It's only a rumour at the moment, but I hear the liquor store on Temperance Street is soon to be bulldozed to make way for the Irony Bypass.
Sunday 27 July 2008
Saturday 26 July 2008
it's a big storm. Or, a storm that is big
Here's an inter-island ferry attempting to get itself out of Wellington harbour. This sort of thing is exactly why I’ve spent a Very Long Time sitting in Rotorua airport, comatose and cracked out on Gravol, waiting for Wellington airport to open long enough for the actual landing of one or two planes. Welly is a weather blackspot, and to have any sort of transportation therein or thereout, besides walking, is a ridiculous proposal. The ferry and the planes are cancelled more than they run. The attitude of the pilot towards our flight there, in the end, was more or less ‘let’s give it a whirl and see what happens, and if we end up in Palmerston North, well, them’s the breaks. Hold tight!’I just finished reading a book, and I think I was disappointed by the editing. There was one place with pointless repetition that didn’t appear intentional, didn’t help, and just felt sloppy and annoying and as if it should’ve been caught by someone before it got to print. A childhood ‘rite of initiation’ is described. It becomes an ‘unwritten rule’ in a game. Then, the rite of initiation is described. It’s mentioned that it became, so to speak, an unwritten rule. And then we’re told that it was a rite of initiation.
I suppose, in 90,000 words or so, we’d all have a tendency to repeat ourselves. Or, to put it another way, in writing a book of approximately 90,000 words, we might tend towards repetition. But isn’t that a crackerjack good reason for having an editor? Isn’t it her job to don the ruthless cardigan of clarity and mention that you appear to have left in your final draft the two different versions of the same bit, of which you were intending to delete one and forgot? I’d go so far as to call that something of an unwritten rule.
It’s not a big deal. But if I were the author, I’d be annoyed with myself and my editor for not picking it up, and for me as a reader, it stood out enough from the rest of the otherwise jolly good story that it broke up the flow of reading and made me feel sort of cross and impatient.
How about you? Ever read a book you thought would’ve benefitted from the editor not working on it at the end of a long week while sitting in front of The Rich List?
Sunday 20 July 2008
...and then two come along at once
I know, right? You wait a year for a folk festival, and... Last weekend, the Womad-esque Sunfest; this, the Home County Folk Festival, which is very like Sidmouth was before it got so pleased with itself. Needless to say, full beard code was strictly enforced. (the Folk–vs.–Womad beard ratio is about two to one, and Home County is right on schedule for fulfilling its quota).
I fear, without intervention, I could easily become a mandolin-whore. There was much top-class mandolin action. James and his buddy Darrin even very kindly answered a number of my spectacularly ill-explained questions and set me further on the road to getting to grips with the thing.
Mandolin haiku
O mandolin men
F5 or A5, you are
The hottest folkies.
(Incidentally, I got the best answer out of these guys on the F5-or-A5 question. The F5 mandolin is, apparently, “way cooler”).
In non-folk ne
ws, I have so utterly screwed up this:
I fear, without intervention, I could easily become a mandolin-whore. There was much top-class mandolin action. James and his buddy Darrin even very kindly answered a number of my spectacularly ill-explained questions and set me further on the road to getting to grips with the thing.
Mandolin haiku
O mandolin men
F5 or A5, you are
The hottest folkies.
(Incidentally, I got the best answer out of these guys on the F5-or-A5 question. The F5 mandolin is, apparently, “way cooler”).
In non-folk ne
ws, I have so utterly screwed up this: that it will take me approximately the rest of my life to rectify it. This is not by any means my first screw-up on this one. I wonder, now, why I would bother to persevere and try to fix this. After all, there’s always a point of no return in something – knitting, transplant surgery, marriage – when a girl just has to recognise she’s no good at it, and move on. For example, if you’re twice-divorced, there’s got to be a moment sometime before you’re on one knee holding out a third diamond, when you think to yourself, wait a minute: I truly suck at this. Time I stopped and took up something else.
Well, I am more than twice-divorced from this project. I am bad at it, and I should really be dividing up the assets and thinking about casually seeing other knitting. And yet. I keep trying to fix it. There’s a point at which perseverance becomes stupidity, and I think I am there.
Well, I am more than twice-divorced from this project. I am bad at it, and I should really be dividing up the assets and thinking about casually seeing other knitting. And yet. I keep trying to fix it. There’s a point at which perseverance becomes stupidity, and I think I am there.
Thursday 10 July 2008
at a folk festival, no-one can hear you scream...
Parental advisory: the following scene contains violence, language, and folk musicians.
Coming to a theatre near you, the summer action blockbuster everyone’s talking about. Skirmishes, silver dagger ballads, and sex, only not really any sex, because come on, who are we kidding?; but if there’s one movie you must see this summer it’s..
FOLK HARD: WITH A MANDOLIN*
*with thanks to First-Eyes Leslie Bee for creative input
Four ancient and bearded men playing assorted instruments are illuminated on a stage beneath a mysterious pergola. At least two of them have their fingers in one ear, enabling them to sing out of tune with themselves. The camera pans back to reveal the raptly attentive faces and strongly individual fashion sense of assorted hippies and academics in the audience, drenched in rain. The last strains of the ninety-third verse of whatever tedious epic the ancient bearded ones were singing die down. The folk festival-goers clap enthusiastically.
THE CHARISMATIC EMCEE: And that was the Neverending Shirtless Barbecue Party Choir with the classic Ballad Of The Buxom Wench Who Was Much Younger Than Me, And What I Did With Her. Next up, Kate Rusby, with…
It is becoming increasingly difficult to hear him over the sounds of approaching helicopters. There is an almighty crash as suddenly the marquee roof is smashed by balaclava-d men in black rappelling from the choppers, carrying assorted firearms.
THE BAND: scattering, yet managing to pick up their beers on the way Eeek!
CHARISMATIC EMCEE: Wha…?
THE MEN IN BLACK: Ha ha! Shoot the motherf***ers, etc.
THE CROWD: Run, run for your lives!
EMCEE: Again, wha…?
THE MEN IN BLACK: We are from the local council, and we are sick and tired of your clogs and your ceilidhs, your tattoos and your tie-dye, your dobros and your didjeridus. We cannot stand by while your unwashed hordes descend upon our nice town and make a lot of noise for a week every year. Folkies out!!
They shoot indiscriminately into the crowd. There is much bloodshed. A grenade is thrown. Plastic cups of beer are spilt upon children. Hippies try to run, but they are wearing flip flops, so they can't, and are gunned down in a merciless rain of bullets. A unicycle wheel rolls forlornly through the confusion.
THE GRENADE: F**k y'all and this mandolin stand! BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!
BEDLAM: ensues
WOMAN IN FLORAL SKIRT AND FADED TIE-DYE SHIRT, FROM THE CROWD: I’m a teacher! I’m a respectable member of the community and I have been coming here for years to shed my sensible exterior for one stinking week of the summer, wear brightly-coloured leather sandals and sing with my fingers in my ear! I will not be…
THE MEN FROM THE COUNCIL: surveying the carnage Hurrah! Our town is our own again!
She winds up and pitches a deadly pair of Northwest clogs, taking out an enormous bunch of THE MEN, who fall backwards into each other in spectacular and bloody fashion. They pile up in a broken heap against a VW camper with a raised-tent roof.
MORRIS DANCERS: regrouping into foot-up formation and singing Oh dear, mother, what a fool I be! Six young men have come a-courting me! Five were blind and the other couldn't see! Oh dear, mother, what a fool I be!
They bring out a set of rapper swords and dance in a circle, weaving the swords together to make a star-shape, which is what rapper sword dancers have done _at the end of every si
ngle dance since the beginning of time_ and yet still hold it up high in the air for applause.
MORRIS DANCERS: hold up the star of swords
ACADEMICS AND HIPPIES THAT ARE NOT YET DEAD: applaud weakly
MORRIS DANCERS: toss the star of swords to THE CHARISMATIC EMCEE
THE CHARISMATIC EMCEE: skims the star of swords ninja-style into the last remaining MEN FROM THE COUNCIL.
Coming to a theatre near you, the summer action blockbuster everyone’s talking about. Skirmishes, silver dagger ballads, and sex, only not really any sex, because come on, who are we kidding?; but if there’s one movie you must see this summer it’s..
FOLK HARD: WITH A MANDOLIN*
*with thanks to First-Eyes Leslie Bee for creative input
Four ancient and bearded men playing assorted instruments are illuminated on a stage beneath a mysterious pergola. At least two of them have their fingers in one ear, enabling them to sing out of tune with themselves. The camera pans back to reveal the raptly attentive faces and strongly individual fashion sense of assorted hippies and academics in the audience, drenched in rain. The last strains of the ninety-third verse of whatever tedious epic the ancient bearded ones were singing die down. The folk festival-goers clap enthusiastically.
THE CHARISMATIC EMCEE: And that was the Neverending Shirtless Barbecue Party Choir with the classic Ballad Of The Buxom Wench Who Was Much Younger Than Me, And What I Did With Her. Next up, Kate Rusby, with…
It is becoming increasingly difficult to hear him over the sounds of approaching helicopters. There is an almighty crash as suddenly the marquee roof is smashed by balaclava-d men in black rappelling from the choppers, carrying assorted firearms.
THE BAND: scattering, yet managing to pick up their beers on the way Eeek!
CHARISMATIC EMCEE: Wha…?
THE MEN IN BLACK: Ha ha! Shoot the motherf***ers, etc.
THE CROWD: Run, run for your lives!
EMCEE: Again, wha…?
THE MEN IN BLACK: We are from the local council, and we are sick and tired of your clogs and your ceilidhs, your tattoos and your tie-dye, your dobros and your didjeridus. We cannot stand by while your unwashed hordes descend upon our nice town and make a lot of noise for a week every year. Folkies out!!
They shoot indiscriminately into the crowd. There is much bloodshed. A grenade is thrown. Plastic cups of beer are spilt upon children. Hippies try to run, but they are wearing flip flops, so they can't, and are gunned down in a merciless rain of bullets. A unicycle wheel rolls forlornly through the confusion.
THE GRENADE: F**k y'all and this mandolin stand! BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!
BEDLAM: ensues
WOMAN IN FLORAL SKIRT AND FADED TIE-DYE SHIRT, FROM THE CROWD: I’m a teacher! I’m a respectable member of the community and I have been coming here for years to shed my sensible exterior for one stinking week of the summer, wear brightly-coloured leather sandals and sing with my fingers in my ear! I will not be…
She is shot in the face. The camera follows the blood dripping onto her hand-made sandals.
THE MEN FROM THE COUNCIL: surveying the carnage Hurrah! Our town is our own again!
The camera pans across to reveal a cloud of dust approaching from the direction of the pub. We can make out ghostly figures advancing through the haze. Gradually, the figures become clear. 
MORRIS DANCERS stride through the bloodbath in bell-pads and slo-mo
THE MEN FROM THE COUNCIL quake in fear
MORRIS DANCERS: chant menacingly One can whistle, two can play, we can dance a Shepherd's Hay! Charge!
The MORRIS DANCERS pitch well-aimed sticks into the vital organs of THE MEN FROM THE COUNCIL, spraying blood and gore over the Neverending Shirtless Barbecue Party Choir's bassist. Some MORRIS DANCERS caper threateningly toward THE MEN waving hankies, and attack Thuggee-style, breaking their necks and leaving THE MEN in crumpled heaps.
MORRIS DANCERS stride through the bloodbath in bell-pads and slo-mo
THE MEN FROM THE COUNCIL quake in fear
MORRIS DANCERS: chant menacingly One can whistle, two can play, we can dance a Shepherd's Hay! Charge!
The MORRIS DANCERS pitch well-aimed sticks into the vital organs of THE MEN FROM THE COUNCIL, spraying blood and gore over the Neverending Shirtless Barbecue Party Choir's bassist. Some MORRIS DANCERS caper threateningly toward THE MEN waving hankies, and attack Thuggee-style, breaking their necks and leaving THE MEN in crumpled heaps.
KATE RUSBY: Suck my working-class Northern accent, council men!
She winds up and pitches a deadly pair of Northwest clogs, taking out an enormous bunch of THE MEN, who fall backwards into each other in spectacular and bloody fashion. They pile up in a broken heap against a VW camper with a raised-tent roof.
MORRIS DANCERS: regrouping into foot-up formation and singing Oh dear, mother, what a fool I be! Six young men have come a-courting me! Five were blind and the other couldn't see! Oh dear, mother, what a fool I be!
They bring out a set of rapper swords and dance in a circle, weaving the swords together to make a star-shape, which is what rapper sword dancers have done _at the end of every si
ngle dance since the beginning of time_ and yet still hold it up high in the air for applause.MORRIS DANCERS: hold up the star of swords
ACADEMICS AND HIPPIES THAT ARE NOT YET DEAD: applaud weakly
MORRIS DANCERS: toss the star of swords to THE CHARISMATIC EMCEE
THE CHARISMATIC EMCEE: skims the star of swords ninja-style into the last remaining MEN FROM THE COUNCIL.
THE MEN are instantly decapitated by the whirring blades. Their heads bounce across the trampled grass. A lone flip flop sinks into a pool of blood.
MORRIS DANCERS: Time for a pint, then?
Tuesday 8 July 2008
not barking but wistful
You find me today wistfully wondering if, just sometimes, it wouldn’t be nice if certain fictions could be the truth and certain truths entirely fiction. O, I know, but that way barking madness lies. And if there’s anything I am not, it’s barking mad. Obviously.
That aside, I am currently absorbed in book blurbs, gathering up ones that publishers have sent me to show off to library people who are choosing what brand spanking new books they’ll be getting in come September. I have no argument with most of the blurbs that publishing people come up with. They are fearsomely hard to write; in the cleverest hands they are an art. It’s not a review; you have to summarise everything about the book and indicate why one cannot afford to miss reading it, in about a sentence. And the sentence can’t be “God, I mean, like, buy this book!!”
Anyway, when you are talking about the type of books that are generally bestsellers, which is what I’m concentrating on at the moment, there are only so many ways you can describe the newest, latest, shiniest crime thriller. So I am forgiving of a certain amount of repetition of ‘unforgettable ‘,‘fast-paced’, ‘gritty prose’, that is ‘intricately-plotted’ and finds a character ‘at the crossroads of x and y (passion and betrayal/ cooking and gardening/ um, barking and mad). And frankly, if anyone were to say any of those things about anything I’d written, it would totally shiver my timbers for many, many months. (Except, possibly, ‘gritty prose’, because that surely just gets right up your swimsuit).
I feel a certain redundancy in sending forth these particular blurbs, though, because really, what library in the world is not going to buy the new John Grisham, James Patterson or Patricia Cornwell? Can there be a single library out there that sees a new John Grisham is on the way and feels an overwhelming need to read the blurb before deciding to buy it? No, there cannot. They are going to say, “Look, it’s the new John Grisham, I will need the usual 20 copies”. Not "But what is it about?? Is it fast-paced and gritty, or fast-paced and unforgettable? Tell me, oh guru of the blurbs!”
CLOTHED IN WISTFULNESS is the intricately-paced, fast-plotted story of a woman who finds herself at the crossroads of fiction and truth. Hers is an unforgettable and, um, intricately…er, I mean, gritty, no! gripping, gripping, um, like, story. Oh, wait, I said story already. God, I mean, like, buy this book!
That aside, I am currently absorbed in book blurbs, gathering up ones that publishers have sent me to show off to library people who are choosing what brand spanking new books they’ll be getting in come September. I have no argument with most of the blurbs that publishing people come up with. They are fearsomely hard to write; in the cleverest hands they are an art. It’s not a review; you have to summarise everything about the book and indicate why one cannot afford to miss reading it, in about a sentence. And the sentence can’t be “God, I mean, like, buy this book!!”
Anyway, when you are talking about the type of books that are generally bestsellers, which is what I’m concentrating on at the moment, there are only so many ways you can describe the newest, latest, shiniest crime thriller. So I am forgiving of a certain amount of repetition of ‘unforgettable ‘,‘fast-paced’, ‘gritty prose’, that is ‘intricately-plotted’ and finds a character ‘at the crossroads of x and y (passion and betrayal/ cooking and gardening/ um, barking and mad). And frankly, if anyone were to say any of those things about anything I’d written, it would totally shiver my timbers for many, many months. (Except, possibly, ‘gritty prose’, because that surely just gets right up your swimsuit).
I feel a certain redundancy in sending forth these particular blurbs, though, because really, what library in the world is not going to buy the new John Grisham, James Patterson or Patricia Cornwell? Can there be a single library out there that sees a new John Grisham is on the way and feels an overwhelming need to read the blurb before deciding to buy it? No, there cannot. They are going to say, “Look, it’s the new John Grisham, I will need the usual 20 copies”. Not "But what is it about?? Is it fast-paced and gritty, or fast-paced and unforgettable? Tell me, oh guru of the blurbs!”
CLOTHED IN WISTFULNESS is the intricately-paced, fast-plotted story of a woman who finds herself at the crossroads of fiction and truth. Hers is an unforgettable and, um, intricately…er, I mean, gritty, no! gripping, gripping, um, like, story. Oh, wait, I said story already. God, I mean, like, buy this book!
Sunday 6 July 2008
Nadal, six; Knitting, love
Knitting a pattern on which you have to concentrate – including regularly counting up to four – while watching the men’s Wimbledon final is, for the record, inadvisable. Especially when the final, including rain breaks, lasts for six hours. That’s a whacking opportunity for a whole lot of pattern misreading.
So, what to do? Bearing in mind I designed the pattern, do I:
a) Still pitch a fit and rip it all back, knowing it will kill me to leave it wrong?
b) Remain completely calm, and remember the intended recipient of the knitting in question will be merely weeks old when he or she receives it, and probably won’t be all that bothered either way. And his or her parents will be too knackered to notice. So I can simply recalculate the pattern to fit my glaring errors?
c) Realise my tenuous commitment to mathematical accuracy makes it unlikely that writing the pattern a second time around, while at the same time pitching a fit, is going to result in any degree of correctitude in the new version, so it’ll just make everything worse in the long run?
d) Pitch a fit and leave it?
I’m going with d, for the moment.
So, what to do? Bearing in mind I designed the pattern, do I:
a) Still pitch a fit and rip it all back, knowing it will kill me to leave it wrong?
b) Remain completely calm, and remember the intended recipient of the knitting in question will be merely weeks old when he or she receives it, and probably won’t be all that bothered either way. And his or her parents will be too knackered to notice. So I can simply recalculate the pattern to fit my glaring errors?
c) Realise my tenuous commitment to mathematical accuracy makes it unlikely that writing the pattern a second time around, while at the same time pitching a fit, is going to result in any degree of correctitude in the new version, so it’ll just make everything worse in the long run?
d) Pitch a fit and leave it?
I’m going with d, for the moment.
Tuesday 1 July 2008
standing on guard for thee
On Canada Day, although it's not really mine, I can belt out O Canada with the best of them. As a Commonwealth anthem goes, though, it's astonishingly straightforward and short. I started wondering who might win the face-off of musical self-love among O Canada, God Defend New Zealand, and Advance Australia Fair. And here are my findings.Bilingual?
Canada: Oui
NZ: Ae, bro
Australia: Yeah, right!
Long?
Canada: One verse is seriously all they could think of?
NZ: 5 verses
Australia: Your standard 5 again.
Mention of God?
Canada: Yes
NZ: Yes
Australia: Nope
Militaristic bombast?
Canada: We stand on guard for thee. Twice.
NZ: Apparently, “peace, not war, shall be our boast”. Encouraging.
Australia: Not until about verse four, when the ‘foreign foes’ arrive.
Sexism?
Canada: True patriot love only required from ‘all thy sons’.
NZ: Men of every creed and race. No gurlz allowd.
Australia: I almost *died of shock*, because it’s not in there until verse five, when the ‘sons’ arrive.
Geographical attributes
Canada: Vague at best. The True North is about as specific as it gets, see also knowing where you are on a map.
NZ: The mountains are ‘freedom’s ramparts’.
Australia: Do you want a list? Jeez, Australia. Calm down. Yes, you’re physically amazing. We get it.
Shameless self-promotion
Canada: ‘Glorious and free!!’
NZ: ‘Our country’s spotless name.’ And insufferable smugness.
Australia: ‘for we are young and free’, and better at cricket than you, so there.
Sorry, what?
Canada: Actually, without the necessity to fill five verses, this is pretty straightforward.
NZ: ‘Guide her in the nation’s van’?? Can someone check if I’ve got this wrong? What on earth?
Australia: ‘Rousing to arms like sires of yore’. I'd like to see that.
The irony
Canada: ‘We stand on guard for thee’, except on the world’s longest undefended border with XXXthat dangerous clownXXX our bestest friend.
NZ: ‘Make our praises heard afar.’ ‘Crown her with immortal fame’. Oh, NZ. Don’t you know how much of the world thinks you’re just a bit of Australia?
Australia: It says of Britain: “with all her faults we love her still”. Until the next referendum, that is.
Inexplicably, what it doesn’t mention
Canada: Hockey, double-doubles, and winter eight months a year.
NZ: Number 8 wire, L&P, and ‘sweet as, bro!’
Australia: The black stump, a thousand poisonous things that *keel you*, and, fortunately, Kevin Bloody Wilson (no link. I just can't).
The tears prick my eyelids when…
Canada: With glowing hearts we see thee rise, our True North strong and free.
NZ: Honestly? It’s too passive for that. It’s all up to God. The Canucks are ‘standing on guard’, the Aussies are ‘toiling’ with ‘courage’. Come on, NZ. Make an effort.
Australia: In joyful strains then let us sing…
Happy Canada Day. Keep your stick on the ice, eh?
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