Hannah Gadsby, Nanette: an experience and a lesson
Review: Greg Chapman’s Hollow House
Greg Chapman’s shorts, and his collection Vaudeville and Other Nightmares, have been part of my reading spectrum for the last few years. Before Hollow House, I mostly would have described his work as gothic, though his collection (reviewed here) demonstrated his abilities within the whole gamut of the horror genre. Hollow House is Chapman’s first […]
The unspoken divide: books & comics
My love of books and story started before I could really read; my parents tell me that I could happily entertain myself for hours as a little tacker. As with many of us with a love of reading, this began with picture books, learning many of the basic rules of language: cadence and intonation, grammar […]
Post-book depression
Frequently, when I finish a book I enjoyed, or a series of them, I suffer what feels to me like a depressive state. Dragged from that world, populated by characters I could rely on and places vividly expressed in my head, adjusting to the often mundane, gritty and imperfect world is a challenge. It seems […]
Benign neglect and facing up to inadequacy
I’m giving my blog a little bit of a dust off. It’s been suffering a bit of benign neglect, like the study you keep meaning to go into but get distracted. On the surface, it might all look fine, and dust motes look so pretty in the afternoon sunshine, but that grittiness sticks to your […]
Summer reads 2016 / 2017
Over the summer, when the demands of all my jobs are diminished, it’s usually a time where I cram in as much reading as possible, usually loaned books, pre-lived by others. As summer seems to have returned to Melbourne, it only seems fair to share my brief reviews of the books I devoured whole. The […]
We Will Rock You: 2016 Australian tour
In the comfort and opulence of Melbourne’s Regent Theatre, the last flames of rock burn on the iplanet. The dreamer remembers the music long forgotten, suppressed by Globalsoft. With the music catalogue of Queen all ready for rock opera, all it took was Ben Elton to update the in-jokes. Sunday’s performance was my first experience […]
Repost: 5 Steps to Good Writing
This may just be the narrative inside my head. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? 1. Write. Sit down and write. 2. No. Turn off the solitaire. No, don’t open the web browser. For crying out loud, stop distracting yourself. 3. That is not the TV remote. Seriously. There isn’t even anything you want […]
Hunt for the Wilderpeople: NZ indie film fun
New Zealand comedy: romping the field
Book review: Eyrie, Tim Winton
It is easy to sum up Tim Winton’s Eyrie: impossible heights. Tom Keely starts out as an unsympathetic protagonist; an impoverished addict after his life came crashing down (ugly divorce, end of his high-faluting environmental advocate career), seemingly without a care for anyone but himself. If you can get past Winton’s first bloated chapters dwelling […]
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