So many things!

[st_aurafina]

There's this thing: literarystarbucks. It's a thing:
Daphne du Maurier goes up to the counter and orders Earl Grey tea. She takes a few sips, growing noticeably nervous. She leaves the Starbucks as it erupts in flames. Later, some say that they saw the shadowy figure of a barista lurking inside the burning shop.


Is Wolverine Still Dead? - putting this here because I want to put my theory down in words - when they bring him back, he'll be a teen. Because then they can recast him in the movies. Wolver-teen - you heard it here first.



Stockings are going up at fandom_stocking! I love fandom_stocking. The last half of the year for me goes NaNo - Yuletide - Fandom Stocking. Planning and writing for those pretty much stitches me up from October to January.



Effortless segue:

I won NaNo, yay! I wrote 50K of Winter Soldier gen, with Natasha, Steve and Sam going looking for Bucky in a stinky van, interspersed with flashbacks to WWII, the sixties, and the eighties. It's not finished, and I'm yearning for it terribly - it's so hard to let go! - but I have to get cracking on Yuletide now.



lilacsigil's parents are coming to visit this weekend. Things I have cooked this week: iced lemon and poppyseed biscuits, white chocolate and macadamia biscuits, pumpkin soup, and granola. Things I still have to cook: the pavlova, the lemon cake, pita bread dough, some salads idk. And you know, clean the house. *quietly freaking out here*



Still catching up on 2013 December topics. kindkit's request: I'd love it if you'd rec 10 (or whatever) awesome Australian books/movies/TV shows.

So, what I did was make a bunch of lists. I always get a bit edgy with recs, because, I don't know. What if I say it's good and you think it's terrible? How awkward. Lists. Noncommittal lists. Much neater.




Five Canons About War

1. Gallipoli


"What are your legs? Steel springs!" /collapse in gross sobbing.

World War One, the failure of trench warfare, mateship and senseless slaughter. It's hugely problematic, it's so one-sided and jingoistic, but wow, those boys were in love.


2. Breaker Morant


I'm Edward Woodward, and I'm on a horse.

(I've only seen the movie, not read the book. It's kind of a depressing story? But Edward Woodward is excellent.)


3. The Doctor Blake Mysteries


Mostly about the fifties, and the fallout from Singapore, and living with your PTSD in rural Australia. And murders.

But can we also address the evolution of Craig MacLachlan?
Neighbours era, 1980's:

Frank'n'Furter era, 90's:


Doctor Blake era, 2010's:


I just feel old now. I feel like I should have a magnificent beard too.


4. Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries


Let's all get together and drink a lot because WWI was shithouse! I've put this one here because WWI trauma and recovery is a quiet thread all the way through S1 and 2. Everyone's a little bruised and manic (or in Jack's case, reserved. Really, really reserved.) and they're all going to have to do it again in about five years.

(I've recced Miss Fisher before, when it first aired:
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, if you like flappers, fashion, murders, cake, butlers, sexy times with fine men, and lesbians.)


5. On the Beach


Book by Nevil Shute. There's a movie - I haven't seen it.

Huzzah for an fifties apocalypse! Hands up if you've always worried about them handing out those red pills. This book is gruesome and grim as fuck. If period apocalyptic drama is your thing, you'll like it. It's pretty terrifying. Also, I used to go riding around Tooradin, which made it kind of eerie to read about all the fallout and so on.



Five Formative But Problematic Australian Childhood Classics

Formative because they grabbed hold of my brain so hard. Problematic because every one of them either romanticises colonialism, mysticises indigenous culture, or is 100% white gaze. (I'd actually love to know if any of my flist are Aussie parents, what the formative childhood classics are now for kids.) I've filtered these Australian canons from a huge, huge list of British media, because in the seventies, the majority of what kids were exposed to were by British creators. (See issues with colonialism.)

These were still important to me when I was wee.


1. Seven Little Australians

Book by Ethel Turner, extremely fraught TV series. (I just realised I was terribly in love with Judy, oh dear.) It's set in 1890's Sydney, and has exploits of naughty children and budding teens, horses and cricket and paddle steamers and boarding school and tuberculosis and cattle stations and one particularly gruesome and memorable character death that has stuck with me forever.



2. The Silver Brumby


Books by Elyne Mitchell, a film with Russell Crowe that I actually found really creepy. Beautiful but creepy.
God, I can still remember how these Green Dragon paperbacks smell. These are some really good, really brutal books about wild horses in some very beautiful countryside, the Snowy Mountains.

It's where The Man from Snowy River was set, also:


I loved these books because they were dark and wild and beautiful, and also because of the incredibly complicated brumby family trees.



3. Playing Beatie Bow


Book by Ruth Park, there was a move, too, but I haven't seen it. This has scary kid's chants, time travel, and it's set in a historic part of Sydney that is old and spooky and cool. A children's clapping game summons Beatie Bow from the past, and Abigail follows her back to the past and lives with her family in the Rocks. This was the first story I read that felt like it was about people like me - awkward, shy, out of place.



4. Storm Boy

Book by Colin Thiele, movie starring David Gulpilil, both are kind of amazing. And will give you feels about pelicans - a boy finds three pelican chicks, raises them and releases them. It's set in the bit of Australia between Portland and Adelaide, which is very strange, flat and coastal. When I finally went there myself, I understood a bit more about the book, because the scenery is amazing and lonely and vast.



5. The Getting of Wisdom


Oh, god, so fraught and full of longing looks and close friendships. This movie is a big gay school story. I don't really know what else to tell you, except that if you like charged stories about ladies' colleges, this is entirely your cup of tea. Also, the first time I read a story with a protagonist who had brown eyes. (I think she was called a sloe-eyed maiden, or something like that? I had to look it up. For some reason, I had read 'sloe' as 'sloth' and was terribly confused.)


Runners up:


Blinky Bill - the adventures of a rapscallion koala.


The Muddle-Headed Wombat - the adventures of a moronic wombat.




Five canons that will make you trip balls

1. Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

Books by May Gibbs. Various

Holy shit, you guys. This is some weird, kinky fucked up stuff, and they give it to kids.

This is a gumnut - it's the flowering fruit of a eucalyptus tree:


Snugglepot and Cuddlepie are gumnut babies. You can tell they're boys because they have little caps, not frilly skirts. They have adventures. Really weird adventures, like, they get kidnapped and tied up a lot, I think at one point they live underwater with some fish? One of them ends up an artists' model? They drive little cars on gumleaf highways. It's awesome. And cringe-worthy. And trippy.


Yeah.



2. Dot and the Kangaroo

Book by Ethel Pedley - not sure if I've read it, actually? And an animated film. Girl gets lost in the bush, girl gets adopted by a kangaroo, girl has adventures on her way home. It's actually pretty straightforward. Except for the Bunyip Song.

Oh, god, the Bunyip song.

"The Bunyip Video" (Watch on YouTube)

I've watched it a few times just now, and I still don't feel entirely okay with it.



3. Picnic at Hanging Rock

Book by Joan Lindsey (sequel released in the eighties may or may not have been by her), epic film by Peter Weir.

It's all so dreamy and arid and weird and hot and a bit dewy and full of intense feelings. And mysterious vanishings. And underwear.



4. Farscape (it's mostly Australian! It totally counts!)



Because puppets in latex bondage gear is why. (Warning: Goes to a gifset. A kinky gifset but it's not NSFW because it's mostly puppets, right?)

Also, there's a lot of tripping IN the show, too. It's very meta.



5. Round the Twist


I'm technically too old for this one, but it's super trippy - wacky kid's adventure, lots of snot and bums. And I live near this lighthouse! (For values of live near that reflect the size of this continent.)

Comments

[jb_slasher]

OH MY GOD ROUND THE TWIST IS AWESOME. :D

[st_aurafina]

SO GROSS AND SO WEIRD!!

[mergatrude]

It's PAUL JENNINGS! I don't think he does anything that's NOT gross and weird.

[raven]

Ahhh, Round The Twist was a staple of my childhood, too! That theme tune! That immense creepiness!

[st_aurafina]

Yay, I didn't know it was popular outside Australia!

[mergatrude]

EVERYTHING in this post, OMG!!! (We must be of the same (fine) vintage.)

I would add that one of my favourite movies is the (trippy, problematic) "The Last Wave." and in books the (trippy, trippy, trippy) "The Magic Pudding."

[st_aurafina]

Oh, The Magic Pudding! Fuuuuck, that was some creepy, creepy stuff! THEY ATE HIM. And he was a horrid old man pudding, too.

We must be around the same age! A Country Practice, and Prisoner, and, oh, that show that Shirley Strachan did, where you could send in your used band-aids!

[mergatrude]

Oh, who would be a puddin'
A puddin' in a pot
A puddin' which is stood on
A fire which is hot
Oh sad indeed the lot
Of puddin's in a pot

I wouldn't be a puddin'
If I could be a bird
If I could be a wooden doll
I wouldn't say a word
Oh I have often heard
That it's grand to be a bird

But as I am a puddin'
A puddin' in a pot
I hope you get the stomach ache
From eating me a lot
I hope you get it hot
You puddin' eating lot

(from memory, hence the lack of punctuation)

Couldn't miss an episode of ACP! Or E Street. Kate Raisin. *swoons*

[st_aurafina]

I'm linking the art here for people who don't know how freaking terrifying they were. (And who don't know that Norman Lindsay, the illustrator, was like the most eminent artist in Australia. And this is what he did for fun.)


THIS PUDDING IS SO ANGRY OMG


THEY'RE GOING TO EAT HIM OMG

[vass]

THIS PUDDING IS SO ANGRY OMG

HE IS THE GRUMPY CAT OF PUDDINGS.

THEY'RE GOING TO EAT HIM OMG

AND THEN HE RESPAWNS EVERY DAY AND THEY DO IT AGAIN. WHILE HE SNARKS AT THEM. IN VERSE.

[st_aurafina]

I just remember being really, really scared of all of them. They all deserve each other.

[vass]

Definitely.

(Did you ever read Midnite by Stow? I liked it much better, and I think you would too. It has a manipulative cat and a noble horse.)

[senmut]

A couple of your recs look vaguely familiar to me.

YAY FOR NANO!!!!

[st_aurafina]

YAY NANO!! I clawed my way to the end, omg.

I never know which Australian stuff has made it out to you guys and which hasn't - I know The Man From Snowy River was a thing, because suddenly Akubra hats and oilskin coats were a fashion item and it was in the news a lot.

[jesuswasbatman]

Bloody hell that gumnut thing looks like a non-ironic version of "Pim and Francie".

[st_aurafina]

It's truly a horror!

[ruuger]

OH GOD ROUND THE TWIST! JUST THE THEME SONG ALONE GIVES ME NIGHTMARES!

We were actually just talking over lunch at work about how apparently we couldn't afford American TV when we were kids because all the shows that we watched were Australian. Stuff like Flying Doctors (my sister was traumatised for life by an episode where one of the characters died when the plane fell down) and Professor Poopsnagle's Steam Zeppelin (it took me twenty years to find out what that show was actually called because in my head it was just 'the flying bus show with the stone salamanders and the Sydney opera house').

[st_aurafina]

OMG, The Flying Doctors - so deliciously soapy! I loved it. I don't know about the Steam Zeppelin, but I think I've seen the prequel show, The Secret Valley. We had a lot of weird kids shows, now I remember.

[lonelywalker]

Round the Twist! I think this has been burned into the psyche of 90s kids (and older) worldwide. (90s kids as in... people who were watching kids' TV in the 90s.)

And Craig MacLachlan! There was a girl in my primary school class with the same last name (not very unusual) who SWORE he was her long-lost big brother. I actually had no clue who he even was.

[st_aurafina]

I actually had no clue who he even was.

But I thought everyone in the UK watched Neighbours? *baffled*

I don't think that he was her long lost brother, though. Think she might have been pulling your leg there.

[realpestilence]

Gallipoli is an excellent movie, in that it will make you feel angry, sad, and moved and realize just how screwed up it all was. Good acting, from what I remember-I saw it many years ago.



Have you ever read Wombat Stew, by Marcia K Vaughan? Very cute book!

[st_aurafina]

Yes, Gallipoli is amazing - hard to believe that it's Mel Gibson.

I haven't read Wombat Stew, but I totally should.

[realpestilence]

Wombat Stew is adorable.

[intrigueing]

This entire post is awesomeballs. I was laughing so hard and now I really, really, really want to read that Winter Soldier fic. Flashbacks! I love specific-era-flashbacks so much, and the '60s-'70s are fascinating as hell.

It only now occurs to me that I know very little about Australia except for what I learned in school (and, like, maybe Finding Nemo?) which doesn't cut it even if the books and films we read in school were very excellent and un-textbook-y.

[st_aurafina]

Hee! Flashbacks are awesome, and they really put up the word total.

I think the most important take-home message about Australia is that everything can kill you. If you've got that, you've got a good chance.

[lurkingcat]

...That's Craig MacLachlan? I will join you in feeling old.

Yay! Nano! And cooking!

[st_aurafina]

We are so old, bb. Very old. Old as balls.

[vass]

I love everything about this post. (OMG THE GREEN DRAGON BOOKS. I had so many of them. And the red dragon and blue dragon ones. Most of my Enid Blytons were blue or red dragons, and my Pullein-Thompsons were green dragons.)

Until right now it never occurred to me just how weird and trippy and outright creepy Snugglepot and Cuddlepie are. I feel like I'm waking up. (I had actual nightmares about the Banksia Men. They made me scared of banksias. And somehow, by extension, of bottlebrushes.)

Some additions:

Like mergatrude said, The Magic Pudding. Never leave the table 'til you're full up to the muzzle!

Also, Randolph Stow's Midnite, the definitive book about bushrangers and their Siamese cats. Children's book.

And MEM FOX. Possum Magic. Picture book and essential guide to Australian foods.

And Graeme Base, Animalia and The Eleventh Hour, gorgeous, intricate picture books.

And S.A. Wakefield's Bottersnikes and Gumbles for additional "are you on DRUGS? And if so, can I have some?" value.

[lark_ascends]

And Graeme Base, Animalia and The Eleventh Hour, gorgeous, intricate picture books.

*nods vigorously*

[mergatrude]

OMG! I forgot Bottersnikes and Gumbles! We listened to it on ABC local radio whilst driving across SA one Christmas. Truly MAD!!!!

[wendelah1]

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries! And Farscape!

Thanks for the link to Fandom Stocking. I always say I'm going to participate and never do.

[st_aurafina]

Fandom Stocking is so much fun - I never hang a stocking, but I really enjoy posting in other peoples'.

[lark_ascends]

MY CHILDHOOD.


I think the only major thing that you left out (from the things that I associate with my childhood) was Elly and Jools. I loved that show.

[st_aurafina]

See, I missed Elly and Jools - too old. But I love Rebecca Smart, so now I wish I had seen it.

[rthstewart]

OMG I JUST FINISHED SEASON 2 OF MISS FISHER. I'VE BINGED WATCHED ALL OF SERIES 1 AND 2 IN A WEEK. I NEVER DO THIS I HAVE YULETIDE TO WRITE. Ahem.

So, fun fact, though I'm an old lady from California, I went through a serious Peter Weir phase in my life during which Gallipoli, Picnic at Hanging Rock, the Last Wave, and Year of Living Dangerously, all figured prominently. I kept scrolling down, waiting to see Picnic, and indeed, there it was. I never saw Farscape which I know is a serious shortcoming I must remedy at some point.

Oh wondrous list.

[st_aurafina]

YAY PHRYNE! She's the best, no, actually, they're all the best. (They shot some of season 2 near where my parents live, it was so cool.)

Peter Weir is a good phase to go through. And I heartily recommend Farscape - lots of fun, and for a show with many puppets, it's got a decidedly adult turn.

[crossedwires]

I remember the Silver Brumby books! I wonder if I still have any of them. I think I found them in a used book store.

[st_aurafina]

They were so great! Not as horsey as actually horse books, if you know what I mean, but full of horsey spirit.

[hibernate]

I am an avid follower of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, and used to be one of Farscape too, obviously. But what I'm really commenting for is Round the Twist, OH MY GOD. It made it as far as Sweden and had a big enough effect on me that I can still remember the theme song as well as the plot of many of the episodes.

Also, I am aghast that you've not mentioned The Flying Doctors, which was as formative for me as anything. I was madly in love with Emma the Mechanic and gosh it was so scary that time she almost had to have her arm amputated after she got stuck under a truck in a surprise flood.

[st_aurafina]

The Flying Doctors was an epic fun soap, seriously. I can't believe it was popular outside Australia!

I was too old for Round the Twist, to be honest, so I don't really feel the magic, but I gave lilacsigil one space to nominate.

[escritoireazul]

I love your Wolverine theory!

I won NaNo, yay! I wrote 50K of Winter Soldier gen, with Natasha, Steve and Sam going looking for Bucky in a stinky van, interspersed with flashbacks to WWII, the sixties, and the eighties. It's not finished, and I'm yearning for it terribly - it's so hard to let go! - but I have to get cracking on Yuletide now.

Yay! And I wish it was done because I want to read it immediately.

Things I have cooked this week: iced lemon and poppyseed biscuits, white chocolate and macadamia biscuits, pumpkin soup, and granola. Things I still have to cook: the pavlova, the lemon cake, pita bread dough, some salads idk. And you know, clean the house. *quietly freaking out here*

YUM. I want to come for food.

[st_aurafina]

You should come here! I would love to cook for all my fandom friends!