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.

On rivers #3... the Banjo

Alliteration! How to evoke an image (taste, smell, time, touch, sensation!) in two perfect lines....poetry in motion. 
Look at the picture, read the words. Enough said.

"Oh! rocky range and rugged spur and river running clear,

That swings around the sudden bends with swirl of snow-white foam"

       - from The Wind's Message by Banjo Paterson

Photo by Julie Magers Soulen Photography

On rivers #2... symbolism and writing

It may be esoterica to some but I adore myths and symbols and legends and the exploration of the unconscious...so when my own writing becomes knotty, I'm drawn to the bookcase in my bedroom. Of the five sets of bookshelves in my home I think of this one as the First Class Lounge, where the most precious volumes sit, must be dusted off regularly and given extra special attention. They're also the books I'd grab first in a fire. If only I could disarm the window and activate a bright yellow escape slide to shoot the bookcase out, should such an emergency occur.
Anyhow, this is the one (middle shelf on the right) where Laurens van der Post, CG Jung, dreams, symbolism, Greek heroes and Roman goddesses contently nestle, and where I seek asylum from the honk and blare of the 21st century.
In Jung and the Story of Our Time, the most-excellent van der Post says that a river succeeds in moving from its source to the sea "only because it finds its own way without short cuts, straight lines, or disregard of any physical impediments but in full acknowledgement of the reality of all that surrounds it, implying that the longest way around is the shortest and only safe way to the sea... The Rhine is one of the great mythological rivers of the world, a dark and angry stream, as dark and in as strange a rage and passion to get to the sea as the Congo issuing straight out of the darkest centre of Africa."
In van der Post's river, my writing process is reflected. 
I'm learning there are no short cuts. Definitely no straight lines (plenty of squiggles). And there's no getting around the impediments of detail and detritus and history and hazards that must be explored then traversed to breathe reality into my story. To this metaphor I add our own famous river system the Murray-Darling - dried up - for those moments when my pen feels empty of words altogether. 
The sea is a long way off yet. I can't wait to swim in it when I arrive.

On rivers #1

Murray. Lachlan. Goulburn. Darling. Murrumbidgee. Margaret. Yarra. Katherine. Clarence. Namoi. Fitzroy.
Rivers have always been the lifeblood of Australia. I'm thinking a lot about rivers because there's one - long and large and settling and streaming - feeding my story.
I have a very vivid memory of swimming in a river in, appropriately, the Riverina as a nine-year-old kid. Splashing around among the rocks mid-stream I nearly crapped myself when a great Australian venomous snake shot like a spitting, writhing whirlpool right past me. It slashed on through the mud and grass towards our camp and moments later was deftly beheaded by my uncle's shovel. 
I was too young to know anything of the symbolism of rivers in literature, the progression of life, the passage of time etc etc. But I still get goosebumps recalling the terror of that moment. I am not a fan of snakes.
So, in homage to rivers in writing, and in celebration of the African American poet Langston Hughes, born on this day in 1902, his signature poem:


The Negro Speaks of Rivers
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I danced in the Nile when I was old
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.


What do you think of when you think of a river?