did you know that steph bowe is really funny?

i went to hear steph in conversation today at the writers' festy. not only was she well-spoken and supremely sophisticated, she made the school kids there really interested (i was so impressed with those kids, actually, their questions were great) and she made some brilliantly dry quips that had me in hysterics. so here's me:
my review of girl saves boy will go up tomorrow (probably)

coffee : cornershop cafe

the cornershop cafe in yarraville does the best coffee in the wild west. well, at least in yarraville. occasionally i'll get a coffee that's been slightly over-extracted, but thankfully it doesn't happen all that often!

their menu is delicious and there are lots of options for vegetarians, which is nice. if you go for lunch or dinner i really recommend the zucchini fritters and my friends tell me the meatballs are wonderful. for breakfast i often get the fruit toast, and sometimes what i call the "fancy scrambled eggs" - the eggs with cavolo nero and herbs.

the atmosphere is bustling but organised - sometimes on the weekend you do have to wait a loooong time because every single person in yarraville is trying to eat there - and it's particularly nice in the evenings when they dim the lights and there are candles on the tables.

this review is great. plus you get to see all the beautiful people who work there. and even one of my colleagues (i shan't say which one she is, in case she's shy)

just a wee disclaimer - this place is next door to my work. therefore, i go there all the time and feel like i own the place.

three new favourites

coffee: green tambourine take two

so since my review i have been back to the green tambourine to try the coffee again. it was better this time and i drank it all (it was made by a man, not the girl who made them last time) but it wasn't great. it was scalding hot, slightly bitter, and the milk was not done properly:

the people who work there are very friendly and willing to please. the food looks fresh. people seemed to be enjoying themselves. oh! in particular, this is apparently a pram- and child-friendly place, so that's nice. and they use organic foods so i am sure the eggs are delish.

but the coffee just isn't to my taste. which is all i really care about in a cafe. (oh, and no tv)

i will love you at all - darren hanlon

i will love you at all

another brilliant album from the talents of darren hanlon, nomad folksinger, friendly, funny and engaging performer. none of his albums have disappointed me, in fact all have floored me with their excellent lyrics and toons. the harmonies are amazing and i mostly choose to sing those (loudly in the car). he plays guitar and banjo and a ukelele.

a highlight of the new album is the magnificently beautiful scenes from a separation, which chronicles the demise of a relationship:

we earmarked our august vacation as a fine place to fall apart
and we heard that a trial separation was a quaint idea for a new start
then the city approached like a bandit
my hands shook as they gripped the wheel
as if i'd aways known there's no place like home
to show you the way that you feel

this bit doesn't really come across fully when prosaically written, but it rolls and repeats and is lovely in song:

you offer two corners of the sheet we fold over and over and over again and then in the middle we meet.

and the song's also funny (bittersweet funny):

right now i'm watching a drummer
haul his drums into a bar
and deep down i'm secretly happy
that i play the harmonica
no i'm not saying i'm lazy
i just take more time to digress
and i've more than three ways i empty my days
now that you're not around to impress

butterfly bones for the opening line of the whole album:

when one year ends and another begins and the sky is a shower of sparks
with your skinny girl arms with their hairs on their ends like exclamation marks

folk insommnia for the following:

but i grew up in a big hurry
and then one day i start to worry
that i am gonna be a goner
before i read all the books i wanna
and if i plant a tree now it'll be fully grown
long after i'm just dust and bone

...

so i'll just plant a tree i'll never see grow
put a seed in the ground where no one will know
gonna make my plan when the morning breaks
but i just don't know how long it'll take

i went to his instore at polyester records in the city a couple of weeks ago which was an intimate and hilarious gig. then last friday (the 20th) it was the offical launch of the new record at the delightfully gaudy and ostentatious thornbury theatre. the place was packed. i was so impressed with his drummer sarah who didn't really know some of his earlier songs, but just had a bash and really gave the already fantastic song (there aren't enough songs about) squash a new oomph. and i laughed my way through the song-in-a-day number 17 about not catching a bus (and the girls' hand claps especially).

watch this video clip.

darren lives here

review: good oil

Good Oil, Laura Buzo (Allen & Unwin)

Amelia is 15 and has just got a job at Woolies, where she meets 21-year-old Chris and she is fairly instantly smitten. They click right away, spend their breaks discussing literature and philosophy and there are moments where Amelia thinks that maybe she is in with a chance. Buzo has perfectly captured the somewhat obsessive nature of teenage crushes, as Amelia analyses the smallest of exchanges and looks.

‘I am acutely aware of Chris’ movements at work. I see him approaching even when I’m studying a bag of beans to distinguish whether they’re broad beans or round beans. I know which girls he has talked to throughout the shift. I know when he’s preoccupied or playful by the way he moves. I know it all. Sometime I mutter his name under my breath like a madwoman.’ (p31-32)

After 90 pages of Amelia’s point of view, the reader becomes privy to Chris’ side of the story through diary entries (mostly drunken) and we realise that Chris is struggling with some love questions himself. Though it at times seemed a little didactic (or at least strangely over-explanatory) when Chris lectures Amelia on the history of feminism, it still was very interesting to have the topic broached.

I have a little niggle – when Chris is lambasting Amelia over the thing that happens at Bianca’s party I found myself laughing at what he was saying, and his manner, before realising a few pages later that he was actually supposed to be a serious exchange, and not a playful, hilarious one. I’d be interested to know if others read it the way it was intended, or if they had the same reaction as me.

Overall, Good Oil is a very enjoyable read for both girls and boys (though mostly girls) and is a great first novel.

remembering henrietta dugdale

with the election looming and a somewhat sombre and yet anxious feeling mumbling and grumbling around me everywhere i go, it makes me frightened and sad just how many youths i know who are so apathetic and generally unwilling to put effort in to care at all. but on the other hand there are many who are so passionate and i feel so sorry they can't vote - when they know more than me and are actually out there working for their cause already. i can only imagine the frustration.

but it's made me muse about all those people who have fought for my right to vote and how we must not take it for granted.

i was involved in a project at uni in 2007 where we were to write essays on an aspect, or a figure, of the fight for female suffrage in victoria (which was achieved in 1908) and we published our essays in a rather neat book entitled they are but women: the road to female suffrage in victoria and it was launched by former vic premier joan kirner.

i wrote about this fantastically eccentric woman named henrietta dugdale, who lived from 1826-1918 and campaigned vocally for the cause. she was saucy and clever. she wore trousers that she fashioned herself, was skilled in carpentry and grew her own food. journalists and critics called her unwomanly and a he-woman - the former in an entertaining article in the punch magazine in 1884. she spoke out about women's rights in legislation and was the president of the victorian women's suffrage society.

henrietta also wrote a novel, which you can read at the state library of victoria, called a few hours in a far-off age (it was published in 1883). the novel is narrated by a woman who has time travelled from the (1883) present day to a year far in the future. the woman, whom one would assume was based on henrietta herself, spends a number of hours observing a family examine a museum exhibit specialising in the nineteenth century ‘christian era’, which is otherwise known in the future as ‘the age of blood and malevolence.’ the mother, an extremely wise and self-possessed woman, encourages her teenage son and daughter to question and understand this horrific era in human development but to remember not to judge their ancestors by the standards of modern life. they look at the clothing (so restrictive!) their politics and even their inferior intelligence. i'd really recommend anyone to go and read it.

the other essays in the book cover other quirky female figures such as brettena smythe, who championed birth control and was also part of the suffrage society, bessie harrison lee, who was the more conservative (but no less passionate) leader of the temperance society, a wonderful piece about the everyday women of davis street who signed the 'monster' petition for women's suffrage of 1891. there are essays on the commemorative fountains you see around melbourne and even one on the maligned sir thomas bent, premier of victoria and who reluctantly, but finally, had the women's suffrage bill passed into law in 1908.