Saturday, May 14, 2011

mid semester break!

Yo! This semester break is gonna be so busy. =D
I need to start accounting, statistic and entrepreneurship assignment ASAP.


Yet i still going Jakarta to meet Mom =P (Means that I will bring my assignments along to Jakarta.LOL.)
Monday i'll leaving for Jakarta to meet Mom and Bunda (mom's sis)
And i can guess already. I will eat a lot and shopping a lot again. (But this time sure i am not gonna spend my $$$). I got my donators LOL


But I need to start to apply for my internship already. =D
Hopefully i get approval from the company. Ameen! =)

Return Ticket KL-JKT
KLM Dutch Airlines got promotion.
Cheaper than Air Asia. =)

Melasti @ Segara Beach, Sanur

melasti @ sanur


Bulan lalu sempet dapet moment melasti waktu lagi jalan di Sanur, klo Melasti ini bukan pas mau nyepi yang pada umumnya melasti diadakan tapi menurut ino dr salah satu peserta upacara ini upacara melasti salah satu Banjar di Sanur dan rombongan arak-arakan ini berjalan kaki mengarah pantai Segara, salah satu pantai di daerah Sanur yang sering diadakan upacara.

melasti @ sanur 3


Yang lucu klo ngeliat upacara ini adalah kalo persembahan berupa binatang hidup ada ayam atau bebek yang harus di lempar ke tengah laut, kadang gag tega liatnya tapi bebek/ayamnya juga pintar kadang balik lagi ke arah pantai nanti sampai di pantai pasti langsung jadi rebutan anak-anak kecil yang biasanya sudah nungguin sisa-sisa dari hasil persembahan sembahyang, lumayan untuk anak-anak kecil itu karena selain dapat ayam atau bebek mereka dapat juga uang dari persembahan yang diletakkan di banten.

melasti @ sanur 2


Melasti kali ini juga banyak anak-anak perempuan dengan dandanan yang full colour dari hiasan kepala sampai baju adatnya, hhmm cantik banget warna ungu dikepala dipadu dengan warna kuning bajunya bikin semakin cantik .

dancer


s8

AWRF 2011 - An Hour With Sarah-Kate Lynch

by Annie Boyd

Chair Maggie Barry

 Sarah -Kate Lynch should officially be titled a National Treasure.Footnote:Annie Boyd is a fashion consultant and occasional contributor to this blog.
How funny, genuine, frank, unassuming, vital and charming is she!?
 
I loved this session (should mention I have been a fan of her writing from day one), there was a warmth in the room and a feeling that we were all secretly delighted to be there.
 
SK (as long time friend Maggie Barry called her) loves a happy ending and is an unashamed romantic. Which is good, cause I am too, and I think the world needs more of us.
She is also not afraid of raising the tough issues, so her books take you on a journey, and don’t spin the obvious.
 
We smiled and chuckled and nodded in agreement and recognised the genius of a born story teller.
I really loved her honesty about the random nature of ideas, locations and characters: the power of the born observer: and the curiosity and warmth which enable her to make life-long friends in an airport queue!
 
She spoke at length about Dolci di Love, her latest book set in a small and picturesque Italian village  peopled by slightly eccentric characters, another SK trademark, and  with the usual  focus on food and the good things of life.
 
At the end she answered her (packed) audience's questions with generosity, skill, and wit.
We all departed smiling.




AWRF 2011 - I SHALL NOT HATE

by Annie Boyd

This incredible man, Izzeldin Abulaish, unflinchingly told the dreadful story  of losing his three daughters, and a niece,when a missile hit the bedroom of their house in the Gaza strip in 2009.  Izzeldin Abuelaish was a medical Doctor,   born in extreme poverty,  in Jabalia refugee camp ,and had through his own efforts and desire to make change, become the first ever Palestinian Doctor to work in an Israeli hospital.
How dreadfully ironic and heartbreaking then that such a  terrible event occurred to him and his family.
Out of this ghastly tragedy, and it came just three months after his wife died of undiagnosed leukemia, came a determined, a strong and heartfelt desire, a compulsion, to  bring something good from the darkness, and to stand against hate and war.
His wonderful book, I Shall Not Hate, book was the result, his own life story, and a tribute to his wife and daughters.

The session was chaired by an unemotional Tim Murphy, editor of The New Zealand Herald. I was glad of this as I certainly felt emotional myself. It was an incredible story and a call for peace which resonated clearly and strongly.

Izzeldin Abuelaish, (Google him), positively, and with great eloquence put a case for education to change minds and souls and to address ignorance, "start with one person" he pleaded, but just start.
"We  are all human beings, what connects us is humanity."
 An amazing man, courageous,driven, and optimistic.

Footnote:
Annie Boyd is a fashion consultant and occasional reviewer on this blog.

AWRF 2011 - GRAPHIC NOVELS, COMICS & CARTOONS

On stage we had the brains trust of the NZ graphic novel/comic creating business.
The collective genius was enormous and what a simply wonderful, stunning hour of entertainment they presented. I wanted more, much more.
This was true panel discussion at it's very best, one of the best I have ever attended at a literary festival, anywhere. Rivetting, lively entertainment with the outstanding chair, Adrian Kinnaird, to whom much credit for the success of the session must go, leading off followed by Ant Sang, Chris Slane, Dylan Horrocks and Karen Healy, (the self-named honorary prose writer on the panel, but also a co-founder of feminist comics website Girl-Wonder.org).

As they spoke the screen showed the images they were talking about, it was a well planned and created slide show, most effective. I loved it.

The panel began by talking about their first exposure to comics -
Tintin, Asterix, Footrot Flats, Mad, Buster, Spiderman, Batman, Donald Duck, Peanuts, Daffy Duck, War Comics and Winnie the Pooh were among those talked about fondly, and all illustrated on screen.

The each of them talked about their various publications which I found absolutely fascinating - the writing process, (similar to screen writing), initial sketches, thumb nails, pencil-ink-photoshop and much more.


I was so impressed by the immense knowledge and ability on that stage.
I also observed Chris Slane quitely sketching Dylan Horrocks at one stage!

ECSTATIC RESPONSE TO OPENING NIGHT AUCKLAND WRITERS & READERS FESTIVAL


Following a series of dull openings in previous years the organisers of the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival made amends last evening with the New Zealand Listener Gala Night proving a huge hit and receiving a wildly enthusiastic reception from the large audience.

Each of the eight authors - Karen Healy, Fatima Bhutto, Rives, Fiona Farrell, James Patterson, AA Gill, Victor Rodger and Meg Rosoff - became actors and provided stunning unscripted performances loosely inspired by the alphabet. Some were serious, most were funny, all were brilliant and hugely entertaining. I thought though that Fiona Farrell was the stand out performer with her look at Q for Quake. She quietly stole the show.

Congratulations to the authors and to the organisers, it was a wonderful opening night and the punters went home very happy.

Now to the first full day. More later.

Warning

Beware of flying tuna chunks

Dog enjoys waterskiing in the pool


YouTube link.

Simon the lamb plays with Jelly the cat


YouTube link.

Man practicing quickdraw accidentally shoots fictional gangster and neighbour's TV

A man who was practicing quickdraw with his gun in his apartment on Wednesday afternoon accidentally fired off a shot that went through a wall and into another apartment. At about 2:51 p.m.on May 11, Washington County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a 911 call at the apartment of Travis T. Hood, 27, in Cedar Mill. Hood had called 911 and said his .357 Magnum gun went off while he was cleaning it. He told police the bullet went through the wall into another apartment and he didn’t know if anyone was home next door.



After deputies talked to Hood, they tried to contact someone inside his neighbours apartment. No one came to the door so they obtained a key from the manager and went in. They searched the apartment and found that no one was home. They quickly found the hole in the wall where the bullet had entered the apartment and traced the trajectory to a 40-inch flat screen television on the opposite wall that had a hole in the middle of the screen.

Hood was cooperative and showed deputies where he had shot the wall in his apartment. He also admitted he had not been cleaning his gun when it went off. He had actually been practicing his quickdraw and accidently fired the gun when he drew it from the holster. He had been aiming at a poster of Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, in the movie "The Godfather" on the wall when it happened.



After the bullet went through the poster, seeming to hit Pacino in the left shoulder, Hood went to the neighbour’s apartment and tried to get someone to come to the door. When no one answered, he thought he had shot someone inside and then called 911. One of the deputies said that if there was someone sitting on the couch watching the TV in the apartment the bullet accidentally went into, the person would have likely been hit by the bullet. Hood was arrested and taken to the Washington County Jail where he was booked on charges of unlawful use of a weapon, first-degree criminal mischief, and recklessly endangering life.

Man carrying suitcases containing leopards, panthers, a bear and monkeys arrested at Bangkok airport

A first-class passenger has been arrested at a Thai airport after being found carrying suitcases filled with baby leopards, panthers, a bear and monkeys. The animals had been drugged and were headed for Dubai.



The man, a 36-year-old United Arab Emirates citizen, was waiting to check in for his flight at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi international airport when he was apprehended by undercover anti-trafficking officers who had been monitoring him since his black-market purchase of the rare and endangered animals, according to the Freeland Foundation, an anti-trafficking group based in Thailand.

When authorities opened the suitcases, the animals yawned, said Steven Galster, director of Freeland, who was present during the arrest. There were two leopards, two panthers, an Asiatic black bear and two macaque monkeys – all about the size of puppies. "It looked like they had sedated the animals and had them in flat cages so they couldn't move around much," Galster said. Some of the animals had been placed inside canisters with air holes.


YouTube link.

Authorities have said the man was part of a trafficking network. They are searching for accomplices. "It was a very sophisticated smuggling operation. We've never seen one like this before," Galster said. "The guy had a virtual zoo in his suitcases." Thailand is a hub for illegal wildlife trafficking but authorities typically find rare turtles, tortoises, snakes and lizards that feed demand in China and Vietnam. Finding such an array of live mammals is unusual. "We haven't seen this mixture [of animals] before," Galster said. "It's amazing. We were really surprised."

Empty gumball machine thief ignores cigarettes and alcohol

Martins Ferry police are sifting through evidence from surveillance video at the Convenient Mart store on South Zane Highway that was broken into at around 3:30 a.m. on Thursday. But what the burglar took is raising even more questions. The case is very unusual because the thief took a gumball machine that was completely empty - no gumballs, no cash, just the machine.



"We can't figure out a motive as of yet. The gumball machine was empty of gumballs and money," said Martins Ferry Police Detective Bob Walton. The burglar quickly runs to the back part of the store, directly to the gumball machine, then leaves the same way he came in. He targeted nothing else.

"When he left, he was carrying a 4-foot-tall gumball machine, so he obviously wouldn't be running straight down Main Street or Zane Highway," Walton said. "Our best guess is that he went back down the alley to where he was, to a house in the area, or to a waiting vehicle and he was gone."



But, the motive is still a mystery. "The store is a state liquor store. There was numerous bottles of liquor and cartons of cigarettes right there right beside the gumball machine and none of that stuff was taken," Walton said. He said if anyone spotted anything suspicious in the area early on Thursday or finds out that someone recently came to be in possession of a gumball machine, they are asked to call police.

Video.

Man reports mysteriously switched mixer tap to police

A Flint man told police on Monday that someone mysteriously switched the faucet of his kitchen sink, according to a larceny report.

The man told police he went into his kitchen at 9 p.m. on Sunday and noticed a different faucet installed at the home on Colonial Drive.



The man didn't know when or how the faucet was changed, but that it was a different one according to the report.

The man told police he has insurance.

Zack the show jumping zebra

After Zack the zebra kept jumping out of his field, Sammi Jo Stohler of Willis, Texas, figured he might have a knack for having fun over fences. “I had to build an 8ft. fence around the property because he kept jumping out,” she said. “He can clear 5ft. without a problem; he just walks up to a fence and ends up on the other side of it. I said, ‘I bet he can do it with a rider,’ and yep, it was no problem.”



Zack took quickly to the fences. “He’s large pony size, but he jumps very easily. The first time I pointed him at it, I just put it really low and showed him this is what we’re doing,” said Stohler. “And he said, ‘Oh yeah, I got that.’ He likes jumping, and going higher was no problem.”


YouTube link.

Stohler grew up riding horses on a ranch in eastern Oregon. She embarked on a career of training horses and gradually expanded to other, more exotic, species. With Zack’s ability, Stohler saw the opportunity to prove that zebras can do many different things. “Everyone always asks ‘Can they jump?’ or ‘Can you do this with them?’ and I always like to see what I can accomplish,” she said.

Police find man living with deceased fiancé praying for divine intervention

Wichita police are investigating the death of a woman whose body was found in her home an estimated week after she died. Officers were checking the welfare of the 57-year-old woman in the 1000 block of S. St. Clair after a relative reported they had not spoken to her in a couple weeks.

When they arrived, they were stopped by the woman’s 54-year-old fiancĂ©, who did not want them to enter. “When the officers got there, there was a distinct odour that they smelled, which caused them to want to investigate further,” said Lt. Doug Nolte with the Wichita Police Department.



“We didn't fight him. He was just resistant to let us get past him to get in, so the officers - in their due diligence - detained him to the point where they could get inside and check the welfare.” Police found the woman dead in her bed. They believe she had been there for about a week. Officers do not suspect foul play and say her fiancĂ© had been praying for her.

“He did lead investigators to believe that he was expecting some divine intervention into the reviving of his fiancĂ©,” said Lt. Nolte. An autopsy and toxicology tests will be done on the woman to determine her cause of death. The man was taken to a local hospital to be evaluated.

Boy survives tornado by hiding in clothes dryer

An 11-year-old Iowa boy survived a tornado by climbing into his family's clothes dryer.



Austin Miller was at his Lenox home watching television when he received a call from his mother, telling him to take shelter in the laundry room . There were tornadoes approaching the town, and the Millers' house does not have a basement.

With debris flying around the house, Austin went to the laundry and climbed into the dryer. For several minutes he heard the tornado wreak havoc on his house.


YouTube link.

"If he wouldn't have been in that laundry room, it would have come right down on him," the boy's mother, Jessica Miller, said after the tornado wrecked their home. "I'm proud of him for doing that," she said.

Full story here.

Brazilian woman wins right to watch porn and masturbate at work

Ana Catarian Bezerra is a 36-year-old Brazilian woman who suffers from a chemical imbalance that triggers severe anxiety and hypersexuality.

Ana, an accountant by day, began to have problems at work because the only way she can relieve said anxiety is by masturbating. A lot.



Ana had to take her employer to court in order to be allowed to masturbate during work hours. Now after winning a court battle and seeking professional medical help, she is allowed to masturbate and watch porn using her work's computer.

Carlos Howert, Ana's doctor, now prescribes her with a cocktail of tranquillizers, leaving her only having to masturbate around eighteen-times a day.

CCTV camera films vandals as they chop it down

Vandals who chopped down a CCTV camera pole were filmed carrying out the attack by the camera itself.



The spy camera was put up after a long campaign by neighbours on the Valley Estate in Swinton, Manchester. It was so successful in cutting crime that, just four weeks later, two vandals decided to cut it down with an angle-grinder.

The attack was captured by the camera on the top of the pole – and police are now hunting the culprits.


YouTube link.

The camera was damaged during a sunny afternoon but so far no one has come forward with information.

Man turns council house into Sistine Chapel tribute

Robert Burns, a retired decorator, spent years painting other people’s walls the same boring beige so he decided to spend eight years turning his home into a tribute to the Sistine Chapel. Robert Burns has covered every inside wall with scale replicas of 15th-century frescoes and paintings by Italian masters.



But from the outside, his £86-a-week council house in Brighton looks like any other 1960s terraced home. The 63-year-old said: ‘I spent 15 years of my working life applying exactly the same shade of magnolia to people’s living rooms.

‘You could teach a primate to be a half-decent decorator. I needed a creative outlet. One day I saw some photos of the Vatican and thought, “I could do that”. I never looked back.’


YouTube link.

The self-taught artist uses DIY shop emulsion to create his murals, which include a copy of Rafael’s Sistine Madonna, frescoes by artists such as Correggio and a portrait of Jesus inspired by a picture of Russell Brand. Mr Burns said: ‘This may be a council house but I live in style, like the Pope or old Italian nobility. If it’s good enough for the Medicis, it’s good enough for me.’

So farewell Carlo Napolitano, keeper of the Queen’s pigeons

Carlo Napolitano, keeper of the Royal lofts, has passed away aged 69.

Mr Napolitano is believed to have suffered a heart attack, after returning to his home in Wolferton, on the Royal Estate, from a carriage ride on Monday.



Mr Napolitano, who became the Queen’s loft manager in 1992, leaves a wife Judy and a brother and sister. The Queen was a frequent visitor to the lofts, a mile or two from Sandringham House.

“The Queen is very keen,” Mr Napolitano once confided. “Her Majesty is interested in breeding and racing, and often drops round here, sometimes at very short notice.”

Belly Up to the Bar


Oh, the days when we used to frequent those singles bars!




But now that I'm an old lady (sigh), my bars these days revolve around the cookie variety instead.

Bar cookies have been around forever - in fact, I’ll bet you have fond memories of the ones your mom made when you were a kid. I certainly do. My mom’s Coconut Bars were off the charts in my estimation and her Chocolate Chip Bars weren’t far behind (sure hope I never find out she made them from a box). Oh, and do you remember those 7-Layer Bars which were made with everything but the kitchen sink, including chocolate chips, coconut, nuts, condensed milk and butterscotch chips? I have an old recipe that refers to these things as Heart Attack Cookie Bars. Yep.


That old bald man I live with has a penchant for rhubarb. I would say it ranks up there with capers as one of his favorite things (as opposed to maple syrup which he abhors). Can’t say I agree with him (except for capers) as I adore good maple syrup and am somewhat ambivalent about rhubarb. Nonetheless, when it shows up every spring, I buy it for him and sautĂ© it with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon until it is reduced to a stew-y mess that he can eat for breakfast, topped off with yogurt. Have at it, Henry. The stuff is safe from me!


I cannot say the same for Rhubarb Crumb Bars, however. Of course, since they are made with a delicious streusel, along with cream cheese and sour cream, what’s not to like? Even if you don’t love rhubarb. Trust me, people!

RHUBARB CRUMB BARS (adapted from Mary Evans)

For the crust:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
¾ cup all-purpose, unbleached flour
½ cup rolled oats, either old-fashioned or quick-cooking
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Line a 9-inch square baking pan with heavy duty foil to overhang sides and grease well.

In electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth. Add sugar and beat until fluffy and well-blended, scraping down sides of the bowl several times. With mixer on low speed, add flour, oats, salt and cinnamon and mix until just combined.

Reserve ½ cup of the mixture and press remaining firmly into the prepared pan in an even layer. Bake for 10 minutes until it just starts to firm up. Do not overbake. Remove from oven and let cool slightly.

For the filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup sour cream
2 eggs (I used extra-large)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger root
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
3 cups fresh rhubarb (4 – 6 stalks, trimmed), cut into ½-inch pieces

Wipe bowl of electric mixer clean. Add cream cheese and beat with paddle attachment until fluffy. Add sugar and beat until smooth, scraping down bowl several times. Beat in sour cream, then eggs one at a time. Add vanilla, ginger root and salt.

Layer rhubarb over cooled crust. Pour cream cheese mixture over and use a small spatula to even it out and reach the corners. Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes then remove from oven and sprinkle reserved crumb mixture evenly over top. Return to oven and bake for another 15 – 20 minutes or until just set.

Remove to a baking rack and cool to room temperature, then refrigerate several hours or overnight. Using foil handles, remove from pan and cut into bars.

Yield: 16 2-inch squares








*  If you are like me, you will occasionally buy fresh ginger root and store it in the vegetable bin in your refrigerator.  Then you will forget it's in there and when you finally remember, it has shriveled up and turned moldy in places and you will be thoroughly ticked off because you don't want to make a run to the store JUST FOR FRESH GINGER!  Instead, store it in a plastic bag in the freezer and it will be ready when you are.  Just grate up what you need and return what's left to the freezer. Works everytime!

I have never met a Lemon Bar I didn’t like. Oh sure, some are better than others; to me it depends upon the tartness of the lemon in contrast to the sweet, flaky crust. I use the recipe that we made at Star Provisions and I swear by it. Hope I don’t get in trouble by giving you the recipe! Shhhh…….

   
CARLA’S LEMON BARS
For the crust:
3 cups all-purpose, unbleached flour
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
12 oz. cold butter, diced

Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Line a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan with heavy duty foil to overhang sides. Butter foil or coat with cooking spray.

Place flour and confectioner’s sugar in the bowl of a food processor and process briefly to blend. Distribute butter over top and process until mixture is just combined and crumbly. Press into the prepared pan, then place in oven and bake for 20 minutes until just set but not browned or cracked. Remove from oven and cool.

For the topping:
2/3 cup all-purpose, unbleached flour
4 cups granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
8 eggs (I used extra-large)
2 tablespoons lemon zest
1 ½ cups fresh lemon juice (8 – 12 lemons)

Place flour, sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl and blend with a large whisk. Whisk in eggs, then lemon zest and lemon juice until mixture is smooth. Pour over cooled crust and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until just set. Do not overbake. Mixture should be set but still slightly wobbly in the center, but not browned or cracked. Remove to a rack to cool, then refrigerate several hours or overnight until well-chilled.

To serve, remove from pan, using foil handles. Place on a cutting board and cut into squares as desired. Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar before serving.

Yield: 64 1 ½-inch small squares




*  Carla Tomasko is the pastry chef at Bacchanalia and Quinones Room here in Atlanta.  She is as sweet as she is talented and you won't find better desserts anywhere in this city.  You can trust me on that one, too!

*  By the way, if you were wondering why I haven't posted anything recently, it's because Blogger was down for several days recently.  I couldn't believe it!  Quite a shock to try and access the site, only to see the message "Blogger not available."  Nothing like a forced "blogcation."  Sorry about that!





In Pursuit... a novel

Joanna FitzPatrick
Published by LA DRÔME PRESS, 2010
Reviewed by Maggie Rainey-Smith


I was heading overseas and offered a novel about Katherine Mansfield to read and review, so what could I do? Who better than Katherine Mansfield for good company on a long-haul flight to Cuba, via Panama.  In Pursuit... declares itself a novel as part of the title.   It is also, indeed, very much a pursuit.   The author Joanna FitzPatrick, in her introduction tells the reader how she discovered our famed daughter KM  at les fleurs bleues, a used book store in Southern France.   And it seems the author fell into love, the way many of us have, with both the writer and the writing.   And so began the pursuit, the dogged recapturing in imagination and retracing in physical terms (visiting many of the places Katherine lived) to write this novel.

 This is an ambitious project written in the ‘voice’ of Katherine, her thoughts, conversations and indeed actual quotes and letters.  It falls somewhere I think between a fictional biography and a biographical novel.  A complex mix of historical fact woven into fiction.  It both annoyed and enthralled me.    But if like me, you happen to be a KM devotee,  you may well enjoy it too.

The first chapter is the most annoying because already by the second page, I had found three things that really irked me.   Katherine speaks of her brother Leslie and says she would “miss our walks in the woods” – well, I’m certain New Zealanders do not say woods, but I’m happy to be corrected if that was in common use in 1908.   And then Katherine says this to her father when begging him to let her travel back to England.   “... I don’t mean to be ornery and ungrateful for all you’ve done for me...”   Hmm, ‘ornery’ is such an American expression and I’m certain that our KM would not have said that (would she?).   But the final annoyance is when Katherine is evidently watching ships in Wellington harbour and the ship was now “merely a dot on the horizon”.   Obviously the author does not know the shape of Wellington harbour and even if the ship was out in Cook Strait it would hardly be a dot!

But, I didn’t give up and I’m glad that I didn’t because the story improved, and it held my interest with vivid details of Katherine’s struggle with tuberculosis, her imagined relationship with John Middleton Murry and with Ida Baker.  The stress here is on “imagined” of course.  But, I was happy to have someone finally explore in quite graphic detail, the horrors endured by KM in dealing with her tuberculosis, the endless visits to doctors, the frustrations and the fear.   For someone to speak without polite objectivity about the ghastly STD that caused her so much ongoing pain and misery, and to once again recognise, that a modern KM would never have had to suffer such dire consequences for her lifestyle choices. FitzPatrick charts every harrowing cough and setback, the false hopes, the pursuit of a cure, and she imagines conversations with doctors, the cold stethoscopes upon her exposed chest. She imagines conversations with Jack and LM.   Many of the conversations are mere ploys to reveal back history or move the plot forward. (I note that the author has had experience in writing Hollywood film scripts.)  Some of these conversations are awkward and obvious because of this, but still, if you’re looking for a chronological history of Mansfield and her health battles, here it is.   I was in the end hooked and page-turning. Oddly too, the conversations (however fictional – although some were direct quotes) helped me to see the affection and love between Jack and Katherine (something I had never quite grasped before, always thinking what a swine Jack was).    And as for the relationship between LM (Ida Baker) and Katherine, the devotion is clear but in this fictional account, Katherine appears much kinder in her thoughts and far more apologetic than perhaps history has recorded.  Perhaps this is wishful thinking by the devoted author, or perhaps not.  
As for Mansfield’s final days at Fontainebleau, I felt oddly comforted by the retelling of this from an imagined point of view, and couldn’t help recalling Vincent O’Sullivan ‘s comments at the KM Symposium in Melbourne in 2010 when he wrapped up the two-day seminar with a most insightful, carefully construed and empathetic interpretation of Katherine Mansfield’s final days at Gurdjieff’s Institute at Fontainebleau - the fact that this ending of her life in his words “continues to be an awkward biographical fact for many who write on her.”  Well, Joanna FitzPatrick has tackled this and rather well.   Professor O’Sullivan seemed to imply that Katherine in choosing this particular place to be at that time, was finally, heroically (bravely), meeting life and death on her own times.   I felt that FitzPatrick captured this.

In conclusion, here is another tribute to Katherine Mansfield.   Joanna FitzPatrick has put a lot of time and energy into honouring Katherine Mansfield.  I admire her enthusiasm, the courage in doing this. Mind you, I was pretty cross when I read the credits, to see that she was deeply indebted to Margaret Scott and Victor (yes, that’s what is printed) O’Sullivan (instead of course, of Emeritus Professor Vincent O’Sullivan)...grrr... I think that was even worse than ‘ornery’.

P.S.  I’ve just finished writing this and Googled (I don’t do this before I write a review) and see Tim Jones also took umbrage at the dot on the horizon, but like me, he kept reading, and liked what he read.

Footnote:
Maggie Rainey-Smith (right) is a Wellington novelist/poet/bookseller and regular guest reviewer on Beattie's Book Blog. She is also Chair of the Wellington branch of the NZ Society of Authors.    




       

AWRF 2011 - ANTARCTICA

An interesting session in which that most ablest of Chairpersons, journalist Finlay Macdonald, led leading NZ photographer Jane Ussher and NZ's most popular essayist Steve Braunias in a  discussion of their time spent at Scott Base in Antartica.

Ussher's comments were accompanied by photographs (one above) from her beautiful large hardback 2010 title, Still Life-Inside the Antarctic Huts of Scott and Shackelton (Murdoch Books) while Braunias read two essays from his latest title, Smoking in Antartica (Awa Press) and amused us all greatly with his take of life on the ice.
He is in a way New Zealand's A.A.Gill with his ability to be so very funny with flashes of seriousness and solemnity among all the humour.

The Lower NZI Room at the Aotea Centre was absolutely packed for this session with exstra seating being rushed in to meet demand.The large audience were not disappointed.

Novel rejected? There’s an e-book gold rush!

By Neely Tucker, Washington Post
Sonoma, Calif. — In the winter of 2010, the cheerfully effervescent romance novelist Nyree Belleville suffered the same fate as many a scribe — she was dropped by her publisher. The most any of her 12 spicy romances, penned under the name Bella Andre, had earned was $21,000.
She was, in her Cali-girl vocabulary, “bummed.” She was 36. She had two young children, a husband and a little house in the hills above this picturesque wine-making region.
The Washington Post's Anqoinette Crosby sits down with Neely Tucker to discuss one author who didn't give up when her publisher did, and Ellen Nakashima digs into the past of Bradley Manning.
A thin, pretty brunette who majored in economics at Stanford, Belleville had been a singer in her 20s, but that career died, and now her writing career was so flat line that one of her old publishers had even given her the rights to her first two novels.
So, out of sorts and feeling blue, she sat down one morning and figured out how to self-publish one of those novels, “Authors in Ecstasy,” on Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle, just to see what would happen. It was a pain. She had zero graphic-arts skills. She had to create a cover, write her jacket copy, figure out formatting and set a price. She did it and forgot about it.
A few weeks later, she checked her account. She had sold 161 copies. She’d made $281. She was astonished.
She rushed to a lunch with three writer friends, with the numbers scrawled on a sheet of yellow paper, and slapped it down on the table. “That moment is burned in everybody’s mind now,” she says. “It was not a tipping point. It was a turning point.”
She put her other old book online and figured out how to place both on other e-readers — the Nook, the Sony Reader, the iPad, Kobo. The next month, her royalties bumped to $474. Giddy, she self-published a new e-book in July. She made a jaw-dropping $3,539. It was like the best thing ever!
Read full piece at The Washington Post.

AWRF 2011 - HIGH TEA:DELICIOUS WORDS

Report by Annie Boyd

How many hundreds of us packed into the Grand Ballroom at the Langham
all seduced by the prospect of not only a delicious high tea, but also by listening to four great panellists, all involved in food to varying extents.

Sarah-Kate Lynch (her books always have a food theme) who is always deliciously frank, entertaining and witty; Al Brown (left), whose humble nature almost makes you forget he is one of NZ's top chefs, (a cook as A.A.Gill would prefer); Annabel Langbein, who is fun, quite intense and most knowlegeable; and A.A.Gill who ably put food writing into perspective - "it's about the chairs around the table, love, loss, nostalgia and seduction!"

Ably chaired by Lauraine Jacobs (right) who never lost control of her formidable team of able panellists.
PS - my favourite line came from Al Brown who compared recipes to "culinary love letters."

Footnote:
Annie Boyd is a fashion consultant and occasional reviewer on this blog.

Jeffrey Archer launches five-novel saga

LONDON | Thu May 12, 2011

LONDON (Reuters) - At 71, bestselling author Jeffrey Archer is tackling his biggest project to date -- a five-novel saga called "The Clifton Chronicles" that sweeps through the 20th century and into the 21st.
Photo - Suzanne Plunkett, Reuters.
The first instalment, "Only Time Will Tell," has just been published, and follows Harry Clifton, whose angelic voice is his ticket into a good education and out of grinding poverty.

He befriends Giles Barrington, born into a wealthy family, and falls in love with his sister Emma, but a tragic twist of fate threatens his happiness and the story ends with World War Two looming over the lives of the entire cast.

"What I didn't realise in my stupidity at the age of 71 and a quarter is what an incredible challenge it would be, because if you commit yourself to five books, there's no way out," Archer told Reuters in an interview.

"Luckily I've finished two of them by now - but I've had some sleepless nights," he added in his luxury penthouse overlooking the Houses of Parliament in central London.

Archer first came up with the idea of the Clifton series when he was working on a 30th anniversary edition of "Kane and Abel," one of his most popular novels published in 1979.

"I thought, 'Do you know, I'd like to do a saga that goes 100 years, so I decided on 1920 to 2020, one family, the Clifton family. But I then realised that I couldn't do it in one book, and I felt it would work well in 20-year segments."

He has only a broad outline in mind of the direction the plot will take, giving him a sense of freedom.
"I'm going to have to run into their (characters') children ... and what's more, I'm going to have to move into the 1950s and 60s and 70s so I'm going to have to bring that up to date too. That's all I know, that's the challenge, that's the fun."
Full story at Reuters.