extracts from my old notebook (part 2)

"Free trip to Blue Mountains with lunch and dinner $99 ($59 without food)
For $99 you get morning tea, lunch and a four course dinner and a free trip to the blue mountains!"
- Sign at Indian restaurant in Surry Hills. Doesn't sound all that free to me...

"You know why? That card's expired- 05/11. Oh, is that the 11th year or the 11th month?"
- Overheard

"Write poetry on property"
- Graffiti on Vintage Cellars

A sandy coastline- Ivan Shishkin
Hot Springs of the Yellowstone- Thomas Moran
The trunks in the grass- Vincent van Gogh
- Paintings

"who are you, little i

(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window, at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling: that if day
has to become night

this is a beautiful way)

-who are you little i, e.e. cummings

"Totally unfunded blackspot"
- Sign on Princes Highway

"Ye shall find refreshment, thy whose bus is without conditioned air"
- Nestea ad, emphasis mine

"People speak in pentameter, we talk in verse. Prose is the more artificial mode."
- Old English tutor

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Start With, Quotes

From my little black book. Sign outside Branxton: "Drive carefully, we have two cemetaries, no hospital" Tombstone, Tilba cemetary: "Whiffo gone fishing A free spirited man who is forever in our hearts" "Heinz tomato ketchup makes food taste KETCHUPPY" - tomato sauce bottle "I was just wondering how I ever could have laughed at you" "I hope you'll always laugh at me" The Day Will Dawn, cheesy movie from 1942 "Each man kills the thing he loves" The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde Ad outside Japanese restaurant in Sydney city "Sexy chicken on rice" "I don't own a house or a car, all I have is a borrowed tv, but that's what you get when you take off and travel." Random bus stop conversation “She had a voice with hormones” ‘A Woman’s Secret’, 1949 movie “Oolong Imperial: A work of tea art” Tea rooms in the city “The burdens and the joys of being chosen to be more than a flu
Read more

panem et circenses

It seems like I've been reading quite a lot of Young Adult books this year, which is not so usual for me lately... There's been some great books ('The Piper's Son' did not disappoint) and some not so great. One of the most intriguing was 'The Hunger Games' by Suzanne Collins, a book which came with significant hype and some different expectations. One friend told me it was pover-rated, another thought it was the best thing ever. In this situation I tend to approach a book with caution, and start out looking for flaws. And there were flaws. But then again I think, is that really fair? Anyway, back to the book... 'The Hunger Games' is set in what appears to be a dystopian future USA, which is divided into a number of 'districts' all ruled by the 'Capitol'. Life in the outer districts is pretty bleak, with little food, hard work and rigid control. To top it off, each year the Capitol takes two children, a boy and a girl (called 'tr
Read more

2023 Booklist

Happy new year to all! As is tradition, here's a round up of last year's reading. It's a pretty long list (for me) this year, 75 books, but the numbers feel a little arbitrary- this includes a couple of books I read to my kids, but not the super short ones, where is the cut off line anyway? And as always it doesn't include re-reads. I don't think I had many re-reads, apart from getting to read The Secret Garden, Ballet Shoes and The Borrowers to the kids. Excited for even more to come! Shortest book Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada, a novel made up of a series of short and very strange vignettes about a man and his best friends, also their relationships and the main character's struggle to have a baby. But also aquariums, weasels, snow storms and soup. It's an unsettling book but also in a way mundane. Longest book   Stories from the Little Beach Street Bakery: An Omnibus Edition by Jenny Colgan. A cozy romance comfort read that I enjoyed very much-
Read more