- The IGA on Enmore Rd smells like dill and offers cold comfort from the hot thick air.
- Enmore Rd is swarming with beautiful boys sporting traditional 80's metal hair, bandanas and leather pants. Quite a lot of them are wearing Skid Row singlets, the kind with wide open arm holes exposing skin drawn tight across ribs.
- The best example of the swarming men was one young one in read snakeskin pants.
- One hour ago I was drinking coffee on King St with two people, one of them was more eccentric than I am, and also slightly creepy at times. At one point he mimed throwing a sheet, thousand count Egyptian cotton, over my head and then pressed a finger to my lips saying 'shhh, shhh'.
- Nine hours ago I paid twice for my morning coffee on the way to work, once for today and once for yesterday when I forgot my wallet and they made me coffee anyway. This is the benefit of putting up with inane small talk from cafe owners every day.
- Six hours ago, in my office, I was listening to Mr X's new album when a wasp flew into my dress. I performed the most remarkable dance.
- Robert has performed his last day as a not-for-profit slave worker in Ultimo and will from this night forward be a Writer, he insisted on the capital W. I do not doubt his success.
- Walking home the humidity was so high I feared I might at any moment sweat myself into non-existence. Vanish right into thick air.
Geographical facts in numbered list form but not in chronological order
Some call it the Emerald City
My brother sat perched on a bar stool peering out the window at people scurrying around in Surry Hills. He kept exclaiming, "Look at all the people! All those people going places! Look at that guy, and that guy, look at them over there!" like he couldn't believe the volume and variety of humanity of going about its business.
I used to exclaim like that when I first moved to the city, even sit for hours making notes. I couldn't believe my eyes. It felt so strange to see so many people moving about all around me after decades of knowing three streets away from wherever I was there was nothing but distance, mountains and sky. You could walk out the front door of my old house and walk for hours without arriving anywhere at all.
The city feels like a dreamscape sometimes and I still want to exclaim but I'm more likely to close my eyes and see if I can feel it, as well as see it. I'm still waiting to wake up back in the old town and realise I've had the most amazing dream.
I used to exclaim like that when I first moved to the city, even sit for hours making notes. I couldn't believe my eyes. It felt so strange to see so many people moving about all around me after decades of knowing three streets away from wherever I was there was nothing but distance, mountains and sky. You could walk out the front door of my old house and walk for hours without arriving anywhere at all.
The city feels like a dreamscape sometimes and I still want to exclaim but I'm more likely to close my eyes and see if I can feel it, as well as see it. I'm still waiting to wake up back in the old town and realise I've had the most amazing dream.
A.H. Cayley's Confession Booth and Rhys Muldoon's fake santorum
I seem to have accidentally joined a hypothetical band with Adam Lewis* and Matt Banham. When I say joined what I mean is bullied into saying "Maria" when pointed at by Banham while Lewis croons a long 'ooooo'. I think we will be very popular.
I've never met Matt Banham before but people, like P. Street tell me that I should have. The first thing Banham ever said to me, and other people in the room, was a long drunken tale about shitting his pants twenty minutes from home. Yes it was crass but not quite as crude, when listened to first-hand, as the story Rhys Muldoon told about concocting fake santorum in his kitchen to fool Ben Mendelsohn with. I do not know why this occurred, or when.
I knew it was going to be a strange night when Mr X cancelled last minute, citing exhaustion. It's a good thing he is not a celebrity, we all know what 'exhaustion' means when someone is a celebrity. In the case of Mr X I suspect it was a case of being very tired indeed. The strangeness began when I immediately rang and booked a taxi for myself without pausing or making a clear strategy for using in case of emergencies, which is what I usually do when I have to get picked up in a taxi by myself. This time I calmly thought oh well Mr X is tired, sucks to be him, and then went about my solo-taxi business. The taxi cost five million and twelve dollars and fiftybillion cents, due to traffic. Strange event number two, I cared only mildly.
Many odd things occurred but none so odd as my catching the train without bothering to look at where the train was going, after I had already decided to catch a taxi home. I wound up on a fast train to Bankstown, for those who don't know where that is don't worry I don't either. Judging from the other passengers on the train it is a sub-level of hell. I had some time to think, on the trains, about the oddness of the evening. It is a great shame that I am now too exhausted to write about it, a great shame indeed.
It is good though that no one has changed any of the signs at Central Station so that they read Entrail. This would be possible by the simple removal of the letter C and the small addition of an I.
* Listen to Adam Lewis's radio show, it's quite good.
Oh and the reason I left the house with box of PAN magazines was to attend A.H. Cayley's Confession Booth. A.H. is the Chief Sub-Editor of PAN magazine and once pulled all the legs off a spider, I believe she was an infant when the leg-pulling incident occurred.
I've never met Matt Banham before but people, like P. Street tell me that I should have. The first thing Banham ever said to me, and other people in the room, was a long drunken tale about shitting his pants twenty minutes from home. Yes it was crass but not quite as crude, when listened to first-hand, as the story Rhys Muldoon told about concocting fake santorum in his kitchen to fool Ben Mendelsohn with. I do not know why this occurred, or when.
I knew it was going to be a strange night when Mr X cancelled last minute, citing exhaustion. It's a good thing he is not a celebrity, we all know what 'exhaustion' means when someone is a celebrity. In the case of Mr X I suspect it was a case of being very tired indeed. The strangeness began when I immediately rang and booked a taxi for myself without pausing or making a clear strategy for using in case of emergencies, which is what I usually do when I have to get picked up in a taxi by myself. This time I calmly thought oh well Mr X is tired, sucks to be him, and then went about my solo-taxi business. The taxi cost five million and twelve dollars and fiftybillion cents, due to traffic. Strange event number two, I cared only mildly.
Many odd things occurred but none so odd as my catching the train without bothering to look at where the train was going, after I had already decided to catch a taxi home. I wound up on a fast train to Bankstown, for those who don't know where that is don't worry I don't either. Judging from the other passengers on the train it is a sub-level of hell. I had some time to think, on the trains, about the oddness of the evening. It is a great shame that I am now too exhausted to write about it, a great shame indeed.
It is good though that no one has changed any of the signs at Central Station so that they read Entrail. This would be possible by the simple removal of the letter C and the small addition of an I.
* Listen to Adam Lewis's radio show, it's quite good.
Oh and the reason I left the house with box of PAN magazines was to attend A.H. Cayley's Confession Booth. A.H. is the Chief Sub-Editor of PAN magazine and once pulled all the legs off a spider, I believe she was an infant when the leg-pulling incident occurred.
You are boring
Work - challenging (in an odd but not bad way)
Home - peaceful (and mildly clean)
Friends - all fine (unless they are pretending)
Family - no problems (and presumably still alive)
Manuscript - going (yes)
PAN - in progress (a way to go but in progress)
BORING.
All work and no play makes Dale a dull girl.
I'm not seducing disaster, merely making an observation, pass me the champagne.
Home - peaceful (and mildly clean)
Friends - all fine (unless they are pretending)
Family - no problems (and presumably still alive)
Manuscript - going (yes)
PAN - in progress (a way to go but in progress)
BORING.
All work and no play makes Dale a dull girl.
I'm not seducing disaster, merely making an observation, pass me the champagne.
If I could turn back time
I would swap Paul McCartney for John Lennon. There is a reason Paul was never asked to join The Traveling Wilburys.
Portraits & lemon wheels distract island resident
 |
| I took this dodgy photo of Lyndal |
I planned to spend every waking moment from Friday after work until Sunday night in a deliberately blissful state of writing reverie but as it so happened one or two things popped up. The first thing was work, stupid fucking work, I ended up working until almost eight at night, until Spencer came in the office door with a Rolling Stones poster and the pronouncement that he was bored and sick of waiting for me to finish. We had planned, earlier in the day, to travel together to official distraction number one.
Official distraction number one was having our portraits taken by the excellent photographer Lyndal Irons, who happens to be a friend of ours. The portraits were Lyndal's idea, not mine. When we got to her house the lounge room was transformed, huge light panel thingos and boxes that look like amps but aren't, they were giant light-controlling box things. We all sat in the back yard drinking beer and yammering in our way until Lyndal called us in one at a time to take her shots. I don't like having my photo taken, I'm not at all photogenic, I'm all surface, no shadow, unlike Spencer who has more angles than a geometry lesson, but when Lyndal asks me I'll do it.
It was odd just sitting there, occasionally being directed to turn a little this way or another. Lyndal looked busy, changing settings on everything from her camera to the giant light-controlling boxes, moving big things on stands around. I have no idea at all about anything to do with photography, except this, when she works there is a beautiful intensity about her. She becomes transformed and it's mesmerising.
Official distraction number two came the next night. I had two to choose from, one party where Spencer was the dj and I'd know about a billion people. The kind of party that I might easily find myself still at as the sun rises or a party at Mr X's house where I would know almost no one and would most likely stay well within the limits of tame. I chose the wrong party if my purpose was partying. I went to Mr X's house to help his lovely housemate celebrate her thirtieth birthday. It was a mild party, the housemate's friends were over-groomed and simultaneously over-confident and embarrassed. The embarrassment became evident when the housemate declared it was time for an air guitar competition. There were grown men hiding behind the lounge to avoid being called up to compete. If I had declared such a competition at my birthday party a few weeks ago I'm fairly confident that at least three pieces of furniture would have been destroyed in the resulting mayhem. As it was Spencer, Madam Squeeze and AHC performed a five minute interpretive dance piece, with moonwalking, P Street and E from next door waltzed mightily into the refrigerator, Abdullah did something entirely unexpected and I injured myself jumping around with a bucket on my head, and at least three highly shocking yet hilarious events occurred before midnight.
At Mr X's tonight three sets of people competed in an abashed manner and then rejoined the herd as quickly as possible. The poor birthday girl tried getting everybody to do it at once, and then tried to do just general dancing but nothing would work. They all stood there hoping not to be noticed. I felt sorry for the poor girl who is obviously quite a bit more fabulous than her general network of friends.
Around midnight a serious case of the yawns set in, just as Mr X reappeared from the kitchen with a mug of gin and tonic that included a whole wheel of lemon. I suppose I might have stayed and talked merrily with Mr X and the small band of people I have come to know but the yawns got hold of me mightily and skulked back through the back streets to The Peach. I wrote for a few more hours but now I'm giving up for the day. It's three in the morning and I've run out of steam.
I'm hoping tomorrow, with no scheduled official distractions, I can get back to island living.
Don't go changing
Years ago I read both of Lauren Bacall's autobiographies. I remember little about them, in the first volume she married Bogey, it was difficult to convince him to buy a house and then he died and she kept his silk shirts to wear as her own. In the second volume Ms Bacall set about ridding herself of most of her earthly possessions because she was ageing and didn't want to die with a big house full of furniture.
I might have reached the second volume stage of my life. I used to want options, for everything. Options about pens, ballpoint, cartridge, fountain, quill, expensive, very cheap indeed, glow-in-the-dark, blue, black, orange, green, purple. This one example of pens may give you some idea as to what is going on inside my cupboards, drawers, shelves and wardrobes. I want it gone, everything except the silk shirts.
I might have reached the second volume stage of my life. I used to want options, for everything. Options about pens, ballpoint, cartridge, fountain, quill, expensive, very cheap indeed, glow-in-the-dark, blue, black, orange, green, purple. This one example of pens may give you some idea as to what is going on inside my cupboards, drawers, shelves and wardrobes. I want it gone, everything except the silk shirts.
Just listen
Josephine Rowe, one of my favourite writers, has introduced me to The Moth and now I can't do anything except listen.
Read about Josephine's vist to The Moth HQ in NYC over at Dumbo Feather (and then get the Stitcher podcast). Yeah that's a lot of links, shut up about it and just listen.
Damp towel brings joy to undisturbed woman who sits contemplating doing a crime
Everyone is talking about love, who loves them, or doesn't, or should, did or could or who they love or don't, or want to, will do or could. I'm not listening to them because as usual I am thinking about myself. I used to love and it was terrible.
Sometimes it was fine or good or mildly excellent but most of the time it was terrible. In theory it was good, someone to share the bills and the worries and the joys and the chores and the adventure but most of the men I have loved, even platonic love, were impractical creatures and more trouble than use in most matters. Almost all of them were deliberately selfish, except Artboy who was basically Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia but without the expensive wedding dress.
When I reflect on the compromises I used to make, the effort I used to go to, the time and energy and worry I gave away, I feel a little ill. Like a mild dose of flu of experienced at high speed but then it is gone and I am here again. When I say here I mean in The Peach, in the present, in my reading glasses and a damp towel with nothing on my mind or my to do list except what I want.
This is ideal. What I love is this, being able to sit around in my reading glasses and damp towel and know that I will remain undisturbed. Well at least until Grizelda shouts down the hallway about cupcakes. She is insisting on making red cupcakes with heart-shaped pink icing thingos to give to the people at her work tomorrow, because she is thinking about love.
I am thinking about stealing one of the cupcakes and how fortunate I am to own more than one towel. I plan on leaving both towel and cupcake wrapper on the floor overnight.
Sometimes it was fine or good or mildly excellent but most of the time it was terrible. In theory it was good, someone to share the bills and the worries and the joys and the chores and the adventure but most of the men I have loved, even platonic love, were impractical creatures and more trouble than use in most matters. Almost all of them were deliberately selfish, except Artboy who was basically Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia but without the expensive wedding dress.
When I reflect on the compromises I used to make, the effort I used to go to, the time and energy and worry I gave away, I feel a little ill. Like a mild dose of flu of experienced at high speed but then it is gone and I am here again. When I say here I mean in The Peach, in the present, in my reading glasses and a damp towel with nothing on my mind or my to do list except what I want.
This is ideal. What I love is this, being able to sit around in my reading glasses and damp towel and know that I will remain undisturbed. Well at least until Grizelda shouts down the hallway about cupcakes. She is insisting on making red cupcakes with heart-shaped pink icing thingos to give to the people at her work tomorrow, because she is thinking about love.
I am thinking about stealing one of the cupcakes and how fortunate I am to own more than one towel. I plan on leaving both towel and cupcake wrapper on the floor overnight.
I don't know
A man I didn't really know died recently, I'd met him once or twice at events hosted by one of those not-for-profits that invade every aspect of everything ever thought of. The not-for-profit decided to sell memorabilia at one of their events and the man, the now-dead man, trembled his way over to the table to inspect the goods.
He took a while moving between his seat and the merch table at the back of the hall, you could see his navigation systems were having some trouble and his legs, though willing, bowed and angled like they were bearing the weight of an eight-tonne truck and not the birdlike body of an elderly man. He fingered some of the merchandise, letting it slide between his fingers before putting it down again. He opened his wallet but came up a little short, I offered, because I was working the merch table, to let him pay the balance later, but he declined. Angling his head and taking a last look he went to walk away but his wife spotted him and came over. He politely enquired as to whether she might have some money about her person and pointed shyly to the merch.
The wife, elderly and impeccably groomed, gushed, "Of course you must have one my darling" and immediately produced a large amount of cash, in hundreds, from thin air. She might have been pompous if it wasn't for the tender glance she shot in her husband's direction. He fingered the merch once more before reverently choosing one and carefully stashing it in his battered old briefcase. Earlier in the proceedings he had introduced himself to me and proudly stated that he was back in action and ready to be of service once again. I had eyed him warily wondering if he wasn't a crackpot who'd wandered in from the street but was soon sure of his status in the group when The Captain of the not-for-profit made a show of shaking his hand.
At the time of the showy handshake I felt a shiver of disgust, not for the man but for the closed in world of not-for-profits. I found myself in a state of involuntary reverie about community marching bands and pony clubs. Those places seemed haunted by elderly people who did nothing but yell at children like me to sit up straighter on my pony or hold my clarinet at different angle. Back then I wondered why these elderly yelling people were tolerated when all they did was wear the club tie and yell and complain about things. I know better these days but at the moment of the showy handshake I felt a childlike urge to gallop off or deliberately play in the wrong key.
During the speeches, and the reading of the minutes and the chugging through of the agenda I watched the old man from my perch at the back of the room. I felt my own small tenderness for his dear old head as it bent over his shaky notes. I wondered what he was writing and why. The secretary was taking official minutes and the room was packed with emeritus academics who surely must have one or two memory cells between them. He persisted with his intense concentration and note-taking right through to the end of the proceedings.
When all the other academics and assorted official people were braying loudly over full cups of expensive wines and rocking back and forth on their heels in a mildly demented manner the old man was sitting lightly on a plastic chair in the corner. Every so often he would take a peek in his briefcase and stare fondly at his merchandise. I made a note to post him a receipt with a kind note, something simple about how the not-for-profit was terribly glad he was "back in action".
I never saw the man again, he died before I had a chance to make up for the insolence of my youth, all those times I rode off at pony club with my nose in the air, or declared at band practice that someone was 'not the boss of me'. There's probably something I should think of to tie this little anecdote up, finish it up with a concluding sentence but I just can't think what it is. Perhaps it is enough that I noticed him, that outside of his family and friends and the official mourning accompanying anyone who has achieved great things there is someone else who will remember him. Or maybe it isn't. I don't know, maybe I'm just feeling sentimental and in five minutes I will have forgotten all about everything.
He took a while moving between his seat and the merch table at the back of the hall, you could see his navigation systems were having some trouble and his legs, though willing, bowed and angled like they were bearing the weight of an eight-tonne truck and not the birdlike body of an elderly man. He fingered some of the merchandise, letting it slide between his fingers before putting it down again. He opened his wallet but came up a little short, I offered, because I was working the merch table, to let him pay the balance later, but he declined. Angling his head and taking a last look he went to walk away but his wife spotted him and came over. He politely enquired as to whether she might have some money about her person and pointed shyly to the merch.
The wife, elderly and impeccably groomed, gushed, "Of course you must have one my darling" and immediately produced a large amount of cash, in hundreds, from thin air. She might have been pompous if it wasn't for the tender glance she shot in her husband's direction. He fingered the merch once more before reverently choosing one and carefully stashing it in his battered old briefcase. Earlier in the proceedings he had introduced himself to me and proudly stated that he was back in action and ready to be of service once again. I had eyed him warily wondering if he wasn't a crackpot who'd wandered in from the street but was soon sure of his status in the group when The Captain of the not-for-profit made a show of shaking his hand.
At the time of the showy handshake I felt a shiver of disgust, not for the man but for the closed in world of not-for-profits. I found myself in a state of involuntary reverie about community marching bands and pony clubs. Those places seemed haunted by elderly people who did nothing but yell at children like me to sit up straighter on my pony or hold my clarinet at different angle. Back then I wondered why these elderly yelling people were tolerated when all they did was wear the club tie and yell and complain about things. I know better these days but at the moment of the showy handshake I felt a childlike urge to gallop off or deliberately play in the wrong key.
During the speeches, and the reading of the minutes and the chugging through of the agenda I watched the old man from my perch at the back of the room. I felt my own small tenderness for his dear old head as it bent over his shaky notes. I wondered what he was writing and why. The secretary was taking official minutes and the room was packed with emeritus academics who surely must have one or two memory cells between them. He persisted with his intense concentration and note-taking right through to the end of the proceedings.
When all the other academics and assorted official people were braying loudly over full cups of expensive wines and rocking back and forth on their heels in a mildly demented manner the old man was sitting lightly on a plastic chair in the corner. Every so often he would take a peek in his briefcase and stare fondly at his merchandise. I made a note to post him a receipt with a kind note, something simple about how the not-for-profit was terribly glad he was "back in action".
I never saw the man again, he died before I had a chance to make up for the insolence of my youth, all those times I rode off at pony club with my nose in the air, or declared at band practice that someone was 'not the boss of me'. There's probably something I should think of to tie this little anecdote up, finish it up with a concluding sentence but I just can't think what it is. Perhaps it is enough that I noticed him, that outside of his family and friends and the official mourning accompanying anyone who has achieved great things there is someone else who will remember him. Or maybe it isn't. I don't know, maybe I'm just feeling sentimental and in five minutes I will have forgotten all about everything.
Number nine
Recurring dream of giving speech of thanks at dinner party on The Peach Deck. During the speech it feels important to explain to all ten guests how I first met each one of them, as though joining dots in invisible puzzles. The dream repeats itself, sometimes two or three times a night, every night, without respite.
In the dream I am making a speech to friends, giving thanks for making known the possibility of joy, sketching lightly old histories of sorrow and how I arrived here in the city like a refugee clutching wildly at any shred of will to live and continue on into tomorrow. I remember I used to vomit on the way to work, every day, less than half way to the train station, I was so tightly wound and simultaneously undone I could barely breathe. And then there is now.
The speech is disturbing my sleep. I lay awake before dawn reciting it like an elongated mantra. At first I dismissed it as yet another folly of the unconscious mind but instead of forming a long-winded aphasia its meaning daily increases. Perhaps it is my ode to joy.
In the dream I am making a speech to friends, giving thanks for making known the possibility of joy, sketching lightly old histories of sorrow and how I arrived here in the city like a refugee clutching wildly at any shred of will to live and continue on into tomorrow. I remember I used to vomit on the way to work, every day, less than half way to the train station, I was so tightly wound and simultaneously undone I could barely breathe. And then there is now.
The speech is disturbing my sleep. I lay awake before dawn reciting it like an elongated mantra. At first I dismissed it as yet another folly of the unconscious mind but instead of forming a long-winded aphasia its meaning daily increases. Perhaps it is my ode to joy.
So this is thirty five
Too preoccupied to be bothered with pondering about significance of age. You see there are at least ten plates losing momentum rapidly and my motivation was at least partially depleted in that glorious moment when friends were drunk and shouting from The Peach Deck and I was dancing in the hallway with a bucket on my head. There's that letter to Mr Goldblum I'm still working on, a forty centimetre stack of submissions to PAN, the manuscript to be dealt with and nobody has realigned the coloured dots in the hall for at least a week. Bob was right about times. Changing so much it has become clear that joy is a very real possibility.
Difficulty upon difficulties
It is harder than one might imagine to draft a letter to Jeff Goldblum.
Why am I here?
What the hell is going on? Is what I should have demanded far more often than I did this weekend.
The above satellite photo shows the location of the chain restaurant where I had breakfast with family on Sunday. Note it is situated in the middle of a paddock and across the road from the vile Hawkesbury-Nepean River.
It is a strange location for a chain restaurant. I can't help but think I might have enjoyed it's oddness more if it was the ambitious project of some enterprising farmer who had always cherished a secret love of cooking instead one of those franchised chains. I'm quite sure the farmer would not have made me dry pancakes nor raised an eyebrow when I requested bacon instead of ice cream. He is probably also a painter, with oils, who sits speakers in the windows of his house so the horses can hear the music too. He uses only the best coffee beans and sometimes chops wood using an axe.
Wishing and a hoping
Today I am mostly wishing The Fly will turn out differently this time. That no fly flew into the transporter pod and Seth Brundle lived a long and human life.
Notes
- Maybe add stuff about the dead sea captains.
- Find out if it should be dead Sea Captains or sea-captains or Sea-captains or Sea-Captains.
- Don't worry about the United Nations.
Dead sea captains, my very own pile of bones and the United Nations
This is the very first draft of a letter I intend to send to a friend.
Dear Friend,
Firstly, this is a kind of letter of thanks. Secondly, this is the first letter I have written on HAL so in this way at least it is special. I don't know what in the fuck came over you to make you decide to give me my very own ticket to see PJ Harvey at the State Theatre. There is no possible way I could have accepted such a generous gift if it wasn't for the kind and equally generous words that accompanied the giving. I suppose this letter will be entirely redundant by the time you receive it seeing as you are going to the very same PJ Harvey show tomorrow night but I'm not afraid of a little redundancy, every now and then.
I think I've come away changed. It was her quiet deliberateness that's done it. She was so sure, moving in and out of the light, making use of shadows. She was so sure of every exchange of silence for sound. I'm thinking my pile of bones will be talking about the time I saw PJ Harvey long after the rest of me has vanished.
She began in darkness, edged forwards into a dim light and cast a tall shadow up the vaulted walls of the theatre. There are angels in the architecture here. I couldn't tear myself away from the dark image, the long feather tendrils of her headdress casting ideas of ragged bones and fallen wings while she sang and strummed that damn autoharp like it was easier than breathing.
I used to play the autoharp, when I was a kid, in the garage. It was where all the interesting things were, old ammunition boxes, glockenspiels, melodicas, tamborines, guitars, an ancient upright piano, basses, amps, quad boxes, wood blocks, workbenches, train sets, easels, paints, a banjo, jars fulls of coloured picks and an autoharp. Dad covered the floor in avocado green carpet tiles that scratched and itched bare flesh mercilessly. It was basically coloured sandpaper. I'm not sure why he did that. Between the carpet tiles tearing at the backs of my legs and the autoharp taking the tops off my fingers I don't really know why I spent so much time in there.
If I had to state my purpose in spending so much time in a hostile garage I'd choose possibility. The sense of possibility, you could do or make or play anything in that room, nothing was off limits, no flight of fancy I couldn't at least make a decent attempt at turning into fact. I eventually came out of that garage with the knowledge that not every idea works, a series of crazy attempts at weird instruments, a detective agency, a solid sense where I fail creatively and the ability to fall steadfastly into an idea.
This is where I'm going to try and make a point, I think I might have one. I feel like PJ Harvey came out of that garage in a way that I didn't and it has filled me with awe. Sitting under the gilt vaults and arches in the theatre tonight I struggled to comprehend something, it seems just beyond my reach, a sense of power and wonder unlike anything people call religious. Ideas turned tangible.
She was tiny, wrapped in that big black dress, trailing feathers down the back of her hair. Tiny but solid as definite as a tree. I believed, without struggle, every word she sang, wailed and uttered. Followed her without question down the thick path of mourning for a country I've never seen.
My friend N, whose ticket I had arranged to collect and hold for her, arrived two minutes before the show started so we barrelled in and took our seats as fast we could. Once the light died and we spied shadowy figures making their way onto the stage I sat in silence. Uttered not one word, shared not one thought, glance or movement. You have given me the indulgence of solitude. The unfettered joy of witnessing without the burden of being obliged to hack off part of my experience and give it away. I've collected each moment and pressed them into private unvarnished memory.
I don't need to talk about the music, you already know what I mean.
Last night you called the Sydney Festival "art served on white bread", which is just about perfect for everything, except this. So thank you for the ticket, in case it wasn't clear from this letter, I'm saying thank you for the ticket.
I'm glad you've travelled round the world and back again. You're a pal and a confidante.
With actual sincerity for once,
DS
Dear Friend,
Firstly, this is a kind of letter of thanks. Secondly, this is the first letter I have written on HAL so in this way at least it is special. I don't know what in the fuck came over you to make you decide to give me my very own ticket to see PJ Harvey at the State Theatre. There is no possible way I could have accepted such a generous gift if it wasn't for the kind and equally generous words that accompanied the giving. I suppose this letter will be entirely redundant by the time you receive it seeing as you are going to the very same PJ Harvey show tomorrow night but I'm not afraid of a little redundancy, every now and then.
I think I've come away changed. It was her quiet deliberateness that's done it. She was so sure, moving in and out of the light, making use of shadows. She was so sure of every exchange of silence for sound. I'm thinking my pile of bones will be talking about the time I saw PJ Harvey long after the rest of me has vanished.
She began in darkness, edged forwards into a dim light and cast a tall shadow up the vaulted walls of the theatre. There are angels in the architecture here. I couldn't tear myself away from the dark image, the long feather tendrils of her headdress casting ideas of ragged bones and fallen wings while she sang and strummed that damn autoharp like it was easier than breathing.
I used to play the autoharp, when I was a kid, in the garage. It was where all the interesting things were, old ammunition boxes, glockenspiels, melodicas, tamborines, guitars, an ancient upright piano, basses, amps, quad boxes, wood blocks, workbenches, train sets, easels, paints, a banjo, jars fulls of coloured picks and an autoharp. Dad covered the floor in avocado green carpet tiles that scratched and itched bare flesh mercilessly. It was basically coloured sandpaper. I'm not sure why he did that. Between the carpet tiles tearing at the backs of my legs and the autoharp taking the tops off my fingers I don't really know why I spent so much time in there.
If I had to state my purpose in spending so much time in a hostile garage I'd choose possibility. The sense of possibility, you could do or make or play anything in that room, nothing was off limits, no flight of fancy I couldn't at least make a decent attempt at turning into fact. I eventually came out of that garage with the knowledge that not every idea works, a series of crazy attempts at weird instruments, a detective agency, a solid sense where I fail creatively and the ability to fall steadfastly into an idea.
This is where I'm going to try and make a point, I think I might have one. I feel like PJ Harvey came out of that garage in a way that I didn't and it has filled me with awe. Sitting under the gilt vaults and arches in the theatre tonight I struggled to comprehend something, it seems just beyond my reach, a sense of power and wonder unlike anything people call religious. Ideas turned tangible.
She was tiny, wrapped in that big black dress, trailing feathers down the back of her hair. Tiny but solid as definite as a tree. I believed, without struggle, every word she sang, wailed and uttered. Followed her without question down the thick path of mourning for a country I've never seen.
My friend N, whose ticket I had arranged to collect and hold for her, arrived two minutes before the show started so we barrelled in and took our seats as fast we could. Once the light died and we spied shadowy figures making their way onto the stage I sat in silence. Uttered not one word, shared not one thought, glance or movement. You have given me the indulgence of solitude. The unfettered joy of witnessing without the burden of being obliged to hack off part of my experience and give it away. I've collected each moment and pressed them into private unvarnished memory.
I don't need to talk about the music, you already know what I mean.
Last night you called the Sydney Festival "art served on white bread", which is just about perfect for everything, except this. So thank you for the ticket, in case it wasn't clear from this letter, I'm saying thank you for the ticket.
I'm glad you've travelled round the world and back again. You're a pal and a confidante.
With actual sincerity for once,
DS
Hyde Park might be growing on me
Neither Spencer nor I were expecting to enjoy the event. Being invited as 'magazine editors' to a VIP event hosted by an alcohol brand as part of the Sydney Festival was a fairly unattractive proposition but when we got there we changed our minds.
Sydney is capable of pulling up her smog-soaked gown and being suddenly jaw-droppingly beautiful. Spencer and I were sitting in a temporary beer garden in the middle of Hyde Park when he said something along the lines of "Look that way if you want to see something nice". It wasn't nice, it was fucking spectacular. Through the waving green window of a canopy of trees the last light of the day was spilling rose and gold across the old sandstone cathedral and the sky, we all know about those.
We were photographed, plied with free drinks, fed with free prawns and then gently ushered into a plywood contraption they were calling a hunting lodge. The hunting lodge was complete with fake fire, fake antlers on the walls and roaming models in orange hot pants and peculiar hats. After a drink or two the modestly sized building began to take on a genuine feeling of being a hunting lodge. At least what I imagine an actual hunting lodge might be like, there aren't any of those hanging around in Sydney, usually.
We wandered about from bar to garden and back again, taking advantage of the free drinks, until we were once again gently ushered into the hunting lodge. Without fanfare a band began to play and Tim Finn popped up as though beamed in from outer space and jumped straight into 'Six Months in a Leaky Boat'.
Thirty seconds into the set I was hooked. I suppose I should have known that by now Tim Finn is a man who knows how to perform. He brought a surprising raw intensity to his performance, I barely looked away until it was over. The whole crowd felt like it was one communal splitting grin.
I had no idea how brilliant seeing Tim Finn playing a small fake hunting lodge would turn out to be so thank you Sydney Festival, and alcohol brand with a bottomless marketing budget, thank you.
Sydney is capable of pulling up her smog-soaked gown and being suddenly jaw-droppingly beautiful. Spencer and I were sitting in a temporary beer garden in the middle of Hyde Park when he said something along the lines of "Look that way if you want to see something nice". It wasn't nice, it was fucking spectacular. Through the waving green window of a canopy of trees the last light of the day was spilling rose and gold across the old sandstone cathedral and the sky, we all know about those.
We were photographed, plied with free drinks, fed with free prawns and then gently ushered into a plywood contraption they were calling a hunting lodge. The hunting lodge was complete with fake fire, fake antlers on the walls and roaming models in orange hot pants and peculiar hats. After a drink or two the modestly sized building began to take on a genuine feeling of being a hunting lodge. At least what I imagine an actual hunting lodge might be like, there aren't any of those hanging around in Sydney, usually.
We wandered about from bar to garden and back again, taking advantage of the free drinks, until we were once again gently ushered into the hunting lodge. Without fanfare a band began to play and Tim Finn popped up as though beamed in from outer space and jumped straight into 'Six Months in a Leaky Boat'.
Thirty seconds into the set I was hooked. I suppose I should have known that by now Tim Finn is a man who knows how to perform. He brought a surprising raw intensity to his performance, I barely looked away until it was over. The whole crowd felt like it was one communal splitting grin.
I had no idea how brilliant seeing Tim Finn playing a small fake hunting lodge would turn out to be so thank you Sydney Festival, and alcohol brand with a bottomless marketing budget, thank you.
Breaking the law breaking the law
Laws I have broken today due to poverty.
1. Do not eat cheese that comes in jar and does not require refrigeration.
2. All toothpaste must contain fluoride and shall not taste like condensed arse.
3. Never shall no name instant coffee pass your lips.
It's only three so far but the day is young...
1. Do not eat cheese that comes in jar and does not require refrigeration.
2. All toothpaste must contain fluoride and shall not taste like condensed arse.
3. Never shall no name instant coffee pass your lips.
It's only three so far but the day is young...
The Peach has run out of coffee
Now I'm thinking about backstories and dreaming of coffee. Coffee is good and then it is gone and then it is good and it is gone, backstories aren't so simple. There are so many horrifying chapters to my backstory that I can't pick it all up in one bag. It's like I tried to cram all the world's dog shit into one plastic bag and here I stand covered in the consequences.
Maybe I'll tackle it in chapters, bind it into something useful, make an index and set it on fire. Or maybe I'll just go out for coffee and understand that it is good and then it will be gone.
Maybe I'll tackle it in chapters, bind it into something useful, make an index and set it on fire. Or maybe I'll just go out for coffee and understand that it is good and then it will be gone.
What if there is no stream?
Always there is some larger struggle, ideologically, physically, emotionally. This week I despair at the low pay and unlikely nature of current job. Three years ago I kicked against an average income and full-time hours because it hurt my need for respite and writing. I had a thirst for time on my hands.
This week I have felt ignored by my employers who largely leave me to my own devices in an otherwise empty building. I have complained, loudly, to everyone I know that I wish to feel busy, used up by the end of the working day so that I may feel a sense of accomplishment and drop exhausted into an ordinary civilian slumber at the close of the day. Grizelda, who is wise in unexpected moments, told me to shut up and use any available time for working on my own projects like PAN or my manuscript. She said this job, apart from only just covering the rent, is ideal for my needs.
I wonder if she is right. Apart from the appallingly low pay* I seem to be swimming against an idea that was previously my ideal. Brushing my hair this morning, it was at midday but I wanted to give the impression I was more organised than I am, I remembered a horse rider I admired when I was ten years old. Her name was Glenda, she was a grown up with a firefighter husband, babies in prams and a beautiful black horse who was vicious and wily. I was forbidden from entering his stable without supervision. Glenda used to waltz in and out of this stable without caution or alarm, drape her arm across the beast and laugh if he turned from his hay net to make a face and bare his enormous teeth at her. Unlike the stable supervisor Glenda had no trouble handling this horse at all**.
Glenda had long red hair, hanging thick and heavy to nearly her waist. She always, every day, wore her hair in plaits. I longed to make such a firm decision as Glenda seemed to, to decide on one way of wearing my hair and stick to it every day for the rest of my life. I wore my hair in plaits for three days then became bored and attempted a Princess Leia style before wishing it all chopped off like a lady in a Scott F Fitzgerald novel. I was an annoyingly precocious reader.
It bothered me that I was unable to take one thing and absorb it seamlessly into my way of being. I felt always to be swimming upstream, from the way I brushed my teeth to which breakfast cereal I preferred in the mornings. People I admired seemed to be people of habit, resolute in their ways and this was accepted if not admired in them. I struggled to make decisions about everything, final decisions, to form habits, routines, things I always preferred or did or said. My mother had definite habits, sitting on a series of strange ergonomic stools with a dog at her feet as she wrote her latest thesis. My father would spend days doing boring chores, lawns, gardens, cleaning, organising, then sit exhausted and watch a bad movie on television before suddenly taking up a pencil and beginning all over again the extravagant and immersive experience of designing and building something beautiful from scratch.
I change my mind from moment to moment, any long-term decision is likely to be discarded five minutes after its declaration. I seem unable to choose a single goal or way of being and working resolutely towards its completion. My existence feels more fluid than it ought to, water running over everybody else's levels, never really settling always wanting to move on, down, forward and assault the land mass with arched innumerable lashes.
I wanted a part-time job so that I would have time. I was looking for a job and then I found a job and heaven knows I'm tired of being miserable now. Also there didn't really seem to be a point to this post, other than the quick expulsion of several loosely connected thoughts. Perhaps I am working something out.
*On being offered this job I clumsily negotiated for a higher rate of pay. After being told I was successful in my bid to be paid at a higher rate they informed me I would be working five less hours a week than the previous employee thus ending up with even less in hand than I thought I would be. Fuckers.
**Until the moment of his tragic death when she quite understandably entirely lost her shit and did not get it back for quite some time.
This week I have felt ignored by my employers who largely leave me to my own devices in an otherwise empty building. I have complained, loudly, to everyone I know that I wish to feel busy, used up by the end of the working day so that I may feel a sense of accomplishment and drop exhausted into an ordinary civilian slumber at the close of the day. Grizelda, who is wise in unexpected moments, told me to shut up and use any available time for working on my own projects like PAN or my manuscript. She said this job, apart from only just covering the rent, is ideal for my needs.
I wonder if she is right. Apart from the appallingly low pay* I seem to be swimming against an idea that was previously my ideal. Brushing my hair this morning, it was at midday but I wanted to give the impression I was more organised than I am, I remembered a horse rider I admired when I was ten years old. Her name was Glenda, she was a grown up with a firefighter husband, babies in prams and a beautiful black horse who was vicious and wily. I was forbidden from entering his stable without supervision. Glenda used to waltz in and out of this stable without caution or alarm, drape her arm across the beast and laugh if he turned from his hay net to make a face and bare his enormous teeth at her. Unlike the stable supervisor Glenda had no trouble handling this horse at all**.
Glenda had long red hair, hanging thick and heavy to nearly her waist. She always, every day, wore her hair in plaits. I longed to make such a firm decision as Glenda seemed to, to decide on one way of wearing my hair and stick to it every day for the rest of my life. I wore my hair in plaits for three days then became bored and attempted a Princess Leia style before wishing it all chopped off like a lady in a Scott F Fitzgerald novel. I was an annoyingly precocious reader.
It bothered me that I was unable to take one thing and absorb it seamlessly into my way of being. I felt always to be swimming upstream, from the way I brushed my teeth to which breakfast cereal I preferred in the mornings. People I admired seemed to be people of habit, resolute in their ways and this was accepted if not admired in them. I struggled to make decisions about everything, final decisions, to form habits, routines, things I always preferred or did or said. My mother had definite habits, sitting on a series of strange ergonomic stools with a dog at her feet as she wrote her latest thesis. My father would spend days doing boring chores, lawns, gardens, cleaning, organising, then sit exhausted and watch a bad movie on television before suddenly taking up a pencil and beginning all over again the extravagant and immersive experience of designing and building something beautiful from scratch.
I change my mind from moment to moment, any long-term decision is likely to be discarded five minutes after its declaration. I seem unable to choose a single goal or way of being and working resolutely towards its completion. My existence feels more fluid than it ought to, water running over everybody else's levels, never really settling always wanting to move on, down, forward and assault the land mass with arched innumerable lashes.
I wanted a part-time job so that I would have time. I was looking for a job and then I found a job and heaven knows I'm tired of being miserable now. Also there didn't really seem to be a point to this post, other than the quick expulsion of several loosely connected thoughts. Perhaps I am working something out.
*On being offered this job I clumsily negotiated for a higher rate of pay. After being told I was successful in my bid to be paid at a higher rate they informed me I would be working five less hours a week than the previous employee thus ending up with even less in hand than I thought I would be. Fuckers.
**Until the moment of his tragic death when she quite understandably entirely lost her shit and did not get it back for quite some time.
Return from the south pole
I have installed tins of peaches, cordial, jelly, soy milk and half a peanut butter sandwich in my office fridge. Coffee on the shelf above the sink.This has failed to have impact on anything except the ability to abate sensations of hunger or thirst.
I had imagined the process of deliberately equipping the office with personal comforts might effect the low resonant tolling of what feels like a submerged death knell. It has not. Peanut butter remains powerless against the darker forces of the universe, this is a great and burning shame.
I had imagined the process of deliberately equipping the office with personal comforts might effect the low resonant tolling of what feels like a submerged death knell. It has not. Peanut butter remains powerless against the darker forces of the universe, this is a great and burning shame.
First lady
First woman back in the office this year, only woman in the office this year, only human actually. At my non-PAN job, a horrid necessity, I am the only employee. The solitary and isolated nature of the job opens up all sorts of opportunities but so far I have limited it to loud music, dancing, throwing shoes and tying hair back in unflattering manner. I'm sure I'll think of something more exciting soon. Tomorrow I might attempt to use all the coffee mugs at once.
Happy fucking new year cocksuckers
I have developed a fondness for swearing, more so than I have ever felt before. I blame Deadwood for this. In an interesting side note I was wearing one of my mother's rings on Christmas day, the gold was dug out of the Black Hills of South Dakota, as was the gold in the necklace now laying on my desk. Both of these were gifts given to my mother by American friends a long time ago. I am sure they never dreamt the greatest joy they would bring to me is to stare at them while I watch Deadwood and yell "cocksucker!".
Oh yes, it is the new year. I can only report that I feel happy. That's right cocksuckers, I feel fucking happy. Spencer and I saw in the ticking of the clock on the Peach Deck with Gemma and one or two select friends. We wanted, I wanted and Spencer's wishes coincided, to have a quiet and drama-free evening doing anything or nothing as the notion took me within the friendly confines of these walls. Mission accomplished.
I am happy, a small part of me hopes you are happy too, the rest of me wants to joyously shout "cocksucker!" in your face and then fire a pistol into the air and gallop away on a horse.
Oh yes, it is the new year. I can only report that I feel happy. That's right cocksuckers, I feel fucking happy. Spencer and I saw in the ticking of the clock on the Peach Deck with Gemma and one or two select friends. We wanted, I wanted and Spencer's wishes coincided, to have a quiet and drama-free evening doing anything or nothing as the notion took me within the friendly confines of these walls. Mission accomplished.
I am happy, a small part of me hopes you are happy too, the rest of me wants to joyously shout "cocksucker!" in your face and then fire a pistol into the air and gallop away on a horse.
Every day there is music
If there was something here like the blowing of horns or the spies and flag boys, if there was something here instead of the shackling wide-walk bound in black denim, if there was something here other than the shrill grating of those fuckers come in on buses for a pub crawl or the students clearing out for Christmas or the untalented begging beer money with shit-out-of-tune guitars. If there was something here other than the stinking concrete corners sending back memory odours of beer and piss and dogshit and the occasional drops of blood then maybe, maybe we could build something. It's not enough to pretend, you got to practice.
Failing deliberately?
Turning down the offer of a well-paid, sensible and corporate job for a bizarre and lowly part-time one has got me thinking. Is this a kind of deliberate failure?
Here are the reasons, inside my head, for wanting a part-time job:
Here are the reasons, inside my head, for wanting a part-time job:
- I am exhausted by the world and it's demands. I feel as though I might die if I don't have enough, more than others seem to need, time to just be, to read and think and write and sleep and just be.
- I am trying to finish writing a manuscript. A whole book-length novel manuscript and this feels impossible even when I have nothing else I am obliged to do. I need time.
- I am trying to run a magazine. A stupid kind of magazine but one nonetheless and I want to do the best that I can, I want all the amazing people who work on Team PAN to feel as though I am doing all I can, that I am not taking advantage of their work and their time that I am trying, that I am brave, that I have a good plan. I need time for this.
- I cannot be a corporate person. I have tried. I have failed. A law degree does not make me a suit. It doesn't make me anything other than a person with a massive HECS debt.
- Almost every day there is at least one moment when I think, 'I can't do this, life is too hard'. I quite often, so often it doesn't even phase me anymore, think that I won't make it through the day. This is normal for me, but it seems that other people don't necessarily agree that it's normal. I manage these feelings quite easily, usually, and just go about as though that wink at oblivion never occurred but it marks me in a subtle way. If you know what you're looking at when you look at people you'll see a tidemark on me, see that I've been to sea, been washed up, been marked by experience outside the good and kind. It takes effort to move with ease among those who don't know what I'm talking about, it takes enormous effort to conform to an office culture. I feel too tired to attempt it.
- The morning. I struggle with regular early rising. I struggle against the need for clockwork rising, I battle myself with late nights, with random insomnia, with the inability to manage it for than three days at a time. I can't do it. I feel as though I can't physically do it.
- I have the wrong clothes. I don't have any money for office clothes, I can never find any that I can wear without looking like a balloon animal. I am inappropriately attired, always, and I don't know how to change that. If I was a slip of a girl I might go to the op shop or ask friends to loan me things but that is really not going to work.
- I'm sure there's more. I don't what they are at this moment. I'm going to finish defrosting the freezer and have a cup of tea and watch an episode of Killing Time. I like David Wenham, this doesn't mean I prefer him to Richard Roxburgh, I don't think that 's a rule.
- This is an incomplete train of thought and perhaps the negative part of this train of thought. Later there might be a long line of positive ideas and notes and perhaps even laughter.
It is interesting
It is interesting to go to a party and sit between three singer-songwriters and have them all break into song, at the same time. Very interesting indeed.
NPO (New Peach Order)
It's time for the NPO. The Peach has finally and thankfully shrunk from housing three residents to two. This process was not without some tension. The one that moved out was both a self-righteous and sanctimonious little antfucker* who saw fit to upset Grizelda on her way out the door.
Anyone who upsets Grizelda is not okay with me. The problem was simple and unavoidable, she gave notice but come moving day failed to move all of her furniture then attempted to store it here for another week. I said no, Judge Judy says no, so we told her no, so she came and got the rest of her stuff two days later and upset Grizelda.
It wasn't small boxes or the last bits and pieces, it was an entire double bed, a large l-shaped lounge, a huge television and other assorted things. Surely it is normal to move out on moving out day?
I'm not sorry to see the back of her but I am sorry that Grizelda got upset. Seems to me she just wanted to leave with a bang.
She was problematic as a housemate, rarely cleaned, almost never washed dishes, came and went like it was a hotel and then kicked up a stink every time a bill rolled in. This is not the kind of person I'm willing to share a roof with but I was willing to give it a try for the sake of Grizelda's peace of mind if nothing else. I even apologised for not being personable which is a world's first but there you have it.
I am looking forward to feeling delighted the very next time I come home and know that locking the door behind me means locking the likes of her out. In my mind home equals respite from antfuckers and people who straighten their hair for the twelfth time that week then deliberately go to establishments owned by Justin Hemmes after they have finished rereading their list of financial goals and pretended to follow religious direction but I digress.
It is time for the New Peach Order. May wandering in the hallway and trackpant wearing and tea making and cat feeding be the only exciting events to occur under this roof for a long long time. If not then I'm going to buy a gun. A big one. And I am going to shoot things in anger, like Elvis and Hunter S. Thompson and Hemingway and my grandmother did. It is a fine tradition.
*Dutch term, look it up, it's kind of amusing.
Anyone who upsets Grizelda is not okay with me. The problem was simple and unavoidable, she gave notice but come moving day failed to move all of her furniture then attempted to store it here for another week. I said no, Judge Judy says no, so we told her no, so she came and got the rest of her stuff two days later and upset Grizelda.
It wasn't small boxes or the last bits and pieces, it was an entire double bed, a large l-shaped lounge, a huge television and other assorted things. Surely it is normal to move out on moving out day?
I'm not sorry to see the back of her but I am sorry that Grizelda got upset. Seems to me she just wanted to leave with a bang.
She was problematic as a housemate, rarely cleaned, almost never washed dishes, came and went like it was a hotel and then kicked up a stink every time a bill rolled in. This is not the kind of person I'm willing to share a roof with but I was willing to give it a try for the sake of Grizelda's peace of mind if nothing else. I even apologised for not being personable which is a world's first but there you have it.
I am looking forward to feeling delighted the very next time I come home and know that locking the door behind me means locking the likes of her out. In my mind home equals respite from antfuckers and people who straighten their hair for the twelfth time that week then deliberately go to establishments owned by Justin Hemmes after they have finished rereading their list of financial goals and pretended to follow religious direction but I digress.
It is time for the New Peach Order. May wandering in the hallway and trackpant wearing and tea making and cat feeding be the only exciting events to occur under this roof for a long long time. If not then I'm going to buy a gun. A big one. And I am going to shoot things in anger, like Elvis and Hunter S. Thompson and Hemingway and my grandmother did. It is a fine tradition.
*Dutch term, look it up, it's kind of amusing.
All kinds of fraud
Lately there's been credit card fraud on my credit card, email fraud on my email, even mail fraud in my letterbox so just for a little bit I'm battening down the hatches.
Blogs are bad enough already without someone committing blog fraud.
Blogs are bad enough already without someone committing blog fraud.
Because people always want reasons
It's a Groucho Marx problem and to explain it properly I'd have to understand the complete complexity of myself, but I don't, so I'm going to wear this fake moustache and ask you to leave.
On a jet plane
I'm picking Spencer up from the airport in a few days, well Grizelda is driving me in her car to pick him up, and I can hardly wait. I love picking people up from the airport. Airports have everything that counts, heightened emotions, shining public spaces, bars and moving walkways, newsagents lined with novels and people at the end or the beginning of adventure.
I love the long moments of watching a crowd walk by, searching for a glimpse of that familiar person, the top of their head, the curve of their turned back. That second when you spot your person of interest and know for sure that that glimpse of forearm weighed down with a bag is the one you are looking for feels like a revelation. How can it possibly be that the merest glimpse of their outlined shape fills me with such certainty? It's one of those minor miracles, the way we become so accustomed to another that we know, from an abstract shape or disembodied limb, they are walking towards us.
I wonder if Spencer will be grumpy, most likely he will be tired, travel-weary and swirling through relief at being home and regret that it's over. Either way I'm certain of one thing. I'll be glad to see him.
I love the long moments of watching a crowd walk by, searching for a glimpse of that familiar person, the top of their head, the curve of their turned back. That second when you spot your person of interest and know for sure that that glimpse of forearm weighed down with a bag is the one you are looking for feels like a revelation. How can it possibly be that the merest glimpse of their outlined shape fills me with such certainty? It's one of those minor miracles, the way we become so accustomed to another that we know, from an abstract shape or disembodied limb, they are walking towards us.
I wonder if Spencer will be grumpy, most likely he will be tired, travel-weary and swirling through relief at being home and regret that it's over. Either way I'm certain of one thing. I'll be glad to see him.
Turner vs Turner
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| Painting by Mick Turner |
I told him how I bought it, from a fundraising art sale for PAN magazine. He insisted that was ridiculous, that no one would ever donate a Turner to an independent literary magazine run by a bunch of drunken failed intellectuals. It was at this point that three things became clear to me, the first that the man was a prat, the second that he needed to be ejected from my bedroom as soon as possible and the third that he had no idea who Mick Turner is.
What kind of a man doesn't know there's more than one Turner and how to tell the difference between them?
Bad photo, taken by me, without a flash, it looks better in real life, come over and I'll show you.
Lemon Gold
Geoff Lemon has dropped another one, this time it's about Qantas.
"Of course, those of a certain view will always find a way to blame unions. The unions faked the moon landings. The unions gave me herpes. Union dingoes took my baby. The unions are the reason why my kids hate me and my wife never quite looks me in the eye anymore." - Click here to read the rest on Heathen Scripture
"Of course, those of a certain view will always find a way to blame unions. The unions faked the moon landings. The unions gave me herpes. Union dingoes took my baby. The unions are the reason why my kids hate me and my wife never quite looks me in the eye anymore." - Click here to read the rest on Heathen Scripture
About some useless information
My parents have provided me with a large amount of excellent advice over the years, such as instituting a rotating system of shoes and not blowing off the tops of my thumbs with explosives in the garage but I think there was something crucial they forgot to impart about courage.
Every day there is an opportunity to be brave and a chance to shrink back into lesser deeds and slide sheepishly into the herd. Every day I require courage to forge a path forwards. There is no such thing as rising in the morning and finding a ready-made life. This is something crucial my parents forgot to impart about living, courage is a verb.
Every day there is an opportunity to be brave and a chance to shrink back into lesser deeds and slide sheepishly into the herd. Every day I require courage to forge a path forwards. There is no such thing as rising in the morning and finding a ready-made life. This is something crucial my parents forgot to impart about living, courage is a verb.
Between dreams
Caught somewhere between the bohemian and the conservative, the Baby Boomers and those fucking little pests we call Gen Y, there seems to be an awful lot of freedom and an equal mix of joy and despair.
Tired of not being able to shoot people in the head? Me too
You know those days when you need, and I mean really need, to white the world out and have time, all of it, to concentrate and write? Every day is one of those days for me. But I can't manage to do it. There's always work to be done, or looked for, applications to write, money to worry about and dishes to wash. I'm tired of living like this. Exhausted beyond reasonable human capacity is more apt, which is why I placed an ad in Gumtree for a patron earlier this evening.
So far only one response, and it was a man who simply said, "That was well written". Well 'forfunandbeyond' you can suck my imaginary cock. I don't have time to sit down and write some ridiculous essay begging for money. I'm too busy working on my magazine, and on my manuscript, organising all my notes and research and applying for fucked up jobs so I can pay my rent and on top of that dealing with a housemate (not Grizelda) who has preposterously decided to only pay a percentage of the electricity bill based on some kind of ratio of how many hours she spends in the house.
You should come over, I'll introduce you to her, you can sit down together and work out how to prepare a well-written proposal to me to pay rent based on the size of her arse and how many cubic centimetres of air it displaces when she walks down the hallway, or a letter to the resident cockroaches of the Inner West advising them that because she spends less time in the neighbourhood she should spot a percentage less cockroaches in gutters. Actually don't come over, go have a drink at The Ivy and drown in the rooftop pool. I'll be sure to make time to write a eulogy that outlines my precise percentage of giving a fuck.
So far only one response, and it was a man who simply said, "That was well written". Well 'forfunandbeyond' you can suck my imaginary cock. I don't have time to sit down and write some ridiculous essay begging for money. I'm too busy working on my magazine, and on my manuscript, organising all my notes and research and applying for fucked up jobs so I can pay my rent and on top of that dealing with a housemate (not Grizelda) who has preposterously decided to only pay a percentage of the electricity bill based on some kind of ratio of how many hours she spends in the house.
You should come over, I'll introduce you to her, you can sit down together and work out how to prepare a well-written proposal to me to pay rent based on the size of her arse and how many cubic centimetres of air it displaces when she walks down the hallway, or a letter to the resident cockroaches of the Inner West advising them that because she spends less time in the neighbourhood she should spot a percentage less cockroaches in gutters. Actually don't come over, go have a drink at The Ivy and drown in the rooftop pool. I'll be sure to make time to write a eulogy that outlines my precise percentage of giving a fuck.
Don't go out tonight
That old problem again. Walking home drunk and it's late and I'm tired and I'm smoking someone else's cigarettes and what a good time it was and then I 'm lost and then I'm home and then the keys and the door and then that's all of it finished and gone. Just nothing but me in an empty house where it is dark and an obligation for being quiet and not screaming up and down the hallway for just one more thing, just anything, something, someone to happen but all is untying shoelaces and remembering teeth and vowing about morning showers and nothing ever happens but the ordinary slow winding towards morning and one more day rattling up and down the hallway.
Send her victorious, happy and glorious or an earnest and boring first draft, publicly thinking about why I love the Queen
I love the Queen. I love her hats with matching bag, shoes and gloves. I love her gin-soaked downtime and the way she handles a horse. I keep a picture of her cantering across a field with a cigarette in one hand and a hip flask sticking out of her jacket pocket. It's how I spent the best years of my adolescence, wild and galloping anywhere I could.
Her life is public and she has been steadfast and dignified. For sixty years she has been the Queen, almost twice my lifetime so far, and not once has she failed to perform her duty. This morning I failed to dress and eat breakfast before midday because I was too interested in reading a novel, though I had many duties to perform.
I love the solid mumsiness of her. The kindly wave and stern gaze. The way she is so very clearly The Captain in every public conversation she has. Not once has she been accidentally offensive, uninformed or inappropriate. The woman deserves a medal for an endurance performance in public politeness lasting longer than anyone thought possible. Her private thoughts must be immense. They are a genuine mystery.
Her life is public and she has been steadfast and dignified. For sixty years she has been the Queen, almost twice my lifetime so far, and not once has she failed to perform her duty. This morning I failed to dress and eat breakfast before midday because I was too interested in reading a novel, though I had many duties to perform.
I love the solid mumsiness of her. The kindly wave and stern gaze. The way she is so very clearly The Captain in every public conversation she has. Not once has she been accidentally offensive, uninformed or inappropriate. The woman deserves a medal for an endurance performance in public politeness lasting longer than anyone thought possible. Her private thoughts must be immense. They are a genuine mystery.
A letter to Spencer in Leipzig, Germany
Dear Spencer,
There's been a Bensplosion round these parts since you've been gone. I'm not talking just one Ben but many. There are many Bens. I have spent time with at least one Ben a day for the last week. In my head I refer to them by their surnames so as not to become confused, like I do with Hunter, and Wilson, and Worrad. I suppose you've being seeing a lot of those folk lately, say hi to them for me.
Gemma has been texting me words like 'Benglorious, Benerific and Benutopia'. She said I have Bens on a revolving schedule but it's entirely unintentional.
There's been a Bensplosion round these parts since you've been gone. I'm not talking just one Ben but many. There are many Bens. I have spent time with at least one Ben a day for the last week. In my head I refer to them by their surnames so as not to become confused, like I do with Hunter, and Wilson, and Worrad. I suppose you've being seeing a lot of those folk lately, say hi to them for me.
Gemma has been texting me words like 'Benglorious, Benerific and Benutopia'. She said I have Bens on a revolving schedule but it's entirely unintentional.
Diesel not truckers and a long-winded unrelated introduction to the promised Safe As Houses post
Times, they are a blurrin'. A weekend soaked through to the bone with exhaustion and mix'n'match pile of friends. The whole thing finished with a kebab eaten sitting on a plastic chair on Parramatta Rd with Mr X while he told me about his father and the war and the traffic tucked away for the night.
Before the kebab and the talk of war I made an adventure to the casino. Walking down the long guts of the place with Miles Davis on my mp3 player and those old brown lace-up shoes on my feet I looked around the lit calamity of the joint and the frocked up, clean-shirted crowd and wondered just what it in the fuck I was doing. Theoretically I went to write about the absurd 'Rock Lily' venue. Mr X's band has a residency there and the idea intrigued me. He took to the stage and I sat at a long empty table.
Diesel and his bass player asked if they could join me, but I didn't know who they were until they got up later to play. I'm not in the habit of recognising people I know let alone strangers. I made notes, got drunk on free beer handed to me again and again by Mr X and his band's rider. I rambled down a set of back stairs out into the night after an hour of non-stop Diesel. I was trying to shake off the impression that there's something very wrong with the world.
Back in the Inner West under roadside electric lights I gratefully devoured a kebab and conversation. They shut off the lights after a while so I carried home two borrowed books to read and a whole new set of memories.
Better memories than the ones I'm talking about in my houses project over here.
Before the kebab and the talk of war I made an adventure to the casino. Walking down the long guts of the place with Miles Davis on my mp3 player and those old brown lace-up shoes on my feet I looked around the lit calamity of the joint and the frocked up, clean-shirted crowd and wondered just what it in the fuck I was doing. Theoretically I went to write about the absurd 'Rock Lily' venue. Mr X's band has a residency there and the idea intrigued me. He took to the stage and I sat at a long empty table.
Diesel and his bass player asked if they could join me, but I didn't know who they were until they got up later to play. I'm not in the habit of recognising people I know let alone strangers. I made notes, got drunk on free beer handed to me again and again by Mr X and his band's rider. I rambled down a set of back stairs out into the night after an hour of non-stop Diesel. I was trying to shake off the impression that there's something very wrong with the world.
Back in the Inner West under roadside electric lights I gratefully devoured a kebab and conversation. They shut off the lights after a while so I carried home two borrowed books to read and a whole new set of memories.
Better memories than the ones I'm talking about in my houses project over here.
Big happy from small sighting
or hear someone talking about it,
or even just catch a glimpse of a stranger
with a PANmagbag slung casually over a shoulder,
I feel undeniably happy for at least one whole second.
That is a long time to be undeniably happy.
For me.
A very long time indeed.
Usually happiness is at least partially deniable.
Or only partial itself.
Sometimes it is just a hint of what it should or could be
or just smells a vaguely familiar, like artificial fruit flavour.
PAN on Facbook
PAN website
Places you can buy PAN magazine (er, sorry couldn't stop myself)
Safe
I keep forgetting about my project of remembering. This week I vow to not only remember but take action. This week I will visit Catherine Street in Lilyfield, try not to alarm the current residents while I sit outside with my notebook and pen. This week I will remember.
Breaking up is hard to do or a magazine is not a person stupid
I was sitting next to PAN's excellent poetry editor, and good friend, Tim Sinclair when I tipped from relief into sorrow. I told him and he understood. You see Tim is a writer, a poet, a good one. He has lived that moment over and over again.
Last Wednesday night issue #2 of PAN magazine launched. People are telling me they had a good time at the party. I'm glad they did because I didn't. I hated most of it.* You can see how I can't even write a sentence with any sense of flow about this. Not even one. They are short and choppy and make hard little bitter feelings in my chest. I hated the anxiety, the anticipation, the organisation and most of all I hated the moment when I tipped from relief straight into sorrow.
Last Wednesday night issue #2 of PAN magazine launched. People are telling me they had a good time at the party. I'm glad they did because I didn't. I hated most of it.* You can see how I can't even write a sentence with any sense of flow about this. Not even one. They are short and choppy and make hard little bitter feelings in my chest. I hated the anxiety, the anticipation, the organisation and most of all I hated the moment when I tipped from relief straight into sorrow.
A letter to Spencer in North-West France (you told them you'd be back)
Dear Spencer,
You know how pineapple is the king of all fruit? Well I mentioned that last night, in a conversation about artificial fruit scents whilst smelling a scratch'n'sniff sticker. Nobody understood what I meant. The sticker-giving woman thought I meant pineapple was my favourite fruit, Mr X was just puzzled but he leant over a little and said "I like pineapple, it's a good fruit." but quietly, like you might say to a child who got something wrong by mistake. He only said anything at all because he is a kind interlocutor. He is kind in a lot of ways. Today he came to The Peach and drove me and some boxes of magazines to a shop so I wouldn't have to carry them, but then he said he had to do laundry and went home. So you can see it was one of those real kindnesses and not the fake kind, which is actually a little disappointing.
You know how pineapple is the king of all fruit? Well I mentioned that last night, in a conversation about artificial fruit scents whilst smelling a scratch'n'sniff sticker. Nobody understood what I meant. The sticker-giving woman thought I meant pineapple was my favourite fruit, Mr X was just puzzled but he leant over a little and said "I like pineapple, it's a good fruit." but quietly, like you might say to a child who got something wrong by mistake. He only said anything at all because he is a kind interlocutor. He is kind in a lot of ways. Today he came to The Peach and drove me and some boxes of magazines to a shop so I wouldn't have to carry them, but then he said he had to do laundry and went home. So you can see it was one of those real kindnesses and not the fake kind, which is actually a little disappointing.
Yes
The more I think about it the more monumental it seems. With one simple act my brother has physically redefined my sense of family. I never thought anything of marriage or weddings. Never pondered what the significance of what one in my immediate family might be, until last night. My brother telephoned to tell me he asked his girlfriend to marry him. I shouted a long stream of joyful words for some minutes before uttering the hushed question, "She said yes, didn't she?"
For me it began again with Delia Falconer's book "Sydney", though I have always felt it pushing
I can feel it gathering, we, the writers of Sydney have found our inward eyes leaching out into our geography and now it is coming. The next age of writing our existence, here.
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