Dinosaur Art

Me and Ben Rosamund are making a dinosaur poetry chapbook, to be released in June/July. We are looking for people to contribute dinosaur-related art. Could be fun right? No real restrictions, just has to be dinosaur related. Deadline in May 1.

Email me staceteague@gmail.com

day in review: march 29: my birthday

I wake at 6.45am. I think something like "fwwhafkjarrrrrrrrrrghhhgrkjnthfuuuckrgnkjngr, oh yeah it's my birthday". I have a shower and make my breakfast (cup of tea and toast (one peanut butter, one jam on vogels) - is bracket in bracket even allowed??). I check my internet for about 15 minutes before I have to walk to work. The walk to work is nice and I see lots of cats and stuff. It takes me 20 minutes to walk to work. I arrive at work and my colleague Mel is there. Hi Mel (I probably said). I work at a bird rescue so I do lots of bird stuff. Cleaning, yeah, a lot of that. Get bitten by some birds. It's not a big deal. At 10.30 we stop for morning tea. I mention it is my birthday and everybody tells me they wish they were 22 again. Cue nostalgia. I have an apple muffin and a really strong coffee. My boss has 4 dogs and I like playing with them on my break. I do more bird stuff. Work is really busy today. I leave at about 1.45, even though I am supposed to finish at 1. This pretty much always happens. Just too nice. Man. I walk back to my house and heat up leftover curry for lunch. I have another shower. My sister comes over, and she gives me her old ps1, sweet, I thought, I can play Crash Bandicoot and Spyro. Then she drops me at my bus stop and I catch the bus into the city. On the bus I txt Susie: "Listening to Moon Pix version of Metal Heart. Nearly crying of happiness." I honestly nearly was. So emoshunal. I go into town and treated myself to one of my favourite pass times, book shopping. I didn't buy anything though, because I had to go meet my flat mate, Hannah. We walked around a bit and went into some op shops. Then we went to Grey Lynn Foodtown: the epicenter of babes, or, where Auckland hipsters go to get various food items. We bought red red wine and stuff to make quasadillas. We made ours with beans, tofu and courgettes. Probably the best thing ever cooked ever. We listened to music and talked and drank wine. It was nice (photo evidence below). Then I skyped with Susie. I serenaded her with a Dido song. Then I did various things on the internet. You know how it is. Now I am writing this. I will probably go to sleep in about 15 minutes. Yeah. I am 22 today. Good night.

RELATED MEDIA

this reminds me of opening pages of 'person' by sam pink

Sometimes I wonder about what happens if you witness a decently troubling crime. Nothing overly traumatic. Possibly not death. Maybe death. Like, this.

One of those douchebags who whistles at you from his truck/car instead of looking at the [motherfucking] road runs his vehicle into this bus stop, bench and a bin on the corner of the street and he breaks his arm due to it hanging over the side of the door. He is also impaled through the head by a sharp pole type object that wasn't tied down properly in the back. [lecherous males lack work safety scruples]. But this happened 20 seconds after the leering incident. You come over the hill on the road just in time to see it happening, a little ways ahead.

Are you a witness? Do you feature at all in the investigation of the police? Or are you just the passerby that the news interviews for a brief shocking eyewitness account of the "tragedy" - 'it happened so quickly' etc. Obviously, it is bad, this guy had family, but your only memory of him is that he was a salivating moron.

I often envision such freak accidents. It seems like things are just as likely to go wrong as they are to go right. Do people do this? Think of the worst possible thing that could happen and - when it doesn't happen - try to detach your reality from the scariness of tragedy, strengthen your fast-cementing sense of [though rationally nonexistent] invincibility.

50

i want a boy to keep me warm for winter
i get so cold
otherwise i would have to sleep
with two hot water bottles
one by my feet and one by my stomach
and instead of having to boil the jug
and fill up the water bottles every night
i would just have a real live person
which would be easier in the short term

although i want a boy to keep me warm for winter
i do not need a boy to keep me warm for winter
this is important

now
lay with me

i want your whole body to learn
my whole body

long love poem with descriptive title by matthew savoca

My review of a poetry chapbook by Matthew Sovoca. Well, not really a review, but I say some stuff about how I related to it and I read an excerpt from it. Excerpt is a weird word to say out loud.

49

i woke up
and in my mind i thought
"mutha fuuucka"
in that exact spelling
i had a shower
then i ate some vogels toast with marmite

on the bus to the city
there was a cute boy sitting opposite me
he was wearing nice pants
i imagine him at home
putting on his pants thinking
"man, these are nice"
and then feeling really good about himself

at the downtown warehouse
i bought a new red backpack
for $5
and it had an extreme effect on my self-esteem
as i walked up queen street

i even talked to one of those guys with the clipboards
who try to make you become a member of something
and make you feel like a really bad person for saying no
he was this hippie dude and we talked for a while
then i went into farmers
and bought some socks

during my walk home it was raining so i put up my umbrella
i twirled it above my head
and when i looked up
the blue bits looked like the blades of a blender
or something
it was buzzy

in the evening
i got home and made
tofu and risotto
i burnt the rice a little
but it was all good
on skype i said to susie
that loneliness felt like a tightness in my chest
kind of like heartburn
but maybe it's just heartburn

i realised i hadn't seen or heard any current events in the past week
i thought, “what is going on in the world”
i checked stuff.co.nz
how 'bout that royal wedding

looked at the clock and it said '10:59'
one minute later i looked at the clock and it said '11:01'
i thought, "what,
this cannot be"

i am tired
i am taking off my socks

top 10 reasons to take acid +1

wrote this before I took acid (2009)

1 - your friends said it was Real Fun
2 - you're curious
3 - you think maybe nothing could be weirder than real life anyway
4 - it's only temporary hallucinations/not a big deal
5 - kneecaps
6 - people will think you're cool
7 - maybe it'll make life into some sort of cartoon thing
8 - or the muppets
9 - fraser looked like christ last Saturday at Flinders with his arms out, expecting a hug
10 - there's nothing else going on tonight
11 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjY_uSSncQw

current influences

- the album 'what would the community think' by cat power
- chips and dip (bluebird ready salted and onion dip)
- the movie 'mighty ducks'
- facebook chat
- the simpsons
- susie anderson
- steve roggenbuck
- wood bay
- twitter
- my flatmate
- auckland cbd
- my new red backpack
- dinosaurs
- curry
- thought catalog
- the mountain goats (always always always)
- the song 'it's time to rest' by transcription of organ music
- my pets
- bus trips
- vogels toast
- tea
- self-publishing
- chillwave
- let people poems
- google reader
- gilmore girls

the last 5 jobs i applied for

typist/audio monitor at parliament of Victoria
This job seemed to entail basically transcribing audio as recorded at parliament sessions. Seemed legit, mostly due to the fact that it was $28 an hour. Potential drawbacks would be sitting around for a whole day of boring political talk and not being able to go anywhere for hours on end due to longevity of parliamentary sittings. Felt like my experience in radio and crazy awesome typing skills would make me 'an ideal candidate' for this job. Have kinda envisioned my life if I get this job, imagine myself riding my bike through empty streets late on a Wednesday night or something.


junior (trainee) publicist at music PR firm
I have never worked in PR and generally feel that PR students are annoying/intimidating, but I figured this would be a pretty sweet gig and applied for this job. Maybe because I have always wanted to work with music. Maybe this is my ideal field? I don't know. For whatever reason, there was no closing date on the application, which is a cause of anxiety for even the coolest of cucumbers. Spent a lot of time working on a cover letter for this one. I feel like I am super qualified for this position, because all the selection criteria was basically media related. But due to the ambiguity on the application form, my success doesn't seem likely.

customer service role at Melbourne Museum Tutankhamen exhibition
I am impressed that apparently I spelt Tutankhamen right. Sweet. This job seemed like it could be legit, but it was one of those 'form' applications where you don't get the chance to use words to speak highly of yourself, just actually say what work you've done. I find these types of jobs hard to apply for. In fact, writing any job application is strenuous. I figured it could be cool working at the museum. Not too far from my place; I started to imagine what my coworkers would be like and hoped they would be cute science nerds or something.

gallery assistant at Centre of Contemporary Photography
this job I was really excited about. The CCP is in my locale, seems like a legit type of organisation, and the position only required work on weekends from like 11-5 which would be totally enough to pay rent and still give me time to do uni stuff. I have a feeling I probably undersold myself in the application, I lack self confidence or something. As mentioned before, job application writing can be strenuous, but only because it is hard to talk yourself up. It's counter intuitive. Guess I had to pretend that I had an interest in photography. This application had to be sent in by post and I was going to take it in in person; ended up putting it through the mail slot on the door because the centre was closed for the holidays.

administration assistant at Melbourne Food & Wine Festival
again, an exciting prospect. I always flaunt my administration & arts volunteering experience when I apply for jobs because apparently a combination of these two things is somewhat unique. I dunno, it hasn't helped me get anywhere yet. When I write job applications I think my indecisiveness about what I actually want to do with my life sometimes comes through. What I mean is that for this application I attempted to write something about my passion for food, focusing on this radio show I had last year which was about food, but despite this being the theme of the show I couldn't actually write about it as if food was my passion. Sometimes I don't know about anything at all, which is an inconvenient/undesirable thing to communicate via a job application.

48

i am so tired all the time
so tired that
i think this is how life has always been

always reaching for black coffee

always saying 'man i'm tired'

people saying 'you look tired'

yawning a lot

this is how life is now

waking up in the morning
with a small scream

with a small scream
i put soy milk in my cereal

i think 'fuuuuck' in my mind

i drink a lot of coffee
and start to feel strange

today on the bus i thought i was holding my ipod
in my hand
i actually felt that sensation of it on my fingers
but there was nothing there
i thought holy shit

i thought oh my god
shit is getting real

i want to go on the internet
i want to go to sleep

zzzzzzzzzzz

why do we post poetry on our blog?

When Stacey and I started writing this blog together we would pick topics and write (anything, in any form) about them. From writing about different topics, we have progressed to the stage where we probably each post anywhere from 1-3 poems per week. Before, when only our friends read our blog, I think the idea behind this was so we could give each other feedback and feel like we had a reason to write. Stacey has always been a seeker of poetry online, and through this somehow we cottoned on to this scene of poetry - I don't know whether you would call it the 'Pop Serial' scene or if you could generalise enough to say that the poets basically just publish their own writing on their blogs and a lot of them live in America (though there are a few bros in the UK - sup Liam & Crispin).

Probably around this time we started getting a lot of people reading our blog in NZ. This was probably due, in part, to Joseph Ernest Harper and David Klein putting a link to our blog on their blogs. These relationships were fostered by a series of commenting and, arguably, interest in what the other parties were posting. We started to really like this attention on our blog, and began to expand our commenting spectrum.

One of the most important characteristics of the American poetry scene I referred to before is that it is a really strong and supportive community. Through both Steve Roggenbuck's chapbook 'I am like October When I am Dead', available online and in print, and Poncho Peligroso's 'the Romantic', we were introduced to this really enthusiastic, exciting bunch of poets who, most comfortingly, are real people who reply to comments. Another noteable characteristic is their zeal for tweeting. I have noticed that (even Australian) writers seem to be the biggest users of twitter. @ing people, I feel, is similar to commenting on blogs - enables engagement with writers, breaks down typical hierarchies between author/reader etc. Twitter is great for cross promotion and conversing with people relevant to your practice. By following poets/writers whose work we read, we are able to implant ourselves into the community by consistently retweeting and @ing. Probably pertinent to mention at this stage that consistency or reliability (with both tweeting and blogging) is key.

I realise if you don't know anything about this scene I refer to it might seem a little bit vague. A bunch of them are mentioned in a post Stacey wrote earlier this year called 'Enormous Boon' and more can be found by perusing Pop Serial's website and also the online literary journal New Wave Vomit. The moment I was really excited by this bunch of writers was when I listened to  Ear Eater Audio where people read out their own poetry and other people's poetry in an apartment, with attendees reading via skype or in person. Other similarly exciting things I have witnessed have been live poetry readings by Stephen Tully Dierks, Steve R and Brett Gallagher on ustream where you can totally chat with them as they read cool poetry and be really awesome. There is another one of when Poncho went to Chicago to visit them. At the particular reading I watched, the boys read poetry written by their contemporaries and other poets who have inspired them. Both the Ear Eater Audio series and the ustream readings show the strength of this community and their eagerness to support one another - probably they wouldn't put it that way themselves, but I guess that's what it is really. I don't think any of this could have begun without blogging.

Anyway seeing this as an opportunity to make people aware of us down in the southern hemisphere, me and Stacey last week recorded a poetry podcast via skype with a similar idea in mind. We wanted to show how much we dig the poetry we read online and in doing so, increase our blog's readership. And, hypothetically, after all this, more people are reading our poetry.

Stacey has been submitting to online literary journals/publications far and wide, both of us (I believe) starting with New Wave Vomit. For me, this was a most validating experience. Felt like I could submit my poetry elsewhere. Recently, I was solicited, through the blog, to write a piece for a Mexican zine called me gusta, no me gusta. From where we began, posting our thoughts about different topics, to Mexico? It's so crazy. I have been searching for something like this scene I badly outlined above in Melbourne and I cannot find it. I know that it is not just native to America, because of the large number of kiwi writers who read our blog. We get a lot of hits from Melbourne, which confuses me, because I don't feel I have convinced many of my friends to read my blog regularly, and there's only so many times I can hit refresh.

I have attempted to research a similar scene (as outlined above) in Australia, but have come up with nothing. For now, I can only conclude that the literary scene here is about traditional pathways to publishing, and more concerned with poetry as a commodity than sharing it with the world or people who might actually feel something after reading it. Incidentally, poetry that I read online is for me more emotionally valid than poetry I read published in some local publications - which isn't usually the case when I read stuff on a screen**. This is one of the reasons that we (or at least something I want to get out of it) are making our poetry anthology/zine/whatever - to try and give poetry bloggers in Australia/NZ some 'credibility', or kinda as a fuck you to the literary heirarchies going round.

We haven't actually discussed whether we want to 'make a living' from this or what we really want to do with our writing. We get excited about projects or things we can do via our blog, things that we could only do with the help of people who we know through the poetry/lit scene that we have become a part of. I reckon part of the reason we started posting poetry here was because we wanted to share our 'feelings' and basically get some sort of catharsis and potentially connect with people who read and who feel the same. Ultimately I am trying to say that I think sharing poetry online isn't thankless, it opens you up to a new bunch of readers and real sweet ass community of bros.

*I realise, though, that there probably aren't enough literary journals to accommodate all the writing going on - an email from Going Down Swinging said they got close to 3000 submissions from around 1000 individuals.

47

in my new shoes i feel powerful
i get off the bus and walk to whitcoulls so i can buy a pen
so that i can write in my notebook
about how my new shoes make me feel powerful

i want a black uniball ink pen
but i couldn't justify spending $5 on a pen
so i bought a $1 pen instead
the same thing happened to me last week
and now i have two of these $1 pens
where all my pens at yo

walking down city streets
i feel determined to make eye contact
with cute boys
sometimes they smile at me
and it makes me feel extremely nervous

crossing queen st diagonally
can be dangerous but
i am wearing my new black hi-tops
and in them i exude something which must be like
"stay the fuck out of my way, various peoples of auckland city"

in the food court i eat vege samosas
and write in my notebook
with my new $1 pen

i write things like:

"my arms are covered in cat scratches"
"my bag contains tampons and bus tickets"
"in my hands are a million little poems"

i fill up the pages of my notebook with words
and i think about how everything is so full of something

yeah, think about it

writing gives me this feeling
that is something like a river flowing

i go swooooosh
i am a river flowing

tasmanian tiger

my flat mate bought me home a muffin

how 'bout that reggae music

want to be eating vegan sausage rolls wit chu

i tried to go onto facebook on my phone but it was weird

no matter what, there is this notebook and me

the last two things i searched were 'full house' and 'how do whirlpools form?'

my shoulders are carrying the weight of my backpack and other things too

i feel a community of hurt

sometimes i think that the ocean air transforms me

may our collective sadness be remedied by pictures of cats on the internet

Poetry podcast

Poetry Podcast by staceteague

Susie and I just recorded this podcast via skype. It features poetry by Spencer Madsen, Poncho Peligroso, Ana. C, Blake West, Ben Rosamund, Matthew Savoca, Steve Roggenbuck, Walt Whitman, Richard Brautigan and Adam Carr. Plus some of our own poems.

On our next (monthly) podcast, we will be reading poems by female poets.

how often do most girls masturbate

cracking nuts
this is a double entendre
my wrist is not cut out for this

or playing wii sports
these acts seem sexual maybe
we laughed because it was like giving handjobs right

oh handjobs,
amusing conversation at a 'party'

i don't remember what that's like

can't let myself write don't without an apostrophe
even though I like the look aesthetically

feel really nervous or just hungry
would drinking gin help

drink if you think it'd help

FRIDAY

me and stacey are recording a cover of rebecca whatserface's 'friday'

2 4 U

fatwa

I have been passive-aggressively hating you this week
and loving it because
you are my inspiration




reading poetry @ 12am

need a pencil
need a pencil

I am not sleeping with a textbook

46

if i listen to the album 'tallahassee' on repeat forever
will the world seem bigger or smaller

i get so scared

but susie says that i am brave in ways that i don't realise
she says we all are

the very last string in 'alpha rats nest' is played
'tallahassee' starts up again

and again
there is a beginning

everybody is busy or having sex

in a tower
in a nunnery, you are
watched by centipedes
that crawl over her face,
kept just above eye level by gravity,
they seem to look down on you.
they prevent her from
conveying an emotion
about your gnomish features
but she can't remove them -
she has no hands.
give her your hands.
you crumple after the exchange,
wish you could have given claws.

45

there are two rats that live under my house
they dig up the potatoes in our garden
i do not mind though
i want them to have my potatoes
i want them to live and be happy
even though i'm not sure if rats experience complex emotions

is happiness a complex emotion

i imagine that the rats living under my house
are in a long term monogamous relationship

i imagine that they feel a sense of love
and attachment to one another
and also have the same taste
in movies and literature

i hope they have a warm nest
and plan to have lots of rat babies
in the near future

as long as they don't come in to my house
because
that would scare the shit out of me
one day
when i am cooking dinner
or in bed on my laptop
or something

i googled rats and it said they are a threat
to new zealand's many native birds

i hope they are not killing our many native birds
if they are then maybe
i would not feel so blase
about letting them eat my potatoes

i don't think people really care
about rats
and that makes me feel kind of sad

many things make me feel kind of sad

but mostly it's rat apathy

mostly

having dinner @ the metro

"THERE WAS A BOOK SALE AT THE LIBRARY. SO MANY BOOKS!!" - guy holding a large balloon animal

thought "i like that old man's tote bag, seems legit"

thought "that guy looks like he is heavily into Bukowski"

thought that the old lady sitting opposite me vaguely looked like an older version of me

ate a falefal pita

ate a whole kit-kat

saw a poster advertising watermelon juice, thought it was weird but i guess it's not really that weird

someone cleared their throat and i thought they were going to sit next to me and i got a fright but they were just going to get icecream

thought about freud's psychosexual stages of development

had an awkward encounter with the guy clearing my plate

txt my flat mate to ask her to bring my navy blue beret when she comes into town

thought about going to borders to buy a copy of moby dick

resisted a craving for a chocolate fudge sundae

noticed that the security guy had a shiny bald head, wondered if all bald heads are shiny to some extent

read a zine called 'the remainders'

thought about how cool the rocket lift is

saw a guy with a pony tail and thought "bro.."

saw a girl on her laptop talking on MSN messenger, i thought it was funny that that was still a thing

thought it was weird that the words "that" and "that" can go directly after one another and still make sense

felt vaguely nervous like i had just had coffee only i hadn't had any coffee

saw another shiny bald head, confirmed my shiny bald head theory further

Video - 44

Inspired by this.

44

something like a tidal wave
has come in through my bedroom window
i am still in bed
with my wet sheets
and my wet hair

i shiver
realising how much there is in the world



Started a new numbering system with my poetry titles because I find naming poems very tedious. This is #44 because it is my 44th poem since I wrote what was, as far as I'm concerned, the first real poem I've ever written.

Also if you live in NZ, please tell me who writes some good poetry. I'm probably going to ask you anyway if I know you. Save me some tizzime.

book review: eat when you feel sad

On Friday last week I was trying to pump up my tyres in the front yard. This is an activity I cannot complete without lots of swearing, because I am stupid and I always forget how to use my bike pump. As I was uttering 'cunt' into the spokes of my back wheel, someone called to me over the fence. Lo, but it was the postie. "Having bike trouble?" he enquired.
"HAHAHAHAHA YES" I panted, standing up, feigning competence.
Taking out a package from his bike's swaddle, he said "I'll just pass this over then.."
I accepted the package from him. Immediately I brightened up. "Oh, this is for me! Thanks"
"Hope you get your bike working", the postie man said, with a wave.
"Thanks!" I hopped around with excitement. I hopped around with excitement and tore open the package. It was 'Eat When You Feel Sad' (henceforth will abbreviate this to EWYFS) by Zachary German. I pumped my bike tyres up and went to get my concession card made up at Clifton Hill train station.

After that I got the train to the city. I read the book on the train feeling pretty good about things. Last year sometime I read an excerpt of EWYFS on this site called Bear Parade. I remember liking it a lot, which is why I took the trouble to purchase it months later, despite overwhelming poverty.

The book is frankly a lot of 'Robert thinks', 'Robert eats', 'Broken Social Scene is playing', 'Lil Wayne is playing', 'they smoke cigarettes', 'Robert orders chinese food'. Robert seemed pretty bummed and like he didn't know what he really wanted to do with himself, or maybe I wasn't reading properly. One thing that I remembered from it as something to remember (yeah) is this quote after he 'breaks up with' Kelly: 'I don't like her clothes and I don't think she's--I don't want to introduce her to my friends, the ones who I don't have yet but who will be more like me, vain and judgemental and stuff' He thinks 'I need to stop being like this.' He thinks 'Run into traffic.' He thinks 'It's not going fast enough to kill me probably'

I really liked how Robert addressed his cat by saying 'hey baby' because it seemed really american and cute. I liked to imagine Robert as being a pretty cute indie boy vegan type. I think that Robert is a good character because it is a representation of how lonely life can be for young people in a big city or something. I don't know, I just vividly knew what he was like and had experienced the stuff he went through. I guess what I'm trying to say right now is that I'm listening to Broken Social Scene.

going out

i put my shoes on
if i put my shoes on
then i might convince myself to go out
it is raining
it is raining and i put my shoes on
these two things are incongrous
i ask you which word to use
"it's a synonym for incompatible", i say
you say, "incongrious?"
i point my finger vaguely in your direction
and exclaim "yes!"
i am too drunk to remember how to spell the word incongruous
huh what
if i go out
what do i get out of this
vague conversations with people over very loud music
and wet shoes
but the fact that i put my shoes on
means something
i say good night to you
you say "am i too drunk to do a crossword puzzle?"
i respond by laughing
and you take that as a yes
it is raining and
i don't have an umbrella
who am i kidding
i put my shoes on and
felt a false sense of something
something..
i try to escape my inner monologue for a minute
what replaces it is a slight vibration in my limbs and a longing for toast
i am scared to take my shoes off
they are my little cocoons
eventually i take them off
undo both the buckles
who am i kidding
i am going to watch seinfeld
why does elaine's hair suddenly get less poofy
i like it poofy

poem written for 'friday writing exercise'

on Virgule each Friday they post writing exercises
this poem I wrote following the prompt
"two and a half men is one of the most popular sitcoms in australia"

Two people are in this train carriage
and I am too.
A girl and a boy, the girl is
half asleep on the boy or is he a man, when do boys become
men?
Is it weird for women to be older than men in relationships?
One time I kissed somebody 8 years older than me. I am proud
of this as an achievement.

The boy is dressed like
most people dress these days, I don’t know, a t-shirt with some
popular culture reference, a
sitcom or something funny from the internet,
on it.

Television seems pointless these days.
In the train carriage now there are more than two people. I think that
Australia is full of more than just us, it is a very big country, but not even the biggest


you are meant to start writing a short story using each word in that sentence to start your sentences, but I altered it slightly. You should do it either way & post your stories as a comment on their blog.

if you live in Australia/Melbourne you should apply to be on the Voiceworks editorial committee. We need new blood. We also need new people.

comprehensive list of sites I visit

it seems like a nice idea to collate a bunch of links that I frequent a lot. not everybody reads blogs on actual blog sites any more, thus may not see our sweet as links list on the left of your screen. to this end, here is a list of internet things that are pretty cool/decent/awesome


thought catalog
I am not joking when I say I have made everybody in my life read this blog (not joking, perhaps lying slightly). there are a lot of very relevant thought catalog posts about a lot of different things. it is funny and sad and true. usually posts about 8 articles on average per day. often abbreviated to TC by teagueface and myself. read.

laughing squid
this site is a collection of interesting videos or pictures, usually just over 10 per day. I have noticed that TC sometimes uses their posts (a phrase which here delicately infers 'copies') as inspiration.

internet poetry
as Stacey mentioned in a post last week, Steve Roggenbuck is doing some really cool things with poetry. internet poetry is a new initiative that looks at how things on the innernette can be poetic. in a broad sense, this site challenges the classic idea of what poetry is. I find this pretty exciting.


ponch on twitter
this is a delight. earlier this week I wasn't online for an extended amount of time and I felt a bit lonely. I realised that this was probably because there were no tweets from ponch popping up in tweetdeck every 2 seconds. it's hard to actually read them all, but their consistency is, as I tweeted (1/3/2011) "12+ hours off the innernette, nothing happens. kinda missed @ponchopeligroso's incessant tweets though. like having a friend or something." sometimes they are rancid tweets, other times they are uplifting and inspirational.

HTMLGIANT
I have been trying harder to read this blog because I feel like it will make me seem 'well informed' about interesting literature-related things. also I'm trying to force myself to absorb information. this blog is erudite. sometimes long posts about literary folk I've never heard of, other times pertinent things about e-books or simple questions like 'how much of your personal library have you read more than once' which is a question that has concerned me for a while. does it make me less legitimate if I keep buying books and not reading them? what's wrong with me???


I also read a few blogs written by kiwi (NZ) folk. I will simply make a list of these below
Eamonn's Fashion/Craft blog
The colour of my love for you
e for ernest 
How to understand everything and not hate yourself  
willow ships 
a graveyard smash


australian blogs that are pretty awesome 
being blanche (for dating, love & relationship advice/general hilarity)
with love & swallow (if you want to know what living in Melbourne is like, this is a pretty good resource) 
choux de bruxelles (interesting opinion pieces/insightful rants)
virgule (voiceworks blog. if UR A WRITER & WNT 2 B ON DIS BLAWG PLZ COMMENT, we need you)


other sites I go to frequently
artshub australia 
netbank
btjunkie
twitter
google analytics

on that note, I wondering, if you read this blog and you live in Perth, maybe you could say hello. I don't know/haven't bribed anybody from there and we get loads of blog hits (more than from Melbourne) from there. so holla.


finally, here are 3 'funny' videos
jake and amir - triathlon 'I legit want/need dis watch'
david mcgahan's world - cats  'cat cat cat cat cat cat cat'
tim & eric - cat film festival 'this is a film festival about cats, our passion'

you take my heart and you give it to me

Zine market was really great. I made $52 plus got a horde of zines via swapsies. I will review my favourites of these. This zine is a bus ticket bound together with little woodcut prints on each page.

modern lyfe

i made a movement to indicate that i was going to stand up
but then i thought about writing a poem
and i sat back down on my bed
and crossed my legs
and started typing
i started typing about
how my flat mate
waters our vegetable garden
with the water that is collected from our leaking shower tap
we are not wasteful
we are environmentally conscious
she buys 'eco store' products
we have a compost bin
often she comes home and stands in my door frame
and we talk about how our days were
i think that is nice
i hear her rustling around in the kitchen
i wonder if she is making bread
it is quiet
and i like the way the rain sounds
and i like the sound of me typing
on my mac book keys
and i like the sound of my flat mate rustling in the kitchen
my clothes are draped over my bike to dry
i need to get a clothes horse from the warehouse
is it called a clothes horse?
i walk into the living room to see if my flat mate is making bread
but she is replacing the vacuum bags in the vacuum cleaner
i make some semi-interested grunt and stand there for support
then i go back into my room
i watch as my gmail notifier checks for new messages
i have no new messages

Ethan Hawke

The following is an account of my visual relationship with Ethan Hawke.

The first movie that I remember watching with Ethan Hawke in it was Gattaca. I studied it in year eleven English. Gattaca is a sci-fi drama set in the future where people are classified as either 'valids' or 'invalids'. This classification refers to their genetic code. I seem to remember there being something clever to do with DNA and the letters G, T, C and A, which is why it is called Gattaca. In this society, couples have the ability to predetermine the characteristics of their children. These genetically produced people are valids, and they get everywhere in life. They are pretty much superhuman, get no diseases, are healthy and strong, good looking, talented in everything that they do.  Conversely, invalids are ostracised from society and are looked down on poorly. They have to work in the service industries like cleaning or other undesirable jobs. The society runs off the classification of somebody being valid or invalid. It's like on your ID. So Ethan Hawke plays this dreamer invalid who wants to be an astronaut. He is an invalid because he has a weak heart. But he gets a job cleaning at this astronaut training facility, somehow hears about an underground valid who's lost use of his legs (Jude Law) and takes on his identity so he can get to space. I am only doing a big synopsis because Stacey has not seen it. I think that I found Jude Law more attractive when I watched this film, but I basically always love the underdog and the fact that there is a sex scene between Ethan and Uma Thurman appealed to my 16 year old self. 

I feel like there are some existential questions raised in this film, though it may just be the whole space travel/genetic modification thing that consistently makes me feel uncomfortable about humans and general mortality. Anyway Ethan Hawke does a great anxious, underdog - yet ultimately the strongest character in a variety of ways - dreamer here. 

Next time me and Ethan crossed paths was Dead Poet's Society. It just occurred to me that his character is pretty much the same as the one in Gattaca. Except for he's not an 'invalid'. Although the pressure he feels within himself probably makes him so. I'll be brief about DPS - it's a conservative private boys school in the late 1950s, new kid Todd rocks up, following in his brother's footsteps. Robin Williams (O captain, my captain) is their new English teacher. He schools them in the ways of the old poet masters, teaches them to 'suck the marrow out of life' and changes their lives. Todd is the quiet weird guy who nobody can get out of his shell. He seems really intimidated by everything, but the Captain knows that he's got more inside him! Ethan Hawke isn't really the greatest thing about DPS. I'll admit I really bought the whole marrow deal.

Then there was Before Sunset. I had a phase between the age of 15-18 where, when hiring DVDs, I would take two of the two overnight and two weeklies that my family would hire, to invest in 'indie' or 'interesting' films or simply films I didn't want my family to watch with me, and watch them late at night (1-3am) while my family was in bed. Before Sunset was one of them. Others in this series were Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Science of Sleep, Elizabethtown, The Virgin Suicides, I Heart Huckabees etc. Again I recall nothing remarkable from this other than knowing that I wished Ethan Hawke was my boyfriend and that I was in Paris and smoking inside was not only okay but the done thing. I loved their reckless ignorance of lung cancer fear. I think there was also the appeal of not only having a romantic tryst in Paris one time round, but having another random meetup in the same city. Also there was a sense of nostalgia that I got from watching it. I also enjoyed the unfinished nature of it. Did he leave? What did he do???

At some point I probably watched Taking Lives, which is a film where Ethan Hawke and Angelina Jolie run around trying to kill each other. At the end of the movie Ange is pregnant. I don't remember much of it. Might download and rewatch just out of curiosity.

 

I first watched Reality Bites at the encouragement of my workmates. I was 19. After going through what we will just dub my Girl, Interrupted phase, Winona was kinda one of my heroes (expect a more detailed Winona post in the future). So Ethan and Winona (Noni, as she was known[i] in my house) was the perfect combo. Troy and Leilana in this film are basically in the situation that I feel that I am in now, except for there's no fear of aids here. And there's no Ben Stiller in my life, though frankly given his post-Greenberg silver fox thing I would totally be up for that (also my general desperation/thing for the pseudo-jewish). Anyway Reality Bites is probably the reason that I see Ethan Hawke as being someone desirable. 'All we need is you, me, some coffee and cigarettes'. Aww.

At the moment I am reading this book called 'Ash Wednesday', written by Ethan Hawke. I found it in a bookshop in a little town north of Melbourne called Kyneton. In the same bookshop (also sells tapes, records & cds) I found, on tape, the soundtrack to Reality Bites. I was destined to purchase both of these items. Ash Wednesday is about a couple who are floundering in their lives, in their relationship. The girl is pregnant. The guy has dad issues. It's what you'd expect Troy or Ethan's character in the Before series to write. Every now and then there's something vaguely philosophical that I agree with. Guess they're on the brink of the rest of their lives or something. Feels really American though, all military boots and Greyhound buses, but is a decent read.

Recently I watched New York, I Love You for two reasons: Orlando Bloom and Ethan Hawke. I was excited because when I looked the movie up on IMDB Ethan's character was listed simply as 'writer'. Unfortunately the American version of Paris Je T'aime pales in comparison. While the French one actually made me FEEL something more than once, the American one just made me slightly confused and laugh. Although the old couple were cute. Orlando was sexy as hell if you're wondering, but I feel like there's something wrong with lil Christina Ricci these days. She looks like a real life Bratz doll, amirite? Though he was barely in it for 10 minutes, Ethan's character found time to 'have a moment' with someone ('you gotta hold onto those moments, they're special, they mean something') and sit in a cafe chain smoking.

Right now I am watching Training Day. This is an action movie starring Denzel Washington as a streetwise cop who pretty much runs with the crims so he can get to the gangsters/real bad guys. It is Ethan's first day on the job. He's learning a lot, and FAST! Essentially it is an odd couple action movie. Denzel is so badass.

Think you can probably discern things about what I think Ethan Hawke's typical roles are. In Training Day he looks really wide-eyed but eager to prove himself. Think that is probably what appeals to me most. He also has a crease in the middle of his brow, he just looks so calculating! Lately I have been thinking that I am going to get one of those, probably by my mid-thirties. Ultimately I reckon that Ethan's track record of playing wayward romantics in films makes him desirous. The fact that he has written books makes me like him a lot more. Also the fact that he seems to be buddies with Richard Linklater is real cool. I have had Waking Life in my possession for about a year now but just haven't felt like watching it. Will report back afterwards.

CALH 2011 #1