post-teen trauma

a weird week

Sat, 10 May 2008 13:55:27 GMT

I am glad it is over. I dreamed about my dead dog. He was here in our new old house and it was so great and joyous to see him... and then I woke up. I didn't remember until I saw his collar,which I cant throw out and yet don't know where to put. Sigh. US copyedits done. Quite painless though I find myself wincing at the yank vernac (I would never in a hundred years say 'cookie'!) I was quite possibly the host with the least at today's festival. What I think about critics: like Mencken I think they should be empiricists - though maybe it would also be good to get any old numbnuts to review your work just for that primitive 'ug' aspect ... it's all learning, right? Anyway it isn't until your press agent gives you a folder full of clippings that you realise how subjective it all is. I finished reading Miranda July's short stories on the train home - finally! Oh, she is a kook, but a good one. You get the feeling she's been storing acute hurts all her life. She keeps watching even after the scene has finished.

this week's haul

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:07:05 GMT

1. Prince Caspian by C.S Lewis (30 cents)
2. Children's globe - old, old, old: "Tropichode Capricorno" ($5)
3. Hippie artisan dish ($3)

some blather

Mon, 05 May 2008 05:54:27 GMT

I woke up in Melbourne this morning feeling anxious - and the feeling didn't go away until the city was a jagged line behind me ....I was homesick! Came back relieved to see the house still standing and not gutted by vandals or flattened by the plane tree, and now the cold's starting to creep in and the gas fire's going and it's just lovely.

I lurked at CBCA and managed to scoff food and talk exciting future projects with both my editors and other newish writer friends. Neil Gaiman's address was good (if a bit long) - I loved what he had to say about books belonging to both the author and the reader - a contract - a hand-hold - that readers build story as they read, add their own images and effects. He said it is the child's job to 'sleep unwisely' like Goldilocks, but these days he's more like Papa Bear, checking the locks etc etc. He makes me want to stay in bed reading folk tales and Gogol.

I also scored a ticket to the swanky dinner at the Museum. A literary blind date! (I was a little worried, my only other blind date experience was at a high school ball when my ~~ape~~ date got drunk, threw up and tried to pash me while he still had flecks and spittle on his chin. Anyway, it was all okay because my blind date turned out to be Leonie Norrington, who is a star. The vegetarian option wasn't much chop - green-ish curry with excess sprouts - but the meringue for dessert more than made up for it.

Watched the Logies. I don't know why. Perhaps to see if someone would take out Sam Newman. But alas, no. And then I think, take them all out. And would someone please give Dannii Minogue a turtleneck?

In other news. I'm waiting for my copyedits for Everything Beautiful. There's a new issue of Mixtape out, with a cool article about non-crafty books including one on revolutionary pop-art nun, Sister Corita! The jumper I bought off Ebay arrived but it is bear-sized. Please pass on your tips for shrinking mohair...

rich and strange - some movies

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:34:23 GMT

We've been watching so many because we haven't got a TV aerial, but only a couple stick in my mind.

Savage Grace, about the life and death of Barbara Baekeland, based on the oral biography by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L Aronson (which shares enough of the 'secret life of rich people' of Jean Stein's Edie to go as a double bill bookfest). Barbara is a social climber from a no account family who marries in the Bakelite fortune. Her husband is a Jack London throwback who calls himself a writer but never publishes. They have one of those violent, rampaging kind of marriages. Their son, Tony, is fine-boned and precocious. He gets all his mother's love along with her neurosis and ultimately, she 'seduces' him in order to 'cure him of his homosexualty and he stabs her with a kitchen knife. Lurid? The film is by Tom Kalin (Swoon). It glides through glamorous locations. Julianne Moore looks strained but beautiful and you can never quite feel sorry for Eddie Redmayne because he's such a cold fish. And in the end all you can say is that rich people - really rich people - have about as much in common with you or me as early man. I was reminded of Poor Little Rich Girl and Mommie Dearest or Citizen Kane. It wasn't a truly riveting film- I guess because I couldn't empathise with any of the characters. The event at the end was everything and even the incest - while ooky - didn't count because they were so weird anyway. I'm sure the book is much better, more illuminating. But it made me feel okay about the fact that at 36 I still don't live in a house with ducted heating.

Ladies & Gentleman, Mr Leonard Cohen This is from 1965, B& W and full of shots like you might see from John Ford - Leonard Cohen is the solitary hero, the city of Montreal his unforgiving landscape. The film starts with Leonard giving a performance - and he could be a stand up comedian. On the one hand he's dry and urbane. He drops grand eloquent statements without even lowering his eyelashes. But then he has this giggle, and calls to mind the creepy over-sexed hunchback of Terry Southern's Candy. Leonard smokes in beatnicky cafes where women with helmets for hair eye him off. He stays in a three-dollar-a-night hotel and papers the walls with his I-Ching prophecies, while the narrator waxes about Leonard's house in Hydra, the woman who waits for him there. he tells us that 1964 was a good year, Leonard made $17000, but even if he'd made nothing he would still live the same way. Leonard is "deeply concerned with the style of his soul." I love his records, but I'm not sure if he poetry is any better or worse than Rod McKuen's (or John Laws' for that matter). Once upon a time you could be that kind of man...

A Star is Born - of course, the Kris Kristofferson, Barbra Streisand version. I borrowed from the library for the special extras which included Babs doing the commentary. Most commentaries relate directly to what is happening on the screen, but Barbra pretty much just spoke about herself. She produced the film - it sounds like she directed it, really - she showed the cinematographer how to put a halo of light above her head during the performance scenes - seriously. She wanted to save money so used her own wardrobe - she collects vintage clothing - which explains why she looks like Lawrence of Arabia in the adobe scenes. ('I got attacked for wearing that turban.") I love her. There's a bit in the commentary where she says that as a child she was ignored. She would walk in to a room and no one would say anything. She has been making up for it ever since. I know it's unfashionable but I love this film. I think it's exciting and romantic! I love that KK has a triple-barrelled 'rock' name (John Norman Howard) and that his band is called 'Speedway', and I love that Gary Busey is in it, being so 'real'. I must borrow it again so I can hear all about Barbra's vintage pieces in the special extras. Something else - initially Babs wanted Elvis Presley to play John Norman Howard, because he really was fat and washed up at this stage, but the Colonel vetoed it.

some upcoming appearances

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:32:24 GMT

I will be at the CBCA conference this weekend signing (mooching) at the Pan Macmillan stand Saturday lunchtime - come and say hi!

Also I'm hosting what may well turn into hearty, balls-to-the-wall, bunfight at the Emerging Writers Festival: The panel is:

Critics are just failed artists…aren’t they?

Looking at the art of the critique; writing it, surviving it and thriving on it. Told from those that do it and those who have been done by it.

Matthew Clayfield, Rjurick Davidson Ryan Paine and Alison Croggon.

Hosted by Simmone Howell

Saturday May 18 at 1pm

The festival looks great. Check out the program and be sure to listen to 3RRR's Max Headroom on Thursday May 8 between 7 and 8pm where Lisa Greenaway and Stella Glorie will talking in and around and over and under and through the whole shebang with voxpop from various writer-types, emerging and otherwise.

meme! and toilet addendum

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:18:17 GMT

I have been tagged by Amra Pajalic - whose YA book I will one day get my mitts on. The way the meme works is: 1. Pick up the nearest book. 2. Open it to page 123. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the next three sentences. 5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you ...

The book is: Anton Chekhov - The Kiss and Other Stories

Petrov and Yegerov were given bad conduct marks, put in detention, and finally, were both expelled. He had the strange habit of visiting us both in our digs. He would call in on some teacher and sit down without saying a word, as though he were trying to spy something out.

- from the story Man in a Case

I am tagging: Penni Russon, Adam Ford, Gillian Howell, Justine 62Cherry and Stephanie Kuehnert...

And just to make things challenging I am asking said tagged folks to list what (if any) reading material they have in their toilet. Currently I have a copy of ID (sans cover) and a brochure for the Castlemaine Poetry Festival (which is happening right now!! ) Also on the wall there is a long transcription of an interview my husband did with a band called Moonshake, once upon the 1990s... " I wanted to live in the world of ideas..."

Ianded!

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:32:14 GMT

Country livin' = junk shops and pear cider. Our house creaks with history. At 5.30 pm every room looks golden. Since the move I have written about twelve lines in random notebooks and I have been getting my head together for Book 3. I've been reading Short - a collection of interesting short storis and other stuff from some surprising and intelligent people, edited by Lili Wilkinson, Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Measure for Measure by old Shakey. I have watched The Tarnished Angels, No Country for Old Men and all of Big Love. And I have not stopped eating! Oh, I will be a roly-poly writer type, strolling through the crunchy-leaf streets of this town. You know what I love? You never see people jogging. More soon.

Little Boxes & Everything Beautiful

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:58:44 GMT

Things I will not miss about this place: the twin monolith brown-town wardrobes in the bedroom; the pull-down blinds which don't pull back up. the mysterious yapping dog next door (never walked! never seen!); the marauding yuppies; the lack of ABC reception; The bath deficit.

But mostly, this has been a good house. A good luck house. A house of 'firsts'.

Things I will miss: how the window in the front room was always like a little movie screen, best for watching windy trees; the first fire of the winter; the pond; the absolutely gleaming floorboards, the memory of hound, the wide streets. Sigh.

In other more exciting news: it has come to my attention* that my new book is up for pre-order on Amazon!! This looks so weird, I can't tell you. For a long time I didn't think I even had a book, I just had a character who kept doing things I didn't want her to do (all the best characters are freewheeling).

So here's the general guff:

Everything Beautiful
In there beginning there was a big angry rash of a girl ...
When Riley's Dad gets a new girlfriend life turns upside-down for Riley. She doesn't like Norma and Norma doesn't like her. Before she can say sex, drugs and alcohol, Riley finds herself shipped off to the Spirit Ranch Holiday Camp- "an oasis of fun and learning on the edge of the Little Desert" ... Determined to continue on her path of bad-behaviour and general obnoxiousness, Riley Rose sets out to stir up the shiny, happy campers. And when she meets Dylan Luck, recent paraplegic and possible metalhead, she thinks she might have found an ally. What she gets is a whole lot more ... **

And here's the first line:

I am the maniac behind the wheel of stolen dune buggy.

Everything Beautiful - In all good bookstores at the end of the year - just in time for Christmas!!

And now I am off to do more packing. Next time you hear from me I will be a country girl. Yee-har!

*thanks Tez
** blurb rushed and slightly suck-ass. Blurbs are hard!

some writerly stuff

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:10:56 GMT

T'was an intimate gathering at Sandy library today - and the DVD was kaput so I had to go live without props. I read Raymond Carver's 'Popular Mechanics' as an example of a great short story - it is direct, has velocity, it demands the reader's attention without being at all showy. Here's the mini-documentary I was going to show:

And for the writergals who showed today, here are the links I promised:
Sticky Zine Shop is situated at shop 10 Campbell Arcade (under Flinders St Station) and is open 11am-6pm Wednesday to Friday and 12-5pm on Saturdays. A good little article here.
The Emerging Writer's Festival runs from May 9-11

Re: Book 2. I have about 60 pages of revisions to go. I have to say that I love revisions. It could be the closest I come to being a cad.

In other news I watched The Getaway last night. Steve McQueen doesn't even need to speak. Ali MacGraw has two expressions and one tone. She was, I think, ahead of her time. The Getaway is one of those films where the personal life of the stars somehow becomes a character. (I once read Ali MacGraw and her ex-husband, Robert Evans' biographies back to back. Ouch and ouch.)

There are a couple of places left

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:45:01 GMT

For Monday's workshop - call on the number below to book!

WRITE ACTION
Creative Writing Workshop for Teens (14+)
With Simmone Howell

When: March 31st

Where: Sandringham Library

Time: 11am – 1pm

The workshop will focus on a writer’s tools:
- what you need to get started
- what makes a good story
- method and madness
- what to do with your finished piece

Participants are to bring a notebook, a pen and one small strange object – it can be anything - a toy, a train-ticket, or a Portuguese tart but be creative – someone will have to write about it!

BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL: 9591 5909

frrrreak out

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 09:36:44 GMT

Old Man Willow by Elephants Memory - from the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack

reading and watching ... stuff ...

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:06:23 GMT

Like Sara Zarr's Story of a Girl, read in one fell swoop, biting my nails all the way ( that's what I do when I'm absorbed) fine writing from the first sentence down: "i was thirteen when Dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy's Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at eleven o-clock on a Tuesday night." And then, and then, and then I read Falling Boy by Alison McGhee. I held off reading this until book two was writ as both both feature wheelchair boys. FB is a great read - moving and poetic and strange: "Enzo sat on Joseph's lap, a feather, air, a curl of girl whose anger had turned to sadness." and I now must find everything else McGhee has written. I had a sneakypete preview of Stephanie Kuehnert's I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, about a punk rock girl's search for her mother - and self - an epic and emotional read (blurbed by Irvine Welsh no less!).

And then, and then, and then I read Monster Love by Carol Topolski and wish I hadn't because it's awful what happens in it ... I mean, I know she's a psychologist and can write and everything but it made me hate people. Even the 'good' people. I am now on Charles Bock's Beautiful Children ... so far crazygood...

On to fil-ums and such. We have pretty much given up on television now. I tried to watch Dirty Sexy Money and that Cashmere Mafia but blah and blah. Then some Dexter - promising - and Veronica Mars Series Three which I practically had on a drip... I love V. Mars. Last night watched three quarters of Tempest - Molly Ringwald's first screen appearance! It's flatulent but I still kind of like it and may watch the final quarter tonight. What else? I watched The Bridge, a short by Jo Kennedy after watching Tender Hooks, starring Jo Kennedy, which made me get all excited about late 80s Aussie films about marginal characters and how once upon a time you could have a cool soundtrack without it being "cool". Tender Hooks had Comin' On Down by the Twilights somewhere in there - just gorgeous.

And after all that it's hot. We have three weeks left of Melbourne.My bottom-drawer-bun-money script is nearly finished. Another ugly baby!

six beautiful things

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:03:12 GMT

1. My new Charles Willeford rubber stamp - bought from Ready-made Rubber, California.

2. The Nick Cave exhibition at the Arts Centre. I've gone twice now but both times with the little man and it's one of those sniffin' garbage kind of exhibitions - like an elaborate fanzine made flesh. My fave items were the 'visual diaries' and of course photographs by photo/mythographers like Bleddyn Butcher and Polly Borland. It's on until April - go see it!

3. The St Kilda Botanic Gardens. Now that we're moving all I can do is think about what I'll miss.

4. The pink salt lake in Dimboola. We had a little pilgrimage to the Little Desert on the weekend. What to do when you're waiting to hear back from your editor ... It was stonking hot and the Wimmera River was showing her bones. I got to see the milky way, and a badass bikie mofo who had a lifesized plastic doll with a pig's snout riding behind him. Classy!

5. W's new old bookshelf. Bridging the gap between op shop and dwelling. I love it. I might paint it up.

6. The Finn Family Moomintroll

Teen Writing Workshop at Sandy Library

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:52:06 GMT

If you know anyone who might be interested please pass it on ...
WRITE ACTION
Creative Writing Workshop for Teens (14+)
With Simmone Howell

author of Notes from the Teenage Underground
WINNER 2007 Victorian Premier’s Prize for Young Adult Fiction and 2007 Gold Inky Award

When: March 31st

Where: Sandringham Library

Time: 11am – 1pm

The workshop will focus on a writer’s tools:
- what you need to get started
- what makes a good story
- method and madness
- what to do with your finished piece

Participants are to bring a notebook, a pen and one small strange object – it can be anything - a toy, a train-ticket, or a Portuguese tart but be creative – someone will have to write about it!

BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL: 9591 5909

“Notes from the Teenage Underground is a young
adult novel with a smart, feminist bent … a fast contemporary read…” – Lip Magazine Issue 14 2007

“ …A book that empowers, challenges and makes the world that little bit warmer” – Readings Newsletter January 2008

www.myspace.com/simmoneh

exhale ........

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 07:07:43 GMT

Book two is finished! Well my ugly baby draft anyway ... Now I can sit around and watch daytime TV when W sleeps. Ah! In other news: I am off dairy. I had trouble with Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things. Germaine Greer is coming to town. Winter is too and I am looking forward to wearing my woolly hat.

skool camp shenanigans

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:55:14 GMT

The last time I went on skool camp Noiseworks were still in the charts. I was wearing my dad's awful brown jumper in an effort to be different and had just started wagging school on Thursdays to listen to 3RRR's Some Kinda Fun. So it was a strange thing indeed to go back to skool camp as a grown up type of person. Myself and writers Cath Crowley and Catherine Bateson were running creative writing workshops somewhere near Daylesford with Lowther Hall Year Eights. It was an intense and interesting - occasionally inspiring - experience. In between telling lies and screening Warhol's uh-yeah interviews and a Liz Taylor film trailer, I carped about found art for story sparking. Students delved into the Box of Found Objects to find things to write about.:

My fave pieces involved the Bodycount guitar pick (Ernie C's circa 1992), a stick of driftwood, the black roses and a micro spy cassette. I also read from Vanessa Berry's great piece about the lure of op-shops - 'Second World' and flashed the zine Applicant (ed. Jesse Reklaw)- a 'things you can tell just by looking at them' piece of genius which just about kills me.*

If any students have developed their pieces further let me know! I'd like to see them.

Cheers, Lowther.
*zines from Sticky

ps - Oscars tonight! We're having a stirfry and cadbury mini eggs and I'm gunning for Diablo Cody - Juno was pretty neat and complete. It threw me a bit. And Ms Cody looks like fun and Not of That World. Anyone who can put the word 'vag' onscreen gets my vote!

workbook with Grr!

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:15:00 GMT

Ages ago, when I started on this tomfoolery book 2 business and was still swamping around for structure I thought I would try story-boarding. It was fun as long as I knew what was coming next ... I can't really draw but I like this one. It seems to me that if you boil my book down to one panel this would be it - the scene where Riley first arrives at Christian camp.

workbook with bananafish

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:59:16 GMT

This is an example of Book 2 hashing out . I tend to write the chapter headings over and over and over. I don't like cross-outs. I'm on the last chapter now and there are still a few ways I could switch it. (I didn't know I was writing a Choose Your Own Adventure book.) Will the cops turn up? Will the parents freak? Will there be wheelchair rage? What about the talent show where the twins perform a liturgical dance to the music of Rod Stewart? Well, I have the weekend. The fish are just a bonus.

In other news: I went to see Burt Bacharach last week. He was sterling. The MSO gave him a platter. Later he turned up at Curve Bar wearing tracksuit pants but alas, I had already gone home.

morning scrawl

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:14:45 GMT

Stalling, stalling, stalling. Why is the last part always the hardest? It shouldn't be. I know what's going to happen - I know where it's all supposed to go but for some reason after six weeks of fantastic freefall writing everything just stopped. Urgh. And now I find myself doing irritating things like prettifying the language, inserting words like 'vestiges' (please!) and writing pages long conversations about whether or not The Green Green Grass of Home is about astral projection. I can be a horribly florid writer. I fall in love with the sound of words - the string of words - I have alliteration issues for sure. John Steinbeck used to write a letter to his editor before starting each days work; Leah Kaminsky (one of the Glenfern writers) used to scrawl lists to empty her head of the daily house/mother/human stuff before sitting down to resume artistry! Consider this blog post my morning scrawl (except it's already the afternoon - oh dear!). I am reading The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates (1973-1982) It's enough to make me weep. She's so smart and dedicated. And it's never been about the money. Lots of good stuff:

"If the stories came out perfectly formed that would be one thing; one could merely type them out. But it isn't like that at all. I have only a few stray words, or an image or two, or a glimpse of someone's face. Nothing is clear, nothing is sequential or logical or explained. It's exactly like trying to reconstruct a jigsaw puzzle from the single piece you have in your hand."

Fragment of Fear

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:25:27 GMT

When they decide to kill you
... will you know where?
... will you know how?
... will you know why?

Today's purchase reminds me that in spite of all the chiselers and collectors and Ebay-freaks there are still great finds to be had. How lovely was David Hemmings? I picked up the video of Fragment of Fear for $2.00. The cover shows an giant hypodermic needle and a miniature Gayle Hunnicutt. Hemmings plays an ex-addict author trying to find out about the mysterious death of his good Samaritan Aunt. There's groovy tube footage, one-sided telephone conversations, acid flashbacks and Arthur Lowe (the voice of Mr Men)! And the soundtrack was stompin' - I don't think it exists - it's by Johnny Harris and it's all wah-wah and psychotic flute episodes! The jacket copy is apt. I"m still not sure what actually happened ... but.
How lovely was David Hemmings?

nice notes, skins and more dawn

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:03:59 GMT

There is a fabbo review of Notes from the Teenage Underground in the Readings newsletter: "It's a book that empowers, challenges and makes the world that little bit warmer ..." I have big love for Readings. I bought my first vinyl import from their flagship store on the other side of Lygon Street back in the early eighties. It would have been a dream to work there but alas only Angus and Robertson would have me.

Also there is a new interview with moi up at pinkworld! Pinkworld is a cool site from England. Note - be wary - there is another site by the same name for those into 'hairy girls' and 'mature porn' but only a fool would link to that.

And on a telly note - SBS has been brave and beautiful of late. Showing Skins for a start (I would write for them if they would have me) See Marieke Hardy's write up in todays Green Guide - I concurrrrrrr. And last night we got to see that noice Bukowski documentary. So yay! SBS

And now, because I can't resist, here is more Dawn Powell:

Miss Bemel's bushy brows met in a tangle of disapproval. God, she's an ugly female, thought Amanda, and even if she had a heart of valuable priorities her appearance in itself was a crime against mankind. As she swivelled around on her bovine rump to pick up the telephone, Amanda saw that she was getting bigger than ever, and it was not only in flesh but an increase in muscle and bone with a bosom as formidable and as sexless as a German general's. This rocky treasure taxed the capacity of whatever blouse she wore, especially the pockmarked yellow print now gracing her form, strained in a taut line across her back and then across her front so that bosoms popped out behind and before, above and below as if there were dozens of them, all crying for freedom.

(I read this out to my husband last night but he was more interested in Tommy Cooper who (according to his bio) upon meeting the Queen asked her if she liked football.)

word croupier

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:54:32 GMT

Today was not writing. It was more like shuffling a deck of words - and not like this either:

I'm going to put a dictionary in the loo so I can improve my vocabulary. My word for the day is cronk (Austral. sl.) 1. unfit, unsound, 2. dishonest.

graffiti trip

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:23:38 GMT

I was very excited to finally find a copy of Rennie Ellis and Ian Turner's Australian Graffiti - it's one of those books that used to be everywhere but as soon as I started looking for it, it disappeared. It's fairly straightforward - photographs of graffiti (not street art, at least not deliberately) around Australia in the 1970s. I get a bit of misplaced nostalgia when I look at these pictures - especially the one taken in Richmond - if you can't read it, it says 'Can You Breathe' - I'm sure I looked and wondered about this piece at the time this picture was taken ... The first piece of graffiti I clearly remember was a dick painted on the side of an abandoned warehouse with the word 'Floppa' emblazoned about. It was near Heatherdale station - this would have been around 1985 (I was 14). Other ones I recall are: 'Real wogs can't spell capuccino' (it was either wogs or waitresses - I think it was in Fitzroy - and I'm not sure I can spell it either). Also I remember seeing 'Free Chris Boyce' and being led to The Falcon and the Snowman, one of my favourite early films. There was a piece on the Inkerman bridge that I wrote about - 'Are you Foolish?' and one that's just hearsay at the footbridge in Peckham Rye - 'Changes occur crossing bridge'. I love graffiti as a story starter and this book has some pearlers. It reminds me of a personal teen trauma story about Rennie Ellis, too, but I'll save that for another time. If you have any great graffiti stories feel free to post!

1. Australian Graffiti - Rennie Ellis & Ian Turner (Sun Books - sun books! you were so cool! - 1975)
2. 'Can you breathe?'
3. 'The great green beasts are copulating.'
4. 'Feel feminist & fight!'

john waters says

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:31:41 GMT

we should make reading cool again.

"If you go home with someone and they don't have any books don't f**k them."

simple! This Filthy World is full of such wisdom.HIghly recommended - just don't watch it while you're eating dinner.

this week's haul

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:32:24 GMT

1. Oxford dictionary of English etymology (sample: galumph: invented by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass, 1871, a portmanteau word combining gallop and triumph.)
2. Birds of Australia in colour - by Lyla Stevens (including the magnificent riflebird and the boobook owl!)
3. Delightful peacock key-holder (made in Japan)
4. Children's mass book (I must have had one of these for my first communion because I felt a rush of ken as soon as I saw it)
5. Furry cardie (Anita Loos-ish)