Bits of Brisbane: South Bank Market

2006 Brisbane Writers Festival (13/9-17/9)

"The readers can forgive you for publishing your next book late. But they will not forgive you if you publish a crappy book next." - Rebecca Sparrow

 

The air was fresh. My sights were clear. I have never waked up in the morning in the longest time. And this was what it felt like.

On September 14, things kicked off officially for the Brisbane Writers Festival at Cultural Forecourt in South Bank. Marquees were set up. Four with colours – red, blue, yellow and green. One was a river, although it was the farthest away from the river compared to the other four. But it was larger, nonetheless. There was a marketplace, where writing related communities set up to lure writers-to-be in. Somewhere for them to pursue their fantasised careers further. There was a café. There was a bookshop. Writers would go there after their sessions for book signing sessions. Some would be as popular as a long teetering row flowing out of the marquee. Other writers just sat and wait for their almost non-existent fans to stop by. They would be nice because there were only a few.

Everything a writer could ever ask for. An alfresco coffee overlooking the gurgling Brisbane River while conceiving ever more a plot bunny. And a tent nearby to marvel at their past masterpieces. An affirmation. Yes, I have made it.

I have signed up to be a volunteer for the first two days. Something to do, I guess. It was time to network although I doubt when things have been said and done, we will move on with our individual lives not remembering faces we have smiled at. Next year, we will introduce ourselves again like strangers being too nice to one another. But it was a good chance for me to recognise some local writers seeing that I have only came to Brisbane in less than a year. It was a nice time to know who is who.

I was thrown around doing things I have never done in my entire life. I can now apply for positions in cafés because I have the experience of setting up outdoor umbrellas heavier than myself. I can now apply to be a messenger boy/girl because I have the experience of distributing packages in time before sessions commenced. I challenged my physical being. I killed my two little feet; damn you new Chuck Taylors. Yet. There was something to do. I felt useful. I slept well for two nights.

Half of the time I was ushering in individual marquees. I was in the River Marquee on the first day and the Green Marquee on the second day. Under the commands of venue managers with headsets to set them apart from normal ushers, I ran small errands and made sure I am doing well. I approached strangers offering empty seats, half of them declining my goodwill because they were just passer-bys. Some were grateful and occupied backseats. One of the sessions on emerging writers was bursting. People kept on coming in and the marquee could not hold everyone. We had to set up chairs outside the marquee and turned up the sound system. It started to drizzle but the audience were persistent. The secured their seats and huddled under their umbrellas. Alas. The Gods were kind. The rain did not gain momentum. Some times, the sessions were this popular. Other times, the crowd was disdainful. We had to segregate them instead of having them spread out all over the marquee. I wondered how the writers would feel seeing such bad outcome. Would they be thankful still of the ones who had shown up.

On the nigh I ended my volunteering, I attended a session at the Brisbane Powerhouse. Getting there was half the excitement. I got on the wrong bus and ended up in West End when I should be heading to the other side in New Farm. I walked a good distant not having the slightest idea if I was going in the right direction. Until at last, the neon lights of a salvation P stood clear from afar. I made it just in time.

The session was about emerging gay writer and how they came about. I sat amongst the thin crowd, 90% of which were homosexuals. I was the minority and I was not quit sure why I decided to pat $8 to attend this session. I have the most peculiar fascinations. Things were a flat line until the session was nearing the end and someone – most probably a lesbian – behind me raised a question of sexism in the panel. The crowd became separated in two as I watched sitting on the picket fence, trying to get a hold on what was happening in front of my eyes. They were so close to throwing chairs at the opposite sex. Granted alcohol was served that night. It might be possible. The chairperson was posed ready to spring from his seat just in case someone did the honours, as he explained dipped in nervousness that he had nothing to do with the all-male panel. I was amused. You would have thought this would happen between homophobes and homosexuals.

I would have walked the creepy road back to the bus stop to head home after the session. Instead, I stuck around, testing my blistered toe in the waters of a Brisbane writer’s life. Network I did over a glass of vodka and lime with my gay lecturer and her company. A flamboyant friend was drunk over his glass of wine. He asked me three times what I was studying. My lecturer supersized my drink and held my hands giving me probably the best advice I could have ever received, be it from a drunkard or a sober person. She grabbed my face and told me I was a beautiful person. I could only smile politely. The next thing I knew, I was strolling past the dark New Farm Park laughing at things only humorous to intoxicated fellows. We sat ourselves down at the end of the line. Gertie’s. Where all the happening people are at, my lecturer said. Credibility was to be questioned because she was really wasted.

I returned home on a cab at two in the morning.

God wept at my unholy lifestyle of getting drunk and hanging out with gay people the next morning. Saturday was a gloomy day as we made our way to the showground to attend a session on emerging writers from Universities in Queensland. Some were interesting; I had a good laugh. Others were just deadpan. I found myself spacing out in the easiest way. I have never really planted my own two feet on the ground. I am always floating in midair. I dreamed of myself having the honours of doing my readings in such sessions. People clapping for me. Half of them not even sure what the heck I was writing about. Then, I fantasised myself launching books in such festivals. Going to panels sitting at the front of an overflowing audience. Talking about a book I created from scratch. Reading bits and pieces to people all ears for something different. It was a beautiful life. I had gone as ambitiously as seeing myself on Oprah. Life was beautiful.

I purchased three books. Swiping my father’s card thin. If I looked close enough, I could see the golden surface turning a dull grey. No, not really.

I bought Andrew Stafford’s Pig City. I read an excerpt from his book in my tutorial readings from last semester. He seemed lyrically dark. There were copies of his book lying around my tutors and lecturers’ offices and that was already saying something. John Birmingham, probably one of those famous Brisbane writers, had his review splayed on the front cover of the book.

I bought Alasdair Duncan’s Metro. People looked up to him. People said he was the new voice of youth. Maybe I did not buy his book because of what other people said. My influence was not really based on what everyone thinks. Maybe I bought his book because I just have the most peculiar fascination ever.

I bought Rebecca Sparrow’s The Girl Most Likely. Because she was funny when she guest lectured a few weeks back. She turned her life upside down and wrote a joke about it. I wish I could have half the humour in her blood. I wish I could do the same for my life.

I got the latter two to sign the books after their session on Sunday.

Thus, ended the Brisbane Writers Festival for me. I came out on the other side brim full of inspiration waiting to be penned down. Alas. I am slow. I am dense. Like always, I will sit watching the bunnies flapping their wings around my head, tempting me to write them out of my system. Write something worthwhile. Be a God. Yet I sat around anticipating the day they would eventually die like rejected sperms in a girl’s body because only one sperm had the honours of impregnating her. Lucky sperm.

A Merdeka Day (Gratitious) Post

"Although it's not quite paradise, but it sure feels like home." - Bliss

 

Everyone has a post on this eventful day. I did want to post one up myself but decided the heck with it. And then I saw all my friends with one, so I decided to resuscitate mine. Be forewarned that it is not the most loving post you may come across. In fact, my ass may be censored because you should know how our country operates. So I shall cross my buns and hope that nobody will take this even more personally than it already should.

It was probably just another public holiday to spend. When I was younger, I would wake up at a fairly early time in the morning (if compared to my sleeping ins of older years) and there would be Nyonya kuihs on the dining table alongside my favourite Hokkien Mee. This was not some National Day tradition my family upheld religiously. My childhood life was, after all, smacked right at the heart of Penang’s most crowded area. Delicious hawkers food was just a few minutes’ walk down the forever jammed roads. We would munch on our local breakfast and watch marching parades broadcast live from Kuala Lumpur. We would marvel at the simultaneous precision that were the uniformed militaries and would perk up whenever the Boys’ Brigade march pass. My father was the captain for the 8th coy.

Then, I found myself being in the parades in high school. Not those in Kuala Lumpur, where your royal spectator was the King himself. Penang has its own parades to boot at various switches of venues between some open field in Butterworth and Esplanade. I was involved in these Merdeka parades for four years during high school. Different high school marching bands were there to lead different sections of the parade. While they were at it, they made a competition out of it. Anonymous judges hid amongst the crowds, beside the main stage, behind that coconut tree and acted like local civilians there for the show. The winners would be announced probably a week later. We would always be biting our nails and hoping for the best. Then they started not positioning us and decided to give us Cermerlangs and Emases. Something to do with hurting people’s feelings, who knows. I was never one to mingle with politics.

I would get up in the most ungodly hours in the morning to get myself ready for the parades. Days of hard practices under the sun being yelled at, marching in artificial unison and getting the commands right, polishing our instruments until they grow blisters and cutting holes on our brand new gloves. All of these were boiled down to probably five hours of waiting and one hour of showcasing. It was great chance to show off animosity towards the other school bands. We would cross path with them as we go in a round. One time, we finished our round and marched past a co-ed school I shall not name here. They decided to turn up the volume of their drum solos for the heck of messing up our own drum solos and snicker as they see our footsteps get messed up and we ended up marching to their matra instead. My ex-drum major, then merely a member, was at the sideline, decided to give a shove at one of the members. Oh the patriotism. This went on for three years. From being a clueless junior to a sidebar senior. My last year saw myself leading the pack carrying a playcard. Even I was leading the drum major. Actually that did not give me much superior significance. I was just a poor senior pushed up to the plate when nobody wanted to act as bait.

Truth be told, I am not a very patriotic Malaysian out there. Shame on me. I do feel a little bad when I heard my friend *coughEsthercough* announcing proudly for having MAS as her all-time national carrier and loving every nook and cranny of the capitol. I was not able to convert patriotism into my blood no matter how hard they tried. In primary school, we were giving recycled paper-material lyrics of the National Anthem, the State Anthem and some famous patriotic song along with our school anthem. We had to underline the words we normally would sing wrong. We had been for maybe two years before the saviour of them lyrics. As we progressed to Standard 4, we were technically seniors and had to recite the Rukun Negara in Malay and Mandarin. I swear, I can still recite the Mandarin version. I just did it. You should see how we rushed the six lines just so we could finally sit down. It was quite dreadful for us kids back in those days. Singing four songs and reciting two allegiences without moving an inch or crouching our bodies.

In high school, we were forced to have National Day related assemblies on the school field. They rallied us to the front of our school way too early for anyone to give a flying fuck and make us do patriotic things. I do not really remember. Some classes were chosen to do marathons from somewhere to the Botanical Gardens just around the corner. We were all crossing our fingers we would not be picked. Pity those that did. We had to spring clean our classrooms as well. I think it was because some big shot was going to do tours in our school. Or not. The Principal just loved having us do something to honour patriotism. She does not want to feel bad we do not even care. There were probably a lot more tasks she put on us but alas, they were nothing but an invisible speck of dust in my mind. Granted I do delve into my head often enough to keep the surface polished and dust-free. However, of course she would threaten us greatly with demerit marks if we ever go against her will. Our school loves doing that. Threatening helpless students. Unfortunately, we woke up one day and realised demerit marks will not make any difference on us when we leave school.

There were cheesy commercials on National Day spilled all over the television channels. You cannot run away from it even if you are watching satellite television. Every five minutes an advertisement will come on reminding us that by midnight the great someone will be giving a Merdeka speech. Not that we would wait by and listen to him talking about God-knows-what - I do not even know what is there to talk about in a Merdeka speech; big shots are weird - but I guess the channel stations just enjoy annoying us with the advertisement. Something to do. We Malaysians are a bored bunch, you see. Petrol stations, mini-markets, convenient stores, and basically everywhere else with a cashier counter to boot set up a little corner selling the Malaysia flag to attach to the roof of your car. People do buy them. Kids who do not have cars will purchase those plastic Malaysia flags with colourful sweets inside the transparent pole. They are most wanted hot cakes. Hurray to those who rip money off of those who actually are patriotic. Especially when the occasion nears, these cute flags can be seen erecting on the top of every car zooming down the street, basking in the strong oncoming wind, fluttering their proud Jalur Gemilangs. I have seen some who have two instead of one. Some went all the way, jabbing the car from front to back, top to bottom with the flags, and shielding the bonnet with another big ass Malaysia flag. Some even have loudspeakers on. But I am sure they are just hired advertisers. It just makes me wonder if they are really that patriotic or they just love the gawking attention.

The politics got on quite a riot while I was away. I refuse to pass any judgements here because if you know me, I tend to stay as far away from any form of politics possible. I do not read the newspapers – yes, and I was majoring Journalism. Even when I do, I would read the comics and horoscope. That is like the only one page I pay attention to. If I can save myself, at least I enjoy It’s A Durian Life. So yes. Things are dirty in politics. They do not wash their hands under the tables. Then again, no politics is ever one without being filthy. Can you ever trust your children heading out to play without coming home mud-stricken? It is the tragic beauty of life.

On some days I may gain interest for my country. The riot. The rudeness. The traffic jams. The clueless gatherings at alleged celebrity visiting sites and definitely at brand spanking new spaces. The crappy music selections repeated again and again on radio stations. It is after all something I have grown up with, something I have gotten used to. Those years of forcefeeding patriotism down our throats do work out. There lives my family. There stays my house. There gathers my friends. I guess, it will always be somewhere we will find ourselves ending up in.