The F word
(You can click on this to make it MUCH bigger.)
I never bothered finding out what kind of music Miley Cyrus made until Lorde kicked her off the number 1 spot. I live in a little bubble, not listening to top 40 music. The radio in my car is broken, and the radio in my kitchen cost $20 and I’m too scared to take it off Radio NZ in case I can never tune it back in again. But today I decided to watch the Wrecking Ball video so that I could see what Sinéad O’Connor was going on about. Actually, this is worthy of a far longer and more complex comic, but I was trying to be concise.
The other interesting thing I watched recently was this Canadian short called ‘Noah’, which is kind of chilling, and made me think how crazy it is to be young in this age of data tsunamis and social media. Which is why it’s great that young women are calling themselves feminists. They need to be.
In book news, look – I got a nice review in the Greymouth Star:
Kathleen in the neighbourhood
Last week I got a phone call from a woman who had read about my Katherine Mansfield project in the community newspaper. She wanted me to know that she grew up in Fitzherbert Terrace, Thorndon, very near to Katherine Mansfield’s family, the Beauchamps, and her father had been friends with Kathleen. Now the woman lived near me, and she had all of her father’s Mansfield treasures – clippings, books, biographies – as well as a few more personal things. Here’s Katherine’s name on his dance card – you can enlarge it by clicking on it – you can see that she danced with him three times, each time to the waltz. All the other ladies prefaced their names with ‘Miss’ – not Kathleen. There’s also a Miss Chaddie on the dance card – Katherine’s elder sister. And below Kathleen is Miss Perkins, which is funny, because Emily Perkins was touted as the next Katherine Mansfield when her book of stories, Not Her Real Name, first came out.
The woman also had her father’s autograph book and Katherine Mansfield had inscribed it with a few lines of music (anyone know what it is?) and a characteristic quote from Oscar Wilde. She was obsessed with Oscar Wilde in her teens.
It was lovely to talk to the woman – she was so interesting – and to think that there are still some quite direct connections to Mansfield still living. The woman remembered Mansfield’s sisters visiting her house, and she also remembered seeing Harold Beauchamp catching the tram near the Katherine Mansfield memorial, wearing a bowler hat and swinging his cane, frowning upon the school girls who were doing handstands on the grass.
Talking about the neighbourhood – I have my talk at the local Pt Chev library today! 2.30-3.30. I’d better go practice.
New Metro
This is my Metro comic from June, I think. I always get excited how multi-cultural parks are – it makes me feel happy that I live in Auckland (and I don’t always feel that way). There’s a new Metro out tomorrow, along with a cover story about Lorde, which is cool, because I remember hanging out with her mum in 2010 and her telling me about how her daughter was in talks with record label back then. And now look – she’s famous!
This is a tiny sneak peek at my comic from this month – you’ll have to buy/steal/borrow/peruse it to see more!
This is the second time I’ve managed to get zombies in a Metro comic. I almost had another zombie idea for next month’s one but I had to stop myself. I blame Gus – he’s been obsessed with Plants vs Zombies lately and he wanders around the house saying ‘brains’.
This Saturday I’ll be talking about my comics and the comics in my novel at the Pt Chevalier library between 2.30 and 3.30 – come along, it’s free! The library even did a little feature on me – thanks!
Swans
(the writing in this comic is difficult to read – I’ve just filched it out of my journal because I haven’t had time to write comics for my blog!)
I’m pretty fascinated by swans. I like how elegant and threatening they are. I like their snaky necks, the way that when black swans stretch their wings they reveal an undercoat of white. I like the way their beaks seem red at first glance but then you notice they have a white stripe across the tip. I didn’t realise that they sounded like clarinets. I thought they only sang before they died, which is why it’s called the swan song. But the swans at Western Springs won’t shut up, and they’re not dying.
I don’t remember there being swans in Palmerston North. There were ducks at the lagoon, and my parents would take us down there to feed them bits of bread. I would walk up to the water’s edge and see myself stumbling, sinking into the muck, being pulled under by the weed, emerging slimy green and stinky for life. On the other side of the water were the gardens of the fancy houses and I would imagine what it would be like to live in them, whether I might have a boat to take out each morning, Swallows and Amazons-style.
I first learnt how to play Saint-Saëns’ The Swan when I was sixteen, and then I learnt it again when I took up the cello again at 26. I’d quit once I left home because it was too hard to practice in my youth hostel’s basement when I could’ve been drinking and talking about records with my friends. I quit again at 28, when I moved to New York City. But the swans that mob you for bread are nothing like the swans that glide across the lake. The bread-mobbing swans made it into The Fall of Light, the gliding Saint-Saëns swans made it into Dead People’s Music. I did a search on my short story anthology, Coming Up Roses, and there were swans in there too. I sometimes think about taking up the cello again. I wonder if I’d play The Swan differently now.
When I read my kids my favourite Ruth Manning-Sanders book of Folk and Fairy Tales, swans pop up quite a lot. They help a mermaid enchant an Icelandic prince to keep him captive. They ferry a Native American cannibal over to an island full of skeletons. I’m not the only one who finds them slightly sinister.
In other news, an exhibition of my drawings has opened at Te Manawa, Palmerston North, this Friday. A friend send me some small snaps but I’m hoping to get some bigger ones to show you soon. Check it out if you’re nearby – it will be running for a few months.
I am going in for Serious Literature
(click on this to make it bigger)
I’ve been re-reading Katherine Mansfield stories as part of my research for my book, and this is from ‘Je ne parle pas Français’. The character, Raoul Duquette, is based on Francis Carco, a French writer of Serious Literature that Mansfield had an affair with during World War 1. I thought what he said was rather funny – Mansfield was an excellent satirist. I think I might have secretly hoped for the same thing when I first started out writing. True originality! But alas…
This weekend I’m going to be interviewed by Dylan Horrocks (!! yippee! does a little dance !!) at the Going West Festival in Titirangi. That will be at 10.15am on Sunday 15 September. You can download the programme here. Later on, I will be interviewing Debbie and Matt Cowens about their book Mansfield with Monsters. I just read in this interview that, as high school teachers, Matt and Debbie have translated Mansfield stories into cartoons. I’ll have to interrogate them about that – perhaps we can swap tips.
Unwritten comics
I have been having a frustrating time lately, always busy, never feeling like I’m getting enough done. I’ve got a whole pile of comics written in my head, but none of them have made it onto paper. I do hope to get a new one done this week, but if I don’t, I wanted to let anyone who happens to live in the Christchurch area know that I will be taking part in the arts festival this weekend, Saturday, 11 am. I am very much looking forward to going to Christchurch and seeing what it’s like post-quake. The last time I visited was in 2007, when there was still a cathedral, a wonderful art gallery, and a whole lot of gracious bridges and stone buildings along the riverside.
Did you used to have soft boiled eggs and toast soldiers as a child? I did. I haven’t had it for ages. I might nip and make myself some lunch now. I’ve decided that I’m in the wrong business and I might write a cook book next instead.
New Metro comic
The latest Metro magazine is out, and I have a comic in it about biking. In the mean time, here’s my comic from the late June/July issue. I wrote it pre-book launch and you can see I was expressing my terror of reviews. But as it turned out nobody said it was a folly, nor did I get extra credit for the pictures. Click on it if you want to see it enlarged!
I’m back from my Alexander Turnbull Library talk. I *think* it went well, although I veered way off my notes and didn’t talk about any of the critical framework stuff that might’ve made me seem brainy. Right now I keep on remembering all the things I forgot to say. I did get the wonderful opportunity to look at Mansfield’s notebooks, passport, autograph book and letters and I have newfound admiration for Margaret Scott and John Middleton Murry, who had to decipher her cryptic handwriting. More on this later!
This is the first slide in the presentation I’m going to be doing tomorrow, the 22nd of August, in Wellington. It’s me, with my Frank Sargeson disguise on. I’m quite excited to be going to the National Library. My grandmother worked there for many years as a clerk, where she met my aunt, who she introduced to my uncle. The National Library is responsible for the existence of my cousins.
In other news, a 3-metre-deep sink hole has opened up in Hobson Street, not far from the Katherine Mansfield birthplace. A friend suggests that this might be where I’ll find her. But more directly I’m planning on finding her in her letters and journals, which hopefully I’ll be looking at tomorrow afternoon.
Appearing in public
On Wednesday night, 5pm, I am going to go to Old Government House at Auckland University to talk about what it’s like to be a fiction writer in New Zealand at the moment. This is a picture of the venue – the two times I’ve been I went through the side door so I didn’t realise it had a glorious stand of conifers. I have a mixed relationship with conifers – as a child I hated them (they symbolised suburban torpor to me) but now I like them for their density and symmetry. I get particularly excited when I see a conifer with a branch that’s busted out of formation and is waving about in the wind. The most perfect conifers I’ve seen are at Versailles – I was there over 10 years ago when I was pregnant with Otto – these ones would have no chance of rebelling:
I am going to be talking with three grand dames of NZ literature – Stephanie Johnson, Charlotte Grimshaw and Paula Green. Stephanie’s writing holds a particular place in my heart because when I went to my first writing class at the age of 21, I read her short stories and then her novel and I loved how dark and transgressive and funny it was. It was something I hadn’t yet encountered in New Zealand literature and it was a revelation.
So now I have to think of something clever and eloquent to say. The last time I was on a panel with the incredibly intelligent Charlotte Grimshaw, my inexperience was obvious. I’m hoping that I’ve got better – but maybe I’m doomed to be forever a little bit unsure of myself.
This isn’t my only appearance this week – the next day I fly to Wellington (which experienced a significant earthquake on Friday – thinking of you, Wellingtonians!) to talk about my blog at the Alexander Turnbull Library. That’s at 12pm, Thursday 22 August. I still have to write my talk. I’m going to do that now.
Radio (part 2)
(to be continued)
I realise I’m becoming a tiresome old bore with all these Smiths references, but hopefully you’ll see it as a motif rather than a stuck record. And I will move on – I promise – in the next installment of Radio. Tune in etc.
What I really wanted to mention was this: Dylan Horrocks discussing The Fall of Light and my comics in general on Radio NZ!
Also, for those of you who wanted comics and I didn’t have any left, I now have more in stock. Email me: sarahelizabethlaing@gmail.com and I’ll pop some in the post for you.
LET ME BE FRANK 