attention to detail

I was supposed to have an early night but I'm just so damn alert! What up?

I have the strongest urge to make stuff or do my website or write applications for things I want and could maybe get or start a band or find a studio or ... that's about it actually. But I promised myself an early night! Something has to give, lifestyle-wise. I need to develop some discipline. Make sacrifices, what! Rome seems like it's never going to get built.

I need to work out a good project that someone in the Northern Territory could support me to do. I don't have any Northern Territory-centric ideas. I want to do a residency at the National Library. That would be so great. They don't exist. Maybe I could get them to create one just for me. I've heard they have little boxes that shoop the books around, like those little train things you imagine they have in coalmines.

I went to Brisbane and it was really good. I like Michael Parekowhai. He make good things um.

Words of more than two syllables in this post that aren't proper nouns:
applications
studio
actually
develop
discipline
sacrifices
residency
national
library
syllables

You know that feeling when you get excited and you go and buy, like, notebooks and sharp pencils or a kayak or whatever, like, purchases that signal your intention to undertake a particular activity? Instead of doing the thing itself you go and buy something that flags your 'productive' feeling? Well, if the shops were open that's what I'd be doing. Instead I'm doing this.

So, in answer to your email, reader, I draw the line at MySpace. Life is Too Short. la di da.

I don't know any more

Today has been pretty durn average.

How do you type the sound of a deep sigh with the air forced through the lips to make a kind of horsey exhaling sound? You know, like, audible resignation?

Next time I'm feeling GREAT I will force myself to blog, just for a bit of balance.

Good things:
* The place I'm staying at in Brisbane has a swimming pool and my work is paying. I will get to go to art openings as well as exhibitions while the office foots the accom/tansport tabs. This is a pretty good deal.
* I am out of debt. Long time coming. Soon as the tax bucks arrive I'll even be (gasp -) ahead.
* Christmas is coming and I will be going; to Thailand with my sister to drink cocktails and lie on the beach reading or drawing or staring snoozily into the middle distance (reputedly Margaret Thatcher's special skill, the staring bit I mean.)
* I am not Margaret Thatcher. The shame would be terrible.

I've run out. Note to self; collect list of good things to post on blog. I can do better than this, surely.

Average, average, average.

token something

I bought some new clothes today. Shit, they're good.

It's really fucken hot. No really.

I got a huge tax return and can buy a new computer. Yay!

I am going to Brisbane on the weekend. I suppose it'll be even hotter there.

Seems like a lot of effort to have a blog. I'm not short of projects, y'know. Wah, wah, wah (that's a self-mocking whingey tone in case you didn't realise).

Things I've eaten that grew in my garden recently: a cucumber. lots of beans. some strawberries. a few peas. countless mulberries. rocket. basil. sage.

who know where it will all end! probably with the golden shallots.

In other news, the ginger's finally coming up.

Possible influence of Lenny Bruce movie on work

Due to popular demand from our reader

What's wrong with this picture?

If you don't know, I can't tell you.

It was only on an interview with Julian Barrett. How can the Independent allow itself to be associated etc.

becarse yr a luddie

For the worst Scottish accents ever recorded on film, see 'Brigadoon' with Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse. But don't go watching it for any other kind of entertainment value. There's not enough dancing to make it bearable. It doesn't even have one great memorable song or dance or scene.

You'll thank me.

Spend that time reading The Slave by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Or Middlesex, that's even better. And less depressing! I am going to read Swann's Way next.

No, really. I am. I'm staring on the bus tomorrow. I figure it will make the time pass more slowly, thus delaying my arrival at the office.

Call me [insert square here] if you want.

(...is my square magic working?)

Not a picture of a piece of paper

It's a picture of a sculpture!

Seriously!!

There's more, but I haven't documented the show yet.

It looks really good, since you're asking.



Sure feels late here

Look, I don't see the point in having a blog if there's all this pressure to make it good. I got enough challenges, already! And anyway, why would I need to generate content when there are so many content generators out there plugging away on my behalf.

I am sometimes asked what 'wortwut' means (except by Germans. they don't ask this). Imagine my excitement on discovering an online quiz that (after repeated rejections of inferior definitions) explains this so definitively:

wortwut -- [noun]: A person who has the ability to be invisible 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Or was it

wortwut -- [adjective]: Smelling like turnips at all times 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Or maybe it's more like

wortwut -- [noun]: A poltergeist sent back in time to change the course of history forever 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

And how do you think Google knows I'm letting down my committment to going to the gym twice a week?

What I have fimoed

Do you ever get those reality checks about what the hell you're doing when you're making things? Frinstance today. I'm making a piece of paper out of fimo, with little blue lines, y'know, like on an A4 pad, just so I can photograph it and print it onto paper so it will look like a real piece of paper only wonky and wrong.

It's a bit strange when you think about it.

I have this routine when I'm doing really manual art projects of putting on the tv or dvds to half watch/listen to while I work (some would do that with music but I haven't got anything I want to hear). Today I watched/listened to season 2 of Absolutely Fabulous, Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Lenny. I really like that young Dustin Hoffman. Sometimes, with my head down among the fimo, I really thought I was listening to Lenny Bruce.

Bleak, though. Hence the 'why am I making craft about office supplies' reality check. Poor old Lenny.

I don't ask for much

I haven't made a list like this since I was about 15 but I think it might as well be done.

Ideal partner: qualities #1-??

Sense of humour I get; gets mine (makes me laugh)
Attractive
Supportive; enlightened
Independent; not clingy, but loving and affectionate
Generous and not petty
Clever (intersted in things)
Good vocabulary
Reads, watches films, can discuss art if pressed not because has art education but because is able to form opinions on things witnessed or experienced
Emotionally available
Good social skills
Calm but not boring (clear perspective on big picture items; chilled out)
Practical/together (can deal with paying rent/saving for holiday etc)
Within about 3 years of my own age (somewhat negotiable)
Moderately healthy (n/smoker a must)
Manageable dark side (not a sap, nor a card-carrying cynic)
Can argue without taking offense; able to challenge me
Likes dancing
Snappy dresser (ok this is getting silly)


Surely that's not too difficult?

possible dialogue for real life situation

Person A: Hmmm, it's Tuesday October 17th around 6pm and I am bored.
Person B: Why don't we go to an exhibition opening?
Person A: That is a good idea, I believe there is one tonight at Firstdraft at 116-118 Chalmers St Surry Hills in Sydney.
Person B: Oh, goody! (thinking) maybe I can get some decent conversation there

Mild quandary

If you knew something you knew someone else wanted to know, even if they hadn't asked you, or they had given you an opportunity to speak up that you hadn't initially taken so that telling them the thing would now involve reopening the subject oneself in order to tell them the thing, and noone would suffer or be reflected poorly upon either way, what would you do?

Example of irony

I can't even spell committment.

On reflection, perhaps that's more of a Freudian illiteracy than something ironic. Alanis, can you help me out here?

ah-ha

I am "sick" today.

Is Alan Partridge funnier when experienced through a naproxen sodium fog or is its humour one of those cumulative things? Sometimes when the jokes are lame (and I don't mean the 'chatosphere' kind of jokes that 'Alan' makes on purpose), the show becomes exactly the thing it's mimicking. Like when Alan knocks down a streaker and signs off his show with his face pressed up into a naked man's arse. I mean, the humour becomes parochial or something, slotting right into the style of British TV that Coogan is making fun of. A form following content sorta thing. Or is that content following form?

I guess I've come to it a bit late too. The outfits and whatnot have lost their specific connotations in a given time and place and just look generically daggy. But the character and his desperation are as palpable as they would ever have been ! !

Time to get on with the aforementioned art project. While I'm sitting here.

This ...

... is the boy I had a massive crush on, until he and his family moved back to South Africa at the end of year nine. Wait, no - this is the man that the boy I had a crush on grew up to be.

He once broke up a fight in my Vis Comm class, when everyone else was cheering and laughing like Beavis and Butthead. My hero.

Who'd a thought it - Head of Investments, eh.

"you're crazy"

I am going through a really trashy stage. It's all about boozing it up. Yay, booze.

Today I got a phone call from my fresh ex. We don't talk so much any more. He asked me what I was doing, I'm all 'working, of course' (I was at work). We chatted for about 40 seconds. Then he went 'I've just done this really strange thing - I meant to call the other **** and I've called you instead [how embarassment!]. I've just realised who I"m talking to. So ... how are you going, anyway? You going to that opening tonight [blah blah blah]'

Needless to say, we didn't then have a lovely chat about life etc. I got the hell off the phone asap and felt depressed the rest of the day. Call me crazy, but I find the blase-ness really upsetting. I don't see the benefit of pretending everything's nice and neat and happy when it's actually ugly, traumatic and miserable. Much better just not to speak.

Had a nice night, though. If a little desperate. I still have sore forearms from ice skating on Monday ... it's a very positive injury. I wear it like an invisible bruisey badge of niceness.

Good Clean Fun.

Hear that, reader? When in doubt, take to the ice. Wear two pairs of socks though. And good gloves.

Wasted youth

Far OUT it's 4am! This is what comes of being indolent all day ... I just amn't tired! It's not all lost time though, I have found some fabulous apparel to bid for on ebay, I will post if I win anything good ... but since I am a very cheap bidder it's not too likely.

Tomorrow I shall go into the city and buy records, make pictures and do yoga maybe. All my art project ideas get the mental kybosh before I even start ... that way I don't have to start. Clever, huh? As a short-term strategy I mean.

Shelves ahoy!

OK, I take it all (the unposted post) back! Now we have brand new shelving (at least someone has been productive today) and can now spend our saturday night arranging books! Taking them out of boxes! Saying hello to old friends and meeting new ones! Maybe I should make it into a wine-drinking pizza-eating records-playing book arranging hula luau party. I think yes. There's gotta be someone around up for that other than me ... I think it could be very NICE.

Not posting post

Just letting you know that I'm not posting that post that I just wrote because I don't want anyone to feel compelled to shoot themselves in the head just to get away from the godforsaken banality contained within.

It's a public service I'm providing here. Not boring anyone to death.

Try harder you say? Not me! O-ho no!

Favourite blogs to read

I am going to link my favourite blogs to read in an effort to win friends and raise the bar just a little bit above complete tidal wave of consciousness.

But all that technical stuff is so tedious ... really this is a teaser.

Whose blogs will be listed? Will it be yours? Will it be theirs? Will there be more than two?

... I fear not.

So, one day, I am going to do this.

Yay for everything.

Superficiality of art world shock

Guess what? The art world is all about surface; I don't think it's a very emotionally healthy environment.

And you know what else?? I think sincerity has totally gone out of fashion. No-one cares for earnestness any more. It's hard work to be superficially entertaining and witty on a surface level, like, all the time. Don't people get tired? I can't do that. It aint one of my special skills. But what are one's choices when candour is such old hat?

Eh?

I'm all for amusement, but not at the price of what I really think. I'd like what I really think to be the source of amusement.

... do you think this is the second beer talking? I always ask questions of my blog, as though it can answer me. 'What ho, ether? (ether?)'++

++ the second 'ether' was an echo. Did you get that? Yes, you.

(beat)

*sigh*

Fuzzy end of lollipop shock

OK, today went from crappy to worse than crappy, but I've managed to turn it around in the last quarter by booking a trip to Thailand! My sister promises me it will be very cheap and that we will meet some boys called Hans and Sven and that no-one will regret anything. I'm regretting the $870 airfare I just spontaneously added to the outstanding $2200 on my credit card but hey; ...um ... nope, still regretting that part.

Why can't exes just leave the country, eh? Do they have to just show up in places unexpectedly? It's so ANNOYING. It completely ruins my whole pretend-you-disappeared-off-the-face-of-the-earth system, a strategy whose success thus far was FURTHER thwarted with information regarding said exes current life WHICH I've been choosing to believe was all over post-me.

I mean it's just selfish.

Lucky I'm going to Thailand. We will stay in simple bungalows and kayak about eating mangoes. That fixes everything, uh-huh. No really.

The facts don't lie; an occasional series part 1

OK lets look at some statistics ...

Total comments on blog thus far: 28

Teigan 14
Wortwut (ie self) 9
Mishuki 4
deleted 2
Li 1

Given that Teigan has committed seppuku (and while my own comments may reflect the Greatest Love of All I don't call myself a particularly enlightening commenter), I'd say Mishuki wins the prize !! If there was one!

What happened to the other 75 nobodies who viewed my profile? ... turned away in disgust, that's what they did.

How about if I put up a video of myself tapdancing? How cheap and whorish should one be to get the numbers up??

And my moonwalk is hilARIOUS

God, what a great life!!!

Yeah-huh!!

*beat*

!

Results of survey

I've analysed the data and must now conclude that's its better for the soul to be a lovable tit/harmless fool and always be dancing like a wally than to bore the pants off some perfectly interesting normal musician about why you hate [insert annoying thing here].

Keeps em off the streets, see.

Parties without dancing - what's WITH that?

satdee night

so, last night I went to a party. I was pretty happy as it has been a long time since I went to a party. However, upon arriving and existing throughout said party, it proed to be a bit of a dud. Perfectly nice, but not anything to take photos of and write to ones's blog about. Kinda dull. So in order to make things more fun I guzzled lots of scotch, interfered with the music and tried to get people to dance. By dropping to the floor in a kind of bridge thing and thrusting upwards, one arm ceilingwards, a la Push It. While Push It played, natch. I learnt two things.

1. Getting laughs is all very well but it can alienate people from the dance floor.
and,
2. Dancing like that gives you sore ribs and neck the next day.

Survey -

which is a better person to be at a so-so party -
a- the one dancing like an idiot sans lampshade on head but only just
b- always in the kitchen (tricky when party is in one room aptmt)
c- ...I've run out of ideas.
d- see above

So much for early night shock

Q. What has just happened when Sorority Boys comes on TV and you think to yourself 'finally, something a bit sensible to watch whose narrative I can really invest in'?

A. You've just finished watching Scary Movie 3

You know what ...

... getting the point is probably a better outcome than being right.

keep playing those word games

Saw a show today that involved a video featuring repeated singing of the phrase 'old grey mashy aint what she used to be, aint what she used to be, aint what she used to be'.

Now, you and I both know it's mare.

But does the artist? Of course he does. It fits in ... 'whoops! I got it "wrong"'

Things that challenge my self-righteousness are possibly healthy. Likely.

Now I have 'great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts' stuck in my head. When will this world of pain come to an end!

Banal personal revelations

Today I couldn't believe how openly stupid people were being to me at work. My incredulousness was palpable ... I was all 'what are you THINKING?' 'am I the only SANE ONE here?' etc etc. It was like a twilight zone of stupid.

Then when I get home my flatmate assures me (with a conspiratorially superior air) that it's because Mercury is in retrograde, communication's all fucked! Ha!

So that cleared everything up. Just gotta sit out the waning of Mercury. Once it like, ameliorates or whatever, then everything will be DANDY.

Then we sat in front of the heater affirming our freedom and financial independence (15 minutes a day for three months, right?) before saying goodnight.

Apologies in advance

Sometimes when I look at Hagakure 419 I get this song in my head ... Camptown Races, you know the one ... try it
Ha ga ku re 4 1 9, doo dah, doo dah

It certainly gets annoying, doesn't it?

Welcome

Welcome to the most boring blog in the world. I've been working really hard on getting things to this stage, and I think you'll find that I've done a pretty good job, even if I do say so myself. Things were touch and go at the beginning there; words were added, thoughts were aired (I'm not saying it was right), but since those shaky beginnings I'm proud to have really gotten rid of all of those petty attempts at creating 'points of interest' and 'entertainment' and what-have-you. The last seven weeks or so have been the purest in my blogging life. I know I can't truly convey what this journey has been like for me; I can simply be glad you were travelling with me. Even though you may not have known it at the time.

I do actually have a new apartment, actually

... except it's a federation semi in Marrickville and I haven't moved there yet. I have a garden that's like a mouth I'm gonna put my money in the same location as. I've talked so much about growing things that I better damn well do it. I have three hay bales to start me off. I went to an opening tonight that I really enjoyed. Talked to some people I know well, talked to some people I don't know well ... the little things, y'know? I find my mood is always dependent on contingencies - situations, environments, hangers-on, passers-by ... blah de blah banal. A few drinks this evening, [what's the singular of folks?]. It was a nice feeling.

Isn't the word 'blog' such a downer? some marketer should come up with a less unsexy-sounding word. "I'm feeling a bit bloggy today, I can't come to work". It must be the double g.

I wrote some graffitti in the toilets tonight. I couldn't resist; there was grammatical argument taking place. In combination with some art bitching. Not a helpful addition to the discourse but hey. Ever had that feeling that you should get off your arse and become invoolved in the discussion, only to realise that it is none the richer for your participation? Blogging and toilet cubicle grafitti: something in common at last.

There's this whole thing with the performance of blogging (especially after having lurked for so long), about who might be reading, who knows what or thinks what about what's written. The whole anonymity thing seems pretty silly to me, aside from the frankly unlikely in most cases threat of personal harm or physical stalking or whatever. Your ego doesn't go away, and you still have an identity. I guess you just have more than one. It's like when you travel to get away from whatever's going wrong; sooner or later it comes back, because you always take yourself and your problems/pattens with you.

I am so sleepy that I have to go to sleepy sleep now.

I've got a new apartment, baby

OK, you can tell me if this is just normal, but I feel it to be a somewhat tragically abnormal series of coincidences and ... dunno, paths crossing type occurrences. It's very late and I've had a big weekend so it won't be written well.

My magazine features an a guy in the upcoming issue who makes pictures out of liquid nails. He wanted to get into the Archibald Prize so he made some liquid nails portraits of his favourite band, the Go-Betweens. He wrote this frank and amusing piece about meeting them, about his working process and his snubbing by the Art Establishment, man. It's my favourite piece in the magazine. It's insightful and accessible and self-deprecating. We liked the works themselves so much we decided to put them on the cover. So.

I've got a new job at a gallery. We have casual preparators who come and help us hang the shows every month. The first day i met our regular guy (who is an excellent person and a good preparator to boot) I asked him if he was an artist (many of the preps are). He said he used to be, but now he was a musician. I didn't ask him who he played with because I (stupidly) assumed I wouldn't know them and that that might be embarassing. Then I spend the next few days taking sideways glances at him to try and work out why he looks so familiar ("could he be ... no ... MAYbe ... should I ask him? nah ..."). So my boss tells me at lunch later that he's a drummer. For the Go-Betweens. Huh. Funny coincidence. I go home and look said preparator up and find out I've actually seen him play a number of gigs in one of my old favourite bands. (Custard! He was in Custard! hence the unplaceable familiarity). Then of course I am too star-struck to say anything about it, and lo, the working week is done and we see our casual preparator no more. Flukily, I had been listening to Custard and the Titanics that week in my car, after having not listened to them for years.

Today i've been designing the fliers for the launch party for our new issue, featuring the Go-Betweens images (they're so great!). I'm looking at the boggle-eyed head of Grant McLennan as rendered in bright orange paint and liquid nails all evening. My flatmate comes home, goes to the Herald online and announces Grant McLennan died in his sleep last night.

And we're about to put out a magazine with his portrait on the cover.

Poor preparator. I'm not sure if I know him well enough for a condolences email (or maybe that's the best way to offer condolences to someone you don't know). And do we, as publishers, become exploiters of the sentimental response to this poor man's premature death? Is it wrong to feel happy that we have this great work about him, that's somehow made weighty now, and sort of more important? Or that a death can make you feel, even superficially, more connected?

The net seems to expand all the time. I think if you were immortal, you could eventually have a connection to each person on this earth. Assuming you had good social skills. I do feel uncomfortable though. It's pretty pathetic to feel connected to famous people. That's how stalkers get started.

Anyway. My condolences, world. I'm exhausted and must sleep.

Question

Do all these shitty little posts put people off reading? Or do great swathes of text do that?

I'd really like to know.

License flashing before eyes shock

I am fucking starving and quite late. Should I:

a) eat, but what and where
b) take a cab to this opening and get drunk, then eat
c) drive to the opening and be restrained, then eat,
d) stay home and do work (just kidding), d) i don't know what other options there are.
e) drive to food then to opening and be restrained

Basically, I'm fishing for a ride to Paddington. Via Fatimas.

Not going to happen, is it.

Wait! Epiphany ...
f) eat toast, then consider future

I drank lotsa wine the other night then got breath-tested on the way home. Didn't lose the ol' license though. Does this mean:

i) I'm naturally lucky and should therefore continue to drink and drive
ii) It's a warning sign from the universe that I've been blessed this once and I should mend my ways before I get zapped with a lightning bolt, which will DEFINITELY happen next time
iii) nothing whatsoever

toast it is.

Late-adopter banalities

I got a comment. Thanks Li. I know you but you don't know me. Don't you find that strange? Or is that what type B bloggers are, like, into? Not to be rude. Ooh, all this new etiquette to get complexes about!

Beddibyes and Jimmyjams no I mean really

Does anyone have any statistics on what percentage of blogs are started by people going through breakups? Anecdotally, I'd say, like, at least some. (See how I'm asking questions to encourage involvement? It's all this psychology I've been studying).

And will this post finally push the In Happier Times photos down far enough ... out of my face, shiny happy people holding hands!

Look, now you're just being SILLY

(see title for content)

...

this is funner than I had imagined!

I'm like a little kid in the car making the electronic windows go up and down up and down up and down

Muse muse muse whimsy muse stop

The other day my sister looked up her old friend's blog and trawled it thoroughly looking for references to herself. Is this normal?

Note to self

Be less referential in new blog. Must. Impress. Blogerati.

I don't know what I'd do without you, Kitty. You're a true friend.

Chilly, the elf who cannot love

Are you fucking kidding me?

Rigorous STANDARDS?

I mean, that's sweet and all ... Teigs, I'm genuinely touched. If only that you cared enough to check on my spot. (OK, you probably had some sneaky e-thing that emailed you to tell you I had posted). Nonetheless, though. STANdards. RIGorous.

Because I was feeling pretty down in the dumps. I've had a superficially light meal with the ex tonight, so now I fucking hate everything again.

OK, I'll go out on a limb. Generalities are not intereresting, now are they. We ate for about 30 minutes and then that was that. He didn't even want to have a drink with me (and this is someone who can drink). Now I'm a goddamned obliGAtion. I felt so miserable after I came home that I looked up this which caused me to burst into tears (I SAID it was a limb) and go all foetal on the couch. Until my flatmate rang. I said, I've got the sniffles. And THAT's all I'm GONNA say about it.

I'm SICK of feeling crappy. Time to goddamned well cheer up already. I'm losing my sense of humour n all. I only laugh at things in a snide, bitter kind of way. You know that bit in Napoleon Dynamite? That scene, when he's with Trisha at the dance, and she waves to her friends and they wave back excitedly and she goes over to them? And then Napoleon comes back from the loo and is all alone and sees HIS friends and waves to them and acts like he's gesturally communicating with them but really they don't see him because they've having a good time without him?

That makes me laugh like crazy.

AAAAanyway.

This is a bit weird - I mean, I hardly know you. Or - god, worse - I do know you ...

But the upshot is I'm not a lurker any more. Now I have a half-life to call my own!

(beat)

!!

I feel better now. Thanks.

Sometimes I forget to title posts

Today I watched two full movies and two second halves of movies.

I watched Dogfight and it made me want to go on a date (okay) in San Francisco (still maybe possible, with planning) in the sixties (alright, fantasy it is). But not with a marine. Unless he moves like River Phoenix.

It's a beautiful movie and I'd fucking well recommend it to anyone.

Ditto Spiceworld (for totally different reasons of course), which I watched earlier on. "Hi, I'm Barnaby. So, are you part of this 'Spice' phenomenon?"

"Blah, blah, girl power, feminism, blah"

Nineties nostalgia begins right here.