Beloved

I've spent most of the day sitting in the sun with cups of tea, a bag of crsips, cheese & tomato sandwiches and one of Spike's sponge cakes reading (aloud mostly) Part 1 of Toni Morrison's novel. Fiction ... writing of any sort ... just doesn't come any better than this. I am in the presence of greatness; transported out of time, place and body. The past is, indeed, another country but a text this good can take you there.

Grounded

So I worked from home again, thanks to the broken motor in my van. Sharon will drive it tomorrow to the Tyson's people to repair or replace it, except it's not Tyson's anymore. They went broke but someone bought the remnants of the business. Let's hope they can fix it.

I've managed to get through a decent amount of work, so that's satisfying enough. When I've been waiting on recalcitrant colleagues to reply to my e.mails I've caught up with my blogging. Does it show?

I've also been reading a good book, which I borrowed from the library yesterday. It's the published version of six lectures in 1993 by Umberto Eco, entitled Six Walks In The Fictional Woods. God, that man is erudite, witty, thought-provoking, terrifically well-read, illuminating, thoughtful, sharp ... bastard! No, seriously, it's a good read; thoroughly accessible and I'm sure it will help me with my studies either now or in the future (if, in the end, I make my mind up to return to undergraduate endeavour).

Eco's little book (barely 150 pages long) comes from the same series as Italo Calvino's Six Memos For The New Millennium. It's a series known as the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. I assume this must be the same Norton as the anthologies but I'll check. I had no idea about these lectures / essays until Spike returned from the college library with the Calvino. I'll have too seek oput others because the two I've read so far really do make you think.
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The Monkey's Mask

We turned up at the Museum of Contemporary Art for this month's book reading talk ... The Monkey's Mask by Dorothy Porter. Even as a backcloth to one of the exhibits in the Vivid festival of light, the MCA looked strangely dark. That was because it was closed. We had turned up a week early.

Still ... the book is a decent (if quick) read. It's a private investigator tale told in blank verse. The author loses the plot half way through, takes a less than interesting excursion to Brisbane for no discernible story reason and never truly finds her way back. It's not wholly surprising, therefore, that the verse novel peters out rather unsatisfactorily. It simply stops, unresolved; nobody paying any price for the murders (except the dead folk, of course) so that's a bit annoying, even if it is in keeping with some of Chandler's finest. But the poetry stands up throughout, which makes the work worth reading for that reason alone.

MCA book club

Spent another enjoyable evening at the MCA for one of its "Inspired Reading" sessions. This time we looked at the art of Yayoi Kasuma in association with Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the shore. The art is a whole heap more engaging than the book.

The crowd was larger tonight; 25 in total (thanks to advertising in the SMH). It's a bit too large a group size for much of a conversation but I guess that's a problem of success. There were some Murakami fans there, which was a bit tedious: literary or cultural studies undergraduates who've recently learned what the word "trope" means and feel a need to display their understanding of its various uses over and over again. Britney must have the same kind of uncritical adulation. Hers scream and faint. Murakami's say trope a lot and look down disdainfully upon any one who isn't quite smart enough, they mistankenly believe, to recognise brilliance in anomie and detachment. Children. Thet'll learn.

Oh dear

Read another 70 pages of Haruki Murakami's Kafka On The Shore. It set off a haiku moment. Beware!

a rain storm surges
blows cold unexpectedly
night’s wild harbinger

(Photo of the Ritsurin Garden in Takamatsu)

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Anansi Boys

Brilliant writing.

I want to run away with Maeve Livingstone.

Neil Gaiman' web site.

Anansi at Wiki.

Necessary noise ... part 12

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
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