Melbourne Writers Festival

One of the best things about living in Frankston is that it's far enough away from the city to be its own separate entity and yet close enough to take advantage of all of the fabulous arty events that go on in the CBD (translation: downtown). And the best part? The vast majority is free!

Even better? We don't have to pay an arm and a leg to get off an island to get to the closest major metropolis. No dashing for the ferry and enduring that ulcer inducing wait to see if you are going to make the next sailing to Vancouver. No pulse pounding interrogations at the border to get to Seattle. All the art and culture we could possibly want is at our veritable doorstep.

Last week, Sophie and I decided to go to a science fair at the Queen Victoria Market and one hour-long train ride later, BAM, we were there. We extracted DNA from strawberries, tasted all the stages of chocolate production, grew hand crafted bacteria samples and ate our way through several pastry stall samples. All for free. On the way back to Flinders Street station, we decided to pop into the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) to revisit some sculpture we had previously enjoyed. Again, free.

this is actually from an art installation in Pahran, but you get the idea.

Today, I went into the city on my own to take advantage of the Melbourne Writers Festival. You guessed it - almost all of it was free.

My first session was "The Morning Read" - four authors gathered in a coffee bar to read from their current publications. When I walked in (a little late), a purple haired author was reading a chapter from her detective novel which, from what I could gather, involved half of a body sewn onto a deer's hindquarters. There were a lot of expletives and very graphic descriptions and I was only half listening while I tried to surreptitiously catch the attention of a server. Thankfully, once I had ordered my coffee and was paying attention again, an Irish author was giving voice to his main character, a gangsta rapper from Fremantle. Highly entertaining.

The next session was a group of three debut novelists - a platinum haired poet who "makes works around digital semiotics", a straight atheist who wrote a book about a homosexual boy in an orthodox Jewish community, and a forty-something tv critic who wrote about a fictional reality show called Survivor CBD. A very diverse bunch.

By this time, lunch was in order, so I wandered among the kazillion cafes and restaurants nearby and settled on a eggplant schnitzel baguette with a filtered coffee.
And what, you ask, is a filtered coffee?
I watched the barista weigh and grind the beans, place them delicately in a filter and fit it into a contraption that sits on top of a beaker.

He then poured hot water over the grinds, slowly, over several minutes, to extract a shot glass sized portion of coffee. He proudly poured this into a cup and with both hands, offered it to me. I asked for some milk (Australians don't do cream) and he looked absolutely horrified. I actually thought he was going  to snatch the coffee back from me.
"You should have left it, babe. It's far too delicate"
I didn't dare ask for sugar.

Back at Fed Square, I joined the queue for "Why I Read", a talk with Brain Picking's Maria Popova and literary editor Jason Steger. The session was oversold, so the line was long, but I managed to get in at the very front. I looked back to survey those behind me and saw that everyone in line was reading.
A book.
A real live paper book. No phones or iHooies to be seen.
The printed word is not dead.
The session itself was beyond awesome. Popova must have a photographic memory because I lost count of how many books she quoted from. Steger has a deep British voice and a chummy, laissez-faire attitude coupled with a quick wit. And an undying hatred for Ayn Rand.
I could have listened to them for days on end.

My final session, "Artists for the Environment" included a Michael Stipe-esque musician/writer and a bearded playwriter/installation artist who showed us a clip of himself on stage shoving ice in his underwear. Both of them are doing what they can to change public perception of climate change. They pointed out that we need to stop thinking about the environment as something we need to save and realize that the environment is an extension of our own selves. So, in fact, it is ourselves that we are working to save. In the Q&A, I asked:
"If you could make one small, easily digestible message go viral, what would it be?"
Both of them answered:
"Leave the coal in the ground"
We have our pipelines, Aussies have dirty coal.

So, my take aways from today?
I need to read more. Much more.
I need to stop buying $6 coffees in hopes that I may find something familiar.
I can throw out my unread copy of Atlas Shrugged.