Bird by Bird

Anne Lamott
ISBN: 9781921372476
$27.95
237 pp
Scribe 2008

As a writer, I occasionally pick up a ‘how to…’ book, looking for gems of wisdom or inspiration to ride like a surfboard on the waves of creativity.  I have rarely read any of these in their entirety – they have mostly been too dry to be griping, though many were useful (such as How to Build Your Own Particle Accelerator). (more…)

What does one do when one sees an activity that has become a trend that can easily lead to horrible outcomes?  Especially when there are examples of just that happening?

One can write to one’s Member of Parliament and Senators.  One can write letters to newspapers.  One can call talk-back radio.  One can write a blog.  But, before going public with details, one had better be sure of one’s facts.

As regular readers of this column will know, I can get righteously angry about things, and this is one of them. (more…)

Words to Inspire Writers

Edited by Greg Babic

Published by FC Sach & Sons

ISBN: 978-0-980372-20-5

RRP: US$20, UK£15

Available from Amazon.com

This is indeed an inspiring book for writers.  From time to time we sit and stare into space and the wise or goading words of writers past and present may help you to pick up the quill and dip it into the ink pot again. (more…)

Finding the Bloke

Bloke: Who does this bloke think he is?

Bruce Pascoe

Viking/Penguin, Melbourne, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-670-07367-2

It is not often that I start a novel and finish it within four days.  My copy of Bloke went with me everywhere so that I could devour another chapter or two between other activities.  From page one I was drawn into the Bloke’s world of diving, small-town life, corruption, prison life and love.  Like the abalone divers he works with, I came up for air occasionally, gasping.  The writing is consistently lyrical and evocative: (more…)

What you are now reading is the world première of ‘From the Kitchen #23’.  Last week you read the world première of #22.

Last night I was at a concert of the Australian Chamber Orchestra at which Richard Tognetti played the world première performance of ‘Vox amoris: Fantasy for violin and orchestra’ by P­­ēteris Vasks.  It was billed as the world première, but it wasn’t.  It had been performed by the ACO earlier in the month in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. (more…)

Here we go again.  Another sports season.  This time it’s racing.  Football (all codes) has only just gone.  Cricket will be next, interspersed with sailing.  Then back around to kicking balls of various shapes.  As they currently advertise on ABC radio, “The sport continues; it’s just the ball that changes.”  Oh, I forgot the Australian Open tennis and the Grand Prix.  Give me a break!

But a break we won’t get. (more…)

Vivaldi in the rain.  How wonderful to be sitting inside near the heater, dog at my feet, a steady, heavy rain forming a curtain outside the window, with Vivaldi’s oboe concerto in F (RV447) with oboist Alfredo Bernardini, playing loudly; filling the house with soaring, sonorous cadences and thrilling demi-semi-quavers.  Ah, nature and nurture in a beautiful harmony. (more…)

A few days ago I saw someone in a wheelchair.  My jaw dropped and I stared.  Not at the person wheeling along, but at the name on the chair – the brand name: Karma.  I’m not kidding.  You can look it up on the Web; I did, as soon as I got home.

Who would come up with such a name?  Who would allow it to be attached to a wheelchair that they want to sell?  Who would sit in such a wheelchair?

I’m now on the look-out for other choice branding.  I’m expecting to see a pram with the label lust; crutches called Idiot; condoms with the name Oops; the next incarnation of the Windows operating system: Dukkha … (more…)

The world is crazy until we make sense of it.  We spend our lives making sense of it, giving it meaning.  The problem for each of us is that, once meaning had been ascribed, the world seems to conform to that meaning and we relate to it as if that is the way it is.

What is difficult for us to grasp, is that the person standing next to us probably lives in a different world, shaped by whatever meaning they have placed on it.  I’m not suggesting that this is wrong or bad (we can’t do otherwise), or that we should remove all meaning from our experience (we can’t). (more…)

I remember, growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, that from time to time our sense of security would be shaken by another account in the media of increasing tension between the USA and the USSR. The threat I felt was that an idiot president (on either side) would press a red button, leading to annihilation of all life on earth (except perhaps the roaches).
In the 1980s the perceived threat seemed to be more about lifestyle – computers and robots would firstly take on our boring and menial jobs and then get smart and take over everything. Humans would feel useless and life would have no meaning. (more…)