1/ The Beach vs. The Ocean

I don't have much experience with oceans so Bondi was the first time since a trip to Elat when I was 16 that I have thrown myself into an awe-shaped body of water.

The beach is like the shallow outer lining of the ocean. On the beach I sit and stare at the indescribably fit beach people who have spent their lives grooming themselves for life on the surf. When the utter baywatchness of Australian beach culture begins to feel weird, I have a book, and I read.

The ocean is the antithesis of the beach, and there are always fewer people in it. The first intimation you get of what the ocean wants, is when you step into the surf and feel the water nibbling away at the sand under your heels, that nibble is the precursor to undertow. It will happen no matter how solid the sand feels, the ocean will sneak around and undermine your attachment to the ground, to what you know about your weight, about gravity.

The strength of the ocean is huge on your legs as you get farther out. Depending on your location vis a vis the waves you can walk easily, almost pulled in certain directions. Other times you can barely move, pinned in place by currents that are against you. The Ocean demands more time and less attention to detail the farther out you get. It hits you with a big rolling wave that pulls you sideways, then it slams you with a crashing white foam wall that sends you bouncing across the shallows like a rag doll. Once your feet leave the bottom you become nothing to it, paddling around the breakers no more than a water spider or a piece of wood, and it lifts you and pulls you as easily as it pulls the seaweed that occasionally brushes against your leg. The ocean is a wild noise, and leaves a salty coating inside your mouth. The ocean is a giant beast that wraps you in it's hide and pretends to affection when all it can really do is play or smother.

The Ocean - it eats people

Once the ocean has finished with you, (only you tell yourself you've finished with it) you make your way carefully back to the beach, wet sand caked into the sides of your bathing suit, head reeling, the ocean tugging at your knees trying to win you back.

The beach is still there, it's still easy, opening up its soft sandy vista without demanding a single concession. You can even mold the sand to fit your head just right as you lie down and get back to your book. The beach is the embrace that the ocean can't give you. That's all it's there for.

2/ Bookworms are funny people, funny enough to spy, on bus noodling it's way out of Bondi on a trip to the Museum, a sign that says "We Buy Books" underneath another that reads "Gertrude and Alice Cafe", and feel ones heart pick up a beat. The next day I went back and fell in love with the tiny place. Reasons to love the cafe? For one thing, the name - who wouldn't go for those namesakes? A curmodgeonly hard-to-read lesbian author and her muse. A hearth for lonely eccentrics.

In terms of organization, most bookstores go for a scheme that disinvites excitement. Alphabetical Listing According to Genre. Woo-hoo I love finding the authors I want in a row with like named authors, it's such a fun surprise, not really. The G and A uses that system as well, because really there is no other, but adds all these other lexical motifs. For example, the "really great authors" get their own little vertical stacks on the floor, meaning you can easily scan the bottom rows for a well known read and then pick through the shelves for other lesser-known authors.

Other good walls abound. There is the wall of books that have won awards, not in any order or very clear about which awards but if you are looking for acclaimed fiction, it's in easy reach. There are walls with books faced outwards and there are walls in which the books have been chosen by staff at the cafe. In fact the bathroom is papered with pages of pocketbooks, so there is no end to the ways in which book culture can be appreciated, tasted and explored.

In the end though, the value of any used bookstore has to do with the capacity of the management to pick good works, and toss the less interesting stuff. It's on this level that I was so extremely happy at G&A ( could I have purred I would have purred). The selection of books, was the best I have seen in a while. I ended up purchasing four books, which is ridiculous when you consider I was going to have to carry them for so many miles. Two of the exciting books I bought (in case you are wondering) Glass, Paper, Beans:Revelations on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things a political economy of three everyday objects, and "Lust" a work of speculative fiction by my favorite and most hard to find SF author of all time Geoff Ryman. So those and two easier to find book, by Henry James and Neil Stephenson respectively.

Oh yeah, the food was pretty good too.

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a weirdo for liking books as much as I do. Places like Gerturde and Alice remind me that loving a book or books, not because you already read it, or because it will potentially make you smarter, or better, but just loving books for books, is okay. For how they look all crammed together, how they smell when you sniff where the paper meets the spine, the potential they offer to your imagination, the way you can find things in them you would never think of looking for in the first place.

3/ Shahzia Sikander at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney

This summer, discover the eloquent and intricately beautiful paintings and watercolours of Shahzia Sikander. Born in Pakistan, Sikander studied painting in the Indo- Persian miniaturist tradition before relocating to New York in 1993, where further studies saw her develop a distinctive iconography referencing history, mythology and popular culture.

Images of Sikanders work from google, none of which come close to the ones on display in Sydney

I personally can't and don't really want to try writing about art. It's too difficult and I think it takes away some of the pleasure of the images themselves. Just go watch the slide show on her website.

So that's the first highlights post, tomorrow I may go for a lowlights post and talk about the joys of sleeping at O'Hare Internatinal Airport. For now, Merry Christmas and it's time for me to crawl back into my lovely bed and continue reading one of the books that made it all the way home with me. Wish we could say the same for my luggage.