so now, the month that was.

books:
gangland by mark davis
really for uni, had it on loan for a month without opening it and now have had to renew it three times because i keep procrastinating.  finally got around to reading it, and enjoyed it - all about ‘generationalism’, cultural elites, and the role the media has in pushing the conflict between perceived generational groups.  the book itself is not without problems - davis rants about how certain minority groups and genres are given short shrift and then ignores evidence (no matter how small) to the contrary.  case in point, according to my supervisor paul - davis carries on about the negative press given to young writers and grunge lit in an edition of meanjin and totally ignored an article in that same edition written by my (young) supervisor in defence of grunge lit.  but those things aside, davis raises some interesting points and it’s all very easy to read.

movies:
legally blonde 2
oh, such a shame.  could have been much much better.  i still had fun, but hated that feeling you get in a sequel when you’re waiting for it to deviate even a little bit from the original film.  the last third of the movie was better, but most of it just seemed like quite a feeble rehash of the first (which I loved).

pirates of the carribean
in contrast, here is a film i loved every single bit of, even if it was based on a theme park ride.

dvd:
daredevil
bek hadn’t seen it and although i hated it at the cinema, i thought perhaps i had been too harsh.  but no, i stick to my original position.  another movie that could have been much much better but was so disjointed and badly put together that it made me cringe all over again.

chocolat
bek hadn’t seen this either, but i was more than happy to see it again.  must be something about johnny depp...and irish accents…

labyrinth
and david bowie in tights (but this is for humour, not phwoar value).  tee hee.

latest retail therapy kick:
i don’t know why, but i came over all girly and had a sudden desire to play with makeup. i found benefit and alas, all was lost; i just wanted to be a 50s screen siren.

also there’s remo for overpriced but funky stuff.  haven’t bought anything from here yet, but just like looking at it all.  i used to go into the shop when it was in darlinghurst and dream of having enough money to buy everything in the shop.  that day has still not arrived...i wonder if i’m doing something wrong…

first group activity at my new house:
(nerd alert) a day of gaming!  bek and heath and i played vampire in a world that looked suspiciously like guelph (well it would have, except bek scribbled out any identifiable place names), chasing after precious artefacts, busting drug lords and stealing motorbikes.  true to form, heath played the nosferatu with a heart of gold, i played the tremere with no idea, and ben rolfe arrived late in the piece and played a malkav who liked to take cars apart.  time passed very quickly.

gorgeous gorgeous weather at the moment, although the temperature can’t decide what it wants to do.  i like the vast, blue, sun filled skies with a chill in the air, so it suits me fine.

i also like lots of rain, and it hasn’t rained for ages.

i think we’ve moved in next to my brother, or one of his species, anyway.  heard all these male voices out the front on the weekend that got gradually more and more languid and silly, with lots of croaky laughter and giggles.  mum came downstairs and had to shut the door because the smell of the happy smoke was a bit too overpowering.  she briefly wondered whether cats could get high, but decided our cat would be well used to it by now.  then i heard the audio from lord of the rings blasting through the door and i had to smile.

i’m going to bellingen this weekend for the global carnival, where there will probably be lots of happy smoke, as well as great music, uncoordinated dancing and my first camping experience since i was in year 8.  i’m borrowing ben rolfe’s tent and sleeping bag, about which he said “the tent is small and kind of uncomfortable and the sleeping bag is small and not very warm”.  so i’m not planning to sleep a great deal this weekend, which is just as well because there will probably be too much going on anyway!

then after the carnival bek and i will drive up to woolgoolga and visit pappa and rose, then drive back.  i’ve borrowed my dad’s car, which is quite hilarious really, but i pointed out that driving a black bmw is probably tame compared to most as the carnival is apparently full of sydney yuppies who think they’re ‘going bush’.

of which i am one, of course, but at least i’m fully aware of the irony.

i have bruises all over my legs.  no idea how any of them happened.  i assume it must have been with the box lugging, but suspect a small team of pixies with little baseball bats attack me while i’m sleeping.

new place is extremely good and we are happy to be in it.  bonuses include:

*new kitchen with gas burners that turn on when they’re supposed to, and a light over the stove that works!

* bathroom that is so adequately ventilated that my towel is - gasp! - dry the next morning.  it also does not feature slugs, bugs or extant mould that is impossible to get rid of.

* quietness - when the doors are closed, you can’t hear the neighbours through the walls.

* perfect television reception!  so exciting to be able to watch the ABC without seeing the image repeated four times (five if there’s a strong wind).

* newness and brightness and general loveliness.

there are a couple of downsides, like the reduction in space and a bathroom fan that sounds like a plane taking off and that won’t turn off for 15 minutes after you’ve turned off the switch, but we’re adapting to our new goldfish bowl and an electrician is going to fix the fan.

it feels like a holiday living in this house.  i like it. 

am in the middle of moving house and took a few moments to delve into my computer.  the biggest mistake was to stop moving, as now i have no impetus to get back up.

it will be such a relief tomorrow when the removalists arrive to take all the big furniture over to the new place.  i get to stay at the new house all day and unpack, which is kind of cool, as then i get to put stuff where i want it (and mum has volunteered to do all the cleaning in exchange, which is totally fine by me!!).  have to do origami with all our possessions, as the place we’re moving to is a lot smaller than our current digs.  but newer and cleaner and more excellent in every way (georgia - in feel it’s kind of like brett’s flat in darlinghurst only with an upstairs.  oh...and furniture - none of that minimalist thing for us, nosiree!)

now i think i’d better go do some more before bed time.  next time i write i’ll be living elsewhere!

books:
stardust by neil gaiman
gorgeous!

(i think it’s only ‘book’ singular this month...i’m sure i read more than that but can’t tell you what it was)

movies:
many i intended to see but didn’t.

cultural input:
the pearl fishers
absolutely beautiful, tingly-sensation music.  sitting two rows from the front which was good because you could see everything onstage, but bad because you couldn’t read the surtitles (had to guess the intricacies of the plot, which seemed to be much more homoerotic than i remembered) and you could see the streaky finger marks in the lead guy’s fake tan.  other than that, wonderful!

sydney symphony
went with the lovely jackie menyhart to this concert, which was conducted by tan dun and featured his water concerto and the crouching tiger, hidden dragon concerto.  jackie had issues with the solo cellist, who was a very ‘dramatic’ and tight-leather-clad young woman with long curls she kept tossing all over the place, but she played very beautifully.  the water concerto was amazing (the first two rows had to wear raincoats), and involved three percussionists ‘playing’ huge bowls of water, using cups, gongs, hands, whatever.  very impressive (jackie didn’t have issues with the solo percussionist; she thought he was quite cute).

saving henry and crowds
saw this last week at the studio at the opera house with brett, em and bek.  interesting.  crowds was lots of fun - short, quirky and a very good use of soundscapes.  saving henry was less successful i felt, and not just because the subject matter was a little unsettling (about a young boy who had been sexually abused after his mother’s death...cheery!).  first off, it was billed as “an intensely poetic ballet”, but there wasn’t really anything you could call ballet in it.  angus cerini was very arresting and strong onstage, but there were huuuge gaps in the flow of the piece, it didn’t seem to go anywhere, i kept wanting to fall asleep (okay, i was very tired), and the stage manager’s calls could be heard very clearly in the audience.  as bek said “when there’s about to be a really suspenseful moment in a piece, i don’t want to know that lx cue 32 is standing by!” so not particularly great, but glad i went anyway, for certain moments, and for crowds.

not quite as highbrow theatre moments:
knock on wood
bek and i, led by sympathy and insanity, agreed to help my uncle out with a show he was invovled with. he is heavily into amateur theatre and having been involved with university theatre in the past i suppose it would have been churlish of me not to have offered my assistance when he was desperate for a musical director to step in at the last minute.  oh, such altruism will never be displayed again in such a fashion, i can tell you.

i managed to avoid going to rehearsals and didn’t even find out the name of the show until the dress rehearsal.  then bek and i spent three evenings at the ryde-eastwood leagues club, cueing the house band (in various states of inebriation) while my uncle and various poppets performed this show onstage.  i can’t say much more about it than that, as the memories are already sinking into oblivion, but suffice it to say that on our way home one night we developed a cocktail that captured the very essence of the show: midori and passion pop over a lite beer shandie.

class.