Facetiously Fiction

Untitled

2011-12-20T19:15:00.013+10:00

Portions of a little somethin' somethin' I've been working on. Inspired by Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits and Nicole Krauss' The History of Love.

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1. The First Man That Left Me Did So Before I Was Born.

My parents were engaged for three years, together for six, but never made it down the aisle. He left her for another woman and she waited steadfastly for his return while searching for names for the little dancer in her womb. She waited for eight years and then married the first man who asked her. At her bridal dress fitting, I clambered under and over the layers of tulle (which at the time, I thought, were made of swans feathers) to peer at her with my father's eyes: "Do you love him?" She sighed and responded in all seriousness, because I was her best friend and she had made a promise to herself to never lie to me: "I guess." I pulled on her hem. "Why do you guess?" I asked playfully. She carefully combed back the shorter hairs of my little blonde head. "He loves me." She didn't, but I knew she wanted to add: "That's enough."

2. My Uncle, Who Would Someday Become President, Was Literally Perfect In My Eyes.

He had three daughters: one my age, one adopted from Hong Kong, one who always had her way. He chased them and volunteered piggybacks and sloppy kisses. He learned how to french braid and taught them to pretend-shave with whipped cream and a comb. He practiced ballet with them (though he was never very good) and declared himself their great protector from spiders and boys alike. My cousins never noticed how lucky they were, but I noted this bitterly in my first diary of little stars and whims.

3. My Father Was An Absence For Most Of My Life

When he was there, he was laughter and comfort; when he was gone, his presence lingered in the length between visits. While I waited for his return, I began to catalogue the places of absence that collected in our house like corner dust. The kind of absence that never went away; no matter how often my mother swept it from our lives, it returned nightly as if to say: "I am here. But I am not." The cupboard neither of us could reach. The trash bags that were never thrown out. Those magical arms that would carry me from my post before the television to the warm slumber of my shipwrecked bed. When I fell asleep, it was my mother's lips that grazed my forehead and when I awoke, it was her breath dancing on my arm. And this was the only comfort I ever knew as a child, that matronly love that was my mother and her mother before her.

4. I longed for superficial things money could not buy

Bilingualism. A memory for numbers. For brilliance, for something more than sometimes-wit: clever words that formed at the tip of my young tongue only to die as quickly as it had been gathered. I wished for beauty, supermodel beauty, the individualistic features of glossy-paged, modern-age Venus De Milo's. Those pumped-up lips, the woolen arched eyebrows, unique, interesting, distinguishable. But instead, I was caught in a parenthesis of two dead-end loves, their features parceled out unequally. My father's eyes, my mother's lips, the shared jawbone, the musical fingertips. My genetic inheritance, I liked to think. After everything, this was the only thing they shared: I, their common ground creation.

Tokyo Pt. 1

2011-12-20T18:52:00.020+10:00

Excerpts of my last assignment from last semester. I wrote it a few months ago, but I was unhappy with how it turned out, hence why I'm only posting excerpts.
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As a child I believed I could move buildings by closing one eye, than the other. Not an optical illusion, but the force of sheer, childish will. The ultimate joy of youth is possibility, and here it was returned to me twenty year later. As I weaved through the streets of Shiba, the trees adorned with glittering lights in lieu of cherry blossoms, I scattered the crowds with my eyes.

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Later, I sat outside the Asakusa Buddhist temples and devoured the culture with my hungry eyes. I perused the stalls, buying handmade washi cards for future birthdays and Omikuji fortunes that advised me of impending doom. I met a middle-aged lady from Chicago whose husband was in Tokyo for a work conference. We bonded briefly over our lone travels and vegetarianism. Our fingers stumbled with our chopsticks while we sat there in silence, without awkwardness or discomfort. She was soft-spoken with a mixed European accent and an air of subdued toughness. I knew little about her, but I sensed she was a lady of fortune and contentment. I imagined each crinkle on her hand to be a checklist of geographies explored. And there I sat, hardly world-renowned, the ignorance of youth. Before we parted ways, she told me I was brave to want so much. She took the first cab back to her hotel, while I stood there, contemplating the pitfalls of wanderlust as the forever saying of goodbyes.

Such Great Heights

2011-12-07T15:31:00.015+10:00

This is my second creative writing assessment from last semester. I scored pretty high for this, but was marked down a little because it was overwritten in places. The title comes from a song by The Postal Service.

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(The Loneliness of the Stripper by Orly)

Such Great Heights

It is ten to midnight and he is slumped in the first row, watching the dancers above him. He squints at their mechanical rituals through sewn-eyelids, the culmination of one too many rum and cokes and the displacement of his contacts through incessant rubbing. The air reeks of Bourbon, ash and sweat, compressed in these hollow four walls. Everything is velvet: red velvet lights, chairs and smiles. He gropes for his glass with one hand, brings it to his lips from compulsion rather than thirst. It is his sixth and he might as well be drinking from an ashtray at this point.

Above him, the illuminated stage pole stands untouched while the dancers sway around it like some false idol. From where he sits, one figure catches his eye: an olive-skinned, faceless beauty, her legs hooked around the pole in skilful recklessness. She is topless, little hips veiled by a thin pink G-string and balancing on six-inch heels that appear to defy the laws of gravity. She looks like a child playing dress-up, too young, far too young to be in this sort of place, this haven for broken marriages and grinning men, young and old alike. But from where he sits, he muses that she could be the most beautiful woman in the world.

He is transfixed, a grown-up catholic boy who has felt nothing since the age of six and that was for Jesus and now even he was just an absence of spirit in his crossed heart. As a child, he prayed nightly for escape from his father’s bitterness, a shield for his mother’s pain but over time, he shed this religious intensity and prayed for the trivial instead. A pay rise, a reprieve from the burden of debts. He made smart decisions, except for the ones that mattered. He married for love, which over time, became inconsequential. His biggest fear was to turn out like his father, but eventually he realized, this life, this racing circuit of maroon ties, parking tickets and sleepless nights, was far worse.

It is seven to minute and he shouldn’t be here. He should be at home with his wife, his kids, their bickering and expectations. He should be at home because tomorrow he has a 5am start and he has to iron his own shirts since his wife started smelling other women on them. He shouldn’t be here because it is ten to midnight and he is an empty shell.

He peers into his bottomless drink, waits for the answers.

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When people ask, she tells them she’s a stripper. She would like to tell them she has a sick brother who needs a heart transplant, a mother on welfare, and she’s doing this to pay the bills, but frankly, she’s just another run-down college kid who likes nice things. When she dances, she thinks of Jimmy Choos and Barbados and strawberry daiquiris. She envisions them in that glittering neon from her stage of great heights, where she spins and shuts herself off to the world for five hours a night.

She has come to a stop, and the world seems a little less bright. The flurry of neon lights and stars, the distant coils of cigarette smoke and glazed eyes generate the inertia-induced euphoria of her five-hour shifts. When her body slows to a stop, this ephemeral happiness becomes the relic of a time long past. She can’t imagine being this happy ever again, yet she is every time, and in this simple act she surprises herself.

She pushes away from the pole and saunters centre stage. Like a metronome, she sways to the pulse of twenty greedy men. The heat of the stage lights devours her. Rivulets of sweat collect at her forehead, threaten to wash away her well-preserved mask, but she brushes them away in a swift movement. She drags her quick fingers through her hair, downwards over her breasts, onto her taut stomach, then lower - before turning her back to the stage with a playful smile. Five to midnight. Her rotation is over.

Yet she still needs another fifty dollars to make rent. She steps off the stage and walks, hips swaying, to the corporate suit at the front. He is baby-faced, but looks mid-30s, probably has a family and a nice house with a double garage and a Labrador. He looks hopeless. Not dead, but comatose, caught in the rut of middle-aged boredom. She sees that type often, more often than the sleazebags and deadbeats who frequent this fine establishment.

She pulls herself onto his armrest, tiptoes her thin fingers onto the Rolex on his left wrist.

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He forces his lifeless eyes onto hers. He doesn’t have the heart to say no.

She is close, too close. Near-sightedness affords him her true form: a pallid face, thinly-arched eyebrows and mascara that hung in thick globules on her eyelashes. Disappointment hits him in quiet waves. She shifts closer to him, barely touching but staring into him, seeing past the unironed clothes, the Rolex, the unspoken words. He feels like crying because she sees more in him than anyone else and he hates it. He feels like crying, but he doesn’t.

He licks his upper lip, and detaches his fingers from his drink. He reaches for his wallet, pulls out a fifty. She smiles demurely.

“Hello lady luck,” he says finally.

The clock strikes twelve.

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Ephemeral

2011-12-05T12:14:00.022+10:00

This is my 1st creative writing assignment piece from last term. It's quite short, but I only got marked on my reflection for it (which I'm not posting because it's quite boring.)

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(Paper Cup Phone by zitosqu on flickr)

Ephemeral

Somewhere above the heavy clouds, a thousand strings stretched, long and distressed. They travelled for miles connecting each skyscraper to the next, an entanglement of wires and words that ended with a tin can or paper cup and a pair of strained eardrums and chapped lips. These ears and lips relied on the strings to safely carry their words across distances their limbs could not reach. Whispered pleas, excited chatter, yelling matches between lawyers and divorcees, tears of sadness between widowers: The cat destroyed the curtains today – I love you! – She weighs seven pounds and her eyes are like stars – I won’t give her a cent even if they send me to jail. These were the last words of a dying race, and the strings proudly held them in the air, with the fleeting sadness of possession, like a letter about to be sent.

Sometimes the strings tired. Their once eclectic colours frayed and dulled under pressure. Sometimes words were lost. Sometimes they collected at unknown points, or were scrambled in the crowd of sounds. And one night, without warning, as if in resolute protest, they began to droop under the weight of emotion. They sank through the clouds, perspired under its blankets of moisture. A storm stirred in the belly of the sky. A single bolt of light, loud and crackling, tore through the streams of string, breaking its hold from their puppeteers. Their last dance showered with the ephemeral vivacity of sparks.

Smoke filled the air, and sadness.

The lightning had carried through the string and into thousands of mouths that had swallowed fire. They croaked and clutched their throats but their cries went unheard, because they were now deaf to each other. And the string fell a thousand times over, in victory, and in silence.

Faux Promotional Text

2011-11-17T15:06:00.012+10:00

Part Deux of Communications assignment. This was supposed to be a celebrity entertainment story about an animated character. My marker wrote 'I'll let this pass because it fulfills the promotional criteria' at the end but then didn't elaborate with any actual feedback. I still managed to score a distinction though, so I couldn't have been too off.

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Sailor Moon Moons the Press at Venice Film Festival

Sailor Moon, star of the self-titled, long-running anime series, Sailor Moon, was the butt of the joke last night at the 68th Venice Film Festival. Moon made an appearance on the third night of film screenings to support George Clooney’s latest directorial effort, The Ides of March.

Moon, who made an uncredited cameo as an idealistic young politician, drew the attention of the paparazzi when she entered the vicinity sans entourage, appearing “highly intoxicated.” Moon snubbed the press in favour of rubbing shoulders with the film’s A-list cast: Ryan Gosling, Max Minghella and Evan Rachel Wood. She appeared friendly and chatty as she posed for photos with fans, however things soon turned sour when a press agent asked her to step out of the official cast photos. Moon withdrew to the background after exchanging words with the publicist, only to surface again soon after. After stumbling over her own feet, members of the paparazzi jeered at her drunken state. She responded in her typical, inappropriate manner: by lifting her minuscule navy skirt and mooning them. She was soon escorted off the red carpet by security.

Clooney, who was not present at the spectacle, commented at a press junket that he was “surprised by her lewd behaviour, as she had always seemed so wholesome and professional.” Ryan Gosling added to this by joking that “it’s ironic became she’s famous on-screen for showing off her cat too.”

Moon, whose real name is Serena Tsukino, has had a history of drug problems. She was married to on-and-off-screen husband, Tuxedo Mask, for three years before filing for divorce in March. Last year, she caused controversy by punching two of the Kardashian sisters.

Somewhere Film Review

2011-11-17T14:44:00.011+10:00

I have a few small writing pieces from previous writing assignments I thought I would post. This is a film review I wrote for a 3-part Communications assignment. I got a HD for it, which I'm quite proud of considering I'd like to work in film someday.

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Somewhere
Directed by Sofia Coppola
Focus Features, 2010, 98mins

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Somewhere, directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Elle Fanning and Stephen Dorff, offers a brief glimpse into the life of a Hollywood actor. When people think of Hollywood, they often associate it with red carpets, space-invading paparazzi, and above all- the glitz and glamour. Somewhere shows us that this is not always the case.

Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) is a thirty-something actor camped out in the famous Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. Amongst occasional press interviews, parties and assorted women, Johnny’s life is filled with stretches of quiet mundaneness in which he will stare at an ashtray. He is restless, and so is the audience, in seeing everything that he sees. The monotony is broken when Johnny’s pre-teen daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), arrives to spend time with him before summer camp. She fits into his life with surprising ease, frequenting award shows and press junkets as his date. They bond through underwater tea-parties, games of guitar hero and hallway races. The audience is so taken with their interactions that they forgive the initial boredom of Johnny’s life.

Dorff and Fanning interact best in their own, unspoken way- through their silences and expressions. Dialogue is scarce and occasionally improvised. There is a telling scene where father and daughter are joined at breakfast by one of Johnny’s on-and-off flames, who failingly attempts to bond with Cleo over boys and scooters. Fanning’s solemn, probing expression contains all the emotion necessary to counter Marco’s sheepish demeanour.

The cinematography is characteristic of Coppola’s style, and befitting for this melancholy film. Long takes and glittering shots of Los Angeles evoke a lonely mystique to accompany the sparce dialogue. The film is scored by French band, Phoenix (Mars, the lead singer is Coppola’s husband). The songs “Love Like A Sunset Part I” and “Part II” are quietly recognizable in carrying the film from start to finish.

Coppola’s use of space and silences is not entirely original (à la Lost In Translation), however Somewhere is tied together by its emotional resonance. The dull moments of Johnny’s life serve as a reminder that loneliness is felt by everyone, including celebrities. Some may call it pretentious, but Somewhere is a breathtakingly lovely film, memorable to its audience long after its viewing.

Beach

2011-04-06T20:30:00.005+10:00

Instagram for iPhone.

Donate!

2011-03-23T15:12:00.003+10:00

Oh hai blogspot,

Just a quick post urging you to give generously to any of the following resources in support of Japan tsunami relief. I was in Japan two months ago by myself, and I was amazed by the kindness and grace attached to their culture. Even though I could barely string together enough words to cohesively connect a sentence (my Japanese was, and continues to be, appalling), I found that the language barrier was hardly a hurdle in communication when those I dealt with were so kindly willing to help- whether it was to give me directions, assist in translating signs or restaurant menus, or direct me to the right train on the subway. If you could donate even $1 - remember, every dollar adds up - I’m sure it would be greatly appreciated.

Australian Red Cross

Global Giving

Or alternatively, donate through several organizations through:

Google

Love & peanut butter cups

Gratuitous pictures of kittens

2011-03-23T14:53:00.004+10:00

... because nothing cheers you up like finding kittens in your backyard.

Happy Zombie Jesus day!

2010-04-04T11:39:00.008+10:00

I may be decidedly agnostic (oxymoron?) but I do love chocolate!

Chai Tea, Tai Chi

2010-03-27T11:41:00.005+10:00

Trekked out to West End for some 3 Monkeys' chai last night... THIS was staring at us the whole night. Classy!

Hardcopies, Bipolar bears

2010-03-18T10:00:00.004+10:00

Hey Blogspot, get a peek of this:

My hardcopy portfolio! I won't comment on the printing process - let's just say Big W was not the best place to get prints - except to say that other than that valuable two inches of photo missing from each subject's upper half, my folio doesn't look all that bad.

My expectations for today's interview are shifting like a bipolar bear, but here's what I'm hoping their reaction will be:

"Oh (wonderful) Laura, your original and creative mindset is so mind-blowing that it completely outweighs your lack of years of existence and studio experience that many other candidates possess. When you can you start?"

Of course, reality will probably occur something like this...

"Thanks for applying, however we are looking for a candidate who possesses extensive studio experience, has a higher level of maturity and the wisdom of a Buddha. We'll keep your application in mind for positions in the future."

Yeah, I'm a bit of a downer this week.

Lovecats

2010-03-14T19:48:00.009+10:00

Hello bloggers and nu-rave gypsies,

I had a sentimental, light-hearted post about my mother and sewing to post, but then our cat, skye, was put to sleep and I couldn't bear to do anything but listen to "lovecats" by the cure on repeat in her honour. I won't wax rhapsodic on my period of grief or the vet visit for all you animal lovers (it was all quite a blur to be honest), however I have to admit I'm having a really hard time shedding the memory of her confused face as we had to leave her.

Anyway, other than that, this week has been quite good. I got an interview to that studio I was sure I wouldn't hear from. I'm updating and organizing my folio and I'm feeling pretty confident, although - not to be pessimistic or anything - I'm pretty sure I won't get it. There are bound to be tons more qualified candidates than me. (I know, I know, glass half full right....but secretly, I know that the glass is really half-empty.)

Peace, love, cadillac kisses.

Contents of my handbag

2010-03-06T14:54:00.004+10:00

My constants.

L to R: sweet asian boutique clutch, organ donor card, ID, kooky asian necklace, shittop phone, debit card, whatever book im currently reading, red ray bans (present from hanzo), my seeing glasses (yknow, the ones i never wear and then complain about not seeing, ha) ipod, house keys, lip gloss, lip balm, Thailand purse (from ash).

they don't love you like i love you.

2010-03-04T15:45:00.000+10:00

Demeter Fragrances

2009-11-16T11:31:00.001+10:00

Found these while googling for perfumes that won't make me sneeze.

Demeter Fragrances = quirky everyday scents.

Some of the more interesting scents are: Snow, Pink Lemonade, Christmas Tree, New Zealand, Mildew, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and my personal fav, Laundromat (though as awesome as they sound, I'm holding out for Alaska)

They can be found at http://www.demeterfragrance.com/ but unfortunately, they don't ship outside the US of A because they smell. Literally.

Isabel Lucas

2009-08-10T14:50:00.002+10:00

I love Isabel Lucas' style, particularly the assortment of vintage dresses she owns. She's so anti-Hollywood, its nice to see someone going for coffee in something other than metre-high heels and minimal clothing.

I hope her career extends beyond recognition for being that "robot chick from transformers," mainly because she's Australian and this country's hope for producing good actors/actresses died with Heath Ledger last year.

Food, Glorious Food

2009-08-05T22:17:00.001+10:00

I was commissioned to shoot a wedding yesterday. Because I don't like desserts (I know, there's something wrong with me - I blame it on some psychological dessert-related childhood trauma) I spent most of the reception taking pictures of all the food:

Birthday

2009-07-29T13:11:00.001+10:00

In light of my upcoming birthday, I put together a list of things I want and as usual, instead of wanting things that might, oh I dunno, increase productivity or at least motivate me to do something beneficial for my future, all I find myself wanting is the first season of Medium, floral Doc Martens, a lomo fisheye and this awesome Salvador Dali clock:

July Playlist

2009-07-07T14:46:00.001+10:00

Praise You by Fatboy Slim

2009-07-04T21:22:00.001+10:00

Still my favorite music video ever. Spike Jonze is awesome.

Probably the best petition ever

2009-06-29T12:40:00.001+10:00

This morning I stumbled on this petition:

and possibly even more amusing was the signatures list:

Today begineth..

2009-06-09T15:35:00.002+10:00

OPERATION don't kill these pansies like all previously-owned goldfish (I think about you every alternating Tuesday dear Glaedr/Shruikan/Hannah Jr/Harry Osborn II)

Here is a picture of aforementioned pansies (and didn't I get funny looks carrying these babies home.)

I also managed to score Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment at Borders for a mere $9.95! So long, Angus & Roberston, no longer will I be perusing your terribly catalogued shelves & puke-stained carpeting!

Terminator Salvation made me lose my faith in humanity

2009-06-07T20:59:00.000+10:00

Okay. It wasn't that bad. If you're a die hard Terminator fan (check!) and you're willing to remain ignorant of the little things, then I guess TS wasn't such a bad movie. However, as I am generally quite vocal about films that disappoint the pants off of me, I have compiled (yet again) a fun list of plotholes to share:

- So Kyle Reese is the seventeen-year-old father of thirty-year-old John Connor. Yeah, I bet that makes for some interesting family dinner conversations in the Resistance base. (John: So Kyle.. do you think, in maybe ten years, you would let me send you back in time to your inevitable death to impregnate my mother with me? Please? I'll be your best friend?)

- How on Earth John Connor managed to infiltrate the Skynet HQ without ONE machine noticing him is beyond me. And when it came to evacuating/blowing up the base, there was only two machines there to stop them? Oh hai Skynet, if you're really smart enough to annihilate the entire human race you should really schedule machine vacation time better

- I was also mildly impressed that he managed to hack into the software with his super charged phone software. Can you say.... iphone?

- The Terminator with the bandanna! 'Nuff said.

- So... the Resistance is holed up underground in a dirty base surrounded by forest with cameras, guard towers, a river and a mine field, yet their airspace is on an open field. Might as well put a neon sign saying "attack here!"

- Did Sony hoard all their plasmas in a fallout shelter or something? Seriously, did anyone see how many LCD screens they had? Why bother fighting? Let's just twitter Skynet and ask them to end this war!

- Kyle Reese was #1 on the kill list. So the machines captured him, threw him into a cell to be eventually grabbed by a Terminator and put into a machine to be killed. When did Terminator become James Bond?

- Same goes for John Connor. CGI Arnie picked him up and threw him about five times before actually attempting to kill him. Remember the good old days when Terminators actually terminated their targets? They might as well call them Throwinators, considering they didn't kill one person. Oh, James Cameron where have you been all my life.

- John Connor sounded like Batman. And Batman sounded like an angry Christian Bale. I had my fingers crossed he would go away and come back and taaa daa ... Batman would go all American Psycho on the Terminators. Or at least have a screaming tirade "Do you just walk around blowing up humanity all 'da da da da daaaa?' Do you call yourself a professional?!"

- Probably the most crucial point - how is this future like the original future shown in the first T1 - with the lasers and the big machines crushing skulls on the ground and the utterly doomed humanity? Yes, yes, its an alternate future, but its kind of sad that it doesn't have the same terror to it that it once did. I kept thinking I would happy to live in the ruins of LA amongst patrolling terminators if it was with Kyle Reese. ;)

Why Music Matters

2009-05-28T12:00:00.000+10:00

This is c+p'd from Amanda Palmer's blog

Why Music Matters
Karl Paulnack, Director, Music Division
The Boston Conservatory

Dr. Karl Paulnack’s Welcome Address to parents of incoming students, September 2004

“One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician… I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated… I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school. She said, “You’re wasting your SAT scores!” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite… Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture — why would anyone bother with music? And yet even from the concentration camps we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”

The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this: “If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at 2 AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

“Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music, I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”

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By the way, I saw Star Trek the other day and it was awesome!

Post Secret

2009-05-13T11:25:00.001+10:00

I love these quirky postcards from PostSecret

"Stimulating" the economy

2009-05-12T12:04:00.002+10:00

A few days ago, I learnt that I'm not the only person in the world who thinks the word "stimulate" is an inappropriate word to describe repairing the current financial crisis.

Whenever I hear the word stimulation, I really can't help but giggle. Of course, I had always pinned it down to my emotional immaturity, but last week, I discovered that other people were of the same frame of mind.

Take this almost-fake scenario involving someone who may or may not have been me:

Person: Good old Rudd, stimulating the economy by giving out free cash. Finally, I can pay off my ferrari.
Other person: Ha, stimulate the economy... more like STIMULATE MY PANTS.
(silence ensues)

A certain friend of mine who sleeptalks in Spanish was telling me that whenever one of her co-workers gets their Rudd money, they walk into work yelling "I just got stimulated!" It's amusing, these little things, but it really makes you wonder: was there really no other word more suitable to describe solving the economy other than "stimulate?" I'm pretty sure I can think of a hundred topics of which the word "stimulate" would be much more appropriate and none of them involve the economy. At all. (wink wink, nudge nudge)

I guess there's always the idea that "stimulate" euphemizes this global shindig, by making it seem less harsh. That I can understand - stimulating the economy doesn’t sound quite as bad as “trying to escape from the collective grave we dug ourselves.”

Anyway, I'm going to stop writing and start baking, but I'll probably add a thousand edit points later on.

Stimulating read, no?

PS. For non Australian readers (unlikely! but anyway..) our Prime Minister Kevin "K-Rudd" Rudd is handing out cash as a short-term solution for our finance problems. It's a nice gesture, putting our country into further debt, but if I think I know Australians (and I'm pretty sure, I do!) I know that 90% of people went to the pub or put deposits on cars.

Synecdoche, New York

2009-04-30T16:53:00.001+10:00

A month ago, I watched Charlie Kaufman's latest brainchild Synecdoche, New York and have been meaning to blog about it, but never found the words to describe it.

In fact, I still don't have any words I feel are befitting of its genius, other than "wowesome" and "synecdocool" which really.. aren't words at all.

So I'll just leave you with some pictures.

"Now it is waiting and nobody cares. And when your wait is over this room will still exist and it will continue to hold shoes and dresses and boxes and maybe someday another waiting person. And maybe not. The room doesn't care either."

Education

2009-04-27T17:59:00.003+10:00

"Too much of current education is concerned with rote learning that has little relationship to real problems and real life."

While pondering the meaning of life today (cough), I found myself asking this very same question. Which I read off of a newspaper.

But in all honesty, how much of today's education is applicable to real life situations and less to impractical/social situations? Here is normally where I would use a valid example, but it’s a pretty well known fact that I have few friends and using one in this topic would be akin to tying a noose around my neck and saying “swing me!”

So, for argument's sake, let's use Joe Kerr. Now Joe was great at Biology at school. He kicked academic ass in most of his subjects and he liked cutting things up. Joe decided to study medicine and become a doctor. He aced all the university textbook crap and was doing great until he started on his prac, where he realised "(Oh shit!) I have no compassion or people skills," and was inherently sadistic at heart. He later went on to become Batman's nemesis.

A slightly more relevant example: I know someone who got a high OP, yet can’t cook anything that isn’t microwaved, has no appreciation for the aesthetic, and doesn’t know what “circumstance” means. I could never have an enjoyable conversation with said person because I know it would shit me to tears of their obvious ignorance and stupidity. Of course, this person could consider the same thing of me.

There are many different types of intelligence and most of the time, school only teaches you the one they think matters. You can cram as much as you can while you're there and ace all your subjects, but in the long run, it doesn’t teach you to be logical, and it doesn’t prepare you for the real world.

Anyway, I guess my point is that there’s a massive divide in concern to the association of textbook theory and practical application. Does knowing random facts make you smart? No, it makes you sometimes-witty. Does writing a blog make you sound clever? No, it just makes you sound like an opinionated idiot with a penchant for Batman metaphors.

At the end of the day, all you can do is learn all you can and hope it is somehow relevant to real life.

EDIT: I liked high school, I really did. But after being out of school for two years, I guess I was hoping on more fonder memories than fun lunchtimes, and sitting in the library drawing/reading and listening to The Hush Sound. I really don't think I learnt anything at all... well, other than the fact that I learnt that I didn't learn anything at all.

Six beds better than yours

2009-04-22T16:18:00.000+10:00

Although I am very well aware that I have surpassed the age at which possessing a bunk bed is the height of cool, I couldn't help but fawn over a few of these babies:

My personal favorites are the Uffizi (3rd image) and the Soho Twin Bed (4th), though I do think the kid's bunks are very cute. I love the practical use of space.

Sources: (L to R) Sirroccohome (Kidzoneshop.com.au), Troms (Ikea.com.au), Uffizi (Argington.com.au), Soho Twin Bed over Futon (Simplybunkbeds.com), Cronulla Loft Bunk Bed (Awesomebeds.com.au), Metro Bunk (Futonsrus.com)

Twilight

2009-04-19T14:25:00.000+10:00

I happen to be apart of a very small demographic of females my age who currently do not have Edward Cullen at the top of their TO DO lists. To be quite frank, he is currently on my TO DIE list, right beneath Tom Cruise and Katie Holmely famous only because they happen to dress their spawn better than themselves. Okay, inappropriate and slightly off-topic. Let's just say, I love hearing about Twilight about as much as Fabio can't believe it's not butter.

My life is being terrorized ever since the sexual fantasy of a thirty-year-old woman, incarnated into a teenage girl with no emotional backbone, falls in lust with the face of a hundred-year-old vampire (and he, with her scent!) and is printed into a series, hereon known as Twilight.

To be fair, I have nothing against the series or Stephenie Meyer, other than the fact she has too many e's in her name. In fact, to prove myself a good sport, here are some things I actually enjoyed about Twilight:

1) The wittiness/tension between Bella and Edward (it slowly died with each book, but I enjoyed it while I was there)

2) Knowing that Edward was more interested in eating Bella than sleeping with her (sucker!), and being able to appreciate the rarity of that ever happening in teenage novels or in real life.

3) Watching the movie and not getting sick of listening to Bella stuttering her way through scenes ("But Edward.. you can't.. jus.. bjuh.. plea... how can you sa... your so... i jus... blakjds!")

Things I enjoyed less about Twilight

1) The dwindling originality (let's add some werewolves to square off against the vampires and make Bella's best friend fall in love with her and we're all set.)

2) Being reminded of glittery, god-like Edward's beauty in every. single. scene.

3) Plot inconsistencies (my favorite is when Edward dumps Bella and her so-called "maturity" and resolve disappears like coke in the hand of a crack whore. Real cool, Bella. You're a role model for girls far and wide.)

4) It's sense of appeal by means of a super handsome protagonist, other than things like, oh i don't know... literary tools for unliterary tools.

5) So... why are Edward and Bella in love again? I mean, besides the fact Bella thinks Edward is really hot and mysterious and is flattered when he stalks her, and Edward is intrigued by the fact his jedi mind skills don't work on her. And he think she smells good (and less in a healthy way, more of a I-want-to-eat-your-skin way). The book constantly tells you that they can't live without each other, but never enough are we reminded why. Gosh darn it, Meyer.

6) It's success in affecting the lives of people who, in no way, want to be associated with it!

Yes, yes. I should ignore it. Well, you try going into a bookstore without a cashier reccomending you read Twilight (if it wasn't disconcerting enough to see New Moon twiddling its thumbs next to Jane Eyre in the Classic Literature section) or better yet, buying a pack of gum from K-Mart without overhearing a conversation between two cashiers and a customer about how swoon-worthy and musically talented Robert Pattinson is- a conversation which lasted three minutes, despite the fact the lady was only buying a book and a baking tray.

Just as I finished mourning the loss of Harry Potter (and coincidentally, my childhood!), I get caught in a four-year-long vampire eat human saga. Life is officially a school bully and I am his bitch.

EDIT: In no way was this blog intended to belittle Twilight fans. I acknowledge that I didn't read Twilight because I thought it was going to stimulate my brain like Kevin Rudd just did our pocketbooks (zing!), but my point is that hearing too much of one thing will drive you mad (seriously), hype nearly always equals failure (unless you've written something called ... The Dark Knight), and people who think Twilight is literary (it's not) are super lame! Don't worry, Ashleigh Hanlon, this isn't aimed at you. Love you long time.

Teapottery

2009-04-15T16:20:00.000+10:00

How cute are these teapots from teapottery?

I may not be a tea drinker, but I do know an awesome Christmas present when I see one!

Dear Michelle Williams,

2009-04-13T17:30:00.000+10:00

Please send your stylist my way!

I love how she holds herself on the red carpet, and in general. She always appears so effortlessly chic and modest. Plus I would kill for her collection of boots (the mere few showcased are just a small sample of the plethora of awesome boots she owns.. so jealous)

Also, her 2006 Oscars dress - marigold chiffon Vera Wang (top left) - is my favorite Oscars dress ever. I loved it so much, I even bothered to google the name and when the Oscars air every year I make snooty comments about other people's dresses - "Yeah, that's nice... but it's no Marigold Vera Wang." (Here would be an excellent place to add a disclaimer: I know nothing of fashion and plan never to learn - The Devil Wears Prada taught me well - but that is one beautiful dress)

Where The Wild Things Are / Girl Skateboards

2009-04-08T14:13:00.000+10:00

Anyone who knows me knows I am a massive fan of Spike Jonze, otherwise known as the king of quirky cinema (he directed Adaptation and Being John Malkovich for you non-cinema nomads.. not to mention every awesome music video under the sun). In fact, I've even made a hobby of uncovering the methods behind transferring his brain into my head.

But, I digress.

Jonze, who has just filmed the children's classic, Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, has released a set of skateboard decks via his skate company, Girl Skateboards.

My unrequited affinity to Spike Jonze may make me a tad biased when I say these may be the COOLEST THINGS I HAVE EVER SEEN. And while my coordination skills are akin to the limbless, or - this is where I try to sound socially acceptable - Bella from Twilight, I am going to buy one anyway, hang it on the wall of my room and air skate whenever I please.

Bloggity Blog

2009-04-06T12:09:00.000+10:00

And... i'm blogging again.

Because I'm not quite sure where this is heading yet, here are some cute salt and pepper shakers in exchange for not having anything remotely profound to say (I found them whilst searching for question mark shakers, which apparently don't exist... yet)