A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.

FISH! The Musical. Melbourne Aquarium. April 2011.

A very VERY busy week has seen me across the state and missing all sorts of opportunities (read: lunch breaks) to read. This has seen the measly return of just one completed novel. Thankfully, it was a good one.

The Member of the Wedding is another gem from Carson McCullers, author of last week’s review The Ballad of the Sad Café.

The tale of twelve-year-old Frankie Addams, who has reached that point of life when one feels disconnected. She has become – in her words – an "unjoined person". Set during the Second World War, Frankie is lost in a world of dreams (all far, far away from the small town in Georgia which she happens to live), she has detached herself from her friends, disconnected from her father (her mother died in at her birth), Frankie’s closest companions are the family's black maid, Berenice Sadie Brown, and her six-year-old cousin, John Henry.

It can be tricky territory, the ‘rite of passage’ novel of a tween, especially when it focuses on with the psychology of the three central characters and an evocation of the setting than it is with action. That said, McCullers pulls it off admirably. That said, this is not the usual ‘coming of age’ story, as there’s a degree of profundity, darkness, and socio-political depth to be found within the usual painful tale of the moment where one’s childhood innocence is brightened by through the illumination of adolescence before the eventual disillusion of adulthood.

As ever, the crushing of childhood dreams is rarely anything less than aching. This is really a very funny, very dark novel. It very casually and effectively weaves an exploration of gender as well as themes of racial and sexual identity into the narrative.

Any work whose emotional impact can transcend geography, age and gender like The Member of the Wedding is to be recommended. I think that you should read it.

Shark! The Interpretive Dance Spectalular. Melbourne Aquarium. April 2011.

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

Zeal, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.

Here I have tried my hand at the homemade sepia-toned photo. I wasn’t happy with the way that the sun had washed out some of the colours in the original, so had a bit of a fiddle because I like the look on Henry’s face, and didn’t want to pass on posting it. I have a tip for those of you burdened with the great, unceasing weight of parenthood. I have a new recipe, in the vein of the quick microwaved chocolate cake . Get this, microwaved potato chips . I gave them a run on Sunday, Henry liked the so much I did it again last night. Tonight, I shall be experimenting with sweet potato. I think that the ground is open for me to exploit opportunities in the swede, turnip, carrot and maybe even explore in the area of pumpkins. Radical, I know. I’m a boundary-pusher by nature. It's pretty simple, take the potato. Slice it thinly (it doesn't have to be too thin, but thin enough). Lay the slices on the microwave plate, whack a bit of salt over the top and nuke the buggers for five minut

This will hurt me...

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