Bunnehz

My one and only - via Today + Tomorrow 

This is what it's like inside my head right now. The end of semester really brings out the corgi video Googling, Armstrong + Miller watching (those three are ALL awesome and so is this one, but it's NSFW/ NSF-aged parents/ small children on account of there's loads of swears) generally procrastinating slackabout in me. Oh and here's an article ABOUT procrastination from the New Yorker if you want to feel intelligent while wasting time. You're welcome. The conclusion: meh. Everybody does it. No biggie.

             So, am I gonna do any study now?

Jon Hamm says no. Jon Hamm is always right.

Onward with the links then! What else do I have... oh, today I saw this video, which I know I'm a little behind the times with since the artist's site says it was exhibited earlier this year, but I just LOVE TiltShift, because I'm a hipster like that, and I think this is so adorable. I don't know if that's how artists envisage their work being described, but there you are. I think it's adorable. TiltShift is a technique which removes the effect of atmosphere from an image and blurs the edges so there's a clear focus on a small area, which makes a picture of normal sized stuff look miniature (and adorable!). And what do you know, there's an app for that!

And finally, youse guys, if you haven't checked out Allie Brosh's blog you are missing an EXCELLENT procrastination tool. She's a treasure. Almost as treasured as Jon Hamm.

Lit theory links

I just found this link to a... fable? Tale? Short story? (I'm not sure yet) By 'the Master', Henry James, called The Private Life. It would seem his underlying interest in this piece is the link, or rather the lack of a link, between the creator and the work created. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I thought it was rather apt, all things considered.
I also just read this article about the Chatterley trial and the way it forced authors to staunchly defend a text they actually found rather tedious, which totally vindicated my hatred of D.H Lawrence and inability to read Lady Chatterley. Victory to me!
Apparently we modern student slackabouts are too lazy and stupid to read an entire book, and in the future university literature courses will only feature 'the best bits' of books. Sounds OK to me if the set text was by D.H Lawrence. In which case the 'best of' selection would be about 300 words.
In less serious book related trivia, these posters, with scenes from famous books created out of the text, are SO. AWESOME. I want the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea one.
Even less seriously, this is the funniest video I've seen in a LONG time (and although it features minor nudity it's really not at all NSFW, unless your boss hates hillbillies. AND FUN).

What Maisie Knew

Henry James won't leave me alone this semester. One of my students is reading The Portrait of a Lady, What Maisie Knew is set for one subject, and one of the novels for another English subject is The Line of Beauty, which is heavy on the Jamesian influence. As stalker authors go James ain't so bad, it would really suck, for example, to be stalked by D.H Lawrence, whose books I would like to fling out the window of a swiftly moving train, and who I'm sure is super creepy in person.

There are aspects of James' writing style which I thoroughly detested in reading Portrait, not least the characterisation of Isabel Archer, who I found insufferable (mostly, anyway). But another thing is his endless explication of stuff you would prefer to be shown through action, dialogue, connotation, etc. I find it disconcerting to be continually told, for example, that Gilbert Osmond's mind is like a shadowy room from which she cannot escape, and on the other hand to not have any idea what's just happened in their conversations, which often result in one party being grossly offended by some imputation when it seemed to you like they were talking about somebody else's hairstyle.

In Maisie, I found this style less visible, and more natural. Since we're taking our perspective from the point of view of a child it seems reasonable to be confused by the adult conversations, and the descriptive passages have a uniform aesthetic reference which I thought balanced the novel nicely. Before I found James’ constant comparisons of people and states to furniture, houses and rooms frustrating and repetitive, like in Portrait, but in Maisie they worked. Maisie’s mind in the opening chapter is “a collection of images and echoes to which meanings were attachable... the dim closet, the high drawers, like games she wasn’t yet big enough to play”, in chapter two she is “the little feathered shuttlecock”, and the messages she carries drop “into her memory with the dry rattle of a letter falling into a pillar-box.” They all reminded me of the ways my childhood memories seem to me now, and how they're always revealing new things you didn't realise you knew.

There are exterior aspects too, like the "white and gold salon" in France, which is all hope and clean brightness, everything they want to gain by running away from their problems, although it doesn't have the same positive effect on them that the Countess' drawing room has on Beale. It is “the drawing room of a lady... whose things were as much prettier than mama’s as it had always had to be confessed that mamma’s were prettier than Mrs. Beale’s.” The room is like a flattering mirror for Maisie’s father, who is “presented to her as quite advantageously and even grandly at home... and himself by so much the more separated from scenes inferior to it”.

I like things with a focus on surroundings, I think, because it helps me sink into a book in that way you do. You know that way. You only notice it afterwards, when you come out of all the golden sunlight and autumn breezes and twisty mind holes and it's like waking up all over again. I can't say I ever expected to feel that way about Henry James. There's that old creative writing advice, 'show don't tell', which I always thought James shamelessly ignored, but after reading Maisie I can see that really he does it so well you don't even notice.

Candice Bushnell books have crabs

Click through for a larger image and to judge my taste in books

If the old adage is correct, this picture should be worth 50% of my assessment for this component of my English subject (which is going to take over the blog for a little while. As opposed to the echoing silence which was previously in command)

In this picture we can see:
My book collection, obvs.
Four elephants.
Three giraffes.
Two Eleventh Doctors.
One Ood.
One Captain Jack Sparrow.
One crazy cat lady.
One painting, a housewarming present from my aunt.
Hours of time wasted maintaining the chromatic arrangement of my books, at least half of which were spent trying to figure out where silver fits in the colour spectrum.
And KARL, Sofa of Legend.

One of the teachers for this course mentioned 'books as furnishings' last week, and I had a bit of a guilty vision of this bookcase, which is probably (next to KARL) the focal point of our flat. I don't think there's anything WRONG with that, but the presence of the Books sometimes does make me nervous that I'm not living up to their high standards. I've heard the Wiley Style Manual muttering about my cavalier attitude towards the distinctions between 'that' and 'which', and I know for a fact that Annie Proulx and Philip Roth have been complaining about how much time I spend slumped on the sofa not doing anything of any use to anybody with an interest in the nuances of The Human Experience.

This is probably why I'm so keen on ebooks now. Files can't judge you for listening to Blink 182 even though it's 2010. (I HATE YOU ALL, YOUR MOM'S A WHORE - how can you NOT want to listen to that?) There are a couple of branches to the 'ebooks are sucky IRL books FTW' argument, all of which annoy me.

1) Books smell good.

Yes, they do. If I rub my face in Roland Barthes he does indeed have a faintly musty smell. That's awesome. But I don't read books by pressing them against my nose. And I suffer from quite severe allergies.

Tangent: when I worked at the second hand bookstore a customer once asked me in a secretive murmur, what kind of parasites lived in the books?
Err, silverfish? But they're not really a parasite, as such...
No no, not silverfish, something small and itchy.
Uhh... where did you come into contact with this... creature?
At Berkelouw's.
Right. Did you sit on the sofas?
Oh, yes, but it was the books...
Pretty sure books don't harbour crabs, lady. Candice Bushnell's might.
But I was handling all those old books and...
Sofa. Fleas. You have fleas, from the sofa. Books don't have fleas. BTW, don't touch me.

But you know what? Files don't have silverfish OR crabs. And spiders can't hide behind them.

2) 'I don't fancy curling up in bed with an iPad.'

My hands aren't small, right, they're normal adult sized hands. But in the same way that I have trouble reaching all the notes required for a dramatic chord in Beethoven, I sometimes find books a bit weighty. The week after I read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell I couldn't get the lid off anything. Ebook readers are designed so you forget you're reading an ebook. I was reading a book on my iPhone this morning and at one point I flopped it over to have a look at the blurb. If you can't forget the medium you're reading in, you're doing it wrong.

PLUS I know that one day I'll be able to open a French book in an ebook reader and when I come upon a word or phrase I don't know I'll be able to highlight it and search for it instantly, and that the application will save the definition for me so the next time I see it it'll know what it means. This is what I call 'convenient' and what other people have called 'an eternal state of distraction which prevents meaningful involvement with the text'. My film lecturers are all 'Don't watch the films on your computer because you'll just be answering your email and checking your bookfaces every five seconds and you won't be able to EXPERIENCE the EXPERIENCE so instead stay behind on Monday night until 7.30pm watching them in this cold musty room, k?' and I'd be interested to know if English lecturers have a similar problem with ebooks.

Link to an excellent and amusing grammar lesson I have unsuccessfully tried to teach to my students. Also this blog entry is not actually intended to be part of my assessment submission.

*facedesk*

There's some kind of problem going on with my face, I've noticed. It's growing slowly more independent, attempting to make its own way in the world, heedless of the warnings of my brain.

Scenario: mid-lesson with student.

Face: Right, well, you work on that for a minute, and I'll just run to the bathroom, because...

Brain: BECAUSE? Why on EARTH would you say 'because'? BECAUSE WHAT? Walk away. Just walk out of the room. NOW.

Face: Because...

Brain: YOU DID NOT just do that. Walk. Away. You've already done irreparable damage to your credibility.

Face: Just because, okay?

Brain: Nice save, asshole.

Wondering...

...if the infinite technological reproduction of the penis in the utilitarian plastic form of straws jeopardizes the aura and authority of the original object? Whether this reproduction does not, in fact, liquidate the value of the cultural heritage of the phallus?

Your hen's night paraphernalia doesn't seem so innocent now, DOES IT? How does it feel, eh, knowing you're contributing, via the endless copying of the original object, to its inevitable devaluation as a unique artifact? Did you notice this ENTIRE post is composed of rhetorical questions? Except that one, which wasn't really rhetorical, because you may or may not have noticed, and I'm genuinely interested?

How To Get Your Novel Scoffed At

Friday was my last day of work at the publishing company where I answered phones for the last two years. I did an extremely good job of pretending I really didn't like it. In reality, I LIVED for the crazy wannabes who ring up and pitch their retarded ideas for books. A large percentage of them were old men from 'God's country' (north Queensland, FYI) or teacher librarians. My dad's a teacher librarian, and he's not an aspiring children's author (THAT I KNOW OF), but he is the exception which proves that the rule is, while not infallible, definitely justified. The catchcry among those in children's publishing is, essentially, 'FUCKING teacher librarian authors! Why don't they just ACCEPT that their book is a FLOP and GET OVER IT AND STOP CALLING ME?' The general consensus is that the whole process of publishing would be much smoother without the hassle of involving authors, who really only make trouble.

There was one author who would ring with great regularity, although I know for a fact her last and only book was published five years ago and there is no likelihood of her ever publishing another, and as soon as I picked up the phone she would just... sigh. It would go thus: me: 'Publisher Australia, this is Jennifer.' Author: 'UUUUUURRRGHHHH.... heh-lloooohhh Je-heh-nifer.' Me: 'Oh hello I'll put you through.' *gets off the phone as quickly as possible* If the person she was looking for wasn't there (like, maybe they were having a wee, or eating a sandwich, or away from their desk for three and a half seconds) she would call back and sigh, 'Uuuuughh, is the-hehh-re EVE-heh-n any POINT?' to which I would WANT to respond, 'No, no there's not, you're a big fat failure and nobody wants to talk to you. You may as well go DIE.' Instead I would say, 'I'll send her an email and make sure she knows you called', because, in spite of all appearances and protestations, I was actually quite good at my job. Then I would send this email: 'That author rang. I told her I 'd tell you she called so you could call her so she could SIGH at you.'

I had one call from a guy who introduced himself, then paused, and when I said, 'Yes?' he cried, 'You mean you HAVEN'T HEARD OF blah blah blah something about the self made millionaires from Queensland  who were brought down by the big corporations or some such Aussie battler style nonsense?' I was Googling him AS he spoke, and he wasn't anywhere on the internet, so I could honestly say, 'No.' And thus his book pitch was a failure, on account of him claiming to be famous when he wasn't even on Google.

Many was the time I offered to Google something for a caller, and they totally failed to catch the intense sarcasm in my tone as I sneered, 'Just let me GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU, HMMM?' I think many callers thought I had a special publishers' Google with which I could access sites hidden from their civilian browsers.

I had old men pitching books about their lives which were essentially books about them spending their entire life trying to write the book of their life, on account of they couldn't read or write.

I had a man from a record company call and ask if we would publish a book with a CD attached. No, I said, we only look at submissions which come through literary agents, CDs or lack thereof notwithstanding. 'Oh,' he says, 'I'm calling from a record company.'

'That's nice. You want to publish a novel?'

'Yes, that's right. With a CD.'

'You'll need a literary agent.'

'But we're a record company, so wouldn't we, technically, BE a literary agent?'

'No. Agent. Literary. As in, actually has to do with actual books.'

And then, of course, there were the letters, which were unspeakable. UNSPEAKABLY AWESOME, THAT IS.

I think I'm going to miss my job. Oh, also there were people who were quite nice, and fairly cool, and also extremely daggy, and always very chatty. And when you're used to having three dozen conversations before 11am it's a bit weird to suddenly be talking to no one at all for most of the day.