Ask Carroll

[BRE]

Ok Nick, did you read Ulysses (assuming you did) without a break, that is, without a lengthy break between readings? Myself, I had to read it twice over ten years to take it all in. It's hard work. Do you ever read your own stuff back and identify devices and patterns that you have subconsciously put into your work? Is the time right for a Joyce-like stream of consciousness novel based around Newport or any other beach for that matter? It could be the basis for the great Australian surfing novel. Oh, it would leave Puberty Blues and Breath floundering in its wake.

[swvic]

Thanks, Nick

Not sure about eloquence, Loof. I've written that question a few times, but never posted until now. Including this version, they've all seemed a bit weird - sort of like invading Nick's privacy by asking about him being quite unguarded about it, but it does interest me and I feel slightly fortunate that asking didn't seem to phase him

er, I missed the public shaming, but if you're gunna get your dog stoned and your old man's a journo .............

[Nick Carroll]

Ok Nick, did you read Ulysses (assuming you did) without a break, that is, without a lengthy break between readings? Myself, I had to read it twice over ten years to take it all in. It's hard work. Do you ever read your own stuff back and identify devices and patterns that you have subconsciously put into your work? Is the time right for a Joyce-like stream of consciousness novel based around Newport or any other beach for that matter? It could be the basis for the great Australian surfing novel. Oh, it would leave Puberty Blues and Breath floundering in its wake.

Ha ha Ulysses, I had a few cracks at reading it the way I read most books, i.e. in a few big gulps, this did not really work out. I had to read it over several months quite intensively with short breaks in between. I didn't think it was difficult to read, just that when you went in you couldn't get back out. It's the most I've ever been immersed in a book. Cities Of The Plain dragged me into a similar place but not with so much sheer human warmth and sense of place and just revelatory use of language.

I don't know about identifying devices and patterns etc, I am a very conscious writer in the sense that I work at those devices and structures and I'm very aware of 'em, but if I am writing something solid then I'll surprise myself as I go along by what emerges. Like the unexpected happens as I write, not as I read later. I layer and structure stuff into some writing that nobody ever seems to pick up on, which I take as a good sign -- they're probably getting something subconsciously from it. But I do forget quite a bit of what I write, and get little surprises from re-reading it, some good, some just awful.

I think the days of that stream of consciousness writing are past now and anyway none of us are James Joyce, who was a very strange man indeed, not that there aren't strange surfers. But I am gonna have a crack at that book that shearer and I discussed a while back, a book about nothing but surf experiences, and I will have to try new things in that book. Like I don't want it to have any "lessons" in it or for it to have a sense of being a long metaphor for anything, I want it to be rich on its own, or to contain the crazy richness and fear, and joy and bleakness and slowly gained yet unrecognised knowledge and sense of water that arises within surfing experience. And I don't want to care about readers who don't surf, I don't want to explain surfing to them at all, I just want to say it and remember it the way it was felt. So I have to find a different language or structure or something for it.

[BRE]

Thanks Nick. I've never actually got around to Cities of the Plain, I'll make it next up after 'Paper Towns'. Wouldn't have picked it to read myself, but my daughter insisted, so we can then watch the movie together. Gotta keep the kids interested and stimulated. It also opens up conversations about Walt Whitman and Woody Guthrie, which is a good thing.
Look forward to the surfing book. Good luck with it.

[Nick Carroll]

hint: read the other two first before Cities

[Monty]

Oh and thank you for recommending Robert Graves' Goodbye To all That a while ago. It blew my mind and I would never have heard of it otherwise.i shall seek out the Hiroshima text.

It's a tremendous book isn't it.

I because interested in Graves after reading the Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker, voted one of the best historical novelists by the Observer. I'm sure you would enjoy them, she's one of my favourite authors and born in the North East like myself.

[pinhead]

Nick,
I saw this photo in the Age today, of Australia's first domestically designed and built tank. I'm wondering if you can provide some insight into the unusual piece of equipment mounted on the front of the vehicle directly below the turret.

[Nick Carroll]

ah yes, well as you will guess, sometimes the tank crew has to stay inside the tank for long periods, past their bedtimes etc, and certainly past the point of no return regarding their toiletary habits. So this is a device designed to expel urine. Tank crew just wee-wees inside a container attached to a pump and it's eventually squirted out through the small hole you can see at the tip of the device. Cleverly it is designed to soak enemy troops with the crew's urine if they dare to approach within "pissing range". In honour of the man who invented it (who just happens to be our current PM's paternal grandfather) the device is known as the Abbott Head.

[Nick Carroll]

for everyone who missed the preceding post

Nick,
I saw this photo in the Age today, of Australia's first domestically designed and built tank. I'm wondering if you can provide some insight into the unusual piece of equipment mounted on the front of the vehicle directly below the turret.

[chrisb]

Nick, your military knowledge further encourages me to ask this question.

As the ghastly Bronwyn Bishop will likely be Mackeller's standing Liberal member for re-election there is a chance that a strong independent candidate could knock her off, Alex McTaggart-style.

Have you considered running for politics ? Alternatively, do you think young Tom would make a good politician? Does he share similar political viewpoints to you?

[pinhead]

ah yes, well as you will guess, sometimes the tank crew has to stay inside the tank for long periods, past their bedtimes etc, and certainly past the point of no return regarding their toiletary habits. So this is a device designed to expel urine. Tank crew just wee-wees inside a container attached to a pump and it's eventually squirted out through the small hole you can see at the tip of the device. Cleverly it is designed to soak enemy troops with the crew's urine if they dare to approach within "pissing range". In honour of the man who invented it (who just happens to be our current PM's paternal grandfather) the device is known as the Abbott Head.

Thanks for clearing that up Nick. Despite what some doubters say, your knowledge of 20 th century mechanised warfare is clearly beyond dispute.

[Nick Carroll]

Nick, your military knowledge further encourages me to ask this question.

As the ghastly Bronwyn Bishop will likely be Mackeller's standing Liberal member for re-election there is a chance that a strong independent candidate could knock her off, Alex McTaggart-style.

Have you considered running for politics ? Alternatively, do you think young Tom would make a good politician? Does he share similar political viewpoints to you?

Well I don't know if Bronwyn Bishop will stand again, I think there'd be a lot of people in the Liberal Party who'd be suggesting it was time for her to step down, sensing the possibility of a kick in the face electorally.

Running for politics, no I have not ever considered it. I'm v interested in politics as a voter and citizen, but to me if you want to tackle that and do it well, it's a lifetime's work and the time for that for me is past. I think Tom would be a terrible politician; he is quite a calm person really, thinks carefully before answering questions, is very aware of his limits, and would be the first to admit that he doesn't know anything about a subject under discussion. He is quite used to the public eye but he is not used to the kind of nasty attacks that would almost certainly be levelled at someone like him if he posed a threat to the Libs' hegemony in this part of the world: "stupid surfer", "ex drug addict", etc etc. He wouldn't know how to answer that sort of thing. (I would.)

[Natho]

Nick, I know you have covered this before however I can't find it. What fins have you found suited to the deep concave MC boards (Futures range)?. Looking for some Futures to put in a pro tow. If its anything like the Metro I had off MC, these boards are very sensitive to fins and I found less fin better for the metro. Must be due to the hold you already get out of the board. Bigger fins and the board was a dog through the first initiation of turns. Small fins and it was like a whole new board. Was going to try a tiny Grom set to start coz I reckon the board will have plenty of hold without going bigger and adding drag..

[Nick Carroll]

well I don't have any futures box MCs but I would suggest the F4 template, it's v similar to MC's actual template and you can get it in a few different materials depending on what you want flex-wise

I would not suggest anything with an inside concave foil, you want a bit of neutrality in the fin set in those deep concave boards.

[Trev]

ah yes, well as you will guess, sometimes the tank crew has to stay inside the tank for long periods, past their bedtimes etc, and certainly past the point of no return regarding their toiletary habits. So this is a device designed to expel urine. Tank crew just wee-wees inside a container attached to a pump and it's eventually squirted out through the small hole you can see at the tip of the device. Cleverly it is designed to soak enemy troops with the crew's urine if they dare to approach within "pissing range". In honour of the man who invented it (who just happens to be our current PM's paternal grandfather) the device is known as the Abbott Head.

That's a damn fine reply Mr Carroll. Had me laughing at a computer monitor.
And afterall, isn't that what most wars are about, who can piss the furtherest in distance or longest in duration?

Woolly, are you suggesting this isn't kosher?

[chrisb]

Circumcised as well so it is most definitely kosher.

[ctd]

Circumcised as well so it is most definitely kosher.

It's to give advanced notice-if you see it coming towards you, you are about to be f$@@ked

(It's actually covering a machine gun, so extend the metaphor. Although really it shot blanks since the tank never saw action)

[Nick Carroll]

nay woolly, this line of inquiry is dying a horrible death, let it go man.