Marjorie Lawrence - Australian opera soprano

I have just spent the evening watching an old movie about the Australian opera singer Marjorie Lawrence. Marjorie was born on a farm in 1907 and somehow managed to go from distant Australia to France to study and then onto New York to rise in the operatic ranks. Being an Australian girl she was very physical and she was the first soprano to perform the immolation scene in Götterdämmerung by riding her horse into the flames as Wagner had intended. Good old Marjorie also performed the Dance of the seven veils in Richard Strauss's Salome^[1] "more convincingly" than most other sopranos!

Not long after she married she contracted polio and was left confined to a wheelchair.  She managed to resume her career and sang for some time afterwards. She even travelled overseas to entertain the troops after WWII and I think even during the Vietnam War. Marjorie died in 1979.

The movie starred Eleanor Parker as Marjorie. Dear Eleanor I believe was nominated for an Academy Award. I can only think that it was either in the category of "most overacting actress" or "worst lip synching by an actress in a muscial". Hey Brittany Spears wasn't born yet! [In case you missed it in other parts of the world, little Brit is in Australia and audiences are walking out because she is lip synching her way through the concerts and badly at that!]

Anyway, the movie was the usual Hollywood bad retelling of a great story. Marjorie was disappointed with the result saying that it did not represent her life at all. Bad movie, as it may have been, the subject, Marjorie Lawrence, really interests me. I want to know more about her now.

I went online and was able to track down a 2nd edition copy of her autobiography "Interrupted Melody" which is what the movie was called also.  The blurb says it is a little damaged, but heck it was published in 1949! It claims to have been signed by the author also, so I am a little chuffed. I don't usually buy second hand books as I love the feel and smell of new books, and I worry about introducing book worm into my own library, but in this case there was no choice, To get a copy reproduced through a library would be more expensive.

So, I hope all goes well, and hopefully the book will arrive in a week or so. I hope Marjorie told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth....more than what can be said for the movie!

Haqppy venture readers 2

Dick and dora

Dick and nip jane and dora

Ok, the plot may have been a little predictable, but I could read it and the world of reading was thus opened to me for ever. Yes, without argument, the best book I ever read.

It was a cruel twist of fate: in November 2006 Chris O′Brien‚ one of the country′s leading head and neck cancer surgeons‚ was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme‚ an aggressive and almost inevitably lethal form of brain cancer. As he knew‚ few sufferers survive past 12 months. Nevertheless‚ he was determined to beat the odds.

With the support of his close family‚ O′Brien took the option of radical brain surgery under the supervision of well−known neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo. His health and relative youth − he was 54 when diagnosed − have helped him make the painful transition from doctor to patient‚ and renewed his faith in the importance of an optimistic outlook as the cornerstone of recovery.

Here‚ in his warm and lively memoir‚ Chris O′Brien takes a look back over his life and the forces that have shaped him − from 
his modest beginnings and early years as a doctor‚ to becoming 
the popular face of RPA and his crusade for the establishment of cancer centres‚ through to the shocking news that literally changed his life

Chris O′Brien is an eminent head and neck cancer specialist and the public face of the popular TV show‚ RPA. The director of the Sydney Cancer Centre‚ he has been awarded an Order of Australia for services to medicine.

ISBN: 9780732288099; ISBN10: 0732288096; Imprint: ; On Sale: 1/10/2008; Format: Trade paperback; Trimsize: 234 x 155 x 24 mm; Pages: 320; $32.99AUS.

The “New” Rules of Engagement: A Handbook for Teachers and Parents of Generation Y

by Michael McQueen

Michael McQueen has written a book that will speak to all parents. A young man in his 20s, Michael is part of Generation Y (all those born from the early 80s to the late 90s). Not only has he written a book that speaks many truths, he is also a gifted public speaker and educator. His book outlines the basics of Generational Theory, identifying the time frame of several previous generations: 

Builders        Early 1900s – Mid 1940s

Boomers       Mid 1940s – Mid 1960s

Gen X           Mid 1960s – Late 1970s

Gen Y           Early 1980s – Late 1990s

Gen Z           Late 1990s – ???                      

A specific focus in the book is exploring ways for Boomer parents and teachers to relate to Gen Y offspring.  McQueen outlines the differing attitudes and influences of three generations, Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y.   Here are some as they apply to Boomers and Gen Ys…see if you can relate:

Topic                                      Boomers                                  Gen Y

Television                                 Bonanza                                   Jerry Springer

Wealth                                      I’ll earn it                                   I’ll take it

Role Models                              Men of character                        What’s character?

Employment attitudes                Hard to find                               Jobs are a dime a dozen

Loyalty to employer                    I’ll work my way to the top          If I can’t take Saturday off, I’ll quit

Justice                                      Always prevails                         Can be bought

Education                                  Tell my what to do                     Show me why to do it

Respecting Elders                     Is automatic                              Is earned, not assumed

Change                                     Dislike                                      Demand

Technology                               Ignorant                                    Masters

In the current employment climate, the attitude of Gen Y toward work is understandable.  The Financial Review’s weekend edition of 16 to 17 February 2008 has an article entitled What they will do to keep you citing perks that companies the world over offer staff in order to retain them. The article tells us that Europe is predicting a workforce deficit expected to run into the tens of millions over the next couple of years, while the US is forecasting a deficit of between 25 million and 48 million.

The surprise in McQueen’s book is that while he clearly outlines differences in the generations, his “new rules for engagement” are as old as the hills, and he says as much.  The “keys for engaging Generation Y,” he says, “are so timeless that you could almost dismiss them as common sense.”  Even though we’ve got whiz kids when it comes to technology, our children long for what all humans long for – meaningful contact with significant others.  It is reminiscent of Alvin Toffler’s book (do Boomers remember?) Future Shock, in which Toffler puts forth the proposition that humans consistently find ways to use new technology to connect with each other, ie, High Tech, High Touch.  Planes are used for business meetings and to reunite families and friends; computers have meant email and finding old school friends on the internet; mobiles – well, some of us (Boomers) think they’re for emergency use, but we know what they are to Gen Y!

McQueen devotes a chapter to each of the new rules of engagement:  Put Relationship Before Role; Matrix Learning; Adopt a Facilitator Role; Use Stories to Make Your Point; and Go for Commitment, Not Compliance.  These chapters, and the book, are well worth a read (an hour or so max) – if for nothing else, then to remind all of us engaged with young people what the priorities should be. 

The book can also be purchased from Nexgen Impact.

www.nexgenimpact.com

Ph  (02) 8252 0886

Email:  info@nexgenimpact.com

Fax:  (02) 8221 9618

by Paula Morelli - Junior School Counsellor

Julie Smith and Sharon Prendergast - Senior School Counsellors

http://www.cggs.act.edu.au/pages/page446.asp

It’s 12.30am and for the past hour and a half I have been trying to go to sleep. I decided I would not watch any television tonight and so settled down with Reeve Lindbergh’s book Forward From Here. I started reading it about a week ago, and soon found myself trying to mark pages which had areas I wanted to record or remember. My problem is that I cannot bring myself to mark a book either with pencil,  ink or a folded over corner and so it wasn’t long before I was scrambling through my bedside drawers for items to place between the various pages I wanted to return to. So far, I have used the fly jacket to fold over and into one section, a birthday card wrapped in cellophane that I have bought for a friend’s birthday in a few days, the cardboard backing to a lavender fragrance oil with rattan sticks that I was given for Christmas, and of course, the trusty old chocolate wrapper.

I read until 10.30 and then decided my concentration was slipping from this beautiful, gentle book and so tried to sleep. I even resorted to listening to one of my meditation cds, but when I got to the part where the voice was telling me to relax my eyebrows and all I could imagine was the monobrow of my youth I knew I was fighting a long lost battle.  When he told me to relax my foot and all I could think about was why my face had begun to itch I decided to give up and come down stairs and clear my mind.

A cup of tea and a large chunk of wurst later and I am no closer to sleep. Perhaps I should just discuss this wonderful book , or as much of it that I have read and marked so far. I have never read anything by Reeve Lindbergh previously. I knew of her Mother’s writing, as a once upon a time bookseller, how could I not. However, I was attracted to this book by its subtitle Leaving Middle Age – and Other Unexpected Adventures.  I  consider myself, at 50, to just be entering middle age, but none the less I felt the pull of this gentle book.

There is a funny old-fashioned phrase, “What a to-do!” meaning “what a fuss!”, or “What a commotion!” I think of it in terms of the way I so often have filled my life to the point of saturation with things I “have to do”. I have to do this and I have to do that, and I really have to do the other thing, whether it’s making a telephone call or folding the laundry or attending a meeting.p38

Lindbergh’s questioning of why she does this to herself resonated with me. It also brought to mind all those sister blogs that I read each day with list upon list of things that had to be, or must be, done that day, week, month, year. Lists of torture and guilt.

To read more about this wonderful book visit http://www.flamingodancerblog.com/

If we truly want fulfilled and purposeful lives, why do we settle fo a life of consumer conformity marked by the pursuit of substitute gratifications such as wealth, the perfect body, celebrity and status?

Clive Hamilton

http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/index.php?page=home

The past two centuries delivered individual and political freedoms that promised unprecedented opportunities for personal fulfilment. Yet citizens of affluent countries are encouraged to pursue lives of consumerism, endless choice and the pleasures of the body.

Clive Hamilton argues that the paradox of modern consumer life is that we are deprived of our inner freedom by our very pursuit of our own desires. He turns to metaphysics to find a source of transformation that lies beyond the cultural, political and social philosophies that form the bedrock of contemporary western thought.

hot off the presses:

'Are Women Human' vies for oddest book title gong

Posted Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:22pm AEDT 

They may not leap off the shelves into the best-seller category, but the books shortlisted for the oddest book title prize certainly grab the attention.

I was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen recounts the tale of a fictional US World War II fighter pilot who is captured by jungle pygmies led by a sadistic woman.

Its sequel, which is not on the shortlist released by trade publication The Bookseller on Friday, needs no explanation: Go Ahead, Woman, Do Your Worst.

How to Write a How to Write Book and Cheese Problems Solved are likewise self-explanatory, as is the equally eclectic niche tome People who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Dr Feelgood that strives to put the English east coast resort on the map.

While none of the above may challenge the sensibilities too much, others are likely to prove more divisive.

Try If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs or Are Women Human? And other International Dialogues.

"I confess - I have been anxious that as publishing becomes ever more corporate, the trade's quirky charms are being squeezed out," said Horace Bent, The Bookseller diarist and custodian of the prize.

"But happily my fears have been proved unfounded: oddity lives on. Drawing up the six-strong shortlist was a fraught and wildly controversial process."

Mr Bent paid tribute to those books that failed to make the list, including titles such as Drawing and Painting the Undead and Glory Remembered: Wooden Headgear of Alaska Sea Hunters, wishing them better luck next year.

Literary enthusiasts wishing to cast a vote can visit the website.

The winner will be announced on March 28

My daughters and I went to movies yesterday to watch The Jane Austen Book Club (based on the Karen Joy Fowler  novel about six people meet once a month to discuss Jane Austen's novels). It made me want to rush out and start a book club. Star in my own life!

Not for the intellectual stimulation of starting a book club. I spent a number of years managing book shops and came to detest book clubs.  Not fo me those lovely intellectual women with great romantic lives and brilliant careers asking pithy questions about Bronte or Austen. I always seemed to attract Ladies Who Do Lunch, dahling,  seeking book guidance, those mindless trophy wives bred for beauty not brains, who joined book clubs only to discover that they had no idea how to choose a book and in fact hadn’t actually read anything since they were forced to at High School. Well maybe a few Spot books with Little Junior Heir when someone was watching at playgroup.  But not capable of independent selection of a book.

Why ask a bookseller what to read, how we would we know what you like? We know what we  like.  Actually, they will lie to you. Any bookseller worth their salt will play you for the fool  and recommend whatever title they want to move out the store in bulk.

I think real readers want the solitutude of solo reading. They will  recommend a good read if pressed, but they are too busy devouring the next book to have time to discuss something that was yesterday, last week, last month, so many books ago.

No, I wanted to start a book club for the friendship, the companionship that bringing friends and strangers together can engender.  The life experiences that get brought forwarded  individually and  offered to the whole.

Book clubs, I guess are a modern day replacement for the sewing or quilting circle. The support system that the many nomadic individuals  that modern life creates, has been missing from our lives. A return to the center.