Like most writers, I’m hung up on lexical precision – as I wrack my brain for the perfect word or phrase, you can almost hear the cerebral cogs crunching and grinding (a bit like an under-RAMed computer struggling with heavy multi-tasking). Most of us ain’t David Maloufs or Les Murrays. The right word comes hard… if it comes at all.
Not so when I read about Nicole Kidman’s pregnancy (yeah, ok…don’t claim you never succumb to reading the goss crap) and got to the part about her parents having been midwives to sister Antonia and planning to do the double with Nic.
Daddy might be a doctor and mummy a nurse, but what do you say about the idea of them lodged betwixt the stirrups staring into Nic’s works as she heaves and hos?
I’ve got a love-hate relationship with blogging – or is it writing? Whatever, when I get into it I love it. It inspires and stimulates me, sets off new trains of thought…but if I absent myself more than a few days, those trains rattle on their way without me, disappearing into gloomy tunnels of lost opportunity, leaving me sitting idly at some station of inertia. I know these barren platforms too too well.
My inactivity begins to gnaw at me like some inner rat, but perversely I routinely choose to tolerate the discomfort – it’s almost as if the act of writing is some authority figure I engage in a contest of wills. I’m James Dean, writing’s my father. And he wants to keep me home while I wanna go out. So I grab me coat and slam the door and kick in me grandma’s portrait on the way out. Then when I’m “out” I realise I’m restless with inactivity. So back home I go and the old man looks smug so I go out again just to spite him… Continue reading When Is A Blog Not A Blog?→
Inaugural and haphazard, these Boomtown Rap Awards are disorganised, ill conceived and pretty bloody random. There’s an Australian bias, but awards are not restricted nationally. They can be positive or – more likely – negative.
While the awards naturally reflect my own prejudices and tastes, being a democratic and inclusive type o bastard, I will gladly accept reader nominations and suggestions for additional awards not covered below. Just post ‘em in the Comments. And there is no particular deadline. I’ll happily keep adding to the list until such time as it kinda sorta feels too far into 2008 to be relevant.