Craig Cliff's Blog, page 32

February Sucks

It's just too short. I haven't had the time to do my February reading post yet and it's messy-hectic times at the mo. Maybe this weekend...

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Here's a link to me reading '10 Places I Could Be When the Big One Hits' on Radio NZ National last Saturday (after Joanna Aitchison's earthquake poem).

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My talk/reading to the Wellington branch of the NZ Society of Authors last night went well.  People kept apologising for the small turnout, but that made it nice and intimate (apart from the other patrons at the Thistle Inn paying at the till).  I was asked to read my earthquake poem, and also read section 2 of 'Orbital Resonance' (also known as the story with 7 pages of internet browser history) and all of 'Untitled (Crimson and Gold)' (the story behind which I blogged about back in the day). The Q&A afterwards was also good value. I managed to go off on tangents about the lack of 'cross-town buses' between NZ and Australian literature and the influence of writing Ministerial briefings on my writing style.

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March is NZ Book Month. March 5 is Buy a New Zealand Book with Melting in the Title Day. Well, almost.

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Right, I'm off to floss my teeth and watch the first episode of the new season of the fabulous The Good Word (TVNZ7, 9.05pm Tuesdays). I don't know in which episode the 2 minute piece about my writing space will feature. Probably for the best. Not sure I'd watch if I knew for sure I was going to be on.

Oh Geez, etc

All Christchurch whanau are relatively unscathed... wait, I feel like I've written this before. Oh, I have. This time there were a lot more close shaves and much more damage to homes and businesses.  M. and I were just down there this weekend... Man, does the whole thing just suck or what (and reduce me to the eloquence of a teenager).

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Lynn Freeman paid a nice tribute to Chch at the start of this evening's 7 Poets in the City event at the City Gallery.  She read one poem from a year 12 student about the September quake, another from Jeffrey Paparoa Holman. It was a free event that turned into a semi-fundraiser -- it was nice to see all us freeloaders donating generously to help out Christchurch.

Lynn is also looking for writers with responses to the quakes for Radio NZ this weekend, by-the-by.

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If you're in Wellington this coming Monday (28 Feb) and are keen to take your internet stalking to the next level, you can come and listen to me talk at the NZ Society of Authors' meeting at the Thistle Inn at 7.30pm.

Here's the poster:

Craig Cliff: Causing birds to fly out of people's hair since 2007.
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The count down is on to the announcement of the regional winners for the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Wednesday evening Sydney time, apparently.
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What's my talk to Wellington NZSA peeps and walk-ins with a spare $3 going to be about?  Well, if my book was a DVD, my talk would be a combo of the deleted scenes and the director's commentary. I'm going to try and tell the story of my story, 'Copies', from an idea in a journal entry to a first draft of a story, to a finished story and then beyond (ie someone's aborted attempt to turn it into a short film)...

I have it all worked out in my head, though I better write something out this weekend or else instead of words it might be birds coming outta my head.

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Right song at the right moment for an unknown reason that I can't find on youtube so you'll just have to nod and move on: Trembling Bells - 'Adieu England'

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I don't know if it's secret squirrel or not, but they've already done one press release^... I've been invited to appear at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival in May. So, barring volcanic eruption or tsunami or pandemic (Aklders: "shut up Craig!"), that will be my first festival appearance.

^The press release came out the day before I was asked if I wanted to appear - so I'd totally written off any chance of appearing on stage in Auckland.  And that explains why I'm not mentioned in the press release, eh?

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Update: Friday 25th - Today I was recorded reading '10 places I could be when the big one hits' and it's going to play on Radio National between 4pm and 5pm tomorrow (Saturday), or so I'm told.

I kinda wanted a chance to preface the poem with some remarks, because it's not directly a Christchurch earthquake poem, but oh well... I'll just preface here: during the September earthquake, M's father thought, 'Geez, if this is what it's like here in Chch, I'd hate to see what's left of Wellington', and we received a text straight after asking if we were okay.  The idea that Wellington was still due a big one, and that events like earthquakes tend to focus the mind on what and who is important to you -- that's really the impetus behind '10 places...'

Book Launch: From Under the Overcoat

Sue Orr's book launch yesterday at Caffe Laffare was a good one.  Sadly, my photography skills were not up to scratch. I'm totally out of practice.

Here's the book cover again.


And here's Mary McCullum talking with Katherine Ryan on National Radio on Thursday.

I'm now down in Christchurch (again) and have attended my first coronial inquest. Not in a hurry to attend another. Sue's stories are calling - a welcome diversion!

More comments on the book in my end of the month reading summary!

Worksheet #63: where infrequent posting is not OK

Went to New Plymouth over the weekend and had a fab time. Definitely a liveable place. The only disconcerting thing was the billboards everywhere saying: "Taranaki, where family violence is not OK." These campaigns are as good as admissions that somethings wrong. It might as well say, "Taranaki: where family violence is a major problem." Or, perhaps it's actually saying, "If you want to abuse your family, move to Wanganui."

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Heat-check

By November 2010 I'd resigned myself to the gentle slide back to anonymity. I'd received my pile of media clippings from Random House and I was relatively happy with how things had gone. Some good reviews, some slightly better than good, no stinkers. I didn't expect things to take off again in 2011, but since 31 December I've been named a "hot writer", had a glowing review in the NZ Herald and now A Man Melting has been short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers Prize South East Asia and Pacific First Book Award. Long title, eh? It basicially means I'm one of six first-time authors from Commonwealth nations in SE Asia (eg Malaysia) and the Pacific (eg NZ and Australia) with a chance of winning the best first book in our region. Winners of the four Commonwealth regions (the others are Europe and South Asia, Candada and Caribbean, and Africa) duke it out for title of best first book in the Commonwealth. So it's pretty much the Commonwealth Games of literature (ie Americans have no idea it exists; NZers win a lot of silvers…). There's also an award for non-first books, but no one cares about them has-beens, right?

Anyway, it's pretty cool to be short-listed. Not many Kiwis ever win their region, so moving to the next stage is a big ask. Then there's the fact the press release from the Commonwealth Writers Prize features a comment by the chair of this region's judges, Dr Paul Sharrad, had this to say about the first book short-list:

"The first entries are notable for their fresh ideas. They include a comic treatment of the Rapture in the US, a story of Aborigines, a detective thriller involving an historical right-wing militia culminating in the opening of Sydney Harbour Bridge, an obsessive cartographer and her twin sister living down trauma from the collapse of Yugoslavia, and the laconic lives of casual grape pickers in rural Australia."

Yup, that's right: no mention of anything from A Man Melting. Oh well.

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Brisbane has to be the all-time leader in government-funded campaigns for social change. When I lived there the buses were plastered with ads preaching the virtues of proper hand-washing, decrying school bullying, asking people to keep a vigilant eye for terrorists (the classic being the TV ad with the line: "It's not my bag, Dad," … Bagdad, gettit?). The city was so saturated with good advice I doubt any campaign made a dent in the problem it set out to rectify, it just reminded people that things were messed up (and made advertising agencies rich).
Sadly, New Zealand is not much better.
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I'm going to the launch of Sue Orr's second collection of short stories, From Under the Overcoat , tomorrow here in Wellington. Sue's already had a fair amount of coverage, but I'm pleased to say I kicked it off way back in August when I interviewed Sue on this blog.

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I should really interview more writers…

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This Fluid Thrill: where promises are made...

Sunday 6 February: a review

6:16am: Wake up with Black Eyed Peas looping in my head. Feel queasy. Worry about the car, left in Pipitea Street since midday Saturday. Sigh: Sevens.

11:21am Have late breakfast / early lunch of 2 minute noodles. Discover many bruises which have yet to colour on upper arm, backs of knees, top of foot. Sevens.

11:58am: Take bus to town. Car still there (phew) and no parking tickers under the wipers (double phew). Go in to work for two hours. Write a fantastic paper on "lessons learned" which has nothing to do with drinking. Decide work would be improved with simple addition of jandals.

3:12pm: Have a second lunch of spaghetti and cheese toasties while watching Angels and Demons. Could it possibly, be worse than The Da Vinci Code?

3:13pm: Yes it could.

5:18pm: Check my emails. Check facebook. Check twitter. Gosh, people sure do tweet a lot. Scroll, scroll, scroll. Notice a tweet from @modernletters:

"An electrifying new voice on the NZ writing scene" - Craig Cliff reviewed in today's NZ Herald #betterlatethannever

5.19pm: Return to lounge. Tell fiancee, brother and temporary flatmate I need to go buy a paper. Brother says he's going out shortly and can get one for me.
Me: Where are you going? (meaning: How long do I have to wait for the paper?).
Him: To [insert name of recently broken-up with ex-girlfriend]'s.
Me: Oh.
[Insert awkward male conversation which skirts around things and where I refer to custody battles for non-existent kids in jest].

5:49pm: Look at watch. Regret not going to get a paper myself. Look up @modernletters tweet again. An electrifying new voice...

7:32pm: Eat dinner (tofu stirfy) and watch the second half of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Decide it's the worst one yet. (Note: I've never read the books and only started watching the movies a fortnight ago because I had a sudden interest in magic…).

8:18pm: Brother arrives home. Don't make flippant comments about custody battles. Flick through the sections of the paper looking for the magazine lifouts. Find Canvas and Weekend. One is shiny the other is not. Think: I hope it's in the shiny one. Flick through Canvas, starting 3/4 of the way through. Find review of A Man Melting next to review of a John Irving novel. Read caption beneath photo of author: "John Irving loses the plot with too many layers this time." Feel better in the knowledge that John Irving has been panned and somewhere in my review there will be the phrase "electrifying new voice".

8.19pm: Consider my review. First thought: the photo of the book cover could be larger. Next: check who wrote the review. Paula Green. Think this is nice, seeing as how I'm currently reading 99 Ways into New Zealand Poetry.

Start reading. First sentence contains the line about "an electrifying new voice." Wonder if it will be all downhill from here. Consider the possible ways being an electrifying voice could be a bad thing. Consider electric shocks, shock treatment, lobotomies. Consider reference to scene in one of my stories where a boy is forced to chew tinfoil; "reading Craig Cliff's stories is much like being forced to chew tinfoil, his shrill, electrifying voice eradicates any semblance of meaning."

Read second paragraph. Things have not taken a turn for the worse, yet. There's reference to food and wine. Consider possible directions food and wine references could lead. Blandness. Mis-matched ingredients. Unappetizing menu. Consider references to food and wine in A Man Melting. A smiling grapefruit, reheated pasta, a scene between a homeless man and a tourist in Ecuador involving exotic fruit. Notice mention of "delectable aftertaste."

8:20pm Read the rest of the review. Re-read the review to make sure you didn't just glaze over the negative bits they include in to reviews to add balance. Decide this review is wonderfully imbalanced. Proclaim: This is probably the best review yet to fiancee, brother and temporary flatmate. Temporary flatmate has disappeared. Brother grunts. Fiancee says, I want to read it, but remains in the kitchen.

8:21pm Re-read the review. Relish the phrases, "Perfectly formed, stand-alone gems", "satsifying harmonies",  "inspired overlaps", "the fundamental core that weds humanity to strangeness and insight".

8:22pm Place Canvas carefully down on the coffee table, open to the page where John Irving is panned and Paula Green compares A Man Melting to a good wine cellar, "to be drunk now for zest and freshness and to be saved for later for enduring complexity and character." Go to office and check if the review is on the Herald's webpage. Run through promotional checklist: tweet, facebook update (personal page and A Man Melting's page), blog post, add review quote on homepage of craigcliff.com and a link to the review under "Reviews".

8:23pm Find the review is not online yet. Read blogs about the Sacramento Kings.

8:43pm Return to lounge. Discover interesting docu-drama on Waitangi Day on TV1.

8:50pm Ad-break. Ask if anyone's read the review yet. No, not yet.  Pick up Canvas and have another skim. Note individual stories mentioned: 'A Man Melting', 'The Sceptic's Kid', 'Copies', 'Manawatu'. Feel sorry for those stories never mentioned in reviews. Consider writing a better story featuring Bembe Hernandez, Rachael Dawn and Laura the hitchhiker killer that reviewers can't help but praising.

9:01pm Watch as brother picks up Canvas and reads review. Slowly. Man, is that how slow people always read?

9:08pm Fiancee reads review. Makes fake surprised sounds. It is a good review, isn't it?

9:12pm Brush teeth.

9:14pm Climb in bed. Think about lessons learned paper. Forgot to mention we've already committed to Cabinet that we'd implement changes to the next tranche of projects. Remember two tenders close tomorrow and proposals need to be assessed by 2pm Thursday. Consider calling in sick and watching Superbowl with friends who work nightshift. Remember Official Information Act Request that needs responding to. Remember Qualitative Benefits discussion paper that needs review. Realise I'm clenching my teeth. Remember I am an electrifying new voice on the New Zealand Writing Scene. Savour the delectable aftertaste.


NZ Herald review of A Man Melting, Canvas Magazine, 6 February 2011.
Answers to the quiz questions included for Jeopardy-lovers.
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Footnote: The review has now been posted on the Herald's website... Social network spamming: engage!

Let the good vibes in

The world is a better place when you can say: I'm going to Vietman next month (we fly out 26 March).

The world is a better place when the Sacramento Kings are winning. Even better when those wins come against the evil Los Angeles Lakers in their own building and, the next night, the red hot New Orleans Hornets. The world is a better place with the invention of the .gif and Sactown Royalty.

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The world is a better place when there's an exciting new HARDBACK literary journal to submit to.

The world is a better place when you've got your annual head-under-and-everything swim at Lyall Bay out of the way and finally returned to room temperature.

The world is a better place when you spent the weekend playing Singstar with people who can't sing (even worse than you), watching terrible disaster movies (if the year 2012 is anything like the movie, I'm gonna start panicking before the President of the United States gives me permission), and eating cheesecake.

The world is a better place when you have a Moleskine diary. I know I might sound like a bookish-equivalent of what we used to call a "label basher" back in Intermediate. I'm don't have a fixie bike or thick-rimmed glasses and have been quite open about the fact I've all but stopped listening to new music. But the fact remains I love my Moleskine and you're free to call me a hipster or a poser or a character from a Douglas Coupland novel. I haven't had a Moleskine since 2008 (a rather productive year). This year's model was a birthday present from my brother. I had specific requests: it had to be the sort with 7 days on the left page and a lined blank page on the right for random notes, and pocket-sized. I didn't specify colour or hard or soft cover, so I wound up with a red hard cover, which may not have been my choice but I've quickly warmed to it.



The world is a better place when you're sticking to your resolutions, even if you're only netting two hundred words between 5am and 6.45am.

The world is a better place when there's talk of higher duties and back-dating at work, even if you are yet to see anything on paper.

The world is a better place when your wedding is still ages away and you believe everything will just fall into place.

On leaky buildings

On Friday the newspapers were reporting the estimated $150 billion repair bill for leaky school buildings (see here and here). I am an employee of the Ministry of Education, but only tangentially involved with any of the leaky building stuff, and don't want to talk about schools specifically. What surprises me is how accepting everyone is about the whole situation. Perhaps 'resigned' is a better word for it.

First it was leaky homes, then leaky apartments, and now everything in New Zealand constructed between 1994 and 2004 is high risk for 'weather-tightness defects'. In hindsight it's easy to say the deregulation of the building industry was a boo-boo ("look at Canada!" etc), that of course if you permit the use of untanalised timber you're gonna encounter problems — but what about the human factor? For every leaky building, state- or privately-funded, someone had design it, someone had to sign-off on the designs and materials used and someone had to build it. The design flaws such as roofs with stuff-all gradient, parapets to trap the water in, and insufficient flashing are both the fault of designers and their clients who let themselves be duped by the fashions of the day (it is quite easy to recognise a leaky building by sight: like this one) and who were happy to pay bottom dollar. But I struggle to understand how the builders could have done such a bad job for such a long time. Even today, with Building Act changes and leaky home tribunals, I get the sense the building profession is a long way from being a 'profession'. Where's the duty of care, the pride in one's work, the common sense?

When our landlords recently paid for double glazing to be installed in our flat (they plan to move here in a year or two when they retire, so it was not a selfless act), the workmen had to cut a larger hole in the bathroom to fit the new window. This meant our toilet roll holder had to be removed from the wall and repositioned once the new frame was in place. The problem was that it was screwed into the wall at least an arm's length from the toilet. It seems like the sort of prank they'd play on candid camera, or something a handyman neighbour would do when a feud escalates to humorous home invasion territory. But seriously, what were they thinking? I suspect they were not thinking at all. Same as when they took gouges out of the walls in two bedrooms and the living room. I'm not so fussed about the walls (it ain't my place after all), and these window men may not work on new builds, but it does seem symptomatic of the industry they are very much a part of.

I suspect part of it stretches way back before the changes to the Building Act in the 1990s. Anyone who has hosted exchange students or visitors from overseas will have heard how cold and draughty our homes are. It seems our climate is just mild enough not to warrant central heating (and until recently: decent insulation). But foreign visitors also remark on New Zealanders' (and Australians', to be fair) relationship with their homes. Whereas in most places in Europe, houses or even apartments, are thought of as multi-generational investments, here in New Zealand it is not uncommon for us to buy and sell a new house every decade, many times opting to build new only to need something bigger, smaller, grander or lower maintenance in a few years. In contrast, when we visited M's family in Italy, the house was four hundred years old and inhabited by a mother, father and two children, a grandfather and his sister. It was still thought of as the grandfather's house, though it was slowly becoming more and more the daughter's. As the needs of the occupants changed, the internal layout of the house had changed, and will continue to change, but its firm foundation and cool-in-summer, warm-in-winter make-up will endure.

New Zealand is very much the land of disposable buildings. In accounting terms we talk of building lives in the range of forty years, rather than four hundred. We are a nation of property investors: our go-to move is to buy an old house on a large section, knock it down and subdivide. What do we build on these picnic-blanket sized sections? Townhouses. How much do we spend on them? As little as possible in order to sell them and make our return as large and a fast as possible. Why do we buy these shoddy townhouses with no section? Because there's a decent rental market for something with fresh paint and no lawns. Why do we live in such cynical, soul-destroying abodes? Because it's only for a year or two, until or needs change.

This is all to say that we asked for leaky buildings and we got them, and we will continue to get them (in different forms: subsiding buildings, toxic paint buildings, sticky door-jamb buildings) until we stop viewing property as a disposable commodity and think about it in multi-generational terms from the moment the designer puts mouse-point to CAD plan.

It makes sense to think about how much a building will cost to maintain over its life (be that 40 years or 400), rather than just the up-front costs of construction. Buyers of property should these days be waking up to the costliness of poor design and materials and factor this into their offering price. Something solid and well constructed with a nice sloping roof of whatever material experts agree will last for donkeys years should fetch you a premium on the resale market. But then, why would you ever want to sell your warm, dry home with enough space and a flexible layout to cater for the changing needs of your family? Oh, you've been transferred to Auckland. Fine.

And one wrinkle on a personal level: how's a mid-level public servant supposed to afford a mortgage for a sustainable, multi-generational home? With M and my salaries combined, we're mired in the market for a crappy three bedroom house that needs: a new kitchen, new bathroom, new hot water cylinder, insulation, window frames replaced and some bushwhacking to get any semblance of a garden. And if I were to revert to writing full time? It's difficult to see us ever getting a foot on the property ladder.

So for now it seems I'll write my grumpy, finger-pointing blog posts from the comfort of my double-glazed rental accommodations with great views and a well appointed, modern kitchen.

January Reading in Review

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (novel, audiobook)

I actually started listening to this audiobook in December, but it's really long. Like, more than 30 hours long. After taking a while to get used to the reader's pompous British voice and very predictable stress pattern, I was able to sit back and revel in the greatness that is Part One of this book. Anyone who read my blog notes as I read the The Count of Monte Cristo will know I'm particularly interested in narrators who aren't really characters in the action but somehow seem to be real people nonetheless (whether that be Dumas' royal we, or the writer resident in the Karamzov's town). Part One fairly races through the lives of the Karamazov clan to the point at which the action (Fyodor Pavlovich's three adult sons all move back to town) starts, except action isn't really the right word. When the dialogue starts, would be closer, though often it's monologue, like Ivan's Grand Inquisitor speech.

It's impossible to skim read an audiobook (though you can speed up some of them), and I feel had I been reading a paper book, I wouldn't have struggled as much.

One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (novel)

I just re-read my thoughts upon reading Love in the Time of Cholera last year and I have some similar things to say. I loved the beginning. I was completely drawn in to the world of Macondo, the wonders that the gypsies bought, the obsessions of Jose Aureliano. This is all told in rapid fire narration like the opening of The Brothers Karamazov, but there is no transition to dialogue, no slowing down the pace. This type of storytelling became a bit much by the time of the war – so much was happening, but I didn't care about those affected – and by the end of the book I felt spent.

Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño (fiction)

I wrote about this book earlier in the month. January seems to have been the month of reading exciting but difficult books. Unlike Dostoyevski and Marquez, Bolaño is explicit about his stylistic constraints: his book is composed of fictional encyclopedia entries, so of course there's not going to be much dialogue or access into the internal lives of the characters. It was a good read, but had to be taken in small doses in between reading other books.
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami (short stories, audiobook)

I wouldn't recommend this book to people who claim they don't enjoy, or don't 'get', short stories. There's plenty of the patented Murakami weirdness (like a giant frog who needs help saving Tokyo), and all the stories feature the 1995 Kobe earthquake in some way, but the endings are sudden and, on many levels, unsatisfying.

'Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and The Challenge of Modernity in America' by John F Kasson (non-fiction)

I read this book primarily to research Eugen Sandow, the 'perfect man' referenced in the title (and flexing in the buff on the cover), who makes a prominent appearance in the novel I'm working on. However, I was equally interested in the sections on Harry Houdini and Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan, and how these three icons of the early twentieth century reflected attitudes to fitness and masculinity at that time.

I borrowed this book from the Wellington Library: perhaps it was also read by Nigel Cox when researching Tarzan Presley (soon to be re-released as Jungle Rock Blues) and Lynn Jenner when researching Dear Sweet Harry (as in Harry Houdini)?

'Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900-1960' by Caroline Daley (Non-fiction)

Another loaner from the library and another piece of Sandow research. Nice summary of Sandow's 1902-03 tour of New Zealand and what that meant for the development of physical culture here. Lot's of head nodding from me re: Daley's thesis that New Zealand wasn't a world unto itself during this period, that the same trends could be seen in Australia, Britain, the US, Canada, and indeed we were being influenced by these other countries — and yet it's still valid to look at how it played out in NZ and think about what that said – and says – about us.

Interesting fact I learnt on page 222: until the mid-1930s, Auckland City Council chained up swings and other playground equipment on the Sabbath. I assume something similar happened in other regions. Had to fathom something like this happening nowadays.