After finishing off Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, I urged my daughter toward Black Beauty, thinking it was a nice fit, because recently we acquired a dog who, like the horse in Anna Sewell’s novel, has been mistreated. But more about that another time, because N said no to Black Beauty and insisted (once again) on Roald Dahl’s The BFG — in which the little girl Sophie is kidnapped from her bedroom by a giant who lurks around on dark streets and blows dreams into children’s windows.

In all good conscience I couldn’t very well say “Mommy has already mentioned The BFG on her blog several times, so we’ll have to read something else.” And anyway, it’s probably time for a confession about my own fascination with giants. My new novel, still very much underway, has a giant girl as the  main character.

For this reason, we have books around our house that show pictures of real giants — the “boy giant” Robert Wadlow, who soared past eight feet in height, and weighed nearly four hundred pounds; and the enormous Sandy Allen, seven feet, seven inches, and beautiful when Fellini cast her as his giantess in Casanova. The Wadlow book shows a photo of him touching the top of a streetlight in New York City, with a gaggle of little New Yorkers around him, and for days afterwards, whenever we passed a traffic light, my daughter would say, “A giant could reach that high.”

In my research for the novel, I was intrigued to discover the links between storybook giants and actual giants, whose condition is caused by a pituitary tumour that causes excess growth hormone in the body. So the traits we so often see in stories like Jack and the Beanstalk exist in real life too. Fleshy lips and ears; a pronounced forehead and heavy jaw; poor vision; a deep, hoarse voice; a hunched back; a cane (in stories, a club) for support.

I won’t give more away here, except to say that I’m easily persuaded when N wants another read of The BFG, and tucked away in her second-floor bedroom, we imagine him (one of children’s literature’s most endearing characters, in my opinion) stooping way down to peer through the window at us.

Roald Dahl’s giant lives in Giant Country, but he’s an anomaly there too. His fellow giants are twice as tall as he is, and they all dine on human beans, especially delectable little chiddlers, while the BFG, a conscientious but non-judgmental vegetarian, eats only icky snozzcumbers and drinks frobscottle, a beverage whose fizzes go down instead of up and therefore give him gassy whizzpoppers that are one of his few sources of happiness. Until Sophie comes along, that is.  When the bespectacled little orphan is scooped “hipswitch” out of the orphanage by the giant, both their lives change forever.

One of my favourite passages has Sophie discovering, to her horror, that the giants of giant land eat humans. And while the BFG believes it’s wrong to guzzle human beans, he is quick to point out her hypocrisy. Humans eat pigs, he says, although the pigs probably don’t like it very much. And besides that –

“I is not understanding human beans at all…. You is a human bean and you is saying it is grizzling and horrigust for giants to be eating human beans…. But human beans is squishing each other all the time. They is shootling guns and going up in aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each other’s heads every week. Human beans is always killing other human beans…. Giants is not very lovely, but they is not killing each other. Nor is crockadowndillies killing other crockadowndillies. Nor is pussy-cats killing pussy-cats…. Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind.”

Which seems an appropriate thought for Remembrance Day.

Roald Dahl was a member of the Royal Air Force in WW2. He stretched to six feet, six inches, and must have been quite a sight crouched into the cockpit of a warplane. He survived a crash in the desert, but was transferred home to England due to his injuries. Eventually he ended up at a desk in Washington, which must have seemed somewhat unadventurous, and yet it was here that his career really took a turn. He was asked to lunch by C.S. Forester, who requested some information about his war experience. If he could jot down some notes, Forester would then take what he’d written and transform it into a piece for The Saturday Evening Post.

As it turned out, the pilot had a way with the pen. When Forester received Dahl’s musings, he sent along a note saying “Did you know you were a writer? — I haven’t changed a word.” And the piece was published as “Shot Down Over Libya”  in the August 1942 edition of The Saturday Evening Post (though it isn’t true that Dahl was shot down — he was already on his way to a great career in fiction).

The war remained an inspiration. A year later, Disney published his first children’s book, The Gremlins, about a group of mischievous creatures who wreak havoc in the plane-filled skies of World War Two. In keep with Remembrance Day, it fits to mention that his memoir Going Solo gives a detailed account of his wartime experience.

And I can’t close without saying something about Quentin Blake, who illustrated so many of Dahl’s books. You would think, reading The BFG and others, that the words and the pictures came from one mind, they fit that well together. My daughter loves to draw, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her quite as inspired as she was when we first read The BFG. She was torn between her wish for another chapter, and her wish for a break so she could go and sketch out her own version of Blake’s giant and the little Sophie in her nightgown.

Blake was still a boy when Dahl was crash-landing his warplanes, but what a treat to find that his first published drawings appeared in Punch magazine when he was just a teenager — remember this was home for A.A. Milne and Ernest Shepard early in their careers. Later on, Blake illustrated for a number of other writers, and like Shepard was an author in his own right. In our house, we adore his story Mrs. Armitage on Wheels. The Daily Telegraph wrote that “Blake is beyond brilliant. He’s anarchic, moral, infinitely subversive, sometimes vicious, socially acute, sparse when he has to be, exuberantly lavish in the detail when he feels like it. He can tell wonderful stories without a single word, but his partnership with Roald Dahl was made in heaven. Or somewhere.”

Well — we concur.

For more about Quentin Blake, click here. Visit Dahl’s whizzpopping website here. Read Elizabeth Renzetti’s Fantastic Mr. Dahl.

Today I’m Bulacan-Bound for a Bevy of Belles

[in Expat Newspaper Sept 6 - 19, 2009 issue]

I had the itch. And it needed to be scratched baaad-ly. It has become a subliminal monthly occurrence of mine to travel and the lack of it sets off an internal alarm, a systematic prompting to get up and go. Compounded by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and by nada a story-idea on our editorial board, I left. This time there was no invite, no fixed itineraries: I would simply search for a story and maybe see a friend. So I found myself taking up my pack, slapping on my trekking sandals and jumping on a bus on to Bulacan.

Well, it began with a bus all right. Leaving Cubao or one chaotic city for another, I boarded a bus to Monumento in Caloocan City. I had never been to that part of the metro before, all I knew it was a common end stop for most public transports. Once there, I went up the pink and blue overpass to the other side of the highway, looking for my ride out of town. Farewell bus, hello jeep. I spent roughly an hour peering out the windows (if you can call them that), inhaling smoke, and deciphering where the heck I was, hoping not to miss my stop. In the middle of it all, I noticed a newly painted wall with colorful quotes on them. One gleamed, “You can’t just sit there and wait for others to give you that golden dream, you have to get out and make it happen.” High-five wall!

Soon, the roads became narrow and it seemed we have left the Manila rim. Although, not quite. At one part of the stretch, for some weird reason (possibly road construction inconsistencies) there was water ankle-deep. It was hot as summer, but there it was. This may perhaps be a trace of that perennially flooded area called Navotas seeping through. I would learn though, upon reaching the Municipal Hall of Obando, that this area is still along the coast of Manila Bay, and adjacent to the northern components of the National Capital Region, namely Malabon, Caloocan and Navotas. Thus, when I imposed myself on Elaine Benicarlo, an information officer, she said that Obando is known for its seafood. “Well, not really,” she added. Due to the downstream location, the industry is affected by gathering silt and pollutants.

The truth is, Obando is best known for one thing: the traditional pre-colonial conflux of women contorting, gyrating and praying in the hopes of having a child, a festival still practiced today. Women bring their plight to the St. Claire, as well as to Our Lady of Salambao and St. Paschal Baylon. The three are patron saints of this town and together form  the center of the present dancing mayhem.

Yet pre-Christianity, the ritual was already in action. Called kasilonawan, a high priestess leads the merrymaking, chanting, oil rubbing and worshipping before the god Linga, to rid women of their barrenness which was a societal stigma in those days.The pagan practice didn’t dissolve upon the entry of the Spanish priests. Like how Catholicism is done presently, the two religious beliefs are merged – the dancing slowly directed towards St. Claire.

Today, some women are joined by their husbands or partners. Single ladies also visit to earnestly plead for the arrival of their prince charming. Others come just to wish for good fortune. My friend Maisie, who I would be meeting up with later in the trip, told me I should join the second group. Yeah, uhuh, right. Yet sadly, I could not take up on her joke: The Obando Fertility Dance Festival, like most Philippine festivals, happens in May, specifically from the 17th to 19th. Too bad, I wanted to experience the estrogen frenzy.

Neither Elaine, nor Ruben Garcia, Jr. of the Parish of San Pascual Baylon, could comment on the crowd estimate. Pictures are all I have, and they clearly depict that the country’s overblown population is no concern.

Detached as I am to the fervent desires of these childless couples and the lovelorn, my heart melted upon being handed the proof. Obando Church documents the devotees during the three-day affair and the testimonies of those whose requests have been answered thereafter. Ruben showed me one such album of letters and photos. One in particular had the close-up shot of an angelic bundle of joy. She was the most endearing little baby. Egad, are these maternal instincts? I don’t think so. I’m just naturally drawn to kids, having the same mental capacity as them. But I digress.

The baby is Juriss Janae de Guia, granddaughter of Narciso and Rosenda de Guzman of Malolos, Bulacan, who penned the letter. They visited St. Claire in 2007 to pray for their daughter and her husband who lived in Washington, USA. The migrant couple has been married since 2004 but hasn’t been able to conceive. Through sheer faith, just a year after the visit, Janae was born, whose name means “God has answered.”

I guess when emotions are escalated that high, the energy is so strong that the universe is unable to resist the passion, and anything, anything is possible. With that, warm and fuzzy all over, I was ready for the next part of my free-wheeling adventure, a voyage to to the end of Bulacan, near the border of Pampanga, specifically Pulilan where Maisie lives. And wouldn’t you know it, there was a tiny pushcart by the corner selling Japanese pancakes. My favorite. So I bought some, crossed the street and got into the jeep to Bulakan. Don’t be confused like I was: Bulakan is the name of another town in Bulacan.

Once there, I hopped on to another jeep. I realize now that I pestered a lot of kind people in this trip, just to find my way and have my fun. I wonder if that is how Kerouac did it too.

The siesta sun had me sleeping on the lengthy and dusty drive to Balagtas. Dropped off at the public market, passing by hanging pigs’ heads, I made it on to the other side to hail me my last jeep to Pulilan. I was revived and eager to meet my friend who at that point me would pamper me provincial style. So I kicked it back, upped the volume of my iPod and flipped open Kerouac’s inspiration.

A total of three Bulakeño jeeps and two hours later, I came upon the junction at Pulilan with the elevated statue of a farmer and kneeling carabao. This respectful stance, my friend told me, is in gratitude to San Isidro Labrador or Saint Isidore the Laborer, patron saint of good harvest. Inside the comforts of her air-conditioned car (hallelujah!), we passed by several production plants, like Purina and Nestle. As to why they are there, she had no clue, and so I conclude it is the intercessor’s divine doing.

As her first friend who had trudged all the way to her native nook, I was welcomed by two generations of women: her mom, and her ever-so-doting grandmother. I told Maisie they all look alike, and they encouraged me to extend my stay, persisting us to take our time, relax and eat, eat, eat. But time wasn’t at my disposal, so we quickly moved to Malolos, the provincial capital city.

We were late. Apparently, museums are only open until four in the afternoon. But thanks to the, ahem, female charm, we were let into three of them.  First, at the museum of Barasoain Church, we entered the hallowed halls to be confronted with the carriage of revolutionary hero Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, used to transfer him and President Pedro Paterno to the church, as the location of the first Philippine republic, where the 1898 revolutionary congress was convened and the Malolos Constitution signed. At the upper level, the evolution of democracy is extensively detailed, from influences of uprisings seen abroad. Of particular significance, especially at that period, are the Women of Malolos, who protested in the closure of a school teaching them Spanish, “the key to leadership and upward social mobility.” My eyes were further drawn since many shared my surname. Guadalupe Reyes, who had me personally intrigued, became the administrator of the said school.

Second, at another museum on the church grounds, we ogled at various incarnations of  the Virgin Mary. Highly decorative as is deserved by a queen, some of those displayed were Nuestra Señora del Carmen, Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, and the Peña Prancia de Naga.

Last, we walked to the nearby Casa Real or Royal House, another historical building that served as Casa Tribunal, Casa Tribunal del Pueblo, Ayuntamiento and Casa Presidencia Municipal on different occasions. There were two floors, but we were only able to see the first and it was enough. The exhibit was again on the Women of Malolos. This confirmed what was already clear – the trip was meant to be. I had all the femme fatales I needed to meet the theme of this issue of Expat Newspaper: women. Aside from trinkets and clothing circa 19th century, it was how this group broke down gender barriers by valuing education, helping the community and the unfortunate and by promoting empowerment that made them distinct.

It is also probably the result of their efforts, and of the work of women like them, that a girl like me can wander off solo in this millennium. So thinking about that wisdom from the wall, maybe it’s not all true. Maybe by living the lives we imagine, by never saying can’t, by getting up and going, we can help future generations find their own roads. And so while I wonder what I can likewise contribute, I gorge on slices of inipit or that original squished cake filled with custard from Eurobake which we bought at Guiguinto after our tour.

I reluctantly bade my goodbyes the next morning, as I boarded a bus back to Cubao, then to Makati. Passing by the towns of Bulacan once more, pleased as I was, for a moment, for this week, I had found the road, my golden dream.

“‘What’s your road, man? – holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It’s an anywhere road for anybody anyhow…’” — Dean Moriarty to Sal Paradise, On the Road by Jack Kerouac (thanks)

Even if I did not purchase this novel which appeared on the Booker Longlist because it was written by a guy who worked for local Fairfax papers The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s The Age, and if the back cover blurb and first chapter did not indicate that the main character had worked as a foreign correspondent on the Dark Continent, it would still be bleedingly obvious that this guy worked as a journalist.

His prose is so pared down that to give depth to his descriptions, he has to slot in tired adjective after tired adjective to the “scene setting” description that dutifully appear at the start and end of each episode. The dialogue is heavy and inane. The protagonist and his several Caucasian sexual interests are a dull lot. But O’Loughlin posits them as heroic. They nearly all have a kind of freckled, Nordic boyishness, and ability to withstand the horrors of massacre, be it in Serbia or Rwanda whilst providing maternal sympathy. His male quirky journalistic rivals seem like underdone versions of the harebrained characters in Roald Dahl’s Going Solo who have cheerily lost their marbles, but this charm does not flourish into anything resembling actual people. The African public servants and militia are unsurprisingly inscrutable and serve the purpose of getting in the way of getting a the goods behind the makings of a good story. Similarly, several incidences of intrigue, for instance a gradual psychotic episode and scene involving the disposal of a body are flat, and lack the ebb and flow and climax required for real drama.

So Gary Kirsten comes out with his “development” plan for Indian Cricket. Amongst his proposal for “performance” improvements, there’s  this. Here’s an especially telling quote from the  Kirsten’s  “101 thoughts on sex-starved Indian cricket player”:

“From a physiological (body) perspective having sex increases testosterone levels, which causes an increase in strength, energy, aggression and competitiveness.”

I guess he wants to turn the average Indian Player from this:

"I'm a complan boy!"

to this:

"Har!Bowl at me yer bitches." (courtesy : Dallasvintageshop.com)

In other words, just imagine a team of  11 Dilshans. Pure awesomeness.

Upon hearing this news, it is understood that hordes of cricketers have thrown their hats into the rings, in hopes of getting selected.  Not to be left out of the action, MTJAG went on to postulate how some eminent folks would have reacted to the same:
Sachin:
“I am all for a good romp. I think we should split the session into 2 parts though. Have foreplay to start  with. And then, after the game, complete the formalities. I thought of this during the 2002 Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka.”

Shastri:
“I get the feeling that this argument will go down all the way to the wire. But if I have my way, I’d get some action during the break. I’d be in and out of the dressing room like a tracer bullet.”

Gavaskar:
“Yes. If any youngster’s watching this, that’s EXACTLY how you play the “between-the-covers” drive. You can go solo if you want, but there’s no practice like match practice.”

Tony Greig:
“Oh yes! This announcement must leave the Indian players dancing in the aisles!”

Sidhu:
“Rejoice my friends! Now the Indian trousers will be falling faster than the cycles in the stands of Patiala..”

So I drag a woman walking down the sidewalk into a dark ally and tell her I would very much like to have sex with her – and it has to be done now, without debate.  She refuses; no negotiation, no compromise.  And of course I rape her.  The question is, who is to blame for the rape?

According to the Democrats’ view, it is clearly the woman.

President Barack Obama now realizes he probably will have to pass health reform with Democratic votes alone, White House officials say…

“We were forced into this by Republicans,” one official said.

Headline: “I was forced to rape…,” claims rapist.

The Republicans are like the woman; they oppose a government takeover of health care the way the woman opposes having sex with a stranger.  But because they stand up for their principles and refuse to compromise their values, they get raped.

The Republicans can’t stop anything the Democrats do.  Democrats have an overwhelming majority in the House, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  Demagoguing Republicans for the Democrats’ failure to come together is both absurd and immoral.  It is transparently false.  The only real battle going on is between liberal and conservative Democrats.

So why blame Republicans?  Because Democrats are demagogues.

Today Obama said:

“I think early on, a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, ‘Look, let’s not give him a victory, maybe we can have a replay of 1993, ‘94, when Clinton came in, he failed on health care and then we won in the mid-term elections and we got the majority. And I think there are some folks who are taking a page out that playbook,”

It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that Democrats haven’t offered Republicans ANYTHING they want, but only EVERYTHING they hate.  It’s not about the fact that not only were Republicans shut out of crafting health care legislation, but even Blue Dog DEMOCRATS were shut out of the process.

This is so like Obama: he depicts himself as standing loftily above everyone around him as the sole determiner of truth and justice – and then anyone who disagrees with him has the lowest politically partisan motives.  It’s really a remarkable trick for a man who was THE most liberal US Senator the year before he began his run for the presidency.

When Democrats talk about “going solo,” they aren’t just talking about using their overwhelming majority to impose ObamaCare – because they don’t have the Democrat votes for it.  Rather, they are talking about using a rare parliamentary procedure called “reconciliation”:

The debate over health care reform could be heading in a new direction. Democrats are considering going at it alone. That would mean trying to pass it without Republican support.

Caution: Relations between Dems and the GOP could get toxic.

Democrats want to use a process called reconciliation. It would only require 51 votes in the Senate to get a health care bill passed. Normally, a bill would require 60 votes to be passed. Also, with the reconciliation process, only 20 hours of debate would be allowed, no filibuster would be allowed, stamping out opposition debate.

Reconciliation was created for budget items, because the federal government has a constitutional requirement to pass a budget.  The measure has never been used to advance legislation – although Bill Clinton threatened to use it to ram through his health care plan in 1993.  Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, who drafted the reconciliation process in 1974, was opposed to Clinton’s maneuver – just as he is opposed to Barack Obama’s doing it now.

Even Robert Byrd is adamant that reconciliation not be used to reform healthcare, as it leads down a slippery slope. Byrd is important here, because he developed the now-called Byrd Rule, that sets six conditions by which a provision can be excluded from reconciliation. This was intended to prevent abuse of the reconciliation tactic; otherwise, what stops anyone at anytime using this trick to avoid filibuster? The six conditions simply demand that if any provision of the bill is not about the budget, deficits, surpluses, or funding, then the whole package is thrown out.

This illegitimate abuse of the reconciliation as a “nuclear option” would poison any chance of bipartisanship for years – even decades – to come.

But it is well within the mindset of a president who falsely promised to be a “‘new politician’ who had risen above the partisan divide and didn’t have to lower himself into the gutter of the political past.”

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said at a different occasion.

Using reconciliation as a nuclear option wouldn’t be lowering oneself in a gutter; it would be growing gills and living in a sewer system filled with the very worst kind of toxic waste.

Republicans are finally starting to learn – about a decade late – that it’s time they started bringing guns to the fight with Democrats, too.

Don’t think the use of reconciliation won’t have massive consequences.

It should be known that Republicans have a nuclear option of their own:

[T]he Republicans can shut down the Senate for the next  year.  Those unfamiliar with the parliamentary procedure may not realize that a great many steps get skipped by unanimous consent.  Bill-reading is just one example.  One Senator can force each and every bill to be read aloud at every appearance it makes on the Senate floor, including when they are sent to committee.  For ObamaCare and cap-and-trade, one bill reading could take a week, keeping the Senate floor locked off from any other business.

All Republicans can do is stand up for their conservative values, and try to rally the American people to their cause.  They can’t stop the Democrats from passing a massive government takeover of health care along party lines.  They can’t even mount a filibuster without Democrats crossing over to join them.

All Democrat lies aside; this isn’t about a bill that Republicans won’t support.  It’s about a bill that can’t even sustain Democrat support.

If Democrats invoke the illegitimate process of a nuclear option to pass health care, they will start the nastiest war this country has seen since our Civil War in 1861.  It will lead to a political climate that will be uglier than any American has ever seen in his or her lifetime.

The conservative American Spectator writes:

While the White House has been floating the idea of using reconciliation to pass health care legislation with a simple majority of 51 votes, it should be seen as an empty threat. Let’s even set aside the fact that it would be a declaration of war that would shut down the Senate, that it would remove any pretense that Obama is a post-partisan president, and that ramming an unpopular bill down the throats of the public is not a politically astute move. Even if Democrats wanted to risk all of that for the greater goal of passing health care legislation, they couldn’t do it.

I hope they are right.  But I will not be the least bit surprised if it isn’t an empty threat at all.  Rather, what I regard as “empty” was the “post-partisan” promises (dare I say it again) of THE most liberal U.S. Senator the year before he ran for the presidency.

Be vigilant.  And be ready to go absolutely ballistic if this massive violation into our constitutional democracy is rammed down our throats.

Originally posted at my other blog, It’s In Our Ears

Last night i went to The Moon in Perth, Wons Phreely was playing as part of The Moon’s ‘Going Solo’ gigs on Wednesday nights. Although it had taken a couple of years, i finally got the chance to see Wons live. 

 Playing to a room filled with people talking and eating dinner wouldn’t be that easy, combine it with not playing live for 6 months and you’re bound to have some problems. However Sydney’s Wons Phreely took up the challenge with ease, armed with a guitar and harmonica, he treated the audience to a range of songs from both his EPs ‘To Begin With…” (2005) and “The Rules of Nature” (2007) even testing out a new song titled “Manny You’re My Sweetheart”  And thankfully the audience were responsive, joining in with the clapping during songs.

Wons’ set proved he’s capable of grabbing audiences’ attention and maintaining it, even if they’re eating dinner.

Hopefully it’s not too long before Wons Phreely plays in Perth again.

Eclau (pronounced eck-lo) is a coworking space in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded by Stephanie Booth. Booth spoke with me about her motivation for starting Eclau, her experiences running it and her future plans, and offer up some tips for anyone thinking of starting a coworking space.

WWD: Tell us a little about the background for Eclau — what were the motivations for coworking in Lausanne?

Booth: I’d heard about coworking, and visited Citizen Space in San Francisco. I thought it would be lovely to have a coworking space in Lausanne, but at the time, I was quite happy working from home. A couple of other people in the area were interested, but I was in “follower” mode — not “leader” [mode].

In autumn 2007, a friend of mine approached me. He had some free space in one of his shops that he wanted to transform into a community office for freelancers and other local innovators, and wanted to know if I could take care of it. I told him about coworking and he said, “That’s it!”

Unfortunately the idea fell through (he finally needed the space for something else), but by then I had started imagining myself as the initiator of a coworking space in Lausanne, and had discovered that there were actually quite a few interested people who might join such a project. In spring 2008, I created a mailing list and a blog to talk about local coworking or coworking-like projects in the Lake Geneva area, and gather interested people in one space.

By then, I had burned out a little preparing the Going Solo conference and was motivated to find a solution to work elsewhere than home. There was an office space in my building, which had been empty during most of my years living there. Skipping a few adventures along the way, eclau opened there in November 2008.

A few more words maybe about the Lausanne context: Lausanne is the fifth most important town in Switzerland. However, I’d say that Swiss people are not that gregarious, and getting a local community of freelancers, small business owners and social media people to start bubbling somewhere is not an easy task. Not that there aren’t many around! But I feel the culture here is still quite traditional and old-school.

WWD: What’s the breakdown of residents in terms of permanent residents, drop-ins, part timers? What kind of work are they involved in?

Booth: Eclau members fall in two categories: “membres fixes” (“fixed” members, who have their own desk) and “membres volants” (“flying” members, who hotdesk). Some “flying” members are here very often, whereas some “fixed” members are seldom in the office — so it doesn’t really equate to “full-time” or “part-time”. Right now, I’d say we are running at about 50 percent capacity.

We don’t really have any drop-ins yet, but maybe the monthly eclau breakfasts will bring us some. There’s a variety of jobs represented here, and not all IT-related: an architect, a print designer, a web TV association, a web consultant, a medical translator, a game designer, a relationship coach, an investment adviser, a web startup CEO, another designer…am I forgetting anybody? Ah, yes, me; I still don’t know what to call myself. And the cat doesn’t do much work apart provide some coworkers with welcome exercise — getting up and opening windows.

WWD: Do you see much cross-fertilization between residents?

Booth: Quite a bit, actually! In addition to “real” work projects that residents have ended up working on together, I think everybody really appreciates having such a diverse set of skills in the office. We help each other out regularly — for example, I’m the resident spellchecker.

Comparing life at eclau with my years as an employee in a big company, where we also had an open office, I find that coworking brings out the advantages of sharing a space with “colleagues” like having people available to bounce ideas off, company for lunch or sometimes breakfast, without having the disadvantages like not being able to go to lunch without “talking work”, bosses, and people you need to get back to when you go for coffee break.

WWD: What were your greatest challenges and surprises in bootstrapping Eclau — and the largest operational challenges?

Booth: The biggest challenge was — and still is — to actually get people to commit. It was a big issue in the weeks before I actually signed for the space. It’s a five-year lease in my own name — the best solution, given the Swiss context — and I didn’t have any spare cash to inject in the project. So it needed to be financially autonomous from the beginning.

After many days spent writing ads for the local papers, emails to people I knew, blog posts and making people visit the space, I finally found enough people willing to sign up and pay in advance to make it possible. I also had a little unexpected help along the way, which solved the problem of the rather large deposit I had to put down for the lease.

I think my biggest surprise was how many people can come and visit, say they’re interested, sure, and back out without a word. Some even sign, and then disappear! This tends to validate my impression that today’s world is a world where true commitment is hard to come by.

WWD: What’re your plans for the future?

Booth: Now that we finally have a “real Internet connection,” rather than a long ethernet cable dangling from my balcony two floors above, the next step is to have the meeting room walled off from the rest of the space.

Thanks to our resident designer, we’re starting to have some promotional material, and a few local journalists have expressed an interest in covering our space, so this should help us in our efforts to bring in more residents.

We’ve started organizing what we here call an “apéro” every three months (the next one is in June). An “apéro” is basically a quiet party where people gather for drinks and some nibbles — sometimes before dinner, sometimes instead of dinner. As I mentioned before, this month we’re starting to hold an eclau breakfast (on the 10th of each month), where people can drop in between 8 and 10 to have coffee, croissants, and even an Indian breakfast I like to cook.

In the long term, I’d like to see more drop-ins, and events like small *camps or conferences taking place at eclau.

WWD: What’re the key pieces of advice you’d give to people thinking about coworking and people thinking about establishing a coworking space?

Booth: Keeping in mind that this advice is the result of one unique experience in a particular cultural setting, I’d say the following:

• Get money up front: when people sign, make them pay too (at eclau, people pay three months’ membership at a time, in advance, and they get a one month discount if they pay six months in advance)
• If cash is an issue, don’t invest in furniture. By asking around and taking a trip or two to the local dump, we got almost more furniture than what we needed, for free. Some residents also brought their own furniture with them.
• It’s about people and relationships — that’s what determine the atmosphere. Take time to make things clear — what people can expect and what is expected from them — and time to get to know the people and chat with them. Some “house rules” are always a good idea.

Have you started a coworking space or do you plan to? Share your experiences in the comments.

Things are gearing up again. Julian has been practicing an old routine of his from a few years ago called “Hats” for solo studio performance on Thursday. We didn’t realize that he could actually perform in this event, so he didn’t prepare a solo. (We’ll know for next year.) So, he pulled out his very-successful piece, choreographed by ReMinD, otherwise known as Aristan Rinpoyla. When Julian competed this number, he won lots of awards for the unique choreography which is a bit like the movie “Mask;” each time he puts on a new hat, he dances a different type of hip hop.

While those who make the decisions about who performs what at the studio weren’t too keen on Julian doing a hip hop routine, they actually found the choreography “entertaining,” and allowed it into the show. Another point for ReMinD!  Julian has since been trying to get the piece back up to performance level. I’m not sure it will be quite there with just 2 weeks of sporadic rehearsals, but it will be okay.

Tomorrow, he begins rehearsals for Copellia with Los Gatos Ballet. Since tech rehearsals for this productin were in close conflict with Teen Dance Company’s concert tech week, we were afraid he wouldn’t get to do the performance. However, he’s been allowed to do it with the caveat that if his school work starts affecting attendance at TDC, he has to drop out of Copellia.

His grades are getting a bit better, I’m happy to say, and he’s only missed one assignment in 3 weeks or so. However, his honors English grade is in the basement (and that’s putting it really nicely). We’re hoping he brings it up so he doesn’t have to attend summer school. If that happens, he can kiss his ABT summer intensive scholarship and experience goodbye. That would be a shame.

This weekend he is off to The Pulse to dance with the choreographers of So You Think You Can Dance. He’s excited about that. Although he does get to work with Mandy Moore occasionally, and she isn’t with The Pulse, he hasn’t worked with Tyce Diorio, Mia Michaels, Shane Sparks, Brian Friedman, or Wade Robson before.

I’m hoping to get to the convention to watch as well, since I’d like to see these people operate myself. However, my daughter has a synchronized swimming meet on Sunday…Can’t ever be on a different day, can it?…so I’m going to miss a few of these choreographers in action. I’m sure Julian will have a blast, though.

If you’re looking for a cheap yet thoughtful Christmas gift idea then I don’t think you can go past the Popular Penguins. They’re a series of re-released Penguins, all with classic Penguin covers, and retailing for AUD $9.95 each. The currently available one hundred titles include: High Fidelity, Going Solo and The Consolations of Philosophy.

If you’re in Australia and you can get to a Borders before this Friday, you can use this link to get 30% off any book, including a Popular Penguin. That means you can get one for $6.95! Better still, you can reuse this voucher every day this week and buy three or four for people you know.

Christmas doesn’t need to be expensive.

Though the second edition of Going Solo – a conference for freelancers, planned for September – was cancelled, organizer Stephanie Booth pressed ahead and hosted a BarCamp-style unconference, SoloCamp.

Though I was only able to attend the opening sessions with around twenty participants, the initial session to shape the day’s agenda revealed some useful and interesting topic areas for freelancers and indie workers.

Participants collectively decided to divide the day into four one-hour sessions, each moderated by a volunteer and intended to draw out the room’s collective knowledge and experience in each area. This generally resulted in sprawling mind-maps, that helped both to drive and document the discussions…

Finance – everything from defining your market, creating statements-of-work, intellectual property, sales, rates and risk. Curiously, the moderator as a rule gives away 80% of his output, depending on the remainder for financial viability.

Confidence – finding your voice, self-esteem, understanding the relationship between permission and authority for freelancers as well as mentoring those less experienced, to deepen you own value.

Growth – moving from a ’solo’ freelancing lifestyle business to a fulltime work pattern, perhaps with subcontractors, virtual assistants, accountants and book keeper, joining professional networks, being an active contributor in social networks such as LinkedIn as well as working in collectives with other freelancers.

Clients – getting more out of existing business contacts, developing long term relationships and using case studies to sell your skills.

Participants also collectively noted their recommendations for software and tools on a publicly accessible wiki, available here; though Web Worker Daily readers may be familiar with most of them, it’s worth seeing if there are any applications or methods that may have been previously overlooked.

Finally, participants collated their reflections on the day’s discussion, notably…

• Personal branding does matter.
• Set short, medium and long-term marketing goals.
• Don’t sell yourself cheap.
• Have jobs agreed in writing before you start.
• Don’t price per hour, price according to the value to the client.
• Look to work from coworking spaces.

All in all, a handful of people seemed to have crafted an interesting and useful series of discussions. Find out more at the official wiki.