I'm happy to write a personal message in the front of any of my books purchased.
Find out more at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com, or email me at ibgburns@optusnet.com.au.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Cricketers auctioned at slave mart!
The entire sub-continent is a-buzz as a number of Australian cricketers (along with others), having willingly stood on the dais at the slave market, prepared to join new teams to play some exciting Twenty20 games around India.
I'm supporting the Bangalore mob, mainly because that's where my book Ranga Plays Australia is set for quite a bit of the story.
Ranga and the rest of them would never have dreamed of what's happening today - in their day it was a game, only, played for fun. Read more about this at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com/previewrangaplaysaustralia.
I'm supporting the Bangalore mob, mainly because that's where my book Ranga Plays Australia is set for quite a bit of the story.
Ranga and the rest of them would never have dreamed of what's happening today - in their day it was a game, only, played for fun. Read more about this at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com/previewrangaplaysaustralia.
Ranga grows!
Ranga Plays Australia has a new chapter, where the boys (and one girl) toss around a bunch of possibilities about the impending visit of the Indians, demonstrating a fair degree of confusion and a few bits of remarkable knowledge.
Check it out at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com.
By the way, if you'd like to have a book with your own personal dedication, go to the same site and see how this can be arranged.
Check it out at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com.
By the way, if you'd like to have a book with your own personal dedication, go to the same site and see how this can be arranged.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
About Beethoven, the musical play
Beethoven! the musical stage play is the story of a man’s pursuit of music, as he struggles against increasing deafness and other periodic ailments. Whilst he is a naturally gregarious person, and loves keenly a number of ladies (even leading to proposals of marriage), his hearing problem makes him more and more isolated. Compounding this is his lack of money sense, and a sometimes–too–quick temper – which causes him to fall out with his friends and run through a string of servants. Fortunately his friends are extremely loyal on the whole, and stick with him, doing their best to help him where and when they can.
Act 1 establishes a number of Beethoven’s character traits, in the context of his increasing reputation, and follows some of his initiatives in trying to live what might be called a regular life - that is, mixing in society and entering a state of matrimony, as well as trying to earn a living in a well-regarded vocation.
Reflecting these aspects, we find Beethoven in various situations, relating to his friends, and where we can learn, either from the context of the scene or from himself, something of the man and his music.
We meet him in a typical situation. He is thirty years old. Although he’s been aware of it for a few years, his hearing loss is still more of an irritation than a real impediment. As the act unfolds we follow him as he falls in love with a number of fair admirers, gaining a sense of his alleged money difficulties, his increasing success, his temper, and something of his philosophy, humour (he was an inveterate punster), and habits. Up until nearly the end of the Act, deafness is treated more or less incidentally, through the occasional miss–hearing of words and the recurring motif of the cuckoo. It’s only in the last scene that we begin to see how much it’s affecting him, when we contrast the gaiety of a country dance with his faltering response to its rhythms.
The main themes of Act 1 are love and music, with deafness as a shadow in the background.
Act 2 takes us into the latter part of Beethoven’s life, particularly the conflict between his desire for marriage and a normal life and his growing view that this would diminish his art. Interleaving these matters is the self-consuming saga of his efforts to gain guardianship of his nephew, together with something of the trauma which results from this, and a little fun.
The act ends with both a quiet and a triumphant affirmation of Beethoven’s time–transcending greatness.
You can find more information at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com.
Note: This play has not been produced and, apart from one song, lyrics are not included.
Act 1 establishes a number of Beethoven’s character traits, in the context of his increasing reputation, and follows some of his initiatives in trying to live what might be called a regular life - that is, mixing in society and entering a state of matrimony, as well as trying to earn a living in a well-regarded vocation.
Reflecting these aspects, we find Beethoven in various situations, relating to his friends, and where we can learn, either from the context of the scene or from himself, something of the man and his music.
We meet him in a typical situation. He is thirty years old. Although he’s been aware of it for a few years, his hearing loss is still more of an irritation than a real impediment. As the act unfolds we follow him as he falls in love with a number of fair admirers, gaining a sense of his alleged money difficulties, his increasing success, his temper, and something of his philosophy, humour (he was an inveterate punster), and habits. Up until nearly the end of the Act, deafness is treated more or less incidentally, through the occasional miss–hearing of words and the recurring motif of the cuckoo. It’s only in the last scene that we begin to see how much it’s affecting him, when we contrast the gaiety of a country dance with his faltering response to its rhythms.
The main themes of Act 1 are love and music, with deafness as a shadow in the background.
Act 2 takes us into the latter part of Beethoven’s life, particularly the conflict between his desire for marriage and a normal life and his growing view that this would diminish his art. Interleaving these matters is the self-consuming saga of his efforts to gain guardianship of his nephew, together with something of the trauma which results from this, and a little fun.
The act ends with both a quiet and a triumphant affirmation of Beethoven’s time–transcending greatness.
You can find more information at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com.
Note: This play has not been produced and, apart from one song, lyrics are not included.
About Possum and Python
Possum and Python is a story of the rain forest, of birth and love and companionship - of a most unusual (but splendidly splendid) kind.It all begins late one night, on a broad branch, high up above the forest floor, where something remarkable happens that leads to a remarkable change in the ecology of a special part of our remarkable world. Without doubt.
You can find out more about Possum and Python at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com.
You can also arrange to have the author write a personal dedication in the front of the book.
About The Search for Quong
Quong was a creature of the olden olden days, even before grandmother.
He was a short fellow, or, at least, that’s what they said, with long, thin legs and an even longer, thinner tail. His face was fat and wrinkly, and big bushy eyebrows kept out the sun and flies.
At least that’s what I think he looked like, though no–one has actually seen him that I’d believe.
Which, of course, was the trouble.
Some people say that there are no such things as quongs, that it’s a stupid name, and that if there were any there’d be pink elephants,too.
But those people don’t think Father Christmas comes every year, either.
Of course this is all nonsense.
There must be quongs and we must find them.
And, if this story’s any good, we will.
Find more information about The Search for Quong at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com.
You can also arrange for the author to write a personal dedication in the book for you.
He was a short fellow, or, at least, that’s what they said, with long, thin legs and an even longer, thinner tail. His face was fat and wrinkly, and big bushy eyebrows kept out the sun and flies.
At least that’s what I think he looked like, though no–one has actually seen him that I’d believe.
Which, of course, was the trouble.
Some people say that there are no such things as quongs, that it’s a stupid name, and that if there were any there’d be pink elephants,too.
But those people don’t think Father Christmas comes every year, either.
Of course this is all nonsense.
There must be quongs and we must find them.
And, if this story’s any good, we will.
Find more information about The Search for Quong at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com.
You can also arrange for the author to write a personal dedication in the book for you.
About Lissie Pendle
Lissie Pendle is, to a degree, about trouble.
It's about trouble which just...well, it just happens. Usually with the help of her little brother, or Scratcher and his friends, or just....things.
In the course of telling us about a number of pretty unusual events, such as the case of the killer koala, or what happened in old-fashioned trains' toilets, or when she met a lady who inserted capital letters into her conversation, or when there was blood instead of ink in the inkwell, or....well, a pile of other things, we discover an Australia of another time.
When things were clear, including the air, and life was simpler and, yes, funnier.
Although none of us, especially Lissie, realised it at the time.
Lissie Pendle can be obtained at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com.
You can also arrange for the author to write a personal dedication in the book for you.
It's about trouble which just...well, it just happens. Usually with the help of her little brother, or Scratcher and his friends, or just....things.
In the course of telling us about a number of pretty unusual events, such as the case of the killer koala, or what happened in old-fashioned trains' toilets, or when she met a lady who inserted capital letters into her conversation, or when there was blood instead of ink in the inkwell, or....well, a pile of other things, we discover an Australia of another time.
When things were clear, including the air, and life was simpler and, yes, funnier.
Although none of us, especially Lissie, realised it at the time.
Lissie Pendle can be obtained at http://imaginalworks.googlepages.com.
You can also arrange for the author to write a personal dedication in the book for you.
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