the ladder to nowhere for noone

Abercrombie street, Chippendale Sydney June 2008

Sunday Stuff

Free to a good home... why!??

Day out in the rain & a frolic down the varicose vein of Sydney

We had some sort of day in mind today - a bit of a cold, windy day in Sydney with some drizzle & rain. Working, catching up on some learning homework... I did 1/2 German but that just means I am still at lesson 1 in my book. AH, complete with new dreads wanted to go out for lunch - take the hair out for a walk.
I was a bit reticent about her getting dreads again (she once had them past waist length) because when we watch a movie at home, she fiddles with them but her hair had grown past her collar (after sporting number 1 clipper for years) and she was looking a bit scary christian...

After yesterdays visit to the African hair salon, I now have the coolest girlfriend around.

Well, I've always had the coolest - some would saying delightfully eccentric - girlfriend for 15 years but now she's cool again. Oh blah blah. Anyway, she said she wanted to take me to lunch... it was just midday and I'd not long had some porridge for brunch... but I need some shoes to be resoled so asked if we could go down Parramatta Road (PR) so I could put my shoes in. Sunday in Sydney doesn't mean the shoe shop is shut but some of the cafes along PR would likely be but we took our chances.


So off we set, rugged and raincoats zipped and a promise to not turn on the TV tonight so I could get some work done... Ha! The girl at the shoe shop was unfamiliar and quoted a huge amount of money, "Sign here" for $122!! "But I've been coming here for 8 years, they have my template, I've never paid more than $100!" bugger! Next, find a cafe. no luck on PR round the corner, with trepidation to Norton Street Leichhardt Trepidation because a couple of months ago we spent a couple of weekends going to the German Film Festival there and found all the restaurants pricey, too meaty and bland... so we go to the Italian Forum, find a nice enough looking place, there are more than 6 places to choose from - pasta with tomato sauce, a pinch of garlic and maybe a sprig of parsley... nice glass of wine but the coffee was dreadful. How can you go to "the Italian quarter" of Sydney and get crap coffee? Damn We wouldve walked the short walk to Newtown & been spoilt for choice but I needed my hooves shod... It rained on & off while we shoveled fettucini & the walk home was fun. A bit of window shopping:


The old hardware shop looks like someone did a midnight run... One of the traumas of having a little digital camera is accidentally losing an image.


The keys cut globe photo is a crop looking in the abandoned hardware shop window but I accidently lost the original... wouldn't happen with film! But then, I'd have to finish the film and get the film developed, then scan the film, then upload... And I would but probably not for months.

back to work tomorrow - bum!

ho hum up yer bum - back to the day job tomorrow with it's usual overload and demands that eff up any autonomy - thinking to self, the rent will be paid, the rent will be paid.
but I always have at least a little camera on me and see webs of intrigue along the way....:

Resisting Facebook Again

There are a lot of things to blog about, observations and entertaining, quirky thoughts to write down and blog about...
haven't done that though it's the thought that counts.
I think facebook is a bit of a waste of head space still.
I was seriously underwhelmed by it some months ago and now where I work has put the NFP association up on facebook... how many friends do they have? Oh, look who IS on facebook, oh..... look WHO ISN'T ON FACEBOOK.


Wot a load of ...

I had a dream the other night that I'd succumbed and rejoined facebook (because you can't even browse the fucking thing unless you sign up...) and I got a whole heap of friendly, interesting invites to really AMAZING art shows

Gosh, they really meant ME, they WANTED ME (we are still in the dream, remember...)

And that is all I have to say about facebook as I have something else to do.

German Film Festival - Sydney

The last couple of weeks AH & I attended a few screenings at the German Film Festival here in Sydney. It's hard to decide what to see and timing with film festivals is always tricky - 6PM on a week night?? I'm usually waiting for the bus that never comes and feel so grotty from the day job that... ahh well, not there ATM. Now, what is it about The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite) http://www.goethe.de/Ins/au/lp/prj/ff08/flm/fl5/enindex.htm - the critics in Australia went on and on - one could have been mistaken that it was the only bloody film showing in the festival... Now it wins a German Film Award plus a cross cultural award because it's a bit Turkish as well. Maybe I'm a bit over the standard blokey film and this one had lesbians in it. Of course the lesbian story was tragic... The only deaths were women and the Father-Son bit had no mother. Some bits were a bit contrived - oh look, a sad coincidence that the mother wanting to see her daughter and the daughter looking for her mother pass each other without knowing.... Oh blah blah - I know I am in the minority here and it is a good film, I just don't think it's utterly wonderful as everyone says. Nursel Köse is excellent in her short lived role as the threatened and ultimately murdered prostitute (no giveaway there, her death is announced). Everyone is a bit done over in one way or another and were basically boring to me.

Not reviewed and hard to present in a simple synopsis was The Calling Game (Die Anruferin) http://www.goethe.de/Ins/au/lp/prj/ff08/flm/fl1/enindex.htm http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0825682/ – originally a stage play, it was intriguing, suspenseful in a really odd way and riveting from beginning to end. I wonder that the blokes played a minor role. The film’s focus is 4 women – an invalid, non-speaking mother, her daughter and a librarian who becomes a friend. The 4th is a dead daughter but central to the whole story. It is truly a film of triumph, caring and acceptance. I walked out of the cinema feeling completely fulfilled: intellectually & emotionally.
The second weekend we sat through the epic Border of Despair (Die Frau vom Checkpoint Charlie) – a fabulous true story obviously made for TV – maybe a bit scatty in spots but a good melodramatic rendition of a strong story with a happy ending.
Then one of the must see: Shattered Glass (Scherbentanz) http://www.goethe.de/Ins/au/lp/prj/ff08/flm/f21/enindex.htm – directed by Chris Kraus who made Vier Minuten http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0461694/ (Four Minutes: a magnificent & intelligent film that none last 4 films I saw this year have bettered). The acting was excellent and, even though not as strong as 4mins, for a writer, director Chris Kraus gets the most out of everyone on screen – especially the women: Margit Carstensen is brilliant and sometimes astounding as the insane mother. I am really looking forward to whatever Kraus comes up with next and I hope that as with his first 2 films, the women’s roles will be as good as in these 2 films.
I don’t know SBS’s criteria for buying films to screen is but I wish they would stop with the virgin films and silly comedies and screen some of these excellent dramas coming out of Germany in the last couple of years. Vier Minuten, I will watch again – probably buy- but The Edge of Heaven on the other hand... (ha ha bad pun), I don’t think I will sit through again.
I am looking forward to next year’s German Film Festival – I’m sure we will all be seeing Der Baader Meinhof Komplex!
A note to fellow movie goers – don’t feel you HAVE to eat the equivalent of a 3 course meal consisting of rattling popcorn in the box the size of 5 litre bucket followed by anything you can find in child-locked cellophane... You know you can go without eating for more than 2 hours... go on, try!

Spiderlings Creche

Our little backyard needs some attention but it's a happy place for spiders - and today I took a closer look at the latest creche.



then as us humans are prone to do because we can't help it, I poked it with a stick - gently though...








run, little spiderling, run!
(actually they were pretty cruisey and didn't move away too far and when the thunderstorm came, after I'd raced inside with the camera, they simply cuddled in closer to the wall)




===
images copyright Anne Bentley

Still lazy on Sunday - think I've melded in the chair

Oh lazy Sunday - I did manage to empty the cat litter tray - haven't brought it back in though - cat is behind me getting comfy on the coffee table (of course!)
the resident currawongs have bred - baby's been hanging around our place - cute for a scary beak bird and it squeaks like a youngster while it tries to figure out what sort of creatures we are. Here it is:



Last night the evening sky was gorgeous - it had rained on and off, as it has been for weeks but for a sky like this - wow:

Lazy Sunday

We are now officially and ridiculously distracted with webcams and Skype. I'm really not getting far here either because of all the silly but good fun messages that keep arriving - including AH in the next room! Got good deals with webcams & we set friends up with their own last night so today it's been a lot of silliness & laughter.
I noticed we can take a photo of whomever calls if they are on webcam but had it done back when i did a bum flash behind AH as she talked - hmmm, that'll be a nice pic! (mental note: mustn't flash other bits to friends with fast clicking power).


Had heaps of problems with Internet Explorer - keeps seizing up so I've gone to Safari - much more efficient but I still like the favourites folder set up explorer has.

How distracted are we? well, it's almost 4PM, we have guests coming tomorrow and the room they will stay in is nowhere near ready - needs a lot more than just changing the sheets.

Am a little seedy today and want to eat pizza...

had a whole lot of other things to write - had made mental notes to do so but my mental note drawer melted somewhere between feeling hungry and feeling really hungry!

Thinking Underwater - a sideline project

...then you were gone
I opened my eyes and looked around an empty room
and realized I'd been thinking underwater

What do you do when most of your waking day and probably a lot of your sleep gets hijacked by fantasy and wishful thinking? Well I figured instead of becomming a Psycho weirdo stalker in looney land, I should channel 'it' - my id into a project.
When is it fiction to suit the art and when is it personnal?
That I'm not telling. Here's the first drafts & images:

Thinking Underwater



I thought of you in your sleep
We were underwater
You lay sleeping on your back
My hands slid easily under you, the tips of my fingers feel skin warm and dry I merge into your spine
Lifting you (across the length of my arm) we float submerged, warm without waves










I reach over in the night and touch lips
SHHH! I put my hand over her mouth - Shhh – (be quiet), don’t speak,
I need you to be her
as
we
sleep




Go to sleep and don’t let me in. close the channel. I need to be alone for awhile
your eyes open suddenly in my mind
you are beautiful and I can’t breath
go to sleep, don’t let me think of you
I need to be alone underwater

Newtown vs Berlin - Friday day off

Friday begins well - well a little seedy after the high of coming home from German class last night to AH & a bottle of red wine.
Thursday was an ok day at work - lots to do but it stayed coolish most of the day (the broken down bus and deluge of rain on the way in is another story). It got really hot and humid about 1/2 hour before I had to trek up Balmain Road to catch a city bus so I was nice and stinky and buggered for class - teacher looked fresh and lovely as usual. When she says the English word verbs, she pronounces it "werbs". However, mein Deutsch ist mangelhafte Aussprache (as is my sentence structure, no doubt) so I don't say anything but can't help but smile. It's a fun class and the ice has broken a little so we have a laugh - often my instigation as I get a bit hyper from the day.
Back to today -
I walk up to Newtown to meet up with friend, Poppy and we talk about lots. She tells me she's always wanted to go to Berlin suggests it's probably like Newtown. Hmm, this is a hard one - Newtown is, for me, such a fabulous place to live and Berlin is Berlin. Newtown is Newtown. Maybe she is thinking of the connections people can make in each place – with both places being sometimes edgy, often fun or interesting. There is, perhaps an openness in both places for ideas, fresh outlooks? Oh, I don't know. I'm no expert on either and it’s too long since I was there even though I try to keep read up.
I leave my glasses with Riyadh at the Optometrist for repair (yes, that's his name - means "beautiful garden" and he grew up in Lebanon, not Saudi Arabia) & do bank & post chores. When I get back, I mention the Berlin - Newtown comparison. We look at each other and immediately say how much we love Newtown.
Then the sky falls in! I mean it was bucketing down, the sky was dark only to be lit up by lightening and the thunder cracked directly above us. I had no choice but to sit it out with Riyadh and talk about how good Europe is with recycling, water and solar heat. With weather like that outside, discussing weather is unavoidable - he told me how he loved the rain when he was in Uni in Lebanon - he lived near the mountains and near the sea. He may love being in Newtown but I could see how much he loves his birth country. I was suitably charmed by this tall and quietly spoken man.
When people talk about a place they love, their eyes become beautiful.

Evil Gnome Be Gone!

I almost can’t believe it – after 11 years, he is gone! The whole nasty collection of “straighteners and punishers" are done!
The senate is a problem but Howard is gone –even better, looks like he ignored what was going on in his own seat! Maxine for Prime Minister!
Pinch me! Still can’t believe he has gone. Evil gnome, be gone!
Yahooooo!!!!!!!!!!!
After ringing friends & family (both AH & my Mother felt woozy on election morning like before an exam - sweeties!)
We walked up to Newtown square where near 100 people had been watching the tally on a big screen - elation & weirdness. Yes, we still need to be vigilant... No more Howard!!!!!!!!!!! wow. We were about to immigrate - I don't know what I would have done if he'd got back in - I do love it, where I live.
No more Police state? I hope so. A bit of respect back to the people, I hope so.
Oh annnnnnnndddd - Evil Gnome IS GONE!!

"Movies and bad science"

Julie Rigg 15 November 2007 - Movie Time ABC Radio National:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/movietime/stories/2007/2092253.htm
"Scientists have argued in the New York Times that animations like Antz and the upcoming Bee Movie are misleading the kiddies about what it is that ants and bees do -- at least, male ants and bees.
The article points out that these films show an entirely misleading 1:1 sex ratio of male to female. In the real world, it ain't like that at all. Only 0.5 per cent of a colony of, say, 40,000 bees will be male. Their sole job is to dance the mating dance with the queen and try to fertilise her. After which they die. If they fail and make it back to the hive, they're given a few more goes, and after about a week, heaved ceremoniously out of the hive to starve and die anyway. Try making a movie out of that, Jeffrey Katzenberg."

I am reminded of an article written by Maureen Shelly (former chief executive of the Australian Council of Businesswomen)in the press way back in Dec 1999. I was so impressed, I kept the article (and such a slacker Hausfrau that it was still on the pin board!). Her article was titled: Those Wiggles: wacky, wild, and misogynist? She discusses the roles of women in the Wiggles movie or, rather, lack there of. Now the Wiggles men, she notes, are all qualified early development teachers but their female characters are a big purple dinosaur, an annoying know-it-all girl, a comfortable matron and a woman with a fake moustache dressed as a policeman. Meanwhile those little Wiggler men always do the cute or preachy: eat right & be nice about people different from you thing. She also says - and this is good testament to how people don't really look around at messages or simply let it slide - "I only noticed this disparity when my two-year-old daughter, a devoted Wiggles fan, asked me where all the girls were."

How far have we really come?

Milling around the far out and far fetched

After the luxury of sleeping away some period pain, a refreshing shower, hair out, favorite clothes along with a relaxed smile, I took myself to town and the Mind Body Spirit expo in one of those big halls at Darling Harbour.
After the initial disorientation (didn’t bother with the guide as I didn’t want newsprint hands) I booked in my palm & tarot reading and began a methodical walk through the maze.
Lunch would have been nice – on offer from, I suspect, the contractors that come with the hall hire, were meat pies and turkey sandwiches along with oily looking banana bread slices and little tarts with enough sugar to sweeten my morning tea for a decade. I did spot a sour dough bread thing with asparagus & cottage cheese but considered where the asparagus came from – a can most likely and how soggy & metallic tasting it could be.
I came by a stall with chocolate bars and protein bars. Now, just because it’s a mind body etc fair, doesn’t mean that all consumables are free of uranium mine tailings disguised as flavour…. Well the after taste was pretty horrid. So I did the rounds of goji juice stalls, “No I’ve never tried it…” etc got me free tastings and lots of leaflets for the recycle bin. Vitality juice and a good dose of paracetamol and I spent the next hour docile and amused.
Got a $10 neck and shoulder massage that left me more sore than when I’d arrived but it was nice when the masseuse lifted my hair each side of my neck to get to the skin. Then it was out with the credit card for some wheat metabolism boosting stuff.
The Scientologists tried on their charm but I was so unstressed, I couldn’t see how their ‘stress test’ would do anything but be seen for what it probably is; a thinly disguised form of flattery to get me in. There were the ever flattering ‘face readers’ – there always has to be a good looking older Indian man somewhere smiling at a middle aged woman as he reads her face for more money than I get per hour at my day job. Lots of stall holders had seen the light in various forms and definitely had THE answer. There were lots of tables with pretty polished stones being sold by people in bushy clothes who looked like they didn’t like the commercial side but more the amateur geology side of digging up rock that has taken thousands or even millions of years to be compressed and altered into such pretty colours. I wonder if there is any Amethyst left to collect anymore.
Some of the more entertaining stalls – get this: Tarot-like cards taken from the Christian bible! A big quote from Matthew on the tarp behind the very pushy spruikers for religion with a twist – gosh what will these people think of next! Some of my imbedded dislike of the fundamentalism of Christianity jumped in on me and I couldn’t stand there for more than a second, muttered something about being an atheist and took off.
Still hungry, I finally found some crunchy yummy Omega-3-anti-oxidant-fiber-protein-rich-dehydrated-at-very-low-temperature-to-preserve-vital-Lifeforce crackers made from chia seeds. Best of all the pack I bought was ‘pizza’ flavoured! Oh, and the woman who served me was fun to charm.
I munched on my crackers until my palm moment with ‘Joyce’ (likely her REAL name) – who was pretty good, flattering in the right places yet oddly moralistic where I’ve been feeling a bit immoral lately. Being a bad cat is part of the fun and she quickly changed my immoral wishes to me being a “strongly independent person” blah blah. Eerie it was though – the same cards up as with the wonderful & wise Poppy (who lets me be immoral because she know what it’s really about).
On leaving, I bought some fancy Indian food at another stall to heat up with some basmati rice for our dinner and met one of the pleasant bank tellers from Rozelle (whom I bank with for the day job) at the bus stop and we talked the women’s soccer recently on the telly – Dwayne (that is his real name) said he’d lost interest after the Australians were knocked out of the tournament. It was the only subject I could think of that would last longer than 30 seconds before strained silence. He’s a nice fellow though – had just got his hair cut – number 1 all around except on the very top that makes his already round head take on a pumpkin like appearance.
Oh, and according to my palm, I’ll live to 90!

A damn good weekend with Rosemary's Baby as a finale

A damn good weekend - this one just gone that included Rosemary's Baby as its finale.
Following a week off from the day job, it was a weekend well spent - no usual stress or depression about the looming Monday. Even better, despite utterly crap weather, was Bracode playing the Sando up the road. We began by dining at Buzz Bar nearby with a bottle of red wine with dinner. At the Sando AH & I hit the beers - the light beer available there is horrid so I opted for Old ( a sweetie version of stout) & AH had Melbourne Bitter ( yukko, I reckon if you've ever had the best bitter beer in the world - Schuldheisz, MB is not nice).
Missed the first band but enjoyed Richie and the Creeps all over again - good grunt folks!
I offered to sit the merch desk till the creeps came along so Bracode could get going - oh der - stoopid me ended up on the desk for all of Bracode's set but I could hear and see just fine and, damn, that was a good gig! I even managed to charm and enjoy the company of the bouncer who stopped the gels doing joints - fair enough, it's too small a space and I so don't want to passive smoke it any more. Bouncer was truly lovely, I thought he was about to hug me - his warm hand on my waist I felt, with reassuring pleasure, lasted for some time.
Then, back to all those lovely gels! We took off home for the rest of the night :-)

Sunday to Petersham for the Cruelty Free Fair at the Town Hall. As I waited for AH (who cycled over) there were some dedicated vegans getting their photos taken. When one person said, "say cheese" the handsome, healthy grey haired man said, "Soy cheese!"
I'm not kidding - it's like such a religion with people and they get really precious - to a point where it seems to be some sort of purist hetero clan and all others are, well, tolerated but subtly excluded.
It was fun to watch - better than TV, I reckon.
We feasted there on Green Gourmet lunch & soy pattie burgers and got some treats (AH fed her shoe addiction with oh so wonderful union non-sweat labour purchases). Heaps of petitions being asked to sign and no politicians to be seen.
My walk home began my sampling of project 2: (My) Parramatta Road Project – a few photos despite the lens flair due to a very bright 2PM Sydney sun.
Dinner was a sometimes Sunday favourite, Nachos with fresh green beans, celery and lashings of avocado mixed with yoghurt. I didn’t forget very tasty cheese and lots of jalapeño peppers.
On with the idiot box but this time we ignored station programming and watched one of my recent collection purchases – Roman Polanski’s, Rosemary’s Baby. Forty years ago it was being filmed – its release date 40th anniversary is 2008 – next year. It is such an excellent film and held our attention for its whole length. The casting or Ruth Gordon as the seemingly eccentric (rather than what her character is: truly mad) neighbour is inspired! Not for one moment does this film fall – it is as fresh and brilliantly constructed as it was 40 years ago. A true classic. Watch it if you get the chance.

Just enough melodrama (the art of listening to David Bowie)

If you had no choice but to choose one David Bowie album to ever hear again, what would it be?
Today, for me, it’s Diamond Dogs. I think if I really had to choose, it would remain Diamond Dogs – it has exactly the right amount of sex and melodrama for me. Story telling at its best.
Today I put it on, skip the first 2 tracks and head straight into Sweet Thing. Sweet Thing, with the volume up high, very high (micro systems be gone – give me speakers as tall as me every time!) and let it surround you, wash over you – his vocal range is crisp, clear and sexy. It invites me in, it has captured me and I fall in willingly.
It is the perfect amount of melodrama.
Volume down a bit for Rebel Rebel – top up the coffee.
Then, fall in love again with Rock’N’Roll With Me (is that chocolate in my mouth?). Medium volume – enough for consumption.
We Are The Dead – fabulous language.
Then, onto 1984 – ahead of his time (just as Orwell was), funky and straight out of a movie made sometime in the future.
Ending up with Big Brother & Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family that pushes me away leaves me somewhere else, nowhere.
So, time for lunch and the next CD begins – Strange Angels by Laurie Anderson. Sigh, think I’ll keep that to myself for a while.

Ich verstehe nur Banhnhof

that's all i have to say about the first night of German class.
it's really difficult.
Ja, ja, I am sure all will be ok.
time to sleep on it.

Missing Nick Cave when he's playing up the road? - time to flagellate

AND!!! how on earth did I miss out that Nick Cave is playing within walking distance of home this weekend?!!! Think that’s something to do with the very silly amount of day-job work I’ve had – I haven’t even been to Newtown for 3 weeks except last Sunday for late lunch where I was so wired from such a fullon week at work last week (with 22 hours overtime included) that I kept my sunglasses on the whole time in the cafe, lest anyone see my crazy eyes.
At least AH and I will not miss Laurie Anderson's new show, Homeland. Phew.
But Nick Cave... I hear the only tickets available are for Monday night... when we’ll be down at the Opera House getting the LA hit.
That’s another internet hiccup – I saw his face on the webpage of the SMH, I think, maybe MSN after checking my hotmail ac, with a title that said something like: from heroin to hero. I thought, oh yeah, some righteous shit or one of those 'filler' articles but it was probably about his tour. Damn. Rats and Drats.
There is only one thing I can think of to make me better about it. I am telling myself, “at least you didn’t miss out on Patti Smith!”
Best I zip over to her page to see what her tour plans are...