Thursday, August 24, 2006
Mamalamadingdong (she's my baby...)
A couple of months ago I got an email out of the blue from someone called Ayun Halliday, asking if I'd be part of her virtual book tour.
Oooh! Now this sounded a bit more interesting that the usual spam and letters from dodgy guys wanting to be my
Anyway, in short Ayun was going to send me a FREE BOOK, in return for me writing about it/her/New York City/myself/my cat ( she seemed to give a pretty free rein on what I could write about actually) on a specific date. I think I even had the option to get HER to do all the writing, but didn't cotton onto that little gravy train until too late in the picture.
Now, the last time a REAL LIVE AUTHOR sent me a free book through my blog was last year. I'm averaging one free book every 9 months. I'm reasonably happy with that (but there is room for improvement).
(Of course, the last time that a real live author sent me a free book was because I'd called her a crap mother in my blog and she found out after googling her name. I'm not sure exactly why Ayun chose to send a free book to me, but I suppose she could have possibly been googling lesbian Indian women breastfeeding five year old monkeys and got me instead... I see from Ayun's website that someone found HER site by typing "breastfeeding monkey in India" too...- SNAP!)
Anyhoo, all bonding over breastfeeding monkeys aside, it all came down to "Hell yes! I'll be part of your virtual book tour! Send me a free book!"
So I waited. And waited. And waited. (Hey, I live in New Zealand - we're a long way away from anywhere, let alone Ayun's home in New York City).
Finally I got something in the mail. I was intrigued. Is this the book? Rather strange looking book.
Finally I figured out it was Ayun's zine (note to self - zine does NOT rhyme with swine) - a really low-tech type of blog. It kind of reminded me of my brother's family newsletters from the 80s and 90s, and so brought back all kinds of familial reminiscings.
Of course, I read the East Village Inky on the loo, as it just seemed to be the best place to read it. It is JAM PACKED with stuff. Y'know, STUFF... words, pictures... stuff. You have to turn it upside down sometimes to read the stuff that Ayun has handwritten in the margins. It's kind of cool.
Of course, I managed to get totally confused, as I still didn't know Ayun Halliday from jack, and spent a good few toilet sessions thinking that the much lamented late Jambo was in fact Ayun's accountant (and so trying to work out why he seemed to have lived in her apartment and ate his food off the floor).
Anyway, a couple of weeks later, just as I was rationing the last few words of the East Village Inky to make it last longer, my salvation arrived in the form of Mamalamadingdong.
Now, this book tour is in honour of the UK release of this book - it was actually released a couple of years ago in the US under the title "The Big Rumpus". I'm not exactly sure why they changed the name... a cultural thing maybe?
If it was cultural, then that was the ONLY thing they changed for Brit audiences (and by proxy, us Kiwis, as we're closer to the Brits in our speech than the Americans), as I still had to wade through such bizarre language as "trash", "diaper" and "nursing".
But hey, who cares, as there's something about mothering memoirs (especially those involving the disgusting early years) that seems to cross language barriers.
I loved this book. I loved its honesty, its realism, and its quirkiness.
I loved the birth stories (but then, I'm a sucker for birth stories). I loved the breastfeeding stories. I loved the "urban city dweller" stories.
I've been cheating a bit on this book tour host post, as this is the 24th blog to do the book tour (one host blog for every day of August). I've been reading all the other book tour reviews and interviews (and hey, you should read them too, there are some great ones out there!) and getting ideas. (I've also been flagging ideas... "Hey! I could interview Ayun! Oh no, someone's already done that.... Hey! I could get her to write something! Oh no, someone's already done that... Hey! I could do a podcast! Ummm, what the hell is a podcast?")
In particular, I noticed that most blogs cottoned onto one thing that they found they had in common (or NOT) with Ayun, and fixated on that.
With that in mind, I kind of imagined myself as a kindred spirit - a fellow urban city dweller, until I re-read the descriptions of Ayun climbing up five flights of stairs, baby on her back, toddler in hand, carrying ten bags of bagels and other New York essentials.
Ayun with the kids and New York essentialsI then remember that, even though I live near the centre of the second biggest city in the country, I still get to park my car up our drive, and carry our bags of groceries past only one neighbour to our home (with kids' play equipment, vegetable garden and compost bins all on our small, yet there, backyard).
So, I guess I can't quite compare or feel united on that front. I guess my vast megapolis is the equivalent of Bumblefuck, Idaho** to a NYC resident.
So then I cottoned onto the other things I have in common with Ayun. We both hate housework. I like this woman.
"Also, as far as keeping every plate in the air goes, motherhood has made me into a seriously neglectful housekeeper. What little time I had to myself in those early days, I split between the children and my writing. The children got the lion's share. The bathroom floor got zilch."
(stolen from Baby and Mom blog's interview)
However, I'm amazed that Ayun managed to spend every single minute of naptime productively, furiously writing her zine or her books until the wee ones woke up. I spend every single minute of naptime, um, napping.
Being a bit of a name geek, the pronunciation of Ayun is another thing that intrigued me. Well, Drunken Housewife (now there's a blognomer after my own heart!) managed to inveigle it out of her... "Bet-sy". Ohhkay...
(I'm not sure why but for some reason, the way I pronounce Ayun's name sounds like a hillbilly trying to pronounce Anne... "Ay-un! Ay-un. You git yiself and Billy-Bob in here this instant, grits is on the table!" Not really the New York City image...? But hey, what would I know.)
One thing about writing that I've found is that it seems to motivate me to get out and GET A LIFE, just so that I have something to write about. Ayun seems to be almost the opposite - she manages to find writing material in the smallest day to day details, AND manages to make it riveting and readable. I guess some of this comes from living in an intrinsically interesting city to start with, but it's inspiring anyway.
It is an inspirational book actually, for those of us mums who
I'll end up with a quote from Mamalamadingdong, that's been quoted many times before by other virtual book tour blog hosts but I like it anyway.
"Staying at home to raise children is like getting off the graveyard shift at Burger King with fifteen minutes to make it to my second job in the coal mines. Of course, once a week I am summoned from the mine shaft to accept the Nobel Prize, but goddamnit, I earn those."
Hell yes.
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* If there's anything I've guessed about Ayun Halliday without actually meeting her is that I bet she can TALK. I love her writing style - chatty, interesting, and goes off on wild tangents for a while, before returning to whatever the hell it was that she was talking about in the first place. Actually, looking back over this post, maybe I like her because she reminds me a little of me (but better).
** "When describing the mothers outside New York who read her zine, Ayun writes, "It's good just to know they are out there, in Bumblefuck, Idaho. We might not see eye to eye on the best place to raise children, but we are all in the same boat." (stolen from Julia's blog). Tee hee hee.. You should have seen the virtual bitch-slapping that occurred amongst Julia's "suburban mom" commenters in response to that!
