Busy weeks passed and more ahead

What's been happening? Well, Doris, there was my workshop which knocked me out but was great fun. I was thinking of doing one a month, but have now opted for one a year. We got immersed in lots of words and I'm now tempted to have a go at screenwriting.

I also met up with Lisa and Nick (Lisa from LinkedIn) who were over from California, and discovered that they, too, were doing the screenwriting thing. Must be something in the air, or is it all those Austrian awards?

Now I'm preparing for Mitzi's visit and her reading at Shakespeare & Company and our Mutzenbacher tour. But before that, on 11 July, Grayson from Oz via Eire will be launching his CD at Cafe Kafka. And before that, on 3 July, our all-night Open Mic at Kafka. OK, I'm spooling backwards, but will catch up next time.

Small is beautiful, and bigger than you think

These last 4-day weeks have just whizzed with a great atmosphere in the (short) day job and two compact extremes of Viennese culture on the weekend.

Friday night saw the performance of porno.lyrix in the Reading Room in Margareten. It was a bilingual performance by Franz Mayr, Carina Nekolny and Sylvia Petter, with tongues very much into cheeky cheeks. Based on original texts in Viennese dialect by Carina Nekolny and translated into English by yours truly, the performance was accompanied by the exhibition of artwork by Jakob Nekolny and craft work by Carina. Here's my rendering of the official Reading Room Summer Programme:
"An artificial porno performance, bilingual in word, image and sound by and with the "Kunstkolchose ahoj". A peep n' byte form of the performance was part of the Margaretener Kunst und Kulturmesse. For reasons beyond our understanding it was excluded (censored?) from the programme of the Wiener Bezirksfestwochen." The original texts were part of the Vienna Poetry Academy's contribution to the Vienna Festwochen in 2006. So much for censorship.

At the other end of the cultural scale was Chamber Music in the Mozart Haus on Saturday night with works by Mozart, Haydn and Mendelsson. (On the Thursday night, Barenboim gave a free concert at Schoenbrunn where he tried to symphonise the little night music, probably forgetting that small can be so beautiful.)

Now off to prepare for my workshop on Saturday...

I'm not racist, but ... try and advance, Australia Fair

Just back in Vienna after a month in Sydney, and watching French TV coverage of the way Australians treated Indian students in Melbourne - "curry bashing" they called it. I'm with Bollywood star, Amitabh Bachchan, who may turn down an honorary degree from Brisbane University. Whichever way he goes, I'm with him.

I'm sorry, Australia, but you've got to do something about what you grow your kids up on. Not all of you mind, but those trapped in a corner, who only know violence as the way out. Or maybe more of the others, too, that you might want to admit. The silent majority. My God, how it sucks. That is the legacy of a government weaned on a policy of "white", of a fading minority loath to admit its failings despite the word "Sorry".

I'm sorry, Australia. As an immigrant child in the 50s, one of yours at Loreto Convent called me a Nazi just because I was different. Back home in Sydney in the 70s, a cab driver with a European Strine accent railed at Vietnamese taking the jobs. All they were doing was working bloody hard.

Australians abroad, at least in Geneva, are known to be bloody hard workers, the women at least. I'm sorry, Australia. But, I wasn't the only UN expat ashamed of our Human Rights record when JH was at the helm. Oz radio was full of tirades at the "bleeding hearts" then. I was home to vote and when I found myself off the electoral roll in my local community, a chap with a South African accent told me that I had no right t vote if I didn't live in the country. And what about expats? They miss their Australia.

I remember in the days of JH, I was on home leave and homesick. I applied for a job in the PM's Office. Rang the Honcho in charge of the Cabinet, had a long discussion (I had great international credentials). Said I didn't agree with all of JH's policies. Why do you want to work in his Cabinet, Honcho asked. I'm Australian. I believe it's important to not hear the yes-men all the time. Hearing another POV is good for forming an opinion. Doesn't mean you have to change. At least you know. I never heard anything more. Guess I may be on file. I was already considered pink around the gills during the Cold War.

I've hit 60 now, Australia. I'm wondering if I should maybe come home one day soon while I can still get around. No worries, I don't need your Centrelink, have never taken from you. But I grew up in a country I still dream of as wonderful and can remember the country whose passport I once was proud to carry. Now I just carry that passport. Australia. And line up for the visas I happen to need wherever I go. Dislocated? You bet!

Mate, you should have stuck with "Waltzing Matilda".

Maybe Anita Heiss' book, I'm not racist, but ... will knock some sense into me.

Sydney-Wien

It's been over a month since I've blogged. For some reason I like to be at my desk and don't like blogging on the run. This saves me from having to upgrade and buy the latest tech stuff I can't afford, and anyway, I don't want to put my trusty hamster out of a job. He's so good at keeping that wheel turning, specially while I'm blocked.

When I planned my trip to Sydney for graduation and the first family reunion in ages, I did what they tell you to do on a plane - put your own mask on first before attending to others. This may seem a little selfish, but ... So instead of starting my Sydney stay with my 60th birthday and ending it with my PhD graduation, I booked the tickets for hubby and me to begin with graduation and culminate with my very selfish choice of the Sydney Writers' Festival. I rang Newcastle writing mate, Patrick Cullen, whom I'd met in Cork at last year's International Conference on the Short Story in English to hang out with me at the SWF. (Patrick's story collection, What Came Between, will be out soon.) Interesting title - as something did come between and had to take priority over the SWF.

My Mum had had a fall at Easter and was in hospital and the rest of my time in Sydney was spent on the mission impossible of settling her into a nice and safe place. Mission accomplished. The moral is - had I not had the selfish SWF plan, my timing would have been awry - karma? You bet.

The SWF has not left my thoughts. Nor has the wonderful world of the short story. How often had I heard that in Australia and elsewhere, no way can the short story fly. And now - just look at it go. Tania Hershman of The Short Review gets an Orange mention; Alex Keegan, venerable writing Boot Camp sergeant goes Ballistics; Petina Gappah from Switzerland shows the way to change; Nam Le beats novels to rake in Oz prizes and Alice Munro nudges Carey out of the running. The short story is back - it was never absent.

Now to get more Aussie short-story writers and critics to the next International Conference on the Study of the Short Story in English to be held in Toronto. And after that, why not have the Conference take place in Australia and demonstrate not only the universality of the genre, but that you can't keep a good story down? And maybe the SWF can swing such a conference in on her coattails ... Just maybe and what if?

The Bridesmaid Stories

Dear Doris,
Have I told you about the bridesmaid stories? Well, you know the saying: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. I mean, every bride needs a bridesmaid, at least in her dreams. The bride, in the best of all possible worlds only lives once though, albeit in glory. The bridesmaid can go for repeats. Well, there are stories like that and I've got lots. I'm actually quite fond of them and others are too. They've all been through some sort of editing process, been commended or shortlisted, but never heavyweight enough to have had anyone popping the question. But hey, they touched people, brought a smile to their faces, a little aha. So what I've done in these Fi-Cri times of gloom and recession is to put them out there over at Scribd for readers to spend a few moments getting away from the serious stuff. So Doris, you're welcome to swing on by. And, yes, I'll be adding lots more.

Avoiding rules with double standards

In the early 90s I wrote a story called The Rules of the Game. It was about kids coexisting in the backyard bush and I tried to model it on the UN and the various agencies, I guess according to how I perceived that organisation to have been intended. It was the time when the PLO wanted to sit in UN meetings. I thought at the time that it would be better to let those who thought differently in to the club rather than shut them out. Once in, everyone would have to abide by the rules. Naive?

Today, reading in the SMH that Western countries walked out of the UN Conference I'm rethinking those thoughts, but I still come to the same conclusion. You set up an organisation for a better world, your members have different viewpoints - some of which you align with under other circumstances depending on political stakes - so all you need to do is get your members to thrash things out at the conference table. Naive?

So you try and get everyone inside. What happens? I don't want to go. I might get trapped. I might lose face. I might lose money. I might lose my job. OK, I'll go. Childish?

So a lot of one side turn up and some of the other. The ones in the smaller group have been calling the shots for a long while so they know the ropes. But they seem to be finding the kitchen too hot and so walk out. I don't want to stay. I don't want to play. Not with you. I might lose. I might lose face. I might lose money. I might lose my job. Childish?

And offstage behind the scenes are men, women and children who just want to get on with their lives, want their children to have a life, to have a world; want their politicians and puppetmasters to stop playing dangerous games in which we all are the pawns; want them to grow up. Naive?

In My Bed By the Skin of the Nose

I'm pleased to report that my story, "By the Skin of the Nose", appears in Skin, Issue #5 and anniversary issue of bright and classy In My Bed Magazine. I'd better tell AstridL.

Southsea revisited

The book of performance texts of the South Pacific Yearning project is now out and you can get a copy for 5 Euro from the OSPG. It's a multilingual work with texts in German and Wienerisch, kindly integrating my reactions in English to the same.

Dreaming of a Better World - charity Exhibition

On Thursday, 22 April at 19.00 there'll be the opening of an art exhibition in aid of street kids in Guatemala. It's being co-sponsored by the Welt Cafe (world cafe) and the Afro-Asian Institute. Both sites have listed the exhibition under their events. The exhibition will run until 27 May 2009.

My friend, Sharon Ratheiser, who provided the artwork for my website and for my two books, has donated a painting entitled Hope to be raffled at the opening.

Artichokes are flowers, too

I just uploaded Vegetable Love, an early chapter of Tillandsia, my novel (still) in progress, to Scribd. to take its temperature and was looking for an appropriate pic to go with it. While formatting photos I took in the Naschmarkt the other day, I found an artichoke, but as a flower, so I thought I'd post a bouquet of tulips to go with this lovely spring weather we're having in Vienna. Logical? Happy Spring!