Glee in Glebe on a Saturday

Today had such a nice, relaxed, nostalgic feel to it, and the only annoyance was the crazy bumper-to-bumper traffic that seemed to be everywhere - all afternoon! so much for the petrol prices everyone complains about.

It's been a while since I've been to inner-city Glebe - but I wanted to gather up some reasonably priced Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander children's books for school/work, and past experience had told me that Gleebooks is usually the best port of call for these items. The staff were so helpful - at one point I had three staff members scurrying around at my whim - and any chance to wander through their children's and second hand collections is a pleasure. ("You can smell the shop before you get there", to quote - loosely - the line from "84 Charing Cross Road".) Because that store is at the opposite end of Glebe Point Road to their other bookstore, it meant that Jack and I had a great stroll past all the amazingly eclectic curio shops and cafes in between. And - more colourful than ever: Glebe Saturday markets in the grounds of the primary school. Jack found lots of happy, friendly, Glebe doggies to touch noses with.

Gleebooks also had three of the CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) shortlisted books I've been after. Thanks to the shop's trusty computer cataloguing, they identified that three of my elusive (ie. "awaiting reprint") needs were sitting, forgotten, on shelves somewhere in the well-stocked shelves! Every year it's like a crazy little hide 'n' seek game I love to play: how quickly can I round up all of the shortlisted titles for the school library. Thanks to Gleebooks today, my search is almost over for 2008. (Of course, but the time Book Week comes along, all of the books will be freely available in most bookshops - but I want to use them in my teaching in the lead up to Book Week in Term Three, not after the event.)

It's a shame so many of the Glebe stores are vacant now, victims of the nearby Broadway Centre shopping mall that has evolved from the old Grace Bros buildings. Where Grace Bros and Glebe shops had survived, almost side-by-side for decades, so harmoniously, it now seems like the might of the all-inclusive air-conditioned mall has done its job and killed off a lot of the life from the street shopping strip.
i recall in the 70s and 80s, people waited for restaurateurs to die before they could rent an empty shop in Glebe!

For three years (1977-1979), I spent many an afternoon or lunch break strolling through Grace Bros at Broadway, eventually venturing further afield into Glebe and its amazing shops, during my years at the Guild Teachers College. Then, for a while in the late 80s and early 90s, it was worth going back to Glebe Point Road every so often just to see what was for sale in weird shops like Half a Cow (now long gone) and second hand bookshops such as Cornstalk Books.

I've also been squealing with delight over some recent Amazon online purchases. The official soundtrack album of "Ironman", a few tricky-to-find old science fiction paperbacks (postage will be more than the $1 or so for the book, but who cares - I found them at last!), and some television rarities on DVD. Yes - I'm a happy shopper in both real and virtual bookshops.

For all the criticism that goes on about Amazon, such as odd quirks in their product descriptions, I still think they do an amazing job. It has become such a comprehensive website - with all their links to the international second hand and remaindered markets - that it's a rare thing to seek out a book (from any era) and not be able to get any leads. I can forgive their sometimes-bizarre semi-automated computer listings any errors that inevitably creep in. My days of haunting bricks 'n' mortar bookshops, week after week, on fruitless searches for impossible-to-find-stuff are mostly gone. Now when I go into such a store I can browse at leisure, not search frantically.

There is also a recent exciting eBay purchase, but I'll save that story for when it arrives from Melbourne - hopefully Monday - by registered post.

Guest star Gene

Here's a graphic novel with a great Star Trek twist: "Roswell, Texas" by L. Neil Smith, Rex F. May, Scott Beiser, and Jen Zach was just published by Big Head Press.

March 5, 1836: Davy Crockett kills General Santa Anna with a single 600-yard rifle shot. The Alamo still falls to the Mexican Army, but Crockett escapes to join Sam Houston. The delay at the Alamo gives Houston time to prepare.

July 4, 1947: Lieutenant Gene Roddenberry, a young Texas Air Militia pilot, shoots down an unidentified flying disk near Roswell, western-most city in the Federated States of Texas. Agents from the United States, the California Republic, the Franco-Mexican Empire, and the Third-and-a-Half Reich all want to learn the flying disk's secrets.

Gene Roddenberry is one of many familiar characters in this alternate history tale. The book is printed in black & white, but you can read the entire story, in color, online or just the sequence of pages and the closeup featuring Lt Roddenberry.

I just ordered an as-new b/w book version from an Amazon second hand market seller, as Amazon itself is still awaiting stock.

Sunday in the Park with Jack

Okay, it's all Stephen Sondheim's fault. I've been playing the Broadway cast album of "Sunday..." today - I bought it years ago via Amazon because Brent Spiner (Data, "Star Trek: The Next Generation") was in it - but I'd only ever played it the once before.

I'm really enjoying it; the song "Lesson #8" brought tears to my eyes, hearing it again. I love finally getting to understand all of the words in a musical by playing catch-up with the soundtrack album after the big event.

I found this pic of Jack - who's currently really, really keen on going to the park - except it's raining. So here's a virtual park for ya, little matey. Sorry about the inclement weather. Who'd have thought it after the heat of yesterday?

Party mix

Okay, so I bought a big bag of Kenman's Party Mix lollies (candy for the US readers) - and they're 99% fat free - but they are not the expected traditional varieties. No snakes, no bananas, no black cats, no strawberries-and-cream. A few jelly babies, sure, but the rest of them are quasi-fruit jellies in "party" shapes: little chocolate ice cream cones, cupcakes, drink bottles, shooting stars, life-sized lips, mobile phones(?) and decapitated clown heads. And you know what? Those clown heads taste funny. Boom, boom.



On Friday a parcel arrived from Amazon. About two months ago, I finally tracked down a cute little Christmas ditty that Baz & Pilko (Barry Ion and Tony Pilkington) used to play in the late 80s on Sydney radio station 2UW's breakfast show, now the home of MIX 106.5 FM. Every Christmas, little comedy guest voice, "Peter Plus", used to introduce a song, supposedly sung by his kid sister, "Personality". (Personality Plus, get it?)

The song concerned someone, strongly suspected of being Santa Claus, who was stuck in the chimney on Christmas Eve, and met his demise up there, and was still stuck a day, then a week, then a month, then a year later. "Plussy" (voice of Barry Ion, IIRC) never gave a lot of notice that the song was about to be played, so taping it off-air was impossible. At the time, and over several years, I tried to find out the details of the song, since I suspected it was a commercial track from the USA. Rummaging through the Comedy Section of many record shops didn't bear fruit. A friend, who knew one of the 2UW on-air personalities, music guru Gary Jaegar, also drew a blank. Gary had told us the song was probably someone's old demo track and therefore not available on record. So I stopped looking.

Well, thanks to the wonders of Google and the Internet, typing in Santa "stuck up in the chimney" brought me, not only the full song lyrics to "The Chimney Song", as sung by one Lorna List, but also a link to Amazon and the CD version, on which the song is available as Track #2. And so "Twisted Christmas" (1987), by the Bob Rivers Comedy Corp, arrived at my place - after a short delay while Amazon restocked (in time for Christmas, I presume) - but missing my Midwinter Christmas party by a full two weeks. Sigh.

Gosh! The coveted lyrics are now available as a ringtone, and even as a little window for a web page! Isn't technology marvellous?

It was Amazon's second recording miracle in recent months. My dog, Jack, accidentally broke a friend's precious 78 RPM record of Spike Jones and His City Slickers singing the novelty song, "Wild Bill Hiccup" (1949). This was a song from Maria's childhood - or, more likely, her mother's childhood - which the family played on her grandmother's antique, hand-cranked record player - and Jack destroyed the 78 in one, ah, record leap onto a chair (after the stack had been moved during some renovations to their house). Good ol' Amazon. Look what I found with a little diligent searching. Now, I'm sure my friend won't need to hear "Wild Bill Hiccup" on CD all that often, but at least I know that she can, if she so desires, and without thinking black thoughts about Jack-be-nimble and his mountain goat-like feats.