Trendy But Casual

New Zealand in Berlin

TM and I are just back from Berlin, where I was taking part in an event called the Berlin Sofa at the English Theatre. Peter Rider, the New Zealand ambassador to Germany, invited me to join him so we could present a short program on NZ lit, with lots of readings and chat.

We divided our presentation into four sections - The Edge of the Universe; This Sporting Life; Islanders; and Flying Kiwi.

The Edge of the Universe - our unique place in the world

‘New Zealand begins with sea and ends with sea. Understand this and you begin to comprehend New Zealand and the New Zealander.’ Maurice Shadbolt

 Poems by Bill Manhire (‘Milky Way Bar’); Allen Curnow (‘House and Land’), and Denis Glover ('Home Thoughts'); part of the story ‘The Doll’s House’ by Katherine Mansfield; the final page of Making Peoples by historian James Belich; and two novel excerpts: The Matriarch by Witi Ihimaera and Tu by Patricia Grace.

This Sporting Life - our national obsession

‘Apart from history, there are only two spheres in which New Zealand has been a world superpower. One is the export of protein. The other is sport.’ James Belich

 Excerpts from two novels - The Book of Fame by Lloyd Jones and Lovelock by James McNeish, and my father's favourite poem,  ‘Referee’ by Hinemoana Baker.

Islanders - voices from the edge

“In a country inhabited for a mere one thousand years, everyone is an immigrant or the descendent of an immigrant.” Michael King

An excerpt from the novel Going West by Maurice Gee, and poems by Selina Tusitala March (‘Guys Like Gauguin’); Sonja Yelich (‘talking to a brick wall’); Tusiata Avia (‘Aunty Lapo’a calls Nafanua and talks about her holiday’); Alison Wong (‘Chinese Settlement, Arrowtown’ and ‘One Hundred Pounds’); and Karlo Mila ('Sacred Pulu').

Flying Kiwi - writers (and books) that roam

“The islands are moving.” Dylan Horrocks

Excerpts from two novels - The Conductor by Sarah Quigley and Rangatira (by me) and from the essay ‘NZ Return’ by the late, great Nigel Cox.

In addition to the readings, we showed various clips, beginning with clip of the All Blacks' haka (there was method to this madness - believe me: we wanted to talk about oral traditions, and also about exploring NZ BEYOND the All Blacks), then a short film about our books and writers made when New Zealand was invited to be 2012 Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair. At the end of the second section, just before the break - for a good deal of NZ wine - we showed an amazing clip of Jack Lovelock winning the 1500 metres and breaking the world record at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, with a commentary by Harold Abrahams. At the medal ceremony, by the way, the anthem played was God Save the King ...

During the 'pause' we played some footage from the Diversity Stage at Polyfest, so people could see the range of cultures and languages represented in Auckland high schools. You can see the 2012 performances here. At the very end of the programme, after we talked about possible futures for NZ lit, and emerging new voices. So of course we couldn't resist ending with a clip of Joshua Iosefo's 'Brown Brother' speech. You can see the original and the TV3 version on YouTube.

The event was quite a success, I think, with a good-sized audience of both native English- and German-speakers. Peter Rider was an excellent reader, and I hammed it up, as ever. Lots of audience members wanted to hang around and talk afterwards. We wanted to include more excerpts, but time was limited, of course. The audience especially liked the third section, even though there were numerous cultural references (and words from various languages) that were new to them. People were willing to make the imaginative leap, and to immerse themselves in the unexpected, the unfamiliar ... Unlike a certain profoundly ignorant Danish politician.

I loved being in Berlin. I like the way cities jolt me out of routine, the way they swarm over me with their new noises and sights and smells. (And tastes, too: let's not forget currywurst.) The picture above is us in the dome of the Reichstag. Below are a few more Berlin pictures - random, of course, as I can't seem to manage anything orderly these days.

 

So Much Germany

We're going back to Germany this weekend, so I can take part in The Berlin Sofa event at the English Theatre there on Monday night. We have lots of poems and excerpts from novels and non-fiction to read, and lots to talk about, so I hope we can fit it all in.

TMiddy is coming along, but it's unlikely that Berlin can match Hamburg for him - for this reason:

 

He can only be John Lennon in Hamburg.

Tom Time

We live in Sheffield now, apparently. The last two weeks have been about packing and unpacking, lugging and wheezing, driving up and down the country. After almost five hours of carrying furniture and boxes down three flights of stairs, our East End movers were exhausted. (“Thank God that’s over,” one said.) The next day they had to set off at five AM to drive to Yorkshire. We live on the ground floor now, so moving us in only took them two hours. I think it’ll take us about two months to unpack.

We like it here, though we still can’t find a post office. At night the only noise is the rushing of the river, Porter Brook. It sounds like tropical rain.

I’m on a book deadline, so won’t write much here today. Here’s the story catch-up, for those of you following the game:

 

Story #56: ‘The Light of the World’ by Ernest Hemingway (1933)

Story #57: ‘Her Table Spread’ by Elizabeth Bowen (1930)

Story #58: ‘A Tale of the Cavalry’ by Hugo Von Hoffmansthal (1898)

Story #59: ‘I Am an American’ by James Alan McPherson (1974)

Story #60: ‘The Night Face Up’ by Julio Cortazar (1967)

Story #61: ‘The Visit’ by Stephen Millhauser (1998)

Story #62: ‘Troll Bridge’ by Neil Gaiman (1999)

Story #63: ‘7 PM Wife’ by Dan Lungu (2005)

Story #64: ‘What You Hear From ‘Em?’ by Peter Taylor (1968)

Story #65: ‘Making Father Pay’ by Frank Sargeson (1975)

Story #66: ‘The Eye of the Maples’ by Ieva Toleikyte (2011)

Story #67: ‘The Story of the Siren’ by E. M. Forster (1928)

Story #68: ‘Thunder Snow’ by Ari Behn (2011)

Story #69: ‘My Aunt Gold Teeth’ by V. S. Naipaul (1958)

Story #70: ‘Aurelia Frequenzia Reveals the Heart and Mind of the Man of Destiny’ by Richard Stern (1976)

Story #71: ‘Swans’ by Janet Frame (1951)

Story #72: ‘Connie Bronson’ by Marilynne Robinson (1986)

Story #73: ‘The Rule of Jenny Pen’ by Owen Marshall (1992)

Story #74: ‘You Leave Them’ by Mona Simpson (1985)

 

Recently, on one of our many long drives, TM announced his intention to have his own show on BBC Radio Sheffield. We agreed that it should be called ‘Tom Time.’

PM: You could have phone-ins.

TM: I could have phone-ins and cut people off.

PM: You would be good at that.

TM: I could have a segment where I predict the lyrics of songs.

PM: You could have a segment called ‘Tom Knows Best.’

TM: That would be the whole show. And it would have to be an afternoon show, because I like to sleep late, and I get tired in the evenings.

 

Stories, ongoing

A quick update on my New Year’s Resolution to read a short story every day. Today is January 24, so I’m up to 24 stories. TM and I have been on the road, looking for somewhere cheap and big to live in Yorkshire, so a few of the stories were found in an anthology – The Persephone Book of Short Stories – taken along for the ride.

15: ‘Rain’ by W. Somerset Maugham (1920)

16: ‘The Reptile Garden’ by Louise Erdrich (2008)

17: ‘Here We Are’ by Dorothy Parker (1931)

18: ‘The Orphan’ by Nell Freudenberger (2003)

19: ‘The Martyr’ by Katherine Anne Porter (1923)

20: ‘The Photograph’ by Phyllis Bentley (1935)

21: ‘A View of Exmoor’ by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1948)

22: ‘Fort Wayne is Seventh on Hitler’s List’ by Michael Martone (1990)

23: ‘Mkondo’ by Anthony Doerr (2002)

24: ‘A Parisian Affair’ by Maupassant (1881)

At this point, everything is still new to me – or, at least, if I’ve read the story before, I don’t remember it. This is what happens as you slide towards the grave, according to TM.

Today we moved all the books and most of the papers out of my office in Stirling, so the end of that particular story now seems more real and imminent. Not short enough, perhaps.

During our trip, I questioned TM about the language of the olden days, when he was a lad.

PM: Did you say things like ‘bread’ instead of money?

TM: No.

PM: Did you say ‘far out’?

TM: No.

PM: Did you say ‘groovy’?

TM: No. I don’t know anyone who said that.

PM: Well, Greg Brady said it all the time on The Brady Bunch, but whatever. Did you call people ‘man’?

TM: Yes. It’s a useful thing.

PM: What about ‘dude’?

TM: That came later.

PM: Did you like the song ‘Wooly Bully’? [Note: this is one of my favorite songs]

TM: Yes. But I thought it was a bit gimmicky.

PM: Do you think Neil Young is a good singer? [Note: I do not think this.]

TM: I’m not going to answer that question.

I find that this kind of intellectual exchange – like the ones Wordsworth used to have with Coleridge, say, during a hearty stride across the fells – helps to pass time driving up and down the M6.

 

 

Habits, hobbies, resolutions

Recently TM told me that my hobbies were not actual hobbies. A harsh verdict, I feel. My hobbies are watching TV while lying down (in bed or on sofa); doing jigsaws; and being driven around in cars. What’s wrong with these?

I don’t count reading and writing as hobbies. They’re work. Enjoyable and rewarding work, but still. And they’re more than work, of course, more than hobbies. They’re a necessary part of every day.

My other interests, by the way, include cooking; browsing the marketplace/eating Swedish meatballs at IKEA; looking up Merrill paper dolls and coloring books on Ebay; and turning this year’s Christmas cards into next year’s gift tags. But I don’t know that any of these count as hobbies, really. Especially the IKEA one, as I get to go there so rarely. (We don’t have a car, and anyway, you have to keep the magic alive.)

One of my new year’s resolutions has more to do with work than hobbies. It’s to read a short story every day. A published short story: student work doesn’t count. (Students will understand.) No particular rules to this resolution, though I’m trying to read as much as possible that’s new to me, and I hope to range around in time and country of origin throughout the year.

Not much ranging has been possible so far. Because I’ve been traveling – in the US, hence American spelling here – most of the stories this past week have been found on the New Yorker web site. I’ve been doing research on Jean Rhys at the University of Tulsa library, thanks to a Carnegie Grant. It’s been an enormously productive week, with the added benefit of proximity to Route 66 and fantastic Tex-Mex food. Here is a picture of Tulsa.

Today is the fourteenth day of January, so I’ve read fourteen short stories.

Stories so far:

1.  ‘In the Penal Colony’ by Kafka (1914; published 1919).

2. ‘Love in the Slump’ by Evelyn Waugh (1932).

3. ‘The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor’ by Deborah Eisenberg (1994).

4. ‘Heaven-Hell’ by Jhumpa Lahiri (2008).

5. ‘The Immortal’ by Jorge Luis Borges (1949).

6. ‘The Lost Order’ by Rivka Galchen (2013).

7. ‘Night Out 1925’ by Jean Rhys (published in 1976 but written much earlier).

8, ‘Creative Writing’ by Edgar Keret (2012).

9: ‘The Semplica Girl Diaries’ by George Saunders (2012).

10: ‘Elsie by Starlight’ by John Updike (2004).

11: ‘Paper Losses’ by Lorrie Moore (2006).

12: ‘Starlight’ by Ann Beattie (2011).

13: ‘Bull’ by Mo Yan (2012).

14: ‘Experience’ by Tessa Hadley (2013).

I will not be impudent enough to give reviews of any story or – horror of horrors – assign a star rating. If I were in charge of things in the world, as I so clearly should be, I would force everyone to go cold turkey on star ratings for a while. Just a few months, maybe, so people could take a break from pronouncing their opinions and verdicts and prejudices, and deciding whether they liked something or not, and lying awake at night pondering whether they need to deduct half a star because there aren’t enough special features on a DVD …

But I guess I can share some favorite quotes without violating the review rule. So far: ‘Nothing can happen in England’ (Waugh) and ‘Actually have never been to Europe myself. Dad felt portion sizes there too small’ (Saunders).

Please join me in my story-reading hobby-resolution-thing, even if it’s just for a week or a month. I’ll keep updating my list here. You can send me story suggestions as well, but I may not pay any attention. There are enough short stories in anthologies and collections on our book shelves to keep me busy for several years, and TM keeps Suggesting Things, needless to say.

By the way, during a recent Skype session with a class in Illinois, the librarian told me that my hobbies are quite similar to those of her students – especially being driven around in cars. But she pointed out that this is because they are eighth-graders, and too young to drive themselves.

 

Season of mists, etc

For ages I've been telling myself: post those pictures of autumn in Switzerland! It was so beautiful and sunny and autumnal! It was just like being in New England again, except much, much more expensive (and singularly lacking in branches of Friendly's)!

But then time passes, things happen - we return to Glasgow; I resign from my job; snow starts falling, etc - and it seems too late to show off the Swiss autumn. Or is it?

Some of these were taken in or near Stein am Rhein, and some in Zofingen, where I was taking part in a festival.

But time marches on. Tomorrow on this blog: our Christmas party.

While You Were Sleeping

Or, perhaps, while I was not blogging here, I was blogging elsewhere.

Since I last posted, I've had some interesting and difficult times, and some of the more interesting (and least difficult) involved trips to Germany. Rangatira has been published in German, and I've been over there four times this northern summer - Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne. This week TMiddy and I head off to Frankfurt for the Book Fair and then, after a quick return to Glasgow so I can teach some classes, we fly to Switzerland for the Zofingen Festival. Unbelievably, because of the busy-ness of my schedule, I had to say no to readings in Zurich and Vienna. I've never been to Vienna, and desperately want to go - not just to eat Sachertorte, though obviously that's the chief draw - but the timing just didn't work out.

So it's off to Frankfurt now, and to a complicated schedule and (no doubt) to an overwhelming experience at the Book Fair. The theme of the NZ Guest of Honour programme at Frankfurt this year is While You Were Sleeping - coincidentally the title of my favourite Sandra Bullock movie - but I doubt we'll be getting much sleep there, especially if all all sixty New Zealand authors are staying at the same hotel. Will Fergus Barrowman lure us into evil-doing involving late nights at the hotel bar? Will I forget to change the time on my phone so I'm an hour late to every interview, as I was in Berlin? Most important of all, will there be time to go shopping at Kaufhof?

I've promised TMiddy that I'm going to write a Frankfurt diary for this blog, after the official opening of the New Zealand Pavilion, when I write my final blog post for the FBF site. That's where I've been posting for the past few months. The first was about how New Zealand is not Venezuela; the next was about the New Zealand Post Book Awards. Later in August I wrote about Maori novelists, and in September about taking part in the Long Night of Maori Stories at the Berlin Festival. My most recent post was about my reading in Cologne with Sarah Quigley.

Despite my recent travails - anxiety, depression - I'm looking forward to Frankfurt very much. As well as various readings and discussions, I'll be taking part - for or the first and possibly only time in my life - in the same interview series as a Nobel winner, Herta Mueller. Not at the same time, you understand, but still: we'll sit on the same blue sofa ...

 

 

 

London + Summer + 2012 = ?

Something is up in London this week, involving banners, flags, symbols, and a very dodgy security firm. What could it be? Here is some evidence, assiduously collected yesterday during a walk along the sun-drenched South Bank and environs. (Though the first few pics were taken around the West End the day before, when we first realized that SOMETHING IS UP IN LONDON.)

At St Pancras Station:

 

Near Jermyn Street in Piccadilly, where we visit Taylor's of Old Bond Street on a regular basis for TMiddy's Victorian-era shaving supplies (because only the best will do for Tikileaks operatives):

Around Covent Garden:

In case you want to see evidence of some of the £284 million spent on G4S Security, £65 million of which went on uniforms:

Along the South Bank, walking east (and please note that I can spot the NZ flag at 100 paces: should this be an Olympic sport of the future?):

 

Because it was sunny, and a Sunday, about 10 million people were walking along the river. So of course the "Have a Question?" booth was closed:

 

TMiddy felt artiness/Cubism descend upon him, which is why we had to stop soon after for an ice cream and a sit-down:

 

These flags are flying outside City Hall. There was a third flag next to them, but we didn't know what it meant, so TM cropped it out - just the way NBC cropped out the one non-American medal winner (Merlene Ottey) on a podium last time I was forced to watch their lame coverage of the athletics:

Switzerland in the house:

TMiddy, post-ice cream:

And me, wondering if I'm too old to qualify for the next Games, maybe in Archery or some other sport that doesn't involve running or jumping about:

So here is the evidence. Draw your own conclusions. I'm flying back to New Zealand today, so I can be vaguely awake by the time the New Zealand Post Book Awards comes around next week.

 

 

Hamburg I

Last Monday I went to Hamburg for the first time, to talk to a group of journalists about New Zealand, NZ lit/writers, and numerous other topics, which may or may not have included the various international versions of NEXT TOP MODEL. (I wasn't the one who brought this up. Or was I?)

It was a warm and mostly sunny day, which was a relief after so many days/weeks of dire weather in the UK. It rains pretty much every day at the moment - not just in Glasgow, but everywhere. I flew out of Heathrow that morning in the drizzle and returned to a rain storm.

In Hamburg the lunch I was attending with the fabuous Tanea Heke took place at Au Quai down on the harbour. I only had a short time to wander around before lunch, so the pictures (below) are all taken just steps from the restaurant, or from the terrace of Au Quai. Sorry they give such an abbreviated view of the city.

I'm calling this post 'Hamburg I' because TMiddy and I had already planned a trip to Hamburg later this year, for his birthday at the end of November. Then we'll have more of a chance to explore its waterways and parks and museums, I hope, and all its Beatles-related history (TM), and all of its Weihnachtsmarkts (PM). The pieces of Hamburg I glimpsed on this trip were by turns impressive and beautiful and grand. And it wasn't raining.

 

 

This week we're back in Glasgow, and I realized that it's been c five months since I spent every day of an entire week in Glasgow, without bolting up to Stirling, or making one of my endless excursions further afield. In fact, it's Tuesday night now, and I haven't even left the house since Saturday. I keep waiting for the sun to come out, so I may be here for some time.

 

Frankfurt (I)

Earlier this week I was in Frankfurt to speak at a press conference about New Zealand's literary and cultural programme at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair (where NZ will be Guest of Honour). An impressive 120+ members of the media attended. Equally impressive: the Frankfurter Buchmesse building, a serene mix of old and new, with big windows and secret courtyards; everyone in the press conference putting up with English speeches, and asking questions in English; and us lazy English speakers getting a live translation whenever director Jurgen Boos spoke in German. (Less impressive: three people hired to dress as a Hobbit, an Elf and one other LOTR creature - not sure who insisted on their presence, but I'm sure it wasn't the Book Fair.)

Afterwards I did various interviews while everyone else enjoyed a barbeque in the sunshine. By the time I made it out into the courtyard everyone was eating these odd biscuits, which were masquerading as pavlovas:

I've been to Frankfurt a number of times in my life - at different phases of my life, I guess - and every time it seems like a completely new place to me, perhaps because I've rarely had the time to just wander around.

My first trip there was in the late 70s, with my parents and brother, when we were visiting family friends who live in nearby Offenbach. I don't remember much that was Frankfurt-specific from that trip, because we went to a number of places in Germany and my chief memories from those visits are a) placing everyone's orders at breakfast, lunch and dinner in my third-form German; b) buying gigantic grapes in a market (and eating them); and c) beginning my life-long love affair with German Christmas decorations and the shops that sell them. Did we go to the Goethehaus? I don't remember. At that point in my life I didn't realize that Goethe stayed absolutely everywhere, or that any inn that housed him for a night would nail up an historic plaque the next day. Really, you could be in Amarillo, Texas, and discover that Goethe had spent the night there once. Schiller might have popped by as well. They are the Muck and Brass of German lit.

I digress. When I was in my 20s, and a university student in England, I went back to Frankfurt with my brother and sister. (My sister was studying in Freiburg for a semester.) It was grey and cold - November or December, maybe. I have a photo of my brother standing outside Kaufhof and grinning. My sister was pregnant (with my nephew), and all she could keep down was a McDonald's filet o' fish. All WE wanted were the delicious sliced dumplings that Mrs Bauer made, remembered, with fond greediness, from our visit in 1978.

After that Frankfurt was reduced in my life to an airport I passed through while travelling on business, especially once I'd moved to the US. For a time I was working for a German company based in Munich, and as well as attending meetings there I had to go to a festival in Badenweiler in the Black Forest every year. Frankfurt was the place my bags went astray. In those days my first impression of Frankfurt airport was always the same: smoke. (You can't smoke in the airport anymore, though this didn't stop the Korean men in the immigration queue with me on Sunday buying and carrying vast quantities of duty-free cigarettes.)

When that phase of my life (happily) was over, I went back a few times to stay with my sister and her family, who were spending six months living and working there. In the summer we went to the Botanical Garden for my nephew's tenth birthday; in the winter, when my niece turned seven, we set off for Sleeping Beauty's Castle. In the weeks before Christmas we drank Gluhwein in the Weinachtsmarkt, where there were real-life miniature ponies in the carousel.

Frankfurt was my setting-off point for train trips to Prague in the summer and Italy in the winter, and the city I was delighted to see again after coming down with a nasty flu in Italy, getting stranded by a train strike, and being told, by an Italian travel agent, that I couldn't use a credit card to buy a plane ticket back.

Frankfurt was a place of calm and order after the chaos of that particular trip. I was so happy to see my brother-in-law and nephew waiting for me at the airport, and to go home to the cheery comfort of their one-bedroom, seventeenth-floor flat. My sister was conducting an experiment into how many visiting friends could be squeezed in for an overnight stay. I think the most at any one time was four adults and four children, with my poor nephew in the hallway behind the front door. Once when I was there, two people - New Zealanders, needless to say - were sleeping outside on the small terrace. When the landlady came around, we tried to pretend everyone had just dropped in for a cup of tea.

Back then TMiddy was a boyfriend rather than a husband (or indentured servant, as he would no doubt say), so he didn't come to Frankfurt with me. Whenever we got stuck playing 'Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?' we would ring him, until he found out his phone bill was out of control and had to throw himself on the mercy of AT&T.

His first visit to Frankfurt was just last year: we flew there to meet my niece, who was studying in Heidelberg. Another birthday: this time, her 20th. (It felt like one minute since we were driving off to Sleeping Beauty's Castle in Sababurg for her seventh birthday: now we were driving to Zurich to visit friends, and she was more keen on a Zara gift voucher than Barbie's Vet Office.) TM's only interaction with a Frankfurter, aside from the guy at the rental car desk, was a typical encounter for us at the end of a trip when we're trying to return the car. Because we can never find a petrol station nearby, we end up driving too far into the airport; getting ensnared in its one-way system; finding ourselves snagged in traffic or trapped by barriers or herded into a carpark; and relying on the kindness of a stranger (usually uniformed) to point us in the right direction and let us off whatever fee we'd incurred by driving into some security zone. Frankfurt was no exception, but the difference was the perfect English of the uniformed stranger.

Visiting Frankfurt this week felt odd, in part because I stayed at a hotel rather than with family or friends, and in part because I was here for the first time as a writer, getting the chance to talk about my own books rather than coming to Germany to sell other people's creative work. Euro 2012 is going on right now, so the day I arrived, Diana (my minder - you can see her in the 'beer' picture below) and I wandered the streets, looking for a place to sit outside and watch that night's game. Every bar and restaurant had multiple TV screens, so we were just trying to secure a decent view. We found somewhere in the end - a place to sit in the street, cheer for Germany and eat currywurst. And, of course, to inhale vast amounts of smoke from everyone sitting around us. The airport may have banned them, but German smokers persevere.

The pictures below are Frankfurt, or a very small sliver of it, over two sunny days in June 2012, when Germany beat Denmark and all was well with the world. I'm looking forward to coming back in October for six days during the Book Fair, and for seeing and doing much more.