Saturday, April 28, 2007
bee shoes
  These are my latest obsession. They have bees on them. Squee! I've never owned a pair of Chucks before, and these ones are particularly awesome because not only were the bees handpainted on them, but they were a gift/hand-me-down from my darling friend Sunshine whose feet they didn't fit quite right. Sunni is a shoe maven and she accepts nothing less than perfection from her footwear. They make me happy! |
Friday, April 27, 2007
The Archer 25/4
| So this was my DJ set for Wednesday night's Archer. Song, length, artist. Deedles' Blues 3:30 Diane Schuur Apollo Jump 2:41 Lucky Millinder Betcha Nickel 2:58 Ella Fitzgerald Idlewild Blues 3:27 Outkast Mistreated But Undefeated Blues 4:16 Gene Harris Peg Of Me Heart 2:56 Bunny Berigan & His Orchestra Opus One 2:58 Glen Gray Moten Swing 2:54 Oscar Peterson Hootie Blues 4:06 Lavay Smith Hold It 2:29 Bill Doggett A Viper's Moan 3:32 Mora's Modern Rhythmists All For the Love of Lil 2:53 Louis Jordan Soft 2:30 Tiny Bradshaw Wicked Little Girls 4:18 Esthero Splanky 4:15 Count Basie Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea 3:12 Lavay Smith The Boss Is Back 2:42 Babs Gonzales You are My Sunshine 4:38 Bill Henderson Love Me Like A Man 5:49 Diana Krall I always want to chuck in more downtempo piano noodlings because I just love that stuff. Moten Swing and Splanky are just two of the hottest, smoothest tunes and they make me want to move. Note to self - 'Hootie Blues' is crap and I shall not inflict it upon anyone again. This was our second night at our new venue and I must say it was cranking. I'm really kinda glad that we're out of the Banque, nice as it was, the vibe was getting too crowded and somehow divided towards the end there. Now we are upstairs and it's almost like we have our own club. One room with a bar, good lighting, decent sound system, outside balcony for drinks and chats and funtimes. |
to market, to market, to eat a fat dumpling...
 Sitting in the Central Market food court this evening (old food court, for the purists), I indulged in a little reverie about the various stalls and the memories attached to them. Even though I love travelling, I always miss the Adelaide market just a little. Wong Kee Daily Yum Cha - apart from their steamed pork buns (fluffy white clouds of glutinous goodness) this place is notable only for its 50 cent refillable pots of tea, which is exactly what the cash-strapped bohemian student desires of an afternoon when philosophical pontification is the order of the day. A fond memory of my uni days (daze?) when ten of us would make one pot last several hours. The Place Directly on Your Left when You Enter the Old Food Court - has no name, but if you hit this joint at just the right hour, ie. directly before closing, the opportunity for cheap slop is unrivalled. This place rose to fame on the occasion of my 22nd birthday. I'd been at the German Club all evening and was feeling all full of beer and cheer, so we trundled down to the Market and this place fit the bill precisely. $4 for a plate that fed two people - gold. Later followed by pizza we found on the side of the road... that's what I call a night of quality eatin'. The Old Lolly Shop - My best friend in primary school and I used to pester our parents to buy us sour hearts and sherbert here. Our trick was to buy the sweets, and then offer them back to our parents to 'butter them up', in the hope that we could have a sleepover. Suzuki Sushi - complete with real live sushi master. Best sushi in Adelaide, bar none. I used to eat here all the time with an old flame, and I was always very impressed by the master's manly handling of a large knife and slab of fish. Nana Hot Bake - deserves a mention just because it has a wicked funny name. And wicked tasty Vietnamese hot dogs. Noodle Spot and Kim's BBQ - my favourite picks at the moment. The first makes the most awesome handmade fried dumplings, and the second serves a very respectable bibim bap. I'm all about the dumplings at the moment, there's nothing like a little crispy package of dough and anonymous meat filling to make a girl happy. Chinatown Cafe - chicken rice. Need I say more? Traditional hangout, traditional hangover cure, traditional food to eat when you're too indecisive to pick anything else. Also, makes you feel like you're being healthy. |
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
it's not for me, it's for a friend.
| There are a few things that you don't want to be caught buying. Standing in a checkout queue, you feel so naked - you just know you're surreptitiously checking out each other's purchases. Loaf of bread? Aha, I see that hemmorhoid cream tucked away at the back there! I'm onto you. I had my moment today standing in the bottle-o clutching the neck of a 2 litre bottle of super-cheap Greek goon. Heck, it wasn't even a bottle, it was well and truly a flagon. Behind me was someone I vaguely recognised from uni, and it was only with the greatest self-restraint that I managed not to turn around and explain to him that I wasn't the wino I looked like. I'm sharing with friends*, really! It's all about context. At various times in my life, I've been ashamed to be buying underwear (I was 10 - for some reason it was mortifying), tampons (ok, awkward teenager), even some sort of overpriced trash from Supré (yes, in your stupid shop I'm apparently a size large). You'd think condoms would feature in that list but no, I'm quite happy for people to know I'm actually getting some. I don't mind people thinking that I might be having sex, but for some reason it does bother me that they might think I'm an alcoholic who's too fat to fit into a size XXXS. Stupid, yes, but there you have it. All I can do there is whip my bank card out with a flourish. Yeah, I'm buying two litres of wine, bitches - party at my house tonight. *'friends' may or may not be greater than one in number and/or invisible. |
Sunday, April 15, 2007
personals
| 23yr old female, genuine, good sense of humour, seeks friend for idle banter, coffee outings, op-shop crawls and sharing of deepest secrets. Non-smokers, social drinkers preferred, VTPR. Honestly, I'm a pretty shit friend. My track record is littered with broken hearts, mine included. I've shed more tears over lost friends than lost lovers and my photo albums are filled with pictures of people I no longer want to see. I forget to write, I don't return calls, and a lot of the time all I want to do is sit alone in my room and knit, thinking bitter twisted thoughts about the evil pricks who've wronged me. There's a fair measure of self-loathing thrown in and I'll write some scathing poetry on my MySpace page. Looking back on the parade of best friends, confidantes, acquaintances, nemeses and other people who've chosen to hang out with me, I've come to realise that finding a good friend is vastly more difficult than finding a romantic partner. The process is much the same. Perhaps you're sitting in a tutorial at the beginning of term and another girl sits down next to you. You shyly introduce yourself. Maybe you end up working on an assignment together. Perhaps - amazingly - you share a passion for obscure Uzbekhistanian folk embroidery. This is where it gets serious; you get her phone number. How long should you wait to call? Don't look too eager, you don't want to appear desperate, a loner, someone who actually needs a friend. So a week later you call her up and meet in town. Sparks fly, one thing follows another and before you know it you're sharing a bottle of wine and revealing your deepest secrets to your new friend. The catastrophe is complete. Only, with friends, you don't get that extra ingredient of lust that can make it easier to form a romantic attachment. You have to genuinely like each other and share some interests. Balancing friendships can be a juggling act, requiring dextrous management of time and a seemingly inexhaustible energy. I've never been good at this part. I always seem to neglect someone or seem to take more than I give, yet irritate others with my penchant for servo runs at times better reserved for sleeping. I'm either too much of a friend, or slack in my friendly duties. And when the inevitable breakup does come, it's like a part of your life is ripped away. That person who changed schools, moved away, got married and disappeared in a mountain of dirty nappies, or simply decided you weren't worth the effort anymore ended up just as soul destroying as any vile ex-boyfriend. Sometimes, years later, you cross paths as different people and realise that there was actually a reason you liked hanging out with each other. You can start again knowing that time spent in each other's company isn't wasted. It's a good feeling to have. Purely selfishly, it means you don't have to start from the start all over again. Now I just have to learn how not to piss off my friends so much in the first place! I've perpetrated unforgivable things like forgetting birthdays, spreading scurrilous gossip, holding grudges long after their use-by date and lusting after forbidden boyfriends. But for some reason I've managed to hang on to some friends. We've insulted each other in the nastiest of ways, knowing we don't mean a word of it. I can forget to write, or call, and when we see each other again it'll be like only days instead of months have passed. For some reason people still want to hang out with me, so I mustn't be a complete douchebag (or maybe it's just because there's always food and beer in my fridge). Who knows, it's a mystery. ****  In less introspective news, I went on a sewing binge yesterday. It was so nice to find that my green vintage Husqvarna, bought for $5 at a jumble sale, doesn't throw a hissy fit when confronted with 9 layers of interfaced twill. <3 <3 <3 My back, however, is not feeling the love at all. Ow! |
Friday, April 13, 2007
what I want to be doing.
 I have so many things to do at the moment. For a person who isn't actually beholden to any sort of place of work, study or - let's face it - anyone else, I sure seem to run out of time to do stuff. The less you have to do, the less you actually do. So here's a quick to-do list, any one of which might attract my motivation at the moment. - my super-secret-sewing-thing. This is what is really taking up my headspace at the moment. I don't really want to say too much about it because expectation always makes me choke. Only, I love doing stuff like this. Stuff that's just a bit too hard for me, stuff that I need to nibble at and think about and work out myself. I know I'm going to learn lots.  - my cardigan: I have finished the left front and started the ribbing for the right. I just haven't had the right vibes to sit down and get cracking. Heck, I want to wear this thing before winter is over (even though it is, bizarrely, 30 degrees here at the moment). - read my book, 'Sleeping in Flame' by Jonathan Carroll, which Em lent me. At first I was simply taken with his elegant style, but halfway through the book it turned all magical realism on me, and I am a sucker for that stuff. - make a hipscarf for belly dancing. I want it to have tassels. Tassely tassely tassels. - finish up a dress I am sewing from a vintage pattern. I have made the top half in a flowy black cotton dotted with tiny red hearts and it looks really swell, I just have to stop debating on how I want the skirt to look and actually decide on something. - find a venue for a swing dance event Buggles and I want to put on. We want to launch our little stall and we want a cranking dance. The two shall be combined in edible form... Of course, I spend most of my time doing anything but the aforementioned things. Yes, most of them are crafty, and most of them are purely personal. But then I don't want to spend my halcyon days doing shit that bores me. |
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
300
 After much hype and anticipation I finally got myself to the cinemas to see 300 last night. I'm a total sucker for any sort of historical epic - loincloths and baby oil optional, but appreciated. I read the graphic novel and prepared myself for bloodlust. That being said, I responded to this movie on different levels. Of course, eye candy was the primary appeal - it'a gorgeous film. A hybrid of modern comic book art and the stylised tableaus on the sides of Grecian urns, there is enough to saturate the eye when all the pithy quotes begin to wear on you. The story is told in classical epic style, and the grainy film quality really helps convey the idea of a legend, an idealised tale of heroism passed down through the ages. Oh yes, eye candy. 300 is an ode to the flesh. Lots of flesh. In leather loincloths, draped in crimson cloaks, swathed in white robes. Or not. I found it quite affecting, perhaps because I'm so used to seeing breasts and semi-naked women splashed all over everything, but seeing male bodies portrayed so idealistically and explicitly is less common. Also, it certainly gives you a new appreciation for a man who can work a beard! On the other hand, I walked out feeling like I'd just been brainwashed. The heroism, the intense colour, the rousing soundtrack and the barrage of inspiring rhetoric are the stuff of propaganda. It has the intended effect - it makes you want to go fight something, anything - and it's scary how easily you feel yourself sucked into it. Film is such a powerful persuasive medium and its effects on crowds has been well-documented. I realise all this might sound a little far-fetched and incredible, but (for me, at least) the parallels with the kinds of propaganda used during the Third Reich, and more recently, the 'War on Terror' are unmistakable. Hitler certainly looked to the ancient greeks as inspiration for his campaign. Extreme patriotism and glorification of battle are hallmarks of totalitarian regimes. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, maybe it's just sign I should really go back to university. Or maybe I really have to start wearing more strategically-draped bedsheets. Labels: 300, movie review, review |
Friday, April 6, 2007
Big Ups
| For the inaugural post in what I hope will be my crafty, eclectic, rambling and hopefully somewhat entertaining blog, I want to give propz of the maddest variety to some of the writers and blogs that inspire me. I hardly ever pick up a print magazine anymore; I want my inspiration to be fresh - preferably daily - and my addiction to be fed by international ideas rather than what the glittery people in Melbourne are doing for funsies. There are so many awesome creative folk out there, and some truly talented writers. Yes, I'm guilty of plagiarising some of their awesomess, but then again, that's what's so great about the internet craft posse - it's about getting your ideas out there, sharing them and seeing them reflected in someone else's work. So here, in no particular order, I present a few of the blogs I read on a regular basis: • galadarling.com Okay, so she is a Melbourne girl. But her blog's just so pretty! Full of cupcakes and sugar and feeling fine. A mix of fashion posts, pretty things and a smattering of self-help (rarely twee), it makes me feel good and want to drink tea. • http://thisisloveforever.com/blog/ Cute crafty blog rounding up all that is sweet and DIY in the internet world. Fashion, design, interior decorating, music... I always find something to *cough*copy*cough*. • blackcigarette.livejournal.com An extremely prolific LJ community. Okay, so a lot of this can be adolescent-y whinge, but some interesting questions are asked and answered... And lots of pretty pictures. • styleclicker.net I just found this one today. It can be hit and miss with global FRUiTS-style street fashion blogs, and honestly, I never thought Munich would be one of the world's great stylish cities. But you know, the gentleman of Sunday April the 1st just rocks my socks so hard! Spats! And those fabulous orange cord pants. I can wax poetical for hours on this man's genius. And the rest of the blog's not bad either, the slightly anachronistic styles of Munich agree with me.  That should do it for now. I have to go and find something to wear to go dancing. It's harder than it sounds. |