What I’m reading

Terence Blacker seems a good egg – writes books for adults and children, active member of PEN, helped publish Jerzy Kosinski, writes and sings amusing songs such as “Sad Old Bastards with Guitars”, and has a lively blog. A recent post suggests that the truth about creative writing is that, as William Goldman said of Hollywood, nobody knows anything: Blacker goes on to offer a wonderfully contradictory selection of quotes from writers on writing. 

Paul Litterick reads the Auckland University student newspaper Craccum so you don’t have to. It’s not like it used to be, and the new editor plagiarises Chairman Mao, possibly a first for Craccum and New Zealand journalism in general. Sample (from the editor, not Paul or Mao: sorry, can’t find it online but Paul swears the spelling, punctuation and grammar are as in the original):

If  you ever try and do something serious and yet slightly outside of the perimeters of normality’s boundaries, if you ever try and address an issue that is of vital and immediate importance yet feel as if a petition or operating within the usual beurocratic process won’t quite be sufficient, you can be sure when mainstream media come to ‘report’ on your activities they will be quick to interview the man in the dress.

Parnell/Remuera has the NZ Herald’s Shelley Bridgeman (full background via Cactus Kate here) who recently revealed that she was having trouble reading text on an iPhone so thought she needed to get her eyes tested:

Having always enjoyed excellent eyesight, I wasn’t sure where to begin. I made an appointment at my GP. . .

Taranaki/Waikato has Fairfax’s Rachel Stewart, who as a provincial lesbian feminist is perhaps the Platonic ideal of an anti-Shelley Bridgeman. Her latest column in the Taranaki Daily News, Waikato Times and who knows where else complains that the wrong sort of lesbian i.e. Alison Mau is popular with the public, and ordinary women are stupid. That’s not actually what she says, but is what she means. Sample:

Hey sister. If you see me sporting a curled lip and vague sneer while squinting at you in the supermarket checkout line, know this. I am actively judging you.

It won’t just be your heaving trolley stuffed full of processed, sugary, tooth-decaying death that I am condemning you for. It will also be because you boldly and proudly placed its close partner in crime on the top of your junk pile. Just what is the perfect condiment to your toxic take-home fodder? The women’s mag, of course. [. . .]

It’s a really strange world, don’t you think, when people know more about Angelina Jolie’s right leg than the plight of the 200-plus species going extinct every day?

Or why hairdressers can’t even begin to conceptualise the fact that some of their female customers might actually prefer to read a National Geographic or a New Yorker while their hair is being coloured?

Maybe I’m missing something. Does my intellectual snobbery just need a good dose of lightening up and chilling out?

Rachel, Rachel. Don’t tempt us.

Sorry, sister, but I guess I’m just an uptight, all-knowing harridan. Might I be so bold as to suggest your mindless escapism doesn’t bring you joy. You want fluff? Go and stroke a real live whio rather than just foolishly handing over the $10 note to buy this rubbish. Get outside and see some non-human wonders before they’re gone.

Above all, stop buying something that makes you feel worse about yourself every time you pick it up. Follow my sage advice for free. Three words. Just for you. Here they are.

Get a life.

Superb. How long before Rachel Stewart gets a column in the Sunday Star-Times?