Self portrait - Ma away with the fairies

These are our 'once-upon-a-time' days, where the courtyard bushes conceal the shoemaker's elves, where the long side-passage is filled with squelchy mud as we go on a bear hunt, where we take our red chairs and finger puppets into the bamboo 'forest' in the front garden waiting for the appearance of the giant-panda. All before little lunch, mind you ..

Bricks'n'mortar or virtual?

Bookshops in Australia are closing their doors quite rapidly if I believe everything I read. A major chain (Borders/Angus&Robertson) has gone into receivership. And, many suburban shops cannot compete with online and supermarket prices.

I do a mix of both. When it is a specific title, I will often source it online. When I am browsing, I still purchase in store. I shop at Dymocks in the CBD, here at Berkelouw, and across the road in Ariel Bookshop. I used to buy from The Book Depository, but they were taken over by Amazon. So, I swapped to Fishpond. I have to be careful what I choose. If the book is cheaper because they have used inferior ink on inferior paper, causing the print to 'bleed', I find the book too hard to read. If they shrink the font size and reduce the white space, equally I find it hard to read.

I know that is how they reduce the prices, so I am prepared to pay to enable me to check that I can actually read the book.

Virtual or literal

These two stores are close enough to being opposite to each other in George St, Sydney's main drag (named after George III of England). And today I wanted to buy my grand-daughter a donkey, so I can delight her once again with its sound. You see the one she has at home (well, from the toy library) looks like a Japanese anime donkey.

But I digress ... I went into Dymocks and the bloody donkey cost me 84 bucks - together with 'Gruffalo', 'Madeleine', 'Tender is the night', and 'The Great Gatsby' (this latter 'cause it's too hard to read a book now only made up of single pages!)

So ... when I came out I though to myself, I thought: I really should investigate the economics of an e-reader. I suspect they are convenient. I suspect they are economic. But ... do they SMELL like a book?

Public domain reading

Reading is an instinctive habit, bordering on the subliminal. Advertising, by its very nature, takes advantage of this. Everywhere one goes in a city, a person is reading all the time. It is not just the noise of a city that is tiring, not just the hustling pavement, the on-again, off-again of lights and heaving traffic. It is all the reading that one has to do.


Reading is interpreting marks on a myriad of surfaces. And nowadays, not just the marks themselves but the font those marks are printed in. Take the noble 'ampersand'.

I was stooging around waiting for 4pm one day last week, when the Angus & Coote ampersand font sowed the seed for this post. Beautiful, isn't it? And Wikipaedia tells me that this mark is a ligature of the letters 'et' which ingratiated itself into the English language around 1837. Interesting the use of around to describe such a specific year.

Here are a few 'and per se and's in assorted fonts.

The possibility of imagination

Watsons Bay library is a branch of the Woollahra Municipal library. Public libraries in NSW are a function of our third tier of government, local or municipal government. The other tiers of government in Australia are the federal goverment (which is based in Canberra), and the state governments, of which there are six.


The Watsons Bay library is very small and only open Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, it has an aspect that is drop dead gorgeous. To take the two photos on either side of this text, all I had to do was turn around. The library has a fenced in grassed area for spreading rugs and parking strollers, and is attached to a small cafe. And today was about 20C in the midst of autumn. Can you see the city back down the harbour, and the Harbour Bridge peeking above the hill on the right? It was very smokey for some reason today.


My 10 month-old grand-daughter has her own library card, which means that my daughter is able to borrow up to 40 books at any given time! Alannah is able to turn pages and lift Spot's flaps. The other morning, when Kirsten went to get her up, she was sitting in her cot turning pages of a book she had retrieved from a table through the bars of the cot. So important to have an imagination that is open to being stretched ...

Treasured to bits

There are lots on the shelf that I have not read: mint condition, solid of spine, no under-grad sniggering or underlinings. But I could not settle to them.

Instead, I gravitated to the hospital-shelf: seen better days, past their use-by-date, ready for the top pasture.

My Gatsby is inscribed 1970, and comes replete with 'Discuss the relation of the desriptions of Daisy to the structure of the novel.' The frontispiece of the Dedalus tome has 'the growth of the embryo and the growth of the soul mirror each other ...'. Holden baby is dated 1966 and each page is separate, Snowball and Napoleon have been staple-gunned!

So, I chose the Scott-Fitzgerald and fossicked around for a substantial lacky-band ...

... twowit, twowoo said the wise old owl ...

Reading aloud to children, from an early age, is a fun thing to do, and creates a bond of emotion and involvement that lasts their whole life through.


My grand-daughter, Alannah, is about 5 1/2 months. Her mother, Kirsten, first read to her when she was three days old. She read her a little Golden Book, 'Baby's Birthday', which was her own very first book. I gifted it to Kirsten on her 30th birthday in 2009.

Alannah already has 35 books on her shelf, some in French which I picked up in Paris last September.

Sunday in my City - Chilling in autumnal warmth

The Paddington Reservoir Gardens are just up the hill from where I live. I meander through some higgledy-piggledy back streets, very narrow, very picturesque. As I plod up the street, I hear behind me the horn of an ocean liner as it progresses up the harbour to safe anchorage in Sydney Cove.


Bringing old industrial sites back into community use is an agreeable aspect of living in the inner city of Sydney. This park used to be part of the water supply of Sydney from about 1850 to about 1880. With neglect and the ravages of time, the site became unsave and was fenced off for many years. One of our top architectural firms used the remaining industrial fragments to entice the residents back into the space.

A coffee cart and mid-century jazz will do the rest.



A member of the Sunday in my City community.

Mr Mitchell's monument

Main: Mitchell Reading Room; Left: Exhibition in the walkway between the two buildings; Right: Exhibition in the grand foyer

If you are in Sydney, GO SEE THIS EXHIBITION!!

In 1907 David Mitchell died and bequeathed his book collection to the state if they would house it well. Joseph Banks' journal was part of his collection. Took 'em three years, but they built a grand book house. And now there is the adjoining State Reference Library which is 13 floors below ground as well as the delightfully bright bit above ground.

Main: Marble version of Tasman's map in main foyer; Left: Joseph Banks' journal, 1770; Right: Letter from Mary Reiby, 1792

Paul Brunton, the Curator must have gone bonkers trying to choose just 100 items from their vaults for this exhibition. And great stuff it is too, ranging from the 1600s to last year. And they have some excellent audio/visual offerings. There is one screen that displays the Mary Reiby letter a word at a time, as though she is penning it in front of you. She had just arrived in Sydney, convicted of stealing a horse. She was 15 and wrote this letter back to her aunt. By the time she was 32 she was a widow with 7 children. She died in 1855, a VERY prosperous businesswoman.

Main: Vietnam Moritorium poster, 1970; Left: upstairs corridor with panoramic 1907 photographs of Sydney by Melvin Vaniman; Right: Henry Lawson's journal

This exhibition was a bit confoosing for moi, 'cause a curator showed me where to go to get good photographs, yet a security guy rapped me over the knuckles and told me to put it away. It's not as though I was using flash or anything, just that my camera is a bit on the obvious side.

So much to read and think about. I shall have to go back lots of times. I can only do about a dozen at a time. Great fun for this little history-holic. Thank you, Mr Mitchell.

Gallery space upstairs for "One Hundred" which is 100 items from their vaults in an exhibition that is open for 100 days

A true romantic?

With the sun setting behind the skyscrapers, he lay in the Botanic Gardens, engrossed in his book. Tattooed upon his thigh, four verses of a poem ...

After much enlarging, and teasing of shapes, the second last line unlocks this:

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. Invictus by William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903)

A Weekend Reflection: Ma read to me

Reflection (n): the return of light after striking a surface; an image; representation; counterpart

The foyer next to the main Dymocks bookstore in George Street, City

Reflection (n.): a thought occurring in consideration or meditation

There is a physicality to books that is hard to best: the texture as it lies in the hand, the font, be it serif or san, the shape of words and the relationship with that feint mid-line that has not been visible since primary school. Lift the book from the shelf, permit a thumb to riffle the pages, then bury your nose deep within. Know that rush of bliss? Now, combine that with an anticipated grandchild.

As amazing as Amazon is, there is not a button for physicality. For this bricks and mortar, real people and real shelves stocked with books is a good move. Having a range to choose from, like Borders, Kinokuniya, Abbeys, Angus & Robertson, Gleebooks, and Shearers, I stuck with that good old faithful, Dymocks. I had five books in mind, all Australian (“My place” by Nadia Wheatley, “The Tram to Bondi Beach” by Libby Hathorn, “The Adventures of Blinky Bill” by Dorothy Wall, “The Magic Pudding” by Norman Lindsay and “Snugglepot and Cuddlepie” by May Gibbs), and I did not any one of them. Not only did the book need to be physical, but so did the child! What if this baby did not match that book?

My last century sensibilities came with a rush. The current batch of books are hip: fonts are mixed, sizes are mixed, colours are mixed, orientations are mixed! The illustrators have dumbed-down individuality and are churning out a quasi Disney come Japanese anime drawing. Oh, for a Julie Vivas or a Graeme Base. After much angst, I bought “The Waterhole” by Graeme Base, “Peepo” by Janet & Allan Ahlberg and “Each Peach Pear Plum” once again by the Ahlbergs. Simple and repetitive language, teamed with illustrations of immense detail with depth and sincerity.

Contemplate the contribution of others at Weekend Reflections

Firing the imagination

Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her only son Jack. Jack was a giddy, thoughtless boy, but very kind hearted and affectionate. There had been a hard winter, and after it the poor woman had suffered from fever and ague. Jack did no work as yet, and by degrees they grew dreadfully poor. The widow saw that there was no means of keeping Jack and herself from starvation but by selling her cow; so one morning she said to her son, "I am too weak to go myself, Jack, so you must take the cow to market for me, and sell her." Jack liked going to market to sell the cow very much; but as he was on the way, he met a butcher who had some beautiful beans in his hand. Jack stopped to look at them, and the butcher told the boy that they were of great value and persuaded the silly lad to sell the cow for these beans. When he brought them home to his mother instead of the money she expected for her nice cow, she was very vexed and shed many tears, scolding Jack for his folly. He was very sorry, and mother and son went to bed very sadly that night; their last hope seemed gone. At daybreak Jack rose and went out into the garden. "At least," he thought, "I will sow the wonderful beans. Mother says that they are just common scarlet runners, and nothing else; but I may as well sow them." So he took a piece of stick, and made some holes in the ground, and put in the beans.

Morning warmth

Pssst ...

Front gardens, Chemistry Building, Eastern Avenue, Camperdown Campus, University of Sydney

Hey lassie ... up there ...

Hey laddie ... down here ...

Books with Spine - Sydney Writers' Festival (2)

Staff wore black Ts and volunteers wore green: sitting on the edge of the wharf listening

Being slightly dissatisfied with my 2008 fare (consisting in the main of women authors talking about their upbringing), I determined this year to be more idea oriented. Be provoked, was my mantra. But, bull-at-gate Julie, over did it. With a schedule consisting of 17 sessions - 5 ticketed, 12 free - I left home at 8 each morning and did not return until after 7 each evening. Talk about provocation!

Decisions, decisions: Saturday breakfast in the sun pouring over the choices

I enjoyed Asa Walquist on water; Brian Matthews on Manning Clark, an Oz historian; Jenny Hocking on Gough Whitlam, an Oz Prime Minister; Amanda Lohrey on Grief; Aust, Bachelard & Neighbour on investigative journalism; Doidge's lecture on neuroplasticity; as well as Holloway and Frame on religion. However, my absolute stand-outs were Hartcher, Warhaft and Ellis banging on with Tony Jones about falling governments and McGeough, Hooper and Marr bantering about turning journalism into non-fiction books. I enjoyed Richard Flanagan and must read "The sound of one hand clapping" to see if he is as bad as my daughter proclaims. I have avoided telling you what I did not like. One man's meat is another man's fish.

Pastries and a flat white for Professor BM

I missed a couple because the queues were unbelievable at times and one had to become strategic. I also missed Kate Grenville because by Sunday my brain had ceased to work. However, I had a ball. My selections were better this year. Still did not avoid the bloody bookshop though!

Moving words - Sydney Writers' Festival (1)

Queueing for a session, SWF, Thursday

As Autumn fades to a close, the Sydney Writers' Festival lays forth an abundance for both readers and writers. Held in the original wharves district of the city - rapidly becoming the artistic engine-room - the SWF offers well-nigh 60 events for each of four days with a few lead-up events for good measure and a hearty provincial programme as well.

Wharf 4/5, Sydney Dance Company rooms

Spread over 6 venues, with breaks of 30 minutes between sessions, there is a mix of ticketed and free events. The challenge is to craft a schedule that is not only stimulating and fun - but also physically possible. It must also take into account the massive queues that can build up. So choice must be strategic!

Listening in the outside broadcast overflow area

At least this year, the type of session I chose was more my style. I went for a heavier mix of non-fiction, current affairs and politics instead of too much fiction and doctors-wives issues.

Tomorrow: What sessions did I attend?

Story time, Grandma

Thomas is a tank engine who lives at a big station on the Island of Sodor. He's a cheeky little engine with six small wheels, a short stumpy funnel, a short stumpy boiler and a short stumpy dome. Although his job is to shunt coaches and trucks for the bigger engines, he longs for more important jobs like pulling Gordon, the express train.