A Luce Affiliation

Natasha was telling me that she wants to read more books by women. I think the phrase she used was, "I am sick of reading men's stories." I've never given this much thought before. I think that there are two different issues here.  First, female writers, and the support and recognition (or lack thereof) they receive for their writing.  See: the Miles Franklin prize, the Pulitzer etc. Second, the issue of men's stories vs women's stories.  This is a very interesting one.  I like to read stories that open up other perspectives. So I like men's stories sometimes. I realise in hindsight that we were prescribed a lot of 'women's stories' in my high school literature classes: Pride and Prejudice, A Doll's House, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary.  But there were men's stories too: The Grapes of Wrath, Hamlet and A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. And of course, this is a false dichotomy.  The Grapes of Wrath tells women's and men...

"There was a terminal narrative.  It was a story until it stopped being a story and until then they kept wanting to know.  Give up, the doctor told Donald, kindly.  Surrender your need for detail; there is only one way this is going to end." -Emily Perkins, 'The Forrests'

So I suppose you are wondering where I got this lovely array of blossoms? Or perhaps this pussy-willow? From the overgrown park on my way home from work... I have become a furtive flower thief!! This makes me ridiculously excited and happy. I try to be very stealthy, I don't want some council-worker or 'neighbourhood watcher' giving me a hard time.  I only took a very modest amount! But I'll admit, I took some sturdy scissors on my second trip. And here are some flowers that I definitely didn't steal: beautiful prints by Lara Cameron  (for the blank spots on the wall in the photos above).

We are in Darwin visiting Miriam, Marcel, Floyd the dog, their toilet frog and of course, new baby Pearl!!! Here she is: Stylish just like her mum (and dad!). We finished the Jatbula walk on Thursday. It was amazing! The daily rhythm of the hike was simple and intoxicating: walk each morning, eat a lazy lunch by a water hole, then a short post-lunch hike to a campsite by a waterfall.  Swim and laze all afternoon. Repeat, five times. I enjoyed being very aware of where the sun was in the sky each day. Just peeking over the horizon meant: get up now!! It's walking time. Low in the eastern sky made for cool morning hiking. High overhead meant: hot-dang! Let's get there soon.  Low in the western sky meant: maybe one more swim before dinner?? We hiked through heaps of different landscapes. On the second last day it was mainly jungle: palms, high grasses and vines, punctuated by waterholes strewn with water lilies. This reminded me of the beautiful opening ...

It has been so long since I've posted that I've nearly forgotten which books I have read! Nearly...but not quite: 'The Observations' by Jane Harris, our book club's book for the month 'Jeff in Venus, Death in Varanasi' by Geoff Dyer 'Sic' by Joshua Cody 'The Bridge' by Jane Higgins In the past year or so that I have begun to define myself by my love of reading. Somehow reading has moved from background noise to the 'hobbies and activities' section of my internal CV. Tonight Jason and I ate dinner at the Brix, partly because Ghita had told us the barman was Jason's dopelganger. It was odd, he did look like a bit like Jason. But the similarity was more 'Guess Who' than gestalt. 'Does he have a beard?' 'Does he have brown hair?' But the food was great and I enjoyed their excellent art (a Gerard O'Connor photo of barnyard animals in a last-suppper-styled feast) and their soundtrack (rolling sto...

For the last few years I have been going to Mr Nicola Ricci, the tailor on Rathdowne street. He is 86 years old and seems to enjoy remarkably good health for a man who smokes incessantly. He often leaves a lit cigarette smouldering on his work bench, but I haven't found any scorch marks on my clothes yet. The only change I have noticed over that past 7 years is that he now wears chemist glasses with the prescription sticker still on the lens. I first met Mr Ricci after the great Vintage Dress Disaster of 2005. I had bought a beautiful blue party dress with ruched sleeves. I wanted to get rid of the sleeves, to make it more 'summer day dress' and less 'Molly Ringwald goes to a birthday party!'* My housemate Ian was very confident that he knew just what was needed. I should have known when Ian picked up the kitchen scissors that it would not end well. IT WAS A TEXAS PARTY DRESS MASSACRE. Enter Mr Ricci, tailor. He was very disappointed with me. Very disappoint...

This Easter we went to Blairgowrie to stay at Thomas' beach house. The day before we left I bought some watercolour paints and paintbrushes at one of the 2-dollar shops on Smith street. Bargain!! I have never really painted before, and as you can see, I am really very bad. I used to hate art so much in high school that I even volunteered to clean out the paint sinks instead of having to paint. But this time I found it incredibly relaxing and fun. Somewhat disturbingly, I just read an article suggesting that a new desire to paint is one of the first signs of frontotemporal dementia! So, my mediocre depiction of our weekend features: Jenn reading a book next to baby Niamh Huw, Eva and Tara swimming in the deep rock pools Nico floating in the surf on our inflatable pool toy Dan and Thom making a fire Jason chopping wood Verity and I playing soccer Tanya and Ao playing Kubb Erin and Kath fishing Rohan streaking Pippen (the dog) chasing butterflies. Chilli (dog) with a bright red ...