Blood and Rhetoric without the Love

Lighten up

2009-03-26T15:45:10Z

I dropped into the Australian Centre for Photography today just to see what they were showing (it's in my neighbourhood, which is awesome) and saw some rather wierd, wonderful, whimsical stuff. People rowing boats over seas of trash, vampy pillow fighting champions and hoodies doing backflips in the supermarket - what more could one want from a stroll around a gallery?

Seriously, go and see their current exhibitions, if only to brighten up your day.

(Also they're free)

(...and small enough to see in a lunch break)

"...it had a red cover, though"

2009-03-17T14:29:16Z

This is fantastic. My housemate printed it out for me and I feel compelled to share it with everyone.

It's particularly funny to me because it is so exactly accurate when it comes to working in a secondhand bookshop. I don't agree with Orwell that you lose your fondness for books by working in a bookshop - if anything I like the good ones even more now, although I hate the shit ones with equal passion. But the same characters and scenarios apparently exist as much now as they did in the early 20th century. Thankfully for old Georgie-boy he wasn't a woman who had to put up with dirty old men who have the talent of boring you with their conversation and ogling you with their eyes at the same time. I had one try to hold my hand the other day. I had to go and wash it after he left the shop, I was so revolted.

On a happier note, the photos of Mr. Orwell on the site confirm my opinion of his awesome lack of style. It is so unstylish as to come out the other side and become stylish in it's own way. He wears these ill-fitting tweedy jackets with no tie, but with the collar buttoned up as if to recieve a tie, and his hair is a fabulous monstrosity that says "I went to the cheapest barber I could find and just asked him to keep it out of my way as much as possible". Or possibly "My wife cuts my hair". I love it.

Selling Souls

2009-03-05T01:12:16Z

So I've entered the Kodak Salon after all. The two pictures I'm entering are this and this. Of course now I'm having huge writhing doubts about whether they were the best photos to enter...they are two of my favourites and that was what made me want to enter them.

Actually I had huge trouble deciding about the second one for a reason completely unrelated to artistic merit. The guy in the photo was a stranger I met on Crown St. at night. All that I know about him is that his name is James or Jamie or something similar. He agreed to have his photograph taken and enver asked what it would be used for, but i feel kind of dodgy entring it in a competition without his knowledge. To salve my conscience, I have asked them to mark it 'NFS' ("Not for Sale") in the catalogue. while this endeavour is certainly costing me enough, and i woudl love to sell my work, I am not yet sure if it is OK for me to sell someone's image without their permission. I wish I'd got his contact details so I could ask - and moreso, so i coudl show him what a great photographic subject he turned out to be without even trying.

I am relieved to find, having read the fine print, that if your work is not hung in the exhibition (due to space constraints or something) your entry fee is refunded. Unfortunately, I will have to decide ahead of time whether to fly down to Melbourne for the opening, so if it turns out I'm not going to be in it, I may be down the price of an airfare. Oh well...

for myself alone...

2008-07-30T01:32:15Z

It's a bit like that Yeats poem except that the hair in question here is purple rather than yellow.

I think the purple has had its day. It was meant as a sort of joke at first - I couldn't let the blonde hair go without making use of that blank canvas to do something crazy. Then, as if nobody had ever had purple hair before, people started to notice me. All the time. I present for your delectation, and by way of example, this exchange, which occured in the tunnel under central as I was coming home very late on Saturday night:

Anna, striding along in her own world, overtakes some teenage, hoodie-wearing types who hail her thusly:

HOODIE: Hey, I like ya hair. Was it hard to do?
ANNA: No, it was blonde before, that's why it's so bright.
HOODIE: Fair enough. Where you going?
ANNA: Home.
HOODIE: Wanna come with us?
ANNA: (supressing mirth) Er, no, I'm working tomorrow morning.
HOODIE: Alright, have a nice night!

Exeunt Omnes

This sort of thing has been happening everywhere for the last couple of months, and it was a lot of fun at first, but now it is becoming clear that the purple hair is the *only* thing about me that people notice. It's beginning to feel like a cheap gimmick.

I need some advice, though, and I know there are many people on my flist whose hair tells colourful lies, so I have a a few questions. Has anyone used LUSH henna? If so what were the results like, was it difficult to do, etc? Further to that, has anyone used it over bleached or formerly bleached hair? I eventually want to use it to darken my natural colour in a less revolting and ethically dubious way than using normal dyes, but I don't know if I should dye the bleached-and-purpled portion of my hair back to brown first, so I have a fairly uniform slate to work with (I know it won't be completely uniform, but at least it will be a bit more even than it currently is). I suppose I could go to the hairdresser and ask (my hair needs cutting as well) but I thought I'd consult the poor man's encyclopedia that is LJ first.

gypsy rock is eardrum-bursting love

2008-04-30T13:03:24Z

Anyone up for this gig at the Annandale in a couple of weeks. The Crooked Fiddle Band who are playing were at the National Folk festival and are an awesome blend of eastern europen string type stuff and metal influences. I dunno about the other bands...

Anyone? Bueller?

Good/ungood

2008-04-21T13:14:36Z

Oh, working in a secondhand bookshop is full of excitement and incident...and wierdness, lots of wierdness.

Some things get on my nerves. No! i will not give you a discount because you are buying four books at once, so don't try to sweet talk or bully me, thankyouverymuch. Also, the number of people that come into our city store and ask me 'Where is number 357' or similar, to which I am tempted to reply 'Between 355 and 359, you innumerate twit!' but i don't because I am in work mode and hence I am serene and polite. But seriously, how many epeople out there who can't follow a sequence of numbers and grasp that odds are on one side and evens on the other? Oh, well, it's a small thing...

Slightly more disturbing is the alarming number of customers who really smell. I don't know if it's peculiar the the kind of people who patronise secondhand bookshops, but there are some customers, usually reclusive old/middle-aged men, who smell so awful I have to hold my breath to serve them without becoming nauseated. I totally understand the reclusive impulse, but I really hope I never get to the point that I am so cut off from society that nobody knows me well enough to tell me I smell like old underpants garnished with cigarette butts. Eugh.

To end on a nice note and prove that my job is actually quite awesome most of the time, I was going through a big pile of newly acquired books today and found a hardback copy of Tim Winton's 'Dirt Music', which I read laast year while pining for Australia and absolutely adored. When I picked it up to give it bit of a clean, out came a little shower of dried rose petals. Secondhand books are such wonderful, mysterious things.

books and burning

2008-03-17T12:39:05Z

Lots of wonderfully strange things trun up at work...

Today, among a pile of videos we just got, I saw the complete 'Anne of green Gables'/'Anne of Avonlea'/etc miniseries. I'm not sure if any other girly lit geeks loved this when they were wee little people, but *I* certainly did. Also, the guy who played Gilbert Blythe was pretty hot.

We also got in a really big pile of fantasy/supernatural themed romance novels. They are hilarious. Who knew vampires, werewolfs and shape-shifting dragons yearned for love as well? My personal afavourite, though was 'Succubus Blues' -m about a succubus, who, when she isn't stealing the souls of men thourhg their wangs, works in a bookstore and has a crush on a 'sexy writer' named Seth. Bridget Jones et al. think they have problems - how much worse is it when you can't get a guy, not due to ugliness or social ineptitiude liek the rest of us, be because when you touch him you will suck out a piece of his SOUL. *dies*

Lastly, for all the zombie nyyyerds out there, we got in a book called 'Drawing and Painting the Undead'. I think no further comment is necessary.

Also, I made a post a while back suggesting FIRE TWIRLING. Now that the weather is good and various people have said they'd be interested I was thinking maybe we could do it on the evening of the 11th, 12th or 13th of April. I was hping people coudl let me know what works so I can get the evening off work - I need to give my boss my availability by Thursday, so I need to know soon.

and then there was one

2008-02-16T09:59:26Z

Okay, so, plans have chnaged. The girl who was planning to move with me has realised she may have to go overseas for part of this year and therefore needs to save money. She is also a student at UNSW so places that I would consider to live aren't so great for her. So we've decided to work separately. It's kind of daunting to have to do this on my own, but it probably wouldn't have worked out the other way.

*sigh*

So my query has changed. Does anyone know of someone nice who is looking for ONE housemate in the inner west or around the city?

ad domum

2008-02-15T11:10:02Z

Now that I'm gainfully emplyed, the house hunt beings for real. Sorry to be boring, but I'm going to ask again just in case anyone's heard anything - does anyone know of a household looking for two new people, or of a place to rent? The other person is my friend from highschool, who is a very cool musician. It's just that it's always better to find out through people you trust than contancting strangers through websites.

Any help would be greatly appreaciated.

Light my Fire

2008-02-07T01:23:32Z

I'm looking out on poiuring rain at the moment, so this may appear unreasonably optimistic but...

If the weather clears up any time soon, do people feel like organising a fire twirling shindig? I met someone at IV who was a twirler and I've realised I miss narrowly escaping setting fire to my ass. Also, I think there may be some new people who want to try it and might be coaxed into coming along.

Anyone up for Burnination?

hecticred @ 2008-02-05T21:48:00

2008-02-05T11:02:12Z

Brought to you by boojumlol

The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland
HE stood among a crowd at Dromahair;
His heart hung all upon a silken dress,
And he had known at last some tenderness,
Before earth took him to her stony care;
But when a man poured fish into a pile,
It Seemed they raised their little silver heads,
And sang what gold morning or evening sheds
Upon a woven world-forgotten isle
Where people love beside the ravelled seas;
That Time can never mar a lover's vows
Under that woven changeless roof of boughs:
The singing shook him out of his new ease.

He wandered by the sands of Lissadell;
His mind ran all on money cares and fears,
And he had known at last some prudent years
Before they heaped his grave under the hill;
But while he passed before a plashy place,
A lug-worm with its grey and muddy mouth
Sang that somewhere to north or west or south
There dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race
Under the golden or the silver skies;
That if a dancer stayed his hungry foot
It seemed the sun and moon were in the fruit:
And at that singing he was no more wise.

He mused beside the well of Scanavin,
He mused upon his mockers: without fail
His sudden vengeance were a country tale,
When earthy night had drunk his body in;
But one small knot-grass growing by the pool
Sang where -- unnecessary cruel voice --
Old silence bids its chosen race rejoice,
Whatever ravelled waters rise and fall
Or stormy silver fret the gold of day,
And midnight there enfold them like a fleece
And lover there by lover be at peace.
The tale drove his fine angry mood away.

He slept under the hill of Lugnagall;
And might have known at last unhaunted sleep
Under that cold and vapour-turbaned steep,
Now that the earth had taken man and all:
Did not the worms that spired about his bones
proclaim with that unwearied, reedy cry
That God has laid His fingers on the sky,
That from those fingers glittering summer runs
Upon the dancer by the dreamless wave.
Why should those lovers that no lovers miss
Dream, until God burn Nature with a kiss?
The man has found no comfort in the grave.

You can draw your own conclusions about why I chose this particular poem.

Now that you've seen this, Post some poetry on your Journal.

Let the music be your master...

2008-02-04T03:07:17Z

I have just finished 2 weeks of Intervarsity Choral Festival (for those who don't know - some of you were probably there with me), rehearsing 5 or 6 hours a day to put on two full scale concerts. My dad told me this morning that his choir - which is full of old people and rehearses out in goatfuck nowhere - is doing the Faure Requiem for it's next concert. That is a piece I love so much it breaks my brain. So am I enough of a lunatic to commit myself to two choirs for the next several months.

That's two nights of my week, and two entire weekends spent rehearsing, and contless hours devoted to getting to the new choir's stupid rehearsal venue. Also, the other choir is not terribly good (although i would never say that in front of my dad) and I am worried that they will cause my sanity to finally snap by butchering one of my faviourite pieces of choral music.

The wierdness of pairing a Led Zep quote in the title, with a post about calssical music has just occured to me, but I stand by it's appropriateness. I have been pwned by music.

Habitat

2008-02-03T15:25:58Z

I was sitting at the buss stop at the side of Hyde Park sometime after 1 this morning waiting for a late ride home and listening to music on headphones. At the other end of the bench someone made a strange shrieking noise and another person got up suddenly. I looked down and saw a furry bundle ambling past my feet. A possum.

I though it was odd that it should come so close to humans so calmly. I seemed to be wandering very aimlessly and I was a little worried. It went out of sight and I though it must have gone back inot the park itself.

A few moments later a man came up and commented that the thing looked disoriented and I agreed and said I though it might be hurt but didn't know what to do. He said "well it will be hurt soon, it's out in the road". I shot out into the middle of Liverpool streetand shooed it back onto the footpath. I wanted to bget it back into the park, but it insisted on ambling along slowly and aimlessly. I walked up behind it and stopped and It turned around very calmly, sniffed the toe of my shoe, raised one paw onto it and then stood up and placed both paws on my knee, looking straight up at me.

I am upset.

Possums shouldn't be so tame, shouldn't walk calmly out into the middle of a city street, shouldn't eat trash and beg for food from late night ocmmuters.

I am upset because I don't know what to do.

Bloodlust

2008-01-26T12:09:44Z

I propose an expedition be organised to see Sweeney Todd sometime soon. Anyone interested?

The saga begins...

2008-01-26T11:33:12Z

I've finally started sorting through my photos from last year's overseas jaunt...and there are thousands of them, so you can expect many instalments over the next few months/years/decades. First, we travel to New York....

the USA from the air

ducks skating in central park

squirrels!!!!!!!

Snow falls in Harlem

A local in Washington Square

Looking over the east river

The Rockefeller Centre

The empire State Building (and views from the top following)

The Brooklynn bridge is a very beautiful thing to photograph

The Museum of Modern Art is a very happy place...and I love this artwork not just because it is pretty, but because it was made with FIREWORKS!

This artwork was made out of a million tiny pieces of junk...

Tracy Emin wasn't the first to make her bed into art...Rauschenberg got there first

I didn't think I liked Jackson Pollock's work until I saw it up close, but it's actually sort of beautiful

Just waiting for someone to break into "New York, New York, It's a wondeful town..."

Body Count

2008-01-15T15:29:18Z

This evening I went to see The Golden Compass which was very shiny and quite fun and all that BUT there was something that bothered me.

Unlike in most children's movie's I've seen lots of people get killed. Lots.

There is one particular scene where the 'good guys' are fighitng off an army of mercenaries sent to give them what for, and these guys are dying left right and centre and it made me wonder if it's really okay to tell kids "It's okay to kill people, just as long as they are the right people" or "just as long as they're not on our side". I'm not really into sheltering and coddling kids from what goes on in the owrld, but the deaths of these random 'enemies' were dealt with in such a blase fashion and they died in such huge numnbesrs that I felt like the movie was, probably unintentionally, saying something I didn't like.

The thing that i found interesting, was that all this was a completely intellectual reaction on my part - i.e. on an emotinal level, movie baddie deaths affect me as little as the next person. But when does this start. Is it natural to be so completely unaffected by people dying even if you think they're shits. or do movies like this tell us that so many times before we're gorwn up that we just forget we ever had any other ideas.

Random acts of Awesomeness

2008-01-11T16:35:49Z

I just attended a spontaneous happening in a fountain in Hyde Park. My friend and I were at this. and after the official show was over everyone wandered around a bit and we adjourned to a nearby fountain and discovered some buskers getting set up. soon the music was going and other people started to catch on and shoes started comning off and soon a whole crow of people were shaking their stuff to some cuban-esque music in the fountain. Water was being splashed everywhere, people were going crazy. I've never had such a fun workout in my life. there were even a couple of celebrity types with their pants rolled up, getting into it.

I love it when random, wonderful things happen.

A (virtual) room of one's own

2008-01-09T01:34:22Z

It is a day of great joy and celebration because I am posting from my NEW COMPUTER!

Its temporary name is 'Darkling' because it is black, and I've always found it a strange word (it's an adjective but it sounds like a verb, etc, etc). I'd prefer to find something that sounds a bit less like a fantasy novel character's name though.

Now back to the drudge work of transferring all my old files from my backup disks to their new home...*sigh*

The darkenss enrapes me...or something

2008-01-06T13:37:17Z

So I love a bit of music wankery...

Let's Make a Band
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The article title is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quotation is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4.Use your graphics programme of choice to throw them together, and post the result.

I'm using my mum's computer and she doesn't have a graphics program worth shit...and also, the person swhose pic I got has some special voodoo on her account so that you can't download her pictures (they come out as a 1 pixel dot). So to get a look at the cover of the much hyped new album by indie trio CHESTON, IOWA, which is entitled 'of a dying child' you will have to follow the link.

Tortured indie music, anyone?

Puttin' on the Ritz

2008-01-06T04:17:44Z

Does any one of you lovely people know where I can get hold of a top hat for a ball on Jan 29th. I'm talking about a real one here, not one from a costume shop that is made out of paper/plastic/some other nonsense. I can't afford to buy one, so I'd like to hire or borrow.

Trying to look formal and moderately attractive without looking too girly is bloody difficult.

Arte Povera

2008-01-05T02:19:14Z

I didn't take any art materials with me overseas, but when we were settled in Oxford I went out and splrged...on a cheap packet of textas, and another of coloured pencils, all costing less than 3 pounds. I added some cut out magazine pictures and the following were the results (The quality of the images is very poor, because my scanner doesn't like the glossy bits, so I had to photograph them and crop them).

When one reads these strange pages of one long gone, one feels that one is at one with one who once.

2008-01-03T23:15:24Z

Curiosity got the better of me and...for those who care to know, there are 22 people who claim to be named 'Stephen Dedalus' registered on the Book of Face...

...and to think i once thought *I* was pretentious.

No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn

2008-01-03T12:28:06Z

I am happy today because I met up with an old and dear friend and had a four hour conversation with him in Badde Manors, which is a favourite place of mine. It's great to kinow that some of the lovely people in the world are still lovely.

So to celebrate my nice day I am throwing another heap of photos at you.

First I went into the city, which was a sea of madness...

(my friend stela...amid the madness)

So I fled the madness and went to...the sea.

(this last taken by Stela while I was staring moodily at the sea)

Wot I did on my holidays

2008-01-02T10:12:26Z

So i spent a week around Xmas on Kangaroo Island for a family reunion sort of thing. I wasn't really prepared for how beautiful it was and I'm not sure my photos really convey it (I couldn't get my parents to stop the car every time I wanted to photograph something), but I hope they give some idea of what an awesome place it is.

We stayed in a house overlooking a wide, white beach...

which was regularly visited by...

and the island had a colony of fairy penguins - although the didn't photograph too well since they only come int to shore at night.

We had a great view of the moon rising.

I had an artsy moment with the light and shodow in my room.

On Xmas day we saw a group of strange skinny birds having their own gathering...

One of the local beaches.

Snellings Beach, which was probably the most beautiful one we visited.

The island also has a sea lion colony.

In the next installment: My NYE shenanigans.

get born, keep warm, short pants, romance...

2008-01-01T06:36:26Z

Anyone up for seeing I'm Not There sometime soon with me? Apparently some of the 'Dylans' are better than others, but it's so strange I think I have to see it.

Edit: There's a 7:10 session of the movie at Dendy Newtown this Friday. I'm thinking of maybe going to taht one, but if people can't make it and still want to see the movie, let me know.