The Unaccountable McSweeney

I'm not sure just quite how it happened. All I know is that, I was sitting here in my room, reading Zadie Smith's On Beauty and taking breaks by reading Nick Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree (not the crazy band that cameo'd in Scrubs, but the book, which only makes me want to go on and read more things like On Beauty, so it was the perfect plan really). I was musing for a moment just how incestuous the modern english literary circle really is, almost like Victorian England only instead of walking around London and bumping into all the literary celebs of the day you are all connected by publishing houses, sending you scripts of friends who are really only friends because you belong to the same publishing houses. Dave Eggers' wife edits The Believer (which Hornby writes a column for, would you believe it?)

So all of a sudden, I find myself doing a triple subscription of McSweeney's, The Believer AND Wholphin, because what kind of a cinema studies student would I be to neglect the DVD short film version of the McSweeney empire. and all of a sudden i'm out USD$160.

So as you can see, I'm am all together committed to this trip to Hong Kong. I've met 70% of the people I'm supposed to meet, and have had enough. Because honestly, even if on the slightest chance that there was anything for me here at all (if i was thin enough, and spoke cantonese enough), I wouldn't want to be a cog in the asian entertainment wheel. It's one thing to admire the work ethics of all these utterly talentless pretty young things, but quite another to want to be one. So sure Mr. Shamelessdirectorguy, I'll go home and drop a few kilos, learn some canto, and send you my portfolio. Do you take homemade DVDs?

I'm half tempted to skip my afternoon appointments and stay in and read. but the promise of some seriously good grub would end up dragging me out the door, into the sweat tank, to put on the happy ambitious face they love so much and tell them "yes I'd LOVE to be just like Twins or Isabella!" has anyone heard these girls trying to sing live? or indeed do anything at all other than stand there looking like a young pretty thing.

But I guess that's the industry everywhere, and still, the industry I want to get into. It's just that there isn't anything else BUT that here. Quality work really isn't appreciated here at all, quite aside from the fact that I couldn't possibly live here, I mean there are no art house cinemas and the bookstores look like my primary school library. They do sell City Moleskines here though, so one up for them. Oh and while on the subject of 'skines, a minor celebrity of the 'skine world Patrick Ng does live here.

I'm just bitter. I know that. If only I had some friends here, I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune. I did have the best japanese food of my life last night, and was so full from it i felt positive i could give birth to live crayfish as some kind of fucked up divine retribution.

I have no photos. I feel too shit to take photos. Plus, everywhere I look the technology everywhere puts my little out of date 4 megapixel to shame. I'm pretty sure all their mobiles have about that much. Shit, I'd better find out how to get to the Academy of Performing Arts from here on the MTR.

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five fives

5 things i love about christmas

1. because even after it's over, it's another week til new years. you never have to stop mucking around not doing anything

2. because of new years and the inevitable resolutions coming around the corner, you can eat yourself silly and not feel guilty about it. oh and what i pretend to be egg nog, custard in a cup.

3. the promise of presents. i mean face it, it's almost always disappointing in the end but just the lead up to it is so exciting (by the way, my phone doesn't have excited in it's dictionary, i totally thought i was going crazy and couldn't spell something i learnt in grade 4)

4. stupid christmas themed cartoons and tv shows. it's not as good as halloween but it's a decent runners up

5. the myer windows. it's always stupid and crowded and lately it's all commercially successful children's books but there's nothing wrong with that at all. every year i seem to be lining up to see it on my own. this year i plan to have a posse with me, sometime soon and sometime at night so there won't be a lot of people, who cares the lights won't be on, burke st is looking quite pretty these days. who's in?

5 reasons i need yet another moleskine
this list is purely selfish reasons, i really really want another one but i really really don't need it. so here goes

1. because my reporter 'skine has ran out of the perforated pages at the back and the boy has been checking under his pillow every time i've been over there and now i feel bad.

2. my old one is so full of crap that i get embarrassed whenever anyone wants to look at it

3. it's nearing the end anyway (oh how i lie, i'm only about half way through)

4. i......need........it?

5.

ok i couldn't do it. it'll have to wait.

5 phrases i don't want to hear in the next week

1. i'm sorry but...
2. chinese dragon lady
3. oriental blossom
4. classic passive aggressive
5. there are 6 girls i've seen up in darwin who are all younger and hungrier, and they're all better than you

5 things i thought about "A Guide To Recognising Your Saints"

1. that kid from the disney channel is all grown up! and making out to be a decent actor too. excellent cast all around, especially the kids

2. brutal, brutal film. i squirmed a good five times, with two of them getting some sudden clasping-of-hands-to-mouth action

3. first time director, and you can really tell. some aspects are so fresh and wonderfully exciting cinematically, but then there are some awkward movements from the present to the flashbacks, the overly jerky handicam action etc

4. although the story of the present is quite rich and interesting, the guts of it really lies in the memories, and i mean his books are based on all that so, even though it became more of a homecoming story for the film, it would have probably made a much more interesting movie if it was just the kids in queens. it seriously felt like a cross between mean streets and some spike lee movie.

5. i actually quite like rosario dawson. surprised myself too.

5 things that made me smile today

1. being able to sleep a good two hours longer than the boy and have a freshly brewed coffee waiting for me out of the shower

2. the dandelion i found next to the bus stop

3. my new birk's. they're pink!

4. just being in the NGV giftshop again. eventhough he didn't buy anything. the pencil case that he did like was actually a coin purse that didn't really fit the pens and all the others are either too big or not to his liking. but seeing the little'ons little one was pretty funny. you know what i'm talking about

5. watching a movie on my own again. but with the vital difference of being able to call someone and talk about it while i walk home.

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mao mao!

I wrote this blog out, pen and paper. that's right, it's been drafted. not that it'll sound it. mainly because the boy has surprised me with some awesome noodler's ink (the junk i've been crapping on about to him for as long as we've been going out, and unavailable in australia apparently). i love that he realises the way into my heart is by geeking it up and ordering in the inky black liquid of gods. it writes amazingly well, and no bleed through even on the thinner 'skine notebook paper. so in those respects i've been a happy chappy.

so what else is new with me eh? well....Drama class is going swimmingly. there's only, well, there's four of us now officially. the two other girls aren't exactly taking it all that seriously, Em's there to learn tricks to teach her kinder garden kids (and boy, don't we know it. shut up about the kids already). and newcomer stutterer (possibly intellectually handicapped) alanah, well, she's possible intellectually handicapped.

the above opinions, although just snarky enough to be my own, are not. no no, these wondrous gems of insight were provided by the i'll-masturbate-in-front-of-tony-knight-if-that's-what-it-takes boy Lachy. i can't imagine it actually working if he wasn't so pretty. He was in my first round of auditions last year, and not too shabby at all. he made it much much further than i did, and for good reason. but all that's beside the point.

but all that leads to my current glum.

i lost my wallet.

fuck. shit. shit. frickin. prick. cunt. piss. fuck. frick.

it could have fallen in one of two places;
the front stoop of the house right next to Lynch's on Domain Rd where we sat to bitch about the other two students last night, or Lachy's car when he offered me a lift home after the bitch fest.

This morning consisted of me going down to ANZ to cancel all my cards, making it to uni for all of an hour and 15 minutes before i ran off in a huff, going to cafe 181 and forking out $25 (which i managed to gather from all the pockets in my moleskine's lying around) for what i ate last night to get my id back (long story, just another thorn in my shit-arse day), then going to ANZ with said id to take out some money to replenish all said moleskine's. am pissed, and i need pizza.

i'm not following my draft of this post at all by the way, since i wrote that last night before i realised i didn't have my wallet with me. and i'm in no mood to wax lyrical on Little Miss Sunshine or David Lynch short films or indeed, the state of uni assessments.

so last week's fives after jump



5 things i'd write with my awesome new set up of fountain pen and noodler's ink:

1. this blog entry draft on my pocket ruled reporter 'skine

2. Essay Plans!!

3. Objectives and given circumstances for all three of my monologues

4. shopping lists and to do lists, to give a sense of formality to all my crummy stabs at productivity

5. a thank-you letter to my boy for this awesome awesome ink. (seriously people, try it out. it almost makes what you're writing worthwhile)

ps/ the title of this entry is a reference to Godard's La Chinoise. no actually, it's mostly a reference to the 60s french pop song featured in Godard's La Chinoise. Claudes Channes' poptastic Mao Mao

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joy of writing

I was shifting through the notebooks section of borders last night, and i found the paperblanks range of journals. I've seen some of these before, but the larger bulky ones that i have no use for. I've always admired how beautiful they looked, but hell, large blank pages scare me, and under such ornate covers it begs for elegant prose which my hand simply cannot produce. But i found some pocket sized books. they looked like flashy moleskine imitations. the elastic band? check. the accordion pocket? check. the acid free archival off white paper? check. the bloated price point? check. but the covers. the range. so i had to get my hands on one to see how well they write. and since i had no pen with me i had to buy a pen also. and what better contender than the coveted G2?

surprisingly, both the pen, and the pages, made the writing process extremely smooth. maybe because these notebooks don't have elaborate mythological marketing scheme behind it my words spilled onto the paper and very very quickly filled up almost twenty of the pretty creamy water marked pages. I noted down some random observations, my views on stage to screen adaptations of musicals, and a dream i had last night. I'm still in some heightened hack writer state of mind, and i'm already excited by the prospect of taking some time to write in it tomorrow before class. Unlike a chronological diary, i don't have the pressure to note down each event in succession and feel guilty if i miss something. This is good for me. finally, a change for the better.

this weeks list after jump

~*~*~*~

looks like i'm going to have to move my fives to another day of the week. But to think i'm going to have to break up the alliteration! maybe i'll just take license on the weeks i've missed it and still aim to be good and deliver.

anyway, here goes nothing

3 moments i still feel shockingly bad about to this day. Since there are only these three things i've ever regretted, that's going to be it for today. What it lacks in quantity i like to think that the confession factor makes up for it.

1. year 11 formal, when Karen Chan walked up to me and jeremy and said quite audibly "Oh he's not THAT short." he was silent, and couldn't look me straight in the eyes for a good while

2. After school one day, at the bus stop. I was telling someone how ugly this little ornament on her school bag looked while Pallace was standing next to me. only to have the girl tell me that Pallace had given it to her. Thing is i actually didn't think it looked that bad, I just didn't like the girl with the bag. I had to take the train with P, and she was the sweetest girl i know. and i just didn't know how to apologise, because whatever i said, i can't take back what had already been done. for thirty minutes, i seriously wanted to die.

3. once when i was about 15, i found a fifty dollar note in my mothers jacket pocket. I thought she must have forgotten about it so i just took it and bought something utterly meaningless. That night she came home quite in a state, saying how she had distinctly remembered putting that note away for fuel so she didn't need to bring her wallet. She even thought she was going senile. I was too much of a coward to tell her, and she still doesn't know.

i'm a terrible person, and i like to think that i've changed but deep down i know, i'm far more vindictive and skeptical than that girl in high school.

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groggy but happy

look carefully now, yes yes that's Mr. Pitt, in a very "relaxed movie star" get up. and now look in closer, yes click on it to see it proper size. what's that you see? why YES it's a moleskine!!



my life is complete.



in other news, i'm becoming my father. see as girls grow up there would eventually come the day when, alas, they realise they're their mothers. but no, not i. I, ladies and gentlemen, have become the loser critic who knows enough shit to be at shits with the whole world but can't write an essay to save her/his life. but oh don't worry about me because i write a killer letter, so i can always trick some poor unsuspecting sod into marrying me. at least that's what mother tells me.

she's also taken to bursting into my room at 3 a.m. to yell at me for wasting my life away and then forgetting about the whole thing the next morning when she's driving me to work only to take it up again the following night. i need to move. someone? anyone?

there's is also something else seriously wrong with me. after sleeping for a very decent (slipping into indecent) many hours, i still feel like shit. should really set up a meeting with my gp, but uni's starting in two days. argh. and i have my phone bill to pay. double argh.

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restlessness

Basquait the movie was on sale at JB for 7.99

that makes me angry

when idiotic crap such as carmen electra's strip tease aerobics dvds come in four-parters that cost $30 a pop right next to the bargain bin. (which i really want by the way)

the combined brilliance of david bowie as andy warhol, dennis hopper, gary oldman, benicio del toro and they're just the supporting cast.

so ok i've only seen the opening sequence and the last 30 minutes of the actual film, but i know enough about it to know that it doesn't deserve a 7.99 label on it along with a pink sticker saying "buy me now i'm cheap!" slapped all over it.

ok this is another long one, waaaay long. all after jump


and i've updated my froogle wishlist, there's a link somewhere on my profile. (:edit: or just right there...) it's nearly christmas. damn, another year that i wish to remember none of. one of these days i'm going to do something big. maybe i'll finish that great american novel i've been meaning to write. yes i know i'm not american, but somehow that great australian novel sounds like it involves much tying down of kangaroos and eating of bush tucker, which is just SO not how i roll.

mondo e mondo should really be paying me royalties. that's the third time i've stood beside the moleskine stand for half an hour only to start spewing out to other people how great they are, then progressing to demonstrating all the little details memorised from moleskinery.com and pulling out the one i always have on me to show them how you can keep a pen in the elastic for the reporter styles which always results in me buying yet more cahiers because i've talked them up too much not to.

i think i'll go ahead and audition for national theatre down at st kilda. they're into method and, well, i have none. now if only daddy could give me my new years dough in advance i could go right on ahead and enrol. an additional 10 hours a week could be tough especially since i'm well, failing and all, but i think i figured out what's wrong with me, lack of anti-depressants! just sit me down with a shrink and shoot me up full of capped happiness and i'm open for business! either that or speed. it solved the problem for that kid in thumbsucker (for a little while anyway). aaaah speed, the miracle drug. help you lose weight and stay focused enough to get through the day, all that's missing is the ability to cure cancer and then everybody would be taking them! then it wouldn't be so hard to get some.



but seriously, that's the second indie i've seen in a row whereby the barely legal psych drugs solve all the problems. speaking of which. Shopgirl is brilliant. except for the voice over commentary. man i want to punch steve martin. The rest of the film is so great that the narration thing is....it's.....ARGH! like the trailer was the best movie trailer i've seen in a LOOONG time (aside for the harry potter one but that's just visual gusto) and the movie is actually what you expect it to be, but so much better at the same time. just like i <3 huckabees made me feel last year but with more resonance since there's an actual story at play. and that other thing in common, jason schwartzman, boy oh boy, what a greate character. the randomness. it also has that sense of desolation that was in lost in translation, except i actually like this the first time round. all except for the DAMN NARRATION. i mean ok, if the lines are good then fair enough, but when it's some crap like .....oh man i can't even remember them they're so generic. you're regular run of the mill "the girl you keep at a distance and in the end you're both hurt" or something, i'll watch it again and get back to you. but seriously, the forlorn looks aren't clues enough. it was almost like reading the da vinci code all over again. the spelt out metaphors.....*cringe* but still....good movie...i want to get my hands on a copy of the dvd with an editable soundtrack so i can remaster it for myself. it'll be a much better movie, with nothing lost either.

i finally rented the dreamers, and russian ark for the third time, maybe i'll get to see it this time. oh and oh personal breakthrough, i actually used the phrase "i'll save it for a rainy day" today. i couldn't help it it just came out. i am officially old.

:edit:
oh but how could i forget to mention! the other day i decided to go through devdas again (the newer one with all the eye candy). now i downloaded the film, cept it's not in any format that my dvd players or dvd burning programms that my mac understands. so i can watch it, just without the subs. so i basically just jumped to all the musical numbers. and i happily cried myself to sleep that night. i knew to cry because i've seen it before (several times actually) about only from half an hour into the movie (ALWAYS half an hour into the movie dammit). today it was on world movies again and so i excitedly jumped to the channel only to find that it was half an hour into the movie... so even though i know the story and the gist of things, truth is just imagin any forsaken tragedy of love and you've got the gist. but i still don't know the damn details. so i'll just cut through the crap. someone buy me a copy of the dvd. i don't want a burnt copy since, alas, like all bollywood movies it runs for over three hours and the compression would kill it. literally kill it. because by god is it beautiful. moulin rouge has got NOTHING on it. i mean ok you pour all your money and biggest stars into the one vehicle with the most retold story in a very lucrative industry you'd expect nothing else, but just wait till you see it.


ok so that's enough ranting/rambling. got work tomorrow. oh by the way, john butler actually moved to the area so he'll be in a lot from now on.


oh and let's do an exercise, i'll rip this right out of someone else's blog (who in turn ripped it out of someone else's blog, it's postmodernism with an olive) everyone who reads this blog who happens to also know me (rather than the usual net stumbler), post a memory you have of you, with me, a moment. it could be anything from the utterly humiliating to the higest of highs. see the theory is that different things are significant to different people, what you remember may not be something that i'd recall. so comment away, anonymously if you so wish, that could be part of the test! see if i remember your memory! i'm feeling in the mood for reminicence. and also i'd like to know just who reads this thing...

and therefore if no one replies to this.....erm...

"Pish for thee, Iceland dog, thou prick-eared cur of Iceland!!!"

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psychotic ramblings

I'm not good in heat. i wilt like the sickly sweet flower that i am with a bug eating away at my insides.

yes yes, i'm not good in heat.

last night i fell asleep at 5am holding an evian atomizer can in my hand randomly spraying into the air directly above my naked body letting the water mist down on to me. i used up my last stock, couldn't even find a new supply yesterday when i went out to buy some (i knew, KNEW i would need new cans)

anyone who finds any in stores today get some for me? i need at least three cans to last me through november

instead i bought yet another moleskine (fourth, and LAST one, it's more than an illness now) and a lamy tipo pen to go with it. it was cute and wrote quite smoothly, but only when i came home i found out it was too thick and too bold for my writing. next time i test pens in stores, i'll do more than just my signature. pretty pen though. (i got the silver one)


then i feverishly avoided doing actual work by crawling the moleskine and pen porn sites defending the writing instruments of my choice (uniball signo RT 0.38 and Jetstream) against accusations that they are inferior to the Pilot G2. ( surely you jest?!the Hi-Tec C maybe tolerable, the G2? HAH!)

it's cooled down a bit now, i've had my berocca performance, a bowl of muesli with yogurt. let's get down to it then.

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moleskinery 2

i've started work on my moleskine, the bigger one. take a lookie lookie! (click on "the full story..." link)

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moleskinery

i bought my first moleskine today. pocket, ruled, reporter. it's not entirely beautiful, nor elegant, nor all that practical either (or affordable). but this little black book inspires so much fascination that i feel its status is beyond me. so what on earth do i write in it? my thoughts i keep here on blog. my personal triumphs and losses in my diary on my bedside. my ideas in a cheap little notebook i keep inside my coat pocket. where in my life can i fit in a small, perfectly formed moleskine with a cult following?

everywhere.

i'm going to bring writing back into my world. if hemingway did it this way, least i could do is give it a shot right?

the picture is of andre breton's moleskine as displayed in the library of Paul Eluard, with the ex libris drawn by max ernst

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