Consumption Diary: Sept-Oct 2024

MUSIC - SEPTEMBER

PARA-LITERARY INTERLUDE

I came 2nd in the Sargeson Prize with my story 'Robinson in the Roof Space', which was subsequently published at Newsroom. I wrote the first half of this story in my first month of the Burns Fellowship in 2017, alongside two other stories, when I was loosening up for the novel that would eventually become Nailing Down the Saint. I wrote the second half of the story in my last week at the Michael King Writers Centre in Devonport in June this year (alongside one other story). There's clearly something about the figure of Robinson that appeals to me when on a writing residency...

In terms of the composition of the story itself, it follows George Saunders' approach of building a story sentence by sentence, and though I hadn't read A Swim in a Pond in the Rain when I wrote the first part. It does have a Saunderian vibe, though. And adding each new sentence so that it was adding to the story, making it better, like a bricklayer building a wall, made it pretty easy to pick up and finish seven years later.

In other publication (non)news, the agent I pitched both the novel and short story collection I worked on while in Devonport didn't want anything to do with short stories and was lukewarm on the novel sample. It helped clarify how I was feeling about the novel manuscript: it still wasn't wholly what it wanted/needed to be. So another draft is on the cards, when I can manufacture the time/headspace/roofspace. 

A university press also passed on the story collection, citing the horrors of the marketplace. Oh well.

So for now this turtle has pulled his head right back into his shell. It's nice to have some things in the chamber when I feel like pitching again or the Universe comes knocking.

READING

The Nix by Nathan Hill (novel, audiobook, US, 2016) - I read Hill's sophomore novel, Wellness, earlier this year and reading his debut cemented a few things for me. Wellness wasn't flawless, but it's felt more unified than The Nix, and will definitely be in my end of year top 10. When you add Hill's two novels to the two Paul Murray doorstoppers (Skippy Dies and The Bee Sting), and possibly also Gabrielle Zevin's novel (see below), I think these are the sorts of books my novel manuscript is wanting to become. Bigger. Polyphonic but in a more sedate way. Timelessly topical. 

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (novel, audiobook, US, 2022) - I liked but did not love this one. But having read Sam Brooks' ludicrous review for The Spinoff, suddenly I'd die for this novel. The references thing in particular - I thought this was well-handled. Just to pick the first from Brooks' list, Metal Gear Solid isn't a throwaway line, but a long passage about stealth games, the game's designer/publisher deciding to rebrand the series to appeal to an American audience - all of which was germane to the characters' own decisions about their games AND hit that nostalgia dopamine release for the days of the original PlayStation.

Companion Piece by Ali Smith (novel, audiobook, UK, 2022) - The great Ali Smith keeps on being great in uncomfortable ways.

Say's Who? A kinder, funner usage guide for everyone who cares about words by Anne Curzan (non-fiction, audiobook, 2024) - Cliff Notes version: languages evolve, go for it.

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (novel, audiobook, Australia, 2023) - The adjective Woody, in this case, refers to something intimate and yet bone-cold. 

Murder at the Museum by Alasdair Beckett-King (novel, audiobook, UK, 2023)

You Don't Have to Have a Dream by Tim Minchin (non-fiction, audiobook, Australia, 2024)

BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ, 2024) - I left this particular BBQ early.

The Mires by Tina Makereti (novel, audiobook, NZ, 2024) - So great to have NZ books available as audiobooks, even if they aren't all to my tastes (see above).

Above the Noise: My Story of Chasing Calm by DeMar DeRozan with Dave Zarum (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2024) - So great to have DeMar DeRozan on the Sacramento Kings.

Chosen by Geoff Cochrane (poetry, physical book, NZ, 2020)

Conventional Weapons by Tracey Slaughter (poetry, physical book, NZ, 2019)

MOVIES & TV

Severance, Season 1

Slow Horses, Season 1 & 2

Ted Lasso, Season 3

Presumed Innocent, Season 1

Starting 5, Season 1

Reform, Parts 1-3

Mr McMahon

Anyone But You

Late Night with the Devil

Kock at the Cabin

Inside Out 2

Holiday on the Buses

MUSIC - OCTOBER

Consumption Diary: August 2024

MUSIC

BOOKS

I re-read Living in the Maniototo a few more times (and dipped back into Rachel Cusk's Outline trilogy and Parade) in August as I prepared my talk for the symposium on Reading Janet Frame (for) Today on the 30th. It was a great event!

I also read:

The Material World by Ed Conway (non-fiction, audiobook, 2023, UK) - this really did make me look at the (material) world differently. I highly recommend it.

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (non-fiction, audiobook, 2024, US) - this was basically a recapitulation of Haidt's previous work on anti-fragility, repackaged as an anti-phone treatise. He admits as much toward the end of the book.

Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova (novel, audiobook, 2022, Canada) - okay.

Until August by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (novel, audiobook, 2024, Colombia, translated) - I can see why GGM wasn't keen on this being published, but also why his literary executors thought better of his wishes and pubbed it anyway.

James by Percival Everett (novel, audiobook, 2024, US) - I retelling of Huck Finn from Jim's perspective. In the spirit of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, Everett employs alternative history (Jim and the other slaves are highly educated and eloquent, but speak in their dumbed-down patois to white people for a range of reasons) in such a way that you realise the "history" was also partly fiction. Unfortunately, the book is limited by the picaresque nature of the original narrative so that, like any remake, it never quite becomes its own thing, and like any road-trip (or river-trip) novel, it never quite feels complete, but merely finished.

Chosen by Geoff Cochrane (poetry, physical book, 2020, NZ) - this came out as I was preparing to move islands and I didn't get around to reading it before Geoff died, or his posthumous best of came out. Now that I've read this last collection, it's time to delve into the best of (I suspect it will suffer the same problem that Owen Marshall's 2x best of story collections have, in that the quirky, interstitial pieces might not carry the individual heft to make it into a best of, but leaving them all out means the sum of the parts is less than the whole impression of breadth and deliberate unevenness -- or maybe willingness to subvert reader expectations is a kinder way to put it -- in any one collection)… We shall see!!!

Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin (fiction, audiobook, 2018, US) - I quite liked Season 2 of House of the Dragon, but became increasingly intrigued by what book readers were saying about how much action was left to come in the show's final two seasons, so I became a book reader myself and... this was not my cup of tea. I read the first two novels in A Song of Fire and Ice and quite liked them, but feel no compunction to read the rest. But Fire and Blood is not a novel, but a collection of fictional histories Martin knocked out for certain anthologies. The sections that inform House of the Dragon are the most engaging, but they are still pretty tedious. I guess I'm no Westeros completist.

Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen (novel, audiobook, 2004, US) - Several times I felt like I'd read this book before, but I can't find any hard evidence. This speaks badly for Hiaasen and/or me. 

FILM & TV

The Olympics (how good were they?)

Colin from Accounts - Season 2

Taskmaster NZ Season 5

Anyone But You

The Sixth Sense

Masterminds

Hate to Love: Nickelback

Remembering Gene Wilder

The Last of the Mohicans

How to Rob a Bank

Untold: The Murder of Air McNair

Historical document: caching the Q&A with myself from my website (2019 version)

Every not-so often I update the Q&A on the "About Craig" page on my website.

Even less often, people might link to, or quote from, this Q&A. So when I refresh the content, I put the old version up here.

Bonus Q&A with myself (from 2019)

What are you working on at the moment?

Well, I just finished my second novel (Nailing Down the Saint), that comes out in NZ and Australia in August 2019. I'm not the kind of person who can go straight from one big undertaking to another, so I'll be writing short stories and enjoying life for at least a couple of months. 

Your last novel came out in New Zealand in 2013. What gives?

I remember getting comments back from my editor for The Mannequin Makers while my wife was in labour with our first child, so it’s very easy for me to measure the time it has taken to finish this next book. Time enough for that baby to grow past my hip, begin school and start writing Shimmer and Shine fan fiction.

My son joined the family in 2015.

Until 2017, I was working full-time to help support the family.

Is it your dream to be a full-time writer?

That depends. I loved my time in Dunedin in 2017 as the Robert Burns Fellow, which meant I could write full-time, though there was no end of interesting distractions. But when the residency ended I still had bills to pay, mouths to feed.

I actually enjoy my other life in the bowels of the bureaucracy (I work for the New Zealand Ministry of Education). I think I'm good at it. It's nice to use a different part of my brain, to collaborate on projects and deal with other people (and harvest their lives for material for my fiction, muahahaha), to have a beer on Friday and toast a good week's work. You don't really get that as a writer.

I've made the choice to live in New Zealand, have a family and a mortgage and be a writer. I can have it all, just not all at once or all the time.

You attended the International Institute of Modern Letters MA programme back in 2006. Is that when you wrote the stories in A Man Melting?

No. I actually tried to write a novel that year — a great experience but I think it was a mistake to try and write a novel from go to whoa in eight months. Too many decisions were made for the sake of expedience that then became so integral to the fabric of the novel that it was beyond fixing (though I spent another year trying!). The manuscript now sits in my bottom drawer along with the novel I tried to write when I was twenty-one.

When did you turn your attention to short fiction?

I've always written short fiction. It's a natural progression to start with the shorter form and work your way up to the longer, if that's your goal. I mostly read novels when I was younger (Douglas Coupland, Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Palahniuk), so that's what I grew up wanting to write. Tastes change, of course, and eventually I found an appreciation for subtlety (though I still love me some Vonnegut). After finishing my MA, I really wanted to keep writing, but didn't have the reserves of energy needed to start another novel. So I returned to short fiction.

The first two stories I wrote after doing my MA were 'Copies' (which has since been included in three anthologies) and 'Another Language' (which won the novice section of the 2007 BNZ Katherine Mansfield Awards). Something just clicked.

In 2008, while living in Edinburgh, I tried to write one million words in 366 days (it was a leap year). I only wrote 800,737 words, but it was a very successful failure. Almost every story in A Man Melting was written or revised during that year.

Your novel, The Mannequin Makers, is quite different to your short stories. For one, it's historical. Was it a deliberate choice to go in a different direction?

Yes and no. After finishing the stories in A Man Melting, I started working on a novel that took a character from one of these stories and spent more time with him. I plugged away at this project for quite a while, but always seemed to get bogged down. The novel was set in the present and focused on a dude about my age, with experiences not dissimilar to mine.

When I finally gave up on this novel, I decided that the next thing I worked on would either be set in the past or the future. The future seemed too easy - I could just make things up - and I thought doing research would help me feel like a proper writer. So I chose to focus on two ideas that I'd been kicking around for a while that needed to take place in the past and devote the next two or three years to them.

Having said this, I don't think The Mannequin Makers is a million miles away from my short stories. I was on a panel discussion at a writers festival once about 'Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary'. I do that a little bit (like in my story 'Evolution, Eh?'), but more often I think I'm finding the ordinary in the extraordinary. In a story like 'The Skeptic's Kid', the extraordinary (extinct animals begin reappearing all around the world) is there front and centre, but the story is more concerned about the relationship of the young narrator and his mother. Same goes with The Mannequin Makers, which could be described as high concept - a window dresser raises his children to be living mannequins - but is secretly (not-so-secretly, now) more interested in what it's like to stand very still for a long time.

Consumption Diary June-July 2024

MUSIC - JUNE

PRODUCTIVITY INTERLUDE

In my last post I covered the first two weeks of my three week residency at the Michael King Writers Centre. I'd finished the second draft of the novel manuscript by this point (my #1 priority for the residency) and was turning my attention to short stories.

In this final week I wrote one entirely new story (well, I had tried to write the first page a couple of times over the last two years, but never quite got the takeoff right), 'Kia Kaha, Ōtepoti', and finished two more stories for which I'd written somewhere between 25% and 75% ('Processional' and 'Robinson in the Roof Space'). I did try to write another story that I'd been contemplating for at least four years, but it was too similar to the themes in the novel I'd just been working on and it just felt flat.

I also edited all the "completed" stories I'd pencilled in for my second story collection, AND a handful I'd discounted, two of which I like again, so the final cut and order of the collection looks a little different to what I thought before my productivity burst in Auckland.

When I got back to Dunedin, I handed two manuscripts to my wife to read. I also let my kids read some ('Kia Kaha, Ōtepoti' is set in our current house). After a few small tweaks, I submitted the MS to the Drue Heinz Literature Prize in the spirit of buying a lotto ticket. The more likely path to publication for collection #2 is a package deal with the novel MS. I still need to work through some comments on that MS and get some Police insider knowledge. 

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In my final week in Devonport I also submitted an abstract for a symposium: 'Reading Janet Frame (for) Today', which was subsequently accepted, so now I need to flesh out the talk I'll give on 30 August.

In non-residency-related productivity, in July I wrote a review of David Coventry's third novel, Performance for Landfall Review Online, which doesn't appear online just yet.

BOOKS

Down with the System: A memoir (of sorts) by Serj Tankian (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2024) - achieved two things: raised my awareness of the Armenian genocide more than any SOAD album; made me go back and listen to Serj's solo stuff and Scars on Broadway.

Living in the Maniototo by Janet Frame (novel, physical book, NZ, 1979)

Performance by David Coventry (novel, physical book, NZ, 2024)

Wellness by Nathan Hill (novel, audiobook, US, 2023) - Wonderful. Part of me feels I shouldn't have loved it so much as it's lineage back through Jonathan Franzen is pretty clear (even without Oprah's seal of approval for 'Wellness'), but it deals with things I'm interested in (and made me interested in things I wasn't previously) and feels big without being overblown or tryhard. Need to go back and read The Nix now.

Butter by Asako Yuzuki (novel, audiobook, Japan, 2024) - not as dark or subversive as I was expecting. 

The High Sierra by Kim Stanley Robinson (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2022) - long.

You Are Here by David Nicholls (novel, audiobook, UK, 2024) - peppy.

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (novel, audiobook, UK, 1837) - long and peppy.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (novel, audiobook, US, 2024) I loved There There. This new book felt more conventional. The historical stuff about generals and labour camps felt like work, for both the writer and the reader, and thus less urgent. 

Why is Sex Fun? by Jared Diamond (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 1997) - I fear you will misinterpret my chief complaint that this book had a bad, misleading title.

Assembly by Natasha Brown (novel, audiobook, UK, 2021) - really good. Surprised I'd never heard of it before (or more likely, the buzz never really lodged in my memory). Think the TV show Industry x Sheila Heti autofiction x bell hooks.

At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop (novel, audiobook, France, 2021) - brief and repetitive, like battle, perhaps.

Furia by Yamile Saied Mendez (novel, audiobook, US/Argentina, 2020) - I read this because my daughter (11) is into books (and movies) with romancy themes now, but this YA was really good on football and South American gender norms.

Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog (non-fiction, audiobook, Germany/US, 2022) - it's nice to walk around with Werner in your earbuds. Just waiting for the app that can narrate your life in real time with famous (AI) voices, which will be simultaneously cool & horrific.

The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt (novel, audiobook, US, 2023) - told in quite distinct parts, all of which were good, but don't quite come together (in my head at least) as a complete, balanced, whole.

BOOK STATS

So far this year I've read 56 books, on pace for 99.4 by the end of the year...

Checking in on my semi-random reading targets for 2024 now we've passed the halfway point of the year:

• At least ten single-author poetry collections: 5/10
• At least one book from every continent: 6/6 (No Antarctica...)
• At least four books in translation: 5/4
• At least four books by Australians: 2/4
• At least five different genres of novel: I'm comfortably at 5 (romance, mystery/crime, fantasy, gothic, lit-fic), and could break those mystery/crime and lit-fic ones up more if I was desperate. Plus YA, if you count that as a genre, rather than an age-band. I really don't know how to classify my Asian bookstore fiction... popular fiction? Pop psychology masking as fiction? Maybe it's just a genre to itself. I hate this target anyway. What was I thinking? Let us speak no more of it!

FILM & TV

The Bear - Season 3

House of the Dragon - Season 2

Longshot

The Barbie Movie

Scavengers Reign - Season 1

(I'm sure there was more, but...)

The Olympics (ongoing)

MUSIC - JULY

Consumption Diary May (incl. 2/3 of a mini-residency)

MUSIC

She's a long one this month...

PRODUCTIVITY INTERLUDE

On May 20th I flew up to Auckland (eventually my bag made it too) and took up temporary residence at the Michael King Writers Centre in Devonport.

I leave on 10 June.

When I arrived I had a 33,573 word "first draft" of a novel that I worked on in 2022. I shelved it because:

    a) I was writing it about events in 2022 such as the anti-mandate protest at Parliament and wrote ahead of those events knowing I'd need to come back to it "later", once the present of the novel that was the future at time of writing became the past for the reader.

    b) I got COVID for the first time right at the end of the first draft and:

        i) being sick meant there was a natural break between 1st draft and my next concerted efforts with the manuscript

        ii) having COVID and being slightly feverish while writing the final chaps meant I was highly skeptical that it would would be any good when reviewed with some perspective.

    c) Once you stop, it's really hard to pick something back up again with the fear of it actually being shit and no longer relevant, but also (moreso) the fact I have a full-time job and a full-time family and JUST LIFE.

At the time I finished the first draft I knew it needed to be longer, but it would probably only top out around 50-55,000 words. There's a missing persons element to the plot, and I knew that the "resolution" in the first draft was a bit dumb, and should really be more of a red herring, and that there was a bit part character in the 1st draft that wanted/needed more page-time, and maybe making them part of the real "answer" would "fix" things? 

So I really needed a solid block of time to unfuck the novel, writing new chapters and overhauling/ditching existing ones.

Which is why this 3-week residence was and is such a boon.

Over the first two weeks I:

• did a full read-through and mark-up in hard copy
• writing a prologue (though it's not actually labelled as such)
• expanded the first half of the novel (1st draft consisted of 10 chapters from the same character's p.o.v.; 2nd draft has two main characters alternating p.o.v. chapters)
• re-ordering the 2nd half (told through v. many p.o.v. characters), adding some new ones, rejigging some others
• doing a full read-through of this 2nd draft (using Microsoft Word's Read Through function - it's really good for picking up dumb typos and times when you've used too many words) and making necessary corrections and additions.

So the manuscript jumped up to 56,837 words (a net increase of 23,364), but any original words from the first draft really had to earn their keep.

I wasn't sure if I could achieve all of this in three weeks, but I knocked it off in two.

Which is great. Because now I am sick of that manuscript and can let it marinate again (and let some others read it) and it shouldn't be too far off.

And because that means I can also work on my second short story collection. Which is what I started doing today.

Well, I've written and published (and written and not published) many short stories since my first collection came out in 2010, and have had various word documents with my favourite selections combined since 2018 (with another flare up of activity in 2021). So the task isn't writing a shit ton more stories, it's re-assessing which ones should go in this collection and where the two or three gaps are that could/should be plugged by new stories.

Today I used the "Read Through" function to go through all the stories in my 2021 assemblage, plus a bunch I didn't think should make the cut back then (most of which I thought were good enough today, so I don't know, maybe I just love myself rn).

The biggest challenge is the majority of these stories were written closer to 2010 than 2024, so there really does need to be some new stuff. There's a story I have half-written that needs to be finished (it pairs directly with another story in the collection), and then there are two more stories I've written lots of notes for over the last 3-5 years, and just need to smash out.

So by the end of this next week, if I can add these three stories into the manuscript, that one might also be ready for other people to read.

After which, I may need a rest!

PS - all this writing means lots of listening to music, hence the longer than usual monthly playlist!

PPS - I've also done some exploring of the North Shore (and started an Instagram to share some of that stuff) and caught up with friends and family, so I have been going outside!!

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BOOKS

Parade by Rachel Cusk (physical, novel, UK, 2024)

Second Place by Rachel Cusk (physical, novel, UK, 2021)

Kudos by Rachel Cusk (physical, novel, UK, 2018)

Transit by Rachel Cusk (e-book, novel, UK, 2016)

I had to review Parade, so I read/re-read a lot of Cusk in preparation. 

Doppelganer: A trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2023)

This proved to be very useful when working on the second draft of my novel, so I let a character name drop Klein.

It's way more personal (and scattershot - in a good way) that her earlier works. It could be a case of right book, right time, but I really liked it!!

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum (audiobook, novel, Korea, 2023)

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (audiobook, novel, Japan, 2019)

I've read too many bookshop/library-themed works this year. Sorry pals.

Palace of Shadows by Ray Celestin (audiobook, novel, UK, 2023)

I didn't think I'd like it. It seemed to be laying the gothic on really thick, but it did it really well.

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin (audiobook, novel, US, 2023)

Yeah! This was excellent. Funny, dark-at-times, possibly even profound. And it has dogs in it!

I really liked that the protagonist/narrator was late 40s (I think) but language and ideas still seemed to be alive to them. It felt true(ish) to my inner dialogue as a early 40s person. 

Totally unrelated negative-impulse: I don't want to Google how old Elizabeth Bennett's parents are in Pride and Prejudice...

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray (audiobook, novel, Ireland, 2011)

Another book I was on the fence about reading (having already committed many hours to listening to the very good, but very Irish Franzen-y The Bee Sting already this year).

Another book I ended up really enjoying. I think I preferred this to The Bee Sting because it's a bit less Franzen-y and because I myself have been grappling with a plot point not dissimilar to (not a spoiler, guys) Skippy dying!!!

(Maybe some months I my inner hater takes a holiday)

The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell (audiobook, novel, UK, 2023)

A mash-up of cosy crime and reality baking shows. Does the baking stuff well enough, but the characters were pretty meh and structurally felt like the first death came way too late.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers (audiobook, novel, US, 2021)

Fantasy continues to be the steepest genre hill from my affections to climb.

Just Then by Harry Ricketts (physical book, poetry, NZ, 2012)

Along Blueskin Road by James Norcliffe (physical book, poetry, NZ, 2005)

FILM & TV

• Hacks Season 3 - *makes a love heart symbol with his hands, then feels self-conscious*
• Welcome to Wrexham Season 3 - good, but makes me hate the bandwagon Wrexham fans... I need to get an MK Dons jersey or something
• Curb Your Enthusiasm - finished the final few eps of the final season, and also watched the Seinfield series finale (which I clearly hadn't seen before (yeeeeesh))
• Prisoners
• Dream Scenario
• Blackberry
• Atlas - No ma'am, unfinishable.
• Unfrosted - Shouldn'thavefinishedbutIdidforsomereason

Consumption Diary March & April 2024

MUSIC - MARCH

My kids are 11 and freshly 9. They listen to the Edge radio station while they are ferried to futsal, football, volleyball, jazz dance, contortion and basketball. The radio bestows the quality of "goodness" on anything it plays. In contrast, anything I play for them is met with suspicion and impatience.

Rather than me wearing them down, their affection for pop and affiliate genres has not only lessened my musical snobbishness but exposed the dreariness, the boringness, the insularity of much of "my music". This is especially true for those genres, those eras, which I beloved in my youth. Grunge, stoner rock, indie rock, brit pop. The gems remain gems, but the surrounding geology has been eroded into further relief by the second coming of a pre-teen sensibility.

BOOKS

The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet by Jeff Goodell (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2023)

The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration by Jake Bittle (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2023)

Because I'm a climate sicko.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld (novel, audiobook, US, 2023)

I'm a sucker for stories that immerse me in a world I was sort of interested in already but not obsessively so, like Saturday Night Live (which Sittenfeld repatches as The Night Owls in her novel). Pair this with a not-too-typical, not-too-out-there love story and you've got a winner.

The Call by Gavin Strawhan (novel, audiobook, NZ, 2023)

Hmm. I think this novel was able to inhabit too many perspectives to create enough tension/mystery. And the tituar call is actually a series of calls, none of which quite live up to the billing. There's a lot of great precipitating phone calls in books and movies (think: Scream, think: City of Glass), and this ain't it, folks.

Another Beautiful Day Indoors by Erik Kennedy (poetry, ebook, NZ, 2023)

The Stupefying by Nick Ascroft (poetry, ebook, NZ, 2023)

People Person by Joanna Cho (poetry, ebook, NZ, 2022)

Poetry. On my phone. From Aotearoa. Noice.

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey (novel, audiobook, US, 2023)

I didn't like this to begin with, though I can't recall exactly why. Felt a bit like Elena Ferrante, with the rage tamped further down. 

The alternate history elements were interesting in isolation: that the US split post WWII, that female artists became more renowed than male artists -- but each new skewing felt increasingly tacked on. How can we have X engaging with Berlin-era Bowie when geopolitics, gender and the art world are operating from different foundations from this timeline I call reality? 

But these quibbles aside, this will probably be in the top ten books I remember most vividly this year.

What you are looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama (connected short stories, audiobook, Japan, 2020)

Years ago I read a "novel" that was thinly veiled Buddhist propaganda. Aoyama's book operates in a similar way, but it's not underpinned by spirituality but kitchen psychology. No wonder people ate, and continue to eat, it up.

Poor Things by Alasdair Gray (novel, audiobook, Scotland, 1992)

I liked the film, and read this novel second. The book is better.

The List by Yomi Adeogoke (novel, audiobook, UK, 2023)

Reads like a long-form non-fiction piece that a journalist tried to turn into a novel... Oh wait.

Weirdo by Sara Pascoe (novel, audiobook, UK, 2023)

Soon only famous people will be able to publish fiction in the UK. Which, you'd think might mean,  editors will be of supreme importance. Sadly, I think this won't be the case.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (novel, audiobook, UK, 2000)

Okay, so I tried another UK celeb-turned-novelist to test my assumptions. 

The first in Osman's wildly popular series has its moments. (It's probably 1/4 too long in my view.) I liked Ibrahim and, to a lesser degree, Bogdan, but at the same time was troubled that these more minor characters' position in the narrative said something about the ethnic/racial politics of the author and his fans (and me, of course, for enjoying these ethnic cyphers). Cosy for whom, eh?

Outline by Rachel Cusk (novel, physical book, UK, 2014)

An English writer famous for writing, but really only after writing this book (and even then, not as famous as someone who appears on comedy panel shows). 

If Barry butchers the crime novel (I mean this nicely), Cusk is more like a chemist who pours a solution over her story that all but dissolves the narrator's actions, but the narrator as stage manager remains, selecting which lopsided conversations to relate and, infrequently, puncturing her interlocutor's own constructions. (I have more Cusk to catch up on, including 'Parade' which comes out in June, so expect more thoughts in the coming months).

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (novel, audiobook, US, 2023)

Gentle mastery. Though maybe knowing more about Our Town by Thornton Wilder would have helped me connect more.

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (novel, audiobook, US, 2023)

Gender-swapped Bear Grylls in early settlement America, narrated by the shade of Cormac McCarthy. But I needed a little more meat on the bone in terms of narrative.

Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry (novel, audiobook, Ireland, 2023)

In 2022 I tried to write a 'butterflied' crime story which moved the insides of a standard tale to the edges (and I might return to one day). It was nothing like Barry's novel, which takes poetic license from the aging, disorientated former copper P.O.V character, but it attempts something similar. There are all the narrative elements of a standard crime novel -- the crime, the evidence gathering, interrogations, the telling connections, the satisfying denoument -- but they are meted out through, and jumbled by, the old copper's experience. Which was tiresome at points, and thrilling at others.

FILM & TV

Oppenheimer

Poor Things

No Hard Feelings

Wonka

Asteroid City

Last Holiday

Roadhouse* (1989)

The Natural - almost worth it to see 40-something RObert Redford try to play a 19-year-old. Otherwise, flawed on every count.

Anatomy of a Fall

Past Lives

Duets - never watched this before, possibly the worst movie ever made. So weird (in an ick way) that Gwyneth's dad directed it. 

The Greatest Hits

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I

Shōgun

3 Body Problem - Season 1 - I really liked it. Agree with those who say the second half goes full-tilt into Armaggedon-land. But better than the novel

New Zealand Today Season 4

Mr Bates vs the Post Office

MUSIC - APRIL

Consumption Diary: Jan-Feb 2024

MUSIC - February

BOOKS

Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking by Tyson Yunkaporta (non-fiction, audiobook, Australia, 2023) - A worthy successor to Sand Talk, but I'm worried I might come across as one of the wrong kind of fans of Yunkaporta's books (who Yunkaporta addresses in this latest book).

She's a Killer by Kirsten McDougall (novel, physical book, NZ, 2021) - Holy Moses this was great. This seems weird to say, and only just occurred to me several weeks after reading it, but it's like a grown-up Fight Club. The disaffection. The bifurcation. The sardonic wit. But without the empty nihilism and cheap shocks.

Madness is Better Than Defeat by Ned Beauman (novel, audiobook, UK, 2017) - So long. Too long. Lots of Pynchoneering. But about three-quarts of the way through it starts to reference how long it is and then it starts to get really good. 

Happy Place by Emily Henry (novel, audiobook, US, 2023) - The third (I think) book I've read of Henry's... not as good as Beach Read, better than You and Me on Vacation. Perfectly acceptable summer holiday fare.

Shy by Max Porter (novel, audiobook, UK, 2023) - The usual Porter: lyrical, Alan Garner-esque, get-in get-out before you can be accused of dark tourism (grief, depression, despair)... but probably his most affecting (very short) novel to date.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (novel, audiobook, Ireland, 2023) - The Irish Franzen? As if anyone would deliberately set out to do that, but when pitted against Sally Rooney's sparser, more caustic vision of young people in Ireland, perhaps Murray had to go generational? 

Border Districts by Gerald Murnane (novel, physical book, Australia, 2017) - I don't read a lot of physical books due to eye/brain/life issues. I can't decide if this kind of book is perfect for people like me or a bad idea: it's so interior and meandering that it works well in 3-5 page spurts. It's clear he's a genius, turned an an oblique angle from most of the rest of us, but I'm not sure the angle is particularly... interesting??? Or am I making the mistake of reading this as fake fiction (a.k.a. autobiography without a fact checker)? Guess I'll have to read another Murnane and report back.

Baumgartner by Paul Auster (novel, audiobook, US, 2023) - Auster can be hit or miss. And sometimes he can wedge the dart right in the frame of the dartboard, like with this book, which is kind of neither. 

World Within a Song by Jeff Tweedy (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2023) - meh. I didn't like the Dylan book where he tried a similar thing of using individual songs to anchor each chapter (but with more brio), so maybe it's just a bad approach?

I am Homeless If This is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore (novel, audiobook, US, 2023) - I love Lorrie Moore. Nothing will change my affection for Birds of America and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and Self-Help and A Gate at the Stairs, but IAHIFINMH was kinda forgettable, sad to say.

Sure, I'll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2023) - felt too much like stand-up, not booky enough, soz.

Death and the Conjurer by Tom Mead (novel, audiobook, UK, 2022) - nope.

*

Checking in on my semi-random reading targets for 2024:

• At least ten single-author poetry collections: 0/10 (fear not...)
• At least one book from every continent: 3/6 (Asia, South America and Africa to go... may also need to read a book about Antarctica for completeness)
• At least four books in translation: 0/4
• At least four books by Australians: 2/4
• At least five different genres of novel: I'm going to say a conservative 3/5 (romance, mystery, and lit-fic), but pretty confident there'll be some hard sci-fi and detective fiction coming down the chute. Maybe I should have aimed higher, or set a more specific target? Oh well.

PRODUCTIVITY INTERLUDE

From December I've been participating in a Creative Impact Lab focussing on climate change. You can read more about it here or here (I'm guessing these event-based links might break one day). It culminated in a group exhibition at Tūhura Otago Museum (my first time having "art" [text-heavy video works] exhibited) and a few public events (like this one) in support of it. May potentially go a bit further (exhibiting elsewhere, and maybe a supporting publication/book). 

It's been great to be thrust out of my comfort zone, but in a really supportive environment. 

FILM & TV

Carol and the End of the World - Season 1 - So good. Watch it! It's slow-thrilling like Better Call Saul, has a couple of episodes to rival "Forks" (The Bear) as best standalone, self-contained masterpiece episode of 2023, while being this deadpan, dry-as-cold-toast animated 

Fargo - Season 5 - I have a hard time differentiating seasons 1-4, and maybe 5 will get put in the memory blender shortly, but right now it stands out for leaning less into the strong female cop and more the strong female suspect/victim/hero. Super enjoyable, but also frustrating (John Hamm is so good at being baaad).

The Curse - Season 1 - gave up after 3 episodes (it's deliberately cringy, which isn't my favourite genre) but returned after I caught wind of a crazy ending. And yep, the second half of the final episode sure is crazy. Verdict: worth it.

One Day - Series 1 - good sound track, middling execution (my wife didn't realise the premise of the show was each episode was the same day in successive years until I mentioned it in episode 4 - and I totally can understand how), some good acting, but ultimately *spoiler alert* let down by making cycling seem unsafe (LOL) and revealing that the show (and the novel) had a main character and it was the one you cared less about.

Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 12 (still in progress)

Spaceman

Mister Organ

Sleeping with Other People

Paper Planes

Leave the World Behind

The Other Guys

I Love You, Beth Cooper

MUSIC - JANUARY

This Fluid Thrill Awards: Best Music of 2023

I'm going to divulge my top ten albums of the year (those released on 2023) with some honorable mentions, plus hand out some additional bouquets to individual songs that took my fancy during the calendar year.

I've done this (or something similar) many times previously: 2021 albums and songs, 2020, 2019, 2018 albums and songs, 2017 albums and songs, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.

Here's a playlist to listen along while you peruse.

Best Albums of 2023

"Angel Numbers" by Hamish Hawk

Morrissey without the cringe factors. The Editors without the fake Joy Division crooning and with a sense of humour (so, um, nothing like The Editors, I guess).

I first noticed this album around March when doing my first trawl of Album of the Year sites and "Angel Numbers" was ranking highly (everyone who reviewed it, liked or loved it, but it wasn't that widely reviewed). Subsequently, it got some blowback (who is this guy? the algorithm is broke!), but actually, it worked for me! And Mr Hawk! Hurrah!

 

"Suburban Legend" by DURRY

Do Americans call a cigarette a durry? I don't think so. This durry, sorry, DURRY, is simply the last name of the brother-sister duo from Minnesota. The brother, Austin, used to be in the band Coyote Kid, which describes itself on its Spotify bio as a "Cinematic Indie band. We use our albums to tell the sci-fi fantasy adventures of the Coyote Kid. We use a unique mix of dark looming presence, cinematic scale production, high energy western rock'n roll, and a touch of the macabre to give an immersive listening experience."

Um, DURRY is nothing like that.

During the pandemic, Austin moved back home and started sharing some of his new musical ideas with his sister Taryn, 7 years his junior. And thus, DURRY was born. It's not cinematic or macabre or dark. It's world-wearing yet upbeat. So many catchy songs, so many funny lines.

Is it time for a revival of 90's arch pop-rock? Count me in.

 

"Turn the Car Around" by Gaz Coombs

I'm not sure how to phrase this, but let me try. This album, from the former frontman of Supergrass, sounds like what I'd hope a new Arctic Monkeys album would sound like. As in, I get the thread Alex Turner is pulling, and while it may not be as wordy and propulsive of their 2006 debut or anthemic as "AM", it's pretty cool, I guess.

Then comes Coombs, sounding like he's strung out after a trip to the Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, sitting on the floor strumming his guitar with a Thousand Island Dressing stare.

Coombs wrote "Turn the Car Around", his fourth solo album, while performing reunion shows with Supergrass, and that is such a vibe. Like, didn't we all feel as if, in the year of our Lord twenty-twenty-three, that we were doing something that we used to do, and everyone else seemed happy with it, but deep down there was... something else? Somewhere new to be heading.

This is the sound of that feeling, the stepping towards and the attainment of that new somewhere.

Such a special album.

"Strays" by Margo Price

I didn't have alt-country songstress Margo Price dropping an album that sounds like Monster Magnet on my Bingo card this year. And I freely admit this might be a niche impression. Some might think of The Doors when the album starts with a bass drone, tambourine rattlesnake and organ key jangle, but not me. And then the driving riff starts. I'm fully expecting the New Jersey growl of Dave Wyndorf to deliver the lines, "I got nothing to prove, I got nothing to sell / I'm not buying what you've got, I ain't ringing no bells / I got a myth in my pocket, got a bullet in my teeth / I've going straight in the fire, I'm gonna talk to the high priest."

I genuinely searched online to see if Wyndorf was a co-writer, collaborator or was at least name-checked by Price, but alas. The best I can find is that Price and her husband wrote this album while on a six-day magic mushroom bender. Which also makes a lot of sense.

As someone who has never taken a psychedelic substance but has listened to a lot of music created, in part, thanks to these drugs, this Margo Price album has convinced me I'd like my first trip. If psilocybin is able to teleport Price from "Midwest Farmer's Daughter" and "That's How Rumors Get Started" to 'Been to the Mountain' - that is, from perfectly good but not necessarily my cup of tea to "this is the Monty Python Holy Grail mug I ordered online and used religiously while writing my last novel, then lost, then found, then broke, then repaired and still use for special occasions" cup of tea.

This is not to diminish the agency of Price or her collaborators here. I really love the quieter, less psych elements on "Strays". It's all great. I'm a fan. But I love it when a song starts off in a kind of Daisy Jones and the Six, languid, Eaglesy vibe, then Mike Campbell plugs in the electric guitar and Price sings "Light me up, burn me up, boil from the inside / Deeper than the ocean, get me higher than the tide..." 

"The Land, The Water, The Sky" by Black Belt Eagle Scout

The twelve songs on this album roll over you like a heavy sea mist. Katherine Paul's noisy electric guitar and softly chanted lyrics are the backbone of everything. Some songs build out the sound over time, with more guitar tracks or epic solos, propulsive drums and clanging cymbals, creating something epic, like moving from a photograph to an entire landscape. Others, like 'Salmon Sinta', pare it right back, to the point the lyrics end up being just "ba-ba, ba-ba", like moving from a photograph to a memory, or the sense of a memory.

This is amazing music live, and also amazing music to write to. 

"The Window" by Ratboys

I hadn't heard of Ratboys until 2023, despite them releasing albums since 2015. At times they sound very much of this era. The country-fied twang of Waxahatchee or Big Thief, with the accompanying willingness to get a little loud, a little unpretty, a little loose. But Ratboys also sounds old. Like something that might have come from the same stable as The Breeders in the 90's. Maybe they sound like the Breeders covering the New Pornographers? 

This is all to say that they sound like many good and virtuous things, while still being new and their own thing. From the power pop of 'No Way' to the unerring groove of 8 minute and 34 second 'Black Earth, WI', this feels like a statement of intent. 

I look forward to what new sounds drift through the window.

"3D Country" by Geese

There are some songs I put on just to annoy my son. He's eight. His brain is at least a decade from fully forming. He never likes songs he hasn't heard before. He has to have heard it two or three times on the radio before he can open his heart to a song. And, as his diet is determined largely by the radio station playing in the car when one or other parent ferries him and his sister to sports or cultural activities, or to beaches or forest walks with the dog, he has modern pop sensibilities. He doesn't like boring intros, but even worse are confronting ones.

"3D Country" is basically a whole album designed to get my son to complain. From the discordant jangle and drunken vocals of album opener '2122' to the tuneless trumpets, broken glass and violins on closer 'St Elmo', there's a lot of provocation going on. Which is rock, I guess. But it wouldn't be worth a damn if there weren't songs beneath the posturing.

And there are.

This album, more than any other in 2023, made me feel like there was still a place for noise and denim in somewhat-popular culture. 

"Blondshell" by Blondshell

Is Nu-Grunge having a moment? This album sounds like it was recorded in Olympia, Washington, slumped back on an unmade bed, looking to the ceiling, strumming an okay guitar and singing to the light fitting. Big Cobain energy, with hints of Sabrina Teitelbaum's earlier poppier incarnation (BAUM).

"Somebody's Child" by Somebody's Child

We seem to have reached the self-titled album stretch of our list. Irish one-man-band Cian Godfrey's debut album sounds immense. It sounds like a massive hit. It should've been bigger. It'll have to make do with making this list.

"The Rise & The Fall" by The Rural Alberta Advantage

Oh Canada! How do you do it? The RAA have been releasing albums since 2009 ("Hometowns", it's vvvvvv good, check it out), but I only dove into them in 2023.

"The Rise & The Fall" is a great album, up there with their previous records, and perhaps buoyed by this back catalogue, claims my tenth spot for 2023.

Honorable mentions from 2023

• "Lucky for You" by Bully
  
• "Noise for No Reason" by Pyrex
• "Do Ya?" by meija
• "I am the River, the River is Me" by Jen Cloher
• "Emotional Contracts" by Deer Tick
• "The Rainbow Wheel of Death" by Dougie Poole
• "Haunted Mountain" by Buck Meek

Older albums I didn't hear until 2023 that would have cracked the top ten otherwise

• "Wunderhorse" by Cub (2022)
• "Everybody's Heart Is Broken Now" by Niki & the Dove (2016)

Other, but by no means lesser, awards

Artist I completely missed the first time around, but got way way into in 2023

Superdrag. They were amazing. 

Old song of the year

"Give me back my man" by The B-52s. I wrote about it in June. Still an earworm. Still on my roadtrip playlists.

Other contenders for this esteemed award:

• "Fucking Ada" by Ian Drury
• "Tush" by ZZ Top

And finally... Song of the Year

As in previous years, all albums in the top ten are ineligible to also have the top song (one gong is plenty, fellas!). And it has to have been released in 2023.

Normally, it's some one-off piece of indie pop brilliance full of nonsense syllables and not-quite-a-hit-but-still-a-wonder verve.

This year, I'm tempted to give it to Mitski's 'Buffalo Replaced', a short album track from a good-but-not-great album (incidentally, this song has the 2nd least plays of the 11 tracks on Spotify). It's kind of unpindownably good. But it doesn't really fit the mold.

Something more catchy, but probably too catchy, was Robbie Williams Xmas collab with Rod Stewart, 'Fairytales'. It's one thing to be formulaic, but to triumph within such constraints should be acknowledged. A wonderful car-ride singalong.

I really loved Car Seat Headrest's single-without-an-album (yet?) 'We looked like Giants' - very much my sort of indie rock - and Cory Hansen's 'Housefly' - very much my sort of alt-country - and 'Salt' by Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers and the Grogans - very much my sort of Aussie rock... but they didn't ever quite separate themselves from the pack.

So I'm giving this most illustrious mantle to "Blame Brett" by The Beaches. It's catchy. It's funny ("I'm done dating rockstars / From now on only actors / Tall boys in the Raptors" - look-out Scottie Barnes!).  It's kind of self-effacing, kind of a feminist anthem (depending on what wave you think we're up to now). And it's Canadian!

*chef's kiss*