A Red Leap into The Arrival

Each time that I open it, The Arrival by Shaun Tan makes me gasp with surprise and delight.  If you have seen this book before, I assure you, it is high time to march yourself down to the library and borrow it!  So do!  The pictures are stunning!  It has not words, but the pictures so beautifully articulate every pulsating emotion and trembling utterance that no words are wanted.  It is a truly remarkable experience. 

The Arrival has been adapted into a...  I suppose it is really a 'play' by the Red Leap Theatre group of New Zealand.  I have posted two videos showing scenes from this play.  The first goes fro three minutes, and shows little snatches, while the second goes for ten minutes, and allows for a deeper peek at the performance.  I was first shown this by my drama teacher, who is also very passionate about this book.  It exudes exactly the whimsical and quirky atmosphere that dusts the pages of the book. 

For a quick peek..

or for a considerably longer peek...

After peeking either way, are you feeling intrigued?  I plan to share as many of the visual conventions of my process drama assignment based on the concepts of The Arrival as possible within the next week, (it's due in less than a week), and hopefully, after taking such a small sip from Shaun Tan's cup, you'll be licking your lips and borrowing the book!  I am so sure that you'll enjoy it.  Words or no words, a book-lover will be lovingly enfolded in the story the pictures tell. 

The Boat

I don't have all that much time to devote to talking tonight, so I will quickly rattle off the things upmost in my mind.

1. No body has thought to suggest a book for the 100 Books to Read Before You Die list in such a long time.  I know that I have hundreds of books that I think you should all read before you die, so you must have at least a couple.  So why don't you think of one, or two, or even three of your favourites, the ones that you want to make the world acknowledge, ones that have slipped through the fingers of society and have settled at the bottom of the shelf to be discovered for its greatness by YOU.  Those are the ones that you just have got to share.  I know that you know what I mean. 
2. I would like you all to know that I am someone that you can just ramble about what you're reading to.  I do it to you, so you can certainly ramble on back.  What are you reading at the moment?  What do you love about it?  What is it that is burning on your mind to just say, but no one you know would value hearing it?  That is the sort of stuff you can unload here, because we're book-lovers and I'm pretty sure that everyone who reads Bouquets is in the same boat.  That's what Bouquets is trying to be - the boat that we're all in.  Hmm.  That kind of cute and comical.  Is it just me?

That's all that's floating about on the surface of my mind right this moment!  Do you think maybe we can achieve some of these things? 

Nessie on This Side of Paradise

This is my finished product! As an example, I wrote a letter in the role of an immigrant writing home to his family after a week in a new country, and folded it into a crane, following the video I posted yesterday. It's amazing how easy it is to do a second time! Really, I think that I could probably do it again by myself, so that really is saying a lot, don't you reckon? Granted, it does look a bit like the Loch Ness monster.

I certainly hope that you all have similar success if you give it a go. I also had a look at some 'magic balls', and had my living daylights stunned straight out of me like frightened rabbits! Have a peek on Youtube at origami magic balls. That is just not fair, I think. How incredible is it?

By the way, I bought two new books today, on the spur of the moment! It was quite something, actually! I was in Borders, (which to my utter dismay and incredulity is closing down), and bought F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon and This Side of Paradise. And they are beautiful copies too - gorgeous textured cardboard hard cover with crisp, metallic geometrically patterned dust jackets. They are very VERY pretty, (pretty being a word that I use with unbelievable sincerity and solemnity), and I am in agony thinking about how long it is going to take me to read the next three or four books before I will get to read them! Uurghh! Isn't it incredible how the to-read list of a book-lover is the only to-do list on earth that will NEVER EVER IN ETERNITY stop growing! Do you ever get frantic wondering how you are going to get the time in your life to read everyone that you feel you have to? I know it's not possible that I'm the only one!

Finding and Folding

As you already know, I am currently designing a proccess drama as an assignment, and I have decided, after numerous little tribulations, to base it off the spectacular Shaun Tan book, The Arrival.  In this picture book, the main character, an immigrant, writes letter to his family, folding them in the shape of a paper crane for his daughter.  I fancifully thought that it would be utterly delightful to have my participants fold their messages into cranes, as one of the conventions in the narrative, and so, with this luminous vision in mind, trotted onto the web to find some instructions. 

I'm sure that everybody in the world has tried to be good at origami.  It's the same sort of attraction that makes the idea of being a Rubik's cube, sudoku or tapdancing prodigy appealing.  And everybody in the world who has felt this appeal has been sooner or later stumped, snubbed and stomped on by the blatant lack of intelligible instructions! 

Several web pages, fingers and square papers later, I was now at least 20 points lower in IQ and beginning to feel pessimistic.  Then I found this little Youtube number. 

This guy shows (and what's more, tell you how) to fold a paper crane, and he does it much more simply than any other site I visited.  He explains very clearly and not too fast, so that there is a 90% chance that if you have a brain larger than a peanut, you WILL BE ABLE TO DO ORIGAMI. 

You are very welcome.  My fanciful dreams of paper crane messages lives another day!

The Point of Pointing

There is this great little card game that my friends introduced me too a while back.  Every now and then it floats again to the surface and we enjoy a game or two, or twelve... or twenty... but each and every time we play it, I succeed in having an absolutely wonderful time. 

It is Assassin.  And it goes a little like this.

We all sit in a circle.  Cards (one for each player) are shuffled by the dealer (who is in our case, the very sneakiest of all players).  In this hand, there are three black cards and a single red ace, while all the others are normal red cards. 

The red ace is the Assassin.  (This is the most fun but also the trickiest role to play!  Subtlety is the key, but is so hard to pull off!)

Once dealt a card, each player peeks sneakily at it. 

Then someone calls out "everybody down" at which everyone bows there heads and closes their eyes. 

Then "black team up".  The holders of the black cards now look up, and remember who else is on their team.  The goal of the black team is frankly and simply, to survive, because once all black team members are out, the game is ended.  This means that the red team members would like them all out, too. 

Someone will call out "black team down", and then "everyone up".  Everyone is now up. 

This is the first hugely fun part!  The accusations!  Everyone now tries to guess who is the assassin, and there will be so many fingers pointing and so much laughing and screaming and trying to point out that "such and such is so smug - he is soooooo the Assassin!" 

The person who the majority accuse will be killed, and they reveal their card.  If this person is the assassin, the game is over, but if not, it takes on a new and thrilling turn!

Now, this eliminated player calls "everyone down".  Everyone bows their heads and closes their eyes.  Deja vu.

Then "Assassin up!"  The Assassin now looks up and points at a player, thus assassinating them.

Then "Assassin down and everyone up!"  The assassinated player is eliminated, and everyone gets to accuse whoever they think is the Assassin. 

Basically, the assassin continues to pick off people until they are acused and killed, or all black team members have been killed or assassinated. 

That's kinda the gist of it.  If all black team members are assassinated or accused and thus killed, or if the Assassin is accused and killed, the game is over. 

The thing that makes it so brilliant and exhilarating, though, is the amount of strategy involved, at the same time as the necessity of having to trust gut-feeling!  Oh, I love it so much!  It is such fun trying to work out who the Assassin is, trying to see through their strategies, or just take a leap of faith and point your pointer like it's never pointed before!  It's great.  It gets so exciting and hilarious, especially when you are killed off and finally realise who the Assassin is, and it is always the person you suspected from the beginning and no one else accused, or the very last person you would have imagined.  It is truly one of the greatest games ever, and I think it serves an incredible role in my friends group of really making us feel like a family.  Just the comfort of being able to point and laugh and poke tongues out and scream and whinge and giggle.  So thankyou all, I love it, and I love you. 

Back to Banjo

You know what?  After all my hopping indecisively backwards and forwards on and off poets for my assignment, I have reached a grand revelation. 

I had originally shied away from Banjo Paterson because I felt that he was the obvious choice.  Everyone would think of doing him!  Why would I stoop to follow convention!  I am unconventional!

I chose Henry Kendall.  For a while, it seemed a brilliant idea.  I adored his poems.  They were flowing and milky and crammed with delightful little alliterated phrases that tingled on your tongue, but in all truth, his poetry was too British in style and wording.  However beautifully written and gorgeous to read, it doesn't convey that really Australian feel that is such a key part of this assignment. 

That was then my moment of revelation!  Banjo Paterson is the obvious choice because he is quintessential.  Banjo Paterson is the quintessential Australian poet!  His work exudes the Australian nature, the rugged, sunburnt beauty the world admires of our nation.  His poetry conveys the vital elements of our identity!

So that is where I am now.  Back to Banjo.  Rightly too.  I think that this is going to work very well, now I've got my head in the right place.

Herbie Fully Loaded

Herbie is my laptop.  Having a name by which to refer to 'him' gives me a sort of feeling of intimacy and personal space that I never feel on the big, impersonal, completely nameless family desktop computer.  I enjoy spending time with him more.  His size is nearly a quarter of that of the nameless desktop.  Who needs to display their information for metres on either side of their head?  I can see exactly what I want in his tiny, little screen, like a glimpse into a world that is mine only.  It is very personal.  He is a very Personal Computer. 

He gets his name from yes, Herbie the Love Bug.  Like a VW Beetle, there are new, flash, streamlined models of him, but like Herbie, his old, vintage fashion exudes a sort of life and PERSONALITY that far exceeds the witless new models.  He is my little love bug. 

Herbie has not been quite so well of late.  A couple of days back, I went to turn him off for the night.  I shut him down and unplugged him from the wall, but as I didn't linger to catch his final farewelling cries, I failed to discover  that he was going to sit up later than usual to download updates.  Oh if only I'd tarried to listen to him! 

He never slept.  He stayed up all night, and as I woke in the morning, I saw his face, palid in the waxing gloom of early morning, his life's spark fluttering feebly, a mumbled cough exhuming his last composure.  He had run his life batteries down. 

I hooked him up to life support immediately, rent with anxiety.  He remained in an immovable coma all day long.  At intervals I came to sit by his side, just watching for a sign of life somewhere.  But it was not there. 

Late that afternoon, I entered the sick room with my father.  I could hardly bear to watch.  My father examined him without much hope in his heart, but then, oh!  A flutter!  What was that?  It was Herbie's life surging up into him!  The delight grew again like a full-fledged tree within me and I beamed like the sun.  He was going to be alright. 

He is now alive and well. 

He is fully charged. 

He is Herbie Fully Loaded.