Grumpy Girl

2010-02-08T10:49:00.001+10:00

2002-10-31T08:39:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
Moving
Ok, I'm moving.
You can now find me at:
Invisible Shoebox.
Over and out.

2002-10-31T07:28:00.000+10:00

Diary
Too busy to blog
I'm moving blog address shortly, but not quite yet. I'm still pushing furniture around, but I'll post the link when it's done.

2002-10-30T07:50:00.000+10:00

Diary
Email from the top of my computer

A surprising email arrived today:

Dear GG-

I am the panda who sits on top of your computer, my left ear resting against the miniature world globe (covering The Maldives and part of Sri Lanka, in fact).

At night, when you and your collegues have left, I make my way down to your keyboard so I can surf on the internet. This is not an easy task-- there is no ladder to help me on my descent and having no digits (how I envy you your thumbs!), I often slip. Then, once I am down, it is difficult for me to turn on your monitor. I am thankful, however, that you do not turn the computer off entirely, as being so small (15 cm on last measuring) it would be impossible for me to clamber down to the hard drive button.

Typing is exhausting as I must jump from key to key, often quite firmly, as your keys tend to stick (would it be impolite for me to suggest a vigourous shaking of the keyboard one day to dislodge some of the bread crumbs?)

Why do I go to so much effort?
I think I realised about a year ago that it was unlikely that I am ever to see much of the world. This is not meant as a complaint. I love my work as your computer mascot, and never tire of the view our position on the third floor affords me over Fitzroy. But I have an inquisitive mind and wish to know what is going on beyond the re-inforced glass of our office window.

After catching up on world news, I read your blog. I feel that it has given me a deeper understanding of who you are, something beyond our work relationship.

And because I have gained this insight, I felt that it was only fair to let you know, seeming as we spend so much time together.

Unless you object, I shall continue to read it.

Sincerely,
Sun Arrow*

(*as you have never given me a name, I hope you will not mind too much that I have chosen one for myself. It is the name printed on my tag and I feel that it somehow belongs to me.)

I wrote back immediately:

Dear Sun Arrow,

I am flattered that you read my blog and happy for you to use my computer whenever you wish. In future I shall dangle my mouse cord across the edge of the screen so you can slide down much more easily. Will this help? I would leave the monitor on but I think it's probably bad for the computer.

The only thing I would ask is that you don't download too many large files as our ISP has a limit and if we exceed it we have to pay an excess.

Have you ever logged on to the panda cam at the San Diego zoo?

I'm sorry that I never gave you a name, but Sun Arrow is much more elegant than anything I would have thought of anyway.

regards,
GG

2002-10-30T07:38:00.000+10:00

Masters
Voice, more (Jill/txt)
I was reading this morning in Jill/txt of how she consciously developed a voice for her blog that is "grumpier" than in her usual writing and the thought occurred to me that perhaps what is going on is a reaction to the slightly stifled tone that most academic writing has. I clearly remember as a first year uni student getting an essay back and having the tutor say "I don't want to read about your opinion of the text. I want to know what other academics and critics have said about it." So I had to create a neutral, or at least the semblance of neutral, tone. I started to feel that the unsupported arguement was unworthy of consideration (and I still do, to a degree). If I had an opinion, it had to be spoken through the critics or the texts I chose to quote. I steered away from the first person.

And it strikes me now that this is what initially made me a bit nervous about blogging, as it is a collection of personal reactions to things, heavy on the "I". I think it is also something that puts me off some blogs- especially the news-centric ones or the war-blogs. They often seem to be the unsubstantiated rantings of bigoted minds and I have no time for that. However, I do like the first person narrative of the blog in general, so I guess it becomes a weighing up of rant and reason.

2002-10-29T16:18:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
Voice (Jill/txt)
Lots of useful stuff on Jill Walker's site today. I'm particularly interested in what she says about going back and adjusting a post later on in the same day. I do this, but always feel slightly guilty about it, as if I'm somehow missing the point of keeping a weblog. However, as Jill points out, it is still public writing, it just means you can make public amendments too.

Jill also has some think-making comments about voice and the process she has been through to develop a style that is her own. It's made me start thinking about the way blogs have of linking things up- themes that run through them, topics the writer comes back to, things that the readers pick up on. Everytime someone emails me with advice or thoughts on something I've written I'm struck by how useful this is as a forum for working out/refining what it is that I am doing.

All very good and project-related, for me.

2002-10-29T07:51:00.000+10:00

diary
Performance anxiety
I went to an opening at Gertrude St on Friday night which included:
an excellent triffid-like sculpture made out of beige plastic chairs in the front room
a wooden speaker system in Studio 12
and some videos of performance art playing in the main room.

I watched the videos for some time- simultaneously appalled and fascinated (as was intended).
First I watched (through my fingers) as Mike Parr systematically sliced his fingers, burnt his legs and generally dripped lots of blood around.
Then the video changed to a later clip where a guy (not sure who) was pouring chocolate and honey over a group of naked people and then licking it off them.

Afterwards, Masato and I were laughing about what the noticeboards in the art schools must have looked like, once upon a time, in more viscercal times:

Room 412. Self mutilation tutorial. Pls bring your own pen knife and bandaids.

Room 37. Honey pouring workshop. Remember that this workshop counts towards your assessment. Non attendees will fail. 2nd year students may bring treacle if they prefer.

2002-10-29T07:36:00.000+10:00

masters- link
Vocal
An email from Boynton this morning in reply to the post yesterday about Voice. New to blogs, but a writer for theatre, Boynton writes:

I've never heard of actors going for a "neutral" voice - to me any sort of neutrality implies a diminishing of self. A sort of blanc mange and don't we know there's too much of that commodity out there already!Perhaps it's just a shorthand term used to mean "smaller' or other techie compromises? I have a feeling that if you score more readers, you're doing something right. It is the lure of that voice that has got them in, and struck a chord. To look over your shoulder, and tone up or down to fit the imaginary demographic as she grows is a rather dangerous impulse. The concept of 'which voice to use' is complex however.

She mentions also the freedom that comes with writing under a pseudonym, the creation of a character. However, as she points out, this may end up being restrictive. What happens if the hard-nosed character you've constructed wants to react to something in a sentimental way? Is it ok to suddenly change? This is what I found with Grumpy Girl- I used the character as a way of distancing myself from my blog, but eventually (inevitably?) we started to merge. Whether or not this is a good thing I have yet to decide.

2002-10-28T16:20:00.000+10:00

masters- link
What's New Pussycat?
Came across this blog today and it made me laugh.
I particularly like the entry for October 12 (Dawson's Beak).
I also like that she says she eats her lasagne from the bottom up, so as to save the cheesy bit until the end.
It makes me feel better about the (admittedly disgusting) way I eat pizza- scrape all the topping off then eat the base.

2002-10-28T14:07:00.000+10:00

masters- link
The sound of your own voice(s)
Two interesting emails this morning, one from Jill Walker and one from Mark, (whose URL I entirely concur with). In both emails the issue of "voice" came up. Mark mentioned that actors refer to a "neutral" voice- "an accent that is not one thing or another".

He asked "Do you think that you have to develop a neutral sort of writing accent, the more people you are writing for?"
It's an interesting question.
Dunno.
Dunno if it's possible.
Can you remove yourself enough from your writing to attain this neutral state?

It reminds me of what Thieu was telling me about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (if I've understood it correctly) about how it is impossible to measure something entirely accurately because the act of measuring will inevitably have some effect on the results (that is, there is no neutral when we measure something.)
Hmm.
This is probably not what it means at all.
Dodgy art student trying to talk physics....

The thing that you often seem to get told when struggling over creative endeavours is "be yourself". I've yet to work out which of the many selves I have is the one I should be. Whichever one it is should probably be keeping the blog.

Jill mentioned that she has yet to successfully transpose pieces of writing from her weblog into longer pieces, although she had tried on a number of occasions. It seemed, she said, that the pieces worked best in the weblog format and did not really work so well once removed from that context. Interesting... However, Jill does use the weblog to collect pieces and ideas for articles or papers, which would fit with the shoebox/scrapbook thinking I'm doing.

2002-10-28T13:52:00.000+10:00

masters- link
web boom over
Apparently there is a decline in Australian web users.
The reasons?
-stricter rules on music copyright and downloads
-more difficult these days to download porn.
-crash of One.Tel
etc

2002-10-26T16:17:00.000+10:00

diary
comic

2002-10-25T08:54:00.000+10:00

diary

secret blog entry.

2002-10-25T08:39:00.000+10:00

masters
Naughty Blogger
I did do blogger entries yesterday but for some reason blogger chose to with hold them from the world.
Went in to RMIT- proposals are due in or there is a chance of being placed "at risk" which sounds simply awful.
I have quite a bit on at work at the moment- the new part of the site is going up on Nov 8th and I'm thinking I probably won't get my proposal written up before then.

I also really need to think about what it is that I want to do with it. It has changed considerably since this time last year when I first started thinking about it. I think originally I wanted to make a finished, resolved piece- a multi-media diary of some sort. The blog was really going to only be a way of tracking my progress. Some how the blog has taken over. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does make me a little nervous. Can I really base a masters on a piece of free software? I tell myself that this is perfectly acceptable- the popularity of aps like Blogger and Moveable Type would suggest that there is something there to be explored.

I'm now more thinking that I want to create a series of small pieces and experiments. I think in the back of my mind there is the hope that the weblog could become a resource for larger, more fleshed out pieces (the shoebox/ scrapbook model) but this means, realistically, that I should probably aim to create a few more fleshed out pieces to test if this is how they could function.

I think also that I want to have a question that looks at the creation of a "self" in a weblog- that narrative voice thing, the strange relationship that must emerge for some webloggers that positions the author somewhere between fame and anonymity.

And in some way I'd also like to look at the "diary rings" that emerge with weblogging. It's interesting, I think, to notice that webloggers tend to link to other webloggers that they know personally. And the webloggers in Melbourne that I have spoken to seem to at least be very aware of other Melbourne webloggers. It's funny that even though the internet means you can have exactly the same relationship with a weblogger in the US as you might have with someone else in Australia, there seems to be a strong sense of local ties.

2002-10-24T08:46:00.000+10:00

masters
Temporiser
Another quote from Modjeska's Timepieces which caught my attention as I think it describes the mindset of many a diarist:

I think I'm a temporiser. It's a term Andre Aciman uses of himself, and of a certain sort of memorist, of whom the greatest- the incomparable- exampe, is Proust. Temporising, in Aicman's view, is an attitude of mind which develops in certain people who can find themselves engulfed, even tipped off balance, by the sadness of the present. The incurable imperfection in the very essence of the present, Proust says..... they slip into other time frames; in other words they play with time. They propel themselves into wishful thinking, fantasising, all kinds of story telling, as a way of coaxing life into more controllable possibilities. They return to a troubled present once it has passed and reconsider it from a safer vantage point. A life of imagination, lived on the page, takes on a reality that can be a powerful as the reality their body inhabits.

It goes on, but I'll stop there. It interests me, this idea of not being able to think of the present while the present is happening, but choosing to leap, cat-like, into a tree while the paint of today dries. Writing a journal allows you to fix the details that were not quite right as they were happening, and to scrub out the things you do not want to think about. It makes me think that the process of diary-writing is as much about the things you want to forget as it is about the things you want to remember.

2002-10-24T08:33:00.000+10:00

Masters
Masters class
A Masters proposal-writing session tonight and I am scared. Scared because I have a lot of work to do to get my proposal into line. Scared because I know it has diverted dramatically from my original intent. And scared because everybody else always seems so much more on top of their masters than I am.

2002-10-24T08:31:00.000+10:00

Diary
The Feet
Petite and I rang The Feet last night. An incredibly clear line made it hard to believe they were in the Enchanted Tower in Borneo and not still in Albert Park. It was good to speak to them. I love the emails and I am right on board with the blog, but hearing a voice is very reassuring. They said it has been very difficult to get up to date news- they didn't hear about Bali until the Monday morning, where it appeared in a scrolling text banner at the bottom of the tv financial news. Right Foot said "I think it said 16 people have been killed" and Left Foot said "I think it actually said 216."

Petite is back from Sydney at last, although she will probably be going up there a lot. It's good when she's back. I've realised that for all my reclusive ways I actually rather like having people around.

2002-10-23T08:52:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
Accessibility and moral responsibility
This article from News.com reports on a ruling that Southwest Airlines does not have to make its website more accessible to the blind. And it worries me.

Accessibility is of great concern when it comes to the web and I'm sure that I have been guilty many times over of making sites that pose difficulties for disabled users. But one thing that struck me about the case in Australia when Bruce McGuire sued SOCOG for having a inaccessible website was that the things that he requested were very simple. Things like putting ALT tags on images so that his screen reader could tell him what they were, especially if the images then acted as links to other pages. And it seems that this is the case with the Southwest Airlines case too.
Which is pitiful.
It is so easy to put on ALT tags and it is common politeness. To refuse to do it is pathetic and petty. It's like already having a ramp to place over stairs to enable wheelchair access to a building but refusing to do it because you don't feel like it.

The reaction amongst designers when it comes to accessibility is often "It's just ridiculous, this is a visual medium, we'll have to build an entirely separate website to accomodate special needs." But this kind of view, I am now thinking, borders on bigotry.

It's made worse by the fact that the web is potentially an invaluable tool for someone with a disability who might find getting around more of a hassle than able-bodied people. It makes me sigh to think that an airline is not prepared to make the changes necessary to help their blind or in other ways impaired customers use their website to book tickets when clearly, this would be a useful thing. It shouldn't be so much an issue of "Why should we have to do this?" as "We want to do this." And it would be easy to do the things that have been asked. It would take a designer (or the work-experience kid or the boss' kid) a few hours at most to put on the ALT tags to make those sites accessible, without requiring any additional design or hassle. Refusal to do so comes down to pig-headedness and laziness.

(ps you might note that I don't have an ALT tag on my GG header, but this is because I've yet to work out how to do it in Blogger. Ok and because I'm lazy. But I'm going to fix it, I swear.)

2002-10-23T08:36:00.000+10:00

Masters
Whine Online
All over hip hooray. It was fine, and I came in under time at 4 minutes with no questions (largely because, I suspect, no one really had any idea what it is that I am doing.) I did have a moment of panic, however. I was sitting there smugly with my zip drive, practically looking forward to displaying my new found Power Point skills ("the refuge of scoundrels and middle management" as PM wisely observed this morning) when it dawned on me that there was no zip drive attached to the machine. No zip drive, no pc versions, no internet connection, and this, a multi-media course, but enough of that. I dashed up to AIM, displaying a remarkable degree of calmness and Sensai burned the files onto cd for me. Talk was fine, I passed (which is much better than the other option, fail). Oh well, I'm glad it's finished but I'm sorry at the way it all turned out. It's a bit of a shame as It could have been a really interesting course if the online component had actually happened, but instead it was largely a waste of time.

2002-10-22T08:49:00.000+10:00

Masters
Talkety
Got to give the second talk for the Methodology Research class today. I'm not nervous, but I'll be glad when it's done. I've made myself a cheesy little Powerpoint presentation over the weekend and somehow managed to resist animating all the text (it was a struggle.) I'm hoping I'll get in first like I did last time, but I think there are a number of us presenting today, so it's probably unlikely.

2002-10-22T08:35:00.000+10:00

diary
World gone mad etc
It was Jane who broke the news. Her brother called her and she came over to tell us straight away.
"Do any of you know anyone studying at Monash? Someone has opened fire on a classroom in the Menzies building. A couple of people are dead and there are a number of people wounded."
We look blankly at each other. None of us know anyone studying there, but it's still a shock.
"The world's gone mad" I say.
Yes.
Dr Bob walks in the room.
"Have you heard the news from Monash? The world's gone mad."
We nod and agree.
Mad.

In the evening I go into RMIT. We discuss the shootings and shake our heads.
"The world's gone mad" I say, as I haven't said it here yet.
La S looks at me. "That's exactly what I said this morning" she says, "But then, probably a lot of people have said that today."

This morning Thieu walked in with me. In between admiring the new leaves and pondering why it is that the elms seem to take so much longer than the other trees to come into foliage, we talk about the sniper in Washington and then, inevitably, the shootings at Monash.

Thew looks at me. I know what he's going to say, but I wait.
"The world's gone mad, Merri" he says and I have to agree.

2002-10-21T08:41:00.000+10:00

diary
Recollection of a cancelled holiday
Yesterday, walking along I had a sudden memory that made me stop in the street and exclaim out loud. For all my rantings on Friday about never having had any desire to go to Bali I had completely forgotten that Shell and I once planned to go there and had even paid for part of the flight. It was a long time ago, so long ago that it was the onset of the Gulf war that stopped us going. There was parental concern about a fundamentalist backlash against Westerners. I remember at the time thinking that everyone was over-reacting as it was impossible to imagine this kind of thing happening in Bali. Strange that I'd completely forgotten about this.

2002-10-21T08:32:00.000+10:00

diary
Frontier Librarians
Petite and I have been a little fretful over the absent Feet this week. At first I wasn't concerned at all as they are in Malaysia and not Indonesia, but as the Government started issuing increasingly hysterical warnings for Australians to leave all of South East Asia, we started to wonder if they were safe. I suppose the concern is that they are not receiving all of the news and are therefore unable to make a truly informed decision. It has been made harder by not having a contact number for them.

However, this morning I received an email from The Left Foot and felt a little better, although I have sent off an email requesting a phone number. I think both Petite and I will feel better once we've actually heard their voices.

They have started working on The Frontier Librarian blog and it made me feel much more reassured once I'd read it. Somehow picturing my mother eating bananas (I was actually eating a banana as I read the banana-eating entry) made me feel like things were ok.

I am also concerned about Heighty in Cambodia, but I guess I have to be confident that the Australian Government would be very quick to bring her group back if they thought they were in danger.

2002-10-18T09:29:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
Clarice Beckett
I'm still reading Drusilla Modjeska's Timepieces and I read something the other day that clicked into my head as an interesting piece of information. I've always had a secret soft spot for the work of Clarice Beckett, with her soft, foggily indistinct canvases, always seeming to depict the early in the day or dusk. Her work was largely ignored during her life time, but she plodded on, determined and unfazed, holding yearly exhibitions and sticking to the theories taught to her by Max Meldrum.

Modjeska comments that Beckett did most of her paintings in the morning or in the evening because she had to fit her art time around her household chores. This seems so obvious now, but it had never occurred to me before that the times of day she depicted in her work was not because of an abiding interest in the effects of light, but because this was the only time available to her. Yet this sense of half-light is one of the most wonderful things about Beckett's work. It interesting, I think, to contemplate how limitations imposed on the creative process can actually end up influencing the work in a positive way.

2002-10-18T08:39:00.000+10:00

diary
Ian Henderson
Last night Thieu and I went to see Mogwai at the Prince of Wales on free RRR tickets won by Jas, who is the champion at winning things.

Before we went I watched the ABC news, which is still full of images from Kuta. It's a strange thing- I've never had any desire to go to Bali and I have always imagined Kuta beach to be a most hideous place, largely because of the Australians there, behaving like louts. I know that they would have made me shudder. Places like the Sari club would have appalled my delicate sensibilities also, with their (alleged) policy of excluding the locals. Imagine some bar in Melbourne that had a policy of keeping out Australians. Imagine the outrage.

So there's a lot about Kuta beach and that pissed-Australians-in-Asia scene which I loathe. Yet each night when I watch the news or read the paper it makes me cry.
The dad at the airport, who knows his son was ok, but "just wants to give him a hug to make sure he's really back."
The sad-faced photo in the Australian yesterday of the woman who'd lost her boyfriend juxtaposed with a picture of her with him earlier this year, looking at him like he was her world.

And then last night, another emotional story, probably more worthy of Today Tonight than the ABC news, telling the story of a young woman whose brother was missing. They showed her traipsing around putting up photos of him in the windows at the airport, like he was a lost puppy, like this could make a difference. It was too much. Her grief flawed me. It is impossible to watch that kind of pain and not think "That is me, if my sibling or parent or friend were lost. That would be my dad, waiting at the airport, knowing it was a pity silly, but needing the tangile evidence that you were ok." And it stopped mattering that I would have despised some of these people if I saw them in Bali, treating the locals like they were servants, or spending all day drinking and never leaving the confines of Kuta.

They cut back to Ian Henderson at the news desk and he was unable to speak. Or at least, this is how it seemed to me. There was a three second space of nothingness, just Ian staring ahead and, it seemed to me, composing himself, getting over it.

2002-10-17T09:05:00.000+10:00

diary
All My Elephants
An email from Jacinta led to me looking at Eun-ha Paek's site Milky Elephant. Weird, beautiful. I have no idea what's going on, but I love it.

2002-10-17T08:42:00.000+10:00

diary
Meeting up
I missed yet another Blog Meetup last night as I had my own meetup with two old housemates of mine from the early 1990s. We shared a smelly house near Melbourne uni- my first and most enduring memory of the share house experience comes from this time. I am still mocked about some of the habits I picked up from living in the Degraves St house, especially the one that involves the of washing up my dishes as I am cooking. It was also in this house that I learned the secret of getting to the bathroom when it is free- do not get up on the hour or on the half hour, but at in between times- 10 past 7, 7:40 etc.

It was interesting and good to see N and S last night but as always there was that vague feeling of melancholy that comes with (un)covering old territory. Well, at least, this is how it makes me feel. I am also reminded at such times of how dreadful I am at keeping in contact and how I let people slip by the wayside. I tried telling myself that maybe everyone does this, that maybe my old housemates N and S didn't really see each other much either. Perhaps we were all as bad as each other.

And then N started talking about the birth of her little girl, 18 months ago:
"S was there at the birth" she said and I realised that I had been wrong.

We met at a cafe that I briefy worked at as a student. I told them about the interview process. We turned up, all 20 of us applicants, on the Monday and were given a menu. "Learn this off by heart" said the manager "And the shorthand for how to place the order in the kitchen. Come back tomorrow."

The next day we all dutifully turned up again and sat in a circle while the manager quizzed us, in turn, about the menu.
"What's in the pasta putenesca?"
How much does it cost?"
How much is extra chilli?"

If you got something wrong, you left. She stopped when there was only three of us left. "Ok" she said "Who wants to work tonight?"
I worked there for a month then left, because I hated it.

2002-10-16T18:08:00.000+10:00

Masters- Comic
Comic

2002-10-15T17:39:00.000+10:00

Diary
Why I'm glad I'm not fifteen anymore
I'm making a website for a kids' show and last week we had the teenage cast in to record some interviews. The idea is to take grabs and make some punchy little sound bites. Fun. Lighthearted.

The questions were pretty standard, pretty banal, and because I was concentrating so hard on the technicalities of the procedure (ie: have I turned the camera on? Is there any sound? etc) I didn't really pay all that much attention to what they were actually saying.

This afternoon I sat down and listened through the material properly so I could select what to use and what to discard. I had my notepad to mark down the bits that were good and the bits that didn't work so well. For the most part, the kids gave good, predictable, happy answers.

One of the last questions was:
"how did the kids at school react to you getting the role?"
and they all dutifully said
"The kids at school were all very excited and happy for me and they can't wait to see the show!"

Except for one girl, slightly more reserved, slightly more awkward. Smart. Shy. She paused for a moment when we asked this, then sighed and said
"Well, I go to an all girls' school and let's just say I don't get along with all of them. So I suppose you could say I got a mixed reaction."

I listened to it with a pang and then, after a moment wrote on my notebook:
don't use this bit.

2002-10-15T13:56:00.000+10:00

Masters
boring tram survey
I'm going to keep a little tally this week of what people do on the tram to pass the time, based on the 10 people sitting closest to me each night.

Last night's results are as follows:
2 x reading novels
1 x reading newspaper
1 x listening to radio
1 x listening to cd
1 x sending SMS message
1 x talking on phone
1 x using palm pilot
2 x staring blankly out the window

2002-10-15T08:24:00.000+10:00

diary
badness
Not really in the mood for writing much today. The news is full of images of Kuta, relieved relatives being reunited at the airport, and interviews with those who haven't heard anything yet. The Indonesian gov't is blaming Al-Qaeda and John Howard is saying that "terrorism is too antiseptic a word to describe what happened" although it seems to me that "terror" sums it up pretty well from the footage I've seen.
Anyway, it's all very grim and I can already imagine the hate campaigns that will spin out from all of this. Excellent. Can't wait.
I'm going to do some drawings to cheer myself up.

2002-10-14T17:47:00.000+10:00

diary
What I hate
What I hate is when I read back over this weblog at the end of the day and discover all the badly phrased and badly spelled (spelt?) things that I missed in my morning posting frenzy.
Badness.

I also think that I have offended the mysterious JW who sent me such a lovely image of Suddam with a missing moustache the other week. I do hope that this is not the case. That would not be good.

2002-10-14T14:38:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
Linketolla
I stumbled across Jazzy Hands today (I'm very taken with the title). Kathryn (formally of Cut Lunch Trip) publishes a scanned page from her journal each week. I particularly like the first one listed under Sept 28th. I used to do things like this too, with real paper and real paints, back when I had time... (however, as I write this I am fully aware of just how pissweak a lament this is, considering that as recently as last night I wasted a number of hours watching crap US tv when I could have, and should have, been doing something productive.)
Anyway, I like Kathryn's journal pages. And it's all very scrapbook-esque, which I also like, because it fits neatly in with my thesis.

2002-10-14T08:59:00.000+10:00

diary
The weekend, these things
Up to Daylesford this weekend, for the third time this year. We actually stayed in Trentham on Friday night, in the Cosmopolitan Hotel. I just did a search on this hotel and discovered it has a ghost. The Cosmopolitan was built in 1865 and was boarded up in 1937, thus managing to escape the renovating excesses of the 1950s and 1970s etc. When it was re-opened in the 1990s the bar was almost exactly how it would have been in the 1860s-even down to the original wallpaper.

Had an excellent Thai dinner across the road (Thai Issan), stayed in a sweet slopey-roofed room and did not see a ghost.

On Saturday morning we walked to the Trentham Falls and were dive-bombed by terrifying magpies as we cut across the golf-course. Thew swung his backpack around his head and I tried to reason with them:
We don't want to steal your eggs. We're just going for a walk.
Neither technique was particularly successful.

We went to Daylesford for Saturday night and ate at The Farmers' Arms. (I love the signage for The Farmers Arms- a line drawing of two burly, muscular arms and then one slim, dainty arm... The hobby farmer? The gentleman/gentlewoman farmer? Not sure, but it amuses me.)

Went to the Sunday market in Daylesford the next morning and we made up a song for the occasion:
The pissweak,
the pissweak Sunday
the pissweak Sunday Marrr-ket

This may be unkind, but it was also definitely true.

We drove to Castemaine to visit J and L; one of the dryest places in Victoria that took one look at us and started to pound with rain. J told us about the Bali bomb news. Will it make any difference to the Pessers in Sarawak? I don't think so, but who knows what the repercussions might be?

Drove back to Melbourne in the early evening, rain on the horizon and sunset out the side window and mused on how different the drive home from a weekend away is to the drive there on the Friday night- the same landscape but somehow sadder, more melancholy.

2002-10-11T09:12:00.000+10:00

Masters
Someone else's story
I have started reading Drusilla Modjeska's Timepieces.
She documents the process of writing Poppy; a book about her mother that uses fictious diary entries. Apparently many readers were angry about this device, feeling somehow cheated when they discovered that the diary components were written by Drusilla and not her mother. Modjeska says:

"So if, as it's sometimes said, Poppy ended up on a line between fact and fiction, between imagination and evidence, it was not because it was a decision I started with, but because of the collapse of certainty that accompanied the events that led up to writing it. At the time I was writing blind, not out of the part of me that had been trained to recognise the documentary evidence or history, but out of some capacity- or dark impulse- I had no name for." (p 73)

She also talks about the sensation of quite deliberately fictionalising fact:

"The part of me that is like my father was appalled by what I was writing. I was running events together, moving people around as if on a chess board, digging into feelings and tendencies that were mostly kept under social wraps, imagining events and inventing conversations that flew off my pen as if I'd heard them that morning...I was up against other skin, other minds, other wishes and fantasies. The process of writing, of dipping the pen in the ink, clacking away on my old electric typewriter, took me into a reimagined past, rich with detail, at once a gift of imagination and held in a bedrock that I don't think I can call truth, but is related to truth." (p 73-74)

It's an interesting and problematic area, I think, this rewriting of history. It's what I think happens with most diaries- a miniaturisation and compartmentalising of the world to make it more manageable to the diarist. But what happens when it's someone else's history you are re-writing? What are the ethics? The Modjeska extract caught my attention because this history-fiction thing is something that I was originally considering doing with my Master's project- taking the story of my grandfather's life and making up a diary around it. When I read things like this I find that I am glad I decided against it, as I actually think it's quite a questionable thing to do. I'm not quite sure why I feel this, but it definitely makes me feel uneasy.

2002-10-11T08:52:00.000+10:00

diary
Bump
I have experienced a recent spate of running into people from the past. The woman I saw on Carlisle st the other day called me yesterday and we are going to meet up next week, along with another woman we lived with. There was the email from Zuqua-the-dog the other week, from out of nowhere. Then yesterday I ran into Mic and was chatting with him for 5 minutes before I realised he was standing next to someone I went to highschool with and last saw in 1987 (but who, oddly enough, also found Grumpy Girl and emailed me just last week.)

Then yesterday I had lunch with Nick Cheesman, who is off to Hong Kong to work for a human rights agency. Nick and I went to college together and he introduced me to The Smiths and encouraged me to do away with my Billy Joel collection, which, clearly, was a good thing.

I showed him the picture I have in my wallet of me at 17 with my spiral perm, which is how I looked when I first knew Nick. Somehow, as I was talking about this hairdo I managed to merge the two words and it came out as "sperm". I am amazed that I have never thought about this amalgam before, or, worse, accidently asked for it in a hairdressers.

Nick has just finished his Masters and we talked a bit about the whole post graduate experience. I felt a little embarrassed, however, as my Masters involves making comics about ants while Nick writes about things like this.

2002-10-10T09:10:00.000+10:00

Masters- comic
Sunday Walk

I haven't been down Carlisle St for ages.

I'd forgotten how much I like it...

(even though one of my
favourite shops has closed down.)

An elderly Russian couple pass by me
and I can't stop staring.

She has thick black eyebrows painted on,
they are the biggest I've ever seen.

He has an Elvis hairdo.
I realise they've probably been dressing the same way
for forty years or so.

I run into a woman I used to share a house with,
at least ten years ago.

She has a husband...

...and a little girl.

I give her my phone number.
I wonder if she'll call?

On the way home I stop at Glicks,
for bagels.

Blueberry are the best,
but cinamon are not bad either.

2002-10-10T08:55:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
More wireless devices
Heard the tech guys on RRR discussing the Sony Clie last night. Why have I suddenly become so interested in these things? Not sure. This one has a built in digital camera anda built-in MP3 player. I think they interest me because I now see far more people sitting on the tram playing with either these things or their mobile phones than reading or even just staring blankly out of the window.

The text messaging thing fascinates me, too. I heard someone say last night "Ok, well just SMS me the details tomorrow". This always makes me laugh because it's a phone yet people use it like email. It's only moderately cheaper (I think) to send a text message and it probably takes much longer. So why do it? I wonder if it points to a fundamental desire in the modern human to not actually talk to anyone.

2002-10-10T08:42:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
A case for web storytelling
Eek! Another one I haven't read. Starting to stress out. And it's only a matter of time before Sensai starts hassling me about getting my proposal in, which has yet to be approved.... Weird to have been working on something for 10 months that, theoretically, might get rejected. Wouldn't that be lovely?

2002-10-10T08:25:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
Interactive Comic
It's called Pop Culture and it's by Dillon Naylor.
I've only had a quick look, interesting, but I'm still pondering.

2002-10-10T08:22:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
Bias in the Blogosphere
I haven't read this yet, but I'm linking to it so I don't forget to read it (theoretically).

2002-10-09T08:22:00.000+10:00

Diary- link
Day of the Red Letter
Yesterday, the email finally arrived.
CD has been sent for pressing, Freelance has finished.
Praise be.
I sat in front of the computer last night, as usual, but this time I did my own stuff.
It felt good.
Tonight I'm going to take all the freelance files off and burn them onto cd.

2002-10-09T08:19:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
Unneccessary consumer desirables
Palm have launched The Zire, geared towards people who "use bulky planners and want to upgrade to a more portable digital organizer."
It's lighter and cheaper and I really don't need one, especially as I'm really rather fond of my Moleskin diary that I can draw in and stick stuff into.
But I may go and have a look anyway, for research purposes.

2002-10-08T08:42:00.000+10:00

Masters- link
Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing
An article about why webloggers are foolish if they think they can (or should) make money from weblogging. Shirky points out that the weblog undermines traditional publishing because they
"...are a platform for the unlimited reproduction and distribution of the written word, for a low and fixed cost." (unlike print, which has inescapable overheads associated with it)
and because they present writing that escapes the editorial process (that is, with the exception of self-published works, print publicatons have had at least one other person judge the work as being interesting and deserving of publishing. Weblogs do not have to measure up to anyone else's critera to be "published.")

Therefore:
"Webloggers waiting for micropayments and other forms of direct user fees have failed to understand the enormity of these changes. Weblogs aren't a form of micropublishing that now needs micropayments. By removing both costs and the barriers, weblogs have drained publishing of its financial value, making a coin of the realm unnecessary."

People just aren't going to pay.

2002-10-08T08:27:00.000+10:00

diary
Good Vibrations
Made the most of my freedom (relative, until the next bout of corrections come through) and went to Miss * Tu's opening last night at Heidi Gallery. It was a beautiful evening and we got there while the sun was still up and stood outside, drinking champagne and admiring the sunset. It felt wonderful- so much better than the way I have spent my last few mondays. glued to the computer.

The speechifying went on for far too long with the first person giving a bio of the second speaker. My mind kept wandering off and then I'd snap back to attention and he'd be saying "And in 1976 he moved to Perth" so I'd drift off again.

When we finally were allowed in (we were locked out until after the speeches) it felt like the opening day of the Myer sales as we barged in. It's a great show- a retrospective of Op Art in Australia with some very impressive Bridget Rileys (about 15). There was a Vera Moller piece I really liked too. Miss * Tu was a little disappointed by the lighting on her piece (long folded paper tendrils forming a curtain of yellow and white across a wall and window) as it bleached out some of the colour's intensity. "It looks better during the day" she told me, so I will go back on the weekend.

2002-10-07T08:49:00.000+10:00

diary
Weekend- a retrospective prediction
You will leave work as early as possible.
5 is good.
10 to 5 is better.
On arriving home, you will rush around madly, packing up things, knowing you have forgotten something important.
Ardura will arrive to pick you up right on time.
You will head off for petrol and air before joining up with La S.
This is to be a convoy.
You will go to the stupormarket and buy last-minute supplies: marshmallows, a 4 litre cask of wine, some almonds.
You will finally leave Melbourne. It is half past eight.
You will realise what you've forgotten: your sleeping mat. (luckily this turns out not to be a problem.)

You will have a comfortable drive in Ardura's van and you will enjoy the opportunity that 3 hours in a car without a radio gives you to catch up.
You will stop, briefly, in Beauford, for an extrodinarily large cup of tea.
You will find yourself playing the country town game:
could I live here? What about here?
You will decide maybe for Arrarat but no for most of the others.

You will arrive in Halls Gap at midnight and take the turn off down the unsealed road to the property.
The road will be rutted and the lights from La S's car behind will bounce around behind you in a slightly alarming manner.
The sky will seem very dark, but star-filled.
Eventually you will see a hand-made sign that points you to your destination and then you will spot the campfire, glowing.
You will remember to close the gate behind you.

That night you will eat salads and drink red wine and then you will go for a scary night walk at 2 am.
It will not be very scary, except for when La S thinks she sees a figure standing behind a tree and screams.
You will wander across to the dam and listen to the frogs, trying to count how many different species you can distinguish.
You will reconfirm your enthusiasm for frogs.

You set up camp in the old shearing shed on mattresses that have migrated there from various local spare rooms.
You will sleep the sort of thick and inky sleep that you do in the country when you are very very tired.
You will wake early to the creaking of corrogated iron expanding in the sunlight.
Make sure you get up quickly so as to marvel at the scenery that you could not see last night but could sense was there.
The hills. The trees. The lack of buildings. The absence of people.
Be prepared for mealtimes to be a protracted experience- cooking for 12 to 14 people on a campfire takes time.
But it will happen and it will be good.
You will go as a group for a walk around the property:
The redgums with their hollowed out centres.
(Widow-makers)
The dead sheep that are little more than piles of fleece:
It's as if they've just slipped out of their coats says La S and it's true.

You will return for more eating and more arrivals.
You will find yourself smiling, for no particular reason, just because you feel glad.
You will all, eventually, manage to organise yourselves into cars to go for a walk and then end up at the helicopter landing spot to watch the sunset.
The light will make the faces of all of us perched on the rocks shine with a weird yellow glow.
The sky behind will be the colour of the roof in old cinemas, mimicing the sky in a hyper-real way.
La S, standing on a rock, will look like a prophet, pointing out the promised land to her people.
Either that, you will say, or we look like a band, posing for a moody cover photo.
(world music, for sure, someone says.)

You will be relieved to see, on returning to the camp, that the fire has already been lit by the new arrivals, and so warmth is at hand.
You will eat and drink and feel good.

You will drive back to Melbourne the next day and realise that you haven't thought once about all the things you have to get done in the week ahead.
You will realise that this is a good sign.

2002-10-04T09:11:00.000+10:00

diary
Badness
Got a letter from the tax office last night. I was thinking "oh good, my tax return" but when I opened it up and a reply-paid envelope fell out I knew it wasn't good. They say I owe them lots of money- something about general interest charge. (sounds dodgy to me.) I've got no idea what it means. People keep saying "It'll be a mistake" but I'm not so sure. Following "my life as a novel" method of reasoning it makes perfect sense that I work my guts out for two months only at the end to have that exact amount taken from me from the tax dept.
And as Thew pointed out, they will use my money to cut down old growth forests, keep people in mandatory detention and on defence.
Ace.

2002-10-04T08:59:00.000+10:00

masters
Weblog obituary
Bernard Lane emailed me this morning about a project. He is keeping a weblog obituary of a friend who died twenty years ago. He is hoping that people who knew Milon will contribute to the weblog. The problem is trying to contact people from so long ago.

I wrote back and said I wasn't really sure what the answer was. There is no doubt that weblogs spread information at a very rapid pace. The difficulty is in capturing their attention in the first place. It's a funny thing, because I would have thought that newspapers would be much better placed to draw attention to an interesting project than the web, but perhaps this isn't the case anymore. For what it's worth, I've linked to the site on my sidebar. I hope it works out. It's a good project. I think a weblog works well as an obituary asit reflects the way in which we (I/) remember people anyway- in small, concentrated bursts. Nothing overblown or ostentatious. Snippets.

2002-10-03T14:58:00.000+10:00

masters
Sonic Memorial Project
I read about this site in one of Petite's magazines (HQ?). It's interesting to have the sound with no visuals -it makes you concentrate so much more on the words (obviously....) I like the presentation, which matches the manner in which many of the stories are told: unsensationalised, simple, straight to the point.

2002-10-03T08:35:00.000+10:00

diary
Smelly
It has been a smelly 12 hours.
My futon has been very malodourous of late since the unfortunate demise of my hotwater bottle sometime in the small hours of Saturday. An examination of the HWB last night revealed that the rubber has started to degrade in the neck and consequently a small hole has appeared. This clearly caused the disaster of Saturday night. That's why they tell you in the intstructions not to fill a hot water bottle with boiling water- I've always thought this was so ridiculous. I sadly threw the HWB away. Farewell, old friend. (I took its little pink mohair jumper off first, though). Lucky that I have my new Peruvian llama-hair blanket to keep me warm.

The smell of damp cotton, slooooowly drying is truly disgusting. I have been sleeping at Thew's, but last night I braved the stinky mattress and felt horribly squalid. I am going to buy a new bed forthwith. It's too gross.

And then, this morning's walk was particularly stench-filled. South Yarra often has the early morning aroma of yeast from some nearby yeast factory which simultaneously disgusts me with its richness and makes me feel comforted (not sure why, exactly.) The smell reminds me of the odour that water takes on after sitting in a vase of flowers for way too long. Odd.

Then I walked through the MCG, where post-grand final renovations were taking place. Workmen were scooping great mounds of fertilizer and distributing it on the threadbare patches in the grass. At first I could only smell it from a distance and was able to clamp my nostrils shut (a peculiar but useful skill that I have). But then I rounded a corner and stumbled upon the source: a massive pile of fertiliser and the smell was so strong I actually felt myself gag. It struck me that when a smell is that powerful you feel you should be able to see it, that one sense alone doesn't seem to do it justice.

2002-10-03T08:22:00.000+10:00

masters
Links and their associated problems
Links to articles have caused me lots of grief this week. Firstly, I forgot to actually put the link on (silly me) and I also probably should have linked to the author's web log . Then this morning I received an email from Sex McGinty (I was disappointed to discover that this is not his real name) was unable to open the NY times article from yesterday because you have to have signed up. (for the record, it's by Joseph Epstein and it's called "Think you have a book in you? Think again.") However, it is free to sign up with NY times, although who knows what disreputable mailing lists they sell your email to.

The S. Johnson quote was this:
"There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man to hope, and then to believe, that nature has given himself something peculiar to himself."

Blog as writing exercise
Sex McGinty said this morning in his email that he doesn't see his blog as a path to writing but more as an exercise in itself and I guess this is probably what I meant too. I don't really think that one day I'll sit down and look over the things I've written over the time I've kept my blog and somehow form a narrative out of it. But there are useful habits that I think can form, and have already started to form.

The habit of writing. This is something that weblogs definitely do help with and the medium is very addictive. And because the shorter the post the better, you do not feel an enormous amount of pressure when you sit down to do it. It's the old stolen minutes thing- five minutes here, ten minutes there.

Public writing. This is the thing I feared the most when starting the web log- having people read my unedited bits and scraps and blatherings. But it's been fine. Better than fine. Quite good, really. Of course, a lot of it is going to be dross. But the thing is, when people do respond to something you've written, it feels good. And it makes you braver.

Putting it away for a rainy day. That shoebox thing. Recording the bits, putting them away somewhere- in a box, in a weblog, whatever, and then just waiting to see what happens. Nothing may happen. Something may come out of a scrap of an idea that you recorded on a whim months ago. Who knows?

2002-10-02T08:56:00.000+10:00

comic

2002-10-02T08:30:00.000+10:00

masters
Indigestion? Or is it that book in me playing up again?
I guess lots of people have literary aspirations and it's pretty obvious that keeping a blog is a small, half-arsed attempt to feel like you are, in fact, writing, even if it is only for a selected few readers. Maybe part of me is hoping that by putting down all these fragments and small ideas in the one receptacle something more structured and more closely resembling a formal narrative will follow.

This article warns the would-be writer against venturing down this path. 81% of Americans think they have a book in them. Frightening, really.

I like the quote from Samuel Johnson.

2002-10-01T17:22:00.000+10:00

diary
Welding etiquette
I like this writer- her columns are interesting and not too bossy. I like the bit about taking the tissue paper off the invitations. Funny. But I still maintain my right to wear black if it's a formal affair. There should be an expection for people from Melbourne. This is all we wear anyway.
Ok, maybe I should stop it. I wonder if red is ok? It doesn't say anything about red.

2002-10-01T08:44:00.000+10:00

diary
Insanely cute
Just saw Looby Lu's felt animals. They are so cute I could die. Especially that rabbit.

2002-10-01T08:32:00.000+10:00

diary
Prodigal sister returns
Petite Soeur is back and we are all very glad. Seems like she had a fabulous time and we await the return of the photos from Uncle Bucks very reasonably priced processing service with great enthusiasm. I am now the proud new owner of a genuine alpaca-hair blanket and mighty fine it is too. I would have used it last night but my water bottle spontaneously combusted the night before and leaked its entire contents over my bed, so I stayed at Thew's instead.

On hot water bottles: Petite said that one night on the trek it was so cold that her hotwater bottle froze.

My other favourite travel anecdote so far:
the American guy on the tour who returned to the group, ashen-faced, having seen what he described as "two huge Albino rats without tails" running around in one of the local's houses. Petite Soeur put his fears to rest by assuring him that in all likelihood they were actually guinea pigs.

2002-09-30T14:26:00.000+10:00

masters
linkety-split
Some links, sent on by others, both from today's Age. Firstly, one from the New Father at work about English movie titles and how they've been translated into other languages (I particularly like Wretch! Let me chop off your finger! for The Piano)
and one from Sensai about love letters in the technological age.

This is an interesting article, looking at the issue of how you try to catch and save something (an email, a text message) that is designed to be ephemeral. I have in the past tried printing out emails that I've liked, but it's a bit like taking a sea shell away from the ocean- it's somehow not the same once removed from its context.

I think that I have gotten over trying to save such things now, and part of my attraction to the whole weblog thing is that I know it will, before too long, vanish never to be seen again. And even if I save it to cd etc, it is only a matter of time, and probably not very long at that, before the technology to read it is outmoded.

I kind of like this aspect of it. It kind of mirrors life- a desperate scrambling to say "I'm here! I count! I do things!" that is ultimately destined to be forgotten.

Have a nice day.

2002-09-30T08:47:00.000+10:00

diary
Beginings, endings and interminable waits in between
Lots of comings and goings are about to take place this week (but not by me). Waigo Brown is off overseas for three months and we went out a-celebrating at the Union on Friday night. I ran into a woman I used to work with at Feedwell cafe, years ago. "You've got a fringe" was all I could think of to say, but I was quite tired by that stage. "Yes" she said "I do".

Saturday was a work-frenzy. Started 8 am, finished 11pm, with a short interlude in between to go and buy an Emily The Strange t-shirt which I had spied in a shop window during the week.

Sunday, much better. Got the revisions done and although I know there will be more to come, felt glad that I had got through what had seemed like an impossible task on Saturday morning. Went for a stroll with La S and Thew along the St Kilda foreshore.

La S said that she had seen many people wearing football jumpers in inappropriate contexts on Saturday. This lead to a discussion of what would be the most inappropriate context for wearing a footie jumper. A priest at a funeral? Conductor of the MSO? We decided on anesthesiatologist. (this is spelt wrongly, isn't it?)

Dinner with the Pessers, who are off to Sarawak on Wednesday. I've set them up with a weblog. Hopefully they'll use it.

La Petite Soeur is back today- I cleaned the fridge of the most mouldy items and did a vaccum. And mopped. Looking forward to seeing her and any related llama materials she may have collected along the way.

2002-09-27T09:02:00.000+10:00

diary
Saved
Thew (the boyfriend formally known as DB) has been away rafting all this week on the Mitchell (?) river with some buddies. For some reason I have felt oddly superstitious about mentioning it, as I have about speaking too much about Petite Soeur being in Peru. He came back, in one piece, late on Wednesday night and I saw him yesterday.
"Did you nearly drown?" I said casually.
"Well, yes" he admitted.
And so, as I held my head in my hands and rocked slowly back and forth he told me of his near death experience:

of the patch of quite turbulent water

of the log sticking out across the narrow pass

of Thew, in the back of the boat deciding he would grab the log and manoeuvre the boat around it and through the rapids

of Thew grabbing the log, as planned, but then not being quite sure what had happened, except he was suddenly underneath the water

of thinking "Don't panic, you'll rise to the surface eventually"

of waiting and waiting and not rising and starting to run out of air

of deciding to kick a little and eventually coming up, somehow infront of the boat

of taking a huge gulp of air and water

of being dragged down again for an even longer time.

of becoming exhausted and thinking "maybe this is my time"

of deciding that it wasn't his time and of saying a small prayer and being provided with a rock

of scrambling on to the rock, spluttering and thinking "so this is what it's like to drown"

After dinner, driving home, I kept thinking how different this evening could have been if he had given up under the water. It was unthinkable. The sort of grief you would never recover from. And bizarre to think how easily it could happen. No long lingering illness but a rapid removal. Such a small thing with such ramifications.

So as a consequence, no one I love is allowed to do anything dangerous ever again.

2002-09-27T08:38:00.000+10:00

masters- link
Linkety-link
La S. sent me this link yesterday and I'm so onboard with it. You send her a sentence and she does a picture based on it. I sent her "Craig, get your turkey pants on" which is an actual quote from my wacky new media collegues. I have no idea what it means but I think it would make a good picture. It's an interesting idea, that reader suggestion thing. I've always been rather fond of Eric conveys an emotion (which Sensai put me onto) if only for the image of him being unctuous.

I've also got on board with online caroline, which Eliza told me about. Very interesting use of web as narrative. You sign up and give a few details about your life (real or pretend) and she starts emailing you, seemingly responding to things you have said. But she is not a real person and it is a predetermined narrative. I'm only a couple of days into the relationship (apparently it goes for about a month) and at this stage it's all very mundane, really- what do you think of my trousers, what shall I cook you when you come over etc. But I read this article (by Jill Walker) and it would seem that the narrative does eventually take a quite sinister turn. Excellent.

2002-09-27T08:29:00.000+10:00

masters- link
Winner of the Best British Blog award
scary duck

2002-09-26T08:38:00.000+10:00

masters
Diaristic Revelations
Finally got around to reading the article I snipped out from The Age on Sept 15 by Deborah Forster (The Revelations of a Diary Revisited). She describes the sensation of stumbling back over the diaries of your youth, hidden away in a box in the backroom, saying:

Reading old diaries is like looking backwards through time and though you recognise the person, you might not like them as much as you once did.

This strikes me as a little strange, considering most teenage diaries that I know of have a pretty healthy dose of self-loathing. I would have thought that generally looking back on them would make you feel that maybe you were a little too harsh on your self back then.

And this makes me think about one of the major problems with the (personal) diary format. It is easy to believe that somehow they reflect truth but they are just another carefully constructed narrative. In some ways it is the diarist's opportunity to reshape history and tell their own side of the story. Many things are left out. Conversations are tweaked, intentionally or unconcsiously. And eventually, you forget what really happened anyway.

Voice, and being hated by your grade 5 teacher
And there is still the issue of voice. My earliest diary was written when I was 9. I remember being 9 quite well. It was the last year that we lived in Adelaide. I had a teacher I really liked and another one who really hated me. The hating teacher once accused me, loudly, in front of the class of some misdemeanour (I can't remember what). Another student eventually admittedly culpability and she had to then apologise to me. It was something that has always stuck in my mind because it was the first time I experienced the burst of anger from someone who really, genuinely, disliked me.

It was also the first time that I enjoyed the odd pleasure of receiving an apology from an authority figure. (in fact, I don't think it's ever happened since.)

Yet when I read over the diary there is no mention of this event at all. It's all "I had a pastie today and a doughnut." "Played handstands against the wall at lunchtime." I'm not sure why I didn't write about things like this. Perhaps it was too ugly and I didn't want ugly things in my diary. Perhaps it wasn't the sort of thing I thought you should write in them. Dunno. But I find it interesting that even back then I was editing the content.

2002-09-25T08:37:00.000+10:00

diary
The joys of not doing what you are supposed to be doing
Last night I:
1.ate all of Sensai's dried apricots
2.went to see Stuart Little 2 with La S. instead of going to class
3.Eaves-dropped on tram conversations on the way home
4.did not do any work once I got home but instead, prepared and ate food (very bad food, it must be said) and went to bed

And worst of all, I have no regrets.
Stuart Little was quite amusing. La S. and I can justify going to films like this because we are animators (I've put this in italics because I do not really think of myself as being an animator. You have to make animations to do this.)
Stuart Little has great fur. One thing that has puzzled me though was when his little bird friend was talking about how she used to live in "one of those boxes that peole put jewellery in."
and Stuart says "A jewellery box?"
and she says "oh yes, I guess it must have been. It was so wonderful..."
And that's it. No more mention of it. No jewellery box at the end that she gets to live in again. No memory sequence where we see her living in the jewellery box as a chick. So minor, I realise, but I woke up this morning thinking "What was that reference to a jewellery box all about?" Odd.

Dropping some eaves
On the tram home I sat near a couple having a very strained conversation. Strained because she clearly didn't really want to talk and he, desperately, did. She had a shaved head with just a little tufty bit on the top (like pamas grass on a sand dune) and a thin, thin face. He had a thin face too, with a texture that reminded me of acid wash jeans. He kept asking questions and she would answer them, politely, but not ask him anything.
It became evident that they worked together maybe one or two days a week.
Thus the questions:
"Joe and Paul are great blokes, aren't they?"
"Yeah, they are."
"Do you like working there?"
"Yeah, it's not bad."
"Chapel st has really changed though, don't you think?"
"I'm from Brisbane so I can't really tell."
"Really? You're from Brisbane/"
"Yeah."

A pause, and then he asked her a question that surprised me, as I thought I knew the way the questioning was going to progress.

"So... how long have you been into antique flower arranging for?"

2002-09-24T08:22:00.000+10:00

comic

2002-09-23T17:13:00.000+10:00

image
Somewhere in Iraq...
...Saddam Hussein dreams that his moustache has been taken from him by a bad-tempered Australian designer.

Thanks to JW for the making the image, which has caused me much mirth.

2002-09-23T14:49:00.000+10:00

diary
Weekend: the highs, the lows
1. Went (finally) to see The Conversation at The Astor on Friday night. Liked it a lot. (high)

2. got up early on Saturday morning to go to accountant and get tax done and try to explain why I don't organise my finances (and ultimately, my life) in a more efficient, coherent way. (low)

3.Found the book of Andy Warhol drawings I've been coveting for some time, but have not bought because of $$$, in a bargain book shop at half price. (high)

4.Momentarily felt bad about buying book from bargain place where they can afford to buy in bulk and under-cut the small independent bookstores who are unable to offer such discounts. Realise I am part of the problem. (low, but fleeting)

5. Worked all Saturday afternoon on freelance stuff (low, but necessary)

6. Did not go out Saturday night but worked on graphic for librarians' conference.(low, but felt v.good once completed)

7. Got up Sunday morning and did some more freelance (low)

8. Got sick of that and did some GG stuff (high)
9.Walked to La S's place for late afternoon lunch in the sunshine with mucho food and beveraging. (highlight)

10.Came home, a little more freelance while simulataneously watching final episode of that ABC show about the Edwardian house. (high)

2002-09-23T08:42:00.000+10:00

masters
Electronic Writing- uses thereof (more notes from Writing Spaces)
At the time of the Gutenberg bible first being published, the "curl up" factor of books was not important. People often read and wrote standing up. Bolter uses this as his argument for why electronic books will eventually replace most printed volumes (well, this is what he thought in 1991). He says:

"If the tool is powerful, writers and readers will put up with inconveniences to use it. In any technique of writing, structure matters more than appearance or convenience."

Bolter does not differentiate here between types of printed material and I can only assume that he includes novels when he talks about techniques of writing. Clearly, electronic texts have become an integral part of our reading lives. But it is also quite clear that the ebook will probably never replace the novel. I think what Bolter was over-looking back in 1991 was that the majority of novel-readers are women, reading for pleasure and often reading at times of the day when they do not have (and would not want to have) a screen in front of them- on the tram, at lunchtime, in bed before going to sleep.

At the time of Gutenberg, it wasn't the women reading the published works and reading was not recreational. People will probably never read novels on screen for pleasure just as they won't return to standing up to write.

And why set out to pit one form of information against another anyway? Surely the real value comes in the combination.

Bookclub
I was thinking about the relationship between the printed novel and electronic text last night and started thinking about the bookclub I belong to. It seems to offer a good example of how both formats can work together. The process of selecting a novel for our group may require multiple emails back and forth between the members, often with links to online reviews and commentaries on the books we are considering. While I am reading the book I often look up the author on the net and read interviews and look at book discussion threads to see what others have to say.

As other members finish the book, emails are sent urging the others to finish so we can discuss things that have interested or bothered us. Eventually, after many emails changing the bookclub date, we meet up and discuss the book. And then the process begins again.

Admittedly, the electronic texts in this relationship have a secondary role to that of the printed text, but this is what it does best: providing background information, connecting people, making arrangements. Rather than competing with my experience of the printed text, the electronic text enhances it.

2002-09-20T12:05:00.000+10:00

diary- image
Oh no... she's started writing about her dreams
A disturbing dream last night, in which I sprouted a Saddam Hussein moustache, lustrous and woolly.

A premonition of war, perhaps, or my subconscious urging me to wax?

2002-09-20T09:04:00.000+10:00

diary
Amina Lawal
An email from Daniel this morning reminded me of something that I've been meaning to do. Amina Lawal is going to be stoned to death under Sharia law for having a child out of wedlock. Go here to send an email to the Nigerian high commisioner. And sign the open letter. As Daniel says, don't be apathetic.

2002-09-19T08:49:00.000+10:00

masters
Writing as Technology
I'm reading a book that RB recommended: Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing by Jay David Bolter. It's about 10 years out of date and therefore still confidently predicting that computers will replace books (which I guess is not completely untrue, but not completely true either.)

What interested me last night was his argument that we should think of the term "techonology" as including skills as well as machines, saying that there is a good etymological reason to do this:

The Greek root of "technology" is techne, and for the Greeks a techne could be an art or a craft, "a set of rules, system or method of making or doing, whether of the useful arts or the fine arts" (Liddell and Scott, 1973, p.1785.)" (p35)

We tend to think as writing as being natural and innate because we are so used to it and this makes it unlikely that we will identify writing as a technology. But, he points out, all technological skill is eventually internalised this way, so that with practise and experience, the driver does not have to think about the mechanics of driving, and the carpenter or surgeon view their tools as extensions of their hands. The main difference, Bolter says, between these technologies and the technology of writing is that the writer cannot "detach themselves from their technological prosthesis"- that is, the ability to write and think in terms of writing, is always with them.

My life as a book
This reminds me of the conversational thread that La S. and I have picked up on a couple of times recently- that of thinking about your life in terms of a plot line. La S was saying that she found herself thinking about events in her life as if she were analysing the storyline of a novel. "Oh of course that has happened because of that other thing that happened", in much the same way that you would think, if reading a book "Oh, of course, the vase was always going to be broken because it had become a symbol of their fragile relationship" or "Yes, the child in the red dress always appears just when there is turmoil in the village" etc.

It is something I can very much relate to and it is undoubtedly the result of spending far too much time reading books when I should be doing something useful, like learning how to make choux pastry or beating out the rugs.

2002-09-19T08:26:00.000+10:00

diary
Meetup non attendance
The meeting in Sth Yarra didn't end until past eight o'clock and the Melbourne skies were howling like a dog with behavioural problems so I went home instead of going to Meetup. Which is a shame, really, because it would've been interesting. But I do rather suspect that I would be the oldest one there by a good 5 to 10 years. But perhaps I could've styled myself as a kind of "grand old dame" of blogs; old, genial, bestowing wisdom onto the youngsters. There's clearly a problem with this, however. Old- no probs. Wise, well, I could fudge it. Genial. Uh uh. No. Not going to happen.

2002-09-19T08:16:00.000+10:00

diary
Ticket Inspectors
I caught the tram in this morning; fatigue being my right-hand man of late. Often a whole gaggle of ticket inspectors get on at Flinders St Station but today they got on one stop before. The clever things.

They were a young and excited group, with one older, more experienced inspector watching them with amusement, like a mother duck with her brood. Like a mother duck with sunken cheeks and a gold earring.

I was sitting in front of them and could hear their conversation:
"What's 225? Is it assult? I can't remember what it is."
"No, it's something to do with with stopping someone."
"Hindering? Something like that? I'm sure it's something about hindering."

The mother duck weighed in.
"You're very close. It is to do with hindering. It's hindering an inspector...."
"...from performing their duty."
"Yes! Well done!" (lots of laughing)
"Now, do any of you know what 220 is?"
"Is it vacating the tram before the inspector has viewed the ticket?"
"Yes, very good! Excellent!"

I got off at this point, feeling ill.

2002-09-18T13:58:00.000+10:00

masters- link
Shameless self-promotion, the last of
Here is yesterday's Australian article. Bernard Lane saw my post yesterday about commonplace books so the error has been corrected in the online version and the wrath of the Renaissance scholars will hopefully be diverted. (They are very wrathful, those Renaissance scholars, I hear). However, the wanker-police will be right onto me, I suspect.

I think I managed to get out of the whole publicity thing relatively easily. I didn't have to take the photo op which was good. And then once I realised the article had been published I snuck around to where the papers are stashed at work and removed the incriminating pages. (some one had already been through them, and not noticed my name). And then when Sydney ABC radio emailed and asked me to do an interview I quietly snuck into the small conference room and shut the door. So I think most people- at work, at any rate- are none the wiser.

2002-09-18T09:29:00.000+10:00

masters
Meetup
The irony is, of course, that after all the talk, it looks like I'm not going to make it to the Meetup tonight afterall. I have a work meeting at 5:45 in Sth Yarra and the Meetup starts at 7 in the city and there's me, without a car. Next time, I guess, unless the bloggers ex-communicate me. Maybe the meeting will be very very short and maybe it won't matter if I'm late. We'll see.

2002-09-18T08:45:00.000+10:00

masters
Dead Blogs
I've heard a number of people recently quote the blogger statistic that a new weblog is created every two minutes. While I do not doubt this I would have to counter this by saying that for every birth there is a death. I went on a bit of a search for blogspot names yesterday, as I am going to change my blog name. Lots of them were taken, and when I looked them up they had often been established months ago and nothing had every been added. Either that, or there was one or two measly entries.

There must be so many dead blogs floating around on the internet. It reminds me of how dust is supposedly almost entirely made up of shed human skin. Well, dross on the internet is probably largely made up of shed human weblogs.

2002-09-18T08:40:00.000+10:00

masters
Secret Blog
I decided last week to create a new weblog where I could put things that I didn't want to have as open access. It's nothing particularly interesting, mostly moanings and whinings about lack of time etc, so it's best if I do that in private. I'm putting the "secret blog" tag there not to tease but to remind myself that there are other bits and pieces so I don't lose track of them.

2002-09-17T11:24:00.000+10:00

masters
foolish words
There is an article on weblogs, including quotes from me in the Australian today and I'm a little embarassed to see that I made a bit of an error in one of the things I said to Bernard Lane when speaking about Commonplace books. I said they were a mediaeval notion whereas they are actually later than this, more like the Renaissance. That's quite bad, being out by a number of centuries. Foolish girl, not proof-reading your material. Renaissance, ok, it was the Renaissance. Hope I don't enrage any Renaissance (and or) Mediaeval scholars with this gaff.

2002-09-17T09:09:00.000+10:00

diary- link
In which Grumpy Girl climbs upon her soap box and orates from on high.
I had heard that Kirsty Ruddock, Phil's daughter, is an active member of Amnesty International and is opposed to many of her father's views on mandatory detention so I was interested to watch Australian Story last night. I was struck by what a nice person Kirsty seemed- very reasonable, intelligent and compassionate. She somehow managed to put across the impression that she disagreed very strongly with her father without bagging him. DB thought that she didn't use the opportunity cleverly enough, and was hoping that she would explain why she thought the government's stance was inhumane. But the thing is, he's still her dad and she would still love him and so I can fully understand why she wouldn't want to go onto television and lay into him.

This reminds me of the discussion I had with my family earlier this year about whether you would help a family member campaign for a political party that you veheremently disagreed with. I was very surprised when everyone, except me, said that they would do it, as they felt that supporting your family was the most important thing.

I agree with this in principle, but I know I would not be able to don, for instance, a Pauline Hansen (or whatever equivalent is bound to emerge to take her place) t-shirt. Not for anyone. I just couldn't do it. This is not to say I wouldn't stop caring for the family member who had strayed from commonsense and logic, but I don't think I could compromise my politics like that. Possibly this makes me a bad person. Not sure.

The thing that Kirsty Ruddock referred to often was "compassion" and really, it seems to me that this is pivotal in the whole debate. Little kids in prison. This is clearly a bad thing. No one would want their little kid to spend a day behind bars. Imagine having them there for 18 months or more.

Afterwards, DB and I talked about empathy, or the lack thereof , which I am convinced is the main problem- in this case, in most cases. People want pretty simple things, I reckon. They want a good education for their kids. They want a home. They want to live in a supportive community. They want to be able to buy the occasional unnecessary item as well as food and clothing. They want a bit of time off every now and then to relax. They want to be able to have their own opinions on things. Such small things. Surely so easy to accomodate. I find it difficult to believe that there is anyone who would not want to immediately leave where they were living if they thought they would never be able to achieve these things.

Anyway, I'm going to climb down off the box now and do some work.
And at lunchtime I am going to update my Amnesty membership which has lapsed somewhat, I must admit.

2002-09-17T08:44:00.000+10:00

diary- link
MAD and the FBI
Firstly, a link for DB. I could be getting this wrong, but I think that the FBI have recently had to release files they kept on MAD magazine during the Hoover administration. There are lots of interesting artifacts, including some handwritten letters that people have sent to J. Edgar Hoover requesting Draft Dodger cards as a result of a game they played in MAD, plus the neatly typed-out transcripts for the FBI files.

2002-09-16T09:11:00.000+10:00

comic

2002-09-16T08:56:00.000+10:00

masters
Article
If nothing else, this will make my mother proud. It does, of course, completely blow my cover as a bad tempered cartoon character, but there you go.

2002-09-13T18:05:00.000+10:00

masters- link
Prototype
We visited the Prototype exhibition yesterday for our Masters class. I loved it. I thought it was very funny and light-hearted- not the usual "this is the future. Be amazed" kind of thing that art/technology shows are often packaged as. It was friendly and interesting. I particularly liked the projection of a starfish that responded to the movement of your hand across it, as if it could feel your touch. I didn't realise it was interactive at first, and was putting my hand in the way of the projection just to see the pretty patterns falling across my hand.

Then it seemed as if one of the tenticles was reaching out towards me. I looked nervously at the other guy standing there looking at the piece. "I think it's just a coincidence" I said. But he said no, it responded to your hand. Subtly, organically. I was impressed.

I also really liked the "learn to speak like a Canadian teenager" piece. You sat in front of a video of two teenage girls and they prompted you to say things ("I'm a Canadian, ey!") If you didn't say it the way they wanted you to (they were very fond of the upward inflection at the end of the sentence) they frowned at you and said things like "We don't like it when you speak like that. It makes us think there's something wrong." When you said it the way they liked, they praised you: "You are so much like a Canadian! We really like you..."

2002-09-13T08:44:00.000+10:00

diary
The Australian
An email yesterday from Bernard Lane who is doing a piece for the Australian about Melbourne Meetup weblogs and wants to ask some questions. I think Kylie must have sent him my way. Of course, I'm happy to have the opportunity to espouse my views (on anything, really) but I must say that I rather think I'll skip the photo op.

It's also made me a bit nervous about what I may have written. I feel this urge to start house-keeping, take things out, add other things and spruce things up a bit. Bake some bread. Put on the coffee. Kick the dirty socks under the bed. That kind of thing.

2002-09-13T08:29:00.000+10:00

diary
Seasonal
Ah Spring...
Was woken up very early by a bird with a most unfortunate and annoying call. It is sad to think that, having only one song to sing for all of your life, you would be inflicted with such a bad one. The good thing is that it is wonderfully light in the mornings now and as such I don't feel like such a freak wondering down the back street of Prahran at 6:45.

Spring is the season of the personal trainer and they were out in force today. As PS pointed out to me, this leads to unlikely groupings exercising together- always a pert young thing with a baseball cap, accompanied by one, or more, exhausted heifers, red-faced, humiliated. PS said she saw such a coupling once where the pert one was wearing a t-shirt that said trainer, as if it weren't patently obvious.

This morning as I was walking over the bridge at the MCG a trio of them ran past me.... backwards. I met the eyes of one of them and I smirked at him in a "Are you aware of how ridiculous you look?" way and he smirked back, as if to say "Yes, I am very aware of it."

Then on Smith Street I passed the guy who sleeps rough near his bike. The bike has a storage compartment on the back and although I often pass him sleeping there I'd never noticed before what is written on it.
Keiren Hallen. Self-styled Evangelist.
Curious.

2002-09-12T08:45:00.000+10:00

diary

This entry has been moved to the secret blog.

2002-09-12T08:33:00.000+10:00

diary
Frontier Librarians
Our mother (commonly known as Morty, for some reason) has a three month job in Sarawak. She is taking our father along too. All very exciting.

2002-09-11T09:04:00.000+10:00

masters
Fiction vs the Imaginative Essay
I sat down last night and read some clippings I had cut out from The Age a couple of weeks ago. There was an interesting piece by David Malouf defending the fiction genre and another article by Drusilla Modjeska (an extract from her new book Timepieces) explaining why she was abandoning fiction for the "imaginative essay." (I think by this term she means non-fiction that is written in a fictional style- perhaps like her novel Poppy that is written as if it were her mother's diary, although her mother never kept one. Should read this one too.)

While I personally cannot imagine giving up fiction I must admit to vague feelings of dissatisfaction with most novels I read at the moment. And the ones that I have read that I have found the most interesting are ones like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Moral Hazard which draw very heavily on reality.

I've noticed with films and television too that I am increasingly disinterested in narrative and seem to get much more out of documentaries. There are a couple of reasons for this- firstly, a lot of films are utter crap. Also, there is the fact that I am a nerd who likes to learn about stuff.

Modjeska writes in the article about how difficult it is for Australian writers to make a crust, and increasingly, even to get a novel published at all "...unless there is an angle or an issue to pin it on." She ascribes the recent trend away from fiction and towards non-fiction and biography and because of the political conservatism of the late 90s and comments that the fiction we were producing

"... was either too postmodern, too self-referential, too badly edited, leached of feeling, or pitched to an international audience."

Australians seem to have an obsession with pleasing an overseas market. I know that it's partly because it is really only possible to make money if you sell overseas, but it seems like such an undignified, and futile exercise. I agree with Modjeska when she says that one of the reasons it is difficult for our artists to get a break overseas is that
"(o)ur experience of modernity tends to be considered parochial, a dull rendition of lives that are lived more fully and interestingly elsewhere."
It's that old centre and periphery thing.

Ms Radford was telling me yesterday about the English press' reaction to Lantana, which has just been released over there. The general feeling is of surprise that Australia is able to produce a relatively sophisticated film. And then last week I rolled my eyes in disgust when I read the front of the Epicure which said
"Who's the best? Matt Preston asks where we stand on the world stage."
It's tragic. Who cares?

Finally, a completely unrelated quote from the article, because it's interesting:

"Paradoxically, according to Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times, on the days immediately following September 11, the art galleries of New York were full. It didn't last long, because it soon dawned on people that these were public spaces and therefore dangerous. But it's worth thinking about what this immediate reaction might mean."

2002-09-10T08:34:00.000+10:00

comic strip

2002-09-09T14:47:00.000+10:00

diary
Petite Soeur
There was an email waiting for me this morning from Petite Soeur in Chile (at the airport). All is may bueno, she says. Her Mars bar /Earth bar ad went to air last night (I didn't see it) and there is an article about the ad in B and T weekly.

2002-09-09T14:42:00.000+10:00

masters- link
Fake blogs
Sensai sent me this link today- blogs as if they were written by literary figures. Ok, but there are so many people missing.
I want Shonagon's pillow book blog
Elizabeth Darcy's blog
Holden Caulfield's blog
Dorothy Porter's blog.

2002-09-09T08:43:00.000+10:00

diary
A Balance, of sorts
I think I achieved a more well-rounded weekend than I have in quite some time. Admittedly, I did spend all Saturday in front of la laptop and did, as predicted, only leave the house once before 5, to go to the inconvenience store.

However, I went for a walk with La Spinstaire on Friday night and another walk with DB on Saturday arvo. We went to Bob's place late on Saturday night to watch The Blair Witch Project on his enormous television. It spooked me alot, but then, I was so spooked after watching Picnic at Hanging Rock that I had to sleep with the light on for months.

Then on Sunday I dragged myself out of bed at 9 am and did a couple of hours work on my Masters. We went to the Kent to have lunch with Ms Radford and it was a very pleasant afternoon. There were a lot of her friends that I haven't seen for a long time and I found myself musing on how much older they all looked. Which, of course, means that they would have been thinking exactly the same thing about me.

Later, to prove my youthfulness to DB I played air guitar in the kitchen and pretended to be Susie Quatro.
"You should be a rock chick" said DB, who is always gratifyingly impressed by my air guitar.
I agree with him in principle (about my being a rock chick) except that I cannot play a musical instrument or sing and I am at least 10 years too old.

2002-09-06T08:56:00.000+10:00

diary
Alone in the big city
It seems that everyone is leaving. PS is at the airport as I write, waiting to take off for Peru. Then tonight, Heighty is off to Cambodia to take up her youth ambassador role at Phnom Penh uni. Shell goes to Vanuatu tomorrow to do the LP guide. I had lunch with P.Duff yesterday and he is going to Italy, London and Singapore in a couple of weeks. And DB is going to Goolengook forest this morning to save the trees.

Where as I will be lucky if I make it down to the inconvenience store on the corner...

Well, that's not strictly true. Ms Radford is having a lunchtime do at the Kent on Sunday so my plan is to work really hard for the rest of the weekend then relax on Sunday. The Kent is deep in the heart of ex-boyfriend territory (ex-boyfriend with new baby territory) but as I said to Ms Radford, it is proably a good thing for me to reclaim the area. I shall take my false nose just in case.

On the subject of reclaiming old territory I looked at my AIM interactive the other night, as PS has brought home her Mac. I haven't looked at it for 2 and a half years. And I'll never look at it again. It was odd, because the things that I remembered as being bad (such as the drawing and the animation) didn't seem quite so terrible but the script is awful. So laboured and cringe-making. I was quite appalled. It bordered on offensive at times. How did I let this happen?

I was thinking how people like Le Docteur have asked to see it and vowed then and there that I would never ever ever let another person see it. Dreadful. But like I said, the upside was that I didn't find the aesthetics quite as bad as I'd remembered (except for the awful novelty font. But I was young and naive about type back then so I'll forgive myself that.)

2002-09-05T08:47:00.000+10:00

diary
Dandelion Wine
I am reading Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine at the moment (well, I'm reading that on public transport, at home I'm reading Moral Hazard). Because he is known as a sci-fi writer it has this lurid cover with the typical busty woman wearing metal bikini (they look so uncomfortable, those cozzies) with a surreal landscape behind.

The blurb says some crap about a boy growing up in a strange world. This is utter nonsense, as he is clearly growing up in middle America in the 1920s, where, as far as I know (and I concede that I'm guessing) women did not get around in metal bathers.

Still, it's kind of interesting, if a little sentimental about the golden summers of one's youth. But one thing got me thinking.

One of the characters decides to make a "happiness machine". He makes a kind of multi-media set up that you sit in and then it shows you images of the wonders of the world, plays dance music, shows you the great cities of Europe. A virtual reality experience, I suppose. The inventer's wife sits in it and although she is laughing and exclaiming joyfully during the performance, she comes out weeping. Why? Because it has reminded her that she doesn't dance anymore, that she has never been to Paris, that she's never seen Egypt. It has made her want things she'd never thought about wanting before.

The machine overheats and bursts into flames. And everyone is glad. And we cut to an interior of the couples' home, where their five children are playing and setting the table and the smell of bread is wafting as bread smells do.
This is the true happiness machine.
Don't desire more.

It made me think of the Wizard of Oz and how the underlying message there is "Be happy where you are."

2002-09-04T08:55:00.000+10:00

masters
meeting
Met Kylie from Gusset for a coffee yesterday. She was most definitely not an axe murderer, as DB had feared. She knew a lot about webloggers and I wished I had brought a tape recorder to get down all the useful references she mentioned. Once this freelance stuff is over I shall throw myself more whole-heartedly back into my research and do some proper interviews.

2002-09-04T08:40:00.000+10:00

diary
Fight
I am waiting for a tram on Gertrude st and I can hear them approaching from over the hill. She is up ahead, a small wiry thing with a small wiry face, yelling. He is trailing at a respectful distance, wearing a backpack, yelling back at her. She seems to be the one wronged, he is in pleading mode.

They reach a point directly opposite where I am standing and for some reason he decides to go no further. She strides on, ranting and then realises that he has stopped. She turns around and circles around him. He is immobile, stopped at the edge of the curb. It is as if there is some invisible moat that he can't cross. She yells a bit more, then stamps on. Then turns around and goes back and yells into his face.
I can't really hear what they are saying, but I can imagine it pretty easily.
"You never listen to me!"
"What are you talking about? You never listen to me!"
"That's bullshit! I listen to you all the time!"
"No you don't, you're always yelling at me!"
"I don't yell at you!"
"Yes you do! You're doing it right now!"
"No I'm not"
"There! That's yelling! That's how you talk to me. You don't listen. You just yell!"

She is upright and furious. He is slightly hunched over, lowering himself to below her eye level. In a flash I see exactly what is happening. He loves her much more than she loves loves him. She is getting sick of him. She likes someone else. She doesn't know how to break up with him so she is making it seem like it is his fault. He can't understand what is going on.

They will break up.
They will get back together again.
Then they will break up for good when she starts seeing someone else.

The tram comes and I get on. She stalks off down an alley. He goes into the bottle-shop.

2002-09-03T14:40:00.000+10:00

diary
Unexpected Visit
Sitting in Travis' office yesterday and Mel told me I had visitors.
Visitors indeed! Ms Radford, now flat-owner extrodinare in London, here in Melbourne for two weeks.
It was fab to see her. She's blonde, and still wonderous in her wit and beauty. And she still has her Australian accent after 5 years over there.

It gave me a resolution to a story that's been troubling me recently. About a friend of hers who went to a beach-themed party as something extrodinary. But I had not been able to remember what.

A snorkle.

And apparently she could not sit down at all.

2002-09-03T14:33:00.000+10:00

diary
Stuff etc
Petite Soeur had a once-in-a-lifetime experience yesterday. She walked into a travel agency and said
"I'm thinking I'd like to go to somewhere in South America."
The travel agent said
"When?"
PS said
"This weekend."
It is a very rare thing to have both the time and the money to do such a thing, and PS recognised this.
Consequently, she is off to Peru on Friday.

I, on the other hand, will be spending most of the month in front of my computer. I'm really looking forward to having my life back, sometime in mid-October.

Amusingly, my body took contol of the tiredness factor this morning. My wake-up ritual is to set the alarm for 6, then reset it for 6:30 when I get up for real. When I awoke this morning and was about to reset the alarm I realised it was already 7 and I therefore must have already "woken up" twice and reset the alarm twice. It would have been even funnier if I had kept on doing this until lunchtime. Hilarious, infact.

2002-09-03T13:15:00.000+10:00

masters- comic
Hyperlink: cont'd

2002-09-02T08:57:00.000+10:00

masters
Writers' Festival
PS and I went to one of the sessions of the Melbourne Writers Festival, entitled Dear Diary. It wasn't very good. And it wasn't really about diaries. One of the speakers, Linda Grant, was adamantly not a diary-keeper. What is the point of having someone on a panel like that who doesn't even keep a diary?

Don Watson kept a diary only for the period that he was employed by Keating, solely for the purpose of one day writing a book based on his experiences. And even Peter Rose said that he used his diary mostly just for recording the activities of his friends.

It felt that they were all a little embarrassed and dismissive of the genre. That it is a little daggy and low-brow. But I was there for the daggy low-browness. I wanted discussion of confessions in diaries, of the diary becoming like a person you tell secrets to. It was interesting that no one discussed the way that diaries give a personal (and highly subjective) spin on history. Everyone seemed to accept the irrefutable truth of the diary.

Most laughable of all was the comment by Lou Klepac that people who type don't keep diaries. PS and I looked at each other and raised our eyebrows. I'm not expecting them to know about weblogs, but to say that diaries have to be hand-written is ridiculous. Even the show Dougie Howser, 10 years ago, showed someone keeping an electronic journal.

Anyway, I'm starting to sound like a nerd (especially with that bit about Dougie Howser), so I will stop.

But one last thing, just so I'm not completely bagging the whole experience. Don Watson said that when he kept his diary he found it useful as a way of creating a distancing effect from the events going on around him. He found it to be a calming and civilising experience. This reminds me of a quote from Ian Mac Ewan's Atonement which describes how Briony writes stories because of the minaturising effect it has- it makes the world small and neat and managable.

Don Watson also said that writing in a diary is the opposite of making a phonecall. The diary entry is considered and an act of putting things to rest. A phonecall spurs you to action.

Interesting.

2002-09-02T08:40:00.000+10:00

diary
Gone
Another weekend, gone. Am somewhat stressed because I did not get as much of the freelance job done as I would've liked, but there were some social engagements that I really needed to go to. Spent some time with DB on Friday night- saw Australian Rules. Went to YH's farewell at Double Happiness on Saturday. Had lunch with Moosh who is off to write the LP Vanuatu guide next week. Father's day dinner on Sunday, with added cause for cracking open the Sparkling Burgundy: PS has got a new job.

PS's agency announced that it was closing its Melbourne Office three months ago. Last Friday was the last day. PS had had a couple of job offers with other agencies, but there was one agency in particular that she really wanted to work for. But this agency was being very mysterious and not saying no, but not saying yes. On Wednesday last week she told me that she had basically given up on them and was unsure what to do next. She joined a gym saying "Well, if I'm going to be unemployed, I may as well be buff and unemployed."

And then on Friday PS and her art director got the call. They had the job. Better still, they don't start until Oct 1 so they have a month's holiday, financed by the lovely redundancy payout from their former agency. PS is going to book a holiday today.