Jane Thomson's Blog: But I'm Beootiful!, page 25

Salacious in Selcuk

Not really, I just like the word salacious.

This is Selcuk, in Turkey.

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Here’s what I thought I knew about Selcuk.  Small QUIET town just a short bus ride from Ephesus, the best-preserved Roman city in Asia Minor.

Here’s what I WISHED I had known about Selcuk.

Firstly, it’s not near Izmir.  In fact, it’s 75 kilometres from Izmir.  I wish I’d known that when I bought a ticket to Izmir (the nearest airport) thinking that my hostel in Selcuk would be a mere hop and a jump.  When you get to a place at 9pm, you better hope it is.  Still, I got a taxi there (it took an hour) for 50 euros, which is about the same as it costs me to go from my house to the airport in my home city.   That’s one of the nice things about Turkey.

Secondly, it’s not quiet.  My room in Selcuk overlooks the Sunday markets, so at 5 am the next morning – pandemonium!  The muezzin yelling Allah al Akbar at the top of his voices from the nearby mosque, trucks backing up to unload veges and cheap tupperware, marketeers shouting at one another (Good morning Erzan!  Top of the morning to you too Sheherezade!).  There’s also a guy making a noise like the mating call of a frog.  Maybe he’s the Frog Prince.  Oh and there’s this squeaky, squawky noise in the trees that sounds like a bird-monkey or maybe a monkey-bird…..On this day, Selcuk is LOUD!

Up on the roof, the hostess is drying lentils in baskets.  For breakfast, we eat bread, tomato, cucumber, fetta and a boiled egg (lunch, in other words).  Then it’s off to the Temple of Artemis.  How have the mighty fallen – the temple is just one pillar in the middle of a dusty paddock, with a bird’s nest on top.

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Not forgetting the temple geese, who strut around the paddock with a proprietary air.

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Nearby is Isa Bey Mosque, which isn’t nearly as ruined as poor old Artemis’ hangout.  It has a quiet feel.  I go out to get some lunch, mostly for a friendly skinny kitten I met in the mosque – but when I get back, she isn’t there.  I leave most of my chicken kebab on the ground in hopes that she’ll find it.

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Next day I catch that short bus ride (it really is) to Ephesus, the most intact Roman city in Asia Minor.  When I say intact…hmm.  It’s really big, and you can walk up and down the cobbled streets past So and So’s house, and Such and Such’s house – which are now kind of outlines in stone.

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But there’s a small theatre, where St Paul may have said something to the Ephesians, and some nice-looking marble archways.  And the Temple of Domitian, where a mother dog feeds ten puppies, all making squealing noises as they tumble about.  No – really this place is pretty impressive!

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On my last day I go to the beach.  Beach?  Not as we know it (in Australia, anyway).  It’s a dishwater blonde strip of sand covered in butts, wrappers, soft drink bottles, seaweed and decayed sandwiches.

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The actual sea isn’t bad though.  Afterwards I sit on on a cushion on the floor in a Turkish restaurant, next to a fountain, and drink spiced apple tea.  Nice!

Ouch!

Sometimes bad things happen.

Yesterday Deeper got two new reviews.  They were awful.  It helped a little that the readers who dished them couldn’t spell, but still…

Here they are.

“could not get into this book, to strange for me. Someone else might think it’s just find, all depends on what you like to read..”

“This was an Okay story with very limited dialogue. I found the first few chapters confusing but it straightened up later on in the book. Slightly interesting. Not one that I would read a second time”

I thought lots of philosophical things.  Like, even JK Rowling gets bad reviews.  Hey, Proust STILL doesn’t sell (and I don’t like him either btw).  Not EVERYBODY has to like your shit.  Tastes differ.  That kind of thing.

The other half of me considered giving up writing for ever.

Then again, they were right, in a way.  I am kind of strange and confusing.

Ha!  Grow some ovaries, sister!

What do other people do when they get bad reviews?  Here’s what one author did! http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/mar/30/jacqueline-howett-bad-review

Hello America, welcome to the third world!

“The difference between fact and fiction..is that in fiction, you’re allowed to drag your characters through hell, because you can pull them back out again.  Fact sucks. You can’t give your characters a successful business or a best-selling novel or even a home!”

Mik Everett, Self-Published Kindling: Memoirs of a Homeless Bookstore Owner

When my son was 11, I took him to India to see how the other half lives.  I thought he’d realise how good we had it in Australia, and come back a more rounded and compassionate child.  Boy was I wrong.  He hated the beggars (‘they should have studied harder in school!’), despised the itinerant street salesmen (‘Why don’t they just stay in their shops and wait!’) and poured contempt on the facilities (‘Their electricity just – stops!  You have to wash your bum in a bucket! The streets are all messy!’).  Oh well.

Maybe I should’ve taken him to America instead.  The US is the new third world, but doesn’t realise it.  I’ve just finished reading Mik Everett’s not very enticingly entitled novel, ‘Self-Published Kindling: Memoirs of a Homeless Bookstore Owner‘.  The book is about two things – being homeless, and self-publishing.  It sure made me think.

Mik, her boyfriend and two small kids become homeless when they can’t pay the rent on time and their landlord posts an eviction notice over the weekend (when all the homelessness services are conveniently closed).  I hope I’m not exaggerating when I say that in Oz, this would be an extremely rare event.  Any landlord that did this would find themselves on prime time tv explaining how they put a family of four out on the street on a weekend with no notice, no bond return and no negotiation.  Any government authority that allowed it to happen (or worse, sent round an enforcer to supervise) would have dirt on its face.  But in the US, this kind of thing seems to be rather regular and ordinary.

So Mik’s family surreptitiously park their van behind Walmart, and go looking for food and housing.  Every homeless charity they go to requires them to bring endless documentation and fill in numerous forms.  My favourite: the receptionist who insists that Mik produce ‘proof of residence’.  “I don’t have any – I’m homeless!” she replies.  Obvious, you would think.  Here, homeless families aren’t interrogated as if they’re criminals.  Some rort the system, claiming benefits they aren’t entitled to.  Nevertheless, Australian charitable and government organisations who can’t provide shelter hand out blankets, food, referrals.  Families with small children get top priority.

Mik develops an eye problem, which is followed by cancer.  Her insurance refuses to pay for the eye surgery she needs, and blames the cancer on her medication.  She spends all her savings paying off the hospital.  You have got to be kidding.  In Australia, she would receive medical treatment for free.  But even if she happened to be insured, insurers here are not authorised to decide what treatments they’ll pay for and what they won’t.  Yes, they can refuse to cover you for some broad categories, such as cosmetic treatment – but that’s it.  They rarely do carp, because they don’t want to piss their customers off – god knows it’s hard enough getting Australians to insure anyway, with the public medical cover.

But Mik – amazingly – ‘owns’ a bookshop, stocked with self-published books.  They don’t sell.  One day she’s sitting in her shop when a local business community rep mosies in.  The well-dressed representative asks her if she’d like to sign a petition asking local authorities to do something about the ‘homeless problem’.  Not the problems the homeless HAVE.  The problems the homeless ARE.  Local business owners want them moved on.  They lobby for homeless services to be shut, so as not to attract clientele.  Mik just stares at her.  Well, you would, wouldn’t you.  The irony of it.

Like India, America is both wonderful and rotten, grand and decrepit, inspiring and shocking.  Like India, America has its winners, whose lives are celebrated in books and movies – and its shamed kicked-in-the-teeth losers, the ones who aim at the dream and miss, or who don’t even bother aiming – who tend not to feature quite so much.  Mik’s book, though – that’s eye-opening.  Well worth a look.

The Care and Management of Your Pet Sphinx

Should I get a Sphinx, you ask yourself?

Perhaps you noticed one sitting quietly in a pet shop window, gazing inscrutably out upon the world, and thought, I could see one of those sitting behind MY picture windows.  Perhaps you’re intrigued by the long history and legendary past of this interesting and unique animal.

Yes, owning a Sphinx can be rewarding, although not, sadly, in financial terms.  But, as with all pets, ownership comes with responsibilities, and this is why I have posted this hopefully informative article.  What Clowie is for Pyrenean Mountain Dogs, Rumpy is for rescue moggies, and Ginger Fightback is for redheads, I hope this post will provide the discerning would-be Sphinx owner.

Now there are three kinds of Sphinx.  The first, most familiar kind, is the Wild Ancient Egyptian Sphinx, which inhabits the temples, deserts and pyramids of the Middle East.  It’s commonly male, with the face of a cross-dressing airline steward and the body of a lion.  The second, less familiar, is the Wild Ancient Greek Sphinx.  Unlike the Egyptian sphinx, it eats people and flies around.  As you’d expect from this description, it’s female.  The third kind, familiar in petshops across Australia, is the Common Domestic Sphinx.  Here is a picture.

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The first thing you will need when purchasing a Common Domestic Sphinx is a really big litter tray.  You think your fluffy Siamese drops some big ones – well, the Sphinx is part lion and she/he poops like one.  Be warned.

To spay or not to spay?  Your Sphinx may look inscrutable but that calm, benevolent gaze hides the sex drive of a wildebeest and the indiscriminate lustiness of a southern Bible Belt preacher.  As a hybrid creature, neither quite male nor quite female, quite lion or quite lady, the Sphinx sees anything as a potential mate.  Unless you want your neighbour’s bison friche (or your neighbour) ravished by a sandy beast ten times its size, have your Sphinx altered.

The Sphinx looks ineffably wise.  It is in fact really, really stupid – like many people who sit around a lot looking ineffable.  Like a woman, it is almost impossible to train, and like a cat, it will always get under your feet in the kitchen (or is it the other way around).  Never mind, a bright-coloured plaything or two will keep it well occupied and out of harm’s way (see my related articles on Women, Cats).

Finally, remember that your Sphinx may spend most of its time sitting like a carved stone statue on your gatepost or that small replica temple you erected in your suburban front yard – but there is still a part of every Sphinx that will never be completely tame and reliable.  If your Sphinx should show a tendency to chew up the postman, you can often distract it with a simple and timeless riddle.  Something like this:

Why did the Chicken Cross the Road?

What is the true meaning of existence?

OR

What has Kim Kardashian got in her pocketses? (answer, a Ring of Power which makes you constantly, horribly visible)

Because of you..

Because of you..

I finally have the time to write.

Because of you..

I have the money to see the world.

Because of you..

I have a home of my own.

Because of you..

I can dream of waking to meadows and gum trees on a creek.

Because of you..

I know how to love well.

Because of you..

I know how to decide what is right for me.

Because of you..

I know how to be happy.

Because of you, I am me and it’s ok.

And here’s the gloomy version (which is just brilliant and so, so sad.)!

Thank you, dearest mum and dad, may I be the luck in my childrens’ life that you’ve been in mine xx

Dreamlands

I’m lost.  Lost.

A billion cries echo through the dreamscape, each one alone.  An eight year old girl plays in a world of green hills and teddy bears, but where is her mother?  Playing in a world of neon-lit clubs and short white skirts, while the father rides a tyrannosaur and shoots big game on Oreon.  They are all lost.

Long ago we stepped into a virtual world, as a man steps into a river, and stepped out again shaking the drops from our feet.  Dry land seemed grey to us, hard and dreary.  We dived again, and came up for air, and saw a different shoreline rushing by.

“Get out while you still can,” shouted the old ones, fishing from the shore.  But we felt the air cold on our shoulders, and sank again to where we were warm and weightless.  Soon enough the river swept us out to the sea, and we floated there on our backs in the dead salt plains, sleeping, dreaming.

What dreams!  The women all beautiful, rich and adventurous according to their tastes – some sucking in endless admiration from shadow-men, some destroying them wantonly for pleasure, some ruling wide universes, machine-ghosts their subjects.  The men strong, clever, potent, free of all constraints – wives, children, families, labour.  Then there were all those who chose to be neither male nor female, because the virtual world is nothing if not choice, infinite choice.

There came a time when we wanted to go home, and found that we’d forgotten the way.  The virtual ocean was all around us, it was all we had.  We flitted from dream to dream, from world to world, but none of them felt real.  We were lonely.  We could not wake up.

I’m lost, cries the eight year old girl.  Faint through the hills comes the sound of a horse neighing, of galloping hoofs.  She looks up in surprise and terror.  She hasn’t chosen this.  A blur of white, a cloud in motion.  She covers her eyes, cowers, opens them to feel cool breath on her forehead.   Eyes gentle as soft amber look curiously down at the small, frightened spirit, unchained from its anchor.  Ears prick forward, catching the childish sigh.

“A unicorn,” whispers the child, to whom all such creatures are drearily commonplace. “Where’d you come from?  Did I make you up? I don’t remember.”

“From reality,” says the creature of legend, and with its horn of silver lightning, it pierces a rent in the fabric of space time, and the little girl can see her own home through it, real as dreams can never be.  It looks dull and slipshod compared to the green hills of here, but her heart flees towards it like Dorothy’s towards Kansas.

The unicorn paws the virtual earth, and watches the lost humans stream back to waking, through the hole that he has made.  When the last lost one is gone, he turns and gallops away, to graze on the distant stars.  Back home, where we belong, we do not believe in him.

 

About finding things difficult, and so on..

A gripping intro, I know.

In a month Ms M and I set out on our big European adventure.  Meanwhile tradesmen clomp through my house modernising as they go, which will be great when it’s done – but right now brings hassle, dust and inconvenience.  And I’m trying to finish a first draft of my third book, a (hopefully) funny look at what happens when good intentions meet the real world (last year’s karmic challenge, transmogrified into a non-fiction book).  I can’t think of a title….any suggestions?

Oh and That’s Another Thing.. (only I think someone’s already taken it)
Shit Buddha Forgot To Say (should I really swear in a title?)
What IS the point, actually!  Earning points in a pointless world
About Those Virgins (one woman’s quest to get into heaven the back way)

Amidst all this I’ve just read KingMidget’s latest work, Weed Therapy.  It’s interesting to me that Weed Therapy is almost the mirror image (in a way) of A Warm Wind, a novel I wrote some time ago about the end of my marriage (in fact, when I wrote it, my marriage was still limping along but anyone reading the book would have to have seen the End coming).

Weed Therapy is about a man who finds his wife irritatingly laid back and his children distant and unloving (to him, anyway).  A Warm Wind was about a woman who finds her husband irritatingly mundane and her kids constricting and tiresome.  If Kelvin of Weed Therapy and Anthea of A Warm Wind were married, the outcome would be much as it is in our respective books – HE would think she was lazy, undisciplined and self-indulgent, and SHE would think he was rigid, domineering and judgemental.  But they both yearn for passion and real, lasting love.

The odd thing is that in both books (and in my case, in ‘real life’) the main characters are drawn to their partners because of the differences – Kelvin’s Holly is easygoing, funloving, relaxed, while Anthea’s Declan is reliable and unthreatening.  But it’s because of these differences that they eventually can’t stand one another.

Well, c’est la vie.

Anyway, if I haven’t been visiting as often as I should have, it’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that I don’t care (no that’s a line out of some movie).  It’s actually that I’m feeling kind of low and hassled.  Better later!

Wedding bells?

You know when you’ve got this huge irrational longing to go somewhere you’ve never been?  Not because it’s nice there, not because your aunt lives there, not because oil’s just been found there.  Just because of the name.

One day at work I was filling in some huge horrible spreadsheet thing to do with local councils.

Whoever said that even the most boring thankless task has a silver lining, was dead right!  Because as I was typing out stuff like ‘Mr A Rabbitt, Lord Mayor, Little Whopping, Pop 102′, I was filled with longing to go to these places, just so I can gaze around and say to myself ‘So THIS is ..’.

Somewhere I want to go, just ONCE, is Come-By-Chance. It’s a metaphor for life really, the universe, everything!  We come by chance, stay a while, go by accident – and there you have it.  is there a town called Go By Accident?

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There’s a shire in Queensland that goes by the name of Banana.   Banana!   What does that say to the eager visitor?  If you like bananas, come to Banana!  Eat as many bananas as you want! Go on, gorge yourself, we don’t mind.  Not right now though.   I think that might be the road.

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And then there’s Humpty-Doo.  If Humpty-Dumpty lived somewhere, that would be where he lived.   I want to LIVE there – just for the kick of having an address like ’Mrs M.Boggles, 42 Rain Parade, Humpty-Doo’.  First I have to find Mr Boggles, though, and marry him.  It’ll be worth it!

The lessons of Hayti - independent film

Reblogged from rozzychan:

In a time were we have an African-American president it is easy to forget that the struggles of minority families are part of an evolving past.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...

Please take a moment to support this documentary film.

Thank You

Rosalyn

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Seriously Pissed Off!!!!!!

When an author writes about murder, you have to assume that somewhere, somehow, she knows something about it.

Yesterday began as a really nice day.  Woke up, had cinnamon and brown sugar porridge, went back to bed with a cup of tea and a book.  Way to go.  But at approximately 900 hours, things began to go very wrong.

Little Gucci, my Pomeranian cross, has a habit of climbing out the cat door on my 2nd floor deck, and barking at magpies.  My neighbour lurks (constantly it seems) behind her window on a level with this deck, and every time Gucci barks at the magpies or the possums, the neighbour, who I’m going to call Ms Mad Cow, screeches out of her window.  Stuff like ‘Shut the F Up!’ and ‘If you don’t do something about that ffing dog I’m going to come out there and blah blah blah’.  So whenever Gooch finds her way out onto her favourite barking perch, everybody in my household races to go and grab her before Ms Mad Cow gets her groove on.  As a result, Gooch rarely gets to yap for more than 2 minutes before she’s picked up and bundled inside.

Over three years, Ms Cow has made my life (intermittently, I have to admit) a misery.  Her dog’s bitten my dog and cost me $250 in vet bills.  She insists that my dog bit her cat (‘because he’s the only dog in the neighborhood that would do such a thing’) and wants ME to pay her vet bills.  When I said that my dog had a cast-iron alibi (ie, he was locked in) she said we were all liars.  If Ms Cow has a problem with ANYTHING, she screeches and screams and says, well, you know, rude stuff.  I on the other hand have been very nice to Ms Cow.  When her other neighbours complained about the noise her dog made, so far from taking up their offer to join in, I offered to look after the lonely pup in the day time.  I only asked her to pay half the cost of the vet.  I’ve never said anything about her animals’ regular escapes, although she never fails to mention mine. I’ve never complained about the very loud and foul-mouthed spats she has with Mr Mad Cow.

So at 9am, Gooch goes and yaps on the deck.  I’m in the bog, so I get there two minutes later and take her in.  Next thing there’s an almighty banging at my door, like Ms Cow is trying to knock the house down (note to Ms Cow, you’re not the Big Bad Wolf).  At this point, I’m officially over it.  So I open the door and I let rip.  I swore.  I shouted.  I got in her face.  I told her if she ever did that again she’d ffing rue the day.  She trotted off and got her pathetic pussy-whipped partner.  I ripped into him too and he snuck off.  YES!

Ok none of that was very karmic.  What I did after that was even less karmic.  I sat down and I thought, how can I make this woman’s life a living hell?  I want this woman to creep out of her house like a mouse with a big ginger cat watching its hole.   I’ve been nice to her long enough.  I’ve said nothing when she’s sworn and yelled at me, I’ve met her every request.  But now – here comes EVIL Rose.  If I was cosy with some bikie gang, I would tip them the word.  If I was a sorceress, I would gladly use my dark arts to make her bones shrink and her eyeballs wither.  I do not CARE about this woman.  I would like her to die.  Really.

Of course, I won’t do any of these things.  What I will do is put the fear of god into her.  If she thinks she has a psycho neighbour who’ll go to the police, the fire brigade and the local Al Qaeda cell in pursuit of a quiet life, so much the better. Like most bullies, I think she’ll reconsider, now that she’s got some of her own medicine.  Anyway I think I’ve made serious progress with my anger issues.  I didn’t even cry.