First an Oscar, now Shaun Tan has just been announced as recipient of the 2011 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. What a great year he's having! Go Shaun, and congratulations. Certainly when one waxes lyrical about The Arrival these days, no-one asks “Who is this Shaun Tan person?” anymore. 
At the moment I’m listening to the most divine of all such aural treats - a Phryne Fisher novel, namely Murder on a Midsummer Night. I absolutely adore listening to these books by Kerry Greenwood. In fact, I’ve listened to so many of the Phryne books that sometimes, when I’m in a bit of a rush or a tizz, I’ll hear the voice of the unflappable Phryne, as read by Stephanie Daniel, chastising me in her perfect diction, saying “Do calm down, Gitte dear.” In fact I’ve considered adopting 'What would Phryne do?' as a guiding principle for surviving everyday life. Phryne’s solutions to trying situations always involve actions both civilized and imminently sensible, like taking a nap, or having a refreshing shower, or sharing a delicious meal whipped by one’s inestimable cook in the company of honest, interesting friends, or sitting down in a library with a cat on one’s lap and good book whilst being served tea by one’s stalwart butler. Knowledge, culture, art, food, history, loyalty, courage, personable cats, tolerance, sartorial splendour and impeccable manners, all these things make a dip in a Phyrne book a true break from the crassness of the Real World. 
Give me an independent fortune, a slender figure, a great dollop of panache, a Louise Brook’s bob and a time machine, and this wannabe Phryne would be off to the late 1920s in St Kilda in a shot. 
It’s the last Sunday of the month and there are quite a few anthology deadlines for the end of March, so I pulled out the special gotta-get-stuff-done coffee mug that I got for Xmas from my sister (bigger than your average mug, Boo-Boo) and, well, got stuff done. I’ve stopped starting new stories from scratch for themed anthologies because my best stories are those I work on, then rest, work on, then rest, and finally, in a surge of energy and/or inspiration, complete to my satisfaction. Instead, I now search through the many half finished and almost done stories in my ‘working on’ file to see if there’s anything suitable that I can whip into shape in time for the deadline. If so, off it goes. If not, short of a lightning bolt moment and a firm voice in my head dictating a story with a beginning, middle and most definitely an end, well, tough. Luckily the rejection that came back Friday that I was a bit glum about (I'd let myself hope...) fitted the theme of one antho, so I looked it over and sent off again. It’s the only way to deal with those suckers. Another rejection that keeps almost making it got the once over and taa-daa, it too is out there doing a repeat performance on the world stage. I sent the vamp story off again (not to an anthology) after checking that I do still in fact like it, but we’ll see. The market is flooded with such toothy tales at the moment. There’s also a couple of suitable stories out at the moment which, if they get the boot over the next few days, can still make the Thursday deadlines. Once I’ve posted this (or maybe tomorrow) I’ll launch on its maiden journey the big SF story that I worked on for ages for the ABE anthology. Unfortunately, after a bout of compulsive polishing that lasted right up to the deadline, I went to send it the night of the final day only to discover they were already closed for submissions. Bummer. I should have sent off the less shiny version the week before. Ah well, that’s what you get when you sail too close to the deadline wind. *I give up - I just can't make this blog do paragraphs tonight.
For me, however, La Liz was the star of National Velvet. If I’d been given a dollar for every time I watched that movie as a horse mad tot, I could have bought myself a tiny training diamond by the time I became a teenager. What’s not to love about it? A girl saves a beautiful horse, a horse which she knows deep in her heart is a champion. The girl defies the odds and risks social censure to follow her dreams. The girl gets to thumb her nose at boys by doing brave, physical stuff that the boys say girls can’t do and yet remain a polite, well-spoken and well-dressed miss. The girl and the horse win! So thank you Liz for that sterling adventure.
Another of my favourite Liz films is the much maligned Cleopatra. I saw this first at the drive-in when I was knee-high to a Nubian slave, mostly because Mum wanted to see Liz and Richard I suspect, and I remember being blown away by the spectacle of it. In the years that followed, I forgot most of it, and I heard and read so many bad reviews about it, everyone focusing on how much it cost and how much it didn’t take at the box office etc, all of which affected my perception of it. I probably wouldn’t have watched it again if I hadn’t recieved a DVD of it as a joke Xmas present many years ago. The next day, stuffed to the gills, lethargic and in the mood for a cheesy Hollywood spectacle, I settled down for a Boxing Day veg out to watch it and was, much to my surprise blown away by the sets and story. It's one of my favourite movie time sucks now. And I think I owe Liz for my love of court dramas like Rome and The Tudors.
For a long time, this was a pretty depressing drive because of the devastation wreaked by the fires that went through the Marysville/Kinglake / Healesville area, and many, many other places, back in February 2009. Everything was dead, there were blackened ruins where there had once been houses and melted cars along the roadside. Even now, even though the bush is regenerating at an amazing rate and towns and homes have risen from the ashes, once over the Black Spur, you only have to look up to see, along the ridges and hill crests, kilometer after kilometer of tree corpses that still stand stark and black against the blitzed soil and skyline to once more recall the terrible firestorms that exploded across the area. As with all disasters, the people there are still rebuilding years after the world’s attention has turned elsewhere.
Anyway, it was quite different from this vision of greeness:
As for today’s Foalwatch, it is brought to you courtesy of my sister Cindy, because it was she who spotted this young resident of Rubicon Valley in a field (click to enlarge for a better look).
Tonight I finished reading Living Dolls : A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life by Gaby Wood, a book that produced story ideas every time I turned a page, and even occasionally multiple times per page. There were facts and events so astounding, I was constantly telling my brain that it simply had to use this amazing historical occurrence or that fascinating character.
Gardening. Another aspect of country life that I couldn't get a grip on until I called the Lawn Mower Man. Now I just potter around (the picture is of Sunday's haul of pear tomatoes artfully set amongt a pot of herbs), do the easy stuff, and sit in the Xmas swing pondering stuff. Nice.
Now, after my extravagant, party-til-I-drop (not) night out at the movies, I'm coughing and nose-blowing once more, and my list of 'must-dos' for today seems to be written on an endless scroll held aloft by some Greek god. The Twelve Labours of Hercules come to mind. Something as simple as giving the place a quick vacuum seems equal to cleaning out the stables of King Augeas. Everything else merges into a monster much like the nine-headed hydra of Lerna.
Just back from Star Cinema in Eaglehawk, where we first saw Catfish a.k.a. ‘The Other Facebook Movie’ (hmmm, is it really a documentary, or...?), then The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. When the original Swedish title for the latter came up, we of Scandinavian background snorted, because, I mean, there’s a huge difference between Luftslottet Som Sprängdes, which translates as something like The Air Castle That Blew Up and TGWKTHN.
Anyway, it was an enjoyable evening. I love lounging in one of the big, comfy sofas at the Star Cinema, peppermint tea in hand, sharing the big, but homey, old town hall space with people who have actually come to watch the movies, not gossip about friends or work or whatnot. 
Oh dear, you just know it's going to end badly when the heroine goes *cough, cough*
Submissions: 8
