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eyeofthewolfe · 7 years

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Evil Zane Chapter 2

It’s getting tense....Chapter one and prologue is right here

It’s starting to kick up so get ready

Chapter 2

“So the only ninja who are well enough to fight are Kai, Nya, and maybe Zane?” Wu asked, staring at Misako.

She sighed, putting the pot of tea on the bedside table. “Jay has the flu, Cole may have suffered a minor concussion, and both of Lloyd’s wrists are broken. The doctors are putting the casts on now.” She sat on the bed next to Wu. “Lloyd mentioned something about Zane not saving him until the last possible moment.”

“Hmmm,” Master Wu groaned as he placed cubes into the tea cup. “It is most distressing. That is very uncharacteristic of our nindroid friend.”

“PIXAL is running a diagnostic. Nya will help eventually, but she’s caring for Jay currently.” Misako responded.

“And what on Cole and Kai?”

“Kai is with Cole inside the hospital. I fear that the siblings are the only healthy fighters we have right now.”

Wu sipped his tea, deep in thought. “I am afraid of that too.”

_____________________________________________________

Jay coughed as Nya entered the ninja bedroom with hot soup. “How are you feeling?” She asked softly, placing the soup on the edge of his bed.

Jay laughed lightly, his eyes glittering. “You’ve asked that probably a thousand times in the last hour.” He responded hoarsely.

Nya smiled down at him. “Well, I care for you. Just like you did.” She winked, referring to the timeline only they knew.

Jay dipped a spoon into the soup and smiled. He sipped it and grinned. “This is so good, thank you.” He murmured.

“Of course,” Nya responded. “I can make a mean chicken noodle soup.”

Both her and Jay grinned. “Just add water!” They said in unison before laughing.

Nya kissed the sick ninja on the cheek before turning to the door. “Oh wait,” She paused, slipping a DVD out of her suit. “I picked this up for you to watch. I think…you’d like it.” She tossed him the DVD. “Feel better soon!”

“Thanks!” Jay called out and then broke into coughs. He flipped the DVD over only to see the face of his father.

“Fritz Donagen!” Jay whispered. “Nya is the best.”

When Nya checked on him ten minutes later, Jay was transfixed to the movie.

_______________________________________________

Cole and Kai walked up the gangway to the Bounty parked on top of the hospital. “So no concussion, just a giant bruise and a terrible headache.” Cole summed up, his arm around Kai’s shoulders. “Where’s Zane? I could use a giant ice cube for my head.”

Kai chuckled. “You’re lucky. Nya said that the boulder hit you really hard. The rock shattered into pieces after colliding with your head.”

“Did it really?” Cole smiled. “That’s pretty cool actually.”

Kai walked the earth ninja down to their quarters, where Jay was watching a space samurai movie.

“Really Jay?” Cole groaned, pointing at the screen. “Fritz what’s-his-face? Again?”

Jay nodded, not even looking away from the screen. Kai and Cole exchanged a look. “Whatever, just keep it down. I’m gonna rest.” Cole collapsed onto his bed. “Thanks Kai,” he murmured before instantly going to sleep.

_______________________________________________________

Lil’ Nelson was overjoyed to see the green ninja again. “I can’t believe it! I’m gonna be healed enough to leave in a week but I get to see you for a second time! This is amazing!” The purple ninja squealed.

Lloyd laughed weakly as the doctors were putting away their supplies. Nelson was parked right next to Lloyd’s bed in his wheelchair, both legs still casted and covered in names. His face was glowing with happiness, the ninja bandana still wrapped tightly around his head.

“How did you break your hands?” The boy asked curiously, eyeing the twin casts.

“I was handcuffed and there was a lot of pressure on my hands. It was kind of an accident,” Lloyd responded. The boy nodded, his eyes transfixed on the green hand casts. “How did you break your legs?”

Nelson squirmed in his seat. “It’s kind of an accident too….after the attack of Stiix and when you all saved Ninjago…Y’all are so good….so I thought it would be so cool to be a ninja too! So I…I tried doing Airjitzu out of a tree and it didn’t work.” The kid looked down, ashamed.

“Being a ninja is really cool, but it comes with a cost,” Lloyd said, causing Nelson to look up. “I gave up my childhood in order to become the best ninja leader I could be. I want to regret that choice, but because of it Ninjago is safe. Being a ninja isn’t easy because we deal with sacrifices and loss as well as battles and victory. You don’t have to be a ninja to do good things, you just need to do what’s right and to help others. That’s all we do, but with a lot of trained moves.”

Nelson smiled. “Thanks Lloyd! I’ll do the best that I can to help others. A ninja never quits!”

Lloyd laughed. A nurse walked over to the blonde ninja and told him he was all good to go, but needed to come back in a few weeks for a check up. Lloyd nodded and expressed his thanks before turning back to the purple ninja. “Hey Nelson, would you like to be the first person to sign my casts?”

_________________________________________________________

The bridge on the Destiny’s Bounty was alive with beeping and lights as Zane paced back and forth with a cord extending from the back of his head. “Anything yet, PIXAL?” Zane asked again, getting anxious.

“Nothing yet. Your coding seems in tack and running properly. That’s where the problem should have emerged.” The Assistant Lifeform was running through every test she could inside of Zane’s software.

“Tell me again what happened,” Zane demanded, scanning the code on the computer screen for the 37th time.

“You froze, Zane. There’s no other explanation for it. Something in your software caused a malfunction in your processing unit. Your memory drive stopped and my interactions with you were interrupted.”

Zane sat in silence, digesting the issue. The code still ran in a blur across the screen, but the nindroid knew that this problem was more than numbers.

“Check the stability on my basic functions.”

“They are stable.”

“My power source?”

“Fully operational.”

“Main drive in processing unit?”

“No problems found.”

“Exo-suit functions?”

“Nothing, Zane.”

Zane slammed his fist on the console. “What IS IT?” he yelled, anger suddenly inflating.

“Zane, please, we need to wait and see if the issue resurfaces-“

“We can’t, PIXAL!” Zane spat. “We need to diagnose the problem now, before it happens again!”

PIXAL grew quiet in his head. Zane could feel her recoil, hurt. The nindroid sighed, closing his eyes. “PIXAL, my teammate and friend almost died because of this issue. If we don’t figure this out…I’m afraid something worse could occur.”

“I understand, Zane.” came the soft and soothing voice of the female robot. “I am trying everything I can. We will solve this, together. I promise.”

Zane smiled. “Thank you, PIXAL. Now, what have we not thought of?” Zane asked, turning around. His eyes caught sight of the picture of the ninja on the wall. The young looking boys were all smiling and laughing together, with young Lloyd squeezed in the middle. The original Zane was smiling too, and Titanium Zane still had a crystal clear memory of that moment that picture was taken. Even after transferring bodies through the digiverse, Zane still had all the memories saved from his life before going Titanium.

Suddenly, Zane had an idea. “PIXAL, compare my current code with my original code you have saved from memory.”

PIXAL paused her work. “Zane, it’s the same. The idea of a different code is…impossible.”

“Please, just do it. Bring it up on the external computer.”

Two code streams popped up on the screen. Zane scanned both codes carefully as they whirred by until-

“Stop!”

The codes froze on Zane’s command. His gaze went back and forth between the numbers. “PIXAL…” Zane whispered, eyeing the obvious difference. “I think we found the problem.”

PIXAL remained speechless, for the problem did not compute.

“Scan for exact code replicas of the anomaly.” Zane commanded.

“Where?” PIXAL asked, still in awe.

“Everywhere.”

Silence fell upon the couple as PIXAL searched. Suddenly, she gasped.

“Zane, the code…. It’s not constant, Zane….but it has a 99% consistency with-“

An image popped up on the screen. Zane flinched and stepped back, staring at the picture. He compared the code, then closed his eyes.

With a shaky voice, he said one thing to PIXAL.

“Deactivate me.”

PIXAL gasped. “No Zane! We can fix this, I promise! I’ll…We’ll…. Borg will…”

Zane felt a synthesized tear run down his metal cheek. “PIXAL it’s too late. Deactivate me.”

PIXAL paused. “Zane, I can’t.”

“Do it.”

“I really can’t!”

“Why?” Zane commanded.

“Because it needs to be done manually. By another person. There’s a button on your back that cannot be reached by your hands. It needs to be someone else.”

Zane didn’t think twice. He snapped off the cord and dashed out of the bridge.

_______________________________________________________

Jay placed the empty soup bowl on the ground and went back to the movie. Fritz Donagen was cornered by the Imperial Sludge on his space vessel, the Katana. Jay stared at his father’s perfect movie-star face as he said the character’s famous words. “Fear?” Cliff Gordon asked the leader of the Sludge. “Fear isn’t a word from where I come from!”

“You said it, dad.” Jay whispered as the door swung open.

Zane stood at the door, eyes wide and straight at Jay.

“What’s wrong?” Jay asked, concerned. Zane kneeled in front of the blue ninja.

“No questions,” Zane said, his robotic voice cracking. “I need you to do something really important for me.”

“Of course,” Jay responded.

Zane hesitated, as if he was listening to something. Finally, he said, “I need you to deactivate me.”

“What!?” Jay yelled. Cole sat up in bed instantly, but then laid back down, grumbling and clutching his head. “For how long?” Jay asked.

“Forever,” Zane answered.

“No way,” Jay coughed. “I’m not going to robotically murder my best friend. We need you, Zane!”

“I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if there was no other choice!” Zane pleaded the ninja. “There is no time to explain.” He stood and started to undo his gi.

Jay grabbed Zane’s hands to stop him. “You better get to explaining because I’m not turning you off.”

Zane pushed Jay onto his bed. “Are you not hearing me?” Zane yelled. Jay froze in fear, for he had never heard Zane use such an angry tone. “You need to deactivate me before-“ Suddenly, Zane froze, his gaze fixed on a spot right above Jay’s head.

Jay, still frozen, stared at Zane. “Before what?”

Zane’s head snapped back at Jay, his blue eyes flickering. He lifted his left hand and activated a miniature ray-gun to pop out of a hole in arm.

“Before this.” Zane answered coldly.

Then he pointed the gun straight at Jay.

#evil zane #ninjago #ninjago fanfiction #please read #jaya #kai #nya #zane #pixal #jay #lloyd #sensei wu #misako #cole #lil nelson #evil zane is here baby

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wendyimmiller · 5 years

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A Desperate Grasp at Redemption From One Struck Down by the Wrath of Marianne Wilburn’s Poison Pen

“There are peaches to be eaten warm from the brick of the wall they are grown against, peas picked off the tendrily plant and shucked straight from pod to mouth…tomatoes waiting to release their own musty muskiness as teeth break their skin.”

This, I was informed by my friend Marianne Wilburn in her brutal rebuttal to my good-natured, innocent, lighthearted, little column, Time for a Grexit, (published in the July/August issue of Horticulture Magazine)[i], is the high prose of English garden writer, Monty Don. It is her first of many examples of English garden writing superiority over that roughshod American lot. A citation so lovely, she more or less admits, that it compels her (and, apparently, a clique of Facebook Friends and other supporters) to sigh, swoon, and otherwise behave in a manner that works best in a room in a house down a long lane that offers plenty of privacy. Despite trying hard not to “go there,” given this reaction to “peas shucked straight from pod to mouth,” I couldn’t help but wonder how over the top her pleasure would be if Mr. Monty Don were to, oh I don’t know, perhaps eat an apple on the other end of a telephone call? Assuming, of course, that the call came from England. Conceivably from the Walled Garden at Wisely. Monty Don wearing wellies. Monty Don perhaps wearing only wellies.[ii] Eating an apple. Again, trying hard not to “go there” mainly because it might be a sin, but I can’t help but imagine something along the lines of Jamie Lee Curtis responding to John Cleese barking Russian at her in A Fish Called Wanda.

The offending column. My happy go lucky Deep Roots piece in the July/August 2019 issue of Horticulture Magazine.

The rebuttal that broke me. https://www.google.com/search?q=the+gulf+stream&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwil7p2q9IDkAhUbCM0KHUj3CYQQ_AUIESgB&biw=1006&bih=563#imgrc=zk5ACnjGVOKjYM:

I must admit I was rocked by Marianne’s withering rebuttal, Dismiss British Garden Writers? Absurd. (Guest Rant, July 18, 2019, https://www.gardenrant.com/2019/07/dismiss-british-garden-writers-absurd.html). Came out of nowhere, appearing, even, right here on Garden Rant, my home turf. For I, too, had enjoyed our visits, including a lovely dinner (thankfully one without peaches or peas), and delighted in good-natured repartee at a speaking engagement. But her piece landed some pretty heavy punches and, sadly, derailed whatever confidence and momentum I had managed to patch together since being bullied in my childhood. Oh, and after the loss of our beloved little black dog, Basil.[iii] Oh, and since surviving cancer.[iv]

Best little black dog ever!

I suppose, as my therapist pointed out, I should take some solace in the fact that my 500 word column inspired such a heartfelt, well-documented,[v] erudite (“Lloyd was as caustic and clever as Dorothy Parker, but as loveable as Ogden Nash.”), revealing (“When he starts undressing figs with his fingers, I need a moment to compose myself.”), occasionally pretentious (“went to university there”) sometimes profane (“he has his head right up his smart ass”), opportunistic (stealthily inserted plug for her British garden tour business), and masterfully scathing 5000 word screed.

Frankly, dammit, I’ve been outclassed. Forced to admit I’ve never heard of Ogden Nash. Nor Monty Don. Whatever I thought I had become, I was again reminded that I’m just another troglodyte American from the hinterlands, bumbling along, thinking most of the time only about my next Big Gulp. Worse, post-rebuttal, I’m too afraid to even Google “Monty Don.” From Marianne’s drooling description, I fear one mistaken click and, damn, I’ve downloaded one of those nasty Ukrainian viruses again. Or, even worse, my dear wife, Michele, will see “Monty Don” in my search history, click out of curiosity, and scarper off on the first aeroplane to London. You see, like Marianne, she too is an Anglophile. Always watching English dramas, documentaries on the Queen’s corgis, and other crap like that, and, therefore, vulnerable to suave, sophisticated, Monty Don-like, Englishmen.

My Anglophile Wife, Michele (right) and her twin sinister, Kathy, at a Jane Austen festival. All dressed up and ready to be married off (to men of good fortune).

But I have heard of Christopher Lloyd. In fact, I’ve got a few of his books. But somehow in the busy life I live, I managed to miss this brilliant bit of prose, gleefully quoted by Marianne, in which Lloyd calls out snobs:

“There are some gardeners in whose company I feel vulgar. They will expect you to fall on your knees with a magnifying glass to worship before the shrine of a spikelet of tiny green flowers… yet will themselves turn away disgusted from a huge, opulent quilt of hortensia hydrangeas.”

Huh. Interesting. So Christopher Lloyd was no fan of snobs.

I wonder what his opinion would be, then, of the dogged American writer dutifully putting out relevant, applicable information fully capable of making American gardens better even if, let’s surmise, that writer happened to be some clause-mauling, clod-hopping, t-shirt wearing, Big Gulp slurping, overworked, underpaid, privately insured, American public garden worker who finds his will to live sustained only by the slim hope of a Timber Press contract.[vi] Yeah, I wonder.

Likewise, I wonder what his opinion would be of the reader who goes all a quiver, requiring a coterie of handmaids to scurry hither and thither until full consciousness is restored, simply because Penelope Hobhouse articulated a description of a white garden that included no less than three particularly clever turns of phrase?

I don’t know much about Christopher Lloyd, but I’m just going to guess that it would be more likely he’d be found in a pub with the former than seen sipping tea with the latter.

I react to irony about the same way Marianne reacts to Monty Don undressing figs with his fingers, so I’m very glad no one is here right now. But I don’t expect that recognizing such irony is the forte of one who writes, “The best British garden writers have honed the ability to inflict dagger-sized wounds with the prick of a pin.” Can we pause it right here? Can we think about that for just a minute? Can you all just humour me while I ask, “What kind of she-devil admires such a thing?” Maybe I’m too sensitive. Maybe I’m too kind. Maybe I’ve got a little attitude, being as I am, one who has spent the month since Marianne’s rebuttal struggling to keep my internal organs from slithering out of just such a wound, but does such a sentiment really exemplify an ideal we all really should want in good garden writing?

Later in her piece, Marianne goes on to argue that British garden writers are at an advantage because they ride upon the tide of a long gardening culture. She states, “They [the Brits] have simply been doing it longer. Their gardens are indeed older. Their tools are better oiled.” [citation needed] “There is nothing television worthy,” she continues, “about a rumpled and grubby Monty Don; except, there is.”[vii] All this, in my jaded opinion, is simply an eloquent way of offering a dismissive, backhanded excuse to American writers who are, apparently, hamstrung by a coast to coast populace of hopelessly un-horticultural hominids who need any narrative that might be gaining momentum to be repeatedly interrupted so they can be reminded of which part of a plant is supposed to be pretty and which part goes in the ground.

Sold only in the United States.

To this, I again raise the main point from my Horticulture Magazine column. Is the gulf between English gardening success and ours the fault of inarticulate American garden writers woefully trying to counsel a dismally ignorant American gardening public? Or is it because American gardeners, so easily impressed by Victorian language, vainly and stubbornly continue to force square, gulf stream-buffered English style gardens and the favourite garden plants of spoilt English garden writing prats into bitterly continental, round, American planting holes?

The Gulf Stream. America’s gift to British gardeners.

There is only so much time in a day. There is only so much room on a shelf. How many fresh, exciting, informed books that could lead to more and better American gardens go unpublished and therefore unread because so many seek the entertaining flourish of Lloyd dissecting snobs with the prick of his pin and because Beth Chatto’s Damp Garden continues to sell so well? Despite Chatto suggesting readers plant Meconopsis (the cause of all my frustrations), Heracleum mantegazzianum (a wickedly invasive weed), and Houttuynia cordata (the leading cause of American gardener suicides).

So, in the end, Marianne, you brought me to my knees, but you didn’t change my mind. On some things, as friends, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

That said, we do share a common fondness for Hugh Johnson, and I recommend The Principles of Gardening to anyone who will listen.[viii] No better guide to the full glorious spectrum of gardening exists anywhere. I’m not sure if it’s still in print, but it is available on Amazon, and everyone reading this (you are getting sleepy…sleepy) must go buy it (when you awake). I need to also mention John Seymour, author of the Self-Sufficient Gardener, whose infectious enthusiasm hooked me to the point where, for an anachronistic period of time, we just about went off the grid.[ix] Never did, though, develop a taste for parsnips.

So, time to let bygones be bygones. I’ll recover. Don’t worry about me. And I look forward to the next time our paths cross. I just learned I’ll be speaking in Waynesboro, Virginia next March. Somewhere near you, Marianne? Maybe Michele and I can swing by and enjoy “the wine that flows softly and smoothly.” We’ll laugh at the best barbs from your rebuttal, and at my floundering efforts here. I’ll try to live up to my attributes, which you were so kind to ascribe, and do my best to entertain, be clever, and self-deprecate. And, you and Michele can both enjoy uproarious conversation about Shakespeare, corgis, Prince Harry, Shepherd’s pie, and Monty Don long into the night. I’ll just good-naturedly smile and nod, struggle to follow, flail to “get” the constant stream of witticisms, and stand flabbergasted by minds that can retain something they read only once and then quote off into the future, seemingly at will. I wish I was like that, but I’m just not. Not even close. But, in the end, I’m okay with being a passionate advocate for more and better American gardens and any writing that pushes that forward, whether such writing inflicts dagger sized wounds or not.

[i] Horticulture Magazine, July/August 2019 issue, Deep Roots column, Scott Beuerlein

[ii] Fully Monty?

[iii] Named for Basil Fawlty, the John Cleese character in British sitcom, Fawlty Towers.

[iv] If one is dealt the cancer card, it is considered poor form to not use it. I once avoided getting beat up by saying, “Don’t. Stop, I’ve got cancer.” BTW, free and clear now. Thankfully.

[v] Marianne had five, count ‘em, five endnote references.

[vi] Timber Press? Call me.

[vii] What does Marianne’s husband know of this Monty Don?

[viii] Oddly, I’m not so fond of Johnson’s book on wine I bought, which bogged down in wineries, regions, varietals and offered few opinions on good wines and values that could guide my wine-drinking journey. Which, come to think of it, is why I like the American garden writer Michael Dirr over, say, Hillier. You might not always agree with his opinions, but Dirr at least puts them out there, and doesn’t phone it in by simply describing the leaves in botanical language.

[ix] Include the 1970s BBC program, The Good Life as also partly responsible for this madness.

A Desperate Grasp at Redemption From One Struck Down by the Wrath of Marianne Wilburn’s Poison Pen originally appeared on GardenRant on August 21, 2019.

from Gardening https://www.gardenrant.com/2019/08/a-death-rattle-response-from-a-mortally-wounded-blogger-to-marianne-wilburns-brutal-rebuttal.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

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turfandlawncare · 5 years

Text

A Desperate Grasp at Redemption From One Struck Down by the Wrath of Marianne Wilburn’s Poison Pen

The offending column. My Deep Roots piece in the July/August 2019 issue of Horticulture Magazine.

The rebuttal that broke me. https://ift.tt/2ZiubVC

Best little black dog ever!

My Anglophile Wife, Michele (right) and her twin sinister, Kathy, at a Jane Austen festival. All dressed up and ready to be married off (to men of good fortune).

Huh. Interesting. So Christopher Lloyd was no fan of snobs.

I don’t know much about Christopher Lloyd, but I’m just going to guess that it would be more likely he’d be found in a pub with the former than seen sipping tea with the latter.

Sold only in the United States.

The Gulf Stream. America’s gift to British gardeners.

So, in the end, Marianne, you brought me to my knees, but you didn’t change my mind. On some things, as friends, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

[i] Horticulture Magazine, July/August 2019 issue, Deep Roots column, Scott Beuerlein

[ii] Fully Monty?

[iii] Named for Basil Fawlty, the John Cleese character in British sitcom, Fawlty Towers.

[iv] If one is dealt the cancer card, it is considered poor form to not use it. I once avoided getting beat up by saying, “Don’t. Stop, I’ve got cancer.” BTW, free and clear now. Thankfully.

[v] Marianne had five, count ‘em, five endnote references.

[vi] Timber Press? Call me.

[vii] What does Marianne’s husband know of this Monty Don?

[ix] Include the 1970s BBC program, The Good Life as also partly responsible for this madness.

A Desperate Grasp at Redemption From One Struck Down by the Wrath of Marianne Wilburn’s Poison Pen originally appeared on GardenRant on August 21, 2019.

from GardenRant https://ift.tt/2HjzBJW

#GardenRant

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booksontheshelf · 6 years

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Scallywag Reading 2017

I‘m surprised that a book was opened at all this year. So much of my time is reading online, so it seems a triumph of sorts that I am still managing to read books at all. It is not possible to do justice for all books mentioned here individually. They all add up to the string of pearls that sustains me in some sort of equilibrium and continues to provide threads to places that only a particular book can reveal, at the particular time you are reading.

Some of the books here were chanced on in bookshops. You never regret time spent in bookshops. There didn’t seem enough time this year though to enjoy this gentle past time. Which is probably a good thing for me, as I truly have enough books at home to read already. My daughter tries to stop me adding to my collection all the time. Can you imagine taking off one day, just to visit all the bookshops in the world?

One day this winter, heading down Bourke St after a meeting, I stepped into The Paperback Bookshop. There I chanced on a book of poetry by anthony lawrence called headwaters.

It has the lines

‘Her dreams have night vision, and in her sight Our bodies leave a ghostprint where we’ve laid. My darling turns to poetry at night Between abstract expression and first light.’

I’ve just finished You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me - A MEMOIR by Sherman Alexie. Hard not to proclaim this book loudly enough. Strangely the book’s poetic, diaristic chapters look superficially like the incredible work of American fiction I read this year called Lincoln in the Bardo. Perhaps the Trump-dark atmosphere of 2017 made George Saunder’s romp with the ghost of Lincoln’s past presidential time and place so strangely alluring. (The book was purchased with intelligent guidance from Readings’ Acland St staff.)

The year began with the death of one of my favourite artists/writerJohn Berger. I remember we thought 2016 was bad for the death of larger than life artists. John Berger was such a great humanist. But I love that I can still read him and hear his fabulous voice in my head. I did order his last work of essays Confabulations and made a concerted effort to gather all the books I had by him in one place. They are now housed in my studio. Vale John Berger. I return to you all the time. Thinking of artists, I loved reading the The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington by Joanna Moorhead.

You might gather by the next titles we have Alzheimer’s in the family - my Dad has had the disease (as far as we know) the last 10 years. Books that have helped me try to understand what is happening for him and helping me deal with it this year have been: Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s- A Groundbreaking Approach for Everyone Dealing with the Disease by Joanne Koenig Coste. The Forgetting Alzheimer’s: Portrait of an Epidemic by David Shenk. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. And In Pursuit of Memory- The Fight Against Alzheimers by Joseph Jebelli I am rereading Missing Out by Adam Phillips with newly minted insights from thinking about memory and who we are without it.

I thoroughly enjoyed Geoff Dwyer’s book on Tarkovsky’s film Stalker called Zona. I need to see Stalker again but as Geoff Dwyer says- it has to be cinematic not at home! The ignition of crazy nuclear war thinking by America’s President Trump, who thinks he’s eviscerating ‘Rocket Man’ with a tweet, sets a dé ja vu tone reading about the haunted nuclear-strange Beckettian terrain of the film Stalker.

I love a good graphic novel and I have thoroughly enjoyed two by Riad Sattouf - THE ARAB OF THE FUTURE A Childhood in the Middle East 1) 178-1984 and 2) 1984-1985. I also enjoyed the short graphic novel by Jason Lutes called Jar of fools. One for the young at heart to the very young is by my friend Trace Balla- who wrote the book RiverTime. This year I read her book Rockhopping, taking me all the way to the source of the Glenelg River in Gariwerd (the Grampians).

Feeding into my marine thinking for projects, I am still working my way through The Sounding of the Whale Science and Cetaceans in the 20th Century by D.Graham Burnett. I am also in the midst of The Reef A Passionate history by Iain McCalman. Hoping that Pelican1 will be on her way North to the Reef next year too. As we have worked on the Cape a lot in the last 15 years, I have also been reading the story of the explorer Edmund Kennedy in a book I found second-hand (Daylesford) called Kennedy of Cape York- Edmund Beale. Trying to get some insight into the newly colonial world and the exploration of the Eastern Cape (before the impact of the gold rush). The book tells the story from a very colonial perspective. Larissa Beherendt’s book FINDING ELIZA Power and Colonial Storytelling was a good follow on read.

I then found myself rereading gularabulu - Stories from the West Kimberley by Paddy Roe edited by Stephen Muecke.

'This is all public, You know (it) is for everybody: Children, women, everybody. See, this is the thing they used to tell us: Story, and we know.

Paddy Roe

Back to the science books, I learnt a lot from Where The River Flows, Scientific Reflections on Earth’s Waterways by Sean W.Fleming. Had me looking at graphs of sine waves (there was a reason to learn about them in maths after all!), thinking about ‘Digital Rainbows’ and diving deeper into scientific connections between rivers, land and ocean and understanding that the physics of rivers and the quantum leap in understanding being made about their dynamics is one of the many tools that will be needed to help care for this crowded planet. The Ocean Of Life-The Fate of Man and the Sea by Callum Roberts was another regular dip in as I gather ideas to try to incorporate plans for sea projects and understand our oceans more deeply (haha). A new writer for me this year was Yi-Fu Tuan with his book ROMANTIC GEOGRAPHY in search of the sublime landscape- A geographer’s meditation on place and human emotions. I found two new wonderful reference books, the first second hand from South Melbourne Market -The Seabirds of AUSTRALIA by Terence R. Lindsey. And SEAHORSES- A Life-Sized Guide to Every Species by Sara Lourie.

Looking at the politics and economics of our times I managed to read The Secret World of Oil by Ken Silverstein- an enlightening exposé of the behind the scenes snake-oil salesmen. The old rule of following the money results in a thorough investigation of oil’s all too human underbelly. I am still reading Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics. 7 Ways to Think like a 21st Century Economist. A complete creative overhaul of economics, pulling it out of our old ways of understanding the world to make ideas for a better future world possible. Highly recommend.

It’s been another tough year for journalists and the book of writings by Anna Politikovskaya Is Journalism Worth Dying For? reported from Russian frontline and includes the piece that she was working on at the time of her murder. ‘What am I guilty of? I have merely reported what I witnessed, nothing but the truth.’ It was a journalist who wrote a difficult and intense book about the 2011 tsunami in Japan that I’ve just finished. GHOSTS of the TSUNAMI by Richard Lloyd Parry. I have not stopped thinking about that wave and our visit to Japan’s Irate prefecture 3 years post the event left an indelible memory and deep affection for all the people we met still picking up and recovering after the trauma and destruction from that most unsea-like wave.

Back to Oz I loved reading Sophie Cunningham’s book Warning: The Story of Cyclone Tracy. I was very fortunate to take part in one of Sophie’s walks, following the footsteps of William Buckley from Sorrento to Dromana. Though footsore, it was a terrific way to connect with the Bay, while thinking of this man’s path and how different, perhaps, Australia could have been if his attitude to the First People of this Country was shared across the country. I reread much of the fictionalised account again by Craig Robertson (Buckley’s Hope -The Real Story of Australia’s Robinson Crusoe) to get me in the frame of mind for the 20k meditative walk. It was on a recommendation that Sophie shared on Facebook that I now have Phillip Pullman’s latest book The Book of Dust by my bed.

The year has been a terrible one for our ongoing torture of refugees who are STILL languishing in our offshore prisons. I heard that New Zealand had offered to take ALL the men on Manus and that offer has been refused by Dutton and MT. I went to the launch of a book that was trying to navigate the extremely polarised political territory around asylum seekers and I highly recommend it. Bridging Troubled Waters Australia and Asylum Seekers by Tony Ward. During the year I went to a wonderful event organised by Behind the Wire (http://behindthewire.org.au) and came away with their incredible book of first-person narratives called They Cannot Take The Sky- Stories from detention. I reckon our pollies should be sat in a room and this is read aloud to them.

A book that has been a good one to read this year was Hope in the Dark Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit which I read with the new foreword and afterword.

From the gifts of Christmas I have a pile that includes John Clarke- A pleasure to be here. A very sad loss to the Australian landscape, he will be missed for a very long time. The Man who Climbs by James Aldred and looking forward to A.S. Patrić’s new book Atlantic Black. Also on the pile is Robert Mafarlane’s The Old Ways- A Journey on Foot.

And looking back out to sea with a beautiful book I have just started. The Seabird’s Cry - The Lives and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers by Adam Nicolson.

Might have to do a separate post on the poetry that is always by my bedside but all I can say is as I get older, reading poetry becomes more and more pleasurable.

If you have got this far in my rambling through my ambling reading, I want to wish you a very Happy New Year, illuminated by many, many fine reading adventures….

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