Joshua Donellan's Blog: JM Donellan's substack, page 5
April 19, 2016
Twelve
Well, I guess I ended up doing the thing I’ve specifically told numerous people you should never do; I’m releasing two books this month. One is the poetry collection Stendhal Syndrome, the other is a collaboration with a world renowned and highly talented artist who also happens to be my mother, Wendy Donellan. She sent me twelve of her paintings and I’ve written a dozen stories to accompany them. We are presenting this collaboration in a variety of formats including an exhibition at Woolloongabba art gallery, audio recordings (available to purchase and download on bandcamp or stream for free via soundcloud) and a limited edition book.
The book is going to have a print run of just 100 copies, 20 of which have already been sold. The mathematically gifted among you will of course realise this means you should get busy if you want to get your grubby mitts on one of these beautiful books.
You can purchase them at the gallery during the exhibition or click on the button below and we will send one to you via a postperson (that’s a person who delivers mail, not someone who is no longer a person, although sometimes the two overlap).
Love etc.
JD
Postage options
Gallery pickup $20.00 AUDBook + delivery $28.50 AUD
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XMAS BOOKS. The Eternal sneak preview #1 The Stench of Adventure Rhinoceros in Love (reviewed for Rave magazine) CARAVAGGIO. ORWELL. ABORTION. XBOX.Copyright © JM Donellan [Twelve], All Right Reserved. 2016.
March 23, 2016
Stendhal Syndrome launch party!
Debut poetry collection out next month.
You should come to the launch.
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Why I Hate Pandas TODAY'S HOROSCOPE: TAURUS Ain't no party like a launch party 350 PROJECT Love letters to corporations episode #6Copyright © JM Donellan [Stendhal Syndrome launch party!], All Right Reserved. 2016.March 9, 2016
Rock & Roll Writers Festival
Hello there humans and any AI programs reading this, I’ve been a bit quiet of late but there are lots of exciting announcements to come in the next few weeks. The first of these is that I’m very proud to announce that I’ll be at the first ever Rock & Roll Writers Festival. There’s not really anything quite like it anywhere in the world, in that it brings together iconic musicians alongside writers who focus on music in their work. I’m very excited to have such a festival born in my home city, and absolutely thrilled to be on a panel alongside Deborah Conway and Don McGlashan:
3.00 pm – Dancing In The Dark (Sunday)
From novel-length saga to three-minute pop song, choosing the right words and correct structure is paramount in getting your message across. But how do you effectively combine the two? And how different is writing for a reader, as opposed to writing for a listener?
Moderator: Samuel J. Fell
Panellists: Deborah Conway, Don McGlashan, J.M.Donellan
The festival is structured so that there are no clashes (my pet peeve of festivals of any kind) and there is just one easy, all inclusive ticket price for the whole weekend. 1st release tix have already sold out but you can still get tickets here and check out the full program here.
I’m really looking forward to this one. Hope to see you there!
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ZEB IS EVERYWHERE! INAPPROPRIATE SHARE HOUSE BEHAVIOUR SHOOT art party!! What NOT to wear this season (because you are cleary incapable of dressing yourself). Goodbye to Ghosts (for now). Copyright © JM Donellan [Rock & Roll Writers Festival], All Right Reserved. 2016.January 24, 2016
Love letters to corporations: Vodafone
My dearest Vodafone,
You have wounded me, right in the very centre of my coal-black heart. We’ve been together for six years now, ever since way back when Rudd was PM (the first time round). Back in those youthful halcyon days I always swore I’d never go on a contract. All my friends were settling down, signing their lives away while I was living free and easy. I casually switched month to month from Optus to Virgin to Telstra. It was a beautiful, debt-free era and a part of me thought it would be like that forever.
But then you came along, and I committed to two years. And another two. And another. Before I knew it we’d changed PMs four times and you and I were looking at our 6 year anniversary. I’ve never even rented the same house longer than 3 years, so you should know this is a pretty serious commitment for me.
I thought that meant something. You always there for me when I called, unless I wanted to call anywhere outside the CBD and then your coverage would be as absent as dignity at a frat party, but I accepted that you just weren’t the outdoors type. I also accepted that you didn’t even know how to spell ‘phone’, despite the fact that the primary purpose of your existence is to provide telephonic services. I forgave these faults and plenty more besides, because I thought you cared.
Lately, however, things have taken an ugly turn. First, I find out that despite earning 3.6 billion dollars in13/14 you paid no tax whatsoever. Sure, the tax evasion hurts, but you know what really twists the knife? The fact that you kept it from me.
Finally, you decided to check in with me, to see how I’m feeling about you. I respect that you care about my feelings, but I wanted clarification on the nature of our relationship. Here’s what happened:
I’m hurt Vodafone, I’d call one of my friends and cry into the phone at them if not for the fact that I just KNOW you’d listen in. We’ve had some good times, but I’ll be keeping our relationship strictly business from now on. You can assume my reply to all future surveys is ZERO, unless of course the question is ‘how much tax should Vodafone pay after earning 3.6 billion in profits?’
Swarm Re:guards
JM Donellan
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Love letters to corporations episode #6 Eighty Nine now available everywhere and everywhen Reduce Translink fares: 3600 signatures and counting... LibraryCopyright © JM Donellan [Love letters to corporations: Vodafone], All Right Reserved. 2016.December 14, 2015
Boycott everything for no reason!
Working in the arts, you have to expect the odd negative review and the conventional wisdom is to just ignore them. However, I honestly never expected that anyone would ever care enough about my work to call for a boycott, and I DEFINITELY did not think that anyone would ever be demented enough to call for a boycott and write a 1300+ word essay based purely on the TITLE! Oh, what a world of wonders we live in! Here’s my review of Gerald Keaney’s utterly sincere and yet unintentionally hilarious boycott call to arms.
1 ““Poetry is dead!” It’s an edgy and intriguing title for a poetry event on 9th December 2015, part of the Brisbane Powerhouse’s end of year Wonderland Festival.
Your essay begins with getting the date wrong. GREAT START!
2 While the pair’s subject matter is up to them…
Implies that the subject matter of an independently produced performance would, for some insane reason, be up to someone else (you, presumably?) This is deranged enough to be hilarious. Please continue!
Gerald Keaney, ladies and gentlemen…
3 If everyone is a poet, there are no more poets.
In our incredibly brief online interaction I saw you use this line three times, so you’re obviously very proud of it. Poetry is currently a niche art form, so this is hardly a concern. Furthermore, one of the reasons why it is so sparsely practised is because people are put off by the kind of elitist gatekeeping you’re espousing here. Imagine if you told every ten year old who picked up a guitar: “You’d BETTER have a comprehensive understanding of 19th century flamenco music!”
4 Donellan also claimed his “poetry is dead” byline referred to old fashioned poetry. “In with the new, out with the old!” he declares…
You’ve taken a (wildly exaggerated and inaccurate) paraphrasing and presented it as a quote. I seem to recall Jonah Lehrer doing something similar. Things didn’t work out too well for him, did they?
5 Nevertheless Donellan’s endeavour could have easily been saved. He could have been a little more enthusiastic about discussion afterwards… Along with poetry, he obviously thinks public discussion has died, and it is time for the public to sit back like good passive little consumers of art.
I said I was happy to talk after the show – repeatedly – but that we could not host a Q & A afterwards because we had to pack down the stage for the show which began 15 minutes after ours finished. You really don’t seem to have a very firm grasp of either time or basic social protocol. You aren’t an only child who was raised by some sort of humourless disgraced Slavic royalty in a barn with only your rancorous patriarch and pet woodlouse for company by any chance?
6 Even without seeing their show I can only conclude that it is a mistake for Donellan and Wilmett to use the title “Poetry is dead.”
Easily my favourite part. Basically the equivalent of picking up a copy of ‘Catcher in the Rye’ and saying: “I fucking HATE rye, I’m not reading this shit!”
If you don’t like rye, stay away from this book! It’s just hundreds of pages about rye. I assume. I haven’t read it.
7 They are left displaying only a faux cleverness, and the way the pair has used the slogan Poetry is dead gives entirely the wrong message about poetry itself. For that reason my advice is boycott.
First of all, are you familiar with the concept of irony? Seeing as the only thing you seem to be interested in is your own opinions, would you prefer that we called our act Gerald Keaney and the Gerald Keaneys? Because unfortunately that name is already taken by some deranged narcissist. In any case, even if you think it’s a terrible title, calling for a boycott is definitely overkill. What next, call for a ban on poetry readings in a library ? Oh wait, I see you already did that.
8 YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE SHOW. I realise I mentioned this already, but I felt it was such an important point that it was worth repeating.
In conclusion: if this is a mislabeled piece of fiction written from the perspective of a character who is a petty, ageing punk who indulges in writing petulant rants and dressing them up as rambling, incoherent academic critique then congratulations, you’ve nailed it!
However, if this is actually a sincere essay, it gets a solid F+. The ‘+’ is awarded on the off-chance that you really are an only child who was raised in a barn with only your rancorous patriarch and pet woodlouse for company. Perhaps next time you could try typing with both hands?
PS
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ULTIMATE COLLABORATIONS 10 of the Best Books Set in India (with its Multitudinous Mysteries) DEAR HAND DRYER AT THE NGV: I HATE YOU.Copyright © JM Donellan [Boycott everything for no reason!], All Right Reserved. 2015.November 17, 2015
Poetry is Dead at Wonderland Festival hooray hurrah *fireworks and guitar solos*!!!
photo by Kate O’Sullivan
Dearest humans,
It is with great pride and an appropriately stupendous array of confetti canon explosions that we announce that Poetry is Dead will be performing at this year’s Wonderland festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse! This year I’ve performed solo at Sydney Writers’ Festival, Brisbane Writers’ Festival, Noted Literary Festival, Ruckus Slam, The Australian Poetry Slam Finals at the Sydney Opera House and a ton of other places but this is the one and only time this year I’ll be doing shows with the supernaturally brilliant Mike Willmett as Poetry is Dead.
Mike and I are tremendously excited about this show, we are currently the only spoken word/electronic/live VJing/poetry band in Australia, possibly the world. If another such act exists, please let us know so we can either sue them or do a gig with them, depending on how good they are.
This is our mascot, Edgar Allan Flow.
We are performing in the stupendously cool Graffiti room, which is a beautiful, intimate space and we’ll only be able to fit around 30 people a night in there. This means it’ll be close and cosy and delicious but also that tickets are very limited. We’ve written a ton of new stuff and we are as excited as a small child with a shiny jetpack and a metric ton of magic jellybeans to share it with you.
Our show will run from December 10 -13, but the whole Wonderland program is incredible and there’s lots of great multi-ticket discount packages. My personal recommendations are The Cindy Twitch, Best in Show, The Architects of Sound and Long Story Short (I’ll be performing at that one too, telling a story about the time I accidentally went to Singapore and got really angry at John Travolta right before there was an explosion on my plane.)
OKAY GREAT I’LL SEE YOU THERE Q: WON’T IT BE GREAT? A: YES IT WILL!
LYNX:
VIDEO OF MANATEE SQUISHING ITS FACE INTO GLASS
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100 books a year Library Zeb and the Great Ruckus: coming at you like a rampaging bewilderbeast in 2012 REVIEW OF MY EX-GIRLFRIEND'S WEDDINGCopyright © JM Donellan [Poetry is Dead at Wonderland Festival hooray hurrah *fireworks and guitar solos*!!!], All Right Reserved. 2015.October 13, 2015
HBO: why don’t you want my money?
Dearest HBO,
Why don’t you want my money? Is it a moral thing, are you worried that my income is derived from heinously unethical sources like contract killing, drug dealing or writing for Newscorp? Because I can assure you, all of my income is legitimately earned (well, assuming you can call art ‘legitimate’…)
Would you like me to pay you in bitcoin? Dogecoin? Maybe fucking DRACHMAS? And yes, I do know that Greece hasn’t used Drachmas in many years it’s just that 1) ‘drachmas’ is a funny word that sounds as though it might describe a Grandma Dracula and 2) Paying with an obsolete currency makes infinitely more sense than going to great lengths to prevent people from paying you.
“But silly Australian consumer!” you might say. “It’s easy to watch HBO in your weird, kangaroo filled country! Why don’t you just pay for Foxtel?” Let me answer your question in the form of opening a second window in my browser and searching ‘mercenaries located within walking distance of HBO headquarters.’ 
To sign up for the Foxtel package that includes ‘high quality’ content (why is there any other type being offered on a premium paid service?) including installation fees is $665 – a number so tantalisingly almost satanic that it suggests a bunch of board members sat around and said “Can we make it less than $666 because we don’t want to give away the fact that Satan is our lord and master but only very SLIGHTLY less because, I mean, you know…we love money.” This pricing is bullshit on a cosmic scale. For that kind of money, according to Ebay, I could buy the skull of an extinct Merycoidodon. I don’t even know what that is, but I know I’d rather pay for that than a bunch of crappy reality shows where they put models fresh out of rehab in charge of the economy of a small island nation or whatever dross comes packaged with the handful of decent shows on offer.
Have you ever walked into a coffee shop and had a conversation like this:
“Hi there, what can I get for you today?”
“Cappuccino to go thanks, I’ve got a busy day of not letting people buy my company’s services ahead of me!
“Sure thing! That’ll be $3.00 for the coffee and $662 for the piles of bagels, donuts, muffins, ylang ylang smoothies, vegan cheese souffle, kale flavoured paleo cronut and gluten free cheese puffs.”
“But I don’t want any of those other things, just coffee!”
“Well you don’t have to eat them, but you DO have to pay for them and take them with you.”
Do you know WHY you’ve probably never had this interaction? Because it is a batshit crazy business model that would only be cooked up by an obscenely wealthy oligarch at the nasty end of a six day coke binge. Last year, some of us were hopeful that the streaming service HBO GO would offer up some assistance, but instead you had served up a big old digital middle finger to the world and had everyone outside of the US screaming HBO GO FUCK YOURSELVES when they read this:
It’s well documented that piracy rates are extremely high in Australia. And look, I understand why you might be annoyed about that. I currently lose money to piracy even though you can literally get my books for free from the goddamn library, and that stings. Especially because my landlord refuses to let me pay in dramatic monologues or haiku for some stupid reason. It would probably break my heart, if not for the fact that I just have a fat black lump of coal where it used to be. But one of the reasons the piracy is so prevalent in this country is because Australians are sick of being constantly and consistently screwed on both the pricing and the availability of digital media. You might as well let Pirate Bay put up banner advertising on your homepage, given how much traffic you drive their way.
I want to like you HBO, really, I do. I even want to give you money. But you just make it SO. DAMN. HARD. I shouldn’t need to use a quasi-illegal ‘greymarket’ workaround to achieve this. Netflix finally figured this out last year, surely you can do the same. Or you can keep rolling along using your heinously outdated business model and people will keep stealing your stuff forever. Why don’t you ask your buddies in the record industry how that’s working out for them?
In conclusion:
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CHARLES DARWIN VS 99 BOTTLES OF BEER Killing Adonis cover reveal 100 books a year Eighty Nine now available everywhere and everywhen THE GREATEST COMPETITION OF ALL TIMECopyright © JM Donellan [HBO: why don't you want my money?], All Right Reserved. 2015.October 4, 2015
A Day In The Li(f)e of a New York Limes Best Smelling Author
Writers are often asked: “What’s your daily process?”
I assume this is because many people entertain the outlandish fantasy that most writers wake up late, stare philosophically into the middle distance for an hour or two, do about twenty minutes of actual work and then spend the rest of the day hanging out in opium dens. I’d like to take a few moments to dispel these fallacies by offering a very rare and personal glimpse into my daily life as a New York Limes Best Smelling author.
8:62AM
START WITH A HEALTHY BREAKFAST
In my teenage years I began most mornings with a cup of Slurm or ambrosia alongside a large serving of fried unicorn. These days I’m trying to watch my figure (watch it EXPAND amirite?) so I stick to a nice cockatrice omelette. It’s important for me to use free range eggs, sadly in 2015 many farmers still engage in the barbaric practice of battery caging cockatrices. If you have allergies to cockatrice eggs you can substitute dragon or phoenix, but these tend to be a little pricier.
ELEVENTY-SIX AM
IDEAS
Next I have to get some ideas. Writers are often asked ‘where do you get your ideas from?’ and there are a range of sources, but I like to keep things simple. I use the classic monkeys at typewriters technique. The smell and noise can be annoying but it’s worth it. The recommended quantity is 100, but I don’t shift as many units as James Patterson (word on the street is that he has an international conglomerate of monkeys working for him) so I can only afford 43. Also, due to a purchasing error, I only have pygmy marmosets and they have to jump from one key to the next, so typing a whole book takes a really long time.
13th:23rd PM
SOCIAL MEDIUM TIME
Often young aspiring writers ask me how much time you should ideally spend on social media, usually while they are tweeting from their phone and scrolling through instagram on their iPad. My reply is usually ‘Hey, do you mind? Are you familiar with the concept of eye contact?’ and then I tell them that social media is an important tool for tracking idiotic things that Jonathan Franzen has said recently, but what you really want to invest your time in is a social MEDIUM. The use of a psychic to spruik your books in the land of the dead is very important. The dead don’t really have much to do except bitch about each other, so they’re always hungry for reading material, plus their population is huge (and growing by the day!) so they’re an important market to tap into.
33 1/3rd PM SNACK BREAK!
Usually around this time I feel my motivation lagging and I need to perk myself up. I like to achieve this by enjoying my favourite beverage: The Tears of My Enemies. When I was a young rookie I had to collect these the old fashioned way, with baseball bats and threats. This obviously took a lot of time. Nowadays my schedule’s pretty crowded, so I use a tears exchange program. My tears are sent out to a central agency who in turn provide me with the requested tears. I’m not sure where mine are sent, because it’s an anonymous program, but Christopher Pyne has been throwing a lot of shade at me via twitter recently.
FOR PM
Yell at the walls.
Practise De Niro’s monologue from Taxi Driver.
Attempt to balance a spoon on my nose.
MIDNIGHT O’CLOCK
Get a good night’s sleep. Resting is important for a healthy mind and body. Unfortunately, all of the people I’ve wronged/maimed/imprisoned in magical cages over the years weigh very heavily on my soul, so the only way I can sleep is on a pile of money. Even more unfortunately, I am pretty broke, so I have to sleep on a pile of monopoly money.
BOOK O’CLOCK!!!
When the magic’s all done and the book is finally complete, I have a really hard time waiting, so I like to cryogenically freeze myself until the night of the launch. This allows me to emerge from my stasis chamber to a round of applause. A word of caution though, I did once overset the timer and my publisher had to hire a model who was much better looking than me and, embarrassingly, was also a lot wittier and more intelligent. I think he’s just signed a six book deal with a Penguin. Not Penguin publishing, just a penguin named Steve.
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CHARLES DARWIN VS 99 BOTTLES OF BEER Exit Stage Zed Love Letter to Lisbon (OR Art in the Time of Recession). A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO DYING IN INDIA BY JM DONELLAN, REVIEWED BY JM DONELLAN You Have the Right to Not Remain SilentCopyright © JM Donellan [A Day In The Li(f)e of a New York Limes Best Smelling Author], All Right Reserved. 2015.August 16, 2015
The Theory of Everything
I’m tremendously excited to be have worked on The Theory of Everything as a part of the Brisbane Festival. The director, Thomas Quirk, produced one of my all time favourite theatrical works, The Raven, which was an interactive performance piece about Edgar Allen Poe. It also starred one of my best friends, the supernaturally brilliant actor Erica Field. It’s an honour to be working with Thom on this show, alongside other amazing theatre folk like Yvette Turnbull and Marcel Dorney. When I was in my early twenties, I had a massive band crush on his group Flamingo Crash, so it’s rewarding and bizarre to be collaborating with him on this project.
For this show I was asked to write a bunch of loosely connected vignettes on subjects including physics, philosophy, love, death, elf magic and tentacle porn. Brisbane Festival shows always sell quickly, Friday night is already sold out and Wednesday is nearly gone as well so if you want to come along you should clickety click here. There are also tons of other amazing shows and some great multi-ticket deals. Check it out!
Love etc.
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How to Turn Your Child Into a ninja-scientist-guitar-soloing-human rights champion in one easy step. Ain't no party like a launch party Diet Tips from the Vampire Girl With a Dragon Tattoo Who Played a Game of Thrones With Fire 100 Books a year 2014 pt 1 Copyright © JM Donellan [The Theory of Everything], All Right Reserved. 2015.August 13, 2015
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Explosions in the sky New York Limes best smelling author Killing Adonis now available for preorder TELL EVERYONE AND THEIR GRANDMAS REVIEW OF EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD PART ONE 100 Stories for QLDCopyright © JM Donellan [ghosts], All Right Reserved. 2015.
