Fully commit to the magic
On audiobooks, the Coronation, Jerry Saltz, Dylan Moran, and the Melbourne Writers Festival
Hello there, old sock, what’s new? Around my place not much is new, because I’m trying to buy less stuff. Partly this is for noble environmental reasons, and partly it’s because there’s only so much stuff you can accumulate before you begin to meet the diagnostic criteria for hoarding, and I’m afraid we are already dancing on that precipice.
The only items that still manage to sneak in on a frequent basis are books. I keep buying books with the delusional idea that I will read them. Lol! Alas, most of the books I buy remain as pure and fresh as the first delicate buds of springtime, I’m talking virgin books, just completely untouched.
I blame audiobooks: since I’ve been listening to them, I’ve struggled to consume books any other way. I know there are a lot of valid reasons people might prefer audiobooks (eg a learning disability, or problematic eyes) but none of those reasons apply to me (I mean, I do have the natural eyesight of a person who has just downed her seventeenth tequila shot during an ayahuasca trip on a foggy, moonless night, but it’s nothing that can’t be remedied with a half-inch of carefully calibrated glass). For me, I’m afraid my preference for audiobooks simply reveals a character flaw: I lack the patience to sit down and read a book.
I suppose it’s also about the pervasive need to optimise time, because if I’m listening to a book I can also be doing the dishes, or going for a walk, or murdering my neighbours and using their bodies to create elaborate art installations in the shed, like a Madam Tussauds for ghoulish human taxidermy enthusiasts folding the laundry. As a person in my 40s, and as a parent of young kids, time these days feels like a scarce resource, and never feels truly free—whenever I’m doing one thing, there’s always something else that I feel I should also be doing. Audiobooks help address this dilemma—and yet, I do think something is lost. I’m not altogether sure that I’m able to pick up all the subtle complexities of Middlemarch when I am simultaneously cleaning up cat vomit or emptying out the compost. Audiobooks work okay for now, but one day I truly hope to re-learn the mysterious art of reading a physical book.
Television
Last weekend I spent an extended period of time in front of the TV watching Charlie Windsor get a big hat.
I started out watching the coverage on the ABC, and they did a pretty good job of exploring the troubling nature of the monarchy, and of prioritising First Nations perspectives. Stan Grant and Teela Reid had a lot of airtime, and both made a calm and basically unassailable case for why British colonial history is not something Australia should be celebrating.
As I am (clearly!) not a monarchist, my reasons for tuning in were pretty much in line with Nick Cave’s:
‘I’m just drawn to that kind of thing - the bizarre, the uncanny, the stupefyingly spectacular, the awe inspiring.’
The coronation definitely lived up to these descriptors. There were many bizarre and uncanny moments, and while the ceremony didn't knock my socks off, some of the music really was spectacular.
In particular, this performance by South African soprano Pretty Yende was Pretty Incredible:
Bryn Terfel, too, had me briefly rethinking my lifelong atheism:
On the whole though, it was a curious ritual, like the sort of thing a bunch of imaginative children might come up with in a freestyle roleplaying game about kings and queens of yore—'my character has a gem encrusted sword, and a rod of power!’ ‘Oh yeah? Well my character has a stone of destiny and gets anointed with magical oils!’—only it was performed straight-faced by grown adults in front of hundreds of important people (and also Lionel Richie).
My favourite things about it were the variety of bonkers hats and crazy costumes—particularly Anne, who was dressed as one of the three musketeers, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose robes appeared to feature the face of an enormous and adorable spider:
Perhaps my favourite moments of the event were when Charles and Camilla had to touch a special ring that was placed on a ring holder that looked like…this:
Reader, I sniggered. I know I should be beyond this, because I am a Sophisticated Lady, but apparently I am also a thirteen year old boy? E.g. I have a little chuckle every day when my iPhone sends me this message:
We all contain multitudes, I guess.
Sniggering aside, I did find something strangely touching about the coronation ceremony. I don’t believe in the monarchy, as a concept, and the idea of spending all that money on an event with the sole purpose of providing an ultra-privileged septuagenarian with some bejewelled headwear is objectively insane. And yet, there is something appealing about the fact that it was so resolutely, unapologetically ludicrous! Sometimes I get tired of living in a world governed by data; where our every move is measured and fed through an algorithm. Sometimes I appreciate it when I see something being celebrated that makes absolutely zero sense, something that only exists because people have a yearning for experiences that lie outside the realm of the physical and the quantifiable. The coronation, with its invoking of noble values, its elaborate traditions, its extreme solemnity, definitely provided something different.
Even so, as Anthony Lane put it in the New Yorker, in relation to the anointing:
…even if you were moved by the anointing—surprising yourself, perhaps, in your response to its mystical intent—you couldn’t help wondering whether so strange a performance really belonged on TV, the most desacralizing medium ever devised.
So yes, even though there were aspects of it that I appreciated, it was a bit like watching Jesus turn water into wine via a YouTube video. It was hard to fully commit to the magic.
Books
I’m currently reading How to Be an Artist by art critic Jerry Saltz, which is a short book containing 63 ‘rules’ for becoming an artist—the last of which is to go dancing.
Obviously, I am currently having a tilt at being a writer, rather than an artist, but happily most of the rules are applicable to just about any type of creative work.
Jerry Saltz himself is an interesting character—he started out trying to be an artist, lost his nerve, became a long-haul truck driver for many years, and then at the age of 40 decided to have a crack at being an art critic. This is highly relatable for me; I wanted to be a novelist as soon as I learned that novels existed, but like Jerry I lost my nerve and instead did sixteen years of lawyering (my soft-girl equivalent to long-haul trucking). I’ve always written here and there, but until I turned 40 I was too scared of writing a shit novel to persist with anything long enough to finish it. As Jerry puts it:
Making art can be humiliating…It can reveal things about yourself that others might find appalling, weird, boring, or stupid. You may fear that people will think you’re abnormal, dull, untalented. Fine. When I work, my mind races with doubts: None of this is any good. It makes no sense. Anyone who sees this will know I’m a dope.
Interestingly, Jerry’s very first rule (‘Don’t be embarrassed’) is the exact thing I did to overcome my fear of being a bad writer. His advice is to let go of ‘being good’ and instead start thinking about creating. I feel like this approach worked well for me, although I suppose I might change my mind about that in six months from now when I’m awake at 4am thinking about all my one star reviews on Goodreads. Only time (and the Goodreads average ratings calculator) will tell.
Another piece of advice I particularly like is rule 42: ‘Be a vampire; form a coven’. Essentially, this means finding bonds with other artists.
In their company, you’ll form networks of love and forgiveness that will stop you from being brought to your knees by insecurity, isolation, empty grandiosity, and arrogance.
This is a weird one for me because I would love to see myself as an outsider, an eccentric, a non-joiner—an individual…
…but, in reality, I am a total sucker for a good coven. I’m in a book (née drinking) group, a writing group, and group of debut authors, and, in different ways, all of these groups are helping me deal with the wonderful and nightmarish process of publishing a book. Without them, I would definitely be significantly less sane than I currently am.
Anyway, the Saltz book is full of great, pithy advice, and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in creating things. If you don’t want to commit to the full book, 33 of his rules were published here.
Other things
In other news, I have been hopping around town quite a bit (okay, twice) in the last few weeks. I went to see Irish comedian Dylan Moran, of Black Books fame, at Hamer Hall, who was rambling and funny, and a little sad. Last time I saw him it was pre-pandemic, and he was still married, off the booze, and remarkably upbeat. This time he was divorced, and back on the booze, and prettttty gloomy. This is not a diss—it was all very relatable (other than divorce, I am way too lazy happy to ever leave my beloved). But I love Dylan and want the best for him, so I hope he kicks the drink again and perhaps also gets remarried, this time to Tamsin Greig (ie Fran on Black Books), possibly in a polyamorous situation with Bill Bailey (Manny on Black Books).
One surprising thing was that Dylan seems to have become…quite a good chaotic jazz pianist? And also, turns out he has a great singing voice??? This was not the future I envisaged for Bernard Black, but I am here for it.
The other event I went to was an in conversation with novelists Emma Straub and Gabrielle Zevin at the Melbourne Writers Festival, facilitated by Brodie Lancaster. It was a delightful hour of which I remember almost nothing, other than that everyone was very funny and charming. I have also been enjoying Emma Straub’s newsletter, the latest edition of which features various adorable Australian marsupials, which made me think maybe I should be featuring more marsupials in this newsletter? In fact, I’ll try it now. Please enjoy this platypus:
Until next time,
Eleanor xx
About Lawyering: « my soft-girl equivalent to long-haule trucking ». I totally imagine that, jajaja