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Things Muv use...

...and a few things...

By Frances Carleton

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The Printed Word

I watched a movie last night. It was released in 1998. You may have heard of it, it called ‘You’ve got Mail’ and it stars Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

For those that have been living under a rock for 13 years and may not have seen it, it’s about two people who meet online and fall in love despite not knowing each others names, meanwhile in the real world they do know each other and only ever really exchange cutting remarks as they are competitors in business. She own a small book store that specialises in children’s books and service (she knows all of her customer’s names), he a mulit-millionaire that own a chain of book superstores that offer books at a cheap price, but little in the way of service or knowledge about books (think Borders). Of course, as with all romantic comedies, it turns out well in the end.

Apart from the sound of dial-up internet, which I had almost forgotten, the movie got me thinking about books and where they are heading.

I’m sure when Nora Ephron devised the tale, she had no idea that in 2011 book superstores would be closing because people had stopped buy books made from paper and had switched to electronic tomes. No everybody of course. I still love the feel of the paper and board in my hands, the smell of the ink on freshly pulped wood. I know it’s frightfully un-PC of me, but I like books.

I enjoy spending time fossicking the shelves of second hand book shops for that illusive find. Being surrounded by the mustiness of the years of thumbing the pages have seen. The paper of varying thickness; tissue thin in wartime to save resources, sturdy and wrinkle free in the 60s when nothing needed to be saved, including love. Foxy spots of yellow on the pages and inscriptions of congratulations, happy birthday and ownership; you read more than just the story in print. Sometimes you find added bonuses between the pages; a theatre ticket, a train ticket or postcard. These items tell you even more about the previous owner.

With an electronic book you can make notations and highlight interesting passages, you can turn the pages and you can, or course, read it. But you can’t feel it, smell it, and love it. You can’t take care not to crack the spine, you can’t inscribe it as a gift and you can’t pass it on.

I hope books don’t disappear in my lifetime, after all where would the girl of the world be without pearls of wisdom like ‘Linda Learns to Type’ by Patirica Baldwin written in 1961. What will the world do without tales of young ladies aspiring to be private secretaries?

Crepuscular Light

A few years ago I read ‘The DaVinci Code’ by Dan Brown. I followed it with ’Angels and Demons’. I enjoyed them both for what they were, adventure novels that kept you turning the page because of a good fast paced story. Our hero moved across continents, religion got a bashing, people died or were badly injured, but in the end the good guy came out on top. When during Uni classes these books where held up as bad examples of writing I would always jump to their defence with the argument that they have got people reading. Surely, I’d follow up with, any reading is good reading?

In May last year I was readying myself for a trip back to the UK for an extended period. I needed reading material. A visit to my local bookstore saw me purchasing the first three of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I liked the look of the covers and the blurb had me sold. I like a good vampire yarn.

I read the first book and got a tad irritated with being told Edward was amazing, Edward is luminous and Edward is gorgeous. I wanted to slap Bella for being such a big girl’s blouse. I did however make it to the end of the first book even though I wished it would hurry up and get on with the story already. I wasn’t in a hurry to know what happened next though. There was a four month gap before I started reading the second book at Christmas. Just after the Twilight movie came out.

I saw the movie in the cinema and found myself thinking, ‘where’s the fast forward button?’

I only made it half way through the second book and came perilously close to throwing it out of the window during my Christmas road trip. I knew what was coming, it had been hinted at so many times, but the author never seemed to want to tell us anything for sure. Was Jacob a werewolf? Of course he is, so why not just bloody tell us, it’s not like we can’t work it out for ourselves by page 10.

A friend of mine borrowed the books from me and loved it. She said it was like a soap opera, she had to know what came next and as such kept turning the pages.

I don’t watch soap operas. I don’t watch Eastenders, Neighbours or Days of our Lives. Maybe this is why the slow pace annoyed me so much. I don’t want to wait six weeks to see the main characters have their first kiss. The duh duh duh music at the end of an episode rarely leaves me on the edge of my seat. I like them to just get on with it, if it’s going to happen. Sexual tension and threats are all well and good, but if you know it’s never gonna happen, what the point in having it there in the first place?

Maybe if I was 16, as I believe is the intended audience age for these books, I would have persevered. Maybe if I needed a lesson in abstinence and the consequences of loose living (as I believe are revealed in book four) I would have enjoyed them more. As it is, I see people (both men and women) on the train, heads buried in book three or four and feel like giving them a round of applause for making it so far.

I now see where my fellow students were coming from. It’s not a case of any reading is good reading. Only good reading is good reading. Bad reading only dims the lights further.

Old Git

I’m not quite sure how I manage to do it, but I have a habit of picking hobbies that are the domain of old people.

First it was the alpacas. An industry almost entirely made up of 50+ people. That was OK, I coped and even got passed comments about being too young to have alpacas.

So, about a year ago I got a phonecall. It was a wrong number, but it turned out that the male voice on the other end was looking for a version of me of the male gender. Turned out he was for the Book Collectors Society of Australia. I joined and for the next year I received the journal.

On Sunday I went to a meeting. I swear to god the average age there was 70. A lot of raised voices where required and yet somehow I ended up on the committee. I think they just wanted to bring the average age group down to 60.

For Your Viewing Pleasure - Tearful TV!

Today, while catching up on weeks of ironing and housework I caught up on my movie watching. And in the process managed to find two that made me cry.

Not that I’m a hard-arse or anything but movies rarely make me cry (unless it’s the old people on the bed in Titanic or The Bridges of Madison County) but as I say…today I have been ironing through a haze of tears that would embarrass even the most depressed dumped chick with a gallon of ice-cream.

After a quick pop to the shops and the first load of washing on, I made myself a sandwich and sat down to watch the start of Crash. It won the best picture Oscar last year and I’ve been meaning to see it since. A few weeks ago it was on Foxtel and I taped it. If you’ve seen Love Actually you’ll know how hard it is keeping track of many charaters inter-weaved with each other. This is nothing like Love Actually in that I don’t recall one happy joy-joy moment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very good, but the shirt I was ironing at the point were the racist cop rescues the black woman from the burning car didn’t need a spray from the water jet. I was dripping, but not from my nose thank goodness.

So I watched an episode of Blade;the series to dry my eyes and bring me back to reality.

Next I put on Layer Cake. I had heard good things from Edna as she raved about Daniel Craig’s leading man role before he became the most famous secret agent in the world. It’s a good old fashioned movie about British gangsters and their shenanigans while dealing drugs, double crossing and killing each other. But still, right at the end it brought a quick tear that evaporated almost as soon as it appeared.

So I watched the next episode of Blade; the series and one of Fawlty Towers to really clear up any weepy stuff that lay in wait behind my eyeballs. A good Waldolf Salad will cure what ails you.

At Uni I’m doing Theory and Writing. Yes, I know it sounds poncy, that’s because it is. But I have to admit, I’m enjoying it a lot more than the first week indicated I might. Anyway…two of the books we have to read are Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and The Hours by Michael Cunningham which is based around the happening in Mrs. Dalloway and VW’s life. So I thought I’d cut out a little reading and just watch the movie The Hours. This one was nominated for 9 Oscars in 2003, but only won one, Best Actress for Nicole Kidman as the writer Virginia Woolf. Holy Crap…if I thought Crash made me cry… I had to stop ironing and sorting washing, I couldn’t see. I even thought I’d lost a contact lens at one point. Great movie though!

To top it off, even House had me snotting into a tissue and over babies of all things.

I’m not sure what came over me today. I’ve been tried for a while, but emotional too? Rarely do the two go hand in hand…ohh wait a minute…yes they do!

(538 words)

Unless of course...it was all someones idea of a joke?