A Quick Word

A Quick Word... A Slow Wave Goodbye

2011-10-24T08:21:00.001+11:00

I have mixed feelings about what I'm about to do, but sadly it is too late to change my mind even if I want to. An era is coming to an end here on my blog - three years of a journey that has all been held at lyndonswords.blogspot.com.

In 2009 I started this blog as a defiant act of desperation for my writing to be read. And you guys responded. Some of the posts here have had views in the thousands, and the site now has more traffic from around the world than I ever dreamed of at its inception. Only part of this is down to me. Lots of it is down to you guys sharing links to my work, responding to it on Facebook, and showing it to friends and family. Word spread, so that now a majority of people who contact me about this stuff are complete strangers. It's really exciting, and I can't thank you enough for it.

With that in mind then, why leave when things are going so well? Well, when I first started this blog, Blogger was exactly what I needed. It was the best on offer, and I should add remains one of the best options for first time bloggers - it's constant growth and change is one of the reasons I stalled in this decision. However, since choosing Blogger many have risen to challenge it, and while I haven't bothered moving, eventually the benefits of a site like Tumblr have become irresistible. I'm not quitting folks, I'm simply shifting gears a little. Somewhere bigger, before it's too late.

The benefits for me are obvious. Tumblr has a whole host of features that will make the blog more exciting. Firstly, it has a deeply ingrained social network which means people who have never seen my writing before will meet it for the first time, and will be able to share it for themselves. I'll be able to do the same, so expect more short posts with pictures or quotes to break up the larger ones. The commenting system will also work better, and there is an 'ask me' button at the top of the page which means that I will be able to answer your questions as blog posts, a great chance for you to dictate what I write about next. The site will generally lend itself to greater customisation and experimentation. I also think it looks nicer.

Where will it be? (This is the bit I'm most excited about!) http://www.lyndonriggall.com

It's sad to be saying goodbye to Blogger after three years of growth, discussion, friendship and inspiration. It's exciting to be starting this new chapter. Thanks so very much to all of you for your kind support, your generous feedback, and for lending me your eyes for a little bit every week or two.

If you are willing, I would love for you to come with me.

Lyndon

A Quick Word... On Podcasts

2011-10-17T12:09:00.004+11:00

I sometimes feel like people are ashamed to listen to podcasts. We're quite happy to talk about movies, television, and music - perhaps a little less so about audiobooks - but podcasts? Surely no-one wastes their time with those!

I do of course, and I think that - if you don't already - you should too. Perhaps there is something about the perceived lack of complexity in listening to radio shows that people find lesser. Actually, radio offers an exciting challenge to the imagination, and for me podcasts are followers and company - on walks, drives, or just while doing the washing up. Podcasts turn the necessary into the interesting, and they can teach too. So if you're keen to discover something new, here are a couple of my favourite podcasts to help you catch the bug:

1. Judge John Hodgman

Some of you may know John Hodgman as a reporter for The Daily Show, a comedy actor, author, or the PC from Apple's famous advertisements. What you may not know, is that he also occasionally performs in his own judicial court as a thoroughly unqualified judge.

The 'Judge John Hodgman Podcast' is a weekly event in which people may post their gripes and grizzles to Judge Hodgman and hope for a trial where he will finally decide who's righteous. Examples include a group of college freshmen arguing over the rules of 'beard chicken', and long term travelling companions who can't agree on the appropriate time to disembark a plane. The more minor the gripe, the more fun Judge Hodgman has, and the results are hilarious. For those who like their comedy nerdy, this is seriously worth checking out.

Link: http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/judge-john-hodgman

2. Writing Excuses

"Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry - and we're not that smart!"

So opens every episode of 'Writing Excuses', a weekly writing podcast which acts as a round-table about writing, featuring Mary Robinette Kowal, Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler and Dan Wells. Being only fifteen minutes long I've been slamming these out in the last couple of weeks, going back through previous seasons to try and catch up. The advice is really thorough and useful, and they manage to slip in a writing exercise and book recommendation each episode too.

My favourite so far has been episode 6.18, featuring Lou Anders on the 'Hollywood Formula'. Lou describes in very short form some of the crucial elements of the classic Hollywood story, including a fascinating deconstruction of my favourite film, 'The Dark Knight'. This one's particularly for writers, but there is plenty to learn even for just an interested reader.

Link: http://www.writingexcuses.com/

3. The Ricky Gervais Show

I was tempted not to put this one in, because both of the other two podcasts I've listed are free, and I think it's a great idea to let you discover podcasts without having to pay for them first. Unfortunately, it's simply unavoidable that 'The Ricky Gervais Show' is probably the funniest podcast on the internet, and deserves mention accordingly.

This one comes out pretty sporadically, and features Gervais, and his friend and co-creator of The Office and Extras holding discussions with their former producer, and current 'round-headed buffoon' Karl Pilkington. Somehow Karl manages to turn a topic of almost any level of inanity into a long and strange tirade of almost unfathomable ridiculousness. Fans of Gervais and Merchant's work will lose hours of laughter and hilarity to this one. Now made into an HBO cartoon series (see clip above), you can experience it that way too, if my podcasting talk has still not seduced you.

Link: http://www.rickygervais.com/podcast.php

4. The Moth

And finally it's 'The Moth', a series of trues stories told live and without notes. It's amazing what people will say when they just get up in front of an audience to tell the truth of their lives - sometimes it's incredibly funny, sometimes it can be devastatingly sad. It's always inspiring though, and changes the way you see the world. I really love listening to 'The Moth' - it rips right into the heart of things.

Link: http://themoth.org/

Have favourite episodes of these, or other radio shows you think deserve listing? Let me know in the comments!

A Quick Word... On LitReactor

2011-10-06T22:18:00.002+11:00

I love Tasmania. I love Tasmanian writing, Tasmanian people, and living in the Tasmanian landscape. In my own writing however, Tassie poses a problem.You see what I really want to write are fantasy books. But so far the writers and readers I've met have in the large majority not been fantasy readers. The issue I have is that I need the people who look at me work to be the sorts of people who read what I'm trying to write. Doesn't matter what your genre is - or in fact where you live - you've probably got the same problem.

Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk spotted this a few years ago and started a section of his own website called 'The Cult', which worked as a sort of online writer's workshop. It was hugely successful, and many people who used the valuable feedback they gained from each other on the site soon enough started to get published. The only problem was that they wanted to broaden the field. On Chuck's website, the only real people who signed up were Chuck's fans. It was working, but they wanted it bigger.

So last week saw the launch of 'LitReactor', a forum/workshop/seminar series/inspirational repository for writers everywhere. The site combines a classroom environment with gaming elements. Work hard to help others and you'll earn achievements, as well as points which add up to allow you to submit your own work to the site's 'workshop' section. I've signed up and spent a week playing on there and I am hugely enthusiastic about it. The people are funny and kind, the workshopping is honestly looking to be a whole lot of fun, and the essays on the craft and tips from literary agents are fascinating and useful. The catch is that the site has a subscription fee, but for $9 a month (or $45 for a 6-month subscription) I think it's very decent. You can pay more to attend online courses by signing up to them, but I haven't had the chance to experiment with those yet, and my advice would be that if you're interested in the site, you just create a free login and have an explore before committing to get the extra content.

If you're like me, writing, and occasionally feeling that you're going it alone, LitReactor appears to be a god-send. A safe place, a hive for creativity, and somewhere you can go to get better at writing and help others do the same - I'm excited about it, and I think it could well be a crucial bonus and motivation in my writing process. Check it out, and I'll see you on there!

(You can add me as a friend on LitReactor by searching for the username: lyndonriggall)

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Before I go, it is worth mentioning that a piece of my writing has gone up on Islet. The guest post covers the time I spent investigating the fascinating and very cool Hobart art den 'The Rat Palace'. I'm not sure I did exactly what I was asked to do, but I did try to paint a vivid picture of what it's like to spend half an hour chatting to and exploring the place where those guys work, and it was a whole lot of fun.

Also, Islet and Island have recently found out that their funding is being rescinded. They are fighting and staying positive, but if you are an Island reader who wants to see the magazine continue, they could certainly use your support.

A Quick Word... On Pottermore

2011-09-27T20:15:00.003+10:00

In four days, those of you who weren't part of the exciting early-access team, will finally be granted entry as Pottermore opens to the world. I've been talking all things Pottermore for a few weeks now, and have remained surprised when people suddenly stop me and say: "Wait... what is this thing?" So in the interests of trying to make sure everyone is ready when the Hogwarts Express leaves the station this weekend, I present to you my brief run-down of how the site works.

Firstly here is J.K. Rowling's somewhat ambiguous announcement from earlier in the year:

As you can see, the ideal for Pottermore is for the site to function as a sort of Potter-related social network, and interactive reading experience. Mostly it does these things pretty well. Privacy concerns make the social aspects well stripped back, so chances are you'll be doing a lot of your negotiating and working out whose username belongs to who through other websites, but it's quite fun to read through people's comments about various parts of the story, and check out what they're are saying on your house's wall too. The site has a whole lot of other stuff going on too, and while in Beta testing the online shop doesn't work yet, it will theoretically have a store which will crucially be the sole outlet of the Harry Potter ebooks. This has many people watching with wide eyes, because good ol' J.K may just have a deciding vote on how ebooks are sold and particularly how much for.

To be honest though, the part of Pottermore that I'd really like to sell you is the actual experience. I think it's a smashing idea, and while I got through all there was to do without repetition in about a night (The Chamber of Secrets and the other Potter books after Philosopher's Stone have not yet been opened, enemies of the heir need not beware) after an initially skeptical start Pottermore took me immediately back to a time when the Harry Potter novels were everything to me. The beauty of the website is that it absolutely relies on a knowledge of the books, and exists around them, rather than aside from them. One of the crucial challenges at the end of the first section was finding the Philosopher's Stone, and without the final chapter held firmly in my head, I would have had no idea where to click and receive my reward. The site is gorgeously illustrated (hope they bring out editions of the books with these pictures!), and while sparse in terms of interactivity in most scenes (I also noted no sound), it's a lot of fun to just look at the places you've been reading about. Rowling herself also provides massive chunks of background detail, and it's fascinating clicking things and reading back-stories and hidden details about their construction. There is a lot to learn about writing here, as well as the world of the books.

For me, the pinnacle of the experience was exploring the world for myself. If you're anything like me you will have fantasised about what sort of wand and pet you would have at Hogwarts, and above anything else, what house you would be in. Pottermore answers all these questions, and in my opinion is the last word on each subject. From thousands of wand configurations I was delighted to discover at the end of a questionnaire that I in fact share the elements of my wand with Harry - Holly and Phoenix feather - which I am told through the personality information in the wand guide is a notoriously problematic but incredibly powerful combination. As far as houses go, I was momentarily distraught, but eventually accepting of a placement in the humble house of Hufflepuff, presumably due to my championing of imagination over intelligence, bravery and ambition, as well as my apparent fondness for badgers. These things change the site experience for good, making it possible for you to score and lose points for your house in competition for the year's house cup. Playing part of the Potter world is the greatest asset the site has, and if, like me, you lament the loss of all things Potter, the site has come at an opportune (and perhaps strategic) time.

Longevity on Pottermore is an issue, and the site's enduring success will rely heavily on maintaining the excitement and experience produced by its initial offering. It's hard to see how you could possibly top being sorted by the sorting hat, but I'm hoping the crew behind the site have some canny ideas to make it something that maintains appeal in the long run. For now though, your first night on Pottermore will be a delight, and if you find yourself missing the books and films you better cancel all your appointments for October the 1st, and simply enjoy a night experiencing all that Pottermore has to offer. I look forward to hearing what all of you get when you gain access, and (if you are particularly charming and attractive) hopefully communing with you in the Hufflepuff common room!

A Quick Word... On 'Submarine'

2011-09-22T19:42:00.000+10:00

"It is Sunday morning. I hear our dial-up modem playing bad jazz as my mother connects to the internet. I am in the bathroom.

I recently discovered that my mother has been typing the names of as-yet-uninvented mental conditions into Yahoo's search engine: 'delusion syndrome teenage', 'over-active imagination problem', 'holistic behavioural stabilisers'.

When you type 'delusion syndrome teenage' into Yahoo, the first page it offers you is to do with Cotard's Syndrome. Cotard's Syndrome is a branch of autism where people believe they are dead. The website features some choice quotes from victims of the disease. For a while I was slipping these phrases into lulls in conversation at dinnertime when my mother asked about my day at school.

'My body has been replaced by a shell.'

'My internal organs are made of stone.'

'I have been dead for years.'"

This is the opening of the book I am reading at the moment - the phenomenally funny and interesting Submarine by Joe Dunhill.

I discovered the book because I had recently seen the film, which I wanted to get hold of purely because it was directed by Richard Ayoade, a famous British comedy actor who played Moss on The IT Crowd.

In one week I watched Submarine three times.

I don't know what it is about this film. For one it is spectacularly shot, it is funny, strange and unique. More important though, is that I think it captures the side of adolescence that many people ignore - the experimental bizarreness of it, and the feeling of not knowing exactly what you're supposed to be doing, and trying to bluff your way through anyway.

I am loving the book, but the film still features some spectacular performances, and is my favourite movie so far this year. It is a film to watch and re-watch, full of subtlety and rapid-fire dialogue that deepens in meaning when it is revisited. It is clever and incredibly touching, and I'm sure it will not be long before I return to it myself.

Watch Submarine. I really think you'll enjoy yourself.

Submarine is currently screening at the State Cinema in Hobart, and is out on DVD internationally.

A Quick Word... On Roald Dahl

2011-09-14T09:21:00.001+10:00

Yesterday, Roald Dahl would've been 95. 2011 also marks another, even more important landmark in the Dahl dynasty though - it is fifty years since the first of his famous children's novels, James and the Giant Peach, hit our shelves.

To celebrate this anniversary, I had the pleasure of running two sessions of games and activities based on his work at Stories Bookshop in Launceston. Interspersed with readings, we played games about 'snozzcumbers' and glued fragments of macaroni and broccoli onto our own wearable version of Mr Twit's beard.

Revisiting Mr. Dahl's work sent me back to a world of long forgotten memories. When going to a scholarship interview as a child, I remember being asked what I wanted to do in my future. I told them I wanted to write books, for kids initially. "I see! Like J.K. Rowling then?" one of the panellists asked me. I replied, "No. More like Roald Dahl." While in the years that followed I would soften even more to J.K Rowling's deeply dense and engrossing world - for sheer imagination, enjoyment, and power across a broad range of books, I knew exactly who I wanted to be.

Reading the books again, I was surprised at their power to shock. James's horrible aunts 'Spiker and Sponge' are crushed to death in James and the Giant Peach, lying 'ironed out upon the grass as flat and thin and lifeless as a couple of paper dolls cut out of a picture book.' A few children gasped with horror as Jack's mum was crunched up by the giant in Revolting Rhymes, another terrible parent with a propensity to hit her child (with - what could be meaner? - the handle of a vacuum cleaner!). I myself can remember many sleepless nights over The Witches - a terrifying book that I read it again and again regardless.

Roald Dahl's early career as a taste tester for Cadbury's (as if a famous children's writer isn't enough!) is no surprise. Dahl knew that a little bit of something bad for you doesn't hurt. In his books the evil meet their come-uppance, and the good triumph through kindness, generosity, and a love of all that is right in the world (which usually includes reading!). Who can forget the polite and quiet Charlie, who waited patiently while a macabre farce of greed was played out on Wonka's factory tour? Or the gorgeous Matilda, pushed aside and mistreated by everyone, and yet finally given a chance to restore some balance?

Roald Dahl knew how to make children squeal with delight and horror. He was entirely unafraid of exposing the desperately horrible world that other writers often feared to touch - the cruelty of adults to children, and the power of children facing overwhelming odds, simply to be themselves. He was unapologetic, daring, and funny beyond measure. Like Mr. Wonka's famous Whipplescrumptious delight, Dahl's books feel bad for you - all enjoyment and no nutritional value. The catch is of course, they are so, so good for you. Really, they're some of the best there is.

A Quick Word... On Being Yourself Online

2011-09-06T10:30:00.001+10:00

Picture Credit: Simone Lovati

I think it's about time to accept that Facebook and Twitter are part of my life now. While I'm still constantly arguing with myself over how much is too much, and whether they are actually a force for connectedness or instead a delusion that actually leads to deeper isolation, it's pretty hard to ignore that either way I'm probably going to keep using them, and as it seems, so are you.

In my house we're always experimenting with our use of stuff like this - my housemate Jess actually deleted her Facebook for an extended period a couple of weeks ago, and I'm currently trying to limit myself to only an hour a day, so that I don't do the thing that we're all constantly watching ourselves for, and start spending more time discussing my life than actually living it. I have heard it suggested that our infancy with the internet is comparable to when societies first meet alcohol - at the moment we don't quite know what's good for us, and we're slamming it down in copious amounts without thinking of the effect it might have on our overall wellbeing.

Jess and I talk about these issues a lot. In fact, recently she asked me a question that continues to bother me. She said: "Do you think that the way you are on Facebook is actually the same as you in real life?"

To which the answer can only be no. There is plenty I hide from the online community, and in general my online persona expresses a far more articulate and intelligent being than I could ever be in an impromptu conversation. When Twitter asks 'What are you doing?' and when Facebook asks 'What's on your mind?' I'm absolutely conscious that I'm not telling these websites either of these things truthfully. I'm telling them the way I think you'd like to see them, and I'm cherry-picking the funniest bits, the kindest moments, and the deepest insights. I'm guessing when you post updates on these websites you probably do too.

But aren't these websites to connect us? What is the point of them if we don't be ourselves?

This week I read an article by Chuck Wendig called 25 Things Writers Should Know About Social Media. Number 2:

Be The Best Version of Yourself:

Writers and other creative-types often seem to believe that they need to become someone different online, that they cannot be themselves lest they not find a publisher, not get work, not sell their book, not collect sexy groupies, etc. To that I say, bullshit! And cock-waffle! And piddling piss-wafers! Be yourself. That’s who we want. We just want the best version of you. Scrape the barnacles off. Sit up straight. Smile once in a while. But you can still be you. Uhh, unless “you” just so happen to be some kind of Nazi-sympathizing donkey-molester. In which case, please back slowly away from the social media.

I think this gets at the crux of it, and I think we are better people if we try to use social media to make our lives better instead of bemoaning our sad existence. A few weeks ago I started putting daily quotes and favourite pictures up on Facebook, inspired by the writer Jonathan Carroll who has inspired me for months with the same practice. Undoubtedly this will seem a bit affected to some people, but I noticed that as I started to try and reflect a better version of me on Facebook, I also tried to live my day according to the quotes and images I'd put up. Perfectly? Hell no, but it's a start.

So to answer Jess's question, I don't think there is anything necessarily shameful about trying to be more compassionate, inspiring, and pleasant than we are in reality when we use websites like Facebook and Twitter. I think some people feel it's false, but in all honesty I admire people who try to behave better online, just as I admire people who try to behave better in life. By spending a little time putting aside all your problems, your vices, and your gnawing insecurities, I think we actually come closer to letting them go in real life.

Facebook and Twitter are communities, and like all communities they are first and foremost places of interaction and involvement with other people. How we choose to use our influence on the world around us, and interact with the real people who inhabit our lives, is - online or in the real world - perhaps the most important decision any of us will ever make. So think carefully, and choose wisely.

A Quick Word On... Marriage

2011-08-30T08:44:00.008+10:00

As much as I hesitated writing this blog - indeed have written and re-written various sections of it before wiping them away completely - I am fascinated at the moment by the conflict taking place in the sector of marriage rights, because it often appears to be over a single word. How many times have you heard the phrases "I'm fine with it, I just don't think it should be called a marriage" or "It's just that marriage is between a man and a woman". In many ways it seems clear now that same-sex couples are on the verge of obtaining all the symbolic rights of their married 'diff-sex' counterparts - but we seem to continue to be holding a battle over a single word and its definition: "Marriage".

This from yesterday's Mercury, in a column by Piers Akerman:

"It is the word "marriage" and the celebration of marriage that some, and certainly by no means all, homosexuals want to co-opt, against majority wishes. It may be that some time in the future the definition will have been so wilfully eroded as to lose its current meaning. But to most people worldwide marriage is still understood to be the union of people of different sexes. That Australians are watching a total madness unfold is evident from the passion by those displayed by those promoting the degeneration of the language"

Now Akerman is a columnist printed proudly all around the Western world, and I am not, so perhaps I should be careful what I say here - but this is simply nonsense. From a linguistic point of view, to even suggest that the English language, already broken from it's beginning as a kind of Latin-Greek mongrel tongue, can be eroded or degenerated by the broadening definition of a single word is ludicrous. Language evolves to suit our needs, and is a tool, adjusting its size and shape to suit each task and generation. Regardless of how you feel about gay rights and the marriage equality movement, surely we cannot buy the suggestion that a word needs guarding from contamination? Heathen Scripture's Geoff Lemon put it best:

"I don’t advocate gay marriage any more than I advocate eating potato salad for breakfast. I just think it makes zero sense for other people to campaign against it.... Eat your cornflakes and shut your stupid-hole.

The argument, it seems, is that by eating something else, other people compromise Barnaby Joyce’s fundamental concept of breakfast. Joyce & Co. have an idea of what breakfast is – toast, cereal, glass of orange juice, perhaps – and different configurations, however remote, threaten its very breakfastness."

So what do you think of when you hear the word marriage? Do you picture churches, suits and dresses? Have we muddied our definition of 'true marriage' by allowing people to marry on beaches or in costumes? Importantly - crucially - by broadening the definition of marriage, what difference will it make to heterosexual marriage? Will they be less married?

Bear in mind also that the word marriage already has at least five definitions. Ever looked at an album which has been reviewed as being 'a marriage of folk and rock'? No-one seemed to ask any questions there - I can only assume that in each instance the two concepts have opposing genitals. Thank goodness - language safe for another day.

picture credit: fibonacciblue

A Quick Word... On Journals

2011-08-27T08:44:00.002+10:00

Ever tried to keep a journal? I bet you have. I bet you've been given or bought notebooks and gone Yes, I will definitely use this.

And so, after a few nights ponderance you sat down and started putting the pen to paper, and you discovered that you pretty much had nothing to say. If you weren't recounting boring things that happened at school, you were older and recounting boring things that happened at work. And you were tired now and just wanted to go to sleep, and you made a mistake and now you've wrecked the whole thing and it was the nicest book ever and... ARRRGGGGHHHHH.

Three nights later your journal meets the back of the cupboard.

I know. I've been there. Once to overcome it I decided to try and keep a journal on the computer. The file was password protected, and that way I could edit it however I liked and the mistakes or boring parts could be cut out. My brother kept on telling me all the things I had written in there, and for a while I kept changing the password, trying to work out how he'd gotten in. It turns out there is no password secure enough to stop people sneaking up behind you and reading over your shoulder. Who would've thought?

Then I read horror writer Joe Hill's prescription for journal keeping. The problem with most of us you see, is that we're too ambitious. We want to keep our entire thrilling life story in a single book which catalogues everything we do. If we start here, Joe says, it's pretty easy to fail. Joe keeps no less than eight journals. One of which you might have already. Ever consider that your Facebook or Twitter is a journal? It is though, right? And yet somehow you've managed to keep it going... Why is that?

The trick is keeping it real and small. Joe's eight diaries each capture one piece of him. I've stolen three of his ideas, and have just started books cataloguing everything I read, everything I watch (films and complete series), and three great memories from each day. This last one is the best I think. Instead of writing out your day in full, why not just capture in a single sentence each the three best things? It'll be enough to remember them if you do decide you want to write your magnum opus of a memoir later, and more importantly, it's actually achievable in the five minutes before you go to sleep.

Joe has heaps of other great ideas, which I will probably nab later if these go well. If you've always wanted to keep a journal of some kind and failed though, check his blog post out. The trick it seems is to start small, make it achievable, and build the project up from there. Only do what you have time for. If you try for more you've already failed.

Happy journaling folks.

picture credit: basykes

A Quick Word... On Narcissism

2011-08-15T08:47:00.006+10:00

I have a feeling that when I post a link to this blog on Facebook and Twitter, and people see its title, it's going to get a lot of hits. Why? Because I think all of us are secretly terrified we might be completely self-absorbed. In fact, the only thing more important to us than doing everything we can to make other people like us, is making sure that all these people are completely unaware that we are doing everything we can to make them like us.

It is a label that comes a bit near me, because I am a blogger. Blogging tends to have a reputation for being one of the favourite past-times of the hopelessly self-loving - I mean, even proper writers have at least an editor to read their stuff before they subject the world to it, right? The word 'blog' even sounds a little bit dirty. When I spoke at a University debate I was introduced alongside 'critics', 'academics' and 'writers' as a 'a student and a blogger', two words unlikely to make it into a revised edition of The Sound of Music's 'These are a few of my favourite things'.

People often ask me about this as if they are some kind of social profiler, trying to find the shattering influence that would drive a perfectly normal child over the edge, and turn him into a blogger. Recently, I've heard a couple of people say "Oh I could never... I mean, it would just seem so... narcissistic." And to be honest I haven't quite known what to say, because I don't like to see my self as obsessively vying for everyone's attention, and yet I suspect that perhaps I am.

I do have in my defence that I write this blog with no expectations other than to order my own thoughts, and hopefully provoke thoughts in others. There is no 'friends with Lyndon' quiz in which I ask you to list the reasons I gave a few years ago for you to watch Watchmen, or confirm exactly which Decemberists song is my favourite before I let you into the sanctum (not before you're in the ceremonial gown at least). There are some people I have never met in person who seem to read every post I write, and some of my closest friends haven't read any at all.

And yet would I write these posts if I was the only one who read them? Probably not. I am surprised by people who talk to me about my blog as if they think they have been reading my emails and must keep everything they've seen a secret. I try really hard to put these people at ease, because for better or worse, I love to be read, and I love the conversations that start with "So I saw this thing on your blog the other day..." These blogs aren't stolen from a shoebox under my bed, I chose to post them, and I'm delighted if you also chose to read them.

In response to charges of narcissism I say that Shakespeare is probably not the greatest writer who ever lived. Neither is your choice of best artist in any field - painting, music, cinema, photography... Undoubtedly there are geniuses all around the world who either refused to self-promote and never got started at all, or whose stunning works were created solely for themselves, and slipped into the bottom of a drawer to later be thrown away. But Shakespeare wanted his plays to be read, to be staged, and to be seen. And we still do what he demanded. All the greatest artists you can think of share one common feature - every single one of them had the audacity to think that you cared about what they had to say.

And the catch is - you did. We did. And sure, sometimes we don't. But great art, like great cooking, has to be made before you can expect anyone to eat it. Sometimes you even have to make it twice, and change the recipe before anyone will touch it. Or make desert instead of mains. Or stop cooking altogether and do origami napkins for the table.

Yes, it's narcissistic to expect anyone to read your writing. Just as it's narcissistic to expect anyone to eat your cooking, read your text messages, or look at your Twitter and Facebook updates. It's narcissistic to expect anyone to speak to you, listen to you, look at you, allow you to work for them, or - in working - to buy anything from you.

My advice to anyone who thinks that they want to do something, but who also thinks that they might lose face - or God forbid appear a narcissist - is firstly:

How different would your life be if you avoided every action which had positive consequences for you specifically and not really anyone else? How different would your life be if you avoided every action that could have ended badly?

And consequently, my second piece of advice, is be brave.

One of my friends has a mug on his desk that says What would you do if you knew you could not fail? I always joke that I would jump off a building and try to fly, which I suspect is a rubbish joke, and I only make it because I'm scared of giving the real answer, which is that I would write. I would write daringly and prolifically and because I couldn't fail, people would devour my books like they were starving for them.

And maybe that will never happen, because I can fail. But if dreaming it and working towards it (and I do consider blogging working towards it), and sometimes disregarding the opinions of other people in favour of it, make me a narcissist, then all I can say is pass me the mirror so that I can play with my hair. Because everything I've ever loved was made - somewhere - by a narcissist. And that's good enough for me.

*****

As I was researching for this blog post, I was looking for a quote I was sure I had read somewhere that talked about how it was better to fall on your face then bend over backwards all your life. I couldn't find it. But I found this song by Greg Holden, which does the same thing, only perhaps better:

Photo credit - Damian Pollet

A Quick Word On.... The Decemberists

2011-08-08T09:29:00.006+10:00

For the last few weeks, these guys have been the soundtrack to my every moment. I've had to limit myself to one album a week out of fear that I might race through them all and suddenly be left empty and longing. One thing is for sure, this is the band that is going to get me through my undergrad degree.

And yet everywhere I go I am screaming "THE DECEMBERISTS! THE DECEMBERISTS!" in people's faces, and they are reply with an unsettling calmness. "Yeah! Aren't they great?" It's like the entire world has been conspiring in secret to keep them away from me. "Don't tell Lyndon," they announce at the monthly meeting, "he'll probably just go all weird."

Well folks, all weird I have gone. After four weeks my passion for the band is only increasing. As I mentioned before, I am aware that some of you are very familiar with them, but on the off-chance that there is a single person out there apart from me who has still not heard of them, I think it's wise to give them a good talking-up. Starting with The King Is Dead, their 2011 effort, I've been working my way through their albums in no particular order. I've found they have an uncanny gift for storytelling, creating vivid and arresting pictures with their music, and employing emotions through song that are extremely rare, and precious when found.

Here is one example that really got me when I first heard it. It's called 'Eli The Barrow Boy'.

My absolute favourite however, is 'The Crane Wife' (from an album of the same name), which is in three parts (so make sure you've got 15 minutes to commit before you listen to this one!) The songs are a musical variation on a Japanese folktale about a poor old man called Osamu who finds a wounded crane on his doorstep. Taking it in, he tends to it until it is mended, at which point it leaves him. Soon after, a woman appears at his house. They are married and she promises to restore his fortune through weaving. Becoming greedy Osamu insists that she weaves more and more, which she does, but makes him promise not to watch her at her work. He cannot resist peeking however, and when he does he sees a white crane working at the loom, plucking and crafting with its beak and its own feathers. The creature turns, and upon seeing Osamu it flies away and is never seen again.

That's the story as the Japanese tell it. This is the story as The Decemberists tell it:

I think that that 3 piece ballad is one of the best things I've ever heard. I don't know what you think, but I'd love to hear it. If you are already a massive Decemberists fan, I'm sure you'll want to tell me your favourites, and what else I should listen to. If you're not, I'd love to know what you think, and if you like them.

Hopefully one or two of you, like me, could even find a new favourite band.

A Quick Word... 'Welcome To The Bookshop' (Clarion Writing Piece #2)

2011-08-05T08:41:00.010+10:00

This is my second piece going up for the Clarion Write-a-thon.

If you'd like to buy a piece yourself you can do so for $5 (all funds going to charity).

Read about it and donate here.

This one is for Rach.

WELCOME TO THE BOOKSHOP

(Picture courtesy of Flickr: gadl)

Hello! Yes, come on in. Watch your step there, that bit can be a bit… oh and you'll have to twist and pull for that door.

That's it. Right. Yes! Welcome! The economic winds have been turning in the industry, but there are still a few customers left who like to wander and look at real dead-tree

books, and we're still happy to sell them, so we're a little down, sure, but not out yet.

It is a nice place isn't it? That new book smell makes me dizzy. There's a good team here too, so I think you'll fit in just fine.

...

What was that? Did you say relaxingl? Ha!

Sorry. I didn't mean to be so rude there… with the 'Ha!' and everything. It's just -

The problem with working in a bookshop, the really annoying thing that you will have to deal with every day, is that people can't imagine that selling books could be any more difficult than reading books. They will deny that they think this, but if you tell them you're working in one, they will almost certainly picture you behind the counter with your feet propped up on the desk flicking through an old Penguin Classic like Bernard Black.

What they probably won't picture are the day to day necessities of the industry. The trawling through stacks and stacks of new arrivals out the back because you are sure you saw that book somewhere today. The ordering, the pricing, the allocating, the posting. The invoicing and shipping of mountains of books which sends brave individuals to the computer for days on end. Clicking, clicking, clicking.

They won't see the idiots - perhaps because they sometimes are the idiots. The people who want that book with the green cover by the guy whose name sounds like "netherfield" but isn't actually "netherfield". Or a picture book about a girl who finally uses the potty after screaming at her mother, and amazingly, through sheer skill you find three of them before: "Oh, the girl's name has to be Monique. It's for a girl called Monique, so it's gotta be Monique."

They will infuriate you. They will send you searching for hours and hours through your afternoon for a particular book before announcing they bought it round the corner immediately after they left. (More likely: "Oh that's the title? I'll get it on Amazon.) The worst will yell at you that The Lord of the Rings was definitely written by J.K. Rowling, and that you are an idiot for even bothering to look it up under a different name. Often you are left wondering whether these people read anything at all. Yet while the customer is not always right, it is certainly never permissible to punch them in the face. A grave flaw in society's commercial rules.

You will come to envy those that work for chains like Woolworths and K-mart - with their uniforms, and regular schedules, and little stickers on their water-bottles to show that they haven't stolen them off the shelves. These will strike you as the hallmarks of simplicity, the signifiers of retail as a machine. These people talk in 'shifts', and 'rosters' - words that you will never use. For you there is only work. There is turning up in the morning when there are things to be done, and there is leaving when they are finished. There are long days, extended hours, and parents sitting in the car out the front, the heater on full, desperately fussing about how they will ever get tea ready in time.

You will be exhausted. You will live in the bookshop, and you will stress about the day's decisions and possible mistakes when you aren't in the bookshop. You may not of course sleep in the bookshop, but do not despair, the bookshop will find you in your dreams. You will spend many nights in the bookshop of night, which is rarely very different from the bookshop of waking.

And here's the absolute worst thing. The truly soul-destroying part. The thing that people will never understand, but which will make it a hundred times worse.

You will do all this because you love it.

As much as it drives you crazy, selling books is the best thing there is. When you pass someone one of your favourites and they walk away smiling, and later return and practically strangle you while demanding the next in the series with bleary eyes and drooping jaw, you will know that this is the best job in the world.

It's there in the old couple who comes in every week, bright and early, smiling and dressed the way you might dress for your brother's wedding. It's the parent who wants so desperately for their kid to start reading that they're begging for that magical book - and you know what it is. It's the look on a child's face, fifty pages from the end, huddled in a corner, when the entire store could explode in streamers and glitter and fireworks, and they would move only to turn the page. These things make the hard work worth it.

Because stress my friend, stress is nothing in the face of bright, shining worlds. Stress is nothing in the face of new friends and life-changing observations about places real, and more than real.

Stress is nothing in the face of magic.

And we booksellers -

We deal in magic.

A Quick Word... On Overcoming Procrastination

2011-07-31T18:38:00.004+10:00

This week I read three books by Steven Pressfield. Some of you may be familiar with his work from watching or reading The Legend of Bagger Vance. He is also famous however, for his books on Alexander the Great and the Ancient Greeks, particularly Gates of Fire, which covers the Spartan battle of Thermopylae, and has become required reading in the U.S. Marine Corps. Pressfield, above all else, is a hardworking, dedicated and prolific writer. I consumed The Warrior Ethos and Do The Work insatiably, but it was the signed copy of The War of Art that I had picked up at Robert McKee's STORY seminar that really proved itself to be invaluable.

Pressfield gives procrastination a name. He calls it 'Resistance'. Resistance, he tells us, faces everyone who has ever considered doing something in which immediate personal satisfaction is delayed in the pursuit of overall personal development. If you've ever tried getting fit, eating healthy, getting educated, overcoming an addiction, or making pretty much any form of art, you've met Resistance before. Pressfield says that each of us have two lives - the life we actually live, and the lives we would have ourselves live. The barrier between them? Resistance.

The difference between an amateur and a pro in Pressfield's book is simple. A pro turns up to work. The successful artist, the successful fitness-nut, the successful shop assistant, are all the same in their achievement. All they did was show up and get working.

What's interesting about Resistance is that overcoming it is always more rewarding than the simple pleasures of the here and now. Whether it is an essay, a jog, or a piece of writing, the hard lesson I have had to learn myself is not to put off the project until 'I'm ready'. I am always ready. The only thing that will make me more ready is practice. More doing.

This is particularly true of writing. Many writers I know my age feel unprepared for writing a 'proper novel', myself included, but the fact is that the only worthwhile form of preparation is repetition. If Gary Ablett didn't kick a football because he 'wasn't ready', if Tiger Woods never swung a golf club because he 'needed more time to mull on it', they would not be world masters of their craft. So too does anyone who puts off anything because they feel uninspired and unprepared, fail their own ambitions and dreams.

When I first started working at Stories Bookshop in Launceston, I told my boss I wanted to be a writer.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Do you know what the definition of a writer is?"

"Uhh... No?"

"Someone who writes."

And so with everything in which Resistance, the unspoken enemy, raises its ugly head, it's that simple. And it's that difficult. My advice is that you just get started. Now. And you don't stop.

Best of luck.

A Quick Word... 'For The Ladies' (Clarion Writing Piece #1)

2011-07-15T17:04:00.007+10:00

This is my first piece going up for the Clarion Write-a-thon.

If you'd like to buy a piece yourself you can do so for $5 (all funds going to charity).

Read about it and donate here.

This piece is not dedicated to anyone.

FOR THE LADIES
(Picture courtesy of Flickr: dizfunkshinal)

Hello. My name is Johan. I'm a 41-year old male looking for the woman of my dreams.

I used to say on here that I liked going for long romantic walks on the beach, but this is no longer true. Going out with Susie (who was nice enough in terms of personality, but lets face it only about a 6 when it came to looks) she insisted after a few Bacardi Breezers that I fulfil this essentially empty cliche of a promise. And so we walked along the beach at 8pm on a Tuesday night. It was seriously goddamn cold. The wind picked up spray and chill over the waves and I was shivering the whole bloody way. Then I trod on a jellyfish and it stung me. I tried not to, but it really freaking hurt, so I cried on the drive to the emergency room, and she told me afterwards that the evening was "perhaps a sign that maybe we didn't belong together". I've refused to go to the beach since, because it stresses me to go barefoot, and I don't like getting sand in my shoes.

I also try not to go on dates to restaurants anymore, because the food takes too long to arrive, and you don't know what they put in it. It's much better to make things at home. If mum's not home I can't really cook much, but when I do beans on toast I kind of cut the bread into big thick slices, so it fills you up more, and it sort of looks like something from a restaurant anyway, you know?

I don't watch television or movies. I think they make you stupid. I don't like shopping because of the crowds, but It's okay because I write a list for my mum every Thursday and she picks up all the food and provisions that I need. It's an ideal system because I think she enjoys taking instructions and having something to apply herself to.

I hate bitchy women, I hate nice-in-a-fake-way women, I hate women who are just totally dumb, and I hate women who are arrogantly smarter than me.

Also, I am a hopeless romantic.

Message me,

Johan x

P.S - My name is really John.

A Quick Word... On Clarion (In Which I Prostitute Myself For A Good Cause)

2011-07-07T17:35:00.004+10:00

A few years ago I found out about Clarion. One of the problems with wanting to write fantasy fiction is that often no-one really reaches out to hold your hand. Some forms of writing are quite collaborative, or at least have large communities, but writing of the fantastic kind seems to be crafted by a large group of terrified loners working very hard to avoid each other.

For that reason, finding Clarion was like finding the holy grail of genre fiction nerds. The folks at Clarion take up-and-coming sci-fi and fantasy writers, and they throw them all together for a few weeks at a university in the U.S, where = they are taught and encouraged by the genre's greats. Two of my absolute favourites, George R. R. Martin and Neil Gaiman, have both been Clarion tutors in their time and it is one of my major writing ambitions to one day gain acceptance into the program.

The folk at Clarion are fully aware that one of the barriers towards entering the program is financial. It's a funny thing, but struggling authors looking to get started in the publishing world often don't have enough money to make it to the other side of the world, even for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Who would've thought it? Although their sponsors in the field are numerous and generous, they still struggle, and seek new and more ambitious ways to fundraise.

And I'm helping. Because I love what Clarion do, and for my own future I'm relying on the fact that they continue doing it. From now until August 6th I will be writing for a minimum of 1 hour a day (and even more to catch up on the period I missed while away on holiday). Every few days I will pick something I'm reasonably happy with to put up on this blog.

Oh I see, you're wondering exactly how that helps Clarion are you? Well, it doesn't. But it could! Because here is a donation page:

http://www.theclarionfoundation.org/writeathon/wrtn-writerpage.php?writerID=6105

And you can support my project by making a small donation to Clarion. You're still doubting aren't you? Surely I'll write whether you donate or not? Well I'm one step ahead of you yet again Judas! Because if you donate $5, I'll write something (and post it here) dedicated to you. Within reason, you can request whatever you like, or let me go for it myself. Just tell me when you've made a donation, either to me personally, or through the shopping cart on the website above, and I'll make sure you get a story all of your very own.

And to top it off, Amazon will match your donation dollar for dollar.

There is no pressure here, but every tiny bit will make a massive difference to an organisation that means a great deal to me personally. So if you find it within your means to fling a few dollars it's way -

Thank you. And I look forward to writing for you soon.

A Quick Word... On Learning The Craft and Fighting The Ash

2011-06-22T10:43:00.004+10:00

Hello everyone!

Just sending some quick thoughts your way from leg two of my Australian tour. Most of you would be aware of the havoc that the Chilean ash cloud has wreaked not only to my plans but the plans of thousands of others around Australia and the world, once again proving that no matter how clever we think we are - flying in the sky like birds with only a modicum of the effort - old mother nature can still bring us to our knees.

I've been incredibly lucky (albeit behind the general unluckiness), in that the ash hasn't prevented any of my plans so far. Jetstar mercifully decided to re-instate their flights the day I flew out to Sydney for Robert McKee's STORY Seminar and I made it as scheduled. For those not familiar with McKee, he's a screenwriting and script guru, who specialises in the principles of writing a good story. He is also remarkable. His students have between them won 35 Academy Awards, 164 Emmys, and countless more accolades besides - students as diverse as John Cleese and Peter Jackson. I am extremely excited and proud to count myself among their number. It was four intense 10 hour days, all the more enjoyed because of nearly missing them. McKee is an absolute legend, in his 70s, having taught the course for decades, and yet does it still with unflagging energy and enthusiasm. If you're interested in any form of writing I highly recommend it. Here's hoping he comes back again in the next few years.

The plan was to fly out to Brisbane yesterday afternoon at 2pm, but after arriving at the airport I discovered the flight had been cancelled that morning. they rescheduled me for a 'no-guarantees-it-will-fly' flight at 6am today and I prepared for a night at the airport. I noticed on the monitors that it said the flight was on schedule - bizarre. So I asked one of the staff members but she said "Flight 816? Definitely cancelled." Fine.

I sat there for an hour, reading my book and deciding what to do next. Flicking through the Jetstar website on my phone, I noticed once again that it said the flight was on schedule. You can't ask a third time I thought. I decided that yes, I could, and would, ask once more. As I was walking over to the desk I heard a final boarding call for Flight 816. I got in line.

"Hi. Um... Look I know I've been told that the flight to Brisbane is cancelled, but I just heard a boarding call and I have to ask..."

"Oh 816? Do you want to get on that?"

"Yes, yes, I would rather."

"You better give me your bag, take this, and start running."

Brilliant.

They had re-instated the flight at the last minute, and I'm glad to say I made it and learned the important lesson that it never hurts to stick around and see. And here I am in Brisbane - safe, on-time, and amazingly keen to start plotting out the novel that I - finally - feel I have the tools for.

And that is worth every penny, and every inconvenience.

A Quick Word... On John Green and New Ways of Storytelling

2011-06-09T15:42:00.005+10:00

This morning I woke up, got dressed, stumbled out to the kitchen to grab a coffee, and then I sat and watched John Green's latest video.

For those unfamiliar, YA author John and his musician brother Hank set themselves the challenge of ceasing technological communication for a year, and instead sent each other scheduled Youtube videos, in which they talked about their lives and major current events, and allowed the world to watch it all unfold. It was so successful that even when they had finished the project - Brotherhood 2.0 - they continued to make videos three days a week. Their viewers, known as 'Nerdfighters' and sometimes numbering in the millions, have seen marriage proposals accepted, humanitarian tasks crowd-sourced for assistance, and importantly watched a baby-bump turn into a squalling child and grow into what is now an actual, moving, talking toddler.

I adore John 's YA fiction, he is a phenomenally clever and talented writer. But I don't interrupt my morning to read another chapter of Looking For Alaska. Watching a 'vlogbrothers' video however, is part of my routine now. As much as it is necessary for me to brush my teeth and check my emails, a day with a new Hank or John video is incomplete until I've seen it.

Some may say that John Green's time would be better spent writing 'real novels', but I don't feel that this is true. His videos are shorter sure, and probably take less effort, yet they keep him constantly on my radar. Over time the clips have become like chapters, and I am as invested in the real-life story of Hank and John with an equal - and perhaps even greater - degree of enthusiasm to my investment in his fictional characters. I wouldn't sacrifice one for the other because I feel that this online autobiography is made all the more pertinent by the fact that it is being written as it happens. Take for example his passionate plea for Looking For Alaska not to be removed from the syllabus, his advice to a lonely girl who wants to know how to make herself more appealing to boys; these are worthy, vital viral videos.

This week on McSweeney's, James Warner wrote on 'The Future of Books', and cuttingly satired the age of the internet author, saying that by 2040 authors would become like Tamagotchis, with citizens able to 'cultivate with their favourite writers the warm, fuzzy, organic bond a trainer develops with their Pokémon, a process that will culminate in staged fights-to-the-death between your author and the author sponsored by another book club.' I personally don't see the nature of online storytelling as a threat to the novel - it seems to me unlikely that the viewers of John's videos are sitting at home thinking 'well, I guess I don't have to read his books now'. On the contrary, when I discovered his Youtube videos I was possessed insatiably to seek out his books and read them. And I feel I enjoyed them more because I now knew so much about him, and could hear his voice in the text.

During the MONA FOMA festival here in Tassie, I had the pleasure of attending a workshop Q&A session with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer, in which they talked about online personality and the role of social media in their work. Amanda said that it was often asked of her: "Doesn't it freak you out that all these people on Twitter just follow you and feel like they know you?" "Of course not," she says. "I put everything up there - that's my life. They do know me."

To say that John and Hank's Vlogbrothers project is less valuable than a novel because it presents itself in the form of online videos is short-sighted to say the least. We need not feel that the changing nature of storytelling puts our traditional novels in the firing line - from Alice In Wonderland to The Odyssey, some of our most memorable and enduring stories started with a single figure standing in front of a group, fumbling their way through an experimental narrative that grew as it was told.

The only difference now is that the audience is on the other side of a webcam, and they can be sitting anywhere from round the corner, to the other side of the world.

A Quick Word... On The Offensiveness of Portal 2 (And Being Adopted)

2011-05-18T16:39:00.011+10:00

I try not to make a habit of talking too much about video games. Those that know me well will know that I quite enjoy them, but due to all the other things I choose to spend my entertainment time on I'm not really an expert. My brother James is - video games are his life, and so typically I leave all the family's clever gamesy stuff to him. That said, like with all forms of entertainment or art, sometimes a game comes along that enchants me so much that I can't avoid devoting my time to it. Most recently that game has been Portal 2, which I managed to play when I was visiting my brother up north. I got most of the way through, but then had to roll back home, and although I returned to finish it a few weeks later, the wait to find out the story's conclusion was infuriating. It was a delightful, funny, clever and witty game - and so I was surprised to wake up this morning and find on Facebook that my friend Matt had posted this:

The news story claims that Portal 2 is offensive to adopted children, using cruelty to create comedy, and that it 'literally taunts the player for not having parents', with lines like: 'Alright, fatty. Adopted fatty. Fatty, fatty no-parents'. He said that as the parent of an adopted child it was 'literally the worst thing I could have possibly heard'. Valve, the makers of the game had not commented in their defence when the story aired. They need not worry, I'll do it for them.

The nature of being offensive is a tricky problem, and it comes up regularly in a variety of mediums. A significant recent example was when Britain's Top Gear landed in hot water for Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond's comments about the prospect of Mexico designing a new type of car. Comedian Steve Coogan, creator of the hilarious 'Alan Partridge' character, wrote this response:

I've been fortunate enough to work with the likes of Peter Baynham, Armando Iannucci, Chris Morris, Simon Pegg, Julia Davis, Caroline Aherne, Ruth Jones, and the Mighty Boosh – some of the funniest and most innovative people in British comedy. And Rob Brydon too.
It's a diverse, eclectic group of people with one common denominator: they could all defend and justify their comedy from a moral standpoint. They are laughing at hypocrisy, human frailty, narrow-mindedness. They mock pomposity and arrogance.
If I say anything remotely racist or sexist as Alan Partridge, for example, the joke is abundantly clear. We are laughing at a lack of judgment and ignorance. With Top Gear it is three rich, middle-aged men laughing at poor Mexicans. Brave, groundbreaking stuff, eh?
There is a strong ethical dimension to the best comedy. Not only does it avoid reinforcing prejudices, it actively challenges them. Put simply, in comedy, as in life, we ought to think before we speak.

Like Steve Coogan, Stephen Merchant, the voice of the character under fire from the reporters in that article, is one of the masters of this kind of comedy. Co-creator of The Office and Extras, his work is often hinged around the smug, arrogrant and offensive creatures that make up our real world environment. The David Brent (or Michael Scott - Hello U.S visitors!) character in The Office is a prime example of this question of comedy: are we laughing at him or with him when we watch the show?

Divorced from context, the comment 'Fatty, fatty no parents' is a cruel and unnecessary addition to the game. But here's the catch they didn't give you in the news report. Wheatley - the droid that Stephen Merchant voices, is the game's chief villain. Once he goes power-mad it is the primary objective of the game to defeat this corrupted orb and restore sanity (or at least some form of it) to the facility in which you are trapped. He is an antagonist, and you are not meant to respond warmly to his comments. They are supposed to drive you on towards overcoming him.

We have to ask ourselves this question - do the makers of this game hate - and intend to encourage hatred towards - adopted children? Of course not. As the player of the game progresses Wheatley gets more and more desperate for insults - so that they start to verge on the ridiculous. 'Fatty, fatty no parents' is one example, a nonsensical clutch at power by a failing overlord. I laughed - but I was laughing at the degradation of his power and what he was reduced to as I got closer and closer to the story's conclusion. At no point did I believe it was funny to laugh at children who don't live with their biological parents, that simply wasn't the point.

What I think is incredibly sad about this news story, is that Neal Stapel feels that the game is rated 'E for Everyone, when it should be "E for everyone - except orphans".' I am deeply saddened by this because I feel that his daughter would have a lot of fun, and have a lot to learn, from Portal 2. The comments concerning adoption that his daughter would hear do have a strong message, but the message is not that adopted children are lesser people. The message is that sometimes in life this is what others will be reduced to, cheap name-calling and pathetic insults, and they are the final option and last resort of the coward. To make fun of you for things beyond your control leaves you in the position of ultimate power - this is all they've got, and nothing else. In essence - you have as good as won.

That is what those comments in Portal 2 do - they teach you that those that insult you are always weak, and through the pointlessness of their cruelty they give you an even greater power to overcome them.

And if you push on towards the end of the game, you prove it. And the victory is all the sweeter.

A Quick Word... To Steven Moffat

2011-05-02T19:59:00.007+10:00

Dear Mr. Moffat,

Unfortunately, despite my greatest attempts at the contrary, I must admit that I am a little angry with you. One of the most exciting days of recent years for me was discovering that you were going to take over the mantle of Doctor Who. Let's face it, Russell T. Davies was the only man who could have brought back the Doctor with such flair and style, but Blink had been the greatest episode of recent history (if you can even talk about recent history in such a timey wimey show), The Empty Child and Doctor Dances not far behind, and I thought this is it. This is a new era and it's going to be remarkable.

I think though that it should have been clear that the show was not to be too good, that I should not have to spend my nights and days twisting and rolling plots and timelines inside my head in order to try and crack mysterious codes, and clues, and whispered cryptic statements. I should not have to - along with many others - suffer the almost unendurable indignity of self-imposing Twitter and Facebook boycotts because, sweetie, I had to avoid all spoilers. I should not have to dread tuning in each week because I know, soon, that when I switch off it will be months before I get to press the button that brings the world of Doctor Who to life again.

I grew up in a town whose library had a very limited video collection, which consisted mostly of old dusty tapes of Shakespeare and serialised Jane Austen specials. There was however some dark soul in the upper echelons of the library elite, who had made sure that the video section did have one shelf that defied the adaptation of the literary masters. Close to the ground, where my ten year-old hands could grab them, was a set of Doctor Who tapes as complete as you could get at the time, two rows of black VHS, cracked and dusty from overuse, but disregarding minor glitches still perfect to watch.

It was my brother who first brought home Sylvester McCoy to visit. The new ones were always the ones you went for first, it wasn't necessarily because they were better, but a child can smell the age of a video, and the new ones always seemed more exciting. I can remember the first episodes I saw - Ghost Light, and then The Greatest Show In the Galaxy. I didn't really understand what was going on a lot of the time, I was confused and scared, but the strange man in the odd clothes - the hat, the scarf, the umbrella, and question-marks on all - he was funny, and interesting, and he seemed to know more than he spoke, which is always compelling to watch. More than anything he was cool, and unthreatening, and unwavering, and even before finding out he had two hearts and a time machine I quite simply liked to hang out with him. He was like a mad old grandpa, a whirl of knowledge and experience and ideas, and an unignorable force of joy and adventure.

And then for my fourteenth birthday I got the ultimate gift. The adventure was not over, and the Doctor would be back. A merry band of social outcasts, we gathered around the TV and suddenly Doctor Who was not the past, it was not something that happened to other people, it was ours, and happening right now, and we held our breath with the rest of the world - scheming and hypothesising and hoping and watching.

It is not easy to be 21, a legal adult in every sense, and still be obsessed with Doctor Who in a way that not even the children I know understand. But I consider it a testament to the power of storytelling that on the worst days in the the worst weeks, I am still reminded that the Doctor will soon be in the house, and that more beautiful, original and captivating television is never far away.

It is one of my fondest dreams that one day, like you, like Douglas Adams and Terry Nation and Gareth Roberts, and all the great Who writers before you - I will have the chance to see my name fly across the screen in that vortex of colour, that I will hear the Doctor speak and be able to say "Those are my words… He's saying my words!" and give back to the universe of Doctor Who some small echo and memento of what it has given me. Until then however, the show remains a constant and enduring inspiration, a champion to the power of imagination, and the absolute highlight of my television viewing.

I cannot imagine a world without the Doctor, he is everything I could possibly hope to be, and the show is everything I could possibly hope to create. It keeps getting better and better, and as much as its brilliance is a curse, as much as the feeling of being gripped by its story is so overpowering, so all-encompassing that when the credits roll and you have to step back into the real world you feel like something's missing…

… don't you dare bloody stop. I'm really quite enjoying it.

Yours Sincerely,

Lyndon Riggall

A Quick Word... On Gay Cavemen and Pirate Dinosaurs

2011-04-19T18:05:00.005+10:00

A week or so ago I spotted a very interesting link from my friend James, which was an article from The Smithsonian entitled 'Dinosaur Casualties of World War I'. The fundamentals of the story are that in 1916 a ship carrying a whole swathe of dinosaur skeletons was sunk by an enemy boat. The Mount Temple fell to the depths of the oceans for good, and no-one is even clear exactly how much of a paleontological payload was on board - there has been no successful rescue attempt.

The article itself was fascinating, but was perhaps outshined by this comment below, which came from a man going only by the name of 'Harold':

I’ve always wondered what kind of conclusion might be drawn by future (perhaps non-human) paleontologists who unearth the remains of a museum and find skeletons of many species of dinosaurs gathered there. Perhaps the dinosaurs lived in these buildings, or worked there? Finding that they apparently crewed seagoing vessels will confuse matters even more.

It's an amazing thought really, the way our own obsession with cataloguing and collecting for posterity may just be muddying the waters of future knowledge. And it occurred to me again when I read of the finding of a 'gay caveman':

The male body – said to date back to between 2900-2500BC – was discovered buried in a way normally reserved only for women of the Corded Ware culture in the Copper Age.
The skeleton was found in a Prague suburb in the Czech Republic with its head pointing eastwards and surrounded by domestic jugs, rituals only previously seen in female graves.

In life we are always warned of being biased - fitting the facts of the story to match our own version of events. There is certainly a distinct possibility that the caveman found in Prague was a homosexual from a time passed. Who knows what the man buried in that hole would tell us if he could speak of his life?

But as Sherlock Holmes once said Watson: "When you remove the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." And for me, no sooner explanation will do. Speculate what you will, for me the gay caveman and the pirate dinosaur are one and the same, sailing nothing more than the ship of imagination, and treading the treacherous path of assumption.

Still, it's a thought, isn't it?

A Quick Word... On Critics

2011-04-12T13:18:00.003+10:00

Tomorrow I go to my first writing workshop session with uni, and someone will formally critique the short story I wrote for the course, Wild Heart, which will then be open to the class to comment on as they wish. I'm sure the experience will be valuable, but to be honest I'm scared. It's perhaps the first time I have been up for criticism so openly - 21 people all with their chance to say whatever they like about my work.

To be honest though, you've got to be ready for your critics, and it's good training, because sooner or later someone is going to challenge your work. No matter how great a writer you are, there is not a single book in the world that is universally loved. Even the ones that get close have vehement haters lurking around them. Someday, whether it's true or not, you're going to be told you suck. And you have to be prepared to take the criticism and not let it get in the way of your dream.

To prove this, someone posted the first page of their 'novel in progress' on Yahoo Answers, and asked for feedback. The page goes like this:

I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. My posture is consciously congruent to the shape of my hard chair. This is a cold room in University Administration, wood-walled, Remington-hung, double-windowed against the November heat, insulated from Administrative sounds by the reception area outside, at which Uncle Charles, Mr. deLint and I were lately received.

I am in here.

Three faces have resolved into place above summer-weight sportcoats and half-Windsors across a polished pine conference table shiny with the spidered light of an Arizona noon. These are three Deans - of Admissions, Academic Affairs, Athletic Affairs. I do not know which face belongs to whom.

I believe I appear neutral, maybe even pleasant, though I've been coached to err on the side of neutrality and not attempt what would feel to me like a pleasant expression or smile.

I have committed to crossing my legs I hope carefully, ankle on knee, hands together in the lap of my slacks. My fingers are mated into a mirrored series of what manifests, to me, as the letter X. The interview room's other personnel include: the University's Director of Composition, its varsity tennis coach, and Academy prorector Mr. A. deLint. C.T. is beside me; the others sit, stand and stand, respectively, at the periphery of my focus. The tennis coach jingles pocket-change. There is something vaguely digestive about the room's odor. The high-traction sole of my complimentary Nike sneaker runs parallel to the wobbling loafer of my mother's half-brother, here in his capacity as Headmaster, sitting in the chair to what I hope is my immediate right, also facing Deans.

The Dean at left, a lean yellowish man whose fixed smile nevertheless has the impermanent quality of something stamped into uncooperative material, is a personality-type I've come lately to appreciate, the type who delays need of any response from me by relating my side of the story for me, to me. Passed a packet of computer sheets by the shaggy lion of a Dean at center, he is peaking more or less to these pages, smiling down.

What you may or may not have noticed, depending on your own reading tastes, is that this is actually the first page of David Foster-Wallace's magnum opus Infinite Jest, named by Time Magazine as one of the last century's 'hundred greatest novels'. Whether you picked it or not, the people of Google Answers didn't. What is now being called 'The Internet Vs. Infinite Jest" is humbling but devastating reading. The most popular answer, as voted by users?

"You know your story needs more work, so you don't need me to tell you what you already know."

Other comments are just as cutting. "I frankly do not care where each person is sitting... If you took out all the unnecessary details you'd be left with about seven words."

My favourite is: "I recommend that you check out William Strunk and E.B. White's Elements of Style... That should clear a few things up."

THEY'RE TELLING DAVID FOSTER-WALLACE TO GO AND LEARN HOW TO WRITE.

You are always going to have your critics, no matter how good you are. That is an important message for both writing and life. If you truly believe in the quality of your work and the power of your story, chances are that sooner or later you'll find someone else who believes in it too. Learn to take feedback without feeling bound to it. People are entitled to feel and say whatever the hell they want about a text; that is the reader's right.

But you know what? It's a writer's right too.

So if you have to, fight for it.

A Quick Word... On Acquisitions and Other Oddities

2011-04-05T22:01:00.010+10:00

Just a quick update!

Another review of mine has gone up on Crikey's LiteraryMinded. In it I review Brisbane author Angela Slatter's great new book The Girl With No Hands.

The review begins:

In my first year at University I studied fairytales, and more specifically Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, a book which is arguably the poster-child of fairytale re-imaginings. Carter writes well, and in many cases her stories spin beautifully away from tradition while remaining neatly tied to the history of the tales they retell.

Yet I’m sorry to say that I didn’t really like them and they were an immense struggle to study. I found them elusively constructed and occasionally prepared to sacrifice good narrative in exchange for overtly feminist plots. So when Angela Slatter’s The Girl With No Hands arrived at my door, and billed the other Angela as one of its key influences, I settled down to read the book convinced I knew the way it was going: bestial males and victimised women. Truly Slatter was in trouble: my verdict was as good as written before I had even started...

You can read the rest of the review here.

*****

In other news this week, I managed to pick up my new laptop on the weekend. This is not usually noteworthy news... except that this is a particularly special computer.

A Quick Word... On Rebecca Black's 'Friday'

2011-04-01T11:58:00.005+11:00

I thought that I would leave this blog til Friday, partly because it seemed poetic, and partly because I was scared of writing it. Foolish creature that I am though... I appear to have left it until April Fool's Day. Please note friends, the only jokes here are the obvious ones.

I noticed this morning that someone on Facebook had said 'Why is everyone talking about the fact that it's Friday?', so while I thought everyone had seen this video, perhaps I'm wrong. Let me, with no degree of irony, say that my housemate Jess showing me this clip was the highlight of last week.

Observe.

About a year ago, I was alerted to the presence of a film called The Room, a film so, so shambolic that it was one of the most enjoyable I've seen, and gave me one of my highlight evenings of last year. We still quote it. I also love the films of Ed Wood, such as Plan 9 From Outer Space, and was once passed a book by my boss, who said:

"Read this."
"Good is it?"
"No. It's terrible."

It was.

I guess I just love bad art. And not because I believe bad art teaches you numerous invaluable lessons about how to make good art (it does). But truly bad art is an art form all of its own. Rebecca Black's video, and some of the critiques of it that I will share in a minute, has had me in tears of laughter - pure, pure enjoyment. And I have my suspicions that you can't create something like that deliberately. Think Snakes On A Plane, for example, which was fun, but just too self aware to reach the lofty heights of 'so bad that it's good'. My suspicion is that you couldn't engineer a Rebecca Black video - the parodies are never as funny as the original - simply because the faces in it would be smug and self satisfied with their own irony. It would simply be too self aware. Pretending to be bad at something rarely works. To be genuinely rubbish, to have confidence in non-existent ability to the point of hilarity, is perhaps impossible to teach.

Which leads me to my next point, and a paragraph I taken from Amanda Palmer's blog entry on 'Friday':

almost everybody can relate to rebecca black.
almost every pre-teen year-old girl in american is singing shit like this in living rooms and bedrooms after school, singing into that universal hairbrush, dreaming about being lady gaga, britney, avril, whoever, dreaming to be the pop-star that somehow signifies freedom, acceptance, awesomeness, status, happiness, success.

but the world has changed. the living room now has cameras and the cameras connect to youtube.

When I was 7 or 8, my friend Jack McNiff and I would write and record songs that we made in the sunroom at my house. We would bash things for percussion - if I recall plastic tables and icecream boxes. Jack in those days knew a bit of guitar - has gone on to know A LOT of guitar and be bloody good at it with his own real band to worry about now - and somewhere on tape in my cupboard are all our recordings as The Bush Kids. I haven't heard those songs in nearly fourteen years. I couldn't even tell you how they go. I promise you though, that they are at best unlistenable. And I also know this: If Jack and I had Youtube back then, we would've recorded those songs and put them up online. I'm almost certain of it.

The people who made Rebecca Black's video, Ark Music Factory, are paid good money by ordinary families to shoot professional video clips, and record professionally the songs these kids have written. Don't get too many grand ideas about Rebecca being 'discovered'. If you have enough money aside, you could make this story true for any child in the world. This question of the artist's ego that I was talking about in relation to adults, the part of their brain that causes them to make beautiful, terrible things and think that they express true talent - this is inherent in children. It's not until you look at the things you drew in primary school years later and find that the description your teacher wrote in the corner is actually necessary to decipher its meaning, that you realise you weren't the Michelangelo you thought you were. Yet for someone like Rebecca Black, the damage is already done. You can't take back Youtube hits or iTunes downloads. You cannot cleanse the internet.

So I guess I have two requests from here. Don't be ashamed of enjoying failure. Not only does bad music, bad artwork, bad literature and bad film teach us what makes something good too, it's good for the soul to just experience creativity without inhibition. Learn to love terrible things and you'll be rewarded for it.

And also, forgive Rebecca Black. If, in fifteen years time she decides she's going to really take a shot at the music business, don't judge her on what's come before. I always think it is best for kids to step back and practice through childhood before trying to start creative careers, but in the world of Web 2.0 it's not nearly as simple as that, and I probably would be making the same mistakes if I had been born a few years later than I was. Whether you like the song or not - or maybe love to hate it - you've got to accept that it's not going away. The internet has changed everything, and it's here to stay. That's just something we have to learn to live with.

Happy Friday friends.

*****

Finally my two favourite 'Friday' links. Thanks to the friends who shared these!

Firstly it's Friday, reimagined by someone who is a bad lipreader, in a song called 'Gang Fight':

And secondly this one, from The AWL examines the work as radical text. As an Arts student, I can't get enough.

Here's an excerpt:

“Gotta make my mind up,” she sings, overjoyed to finally exert some control over her fate; “Which seat can I take?”

Yet here the discerning viewer notes that something is wrong. Because it is a simple matter of fact that in this car all the good seats have already been taken. For Rebecca Black (her name here would seem to evoke Rosa Parks, a mirroring that will only gain in significance) there is no actual choice, only the illusion of choice.
*****
We return to the computer graphic calendar sequence, the litany of days: Ms. Black’s image flickers across the screen, now doubled, fractured, schizophrenic, threatening Kleboldian frenzy—as we cut to an African-American man in his early thirties.

He wears diamond earrings, a light beard, drives across the familiar blue-screen cityscape. He alone seems untaken by the false images around him. Is it because he can’t forget American brutality? Does ancient bondage keep him from modern numbness? Is he protected from pharma and plasma by fire hoses and cotton fields?

In broadest terms, the answer is yes: Ms. Black’s parents have paid this rapper to appear in the video as a conduit to ghetto rawness, hired blackness, an invigorating hit of the Other. He is a peddler of “the real” in a false-era of commoditized suffering.

A Quick Word... On Amanda Vanstone and HECS

2011-03-23T20:00:00.003+11:00

Ex-politican Amanda Vanstone made some interesting comments about the Australian system of paying back your university fees via a HECS debt in The Age this week.

Among other things Vanstone said:

"It's a sorry state of affairs when any secondary school student, in response to the question, ''What do you want to do when you leave school?'' starts the answer with a mumbled, ''Well, I won't go to university.'' In such a lucky, wealthy country, how did we end up with young Australians thinking they are somehow lesser because they are not going to university? How did we end up with any young Australians defining themselves in the first instance by a negative?"

"Thirty-something years ago, on my first overseas trip, an old man who made his living giving tourists horse-drawn buggy rides around Rome taught me a good lesson. My hotel, to suit my budget, was outside the walls. He was resting nearby and I flashed my student card to get a decent discount. Amazed and indignant, he refused. He had seen me come out from a reasonable, but certainly not flash, hotel and decided I did not need any discount."

"The full adult pension, including supplement, is about $19,000 a year. The minimum wage is just under $30,000. So why do we say to students, who get a massive loan at no real interest rate, that they do not have to pay back a cent until they are earning just under $45,000?"

They're interesting comments, but I feel like they are all inherently flawed in one way or another, so I'd like to address them one by one.

Firstly - as someone studying an Arts degree - I can tell you that there is certainly no massive divide of elitism between university students and non-students. In many ways I have found the opposite is true. I am immensely jealous of some of my close friends who already own houses, have careers and are moving on so rapidly with their lives and futures. To go to University is one path amongst many branching paths, and while uni students are continuing with formal education, everyone continues with a form of education. I certainly don't feel that my non-studying friends are stupider - merely valuable in different ways.

I love the story she tells about the holiday to Italy. I think it's being used as a broader metaphor for the idea that just because you're a student, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be entitled to free rides. Ha. Free rides. Get it? Of course you do. But you know what? If she was catching a bus to Uni in Sydney, maybe she should be entitled to a discount. When you're strolling around Rome as an obvious Australian tourist, I can see why someone would be reluctant to take pity on you - after all you have money for a holiday. But if you are a student living below minimum wage, and it's not going to destroy a business for them to shave a bit of the fat off their profit tally, why exactly shouldn't you be entitled to a discount? I don't know many students who are constantly jet-setting, and those that do work years to earn the privilege.

Amanda finishes by questioning why we let students get away without paying their HECS for so long. She argues that when they are earning more than the pension (or at least signifcantly less than $35,000), they should have to start paying it back. What she fails to consider is that people don't live in the same way as late-twenty-to-thirty-somethings than they do as retirees. I am not suggesting that we should be compensating graduates for the vices of their (comparative) youth. What I am suggesting however is that the situations are incomparable. At that time of life there are more expenses to consider than HECS. There are home loans to repay, the price of raising a family, and the costs of getting to work and maintaining a working lifestyle every day. It doesn't seem to me that it hurts anyone to have a citizen truly and comfortably established before forcing them to pay back their educational debt. If anything I think it's only decent.

I am incredibly, incredibly lucky to not have to pay HECS thanks to my wonderful sponsors at the University of Tasmania. But I am disappointed that Amanda Vanstone has forgotten - if she had to pay HECS at all, and I suspect she attended university in the era when you didn't - the toll that debts really have.

When she talks about this 'lucky, wealthy country' I hope she doesn't take the phrase too literally... It doesn't sound like many of the people I spend five days a week with...

A Quick Word... On David Eagleman's 'Sum'

2011-03-07T21:39:00.004+11:00

Sum: Tales From The Afterlives - David Eagleman

In the afterlife, you find that God deals in the realm of microbes. He is on the wrong spatial scale, and has no idea you exist. Or perhaps you find that the events of your life are re-played in chunks according to categorisation - you spend six full days clipping your nails, fifteen months looking for things that you've lost. Maybe your eternal rest is disrupted by the fact that the world of the afterlife only contains the people that you remember; you keep swapping cars and can no longer buy groceries because you never bothered to commit to your memory the individuals who filled these voids for you.

These options and thirty-seven more make up the various chapters of David Eagleman's Sum: Forty Tales From The Afterlives, perhaps the most exciting work of speculative fiction I've encountered in the last twelve months. A talented neuroscientist and writer, Eagleman throws away everything you think you know about the post-death experience. Instead of starting with already existing religious narratives and expanding on them, all previous superstition is cast to the wind and Eagleman postulates brand new scenarios which we might find ourselves in when the plug is pulled.

The book is written entirely in second person, but as most of the entries are only a couple of pages, it never becomes jarring. It is you who has to navigate the rocky road of your own death, and you who becomes so immersed in this gorgeously original piece of work. The book reads like an instruction manual for those who have shuffled off the mortal coil. Massive in scope, but a casual ninety pages long, it's an incredibly personal and insightful book.

Sum counts among its fans big names like Stephen Fry and Philip Pullman, and deservedly so. It shines and sparkles with wit, beautiful writing and immense imagination. More importantly, like all the best writing that deals with death, it holds strong and profound statements about life too. It is a book wholly and perfectly wonderful, and a book that can't be read in one sitting (I tried, I really did) simply because every chapter is exhausting in it's exploration of what it means to be human. If heaven is real, David Eagleman's wonderful collection of stories better be there.

For more information on Sum you can check out David's website, or download his wonderful interview (with readings) from the itunes 'Meet The Author' series.

A Quick Word... On Young Adult Fiction and Returning To The Scene of the Crime

2011-02-27T14:09:00.004+11:00

Today has been a great day for thinking about writing. My 'Writing Tasmania' course started at Uni this week, and I've spent every other moment obsessed with words and the art of the craft. This has perhaps been my favourite find today - a Joss Whedon song about plucking out the heart of a writer's mystery - something we demand these days from almost everything we consume - an answer to that age old terrifying question: 'Where do you get your ideas from?'

Joss is a genius and his response to the problem is a good one. I suppose it reveals that writing is a magic trick. The process is always reductive - a hand slips behind the back here, and slides the all important card there - but does it ever make the magic more enjoyable to know its tiresome construction? There is a lot that we can learn from writers about the way they work when they are interviewed... I certainly wouldn't want to stop every author ever speaking about their work. I guess what I'm saying is that it's the writer's right to choose how much they reveal about their creations, and perhaps it's not always a good thing for us as readers, watchers, and listeners to demand all-inclusive access to our favourite celebrities brains. It doesn't make you stupid to not know everything - it just helps the magic trick keep working.

---

Another great find from today was Kathy Charles' blog 'Where Are All The Weirdos In Young Adult Fiction?'

Kathy says:

Being a teenager is a supremely weird time. The only weirdness in young adult fiction these days is the kind that turns teens into werewolves and causes misogynistic male suitors to sprout fangs and glow in the dark. This all has its place metaphorically speaking (who hasn’t as a teen experienced hair growing in all the wrong places?) but even with all this paranormal strangeness going on, the YA world seems conventional, antiseptic, and most disappointingly, boringly predictable these days...

...All these ethereal looking girls on YA covers are making me feel like a freak.

She's dead right too. It's even worse in a Post-Twilight world where both television and literature often lead us into the escapism and fantasy of a simple and rather than comforting us to be the unique creatures we are. Even Harry Potter had his own odd physical quirks - his dorky hair, skinny frame and necessity for glasses. These days most YA characters don't have as much as a discretely embarassing birthmark. There are authors dealing with some unique and original characters out there, but there are sure as hell a lot of blank and generic placeholders too. I remember that scene in Alan Bennett's History Boys where Hector says that 'the best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.'

I hope Y.A Readers still feel like this, but I often wonder if that's the effect that the authors are striving for, or if they're instead gunning for entertainment. What were your most defining teenage novels? Did you get that feeling from them? And have I treated books like Twilight too harshly? Can they give you that feeling too?

---

I have also had a new review go up on Angela Meyer's LiteraryMinded. I think I neglected to mention it before, so here it is! I reviewed the spectacularly interesting and very unique Five Wounds by Jonathan Walker and Dan Hallett. It's up at LiteraryMinded here.

A Quick Word... On Turning 21

2011-01-31T17:12:00.009+11:00

I read once that Stephen King wrote every day of the year except his birthday and Christmas - and then a page later he apologised for being a liar and not wanting to sound like a dork - truthfully he writes on both those days too.

My birthday blog is becoming a bit of a tradition now, and one that I hope to continue. I don't know, there's a lot going on on the 31st of January for me, sometimes a writing break brings it all into focus. This year, it's come out as a poem. A gift for you. I hope you enjoy it.

- L

when I was born I was selfish.

I forced my way into the world kicking and screaming

and I stayed that way for as long as they'd let me

wailed and moaned until I got what I wanted

demanded attention to my every need

and was loved for it.

they lavished me with gifts and toys

they smiled and they held me

and they told me i was beautiful.

a little miracle.

and some days still i am that creature

and i demand to be praised

and i demand to be loved

and i am arrogant and stubborn and selfish again.

but like that baby who i recognise and yet do not remember

the world

my parents first

and then my friends

show me a love far more powerful than giving in to my demands

and teach me to be better than that.

now I fend my own way on this treacherous earth

and now i have become better than that baby in a hundred different ways.

i do not pretend to be perfect of course

that mewling infant is still inside me somewhere

caged though he may be

and sometimes still he rattles the bars

and i speak with his voice

and i judge with his eyes

and i turn friend into enemy with a careless tongue.

but i am learning to pacify him,

and while i don't deserve their friendship or help

my companions continue to lead me down the hard road of life

collecting me when i stumble

lifting me when i fall

guiding me when the path branches in directions i cannot fathom.

and the baby will perhaps forever bang his chubby hands against my resolve

but i will not yield and look back on my mistakes as righteous and bold

and my indiscretions as the proper course.

21 years is not long enough for learning all the lessons of life

and i know the road ahead will be steep and rocky

and that the shadows of darkness will always loom over me.

and maybe it would be easier if someone carried me

and fed me

gave me the praise and love i demanded

and told me that i was a little miracle

once again.

but the baby has had his years

and now it is time to be a man.

A Quick Word... On The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)

2011-01-23T20:19:00.009+11:00

One of the first things I noticed after being awestruck by the first exhibit of the Museum of Old and New Art - Sidney Nolan's Snake - was that immediately opposite it, sort of tucked away, was a chair. Sitting on the chair was a tin bowl with a knife lying on its side half submerged in water. Two baby goldfish would occasionally appear and then swim back into the safety of the blade's shadow. My 'O', the modified ipod touch that you use to navigate the museum rather than having placards, (it's aware of your location and changes the information accordingly) didn't seem to know anything about this exhibit, so I chased down one of the well dressed MONA gals and asked her.

"That," she said, "was not here when I left last night. I have been here all week and I have never seen it before. It's not the only thing that's just appeared in the last 24 hours though, it happens here. If I were you I'd keep asking about it..."

There was something Alice In Wonderland about her answer, a sort of Tweedledum Tweedledee riddle that I was only too happy to chase the threads of. I never got any further of course. Maybe it meant nothing at all. It is however, the simplest way to describe MONA. A dark riddle with a thousand answers - an innocent creature seeking shelter under the shadow of a knife edge.

And so down the rabbit-hole I went, and spent a good four hours in the act. MONA is an amazing place, part Bond-villain underground lair, part amazing antique collection, part torturous testament to the darkest side of human nature. You may have noticed I'm being cryptic about what you see down there - this is deliberate. This stuff's art, and while I'm reasonably confident I could describe at least some of it in vivid detail; like the too-dark, too-grainy pictures we all took away on our phones and cameras, it's probably not going to do any of the works any real justice. I'm also painfully aware that most of you know from the brief descriptions of the museum you've hopefully already read, whether you are going or not. It's an instinct thing. Some people are thrilled by confrontation, and don't mind getting their hands dirty. Others can't stand it, and pushing them into the fray doesn't do anyone any good. I'm not going to change your mind by telling you what's down there, and if you do go it's going to be more fun to explore for yourself. If you want to go though, I hope this blog encourages you not to delay it for a second. The place is truly unbelievable.

It was half past three when I emerged in the sunshine to stop for some lunch. We'd arrived by ferry, (definitely the way to go if you're after the full experience,) and there was still a good four hours to go before we even thought about getting back down to the water. For a little while we watched the bands - but I wasn't done. I went back into the depths to spend in total nearly seven hours wandering around the place.

And you know what? The experience was completely different. And I'm not talking about the artwork itself, which - particularly for the more confronting pieces - really benefits from a second viewing. I'm talking about the museum itself. From morning to afternoon - it changed. One room I had been curiously recommended to enter by a staff member earlier - and which had contained a variety of discarded objects - now had lonely girls inside singing of home and pawing at the bars that separated us. The tableau had come alive in the brief hours I'd been gone. Another exhibit, a red phone I had earlier discovered was dead when raised to my ear - rang as I walked past. A lady nearby picked it up and had a conversation with someone on the other end. Thank god the party I was with had all wandered off in their own directions - for we had each found our own secrets to show the others - walls that were actually doors, alleys between exhibits that led to new areas, whole rooms that in the dark depths of David Walsh's dream-cave had passed some of us by. Later I discovered there were still things we missed. My brother says that they wouldn't have put everything out, and they're probably in a back room somewhere. Me? I'm convinced that if I just have more time in that incredible place - I will find them.

As I lined up for the toilet I heard a lady describe the place as a 'tremendous waste of money'. Evidently it seems she'd prefer it if Walsh had spent his dollars on multiple beach properties instead. I also later heard that the infamous 'Wall of Vaginas' was down to 149 after some guy had hit the wall and knocked one off. On day one of course. There are plenty of unavoidable reminders like this that you are still in Tasmania. To be honest I partly think that we don't deserve MONA, or MONA FOMA for that matter. It's too crazy and too cool to be so close. But we got it, and international papers are already calling it the beginning of a left-of-centre arts shift in Tassie, claiming that we'll turn into a tiny island of weird and wacky poets, painters and players.

I can hope for that - but if MONA doesn't achieve it it is no great failing, for it achieves much more besides. MONA is a challenging place. It is by turns beautiful (Sarcophagus room and Artifact are my favourites), disturbing, chilling, horrifying, mesmerising and life changing. I came close to tears and turning away at MONA. Truly I did. Some of it really bordered on too much. But that's as necessary as the truly breathtaking stuff, because art isn't just about what makes you feel good. It's about what makes you feel.

I love MONA, and I hope you love MONA too. We are so, so lucky to have this place in our state. If you're thinking of going, take the plunge. Who knows what the vagina fatality count will be if you delay too long?

Oh, and MONA? I'll be back for you again. To explore your mysteries and maybe unravel more of your riddles.

Soon.

MONA FOMA Day 1 - A Re-Cap In Pictures

2011-01-16T01:27:00.011+11:00

Saturday 16th January - Day 1 (In Pictures!)

This is the way the weather looks when you get up at 11am to go see an organist, after being out all night at an Amanda Palmer ninja gig:PERFECT.

This is the place the organ plays; gothic, dark and bellowing, impossibly complex with only the two small hands he touches the keys with. And yet...

PERFECT.

This is the guy who shows you how to cook carrots (and other vegies) the pro way - and lets you try it with various types of wine, in a play off of flavours from creamy and buttery to sharp and solemn.

PERFECT.

This is the only way to sit and enjoy bands in the sun.

PERFECT.

This is the greatest writer alive. He has phenomenal accompaniment for his 70-minute story in Fourplay string quartet, and artwork to match perfectly drawn by the wonderful and humble Eddie Campbell. Oh, and his wife plays too after, and this time she gets the reception she deserves, as she and the Black Sea Gentlemen and Jane Austen Argument blow the wharf in two.

PERFECT.

This is meeting two of your greatest heroes, and actually having a camera, and someone to click it this time, and actually being able to stop and chat and get your copy of 'Who Killed Amanda Palmer' signed, even though it's midnight and they're obviously exhausted.

PERFECT.

This is the sort of thing two amazing people might write in your book if they have only signed a couple, and it's (sort of) their honeymoon and they are very much in love and maybe a little tired.This is it. This is Day 1 of MONA FOMA. This is being surrounded by art, this is being surrounded by artists, this is good beer, this is free entertainment, this is varied and friendly crowds and a shock jolt to the creativity and intelligence of Tasmania. This is only the first day of what is shaping up to be the best festival I've ever been to.

This is perfect.

A Quick Word On... MONA founder David Walsh (Heroes #1)

2011-01-09T17:34:00.005+11:00

This long-overdue blog is the first in a series that I am tentatively titling 'Heroes'. My hope for 'Heroes' is that it will chronicle people rather than pieces of art themselves; people who have impressed me and inspired me, and who continue to do incredible and wonderful things. They may be artists, writers, sportspeople, or particularly brilliant minds of any field. To start with though, it's someone close to home. This is my tribute to MONA founder David Walsh.

-Lyndon

They call it a 'subversive Disneyland', a labyrinthine series of tunnels in an underground world best accessed by ferry, filled with a rarities and oddities. In one room it is the sarcophagus of a mummy, preserved in its decorative Egyptian tomb, in another, it is the life-like image of a dead suicide bomber, preserved in carved chocolate. It's room after room of this stuff, hundreds of objects, paintings and artifacts that represent one man's private collection of the awe-inspiring and stomach-churning. Only in America I hear you say? That's the best part. It's Tasmanian.

It's called the Museum of Old and New Art, or MONA, a term which Tasmanians may be familiar with even though the museum itself doesn't open til the end of the month. Walsh's family of curiosity keepers are also responsible for the organisation of the MONA 'Festival of Music and the Arts' (MONA FOMA), which has now been running for three years. It brings some of the worlds biggest and most brilliant alternative acts from right around the world into Hobart for one week, and best of all, thanks to Walsh's generosity and matching funding from the government, pretty much everything is free. It's curated by Ex-Violent-Femmes guitarist Brian Ritchie, another possible genius who just happens to be hiding somewhere in Ye Olde Hobart Town, and as far as Hobartians should be concerned, it's the cultural event of the year.

Of course it's reasonable to ask where the hell all this money has come from. The name 'David Walsh' doesn't stir memories of any particular songs, or long-forgotten-but-still-royalty-receiving film stars. Walsh is what's known as a 'professional gambler'. Once a card counter, these days he's found more economical joy from a mathematical system that guarantees some big victories in horse racing bets. Someone's gotta win, and it looks like most of the time it's David Walsh.

It's easy to get frustrated about someone snaffling up a few million the easy way, but you can't help but love someone who - as my brother put it - "sounds like Willy Wonka'. Walsh is making massive investments in the culture of the state, first it was his Moorilla brewery and vineyard, then the MONA FOMA festival whose ridiculous free entry statement made it an absolute no-brainer to go to everything. Now the museum is free, and whether people want to come and see the exhibits again to be re-inspired, or just 'refresh their outrage', Walsh is up for it all.

And for me this is the thing that makes David a hero. Someone like me who wants to write should surround themself with art - actually screw that - someone who wants to be a human should surround themself with art. Challenging, interesting, world-class art. To a certain degree this is easy - the internet means that we can now download with a few simple clicks the best movies, television and music from around the world. But sometimes art has to be physically seen in all its glory - who can really get a sense of Sidney Nolan's 'Snake' without having it physically in front of them at its full 49m length? Who can truly understand the music of the Fourplay string quartet until they've seen in reality those fingers slide so magically along those strings? Until they've heard the music as it lives? Walsh gets it. And he's making sure everyone else gets it too, not just those who can afford it. The secrets of the museum are still coming to light, but if the festival line-up is any indication of its quality we have great things in store. This year's MONA FOMA brings some of my most anticipated acts to Tassie - Neil Gaiman will be reading a story backed by Fourplay string quartet and with illustrations by acclaimed artist Eddie Campbell. There's (his wife!) Amanda Palmer, there's Philip Glass, there's the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, there's Grinderman... Oh god, the list goes on and it's all awesome.

I was speaking to my Nan about Walsh's gambling winnings and she said 'well if he puts the money back into the community he can win as much as he likes'. I couldn't agree more. David Walsh is an absolute legend, and his tireless efforts have led to what I anticipate will be the greatest and most exciting week of 2011. To him, and all associated with MONA and the MONA FOMA festival I wish only the greatest success, and express my heartfelt thanks and excitement.

You guys are heroes, and I can't wait to explore the world you've created. From everyone in Tasmania - thank you.

Further Reading:

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/a-subversive-disneyland-at-the-end-of-the-world/21204

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/up-close-and-uncomfortable/story-e6frg8n6-1111117306151

A Quick Word On... The Most Terrifying Costume of All

2010-11-05T19:48:00.003+11:00

The premise is simple. Draw as many people as you can into a building for a scary show. Ideally, you want the performance to appear like a Halloween pantomime. The catch is however, it's less Scooby Doo and more Constantine. In America they call them 'Hell Houses', pantos performed by amateur actors with the sole intention of inspiring in the viewer an immense and confronting image of hell, in order to kick-start their religious motor. Here it is called The Haunted House II, organised by The Potter's House Christian Fellowship, and dispensing with the ghosts and goblins, who are instead replaced by intensely horrific and moralising visions of rape and abortion. At the end, it's the scariest part of all: you are accosted by evangelicals who give you the chance to repent your sins and pray for forgiveness, before inviting you to the Sunday sermon and a cuppa afterwards.

To show you the sorts of things to expect from a 'Hell House' here is a video from Richard Dawkins' Root of All Evil, in which he viewed first hand the creative process behind one of these performances:

In Launceston's verson, various specifics have been revealed, such as a rape scene in which the abused woman is told 'if you don't want it, don't advertise', and a drunk, laughing doctor giving a violent abortion to a screaming woman. Although 12 year-olds were denied entry to the event, the MA15+ rating was wavered for some 13 and 14 year-olds, many of whom have been made grossly upset by the experience.

When the film The Exorcist first came out, evangelical Billy Graham announced that a real demon was present in the very frames of the film. Fear it seemed, was an instrumental of the devil, the complete opposite of what religion was trying to achieve. For years we have been hearing from churches that what they preach is not religion, but instead a relationship with Jesus Christ. Knowing that terrible and immoral carnivals of the grotesque like Haunted House II are at the forefront of this 'relationship' makes me ill. What kind of relationships do you know that are based on anger, fear and mental manipulation? Only abusive ones.

In my experience there are many, many Christians who are respectful, honest and loving people, and I am amazingly fortunate that my dealings with religion have mostly been based on friendship, curiosity, and a mutual desire to provide services of enormous worth to the most needy sectors of the community. What the creators of this abhorration have shown through their performance is that in the end they will do whatever it takes to get people to come to their church, even if it is psychologically manipulating teenagers into believing that all abortions are performed in back alleys with coathangers, and that gays are posessed by demons and unworthy of being considered real people. According to Ninemsn, Pastor of The Potter's Church Michael White has defended the performance by saying that it is simply part of 'challenging religious and political values'; yet if I put on a performance in which a priest blottoed on communion wine simulated the sexual molestation of young boys, in an effort to divert people away from the Catholic Church, I would have an uproar. It is imperative that anyone who believes in the fundamental rights of humanity speaks out against this mental abuse, and hopefully we can put a stop to the concerts in general - but particularly children being able to attend them. This is not the first Haunted House performance in Tasmania, and if we don't deal with it this time round, it may also not be last.

One of my favourite Michael Leunig cartoons features a simple picture of the snowy-bearded archetype of God strolling across the page holding a massive protest billboard. The sign reads simply: 'Not In My Name'. I can't help but recognise how apt this statement is in relation to these performances. The Potter's House Christian Fellowship should be ashamed of themselves, in the same way that I have no doubt Jesus would be ashamed of them, for their blatant and unapologetic terrorising of innocent minds.

You don't create heaven on Earth by subjecting people to hell.

References:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8119428/rape-abortion-in-church-haunted-house

http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/general/haunted-house-reopens/1988754.aspx

A Quick Word On... The Utas Public Debating Series (2)

2010-10-18T09:24:00.004+11:00

Hi everyone!

Just a note to let you all know that the UTas Public debating series videos are up for download online.

They can be found here:

http://www.alumni.utas.edu.au/whats-on/video-and-podcasts

My debate is 'Vegetarian Vampires Suck: What's Good Reading For Young People?' and I encourage anyone who missed it to have a look! Should warn you all that the file is 300mb in size, if you would like to see me in full quality, but smaller streaming versions are there too.

I can also recommend the other debates, which I missed live but have really enjoyed watching online, one of which, 'In Cyberspace No-One Can Hear You Scream', features my thoroughly convincing brother James.

Hope you enjoy, let me know what you all thought!

A Quick Word... On Something That Can't Be Taught

2010-10-01T11:30:00.006+10:00

On a recent toilet trip at the University campus, this revealed itself when I spun around in one of the cubicles.

If you look closesly, you'll see it's made of fifteen sheets of A4 paper, carefully stuck one after the other to form the pattern, which takes up the entire door.

It's a beautiful sentiment, and a wonderful object. Whoever put it there, thank you. While it may terrify some, I think a little bit of discomfort on the bowl for this message is worth it.

A Quick Word... On University

2010-09-22T18:57:00.002+10:00

This is something that I've been meaning to write for a long time. Now that it's written it's my hope that it will get into the hands of someone important and perhaps make a genuine difference. That remains to be seen though, so for now, enjoy.

Oh, and go make the world a better place.

Lyndon

A Degree of Indifference
(Why the University elections matter, and why I won't vote in them)

The TUU elections have been in the media a little bit recently. The Student Observer's latest headline: 'Students Give Their Thoughts On This Year's TUU Elections' basically ended with the conclusion that they don't have any, and last week's Stateline report came to a similar conclusion, that students are 'disengaged' by the campus's political atmosphere, and are having to be coeerced more cunningly into taking an interest in its politics. Most importantly, it raised the statistic that 97% of students didn't vote in last year's TUU election, a huge failure of the democracy of the process.

It's argued by those involved in the campaigns that this shows a distinct lack of interest in the future of Tassie's Universities. The buzz word here is 'apathy'; people just don't care. But this is a lie. People care, they just don't know. Bill, a close friend of mine, was heavily entranced by this year's national political power-play. He didn't miss a minute of it, from leafletting his preferred party, to emailing the local electoral candidates in order to hear what they had to say on his key issues. Will he be voting in the TUU election though? "Hell no!" he said. "I don't even know who any of them are."

For me education took a drastic and tragic downturn after my time at college. I have tried both the UTas campuses, and found both oddly lacking. It is not my place to criticise my wonderful lecturers and the excellent courses that they take, but to me it's undeniable that something is rotten in the state of our tertiary schools. They're missing the buzz and spark of brilliant people collaborating; they've got no social soul. Sure, we have our societies, but once your name's down on the form - what then? Who gives you the chance to be brilliant?

University in Tasmania has become the institute of the lack - a trend that can't simply be explained away by the claims that students are instead working hard on their degrees. What it is, rather, is a place content to wallow, a world of yawns, sighs and nine-to-fives. The society it emulates is not a fully encompassing one. It has no beating heart beneath it, and instead of opening minds it just mass manufactures educated drones into their packages. Here the brightest minds of tomorrow, in the very genesis and catalyst of their development, are taught to stay inside the walls of the classroom and the words of the essay. Gone are the throbbing chatterings and enlightenments we should expect from its hallways, and instead we're left with the silent squeak of feet as students merely 'get by'. It's all about the paper at the end, the little sentence at the top of the C.V.

And there are signs of social absences everywhere. My personal favourite at the moment is a Facebook group called 'The University of Tasmania Stalkerspace', which allows an (almost) anonymous platform for people to express their excitements and frustrations of the day. In a place that lacks a social atmosphere, that atmosphere finds itself online. It's exciting, but it's also disappointing. Now our best chances at an open life lie in the colleges and residentials, and friendships aren't forged in the lecture theatres and the hallowed tute-rooms, but are instead maintained there... if you're one of the lucky ones.

And now we get to the TUU elections. What does a TUU president do? Well, it's hard to be sure, though we can be certain that they are well economically renumerated for whatever it is. I'm not denying that the student welfare sector doesn't work incredibly hard, I'm just saying that as a university society, I'm not seeing us really improve as each year goes by.

And the candidates? I mean who even are they? I had a brief word to a few of them, and they seem like nice enough people, but in the end, how do I know what they really think? Who has organised a debate for them to talk out the issues so that I can choose one of them? As far as I can see, if I vote, I'm choosing in such a wildly ill-informed way, that I'm not really doing what's best for myself or anyone else.

So I won't choose. And I forgive everyone else who ignores the posters and the polling-booths too. Statistically, it's probably only the people who know the candidates personally who will vote anyway. And why not? Because the person in charge of maintaing the buzz doesn't matter when the buzz itself has long left even the oldest book in the Morris Miller library. I am not a student of apathy, but I am being taught in an environment of apathy, and I for one don't believe change is on the wings.

I love the people of the University, really I do. Every single bleary-eyed, caffeine drinking one of them. But the declining enrolment rates and rising drop-out rates are going to exist for as long as University treats itself like a test instead of a pleasure. I'm done with feeling like a money spewing and information hungry troll. I want to feel like I should stay at campus every opportunity I can. I want to be inspired, challenged, and taught things - just in my everyday dealings - that stretch beyond the syllabus and into my life. I want to believe that University is the peak of my childhood, and not the steady beginnings of the decline of my adulthood. I want the University of Tasmania to explode with laughter, music, art, joy, and people who are there out of love rather than necessity. I want it all.

And if you can give me that... you've got my vote mate.

A Quick Word... From Oscar Wilde On Art

2010-09-20T14:26:00.002+10:00

The Following speech is the preface to Oscar Wilde's famous novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray:

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

A Quick Word On... Tossing A Coin

2010-08-25T08:45:00.001+10:00

(via AskMen)

A Quick Word... On The Utas Public Debating Series

2010-08-11T17:50:00.005+10:00

Hello everyone!

Just a quick update to let you know that I will be speaking in the Utas Public Debate series in Launceston on Thursday the 2nd of September at 7pm. The topic is 'That young people shouldn't waste their time reading Harry Potter and Twilight.' Tim Cox from the ABC radio will chair of the debate, and the speakers apart from myself include Lorelei Vashti, Danielle Wood, Harry Woods, Jo Walker and Margot McGovern, all of whom I'm sure will have very different, and very interesting, perspectives on the topic.

For my part, I will be arguing against the statement, and I'd love as much support as possible! Particularly if you are someone who does consider the books to be culturally inferior, I'd love a chance to try and change your mind, and there will be an opportunity for comments from the audience during the debate. It's open to all, and is a free event.

Details of the debate are here, and if you have any questions about it, I'll do my best to find answers for you. Please come along, and I look forward to catching up with some of you there!

A Quick Word... From Achilles Tatius

2010-08-09T16:02:00.003+10:00

"All diseases and wounds are usually more severe at night; they attack us more at our rest and increase our pain. When the body is relaxed, then a wound is free to fester. And when the body is inactive, wounds of the soul are all the more painful. During the day the eyes and ears are absorbed in many activities and help take the edge off illness by giving the soul no leisure in which to suffer. But once the body is constrained in quietude, the soul is set adrift in a sea of troubles. For then begins to stir all that until then slept: woes of the sorrowing, worries of the careworn, imperiled men's fears, the fires of men in love."

From Leucippe and Clitophon translated by Henry Winkler in B.P Reardon's Collected Ancient Greek Novels

A Quick Word On... Similarity

2010-08-07T23:39:00.005+10:00

Sometimes I look at the world, and I really wonder how it can be the way it is. In 20 years, I've never found someone the same as me. Not even wholly physically, but just fundamentally in mindset. Never have I found someone with the same opinions, the same interests, or the same sort of way of looking at the world.

But what I feel can surely not be unique. What am I if not some sort of idealogical cocktail, a gross mish-mash of different views, feelings, opinions and tastes. Where have all these things come from?

I for one don't know. Perhaps people are like snowflakes, and while we all appear the same at a cursory surface glance, through some divine and curious circumstance we all - on closer inspection - show ourselves to the world as completely different from one another. Or maybe we are all the same, and I'm just not searching hard enough for the similarities.

I'm not trying to be arrogant here, I'm not suggesting that everyone should be the same as me, or even that I am different only through my own perceived superiority. I'm just enormously conscious that we are all creatures of variety and surprise, and not even identical twins can always fool people into believing that they are their sibling.

What is it about us, that leaves us so curiously stand-alone, so obviously distinct, so.... alone?

A Quick Word On... New Shoes (and Birthdays)

2010-07-06T21:38:00.008+10:00

I can't get this song out of my head. It's brilliant. It's so simplistic, but it's brilliant. There's something thoroughly endearing about how basic the words are, for those of you struggling with Nutini's accent:

Woke up cold one Tuesday,
I'm looking tired and feeling quite sick,
I felt like there was something missing in my day to day life,
So I quickly opened the wardrobe,
Pulled out some jeans and a T-Shirt that seemed clean,
Topped it off with a pair of old shoes,
That were ripped around the seams,
And I thought these shoes just don't suit me.

Hey, I put some new shoes on,
And suddenly everything is right,
I said, hey, I put some new shoes on and everybody's smiling,
It's so inviting.

Oh, short on money,
But long on time,
Slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine,
I'm running late,
And I don't need an excuse,
'Caus' I'm wearing my brand new shoes.

Honestly, it couldn't be any less groundbreaking a story could it? But that's what's so wonderful about it. It's taught me about the importance of little details ing changing days. Who hasn't had a crappy week, and then suddenly eaten a different cereal, or even had an odd experimental shampoo in the shower, and suddenly sprung into a good mood just from the sheer elegant difference of it? We like to be challenged by something new, and should do it every day if we can.

And with that said, my blog has put some new shoes on, and has had its first facelift since its creation - which is now more than a year ago! Happy Birthday Quick Word! I hope you've enjoyed the first year of my ramblings, and will continue to enjoy them in year two of its infancy. Please let me know what you think of the new layout! Is it better than the old one?

In more sombre news I received my very first rejection letter (or email) the other day, for a short story I had written. The letter itself was lovely and genuine, and it seems the story got very close to publication and only missed out through sheer quantity of quality work submitted. I have been reminded to take heed the stories of Rudyard Kipling and Dr. Seuss, both of which had their work ravaged by rejecting publishers. I regret only that I didn't make it to what is undoubtedly a fine anthology of stories, but no matter, we try again.

Hello new shoes, bye bye blues.

A Quick Word On... Handwriting

2010-06-10T22:50:00.004+10:00

I've become really interested recently in people's handwriting. In the last couple of weeks I've looked at a few cards and notes, and watched how the letters curve and sit in different ways, the way people angle things if they have no lines to guide them - and occasionally the way they angle them even when they do.

You see, I've always been hideously self conscious of my own handwriting. People pick up stuff that I've written and their faces contort as if they are trying to decipher some kind of ancient code, or do one of those magic eye puzzles where you have to unfocus in just the right way to unlock hidden meaning. I can't write in beautiful notebooks anymore. I rolled one over in my hands today, a stunning fake leather thing, but I put it back on the shelf. For me notebooks are things that contain beauty, and it's only school exercise books that deserve my orcish scribble So it's always bothered me that my writing has lacked, for want of a better word I guess, elegance.

But then I started to look beyond what was written itself, and looked at what was 'being' written, and more importantly, by whom. The most elegantly scripted things I'd read often had the less profound messages, the importance and subtlety of the characters overtaken by poignance of meaning.

And now I understand. Some people can write with a natural eye to beauty, I don't know if they practiced their loops in primary school more than me, or what it was they did, but yeah, they can.

But it's time to stop being angry about that, because I can never compete. What I deal in is ideas, free-flowing ideas, and if I put a stopper on those thoughts to write with an eye to the beauty of the words on the page physically, I also put a stopper on my meaning. My brain runs faster than my hands do, always has, always will. To have terrible handwriting is not a curse, it's a blessing, because it shows that there is always enough going on in my head that there is no time to prettify what comes out, only to capture it as quickly as I can, the way a camera might catch a flash of motion, which may not be a beautiful picture of the blank dark, but which has MEANING.

I love the way my scrawl slashes and abuses its way across the page, it's what makes it my scrawl, and if i'm the only one who can read it until it's typed up on the computer - so be it. It'll be a whale of a time for someone who tries to decipher any notes I leave behind in my old age.

Some things we get, some things we don't, and neat handwriting is one of those things. I for one rather a hand that races with the brain it's partnered with, than a brain that slows down to beautify the acts of the hand. And fellow illegible scribblers, I reckon you do too.

A Quick Word On... Next Door (A Poem)

2010-05-15T14:58:00.008+10:00

next door

they're fighting next door,

the daughter and her mother.

in typical fashion i can't hear what they're saying,

as one fights to be heard by shrieking louder than the other.

but their window is just opposite mine and i see them,

silhouttes in frosted glass,

jumping and fist pounding like cartoon characters,

comically pacing.

the door opens,

then closes again,

then re-opens,

and more shouting is heard as it clicks back and forth,

each woman fighting the other,

i'm leaving

you're staying.

i need to get out.

you need to stay in.

and then there is some thumping,

or possibly slamming,

and the house is silent.

i suppose i should be relieved,

it's quiet again now,

i can get back to my work,

relax,

resume hearing only motors obliviously winding along the road.

but it's not as easy as that,

and people will say it's my 'overactive mind'

or my 'sick imagination'

but i can't help but hate the silence.

people who shout come to resolutions,

people who stop suddenly rarely do.

and i feel the stirring,

the image growing in the back of my mind,

that someone might have said one thing too many,

that one of the thumps was half heavy object and half soft skin,

and that somewhere in that house so foreign,

and yet so familiar,

lies someone on the wooden floorboards i can just see through the crack in the door.

not screaming,

not even moving,

and the other has fallen to the floor to cradle her head,

perhaps even wipe up the blood,

and is wondering,

in that terrible,

terrifying silence,

what have i done?

-Lyndon Riggall

A Quick Word On.... Star Wars Day

2010-05-03T23:42:00.015+10:00

Flicking through a magazine recently I discovered that there was a movement to make May the 4th International Star Wars Day, due to the awesome verbal pun: "May the fourth be with you."

I found this pretty funny and happened to mention it to Dylan, a friend of mine and avid Star Wars fan, who decided we better make a facebook group for it, and promote it amongst our friends. That group is located here.

The idea was that on the fourth we would dress up in any Star Wars themed clothes we had, carry our lightsabers around for the day, and just generally screw around in a Star Wars fashion. For a few days there were only four of us in the group, and it didn't show any real signs of increasing. Then Dylan opened it up to the public, and we started throwing the link around to our friends and relatives who we thought might be interested.

The domino effect was pretty significant. The word spread and we ended up with a couple of hundred people who pledged their support for the day. One of them was Richard LeParmentier.

For those of you who don't know him (and it took us a minute too!) Richard plays Admiral Motti in 'A New Hope' (The guy whose 'lack of faith is found disturbing' by Vader in the first film). Once we had the support of one of the original trilogy's actors, we started to get pretty excited. Dylan suggested that the official Star Wars Twitter account would be worth contacting, as they often promote fan events. So I gave them a yell, and this was the result:

With George Lucas's people on our side, we had some real momentum! Numbers were growing steadily and we fathomed we could have 3000 Star Wars fans on side by the time May the 4th officially came. We promoted it as best we could, and were excited to see fans send in photos of their costumes, written details of their plans for the day - usually including movie marathons - and even a petition to get Google to change their logo to a Star Wars themed one! (Will it happen? We'll see!) I for one emailed a lecturer my own Star Wars themed slide for the day, and was graciously told it would be included in Tuesday's powerpoint.

Within days we had reached our target of 3000 participants, which rapidly became 10,000. At the time of writing this, 37, 351 people are signed up for Star Wars Day. And if you're not, we greatly encourage you to as well! What's amazed us in this endeavour is the power of fandom, the power of a particularly brilliant series of movies, and the power of people who love it to share, and to want to share, that power with the world.

The clock has ticked over to midnight here in Australia, and we have officially entered the first hours of Star Wars day. The Star Wars theme for my alarm is set, my shirt and lightsaber are sitting neatly in their place for tomorrow, and at least one of the movies is surely on the cards after class! I hope that you find some way to enjoy Star Wars day whether you are a fan of the movies or not, and that for you - as for me - the story of the event brings a smile to your face and renews your faith in the importance of a sense of humour and a commonality of fun in all of us.

And lastly, and always....

May the 4th be with you!

A Quick Word... On Looking

2010-04-13T23:57:00.002+10:00

When I was a kid I had this clock that would flash on the hour and illuminate the whole room if the lights were out. I used to lie there, opening and closing my eyes so that - if I did it at just the right time - it would look like the light wasn't flashing at all, but was instead always on, the closing of my eyes perfectly synchronised to the points when the room was engulfed in darkness.

I wondered then - and I wonder now - what other things about the world we tell ourselves are true, but are just the quantum illusions of our devious eyes. It's like in Toy Story when the boy leaves the room and suddenly all his possesions come to life, playing and having adventures, and then de-animating as soon as they hear him coming back up the stairs.

I wonder... what is it that none of us see? What is it we miss when we sleep, when we choose not to look? Is everything just as we left it, or like the clock, leaving the room in darkness whenever you don't keep your eye on it, is there something missing?

A Quick Word On... Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour

2010-04-05T22:39:00.006+10:00

It opens the way most significant episodes of Doctor Who in the last few years have: a panning shot spins around the earth to show the enormity of it, the sheers SCALE of our world alone, and then it rolls in, to focus on one individual whose life is about to be changed.

It's a classic opener that's become the trademark of the now sadly departed (from the series!) Russell T. Davies, a man who really was the only one of many attempts over many years who seemed able to bring the beloved show back to our screens.

But it's with this opening scene that similarites end. Matt Smith portrays the eleventh Doctor, and along with a new face we have a new theme tune, logo, TARDIS, assistant, and an entirely new feel to the whole show. The colours even feel different, somewhat more washed out and magical, and at first it's hard not to be intimidated by them.

But there is good reason why we have faith in the process. Replacing Russell T. is the sublime Steven Moffat, who has authored all my favourite episodes so far, including The Empty Child, Silence In The Library and Blink. It is he who has written the first few episodes of the season, and his characterstic wit, and superb handling of the Doctor as a character of power and enigma shines through stunningly here. The villains of course, are once again unique, unusual, and worthy of recurrence.

And what of Smith and his new companion? Karen Gillan who plays Amy Pond takes some warming up to, but it becomes evident that she is somewhere between Donna and Rose - pretty, insecure, eager to escape her average life, but at the same time incredibly powerful and unwavering. She doesn't really get to give the role a good go in this episode, but so far there is nothing to complain about.

And Smith? Quite frankly, he's superb. He's got the perfect face for the role: noticeably young, and yet with a face marked by a wisdom far beyond his age. His personality is perfectly tuned to suit the role and make his own - much madder - version of the Doctor, yet I occasionally heard small twinges of David Tennant in his performance, a nuance not easy to pull off.

Without spoiling too much, there is a whole lot going on in a very short space of time, and the episode only just manages to resolve it all and introduce our new setting before the end. It's a classic plot though, and holds up with pride and dignity, and just occasionally classic Doctor Who special effects.

I have predicted ever since it was announced Moffat was taking the reigns that this would be the best season so far. After seeing the first taster of it, I stand by that statement. I remember in 2005 when Christopher Eccleston revived the Doctor the feeling that this was a landmark, an exciting reinvention of an ageless character happening right before my very eyes. I make no hesitation in announcing that the same is true of The Eleventh Hour, this is a new age for the Doctor, and I am hugely excited to see where it leads.

This will not be one to miss.

Lastly, The trailer for John Marsden's film version of Tomorrow, When The War Began, came out today. My initial skepticism of this Australian made movie is starting to wane, as the production value looks spectacular. What do you think?

A Quick Word... On What To Let Me Be

2010-03-15T23:58:00.003+11:00

Hi everybody! Finally got the internet, after enough phonecalls to make the natural resting position of my hand now sit just next to my ear. I know the blog's been short of posts, and believe me, no one feels their absence more than myself. Gotta get back into the swing of things though, so to start with it's just something short. Hope you like it!

Let Me Be...

Let me be the first to wake up in the morning, and the last to go to sleep at night.

Let me be the fastest talker and the slowest listener.

Let me be a mystery. Let me be questioned and wondered about, but never truly understood.

Let me be the man to come to in a crisis. Let me be the one on speed dial.

Let me be caught between the adults and the kids for attention.

Let me be ready. Let me be calm.

Let me be safe from loneliness. Let me be the person who can always find someone.

Let me not fight.

When the time comes, let me look Death in the face and shake him by the hand.

And when it is all over, miss me, remember me...

...and let me be.

A Quick Word On... Making The Perfect 20th Birthday

2010-01-31T23:18:00.008+11:00

Recipe For A Perfect Twentieth Birthday (With Pictures):

Take one night of shenanigans with a brilliant lot of friends.

Add:

1x Very Awesome Flying-V Styled Ukulele

1x Game You've Been Hankering Out For But Have Been, And Will Continue To Be Unable To Afford

1x Very Surprising And Incredibly Touching Gift of A TARDIS Cake

I know... A Cake? Surely not! That would have to have like 12 layers... Why yes, it would. Behold and weep!

Finally sprinkle with heaps of text messages, facebook posts, suprise soundtracks, unexpected Star Wars-ian and Drinkable gifts, all of which are greatly appreciated and touching, and almost certainly some of which I will neglect to thank the creators for.

To everyone, my humble and sincere thanks. You're wonderful the lot of you.

It's been a very happy birthday indeed.

A Quick Word... From Alessandro Baricco

2010-01-22T16:47:00.002+11:00

Who's he? Well he's an Italian author, and if the following passage is anything to go by, probably a pretty bloody good one at that. I must admit this piece was stolen from Jonathan Carroll's Blog, which is a fine and splendid place full of wonderful things to read, this being just one of them. I do recommend you check it out.

Blogging has been slow of late, needing to compensate for that which is happening very fast, namely the end of a job (or two), the end of living in a house (or two), and moving from one city to another, beginning a new and exciting chapter (or two) of my life. Also I'm turning 20 next week. All this will be thoroughly documented of course, but for now there is much to do and much wanting to be done, so I ask that you patiently wait, while I leave you in the hands of someone much more talented than I. Over to you Mr. Baricco:

"He puts down the pen, folds the sheet of paper, and slips it inside an envelope. He stands up, takes from his trunk a mahogany box, lifts the lid, lets the letter fall inside, open and unaddressed. In the box are hundreds of identical envelopes, open and unaddressed. He thinks that somewhere in the world he will meet a woman who has always been his woman. Every now and again he regrets that destiny has been so stubbornly determined to make him wait with such indelicate tenacity, but with time he has learned to consider the matter with great serenity. Almost every day, for years now, he has taken pen in hand to write to her. He has no names or addresses to put on the envelopes: but he has a life to recount. And to whom, if not to her? He thinks that when they meet it will be wonderful to place the mahogany box full of letters on her lap and say to her, 'I was waiting for you.'

"She will open the box and slowly, when she so desires, read the letters one by one. As she works her way back up the interminable thread of blue ink she will gather up the years-- the days, the moments-- that that man, before he ever met her, had already given to her. Or perhaps more simply, she will overturn the box and astonished at that comical snowstorm of letters, she will smile, saying to that man, 'You are mad.' And she will love him forever."

-Alessandro Baricco

A Quick Word... On James Kennedy's 'Order of Odd Fish'

2009-12-30T19:09:00.004+11:00

Book Review:
The Order of Odd-Fish by James Kennedy (2009)

I'm always on the look out for the next big thing. The independent bookshop where I work is unlikely to beat Kmart on price anytime in the next millennium, but what we can beat those pimply shelf stockers on is know-how. With that in mind, my mission recently has been to order in books from America that we might be able to beat the curve on, so that we can feed the world the classics of tomorrow before the conglomerates even open the boxes!

I came across James Kennedy's The Order of Odd Fish when I saw a link to a video which suggested that Mr. Kennedy would be able to prove that he deserved Neil Gaiman's Newbery Medal, and that the aformentioned medal should be forcibly removed from Gaiman and added to Kennedy's own private collection. The clip was eclectic, energetic, furious, and above all, pretty bloody funny. I knew from that moment that I wanted to see this book, so I had it shipped from the other side of the world for my perusal.

Odd Fish is aptly named. Featuring diverse and exciting characters of several different nationalities and species, the novel would be delightful to read aloud, and I intend to test that theory once the opportunity to steal some local children arises. Above all the deliciously inventive characters that cram every corner of the story though, Odd Fish has a delightful, almost classically British sense of humour, that makes every page a delight to read, so that I found myself chuckling softly under my breath at every turn, much to the annoyance of those who made the mistake of choosing to remain in the same room as me.

I won't deny that the book is imperfect, if anything it's almost too crammed with variety, so that I found myself getting lost and confused in parts, finding it hard to remember which of the many characters who appear and disappear is suddenly popping back up. The beginning also struck me as much more punchy than the ending, so that I was never as deeply satisfied in the second half as I was in the first. That said, it's a first novel, and above any faults it shows that Kennedy is a writer of superb creativity and absurdity, and some scenes - such as the one where the Belgian Prankster and Ken Kiang enjoy a tense and revealing dinner party - prove Kennedy's got the important part - talent - already down-pat, and his next book will be a must read.

I thought that strange and delightfully imaginative books like Alice In Wonderland and Hitchhikers Guide... couldn't be written any more without the authors of them being accused of taking various psychotropic cocktails. I am delighted to announce that novels stuffed with the wacky and hilarious are alive and well, and, if in no-one else, they live in James Kennedy.

View more of my reviews on Goodreads >>

A Quick Word... On 'Where The Wild Things Are'

2009-12-12T21:03:00.011+11:00

Movie Review:
Where The Wild Things Are (2009)
Dir. Spike Jonze

In 1963 Maurice Sendak wrote what began as a sleeper hit, and later became one of the most unprecendentedly popular children's books of all-time. His book, Where The Wild Things Are was a huge success, not least of all because it so simply captured the childhood dream of escape. It was also an incredibly loosely told story however, which led to some skepticism - if from no-one else then me - that a film version would ever work.

There have been several attempts to fashion a Wild Things movie. A screen test for a Disney animated version still exists, and seems to be the inspiration for the opening scene of this latest version. Finally, after years in development hell and a few more years than average in actual production, Where The Wild Things Are has finally reached release.

The script is co-written by Dave Eggers, responsible for the hugely popular A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius, and director Spike Jonze. Jonze has only two other films in his showcase: Being John Malkovich, and Adaptation. Both movies are incredible pieces of work, pushing all the norms of Hollywood aside, to create two of the most truly original pieces of cinema ever made. However, both those movies were written by the legendary Charlie Kaufman, and it remained to be seen whether Jonze could truly make a movie of originality on his own, or whether his work was hinged to Kaufman's scripts, which have had success with almost every director who's touched them.

The answer is a staggering 'YES'. From the moment Wild Things opens, it punches you square in the face with an astoundingly well crafted range of emotions and feelings, so that you find yourself lost in the whirlwind of Max's head. When he rages at his sister and her friends and vents his anger in her room, when he cowers as the wild things leer over him with their threats, when he can't make the inhabitatnts of his new world as happy as he wants to be able to, you're stuck with him for the whole journey, and it's impossible for anyone with a modicum of empathy inside them not to get caught up in it.

The wild things are wild. In our saccharin Disney-flick-dominated world, the large and cuddly are also always sweet underneath. In Wild Things the creatures are lovable but dark; tortured by their own insecurities. It has been speculated by reviewers that they represent members of Max's family, I see it as far more likely that they represent different sides of his personality, each one embodying a different element of the things that make up his 'wild' side: be they fear, anger, rejection, or a need to be alone. They are scary at times, but there is no doubt they are also wonderful, and you will fall in love with them just as Max does.

Aesthetically, it's the best film Jonze has made. The landscapes are breathtaking, every hair on the wild things moves in just the right way, and the subtle artistic references to the book are perfectly placed. Certain motifs are noticable running throughout the movie, even in the first viewing, but more will no doubt reveal themselves later.

Max Records gives a performance with skill years beyond his age, and James Gandolfini really shows his skills by playing such a different character to his iconic role in The Sopranos. The soundtrack is tunefully put together by Karen O' of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and a choir of kids, yet occasionally rings with howls and yelps, perfect for capturing Max's headspace.

Where The Wild Things Are is best described as a fantasy about the real world. It captures the innocence and anger of youth, and also the need to escape. Anyone who is a child, or ever was one, will surely find something in Max that they can grip on to. Oddly, some of the most impacting scenes in the film are also the most simple - Max telling a story from under the table to his disheartened mother, or his return home at the end of the film. The wild things aren't redundant in this sense, but serve instead to show through much bigger means, the importance of the little things in Max's life.

Where The Wild Things isn't really a kids movie, though I see no reason why kids wouldn't enjoy it unless they are easily freaked. Instead, I see it as much more like Pan's Labyrinth, and arguably equal to it. It's a story about children, but more for adults - those who grew up with the book, rather than those who are yet to read it. And truly, so much effort has gone into adapting Sendak's work, the result trumps the original significantly. Those who have read and loved the original story will remain enthralled, those who haven't will no doubt still be entertained, and anyone with a heart may find that - like me - even as the cinema doors close, a small part of it will haunt them for hours afterwards, calling them back, to where the wild things are...

A Quick Word... On Christmas '09

2009-12-12T19:56:00.005+11:00

This time last year I was away from home, beginning what would become a massive stint of house sitting. As part of my initiation it was necessary to pull the Christmas decorations out of the cupboard and dust them off for another festive season. Disturbingly, although I lived alone, I found myself coming home to visit my family, in a house filled with many more people than mine, and seeing no Christmas tree, no lights, and no ' festive effort' in general really. It wasn't particularly my problem, so I left my family to their own devices, quietly confident that someone would crack under the pressure of the season, and fix the entire situation. But Christmas family lunch rolled round with no decorations. Christmas a humbug family? Surely you don't mean that!

What I've noticed this year though, is that it's not just my family. I've visited heaps of friends and relations houses and found basically the same situation. Once their youngest children are grown up, people don't seem to bother with getting into the festivities anymore - a suspicion I confirmed when I was at work today and the Christmas tunes were blaring, the gingerbread was baking, and the younger kids were wide-eyed and ecstatic about what was to come.

Which leads me to question - do we only do Christmas for the kids? Call me selfish if you will, but I refuse! The whole house is out tonight, either working or visiting, so I devised a cunning plan that I have just successfully completed, which I hereby dub 'Operation Ebenezer'. While dinner was baking in the oven, I threw on the Where The Wild Things Are soundtrack, and set Christmas off myself! I've pulled out our trusty Coles tree from the classic 1998 range, and decorated it with lights and festive bric-a-brac, and the process has been like opeing up a time capsule. Here is the choir boy I made in Grade 3, hand drawn face looking like Mr Bean, and a dress made out of a Woman's Weekly with hundreds of pages folded. Here is the box of decorations that my brothers and I covered in Scholastic Book Club Stickers about 10 years ago. Here's the bell my teacher gave me on my last day as a reminder of my time in high school. Here's the expensive broken bauble that's been hidden at the bottom of the box so that mum and dad don't get angry.

Here, is Christmas.

In a wonderful book I am yet to completely read and return to its owner, The Shadow of The Wind, a boy has a harsh argument with his father, and is later presented with his birthday present - a rare and beautiful pen. After refusing to accept the gift his father passes it back to him and says "presents are made for the pleasure of the one who gives them, not on the merits of those who receive them". In the same way, when I hear people complain about how busy they are at this time of year, I can't help but wonder what Christmas really means to them. Every moment of work involved in making this holiday happen, should be borne out of love, no matter how many times Christmas has occurred before. From decorating the tree, to buying and wrapping presents or cooking a roast dinner, Christmas is about finding joy in the details, even if you're the only one who does it.

So here's hoping that even if your family has slipped out of the spirit, you'll find the energy to resurrect the holiday and make it memorable, even if you're the only one who does.

Merry Christmas!