Unfinished writing – Page 2

Crawling with books

Way back in April I read an article in Broadsheet about the Global Book Crawl, an event promoting indie bookstores, and very quickly decided I would do my best to visit as many as I could in the time that I had – and I threw in an accompanying visit to a nearby tea shop as an incentive.

While I did have a list of books I’d been meaning to get, plus four niblings to buy gifts for (I am Book Aunty), I was also happy to be led by the shops’ selections and displays.

Here’s what happened.

Monday 21 April

This was a public holiday (Easter Monday) and not all the stores were open, and many had reduced hours so I decided to start in Newtown and walk into the city via Glebe as all those bookshops along the route seemed to be accessible.

STOP 1) Obtained my passport and got my first stamp at Better Read than Dead in Newtown. I used to visit the store more often when I lived in Summer Hill (ie the inner west) and went to a lot of the author events. They have a decent selection of popular titles but also, given the location, you can expect a lot of progressive material as well.

Bought: The Nightmare Sequence by Omar Sakr (have all of his poetry collections to date) and Mr Blank by Dean Manning (long-time fan of his ’90s-’00s band Leonardo’s Bride).

Tea break: Rising Sun Workshop. It’s a motorcycle garage and ramen restaurant but it also serves T Totaler tea so I had a pot of the Rising Sun blend and a plate of gyoza and since it was a public holiday, it was 15% extra (ouch).

STOP 2) Walked the 2km to Gleebooks in Glebe. They actually had both the Glebe and Dulwich Hill stores on the list but I felt it was cheeky of them to have two bites of the cherry. Also, I knew Sydney Writers’ Festival was coming up and as they are the main bookstore, I figured I would buy more come May (no lies detected). This is quite a large store spread deep and over a couple of levels plus a mezzanine. Upstairs there’s a substantial art book section.

Bought: Orbital by Samantha Harvey (a spec-lit novella with long reserve queues at the library) and The Burrow by Melanie Cheng (ostensibly for book club, but it was a session I couldn’t actually go to).

Tea break: No tea break as I was still full from gyoza, but Gleebooks does have its own cafe! I tried to go to Bruce en route to the city but it was closed due to the public holiday.

STOP 3) Abbey’s in the city I go to occasionally – or, more accurately, I go through Abbey’s to get to Galaxy, which is its speculative fiction specialty store upstairs. I’ve also bought language books from the dedicated language section, which gives you a flavour of what it offers. It’s quite crammed and eclectic but surprisingly easy to find the kinds of books you want to browse. My Sydney Writers’ Festival volunteer colleague Amelia stamped my passport. I didn’t even know she worked there.

Bought: Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim (tea-adjunct book recommended by a writer friend who used to work at Hachette) and Alice by Christina Henry (because I love Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its spinoffs).

Tea break: The Palace Tea Room. In my opinion better than The Tea Room QVB upstairs; though the setting is not as grand, it’s still a beautifully appointed room and the scones are terrific. They serve Harney & Sons tea.

STOP 4) Kinokuniya in the Galeries Victoria is probably the bookstore I go to the most because it’s fucking enormous and it’s so conveniently located. I’m actually surprised it got counted as an indie bookstore given that it’s an international chain. I used to have a membership there because the only books I allowed myself to buy were tea books and they had a sizeable tea book selection but since the new tea books dried up, I haven’t renewed it. Still, they have a decent spec fic selection and probably the most comprehensive Australian poetry area that I know of. Also, if you like graphic novels, eat your heart out.

Bought: Ghost Cities by Siang Lu (TWO book clubs chose this book) and The Girl With No Reflection by Keshe Chow (for my 16yo niece because I failed to get her a ticket to the romantasy session at the Sydney Writers’ Festival).

Tea break: Dulcet is located in Kinokuniya and leans ‘Japanese dessert cafe’ so I had a matcha soft serve and a hojicha latte.

Tuesday 22 April

I went on a day retreat. It was a bit of a shemozzle (but I did get some relaxing done?) and its location meant I couldn’t get to any bookstores.

Wednesday 23 April

Had a work shift scheduled for 11am in Chatswood so I decided to tackle the north shore.

STOP 5) I’d never been to, nor heard of, Three Sparrows in Mosman. It’s a tiny bookstore that seems to cater to a fairly narrow demographic. It had some very pretty books and an okay kids section but nothing that appealed to me from a studied browse.

Bought: Pocket Pickler by Alex Elliott-Howery (resorted to the only recipe book on my list – for a friend – because I couldn’t find anything I wanted).

Tea break: Had breakfast at August the Old Place up the road but the tea was disappointing so I’m not going to link to it.

STOP 6) Dashed from Chatswood to Constant Reader in Crows Nest (thank you, metro!) on my lunch break. There are two Constant Reader stores next to each other: one is dedicated to kids books, the other to everything else. I actually ended up in the kids one first by accident.

Bought: Unhallowed Halls by Lili Wilkinson (for the 16yo niece again) and Theory of Everything by Yumna Kassab (an acquaintance whose eclectic interests make her books a serendipity of ideas).

Tea break: No tea break, had to get back to work asap.

Thursday 24 April

Worked from home, and then went straight to the theatre to see Hadestown, so not even a chance to visit a bookstore open late.

Friday 25 April

In addition to being yet another public holiday (Anzac Day), I had also scheduled a bushwalk with my walking group. No bookstores visited today.

Saturday 26 April

Many who know me might recall that I never venture east unless I have to. Nothing for it, though – four easily accessed indie bookstores to crawl in half a day.

STOP 7) Gertrude & Alice near Bondi Beach is a strange one to have on the list because it sells both new and secondhand books. It’s crammed full of a bit of everything more or less ordered by genre, though you have to dig if you want something specific. It also has its own cafe, which seemed to be more popular than the book part of the store.

Bought: The Scent of Flowers at Night by Leila Slimani (read The Country of Others and Watch Us Dance recently and found her an interesting writer) and Peripathetic by Cher Tan (have always enjoyed her essays).

Tea break: Gertrude & Alice’s signature chai, which was a bit too milky for my liking to be honest.

STOP 8) Took a bus to Paddington and visited Ariel, which I hadn’t been to for literal decades. It’s quite arty and a tad intellectual. I also scored some merch!!! They stamped my passport and gave me a Global Book Crawl tote bag, which I hadn’t been offered before despite spending money everywhere.

Bought: Fake News by Chris Stokel-Walker (a must for a former media student) and Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman (borrowed this from the library after a recommendation by a friend and it was very good and now I’m buying a copy for everyone else).

Tea break: Matcha latte and vanilla slice at Chez Alex.

STOP 9) Walked to The Bookshop Darlinghurst. I don’t think I’d ever been inside, though it looked familiar from the outside. It is very queer! Get your queer books here! The bookseller was also super friendly.

Bought: Euphoria Kids by Alison Evans (Alison runs one of the four book clubs I attend and I meant to get this one ages ago), The Victoria Principle by Michael Farrell (genuine bookstore promo sell: sounded interesting) and Someone Like Me edited by Jo Case and Clem Bastow (I follow both these writers on socials and found out about the book there).

Tea break: No tea break, still fuelled by the matcha latte.

STOP 10) And finally I get to a neighbourhood I know better: Potts Point. The Potts Point Bookshop is deeper into the neighbourhood than Ms.Cattea Tea Bar, my usual haunt in this suburb, but I wanted to end the day with tea so off I trekked to the bookstore first. It’s on the smaller side of the bookshops I’ve seen and everything is quite tight. There seemed to be a sizeable architecture/interior design selection and a number of foodie-leaning shelves.

Bought: We Could Be Something by Will Kostakis (generally enjoy his books, didn’t realise this was out).

Tea break: A proper brew at Ms.Cattea Tea Bar. Cathy was in Japan at the time and Roger was doing his best to satisfy a thirsty Saturday arvo crowd (and dealing admirably). I had a ginger flower dancong and rested my weary feet.

Sunday 27 April

I already had an engagement on Sunday but fortunately it was in Balmain so I was able to fold in a visit to the two bookshops in the area before it.

STOP 11) Hill of Content seemed sprawling on the inside but there was order to the madness and I picked up a few of the more stubborn items on my list that I hadn’t been able to get elsewhere. Of all the bookshops, this one was probably the most “me”. I’m still not entirely sure if it’s Hill of Content (satisfaction) or Hill of Content (informational material).

Bought: Julia by Sandra Newman (1984 told from her point of view), Heist by Joel McKerrow (Sydney Writers’ Festival author – autograph hunting for my 9yo niece), Human/Nature by Jane Rawson (love her work) and Liar’s Test by Ambelin Kwaymullina (haven’t decided whether to keep this or give to niece).

STOP 12) I did a profile on Roaring Stories when it changed hands a couple of years ago (for 2041 ie Neighbourhood Media) so it was nice to see the store in the flesh. It’s a neat space, very cleanly delineated and well-lit so it was a pleasure to walk around in.

Bought: We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord by Garth Nix (one for the 8yo niece), Cold Truth by Ashley Kalagian-Blunt (another acquaintance with another new book out), Want collected by Gillian Anderson (genuine bookstore promo pickup), Roll of the Dice: Enchanted Forest by Lauren De Graaf (this one for the 5yo nephew as I’m not sure what his reading tastes are yet).

Tea break: Hosted two epic gongfu sessions at Cha is Tea, a secret tearoom above the Balmain Chinese Herbal Centre.

I’m sad I didn’t get to Umina Beach Book Nook. If I hadn’t gone to the retreat on Tuesday, I would’ve made a day of going up there because I love visiting the op shops around Woy Woy and Gosford. Bookoccino in Avalon was similarly difficult to wangle without supporting reasons for going that far deep into the northern beaches. Maybe a hike? Next year I hope I’ll have more advanced notice so I can plan better and bring some friends along.

Category: Read | Comments Off

March 28

This is not a Thai restaurant

I love a pun as much as the next girl, especially if that girl* is comedian Jennifer Wong, so I wanted to call out a few of my favourites around town.

Now, many of you might point out that Thai restaurants are the god tier of punning, but I would say that while a lot of the names use ’Thai’ with another reference, that other reference doesn’t always make sense for a restaurant, which makes it a bad pun. How is a restaurant called ‘Thai-tanic’ – that is neither large, Titanic-themed nor on a ship (maybe for the best?) – more than just replacing a syllable?

Compare that name with Thai massage place Siam Ease in Newtown. You have the Thai represented in its old name, ‘Siam’, then the massage element in ‘Ease’. Together it sounds like ‘Siamese’ but it’s more than the sum of its parts. Great pun. I was delighted when I saw it. I have kept it in the metaphorical back pocket of my brain for years and am pleased they’re still around.

One of my other favourite pun names is The Souvlucky Country, which is not Thai but Greek. You’ll be tickled to know that yes, there is souvlaki on the menu, but also a dash of that Aussie can-do spirit as in Donald Horne’s The Lucky Country. It’s not exactly entirely by fortune that this place exists but it’s a clever and memorable name.

And lastly, also in the Parramatta neighbourhood is Doughkyo, a Tokyo-style bakery – the kind that’s European in aesthetics and form and Japanese in flavour. There’s ‘dough’ and there’s ‘Tokyo’ – great pun, no notes.

*just to be clear, we’re both women

Category: Muse | Comments Off

March 2

Elements of surprise: review of Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024)

This review mentions plot elements for Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024) and may contain spoilers.

Unlike many Avatar* fans I didn’t grow up watching Avatar: The Legend of Aang (2005) because I was an adult when it came out and in my late thirties when I finally took a friend’s recommendation, borrowed her DVD box set, and watched the animated Nickelodeon series.

The Avatar series is a secondary world fantasy in which some people, called ‘benders’, have the ability to manipulate one the four elements: earth, fire, air, or water. The Avatar is a reincarnated person who can master all four elements and also enter a powerful ‘Avatar state’. The role of the Avatar is to maintain balance in the world. (More info.)

Despite its issues, the original series was largely well-received and has many fans around the world. The 2010 live action film adaptation by M Night Shyamalan was, by contrast, widely panned. The Nickelodeon series also has an animated sequel, Avatar: The Legend of Korra (2012), which is about Aang’s successor.

The 2024 Netflix adaptation, Avatar: The Last Airbender, therefore came as a surprise to me. Live action adaptations of animations are fraught on a regular Thursday, why fiddle with an already successful IP and muddy the waters? But here we are.

Decent: sets

Fortunately, the Netflix budget managed to buy a visually rich world with sets that are both functional and aesthetically consistent with the world-building with some nice CGI enhancements. Essentially, Avatar is a road trip story so the team travels through many different locations and that shit’s expensive, so good work designers.

Questionable: costumes

I do have a gripe with the costumes, though. Aesthetically they align with the world-building, but the very first thing I thought when I laid eyes on Sokka and Katara was that their clothes looked too new, neither lived-in nor weathered. (I recall visiting Hobbiton in 2012 and the guide told us that there was a person who walked from one of the Hobbit houses to the washing line every day for like a year to make a path that seemed realistic – and that was for a panning shot barely anyone would have noticed. While I don’t expect that dedication for this show, maybe a wearing-in period might’ve helped.)

The other thing is that what you can get away with in a cartoon is very different from what you can get away with in live action shows. In the original series, each of the four kingdoms pretty much wear the same colours as their cohort – earth = green; fire = red; air = orange and yellow; water = blue – and as a result, the distinctions between them are always visually clear. Unfortunately this becomes ridiculous in a live action setting, which is immediately made clear when the team is trying to get into Omashu and are wearing non-earth clothing. Once they get their hands on a disguise, suddenly it’s all resolved.

Decent: casting choices

I was surprised to find the casting choices fit with the characters. The actors aren’t all at the same skill level, unfortunately (I could often feel Gordon Cormier’s effort to act as Aang and Ian Ousley’s Sokka feels a little too American) but I was pleased that the cast largely resonated with the vibe of each character, which is more important in a series like this. There have been some great choices in difficult roles, particularly Dallas Liu as Zuko oscillating between angry ousted prince and young man coming into his own.

Questionable: pacing

The animated series had 20 x 23-minute episodes in the first season; the first season of the live action series is 8 x 55-minute episodes, which is roughly the same length. Somehow the pacing of the 2024 series feels rushed, though, front-loading the exposition with flashbacks and featuring big dramatic moments, usually fights or battles, in each episode without enough time for the audience to become invested in the side characters (and ‘side quests’) involved.

This is particularly glaring when Aang decides to venture into the spirit world for a disproportionately long time, and in episode 8 when the team are fighting against the fire nation with the northern water tribe but we don’t feel a great deal of affinity with the tribe because we’ve spent too little time with them. This affects the way we view the stakes and the overall mission of the Avatar and his relationships with various communities.

It is also difficult to accept Katara’s mastery of her waterbending because we haven’t experienced a sense of time passing and effort being expended, both throughout the journey, when she learns from the scroll, and once they reach the north and she’s supposed to learn from the masters there. (Additionally, Aang is supposed to learn alongside her, but he is never seen to practice waterbending.) In the original series, we understand weeks pass on their journey and they spend at least several days with the northern water tribe before the Fire Nation navy arrives.

Decent: bending

The depiction of bending is really well done. The styles, which were originally created with specific martial arts practices in mind (for example, the circular airbending has its roots in baguazhang) are well portrayed by the bending characters, whose actors have obviously undergone martial arts training. This is enhanced by some slick CGI work, bringing to life the dynamism of the forms. One great sequence is when Katara fights Pakku and the waterbending forms are depicted as both fluid and icy.

Why are we here?

A glaring omission for me is the lack of heart this new series displays. The cast is doing its best but essentially, it’s really hard to see what we’re all here for. This is not at all helped by a script devoid of humour that’s simultaneously really heavy-handed with genocidal themes and ‘save the world’ rallying.

The original uses a fun escapist fantasy to depict a young boy coming to terms with his responsibilities. The characters are kids and the target audience is kids who are perhaps the same age or a little younger than the characters (Aang is 12 and Zuko is purportedly 16 at the start of the series). We want Aang to succeed as he steps into the role of the Avatar, but not at the expense of his humanity. Somehow that line is never quite thematically resonant in the new series, either too cleanly dismissed when he talks to his past selves or laughably ‘tested’ when he’s antagonised by the likes of Bumi and Zuko. It feels too serious for a kids’ show and too one-dimensional for older audiences.

I feel the biggest misstep is actually the central premise of turning an animation into a live action TV show. There are lots of things you can get away with in a cartoon that the audience accepts because it’s animated that suddenly becomes jarring in live action. (See also: musicals. Cats (2019) was not just a terrible film, it failed to understand how much suspension of disbelief happens in a theatre such that the film highlighted how everything in that musical was actually ludicrous.)

One major element is how cultural differences are flattened in a cartoon and this is acceptable, but this flattening becomes problematic in live action. In addition to the costuming, as mentioned above, the lack of linguistic differences between nations is too obvious to ignore. Furthermore, the ‘Fire Nation is evil’ schtick is fine for a cartoon but too simplistic to work in a live setting.

I haven’t figured out why they’ve bothered with this. I’m happy it’s kept interest in the IP alive (not that it was under threat – plenty of spin-offs such as novels, graphic novels and games have been produced since the original series) and I’m keen to see the young actors launch their careers from here, but if you’re looking to get into Avatar, the original animated series is still right there next to this on Netflix.

*Not the James Cameron film/s

Category: Opine | Comments Off