Moment to Moment

There is nothing good on the TV on a Tuesday night

I really need to invest in a PVR -- last night I went to Nicole's house for some knitting and dinner and we watched Grey's Anatomy, which I enjoy only because of Sandra Oh and the fact that it's not about forensic investigators, but I missed the Four Corners report on global warming and Media Watch. As an aside, I now work for a publication which was slammed by Media Watch last year, which makes me happy in some indefinable and possibly very stupid way. Like I am a real journo. I doubt that actually being on Media Watch would have the same effect. The point of all this is that if I had a PVR, I could just timeshift Four Corners and watch it at my Nanna-like leisure.

As I have no PVR -- nor operational VCR -- and hence I am stuck with what is on free-to-air, tonight I am surfing the 'Net and downloading mashups, my new bandwidth sucking hobby. I blame Laura. I had idly clicked on the link from her site which leads to Arty Fufkin Presents but never downloaded anything for some reason. Then the other day I was finishing a freelance story and to keep myself amused while doing a final proof I finally listened to some of his bootlegs. They were amazing.

I especially like the Lily Allen and Air mashup -- it works brilliantly and I think it's so much better than the original version of Smile, which I find a little grating. It really astonishes me that two disparate songs can be welded together so neatly -- listening to some of these mashups, you can't imagine them being done any other way.

I have since downloaded some awesome choons from DJ Moule -- don't miss Ta Douleur in a Field, which brilliantly overlays Camille's vocals with the Prodigy -- and DJ Earworm. I really like Brazil is Full of Love from DJ Earworm, and it fits in with my current obsession with ambient electronica: Mum (with an accent over the U of course), Sigur Ros (more accents) and the Boards of Canada especially. If you have any recommendations for further sites, let me know.

I know the whole mashup phenomenon is several years old and this post proves I am the slowest person on teh Internets. And what is this MySpace of which you speak? Nonetheless, this stuff is so cool.

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Postscript: I am not, however, the slowest person in teh whole word because I was playing some of the mashups to the hip young gals I work with at the cafe and they HAD NO IDEA what I was talking about. They liked what I played and I have subsequently been creating mix CDs for them all. This makes me feel somewhat less aged and unhip, though when I put the Johnny Cash cover of Hurt onto the cafe sound system I was the recipient of some horrified glances. Just for your information, we're allowed to commandeer the work sound system after we close: otherwise, it's all Michael ****ing Buble and Norah ****ing Jones, which is enough to drive you batty if the customers hadn't already.

Friday Photography (or Beware the two-headed cygnet!)

I took these photos the other day when Miss J and I went for a walk around Lake Monger in Leederville.

Beware the two-headed cygnet! (Title kindly provided by Nicole.)

You'd look a bit worried too if a large brown GSP was eyeing you in a hungry manner.

Before I get hatemail, the dog was on a leash and firmly held, and I would never let her harass the wildlife, especially not the cute widdle swanlets. Maybe the seagulls, but never the swanlets.

You're not leaving until you've eaten all your worms.

Terribly cliched photo of a black swan. Yawn. But the water is so pretty, and it was sunset, and I just couldn't help myself.

*Warning: boring camera talk ahead*

Anyway, last night I was chatting with my friend A., who is a great photographer and very knowledgable about matters technical as well. She advised me to wait for Nikon to release the D80 before I commit myself to anything. Which isn't a bad idea. (And ten megapixels! Dude! I'll definitely need to get a back-up drive for the computer if I get one of these babies. And a new job to pay for it all. But anyway.)

So I've decided to go with plan B. That is, buy a 50mm lens for my 11-year old Nikon F70 and spend some money on either photography classes or some good how-to books. So sensible. So boring. But really it is worth investing in a good camera that'll see me through several years, rather than rushing in now and maybe getting something not as good just because I'm impatient. Yeah. Just not as immediately satisfying.

Frabjous day

Yesterday I received a cheque for a substantial amount of money. Hooray! Sometimes freelancing does pay off. So today I am going to go and deposit the cheque in my bank account and find myself a copy of The Vivisector in preparation for the Patrick White Readers' Group.

What better way to spend a somewhat overcast Wednesday when all of one's friends are at work.

More on the job front

It's a bad sign when you try to send in a job application (due today, 3:30) and it keeps bouncing back with an error message saying "The user(s) account is temporarily over quota".

It's an even worse sign when you ring to see if there's another address you can email it to and the voice at the other end  assures you to "keep trying, it's just that we're getting so many applications!".

14 attempts and still going.

Today's question for the wise masses

How does one prove one has "well-developed problem solving skills"? The context is a job application, and my mind is a blank. Which I guess is a problem that needs solving, though I'm not sure 'begging strangers on teh interwebs for help' is a really good solution.

Reasons Why My Subconscious Sucks

Last night I had a dream I went for a job interview at the ABC. I was interviewed by a very smart older woman in a suit, with immaculate shiny hair and a beautiful white smile. I felt excited and happy because I knew the interview would go well, and it did: I dazzled the woman with my wit, charm, and intelligence.

Finally, at the end of the interview, she sat back in her Aeron chair. "Congratulations," she said. I beamed. It had finally happened. After six months of struggling, I had a real, exciting, meaningful job.

"You're the ABC's new cake polisher*," she continued. "You report to the canteen at 8am tomorrow and start polishing the cakes."

Feeling dazed and disappointed, I got up and she led me out of the building. "It's a good place to work despite all the suits," she said, and I realised she wasn't wearing a tailored outfit at all, but a pair of blue overalls. I could now see her badge said 'Head Polisher'. All around us people in suits were going up and down escalators, looking busy and important and well-paid.

"Sometimes you'll need to help the cleaners too** when it gets busy," she added, and then shook my hand. I wandered away, dazed, into the lobby of the ABC's Ultimo Complex***, contemplating my future as a cake polisher.****

And then I woke up.

...

*No, I don't know what this job entailed, or why they needed a cake polisher.

**Yeah I have bad dreams about being ordered to help the cleaners. Is this classist or what?

*** Which is a big open glass area you can look right in when you wander past, which is all I've ever done.

**** Even in the dream I was pretty unhappy about this, but I remember thinking, oh, maybe someone in charge of hiring will see me and be so impressed by my cake polishing that they'll offer me a job as journalist.

For your reflection on this fine weekend

Why does a magazine article purportedly celebrating the 'new curvy' sex symbol of Hollywood illustrate it with a picture of a pig? In heels?

Check out this porker, for instance:

I'm not going to mention the little photo of Miss Piggy included in the photo montage with that story, or the fact that the story is called 'Why Fat is Back in Hollywood', nor the fact that the lede calls women like Monica Belluci the 'sexiest plate-scrapers ever', nor the use of the word bodacious in the copy.

More at Salon and Feministe.

And yes, I know there is exciting, important stuff going on, like the Jack Thomas acquittal and War in the Middle East, but this was just jaw-droppingly stupid that I couldn't go past it. It's a textbook case for Feminist Critique of Pop Culture 101.

A year and a bit

Last night Miss J and I went to the beach and it was good, even if there were great piles of stinky seaweed everywhere, dumped from the storms earlier in the week.

Jasper had a good time, as always, though she showed wilful disregard of Council Regulations by chasing the ball beyond this very insistent notice. Bad dog. And I swear I didn't throw the ball past the sign just so I could take this photo.

More pics from the afternoon. Click on the thumbnails to check them out at Flickr:

As an aside, it was the one year anniversary of this blog last week. To celebrate the day, I ate a biscuit from the cafe and didn't write a blogpost. Typical really.

So what now for Casa del Momento? I have no idea. I consider it quite remarkable that I've stuck at this blogging caper as long as I have.

However, for the last few months I've found blogging to be a real chore -- as I suppose is obvious from the posts -- but I don't want to stop doing it, because it is important to me, and the community (as tentative as it can be, at times) is also a wonderful thing. Life goes on, sometimes it's hard to find the time to sit down here and write something, anything; but it's hard to do anything worthwhile and I do think this is worthwhile. Why? How? I don't know -- it just is.

Anyway, today is my first full day off  for about a month, and it's gorgeous outside, so I'm going to enjoy it.

Mirror, mirror

Hey look! My picture made it into the Mirror Project, which is a very cool website created by the very cool Heather Champ in the US. I submitted it a while ago and so I was very surprised when I received an email about it.

In matters photographic, I am trying to decide whether or not I should buy myself a Nikon D50. I have some money coming in shortly and the sensible course of action would be to put it in my savings account and pay some bills and see if I have a tax bill and so on.

The unsensible course of action would be to spend some of it on a Nikon D50 and a sexy lens of some sort, possibly a nice fast 50mm. Option three, the COMPROMISE, is to buy the nice fast 50mm for my film camera and wait until I've got a proper job to splash on a  Nikon DSLR then, which is  the course of action I've been employing for a few months now.

I bought the Lumix as a bit of a filler camera, and its limitations have become more apparent to me as time goes by. I still like it, but I'm hankering for something with 1600 ISO and interchangeable lenses.

I feel a bit stalled with my photography right now -- I haven't taken any decent shots for ages. I'd love to do some more classes just to give me a bit of a kick, but I haven't seen anything in Perth that really seems suitable.

Perhaps I just need to try to be more motivated, but sometimes it's very helpful to do a class, hang around with one's peers, and hear the wisdom of the elders. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

Bonus picture: me and the puppy in February of 2005, when Jasper was a mere three months old, and I had a very bad dye job.

Book meme

It's so nice today to not have any deadlines pressing down on me.  The last fortnight was a blur of deadlines, which I (mostly) met, as well as picking up heaps of extra shifts at the cafe and finally sorting out what was wrong with my knee.

Today I had physio for the offending joint, and I helped out the Spice Magazine team with a bit of last minute proofing, but beyond that the only things I have to do this week are work at the cafe and... nothing. I've got more deadlines coming up soon, but I'm not starting anything until next week. I am going to do the exercise the physio wants me to, as well as knit, and read, and be a lazy damn slob.

In the spirit of said enjoyable endeavours, here's a book meme courtesy of Susoz.

1. One book you have read more than once

I've read lots of books more than once, so it's hard to narrow it down to one, because if I enjoy a novel once I especially enjoy re-reading it. However,  Pride and Prejudice is one book that I can return to again and again -- everytime I read it I find something new to enjoy.

2. One book you would want on a desert island

Only one? It'd better be a thick one then, and possibly something very worthy and consuming. Or perhaps one with wide margins so one could sketch notes in it, like 'today ate coconuts again' and 'that f***ing parrot is REALLY GETTING ON MY NERVES' and 'today ate parrot and coconut soup'.

How about the complete works of Shakespeare? Laff all you want at my predictability but I have actually got a CWOS on my shelves, so I'm not just plucking that out of my behind. Otherwise I guess I'd like a handbook on how to survive on a desert island, or maybe even the bible, which is quite the read, or so I've heard.

My favourite Shakespearian play, as an aside, is The Tempest, because it is a bit of an oddity -- not quite romance, not quite tragedy, but lyrical, beautiful and haunting.

3. One book that made you laugh

Anything by Terry Pratchett perhaps? I should pick my favourite Pterry, which would be Monstrous Regiment. Hilarious and also deeply serious. Honorable mention must go to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel by Susannah Clarke, which was also quite serious, but very amusing.

4. One book that made you cry

I get teary at the drop of a hat, so again it's hard to narrow this down. I even cried at the end of Terminator 2 when Ahhnuld gets burnt to a crisp. True story.

Recently I read Possession by A.S. Byatt and I cried at the circumstances that separated Christabel and Ash, especially the dead child, and the terrible scene with the clairvoyant.

5. One book you wish you had written

As someone with a bit of an itch to be a writer, perhaps one day I actually will write the book I wish to write. So I suppose this question is more about a book that makes you ache with loving it so much, a book that you truly admire, a book you can lose or find yourself within.

For me, that book is Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje. It is a family history and the history of a country and the portrait of a man, and it has gorgeous poetry and incredible moments of clarity and beauty and humour and pathos and the whole human condition, really. The way Sri Lanka is described, affectionately and nostalgically, makes me want to buy a ticket and go there now -- only I also know that it wouldn't be like the book, and I'd be so disappointed. My copy of this book is all scuffed and dogeared from repeated readings and lendings.

6. One book you wish had never been written

The Da Vinci Code? Any number of shitty sci-fi and fantasy novels, which seem to choke out the good and thoughtful sci-fi and fantasy? The Paris Hilton biography? A book I read a while ago which I felt really angry at was Vernon God Little. Just awful. A waste of several good hours of my life.

7. One book you are currently reading

This is a bit embarressing, but I'm going to be truthful, and say I am currently reading Feeling Good by David Burns (MD!). I'm not really a self-help book type of person -- I tend to think literature itself is quite improving -- but as I've alluded to here I've been struggling a little bit with my moods, and this book was recommended to me as being helpful. 

It is based around  Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (with a slightly cheesy American accent). The basic premise of it all is that your thoughts dictate your moods, and if you can correct distorted thinking you can relieve the symptoms of depression. I was a tad embarrassed when I bought it, because I'd normally never be caught dead buying something from the same section as 'Who Moved My Seven Habits of Highly Successful Lateral Thinkers'  but I do think it has some useful points and exercises.

8. One book you have been meaning to read

The pile of books I am meaning to read is just getting higher and higher. I recently bought In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, so I suppose that's the most recent one.  I've also got The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami Haruki by the bed, and beside the couch is The White Earth by Andrew McGahan, Eucalyptus by Murray Bail, and The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. I think there are more scattered about the house too but I can't remember them all. I know it's more than one.

9. One book that changed your life

Probably Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. It's such a powerful story about human relationships, good and evil, moral and cultural relativism, and so on. And really very well written too, with a strong feminist slant but not dictatorial. The little postcript at the end is so very Atwood too, undermining the story and reminding us that not all narrators are reliable and that history, and culture, are very good at distancing us from human suffering.

10. Now tag five people:

Duckie, who is always good for a meme.
Tigtog, whose answers I am very interested to read.
Thirdcat, who has recently changed the name of her blog.
Elsewhere, who is travelling to far-flung and exotic locales and so might be thinking about reading, as we all do when we travel.
And Cristy, who tagged me with a meme ages ago that I'd already done, so this meme can be in lieu of that one.

Edited to add: Tigtog has done the meme so I'm going to tag... oh, anyone who'd like to do it, really.