New Year, New Reads

Hooked on phonics is one way you could describe me, clearly, and what's a new year without a new list of great reads to come? Already, I have embarked on a novel (punny, huh?) approach to my own personal reading - 3 books at once: 

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Above is the one into which I have most delved thus far and I am loving it. Clearly, I have an affinity for American authors and Faulkner's stream of southern consciousness style has primed me for getting completely engrossed in Steinbeck's tale of landowners evicted from their homes and their resulting struggle to establish a whole new life. So far, I am indeed in love.

I'm a chapter in, having always wanted to read it and having never summoned the guts till now. So far, I am absolutely fascinated, however my one lamentation is that my powers of retention are so, so poor. I rejoice at being able to fathom the concepts he is describing and I weep at the fact that the minute I put the book down, they pour out into the (disproved) ether. Rehearsal and retention - my two weakest muscles. I hope I can make this book the beginning of a good workout for them this year.  

As yet, unstarted, however I am very, very excited. Another book I've been wanting to read for a very long time, although just never got around to it. All who know me know I believe in the existence of an entity of real evil and though I'm fully aware these letters are entirely fictional, I look forward to the study of the nature of good, evil and humanity that will undoubtedly flow from its pages.

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This early literary burst to the year can be credited to the lovely lady at the secondhand book store in Epping and my very own brother. The Grapes of Wrath, I found at Epping, among a pile of other titles I'm massively looking forward to (including Middlesex! Finally! Eugenides, I adore you).

The triple book score however can be attributed to my brother's fantastic little library (by which I mean big bag o' books) from which I obtained A Brief History Of Time and The Screwtape Letters. I recently Instagrammed a photo of my little haul from his books which included the latter two and a few more studies and histories of philosophy, logic as well as the SAS Survival Guide. LOVE having siblings who read a variety of books outside of my own.

Ah yes! I very nearly forgot the Sandman graphic novels on loan to me from my workmate, Elena!

I finally read Gaiman last year and loved him and I know this particular series of works is highly acclaimed so I really can't wait to see what all the fuss is about, especially as I haven't actually read a graphic novel since Watchmen. I definitely cannot wait for our night with Neil Gaiman coming up at the end of the month. I want to see this talented man in action!

So here's to the new worlds, insights and characters that await me in 2015 - hook me up, phonics, let's do this :)

A very, very true article I read and wanted to share...

Plane crashes, terrorism, random violence - new realities amid our relative security 

by Waleed Aly

From the article:

'Here's the thing: in our streets, in our bank accounts and in the air, we in Australia lead about the safest, most secure lives of any people. Ever. Our real income is up and the road toll is down (the lowest since 1945, by the way). We live without any genuine prospect of political strife. We're not about to be invaded or bombed with nuclear weapons – our most feared enemies have knives and guns, not armies in tanks. We're not likely to be decimated by some disease or virus – Ebola or otherwise. Yes we have problems, but they're the kind most of our species could only have dreamed of having. And yet that's so easy to forget because there's this continuous, churning fear.

Our mortal selves aren't under threat, here. But the myths we've built about ourselves very much are. The myth that our addiction to alcohol is innocently, endearingly larrikin, for example. Or that the problems of the world – like Russia's incursion into Ukraine or the disaster of Iraq and Syria – have no call on us and simply don't raise their heads in Sydney or Paris. Indeed the myth – that incidentally underscores how cheerfully we'll slash foreign aid – that we can set ourselves apart as (largely uninterested) onlookers: that the world is a sideshow to which we'll occasionally buy a ticket, but not our society.'

It has certainly been a hell of a year.

As I've already had my rant about Islamophobia, I'm not going to repeat myself on the matter. What with Martin Place, Charlie Hebdo, the continuing horror in Nigeria (which, if magnitude were measured by media coverage, one would assume only involved a handful of victims as opposed to the hundreds more people and the ongoing nature of the onslaught), alongside the sheer reach of news nowadays, Islam has never had a higher profile. 

{{ If anything, as always, what follows these sorts of events is a pretty decent display of human nature's extremities - those calling for the death of all Muslims, beating their chests about how these attacks prove without a shadow of a doubt that all Islam is the root of evil, etc, etc. Then you have those who immediately jump to the defence of all Muslims (not a bad thing) and attack those who would dare to say anything potentially critical and citing agendas left, right and centre, without a glance at the victims and the perpetrators. }}

Ultimately, however, it can't be denied that our existence down here in Australia could not be more sanitised - whether it be by our sheer historical youth (something only made more glaringly clear on my recent trip to Europe) or our cultural propriety, though we certainly bear scars from the inevitably deep wounds endured by any colonised country with an indigenous population, as the article stated, we are a country neither plagued by real famine, violent social upheaval or any kind of real threat - or even experience - of invasion. Though our freedoms are flawed, one could argue that that is more to do with the very flawed nature of freedom itself as opposed to our country actively oppressing us in ways that could ever begin to compare with places like North Korea or Russia.   

In terms of our exposure to active bouts of violence or even visual displays of real carnage, our news coverage is clearly censored or otherwise plastered with warnings of 'graphic images'. We barely see real live active horror onscreen, let alone in real life. Compare this to Filipino news where, when I watched it for the very first time, they were covering a story about a road accident and as the camera panned over the scene, I watched mindlessly for a few seconds before having to blink and exclaim, 'Is that a dead body? Is that the guy right there? Oh my gosh!' The dead man was clearly there on the screen, still, mangled, bloody and completely uncensored. My eyes, so much more accustomed to footage of fully zipped gurneys or camera shots aiming just that inch over from accidents courtesy of Australian news, were wide with shock and horror. And that was from a news report. Of a road accident. 

The next news item was actually worse - a case of escalated road rage in a country not only in possession of guns, but hot and high temperatures. The images in my memory are somewhat fuzzy, but the most outstandingly clear image is of the men actively shooting at each other at surprisingly close range, protected only by ducking behind their vehicle doors. Again, I was shocked. Although again, this was still just footage of a crazy road rage incident. 

Essentially, though the media insists on telling us that we are becoming desensitised to violence and gore in society, this doesn't include one very particular form of desensitisation - the kind that comes with actual personal experience. Outside of those who have come from countries filled with turmoil or those who have travelled to fight, work or live in such countries, the most people down here have had to endure are occasional bouts. 

This is not to diminish these events as real, shocking and genuinely frightening events - to this day, thanks to Wade Frankum and his shooting at Strathfield Plaza in 1991, 23 years ago, though it has weakened significantly over the years, I still experience hesitance when thinking of going there. For years, it made me wary of Strathfield in general. Sure, you could blame my childish naivete for such fears but even now, at 32, some of it still remains. After 23 years. Hell, 18 years after the fact, the words, 'Port Arthur' are still kind of chilling, all thanks to Martin Bryant. 

But at the end of the day, a large part of why these incidents are so shocking is because they still stand out as relatively rare. We compare ourselves to places like America and we feel secure in the fact that that stuff just doesn't happen here. Australia's last high profile hostage taking was in 1984, 30 years ago (though there have been a few incidents in between, it is still a very small number over a 30 year spread). Compared to the number of reported shootings in the US alone, we're doing a lot better. These incidents are rare, which adds to their level of horror. 

Whereas in other parts of the world, this sort of terror is a way of life. Syria, Iraq and Nigeria could not stand out more right now. Or how about Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Eastern Ukraine, just to name a couple more. In places like these, the possibility of raids, kidnappings and straight up slaughter is actually a part of every day living. 

Life is nothing at all like that here in Australia. Not one bit. And true, this has led to the degree of separation many down under feel from the rest of the world's woes. And true, this sense of distance from those harsher realities was shaken, a lot, on December 15 last year as we all watched as those hostages stood with their arms raised against the windows of the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place. And truly, it all did not feel like something that belonged here in Sydney, least of all at Martin Place in the Lindt Cafe, but watching it unfold, the myth to which Aly refers took a solid beating.

Now the bigger, more widely (if subconsciously) perpetuated myth that needs busting? That events of any kinds like these belong anywhere.

2015, it is on!

One of the last pics taken of me in 2014 courtesy of @jenifarrrrr - NYE 14/15 and wearing my favourite kind of flowers - the fake kind!

2015 has already been both turbulent but still incredible... and it's barely Day 3. 2014 (worldly horrors aside) was a blast; I watched some of my very favourite people find love, get engaged, get married, have their first/second kids and achieve some other freaking amazing lifelong career dreams. In the meantime, I too was able to not only revive some of my greatest loves (particularly writing, music and drawing) and share them (leading to one of the most insanely awesome and unforgettable moments EVER), make some beautiful, beautiful friends, as well as live out one of my longest standing dreams in finally making it to Europe, but in doing all that also realised I had been able to fulfil a buried life goal - I've built a life I neither need nor want a vacation from making any such thing a lifelong bonus. That life is flawed, full of pitfalls and most definitely begging for improvement, but it is mine and I couldn't love it more, proverbial warts and all. Whatever this year is or isn't, it will be just as awesome if only for that.

Bring it the fuck on, 2015.