Sunday Before Christmas - Laundry, Australia, Dylan, Ghosts, and Books Lost to History

 Laundry is done. A blog post or two written. Working on "Love Stinks". I sent KH an email, so I decided to start on this post. It still seems like little to show for almost 6 hours of consciousness. Oh, I did walk down to McClure's for my Coke Zero and smokes.

Some items from last week's Brisbane Times Book Review.

Everything you could ever want to know about Bob Dylan

However, even for those put off by the bulk and the cost, there are saving graces. Not least is the accumulation of detail, set out roughly chronologically, helping this book operate as something of a loose history, a kind of primer for the more extensive dives elsewhere. Maybe one sparked by a Picasso-esque 1970 Dylan drawing of a guitar, the full program at the Newport Folk Festival 1964 (where the already legendary roots guitarist-singer Elizabeth Cotten and Muddy Waters played on the first night and Dylan closed the last), or the ripped lyric sheet for a song about transgressive comedian Lenny Bruce: “Punk surfer/Comet of vomit/Over there/Lenny Bruce/Bill collector”.

Mixing the unreal with the realistic strikes me as a good idea, and so I had to read The woman who buys a church to get rid of a ghost 

Lohrey continues to be a political writer, even if the overt interest in the Australian labour movement and party politics of her early novels has given away to more esoteric musings that see in the individual’s pursuit of lifestyle and wellness regimes a desire for social change subdued. The Conversion asks: in the absence of a complete re-organisation of society, might certain kinds of spaces, ones that have been created with careful artistry, do the transformative work that heals us as individuals but also unites us, in all our differences, as a community?

For a realist writer, Lohrey is unusually attracted to the unseen. Dreams, the strange ones we have when we sleep and also the ones we plan for when we are awake, propel the action of The Conversion. Midway through the novel Zoe meets schoolteacher Melanie Doyle, who is directing her students in an unlikely production of Strindberg’s A Dream Play. In his preface to that play, Strindberg talks of the power of the imagination to transform the world: “On an insignificant background of reality, imagination designs and embroiders novel patterns: a medley of memories, experiences, free fancies, absurdities and improvisations.”

 Now for the fragility of literary reputations: Whodunnit: Why were novels by a famous Australian author forgotten by history? 

“It just puzzles me why they have been hidden. From a crime perspective, they are bloody good and given the importance of Johnston, they should be read.”

Gary Kinnane, who wrote Johnston’s biography, said the Shane Martin novels did not strike him as being of great interest or particularly well written. However, he said at the time it was common for serious authors to write crime fiction under a pseudonym.

I am trying lima beans in my lentils. The one gripe I have with lentils is their texture - too mushy. My ex-wife didn't like lima beans while I grew up with them. They are a bit harder to find nowadays.

I want to add two more songs, and then I will be back offline. It seems the writing goes easier with me offline - too much memory is being used. Not to mention the distractions.

So, I can't count. It is a gray, wet day; Indiana gloomy. Back to work. I will be staying here for the rest of the day.

May you have a good day.

sch