Life the damper: Fortnight 22 of the Burns

Addendum to consumption

In addition to all the November reading and watching I discussed yesterday, I should also say I've been working through Werner Herzog's filmmaking masterclass on, uh, Masterclass.

I actually did the Aaron Sorkin scriptwriting masterclass at the start of the year (it costs money but it's for my novel so: tax deductible) and it helped me get inside the mind of a scriptwriter and to think about structure for film and TV in deeper and more nuanced ways (not saying it's totally deep and nuanced, just that my starting point was pretty superficial).

But my novel is more about filmmaking rather than scriptwriting. I didn't really know that in January but I do now.

Because I did the Sorkin course, Masterclass spams me with other courses I should take. I took notice when they said there'd be a Martin Scorsese one in early 2018. And if I paid the cost of that course now, I could have access to ALL masterclasses for 12 months.

(This sounds like a paid advertorial at the start of a podcast, but I promise it isn't.)

So I started watching Herzog's videos and he got his hooks into me. I've watched Fitzcarraldo (didn't like it) and Grizzly Man (meh), but that's probably it. I did listen to a DIrector's Guild of America podcast where Kevin Smith interviewed Herzog after the premier of Fire and Blood. Herzog says some of the same things in his Masterclass as he does in that podcast, but it's much easier to focus on Herzog's message when it isn't accompanied by Kevin Smith's post-ironic wonder at the fact Herzog reads books or goes through the films budget with the accountant every night during the shoot.

Herzog is better without that. As a character study of him alone, the masterclass is worth the time.

Oh, alright...

I was stalling, but here are the numbers from last fortnight:

Fortnight 22 wordcounts
Total words: 6,899 (17% on the novel, 26% on this blog, 57% on non-fiction)
1st week: 3,018
2nd week: 3,881

The non-fiction was prep for two talks I gave and an email interview with a website in the US ahead of THE MANNEQUIN MAKERS release there on 12 Dec.

But yeah, a crappy fortnight in terms of productivity and quadruply so when you think I really wanted to leave Dunedin with a first draft of my novel complete but I could only muster 1,150 words on the beast in 14 days. 

The last time I worked on the novel was 22 November.

Eek.

How come?

Here's how come

Well, I was in Wellington for five days (school visits for my daughter, catching up with friends and Ministry colleagues). 

And we stayed in this cool old place right by the beach at Island Bay and the weather was great and, and, and... I'm not really complaining.

And when I got back from Wellington.I prepared for and gave two talks, and took part in a daylong workshop.

My first speaking engagement was at the Southern Cities Creative Hui on 30 November. I spent the whole day there, because the lineup of speakers was pretty darn impressive, with Kiwis like Hera Lindsay Bird, Shayne Carter and Victor Rodger, and visitors from Italy, Papua New Guinea and Australia.

Shayne Carter reading from his memoir-in-progress

My keynote was on digital and analogue perspectives on storytelling, keying in on what a novelist (me) thinks when playing a narrative-driven game mode of a basketball simulation (NBA 2K18's My Career mode).

At afternoon tea I bonded with Shayne Carter over our shared love of the NBA. I had a slide of my created player in a Sacramento Kings jersey, and he told me how much he loved the Kings when they had Demarcus Cousins and Isaiah Thomas, and I was like, Bro!

I'd previously confessed to him that I'd used a computer programme to mash his lyrics from Straitjacket Fits days with a bunch of other Dunedin Sound bands to make "poetry" and he'd seemed genuinely interested instead of horrified or, worse, bored.

So I'm left with one question: did I just make friends with a rock star?

(Pause for effect)

Did I mention that his memoir will be amazing if the snippet he read is anything to go by? I think I did on Twitter, at least.

The next day of the Hui was a collaborative futures workshop in the basement of the Athenaeum (an old library on the Octagon).

Basement of the Athenaeum

I took part because I'm kind of in love with this city and even though I'm moving back to Wellington (*sad trombone*), I wanted to be part of brainstorming ways to take the UNESCO City of Literature thing further and connect Dunedin more widely with other UNESCO creative cities.

(Did I mention that, as a Burns Fellow, I'm now eligible to go on City of Literature residencies, even if I stop living in Dunedin? It's like an open relationship without the bit where one or more people get their hearts broken.)

I had to head up the hill during the lunch break to talk to the Otago Association of Teachers of English. 

Their Big Day Out for Professional Development had two keynote speakers to break up their workshops. In the morning they heard from someone from the Dunedin Study (so, you know, evidence based and world renowned) and in the afternoon they heard from me.

Addressing OATE

I had an hour to fill, and did so by talking about to join two bad ideas to make a novel (stepping through the genesis of both THE MANNEQUIN MAKERS and my location scout novel-in-progress), read from the novel-in-progress (the chapter 'Pietrarubbia'), talked about my experiments with artificial intelligence and read one of the Dunedin poems (see above), and also covered video games (see above), before ending with my reckons on teaching English in 2018 and beyond.

It was a bit weird talking about St Joseph of Copertino and questions of faith in a high school chapel, and the mic crapped out after about 15 minutes with a lot of time and a large space to fill, but all in all I had fun and some of the teachers (the younger ones) commented that they got something out of it.

Yay.

Past tense

After that rush of public appearances, my dance card is pretty clear.

I've got to judge the Robbie Burns poetry comp and attend the ceremony on 25 Jan, and that's all I can think of.

But don't think I'll suddenly get back on top of the novel and knock out a couple 20K fortnights. 

There's this thing called Christmas (we'll be spending it in Chch). 

And the move back to Wellington (the packing, the logistics, the drive up with a few stops along the way).

And I've agreed to review four books in the next two months.

And my son is sick again and my wife has run out of sick leave (her contract is up just before Xmas).

And there's already a photo of me up on the second floor of the Uni library, as if I've already left, or died, or both.

May my tombstone read: He set terrific goals.

Avian cheer / Bucky O'Hare / A cache of silvereyes

Avian cheer

I was in a bit of a grump on Saturday so I lit out for the territory Karori sanctuary to take photos of birds. I managed to catch decent shots of two birds that are notoriously hard to photograph due to their constant flitting about.

Popokatea / Whitehead

Riroriro / Grey Warbler

Even though that's the best photo I've probably ever taken of a warbler, it doesn't do the tiny bird justice. It's a wee gem in the flesh, despite its muted colours. A marvel made more precious because it is so oftenheard  but rarely seen.

As for the popokatea, there were about a dozen in the bushes around me at one point, behaving much as a [insert appropriate collective noun] of silvereyes might.

It was almost as if the birds wanted to cheer me up.

A female juvenile male hihi, which tend to be much shyer than the males, landed on a branch less than a metre away from me and stuck around for a good long moment.

Female Junvenile male Hihi / Stitchbird

And as I was walking back to the entrance, sufficiently cheered, the shags were splashing about in the lake, possibly to rise off the salt after a day on the coast.

Karuhiruhi / Pied shag

NB: NZbirds has an extensive list of collective nouns for birds but nothing for the Silvereye.

Does anyone remember Bucky O'Hare?

Sometimes the phrase 'righteous indignation' pops into my head. It's a nice sesquipedalian phrase. And when this phrase rattles through the deserted chambers of my mind, I don't think of justified outrage, I think of a spaceship in an anthropomorphic cartoon from the 1990's. I'd forgotten everything about the show except the name of the ship and that it featured a rabbit (or hare). 

But who needs memory when you've got the internet?

The show was called 'Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Menace'. Here's the intro courtesy of YouTube.

The theme tune features the lyrics:

"If your Righteous Indignation has suffered a hit

And your photon accelerator is broken a bit

And you're losing your mind and you're havin' a fit

Get the funky fresh rabbit who can take care of it!"

Gold. Pure, nineties Gold.

Possible collective nouns for silvereyes

A cache of silvereyes

A flirt of silvereyes (suggested by Claire Browning)

A flit of silvereyes

A galore of silvereyes

A gust of silvereyes (it is thought that the NZ population was established when a migrating flock in Australia was caught in a storm and blown here c.1856)

A lode of silvereyes

A lustre of silvereyes

A mint of silvereyes

A party of strangers (the Maori name, Tauhou, means 'stranger')

A profit of silvereyes

A purse of silvereyes

A scratch of silvereyes

A suite of silvereyes

A treasure of silvereyes

A treasury of silvereyes

A trove of silvereyes

A vault of silvereyes

A vein of silvereyes

A wealth of silvereyes

My Writers and Readers Week 2012

The NZ Festival’s Writers and Readers Week isn’t done yet. There’re still some session on tomorrow (Wednesday) and I’m heading off to the “Writer’s Dinner” (whatever that may be) tonight.

In the time I have spare between now and the dinner I thought I’d record some of my memories and impressions from my first festival as a performer in front of a home audience.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was moving house over the weekend, which meant I was frequently exhausted. I plan to mine the house-hunting/moving thing for a Dom Post column (or four) in the future, so I won’t say much more about that. Suffice to say it’s been a busy few days.

My first act was as an audience member (albeit on a comped ticket), listening to Tim Flannery’s bitsy opening address at the Town Hall. Flannery is clearly a smart guy and I’m glad he’s out there fighting the good fight against climate change and all that, but I felt uncomfortable several times during his address. I think it has something to do with the cavalier way he discussed New Zealand history, particularly the arrival of Polynesians and the extinction of the moa. New Zealanders would have spent three times as long to say what he said, pussyfooting around the cultural and historical uncertainties, but as an Australian he just ploughed through. Not that I advocate pussyfooting, but sensitivity can be a virtue, as can acknowledging when something is beyond your ken.

Afterwards, I headed up to the council chambers for the opening party. The usual speeches from politicos and festivalites punctuated the relaxed and cheerful night of mingling. I caught up with Kim Scott, who I hadn’t been able to chat with in Perth, and we relived memories of Sydney and the Commonwealth Writers Prize junket.
I also got to chat with some of NZ’s crime writing fraternity, including Vanda Symon, Paul Cleave and Craig Sisterson. You can read Craig’s festival account on his blog. When I heard that these guys had been playing Frisbee in the sun and had missed the opening address I was jealous. In the hopes of one day being invited to play Frisbee I told them of my secret desire to write a crime novel and was roundly encouraged (damn them… why can’t they be more snooty and exclusive like the writers of “literary fiction”).

My session at the Embassy in Wellington was on Saturday afternoon: ‘Emerging Writers’ with Eleanor Catton and Hamish Clayton, chaired by Harry Ricketts. I’d appeared in a session with Hamish in Auckland in May last year (my first ever festival sesh; it seems so long ago) and with Ellie in Melbourne in September, so there was an element of familiarity. (I also had Harry Ricketts as a lecturer for a few English papers at university, but I don’t remember ever talking to him back then, just him talking to me and the 250 other students in the lecture).


Our Embassy Session on Saturday
Photo courtesy of NZ Festival's facebook page (C) Robert Catto

I thought the session went well. There was a bit of a microphone malfunction for Hamish initially, and Harry referred to my book as A Melting Man more than once (I thought the first time might have been an aberration and let the chance to correct him sail by). I read part five of ‘Orbital Resonance’, which is all about house-hunting, as it felt rather appropriate given events in my real life. I got a few chuckles as I read, which is always encouraging.

You can read an… interesting account of the session on the Scoop book’s website. There has been a bit of talk on Twitter about this piece today (most of it negative) and it’s interesting to note that Scoop also has a sanitised version online.

Some gems from the unsanitised version:

When talking about contemporary New Zealand writers ‘emerging’ tends to mean “emerging from the vagina of Bill Manhire’s creative writing course soft, wet, and perfectly formed, but still umbilically attached via VUP”...

I didn’t hear what the conversation was about, as Catton had a beautiful, gentle timbre that I was instantly lost in and it left me forgetting to actually listen to her…

She was also incredibly well-kept – all three writers were, as a matter of fact. They looked like they’d stepped out of a photo shoot backstage. Their hair was tidy, their complexions flawless, their clothes fit them well. They epitomised beautiful youth…

Cliff had a dry humour that the audience warmed to instantly. Casually referring to masturbation in your opening statement is a great way to break the ice with an audience of 200 odd strangers, it seems.

After the session, the three of us were all visited by several audience members at the signing table and signed a number of books. Those that I spoke to seemed to have enjoyed the session. Some had even read my book, but I was most chuffed when two separate people said they enjoy my columns in the paper (I’m constantly wracked with fear that my columns suck / I’m about to be sacked and guilt that I’m squandering a golden opportunity to talk about important things etc etc, but that’s a self-indulgence for another blog post).

To the kind person who said, ‘I even read your blog!’, all I can say is you must be crazier than I am.


The signing table
Photo courtesy of NZ Festival's facebook page (C) Robert Catto

On Saturday night I went along to the VUP party, which doubled as the launch of Harry Ricketts’ poetry collection ‘Then Just’ (strike that, reverse it). Good food and nibbles, good poetry, good company, good times.

Sunday I managed to get along to Alan Hollinghurst’s session with Finlay MacDonald, who surely must be one of the best chairs/interviewers for these sorts of events in the country: personable, funny, well-prepared, unafraid to probe. Part of me hopes to one day sit down one-on-one with him in front of an audience, but part of me dreads the things he’ll trawl up from the internet (!) and the admissions he’ll coax out of me.

Then it was on to the “Industry Drinks” put on by Creative NZ, which were held at the Library Bar (the venue for my book launch back in July 2010). I got to speak to several international authors, but the highlight (if that’s the word) was talking to some of the Creative NZ people. I worked two days a week in the CNZ accounting office for almost two years while I was a student at Vic. This was eight or nine years ago now, but a surprising number of CNZ staff from that time are still around and were there on Sunday. None remembered me.
 
‘But I used to come around every month and drop off the photocopy of your phone bill so you could identify your personal calls and refund the money?’ I said, plaintively.
 
Nada.

(I wanted to be a writer back then. I even did the short fiction workshop up at Vic while working there. And the thing about playing with a datestamp to make impossible dates that features in my story ‘Oh! So Careless’ comes from working at CNZ.)

So was finally being published, appearing at the festival and getting invited to a CNZ boozer as rewarding as I thought it might be back in 2003?

Not really. Nine years is a long time and they seem like nice people.

I did manage to corral a newer CNZ staff member who coordinates a lot of the writer’s residency applications and deploy (in the most cynical, self-serving fashion) a few juicy sound-bites about the need for more literary connections with Australia and the South Pacific…


The sell-out crowd for Jo Nesbo's session
Photo courtesy of NZ Festival's facebook page (C) Robert Catto

On Monday, Hamish, Ellie and I were driven to Masterton for a repeat of our ‘Emerging Writers’ session, though this time we were chaired by David Hedley (owner of the best independent book store in town and a man with more rock’n’roll connections than a mere mortal can fathom – “Every time I run into Eric Clapton these days I just think, ‘You are so straight! What happened to you, man!” etc etc).

Again, the session went well (aside from a few audience members complaining about the sound system – it didn’t help only having two mics for four people, and a few coughing fits from the audience). I read the second half of ‘Manawatu’, which seemed to play alright (I suspect it would have done better if it was called ‘Wairarapa’, but thems the breaks).

Click here for an account of our Masterton session on the Booksellers NZ blog.

[Edit: You can also read my Dominion Post column from 24 March, which is mostly about the festival, here.]
I saw a couple of sessions when I got back to Wellington and then today (Tuesday) I had to go back to work at the Ministry. Bugger eh?

Oh well, I’m off to eat and drink on someone else’s dime again tonight. If only it was Writers and Readers Week every week!

Special Features: Old Sydney Street Substation

The old Sydney Street substation, photographed by Rachel Connolly. Copyright NZ Historic Places Trust .

There may be some people out there who’ve read my column about the old Sydney Street substation in today’s Your Weekend magazine and were left wanting more.

Sometimes it’s impossible to do a subject justice in 500 words. (If you can do it justice in 500 words, it’s not worth writing about). In this instance, I really wanted to include some web addresses to help direct further enquiries, but alas.

I’m sure those sufficiently piqued could find everything via Google, but I’m going to give them (and Google) a helping hand by collecting the links together here.


The Building Itself

The Historic Places Trust’s register has a very thorough report, prepared by Adrian Humphris and Inka Gliesche, on the old Sydney Street substation on. It’s available online here ().

There was also an article on the old girl by Tommy Honey in Architecture NZ (Nov/Dec 2005). Not available online but I have a scan if your local library doesn't have the issue.

In my column, I mention the proposed Kate Sheppard Exchange development which could incorporate the substation. The development was in the news last year when people objected to the proposed size of the building. I emailed the developers, Redwood Group, seeking an update on the project but I didn’t receive a response before my deadline (and haven’t since, but can’t be bothered pestering them).


On Wellington’s Substations

The Architecture Electric, a photographic survey of Wellington’s substations, is available as a free e-book here.

I asked the architecture types I interviewed if they had favourite substations in town and received two responses.If, like me, you’ve developed a sudden interest in substations, you might want to check out some of these:

Tyson Schmidt (co-author of ‘The Architecture Electric)

1. Have a picnic and watch the planes at the concrete panel marvel that is the Moa Point Road substation (page 14 of our book)

2. Venture above Boyd Wilson Field to Victoria University's Te Puni Village to look at the wind sculpture atop the University Zone substation (page 109)

3. Be impressed by the massive steel doors on the Moore Street Zone substation behind ECC lighting (page 106)

4. Walk the tracks of Mt Victoria until you find the Hataitai Zone substation with its wall of mesh encasing the large transformers (page 105)

5. Enjoy the graffiti used to disguise substations such as 69 Miramar Road (p.73) and down Lukes Lane (p.72, great Keith Haring-inspired figures on that one)

6. Jog past the substation with clean classical stylings on the corner of one of Wellington's most expensive streets (The Crescent in Roseneath) (p.54)

Adam Alexander (architectural designer; wrote his thesis on Wellington's substations [available in hardcopy from Victoria University's libary])

1. St John St Substation (adjacent to Aro Valley Park)

2. Lower Tory St (between Courtenay Place and Cable St)

3. 10 Haining St (off upper Tory St)

4. Hankey St Substation (intersection of Taranaki, Hankey and Wallace St)

5.Salamanca Rd (Near top of cable car)

A trip to Marumaru South, aka Baring Head

I can see Baring Head from my deck (I could see it from my desk right now if another house didn't intercede) but the view is particularly good when I'm walking home from the bus stop on a summer evening. Over the course of several such evenings two years ago I decided my fictional town of Marumaru South, located somewhere between Timaru and Oamaru, would actually look a lot like Baring Head, but with houses and streets.

Despite it seeming so close from the top of Mt Albert, Baring Head is actually an hour's drive from my house, followed by an hour's walk to reach the lighthouse and the views back across the harbour. And despite working on a novel set in Marumaru South for the last year, I had never actually been to Baring Head until today.

Before starting the walk to the lighthouse, M. and I drove to the coast, near the mouth of the Wainuiomata River. From the beach you can actually see the lighthouse and the hills you have to climb over to look back at Wellington.

After traipsing through sheep paddocks following the occasional orange triangle that marked the path, we made it up the hill and I was able to take the reverse of the photo above:

Baring Head is the windiest place in New Zealand, and it didn't disappoint today. Luckily the sun was out so it wasn't too cold. The sun, the wind, the pulsing grass in seed, the rocks and white-capped sea - it was all quite dramatic. Oh, and the sheep!

I'm not into lighthouses like some people (*cough* Marcus Lush *cough*), but there's a lighthouse in my fictional town and I was interested to see what Baring Head's lighthouse looked like up close.

Aside: I know I risk sounding a lot like the novelist in this article from the Onion:

According to Milligan, he spent seven months conducting in-depth historical research in order to conjure, as if out of thin air, the fictional and entirely bullshit universe of Connor's Cove, Massachusetts, including its utterly uninspired lighthouse...

I guess this is as close to operating on a knife-edge as we historical novelists get, eh?

Anyway, the Baring Head lighthouse (built 1935, so too recent to be much use to me) is a concrete design similar to the one at Cape Reinga, which I saw last month in almost zero visibility; you couldn't see the sea at all). Sadly there's a few temporary NIWA buildings behind the Baring Head lighthouse which ruin any lighthouse + sea photos.

Baring Head lightouse + sky - sea - NIWA weather station

Back from the lighthouse there are three boarded up cottages and another few small sheds/outhouses. The lawns had all been freshly mown giving the place a recent viral epidemic vibe.

Continuing on the loop walk yielded some great views of Wellington Harbour. Thanks to my zoom lens and some more digital zooming at home I've been able to identify my flat in some photos, but you'll just have to trust me.

Looking toward Wellington from Baring Head

So, how did my trip to Baring Head affect my thinking about Marumaru South? Well, I think there'll be more wind when I go through and do the second draft.

I'm holding off on any other changes as I'm going down to South Canterbury and North Otago in a fortnight for a four day research trip. It'll inform both my Marumaru scenes and the later 'flight to the hills'.

But for now, my trip to the real Marumaru has given my motivation to work on THE NOVEL a nice fillip. And who knows, maybe the exercise and new environment stimulated a bit of neurogenesis...

Looking for the next best thing

Blue Friday

I got up early this morning to go blue penguin spotting at Tarakena Bay. Turns out it's light already at 5.30am.  I'm still not sure about the local blue penguins nesting cycle, but I think I'll have to be there by 5am if I'm to spot one ambling down the beach to go fishing.

It was a beaut morning anyway and I went up the Poito Track, passed Poito Pa and Rangitatau Pa, though both were destroyed by raiding Northern iwi in 1819-20 and no obvious traces remain.

I suspect one of the pa sites is now this flat area covered with wild fennel and the woody stalks and umbels of last year's flowers.

Looking south from Palmer Head to the Cook Strait

Looking east.

Ataturk memorial (left) and Baring Head (right)

Low Self Estima*


M. and I bought a '92 Toyota Estima van on the weekend. A bit early in life for a people mover, granted, but we intend to sell it again after the summer. Will be great to tour the North Island in while on our double honeymoon with our German friends. Even better when we're joined by two more friends for the Northland leg.

Excitement.

I just wish this wedding thing was over with...


*I stole this joke from a Facebook friend.




Some fennel facts gleaned from Wikipedia

The town of Marathon, which gave its name to the long distance run, means 'The place of fennel.'

Prometheus used a fennel stalk to steal fire from the gods.

The type of bulb-like fennel you buy from Moore Wilsons and slice up for salads is the inflated leaf base of Florence Fennel or finocchio. (Something Wikipedia won't tell you: Finocchio is also Northern Italian slang for a homosexual - not sure about the link between the two).

Fennel was once one of the three main herbs used in the production of absinthe (the others being grande wormwood and green anise).



Antlered antics

Tomorrow is my stag do. I don't know what we're doing because my brother/flat mate/best man (same person) won't tell me. We need to be at the Porirua Train Station at 10am and a change of clothes would be a good idea.

Hmm.

Hopefully it's more fun that the other pre-wedding activities that have been keeping me from writing this past week: making a slideshow, doing the music, finding a reading for my step-sister to read at the ceremony, writing the vows (or thinking about it deeply, or thinking about thinking about it), sorting out where people will sit, re-arranging the table settings, picking up my wedding ring, filling out forms for the wedding licence, re-re-arranging the tables.


Wild South

Though progress on THE NOVEL's wordcount has been non-existent since I sent what I had to my editor to have a read (still no word back), I have had two great research moments in recent weeks.

The first was finally getting around to reading Phillip McCutchan's Tall Ships, which I bought at the Downtown City Mission's annual second hand book sale over two years ago. Since then, I've read over a dozen books about sailing ships and left McCutchan's languishing on the shelf. Sigh. I could have saved myself so much time leafing through books that weren't quite right.

Tall Ships has lots of pictures and includes chapters on tea clippers, the 'Australian route', and the Roaring Forties.

Better late than never I guess.

The second hallelujah moment came on Volume One of the Wild South series on DVD. The very first episode, first broadcast in 1980, is called 'The Island of Strange Noises' and focuses on Antipodes Island (one of NZ's subantarctic islands). Half an hour of squawking and close-ups of light-mantled sooty albatross: not as good as being there but the next best thing.

Via polarconservation.org

Addendum at the eleventh hour

My gran always used to ring me up on days like today and ask me what the date was. I remember a lot of calls in 1991, the year of the palindromes...

After I posted the above I was reading through a friend's poetry manuscript and I looked down, noticed the time and date, then noticed the page I was reading.  Had to screenshot it.  

Wellington and Perth Festivals / Chairs / Nautical Superstitions

Get with the programme

I went to the launch of the 2012 New Zealand Arts Festival's programme last night at the Opera House here in Wellington. You can now view the programme online here.

There's a bunch I'm looking forward to, including Britain's all-male theatre company Propellor performing The Winter's Tale (my novel-in-progress features a Vaudville vignette of Act Five Scene Three, so will be interesting to see it performed live again).

The music portion of the programme looks particularly strong, with banjo and piano accordion maestros, indie darlings Bon Iver and the 'desert blues' of Tinariwen.

And of course there's Writers and Readers Week 9-14 March. I'm stoked to be appearing in sessions at The Embassy and in Masterton, in part because it means I'll get to go and see Tim Flannery, Germaine Greer, Thomas Friedman, Jo Nesbo, Alan Hollinghurst, Kelly Link, Ron Rash and others... for free. Hopefully I'll bump into Kim Scott again too, after hanging out with him a bit at the Sydney Writers Fest (and now that I've read and loved That Deadman Dance).


The full programme for Writers and Readers Week doesn't come out till January, but there's plenty in the main programme to salivate over until then!


Out West

A couple of hours later, the Perth Festival launched it's program(me), which is also exciting for me as I'll be flying over there to take part in the writers festival. Again, the full programme won't be released until Jan, but there is info about the event I'm most looking forward to, The Feast of Words on 25 Feb:

Indulge in a gourmet three-course feast of food and Watershed wines as literary stars complement each dish with specially chosen readings. Set by the Reflection Pond at UWA's beautiful Whitfeld Court, Feast of Words has all the ingredients for a perfect summer night: good friends, great food and some of the world's most intriguing authors.

Join UK novelist Barbara Trapido (Sex and Stravinsky), Irish poet Dennis O'Driscoll (Weather Permitting), NZ's 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize winner Craig Cliff (A Man Melting) and Norwegian sensation Johan Harstad (Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?)

Now that's something to salivate over!


Some nautical superstitions (via failedsuccess.com)

Never start a voyage on the first Monday in April. This is the day that Cain slew Able.

Don’t start a voyage on the second Monday in August.  This is the day Sodom and Gommrrah was destroyed.

Starting a cruise on Dec. 31 is bad. This is the day Judas Iscariat hanged himself.

Avoid people with red hair when going to the ship to begin a journey. Red heads bring bad luck to a ship, which can be averted if you speak to the red-head before they speak to you.

Never say good luck or allow someone to say good luck to you unanswered. If someone says “good luck” to you, the only to counter the bad luck is by drawing blood. A swift punch in the nose is usually sufficient to reverse this curse.


Behind the scenes

Now, for those of you who think the life is a writer is all trips to Perth and Masterton, think again. It involves a lot of sitting at your desk. A lot. The back of my desk chair broke last week and I had to run out an buy a new one the next day after an eight hour writing session killed my back.

M. encouraged me not to skimp on the cost of a replacement, considering the amount of time I'll spend sitting on it, and I gravitated to those leather 'executive' chairs with the high backs. I ended up finding a comfy one that didn't cost the earth, got it home and found it was too wide to fit under my desk. It would fit if I took the handles off, but the handles held the back on. Disaster.

I've since taken it back and purchased a bog standard office chair. No arm rests. No leather. I think it's for the best. The closer my set up at home is to the set up at my day job, the easier it will be to slip into 'business mode' when writing. That's the theory anyway.

Who wants to read something someone wrote in an executive chair? Next think I'd have a Newton's cradle on my desk.

Bullet dodged, I reckon.


Just because I can...

Tuatara that I spotted today at Zelandia

Female papango (scaup) just after a dive (notice the droplets of water on her feathers).

I also spotted the above plaque at Zealandia. Harvey McQueen was a New Zealand poet and anthologist who passed away last year. He kept an entertaining blog in his final years, which often reminded me of Maurice Gee's Plumb, if George Plumb had a blog (and was less irascible). This is a compliment, in case it doesn't read like one.


Nameless purgatory

I mentioned last week that I'd be sending a chunk of THE NOVEL off to my editor on the first... well I did (at 11:31pm). I gave it a working title. It sucked. Back to the drawing board. And back to the grind... plenty more to write before I hear back whether I'm wasting my time or not.


But enough of me

Tomorrow I'll be posting my interview with Breton Duke's, author of the story collection Bird North.  Check back after 2:30pm...

Away From The Desk (and I feel fine)

Soundtrack: Springtime in Vienna Wellington

I'm struggling with THE NOVEL at the moment. More to the point, I'm struggling with my attention span. To counter this I've been trying to get out of the house more so it doesn't feel like I'm permanently in front of a screen (over winter, I pretty much was).

Last Friday I went with my brother to the Karori Sanctuary to bush walk and take photos of birds.

Photographic Evidence:

Kaka eating some kind of nut

Hihi (stitchbird) - male

Korimako (bellbird)

Last weekend M. and I went for a walk with friends from the Brooklyn Windmill to Red Rocks. It took four and half hours or so and was pretty awesome.

The South Coast from the Radome Track

Makara Wind Farm, Cook Strait and the South Island

Our lunch spot

View of the South Coast from above Red Rocks

In terms of wildlife, we saw goats, seals and ostrich (though these weren't exactly wild...

Ostrich doing the Boredom Dance

Last night my mum was down from Palmy so we went out for dinner and checked out the RWC2011 Fan Zone on the waterfront (Aussie was playing USA in the Caketin at the time). It was also the first night, I think, of the festival of lights. Different designs were projected on buildings like the boat shed, St Johns and the Stock Exchange Building.

Jazzy St Johns

Burlesque Stock Exchange

Stained Glass Stock Exchange

Ivy League Stock Exchange

I've also been to the Otari-Wilton's Bush twice in two weeks. The first time was an unplanned stop and I didn't have my camera, so of course I saw two karearea (NZ falcon) which I've yet to photograph, and a keruru (I didn't spot any of them in the Karori sanctuary on my recent visit, though I've seen plenty before).

Today I had my camera, so of course all I saw were tui and grey warblers (too quick to photograph) and robins (too dark to photograph). Thems the breaks.

Tui at Otari-Wilton's Bush

Polar Blast / Dear Diary / Naked Lunch / Melons

Mini-playlist for a Polar Blast

1. 'Hail, Hail' - Pearl Jam
2. 'Sleet' - The Futureheads
3. 'The Ice Covered Everything' - Shearwater (no clip on You Tube, but here's their almost-as-apropos 'Snow Leopard')
4. 'The Snow Fall' - Band of Horses (no clip on YouTube but you can listen to pretty much all their songs and imagine snowflakes falling...)
5. 'Similar to Rain' - Warren Zevon (argh, I had to pick the most obscure one... oh well, there are plenty more Zevon tracks I can link to that fit the theme: 'Steady Rain', 'Fistful of Rain, 'Frozen Notes'...)



Dear Diary

Roger Hall had an interesting piece on diarists (or the lack thereof) in the Sunday Star Times over the weekend. One thing it failed to address was where blogging features in the mix. The big difference between a blog and a diary is that one is immediately public (though may not be widely read...) while the other is only ever published after the writer is famous and prepared to publish, or more likely, famous and dead. (I guess there’s a third category of diarists who weren’t famous for much but, like Samuel Pepys, their diaries serve as important historical documents and gain personal fame posthumously).

While a blog and a diary do slightly different things, I’m sure no one does both. There's only so much time to reflect and rehash!

I’m sure there’ll come a time when I’m talking to the younger generation about weather events and might find it useful to retrieve some evidence at the recent one-in-fifty year snow-dump (okay, snow-sprinkling), so here’s some photographic evidence (which is pretty blah compared to some of the stuff people have posted on Facebook; my excuse: it took me over an hour to get home on the bus on Monday – the #23 only just made it up the hill past the zoo and I think all buses thereafter just dropped passengers off at the bottom and expected them to walk the rest of the way – and by this time it was dark and the southerly was ripping up the road which meant I couldn’t hold still enough to take a video that wouldn’t induce motion sickness)…

Snow falling in Thordon, Monday morning.

Monday night, Melrose

Then on Tuesday my bus didn't make it up Manchester Street, but it wasn't due to snow but a sudden heavy pelting of hail which froze as a layer of ice. About a dozen cars were stranded ahead of the bus. I know because I had to walk up the hill and the rest of the way home.

Cars stuck heading up Manchester St, Melrose, Tuesday 16 August 2011

Snow-laden clouds rolling in from Antarctica

I also saw snowflakes land on the sea and melt at lunchtime on Monday as I walked along the waterfront (on my way to Writers on Mondays at Te Papa).

Those white dots? Snowflakes! (photo taken on my phone)

Okay, so nothing to compare to snowier climes, or even the South Island. According to the internet, this is what it looked like in Christchurch:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/geoftheref/6044523385/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Not quite a namesake, but

I have a thing for Jimmy Cliff. I have a thing for covers. So it was cool to hear Jimmy's version of The Clash's 'Guns of Brixton' here. (It was also uncanny timing, what with the rioty carry-on in Londres last week.)


No Troubles With Fire


On Saturday I spoke to Fiona Kidman's class of budding memoirists, auto- and bio- graphers (and I'm sure some closet fictioneers). It was an interesting situation for me as guest speaker, having made my name as a distortionist and liar (a.k.a. short story writer*). So I spoke a lot about selective truths, careful omissions, mashups and wilful distortions, as well as answering questions about the general stuff like routine, my route to publication, and writing a fortnightly column (which should be more truthful than fiction, but in some ways is not).

The day before I had just finished reading Kidman's new book, the short story collection, The Trouble With Fire. Here I was, trying to field questions about being a writer and Dame Fiona, she of the decades of writing and catalogue of accolades who has no doubt tried everything I've tried on the page and then some, is sitting there, quietly interested. I managed to bring the conversation around to linked stories and Part Two of TTWF and it was interesting to hear Kidman's thoughts on the value of linked stories (turns out we're both big fans of Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge).



I really enjoyed The Trouble With Fire. In a strange way, it reminded me of Sue Orr's From Under The Overcoat, which came out earlier this year. I say 'strange' because if influence flows one way, it should be from the more senior Kidman to the newer kid on the block in Orr; but I'm not sure the link is one of influence, but rather sensibility. Both writers seem to steer stories in quite deliberate directions. In Orr's book, each story is inspired by a famous short story from the golden age (to lapse into comic book lingo). In TTWF, it's more to do with genre: there's a travel story, there are the linked stories, there are two historical stories (quite different to each other). All of them twist a little in their generic suit without being overtly experimental or loudly subversive. But just when you think you're in for a nice polite tale, she'll drop the c-bomb!


(The) Naked Lunch

I also recently finished listening to the audiobook of William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch.  Now there's a book you hope people can't overhear while on the bus. Taken en masse it's not obscene, it's actually quite moral in a strange way, but try explain that to the Sister of Mercy sitting next to you.

I have now read the three most heralded works of the beat generation (On The Road and 'Howl' complete the triumvirate). I find each invigorating in small doses, but I don't find the prospect of reading any more Beat prose particularly enticing. Conclusions: 1. I can deal with more confusion in poetry than prose. 2. I'm not crazy about pharmacologically-centred fictions. 3. While there's a lot in each of Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg that was ahead of its time, there's also something dated in their transgressions (though some of where we've got to in gender politics might be traceable back to these same transgressions...).


"The Next Generation of Melons"


From paper book to audiobook to film adaptations: critic David Larsen has posted parts one and two of a promised four-part digested take of the Harry Potter films, having watched all seven again with his children in the week before the final film hit cinemas.

So far, so interesting.  Actually, I'm getting antsy for part three (it's been over a day!), but I'm not sure if I'll read part four... not having seen HP7 part II.

I had never watched any of the films until earlier this year, when reading/listening to The Prestige got me thinking about magic in fiction. I have not read any of J.K. Rowlings' books. Maybe once I have kids... But for now, watching the films in quick succession was enough to fill me in on the basics. I now know about muggles, mudbloods and port keys, and for that I feel slightly less of a social outcast.

It's interesting to read Larsen's take on the various directors of the HP films and their relationships with the texts. It doesn't make me a) want to watch the films again in a hurry, or b) read the books, but I feel wiser for having read his thoughts, which is a kind of criticism that isn't all that abundant at the moment.  (Yeah, yeah, I'm just looking in the wrong places.)

Anyway, this has all been a long and serious way of letting me post this gif of hilariously inept subtitles from the HP films (HT: @paulverhoeven):

Click on the picture and you'll get a series of gaffs and head-scratchers.

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*Footnote: It has been bugging me for sometime that someone who writes novels is a novelist, someone who writes poems is a poet, but someone who writes short stories is a short story writer. Short storyist? Short storet? Of course, there's always plain old 'writer'. But I might try 'distortionist' on for size when the opportunity presents next.