#tsiolkas

[jelen36]

Loaded - Christos Tsiolkas

It's fast and it's sad. But yet, I have never related to anyone, any fictional character (including movies, tv shows, etc) like I relate to Ari. I don't think that we are similar or that we come from similar backrounds, because we don't, At least not completely, because we both are nineteen, we both like to party, we both are “lost in music”, so there is just something about him, that I feel like I absolutely understand. Maybe it is just the way he is written, maybe it's the way he talks about drugs (and I think everyone who has more than none experience with drugs can relate to this part of the book), maybe it's the way he talks about youth and life. Maybe it's the recognition of the fact, that we are not all destined to achieve something and I admire his honesty and how brave he is to admit that and to know that. Better than those who talk and yell their opinions on life and the future with their huge plans, but in the end they grow old and empty, just like everybody else. 

He has no goals in life and that is what allows him to give no fucks. And I respect that and I want that. 

[sinius]

#newbook #bookworm #barracuda #books #instabooks #instaread #reading #tsiolkas (at La Playa)

[newinternationalbookshop]

Four more books about Melbs.

So we’ve covered Radical Melbourne (and did we mention there’s a sequel?), but once we got started it was just too hard to stop reading about the city that we call home. For if there’s one thing that we Melbournians are better at than whingeing about how our city’s going to the dogs, it’s gloating smugly about the superiority of our city over all the others. 

In her eponymous historical memoir, Sophie Cunningham sums up the distinctive Melbourne style of parochialism:

Melbourne is a city that is building its reputation as a place where more independent, less corporatized forms of culture thrive. There are independent bookshops staffed by people who know their stock and have read the books they sell, pubs that have live music rather than being full of pokies, live theatre operating out of old buildings at the end of bluestone lanes, eccentric cinemas operating outdoors on rooftops, and old buildings with all kinds of eclectic businesses operating within their 140-year old walls. Parochialism, which I used to consider something to escape from, has kept relentless and destructive change at bay in Melbourne.  

Did you know Melbs is officially a City of Literature? That’s a big call on the part of UNESCO, but NIBS stocks loads of books that support Melbourne’s claim on that title. The Slap and Spectacle City, for example, which both portray a Melbourne in a hectic and gritty light, the anti-hero in its own narrative.

You’ve probably heard of The Slap – you know, that book by that Brunswick resident that won all those prizes, sold all those copies and got that TV show made about it. In The Slap, the city and its inner suburbs function as the milieu from which multiple points of view on a single topic – the modern family – emerge.

You may not have heard of Spectacle City, Nicola Themistes’ debut novel. Set amidst a bender on Cup Day weekend, it's a manic musing on the kinds of sparks that can fly when the concatenation of drugs, crowds and alienation overwhelm a young urban subject like Alexander Smokescreen, the novel’s main character. An exciting new arrival on the Melbourne literary scene, it's in store at NIBS and you can buy it online. 

[hatebeams]

http://memegenerator.net/Tsickening-Tsiolkas/

[hatebeams]

[negativeink]

For the Sake of It

Holidays, chill morning air, ugg boots. I have one month to write something worthy of an $800 prize. Which I would desperately love to win. No income makes it awful hard to pay rent. I'm counting on my tax return in July and M&D to hit me up with some interim support. My list of things that I want/need is growing longer daily, with new pants at the top of the list. One the one hand I'm happy that all my other pairs are getting looser but the downside is the lack of funds to buy clothes that fit. Hm, a quandary. A coat would be nice too, to keep the cold out. A slow cooker for easy-peasy Guinness pie. Selling some shit on eBay to make an extra buck or two but I'm dubious as to whether it will be worth it once I factor in postage and time spent in line at the post office. Yet another quandary. I have a bunch of books to keep me in the house rather than spending precious pennies; Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas and Umberto Eco's On Beauty which I've started but it seems far too preoccupied with Pythagoras and mathematical harmony to really unveil anything new to me about the beautiful and sublime. Movie-wise it's been a slow-ish month (although I'm back at Network, hooo-ray). Into the Wild was... intriguing. It's definitely not a movie I would revisit and it was about 40 minutes too long but it was a powerful story of pathos and one man's journey to the limit of existence. It seems he was trying to hard to run away from what the rest of us either enjoy or put up with every day - what was he so afraid of? Abusive parents obviously played a role but what was it about society that so disgusted him? I can't quite resolve the desire to be alone, not just for a week, or even a month, but for years, isolated, baring your soul to a level of subsistence, your body the only thing to support you. Full on. The Social Network was much better than I'd anticipated considering it's a film about social media and lawsuits. It was genuinely funny in parts and though it tried a little too hard to maintain that edgy vibe (cue TRON-like soundtrack) it was a remarkable insight into Zuckerberg as an individual, his motivations and the birth of Facebook. Movies lined up:Water for Elephants, Your Highness, Tree of Life and Bridesmaids. Got free tix to Thor and Burke and Hare too, I haven't heard great things but hey, free.