other artists

Henry Rollins: Sandwich Guy

I love this so much. Henry Rollins relating an experience he had in judging by appearance and reminding us that everyone has a story. Apologies for the language but this is such a great story and told so well. Henry, you are a master at what you do!

Incidentally I think this was recorded at his Sydney show I went to a few years back – 3 hours long, no intermission, just him talking, telling stories and sharing his worldview with us. He made the hours feel like minutes, and I’m pretty sure the majority of us would have stayed to listen to him for 3 hours more if he’d let us.  :)

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

Phenomenal Woman (A Tribute)

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

RIP Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

swf 2014 recap

The Sydney Writers Festival was amazing!  We had gorgeous weather both days, which made it impossible to find a seat along the waterfront!  But with plenty to see and do, I didn’t want to be sitting down for long.

Volunteering was fun.  I was in the Writers’ Green Room area of one of the venues, so I basically signed authors and their people and members of the media in as they arrived and escorted them backstage.

Perks of the job! SWF swag bag for volunteers.

Perks of the job! SWF swag bag for volunteers.

While volunteering, I got to sit in on the panel discussion with Christos Tsiolkas, Kathryn Heyman and Alexis Wright on how authors engage in politics in their writing.  And I was so lucky because though it was sold out, I was able to sneak into the back of the Alice Walker documentary – Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth, which tells about her life from her birth in a poor community in Georgia, through the racism she experienced and finally her recognition as the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Colour Purple. Alice spoke briefly after the session and she is such a beautiful, beautiful soul.

The Festival hosts events all over Sydney, so I went to the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta on the Friday night to see Alexis Wright and Alice Walker again, who as you can tell from above, is one of my personal literary heroes! It was amazing to see the two of them speak about their writing and their activism and their connection to place.

Saturday I went to the Festival as an attendee, and attended a great lecture on trauma narratives by Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Orphan Master’s Son. One interesting quote on the paradox of trauma… “Trauma destroys language, and yet needs the convention of language in order to be retold.”

Wandered around for a bit in the bookshop – signed Alice Walker book of poetry?  Yes please!!  Then I attended a panel discussion with Cornelia Funke, Kate Forsyth, Vikram Chandra, and Tony Birch on the magic of fairy tales. To finish off the afternoon, I went to hear Amy Tan, author of “The Joy Luck Club” talk about her relationship with China.

Finally, I caught a really interesting panel discussion with Tara Moss, Irvine Welsh (“Trainspotting”), and Damon Young about “bodies”, which was kind of a strange one, but sort of about the visceral details of writing graphic and physical content.

Afterwards I caught the ferry back to Parramatta, even though it was dark, because the Vivid festival is also on in Sydney and it was great to see all the lights and effects on the Harbour.  So all in all, a really great weekend!

What is real? (Excerpt from the Velveteen Rabbit)

“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”


― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

Kabir – selected poems

I love Kabir and early Eastern mystic poems and writing in general.  I came across some interpreted poems of his and wanted to share.  :)

Interpretations of Kabir poems

From “Love Poems From God” by Daniel Ladinsky

I Just Laugh

If I told you the truth about God
You might think I was an idiot

If I lied to you about the Beautiful One
You might parade me through the streets shouting,
“This guy is a genuis!”

This world has its pants on backwards.
Most carry their values and knowledge in a jug
That has a big hole in it.

Thus having a clear grasp of the situation
If I am asked anything these days
I just laugh.

What Kind of God?

What kind of God would He be
If He did not hear the bangles ring
On an ant’s wrist
As they move the earth
In their sweet dance?

And what kind of God would He be
If a leaf’s prayer was not as precious to Creation
As the prayer His own son sang
From the glorious depth of his soul – for us.

And what kind of God would He be
If the vote of millions in this world could sway Him
To change the Divine law of love
That speaks so clearly with compassion’s elegant tongue,
saying, eternally saying:

“All are forgiven – moreover, dears,
No one has ever been guilty.”

What kind of a God would He be
If He did not count the blinks of your eyes
And is in absolute awe of their movements?

What a God – what a God we have.

Soon We May Be Kissing

There is dew on these poems in the morning,
And at night a cool breeze may rise from them.
In the winter they are blankets, in the summer a place to swim
I like talking to you like this.
Have you moved a step closer?
Soon we may be kissing.

How Humble is God?

How humble is God?

God is the tree in the forest that
Allows itself to die and will not defend itself in front of those
With the axe, not wanting to cause them shame.

And God is the earth that will allow itself to
Be deformed by man’s tools, but He cries; yes, God cries,
But only in front of His closest ones.

And a beautiful animal is being beaten to death,
But nothing can make God break His silence
To the masses and say:
“Stop, please stop, why are you doing this to Me?”

How humble is God?
Kabir wept when I knew.

The Past’s Lips are not Deceased

Why not look at the beauty your memory holds,
So nourishing that light can be.
The past’s lips are not deceased.
Let them comfort you if they can.

It Stops Working

Look –

What happens to the scale
When love holds it;

It stops working.

Da Apawsal’s Creed

I’m currently obsessing over the cuteness that is The Lolcat Bible, which is basically a wiki project to translate the whole Bible into lolspeak, haha.  I even bought the John 3:16 T-shirt which says,

So liek teh Ceiling Kitteh lieks teh ppl lots and he sez ‘Oh hai I givez u my only son and ifs u beleeves him u wont evr diez no moar, k?’

Which is freaking ADORABLE!  :D

Anyway, here is the Apostle’s Creed. I imagine a little praying kitten earnestly saying this in a church service somewhere, hehe.

I beweivez in Ceiling Cat, teh Fathr Almitey,
the makr uv de ceiling and de floor,
adn in Happy Cat, hiz ownlee Son, awr Lord:

Hoo wuz conceived by da Hover Cat,
Born ov teh virgn Mary,
Suffered undah Pontiuz Pilate,
waz crucifid, ded, adn burid;

He descendeded into teh basement.
Teh threeth dai him roes out of teh basement
He climbd into teh Ceiling
adn he sitted awn teh riet paw uv Ceiling Cat teh fathur Almitey;
frum theerz him whil com ta judge the quik adn teh ded.

I beweivez in da Hover Cat;
teh holy catlick church;
teh sharin cookies wit da speshul catz;
teh foargiveness uv invizible errorz;
teh resurrecshun uv teh bodai;
adn teh lief everlassin.

Amen