Welcome Justine

2005-05-26

Justine Larbalestier, who is an actual published author I know has a blog - Justine got a mention here before. For some reason she has added a link to this site in her 'roll of blogs' - probably as a cruel joke at the expense of her readers, who will be assaulted with technobabble and pink and yellow when they are used to clever, cultured musings.

So just to cushion to the shock to those arriving here I'll say something literary. And I'll put a literature link in the menu under themes to point to this. And if I ever decide to read a book, then I'll seriously consider reading Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier.

Justine's blog has no capital letters in it, which reminded me of my book - which I typed out in the early nineties some time, got three friends to read, entered in a literary prize and then shelved when I didn't win. I wrote it because I was pissed off at a book that had won the prize a year or two before.

In my book I had invented a particularly loathsome character called "the hippie" who didn't use capital letters, except when I forgot that she wasn't meant to. She was more like a bit of furniture than a character, really. Not like Justine, but if she keeps up this all lower case stuff, who knows?

This bit is at a drunken party/meeting in a bedroom:

"Hey, youse. I've got an idea."

"?" said eight eyes.

"Lets all pick a book that we think is relevant to the film. Then we'll all read each other's books. That way we'll start to get an idea of where it should go."

"I'm not reading the book the hippie picks. Or Rose. Or yours Bruce," said Mary.

This didn't deter the hippie, who said, "i pick all of the great religious books of the world. the i-ching, the christian bible, the quorum, the zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, the baghavad gita, the karma sutra, and … i forget the others. great stuff."

"See?" said Mary. "I told you all so." She swept an arm expansively and inaccurately around the bed to make her point. "The hippie picked about four hundred books she hasn't read." She crawled across the mattress onto the floor and leant in close to the hippie. "Have you read these books hippie?"

"i don't need to, mary. i am in touch with the spiritual planes already. all is clear to me."

"I've read that lot anyway, or bits thereof," Mary told her, lying. "And maybe quorum does not mean what you think it means."