Today I did a reading for Keith Stevenson’s podcast, Terra Incognita SF.

I read my novella, ‘Under the Red Sun’, which may or may have not been a wise choice, given that the recording said it went for an hour once I had finished. That might not be right, incidentally–there’s probably about forty minutes of stumbles that Keith will take out, rendering it a lean, easy going five minutes, with thirty minutes of commercials. Or something like that. Either way, it was interesting to do: I don’t read my work often, mostly because I’m hardly ever asked to do so–venues for readings a pretty scarce round here–and I tend to think that my work looks better on a page than it does written aloud.

In fact, I’m a big believer that writing for the page is not the same as writing to be read. I came to that conclusion years back, when I had a student who was also a performance artist. She would submit CDs of her work, which were always really neat, and the highlight of every assignment period. But when you saw the work on the page there was no elegance, no style, nothing but big slabs of text that made you want to go and cry in a corner. What surprised me was how little I would have guessed that by hearing her perform. She was, really, impressive: subtle and stylish and powerful and raw when needed. But it was also true that I could barely make it through the page of her written scripts. It was around then that I started to pay attention to the differences, to how we read with our eyes, and what they will register subconsciously, and how your ears will take something in. There is, I think, a rather large difference, and I’m not sure how ‘Under the Red Sun’ will sound to the listener, but I hope it isn’t the reverse of what I just described.

Still, it was fun, and waking up to big packages of recording material sent by Keith was also pretty funny. I honestly didn’t expect to get a whole stand and microphone sent to me when I agreed to do the recording. I thought I’d get a headset, and sound fuzzy and lost, a figure trapped in early technology, wearing stylish suits, smoking cigarettes, and telling you the world was ending.

Last night, I caught up with A., who I had not seen in years, and I had a good time.

On the way home, however, I had to change trains, so I ended up with a fifteen minute pause on Parramatta station, where four teenage boys came and sat around me. I suppose they must have been in year twelve, year eleven at a push, but I have never been the best at guessing ages, so its not terribly important. However, while I was sitting there, one of them, who had a bag with new shoes in, began telling his friends how, if there were more than two hundred people in the country with AIDS, that the economy would go bust. He blew a raspberry and pointed his thumbs down when he said it.

“Dude, that’s not true,” one of his friend’s said. He looked a lot like the other, in hair and clothes. “There’s like three thousand people with AIDS in Australia. Probably more.”

“My teacher told me. He said that the economy would collapse if it had to treat more than two hundred people. The country can’t sustain it.”

Next to him, I forgot myself and laughed.

The Shoe Kid turned to me. He looked a little pissed, but at the same time, was polite in respecting his elders, like any kid with new shoes should be. “Sorry,” he said.

“No hassle,” I said. “But I reckon there might be more than 200 people with AIDS in this country.”

“Like, nearly four thousand,” said his friend.

“Maybe a little more than that,” I said.

“But my teacher told me!”

I laughed and let it go, because the only thing that occurred to me was to tell him was that his teacher was full of shit, and many were, and besides which, I was intruding and my train was coming. No doubt, after I left, they talked about what an asshole the big, bald guy in black had been, but to them, and the statement that there were no AIDS stats on the web for Australia, I present the following from the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO), “Up to 31 December 2008, the cumulative number of HIV infections in Australia was estimated at 28,330, and the cumulative number of AIDS diagnoses was 10,348. 6,765 deaths following AIDS had occurred. An estimated 17,444 people were living with HIV/AIDS in Australia in 2008.” It’ll be another seven or so months before the data for 2009 is released.

I told S. about it later, because–as is seen by this post–I like to share this kind of event. She told me that once, when she was younger, a woman had told her that AIDS had begun because a black man had sex with a monkey, and it was all the black man’s fault. “You can’t make this shit up,” she told me.

Clearly, however, you can.

This morning, my copy of Vladimir Nabokov’s final, unfinished novel, The Original of Laura arrived.

I’m not sure what I will think of it, once I’m done. I’m a big fan of Nabakov’s work, and I sort of went between wanting to read this book, and not wanting to read it, because of its unfinished nature. However, without reading it, I have to say that the Knopf edition of the book is very lovely: thick, solid pages, simple black cover, and with a nice, hefty weight to it. Part of that is, of course, because, with the pages split between what Nabakov’s cards that planned the novel, and the typed version of it below, that there’s likely to not be a huge amount of content in it. That’s just an assumption, before I flip it open–Laura might be deceptive, and of course, I’ve picked up four to five hundred pages books that have all the content of a 1000 word short story.

Still, as an object, The Original of Laura is very nice.

“With Star Wars the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way, towards huge but empty spectacles where the special effects–like the brilliantly designed space vehicles and their interiors in both Star Wars and 2001–preside over derivative ideas and unoriginal plots, as in some massively financed stage musical where the sets and costumes are lavish but there are no tunes. I can’t help feeling that in both these films the spectacular sets are the real subject matter, and that the original and imaginative ideas–until now science fiction’s chief claim to fame–are regarded by their makers as secondary, unimportant and even, possibly, distracting.”

–JG Ballard, 1977.

At an hour and twenty minutes, Collapse is feature length interview with Michael Ruppert, ex-police officer, news reporter, and creator of the Left Wing environmentalist newsletter, Into the Wilderness.

At the centre of the film is the concept of Peak Oil, which Ruppert explains as being the point “when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached,” and when “the rate of production enters terminal decline.” It is from this centre that Ruppert’s view of the world extends–with oil reserves drying up, and the importance that oil takes in our society, especially in the creation of goods, he believes that the economy is coming to a crash, that our way of life will be ending. It’s a frightening portrayal of a future, and Ruppert delivers it well, confident in his research, confident in what the world is becoming. Unfortunately, this is both the pro and the con of the film, which has been made by Chris Smith, the director of Yes Men. For, while Ruppert is confident in his opinion, there is no attempt by Smith to bring in outsides voices, to not so much validate or discredit the man, but to create an argument that within the film. A small attempt is made by a faceless interviewer in the film (it could be Smith, I’m not sure) to raise questions to Ruppert, and the film then touches on ideas such as using the media to support your own opinion, and if human invention will save us all from the horrors that are coming–but Ruppert is unwilling to be drawn into debate, and refuses to answer the questions, making him as bad as the politicians that he is portrays as villains.

Yet, for the lack of outside influence on the film, it is still mostly quite interesting. I hadn’t heard of the term Peak Oil before, and I must admit, I hadn’t stopped to think about how much oil was used in our the construction of things from tires to toothbrushes. Possibly, if you’re a little more knowledgeable than I in the area, you might find the film to be a touch on the shallow side, or lacking any real debate, but if you’re like me, there’s a lot of information floating around in it, and taken with grains of salt, and added with your own research, it’s an interesting hour and a half (well, just under). Yes, it does tend to drag a little, especially in the middle when Ruppert begins repeating himself, but the man himself is a good speaker, and Smith has put his film together well–allowing, even, for a mirror to be held up between Ruppert and his opinion of the world, for Ruppert, like the world he is trying to convince, is in meltdown too. Without steady employment and income, and with his books not selling well, Michael Ruppert, at the end of the film, is living by himself, with a dog, counting the smiles of people when he walks the dog, and fighting eviction, since he is unable to pay his rent.

Worth you time, I reckon.

JD Salinger, the reclusive author of Catcher in the Rye has died, 91.

You know, I liked Catcher in the Rye. Not enough that it is my favourite book, or that it would make that list, but I liked it enough that I was always curious as to what Salinger wrote after. Legend has it that though the author stopped publishing after the book became hugely famous, he kept writing, and the work was filed away in a large metal cabinet, where it would be released after his death. Morbidly, and since I have no particular relationship with Salinger the person, I rather hope this is true.

I tell myself that, even though this might not be the best response to an author’s death, at least I’m not Brett Easton Ellis, who used twitter to announce his Salinger-is-Dead Party.

Alisa Krasnostein (girliejones) has purchased my story ‘White Crocodile Jazz’ for her upcoming anthology, Sprawl. Others in the book include Stephanie Campisi, Deb Biancotti, Simon Brown, Anna Tambour, Cat Sparks, and Kaaron Warren.

Not such a bad way to start 2010.

Today I came across the story of the French Government banning hijabs (the scarves some Muslim women wear) under the notion that they are stopping equality. I think it’s the first time I’ve actually heard of anyone banning something in the name of equality, but I’m sure it has happened before. Like this, I’m sure the proposed ban is a way of ignoring the underlying issues that face Muslim women in France, and is a political move motivated by a form of racism.

At first, I thought it was difficult to criticise as a proposition, but that was only because the first response of a white male is to not criticism a move made in the name of feminism, so called or otherwise. Of course, five seconds later, I realised that was a kind of bullshit. Laws that take away a woman’s right to make a choice on what to wear or otherwise aren’t really being done in the name of promoting equality or feminism. In tripping around the web a little, I came across the BBC who had commentary on the issue. Alice Schwarzer, the German feminist, appears to be connecting the issue to the conflict between State and Government, and said, “This issue is about the constitution, and the division between state and religion - a hard fought for achievement of the enlightenment. The weakening of this division is utterly incomprehensible, particularly as it comes at a time when the worldwide offensive of the theocrats is not just making countries with Muslim majorities subservient to their inhumane “holy laws”, but is also threatening democracies worldwide. Countries like France have long grasped the consequences of this.” Personally, I don’t know that France has long grasped this, as I don’t see anyone in France motioning for the ban of crosses being worn by women, and in fact, you could argue that the law in itself is weakening the division she identifies.

I was a little more in line with Fanny Dethloff’s opinion, however. A pastor responsible for refugee’s, he/she said:

It makes absolutely no sense at all to bar Muslim women from public places because they wear the scarf. This kind of exclusion prevents these women gaining access to jobs, stops them from being integrated. It does nothing for emancipation - indeed, by shutting out those women who are trying to better themselves, it has quite the opposite effect.

Of course we want to condemn fundamentalism, but we don’t do that by punishing the women - it is not the women who are involved with pushing this kind of intolerant, politicised Islam, it’s the men. At a time like this we need more understanding, more tolerance, not less. And indeed, cracking down in this way is only likely to lead to a sense of victimisation, which will fuel extremism, not reduce it.

It is also problematic to assume, as some people do, that women are forced into wearing the scarf by overbearing men. While it is certainly the case that some are pressured into putting it on, many Muslim who wear it do it quite self-consciously. We need to respect their wishes, not ourselves oppress them by trying to make them take it off.

Of course, I’m not sure condemning Muslim men as the only pushers of intolerance is entirely correct, but I figure he is mostly talking about the people in charge, and the hardline priests and so forth who are, by and large, men, and who do push that harsh line of victimisation and oppression of women.

At any rate, it’s not my intent to recite all the pieces, so if you’re curious, follow the link and check it out.

What drew me to it initially was the idea that a government, or anyone, would move to ban what can be a choice by women under the name of equality. It’s a misuse of the word, entirely, because equality, to me at least, speaks of the individual’s ability to make a choice, in how to dress, how to present themselves, and how those choices are tolerated. I won’t say accepted, though some might, because I don’t think that everyone has to accept the thing that another does–and acceptance to me means that you, in part, agree with it. You’re not going to agree with everything. The quest for equality is to recognise for that while you don’t agree with something that someone has done, you tolerate that they do it, and you live beside it without condemning them, or persecuting them for their choices in life.

Today is the day that a people lost their country.

I thought, earlier, that I might not write about that. I’ve had this blog for a long time now, and a lot of people have, no doubt, seen me write about Australia Day before. But whenever I start to write about it, whenever I think about Australia, I cannot escape the fact that awful things were done to create it.

It’s not unique. You would be hard pressed to find a country that is not built upon the suffering of others, the deliberate intent of someone who is not native to the land to claim it their own, to poison, attack, and marginalise the people who had lived her for centuries before. That doesn’t mean that it should be ignored, however. Australia’s a nice place. I like my life in Sydney. In truth, its a pretty quiet one, and I spend a lot of time either trying to make a living, or trying to make art, and neither of them are of too much interest to anyone but myself. There’s electricity, there’s roads, there’s health care, there’s a government, and by and large, life is pretty decent here. No earthquakes, tidal waves, crushing poverty, lack of education, and a life span that is less than those of others in other countries.

Unless, that is, if you’re an indigenous Australian. Then you are, for the most part, just avoiding the natural disasters.

Maybe next year I’ll say something different when the 26th rolls around.

Workshop went well, as these things usually do. One of the things I don’t enjoy about teaching High School students is how much I have to pay attention to the boring books and films that they are forced to endure at school. If it’s hard for me to show any vague interest in the books that are being taught, you can imagine the dull sensation that the kids have. Running the workshop is different, though. I get to talk about the work I like. I get to talk about the writers I like. I get to talk even about the stories I think are failures, and why I reckon they are–teaching from pieces that don’t succeed is a nice change from teaching from pieces that do so. It’s interesting to watch a classroom full of kids start talking about why something didn’t work, why they hated it, and so forth.

In literature, it seems to me that we sometimes insist that the only way to talk about work is to walk about it as a success, and not a failure.

Anyhow, like I said, it went well. The only real hassle were the long hours spent in traffic. I’d do strange things in that traffic. Random acts of kindness followed by random acts of cruelty. Maybe it’s how people in that peak hour crawl usually act. Of course, I got taught a lesson right towards the end, when I left a guy pull in front of me. He was in a beat up old station wagon, but I didn’t think much of that. Just slow down. Just let him drift into the lane. Just watch as he, in the middle of peak hour traffic, with lanes on either side of me packed tightly, put on his hazard lights and stumbled to a stop.

I sat there for a while, in the heat, waiting for a random moment of kindness that would allow me to escape.