Magic in the air

I’ve discovered a new favourite term: short list. There's something magical about it. Especially when it comes out of the blue – or rather, out of that black hole where submissions disappear – and it is my short story up for a writing prize. The money is irrelevant; the recognition is what counts – that someone is actually interested in reading a fantasy I've cooked up.

At an exhibition at the State Library of Victoria, The Independent Type, is the 1983 first-submission letter from a 15-year-old Sonya Hartnett, as well as the reply from the MD of publisher Rigby, MD Frank W Thompson:

… Writing is a bit like playing sport – everyone can play most games but only a few play games so well that we will pay to watch them play, and even then they have to practise continually …

How good is that?

I loved the Peter Carey exhibit, made up of his laptop and research materials from the writing of True History of the Kelly Gang. On display is one manuscript page with a quirky charm – it is lovely enough to frame – elegantly typeset and adorned with the arcane and mystical hieroglyphics of the hard-copy editing process using a fountain pen with green ink, by none other than Gary Fisketjon, from the esteemed New York editing house of Knopf. This intimate view into the process gives a precious glimpse of the Fisketjon style, which shaped the words of the likes of Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy and Haruki Murakami.

Anyway, there is some stiff competition up there on the Gold Coast with its well-established writers’ association. So whatever the result, there’s an opportunity to hone my craft with a new tool – the judge’s feedback. The theme is Magic – how apt.

Next radio show is Wednesday 22 July and we’re warming up winter with a bit of spice: some double entendres, naughtinesses and impure thoughts across the last century of roots music. Tune in at 9.30 am on Helen Jennings’ Roots of Rhythm, PBSFM, 106.7FM in Melbourne or on the web.

Longer days & shorter nights

These days just keep getting longer.

Now we’re over the solstice, it’s really becoming winter. Time for food, snuggling up, reading, dinners with friends. Our house reeks of rich and heady aromas like baking bread; tonight it’s orange and cumin, this morning it was sourdough, last Friday it was cranberry, spices and vine fruits. Herb-infused casseroles and soups simmer, slow and rich; pies bake to be paired with mash in a ritual of prandial pleasure.

On a recent Saturday night we were faced with a culinary challenge: cook for a couple, one of whom is a sensational cook, the other with a series of health conditions necessitating a long list of no-nos: garlic, all onions including leeks, shallots, spring onions, tomatoes – well, that knocks out the entire Mediterranean cookbook – no broccoli, yeast, raisins, alcohol, asparagus, cabbage, fennel, wheat, legumes, no mushrooms, no avocado, no apples, no pears, no apricots, no cauliflower. Not much lemon, butter, salt, sugar.

Well, that was a throwdown of the gauntlet, if ever I saw one. But doable. We ended up with corn cakes and salmon roulades, followed by sweet potato-lemongrass-coriander soup. Next came spiced chicken with lemon-flavoured rice. Now for three ices: chocolate sherbet, rosewater sorbet and honey-vanilla ice cream with flaked coconut and almonds plus strawberries (for those who ate ’em). A few cheeses and rice crackers and we were replete.

I’ve been working out the chemistry to make a combination of ices that’s not too cold, not too rich but exotic and lighter than my beloved stodge puds. With the right combo of fats, sugar, milk solids and water – plus pairing cooked with uncooked mixtures – they can make a palette of colours, textures and flavours that looks pretty and cleanses the palate.

It’s time to get the knives sharpened. When I first came to Richmond in 1980, you didn’t have to leave the borders for anything. Knives sharpened, silk screens made, glass cut and anything else you needed. A place opposite the old Ball’s down on Church Street sharpened knives, just up from the row of south-meandering pubs that only contained beer and dusty bottles of sherry for consumption.

My sister Rebecca and I were rather fond of G&Ts at that stage. However, our request at the first we tried was met with a ‘Whatcha fink this is? A woman’s pub or somefink?’ We had to go along Swan Street to the Wine Shop for anything in the way of wine, a place where shelves reached to the ceiling and were crammed together so that whoever was in there had to leave to allow entry to the next customers. Our favourite was always the selection of the week, often with a recommendation of ‘great drinking now’ as suggested by the benevolent Doug.

Anyway, those days are long gone. We now have to take our knives out of Richmond! On a particular day of the month!
Ball’s is gone, Dimmeys too. At least my favourite Empire of Wreckage is still down there, arrayed behind Swan Street. Its windows and doors and bits and pieces stretch into the distance and I still can’t help but gaze on it with a quickening of the heart, a can’t-wait-to-get-in-there-and-fossick kind of a breathlessness. I hope that place never goes.

Trade secrets: the good, the bad and the ugly

Over the years, living in a Victorian house – stripped of many original features in the 1960s and since arrayed in oh-so-decorous beiges and whites with layers of masonite, vinyl tiles and wall paper – things break, things get tired, things need fixing up and brightening up and things need making good.
Even if you have the best set of tools in the business, climb a ladder with the greatest of ease and your hand-eye coordination is second to none, sometimes you simply have to get a man in. Yep, it still is a blokes’ world, and even though hardware shops have realised that treating women as if they have a brain is good for business, tradesmen have not necessarily moved with the times.
Over the years, you realise that tradies are either a girl’s best friend or the source of untold angst. And sometimes you just gotta laugh.
It’s a bit like a game of snakes and ladders. First of all, will they show up for the quote? Good, now you’ve made it up a short ladder. Now will they show up for the job? And they have but whoops, they’ve wrecked the rest of the house with dust and heavy equipment. Big snake, down you go. (Working at home as a freelance writer and editor has its special challenges at these times.) Ooh, here’s someone on time to start the job with his drop sheets and polite chitchat – big ladder. Oh-oh! there’s an unforeseen hitch, the mobile phone’s ringing, is that a snake, and he hasn’t brought a part and he’s off to the other side of town to another job and you have to do a tag team effort just to keep him there, desperately, just to have water/heating/a roof that night.
Now the job’s done (and just like the doctor who always says ‘it won’t hurt’, you’ve had the one of ‘there won’t be any mess’), and you haven’t entered the room to find a dust fog, will they clean the mess up? Will they dispose of empty drink and food containers rather than leave them on the front veranda? A big snake lurking, ready for action.
Here’s some snakes from through the years.
Snake 1: roofer explains carefully that tinted corrugated sheets must be laid with labels facing up, otherwise the tinting won’t stop the sun’s rays. He then lays sheets with labels all but one facing down. It takes a day or so until he realises this means he can’t simply turn the sheets around as the holes he’s drilled are now in valleys not on hills, as before. Oops.
Snake 2: plumber shows me patiently that gutters need their level down on the drainpipe end. He then attaches the gutter the opposite way.
Snake 3: carpenter replaces part of side fence. I return to find him reversing the position of fenceposts on the new part of the fence, leaving no room for access down the sideway.
Snake 4: genius cabinetmaker eventually takes five years to complete a job. My text messages become condensed into just one word: Please.
Snake 5: plumber comes to replace hot-water system. He puts in an instantaneous model and when we can’t get any hot water for a shower, he tells us the problem will be fixed if we replace a. shower head for voluminous water flow b. all tap fittings as the shower head no longer matches c. bathroom tiles – as he leaves dark smelly boot prints (mud, we hope!) through the house.
Snake 6: electrician arrives nine hours late and looking crazed to complete new bathroom for overseas guests arriving the next day. He locks himself in and noisily gets to work, dropping tools and chipping the new handbasin. I find out later his girlfriend had an abortion that day.
Snake 7: floor sanders shout interminably in Aramaic, whether in the house, or outside in the van, for the full five hours of the job. They dump heavy equipment on expensive rugs and entry-hall Baltic pine floorboards and turn off power during our computer work. In a moment that evokes Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi, we are told we cannot have satin finish like the rest of the house – it must be gloss. They won’t issue a receipt but offer a mug instead.
Well, after that lot of snakes, here’s some ladders.
Ladder 1: FG James damp proofing – wonderful, professional outfit who left our walls and skirtings better than they found ’em. Can you nominate finishing carpenters for sainthood?
Ladder 2: Pele Fireplace Installations – stylish, visionary, and persistent with getting flues up those kinky Victorian chimneys.
Jim’s Mowing – George Kanellakis and his dad have been restoring order to our little patch of wilderness for years.
Ladder 3: Mac’s Place, Flinders Street – helpful, understanding of freelance repair budgets. When my lappy died in the Kimberley, there was no question of shipping it back here for life support.
Ladder 4: Hames Reid Plumbing – Kevin and his crew keep pipes clear with a crew that's usually spot on. George is No 1!
Pic: yet more wonderful relics of the 1960s dual-family accommodations in our little house

'Wordy Gurdy' on the radio, 17 June 2009

Jackey Coyle’s 'Wordy-Gurdy' on Helen Jennings’ Roots of Rhythm, PBS 106.7 FM, 9.30–10am Wednesday 17 June 2009
Today was gonna be a bit ragtimey and it moved around in place and time, using the theme extremely loosely.
Willie Nelson & Asleep at the Wheel, ‘I ain’t gonna give nobody none of this jellyroll, Willie & the Wheel (Bismeaux Records)
For our feature CD, Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel teamed up for a collaboration released in February.
According to the Willie & the Wheel website, the album was 30 years in the making. It’s a collection of classic western swing songs handpicked by the late Jerry Wexler, better known as ‘Mr R&B’. He was a fan of the original western swing bands like Bob Wills, Milton Brown, Cliff Bruner – introduced to him while he was studying journalism in Kansas City.
The album takes genre hopper Willie Nelson back to his musical roots. As opposed to some of his other style collaborations such as reggae, which didn’t quite gel, western swing is a perfect choice for him – his vocal stylings have always originated in jazz. He grew up on western swing – he was born about the same time it began – and it has always figured heavily into his approach to music.
‘Jerry Wexler originally came up with this concept back when Willie was on the Atlantic label,’ says AATW headman Ray Benson. ‘But before the record could be made Willie left Atlantic for CBS records and so the idea was shelved.’
This is a good story. In 2003 Jerry Wexler, who was retired and living in Florida, called his old friend Ray Benson. ‘’Ray!’’ he said, ‘’I’m getting rid of my LPs! They collect dust and it bothers me. I have recorded them all and I am sending you all my western swing albums!’ A few weeks later a box arrived with 20 or so LPs from Jerry. They were collections of the music originally on 78 rpm records reissued on 33-1/3 rpm LPs. Ray noticed that a number of the song titles had two initials next to them: ‘WN.’ Ray didn't think much about it but when he thanked Jerry he asked what they were – ‘WN’ stood for Willie Nelson.
Fast forward to 2007, when Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Ray Price and Asleep at the Wheel set out on the wildly successful Last of the Breed tour showcasing classic western swing and Texas country music. Not long after, Ray got the call from Willie and his manager. According to Ray, they asked, ‘Jerry Wexler thinks now’s the time to do the western swing CD. You've got the LPs don’t you?’ Ray continues, ‘It took me a second to realize what they were talking about and once I put two and two together I answered “Yes of course!” I went to the shelf and pulled out the LPs. Sure enough there were the penned-in "WNs" by certain songs and so I went to work.’
From nearly 40 selections Jerry and Ray painstakingly narrowed the list down to 12. Jerry insisted that some of the tracks should include horns as well as a return to the traditional fiddles and lap steel guitar associated with western swing. ‘To my delight and relief,’ says Ray, ‘he loved them.'
Alex Burns & Nick Charles, ‘Yank Plays Mandolin’, Cordially Yours (Newmarket)
An original from a match made in heaven, featuring the vocals and mandolin of Nick and backing vocals by Alex, Kelly Auty and Tanya Lee.
Sol Hoopii, ‘Hawaii Nei’, Master of the Hawaiian Guitar Vol II (Rounder)
A traditional Hawaiian song from the collection of Bob Brozman, recorded in 1929 and one of only four recorded with his sax trio.
Willie Nelson & Asleep at the Wheel, ‘I’m sittin’ on top of the world’, Willie & the Wheel
Joe Henry, ‘I will write my book’, Civilians (Anti)
According to the liner notes: Henry is a Southerner by birth, and Midwestern by transplant. He lives ‘on the fringe of Los Angeles, right where it begins its slide into the San Gabriel Valley, and in a house built in 1904 for a First Lady of these United States of I'm Sorry…'
He likens his work to ‘shoveling out a fireplace: If I do it well, the next fire will have more air to breathe. And the fire next time is always the thing.’ Recorded & mixed by Ryan Freeland at The Garfield House, South Pasadena, CA, 2007. Musicians: JH – acoustic guitar, handclaps, knee slaps and 'corduroy'; Bill Frisell – electric and acoustic guitar; Greg Leisz – acoustic guitar, mandolin, Weissenborn and lap steel; Patrick Warren – piano, Chamberlin, pump organ and more; David Piltch – upright and electric bass; Jay Bellerose – drums and percussion; Loudon Wainwright the 3rd – backing vocals; Van Dyke Parks – piano
Willie Nelson & Asleep at the Wheel, ‘Hesitation blues’, Willie & the Wheel
Last song was a dilemma with 12 knockouts to choose from so we went with Helen's choice.
Next show: July 22

Winter in a cool climate

Monday morning the fog came in as we watched. Every other day it’s cleared; the damp dissipates and the sky is suddenly a piercing blue. Rog and I stood upstairs in the ochre-yellow, north-facing room and watched the rooftops disappear. We used to be able to see all the way up to Fitzroy from there – my philosophical dentist John Gilheany once mused on the fact that Brunswick Street was bookended by churches – but the city’s closing in now and today’s vista is made up of rooftops, balconies, angles and palms. Then there’s the ubiquitous TV antennae and further away, the ever-present cranes punctuating the horizon.
Routines are there to be changed, so any morning holds exciting choices. Stay home or go out? It’s usually the latter in this vibrant metropolis, so a couch-potato sojourn is a treat.
As Monday nights are special movie night, sometimes I meet my sister Jinny at Trotters in Carlton for a glass of fizz and a feed. Trotters is one of those Melbourne cafés with good Italian-based food, fast service, attentive, warm staff – what’s not to like there? Some concentrated browsing at Readings, an ice cream and a movie and there you go, we’ve pushed the week off gently and it’s rolling. Rog is starting to get hooked now, and we slotted Gomorra in for this week.
Last week Samson and Delilah knocked our socks off – strong and sad were words I thought of. It took an Aboriginal filmmaker to say it, and I guess it’s how change has to happen to bring happier times in this Age of Aquarius – through the Aboriginal people themselves, not through us and our doomed solutions. Every theme resonated way too deeply with what we saw in our time in the Kimberley. The women who cop all the disasters yet somehow, miraculously, come out stronger; the men who take a crack at being leaders and fall short; the brutality to one another that swells the desolation; the art scene that feeds off the isolation of artists; the irony of hunter-gatherers who have lost their connection with country.
During the week, Snow Falling on Cedars resonated more gently but just as deeply. Set in 1954 on a fictional island off Washington State, it follows the murder trial of a Japanese-American man in the wake of the death of a fellow fisherman. In the film, the effect of Japanese exile camps during the Second World War on the island’s residents is as important a theme as the interracial love story. The gradual exposing of the underbelly of racism following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor led me to think about what might have been, here. So much suffering for our people in the Pacific War. I will never forget talking to a 90-year-old POW incarcerated in Changi who wept, just at the mention of his time there. My uncle never could speak of his time in New Guinea. And that was meant to be the war that ended all wars.
Full of gore and violence, Gomorra was not a film to enjoy. I guess I’d call it a sickening exposé of the stranglehold of the Camorra gangsters over the citizens of Naples.
It segued perfectly into last night’s panel discussion of true crime writing at Victorian Writers’ Centre. Our fascination for turning over the darkest acts of humans, one to another – could it be a quest to understand where the good ends and evil starts? Or simply to solve the puzzles?
Anyway, things aren’t all grim. I discovered Making Modern Melbourne, by my thesis supervisor and all-round mastermind Jenny Lee, and caught her talk to the Coburg Historical Society a few weeks ago. I found her take on our history looking from the western and northern suburbs – as opposed to the usual eastern slant – enthralling. I’m enjoying Lisa Lang’s E.W. Cole: Chasing the Rainbow now, and recalling Cole’s Funny Picture Book. What an extraordinary, visionary, eccentric man – my ideal dinner companion. This is one of the titles in small and perfectly formed A6 format, all printed on recycled paper by Arcade Publications. Lots of illustrations, immaculate research and immensely readable – a quirky take on Melbourne history.

Wordy-Gurdy on Roots of Rhythm, PBS-FM

Special Radio Festival show – Pianists’ pianists: who do the ivory-ticklers kowtow to? Selections from the cream of Melbourne’s keyboardists on Jackey Coyle’s 'Wordy-Gurdy' on Helen Jennings’ Roots of Rhythm, PBS 106.7 FM, 9.15–11am Wednesday 20 May.
We asked musicians, Who inspired you to take up the piano, and/or inspires you still? Would you be able to nominate your favourite/s? If there are particular tracks that still tickle your ivories, we will do our best to find them to play.
It ended up being a packed show. Some trivia that didn’t fit in included the World's Largest Organ! as well as a list of Presidential Pianos, courtesy Sullivan’s Music Trivia.
From Oscar Wilde we could have had that memorable quote: Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best. – from a notice in a dancing saloon in America’s West
My favourite quote comes from Austrian-born pianist Artur Schnabel:
The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes – ah! that is where the art resides!
For ANDY COWAN we had Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett’s ‘Memories of tomorrow’ from Köln Concert; Muddy Waters with Otis Spann from Fathers & Sons; John Coltrane with McCoy Tyner, and Dr John.
TIM NEAL selected Jimmy Smith, ‘I Got my Mojo Working’, I Got my Mojo Working and Oscar Peterson, ‘Night Train’, Jazz on a Winter’s Night.
We played tracks from my collection for JAMES BLACK (Professor Longhair; Charles Brown, Otis Spann, Dr John and Jimmy Smith); MICK O’CONNOR (Donny Hathaway, ‘Jealous Guy’, Live); ANDREW OGBURN (Professor Longhair, Dr John and Huey ’Piano’ Smith).
From Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue my choice would have been ‘Blue in Green’; then we did get to play Little Richard, and Tom Waits’ ‘Kentucky Avenue’ from Blue Valentine.
My choices: If I’d had half a chance, these’d be part of the playlist:
Lefty Frizzell, ‘If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time’, Life’s Like Poetry (Bear Family)
The barrelhouse piano of Wichita Falls’ Madge Sutee – part of the pickup band assembled for Lefty Frizzell’s very first Columbia recording sessions – helped form the distinctive sound that surrounded Lefty’s unique vocal style, which would influence some of the greatest country singers who followed as well as inspire a host of cover versions of Lefty's composition and put Lefty well on the road to stardom.
Tord Gustavsen Trio, The Ground (ECM)
Any track from this ethereal jazz – some called it folk music when the trio visited Wangaratta Jazz Fest in 2005 – would serve to spirit us away. Still one of my desert-island discs.

Wordy-Gurdy goes pianistic next week

Next Wednesday marks the start of the annual PBS Radio Festival.
So have we got a show for you! We'll sit in with Helen Jennings for a special extended two hours themed around
PIANISTS’ PIANISTS: WHO DO THE IVORY-TICKLERS KOWTOW TO? FEATURING SELECTIONS FROM THE CREAM OF MELBOURNE’S KEYBOARDISTS AND TRIVIA FROM THE ANNALS OF THE ‘GOANNA’.
We are asking the players, Who inspired you to take up the piano, and/or inspires you still? Are there particular tracks that still tickle your ivories?
And we’ll do our best to find them to play, as well as digging up anecdotes, trivia and strange facts.
Wordy-Gurdy goes pianistic 9–11 am, for a special extended show on Roots of Rhythm Wednesday 20 May on PBS 106.7FM.