Seaside Sensibilities

Migrating whales, surfboards heading for the hidden rocks at Mackenzies and a hundred artworks on sandstone ledges, the park and the beach. Welcome to Sculpture by the Sea.

On the eve of this annual event, wanderers witnessed last minute preparations by sunburnt workers in heavy boots and bright vests who were busy stripping plastic off stainless steel and securing heavy blocks of glass in under the watchful eyes of artists and curators. Were those bags of sand actually art? Were the piles of timber frames on Tamarama beach a postmodern take on disposable society?

When we were kids growing up in a rambling house several bays south, Mum declared ‘Tama’ out of bounds. We always thought it was the wild surf she worried about, but when time came to tear around coastal streets in rusty Volkswagens, it was the bare breasts that had us hiding and giggling behind straggly clumps of lantana. Back then, the beach was deserted except for locals, but in 2013, by the milky skin of a freshly brewed cappuccino, a newly installed café has dragged this bleached crescent of exquisite perfection into gentrified modernity.

Under smoky, cloudless skies, art lovers, busloads of school kids, joggers, prams and dogs will shuffle and jostle on steep sandstone steps without railings, compact grassed areas and unfenced concrete paths perilously close to cliffs.

For nature to morph into a temporary exhibition space, attitudes and behaviours must be accommodating. Perspective is required. Imagine the collective emotions when Governor Philip sailed into Sydney and cleared for farming the sandstone cliffs that date back 200 million years BC to the Triassic Age. How did the Cadigal people react to the gross appropriation of their land into the agri-business Mackenzie’s Dairy?

Sharing requires etiquette and empathy. Note to crowd-phobic residents: with prior permission from the Premier and the Mayor, this place, your ‘hood, is, for very two short weeks, an art gallery. You can embrace cultural chaos or you can rent out your house and flee, but for 17 years and hopefully, forevermore, this wonderful event is to be on your doorstep.

Visitors, on the other hand, should notice the narrow winding streets and take a bus. If public transport is not an option, it should be universally understood that parking over drive ways is a sure fire way to hell.

Joggers, you can’t appreciate the sculptures, the view or the rock engravings of sharks and whales while dodging prams and dogs. You must understand the chatty, distracted mob on the narrow, hilly route from Marks Park to Tamarama will neither keep to the left nor maintain your pace. So, if you are partial to lycra and sweat, you might consider a two week detour to Centennial Park where your long strides and flailing arms are less likely to catapult an art lover off a cliff.

Did I mention dogs and prams? 

Unlocked and Disrobed

After an unspectacular end to the case of the locked-in tourist when the door was shoulder-nudged from the outside side by a knight on a shiny scooter, I emerged into the sunshine to discover the fabric emporiums in Denpasar’s Jalan Sulawesi and a woman with a sewing machine just a few houses down this raggedy little street. 

Locked In

Locked in, in a dress I can’t unzip.

It took so long to zip it up. Physical issues usually preclude wearing this dress when travelling solo, but I do like this dress, so I persisted. 

It is so hot my skin prickles from the inside out. The ankles are swelling, the skin on my calves is stretched to breaking point and I’m remembering an elegant and skinny lower leg area I didn't inherit from mum. I don’t feel like looking at that manuscript, and don’t tell me not to worry. I know all about this stupid process. I’ve read Stephen King’s On Writing four times (written, interestingly, when he was locked inside; to be precise, after he was squashed by a lorry while out walking); I’ve started Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and her early pages confirm that I’m totally, awesomely on track when it comes to dithering.

Let Them Eat Cake

Yes, I know...what about the bloody book? Yes, well, this time the distraction is brutal: It's about 21st birthdays...

Hair War

More procrastination here, and this time, when it's the eleventh chapter that should be uppermost in mind, it's unwanted hair that consumes my thoughts.

When the Penny Drops

I had a penny-dropping moment once and it was blinding. A moment when you felt compelled to look around and check that no one else saw the obvious creep up and slap you. I was in a cafe, staring up at one of those ridiculously high counters. Why did I have to stand on tippy toes to pay for my coffee? Up there, three plastic containers were stacked on top of each other. Small, medium, large; plastic, environmentally catastrophic. They were filled with rice, with the prices handwritten on the lids in thick black texta.

Happy Everything!

Do 21st birthdays really matter? The one at our house last weekend did. Family bonding at its best. In the grog shop the weekend before, where debates raged over the best brand of cider, and in the café on the corner where we decided on the menu with a wise caterer who recommended lots of carbs. On the night, in the kitchen with the extended family, well away from a tent that contained most of the mischief and afterwards with just a few left, to scoff mud cake over a cuppa and a chat.

Why Mr Glover Doesn't Need Facebook

When writer and broadcaster Richard Glover wrote a column about his 20 favourite Facebook faux pas, his last point ruffled the feathers. “Posting a link to your own work…as if I’d ever do something as egocentric as that.”

Mr Glover doesn’t need Facebook. He has a longstanding gig on ABC radio, a weekly newspaper column, eight published books and a well-stocked website. Other writers are not so well established. For them, Facebook and Twitter are occupational necessities.

Food Stuff

The other day a tiny bird usually perched on top of a most sensitive literary radar flew down and sat on my shoulder. "Tweet tweet": have you heard about the latest literary sensation? No, not the smutty one. This little birdie is channelling a seriously influential publishing fat cat and apparently his novel is a winner. I’ve only read the first chapter so far. This evocative tome sets every bodily sense jigging. I can see the film. I can suggest actors. I can imagine awards ceremony sometime. Because the book's all about food and food stories are always winners.

Leonard

The Serious Writing Course (TSWC) is over. Now that I don't have to beg for Tuesday night soup and sourdough from the cafe with no food or convene with the lovely group of similarly conflicted-when -it-comes-to-writing souls, I have to make do with my man. I shove his greatest hits into the CD socket, place the headset over the ears and turn up the volume. It will be Him who gets me to the end of this book from now on, not Tuesday nights at TSWC. Anthem, Dance Me to the End of Love, Show Me the Place...

But first, let me recall for a moment, the best concert ever:-

The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Blog

Someone should have told me never to mess with the settings of a blog late at night, when tired and fraught after The Serious Writing Course (TSWC). When my head is filled with the possibilities of writing, but the pages remain blank as the pause continues. And so I find myself writing on a blog which, at the moment, is visible only to myself. I don't know whether I'll see this little piece when I post. So, here goes...I will test the internet waters and see if my toes freeze and fall off. Back in a tic...

Tomato Sauce

The perfect tomato sauce is like the perfect novel. Ask readers and writers about their favourite book and they might say it is all about form and content. The perfect combination of ingredients, structured and balanced with enough flavour to make you wail for more and experience a kind of sadness when it’s finished. Like the offspring who took the latest Harry Potter doorstopper to bed for the entire weekend and after she'd finished, refused to get out of bed because of the sadness she felt, so too for penne coated in the perfect tomato sauce with a light dust of shaved parmesan casting a textured golden hue. Devoured quickly, the bowl wiped clean with a crispy crust of ciabatta; it's a beautiful story, not just dinner. You’ve loved it and you feel kind of sad when it's over.

No Magic in Procrastination

“That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it.” Joan Didion

I am not twenty eight and I’m not Joan Didion, but yes, I evade and procrastinate. I am the master. Apparently this can happen when you start the serious writing course (TSWC); when you have but a few short months to produce a manuscript; when the course you have thought about for two years hasn’t unleashed the creative monster as you’d expected. The beast continues to enjoy an extended hibernation deep within your soul. It crawls out every now and then, takes a look around, but decides not to gallop down your arms the way it did for Salley Vickers when she sat down to write Miss Garnet’s Angel. I sat not five metres from the elegant and erudite Ms Vickers a few years ago when she demonstrated what happened when her beast stirred. It stretched, opened its eyes to Vickers's creative possibilities and took off. It scampered down her writing arm, burrowed through her pen hand and emerged onto the pages. Lordie, it was literary magic, the thing that happened to Ms Vickers when she penned Miss Garnet’s Angel.

Rainy Days, Never Mondays

Too many tedious, rainy weekends: it's messing with my head. I’ve seen a few films. I’ve drunk too much coffee. I’ve caught up with all the news and read a few novels. But mostly I’ve cleaned. The linen cupboard is pristine. Even the pillow cases have been bleached. The car is spotless and the garage has been swept clean of mud and leaves. I've composted tired summer plants and potted some sweet scented winter bulbs.

With potting mix still under the finger nails, I looked around last Sunday evening and felt a tiny jolt of pride in my newly ordered, sparkling house. But anxious thoughts intruded. Perhaps the big wet had triggered an obsessive compulsive disorder. Perhaps nonstop cleaning indicated I needed to get out more, even if it meant getting soaked.

Grey Matters

On a stunning autumn morning I parked the car and followed a procession of stylish people to Carriageworks in Redfern. We bypassed the pots of herbs and ignored the aroma of Columbian coffee and freshly baked bread. Chirpy volunteers with bright smiles stood by the door. They seemed immune to the early hour and the icy breeze that whipped around the growers market outside.

"Welcome to TEDx Sydney 2012," said anyone with a clipboard.

At Your Heels!

Sydney Morning Herald, April 30th 2012

We have a shoe thief. She is shameless and persistent.

We used to leave our shoes on a sheltered verandah, far away from the street. We preferred quiet entries and wanted to postpone the wear and tear on timber floors. It worked for 10 years, living this way.

It takes a brave person to open the rickety gate, walk down a floodlit path and repeatedly steal every pair of size eight women's shoes lying on that verandah. Given three people in the house share a shoe size, our thief was spoilt for choice during 2010.

Dorothy

I find myself drawn to vintage bathing suits and the stories of the women who filled them. Bathing suits hide as much as they reveal. Like a woman's body, the fabric becomes threadbare and worn, yet she is still strong and imposing. Both the bathing suit and the female form continue to be a rich source of inspiration to explore memory, nostalgia and the transitional phases of womanhood.

The pretty postcard flier lay snail-nibbled and slimy in the garden bed under the letterbox. Josie meant to throw it in the trash, but something about the words drew her in and serendipity took over. They shared a love of nostalgia. They had worn vintage clothes for decades. One had been collecting vintage swimming costumes. The other had been painting them. When Josie walked into the exhibition space, she saw the artist before she was pointed out. She wore an emerald green party frock. Josie’s was blue.

Boxing Day in the Swill

On Boxing Day, veteran yachtie Caroline Wheeler said “It’s fair to say there’ll be plenty of people spewing tonight.” I love boats, but I came to know what she meant. Following a rare invitation (I only know two people who own a boat), I was up early the day after Christmas. I slapped a few slices of leftover turkey onto stale bread and grabbed my hat, wet weather coat, a towel and sunscreen. Boxing Day marks the start of one of the most difficult races in the world, the 65 year old Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race and I was going to be at the starting line when the cannon exploded.

Christmas Mall Crawl

It's that time of the year-Christmas-and off we trot to the mall. We enter an outlet which specializes in cheap t-shirts. The racket is fit to pop my eardrums. A wake up coffee hasn’t helped. It is too early and I am bleary eyed and desperate.

“Would it be possible to turn the music down, please?” I ask a chirpy shop assistant who immediately turns nasty. I have crept over to the sales counter while the teenager is trying on the merchandise. I want to spare her the pain of knowing I have approached a salesperson for any other reason than to pay.

Christmas in the City

Published: www.everywritersresource.com

A medley of cathedral bells punctures late afternoon apathy and heads look up to find the source of the din. They’ll see nothing, no lonely hunchback hanging off a rope. Just a tall thin spire recently unveiled with predictable pomp and ceremony. A perfect match to its magnificent twin.

A crowd gathers in the square below; friends and relatives mostly, and a few stragglers waiting for something which feels a bit special. Blokes with shirt sleeves rolled up impatient for the holidays; groups of mums pushing bag-laden strollers and toddlers dancing in their very own fairy orbits, decked out in pink and expecting a party.