Catching up
Saturday, 08 February, 2003
Have just finished updating Current: with what I've been reading/watching/listening to over the past month or so. It's quite a lot of stuff but I suppose that's because I've been zipping through heaps and heaps of Asterix. I've been interspersing them with Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith which I am only reading sporadically so that I can digest all the ideas. (NB: A book doesn't appear on Current: until I've finished reading it). I have already lent The Case for Christ to a friend wanting to know more about God. She is now struggling with the whole issue of belief and disbelief so perhaps it would be worth lending her The Case for Faith when she's done with the former. But I need to read it first to make sure it will be helpful to her. So far I think it is.
Last week I picked up Neil Gaiman's Coraline for $4 from The Smith Family op-shop which really shocked me because the book is a new release. Everything I've read about the book commented on how scary it was. At first I had my doubts and now I agree that it's quite spooky and I wouldn't read it to young children. Maybe children 8 years or older. It's like reading one of those really old fairy tales that haven't been cleaned up and censored by the Grimm brothers—full of rites of passage, heroism in the face of darkness and a certain violent unconsciousness that occasionally manifests itself in the creepiest of ways.
Catching up on my blog reading this morning, I was pleased to discover that Neil Gaiman likes Stephen Sondheim (see the Wednesday February 5th entry). I watched Putting It Together and Original Cast Album: Company last night on DVD (Ynping lent them to me) and was reminded again just how much I love Sondheim. The lyrics to “Being Alive”, although sung to death, struck me anew:
Someone to hold me too close,
Someone to hurt me too deep,
Someone to sit in my chair
And ruin my sleep
And make me aware
Of being alive ...
That, I thought, is what marriage is like.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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Other comments
Op shops are a goldmine for quality books aren’t they? Coraline sounds really interesting and when I come down to visit, I’m going to read it! Is it a kid’s book?
It is a kid’s book but don’t hold that against it!