Gillian Polack's Blog, page 259

gillpolack @ 2011-03-30T16:36:00

I know it's Quantum Poets day today, but we've had to skip a week. Some of the class was missing, and this is not the kind of thing that they can catch up in their own time, so the rest of us made a tactical decision to focus on learning how English has a natural rhythm and how understanding that can lead to the production of perfect iambic pentameters. This took a long time to sort, but it was a most excellent thing to do. It's one thing to give a perfect but theoretical explanation of the iambic pentameter, it's quite another to see students marking up text, their body language announcing boldly "I can do this."

We won't have any quantum physics the week after next, either, because we have an excursion to the National Portrait Gallery. Evil teacher will take over at that point, because there are so many potentially subversive exercises we can do at the National Portrait Gallery. None of them involve defacing art, you will be pleased to hear.

Anyhow, because of two skipped lessons and no diminution in enthusiasm, Quantum Poets will continue into next term.


PS Today's Women's History month post will be put up just as soon as it arrives in my in-box. If it doesn't arrive, I'm afraid you'll have to wait until tomorrow (I already have the post for tomorrow). I'll do you an index of all of them tomorrow, as well, so you can find your favourites or check up on ones you've missed.

PPS There is burning off in the ACT again. They always choose weeks when other things are happening and make my life challenging.

PPPS I'm 3/4 through my paid work for the week. If I'm not careful, I might mistake my existence for a normal one.

PPPPS I should ring my mother sometime.

PPPPPS My students were discussing whether it was a probability or a possibility that there would be rain today. I argued that there *would* be rain today ie that it was a certainty, though I wasn't willing to venture how much. I was right, of course. Or my weather sense was.

PPPPPPS It's too long since I last created a totally unreadable post using the power of the postscript.

PPPPPPPS Speaking of scripts, can anyone (offhand) think of the name of the script used in Northern France in standard Books of Hours in the very, very, very late thirteenth century? I've mislaid both my memory and my relevant reference books. All I can find is Cappelli.

PPPPPPPPS I have more review books! And I never sent the last reviews because life intervened, as life does. A whole bunch will be emailed on Friday, which will cause much astonishment at the far end.

PPPPPPPPPS I am so much in birthday countdown mode. Some of my oldest friends will be in town actually on my birthday (this is a surprise - normally people *leave* town on my birthday, it being a public holiday and all). They're there for the folk festival. I doubt Ernie and co will have time to drop round, Jared will try, and Marilla and my god-daughter have firmly promised. My god-daughter can now walk, and she holds my finger very trustingly. She has a lot to learn...

PPPPPPPPPPS I could see all my friends at once if I went to the folk festival. But it's folk festival now or food in the UK and food in the UK has to be a higher priority. Also, public transport in Canberra is truly unloveable on long weekends and this is the Easter/ANZAC Day/Gillian's birthday long weekend. Not much use paying for a ticket if I have to walk the twenty miles! (It may only be fifteen miles. Or ten. I refuse to check.)

PPPPPPPPPPPS I'm having a mini-folk festival at my place that whole weekend. I'm sorting CDs for it. CDs with friends playing are already on the playlist, and next up are my favourite folk bands. Some Medievalish stuff has already diluted the pure folkdom, also some jazz. Also Ofra Haza. If anyone's in town, not at the folk festival, feel free to demand coffee and maybe a bit of mild dancing. let me know in advance though, because my place is chockers with papers and drying washing and books that are stacking themselves in the most irrational fashion.

PPPPPPPPPPPPS Kaaron Warren's Dead Sea Fruits is still wandering around my loungeroom in a strange and desultory manner. Last time I saw it, it was on my big table, but today it's not to be seen at all. Next time I see Russell Farr I'm going to ask him how he created an ambulatory book. Also, how to get it to stay still long enough to be put away. I wonder if Ticonderoga Press sells chains for certain of its books? Or tethers?

PPPPPPPPPPPPPS I need to pull together my next BiblioBuffet ruond table interview. I need to send emails. I need to stop procrastinating.

PPPPPPPPPPPPPPS Ignore that last PS, I think I shall edit instead. I feel editorial. I won't edit this post, however. It is a perfect work of art.*


*In the sense that that 'perfectly annoying' is a facet of perfect.

gillpolack @ 2011-03-30T12:58:00

If you have a Ditmar vote to wield and you haven't read Tessa Kum's story 'Acception' (from Baggage - which is still my dream anthology, even after recent events) you might want to check this out: http://silence-without.blogspot.com/2011/03/acception-free-to-read.html

For anyone who missed on the development of the story, check back in her blog over the last couple of years or so. She has some amazing posts about how she pulled the story from her soul, agonising the whole way. My version of events isn't nearly as exciting. All I did was prod and occasionally say "This isn't there yet." Tessa put so much into this story on so many levels - I'm very pleased it's getting recognised.

gillpolack @ 2011-03-29T12:32:00

Only two days to go and I'm looking back at Women's History Month and thinking of all the other women I should have invited (many of whom are reading this). I stopped asking guests when I realised the month was filled, not when I ran out of women I wanted to hear from. March simply isn't long enough.

Should I do this again next year?

Women's History Month: Elizabeth Chadwick

Heirlooms

There is a doll in my family. She is made from wax, has rather scary blue eyes and ash-grey hair, and lives in a glass fronted cased with a wooden back and sides. She wears a long, slightly faded peach-coloured dress decorated with dotted white flocking. Keeping her company in the case to right and left are two white china poodles. We know she is two hundred and twenty six years old, comes from Paris, and that the little girl she was bought for, was born two hundred and thirty six years ago in 1775. Her name was Elizabeth Blount. We know all this because as well as the china poodles, the case contains a handwritten note saying: 'This doll was given to Elizabeth Blount by her uncle on the occasion of her 10th birthday in 1785, and at her death, she wishes it to be given to her daughter Elizabeth. It has been handed down through the family ever since then, from daughter to daughter and if there were no daughters, then through the sons until another daughter turned up. If there was more than one daughter in the family, it always went to the one called Elizabeth. The doll came down to me, and in my lifetime I have passed it onto my niece, although she is a Hannah, not an Elizabeth.

The original Elizabeth Blount did not marry until she was 29, and it was to a young man of 19 called Thomas Sykes who was a gardener by trade. They had 8 children, of whom 6 survived. Their daughter, Elizabeth inherited the doll, but not have any surviving offspring, but in her turn, passed the doll to her niece, Elizabeth Sykes, who then gave it to her daughter, Martha, my great grandmother, and so on down the generations. It's not a particularly beautiful object; indeed it could well give you nightmares. I don't have a photograph, for which I am kind of sorry and kind of glad! I don't think it was ever played with, which perhaps accounts for its excellent state of preservation. My grandmother, Rhoda, who was born in 1899 and lived to be 94, always wondered if the doll concealed a stash of gold sovereigns under her skirt, but could never quite bring herself to open the case and have a look, so dolly remains intact.

Great granny Martha, who died before I was born, used to run a corner shop – a sort of Edwardian takeaway and it was firmly her own business. When I say takeaway, she used to make dinners for people to come and buy. They would arrive with their own dishes for a portion of her famous Lancashire meat and potato pie, or a roast with vegetables. It was arduous work in terms of hours, but it brought in money at a time when money was often short. She also sold biscuits and cakes in her shop, and I still have one of the old biscuit scoops in my flour jar. Again, there is no photo I'm afraid. She married my great grandfather, a velvet dyer, late in life – when she was 32 and he was 34, so they both had established jobs by then.

I do have a photograph of the top half of my great, great grandmother's wedding dress. Sadly the bottom half is missing. My Gran was a terror for throwing things away or recycling them. So the Queen Anne balloon backed chairs became firewood on a cold winter's day. The gorgeous baby christening robes were turned into dusters, great grandfather Edwin's moustache cups went in the bin and her grandmother's wedding dress had the skirt cut up to make aprons! However, Gran did keep the bodice and we still have that to pass on. It was made in the days before white wedding dresses were de rigueur and I am sure would have been worn on other special occasions. The hand-stitching is boggling.

My son now has a little daughter called Esmé Elizabeth and in time she will become the custodian of the flour scoop and the dress top. I feel very privileged to have this connection with the women whose DNA I share but whom I have never known, except through a doll in a glass case, from the childhood of one, a biscuit scoop, from the working life of another, and the whaleboned bodice of a wedding dress of a third, that looks impossibly tiny to my well nourished 21st-century self. But when I see and touch these things, I can feel the connection, and I hope my granddaughter and my niece will value the heritage of these women as much as I do.




Elizabeth Chadwick is the author of 19 historical novels. She won a Betty Trask Award for her first novel The Wild Hunt and has just received the UK's Romantic Novelists Association prize 2011 for Historical fiction with her novel To Defy A King.
More information can be found at her website www.elizabethchadwick.com She can also be contacted via Facebook or Twitter.

Note from Gillian: For pictures of the bodice, click here.

Women's History Month: Tiki Swain

Tiki Swain is a scientist, science communicator and science/environmental advocate, and an urban druid. Her career path's mostly freelance and short-term, allowing her to work on a wide variety of projects as they come up, interest her or become important in the zeitgeist. Her background is heavily oriented towards protecting our land, be it through multi-generational farming or primitive survival and caretaking techniques. She values highly living with awareness.

I can't help but ask questions. I can't help but look at things and try to see them as they are, without the veils of common association and assumption. I'm a scientist. And an artist. Both need that vision, that awareness. One of the first things I learnt when actually "learning" to draw was to draw what was in front of me, not what I thought was in front of me. If you look at a face and see a nose, then draw a nose, you get one result. If you look at a face and see areas of dark and light, or angle and line, or patterns of texture, and draw those as you see them, you get quite a different and often much more realistic result. The aim is always to pierce the veil of habit, to see the difference between what you see and what you think you see. And in that difference springs to life an entire new world. A living one, a challenging one, one that's harder to cope with because there's so much more in it and so much more going on. It's so easy to categorise things and then just let them go because you "know" them.
I have occasionally mentioned to people that I dislike using categories. Which is funny given how meticulously ordered I like things to be (my washing line, for instance, is almost always a carefully created work of art). But most common categories of things are so... so SMALL. So narrow. Take, for instance, the rainbow. "Everyone knows that" there are seven colours in the rainbow. Which is total b*llshit. Have you ever sat and stared at the light passing through a prism, or tilted a CD back and forth to see the colours change? Have you ever looked at a rainbow and tried to count the stripes? As soon as you do, you have the option to notice a mismatch between what you think and what you see. A lot of people excuse away the mismatch – have you ever heard someone say something like "Oh, indigo's invisible"? But that mismatch is important. If there's a mismatch between what you see and what's actually there, then there's something interesting going on. Here's a tip. The "colours of the rainbow" were defined some three hundred years ago by an early experimental scientist. At that time, colours were named differently. "Blue" referred only to light or bright blue. There was no such thing as "dark blue" - it was "indigo". Look at that rainbow again – indigo's not invisible at all, is it? And then if you could see that rainbow close up you'd see thousands of colours. Our eyes can distinguish so many different shades. Look at the light from a prism, and you see the colours shading gradually into one another. It's easy to say they form stripes, but to do so is to ignore all that beautiful dancing in between.

There's an art to living liminally. I haven't mastered it. But I continue to try. The first step is always, always, to not take things for granted, and the second is trying to notice those questions that are jumping up and down in front of us. My world is not like most people's. It's beautiful, curious, and a little inhuman at times. I like that. The human world is filled with moments that make me want to say "Are you hearing yourself?". Like radio DJs who every year on the first of September say "Gee, you'd never know it was spring now". Um, excuse me, if every time a particular thing happens you think there's a mismatch, maybe there's something you believe that's wrong? Australia's seasons are officially defined using premises from our Old Mater Albion, which has a solar-driven climate. The vast majority of Australia has a water-driven climate. That means the seasonal patterns aren't just reversed, they're working on a completely different modus operandi. The whole way they come to pass is through a different set of functions and algorithms. The Aborigines who lived here defined the seasons by what they saw happening year after year rather than trying to make their experiences fit prior assumptions and excusing away the variations, and it's no surprise that their definitions of seasons bear almost no relation to ours in either number or timing.

I spend most of my days at the moment dealing with a toddler, and soon to be a newborn as well. So I get a lot of thinking time (it's amazing what you can try and occupy your mind with while cleaning poo off the carpet), and a lot of child-created opportunities to see the world as it is. Recently I've had the opportunity to ask some very interesting questions, which you'll find scattered throughout my blog (use the memories filters to search if you'd rather not wade through updates about pregnancy and kids). It's funny when you ask a question that people don't really understand why you'd ask. For instance, I started asking why there was ginger in ginger beer. The obvious answer is "well, duh, then it wouldn't be GINGER beer". I got a few responses like that. But no, really, why? The brewing process involves making a starter culture, then a cordial, adding the two together and letting the mix ferment until carbonated. So sure, whatever flavour you make the cordial will be the flavour of the final drink. But in every recipe I saw, there was ginger in the starter culture too. Every recipe, no exceptions. And also without exception, its presence was unexplained. I'd get some great scientific or practical detail on the sugars or the various yeast cultures and the part they had to play in fermentation, but ginger was just assumed. Taken for granted. And I had to ask, "why"? I could think of several reasons off the top of my head, but without further investigation those reasons just become excuses for not asking. For rationalising away the mismatch, letting it slide.

So I floated the question out there, and eventually gathered enough commentary from various friends who've brewed their own anythings to push one believable scientific reason to the top of the list. And now I'm experimenting with what I've learnt to see if in practice the same effects show up. I'm also asking a second question that came up in the course of the research: which is, why is there ginger in ginger beer? It's not the same question. It's a question of why ginger beer is so commonly produced, consumed and assumed to be part of life. If you read Enid Blyton books as a kid you'll remember descriptions of mouthwatering feasts, which almost always included "lashings and lashings of ginger beer". There are historical descriptions of it around England for ages, it was a standard drink to make. It's still a common thing to substitute for children when the adults are drinking "real" beer (if less so in this last decade of "nutrient waters"). But – why ginger? Why a flavour that a lot of people don't like in strength, and that comes from a plant that isn't easy to grow in England, when there are plenty of other things you could brew from? I don't know the answer to that yet. I hope to.

I'm also investigating self-watering trees. After working with water tanks, water filtration systems, stormwater and rainwater collection systems and waste-water treatment for fifteen months in my last job, I had a lot of info about water stuck in my head. Then I was watching the effect of the heavy rains here in Melbourne's western suburbs with their heavy clay soils, the places that flooded over and over again for a month or two including the front yards of most of the new townhouses with their magazine-style stapled-on gardens. I find it somewhat offensive that builders think that they can design a garden based solely on drawing a picture and then copying that onto the front of each house without any consideration to climate, soil type, or even house aspect. No awareness of "how it works", just stick the plants in, put some coloured mulch and river stones down in a pretty pattern like on the TV shows and it's done. I watched several of these gardens floating around their yards during the summer rains and just laughed. It's not like there's no reason that we used to talk about digging over the garden bed ready for spring. There is history and science behind everything we do, and ignoring all the "hows" and "whys" for appearance or convenience (the "whats") has its perils.

So I was thinking about self-wicking garden beds and methods of soil treatment and structure, and found myself asking if we couldn't just build a water tank under each of our trees. Fruit trees are lovely, they do need water in summer, but what if instead of relying on our river catchments (which are a natural way of spreading and delaying water arrival so that we're not held to only watering when it rains) we could capture the in-situ rainfall and store it where the trees could tap it themselves? Ideally, using no man-made items at all, but simply through creating the right kind of soil structures that would catch and hold water. I spent some time looking into "primitive" (i.e. pre-fossil-fuel) irrigation methods, most of which were river-dependent. And came up with a lovely gem where our own Alfred Deakin in the nineteenth century was promoting irrigation as a method of improving Australia's agriculture and economy that was perfectly suitable for Anglo-Saxons and not just those primitive tribes. Can you imagine anyone now needing to say such a thing? If anything, it's the opposite – people are calling for irrigation to be rolled back and overallocations cut. Our assumptions about the common things change so much with time, and yet because they're common we rarely remember that they were ever any different. That's one reason that as a scientist I have to keep challenging assumptions. They may be right, but for what value of time and place?

My design process is moving slowly. But I hit paydirt with the Nabateans, they who built Petra. Ancient history, and their agricultural techniques are mostly lost to time, but it's been rediscovered that the arid landscape they grew their food in was heavily microsculpted to capture and store rainwater. I have more questions to ask, more things to investigate. But I hope to come up with a design that I can use in various parts of Australia to help build food security in the face of climate change. And I'm doing so by asking questions, not relying on prior assumptions, and not just taking our existing climate and water systems for granted.

Engage with life. It's out there waiting for you.

gillpolack @ 2011-03-28T11:46:00

Imagine, I've actualy written something historical for BiblioBuffet. I really like it that cultural history is now becoming mainstream and not merely something that strange bods such as myself do (which reminds me, I really ought to note some thoughts about how writers can use cutlural history before I forget). It' s a single book review, rather than an essay: http://www.bibliobuffet.com/bookish-dreaming/1484-on-matters-military-and-historical-032711 I did it this way because that intersection (military and cultural history) is still uncommon and I wanted to explore what the book said. I stopped myself before I wrote 5000 words, however. it would have been so easy to write 5000 words!

Women's History Month: Marianne de Pierres

You know, I grew up thinking I could do anything I wanted to do; believing that I was equal. I guess that's a testament to my parents more than anything. It wasn't really until my early twenties that I realized that not everyone in the world had the same belief. In one particular job I had, I was persistently patronized, belittled and in the end sacked under a pretext. What had done? Well, I'd talked to my teenage charges about sexual harassment in the work force – how to identify it and what to avenues to purse if it was happening – and my superiors perceived that I was trouble making and conveniently made me redundant soon after (after several bollickings).

I haven't thought about this incident for years, but as I started writing this, the memory resurfaced in Technicolor. I took this as a sign that it was time to talk about it. This incident happened in about 1987, around the time Equal Opportunity began to get a fair hearing in political circles. I think back on how I was treated with such contempt for wanting to educate and protect my trainees against unacceptable behavior. All I succeeded in doing, however, was shattering my own self-confidence and self belief. There was no one there to back me. No wise woman, or sorority sister to call on. It took years of experience and personal growth to get past how I was treated and to regain my belief.

So, in Woman's History Month, if there is anything I could offer Gillian's female readers, it would you encourage you all to mentor each other in the workplace and in life. I could have done with such a person in 1987, and I will, to the day I die, always try and be that to someone else in need. – Marianne de Pierres

Marianne de Pierres is an award-winning author who publishes novels in the science fiction, fantasy, crime and young adult genres. Visit her websites at www.mariannedepierres.com, www.tarasharp.com and www.burnbright.com

gillpolack @ 2011-03-27T22:22:00

I've done about 1/8 of my tax and now I have to catch up with things. I must like running, since i spend so much of my time catching up... All this means tonight is a second WHM post. Then I get a cup of tea and some TV.

I also get to wonder where my day went. Possibly it slipped under the door and went dancing in the driveway while I wasn't watching and my neighbour's car ran it over. Now there is a very light splotch on the asphalt. No doubt I'll see that lightness tomorrow and pick it up and put it away for later scrapbooking.

Women's History Month: Erica Lewis

We are all here!

Part 1: The historical myth that younger women aren't feminists.

Those of you following me on twitter may have noticed that I had an inter-generational moment during one of the international women's day celebrations. Some of you who've known me for a while, will know that I've been having this moment for sometime – you see despite what we are often told I don't believe there is a generational divide in Australian feminism.

I'd had a bit of a hard start to the week, and so decided that it order to shake the bad mood what I needed was to be refreshed in the women's movement and given a good shot of inspiration. So, I'd taken myself down to the ACT Government's International Women's Day Awards.

The inspiration was there. Not only in the award winners (there's a list at www.women.act.gov.au) but in the audience: amazing women who give tirelessly to many organisations and causes and have been important to me as I have evolved as a feminist. I was glad to be there. Glad not only to honour the women nominated but to catch up with old friends.

And then I went quickly from inspired to outraged (probably an even better way to shake the mood).

Why, oh why, is it still ok for people at feminist gatherings, having very carefully noted the diversity of women, to suddenly have a moment where they announce that young women (as a collective entity) have failed the cause and don't understand what it was like for their mothers.

I understand that looking out on the audience you could have wondered where the younger women were. But being able to attend a function that starts at 10am in the morning is something of a privilege. I came into work very early, took what I billed as a very early and somewhat long lunch, and stayed late in order to be at the event. But if I worked somewhere where working hours were less flexible this likely wouldn't have been an option without losing a shift's pay. So, perhaps it's not surprising that the majority of people in the audience were workers in the community sector or dedicated volunteers post-retirement.

And I know I'm not really a young woman anymore either, but I've been cranky about this for about 15 years.

Let me say it once again – young women are active in the women's movement today. When the second wave of feminism took off in the 1970s every woman didn't hit the streets. Lots did. But lots didn't. Therefore, if you know one young(er) women who doesn't describe herself as a feminist please, please don't decide that everyone too young to have been active in the 1970s doesn't know their feminist history, or call themselves a feminist, or know that there is lots of work still to be done.

Oh and I'll let you in on an even bigger secret. Not only are women born since the 1970s active in the women's movement, but they contribute to the leadership of it.

Part 2: A seemingly new myth – that older women aren't sharing their stories of the women's movement!

Having written the first half of this blog I then had something of the reverse experience.

A young woman speaking at an International Women's Day event later in the week said the most amazing thing. Speaking after a number of prominent and long time feminists she said that she wished older feminists would reach out to younger women and share the stories of the movement.

Now, this may be her experience of being in the women's movement, and I can't question that. But underlying the statement was the same generalising assumption, that an individual experience can be used to portray a whole generation of women.

I recognise that the organisation she's associated with is a relative newcomer and doesn't have the prominent history that some organisations do. But the foremothers of her organisation were in the room. And they are some amazing women. I wish she had heard their stories.

I'm sorry that this has been her experience of being part of the women's movement. I know that one the experiences I cherish most is the generosity of the women who've mentored me and shared their stories with me.

So, perhaps as I end this blog – I'd like to ask two things, and temper my original call. One, please recognise the presence and leadership of younger women in the women's movement. And two, whether you are new to the movement or have been a long time member why not celebrate women's history month by reaching out to either hear or share a story.



Erica Lewis is a thirty-something feminist who has been active in the women's movement since the early 1990s. She is a life member of the YWCA of Canberra and a past National Convenor of the Women's Electoral Lobby. Her current work focuses on supporting women to take up leadership roles in social justice organisations and she has a fledging blog at http://www.strengtheningwomensleadership.blogspot.com/.

gillpolack @ 2011-03-27T20:15:00

I'm hungry. This could be because I haven't eaten dinner. Why haven't I eaten dinner? This could be because I've been chasing missing emails and starting up the next lot of articles and looking over edits for the Conflux cookbook. I'll get to the things I meant to do today eventually. Although, I admit, I have looked over about 50 pages of my novel and it's holding up. It's when I read the remaining 150 and assess what's still to be done (research-wise) that I shall start quaking in fear. Plus I have to start on my tax. If you can't see me when you go looking, it might be because I'm hiding under my bed.


PS My novel reached 200 pages when I wasn't watching. About 120 pages of it probably looks like this zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz