Well, you know the rest.

I’ve just returned from a very quick trip to Melbourne for a workshop. Although Melbourne is always cooler than Adelaide, and even the nights in Adelaide have been getting colder in the last few days, my two days there seemed particularly piercing. As usual, I hadn’t packed clothes that were warm enough, and found that tossing my favourite black scarf into the briefcase on my way out the door was a fortuitous addition. Wish I could say the same for the book I took along with me. The book was on a topic important to my work, and I’d hoped it would deliver the promise on the back cover of a fresh take on a much-studied problem. It didn’t maintain my interest past the first two chapters I read in the hour before takeoff from Adelaide. Instead, while on the plane, I busied myself reading in the Qantas magazine about the top five hotels in California (for enquiring minds, The Beverly Hills Hotel was #1) and engaged in some low-level origami with a newspaper and the tray table. On my second day in Melbourne I happened upon (as I often do) The Book Grocer on Bourke Street, where I gravitated towards works on Lyle Talbot, Patricia Highsmith, and Ahmet Ertegun. I decided to go with the Talbot one for the ride home, The Entertainer: Movies, Magic, and My Father’s Twentieth Century written by his daughter, Margaret. I’m quite enjoying it.

I’m also looking forward to posting some new articles on the site very soon. I’ve been busy for most of April with conducting interviews and researching future ones. I think you’ll like them.

The photo below is from a little while ago, but what’s more Californian than Santa Monica Pier?