NRL 2016 Round 5 - Panthers Vs Eels - Pirtek Stadium

Holy crap, do I love a live game and we couldn't have picked a better one to haul ourselves to, regardless of the fact that we were in total enemy territory - Pirtek Stadium in Parramatta. 

Yep, that's right, my sister and I were surrounded by a sea of blue and yellow (oh, sorry, 'gold' as the announcer kept saying - sure, mate!) and even in our own circle of attendance we were outnumbered, our little Penrith pair alongside a trio of Parra boys. 

Meanwhile, what a killer game. Starting is always a little slow as the guys warm up to things and honestly, considering how rusty the Panthers side is this year after a year of crippling injuries to key players, I wasn't gunning for a crazy start (not to mention, I was aware that I still needed a voice the next day, you know, for important things like work and karaoke. Screaming straight through for 80 minutes would never help there). Then again, it didn't take long for a couple of 'No Try' moments to each team to get everyone's blood starting to simmer and the current state of my voice is evident of the resultant boil. 

What followed was some pretty even play covering both ends of the field and then some rather confusing ref calls. Saying that, I reckon that the sum of all bad ref calls tends to even out between sides, if not in a game then in a season, so I don't tend to dwell too hard unless it's really worth it. There were no real moments of sheer outrage this time around (though maybe I'd feel differently if we had lost) and come half time, the game was tied 6-6. 

The second half was a roller coaster - Panthers got in first points but the lead diminished fairly quickly after some sloppy moments and a tackle that I was hoping against hope was a strip. Soon enough, the Eels had torn the lead away from them and time was thinning out and taking my voice and my sanity along with it. With only 5 minutes to go in the game, Eels were up 18-12, Mansour was able to sneak out the side and score a try, bringing us up to 18-16. When Soward missed the conversion, I could have cried. Instead a plaintive wail of 'nooooooo..!' had to suffice. 

Soon enough the buzzer was about to signal the end of the 80th minute and by that stage, my sister and I were on our feet, jumping up and down and emitting incoherent yelps toward the field. When the Panthers got another set of 6, I think I yelled 'Don't waste it! Don't waste it!' about 10 times before the ball moved deftly to our side of the field and next thing we knew, Soward had hauled the ball at Cartwright who then scored a try a bare 10-15 metres from where we stood going completely insane.

'Good game. Good game. Good game.' 

My sister and the place of Triumph - the winning try was scored right in that corner and right in front of our faces.

Though I definitely felt bad for the guys we went with, all rabid Eels fans, that my sister and I got to see this game live was simply fantastic. It was a great game all round, no write offs, no decidedly outrageous calls, no stupid fights, just footy played between two sides who put on a good show from beginning to end.

And honestly, little can beat the atmosphere of a live stadium - sure, it's a little harder to follow the action without the aid of handy camera angles but the big screen does its job and really there's nothing better than the power of a crowd roaring as one, the joy of finding fellow supporters among a sea of enemies (the two Panthers fans behind us were a riot), the little kids in their jerseys, with their flags, running around and just enjoying themselves and trying to get a handshake from Sparky, the Eels mascot, as he trails the barriers (or from the giant bottle of Fountain Tomato Sauce, poor thing was walking blind), and of course the usual taunts and cusses from the crowd - I love it all. 

Followed up (as we did) with a trip to Maccas and Harry's and you've got yourself a great Sunday night.

GO PANTHERS!!!

As the Sydney Writers' Festival looms, methinks it's time for a reading recap...

Another month down, 8 more books happily swallowed whole. Amazingly enough, the lineup I'll be attending at the festival this year is a lot more political and journalistic this time around, somewhat dotted with some literary odds and ends though it's hardly a complaint.

I'm writing this with The Outsiders playing in the background, something I've been compelled to rewatch since I finished the book. It would have killed me to have written something like that by the time I was 17. When I was that age, I was still scrounging through ideas for a fourth chapter for my socially-unlikely-friendship-cum-romance 'novel'. S.E. Hinton meanwhile was making striking social commentary and allowing people a real glimpse into youth and struggle at the time - no mean feat. Quite a bit of the book's insight gets a little lost in the movie, but it does a nice job of bringing the story to life.

I read that Hinton herself attests to the faithfulness of the movie and enjoyed the experience. Having just read the book, it's true. Sure, the acting and the direction are a tad odd at times (I say this fully aware that I am speaking of the great Francis Ford Coppola, I don't pretend to be an aficionado!) and the musical integration can get a little comical, but you can't deny that watching it from the future is a real trip - Swayze, Cruise, Dillon, Lowe, Estevez, Howell and the freaking Karate Kid as a bunch of ne'er do well Greasers is just so much damn fun.

And they're all so... pretty. Though that does match the book to some extent, particularly for the Curtis boys - Rob Lowe sure is one 'movie star handsome' Sodapop and Swayze's got the coldly good looking older Darry down pat.

Thanks to all the Schmoes Know videos I've been watching as of late, I find myself tempted to rate it... a temptation I shall now fight in order to get on with critiquing the books below:

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Upon reading the introduction for this story, I was quite surprised to find that it was written entirely as a form of propaganda and I was even more taken aback to discover just how successful it was in this goal. During the war, the story was widely and illicitly distributed by resistance forces within Nazi-occupied countries. Another fact of interest was the representation of the unspecified enemy as real human beings, something not particularly common back in those days. I'm accustomed to the notion of poster war propaganda which represented Germans as crazies and Japan as a growing octopus with tentacles attempting to engulf the world so I found it quite appealing to hear that the enemy were to be portrayed as men with families, thoughts, fears and normal desires.

Reading the story itself was very interesting and I'll state it is the most interesting piece of propaganda I've ever encountered. Oh, it is certainly that - though human, the misguided overconfidence and therefore the stark vulnerability of the invaders is still contrasted by the slow simmering of emotion among the townspeople who then begin to take matters into their own hands. And of course, the ultimate sacrifice is made by their leader who leaves behind the resounding message that the resistance shall indeed live on. Saying that, as a story, it is still very captivating and Steinbeck really knows how to get into the guts of simmering societal anguish (c.f. The Grapes of Wrath, a high recommendation). Of course, being so short (which it would have to be to be effective propaganda), you're got getting fleshed out characters here. We cover the basics of just who is who and then events take over. 

I'll confess I find the story's background, its dissemination and its overall effect far more interesting than the story itself, but I definitely still recommend it. It still has Steinbeck's narrative air, if not the poetic grace he was so capable of had he decided to create a more in depth piece of literature.

This was one hell of a read! Think of the most outrageous storyteller you know and just how often you find yourself thinking, 'Dude, you are so full of shit..!', while remaining hooked to every word. That is this book. The stunts and schemes that Frank Abagnale pulled off as a kid are frankly (heh) astounding! The man is the definition of balls of steel. Ok, so fair enough, the recklessness of youth could possibly attest for some of that insanity but this guy took it to every level possible. Clearly he was a whip smart kid and he would get an idea and then ride it through to the end with craft and cunning, but when it gets to the points where you forget this guy was 16, 17... hell, even 21, and that it all happened (at least one way or another), that is where things get incredible. 

Abagnale recounts this all with a fairly straightforward wit that sits well with all the scams and tales. He often acknowledges the fact that he didn't always know what he was doing and this is fun to read considering how well calculated his ideas were, even in the trial and error moments. Not only was the sheer audacity of those years of his life immensely entertaining, but I'm sure I wasn't the only reader who found themselves pondering what it would be like to have that kind of feckless confidence. Skill and brains are one thing, but he had guts. Not everyone has those. Seriously, Balls Of Steel. BOS(S).

A very, very happy re-read of an all-time favourite story. I have genuinely read this about 10 times, maybe more, and I know I will continue to read it again and again. Yep, 20 year old me, you did good chasing up a copy of the Body and thus thrusting us into our now 13 year long love of King. Thanks to the movie, most people know what the story is about and quite well too considering how faithful the movie was (Red's hair and other minor dramatic details aside though as Stephen King himself said, 'Books and films are like apples and oranges', and some things work better in each medium), however King's storytelling really does shine in novella form. As a man prone to a good digression, he only has so much room to do that in Shawshank and admittedly in this particular story, those digressions all absolutely belong. They set the scene for the world in which the characters live, they paint us living pictures of those characters and their lives and motivations and ultimately, this book was where my interest in prison and institutional psychology and culture was really born. I was fresh off of learning about recidivism in Psych and Law and to see the idea so well captured in this great story only drew me in further. It's a whole world in there and though King may have only captured some of those facets, he tells an incredible story of hope doing so and invites us to give a shit about a world we so often ignore and at worst, wish didn't exist.

Gaiman! You imaginative weirdo genius, you! I love the bizarre worlds you create through which my mind then gets to travel, desperately grabbing onto objects and moments here and there just so I can keep up and not get lost. A brilliant ride through London Below and seeing how well Richard Mayhew will survive the literally upside down turning about of his life. This is honestly the most entertained I've ever been by a mythical quest story and that is saying a lot considering I don't usually find them that appealing and I'm not a big fantasy fiction consumer. I loved the ambiguity surrounding the various characters and Messrs Croup and Vandemar are now officially two of my favourite cutthroats - hilarious psychos who truly revel in death. Gaiman's writing just lets my brain start tugging at images it would have otherwise never needed schemas for and I love that. The inside of his mind must be so, so interesting and so complex and I am so grateful that he has been so kind as to let us get such glimpse in there through his books and tales.

So I decided to just put all of the Cabots in one considering they are all pretty much the same book with a few adjustments in character and name and narrative format. Also, it took me all of one evening to down all three, a certainly entertaining evening. Man, I remember reading Boy Meets Girl for the first time back in 2004 and thinking it was just the cleverest thing ever - a story (and a love story no less) written entirely in letters, work memos, emails, journal entries and notes taken on whatever paper could possibly be available. It certainly made consumption of the hilariously thin romance much more fun and honestly, that all applies to each and every one of the above stories. The formulas are the same - girl meets boy under circumstances which make her either hate or doubt said boy, despite a clear attraction immediately sparking between them, and then said pair then encounter hilarious perils to their better understanding one another in the form of dopey miscommunication, presumption and evil exes/parents/employers/etc. They're certainly fun stories to read in the right mood and I was clearly in that mood thanks to a workmate who had also recently decided to give Cabot a re-read. To be fair, out of all the chick lit I've read, these are among the best and the least insufferable.

I loved this book. As I mentioned above, Hinton was 17 when she wrote this and I could only wish my 17 year old self had the coherence to construct such a poignant narrative as the one she shares with us via Ponyboy Curtis. Class struggle and adolescence are pretty much your perfect mix for melodrama but I personally didn't find the book melodramatic at all - Hinton wrote like the teen that she was and she was very self-aware in her story. Much like any (non-douchey) teen would, Ponyboy would share a moment of clarity and then immediately follow it up with an acknowledgement of the fact that it's just an idea, a brain fart, what does he know? His journey from artsy Greaser to a kid who realises that the world isn't as simple as he once thought was one I enjoyed getting to share because despite all the shit he's seen and everything his family and friends have been through, he's still so innocent and the still untouched youth inside of him shines right through. He's endearing without being a wimp, he's artistic without being a douchebag and in his brief self-destructive phase, you're too busy feeling for him to mind his being a total asshat. I really cared about this kid and his brothers and I really cared about what was going to happen, despite the fact that I already knew having seen the movie before. Hell of a job on your first novel, Hinton. Super Tuff.

Next on the list and as yet unstarted:

I am looking forward to this. I've only read one other Woolf - Mrs Dalloway - and it is a favourite so I look forward to seeing what else Woolf is capable of.

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And now onwards! I present the obligatory book related GIF or pic below:

Oh yeah, that's totally me.