who's with me?

who wants to make huge signs with me and hang them over major arterials in the lead up to the next federal election? oh come on, i know that labor have about as much chance of winning as collingwood but that doesn't mean we should stop TRYING. remember, it's not about how much we likey the alp [not much] but how much we loathe and detest the others [very much]. so i vote we engage in the kind of activism that basically involves drinking beer and painting during the day, before running midnight missions later on. these guys are nuts but i like their style. checkit...




or billmon's favourite...





obviously, we'd need to oz these up a bit but i reckon we could start the melbourne chapter. so, i need suggestions for signs and expressions of interest. it wouldn't be that hard, would it? and as the freewayblogger says, you leave 'em up til they take 'em down, but lots of people see them in the meantime. i reckon it's worth it.

also worth it, in the l'oreal advertisement, 'you're rad and pretty with nice skin and sparkly eyes' kind of way, is rach. she submits her honours thesis today, and there are few better feelings in the world than seeing the back of one of these suckers [mad props to the mack daddy too]. i salute you. my gift to you upon finishing will be my patented rendition of 'islands in the stream' at karaoke tonight. i might also buy you a drink if you let me ogle your goodies.

turn and face the strain

i caught up with the adorable diana the other night. it was the really hot one, and she was hosting a visiting friend from the netherlands on the terrace at madame brussels. and yes, we made the same mental note as we were leaving as i always do - never come here again. but the company was delightful. maarten, the gorgeous blonde dutchie, was here to pursue a love affair with an aussie, which reduced us all to blithering romantics/teenagers for most of the night. to wit, an abridged sample of our work:

us: so what are you doing when you go to the coast?
maarten: i'll probably do some diving.
us: diving for LOVE! [pointing and giggling]


later on...


us: what about tomorrow? are you staying in the city?
maarten: yeah, i might see about some shopping.
us: SHOPPING FOR LOVE! [falling about in hysterics]


in keeping with australian values, he was a very good sport, so i won't have to report him to immigration for being culturally incompatible. i also met a couple of di's friends, tess and geoff, who were clever and funny and sweet. geoff's parting words were urging me to look up a they might be giants song about james k polk, and tess left me with a more subtle but lasting impression. when i asked her what she did during the day, she said "i work for architects". i pressed on, thinking maybe she was in the technical side [drafting perhaps] or admin [a p.a. or some such]. after a few more questions, she revealed that she had finished her degree in architecture and had been working for the firm in order to fulfil her professional certification stuff. i said "so you're basically an architect?", to which she replied, "well, i would be soon but i don't really want to."

she'd changed her mind.

she'd studied architecture [which in my understanding is incredibly arduous, expensive, and long] and now that she was at the firm, she thought it was a legal and political quagmire she didn't want to jump into. i am absolutely fascinated by this. hopefully, i'll get to meet her again and find out what the next part of the plan is. but it got me thinking, doesn't everyone have a big, epiphanous moment when they realise they've gone down a conceptual cul-de-sac? when they realise they have to change their entire life to be happy?

i know/love someone who switched from arts to i.t. after staring into the abyss. i know/love someone else who has variously been a physicist, fashion designer, and engineer [actually, i think she is still all these things]. another friend finished her phd in biology and went back to study medicine [now she's two kinds of doctor - eek!].

when i finished school, i dropped out of uni and worked for five years before going back. so from 1994ish to 2000ish i split time between the careers of professional bartender in brisbane and governess on stations in outback queensland. obviously, in order to get here, i had to experience one of those brain-snaps that take you from one plan to another [actually, i've had a couple, but they've all been directed here].

have you ever had a seismic shift? in terms of how you see yourself and what you want to contribute to this world? have you had a point in your life where you changed everything in order to pursue a new plan for being? one that is intuitive and unformed and inexplicably pulling you forward? or maybe one that becomes completely clear to you in that moment of transformation? i know some of you have...

i got you babe

i woke up this morning to iggy pop singing 'beautiful beautiful girl from the north' and i immediately jumped out of bed and began dancing maniacally to one of my favourite songs EVER. isn't it wonderful when the first bit of stimuli you receive in the day is such a good one?* like when you wake up to warm breath on the back of your neck? or when a small kelpie cross uses your prostrate body as an obstacle course? or when that song that compels you to dance is on your clock radio?

as ever, this little bit of goodness got me thinking about why i loved this song so much.** given that the first few hours after i awake are usually quite dangerous for others and painful in the extreme for me, that must be a RIDICULOUSLY good song, no?

so here, in no particular order, i present yet another top five on the path. this time, it's...



TOP FIVE BOY/GIRL DUETS OF ALL TIME ACCORDING TO ME [and how i'm feeling today]

candy - iggy pop and kate pierson
tomorrow wendy - andy prieboy and wendy napolitano
islands in the stream - dolly parton and kenny rogers
oh my sweet carolina - ryan adams and emmy-lou harris
jackson - johnny and june carter cash



that's all for today, with apologies to anyone who was watching this space for the past week or so. in the words of me mate ruby - life's been. speaking of which, i send love up to the land of the queens [sweets for my sweets, sugar for my honey etc repeat and fade]. come home soon...



*of course, most days i wake up wanting to punch people in the face, including myself, lest this bit of saccharine be taken to mean that i have a pollyanna-esque disposition.
**this song is really of a time and place for me. namely, imprisoned in a girls' boarding house, singing into hairbrushes in the common room, waking up for the salvation of rage every weekend and feeling fleeting happiness until noon.

spiked cell

tonight, my dear friend will host the opening night of her new exhibition, "spiked cell". i'll be there, to celebrate the massive efforts that i've seen poured into this work, and show much i value the inquiring mind and unyielding passion of the woman who made it. do please come along if you're partial to a bit of sculpture. if you can't make it tonight, the show will run from october 17 [today] to november 4 [bonnie's homecoming]. you might like to check it out. art is good for you. this is a sample of lucy's work from last year:



see? what did i tell you? GOOD FOR YOU. so to see the new stuff, you'll have to get down to red gallery toot sweet.

where is my mind?

not sure that i can explain [in any sensible way] these intermittent absences, other than to hint at my quiet and virtually undetectable descent into madness. i officially hate real estate agents with an intensity that crazy christians might reserve for hating the devil [that's the "father of lies" to you, toby]. we are yet to find a house and i find myself consumed, not only with the idea that all my problems will evaporate when i sign a new lease [erroneous] but also in terms of time and energy wasted on the whole tedious process.

it's like being on a precipice, and those of you who know me will know my distaste for the in-between. when it comes to jobs, houses, partners, friends, and other things that [ideally] you love and are nourished by, i am firmly on the side of yoda - there is no try. don't like your house? move. sick of your job? quit. being driven mental by a partner who doesn't value you and always puts their own needs first [or who doesn't set you on fire]? cut them loose. i've done all these things at one time or another and i'm convinced it's my survival mechanism.

so in this case, i know what i want/need to do and i'm being stymied. it's a terrible feeling to know that the only thing standing between you and happiness is an eighteen year old real estate agent with a bmw and too much hair product and too-short-synthetic pants that reveal his argyle socks. ugh.

that said, i am processing things in a weird way today [lack of sleep, surfeit of caffeine] so i thought i'd share this and get your feedback. is anyone else uncomfortable with this debacle being called a "nazi attack"? i mean, political correctness is something i have been accused of from time to time, and it remains an insidious way to undermine progressive ideas and render them useless. but i reckon that these guys are just a bunch of drunk fuckwits. so, my first instinct is "don't give them the credit of having a logical thought between them, let alone suggest that they adhere to a philosophical position [even a hateful, murderous one]".

obviously, this should be taken seriously as a hate crime, as it involved racial and religious vilification as well as physical violence. i'm on the side of hate-crime legislation, and i reckon this is a bonafide case. but seriously, could these guys seem any more gormless to you? a bus full of pissed idiots see a jewish guy and yell out "go the nazis" before assaulting him - it's COMPLETELY FUCKED but i think it's problematic to call this a "nazi hate attack". i'm putting it out there though, cos i'm not sure if my intuitive position is the right one.

what do you make of it?

things you wish you did

this one could just as easily be filed under things to celebrate in public life, but my first thought after it happened was "i wish i'd thought of that".

waiting for the tram on sydney road in brunswick, standing next to a gang of ticket inspectors. in my mind, they look mean and smug, but i'm sure that's just my personal emnity talking. a car rounds the corner of royal parade, the driver sees the gaggle of overcoats and immediately slows down to yell from his car:

"BRING BACK THE CONNIES!"

i laugh.
they look affronted.
he flips the bird.


is melbourne really the best city in the world?

pravda

those crazy soviet journalists, always chasing the truth and trying to expose injustice, when it really increases their chances of suffering a mysterious and violent death. if the kremlin would try and take out the pesky leader of a neighbouring country, why would they think twice about eliminating anna politkovskaya? seriously though, it appears that suspicion has fallen on the chechan prime minister this time, her take on whom was less than flattering [she reported on widespread human rights abuses and systemic corruption in chechnya]. she also rained down hell on a corrupt cop [and all-round fucked up guy] , sergei lapin, in 2002.

but it's hard not to consider the broader climate in the former soviet union. says here, that politkovskaya was at least the thirteenth journalist to have been the victim of a contract-style killing since president vladimir putin came to power.

"She single-handedly incarnated the resistance to the order that Mr. Putin wants to impose on the media," said Robert Menard, president of Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. "Nobody can imagine this was just a crime committed by common criminals."

not common criminals, but an increasingly common crime. kinda puts things into perspective here too. on the one hand, it makes me think 'stop being such a fucking sook. no matter how hard you take things, it's not that bad here ie. our government isn't killing dissidents'.* but on the other hand, i think, 'fuck me. given that it IS easier to speak out here ie. you won't be ASSASSINATED, why aren't more people doing it?'. it's a quandary.



p.s. her nickname was anya.



*though arguably, david hicks is slowly being executed.

bless

did anyone else catch this buried in the letters section of that maoist rag today?


MY 15-year-old daughter has been acting very strangely of late. The other day I was doing some housework when she announced: "Where the broom does not, like, reach, the dust will not, like, vanish of itself." I thought this very odd. A few days later, I told her I would be in the garden and she replied: "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend." What really freaked me out was her response to my attempt to discipline her over a misdemeanour. She shrugged and said: "Whatever. Political power, like, grows out of the barrel of a gun." Where is she getting this stuff from?

David Hamilton, Greensborough


*dashes off breathless fan letter*

thoroughly modern malaise

this gorgeous woman asks if it's schadenfreude to feel better knowing we feel it as one. this beloved boy thinks it's structural. this blue-eyed baby notices it more when she gets out of the wrong side of her bed. this charming man finds the perfect words to give it form and meaning, on occasion weaving himself into it. this sweet deal summed it up with my favourite phrase she's ever written - it's all about the little indignities. lady and the tramp, belle and sebastian, raz and treemie, jord, jen, how many more? is this the tip of an [enormous and menacing] iceberg? last week, i asked what was up with our blogs? the question should've been what's up with us?

the answer is as simple as it is complicated. we are in this together. those of us that have found hands to hold through it. but so much of the problem is that we're isolated too. from others who have the same instincts about what's wrong in the world. i say 'instincts' because the trick is not to unite those who have a perfect symmetry of interests, those who perfectly agree on each issue. the way out will be the one that asks people to forget about the specific grievances [oh, how long those lists are] and asks 'how are you feeling?' - 'are you feeling optimistic? secure? strong? proud? supported? free?'. the person who can inspire australians to ask for a better country; one that fulfils its earlier promise, one that is more enlarged, one that reminds us of how much we have to be proud; that's the leader we need. can't we reasonably demand one like that?

rach is right - it IS the little indignities, that somehow seem relentless. every day a new reason to punch yourself in the face. hard. every day, some new reminder of how badly we're losing, and who's doing the losing, and why. and the little rays of hope can seem so embattled, so ineffectual in the face of such strength. this fragmentation, disintermediation, democratisation of public space, whatever you call it, is creating more opportunities for good ideas to be aired. but it also keeps them separate from one another. there's no way to create a critical mass. ideas need to gain traction to create momentum. it's killing us.

for instance, i cannot believe that henry reynolds even had to engage with keith windschuttle. i consider it offensive that robert manne could be forced to prove his worth against a circus act like andrew bolt. i find it preposterous that anyone could seriously debate the respective merits of margaret whitlam and janette howard. but then, i don't write for the australian.

now, the leader of the country demonising universities - impugning all within them as part of a conspiracy to subvert the truth. damn straight, it's mostly leftists, you swine. what does that tell you? if the people whose job it is to prise things open, to find meaning, make sense, seek truth, reconcile, discover, expose, interrogate, and THINK, find that UPON REFLECTION, YOU FUCKED IT UP - WHAT MIGHT THAT MEAN? anti-intellectualism is a defining feature of totalitarian regimes. it's a stick that we in the west have used to beat those everywhere else since, i was going to say the enlightenment but that was just where we stepped it up. since forever. read the fucking classics, you book-shy arseholes. why is it so horrific to us now that nazis burned books? or that the romans sacked libraries? or that cuba gaols its poets? or that the komintern had zhdanov enforcing socialist realism? or that the fucking islamic fucking world fucking took out a fucking fatwa on salman fucking rushdie?

you know what i reckon? the left may be damaged and broken and torn and paralyzed and struggling to breathe. but it's not dying. it won't. it can't. because it's the only way. it's the only way out of this and i think it will prevail. it's the way that humans know to value each other. it's brave and optimistic and infectious. it has the facts on its side. it has humanism at its heart. it inspires. it hopes. it's right.