Squibblog

indian summer's day

Last night the rain finally stopped and this morning the sun shone, enticing me into the garden to chop and tend and plant and feed. The spongey lawn was still soaking up the remnants of weeks of rain and the lettuces had all gone to seed, fearing, perhaps, that they would not see the sun again until spring. But the sun was shining so brightly that Nell and I stripped off to shorts and tshirts.

We pottered around the garden: Nell painting water colours while I tied up the snow peas. Soy and Zac were rejoicing that the ovals were open and soccer was being played on them.

This afternoon, despite the sun, I sat in the office and typed up notes on my Ern Malley essay. I am still smiling after a night out with girlfriends at the Red Lantern last night when we laughed so hard I feared my ginger pudding might make a reappearance through my nose.

There is no substitute for the company of life-long friends. We discussed everything from K's pregnancy to family dramas and our judgements so far on our nerdy PM.

Now I am preparing for a night in with Soy and the Coen brothers with a glass of white to celebrate the (brief) return of summer.

ern

I am sorry to do this to you, I really am, but you are my last resort.

Last night, in answer to my question "Am I boring you with this?" Soy gave the ultimate bad response. "A bit, yes."

So I can't blather on to him anymore about my current obsession with Ern Malley:I will have to tell you about it.

Ern Malley, you've probably heard the name. He was a poet. Or more correctly, he wasn't a poet. Not because he didn't write poetry (he did) but becuase he didn't exist. He was the creation of two Sydney poets McAuley and Stewart. Their hoax of the Angry Penguins magazine, which printed Ern Malley's poetry and declared him to be amongst Australia's best ever poets, caused a media frenzy in 1943.

That's the bit that many people already know.

The irony of this story is that McAuley and Stewart say that they wrote all 16 of Ern's poems in an adrenalin fuelled afternoon, flogging bits of whatever they found around them: Shakespeare, a rhyming dictionary, even a report on the breeding habits of mosquitoes. That was the crux of the hilarity in the press: pretentious journal duped by nonsense poetry about mosquitoes.

And yet reading the poems they aren't jibberish. Some parts of them are quite lovely. They are by far the most long lasting of either Stewart's or McAuley's work. The Angry Penguins' editors have long said that maybe the poets created genius without meaning to and maybe it's true.

What I find fascinating about Ern Malley is the fascination. The media went wild poking fun at a pretentious literary journal with a circulation of 900. Poetry was front page news. In Australia. I find that incongruous.

More than that, artists, musicians and, predictably I guess, poets are still fascinated with Ern. One of my favourite contemporary artists, Garry Shead, produced a huge series of paintings, etchings and sculptural urns (urns, Erns, get it?)  based on his obsession with Ern Malley.

So I really became interested in Ern Malley not because of the verse or even because of the hoax, but because I want to get inside the heads of other people who are obsessed with a poet who was born and died 65 years ago, and then turned into a joke. And seems to have left an indelible mark on Australia's cultural landscape.

Apparently this is the part where I start to get boring. Soy had the put the kids to bed last night because I was in the library until closing, reading about why Sidney Nolan was obsessed with Ern Malley. Now I am writing a blog post about Ern when I should be working. I am beginning to see his point.

Thank you for listening.

friends, family and food

For a wet weekend, ours went by pretty bloody fast, frankly.

Nell and I spent Friday morning with an old friend of hers from her daycare. She has been asking to see L for a while but I have been reluctant to get the girls together for fear that Nell would pine for her old childcare. L's Mum called me and confessed that she had also worried that L would begin missing Nell if they played, but we both decided to risk it. Partly because the girls love each other, but also partly because the adults get on so well - it's sad to lose a grown up friend when the kids move on.

So Nell and L spent the morning playing zoos while L's Mum and I made tiny play-dough balls and swapped four months worth of catching up. It was great.

On Friday night we went to another of our Uni friend gatherings, the Friday night Pizza Party. The plan is that each month a different family hosts the Pizza party where working and non-working folk can just show up, have a few beers while the kids play. It's to make up for the loss of our Friday morning play group.

But on this wet and cold Friday we were the only family who made it to our hosts' house, but that didn't stop us either eating pizza or partying. The cutest thing was watching Nell and Joel, old friends since they were babies, sneaking in and stealing all the grown up munchies and ferreting them away under the table. They giggled so mischievously it was hard not to mourn their Friday morning sojourns. I won't even mention the piano duets for fear my computer will melt from excessive cuteness.

Saturday we met up with friends, again the parents of our childrens' friends. This time it was Zac's turn to see a daycare friend who now goes to a different school. C's parents are another couple Soy and I really clicked with so we spent the afternoon eating souvlaki and exchanging journo gossip (they are both writers for the Aus).

Last night was Passover, my favourite of the Jewish festivals. There is ceremony, matzo ball soup and wine. My mother in law showers us with delicacies and her house is so warm and inviting. Often there is dancing (although last night we settled for debate about the state of Australian poetry) followed by flourless chocolate cake.

This morning Soy rode his new bike to Waterfall and back (85 kms!) while I took the kids to see Horton Hears a Who with Liz (our hosts on Friday night, and another Sunday morning cycle widow). The kids enjoyed it, but Liz and I definitely laughed more than they did. We ate a lot of popcorn and trundled home for a snooze.

Now I must away because Soy has dinner ready and I am looking forward to a bit of East of Everything and a quiet glass of wine.

seven things you probably did already know about me

I am finally responding to Jane's meme, sucker, as I am, for any meme. Especially when I get to talk about me, me and more me.

I worry that after 5 years and 469 posts surely there can't be seven things you don't already know about me, but here goes:

1. I have a phobia of squirrels. I discovered this aged 29 walking through Kensington Gardens in London, which was close to where we lived. Going out to any English park became a trial for me because disease carrying rodents with long twitchy tails scamper about threatening to ... I don't know ... scare me. When Soy and I visited Bryce Canyon in the American south west I was not-so-delighted to discover that I am also mortally afraid of chipmunks. I can rationalise all I like about relative size, how cute they are etc, but nothing changes the fact that they make me break out in a sweat and feel dizzy. If one came too close, I swear I would faint - that's how physical my phobia is. Go on, laugh at me. Even my most beloved have made fun of my phobia but ridicule does not lessen my fear. I thank the Lord I live in Australia where I only have to encounter deadly spiders and venemous snakes. I'm fine with them.
2. Although all my tertiary study has been humanities based, and despite the fact that I am now a writer, my favourite homework in High School was always maths. When I was struggling with an English essay or falling asleep over my French verbs, I would reach for my maths homework because it was concrete and real and I could always get an answer in the end. That was until the day in Year 12 when I learned about imaginary numbers. When numbers become imaginary I don't want to know about them anymore.
3. I have three ear piercings. I started out with the normal two - one in each ear. Then one day in University my friend Vic and I decided that we each wanted another hole in our left ear. So we went to a hair dresser together and got one ear done each. I haven't worn an earring in my extra hole for about 15 years so it has probably closed up by now, but the hole is still visible.
4. I eat "left handed". I hold my knife with my left hand and my fork with my right. I don't know why I do it, but I have always eaten that way. I could attempt to blame my mother, who is left handed, but I suspect she might eat the other way.
5. The first album I ever bought with my own money was ABBA's Arrival. I need say no more.
6. I have no dental fillings.
7. When I was three years old I fell off a wall while I was eating a Splice iceblock, and broke my nose. I never ate another Splice but I still have a bump in my nose.

NIDAwarts

Zac has been attending NIDA for the past few days, doing a school holiday program about witches and wizards going to a school called NIDAwarts. When I was frantically looking for alternative vacation care (after our snafu) I read the program and knew that he would love it. Casting spells, pretending to ride a broom, mixing potions. I think he gets to act some scenes today and I have the feeling he is going to choose Draco Malfoy as his character. He is always drawn to the baddie in any story (although yesterday he told me that "villain" was a much better word than "baddie" and there weren't going to be baddies in his games anymore).

I have to admit, though, that I felt like a bit of a wanker when I first enrolled Zac in NIDA for the holidays. Was I turning into some sort of pushy stage-Mum monster? Was I trying to turn my child into some sort of luvvie? Then I put myself back into my own 6 year old shoes and I knew that I would have given my eye teeth to attend NIDA, so I stopped cringing about enrolling Zac there.

When he came home on his first day Zac told me about his adventures but he didn't seem particularly excited about it. I asked him if he'd had a good time, because if he didn't, we wouldn't make him go back.

He looked at me solemnly and said "Mum, I think it was just about the greatest day of my whole life".

lizzie

Today I am feeling tired and happy.

Last night Soy and I went out to the annual IT Journo awards, aka The Lizzies.

I was very pleased to stumble out of the evening a little drunk and clutching a coveted Lizzie trophy. My Lizzie is for "Best New Journalist" and I was very pleased and honoured to accept it. As it is a peer judged award, I really began to feel like I am recognised a real journalist after all.

In a strange way, though, I am happier about the award I didn't win.

I came in first for the best new journo, which is lovely but it sort of means "you're good for a beginner".

But I also entered a few of my stories in the "Best Consumer Technology Journalist", a category I knew I had little hope of winning. I was extremely chuffed, then, to find myself "highly commended" in the category, meaning that I was ranked either 2nd or 3rd to the winner. In a field of seasoned journos I was ranked 2 or 3! That made me feel very much a part of the community of writers I have joined, and hopefully it will be good for business too!

by popular* demand

This is Nell's interpretation of "The Idle Hour".

*by "popular" I mean that Annie asked to see it

stressed

Today I am feeling stressed. It's a number of things, work, study, other stuff.

The holidays are next week and through a bit of family mis-communication (oh I'm just gonna say it: Soy stuffed up) Zac's holiday care fell through for the first week. After some frantic scrambling, begging and comforting (Zac, for unfulfilled expectations, Nell for the changes we had to make to her arrangements) we managed to salvage the situation. Instead of going to the local school-based vacation care, as planned, Zac is now going to a NIDA workshop where he will get to live out his Harry Potter fantasies. It's twice the price and I have to drive to Kensington everyday, but then again, he gets to go to NIDA for the holidays which is pretty cool.

Yesterday I ran the seminar for my Masters course. It didn't start well with the Uni Mac unable to read my PowerPoint presentation (kind of important in an Art History seminar) and that threw me for the presentation itself. It was all pretty shambolic, I could hear my voice shaking with nervousness and I just couldn't focus on the notes without the slides so I rambled. Fortunately my seminar group is full of intelligent people who have opinions so I didn't have to do all the talking and I enjoyed the discussion in the end. But I certainly didn't impress anyone with my erudition and now I am thankful that the seminar was not assessable.

Today my blood pressure has spiked from shouting self-righteously at people down the phone and not really getting what I want. I wish I felt confident that it would all work out but so far I can't see it. Grrr.

I am feeling slightly better having written that all down, so I think I'll go and make a cup of tea.

gallery

I took Nell to the gallery today. It was raining and we are saving all the museums (and the cinema) for the school holidays, so I tentatively asked Nell if she would like to bring her drawing stuff to the gallery and draw there. Surprisingly she agreed.

Trips to the AGNSW with the kids have traditionally been fraught, although Nell actually enjoys it at times. Zac wouldn't set foot inside the gallery unless there were serious incentives offered.

Anyway, armed with a blank notebook and a box of textas, Nell and I hit the gallery. I really wanted to stay with the Australian modernists, but Nell decided they weren't proper pictures. She is more a 19th century girl. Which is interesting because apart from the Heidelberg school (now renamed the 'Australian impressionists') I really have no stomach for 19th century art. Which fails to explain why I am studying it this semester.

But I digress. As we wandered through the 19th century galleries, we discovered a beautiful little alcove which held this painting (whose creator I have conveniently forgotten but it's entitled "The Idle Hour"). Nell was immediately taken with it and exclaimed  "I will only draw round things today, Mummy!"

After she finished her drawing of the three figures ("their skin is very blonde" she told me, seriously), I enticed her to come and look at Nolan's Ned Kelly because it's what I came to look at.

As I stopped in front of the picture and pointed it out to her, she looked at me aghast and then burst into tears.

"But his head is a SQUARE! And I am only drawing CIRCLES today!"

There is no getting past Nell when she's in full flight.

I salvaged the situation, as I always do in the gallery, with a quick trip to see the bats which calmed her down.

After a break for lunch, we headed back in search of paintings more suitably round.

We ended up here, where Nell settled down to draw. She spent a long time getting all the details of her lady correct. Shell in hand? Check. Sand at her feet? Check. Flowers on her dress? Check. Water and a few trees? Check.

She was very taken with the whole gallery experience by this stage and I thought about trying to convince her to come and see the Archibald prize exhibition with me, but I couldn't recall a single round picture in it and didn't dare to risk it.

garden facelift

On Sunday Soy took Zac out to see the Swans. We had all planned to go but Nell decided she wasn't interested and I thought it was best not to complicate a day out with an uncooperative child. So instead Nell and I went out to our favourite garden centre, which features a nice little cafe, so we could putter about and look at flowers.

Autumn is such a lovely time in Sydney so I enjoyed my tea and peacan pie while Nell watched the fish in the ponds. Although it wasn't a scorching summer, our garden, has been looking a little worse for wear with the heat and rain combining to take their toll - diseases like mildew and frangipanni rust have afflicted some of my most beloved plants. I decided it was high time to clean out some of the old, cut back the diseased and plant a crop of new herbs and veggies winter sets in (all 5 weeks of it).

Nell is just interested in flowers. Every time I take her to the garden centre we come away with cheapie pots of flowers because she has asked so nicely for them. I still haven't found a spot for the second punnet of miniature pansies she made me buy, but the first punnet went to fill in patches in the herb garden where the old oregano was getting a bit woody.

I then spent most of Tuesday cutting the rust affected leaves off my prized frangipanni which is now looking very sad and sorry. I sprayed it with copper fungicide and wait (and hope) that the chemicals and the added light and breeze from cutting down the hedge will mean the tree survives and rewards us with its beautiful pink array next summer.

I will post photos when the garden is looking a little more established and the frangipanni is a little happier.