Thursday, July 27, 2006

Giddy.


People, an awesome thing has happened. Truly, it is so awesome that I very nearly didn't even know it was happening. Luckily, the Green Guide was just read out to me, and so I have GOOD NEWS.

Do you remember back in 2004 of course you do when I was so distraught about the disappearance of Jon Stewart's show from SBS that I was actually moved to send them a quailing desperate and needy email which, in summary, went, "Hey guys, you don't know me but, um, WHAT IS HAPPENING? WHERE IS JON STEWART? PLEASE PLEASE DON'T TELL ME IT'S OVER...! SOB SOB SOB" and they replied "Er, sorry crazy lady. It is out of our hands..." Hmmm? Do you remember that? DO YOU?

Well chill the fuck out, because he's back. TONIGHT. At 10pm. And it is going to be a BOFFO SMASH.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

A Sorry Excuse For A Song.


Feel like saying farewell and good luck to my erstwhile and lovely Tuesday Breakfast and Women on the Line co-host, Beck, who did her last 3CR brekky with us this morning. She is off to live in The Americas, you see. In Charlotte, North Carolina, to be precise. Because she don't wanna wait for her life to be over. She wants to know right now, what will it be? She don't wanna wait for her life to be over. Well in the end, oh will it be ... sorry. Doo do do doo. Doo do do doo. Doo do do doo.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Things I Underlined In A Book.


I've been reading a book for about seven months now. As you can probably tell, I haven't been reading it much. Because I am a bad person. A very bad person. I mean, even the attractions of possibly one of the best books ever written cannot prevent my profligacy. Even though it is A Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Even though when I do read it, I find it terrifically enjoyable.

Getting to the point, I'm one of those people who has to buy books because I like to underline the bits I particularly like. In pen.

A few weeks ago, I underlined this. Because I REALLY REALLY LIKE IT. And I am determined to use it as an expression, just you wait:


boffo smash
. Makes me happy. Let's do something about it.

Anyways, diverting from the point, I laughed violently hard yesterday. And I would like to relate the incident to you. I was on the couch with my little brother, explaining to him that I'd screwed up my Windows XP in a fit of deletion last year and the night before had finally decided to fix it. Which meant reinstalling the thing to factory settings. Which meant wiping my C:drive. My purpose in informing him of this was to convey that he needn't be alarmed. I had taken measures to protect most of the precious cargo (my music library) by moving it onto the D:drive. I just wanted to give him a heads up that if he found we were missing some songs, it was because there hadn't been space enough to save them. But they could easily be reloaded, so just don't freak out, yeah? Anyway, this is how I conveyed the information: "So don't worry. I wiped my C:drive, but the D:drive was unaffected by the reinsatllaion, okay? I only wiped my C:drive." He responded by raising his eyebrows at me and taking a pointed sip of his tea. Which to me signified that he had detected some kind of wrongness. So I went, "What?... What? Did you not understand me? Everything is fine. I didn't muck up our lives. It's all okay. I only wiped my C:drive. Simon. Don't you believe me? Is this making sense to you? I only wiped my C:drive. Not my D:drive. My C:drive." To which he responded by spluttering into his tea with mirth. Again, I was flummoxed. And just looked at him in a confused manner. I think he waited some moments in deference to my supposed 'quickness', giving me the opportunity to figure it out for myself. But I just kept looking at him, all wide-eyed and searching, and eventually, he took pity. "Yes, Elanor. I get it. You don't need to keep saying it. I get it. You wiped your... C:drive."

AAHAAHAAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I almost spewed from the hilarity.


Anyways, getting back to the point, here is another thing I underlined in a book. The same book as before:


It is full of gems like that.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

No Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.


Which is a shame.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

This is a low.


And a first.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs are in town and I don't get to see them. I want to hurt someone.

Additionally, my self-pity today was exacerbated by a cold, a raging headache, and my office window's constant outlook onto the Forum Theatre across the road. All. Day. Long. Insensitive brute. I mean, couldn't the building have moved somewhere else for today. So rude.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Character. Is. Everything.


There was a time when Timothy Olyphant was nothing to me. That time is gone.

I stand before you a married man.”

OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD.

And that’s just one line. You should have seen how he delivered his greeting. “Evening…” FUCKING. HELL.

And that’s just him speaking. You should watch him close a door and then silently stare and stare and stare at it. It’s fucking powerful and internally tumultuous and HOT. And he has his back to the camera the whole time. And he’s just staring and staring and (we must assume) staring at that door with his knuckles pressed hard against it and OH. SWEET. FUCK.

Deadwood. Is making me lose my mind a bit, it's that good. Oh my, IT'S... JUST... SO... GOOD. And it makes possible things you were quite certain were not possible. For example, who would have thought that there could be only one resounding interpretation to the spectacle of a man beating a woman’s father to a pulp on a saloon floor? Further, who would have thought that singular interpretation would be… “Whoah! A public declaration of love!” Further than that, who would have thought, watching that, you would find yourself (wincing, yes, but mostly just) completely convinced that the man giving the beating is a GOOD man. In fact, the BEST MAN EVER. And not because of a causality of events or a righteousness or because you have vindictive feelings about the man receiving the beating. But because, gah! I can’t explain it. It’s just THE SHOW. I mean, you even remain convinced he is a good man while you’re watching him stone the brains out of a Sioux. OF A SIOUX. And sure, you wish he wasn’t doing that, but it certainly doesn’t shake your foundations about his worth as a person. I am not kidding. Seriously, the people who make this show have such TOUCH. And there’s not a clumsy or manipulative thing in it. You feel like you know the characters down to their bones, yet they are still full of surprise and delight and revelatory instances. I don’t know how it happens, but you can feel what a man is feeling when he walks back out onto the street after beating a woman’s father to a bloody pulp, because you can see the shame and purpose in his very gait. It’s just WONDERFUL. And it’s not simply because of Timothy Olyphant’s character (let’s just call him Seth Bullock, because HE’S REAL). Somehow, you feel for and ache about each and every character. Oh, these characters. I JUST HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS FOR THEM. I mean, The Doc (WHAT A GUY!), and Sol (DITTO), and Dan, and Trixie, and Alma, and Jewel (SHE’S SO FUNNY) and the tragic Preacher, and Charlie - and what about that General who came to camp. Especially the hilariously exasperated way he said “Oh my god” when the newspaperman wanted to double-check about accurately noting down the speech he delivered (which was about the vengeful slaughter of a whole camp of Sioux men, women and children, by the way) – and let’s not forget Al, and even E.B. Yes, even E.B! Again, IT’S THE SHOW. And it’s SO GOOD. Indeed I have to pause it sometimes just so that I can sit back and breathe and say, “THIS SHOW IS SO GOOD.” Because it BEGS TO BE SAID AND CANNOT BE DENIED. See, along with all the cold, hard death-dealing, there is such a seam of goodness running through it on its own terms, and so many interchanges that spark a warm thrilling sensation in me and electrify my internal organs and make me vibrate with emotion. And I am just compelled to savour them over and over again. And still, repeated viewings can’t diminish the thing. Sigh.

I have a problem now, though. I find I cannot move on from Season One. The last two episodes are just so immensely good that it seems a pity to leave them. Watching them is a spiritually enriching experience. No, I am not overstating that shit. So I just keep watching them again and again, not daring to risk disturbing my glowing happiness about them by beginning on Season Two. So I’m stuck in a good place.


OTHER THINGS.

I bought two CDs the other day, which are awesomeness:

Kimya Dawson, Remember That I Love You

Johnny Cash, American V: A Hundred Highways *


* “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” could not BE a better thing. That is all.



UPDATE

DAMNIT. Season Two has made me cry. DAMN. IT.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Forgot to mention Fiery Furnaces.


Have been using internet for the sole purpose of downloading Deadwood, so excuse this post for not dripping with currency. But yes, I did go and see The Fiery Furnaces on Friday night at the East Brunswick Club. Of course I am happy about this. It was the third time I've seen them.

Some things:

1.
This time their arrangements favoured an undercurrent of heavy guitar sounds and individual songs played with breaks in between them. For some reason I found this revolutionary, or at least, I noted that it was a change from interweaving different songs into one longer jam (which I think only happened once this time). Also, they spoke a bit. You know, in between songs. Again, it seemed revolutionary to me.

2.
In previous gigs, I have fixated on Eleanor, or on the hot drummer, but this time around, the drummer didn't seem so hot (a different person? I don't know. Still blonde, but just not... the same). Eleanor was still a focus, but being on the opposite side of the stage to her made me realise that I have completely ignored Matthew all this time, and he seems such a nice and gentle man.

3. Case in point (of the above): Gig Highlight #1. See, in between the early songs, a dude at the very front kept shouting out "TROPICAL!.... TROPICAAAL". After this had happened a few times, the band finished a song they were playing and Matthew pre-empted the dude by saying, "Hey dude. You. Dude. We're going to play your song. Just a little later." And I thought it was very nice of Matthew to give the guy a heads up. It made me laugh, though, when the dude responded to this kindness with another bleary "TROPICAAAL..." and Matthew nodded and said, "Yes. Later." Warm but firm.

4.
Gig Highlight #2 - OR "When a cheap coincidence makes Elanor feel superior to, and more 'connected' than, the TROPICAAAL dude". See, I don't yell out song suggestions. I'm a very reserved person, especially in public spaces. My brother and I look like unfeeling rigid people at gigs. We just like to be very attentive, which seems to cancel out diversions such as movement or vocalisation indicating, well, anything. It's a bit creepy. So yes, I don't yell stuff out. I just silently plead with intensity. In my head. For the band to play a song I want. So anyway, at one point during Friday's gig, it struck me that the song I wanted to hear next was Waiting To Know You. And I had barely finished formulating "Hmmm, I hope they play Waiting To Know You, next", when they fucking started playing it. And in my immaturity, I remember actually thinking this thought: "Ha. Some people don't need to yell. Losers." Or some shit. Anyway, they played a nice mix from across all the albums. I was particularly happy to hear Single Again.

5. Gig Highlight full stop. Was Black-Hearted Boy. It was the best.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Nods approvingly.


Mel has written a thoughtful response to what happened in the Big Brother house on the weekend. Do check it out.

The other response I enjoyed was a comment on Ms Fits' site from Audrey, who not only made good points, but also funnies:
"I can take a joke, I just don't want to be slapped in the face with one."

Good things.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Symposiasts Period Romance


Our Period Romance has been revived after about a two year hiatus. For those who don’t know, Guy and I tandem write a ridiculous romance fiction without regard to taste, sense or history. Guy got the ball rolling again with the most recent instalment the other week and so now it is my turn to make an addition. To get you up to speed, here is where Guy left us:
"Fermina emptied the contents of the bag onto the sodden mattress. Out fell a bar of soap, a cheaply embroidered red dress, a string of pearls and… she gasped… a battered tiara, similar to those worn by the prostitutes she was once able to spy through her bedroom window at Le Denetrione. Was she about to face what she feared all along? Was this to be her sorry fate? Immediately, she felt light-headed, Aware that she was losing consciousness, she slapped herself hard on the face: 'NO, Fermina. Not this time. I am a survivor. I am not going to give up. I am not going to stop. I am going to work harder. I am a survivor. I am going to make it. I am a survivor. Keep on surviving.' The words came to her as if in a dream. She would survive this.

There was a knock on the door…
"

And now, it continues.



Alejandro's sleepless mind veered between wearied anguish and frantic panic. To observers, this internal agitation – at times verging on hysteria, truth be told - would have been undetectable. Those who knew him well might have noticed that his eyes had darkened to pitch, if they were observant. But his self-possession was so profoundly ingrained in his manner that even the traces of these most tumultuous days of his life hadn’t pierced the toughness of his façade. It had been a week since he had aided Fermina's escape at the city walls of Madrid. He had continued his journey to the coast, keeping up the pretense that she remained ensconced in the carriage – precious cargo to be delivered to the captain of Las Castellenata for transport to a desolate island convent. Alejandro had paid for the captain’s silence, and would have feared for the safety of the souls on board after the imperiling night of drinking and raging his coin had furnished, were his mind not completely occupied with the urgent need to get back to Madrid and locate Fermina. Every moment he thought of her alone in that city sent a violent jolt through his tensed body. After finally assisting the slumping but still interminably yarning captain up the gangplank to collapse into a group of swabbers, Alejandro sprang back to the carriage to begin the dash to Madrid. He arrived there in the early hours, his seat bruised by the rough roads and the carriage’s furious speed. Returning to the city and to Count Daza’s household, Alejandro was less concerned about his master’s fury should he discover the manservant’s duplicity than he was with Fermina’s safety. The duplicity went on undetected, but he had now been searching Madrid’s lowly quarters for three days and nights and was haggard with worry about his inability to find her. In the midst of this haze he found himself out late at night, walking along an out-of-the-way street that was not unfamiliar to him. With an almost habitual regularity, he seemed to find himself here when he could no longer bear alone the agonising pang of his ardent love for Fermina, which threatened to cut his heart out from the inside. Cursing his weakness, Alejandro disappeared into a nearby doorway under the blush of a red lantern.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The door of Fermina’s cell swung open and once again she was faced with the merry twinkling eyes of her captor. “What a sight you are,” he said, taking in her garb. “Come along, Oranges. We’re putting you to work.”

Fermina remained where she was. A look of irritation flashed across his face. She found it mirrored her own. “You can’t have expected me to follow you blindly, captive or not. Now tell me - where am I, who are you, and what ‘work’ are you putting me to?”

“I’m not obliged to tell you anything at all. There is no ‘captive or not’. There is just captive. And you are ours. We have housed and fed you for a week, now we’ve clothed you –

“Housed and fed me! –“

“Housed, fed AND clothed you. Which we did out of the goodness of our hearts… and the expectation of a pay day. And now you’ve stopped stuffing your face long enough to tell us that you are Lona Francisca from Valencia, and NOT the daughter of Count Daza as we thought. By all accounts, that prize piece left on Las Castellenata four days ago. We’ve had girls go that way, and they never return to Madrid. So now we’re stuck with you. A nobody. And we are quite put out. And you owe us for the trouble we’ve taken. So we’re putting you to work.”

“If I’m so much trouble you could just let me go.”

“You’re only trouble to us because you’re not working. Right now, you’re a drain. And an unused asset. That’s wasteful. We abhor waste. And we run a business to which you are undoubtedly suited. If only by your sex.”

“What business is that?”

“Whores of course.”

Fermina was shocked. And fearful. She felt like a little girl who had only just discovered she was surrounded by adults, and wasn’t as mature as she thought she was. Then, without meaning to, she said the first silly and childish and naïve thing that came in to her head. “Oh. It’s just that the pies were so good, I thought…”

He seemed to smile for a moment, and gave her a softening look. “Ha, well. As far as the city fathers want to know, we are a bakery. Of course they know otherwise. And I suppose we are a bakery too. But really, it’s whores.”

“And I am to go with you now with my pearls and tiara and red dress and be a…?

“God no! We have no idea about you. My goodness child! We don’t want you upsetting the customers. I mean, you may turn out to be a profitable acquisition for us. Who knows? It’s always hard to tell at the beginning. But you’ll be cleaning the rooms until we can trust you enough to do the real work. So come along, Oranges.”

Feeling that danger was now more distant, Fermina found herself flooded with relief and compliantly attentive to her employer’s instructions as she followed him through a complicated network of decreasingly ramshackle halls. Eventually, he left her in a circular room onto which five red doors and one brown door opened. She had entered through the brown door. They were presently all closed. Before he had left her there, her captor had been quite emphatic that she not attempt to open any of them, especially the red ones. Also, it was essential, he had made plain, that she keep the cauldron of scented water in the centre of the room at a rolling boil at all times. There were lines strung across the room at different points, upon which soft heavy cloths hung drying, and on the floor there was a hamper of folded cloths of various colours, ready to be put to some use. A hatch in the floor connected her, she had been told, to the kitchen and laundry, and she was to yell down any orders for food, drinks, towels or other comforts and deliver them to the rooms IF REQUESTED. Requests would be made by the whores on behalf of the customers. She was to help the whores in any way they asked. They would let her know what she was to do. And so, Fermina de la Saint Amour found herself all alone at some nexus point in a Madrid whorehouse, waiting for a whore to appear. And eventually, one did.

“You’re new,” she said.

“I am,” Fermina replied shyly.

“Hmmm, very new. I’m Dolores. People cal me Dolly. You’re people now, so you can do the same. Could you hand me one of those cloths? Mine are the blue ones. What’s our resident Great Wit calling you?”

“Oranges, I think. It was Contessa but I think he’s mad about that now. Er sorry. Hello, I’m Lona. Um…” Fermina was quite flustered. She had passed a thick blue cloth to Dolly. And then Dolly had done something entirely unexpected. With bored efficiency, she had dunked all but a corner of the cloth into the boiling scented water, hitched up her skirt and with the now steaming wet cloth given her nethers a bracing once over. She’d then casually thrown the used swab back into the cauldron.

“Leave that in there a minute and then hang it with the rest. I’m going out for a break but I’ll be going in there shortly,” she said, pointing to one of the red doors. Fermina followed her every move with astonishment, and just kept nodding at Dolly’s instructions. “He’s in there already, but the room’s a bit messed up because we’ve been without one of you for a few days. So go in and clean up. Replace the old towels with fresh ones. And bring the poor man a beer. Aw, don’t fret, pet. I wouldn’t ask you to go in with a man in there, this being your first night and all. But he’s harmless. Lovely really. He comes in sometimes, tries to forget someone he’s desperately in love with. You’ll get used to him. You’ll come to appreciate him, really. Usually just passes out from the pain of it all. Very intense.”

At this point she seemed to lose her thought, but came out of her reverie upon sighting Fermina’s overwhelmed face. “Relax girl. He won’t try anything. Only troubled me once, and it was no trouble, let me tell you.”

Dolly departed through the brown door with a friendly wink in Fermina’s direction. Fermina, trying to keep her head together, decided to focus on simple tasks. She fished the blue cloth out of the cauldron and hung it out to dry. She lifted the hatch door. It took a while for her to find her voice, but eventually she yelled tentatively, “BEER. TOWELS?” And was greeted with “RIGHTO” from the steamy noisy murk below. She heard a pulley jerking, and a platform laden with the requisite BEER. TOWELS? jolted gradually up towards her. She pulled them through the hatch and turned to face the door. There was a man behind that door. A man in a whorehouse. Behind that door.

As she entered the room she heard snatches of manful groggy singing coming from the occupant splayed out on the linen-shrouded bed. She couldn’t make out all the words, muffled as they were by his face being buried in his pillow. Additionally, the tune was often rent by powerful sobs. Fermina gently shut the door behind her so as not to be detected, and went about in the darkness of the room, placing the fresh towels and a tankard of beer on the table at the foot of the bed. As she scoured the room and scooped up laundry, she paid close attention to the intelligible scraps of his mournful tune which served as an accompaniment to her activity:
My poverty revealed,
I would like to try your charity
Until you cry, "Now you must try my greed."
And everything depends upon
How near you sleep to me
……..

I stand in ruins behind you,
I love to see you naked over there
Especially from the back.
………

So let me judge your love affair
In this very room
Where I have sentenced mine to death.
……..

Just take this longing from my tongue
All the lonely things my hands have done.
Untie for me your hired gown,
Like you would do for one that you love.

Like you would do for one that you love.
There was silence then. Fermina turned and saw the man was watching her. Well, she assumed he was. As much as she could tell in the dark and separated by the diaphanous curtain hung around the bed, he seemed to be sitting up with his head turned in her direction. In a voice cracked with trouble and regret he said, “Love me. Love me. Say that you love me.”

I've got one word to say to you, Gretel.


WEAK.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Drawing Restraint 9


Nice use of fabrics. And shells. And liquids that set... Darling, this sushi is just delicious. Do try it. Oh darling, you know very well that's not sushi. It's part of my leg.