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| Geoff Lemon, his vest and A.H. Cayley at PPR |
Last night I didn't see anybody going down but I saw a few people swinging
Help! My typewriter broke
My lovely old typewriter is in need of repair and I can't find anyone in Sydney who can assist me. I spoke with one man but he is in Mt Druitt, which may as well be the other end of the earth from here.
Here is a blurry photo of my old typewriter in action just last week. Anushka was using it to type things for her exhibition at Gaffa Gallery.
If you know of someone please help.
Defected
I have taken up citizenship of Nowhereisland. It is my greatest wish that I be happy here, at last.
Correction
The 'horrible' Alan Jones I was talking about is not in fact The horrible Alan Jones. He may not be horrible at all. A case of mistaken identity I believe. Thanks for the correction Tim.
Glad we cleared that up. And now for a delicious recipe.
Glad we cleared that up. And now for a delicious recipe.
RARE PANDA STEW
method:
1. Kill rare panda.
2. Make into stew.
Meeting at PAN HQ
Intern: "So what we'll do is get a performance dragon to come to the launch party and blow up the pile of magazines with dragon fire and then that will be awesome and everyone will be like, 'Did you see that massive dragon? Fucking brilliant.' And then we can just have the bands play and go on as usual. What do you think?"
Editor: (sighs)
Editor: (sighs)
Gumtree - the silent tyrant
I just tried to post an ad for a husband on Gumtree because I told my publicist I would. It won't let me. Keeps popping up with red flashing things saying I am breaching their policy. Who knew Gumtree is such a silent tyrant.
How Slamma got her weird back
I got my weird back. For a little while there strange things happened to Grizelda while my days sailed smooth and boring. Grizelda was horrified, she thought we might have swapped, for good. Meanwhile back at The Peach I was like a painted ship, then yesterday happened.
It started on Facebook where I had a brief scare that maybe Alan Jones was the man behind the $1000 grant PAN magazine was awarded from the Awesome Foundation. I discovered, after some investigation, that The Horrible Mr Jones came on board after PAN received the grant, as one of ten trustees but I didn't learn that until today.
Cake-free and worried about Alan Jones* I headed out the Peach Gate onto the street but bumped head first into a neighbourhood friend of mine, who just happens to be Sam Cutler. Sam was talking about talking to Marianne Faithfull about his upcoming book then he offered me a chapter for the next issue of PAN. I said, "Well, if Marianne likes it then I'll take a look". Which was better than the real answer running around in my head that want a little something like this, "Holy fuck yes! WOOO". Elegant, I know.
After Sam and I walked up the street just shooting the breeze I hopped on a bus and delivered the biggest bunch of flowers I could afford to my friend Robert at his office, because I felt like it. I can not afford a really big bunch of flowers but he didn't seem to mind.
Later in the evening after attending one of those overly hot and crowded exhibition openings at Gaffa Gallery I headed round the corner to Dymocks on George St. I was pleased to escape the gallery. It was loud as in the inside of a firing cannon and seemed to populated by people I am calling Arthouse Bikies. They were head to toe in shades of grey and faded blue denim. Bikie like patches sewn all over their jackets, there were top hats and walnut smoking pipes and various degrees of greasy lank locks. Seriously, there were hundreds of them.
I knew my friends Andrew P Street and A.H. Cayley** were hanging around at Dymocks. Well P Street was doing one of those 'in conversation with' things with Marieke Hardy about her new book "You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead". Poor Marieke was sitting patiently behind a table signing books and being talked at by a man calling himself Edwina. 'Edwina' was sporting a balding bob and what appeared to a miniature safari dress two sizes too small. It seems to me that Ms Hardy is a patient and lovely woman.
I wound up with an invitation to dine with A.H.C, APS, Ms Hardy and her lovely publicist Kate. It was one of those restaurants that I can't afford to eat at. Seriously, I owe the A.H.C and the APS quite a bit of dinner money now. It was mildly delicious but hear this Gemma, not worth the money. The company more than made up for my horror at inadvertently spending so much on dinner. I believe I had what is called a lovely time despite feeling awkward for the poor waiter. I'm not sure how it happened but every time he arrived at our table someone was saying 'anus'.
One day later sitting here thinking about it all, inside my new haircut that makes me look like I'm five years old again, I've come to this conclusion. I've got my weird back. Grizelda, who does not enjoy unexpected events on a daily basis, is certainly glad.
* Alan Jones is the enemy of thinking, the enemy of the arts, the enemy of honest democracies and the enemy of me.
** Listen here APS and A.H.C - can we come to some kind agreement? Either you both have punctuation in your names or neither of you do. It is too hard for a fake intellectual like me to remember who does and who does not have a '.' in their name.
It started on Facebook where I had a brief scare that maybe Alan Jones was the man behind the $1000 grant PAN magazine was awarded from the Awesome Foundation. I discovered, after some investigation, that The Horrible Mr Jones came on board after PAN received the grant, as one of ten trustees but I didn't learn that until today.
Cake-free and worried about Alan Jones* I headed out the Peach Gate onto the street but bumped head first into a neighbourhood friend of mine, who just happens to be Sam Cutler. Sam was talking about talking to Marianne Faithfull about his upcoming book then he offered me a chapter for the next issue of PAN. I said, "Well, if Marianne likes it then I'll take a look". Which was better than the real answer running around in my head that want a little something like this, "Holy fuck yes! WOOO". Elegant, I know.
After Sam and I walked up the street just shooting the breeze I hopped on a bus and delivered the biggest bunch of flowers I could afford to my friend Robert at his office, because I felt like it. I can not afford a really big bunch of flowers but he didn't seem to mind.
Later in the evening after attending one of those overly hot and crowded exhibition openings at Gaffa Gallery I headed round the corner to Dymocks on George St. I was pleased to escape the gallery. It was loud as in the inside of a firing cannon and seemed to populated by people I am calling Arthouse Bikies. They were head to toe in shades of grey and faded blue denim. Bikie like patches sewn all over their jackets, there were top hats and walnut smoking pipes and various degrees of greasy lank locks. Seriously, there were hundreds of them.
I knew my friends Andrew P Street and A.H. Cayley** were hanging around at Dymocks. Well P Street was doing one of those 'in conversation with' things with Marieke Hardy about her new book "You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead". Poor Marieke was sitting patiently behind a table signing books and being talked at by a man calling himself Edwina. 'Edwina' was sporting a balding bob and what appeared to a miniature safari dress two sizes too small. It seems to me that Ms Hardy is a patient and lovely woman.
I wound up with an invitation to dine with A.H.C, APS, Ms Hardy and her lovely publicist Kate. It was one of those restaurants that I can't afford to eat at. Seriously, I owe the A.H.C and the APS quite a bit of dinner money now. It was mildly delicious but hear this Gemma, not worth the money. The company more than made up for my horror at inadvertently spending so much on dinner. I believe I had what is called a lovely time despite feeling awkward for the poor waiter. I'm not sure how it happened but every time he arrived at our table someone was saying 'anus'.
One day later sitting here thinking about it all, inside my new haircut that makes me look like I'm five years old again, I've come to this conclusion. I've got my weird back. Grizelda, who does not enjoy unexpected events on a daily basis, is certainly glad.
* Alan Jones is the enemy of thinking, the enemy of the arts, the enemy of honest democracies and the enemy of me.
** Listen here APS and A.H.C - can we come to some kind agreement? Either you both have punctuation in your names or neither of you do. It is too hard for a fake intellectual like me to remember who does and who does not have a '.' in their name.
Wenceslas
I felt like Mrs Dalloway, or Clarissa Vaughn echoing fictionally around on her way to a dying poet with fistfuls of flowers. I went to steal them from gardens but street after street bore nothing but concrete and the bare bulb-ended green things that play flowers in the hot parts of the year. I think its OK to pay for flowers when the poet isn't dying faster than anyone else so I counted out ten gold coins while the cashier held out half an impatient hand.
Five days ago my father bellowed out words like, strident, abusive, arrogant and smirked while my aged aunt thrust both arms back into memory for the right word. 'Bohemian', she said. They called me bohemian, all those relatives in formal dress. I told Spencer and we scoffed over coffee. I'm the least bohemian person I know, here, in the new town, where I have burrowed out a cave room and set a fire in the corner. There are proper curtains and thread counts and cupboard complete with cups.
Some of the others here still drink whiskey out of jars and play the same crackling old records Joe Lynch might have listened to, if he had the money. Now of course there are crates of them on corners every Saturday morning.
I didn't come here to study them, to take down hasty notes in dark corners while they rollick across perfectly stationary floors. I came here unwillingly, rudder locked eastward, anchor gone screaming into the night. I came here in cardboard boxes and settled heavily into daily clockwork risings, for money, only for the money. The notes started small and scrawling, mystifying untranslated rubbings across self-erected tombs of the wildly living. But they have grown.
Walking across a whole morning with the single purpose of flowers information came to me. Neighbours appeared at my gate on the telephone to Marianne Faithfull, lay down chapters of books for my magazine, the radio spoke with the voice of real friends, in song and story. Two people left for Spain with guitars and tour dates, Spencer and I spoke about which shirt he should wear in Paris. I said purple, he said he'd wear whatever he liked but the point was he's leaving for another overseas tour. The point is I'm sitting in my window looking out where the snow would fall if the world ever flipped and we had a chance at crisp and even.
Five days ago my father bellowed out words like, strident, abusive, arrogant and smirked while my aged aunt thrust both arms back into memory for the right word. 'Bohemian', she said. They called me bohemian, all those relatives in formal dress. I told Spencer and we scoffed over coffee. I'm the least bohemian person I know, here, in the new town, where I have burrowed out a cave room and set a fire in the corner. There are proper curtains and thread counts and cupboard complete with cups.
Some of the others here still drink whiskey out of jars and play the same crackling old records Joe Lynch might have listened to, if he had the money. Now of course there are crates of them on corners every Saturday morning.
I didn't come here to study them, to take down hasty notes in dark corners while they rollick across perfectly stationary floors. I came here unwillingly, rudder locked eastward, anchor gone screaming into the night. I came here in cardboard boxes and settled heavily into daily clockwork risings, for money, only for the money. The notes started small and scrawling, mystifying untranslated rubbings across self-erected tombs of the wildly living. But they have grown.
Walking across a whole morning with the single purpose of flowers information came to me. Neighbours appeared at my gate on the telephone to Marianne Faithfull, lay down chapters of books for my magazine, the radio spoke with the voice of real friends, in song and story. Two people left for Spain with guitars and tour dates, Spencer and I spoke about which shirt he should wear in Paris. I said purple, he said he'd wear whatever he liked but the point was he's leaving for another overseas tour. The point is I'm sitting in my window looking out where the snow would fall if the world ever flipped and we had a chance at crisp and even.
Sausages save artist from afternoon of self-loathing and unproductive sighing
You know those days when you get out all the assorted notes and pencils for all of your projects, spread everything around on the desk and the table and the hallway floor and the bed and then can't manage to add anything useful to any of it? I was having one of those days until I remembered sausages.
Now I am having one of those days where you have sausages for lunch.
Now I am having one of those days where you have sausages for lunch.
The future of writing by Google?
This is a test. Google has introduced something called 'Scribe', which will apparently make suggestions as I write. I will write whatever comes into my head, and accept whatever suggestions 'Scribe' makes. Let's see if that room full of monkeys theory can work.
More than a dozen years ago and I have to say that the first and second portions of the first and second portions of the first and second portions of the first and second portions of the first and second portions of the first and second portions of the first and
Ok. That's enough. I typed, 'More', with the intention of beginning with the following sentence. More often than not there are minotaurs and a fish that floats above everything. I hadn't finished typing 'More' when Google 'Scribe' presented it's first suggestion. The suggestions came quickly, word after word with no further input from me. 'Scribe' wound itself into a loop quick smart. I will try one more time, this time typing out my whole original sentence.
More often than not there are minotaurs and a fish that floats above everything. I saw a man in the world of art and industry of choice for children with food allergies and intolerances which is still in awe of the power supply clock signals just as quickly as good as keep my eyes glued to the surface of the substrate and hormonal changes are being made to develop a plan to save the world.
After I finished the first sentence 'Scribe' had no suggestions until I typed a letter. Quite often 'Scribe' would wait until I chose one letter and then it would carry on for three or four words together.
I am not sure why but 'Scribe' angers me. There is little art in my handwriting and typing has been easy since word processing began but the one thing that has remained is that the writer chooses the words. I choose the words. I suppose I could surrender and laugh and think of this nothing more than a novel way to compose a cut up, an involuntary return to Dadaism or one more thing to take the strain out of remembering to type out conjunctions. But I'm not going to surrender. This is my alphabet, to do with as I please.
In case you were wondering I haven't gone insane. I am aware this a tool that can be turned on, or off, or ignored altogether. It isn't going to change the words pouring thick or becoming elusive and transparent but still something sticks with me about this. I think it is the suggestion that automated prompting can improve what ought not to be improved in this way. Writing is thought made visible and I want it to be original to the author, unique, unprompted by the pen itself. An exact explanation of my revulsion remains elusive but that is my fault, my fault that I am unable to make clear a shifting and newborn feeling and I prefer that it stays that way. At least until I figure it out. I would not like 'Scribe' to choose how I should say this. It feels like there would be thieves among us.
A Slamma family wedding weekend
Raw data in non-chronological point form:
- Percentage of relatives I despise yet remain polite to - 2%
- Cousins who explained to me the reason for all the wog food at the after party at his house was because his family were all wogs, before blinking drunkenly and saying, 'Oh, you're my cousin' - 1
- Cheeses eaten that cost more, per cheese, than my weekly rent - 9
- Belly aches due to eating too much cheese - 3
- Languages spoken at various after parties and dinners - 6
- Languages I understand - 1.75
- Big W catalogues read aloud to me in a mixture of Creole and French at the dinner table - 3
- Divorced parents who arrived simultaneously at my brother's house, where I was staying - 2
- Relatives who sang Johnny Cash songs - 8
- Instruments my dad played at the after party - 2
- Relatives who suggested my cowboy boots were an inappropriate choice and did not at all go with my formal dress - 1
- Number of people who approached me in the DJ booth and asked me to change the song - 17
- Number of times I complied with song-change requests - 0
- Aged Aunts who cried mightily whilst filming proceedings - 1
- Radiantly happy cousins who floated back down the aisle with their new husband - 1
- Balloons popped in anger by delinquent cousins - 1
- Amusing witty asides made by my father - 35972
- Hours spent in the company of relatives - 20
- Bushranger shows filmed in my hometown watched on my return to The Peach - 1
- Overall success as rated by the bride - 100% and I suppose that's the one point of raw data that actually matters.
Reasons you will love him - Re:reading the dictionary
When Tim announced he was releasing an echapbook, in the middle of revising drafts of his second big book, I became angry. Surely it is the duty of a Tim to finish a book as quickly as possible so that a Dale may read it? When I asked him about this he said no, no it's not actually a duty and he is working diligently on said new novel, as I bloody well know.
The new echapbook (I will make that a word) is called Re:reading the dictionary. Tim said something along the lines of it being an accidental book that came about as a result of his unnatural love of the dictionary and the more natural human desire to do other things when they really ought to be finishing their new novel. At least I think that's what he said.
Tim is very busy and important so I have taken the liberty of interviewing myself* as Tim Sinclair about his new book.
DS: Hello 'Tim'.There's a lesson in here. Poets, not as easy to impersonate as you might have thought.
DSasTS: Er, hello.
DS: Right, so the cover art is good. Who did that?
DSasTS: Kitty & Rosevich but you already knew that, seeing as how they collaborate with PAN magazine.
DS: Yes, fine. The words inside the book are also quite good. Who wrote those?
DSasTS: I did! You already know that too.
DS: No need to get tetchy. You seem rather violent for a poet. You're supposed to be all peaceful.
DSasTS: I am peaceful.
DS: So are you saying you're an elitist or something?
DSasTS: No. No, that's not at all what I'm saying. What are you doing?
DS: I'm practicing to be a hard-hitting reporter.
DSasTS: Fine. Good. Now about the book. It's an echapbook.
DS: I agree. It is an echapbook and it is brilliant. Why are you a poet?
DSasTS: It's available from my website Cottage Industry Press for a very small sum of money. Don't want to know about the book?
DS: You didn't answer my question. You're being very uncooperative. I think I should terminate this interview now for my own safety.
DSasTS: I don't think that's really necessary. If you would just sit still a second and stop doing that jumping around thing. You're being very distracting.
DS: Good. Fine. You can see how this is. The mind of the poet is a mysterious and important place. I have risked my life to bring you this hard-hitting inside view of a poet in his natural environment. It is with reluctance that I have had to cut the interview short and retreat to a safe distance. Interview over.
DSasTS: For fuck's sake!
Here's a proper interview with Tim about Re:reading the dictionary. Just in case you weren't satisfied with the above hard-hitting one.
You can find the real Tim Sinclair at Cottage Industry Press.
* I did not actually ask Tim for an interview, he probably would have said yes but that's really not the point. Right now it seems like a brilliant idea to pretend to be Tim. It would do well to note that the above is not at all what the real Tim Sinclair is likely to have said. Hopefully this will not cause the real Tim Sinclair to become cross with me. Let's see what happens.
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