What’s Hot + What’s Not Wednesday

What's hot:

* Book recommendations by favourite authors. Maggie Alderson recommended Fay Weldon's book Chalcot Crescent on her blog and I was immediately consumed by the need to read*:

"What if we all suddenly lost interest in the consumerist way of life that actually entirely underpins capitalism?

In her parallel universe people have suddenly and collectively realised that constantly acquiring more ‘stuff’ is not the route to happiness. No shopping means no ‘growth’ means no economy…

As a result, houses are worthless, credit doesn’t exist, the EU falls to bits, it’s every country for themselves, food is the most valuable commodity and after a couple of hung parliaments an unelected government takes control."

* Finding said book sitting on the shelf at the library I was working at that day so being able to start reading it straight away.

* Speaking of books, I have another book/paper artist for Call of the Small: after chatting at a CMAG opening declared he'd always wanted to try working in miniature. And we're also joined by a jeweller who uses op shopped treasures in her work.

* Ian Mowbray's miniature glass works, discovered while googling "miniature glass Canberra" in the hope I'd turn up a previously unknown to me artisan. I did indeed find what I was looking for but not, alas, based in Canberra.

* A job interview for a (casual) role in the performing arts area. Fingers crossed...

* New to me (and very funny) blogs: Unhappy Hipsters (thanks Kerry!) and A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette (via Taph)

* Also new to me (discovered this morning through a comment on my blog): Circles of Rain. Who wrote about the latest Rachel Whiteread exhibition:
(remember I blogged about her dolls house furniture chess set back in October 2007? No, I didn't either until today...)

And I thought I had a problem with dolls house storage. Although reading the article it looks like she got funding to buy them. Now why didn't I think of that?

What's not:

* Not finishing the ant fabric in time to enter the Spoonflower contest. I spent the evening visiting an 18 day old instead. I see Allsorts has also decided to also give Spoonflower a go. And actually finished her bug fabric...

* Discovering two of my favorite inner city houses have "I'm about to be turned into apartments" fences around them.
Hardly surprising as, in the 11 years I've been in Canberra, I haven't seen anyone living in 63 B...
* Feeling broke. Living on homemade bread and hummus, and cheap tinned tomatoes, tuna, beans and 50 cent bags of pasta from the store cupboard is starting to lose its appeal. Even when it's mixed with the cheering thought that I've been living a cash-only existence since I got back from Sturt (and do have an emergency fund I could plunder if necessary). I think I need to make some cinnamon pinwheel scones or chocolate fudge this evening and focus on the fact that it's only two days until I get paid again...

(*I've always had a thing for speculative fiction like The Postman)