we are all clapping, all of the time

Sometimes a girl has to put down her books and go in search of a song.

Fortunately, this girl didn't have to look very far.

Beyond the Bathroom Choir is a weekly singing group for people who just want to sing, whether or not they're great singers. You can come every week or just drop in when you feel like it. We all have a couple of drinks during the evening, meet new folk during the break and learn songs by ear (in four part harmonies).

I think we sounded pretty darn good during our performance at the Sydney Road Street Party last month.



beyondthebathroom.org

The title of this post came from a recent confusion while learning Pharrell's Happy. There's so much clapping in this song. Clapping in time, out of time... But Pippa set us straight. We are all clapping, all of the time. It'll probably be the title of our biography when we're famous singers beyond the bathroom.

Visiting Fitzroy

From time to time you meander from Brunswick to even more inner inner-north suburbs. You can go to the artists' market and buy tea-towels as presents for friends who think butter makes everything better.

When you lived on the cusp between Carlton and here you knew this place like the proverbial back of the hand. But that was a frightening number of years ago.

Visiting now, you might get a shock when you realise there is now a cafe where the Rose Street brothel used to be.

It's called Grace. The Syndicate coffee's good and breakfast is tasty (and you can order a berocca, with no judgement, it says so on the menu). This change isn't quite as good as a holiday, but perhaps not a bad weekend.

Rose Street Artists' Market website
Visit Grace's website
Buy stuff from Able & Game

away from home and back again

Heading Home

Pushing it to a hundred

flanked by paperbacks and pines.

Their branches tremble,

startled by the high-beam halo.

Velvet Underground

drowning out the engine.

Singing the choruses and

dipping lights for oncomers.

Mumbling the verses

and slowing to eighty

through Balnarring and Hastings.

heading for the city,

the freeway and the lights.

Leaving the winter coast

and the house without curtains

for another weekend.

 

- Adam Ford, Not Quite the Man for the Job (buy it here)

Reading this, I'm reminded of the song Animals by The Guild League, which begins:

Clouds of feathers fleece and foam,
halfway to my childhood home.
In the car and on my own,
white lines where the road is sewn.
Stitches holding down the car,
beside the sun under the stars.
Through the evening coloured so
like pink champagne and eye-shadow.

It's on their album Inner North (buy it here)

Ira in my life

When I listen to This American Life podcasts I usually spend most of the hour looking like this:

Beth "cry-baby" March

But it is totally worth it for the surprising, entertaining, shocking, hilarious and and nearly always moving stories that it collects and presents.* Like the episode Neighbourhood Watch, in which an older woman searches for people who might volunteer to be friends with her middle-aged Autistic son, so that when she dies he won't be left all alone. In which we hear about how regular everyday postmen save lives, stop fraud and get to know the people they deliver mail to daily. In which a man takes his baby daughter for a walk around the block for the first time and it's the most terrifying walk he's ever taken - because he's blind.

Also, I have a rather large crush on the nerdy host, Ira Glass. 

Ira "HandsomeInGlasses" Glass

When he came to town earlier this year I discovered I was not alone in my affection. Dagnammit. Many fellow admirers packed out the Athenaeum Theatre**. That time he wandered the stage, controlling music and audio clips from the iPad cradled in his arm and talked about what made a great story, and how great a medium radio is for telling these stories.

But now! Now you can go to the Cinema Nova and you can watch a two-hour long live This American Life show - with bonus visuals! Great animations, a short film, dance, music - the works! A cast of impeccable storytellers, and dishy Ira. It's absolutely brilliant, and includes David Sedaris. Wouldn't it be great to bottle these real life stories and then take them apart to figure out how to recreate it in fiction? Are they so amazing because they're spoken out loud, usually by the people to whom the story actually happened?

The very visual story about the discovery of Vivian Maier's photographs was the highlight for me, I think (oh, it was all so good). Check out her amazing photographs from the 50s and 60s here.

photo by Vivian Maier

Get tickets here. Last shows this weekend.

Visit the This American Life website.

* Totally worth the ugly, chin-wobbling sobfest. I just don't listen on the tram anymore. 
**Threatening via twitter to throw their undies.

The Rag & Bone Man Press

Come one, come all, to the Official Rag and Bone Man Press Launch!


Immerse yourself in a swanky labyrinth of writers, publishers, spinsters & governesses, and raise a martini to an era of quality prose in the staggeringly glamorous surrounds of The Butterfly Club.


Featuring live readings from Rag and Bone Man Press authors.


Get in your wheelbarrows and barrow on down. We'll see you there!

 TONIGHT! Friday 25 May at 7.30pm

Who are these larrikins, you ask?

Lovers of writing exciting and fresh, welcome to The Rag and Bone Man Press. We are a specialty publishing house, promoting and editing fiction and non-fiction by undiscovered and up-and-coming writers. Our aim is to track down, gather and publish unique writing on our website and as print-on-demand and e-books.


Rag & Bone encourages creative collaborations, holding Salon meetings where writers come together on a regular basis, to keep the energy and ideas for their writing and projects alive. Rag & Bone enables these writers, and communities whose resources and opportunities are limited, to have their voices heard. If you have any ideas for a project – everything from stories derived from world issues like the environment, human rights, or personal accounts, to YA fiction, short stories, poetry or collections of folk tales – please contact us to discuss.


Rag & Bone was founded by Dan Christie, Keira Dickinson and Hannah Cartmel, all of whom work in publishing and creative enterprises across Melbourne. 

I'm going to read my story about this guy:


Tom Hanks on WhoSay

And there will be more readings and music and cocktails - what else could you ask for on a Friday night?

I'm looking forward to it so much that I don't even care that I have to wander southside to attend.

Writers: Rag & Bone want your stories! Send them in! Send them all in!

Visit their website at: www.ragandboneman.org

a weekend adventure southside

Anchors away!
Granted one last summer's day
We watched the sunset silhouette
The western suburbs across the bay
And when the sky was monochrome
We drained our drinks and headed home
Past bright-eyed boys in business suits
Tourists, where once were prostitutes

And you proposed a promenade
Neither of us knows
Follow the yellow brick apartment blocks
The Californian bungalows

But remember when you're wandering alongside
The river has a right side and a wrong side
Remember when you're wandering alongside
The river has a right side and a wrong side

I confess it's been a year, or little less
Since last I sallied forth
From the friendly confines of the north
But a single seagull's cry hangs in the quiet suburban sky
And for a moment I'm amazed
I ever claimed to hate this place

But remember when you're wandering alongside
The river has a right side and a wrong side
Just remember when you're wandering alongside
The river has a right side and a wrong side

~ Transpontine, The Lucksmiths

coffee : 1000 £ bend

I was late to this party. All the cool kids know about this place already.

I walked into 1000 £ Bend and felt instantly at home. Either that, or transported. It's like the Tardis version of that old gem St Jerome's - all the same stuff but bigger space. Is it owned by the same people? I don't know. I do know that all the kitch "art" from St Jerome's is on the walls and the squeezy bench seats are back (and now with more space!) and that I like it quite a lot.

It's a warehouse with a huge space out the back for all kinds of events, launches, exhibitions and an underground cinema.

The coffee is tasty but very milky (only full cream or soy on offer) and I would prefer a stronger coffee - shall order a double shot next time.

With lots of couches, chairs and tables (some communal), the affordable and tasty-looking food, great music, nice people and good beer on tap (they have their own St Jerome's Caledonian lager, I liked it) and longnecks too - plus free wifi...both times I've been here I've stayed for hours.

361 Little Lonsdale Street.
They have a website here.

allez viens je t'emmene au vent

Feeling awfully lazy. I blame the blue skies and sunshine.

Went along to the Melbourne Writers Festy today and wandered in and out of a couple of sessions, slightly vaguely. Nick Earls is just great, funny and friendly and everything he says makes such sense and I really felt like writing a novel was achievable for about fifteen minutes there. Maggie Stiefvater was extremely energetic and spoke so fast sometimes I missed what she was saying but then she explained that she just wanted to write books that made people so emotional that they cried - the big snotty sobbing kind of crying - and this amused me. I was really impressed with the questions the audience asked.

I’ve been reading the blog Hyperbole and a Half quite obsessively because Allie is hilarious and self-deprecating and likes grammar and dogs. I like this blog alot.

In reading news, Kate Constable's Crow Country is amazing. I wrote a little thing about it on the Younger Sun blog. You can read Kate's blog here.

Rereading Mahalia and feeling a funny old feeling now that I have heard Jo Horniman pronounce it ma-HAY-lia when i’ve been pronouncing it ma-HAH-lia this whole time. It's a feeling sort of like an existential crisis plus foolishness.

A friend came home from Africa and brought back the DVD of Spud for us to watch. This is v exciting because this is one of the funniest books I have ever read. The funniest three books I've ever read.

And then I looked at some baby elephants thanks to my Marvellous friend's twitter link.

All these things made me feel better about the Chelsea Hotel closing down without me ever getting to stay there and how BHP is going to make ooh a roughly TWENTY BILLION DOLLAR profit this year and how the newspapers hardly ever publish any articles about young adult literature.

But anyway. Here you can watch and listen to Louise Attaque's song Je t'emmene au vent. It is a supremely daggy film clip but a top song.

national bookshop day

tomorrow you go to a bookshop. go directly to a bookshop.* do not pass go, do not collect $200.
national bookshop day. it's all part of making sure people remember how incredibly wonderful bookshops are and the job they do within the community. it's about sticking it to the man. you know that scene at the end of empire records? it's going to be pretty much exactly like that.**

the sun bookshop and the younger sun are having a 10am story time with our favourite local (man) william mcinnes for the kidlets and their swooning mums (and dads) and then at 1pm we are launching the rerelease of our favourite local (woman) kerry greenwood's novel medea.

we we we so excited, we so excited.***

and hannah's been making the shop all clean for you.

*though if you detour or deviate in the direction of coffee you will most likely be forgiven. especially if you bring me one. a skinny latte, thanks.

**it will probably be absolutely nothing like that. but awesome nonetheless.

***forgive me for THAT!

she keeps a 38 smith and wesson at her side

the felice brothers melbourne show at the prince of wales, st kilda

If Bob was far away, then The Felice Brothers were the opposite. In my face. Steppin' on my toes (literally. Ian jumped off the stage and cheered his own band from the crowd) and LOUD. Some of their enthusiastic singer-spit even flew at us and we didn't even mind, because everyone was having a good time...except that douchebag who was being an annoying douchy loser, but even he I forgot, once the guys came out and launched into Murder by Mistletoe - honestly, an interesting, slow choice for an opener, but we just went with it. And fracks, it was a great show.


These self-confessed "dirtbags from New York" looked a little, um...sleepy...when they first came onstage but distinguished themselves well and leapt around stage, talking to us, talking to one another in between the songs. James and his piano accordion were spectacular, in particular his solo song Got What I Need (I think many of us fell in love with him). And the bread thrown into the audience? Fabulously hilarious! 'Take this bread if you need it friend...'

The crowd were all fans (well, those at the. very. front. row. where we were, err were) and of all ages. They came back on for a rambunctious encore, including a great scrappy version of Frankie's Gun. Then, a second (and hard-earned, on our part) encore of Whiskey in my Whiskey. I could have stayed all night. And a friend pinched the set list.

Love 'em.

My baby told me, darling
If you can't get a pardon better get a parole
I told her I'd be out by morning
When the sun is dawning
With a money roll
Oh-wee that gal's the gal for me
She loves me tenderly
-- love me tenderly

his bobness : live in melbourne

the two men sitting behind me at rod laver arena discussed the furore that followed dylan going electric at newport in '65, but of course his tour in australia in '66, well there's just not a lot written on it...i love a dylan tragic. they were out in force at the rod laver arena last wednesday.

papa bear and i just hoped bob would sing something we could recognise. he did. in his own special way: a voice that sounds like he's gargling whiskey and gravel, a spiffy suit and hat and a couple of rockin' dance moves. i swear it's contrariness that sends his songs spinning in a new arrangement every year. highlights for me were tangled up in blue and simple twist of fate. they were closer to the originals and the band didn't bang on too loud or too long.

rod laver arena sucks though. bob was just too far away. so impersonal. and chilly. i don't think i shall go there again. it had none of the ambiance of other old rocker concerts i've been to.

did i say that bob was far away? (click to enlarge) though the lighting was fantastic, in the absence of screens (damn your contrariness bob!) his silhouette was uplit and projected large onto the back of the stage - i could philosophise on the many meanings behind this, and interpreted from this, larger-than-life, a false modesty, ...

he finished the evening with forever young. a beautiful song, which is now a fab children's book with great illustrations, full of references to his songs and his life. perfect for the offspring of dylan tragics.

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young

trailer for the book:

reviews of the concert here and here.

brkich gives me things

in a stroke of rare luck, i won a competition this week and just today i received my prize!


a gorgeous hand-printed cushion from burgeoning melbourne fashion label brkich (you say it "bur-kitch"). brkich's queen belinda does all the screen printing herself, from her own designs and then makes her fabric into tops, shorts and these wonderful wrap skirts that tuck up in seemingly random places - to fabulous effect. she also makes brooches and other accessories and i would highly recommend you have a little look-see.

i love my cushion. it makes my granny chair* and me very happy.

visit brkich's blog

*actually given to me by my little granny

vis ink...in stores now

it was quite remarkable to see this:

turn into this:


visible ink is a student-run literary anthology out of the RMIT professional writing and editing diploma. last year we received around 200 submissions for this edition. i wish i had a picture of the piles of submissions to show you, very unruly and wonderful. out of that 200 we had to select a tiny sample for the journal (there were only a few heated discussions). and with such a diverse bunch of editors and readers on the selection committee, we ended up with such a delightful mishmash of pieces: 16 stories. 11 poems. 12 images.

the editing process was probably my favourite part of being on the visible ink team. emailing and talking to the authors about their words and stories - perhaps seeing a little something that they could no longer see, knowing their piece as well as they did. learning a little something about inDesign (being thrown in the deep end a little) was horrible and fantastic at the same time. i felt just a touch proud of me when it was all over. i hope all 'our' authors are happy with the finished product - we are so grateful for their talent.

here's the first piece in the anthology (one of my absolute faves):


The Sniper on the State Library Dome
by Michael Crane

The man with madness
in his eye looked down
and aimed his high-powered rifle
at the many people on the street
below and fired and yelled
‘This is because I read Jewel's
a night without armour and she
did not love me.' He put another
bullet in the chamber and fired and said,
'I read Bukowski and I'm tougher
than him.' He moved his position
to the left of the dome, reloaded
and fired and hit a woman
on her way to work at the library
and he said, ‘This is for the Great Gatsby
because I loved Daisy.' He fired a few
more shots and hit a man reading Playboy
in a newsagency. He decided his killing spree
was too slow so he took out a submachine gun
and fired at the pedestrians on the street.
‘This is because of Hemingway,' he said,
'for running with the bulls and this one
is for James Joyce writing books
I could not understand and this
Is because Gertrude Stein was too fat
and this is because Truman Capote
was gay and take that Homer, Shakespeare
and Chaucer for rhyming with obscure words.'
He ran out of bullets and took out knives
and stared to hurl them down
as the policemen snuck up behind him
and wrestled him down to the ground
and a few weeks after his trial
he was led to the execution chamber
and the priest took out the Bible
and the man said, ‘Not another book!’
And he screamed all the way down
to the electric chair until the very end.

you can buy visible ink at readings bookstores, the sun bookshop in yarraville and by snail mail (contact the committee via the website). if you are of a writerly persuasion, submissions will surely open soon for this year's vis ink. keep your pens poised and your eyes peeled.

review : angel creek

Angel Creek, Sally Rippin (Text Publishing)

On Christmas Eve, Jelly and her cousins Gino and little Pik find a baby angel with an injured wing in a storm water drain down at the Merri Creek*. Not a cute cherubic angel in a gown that you might see in religious paintings, but a feral scrap of a thing – a tiny ferocious angel-child in a tattered dress, with wings something like a pelican. They decide to hide the angel in the toolshed at the local primary school (closed for the summer) and help fix its wing – keeping it a secret from their parents, as well as the aggressive high school boys on bikes that threaten Jelly.

Like a freshly hatched duckling who thinks the first thing it sees is its mama, the angel attaches itself quite viciously to Jelly and will only respond to her – which makes Gino jealous. Pik doesn’t quite understand the secret and tells people about the angel, but they just say “isn’t that lovely” and tell the angry Jelly and Gino that if Pik wants to believe in angels then he is allowed to.

Jelly doesn’t seem to notice her (sometimes offhand and selfish) wishes coming true, in ways she would have never consciously intended – such as when she wishes something would happen to keep Gino and Pik from leaving – The angel stirred and a shiver passed through it like the faintest breeze – and Nonna gets sick and is taken to hospital.

Angel Creek is a really beautiful exploration of a time of change for a young person – Jelly has had to move house and is facing her first year at high school when the summer is over. There's the story of the boy who drowned down the creek, the understanding that Nonnas won't live forever and those butterflies when maybe, just maybe, you've got your first crush on a boy. All these extra flourishes give Jelly's story that little extra oomph. Exquisitely written, and exploring the loss of innocence, kindness, kinship and a certain kind of faith, this book is fantastical (but not fantasy, it’s firmly rooted in reality), effortlessly metaphorical and a little bit magic.

*The kids were not supposed to be down at the creek, but it was a too fascinating and exciting place not to explore. This is true. I live near there. It's scary and smelly and awesome.

she said 'do me a favour if you wanna be my saviour then you're gonna have to learn how to sing'

It's been one of those weeks where there's many many things to do, places to go, people to see, coffees to drink and books to read.

Coming up on bean there, read that there are lots of reviews of very exciting and wonderful books. Here is a taster:

How to say goodbye in robot, Natalie Standiford

One of the best and most beautiful books I have read in a while. It's an intelligent and heart-rending story about Bea aka Robot Girl and what happens when she tried to befriend the prickly and odd Jonah, also known as Ghost Boy. Kind of Paper Towns meets Stargirl.

The Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters, Natalie Standiford

After Robot I had to go and read anything, anything else by Natalie. This one was quite different, but extremely hilarious and equally well written. Someone has offended Lou Almighty and must confess or else the entire Sullivan family will be cut from her substantial will.

Angel Creek, Sally Rippin

Jelly, languishing in that summer between year six and year seven, is hanging out with her cousins Pik and Gino down the Merri Creek when they find a baby angel with a broken wing. It's absolutely marvellous - for those middling readers and for grown-ups too. I kept expecting Cedar B to pop around the corner...

The Our Australian Girl series

The historian in me (lying essentially dormant since honours ended in 2007) gets a sense of glee when fab historical fiction comes out for young Australian readers. These four books were all brilliant. More on them later.

Yellowcake, Margo Lanagan

Still reading...don't interrupt. Margo's stories blow me away, no exceptions. But my lovely pal Clare describes this collection even better than I think I will be able to when she said (in her Bookseller and Publisher review, latest edition Junior term 1): "Each one is truly elegant, possessing a haunting, often unnerving quality that leaves the innards of the story lingering long after the last page is turned."

Other Very Exciting Things emerging in the next little while...

• I reviewed A Pocketful of Eyes (Lili Wilkinson) and The Dead I Know (Scot Gardner) for the next Junior edition of B+P and cannot wait to share my thoughts on those when I can.
• The Reading Matters conference is coming up in May. Get tickets, ok?
• Literary anthology Visible Ink will be launched at the John Curtin on March 2nd from 6.30pm. I've worked really hard on this. Come see.
• How to say goodbye in robot is available at the Younger Sun Bookshop in Yarraville. Go there and buy it.

And with no more to-do, here is the latest Darren Hanlon film clip, directed by Natalie van den Dungen, for the song Butterfly Bones*:

*if you don't like it i will be forced to believe you have no heart. truly.

that merry old creek

have been down the merri creek looking for angels*...



i hope they can swim.


*inspired by my sneaky preview copy of sally rippin's angel creek which is an impeccably beautiful novel.UPDATE: i have a written review of this darling book here.

the bagel also rises

oh lordy. i've been back to new day rising a number of times now and their bagels are just divine. pictured is the bagel with avocado, relish and tahini. i've also tried the avo/relish/persian feta - which, as an aside, seems to be the new fromage du jour, the previous doyenne of dairy toppings the meredith goats cheese falling slightly out of favour perhaps (unfairly) - and it was equally nomnom. i love the tahini taste though, makes the bagel seem kind of luxurious and decadent while the feta gives it a peppy, fresh taste. and the coffee is perfect every time.

coffee : new day rising

new day rising is a such cute little cafe. have been there a few times now and the coffee is excellent - and cheap.

pleasantly hipster. awesome music.

fabulous menu. please note that coffees are only $3...just $3! (add 50c for soy (grr) but they make it with bonsoy, which is delish)

lovely lovely staff in their teeny tiny space.

221d blyth st brunswick east. right at the end of the 96 tram line, near rrr.

punter's club reunion show

check it out!

before it was called bimbos and served cheap pizzas to the drunken masses (hey, before brunswick street was gentrified and filled with colour-by-numbers hipsters and tourists) the building that sits on the corner of brunswick and rose streets was an excellent live music venue called the punters club. when it closed, people were sad. but now there's a couple of nights for nostalgia and tribute and hopefully much drunkenness and music.

and so, in tribute, (as always) THE LUCKSMITHS:

Requiem for the Punter's Club

Have you been drinking?
'Cause it's not too late to start
There's still a week
Before they come and pull the place apart
And I was thinking
I have sorrows to be drowned
Too complete to contemplate
Without a friend around

On Brunswick Street the bits of broken glass
Sparkle brighter than the six or seven stars

And I'm reminded
Of a Sunday afternoon
How the sunlight caught the cigarette smoke
Curling through the room
And you behind it
Your hair in rubber bands
One more for the footpath
And we walked home holding hands

Like the weekenders and window-shoppers do
We were happier than either of us knew

So act surprised
It's been a while since I came calling
I know it's late
But old times' sake and all that junk
I'll be alright
We'll make tonight tomorrow morning

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows you're drunk

up with rainy days and with poetry!

here is my favourite bit of allen ginsberg's howl.

so, as we all know, it begins -

'i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked...'

then it goes -

'who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade,
who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried,'