Premiere of Simon Hoy's new work

It's been a while.  I've absented myself from the blog, taking a holiday in South Australia - Adelaide and Kangaroo Island - and catching up with reading and the final, final edits of Number Three.

This weekend sees visitors flood into my little town, Port Fairy, for its Spring Music Festival.  I rarely remember to get tickets, and missed out on a couple of concerts I'd have liked to see this year, but was delighted to be able to attend the premiere performance of a superb contemporary ballet this afternoon.

Choreographed by Simon Hoy and performed by three members of Melbourne Ballet Company, this piece was set to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which was played by duo-pianists Igor Machlak and Olga Kharitanova (they warmed up the audience for the ballet by playing Rachmaninov's Russian Song Opus 11 No.2).

I don't want to write a review, would much prefer to let the wonderful images dance around in my head a while longer by themselves, but five words do the job: wild, electric, passionate, sexy and fun.

Watching this performance, it also occurred to me why I can't dance like this: my ceiling fans are too low.

What every chicken should know about Cupertino

I'm not a flash typist.  Reasonably fast, but not efficient.  After 25 years of keyboards and a good few years on a typewriter, I've never progressed beyond two fingers, even if I can usually get by without looking at the keys. As someone unkindly pointed out once, my typing style resembles a starved chicken pecking for food more than anything literary.  But, as I less imaginatively (although quite graphically) pointed out in return, it's amazing what can be communicated with two fingers... and so they did.

Sometimes, one of my fingers overtakes the other, or slips along one position on the keyboard to present a whole new sense (or nonsense) to my writing, and it isn't uncommon for me to sign off my emails with:

bets,

apul

instead of:

Best,

Paul

Sometimes, the nonsense my typing creates seems almost inspired, suggesting another (stronger) meaning to the one I intended, and I've redrafted whole paragraphs accordingly.  This is when I thank the gods for the divine cock-up.

And sometimes, I've wondered what it wopidl bne like to leave all my errotd om [plave, as a post-modern respomse tp writing loiterature... and whether thos mught catch om.  Might this be the new CLOCkwprk Oramge?  Hmm, one day I might gibe it a go, but that's probably enough for the moment.

Occasionally, the issue is compounded by AutoCorrect.  (This only happens when I'm not working on my own machine, though, because it's a program I loathe with a passion and so automatically turn it off.)  On such occasions, any word that Microsoft's limited dictionary doesn't recognise - either because of my chicken-pecking clumsiness or because Autospell has the vocabulary of a poorly-read hermit - automatically becomes another word.

The most memorable example of this maladjustment was in an essay I received from a student several years ago, who was describing Lennie, from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.  Either her spelling wasn't crash hot or her typing was at a similar level to mine, because instead of writing that Lennie was a gentle giant, she had written Lennie was a gental giant, which AutoCorrect had changed to Lennie was a genital giant. 

With AutoCorrect, the spellings of surnames are also changed at the drop of a hat, and Burman becomes Barman (not too bad, except the tips are lousy), whereas my mistyped apul becomes appal.  Steinbeck's colloquial helluva becomes a medical heloma, a misspelled resterant becomes reiterant in preference to restaurant, and so on.

What I didn't know until recently, however, is that there is a word to describe this effect, named after what was a common error.  Early Microsoft AutoCorrect software did not recognise the word cooperation unless it was hyphenated (co-operation) and replaced this spelling with the closest word it knew: Cupertino (the home of Apple Inc.).  Hence, the Cupertino effect.  This apparently resulted in a number of foreign policy documents stressing the importance of international Cupertino, and also serves to illustrate the importance of roof-weeding.

After I've written my post-modernist CLOCkwprk Oramge, I might rewrite a few classics in Cupertino, beginning with Of Mice and Men.

 This article first appeared in The View From Here (August 2011).

The Grease Monkey's Tale - an approach #1

There’s a number of things I keep in mind when writing, but at the forefront of these is an intent to only stick with those stories I get a kick out of working on, and to only write books I’d really like to read myself.  There's a number of other things I could say about the reasons I need to write, how the stories we tell interpret the world we live in, how we connect our present with our past through the stories we tell, and so on, but none of this counts for much if I’m not fully engaged with the characters I’m working with and the stories they’re revealing.
 
That being said, the stories I write (and like to read) share some common traits.  I enjoy stories where the order of a character’s world is challenged, particularly if the nature of reality is also challenged, and even more so if the significant relationships in that character’s life are tested as a consequence.  There’s nothing new in this, of course, for these elements have been central to storytelling for hundreds of years – it’s just the way the stories are told that changes.  Our stories are filled with dupes and rogues, villains and heroes, victors and victims; usually against a tale of forbidden love or treacherous love, unrequited love or happy-ever-after-love – elements which bring out the best and worst in people.  Even as children, the stories we most frequently tell deal with a quest for happiness in terms of the ideal partner (Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty) or deal with maintaining order and justice in a precarious world (Little Red Riding Hood, The Pied Piper of Hamlin, The Billy Goats Gruff).

For The Grease Monkey’s Tale however, I wanted to throw as much as possible at Nic the mechanic.  He is both innocent dupe and hero, both victor and victim, and experiences almost everything that life (and love) can hurl at someone, particularly in his relationship with Siobhan McConnell.  Rather than have a simple, fairy-tale quest and limited paths to follow, Nic finds himself caught up in life at its messiest.  He experiences how challenging and irrevocable some decisions can be, and how our simplest choices can determine our best or worst fortune.  He has to decide what he will compromise or sacrifice, create or destroy, in order to sustain his relationship with Siobhan.
 
Through Nic, I wanted to explore different layers of truths, untruths and lies, and how significant stories are in shaping our understanding of the world we live in.  Truth is a fickle creature, but our understanding of it, however limited, arbitrarily shapes the nature of our relationships, the choices we make, the paths we follow, the paths we abandon... the life we live.  The adventure of that story, with all its explosions and pistol shots, romance and mystery, is the adventure I was keen to create and explore in The Grease Monkey’s Tale.

It was while I was redrafting Grease Monkey and asking myself that hardest of questions – What’s this story really about? – that the poem I eventually used as an epigraph worked its way into my head:

What is this Truth?
And where does it steal from?
Who is its mistress today?
And who was its master yesterday?
A fickle beast of ruthless pedigree,
Best lay it to rest with a story.
Give me a good, honest lie any day.

A version of this article first appeared on the Legend Press website in 2010.

Book Trailers, Blue Friday and the like

There was a time not so long ago when book trailers, although a fine idea, seemed more designed to cure potential readers of insomnia than to tantalise them with the promise of an exciting new adventure.  Instead of encouraging me to read, they made me want to take up base jumping or shark wrestling... anything to prove to myself that I was still alive after their minute or so of mind-numbing tedium. *Yawn*

It's good to see how much things have improved, and particularly when this is associated with the work of a friend. Elsewhen Press recently released a trailer for  Mike French's novel Blue Friday, which found its way into the world as an ebook last Saturday, prior to its November release in paperback. There's drama in this 'ere trailer, so enjoy and then order a copy (Mike's website provides a number of e-book links).



All of which makes this an appropriate occasion to flag the great job Jen Persson did of creating a trailer for The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore a couple of years back.  It hasn't gone viral yet, but if you click on it enough times it may do!  Go on, click away on both of them.
 

Number Three and Dickens

Number Three is all but finished.  Arrived at that magical moment yesterday - that point where you realise the words are in place, the story's been told, and anything else will be too much. 

I'll leave it for a while now, maybe a few weeks, before casting a fresh, critical eye over it, to see what can be pared down or sharpened up.  Will get a couple of reports from critical readers too.  

In the meantime, and before I start grappling with Number Four, there's a short story or ten, I'd like to write, and I have to finish redesigning the website.  Maybe a bit of painting can be fitted in as well.  Ooh, so much to do.

By the by, I didn't realise it was the bicentenary of Charles Dickens' birth this year.  Apparently there's a global program of events under the banner Dickens 2012.  I was lucky enough to hear a lecture by Adrian Wootton (chief executive of Film London), at Melbourne's Wheeler Centre last week on the Life of Dickens.

While I'm not a huge fan of Dickens' novels - have read quite a few, but have grown weary of the style - I must say that Adrian Wootton's presentation reinvigorated my interest, and I may well return to reading one or two more before long.  Maybe I'll revisit Great Expectations, which was always my favourite.  The last one I read was The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which, as I discovered at the end, was a mystery because Dickens inconveniently died before he finished writing the thing.

Siân Burman exhibition opening

Siân's exhibition opened in style with about 55 people attending and 4 paintings sold on the night - good company and great fun.

Here's a couple of compilation photos, showing some of the 28 recent works that comprised the exhibition Light, Life.

The exhibition remains open until 2nd September.  Further details here.

A shout-out for Kathleen Maher and 'Underground Nest', currently available free on Kindle

I'm delighted to announce that American author Kathleen Maher, who I've worked with at The View From Here, has not only had her novella, Underground Nest, published as an ebook this month (Beekman Press), but that it's currently free from Kindle.  I've just downloaded it myself, and here's the blurb:

Underground Nest is a brisk and comic tale of deceit and comeuppance, about a philandering Scoutmaster who meets his match in a powerful woman. Zachary Severins lives by the Boy Scout Code, except when cheating on his wife and clawing his way up the career ladder at Columbia University. Upon meeting Vida Korbett, whose calculating ambition equals his, Zach’s sure-footedness begins to slip.

Here's The Link to the free download, and here's Kathleen's online profile.

Having tried out the Kindle for about three months now, I'll be writing about that experience (and some of the books I've downloaded) before too long.

Siân Burman exhibition - Light, Life

My partner, Siân Burman, will be launching an exhibition of her recent work next Saturday (4th August, 2012) at 6.00pm at Blarney Books & Art, Port Fairy.  Helen and Des from Customs House Gallery are running the exhibition in conjunction with Jo and Dean from Blarney Books & Art, and Jo Grant (Regional Arts Development Officer) will be opening it. 

Light, Life will feature 28 works and will run for 4 weeks, until 2nd September (Thursday - Sundays, 11:00 - 4:00).  Mostly oil on canvas, but there are a couple of acrylics and a couple of mixed medium pieces thrown in for good measure.

This is the painting used for the invitation:
 

Skyscape 6: On the Road (oil on canvas, 2011)

A bit more cultcha

Another reason I went to Melbourne recently (see previous post) was to catch the Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre of the National Gallery of Victoria.  This retrospective provided a tremendous opportunity to see somewhere in excess of one hundred works - I didn't count, but there was a lot - and to achieve a much greater sense of what Williams was trying to depict in his work.  

Burnt landscape, Fred Williams, 1968, oil on canvas

I love that borderland where the figurative slips into the abstract, which is precisely where he takes us through his exploration of the Australian landscape.

 Lightning storm, Waratah Bay, Fred Williams, 1971-72, oil on canvas

In fiction, too, I'm fascinated by that borderland: where the real becomes the surreal, if not the magical; where the ordinary becomes the extraordinary; where the prosaic becomes the lyrical.

Wild Dog Creek, Fred Williams, 1977, oil on canvas

You can see more Fred Williams at NGA.

A bit of cultcha

Just got back from a few days in Melbourne.  It was time to catch up with a couple of exhibitions before they closed, enjoy good food, get tickets to a performance of something or other.  A bit of culture to drive away the winter blues.

Didn't do too well with the performance.  Couldn't find anything particularly inspirational at the ballet, theatre, concert hall or cinema.  However, even though I'm no fan of musicals, did catch a performance of Annie on Friday night.  Thought at first it would be an expensive snooze, but have to say I got into the spirit of it after the intermission, and enjoyed the accompanying sense of theatre (and pantomime).  Certainly worth it, and always good to hear Hard Knock Life.

Ben Quilty - Captain S after Afghanistan

Saturday was all about a trip up the Yarra valley to TarraWarra Museum of Art where paintings from the 2012 Archibald Prize were on display.  While the terms of the prize invites artists to submit 'portraits painted from life of men or women "distinguished in Arts Letters Science or Politics"', I'm always surprised how liberally the judges interpret that and how pretentious/wanky some of the artist's statements are.  Nonetheless, most of the art submitted is superb and well worth travelling to see each year. 

 Monika Behrens - The artist's practice

One of my favourite pieces was the life painting by Ben Quilty (who won the 2011 prize) - Captain S after Afghanistan - although, in terms of meeting the aims of the prize, I'd have probably chosen Monika Behrens' The artist's practice or Jenny Sages' After Jack. I particularly liked the use of light and shadows in Behrens' piece, and the theatre of the pose.

Jenny Sages - After Jack

The prize was won this year by Tim Storrier for The histrionic wayfarer (after Bosch).

 Tim Storrier - The histrionic wayfarer (after Bosch).

Excellent  eats were to be found at:

• Red Pepper Indian Restaurant, 14 Bourke Street, Melbourne (close to Parliament);
• Innocent Bystander, 336 Maroondah Highway, Healesville;
• La Camera Italian Restaurant, Southbank, Melbourne.