March 1 2006
G'Day Mates,
I wouldn't
trouble you with Crocodile Dundee-isms,
but here in Australia that's a bona fide greeting,
along with "How're you going?" which leaves the North American mind trapped awkwardly between an answer to
how the individual is doing and how things in
general are going. Luckily for me,
the answer to both has been pretty positive lately.
I'm writing from
Adelaide, where the Fringe Festival kicked off last weekend with a grand parade
and all-night party. Unfortunately
I had to miss it sick in bed, but this time it was just a passing flu and not
the wretched delirium of Edinburgh 2004.
It was probably mostly a symptom of exhaustion, since I had a hard time
of it the week leading up to my departure. As most of you know, I spent the past five months writing my
first book, "The Rap Canterbury Tales," which is being published in
September by Canada's most prestigious "purist" literary press, Talon
Books. Besides other preparations
to leave the country for five weeks and beyond, I wrote the preface the night
before flying, last Tuesday evening, already running a fever, and then traveled
36 hours to arrive in Adelaide Thursday afternoon, just in time to drag my
luggage straight to the theatre and run my tech rehearsal.
But a little further on the book first - it is now 99% submitted and approved by the publisher, and comes in at just over 355 pages, including an introduction based on my Masters thesis, connecting hiphop culture to Chaucer's poetry milieu in the fourteenth century through their common roots in oral storytelling traditions. The introduction also puts forward my best attempt at a coherent theory of the place of rhyme in English poetry over the past thousand years, and the significance of hiphop in this context from an academic perspective.
The most exciting preview I have to offer, however, is a sample of the book itself, which includes the layout of Chaucer's Middle English verses with my rap version on facing pages, adorned by my brother's illustrations, which are the book's crown jewel. Erik has crafted a black and white sketch for every scene, bringing the actions and characters to such vivid life that the transition from the stage to the page is not a breach but an expansion, forbidding mourning.
This valediction is also valid because the stage is still alive at the moment, as yesterday I performed my fourth show of the Adelaide Fringe Festival. By opening weekend I was hale and hearty again and even though I hadn't had the time to hand out a single flyer I still managed to sell out my first show, mostly on the strength of a full-page article that appeared in the Adelaide Advertiser a week before my arrival. This article was the first to put in print my new favourite term, the only apt name I've found for this odd species of hiphop that has become my life: "Lit-Hop". Now there's a style of rap I can represent to the fullest. Big up.
The hospitality
in this country goes beyond ticket-sales as well, as I'm staying in a great
house with hosts Lachlan and Simo, along with Anna from Scotland and a couple
of Brisbane trapeze artists.
Lachlan recently rescued an orphaned ring-tailed possum, so every few
hours he has to feed it milk formula and the rest of the time the little
marsupial is running around on the table or the furniture or clinging to someone's
clothes, but so far he's the only wildlife I've seen, outside of the festival
district. This house is the
perfect sanctuary from festival madness, with a terrace looking over a garden
with ducks and chouks (chickens), and an outdoor fridge for cold beer. The secluded world of self-imposed
isolation in obsessive word-processing couldn't possibly seem farther away,
though it was only a week ago I lived there.
I want to say
thank you finally to everyone who contributed ideas and support over the past
five months as the book came together.
Now I plan to enjoy some time in the sun in the satisfaction of a job
done (whether or not it was a job well done is up to readers and reviewers). All good things for the spring (or fall
if you're on this side of the planet), and I'll keep you posted,
Baba