Summer Nights With Vincent

It's been a few years since I deliberately planned and treated myself to a good summer read. A book made for reading in a park, or sitting in my courtyard on a warm early evening, or even for reading in bed on the too hot nights when I can't sleep and the ceiling fan just isn't cutting it. Something interesting, preferably weighty and a bit challenging, and maybe something I've promised myself to read for a while. A book with gravitas, or at least some eccentricity.

I'm not much of a beach goer, so not for me the slim, trashy, beach read. (It's an important distinction.)

I seem to gravitate towards art books and biographies as summer reads. Once, many years ago, when I was on what should have been a short work assignment in monsoonal, tropical Cairns, I ended being stuck there for 7 weeks. I was feeling lonely and frustrated, and after finding what was (at that time anyway, I'm not sure now) the inner city of Cairns's only interesting little bookshop, I consoled myself with a spending spree on summer reads. I read about the life of Gertrude Stein. Then I read her "autobiography" of her "tricky, dicky darling" Alice B. Toklas. I rubbed shoulders with Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, before finishing up with Bloomsbury's own "house of lions", Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant et al.

My memories of that time are an incongrous blend of Parisian/English/New York smart sets saying smart things in smart drawing rooms, torrential tropical rains, and hours spent lounging by the hotel pool reading during the all too infrequent breaks in the rain.


A while back I read an article about a new Vincent Van Gogh biography that was coming out based on new research, and which promised to be "the definitive" work on his life and death. Just the sort of thing for a summer read! I had recently signed up with a co-op bookshop that offers substantial discounts to members (after a small one-off membership fee), and a quick search of their website showed they had this book at $45.00, rather than the regular ticket price of $59.95.


So now I have it. Even the heft of it says summer read. It's thick. It's hardcover, which has been nicely wrapped in clear plastic by the bookstore (so as to protect from any summer evening sweaty hands or glass of rose accidents, no doubt). It has illustrations. All in all it looks just the ticket.

The Power Of Words

Sorry for the short absence, amongst other things I lost my internet connection for 5 days. I can do a bit of web surfing at work, but whenever I'm home I normally have the laptop fired up while I'm watching the tv. Without it, oh em gee. Cut off! Is this what being on Survivor feels like? Without the poor hygiene, rice rations and scheming. I'd like an immunity necklace though. Tribal accessories, so hot right now. Sorry, where was I?

I spent some time over the past couple of days thinking about the power of words. Words can hurt and heal. Inspire and disempower.

Peter and I already have a whole list of cute names for each other. Yes, we are those people. A harsh word at work can make for a bad day. Recently Peter and I were walking down the street holding hands (as we usually do) when an older lady came up to us and told us we were a sweet couple, making our day with just a couple of kind words. (Mind you we've also had at least 3 occasions when Mumblers, as we've come to label them, walk past and mumble chicken shit insults at us as they pass. Here's a heads up Mumblers, enunciate.)

At this point, lets have some musical relief before passing on:

What are words worth? Indeed.

I'm also currently reading (and enjoying) Embassytown by China Miéville, a novel that places language and communication at the very centre of the story. I find Miéville one of the most incredibly creative writers working in science fiction today, and this book about Language uses language in a creative way to examine the dramatic and unexpected effects that communication can have. There is a fantastic review in The Guardian by science fiction heavy hitter Ursula K. Le Guin

(And if you have a moment, check out Miéville's tumblr too, where he posts all sorts of interesting stuff. Then spend a moment contemplating the fact that he's also the humpiest piece of sex on legs working in science fiction today.)

Every week I download podcasts and vodcasts (speaking of words, because language is an organic creature we sometimes make them up!) by the guys at Monocle Magazine. This week there was a fantastic vodcast called Class Acts about some interesting goings on in Bogotá, Columbia.

The second story on the vodcast really affected me, and it was about an organisation whose name means The Power of Words. Don José Alberto Gutierrez is a rubbish truck driver, who lives with his wife in a disadvantaged suburb of Bogotá. Over the years he would rescue books that he found in the rubbish, until he amassed a collection of over 10,000 volumes. Along the way he used rescued books to educate himself, and now the ground floor of his house has become a community library

Watch the vodcast and have a look for the website of La Fuerza de la Palabras because they explain the amazing feat this man has achieved, and his noble aims to bring literacy, culture and advancement to his (and other) communities. [Note: click the little language flag widgets on the right hand side of their web page for an English Translation.] Watch it and let your cold dead heart melt a little/lot.

Then read a good book, or say a kind word to someone.

Maths Is Hard

Currently Loving

a) Lisa Reagan's track "Al'infini (Project Runway Re-Mix)". So called because her track "Al'infini" was remixed and used as the music for Wendy Pepper's runway show in the finale of the first season of the U.S. "Project Runway" tv show. [You can listen to an mp3 here.]

b) Cowboys!


c) And Indians!


d) Dill pickles. (Unrelated to the above.)

e) Glam rock!

f) Elizabeth Knox's new novel The Angel's Cut, the very enjoyable sequel to The Vintner's Luck. Even though the novel has a cool, sometimes almost detached, emotional tone much of the time I think the format of the novel escapes some of the issues I felt with the first book (the abbreviated chapter format, where each chapter was a one day visit on the same annual anniversary). Plus what's not to love about gay angels, the Roaring 20's, airplane stuntmen and the early golden days of cinema?

Roughing It

Aside from my involvement with the knit in for Wrap With Love, a few other things have collided recently to make me think a lot more about the plight of the homeless.

A month (or so) ago I was watching a kind of naff, but still tearjerky, show called "Random Acts Of Kindness" on our local tv. I hadn't watched the show before, but I knew the way it went down. I've watched Oprah, Backyard Blitz et al. I knew the drill, people who work tirelessly for others/have special needs/have suffered a tragedy are given things/money/a new backyard to thank them/perk them up/put them back on the road to recovery. Yes I sound cynical, but in truth I'm kind of a sucker for these sorts of things and I always end up in floods of tears. Even when it's only a new outdoor entertaining area/bbq/poolside Indonesian style cabana/beds of ubiquitous cordylines.

So I was watching "Random Acts Of Kindness" when they did a segment with a woman called Sarah Garnett. One night, while Sarah was helping out by serving meals to the homeless, she spotted a homeless man reading a paperback novel under a streetlamp. She started to bring him other books to read, and from that was sown the idea of the Bejamin Andrew Footpath Library. By 2003 the library was born, bringing a weekly collection of books to the street for homeless people to read. Hopefully they return them, but they're not under any obligation to.

The show did lots for her and her volunteer organisation, gave them storage space, petrol vouchers, a new minivan, a computer, etc. Obviously lots more than she expected, and frankly all sensible things that would make the organisation thrive and her life easier. But it was the idea that blew me away. Books for the homeless.

What must it be like to spend days and nights on the streets? Largely invisible to everyone, with few people to talk to and little opportunity for social contact and just some escape? Like Sarah I agree that books can be affirming, entertaining, life changing things and why not bring a little of this to someone who is on the streets? Aside from food, shelter and fatigue, boredom and isolation are apparently some of the hardest things for the homeless.

The other thing I saw on tv was a woman called Jean Madden who brought in her Street Swag to compete on the "New Inventors" show. She didn't win, but she did win the people's choice award and according to a radio interview I heard with her today, she's the only Australian who has been invited this year to take her invention to a prestigious international design competition.

In her dealings with the Brisbane homeless she discovered that fatigue was a big issue for those roughing it on the streets. Many of the homeless have managed to suss out obtaining food, but shelter and rest are much harder. She had the idea to take the great Aussie swag (a portable bedroll and shelter in one) and refine the design so that a homeless person could have a portable shelter during the evening, and a discrete bag to carry belongings in during the day. (Including a book, perhaps?)

She designed a few prototypes, designing them to be simple and cost effective to make, and gave them to some homeless folk she knew, using their feedback to improve them. Making them a camouflage colour so they are hard to spot in greenery at night, and reducing the thickness of the mattress to make more room for possessions, for instance. She has now distributed thousands of them to homeless in many parts of Australia, and has them made by prisoners in jail who in turn receive credit towards a textiles manufacturing certificate.

Again, what an amazing idea. Both ideas aimed at improving the wellbeing of people on the streets. Food and shelter are the obvious fundamental things one thinks of, but boredom and fatigue would have enormous impacts on the mental and physical health of the homeless. Simple ideas making big quality of life changes. I take my hat off to these amazing women.

A Frequent Reader

With a brand new library membership under my belt I've become a reading machine. Libraries should have a loyalty system don't you think? The books are free, so there'd be no point in borrowing 10, get the 11th one free... but a complimentary coffee wouldn't go astray. Librarians, think about it. That's all I'm saying. A soy chai latte once in a while might improve the borrower demographic.

It takes a shift in mental gears for me to borrow books from a library. When I read a book and enjoy it... I don't want to give it back. (One of the reasons why I also try not to borrow books from friends.) However, the flipside of all this is that I've discovered that a library card is like a license to read stuff that I wouldn't normally fork over dosh for. There are few things more painful in this world than watching me shop for a new book to read when I'm skint. Weighing up the cheapness of this paperback versus that one, reading the first few pages, trying to ensure I get the best bang for my buck from the cheaper paperbacks when what I really want to do is buy the new China Mieville novel just out in hardback... a mere snip at $54.00 sigh

In the past few weeks I have read (in no particular order); a monograph on architect Buckminster Fuller (some of his work was a bit odd), "Murder Most Fab" by Julian Clary (fun!), a book on 'natural' architecture (interesting), a knitting book (useful), "The Vintner's Luck" by Elizabeth Knox (very engaging, and both a sequel and a movie have just been released), a Tudor era crime novel "Dark Fire" by C J Sansom (not the best in the series, but not bad), a re-read of my own copy of Julian Clary's autobiography "A Young Man's Passage" (both a hoot and poignant), a book of 50s fashions, a monograph on Coco Chanel... and some others I have blanked already.

Surely that's got to be worth a free espresso?

A Lender Or A Borrower Be

I just did something I haven't done for years. I joined my local library! Actually, I had to pay a small fee to join the library of my next council over because (paradoxically) my 'local' library is nowhere near me. Confused? I am one street outside the boundary of the council that has the closest library to me, the Newtown Public Library. Annoying! Paying the small fee means that I can access any of the major city libraries though, so it's worth it.

Plus the Newtown library has a specialist GLBTIQ collection (Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Transgender, Intersex & Queer), and frankly I love seeing the helpful little rainbow flag stickers on the book spines. Stickers that say "Grrrrrl! Read ME!".

Juicy Reads

[Vintage book covers courtesy of BookScans.]

5 Things About Thursday, 19th March: Books & Bitches Edition

• The whiff of Autumn is in the air. It's been warm and lovely the past few days, but the days are getting noticeably shorter and the night's cooler. Time to get serious about the Autumn/Winter knitting schedule.
  
• There is a gorgeous, huge Great Dane bitch who roams the 'off lead' dog park near my house with her owner. She's so sweet and inquisitive that she's quite the belle of the park, everyone loves to stop for a pat and she usually has at least one little lapdog running around her ankles. What I really love is that she's the unofficial peace keeper of the park. Any snappishness or roughhousing sees her giant concerned nose poked into the fray, and all it takes is one deep, booming woof to scatter the participants. Tonight it was a gaggle of little yapsters that got the caution.
  
• Today I chatted briefly to visiting US blogger and kitchen whizz La Diva Laura! I've only recently statered reading Laura's blog, but we 'know' each other from Thombeau and Fabulon. It looks like we'll be catching up this weekend, I can't wait!
  
• I'm so grateful to be gainfully employed in this economic climate, but Great Caesar's Ghost my job's exhausting at the moment. I had a change of boss, and he's a little less highly strung, but this is a tough time to be someone responsible for keeping the funds flowing in! Everybody wants to hold onto their cash, and very few want to pay their bills.
  
• And yet curiously, I've been on a book buying spending spree. Sequels! The third Lucifer Box novel by Mark Gatiss, the seventh Retrieval Artist novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, "Imperium" by Robert Harris (sequel to "Pompeii"). Not a sequel, but I did also snap up the companion volume to the brilliant tv series I loved How Art Made The World. I want a world made by art.
  

A Cheaper Headspin Than Any Drugs

Oy. It's been a strange week chickens, and apologies for this blog being a bit dead in the water this week. I've been sick with the worst wracking, deep, choking, dry cough for most of the week. Felt better, had a lovely dinner at Uchi Lounge and a thoroughly debauched late night at an underwear party called Rezurrection with my friend Christopher and about 500 of our closest hot boy friends, then not surprisingly felt worse again. Duh.

So now I find myself at home on a Saturday night, the Saturday night of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras no less, watching an old Marx Bothers film, desultorily Facebooking, and craving a super long G & T (Bombay Saphire, tonic, lots of ice and lashing of fresh lime).

I'm not thoroughly convinced with my doctor's diagnosis, but I do agree with her that my chest is clear and it isn't bronchitis. I don't feel sick sick, I mean I have no fever or cold symptoms, but this frigging cough is doing me in. Waking myself up all through the night, giving me a pounding headache and tense, sore neck and shoulders.

Grumpy Saturday night!

Gosh I feel like that G&T. Or maybe a small flask of the warm sake Christopher and I had at Uchi Lounge. Once we saw a sake called Bishonen ("Beautiful Boy") on the menu you know we had to have it, right? I bet all the queens love a Bishonen! Actually, it was delicious and amazingly calming for my cough, probably the mix of warmth and alcohol. Beautiful boys are medicinal.

Anyhoo, off to bed soon for another battle with Mr Sandman vs My Esophagus. On the upside, I have a good book to read before sleep. 3 parcels of books I ordered online arrived this week. 3! First on the nightstand is "Nella Last's War", the daily diaries written for the UK archival Mass Observation project by Nella Last. Housewife, 49, as her first observation in September 1939 begins. Oh my they are good, her voice and personality leap off the pages and her observations of the extraordinary ordinary days of the Second World War are tender, thoughtful, bittersweet and at times surprising. Frequently very funny also. I was a big fan of the BBC dramatisation with Victoria Wood ("Housewife, 49"), so I had high expectations of the source material.


Not disappointed.

Off to bed my ducks. Wish me luck!

Mr Darcy Sure Is Tasty, Nom Nom

I don't know, this could be either terrible or awesome.



Actually, it could be both.

Teatime With Sarah

Today was a funny old day. I had planned to catch up with an old workmate this afternoon, so when Mikey rang at 1pm to see if I was free for a picnic in Centennial Park I tried to figure out if I could shoehorn it into the schedule... and it just didn't fit. So having turned it down I hung out at home for a while and then started getting ready for my afternoon coffee catch up with my old workmate. Except, she cancelled at short notice. It would have been quite late by the time I changed gears and got to the park, so instead of too many things to do I ended up with too few.

So, it may be the case that when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. It's definitely the case though that when the going gets dull, the dull err... bored go shopping. I decided to do some bookshop window shopping at least. Newtown already has some great bookshops but there's always room for one more, and one more has just been added. (Actually, a few years ago my favourite secondhand bookstore closed, and recently another of the new books bookstores closed for renovations, so essentially the balance has been maintained.)

The perfect miniature lemon meringue tart.

So I was wandering around the secondhand level of the new Berkelouw bookstore in Newtown, wedged in an aisle between Christianity to sinister and Sex/Gender to dexter (common, right?), when I heard my name called. My good friend Sarah had a similar idea as it turns out, and so we both found ourselves in the same place at the same time.

Industrial style in the secondhand books level.

Berkelouws have a fantastic formula for their large bookstores, one level of new books, one of secondhand and antiquarian books, and a cafe. This new store has been created inside an old two story warehouse space in a side street in Newtown, and I'm in love with the conversion. High ceilings, original windows, sandblasted brick, raw timber shelving, old patinated wood, tin and industrial style lighting.

I want these lights. WANT.

Oh, and the most fabulous antique searchlight type industrial lights that I coveted so bad I could taste it. There was a pair, and for a few seconds I made fantasy calculations as to whether Sarah and I could make the dash downstairs and out the front door carrying one each.

The clerestory and exposed tin ceiling.

So instead of a dull afternoon, I had a lovely coffee date after all! A perfect little meringue and organic mint tea for me, and a latte and little passionfruit cheesecake tart for Sarah. The cafe was light and airy, and although fairly full was quieter and less bustly than many Newtown cafes. Judging by the laptops out on a few tables I would assume there's free wifi too. It was a lovely afternoon talking about creativity and the future, and the perfect antidote to a dull afternoon.

Chopitty Chop Chop!

About a week ago I bought a copy of this. (Which despite the title is not about Lindsay, or Britney.) There is an element to my psyche that wants to be much more connected to the food I eat. To buy locally made produce, preferably organic. To make and store things to eat later. To enjoy and celebrate through cooking, experimenting and trying new tastes.

Of course this side of me is constantly at war with the side that wants to lie on the couch and eat takeaway forever. But I digress.

So my local supermarket has big bags of good tomatoes, at a reasonable price, and while they're not organic OR probably locally grown, they were inexpensive and good quality. Fast forward to tonight and I've spent much of it cutting up 500gs of onions, 2kgs of tomatoes, a couple of cooking apples, and along with vinegar, sugar, salt, garlic, mustard powder and curry powder I now have myself a big pot of chutney boiling on the stove. Chopped fine. That's a lot of chopping.

Now the house is filled with a delicious sweet vinegary smell. I just tasted a spoonful, even though it has a while to cook still, and OMG the sweet/sour balance tastes just about right. So soon I'll sterilise the motley collection of jam and pasta sauce jars I knew I was collecting for a reason, and just before I'm ready to collapse into bed (note to self, I should have started all the chopping earlier) I should have myself a monster batch! I'm already planning the crusty bread and sharp cheese... but I won't be making those. I know my limits.

Santa: The Original Funtime Bear

Discuss.



(I'm sorry, now I've started with the Christmas crapola... I just can't stop.)

5 Things About The Weekend Past: House Guest Edition

• House guest weekend! Tall & Handsome was here for a flying visit, before taking off to do some work committments and coming back on Wednesday for another round of hot & sweaty sexing visit. Yay. It was so nice to hang out together, and as free of weirdness and awkwardness as I hoped it would be.
  
• However, 2 light sleepers who both snore equals a recipe for sleep deprivation all round! Judicious napping (and occasional use of the sofa bed) was a help.
• Friday's new job celebrations carried over into the weekend, with a special dinner treat at one of my favourite Thai restaurants.
  
• Knitting! After skipping a week because of the Newtown Festival it was so nice to be back at the pub, hanging with my peeps and knitting on Sunday afternoon.
  
• Speaking of knitting, Tall & Handsome and I made a trip into the Kinokuniya bookstore in the city on Saturday, and I found one of the few men's knitting books where I would wear just about everything in it. This one's definitely going on the wish list.

New Reading

A few weeks ago, and before the British Pound and the Aussie Dollar began their freefall slide into disagreement, I bought a couple of novels from the UK website The Book Depository. One because it was much cheaper than I could buy locally, and other because I had looked for it for ages here in Sydney and never been able to find it. It wasn't until I started thinking about blogging this that I realised the other thing they have in common is that they are both largely set in the 1930s (the second of which was actually written in 1933, and then revised in 1936).

First up, "A Perfect Waiter" by Alain Claude Sulzer. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this book, which is a good thing really. It was certainly thought provoking and surprising. The novel jumps backwards and forwards between the 1960s and the 1930s, when the arrival of a couple of letters opens old wounds still present from a love affair 30 years previous. Erneste is a waiter at a Swiss lakeside resort in 1935, when the arrival of 19 year old Jakob awakens his desire.



The era is meticulously evoked, including the unsettled atmosphere as wealthy Jewish refugees pass through the resort on their way from Germany, fleeing the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Sulzer writes in a pared down and restrained manner, which captures the buttoned down viewpoint of closeted Erneste. Except for when his gaze falls upon Jakob. There are many themes, love, loss and betrayal for starters, but also how and why people grasp, or fail to grasp, opportunities. I think that the way Sulzer deals with the small and big betrayals, with both opportunism and it's inverse inaction, are really interesting and have parrallels in the setting and the timing of the novel.

Neil Bartlett's review is extensive and well considered, and there was a second (briefer) review in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Secondly, I just started the 1933 novel "Lost Horizon" by James Hilton yesterday. Probably too early to review it, but I'm so pleased to have it after being such a fan of the original 1930s film for many years. (We don't speak of the 1970s musical remake. Liv Ulman singing? It has to be seen to be believed. Actually, even then you may not believe it.)



Like any book from which a favourite film hath sprung, there is always that disconnect where the book and the film vary. Some of the characters are different in the novel, and the framing device that set-ups the story was ditched in the film. Having said that, I'm enjoying it very much so far and its differences make it more interesting in a way. It likewise deals with a world on the edge of war and the effects of the Depression. Its themes of hope and the search for a safe refuge against struggle are probably somewhat apropos for our recent times, but then they are big grand themes that will always be part of the human psyche.

5 Things About Tuesday, 7th October: No Lead In My Pencil Edition

• Daylight Savings time! I love Daylight Savings time, but the first few work days always leave me feeling like I'm a bit jetlagged. Not, "just got back from Italy" jetlagged, but more like "just got back from Perth" jetlagged. It's the first few days of getting out of bed an hour earlier that does it.
  
• It is possible to have Mondayitis on a Tuesday.
  
• I forgot to take my book with me for the bus this morning, and then I thought about doing the Sudoko I had in my bag instead. Tragedy! My pencil was broken. So I did the only reasonable thing and stared at the tall, pretty French boy sitting opposite instead.
  
• Speaking of books, I was excited to see that Gregory Maguire has a new "Wicked" sequel out - A Lion Among Men. I saw it in my local bookstore's window, so I think I might have to treat myself and grab it this week. Time to plan some Summer Reading!
  
• I've been curious to buy the original novel of "Lost Horizon" by James Hilton (pub. 1933) for ages, as I'm such a fan of the film. It's been hard to find in a bookstore, so I ordered it online last week. I like having a paperback novel to cart around on the bus (I mean, you can't count on there being pretty boys to look at all the time), but I didn't realise that if I had wanted to I could have downloaded the original version for free.

10 Commas, 2 Semicolons, 1 Colon And Something About A Field Rambling Dryad

I love commas, I'm cautious but enthusiastic about semicolons, and have been known to be the architect of sentences that run on longer than last night's Emmy's. Having said that, I read (and actually reread a couple of times) this sentence on the bus this morning and felt like stopping for a cup of tea and a digestive around half way through.

I quote:

"The new manner in art, the fresh mode of looking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence of one who was unconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in dim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing herself, Dryad-like and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for her there had been awakened that wonderful vision to which alone are wonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things becoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolic value, as though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect form whose shadow they made real: how strange it all was!"

Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Hole-y crap! I've retyped it and am still struggling with it. Dryad what? Which field? Whose perfect form? Whatevs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually loving "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" so far, the occasional Everest sentence notwithstanding. Or maybe because of them, because frankly it makes my comma usage seem stingy by comparison! Plus, there is at least one thrillingly quotable line per page, but then I would expect nothing less of dear Oscar.

Change In Mood

I was primed to write a bit of a whinetastic entry today, with complaints about too much work to do, too little support, expectations that are too high. Blah de blah. The sort of day we've all had numerous times over in our lives.

I shot this pic in a laneway on the weekend, the rear exit of Lucky's pizzeria.

Scratch that. I had a pleasant walk-and-bus-ride-combo trip home with one of the girls from work, enjoyed a short stroll through Newtown and arrived home to find a book I ordered online only about a week ago waiting for me in the letterbox. Score! Bad mood gone!

BTW, it pains me to say this because I am a big believer in supporting the local independent booksellers, but I'm a new fan of the UK online bookseller The Book Depository. The books vary in discount, but many are really cheap compared to the Australian retail price, and they airmail all orders for free. I bought 3 books the other day for the same price as I would have paid for the most expensive of the 3 in a store here, and the first of them arrived today, only about a week after I ordered. Amazing service. I'll still keep buying books locally, but for harder to find books this is a pretty cool option.

Funny how a mood can change so quickly! What I need to remind myself is that all it takes is a change of perspective, maybe a bit of distraction, and perhaps a pleasant stroll. And finding a little 'gift' in the letterbox doesn't hurt either. I'm such a pushover for a new book.

New Diversions (Or: Entertainment For The Budget Savvy Homosexualist!)

I was in Kinokuniya early this evening and noticed they had a big display of classic Penguins for $9.95. Bargain! Plus they're so titchy, and the covers are kind of thin, and the paper is kind of even thinner. In other words, a bit of a non-modern experience in this post-modern world. Sized and flexible enough for a blazer pocket. You know, should the punting on the river get tiresome.

I have an informal list in my head, the Books I Should Read Before I Die list, and it just so happened that a bunch of them were on the display. I was going to grab three, but then decided to just grab two.



Pretend for a minute you don't know me, what about me would you derive from this selection? Oscar & Truman. Here's a hint the third book, the one I put back, was by E.M. Forster. Anyone? (OK, another hint - I can't whistle either.)

Anyhoo, there is a theme, and that theme is entertainment on a budget!

I also bought two discounted DVDs yesterday. One most excellent, and one... well, nice try. The excellent one was Season 1 of a little show you may have heard of, a little show about Vince Noir (King of the Mods) and Howard Moon (the Jazz Maverick, Monsoon Moon and don't you forget it) and their adventures in the Zooniverse... called The Mighty Boosh. (Wikipedia entry.)





OMG, hi-larious. It was one of those shows I caught snippets of every now and then late at night, and heard good buzz about, but never saw a full episode of. Well I caught a full Season 3 episode on SBS the other night and knew the buzz was true. So I picked up Season 1 post haste, and wasn't disappointed.

The other DVD was a, well, earnest and well intentioned gay film called Defying Gravity. Now I will freely admit that when it comes to judging harshly, I usually give indie gay flicks a bit of a free pass. Traditionally they have been hard to get made, with low budgets, and often with a cast of actors that are just starting their careers. (Actually, according to imdb some of them had no film or tv career they are aware of after this flick. Including the supporting actor whose name I adore - Seabass Diamond.)

There were a couple of quite good performances in the film, but they just threw the weaker actors into sharp relief. Not in a good way. With a more polished script and a more experienced director (this was his only directorial effort, although he has had a full writing and editorial career) some of those gaps might have been smoothed over. So nice try and good intentions, but I won't be adding it to my list of faves (either part 1, or part 2).

You know, I still might go back and get that Forster. And maybe the Gabriel Garcia Marquez... was he a poof too?