Filed under: Books I'm Reading, Movies I'm Watching, Things I'm Doing, TV I'm Watching
Blog Reboot:
I do realise it’s been almost a year since the blog became a victim of procrastination, but I have reached that point in the school term when I am rebelling against bringing work at home. Unfortunately it’s a dangerous time to do so as student reports are due early next week, and I have a huge weekend of tears, lifting of heavy things and Professional Development, commencing Thursday. So, rather than fiddling with my blog, or going through my burnt DVDs looking for music videos, or watching Caprica episodes, I should really be marking Stage 1 English assignments, and preparing spelling lists for Year 8s. There’s nothing better to defeat procrastination than procrastination, hey? No wonder my house is so clean at the moment. Why do my schoolwork when I need to do the dishes?
So, this is a return to blogging. I will intersperse blogs about Currently with blogs on my remaining memories of the Anzac Day trip from last April/May/June. Blog-wise I only made it as far as Turkey, and there’s Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Spain and Belgium to cover yet! Slacker!
Currently:
… an English teacher in a small South Australian town, on the Yorke Peninsula. In the madness of
- return-from-Europe-get-employed-two-weeks-later
- work-mad-shit-for-six-months
- desperately-look-for-another-job
- get-one
- pack-whole-life-in-Christmas-holidays
- buy-a-life’s-worth-of-whitegoods-in-two-weeks
- move-house-to-the-other-side-of-state
- start-new-job-on-the-day-after-moving-in
- put-ikea-furniture-together-unpack-boxes-unpack-white-goods
- learn-how-to-cook-again-how-to-teach-again-and-how-to-organise-everyday-life-again, and
- set-up-house-cat-and-internet-account
the blog just got forgotten.
But recently I’ve had the urge to start writing again (*0), and besides digging out my old word processing files (last seen in 2004), the blog was a good place to get my practice on. There’s a lot of trivia and random thoughts rattling around in my solitary head that would do better to be expressed. And besides, I have a really cute new netbook that is sadly getting underused as the school has lent me one for school-purposes.
Doing:
Gardening. Yes, seriously. I garden. I grew a basil plant. Pity it’ll go out of season soon and die off, but still, I grew it. And I brought a rosemary bush back to life, now I’m just desperately trying to plow through the supermarket bough dried rosemary I bought last year so I can start using the fresh stuff. There’s also some peas, tomatoes, oregano, paper daisies (I love Aussie paper daisies), mignonette lettuce, chives and spring onion on the grow. Plus, the government-beige-house I live in had a non-lawn when I moved in, and with nothing but grey water and rain I’ve managed to get it to grow again (pity I don’t have a lawn mower. Oops).
Programming. No, not computer programming, but syllabus programming. During term time, no teacher has a life unless their either a) disenchanted and hanging out for retirement, or b) too good for their own good. So, most evenings and early mornings have been spent producing worksheets and lesson plans for my current group of disengaged Stage 1′s (that’s year 11 for the non-Aussies) and rowdy year 8′s.
Avoiding all physical activity. At some point I’ll go join the gym which is about 200m away from my house. But my feet hurt. And if it’s not my feet, it’s my knees. Well, actually, my feet hurting is a real excuse given their spur-rific cramping painful state, but still, I could use the weight machines. Or go swimming. Just too attached to the 500 gig of media the I.T. Escapee gave me before I moved up here.
Reading:
Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden (*1) partly for work purposes, but also ahead of the film to be released later this year. Just as I remembered it, the first section of the book is interesting and well written with nice characterisation. But, as soon as the kids get home and discover all the dogs are dead (and the main events of the novel start), the book trips on its poorly formulated background story and the plot stumbles along, jerky and uneven. So many holes.
It’s popular with the kids, but Red Dawn (the underlying concept of which Marsden appears to have borrowed) is still better. I hope the film fixes some of the major narrative issues, a la Catherine Hardwicke with Twilight. Certainly, provided it’s of a certain quality, the film will be immediately bought by every high school and library in Australia. Considering there’ll be a Red Dawn remake out sometime this year as well I doubt it’ll have much interest overseas, though.
I am curious how they will handle just who is it that’s invading? So far in the novel it’s a racially-neutral group, of who we know little more than they’re mixed in gender, come somewhere from the north, have a lot of money and invaded to get extra room to move. When I was a kid and I read it, I always thought it was some random Asian country (i.e. China), so desperate for space they would invade a random Australian rural town: now I read and realise that was simply me drawing upon the racist flack being thrown around in the early 90′s. I’m curious to see who today’s kids would pick as the culprits: probably Muslims.
Before that I was reading We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Far better. Oh god, this book must be adapted for film at some point.(*2) Shriver attempts to explore the causes of socio-pathic mass-murdering Columbine-esue teenagers. Who is to blame for Kevin: society, lack of affection from his mother, bullying, disadvantage, genetics, Conduct Disorder, spoiling by his father, modern life, what? The strength of the novel is you’re never allowed to settle on one particular cause: in fact, by the end you’ll be struggling to blame Kevin on, well, anything really.
Recently, I’ve noticed it’s a rare thing when a bloke captures the inner dialogue and thought processes of a woman. I found I related easily to Shriver’s narrator: the mother of a teenaged Columbine-esque mass-murderer who relates her side of the story in letters to her estranged husband. Most male writers fail miserably at expressing the way a woman thinks: and not, as my somewhat-emotionally-challenged male friends might argue, because feminine thought is irrational. My argument is that it’s the exact opposite: women think on a different level of rational abstract complexity which is just simply too hard for your average emotionally stunted guy to comprehend. Take Stephen King’s one-dimensional female characters. That’s also a reason why I can’t bear old-school sci-fi writers like Arthur C. Clarke or Asimov. But authors like Kazuo Ishiguro make my day: Never Let Me Go is also confidently and competently told from a feminine voice(*3).
Is it the same when the genders are reversed? i.e. do female writers write men accurately? Well, I’d like to ask any well-read guys that question … except I don’t know any. Except maybe Fritz – well, Fritz, what do you think? Hey J. K. Rowling did alright with Harry, didn’t he?(*4)
Watching:
Caprica, the prequel spin-off to Battlestar Galactica, the sci-fi tv drama that even the non-sci-fi nerds get along with. So far Caprica’s bigger budget and a bit glossier than it’s parent series, but still has the high standard of writing that I now expect in my tv: oh the dialogue is wonderful! No cliché! No clunky plot lines! No awkward unrealistic dialogue! No doubt most viewers don’t look for more than pretty people and spekky special effects, but I’ve seen so much decent TV in my life that watching things like NCIS and Grays Anatomy is painful.
Also, new episodes of Big Love, Lost and Heroes have passed my television screen. God I love Big Love, it’s so shamefully soap-opera, though the writing and acting is good. Chloe Sevigny is a hoot. Heroes has lost its way (well, it lost it back in Series 2) but is still fun. And Lost is doing what it always did best: taking it off in a new direction which somehow fits in with the old one. It finishes after this season, and it’s a good time for it: providing they wrap everything up nicely, and that when I sit down and watch it beginning to end it’ll all make sense.
From new to old, I just finished watching the complete 6 seasons of pioneer TV series Oz. Starting mid-90′s, Oz has its place as a forerunner of the 90′s/2000′s golden age of narrative drama which produced Lost, Heroes and Dexter. It was US movie cable channel HBO’s first television drama, and despite a dreadful opening-credit sequence(*5), is still quite credible and watch-worthy (unlike the equally revolutionary Twin Peaks which is embarrassingly kitsch today).
For those not in the know, the series follows the day-in-day-outs of prisoners in a reformatory program at a maximum security prison – Oswald State. Most of the controversy (and there was a lot of that) is for the graphic violence, adult themes and nudity (you’ll get to see more willies then you’ve ever seen in your life), but in reality the show is nothing more than a soap opera set in a prison, with good dialogue and characterisation.
But, one thing I couldn’t help noticing what that half of the casts of most popular tv series around today found their start in Oz. Guess where Soprano’s diva Edie Falco started? Then there’s Lost’s Michael, Harrold Perrineau, who’s a junkie in a wheelchair in Oz, SVU and general-everywhere-at-the-moment guy J.K. Simmons playing a neo-nazi; a lead character is Dennis from 30 Rock, Dean Winters (he couldn’t act even then). Probably one of the most recognisable is Lauren Velez – now a staple on Dexter as Laguerta (and co-star David Zayas – Baptista – is in Oz as well). Oh, and once you’ve seen Oz you’ll never think of Elliot (Christopher Meloni) from Law and Order: Special Victims Unit the same again.
Movie wise, so many have come and gone that it’s a bit of a blur: I loved Avatar, which is a suprise given my obsession with narrative, strong dialogue, writing, plot and characterisation, five things this movie seriously lacks. Avatar would probably be the only film where they don’t matter: it’s all about the pretty green and blue things and the facial animation which was fucking superb.
I saw a sci-fi flick called Pandorum which I really liked, though that may be because it stars Six Feet Under’s Ben Foster, whose character, Russell, I always had a soft-spot for. Despite the clunky ending, it’s narratively and special-effectually tight.
And to finish it off, Zombieland is brilliant. Funny, sarcastic and a nice relief from films like 28 Days Later.
Next
… I will be going back home to help the olds pack up the house I’ve been living in for 28 years. That’s the tears and lifting-of-heavy-furniture part of my plans next weekend. It’s pretty devastating, though not as devastating as the reasons underpinning the move (no more can be said, of course, because of legal reasons, but there’s a particular hotel and chemist owning pharmacist in Adelaide who has plenty of dark karma coming to him). This somewhat coincidently coincides with a trip to Adelaide for two days of conferencalicious-ness (the ‘Professional Development’ and sofa-sleeping component of next weekend). In other words, the blog will once again be on hiatus for quite a long time.
But … there’s always more Caprica, Big Love and Lost to watch when I come back, a gym to avoid, and disgruntled teenagers to deal with in the meantime.
____________________________
Notes
(1) On Tomorrow When the War Began: Tomorrow When The War Began is a classic Aussie teen novel, taught to death in every school since the early 90′s. It’s premise is pretty simple: a bunch of rural teenagers go camping in a secluded sheltered mountain region. When they return home, they discover their country town has been invaded by a nameless enemy and their families imprisoned. The kids become guerilla fighters. So much like the 1984 US film Red Dawn it’s embarrassing.
(2) On We Need To Talk About Kevin being made into a film: Having just said that, I did an IMDB search and what do you know. Tilda Swinton! Perfect! Can’t wait for that one.
(3) On Kazuo Ishiguro: I think I would have stopped reading male writers if it weren’t for Kazuo Ishiguro. Remains of the Day remains on my Top 5 Books of All Time list, which is otherwise dominated by Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin.
(4) On Females writing Male Characters: DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT MENTIONING STEPHENIE MEYER. General consensus is she’s a crap writer period let alone when she attempts to write masculine characters.
(5) On the opening sequence of Oz: The opening sequence of Oz just goes on too long (2 minutes!) and features saxophones. Really.
(6) On Twilight being a load of tosh: I should probably confess, however, that I too am a sucker for Twilight, and have the films on my iPod. Damn you, Mormon lady.
Doing: wasting time before the train back to Cairo and hiding from the touts by sitting in a smelly Alexandria internet cafe.
Reading: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai – Man Booker Prize winner of 2006. I stole this copy from a hostel in Cairo, and laughingly it’s a pirated version someone bought in India. The pages are photocopied, with the print rubbing off on my fingers. However, it’s a really brilliant book, cynical and chaotic.
Currently …
Sitting in a net cafe in Alexandria. Technically the tour I joined four weeks ago in Syria ended last Friday, but I’d been hanging out with Bronny, Dr. Brett and Surly till yesterday, and it’s quite a shock being on my own again.
Anyway, it appears the Middle East is not flush with internet like Europe, and besides the fast pace of Tour Group Life didn’t really allow much time to jabber on as I do on this blog. So here goes …
Last I wrote was about Gallipoli. The tour I went with, TJ’s, included a guided trip to Assos and Troy, as well as lunch at TJ’s parent’s house in a small village nearby.
Eceabat and Cannakkale
Me and the Eceabat kangaroo.
The nearest town to the Gallipoli national park is Eceabat, a small little seaside town that has no claim to fame other than being the nearest town to the Gallipoli national park. Hence why there is a hotel called ‘Hotel Crowded House’, restaurants that serve meat pies, and roadside flower pots in the shape of kangaroos.
To head over to Troy and Assos, though, we had to go across the Dardanelles by ferry, to reach Cannakkale (Cha-nak-ka-lay), the nearest big city where most Gallipoli pilgrims end up staying (at Anzac House Hotel, mind you).
Captain Karen.
By the way, the ferry boat captain likes foreigners and will happily let you play captain. I didn’t want to honk the horn though.
Cannakkale has a different claim to faim, though: it’s also the gateway to Troy for a lot of tourists, which is pretty obvious when you see this sitting beside the coast:
The Plastic Horse of Troy.
If you don’t recognise this fellow, try thinking of Brad Pitt:
Brad Pitt's in there somewhere.
Turns out Warner Bros donated this proud piece of plastic wood to the oh so proud Turkish, who are building a special hill top monument for it, so anyone sailing down the Dardanelles can see it. The Locals refer to the Trojan horse sitting at the Troy site (see below) as the Wooden Horse of Troy; this one is referred to as the Plastic Horse of Troy, as it’s more wood like than actual wood.
Anyway, there was some interesting bits of graffiti at the ferry side, and a smelly polluted ride across the Dardanelles.
Graffiti.
Troy
Said Wooden Horse of Troy:
The Japanese Wooden Horse Trap at Troy.
Personally I thought the Trojan Horse at Troy was only slightly less tacky than the Big Lobster or the Big Rocking Horse back home, and that the Plastic Horse of Troy at Cannakkale looked more interesting, but I suppose they decided to keep this 70′s monstrosity because you can climb inside it:
Me on the left, Leanne (Gallipoli buddy) on the right.
and other Gallipoli buddy Norm.
So, this site – known as Truva by the locals, but is also the ruin of the city of Illium - not far from Cannakkale is likely to be Homer’s Troy - or at least, more likely to be Homer’s Troy than the other sites scattered throughout the Aegean. The site has something like 7-9 layers of seperate cities and epochs, labeled by archeologists and historians as Troy I to Troy IX. Some fella back in the 1870s, Schliemann, went gangbusters excavating through the several centuries of layers of archeological ruins to reach those of the legendary city – which he believed was Troy II – only to find out later he’d gone too far, and actually destroyed most of the Troy VII level, thought to be Homeric Troy. Ouch.
Anyway, theres not much to see except random excavations and rubble; more interesting is the story of the archeologists and their mishaps (like Schliemann’s), and how they came to prove this is The Troy. There’s a Roman ampitheatre (of course: it’s not a Roman ruin without a Theatre), and a trench, some mud brick buildings with wasp and bee hives in them, and that’s pretty much it.
No Smoking!
Ruins.
Schliemann's Stupid Man Trench
Altars from one of the later (Roman) settlements on the Truva site.
More amusing was our guide, who, truth be told, did a good job of providing a narrative to our visit. ‘I will tell you about Troy, the reality’ (grand gesture to the left), ‘and Troy, the dreeeaamm’ (grand gesture to the right). In his whispy, dramatic Turkish-accented voice, he told us plenty about the Illiad (the ‘dream’), and lots of fiddles about the ‘reality’. The Pyramid-shaped mountains in the distance? One’s the tomb of Achilles, the others of Paris and Petrocles. Alexander the Great apparently danced naked around the tomb of Achilles. As you do. And did you know the Trojans were such wonderfully civilised and advanced people?
‘I bet,’ said a unusually sarcastic Indian-American who’d joined our tour late, ‘he’ll tell us that all modern civilisation came from Turkey.’
Sure enough, next moment our guide was pointing out that London was once ‘New Troy’. ‘Next,’ the Indian guy muttered, ‘he’ll tell us the Turkish were the first to the moon.’
But hey, the day’s best treat was to come; lunch at TJ’s smiley parents house:
TJ’s village and insistent grannies
TJ and parents.
TJ apparently grew up in a small nomadic village not far from Eceabat, where he ended up living with an aunt in his early teens. Apparently nomadic Turks are settling down these days, but most of the villages don’t have running water, relying on traditional wells like these:
Traditional wells in TJ's home village.
His village proudly has it’s own water and waste water plant, so these wells are now only used for livestock or other nomads travelling down the roads.
Dinner was great – my first gozleme (pancake/crepe with cheese and spinach, sometimes mince meat or tomato, an addiction that was long to be sated in other spots in Turkey). His parents were smiley happy people, who made fresh yoghurt for us, and served Coca-cola in bottles.
Gozleme, roast potato, rice, spring onion, yoghurt, and Coke. Traditional Turkish meal.
TJ took us out to a neighbouring nomadic Turk village, without running water (he pointed out the rubble latrines), rusty utes and farm animals in rubble wall enclosures. Out came running one seriously cute pre-teen girl, selling handwoven bags and wooden charms (“1 Lira!”), smiling sweetly and modestly hiding behind TJ. Five minutes later, the square was a marketplace, full of unfurled rugs, bags, crocheted scarfs and colourful village grannies grabbing at our arms and gleefully shoving their products in our faces:
Carpet, laid out.
Quick! Foreigners to sell stuff to!
The prices were awesome: hand made, natural wool and dyed carpets, large sizes around 200 lira (about 150-180 Australian). Small around 50 lira. I ended up buying a couple of wood charms from the cutie girl, and a crocheted scarf from one of the old ladies.
Another story: there was a white scarf, with wonderful embroidery on it, which I expressed interest in – 20 lira, fair price. It was a little dirty, though, and I was contemplating whether I wanted to get something that would need serious dry cleaning; with TJ translating, the lady explained it was old, ‘antique’ even, explaining why it was marked; it was a wedding scarf, designed for a hope chest or a dowry. Interesting I thought. Then it was said, ‘Oh it’s from her wedding’, TJ said of the old woman who was trying to sell me the scarf. Knowing full well that the lady would really prefer to have 20 lira than to holding onto a sentimental piece (and, who knows, she probably hated her husband and would be glad to get rid of the rag), I just couldn’t bring myself to buy something that had such significance, for such a price that seemed so insignificant. It did occur to me later that the ‘It’s from my wedding’ statement may have been a ruse to get me to buy it that backfired. Anyway, I’m pretty happy with the scarf I got, and later down the track I bought a lot of things from wizened old nomadic Turkish grannies, who insistantly, tapped, shouted, grinned, and hugged me to make me buy their stuff. I bought some Turkish granny dolls to give to friend’s daughters as a souvenir of their extreme nuttiness – they look just like their living counterparts.
Mind, poverty is relative.
Of course, just when you think you’re in a place as impoverished as it can get, never forget that they have satellite tv, and you don’t 
I doubt they’re paying Foxtel’s exhorbitant fees, anyway.
Assos
- Stalls outside Assos.
After the nomadic village, we went to Assos, an ancient greek ruin, with views across the Aegean to Lesvos Island (yes, that’s also known as Lesbos). It’s a tourist site that the foreign tourists rarely see – apparently the Turks swarm here at certain times of the year (we were outside the season, in April anyway). The Tout Gauntlet, a phenomenon which follows us everywhere throughout the middle east (where touts and shop merchants harrass you into buying their cheap trinkets), was relatively calm – especially since most of the stalls were closed. I did buy some socks from some more nomadic old ladies, considered the jewellery and contemplated more scarves (I was still undecided about whether it was the right choice to leave the white wedding scarf behind).
Assos is up really high, and there were some seriously magnificent views from up there. Otherwise, there’s not much of a reason to go there (as opposed to massive Graeco-Roman ruin sites like Efes and Palmyra), although the beautiful grey rock and the traditional village are interesting.
Panorama of the Assos site.
TJ demonstrates the best view.
View from Assos.
Cute lady at Assos.
Turkish ‘Culture’ Night
Okay, these nights are usually pretty lame, and avoided like the tourist plague, but this one was funny from several levels. There’s the belly dancer who was, admittedly, better than the other pitiful excuse we saw at the Orient Hostel in Istanbul, but a bit beyond her time (and clad in some serious sequins that would make Britney proud); paired with the hotel manager, Ramazan, who was getting into it a little too much. There were a series of teens from either a local dance troupe or a high school group, doing traditional performances; while the girls and most of the guys were more shy than outstanding, one of the boys was quite talented. However, the highlight was the food (some may complain about the over abundance of carbohydrates, but me being the carb-addict I am, loved every sticky-rice-potato-bread part of it); and a dear old man who played Waltzing Matilda on the accordion.
Mezze (appetizer plate).
Teenage dancers.
Nasty local liqueur.
Nasty liqueur ahoy!
Can’t remember the name of the local Turkish liqueur: raki? It’s NASTY. Aniseed flavoured tequila, it may as well have been.
Filed under: Books I'm Reading
I’m reading Czech classic ‘The Good Soldier Svejk’ by Jaroslav Hasek, before a planned trip to Prague next year. It is hilarious, sarcastic and witty.
A Religious Debate: Antipodes. (pg139)
Note: ‘antipode’ refers to an opposite pole, and is used commonly to refer to the southern hemisphere; St Augustine is the writer of a famed medieval religious autobiography where he finds God after much sinning.
Svejk is telling a story, on request, to two chaplains.
“Humbly report, sir,” said Svejk, “near Vlasim there was a dean who had a charwoman, when his old housekeeper ran away from him with the boy and the money. And this dean in his declining years started studying St. Augustine, who is said to be one of the Holy Fathers, and he read there that whoever believes in the Antipodes will be damned. And so he called his charwoman and said to her: ‘Listen, you once told me that your son was a fitter and that he went to Australia. That would be in the Antipodes and according to St. Augustine’s instructions everyone who believes in the Antipodes is damned.’ ‘Reverend sir,’ the woman answered, ‘after all my son sends me letters and money from Australia.’ ‘That’s a snare of the devil,’ replied the dean. ‘According to St. Augustine Australia doesn’t exist at all and you are just being seduced by the Anti-Christ.’ On Sunday he anathematized her publicly and shouted out that Australia didn’t exist.”
