Dedication; Gustavo Pérez Firmat
from I Eat Poetry

The fact that I
am writing to you
in English
already falsifies what I
wanted to tell you.
My subject:
how to explain to you that I
don't belong to English
though I belong nowhere else.

The topic for this week is: Not belonging.

from gloom cupboard

Robert Laughlin
Free

There still remain for you and me,
Though all the world exploit us,
Two purest pleasures without fee:
The library and coitus.

omlette

One of the best bloggers on the interwebs is Pip Lincolne. She posts so many sweet things I can barely keep up. Cute websites full of owl pictures and other bits of niceness, like this meme thing. I don't even care that everyone loves/knows her blog. I am just reblogging on the offchance that some "random" people who RSS to my blog (in the ideal/fantasy land that I live in I have secret people who subscribe to my blog) will see/read this post and go to her blog and henceforth enjoy all the loveliness that is Meet Me At Mikes.

And here's the stuff that I am doing

Making : eyes at the television
Cooking : nothing
Drinking : watre
Reading: a book about writers and their lovers/a lot of stuff on google reader
Wanting: this chair to be more comfortable
Looking: at the news
Playing: with my empty mousse thingo
Wasting: time!
Sewing: does knitting count ?
Wishing: that there was more mousse
Enjoying: making funnies behind Jason's back
Waiting: for people
Liking: express media buzzcuts programme for letting me in!!
Wondering: about the power of towers
Loving: my sister's art friends/hayley & amanda's exhibition opening (stay tuned to kym's blog for pictures!!)
Hoping: that I will create some decent ads for this stupid assignment
Marvelling: at the stupidity of Kyle Sandilands
Needing: another cushion for this couch
Smelling: there's still a waft of kebab scent in the lounge
Wearing: large flowery retrostar dress
Following: well I guess I'm now following that owl picture website
Noticing: that everyone is getting into tumblr. what's the deal?
Knowing: it's bedtime soon
Thinking: my bum hurts
Feeling: my sore bum
Bookmarking: owl pictures
Opening: up a can o worms
Giggling: about mousse related things
Feeling: like I wanna go see Taking Woodstock. Emile Hirsch + Dimitri Martin!!

appreciation!

Wooden objects post time.

I recently acquired a lot of hard rubbish, the most of which is wooden, but I kinda have a few little things around that I love a lot more. Also there are fairly obvious things like musical instruments that I adore (piano & oboe obviously) but I think it's nice to talk about small things sometimes. I also just ran around taking dumb pictures of the things on my phone because there aren't enough pictures on this blog for my liking.

So these are matryoshka dolls that my friend Natasha (the Russian) gave me for my birthday last year. the big one has things hidden inside her. Tasha said her mum made her bring them when she moved here so she could give presents to friends. Lucky meeeeee!

This round box here used to be home to yummy turkish delight that my aunt bought me for Christmas when I was staying with her in this little village in England. Neat. And it wasn't the chocolate covered kind - although that kind is yummy too - but the proper .. icing sugar? coated type. Now it is home to badges and other miscellaneous things (like a key from Stacey that reportedly fits nowhere)



This is Jacki's hairbrush. Last Christmas I asked for a hairbrush and I wanted one like this but I got a crappy plastic round one. Jacki didn't even bloody ask for one and she received this beautiful one. Little bitch! So I kinda just use this when she's not looking.

Wooden Things - Stace

Susie says: "let's do a blog post about our favourite wooden objects. up to three things. they don't have to be completely wooden, just mostly woooden."

I'm not sure if the three o's in wooden was a typo or if Susie was just really excited about the whole idea. Basically, I have one wooden thing that I like that I can think of.

That is my record player. It was a gift from my ex-boyfriend. On the lid it has messages from my two best friends and said ex-boyfriend riding on a dragon. Sam, my sig. other, drew a speech bubble connected to said ex saying "I'm fast at sex!" due to his dislike of him.

Apart from the scandal that takes place on the lid, the record player is quite lovely. It also has a CD player, a tape player and a radio player.

Sitting dormant in my record player, is a shiny black vinyl record which states "Townes Van Zandt. Live At The Old Quarter, Houston, TX."

It is relaxing for me to sit in bed and listen to a record; a far better experience than listening to music through the speakers of my laptop. No, this is the real listening experience. The physical, grittiness of the needle running through those grooves, over and over, around and around. Until the needle lays still.

which way to

6 things that make me happy.

The rules:
Link back to the person who tagged you.
List six little things that make you happy.
Tag six bloggers and let them know they’re “it”.

1. working at union arts

2. beautiful bookstores (even though they are usually really expensive)

3. getting to sing songs (and play music) really loud when you're home alone

4. hanging around in the uni caf for hours after classes have finished (talking about very little at all with really good people)

5. wandering around Hawthorn on nice days (it's a pretty place to live)

6. toast (noodles also really, but for the sake of sixness, toast wins) with avocado

Nobody is tagging real people & I don't think I have six people who read this blog regularly so I guess if you read this, please do (apart from Stacey, who already did hers)
oh and Chelsea from the really awesome band Teacups started the whole thing

Colours
Yevgeny Yevtuschenko

When your face
appeared over my crumpled life
at first I understood
only the poverty of what I have.
Then its particular light
on woods, on rivers, on the sea,
became my beginning in the coloured world
in which I had not yet had my beginning.
I am so frightened, I am so frightened,
of the unexpected sunrise finishing,
of revelations
and tears and the excitement finishing.
I don't fight it, my love is this fear,
I nourish it who can nourish nothing,
love's slipshod watchman.
Fear hems me in.
I am conscious that these minutes are short
and that the colours in my eyes will vanish
when your face sets.


The wind is whistling violently through the cracks in the door. It is quite alarming.

- Stace

ending, this week

This poem is from a website called Gloom Cupboard.

Lindsea Kemp
Ending, this week

This week has been nothing but endings.
Sticky endings, pulled apart with little
mucus ropes hanging together.
Clean endings, one schwap
of the axe and cut.
Mixed up endings, where
goodbye sounds like hello coming
from a pair of red Rocky Horror lips
that you later find out
is your sphincter.

This week I realized I am dying.
And for some reason all I want
is a hamburger, greasy.
I want to shove the thin
ground beef patty into my
open mouth. Squeeze a couple
ketchup covered fries in.
Suck frantically at the straw of my Coke
like it is life’s elixir.
My hands are covered
in grease, and I have a
funny feeling my soul is drenched.
Smeared shiny and sticky, I roll
in Hiroshima ash and curl.
I am a sugar covered donut.

This week I haven’t showered,
only spun in my own
fevered nightmares, my sweaty
sheets heavy as a lecher’s kiss—
an executioner’s axe—
the 1.65 ounces of metal
that it takes to put a bullet through
another human’s head.

This week I found the fear of death
hidden behind my puckering
navel. It was hard to find, because
it’s fear of life’s conjoined, bloody fetus.
So ugly, but I can’t turn my Oreo eyes
away. They’re now shrink wrapped and
labeled for resale ease.



This week I knew everything.
The first kiss of a dying couple, Osama Bin Laden’s underwear brand, your mother, the white and yellow Rx bottle used as a teddy bear, the space between the boot and the landmine, the dash in between the dates on the gravestone, a cheap hooker’s retarded brother, the wind on an Ugandan’s face, multiple orgasms, a dying pigeon’s final breath ignored, empty buses, cloudy sunsets, chewed bubble gum, the reason you need to pray.

It’s commonplace, really.
I am nothing. I am everything. I am ending.

Since Susie was blogging about Melbourne, I’d though I’d say a bit about the city I live in, Auckland.

I have lived in Auckland my whole life and feel quite at home here. I know all of the nooks and crannies of this city and it brings me great joy. Some places in particular that I like are:

- The Laingholm, Titirangi area. It is close to where I grew up though it is not too far out of the city to make you feel out of touch with humanity. It is a peaceful place nestled away in the bush, it has an arty sort of feel and the people are so lovely.

- West coast beaches such as Piha, Murawai, Bethells. These beaches are perhaps half an hour drive from civilization but they are quite beautiful. To me, they are what all beaches should be; the booming waves, idyllic surroundings, BLACK sand – all the things that I grew up with.

- K Rd (aka Karangahape Road). I suppose you could call in the cultural centre of Auckland, strangely enough, it is also our red light district. As I now live just off K rd, I am quite used to the medley of strange characters that dwell on the road; the raving lunatics, the homeless, the drunks, the transvestites, the prostitutes and the hipsters. Mostly they keep to themselves. There are a wide variety of op shops, art galleries and cafes – everything a hipster needs.

- Waiheke Island. To get here, you catch a ferry from downtown Auckland; this will take you 30 minutes. The island is actually quite vast; but there are the few popular places that people mostly go to. Whenever I go there, I feel such a wonderful sense of community and it is a very arty community at that. Known for its vineyards and quiet beaches, it is really the ideal place for me.

night creatures

yesterday I escorted a good friend to a meeting at Lucky Coq. While she attended this meeting of hers I killed time by investigating some sweet as stores on the upper (?) end of Chapel street. The non-club end. I never go out on Chapel Street because it is always way too done up for me and you pretty much always get groped, no matter what you do, say or look like.

Melbourne is quite fantastic. If you forgot or don't even know, here are a few reasons why.

-Lucky Coq in Prahan (and Bimbo's in Collingwood/Fitzroy or whatever - it's on Brunswick st) has $4 pizzas at very accessible hours and they are motherfucking tasty as all hell. I had one that is basically nachos on pizza. I felt that I needed to give it a try. They also have decently gourmet ones featuring the likes of salmon and proscuitto and various cheeses.

-abundance of quirky stores in unexpected places. Chapel street for me is mostly full of icky, glitzy expensive places that I will never buy anything from (see: American Apparel, Ed Hardy, various boutiquey places etc). But if you get off at Windsor train station and walk down towards the main bit from there you go past all these really sweet op shops. I think that if it was just slightly bigger, my new favourite op shop would be Fat Helen's. In terms of price I'd put it lower than Retrostar but higher than Savers. We're talking Lost and Found Market prices. They had a fairly good stash of Sega games and swizzle sticks. Oh and Tintin tshirts ($22, fyi). I also went into this really cool store full of antique furniture. It fell into the category of stores that I will never buy anything from, but it was epicly awesome. The kind of place you wander around quite utterly awestruck. There is also a Very Good bookstore pretty much right across from the train station that, when Shu Shu and I entered it, was home to three cats that clearly owned the place. cats just give everything a real good feeling.

-the train system. I know heaps of people don't really get into Connex in a big way, but I personally have always enjoyed the sensation of being driven somewhere. I get into train journeys. I particularly like the way the city looks when you approach it from a south eastern direction; from Prahan way. You feel a bit lower, a bit less important, and Melbourne seems quite grand and slightly imposing. Plus me and Shu Shu saw a real big dog on the way back to the city (see: picture above)

-general bars/restaurants/cafes. I wish I was wealthy enough to always dine out or be out in general. I passed a lot of warm places up that end of Chapel street.

Hey anyway, I love this city. I guess I wanted to tell everyone about it instead of thinking about some other things that are happening inside me.

what? dirty projectors?

I just decided that I really want to blog more and kinda want to post blogs here at my own whim. I also just got a new layout.. maybe a bit pointless because everyone just RSSs these days.. but it's pretty and it came from this really cool girl (I think it's a girl?) over at yummy lolly. I'm pleased to inform ya'll that the layout - indeed all her layouts - are under a Creative Commons license so they're free and I encourage you to download one for your own use because they are really pretty! Just see mine for details.

I want to tell you a little bit of a story about blog-sploration before I go. When you check your Google reader every day it becomes really boring to have only a few things to read.. so I took it upon myself to add more blogs to my library. I actually was googling the Lost and Found Market in Collingwood to check if their website had been updated to something more than the postcard they hand out when you buy something and no they have not. But I had noticed that some girl's blog came up when I googled the market soooo I went there and found it to have a really good list of local blogs that she reads. I encourage a perusal of this list if you live in Melbourne (by you I mean imaginary compendium of blog readers). From there I got Meet me at Mike's, who have this really cool layout that reminds me of these books that I used to have as a child.. THERE, on her website, she suggests you look at this website along with a lot of other handy hints for awesome blog cultivation. SO THEN I GOOGLED FREE BLOG DESIGNS & THAT'S HOW I FOUND YUMMY LOLLY AND NOW I HAVE A PRETTY LAYOUT.

Incidentally, at the same time I was researching gigs in Melbourne (I don't know why; I'm not even there at the moment) on Faster Louder and then went to this other website which is like a general guide to all that is awesome in Melbourne WHERE I FOUND this sorta.. event suggestion thing that was *we are now approaching the actual incident, the purpose of this rant.. purpose???* mentioned at work the other week. Basically, it's like this exhibition of illustrations or paintings or whatever the hell they are and there's this tattooist in the corner who will give you free tatts of his designs! And this is happening tomorrow the 11th of July and next Saturday the 18th. I would like to go for interest's sake (plus I want a tattoo and getting one for free would be fairly awesome) and to see how many people show up to get themselves tattooed!! And so I have subscribed to the RSS feed of this neat website which is actually called Three Thousand - OMG I JUST REALISED THAT IS REALLY CLEVER BECAUSE IT IS THE POSTCODE OF THE CBD!!!

And that is probably enough general commentary about my travels on the interwebs because I could probably be watching something really awesome like Juvies on telly.

My festival would be at my mum's farm, Redrock, near the Grampians (in Victoria) because it is beautiful there and there would be no sort of venue hiring fee. People may drive to and from the event, but cars are not to be utilised during the festival. Also there's Vline, and there would be special buses taking punters from Horsham to Redrock.

One weekend; one stage.

The Parking Lot Experiments
Great Earthquake
yay local bands of complete win and whimsy

Tinpan Orange
chilled out awesome storytelling folk

Croque Monsieur
gypsy folk insanity for dance fun

Teacups
I must see these girls play

John Darnielle & Owen Pallet
uniting to create the superband Mountain Fantasy

Dan Deacon
cos apparently he puts on quite the show?

Laura Marling
Noah & the Whale
Bridezilla

Jens Lekman
oh jensy jens

Lonely Drifter Karen
German cabaret ftw

There'd also be like artist stalls from Wartook & Natimuk - small local towns full of arty/crafty folk

For food.. I'll kidnap a representative from Lazzat's (tasty Malaysian foodz), someone from 'Dirty' Dumplings, get the Dadswell's Bridge Indian Restaurant to have their stall, there will be a jam donut lady, a baked potato person and a stall bearing wares from Cafe Baghdad (general cafe goods of awesome quality).

Toilet/bathroom facilities would be those weird sawdust contraptions they had at falls. So like NOT port-a-loos. There's still TP though, and toilet seats. And I don't feel there's a particular need for shower facilities seeing how it's only for one night.

Channelling the goodness of Golden Plains, there would be somewhere in the realm of 2500-4000 tickets sold (hopefully)

Actually I just realised that this is all very Wimmera-centric. I guess maybe most festivals begin like that..? you want to showcase bands that are really dear to you, a place that is beautiful.. just the kind of thing you want to share with your friends.

My festival would be at Tapapakanga Regional Park just out of Auckland city. I've been to a festival there and it is really beautiful. It is right beside the ocean and it has a really nice space, not overly huge so it would just be a smallish festival. But honestly, festivals in NZ are so wonderful because they are not so big and overcrowded. The festival will be two days long and there is a camping site just a small hike up the hill from where the stages are. Honestly, the only thing for these types of affairs are Port-o-Loos and they are disgusting but also part of the experience. They would, however, be cleaned regularly. There would be a lot of vegetarian, organic food stalls; but also the normal stuff like burgers, pizza, icecream, breakfast food, café food etc. In terms of other activities/events, there would be clothes and crafts stalls, book stalls and crafty things.

The bands I would invite are:

Sigur Ros, Owen, The Mountain Goats, Teacups, Songs: Ohia, Broken Social Scene, Sufjan Stevens, Tegan and Sara, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, Scout Niblett, Leader Cheetah, Kimya Dawson, Kaki King, Joanna Newsom, Jens Lekman, Iron and Wine, Emiliana Torrini, Elvis Perkins, Cat Power, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Belle and Sebastian, Beach House, Arcade Fire, Band of Horses, Andrew Bird.

I also want to invite comedians such as:

Flight of The Conchords, Eugene Mirman, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Demetri Martin, David O’Doherty, Ricky Gervais, Zach Galifianakis.

It would pretty much be awesome.

-Stace

the best you ever had

NEW TOPIC: festival curation!!!

If you could organise a music festival

- where would it be? (consider transport to and from venue, also possible buses to local towns during the festival if it is a longun)

- what bands would you invite? (this can be as realistic or unrealistic as you want)

- how many days?

- how many stages/tents

- what food stalls?

- any other activities/events?

- what type of toilet/bathroom facilities? (cause that's a pretty important part of things, obviously)

- around how many tickets would you sell?

aaand that's about all I think for now. Deadline... before Monday the 6th of July

red wine

Saturday morning.
Wake up
Try to work out why I am awake
Realise that it's because I have left my blinds open
Sit up
Check the time
Not the right time to be awake
clothes on the ground
unceremoniously thrown off
stumble to the bathroom
Check the damage
Through blurry eyes
have I been in a fight?
my mouth looks bloody
or like an anti-smoking ad
Because
Before the un-ceremony
Before stumbling into bed
Leaving the blinds open
I drank
and I drank.

blood red wine

fingers clasp the glass stem

liquid swirls as i sway

to music, so

visceral and necessary.

empty glass -

stained lips.

-Stace

Susan, I have devised a new topic: Red wine.

I am currently drinking a glass.

It was $6.99.

Must be written by the end of the weekend.

Egg

I was sitting here thinking about what on earth I could write about eggs. Then I thought, well, a wise man once said that if you can't write about eggs, write about how you can't write about eggs. Or something.. At first I thought of the physical appearance, unbroken: smooth, brown and fragile, broken: liquid, clear and gooey, cooked: yellow and white. Then on TV, Bender was making a cake with eggs. Then I remembered that Sam made eggs for breakfast. There was this whole new egg world that I was suddenly taking notice off. Funny how we only see things when we are looking for them.

From what I gather there is no strict criteria about the way in which we express a topic, let me know if this is kosher.

-Stace

egg1

It must be a

long train ride

for the woman

peeling a hard boiled egg

one one one

hi everyone.

this blog is going to come back with a vengence (I hope)

Stacey Teague and I will be maintaining this blog across the (Tasman? I never know which one is the one between NZ and Aus) sea. 

said she: I was thinking that we should start some sort of writing exercise thing just between us. Like choose a topic and we both have to write about it, whether it’s prose, poetry or just opinion. Let me know if you’re interested.

said I: Onto your idea. I think that’s a good idea! I reckon it should somehow be separate from our emails. Do you have a google account? If you do, I can set you up as a contributor on my blogspot and we can post our responses there maybe? I think that’s possible. I mean I know we both hate blogspot, but it’s essentially a blank canvas as I rarely use it these days. How would we choose topics?

and um here we are.

Topic of the day: eggs

deadline: 5pm Aus time

stupid things that Susie only just realised recently: Katy and Luke Steele are related! & The opening line of Girl in Port is "let fall your soft and swaying skirts" NOT "look for your soft and swaying skirts"

horrid thing seen on the way home from work: an old man hosing a possum in a tree

favourite moment of Thursday: hearing Olsen Olsen as I walked past Polyester

anyway, let the egg-tries commence!