in the dublin natural history museum, which is crammed with thousands upon thousands of stuffed animals, a young boy of about 6 is standing in front of the monkeys, transfixed.
‘dad,’ he says, ‘that’s my head.’
‘all right son, come along now.’
‘no, dad… that’s my head.’
i think that particular revelation needs to go in a story somewhere.
as does the natural history museum, which has quickly shot to my top museums in the world list… was it the stuffed baby zebra sitting up in its glass case or the owls or the jars of squid or the skeletons of irish megafauna? ah, morbid curiosity. pictures to come soon.
dublin in general is lovely, though completely unrecognisable from last time i was here, about ten years ago – it’s been through quite a boom and bust since. i catch glimpses of the old city between new developments, though it’s hard to separate the actual antiquities from irish kitsch. there are hipsters here now, which has its advantages – there was a great little zine fair today, lots of artist books as well, an excess of wonderfulness which made me want to stay home and make things. later.
last night we were invited along to a session in a pub down the road by a fiddle-playing friend, and today my head is reeling, haha
off to the west coast tomorrow, and dingle, to be rained on by some authentic irish rain.
Here you have it – the July fiction podcast. This is a story called ‘Unconditional Love’ which I wrote at some point in 2007. It hasn’t appeared anywhere except zines… I hope you feel special.
It’s been quiet here, because it’s been a whirlwind of a month with no time for reflection. I am deep in the edit for the forthcoming book (still untitled, still difficult). Hoping to finish this hard stage by monday, cause on tuesday i’m hitching to Darwin, then flying to London, and Ireland, and Germany and then all the way to Beijing by train. Somehow this is all going to be work-related… i do love my job. this week i really need to keep telling myself that.
it is raining very hard and without pause in alice springs, so there is a bit of running water noise on this track from the rainwater tank overflowing out the front of my office. you might want to pee before you listen!
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and while you’re on the radio, tune in to Ali Cobby Eckermann on Poetica – one of my favourite poets working today, and an all-round inspiration.
i have a new article up on new matilda about racism in alice springs. i hope it stimulates some practical discussion.
the air you need is a weird story about a diver. it came from whidbey island in puget sound, where i was visiting family in 2008. it’s a small-town joy to read the crime reports in the local paper… one favourite was a report of a man who was arrested in the supermarket car park for standing there in full scuba gear. the South Whidbey Record didn’t offer an explanation, so i thought i would step in.
the diver sat around as an idea for a while and ended up attracting, with the special magnetic ability of stories, a lot of what i was reading and thinking about autistic kids and the parents of autistic kids. it’s not an explicit discussion of autism, but it’s in there. i hope you like it.
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i am podcasting a new short story a month for six months. if you like, you can subscribe just to the podcast feed. if you want a print version, you can write in for a zine: send $5 or trade to PO box 3085, alice springs NT 0871.