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[box]This edition we welcome a guest reviewer from the Bool Belles book club in Warrnambool, VICTORIA DUNN. Victoria tells us what they have been reading and what they thought of it…[/box]

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt: winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (Little, Brown)

[quote]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] D [/dropcap]onna Tartt’s highly anticipated new novel (her first in 11 years) is a coming-of-age odyssey that centres around a lad named Theo, who recounts the story of his life as he remembers it from the age of 13 to about 28.

Not long after the story opens, Theo is getting by on a diverse array of daily drug and alcohol concoctions. This tends to make him an unreliable witness, but it in some ways helps him manage the sometimes horrific and bizarre circumstances he becomes involved in.

The story draws on significant global events such as 9/11, and social issues such as drug use, and a brush with the criminal underworld. We are told the story completely from Theo’s perspective. Characters and the contemporary American societies they inhabit are fleshed-out via Theo’s immediate experience of them.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] D [/dropcap]uring a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) with his mother, Theo is separated from her and becomes a virtual orphan during a terrorist bomb attack.   His mother dies, he survives.

While comforting the dying Weltie, a man he had seen earlier with a young girl about his own age, Theo is persuaded to steal the painting, The Goldfinch, which happens to have been a favourite painting of his mother’s (the painting, by the way, does exist – see above).

The attack leaves Theo a virtual orphan and he is taken in by the family of a school friend, Andy Barbour, who live in a cavernous Fifth Avenue apartment. The dying Weltie had asked him to go to his partner, Hobie, in Greenwich Village, which Theo eventually does.

A great friendship and mentorship begins. Hobie is a craftsman; restoring American antiques is his life. Theo also sees the girl Pippa, who was with Weltie, and is now recovering at Hobie’s house. Theo and Pippa recognise a resonance of emotional damage in each other.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] U [/dropcap]pheaval again occurs, however, when Theo’s father turns up. His father and girlfriend Xandra take Theo to Las Vegas, where he becomes a fringe dweller.

Enter Boris: the east European rogue. Theo and Boris begin a friendship initially because they are two adolescents who feel completely out of place in their families and surrounds. They embark on a complex and addictive consumption of various drugs, alcohol and petty crime.

Theo and Boris eventually part company and Theo escape’s Las Vegas to return to Hobie in the Village, where he learns everything he can about antique restoration. Unbeknown to Hobie, however, Theo’s exposure to the antique world reignites his criminal tendencies.

Enter Boris again, this time with some shady underworld figures. Through his reconnection with Boris, Theo learns that it is impossible to keep a secret – even one as big as stealing The Goldfinch – and he attempts to take a path of redemption.

Tartt (who’s debut novel was the hugely successful The Secret History) has attracted mixed reviews for this book, which pivots on the profound effect the tragedy of a mother’s death has on one so young.

There are some rather lengthy philosophical musings on life and redemption toward the end of the book, but overall the Bool Belles’ consensus is that The Goldfinch is a “great read” and that doesn’t apply only to its length – at over 700 pages!

 – Victoria Dunn

Next month’s book: The Bird Watcher, William McInnes

Thanks to Warrnambool Books for supporting our Bool Belle reviews.

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A love story built on literary lives: Allan and Wendy Scarfe

Words and pictures by Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”]T [/dropcap]alented Warrnambool visual artist Ella Webb is combining her creative and education skills – she also holds a teaching degree – to counter a steady decline in art classes being offered to kids in school.

“It is terrible, but the fact is that many kids don’t have any exposure to art, or very little,” she says.

Ongoing budget cuts, which were at their worst in the 1990s, have seen many public schools scale back on art, music, drama and other subjects considered less essential to an ever-changing curriculum focussed on meeting national testing standards.

“I wanted to do something about giving kids a place to enjoy art. Where there is no marking, no ‘hurry up and finish that’ and where they can just hang out with other kids,” Ella says.

After a year of plotting and planning and literally walking around Warrnambool to find a suitable venue, Ella has opened the doors on Loop Studio, right in Liebig St and just a few doors down from that other end of the cultural spectrum, McDonalds.

Ella has set up a space for kids of all ages to come and learn art after school, or during the school holidays, and what they learn will vary from drawing, to making their own cards and wrapping paper for Christmas, through to painting, sculpture and screenprinting.

“(It) is a space for kids to be artists, creators and makers, and be with other like-minded kids.

“It will always be fun, it will be bright and it will be messy,” Ella laughs.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”]K [/dropcap]ids mucking around with paint and printmaking while cool tunes play from the ipod (Ella also plans to offer free wi-fi) is a 360-degree turn from the venue’s former life as the legendary Olive Ketels’ Salon that specialised in corsetry and lingerie.

“I was sitting here on my very first day and I got really excited when my first customer, an older woman, walked through the door but then she stopped, looked and said ‘oh, you’re not Olive Ketels’, and walked out again,” Ella says, laughing at the memory.

Despite only opening in late September, Loop Studio already has 20 children who attend regularly and is growing steadily as word spreads.

It is an affirmation that Ella is on the right path, despite all of the usual fears and nerves about going out on a limb: especially in a high-profile retail space.

“I have had an absolutely brilliant business mentor in John Costello (from Koroit), who just gave me the confidence to believe that it will work.

“I still don’t know if it will work, but it feels so very nice to be here, in this space,” she says.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”]F [/dropcap]ortunately for those adults who love Ella’s work – and there are many – she will also continue to develop and expand her own creativity.

Already she has taken her skills in intricate drawing and applied them to large-scale murals and chalkboards. Her huge, golden whale adorns the steps of the Whaler’s Inn, on the corner of Timor and Liebig streets, and was completed using dozens of gold-coloured crayons that were worn down to stubs.

There are also hopes of staging a solo exhibition in Melbourne, so that her art is pushed beyond the borders of the south-west. It would be her first solo exhibition since she began to focus on developing an art career in 2012.

As for Loop Studios, Ella is already planning exhibitions of the children’s work and, one day, would like to be able to take Loop on the road.

“I have always wanted one of those big Airstream retro caravans and drive it around the countryside as a mobile studio, pulling up in the main street of towns: wouldn’t that be brilliant?” she laughs.

Knowing Ella’s drive and determination so far, it is most likely just a matter of time.

[box] For full details about classes, parties and other events, you can find Loop Studios on the web here and on Facebook here. Contact Ella on 0401 877 365 To see more of Ella’s work, see our first story here.[/box]

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[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I [/dropcap]t is without doubt Warrnambool’s oldest and most iconic motel: a genuine throw-back to the 1950s when the motor vehicle created a whole new form of accommodation for travellers.

The Turn-In Motel sits on what was once the corner of the Princes Highway and Simpson St, with its red, illuminated sign (that originally said only ‘motel’) a beacon to those arriving into the seaside town from Melbourne.

The highway has since been diverted, and there are now far more motels in Warrnambool, but although the Turn In has halved in size, it has never gone out of business and still attracts a steady stream of loyal guests.

“We don’t do any real advertising, apart from the RAA website,” says current owner Ken McRae who, with wife Merrin, has managed the Turn In for the past 16 years.

“The same people just keep coming year after year, they just keep turning up, and the only time they don’t turn up is when they have died: we have lost a couple,” he says.

Indeed at the time of our visit, there was a French couple who were on their third visit and this time they bought some friends from China along as well.

“If we were to go on (the online booking site) Wotif or that sort of thing, we would be over-run I reckon,” Ken says, laughing.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] V [/dropcap]isitors are attracted to the budget pricing ($70-100 per night for a couple) and the homestyle feel of the motel, which has retained some of its original fittings from its earliest days, although much has changed.

“When we bought the place, it was in a very bad way. All of the shower stalls had to be replaced, all of the carpets had to be torn up, it was a real mess,” Ken explains.

The motel once had 51 units (it now has 15) and the in-house restaurant is long gone. Even the much-photographed, much-admired Turn In Motel sign is not the original: it disintegrated in the salt air, but the McRae’s invested $10,000 in an identical replacement.

Ken is unsure who built the motel (can anybody help?), but it has the tell-tale crazy paving detail on planter boxes inside the foyer that suggest it may have been the work of Tag Walters, Bruce Auty or John Downie, who specialised in American-inspired designs.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T [/dropcap]he foyer also features the original timber reception desk, together with a set of thin, sliding wooden drawers that keep track of the paperwork for bookings: the McRaes still use it. The original phone switchboard, where calls were manually put through to each room, is also intact, but no longer functional.

One – actually two – precious items that remain in two of the 15 motel units is an art-deco style bathroom mirror made from thick blue and clear glass, with working lights on each side.

Not surprising, Ken says he has had offers from a number of people keen to buy them.

“I say, ‘sure, but they come with a motel attached’,” he laughs.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] A [/dropcap]nd the motel is for sale, with Ken and Merrin keen to retire, although they will continue to live in the house next door for at least the short-term.

“We have done 16 good years. Most motel managers average around five years,” Ken says.

Because of the hard work and around-the-clock availability required, Merran has actually talked some people out of buying the place, which doesn’t sound like a fast track to retirement.

“It has to be the right person: someone who knows what they are getting into, rather than dreaming about what it might be like,” Ken says.

The perfect buyer, perhaps, would be a realist with a penchant for retro who could turn the Turn In back to its full, mid-century self.

Interested?

 [box] Did you know the word ‘motel’ is a hybrid of motor and hotel? The Turn In Motel is on the corner of Simpson and Verdon sts, Warrnambool. You can contact Ken and Merrin on 03 5562 3677.[/box]

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Opinion – Carol Altmann

The 2014 Fun4Kids festival is expected to show a record loss of up to $600,000, prompting a recommendation from Warrnambool City Council staff that it be axed in 2015.

Bluestone believes that the figures – due to be released by the council early next month – will confirm that the cost to ratepayers to subsidise the annual, eight-day festival has quadrupled in less than 10 years.

As a result, it is understood that council staff have taken a 360-degree turn from last December, when it was recommended the 14-year-old festival be funded for another three years at a cost of up to $450,000 a year, to recommending it be closed.

The total subsidy for the festival since it started in 1999 is now in excess of $6 million with, as some councillors have argued, not a lot to show for it.

As it happens, in anticipation of the 2014 figures being released, I had already spent some time crunching the numbers from Fun4Kids in 2005 – which was a good year – compared to 2013, and this is how they stacked up:

[box]Total cost of the event:

 2005: $672,223

 2013: $1,082,070 (up 60%)

Total revenue from the event:

 2005: $523,115

 2013: $614, 242 (up 17%)

Council subsidy for the event:

 2005: $156,354

 2013: $467,827 (almost tripled)[/box]

As you can see, even before the release of the 2014 figures, the public subsidy for the event has almost tripled and is about to get a whole lot worse.

Before I am accused of attacking an event that is designed for kids, it is worth remembering the Warrnambool City Council’s own aims when Fun4Kids first started in 1999.

At that time, the idea was for the festival to break-even or be “cost neutral” within a few years.

By 2003 – four years on – the council was told by external consultants that this was still unrealistic and that, “for the next few years at least”, it would need to spend around $100,000 a year on helping Fun4Kids to meet its expenses.

Any thoughts of even trying to break even have since been forgotten and, each year, the event has become much more expensive to run.

This might not be such an issue if Fun4Kids was drawing record crowds, but less people are showing up.

In 2005, attendances were at 32,112. By 2009, this had fallen to 24,349 and by 2013, it was down to 22,217 people, or a third less than the 2005 numbers.

It appears the numbers for 2014 will be even worse, despite ticket giveaways and drastically reduced ticket prices for locals in the final days of the event.

One of the biggest costs has been in paying performers, as the festival has sought to attract more high-profile artists: the performance costs were $69,970 in 2005 and $220,000 in 2013. Talent does not come cheap.

When I asked the council last week about the rising cost of running the event, its spokesman replied:

“The increase in the cost of Fun4Kids from 2005 is largely explained through a changed accounting methodology which included the cost of staff salaries (the time commitment of events staff into the project) and inflation.”

But internal council staffing costs of around $82,000 were included in the 2005 total and inflation has been low for the past decade: around 3 per cent.

On any measure, Fun4Kids cannot be deemed a financial success for the council, but it has previously justified its subsidy on the wider spin-offs for the city, and there is no doubt tourism operators and a few local businesses see Fun4Kids as a boost in what can be quiet months of the year.

Again, however, the wider spin-offs for Warrnambool have not grown in step with the rising cost.

According to the 2005 figures, the wider economic benefit from Fun4Kids was estimated at around $4.5 million. By 2013, this had not grown, but fallen to $3.69 million.

The more direct economic impact (using a different formula, based on actual spending), was set at $1.51 million in 2005 and had climbed to $1.94 million in 2013, which is a slight, but not significant, improvement after eight years.

Of course there are lots of immeasurables around an event such as Fun4Kids, including providing a fun event for young families, and encouraging those tourists who do attend to visit Warrnambool again.

The event has also been recognised in the past with tourism awards and, no doubt, adds to the number of “things to do” in Warrnambool during the off-season.

But it was never set up to be a loss-making exercise and I wondered when it was decided to reposition Fun4Kids from becoming “cost neutral” to heavily subsidised.

I emailed this question to the council’s media and communications manager to see if he could flush out the history.

“Council makes a decision annually on the festival, including decisions relating to its budget,” was the reply.

While the subsidies are not quite on the scale of a Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix, the question needs to be asked as to what a regional council is doing in the business of commercial event management, especially when the event is losing its lustre?

And would any other publicly funded event in Warrnambool, such as Wunta, be given as much financial leeway as Fun4Kids before it was reigned in?

Irrespective of your attitude about Fun4Kids, I believe these are legitimate questions to ask of those in charge of spending your money and more people, no doubt, will be asking the same questions when the 2014 losses officially come to light.

[box] Sources used for this piece include: WCC agenda 10.5.05; Auditor-General Victoria report, Results of Special Reviews and other Investigations, May 2005; WCC Budget 2004-05; Fun4Kids Service Review, WCC minutes 9 Dec, 2013.[/box]

[

OPINION

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] B [/dropcap]luestone can reveal what should be the worst kept secret in Warrnambool: the developer behind the $20 million, nine-storey “Sandilands” apartment complex is Colin McKenna, from the Midfield Meats empire.

Mr McKenna is listed as the current director of Baybern Developments, a company set up in February this year, which plans to build what will be the biggest apartment complex of its kind for Warrnambool on a prime spot at 1A Liebig St, on the corner of Gilles and Merri streets.

The plan involves demolishing the old Sandilands hotel, and building a nine-storey complex that will include 51 mixed-use apartments, penthouses and two-floors of retail space, overlooking sweeping views of Lake Pertobe and Lady Bay.

Yet for all of the animated discussion that is being generated by the project, there has been a weird shroud of secrecy over who is behind the plans…until now.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] A [/dropcap] glowing editorial in the local newspaper today about the project, urged locals to embrace the “exciting and welcome new vision” and declared: “there would have to be excellent reasons for opposing a development such as this”.

And then there was this strange line: “We’re told that a consortium that includes a western Victorian developer is behind the plan, but it doesn’t really matter who is building it or developing it as long as it gets done.”

“We’re told”? “It doesn’t really matter”? “…as long as it gets done”?

The paper’s first story on the project was equally obtuse: “Baybern has been described by Tract (Consultants) as “western Victorian developers” which The Standard understands includes a Warrnambool entity.”

Surely the first question any eager newspaper wants to know is who is behind such a bold proposal, especially when that someone turns out to be one of, if not the, wealthiest local businessmen in town and an influential figure in our community.

And surely it is even more relevant to the wider public interest given Mr McKenna’s company, Midfield Meats, is behind the other most significant development in Warrnambool in the last five years with its proposed 10-storey milk processing plant in Merrivale.

That project, like the Sandilands development, has its own critics, particularly among the Merrivale community who don’t want to see even further industrialisation of their tiny patch.

So the question is not why the local newspaper didn’t find out who was behind Sandilands – of course they know – but why they are choosing not to report it?

We could only ponder, as we researched Baybern Developments ourselves.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T [/dropcap]he intrigue only adds to what is a long and fascinating story around the site.

Baybern Developments purchased the site earlier this year from Percy Properties, a company representing a cluster of lawyers from Madden’s law firm, including former mayor James Nicol, Brendan Pendergast, John Madden and Stan Carroll, who occupied the building for many years after the Sandilands guest house closed. (The owner of Sandilands, Katherine Plant, sold the property to her solicitor, Dan Madden, after she retired).

Despite its name, Percy Properties was never interested in property development at 1A Liebig St. Its intention, first flagged in 2006, was to sell the site free of encumbrances to somebody else who would build a modern accommodation complex.

Permits to knock the building down, however, were stymied by an independent heritage assessment which found that the 1940s, red brick, art-deco building that was built by local builder Ern Harris, had social and local historical significance.

Not to be deterred, Percy Properties fought on, and the Warrnambool City Council finally voted 4/3 in February 2009 to disregard the heritage report and allow demolition. (Those who wanted the building saved, by the way, were Crs Michael Neoh, Jacinta Ermacora and John Harris, while Crs Rob Askew, Peter Hulin, Andrew Fawcett and Jennifer Lowe voted against it.)

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I [/dropcap]t is such a familiar story for Warrnambool: when it comes to development, it is either all or nothing.

There is rarely room for creative compromises, like those seen in cities around the world, where heritage (ie. irreplaceable, character-filled buildings) and modern architecture combine.

And if you seek such a compromise, you are howled down as being “anti-progress”.

Local architects were not involved in the design of the Baybern proposal, in favour of Melbourne firm ClarkeHopkinsClarke, but there are already promises of 80-100 local jobs during its construction. (As an aside, there were 200 jobs promised in the Midfield Meats milk processing and cold storage project, but it has since been confirmed the milk factory will create only around 12.)

There is no doubt 1A Liebig St is ripe for something very special, but razing yet another piece of local history and replacing it with what Warrnambool Planning and Heritage Group president Julie Eagles so perfectly described as “plonk” archictecture – architecture that can go anywhere – does not seem very special at all.

The public have until October 29 to make comment on the proposal (Planning Permit #PP2014-0162), after which it will return to the council for consideration.

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