Things 'n' stuff

I was asked to post about the thing I did today, and the request came in such flattering terms that I feel compelled to do it. Oh, now it seems too built up. Let's start again. This post contains spoilers for a certain Academy-Award-nominated movie, btw.

Today I went to what is sometimes known as a 'Mums 'n' Bubs' movie session. I mean how that makes the Dads feel I don't know. Don't get me started on the term 'bub'. Anyway, the idea is that every pram-pusher in the Inner West goes to a movie at the same time. And because everyone knows the theatre will be full of potentially-squalling babes, no-one is upset when they do, in fact, squall. 'Cause you're all in the same boat, see. Supposedly they have the sound slightly down and the lighting slightly up to make it nicer for everyone. Aww. [Have you seen Louie the TV show? That bit in the pilot where he goes on a date with Chelsea Peretti and he says he has two girls and she goes 'awww' and he recoils like, WTF, I didn't say they were cute or nothin', patronizing fucker. I wish I could find a link because it's all there in her intonation.] Anyway.

I have never seen so many babies in one place. You know that episode of the Simpsons that references Hitchcock's The Birds, with the babies everywhere? Kind of like that. Like if you see more than a few cats in one place, and you realise that if only they pooled their power they could kill every one of us.

Yeah, so, lots of babies. Including mine. It was actually incredibly cute. A sea of babbling little things, being soothed by their art-house-cinema attending mothers. The odd crier, whose mother everyone feels sympathy for. A few crawlers roaming free at the front bit under the screen.

It was The Silver Linings Playbook (don't bother. it's such a piece of overplayed fluff. mental illness? let's gloss over that. gambling addiction? fuggeddaboutit. let's have some hugging, learning, saving one another, and oh yes some gratuitous Jennifer Lawrence dance contest butt close-ups. did I forget to mention that this mental illness recovery movie has a dance contest? don't they all? anyway, so, yes, good test case for the Mum/Bub movie concept). Anyway, every now and then there would be a loud aggressive bit (thanks David O Russell), and all the babies' sounds would ramp up a notch and you'd hear all the mothers going 'it's all right, it's all right' haha funny.

My kid is five months, and he squirmed a bit, took two naps, and basically had a fun time jumping around and giggling on my lap and gawping at all the other babies. He also watched the screen from time to time, which he's not allowed to do at home (except the Bureau of Meteorology radar page, he loves that; hey, it's edumacational!).

So anyway now I've blogged about it. I can't blog any more because these days we have to go to bed early. See previous paragraph.

Here is where the sky is blue

I am staying at my parents' house while I prepare work for a show in their city.

They have the most beautiful garden, which my mother in particular obsessively works on. It's tasteful and alive and not fussy, and there are secret places and different levels to discover all around the perimeter of the house.

My mum has a great sense of colour and design, but is loose enough with the garden that it has an energy and a sense of a life of its own.


My dad used to grow a lot of vegetables, but because of the lack of any rain, ever, he's sworn off it. My mother has invented all sorts of crazy water recycling systems involving drip systems made out of pipes, hoses, plastic bottles and a customised wheelie bin. They've ripped up all the dead brown lawns and put in brown, I dunno, woody stuff. Chips. You know, it gets stuck all over your feet. Because it doesn't rain where they live any more. Ever.



Visiting them in spring makes me want to move to a country acreage and make compost. Unfortunately, I have no money for that and would probably find it too lonely by myself.

Dream 30/6/07: Portrait of my father as a blue budgie

I am in a travelling prize exhibition where the work is about birds, specifically budgies. I have proposed a certain work and my proposal has been accepted but I haven't made the work yet. We travel together to the location of the show; somewhere distant, tropical? Luke Shelley and others from the gosford emerging show are there. I am making four budgies (out of fimo) who will sit on a single perch inside of a white, round fimo cage. It will be some kind of metaphor for a family. Other people are installing the work in an atmosphere of friendly camaraderie and i am sitting on the floor making mine. I start with a yellow bird but soon realise that a canary is not the same as a budgie and have to start again. The next one I make is blue, and I find it hard to make a realistic shape of the bird's body; also, i keep finding real wings and feathers in my work, which annoys me ... it's supposed to be fimo. I get stuck into it and am amazed at the forms I can construct. Then I realise the bird I've made is much too large and I have to make it smaller. Then I realise it can be the 'father' bird so it's ok.