James Bond at Manly Jazz Festival

The Manly Jazz Festival is on it's 30th anniversary this year. Running for three days until the Labour Day holiday, the jazz festival has 5 stages stretching from Manly Wharf, through The Corso, to the Manly Beach. It's just the perfect day for a jazz festival - the sun was out, trees along The Corso providing some cover, and a light sea breeze blowing. I listened to The Postmen at the Council Forecourt Stage, then continued on to a husband-and-wife band called Viva playing the guitar and the accordion. Moving on to The Corso Stage, the Benny's Boys were playing. At the Ocean Beachfront Stage, the full-bodied and versatile Michelle Nicole and her band performed till 4pm. I took the opportunity to sit on the roadside and read John Gardner's For Special Services, where Ian Fleming's James Bond seduces the girls, drives fast cars, foils the bad guy's plans, and saves the world. Back at the Council Forecourt Stage, the Chatswood High Stage Band was wowing the crowd. Would've loved to stay, but I had a ferry to catch.

New Book from Chuck Palahniuk

The October 2004 issue of Abbey's Advocate from Abbey's Bookshop mentions the latest book from Chuck Palahniuk. The title is Non-Fiction, and it's a collection of his non-fiction short stories.

Synopsis: "Chuck Palahniuk's world has been, well, different from yours and mine. The pieces that comprise Nonfiction prove just how different, in ways both highly entertaining and deeply unsettling. Encounters with alternative culture heroes Marilyn Manson and Juliette Lewis; the peculiar wages of fame attendant on the big budget film production of the movie Fight Club; life as an assembly-line drive train installer by day, hospice volunteer driver by night; the really peculiar lives of submariners; the really violent world of college wrestlers; the underground world of anabolic steroid gobblers; the harrowing circumstances of his father's murder and the trial of his killer - each essay or vignette offers a unique facet of existence as lived in and/or observed by one of America's most flagrantly daring and original literary talents."

So far, I've already read Fight Club, Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Choke, and Diary. This one should prove another must-read. I hope the local library get it soon.