Spent Friday and Saturday with Toula and Robin,

then dove up to Sydney for a yummy Mexican dinner at Nick and Adrian's place

Sometimes it takes every bit of willpower I can muster...

... not to steal all the fab toys off their shelves.

This was another one of those times...

the flea incident shall not be mentioned.

Last October, just as I was racing out the door for my World Fantasy Convention adventure, my friend Ian sent me an advance copy of his new CD, Magic Hour. I loaded it onto my ipod in the car en route to the airport. Listened to it on the way to California (ironicly, as my favourite song on the CD turned out to be the one all about going to California!)

I fell totally and utterly in love with this CD. It’s moody, mellow, sad, emotive… fuck knows what words are actually suitable for these songs. Perhaps this quote from another reviewer: “Its a dreamy, pop fest, spiked through with surreal moments of indy rock joy. Julee Cruise meets Feist or as one fan put it, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls meets Portishead,”

Click here and have a sample listen for yourselves. Magic Hour became my personal soundtrack for 2009.
For interested Sydney folks, the launch is at the Clovelly bowling club down by the sea on the 14th of Feb at 7pm for an 8pm show

Went with some friends to see my boss's band - The Hip Operation - play at the Wombarra bowling club this arvo

The bowlo interior

Lyn & Justin

Laura

Justin and Matt

Lourdes

Cat

Sarah

Kirk & Matt

Rob stayed home to finish some writing. he and I used to live in a tiny block of flats behind the bowling club.

Last night as we were drifting off to sleep, Smersh started howling in the bathroom.
'It's that bloody fucking thing again', I mumbled in my sleep.
'What bloody fucking thing?' asked Rob.
'The thing that watches us from the darkness...'

EEK!

Thanks for your comments about Dad's court case verdict. As Mum said to me yesterday, 2009 and all its horrors now seems like another country. Time to move on to other more positive things. So in celebration of this sentiment I have started a new novel. Well, OK, so its one I started last year, got 27k words into then abandoned to start again as I had a whole bunch of far better ideas.

Apropos of nothing, here are a couple of nice photos I took in Newtown yesterday.

Kyla with hat

John and Natalie

The court case was today. Our family did not attend. We are OK with the outcome.

[excerpt from the Sydney Morning Herald]

Delusional man not guilty of attack

MARGARET SCHEIKOWSKI

Moments after a distraught elderly artist rang for help, his delusional neighbour smashed his way into the painter's Sydney studio and savagely attacked him.

When police arrived at the north shore premises of Cameron Sparks, they saw Peter Grayson kneeling on top of the 78-year-old victim, who was lying in a pool of blood.

In the NSW District Court on Wednesday, Judge Penelope Hock found Grayson, 41, not guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to Mr Sparks with intent to murder him, on the grounds of mental illness.

Although she found he attacked Mr Sparks, she accepted psychiatric evidence that Grayson was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and did not know that what he was doing was wrong.

About 11.15am (AEST) on June 6 last year, another neighbour saw Grayson, wearing only pyjama pants, standing in the middle of Balls Head Road, Waverton, yelling and screaming.

The judge said that as the neighbour went to ring police, he heard the sound of breaking glass coming from the studio attached to Mr Sparks' home.

At 11.30am, Mr Sparks - who had locked himself in his studio - rang triple-zero saying Grayson was in an agitated state trying to smash his way through the door.

Grayson then forced his way in and began to attack Mr Sparks with what appeared to be a piece of wood, the judge said.

When police arrived, they saw glass strewn across the floor and Grayson kneeling on top of the victim, both men covered in blood.

After being told to get off the artist, Grayson "stood up and stomped on the victim", the judge said.

Mr Sparks, who suffered significant head injuries, was in hospital until August 18, when he was discharged to a rehabilitation complex.

"According to the evidence, Mr Sparks has now regained limited mobility but has no recollection of the assault," Judge Hock said.

She noted that his treating doctor said Mr Sparks had been doused in diesel fuel.

After the attack, police went to the neighbouring house - where Grayson's parents lived.

They found furniture and other items strewn across most rooms and a note saying "Dose is not enough ... spiritual practices ... I find the vibe of living in Sydney horrible".

The judge said Grayson had a history of paranoid schizophrenia and had been admitted to hospital a number of times since 2004.

Hours after the attack, Grayson told a psychiatrist he was hearing voices telling him to "kill people".

The psychiatrist said he was hallucinating and was deluded, believing his neighbour to be "evil".

In his opinion, Grayson appeared to have relapsed in the previous week after not taking his medication.

Judge Hock ordered that Grayson be detained in custody until released by "due process of law".

© 2010 AAP

link

 

Scored myself another award last Saturday night. I'm pictured here with fellow winner, the lovely Paul Haines. Full photo set here. Full list of winners here.
A ripper night was had by all. There was even a teeny light sabre duel between Jedi Williams and Darth Hood!


How awesome were the Tiki drinks in the bar afterwards!

Rob, Cat & Angie Rega


B: Angela Slatter and Lisa Bennett
F: Abigail Nathan and Karen Miller

Donna Hanson, Glenda Larke and Nicole Murphy

Angela Slatter, Ron Serdiuk and Helen Merrick

Peter Ball

Caz Tebbutt, Kaaron Warren & Deb Biancotti

Sean Williams and Scott Westerfeld with big drinks

Trudi Canavan

It's that time of the year again -- Aurealis Awards weekend in Brisbane when the who's who of Australian spec fic frock up and descend on Fortitude Valley in their droves. This will be the last time the hurrah will be hosted by Fantastic Queensland. I'm not sure what's going to become of it so I'm thinking we need to see this one out with a bang rather than a whimper.

A lot of bitching and moaning often accompanies awards: what value do they truly serve? Are they rigged, fixed, biased or just an old load of toss? Do they affect sales figures? Does anybody give a flying fuck? The AAs have been good to me. I've served as a judge twice, had stories nominated seven times, taken home a trophy twice, as well as a Golden Aurealis and the convener's award. What did all these trophies do for my career as a short story writer? They did not make me famous, land me book deals or convince anyone to treat me with the respect that seems to go hand in hand with scoring a novel contract. They might have gotten me an invite to an anthology or two -- I can't be sure about that. But I'm certain of one thing -- they did make me happy. I felt like I'd achieved something every time my name made the shortlist. A personal milestone in a career that can barely be called a career at all because the pay and payoffs are so slight.

Goodonya Chimaera Publications and Fantastic Queensland for providing Australian spec fic writers with a juried awards system and, perhaps more importantly, a night of nights where we all get to glam up, revel in community spirit and toast each others good fortune.

See you at the bar.

This afternoon Russell described one of my stories a being like a mullet: too much boof on top, then trailing off all straggly down the end. Another friend critiqued it and called it Heart of Darkness meets Dr No. Which is utter bullshit -- I lifted the ending straight from Beneath the Planet of the Apes!

Both Russell and Kylie are still whupping my arse at Ping Pong

Got up at 6am and hauled my lardy arse out for an hour's walk. Passed many cows in verdant fields. I love the curiosity of cows. They're couch potatoes without the couches. Like to watch but rarely make a move.

Writing progress is going much slower than I hoped. For some reason I seem to believe that if I allot a certain segment of time I should be able to sit placidly and extrude thousands of words. I know many others who are capable of this, but I'm not. I just don't write like that and, on the rare occasion that perhaps I do, it's pretty much all crap and takes longer to unpick and rework that it would take to write anew.

Today Russell is dragging us off on some sort of geological expedition, then we'll pop in at Bowral to have lunch with Trudi. She was originally part of the FWOR experience but decamped before I got here, opting instead for solitude and air conditioning. Not that it's been hot. I brought the rain with me to Berry, haven't seen hide nor hair of troublesome insects or the possum nightclub that was allegedly making a racket in the roof up my end of the house. The peacocks on the porch are pretty cute though.

Blogging the FWOR experience over here.

Having come to the end of the Sarah Connor Chronicles and Fringe season one, we found ourselves stuck for something to watch around 9.30 last night. It's times like these we reach for classic Trek. Which episode did fate throw up in our direction? SPOCK'S BRAIN. If you haven't seen it, it's best described thusly: the most stupid episode of anything ever written ever in any genre. Seriously guys, what were you thinking? What was anybody thinking when they let that go to air? Urgh.

Later today I'm off to FWOR (pronounced FWORRRRRR!!!) where I shall hole up for a week with my fantasy writing buddies and (hopefully) spew forth about 20,000 words of novel. I shall also attempt to stay off the Net as much as possible, and stay off the piss. I wonder which temptation will prove most difficult to resist? My money's on the electronica.

The Parkes Elvis festival was exactly what I hoped for; big enough to attract a decent sized crowd, yet still small enough to be rough and dowdy round the edges. We arrived just before the start of the parade. Both sides of the main street were thickly lined with Elvis enthusiasts braving the baking heat.

As you might imagine, the parade featured home made floats and flashy cars atop of which perched an array of Elvises, Priscillas and feather-bottomed Vegas showgirls. Also present, the ubiquitous belly dancers and marching bands found in all parades everywhere.

The main action took place in Cooke Park. Think old style country carny atmosphere: saggy jumping castles, hot jam donuts, laughing clowns, dagwood dogs and fairy floss. And Elvis. Lots of Elvis, from little bitty boy ones through to female Elvises jiving away on stilts. I saw a harried electric blue jumpsuited Elvis leaning exhausted on a pram. Half arsed Elvises with drawn on sideburns. On a portable stage, professional Elvis impersonators took turns at singing much like writers doing readings at a convention.

I crashed the backstage area where little Elvises and Priscillas waited eagerly for junior lookalike contests to begin.

Check out these glam jailbait Priscillas

and this adorable little moppet with the dolly Lisa Marie.

When I asked four little Elvises to pose they all leapt seamlessly into formation as though they’d done it a hundred times before.

In the library’s Elvis art exhibition we glimpsed Elvis with cherubs, Elvis painted on bark, stone, wood as well as rendered in wire, tile and corrugated iron. Some paintings featured typical rural scenes labeled with Elvis song titles - Clean up your own backyard (chooks and lambs in a pen). I was sorely disappointed at the utter absence of velvet painting.

Parked in the foyer was Elvis’s last car, a two-tone hard top Cadilac Seville, apparently driven by the king on the day prior to his death.

Meanwhile, back in the park, centre stage, little Elvises were leaping, shaking and gyrating one after another in their teeny sequined jumpsuits, mostly having elected to sing Hound Dog… unfortunately. But there was this one kid, Coby, uncostumed in his t-shirt and shorts who wowed the audience to pieces with his powerhouse rendition of How Great Thou Art. I predict a big future for that dude. Little Yammamoto Elvis also deserves a mention for jumping his way stylishly through Hound Dog, eventually giving up on the words as the jumping seemed to be getting the message across. And I swear the final singer’s name was Georgia. Elvis has ceased to be gender specific.

Parkes is hot. Really hot. Too flipping hot for jumpsuits of any description, let alone stiff garments constructed of nylon and rhinestone. By the end of the day I’d become utterly accustomed to the sight of Elvises wandering along the street. I pounced on a flock of them to grab this picture.


There was stuff going on in the RSL club but we went off to check out the radio telescope. The Dish staff were done up as Priscillas and Elvises too. If you live in Parkes, I’m guessing there’s no escaping this phenomena.

entire photo set here.

Rumour has it that a herd of Elvises has been sighted on the plains a bit past Orange, grazing beneath the shadow of the giant radio telescope. I have donned my khaki skirts, pith helmet and sturdy, yet elegant lace up explorer boots, grabbed the elephant gun and butterfly nets from their respective mounts above the fireplace. Bertie is out back somewhere waxing his moustaches so I thought it best to use these few spare few moments to note an entry in my journal just incase you never hear from us again. Fifty thousand Elvises create a hell of a crush if they stampeed. Still, it's worth the risk to bag a fine trophy for the mantlepiece.

Our dinner guests shall be arriving shortly...

But I can't get Mr White out of the Kava bowl! It's his favourite place to sleep.

Had a pleasant lunch today at Chinta Ria, Darling Harbour with Donna Hanson, Bob Eggleton and Marianne Plumridge

Bob and Marianne are visiting from the US (although Marianne's an expat Aussie)

There wasn't *too* much Godzilla talk... OK, so that's a lie

Donna and I insisted on visiting the fudge shop. If you've been to Darling Harbour you'll know which shop I mean.

and we did some other tourist things like drink coffee, photograph battleships and buy stuff.

Home now. Utterly knackered! Also, possibly suffering from excess fudge poisoning.

I don't suppose it bothers you, Pazuzu, that I need to use that notepad you're sleeping on... Nope, didn't think so.

sell my novels

read a fuckload of books

address the signal to noise ratio

cut back on the snark

cope with the fact that some of the most interesting people in my life don’t feel the same way about me

resume Egyptian folk dancing classes

go Elvis spotting in Parkes

trim my lardy arse back down to 75k (am close on this one, folks)

grow real fingernails

stop writing short stories

Never seen another year like it. Never want another one anything remotely close. Aside from my Father being bashed to within an inch of his life, this year claimed five friends of mine way before their times. And its leaving with another handful battling scary cancers. And some other stuff. This year the firestorm happened all around me and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to help. Off now to build a wicker man in my backyard. Happy new year everyone. Inshallah.

Dr Anna Donald

Kris Hembury

Glayne Louise Blackmore

Charles Brown

Professor Jim Hagan