Martha is concerned, if parts of me died and started to rot it would a meeting of her two greatest loves:

1. me
2. things that are dead and rotting.

If Freud's situation were mine, I'd probably die of suffocation, as Martha rolled on my face trying to wipe the scent of my decaying membranes about her neck.

Sadly, during the Melbourne heatwave, hundreds of flying foxes fell dead from their perches. At least that was the evidence I saw when we walked past the colony. Several weeks later, their decaying corpses are now at a peak desirability from a Labradorian point of view.

Sad, because even in death they're such pleasingly vampiric little critters.


If you want to know what this poor fellow smells like several weeks after this photo was taken, come round to my place and sniff Martha's neck.

In Canada

This post is totally random

Two dreams from last night

1. I am with two middle-aged men in the kind of independent bookshop that has a cafe/bar. One is psychologist. The men are 60s-era leftie ex-hippy types, and the psychologist is holding forth with some psychobabble, attempting to help me make sense of my life. It does not help, but I figure I may as well at least try to have an interesting conversation, so I bring up Freud (about whom I'm reading a book at the moment — in real life, not the dream). He interrupts and starts to explain his (disparaging) theories on Freud, clearly demonstrating his deep ignorance of the man's work.
   
   The men warm to their subject, and order red wine. They entreat me to join them, but suddenly I realise that I must leave, that I am wasting my time with these people. As I leave the bookshop I see Freud on a street corner, idly tracing lines with his cane on the footpath, as if waiting for someone. He doesn't see me, but his presence fills me with warmth.
   
   [NB. I am not a really full-on Freudian or anything, if that's what you're thinking.]
   
   
2. Wilcox gets up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet. I realise that earlier I did a poo in the sink. I feel extremely humiliated because I know he'll see it.
   
   [Ok, maybe I am.]
   

A very funny "It's Lovely, I'll Take It"

I love this blog about lame real estate listings and each post usually makes me rofl, but this post made me rofl and rofl and rofl and rofl.




Some observations from my local dog park

1. Thirty/fortysomething single women generally have largish dogs, like Labradors and German Shorthaired Pointers. These women are sometimes slightly mental.
2. Fiftysomething single women generally have small white fluffies.
3. Lesbian couples have compact and very energetic dogs like Miniature Schnauzers.
   
4. It is a complete myth that handsome single men have dogs. There are no handsome single men at my dog park and sometimes you see the single thirtysomething women walking around rather dejectedly, feeling ripped off.
   
5. Dog park locals generally see each other every day. But you don't need to learn anyone's name. You must, however, learn the name of their dog, be able to identify the breed, and find out how old the dog is.
6. When you see another person and their dog, you greet the dog by name and say "hi" to the person. When you part, again, you must deliver a personal goodbye to the dog. A general "see you", or even a more rakish "later", suffices for the human.
7. When you meet another dogowner you stand around and watch your dogs play. All conversation must revolve around the dogs and their idiosyncrasies. This is very pleasurable, because you have finally met another person as obsessed with their dog as you are.
8. If you are Wilcox, you must sometimes take the long way round the park in order to avoid inane conversations about dogs, because there is nothing that bores you more.
   
9. People really do pick dogs with whom they share a physical resemblance. For example, there's one couple who are both really tall and skinny and quite regal — they have a Great Dane. The lesbian couple and the Miniature Schnauzer are all sprightly with grey hair. Also W (my friend who gave me Martha)'s mother thinks that Martha and I look alike.

Just some pictures of Martha




Seriously, it's like looking in a mirror.

While we're on fashion...

I just want to share with you a selection of my favourite dresses from my ever burgeoning net-a-porter wish list.


Catherine Malandrino
Ruffled cashmere knit
£417.02




Vivienne Westwood Red Label
Striped sleeveless dress
£217.02 (Comparatively affordable really, for someone who isn't me.)


RM by Roland Mouret
Mirabeau pencil dress
£1,089 (Comparatively affordable really, for, like, THE SULTAN OF BRUNEI.)





I couldn't actually fit in to any of these dresses. I'm just admiring them.

Anyway, back to work.

George at Spleen

Here is my totally rocking friend George doing a bit of stand up.



George McEncroe at Spleen from Miss Schlegel on Vimeo.

I so know what I reckon youse all should do. I so reckon you should all come to George's show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. You can book here.

Am I mutton, dressed in drag?

Apparently, if you're over 40, you shouldn't wear miniskirts.

I am 40. I wear miniskirts.

Let's get our definitions clear here. A miniskirt, as far as I'm concerned, falls mid-thigh. A micro-mini falls mid-arse, or thereabouts, and is best left to the spawn of Geldof. A pencil skirt falls on the knee.

I am very fond of pencil skirts, but they don't concern us here. No, I'm talking miniskirts.

There is a world of difference, by the way, between a summer miniskirt — in other words, a skirt accessorised with naked legs — and a winter miniskirt, with which you wear opaque stockings. I wear both, but I'm thinking of giving up the bare-legged variety next summer, when I'll be 41 and officially long in the tooth. Plus, I am the colour of a cage-laid eggshell, so bare legs require pots and pots and pots and pots of fake tan, and that shit don't come cheap, I'm telling you.

There are exceptions to my bare-legged miniskirt rule though. Even when I reach the age of 204, and I fully intend to, I will still wear summer miniskirts:

1. on the beach, with thongs, and while eating hot chips, and
2. on those ludicrous summer days that only Melbourne can produce when the temp is 45+ and everyone stays indoors with a frozen hand towel over their face, crying.

However, I'm not quite sure I'm ready to give up mid-thigh winter dresses with nice thick tights. A July evening; a laneway bar; a smattering of one's closest, cleverest, wickedest friends; a Worthy Australian Novel, almost certainly written by Eliot Pearlman, to viciously diss; an inappropriate affair to dissect in favour of the partner most likely to provide one with future work; a hunky new single aquaintance to set up with the spurned half of the inappropriate affair — all these things need an outfit that makes you feel like you're still in the game, that you're still chic, and rakish, and still, relatively, young.

Ish.

And now, according to, inter alia, The Daily Mail, I have to worry that my skirts are too short.

Ok, par example, I took a shot of one of my winter staples today:


Note that Martha would not be included in the actual hypothetical laneway bar gathering. And I would look much cooler if you could discern from these crap photos that my boots are uber-retro and made of denim.

Yes, denim.


Am I mutton dressed in lamb? At forty, can I still get away with this crap? Or do I have to resign myself to thumbing through my copious collection of pencil skirts every Friday night? Which would be fine, except it means I probably have to go on a [*blurk*] diet, because pencil skirts necessitate some kind of waist, and my waist is currently in hibernation, living off its own fat until the next millennium.

Or, in other words, is 40 too old to wear miniskirts? Please to be commenting, ye few readers o' mine.

Calm down everyone! Jonathan Rhys Meyers has got better!

I like to think I broke the story, although given that no one commented on my previous post or even, according to Google Analytics, looked at it, that is admittedly unlikely.

Anyway, the sentence I highlighted in Jonathan Rhys Meyers Wikipedia page (see previous post) is gone. I noted the following comment on the relevant Wikipedia Talk Page*.

Down Syndrome?
Could it possibly be accurate that he was "retroactively diagnosed with Down's syndrome"? Down's syndrome is a serious genetic disorder that results in greatly impaired cognitive function and marked physical characteristics. Rhys Meyers shows NONE of these characteristics. This is simply bizarre. I wonder if the person who put this here got the syndrome mixed up with another?

I guess he'll probably never know about it, but I save JRM's bacon. He owes me, and one day I'll be collecting.

* Would you capitalise "talk page"? I don't think I would really. Still, it's done now.

Is Jonathan Rhys Meyers really a mong?

Or is this someone's idea of a clever joke?

(You have to click on it to make it big.)