SWF: Poets, brains, artefacts and matriarchs
Yesterday was immersion day for me at the Sydney
Writers' Festival. We took the tram to Pyrmont Bay and walked through the Rocks,
stopping at the clifftop next to Brett Whiteley's giant stork's egg for a hot
drink before descending to Walsh Bay, where the combined heads of the punters
were adding substantially to the albedo effect. Not that there's anything wrong
with that! It was great to be at a place with so many grey heads lending
distinction to the cause.
My festival day was bookended by glorious older women – J S Harry at the start with wild grey hair and arthritic gait belying the wit and grace of her reading, and Germaine Greer, stand up manquée seduced by her own charisma at the end. Together with Rabiah Hutchinson, the subject of a third session, they would make an impressive cast for a children's film featuring three scary but probably benign witches, say one based on a novel by Eve Ibbotson.
So, I started out with a poetry reading in the Bangarra Mezzanine, which at 10 o'clock in the morning is ideal for such an event. I found myself sitting beside Anne Bell, herself a fine poet for children, and possibly a contender for Fourth Witch (in her case, unambiguously benign). Judy Johnson and Stephen Edgar read beautifully, she in electric blue, he in academic beige. Then Jan Harry stole the show. I've found her poetry difficult on the page, but when she reads, it's delightful. She started with a 'nasty' piece on the 'pre-Rudd era', and among the other pieces was a stunning mock-heroic portrait of a security guard at a mall. Sorry, I didn't catch the name of either poem.
Norman Doidge was next, in conversation with Caroline Baum about The Brain That Changes Itself. We were in row AA, which is not right up the back behind row Z, in front of row A, so that our eyes were on a level with the artist's shoes -- and very fine shoes they were. Those who know me know that I rarely notice what people are wearing. This day was an exception -- though in this case I was helped not only by my angle of view but also by the woman on my right gasping, 'I want those shoes.' She didn't mean Norman's sensible brown buckled footwear, but Caroline's Pope-red zip boots. As if to rub salt in the wounds of the shoe enviers in the audience (and I found out later they were legion), she began the conversation by asking Norman why we should have come to his talk barefoot. Sadly he failed to decode the question as an invitation to talk about the bit in the book where he says that wearing shoes in urban environments leads one's brain to lose the ability to differentiate between areas on the sole, and answered that people probably came to the talk because they are interested in finding out about the world. That set the tone for the conversation: Caroline kept asking questions designed to evoke witty or profound responses, and Norman spoke quietly and seriously about whatever came to mind. I gave her full points for trying. And in fact, the conversation went well. I wold have liked more detail on exactly what a neuroplactician does that's different from other therapists, but it was wonderful to have my scepticism about the usefulness of drugs to cure 'mental illness' boosted by someone who is clearly a committed slave to the evidence.
This session gets my personal award for the Best. Audience. Question. Evah. I don't mean the very old man who asked if Dr Doidge would recommend his approach to restructuring the brain to someone over 90. I mean the one where a woman began by saying, 'I have a question, and it's something I feel very passionate about,' and went on, gloriously, with a plum in her mouth and not even a nod towards the notion of relevance:
At that point the microphone was kindly but firmly removed from her grasp. Dr Doidge, who had been looking a little bemused by all the attention, took on an even more introspective air. When Ms Baum asked him to give us five things to do to restructure our brains for the better, he bridled at the idea of telling us what to do, but relented enough to recommend exercise, learning a new language, doing posit science exercises for an hour a day -- though he seems to think that taking on a challenge you were passionate about (like blogging, perhaps?) would serve the purpose better than any Scientifically Proven Package. Find exemplary models, he said, and his final words of advice to this predominantly silver-haired audience: Dispense with foolish ideas that your learning days are over. I think that deserves a bit of bold face: Dispense with foolish ideas that your learning days are over.
But there's no time to sit and absorb. Half an hour later, having eaten a panino en route, I was sitting in a theatre to hear Philip Jones, of Ochre and Rust (which I think is superb), and Ross Gibson, of The Summer Exercises (which I haven't read) talk about the way they extract, deduce or invent stories about inanimate objects. Philip is a historian with an understanding of teh importance of narrative, Ross a fiction-writer with a profound respect for historical fidelity.
And with even less time to spare -- because this room filled up 20 minutes before the session was due to start -- I went to Sally Neighbour talking about The Mother of Mohammed, her biography of Rabiah Hutchinson, a scary convert to Islam. I managed to get past the door nazi, actually quite a nice person, by saying, truthfully that my friends were saving me a seat. 'I'll let you in.' she said, 'but you'd better not be putting one over. I've got teenage sons, you know, so I'm not easily fooled.' I was vaguely flattered. This was another interesting session, and of course the book is tempting. Sally Neighbour, Four Corners journalist, has written an earlier book about Islamic activists in Australia, and apparently Rabaiah was mentioned once in passing in that. This Australian woman had become something of a legend: she used to be among other things a donkey stoker [does anyone know what that means or do I have to read the book?], she converted to Islam, went off to do jihad, joining Jameer Islamiah and choosing to live with the Taliban, married seven husbands and used her detailed knowledge of Islamic law to divorce as needed. Sally Neighbour was fascinated, tracked her down and interviewed her at length. The resulting book makes a clear distinction between extremists and terrorists. Rabaiah is certainly the former – she sings the praises of the Taliban and once cowed the leader of Jameer Islamiah into getting rid of his cane chairs by berating him for departing from the floor-sitting ways of the Prophet. But she insists, and Sally Neighbour believes her, that she is not a terrorist and has never advocated violence. In response to the inevitable question/comment from the audience about how wearing a niqab is dangerous and is gives backing to terrorism, she talked about how having conversed with many women covering their faces in this way, she has become much less alarmed by it. Most women wearing a niqab in Australia, she said, are Austraoian, and most wear it of their own choice, not because someone is forcing them to. It is just a piece of clothing.
We'd been intending to go to the next session in that room, but the line was already dauntingly long, so we grazed in the bookshop, persuaded our friend to buy a copy of Seven Seasons in Aurukun, and had a relatively leisurely dinner before An Evening with Professor Germaine Greer up town.
Professor Greer was advertised as presenting a lecture on ‘The Australian Way: The Influence of Australia and Australians on British Politics and Politicians.' As one audience member asked at the end, 'Why should we care?' That question wasn't answered. Professor Greer walked onto the stage to sustained applause, and evidently took that as an invitation to self-indulgence, or at least to indulge in attacks on Kevin Rudd (some on his policies, some on his supposed egotism, one on his upper lip), an the English (their housing, their weather, their Universities, so inferior to Australian ones in the 60s), on the superannuation system (which she was noticeably misinformed about), on the idea of home ownership. She's a very smart woman. She was witty, even sometimes funny, the audience kept bursting into applause. And if she'd presented her material as stand-up, it would have been excellent: 'If there is a double dissolution and an election, my bumper sticker will red simply, MALCOLM TURNBULL IS A BANKER'; 'Where I live in south-east Queensland there are no decent newspapers, so I have to get the Australian. They're still questioning the reality of climate change. They carry on debating it all by themselves!' 'Australians are resourceful. My workforce live on stale finger buns from the hot bread shop.' That last remark, not an exact quote, but close, prompted me to ask, but not so she'd hear me from my perch in the gods, 'Why don't you pay them?' IN fact, given that she referred to her 'workforce' a number of times as evidence for what 'Australians' think about various things, she really ought to pay them researchers fees. The man next to me asked, in a European accent of some kind, what she was a professor of. I said I thought it was English literature. 'Does she come from a very wealthy background?' he asked. I said I didn't think so. I guess he was trying to understand her loose-cannon arrogance.
I wish she'd talked about Shakespeare.
My festival day was bookended by glorious older women – J S Harry at the start with wild grey hair and arthritic gait belying the wit and grace of her reading, and Germaine Greer, stand up manquée seduced by her own charisma at the end. Together with Rabiah Hutchinson, the subject of a third session, they would make an impressive cast for a children's film featuring three scary but probably benign witches, say one based on a novel by Eve Ibbotson.
So, I started out with a poetry reading in the Bangarra Mezzanine, which at 10 o'clock in the morning is ideal for such an event. I found myself sitting beside Anne Bell, herself a fine poet for children, and possibly a contender for Fourth Witch (in her case, unambiguously benign). Judy Johnson and Stephen Edgar read beautifully, she in electric blue, he in academic beige. Then Jan Harry stole the show. I've found her poetry difficult on the page, but when she reads, it's delightful. She started with a 'nasty' piece on the 'pre-Rudd era', and among the other pieces was a stunning mock-heroic portrait of a security guard at a mall. Sorry, I didn't catch the name of either poem.
Norman Doidge was next, in conversation with Caroline Baum about The Brain That Changes Itself. We were in row AA, which is not right up the back behind row Z, in front of row A, so that our eyes were on a level with the artist's shoes -- and very fine shoes they were. Those who know me know that I rarely notice what people are wearing. This day was an exception -- though in this case I was helped not only by my angle of view but also by the woman on my right gasping, 'I want those shoes.' She didn't mean Norman's sensible brown buckled footwear, but Caroline's Pope-red zip boots. As if to rub salt in the wounds of the shoe enviers in the audience (and I found out later they were legion), she began the conversation by asking Norman why we should have come to his talk barefoot. Sadly he failed to decode the question as an invitation to talk about the bit in the book where he says that wearing shoes in urban environments leads one's brain to lose the ability to differentiate between areas on the sole, and answered that people probably came to the talk because they are interested in finding out about the world. That set the tone for the conversation: Caroline kept asking questions designed to evoke witty or profound responses, and Norman spoke quietly and seriously about whatever came to mind. I gave her full points for trying. And in fact, the conversation went well. I wold have liked more detail on exactly what a neuroplactician does that's different from other therapists, but it was wonderful to have my scepticism about the usefulness of drugs to cure 'mental illness' boosted by someone who is clearly a committed slave to the evidence.
This session gets my personal award for the Best. Audience. Question. Evah. I don't mean the very old man who asked if Dr Doidge would recommend his approach to restructuring the brain to someone over 90. I mean the one where a woman began by saying, 'I have a question, and it's something I feel very passionate about,' and went on, gloriously, with a plum in her mouth and not even a nod towards the notion of relevance:
I'm a dowser. Now you might not be aware that there are plans to build a desalination plant in Sydney, and it's completely udeless idea. I've written to Kevin Rudd and sent him twpo books explaining the value of dowsing, and he's returnied them withut even readaing them. I've also written to , you know, Midnight OIl, I don't remember his name, [on being helped out by a stunned looking Caroline Baum] yes, Peter Garrett, and he's also returned them unread. [On being patiently asked for her question] I do have a question, and it's this: What is wrong with the medical profession that they don't want to hear about dowsing? I've talked to one young doctor, and she just doesn't want to listen at all, even though her mother was a dowser.
At that point the microphone was kindly but firmly removed from her grasp. Dr Doidge, who had been looking a little bemused by all the attention, took on an even more introspective air. When Ms Baum asked him to give us five things to do to restructure our brains for the better, he bridled at the idea of telling us what to do, but relented enough to recommend exercise, learning a new language, doing posit science exercises for an hour a day -- though he seems to think that taking on a challenge you were passionate about (like blogging, perhaps?) would serve the purpose better than any Scientifically Proven Package. Find exemplary models, he said, and his final words of advice to this predominantly silver-haired audience: Dispense with foolish ideas that your learning days are over. I think that deserves a bit of bold face: Dispense with foolish ideas that your learning days are over.
But there's no time to sit and absorb. Half an hour later, having eaten a panino en route, I was sitting in a theatre to hear Philip Jones, of Ochre and Rust (which I think is superb), and Ross Gibson, of The Summer Exercises (which I haven't read) talk about the way they extract, deduce or invent stories about inanimate objects. Philip is a historian with an understanding of teh importance of narrative, Ross a fiction-writer with a profound respect for historical fidelity.
And with even less time to spare -- because this room filled up 20 minutes before the session was due to start -- I went to Sally Neighbour talking about The Mother of Mohammed, her biography of Rabiah Hutchinson, a scary convert to Islam. I managed to get past the door nazi, actually quite a nice person, by saying, truthfully that my friends were saving me a seat. 'I'll let you in.' she said, 'but you'd better not be putting one over. I've got teenage sons, you know, so I'm not easily fooled.' I was vaguely flattered. This was another interesting session, and of course the book is tempting. Sally Neighbour, Four Corners journalist, has written an earlier book about Islamic activists in Australia, and apparently Rabaiah was mentioned once in passing in that. This Australian woman had become something of a legend: she used to be among other things a donkey stoker [does anyone know what that means or do I have to read the book?], she converted to Islam, went off to do jihad, joining Jameer Islamiah and choosing to live with the Taliban, married seven husbands and used her detailed knowledge of Islamic law to divorce as needed. Sally Neighbour was fascinated, tracked her down and interviewed her at length. The resulting book makes a clear distinction between extremists and terrorists. Rabaiah is certainly the former – she sings the praises of the Taliban and once cowed the leader of Jameer Islamiah into getting rid of his cane chairs by berating him for departing from the floor-sitting ways of the Prophet. But she insists, and Sally Neighbour believes her, that she is not a terrorist and has never advocated violence. In response to the inevitable question/comment from the audience about how wearing a niqab is dangerous and is gives backing to terrorism, she talked about how having conversed with many women covering their faces in this way, she has become much less alarmed by it. Most women wearing a niqab in Australia, she said, are Austraoian, and most wear it of their own choice, not because someone is forcing them to. It is just a piece of clothing.
We'd been intending to go to the next session in that room, but the line was already dauntingly long, so we grazed in the bookshop, persuaded our friend to buy a copy of Seven Seasons in Aurukun, and had a relatively leisurely dinner before An Evening with Professor Germaine Greer up town.
Professor Greer was advertised as presenting a lecture on ‘The Australian Way: The Influence of Australia and Australians on British Politics and Politicians.' As one audience member asked at the end, 'Why should we care?' That question wasn't answered. Professor Greer walked onto the stage to sustained applause, and evidently took that as an invitation to self-indulgence, or at least to indulge in attacks on Kevin Rudd (some on his policies, some on his supposed egotism, one on his upper lip), an the English (their housing, their weather, their Universities, so inferior to Australian ones in the 60s), on the superannuation system (which she was noticeably misinformed about), on the idea of home ownership. She's a very smart woman. She was witty, even sometimes funny, the audience kept bursting into applause. And if she'd presented her material as stand-up, it would have been excellent: 'If there is a double dissolution and an election, my bumper sticker will red simply, MALCOLM TURNBULL IS A BANKER'; 'Where I live in south-east Queensland there are no decent newspapers, so I have to get the Australian. They're still questioning the reality of climate change. They carry on debating it all by themselves!' 'Australians are resourceful. My workforce live on stale finger buns from the hot bread shop.' That last remark, not an exact quote, but close, prompted me to ask, but not so she'd hear me from my perch in the gods, 'Why don't you pay them?' IN fact, given that she referred to her 'workforce' a number of times as evidence for what 'Australians' think about various things, she really ought to pay them researchers fees. The man next to me asked, in a European accent of some kind, what she was a professor of. I said I thought it was English literature. 'Does she come from a very wealthy background?' he asked. I said I didn't think so. I guess he was trying to understand her loose-cannon arrogance.
I wish she'd talked about Shakespeare.
Posted: Fri - May 22, 2009 at 08:05 AM |
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This started out as a patchy journal about family life with my mother-in-law, Mollie, who has Alzheimers and was then living with us. Mollie has moved, first into a "low-care facility" then, in July 2004, into a nursing home. As these and other events have overtaken us, the blog has moved on ...
A note on comments: You can read comments on the same page as the entry rather than in a pop-up window, by clicking on the category button ("Mollie" etc) at the end of the entry and then on the "Read more" button.
A note on comments: You can read comments on the same page as the entry rather than in a pop-up window, by clicking on the category button ("Mollie" etc) at the end of the entry and then on the "Read more" button.
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Published On: May 25, 2009 12:09 AM
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Published On: May 25, 2009 12:09 AM