letters to a friend
Believing Our Eyes: The Beaus and the Beas
I met Harry Potter the other day.
This means one thing here in Australialand: Children’s Book Week.
To celebrate, kids go to school dressed as their favourite character. Meanwhile the Children’s Book Council presents awards to books ‘of literary merit’.
This year I practically won. Not by writing a winning book but by borrowing one.
That’s right – I happened to have Barry Jonsberg’s Darkest Night, Brightest Star out of the library when it was announced as best book in the ‘Older Reader’ category. (I’m in that category myself, ha ha.)
Now, I’m not convinced this ‘unique and compelling novel’ is a masterpiece. But I’m more open to the idea now I’ve started reading it aloud with my 13-year-old daughter, who loves stories but is, as they say, a reluctant reader.
She loves it!
The main character, Morgan, is a middle-school misfit who’s mad about soccer. His story, according to my daughter, is real and relatable. (She plays soccer and, let’s face it, what kid doesn’t feel like a misfit.)
Masterpiece or not, Jonsberg’s book is clearly very good – the worthy winner, I guess, of a prize. But then so are many others.
We do love our literary prizes, don’t we? As if we can rank works of art on merit. Perhaps we should try ranking them based on other, more measurable, qualities. On weight, for example, or bouyancy. This year’s prize for The Most Bouyant Book goes to… Moby Dick? The Life of Pi?
Good for reading in the bath.
Speaking about baths – about books, I mean – I inadvertently learned about the birds and the bees from one when I was very young. (I came across it on an aunt’s bookshelf and read it in secret, not quite believing my eyes.)
This week, though, I inadvertently learned about something else: the Beaus and the Beas. I was calling school kids to the side of the pool for their swimming lesson. When I got to the end of the list there was – horrors! – one sad lonely little girl left.
Her name was Bea. I’d missed it because it was listed below ‘Beau’ and my mind had clearly seen the two names as one. What were the chances!
It’s a reminder that we can’t quite believe our eyes. That to see some people we have to look harder.
Not Finishing is Fine: Birds and Books in the Bane of Briz
I got an email from my local library last week. Not one of the good ones telling me my holds had arrived, but one of the bad ones. First overdue notice.
Here’s the thing: I borrow a fair few books. Here’s another thing: I don’t finish many of them. Here’s the best thing: it doesn’t matter!
Huh, you say. Why borrow books you’re never going to finish?
Two reasons I can think of. (Apologies in advance for what follows!) First, there’s the idea that the meaning of a book is ultimately made by its readers (not its writer). If a reader makes meaning without finishing the text, then the book, you could say, has worked.
Meaning has been made.
Here’s the second reason. You might actually learn more about books by not reading them. This claim is made by Pierre Bayard in his cheeky How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read:
Being culturally literate means being able to get your bearings quickly in a book, which does not require reading the book in its entirety – quite the opposite, in fact. One might even argue that the greater your abilities in this area, the less will it be necessary to read any book in particular.
So, you see – not finishing is fine.
Mind at ease, I deleted the offending email and returned the overdue books to the library…
And borrowed more. I can’t wait to not-read this latest batch!
Spring has almost sprung here in the Bane of Briz. How can I tell? The birds have broken their silence, especially at dawn.
Like them, I’ve started singing again. I stopped a few weeks ago because I was worried about losing my voice. I use it a lot, you see, as a swimming teacher, singing to babies and calling out to kids (‘bend your legs, eyes down, GO!’).
On Wednesday, though, I threw caution to the wind; I strapped on my upside-down acoustic guitar and ripped through my repertoire of cover songs and originals.
Guess what? My voice was better than ever! Turns out it might be a muscle and get stronger with use. Looks like I’ll be putting it through its paces more often now…
How many households have two graters? Mine does: a lesser grater and – wait for it – a greater grater. (Confusingly, I prefer the former.)
As you know, I fancy myself as a writer. And not one of those high-strung superstitious types. That’s right – I’m a writer who isn’t particular about his tools.
Me, I’m happy to write with anything (just as long as it’s a blue 0.7mm Pilot V Ball Grip Roller Ball pen) and in anything (just as long as it’s a ruled Moleskine Cahier Extra Large Notebook).
I’m not even fussy about the colour of the notebook’s cover!
Which means I’ve had a worrisome week. The pens I ordered online have arrived, but I’m still waiting for the notebooks. Will they arrive in time? Or will I be forced to suspend my literary endeavours until they do?
If that doesn’t lure you back then I don’t know what will!
One Question Too Many: Surviving the Census
Questions, questions – the week has been filled with them.
There are the turkeys, first of all. They’re getting active, I guess, because the weather here in Brisbane is warming up. And when I say active, I mean active: the males make a leafy nest that could house a hundred eggs, some of them speckled.
The question here is what to call them – scrub turkeys or bush turkeys? Opinions differ in my inner circle, with my dad championing bush and my wife scrub. Me, I’m beastly careless. (A bird by any other name and all that.)
Tuesday night was Census night here in Australialand, the night on which adults are supposed to answer a suite of questions about themselves: name, age, gender, ancestry, sexual orientation and so on. It was enough to make me wonder who I really am… And, somewhat tangentially, whether my book-to-be contains a fatal flaw.
Remember my latest GWH (Great Write Hope) – the kid’s story about identical twins? Well, its perfect premise took a hit this week when my wife and son pointed out that the twins can’t be identical because one (Joe) is a boy and the other (Corey) is a girl. Talk about splitting hairs! Anyway, I refuse to accept this spurious assertion. In fact, I’ve gone one step further and embraced the accusation, making my twins freaks of nature. Here’s a chunk from the latest chapter.
SHOT OF NEWS DESK IN TV STUDIO
CHESTER: And now we cross to our reporter, the never-to-be-famous writer, Griffy Treehouse, who’s on the ground there in Brisbane, holding a stupid-looking microphone and nodding a lot. Where exactly are you, Griff?
CUT TO STREET
GRIFFY: I’m in The Gap, Chester.
CUT TO STUDIO
CHESTER: That’s the right place to be, Griff, for once. We’re hearing reports that a real situation is enripening out there.
CUT TO STREET
GRIFFY: It’s a biggish suburb, Chester. [LOOKS AROUND] Nothing seems to be enripening right now.
CUT TO STUDIO
CHESTER: That’s strange, Griff. Very strange. It’s just that our fact-checkers have been back through some old footage, and they’ve come across a kid claiming to be an identical twin. A kid who lives in a gap.
CUT TO STREET
GRIFF: The Gap, Chester. That’d be Corey. She and her brother, Joe, are identical twins.
CUT TO STUDIO
CHESTER: Well, that’s the thing, Griff. Normally a girl and a boy can’t be identical twins. Biologically impossible and all that. So this could be the only case known to humanity. A world first! This could make my career.
CUT TO STREET
GRIFFY: What about my career?
CUT TO STUDIO
CHESTER: I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, good ol’ gap guy. Now get me an interview with one of those identical kids!
And the questions didn’t end there. It’s Challenge Month at the swim school where I work. In August the kids are encouraged to set themselves a goal in the pool and to go about getting it. The initiative has got me thinking about my own aims. Last year, I wanted to swim all-year-round (at least once a week) at my local reservoir, even when the water was at its chilliest. Tick! Early this year, I sought to start swimming all four strokes half decently. Tick!
And now? Well, apart from becoming a pool deck supervisor (for which I’m in training), I’d like to swim a sub-5-minute 200-metre medley. This is achievable, methinks, but it’ll mean shaving at least 20 seconds off my current personal best. Time to pull out Occam’s razor, perhaps, in an attempt to simplify my strokes even further.
One last question occurred to me as I was listening to Armed Forces, Elvis Costello’s second album with the Attractions (released in 1979). Is Costello the best pop/rock lyricist ever? So many songs (hundreds and counting), so many pocket-sized stories. So much sparkling word-play. (Almost too much?) Such insight and intelligence.
Any selection won’t do justice to the depth and breadth of his output, but here’s a sample from ‘Chemistry Class‘:
Sparks are flying from electrical pylons
Snakes and ladders running up and down her nylons
Ready to experiment, you’re ready to be burned
If it wasn’t for some accidents then some would never learn
Don’t take my word for it. (Although you can if you want.) Using some obscure objective measuring machine, Rolling Stone magazine has placed Costello twenty-fourth in a list of the greatest song-writers ever, pinpointing his ‘knack for motor-mouth lyrics’. (What’s 23 places between friends?)
Case closed?
That’s one question too many!
Comfort in Compost: Show Week in Brisbane
Over the years I’ve followed a few blogs about books. Now I read just one, and that’s not because it’s the brainiest, most bookish or best-written of the bunch. (It isn’t.) I read it because it’s the most personal.
Post by post I’ve been drawn into another life – a life which is, on the surface, all too ordinary. And yet I’m hooked. Hooked on hearing about the author’s experiences; about her setbacks and strivings; about her surroundings as the seasons wheel and whirl.
It’s got me thinking about my own blog. Yes, this ramshackle affair. Maybe it’s time I made it less ‘literary’ and more revelatory. Maybe it’s time I wrote each post as I would a letter to a friend.
Hey there friend!
Mine too is an ordinary life. And yet it’s an amazing kind of ordinary because life is extraordinary, whenever and wherever it manifests itself.
It’s Show week here in Brisbane as winter struts its stuff for a little bit longer. The creek across the street is running on empty and the beds in the nearby community garden are ragged and raw. The swim school where I work is closed (thanks to the Show), so I’ve got a day without lessons. It feels like stolen time; time I’ll spend writing, playing the piano and shopping for food, some of which I’ll use to cook a family meal later on.
The past week has been full and multifaceted, like a good fruit salad. I spent twenty hours in the water, teaching kids how to swim and, in the case of the babies, coaching parents and carers. Gotta love them babies! (Mine are now in their teens.)
I’ve been a swimming teacher for a couple of months now, having chucked in my gruesome government job last year. I’m a changed man – in more ways than one. Amusingly (and a little alarmingly), my time in the water is turning my ‘hirsute’ into a birthday suit. That’s right: I’m losing my leg hair. (I don’t understand it and I’m not sure I want to!)
Too much information? Well, I warned you I’d be upping the intimacy ante! (The antemacy?)
Thursday was clear and warm, one of those ethereal winter days whose beauty seems to take the world’s breath away. I just HAD to be out in the sun – the urge was irresistible – so I took up our tub of food scraps and cycled to the community garden and its compost bins (all-comers welcome).
Dumping our doings, I strolled through the plots, musing on matters profound and mundane. My life feels pretty scrappy most of the time; little bits of this and that. And yet maybe I can take comfort in compost, where everything comes together to create something rich and rewarding.
Ramsey Lewis, jazz pianist extraordinaire, gave me the soundtrack to my week. His deftness, creativity and the downright catchiness of his music both inspired and disheartened me. I know I’ll never be good enough to wipe Ramsey’s bottom (to misquote Major Woolley from Goshawk Squadron), but listening to him having a ball at the keyboard makes me want to practise smarter and harder.
Them’s fighting words!
Finally, what would a week be without writing? I added a few thousand words to my latest Great Write Hope – a kid’s book called ‘How Joe Died (And Corey Got a Life)’ – wishing all the while I could narrate it a little more normally.
But then I read an article arguing that – surprise, surprise – kids don’t read like adults. Apparently Gen Zers do it ‘multimodally’, bouncing between various book formats (print, audio and electronic) and ranging across online story-telling platforms.
That’s great news because my book-to-be is a mess of ‘modes’. I’m trying to tell the story – that of identical twins who discover they’re different (in ways they didn’t think they were) – using a grab-bag of literary forms and formats: television scripts, online chats, traditional letters and a (protracted) police statement. (The long arm of the law?) It’s an outlandish attempt to maintain interest (mostly mine).
Will it work? And will I ever play the piano well enough to wipe Ramsey Lewis’s bottom?
I’ll let you know next week. Or maybe the week after that. Or the week after that…