Spreading a little joy...

 "A STREET CAT NAMED BOB" - James Bowen (UK 2012)

        After a long-ish string of reading fiction, I took a break with some biography and some extremely deep and taxing Peanuts Gang with good old Charlie Brown and Snoopy (geez I love it when Snoopy flies his Sopwith Camel chasing after the Red Baron!). Then with many short story collections waiting I went back to them, but the first one was just too inyaface so I dished it, then couldn't get into a fiction mood at all. Bob saved me!

        We've seen the movie of this twice, and loved it, so when I saw Bowen's book on the Salvo shelf I thought yep, that's for me! This'll be a keeper. If you haven't seen the movie, telling you about it won't spoil it, trust me. And like all movies of books, they had to cut out enough to make it fit, so the book gives an even wider pleasure.

        A completely true story, of a young ex heroin addict who had a pretty dysfunctional childhood/teenage, living on support mechanisms and busking on the London streets to get by, crosses paths with a 6-8 month old ginger tom looking the worse for wear. But this cat has attitude and personality so Bowen's (and Bob's) memoir is all about how they go busking together and save each other through some difficult times.

        Get a copy, or see the movie, or both. You'll want to send me flowers of gratitude!

        Cheers...

                Trev

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Oops....

        Sometimes you get it wrong!

         I had another read of the last short story, realised it's not good enough, have pulled it out until I can re-visit it and do a re-think. Sometimes you simply dive in too soon, tell yourself it's finished when it's not. Lesson for all of us.

        Cheers...

                Trev

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One more...

         I've written four eulogies in my time, twenty-eight years ago for our son, ten years ago for my Mum, two years ago for my younger brother, and three weeks ago for my elder brother. Each one a unique agony of words. No wonder then I suppose that I accepted, after this last one, that I've become soul-weary, while grieving for those you love tends to lessen as the years go by and life goes on, the sadness is accumulative. I guess it's the price we pay for out-living our loved others, a price that some days feels just a little too high.    

    I expected that his own family would speak at his service of the the father and the grandfather they knew, but I realised that I was the only person left in the world who shared my brother's first 15-16 years, so I wrote about that, about the boy becoming a young man.

        I wish I could've shared this one last piece with him, as I did with so much of what I've written over the years, he being such a well-travelled and well-read and well-lived guy, who packed enough living into his 90 years for two lifetimes of anyone else, so he was always keen to see what came next, from my keyboard and from life in general.

        More than once I said he should write his own story, but he accepted that he just didn't have the stickability, so he fed me a string of odd chunks, a couple of which I've blogged here in the past, but now I pray that I'll have the time to polish up some more of them, and put them out there in the world where they belong.

        I know that we were closer as old men - wiser old men - than we ever were as kids Mick, but it was still a privilege to have shared this great journey with you.

        Trev

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Just finished....

"C. J. DENNIS - His Remarkable Career" - Alec Chisholm (Aust 1946) 

        I love history, I love Australian history, I love literary history. Which is why I've been looking for a biography of poet C J Dennis (1876-1938) for a while, fell over this one in an Op Shop, and it appealed because it was done in 1946, just 8 years after his death, which meant Chisholm got to talk to people who actually knew Dennis, even a couple that went to school with him.

        Don't get me wrong, even though I have his two most well-known collections, and have read them, Dennis's poetry is now terribly dated, being of the back streets of Melbourne around WWI, reading today like a send-up of London East End Cockney more that anything much recognisable as Australian "slanguage". You have to read behind the idiom nowadays to enjoy the stories of The Sentimental Bloke and Doreen and Ginger Mick. But worth it if you persevere.

        Anyway, this is his biography, which paints such an insightful picture of the writer and his times, and surprising to find just how totally unlike his characters Dennis was. And a bit sad to see that in later life how he couldn't change, couldn't move on in his literary material, was stuck in a mould, a victim to some degree of his own phenomenal success (J K Rowling springs to mind?). 

        And another thing, this bloke's story is an object lesson for writers today, as Dennis had to work hard at it, pretty much with dedication, and success didn't come overnight. But he grafted and worked the angles, and grabbed at luck when it happened. Worth a read just for that.

        Cheers....

                T.R.E.

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Just finished enjoying

"SELECTED SONNETS" - Jeff Guess (Aust 1991) 

        I like Jeff Guess's writings, a local poet who really knows his way around a phrase, and can capture an image or a feeling brilliantly with a refreshingly short handful of words, not always an easy thing to do.

        This is a slim collection of his poetry, and well worth the read if you can find a copy. But I had one problem with so many of the pieces in it - it's the way he chooses to format them.

        They read like they're a great opening paragraph to a short story or a piece of microlit - and they are! It's just that he then chops them up into "poetry" format. One pulled out at random below, first re-jigged (by me) into prose, and as it appears in the book. What's your slant on it? Am I just getting old and pedantic??

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        Waist high above odd sticks of wheat he stands at the centre of a difficult universe. Rain is a bad dream that clouds old eyes.
        Years ago he might have prayed for it to either start or stop - hold off for harvest. Time has ordered the once high-handed psalm of praise into a sad doxology of certainties, that number mice and means, rust and reliance, and all that lets him down. Darned woollen arms folded over and around, wrapping the sparse frame of an old farmer rigged out as if for fancy dress he no longer wants to go to, a scarecrow with little stuffing left - to keep even the birds away.

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                  The Farmer

    Waist high above odd sticks of wheat he
    stands at the centre of a difficult universe.

    Rain is a bad dream that clouds old eyes.
    Years ago he might have prayed for it to

    either start or stop - hold off for harvest.
    Time has ordered the once high-handed

    psalm of praise into a sad doxology
    of certainties, that number mice and means,

    rust and reliance and all that lets him down.
    Darned woollen arms folded over and around

    wrapping the sparse frame of an old farmer
    rigged out as if for fancy dress he no

    longer wants to go to. A scarecrow with little
    stuffing left - to keep even the birds away.

                         (C) Jeff Guess 1991

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What do we look for?

        What do we want from a book?

        I always get a buzz when I pick up a book I've never seen before. Always. Okay, not the ones about Embroidery or Politics or The Life Cycle Of A Squid, but ones that you normally seek out, and for me that's a biggish range, in both fact and fiction. But why? What are we hoping for?

        I'm steadily wading through my large assortment of Xmas presents, all happening to be Aus-lit, but they're not scoring well this year, which is why I'm doing this small soul-searching. Most of them are out of my bunch of Op Shop specials, a truly mixed bag, which I love to get, as my annual box is full of potential, a mish-mash of fact and fiction, and from all over. Diving into it is like panning for gold, but with a whole lot of over-the-sides so far, I must ask the question - What am I looking for? So, first, a Summary of the Rejects....

A 1995 Aus one-author collection of poetry -
     In strict meter and rhyme, and content like it wants to emulate Aus stuff popular in the 1880s, it's way too "Bards of the Bush" for me.

A 1992 Aus two-author collection of poetry -
    Same comment as above.

A 1984 Aus one-author collection of poetry -
    In a sort of loose verse, I'm sure the author knows what they're trying to say, but geez it misses the mark most times. I need poetry to paint a picture I can see on the page, and some are wayyyyyy too long to the point of sheer self-indulgence.

A 1984 Aus one-author collection of poetry -
    Just had another look and put this one aside, may pick out a few pieces one day soon, and see what you reckon. No, looked again, not much of it is interesting.

A 1941 Aus travel book -
    Promised much at a glance, published by Angus & Robertson, a 1912 young English emigrant does a 1936 round Australia, back when it was still pretty wild out there, but sponsored by a car and a petrol company on the strength of a couple of other similar publications. It was really stuffy. And a bit boring.

A 1978 Aus collection of anecdotes of a (presumably) well-known journalist of the day -
    It's just that, anecdotes of a working Sydney journo in the 70s, about people I either never knew or have forgotten. My elder brother tells a better story.

A 1984 Aus one-author collection of short stories -
    It's like writing for writing's sake, typing away because it makes the person feel good to see all that stuff go down on the page, goes on and on but leaves you mostly wondering what the point of the story is. If it has one.

A 1989 Aus one-author collection of short stories -
    A tad too much misery for me, tends to wallow in it. And the story structuring got on my quince.

        So, picky picky picky, but what do I want? I want a book to suck me in, get me involved, entertain, enlighten, educate, stimulate. None of the above did that. Do I ask for too much? Hell NO.

        Cheers....

                T.R.E.

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The stuff is everywhere !

        One of the hardest gigs is mentoring a 16-year-old who desperately wants to write fiction. It was clear she was gagging to write (and yes, to BE an Author, not necessarily the same thing) and mainly wanted tips on finding material, what to write about. Easy enough for an 80+ but hell for a 16 yo, who hasn't yet seen much life.

        So I pointed her at short stories, said to hone her skills on them for a few years, before tackling anything bigger. Ten years from now she'll have some life experiences to explore. And besides, I'm a great believer that you have the innate drive or you don't. It's a compulsion or it isn't. If you have the compulsion you'll find the subject matter. It's all around us.

        Anyway, got me thinking about it, and so analysed the 40 short stories I currently have up on The Workshop, to see if that tells me anything useful. I found (for what it's worth) that of those...

        30% only are totally fabricated, while
        70% are taken mainly from actual events (both first hand and second hand)

    Also, of that 40...
        40% could be from any Time (not tied to an era as part of the story)
        9% are from a childhood (but only a third of those are from my own)
        8% are "philosophical" (exploring inner thoughts and all that)
        6% are "looking back" stories (the adult past being an essential element of the story)
....and the rest a bit of a mish-mash.

        I guess the point I'm grappling with is - story material is everywhere. You don't have to live a hugely adventurous and colourful life to generate subject matter. Possibly helps but not essential. So read as much as you can, and anything you especially like, work out why. Then get stuck in, write an opening paragraph, then follow it. See where it goes. I always say that the two most important paragraphs in a short story are the first one and the last one, the first to grab the eye (and the mood), and the last to encapsulate the whole point of it.

        Okay, that's it. Hope this helps.

        My own current project is up to first full draft, clearly too big - I got too involved! - so now to the fun part of culling and exploring and finding great words to replace the mundane words. Geez I love this bit! More on that soon.

        Cheers....

                T.R.E.

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Rocks rock !

"GEOLOGY FOR DUMMIES" - A M Spooner (2011 USA) 

        I've always liked rocks. They give you a sense of your universal context. But I've never dived into a serious study of Geology, until now. Well, semi-serious. And this (Xmas Pres) is an ideal place to start. And probably end, as I'm not looking to launch a new career. I'd just like to know the facts.

        So many of the lovely beaches of Adelaide have a line of boulders as a last defence against high tide, all about the size of a dishwasher, and taken from the Adelaide Hills. We walk past these early every morning to and from coffee, and can't help but marvel at what they are.

        These rocks are 500 million years old - bits of teenagers when you consider the oldest in the world (they're in Canada) are 4 billion years old - but still something to hold in awe, considering that these rocks that we hacked out of the Hills to protect out beach front real estate were already about 450 million years old when the dinosaurs went extinct. And for my money they, and the waves, will still be here when Homo Sapiens is long gone.    

        There's many of these rocks on our morning walk that catch the eye - one of my favs still has the riverbed ripples in it, clear as the eon they were laid down - but these two are intriguing. The one on the left is a simple Sedimentary, its layers put down one at a time over millions of years, at the bottom of a lake or slow-moving river, with some change in conditions on a regular basis to separate them. This one I can get my head around.

        But the one on the right beats the hell outa me! Its main body - the grey stuff - is clearly sedimentary as well, as you can see the layers, but how did those thin white layers of quartzy stuff get to be at right angles to those layers, and not just to them, but with another one at right angles to that?! And these bands run all the way around the boulder.

        I presume that they are made of the shells of billions of crustacea who each lived for a blink of the universal eye, then settled to the "bottom". But you have to ask - of these three diametrically-opposed layers of material - considering that each had to be "flat-on" at the time - which came first?

        This will be one of the first things I intend to ask Whatever is behind all this, when it's my turn to find out the Answers. And I tell you now, I will be deeply pissed off if I don't get to find out.

        Cheers....

                    T.R.E.

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Just put aside ...

"BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE" - Trent Dalton (Aust 2018)

        One of my Xmas books, and there's been such a lot of noise about it, and it's now a TV series, I feel obliged to be patient with this over-written novel, but at 150k words I don't think I have enough time left to indulge it properly.

        Don't get me wrong, this is well-written, and my first note (I tend to keep running memory-joggers to make it easier to do these) was - "It's like diving into a plate of your favourite meat-and-veg but there's heaps of bits on the plate you don't know or expect but they're just great." It was like that. For a while. 

        But 20% in now and I'm struggling and have to put it aside. As soon as you catch yourself impatiently skipping paragraphs (and once a whole page) of stuff that gets tedious, time to go.

        It's like Dalton always intended to make this for Netflix. To go with trendy drugs and all the other extravagant and clever violence that's so popular nowadays. I mean, you can't avoid the TV promo trailers of the next blockbuster that's about to explode all over your screen, as there's about three new ones a day. This book has all the right ingredients. By design I suspect. But don't let me put you off, give it a fair go yourself.

        Anyway, I won't abandon it, I'll get back to it, after I jump into some of the others I have waiting.

             Cheers...

                    T.R.E.

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Wallowing a little is good for you

"GOLDEN DAYS OF RADIO" - Australia Post (1991 Aus)

        "nostalgia (noun) - a feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past."  (Cambridge Dict online)

        "nostalgia (n) - homesickness as a disease, sentimental yearning for (some period) of the past." From the Greek 'nostos' return home, and 'algos' pain.  (Concise Oxford Dict)

        "...can bring a sense of comfort, happiness, and connection to our identity..." (Google)

        This is the first of my 2024 Xmas goodies, a grand wallow in memories of the 1940s-1950s radio shows I used to listen to as a kid - "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men ... only The Shadow knows!" - golly gee they don't make stuff like this any more...

THE SHADOW

...with my head crammed into the old cabinet battery Radiola, hanging on every word. Sad that mostly the things from childhood that you loved just don't stand the test of time, somewhere along the way we grew up and got sophisticated.

        Actually, even more recent, bought a box set of the old B&W "Untouchables" for Xmas, the TV series we drove across several suburbs once a week in 1959 to catch on the father-in-law's set - nup, now just comes across as a bit dated, a heap of "B' grade actors doing 'B' grade storylines, saved only by a touch of nostalgia and the great narration by Walter Winchell. And 119 episodes!

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        While on Chrissie presents (I have this feeling that the family have worked out what Trev/Dad/Grandpa likes), this is the whole list, a fairly eclectic collection to get me through 2025 (will report as I go)....

        Golden Days of (Aust) Radio

        A current "International Bestseller"

        The world events of the first full year of my life 

        Secrets of Churchills War Rooms

        Geology for Dummies

        1970s memoir of a world-travelled pain in the neck

        Pascoe's Aust Short Stories Qly (Issues 56, 36, 37, 39, 48)

        Poetry (from all over - 5 volumes)

        Short Stories (ditto - 4 volumes)

        A time-worn travel hardback from 1941

        The Shed (The Sequel)

        Memoir of a 1950s outback grader driver

        A mining town from the Rigby Sketchbook series

        The 2021 Furphy Analogy

        A 1946 Biography of C. J. Dennis

        I reckon I need to get through two a month to be ready for Xmas 2025.

        Cheers....

                    T.R.E.

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