wrote this tonight after experiencing a particularly metonymic vehicle crisis.
or: new years resolutions.

my night with the bike was like this.

chrome against wood against red brick. tweaking of bolts, washers front forks rear wheels. all assembled, then upside down and in half then all apart or in parts.
thoughts: tighten this, straighten that. oh, and the tyres are flat.
then: this thing won't ride.
but finally: just get some new handlebars, adjust the frame - it'll be different, but will definitely ride again. spray some WD40 on the chain, scrub off the rust it got when you left it in the rain. but you need help this time. why not talk to your neighbour - he's always smoking on the stoop when you've needed a favor; fetching papers from his house and offering you wine, didn't he say he's actually got bike deals lined up online..?

so now i'm building a bike out of scrap. with expert help it should come into form as something worn but fantastic. warned, but still riding. a second life as a mutant, sparkling with miles.


i guess i like rhyming?



also: today was beautiful. breakfast is the greatest. also: yesterday was beautiful, and now i have 50 punnets of blueberries. i went to help the harvest at my grandparents' farm. to get there, i travelled four hours on the train to The Score and Four Seasons watching horses canter alongside single carriage platforms. the sky is a different colour when you get out of Sydney. and, i discovered, the people will actually put enough onion in your salad.

always be strudel yourself

where in the name of god did a month go? vaguely: kicking uni, working, melblobs. more specifically: writing, guitar, repairing, despairing, introspecting, coffee, parties, dance offs, farewells, art, books, markets, ideas, exes, zines. the usual, i guess.

grove expectations 3 tonight. i read this:


I sit outside this shit so i guess that makes me a legend.

from where i sit it seems
that people stand on maps and fret
that they will trip down cliffs or streams
if they're not careful where they step

so they always stick to the marked paths,
the paved driveways and backyards.

and yet the paper rips, it tears
and folds beneath the safest lines
creating contours where the worried
walked before a thousand times -

these hordes gingerly tread their own trenches,
then turn around with, "see, the landscape is dangerous."

BAH.

if i could be bothered to get up i'd say, "smooth down your paper valleys! this place is just a map which is really just a coloured mat - and if you take off your shoes,
we can even play twister!"

but they probably wouldn't listen.

i did this.

bronsai.tumblr.com

"seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day"
- Thornton Wilder.

so, what about EVERY moment of every day? i'm feeling like my relationship with The Internet is growing stronger every day, but that we have only just held hands. digging the hell out of this tumblr bidness, wow the blogosphere is CORPULENT with greatness. i don't know why this comes as such a surprise.

also, more photographs by William Eggleston. these were taken in the 60s. y'know, when it was really fucking hard to take photographs this good. it's worth looking at the other stuff on his website, he's got quite a portfolio.













in other news, we did a seance on saturday night. we talked to a boy named max, age 6, who told us that i was going to die in eight years and that Risky should get naked. also, he likes candy. anyway, important thing is that it "worked" (whatever you say, rationalists). evidence: i don't think any of us would have told me i was going to die in eight years, even as a joke; all of us took our fingers off the cocktail shaker lid (our makeshift planchette) at some point; it really didn't feel like pressure was coming from any one side; it just seemed really legit, and i don't think any of us have been secretly mastering seance-fakery (particularly not enough to have kept it up for TWO HOURS). also, this is not the first seance i have been in that has "worked". the first time, i was in year 11, and i had to conduct an interview for English. i donned a white robe, dragged my mum and meg into it, we lit 6 tea-light candles and started asking questions. we talked to three spirits, one of them being my grandmother (who i've never met). i didn't end up using the seance for my english task... although i did manage to find what i did write. if you would indulge me:

>>>>>>>

The scrutiny of self is an eternally popular pastime, so it comes as no surprise that the subject for Vivienne Winter’s enquiry into the nature of reinvention and the folly of human drama would be her own dead self. The interviewee has requested she be referred to as The Duchess of Death.

Winter: Duchess of Death, thank you so much for transcending time in order to be here this morning-
Duchess: Morning! Ah yes now I recall that naïve celebration of light. Things are so quickly forgotten when one is no longer consigned to one’s earthly vessel.
W: Well I could only imagine. Though now that you are in a somewhat more objective position to survey mortality, what would you say is the fundamental drive behind human endeavour? And furthermore, how does this link to reinvention?
D: Ahem. Well, child, allow me to explain. All human activity is quite simply attributed to change – reinvention if you will – in the name of “progress”, following a desire to better ourselves. This all relates to survival – though not in a purely literal sense. As soon as there is the feeling that a person’s survival in their ideal existence has come under threat, they will seek to reinvent themselves or their environment according to an ideal that they presume will separate them from the threat.
W: What is the importance of this “ideal”, and how does it affect the reinventions taking place?
D: Of course, it is necessary to have some idea of how and where this reinvention will take a person – some vision of progress, an image of perfection to mould their silly skins around. Just as a person’s identity is shaped by their social environment, so will their perception of improvement. People will seek to adapt to an image that they have been socialised to believe will lead them to a better life with fewer imperfections. Essentially, reinventions will take place until satisfaction is reached.
W: Surely you do not suggest our will is controlled utterly by chance influence and exposure to external social models of behaviour? This would leave us at the complete mercy of fools!
D: Ay, with the perspicacity of death this truth becomes increasingly apparent-
W: Duchess-
D: Viv, pipe down for a second. It is impossible to teach oneself the lessons of life, just as it is impossible to imagine a state of increased wisdom, for personal growth is reliant on observation and the re-evaluation of the self in new contexts. Do not forget that society is made up of individuals. Will not you concede that all are part of this insoluble continuous “development” – in a living and growing organism at one with the fools, our personal reinventions contributing to a common reality, and thus a common ideal for further reinventions? We are together with our environment an inextricable mess of influence, adaptations and ideals, tumbling in an infinitely futile torus of perceived survival. Progression is an illusion, my love.
W: What do you propose should happen otherwise?
D: The making of merry! And also, the helping of those who are in desperate need of the basics in order to survive.
W: Thankyou for coming, Duchess of Death.
*The Duchess of Death disappears into the ether, with the distant clanking of chains*

>>>>>>>

my journo name is Vivienne Winter. and i'm pretty sure that, at the time, i imagined the duchess of death to look something like this. but i (severely) digress. the seance. now, i know that i wasn't moving the glass, and i know that neither my mum or meg would have either (both of them being super hippies). so, now that we know that spirits are real etc, i'm planning on doing an exorcism to rid myself of the demon of future-confusion. volunteers to help and/or participate? you will be given a choice of robe!

here sometimes

more really nice black and white photography by John Battaglia.

"So long as your mind falls for life then life will fall for you"

Today, I tracked down the lyrics to Penny Sparkle (new Blonde Redhead album which I’d been previously disappointed with) and consciously followed the words while listening to the music. The album finally made sense, I really felt what was going on, and now I’m sure it’s one of their best. 23 was a huge musical jump to shoegazery mournful sexiness; Penny Sparkle is jump from that to restrained, ambient mournful sexiness. Musical intensity of mood is peeled back, allowing the lyrics to take on greater responsibility, with the result being a highly affecting synthesis between lyrical meaning and sound. Ambient music is characteristically repetitive, but the effect of this throughout the album is to create the sense of a resigned, imprisoned melancholy. Love Or Prison is a good example. The lines “is this love or prison/ is this love or prison/ this is love” are repeated for the last third of the song, with the final line being “this is love”. That she settles on “this is love” could perhaps be interpreted optimistically. However, the prolonged repetition creates an uncertainty, whereby it’s implied that the question will be asked again (also suggested by the line “I ask you again”). The fact that the song begins and ends with (or is contained by) a sparse electronic metronome reiterates these themes of entrapment and stasis; while vocal tone is also pretty pessimistic. The question “is this love or prison” itself constructs an interesting binary; a prison is evoked, and yet we’re told “this is love” as opposed to prison. The contrast here seems to lead to the idea that that (this) love is a prison, which is also signaled through the repeated line “in your love”. In other words, inside your love prison. A subtle and interesting twist on the cliché of being “in love”.
I had a different kind of response to the lyrics in "My Plants Are Dead". For all the talk about the positioning of the implied reader, I’ve never thought about or heard any mention of the positioning of the implied listener. The questions to an unidentified listener in the first verse of My Plants Are Dead are unanswered, the lines are fragmented and create the feeling of listening to half of a phone conversation; Kazu’s half. The use of second person positions the listener as the unheard other side of the conversation. Maybe. Right? I’m interested to find more written about this, all I could find from a brief search was this paper on the positioning of the listener in relation to the use of female orgasm sounds in pop music. Uni of Sydney kids (U-Kydneys?) can read it at JSTOR.

And here is an excerpt:

“In all of these songs there is an ambiguity of address: Is the listener being asked to identify with whoever is satisfying the vocalizing woman, or is the listener an outside eavesdropper (the aural equivalent of a voyeur) who "gets off" on the very sound of her voice?5 Assuming that the ideal listening subject for female orgasm sounds (from the music industry's point of view) is almost certainly male, what happens-as it often must-when the listener is a woman? How does this reorganize the chain of signification? Given a dominant heterosexist perspective, do the cooing sounds of female sexual pleasure serve as a normative model for the "correct" female response to sexual stimulation? Are these sounds part of a disciplinary framework in which supposedly "free" sex vocalizations are ideologically instituted as the acceptable sound of stimulation? Is this a tyranny of ecstasy, teaching women how to sound and men what to try to make women sound like?
The explicit sex sounds used in popular music are clearly often a direct genre reference to mainstream cinematic and videographic pornography. In these forms, the soundtrack during sex scenes will typically relate to the actions that are visually depicted in only the most general way; thus, synchronization is not used as a verification of the "actuality" of the scene. Postsynchronized groans and moans function more as an additional stimulant than as an effet du reel. Naturally, this brings us back to issues of "evidence." As Williams says:

When characters talk their lips often fail to match the sounds spoken, and in the sexual numbers a dubbed-over "disembodied" female voice (saying "oooh" and aaah") may stand as the most prominent signifier of female pleasure in the absence of other, more visual assurances. Sounds of pleasure [...] seem almost to flout the realist function of anchoring body to image, halfway becoming aural fetishes of the female pleasures we cannot see. (I989:I22-23)

Since these female voices in porn film and video are already disembodied from their visual referent, they make a fitting item for purely aural production. Devoid of the usual realist evidentiary role, female sex sounds are free to be used in highly stylized and seemingly antirealist settings. For instance, the samplings of female sex sounds are used in some forms of postdisco dance music in a compulsive-repetitive way. In these contexts, the very same sex sound may be repeated ad infinitum. Though on the surface this appears to be completely nonrealist (as are all mechanistic uses of sample loops and repetitions), at base it still carries deep, "real" connotations about female sexuality. When sampled in this way, these women's voices are hyperrepresentations of female sexuality as out-of-control and excessive. As we have noted, the male orgasm is culturally constructed as terminal and limited, while female sexual pleasure is seen as infinitely renewable and multiple. Like the female orgasm, the technology of sampling is not subject to the generational "exhaustion" of analog technology, but digitally replicates and proliferates the original text. As infinitely repeatable and renewable resources, women's orgasm sounds are thus the perfect item for digital sampling, epitomizing the ecstasy of communication.”

Overall it’s an interesting read, posing more questions than providing answers. I’ve been also seriously interested in porno-criticism (I don’t know if there’s a better term for this – I haven’t encountered much of a literature, but one would presume there is one lurking somewhere and committing all manners of wank) lately, particularly in regard to self-referential porn. In porn, the woman will generally stare into the camera, positioning the viewer as sexual partner. Right, easy. But apart from the effect of positioning the viewer in the scene, is there anything else being achieved? On some basic level, the recognition of the camera must be a reminder of both the constructed intimacy between characters/ people engaged in sex-acts on camera and the constructed intimacy between the woman and the viewer. Yet then there’s an immediate irony that there is both a real sexual engagement in the video and also a real sexual engagement for the viewer (this is presumed). What is the relationship between pornstars and viewers? Could you say it’s intimate? Perhaps, but then somehow this pretend intimacy also draws attention to distance/ absence. Can we talk about porn as being postmodern? Can we talk about characters and narrative in porn in a critical way? What about videos which make explicit reference to the viewer? Or videos that explicitly expose their constructedness through such things as the appearance of cameras and sound equipment on set? Is porn defined by content (in which case, what happens in cases like Crash, where pornographic acts are used stylistically or as a trope?), or by function (in which case, should otherwise “postmodern” techniques be disregarded as meaningful in the face of a more obvious directorial intent)? Can we talk about directorial intent, and can we view porn videos as texts open to this kind of (multiple) interpretation, the same as we do with Everything Else? Is there porn which explores these ideas, or would it then cease to be porn? What is the effect of all of this on how we think about sex and human relationships, how we interact with partners in various real and cyber settings, and the notion of "real" vs. "fake" (?) sex? Is there anything important about these questions, or should some taboos be maintained at the expense of cultural insight/ discussion? who knows.

EDIT:
1.links fixed, blogger sucks.
2. also this is the working link to the guy's website whose photos i posted earlier.
3. based on another brief search, it appears there's a "porn studies" course running or once run at the University of Boston, a bunch of really interesting books about all of this, and a performance artist named Joanna Frueh has coined the area of criticism "Fuck Theory". incidentally, this is a neat blog.
4. "The intellectual was rejected and persecuted at the precise moment when the facts became incontrovertible, when it was forbidden to say that the emperor had no clothes." — Michel Foucault

for friends, near and far

we should forever remember
we breathed each other in
these living rooms. we've
dreamed, slept, speculated
on all the couch blankets
during day spoons. we've
worn all my garish jackets,
drunk from all the glasses
and healed our wounds. we've
been we'ved, and not even
latitudinal dissimilarity
could slacken the loom.
if you ever need me to,
i will hug you home. because
i could never forget that
your arms are where i'm from.


sappy. yeah. i fucking love you guys, deal with it! also, it was Risky B who said "hug each other home", and Cas and i were overwhelmed with love for it.

eyes and mouth

we are collapsed and adjacent on a cafe floor, unconsciously engaged in suggestive proxemics. i can't describe exactly my reaction to the intersection of limbs wrists glances world-views pasts, but there's some comfort in the thought that at least we still have a spatial relationship. i'd almost forgotten what you looked like from here. your eyes eyes eyes eyes eyes mouth mouth mouth mouth jump out like in a dream or a word cloud; white on black verdana monsters of femenine attraction loom over and around the smaller clusters of doc martens summer strolls the arcade fire existentialism and smoking in parks while we were trashed smashed ripped, up all night tandem riding flying foxes and waiting impatiently for a vacancy on the gravity-powered spinning disc that was perpetually beset with heterosexual adolescents obviously lacking homes of their own in which to heavily pet. although, we were almost just as bad. our ratio of appreciation of playgrounds at night to interest in each other's bodies was something like a 40/60 split.

i still think about kissing you, even now, but am hyper-conscious of anachronism. it’s been months since sex picnics holidays lectures breakfasts where you noticed my never matching socks passive aggressivity dad jokes and jewelry making skillz. and i noticed your eyes mouth freckles shoulders photographs calm anarchy and biker calves that always guaranteed you were faster than me. you also had suspension on your front forks, while the chain of my appropriated teenage vehicle had accumulated garage rust – not unlike the unlikely promises we made to the outside world, which sat gathering dust in the recesses of adjourned friendships. we were so caught up with each other back then that everything on the periphery was practically imperceptible.

a guy with an eyebrow piercing black skinny jeans tired eyes and friendly cafe banter comes and takes our cups. you adjust your fringe from left to right justified and talk about uni. it sounds like you've really got it together, these days, with your creative aspirations and graduate attributes. right now i should say, "your graduate attriboots are made for walking." it would probably make you smile, at least. but instead i brood over the fact that somehow while i got high you got a higher education. more paper between us, i think, and brood a little more over the extreme paperiness of the last four years. "you’ll get your degree eventually," you say, like you can still read my mind, and i’d like to believe it.

we split the bill and walk outside. you walk with me down the street for about fifty metres to the bus stop, past op shops book shops benches hipsters buskers with dreadlocks and a Hare Krishna van. “we should do this again soon,” but we probably won’t. from the rear window of the bus i watch you shrink into the background of King street. the last things to vanish as i turn the corner are your eyes eyes eyes, and mouth.





EDIT: sorry kids who got multiple rss updates of this post, i wanted it to look pretty. blogger previews are NO GOOD.

Around the traps.

How long can I stay here inside
hooked up to this
hydroponic equipment?
The net has turned me into a spy
fat on truth’s
patchwork banquet.
It’s spun so I don’t have to hunt, I just wait
(stories fix everything
in place.)
So I’m sure reality’s probably great,
But you must see why
I’d rather stay here.



poem on how i feel about the internet sometimes.

i'll die young for rock n roll

i just discovered wordle. this is how i'll be sharing/ keeping track of any great music i come across from now on. (yeah, i could write blog posts all day about the things i'm falling in love with right now, but there is a saturation point, and probably not too many people are that interested). basically, i've never had time for reading record reviews. or, it never made sense to me, because it takes the same amount of time to read a review as to find/download and listen to a couple of songs. but wordling cokemachineglow reviews to determine what is essential test-listening? is proving to be an incredibly accurate indicator. and wordle itself has this comfortingly metaphor-y feel. or a timeliness, at least. machines are fantastic, they should be on tv or in the newspapers EVERY DAY, for being amazing.

ok, so, just one final note on new music... if you like The Velvet Underground, (or should some things probably just be assumed?) you should listen to Eternal Summers.

and, in other news, things have been weird lately. adopted this as a mantra:

the world is probably real,
tomorrow will probably happen,
and although inductive
reason is flawed,
you'll probs be fucked if
you don't get things done.

("i need a disciplinariaaan.")

"... For the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving."
— Henri Cartier-Bresson

this guy.










other news:
grove expectations 2 was perfect. perfect.
new sufjan album is lovely.
i have decided to finish my education degree within the next two years but put arts on hold/ finish it part time over the next while, pay back my scholarship and do the world (kris, here is where your voice in my head adds "sexually!") before i do the classroom. feeling great about this right now.

EDIT: oh um, i'm definitely not going to "sexually" do the classroom! for the record.

... and this is the most cheerful thing i've ever seen

if you were a page on facebook i'd like you.

i love this. haven't felt this way since mirah. so... evocative? or maybe i just have a thing about kettle drums/ lesbians. whatevs, those are two pretty good things.

home is wherever i'm with you

so, apparently this song "home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros is pretty well known. i've been listening to the album today, it's pretty well great. driving, folky, somehow neon-bibly. i don't even care that it's a dude singing.
see, i'm trying to listen to a new album a day, read a new book at least every week, see a play at least every month, and write a novel by December 31st. it would be nice to pass my subjects as well. go for goals.

also, here's a poem about clark park (in milson's point).



centrifuge

i watch the day close
from the middle of the universe,
on a park bench.
cat power is singing
bob dylan songs
sweetly into the moment,
as i think old-timey things
and gaze out at the deepening blue.
sailing boats with bows oceanbound
sway impatiently;
a harboured armada of
northshore escapist fantasies
fleet like moments,
'let's go let's go let's go!'
they say,
'you moneyed freaks, let's sail!'
and oh god, you guys,
sometimes i'd die to get out of this
yuppie Sydney flatness,
this naive Ken Done placemat.
but i am tide
and
the curvature of the earth
always brings my head back here
where i can breathe,
love,
watch older lesbians jog
around flowerbeds
and be amazed at how
the shadows of palms behind me
stretch and merge into night.

"crisis is way more interesting than stasis"
- Judith Halberstam

i'm not in crisis, but it's a great quote.
we groved tonight. it's only been three nights away, but it's felt like too long. we told bedtime stories, we spooned, played dress ups, ate cold halava (in reverse order).
i also wrote a joke. this one is for charlie, who scootered* three times around the playground in anticipation of a joke from me only to be sorely disappointed, because i only know that one about the mushroom. y'know, he's a "fun guy". (fungi).
so, for charlie:

what do physicists drink? (dramatic pause). fulcrum milk.

(so educational! (give me a job at this, gillard!))

and right now i'm listening to David John Broughton. sardonic, beautifully melancholic vocal and guitar textures. i am entranced.

goodnight!

* this verb has been unanimously agreed upon.

but here we go into the sun

Krista yesterday said that the morning with her friends had left her feeling the same as how you feel after eating a really nutritious meal. i feel like that more and more, i feel like we are learning something important. although there are noticeable sore absences.

my day has been fairly great. i met up with Sal, had great conversations, briefed the library, read J. S. Harry poetry, listened to this mixtape i bought off two girls in newcastle...

"barrow face mix" tracklist:
A
1. weezer - say it ain't so
2. robert johnson - terraplane blues
3. split enz - one step ahead
4. here we go magic - only pieces
5. the walkmen - hang on siobhan
6. talking heads - psycho killer
7. department of eagles - no one does it like you

B
1. kitty, daisy and lewis - buggin blues
2. edward sharp and the magnetic zeros - home
3. beirut - prenzlauerberg
4. the beach boys - sloop john b
5. the supremes - baby love
6. beyonce - sweet dreams
7. janelle monae - tightrope
8. fallen angels - bad woman
9. robert johnston - when you got a good friend
10. sufjan stevens - happy birthday

then i wrote some stories in the park, and a love letter to all women:

i am crazy about kissing,
because her smile,
inches from mine,
is everywhere.

sat in the sun. visited my grandparents, watched a show on the abc about white people. right now i am listening to Circulatory System, reading this. this is so My Thing it's ridiculous.

"As the term "matrix" means "womb" in Greek, the metaverse in postmodem
cyberpunk fiction is inherently related to creation myths. If "new technologies," as
Marshal McLuhan says, "amputate as much as they amplify," postmodem science fiction
writers use anthropomorphic creation mNths to reunite those dismembered limbs of the
natural body, the human's instinctive transpersonal subconscious."

in related news, i've rediscovered The Internet.

i have the best life. all i do is spend time with people i adore, and it is wonderful. i wish i could write about it. you really have to be here.

so, in lieu of a post about newcastle, these are the sms templates on my phone. are people this lazy?

please call
i'm busy right now. i'll call you later.
thankyou
i am late. i will be there at
i will be arriving at
see you at
see you in
i'm in a meeting, call me later at
meeting is cancelled.
happy birthday
i love you too

man you've been a naughty boy and let your face grow long

i piked early from the grove tonight, ending my sabbatical there this week. when energy levels reach an all time low, resolutions accommodate. bliss is mostly continuous; i feel like i’ve had a four day conversation with god, the most stunning post-adolescent from heaven.
but now i’ve come home to collect my head, hoping there’s no lost fee, hoping that tomorrow i can rip off my night patch without leaving a residue. that rough, red, skin memory. we’ll see.

at the moment, i'm listening to The Beatles. this is the first time i've realised how wonderful they are, and it's making me really miss Mintie.

i wrote another very short story. here it is.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I loved the way her face looked when she was thinking about something she couldn’t understand. I loved it so much that every week I’d give her a new book – Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, A Short History of Time, Ulysses, FLCL and so on. Eventually she understood all of the things I could think to tell her and all of the books I could think to give her. I could see it in her face. I didn’t see that look of curious wonder for six whole months, until, finally, there it was again. She was on the phone to someone, laughing, wondering. It was then that I had to let them be together. She didn’t understand him, ever. I have the photos to prove it, we still send cards at Christmas.

lifecoach to lifecoach:
"should i stay a lifecoach?"

- greg.

Revolution no. 9

You said unless I could get into common time I could not come with you to the revolution. I said I’ll move to the rhythm of the revolution, only. You said I’d fall over in the streets if I didn’t move with you, as we duck and weave through the predictable progressions and poke our heads up for those surprising refrains. But, I said, everyone is ducking and weaving, there’s no order there. They carry different colours, shout at different pitches, write their own obituaries for that moribund political system, yelling ‘ha!’. And in the end I didn’t come with you. Because I can’t help but relish chaos. Because I am a revolution tourist. Because I do performance studies, and maybe I’d write an essay about the theatrics of the coup, and that is not the kind of thinking we need at this crucial juncture, Bron.
But mainly because I’m just really into ambient noise right now.





notes:

1. that story is inspired by cas. "ambient noise!".


2. i'd also like to quickly remind everyone of that song sexual revolution by macy gray. it's amazingly great.

"I'm so funkin' beautiful
especially when I take my clothes off
I'm so funkin' beautiful
especially when I take my clothes off

sexual revolution

got to do them before I die
got to do them before I die"

Enjoy.

I am lacking
Ambition.
I am lacking
My capitalist fist;
These palms are skyward
Like handsets for reception.
I am shapeless,
Wandering, pondering
Plundering
Naively,
Squandering privileges
In the city of villages;
The town of iniquity,
Drunks,
And fun times.
I spend my days
Into debt.
I laugh at luck,
I flip a double headed coin.
People-collages and reckless joy
Defy my endless limerick schedules;
Five line dot point yearnings for a life
More structured
And simple.
Oh my days,
Have I transcended the stress already?
Or did I learn to live
Off a coke ad?





Sometimes i worry that we're all trapped in it, no matter the mountains we climb.
/end pessimism.

lesbians.
better than equestrian,
better than the Ganges.



had two fucking great days, yesterday and today. i was still running on barely any sleep yesterday, yet for some reason i was in the best mood. has something to do with:
- running into a friend i haven't seen in 10 years, outside my house
- getting 15% of special education out of the way
- discussing john forbes' poetry in my tut, meeting an amazing girl and continuing the poetry/books/Brooks talk all the way up eastern avenue only to then discover that she is Clemmy, the famous ex-neighbour to the Grove.
- following Andy to vegsoc
- meeting Sita, whose parents own Govindas, finding out she is in 3rd year education and knows a bunch of my friends
- meeting Erin, and talking with her about veganism, the Hare Krishna stance on homosexuality, etc
- meeting Amy, a familiar firstyeartutes face, talking with her about the environment, her campaign for SRC and gender studies for a while
- finally meeting MIM, the famous friend of the Grove AND my ex-house in Enmore
then..

sad woman on the bus opposite me, cradling a 20cm high buddha statue. i tried to vibe to her, i was in this amazing mood and wanting everyone else in the world to be in it with me as well. because: being alive, and on a bus, and buddha statues, and sunlight, and oxygen. amirite? she muttered something about eye-contact and fuck so i left her alone, a little saddened. a woman two seats behind me smiled at me. strangely knowing, unexpectedly warm. later, a mother and her 8month year old daughter were sitting in the sad womans seat. the baby's whole face was stretched out, smiling at someone sitting in the unexpectedly smiling lady's old seat. a man next to me made a comment about it, they all started talking, i joined in, we all said goodbye, i went to work. people are the best people.

THEN.
- seeing the Balmain kids
- eating Sam's home made dumplings, getting high, drinking imported birthday beers
- adventuring to the Imperial Hotel, seeing the end of a band that weren't the band we went to see, but actually the band of some friends from my Dad's work
- getting more high
- sleeping


and todayyyy i had shortlist/ladyguyguy time with Andy and Cas, my ladyguys, my boyfriend/girlfriends whom i can never date but feel as though i must, in order to express to the world my adoration for them in some form it will recognise. MixSoc IGM, vegsoc, then clipper with Frankie and Holly, cigarettes and coffee and water, conversations, ridiculousness; anniversary adiversary, adderversity (snakes in mortar boards), adders and ladders. brekekekeks.

and then Austrian couchsurfers, Eva and Anna, arrived in the evening. pretty amazing.

the babe with the power (what power?)

five hours sleep in three days. five minute dinners: a capsicum like an apple or chickpeas from a mug. cigarettes for breakfast, my mouth tastes a fireplace. all my time spent facebook guitar mixtapes work blog writing, everything but essays.
there is not enough time, there is no time. and oh god when i think about it i just want to give up this game and skydive in greenland.

at the beginning, i thought i had this year.

The Scene

Anxious club-eyes,
Dance with me,
You behave so
Heterosexually
Smiling, writhing
Drunkenly,
Oh baby how I want your
Docile body

We could get married,
We could get mortgaged
I have names
For our three kids.
Won’t you let me caress
Your soft hope chest,
Oh how I love your
Docile body





so maybe i read some Foucault.

"i stayed up all night to get tickets, then i slept through the show."

cas and i decided that this is THE story of my life. (actually).

I'm the scatman

Ski bi di bi di do bap do
Do bam do

Bada bwi ba ba bada bo
Baba ba da bo
Bwi ba ba ba do [x2]

(More Scatting)

Everybody stutters one way or the other
So check out my message to you
As a matter of fact
Don't let nothing hold you back
If the scatman can do it
So can you
Everybody says that the scatman stutters
But doesn't ever stutters when he sings
But what you don't know
I'm gonna tell you right now
That the stutter and the scat is the same thing
Yo, I'm the scat man
Where's the scat man? I'm the scat man.

Why should we be pleasing any politician heathens who would
Try to change the seasons if they could
The state of the condition
Insults my institution
And it only makes me crazy and my heart like wood

Everybody stutters one way or the other
So check out my message to you
As a matter of fact
Don't let nothing hold you back
If the scatman can do it, brother
So can you, I'm the scat man.

Bada bwi ba ba bada bo
Baba ba da bo
Bwi ba ba ba do [x2]

Ski bi di bi di do bap do
Do bam do [x3]

Everybody stutters one day or the other
So check out my message to you
As a matter of fact
Don't let nothing hold you back
If the scatman can do it
So can you

I hear you ask all about the meaning of scat
Well I'm the professor and all I can tell you
Is while you're still sleeping
The saints are still weeping
'Cause things you call dead haven't yet had the chance to be born
I'm the scatman


I'm the scatman

Ski bi di bi di do bap do
Do bam do

Bada bwi ba ba bada bo

Baba ba da bo
Bwi ba ba ba do [x2]

(More Scatting)

Bada bwi ba ba bada bo
Baba ba da bo
Bwi ba ba ba do [x2]

Ski bi di bi di do bap do
Do bam do [x3]

Yeah! I'm the scatman.

(Scats)

Where's The Scatman?

(Scats)

I'm the scatman

Repeat after me
It's a scoobie oobie doobie scoobie doobie melody

I'm the Scatman.

Sing along with me
It's a scoobie oobie doobie scoobie doobie melody

Yeah!

I'm the scatman [x2 Mixed with scats in background]






WHAT.

"we bet you just can't wait to catch this highly anticipated big-screen lesbian kiss"


grove expectations (poetry night) at cas's last night. got there early after zero hours of sleep the night before, boltanski'd her bannister and drank some mulled wine. that place is so warming, our world in there is beautiful. kind of like my new wife, megan washington (i may have watched her videos and died of love, a little). these things make me miss jen.

we read some poetry, in a special reading chair. spotlight and all, with an isosceles fairylight crown. i read one by this guy, and also read an old one of mine. i've had this other poem lurking around for ages, i thought about reading it, didn't. this is it:

we woke up in the park last week,
leaves in my hair, grass on my cheek.
searching for bruises i felt should be there,
i was cursing my body for failing to bear

our purple indiscretions in flesh

so that others might notice, make mention
of these marks, and of this embodied tension,
discuss and speculate on our night's lesson
(that somehow never lessened the question;

is it actually me you want?)

but i won't tell if you won't, it's just us
and yeah, you're right, it's just lust.
it's just cost trust and lost love,
we both got drunk and forgot who i was

so you should know that i don't blame you

but can you just
admit that it's
fucked.


m, i don't know, there's still a fifteen year old emoet in there.

also, later, poems from this guy:

... and others.

things have been strange of late,
i'm burning through the weeks.
though last night was a fantastic reminder that i can do things. sometimes, i feel as though we have such incredibly important fun. it is perfect and essential.

have i ever told you that i love you?

so, ALSO, things are ok, on the whole. for me. although, almost everything is spectacularly unfathomable to me these days; i am way too distracted by life-detail. ah i'd like to have you all over here in my head some time, whenever you forget that pine nuts and batteries are incomprehensibly miraculous.
mostly, today, girls amaze me.

working on the music for tomorrow night. it's going to be seriously AMAZING.

I want to make this bumper sticker:

Why are you
letting these people
run your world?


I’ve always had trouble separating the personal from the political, the outside. Because I do, more often than not, believe that this reality is probably pretty small. About my size. But in the end it doesn’t matter, because some of the people in my reality are making my reality hell. They are running my world, political and personal.

Teenage Feelings


1. Fear

I get scared of famous people

The same way as I get scared
of hell;

When I’m worried it’s real.


2. Love

We chose who we’d die for
When each breath
was need.

And it took a year,
Darling

But they watched your terry cloth mouth
Swallow death
and me.



Teenage Dreams

There are things I want to tell you:

Everything about you is sexy,

And in my American teen dream
We get together at prom.

(Please remember this
as a role play possibility
if we get married.)

This is a 90s rap about belonging.

I always slept for the same amount of time,
because before that I never slept at all.
My parents said I had to lie in bed
And catch the sleeps as they fall.

A sleep is like a sheep but asleep,
and if I didn’t catch them they would... surely die!
But when the sun came up then the sleeps would speak,
“We’re all saved now, goodbye!”

When I told kids at school they just laughed at me,
only a fool would believe that tale about sleep!
You gotta keep yo head to the ground, homie,
You gotta keep yo head to the grouuuund

So it was the 90s, these guys said homie, whatever,
We all said things that now sound less than clever.
I just wanted to feel like a part of the group,
So me and my new homies stayed up the night through.

The next night in bed I dreamed of the cliff
But there were no sleeps there, and I keep thinking if
There was no one to save them, they’re all dead and gone
I’ll never be forgiven for the murder I’ve done

I just wanted to belong,
I just wanted to belong.

games

i still remember your tall corduroy walk
your yawning laughs at after thoughts
god if you'd only wear your acid wash
we could go back to where we left off

because in the meantime, i am worn out by non-love. threadbare, a little, stripped. and probably still willfully nihilistic, because it means there's less to get over.

but oh, her.
with perfect teeth and torso
quick wit attractive more so.

i simply must
forget her magazine's made honest, forward,
and my tyrant heart's made chased and awkward

yet i'm so unappealed by the un-games that last night i dreamed we were the last two living. killer machines were on our cavestep, but you were enigmatically aloof. i rolled you a cigarette and we watched TV nervously outdoors, you loved me but you wouldn't ever show it. oh wow, aloof dream shorty, you looked like marion cotillard.
that CHEST.
what incredible sexy fun!

I
Just
Want
To draw
You
To draw
You
Out
To draw
You
Out
Of this
Sick
Dream.

beast bees, bead lords, sweet cakes, maste lakes, O ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma

raaa. why can i not just... DO things. i feel like withdrawing from the world for a long long time. i feel like painting. i feel like screaming. i feel like six weeks is an eternity. i feel like all i eat is bread. i feel like a failure when i procrastinate. i feel like i've been here before. i feel like getting drunk, all the time.
i am in love with dan deacon.

and now. this is something i wrote for class.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“You do not have a visa.”
Who was this person, saying this most strange, ridiculous thing at me? Do I really need a visa to get from Central to Strathfield?
Let’s get some context happening. I’m on the train to work. Just an average, graffiti encrusted – no, you know what, I shouldn’t say encrusted, because that has somewhat of a negative connotation to it, something about the “crust” part, crusts get such a tough break, and to be honest I really quite like a lot of graffiti and of course I get that it’s territorial and anarchic and maybe even post-colonial and we’ve all seen that picture of the guy throwing a bunch of flowers like it’s a grenade, so let’s go back for a second – graffiti covered carriage, and a graffiti covered girl strides up to me while I’m in the process of lazing. One leg stretched out on the seat in front of me and one leg bent. If you picture that properly, I’m sitting exactly how the sign in front of me pictures I properly shouldn’t. I’m not sitting like this to be inconsiderate but because it’s seriously all kinds of uncomfortable to ride public transport and not pretend to be the coolest person in the world: I’m too cool for you to talk to me. Way to cool for you. Ok. And you’re too cool for me as well with your pretty white headphones, I can hear your Bad Romance and your Tales of Brave Ulysses and, well, right now I can’t top that because I’ve been recently into psy-trance so hard that I don’t care if no one else understands but the point is that at the very least we can wordlessly acknowlegde that we’re both much too cool for the remote prospect of an interaction to occur.
Now, I’m exceptionally lazed. Legs out like I already mentioned, shoulders slouched, arms poised at the very freest most heightened moment of an outward flail. Perfection. But here comes this girl, walking toward me, calling my cool bluff, and she’s speaking nonsense about visas.
“What do you mean I don’t have a visa.” I’m actually trying not to talk to her like she’s crazy, because despite all evidence heretofore produced, she’s wearing some pretty cute black and white striped boots and there’s a sparkle in her eye and I just don’t find that those two things corroborate the crazy-girl hypothesis. Perhaps that’s a ridiculous naïvety.
“I mean, you need a visa to move anywhere. Permission to go places, permission to leave this one. I’m the inspecting officer, I’ll be assessing your situation and I’ll only be taking reasonable bribes. I quite like your hat.”
“Thanks, so do I,” I mutter, suspicious.
“Hmm. How insolent. I think it’s best you come with me,” she says with a grin, clasping my arm like a mother clasps her child in a crowd. She’s talking too fast for me to get in any words of protest, dragging me through carriage after carriage. Other passengers stare at us, drawn out of their morning commuter coma as the girl’s speech gets louder and more excited.
“I know that you’re pretending like you didn’t expect something like this to happen. But I’ve seen you catch this train every day at the same time, and then eight hours later you get back on this same train, and you read a book and you laze with your feet up, and did you know that it was the same train? Because it is, we never leave. And now, you might think that I’m jumping to conclusions about you, but trust me, I have an eye for these kinds of things, and you’re definitely someone who doesn’t really want to move anywhere in particular. I mean, you’re quite comfortable doing the exact same thing every day, so of course you were going to encounter us at some point-”
“What do you mean I don’t want to move, I just have a job, that’s all. And I go to it every day, that’s normal-”
“Ok, sure, sure, it’s you’re job, fine. But what’s with your face? Your face is so bored, man, all the time. I’ve seen that face a lot on you, and you don’t do anything about it. But, oh, oh no, look, don’t think I’m being critical or anything, who wants to move anywhere, really? Who would do anything, or change anything if they didn’t have to? I just thought perhaps you might like to see what it can be like to live in a place where absolutely no one ever moves anywhere. Because it just might be your thing.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

it's not finished.

nun more habits

so i stayed up until 6am last night with ben, watching movies and drinking etc. rewatched being john malkovich and american beauty, my two favourite films. meanwhile, the rain outside looked quite amazing, like glass, at once shattered and liquid. we talked about how i'm actually quitting smoking. this "quitting" involves allowing myself to smoke a pipe and bum cigarettes off others if they offer. we stood on the stoop, there were cigarettes burning and it was a beautiful moment. i mentioned to ben how incredible it would be if i restricted myself to only smoking in such moments. eventually, having a cigarette would become the signature of a perfect feeling. others would soon come to realise this, and then, if ever they saw me lighting a cigarette, they'd have instant knowledge of my happiness, and maybe feel pretty awesome about being a part of it. they would be amazed! and touched, and i would feed off their glad and they would feed off mine, our glads would feed each other and grow greater, so that eventually any cancer in my body could be interpreted as a bodily metaphor for our happiness. at some point however, my actions would become disingenuous. of course, i would become addicted to the reactions of others, and so begin to smoke in situations that were not quite perfect, just to sneak a peek at some tender glads. and then i would smoke in situations that were far from perfect. and finally, i would smoke in terrible situations, as a trick, to rescue someone from pain. someone that i wanted to love. later, my love would realise my fraud, and be horrified. and i'd have nothing to save them with.

ben said it was a pretty nice idea.

oh wow, so i had a late night conversation on msn yesterday. do you all remember the msn? there are things in life that make me reflect on the progress of my existence thus far, and rediscovering the primary source of social procrastination from my halcion days (yes, fairly convinced they've already happened) is one of them. where did three and a half years of my life go? they've disappeared lyk unecessary vowels in the abbreviated expression of life's MEANING. maybe i've just had a couple of beers and a philosophical talk with our couchsurfer and i'm in an overly contrived frame of thinking.
it's strange. i don't know if i still believe the things that i always seem to say in conversations about life x happiness. but at least it's nice to know that i can still articulate my old thoughts with a decent level of conviction. i feel like my face is believable when i talk about the extreme/sole importance of the present, but i really wonder what it would be like to have a conversation with myself at 18. who would be stronger? it's time for another seance in search of what's dead of me, obviously. and a metaphorical wrestling match/ wet t-shirt competition. alllriiight.
also i'm going to do an intensely truncated montage of the past six months, because this blog used to reflect certain exciting aspects of my life and these days it really doesn't.
in the last six months i.
quit my job in a silent rage. in the surveillance tapes i destroy a madeira cake.
went hiking for six days and ate almost nothing but almonds and cashews. drank from a waterfall. felt alive and refreshed, glowing, excited. sat inside the colour green, white thoughts falling out of tree-tops onto my book, my diary, my orange raincoat. wrote nothing, because i felt it instead.
had a fling with a beautiful girl. had a sort-of-serious with another. avoided the word love but did that stupid thing with my hand over my heart and we both got embarassed at how clear the meaning of some cliches can be.
swam in a lake. swam in a gorge. painted walls, got drunk, home-brew alchoholic ginger beer, bicycle rides through launceston, political talks with the lights low because we're saving energy. and electricity is basically a mood-killer.
cuddled a python.
mardi-gras. WOW.
volunteered at the folk festival. yoga in the mornings, music in the daytimes, bottle-soccer and songs in the night time. played spice girls covers with jen on a caravan/stage to twenty people. met a douchebag and jammed with his nice friends. played a dulcimer. hurdy gurdy band in the chai tent.
ecstasy, acid, salvia, pot, mushrooms, cactus?
tree planting, crystal bowl healing, the holy mountain, a girl named nary gave me a massage to psytrance and shook out my soul. fire-twirled for the first time without having non-fire twirled. entrancing, noun and verb. bottle of red wine in my red pocket. held the night under my tongue. dead moths everywhere, or clinging to gigantic pulsating trance socks. mark, louise! wtf? sat in front of fires/sunrises, ate a bullrush and a witchety grub.
met a guy who taught me to swing poi, he plays the santur.
played my violin in front of people, anarchists.
made a zine. made paper. started writing and drawing again. had a party, contributed to a time-travel antonio banderas jonny depp slashfic. egyptian lotus wine.
started hanging out with a bunch of really amazing people in my degree.
hosted ben, a fairly awesome guy.

there are other things. but whatever.

in the next six months i will:
start going to life drawing at the hutch. make another zine. busk more.
start working on my essay.