Books: Reviews – the following material has been moved to Book Reviews: Archives, Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders and 4.50 From Paddington; and Part 1 Racism, Classism and Sexism in Agatha Christies.
Television: Comments – material moved to Television Comments: Archives is American Presidential Election; and Brothers and Sisters. New material: A Country Podcast; The Crown; The Queen’s Gambit.
I visited The Australian National Gallery where excellent Covid 19 arrangements are in place. Visitors are greeted at the entrance and directed to registration and hand sanitiser is in two places at the entry. Registration is simple, and aimed at tracking visitors, the number and the time they enter the gallery. Membership cards suffice but are not essential.
The Gallery has some exciting exhibitions at the moment.
MIKALA DWYER
Born Warrang/Sydney 1959
Square cloud compound 2010 Warrang/Sydney wood, paint, cotton, polyester, nylon, plastic, glass, ceramic, stone, acrylic, leather, copper, electrical components.
Collection: Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney. Purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2015.
Square cloud compound draws on the history of Cockatoo Island, a site which since colonialisation has operated as a prison and an institutional home for young women. Dwyer grew up visiting the site and has a ‘long engagement’ with its ‘ghosts’. The vibrant patchwork of materials in this work- including lamps, stockings, fabric and beer bottles- forms an oversize cubbyhouse that evokes a childlike sense of wonder and discovery, while its floating walls also offer a means of escape.
And this is a particularly amusing painting in the Indigenous Art section.
Georgia Runoff Senate Elections – Selena Montgomery and Stacey Abrams
Stacey Abrams is a force in Georgia Democrat politics, and an essential part of the campaign to win the two Senate seats in the run off elections to be held on January 5 2021. Part of her campaign has been fundraising, and here, her other persona has been important. She helped raise $400,000 at a romance writers fundraiser for the Senate Run Off Elections. As well as being the epitome of a political activist she is also the romance writer, Selena Montgomery.
‘Abrams wrote her first novel during her third year at Yale Law School, inspired after reading her ex-boyfriend’s PhD dissertation in chemical physics. She had wanted to write a spy novel: “For me, for other young black girls, I wanted to write books that showed them to be as adventurous and attractive as any white woman,” she wrote in her memoir Minority Leader. But after being told repeatedly by editors that women don’t read spy novels, and that men don’t read spy novels by women, she made her spies fall in love. Rules of Engagement, her debut, was published in 2001, and sees temperatures flare as covert operative Raleigh partners with the handsome Adam Grayson to infiltrate a terrorist group that has stolen deadly environmental technology’ (The Guardian, Australian Edition, Books Blog, 10 November 2020).
About one of Selena Montgomery’s novels, Deception:
Always on the run . . .
Playing the odds has always been Fin Borders’ forte. She knows when to get out to keep from losing everything. But an innocent woman has been accused of murder, and to help, Fin will have to go back to the small southern town of her birth. It’s a place she’s been running from her entire life, a place of violence, where she got by with nothing more than her wits. Returning to Hallden, Georgia, means facing the ghosts of a brutal crime that Fin will never forget—and risking her own life.
But Fin isn’t the only one in Hallden hunting for a killer. FBI Special Agent Caleb Matthews is deep undercover, hiding his true identity and his own desperate history. Working alone is far too dangerous, so he and Fin must learn to trust each other. But as they grow closer, they are unprepared for the passion that takes hold . . . and the shocking deception that could destroy everything they hold dear.
Another politician of note, British Labour Party Helen Liddell, Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke, is also a writer of fiction, publishing a ‘bodice ripper’ before she entered parliament in 1994. Such eminent women having worked on popular texts suggests that my work on popular writers, and women’s roles in soap opera might also resonate with thinking women. A topic for a blog in the future.
But, back to the Senate runoffs- Stacey Abrams has been campaigning through virtual meetings to ‘get out the vote’. A commentator on MNSBC was succinct – if people want to win the Senate seats, do what Stacey Abrams says’.
I hope that they do.
Brilliant and Bold! a Zoom meeting hosted by Jocelynne Scutt
Sunday, December 13 2020 11am UK time (10.00pm Australian time)
Leaping the Hurdles! Overturning the Obstacles! Four brilliant & bold women tell us how it’s done, how they face forward into the day, despite the odds, confronting the patriarch – and maintaining their enthusiasm despite the knocks! Greece, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom … and You!
I have attended all of these meetings, and thoroughly enjoyed them. The speakers are interesting, questions can be asked, and general participation is encouraged.
Safe Harbour Day has arrived in America – by late Monday 8th (American time) every state but Hawaii has certified its results, securing Joe Biden more than the 270 electoral college votes he needs to become president.
The Supreme Court threw out the only pro -Trump case to get to that court – in a one sentence decision.
Robin's Room 