Big Book, Small Page. The Mobile Phone Novel

Want to write a mobile phone novel?  Apparently they're big in Japan as 'keitai shousetsu'.  Flash Fiction writers all take note!

Just follow this link to Dan Holloway,  at the 'Man who painted Agnieszka's Shoes' blog.   At 100/200 words a chapter, it's even more challenging than Twitter!

And you might like the Mobile Phone Novel awards site  at http://www.textnovel.com/home.php

Exploring the Olive Grove

Below our terrace the ground falls away so steeply under the olive trees, you can’t see the bottom. It’s quite hard work clambering from terrace to terrace, so during the hot weather I haven’t explored very far. You can’t climb straight down, but have to tack like a ship in a gale, and it’s several hundred feet to the bottom.

But now, the weather is becoming cooler and the family who own the land have begun to spread the nets for the olive harvest. Soon it will be raining and slithery with mud. I realised yesterday that if I didn’t go now, I might not get another chance until the spring.

After three or four terrace levels I was already in another country - the house had disappeared from view, and wherever I looked there was evidence of a wide variety of wildlife. There were dens and bolt holes everywhere -

This one perhaps the den of the fox that came and looked at us one breakfast time.

This one looks as if it might be the badger den we’ve been told is there.

And who lives in these little holes?

The creatures who chatter in the trees at night and scamper across our roof are Ghiro’s - they look like a large squirrel and are a relative of the dormouse. They behave rather like possums. You rarely see them because they’re only active at night. I've been lucky enough to see a couple, but not quick enough to get a photo.  I found this rather nice drawing on an Italian wildlife site.

At the bottom of the olive grove is an old pathway with walls of cyclopic masonry - all now falling into ruin. It used to be used by residents to connect the village and the town. To the right of the path is ‘the wildwood’ - a jungle of trees, shrubs and brambles that fills the precipitous gorge and apparently contains a huge number of wild animals including deer and wild boar.

Above the path, gazing back up towards the house, the olive grove looks quite beautiful.

Its ancient trees grow straight out of volcanic rock outcrops and the walls of the terraces are constructed from the same stone.

Some of the trees are very old indeed.

And in the rocks around their roots wild clematis are blooming in every crevice they can find a space to grow.

Neil and I also explored a short way along the path at the bottom of our neighbour's olive grove and found something very interesting, which I'll be blogging about as soon as I've managed to find out more about it. 

Wild-Fire in the Trees

Yesterday we had a bit of a fright when a forest fire sprang up just a few hundred yards from our house, at the bottom of our neighbour's garden.  Just below Capezzano Monte, olive groves and clumps of pine and chestnut cover the hillside all the way down to the town of Pietrasanta.   Fire had broken out in the undergrowth - probably a spark from a bonfire of grass cuttings - and quickly leapt up into the trees.

Suddenly we felt very vulnerable, as the pine cones burst in the branches like hand grenades and bamboo exploded in the undergrowth.   But the fire brigade and the antincendio dei boschi arrived within about 20 minutes, ran a pump and hose down through the olive groves and soon got it under control.  Luckily there was no wind to fan it or carry it deeper into the gully. It has made us see how easy it is for these things to happen.   I was already calculating which of my possessions I was going to take with me when I ran from the house!  Hopefully, we will never have to.  Must take care with the barbecue!!

National Poetry Day, Tomas Transtromer wins Nobel Prize

Happy National Poetry Day everyone.   You may remember some time ago, I posted a poem by Swedish Tomas Transtromer on the blog.  I loved his work, which I hadn't come across before.  Just now, on Twitter, I've heard that he's won the Nobel prize for Literature 2011.  Great stuff!

This is a copy of my previous blogpost.

Track

2 a.m.: moonlight. The train has stopped
out in a field. Far off sparks of light from a town,
flickering coldly on the horizon.

As when a man goes so deep into his dream
he will never remember that he was there
when he returns again to his room.

Or when a person goes so deep into a sickness
that his days all become some flickering sparks, a swarm,
feeble and cold on the horizon.

The train is entirely motionless.
2 o'clock: strong moonlight, few stars.

Tomas Transtromer (trans Robert Bly)


I've just found this poet - who is apparently one of Sweden's greatest and was a candidate for the Nobel laureateship. Why haven't I heard of him before? Translations don't always work either - but these do. Robert Bly, his translator, was a personal friend and I think this closeness has made for really good translations - not just a transcription but the creation of a new poem. Shelley is very good on this problem. He wrote 'It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as to seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower - and this is the burden of the curse of Babel'.

How to Get Your Book Blogged

Today I'm blogging about how to get your book reviewed on the Blogosphere, over at 'Authors Electric'. You can find us at authorselectric.blogspot.com

Tuesday Poem: Allen Ginsberg, Howl

I've just seen this film, which came out last year, and really enjoyed it. The script is taken from Ginsberg's collection 'Howl and Other Poems', from transcripts of interviews he gave, as well as the obscenity trial in New York, all linked together with some amazing passages of animation. It's a long time since I read Howl, and it made me want to pick it up all over again. It also seemed to fit with a book I've just been reading - Joyce Johnson's Beat Memoir 'Minor Characters'.

For more poetry please go to the Tuesday Poem hub, at www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com

The Economic Crisis in Italy

Nothing illustrates the state of the Italian economy more clearly than the plight of the marble yards in Pietrasanta.  Once they were full of sculptors from all over the world and the skilled artisans helping them.  They worked alongside other artisans making commercial objects out of marble - fireplaces, statues for churches, floors, bathrooms - and it kept the town alive.  But over the past few years more and more marble yards have closed and there are fewer and fewer places for sculptors to work.  Recently the pace of change has accelerated.  Last September the yard Neil worked in had to close when the owner decided to sell the land for a block of flats.  He and a few other sculptors found a new studio in a beautiful location with good working conditions - it all seemed set to continue happily.  But the owner has been hit by the economic downturn during the summer - no one can afford fireplaces, or marble floors, garden statuary, and even the church is cutting back on renovations.  Yesterday, Friday, the sculptors were suddenly told that the space had been sold and they had until Sunday to remove their work.  Temporary space will be made for them on another part of the site, but it's been a big shock.

Packing Up

Ready to go

The newspapers are full of gossip stories about the private life of Silvio Berlusconi and rumours about his business dealings, but he remains the most powerful man in Italy, despite the fact that the country has one of the biggest national debts in Europe.   We are watching our Italian friends struggling to make a living and hope that Italy will survive.  The cartoon below is doing the rounds of the bars at the moment and really sums up the ordinary Italian's attitude to SB.    It's called 'the Trouser Salute'.