NewSouth Books who have just sent me my advance author copies of Adelaide,
which were waiting for me tonight when I got home from my brush with death (see The Ugly).
French brandy.
My dad.
The Stella Prize.
My friend Stephanie, aca and entrepreneuse extraordinaire.
The lovely Garry Disher's Challis and Destry books.
The bathroom scales (never thought I'd say that).
The Bad:
Centrelink.
The South Australian government and its treatment of employees and citizens. On the other hand, Premier-In-Waiting Jay Weatherill belongs under The Good, at least for now. (NB the Neanderthal mindless macho bullshit rhetoric of the Opposition here.)
Otherwise intelligent anti-feminist women setting the cause back 50 years. Not that I have anyone in particular in mind or anything.
The Ugly
Idiot drivers who come barging out of side streets straight into the oncoming heavy traffic, in the dark, in the rain.
Supermarket white bread.
Great big slugs.
The cat litter tray.
Please feel free to add to these lists.
Posts
16 comments:
Congratulations on the book Kerryn!
The Good: A warning bang on time from the newspaper astrologist - "He's going to turn up on your doorstep again. Remember why you broke up with him." (Gender specification by me)
Listening to Joni Mitchell after a very long time.
The Bad: Forgot to pay car rego - very expensive.
Killed my laptop with coffee yesterday (also very expensive)
The Ugly: Much the same ... except mine was the only car involved but it was wet and dark and definitely a NDE.
Cat litter trays.
Yeah I recently had a near-ugly on my motorbike, care of a young fella who thought changing lanes was a matter of indicating then turning the wheel left. Inside a full-face helmet, nobody can hear the fruitiness of your language.
WV: gonier
Mazel Tov for your new book, it looks great.
That driver sounds like they were caught up in a James Bond fantasy! My most scary road moments have always been with cyclists pretending they're cars... when I'm a pedestrian.
The book looks marvellous, will be snapping it up.
Your book looks beautiful, Kerryn.
Both bad and ugly: live animal trade.
It is a jarring list, for one so short. Centrelink, garden slugs (yum-yum), politicians (interchangeable with garden fauna above), certain types of young people, ditzy feministas (who can she mean?).
Am still reeling. Then there are pc's, did the same thing recently over the key boards for the cost of a fresh set.
Yes, now I know.. wallets and keys that remain visible until its time to go out, disappear, then turn up when you know you've missed the bus for the appointment that would have changed your life.
The good:
- Melbourne Film Festival flowering through a scarily warm winter. Some excellent films Le Havre high among them, can't wait to see Drive tomorrow.
- The FT Weekend edition being absolutely brilliant reading week in week out while every other paper in the world goes down the toilet.
- The polite understanding that drivers have developed for cyclists in my patch of late.
The bad:
- The absolutely rubbish films that turn up from time to time in the above.
- The preposterous paperwork that one needs to fill in, on several occasions, to volunteer these days.
The ugly:
- what the heck is that revolting, flimsy, camel brown thing that wasn't there last week? Oh, it's a new lifestyle is it? I see...
WV: astuate (wot?)
The Good:
Humanities researcher in her latest post: "Kerryn Goldsworthy's closing presentation: a wonderful and chilling not-a-ghost-story." Can we haz a version as a blog post? G'wan!
The Bad:
The continued desecration of Victoria's last remaining old-growth wet habitat to which I am an online witness this week, http://bit.ly/pP9piw and my own cowardicd and inertia in not chucking a sickie and braving the terrible Toolangi roads to join the protesters.
The Ugly:
The proliferating nativist/nationalist groups popping up everywhere - hope the AFP keeps an eye on them rather than bloody forest protesters, since Breivik.
Oh yes. Yes, what is a chilling not a ghost story? I demand a post about this sensation fiction you dangle without explication. Of course, feel free to tell me to frack off for being demanding, except of course, tell it to me in your phrasing and language. Indeed, tell it to me dressed in the clinging gossamer threads of an ancient yellowed silk, your voice echoing down the halls of this long lonely internet. Tell it whilst the wind whips its fury about the hem of your long ago dress, there where the orphan ghosts of some past sadness collect like lost syllables at your snow white bloodless feet.
Come on. I am frightened of my thesis. Can't you tell? Tell it.
WV: herso
Herso needs a good story.
And congratulations on your book. When is it out for the general public to buy?
Frightened of your thesis, eh? Hm. Are you familiar with this?
Also, the official publication date of the book is October, which means the beginning of October -- might turn up in the shops a bit before that though.
You can of course pre-order which I have done and got two lovely emails the first of which told me the book would be with me in 3-5 working days and the second of which told me to ignore the first email as the book wasn't published yet and they wouldn't charge my card until the book was ready to send. So sometime in October I'm going to be wondering what the hell that charge on the card is then pleasantly surprised when my book turns up.
To what extent do the cover's stormy/gloomy allusions to Southern Gothic in the City of Light reflect the book's content? Quite like the cover, as it happens.
TFA
TFA -- not to any very great extent, though there is a chapter entitled 'The Photograph' which uses that haunting shot of the Beaumont children showing the girls in their school uniforms on their tricycles with the little boy standing between them as a starting point for a discussion of the whole 'weird Adelaide' thing. I'm glad you like the cover, cos I took that photo myself -- I was just trying to give the publisher an idea of the sort of photo that Adelaideans would recognise as very Adelaide, but that would also fit in with the design and mood (all also very, erm, moody) of the covers of the Hobart, Brisbane and Sydney books, and now, as it turns out, of the Melbourne book as well. But they like the photo and used it. I was astounded, as I am a photographic nincompoop. I nearly fell into the river to get that shot. (Actually, there's a bit of fairly grim discussion of the river, too.)
Kerryn, I'd overlooked the series 'image': your photo fits the look admirably. Worth a dip into the Torrens - and isn't that a less risky exercise nowadays (irrespective of Vice Squads)? I seem to recall that the Chemistry Dept lab sinks at the University of Adelaide drained directly into the river until surprisingly recently (1980s I think).
Yes, the Beaumont children. Very much one of the defining episodes of my early childhood, it cast such long shadows across a generation. I remember the fear.
TFA
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