Diaries on the net

The diaries of Samuel Pepys and George Orwell are being posted day-for-day. You can also read more historic diaries at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

At night home, much contented with this day’s work, and being at home alone looking over my papers, comes a neighbour of ours hard by to speak with me about business of the office, one Mr. Fuller, a great merchant, but not my acquaintance, but he come drunk, and would have had me gone and drunk with him at home, or have let him send for wine hither, but I would do neither, nor offered him any, but after some sorry discourse parted, and I up to [my] chamber and to bed.
Samuel Pepys

Perth episode one: Icey Ice Snow Ice

Fernando and I (aka Beautiful Rubble) flew to Perth today to perform tomorrow at PICA. So far we haven't seen much of the city - we arrived at dusk and spent over an hour in a shuttle bus being shuttled around what seemed like every hotel in the city before finally arriving at our backpackers in Northbridge. After dumping our bags, we ran down the street in search of food. And it was during this hunger-filled dash that I made the discovery: The Icey Ice Snow Ice shop. I'm not exactly sure what snow ice is (well, I obviously know what snow ice is, but not what it means in this context). The description on the business card-sized take-away menu didn't enlighten me: " Snow Ice ... ice tastes like snow and melts in your mouth!" It may be a kind of frozen fairy floss. I decided not to experiment tonight, and settled for a grean teacino (itself a wondrous invention). Tomorrow will be the day to sample the snow ice. I'm particularly taken by the idea of Peanut Ice with chocolate sauce, although the Green Tea Ice (standard topping: wickedly taste good by itself) would be hard to pass up.

Hypercolor is back!

This should not be happening. But apparently it wasn't bad enough the first time around. It's official, hypercolor is back. Another bad 80s trend rises from the grave to look just as terrible as it did in 1988 (year of the bicentenary, fellow antipodeans may remember - what a treat that was!). Yes, I know we live in a postmodern world where everything is recycled and nothing is really new, but there are some things that really should just be left to rot away peacefully.

I was not prepared for that

The wisdom teeth. How can four little teeth cause so much swelling and pain? Well, the removal of them, that is. I was barely able to talk before Monday, let alone think or conceptualise in any way. I blame that on the painkillers and aftereffects of the anaesthetic. My mouth would barely open for the first five days or so, and my cheeks were swollen so that I was looking distinctly peculiar. I have eaten what feels like half my body weight in jelly (but it was so good...), and watched four-and-a-half seasons of Sex and the City on dvd. I'm just glad I never have to go through that again!

No Wisdom Left?

I had my wisdom teeth taken out yesterday, and now I look a little like this. On a steady diet of soup, porridge, jelly and ice-cream, I've been working my way through Vikram Seth's From Heaven Lake and dreaming of traveling to Tibet.

In between slugging back Mersyndol Forte (gotta love that codeine) I've been drooling over fabulous pictures by Sanna, Dotti, The Sartorialist and Ranna, and secretly getting jealous of it being summer in Europe, where I am not.

A bogan musical comedy?!

Coming soon to SBS... Bogan Pride. According to The Age, each episode of this Melbourne-based comedy series will end with a musical number, which I have to say, has a lot of comic potential!

With a lead character named Jenny Cragg, and set in the fictional suburb of Boonelg, I'm going to have to keep an eye out for this show when it screens in October. It could be absolute gold, or completely terrible...

For those interstate and foreign types who are confused by the word 'bogan', check out this and this. The bogan is a much-maligned stereotype of Melbourne suburbia, but secretly I think we all have a little bit of bogan in us. Come on, bogan bingo sounds like so much fun!!

Image courtesy of The Age

It's all about Bernard

I am made very happy that the ABC is screening Black Books on Wednesday nights. Love it. That's all I have to say today.

This shouldn't be this funny

But somehow it is...

via Think Denk

Waiting...

So much of the life of a musician is about waiting. Waiting for concerts to begin, waiting for concerts to end...

Right now I'm waiting upstairs at the Malthouse Theatre to play continuo for the VCA Secondary School orchestra. There is a violinist in one corner practicing the Bach E major concerto, and one in another corner practicing the Bach double concerto, in D minor. The effect is bizarre, but kinda nice.

I seem to have spent a large part of the past few weeks waiting. I am sick of buying coffees just to pass the time. What are fun things I can do while waiting?

Our PM expects us to be selfish

I just heard our esteemed prime minister say that Australian voters should ask themseves: what policy is "best for me and best for my family?" What about what is best for the community as a whole? Best for society?

Obviously we are all expected to vote as selfish myopes, fortifying ourselves from the nasty big wide world that lies ouside our white picket fences.

This makes me feel a little strange

So I googled myself. Come on, admit it, we all do that occasionally!

There's all the usual stuff - concerts I've done, that kind of thing. But one thing caught my eye. This was a discussion on the Eques Forum (which is a horse magazine website - strange!) regarding an email that I had sent someone when I was doing some temporary office work over summer. I was working for an accountancy which recovers lost super and the like for people, and we got lots of enquiries from people who thought we were trying to scam them, which we weren't. It makes me feel quite weird, being talked about on some forum in connection with something which is really not anything to do with me, just because I happened to do some temp work over summer.

How to make yourself feel old...

...without even trying!

It's easy, especially if you are born in those dark days before 1980! Just walk through a university campus during orientation week. I made the mistake of doing that yesterday, on my way to the Baillieu Library to photocopy some esoteric harpsichord music. The place is crawling with eager new first year students, wide-eyed and full of enthusiasm for parties and pub crawls. Ten years ago that was me. Ten years! I am a whole decade older than them - a decade less enthusiastic and a decade more cynical...

but I don't feel any older or wiser, really.

The true faces of our erstwhile leaders

Tanja Stark, you have made my day!
See more of her gothic genious at poligoths

via Sarsaparilla

How to justify a bad day

Well, my bad days don't usually involve blizzards, ice and snow, but I think Ben Saunders' words could be applicable to many situations:

It’s miserable, but in a way I’m glad it’s happening. As I said to Tony as we clambered into our sopping tent, it’s great to have mental reference points like these to fall back on.

Crap words

After thinking about cool words yesterday, I started finding words I really don't like. Here is a selection:

boring: I remember my mother saying to me that there was no such thing as boring, and I think I might be starting to agree with her. There are lots of things that I don't agree with in the world, but I think I'd rather describe them as bad, shitty, crap, terrible... but not boring. I especially don't like the expression "That's a bit boring" when used to describe something that is unpleasant or inconvenient.

ordinary: mostly for the same reasons as "boring". Describing something as "ordinary" when you really mean it was awful is just silly!

years of age: as in "she is only 25 years of age". Why can't you just say "she's 25 years old"? This is just pseudo-officialism and is also silly!

I'm sure this list will be added to... feel free to contribute :)

Cool words

Scott Ginsberg's post about cool words has reminded me that there are a couple other words that I really like (apart from "angst" which I use at least 5 times a day!). Here they are:

liminal: this word I first came across in at uni in a lecture about the Bertolucci film Il Conformista, where it was used to describe the protagonist - on the threshold of society, not quite belonging, but not an outcast. Originally, I think it is a medical term. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it:

• adjective technical 1 relating to a transitional or initial stage. 2 at a boundary or threshold.
— DERIVATIVES liminality noun.
— ORIGIN from Latin limen ‘threshold’.

crepuscular: this word I found in Antonio Melechi's Fugitive Minds: On Madness, Sleep and Other Twilight Afflictions. When I saw that title in the bookshop, I couldn't not buy it! Crepuscular describes things to do with twilight - semi-nocturnal animals, shadows and all sorts of cool things. This is definitely a word that should be used more often!

Bungled Headline Fury

Jason Kottke and Paul Bausch have noticed some trends in media headlines lately. Personally I like how no-one makes a smiple mistake anymore - no, in the Australian media it is always a bungle:

"Traffic chief slams taxi fare bungle"
"Fiji election official admit bungle over numbers voting"
"Immigration bungle let murder suspect out: ALP"
"Body bungle warnings ignored"
"Mum on warning mission after pharmacy bungle"

This word has been particularly effective in the media surrounding the "body bungle" of Australian soldier Jake Kovko, and lots of people have been furious to boot:

"Widow's fury over Kovco bungle"
"Mother's fury at bungle"

The Struggle

Lyrics I heard on Triple J this morning:

"How long should an artist struggle before it's just not worth the hassle?"

Can't for the life of me remember the name of the song, or the artist, but it was suitably artistically angsty.

The essence of time

There hasn't been much lately. Time, that is. I feel awful bad for neglecting you, my droogies, but I'm sure you're surviving just fine without me.

I found this today on nownow:

Today at 2 minutes & 3 seconds past 1 o’clock it will be:

1:02:03 04/05/06

- a moment in time that occurs about every thousand years.

How special is that?

Now it’s up to you not to waste this historic second in time. When, in the distant future, your grandchildren ask you how you spent this once in a thousand year moment, don’t let the answer be, ‘I was on the toilet, honey’.

Yelp, cheer, smile to your self, hug a stranger. Just do something to mark this rare but wonderful oddity. Because before you know it we’ll be back to boring, out-of-order time, and their ain’t nothing special bout that.

Make sure you make the most of that split second of infinity!

My fingers are so, like, totally frozen?

Ohhh, Melbourne is a bit chilly this morning. The heater in my car busted back at the beginning of March on a hot late summer's day when it was about 40 degrees, so it didn't worry me then. Unfortunately it will require major financial outlay to repair, which is taking me a little time to accumulate on my I-work-4-days-a-week-in-a-government-funded-higher-education-performing-arts-college wage. Oh, and the fact that I bought a new harpsichord doesn't help matters either.

Anyway, so it's cold, and during the 45 minutes it took me to drive to the afore-mentioned government-funded-higher-education-performing-arts-college I slowly got colder and colder. I've been sitting at my computer now for nearly 15 minutes (yes, I will start doing some real work soon, right after I've bought my morning soy latte) and and my fingers are still not working properly.

As you probably guessed by now, this isn't really going anywhere.

But what did amuse me during the fingers-thawing-out stage was the latest offering from Click Opera about the all-encompassing 'like'. As in, you know, like, that like word? Let me tell you, this is certainly not just an American phenomenon. Every tram, train or department store here in Melbourne town is full of teenagers (and not-so-teen-agers) who are totally, like, going, like, whatever?