#Tales of our Australian mother

[omg-hellgirl]

It had been 87 years since nan and mum had departed, never to return, leaving behind my grandfather, who I would never meet.

My mother had never spoken to me of her feelings and I think they remained painful for her until the end.

Chris Jagger, Tales of our Australian mother.

[dailydemonspotlight]

Yurlungr - Day 46

Race: Snake

Alignment: Neutral-Chaos

June 3rd, 2024

You know what the term Pride Month has if you squish it together a bit? Demon! Hell yeah, it's time to get into a serpent with all the colors of the rainbow to please our gay overlords. Please welcome the snake, the myth, one of the most famous deities in Australian mythology, and an absolute favorite demon of mine, Yurlungur! Originating from Aboriginal mythology, a criminally underrepresented mythos in several series (SMT included, unfortunately,) Yurlungur is the primary deity depicted in several breakout tales from this relatively unknown set of stories, a winding copper snake known for bringing rainfall and life in tow.

Yurlungur, better known as the Rainbow Serpent, is an incredibly important entity in Australian mythology, being an archetypical 'Mother Nature' of sorts. As its origin story goes, it was the creator of the land and sea, and could bring great prosperity- however, if one were to bother it, that prosperity would come crashing down, as it was a force of nature in more ways than one. Interestingly, Yurlungur is only one epithet of several given to the Rainbow Serpent, as several other cultures in Australia at the time gave it different names in spite of having it as one, overarching force. For instance, the Galpu clan called it 'Witij', while a similar deity typically purported to be the Rainbow Serpent in Queensland is named 'Kanmare.' Several more names make up this ranking, but given that Yurlungur is the most widespread epithet, given by the Murngin, I'll keep referring to it as that. Just keep in mind that, in further research, many sources may call it different things, so give your thanks to the fact that there were so many Aboriginal cultures out there.

According to anthropologists, the snake is heavily associated with the concept of 'The Dreaming,' an incredibly important bag of worms in Australian mythology- the idea of The Dreaming, or Dreamtime, is a romantic worldview of times before our own wherein great heroes and monsters resided, where supernatural threats were vanquished by not gods but mortal men who were simply revered as legends. During this time, it's believed, the Rainbow Serpent was most active- it gave blessings to humanity and curses to those who dared to break the law of nature, being the ultimate protector of mankind above all. Even past the time of Everywhen, however, the Serpent still lives on; a beautiful concept related to it, in my opinion, is the idea that each rainbow is simply a trail left behind in the sky as it flies from area to area.

The most prominent myth about the Serpent... isn't really one I wanna touch, frankly, given that it makes me a bit squeamish, but oh well. As the tale goes, a pair of sisters, the Wawalag sisters, to be exact, travel the land in search of civilization, as one is pregnant. Then, the one who was pregnant ends up giving birth, whereafter the blood from the agonizing process ends up trailing into the Rainbow Serpent's watering hole. Likely perturbed, the snake ends up following the scent of blood to the sisters now taking shelter in a hut, invades in the dead of night, and eats them and the newborn they were now carrying. Satisfied with its revenge, it tries to head back home... and then is bitten by an ant, the act of which makes it throw up.

This action makes the regurgitated bodies of the three turn into Arnhem Land, a term for the northern section of Australia, wherein the Serpent speaks and tries to make right for its action by helping the people who move there. Yeah. I don't know either. I think this story is meant to be a metaphor for the creation of a family, but...??? Yeah, I don't know. Sue me. That (frankly bizarre) story aside, though, the Rainbow Serpent actually does stand as a favorite in terms of Mythology for me, and it's all down to the fact that it's so unique- and almost cute.

Nature deities are no small part of any tapestry or pantheon, but something about Yurlungur just tickles me. It may be its role as an embodiment of the rainbow itself, it may be just down to my love of snakes and rainbows, it may even just be down to the fact that Aboriginal folklore is underrepresented in so many faucets, but the Rainbow Serpent is a favorite deity of mine even in the star-studded halls of gods. It has a unique purpose as a creator god, a mother god, a nature god, the lord of the rain and weather, and being a snake, all the while having a cool sheen and an interesting look. I love Yurlungur to bits. All of that aside, though, how is it represented in SMT?

I love it. Full stop. Thanks for readi- no, no, I'm joking, but this design is easily in my top 10. Not only is it rainbow, not only is it adorable, but it's accurate and unique! It brings something entirely new to the table while still being a fantastic representation of the Rainbow Serpent itself, as the etching and patterns on it give it a vibe that makes it feel uniquely spiritual, in a way. It also makes the snake stand out among its peers. This is how you do a god-snake design, Quetzalcoatl! It's a perfect rainbow to start off Pride Month, and I hope you all enjoy this demon as much as I do.

Overall, while the mythology surrounding Yurlungur is a bit... strange? It has a beautiful design, represents an incredibly romantic ideal, and is definitely deserving of being the demon of the day.

[tasmiq]

Jumu'ah Sohbet 1 of 2: 1 March 2024

This week proved how deep and wonderous our ocean of Sufism truly is, as we were and are immersed in never-ending "heartsights" as we continue to connect to our spiritual hearts.

We began through Shaykh Nishaat's connection with another Sufi order in South Korea until Anne led us to reflect on how we each intend to enact taqwa (God-consciousness) this coming Ramadan as a multinational Tariqa (spiritual school). Bismillah (With the name of Allah) ...

#1. As an outcome of the Peace Summit in South Korea attended last year by Shaykh Nishaat, was he unsurprisingly invited once again. However, he deeply connected with another leader known as a Master of another Sufi order, Dr Alireza Nurbakhsh, of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order. On further research, my eyes welled with gratitude after stumbling on these sentiments, "The Nimatullahi Sufi Order is a spiritual discipline dedicated to the selfless service and love of all human beings." Ringing true to Shaykh Nishaat's tale of his profound connection to Dr Alireza.

Shaykh Nishaat recounted Dr Alireza's story of how his wife and him had encountered a disheveled and unkempt itinerant agricultural worker in Australia. Just as Shaykh Nishaat's earlier true tale of "mad" but noble Glen followed another true tale of a nobleman of the Australian hinterland. The latter appeared and disappeared equally mystically yet, leaving a sweet air of nobility. He appeared without much, yet he claimed he had everything for which he was only grateful! Along with his remarkable sense of gratitude, he radiated love where he could think of wishing to be married to a divorcee with children in order to be a receptacle of Divine love to heal their past sorrows.

Subhana'Allah (Glory to the Divine), that the noble Dr Alireza and his wife, had encountered an even more noble soul proving our collective Sufi focus on the power of Divine love, as a preeminent force of connection and transformation in humanity. Spiritual consciousness is, in fact, more important than wealth, fame, and the worldly comforts that most humans hunger for.

#2. Our Anne (original spiritual mother), Shaykha Muzeyyen, blew away my physical sensibilities with her breathing prompts to get us to spiritually recentre after a full week. That is because breathing through one's nose felt as mystical as feeling the presence of Allah! She said:

Take a couple of deep breaths from your nose until you can hear the breath! In and out. Not your mouth, but in and out through your nose until you can hear your breath through your nose. Can you hear your breath? Does it sound like the waves on the shore? We are all earth, everything of earth is in us!

#3. Taqwa (God-consciousness) was our chosen focus because our practice ground is coming in a matter of days through Ramadan! We are making the intention to spend Ramadan practicing taqwa. As per Shaykha Muzeyyen's soulful prompt. When we are going through our activities in Ramadan, it is when we can be self-vigilant, in following the guidelines of Allah, and watching over our deeds to conform with Allah's rights and wrongs. We are going to concentrate on keeping Allah's pleasure in mind. This will bring us tawakkul where we can put our trust in Allah. Taqwa, in its most basic sense, is a beautiful reality of turning to Allah again and again.

Just as man is naturally forgetful, the month of Ramadan is a perfect time in the year to recentre spiritually through willful taqwa by limiting our base desires of food and lust. I have gained utter emancipation from my nafs (lower-self or ego) by observing the deceivingly, simple-sounding Sufi Diet. A genius of Shaykh Taner and Shaykha Muzeyyen in still observing a modified Ramadan by paying alms toward fasting Muslims and additionally imposing a dietary restriction on oneself that is actually more difficult than the Ramadan diet!

Here, fellow mureed Gayratie, intends to observe taqwa by mastering her Ramadan crabiness, but Alhamdulillah the Sufi Diet deals with that. So beyond gastronomic forces, I can focus on taking charge of my psycho-emotional crabiness by fostering positive assumptions of Allah as the force of positive transformation within myself and many social milieu. It's almost impossible for me to be positive about myself and others. Yet, gratefully have I experienced the transformational power of reciting Shaykh Taner's Positivity Prayers in reshaping my micro-world.

#4. Shaykha Muzeyyen was wearing the cap of being the Pied Piper of our hearts. She pointed out that we have to choose whether we want to hold onto our attachments and desires, which pollute our hearts by causing confusion and angst. However, we must remember that the nafs provides us an opportunity to identify what we need to work on.

Everything around our lives, in a sense, is a virtual reality not because it isn't real but because it isn't permanent. This worldly life has an end and is finite! So, nafs and worldly life is not permanent. Our nafs, physical bodies, and our brains are created to survive through control. This is a type of micromanagement and attachment where we want to be in control, but only Allah is in control! Therefore, what is permanent? Allah is permanent as He is infinitely loving, caring, and powerful! In our worldly lives, we aim to stay positive by staying connected to Allah.

#5. Shaykha Muzeyyen thereafter powerfully turned the mirror to self-reflect on our own intentions to observe taqwa and connect to Allah this coming Ramadan in order to learn from each other as a Tariqa (spiritual school). These were some of my simply noted sentiments shared by the many striving souls of our multinational Tariqa:

- Observe with one's heart and get out of the way with one's head in order to connect with Allah and enact the right actions.

- Reconnect with nature.

- Reconnect in the morning and times of Salaah (Prayer).

- Observe taqwa through service and acting with goodwill.

- Consider Allah's happiness in one's actions.

- Physical taqwa in work and exercise as in Silat, with a connection to Allah.

- Remember Allah in every moment and cultivate a relationship therein.

- Move beyond the obsession with the future and be mindful of now in order to be responsive in that moment and leave all the scenarios to Allah when they happen!

- Use "WHO ARE YOU WITH?" as a nice, quick way to gage and connect with Allah.

- Recognise the attributes of Allah in people and everything around.

- Strengthen rabita with its deeper understanding.

- Catch and be conscious of the fleeting messages of one's heart.

- Observe taqwa through patience and tolerance.

- Relinquish the need to have control over everything and trust Allah by surrendering the outcomes.

- Detach from fears in your actions and instead bring Allah's love and mercy to the fore!

- Observe taqwa when cranky with "hanger"!

- Treat health challenges as an unwanted opportunity to stay positive about being connected to Allah!

- Observe a positivity mindset at the start of the day to make it into an eventual habit.

- Have good assumptions of everything personally happening, whether bad or good!

- Acquire a greater consciousness of one's heart.

- Practice the basics as modeling in the art of architecture.

- Extend senses far out and bring them back closer as introduced by our beloved Shaykh Taner in the past.

- Trust one's affairs to Allah.

- Try to practice gratitude and consciousness of every breath and every moment!

- Extend one's hearing sense to connect to Allah in the silence and even during conflicts!

- Find peace with our mandatory need to work in life as a manifestation of Allah's sufficiency.

In conclusion, Shukran Ya Allah (Divine gratitude) that Allah brought us seemingly different souls into following one path with like spiritual hearts that appreciate Allah’s love above all!:

Ya Wadud

[semper-legens]

113. The Exiles, by Christina Baker Kline

Owned: No, library Page count: 372 My summary: In 1800s Tasmania, a young girl is taken from her home and forced to live with people who want to civilise her. In London, a governess is accused of theft, and sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen's Land. Their paths will cross in strange and unexpected ways, across Australia's troubled history. My rating: 3/5 My commentary:

This one was calling to me from the shelf for a while. I'm interested in the idea of convict transportation in general, and a book that delves into the complexity of white settlers and white convicts on indigenous land held a lot of promise for me. It…didn't quite live up to that promise, however. Oh, the book wasn't bad by any means, but I found its focus to be, well, unfocused, and the story seemed to just be a long string of random events rather than a contemplation of Australian identity. And its racial politics were a little strange. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but I wouldn't tell you to straight-up avoid it, either?

One of our POV characters is Evangeline, a woman who was once a governess for a couple of children, had a tryst with her employer's (adult) son, and was accused of stealing and sentenced to transportation, despite being pregnant at the time. She's an odd duck, a little too high-class for her fellow transportees, but treated like scum for falling prey to the sin of lust, despite her beau being more to blame. She never quite fits into the world of the prison ship. She's got a strong sense of justice and attempts to help her fellow prisoners, in particular her friends Olive and Hazel, but she doesn't quite have the right kind of street smarts to survive. She has a run-in with a sailor, who is attempting to rape Hazel and swears revenge when she stops him. So he pushes her overboard. Gotta admit, wasn't expecting that.

The story then switches to Hazel, a sixteen year old Scottish herbalist convicted of stealing a spoon. She pretends to be Evangeline's kid's mother, so the kid (Ruby) will be looked after and not completely abandoned, with a view to taking full custody when her sentence has been served. She's a little savvier than Evangeline, more guarded. It makes a nice contrast, but it's when Hazel becomes a narrator that the story really starts to lose its focus. We watch Hazel working as a midwife then a maid, but other than 'Hazel gets out of prison and gets Ruby back' we don't really have a throughline to care about. And some plot elements just seemed too…convenient. Evangeline had befriended the doctor, Dunne, on the convict ship, and Hazel manages to get a message to him to adopt Ruby and hire her as a nurse. Conflict over. The abusive sailor comes back right at the end, seemingly because the author realised she didn't have a dramatic climax. The story doesn't end so much as just peter out. It's disappointing, this book had a solid first act, but peaked there.

If it seems like I've taken a while to get to Matthina, that's deliberate. She's the first POV character, she's the only one of the trio who was an actual, definite historical figure. And yet…she feels like something of an afterthought. Matthina's story is heartbreaking. Taken from her home, an island where aboriginal Tasmanians were sent, to be the 'adopted' daughter of Sir John Franklin, notable Ice Idiot and the Governor of Tasmania at the time. Matthina had some family at the time, but the Franklins wanted her, so they got her. She was raised by them in order to 'civilise' and 'whiten' her. Which is disgusting. She was left behind at an orphanage when Franklin returned to England (the same orphanage where her older sister had died) and as far as records can tell, she died aged 17 or 18, drowning in a puddle while struggling with alcoholism. It's a tragic tale, and yet in this book it's secondary to Evangeline, Hazel, and Ruby. Matthina isn't given the same focus that the white characters are, and after the Franklins send her to the orphanage she basically disappears from the narrative apart from a final cameo when Hazel comes across her. It just feels like the story drops her, like it's far more interested in the white women, and the plight of aboriginal Australians is treated like it's somehow less important than the plight of the white convicts. And that just leaves a sour taste in my mouth, you know?

Next, back to a YA story I very much enjoyed, and a world run by monsters.

[boricuacherry-blog]

A mutual friend introduced me to Michael [Jackson] and given that I'm a rabbi, and he's not Jewish, I didn't know if there would be a deep spiritual connection between us. Michael was a Jehovah's Witness, but I was amazed at how deep that spiritual bond was.

I think people forget that he was a missionary, knocking on peoples' doors on Sunday, handing out watchtower magazine, even after Thriller. He was raised a very devout Jehovah's Witness.

And though we connected, I also don't believe humans are meant to live as gods. The moment I felt like my advice could not be heeded - because I wasn't a fan, I was a friend - I felt that's when I had to leave, and I severed our relationship. I didn't know whether to believe the allegations. What I did know was that regardless of whether it was true or not, Michael could never really again be around children.

Michael said he wanted to leverage his celebrity to help the world's children. So what I said to him is, 'you were never meant to be the child's Messiah. Stop thinking that you're the one who's supposed to give all the world's neglected children attention.'

Gavin [Arvizo]'s family arrived one day, and I was actually almost convinced, that Michael had brought them to impress me, to show me his good works. Because Gavin was a child who was suffering from cancer. When the trial happened - he was very reclusive, very secluded - so it was hard for me to believe anything had happened, because Gavin was also there with his family.

But before this documentary, we've never heard allegations this explicit, we've never seen the faces of the accusers as they make these allegations, and we've never heard the family members who've had to shoulder that pain. To see the guilt that the parents are feeling, touched me very deeply. And hearing their spouses - when you marry someone who has experienced deep trauma and how you have to help carry that burden.

When I first saw the Bashir documentary I was outraged. You cannot share your bed with a child, that is immoral, unacceptable - it's deplorable. I remember watching it - and feeling like I had been kicked in the stomach. I could not believe that he had done that - and that he had said it.

If Cardinal [George] Pell was a uniquely Australian tragedy of a country traumatized by its more senior religious prelate accused of these monstrous crimes, Michael was almost a high priest - of superstardom. And then you can also do things you're not called out on. This is a profound morality tale for all of us. I don't believe these men are lying. And I don't believe the shame and guilt being experienced by their parents - their mothers in particular - are feigned.

I think the cognitive dissonance kicks in with all of us in our inability to confront the most painful truths. And like Cardinal Pell, I can understand that when you have someone who is the head of an entire church for an entire country, it's hard to reconcile. They still respect and revere religious figures. But that discomfort doesn't excuse our need - our responsibility - to speak out, and to accept that there's a right and a wrong in this world.

-Rabbi Schmuley Boteach

[qnewsau]

Gripping thriller leads Mardi Gras Film Festival 2024 lineup

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/mardi-gras-film-festival-2024-lineup/

Gripping thriller leads Mardi Gras Film Festival 2024 lineup

Queer Screen has unveiled the 31st Mardi Gras Film Festival’s full 2024 lineup of over 100 queer movies and shorts.

MGFF24 will come to cinemas across Sydney from February 15 to 29, with 161 films and events spread across unique programs.

National audiences can also stream films online on-demand from March 1 to 11.

The festival will open with the dark neo-noir thriller Femme, and close with Australian director Goran Stolevski’s chosen family drama Housekeeping for Beginners.

Festival director Lisa Rose said this year, the festival wants audiences to indulge in post-screening discussions and debate after watching the thought-provoking films.

“The theme focuses on films that start conversations. People will be keen to discuss and dissect them as soon as the credits start to roll,” she said.

“There’s so much to sink your teeth into, including several that will inspire lively debate.”

See all the films and book tickets at queerscreen.org.au and check out the highlights below.

Femme

The festival opens with the Sydney premiere of British neo-noir thriller Femme, a fierce psychodrama featuring phenomenal performances from Misfits star Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay (Pride, 1917), about a drag star seeking revenge after a homophobic attack.

Housekeeping For Beginners

Australian filmmaker Goran Stolevski’s (Of An Age) delivers his signature fast-paced, witty dialogue in festival closer Housekeeping for Beginners. This sensitive, conversation-rich domestic drama finds joy in the chaos of found family.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

An evocative story of friendship and self-discovery between two teens in 1980s Texas, based on the critically acclaimed young adult novel.

All of Us Strangers

Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott reveal extraordinary intimacy in this beautiful, heart-wrenching film from director Andrew Haigh (Weekend).

Sunflower

Sunflower is an impressive first feature from director Gabriel Carrubba. Tender, atmospheric and touching, it follows Leo, a 17-year-old from working-class Melbourne who is questioning his sexuality.

A Portrait of Love

Documentary A Portrait of Love celebrates Archibald award-winning artist Craig Ruddy. Told through the eyes of his partner of twenty years, Roberto Meza, and directed by Molly Reynolds (My Name is Gulpilil), it’s an exuberant tale of creativity and devotion.

Sing-a-long: The Sound of Music

Calling all naughty nuns, cool captains and bratty kids! It’s time for The Sound of Music sing-a-long with the Order of Perpetual Indulgence.

Our Son

Boasting the power couple pairing of Billy Porter and Luke Evans, this is a sensitive, nuanced take on the breakdown of a long-term marriage.

Monica

Trace Lysette (Transparent) leads this lyrical tale of a trans woman called to care for the ailing mother (Patricia Clarkson) who disowned her.

Female Trouble

Glamour has never been more grotesque than in John Waters and Divine’s perverse classic Female Trouble, which celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Another Country

Celebrating its 40th anniversary, this gay classic features star-making (and swoon-worthy) performances from Rupert Everett and Colin Firth.

Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field

What connects Sex and the City, The Devil Wears Prada and Emily in Paris? Fashion stylist extraordinaire and amazing lesbian Patricia Field.

Mutt

Non-binary heartthrob Lio Mehiel won a Special Jury prize at Sundance for their performance as trans man Feña in this raw, authentic drama.

Who’ll Stop the Rain

Evocative and romantic, this is the powerful story of two girls falling in love while protesting for creative freedom in post-martial law Taipei.

Along Came Love

In a sweeping love story spanning decades, a couple become one another’s saviours by hiding each other’s secrets in homophobic post-WWII France.

F.L.Y.

Two ex-boyfriends must live under one roof, putting their friendship (and some high heels) to the test, in this wistful comedy.

Girls Don’t Cry

Two teenage girls embark on a road trip through the Italian countryside. One is fleeing home, the other is desperate to return to her home in Romania.

I Am What I Am

A heartfelt anti-rom-com about an asexual woman grappling with the tension between her family’s expectations and her quest for independence.

The Mattachine Family

Nico Tortorella (Younger) and Emily Hampshire (Schitt’s Creek) star in this thought-provoking and funny look at chosen family.

Old Narcissus

This distinctly raw, erotically-charged drama delivers a powerfully melancholic portrait of ageing in Japan unlike anything seen before.

Tickets and passes for the 2024 Mardi Gras Film Festival are on sale now at queerscreen.org.au, with discounted tickets available to Queer Screen members.

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[davidkentish]

Amazing Tales from the Bush by Australian Animal Book Author, David Kentish 

Best-selling Australian author David Kentish has written children's books that tell the many tales of the Australian bush animals. Inspired by the stories told by his father during his early years, David continued in the same vein and has now become one of the best-selling Australian authors from the bush.  

As one of the best-selling Australian authors from the bush, David's range of works has proven that there is more to the harsh and distant bush and outbacks than meets the eye. Among his Australian children's books that are set in the bush include "Babington's Treasure Map", "Beside the Billabong", and "The Little Pink Dragon Who Couldn't." 

Apart from children's books, David has also written "King's Gold," "Horseshoes and Fences," "The Kentish's of Keysbrook" which is a book on his family history, and "KVK: A Life Well Lived" which is a biography about his mother. David is also one of the many Australian authors with audiobooks and a collection of short stories, which can be read in "The Fantastical Collection of Enlightening Short Stories." 

David is continuously creating great stories from his travels across this equally great country of ours, and readers will be assured that there will always be more to come! 

[thechronicbookwormblog]

BOOK REVIEW: Gallant by V. E. Schwab

Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.

Title: Gallant

Author: V. E. Schwab

Published by: Titan Publishing

Publication Date: 01/03/22

Australian RRP: $32.99

Genres: young adult, fantasy, 

Pages: 310

Format: Paperback

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis:

Number one New York Times bestselling author Victoria Schwab spins a dark, original tale about our world full of life a world that mirrors it haunted by death and the manor that stands between them. The Secret Garden meets Crimson Peak in this novel perfect for readers of Holly Black and Neil Gaiman. Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways. Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unravelled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from. Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?

Trigger Warnings: ableism, bullying, grief, death, death of a parent, 

Review: 

Gallant by V. E. Schwab is a young adult spooky tale about family, finding yourself, and home. From the first page, the eerie atmosphere of the story captured my attention. V. E Schwab's writing is engaging and weaves a beautifully spooky tale.

Gallant tells the story of sixteen-year-old Olivia Prior as she is summoned to an estate and finds the family she didn't know she had. Olivia has no voice and communicates through sign language, drawings and writing things down. I loved how the illustrations throughout Gallant helped to tell the story. Olivia is such an interesting character; she was determined to solve the mysteries of Gallant and what happened to her parents. The feelings of grief, loneliness and fear are explored so well in this book.

Overall, If you are looking for a dark, spooky and atmospheric tale, I highly recommend reading Gallant.

Thank you to Titan Publishing and New South Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

[we-eternal-rp]

☄ 𝗜𝗦𝗦𝗨𝗘 𝟭𝟬𝟳. →    ❝ 𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐋𝐄 ❞

☄ →  magnetic island event; the big beach bash !

(UPCOMING RP EVENT!) — the second weekend of march neptune bay will turn into a family friendly beach fair; complete with games, booths, food and drink, water sports rides, entertainment, land games, a raffle and countless fun activities for everyone. for those over eighteen come on down on saturday night for a bonfire! there will be fireworks, cocktails, exotic performances and more.                   more details to be released !

☄ →  magnetic island birthdays; march !

pisces — liam harrison / @pvseidvnn​, 12th march, 1985

aries —  lilac xiao / @lilacwalks​, 29th march, 1997

☄ →  showing @ pythia’s drive in!

bran nue dae (2009) — a rebellious boy runs away from a catholic boarding school and tries to hitchhike to his aboriginal home in australia.   ☄ + our australian film of the month!

free guy (2021) —  a bank teller who discovers he is actually a background player in an open-world video game decides to become the hero of his own story.

the hobbit: an unexpected journey (2012) — bilbo baggins, a hobbit, is persuaded into accompanying a wizard and a group of dwarves on a journey to reclaim the city of erebor and all its riches from the dragon smaug.

bad boys for life (2020) — detectives mike lowrey and marcus burnett join the miami’s police department’s special team, ammo, to bring down the ruthless armando, who is on a mission to kill mike at his mother isabel's orders.

ammonite (2020) — mary anning, an acclaimed fossil hunter, is forced to care for a rich visitor's sick wife, and the two develop an intense bond that forces the two women to re-examine their relationship.   ☄ + our lgbti+ film of the month!

lilo and stitch! (2002) — a tale of a young girl's close encounter with the galaxy's most wanted extraterrestrial. lilo is a lonely hawaiian girl who adopts a ‘dog’, whom she names stitch. stitch would be the perfect pet if he weren't in reality a genetic experiment who has escaped from an alien planet high security prison and crash-landed on earth, with others in hot pursuit to capture him.   ☄ + our anniversary film of the month! (20th anniversary)

☄ →  reopened !

pythia’s drive in — newly refurbished with an a new third screen, magnetic island’s only theatre is open once more. complete with a new snack bar, including a a full section dedicated to planet-based treats, what a better place for a night out? check the listings for what movies are showing, we can’t wait to see you there!

books & crannies — the beloved eclectic bookstore has joined partnership with the cafe next door, and now we have a place to get a delicious cup of coffee and a snack whilst reclining and reading one of the thousands of copies tucked away in all the nooks and crannies of the building.

[cerastes]

E2 artworks are for the most part delightful, but today, I would like us to pay particular attention to certain characters’ Elite 2 artwork: Nightingale, Cuora, and Specter.

The three of them have two things in common: The first is that they are all amnesiac (or, in the case of Nightingale, partially amnesiac, but amnesiac nonetheless), the second is that they are all drawn by Skade. I think the Hypergryph writers just have an Amnesiac Hotline for whenever they conceive another amnesiac character and it connects directly to Skade’s temporal lobe, where all information about the new character is immediately uploaded to and then he just starts furiously drawing.

But let’s focus on the fact that they are amnesiac in this post, and how this is reflected in their E2 art in a way I found clever. Let’s begin with our favorite fashionable demon, Nightingale.

Nightingale’s name is a two-fold allusion: The most evident one is being an homage to Florence Nightingale, the mother of modern nursing. The other, perhaps least apparent but of equal importance, is to the Greek aesop “The Laborer & The Nightingale”, which tells the tale of a poor laborer who, enthralled with the beautiful song of a nightingale that sang every day atop a tall cedar tree, grew selfish and built a cage of iron and twigs to capture the nightingale to make its songs his and only his. Her lines make several allusions to cages and empty rooms,

and of only being let out of her ‘cage’ when someone needed her healing powers, her “song”, if you will (especially relevant when you consider how song and Arts seem to be related in Terra). Her E2 art, thus, represents her bursting out of her cage or iron and twigs. Unlike other Sarkaz Operators, her E2 is not a shape or a representation of a Demon, it is, instead, a representation of her inner Demon, the cage of her head, which contains all of her memories and emotions locked tight within in. She’s not there yet, but she’s making progress. It is worthy of note that Shining also doesn’t depict a Demon in her E2 art, her artwork instead centering on her shield, but while Shining’s E2 art is an allusion of her deep, deep shame of being a Sarkaz and the things she’s done as a Sarkaz (or, in other words, denouncing her own identity to focus on what she truly wants to do from here on, which is to protect others), Nightingale’s E2 artwork instead depicts her destroying part of the cage that holds her back: She’s not fully out yet, but now, it is only a matter of time.

Then, what about Cuora?

Some Operators show a manifestation of their identifying animal that might not be entirely physical but it’s clear, with hard colors and textures. Other Operators show their animal very clearly, as if it was truly there, like Perfumer and Siege, and in some cases, it REALLY is there, as with Eyjafjalla (who directly addresses them in a voice line), and this seems to be matter of artistic preference, but whereas Skade normally draws E2 manifestations with solid colors, in the case of Cuora and Specter, he chooses to make them almost phantasmal, with soft colors and an ephemeral feel to them instead. In fact, the turtle you can see above is as generic as can be, it doesn’t seem to be identifying of any particular turtle species, and all we know about it is that it is “a turtle”. This is deliberate, meant to represent Cuora’s amnesia: Her race, Petram, is not unknown, but she doesn’t remember what specific kind of Petram she is. There’s a lot of turtle species, so which one is she? We have no idea. We know Blue Poison is a Poison Dart Frog, we know Nearl is a Pegasus, so when it comes to species either real or fantastic, we usually have an accurate account of which each Operator is supposed to represent, but not with Cuora, because she’s amnesiac. Whatever specific kind of Petram she is, we’ll never know unless someone that can properly identify her or that knew her from before the amnesia can divulge that information. To represent this, thus, her animal manifestation is ephemeral, phantasmal, ambiguous: It shows us exactly as much as we know of it, that is, that she’s a turtle, nothing less, nothing more.

So where does this leave Specter?

Nightingale has partial amnesia, Cuora is amnesiac but her Oripathy was caught in time and she’s been stabilized, but Specter’s nervous system has been ravaged, and not only is she amnesiac, she’s also prone to bouts of insanity and of sometimes saying some rather concerning things, such as wanting to take Doctor to the “place where secrets are imparted” or how “some people were never ever meant to be one, so it is her duty to cut them into many”.

Nightingale’s art, if you look above, is ‘solid’, bereft of particles or separated parts: It’s an iron cage, the twigs, and herself. Cuora’s art is somewhat more ‘loose’, with some weaving loose lines on the lower part of the drawing to presumably represent low tide, where you would normally find small turtles, as well as to represent her somewhat deteriorated but overall well-preserved psyche. Specter’s art, in contrast, is very loose: There’s an emphasis on aquatic trails all over the composition, representing the deep sea, as well as her flowing cloak, hair, and habit flaps. There’s many loose ‘particles’, like smudges of splattered ink, representative of her shattered psyche, and, most importantly, there’s not one but two sharks of different species as her animal representation. I believe they are representative of how she’s currently ‘two’ people: The somewhat manic but otherwise harmless Specter that can be found roaming the halls of Rhodes Islands’ dorms, and the completely silent fighting machine named Specter that can be found roaming the battlefield like a vengeful ghoul, following orders to the letter, her own safety be damned.

But there’s another meaning, I believe: Cuora at least has one turtle in her art, which can at least let us approximate which species it could possibly be (likely a freshwater turtle judging from comparative size and shell shape, bigger than tortoises, smaller than sea turtles), but Specter has two sharks, which means properly approximating her exact species becomes a lot harder. Skadi and Deepcolor, fellow AEgirians, make it very clear which animals they are supposed to be (Orca and Dumbo Squid, respectively), which further proves that this is a Specter-specific conundrum and not a Deep Sea trait. Likewise, her outfit has several allusions to the overall shape of a shark, but not to any specific shark.

If we want to dig deeper, and boy howdy I bet we do, we can take a look at the Chinese Hanzi that composes her name:

“幽灵鲨”, or “Yōulíng shā”, which translates literally to “Ghost Shark” from Chinese to English. Fitting that her codename is given as Specter. So, what’s a “Ghost Shark”, exactly? Aside, from, you know,

a really bad B-Movie.

Sounds like it’s just a cool poetic name for someone who is but a specter: a fleeting existence, with no memories, only a shadow of her former self, no?

Well, that works out, to be frank, but it turns out, Ghost Sharks are a real species. This is the Bahamas Ghost Shark:

And this is the Australian Ghost Shark:

They belong to a species of fish known as Chimaeras, and they live in temperate ocean floors down to 2,600 m (8,500 ft) deep and are some of the oldest fish alive, they share plenty of characteristics with their prehistoric ancestors (or, to translate this to Arknights terms: keep in mind how Specter looks just like a regular human). These are deep sea fish, with only a couple of them coming close to the surface rarely, and it fits with what we know of Specter, what with her background of fighting giant Deep Sea monsters as an Abyssal Hunter. Of course, whether she is supposed to be a Chimaera of any sort remains to be seen, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she was, given the thematic similarities.

I found all of these little nudges and nods to be plenty fascinating. Am I perhaps reading too deep into this? Always within the realm of possibility! Are Skade and Hypergryph planting seeds of lore that will bloom much later, making every piece of evidence given until that point suddenly make cohesive sense? Wouldn’t put it past them! So analyze, analyze, and analyze, because even if it takes you nowhere, lord knows it’s fun to do so.

[ladyherenya]

This was more-books-than-sometimes month, because rather than take the time to write about the books I'd finished, I just read more books! Also, I read a lot over the Easter break, including some shorter books and a very binge-able series.

Also read: Two-Step and Someone Like Me by Stephanie Fournet, Hooked by Cathy Yardley, “Cloudy with a Chance of Dropbears” and “All the Different Shades of Blue” by W.R. Gingell, and “Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory” by Martha Wells.

Reread: A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer.

Total: nineteen novels (including two audiobooks and one reread), one novella collection, two novellas, two novelettes and one short story.

Cover thoughts: Bellewether’s blue cover is (unsurprisingly) my favourite. I also really like The Ghosts of Sherwood. 

Still reading: A Portrait of Loyalty by Roseanna M. White and Playing Hearts by W.R. Gingell.

Next up: Torch by R.J. Anderson.

My full reviews are on Dreamwidth and LibraryThing.

*

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn (narrated by Saskia Maarleveld): Historical mystery about three young women who worked at Bletchley Park during WWII.

My favourite out of the books I’ve read so far this year. Most of the narrative is set during the war, but interspersed with sections set in 1947 -- when Beth, in a sanitarium after a breakdown, has sent her two estranged friends a coded message begging for help. I loved this, but at times found it stressful and heartbreaking! The writing is so lively and effective and emotional. 4½ ★

 *

Castle Charming by Tansy Raynor Roberts: Fairytale retellings, collection of novellas.

A very entertaining and a somewhat different take on fairytales, focusing on the reporters, Royal Hounds and royalty at Castle Charming. Some of the character dynamics felt similar to those in Roberts’ Unreal Alchemy although I didn’t feel quite as attached to these characters. I’ll read the sequel. 3 ★ 

*

Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley: Historical and contemporary fiction, set in Long Island during the so-called Seven Years War in 1759 and the present day.

Alternates between a curator overseeing turning a house in a museum and some of the house’s previous occupants, including a French-Canadian Lieutenant awaiting hostage exchange. Despite the various tensions the characters face, there’s something slow and ultimately gentle about this story. Which is lovely --  I enjoyed the picturesque sense of place and astute observations of people -- but it is less dramatic than I was expecting. 3½ ★

*

Happy Trail by Daisy Prescott: Contemporary romance, set on the Appalachian Trail.

A park ranger and a hiker shelter together during a storm. I was fascinated by the insight into hiking the Appalachian Trail and enjoyed some of the characters’ interactions, although I thought the way the romance unfolded was somewhat anticlimactic. Not always what I wanted, but I don't regret reading it.

*

Legacy by Stephanie Fournet: Contemporary enemies-to-roommates-to-lovers.

Wes offers to move in with his late-best friend’s girlfriend to help her out financially. This sort of hurt/comfort appeals to me. I liked how seriously this story takes Corinne’s messy, consuming grief. I don’t really want to spend any more time with the characters, but I was very invested in seeing them reach a better place in their lives.

Two-Step by Stephanie Fournet: Contemporary romance between an actress and a dance instructor. I enjoyed reading this. I particularly enjoyed how Beau helps Iris with her anxiety about dancing and with her controlling mother/manager. He’s very supportive and understanding! But I finished this with a niggling feeling of dissatisfaction -- Iris needed more opportunity to support Beau in turn.

Someone Like Me by Stephanie Fournet: Contemporary romance between a yoga instructor and her new neighbour, who has just got out of prison.

This one didn’t particularly appeal to me. Although interesting to see the experiences of someone recently released from prison, the romance developed too quickly.

(No, I didn’t read all three of these back-to-back!)

*

Hooked by Cathy Yardley: Contemporary fandom-y romance novella, set near Seattle. Takes place during Level Up and is about two of Tessa’s colleagues.

I enjoyed the characters' interactions and would have liked this more if it hadn't felt rushed. 

*

The Ghosts of Sherwood by Carrie Vaughn: Historical Robin Hood retelling, novella.

Exactly what I wanted! It alternates between Robin and Marian’s eldest daughter, Mary, and Marian herself. I liked seeing Robin and Marian as a long-married couple, who still love each other and still have disagreements. And the dynamic between their children gave me a zing of recognition, reminding me of my siblings. 3½ ★

*

The City Between by W.R. Gingell: Australian YA urban fantasy (murder) mysteries. Set in Hobart.

I ended up enjoying this series so much more than I’d expected to!

Between Jobs: After a neighbour is murdered, our seventeen-year-old orphaned narrator acquires some unexpected housemates -- two fae, one vampire. Once I got past the opening, with its tales of murder, the worldbuilding intrigued me. I still wasn’t sure what I thought about her housemates or the fact that they call her “Pet”, but was willing to reserve judgement until I’d read more. 3 ★

Between Shifts: About supermarket shifts and shapeshifters. Pet and JinYeong go undercover at the local grocery store. This is a reasonable murder mystery. I was initially disappointed with how something played out (but in retrospect can see how that was actually a positive development for Pet). It ended on a cliffhanger, so I was extra motivated to start the next book. 2½ ★

Between Floors: This is where the series took off, because things suddenly get personal! One of her fae housemates has been captured and the closest any of them get to finding Athelas is Pet contacting him in her dreams.This raises a lot of interesting questions, not just about Pet’s abilities, but about her relationship with her housemates. How much does she trust them and how much do they value Pet’s personhood? 3½ ★

Between Frames: Pet’s housemates are hired to investigate a series of fae deaths around Hobart, which involves scrutinising some baffling security footage.  Another solid murder mystery.  The final pages felt like one step forward, two steps back, but yet again, in retrospect, this was a positive development. I’m glad I could dive immediately into the next book. 3 ★

Between Homes: Pet has moved in with some friends. Hurray for Pet having friends! I think this was the point where I started to feel comfortable with Pet calling herself Pet -- when it's the name used by people she likes and trusts and who don’t view her as a pet at all. 3½ ★

“Cloudy with a Chance of Dropbears” (novelette): An awesome title and an entertaining opportunity to see Pet from someone else’s perspective -- moreover, someone who doesn’t know her or what she’s capable of. 3 ★

Between Walls: Pet’s friend Morgana is worried about an online friends and asks Pet and co to investigate his disappearance. Along the way, they discover that there are human groups who actually know a lot about Behindkind. I am also becoming increasingly entertained by the Korean vampire. 3 ★

“All the Different Shades of Blue” (novelette): A great cover and it explains who that guy at the cafe is, but otherwise didn’t really do anything Cloudy with a Chance of Dropbears hadn’t already done -- ie., show us Pet from someone else’s perspective. Most of the time, I have enjoyed this series all the more for binging it, but I suspect this particular story would have worked better if I had read it after a period of absence. 2½ ★

Between Cases:  My favourite of these have been the ones where things get personal, and this involves a lot of revelations about who Pet is -- from a fae perspective -- and why her parents were murdered. I enjoyed this one a lot. 3½ ★

*

The Duke of Olympia Meets His Match by Juliana Gray: Historical espionage romance novella, set in 1893 onboard an ocean liner travelling to England. Apparently not the Duke’s first appearance in Gray’s fiction.

I liked the idea here much better than the execution. I liked Penelope, a fifty-year-old widow dependent upon her position as a governess, and I enjoyed her interactions with the older Duke of Olympia. But parts of the spy plot were rushed or confusing, and the resolution was almost-but-not-entirely satisfying. 2½ ★

*

A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer: Fantasy. Follows on from the fairytale-retelling A Curse So Dark and Lonely and its sequel, A Heart So Fierce and Broken.

If this is meant as a conclusion to a trilogy, then the ending was a bit too anticlimactic, with a few too many loose ends, to be really satisfying. But I reached the end feeling positive about the story, because I really enjoyed the characters’ interactions. All of the protagonists have to deal with conflict in relationships. I loved the times when they each navigate these conflicts by acting fairly and communicating honestly, when doing so is often difficult and complicated. That’s realistic and satisfying. 3½ ★

*

“Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory” by Martha Wells:  Science-fiction short story. Part of The Murderbot Diaries series, set after Exit Strategy.

Very, very short but I really liked seeing things from Dr Ayda Mensah’s (third person) perspective. 3½ ★

*

Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace: Historical coming-of-age fiction, set in Minnesota in 1912-3.

I am very glad to finally have read this! It’s delightful, a fascinating insight into community life in a Minnesotan town, and it effectively captures the emotional experience of navigating a period of transition. After high school, Emily’s friends  leave for college, but Emily has to find her own path to purposefully fill her time, build connections and further her education. 4 ★

*

On Wings of Devotion by Roseanna M. White (narrated by Susan Lyons): Romantic historical mystery, set in London during 1918. Christian fiction. Features characters from The Number of Love.

Arabelle Denler is a nurse working in a London hospital; Phillip Camden is an airman now working for British Intelligence. I enjoyed their interactions, especially once they start to get to know each other. I didn’t like the antagonist’s contribution to this narrative -- between the dangers of wartime and the protagonists’ respective issues, there’s enough tension without her. But what I enjoyed about this story outweighed what I didn’t. 3½ ★

*

Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson: Historical fiction set during the Nazi occupation of Italy in WWII.

Nina, a young Jewish woman from Venice, goes into hiding by pretending she’s married to Nico, a Catholic farmer. Robson’s strength lies in pairing details of daily life with likeable characters, realistic dialogue and a sweet romance. I read this quickly and eagerly. But if the characters had been more nuanced, more complex, or if their emotions had been conveyed more vividly, I likely would have found reading this a more emotional experience. 3½ ★

[omg-hellgirl]

Both my grandparents lived until they were 80: Alfred died, still in Sydney, in 1963 and nan a year later — the same year my brother first went to Sydney on a tour with the Stones.

Chris Jagger, Tales of our Australian mother.

[shemakesmusic-uk]

INTERVIEW: Penelope Trappes.

Australian-born Brighton-based musician Penelope Trappes has shared a new single and accompanying short film directed by Agnes Haus, ‘Blood Moon,’ from her forthcoming album Penelope Three. The album will be released next Friday, May 28 on Houndstooth. Following singles ‘Fur & Feather’ and ‘Nervous,’ ‘Blood Moon’ is atmospheric and dreamlike; a song about repurposing the fear within.

"I consider the moon a temple, a mirror of our emotions,” elaborates Trappes. “The blood moon symbolically represents the beginning, the ending and a clean slate. ‘Blood Moon’ is about being uncompromisingly true to oneself despite societal expectations. Everyone should be free to express femininity in their own individual way. The burdens and expectations instilled in us at childhood weigh us down and hold us back. This song is about never giving in to this pressure and dismantling a system of oppression that is carried within our bodies. A metamorphosis." Commenting on the accompanying visual, she adds: "The short film ’Blood Moon’ is a modern take on the goddess Isis if she were around to face today’s world. Isis is the protector of women and children and the healer of the sick - but despite her powers, she would still be weighed down by societal expectations of what is expected of women."

We sat down with Penelope to discuss Penelope 3, being back on stage and what she has planned next. Read the full interview below.

Hi Penelope! How are you? How have you been coping with everything thats been happening this past year?

"Hello! I’m doing well, thanks. Keeping sane in a world gone a bit mad. I’m doing daily yoga and meditation, I’m vegan and very recently gluten-free, which has been great! I’m a bit of a bore with the health stuff...but I love taking care of my body. Also, after sometime of getting used to it, I am now embracing the slower pace of life, what with no travel, and less commuting places. It’s a bit like how I imagine things were in say Victorian times... but with internet."

You're gearing up to release your new album Penelope Three. In it you explore your metamorphosis through tales of motherhood, the divine feminine, anxiety, healing powers and their spiritual connections. What sparked the inspiration to write about these themes?

"I have always felt emotions deeply within my body, since I was a child, particularly ancestral trauma. I am not sure if there is a word for this, but it’s my reality and at times it has been quite hard to cope with. So as I have been going through a lot of physical changes in my own body in recent years, these have shifted and moved me on a much deeper level - emotionally and spiritually. On top of that there was the pending separation anxiety of my sole daughter leaving home, which turned out to be more emotional than I expected. Living overseas for all of my adult life has always been difficult in relation to my family back home in Australia.  My mother is getting older and more unwell, and with my not being able to visit her in Australia due to the pandemic, i had to dive deep to find coping mechanisms. All the imposed alone time and the isolation has led to a lot of introspection. I am thankful to be able to find healing in channeling these feelings through the power of writing."

Sonically, how is Penelope Three different (or similar) to your previous releases? Were there any musical influences or sounds that you were able to incorporate on this record that you hadn’t previously?

"For Penelope Three, I based most of the compositions around my voice and words telling more of a tale. In the past i chose to pause on that aspect of myself and let the space take the forefront. I also explored a few more elements of my voice that I had trained in when I first started doing music, including jazz, opera, and sacred music. It’s not to say this album doesn’t have space like the last two albums, it does, but perhaps the pieces might feel a little more like “songs” on this one."

What was the creative process like this time around? Did lockdown affect it at all?

"The album was actually finished before lockdown. I wish I could say I was creating music since the pandemic, but sadly no.  I was spending a lot of time during lockdown just trying to navigate life itself, though i did find the time to co-direct, film, and work on the visual side of Penelope Three. ‘Penelope Three’ actually falls into a strange world of before, during, and after. It has grown with the changing world. I think it sits well in all realms of past, present and future - which the visuals that accompany the album represent."

What was your favourite part creating Penelope Three? And were there any parts you found particularly challenging?

"There were times during the initial creative process that I went way out there, right off on tangents. Sometimes quite dark. I really enjoyed exploring this side of me but sometimes it was a little bit too much. It was challenging to decide to put some of this off to the side and stay present in hope. I would say my favourite part of creating P3 was in making the final decision to embrace the many voices I carry within me, curating these into one cohesive album."

What do you hope fans will take away from the new album?

"Hopefully they have heard Penelope 1 and 2 and can feel the vision and the love now that I am at the end of the trilogy. Either way, a sense of strength versus vulnerability and the empowerment that comes from embracing both of these qualities is what I hope they find while listening."

You have some live dates lined up in September. I expect you’re excited to be back on stage. What have you missed the most about performing?

"I have missed sharing the music and the space with an audience. Those moments when you can hear a pin drop. Sharing these fragile moments together where anything could happen will be pure joy!"

Will there be any changes to your live show?

"I now have a cellist and keyboardist / backing vocalist on stage with me, two wonderful women, Maddie Cutter and Hinako Omori. The 3 of us sharing the stage together helps to communicate the elements of fragility and strength within P3.  It also frees me up to play guitar and really focus in on the vocals a bit more because in the past, I was multi-tasking on stage and had to rely on a holding down a lot of synths keys and chords the whole time."

Based on your musical journey so far, what’s been your biggest takeaway/piece of advice?

"Don’t ever stop creating no matter what family, friends or society tell you! Just keep evolving, changing and exploring everything that inspires you."

Finally, what else is next for you? Any non-musical goals?

"With Penelope Three, I have been working a lot on videos and I’m intending on exploring more aspects of filmmaking. I am particularly inspired by acting and the concept of story-telling and expressing all the emotions of life just through a delicate glance, the flick of the hand, or a tear. I am interested in telling tales with the body - with performance - but without music. I want to embrace the confrontational. I am also thinking a lot about musically what comes after this Trilogy. I have half of the music written already for a future album, but I just need to define what it’s all about before i continue on it."

Penelope 3 is out May 28 via Houndstooth.

Photo credit: Agnes Haus

[optikes]

Kadim Ali   b. 1978, Pakistan; lives and works in Sydney Australia

Sermon on the Mount  (2020)

Linen, cotton, nylon, ink, natural dye, synthetic dye, acrylic paint; painting, hand and machine embroidery, appliqué   557 x 397.5cm 

Born 1978 Quetta, Pakistan, Khadim Ali currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia. After growing up in Pakistan as a refugee, Ali was trained in classical miniature painting at the National College of Arts in Lahore and in mural painting and calligraphy in Tehran.

 1  ima.org.au     “I became other. I became one of the wearied, dusty faces from across the border. And although there was no boundary between us, and we were all citizens of one country, suddenly an invisible border of horror was drawn around me that made it impossible to get out”     Khadim Ali

In his largest Australian solo exhibition to date, Hazara artist Khadim Ali explores the normalisation of war and the experience of refugees through a series of poetic installations and textile works. Invisible Border comprises sound installation, miniature painting, and a monumental 9-metre-long tapestry, hand woven by a community of Hazara men and women, some who have lost family members in war. Featuring existing work alongside new commissions developed for the IMA, the exhibition will also feature Otherness, a major body of work developed in partnership with the IMA and Lahore Biennale Foundation.

Ali’s interest in tapestries developed soon after his parents’ home in Quetta, Pakistan was destroyed by suicide bombers. Amongst the rubble and debris left from the blast, a collection of rugs and weavings remained the only thing intact: miraculously able to withstand the reign of terror inflicted upon his family and community. In this new large-scale tapestry, and other works, Ali explores the impact of war, trauma and displacement drawing parallels from the Book of Shahnameh, a Persian literary masterpiece comprising of 50,000 couplets and written between c. 977 and 1010 CE.

Just like the many great mythic tales in the Shannameh, Ali’s intricate works depict stories of demons and angels, conquest and war through the lens of the persecuted Hazara community. Expressing the profound grief, trauma and loss experienced at the hands of modern-day warfare, Invisible Border is a necessary and vital exhibition during a time of political propaganda, violence, and fear.

2    ima.org.au     Ali’s interest in tapestries developed soon after his parents’ home in Quetta was destroyed by a car bomb. Amongst the rubble and debris left from the blast, a collection of rugs and weavings remained the only items intact: miraculously able to withstand the reign of terror inflicted upon his family and community. In these new large-scale tapestries, Ali makes comment on war, geo-politics and personal trauma, drawing from a range of historical and contemporary influences including the recent Black Summer bushfires, Persian literary masterpieces, children’s fables and the Mughal Dynasty. Expressing the profound horror, grief and loss experienced under modern-day warfare, Invisible Border is a necessary and vital exhibition during a time where political propaganda, violence, and fear pervades global relations.

 3   Daisy Siddal     inqld.com.au       Ali has lived in Australia since 2009, nominated to arrive on a distinguished talent visa by then QAGOMA Director Tony Ellwood. Ali has worked between Australia and Afghanistan ever since.

Ali’s most recent work, Sermon on the Mount, adopts inspiration from the Bible and the Black Summer bushfires to generate a criticism of the experience of climate change.

Ali, who lives in Sydney’s inner-west, said his home was 40km away from the Black Summer bushfires.

“During the black summer we had horrible smoke. We were barely able to breathe. I was looking at the smoke and it was nostalgic, reminding me of the war,” he said.

“It reminded me of the stories people told when fleeing from a town that was set on fire, saying there was smoke on the mountain.

“The people who set their villages on fire, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, they were considered a terrorist organisation. What do you call the corporations who caused climate change and set fire to a significant part of the forest of Australia?” he said.

IMA [Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane] Executive Director and exhibition curator Liz Nowell said she was thrilled to present Ali’s largest exhibition to date, in his adopted home of Australia.

“Khadim Ali is without a doubt one of Australia’s most acclaimed artists. His thought- provoking and poetic works have been seen all over the world: from the Guggenheim in New York to the Venice Biennale,” Ms Nowell said.

“Through intricately constructed textiles that draw on literature, traditional art forms, personal narratives and global politics, Invisible Border speaks powerfully to the experience of displaced peoples everywhere.”

 4   guggenheim.org     Born in 1978, Khadim Ali grew up in the border city of Quetta, Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. Trained in the art of contemporary miniature painting at the prestigious National College of Art in Lahore, Pakistan, and in mural painting and calligraphy at Tehran University, Iran, Ali is inspired by his rich cultural heritage and employs traditional artistic techniques to convey the complex history of this region. His work provocatively confronts the social and religious prejudice his family has faced and considers its effect on the writing of history, particularly during wartime.

5   ima.org.au     Since relocating to Sydney twelve years ago, Ali has begun incorporating quotidian Australian iconography such as eucalyptus, currency and kangaroos into his work. Sermon on the Mount (2020) is an example of the artist’s evolving visual language. A direct response to the 2020 Black Summer bushfires—which devasted much of Australia’s bushland—the work depicts a cast of animals and mythical creatures seeking refuge atop a mountain engulfed in flames. The title of the work, Sermon on the Mount, makes direct reference to a series of teachings attributed to Jesus Christ, and widely considered to contain some of his most important messages. This composite tapestry, which was initially constructed as a digital collage, is the artist’s reimagining of a 15th century illustration from the Anwar-i Suhayli. Widely considered a masterpiece of world literature, the Anwar-i Suhayli (also known as Kalīla wa-Dimna, in Arabic, or Panchatantra in Sanskrit) is a collection of fables describing animals as heroic creatures. In the original drawing, held in collection of the British Museum, a crow addresses a group of birds to rally their support against a leader of the owls. In Ali’s version, the crow is replaced by a koala, who is seen towering above a cluster of animals as she delivers a prophecy that foretells the destruction of mother nature at the hands of humankind. While watching the fires unfold on the evening news, Ali was overcome with a deep and pervasive fear, which he likens to his experience living in a conflict zone.

As the artist himself states ‘The bushfires reminded me of the violence I spent my life trying to escape. At the same time as the Taliban burns people and their homes to the ground, a fire—only 40km from my house in Sydney—decimated whole species and blackened thousands of hectares of bushland. As the newsreader described animals feeling for their lives, I recalled whole villages hysterical and panicked as they tried to escape fire. So, what then, should we call these people—these corporations—who are destroying our natural world and quite literally scorching the ground we walk on?’

[caroldawn21161]

FINAL

Robert Sherriff

NOBODY’S HOME

In the Name of the Father.

 Chapter One

 My Father did not admit to having a past. The story of his early life was a mystery lost in his lack of words and an inability to expose anything that could be vulnerability, humanity or even kindness.

My mother would eventually and begrudgingly supply me a few details, but this only went on to provoke more questions. He was an enigma to the end; leaving no suicide note, no apology, and no peace for those who survived him. I am only certain of one thing. My father's hate for me was virulent.

The dynamic of the real family is rarely the all-encompassing love of the fairy tale or the softness of the detergent commercial, but my family was extreme by any standards. Violence was our currency, and the absence of genuine love left a void that was filled with darkness, betrayal, and humiliation. We were an Australian family and Australia was an uncompromising place in the sixties or at least that is how it appeared to me. We were told we were growing up in the lucky country. We were told we could achieve anything through hard work and spirit yet at the same time I was being brutalised and made to feel worthless by the people I loved the most.

 It would happen at night. I was small for my age, a premature twin, the smallest to survive in Victoria at the time, I was easily carried out of the house and into the garden by someone of my father’s build.  He would be drunk, clumsy, and rough. I would be hastily stripped. My clothes were torn from me, and I would have to stand defenceless and naked in the yard. I would have to take my chances. I would not wait to see if he would stop at the humiliation and spare me the violence, he never did. I would take advantage of his drunkenness and feel for his grip to loosen or slip and then I would go. I would run through the neighbourhood to escape the attack. Was I worried about the neighbours seeing me naked? Hardly, this had happened so many times before. I knew what it was to run barefoot on cracked bitumen that was baking from the day’s biting sun. I knew running naked in the near freezing winter nights too. I knew what it was like to be running for your life. I spent a childhood running the streets and I’ve spent a lifetime escaping my father.

 My father was born in South Australia in 1929. He was the son of a prostitute and born out of wedlock. He must have not known his father in any meaningful way, but he will have had suspicions about the 100's of men who visited his mother's house. My father had inherited a large build, olive skin, deep brown eyes, and tremendous capacity for anger. My father’s hair and mood were black for his entire life.

The earliest photograph I have seen of my Father is him as a boy holding a black dog. He had a patience with animals that he was never able to show to people.  He was tall and skinny with a mop of black hair. This child would develop into a man of six foot four with a powerful build clothed in skin scarred by the Australian sun. He was mutilated emotionally and carried a pain that could infect anyone in his vicinity. His hands would grow to be huge, always at least twice the size of mine yet he was quite graceful in his movements and well kept. He was clean shaven and took pride in his appearance. At home he dressed in casual jeans and shirt, and he insisted that they were clean and ironed which meant my mother would often discover lipstick stains on his collar. A fight would then ensue with the devil rising into those brown eyes and consuming the man.

My father's childhood was as fractured as any other part of his life. He would always be on the move, change jobs and locations and even personalities but his consistent companions were alcohol and misery. He was Christened Robert Sheriff, the same name he gave me. He left school early and worked a succession of tough, unskilled jobs. He was a station hand and a fruit picker and went from one manual labour to another building callouses and emotional hardness.

The one anecdote I know from his youth is an incident where he nearly drowned. At aged nine he was pulled from the water at Port Pirie. Pirie was and still is a small industrial town in the shadow of grain silos and a lead smelter, about a three-hour drive north of Adelaide where grain shipping and industry had called for unskilled immigrants to come and build a town. All of life in Pirie takes place with the backdrop of the smell of sulphur, a soft scent of hell from the lead smelting process. One day my father fell into the water that carried the grain ships and plunged toward oblivion in the waters that reflected the belching chimney stacks. A man walking past at the time saw my father fall and dived into the water to save him. The story made the local press where it describes my father's saviour as a hero.   This stranger’s act has ensured thirty-five descendants, I exist because of him, my children and grandchildren, my great grandchildren, my sisters, my beloved twin brother were all offered a chance of life because my father did not drown that day, but I wonder if my father had any appreciation for his rescuer and those bitter and soulless years he lived until he decided to meet his maker at his own hands.

Though my father's history was patchy my memories of my own childhood are not. The site of his near death became significant for me as a young boy as he took me there to teach me how to swim. Father's lesson involved throwing me off the jetty with a grin on his face. I had sunk in the same waters he had, in the shadow of the same industrial chimneys in the run-off of the same toxic processes. I did not have a hero on the banks poised to save me. I would have to save myself. I had already learned by this stage that I would have to fight to survive him, and I swam for the surface and pulled myself out of the water to spite him repeatedly.

I have an image of my father, when he was outside the house, as a well-dressed man, a man who wore grey pants a white shirt and a two-tone brown and grey jacket that was considered respectable at that time. He was always drinking. He drank West End long necks at breakfast time. He had three cartons at home every week but that was nothing to what he drank in the pub. I think my mother had tried to get him to cut back once but she was never foolish enough to suggest it again.

Every image I can conjure of him has him glass in hand or glass to lips. People feared him. He dominated every space he entered and other people, even adults, were as affected as me. He had a dark energy; a belligerent nature and he would live life with a dangerous soundtrack of his beloved country music or loud rock and roll.  Our house echoed with the sound of Johnny Cash and Hank Williams. It made me hate county music and I am only starting to get over my aversion now.

The neighbours were always scared of my Father. Wherever we lived he created an empire where his actions were uncriticised for fear of violence and retaliation. All our neighbours witnessed my humiliation plenty of times. They were scared to get involved and even if they witnessed with closed mouths they were greeted with a barrage of snarling and swearing. I know there was an ugly silence around our house and people were witness to horrific crimes without ever speaking up or intervening. I do not carry any resentment for those people. This was a time when men were masters in their own house. It was not uncommon for children or wives to be abused and the man to rape the wife then the abuser to meet the police sergeant in the hotel for a quiet word and a pint later. In the early sixties in Australia there were no safe houses, no campaigns against domestic violence and a belief that a family was a man's property.

I think there was only one occasion when an adult intervened on my behalf. He was called Mr. White and I remember that he always wore brown, was six feet six inches, around 240 pounds with blonde wavy hair and couple days of beard growth. He was solid as a shit house that used to be at the back of Auntie Blanche's and Uncle Albert's house. Mr. White was briefly my saviour, my man on the shore who saw my fall and dived in to save me. We lived on Hargrave Street in Northfield at the time and Mr. White was a neighbour who tired of my father's version of childcare and belted the crap out of him.  The Police arrived just as he was walking due East and we never saw Mr White again.

This was a rare adult intervention on my behalf. An act of violence that did not teach my father a thing and did not save me from further abuse. As I have said I am not angry at the witnesses who did not come forward or the authorities that did not protect me. People knew right from wrong but unless you were Mr. White you were not armed enough to take my father on. Justice was only available to the physically strong and often my father was by far the strongest. My father was an advocate for the merits of physical strength. He hated my smallness, my frailness, and my inability to hurt the same way he could. He systematically set about to teach his children strength and suffering.

He would fill two buckets with water and tell me to stretch my arms out. I knew to do as I was told and despite knowing what was coming I would always do exactly as he asked.  When my arms were out and steady, he would loop the bucket handles over my wrists and demand that I hold then there, straight for as long as I could.  I would hold the buckets, my arms screaming with pain, desperate not to disappoint or spark the anger of my father. He would watch me and justify his actions with the defence that he was driving me to be healthier and more vigorous. This was the start of my father's torture, and it began when I was six years old.

I have other recollections of this early abuse. He had caught me swearing and decided to chastise me to teach me a lesson. He took me outside and removed my trousers and underwear. He then put me over his knee and beat me with a garden hose. The strokes were so violent that I was left with blue and red strokes over my backside and sitting down was impossible for the coming week. These memories are vague and without detail, but I recognise them as the start of patterns of abuse that would culminate in broken bones, emotional damage, and a world of hate that not everyone would survive.

My mother met my father in 1952. He was working for the RAAF, and she told me it was love at first sight. I believe that she did love him before they were married, in that moment when he first arrived in her life and before she really knew him. He was tall and good looking. Her family had been extremely strict whilst his upbringing was wild and libertarian. She must have seen him as a glamorous escape. In 1953 they married. She told me that all his mates came, and he joined them in getting very drunk. She was appalled but she must had known that alcohol and my father were synonymous by then. His heritage was beer soaked with his mother being a heavy drinker and the addictive gene being passed onto me. I wonder if she knew how tormented her new, young husband was. I wonder what sort of life she had dreamed of and if she thought that my father could bring her happiness. She could never have known she would die with her husband lost to suicide and her family absent from her bedside.

My Father was twenty-four years old when my brother Peter and I were born. My mother recalled that he was upset by the drive to the hospital to see his new sons. It had been an inconvenience to come to visit and he was happy for her to know it.

I cannot remember much of those early years at home with my mother and brother but that is no reason to assume they were comfortable or without incident. My father would often remind me that he had hated me from my birth. He told me that he wished I had never been born or had died in childbirth on many occasions and it was like I had been born into his hatred and lived there my whole life. His insult to me was that I was 'stupid.' He would use that insult for my entire childhood, and it did the damage he required.

My father's need for destruction was always going to end with his own. We were just lucky he could not take us with him. He had been known to come home drunk with a can of petrol and threaten to set himself, the house and us alight. His pain was not a personal matter but something everyone else had to pay for. At night I would lie awake waiting for him to come home. I was terrified by the cast of the streetlight outside my room. It would reflect in the dark of his eyes if he came into my room. It would make him look like the demon he was and convince me that this small industrial town was a corner of hell.

He would stalk around the house brooding over something that happened that day, last week, a month ago or not even at all. He would look for his target. My mother, my brother, my sister, or me. Then he would punish, seek vengeance. All his misery and hatred and disappointment would be played out on his victim. Often, I was that victim, the focus for his spite. Everyone was terrified of this man, and I became a scapegoat.  My Father once told me he was more frightened of me than I should be of him. Perhaps therefore he reserved a special hatred for me. I can remember his hand around my throat. His thumb on my Adam's apple.

“Four or five seconds of pressure is all it will take.” He would say. Perhaps he was promising to end my pain as well as his.

I know my mother blamed me for things she did. She stole money and blamed me. She even buried two thousand dollars in the garden once and Dad went over it with the lawn mower. She laid the responsibility with me. She was just trying to avoid another rape or beating.

And so, the violence continued. We moved around Australia taking my father's misery and torture with us. I was beaten by my father at the pie-cart. I was beaten by him in the street. I was beaten at home. Fists and abuse were the landscape of my childhood as much as the hot dry summers and crabbing down at the jetty. Days out with my father were tours of the hotels or waiting in the car outside a brothel. Every lesson I learned under his tuition was self-destructive and selfish. The irony was that I still loved that man. He was my father, and I was his son.  It would take a particularly brutal assault to give me any chance of escape and once again my rescuers would not be hauling me out of the water but dragging me further under. I would not be able to take a breath for some while.

[jadelotusflower]

June 2021 Roundup

It's been a month of highs and lows. Every year my city holds a cabaret festival, and I've seen some truly amazing acts over the years - including Lea Salonga, Kristin Chenoweth, and Indina Menzel. This year's Artistic Director was the great Alan Cumming, and although due to covid he didn't quite get to curate the program he wanted to, the opening night Gala was still a highlight, as was Alan's DJ set at the pop-up Club Cumming afterwards, where there was much singing at the top of my lungs and dancing to pop anthems and theatre tunes. At one point Alan, dressed in a onesie and perched on the shoulders of a man wearing only sparkly short shorts, was carried around the dance floor while Circle of Life blared. Reader, I was delighted.

I was also able to see his solo show Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age, which was hilarious and damn, he can sing!

As for the low, I was meant to fly to Sydney for the weekend to see Hamilton, a trip I have been looking forward to for almost a year, but had to be cancelled because of a covid outbreak and border closures. The tickets have been rescheduled, but I'm still kind of bummed about it (while completely appreciating the need for covid safety, especially when our vaccine rollout has been completely botched by our incompetent, corrupt federal government)

Anyway.

Reading

The Hundred and One Dalmations (Dodie Smith) - With all the bewilderment over Disney's Cruella, I decided to revisit the original novel which I first read as a kid. It's funny, I had very vivid memories of this book, or rather thought I did, particularly the scene where Roger and Anita have dinner at Cruella's house that fixed in my young mind as utterly disturbing with all this devil imagery and the implication Cruella was literally some kind of demon, which must have been either a) my overactive imagination or b) an illustration, because it's not as clear as I thought it was. The strangeness is there (food with too much pepper, Cruella's inability to keep warm, the walls painted blood red) but not the explicit demon imagery I had remembered. There is a part later in the book recounting the history of Hell Hall and the rumors of Cruella's ancestor streaking out of the place conjuring blue lightening, but clearly child me was reading far more into the book than was on the page.

But I still wish they'd gone with this version of Cruella's backstory, because to me an aristocratic, ink-drinking, heat-obsessed, possibly-demon spawn, high camp villain is more interesting and rings far more true than plucky punk against the establishment.

Smith clearly had Facts About Dalmations to share, and she does really craft a wonderful animal-based story that the Disney animated film is largely faithful to. Key differences include: Roger's occupation (he doesn't have to pay tax because he wiped out government debt somehow?!?), Pongo's mate and the puppy's mother is called Missis, Perdita is another dalmation who acts as a kind of doggie wet nurse, Roger and Anita both have Nannies who come to live with them (Nanny Butler and Nanny Cook), Cruella is married to a furrier (who changed his last name to de Vil). Also odd, on her first description Cruella is described as having "dark skin" but later in the novel her "white face" is mentioned, so I'm chalking it up to 50's descriptors not having the same meanings they do today.

The Duke and I (Julia Quinn) - After being just whelmed by the tv series, I wasn't really planning on reading the books, but I saw this on the top picks shelf at the library and damn, the top picks shelf is irresistible. This is very much Daphne's book (and I had known each in the series dealt with the different sibling) so many of the characters and much of the plot of the show is absent, as are some of the more baffling elements of the show like the Diamond of the First Water nonsense, which I always thought was a strange character choice in that it stacks the deck for Daphne when her character arc is better served as somewhat of an underdog (in her third season, the kind of girl who is liked but not adored), and the Prince subplot which was always far too OTT even for soapy regency romance.

It's a breezy, fun read (that scene excepted), even if the misunderstandings are contrived and I'm never going to take "I'll never have kids because I hate my dad" as a credible romantic obstacle deserving of so much angst.

Faeries (Brian Froud and Alan Lee) - A lovingly detailed and illustrated compendium of Faerie and its inhabitants, drawing from a range of European (but primarily Celtic) folklore and mythology. Froud was a conceptual designer on The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and the link is clear in the art as well as the focus on faeries as mysterious but oftimes sinister beings, where human encounters with them rarely end well. Lee has illustrated several publications of Tolkien's novels, and was a lead concept artists for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, and there is a touch of Middle Earth here as well, or rather the common inspiration of the old world. A useful resource for my novel!

Watching

The Handmaid's Tale (season 4, episodes 4-8) SPOILERS - So when I last wrote about this show in the Roundup, I was complaining it wasn't going anywhere. Well, I'm happy to be wrong because they finally changed things up with June finally escaping to Canada. That part of the plot following the survivors and their trauma has always been far more compelling than Gilead, and so it was a welcome development even if I side-eye some of the choices (none of these characters is seeing an actual licensed therapist why?).

This show has always been difficult to watch given the subject matter, and that has not changed after the shift in power dynamics. I will give the show credit for showing a broad range of trauma responses, from Moira wanting to move on and not let it consume her, to June, a ball of rage and revenge on a downward spiral, to Emily, trying to follow Moira's path but being drawn to June's, to Luke, trying his best but utterly unequipped to deal with what is happening.

But it is very hard to watch June go down this path - raping her husband (I concede the show perhaps didn't intend for it to be rape, but that's what is on screen and framing it as just "taking away Luke's agency" doesn't change that), wishing death on Serena's unborn child, and orchestrating Fred's brutal murder by particulation, then holding her own daughter still covered in his blood and it getting smeared on Nicole's face (an unsubtle metaphor in a series full of unsubtle metaphors).

There are interesting questions being asked of the viewer, and the show (perhaps rightly) not giving any answers. I can certainly appreciate the catharsis of Fred getting what he deserves even if I personally find the manner of it horrifying, but where is the line between justice and revenge, is revenge the only option when justice is denied, when does a trauma release become cyclical violence/abuse - the show is, for now, letting the viewer decide.

Soul (dir. Pete Docter and Kemp Powers) - In a world full of remakes/reboots/sequels, Pixar is perhaps the lone segment under the Disney umbrella committed to original content. However, there does seem to be a Pixar formula at work directed to precision tugging the heart strings, and some of the film feels like well-trod ground. On the other hand, it's hard to criticise the risk of centering a kids film around the existential crisis of a middle aged man, even with the requisite cutesy elements (and of course, the uncomfortable pattern of yet another film where the black lead character spends a great deal of the runtime in non-human form - herein, an amorphous blob or a cat). But the animation is stunning, it successfully did tug my heart strings, and the design of the Great Before and the Jerrys is original and fun.

RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under - Drag Race is somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me, since I generally don't watch reality shows, and this is something I really enjoy even if I'm not invested in the fandom (which like many fandoms can be very yikes). This year it was time for the Australian/New Zealand (Aotearoa) queens to show their stuff, although it's been met with mixed reactions. Covid restrictions didn't allow for guest judges, relegating them to mere cameos via video calls, and its clear that Ru and Michelle really don't quite get all the cultural nuances - Aussie judge Rhys Nicholson was however always delightful. But it wouldn't be Australia without a racism scandal, with the great disappointment of the two queens of colour eliminated first, and one queen having done blackface in the recent past yet making it all the way to the top four.

In the end, the only viable and deserving winner was last Kiwi standing Kita Mean, and it was pure joy to see her get crowned. I do hope they fix the bugs and indeed do another season to better showcase AU/NZ talent.

Writing

A far more productive month - to try and get out of my writing funk I had a goal to try and write every day, even if it was only 100 words. While I didn't quite achieve a consecutive month, I did get a pretty good average, at least got something posted and two others nearly there.

The Lady of the Lake - 2441 words, Chapter 4 posted.

Against the Dying of the Light - 2745 words

Turn Your Face to the Sun - 1752 words.

Here I Go Again - 1144 words

Total words this month: 8082

Total words this year: 35,551