...Ode to Tom Robbins...

Ok, maybe not quite an ode, as a great quote-fest. When trying to choose a 'literary quote of the week', I went for Tom Robbins - the fact it took me three weeks to get there was my iron willpower...ahem. I love Tom Robbins as an author so very much. He once explained that he likes to take an incredibly crazy idea or scenario and write himself out of it, like squeezing out of a sticky situation. He is my favourite because he can take you on such a wild ride whilst making clearer sense of the universe. I found it real hard to decide which quote to use so I thought I would share a few of my favourites:

She had never paid much attention to the Middle Eastern situation, per se, and now she knew why. It was an overload of craziness. It was a seventy piece orchestra rehearsing a funeral dirge and a wedding march simultaneously in a broom closet. FROM 'SKINNY LEGS AND ALL'

If spirit is the electrical system that illuminates the house, then soul is the smoky fireplace, the fragrant oven, the dusty wine cellar, the strange creaks we hear in the floorboards late at night. FROM 'VILLA INCOGNITO'

He returned to his Bible, meditating on the verse about how the lilies of the field don't bother to flip burgers or climb the corporate ladder. FROM 'VILLA INCOGNITO'

perhaps the most terrible (or wonderful)thing that can happen to an imaginative youth, aside from the curse (or blessing) of imagination itself, is to be exposed without preparation to the life outside his or her own sphere - the sudden revelation that there is a there out there. FROM 'JITTERBUG PERFUME'

Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures it and rides it, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route. FROM 'JITTERBUG PERFUME'

Anyway, I really better stop or I won't have any more quotes of the week.

Autumn

A brief intermission today from the incessant rain of late has me reflecting on the beauty of the seasons. Leaves the colour of burnt oranges with coffee stains. Cool mornings, blustery coat-wearing days. Summer was quite the non-event this year and winter is all blue skies (albeit cool) these days...and some say we are not screwing with the weather!?

So enjoy it while it lasts, Sydney folk...make a pot of tea, grab your cardi and go read in that little corner of sun in the courtyard. Next week anything could happen...

The Travel Wars (in my head)

Uh-oh...the bug got into my blood again and now I am in turmoil. It is pumping into my brain (even my dreams for gods sake!) at regular intervals, it is causing me to buy Get Lost and Travel & Leisure magazines, scour sites like Intrepid and Lonely Planet, place In Arabian Nights by Tahir Shah at the head of my (very large) reading pile, not to mention playing The Motorcycle Diaries Soundtrack in my car, stealing moments to close my eyes at the lights and just...
If you are anything like me (god help you), once you get locked into a travel fixation, anywhere will do and next week will be perfect. Every new idea I get is incredibly valid (if I can't go to India till December, maybe I could head to Cambodia in August...after all, Jetstar has that deal) and all other priorities in my life become a distraction the equivalent of a fly (August may be busy as hell at work, but September is Ramadan in Morocco so I really don't have a choice).
If I happen to locate this so-called bug, it is being cut out with a pitch fork, but I think the f*%k#*ng thing is breeding!

Warning for Kevin Rudd...

The questioned/ing? vegetarian

I set up an interview for my food editor at work with ABC radio, who were doing a special on vegetarianism. The lovely food editor was up for it, but mentioned that she of course is not a vego. "I am" I informed her. "Great. Do you mind if we schedule in a chat before the interview so I can ge a better idea of why people become vegetarians?".
When we had a chance to sit down for our little 'chat', and Jane started asking why vego? when vego? how vego? why fish and not meat? etc, I realised that I have been a non-meat eater for about 9 years. So, it was 9 years ago that I was reading up about animal cruelty, abattoirs, battery farms and the other bloody and passion inciting topics -and it was hard to use these wafting memories (and lets face it, my memory already sucks at 28) as justification for a choice that affects my life daily. I've always proclaimed that I am a vegetarian because in the society that we live in, we can get all the nutrients we need for a healthy diet in foods other than meat. I absolutely still believe that this is the case and this is the basis of my choice. After a fair bit of umming and arrring however, I left the talk realising that maybe it was time that I actively became re informed about some of the nasties of the food industry...after all, alot can change in 9 years.

Ani, where ya been?

I have been wondering lately where Ani Difranco has been. A best of album? A live album? Hmmm...then the other night my lovely brother showed up with a new Ani DVD for me titled Live at Babeville and all my queries were laid to rest. I had known from a previous DVD that she has been on a quest to save an old church building in her home town of Buffalo, NY. After almost 10 years, that quest has been fulfilled, and the result is Babeville, the new amazing music venue and headquarters for Righteous Babe Records (Ani's label).

But that's not all Ani's been up to. She has also, well, lost the dredz for one (Ani got her dredz about the same time as I did and seems we both got rid of them at the same time - just a weird coincidence), and secondly she has gotten back with her hubby...and they had a baby! The baby was born on Jan 20th last year...I bet she's really cool:)

Anywho, Difranco has started touring again so my fingers and toes are crossed in hope that she will head down under, and judging from the great new songs she played in Live at Babeville, I'm guessing a new album is in the works too.

Bolivians and the coca leaf...

I was angered when I read yesterday in the Guardian Weekly that a UN body has decided to outlaw the chewing of the coca leaf along with it's use in products. This is another instance of the first world projecting it's uninformed values onto an age old culture. If you have been to South America, or Bolivia itself, like I have, you would see that the coca leaf performs many functions in society - as medicine, as aid against altitude sickness, and as a hunger suppressant, which can sadly be necessary in the poorest country in all of South America. If you want to read it from a coca farmer's perspective, go here. This will be an interesting drama to watch play out. Who will come to Evo Morales' side to stand up against the UN? I have dibs on Venezuela.

Enchanted Childrens Books

I worked for many years in bookstores and along that journey I had a couple of postings as Children's Book Buyer. Upon being given this role I was thinking 'Geeeez...children's books? Are they f$#%ing kidding?' but it turned out to be a bit of a blessing (Dr. Suess party aside....that was a nightmare). For one it was a way for me to gain knowledge on my weakest category (OK, automobiles, gardening, sport and military are definitely up there) but it was also a way to remember how to get lost in the wonderment that can be found in fairy tales and the world of the imagination.

It was not just the stories that captured me, but also the illustrations (uuh...does this one have pictures?). So I wanted to share with you two of my favourite children's illustrators - Wayne Anderson (above left) and Jane Ray (below). Whilst looking for some of their illustrations online I discovered that illustrators keep their images bolted so as we can see but not touch so although these are not my favourites, they were all i could get. Click on their names if you wish to see more. I own a little set of fairy tales illustrated by Jane Ray and a book called Moon Dog by Anderson. I do encourage you though, to not always stay away from the children's section as you may just be depriving yourself of some wonderful treasures.