Trendy But Casual

Talking

Tonight I'm taking part in a panel at the Auckland City Library: it's a New Zealand Book Month event, called "Does Fiction Matter?" Other participants are Iain Sharp and Gordon McLauchlan, so two things are certain: we'll all have a lot of say, and I'll be wearing the most make-up. It starts at 7 PM on Level 2 of the library, but the free wine, courtesy of Glengarry's, will start flowing at 6:30 PM. This is a ploy by the library, I think, to get the panelists there on time.

I've just heard that I'm supposed to make some sort of prepared statement rather than just "discuss", so I'm now in panic mode.

Over at Bookman Beattie's blog, there's a short interview with me about the new book. I am fascinating. Really.

Memory Loss

For the second morning running, I heard bagpipes … but now the mystery is solved. Yesterday and today were graduation days. People in academic dress were all over Albert Park, getting their photos taken, brandishing bouquets, or wearing garlands (including one very tasty-looking one made from mini chocolate bars). The bagpipers were there to lead them down Bowen Lane and along Queen Street to the Town Hall.  I walked in the same parade in May, 1985. My fringe was dyed pink to match the BA hood. After the degree ceremony, John Reynolds took my picture in Myers Park, and then my brother and I went to the big Monet exhibition at the City Gallery. I don’t remember the bagpipes but then, I forget so much these days.

Like John McCain, perhaps, forgetting that he thought the fundamentals of the economy were fine JUST LAST WEEK.

This election season in the US has been quite strange, but now it’s surreal. McCain wants to suspend the campaign. He wants to cancel the first debate. He suggests it could take place when the VP debate was scheduled, thus sparing Palin from having to come up with cogent answers to demanding questions. Palin is made to look almost as foolish and unprepared as she truly is by … Katie Couric, of all people. Paulson is trying to rush through his emergency save-the-banks package – because apparently, he wasn’t aware the economy was tanking until a few days ago – in a way that’s eerily reminiscent of the ramming-through of the so-called Patriot Act.

The sky is falling down, apparently. McCain and Palin are actually achieving the unthinkable: making GWB look intelligent and vaguely presidential. Meanwhile, the Ol’ Devil has just given a post-Katrina-like speech, in which he talks about the terrible problem that really wasn’t anything to do with his administration’s incompetence – oh no! not at all – and how something drastic needs to be done to fix it, and how he’s on top of it all; but then he has to leave town (or, in this case, office) and it’s someone else’s problem.

I know I don’t usually talk about anything political on this blog, but please: if anyone American is reading this, and you haven’t yet registered to vote … register now. This election is too important. The economy is imploding, the war is still going on and on, and the McCain and Palin ticket is … what to say here? Shall I start with unfit? Or cynical? Or incompetent? Or desperate?  

By the way, I like what Wanda Sykes has to say about people who don’t vote.

What a strange, strange couple of days.

Publishing

This is my new book. It's coming out quite soon. If I was on the ball about these things (anything), I'd know when. This morning I have my first interview about it, with a journalist for a national paper. I'm so out of the habit of being the interviewee: asking questions seems a lot easier.

 

The cover image relates to a paragraph in "Like a Mexican," the story that opens the collection.

"You’ve been to Spain; you’ve seen men like Carlos before. You walked past them each evening in the streets of Seville, where they stood around outside bars with big windows and tiled floors, expensive jackets flung over their arms, laughing and drinking and smoking. They were sturdy and well-fed. They seemed to know the order of things in life, the way things were done. They weren’t like English men, who stood outside pubs, pint glasses balanced on window sills, or crammed themselves into aluminum café chairs on a wind-blown pavement, shouting over the roars of passing buses." 

My publicist at Penguin just e-mailed me with the release date: September 29, next Monday. I wonder when the queues will start to form?

Here in the Sargeson flat I have the windows open. Somewhere on campus, bagpipes are playing. The birds are going nuts. I'm going to walk to the interview, which will take place at the Alleluya Cafe in St Kevin's Arcade, on Karangahape Road. Hopefully during the walk I'll gather my thoughts.

LA

It’s Friday, just over a week since I arrived back in the US, and here I am, once again, in LAX, waiting to fly. Last night I dreamt that I was looking for my boarding pass in a suitcase full of them: someone else had to dig out the correct boarding pass for me, among all the confusing pieces of paper. (In another part of the dream, I was flying in a large plane very low over France, except it looked like London, and all the plane bathrooms had vast floor-to-ceiling windows, making sightseeing – both ways – entirely possible.)

At least a dream about being overwhelmed by boarding passes is easier to read than a dream I had last week, about being asked to carry as many young mountain lions as possible in my car. I could only manage five.

Last week, when I made this journey in reverse, I spent the night in Los Angeles for the first time in years – not counting my forced stay at the airport Hilton in July, when “bird strike” grounded the plane overnight, and Victoria Beckham had to be whisked, in her PJs, to another airline’s first-class cabin. Los Angeles and I go way back, ie to July, 1978, when I first visited the US. We stayed at the mock-Tudor Sheraton Anaheim and went to Disneyland and Universal Studios. It was very, very hot. On the long bus ride from the airport to the hotel, I saw giant American flags along the side of the highway. I don’t think I’d pay that much attention to such a thing now, but then, coming from New Zealand, it struck me as quite bizarre.

On that trip, I went to my first American drugstore. My brother and I bought Bubble Yum, something I’ve never subsequently felt compelled to purchase. We both got Mickey Mouse ears, but only my brother ever wore his again. All around Europe, as I recall. On every street corner, I thought I saw characters from the TV shows we watched, like Eight is Enough and Family and The Brady Bunch. I did not, as hoped, see Leif Garrett or Shaun Cassidy.

In the late 80s and early 90s, I came here a lot, to visit my dear friend Julia Hamlin (now Marsden) when she lived in an apartment building on Larrabee, just off Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, near Tower Records and all the big-hair-band clubs. I’d be flying either to or from Auckland from London. Julia’s first apartment there was a studio: we’d eat pizza, and watch videos on TV, and drive down to the Beverly Center to see Fatal Attraction and buy cotton sweaters at the Limited.

Later she moved into a one-bedroom place in the same building. We still watched videos and ate pizza, but we did other things too, like wander along Melrose, get our Tarot cards read in Venice, drive down to Tijuana, drive up to Santa Barbara, go see Los Lobos play in Hollywood on New Year’s Eve, and eat many drunken meals at El Coyote. We also ate at Ed Debevic’s and Barney’s Beanery and In N Out Burger. At some point, in some bar, a guy told me he was an actor and had appeared in several movies. I asked him if I might have seen any of the movies in question. He told me they were all kung fu movies.

On at least two of the visits, I wore my green suede fringed jacket – bought at the old Affleck’s Palace in Manchester – and heart-shaped sunglasses. In other places, these items were too ridiculous to wear, but in Los Angeles I received many compliments. One of the greeters at The Gap told me that Michael Hutchence from INXS had exactly the same jacket in black.  When we ate brunch at a place in Malibu, the owner told me it was really good to see me again, even though we’d never been there before. And then Julia pointed out the big chair where Arnold Schwarzenegger always sat when he ate brunch there.

What I’m saying is: I LOVED coming to Los Angeles. Eventually Julia grew up and got married and moved to Ventura. I visited her there a few years ago, and had a brilliant time. We watched videos and drank champagne out of cans; later we went out for Mexican food. Some things don’t change at all, aside from the price of real estate. Julia is one of the greatest people I know: we’ve been friends for more than twenty years, ever since we shared a house at the University of York, and discovered our mutual love of Converse high-tops and Dynasty. We’ve been to Russia together, and toured some of the South and a lot of the Midwest. In Nashville we were accused of being teenage runaways, and in South Dakota we were treated with suspicion as possible liberals and non-evangelical Christians, but those are stories for another post.

I came back to Los Angeles several times on business, often staying at the Argyle, which has now reverted to its old name, the Sunset Tower. One of the stories in my collection is called “The Argyle”, because the setting seemed too good to waste. I went to the Grammy’s for the first time in Los Angeles, buying a dress at Betsy Johnson on Melrose that morning. I went to meetings at Disney, and at the Four Seasons. I had drinks at the Derby in Los Feliz. On a winter’s evening, I floated in the pool in a hotel right on the beach at Santa Monica. Once my colleague David Kuehn and I lay by the pool at another hotel – something Japanese on La Cienega, I think – and found a discarded packet of coke under one of the seats.

These trips were all on expenses, which meant free meals and reimbursed cars/hotel rooms; it meant lots of clubs and music and drinks. But they were never as much fun as those visits to see Julia, sitting on the floor of her little apartment, eating pizza and watching the video for “Love Will Never Do Without You.”

So last week, when my shuttle bus approached Le Petit Hotel, where I was spending the night, I was pleased and surprised to see it was just off Larrabee, our old stomping ground. The writing client I was meeting picked me up in her Mercedes SUV and we zoomed up to Sunset: Julia’s old building is still there, and still the same off-off-white with murky blue trim. It had a swimming pool in the central courtyard, I think. I say “I think” because I don’t remember ever going in the pool. It was just like Melrose Place, except none of the tenants appeared to be having fraught public affairs with each other.

My client and I drove to the Mondrian, where we were greeted by a battalion of valet parkers in khaki pants and white polo shirts. Inside it’s all white and orange, and the waitresses look like starlets, or maybe minor Grecian goddesses. After our meeting, I had dinner with Colette, a friend from grad school at Iowa, at the sparkly Café La Boheme on Santa Monica. Los Angeles still looks like a film set to me; it still feels like TV. Except now, I suppose,  don’t expect to see someone from Family. Everyone looks like they’re on One Tree Hill.

LAX just feels like LAX, of course. Another hour and my mother and I will be boarding the plane. In a month I’ll be back here again. My twelve-year-old self would have found that thought exciting; she’d see this as a glamorous life, quite possibly.  Though she was the one buying Bubble Yum and Mickey Mouse ears; she was the one who thought that Vincent Van Patten was really hot in Apple’s Way. What did she know?

Wellington

I'm just back from an overnight trip to Wellington, and already I'm esconced in the Koru Club in Auckland's  International departures: I had just a few hours at home today before returning to the airport. I just took a photo of the chocolate brownie I'm eating (with real cream and chocolate sauce), so I can torment my father in a week's time when I'm back. I'm not eating this because I'm hungry, of course: I'm just trying to get my money's worth out of the Red Carpet Club membership. I think I've drunk $400 worth of wine alone so far this year, during my endless richocheting back and forth across the Pacific.

The trip to Wellington was really good, for a number of reasons. I got to see my good friend Milton Bell, who has been putting us up (and putting up with us) at his Mt Cook aerie for a number of years now. Milton helped me in my hour of need, when I realized I had done the unthinkable (i.e. LEFT MY FOUNDATION IN AUCKLAND) by finding a chemist on Cuba Street, helping me choose between medium-light and medium, and lying to me about the youthful flawlessness of my complexion.

I also got to see my good friend Katrina Smit, who is the Queen Bee of Creative New Zealand, despite being forced to sit in one of its depressing hospital-green cubicles; we had lunch at Chow in the city. And I managed to infiltrate yet another of the capital's official residences - this time the Prime Minister's House in Thorndon, where she was handing out Literary Awards, champagne, pikelets with slivers of duck, etc. This was super-literary: Bill Manhire, Elizabeth Smither, Lloyd Jones, Kate DeGoldi. Jane Parkin, who edited my first three books, and John Huria, who edited the new one. Afterwards I had dinner at Chow, the one off Courtenay Place, with Finlay McDonald, books editor of the Sunday Star-Times, which means I've eaten at three different branches of Chow in four days. 

In Wellington people are more blunt: they ask questions like "What are YOU doing here?" And "how can you afford to keep coming to New Zealand so often?" But I don't mind. I just eat at Chow, and wonder how their martinis can be so very weak, and hope that there's not an earthquake that involves the entire city sliding into the harbor while I'm there.

Have to go board the plane now. By the way, if the American public votes for McCain and Palin, I'm leaving.

Wellington

I'm just back from an overnight trip to Wellington, and already I'm esconced in the Koru Club in Auckland's  International departures: I had just a few hours at home today before returning to the airport. I just took a photo of the chocolate brownie I'm eating (with real cream and chocolate sauce), so I can torment my father in a week's time when I'm back. I'm not eating this because I'm hungry, of course: I'm just trying to get my money's worth out of the Red Carpet Club membership. I think I've drunk $400 worth of wine alone so far this year, during my endless richocheting back and forth across the Pacific.

The trip to Wellington was really good, for a number of reasons. I got to see my good friend Milton Bell, who has been putting us up (and putting up with us) at his Mt Cook aerie for a number of years now. Milton helped me in my hour of need, when I realized I had done the unthinkable (i.e. LEFT MY FOUNDATION IN AUCKLAND) by finding a chemist on Cuba Street, helping me choose between medium-light and medium, and lying to me about the youthful flawlessness of my complexion.

I also got to see my good friend Katrina Smit, who is the Queen Bee of Creative New Zealand, despite being forced to sit in one of its depressing hospital-green cubicles; we had lunch at Chow in the city. And I managed to infiltrate yet another of the capital's official residences - this time the Prime Minister's House in Thorndon, where she was handing out Literary Awards, champagne, pikelets with slivers of duck, etc. This was super-literary: Bill Manhire, Elizabeth Smither, Lloyd Jones, Kate DeGoldi. Jane Parkin, who edited my first three books, and John Huria, who edited the new one. Afterwards I had dinner at Chow, the one off Courtenay Place, with Finlay McDonald, books editor of the Sunday Star-Times, which means I've eaten at three different branches of Chow in four days. 

In Wellington people are more blunt: they ask questions like "What are YOU doing here?" And "how can you afford to keep coming to New Zealand so often?" But I don't mind. I just eat at Chow, and wonder how their martinis can be so very weak, and hope that there's not an earthquake that involves the entire city sliding into the harbor while I'm there.

Have to go board the plane now. By the way, if the American public votes for McCain and Palin, I'm leaving.

Literary, sort of

Another week begins at the Sargeson flat. Monday mornings mean the homeless guys disappear and the Language School students return. Determined battalions of marauding ants trek their way across my walls and into the pantry: I kill them, and remove everything in their path. I have a mysterious pinch-shaped bruise on my left calf. The water that disappeared from the taps yesterday is flowing again.

Alex (dentist, Brazilian) calls me. Last week he rang to see how I was adjusting – emotionally, physically – to the tooth splint. When I called him back on Friday, he was in the car driving down to Ruapehu to go snowboarding. I told him that the splint was bearable, but one of my lower wisdom teeth, embedded within my gum, was hurting. Basically, I needed to disrupt his happy weekend in some way. If I must suffer with the tooth splint of discomfort and unattractiveness, so must he! Today he told me (“Hello, Miss Paula!”) that he’d checked my X-rays, and I don’t have any wisdom teeth, embedded or otherwise.

I remember getting a tooth or two out at some point in my early 20s, involving an ugly yellow bruise across my jaw, but I’d thought I still had some wisdom teeth lurking. Obviously not. Now Alex must think I’m insane. This is why I tell my students not to drink too much in their 20s: their brain cells will dissolve, and they won’t be able to remember whether they had their wisdom teeth removed or not.

To distract him from my non-existent medical complaint, I asked Alex if there was anywhere good in Auckland to hear Brazilian music. He said he doesn’t know: he just stays at home watching shows on Animal Planet. Last time when I went into the surgery, I told him I listened to a lot of  Brazilian music. He asked me who I liked, and I said Marcio Faraco (who I’m listening to right now, actually). The look on Alex’s face suggested I had just named the Brazilian equivalent of Kenny G. Though he WAS wearing a dental mask at the time, so maybe I’m misreading his expression.

This weekend I stayed at my sister’s to avoid the noise in the park. I had two literary-ish events to attend. On Sunday, I spoke to the Auckland Literary Society at Kinder House in Parnell. Everyone was extremely nice, though I find that after thirty minutes of listening to myself talk, I start to feel sorry for the audience.  One of the English names I was researching in Birmingham, Sneyd Kynnersley, popped up in a picture on the wall of the Kinder House, so I have some other leads to pursue now.

On Saturday night, I ate at Chow down at the Viaduct, invited by Susanna Andrew of the New Zealand Book Council. Susanna is extremely nice, though – as I later discovered – she drives like a nut. The dinner was for the visiting Australian writer, Arnold Zable; also in attendance were the poet Denys Trussell, who was interviewing Arnold the next day for a Book Month event, and Denys’s very nice wife, Hilary, who’s a drama teacher.

Dinner was good and the discussion was lively. The vodka martinis at Chow are too small and weak, in my opinion, especially given their excessive cost, and the unfortunate insistence of the bar staff in referring to the drink as a “kangaroo.” Towards the end of the meal there was an odd incident, which involved someone walking towards the table, pointing at us, and saying “Susanna Andrew! Paula Morris!” in an accusing voice. It turned out to be Holly from Third Party Productions, the TV company that makes Talk Talk. Holly has to call us both this week, apparently. She reminded me that when I was interviewed for Talk Talk I had a really bad cold.

After dinner the real fun began. We all piled into Susanna’s mini-van and roared off to Queen Street; Arnold was staying at the City Life Heritage Hotel. But when we pulled up across the street, we could see that the hotel’s grate was down, and no means of entry was at all apparent. Susanna drove up Victoria Street and along Albert Street, but we couldn’t see any obvious door. So she called the Heritage number on Arnold’s card key, and the person on the other end started giving her confusing directions, involving wild U-turns. Susanna lives in Wellington, so I took over the phone to apply my native Aucklandness to the navigation.

The guy on the phone kept insisting we drive up Victoria Street past Sky City – i.e. away from Queen Street – to Nelson Street. This made no sense at all. How big was this hotel, I asked Arnold? Did he have to walk for miles from the Queen Street entrance? No, he said; he’d just gone upstairs. The Heritage employee was unmoved. Past Sky City, madam, he told me, and right on Nelson Street. I was imagining a warren-like underground bunker hotel stretching for blocks and blocks, but no: when we pulled into the Heritage on Nelson Street, the guy on reception told me we were at the wrong hotel. Duh!

Susanna and Arnold stayed in the van, but Denys and Hilary had accompanied me into the lobby. I’m not sure why. It was a confusing evening in many ways. The receptionist told me the night entrance for the City Life was just around the corner from Queen Street. Drive back there, he said, and then take the first right on Albert Street. We then had the following exchange.

Me: But Albert Street isn’t off Queen Street.

Him: Yes, it is.

Me: No, it isn’t.

Him: Yes, it is. It’s just past the hotel.

Me: Albert Street runs parallel to Queen Street.

Him: No, it doesn’t.

Me: Do you mean Victoria Street?

Him: No.

Me: Do you mean Wellesley Street?

Him: No. It’s Albert Street, just off Queen Street.

[And so on, for several minutes, involving him drawing me a map in which Albert Street leads off Queen Street, and me asking him to get an actual map.]

Me: Look – here is Albert Street!

Him: [silence]

Me: See? It runs parallel to Queen Street.

Him: Then I don’t know what the name of the street is.

At this point, we returned to the mini-van. Hilary and Denys seemed convinced that the street in question was the entrance to a parking garage on Wyndham Street, but we finally ended up on Queen Street again. The street turned out to be Durham Lane, just past the hotel, and Susanna obligingly turned into it despite the “no right turn” sign. I could see the hotel’s night entrance on the right, but not everyone in our van was persuaded. Denys suggested we keep driving around some more to find it, but luckily Arnold made his escape from the vehicle before confusion enveloped us again.

Some time later, after we took Denys and Hilary home to Eden Terrace – around the corner from the home of my BFF Don McGlashan – Susanna dropped me off at my sister’s place in Mt Albert. When I opened the front door, Marilyn the cat shot in and spent the next twenty minutes eluding capture and expulsion.

A suggestion for the Heritage Hotel: find employees who have a clue about Auckland. A suggestion for Chow: make your martinis bigger and stronger, or else much, much cheaper.

Tomorrow I fly to Wellington to attend the Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement. (I won’t be getting one: I’m just a hanger-on.) The next day I fly to Los Angeles to meet with a writing client, then it’s back to NOLA on Thursday for a short visit. Hurricane Ike seems to be heading for Texas, thank god – sorry, Texas, but I can’t face evacuating this weekend. TM has just unfinished unwrapping all the plastic.

When I’m back in ten days, I intend to start having dinner parties in the Sargeson flat. We’ll call them “salons,” perhaps.

Reading, writing

Today I haven't done enough of either, but was interested to read about Penelope Fitzgerald, after taking her name in vain yesterday. The Guardian is celebrating forty years of the Booker Prize by asking a judge from each year to dish the dirt, and Fitzgerald's name comes up several times. Apparently she was horrified to discover her Booker winner, Offshore, was everyone's second choice, picked because the judges were squabbling over Naipaul's A Bend in the River. But Susan Hill complains that the omission of Fitzgerald's last novel, The Blue Flower, from the 1995 shortlist was "quite inexplicable"; Francis King calls it "the best of all the novels that ought to have won the Prize but failed to do so." Paul Bailey agrees, hoping that "the judges for 1995 are blushing now to be reminded of their grotesque oversight." Fitzgerald was also shortlisted in 1978 and 1988.

I wonder if the judges of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards would agree to a similar dirt-dishing, or if they would choose to be as tight-lipped in public about debate and disagreement (in a po-faced, above-the-fray manner) as this year's group. A publicity opportunity missed, I'd say.

This morning when I went out, I said hello to one of three homeless guys sleeping next door. He was lying there in the sun, reading his book. Later, when I came home, he was writing in his notebook. Apparently, the Auckland City Council wants to rid our streets of the homeless. Louts can move freely about the city, shouting and drinking and having a street party in the middle of the night, but we MUST get rid of the homeless. I don't know where the homeless will be driven, exactly. Somewhere tourists can't see them, perhaps.

My ploy with the wheelie bins worked a treat last night. I heard some cars drive up, but nobody stuck around, and nobody moved the bins, and nobody ran them over. They were still in place this morning at eight, when I went out to drag them away from the lane. And I got a good night's sleep.

 

Down time

Today I've been feeling low, inexplicably. I tried two of my usual tactics: getting my nails done, and wandering around the home wares department of a shop (in Auckland, the obvious choice is Smith & Caughey's). Neither has really done the trick, so I've moved on to tactic three, the closest thing I can get to a vodka martini here in the flat - i.e. straight vodka. It's Friday night, and I like going out on Fridays, but I've made no arrangements, plus I've already been out too many nights this week and I need to get work done. (Which is why tactic three is of limited use.)

Perhaps it's all the worrying about TM: he's about to begin the long drive back to New Orleans, where hopefully our house will have electricity and no wind damage. Perhaps it's hearing the Swingers' song 'Counting the Beat' used in all the local Wheel of Fortune promos on TV. [Note to the Swingers: why, why, why? All right - I know why. You wanted the money.] 

Maybe it's the feeling that I'm drowning right now, with too many deadlines, too many demands on my time. I still have chapters to write of the YA novel: luckily, my very tolerant editor at Scholastic has given me a couple more weeks, but I want to scream at myself to JUST GET ON WITH IT and stop dragging my feet. There's the Penguin anthology, bubbling over on the back-burner. In just over a week, I have to interview Mohsin Hamid on stage back in New Orleans, and while I'm looking forward to this discussion in many ways, I'm dreading the volumes of over-preparation I need to put myself through whenever a public event like this approaches. And of course, I'm tired as hell today because there was a little two-car party out on Bowen Lane last night, beginning at 1:30 AM and going on until three. Drinking, shouting, singing, car stereos ... I called the police at two, but they did not come.

So I lay in bed reading my book, listening to the birds sing after my tormentors finally drove away. Finally I got back to sleep, awakened at 6:30 by a woman screaming and shouting in the park. That was the beginning of a forty-five minute domestic, from what I could gather, with lots of fake theatrics. I leaned out the window, but could just see someone sitting on a park bench; he had a better view than I did, I guess. Should I have called the police again? Would they have come?

I've just been downstairs to the Art Gallery, where they're installing an exhibit involving video monitors and rolls of turf, and discussed my plan for tonight: to block access to the end of Bowen Lane with their wheelie bins. They're leaving for the day soon, and were agreeable about my cunning plan. Of course, cars may decide to bowl the bins over, or move them aside. But the obstacle may deter some, I hope. Otherwise, I expect to be calling the police again at some point tonight. And I expect the police will not come.

Outside my window: the homeless guy who often sleeps under the verandah overhang next door is sitting on a bench, going through his plastic bag of stuff. The birds are still shrieking. The TV news is talking about the falling NZ dollar (will we still be able to buy expensive imported shoes?) and the fastest yacht ever with - of course - "its Kiwi connection." 

Other things to feel glum about ... now that my short story collection is coming out, I get regular e-mails from my publicist at Penguin. She is upbeat in the manner of all publicists, but sometimes the missives make kind of depressing reading. They're all about who's Said No to an interview or feature. Kim Hill said no! The Listener said no! (Thanks to the Listener, by the way: I've been writing for you for, what is it, five years?) One magazine is only interested in the famous these days; X newspaper is only interested if you don't talk to Y newspaper; Z newspaper interviewed me two books ago.

And then there are always people who say no - hearing no is a big part of any writing life. (One person I know told me once that everything they'd ever written had been accepted at once. Then they wrote the thing that was not accepted. Now they are no longer writing.) Usually hearing "no" doesn't bother me. Something good happens every once in a while to balance it out. Last week two of my stories were turned down with the tersest possible response, but this week I got the proofs of another story from the Harvard Review - which, despite this, is publishing a story of mine in their upcoming issue. Just when I start feeling petulant about not getting invited to this or that local festival, even though I'm in the country and have a new book coming out, I get a nice invitation from Auckland City Library to take part in a New Zealand Book Month event. Doors close; windows open. I have the horrible feeling that this is a quote from Hello Dolly!, but it's true.

However, if I'm in the mood, as I am today, to feel obscure and unloved, then there's always ammunition. An e-mail arrives in which, I'm told, another writer has been "named as potentially the finest New Zealand fiction writer of his generation." Which generation would that be? Oh yes ... mine. It reminds me of another "rank the writers" exercise a few years ago, after I published my first novel. I squeaked onto the list, but another writer was declared "the star" of our generation. Can't they wait until we're all dead to write their who's who? How do we know that someone else in our generation isn't sitting at home right now writing The Great New Zealand Novel? Penelope Fitzgerald published her first novel at the age of sixty-one, and won the Booker Prize two years later. Hopefully the greatness medals for her generation weren't all doled out before everyone turned fifty.

I've just been outside to implement my daring wheelie bin blockade plan, and bumped into the private security guards employed by the Auckland City Council to police the park. They were very nice, and said they were aware of the drinking/carousing problem here. 

I know the park has security, because Mark Bowater, the park services manager, was quoted in the local paper saying: "The council has regular security patrols of Albert Park, including at night time."

What he did NOT say was that these security patrols are only paid to work until 9:30 PM. I just found this out from my helpful guards. They agree that there's no problem in the park whatsoever in the early evening: all the action happens much later. After the final shift for the day ends.

This is another reason to feel disgruntled, but tactic three is starting to kick in. So I'll cast off my crossness, and get on with some work.

 

The storm passes

The messageboards on the WDSU and NOLA sites are packed with outraged people who don't live in New Orleans: they're annoyed that all the coverage focuses on the city, with scant mentions of other places. They want to know if and when they can go home. People from Algiers, just across the river, seem particularly angry. Algiers is always forgotten, apparently. There's some flooding in Plaquemines and Covington, from what I can gather, but the city's new pumps and patched-up levees worked, thank god. There are problems right now getting power back up, and fixing the sewers, so nobody is supposed to come back until Wednesday.

One bar/club owner in the Quarter is outraged because he was forced to close while Johnny White's on Bourbon Street was allowed to stay open.

We heard from our friend Becky that yesterday was a bad one up in Alexandria (and therefore, I guess, Marksville) - high winds and strong rain when they were lashed with Gustav's tail.

TM is planning to start the drive back on Friday and book somewhere to stay in Jackson, in case the traffic is really terrible again. Two million people have to get back to the coast.

New Orleans right now is still quiet, aside from the crews working to move downed trees and power lines. This from The New York Times:

"As the wind blew through the deserted streets, a group of bored police officers sat on rolling office chairs outside on Tchoupitoulas Street, watching a few of their colleagues “wind-surfing” down the long thoroughfare, one of them explained. Two officers would hold up opposite ends of a sheet and wait for the gusts to blow them down the traffic-less street on their rolling chairs."