Travellin' Penguin

This past week was full of highs and lows. We were in lockdown over the weekend of 16, 17, 18th October so didn’t do a lot. On Wednesday I happily took the bus into the gym to do the weight training. We had to wear a mask outside of our house or face a $1000 fine until the Friday. Working out at the gym (as weight training is not considered intensive) with a mask is not anything I enjoy so I skipped my second session Friday.

I stayed home and read quite a bit during the week. On Tuesday I had to go to the funeral of one of our dearest friends of 25 years who passed away in her sleep after being ill for sometime. When people or pets I care about die, I generally plant something in the garden that reminds me of them. She loved lilacs and my lilac tree hasn’t bloomed early this spring due to the heavy rains and frost we had this year so I just missed giving her a bunch of blossoms as I have done every year. So today I went lilac shopping and found a very nice more mature purple lilac bush to plant in the yard next to mine. I will do that on Tuesday coming up.

I was to have attended a photo club excursion today (Sunday 24th) but as it has been pouring rain it was cancelled. I was going stir crazy as I’ve been in quite a bit due to rain. We have also been dealing with very muddy dog paws now for two weeks. I am over the incessant rain we’ve been getting. Anyway, I went to the garden shop which is always fun and looked over everything.

I have been reading a lot of books on journaling and dipping into books on illustrations and sketching etc . I love journals that people do where they draw what they see as they travel around or they collect art pictures, or whatever else interests them. So today I thought I’d drop into the tip shop and see if they had any old postcards, or things that look vintage or arty for my own big table journal where I scribble and paste pictures of things that catch my eye from magazines, events, etc.

I found several little art papers, postcards and even a little puzzle (that had one piece missing 🤨 when I put it together and glued it in the book. However the puzzle came in a tiny box, had around 50 pieces ? Maybe not that many and the company that produced it is in Austria. Now speaking of Austria……

I have been slowly reading the Austrian novel The Hotel Years by Joseph Roth as he was an Austrian author (going back to my previous Lonely Planet book post) who was listed in the book. It is very slow going. The book has many chapters in it of two or three pages. The time frame so far has been the 1920s and he jumps around from place to place beginning in the Baltic States and Germany as he travels between hotels. One chapter might be an experience within a hotel. The next might be telling a history of a village he is staying in. Sometimes it is a description of a market or the people he visits. Sometimes it is about the food he eats. I find it isn’t really a book to read straight through so I tend to read about five or six chapters then move on to something else. He is a very good writer. I just wish the chapters wouldn’t jump around so much as he travels. He was in northwestern Germany then the next chapter he had gone south. Then he was in western Poland, then back to Germany, then he was in northwestern Spain, back to Austria and now I am about 40% through it he is in the USSR. I take the episodes with a grain of salt and just concentrate on the content of the place he is actually visiting.

I finished Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Klara is an artificial friend to a young sickly teen. It is a book of science fiction and the relationships between her and family members. It is quite believable however quick a read it is. I enjoyed it but was happy to be done with it. Our book group will discuss it in a couple of weeks. I found parts of the dialogue a bit clunky towards the end. I am not sure this is his best book. I have Remains of the Day to read soon as everyone tells me how wonderful that one is though very different to Klara.

I have listened to six of nine hours of Derva Murphy’s Full Tilt bike trip book. Really enjoying it but it is my ‘car’ book. I only listen to it when driving and with all the rain, lockdown and mask wearing I have tended to not be in the car. However I did get a good chunk of it listened to today as I drove around doing errands.

On Tuesday night Fullers held an event with Marta Dusseldorp and her husband Ben Winspear who are doing Jean Genet’s play the Maids beginning next week. A friend and I will be attending that. I have seen the Maids before with Cate Blanchett and Elizabeth Debicki in Sydney several years ago and really enjoyed it. I really like Marta Dusseldorp. Some of you will know her from the series: Jack Irish, A Place To Call Home, Stateless, Blackjack and Janet King, most of which I have seen.

She is now living in southern Tasmania and has several projects lined up. They will be producing a film of Favel Parrett’s book Past the Shadows hopefully in two years time. The setting of that book is in Tasmania and our book club read it several years ago when it came out. Marta Dusseldorp and her actor/director husband Ben Winspear are heading up projects here. I had a lovely chat to her and we talked about the refugee work she does with UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees). Topics discussed during the hour long event were her work with this organisation and her visits to Lebanon, Syria and Uganda. She discussed the trauma of Manus Island too. She has also done quite a bit of feminist work and the two books she recommended people read, when asked by an audience member the books she values were Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things. She believes that is one of the most important feminist works to come out of Australia ever. She also talked about her conversations with Behrouz Boochani and his book No Friend But the Mountains. It was a very lively event with 50 people in attendance.

As the event was to discuss the Maids by Jean Genet there was a lot of information of his life and the hardships he faced. All in all a very good night.

Well this post is getting long and I wish to put up some photos so will move along here. What a very active and diverse week it has been. I look forward to this coming week being a bit quieter but who knows. Rain continues to be predicted throughout the week so anyone of us might go nuts. Bring on summer.

I thought I should pop out a post today as southern Tasmania is in a three day lockdown due to a “Covidiot” with Delta Covid escaped hotel quarantine coming from New South Wales then through Melbourne airport (sorry Lisa) and frolicked around our neck of the woods for a day before being arrested. We are fortunate though as so far our lockdown is only three days. Victoria (Melbourne) is just coming out of a 250 day lockdown. They have done it tough.

I have been thinking of reading projects for 2022. Haha, that makes me laugh as I am not one to ever finish reading projects though I generally get a good start on them. So I do get something out of them.

I had a good look at what I really enjoy reading. My own picks, not the picks of book groups, other challenges that may or may not be what I like. One day while lurking around all the new books at Fullers (my personal bookshop😁), I came across this book. The complete title is: Lonely Planet’s Armchair Explorer Discover the Best Music, Film and Literature from Around the World.

The book is divided into continents beginning with Europe then going to South America, North America, Oceania, Asia, Africa and the Middle East before hitting the index at page 282. (No idea why left off Antarctica- there must be something though no permanent residents.)

Each page is then a country from one of those continents. There are many colourful photos too of one or two iconic images from each country. Of course the book is not conclusive in any of its areas but it is a fun ‘taster’.

Sitting down recently on a very rainy day, of which we have had days and days of, I opened this book to explore it more carefully. The first country I came to was Austria. Of course it would be alphabetical.

The layout of the book is two pages as the book lies flat. The first page left column is a Reading List of five authors from Austria. They mention Joseph Roth, Robert Musli, Stefan Zweig, Elfriede Jelinek and Christoph Ramsay here.

Column two of the left hand page is the Watch List. It lists the films Sissi, The South of Music, Funny Games, Museum Hours and the Dreamed Ones.

The right hand page, left column has a lovely colour photograph of Hundertwasser House, displaying the architecture. Then there are a few notations alongside of some trivial facts about Australia related to the final column on the right of the Playlist. The Playlist consists of the Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, music by Joseph Haydn, Falco, Christina Stürmer, Schönberg, Edenbridge (Heavy Metal), Schlager, some Stelar (Electric Swing) and Kruder and Dorfmeister (Electronica).

For my project (sorry, I can’t say that without laughing) I am going to pick one selection from each column to enjoy. That is, if I can find it. The Reading list and Playlist are easy to access between the library, cheap kindle books and Spotify or Amazon Music. The films might be trickier to find but I did have a look around and did find one of them on Vimeo I think it was. Unfortunately some of the streaming services only have the more arty films in their libraries in the USA or Europe which Australia is not privy to.

I did think of going through this book from beginning to end. But as I probably won’t get all the way through it I think I’ll just choose a page randomly with random.org and see how I go. The books and music interest me much more than the films so if I am unable to find a film that will be ok. But I will look.

The rest of this week has not gone so well as a long time friend of ours passed away suddenly so next week has us attending her funeral, assuming our lockdown ends Monday evening. We continued to read Life and Fate at our shared reading. We are up to page 400 now. Such a wonderful book.

I am continuing to read Klara and the Sun for November book group which I will finish soon. I am almost finished with the audio version of Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy and I finished the crime book I was reading. The Alex Cross series number 24 by James Patterson. The only James Patterson book I have ever read. I am attached to the detective’s family in this series and began the series in 1993. All of us need popcorn books from time to time.

On that note I will move along here. The sun is shining which is such a treat after two weeks of rain. Now if the temperature would only jump up about 5 degrees more I’ll be happy. Bring on summer. I hope all of you are well.

The week is off to a good start so far. Although our shared reading group of our big Russian novel, Life and Fate was put off another week due to illness of our facilitator. We were assigned more pages to read in preparation for next week. We will soon be approaching the page 300 mark of this 900+ chunkster.

I have some other books on the go as well. I am reading just some light crime novels in the evenings as the Russian book is too much to read late at night. I have also begun the book by Cherie Jones, How the One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House.

The Good Reads blurb states:

A debut novel in the tradition of Zadie Smith and Marlon James, from a brilliant Caribbean writer, set in Barbados, about four people each desperate to escape their legacy of violence in a so-called “paradise.”

In Baxter Beach, Barbados, moneyed ex-pats clash with the locals who often end up serving them: braiding their hair, minding their children, and selling them drugs. Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the Baxter Beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences. A gunshot no one was meant to witness. A new mother whose baby is found lifeless on the beach. A woman torn between two worlds and incapacitated by grief. And two men driven by desperation and greed who attempt a crime that will risk their freedom — and their lives.

Cherie Jones is an award-winning author from Barbados. Her debut novel How the One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House has been critically acclaimed by several publications including the The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post . Cherie’s past publication credits include PANK, The Feminist Wire and Eclectica. She is a past fellowship awardee of the Vermont Studio Centre and a recipient of the Archie Markham Award and A.M. Heath Prize from Sheffield Hallam University (UK).

It doesn’t take long to get into this book that was short listed for the Women’s Prize for fiction. I had to settle into the dialect of the characters but that didn’t take long. I don’t think this book will be a walk in the park but so far I’m enjoying the diversity of it from other books on my shelf at the moment.

I have also done a book shelf cull this week, as many of the books I have finished or they are ones I picked up in thrift shops and probably won’t get too as moods change over time related to what we like to read.

I have a cute photo that Kerri, my photography friend from the Cradle Mountain photography drew for my blog. She draws characters and is quite talented. She sent this photo to me after she learned about my blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. She even matched the clothes of the Penguin and the Bear to what we wore at Cradle Mountain as we hiked around the rainy terrain taking photos. I was very touched by it.

Today I’m keeping it short and sweet so that’s it for now.