Treasure 1 June 2013

Mervyn R. Binns Jennifer Bryce Elaine Cochrane Ditmar Bruce Gillespie Dora Levakis John Litchen Malcolm McHarg Yvonne Rousseau Casey Wolf and many others

DJ Fractal by Ditmar Treasure No. 1 June 2013

First publication: June 2013 mailing of ANZAPA. Written and published by Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard St., Greensborough VIC 3088. Phone: (03) 9435 7786. Email: [email protected]. Member fwa.

3 Editorial: Dive into the Treasure chest — Bruce Gillespie, plus Elaine Cochrane and Mervyn R. Binns

15 Journey to — Dora Levakis 29 Postscript: My second trip to Tuva, July 2012 — Dora Levakis

32 Good horn, good brakes, good luck: A month in India — Jennifer Bryce

48 The sound of different drums: My life and science fiction, part 5 — John Litchen

55 Letters of comment Taral Wayne :: Tim Marion :: Steve Sneyd :: Andrew Darlington :: Alan Sandercock :: Ned Brooks :: Gillian Polack :: Dora Levakis :: Jerry Kaufman :: Andy Robson :: Elaine Cochrane :: Robert Elordieta :: Tony Thomas :: Kaaron Warren :: Werner Koopmann :: Patrick McGuire :: Lloyd Penney :: Jenny Bryce :: Steve Jeffery :: Doug Barbour :: Tara Judah :: Ron Drummond :: Murray MacLachlan :: & We Also Heard From

100 Feature letters: The real story of Harry Potter and Voldemort — Yvonne Rousseau The loc that would not die — Casey Wolf ‘High Society’ and John Hammond — Malcolm McHarg

Illustrations

Front cover: DJ Fractal by Ditmar (Dick Jenssen). Back cover: ‘Sunset on out houseboat, Kerala’ by Jennifer Bryce. Photographs: p. 5, 82: Elaine Cochrane. Pp. 6, 8, 82: Dick Jenssen. P. 9: Irwin Hirsh. P. 10: Jeanette Gillespie. Pp. 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27: Dora Levakis. Pp. 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 87: Jennifer Bryce. Pp. 49, 51, 54, 66, 67, 69, 70: John Litchen. P. 85: Bruce Gillespie. Pp. 92, 93: Werner Koopmann.

2 Editorial: Dive into the Treasure chest

Why change the name of this fanzine?

Because it’s had three names since the late 1990s. After 22 years, good sense What links them all? They contain mainly material that is usually not about will prevail. SF or fantasy, but otherwise may be of interest to SF/fantasy fans and other indulgent friends. It’s stuff that I treasure, so I assume everybody else will First there was *brg*, my paper fanzine for ANZAPA ( and New treasure it as well. Zealand Amateur Publishing Association). My fanzine under that name began in 1991, although I had been a member of ANZAPA, off and on, since Scratch Pad, *brg*, and Cosmic Donut contain all my own non-SF writing from 1968. more than two decades, plus a wealth of material from correspondents such as John Litchen and Jennifer Bryce. *brg* and Cosmic Donut have been written In 1995 I joined the British apa Acnestis with a paper fanzine called The Great primarily for the apas that contain them, including mailing comments. In Cosmic Donut of Life. (taken from the title of a Ray Nelson short story from Scratch Pad, I have been deleting the mailing comments. the 1960s). That fanzine continued until the death of Acnestis in 2005. What’s the problem? The problem is the confusion about numbering. Scratch When Bill Burns began his website eFanzines.com, which hosts a vast number Pad has always had a sequence different from that of the two fanzines it of fanzines in PDF format, I took all the good bits from both paper fanzines contains. It seems much easier to drop *brg* as my ANZAPAzine of general and wrapped them up into a fanzine called Scratch Pad. material, and restrict the title to my apazine of mailing comments. Hence: a bright new fanzine called Treasure.

3 Why Treasure?

Life is a treasure hunt. I’ve written that often enough. Not for money treasure, small British publisher. It’s a fine novel, which would have been Brian’s of course, but for all those precious items that furnish a mind: evidence of a bestseller if it had been published in the 1970s just after the Horatio Stubbs life well lived. Elaine and I have a house full of books, fanzines, other types books. When I tried to find it on the Internet, it had disappeared. Therefore of magazines, photographs, CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, and LPs. They pose a I was very pleased when John Litchen sent me his own copy. Thanks very storage problem, but if I let them go, I would be letting go bits of my life. much, John. Often their most treasured feature has been the effort taken to find them. I spent nearly 50 years waiting to find a copy of ‘Memories of Maria’, one of Every year David Russell sends, or often brings, from Warrnambool to only a few songs written by Roy Orbison for other people, in this case the Greensborough, gifts for my birthday. He has a telepathic ability to pick guitarist Jerry Byrd. I didn’t buy the single in 1962 because I did not have the presents that I will find really interesting. A few years ago he presented me spare cash. I did not hear it again until about five years ago, when it turned with a small coffee grinder that Elaine and I have been using ever since. If up on a CD of Jerry Byrd’s best singles. More recently, I borrowed from Tim David chooses DVDs as gifts, they will be DVDs I had been meaning to buy. Train one of Brian Aldiss’s recent novels, The Cretan Teat, issued by a very David offers more than gifts, I think: he elevates gifts to the status of treasure.

Dip into Treasure 1 ...

Treasure 1 is not quite the treasure chest I intended this time around. It was find here: travel articles by Dora Levakis, who usually lives in Yarraville, going to feature my annual roundup of Favourite Books, Short Stories, CDs, , but is currently teaching in the Top End of the Northern Territory; Films, and . However, my favourites lists for 2012 have already appeared Jennifer Bryce, long-time friend, fine writer, and traveller to exotic places; in ANZAPA, so you will have to wait for the next issue of SF Commentary. and John Litchen, with the latest chapter of his life and times. The letter Meanwhile, sitting at the top of this issue’s treasure chest are the articles you column is also very enjoyable.

The trouble with In-Your-Facebook is that you may be talking to your Friends, Facebook. They’re in ANZAPA, or on the various e-lists or the SF Commentary but you don’t often talk to your friends. You send a random message into the mailing list. So here are some matters I’ve jotted on Facebooks or in the aether; it’s seen by some of your Friends, but most of your friends are not on ANZAPA-only edition of *brg*, but not yet covered elsewhere.

4 2012: sad notes

Elaine Cochrane writes, on Saturday, 9 June 2012:

A few days ago I found the receipt from the local animal shelter, dated 22 June 2006, for ‘One kitten’. That purry black kitten grew to be our huge, fluffy, beautiful, sweet Archie.

In late 2007 Archie had his first bout of acute kidney disease. He spent a week on a drip at the vet’s and although he would have had some permanent kidney damage he seemed to make a complete recovery and he soon regained all the joie de vivre a young cat should have.

A few weeks ago his kidneys malfunctioned (Top) Archie’s baby photos, 2006. (Bottom:) More recent pictures: Archie (l.) 2008 and (r.) 2011. again. Again a week on a drip and his blood tests seemed to indicate a return to within, or close to, normal, but this time he just didn’t bounce back. We tried everything we could to start and keep him eating but it reached the stage where it would have been cruel as well as pointless to keep trying. Yesterday I had the vet make a housecall to save him the terror of the final trip. He is buried near the bay tree.

Give all your beasties a cuddle from me.

Elaine

5 Thanks to friends who sent commiserations on the death of Archie. He’s Bruno Kautzner is someone I would never have heard of if he had not actually been missed most by Flicker, Harry, and Polly. They all became fussy bumped into Dick Jenssen on the street in Carnegie in the 1990s. Bruno had about their food for months. Nobody would eat the usual beef strips, so we been a member of the SF Club many years ago, but had lost had to try other things, including cans of the luxury food we had bought to contact with everybody from those days. Dick encouraged him and his wife try to tempt Archie to eat during his final fortnight. Later, they wanted only Keren to join the monthly film group hosted by Race and Iola Mathews. We meat bought from Safeway. had dinners with them in Carnegie and they visited us at Greensborough. It was a great shock to find that somebody so filled with energy should have Polly went on strike altogether. Was she suffering from the same problems become very ill very fast, struggled to return to normal life, then have been that killed Archie? No. Her kidneys were functioning normally, but she had knocked out by acute kidney failure over one weekend. some kind of infection, and some kind of liver dysfunction. She had suffered from lots of bouts of cystisis of the bladder when she was very young. This seemed to have recurred. Three rounds of antiobiotics seemed to fix that, but she was still very reluctant to eat. The vet gave a diagnosis of ‘pancreatitis’, and suggested we do our best to coax her to eat! After lots of experimentation, Elaine discovered that Polly would eat small quantities of her own type of cat crunchies, plus a couple of cans per day of the most expensive varieties of Dine.

Flicker and the others went back to eating beef strips, but they demanded the superior, more expensive variety from the supermarket. And Flicker wants to eat his crunchies away from the spot where he used to eat them. Every now and again he goes searching for Archie throughout the house, and gets very grumpy with us because we haven’t brought Archie home yet. Harry sits by my chair, where Archie used to sit, and waits for a special comforting pat.

Archie was a very valuable small cat. He was part of their gang. Polly isn’t, but they still get upset when we take her to the vet’s for yet another expensive examination, or if we leave her the whole day before bringing her home. Things Are Still Not Right. Death has been much on our mind this year. In a box next page, I’ve printed Merv Binns’ tribute to three old friends who have left us this year.

One of them, Ian Crozier, I have never met, although I’ve been hearing his name ever since I joined fandom in 1968.

Bruno Kautzner, 2004. (Photo: Dick Jenssen.)

6 Memories of Ian Crozier

by Mervyn R. Binns

Just about sixty years ago, I met Race Mathews, Bob McCubbin, Lee Harding, believe Ian’s efforts, and those of such as Graham Stone in , Don Tuck and Dick Jenssen, who I had discovered shared my love of reading science in Tasmania, and other early Australian fans, led to the growth of fandom in fiction. Race and Bob and maybe others had decided to form a club for SF Australia and in the long run, to us holding eventually four World SF fans and invited me to join them. As an employee of the then McGills Conventions in Melbourne. Newsagency bookshop I was in a good spot to find more interested people. Soon after starting up, Ian Crozier joined us and finished up producing the It is one of those ironic moments that the movie of The Hobbit is due for club magazine Etherline. He did a great job putting all the information on release, which reminds me that when I was a dyed-in-the-wool SF reader, stencil, which I printed on a Roneo duplicator that we bought. Club meeting fantasy had little appeal, but Ian kept on insisting that I read The Hobbit and details, book reviews, news about SF books and magazines, and more were The Lord of the Rings. I finally gave in and read them. Thanks, Ian; anything included. Copies were sent to members and SF fans in other states and in the to do with The Lord of the Rings will always remind me of you. USA and Britain. Ian corresponded with and included information from fans such as Bob Bloch and many other fans here and overseas. Etherline was a In 1999 Helena and I spent a few days, at the invitation of Ian and his wife duplicated work of art, considering the trouble Ian went to, to put a stencil Judy (who passed away some time before Ian, we believe), with them when together for me to then run off on the old duplicator. He had to cut and they were residing at Porepunkah, near the picturesque mountain town of splice stencils and add illustrations and headings, which was a painstaking Bright, soon after we got together. I had not seen them for over 40 years. I exercise. He edited just on one hundred issues until he decided and believe they moved closer to Melbourne and their family in more recent work were more important, and he dropped out in the late 1950s. I remember years. We have had a number of house moves since and lost contact with that the MSFC held meetings in a room above Ian’s office as a customs agent, them. Helena (then Margaret Duce) also heard about The Hobbit and The in Lennox Street, Richmond, for a year or two in the very early days. Chess Lord of the Rings from Ian, when he visited her in the Victorian country town and darts were our major activities, while we were planning our first conven- of Alexandra in the late 1950s, following being told of her interests in SF by tion in 1956. Mervyn Barrett, a penfriend in . (How she came in contact with Melbourne fandom is another long story.) Etherline I think did as much as anything and anybody to put Melbourne and Australian fandom on the map, while also publicising and establishing the Ian Crozier succumbed to lung cancer on the 27th of November this year. Melbourne SF Club (Group as it was called initially). Fandom grew, and many other fanzines were produced in Australia in the following years, but I truly We also lost a very good, very special friend this last week, John Straede, to a brain tumour on the 24th of November. Another old friend, Bruno Kautzner,

7 died of leukemia in April 2012. Like many other people they were friends I can only be very grateful. we made because of their being SF fans and being associated with the MSFC (Bruno from the late ’50s and John from the early ’60s). The club and SF — Mervyn R. Binns, 6 December 2012 in general has given me a life and friends, many of whom I still see, for which

John Straede was someone I met regularly at Melbourne SF conventions until he and his then wife Cheryl went to New South in 1972. John became a world-class astronomer. Shortly before he retired and returned to Mel- bourne, Cheryl was killed in a car crash. John remarried, to Truda, and they bought a farmlet at Bunyip in eastern Victoria. We met them because John had remained a friend of Dick Jenssen during the years he had been living in . In Bunyip, Truda’s main business haas been cat breeding, but she and John also enjoyed the life of busily retired people. John’s appetite for collectingDVDs and Blu-rays was much more voracious than mine. He developed a room in the house into a theatrette with its own very large screen. For some years Elaine and I visited John and Truda each year for Christmas celebrations. Truda has an amazing ability to cater for groups of 20 or 30 people. It was a great shock to discover that John was suffering from a brain tumour. After initial surgery, it seemed as if he would have some years of life left, but that was not to be. In mid December 2012, we visited Bunyip for a well-attended celebration of John’s life. On 3 December 2012 it was exactly 20 years since Roger Weddall died. In 1992, Elaine and I knew from May onwards that Roger’s life would be greatly shortened. However, he undertook his DUFF trip to America in August and September that year, and enjoyed himself until the last week of the trip. He made many friends for himself and for Australian fandom. He returned home in great pain, and went into hospital shortly after his return.

It is still difficult to realise that Roger has disappeared. Every now and again we keep expecting him to knock on the door, come in, laugh, and say, ‘Sorry I was gone for awhile.’

I realise that I still have not published Roger’s DUFF report, which he left in John Straede, 2006. (Photo: Dick Jenssen.) the form of cassette tapes recorded during his trip. I had meant to publish

8 the report in time for this anniversary, but I had expected to be able to retire this year.

A visit to Maldon

On Sunday 4 November 2012, I actually left Melbourne for a few hours. I hopped aboard a country train for Castlemaine. My sister Jeanette Gillespie picked me up and drove me to the nearby town of Maldon, holding its annual Maldon Festival, which includes the Maldon Folk Festival. We went to a little church in the town. People gathered and began singing gospel songs, usually unaccompanied. Various people waved their hands around, and encouraged people to sing and stand up and sit down again, and it was all a bit exhausting. Halfway through the event the singing stopped, and famous Australian folk singer Danny Spooner presented to my sister Jeanette the Graham Squance Award for lifetime service to the community of Victoria. Translated into SF terms, Jeanette finally received her Chandler Award! Jeanette has been run- ning folk festivals and clubs and performing for over 30 years. She also edited the folk music fanzine, Folk Vine. Her partner Duncan Browne has also received the award, as has Danny Spooner himself. She joins an illustrious group of winners. Jeanette gave a very nice speech, and we all had to start singing again. (I can’t sing, which is why I feel embarrassed when I Roger Weddall, early 1980s. (Photogapher: Irwin Hirsh.) attend Jeanette’s folk music events.) Our old friend Frances Wade, who now lives near Jeanette and Duncan, drove me back to Castlemaine to catch the train home.

9 Jeanette Gillespie receives the Graham Squance Award. Her partner Duncan Browne is in the background.

10 2013: two or three days I took off

Until the beginning of February 2013 I had had no paying work, or any 50. I was checked when I turned 55 (actually 56, since it took a full year hint of future paying work, since October 2012. At the beginning of from the GP’s appointment to the actual colonoscopy at St Vincent’s February I received an email from a client for whom I had done nothing Hospital). I moved to Greensborough, and when I turned 60 my new GP for four years. He asked me if I could finish a huge editing job by 22 put in a request to Austin Hospital to arrange the procedure. Nothing March. I felt that technically I might not be able to do the job because happened. I reminded my GP of this a few years later. I’ve never been I’m still working in Word 7. Indeed, working in Word 7 on Windows 98 able to afford private health insurance. Eventually she found a private led to the problems I faced. I did reply that a more realistic deadline facility in Heidelberg that can do the procedure for a flat fee. On the day would be 12 April, a week after Easter, but the client insisted on 22 March. before, I stopped eating solids, swallowed sachets of gloop to clean out A difficult task was attaching the Word styles to the documents. This is a my system, and drank liquids all day. I did not feel hungry (I suspect that designer’s/typesetter’s job, but publishers have been asking editors to do the gloop itself includes appetite suppressant). I was allowed to imbibe it for at least 15 years. For most of my clients, however, it has proved nothing but a few sips of water on the morning of the colonoscopy. quicker and more economical to ask a junior editor in the office to style Elaine’s brother-in-law George drove me over there. I did not have to wait the manuscript before sending it out. When it took me 6 and a half hours long. I did not actually meet the surgeon who had interviewed me a week to style the first chapter, but only 4 hours to edit it, the production editor or so before. I met only the anaesthetist and his team. He injected me, gave in, and did the styling himself. From then on, the job was smooth put the little mask over my face, and I disappeared. When I woke up, I sailing, except for editing the Permissions list. The client wanted this was led into a nearby room, and sat there for about an hour until George compiled in Excel, a blind spot of mine. A time-consuming and annoying picked me up. Then home — to a light meal. Result? No polyps. job, it could be done only after I had edited the book, sent out the edited chapters to the authors for checking, and received back the chapters. Days 2 and 3 of time off During March, Casey Wolf visited from Vancouver. Elaine and I had first I took very few days off from the beginning of February until the end of met her just before Aussiecon 2 in 1985. Elaine was working with Esther, March. I had finished compiling and sending out the February ANZAPA whose girlfriend was Carole, who asked Esther if she could introduce her mailing before I started the new job. sister Casey to science fiction people while visiting Melbourne. Elaine and I, Esther, Carole, and Casey enjoyed a great Thai meal at a restaurant Day 1 of time off near us in Collingwood. At that time it was one of the two Patee Thai I spent one day undergoing my regular colonoscopy — or what should restaurants in the inner suburbs. (The other one is still open in Brunswick be my regular colonoscopy. Because my father died at of 69 from Street, Fitzroy). bowel cancer, I’ve been trying to be checked every five years since I turned

11 Casey attended Aussiecon 2, but she knew nobody except me and a friend was taken up country, then back to Melbourne. It was hot in beautiful of hers. I was always busy doing something, so occasionally I would find downtown Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, on the Tuesday afternoon when I Casey and her friend wandering the corridors of the Southern Cross met Casey for afternoon tea and book touring, but that didn’t stop us Hotel, looking lost. I thought she would be pissed off by the SF scene, nattering all afternoon, moving from one bookshop or cafe to another. and that we would never hear from her again. Instead, she got involved The next night she joined a small group of us — Elaine, me, Bill Wright, with the Vancouver fan group, began writing SF, and kept sending me and Tim Train — at the Nyala Ethiopian restaurant in Brunswick Street. letters of comment. In 2005, during the Bring Bruce Bayside trip, when Great food, great company. I was visiting Alan and Janice Rosenthal in Seattle, Casey drove down from Vancouver, and spent an afternoon catching up. That afternoon was one Casey was taken off to Tasmania for a week in (or near) the wilderness of the highlights of the trip. Later, she sent me a copy of her fine book — and reasonable temperatures, while the hot spell in Melbourne just of short stories, Finding Creatures and Other Stories, published as by C. June went on and on. The following Tuesday, she braved the Melbourne Wolf (Wattle & Daub Books, Vancouver). suburban train system and the never-ending heat, and arrived at Greens- borough for an enjoyable lunch at Allan House. This is the improbable Every time Casey arranged a visit to Australia to visit her sister and friends, name for a stylish Vietnamese/Chinese/Thai restaurant that opened on some major event stopped the trip. She has not been in good health Main Street two years ago, but which Elaine and I hadn’t tried until recently, but finally in 2013 she was able to make the trip. She brought recently. After lunch, we walked back to 5 Howard Street to visit our with her one of the longest extended bouts of hot weather we’ve ever had House of Cats, lots more talk, then Casey set off home. I wonder if Elaine in the south-eastern states. It was hot and humid while she was visiting and I will ever see her (or any of our Canadian and American the tropical areas in far northern New South Wales; then the heat really friends)again? set in when she arrived in Melbourne. We talked on the phone, but she

Gig regret

Dave O’Neil is a Melbourne TV comedian I never watch on TV, and his to time: gig regret: ‘when you have the chance to see a band, pass on the radio voice is so garbled as to be almost incomprehensible. But he’s just opportunity and then regret it for the rest of your life’. been hired to write the page 2 column in The Shortlist, the EG entertain- ment supplement from the Melbourne Age every Friday. Here’s Dave’s story of his ultimate gig regret:

His column of 26 April 2013 put a name to an emotion I’ve felt from time During the summer of 1974, my dad drove us to the Inverloch fore- shore, where my older brother was desperate to see this ‘new’ band.

12 Dad said to me: ‘Do you want to see the band or get an ice-cream?’ I in the world, who would be playing an all-Beethoven concert. Yes, we did chose the latter and missed an early incarnation of AC/DC. I can’t catch their Sunday afternoon concert the next weekend, but it was not remember the flavour of the ice-cream but my brother still goes on the same. All we could think about was the missed concert. The Beaux about how a young stripped off his cothes and ran into Arts disbanded a few years later. the ocean. Yep, gig regrets. Dave O’Neil talks about the other type of ‘gig regret’: the concert you In sympathy, I can think of all the bands and performers I might have caught, but wished you hadn’t. I’m glad to say this has never happened seen, but didn’t. Emmylou Harris, several times. Lou Reed, many times. to me. For the last 20 years I have been missing concerts because of the Loudon Wainwright at the Continental Cafe, because I was suffering exponentially increasing ticket prices, and because of my sheer laziness from my worst cold in a decade. The Rolling Stones in 1996 — because in buying tickets. Some of the best concerts I’ve seen have been free, the cheapest seats, way up the back of the main stand of the Melbourne thanks to, first, Steve Smith, and then, Dave Clarke, at Reading’s in Lygon Cricket Ground, were $99 each — but thanks to Leigh and Valma, I did Street, Carlton. Every now and again they have offered me free tickets to attend the Rolling Stones’ afternoon concert, Kooyong Tennis Court, 17 hear such luminaries as Branford Marsalis, the Charlie Haden , February 1973, for $5. and Angela Hewitt.

My most tooth-achingly awful example of ‘total gig miss’ comes not from The net result of my life of gig regrets is that I had not been to a huge rock music but from classical music. The late 1980s, when restaurant loud rock music concert since Elaine and I went with some fans to see meals and concerts were affordable. Elaine and I had both had busy days. Neil Young and Crazy Horse in 1985 at the Festival Hall. Therefore it is We went out to dinner. We were halfway through a fine meal when we appropriate that ... remembered that for the same night we already had bought tickets for the Musica Viva concert by the Beaux Arts Trio, the greatest piano trio

My ultimate gig ...

... was seeing Neil Young and Crazy Horse, 28 years later, on 13 March paying me in instalments to edit his recent works, so instead of handing 2013, at the Plenary, Melbourne Concert Centre ... and for free. Frank me cash he rolled a few of these payments together, and bought the ticket. Weissenborn astounded me by sending me by email a ticket to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the Plenary. Of the roll call of recent favourite The Plenary in the Melbourne Convention Centre is familiar to most visiting performers to Melbourne, Neil Young and Crazy Horse would be ANZAPAns as the hall where the main events of Aussiecon 4 took place. top of my list, but the ticket price was out of my range. Frank has been It’s a long walk from Spencer Street. I would have thought it too small

13 for a modern rock concert, but it has good line of sight from all seats, and a large standing-room area in front of the stage.

The sound? I had forgotten to take my ear plugs, which meant that the very very loud sound was JUST TOO DISTORTED for my elderly ears. Is this deliberate distortion peculiar to this concert by Neil Young and Crazy Horse? Probably not. It’s just what everybody else in the audience ex- pected. When I saw Neil Young and Crazy Horse at Festival Hall in 1985, the amplification had been just as loud, but quite clear. Ah well. My eardrums are shot, I suspect, but I didn’t realise it until then. To enjoy rock concerts in future, I will stick to watching them at home on DVD with the speakers turned up to 3.

The Plenary event is now being touted as the best Neil Young and Crazy Horse concert for ten years. It featured most of the songs from his latest double CD, Psychedelic Pill, including the mighty ‘Walk Like a Giant’. This We staggered into the night. I had wondered if the concert might have shows that the songs on Pill are the best Neil has written for many years. stretched a bit over the scheduled finish time of 10.30. I looked at my watch: 11.45 p.m. Could I run back to Southern Cross Station in time to Fortunately, the band gave the audience a relief break where Neil sang catch the last train? I looked around for Frank. His seat had been in a four songs with guitar or piano. Those four songs were worth the price different section. We had nattered at interval, but this time I lost him in of the ticket (which I didn’t pay, but you know what I mean). They the crowd. Bugger it! I could ring him tomorrow. Off I went, and actually included good old ‘Heart of Gold’ from 1972’s Harvest, just to rev reached the platform 10 minutes before the last train left. up the crowd, and a delicious rendition of ‘Ramada Inn’, Neil’s most moving song from the new CD. I doubt if I will ever go to a Big Concert again — unless I win Tattslotto or somebody offers me a ticket to Bruce Springsteen or the Melbourne The first half of Neil’s Loud Stuff had finished with an apocalyptic light concert of the just-announced Rolling Stones ‘50 Years Is Not Too Many’ show. After the acoustic set, the second half began with Live Rust old world tour. But, adding two earplugs that I forgot to take with me on the favourites, such as ‘Powderfinger’ and ‘Cortez the Killer’. Then Neil and 13th, I would repeat the Neil Young experience any time it was offered. the band went into hyper-phase. Neil was actually smiling! The band pulled out a medley of songs based on Neil Young’s love of . One question remains. All the blokes on stage on 13 March are older Everything went louder. The songs included obscurities like ‘Barstool than me and most of the audience. How can they voluntarily subject their Blues’ from the mid seventies. Then came the obligatory walk-off, then body systems to all that racket, night after night? the encore — a 20-minute version of ‘Like a Hurricane’, Neil’s best song. — Bruce Gillespie, 26 April 2013

14 Dora Levakis is a visual artist, project manager, and teacher, who involves individuals and communities in what she does.

Journey to Tuva

by Dora Levakis

to vibrating in my lower, middle, and upper lungs, feeling it in my chest, Why Tuva? Why throatsinging? throat, and lips.) The sound and sensation of the rapid U was most pleasant. It took me Life happens. But some years provide delightful surprises when everything somewhere but, as I was to later learn, nowhere near the technique the Tuvan seems to fall into place. 1996 and 2010 were such delights. 1996 saw me people use. pulling out shelved information on a short course regarding breathing and meditation. It was the Vibrational Breath Therapy technique, four lessons on Now I had two sources of inspiration: on the one hand, a course that focused how to A-U-M, taught in Melbourne by Sri Bala Ratnam. Also, during 1996 I on both the breath and the chanting voice; and on the other hand, the became aware of Tuvan throatsinging. Access All Areas, fronted by Paul culture of a people hidden in a barely known region in the Russian Federa- Grabowsky, an ABC TV series on the voice, had aired. One episode featured tion using voice in a way I’d never before imagined to be possible. male singers atop horseback in Tuva, a place in remote Siberia, creating sounds that seemed to emanate from deep within to surround the space and I smiled at the meanings attached to inspiration: to be motivated and to yet, at the same time, to split into two, three, or more voices. I marvelled at breathe. Inhalation and Exhalation. Inspiration and Aspiration. To inspire this. Where was the sound coming from? How on earth did they do it? to aspire. This is what the arts can hope to do when much doesn’t seem to fall into place. I played with my throat, pumping through U-U-U sounds in rapid succession, as I was now doing when checking for a relaxed throat while chanting A-U-M. By 1996 I’d worked in many schools as a visiting artist, aiming to inspire (My time with Sri Bala Ratnam, incidentally, found me for some years students to venture to the far reaches of their greatest wish and to go for it. afterwards chanting, on his advice, 81 rounds each morning with attention I wondered how, through habit, we easily become comfortable if not trapped within the parameters of what we regard as our greatest pain and our greatest

15 pleasure, nobly declaring one must know one’s limits. whether I had permission to visit Tuva. It wasn’t until the first business day of my return to Melbourne, ten weeks later, that I received my Russian visa. On a practical level I provided means by which students could gain results This was less than two weeks before my planned departure date. quickly. For most this enabled them to become confident enough to become responsible for undertaking more involved tasks. In Numbulwar I’d heard that the National Art Orchestra accompanied by Paul Grabowsky was in the community of Ngukkar, the former Roper River 2010 saw me in Tuva. Fourteen years following my first encounter with the Mission, an Aboriginal community two hours south of ours. (Numbulwar is , I was there. I was in the Republic of Tuva and had private music the former Rose River Mission.) Our areas had had cyclones during Easter, lessons in its capital city of : four with Zhenya Saryglar, a male member causing damage and longer-than-normal flooding of many roads. The of the Tuvan National Orchestra, followed by ten with Choduraa Tumat, the National Art Orchestra’s visit to Ngukkar was part of the Crossing Roper Bar founder of the first ever all-female throatsinging group, Tyva Kyzy (Daugh- Northern Territory Tour, which began with a performance and talk at the ters of Tuva). opening of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory’s Colour Country: Art from the Roper River exhibition in which Gertie Huddleston was Before the lessons with Choduraa, I’d spent some days in the countryside represented. A visit to Numbulwar was planned at the end of May, weather with her and a handful of others, driving across the steppe, looking at yurts and road conditions permitting. dotted in the far distance, staying overnight in a yurt and also camping in the taiga (forest), comfortable that I’d gotten to know her before ‘handing I’d put a notice on the school whiteboard heralding the possible visit. I was myself over’. keen to meet Paul Grabowsky, keen to share my travel plans, keen to offload my anxiety regarding Tuva, keen to share the effect upon me of the 1996 The four-week period of my visit was nestled in the middle of 2010. January, episode of Access All Areas. I’d held an exhibition of portraits of ten women aged in the middle of a decade, from ages five to 85. The women who allowed me to paint them A colleague told me I was brave. Brave, while in remote Australia, to plan a included Gertie Huddleston, one of the famed Joshua sisters who, inciden- visit to remote Siberia? No. There are things one simply must do. tally, was shortly afterwards awarded the Northern Territory’s NAIDOC artist of the year; Judith Durham, singer, composer, and poet, formerly of the Seekers; my 15-year-old niece Malinda; and Marshie Perera Rajakumar, chemical engineer and owner and director of the Jhoom Bollywood Dance School. I included interview footage of the ten women, giving viewers the Tuva opportunity to see the subjects animated and to hear what they had to say. At the time I understood there to be fewer than 15 Australians reported to In April, May, and early June 2010 I lived at, and taught all class levels of the have ever visited the place. I wished to be within the physical space of primary and secondary school in the remote Aboriginal community of authentic throatsingers. I wished to meet the people and to experience the Numbulwar in South-east Arnhem Land. October, November, and early land and culture from which this unique singing practice has sprung. And I December I taught at the Aboriginal community of Angurugu on Groote wanted to see if I could include, as subjects, some of in my next Eylandt. art exhibition.

My time at Numbulwar preceded my overseas travel. I still did not know In 1996 I hadn’t regarded myself a singer. My academic and professional life

16 concentrated on fine art, fiction writing, and community projects. I was not Tuvans have many styles of throatsinging. Those best known to the West are: a singer, but I was free to be a nut with sound. Here and there I had been G Sygyt: high flute-like singing when sounds dance freely above and around able to weave in experimental voice. Removing the carpet in my studio meant the timbral quality of a good throatsinger’s drone that silly voices could reverberate in the space. During full-time art studies in 1975 I created a sound sculpture exploring texture and cadences, and G Khoomei: the constricted sound that rises ringing upwards from a tight throwing the voice. 1983 I was allowed to include a music elective while belly, chest, and throat, yet does, at the same time, produce overtones undertaking a Bachelor of Arts degree, with a double major in Writing and Literature. The elective had an experimental music component. We created G Kargyraa: a very deep continuous gravelly growl that can vibrate through projects using voice and found objects for sounds. I remember how extra- to hit the pit of the stomach of the listener. ordinarily uplifting it was to orchestrate and hear my classmates sing the piece The Tuvan technique of singing is physically demanding, requiring a tight I’d created using abstract sounds and unconventional notation. I drew upon belly, chest, and throat. Choduraa had arm-wrestled me during one lesson, these experiences when in 2005, now formally qualified as a teacher, I began encouraging me to bear down deeply. (This method has to be attributed to to bring abstract singing into the classroom. Otkun Dostay, the current manager of Tyva Kyzy.)

I reluctantly agreed, for a day, to teach four Italian classes at a primary school. Before leaving Tuva I considered what it now means for me to pursue this I can’t speak Italian. Not to worry, I had been told: the lessons would be interest: to activate a tired if disused part of myself and draw up a voice from planned with worksheets available; and all classes would, during their final deep down there. It takes retraining, and yes, is said to be akin to learning 30 minutes of their sessions, practise their Italian song for the end-of-year to wiggle one’s ears. concert. It intrigued me to consider the power of low, guttural sounds, possible only The students began to shout their Italian songs at all directions within the when the lower gut is engaged and the throat is strong. four walls of their classrooms. When I gathered together their voices into abstract sounds, encouraging them to do so as one gentle yet powerful voice, It has been proven that the strength in the waves of low sounds can extinguish the centre of both my palms warmed. I had discovered an invigorating yet a flame. relaxing activity I could juggle and build upon regularly thereafter with students over the following years. Even now, it is wonderful to always hear at Was the inspiration to develop such a demanding form of singing for a least one student singing as she or he exits a class session. culture of people a spiritual one? Certainly, one has to engage physically, deeply, spiritually, and honestly. Without doubt, throatsinging is powerful Even now, I don’t regard myself as a singer. I do not perform in the formal both for the singer and for the listener. Attacked by a horde of Genghis sense, but I do, and will always, thoroughly enjoy exploring breath and sound. Khan’s, it would not be the swords held menacingly erect and ready as they charge, but a collective kargyraa that might make victims shit themselves. I’d had an interlude exploring Western Harmonic Overtone Singing, enjoy- Genghis’s general was said to be a Tuvan. ing its possibilities in the outdoors with likeminded people; and I delighted at, and regarded, the many, many people on YouTube who shared their Certainly the voice of a good throatsinger goes through me and has made demonstrations and enjoyment of both throatsinging and harmonic over- me want to cry. tone singing, as delicious. The smiles at the completion of their generous demonstrations endeared them to me as distant friends. Such encounters are both inspiring and humbling.

17 The Tuva journey

13 July 2010

At 2.00 a.m., I was waiting for the train from Beijing to Krasnoyarsk. Got chatting, as I do, to a Russian man who said he’d just spoken to an American who was also going to Tuva. To meet someone going to Tuva was rare, he said. This American guy turns out to know the guy with whom I’ve been in contact and another American who, coincidentally, visited the school at Numbulwar in the NT for one week. He is the tour manager for a Tuvan throatsinging group, Alash. He was going to Kyzyl, Tuva’s capital, to attend the wedding that Sunday between Alash’s manager, Sean Quirk (another American), and Sveta, a Tuvan woman. The couple already have three children. We flew to Krasnoyarsk on the same plane and travelled from Krasnoyarsk to Abakan in the same train carriage. Dora Levakis with Choduraa Tumat, founder and director of Tyva Kyzy (the All trains in Russia run to Moscow time, so our train left later than was on Daughters of Tuva). the ticket. This meant we got into Abakan four hours later than planned. In a van was Sean, the guy about to get married, and three others ready to take Yesterday I posted some postcards but I was told it will be unlikely that people us all to Kyzyl. Beautiful trip! It’s a small world that all these guys know each will receive them. We’ll see. other and also know another throatsinging American who I had admired and e-mailed from YouTube. I was humbled by these coincidental meetings. We It’s quite hot here, fortunately, as there is no hot water in the whole of Kyzyl are invited to the wedding. Many throatsingers would be there. until the 18th. The water in the pipes is freezing cold: hard going at first but very refreshing after the shower. I will not go without washing! And I Next day I met an Australian woman who has been doing a Master’s paper handwash my clothes daily. on Tuvan music. I had found a blog by this person a year ago when she was asking advice on how to manage sub-zero temperatures. I’d e-mailed to tell Kyzyl is the capital of Tuva and is quite poor: many road repairs and old this person I wanted to go to Tuva but was finding it difficult getting buildings. I have a room in the most expensive hotel at around $140 a night. information. I had received no reply, but was yesterday told on the phone I Foreigners need to register visas for every day of our visit here, but so far no would be introduced to some of the women musicians. This PhD student and one has stopped me on street to check. a few of the other people might join us on our forthcoming ten-day trek through the Tuvan country. Six of the days will be on horseback. Involving I am openly stared at, and many people have wanted to take photos of me more people will lead to lower costs. with them. My minimal Tuvan helps, but I wouldn’t get by in the long run without help. This place is dangerous at nightfall: the Tuvans do drink, and

18 can become violent at night. There are stabbings. I don’t push my luck. It So far I’ve had two formal throatsinging lessons and two lessons on the igil doesn’t get dark until after 10 p.m. It’s a weird sensation. from Zhenya, one of the people I’d made contact with a few months ago. This morning I purchased an igil made by Aldar Tamdyn, a member of 19 July 2010 Chirgilchin, who makes the instruments for everyone here. I asked him to work his magic on my igil and filmed him. A little over a week ago he’d given Yesterday I attended the 10-hour wedding of Sean and Sveta at a yurt camp me a demonstration in his workshop and, without asking, a tourist filmed about 20 km out of Kyzyl. I took footage and many photos and am very happy him. If that was a problem, Aldar was too polite to say. with these, but unfortunately the batteries for both the camera and the mobile phone ran out. This was unfortunate, because the singing on the bus Chirgilchin had been visiting Sydney in June. Obviously I couldn’t have gone ride home was extraordinary. Young and old joined in together with all forms as I was in the Northern Territory, but did anyone else know? I would have of throatsinging (and all with perfect pitch!). One of the guys from the Tuvan flown in for the concert without blinking an eye. Apparently Lori Anderson group, Alash, and some of the woman, including the one next to me, sang had invited them to be part of the Quiet Music Festival. melody of the song in a style akin to the Mongolian long song. My under- standing of this style is that sung vowels are elongated and emotive. Effective, Driving me to town today, Aldar told me he especially liked the wedding when singing across the steppe. The gorgeous woman sitting next to me yesterday because it was good easy fun. He said that Tuvans nowadays often motioned for me to join in but I couldn’t spoil the ambience. Instead I get violent. During the evening of the wedding celebrations, most male guests bemoaned the fact that I couldn’t record what they were doing and that a engaged in ‘Khuresh’, the Tuvan style of wrestling. All winners and losers current companion was suddenly overtaken by the vodka etc. he had earlier were goodnatured. enjoyed and wasn’t able to stand, let alone use his movie camera. However, I had recorded much of the singing during the wedding celebrations. One Every person, foreigner or local, who throatsings understands that one has of the others from Alash, Ayan-Ool Sam, had earlier given me an informal to first find his or her Khoomei voice. During the lesson, Zhenya told me my lesson in Khoomei after I told him I’d seen him on YouTube. He was a kargyraa was good but that I should not go there yet. If I hear myself going sweetheart in the way that he kept a watchful eye over another drunken into overtones, stop it. It’s easier he said, for beginners to create a kargyraa member of his group and over a tourist, making sure the tourist and I made sound (a low, deep growl), but settling into this will disable one from finding it to our doorsteps. a khoomei voice. To reach this voice requires engaging muscles in gut and throat. It’s quite exciting hearing all the examples given to me so far ... To The wedding began formally with white dress and suit and tie before trans- get overtones over sounds that originate and emanate from the mouth is forming into Tuvan style. The music was at first strident, interestingly Rus- pleasurable but not what these people do. sian. The music that followed was, as you might guess, excitingly Tuvan. As mentioned already, the wedding was between Sean, an American guy, and A few days earlier I’d met three members of a Finnish throatsinging group Sveta, a local woman. Sean has been here for about six years and has already and was rapt to see them here. Being the bold person that I can be, I managed three children with Sveta. He is the manager for the throatsinging group to get a sample of their singing. Another guy from gave a demonstra- Alash, is himself a member of the Tuvan National Orchestra, and has been tion also of his throatsinging and, delightfully, gave me a sample of Psaran- given a medal from the president for his khoomei abilities and for his work dontis, one of his favourite Greek singers. Steve Sklar and wife Johnna in promoting Tuva. It was announced at the wedding that the president was Morrow were also there. Johnna sang a song for Sean and Sveta, a song she’d gifting the couple a block of land on which they can build a house: a generous sung at her own wedding. gift as most people can’t afford anything more than renting an apartment.

19 (Top): The bride and groom, Sveta and Sean: the wedding at the yurt camp, wasn’t at the Centre any more and it seemed I wouldn’t find him. 20 km out of Kyzyl. (Right): Dora being urged by a shaman to have yet another shot of vodka at the wedding. A few days ago I was walking around Kyzyl thinking I should really try to find this man. I charged up to the museum. Near the front stairs was a man with In August 2009, immediately after sending an e-mail to a principal accepting wooden dolls and animals spread on a cloth. I thought he was trying to sell a one-day-a-week, 13-week engagement teaching puppetry, I got onto the them. When I approached he began to perform the most amazing finger Tuva On Line newsletter and saw an article on Viktor Kuular, a puppetmaker puppetry. I asked his name and — it was Viktor. I pulled the article out of here in Kyzyl. I printed the article and brought it with me, but was told he my bag and he confirmed it to be about him. I told him I was happy to find

20 Some of the wedding guests. This photo is a mere section of huge circle made from tables.

21 him and he agreed to photos and a film. Our communicating was done with difficulty as he can’t speak English, and in fact very, very few people do. Russian is the formal language that all people speak.

Viktor walked me down the road to the Post Office where I showed him photos of Australia and my paintings on my memory stick. He said a lot, but again, I didn’t fully understand. While crossing roads he’d courteously put his arm around me. After I showed him a photo of Lance he nodded and said, ‘Moosh’. I suspect he then understood Lance to be my boyfriend.

Viktor took me to the internet cafe at Hotel Kyzyl. There I met Aldanay, a worker keen to learn English, who has good basics. After she helped me to print my photos of my paintings, I took this girl to the cafe Vostorg and helped her with English.

Tomorrow we should be heading off an a 10-day tour. Five or six days will be on horseback. Will cost around $A1200.

20 July

The trip into the taiga has been postponed until Thursday, so I’ve come to Hotel Kyzyl hoping to see again Aldanay, to offer her another informal English lesson over a cup of tea. She’s returning tomorrow, so I thought I’d use the internet just the same. It costs 42 rubles for the hour, which works out to be about ... $2.00.

I came into town by taxi this time, as my host needed to register passports at the immigration office. It took a while moving from one building to another. First we had to alert them to our intention, then acquire photocopies, then pay the 2 ruble fee per day, then to take the lot back to the office. While waiting in each of those packed rooms I noticed young people readily giving up their seats to older people. One young boy’s face lit up when I spoke, so I asked the boy if he spoke English. This is very rare. He carefully but successfully engaged in a conversation with me.

Sveta, the bride, with her daughter Sonchalai Quirk.

22 For the first eight days I stayed at the hotel I was in a good position to get my for the price came two nights ago. Because I’m expecting to be at my physical bearings, and yet far enough away from the city centre to allow for a good worst in a week’s time I decided it wasn’t going to be worth it to suffer on 30-to-40-minute walk into town. For the whole of those eight days I had to horseback, particularly when two of the others who would also be going had shower and handwash clothes in cold water. Icy cold water. I came to enjoy led me to feel I couldn’t rely on them if in a vulnerable situation. Yes, these the after-effect. two had been drinking, but enough is enough. It was a difficult decision. I was warned I was going to offend some very important people, a response I am now staying for five nights at someone’s apartment, as a home stay, for that actually helped consolidate my resolve. Who was the trip going to be for 600 rubles a day. There was the option to rent the whole apartment for 3000 anyway? rubles a day between myself and another, but I decided that I wanted the Tuvan experience of being with a family. My host lives with her 24-year-old Today I met with Choduraa Tumat, a leading Tuvan female singer. The daughter. women are going on a four-day trip to meet up with some other women.. I asked if I could join them. They said yes, so we should be heading out on As mentioned, the two of them had just escorted us to the immigration office. Friday. I will pay 10,000 rubles, around $A400, and will share costs for gifts After checking what they wanted to do, I told the other tourists I’d see them of chocolate and biscuits. I also met with C.’s manager and discussed the later. possibility of including the women in my next exhibition. I’ve been wanting to meet with Choduraa for over a week now. My request for portrait sittings Another visitor said that music lessons here cost a lot in response to Western- happened after they agreed to my joining them on trip. ers charging in their own countries a lot for throatsinging lessons they learn from the Tuvans. Last night I also sat with the Greek guy, who offered to take me to other places. He told me about a festival that was staged before we arrived (why I had been trying for six months to get information on how to get here and weren’t we told about this when discussing date options?) and told me how what was going to be happening this year with regard to throatsinging. a master approached him on hearing his attempts at throatsinging and held Because 2010 happens to be the International Year for Tourism in Tuva, his hand tightly while he sang the various styles to him, saying, ‘Do it like information was finally posted on the Friends of Tuva website. I’d e-mailed this!’ I spent some time looking at this guy’s many photos (on his camera). the FoT a year ago for information but received a quick reply that they had no idea what was planned for 2010. I learned two lessons from the discomfort of last night: to look after myself and to stand strong with my decisions. I have exhausted myself over the past After the ten-day tour I will most probably continue the home-stay. The 18 months doing so much at great cost. There has to be room for goodwill home-stay is not supposed to include food, but our host has graciously cooked and to be able to give some things away — but I’ve exhausted my resources a couple of meals for us. I’d already had breakfast this morning, but before too often. leaving for the day was presented with a table set with meat dumplings in a dill and spring onion soup. It was lovely but I was a little embarrassed. 27 July

21 July 2010 I arrived back from the trip with the women today, including two of the women from Tyva Kyzy and a Russian couple and their two children (who Last night I cancelled my participation in the tour, including the horse trek publish some of the Tuvan CDs). We had to hire a driver. For the first leg of to the taiga! The departure date had changed three times, and confirmation journey, Tyva Kyzy’s manager drove us. He delighted in saying that Dora will

23 A van we encountered upon leaving Kyzyl selling kvas, a drink made of fermented wheat; non-alcoholic and very refreshing. We first found one of these vans in Krasnoyarsk, the first place in Russia I’d visited.

24 A public toilet on the steppe.

25 open the door for Tyva Kyzy to get to Australia. The driver for the rest of the 30 July trip was a typical Tuvan. This morning I took an apartment for myself and was very happy that I We stopped at Erzin, spending the night in a five-star hotel: no running water decided to do this. Two nights ago I’d discovered another guy was being (nowhere out in the country has running water!) and outdoor dunnies: a brought into the current apartment. I didn’t want more of those beer-fuelled type of long drop that has a short drop. One has to squat and inch around a voices echoing through the walls in the early hours of the morning. The previous person’s droppings. The short drop means it stinks terribly. The owner and daughter of the apartment have planned to leave today for temptation to move droppings away with a stick is arrested by the promise of Mongolia, so the current level of polite peace at night would fall through the fresh aromas (!). All country toilets, and many here in Kyzyl, are like this. You window. The next morning (yesterday) I received a call from the woman have to carry a good store of toilet paper. Early morning rain provides some whose tour I had refused saying that the price for the rooms was going up — relief to the smell. no, not from that day, but from the beginning of our taking them. My impulse was to tell her to go jump, as we’d taken the apartment at an agreed price. At this hotel we were met by a woman from the Cultural Centre who may The increase amounted to $7.00 a day, which is not much, but the principle refer to the visit in the local newspaper. Another two women came to the annoyed me. Nonetheless the other tenant paid, so I thought I’d better keep room, granddaughters of a famous Tuvan singer: daughters of a mother quite the peace and follow suit. Anyway, I had hoped to leave. As luck once again competent in the art of Tuvan singing at a time of strong cultural and political (yet again!) found me, I managed to secure a lovely apartment all to myself taboos. I asked if health issues can arise from the practice of khoomei. One for a tiny bit less than the new price for the current place. of the women indicated that, while anything can be harmful when forced, it is believed that respiratory problems can develop from this practice. The Last night I received a text from a distraught young woman wanting to talk. opinion was expressed that to do khoomei well, one will have a god-given She was being hassled by an older Tuvan man, whom we know and is integral gift. You can either do it or you can’t. to the network. He had brazenly grabbed and kissed her, leaving her shocked and not knowing what to do. She was not used to saying ‘no’, and didn’t want Next morning one of sisters showed us documents and photos from the past. to make trouble. I insisted she ring a Tuvan friend of ours, as two things had We then drove to visit the yurt of the other sister, who gave us lunch. She was become clear over the past few days: he was testing her boundaries and the going to kill a sheep for us but we had said we’re not that important. locals weren’t sure what her boundaries were. We chatted at length last night. Interesting how the edge of one’s comfort zone can be compromised, Next day we camped near mountain mineral springs. I didn’t climb. Too especially when one wants to please. I’d acquiesced to the intimidatory heady. In the evening, when at the mountain, we all had to perform. Me too. demand for more money, but apart from that I feel I would be doing no one No way would I dare to sing overtone. It would have insulted them. I sang a service if I patronised him or her at my expense. ‘Morningtown Ride’ instead. The singing lesson today left me feeling as if I’d done 100 or more sit-ups. I Last night we drove to another yurt; twin yurts actually: somebody’s country was engaging muscles that I didn’t know I had. It is hard work but good. I dwelling. We spent the night there, toasty and warmed by the wood-fuelled might have mentioned that the Finnish guy who has been heading the stove placed in the centre of the space; its chimney protruding above the Finnish throatsinging society in Finland for over 10 years recommended that yurt’s apex. It was all you would expect from a Tuvan country home with I have lessons with Choduraa. And, yes, she’s good. animals and children running around and up the hills. Everyone has a winter and a summer homestead. When on the country trip, one of our group, a Russian, asked if I knew

26 A yurt in Tuva. Note the pole: the bucket with the peg beneath needs to be depressed for so the water will flow. There is no plumbing outside of Kyzyl.

Russian. When I replied, ‘I’ve come to Tuva, not Russia’, a Tuvan told me to People often speak to me in paragraphs ... it’s funny that they don’t animate ‘watch what you say’. I later learned of financial reliance and of a pride in their speech; they don’t mime to help the explanation. Often we end up being Russian. All children learn Russian, with Tuvan being taught as a looking at each other and laughing. I say, ‘Bil bess men’ (‘I don’t under- choice. Some families openly want to be identified as Russian, regarding stand’). Tuvan as a primitive option — but not so much in the country areas. My limited Tuvan is very helpful, and as its alphabet is very close to the Russian While we were in the country the children at one yurt home sat on top rail one, I’m able to decipher many shop signs (all in Russian). ‘Bank’, for of stockyard and laughed at my English. One of the group started to imitate example, is phonetically spelled as bank though the letters are Russian. my sound so I gave them all an English lesson, pointing to things and naming them. This is a delightful experience among the rolling hills of Tuva.

27 We had driven across the steppe to get to this yurt, Tuvan music playing on one of the women put her traditional costume on me and another of the CD, the driver throwing in a line of throatsinging here and there ... and giving women attached her long hairpiece to my head. I look like a Tuvan matriarch. his throatsinging version of a didgeridoo. The Museum of Tuva is in the background.

The grandmother to these kids motioned to them and they cleared off down I was right in guessing over a year ago that I needed to learn the Tuvan and up the huge hill, far away. These kids were all younger than ten. After language to help sing in their style. Choduraa uses the Tuvan vowel sounds milking the cows, an older woman mounted a horse and took off into the in each lesson. I’m pleased to say that I have now memorised all the vowels distance. It was suggested to one of us who would have a lengthier stay in correctly. Tuva that a month here in the country would show how hard women work; demonstrating why throatsinging isn’t traditionally women’s work. Eating out is relatively cheap here. The Lonely Planet guide refers to the cafeteria called Vostorg. It has an excellent variety of food for around $5.00. Have I mentioned that it has been found that Tuvans share the same genes I lunched on a cabbage roll stuffed with meat and rice, a slice of layered as Native Americans? You can see it. The women are exquisite beauties. something with pickled herring, a white root vegetable, a type of gentle mayonnaise and beetroot; a salad of carra ... 2 August shit ... the internet cut off and I lost the rest of this e-mail. So what did I say? Turns out I have to leave Tuva on Wednesday rather than Thursday to catch There was quite a bit more. the plane out of Russia at 2 a.m. Friday. More long stretches of time waiting without adequate sleep. There will be a minibus taking me from here at Oh well. In a few days I’ll be back home. I would love to be teaching again, 4 p.m. and arriving at Krasnoyarsk at 5 a.m. I will then have to wait until yes, for some income; but also to ground myself with kids. But I’ll need to midnight that next day to board the plane out of Russia. I will then have a make good start of a couple of paintings. 10–12-hour wait at both the Beijing and Kuala Lumpur airports — longer than the train travel. I’m tired at the thought of it and my pockets ache. I’m 2 August (extra) beginning to see daylight through the bottom of both of them. It seems they’ve given me an extra 12 minutes as I lost most of last e-mail. I Today I had a double lesson with Choduraa: an hour on igil and an hour can’t remember all that was lost ... singing; and will repeat this tomorrow and on Wednesday. Lessons cost 1000 rubles an hour, roughly $40.00. It would have been crazy to come here and I mentioned that a dog bit me over a week ago. It seemed to sense my not have lessons. I’d indicated earlier that the singing is physically demand- vulnerablility as I was very ill. A big dog that I thought was friendly, came up ing, and for me, when I have barely, if ever, accessed some of these muscles, to my waist, sniffed me, growled, then bit me. Luckily, I’d lost weight as I it is safer that I learn under the guidance of someone who is a master and, might have lost a chunk of flesh. The bite mark is only just healing now. by the way, a damn good teacher. Today Choduraa arm-wrestled me while I sang so I could engage my deep muscles more deeply, and I continued in In the Lonely Planet guide, Sean, the guy whose wedding I attended, is the push-up position. Ha, ha. This, she said, is the method of Otkun Dostai mentioned as a contact. Even as an American, Sean has an impressive (Tyva Kyzy’s manager). command of both the Tuvan and Russian languages. During my first meeting with him, during those hours driving from Abakan to Kyzyl, he demonstrated Yesterday, while photographing and interviewing the women of Tyva Kyzy, an entertaining ability to impersonate others. I imagine his humour and his

28 ear for Tuvan have activated his ability to make others at the other end of a Later ... phone believe he is a native of Tuva. In March 2012, I included Tuvan musicians as subjects in my solo art show, I was told today that the average wage here is around 14,000 rubles a month. ‘Of Remote Place’. Portrait paintings, photographs, and audiovisual displays This is probably why at least five different Tuvans choked when I mentioned of interviews and observations of all subjects were on exhibition. the cost of 30,000 rubles for the trip to the taiga. I guess these people have to find the balance between a fair price to charge for one’s own services and In July 2012, I returned to Tuva for further material and as guest at the what is a fair fee to ask of Westerners. ‘Dembildei’ festival; the fiftieth birthday celebrations for Kongar-ool Ondar, Tuva’s greatest living musical treasure. With respect to the difficulty of their Bye for now art, I competed on stage, alongside native Tuvans, and performed a live mood and portrait painting. Read the story of this trip below. Dora. — Dora Levakis, April 2013

Postscript: My second trip to Tuva, July 2012

5 July 2012 celebrations ... I’ve agreed to paint live on stage (ha, ha ... do I sound nervous?). Yesterday, I gave him a gift of a dilly bag made by women in It has been very hard to access the internet this trip. I can have 20 minutes Numbulwar and a box of Aussie macadamia chocolates with koala on the or so right now. box. For those who don’t know, the dilly bag features around the neck of David Gulpilil in the opening scene of the movie Australia. The dilly bag is I am in the room of the group Tyva Kyzy at the Tuvan cultural centre, typing made with tightly woven pandanus leaves and string made of currajong bark this as the women practise their music. Five women are singing while one — it should be able to hold water. also plays the kengirge, a large frame drum — the drum standing from floor to knee. Another plays the khomus, the Tuvan jaw harp. Another plays the I returned to Kyzyl two days ago, after spending a little over a full day at Lake byzaanchy, a string instrument with a bull’s head, and two others each play, Chagytai with four of these women, and with Choduraa’s family. Lake while seated, a chadagan, a stringed instrument similar to a zither that is Chagytai, at the foot of the northern slopes of the Tannu-Ola Range, is one plucked. A pity you can’t hear them ... of Tuva’s largest lakes. We’d intended to be there two days, but along the way, in the middle of the steppe, our hire car, with hire driver, had twice Kyzyl is abuzz with preparations for Kongar-ool Ondar’s fiftieth birthday broken down. The first time we waited for over an hour for another car to

29 bring a part that would repair the vehicle’s axle. I liked the way all, young 9 July 2012 and old, played soccer to pass the time. I had a romantic thought that it would be lovely if I received news while in The second time we broke down, it was for good. We were 2 kilometres from Tuva that I had been successful with my recent entries into the Doug Moran the lake and were prepared to walk with luggage, but it began to rain. A Tuvan Portrait Prize. This is indeed what has happened! I have received news that man piled the ten of us into his old Russian jeep and drove us the rest of the my portrait of Absolom, Kyle and Katrina has made it into the finals. The way. He was delighted to hear I’m from Australia, and called me ‘kangaroo’, portrait of Gerald Murnane that I wanted to enter into the Archibald — but something about which two of the women are still laughing. (Goodness, you couldn’t as it clashed with my exhibition — made it into the semi-finals. should hear Choduraa’s amazing singing right now .... there’s a strong chance you will be able to in near future!) This evening I painted live on stage while a musician from Hun Huur Tu played the igil and sang. Just before this I sat in the audience thinking I was I’m somewhat humbled by, yet again, the good luck that comes my way in crazy for agreeing to do this. My painting was largely gestural, as you might Tuva. I have so far secured two world-famous Tuvans for my next art show, imagine, and I wondered from the few claps whether the audience didn’t one of whom is the first Tuvan I’d heard of and whom I greatly admire. like it. But an elderly Tuvan woman thanked me, and a Russian man, the photographer for the Cultural Centre, later sat at my table in the cafe Lake Chatygai is a huge freshwater lake, but one can only drink the water by beaming from ear to ear as he said, ‘I can tell you are a real artist.’ Isn’t that pouring some from a bottle into a hand-operated pump. It can then be used delightful? for drinking and cooking. Choduraa’s brother had caught a bagful of three varieties of fish, affording us one each. His darling five- and seven-year-old These past few days have been abuzz with activities around Kongar-ool’s children were entertained by seeing a foreigner and took charge of my fiftieth birthday. Friday night was the opening, with extraordinarily good camera. The five-year-old followed me around. examples of throatsinging on stage, traditional Mongolian dancing, a sha- man’s dance, and a fusion of Tuvan Khoomei and beatboxing from Here, at Lake Chatygai, I had my first Russian banya. This was a two-roomed Shodekeh, an American professional beatboxer who is here as a special guest. structure made of logs, with a wood-fuelled heater heating one room and the A film crew is following him around, planning to make a sequel to the Genghis water in another. I had first to whip my body with a bunch of aromatic twigs. Blues documentary that brought Kongar-ool world fame. I’m not sure of its name, but noted that bunches of juniper branches are often sold at markets and at roadside stalls for this use in the banya. Using a We all piled outside for the opening dance and procession. No-one told me ladle, we scooped hot then cold water into a basin to pour over ourselves ... that, as a visitor from another country, I was supposed to be a part of this. You all know the paintings of Degas of the women at bath, using a tin basin? There was an especially made poster with ‘Australia’ written in Russian. (I’m This is what I used. I smile broadly as I type this! hoping I will be allowed to bring it home.) I was at one end of the crowd, with military men keeping the partitions intact. I saw the foreigners gather I have had perpetual headaches that began on the Melbourne–Hong Kong– around the Buddhist prayer wheel in the square and thought, Oh, I might Beijing legs of the trip, and don’t respond to pain killers. I’m fine, but if not have to be there. Then the announcements came: each country was called for this I’d be a completely happy bunny hopping around the steppe ... out, and the visitor walked a guard of honour with beautiful Tuvan ladies gesturing and received a welcome scarf at the top of the stairs. I was on the Pardon this, as it’s a rushed email. crowd side at the top of the stairs as I heard ‘Australia’ repeated a few times. A Tuvan carried my poster. I inched my way to the security guard and said

30 ‘Australia’, as I patted my chest. He motioned for me to go forward, so I day’s competitors, and so the prize giving began. Pipa and Morton both walked along the edge of the crowd to the area where the others with posters received a certificate and gifts ... and then my name was called ... Okay, so it had gone, and was given the Australia sign by the Tuvan lady. We then really was a thankyou for participating and showing interest. I walked on stage marched into the cultural centre. Kongar-ool shook my hand and kissed me. and received my certificate in Russian script: surname first, followed by We’d already met. Two days before I gave him a dilly bag made by the women ‘Dope’. The ‘p’ is pronounced ‘r’, and the ‘e’ is the dative form of ‘Dora’, of Numbulwar; and gave him one of my cat cards. A journalist later asked me which is to say that the ‘e’ makes it ‘For Dora’. Yes, I immediately saw the if I was the one who gave Kongar-ool the artwork for his birthday. I was a little comic side of this. I’m a dope — I tried to perform Dymchyk Khoomei! I’m puzzled. Perhaps someone else had given him a painting. The journalist then sure you’ll all line up on my return to hear how I do it ... told me that Kongar-ool was showing everyone my cat card and saying, ‘Look at this.’ That’s delightful too; but his delight in the detail of the cat card may After I had received my certificate, the cute little girl handed me gifts of have been the reason he didn’t shake my hand tonight after my painting act Kongar-ool’s latest book (in Russian), a CD of his, and a book of postcards. elicited something more abstract ... I then shook the hands of each of the judges, shook Konar-ool’s hand, and walked off the stage giggling to myself. As Pipa and Morton had performed The whole of yesterday was comprised of singing competitions. Wow: so many twice — once each as soloists and again as a duo — they were also awarded terrific Tuvans. the People’s Choice prize; the same prize that Paul Pena was awarded in . (I have a copy of this DVD and can lend it to anybody who is I was reassured when a couple I’d already met two years ago when I last visited interested.) Tuva, a Norwegian man and Finnish woman, told me we are comic relief for the Tuvans; that, good or bad, we would be laughed at, but that the Tuvan We performed alongside the Tuvans themselves, from the beginners to the people appreciate foreigners respecting their music traditions; and, with our advanced. Tyva Kyzy performed, and the group was awarded a lamb. failed attempts we show their young people how hard it is for us. So ... I went on stage and received applause for first saying, ‘Ekii’ (hello) in Tuvan. Pipa I’ve come home with Choduraa tonight and ... where was that lamb? In the and Morton were in Tuva for their fifth and seventh times and were damn boot of the taxi, the poor thing. Tomorrow her brother will slaughter the good. I’d already heard them practise in the rehearsal rooms of Tyva Kyzy. lamb, Tuvan style, as is depicted in the DVD Genghis Blues ... All the women, , Pipa and Morton, and I will join in the festivities. (Oh, my god.) Today began with a lecture on the history of Tuvan music. Choduraa made a presentation, followed by both Morton and Pipa. Pipa spoke in English I’m staying in the most delightful rustic environment; I love being here, living while Choduraa interpreted. Morton is quite knowledgeable on the disco- the Tuvan way, rather than in an apartment. As I promised I wouldn’t take graphy of Tuvan music. Pipa spoke on the teaching of music without nota- photos, I won’t describe the environment either. A pity, but I must respect tion. my friend’s feelings. It’s now 2.30 a.m. and there will be an early start, so I’d better go ... Following this talk, a cute little Tuvan girl came on stage in traditional dress — what a darling. Kongar-ool then introduced the judging panel for yester- — Dora Levakis, July 2012, now included in the combined article, April 2013

31 Jennifer Bryce has been a long-time friend of Melbourne fans without ever joining fandom. She has spent many years as a music educator and researcher, and has taken partial retirement in order to write ... and travel.

Good horn, good brakes, good luck: A month in India

by Jennifer Bryce

Sunset on our houseboat, Kerala.

32 It’s 5.30 a.m. and golden lights are subdued by fog as my plane touches down in Delhi. The shape looming next to my window is a Spice Jet — a plane specially designed for transporting spices? Much later I learn it’s the name of a domestic airline. Soon I’m sitting in a little coffee shop waiting at International Arrivals for Anne who is coming in a few hours’ time from England. Take life one step at a time. Step One, have a Pepsi. No thanks. I sip my sweetened milky coffee — the only kind you can get — my first transaction in rupees. I can hear and smell the gentle bubbling of oil making Indian delicacies. Not ready for those just yet.

One thing I hadn’t expected in India was efficiency. We see so many pictures of rusty-looking trains with people hanging out of the windows. And I recall that the Hindu conception of time is very different from the Western one. But to my surprise, everything works and is punctual. Anne’s plane lands and we meet up — exactly according to schedule. A driver from the hotel is there to meet us. As I sit in the back seat — can’t do up seat belt as the clip is covered over with towelling — I try to figure out which is the correct side of the road to drive on. Ultimately I realise it’s the left. But the only traffic rules seem to be: sound your horn and accelerate through any gap in the traffic, know the exact size of your vehicle as there will be less than a centimetre to spare on each side, bicycles kind of give way to tuk tuks, tuk tuks to motor bikes, motor bikes to cars. Through all of this buses assert their priority, tooting loudly in minor sixths. It’s best to be a cow.

It’s pouring with rain the first morning when we set off to validate our rail passes. We plunge into the throbbing, hectic life that is Delhi, taking a tuk tuk. The driver knows a little English and offers us ‘a very good price’. There are things like taxi meters in the back of some tuk tuks, but none of them seem to work. We have been cautioned to confirm a price before going anywhere. The driver is friendly. After a little while he has a chat in Hindi on his mobile phone. At the station we assume that the main entrance is straight in front of us — everything milling with seemingly hundreds of tuk tuks, people, animals, food preparation. But no, an obliging man confidently leads us down to the other end of the building where another man, seemingly X-raying luggage, asks whether we want the Government Tourist Office —

Street scene in Old Delhi.

33 how does he know? — ‘It has moved,’ he says. We are pretty confident that to be taken in by a scam like that. it is in the main station building. ‘No, Madam. It has moved.’ A hint of exasperation. He leads us up some stairs. ‘This is where it was.’ The area is ‘I can take you to the real Government Tourist Office,’ says the man. clearly abandoned. ‘I can take you there, it is just a short taxi ride from here.’ — How can he leave that important X-raying he was doing? — A taxi driver Once again we are very grateful — and the taxi costs almost nothing. is conveniently nearby and agrees to take us to the new office for a very low fee. What else can we do? Off we go and soon we are climbing stairs to what This time the words ‘Government Tourist Office’ are painted on the build- is clearly a tourist office, but not much sign of government. ing. But apart from this, it looks much like the previous place.

The gentleman appears to be looking at train timetables on his computer The man we see is called Raj. He offers tea. I ask for his business card. screen. ‘It is most unfortunate but at present the trains are very unreliable. They are getting held up by the very bad fog. There are many cancellations.’ Raj pulls open a drawer. I can’t see what’s inside it but he seems to contem- plate which card to select. Certainly it says ‘Government of India’ in plain Fog? Trains run on lines. Fog might delay them a bit, but, cause them to be blue print. But there are no emblems. None of the usual paraphernalia you cancelled? — Why? find on government stationary. He has crossed out the name Javed on it, and Javed’s mobile number and has handwritten his own name, with no phone ‘Madam, the trains come from the North. There is a lot of heavy fog in the number. The most prominent printing on the card, in red, says, ‘Perfect mountains.’ Holiday Travels’.

‘Most surprising. Delhi is the capital. Surely most services start in Delhi?’ Anne and I haven’t had a chance to speak privately, but it is clear that we have both smelled a rat. It is also clear that we are quite enjoying this ‘No Madam. You have come at an unfortunate time ... You should consider adventure. What will they come up with next? cashing in your train tickets. We can provide an excellent service with a chauffeur. He can drive you all around Rajasthan for a very good price.’ Raj reiterates the story of the most unfortunate situation with the fog. Not only could his office provide a car to tour Rajasthan at a very good price, but Why weren’t these cancellations headline news? we think. We had read The he would be prepared to write to the railway office in the UK that issued our Hindu Times at breakfast. tickets and ensure that they send us a refund. For this, however, we should hand in our tickets to him by the end of the day. ‘We’ll think about it,’ we say, as we descend the stairs from the rather makeshift office. ‘We’ll think about it,’ we say, as we sip our tea.

At the foot of the stairs we are met by another man who happens to have very While we think about it, Raj is prepared to provide us with a driver for a good English. half-day tour of Delhi at a very good price. As it is still raining and the museum we had intended to visit is closed, we accept the offer of the tour. We will ‘Did that guy say he was the Government Tourist Office?’ he asks. make a decision, we say, by the end of the afternoon.

‘Yes — but we realise it’s not.’ We feel almost smug. Of course we’re not going And we do have a very good tour. We puddle around the Jama Masjid

34 barefoot. We are taken on a rickshaw ride through the Old Delhi market area — thick bunches of electricity wires drooping precariously above the shoppers. There is a silver market, a wedding market, and, incongruously it seems, a market for medical textbooks. Back in the car we leave the narrow chaotic streets for some of the British legacy — the architect Lutyens’ vision (in the 1930s) for a new India. At one end of a long avenue is India Gate and at the other, Parliament House and the President’s residence of almost Versailles-like proportions — a garden of topiary, buttresses that feature Ganesh the elephant.

Then, for the first time, I experience a functioning Hindu temple — the temple to Lakshmi — Birla Mandir. We leave our shoes in a special room and walk up the marble stairs. When I first see young men jumping up and hitting a bell, I think they are being disrespectful — but it’s the opposite. That’s what you do when you enter a temple to pray. People offer garlands of fresh golden flowers to Lakshmi and Shiva. I had expected the outer walls to be bare stone, but they seem to be painted terracotta and cream — I find this aesthetically jarring; it reminds me a bit of the City Baths. But inside there is a richness; cool white marble sets off the vibrancy of the brightly coloured statues of gods and the golden floral offerings.

At the end of the tour we gently decline the offer to cash in our rail tickets and this is quietly accepted. In the evening we try to go to a concert of Indian music and dancing, but for some obscure Indian reason a special pass is required to get in (no tickets for sale) — surprising, as it was advertised in the Delhi Diary. We are happy to avail ourselves of the hotel’s bar facilities (little do we know that this is to be one of the few places where we can get half decent wine). We check with the hotel’s tourism desk and all trains are running on time.

As well as being struck by Indians’ efficiency I am also struck by their persistence and initiative. We will come across many drivers and other people connected with tourism who are able to converse — with a limited vocabulary relating to tourism — in English, French, Spanish, and a Chinese language, for example. To my amazement these people say that they have never been

Jantar Mantar Observatory, Delhi: for tracking position of the Moon.

35 Taj Mahal ethereal despite the tourists.

36 Oh no, we stride purposefully towards our carriage. ‘WS’ on our ticket stands for ‘Window Seat’ not ‘wait listed’.

We have another day in Delhi — wonderful Mughal miniature paintings in the National Museum (the detail of life reminds me a bit of Breughels with the addition of glittering gods). A path, now covered with crystal, along which Indira Gandhi took her last steps before assassination by Sikh body guards. The Jantar Mantar, a 200-year-old observatory with massive struc- tures such as a sundial and instruments to align the positions of stars, built by Maharaja Singh II — we will see a similar one in Jaipur.

Agra is as frenzied as Delhi — until you enter the grounds of the Taj Mahal and then, even with hundreds of tourists, there is a sense of awe and serenity. We have all seen pictures of this structure, built by Shah Jahan, a mausoleum for his favourite wife who died in childbirth. Today it looms somewhat eerily out of mist; immense pure white marble yet a gentle touch of femininity with the floral designs on the arches. I like to believe the story that Shah Jahan designed his own mausoleum, a black Taj on the other side of the Yamuna River that would balance the symmetry of this monument to his wife. A couple of days later we go to the gardens where foundations of what may have been the beginnings of the black Taj lie; gardens where the trees are closely pruned to ensure that courting couples will do nothing more daring Fatehpur Sikri. than sit and talk. to school — not even at the age of five, and they can’t read or write at all — It is in Agra that I first become aware of India’s self-sufficiency. You feel as not even in Hindi. They learned the languages from tourists. Puts us Austra- though nothing is wasted. Yes, there are piles of rubbish lying around — it lians to shame. seems to be mainly plastic bags and rubble — evidence of a lack of infra- structure (no wheelie bins or regular rubbish collection) rather than blatant There is also a persistence, however, in duping tourists at the New Delhi wastage. I think of this as I watch women making fuel out of cow pats. The Central Station. When we return two days later to catch the train to Agra — cows graze freely on the banks of the Yumana River. The dung is gathered, having prudently decided to take the hotel car rather than a tuk tuk — we dried out over several days and then shaped into disks that will burn well. are met at the entrance (the real entrance this time) by a man seemingly checking tickets. We go by car to Fatehpur Sikri, some 34 kilometres from Agra. It was the capital of the Mughal empire under Akbar, but only for a short time. Now it ‘Excuse me madam, but you are wait listed,’ he points to ‘WS’ on our tickets, is a solid red sandstone ghost town (or rather, palace complex) because it ‘you will have to go to the office upstairs.’ had to be abandoned after about 16 years mainly because of a shortage of fresh water. Around the Sikri Palace Akbar played hide and seek and other

37 about $20 a night we have an ensuite with a hot shower (that sprays all over the bathroom) and a toilet with no paper. When we ask for more blankets they are provided. There is a balcony and a leafy courtyard, lit by fairy lights in the evening, where meals and refreshments are provided, it seems, at any time of day. On the first evening we hear loud sounds rather like a brass band coming from the street. We run out. It is a wedding. People are parading and dancing down the street. The young nervous- looking groom wearing a white

games with his wives in the courtyards and gardens, but he also worked towards making India a centre where different cultures were accepted and melded together. To this end he married Hindu, Muslim, and Christian wives. Each group had its own quarters appropriate to its beliefs — the Christian quarters, for example, being in the shape of a cross. In Indian Studies I at Melbourne University more than 40 years ago we wrote essays about the ‘syncretic’ nature of Indian culture. Here is solid proof of that syncretism. Fatehpur is the religious part of the complex, with a huge temple where we are encouraged to buy lengths of material to be made into dresses for schoolgirls. The ability to syncretise cultures seems to continue today — back in Agra we have a pleasant meal at a restaurant called Zorba the Buddha.

We are staying in one of the amazingly good cheap guest houses one finds in India. We are ‘upgraded’ to a room with hot water. This means that for

Indian wedding band amplifiers.

38 jewelled hat sits astride a beautifully groomed horse. The music is amplified near fountain may be slipper avoid photography by climbing on it — a literal by some kind of generator contraption that is towed by a truck. translation from Hindi perhaps? We go to a market where we can’t resist buying some fresh vegetables to be made into our own salad that evening, The Indian efficiency falls down a little when our train to Udaipur is one and then we visit Uzman’s ‘family’ — the connections are uncertain. It seems that a half hours late. There is nothing much we can do but stand on the platform his uncle is an artist who paints beautiful miniatures, a family tradition. His and wait for it; a few beggars — one crawling — rats scuttling around in the wife has her own business painting on silk. A contrast with this is the rubbish, women in saris laden with jewels, young men selling food jumping Maharaja’s vintage car museum — several 1920s Rolls Royces, a 1940s MG on and off moving trains, and a horrible burnt oil smell to which I am TC, more recently the Maharaja seems to have favoured Mercedes. A few becoming accustomed. Over all this a woman’s recorded voice, with beautiful kilometres out of Udaipur is Tiger Lake — a natural lake that is English vowels, constantly announces arrivals and departures, every-so-often of Udaipur’s water supply. We pass through farmland; the workers wave to inserting, ‘May I have your attention please.’ When the train does come, signs us. There are many women labourers building fences, carrying the heavy on the platform light up to indicate exactly where our carriage will stop. stones on their heads yet beautifully dressed in bejewelled saris. Tuk tuk travel Passenger names are on lists at the entrances to the carriages. Our names are is the way to go. You experience so much — the rural smells, the detail of there. Minutes later we lie in our sleeping bunks, lulled by a gentle rhythm street life, what is sold in the shops, the fruit on market stalls ... And on trains as the train carries us across a darkened Rajasthan. you meet people. We take the train to Jodhpur.

We wake up in Udaipur, the city of lakes. Many of these lakes are artificial. They were constructed in the fourteenth century — a clever system of damming, whereby one lake overflows into another and no water is lost. As recently as 2005 the lakes have been dry from lack of rainfall. But we are fortunate. Our hotel overlooks Lake Pichola, full of water. I’ve never been to Lake Como, but I suspect this is just as serene. There is a rooftop restaurant and breakfast is included in our meagre tariff. Our room has a window nook from which we can glimpse the water. It is a touristy place, and there is some pressure to buy saris or miniature paintings, but there is also a sense of freedom and it is much easier to walk around. We walk by the lake and observe women washing clothes, slapping them with blocks of wood. We walk into an evening temple service — a constantly rung piercingly loud temple bell reverberates through one’s body — forcing a physical participation although, intellectually, we are unsure of the ritual. On another evening we walk to a concert of fabulous dancing; intricate work with a marionette and a middle-aged woman performs a water dance, balancing more and more pots on her head — ultimately about ten. One evening we have an up- market Indian meal, finishing with cardamom rice pudding served on a bed of edible rose petals.

When Uzman takes us on a tuk tuk tour we visit lush cool gardens: Surface

39 Udaipur.

40 The second-class compartments have bunks and many passengers choose to excessively priced locks. We do this. Mr Biswas then writes something in white sleep, even if all of the travel is during the day. A rather rotund businessman chalk all over our luggage. But do we have satisfactory identification? I am joins us in our compartment. He has a succession of very loud phone not prepared leave my passport with him, but fortunately Anne has a conversations in Hindi. He sounds rather desperate and I imagine that he’s photocopy of hers which she shows him — and we pretend it is all Anne’s trying to clinch some deal. At last he takes off his pointy court shoes and goes luggage. We assume that he just needs to inspect the passport copy. But no, to sleep. I expect him to snore, but he doesn’t. When he wakes up he is ready he takes it and pastes it meticulously into his scrap book. Then, after some to chat. He works for the dairy industry — some kind of quality assurance. (I deliberation, he selects a rubber stamp and stamps it. We ask why, but he is had him as a used car salesman.) He travels in this area once a month, suddenly unable to understand. He inspects our luggage again. He doesn’t checking procedures for milk distribution. India has one of the biggest dairy seem to like it very much. He then indicates a high shelf, where we, ‘elderly’ industries in the world. I hadn’t associated milk with India — in fact I wasn’t women who have been compared to tuk tuk drivers’ 86-year-old grand- sure whether they milked the sacred cows. They do. After this I become very mothers, are to place it (all 30-plus kilos). Mr Biswas remains at his desk. We aware of the extraordinary number of milk cans carried on motor bikes. select a lower shelf so that we don’t have to lift it so high and this seems to meet with his approval — or at least, it doesn’t meet with his disapproval. We are to change trains at Ajmer. We should have a couple of hours to see And we are free. But it is nearly one o’clock. No time to get to the temple. the temple there. First we must store our luggage. The train arrives on time We go for a short walk outside the station but can’t find anywhere to eat, so and we look for a sign to cloak luggage. This is when we meet Mr Biswas. we end up eating at the station caf — we needn’t have locked or cloaked our There is a small queue with young men milling around, in the way Indians luggage. To our enormous relief Mr Biswas is still at his desk at one thirty do, trying to sell us luggage locks at grossly inflated prices. We join the queue and receiving customers. The formalities for collecting our luggage are a and after a while realise that at the end is a man sitting at a desk in the luggage- little less elaborate. storing room doing ... absolutely ... nothing. He is staring ahead. Not at us. He is just sitting there. After a few moments I ask a woman ahead of me in We continue on the train to Jodhpur — a rocky landscape with rock-crushing the queue, who looks as though she might speak English, ‘Do we go in?’ and brick-making industries. But the little stations are picturesque, freshly painted, and swathed in bougainvillea. Compared to Udaipur, Jodhpur ‘He just needs a few minutes,’ she says. seems dark and crowded. Our guest house is in the old part of Jodhpur where the streets are too narrow for cars and everyone has to stand aside when a ‘Oh.’ So we stand and try to ward off the luggage-lock sellers. tuk tuk goes past. But we come to like Jodhpur, perhaps best of all. Everyone gets on with their business, although most tuk tuk drivers have an uncle who Then, for no apparent reason, it seems all right to go in. Mr Biswas has had sells saris at a very good price. Underlying the bustle there seems to be a sense his few minutes. We explain that we want to cloak our luggage. Mr Biswas of contentedness. Perhaps we’ve just got used to the crowds. We love our old, explains that he will be taking lunch between two and three o’clock (we had crumbling, narrow guest house. The steps up to our room are very steep and intended to cloak our luggage until two o’clock, but it now seems wise to to get to the rooftop restaurant we have to climb several more flights. But collect it at one thirty, just in case Mr Biswas needs a few minutes before he what a treat once you are there! We look across the rooftops of the distinctive takes his lunch). Our luggage, however, is unsatisfactory. Having travelled blue buildings to the Meherangarh Fort. Everything is accompanied by with no problems from Melbourne and London via Singapore Airlines and chanting from the nearby Hindu temple. Why are so many of the buildings Jet Air, this luggage does not meet Mr Biswas’s standards. It must have sturdy blue? It is said that the Brahmins distinguished their houses by mixing indigo locks. We must buy locks for it otherwise he cannot take it. We really want to into the usual whitewash, but there was nothing to stop everyone else doing see the Ajmer temple, so there is nothing for it but to buy a couple of the it too. Some say that the blue keeps away mosquitoes. The owner of our guest

41 house is a Brahmin. Everyone seems to know and like him. ing to his caste, he has no choice but to be a potter. No way that he could have aspired to study medicine. Pushpakar, who, along with his brother The streets (if you can call them that) in old Jodhpur converge upon a market attends university, is of the warrior caste. He is studying history, which will in the midst of which is a distinctive clock tower. We figure that it will be easy presumably benefit his work in tourism. Next we go to a very poor family. to find our way around by using the clock tower as a base so we confidently The woman, a widow, goes through a routine of showing us women her saris. set out to explore on our first morning. But — when it is time to return — The man, her father-in-law, performs a small opium-smoking ceremony that all the streets look alike. Their names are not apparent — and even if they we are invited to join in, but decline. Then to a carpetmakers’ cooperative. were, they’d be written in Hindi. This is where it is convenient that our They received a government subsidy, which provided them with solar panels guest-house owner is well known. Most people can give us directions and we that sit incongruously on the thatched roof. We are shown the weaving ultimately find our way back. It is not until our third day that we find the right process and some beautiful mats. When Anne shows interest in purchasing street independently, and then there is a violent storm and all the lights go a rug, payment can be made by credit card and they can arrange shipping. out. We pick our way through the puddles lit by the lights of passing (very Driving home in the twilight we see peacocks and some rare black deer close) motor- bikes. We get there. roaming wild.

We visit the Fort — palatial rooms and courtyards, elaborately decorated Another day we arrange to drive to Osian, about 60 kilometres out of Jodhpur palanquins for royal elephant travel, miniature paintings of Marwar life, and on the edge of the Thar desert. Our particular interest is a large Jain temple superb intricately carved marble — so much is made of marble, sturdy yet and a Hindu temple complex said to date back to the eighth and nineth ornate. On another day we go to the Umaid Bhavan Palace. This was built by centuries. The Hindu temple has a lot of visitors and is very much in use — a benevolent maharaja in the late 1920s to provide employment during a it is hard to tell which bits are really old. A very thin and enthusiastic young time of famine (I guess he benefited, too, with a pretty comfortable resi- man provides a commentary much of which, unfortunately, we cannot dence). The palace must have taken ten years to build, as a boat bringing the understand. I try to lose him a couple of times — he darts about, up and furniture from England was sunk by a German warship. The sunken furniture down quite treacherous flights of stairs. I just want a bit of peace. But he’s was replaced by superb Polish Art Deco. There are only photographs of the always there waiting for us — so well intentioned. So we keep nodding our lavish bathrooms and fabulous furniture, but the maharaja’s clock collection heads and looking interested as he babbles on. Families visiting the temple is on display along with many photographs of the 1940s and ’50s. Also his want to be photographed with us — why? cars, another Silver Cloud Rolls Royce. We sit in the gardens eating delicious kulfi (pistachio-flavoured creamy ice-cream). And now we are on the train to Jaipur, sharing our compartment with a family from Jodhpur: Pavlar and his wife whose name seems to be ‘Lovely’ and their In the afternoon we go by jeep on a ‘village experience’. As we drive past vast 23-year-old daughter, who is to do an exam for a life assurance job in Jaipur. university grounds our jeep driver, Pushpakar, tells us with great pride that Pavlar is an insurance salesman, and certainly has the gift of the gab. He his brother has been elected president of the university student union. This doesn’t stop talking. Lovely doesn’t speak at all, but seems to understand. seems to mean a great deal to the family. Jodhpur is an important centre for Pavlar tells me his life story. He is 66. The government doesn’t provide a good the study of medicine. Although subsidised, it is still an expensive course. enough pension for him to retire, so, in an interesting twist, he just keeps on The fees are cheaper for girls. We visit villages of the Bishnoi people, who selling life insurance to others so that he need not retire. He says he is lazy. for centuries have protected animals. Although we go into some family Doesn’t have hobbies, doesn’t want to travel, he might as well keep working. compounds, it seems that our visiting is not too intrusive. First we go to a Onil, sitting across the corridor, joins in when he hears that I am from family of potters. A young man demonstrates his considerable skill. Accord- Melbourne. He has been there on business. He sells soy products. His

42 company makes some kind of nutritious soy paste that is dispensed to starving children by Médicins sans Frontières.

We stay in the Shahar Palace Guest House, run by a retired colonel and his wife. Why did I spend so much time trying to photograph peacocks at the Bishnoi villages? They are strutting around the guest house grounds here, accompanied by various kinds of chooks. The colonel maintains his military presence. I expect he knows what time everyone gets up and how much hot water they use. He punctuates his very clear English with ‘bloody’. His wife reads novels in the beautiful tropical gardens and supervises the kitchen. At about $35 a night our spacious room opens onto a balcony where we can eat meals or drink the masala chai, to which I am becoming partial.

In the evening, after visiting the Pink Palace with its many 1950s vice-regal photographs and excellent textile museum, we attend a Hindu temple ceremony, standing just a little apart from the worshippers. The men, in their various kinds of headgear, seem to pay close attention. Some have women at their sides, but some of the women are left on the outskirts — to gossip, it seems. Are they exchanging recipes? One woman asks another to hold her skein of wool while she winds it into a ball.

Two women staying at the guest house have told us of a clothing shop called Anokhi. It sounds good. We decide to try to walk there. After all, Jaipur is an important centre for textiles. One wrong turn and we end up at ‘Lifestyle’ — a very westernised shopping complex. We have a Starbucks coffee sitting near a ‘Hog Dog’ stand. There is a shoe sale, and I buy some lovely soft leather sandals, the 50 per cent reduction making the cost about $9.60. We find Anokhi and have a bit of a splurge. Then to Albert Hall Museum, opened, not surprisingly, by Edward VII when he was still Prince of Wales. At this museum I realise how fortunate we are in Australia to have substantial funds provided for such institutions. The displays at the Albert Hall are very poorly lit and sometimes lack labels or any explanation. Many of the exhibits are dusty or in need of repair. Nevertheless, there are magnificent sculptures — Buddhas, and Hindu gods Vishnu and Shiva, fine Bikaner ware pottery, delicate metal work, and more superb miniature paintings.

Jain temple, Osian.

43 shape of Lord Krishna’s crown. The women were carried (on palanquins) up ramps, striated to avoid slipping. They seem to have led a luxurious life lounging around the pools in the courtyard. Winds blew through the honey- combed recesses, creating relief during hot Jaipur summers. Having seen the Jantar Mantar observatory in Delhi, we visit a similar one here in Jaipur. It is a peaceful place, set in gardens, the impressive sundial towering over every- thing.

We have loved the Indian food, although I haven’t quite managed to fully appreciate a proper Indian breakfast — a lot of us are fussy about breakfast and I can’t quite manage solid rice iddlies or even a chilli omelette. We have both missed decent coffee and — yes — I must admit that the Indian wine we’ve had is, on the whole, a bit like kerosene. So on this last day in Jaipur we look longingly at the Rambagh Palace — a palace restored as an extrava- gant tourist resort, the hotel where Prince Charles stayed. Surely it would serve a good glass of wine? We take a tuk tuk to the entrance, quite expecting to be turned away. The guards won’t allow the tuk tuk in, but we are okay probably because we are clearly Western tourists. We are not particularly well dressed — my sandals are pretty grotty by now and I’m not even wearing my best shirt. We walk along the drive and through some of the 47 acres of gardens, up the marble stairs to the front door. ‘We would like to eat in your restaurant,’ I say — and we are ushered along a corridor to a verandah. High The next day, with the colonel’s assistance, we book a car to take us out of tea and various other things are being served under umbrellas on an expan- Jaipur and up the Aravalli Hills to the Amber and nearby Nahargarh and sive lawn. We are discreetly told the cover charge and it is so high that we Jaigarh forts. Amber fort was the original capital of Rajasthan, and consists decide we had better have lunch, even though it’s getting on for four o’clock. of many fortified apartments where the maharaja and his family lived. Some I have champagne and Anne has a glass of white wine, we have various kinds tourists ride elephants up the final steep hill, but we are happy to go by car. of grilled fish, delightful Indian sweets and, yes, good black coffee. As we eat Once again there is intricate, finely cut marble and superb jewelled ceilings we speculate about the other guests — one group look like Indian business- — some of the ‘jewels’ are tiny mirrors. There are formal gardens and men accompanied by someone’s sad-looking overweight wife; all the others fountains. The treasury and armory were kept at nearby Jaigarh Fort, and are European — older men, several with younger women. All better dressed Nahargarh Fort seems to have been a kind of hunting lodge. The name than us. Do they go outside the palace walls? means ‘abode of tigers’, and there are some beautiful frescoes of hunting scenes. Here and in other forts one can walk along secret passages that were On our last night in Jaipur we don’t sleep much, as we have to get up at built to trick invaders. 4.30 a.m. for our to Kerala. In the middle of the night the colonel collects guests, maybe from the station. He shows them into the room next On our last day in Jaipur we visit Hawa Mahal, the Palace of the Winds. It was to ours and spends forever loudly explaining how to work the hot water. The built so that women of the court could remain secluded while watching street trains toot in perfect fifths and augmented fourths. processions. It has a beautiful stone façade carved like honeycomb in the

44 A scene from our houseboat trip, Kerala.

45 This time we really are delayed in Delhi by fog. More understandable with planes. We have flown there from Jaipur to make a connection to Kochi via Hyderabad. Ultimately I am staring out of a window onto rocky terrain as I eat a stodgy Indian airways breakfast. It seems quite appropriate for there to be a strike in Kerala. It is left wing and has had a communist government. Something to do with the unions. No transport apart from trains. No taxis at the airport to take us the 30 kilometres to Kochi. The police have organised a special bus to take us to the railway station, then it is up to us ... Not too hard. Fortunately our hotel, in Ernakulum, is within walking distance of one of the stations and just in time we find out which one. We are met by Jo and Judy — friends of Anne’s from England who will join us on a backwaters boat tour. We are staying in Ernakulum rather than Fort Kochi because tourist guide books suggest that Ernakulum — the business centre — provides better value.

The next day there is nothing much to do because everything is closed — affected by the strike. The ferry from Ernakulum across to Kochi isn’t running. The shops are closed. We spend most of the day walking along the foreshore and find one art exhibition that is open — some good contempo- rary paintings. The government here seems to support the arts.

We are fortunate that the strike is over the following day. The streets are noisy Our houseboat. and crowded and a driver collects us to take us to our ‘rice boat’ for four days of bliss on the back waters of Kerala. It’s just the four of us, plus a captain, although a young boy, who probably doesn’t like the intrusion, dances his offsider and a chef. Jo and Judy are keen bird watchers and spend a lot around like a vicious tiger, roaring at us. Do some of the adults feel that way of time glued to their binoculars. I take an occasional photograph of a distant — resentful of us gliding past, staring at them as they go about their daily kingfisher, or, if not quick enough, a bare branch. I don’t recall another time tasks? when I’ve been so pampered. There is no need to think ahead, because someone else has decided where the boat will go and where it will stop and The idyll must finish. The boat moors for the last time. We are collected by when and what we will eat. You don’t want to read because the scenery is car — drop Judy and Jo at a railway station to continue their holiday down superb. We visit several churches — grand rococo affairs — a lot of Portu- south, and Anne and I return to Ernakulum. Schools start at 10.00 a.m. and guese influence. The nuns sing beautifully. In one, at a well-attended service it is just before this. As we drive through various towns, we see clusters of on a Saturday, there is an attempt at some sort of Indian–Christian rock children decked out in their colourful school uniforms. The traffic is very music. Fusion of cultures again. The waters are bordered by banana and heavy as we reach Kochi — offices also start work at 10.00 a.m. Everything is coconut palms. We eat fresh lobster and fish baked in banana leaves. At night running. By late morning we are on the ferry from Ernakulum to Kochi, we tie up in a bird sanctuary. Along the narrower waterways we get some sense where we wander around. I am sustained by a thirst-quenching juice of lime of the village life. People are with simple rods. Most smile and wave, and mint. St Francis church is said to be the oldest European church in India.

46 It houses Vasco da Gama’s tomb. Compared to the churches we saw on the We have a final wander around the streets of Kochi. Many of the old backwaters trip, this one is austere; brocade hangings that may serve as fans bungalows have become guest houses. We visit the Santa Cruz basilica — it and some plain-coloured glass windows that are not the usual leadlight is the beginning of Lent and everything is draped in purple. Then we sit depictions of scenes from the Bible. In the evening we go to a Kathakali dance quietly on the foreshore watching the operation of Chinese fishing nets that performance. Putting on make-up is a part of the act, and the audience can are said to date back about 500 years. These huge nets are operated by a series look into dressing rooms or sit, as we do, watching a lead dancer paint his of weights. Most are lifted out of the water quite frequently, often with just a face — a lot of green and black around the eyes, as he will be a maharaja in fish or two. A net-mender sits on the beach shaded by a clump of trees. Lots a scene from the Ramayana. of schoolchildren walk along the foreshore path. It must be recorder day, as many have their wooden recorders out. Some successfully persuade their The next day we explore the Jewish part of Kochi. There is now just one adult minders to buy them ice-creams from a nearby vendor. synagogue, but there used to be one for blacks and one for whites. The Jewish population is severely depleted. Our tuk tuk driver explains that he is given Back in Ernakulum, Anne wants to take me to a special restaurant for our 100 rupees worth of petrol for taking us to particular bazaars where we are last night. It has changed its name and is very difficult to find — we stride under no obligation to buy. So we help him and look at various handcrafts along the darkening streets. We almost give up, but do find it and are from all over India — these places are subsidised by the government. At the rewarded with a delicious meal — I have fish baked in banana leaves followed Dutch Palace (built by the Portuguese and renovated by the Dutch) we see by Indian halva, made with dates. Oh, and of course some French chablis. the most amazing murals of scenes from the Ramayana. We are quite tired and return to our hotel. The kerosene-like wine improves with the addition The next day I begin my long trek home. Anne has left at 5.00 a.m. My plane of soda water. leaves at a more civilised time. The taxi arrives right on time for the 30-kilometre drive to the airport, past a huge Catholic cathedral and close to On our last day in India there are various things to attend to. I post back it, ‘Lulu’, opening the following week, to be India’s biggest shopping mall. some clothes to make room in my luggage for new purchases. I am surprised In all our time here, we didn’t see one food supermarket — but here is Lulu, that I don’t have to declare what is in the parcel — the procedure is very described as a hypermarket. I am sure, however, that some aspects of India straightforward. When, two weeks later, the parcel arrives, the contents are will never change as I read one final road sign: Obey traffic signals. Avoid rash quite apparent. The fairly flimsy packet has become threadbare during its driving. travels, and Australia Post has provided a clear plastic bag for the contents. — Jennifer Bryce, March 2013

47 The sound of different drums

My life and science fiction Part 5

by John Litchen

All photos supplied by John Litchen

1962 in the state of Victoria was one of the last years of the 6 o’clock swill. to their parked cars. Streets surrounding the more popular pubs stank of That was, for those who don’t remember or simply have no idea, the frantic stale piss, which even solid downpours of rain failed to wash away. rush to buy and down as many drinks as possible in the last 15 minutes or so before the pub (or bar) officially had to close and stop selling drinks. People My recollections of the 6 o’clock swill are of Williamstown, which has more would crowd with raucous joy or noisy desperation against the bar and buy pubs in it than any other suburban area in Melbourne; 26 the last time I was four or five or even six beers, stack them in front of them, or precariously there. There were more than 100 back in its heyday, when Williamstown was carry them supported in both hands to a nearby table, after which they would the main port of entry for new arrivals (in the 1800s) who headed for the scull them one after the other before they were all ejected from the pub by goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo. The myriad pubs were their first stop after 10 minutes after 6 p.m. They would stagger out into the street drunk, because disembarking from the sailing clippers. Later, when the dockyards with the coming straight from work to their favourite watering hole, without having shipbuilding, wool packers, and other heavy industries, such as railway had anything to eat, their main object was to drink as much as possible before maintenance, were the mainstay of workers in the suburb (new arrivals closing time, and this inevitably resulted in drunks outside in the street having been shifted to Port Melbourne across Hobson’s Bay), the number of jostling and often fighting each other, and more often than not, drunken pubs slowly came down to 26. Even so, it seemed that there was a pub on just abuse at home. It was not uncommon that these drunks, having filled about every corner in Williamstown. Anyone attempting a ‘pub crawl’ never extended guts with litres of liquid, would be forced to relieve themselves in made it all the way around: 26 are too many to get through even if you only side streets, alleyways, or people’s front gardens as they struggled to walk back take one drink at each venue.

48 Not very nice, but Victoria was famous for its 6 o’clock swill: rather like the action of a bunch of huge fat pigs jostling each other to get at food dispensed in a trough.

This also explained why many hotels in the city proper had restaurants and dining rooms where drinks could be served with dinner, and drinkers from the bar could migrate to the dining room where they could continue if they ordered something to eat. These customers were often entertained with a floorshow. Even though these places also had to close by a specific time after which they were not allowed to serve drinks, usually by 10 p.m., they were very popular, and many talented performers gained experience working in those floorshows. The same performers would then go on to the night clubs that opened later, where the same diners who wanted to continue drinking would smuggle spirits in under their jacket or in a flask in their back pockets so they could put some oomph into the soft drinks and coffees ordered at the night clubs.

My sister Zara and I performed in some of the hotel venues, but she never went on to the night clubs, where often I went to play conga drums into the early hours of the morning. I don’t know how I managed, but on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays I would be at Birdland playing congas and performing as an accompanist to whoever was actually doing the floorshow. I would get home at 3 or 4 in the morning, sleep a couple of hours, and then go to work at the dry cleaner, driving, picking up, and delivering clothes between the factory and the various agencies scattered across the triangle between Sun- John Litchen playing the congas during a floorshow at Birdland, 1963. shine, Footscray, and Williamstown. shows had finished, and on many occasions were induced by the band to do The floorshows at Birdland were always a lot of fun, with exotic dancers: an impromptu performance. You never knew what was going to happen, so strippers (or girls who wore very little) dancing with snakes or some other it was always an exciting place to go late at night. prop designed to titillate or thrill the customers. There were singers like Johnny Summers, a great singer who died too young before his potential It was on one of these nights that a young dancer who was a lead dancer with could be realised, Ynez Amaya, who later called herself Beryl Sellers (she was West Side Story’s company in Melbourne turned up and asked if he could sit married to the house drummer Roger Sellers), and regular performances by in and play congas. He was from New York, and had a charisma that made the comedy duo Crocker and Clarke. They used their performances at everyone turn and look at him the moment he walked in the door. It wasn’t Birdland to work on their act, which was constantly evolving. The outstanding just his clothes, or the way he walked, or his self-confidence, although they one in this duo was Crocker, who went on to have an amazing solo were obviously part of it. There was something indefinable that compelled career. Musicians or singers and even dancers often turned up after their those around to look at him; especially the women, of whom he always had

49 someone accompanying him. There were two with him that night, dancers stated. There were only two drums, so he didn’t play counterpoint but from the West Side Story cast. launched straight into an impressive solo that wove phrases and patterns around the tones and slaps of the tumbao. He tapped his foot on the floor Why is it dancers never stop dancing? Do they always need to be the centre (on one and three) so I had a good metronome to help keep time, because if of attraction? My sister at the drop of a hat would break into a dance at I listened too closely to what he was doing I could lose the beat, but the whatever party she found herself. Being good at it, she quickly ended up tapping foot kept me on time. He looked at me as we played, and when his surrounded by an audience encouraging her to continue. These girls were playing reached a crescendo he nodded once and said ‘four’, which meant hardly into the place when they started dancing with this young man. Their four more bars, which I subconsciously counted. When we reached the end impromptu floorshow had everyone staring at them in rapture while the of the four bars we both hit one note on the first beat of the next bar and band of which I was a part felt compelled to play as best we could. I can’t simultaneously stopped. The band members on the stage behind us stood remember what we played, other than it was Latin orientated so the congas up and cheered and clapped, and the applause from the audience in the fitted in. But with those superb dancers performing we played tighter and club was overpowering. more precisely than we had ever played. It was just one of those things that happen sometimes; everything comes together exactly as it should and the JoJo leaned over and gave me a hug and a slap on the back. ‘Thanks for that. result is outstanding. I haven’t played in a long time and I needed to get that out.’

The applause lifted the roof off. Even the band members stood up to applaud What could I say? The guy was a fantastic player. After that the boss of the the dancers. As soon as they stopped dancing the young man came over to club fawned all over him and gave him a great table, shooing a couple of me and introduced himself. other people out of the way.

‘I’m JoJo Smith.’ Events like that happened often enough to make Birdland the premier night club in Melbourne at that time. We shook hands. That was an unusual name. That was a Friday night. When I got there Saturday night, two extra conga ‘Do you mind if I play your congas?’ drums were next to mine. I hadn’t seen them before. They had scratches and scuff marks on them so they had obviously been well used, as well as having ‘Be my guest,’ I invited him as I moved aside. I had been sitting on the travelled a lot. Drums only get scratched and marked if they’ve been in and bandstand with the congas on the dance floor. The other musicians, of out of vans and dragged about from venue to venue. I tapped each one, course, had chairs or stools to sit on, so they towered above me on the discovering they had a very good sound with cleaner tones that sounded more bandstand. melodic than my heavier drums. They were also made of lighter wood than mine so they required less effort to transport. I knew immediately that these ‘Stay there.’ He said. ‘You play tumbao and I’ll improvise.’ He sat beside me drums belonged to JoJo. And sure enough he turned up around midnight with the higher pitched drum between his legs. ‘It’s been awhile,’ he added. accompanied by a different dancer, and he played all four drums in another impromptu floorshow that sent the place wild. Tumbao is a bass drum around which other drums in a group either play counterpoint or improvise or do both. JoJo counted one two, one two three ‘You’ve got to teach me how to do that,’ I said afterwards. four fairly rapidly, and I started dead on the next count of one, which wasn’t

50 John Litchen and George Olah taking lessons from JoJo at Birdland, 1962.

51 ‘Me too,’ George Olah said. He hadn’t been there the night before and this in pitch than the bass drum or tumbao. Repica is the Spanish exhortation to was the first time he had seen and heard JoJo play. improvise using the quinto or another higher pitched drum in the group. The names given the drums vary in each country where similar types of conga George was the other conga drummer I shared Saturday nights with. He drums are used in groups. Conga is the English name given to the Cuban wasn’t there on Fridays, but each alternate Saturday he played with the band. drums, which generically are called tumbadores. This was probably because On the Saturday he wasn’t there he played with an Italian orchestra over in they were first seen played in the streets during carnival with large groups of Carlton. I usually did all the floorshows and would then play with the band people dancing in lines and singing in unison. The dance was the conga, until closing time. George always left about midnight because he had an early which in Cuba is known as a comparsa. Conga is most likely an African name, start in the jewellery business he ran. but it was one the English-speaking people latched onto. There was a time in the 1940s when the conga was a dance craze across the USA. There are ‘You have to learn to isolate one hand from the other,’ JoJo explained. ‘While many names and structured groups that relate back to Africa, with various one hand plays the bass pattern or tumbao the other is free to improvise or infusions of Spanish, French, Portuguese, or English melody or singing styles play a counter pattern to the other one.’ throughout the Caribbean and the continent of South America. More than enough books on the subject are available for anyone interested in delving He demonstrated by playing a few repetitions of tumbao with one hand on into the history of African-influenced music in the New World. the lowest pitched drum. By cutting the rhythm in half, only the four main notes are played with the one hand. ‘It’s called rumba abierta, or tumbao What JoJo was doing was something we had never seen before. We made abierta,’ he said, while continuing to play it with the right hand. arrangements to meet at Birdland during the week early in the afternoon for some conga drum lessons with him. George and I arranged time off from ‘Then we add the tones of the Repicador or the second or third drum.’ He work to do this. started playing on a higher-pitched drum with his left hand while maintain- ing the lower-pitched right-hand drum rhythm unchanged. The counter- In the meantime I saw West Side Story — it was much better than I expected. point rhythm on the higher drum went across two repetitions of the tumbao Fifty years later we all know the story, but back then it was astonishing. It to produce what sounded like two drummers playing. resonated on many levels with people in this country (as it did in the USA) because all of us had experienced to varying degrees the problems involving ‘And now we vary it by adding tones from the other drums.’ He said this while integration into a stable society of immigrant newcomers with different continuing to play both patterns simultaneously. With both hands he started cultural biases: the fears that jobs would be taken and that our women would bringing in odd tones from the two other drums, one on his left side and the be violated resonated on both sides of the cultural barriers. That the story other on his right, so he used both the right and the left hand to do this while depicted was an updating of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was well known, maintaining the two basic patterns he had started with. If you closed your but its translation into the concrete jungle of New York suburbs, with eyes and simply listened it sounded a little like two or perhaps three people Shakespeare’s rival feuding families becoming American and Puerto Rican playing, instead of one single person. When played very fast it was amazing. gangs, was outstanding, setting new benchmarks in modern dancing and athleticism. The use of music to represent feelings of the the rival gangs was JoJo explained that the various drums in a group are given names depending for me fantastic, as is the montage that crosscuts back and forth between the on their role in the group. In Cuban rumba groups the bass drum is called two gangs as they prepare for the rumble (a big fight between the two gangs), tumbao; the others are called segundo, tres-golpes, and quinto, repicador. The while Maria and Tony are anxiously determined to see each other later that repicador is usually the quinto, which is called that because it is five tones higher night. That the whole thing ends tragically is a foregone conclusion, but

52 audiences watching that performance on stage were on tenterhooks waiting front and from behind the stage. to see how it all unfolded. Cal Tjader later bought out an album with his inimitable jazz and Latin jazz The astonishing choreography was by Jerome Robbins and the unforgettable styling of West Side Story’s wonderful music, which was for a long time one of music was by Leonard Bernstein. Stephen Sondheim created the lyrics for my favourite recordings, probably because it featured two of my favourite such wonderful songs as ‘Maria’, ‘I Feel Pretty’, ‘Tonight’, ‘I Want to Be in drummers, Mongo Santamaria on congas and Willie Bobo on timbales. They America (America)’, and others. worked with Cal Tjader for a number of years before going on to create their own groups or bands, which in their individual ways set trends in combining This show changed the genre of musical theatre, stepping way outside of the jazz, popular music, and light rock with Cuban musical genres. previous lighthearted froth-and-bubble escapism of almost every other musical before it, bringing to audiences an awareness of cultural themes, It didn’t take long for me to pick up the way of playing that allowed isolation racial integration, immigrants’ desires to improve the lot of themselves and of one hand from another. George, though, struggled to get it, and eventually their families, and the feelings of locals who, though stable for years, suddenly he switched back to his old way of playing, which was fine because he was a felt threatened at every level by these new people coming into their neigh- good solid player. When the three of us played together, George often played bourhood: themes that resonated with most people in every country where tumbao and I played segundo or counterpoint. JoJo of course improvised on the show performed. the drum nominated as repicador.

That these new people would enrich their society, with new music, new ideas, If we played bembe, which is a combination of 6/8 rhythms in which the order and new foods never entered people’s minds at that stage. All they could of the drums is reversed, being based on bata drumming (religious drum- perceive was the imagined threat. West Side Story emphasised it all, while ming in both Nigeria and in Cuba, and more recently elsewhere, such as in presenting a classic but tragic love story and thoroughly entertaining people the USA and Puerto Rico); the highest pitched drum played a simple rhythm, with its beauty and exuberance. Almost everyone who saw it went back to see counterpointed by the two drums of lower pitch, with a fourth drum, the the show more than once. Only much later did its deeper impact become biggest and lowest in pitch, doing the improvisation. apparent. Sometimes we would spend Sunday afternoons at my place practising and Not long after the show’s Broadway run a musical film of it was made, with recording what we played so we could listen back and hear our mistakes. A George Chakiris and Natalie Wood. For me, though, the best part was played few times Albert La Guerre joined us, and he and JoJo made some wonderful by Rita Moreno, who played the ever-excitable character Anita. George recordings. On other occasions Albert, with another friend from Katherine Chakiris was forgettable, and never did much after that film, but the others, Dunham days, Antonio Rodriguez, a dancer, would come and play drums including Russ Tamblyn, who played the leader of the Jets (the American and sing in my front bedroom. We even got Mum and my sister Zara to sing gang), went on to have outstanding film careers. The filmed version won 10 some choruses for Albert’s Haitian songs, which I recorded. I used an Akai Academy Awards. reel-to-reel tape machine. Some years later I transferred these taped tracks to cassette and finally after losing them for many years, found them again in I also saw the film when it came out, but didn’t think it had the same ambience a box of old home movies, so I digitised them and made a CD. The quality is as the live show, though technically it was more spectacular. Also, I met many not good, but it is something that can never be repeated and so for me they of the people involved in the show as it was presented in Melbourne, went are invaluable — a priceless reminder of a past that is now so distant it seems backstage, watched rehearsals, and saw the show many times from both in to have belonged to someone else.

53 When West Side Story finished its season in Melbourne some of the cast stayed or sometimes five. It was rarely a trio, which would have made it harder. on. JoJo was one of them. He organised to do a series of floorshows in and around some night clubs as well as appearing on the Federal Hotel Circuit, We started with a song everyone knew, one that was a major hit at the time, which included the Savoy Plaza, the Menzies, and the Federal. We started at ‘Hit the Road Jack’ by Ray Charles. While I sat and accompanied the house the Savoy Plaza. When our ten-minute show finished we quickly packed the band with one conga drum, JoJo came in with a cool strut and did this funky drums into my yellow van and drove around to the Menzies Hotel for our dance to the first chorus and the verse, then at the end of the second chorus second show. Again we would pack up and move on to the next hotel, after he would take off his jacket and fling it to the bandstand as the musicians which it was close to midnight; we headed off to Birdland, where we did the segued into a fast mambo guaracha called ‘Mama Guela’. This was a song Latin show again. We did this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. The routine dancers in New York went wild over. It was a huge hit for Tito Rodriguez and was straightforward, a mixture of JoJo dancing, playing drums, and dancing. his orchestra during the times he and Tito Puente competed and ruled over I didn’t get paid for this, but did it for the fun of it, for the experience of the dance floor at the Palladium Ballroom in New York. When ‘Mama Guela’ working in front of a live audience, and for the practice of playing drums started I switched to two congas while JoJo went into a fairly fast streetwise with different band combinations. In most places there were groups of four, salsa routine. Then he would grab the third conga drum and, swirling it around as he danced, he worked his way over to sit next to me and commence a solo as the band behind faded away, apart from the drummer who contin- ued to play his version of a cowbell pattern for mambo. As JoJo soloed I switched from the mambo guaracha pattern to a guaguanco on the two drums. Once this was established JoJo left his drum next to me so I could incorporate it into the pattern and play on the three drums. The drummer from the band behind would fall silent so JoJo only had the conga drums to dance to. His dance this time was very Afro-Cuban in style, as if he were possessed by a spirit. He danced and gyrated as if in ecstasy, then just as we reached a crescendo he would collapse onto the floor, the band would come in with a drawn-out drum roll overlaid by a screeching trumpet, and the lights would go off. That was it.

When the lights came on JoJo was gone, waiting for me behind the band- stand. As the applause died down we packed up and headed for the next venue, where we repeated the show.

We did the floorshows for a couple of months, after which JoJo moved to Sydney and finally returned to New York.

A year or so later I read a good review in Time magazine about him performing with his drums in New York. That was the last any of us ever heard of him.

JoJo and George playing in my backyard, Yarraville, 1963.

54 The late fifties and early sixties was a fantastic time for young readers of been considered many times before. At least in the fifties and sixties those science fiction. Many novels covered adventures in space, intergalactic travel, themes were new and frighteningly possible. and time travel with all its many paradoxes. I couldn’t get enough of them. But this was also the time of the Cold War with the Russians and the Earth Abides (1950) was one of the best of the disaster novels. A virus is spread Americans trying to outdo each other with detonations of ever bigger and rapidly around the world as a result of air travel (more likely to happen today bigger bombs. Even the French joined in with their experiments on Mururoa than it would have then, when air travel was relatively new). Most of the atoll in the South Pacific. Britain, not to be outdone, detonated its atomic population are killed, with only a few survivors left to start again. This is bombs in Australia. It was inevitable as the world drew closer to total possibly the only novel of this type that is upbeat: positive rather than destruction and atomic war that the major writers of science fiction con- negative. It should be more widely available so readers of today can see how cocted disaster stories extrapolating many possible consequences from this well a disaster story can be written. Wilson Tucker’s The Long Loud Silence, ridiculous and insane international concept of Mutually Assured Destruction though well written and engrossing, is very downbeat by comparison, with its (MAD). implied theme of cannibalism adding a morbid touch of reality.

In retrospect it seems that most of the stories I read during the late fifties and Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison (1966) is another story of over- into the sixties were disaster stories: disasters brought about by nuclear war population and its frightening consequences. Some years later it was made or armed conflict using biological weapons, or in keeping with the times, into a reasonable movie with Charlton Heston in the lead and renamed psychedelic drug-influenced chaos and destruction in Europe (see the stories Soylent Green. I think the most notable scene in this film was when Edward G. from New Worlds and Impulse magazines during 1967 and 1968 by Brian Aldiss Robinson (who should have been the star), while dying, watches a HD video that later made up his mind-boggling 1969 novel Barefoot in the Head), as well presentation of how beautiful the Earth once was so he can die while as disasters brought on by massive overpopulation (Stand on Zanzibar by John remembering something nice. It was the last film this highly respected actor Brunner in 1968 being one of the best examples, which he followed up with made, because he actually died two weeks after filming that scene. He knew other ramifications of overpopulation and pollution in The Sheep Look Up and he was dying when he filmed it, which adds much poignancy to the scene. The Jagged Orbit). Degradation of the environment through some kind of This is so bleak a film that I doubt if anyone would be game enough to remake rapid climate change or constant pollution and attempts by humans to it. change things were other common themes, and gradually the boys’ own adventures of Arthur C. Clarke and writers of his ilk faded into the back- Other novels from the same era include The Death of Grass by John Christo- ground as the world-encompassing disaster stories took over. pher, who wrote many disaster novels, using a different premise for each, and extrapolating each into a worldwide catastrophe seen from a British So what’s new? These themes permeate SF (science fiction, science fantasy, viewpoint. It was 10 years or so later turned into a low-budget film, starring and speculative fiction) more so today than way back then. These days they and directed by Cornel Wilde, called No Blade of Grass. The film is basically a are often crossed with horror, murder mystery, technological thrillers, and motorcycle gang film, and the themes of the novel are mostly ignored, other so on, but many of those novels stand up today as examples of well-thought- than the part about everybody starving to death because there is no wheat, out reactions to possible worldwide calamities. Of course there was a lot of rice, corn, oats, or barley or any other grain related to grass that humans use rubbish written then, just as there is today, but many of the better books were as a staple. Cattle and sheep die, horses die, as well as any other ruminant more engrossing than today’s novels, which are too easily forgotten once you that eats some kind of grass. You can imagine what is left for the remnants have read them. Today there is a sameness to them that makes each one of society to eat! blend into the other, repeating themes and possibilities that have already

55 John Wyndham’s The Day of The Triffids is an outstanding book that deals with many themes, including the oil crisis, illegal genetic modifications of plants, and the Cold War with satellites battling it out in near space which turns most of the population blind. The triffids — the genetically modified plants — escape, preying on the newly blind humans. It was a creepy and frightening story for a fifteen-year-old to read. Although it published in 1951 I probably didn’t read it until 1955. It was made into an atrociously bad film starring Howard Keel, who was better known for musicals such as Annie Get your Gun and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He was at the end of his career and way out of depth in a dramatic role. It could have been a bad script, bad direction, or bad acting in general, but whatever it was, it finished him off. As far as I can recall he never appeared in a film again. (Recently another much better realisation of The Day of The Triffids has been made as a mini TV series.)

John Wyndham wrote a series of well-written disaster novels, such as The Kraken Wakes in 1953, The Chrysalids (about mutants and the effects of widespread radiation, also a common theme of many mainstream as well as SF authors), and The Midwich Cuckoos in 1957, a scary but subtle alien invasion story where all the women in a village are impregnated and give birth within hours of each other nine months later to normal-looking but increasingly strange children. I read that just after coming back from Darwin in late 1958. It was later made into an excellent film called Village of The Damned. (The remake years later with, I think, Christopher Reeve was not much good.)

And of course there was J. G. Ballard, one of New Worlds’ New Wave writers, who, along with Brian Aldiss and others, helped define a new way of seeing the world and writing about it. Ballard’s triptych of novels The Drowned World (1963), The Burning World, aka The Drought (1964), and The Crystal World (1966) set new standards in literary quality. These books, especially The Drowned World, crossed over into the mainstream and garnered a wide readership. I was particularly fond of The Drowned World. Overheating of the world is caused by continuous solar flares heating the planet until the ice caps melt and flood the rest of the world. As usual with a Ballard story the main concern is with the lead character as he negotiates a continually degrading environment. In this case a warming world is becoming more and

Earth Abides: a much better story than the blurb above the title implies.

56 Cover from a special illustrated edition of The Drowned World published by Dragon’s Dream in 1981. Cover and interior watercolour paintings by Dick French.

57 more tropical, with areas along the equator already uninhabitable as jungles could while away the hours reading or listening to music while practising grow massive and ancient reptiles start to make a comeback. Kerans, the lead conga and bongo patterns, which must have driven Mum and Dad nuts as character, is part of a team surveying the gradual destruction of old cities. they tried to watch TV in the lounge room. The survey turns out to be useless because the water levels continue rising. When other members of the team are ready to retreat to the polar regions Most of the books I read were British publications. It was difficult to get Kerans does not want to go but wants to travel further into the ever-increasing American books in Australia at that time. The few I did get were paperbacks jungles in search of ... who knows what? This is echoed in a much later book, in the Ballantine range of themed anthologies that Merv Binns was able to The Day of Creation, in which his lead character follows an ever-increasing and import for McGill’s Newsagency, where he worked. I missed out on many broadening river into the jungles in central Africa in search of its origins. American writers simply because English editions of their books were not This is more a fantasy than science fiction. Ballard was not concerned with published. Some, however, found their way into English book publication. the science but with the gradual deterioration of character in situations that show environments decaying and falling apart (see also his Memoirs of the Space T. V. Boardman was a publisher of a regular series of hardcover books all Age and The Day of Forever). His mini stories that made up The Atrocity Exhibition sporting a lovely emblem of a rocket ship passing by Saturn with the words stand as the ultimate condensations of epic disasters in a format that set new Science Fiction written underneath. When you saw that emblem on the spine standards for experimental modern fiction. I just loved those stories. you knew it would be a good story. Boardman published A. E. Van Vogt’s Slan Obviously they weren’t to everyone’s taste. He later abandoned that ap- and The Weapon Shops of Isher, and many others, such as Children of the Atom proach and again became more conventional, yet still unequalled in literary by Wilmar H. Shiras. The artist who illustrated their distinctive covers was value, as he continued to map the world as we know it in various states of Pagram. All his (or her) covers had a brooding dark look with lots of green decay and self-destruction almost always brought on by ever increasing and grey that made these books stand out on the shelf from all the others numbers of humans unable to deal with the complexity of the world around displayed there. them (see High Rise, Crash, and Concrete Island). The fact that as a boy Ballard lived in Shanghai, where he was born, and witnessed the destruction of this Weidenfeld and Nicolson also published science fiction regularly. It too had city by the Japanese and was interned in prison camp until rescued by Allied an emblem — electrons spinning around an invisible centre, presumably forces, no doubt influenced his obsession with disintegrating societies and representing a stylised atom — with the words Science above it and Fiction ways of coping with them. below. It published the British edition of Clifford D. Simak’s City, which was not a novel but a collection of shorter stories linked together to form a Ballard, like Aldiss, remains for me as one of the great British writers in the more-or-less continuous narrative which could be loosely called a novel. latter half of the twentieth century. He should be more appreciated than he Though it was copyrighted in 1952 it was first published in England in 1954, is. and I bought my copy from McGill’s in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, some- time in 1955. I was impressed, and immediately searched for more of Simak’s work. Over the years he built up a reputation for producing gentle stories that were beautifully written and almost nostalgic in nature, with many stories I had thrown out the fruit boxes that held my books and built proper shelves, using a country or pastoral setting rather than the darker urban setting used which enabled me to store my records and tapes, as well as many more books by many others. City tells of Earth abandoned by humans and robots, leaving and magazines, my turntable, tape player, amplifier, and speakers, as well as the planet to domestic dogs, which become the dominant species. The stories the conga drums and bongos that took up floor space. (I hadn’t added in this book are those told by the dogs to each other as they recount history timbales yet.) There was not a lot of room for the bed, or space to move as legendary tales of their predecessors, the humans and their robots. around in. Still, I was happy. It was my room, my own personal space and I

58 Weidenfeld & Nicolson’s first British edition of Simak’s classic ‘novel’ City, with its attractive illustration.

59 Victor Gollancz was another stalwart of British SF publishing. Their covers other science fiction writer of the time was willing to go, areas that dealt with were atrocious and unattractive, but at least they stood out as unique on the sexuality and psychosis and what could be called abnormal behaviour, and shelves of the shops that carried them: bright yellow with red and black or for a young reader like I was this was very different reading material (see Some blue text. Gollancz published English editions of American authors such as of Your Blood and Venus Plus X). No matter what the subject matter, he always Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Sheckley, and many others. I still have my copy made it seem sympathetic. If there were others writing similar stuff at that of More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, which cost me 15 shillings and time, I don’t believe there was anyone better at it than he was. sixpence back in 1954. It was published in 1953 in America, but the Gollancz edition arrived in Australia only towards the end of 1954. I read it early in Something I recently discovered and find most astonishing is that Sturgeon 1955. It had a slightly different cover to the standard Gollancz design: some never or hardly ever revised what he had written. Usually he sent off a first decorative squiggles and a blurb that stated, ‘Six minds come together and draft as soon as it was written. How he must have sweated and agonised over form a composite human being. Prophetic? — possibly. Unputdownable? — the typewriter as he poured himself onto those pages. How much better could surely’. he have been had he revised his first drafts? Perhaps we would have lost the rawness of his work, the strength of the emotion that poured out of him. He Who could resist that? I couldn’t, and it was unputdownable: a brilliant story should have been as famous as his contemporary mainstream authors, but by a master writer who dealt not with hard science but with the condition of he stayed writing science fiction, apart from a few Westerns and one atrocious the mind and its emotions and all those popular (at that time) concepts of film tie-in. To the rest of the world today Sturgeon is almost forgotten. paranormal phenomena, such as telekinesis, levitation, human gestalt, and the idea that we shouldn’t dismiss those who appear less fortunate than The magazines I bought were mostly British, with the occasional American normal, who could well be mental giants so far beyond us that we wouldn’t one thrown in. I didn’t like Astounding, which later morphed into Analog, but be able to comprehend them. I did sometimes read Galaxy and Worlds of If. The stories in the themed anthologies from Ballantine Books were mostly American. Even so, there was Sturgeon wrote many novellas and only a few novels. He wrote lots of short something about the ‘British voice’ that I preferred rather than the more stories. Although I was heading away from reading short works that often left jingoistic American sound. People raved about Robert Heinlein but I didn’t me disappointed because they didn’t go anywhere, I made an exception for like him, and read a few of his stories and novels if nothing else was available. Sturgeon (as well as Bradbury) and bought whatever collections of his stories I never read much of his later work. I didn’t like the fact that he and many I could find. The earlier Sturgeon were harder SF, what Sturgeon sometimes other American writers saw the future as American. called the ‘Macho Sturgeon’, but later he wrote beautiful sensitive stories that resonated in my mind long after I had read them. Two that I will never forget But there were exceptions. Authors like Clifford D. Simak and Chad Oliver are ‘The Man Who Lost the Sea’ and ‘When You Care, When you Love’. The were highly respected and enjoyed a wide readership, not because they were latter is a portion of a novel about cloning that would have been a great American but simply because they were good writers and wrote very beautiful success had it ever been finished. It never was. The former, however, as much novels. Chad Oliver was a Professor of Anthropology at the University of as Sturgeon sweated over it and didn’t think it would be any good, went on Texas in Austin. All his stories had an anthropological base, and dealt with to be possibly the best short story he ever wrote; and which was collected in first human contact with aliens on strange and very different yet similar that year’s (1959) Martha Foley Award Anthology as one of the best short stories worlds to Earth. Frederick Pohl said of Chad Oliver: ‘Other science fiction for the year, with all the finest mainstream American stories. There was writers have invented more “alien” aliens than these for us to make contact nothing macho about these. Most of them were highly developed and deeply with. Few, though, have been as able as Oliver to convince us that this is the emotional: ‘soft SF’ if you need a category. He also ventured into areas no way first contact is going to be.’ I loved Chad Oliver stories, but unfortunately

60 he was not as prolific as other writers. I read all I could get my hands on: Mists of Dawn (1952), The Winds of Time (1957), and Unearthly Neighbors (1960), a Ballantine original paperback.

I preferred novels, as well as the serials in the magazines, which I found more attractive than the shorter works. The first serial I ever read in a magazine was The Time Masters by Wilson Tucker, which was serialised in New Worlds and beautifully illustrated by Virgil Finlay. Thank you, Bruce Gillespie, for reminding me of the name of this story.

The magazines were illustrated with some wonderful black-and-white draw- ings, sketches, and images. These were usually done on scraper board, which made them look more like etchings, and technically more difficult to pro- duce than pen-and-ink drawings, which also were often very good but had a very different look to them. The serials were later published as books; for instance, Dune, serialised first in Analog magazine, but the accompanying John Schoenherr illustrations were not used in the book version.

Most of the book versions had attractive and inviting cover illustrations — the American ones, anyway. The British Gollanz editions had plain yellow covers with black and red text on them (ugly as hell, but it was the content that was important). An exception was Dune, which appeared in 1965 with a black cover with silver white text and a couple of white squiggles across the middle representing sand dunes, a dramatic change from the usual yellow jacket. Later I had this book signed and dedicated to me by Frank Herbert himself when he visited Australia and attended a book signing at Space Age Books. I remember him telling me over dinner that his favourite book was the least popular novel he wrote, a mainstream novel called Soul Catcher. This in my view was the best book he wrote. It was billed as his first ‘major’ novel, whatever that meant. What on earth was Dune, if not a ‘major’ novel? I guess the publishers wanted to distinguish Soul Catcher as a mainstream novel. Much of the book has similar themes to Herbert’s SF novels, and he uses similar methods of telling his story as he did in his SF novels. Soul Catcher deals with death and retribution and the clash of cultures that occurred between the native Americans and those who now occupy their land, but on a personal level between the protagonist and his captured victim. It could very well have taken place with humans and aliens on a different world around a different A worthy reprint of a great story.

61 Virgil Finlay’s beautiful illustration for the opening scene of The Time Masters when it was first seralised in New Worlds.

62 star, but Herbert didn’t want that. I think he wanted to show the same clash of culture, the same inevitability of the result, and what more emotive way to do it than set it there in his own back yard, his own country? I think I managed to read almost every science fiction, or even vaguely science fiction, book that was published and made available in Australia until the mid 1960s. After that it was harder to keep up, but I made a valiant effort anyway. After 1975 I became much more selective, because it was simply impossible to read everything.

Books like The Death of Iron, by S. S. Held in 1952, I would have avoided if it had been published later than 1964. The premise is silly: something which was never actually specified or even scientifically plausible affects iron, turning it into soft rubbery stuff, which means that buildings collapse because the iron reinforcing basically dissolves. Anything made from iron or steel becomes like melting rubber or soft plasticine. The cover shows a half- dissolved steam locomotive slowly collapsing over twisted railway lines, which reminds me of Salvador Dali’s melting watches. Everyone returns to the Stone Age: implements made of chipped rock and bone needles being used to repair clothes. It was an awful story that I read with ever decreasing enthusiasm. I don’t know why I remember it now, except for its name. Its only redeeming feature was its demonstration of how impossible it would be for modern people to revert to a Stone Age culture. There were a lot of stories like that which are best forgotten. This one was published between The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes, and most SF fans would have quickly forgotten it, whereas they never forget the John Wyndham books which are endlessly reprinted. There are some books that you never can read, or at least, if started, never can finish. Two of these books are the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. I tried to read them on a number of occasions, but I did not even want to start Lord of The Rings. I had a look at it once in a bookshop. After a few minutes I put it back on the shelf. I was never into that kind of fantasy, and the more people insisted that I should read it — ‘It’s a classic’; ‘You have to read it’; or ‘It should be on every fan’s bookshelf’ — the more I refused even to think about reading it. Years later my wife Monica bought a copy for me as a Christmas present and I was under an obligation to make an attempt to read it. I was in my late sixties, too late in my view to start reading

63 Not the Nautilus, but a depiction of submariners hunting sharks from a submarine in the late 1880s.

64 Lord of The Rings. You have to read this book as a teenager or at the very least almost a cross between an aqualung and the oldfashioned helmet diving suit. when you are in your early twenties. I managed to get through the first 50 The submarine is beautiful in a steampunk metal fish way. It absolutely suits pages and found it turgid and unreadable. I have never gone back to it since. the book’s descriptions of the Nautilus, made of iron plates riveted together, It even put me off wanting to see the three films that were so extraordinarily able to power through the sea with unbelievable speed. It was one of the popular and won so many Academy Awards. My son read the book, and better films of the 1950s, and still looks good even today. This film captures borrowed and later bought the three films on DVD, and reckons they are the grand adventure presented in the book, with superb underwater photo- fantastic. Exactly! — but not my cup of tea. I did watch some bits of the films graphy and a sense of wonder at the gothic magnificence of the submarine. here and there (hard to avoid in a small house when someone else is watching The great battle with the giant squid seems now to be rather tacky and them and has the volume up rather loud), but not any one complete. They artificial. However, the film did win an Academy Award for special effects looked spectacular and I could see why they were so popular, but they simply among others, and stands out as a major science fiction film along with This didn’t interest me enough to make the effort to watch them. Island Earth, Forbidden Planet, The War of the Worlds, When Worlds Collide, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Creature from the Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea is another thing altogether. This is Black Lagoon. A later film, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) was a ridiculous a major book and has some very interesting things in it. I was a keen snorkeller load of rubbish written and scripted by Irwin Allen which was later rewritten and skin diver as a teenager, having read Hans Haas and Jacques Yves as a novel by Theodore Sturgeon, who must have been desperate for money Cousteau, and was experimenting with underwater photography. The edi- to take this one on. tion I had was a hardcover with lots of illustrations in it. It has never been out of print in one form or another since Jules Verne wrote it in 1870. It was an instant success. Everyone knows the story of Captain Nemo, both demonic ‘We should dive at Cape Schanck,’ George said one Saturday night at and sympathetic at the same time, taking revenge for what he perceives as Birdland. society’s wrongdoings, and his incredible submarine Nautilus, supposedly run on ‘electricity’ generated by some unknown, at that time, power source. ‘What’s it like?’ I had to ask. I had not at that stage been there. Situated along The first American nuclear submarine was named Nautilus perhaps to the coast between the Mornington Peninsula and Westernport Bay near acknowledge that Jules Verne, although he never named his power source, Phillip Island, which I had been to, it is a spectacular spot with a series of low came up with the idea that later generations called atomic power. cliffs dropping down into the ocean with a similar terrain underwater: tall outcrops (called bommies by divers) that continue as ever-deepening rocky This book at first is enthralling, but too much of it is repetitious and boring. reefs until they are so deep they no longer affect the surface. These bommies I started to skip pages in search of the more interesting or exciting bits. I are like volcanic plugs from which the softer material has been eroded away, never actually finished reading the book, although I kept my copy for years. leaving the hard interior jutting up like jagged chimneys. The sea swirls around them as each wave comes in and sucks back around them as it retreats. Before I could finish reading the book the Walt Disney film of it appeared There are currents and eddies that drag huge kelp fronds down into deeper in the cinemas in colour and Cinemascope, and I rushed off to see it. It water before pushing them back up against the rocks. The bommies are starred the wonderful James Mason as Captain Nemo, and with equal billing surrounded by a huge variety of fish that feed on the seaweed and on each as Ned was Kirk Douglas. An outstanding character played by Peter Lorre other. In the nooks and crannies, holes and small caves, there are crayfish. and teamed with Kirk Douglas made an unlikely comedy duo that stole the limelight. The underwater gear was good-looking: equipment you could ‘It’s a great spot for crayfish, but it’s fairly deep. Not many people dive there, imagine from 1870 if it functioned in the way the modern aqualung works: so there are lots of crayfish.’

65 Above: The waters and rocks around Cape Schanck, southern Victoria — infamously one of the most dangerous fishing and diving spots of Australia. Next page: Waves swirling around bommies at the base of the cliffs.

66 67 I could see why not many wanted to dive there when we got there the next Within a couple of seconds he was halfway along the gully and already diving morning. Standing on the cliff and looking down I saw the water smashing down. onto and flowing over the tops of the bommies before retreating and sucking back around them. It was dangerous, no question about that. The waves ‘That’s how it’s done,’ I told Fred. ‘Watch the waves. Every so often a bigger roared and thumped onto the rocks and sucked back with deep gurgling one comes in and floods over the edge. You sit there like George did, and sounds that sent a shiver up my spine. Or was that just the cold wind blowing then you step into it. The wave will suck you out, no problem. You’ll go right off the Southern Ocean up over the clifftops? over the top of the kelp so you won’t notice it.’

We had decided to make a day of it as a group. George had his wife Margaret ‘Not a problem,’ Fred said. He sat down on the ledge where George had sat. with him, and with me were my brothers and sisters, Phillip, Zara, and Christine, and Zara’s fiancé Fred, who was keen on skindiving and couldn’t ‘You sure about this?’ wait to get into the water. We trooped off down the goat path of a dirt track that wound down first on the inside of the cliff, where a small safe bay without He nodded affirmatively. He had the snorkel stuck in his mouth and couldn’t waves was located. The girls went for swim there but didn’t stay in long speak. because the water was icy. (It was early summer and the ocean still retained its winter temperature.) We boys, however, worked our way around the ‘When you are ready to come back in, you have to sit at the opening to the bottom of the cliff to the ocean side where the big waves from Bass Strait gully and watch the waves. They’re not all big enough to come up to the top hammered a series of flat rock ledges. of the ledge. Wait until a big wave comes along and ride that one in. Swim with it and grab the rocks when you get to the ledge. The water will suck back We quickly suited up in our wetsuits and worked our way across slippery rocks out and when it has gone you can climb out before the next big wave comes to the edge of a gully. When the waves came in, the water slipped over the in. If you are not out then it will suck you back out.’ top of these flat ledges leaving them slimy and slippery with a fine sheen of green seaweed and sea grapes that burst and squished under foot as we ‘Okay, I’ve got it.’ He pulled the snorkel out so he could reply. ‘You don’t stepped on them. When the wave sucked out, the water level in the gully have to tell me again.’ dropped two to three feet. You could see the black surface swirling as the water sucked out. The dark brown kelp quivered as the water rapidly flowed ‘All right, I’ll see you out there.’ I stepped into a wave as it surged up the over it. Beyond about three metres the water was deeper and clearer, with no gully. Within a second it sucked me out and I swam along with it until I was kelp to obscure the view of the gully sides. just outside the gully opening. Further out, the waves surged over a huge bommie with greedy sucking sounds. There was no sign of George. But he Fred was excited and fiddled with his lead belt. George had a hessian bag, was a powerful swimmer and an experienced free diver so I didn’t worry about which had a long orange cord tied to it as well as to his lead belt. He sat on him. I turned to watch Fred as he slipped into the water. He joined me a the edge of the rock ledge and slipped on his flippers (swim fins), spat into moment later with thumbs up to indicate he had no problem in getting in. his mask, rinsed it out with seawater, and splashed some cold water onto his face to cool it before putting on the mask and gripping the snorkel with a We spent a few minutes diving along the edge of the rock wall marvelling at firm bite. He waited a moment for the next wave to roll in up the gully. When the fish life when Fred indicated he wanted to go back. He didn’t like the the water level came up to the edge of the shelf he was sitting on, he slipped strong currents swirling around the space between the gully opening and the into the water. Almost instantly he was sucked out as the wave retreated. nearby bommie. Back on the surface and treading water he told me he was

68 Top: George and me on the rocks at Bermagui near where we encountered the giant stingray.

Next page: My sister Christine, me (kneeling), Fred, George’s friend, and my brother Phillip at Bermagui, Easter 1963.

69 70 going back in. He nodded, gave me a thumbs up and went down again.

‘Remember to wait for a big wave to carry you up onto the ledge.’ I swam back to the gully, waited for a big surge and rode the wave in. It came up higher over the rock ledge than before so the tide was definitely coming He nodded and then started to swim back towards the gully opening. I could in. I swam up onto the top of the ledge and grabbed hold of a jutting rock. see Zara and Christine standing on the beach above the rock ledge watching The water sucked away behind me and I stood up to see Zara and Christine us. One of them waved. Fred waved back as he waited for a big wave. gesticulating wildly and pointing towards another inlet. There was a fair bit of wind gusting so I couldn’t hear what they were yelling about over that and When we first went in I think the tide must have been out. It was turning and the sound of the waves smashing and sucking at the rocks. I stood up and starting to move back in. You could feel the waves were stronger and the unlatched my leaden belt, tossing it up higher onto the dry rocks. I took off currents had more power. my flippers. While looking around, I realised I couldn’t see Fred anywhere. Shit! Now I knew what Zara and Christine were agitated about. I tossed my I drifted towards the bommie and could see way down George swimming flippers up where the lead belt was and looked about for Fred. along the side near the bottom. It must have been at least sixty feet deep. He was a long way down. The water was exceptionally clear, as cold ocean water There he was in a different gully. I ran across towards it and got there just as usually is. There was no sand or silt to reduce visibility. I tried to dive down Fred was being sucked out again, tumbling over the rocks and looking to George but it was too far down. I hovered there a moment until I ran out dangerously close to being tangled up in the massive kelp fronds. of breath and had to surface. George came up beside me. He looked up when he cleared the rocks and saw me standing by the edge. ‘This is a paradise,’ he said as pulled out his snorkel. ‘I’ve got half a dozen already.’ He was whiter than I had ever seen him.

He held the hessian bag open a bit so I could see the crayfish huddled He tried swimming in again but the wave wasn’t big enough. He only got half together, legs twitching and feelers waving. ‘A couple more should do it.’ way up onto the more slippery rocks before being sucked back out again, only to be tumbled over by the next wave coming in. I watched as he dived down again. His method was to tease a crayfish out of its hiding place by putting something there to attract it. That something was ‘Swim out a bit further and wait for a big one,’ I yelled at him. He didn’t seem usually a clam or a mussel that he smashed with the hilt of his diving knife. to hear me, and started swimming in with the next wave. Scraping up the flesh, he would use this to attract a crayfish out of its lair. They hated being out in the open. If George blocked their way back to their I ran back and grabbed a spear gun that we had brought but hadn’t taken hiding place they would look for somewhere else to hide. He held open the into the water. Back by the ledge I stepped down into the opening and hessian bag which I suppose to them looked like a cave, a safe place to hide wedged myself between some rocks and the edge of the ledge. Holding the so they would shoot into it and stay there. He didn’t even bother grabbing gun by the spear point I reached out towards Fred. them. He saw me. As he swam in this third or fourth time he grabbed the handle When he came back up for a breath I told him I was heading back in. of the gun and hung on with a fierce grip. I pulled him towards me as the wave sucked back past him and he scrabbled across the slippery with

71 desperate speed. I stepped back up onto the ledge and continued pulling the guy to almost crash into us. him up until he was well out of the water, and quite safe. George leapt out. When the other man got out of his car. George was yelling Once again I was reminded that a spear gun had more uses than simply being at him, telling him that he had cut him off and why the fuck did he do that. used to kill fish. We were lucky that George had decided to bring a spear gun The guy protested and George started hitting him. in case there were no crayfish. The trip wouldn’t have been wasted, because he would have shot a meal of fresh fish. But with the crayfish there was no Unfortunately for George he had forgotten to do up the button on his jeans need for that. and his pants started to fall down.

Within five minutes Fred was out of his wetsuit and soaking up some sunshine Traffic backed up behind us. Car horns honked and tooted. George kept and chatting happily about what a spectacular dive spot it was. The fact that trying to hit the other guy with one hand while holding up his pants. He he could have drowned was already forgotten. didn’t have on any underwear, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered. Meanwhile the man’s wife and kids had gotten out of the car and were George came in shortly with his hessian bag full of crayfish. We went back to screaming at George to stop hitting the man. George’s wife Margaret had my place in Yarraville and Mum soon filled with boiling water the gigantic also gotten out of our car and was hitting George on the head with an pot she kept for such occasions. She cooked the crayfish, while we sat in the umbrella to make him stop. I just sat in the car and watched it all unfold. I yard drinking beer and recounting the events of the trip. don’t know where Zara and Fred were. They were most likely several cars back wondering what the hell the hold-up was about. ‘You saved my life,’ Fred said afterwards. ‘I don’t know how much water I swallowed.’ Eventually George let the man go and still holding up his pants with his left hand he got back into the car. Margaret barely had time to get in the back ‘You should have waited for the bigger wave like I told you,’ I said, and went seat before George slammed the gear in and we shot off along Road back inside to get another can of beer and to see how the crayfish were doing. way ahead of the mob of backed-up cars. All the way he kept berating Mum had already made a huge Greek salad with heaps of feta cheese and Margaret for hitting him on the head with the umbrella. kalamata olives. Half the crayfish were hot, bright red, and steaming in a pile on the kitchen table while the rest were still cooking. ‘You should have helped me,’ he told her. ‘You should have hit him instead of me.’ It had been a perfect day. ‘What? With his family watching you beat up their husband and father?’

There were a lot of days like that. Sometimes they ended well. Other times And so it went all the way back until both of them fell silent and refused to there was a bit of drama, such as the time when we were coming back from say anything to each other. Barwon Heads after another successful day of catching crayfish. George was a wild man. As a boy he survived the Second World War in Hungary, ran away to Switzerland where he somehow got himself adopted Geelong Road was full of traffic with everybody cutting in and out in a rush and learnt how to be a watchmaker, qualifying by the age of thirteen, and in to get back to Melbourne. A guy cut George off. This pissed him off, so he the process managed to acquire his second language, German. He then went sped up and passed the guy, got in front, and slammed on his brakes, forcing

72 to Canada and worked in the mining industry. There he learnt to speak tide was out and we clambered down over the rocks and used the method of English. After an accident in winter when he fell down a frozen tailings dump waiting for a big wave to wash up onto the rocks then, stepping into it, to be — so he said; it was most likely the result of a fight — landing at the bottom carried out into deeper water. Coming back we used the same method: wait unconscious, his scalp froze by the time the other workers climbed down to for the bigger wave and have it carry us back up onto the rocks, where we rescue him. He lost all his hair and was bald after that. In the early 1950s he would grab hold and hang on until the wave receded. The next several waves ended up in New York, where he discovered the Palladium Dance Hall and were always smaller so we had time to clamber higher up. the big bands of Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, and others. He fell in love with the salsa music they played. After a couple of years, he left for Australia, where The underwater terrain here consisted of huge rounded boulders scattered he had an aunt and uncle living in Elwood, a suburb of Melbourne. He from the rocky edge across a sandy bottom. There were gullies and narrow opened a gold and silver chain jewellery manufacturing plant in collabora- splits between the boulders. You could see the water sucking back and forth tion with them, using special knitting machinery he imported from . (He through them — the sand swirled and made small eddies as the swells above had to sneak out of his hotel room in Rome in the middle of the night without came in and out. There was some kelp, but nowhere near the amount we paying his bill because he spent all his money on buying and getting those were used to in the southern waters around Port Phillip Bay. There was also knitting machines ready for export to Australia.) He discovered Birdland in plenty of plankton scattered throughout. Light sparkled off some of it from St Kilda and started playing conga drums there, and that’s where I met him. time to time, giving a slight haziness. The water was also warmer than we expected. There was a warm current that drifted down the coast from the He had already been in Melbourne for two or three years when we met. He more subtropical areas to the north, which obviously kept the temperature had married his girlfriend Margaret. We knocked around playing drums and higher than we were used to. There were few fish, and those we saw were very skindiving at weekends for a couple of years before he sold his chain knitting shy and quickly disappeared. business and moved to Sydney, where he eventually opened a watch repair shop somewhere near Redfern. He also started creating handmade jewellery, The boys had these new compressed-air spear guns and the damn things concentrating on expensive custom-made jewellery. He moved this business didn’t work properly. I had my16 mm Bolex in an underwater housing, and to a luxury hotel foyer in Kings Cross. I remember filming Fred as he swam over a gigantic stingray. He looked down, and for some reason he pointed the spear gun down also. The spear That first year after he moved up to Sydney we decided to drive up to slid out and fell point first on top of the stingray. It wasn’t supposed to do Bermagui for a skindiving holiday over Easter long weekend. George and that! The stingray flicked its tail up and the poison barb must have been two another friend drove down from Sydney and joined us. This may have been feet long. At the same instant it flapped its giant wings and took off like a 1962. Bermagui is a great fishing town. Its pub’s walls have displays of lots of rocket, disappearing within a heartbeat into the hazy blue distance of deeper photos of famous people who went big game fishing out of Bermagui. In one water. Fred stared at me ashen faced. The sting had missed him by only a few large photo standing next to the scales where his catch was strung up and inches. I gave him a thumbs-up sign and pointed to the camera indicating I weighed was the author Zane Gray. I had read some of his western novels so had shot this on film. We would laugh about this later once the film was I knew who he was. Until my first trip to Bermagui I had no idea he was a processed and we could watch it on screen. He retrieved his spear and swam keen big game fisherman. off in the direction the stingray had gone, through a gully into deeper water.

Arriving late at night after the long drive from Melbourne we set up a huge If anyone could find some fish to shoot, George would. He came back after tent and promptly went to sleep. Early in the morning we found George and Fred and Phillip and I had been out of the water for some time. He had some his mate and we all went diving in a small bay not far from the camp site. The fish he had speared which we later had for dinner, but his mate who came

73 in perhaps ten minutes after George had trouble getting out of the water and The dinghy was halfway back to the beach when the squall hit. It vanished in had to climb up the short cliff face on the other side because the tide was in a swirl of white crashing waves and blasting wind. and waves were smashing on the rocks where we first entered. I had the camera running and I hoped that some of this could be captured. The next day was bright and sunny. We drove out of town south along the There was absolutely nothing we could do. coast road until we found a beautiful beach about two miles out of town. A couple of pyramid-shaped rocks made a tiny island about half a mile off the The wind seemed to swing around the tiny island offshore. The worst of the beach. Another friend of George’s had arrived with a small aluminium churning white water followed it out to sea. There was a dark spot, which dinghy. They climbed into it with all their gear and headed out towards the must have been the dinghy bouncing along with the white water. Then it was jagged islets offshore. Fred went with them, so there were four of them in the too far out to see. Someone was standing on the island and waving to us. A dinghy: George, the owner of the dinghy, the friend who had come down moment later George floundered in the choppy waves crashing onto the with him from Sydney, and Fred. beach and stood up. He staggered towards us.

I stayed on the beach with the girls and Phillip, and filmed the group as they ‘Fred’s on the island,’ he called as he ran up the beach. ‘The other two are headed off towards the tiny island. The beach was clean with rich white sand. with the dinghy.’ We settled down to wait for the others to finish with their diving. There was a gentle breeze and not a cloud in the sky. ‘At the rate they’re going they’ll be in New Zealand soon.’

About two hours later I noticed the boys were in the dinghy and starting back. ‘We’ll have to go back to town and see if we can get one of the fishing trawlers to go out and rescue them. Last I saw they were clinging to the upturned ‘What’s that?’ Zara asked. She was looking south, where the beach stretched dinghy.’ in an almost straight line for several miles. George grabbed a pair of jeans as he said this, quickly pulling them on over There seemed to be a patch of boiling white water just off the beach. It looked his wet trunks. He and Phillip raced up to one of the cars and took off in a like a fountain bursting out of the water. cloud of wind-swirled dust.

I had never seen anything like that before. It was coming towards us. By the time they had disappeared, the wind started to die down and the waves calmed. The beach soon gave the appearance that nothing had happened, Suddenly sand started to whip up around our feet, and the white water rushed that the sudden ferocious squall had never passed by. And as far as I could towards where we were on the beach. A ferocious wind blasted us with fine see out to sea nothing was there. The squall had completely dissipated. sand particles that stung all over like vicious mosquito bites. We packed our gear and waited. About half an hour later a fishing trawler ‘Those guys are going to cop it if they don’t get back in time,’ I said. motored up to the small island offshore and we saw Fred clamber on board. It then headed out to sea in the direction the squall had gone. We headed The water in front of us started to whip up violently. White caps formed, and back into town and down to the wharf to wait for the trawler to come back. foam was ripped off by the ever-increasing wind. It looked as if the wind were trying to suck the water up out of the sea. It came back a couple of hours later. Everyone had been rescued. They even

74 had the dinghy on board, but it was minus its outboard motor. When it balled. Years later it was rebuilt in the same location in spite of many protests flipped over everything on board had gone to the bottom including the that it was unhealthy, being so close to the storage facility of the refinery. It motor. The dinghy didn’t sink because it had flotation panels built in to was used to house Vietnamese ‘boat people’ refugees. prevent that from happening. The boys had hung on, and were lucky the waves hadn’t washed them away. They were suffering a bit from hypothermia Almost immediately after arriving at the hostel Wally got a job in the control but a few whiskeys at the pub soon fixed that. They would certainly have a room of the Mobil Oil refinery across the road. He monitored the flow from story to tell when they got home. the processing to storage in the holding tanks. Since this was shift work, he also looked for work during the days. He worked for the nursery next door, Those were the days! where his job was maintaining the plants the nursery leased to businesses in Melbourne’s city centre, banks, head offices of large corporations, and so on. The nursery supplied plants, maintained them, and rotated them so the ones Next to the dry-cleaning shop in Douglas Parade, Williamstown was a plant beginning to look haggard could be rehabilitated. nursery. It had a display of subtropical and tropical plants in our shop window, where the warmth and steam in the atmosphere from the pressing Wally was about fifteen years older than me: a bit scrawny, which I assumed machines created an ideal micro-climate for these plants. Dad had run some was because he grew up in England during the harsh years leading up to the extra steam pipes through the nursery glasshouse, which was located at the Second World War. Towards the end of the war he had been conscripted. rear of their premises and close to our boiler. These pipes supplied enough Once he had finished his basic training, he was sent with a small unit to warmth to raise the ambient temperature in the glasshouse a few degrees, Germany, where he participated in the reconstruction the Allied forces were which kept any winter chill away from the propagated plants growing there. doing immediately after the war ended. He spent two years there, and learned The nursery owner appreciated that, and always maintained a good-looking to speak German. display in our window. One day I went into the nursery and found Wally in the office reading a book. The chap who looked after the display was an Englishman called Walter There was no one else there. As it was the middle of the afternoon it was very Shaw. quiet. There was hardly anyone in the street, no customers in the nursery, and we’d finished work for the day and the pressers had gone home. The ‘Call me Wally,’ he said when he introduced himself, and we always did, nursery always smelt fresh, almost like being out in the bush, very different although most others called him Walt. from the white spirit and other chemical smells that pervaded the atmo- sphere in the dry-cleaning factory. It was a science fiction book that Wally He and his wife and son were ‘ten pound Poms’, having migrated to Australia was reading. That immediately made him a kindred soul. I knew there were under that program whereby they contributed ten pounds per person and lots of people who read SF books — especially as some sold very well, far more the government paid for their trip over and billeted them in a hostel until than could have been bought by true fans — but I had never met any SF they found work and accommodation. Wally had stayed in the hostel in readers other than Merv Binns and one or two people encountered at the SF Kororoit Creek Road, where it bordered on North Altona. Terrible accom- section of the counter in McGill’s Newsagency. Wally was the first outsider: modation, so I was told, and it got worse later on when the Mobil Oil Refinery the first reader of SF that I had met who was not a fan. He was also the first increased its storage capacity and built huge holding tanks that went right person with whom I spent time talking about science fiction and books. up to a few hundred metres from the hostel. Perhaps this is what encouraged people to find somewhere better to live. Eventually that hostel was moth- Suddenly we became great friends. We discussed books and authors, what we

75 had read, and discovered we liked similar types of stories. Mostly they were name. She was performing in a TV broadcast at the ABC studios in Elwood. adventure, escapist, and space opera. Although he was English, he was fonder I knew those studios because I had appeared there in a dance show with Zara of American SF than I was. We started lending each other books, which we and the girls from her dance school. On an impulse I decided to go over to discussed at great length, and eventually we talked about writing our own the studios and watch her performance. book. I had always wanted to write, but didn’t think I had enough ability. I had a typewriter and had started writing a murder mystery set in a nightclub I was of course hoping to meet her. God only knows what I would say to her. where girls danced semi-naked in cages suspended from the ceiling — typical Being young, I never gave that a thought. I simply went over and walked into juvenile bullshit. Wally, it turned out, had published several stories in British the studios as if I had every right to be there. No one questioned me. One of magazines, stories about smuggling stuff from England to Europe or vice the security men near the main entrance to the studios nodded and said ‘Hi. versa, but he hadn’t done anything else since coming to Australia. He was You’re back again.’ He remembered me from the dance show we did a few too busy working two jobs and paying off a mortgage on a house in Altona months back. I smiled at him and asked him how he was and walked by to find time for writing. With another baby on the way there would be even without waiting for an answer. less time, so any ambitions towards further writing he had shelved. Ynez Amaya had recently come over from South Africa, which explained her I always felt out of place working at the dry-cleaning factory. It was not exotic appearance. She was one of these people of mixed racial heritage something I really wanted to do, but rather it was something I fell into because blended in such a way as to produce a stunningly beautiful person. it was part of the family activities. I had grown up initially in the residence at the back of the shop (until I was seven and we moved to Yarraville West). In the same studio where we had performed the dance routine, she was Later I worked part time in the shop and learnt the ropes of how the whole standing by the piano and going over her movements within the allowed process worked; so too did my two sisters and my brother Phillip. It seemed space. Two huge cameras shifted to position themselves for a long shot and natural or inevitable that I would be, that we all would be, working there full a close-up shot. A number of people were in the studio: the floor manager, time. I didn’t have to like it. I was interested in books and writing, in art and camera operators, a man holding a padded mike above the singer’s head painting, and in Afro-Cuban music and its various permutations in different high enough to be out of camera shot, as well as the musicians, and a jazz parts of the world. Zara and Christine were interested in dancing and show trio of whom only the piano player seemed familiar. I had eyes only for Ynez. business. Phillip, out of the four of us, was the only one really happy working There were a number of other people in the studio as well as a small audience. at the dry cleaner. Working in the dry-cleaning business allowed us to have The recording or broadcast had not yet begun, so I slipped quietly in through money to devote to our other interests. I guess we were lucky in that respect. the door and stood near the back of the studio close to the audience. I never imagined for one second that I would be a dry cleaner on and off over the next forty years. But who at any given moment can imagine what his A sign flashed indicating the broadcast was about to begin. or her future will be? Someone standing in front of the audience said, ‘Quiet, please.’

The floor manager held up his right hand, fist closed. Everyone watched him. The Age’s Green Pages is its weekly section dealing with entertainment, con- He was wearing earphones and obviously listening. ‘Ten seconds,’ he taining a TV and radio guide, lists of theatre shows in town, showbiz gossip, announced and started counting backwards. When he got to five he fell and much else. One day I saw a picture of the most beautiful woman I had silent, but opened his fist finger by finger starting with his thumb to indicate ever seen. The name under the photo said Ynez Amaya, a suitably exotic the last five seconds.

76 I saw the piano player mouthing the count: one – two – one two three just loud best in Melbourne at the moment’, and almost fell off my chair when I saw enough for the trio and the singer to hear, but no one else. They began at who it was beside me. the instant the floor manager finished his silent five-count. I was unfamiliar with the song but it was beautifully sung in a modern jazz style, and the playing ‘Ynez,’ I blurted. ‘Ynez Amaya?’ of the trio was quietly understated to enhance and not take any attention away from the singer. ‘The name is Beryl,’ she said. ‘That Ynez name was something the ABC dreamed up because it made me sound more exotic.’ All too soon it was over. The audience clapped, and the band members stood up smiling with obvious pleasure at a fine performance. Cameras moved ‘Well, for a jazz singer Beryl is probably a more appropriate name.’ around, and before I could take more than a tentative step towards the band, the singer and the trio vanished. The floor manager was waving his arms ‘Thanks.’ above his head. Through a glass partition in an adjoining studio another performance was underway as part of the live broadcast, and in the studio She smiled, and up close like that I was stunned at how radiant she appeared. where I was standing cameras were being repositioned and someone else was She was even more beautiful than I had imagined from the distant view I had getting ready for another performance. I slipped out of the studio into the seen at the studios in Elwood. Suddenly I was lost for words. I had no idea corridor. what else to say. But then the band finished and George joined us. ‘Hello, Beryl,’ he said as he sat down. She nodded at him, and by then the rest of the It was empty. Not knowing what else to do, I headed back to the front band was also sitting at the table for their break. The others all greeted her entrance. I felt relieved that I hadn’t been able to approach the singer, cheerfully. She knew everyone, even though I had never seen her at Birdland because in that instant I realised I had no idea what I would have said to her, before. Roger, the band’s drummer, gave her a peck on the cheek and sat other than something that may have made me look like a dickhead. Outside beside her on the other side. She seemed overly familiar with him. They must and walking towards my van in the car park I saw her with the piano player be a couple, was my immediate thought, and for some strange reason I felt getting into a car. They drove past me and quickly disappeared down the relieved. narrow street outside the studio. Roger and I got on really well together as players. He was an excellent jazz About a month later I was sitting on a Saturday night at the table reserved drummer, but he had also learned some authentic cowbell patterns for for the band at Birdland when someone sat beside me. I was watching George Cuban-based music from JoJo and from some records JoJo had lent him to play with the band while a couple of bad dancers gyrated around the small study. He had mastered the patterns and sounded like an authentic Latin dance floor almost in time to the music. Those lessons and various im- drummer when we played together. It gave a whole different ambience to promptu playing sessions we had had with JoJo had improved his playing. It the music and to the band. was much better than when I had first met him. The playing was cleaner, and more precise. Roger leaned across in front of Beryl and was about to introduce us when she told him we had just met, so instead he said, ‘John is going to do the ‘The band sounds good, doesn’t it?’ the girl who had sat at the table beside floorshow with us.’ She immediately looked at me with a different expression me said. in her eyes. Maybe it was curiosity. Perhaps she had been wondering what I was doing sitting at the band’s table. Maybe it was acceptance because ‘They really are good,’ I agreed, turning towards her, adding ‘probably the suddenly I was one of them and not an outsider.

77 George stood up. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. He never stayed for the floorshow. for us.

Everyone was drinking a soft drink with a shot of brandy in it. Quickly they ‘Thanks. You too.’ downed their drinks as the lights on the bandstand dimmed and the area of the dance floor brightened. The other people crowding the tables in the club ‘I mean it. You played a lot better than you’ve ever done before.’ dropped their volume a little in anticipation of the show. The band members stood up and quietly made their way towards the bandstand. I followed along I didn’t tell him I felt it was Beryl who had inspired me that night. I could behind and sat behind the conga drums at the edge of the dance floor. see her studying me with a quizzical look. I think she suspected, but wasn’t going to say anything, certainly not to Roger. Johnny Summers, a brilliant singer from New Zealand, came out and acted as MC. He got the audience warmed with a joke or two and sang the popular Over the next few months we chatted together while the band played. We hit of the day, ‘Moon River’. We did it as a bolero, slow and romantic, and a became close and I was sure I was in love with her. I had not felt like this warm sensuous voice. I imagined half the women in the audience sitting in about anyone else before. In fact I thought I had fallen in love with her when the dark swooning as he sang. I first saw her photo in the Green Pages. She reciprocated my feelings, and for a while she too was in love with me. Next was the ever-popular almost naked exotic dancer (who was actually born in Russia, but grew up in Australia) with her two pythons. Fortunately this Unfortunately there was no way we could take it any further because she was time they behaved themselves and slithered towards the audience instead of married to Roger. We cuddled and kissed in the dark at the back of the club my congas. I smiled as I heard the frantic scrambling from the darkened but it never came to anything more than that. Our relationship remained tables as people tried to get away from the snakes, only to have them pulled platonic. It could be no other way. People thought we were having an affair back by the dancer before anything serious happened. and we didn’t disabuse them of that idea. We simply never spoke about it. I took Beryl as my partner to my sister’s wedding to her German boyfriend Crocker and Clarke weren’t there that particular night. Johnny announced Fred. It was the first wedding in our family and it was a massive affair as befits Beryl and she stepped into the spotlight. She sang two songs; a standard slow a traditional Greek wedding. jazz ballad that required soft brushes played on the snare drum, which she followed with the familiar up-tempo version of ‘I’ve Got Rhythm’ in which I I discovered Beryl was interested in science fiction stories and I had found played. We had not rehearsed it, but we had all played this so many times in one by Ray Bradbury that I thought was profound. I took the paperback with so many different ways that it didn’t matter. We swung into it. At an appro- me and read this story to her at the back of the club one night and no one priate moment Chuck, the pianist, indicated that Roger should do a sixteen- noticed us at all. I can’t remember which story it was. Bradbury was a genius bar solo, which he did beautifully. Chuck nodded to me just as Roger was with words, and could take an idea that had little substance and write a concluding and I did another sixteen bars of conga solo. I took some of beautifully poetic story around it that was so moving it could almost bring Roger’s phrases and expanded on them before Beryl came back in for the tears to your eyes. final coda and the number was over. It went very smoothly and the audience responded with sustained applause. Johnny came back into the limelight and Stories by Ray Bradbury turned up in the most unexpected publications. He sang another popular hit and then the show was over. was one of the few who had crossed into the mainstream without compro- mising what he wrote, and was known to a very much wider audience than ‘Nice solo,’ Roger commented as we made our way back to the table reserved some other well-known authors within science fiction circles. One of his

78 stories, ‘The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl’, was printed in Australian saw her again. Women’s Weekly when it was a weekly magazine. It must have confused regular readers expecting a story about fruit salad including a recipe. It was a story I heard much later that she had split up with Roger and had moved back to about obsessive behaviour and murder and how a compulsive habit brought living with her parents. I wondered if it had been my fault that the split-up the protagonist undone. had occurred; a delayed reaction to our platonic affair. I wasn’t going to find out, because the band members changed and I lost interest in playing at After a year Beryl told me one night that I was in love with the idea of being Birdland because the music changed. The ambience degenerated into a in love with her and not really in love with her. That took me by surprise. seedier, grimier feeling, and it seemed as if the owners no longer cared about Maybe she was annoyed that I hadn’t taken our relationship further, or how the place looked. perhaps realised I didn’t have the courage to pursue it beyond what it was, knowing that she was married to Roger. Maybe she actually loved me at one Music was changing too; the Beatles and the Rolling Stones had appeared point and was disappointed I didn’t fully reciprocate. I really did love her — on the scene, and hundreds of would-be copycats gigged around town. I was sure of that — but perhaps it later devolved into the idea of being in Birdland could no longer compete with newer venues that promoted young love with her rather than actually being in love. It was a strange relationship, rock and roll bands. which Roger knew all about. That he wasn’t too concerned meant that they had obviously spoken about it and he knew exactly what the situation was Everything was changing. between us. When she became pregnant with Roger’s baby we drifted further apart. We remained friends, but the particular intimacy that we had experi- It was time to move on. enced over the previous year when I had been truly infatuated with her was gone. As her pregnancy evolved she stopped singing at the club and I rarely — John Litchen, February 2012

79 Letters of comment

*brg* My article about the first two novels of Mervyn and a way of life. Peake’s ‘Gormenghast’ trilogy appeared in *brg* 72. I intended republishing it in Steam Engine Time, which You’ll be interested in the attached covers of the three volumes of the first ceased publication in early 2012, or in SF Commentary, American paperback edition, from Ballantine. then write material on the third novel, Titus Alone. This still has not happened.* (15 December 2011)

TARAL WAYNE *brg* One of the biographers of Mervyn Peake complains 245 Dunn Avenue, Apt. 2111, Toronto, about the lack of relevance of the Ballantine covers (the Ontario M6K IS6, Canada first American paperback editions) to the contents of the books. Ballantine had been hoping to ride on the 1968 I found your Mervyn Peake zine informative, to the point of clearing up the success of the first American edition of Tolkien’s Lord of the attribution of Peake’s death to ‘brain cancer’. So, it was Parkinson’s instead Rings trilogy, despite the lack of similarity between the two ... who knew? It is still hard to explain why the third book in the trilogy is so trilogies.* much at odds with the first two.

I found Titus Alone all but unreadable. Whereas the first two books were saturated in atmosphere and seemed very real, the third book seemed like floating downsteam on a river of metaphors, and not at all real. Without the drama of Steerpike’s rise and fall, it was about nothing that really compelled my interest — some abstruse point of philosophy, perhaps?

I’ve been reading a two-part history of Byzantium. The parallels between imperial politics in Constantinople and ritual in Gormanghast are striking. Steerpike would have fit into Byzantine politics very well. Obscure nationals starting out as stable boys or office clerks rising to the imperial throne through ability, intrigue, and many, many murders, then being deposed in turn by the next lean and hungry would-be emperor, were a commonplace in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. And ritual was just about all Byzantium was good for. Like Constantinopolis, Gormenghast was more than a palace — it was a vast warren of interconnected buildings and courtyards,

80 TIM MARION I just pulled a mass market paperback anthology from off the shelf: Weird c/o Kleinbard, 266 East Broadway, Shadows from Beyond, edited by John Carnell and pubished in 1965, although Apt 1201B, New York, NY 10002, USA I almost certainly bought it 10 or more years later. It includes two Mervyn Peake stories — ‘Danse Macabre’ and ‘Same Time, Same Place’ — that I have Thanks, once again, for sending me the Mervyn Peake speech. Fascinating never read reading. Peake’s art is great, too. Elaine, did Bruce tell you how much I admired your back cover to the latest I read the ‘Gormenghast’ trilogy in 1977, three years after I read Tolkien’s *brg*? Beautiful! Lord of the Rings, and I was extremely glad that the former was vastly different from the latter. I must be one of the few fantasy readers on earth who never (12 January 2012) ‘got’ LotR. To me, it was mostly boring, maudlin, etc. I enjoyed The Hobbit, however. To this day, I still don’t understand the fascination that both my Re *brg* 73: The mark of a good writer is the ability to write entertainingly peers and elders have had for the LotR trilogy. To my mind, someone who about subjects in which the reader has little or no interest. John Litchen corrects me on the pronunciation of ‘Moria’ (it should not sound like Mariah succeeds in this aim, with stories of massive deliveries of dry-cleaning, Carey’s first name, apparently, despite the fact that makes it sound more performing on drums, various different kinds of Caribbean music, skin exotic) has very little going for him in life. LotR was such a bore that it took diving, filming underwater, Jacques Cousteau, etc. Indeed, there is almost a me nine months to read it, off and on. Gormenghast, by comparison, I John Steinbeck type feel about his autobiography. practically flew through; reading it every spare moment. I learned a lot about Jacques Cousteau here, a man who was definitely ahead I’m glad you only wrote about the first two books. You’re right to say that the of his time. I’m ashamed to admit that when I was a kid I almost always third book is such a different animal that it would require a separate article. eschewed his TV specials, as all I could consider was that he was pre-empting what I would normally watch. I did not know it was his idea to create ‘scuba’ I sure hope you sent a copy of this to Ned Brooks! He’s a big Peake fan, and equipment or that ‘SCUBA’ was an acronym. This just put me in mind to wrote about new Titus Awake book in the latest issue of his zine It Goes on the listen to the late John Denver’s song ‘Calypso’ (about Cousteau’s ship), which Shelf. I always found haunting.

I’ve just finished East of Eden by Steinbeck, and was surprised at how much I I also liked what Litchen said about both Jack Vance and Poul Anderson. I enjoyed it. It was the kind of book that made me sorry when I finished it, must disagree with him on Bradbury, however, and I know this is an un- because I wanted to see what would happen to the characters next. Likewise, popular opinion. Bradbury’s science fiction was too whimsical, capricious, it was the kind of book that made me sad when some of the more interesting and tricked out to even be considered good literature, much less ‘science characters died. fiction’. I have to admit I’m basing this feeling solely on R is for Rocket, however, which turned out to be a big disappointment when it was passed I had planned to read The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon, after along to me, by my English teacher, when I was 10. I found the stories to be seeing the movie. However I have just re-watched that old 1962 movie and so poor and self-indulgent that I couldn’t even finish the book. no longer find it all that interesting. (Until now it has been one of my favourite movies of all time.) The old paperback I have seems to be falling It was Bradbury’s horror stories, however, that were genuinely chilling and I apart — the glue is no longer holding the first few pages. (3 January 2012) enjoyed. And Litchen says he doesn’t care for those. He does, however, admit

81 Elaine pointed out to me that most correspondents praise either or both covers for *brg* 73, but even she couldn’t remember the cover of hers to which people were referring. Hence the above reminders.

82 to enjoying Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I regard as a Return of Sherlock Holmes) the picture quality seems to have much less defini- dark fantasy/horror story. Litchen writes well about the movies that were tion. (But maybe the sound is better.) based on the stories he’s read, but apparently he never saw Something Wicked, a very effective movie: well photographed and acted. How are Merv and Helena Binns? Haven’t heard from them in ages.

I’m sorry that Litchen didn’t like John Carpenter’s The Thing, which I felt (24 January 2012) was a much misunderstood and maligned movie. It wasn’t really that gross, as all that metamorphic stuff was obviously just sand and clay and papier *brg* Merv’s health is up and down, but he did receive a mâché; I didn’t find the alien’s changing form to be all that gross. Litchen personal boost at the Continuum convention in Melbourne says he liked both The Thing and the previous version equally well, but it’s last year when he received the Infinity Award for lifetime obvious to me that John Carpenter’s remake stood head and shoulders above (and more) achievement. We don’t see him and Helena very often, as Merv will no longer drive a car at night. Helena the awful, ancient Thing From Another World, where the villain was a silent, seemed in good health when last we met. At the beginning menacing, ‘Flaming Carrot’ type (reference to a silly comic book character of 2012 they found a much more congenial house than the I never see anymore). one they had been living in.*

Litchen seems, at one point, to be asking who the first ‘lead operator’ was in Don Ashby propounds only one theory of time travel, and seems to feel that the Mission Impossible TV show. I believe he’s referring to Peter Graves, who any other theory is automatically invalid: ‘Time travel stories tend to annoy was, coincidentally enough, the brother of James Arness, who played the me because most writers can’t seem to get their head around the notion that Giant Rutabaga/Flaming Carrot mentioned above (as well as Matt Dillon on if someone goes back into the past that event is ipso facto part of the the TV show Gunsmoke). character’s present. You can’t change history, because if you have gone back in time you are already part of it. That is why we know it is impossible to (21 January 2012) interact with the past, because we do not record it in our history.’

*brg* Tim Marion has also taken over from Dick Jenssen Not necessarily. There is also the equally valid theory that you can have the job of picking up Gillespie’s typos. He found 25 of them knowledge of what the past was supposed to be like, but when you go back in *brg* 73! I was going to print them here, plus the into the past, you change the events that you know are supposed to happen. corrections. Elaine pointed out that, after a year a half, This creates what is familiarly known as a ‘divergent timeline’. And you have nobody was likely to worry too much. Well, I worry, and dual memories of both what the past was supposed to be as well as the way I’m grateful to Tim for the trouble he has taken. No doubt he will be poised at the keyboard as soon as he receives you just changed it, because you are at ‘the centre of the nexus’: that physical this new fanzine. Thanks, Tim, for your efforts.* or metaphysical point at which you yourself are not changed by the time- bending process, and thus you retain awareness of both pasts. Although you don’t watch much TV, I assume you are familiar with the Sherlock Holmes series from British TV in the mid 1980s? Quite excellent: I definitely agree with Don Ashby when he writes, ‘Time travel stories are Jeremy Brett is supposed to have portrayed the definitive Holmes. They’re fantasy, not science fiction.’ I’m not a physics professor (and, offhand, I’m all on DVD. Jeff and I (who watched the episodes originally when they were guessing Don isn’t either), merely a logical-minded reader who has thought repeated in the late ’80s/early ’90s) had a good time watching the first set, a lot about this. It seems to me that part of the burden of going back in time which is called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, but in the second set (The has to do with quantifying just what time is: it’s an artifice by which we

83 measure the movement of objects through space. If the theory that our galaxy I’d forgotten (re the Mark Bould print that Gillian Polack quotes) that H. P. is actually moving is true, that means that the Earth is always in a different Lovecraft’s Old ’Uns are part veggie. (I’ve been noticing lately that HPL is place than it was before in the sky. If one were able to somehow transcend now such a mainstream cultural market that his name gets cited without time, and get all the large celestial objects to move backwards to where they journalists feeling any need to explain who he was or what he did, and that were, there is still the possibility that one could end up in the right time (the he has entered the Elvis etc. pantheon in the last few years, doubtless an past) but the wrong place (empty space). Indeed, even ignoring, for the irritant to those who felt him their own cultic secret.) moment, the movement of the galaxy, if calculated incorrectly, the Earth could be on the other side of the sun from the time traveller if said traveller In John Cowper Powys’s Porius (UK reprint was by Overlook Duckworth), he moves only backward through time and does not calculate the movement of uses the term ‘multiverse’ back in 1951. I wondered if it was a coincidence the Earth through its orbit as well (leaving said traveller with a rather chilly that Moorcock also uses the term, and then saw in the 1999 edition of the welcome, to say the least). Encyclopedia of SF that it is probable that Moorcock got the term from Powys, a fine example of the cliché that ‘everything is older than we think’. I enjoyed Jerry Kaufman’s letter, where he states: ‘Still, I sometimes think our life is like our dreams. While in the dream we usually accept it as real, but (27 December 2011) when we wake up we either remember only the highlights or forget the dream entirely. By analogy, perhaps this life we live is itself a dream and [typo ANDREW DARLINGTON correction] when we die here, we wake up elsewhere.’ Not an unfamiliar Somewhere in Britain concept, but he phrases it well. I’ve been outta circulation awhile. Foreign parts, y’know? And if ever we’ve There is also ‘effective dreaming’, where the dreamer becomes aware that had cause to question why exactly we flip back to Greece year after year, our he or she is in a dream and then starts to control and manipulate the events trip from Lefkada down through Kefalonia to Ithaca provides stunning occurring in the dream. (Is that what it means to be God, I wonder?) reasons aplenty. The shimmer of blue seas, so many small green islands, including the Onassis-family private island of Scorpios, is truly overwhelming. (22 January 2012) Glimpses of dolphins frolicking in the ship’s wake, and giant loggerhead turtles feeding in Argostoli bay. We chase Byron in reverse. He was in Vathi STEVE SNEYD (Ithaca) in August 1823, hunting out Homer, then lived four months in 4 Nowell Place, Almondbury, Huddersfield, Metaxata (Kefalonia), where his bronze bust now fronts his white house — West Yorkshire HD5 8PB, England or rather, his replica house — the original a victim of the 1953 earthquake — but there’s a tasteful Byron’s Pizza taverna in nearby Lakythra! Kefalonia I’ve been reading *brg* 73 during the year-bottom energy slump (called by itself is rugged enough to tax the leg muscles, although we took a two-hour some Twixmas, between Crimble and New Year), this year deepened by the hike around the largely tourist-free headland to the lighthouse and beyond. traditional winter nose-run cold and afteraches of a fall. We were spoilt for choice when it comes to good food, too, although the girls complained of the lack of little shops. And for ouzo-fuelled evenings the This issue has Elaine Cochrane’s great fractal autumn leaves back cover. Dick copper sun disc sinks over Lixouri like the devalued euro beneath the Jenssen’s front cover is implicit with menace-to-come: in the next frame will economic horizon. Now we’re enduring re-entry to normality. the dirigible swoop, grapple the ‘expensive delicate ship’, then haul it into the sky to drop to it to its doom on the rocks? (19 September 2011)

84 The main news from around here of late is that Jane Monahan (my wife) retired from the CDC back in early September. We then promptly took off for about seven weeks of touring in New England. Jane’s family has a house up in Northern New Hampshire, where we stayed for most of that time. I retired from working for the State of Georgia back in February of last year, which means that we are both people of leisure. Luckily we have both worked many years in government jobs, so we have pensions and don’t have to rely on the vagaries of the stock market to keep us in groceries. We also have a house and cars that are fully paid for, so basically things are not too bad.

Maria was not in town during Joy’s visit. She is presently living in Seattle, which is probably where she is going to stay. She really loves that town, and I don’t blame her. She is doing two Master’s degrees at the University of Washington — one from the school of forestry in ecology and the second from the school of urban planning. I think she’s just got a lot of energy! We visited her back our spring, and also took the opportunity to spend an evening with Janice Murray, who happens to live fairly close to Maria.

(8 October 2011)

NED BROOKS 4817 Dean Lane, Lilburn GA 30047, USA This is the photo from *brg* or Scratch Pad to which several letter-writers refer. This is not a picture of the top of the cat enclosure being crushed by one *brg* 73 has a spectacular Ditmar cover, and a nice use of fractals by Elaine big hailstone, but by accumulated hailstones that fell in a very short time while we were visiting relatives on Christmas Day, 2011. Cochrane on the back too. I once wrote the Mandelbrot set in TurboBasic, which has good color capability in DOS. Later I used one of the fancy professional software programs. ALAN SANDERCOCK Jennifer Bryce’s article includes nice photos of Bremen, about which I 2010 Desmond Drive, Decatur GA 30033, USA remember only that it had something to do with the Pied Piper legend. The *brg* In *brg* 73, Joy Window tells of visiting ‘America’s town square building looks that old anyway! Deep South’, and calling in on Alan Sandercock and Jane Monahan in Decatur, Georgia. Maria is Alan’s daughter from My mother lives quite near Emory University (which drives the property his first marriage. I first met Joy and Alan when they were values and property taxes up, as all those professors and graduate students fellow fans living in Adelaide, South Australia, in the late want a place to live). I live about 15 miles further east. Too bad I hadn’t met 1960s and early 1970s.* Joy Window and Alan Sandercock. They could have visited the skiffy museum I live in. Ken Ozanne from Sydney has been here a couple of times. A road

85 trip through the South now is probably no more hazardous than through personal experience, since he’s supervising me. He deserves much sympathy. any other part of the USA — and you are less likely to freeze to death if stranded on the road. George Locke once asked me if it was safe to ride the Other news? There is none. Doctorates tend to be all encompassing. Except Greyhound intercity buses around the South — I told him I had done it as a that the Conflux cookbook is out and available for purchase (online through teenager and never suffered any attacks by Red Indians, highwaymen, or the the Conflux website). It’s a limited edition, and all the profits go to Conflux. KKK. Culinary history in the service of fandom! It’s a fan history written from a culinary history perspective. I’m glad it’s out — I am now retired from There are a lot of birds in the bushes around my house — they particularly banquet design. like the evergreen photinias and tea-olives, where they are safely unseen year round. A month or so ago I saw a small dark bird flying around the top of (21 December 2011) the of the trees in the front yard — it seemed to be going ‘Bing Bong, Bing Bong’, like a car’s warning sound — perhaps a mockingbird, but I didn’t DORA LEVAKIS think they would sing on the wing. Numbulwar, via Groote Eylandt, Northern Territory

Joy saw more of the local sights than I have. I’ve never been to the famous I forgot that you may have been affected by the huge Christmas Day storm Aquarium. Or seen an armadillo — I would not touch one, as they can carry in Melbourne (as seen on the front cover of *brg* 74). Sorry to hear you had leprosy. such damage to the cats’ enclosure netting and that you have the ordeal of having to join the long list of people needing to deal with an insurance John Litchen’s bilingual poem is nice — I can read both versions. Just as well company. I was later amazed to hear of what I’d escaped. I had collected my that he could do his own translation. I have a bilingual book of Neruda’s sister and brother on Christmas morning and drove along the Western Ring where ‘mareado’ (which means seasick, or by analogy any sort of dizziness road out of Melbourne just before 10 a.m. I felt a couple of drops of rain or confusion) is translated as ‘things went swimmingly’, which to my mind is when loading the car and, in the distance saw a weighty grey cloud. My sister the opposite. worried that we might be driving into rain but, no, it was a beautifully gentle sunny drive. After a break, an hour from Shepparton, received a strange My favourite of the books John mentions — and probably the only one I phone call from sister in Shepparton asking if we were still coming. Of course would reread — is The Martian Chronicles. we were ... It wasn’t until 8 p.m. that she told us there was a heavy storm raging in Shepparton when she rang. It wasn’t until around 11 p.m., as I drove home (5 January 2012) to Yarraville after dropping my sister off in St Kilda, that I heard of the Melbourne storm on the news. GILLIAN POLACK Chifley, ACT 2606 (30 December 2011)

I’m ploughing steadily through my doctorate and will be starting looking for The difficulty of accessing internet is driving me crazy. The days are very work lateish next year, all going well. I didn’t realise that it could actually be eventful and very, very long. Much to say but for now, let me share the good fun for a Medievalist to write a time travel novel. The dissertation is also fun, news that my painting of Absolom, Kyle, and Katrina has made it as one of though I admit, less so than the novel. My time travel novel has turned out the finalists in the Doug Moran Portrait Competition. The judging and very different to most others, unsurprisingly. Van Ikin knows this, from close opening will be Tuesday, 24 July, two days after I’m scheduled to return to

86 Dora Levakis (right), holding Thomas, and showing (left) her portrait of Gerald Murnane, a semi-finalist in the Doug Moran Portrait Competition.

87 the Territory. The finalists are required to be there ... The 30 finalists will to me for such a paltry letter of comment. And thanks, too for *brg*. travel the country, so this will be good publicity. My portrait of Gerald Murnane made it as a semi-finalist. * brg* The aim of the $100 price tag for a subscription — to SF Commentary, of course, since Steam Engine Time has (8 July 2012) disappeared, except for an off-in-the-never-never No 14 (index and final letters of comment) — is to encourage everybody to download the electronic version. Airmail JERRY KAUFMAN postage has gone up again.* 3522 NE 123rd Street, Seattle WA 98125, USA ‘What are we seeing?’ At first, I thought it was a smushed up dead white cat. Thanks for enjoyable reading of other people’s travels. I wonder what Jenny But it was actually a mass of hail? Did it fall in a lump like that, or did a lot of Bryce meant by ‘the miniature stonehenge at Avebury’. Has someone built smaller hailstones blow against the fence and solidify? a tiny replica of Stonehenge there? She can’t be referring to the ring of standing stones, as it covers much more ground than Stonehenge does, as *brg* Lots of huge hailstones, falling very fast all together, least in memory. bowed down the netting and quickly formed that huge ball of hail. We were not home at the time, so we did not see John Litchen’s new instalment of his memoirs is the best, as well as longest, this meteorological marvel.* reading this issue. I particularly liked the parts about his music making. I As usual, you and I don’t overlap on the lists very much. On the pop music never realised how complex beating on conga drums was, nor how many scene, I’ve listened to nearly none of the you list, even if I like the flavours and styles of drumming there are. His comments on his favourite performers. I like the McGarrigle sisters quite a bit, but haven’t heard writers were also interesting, and added just the right amount of literary Oddities. My favourites are their first album and their all-French album. I’ve material that every Gillespie zine needs. never warmed to Greg Brown, and the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls didn’t impress me as much as others. My favourite Stones albums are Out of Our (15 January 2012) Heads, Beggars Banquet, and Their Satanic Majesties Request (a sadly underrated We received two manila envelopes from your address a week ago — one large album). But these are all records I first heard many a year ago. and one small. (When I was very young, I thought they were called ‘vanilla *brg* The point of my listing was that the outtakes from envelopes’.) I opened the smaller one first, and saw it was *brg* 74, flipped the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls album, now that we’ve heard it over and read the advert on the back for Steam Engine Time 13. ‘Urk,’ I said them at last, prove to be better songs than most of those to Suzle, ‘Bruce is charging $100 for the paper version of SET. I guess I’m on the original album.* not getting one.’ I did give some listens to Paul Simon’s So Beautiful or So What and enjoyed it. Then I opened the larger envelope. But since I often download an album now and don’t keep any record of what I’ve listened to or when, I’m never sure just when I first listened to something. Do you actually get any takers at $100? Perhaps if you comped fewer copies I’m pretty sure I listened to The King is Dead by the Decemberists and W H O you could ask less for the paper ones. I understand the process is expensive K I L L by tUnE-yArD for the first time in 2011, and loved both enough to and so’s the postage. But without knowing the actual costs, I can’t judge buy the CDs. (A profile of the woman who records as tUnE-YaRd in The New where you decide to set the price. So this is a big thank you for sending SET Yorker led me to her music. And a couple of years ago they ran a piece on the

88 Mountain Goats — thanks, New Yorker.) nonsensical plot and main idea. And a theme of belief in God and religion versus nihilism. On to other lists: I have Marta Argerich’s Solos and Duos, enjoy the music, but wonder how one can tell which pianist is which in a duo. I have Paul Lewis’s (3 July 2012) Beethoven sonatas, but not his version of the concertos. I bought the sonatas as they were issued in smaller sets of one, two, and three CDs per set. I *brg* I met Stu Shiffman when I was in Seattle, and he remember buying the first one in Paris at a Harmonia Mundi shop a few seemed a lot younger than I am. And now, thanks to Andi’s blocks from our hotel. (I have no idea if they had several shops in Paris or messages on Facebook, we’ve been reading about his only the one.) I have some of Angela Hewitt’s Bach, but not the 15-CD set struggle to recover from a serious stroke. Glad you’ve been able to visit him.* you have — I need to listen to her more.

The only novel I’ve read from your list is The Curious Incident ..., which had a ANDY ROBSON nice sense of the alien about it. There’s now a television series about an 63 Dixon Lane, LS12 4RR, England autistic boy who never talks and is a maths wizard, called Touch — but it never John Litchen’s cabaret days sound interesting. ‘Cabaret’ has always been a uses the words ‘autistic’ or ‘autism’. (It’s called Touch because the boy doesn’t rumour to me, as by the time I was old enough they’d disappeared from like to be touched, and when he holds his father’s hand we smile at the everywhere but the odd holiday resort. I suppose you could blame the Beatles breakthrough. But the wider meaning is that we all touch one another’s lives for that, as everyone wanted to play rock and roll. But ‘cabaret’ was for in mysterious yet patterned ways, as demonstrated each episode by a new set after-midnight drinkers and quiet cool jazz and other sounds that wouldn’t of numbers the boy fixates on and which leads his father to help strangers permeate into the streets in the early hours. A telling bit of TV footage from from around the world help each other.) the sixties shows an audience of screaming females and few bemused straight- faced guys clearly showing one guy turning to his mates and saying, ‘Maybe I have Alex Ross’s earlier book on music in the twentieth century, but not we could do that!’ this newer one, because I’ve read all the contents in the aforementioned New Yorker. (3 March 2012) (2 July 2012) ELAINE COCHRANE During the summer, life here consists of going to the Clarion West Friday Same address as that of the editor night parties and other social events. This week things are even busier, as George R. R. Martin is the teacher at CW, and tomorrow night’s reading will Elaine’s Favourite Books of 2011 be a big event at the Town Hall (I think it’s a 600-seat venue) instead of at Fiction University Book Store (seating about 40). Suzle and I will be ushering, and she will also be troubleshooting. Equ. 1 Priest: A Dream of Wessex

Right now we’re doing weekly visits to the hospital that Stu Shiffman is in Equ. 1 Disch: The Puppies of Terra after his stroke — seeing Stu and talking to Andi Shechter. And we went to 3Kuttner: Robots Have No Tails see Prometheus over the weekend as well. Great visuals, good acting, possibly

89 Non-fiction G Darkness, Be My Friend by John Marsden

1 Smoot: Wrinkles in Time G Burning for Revenge by John Marsden

Others G The Night is for Hunting by John Marsden

G G Thorne: Black Holes and Time Warps The Other Side of Dawn by John Marsden

G G Carrington: Down Below The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

G G Waten: Alien Son Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons

G G Durham: High Albania The Lost City of Z by David Grann

G G Delany: Heavenly Breakfast Conversations with Painters by Noel Barber

G G Gribbin & Gribbin: Richard Feynman: A Life in Science Sinister Twilight: The Fall of Singapore by Noel Barber

G The Magician’s Apprentice by Trudi Canavan (7 January 2012) G Book One: The Black Magician Trilogy: The Magicians’ Guild by Trudi Canavan

ROBERT ELIORDETA G Book Two: The Black Magician Trilogy: The Novice by Trudi Canavan Unit 4, 15 High Street, Traralgon VIC 3844 G I’m currently reading Book Three: The Black Magician Trilogy: The High Lord I loved the front and back covers of *brg* 73. All of the articles were by Trudi Canavan. I haven’t finished it yet, as I have only just started it. interesting. (19 December 2011) In my previous letter I forgot to mention the author of the Ranger’s Apprentice series. He is an Aussie author. His name is John Flanagan. It has been busy for me lately. K-mart now has me working from Tuesday to Saturday. Sunday and Monday is my weekend now. I work from 8 a.m. to Other books that I have read in 2011 are: 5 p.m., Tuesday to Friday, and I work from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday.

G Book 1: The Rain Wild Chronicles: The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb I worked all the way up to Christmas Eve. As you can imagine, it was very busy on Christmas Eve. I had three days off for Christmas, starting with Christmas G Book 2: The Rain Wild Chronicles: Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb Day. I needed the rest. Now K-mart is featuring ‘back to school’ stuff. It’s not G Pavane by Keith Roberts as busy now. We are back to skeleton staff levels now that Christmas is over. It puts pressure on us at the cash registers because there are not enough cash G The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien registers open. It’s hard to do price checks, because there are not enough G Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden staff members on the floor-selling area.

G The Dead of the Night by John Marsden During the Christmas break I caught up with my parents and my two married G The Third Day, the Forest by John Marsden sisters. My sisters, with their husbands and kids, visited my parents, so that

90 was how I was able to catch up with them. Mum did all the cooking and it was Books I enjoyed recently include Baxter’s biography of J. G. Ballard, even if very tasty. We had Spanish potato salad, Spanish seafood rice, Australian roast it is as untrustworthy as they say. I realise that my Ballard reading virtually chicken, cheese cake and apple pie. On New Year’s Eve I visited my parents stopped decades ago, but from Baxter’s summaries I’m not sure that I’m in the evening. It was a quiet one for us all. missing a lot. Also just read Lucy Sussex’s collection Thief of Lives, which I liked a lot, except the title story. Dark fantasy largely remains a mystery to me (17 January 2012) — that is, a mystery as to why anybody thinks it’s any good.

TONY THOMAS And I’m currently reading Jeffrey Sachs’s The Price of Civilization — what’s 486 Scoresby Road, Ferntree Gully VIC 3156 wrong with America (corporatocracy, advertising, obsession, addiction, etc. etc.) and what Americans can do about it — a great summary of lots of data Yes I agree with you about The Artist. Good, but not the best film of the year, from a lot of fields, centring on economics, but economics as it always should as Stratton Rigg et al. were telling us. I liked Hugo, too, and thought the visuals have been, not as it was taught to me and all of us for the last several decades. were fantastic, but wasn’t overwhelmed by this either. Thought Baron- Am just up to his solutions — am hopeful but doubtful whether anything can Cohen’s role, though very funny, almost belonged to a different film — and work now. there was just a bit too much sentimentality for me — a common failing, for me, of lauded American films. I like the cool European model better. (8 February 2012)

But I liked Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar more than most of the critics, mostly for KAARON WARREN what I thought was superlative story-telling. Downer, ACT 2602

*brg* For those of us in the know, Tony is one of *brg (February 2012)* Great news about the success of Melbourne’s smoothest radio announcers. He works as a Slights — I hope its reputation just keeps growing. volunteer for 3MBS. His program Contemporary Visions is on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. I had forgotten until he Sorry to ruin your day by not being as enthusiastic about reminded me that he also reads books on Vision, which Mistification as I should be — I loved all the bits, but it seems used to be 3RPH (i.e. Radio for the Print Handicapped).* the central novel doesn’t work as well as it should. Meanwhile, however, I’ve greatly enjoyed the Dead Sea Fruit collection. I Mungo MacCallum in his new book is very fluffy, as you say — and says hardly still like the major early stories slightly better than the later anything new — but just right for reading very quickly for a Vision audience. stories, but I enjoy greatly many of the new stories. The Fiji Will finish in under 12 hours, contrasted with the eight weeks or so it took insights were particularly interesting.* me to read the World War 2 history — but this was very good, with lots of personal diaries quoted, otherwise hardly available — or only in difficult-to- I love an honest, thoughtful review, I really do. It means a lot to me that the access places. Plus plenty of interesting politics — Menzies, Churchill, Stalin, book is considered and read in that way. Mistification is a very, very strange et al. — and Hirohito’s surrender document quoted in full. I had never read book, and one I really love myself, but it does break all the rules of novel this before, and it encapsulates the other world that the Japanese lived in writing! I’m really glad it’s out there. I was just thinking this morning I should (still live in?). They were not surrendering unconditionally; they stopped do a mail out to the magicians of the world. It might be something they would fighting so that peace (always their objective) could prevail. enjoy! (Continued on page 94)I

91 WERNER KOOPMANN 202c Reiherstieg, 21244 Buchholz, Germany

*brg* Since Werner and I rediscovered each other via the internet, Werner has been sending me lots of things, including an interesting set of SF critical books from the early days before the advent of such academic journals as Science Fiction Studies and Foundation. He has been interested in photos of our garden that have appeared in *brg*, so he sent some photos of his garden, which is a bit more spectacular than ours.*

Here are some pictures of our garden.

92 93 It’s curious to track the stories over the years, isn’t it? I’m glad that I’m not going through. Is this an area where the US has more of a social safety net writing the same thing over and over again, in the same way. And I can only than Australia? I hope things work out for you eventually. write the way I can write; not the way anyone decrees. I’ve been having discussions with my agent, who, I think, would like me to be more ‘main- You mention having recently seen the restored Metropolis. So did I, on DVD. stream’. I simply can’t do it, I told her. These are my passions; this is how the I gather that it’s true that this is the first film version with the plot restored, story presents itself to me. I have to trust in that, and believe in myself. but I’m less certain that the original film plot was actually unknown. I can’t remember whether Thea von Harbou’s book version is a novelisation, or if It was fantastic to have the Fiji influence. And now, having come back, the it was written first and independently, so that the film is the adaptation. In Australian influence strong again. any case the novel has always been available, even in English translation. I read it some years ago. I don’t remember it well enough to be sure how well You haven’t ruined my day at all, Bruce! You’re such an intelligent commen- it tracks with the restored film plot, but I do remember that, as in the restored tator, and an honest supporter. version and in contrast to previously available recut version, the memory of Hel figures prominently. And of course, Fritz Lang himself was still alive when (29 February 2012) restoration efforts were seriously underway. So I think it has been more a matter of finding enough bits of film to put it together so as to tell a plot that Thanks for my copy of *brg*! Love to see Mistification on your list! So very was already known to serious students of Metropolis. proud. I had a wonderful comment on my blog about Walking the Tree. I’m hoping that the publisher will take note and try to get it into the schools! You also recently again saw They Might Be Giants. When the January NYRSF gets to you, you will see that I made a brief mention there of that film. I (4 July 2012) haven’t seen it for a while, and then only on television. I really should see about ordering a DVD: I already looked, and the local public library (my PATRICK McGUIRE main source of DVD viewing) does not have it. I have not been making much 7541-D Weather Worn Way, recent progress on further semi-scholarly sf writing, partly because of con- Columbia MD 21046, USA flicting demands on my time and partly because I have been feeling a bit under the weather, although not definably ill. On the other hand, I have When I first glanced at Scratch Pad 80 (e-version of *brg* 74) upon download- been reading a lot, and that may serve as grist for the writing mill eventually. ing it at the library on their high-speed connection, I saw mention of your 65th birthday, and I wondered if that would make you eligible for a retire- I’m glad the hailstorm was no worse than it was at your place, and my ment income, since that is when Social Security normally kicks in in the US. sympathies both to you and to those who were harder hit. In the past, there (However, the age of eligibility is being gradually nudged upward, and there have been similar summer hailstorms in my general vicinity, although no are financial incentives for waiting before taking a pension even if you are serious ones that actually hit my home or car. I do remember fairly large eligible.) Now that I’ve actually read the issue, it seems that I’m half-right, in hailstones coming down on the morning of a day when I was to leave on a that you are now possibly eligible for some sort of OAP, but you have to jump long trip (possibly my 1999 one to Oz), and my hoping that there would not through bureaucratic hoops to qualify. I won’t ever receive Social Security be damage that would upset my travel plans (I escaped). myself, since until recently the civil service plan was entirely separate and I don’t have enough ‘quarters’ of private-sector work to qualify, but I gather (5 March 2012) that Social Security is more automatic than the OAP process you’ve been

94 LLOYD PENNEY and Bach — her touch is almost bell-like. I used to be one of those who 1706-24 Eva Rd., Etobicoke, Ontario M9C2B2, preferred Bach on a harpsichord (or indeed clavichord). But she has con- Canada verted me.

Reaching 65 years of age is an achievement, one I shan’t reach for another One of the comforting things is that one will never run out of things to read. 12 years and a bit. Happy belated birthday, and we wish you happiness, health This is perhaps exemplified by the fact that I haven’t read any of the novels and more steady work. that were your favourites in 2011 — not even Nicholas Nickleby! I did read Hard Times recently when I acquired a beautiful old set of Dickens that belonged Many like Facebook, and some don’t, but for me, it’s been good at reuniting to my grandmother — leather-bound Thomas Nelson and Sons editions. She me with lost cousins, old high school friends, and friends from my earliest won them as golf prizes around 1909. forays into fandom. I have written no essays to put on my Facebook page; so many others forward links to check, or come see, and buy what I’ve written, Beware — because I tend to forget what I’ve read (or seen, or heard) this etc. If I checked every link recommended to me, I’d have no time for year I have been keeping a kind of journal of books read, films seen, plays incidentals like eating and sleeping. Facebook is good for a social visit, but and concerts attended. So maybe I’ll share some of this at the end of the year. my writing is for the zines. Zines have a limited enough audience as it is, but on my FB page, it’s quite possible that no one will ever see what I might write. (21 June 2012)

Our weather channel here, The Weather Network, has been showing exten- *brg* Jenny came good with her promised article about her sive flooding in Australia, plus a cyclone in the northwestern area. Is that favourites of 2012 — and it will appear in the next issue of around Broome or South Hedland? Add to that droughts and bushfires, and SF Commentary, along with my favourites of 2012, and Elaine’s guide to recent science books.* I can’t think of a part of Oz that hasn’t been affected. Hope the general Melbourne area has been safe. STEVE JEFFERY I’ve always liked the music of Harry Nilsson, but didn’t know about the 44 White Way, Kidlington, Oxon OX5 2XA, England biographical film. I liked his work in the animated film The Point. Ninety per cent of my reading time is now spent on the bus journeys to and (19 March 2012) from work. During weekdays I rarely bother to turn my home PC on: I don’t do Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter, and my inbox just seems to filled with special offers from Amazon or eBay or insurance companies. And having JENNY BRYCE spent 9 to 10 hours in front of a monitor at work, I can’t face spending the PO Box 1215, Elwood, VIC 3184 few hours I get in the evenings staring at another computer screen. Perhaps We escaped much of the Christmas Day storm in Elwood but I remember a tablet would be the answer. Light, portable, nice screen, expensive. that my mother came home from Christmas dinner at my place to find all the back of her place (in North Fitzroy) flooded. There are lots of clone tablets around and they almost seem designed for reading on the move. Vikki bought me a Kindle a couple of years ago, but I I can’t comment on your popular music listening — but very useful to know couldn’t get on with it and returned it in the end. I think that still rankles about the classical boxed sets. I agree with you absolutely about Angela Hewitt with her, even though she bought it in a fit a desperation at my refusal to say

95 what I wanted for my birthday that year. In truth I wasn’t trying to be difficult to be paid out. After the usual faffing around with people who had taken over or contrary; I just couldn’t think of anything I really wanted. The books I the scheme, Aviva, the payments started this year. She’s still working, but with wanted weren’t due to be published until after my birthday, and I was acutely only two more years to go at the NHS is seriously looking at the option of conscious I had a house full of stuff already, much of which I rarely found early retirement before she either goes down with an stress-related illness or time to do anything with. Perhaps what I really needed was a course on time kills her boss. management. Apart from the Yamaha MIDI keyboard a few years ago, we’ve not had entirely successful track record with buying home electronics. Vikki We are currently car-less, which has worked out for a while now (we both bought a flat screen TV for my last birthday, and in the end we had to return travel to and from work by bus), but it does constrain us for visiting or just it because half the time we couldn’t get the damn thing to turn itself on. It deciding to go somewhere that isn’t in Oxford. We’ll probably look at this would just sit there with the standby LED flashing unless we unplugged it and again later in the year. waited 10 minutes before plugging it back on and turning it on and off a few times. After missing most of a Grand Prix, a couple of episodes of Homecoming, We went to Merton College Chapel a couple of weeks back to see Commotio and a football match we gave in and exchanged it. The new one started again. This is the contemporary choral group who recorded James Whit- playing the same trick, but we discovered we could get round it by unplugging bourn’s Luminosity. This performance had an African theme in the second the Freeview box SCART cable from the back of the TV before turning it on. half, and featured Bob Chilcott’s The Making of the Drum (the choir supported I still can’t believe it’s supposed to do that, but it works. by marimba, drum, and gong) and Peter Klatzow’s Two Songs from the Xam. But a lot of comment in the audience (most of it as uninformed as it was We’ve had a couple of hailstorms here, one a month or so back that came, predictable) was reserved for the appearance on the program of John Cage’s almost literally, out of the blue, where we watched golfball-sized hailstones Four2. To be fair, it’s not Cage’s most inspired idea, a sequence of layered bounce several feet back in the air off the road and the roofs of the cars notes held as long as possible, based on the letters of his home town Oregon. parked outside. I was strange to see the garden turn from green to white in I listened to another version later on YouTube with Cage conducting, and it a few minutes. But nothing would have prepared us for a metre-sized chunk seems to make more sense. But I suspect it’s another of those pieces where of ice such as the one in your picture. It looks more like a small comet has Cage is more interested in the idea than the actual sound of the piece. (This destroyed your cat enclosure. Scary. Even more so that one of your friend’s is a criticism I’ve read recently in Gabriel Josipovici’s Infinity: The Story of a daughters was hurt by another hailstone. Hope she was OK. Moment, a curious book structured as a halting and largely one-sided interview with the manservant of a recently deceased composer where he talks about Were your cats in the enclosure at the time? No wonder they were terrified. his former employer’s views and (mostly outrageous and controversial) opinions on life, art, and music. Unlike Cage, Josipovici’s fictional composer *brg* As I’ve explained elsewhere, the collective hailstones is more interested in sound rather than method: one of his pieces, 666, formed the mini-comet. In that photo, you are not looking involves striking the same note on the piano that many times. Audience at one big hailstone. The cats were not in the enclosure reaction is understandably mixed.) because at the time we were having Christmas dinner with Elaine’s relatives, so the cats were inside. I’m not sure if Commotio now have four CDs out on Naxos. As well as Luminosity, I also have they would have been safe if the skylight had failed and rainwater had poured in from the roof.* In the Heart of Things: Choral Music of Francis Pott, which they’ve featured several times in recent concerts. Vikki is officially a pensioner. She discovered around the end of last year that a company pension from a place she worked 25–30 years ago was now due Running a Google search on contemporary choral music recently I also came

96 across Eric Whiteacre’s Cloudburst and YouTube links to several more pieces, DOUG BARBOUR including Sleep, in which he conducts . Worth checking out, I 11655-72nd Avenue, Edmonton, think. Alberta T6G 0B9, Canada

This year — or last — we have also discovered the Civil Wars, a US country I’ve just been reading about 200 young adult and adult novels for the folk duo (there’s a free live set download on their website, worth it for the Sunburst award (you can check out the shortlists if you want). Also the latest between-song banter between Joy Williams, John Paul White, and the audi- collection of short fiction by Geoff Ryman, Paradise Tales, is a masterful ence), and the strange and fey Laura Marling. And Noah and the Whale, a collection, with many changes of pace, style, and power. All the books are by group I’ve heard a few times guesting on radio slots, but Vikki bought me Canadians. their CDs Last Night on Earth and The First Day of Spring. I am always impressed b y your CD lists. I listen to classical music but without Charity shop/car boot music finds have been unusually few and far between the emphasis you place the best versions, although I usually end up with some this year. However, yesterday I did come home with a Scott Walker compila- of the better ones. I’ll get some names and titles for you later. I’ve been tion (an artist unforgivably absent from my collection so far) and a live CD getting out some interesting groups and individuals in the roots/blues/etc. from Welsh rockers Man, who I don’t think I’ve heard since the ’70s. (I have categories from the library. Did I mention the Deep Dark Woods, a Canadian a vinyl album of theirs with one of the most complex origami fold-out inner group, or the Waifs (Australian group)? Both strong, bluesy. And the Punch sleeves I’ve ever seen. This was back in the days when people could afford to Brothers: bluegrass with an edge. do strange things with record covers, like peel off banana stickers, zips, and rotating discs.) Before that, the gleaning include Arvo Part’s Te Deum, My nephews had Enigma, from awhile ago. I like the 2 CDs I have by them Messian’s Turangalila Symphony, Joni Mitchell’s Misses, Rikki Lee Jones’ Traffic ... And Kathleen Edwards’ new Voyageur rocks solidly. from Paradise, Muse’s Hullaballo (can’t believe I didn’t have that one already), P. J. Harvey’s Rid of Me, the Cocteau Twins’ Four Calendar Cafe, and June Tabor I finally took out a Best Of by Jann Arden, whom I’d only listened to on radio. and the Oyster Band’s Freedom and Rain. (This has an unusually bouncy She’s very good at her best too ... version of Richard Thompson’s ‘Night Comes In’, and a equally unusual, though more successful, version of ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’, and which We watch too much TV but not many movies: I do well remember seeing Red Tabor wisely elects not to sing with a German accent (as I do in my head, and Beard many years ago. it ends warping into Marlene Dietrich — ‘vat costume shall ze poor girl vair ...’). (5 July 2012)

At this point my brain did one of those unsettling sideways shifts and I TARA JUDAH wondered what a Chas and Dave cockney knees-up version of this done by Personal Assistant to the Proprietor, Bill Bailey would sound like. Or more scarily, if he already has done it. The Astor Theatre, St Kilda VIC

(24 June 2012) Thank you for your emails and for your kind comments. We are so pleased to see that yes, sometimes the collective voice of the public is loud and clear enough to be heard.

97 The sale of the building that houses the Astor is certainly a positive step in and one of the foremost experts on William Walton. I’ll ask him for his ensuring the long term future of the Astor Theatre and we are very pleased thoughts on Brian. I’d heard of Brian long since, but am not sure I’ve heard with the outcome. his music before now — presently listening to the opening of the slow second movement, which is quite lovely. I love the huge open spaces that unfold (25 August 2012) inside of so many early twentieth-century symphonies!

*brg* A year ago, Melbourne’s last great movie palace, the I’ve only dipped my toes into twentieth-century Brits, but enjoy Britten’s Astor, faced a crisis. The owner, a local private school, string quartets and am a huge fan of the Scottish composer John Blackwood wanted to make substantial changes to the building and its McEwen, whose quartets are superb, idiosyncratic crosses between Debussy uses. A protest campaign was begun by George Florence and late Beethoven. He also has a tone poem for cello and orchestra, Hills o’ and his staff from the Astor, which led to the unexpected Heather, which is pure delight. result that the school put the building on the market. It was bought by a local St Kilda businessman who has been interested in cinema for many years. He may need deep I’m getting into the twentieth-century Scandinavian composers as well — pockets, as the 80-year-old building needs urgent repairs. Sibelius and Nielsen, of course, but Van Holmboe too, who deserves to be Until they take place, however, the Astor is roaring ahead much better known. As a symphony lover you might really enjoy Kurt with an exciting repertory program of movies. Atterberg. The relatively cheap set of all nine of his symphonies on CPO is superb. Not sure if you sent me fanzines in ’05 or not; I moved from Seattle The only trouble is that, because I rely on public transport, I to upstate New York soon after we met, under fairly chaotic conditions. cannot see films at the Astor at any time other than Sunday Would welcome a chance to read your Brian essay. afternoons. If I visited on an ordinary evening (two films, which, plus intermission, usually finish after midnight) I could (6 January 2013) not get home without hailing a taxi (at $60 per ride). I sent an email about this problem to the Astor, and it has been Tarah Judah who has been swapping emails with me. The Astor still MURRAY MacLACHLAN does not find it possible to run daytime sessions on both 35 Laird Drive, Altona Meadows VIC 3042 Saturdays and Sundays, or on public holidays, but I did get to see such recent shows as the 70 mm print of The Master and Here’s recent music purchases in the household. I’m still learning about the new 4K digital print of Lawrence of Arabia. Thanks, Tara music, which explains the somewhat haphazard look. Add to the mix a and the Astor.* bargain bin bonanza in New Zealand in January ...

G Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals: Live From Mars RON DRUMMOND Somewhere in America G Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals: The Will to Live

G Bic Runga: Birds I’m listening to the opening movement of Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony on YouTube as I write. Rather rousing start! No way I’ll get through all of it G Black Crowes: Freak’n’roll: Live at the Fillmore tonight, but I’ll try to make my way through it over the next few days. YouTube has several of his symphonies. A friend of mine in Seattle, Gary D. Cannon, G : Planet Waves is a busy choral conductor and maven of British twentieth-century composers, G Brunettes: Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks

98 G Buddy Holly & the Crickets: Collected Albums, Singles & Sessions G : Alone With Everybody

G Camille: Music Hole G Julian Cope: Jehovakill

G Cardigans: Life G Robert Plant: Manic Nirvana

G Corrs: Forgiven Not Forgotten G Ryan Adams and the Cardinals: Cardinology

G Corrs: Talk on Corners G Seekers: As, Bs and EPs

G Crash Test Dummies: God Shuffled His Feet G Sheryl Crow: Globe Sessions (Tour Edition)

G Dave Dobbyn: The Islander G Split Enz: Frenzy

G Dinah Washington: Ultimate Collection (3 CDs) G Split Enz: Mental Notes

G Dusty Springfield: Where Am I Going G Straw People: Vicarious

G Earlies: The Enemy Chorus G Van Morrison: The Philosopher’s Stone

G Echo and the Bunnymen: Get In the Car (CD Single) G Various: The Atlantic Story: Tell Me What’d I Say

G Ed Harcourt: Here Be Monsters G Various: The Hal David & Burt Bacharach Songbook

G Eric Clapton: From the Cradle G Walkmen: A Hundred Miles Off

G Feelers: Supersystem G Waterboys: A Rock in a Weary Land

G Fleetwood Mac: Original Album Series (5 CDs) G Waterboys: Too Close To Heaven

G Gitbox Rebellion: Pesky Digits G Zwan: Mary Star of the Sea.

G Gomez: Album Set (5 CDs) (31 January 2013) G : Rant and Roar *brg* Those 5-CD really cheap sets of a performer’s early G Hank Williams: Anthology (3 CDs) albums (often his or her first five albums) have proved very useful in filling out the collection. In some cases, such as G Lemonheads: Laughing All The Way to the Cleaners: Best Of (2 CDs) the Dr John set, I had never heard his early albums. In the G No Doubt: Return of Saturn case of the Neil Young set, I had the first two albums only on LP. In the case of a recent set by John McLaughlin and G Opshop: Second Hand Planet the Mahavishnu Orchestra, I had most of the albums only on tattered-cover LPs, cutouts that were sold cheaply in G Pali-Chaning/Asokananda: Thus I Have Heard: Meditations in Babylon Melbourne in the early 1970s. G Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to Paralyze Of your list of new purchases, I own only four of them, but

99 I’ve noticed quite a few I might buy if I saw them around. I popular CDs you mention. In re Ian Covell’s answer to “How did you read suspect you would say the same of my list of CDs bought since and listen and watch so much?” I can only say I try to get outside of the house the beginning of 2013. a lot.’; Barbara Roden (Ashcroft, British Columbia) intended to give Scratch Pad (the electronic version of *brg*) a quick read, but ‘I wound up savouring My favourite CD from 2013’s purchases is Terry Allen’s Bottom every bit, nodding in agreement at your Favourites of 2011 plus tasting notes, of the World.* and staying up way too long into the night. This struck a chord with me: “Heaven in life is a Beethoven piano sonata played by the one of the great We also heard from ... pianists ...”’; and William Breiding (Dellslow, West Virginia) thanks me for printing and sending hard copies for him. He has already sent me some fine Frank Weissenborn (Melbourne) wrote: ‘Good to see you, Bruce, at your articles, and, rather embarrassingly for me, still has an article sitting there Peake in *brg* 73. I’m looking forward to reading the continuing John from 1998 in the Metaphysical Review never-quite-published file. Litchen saga.’; Michael Ward (San Jose, ) tells me not to send ‘big beautiful zines like *brg* as the cost is unreasonable. Instead I can happily — Bruce Gillespie, 24 April 2013 read the PDF version. I’m planning to find some samples of a number of the

Feature letter

The real story of Harry Potter and Voldemort

Yvonne Rousseau

YVONNE ROUSSEAU the Dursleys is not conveyed, and where Hermione is not the big buck- PO Box 3086, Rundle Street Mall, toothed loudmouth represented in the novels. Adelaide SA 5000 I realise that it would be frowned upon if Daniel Radcliffe were starved to I’ll mention here that I am not a great admirer of the Harry Potter films (in make him as skinny as he ought to be initially, and that the heights of the contrast with Sally Yeoland, who seems to have liked all of them). In particu- actors can’t be adjusted in order for the boys to become taller than Hermione lar, I loathed the first two — where, for example, Harry’s bad treatment by

100 finest moments when Malfoy’s ‘Densaugeo’ charm misses Harry and instead causes Hermione’s teeth to grow down past her collar. I greatly appreciated Snape’s cold observation: ‘I see no difference.’ In the novel, it is important that Hermione then arranges for Hogwarts’ magical first aid to reduce the size of her teeth to what pleases her.

Later, in The Goblet of Fire, the appearance of the actor playing ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody (or, rather, playing Barty Crouch Jr disguised as Alastor Moody) is a very bad choice: completely alien to the original character — although in the novel itself I wondered how someone of Barty Crouch Jr’s character contrived to imitate Alastor Moody’s eccentric and imaginative and generous-minded manners.

On the other hand, Alan Rickman was a wonderful choice for Severus Snape. I’m totally in love with his performance.

Nevertheless, I didn’t actually like any of the Harry Potter films until I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. After loathing the first three films, I disliked The Goblet of Fire so much that I decided to stop watching the series. The Half-Blood Prince was surprisingly good, however — and when I tracked back to The Order of the Phoenix, I was pleased to find that it, too, was better than the first four. Later, I enjoyed the first part of The Deathly Hallows, but disliked the second part, which I found noisy and boring.

Soon, I trust, I shall hear of the questions raised by your own marathon viewing of all of the Potter films — although I doubt I’ll be able to answer them satisfactorily. only when their adolescent growth hormones get going. (7 January 2012) *brg* My main reaction to the last two (stretched to three) Nevertheless, I’m ready to believe that Warner Brothers was merely being movies in the Harry Potter series, without having read any conventional when it chose as Hermione the then 10-year-old Emma Watson: of the novels beyond the first, was utter confusion. By the shorter and slighter and more winsomely smiling than the 11-year-old Daniel end of the filmed series I still had very few answers to all Radcliffe chosen for Harry. Indeed, the 11-year-old Rupert Grint who played the questions that had been raised in the first novel. So I Ron also looked shorter than Hero Harry. asked Yvonne whether these questions were answered by the end of the last gigantic volume. In the following letters, The changed appearance meant leaving out the cruelty of one of Snape’s she is responding to my various confused questions.*

101 I wasn’t utterly sure which parents you regarded as being hated by which from Dumbledore, and that Harry is now in possession of Draco’s hawthorn character. Although Voldemort kills Harry’s parents, it isn’t because he hates wand (and, indeed, when their curses collide, the elder wand leaves Volde- them, but because he intends to kill the infant Harry, after a prophecy has mort and goes to Harry’s hand, while Voldemort is killed by his own curse led him to believe that the boy will otherwise be his downfall. Little does he rebounding on him). know that with this act — under the mystical influence of the maternal love of Harry’s mother Lily (whose life Voldemort took only because she insisted Snape’s feelings for Lily are revealed (although Harry does not realise this) on trying to shield Harry) — he has made the body of Harry himself into a by the form his patronus charm takes in the forest, as it leads Harry to the horcrux in which part of Voldemort himself resides (including the ability to Sword of Gryffindor: speak Parseltongue). This part (miserably whimpering) is finally expelled when Harry allows Voldemort to direct a killing curse at him, without And then the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was attempting to defend himself. a silver-white doe, moon-bright and dazzling, picking her way over the ground, still silent, and leaving no hoof prints in the fine powdering of Severus Snape was a student at Hogwarts at the same time as James Potter snow. She stepped toward him, her beautiful head with its wide, long- (Harry’s father) and Lily. As Harry is shocked to discover, James behaved lashed eyes held high. towards Severus in an unpleasantly bullying way, causing Severus to hate him. Harry stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, Already (and always), he loves Lily (who grew to love James although at first but at her inexplicable familiarity. He felt that he had been waiting for her she was repelled by his showing off). Snape’s feelings towards Harry are to come, but that he had forgotten, until this moment, that they had therefore very painful: he sees in Harry the likeness of the hated James Potter arranged to meet. [...] He knew, he would have staked his life on it, that — yet Harry’s green eyes are identical with the beloved Lily’s. she had come for him, and him alone. Severus Snape used to be a Death Eater (a follower of Voldemort) but They gazed at each other for several long moments and then she turned rejoined the other side before Voldemort’s downfall (indeed, ever after Lily’s and walked away. death) and acted as spy at great personal risk. Voldemort had no idea that Snape was disloyal when he killed him. He merely supposed that it was ‘No,’ he said, and his voice was cracked with lack of use. ‘Come back!’ necessary to get rid of him before the wand-hallow would place its full powers She continued to step deliberately through the trees, and soon her at Voldemort’s disposal. brightness was striped by their thick, black trunks. For one trembling second he hesitated. Caution murmured: it could be a trick, a lure, a trap. In their youth, Dumbledore and Grindelwald were both hoping to achieve But instinct, overwhelming instinct, told him that this was not Dark Magic. mastery of death, by means not of horcruxes but of hallows. Harry was the He set off in pursuit. final descendant of the legendary Peverell who owned the hallow which was a cloak of invisibility. Another of the hallows, the resurrection stone, was Snow crunched beneath his feet, but the doe made no noise as she passed incorporated in the ring which Voldemort (who failed to recognise the through the trees, for she was nothing but light. [...] hallows, although he coveted and obtained the elder wand) had used as one of his horcruxes. At last, she came to a halt. She turned her beautiful head towards him once more, and he broke into a run, a question burning in him, but as he In their final battle (after Harry returns from seeming death), Harry informs opened his lips to ask it, she vanished. Voldemort that it was Draco Malfoy, not Snape, who removed the elder wand Though the darkness had swallowed her whole, her burnished image was

102 still imprinted on his retinas; it obscured his vision, brightening when he Harry and protect him from the Dementors as he approaches Voldemort: lowered his eyelids, disorientating him. Now fear came: her presence had instead, James, Sirius, Lupin, and Lily accompany Harry to the scene where meant safety. he allows Voldemort to use the elder wand against him. Later, in their final confrontation, Harry tells Voldemort that Dumbledore chose to be killed by When Snape is dying (killed by Voldemort not as a traitor but as a necessary Snape, and arranged it months before he died: sacrifice), he asks Harry to take the silvery blue thoughts spilling out of Snape’s mouth, ears, and eyes (Hermione provides a flask). Snape then ’Severus Snape wasn’t yours,’ said Harry. ‘Snape was Dumbledore’s, slackens his grip on Harry’s robes: Dumbledore’s from the moment you started hunting down my mother. And you never realised it, because of the thing you can’t understand. You ‘Look ... at ... me ...’ he whispered. never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?’ The green eyes found the black, but after a second something in the depths Voldemort did not answer. They continued to circle each other like wolves of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank and empty. about to tear each other apart. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and Snape moved no more. ’Snape’s Patronus was a doe,’ said Harry, ‘the same as my mother’s, Harry afterwards participates in these memories, using the Pensieve in the because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they Hogwarts head’s office. He finds that Dumbledore (in his portrait, after were children. You should have realised,’ he said, as he saw Voldemort’s death) instructed Snape to get the sword to Harry without himself knowing nostrils flare, ‘he asked you to spare her life, didn’t he?’ why, and without letting Harry know that Snape was the one delivering it. Before this, when Dumbledore was persuading Snape to kill him in due ’He desired her, that was all,’ sneered Voldemort, ‘but when she had gone, course, he told Snape about the fragment of Voldemort’s soul that is attached he agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, worthier of to and protected by Harry. Dumbledore conveys that he has kept Harry alive him —’ because he must die at the right moment to defeat Voldemort. Snape is indignant: ’Of course he told you that,’ said Harry, ‘but he was Dumbledore’s spy from the moment you threatened her, and he’s been working against you ‘But this is touching, Severus,’ said Dumbledore seriously. ‘Have you ever since! Dumbledore was already dying when Snape finished him!’ grown to care for the boy, after all?’ Thus, Snape is a villainous teacher but a brave and selfless hero. ‘For him?’ shouted Snape. ‘Expecto patronum!’ Happy Twelfth Night! From the of his wand burst the silver doe: she landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office and soared out of the window. Dumble- (7 January 2012) dore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. Voldemort does indeed impinge on the world outside Hogwarts (and the Ministry of Magic is therefore obliged to be unusually frank with the Muggle ‘After all this time?’ Ministry about the causes of recent disintegrating bridges and other ‘Always,’ said Snape.’ catastrophes). Voldemort detests Mudbloods (although — or perhaps because — he has a portion of Mudblood ancestry himself) and, even before Snape is not among the revenants from the resurrection stone who surround his official return, Death-Eaters at the Quidditch final are tormenting some

103 Muggles, floating them in the air and thus revealing the knickers of a Dead Sea Fruit (2010). mortified Muggle mother). After Voldemort’s return, we see people brought into the Ministry of Magic to be checked for Muggle genes and then to be Although I haven’t read Kate Atkinson, Vida and I saw the title you mention, dealt with in a sinister manner. When Will There Be Good News?, briefly discussed by Jennifer Byrne on the ABC-TV First Tuesday Bookclub of 4 November 2008, which we were watching Anyway — I’m glad to have been of assistance in hinting at how much is left because Vida was interested to see one of the guests, Sophie Cunningham, out of the films, and sorry about the mixed tenses of my hurried replies. whose recent book, Melbourne, we have been reading.

Thank you for your lists! I’ve looked through the lists of novels and books, (7 January 2012) and note that the collection of Kaaron Warren’s stories that I’ve obtained is

Feature letter

The loc that would not die

by Casey Wolf

CASEY WOLF (22 November 2011) 14–2320 Woodland Drive, Vancouver, Four days ago Fran Skene, Janet Wilson, and I trundled from Vancouver to British Columbia V5N 3P2, Canada Seattle at the prompting of Jean Weber, who was briefly in town on her I enjoyed the Peake experience. I have been curious about the Gormenghast whirlwind tour through the USA. Fran, Janet, and Jean holed up at the Days books, but have never picked one up. Have to say I now know I won’t. I suspect Inn on Aurora and I stayed with Janice Murray and her two white and black they are not my thing at all. Still, did like reading your thoughts on them. I felines, Ruthie and Tina. They live in a 1963 motel that has been converted felt like the needle scratched to the end of the track pretty abruptly, though. to apartments. (An era of outdoor walkways, wood panels, ceramic tiles in I want to know about book three! Wah! the bathroom, and abundant windows. A lovely home, indeed.) Elinor Busby and Lin Simpson met up with us — Elinor on both Monday and Tuesday,

104 Lin, who had to ferry over from Vachon Island, on Tuesday only. of them but Jean forged bravely ahead, eating the rubbery stuff with choco- late sauce. (She survived.) (Though there was a prolonged lie-down on the I like Aurora. It’s on the old highway running the apparent length of Seattle living room floor ...) and it is far more charming than the interstate highway that has replaced it. Charming not in the meandering countrified way you may be picturing but While this was going on I was making my way through the first couple of in the broad straight no-nonsense thoroughfare of yesteryear sense. Unlike Elinor’s bookshelves. I am still smacking my lips over the variety of tempting Vancouver, which is insatiable in its self-renewal, ripping down perfectly good morsels there, most particularly over a very old copy of Castle Rackrent and a and often precious buildings in order to block out endless malls and leaky- detailed Historical Guide to Dublin from the mid 1800s. I would have loved to to-be condos, Aurora and environs still feature houses, commercial build- have time to look through all of the shelves. ings, and even towering neon signs, from the 1950s and ’60s. The commercial section has lots of elbow room, and the bungalows are tiny and bursting with Somewhere in there I had the idea of us writing a renga to go into the zine. character. They may be mouldy and overgrown in places but to my eye they Rengas consist of alternating long and short lines, written by successive are beautiful. authors. The lines are independent in theme. The idea isn’t to create a narrative, but to riff off the previous line at some peculiar angle. So, say, Jean However. I did not go down there to ogle architecture or pursue the past. I says she is ready to take a nap, the next person may say something about was there to hang with the womenfen. carpets (which have a different sort of nap) — that kind of thing. Anyway, we forged ahead with our poor, harmless renga, though lord knows if it ended Knowing fans, I was a little nervous I might not get much sleep: late nights up resembling any sort of a poem at all. When we see the final product, we’ll with bottles and munchies, you know, witty conversation and no thought of have to make our own judgments. It was all very fannish and fun. tomorrow. Popcorn rolling across the floor. It may have something to do with the fact that at 55 I was probably the youngest there (I won’t guess at Elinor’s One pleasant outcome of the whole thing, besides having an enjoyable time age, but let’s say there was a considerable span between us), but no one visiting with everyone, was that I acquired a copy of Phyllis Gottlieb’s first seemed inclined to party much past 8 o’clock. Janice, though, was awake into book, Sunburst (1964), which I’ve been meaning to read. It is a little surprising the wee hours (you know, 10:30, 11:00), when I was drifting off. to me that only the Canadians know who Gottlieb was. She was contributing to the American SF magazines before any other Canadians were, and contin- This was my first hurrah after months of focusing on my health, and I really ued to publish SF and poetry until a few short years ago: a grand old lady of enjoyed it. Canadian SF. A humbling reminder.

Basically, we had a relaxacon. No agenda other than eating and talking and I happily consumed the book over the next couple of evenings. I wasn’t enjoying each other’s company. All of the others are current members of hoping for much, because it was her first book, but I enjoyed it. There were AWA (A Woman’s APA), and I was a member briefly in the ’80s, so at Elinor’s all sorts of things I liked, from the genre — young people with ‘psi’ powers prompting we put together a one-shot for the APA while gathered at her — to the way she approached her characters, to the writing itself, and also wonderfully bookish (and artish) home. One at a time we closeted ourselves her assumption of a certain level of education and brightness in her readers. in a bedroom and typed a few paragraphs into the computer while the others And it was a good story. There was a bit of sociological speculation that made rattled away in the living room. Jean had a craving for ice cream so Elinor me cringe, but in the context of the times the book was fairly enlightened. broke out some very dubious-looking fare from, she said, years ago: frosted- over vanilla and rubbery chocolate, if I remember rightly. I stayed well clear I’m particularly pleased to have at last read Sunburst because Canadian

105 Speculative Fiction, which has long had the fan-voted Aurora Awards, a few I liked them. They are intelligent, adventure filled, sometimes surprising; years ago got the juried Sunburst Awards, named after this novel. At last I basically good reads. So last week I brought back The Warrior’s Apprentice and can nod sagely and say, ‘Hrm, yes. Gottlieb’s 1964 novel, first serialised in Vor Games (bad pun). I liked TWA a lot — many unexpected and pleasurable Amazing, also in ’64. Not a bad little book. Hrm. Yes.’ turns in character and plot, a very likable protagonist, and again, well written. VG didn’t grab me as much, but it was still good. If I hadn’t been fresh from Wish I’d been at the Nova Mob for your Gormenghast talk. Speaking of which TWA I’d have had no dissatisfaction — it was a perfectly good novel; it just (being there, not Gormenghast) I’m going to try again this year to come out wasn’t as, well, novel as its predecessor. Anyway, I’m hooked, so I guess I will for a visit. Resistance is futile. I’ll be at your door. Hope to see you soon. be visiting her again soon. It is good to have light but good reads to go between things like Northanger Abbey and Nuala O’Faolain’s My Dream of You. (26 July 2012) This is a mainstream novel that I found a real page-turner, brilliantly written, and very affecting. Weeks after reading it I still find myself pondering the How odd. There are actual people in the backyard and one of them is book. strumming a guitar and singing. This is a first. We have a wonderful long enclosed yard abutting the railway cut and lined with trees. Amazingly, in the O’Faolain was an Irish journalist. This was her first novel, published in 2005 twenty-odd years I’ve lived here no one has had parties there but me, and when she was in her fifties. It is written from the perspective of an Irish travel only a couple of people have even stretched out on the grass to read a book. writer who left Ireland in distress when quite young and has spent her So it is great but weird to have other people enjoying the yard. (I just wish somewhat dissipated life in England, sabotaging romantic relationships, he was singing something I wanted to listen to.) avoiding family, connecting most with her boss and co-workers. She goes back to Ireland to research a story she read in a law tract from the Famine times, Though I occasionally receive or download digital versions of fanzines, I find of a plantation wife accused of having an affair with her Irish groom. So we I don’t read them. If you go fully electronic I’ll have to try. For me lounging have the present-time life of the character, first in England, then in Ireland, about reading a zine is a luxury activity, something I do to relax, and there’s her young life, what she is unearthing about the Famine times, and her nothing relaxing about the weight of the computer and the blare of its light. imaginings about this supposed affair. I found the whole thing fascinating, Reading Wm Breiding’s loc, I found myself fantasising about wrenching free and very human. O’Faolain doesn’t flinch from difficult topics, but she also from the internet entirely, as I used to fantasise about going to live in the doesn’t despair over them. I think it is often the author, more than the subject wilds. Ah, the blissful freedom! But I don’t know if I’ll ever do it. There are matter, that makes it so painful to read about people’s struggles, or devastat- many people and groups with whom I can only effectively by being ing times in history. Somehow O’Faolain is able to look at the whole picture, online — even some in Vancouver. No one organises anything using tele- and allow the reader to look with her, and to be glad in the end that she did. phones anymore, so if you are not on email, you don’t know what is going Lots in there. And did I say enough times how beautifully she writes? (In case on. you are wondering, as I did, she is not the daughter of Sean O’Faolain, but of another writer, Tomas O’Faolain, whom I haven’t read.) After finishing Sunburst I launched into a couple of books I borrowed from Janice Murray while in Seattle. Janice is a huge fan of the Vorkosigan Saga I normally don’t like watching concert films. I’d rather be there or listen to by Lois McMaster Bujold. She has her For Keeps copies and a box full of a CD. But a friend, knowing I had been a Bowie fan many years ago, handed loaners and giveaways. I resisted for years, but in 2011 I came home with a me his DVDs of the final Ziggy Stardust concert (1973) and A Reality Tour copy of Cordelia’s Honor, which contains the first two books in the series. She (2003). I decided to take a polite look and ended up watching them back to assured me the later ones were even better, but it was important to start there. back, then spending a lot of time in the next weeks catching up (via that

106 cursed internet) on what Bowie had been doing in the decades since I readers theatre he spearheaded for several years at the con. Last year I wrote wandered off, especially by tracking down interviews of him that spanned his the play, but this year Matt Hughes has done us the honour, which is great. career. He has written radio theatre before, so this will be more professional than my seat-of-the-pants foolishness, but if his short stories are anything to go by Eventually I had stuffed so much information into my head about him, and it should be quite humorous as well. (I’m about to find out; I have the play dragged up so many memories of those times, that I decided to make use of open in another tab.) it in a story. That was gratifying. I feel a bit doomed packaging it up for the auction block, though. It isn’t fantasy, and it isn’t mainstream. (Eileen (3 August 2012) Kernaghan tells me it is Magical Realism.) This throws readers off, who either want it to be set up like a normal fantasy or dismiss the odd bits and rationalise The LoC That Would Not Die: it in various ways. This doesn’t bode well for editorial acceptance. But you I was unwilling to go to bed last night. After finishing my letter to you I ended never know. Room Magazine took a couple of my weirder ones, so maybe this up reading the whole of *brg* 74. I was pleased to read your praise of Nicholas will sell, too. Nickleby. I recently picked up a wonderful old hardcover edition for $5 at Spartacus Books (along with a pocketbook of Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen Speaking of publishing, I’ve noticed a trend in the last few anthologies I’ve — a bizarre and in the end very satisfying read, for $2 — rare bargoons in had stories in. There seems to be a shift to desegregate the various streams Vancouver, I assure you). It is from the Charles Dickens Works series from of speculative fiction and put them together in one book. I can live with this A. L. Burt, New York, and of course mentions no publication year. Early last when we are talking about science fiction and fantasy, but I am very disturbed century, anyway. But I have never read a book by Dickens and I have to admit by horror and cruel stories generally, and I avoid reading them. I can no I worried I might find it a slog. So I am happy to hear that It Lives, for you. longer do this if I want to check out the other offerings in the books my stories are in. Is this just my random experience, or do you think horror and I was reading about the Curragh Wrens of Ireland, lost women who were excessive brutality are working their way into ‘mainstream’ speculative fic- treated so terribly there, worse than camp followers in England or India. tion? Or is the genre itself simply becoming more vicious? Dickens sent a reporter to write in great detail about their living conditions (among the gorse bushes), to be published in his newspaper, the Pall Mall In April 2011 I was telling you about how tired I was. There is apparently Gazette. That he cared to intervene on their behalf is two-thirds of the reason something invigorating about getting cancer. It really lights a candle under I want to read his book. you. I am still tired all the time — I think it’s part of the fibromyalgia — but I feel quite stimulated in other ways. I just have to pace myself. I’ve rejoined I think you read more books, listen to more music, and watch more DVDs in the Vancouver Paleontological Society, signed up for a course on Roman a year than I do in ten. Maybe I do more yoga than you. Britain at SFU, signed up once again for Eileen Kernaghan’s writing group in the fall, and have a lot of small projects going on. There are of course ups I’m reminded to tell you of a favourite movie, which I have not seen in several and downs, but I am so thrilled getting to do things that have nothing to do years but would love to watch again. Its Korean name is Jibeuro; in English it with my health, I feel like I’m on summer vacation. is called The Way Home; the director is Lee Jeong-hyang. There are two main actors in the film. One is a boy who, if I remember correctly, is around eight I’m looking forward to the Pallahaxi Players Readers Theatre, which I started years old (he won an award for his performance), and the other is a woman last year at VCon. It is an homage to Mike Coney in a couple of ways — both who is as old as the hills. She is a tiny, bent thing who apparently had never in borrowing the name ‘Pallahaxi’, and in that it emulates the Lonely Cry even seen a movie when recruited to act in this film. She plays a mute, but

107 not deaf, grandmother to a boy whose mother has brought him from Seoul and left him in the mountains for the summer. He is angry and bored, his only playmate is his video game, and he takes it out on his grandmother. She, on the other hand, simply loves him. This sounds cheesy but it is not. Watching this woman and the patience and kindness in her face when he is freaking out, I was very moved. Remember that she is mute, too, so there is not a lot of dialogue. I have never seen anything like Jibeuro. A quiet, beautiful movie which I highly recommend.

I did see two movies this year, though, that really stayed with me, as well as a few others I enjoyed. I read My Brilliant Career for the first time, and liked it a lot, so awhile later I watched the movie. I was happy with it, too, as it was pretty faithful to the original, and the actors were quite engaging. The next night I watched an unknown movie trawled from the library, Dean Spanley. It took my mum (who was in town taking care of me after the surgery) about three minutes to realise the dean was the young suitor from the night before (Sam Neill), nearly 30 years later. If you have never seen this movie, get it. It’s a New Zealand production, I believe, set in England at the turn of the last century, maybe as late as 1920, and is based (quite loosely) on a Lord Dunsany story in which a man recalls his previous life as a dog. I have now watched it maybe four times and it gets better with each viewing. Australians may be pleased to see Bryan Brown alongside Sam Neill, Jeremy Northam, Judy Parfitt, and a wonderfully old Peter O’Toole.

*brg* If you go back to *brg* 63, you’ll find that Dean Spanley was my favourite movie of 2009, and that I wrote about it at length there. This led other readers to discover the movie, and write about it in later issues of *brg*. Dean Spanley is one of those great movies that continues to discover its own audience.* I guess.)

A movie I caught online (CBC videos) a few months earlier was a BBC I’m glad you think so highly of the McGarrigle Sisters. I spent many a happy production, The Road to Coronation Street, about Tony Warren and the struggle hour in the olden days listening to their superlative duets and was very to represent working-class on television at a time when that class engaged by the stories they wove with their lyrics. I think ‘NaCl’ is one of the and that accent were considered taboo. Every time I see this one I get a lump greatest love songs, not to mention science songs, of all time. in my throat, but it is also funny and fast-moving and, again, very well scripted. The name Bernice Rubens (Mr Wakefield’s Crusade) sounds awfully familiar. That photo shows a very impressive hailball. (Something a storm coughs out, I think she may have written a strange book I picked up on the discard rack

108 at Pulp Fiction, The Ponsonby Post. (Yes, I’ve just found it. Same author.) It Dogs, which takes place in Laos among aging revolutionaries a couple of years takes place largely in the ex-pat community in Indonesia. There is death, into the new regime. It isn’t the first in the series, but it’s the one I read. I there are droll observations—a very interesting though not in always satisfy- found it fascinating, human, and sometimes gut-wrenchingly funny. Not ing book. often communists get to be ordinary people and their regimes not evil.

A better one in a related genre, though, is Colin Cotterell’s Anarchy and Old (6 August 2012)

Feature letter

‘High Society’ and John Hammond

by Malcolm McHarg

MALCOLM McHARG able, even friendly. As of Thursday, I’ve been reflecting on the vicissitudes of 85 Ridge Road, Kilaben Bay, NSW 2283 life. I can fall from a 12-foot ladder, knock myself out on a brick wall, then collapse on a compost heap and almost spontaneously recover, as a conse- This year I’ve written on my thoughts and feelings after the recent screening quence, from a chronic disabling back impairment (in 2003). Ian ‘Molly’ of a favourite film from 1956, High Society, and its linkages to some of my Meldrum, putting up Christmas decorations, falls from a tall ladder fractur- passions and interests. Movie and music nostalgia for High Society are perhaps ing skull, breaking ribs and puncturing his lung. Similar circumstance but best summed up by quoting Montgomery Clift admitting his love for Eliza- two very different outcomes. How lucky am I? beth Taylor in George Steven’s A Place in the Sun: ‘I love you. I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you. I guess maybe I even loved you before I saw I trust the two of you are well (Bruce, you look trim in your Facebook photo) you.’ I can’t do better than that. and in good spirits given the circumstances we share, the uncertainties of aging. In the years when I swam regularly at the Beaurepaire Swimming Pool (at Melbourne University) I would frequently see the late Zelman Cowen in the (19 December 2011) change rooms. We would say ‘hello’ to one another; he was always person-

109 I’ve been hooked on movies from the starting of school (1943): films such Another ‘out of the blue’ as Bambi (1943, my first ‘going to the movies ’ experience), The Big Sleep jazz influence was John Wil- (probably 1946, the first adult film to overwhelm me) and The Third Man son, teddy boy extra- ordi- (1949) are exceptional memories from the period of kid to early days of naire and older brother of adolescence. These three movies, today, still rank highly as favourites. Stephanie, my first serious girlfriend. John lived a With each decade, ‘going to the movies’ experiences became richer and block away. He was the only deeper. Leaving New Zealand for Melbourne was a life-augmenting experi- person I knew with a sys- ence in unforeseen ways. Melbourne, from 1957 onwards, brought new tematically collected set of Hollywood insights — Busby Berkeley for example — along with exposures jazz records. He became a to Asian auteurs such as Kurosawa and Ray, along with French ‘new wave’ mentor, probably without films, Italian cinema, and Russian cinema. realising it, for my under- standing of the true signifi- With the ubiquitous media digitalisation, the quality movies canon formated cance of performers such in HD is now abundantly accessible: on DVD and Blu-ray; TV; TV on demand; as Duke Ellington, Ella and streaming/ downloading of movies direct to laptop, tablet or PC. The Fitzgerald, Louis Arm- best film outcomes, of course, are the social experiences of movie going: strong, Billie Holiday, meeting friends, conversation over coffee or a glass of wine; as a patron, Miles Davis, and even eyeballs in the dark assimilating video images on a large screen. In the highly Frank Sinatra. Here, as competitive cinema-going market, exhibitors of quality films are diversifying with movies, going to Mel- the moviegoing experience with HD films from past eras. bourne would prove to be a life-augmenting experi- By way of example, SBS over the last three weeks has screened two Kurosawa ence. movies (The Seven Samurai, 1956, and Ran, 1985), and one Itami movie (Tampopo, 1985). The (Mel Gibson-owned) quality cinema chain Dendy, in the same period, has been screening High Society (1956). One of the good things about today’s life, living on the shores of Lake Macquarie, is membership of the Watagan Mountain Film Society: films of My high school years mark the transition from kid to adult, as I began making quality for discerning viewers. Helen and I were fortunate to be admitted as decisions on important personal interests and passions largely independent members, perhaps because we’re also members of the Lake Macquarie U3A from parents and teachers. ABC broadcasts out of Sydney — probably via choir. Several of my favourite couples are members of both. Radio Australia —were significant influences for musical appreciation be- yond mainstream classical. The Society’s December screening was the 1956 musical romance, High Society. Look up a review for this film and, chances are, you’ll read that it’s a Over the period from 1950 to 1955, I explored the landscape of jazz, and also remake of The Story (1940). Those of you who have seen both came to love popular music of the type now known as ‘The American films, however, will discern this is not quite the case. Both draw their script Songbook’. I would listen to jazz programs most weeks. from the same Broadway play — The Philadelphia Story — a romantic comedy about high society, marriage, and remarriage. As Scott Fitzgerald wrote: ‘Let

110 me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.’ The seen in a film of the same year as HS, The Benny Goodman Story (Benny and play’s female lead, Tracey Samantha Lord Haven, is based on a Philadelphia Alice married). Recently, there have been numerous references to, and in socialite married to a friend of the playwright. The male lead, C. K. Dexter some circumstances footage of, John Hammond in The Blues, the Martin Haven, when married to Tracy, had a vulnerability to excessive alcohol Scorsese seven-part documentary series on the history of blues music. I have consumption. Katharine Hepburn, with help from Howard Hughes, pur- to thank the ABC (again) for what I know about John Hammond. About 20 chased the film rights for The Philadelphia Story. The film — starring Katharine years ago, early in January, a jazz-loving fellow traveller in Melbourne rang Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart, and directed by George Cukor — me at work in Sydney and said words to the effect, ‘Malcolm, switch on ABC was highly successful with the critics, the box office, and Academy awards. radio’ (Margaret Throsby’s interview program on national ABC Classic FM). The broadcast was already into the first of five (I think) 50-minute programs High Society is different from the Cukor film at two levels. While it ’s still about on John Hammond. the interpersonal dynamics of marriage and remarriage, you know up front to expect more than a romantic comedy. A six-minute overture precedes the If I can use the term ‘fabulous’ in its pre-cliché meaning of ‘legendary’, then commencement of the story. Secondly, HS is set in a resort famous for high I can tell you that John Hammond was born, in 1910, into fabulous wealth, society mansions — colloquially known as ‘summer cottages’ — in the town specifically Vanderbilt wealth. ‘Fabulous wealth’ is perhaps an under- of Newport, Rhode Island. In 1954, a local socialite founded, and with her statement. Wikipedia’s Vanderbilt family entry states, ‘The Vanderbilts remain husband financed, the First American Annual Jazz Festival, what we know as the seventh wealthiest family in history.’ In 1892–95, Cornelius Vanderbilt II the Newport Jazz Festival. built ‘The Breakers’, the largest (70 rooms) and most opulent mansion in Newport, today the most visited attraction in Rhode Island. Vanderbilt wealth Dexter, in HS, a jazz musician and songwriter, has links to a highly significant includes building the splendour of Grand Central Terminal, New York City. Newport resident, John Hammond. As a musical, HS is modelled, in part, on the golden age of the American songbook. Three all-time great popular John Hammond was more than a jazz-loving socialite. From the 1930s to the performers — Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong — sing an early ’80s, he was much more noteworthy as a musician, music critic, and original score from Cole Porter, one of America’s great songwriters. Porter, . ‘In his service as a talent scout, Hammond became one of like Hammond, belonged to the tribe of very rich; his grandfather had been the most influential figures in 20th century popular music’ (Wikipedia entry). the richest man in Indiana. HS’s musical backing comes from Armstrong (playing himself) and his All Stars band, along with orchestrations from John Hammond is further distinguished (in the US) for one of his over- Nelson Riddle and Conrad Salinger. arching social justice philosophies: ‘I heard no colour line in music. To bring recognition to the negro’s supremacy in jazz was the most effective and We who saw HS on first release in 1956 reminisce over songs that, for some constructive form of social protest that I could think of.’ of us, are markers of our courtship years. Sinatra is at his peak singing ‘You’re Sensational’; Crosby and Sinatra in a first-time collaboration sing ‘Well, Did His piano studies commenced at four years of age, the violin at eight. John, you Evah!’; Sinatra and Celeste Holm sing ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’; in his teens, became ‘interested in the music sung and played by the servants, and Crosby and Grace Kelly sing ‘True Love’. many of whom were black’. During high school years he would visit Harlem on non-school days and listen to what was then called ‘black music’. Attentive If you listen carefully to the HS dialogue, you will hear occasional reference audiences for black music at that time were limited largely to blacks (of to the name ‘Hammond’. The Bing Crosby representation of C. K. Dexter, course), musos, and music aficionados. Through these Harlem visits, John in part, is a depiction of John Hammond. John and his sister Alice are to be came to know, personally, many musicians and performers. Hammond

111 would later say that hearing Bessie Smith, when he was 17, changed his life. further reinforced Hammond’s policy of racially integrated bands, equal pay and, for Grantz as impresario, only racially integrated accommodation. At the age of 21, John Hammond left college to establish a career in the music Grantz became wealthy in the process. Music lovers will be familiar with at industry. He was the first to record Bessie Smith. Another early breakthrough least two of Grantz’ record labels: Verve (founded in 1956) and Pablo. accomplishment was help in organising a racially integrated band for Benny Goodman: white band leader, mixed race band, across-the-board white pay The Newport Jazz Festival precedes High Society by two years. Billie Holiday rates. was a standout performer in the festival ’s first year. 1955 and 1956 were noted for two outstanding performances: Miles Davis with ‘Round Midnight’ At age 23, Hammond in Harlem heard the 17-year-old Billie Holliday. Her (1955) and Duke Ellington’s Orchestra for, among other things, ‘Diminu- recording debut with the Benny Goodman Band followed shortly after. endo’ and ‘Crescendo in Blue’ (1956).

Also around this time John entered Yale, studying violin and then viola. As a talent scout, in 1960, John Hammond discovered the 18-year-old gospel singer Aretha Franklin, and was responsible for her debut recording. The At age 27, he brought the Count Basie Band to New York from Kansas, giving following year, at the insistence of his wife and over the objections of it national exposure. Columbia label record executives, he signed Bob Dylan, initially referred to by the record executives as ‘Hammond’s folly’. The upmarket Society Restaurant in New York City became an element of Hammond ’s strategy to make African-American music part of mainstream Thank you, ABC, for the introduction to John Hammond. Forgive me if my popular music. Every musical act at the Society, over a decade, was supplied memory has failed me in some respects. And thank you, Watagan Mountain under the Hammond auspice. Restaurant patrons who liked what they heard Film Society, for screening High Society. A discerning choice. became champions for African-American music. Look up Frank Sinatra on YouTube singing ‘You’re sensational. That’s all. At 31, Hammond became a co-founder of the Council of African Affairs; Paul That’s all. That’s all.’ Robeson served as CAA chairman for most of its existence. — Malcolm McHarg, 1 January 2012 Norman Grantz, the famous jazz impresario and producer from the late ’40s,

112 Treasure 1 June 2013

Mervyn R. Binns Jennifer Bryce Elaine Cochrane Ditmar Bruce Gillespie Dora Levakis John Litchen Malcolm McHarg Yvonne Rousseau Casey Wolf and many others

114 Jennifer Bryce: ‘Sunset on our houseboat, Kerala’.