Here are some more great Christmas presents for the book lover - this time from The New Yorker*.Everything awful that may happen to you in public has already happened to someone else, almost. Add to the list (I hope not).(*This link was very kindly forwarded to me by Lydia Chai.)
The Guardian website features a gallery of the finalists of the Designer Bookbinders International Competition. These are covers to swoon over.
Artist Lydia Chai posts an intriguing piece at contemporary art magazine Arteri on the completely black page in Lawrence Sterne's c18th novel Tristam Shandy, and asks :And in the interest of research, she even dissects the page physically ...Is the page covered in ink because Tristram has filled it with an elegiac outpouring of words? Or does the black page indicate a blank? ... How much time ought we spend on this black page? Is the page a moment, or an eternity?
Dear sir or madam, My name is Sonya Hartnett, I am fifteen years old. I have written a story about a young adolescent boy and the problems he has with his family, friends and society in general. Many of my friends say that I should get it published. Could you please tell me what I am required to do if I send it to you?Jane Sullivan attend an exhibition about books and writing in Victoria and finds, among other fascinating literary memorabilia (including Peter Carey's laptop and Tony Wheeler's first travel diary) the above letter written by a young hopeful to a publisher. What is remarkable is the tact and generosity with which the feedback is handled by Frank Thompson, then a general manager at Rigby, who reminds Harnett :
Writing is a bit like playing sport ... Everyone can play most games but only a few play games so well that we will pay to watch them play, and even they have to practise continually ...She took Thompson's advice to rewrite and her first novel, Trouble All the Way, was published a short time later, to be followed by many others. (And of course, she is listed for the Commonwealth Writers Prize this year.)
The architect and designer Claudio Colucci conceived a lounge sofa made from carbon fibre for the James Bond writer Ian Fleming. "I have always liked the fantasy element in design," he said. "Too much function bores me. I thought of creating an amphibious car, but that already exists, so I designed a lounge-sofa for drinking champagne, for two, of course." The fashion designer Christian Lacroix imagined a mid-20th Century wrought-iron chair for the French novelist, Patrick Modiano. Lacroix said: "I like his form of melancholy; like him, I'm nostalgic." ... The architect India Mahdavi designed a cat-shaped sofa in homage to Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Mahdavi, who chose a cat because the animal appears throughout Murakami's work, said that when she was introduced to the novelist, "it was like entering someone's dream, in a universe where fantasy and reality are mixed".Other works :
I got very frustrated yesterday trying to find some pictures of the pieces online, but I hope that they will appear in the days and weeks to come, and if they do, will post them.... have been imagined for great literary figures, such as Proust, Tolstoy and Flaubert. Others were conceived for contemporary writers who will have the chance to see the designs that have been imagined.
At design site Toxel.com there are some stunning images in which book covers blend with readers' faces. [via] Do go see!
I loved the books sculptures by Cara Barer in a slide show at The Telegraph and was happy to find even more images of her work on her website. (The one above is titled Kaleidoscope.)
There's a new set of repackaged classics to smile at on the Guardian website. (Inspired of course by Bookninja.)
While Malaysia is anything but a full-fledged democracy, its relative openness permits a spectrum of debate, which allows for a certain flowering of creativity. ...Salil Tripathy pens a very important piece on the political imagination and literature of Malaysia and Singapore for the current issue of the Indian literary journal Biblio. You will need to subscribe to the journal to access the full piece.
... Samarasan, Aw, Tan, and Tei matter because, being from an ethnic minority, they provide a different perspective to Malaysia's divided polity, given that Malaysia's preferential policies benefit the majority, and not minority, communities. Furthermore, these writers provide a local voice looking at the country and its past. This is important, because until recently, fiction about Malaysia or Singapore looked at the region from an outsider's perspective, with the natives offering colourful backdrop ...
The Sorted Books project began in 1993 years ago and is ongoing. The project has taken place in many different places over the years, ranging form private homes to specialized public book collections. The process is the same in every case: culling through a collection of books, pulling particular titles, and eventually grouping the books into clusters so that the titles can be read in sequence, from top to bottom. The final results are shown either as photographs of the book clusters or as the actual stacks themselves, shown on the shelves of the library they were drawn from. Taken as a whole, the clusters from each sorting aim to examine that particular library's focus, idiosyncrasies, and inconsistencies — a cross-section of that library's holdings. At present, the Sorted Books project comprises more than 30 book clusters.There's some wonderful poetry to be read from the collected book spines. The one below is entitled Women.
You might also like to check out LibraryThing which has an intriguing collection of bookpiles, contributed by readers around themes.
A fascination for authors workspaces spills over into art, Eric Konigsburg reports in the New York Times.
Elana Climent's mural At Home With Their Books features six chronologically ordered panels, each depicting authors with a New York connection was painted for New York University's Languages and Literature building.
Dear Sharon,
Sharon Chin and I are having an art exhibition, "Chin Chai" (after our surnames), at Sek San's from 9 - 23 August 2008.
We'd love for you and your readers to come for the opening event on 8.8.08 at 8pm (Friday).
During the opening event, we'll be launching our accompanying book to the exhibition, also titled "Chin Chai". It features new writing by KL writer Simon Soon, Auckland-based artist Kah Bee Chow, some poetry by Sharon and a short fiction piece by myself. The book will be 'sold' by donation.
We're very excited about this and would appreciate people spreading the word about the exhibition and book launch. Attached below is the full press release with more info about the exhibition and ourselves.
Thanks, Sharon.
Regards,
Lydia
Event: "Chin Chai"
Dates: 9 - 23 August 2008 (opening event 8.8.08, 8pm)
Venue: 67 Jalan Tempinis 1 Gallery, Bangsar, KL (see map)
Opening hours: 1pm - 7pm (Mon - Fri) and 11 - 5 (Sat - Sun)
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
"Chin Chai" is a joint exhibition by artists Sharon Chin and Lydia Chai. They met in art school and became friends. Now Sharon lives in Kuala Lumpur while Lydia lives in Auckland. In an ambitious series of drawings, installation and video, they explore ideas of distance and friendship in relation to artistic collaboration. "Chin Chai" is the invented landscape of two very different artists living far apart, engaged in conversation with each other and the world around them.
We warmly welcome you to the opening event on Friday 8 August 2008, 8pm, where an artist book will be launched in conjunction with the exhibition.
There will be a screening of Werner Herzog's "Mein liebster Feind" (My Best Fiend), followed by a discussion of the film and the exhibition on Saturday 9 August, 3pm.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Sharon Chin was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1980. Working with text and sculpture especially in site-specific installations, her work looks at how we negotiate geography, history, human relations and language in the contemporary imagination. Recent solo exhibitions include Fourth World at the Australian High Commission (2006) and SENSORS: Banned Books and Other Monsters (2007) at Central Market Annexe. She is the recipient of the Krishen Jit ASTRO Fund grant as well as Australian High Commission Visual Arts Residency. She also writes regularly on art.
Lydia Chai grew up in Petaling Jaya and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland, New Zealand, where she is now based. Her recent work ranges from chinese ink and watercolour paintings to socially interactive projects. These works are based on the form and idea of roots and footnotes, their rhizomic qualities, while extending the metaphor to relations between people. She recently exhibited in the group show Tell Me To My Face (2007) organized by The High Street Project and curated Footnotes: Walking Backwards Toward Meaning (2007) in Off The Edge magazine. She has her writings on art published now and then, while working on fiction privately.
I've often toyed with the idea of getting a tattoo ... more so now that everyone else seems to have one. A nice rose on the bum. A butterfly on the shoulder. A circle of barbed wire round an ankle.
I will spend some time thinking about what literary tattoo I would choose ... and meanwhile open the question to you.
I am very attached to the bookmarks that wander into my life but just leave them for safe keeping inside the books on my shelves. So if I have a collection at all, it is a very accidental one.
Perhaps someone should introduce reading spas as the ultimate in relaxation? It isn't half as stupid as the idea of having little fish nibble all the dead bits of skin off your legs! Eyucks!
This story about a C17th book about the execution of a priest and covered in his skin, and now appears to show an image of his face is sooo spooky ....
Vernon Adrian Emuang (above) was the first reader of the day, and this was his very first time standing up in public reading his own words though as an actor, he's had plenty of experience in reading the words of others. (I've seen Vernon in a couple of plays recently - Pinter's Betrayal and the rehearsed of Ann Lee's Tarap Man in which he was shudderingly creepy!) Vernon has also worked in advertising and produced several independent films: the word which he coined for himself (and which deserves a place in the OED!) is multimediator.I am wilting. Even though my great-grandparents were born here (all eight should be enough), and probably their parents, too, the mitochondrial legacy within me struggles to acclimatize. Should I wonder why it would take this long? Will my children's children feel as alien? When is the time when my progeny will fully feel at ease, fully integrate and disappear into the kerawang? Until then, do we deserve to be treated like … well, termites?He also read some poetry including The Flirt (which is one to stick up on your writing desk) and Afterglow. Now you're outed as a writer, Vernon, there's no turning back!
I'm so very happy Preeta Samarasan (above) agreed to take part, and bring along her mum, Saras. Preeta's first novel Evening is the Whole Day is due to be published next May in the US by Houghton Mifflin. The extract from the first chapter has made me impatient to get my hands on a copy. Love the fact that the action in the piece she read took place in Ipoh and Gopeng! (I'm from Perak - sort of.) The writing was beautiful - richly detailed and gently humourous.
With a total of eight books published Lee Su Kim should need no introduction. She's one of those people who can combine an academic interest with the power to write for (and entertain) all of us. Malaysian Flavours which explores the local psyche is one of the must-buy books for anyone wanting to understand the country, and her Manglish: Malaysian English at it's Wackiest, is a glossary of English as it is spoken here.
This is Ti Chin Han, winner of the Utusan Group Literary Prize for his novel Trumation Nation, a humourous thriller. It was fun hearing a piece of sci-fi with a very Malaysian setting. Han guestblogged about his experiences of getting published here, and I really wish him all the best with his book.
Nizam Zakaria can now justifiably call himself a novelist (in addition to poet, lyricist, scriptwriter and photographer). His first novel was Susuk, the novelisation of Amir Muhammad's fim (which we are still yet to see!) and his second, now out, is Seri Tertangguh, which he describes, intriguingly, as "Malaysian chick lit". I'm sure his legions of fans will be overjoyed. The extract he read was very much enjoyed and I loved the way he mixed Malay and English, reflecting the way people do speak here. (The kind of "bahasa rojak" that would have cultural commentators at Utusan screaming blue murder, no doubt.)
Bless you, Saras Manickam, for being brave enough and sporting enough to step in at quite literally the eleventh hour when another reader couldn't make it.
This is the wonderful birthday cake Chet gave me. It's all my favourite things put together - chocolate cupcakes, gummy bears, the name of my blog ...
... and teensy little bookworms popping their heads out of the turquoise butter-cream. The lady behind this stunning piece of edible biblioart is Chan Hui Min aka Mama Min, who is Patrick Teoh's other half. (Please go check out her blog entry about the cake and look at much nicer photos!)
Here's an exhibition worth checking out this weekend, and the topic is one very close to my heart:The Annexe Gallery, Central Market
presents
SENSORS
An exhibition of new works by Sharon Chin
Exhibition Opening:
Fri 21 Sep 2007, 8pm
The Annexe Gallery, Central Market
Refreshments are served
Exhibition dates: Fri 21 Sep – Sun 7 Oct, 2007
The Annexe Gallery, 2nd Floor, Central Market Annexe, KL
Opening hours: 11am – 7pm (Mon – Sat), 11am – 5pm (Sun)
Enquiries: 03 2274 6542, 03 2070 1137
Admission is free'The totalitarian order depends for its very existence on a precarious equilibrium. Without the heretic, the rebel, the writer, the state crumbles: yet by tolerating him, the ruler equally well seals his fate. As least by implication, Big Brother's mighty system disappears because he wanted to eradicate the dissident - but could not do without him'.Sensors is an exhibition that takes banned books as a motif. Central to the show is the idea that the process of censorship is essentially arbitrary in nature. A book may be banned in Malaysia according to detailed guidelines, but any attempt to objectively define these guidelines is difficult. The 1500 or so banned titles (since 1971) only suggest, not define, what is deemed forbidden, transgressive or offensive in our society. Thinking about censorship draws for us merely shadowy shapes of our fears, which disappear like wraiths when exposed in the light of knowledge and discourse.
-Andre Brink-
‘Sexual organs move independently of will… from this disobedience of the flesh, mark of a fallen state, none are exempt, not even in the guardians of our morals’.
-J.M. Coetzee-
Sensors comprises an installation in two parts, housed in two adjacent gallery spaces. The first consists of a buzz wire game – the sort commonly found at fun fairs, in which the player runs a little hoop along a bent wire, attempting to reach the end of the wire without touching it. If the hoop touches the wire, a buzzer goes off and the player loses. In Sensors, several buzz wires stretch along the length of the gallery. The shape of the wire follows a histogram chart of categories of books that have been banned in Malaysia from 1971 to the present day. The viewer is invited to play with the buzz wire. Each time the hoop touches the wire, a warning light goes off. In this way, information about banned books becomes a spatial entity negotiated physically by the audience.
The second installation is in the adjacent space, which is blacked out. Viewers are provided with handheld torches to navigate the work which consists of several ‘doors’ hanging in space. The viewers open the ‘doors’ to discover monsters and mythical creatures that have been painted on lists of banned books. They may examine these works only by the dim light of the torch. The secret, irrational atmosphere of this installation is in contrast with that of the other space, which is ostensibly characterized by objectivity, empiricism and rationality.
Rather than lament the lack of access to banned materials, this exhibition seeks to explore censorship as a paradoxical and complex process. The completion of this project was made possible with the generous support of a grant from the inaugural Krishen Jit Astro Fund.
Sharon Chin was born in KL in 1980. Returning from studies in New Zealand and Australia (Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, 2001; BFA, Victorian College of the Arts, 2003), this young artist has already made quite an impact on the Malaysian art scene. Working with text and sculpture, especially in site- specific installations, her work looks at how we negotiate geography, history, human relations and language in the contemporary imagination. Her most recent body of work, Fourth World, was shown at the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur in 2006. She also writes regularly on art for various local publications, including The Star, Kakiseni and Off The Edge.
