No more animals!

I went down to the coast last week (or 'down the coast' as we say) with my kids and Jessie Mo and her daughter Boops. The four of us, excluding JM, went to Mogo zoo which is not a bad zoo as zoos go though perhaps not worth the $20 entry fee for those of the grown-up persuasion.

For some reason, a day or two earlier, I had hit upon the idea of giving Boychild and Girlchild two dollars pocket money each. I can't remember why. And thereafter, into Kmart, out of Kmart, into Aldi, out of Aldi, etc there were constant queries about what they could buy with their money and what I should buy anyway just because and why did I have to buy that awful thing which I had to buy and claim that it was for them when in fact they hated it?

I managed to get Girlchild to spend her not-so-hard-earned on a small donut from Dunkin' Donuts (I know, I know...) but then Boops and Boychild had to have some donut too which somehow I paid for. Just one donut which I cut up three ways for them. Boychild then bought a sweet for himself and Girlchild. Cost: sixty cents. Leaving one dollar forty. (Helpfully the ancient crone behind the counter of the tobacconist where he bought the sweets gave us the wrong change, charging us for only one sweet, allowing me to supply an instant moral lesson and maths lesson combined into a tasty pedagogic treat).

But then I never heard the end of one dollar forty and when could he go back to that store and buy the bubble gum balls (price = twenty cents each) that he meant to buy the first time round but didn't?

I don't know. Later. Never.

Anyway, [rolls eyes] as I was saying, at the zoo. The kids had money and an ice-cream in mind, as a possible way to soak up any spare cash that might have been lining their pockets. So you go looking at animals, trying to take your time because when you've spent forty dollars to look at animals, each animal should hold your attention for at least ten seconds so that you don't find yourself back in the zoo car park ten minutes later.

I was proposing that we take the path less travelled (by us, the left fork to the gibbons and lions) when Girlchild suddenly shouted: No! No more animals! Which is a little rough I think on any animals that might have been listening and there could have been quite a few because we were just near the African safari exhibit with its mix-and-match collection of savannah trash.

Anyway, the kids got the ice-creams, I got the desired pacing, and the animals, including the lions and gibbons, got a little attention.

One lingering question remains. What the hell is a serval?

Sprinkles

People sometimes say to me: Nick (because that is my name), Nick, you lead an incredibly interesting life. Show us just how interesting by favouring us with a few sprinkled anecdotes replete with international intrigue.

Very well.

Today at KidCity I was playing with the giant bouncy core balls with Daughter-H, popping them into a large hole, rolling them around, chasing them across the floor etc. Finally I threw the large sky-blue ball very hard at said large hole. It hit the edge and bounced back smacking myself fully in the face. Three sub-genres of comedy were invented on the spot.

Then I went back to drink the world's worst muggacino (tm, patent pending), only I inhaled all the chocolate sprinkles on the top, causing me to cough violently and spit a mouthful of cappucino froth on the back and arse of a nearby mother tending to her children.

When I realised she didn't notice, I realised it was quite funny.

Then we went home.

Good night.

A few haiku thoughts

five syllables here

and now seven go here then five

here. A freakin' haiku!


Has anyone ever tried to translate the Haka, the Maori ceremonial war dance, used to open rugby games and international expositions, into haiku form and if so, what would it be called?

Did you know that if you invert a haiku (7-5-7) the space-time continuum will collapse? Try it for yourself at home...

A good terramycin is hard to find

Is this not the most beautiful spam poem ever? I laughed and then I cried and then I fought injustice and then I collapsed at the weight of it all:

From: Dollie Judd [mailto:MargerydevourHammer@bearparade.com]
Sent: 27 July 2008 6:54 AM
To: Nick Crumbedprawn
Subject: beyond traitorous

chorine chorine schmidt

turnover silvery attic? contraption, duckling ambulate.
contraption belmont contraption un contraption dean, traitorous
pacemake turnover ditch ambidextrous belmont.

terramycin dobbs.

Huh. I assumed it was gen-u-ine pharma-spam because I certainly didn't solicit it in my work in-box. I thought it was a random combobulation of words designed to hide the identity but not the location of their product from Google's all-seeing flying monkey robots. But maybe it is a real poem, disguised as spam, disguised as a real email. (And this is cunningly disguised as a real blog post).

Because the email seems to have come from bearparade -- a real poetry site with real poetry in it.

Frankly, its beyond traitorous. I guess I fell into their trap. I would have got away with it too if it hadn't been for these meddling kids.

Jeez, its like being in a soft-drink commercial based on a movie based on a Philip K. Dick novel based on a bad burrito dream without Rutger Hauer.

PS. I was thinking of calling this post 'Luckily I already have a large penis (in a box in the attic)' but I thought it may be taken the wrong way. The title, that is.

Edit: the poem doesn't appear to be on bearparade anywhere according to the magic crystal ball held up by said monkey-bots. Which means it is real spam pretending to be etc etc

And did I mention 'etc'?

Words happen when you least expect them but sometimes on the page

A writer writes, always.

Except for the dead ones.

Two questions have often occurred to me: one, hey, Nick, if you want to be a writer so badly, how come you don’t actually write very much and two, if you want to be a writer so badly how come you don’t seem to enjoy writing that much?

Well, smart-arse (he said to himself), the answer the first question is in the second question. Writing and not enjoying it does not appear to be that uncommon. Witness the parade of mopey bastards that the Guardian interviewed (Writing for a living: joy or a chore). With the exception of Will Self or thereabouts, they don’t seem to particularly like the act which has underpinned their (successful) lives.

For example: ‘Writing novels is no fun; nor is, generally speaking, reading novels. Reading people writing about novels is not always fun, either.’ – Amit ‘I Am A Human Sunbeam’ Chaudhuri. Or: ‘When I was young, I thought that the fun part of writing would be the "creative" bit, making stuff up and inventing things. The older I've got, the less fun this has become. I dread it.’ – Geoff ‘Sponge of Dripping Joy’ Dyer.

Of course, if you’re AL Kennedy – which I am not – I don’t suppose you’ve ever encountered joy anyway:




This is AL Kennedy on acid.

But the second question remains. Why the apparent lack of enjoyment? I guess it's partly fear of failure. Writing is important to me. I'm afraid I'll do a bad job. Ergo I don't enjoy it. If I were surrounded by an infinite number of validating monkeys then it might be easier. (Do you know any?).

If you can write unconnected from expecations of succcess or failure, actual enjoyment may be possible.

I've had a little more success in writing of late by forcing myself to write 500 words a day. I've stuck to it for about a month now, meaning my novel is now up to 62 000 words. The 500 words zip by if I have a clear idea of what to write. They drag by if I have to make up the plot as I go along. The last couple of nights I've been conscious of hauling the plot kicking and screaming in a direction it probably doesn't want or need to go in. The two short scenes I've written probably aren't that necessary for the plot -- and yet the very act of having written them is useful, I think. They may or may not make it into the final novel but doubtless something from them will be salvaged and while I'm writing, I'm er writing always.

I have this difficulty: I know that writing when the way is clear is much easier than when it is not -- but if I stop to plan a scheme I frequently grind to a halt. I tend to develop byzantine plots with uncomfortably large holes in them. Simply writing is often the best (or only, albeit painful) way to fill in these holes. If I sit around and order my brain to produce exciting plot-filla (tm), it tends not to oblige.

Soooo. The moral of this story is... The moral of this story. Is...

Arrgh. A hole. Will fill it in later. Or you, dear reader, can write your own moral.

In the lift

The lift up from the basement was crowded this morning. It's not that I don't like people, it's just that they're loud, coarse creatures with poor hygiene and a propensity for starting religious wars and sitting in front of me at the cinema.

To the fat guy who got off after just two floors at the offices of the medical research council: Taking the frickin' stairs is good for you. Read a medical textbook sometime.

To the IT guy who said to the other IT guy 'Blah blah blah windows message box of the web app blah blah blah': what?

To the naked opthamaologist in the clown-make-up chewing on cajun alpaca jerky: where were you?

It's true that I am no match for the risen living Lord Jesus Christ and and His army

In my mailbox the other day, I found a small piece of paper, about 5cm by 5cm which had been photocopied and cut (all-too-obviously) with scissors.

I reproduce the text on it below, as faithful as possible to the typography and spelling errors:

YOU COME AGAINST AUSTRALIAN FAMILIES (ESPECIALLY THOSE IN FOSTER CARE AND ‘WARDS OF THE STATE”) WITH YOUR WORDS, WORKS, WAYS, WICKEDNESS,LAWS,EVIL PRIDE,DECEIT,POWERS AND ALL YOUR UNITED VOICES, BUT WE COME AGAINST YOU IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THE POWER AND AUTHORITY OF HIS HOLY WRITTEN WORD WHICH YOU ARE DEFIEING [sic].WE DECLARE AND PRONOUNCE YOUR REIGN OF TERROR OVER ALL AUSTRALIAN FAMILIES (THE YOUNG IN CAPTIVITY ESPECIALY [sic])HAS FINISHED.YOU ARE NO MATCH FOR THE RISEN,LIVING, LORD JESUS CHRIST AND HIS ARMY SO THIS DAY HE IS HANDING YOU OVER TO US AS THE LORD WORKS WITHOUT REGARD TO ANY HUMAN MEAN.HE IS PREVAILING AS ALL ELSE IS FAILING.

I'm guessing that this little fibrous ray of light was mass-produced and then dropped in the letter-boxes of many homes in the Greater Republic of Ainslie.

Or was it!? Perhaps I was targetted specifically because the author (not to mention the Author or even the AUTHOR) knows that I despise and regularly 'come against' Australian families.

Or they may have confused me with the Government. Happens a lot -- we're both large amorphous entities that crush the hopes and dreams of countless people while simultaneously waging war on two continents.