Lovesong
Alex Miller

Allen & Unwin
Released November 1, 2009

Since everyone is on leave at the moment, and we’re not in a great time for new releases (at least that’s what the Fiction team are currently telling me!) I had to resort to picking something out of the cupboard to stave off my literary boredom. However, this is also quite possibly a subconscious excuse for going to A&R to stare at the Top 100 bays, because this way I’m avoiding having to choose something off the list. But, maybe I’ll get lucky and it will appear on the next list, thus putting myself further ahead with the next list! Of course, knowing my luck, there will be even more Austen on the next list, and all of this will have been in vain! Either way, I’m going home tonight to curl up with Lovesong. Happy new years!

Official information from Allen & Unwin

Transcript of Lovesong on The BookShow

Review by Adair Jones

US:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lovesong/id346277487

Worldwide:

http://www.blackholerecordings.com

Whenever I’m alone with you
You make me feel like I am home again
Whenever I’m alone with you
You make me feel like I am whole again

Whenever I’m alone with you
You make me feel like I am young again
Whenever I’m alone with you
You make me feel like I am fun again

However far away I will always love you
However long I stay I will always love you
Whatever words I say I will always love you
I will always love you

Whenever I’m alone with you
You make me feel like I am free again
Whenever I’m alone with you
You make me feel like I am clean again

However far away I will always love you
However long I stay I will always love you
Whatever words I say I will always love you
I will always love you

Here at ANZ LitLovers, we’re very fond of Mark Rubbo and the Readings Bookshop.   Members as far afield as Longreach in Queensland get the catalogue and all of us find the range of books and the service excellent.  You can order online, by mail or by phone, and they are open late so you can ring and place an order ridiculously late at night - even up to 11 pm on Saturdays! 

Well, today I read in Jason Steger’s column in The Age today about a free lunch for Mark Rubbo if Readings can sell 3000 copies of Lovesong by Alex Miller.  (I went to the launch at Readings in Hawthorn a fortnight ago, but neglected to blog about it).  It seems that Rubbo told Miller that he had set himself a target to sell 1000 copies of Lovesong because he wanted to sell more than he had of Landscape of Farewell.  Miller thought he should be more ambitious, and upped the ante to 3000, with a promise to shout Rubbo a splendid lunch if he achieved it. 

Here are some ideas to help Rubbo get his free lunch:

• buy a copy for yourself
• buy it as a Christmas gift for every booklover you know
• hassle every booklover you know to buy a copy for every booklover they know
• hassle your library to buy a copy, and borrow it incessantly so that they have to buy another one
• buy a copy and donate it to a library that needs it – maybe a school library or a community library like the one in Maldon
• buy a copy and donate it to a hospital or nursing home
• buy a copy, wrap it up in Xmas paper and give it to one of those retailers who collects Xmas gifts for the needy e.g. Ray White the Real Estate agent.

Go to it!

Es ist soweit: Deutschlands einziger Zuhälterrapper veröffentlicht im Dezember das letzte Werk seiner zuhältertape Trilogie. Für die entsprechende Vorfreude auf Bitchslaps, Geschichten über Platin-Rolex und vergoldete Pelzmäntel (nein, kein Tippfehler) gibt es jetzt den auf dem Album enthaltenen Song “Lovesong Reloaded” zum freien Download.

Denn

es ist der Liebesgott/

mit dem riesencock/

Wenn ihr euch mit Kollegah nicht so auskennt: Einfach mal als Entertainment sehen und die Texte nicht ernst nehmen.

I am overload by times of work and duties, money always under pressure

overload by daily life with a lot of ideas, visions, new inspirations

living with broken projects, end up adventures

have to go to rehab, really have to go, even if I don’t like to

overload and broken, young and underpaid

like dark, sad and grieving Amy

I love this song by Snake River Conspiracy and I just wanted you all to hear it! Its a Cure cover……Enjoy!

Alex Miller’s beautiful Lovesong is anything but a simple love story.  Ken, a retired novelist returns home from an extended stay in Venice to find his neighborhood changed.  There is a new pastry shop run by Sabiha, a lovely woman with an air of sorrow.  Ken befriends her husband, John, and listens as John tells their story.

In Paris many years earlier, John took a wrong train and then was caught in a sudden rainstorm.  Taking shelter in a nearby café, he met Sabiha, a chance encounter that would change the course of their lives.  They marry, run the café, live happily enough.  However, John always intended to return to Australia and resume his career as a teacher.  Sabiha, feeling that once she moved to Australia she would never leave, refused to go until she was able to take her child to Tunisia to meet her father.  However, the two remain childless—and in limbo.  As time passes, John’s regret over his failed plans is matched in intensity by Sabiha’s terror of aging.  When she learns her father is dying, the idea that she might die childless becomes unbearable.

This personal crisis is set in the larger complex situation of two people from different cultures making a life together in a third.  There is no question that John and Sabiha love each other; nonetheless, they are at an impasse that could destroy their marriage.  There is an elegiac note throughout Lovesong. As usual, Miller’s language is deceptively spare, slowly building in emotional power.  The climax, while not unexpected, is deeply moving.

As Ken listens to John tell their story, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to its narrative possibilities.  Lovesong becomes more than a love story; it becomes a novel about the nature of stories.  For Sabiha, a story is about company.  For John, it’s an act of confession.  But it’s therapeutic qualities benefit the listener as much as the teller, as Ken attests.  A story is also a gift.  Ken considers John’s story to be too much a “gift from the gods” for him to pass it up—even when he learns that John has ambitions to write it himself.  This raises the question that is not precisely answered: just who owns a story?

Lovesong is the kind of novel that will have you thinking—and feeling—long after you finish it.

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Listen to Alex Miller discuss Lovesong with Ramona Koval.

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Alex Miller will be in Brisbane on  Thursday, 19th November (6.15 for a 6.30 start).   The American Bookstore — 3229 4677 – 197 Elizabeth St, Brisbane. Tickets: $15, $12 concession, $10 bulk 6+

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Review first published by The Courier-Mail in November 2009.

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“http://www.youtube.com/v/gp6pRHGvPG4&hl=de&fs=1

“all my hopes and my fears

in this moment

are clear”

(Laura Pausini + James Blunt : primavera in anticipo)

Ich trage den Frühling in mir

steht das Eis mir bis zum Hals

Ich trage den Frühling in mir

verbrennt der Sommer meine Haut

Werden sie auch versuchen

mir alles zu nehmen

- primavera in aeternum

- primavera in anticipo

- Lilitha

This week the poem I’ve chosen to share with you is one I find myself always coming back to. No matter what it always seems to fill me up. I find it’s more realistic than overly romantic.

Ted Hughes (August 17 1930- October 28 1998) was and English poet and childrens writer. Critics rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was married to the American poet Sylvia Plath who committed suicide at the age of 30, after which his part in their relationship became a topic of controversy, especially amoung Plath’s American admirers.

Lovesong

He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Off that moment’s brink and into nothing
Or everlasting or whatever there was

Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin’s attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon’s gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall

Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other’s face

I hope you enjoyed my choice this week! I know it’s one of my favorites! Please feel free to share some of your favorites, I’m always looking for more poems and poets to delve into!

Ah vaya que estos días han sido algo extraños, desde operaciones,peleas en la oficina, nuevos familiares y hasta un congreso abandonado, todo eso suele pasar. A ver 1ero empezaré con lo de las operaciones, pues si esta vez mi mamá de nuevo al hospital para operarla de nuevo, fué un detalle sencillo pero aun asi ese tipo de cosas no son nada agradables y más por estar ahi al pendiente todo el tiempo (diganmelo a mi, ese dia pensaba ir al BarCamp y nadamás no pude ir pero pues bueno, son cosas que no se lamentan, 1ero lo 1ero); despues lo de la pelea en la oficina, si así es soy la manzana de la discordia entre 2 departamentos, obvio soy 100% del de sistemas (ni madres que quisiera ser del aburrido control escolar jajaja)  y pues un tipo que es cubano pide que yo le haga un proyecto que el me robó (que claro todos estan enterados de eso y con mayor razón lo mandan a la chingada) y pues ese tipo estuvo peleando con el mero jefe de que me ocupaba para su proyecto y después mi jefa en la oficina se enteró y vaya pleito se armó hasta hubo amenazas (eso hace la vida de oficina mejor que una telenovela) y mañana veremos en que acaba la historia, ¿será acaso y pasaré a ser parte tambien del departamento de control escolar? ¿acaso correran al cubano? ¿sabremos realmente quien mató a Colosio? todo eso se revelará este miercoles (menos lo de Colosio, eso sale despues);  de lo del nuevo familiar, pues asi es, mi sobrino Alex ya es papá, su hijo nació ayer lunes y con eso acaba de convertirme en tio-abuelo jaja y se siente raro pero el es de los familiares que en verdad valoro jaja ya que uhh cuantas aventuras no viví con el además de que es raro pero ultimamente ver como los demás se convierten en padres da un sentimiento extraño pero a la vez bonito. Eso es la 1era explicación de lo relevante de estos dias, y de video musical para esto les dejo a Maksim, con la canción de Exodus; un muy buen tema y algo alternativa a la música clásica.

Pasando a otras cosa y al tema de la ambición revelada, eso se dió el sábado, que tuve tiempo de platicar seriamente con mi papá, eso con unos tequilitas (no me culpen, es la única manera en que se puede hacer como Dios manda sino ni me pela o no pone mucha atención además de que no es tan suelto para hablar de temas que nunca tocamos), bueno en fin, en esa plática le dije que estaba trabajando y tooooda la explicación de que hago además de mis historias de oficina (en realidad el no sabía que yo trabajaba, tenia la idea de que eran prácticas profesionales, pero no me culpen, el es de los de la idea de que no debo trabajar para nadie), así que un poco sacado de onda aceptó, y mendionando que mejor yo ponga mi negocio aparte y sea mi propio jefe, pero el no sabe mis verdaderas intenciones, yo soy una persona ambiciosa, yo quiero poder, pero el tipo de poder que quiero es diferente (si un día me preguntan exactamente y me tienen paciencia en la explicación con mucho gusto les diré cual) asi que le revelé parte de mis intenciones, jaja aunque no lo crean soy mañoso y tengo muchas cartas bajo la manga.

En fin pasando a otras cosas muchas gracias a los que firman y a los que no(si tu pinche Kevin, que nadamas lees y no firmas y tienes el descaro de decirme que si firmarás¬¬) y felicitaciones atrasadas a mi hermanita Serena que el lunes de la semana pasada fué su cumple pero como decia muy en serio que no le gustaba ese dia pues no la felicité, pero aun así ¡¡muchas felicidades!!! eres una muy chida hermanita, y por cierto oh siii ya regresó mi amiga Verito de su viaje laboral a Alemania, asi que Verito mucho saludos y que bien que ya estes de regreso (espero que con los tecitos que me prometiste jeje) no te creas, se te estima mucho amica, y tambien a todos los que se toman la molestia en firmar y tolerar mis pendejadas.

Para todos ellos les dejo un video de regalito y espero que les guste, todo un clásico, The Cure con su gran canción de Love song, el clásico del amor, y como los quiero a todos condenadotes XD

]]> http://daronn.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/ohrenkrebs-zum-dienstag-morgen/ Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:28:13 +0000 daRONN http://daronn.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/ohrenkrebs-zum-dienstag-morgen/

Ich kann’s nicht mehr hören. Amanda Blank jault sich seit Wochen mit “A Love Song” durch die Radiostationen.

“Don’t remind me, I’m a Lady [...] I need love [...]“

I’d like to remind you, this is neither music nor a love song.

Findet das wirklich irgendwer gut? Wenn ja, gute Besserung warum?

[direktGejaule]

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Weltbekannte Musikstars sind in meinem Musikblog schon oft Thema gewesen und trotzdem habe ich immer wieder versucht, euch auch ein paar Geheimtipps jenseits der Pop-Charts-Schiene zu bieten. Der heutige Artikel steht ganz im Zeichen zweier Talente aus Österreich –  Skero und Kamp MC!

Foto: trav1s

Wer sich die aktuelle FM4-Soundselection (Nr.20) besorgt hat, müssten die zwei Herren auf jeden Fall ein Begriff sein. Skero, Mitglied der Linzer Hip-Hop-Truppe „Texta“ und Kamp MC, aufstrebender Rapper aus Wien, gehören für mich im Moment zu den Top-Musikern aus Österreich. Sie begeistern mich mit ihren kreativen Rhyme-Spielereien und dem darin verpackten Schmäh, der dazu auch noch mit feinsten Beats unterlegt ist. Das absolut geniale Video zu ihrem gemeinsamen Song „Fuss vom Gas“, eine Hymne für die Fahrradfreaks, will ich euch nicht vorenthalten, hier, bitteschön:

Die zwei Rapper haben aber auch solo einiges zu bieten. Skero geht musikalisch sogar noch einen Schritt weiter – er scheut sich nicht davor, Reggae und Rap-Flows, mit ein wenig Heurigen-Schunkel-Musi im Refrain seines Songs „Künstler“ miteinander zu vermischen. Dialekt darf dabei natürlich nicht fehlen und der gewagte, aber gelungene Mix hört sich dann so an:

Kamp MC wiederum beweist, dass ein Lovesong nicht immer schmalzig sein muss. „Malinkaya“ schafft es immer wieder aufs Neue, mich von Beginn an komplett in seinen Bann zu ziehen, denn die in dem Song verwendeten Samples, sind der absolute Hammer.

Ich hoffe euch gefallen die drei Songs auch so gut wie mir und dass auch ihr das Potenzial der österreichischen kleinen aber feinen Musikszene erkennt – und hoffentlich auch tatkräftig supportet! Zum Schluss lässt sich also nur eins sagen – Austria’s got talent, baby and that’s for sure!

A qualidade tá ruim, né?
Caguei.
GRITA, TORIIIII!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1knO1Ip9oEg

Listen to this song from Kip Winger. I guess I’m once again heading for a heartbreak, but what can you do….

Bajar(mediafire)

311 es una banda de Omaha, Nebraska formada en 1988. Su estructura musical incorpora estilos como el rock alternativo, hip hop, ska, reggae y funk. Este compilado incluye un cover que hicieron de la cancion Lovesong de The Cure. Para el tracklist continua leyendo.

1. Down
2. Flowing
3. All Mixed Up
4. Amber
5. Come Original
6. Beautiful Disaster
7. Creatures (For A While)
8. Do You Right
9. I’ll Be Here Awhile
10. You Wouldnít Believe
11. Transistor
12. Don’t Stay Home
13. Homebrew
14. Beyond the Gray Sky
15. Love Song
16. How Do You Feel?
17. First Straw

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(Georg Danzer : mei Frau)

This videoclip I have chosen is a personal dedication to the great musician Georg Danzer. Songs like “weiße Pferde”, “free again”, “mei Gitar” had in time of winter 2007 a significant influence on my works: http://lilithmoerk.wordpress.com/2007/12/15/moonsense/

http://lilithmoerk.wordpress.com/2007/11/17/schnee-eis-und-aquarell

http://lilithmoerk.wordpress.com/2007/11/17/galaxien

He still inspires me – the show must go on!

…de que um sentimento assim nos leva a loucura.
Ridículo.

Seja mais forte que isso;
Tenha em mente o que realmente quer;
Não deixe que impressões o reepreenda;
Diga… o que realmente sente.

…

—

Nada contra a banda, curti o som até e penso em pegar a discografia.