deborahb.blog

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Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:01:09 GMT

Today on twitter:

15:18 I'm on 'roids. For my dodgy ear. *roar* !!! #
17:49 RT @tweetmeme @BlackOnline HorrorScope: Book Review: A Book of Endings bit.ly/78NTdU #

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lj betrays me

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:44:24 GMT

I’ve fallen victim to the no-emails-on-comments thing on livejournal. So if you’ve commented against my posts/comments & I haven’t responded, it’s because I didn’t get the memo. Sorry ’bout that.

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Caved in

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:45:51 GMT

I’ve always enjoyed Nick Cave’s music, in much the same way I’ve always enjoyed Meatloaf’s music. Yes, really. In essence they’re two sides of the same coin: Cave’s music is a kind of slowed-down cock-rock, equally melodramatic in its imagery and just as catchy as the music of his colleague Meatloaf — but slightly more suited to your more mournful moods.

Yes, it is weird to read a post from me about music, isn’t it? Perhaps you’re wondering what on earth possessed me to try it this time.

Well, Anwyn Crawford possessed me, because over at Overland she busts a few myths about Nick Cave’s music & exposes some of what’s been bugging me about his position as a mainstream-acceptable misogynist.

To reaffirm my position as musically naive, let me say that I first came across Nick Cave when he teamed up with that bastion of esoteric musicality, Kylie Minogue, on the album Murder Ballads in 1996. This is somewhere over 20 years after Cave began his musical career (wikipedia informs me), so clearly I’m not fast on the uptake. But ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’ got my attention. Quite simply, I loved how it sounded. Also pleasing: the lyrics, foreshortened by the limited vocal ranges of Minogue and Cave, make for an easy sing-along.

But I also remember being struck by the tension between the satisfyingly moody music with its brooding theme of destructive desire, and the portrayal of Minogue — this very successful (at least locally, at least by then) woman who allowed herself to be portrayed quite literally as an object. A dead object, by the end of the video, but no less pretty for that.

Isn’t it wonderful how death can preserve an attractive young woman? And not at all fantastical.

(Kiddies, I jest: there is no such thing as a beautiful corpse.)

The romantic setting and the horror of the slow-dawning discovery of just what, exactly, is going on in the video do provide a delightful frisson of pending disaster. Mmm, delicious! But the moment the snake (Freud would be pleased) slides suggestively across the crotch of Minogue’s virginally-white-dressed corpse (Freud would be ecstatically pleased, then he would need to smoke a cigarette and doze off for a time), I do remember thinking that you didn’t need a degree in symbolism to see through the obtuse phallic meaningfulness of the piece. Surely, I thought, they’re having a laugh? Surely there is some tongue-in-cheek or ironic *thing* going on here that I just wasn’t getting? Clearly I wasn’t in on the joke. Instead of mistrusting the appellation ‘ironic’, I mistrusted my own, apparently silly and over-sensitive reaction.

‘How odd,’ I thought, and continued to find the song and the singers (Cave for his coffin-chic earnestness and Minogue for her passive subjugation) fascinating. In effect, then, the song achieved what it set out to do. I bought some Cave music and each time I noticed the video on TV, I leaned in a little closer — looking for the punchline.

As to *that* book cover shown here in a more tasteful variation of the Australian version hilariously discussed over here (on a new favourite blog!), I did find myself drawn to the cover — and yet repelled when I spied the author’s name. But I couldn’t explain *what* it was about Nick Cave that repulsed and intrigued me. I kept thinking that Cave was so very mainstream, so very every-fcking-where, that I just wasn’t getting it. He writes music, and books, and stageplays, and movies. What *was* it that made me so suspicious? I could never quite put my finger on it.

But this is what interests me even more about Crawford’s essay:

His snobbery and towering ego both feed into our lingering cultural cringe: we think he’s smart because he’s popular in Europe, and we admire him because his bullish self-confidence is so different to the ritual self-deprecation that marks many Australian artists. He reads books! He lives in Brighton! The man’s a genius! In reality, Cave’s cartoon profanity is no more sophisticated or evolved than the bump’n’grind of gangsta rap

Because I’m beginning to wonder myself what price we’re paying in Australia for our tall-poppy syndrome? Through our self-deprecating approach, are we turning our artists, ourselves, into the burger-and-fries of the artistic world? Are we making it easy for the ego-maniacs to outwit us?

And would Nick Cave be any more attractive by Meatloaf’s dashboard lights?

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Auspicious endings

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:04:39 GMT

In good news, our little book-that-could, A Book of Endings, available now from Twelfth Planet Press, has been nominated for an Aurealis Award in the Best Collection category. Yay!

Also, yay! to see such fine fellows as Paul Haines, Geoff Maloney, Robbie Matthews, Donna Hanson and Greg Egan in the collection, too. In fact, overall the AA list is huuuuuuuuge this year, with plenty of friends in the list. So I’m feeling right chuffed with the whole thing. Full list of nominees here.

(For the home viewers, yes the list should read that the editors were Alisa Krasnostein & Ben Payne, of course! Amends are on the way.)

Also: A Book of Endings now has its own page at the National Library of Australia. Apparently you can borrow it from the Main Reading Room (Australian Collection).

AND over at HorrorScope, internationally* renowned man-of-taste Chuck McKenzie waxes lyrical about the book. Really. He makes it sound frikking brilliant. Where do I buy this thing again? Oh, yeah.

—–
* Originally, I typed that as ‘internally renowned’. Which is probably a compliment in some circles. Most notably, surgical ones.

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Via Twitter

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 13:01:13 GMT

Today on twitter:

19:07 RT @FelicityDowker: possibly the largest orgy of congratulating I've ever witnessed. Is there an Aurealis Award for that? There should be. #

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Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:01:30 GMT

Today on twitter:

18:12 RT @scribepub: Vote for your favourite short story collection of 2009 bit.ly/7ivjb1 #

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Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:01:26 GMT

Today on twitter:

14:41 Gothic essay on No Country for Old Men handed in! Only about a day late. Brain pretzel. Still love the book, though. #
18:57 I've just noticed something: it's the festive season. #

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More of the visual delights

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:39:43 GMT

This /w cheeseburgers is rather wonderful and I don’t know why.

But isn’t all great art like that? A little bit more, a little bit ‘other than’ something that’s easily put into words?

Also little naked person storage is kinda funny. ;p

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

A brief delay

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:24:15 GMT

I made it. With the emailing of the full draft of my 21st Century Gothic essay on NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, I’m done. That’s it. I’ve met my deadlines for 2009. Which is remarkable because for a while there I thought I wasn’t going to make it.

(I think I made it by going a little crazy for a while.)

Of course, a lot of those deadlines were for A BOOK OF ENDINGS (six new stories, yours now via Twelfth Planet Press!), but the timetable of 2009 work made it all the way into December. Now I’ve got to start thinking about my timetable for (*gulp*) 2010. Something a little calmer, I hope, though I maybe have just signed up for another Gilgamesh project. And there’s editing for the contemporary Ishtar story soon, most likely.

Anyhoooo, the essay. It’s in & it may or may not coherently argue that the battle of good (Sheriff Bell) and evil (Anton Chigurh) for the soul of one man (Llewellyn Moss), the elements of the supernatural, the voice of despair, the struggle to believe in a God who seems less involved in the world than Satan are all Gothic elements of this modern novel. There’s other stuff, too. I refer to Anne Radcliffe and Terminator in about equal measures, and naturally I mention MELMOTH THE WANDERER more than once.

But here’s the thing: I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about gothic literature. Turns out I’m not that knowledgeable at all. It impresses me how much trust esteemed editor Danel Olson has placed in his extensive contributor list (2 volumes!).

Plus, essays. Wow, I’d forgotten how hard they can be.

For now, though, the next steps are to return to the fun stuff. My stuff. The BROKEN novel. I’d left off with John Eiger about to — well, let’s just say he could be making a big mistake.

Man, I love when characters make big mistakes. I love sitting alongside them thinking, ‘oooooohhh, buddy, you’re in trouble now….’.

But tonight some rest and something new to read that *isn’t* NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. I’m thinking it’s time to return to some Michael Robotham.

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Via Twitter

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:01:16 GMT

Today on twitter:

10:54 RT @AustLiterature: The Australian: "How to give authors more and allow for cheaper books" bit.ly/8oEHnQ (via @Tim_Coronel) #

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Via Twitter

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:01:42 GMT

Today on twitter:

09:48 This morning, a sudden craving for a Norton St mortadella roll with tomato. And earl grey tea. Ayup, still with the headcold. #
18:19 Frabjous day! Finally, a pizza place that has bolognese pizza on its menu. Been YEARS since I've found a place that does that. #pizzalove #
21:39 Via storyfix.com, 'what I wish I knew about getting published before it happened to me'. bit.ly/8UT8Ry #
21:45 RT @askaaronlee: Add #red to your message in support of World AIDS day! #
21:47 Via @thebookslut: lost Persian army of King Cambyses II found! Buried by cataclysmic sandstorm. bit.ly/3CMuHi #

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Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:01:21 GMT

Today on twitter:

19:36 A long week, a glass of Clover Hill sparkling, a pizza delivery expected, and Frasier on TV. Life is good. #
20:31 What's with all the fancy dress in Sydney town tonight? Someone having a belated Halloween? #

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Via Twitter

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:01:17 GMT

Today on twitter:

11:41 Last night I met a guy who claimed to be a friend of Neddy Smith: deborahb.livejournal.com/ Sriously. #
22:01 RT @vintagebooks: Know someone who's a 'woman to watch' in the cultural + creative sectors? Nominate them at www.culturalleadership.org.uk #
22:19 Need to finish Transition before *fridayreads , so I have a new Friday Read to report. #

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Mmmm, pie.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:33:46 GMT

There’s this big pie in show business, and you physically can’t eat the whole pie. If you give everybody a slice of pie, you will still have more than enough. The real trick is not to try to get the whole pie, but to keep the biggest slice.
– Jay Leno, via quotationspage.com

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

The stranger

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:35:14 GMT

“I have a story to tell, but if I tell it, they’ll kill me.”

“Who will?” I ask, compulsively. Because even sober I’d want to know the answer to that.

“When I was 18, I was beaten by six screws. I was naked. Neddy Smith asked me if I’d screamed.”

My thoughts settle into the shape of a quiet ‘wtf’.

“Did you?” I ask.

“Wouldn’t you?” he says.

“Think Neddy would’ve screamed?” I ask.

“He likes to think he’s tougher,” says the man, “but I reckon.”

Neddy Smith. Famous murderer. As Sydney as the Harbour Bridge. Serving a life sentence (since 1989, I learn later). The TV show of Neddy’s life was banned in his home state of NSW for years.

And this guy — a stranger, a man who’d stopped us in the dark street not because he needed directions, as I’d thought, but because he had a story to tell — this man was claiming he knew Neddy-fucking-Smith?

My boyfriend is with me, taking up a reassuring amount of room to my right. Otherwise I might not have stopped. The stranger smells clean, really clean. His aftershave lingers hours after where he touched my arm to get my attention. Not that he needed to. He was too convincing already. Him and the tatts that lined his arms.

“I walk to Darling Harbour and talk to myself the whole way there,” he says. “People think I’m crazy, but it’s only the book.”

“You should write that book,” I recommend.

“But they’ll kill me,” says the man.

He says it without fear. Only a cheerful certainty. I know there’s a solution to this, but I can’t think what it is. I’m still sobering up.

“You should at least write it down. Or record it,” I try.

But shit, if he’s right and the cops are crooked, more crooked than we even realised, then where do you safely stow a record of that?

“You should post it to someone,” I suggest. “The Herald.”

He thinks my recommendations are dumb but he’s too polite to say. It’s nine-thirty at night and I’m not awake and I’m not sober, but I know I’m not going to stop him talking. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t.

He says, “You know Roger Rogerson.”

With a kind of of-course-you-do tone.

Of course I do. Rogerson haunts my neighbourhood even now, the corrupt cop that shot dead drug dealer Lanfranchi just a few streets from where the stranger is accosting us now, on a spot strangely marked with an X in old sandstone. (No one knows where the mark came from. Well, someone knows. But they haven’t said. Even Rogerson wonders: “In the old sandstone gutter where Lanfranchi fell dead someone has scratched an X“. Now that X features in a Nick Stathopolous painting destined to hang in my loungeroom. Roger Rogerson. Who’s survived long enough to comment on the stories they tell about him, the legends they’ve made about him).

The stranger’s off on another tangent and I’m having trouble keeping up.

“We used to go to that pub there on Broadway, you know the biker pub?” says the stranger.

There’s no biker pub on Broadway: what he’s pointing at is a student-style cheap and cheerful cafe where you can get jugs of sangria with your bowl of chips and gravy. But still I believe him.

“Sally Ann Huckstepp used to live in that house right there, and we’d go to the Broadway,” he says, pointing at one of the terraces sunk below street level, a modest hovel. “I’m sixty now, but when I was twelve, Neddy Smith introduced me to Huckstepp and do you know what he said?”

“What’d he say?”

“He said I was a good kid.”

Neddy Fucking Smith said that? Quick, what were the years Neddy Smith terrorised Sydney? I’m trying to remember.

“What year was that, when you were twelve?” I ask instead.

“Let’s see,” says the stranger, ever the obliging host on the streets of my city. “I was born in 51, so that was…”

He hesitates, unable to complete the maths.

“Sixty-three?” I suggest.

“Should I clear his name?” asks the stranger, “Because I can. For the family. Wouldn’t they want to know he wasn’t a rapist?”

I’ve lost track of who he’s talking about again. Someone accused of raping Sally Ann Huckstepp. She’s famous in her own right in Sydney, largely for turning up dead in a pond in Hyde Park. Went out to meet someone. Never came home. Ratted on her criminal friends to the cops. Knew she was going to die. That’s what they say about Huckstepp.

“I know who really killed her,” says the stranger, following my thoughts. “One’s on a life sentence, one’s dead, and there’s me.”

And there’s me. If all of this is true, if any of it is, for god’s sake how do we get this guy to tell the story? Does he mean he killed Sally Ann? Or is he talking about someone else again?

“You’re carrying drugs,” he suggests to me.

“Er, no,” I say, “but okay.”

“You’ve got drugs in your handbag, right,” he says, not noting the fact I don’t have a handbag, “and your boyfriend’s with you before the fact and after the fact, see?”

He outlines some strange archaic law about before and after the fact, which is hardly ever incited but by which he could prove someone guilty and that’s why he’s in danger, see? Because he can prove it and if he does, they’ll kill him. I mean, if he’s right about the story, sounds like he’s right to be paranoid. There’s an internal logic to what he says that I’m finding inescapable. But the premise of the story, now that I’m not sure of.

Neddy Smith, I later learn, has Parkinson’s now & has asked for compassionate leave from his sentence. He’s been refused. People don’t want Neddy Smith out on the street again. I smell the stranger’s aftershave and look at the thick lines of tatts on his right arm. I wonder about the Broadway. Am I really that close to history?

“You should write that book,” I say again.

We walk away and the boyfriend says, “Wow, we should invite that guy around for a cup of tea.”

“Didn’t he say he’s one of the three that killed … someone?”

Sally Ann? I’m growing even more confused, the protective spell of his internal logic wearing off as he beats his path to Darling Harbour.

“He’s sixty,” argues the boyfriend.

“He’s real,” I say.

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Via Twitter

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:01:10 GMT

Today on twitter:

10:05 RT @clarkesworld: The true story behind the #wfc2009 situation in the lobby. vylar-kaftan.livejournal.com/106269.html Thanks Vylar! #
10:06 RT @BookBuzzr: Writers aren't exactly people, they're a whole lot of people trying to be one person.- F. Scott Fitzgerald www.bookbuzzr.com #
10:36 RT @AustLiterature: "Making it in the American Market: Australian Books, American Publishers", 30 Nov Canberra bit.ly/7WGNKm #

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What went down in San Jose

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:22:50 GMT

First morning in San Jose I was woken by conversation in the corridor. One side of a conversation, anyhow. Someone calling ‘Security!’ at the door of — thankfully — another room. Nothing for a while after that as they went inside, then as they came back I heard them say they’d put a call into 911. It was kinda creepy and weird, made more so because I couldn’t hear anyone else talking. Just this one deep-voiced security guy who seemed a little bored. Wildly, I assumed someone had died. Really, though, I’ve no idea what happened that night.

A couple of mornings later there was, unrelatedly (I assume), police tape in the lobby. And then stories of a woman being raped. ‘The hell kinda place is this?’ I wondered. Now it transpires she was part of a con. And a suspect in an armed robbery.

Today of all days I heard this, white ribbon day — a day to campaign to stop violence against women. Seriously, unknown-armed-robber-woman, taking advantage of victims of rape is lousy.

So, let’s all buy ribbons and cover our clothes and hair with a message against violence!

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Via Twitter

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:01:58 GMT

Today on twitter:

14:57 5 seasons of Angel in 2 months. Has begun to colour my thinking. #

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Hey, I’ve worked for this place

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:43:54 GMT

Ah, Dilbert. Font of all wisdom.

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Harlequin: We help (ourselves to) the helpless

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:31:36 GMT

This is basically a skeezy, cynical and horribly demeaning thing Harlequin is doing, padding its bottom line by suckering a bunch of folks who don’t know better into thinking that paying for publication is a legitimate path into the publishing world. In a stroke, they’ve become the sort of scumbag publisher that writer’s organizations warn their members (and their aspiring members) about.

Dudes. Not cool.

And yes, makes our cousin-genre Romance look cheap & nasty.

Which I believe was the goal of the Harlequin Temptation books, ironically.

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Via Twitter

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:01:34 GMT

Today on twitter:

15:12 Plush Anton Chigurh -- complete with cattle gun: bit.ly/8H0fUK #
15:12 (Yes, still with the gothic essay on No Country for Old Men.) #
15:18 How to carve Anton Chigurh into a pumpkin: bit.ly/7vcuCh Mmm, can't wait for next Halloween. Yum. #

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Mamon

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:57:33 GMT

Today’s art discovery, discovered while I was searching for ‘God and Mammon‘ (for the gothic essay on No Country for Old Men): Mamon, by Louise Bourgeouis. The sculpture, which resembles a spider, is over 30ft high, with a sac containing marble eggs.

Mamon, via PlanetEye

There’s a stainless steel one in front of the Tate, but if you want to check out some of the other, bronze versions, they’re all here.

Beautiful. Not sure what it means, but I want one.

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Is it me?

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:18:48 GMT

One of my favourite psych ‘disorders’ is narcissism. This may have something to do with my Psych degree, or it may have something to do with meeting so many narcissists. Or it might just be all about me. See, that’s the irony of narcissism: a little can be quite healthy, a lot turns you into a deluded freak. And as artists aren’t we always trying to believe in ourselves? Except for those of us who already, perhaps a little too much, do?

Psychology today has a series of articles on narcissism. Do they really hate themselves? (Not enough, some might argue, & the article does finish by reminding us the world isn’t just. Which, y’know, most of us didn’t really need to be reminded of.) Apparently implicit and explicit self-esteem can now be measured. Over at Harvard’s Project Implicit, you can take a test to check out your implicit self-esteem in the area of professions. I’m pleased to note even implicitly I identify more with publishing than engineering. At least the subconscious is playing along, eh?

The narcissistic boss requires excessive admiration (admiration more than liking, which explains a lot) and is interpersonally exploitative. And The Field Guide to Narcissism examines the charisma (often short-lived) of the narcissist:

Intensely narcissistic people often live tumultuous lives, as few people can tolerate them for long. But having a milder version of the personality type comes with many side benefits. [snip] Mild narcissism also seems to help people recover from accidents or other trauma—it gives them an unrealistic sense of their own invulnerability, and they believe that they will be able to handle whatever else life throws at them. As one researcher put it, being somewhat narcissistic is like driving a huge SUV: You’re having a great time, even while you hog the road, suck up extra resources and put other drivers at higher risk.

Sounds kinda nice, actually. Relaxing, like.

And finally: Is there an epidemic of narcissism today?

Ahhhh, the cult of personality.

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Stories: how they end, what comes next

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:54:20 GMT

Taking a breather from trying to ~~come up with~~ finish an essay on why I consider No Country for Old Men gothic, to close some browser windows.

So, then.

If this is the future of storytelling, I don’t think I mind it at all.

Also, some reading for 2010. Could come in handy, particularly if you’re thinking of doing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge like driftwoodyak. I’m really keen on this, but I don’t think I can both read more AND write more all in the same 52-week period.

I’ve just added New Model Army and Death of the Author to my (already too-long) list. Man, I’m sick of reading boring books.

But if all that reading’s too much, maybe just skip to the end.

Last but not — well, just last — I came across the National Library’s page for A Book of Endings. Kinda cool.

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

Via Twitter

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:01:20 GMT

Today on twitter:

23:03 RT @TISFpodcast Up now TISF 013: Deborah Biancotti reads 'Hush' / Keith reviews Slights by Kaaron Warren. Free at www.tisf.com.au & itunes. #

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