Brobdingnagian lexemes*

There I was, getting happily reacquainted with the frantic and furious Yossarian in Catch 22, when Joseph Heller went and tripped me over a huge big word.
"Infundibuliform". It sat there, fat and smug on the page, taking up half a line with erudite verbosity. Even in context I still couldn't put my finger on exactly what it meant.
"...had it not been for that patriotic Texan with his infundibuliform jowls and his lumpy, rumpleheaded, indestructible smile..."
Ardent readers will nod their heads in quiet understanding when I tell you that I have a system for dealing with random injections of sesquipedalian loquaciousness. If a dictionary is not at hand, I fold over the bottom corner of the page so I can look up said word later.
(By the way it means funnel-shaped. Why didn't he just say so?)
There's a time and a place for big words, but I try to use smart words - that is, words that will ensure your reader knows what you're on about. Doesn't matter if it's plain language, it's whatever's appropriate to move your story forward and take your readers with you.

If you're writing for an audience of intelligentsia whose preference is to engage in the manifestation of prolix exposition, splendid! Use big words.

If you're writing a novel for people who enjoy a great story, use smart words.

I'm pretty sure if my mate Bob the Builder was reading this, he'd have zoned out by the third syllable of the infundi-word. He reckons I'm guilty of magniloquence here in my blog. But I have a word for you Mister: 
"Sesquipedalophobia" - the fear of long words. In more severe cases known as "Hippomonstrosesquippedaliophobia" ;)


* 'big words'

Having his cake...

Synchronicity is a recurring theme in my life. Yesterday I was flipping through an old favourite, EM Forster's A Room With A View - reminding myself what a cool story it is. Today, I came across a cool story about EM Forster himself.
Short sight was a problem for Mr Forster, the English author and essayist who had five novels published in his lifetime. On attending the wedding of his friend Lord Harewood, who also happened to be the Queen's cousin, Forster is said to have bowed gravely to the wedding cake, under the mistaken impression it was Her Royal Highness, Queen Mary.
Natural mistake really.

Luscious libraries

Handelingkamer Tweede Kamer Der Staaten-Generaal, The Hague, Netherlands

Rennie Mackintosh Library, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland

Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil 

Wow! Check out these amazing libraries from around the world. Home to hundreds of thousands of treasured tomes and keepers of the literary faith, oh readers.
I reckon the image of the contemporary suburban library needs to be sexed up. It might help get people back into books. 
Who regularly visits their local library these days? Mums with kids; oldies looking for something to do; the odd student on a deadline? 
I plead guilty of neglecting my local library. I can't remember the last time I paid it a visit. Probably around the same time I last sent a fax. I resolve to visit libraries more often, they play a critical role in nurturing literacy in our communities and they deserve our patronage.
Manly Library may not quite have the history or grandeur of other, more striking bibliothecas, but any place dedicated to the humble book is hallowed ground to me.
If you've been to any awesome libraries I'd love to see a pic :)

Leaders as readers...#2

I was pretty uninspired after Thursday's post - not by the books our incumbent leaders chose, but by the leadership of our incumbent leaders.
So I'm rectifying that by taking a look at the reading recommendations of some well known people of influence (whose opinions may be a little more noteworthy!):
Nelson Mandela: Invictus (poem), William Ernest Henley
Richard Branson: Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
Oprah Winfrey: The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Mark Twain: The French Revolution, Thomas Carlyle

George Orwell: the works of Somerset Maugham

Bill Clinton: The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper

Meryl Streep: The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams

Bill Gates: The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

Jodi Picoult: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

Laurens van der Post: Middlemarch, George Eliot

Barack Obama: Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison

Invictus, it goes without saying, is an awesome poem. Swallows and Amazons was a favourite of mine too growing up. And I adore The Great Gatsby, good choice Bill Gates. Am thinking of adding Song of Solomon to my reading list. Obama is a voracious reader so his list of favourites is a mile long, you can see more of them here. 

I struggled to find out the favourite books of famous women of influence. Can you come up with any others?

Horrors!

This is scary.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported in 2009 that the average Australian watches three hours of television per day, but spends only half an hour reading.
Of that half an hour, preferred reading material is primarily newspapers and magazines, with books lagging behind in third place.
Switch off the box and start reading people!!

Book by its cover is a blog project by Julia Rothman who writes about beautful books she's collected.

I heart art

Love these book covers by designer and illustrator Jim Tierney. 

Check out his website.

Leaders as readers...

"The greatest leaders have always been readers. And not just any readers, but deep, thoughtful ones. In ancient times the likes of Pericles, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius and Hadrian were steeped in books. American history offers a host of enlightened readers: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and both Roosevelts. And British history yields much the same impression: Pitt the Younger, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, Winston Churchill. Indeed, it's difficult to name great statesmen who shunned the written word and the cultural and civilisational heritage it represents." 
  - Macgregor Duncan and Andrew Leigh, The Australian, March 3, 2010.
I'm a strong believer in reading for leading. Reading - fiction, non-fiction, poetry, mass media, whatever -  informs personal and professional development in so many ways. 
The authors of the story quoted above went on to find out what our own politicians like to read, saying Australia has produced merely 'serviceable' leaders, rather than the Jeffersons, Lincolns and Churchills of this world.
After polling our pollies on their reading habits, these were the top novels:
Favourite books:
Tony Abbott (Leader of the Opposition): Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
Lindsay Tanner (Finance Minister): War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Julia Gillard (Deputy Prime Minister): Cloudstreet, Tim Winton
Nick Minchin (Opposition Senate Leader): War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Chris Bowen (Human Services Minister): The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck and To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Andrew Laming (Liberal MP): Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Peter Garrett (Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts): March, Geraldine Brooks
Alex Hawke (Federal Member for Mitchell): Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Chris Pyne (Federal Member for Sturt): Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Maxine McKew (Member for Bennelong): Middlemarch, George Eliot
Tanya Plibersek (Minister for Housing and Minister for the Status of Women): Persuasion, Jane Austen
Joe Hockey (Shadow Treasurer): Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Hmmm.... a fairly predictable collection, with the brave exception of Alex Hawke. I'm just relieved that any of our politicians take the time to read fiction. It is, as British philosopher Edmund Burke said, a pathway into the "moral imagination", enabling an appreciation of the human condition and an understanding of one's deepest self. 
Our 'leaders' have a way to go yet.
So, if reading helps one become a better leader - what books should our pollies get stuck into?


NB: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has purportedly written a book (!) didn't respond to the survey.

Finding cadence

A swing in your lounge room... bliss...! Maybe a little tricky for reading but perfect for dreaming up stories...:) I want one.

Photo by Jeltje

On muses...#2

Have you ever read the interview section in the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend magazine where they ask a personality a standard set of quick questions? 
There's one that goes something like: "It's not trendy but I love...?"
My answer would be "it's not trendy but I love the epic poets". 
And they're the reason the whole 'Muse' thing began. There are some brilliant stories within the lyrical language of the ancient poets. 
Homer wasn't one to mince words. OK so his Odyssey is pretty long (epic, in fact) but in the oral tradition of the times it was intended to be sung rather than read - and being the 8th century BC think 'entertainment' rather than 'academia'. Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus' 10 year journey home following the fall of Troy - a loaded tale - so it makes sense that Homer invokes the muse right off the bat in the opening line: 
"Sing to me of the man, Muse, of twists and turns driven time and again off course." 
About 10 lines into The Aeneid, after defiantly stating his independence, Virgil sought help (rather frustratedly by the sounds) from the deities :
"O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate; 
What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;"
Shortly after Homer and Virgil, a third heavyweight showed up. In his poem Metamorphoses, Ovid pretty much describes the history and creation of the world in 15 volumes. And with such a mammoth task it's no wonder he opens with a plea for divine inspiration to the Muses:
"Of bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing: 
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring, 
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat; 
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:"
So my point is, the original purpose of the muse was to create insights and inspire new artistic forms. To call upon a higher power to help unleash the limitless potential of the individual. 
But if you think about the modern day muse - the painter's latest infatuation, or the famous supermodel fashion designers aspire to dress - it's all about inspiring imitation. Creating something in the mould of someone else. 
That's one reason why I love the epic poets. Those guys were way ahead of their time. They were true, great, original thinkers. We need a few of those kind of people in the 21st century. Any contenders?


NB. A case in point. When you google search images of Homer, you get about a million pictures of Homer...Simpson.

On muses...#1

I'm thinking about muses. You know, the nine Greek Goddesses who inspired the creation of literature and the arts: Clio, Thalia, Calliope, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Urania and Terpsichore.
More specifically, I'm thinking about modern day incarnations of the muse. 
At some point between Ancient Greek and contemporary times, the muse morphed from being an invisible, spiritual deity into a living, breathing (mortal) seductress. 
Take Pablo Picasso as an example. He famously anointed each woman he loved, and who became his subject, as his muse. 
Here in Australia during the 1930s, '40s and '50s, the art fraternity appeared willing to share one's muse. Sir Sydney Nolan and Albert Tucker both claimed arts patron Sunday Reed as their muse, an arrangement she, apparently, also found most agreeable.
But there was one 20th Century dude I can think of, Jim Morrison (he of The Doors), who harked back to the Classical world and said his musical inspiration was fed by the spirits. 
Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung wrote that the muse represents the male's anima: "Immortal". She is "disguised under the many names we give to creative impulses and ideas."
Francine Prose (so aptly named) laid out the purpose of the modern muse in her book The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and Artists they Inspired.
"Artists rarely create for the Muse, to win or keep the Muse's love and admiration, but rather for themselves, for the world, and for the more inchoate and unquantifiable imperatives of art itself. Their muses are merely the instruments that raise the emotional and erotic temperature high enough, churn up the weather in a way that may speed and facilitate the artist's labors."
Which brings me to ask:
How to invoke the muse? What's the difference between a muse and someone whose influence in some way shapes your craft? And why, in the age of all things supposedly being equal, is the muse still typically female? Who can we women creatives call upon for inspiration in the absence of the male muse?
And well may you ask - who cares? 
Creatives care, because inspiration and motivation is the fuel that keeps the writer / poet / artist powering through to complete their work. And if we don't know where the fuel comes from, we can't get more when we run out.
So bear with me while I keep musing on the muse...there's a work of fiction within that's reliant upon a long and steady supply of fuel.


*Apollo and the Muses (above), Simon Vouet, c. 1640

The rules according to Dyer...

Have you read Geoff Dyer's Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi?
It's about Jeff Atman, an arts journalist who doubles as a travel writer. You know, holidays thinly disguised as work. 
The first part of the book, tripping through the muddled streets of Venice on the arts/party circuit during the Biennale, was engrossing. 
The second part, sliding into an impenetrable state of malaise in Varanasi, just about put me into a coma. Which was perhaps the intention.
Dyer was in Australia a week or two ago for Writers' Week at the Adelaide Festival and is apparently a sparklingly intelligent and entertaining man. Although the India part of his book really didn't do it for me, I do like the advice he gave aspiring writers in The Guardian last month. Among a swag of authors asked to contribute '10 Rules for Writing Fiction', Dyer's first point was particularly resonant:
Never worry about the commercial possibilities of a project. That stuff is for agents and editors to fret over – or not. Conversation with my American publisher. Me: "I'm writing a book so boring, of such limited commercial appeal, that if you publish it, it will probably cost you your job." Publisher: "That's exactly what makes me want to stay in my job."
Sometimes I think my book will be so obscure no one could possibly be interested in reading it. Then I think, stuff it, write it anyway and at least my lovely family and friends will have to give it a go...:)


* A book tree (above). Not sure where this photo was taken but it proves the limitless possibilities of the humble book.

Enforcing the lore...

Sometimes sitting down, blocking out all other distractions and writing - just getting words on the page -  is such a Herculean task I think the only feasible answer is to be locked in a room and tied down to the chair with no option but to churn out the story.
It's not such a mad idea, when you consider that incarceration spawned some of the world's greatest literature...
You've heard of the English classic The Pilgrim's Progress. John Bunyan penned it in 1684 to keep himself occupied while doing penance in the big house for preaching without a licence. 
Prison time inspired fabled Italian public servant, Niccolo Machiavelli, to write The Prince in 1513. He dreamt up the plot while being wrongly jailed for launching a rebellion against the ruling Medici family of Florence.
And while in the slammer for being skint and unable to repay his mounting debts back in 1615, Miguel de Cervantes bided his time writing Don Quixote...which ended up being his ticket to financial freedom.
Perhaps the answer is to sentence myself to serving up a minimum number of sentences each day? That could work. Of course, a girl needs the right outfit to boot.... luckily for me prison stripes are in. 
Hold that thought. I'm off to the mall.

In which Rob tries to read...

The 'illustrated jocularity' of David Malki ! occasionally goes over my head, but if ever I could conjure up my "six people living or dead I'd invite to a dinner party" he'd be one of them.
Malki's cartoon Wondermark appears online and is updated twice weekly. And here's what makes it different. This splendid dude mines his collection of old books for 19th century woodcuts and engravings, from which he crafts his comics. 
Incidentally, the exclamation mark proceeding his name is intentional. 
"I spell my name with an exclamation point like so: David Malki ! It’s considered an honorific, and used in the same manner as “Jr” or “PhD”: there’s a single space before it. The exclamation point is not pronounced - though many have tried, often with hilarious results."
I give you, my friends, his take on why we read...

*Click on the image to enlarge

On thinking...

Something lovely I came across today, from Lord Byron:


But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

Sales by design...

I admit. When it comes to books I do sometimes...well, judge a book by its cover. All it takes is a certain je ne sais quoi - a deliciously embossed font, a velvety soft watermark, an intoxicating graphic - for me to get sucked in by its beauty and end up at the cash register.
Have you noticed that book covers seem to change randomly depending on where you pick them up? That's because different designs are chosen for the American and British markets and sometimes we in Australia end up with both options.
I found this comparison of UK and American book covers at a pretty cool online literary magazine - www.themillions.com. Check out the debate and see which ones you rate. It's a big deal when you consider that in sales terms, all the blood, sweat and tears an author invests in his or her manuscript can be slaughtered by a bad cover.
The UK version of Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood gets my vote. I have no idea if the story's any good, but who cares - with its ripe colours and heavily laden vines enswirling the words - I'd buy it solely for the luscious artwork. Ka-ching!

Did you know "Santa" in Arabic means wart?

I find inspiration for writing in mining my treasure trove of newspaper clippings, random quotes scribbled on scraps, articles torn from magazines and other literary flotsam and jetsam I've tucked away over the years, thinking it might come in handy one day.
Tonight, while delving into some long-untouched boxes, I came across an article from the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend magazine dated November 5, 2005.
I read somewhere recently, and I can't think where, but someone supposedly qualified in such matters said English has the most depth and versatility of any modern language. The implication being that the writer who writes in the English language has the most advantageous start.
I'm not sure about that.
In his Good Weekend article, Adam Jacot de Boinod, author of The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words From Around the World, introduces turns of phrase in languages that make English look stolid.
There's a writing exercise right here in some of these gems. Let's see - can you craft a credible storyline using any of these words?:
nakhur (Persian) - meaning "a camel that won't give milk until her nostrils have been tickled"
areodjarekput (Inuit) - "to exchange wives for a few days only"
marilopates (Ancient Greek) - "a gulper of coal dust"
tsjuri-giri (Japanese) - "to try out a new sword on a passer-by"
zechpreller (German) - "someone who leaves without paying the bill"
neko-neko (Indonesian) - "one who has a creative idea which only makes things worse"
serein (French) - "the rain that falls from a cloudless sky"
pu'ukaula (Hawaiian) - "to set up one's wife as a stake in gambling"
scheissbedauern (German) - "the disappointment one feels when things don't turn out nearly as badly as one had hoped" (...bizarre!)
And from the "I can't believe someone made up a word for that" files...how's this one?!:
bakku-shan (Japanese) "a woman who seems pretty when seen from behind but not from the front"
Some country, somewhere, has got to have a male equivalent. Anyone??

Oh pun intended...!

I love a good pun. Especially when the recipient gets it first time around... for some reason they never seem quite as laugh-out-loud funny when you have to explain them. 
Anyhow, I found this list of Top 10 Puns on kid lit blog Alien Onion, and I especially like the bit where they say: "The ability to make and understand puns is considered to be the highest level of language development."
Check it out. Number 9 is pure gold. Haha! I defy you not to laugh out loud. 
Can you beat it?

Book voyeur #5

My seven year old friend, Mr Chatterbox, saw me loading up this photo and wanted to know whose bookcase it was. I told him it belongs to one of my favourite people, BreadHead, who lives in Africa.
"She must get very hot and bothered," he replied. "Because it's very sunny in Africa."
It is very sunny in Africa. But sometimes on the highveld it gets very cold too, and rainy. And you must stay inside all day and read a good book.
BreadHead doesn't know I took this sneaky snap of her bookcase but I love it because it reminds me of her home, which is a second home to me, warm and cosy and full of brightness. Just like BreadHead.

Book voyeur #4

In the beautiful, gracious country home of A and J in the Southern Highlands, a family's various interests are revealed nestling around the fireplace.
If I could design my own home, I'd design it around my books. As J, who did design his home, says: "We wanted this room to feel warm and enveloping, a place where we could sit and be surrounded by things that are welcoming and personal."
This room makes me want to curl up by the fireside with a glass of red and disappear into storyworld...

Book voyeur #3

OK Mobsters, see if you can guess whose books we're zoning in on today...
This is one full to bursting bookcase! Brilliant! Just as no one likes to see a scrawny baby, no booklover likes to see a malnourished bookcase.
Its owner, let's call him Mr X for now, says:
"Top shelf - sci-fi/fantasy collection including Asimov (his Foundation series), Douglas Adam's Hitchhikers Guide trilogy in four parts, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy and Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. Also hiding in there is a model of the C152 I learnt to fly in, Frank Herbert's classic Dune and somewhat embarrassingly L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth, which is terrible.
"Next shelf - [Ms X's books] Harry Potter en mass, and a collection of classic fairy tales stand out.
"Next shelf - my aviation library. All manner of stuff but lots of biographies/autobiographies, with a tendency to first print runs with an intact dust jacket.
"Next three shelves - all my other books, share trading, investing, science, maths, manhood, travel, adventure, phrasebooks and dictionaries, novels, surfing, philosophy, religion, history....
"Bottom shelf - photo albums, stereo and miscellaneous junk.
"The proportion of books by subject matter seems to closely replicate my interest level in each topic!"
Which takes us back to the original question...are we what we read?

Book voyeur #2

From the designer files...
This book shelf, belonging to my cherished friends D and G in Africa, could be straight out of the pages of the bibliophile's treasury, Books Do Furnish A Room.
I love how the books present a colourful splatter amid the tres chic minimalism of the furnishings. And what better than a touch of animal skin with your reading to unleash your wild side ;)

Book voyeur #1

A huge thank you to everyone who answered the call and sent me photos of their bookcases.
This week is Voyeur Week on Rubyfire Writes - where we traipse nonchalantly through the lives and loves of my mates via their bookshelves. And it begs the question...are we what we read?

Let's kick off with the Grady's testament to apartment living where bookshelves house not only books but all manner of treasures.
K says: "Here is our bookcase. Its from IKEA and I hate it because its such crap quality and the backing is falling out! From top left going down we have... my novels, travel books, cookbooks, flying books, QANTAS manuals (2 shelves). Then top right going down... more of my novels, Rich's books, miscellaneous x2 shelves (street directory, DIY books, dictionary, scuba diving books, etc.), then a shelf with our wedding album with old laptop and clock on top (no books!), bottom shelf has more flying documents in big folders. Overall, its a boring, old, disorganised bookcase that needs to be upgraded."
I like its height and homeliness. Makes me want to dive right in. Ooh, second shelf from the top, on the right, Porno. What's that like K...?

If we could talk to the animals...

Elephants can do maths*. They grieve as humans do when a member of their family dies. They can identify individual elephants far away by the sound of their call (hey bloooooke, it's me Fred. Wassup.).
Pretty cool.
But even more impressive, researchers suspect they can differentiate between human languages. These magnificent creatures don't have the best eye sight in the world, but their hearing is excellent.
Elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park commonly come across three different different human tongues as they traverse the park's reaches and it seems they're pretty cluey about their homosapien neighbours.
There are the Masaai, a semi-nomadic people who speak Maa. The Kamba people, who have their own language. And there are your cut-and-paste English speaking tourists who have morphed their way into the African landscape.
According to scientiest Graeme Shannon, "detecting whether they can tell languages apart depends on whether the elephants exhibit defensive or perhaps aggressive behaviour."
"Amboseli's elephants and Maasai community are wary of each other. Sometimes elephants will kill Maasai cattle and, very occasionally, people. When this happens, young Maasai warriors will go out and spear an elephant to death in retaliation.
"Least threatening to the animals are the English-speaking tourists who just want to watch and take photos."
Why am I writing about this?
Because I'm thinking about my characters and the way they communicate using senses other than oral.
Sometimes I think linguistics serves to complicate the way we communicate rather than elicit understanding. Sometimes the more we talk to each other the more confused we get. And don't even bring sms and email into the equation.
I'm a firm believer in the old adage that actions speak louder than words.
Sometimes too you just need to go back to basics. I'd go so far as to say that even in 2010, there's a time and place for the grunt and call of the caveman...

*Africa Geographic says a Japanese study provides evidence that elephants have considerable numerical skills. They've proven adept at recognising the difference between two quantities of objects as they were placed into buckets. In these tests, elephants outperformed a range of primates, including human children.

Avatar...

Where were you when the Twin Towers collapsed? Where were you when Princess Diana died? When John Lennon got shot? When the Berlin Wall came down?
Avatar is to cinema legend what those events are to modern world history. I bet, 20 years from now, people will remember where they watched it. Not for the plot, but for the mind-blowing impact of the super-brilliant CGI technology.
Summer. 2010. Imax. 3D. Sydney.
Admittedly I was probably one of the last people on the planet to have seen it, but I wonder if you knew this literary  trivia...:

• The look of the Na'vi (the humanoids indigenous to Pandora) was inspired by a dream that director James Cameron's mother had long before he started work on Avatar. In her dream she saw a 12ft blue-skinned woman, which he thought was "kind of a cool image". 
• The Na'vi language was created entirely from scratch by linguist Paul R Frommer. Cameron hired him to construct a language that the actors could pronounce easily, but didn't resemble any single human language. Frommer created about 1000 words.
•  The year is never stated, but the video log shows that it's 2154.
• "Unobtainium" is a humorous term used mainly in the aerospace industry. It describes a material that is perfect for an application, but does not exist, is extremely expensive, or violates the laws of physics. The chemical symbol is Uo.
• In the scene where Jake's in prison, his back is to the camera and you can see the back of his wheelchair. The brand of wheelchair is "Grunt," which is another term for a Marine infantryman.
• Avatar is Sanskrit for "incarnation". It's used extensively in Hindu scriptures to refer to human incarnations of God.
• The word "Na'vi" in Hebrew means prophet. A Na'vi is a visionary or someone who communicates directly with god. Its pleural "Nevi'im" refers to the prophetic books of the Bible including Judges, Kings Isaiah.

Yeah the plot was thin, but with 3D graphics like that to catapult you right into the thick of the action, who cares?! 
What did you think of the story of Avatar?

Long live books...!

There are two kinds of readers. 
The ones who make notes in the margins throughout, and happily bookmark their spot by folding the top triangle of the page. And the ones who recoil in horror at the thought of such murderous and abhorrent crimes against books.
I proudly belong in the first group. I'm a folder and a scribbler. Wherever I happen to be reading, guaranteed there's a pen within arm's reach to asterisk, underline and boldly notate whenever I find a passage that deserves revisiting at some stage.
My friend MM is a staunch crusader of the second group.
What then, would she make of this?
My heart skipped a beat when I saw these bewitching folded-book sculptures by South African blogger Freshly Found. The example pictured above was made from a thick old engineering manual. Fittingly for February 14, Freshly Found writes: "I love how these boring (to me anyhow) books have taken on new life. The best thing about this manual was that it was dedicated to the author's wife! Who says engineers are not tenderhearted romantics?"
Well I wouldn't know about that last bit, but such artistry, using common objects, is inspiring! What an imaginative way to preserve an appreciation for books in the digital age - especially when they'd probably otherwise end up as landfill. I've even seen it referred to as 'upcycling'. (Yes, you heard it here first.)
I may have found myself a new creative pursuit for the winter. No glue, no pins. Original objects for the home. Apparently the repetitive nature of the technique is quite therapeutic. 
What do you think of these beauties?

Expressing yourself

Life is bizarre and full of surprises. Someone asked me the other day: "Think back to when you were a kid. What did you want to do as a grown up?"
Of all the regular stuff - fireman, teacher, doctor, race car driver, big business banker - I bet none of us kids ever replied: "I'd like to do something so resoundingly fabulous, or stupid, that my name becomes a part of the Aussie vernacular."
But it happened to Stephen Bradbury and sitting here watching the 2010 Winter Olympic Games Opening Ceremony I'm wondering, who could it be next?
Google "doing a Bradbury" and you'll find pages of examples of how his famous gold medal victory (by being the slowest skater on field and simply navigating his way through an array of carcasses splayed helplessly before him) has become slang for "winning something almost in spite of yourself". Even Bill Clinton uses it.
Two other infamous Australians spawned the phrase "having a Barry". There's some argument over whether it should be attributed to Barry Crocker (responsible for writing that God-awful Neighbours jingle) or Barry Unsworth, (Labor politician and NSW Premier in the 1980s. Enough said.) Either or, both are perfect namesakes for a phrase that means "having a shocker".
It's kinda fun to think about how to etch your name into infamy...perhaps it will happen to one of my characters? The possibilities boggle the mind. 
I want to know - what could you do to ensure your name was writ eternal into our lingo?

On freedom

One of my favourite poems, because it's Friday and I can taste freedom...


The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
                           - Alfred, Lord Tennyson


What gives you the taste of freedom?

On coveting...

Anyone who knows me knows my mantra. A handbag a day keeps the doldrums away. And toting a handbag, that's also a book, that looks like a handbag (while sashaying in stilettoes and wearing fabulous lipstick) is about as close to heaven as a girl can get. Without, you know, carking it.
Imagine my excitement when I came across these beauties from accessories designer Olympia Le-Tan. Ooh la la!

Flow finder...

Anyone who covets beautiful stationery as I do will understand the allure of a fresh piece of pristine paper upon which to deliver your most profound observations. Provided you can think of something to say, that is. 
If these irresistible desk sets from Poppies for Grace don't inspire a stumped writer, I came across a prompt in Monica Wood's pint sized tome The Pocket Muse 2, Endless Inspiration for Writers, that seems to help:


A Wordsmith's Warm-up
First sentence: one word
   Second sentence: two words
      Third sentence: three words
          and so on, until you trick yourself in.

Self-trickery really works. It's kind of like making yourself get off the couch and get some exercise when it all seems like too much hard work. Tell yourself you're just going for a walk, then go a little faster, until suddenly you're running because walking is just too slow and unsatisfying. 
Same with writing. A three line sentence sits there teasing me to flesh it out. I have yet to master the art of minimalism when it comes to word-smithing. At least it gets words on the page, and that's a great start.

On rivers #4... synchronicity

I'm big on synchronicity. Swimming with the current on my river theme, this week has been sprinkled with synchronistic moments.
First, as I finished reading Bird by Bird, I came across this passage the author found in a prayer book: "The Gulf Stream will flow through a straw provided the straw is aligned to the Gulf Stream, and not at cross purposes to it."

Anne Lamott goes on to say: "I always tell my students about the Gulf Stream: that what it means for us, as writers, is that we need to align ourselves with the river of the story, the river of the unconscious, of memory and sensibility, of our characters' lives, which can then pour through us, the straw."
Second, I'd forgotten how those grand old dudes, the Impressionists, were right into rivers. Drinking in the breathtaking Masterpieces from Paris exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia brought back memories of smocks and raggy paint brushes and the smell of turpentine in high school art class. Garish teenage attempts at reproducing Monet's waterlillies and Gaugin's portly Tahitian women on canvas adorned many a doting parent's hallway after our prolific painterly phase in Year Eight. 
On loan from the Musee d'Orsay, one painting that I literally could not tear my eyes away from was Monet's In the Norweigan (c1807). "Monet's stepdaughters often appear in his paintings, and here Germaine, Suzanne and Blanche Hoschede are fishing and dreaming in a 'Norweigan', a type of wooden rowing boat. The painter omits sky and earth from his composition, as well as any other reference to the world beyond the river."
In this image, and in all the artworks that referenced rivers, the river infused the scene with life and energy. I swear I would have heard the gentle, poignant lap of oar against tide...had the overzealous clucks and aaahs of a tide of tour groupies, looking all Bug's Life in those crazy oversized headsets, not drowned it out.
Third, I was reminded of how quickly famine turns to flood when the road I was driving home along in the dark of night, without warning turned into a river. Out of nowhere a cloud burst flung lashing torrents across my windscreen. The tar turned slick and angry, the roar of the deluge stereophonic as the line of traffic skeetered towards Sydney. It was scary. I nearly cried me a river.