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We review: Telegraph AvenSNOOZE

I’ve always been fond of Washington-born writer Michael Chabon, aka Leon Chaim Bach aka Malachi B. Cohen aka August Van Zorn (his pen names, apparently). Fond is probably the fairest word. He’s like a loveable, genius puppy dog, who can not only talk, but do a mean impression of Rodin’s The Thinker and pen a Lonely Planet guide to the art of meditation on the Inca Trail, all before hitting his breakfast bowl. Of his 1988 debut novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (written when he was 25 – so earnest! so precocious! he must’ve been a royal shit) I wrote, “he speaks like a flower paddock ... still, beautiful language, the kind that makes writers skip ahead frantically, eyes begging for an error.” Yeah, I just quoted myself. Watch my citations soar! He’s probably most famous for his 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, but also for sophomore effort Wonder Boys (later made into a movie starring Suri’s Mom), and he has also dabbled in screenplays (Spider-Man 2) and wearing raspberry t-shirts. And now, Telegraph Avenue, a 600-kg wedge of deceased wood that the blurb describes as a “Californian Middlemarch set to the funky beat of classic vinyl soul-jazz.” That should’ve set off my alarm bells! Californian Middlemarch? Funky?! It’s an epic charting big guy, little guy: with old-school record shop Brokeland, eccentric owners Nat and Archy, their homebirthing wives, wayward sons and missing fathers all versus ex-footballer hero and mega-musical-franchise owner Gibson Goode and his cartel of errand-running cousins and shady connections. This awkward sentence doesn’t begin to touch on the level of complexity this novel gets you into. Each page is a dense, hieroglyphic-like communiqué from Planet Neuroses (constellation Pop Culture). Even making or consuming food becomes a playground of cryptic and detailed arcana: “At 9.45am the first batch of chickens sank, to the sound of applause, into the pig fat. The fat set about its great work, coaxing that beautiful Maillard reaction out of the seasoned flour, the smell of golden brownness mingling with the warm , dense, bay-leafy, somehow bodily funk of the beans, and with the summertime sourness of the greens like the memory of white Keds stained at the toes with fresh-cut grass, Nat stepped through the time portal that opened within the ring of seasoned iron.” and “Aviva went back down to the kitchen and began angrily to cook Titus’s stated favourite breakfast, pancakes and bacon. She broke the eggs as if they were the spurious arguments of unworthy adversaries. With the contempt we reserve for those who fail to deliver on arrant boasts, she watched the bacon shrink in its own fat. She peeled the bubbling pancakes from the griddle and flipped them over with a sense of cutting off a pointless discussion. In the batter, buttermilk and baking soda enacted their allegory of her emotional pH.” If Chabon is not shy about using breakfast goods as elaborate and edible mood rings, then you know you are not in for an easy ride. Did his editor get fired? Did he lose his delete button? Has he forgotten to sleep? If before Chabon’s language was a ‘flower paddock,’ this is now full-blown rabid jungle. And who can be bothered wading through a 465-page jungle? I probably will bother, but not without grumbling about it. - AB

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Dunno if you heard, but the world is supposed to be ending on December 21, 2012. And dunno if you heard, but Even Books have been working on a thingy with Branches, imprint of The Nest. Coincidence? Not really. We figured what everyone needs for their ration packs is a whizbang new iPad journal full of some sweet writers and what they love most. Not cans. Cans are for cheaters. It’ll be out mid-December. So, watch this space. Or, go away and come back, whatever’s easier.

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Junot Diaz is one of those effortless writers that connects dowsing rod to earth and out gushes pure, unadulterated life. He is also officially now a genius, having been awarded a MacArthur fellowship (along with a mandolin player, an optical physicist, and a conceptual photographer) in this year’s round. Apparently he might use the time to pen a sci-fi novel. I could’ve told them he was a genius. I am only halfway his latest collection of short stories, This is how you lose her, and already it’s obvious he has an IQ that could break you in two (his words). I love this: “Every fifty feet there’s at least one Eurofuck beached out on a towel like some scary pale monster that the sea’s vomited up. They look like philosophy professors, like budget Foucaults ...” And this: “When it came to my brother, it was written across her face in 112-point Tupac Gothic.” Those are the moments you shake your head, and think damn. I give up. Before you do though, make sure you check him out managing to make a polo shirt look sexy and clever. Oh, and read his books. – AB

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We review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Having devoured Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom with ‘heedless pleasure’ I was pretty prepared to give Where’d You Go, Bernadette? a rip with his selfsame glowing endorsement, despite a pulpy cover and Playschool-esque title. Also, my Mum gave it to me and I had nothing else to read. The most startling thing about the book is not that they all end up in a remote camp in Antarctica via cruise ship – but rather that we are expected to believe that anyone actually writes to each other anymore. Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is a narrative charting the collapse and disappearance of one Bernadette Fox, as patched-together by her clever and sensitive 15-year-old daughter Bee through assorted email transcripts, journal out-takes, scribbled notes, blog posts, actual letters, and faxes (faxes!). It’s rather distractingly cute that everyone takes time out from their busy lives to drop a line, but once you get past that hard-to-swallow fact, this is a delightful adventure that bubbles along under full steam of twee. It’s a bit like a Wes Anderson ensemble piece; chic, manicured and adorably unbelievable. The ensemble looks something like this: Father Elgin Branch is a genius at Microsoft, who has taken to divulging his marital woes to his new assistant, Soo-Lin. Mother Bernadette is a one-time architect genius, who has taken to divulging her mid-life crises to a virtual assistant in India. Neighbour Audrey is a nutjob who makes sure all the drama that ensues is divulged in the school’s newsletter. Some pretty funny things erupt between these various simmering mole-hills: Bernadette allegedly runs over Audrey’s foot at school pick-up; a backyard dispute involving blackberries ends in a catastrophic mudslide; and a farcical intervention bizarrely brings in a psychiatrist, some FBi agents, and the Russian mafia. But the quiet beauty at the centre of the novel is held by Bee, who is clearly one of those of gentle and mature teenagers that gives us less-developed humans a bad name. Unlike the many so-called adults in her life, Bee only ever loses her shit in defence of her zany mom. Her clear-eyed appraisal of the land of grey, grey and more grey, Antartica, is delivered like a chilling précis of the human condition: “I got a huge knot in my stomach because if Antarctica could talk, it would be saying only one thing: you don’t belong here.” The Bee bits, spoken earnestly from the first-person, are the bread and butter of this novel – the rest, the kind of ridiculous hundreds and thousands. Together, Where’d You Go Bernadette? is a sweet and not very serious tale from one-time TV writer Maria Semple (SNL, Arrested Development) – fittingly and funly for a script writer, you can’t help imagining this as a movie, and running your own imaginary casting sessions. Right down to the penguins. Now, time to send my Mum a thank you note. – AB

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Us In Synthesis

This high-class moving image was our contribution to the recent Joseph Allen Shea curated exhibtion, In Synthesis. One sign company refused to hire out their gear cos the words were too rude. If that's not revolutionary art what is? There was also a rad video by the Kingpins, some nice arty cobwebs by Kevina-Jo Smith, plus stuff from Chicks on Speed, Kate Mitchell, Agatha Gothe-Snape and more. Just like the Oscars, we were honoured to be in the same category as these talented ladies. If you have a moment, read this brief write-up here ... if only cos they refer to us as 'famous' in it. We are also quoted here (ha-ha!) and are spied draped hilariously over the equipment here.

Created with Gifboom

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We review: Flatscreen

Eli Schwartz is the slack-jawed, tubby-tummied hero of Flatscreen, the sophomore effort of US writer Adam Wilson. Eli has graduated high school only to find himself jobless, girlfriendless, and living in a condo in suburbia with his depresso, wine-guzzling Mom. YAWN, right? But then things take a turn for the sorta interesting when he develops a friendship with the washed-up actor who moves into his childhood home. This guy, Seymour Kahn, is also wheelchair-bound, with a penchant for prescription drugs, strippers, and according to Eli, Eli himself. Seymour has a messed up little family he tries to stay away from, much like Eli, so the two get along great guns ... until, that is, one of them gets shot. Yeah, for real.

Author Wilson is a former TV blogger for Flavorwire so it’s no surprise his writing is peppered with about a million movie references and lots of OMG internet shorthand speak. It’s about as easy to chomp through as confectionary, and eventually gives you just about as much of a headache. The best joke is when the Mom ends up moving to Florida to date a Jeff Goldblum-But-Spelt-Differently. From all these cultural in-jokes, I guess we’re supposed to feel like Eli is our buddy, our friendly neighbourhood dropkick ... but really, if I met this guy at a party, I’d probably clink beer bottles and move on.

You can definitely see a pattern here. Eli sits comfortably alongside other 20th century apathetic anti-heroes: I’m thinking the phony-phobic Holden Caulfield of Catcher in the Rye, or even Reality Bites’ couch-surfing stubblefest, Troy Dyer. In fact, Flatscreen would’ve probably been more comfortable in the 90s full-stop. It’s angst-ridden and makes some questionable fashion choices – with Eli spending a few scenes swanning about stoned in a flannel bed robe.

That said, Flatscreen does a convincing job of communicating to us the malaise of a modern-day America, which really hasn’t changed that much since then. By the end of the novel you don’t up caring much … but then, maybe that’s the point.

- AB

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We review: A Tiger in Eden

A Tiger in Eden is the debut novel from Melbourne writer Chris Flynn. Originally from Belfast, he’s taken his knowledge of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, combined it with his knowledge of sexy backpacker party times, and created a bit of an Eat Pray Love for men, only with more fisticuffs. Luckily, this isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.

Our protagonist is Billy – a loyalist hard man who did unspeakable things as part of an Ulster paramilitary group in the 90s. He’s on the run from the Belfast police and lying low in southern Thailand.

He gets drunk, gets tanned, has a whole lot of meaningless sex, dabbles with the idea of getting back into crime, then somehow finds himself in a Buddhist retreat where he learns that no matter how far you travel your past will always catch up with you (this is the point where I started to feel the Eat Pray Love vibes). Billy goes on to meet a special lady who changes the game, and he has a soul wrenching yet life-affirming moment after taking a bunch of pills at a full moon party. Oh, and he also stares down an escaped tiger with his tough guy eyes, saving himself and his lady from a violent demise.

Yeah, a lot of this is full on male fantasy: namely, the barrage of sex scenes with hot young European backpackers and the fight sequences where Billy feels immortal and seems unstoppable. The writing itself is great though. Flynn creates a thick Irish brogue for Billy and uses very little grammar in order to capture the cadences and pace of Irish speech. This takes some getting used to but ultimately lends the book a fantastic energy. The premise itself - a hard man in a tropical paradise - is also compelling. I would have preferred more insight into the Irish situation itself and less insight into the types of muffs Billy encountered on his journey, but hey, that’s just me. You might really get into the muffs.

– AF

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Banneth the book?

Who would ever ban a book? Apart from the guy who played Hitler in the final and best Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade? Heaps of people, that’s who – and Australia has a particularly sticky record of it. Elmo Keep and I talked about some of the notable bannings Australia and overseas (Jackie Collins’ 1969’s The Stud, anyone?) and the future of banned books in the world of internet free-for-all with Jesse Cox late in September. They’ve taken down the podcast so unfortunately you can’t download and listen to our dulcet tones on repeat, so here’s some interesting tidbits to sate you… How do books get banned? WHO bans WHAT has been historically messy in Australia, thanks to our overlapping Federal and state legislations: it could be state, it could be federal, it could be the Attorney General, it could be the postal service, it could be the ‘dirty books detail’ of Customs. Each state had an ‘Obscene Publications Act’, plus there was a ‘Customs Act’ monitoring national borders. It even sometimes came down to the discretion of the printers, some old fuddies not wanting to set rude words in type. Things commonly banned: erotica, sex outside marriage, euthanasia, birth control, illicit substances, anarchic texts, homosexuality, so-called obscenities and incitements to violence. Restrictions are usually based on the vague idea of whether it’s ‘likely to cause offence.’ It is only usually unlawful to import, sell or deliver. Australia in the 1930s and 40s was the height of censorship, with around 5000 books on the banned list. The Office of Film and Literature Classification in 2006 became known the Australian Classification Board. (omitting Literature from the title, however, some ‘permittable’ publications are still evaluated by the Board) Some notable bannings: Lady Chatterley’s Lover Written by DH Lawrence, this was first published by a porno printing press in Italy and Paris (1928/1929) In it, Lady Chatterley has an affair with her working-class gameskeeper, Oliver Mellors. Here’s a racy bit: "And this time the sharp ecstasy of her own passion did not overcome her; she lay with hands inert on his striving body, and do what she might, her spirit seemed to look on from the top of her head, and the butting of his haunches seemed ridiculous to her, and the sort of anxiety of his penis to come to its little evacuating crisis seemed farcical. Yes, this was love, this ridiculous bouncing of the buttocks, and the wilting of the poor insignificant, moist little penis." Banned in Britain until 1960 when Penguin took it to court under new obscenity legislation and it was declared ‘not guilty’. Despite this, in 1961 the ban was retained by the Menzies government in Australia. Famously, a copy was smuggled into Sydney via 34 separate letters. Finally hit the shelves in 1965 when it was published locally (thus circumventing customs). In Oct 2009 the book escaped the Australia Post banning of three ‘challenging’ books (Nabokov’s Lolita, Anais Nin’s Delta of Venus and Foucault’s History of Sexuality, despite its liberal use of the C and F words). Slaughterhouse 5 This 1969 time-ripper by Kurt Vonnegut was still being banned as of August 2011 – with a Missouri highschool striking it off the syllabus for creating: “false conceptions of American history and government or that teach principles contrary to Biblical morality and truth,” even though Vonnegut was a decorated war veteran. An anonymous donor along with the Kurt Vonnegut Library offered to donate free copies to any of the 150 students who had been meant to study the text. Even Books did a Slaughterhouse 5 musical spectacular once at TINA! It was a choose-your-own-adventure and there was a real-live Montana Wildhack living in a space zoo. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Despite the book’s use of the ‘N’ word over 200 times, this seminal American classic by Mark Twain was most often banned for its ‘coarse’ language: “Huck not only itched but scratched, and he said sweat when he should’ve said perspiration.” (Brooklyn Public Library, 1905) The Anarchist Cookbook William Powell, 1971 The author of this 1971 cult classic tried to ban his own book after converting to Christianity in 2000 – unfortunately for him, he no longer owned the rights. 1984 George Orwell, 1949 Ironically, for a book sending a grim message about totalitarian censorhip, this Orwellian tour de force is frequently censored or banned, even for its supposed ‘pro-Communism.’ The Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie, 1988 One of the most inflammatory novels ever written, this book resulted in a riot in Pakistan and the death of five people, a death warrant on the head of the author valued at $1 million, and the death of a Japanese translator who was ‘stabbed to death’ for his involvement. This is for its approach to the Islam faith – throughout, Rushdie refers to the Prophet Muhammad as Mahound (a medieval name for the Devil.)

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Even Books on FBi

So, Sunday past we hit the macaroni for our first ever segment on FBi's Canvas, entitled, rather imaginatively, ‘Even Books on FBi.’ Our host was Jesse Cox and he was super (he was also wearing a great sweater, which those in radio land sadly missed out on). We talked about books and then Jesse interviewed Marieke Hardy for us. Here are some funny things we said: About our ‘sting’, which is radio speak for some kind of jingle: “AIR HORNS!” *giggles* Our parties: “Everyone in the room has at least one topic of conversation to conversate about ... hence the need for lubrication.” On pretending we are urban rappers: “We wanted to make the B Club [a literary salon in London] more street, more gutter yknow.” On one of the smartest women in America: “Tina Fey: a rollicking ride.” One thing you should probably never suggest on a book club segment: “If you can’t be bothered to read, watch YouTube instead.” A phrase Virginia Woolf has probably never heard used in relation to her work: “Sensorial zest.”

And some excellent things Marieke Hardy said about her book, You’ll be Sorry When I’m Dead: On stories like the one that takes place in a Swinger’s Club: “They’re not sexy-sex, Nikki Gemmell stories...” On baring all: “There’s more raw honesty than dick jokes.” On allowing those mentioned an unedited ‘right-of-reply’: “That felt like the braver part of the book. Letting go of the reins.” On the ‘real’ Marieke: “For funny stories, there is a point where you have to be a caricature.” On her highschool zine: “We nearly broke the photocopier in the library with Sex Bus!”

We unfortunately didn’t get to ask her about season two of her black comedy TV series Laid, which is in-production. If we did, we hope she would’ve said this: “Your box set is in the mail.” You can listen to the on-demand stream here. And as for some books we’d like to recommend? On air, we only touched on a few. Ok, two, to be exact. But here are a few more, in random order. Don’t like random? Just you wait till we are such mega-gods of radio and book reviews that we put them in Dewey Decimal AND alphabetical order. Then you’ll be sorry.

Bossypants (Tina Fey) - A spiky blend of humour, introspection and critical thinking from one of the most beloved comedy writers of our time. Pretty much non-stop zingers. You'd have to have been in hiding not to have noticed all the press about it a few months back.

There but for the is by Scottish writer Ali Smith, a lady who looks a little bit like a friendly goblin. It’s about a man called Miles who attends a dinner party and then halfway through, as the hostess torches the crème brulees, disappears into the spare room and refuses to come out. He leaves a note: Fine for water but will need food soon. Vegetarian, as you know. Thank you for your patience. The hosts kind of seem like assholes but still, it’s hard to know what anyone would be like in that situation. They find a random number in his phone book of a lady called Anna who he’d known, barely, twenty years before, so they call her and ask her to come help coax him out. It becomes about how one event can fuse together many stories, which is an Ali Smith trademark. Her Hotel World is about how various women – a maid, a ghost, an eccentric hostel visitor, a homeless lady – are brought together over one night. The Accidental is about one family’s very hot sticky summer spent in the country, and an accidental house guest they acquire, and how she turns all their lives upside down. Smith is a deft and beautiful writer, given to gusts of sensory perceptions and Madeline cake moments – one bite leading to pages of memories and thoughts. You can see a lot of Virginia Woolf in her style, which is very vivid. There but for the came out 2011. (AB)

The Life (Malcolm Knox) tells the story of Dennis Keith (DK), a 58 year old former surf champion who now suffers from OCD and lives with his mum in her nursing home, too fat to sit on a surfboard let alone stand on one. He's a fictional character, but quite heavily based on real world surf champion Michael Peterson, a famously volatile surfer who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. It's a story of self destructive genius, and it's also a great snapshot of Australia at a particular time, when seaside towns changed under the hands of developers. People can't help but compare it to Tim Winton's Breath, but in stark contrast to Winton's ornate descriptions of 'men dancing upon waves', The Life is written in the language of the line-up: 'I done this', 'yous done that'. The story is told in the third person and then the first, jumps around between past and present, is crammed with half-sentences, broken sentences, with repetition and colloquialisms. At first everything feels a bit wrong: too choppy, too abrupt, but after a while you go with it, stop noticing, and the words take you somewhere else. A bit like when you first try reading Irvine Welsh. Highly recommended. (AF)

Revolutionary Road is a novel by Richard Yates and is thought of by many as an American classic. It follows the marital breakdown of April and Frank Wheeler, and by extension the breakdown of the American Dream. In the movie directed by Sam Mendes the pair are played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio, who are both appropriately attractive and troubled (also, Titanic 2.0!). It has been described as American Beauty circa 1955 and it certainly shares some themes: the disillusionment with the suburban idyll, a vitriolic but also somehow loving marriage, a generation of children who suffer as a by-product of their parent’s decisions. The only problem I had with it was that Yates seemed to dislike his own female character, April – she was beautiful but ultimately not understood. It was very much a man’s tale. Still, fifty years later, it remains a searing and prescient portrait of an America in decline. (AB)

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) is one of the classics I'm embarrassed to have never got around to reading, and the reason I'm finally doing it now is that I can't stand to read the book after I've seen the film (and I do really want to see the film). So I began with a resigned 'this will be good for me' sigh. But happily, I'm just loving it to death. The incorruptible Ms Eyre herself isn't in the least bit annoying, the conversations between characters are often profound and frankly it's making me want to be a more clean-living, virtuous person. (AF)

Curse of the Wolf Girl is the follow up to Lonely Werewolf Girl, both by Scottish writer Martin Millar, who looks more like a grumpy elf. While rather silly, it’s lots of fun. The heroine is a snarly but beautiful werewolf warrior called Kalix, and it’s all about her and her messed up royal werewolf family, plus some fire elementals obsessed with fashion, and an overweight or maladjusted human or two. Neil Gaiman rates Millar’s work and so do I. (AB)

I will also admit to this week buying the first instalment in the Game of Thrones saga by fantasy heavyweight George R.R. Martin. And so bid adieu to any spare time I may have had over the next two centuries or so. (AB) And I'm looking forward to reading A Spectacle of Dust, Pete Postlethwaite's autobiography, not just because he had a "face like a f-ing stone archway". (AF) That’s it! Tune in next time for a back-to-back recitation of James Joyce’s Ulysses, in Dutch-Swahili. + + even books + +

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we're back, and ... we have LATE NIGHT LIBRARY to go to!

Oh hi! Hello! It's been a while. We've been holed up in a cave eating Reader's Digest. No, not really. As if we'd get that desperate! But anyway whatever we have been doing has been worth the wait, cos check out our next event ... you just might wet your pants.

Tinah Feyman's BEDPANTS Tina Fey's that lady everybody's obsessed with right now. She created Liz Lemon, gets to work daily with Alec Baldwin, and did a truly excellent impression of Sarah Palin on SNL a while back. She also recently wrote a book called Bossypants that's so full of funny you can read it front-to-back then back-to-front then front-to-back again and not get bored. Sarah Silverman is also funny, also worked for SNL, and also recently wrote a book that's excellent (The Bedwetter). Coincidence? Well, yes. But who cares, because Even Books are combining the witticisms and fart gags of these super-comediennes for a Late Night Library event you won't soon forget: Tinah Feyman’s BEDPANTS. For your entertainment: - Two team of dickheads debate: Are Women Funny? - An homage to Alec Baldwin - A guessing game with a difference (hint: it involves pee) - Doody cookies - Caricatures of your face as Tina Fey or Sarah Silverman - Golden classics like: "I’m F**king Matt Damon" and "Pam, The Overly-Confident, Morbidly Obese Woman" Reference material, i.e. read or die: - Sarah Silverman’s The Bedwetter - Tina Fey’s Bossypants When: Thursday August 4 When more specifically: starting at 8pm, finishing at 10pm (for real curfew) Where: Surry Hills Library 405 Crown St Surry Hills How: Sexy Bookings Hotline: 8374 6230 (seriously, you have to book)

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Double Glazed: An exhibition of WORDS+ART

Despite what the name might suggest, this is not an exhibition about donuts. What it is, is a typically Even Books experiment in theming, collaboration and merging of disciplines that includes works from many of Sydney’s most exciting visual artists and writers. Yes, you read that correctly – we’ve got writers involved and we’re blowing their work up big and bold and hanging it on the gallery wall next to ‘real’ art because, wel...l, why not? To break the concept down: we asked a group of talented writers to write pieces related to the theme of TWINS/DOPPELGANGERS, and a group of equally talented artists to craft a visual response to the same theme. We then orchestrated a swap, and each creative then responded to someone else’s written or visual piece (writers to visual, artists to text), in a ku-razy loop. These pieces will be exhibited in their pairs, creating a multi-disciplinary exhibition that toys with notions of ‘same’, ‘other’, ‘mine’ and ‘yours’. So, who are these talented twin-makers? ARTISTS: Karl Maier (Rinzen), Cybele Malinowski, Kevin Tran, Rachel Feery, Zoe McMahon, Jacob Burge, Bryn Desmond-Jones and Sui Zhen WRITERS: Amanda Maxwell, Lee Tran Lam, Eddie Sharp, Nadia Saccardo, Caleb Lewis (I love that he has a Wikipedia entry!), Alice Williams, Tessa Lunney and Tom Lee On opening night (NOV 10) there will be a one-off concept event similarly themed to TWINS/DOPPELGANGERS. You can expect: mirrors, dressed-up doubles, being tied to a stranger, screenings of films and more.

We cannot promise a cameo by Arnie and Danny Devito. But we can hope. There will also be a limited edition publication available, designed by Blood & Thunder Publishing and with an opening essay by Dimitris Vardoulakis, author of The Doppelganger: Literature’s Philosophy. MONOZY-OMG! That all makes me DIZZY-GOTIC! WHERE: Firstdraft Gallery, 116 Chalmers St, Surry Hills WHEN: Launch party Nov 10, 6-8pm Exhibition runs until Nov 28 (when there will also be artists' talks)

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We "regulate" bedtime "busters"

Last Friday night we took part in a curated evening of bedtime stories at Bill+George studios (where our suitcase of books and kitsch panorama pictures live). It was a fundraiser for The Great Wall of Books Project. What’s next, a Pyramid of Giza of Books, or Leaning Tower of Books? Still, we were all for the cause. So we picked a totally inappropriate story and read it without any funny voices. What, we’re not theatre and stage actors! We’re word-loving nerds! It was a retelling of the poignant adventure Regulate, a 1994 R&B classic by Warren G. and Nate Dogg, with backing glockenspiel refrains. It went a little something like this: On a cool, clear night (typical to Southern California) Warren G travels through his neighborhood, searching for women with whom he might initiate sexual intercourse. He has chosen to engage in this pursuit alone. Nate Dogg, having just arrived in the east side of Long Beach, seeks Warren. On his way to find Warren, Nate passes a car full of women who are excited to see him. Warren makes a left turn at 21st Street and Lewis Ave, in the East Hill/Salt Lake neighborhood, where he sees a group of young men enjoying a game of dice together. He parks his car and greets them. He is excited to find people to play with, but to his chagrin, he discovers they intend to relieve him of his material possessions. Once the hopeful robbers reveal their firearms, Warren realizes he is in a less than favorable predicament ... Full story here. We also made a colour-in songbook (featuring the original lyrics, which, frankly, were better and more hilarious than the retelling) to go with it. When there’s an opportunity to waste paper, we seize it. The book looked like this, mid-assembly:

And it came with pencils.

If you’d like a copy, you’ll have to suck our cocks first. No, no, a simple holler shall suffice. We're girls! We don’t even have cocks! Ahem. While the night was a success, that may be the last time we get asked to perform anything. We’ll just have to stick to staying geeks off the street and being handy with the steal, if you know what we mean.

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We're liking this new trend of writers getting together with musicians to put on nights at the Oxford Art Factory. They always look a little bemused by the fact that there's a crowd of cheering 20-somethings in front of them. For their part, the crowd look confused too, unsure whether they should imbibe and get loud, or maintain a level of 'literary' decorum. If you happen to attend the latest of these events - that rebel DBC Pierre's appearance with Gareth Liddiard from The Drones next Tuesday (Aug 31st) - we implore you to do the former. Have we not given you solid training in the art of bringing literary thinking down to the level of drunken tomfoolery? Did we not shine a light along the path of idiocy? Gently push you out of the safe nest of the library/arm chair/workshop so you could fly like the little drunk, literary lunatics that you are? Do us proud, Sydney. DBC (that stands for 'Dirty But Clean' by the way) would want it that way. He'll be reading from his latest book, Lights Out In Wonderland, which documents, "a young, disaffected aesthete, philosopher and poet on his journey, by way of sensory overload, to oblivion... via the service entrance". Bottoms up.

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Join us next Friday for bedtime stories like you've never heard before.

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What a Russh...

Hey look! The Readers' Festival was mentioned in Russh magazine, in an article about the resurgence of reading. Reading being cool. Reading and pha shun! Whoo!

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Books = wordplay

You don't always have to read a book, either. You can just gaze at it. Local publishers and distributors Rainoff (Robert Milne and Sinisa Mackovic) know all about it. In the second installation in the lead up to the Sydney Design talk Why we love making books: ideas about unfettered self-expression (tomorrow night at Berta) we speak to Robert Milne about pages with pretty pictures. What do you think when you hear the word ‘book’?’ RM: Automatically I think of art books more than any other. They are what I love and enjoy. Since they exist in such a large variety of formats with each design differing from the next, I see them as representation of the many elements that can make up a book. What was the first book that made a big impact on you, either visually or story-wise? RM: I remember growing up with lots of books around. I guess mostly kids story books. 
The Grug Books were definitely a childhood favourite. It wasn't until later on that I actually started searching through some of the other books that were laying around the house and exploring the library in high school. There was a really amazing Charles and Ray Eames book that belonged to my Mum. I still have that one actually. Its saddle stitched and quite small, the pages have completely changed colour and it looks beautiful. What led you to starting Rainoff Books? RM: Rainoff began purely because Sinisa [Mackovic] and I wanted to publish our own books. We both have been collecting books and zines for a long time and it seemed like a project that would be fun and challenging. Having a shared interest for design and art also has allowed us to use Rainoff as a platform to explore and pursue our own creative freedoms, such as editing and designing the books ourselves. The name was generated through wordplay. Adding different words onto the end of 'Rain' to see what it sounded like. The reason for doing this is because we wanted an almost nonsense word that did not have a meaning previous to our use of it. So there could be no association with something else and hopefully when heard would be associated with us. You have a small but considered suite of published and distributed publications. What guides you in your selections? RM: Choosing an artist to publish is simply based on our own taste. We like to work with people that we admire and whose work we respect. A new publication that we are about to release later this year is with Conor O'Brien, a photographer that we admire greatly [pictured]. As we continue to release more publications in the future, we would like our catalogue to act as curated project itself, presenting a selection of artists that are related to each other in some way or another. The publications and artists that we choose to distribute operates similarly to the way that we choose an artist to publish. Often these publishers and artists are presenting a very unique perspective on contemporary art and we felt that it was necessary for them to be available to the Australian market. The talk seeks to explore, ‘ideas about unfettered self-expression’. Is self-expression ever really unfettered? What constraints do you frequently encounter? RM: As an independent publisher the main constraint that we have with producing a new publication is with money. Since we are publishing artists works we try to present their work in the best and most complimentary form. Due to the high cost in production some of the ideas that we would like to achieve to do this aren't always financially viable. There is a lot of communication between ourselves and the printer to work out ways that we can produce a publication that we believe successfully represents the artists work. What do you like to read (personally)? Where is your favourite reading spot? And what do you most frequently drop on the pages of your books? RM: I really like to read magazines and specific art / design journals. Along with appreciating the sense of design and aesthetic of a certain magazine or journal they often provide an interesting perspective on a range of subjects. If you look at something like Dot Dot Dot, 032c or Les Cahiers Purple, there is alway a large diversity in content which as a reader I find very enjoyable.