Rainsoaked and wracked with freezings chills I diverted my path home to secure my tenth cup of Paper Cup coffee knowing that it would ease more than my saturated shivers but I was a little wrong. The new barista, under the watchful eye of the Scottish man who has perfected the art of coffee making, made my usual coffee. I clutched the cup carefully under the shelter of my umbrella as I walked home. The fury of the rain making it impossible to do anything but chart a careful course and hope to avoid being wrecked against a fence or parked car.
I took my first sip in the shelter of The Peach, it was disappointing, the milk had been scalded, not burnt but definitely scalded and this got me to thinking about maths. I am sure there must be some kind of mathematical theory about the tenth one of something being different, why else would metric have invented itself?
Then I got to thinking about things in tens and it occurred to me that if every tenth coffee was sub par it was part of a larger plan to highlight the perfection of the other nine cups of coffee. Like the idea of good needing evil or light needing dark. Then it occurred to me that this was just like 'The House of Cosby's', but in reverse. If every tenth cloned Cosby has superpowers that can save the earth then the other, the in-between Cosbys, are worth making. So it is with Paper Cup coffee, every tenth coffee might be flawed and listless on the tongue but it is worth drinking for the sake of the in-between coffees, the ones that have the superpower of making me feel good to be on this earth. If you think about it mathematically that's a pretty good equation, especially if you have a loyalty card that makes every tenth coffee come for free. Maths and logic, saving the day, for once.
Nor breath nor motion
I can't remember how it all goes.
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Upon a painted ocean.
But I don't suppose it matters. The venue for yesterday's horrifically frightening job interview had those words painted across the office walls and I keep wondering why. Was it just because it mentioned ships? They have something of a maritime streak running through their core business. It was one of those frightening interviews, a full panel, them loaded with tea cups and reference papers, me on an armchair feeling marooned and a little at sea. It was neither bad nor good. I could have been better but there is always in everything room for improvement. My hours of preparation seemed to leave me unprepared, I had not correctly guessed at what they might ask, nor why. There was the one obligatory 'what attracted you to apply for this role' question which I was prepared for but at the last moment discarded my rehearsed answer and went in a peculiar direction. It felt like neither a bad nor good idea. It is notoriously difficult to judge the outcome of these kinds of things. They informed me it will be several weeks before they have a final answer and I discover whether or not I shall be obliged to pass under Coleridge's haunting words each morning.
I walked hunched and freezing from the interview, down by the waterside to the long and ancient wharf where Grizelda works. I was dodging hale like bullets, throwing up a wake of water with my heels. I was aiming like an arrow towards a place where I was already known, where I didn't have to attempt to explain and re-explain my whole being in three sentences or less at four minute intervals. I sat on the curiously placed lounges in Grizelda's workplace and whiled away half an hour talking amongst her colleagues. Nothing of any importance was said but it was almost enough to reset me back into being, just sitting in a place where people know my name.
Today I have neither breath nor motion. I made my tea with knots of rope, dropped sails down the mast to fashion into dresses. It is difficult to determine if I am sleeping or awake. But is not unpleasant. I am here inside The Peach warm and dry in drastic contrast to yesterday's encounter with the elements. When I arrived home I hauled off my boots and tipped out genuine puddles of water, I peeled off three layers of saturated clothes and spent ten minutes under the hot jet of the shower before I began to feel any kind of warm at all. I'm beginning to wonder if these elemental trials of woman versus nature are an ordinary part of the job seeking process.
Important points to remember not to mention at tomorrow's frightening job interview
- My imaginary submarine.
- Obsessive recurring thoughts about discovering Antarctica.
- Tendency to attempt to calculate my longitude by chronometer when seated at cafes.
- Voyages on my imaginary submarine.
- That summer I spent snorkelling in an inland swimming hole.
- Being frightened by the idea of falling off the continental shelf.
- Design plans for the unitard uniforms on my imaginary submarine.
- Spooking like startled a horse every time I see a fish whilst snorkelling.
- My drawings of a diving helmet for my cat.
- My fervent wish to attach a mast to the roof of The Peach and be the first person to sail a house to the supermarket and back again.
- That time I dove into the midnight ocean yelling, 'don't worry I'll be fine but if I'm not just tell my mother I was taken by the sea'.
- The two litre plastic bottle full of sea water I keep under the sink in case of ocean-needing emergency or similar.
- That I wrote a list of points to remember not to mention.
Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues or yet another inexact album review
Most songs on Helplessness Blues sway like trees bending before a gathering storm. There is an elegantly organic sense of momentum and meaning conveyed within the earnest and open harmonies and bare and urgent strumming of acoustic guitars.
All of the expected noises are present, you already know what Fleet Foxes sounds like, and it is comforting to hear the same sound grown into new and more reaching songs. Some are saying the arrangements are more ambitious, maybe they are, but it is safe to ignore those kinds of thoughts and just press play.
I adore the echoey drum sound that plonks through the whole album like an asthmatic child running after his friends. And of course the harmonies, and melodies that surge and retreat like waves. But what I’m really loving right about now is an unexpected existential strangled trumpet freak out. I like those but don’t worry there is only one on the whole album and it doesn’t interfere with the gentle posturing of the album as a whole.
You might need to put on your earnestness hat to properly listen to Helplessness Blues, it will help. It is also best to leave a respectable distance between you and your speakers when you are playing this album. If you sit too close you’ll be listening wrong. This album requires space, distance and a kind of pottering activity to be heard at its best. I suggest tidying the kitchen and then baking a cake, with love.
People keep mentioning the beautiful lyrics on this album but so far I have allowed the sound to wash around unsullied by literary critique. That is a rare and important gift. The only other album I listen to like that is Unhalfbricking by Fairport Convention, which led me to miss the point entirely on most of the songs but I don’t really mind. Sometimes an album is just for listening to and its best to bow down and be grateful for the invention of sound.
Every seven years I forget that I am an idiot and require reminding
Unfortunately I was reading through some of my old journals last night. It seems clear that people who burn their journals once they are full are more sensible than me. Apart from rediscovering that I am an idiot across all the years, aspects and facets of my life I found one interesting entry.
Some years ago now I wrote constantly about longing for a correspondence with someone, someone who would read all the letters I could write, one a day, two a day, three a day but never write back, not ever. I longed for somewhere to send letters where they might be read, where I might at least in part be understood, a one way dream absorber so that I could empty my head. If only I had known about blogs I might not have filled so many pages about trying to send letters to nowhere.
I suppose that's all this blog is really, a letter to nowhere.
Some years ago now I wrote constantly about longing for a correspondence with someone, someone who would read all the letters I could write, one a day, two a day, three a day but never write back, not ever. I longed for somewhere to send letters where they might be read, where I might at least in part be understood, a one way dream absorber so that I could empty my head. If only I had known about blogs I might not have filled so many pages about trying to send letters to nowhere.
I suppose that's all this blog is really, a letter to nowhere.
An intimate festival in Sydney's Town Hall
I heard him begin to cough from across the aisle, the air rose within him like a great tide and then stopped. I heard him again begin a cough but the air rushed neither in nor out. I turned my head to find him in the dark hall. He stood in shock and emitted a muffled bark. Stood like a marionette raised on strings. He reeled then, first forwards then backwards while his legs wound around each making nonsensical patterns on the old floor.
I sat in silence, willing the breath either in or out of him but he did not breathe, he fell like a rag doll against my legs. His feet were still winding about, walking imaginary steps, he clutched a plastic water bottle to his chest while I held him upright in my arms. The warmth of him through his jumper, through my jeans, took me by surprise as though I had bent down to hold a stuffed bear and found myself with a mewling infant instead. The heat coming through his clothes, the winding feet, the never-ending struggle for breath, this man was desperately alive.
My friend Lawless flew out of her seat and down the side aisle of the hall, the ease of her steps incredible in their contrast to the warm flailing man in my arms. My focus on the man was so intense I had already forgotten the easy slide from one breath to another, the possibility of flight on foot, the possibility of anything but sinking out of existence in an agonising waltz.
I did not raise my eyes but if I had I would have witnessed the silent stare of the pipe organ's great mechanical lungs capable of causing a state of reverie with each breath. This is when I wanted to run, my only thought to make it up to the eyrie and pull out all the stops, cause the organ to breathe with mighty force, pull the air up and out of this man's lungs and out through the screaming pipes so he could live. But I sat with my hands flat against his rigid back feeling the heat of him increase with his struggle. And then they swooped, his friends calling, 'Geoff Geoff are you alright!' and the officials from the town hall and then the people in seats around us.
He was stood up and half-dragged to the back of the hall, clutching at his plastic water bottle, where the medical staff Lawless had magicked out of the air would do something, what I am not sure, to unstop his one crucial air pipe and set his lungs back into regular unthinking motion. I sat back silently in my chair and realised the speakers on the panel had not even paused, Lawless returned to her seat and so the evening carried on under the silent watch of the grand pipe organ whose powers of breath and life remain untested.
I sat in silence, willing the breath either in or out of him but he did not breathe, he fell like a rag doll against my legs. His feet were still winding about, walking imaginary steps, he clutched a plastic water bottle to his chest while I held him upright in my arms. The warmth of him through his jumper, through my jeans, took me by surprise as though I had bent down to hold a stuffed bear and found myself with a mewling infant instead. The heat coming through his clothes, the winding feet, the never-ending struggle for breath, this man was desperately alive.
My friend Lawless flew out of her seat and down the side aisle of the hall, the ease of her steps incredible in their contrast to the warm flailing man in my arms. My focus on the man was so intense I had already forgotten the easy slide from one breath to another, the possibility of flight on foot, the possibility of anything but sinking out of existence in an agonising waltz.
I did not raise my eyes but if I had I would have witnessed the silent stare of the pipe organ's great mechanical lungs capable of causing a state of reverie with each breath. This is when I wanted to run, my only thought to make it up to the eyrie and pull out all the stops, cause the organ to breathe with mighty force, pull the air up and out of this man's lungs and out through the screaming pipes so he could live. But I sat with my hands flat against his rigid back feeling the heat of him increase with his struggle. And then they swooped, his friends calling, 'Geoff Geoff are you alright!' and the officials from the town hall and then the people in seats around us.
He was stood up and half-dragged to the back of the hall, clutching at his plastic water bottle, where the medical staff Lawless had magicked out of the air would do something, what I am not sure, to unstop his one crucial air pipe and set his lungs back into regular unthinking motion. I sat back silently in my chair and realised the speakers on the panel had not even paused, Lawless returned to her seat and so the evening carried on under the silent watch of the grand pipe organ whose powers of breath and life remain untested.
Interesting and new
I've heard people say they have been so frustrated they wanted to tear out their hair or scream or both at once. I have felt frustration before but never to the point where I am simultaneously shouting, crying, jumping, throwing things and falling down upon the floor. This is an interesting and new development in being the editor of a magazine. It's all a rich tapestry I 'spose.
Storm in a paper cup
The Peach is situated in a position equidistant from two IGAs, one in Stanmore and one in Enmore. For almost five years my IGA of choice has been in Enmore, not that it is superior, it is just located in a place of greater possibility. There are at least seven thousand cafes, shops and people on Enmore Rd at any point in time and of course it is a short walk down to Newtown where most of my friends, my PO Box and the world at large resides. It was never a difficult choice to turn and left and head to Enmore, not until Paper Cup opened its doors.
I once had a coffee at Paper Cup that was so good I sat in astonishment, holding the steaming cup against my heart as an offering to my internal gods, who had never before that moment been satisfied with anything. It was a perfect cup of coffee, the kind of flavour that other cups have hinted at but never actually delivered. I have drunk nine cups of coffee from Paper Cup since that first moment and am yet to be disappointed, in fact I have begun to experience constant cravings.
Lately I have chosen to turn right and walk to Stanmore, purchase any necessary items at the IGA and then cross the road and once again experience the satisfaction of delivering my inner gods the perfect coffee. What comes next is the main problem. Stanmore, on that side of the tracks, is a terrible place to be, there is a meth clinic masquerading as a doctor's surgery, a pharmacy both ancient and over-stocked with lavendar powders, a primary school full of screaming children running about randomly like behatted fish in a barrel and the distinct absence of everyone I know. There is nothing to do there, nothing new to observe, there is no one to talk to and it is double the distance to my PO Box and collecting my letters begins to feel like a chore.
Every time I leave the house in search of coffee or supplies I stop at the front gate and face a minor crisis. Should I turn left and top up an inferior coffee drink with the delights of the world or should I turn right and once again experience transcendence with the ritual satisfaction of inner gods? It is an existential crisis that needs to be experienced to be believed.
The enormously frightening job interview
On my way to The Enormously Frightening Job Interview I was telephoned by another employer and asked to attend Another Enormously Frightening Job Interview next week. So long as I am not averaging more than one a week I think I can cope with this ratio of reality/abnormal fear and only use the usual amount of underpants in a week. In other news Grizelda has super vomit, she vomited in the bathroom two days ago and the smell is as fresh as if it were a steaming pile upon the floor. We have discovered a new kind of very mild superpower.
Every afternoon, before homework
Walking straight into an Autumn setting sun clicked sense memory into action and suddenly I was eleven years old trotting a straight and terrifying line from one end of the arena to the other on a patient little shaggy pony. The sensation of my own footsteps gave way to the jarring little tap taps of a beginner rider learning to feel the rolling rhythmic power contained even within a patient little shaggy pony, whose tiny hoofbeats sounded like thunder in my terrified ears.
Unexpected difficulty typing a word has no correlation on the emotional front
Helplessness is a difficult word to type. So much hovering over 's', 'l's where you don't expect them to be and the sound in your head is quick, so slippery that fingers have trouble tapping the right double rhythm. Helplessness. But that's not what I want to talk about.
There have been dreams that follow me through consciousness, close as a cat, changing the tone of whole days, changing the angle of my hand as I stir sugar through an otherwise bitter coffee. This time being unemployed is not my fault. The corporate opressor moved operations offshore leaving me in unexpected freedom and there are no bars on my cage. Each morning I stir from dream into action, rising even as the others are still readying themselves to breach the warmth of The Peach dressed in workplace disguise. I can return to bed, hot coffee in hand, cat at my heels, and sift through possibilities with determination. It is always a relief when helplessness is merely a word to type and not a thing to feel.
There have been dreams that follow me through consciousness, close as a cat, changing the tone of whole days, changing the angle of my hand as I stir sugar through an otherwise bitter coffee. This time being unemployed is not my fault. The corporate opressor moved operations offshore leaving me in unexpected freedom and there are no bars on my cage. Each morning I stir from dream into action, rising even as the others are still readying themselves to breach the warmth of The Peach dressed in workplace disguise. I can return to bed, hot coffee in hand, cat at my heels, and sift through possibilities with determination. It is always a relief when helplessness is merely a word to type and not a thing to feel.
SLAMMATOWN - This old peacock world
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| Illustration by Onnie Cleary |
There are days when keeping a heart beating takes more energy than it’s worth and on logical reflection the notion of carrying on is at best a farce. This Sunday people knelt and prayed for the magic Jew they nailed to wood, felt love, hope and gratitude in their hard little hearts. I sat at home eating chocolate and snivelling, wondering whether drinking seven coffees in a row would push the boundaries of my beating heart so fast that it would suddenly stop. Death by coffee in my favourite cup.
Some people wear sorrow with grace. Wave their wan little fingers at translucent tears on porcelain skin, sit elegantly folded under blankets with gin. I hate those people so I walk. Train tracks, highways, back lanes, anywhere I hope the world isn’t but like I said the world is a peacock and I’m no better than a hen.
There is unfortunate magnificence in the minute, the overblown, the absent, the present, the two severed fingers on the railway tracks. That was some trick the train played, taking for itself a sample of the things that made it, the two things who first took up a pencil and dreamt it into shape.
I had an abhorrent conversation the other night while a self-confessed manipulative liar poured wine after wine and I discovered what it was like to go glass for glass with someone accustomed to becoming drunk. He was helping because I had asked him to help. He was talking about ways to make it work. Ways in which to wake up and go willingly into harness every nine to five, and then again, and then again and then again, to earn money.
There are more than two kinds of people but today only two of them count. Those who can, and those who rejoice because they can’t. Two sets of shoes a person can walk in but the catch is in the choosing. Most people don’t stand back and make the choice, most people don’t sit down and write lists to see if living is worth it, not that I’m aware of.
Now because you reading this and some of you have soft little souls I’ll tell you this. I’m only taking today, just this one day, to sit down and moan like I mean it. I’ll spend the day cat-curled and rattled. I’ll spend this whole day asking what shall become of me but tomorrow I’ll probably get up and walk. I’ll probably go visit those severed fingers and wonder else they dreamed of.
This will be the last SLAMMATOWN for a little while. The editor at RHUM has been kind enough to let me take a little break.
Pancake Mozart surprises self with super glue in hair
It occurred to me this morning, half way through supergluing a ceramic toast rack back together, that the life a retired and not too elderly gentleman would suit me enormously. Before 9am this morning I had eaten breakfast at the kitchen table whilst listening to classical fm, had one and a half cups of tea, read two chapters of a natural history book about earth winds and decided I was very happy indeed.
There might be something significantly wonderful about purposeful pottering interspersed with civilised activities such as sitting at the table to have a cup of tea. It has been a long time since I was civilised enough to eat breakfast, with a knife and fork, sitting at the table. I usually forage for food in the cupboard or fridge and eat it walking down the hallway, or standing at the kitchen sink staring idly into the middle distance.
I was going to light a fire in the library and work at my manuscript in there for the rest of the morning, with a tray for tea, until I remembered that I have run out of firewood and the work table in the library was replaced by a drum kit some time ago. This was the first clue that my life was not as lovely as the early morning made me believe.
Shortly after remembering about the firewood I discovered an alarming amount of super glue in my hair. It occurred to me that I had other more boring things to pursue than making notes on earth winds for my manuscript such as preparing for a job interview on Monday, pushing PAN issue 2 to print, cleaning out the cat litter box and applying for more jobs so as not to rely to much on Monday's interview. Boring. Not only boring but nothing like the orderly life of a retired gentleman, or retired colonel, or retired sea captain. Nothing like it at all.
At least I have the memory of two unsullied hours of what life might be like, sunlit and calm with clear acres set out sparse and free for ordering ideas, objects and music upon for no other purpose than just for me.
There might be something significantly wonderful about purposeful pottering interspersed with civilised activities such as sitting at the table to have a cup of tea. It has been a long time since I was civilised enough to eat breakfast, with a knife and fork, sitting at the table. I usually forage for food in the cupboard or fridge and eat it walking down the hallway, or standing at the kitchen sink staring idly into the middle distance.
I was going to light a fire in the library and work at my manuscript in there for the rest of the morning, with a tray for tea, until I remembered that I have run out of firewood and the work table in the library was replaced by a drum kit some time ago. This was the first clue that my life was not as lovely as the early morning made me believe.
Shortly after remembering about the firewood I discovered an alarming amount of super glue in my hair. It occurred to me that I had other more boring things to pursue than making notes on earth winds for my manuscript such as preparing for a job interview on Monday, pushing PAN issue 2 to print, cleaning out the cat litter box and applying for more jobs so as not to rely to much on Monday's interview. Boring. Not only boring but nothing like the orderly life of a retired gentleman, or retired colonel, or retired sea captain. Nothing like it at all.
At least I have the memory of two unsullied hours of what life might be like, sunlit and calm with clear acres set out sparse and free for ordering ideas, objects and music upon for no other purpose than just for me.
Flying solo cheese, one mystery key and evil soup of almost ultimate doom
The cheese flew across the aisle at high speed and smacked into the floor. Nothing too unusual about high speed cheese except that there wasn't anyone else in the supermarket aisle. The cheese was flying solo.
In other unusual events I found a key in my PO Box in an unaddressed envelope, the key is wrapped in a piece of paper with '1727' written on it. It is a mystery key.
As for the soup, I don't want to talk about it.
In other unusual events I found a key in my PO Box in an unaddressed envelope, the key is wrapped in a piece of paper with '1727' written on it. It is a mystery key.
As for the soup, I don't want to talk about it.
Translucent and a saturated yellow
I found a yellow plastic toothbrush in the depths of my least favourite armchair. My brother telephoned this morning to ask if he had left his keys at The Peach last night. He bade me look for them and I obliged unwillingly. Removing the seat cushion from the armchair and plunging my hand into three decades of crumbs, coins, dead things and anonymous detritus was not one of the things I had thought to do today, before I was halfway through my first cup of coffee.
The Thursday before Easter I was somewhere in Spencer’s house when I thought ‘this is the closest thing you can experience to plunging your hand into a sack of grain, when you live in the city’. Spencer was not in the room at the time. I do not recall which room, which level of the house, whether inside or out. Since that night I have been trying to remember what that ‘thing you can do’ is. It is not plunging your hand into the depths of a least favourite armchair that is in every way identical to the other armchair, except in rank of favour. Spencer’s house contains no large jars of buttons, no small sacks of slipping particles cool and willing to part for the casual plunging of flesh. It has become my second most recent mystery.
The yellow plastic toothbrush is problematic. I have never seen it before, I can not attach its ownership to any known face. It is impossible that is owned by the cat, who also favours the other chair. The handle of the toothbrush is translucent. The bristles a usual kind of white. The yellow is heavy, saturated, unpleasantly reminiscent of the first passing of water after a night spent drinking gin. The ability to pass water was one of my first and earliest mysteries, since solved by the clockwork power of science.
I left the toothbrush in the chair, not back in the depths but underneath the seat cushion. It seems important that it not be entirely removed from its chosen home but left almost where it was, where I can lift the cushion and observe its journey through time.
Work for it honey
As if science is the answer! A person can drink half of $120 worth of wine and still not be any closer to anything like human. It might as well be toast as chicken or mask or money or shoes as anything else. Spencer said, 'don't drown in the shower, you're drunk'. But what does he know? He could be anywhere in telephone land and everybody already knows that showers are mostly for standing up in.
Emo
I have become platonically enamoured with a nineteen year-old Russian boy for one particular reason. I was lying on the floor with my head under his desk, to rest, while he ignored me and continued doing some kind of film editing thing. I started talking about the children's book I am writing, outlined the plot, explained what I am hoping to convey through story, being out of place, the sorrow that comes with unsuitable surroundings, the physical manifestation of despair through metal diving suits and sinking parrots. He paused in his work, cultivated a wicked grin to throw in my direction, declared the story to be 'emo' then carried on doing some kind of film editing thing.
Surely one has to become platonically enamoured with anyone who can convey, in two seconds, that they have heard and properly understood, have sympathy for your process and value your presence enough to cheer things along with playful irreverence.
Surely one has to become platonically enamoured with anyone who can convey, in two seconds, that they have heard and properly understood, have sympathy for your process and value your presence enough to cheer things along with playful irreverence.
I think it's getting complicated
Searching for a new job involves the kind of fortuitous miracle needed to convince a cat to vomit on the tiles and not the carpet. I'm not saying it's exactly the same thing but it gives the same kind of feeling in my bones.
SLAMMATOWN: Mad Men Strike Back
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| Illo by Onnie Cleary |
A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away I was interviewed for a new job. I didn’t realise I was in a different time zone and galaxy until after the interview concluded and I was spat back out into a normal Wednesday afternoon in Sydney. It was then that it hit me, something really fucked had just happened.
After shaking my hand and sitting me down she launched into the first of many stupendous and terrifying rants. She told me she hated my resume, all of it, from the font to the layout. She ranted for ten full minutes while I sat and wondered just why in fuck was interviewing me if she hated my resume so much.
The interviewer interspersed her ranting with comments about how great I was, how smart I was, how many qualifications I had. I was entering an advanced state of confusion when she kicked it up another gear and started to really go for it. She hated my hair, said she’d never seen hair so unprofessional before. I was going to mention that we had almost identical haircuts it was just that my hair is wavy and hers is straight when she started on my shoes.
I was wearing the wrong kind of shoes, apparently only an idiot goes to a job interview wearing flat shoes. She stood up to demonstrate how she was wearing high heels, pulled up the leg of her trousers so I could properly view her shoes. After the ‘one must always wear high heels’ rant she started on the rest of me. Fortunately she decided that my face would have to do because she didn’t suppose anything could be done about that, apart from more make up. The horrifying conclusion of this job interview is that she thinks I would be fantastic for the job but I have to be interviewed again first, just to make sure. She said she’d give me a couple of days to ‘do something’ about my hair, my shoes and my wardrobe.
I have to confess I’ve been obsessed with watching Mad Men. I came a little late to this party, most people I know started and finished their own Mad Men obsessions some time ago. What everyone failed to mention about Mad Men is how horrifying it is. Everyone talked about the fashion, the cigarettes, the stupid men with their suits and slicked down hair but not the horrifying slow reveal of repression and oppression. How the women were judged more on their legs than their ability to do the job well.
In the first episode of Mad Men the new girl gets a proper going over, everything is commented on from her hair to her shoes. I remember thinking how glad I was that that kind of shit was over years ago, nothing like that could possibly happen to me, not now in 2011 when the most important thing is having the skill, aptitude and qualifications to perform well in a job. As usual it turns out I was wrong.
High heels and straight hair turned out to be weapons
I've almost figured something out. I thought I had it yesterday but it slipped away on one of those inevitable cleaning the house, cooking the food, going to sleep tides. I can't quite remember. It had something to do with outsiders or Harry Potter or irrevocable change.
There is part of me that always thought I was just being wayward, or slipping into the idea that I am an outsider now, a marginalised person, but I could go back in, to where most other people are, if I just stood up and opened the right door but that's finished now. I can't go back to where I never was.
There is part of me that always thought I was just being wayward, or slipping into the idea that I am an outsider now, a marginalised person, but I could go back in, to where most other people are, if I just stood up and opened the right door but that's finished now. I can't go back to where I never was.
SLAMMATOWN: Hire Me, Bitches
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| Illo by Onnie Cleary |
I’m lucky enough to have one or two friends happy to read over some applications before I send them in. Their unanimous opinion is that I need to ‘toot my own horn’ more. The problem is applying for jobs makes me feel altogether hornless.
My professional experience includes the usual list of jobs I did just to pay the rent, a good job I fucked up, a great job I left for heartfelt reasons I can no longer remember and an erratic career path that looks more like crazy paving than the path to success. The other problem is my finer skills are unable to be politely included in any job application. I’m not talking about bedroom skills here, but the vast list of attributes that have so fixedly attached themselves to me they have become an essential part of who I am.
I’m taking this opportunity to devise a list.
Skills and attributes possessed by the very excellent and unique Dale Slamma:
- I am very good at throwing things in the bin, first shot, no rim, all basket, from any corner of the room. This is my very mild superpower.
- Strangers tell me their innermost secrets all the time, everywhere, for no actual reason and I don’t mean just crazy people.
- I can drink five cups of tea in a row and suffer no ill effects.
- My skill at deducing other people’s emotional state borders on the telepathic.
- Last time I counted I had sixteen personal enemies.
- I dislike Easter eggs and will not use opaque toothpaste.
- My inability to appear intelligent when meeting someone for the first time has never before been exceeded by even the stupidest person on planet Earth.
- I can wear starched, ironed and personally styled corporate clothes handpicked for me by the world’s best corporate stylist and still appear to be in casual dress suitable only for wearing to buy milk at the corner shop.
- The fabric of my soul is constructed of rock and roll. No really, get a scalpel and take a peek.
- I can cook with the best of them but choose not to, not if I can ever help it, for no reason I have ever thought of.
- The power of my ability to crave chocolate is exceeded only by the power of my snoring.
- You will disappoint me. Guaranteed.
Radio gaga
I can't remember precisely what I said on the radio (ABC Radio National) but I do remember that it was largely stupid and at least partially embarrassing nonsense. I am hoping they edited me out entirely.
The other people appearing on the program were much better than and deserve a listen. If you would like to listen to the others, including Vanessa Berry, click here.
The other people appearing on the program were much better than and deserve a listen. If you would like to listen to the others, including Vanessa Berry, click here.
SLAMMATOWN - Slamma of Arabia
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| Illustration by Onnie Cleary |
I don’t watch too many movies. For example yesterday I watched a mere ten minutes of Lawrence of Arabia. It was an action packed ten minutes in which thousands of horses jumped out of a train into a desert, a handsome be-robed man wandered around the desert looking commanding while an orange be-robed man with twinkly eyes shot someone who accidently exploded their underpants with something whilst waiting for a train, in the middle of the desert.
In addition to being interesting, Lawrence of Arabia raises an interesting point; the shooting of people who have exploded their underpants. It takes a brave and noble person to shoot the fatally injured person who cannot be taken to safety and rescue but must either be killed instantly by friends or left to die a slow and hideous death. This is the kind of important point movie-watching brings rightly to the forefront of modern café thinking.
Continue reading on RHUM...
FINALLY!
Yes! Someone has described me as fey! Finally! I have fervently wished, for my whole life, to be fey. In recent years I had given up hope at being called fey due to not being a willowy blonde sort of person who rambles around shoeless in floaty dresses with no bra underneath. Thank you Baron Von Harlot for not only reviving an old dream of mine but making it come true.
Nuns!
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| Illustration by Onnie Cleary |
The nuns - and their posse of priests and worshippers - stayed on the corner outside my office for a very long time. They chanted about Mary, God and some other people without pause whilst holding cheap-looking candles. After eliminating the possibility of them being an en masse outdoor karaoke performance, I decided to investigate what it was they were really doing. Through a scientific investigation process involving three listens to the song Ding Dong Dang and a minor hair-on-fire incident, I reached a firm conclusion. The nuns were using the occasion of International Women's Day to protest the existence of a women's clinic. If this is the best idea they had for celebrating women then they suck. Nuns suck.
My friend Leif once told me, in astonishing detail, about a video he saw of nuns sucking - nuns sucking all kinds of things. I was not surprised to discover that he finds the idea of nuns erotic. It just so happens that Leif's housemate is one of the singers from Psychonanny and The Babyshakers, which leads me back to the song and the street corner. This might not be so much about nuns as it is about geography and sound.
Some corners have a smell, like the corner of Pitt and Redfern streets in Redfern, some corners have a revolving temporal relationship with colour, light or shade. The corner outside my office seems to be developing a sense of something else altogether. Let's start with Ding Dong Dang. It was voted Sydney's fourth best karaoke bar by Time Out Sydney. My friend P Street writes for Time Out so it’s not too much of a leap to imagine that it was he who rated the bar, which is important for the following imaginary scenario.
Picture this. P Street is inside Ding Dong Dang singing his heart out to his open notebook, in the very same room Ashley last sang in before disappearing forever. Outside, a large posse of nuns chants over their cheap candles in the direction of the women's clinic while the producers of a car advertisement arrange three models in front of the green and white checkerboard tiles of Ding Dong Dang. Inside the women's clinic the medical staff are hard at work doing medical things and have no idea they’re about to be overrun by nuns. Across the street, I'm working in my office wishing I was at a party at Hibernian House, visible in the near distance over the heads of the nuns. On the opposite corner, the staff of The Australia Council for The Arts are ignoring everything that goes on and taking turns to have bathroom breaks so they can adjust the artful draping of their red plastic bead necklaces. Back in Newtown, Leif farewells his housemate who is off to a soundcheck for a gig at The Excelsior Hotel. The first song on their set list is Ding Dong Dang. Leif finds himself satisfyingly alone, wanders around the flat for a while and then decides that seeing as he is alone, just this once, he might put on the video featuring sucking nuns.
First published on RHUM...
SLAMMATOWN - Hey Roomy
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| Illustration by Onnie Cleary |
I hate sharing my house. I don’t mind sharing with Grizelda, she’s like family, but the idea of a stranger moving into my daily routine is freaking me the fuck out. Sydney’s real estate prices are threatening to rob me of my privacy and dignity. If you saw me first thing in the morning you’d understand about the dignity.
I’m not very good in the mornings. I tend to walk around in a daze, bumping into walls and trying to remember how to switch the kettle on. For the first hour of the day, for no discernible reason at all, I am largely disabled. Grizelda waits until I have half-drunk my first coffee before attempting to talk to me and I appreciate her tact and understanding because I know it is rare.
When I bought a new desk I spent six months researching desks; going into shops and sitting down behind them, imagining how it would feel to sit there every day, what it would look like brought into my home, where everything from my jar of pens and stack of notebooks to my external hard drive would sit. Now that I am showing people aroundThe Peach to see if they want to move in I get to spend about half an hour with a person before deciding whether or not they get to share my life. This is not ideal.
In a world where people did not go insane over property Grizelda and I would be able to afford The Peach all by ourselves, just the two of us. And the cat. Last week I was reading a budgeting guide for the modern man, printed in 1960. It suggested that spending more than ten percent of your income on a mortgage was stupid. If I lived in The Peach by myself, rent would account for one hundred and ten percent of my income. I used a calculator and that’s what it said, don’t doubt my maths. Real estate junkies have now officially inflated prices past the point of stupid. Well done.
Five times I have given someone a tour of The Peach, answering their questions about my temperament and living style politely. On the inside of me head I’m screaming, "It is none of your fucking business, stupid stranger bastard!". I’m losing myself in translation from inside to out. They all say I seem very calm and easygoing but I am not calm. And I am not easygoing. I am going to hate you if you fuck with my shit. And I don’t even know what constitutes fucking with my shit. It could be as simple as using my pink teapot without asking, misaligning my shampoo bottles on their rack or leaving your dirty cup on the coffee table. It might not be anything like that at all. It might be interrupting a sentence forming silently in my head, or talking to my friends, or not talking to my friends... These things are harder than expected to predict.
SLAMMATOWN - Slamtopia
Sydney has divided itself into four big, terracotta-roofed slabs we call North, South, East and West. So far as I can tell, all these suburban areas of Sydney are terrible. Everyone knows the north side is filled wall-to-wall with moneyed arses caring more about which ‘display’ books they range on their coffee table than about any real human issues. The east is something similar to north. I spent a large portion of my younger years rolling around the north-western rim of the Sydney basin - swimming in rivers, staring right up at the mountains no more than five kilometres from my front door and occasionally looking down at they city from the top of one, fervently wishing I could teleport myself there.
South I knew almost nothing about until last weekend, when I was lucky enough to spend three whole days in a beach house with friends. They all grew up south of Sydney in a place known as The Shire. And I have to tell you it sounds almost entirely fucked. There are the usual suburban consolations of wide spaces, easy access to bushland and riding around on your bmx with friends but that sums up the good points.
The Shire, like every other cardinal point spinning out from the city, is fucked. A large proportion of the residents sound narrow-minded, racist and aggressively ‘normal’. So aggressively normal that it is almost impossible to live happily as anything other than a nuclear family with a neutral-toned lounge room without being subjected to a truckload of shit. If the same can be said for all points from North swinging round to West then we have a problem here.
How is it possible that out of the whole huge sprawled guts of Sydney the only place I can live without fear of clashing with locals simply by making art and having ideas is the Inner West? I propose we make a new area, a new suburban area east of Sydney. By east I mean properly east, out past the headlands of the harbour on the bean-green ocean.
We have all kinds of technology now - like ships, bulldozers and helicopters. We could solidify some human waste, build a large floating land mass, map out wide house blocks and gently winding streets, plant trees, vegetables, herbs and flowers. We could build houses that are proper habitats for humans, encourage the birds and bats to fly and visit. We could have picnic lunches at each other's houses and talk rationally and interestingly about our differences and how we each widen the scope of the others’ understanding of the world. Or I suppose I could just get jets and blow some of the existing suburbs up. Raze them to the ground, grow a moustache, throw all racist, bigoted and narrow-minded people out into the desert to die in the sun.
I’d be happy with one or both of the above plans. Either way I’m going to need helicopters. Big ones.
First published on RHUM...
A prayer for me as a gownless woman
I pray you might provide me with a dressing gown that is mighty. A dressing gown that is made of silk, has a wonderful excess of room in the armhole area and crosses easily over the bust. A dressing gown that is possibly ocean blue or ocean green and struck through with minor embroidered embellishments that are not at all itchy or inconveniently placed when sitting. I pray this dressing gown appears in my cupboard within the next ten seconds so that I may leave my bedroom modestly covered in order to scrub the balsamic vinegar out of the blue dress I bought on Sunday for $9.00 in the coastal town of Milton. Thanks.
SLAMMATOWN - Slamma Swap
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| Illustration by Onnie Cleary |
At The Peach my housemate Grizelda is a good lantern, she puts up with just about anything I can think of doing though she does tell me, quite often, that can’t possibly be another person on the planet as uniquely annoying as me.
On Wife Swap the first thing the wives do is write a manual for their home outlining the general vibe of the home, the rules, schedules and a detailed setting out of who does what and when. I’ve been imagining writing a manual for The Peach and I have to tell you that on paper I’m not sounding so good.
I prefer to wake up at a different time every day. I hate doing things the same two days in a row. I hate washing dishes so every time I do it I do it with hate. I have been known to run up and down the hallway drinking rum from a bottle just for the hell of it. I listen to loud music as often as possible. I set my drum kit up in the middle of the library. I hate cooking and will yell about being hungry rather than go shopping. I hate boring people and people with bad hair cuts. I won’t talk to people I don’t like. I will invite people over for dinner and then not cook anything. I go out to see bands and come home plastered at five in the morning. I shoot the television with a water pistol when I don’t like the show I’m watching. I won’t let anyone else use my teapots, toothpaste or milk but if I find a hidden stash of chocolate I’m going to eat it. If I was a man I’m quite sure I’d leave the toilet seat up on purpose.
My next door neighbour is more settled and domestic than I am which is saying something because he just happens to be the former tour manager for The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead. He is about a thousand years old, has hands weighed down with skull rings and has lived just about as wild and hard as a man can live. But even he manages to get up at the same time early each morning, make a cup of tea, ponder a little and then get on his day in an orderly fashion.
I’m beginning to think Grizelda deserves some kind of medal for living with me. Speaking of which, we’ve got a vacancy at The Peach. Anyone want to move in?
First published on RHUM...
I'll tell you what's not interesting, it's the ongoing saga of finding a happy third person to inhabit The Peach. Our newest Peachette is leaving to go study full-time, which is nice, if you like that kind of thing but it leaves us once again with a vacancy and if there's one thing I hate more than not getting along with a housemate is finding a new one.
It's hard to explain just what kind of person I'm looking for. It's easier for Grizelda because she's more easygoing than me, she's holds grudges just about as long as a goldfish does, if she ever gets cranky it's over and done with inside of an hour and then forgotten so completely it's like it never happened at all. I'm a more complicated kettle of fish when it comes it my home. If someone is going to do something bad, and I mean really fucked then I am going to hate you for it, probably for the rest of your life. My good opinion once lost is lost forever, Mr Darcy taught me how do that.
There is a prospective Peachette coming to The Peach tonight to check out the room and to meet Grizelda. I've met her before but that's no guarantee of anything, as Spencer likes to point out, I know a lot of scumbags. I'm fairly certain this woman is not a scumbag but here's the flip side, I might be too much of a scumbag for her. You see she's kind of amazing. She's a racing car driver on the weekends and a corporate superwoman during the week. She is tall, tidy, has waist-length red hair and is related to some kind of secret service combat machine man who might just kill me dead if I do wrong by her. I'm hoping this meeting goes along swimmingly, so swimmingly that nobody calls anybody else a scumbag or winds up dead. Wish me luck.
It's hard to explain just what kind of person I'm looking for. It's easier for Grizelda because she's more easygoing than me, she's holds grudges just about as long as a goldfish does, if she ever gets cranky it's over and done with inside of an hour and then forgotten so completely it's like it never happened at all. I'm a more complicated kettle of fish when it comes it my home. If someone is going to do something bad, and I mean really fucked then I am going to hate you for it, probably for the rest of your life. My good opinion once lost is lost forever, Mr Darcy taught me how do that.
There is a prospective Peachette coming to The Peach tonight to check out the room and to meet Grizelda. I've met her before but that's no guarantee of anything, as Spencer likes to point out, I know a lot of scumbags. I'm fairly certain this woman is not a scumbag but here's the flip side, I might be too much of a scumbag for her. You see she's kind of amazing. She's a racing car driver on the weekends and a corporate superwoman during the week. She is tall, tidy, has waist-length red hair and is related to some kind of secret service combat machine man who might just kill me dead if I do wrong by her. I'm hoping this meeting goes along swimmingly, so swimmingly that nobody calls anybody else a scumbag or winds up dead. Wish me luck.
SLAMMATOWN: Talking 'bout last night
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| Illustration by Onnie Cleary |
He ran across the square yelling, ‘I fucked her face! I fucked her face!’*. Try watching a man do that then tell me how you feel.
Earlier in the night, before the face-fuck yelling, I was at a show reviewing three bands I had no interest in, none at all. I went outside for a little sit down when my left foot became mildly itchy. A small itch can be happily ignored but I scratched anyway. A stranger sitting beside me leant over, pushed my hand away and started scratching my foot with his own fingernails. My foot, his hand, you get the picture.
Earlier in the night, before the face-fuck yelling, I was at a show reviewing three bands I had no interest in, none at all. I went outside for a little sit down when my left foot became mildly itchy. A small itch can be happily ignored but I scratched anyway. A stranger sitting beside me leant over, pushed my hand away and started scratching my foot with his own fingernails. My foot, his hand, you get the picture.
Over the course of the next twenty minutes, Foot Scratching Man photographed me against my will, made inappropriately familiar conversation, offered me terrible student-style cheap cigarettes he was too old to be smoking, declared he would pine when I decided to walk away and was generally quite strange. He was sitting with a woman who seemed like his girlfriend.
He wasn’t flirting, not by any normal definition of the word, but there was something odd going on there. I wouldn’t have minded too much if this was the only thing that happened last night but shit just went down a weird hill after that. One man pulled at my shirt to peer at my breasts and another poured his drink over my feet to help by anointing me with spirits.
The sense of relief after leaving a venue packed full of stupid men was profound. Later on I was sitting peacefully on the ground drinking longnecks with Spencer and friends when Fuck Face Yelling Man walked right up to us and asked to join us. I said he could if he told me a good story.**
He swayed drunkenly but steadied himself into a low crouch by hanging on to my shoulders. His story was this; he shagged a woman, took photographs of her, sent them to all his friends and then denied it to her face. All the while he was pushing his face right up into mine, wrapping his arms around me, crawling on his knees to get closer to me. If Spencer hadn’t jumped to his feet and demanded that this horrible man unhand me at once I don’t know what I would have done.***
Spencer looked serious as a heart attack standing there all tall and commanding telling him to take his hands off me and leave. Fuck Face Yelling Man leapt to his feet and started to run away yelling this: “I photographed her and I lied! I fucked her face! I grabbed her ears and fucked her face! I fucked her face!”
Might be there’s something in the water, or the power of my fuckwit magnet spontaneously tripled. Either way things are not coming up roses. There is something wrong the men of the Inner West. Please send me some new and better men, so I don’t end up murdering somebody.
He wasn’t flirting, not by any normal definition of the word, but there was something odd going on there. I wouldn’t have minded too much if this was the only thing that happened last night but shit just went down a weird hill after that. One man pulled at my shirt to peer at my breasts and another poured his drink over my feet to help by anointing me with spirits.
The sense of relief after leaving a venue packed full of stupid men was profound. Later on I was sitting peacefully on the ground drinking longnecks with Spencer and friends when Fuck Face Yelling Man walked right up to us and asked to join us. I said he could if he told me a good story.**
He swayed drunkenly but steadied himself into a low crouch by hanging on to my shoulders. His story was this; he shagged a woman, took photographs of her, sent them to all his friends and then denied it to her face. All the while he was pushing his face right up into mine, wrapping his arms around me, crawling on his knees to get closer to me. If Spencer hadn’t jumped to his feet and demanded that this horrible man unhand me at once I don’t know what I would have done.***
Spencer looked serious as a heart attack standing there all tall and commanding telling him to take his hands off me and leave. Fuck Face Yelling Man leapt to his feet and started to run away yelling this: “I photographed her and I lied! I fucked her face! I grabbed her ears and fucked her face! I fucked her face!”
Might be there’s something in the water, or the power of my fuckwit magnet spontaneously tripled. Either way things are not coming up roses. There is something wrong the men of the Inner West. Please send me some new and better men, so I don’t end up murdering somebody.
* He was not talking about my face. He did not fuck my face.
** Spencer told him no, as I was saying yes. For the record Spencer was right and I was terribly, horribly wrong.
*** I was planning unmitigated violence, not helpless surrender.
SLAMMATOWN - Just floating
At The Peach it is so hot, I feel like each breath is drawn through a thick mist of polluted saltwater. The temperature gauge says it's thirty degrees but numbers have never been very good at conveying emotion. Even the equation for an explosion of custard looks like a dull chain of kindergarten charts disarranged.
Last night I could take the heat no longer and begged Grizelda to drive me to the water for a swim. Happily, Grizelda is not opposed to piloting Peachette night-swimming missions in the ocean. I admit swimming in the ocean after dark may not be as safe as swimming in the day, but it has its rewards.
I was floating face up in the ocean watching scarce clouds, unable to dim the stars, meander aimlessly above. The ocean covered over my ears and buoyed my back as though it had decided it would hold me and deafen me so I could think unhindered by heat or sound for just a little while. I bobbed in the black and gentle swell thinking of something I read in Delia Falconer’s book ‘Sydney’. She says, “Sydney... is overflowing with dreams… haunted by loss like some strange plasmal marine creature. Even the northern beaches Gaimariagal clan, according to descendant Dennis Foley, spoke rarely and with sadness of the Gidgingal, people from the east whose dreaming was under the water, swallowed by the prehistoric seas.”
Dreaming, in all of its guises, might be more important here than I suspected. The first known recorded dream in Australia, according to Falconer, occurred on the 31st of January 1788. Lieutenant Ralph Clark, who had just disembarked from the First Fleet, was in the habit of dreaming about his wife and his best friend Kempster. He dreamt that his wife and Kempster were having it off and was filled with desire to ‘run Kempster through’ for this breach of friendship.
It seems dreams, here in old Sydney town, have always been marked by loss, separation, betrayal and death. Not a very good start, really. As the dark ocean held me firmly afloat in its small swell I thought about people I know who have held each other. I know only one couple that has made a success of being with each other. Everyone else I know is plagued with betrayal, intrigues and the general inability to make anything other than a momentary success of romance. I’m beginning to wonder if something was set in place even before the first building went up; if there isn’t some vital piece of information we are missing that we could use to shape our new dreams in or out of the water.
First published on RHUM.
SLAMMATOWN - On the case
I haven’t been a detective very long. Long enough to receive an email from the editor of City News asking if I’d found the man in question and if so could he run a story on it, but not long enough to solve my first case.
I’ve always wanted to be a detective. When I was ten years old I started a detective agency with my dog and my little brother. We never had a case to solve but I made excellent headquarters in the wardrobe in the spare room. My dad wrote us a theme song but the dog never wanted to stay at HQ very long; as soon as the small dish of dog biscuits ran out she was out of there.
SLAMMATOWN - The Final Solution
Some people say drummers can hide behind their kits, that it’s the safest place to be on stage but I don’t think a person can get much more exposed than when they’re drumming because all of them is engaged in the business. You can’t drum sitting still.
Drumming is a whole-body symphony of movement. When a good drummer is on form there is nothing left of them but beat-by-beat motion. Rhythm is the spine of music and like all good art requires at least a momentary sacrifice of self.
Randomly chosen bit from today's work on manuscript for no reason
The worst part is when they change their mind, the last crumpling of courage. He always found it difficult to watch this inward folding. Sprayed spider of a human dispensing with all attempts at dignity. Sometimes he would sit beside them reciting modified respiratory movements from memory.
'Sobbing', he would exlpain, ' is a series of convulsive inhalations followed by a prolonged exhalation. The rima glottidis closes earlier than normal after each inhalation, so only a little air enters the lungs with each inhalation'.
'Sobbing', he would exlpain, ' is a series of convulsive inhalations followed by a prolonged exhalation. The rima glottidis closes earlier than normal after each inhalation, so only a little air enters the lungs with each inhalation'.
SLAMMATOWN - The World's Biggest Bastard
Nothing happened in Slammatown last night, nothing really at all. You could say less than zero happened. I was feeling kind of seasick from marching in the sun, for the sake of Julian Assange. I was feeling kind of seasick and The Lansdowne was disgusting with flesh, heat, noise and humidity. Everyone was there, just everybody anybody has ever met. I suspect it was more to do with the buzz building up to the night rather than the bands themselves, though they were rather good.
The Lansdowne has gone and had itself a mini makeover, neon strip lights along the edge of the awning, huge speaker stacks, an actual stage and a removal of that horrific overhead bar thing. Now it is one big room, huge sound, better bands, extra heat and more patrons. Sounds good so far doesn’t it?
SLAMMATOWN - I'll take a cup of kindness yet
Resolutions are terrible things - they come hanging with ready guilt and daily obligation. I have been trying to be more kind but am discovering that where I am most unkind is silently, in my head, where there are no actions or observers. I do not like the daily obligation of trying to be more kind, it is like trying to quit smoking but without any health benefits or encouragement from friends.
Continue reading on RHUM...
Peachette Detective Agency
Mysteries are generally quite easily solved, when you have the right people on the case, like me for example. I decided to open my detective agency some weeks ago but I've been waiting for a good case. Vanessa Berry offered me my first case but I declined due to the unsolvable nature of the mystery. It was a cold case involving private jets, telephones and Big Ben. I hope that someday the culprit will be found. If you have any information that might assist Vanessa with her enquiries please write to Vanessa at PO Box 1879, Strawberry Hills NSW 2012 Australia.
Now for the case I have agreed to take on.
Case #1: Searching for Nick of Camperdown
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| Have you seen this man? |
I am charged with finding a man named Nick. Nick once bought a young woman, not me, a vegie burger in a busy place somewhere south of Sydney.
Here are the known facts:
Nick ordinarily resides in Camperdown, he hopes to one day write a novel exploring solitude and existential dilemmas, this is not what he is doing for work right now. Nick sometimes drinks at the Courthouse Hotel in Newtown and is thirty six years old.
Distinguishing physical characteristics at time of burger purchase
- a hat
- a beard with one small white patch where no colour grows
If you know of Nick's whereabouts please contact Dale Slamma at The Peachette Detective Agency.
PO Box 1003, Newtown, NSW 2042 Australia, or by email.
Important news flash of no consequence to anyone except members of the pigeon race
The cat caught a bird, I don't recall ever doing this before, maybe once when she was a kitten, but not in all the long adult years of her life has the cat subjected me to the horror of having to chases her up and down the hallway while a dying bird feebly flaps in her clenched jaw.
It was Grizelda who first heard the flutter-thump. I followed her out onto The Peach Deck to see what was wrong, this was our first mistake. The cat, seeing we were interested in her catch, ran into the house at top speed and headed straight for my bedroom at the other end of the long hall. Armed with brooms we chased the cat up and down the hallway, around the kitchen, under the dining table and then finally back out onto The Peach Deck.
Mercifully the bird was dead by this time, the poor thing must have expired from shock quite quickly. I did not have an opportunity to inspect the injuries to the bird because the cat ate it, the whole dead and feathered thing, except for the flight feathers and one foot.
I'm not talking to the cat right now but I am thinking about how much cheaper it would be if I could catch my own food in a similar manner, watch out fruit bats, here I come.
It was Grizelda who first heard the flutter-thump. I followed her out onto The Peach Deck to see what was wrong, this was our first mistake. The cat, seeing we were interested in her catch, ran into the house at top speed and headed straight for my bedroom at the other end of the long hall. Armed with brooms we chased the cat up and down the hallway, around the kitchen, under the dining table and then finally back out onto The Peach Deck.
Mercifully the bird was dead by this time, the poor thing must have expired from shock quite quickly. I did not have an opportunity to inspect the injuries to the bird because the cat ate it, the whole dead and feathered thing, except for the flight feathers and one foot.
I'm not talking to the cat right now but I am thinking about how much cheaper it would be if I could catch my own food in a similar manner, watch out fruit bats, here I come.
On a small tray place one teapot and one cup, carry to the best room for light
I think I've had my fill of people, for the year. So many parties, so many people, so much loud chatter and falling about drinking and dancing with each other. I think I've had enough of anything more than tete-a-tete. Since New Year's Eve I have not spoken to more than one person at once, I'm not counting The Peachettes because it doesn't count as a social outing to walk down the hall and make a cup of tea in the kitchen.
I have telephoned people, people have telephoned me, I have sat at my drums while Robert instructs me in the art of deliberately moving my limbs in careful order but I have not attended one cafe, one party, one dinner or tea. I have slept late every morning and then done exactly as I liked, sometimes keeping the affairs of PAN in order, sometimes writing columns but mostly undertaking those minute to minute intrigues like examining a seashell, placing coloured pencils in spectrum order, drawing one blue line on ivory paper. These kinds of things are best done now, before proper work begins, before February drops its heavy blanket of super-heated atmosphere, before all traces of celebration have vanished and I get dragged up under the wheel arches of ordinary motion and my new desk becomes old.
This afternoon I might examine a translucent plastic cassette case, listen to the slide of plastic dragging before the satisfying clack of closure. A cassette case is more pleasing than a cd case, better to hold in the palm of the hand, proportions more similar to a book, feels more open when opened with that slim exposure of plastic return holding fast the album art. It is almost as good as sliding a key into a post office box.
I have telephoned people, people have telephoned me, I have sat at my drums while Robert instructs me in the art of deliberately moving my limbs in careful order but I have not attended one cafe, one party, one dinner or tea. I have slept late every morning and then done exactly as I liked, sometimes keeping the affairs of PAN in order, sometimes writing columns but mostly undertaking those minute to minute intrigues like examining a seashell, placing coloured pencils in spectrum order, drawing one blue line on ivory paper. These kinds of things are best done now, before proper work begins, before February drops its heavy blanket of super-heated atmosphere, before all traces of celebration have vanished and I get dragged up under the wheel arches of ordinary motion and my new desk becomes old.
This afternoon I might examine a translucent plastic cassette case, listen to the slide of plastic dragging before the satisfying clack of closure. A cassette case is more pleasing than a cd case, better to hold in the palm of the hand, proportions more similar to a book, feels more open when opened with that slim exposure of plastic return holding fast the album art. It is almost as good as sliding a key into a post office box.
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