Analogue Scrolling Pleasures
“Here, you are darling, a nice magazine for you to read.” My mind immediately flashed back to my journalist friend, affronted by a flight attendant’s assumption that she would not want to read a business magazine. She had written for Time magazine, but that wasn’t the point. Di Webster was a colleague and is a brilliant human and writer.
Good Weekend Magazine, coffee and bed - weekend vibes Photo: Jaeger Communications
My thoughtful partner had pulled the Weekend Magazine from the Australian newspaper as he knows I like to read that. Not a modicum of patronisation in his offering.
I’m not up for tea and scandal at breakfast time that all newspaper headlines scream at me. I do enjoy reading stories about people on the weekend. My fresh day headspace is usually reserved for my own pearls and thoughts. I like my morning flow of words for pieces like this or client creativity works, unadulterated by the bleak news of the day. My empathetic brain is quick to absorb the feels and linger.
I can’t help but look at story angles and read between the lines. Occupational hazard or skill? That’s either ironic given my past or completely understandable. One of the legacies of 12 years of working in current affairs in radio and television left me with. Plus an abundance of tree killing newspapers delivered and scoured daily in my home during my PR career post the journo environment. Always looking for a bandwagon to jump on.
The analogue version of scrolling. The digital adapted me cringes at the massive desposits to my recycling bin, back in the day.
I confess fond memories of being surrounded by fresh newsprint spread across the table with my story nose sending the endorphin rush to my brain.
One of my favourite papers to scour in the midst of the chaotic current affairs newsroom was the New York Times - especially with all of the lift outs. I had a fondness for The New Yorker magazine, too. It was like an allowed time out and a breather for my brain by shifting countries of focus. I don’t think it would quite work that way now.
Thinking back, the irony is vast that I can’t stand conflicting noises in my radius nowadays. In that news habitat the noises did blend, not into a soothing white but the splashing of rapids.
Five television monitors constantly flickering, camera crews and journos in and out and all of us production staff, including editing booths with their darkened glass in my sight line. Raised voices…
Typewriters still hammered and whirred, depending on your personal preference of type, alongside the new computers in the office. There at Channel 7 I had a fancy electronic typewriter but my fave was the IBM ball typewriters. The hum and the spin of the font ball as it hit the page. If you know, you know.
The biggest noises were in my immediate circle of space. Both the head honcho and presenter’s office door and the exec producer’s office were next to me. #doorwitch (I was in fact referred to as the ‘Human Sandbag’ by boss Hinch.)
Hinch at 7 office (Late 1980s - Suzy under clock) Picture: The Age Green Guide
The chief of staff sat in front of me. A complex chap of whom I was very fond. He was very fond of wearing a flak jacket, an army helmet and an axe handle or similar that he called a ‘bonk stick’. This outfit usually adorned his casual attire once a day. Often in conjunction with his full attention and shifting of focus watching Thomas the Tank Engine. His brief respite from a day/life of stress.
I used to occasionally serve him a cup of coffee in the late afternoon. He was actually a tea man. The styrofoam coffee cup (sorry environment!) was beer in thin disguise. A late afternoon cure of the D&Ts from his dry day and early shift start. Took the edge off.
And….it wasn’t overly weird in that environment. Mind you, I did start out in a posh advertising agency full of unleashed maniacs. My childhood was chaotic…. Perhaps my ‘weird scale’ was skewed from the start.
Without going into my whole life story here I have the talent to read a room and sniff out a story. My strengths and weaknesses summed up in one sentence. Survival and nailing it.
It’s in fashion to share real stories - and hard wired in me. The only way I’m prepared to play the game of life.
By the way, the cover story pictured is an excellent and enticing interview by Caroline Overington. I’m now keen to get a copy of Nicolas Rothwell’s latest work. A book that “is largely based on journeys where Alison (his wife Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson) was the guide and interpreter ……whose presence was responsible for bringing the spirits of the landscape somewhat forward”. Sounds magical to bush loving me. Yilkari: A Desert Suite (Text Publishing) is out on July 29.
#livereal
