We Have a Skunk

I'm listening to Prairie Home Companion on the radio and eating a Red Baron Supreme with a Riesling from Washington State. The frozen pizza was left behind by recently departed housemate. I have practically eaten the whole goddamn thing. The wine is mine, I opened it four days ago.

Yesterday morning after yoga I sat at a window seat at Rendezvous cafe facing Mountain Sports formerly Mission Ice Cream (See view from Mountain Sports formerly MIssion Ice Cream).

Yoga was tough, newcomers like me get to do it for free, breathing was tough too, high altitude and whatnot, I was hyperventilating like a frightened rabbit. The neat thing about going to Rendezvous Cafe afterwards was that I was fantasizing about going there during some grueling routines and now there I was there!!! Chair was hard on my tush, but the coffee was nice and they were playing some attention-grabbing drone rock I just had to ask the lady who it was.

Soon after there came a yell from across the bar, "Smashing Pumpkins!" Looking back I think I'll stop asking waitresses what music they're playing because every time it's something embarrassing that I end up regretting. I should have yelled back "never heard of them!" and hunched over my bagel like a creepy weird guy. It was Cheers compared to the joint I went to after my English Department orientation. Got treated by a second-class citizen by the bartender even though the place was empty. Arrogant bastard. Tellingly, that's what I had ordered, an arrogant bastard ale and thankfully it was delicious.

Eng Dept orientation went well. All my professors are mad about Australia and my Aussie accent, curiously enough. I've decided to go full Aussie like Kirk in Tropic Thunder goes full retard. Said goodbye to one of my professors, a doctor, whilst I discussed Ivy Compton-Burnett with a Brit Lit major and then I lost my train of thought talking to the Lit major wondering whether that was a cross look the professor gave me for calling her by her first name.

I stepped in what I'm pretty sure is skunk guano earlier today. There was a big mess of it in the driveway. You probably think it smells worse than any other kind out there on account of it being from le skunky pew. I'm here to tell you that it is not that bad (closer to tar seemingly), but even so, you don't want to be dragging it into your room like I did.

The skunk nearly opened its odious glands on Doris' cat Laurie last Saturday night. Out on the balcony, I saw its fluffy white plumage sprouting amongst the bushweeds. Knowing Laurie was out there, I panicked a little. Doris was in Tucson. What if the cat showed up at the back door covered in awful goo, barfing. I would have to call Doris and tell her that I had disowned the revolting creature. She's an inquisitive cat. A confrontation was inevitable. The skunk waddled over to a small pine tree, Laurie launched herself at the white and black stink machine and the skunk hissed back, the cat sauntered off. That was one discrete deployer of its own stink. If I was a skunk I'd stain the suburb in rancid funk for simply something to du.

Moods of Flagstaff

I'm presently deprived of a certain level of urbanity that Susan (Hepburn's character) brings to Bringing Up Baby. Puts me in a funny mood. I like it. It's on TV.

Today third day in Flagstaff and attacked by more mood swings. Sent the department a terse email about desperately needing financial help, probably not the most tactful, but I was getting weirded out about getting severely in the hole. Read Knut Hamsun's Mysteries as a distraction. Brilliant.

I shipped boxes and flew Alaska, which is quicker than driving. Boxes arrived before I did, which makes sense when you learn I left five days after the boxes did. Opened the box that my stereo was in and it was crushed, not the box, but the stereo. Complained to Greyhound, who expressed no sympathy, they faxed the form to the claims manager who is yet to get in touch.

House is roomy and quiet when I'm not playing tunes. Housemate Doris knows Swedish interprets Dungen lyrics and enjoyed the Chills' Kaleidoscope World when I played it earlier. Other housemate works at a bank and drinks Muscle Milk. Drives a Pontiac sports car, a contemporary Fiero, I presume. He said he'll take me for a spin when he gets back from Palm Springs next week. He had nothing to do with me moving in.

The open-plan living area is kind of angular, ceilings vaulted with pueblo-like curved render and a fancy corner fireplace that will be a treat in winter when there's snow up to our eyelashes. The neighborhood and surrounding village are alarmingly suburban, but perhaps useful for perverse prose ideas. Technically two miles from campus, but there's a raw psychological distance that's presently unnerving, but won't be for long once bike is operational.

Still acquiring home essentials: bought and assembled a bed today, bought and tapped a half gallon of dry gin ($14.97), picked up a reading lamp, two white storage cubes from Target, 500 q-tips, a scroll of bog-standard dental floss, a butterscotch plastic crate, one quart of tonic water. Bike arrived in its box today from HIllsboro (appears undamaged) and I put that together too (tire needs air and the chain is still off).

Some of you will be pleased to know I have expanded my diet beyond zucchini bread and hardboiled eggs. A local salmonella outbreak has people literally walking on eggshells made of scrambled tofu. Me and the Pontiac-driving housemate bbq'd some sirloin last night. He ragged on the jalapeno relish I bought and deservedly so, as it was a tad underwhelming. After a few beers, he read out a ten page paper he wrote on gender bias in the workplace.

Animal Magnetism

I left the house on foot which is an interesting story in itself because mostly I take my bike. But due to complications for the life of me I am unable to articulate at this time, I walked down sunny Airport Road (named that because if you keep going you'll get the next flight to Des Moines). Thought to myself, it's good to get out of the house every once in a while.

Immediately came in contact with a squirrel who asked for whatever snacks I was carrying. When I said I didn't carry any snacks, he dashed. Moving on, I wondered why my parents never moved to the country. Dad needs his golf and I understand the country has plenty of those, but he also needs a more diverse social network, of which we all know the beach (where they spend most weekends) only has one and its transient and full of bums. Country likely to drive them equally insane. Meanwhile Mom, she shops till she drops. Impulsively too. She sprang up and bolted for Home Depot at quarter to nine last night. Dad had no idea where she went. She came home later and boasted of six rolls of packing tape for twelve bucks. Rocking the suburbs.

I myself like the excellent reserve located opposite Costco where I consider it good luck if I spot a red-winged blackbird or a great blue heron. Lately I've been bickering to myself about the dearth of lucky sightings, only had one this summer. With this occupying my mind, I saw a deer coming out of Costco and entering the glade on the right.

I sat cross-legged under the canopy of a big pine tree and observed the youngster. The deer, perhaps a teen, with velvet knobs protruding from its head, was relaxed enough to munch on some weeds, while I sat astonished that the venison backstrap I had eaten over at Dirk's the night before didn't morally outrage my tum-tum and cause me to quiver. Curious, the deer started towards me. It came within fifteen feet. I made a note. “I can't tell you how immensely curious this creature is. Can't say it's operating with a full deck. It's just so damned inquisitive, a characteristic I didn't think deers could afford to have. Fans from an industrial plant whir in the forefront.” The doe ran back to Costco when I tried to feed her some blackberries I had picked especially for her. Hungry for another cheese and wienie sampler, I presumed. A bit breathless I sat down at a park bench inside the reserve, while a vulture and a helicopter competed for airspace above. I thought a lot about my animal magnetism after this deer almost jumped me.

There's a letter in this month's Vanity Fair responding to an article by Christopher Hitchen's entitled Martin, Margaret and Me. The Martin of course is Mr. Amis. Yet to investigate who this Margaret is; at a guess I'd say Mitchell who authored Gone with the Wind. Not actually sure if the reader read the article because all she mentioned was the photo spread, Amis' gaze, his animal magnetism. His gaze is just like Byron's, she writes, as if she went to school with Byron or something. I once remarked at a party with a cat on my lap that lately cat's have been curiously drawn to me. I said this with utmost sincerity, of course, and of course one of Sean's friends dismissed it as a sly pick-up line because I'm a sensitive guy.

Normally I take my iPOD on these critter-watching expeditions; a half-arsed foray if there ever was one. Imagine Jim Harrison, whose brilliant memoir Off to the Side I just finished, taking his iPOD with him on a hunt. It'd never happen. Harrison loves the sound of the wild and so do I, to a certain degree, but sooner or later, I'd want to pump Pavement through the Sequoias at full volume. I suppose this fact makes me a city boy. I must say I rather liked visiting the reserve without my iPOD. I had it in my pocket but never played it.

In addition to the blackbirds and heron, I'm also fond of an ugly white carp with a peachy face who feeds on the pond's bottom. I rarely see it; been tracking the ole boy for weeks now, the time I did see it, he followed me around the pond magnetically.

After the deer run-in, I walked to the pond and came down to a sunny opening between the reeds and looked to my left, and lo and behold, the magnificent black splotches and white silvery scales of the elusive carp! What a vision! At the same time rather chilling too. Did Melville have this palate in mind? I watched it for twenty minutes slithering through the mossy caverns, disappearing and then its silver body would become visible through the dirty brown weeds once again. It followed me around the pond, probably not enough for me to say I was truly magnetic, but there was something pretty special going on there between us for at least ten feet or so.

Letter to the Editor

Thanks to Seaside police

A public thank you to the Seaside Police Department. I was digging clams on the beach when I lost my hearing aid. I thought that was the end of that and would have to replace it.

We returned home Wednesday and my wife received a call from the Seaside Police Department and was told a gentleman found it on the beach and turned it in. Dispatcher Andrea Toombs went out of her way to contact the manufacturer of the aid, learned my identity through the serial number, contacted the retailer to find my address and mailed the hearing aid to me!

I received it today and it works fine. Andrea is truly a credit to the Seaside Police Department and a fine reflection of the community of seaside.

Richard D
Lake Oswego, Ore.

Hanging w Dirk

My brother Dirk likes it when we're hanging out and I start diligently scribbling away in my notepad. He's always striving to do something worthy of record. I was over at his place the other morning making notes – something about Thomas Berger, who on one hand is an awesome genius, yet on the other, is his syrupy slapstick too addictive in large doses? (No). For all his finesse there's also a latent maleness that overwhelms (everything about his style is too much, even the nuances). So anyway I'm transcribing these ordinary thoughts just moments after Dirk had stumbled into the room and overturned a cup of coffee on his tank top and shorts and all over the carpet. He handed me a couple rashers of perfectly cooked bacon he kept in his spare hand and went to the kitchen to get a rag.

When he came back into the room he saw me munching on the bacon and scribbling away and immediately thought I was documenting his blunders. He acknowledged me as one does an asshole.“You writing about this?” I told him I wasn't but he seemed far from reassured. My brother thinks I will do anything to discredit his person.

Dirk recommended Year One and it was a good Mel Brooks-style comedy full of all kinds of good performances. I'd happily sit through that again. I'd also sit through Blue Oyster Cult again and I would probably have to because I almost got my ass kicked for standing.

We were at their show on Friday night at Chinook winds, a casino retreat on the coast and stood up when they busted out a blazing Burnin' for You. I was bopping along there when something hit me What felt like ice. It happens again and I see a gray-haired doofus, quite tall, in a tie-dye t-shirt straighten up and yell at my face for blocking the view. I yell back at him for not being polite about it and then I call him a human embarrassment. Security came over and after several heated exchanges, we get away.

For some ungodly reason Foghat headlined and they royally sucked. Best thing about Foghat was their well-stocked merch desk. Dirk was less than impressed. “Hats should just say Fog. They're already a HAT!” He was right of course.

We ate brekkie at Sambo's the next morning. Their portions are much too large for mere mortals. Exiting the restaurant, there's an amputee in a fluro vest directing cars but the cars aren't paying attention. The lot doesn't seem full enough to require it.. How was everything, he asked Dirk and Dirk screamed “what do they expect me to eat 4 pigs in a blanket!” and the amputee replied “hey you go to pig n pancake up the road, they don't give you enough!”

A discussion regarding the immensity of those servings continued on the way home. My view: “If Sambo started serving smaller portions there'd be protesters outside boycotting them until they reinstated the number of pigs in a blanket from three to four.”

Dirk took me to a pig roast/kegger later that day at his neighbor's house way up in the hills on this brilliant wilderness acreage with ponds and shifting elevations and dense foliage and giant trees. It was full of real woodsmen-like eccentrics. They regaled me with near-mythological tales of Northwest anti-heroes from the 70s. I hung on to their words riveted. Denis Johnson would have been tumescent.

The next morning we watched Touch of Evil. I had forgotten how devastating Quinlan's relationship to Pete Menzies' was and by the end of it I was in tears that I had to hide from Dirk or else he think his little bro a big pussy.

Lenny

Leonard Michaels could take his short stories anywhere he wanted and he did, and he never needed to buy them a chocolate finger afterwards although that probably would have been nice. The New Yorkers populating his stories observe hilarious pretensions, smoke cigars and wear nice jackets. I may do one of those things very well. They are self-loathing sartorialists, which is great because it's a phase I went through the other day momentarily when all of a sudden I found myself in the chinos section at Ross-Dress-for-Less and a pair of delectable CK slacks were opening their pantlegs for me (snagged the last pair too).

Michaels' characters go to orgiastic parties where ecstasy and death are interchangeable. I probably wouldn't go to a party where ecstasy and death was interchangeable, nor would that description pique my interest; in fact I would go so far as to say that is the most unflattering description I have ever heard, but having said all that and knowing what I now know, I would go to a party where ecstasy and death were interchangeable in order to read a book where ecstasy and death were interchangeable at parties.

Given the sophisticated milieu Michaels is mining, I find it refreshing the number of times people puke in his stories. Also the heart attacks are the most accurately described I've encountered in contemporary America. But to be honest, as besotted as I am with Mr. Michaels, I can't help but feel that I would be a little letdown if he was Al Pacino's size.

Me, Tim, Mac & Cheese, H & Matt and Malkmus at Ariel Pink

Nine dollar mac and cheese at Doug Fir Lounge with unlimited bread for $9.95. Beer cost barely anything but seeing that Tim had some in his Jeep down a side street we got in there and finished them. H joined us. I was meant to put Tim's sunglasses in there and I believe I did, but I couldn't find them the next day. We sat in there listening to a break-up song by Ween called I don't want it from the album Quebec featuring a spine-tingling psychedelic guitar solo from Dean. Tim then told me he's divorcing his wife. My phone rang, it was my future housemate in Flagstaff calling to tell me that the woman we were going to share a house with has reneged on the deal. This really threw me off center. I pounded the seat and cursed (two days later my future housemate would find his own place, stranding me like Brisbane did the Saints).

Back inside the Doug Fir, we found Matt Neff who was pissed we hadn't called him. I said we got our wires crossed and told him twice in the space of three minutes that I lost the Flagstaff house and then caught myself repeating myself. Frazzled. Popped outside. H came out and said, "Malkmus is in there with his wife sitting on the left!” I went in there to see if I could find them, but I was looking on the right.

Opening acts didn't move me one iota.

Ordered a whisky at the bar and saw Malkmus and his wife walking by, so I lunged and got his shoulder. I was so drunk probably didn't leave the best impression. Introduced him to Tim, who hi-fived him. Kept all of my charm on reserve until after they left. I kept asking him if Pavement were touring Arizona and refused to take no for an answer.

Pink's Haunted Graffiti electrified our ear canals with pleasure. I saw Malkmus smiling at the band next to H. He had a foodstain on his shoulder – I figured his kids must have did that.

Hungry afterwards, Tim and I went to Galaxy for karaoke and delicious Chinese appetizers presented in a three-tiered platter. We waited an hour to sing Spandau Ballett, then left. Woke up on the floor of his place. He got up and said what's that smell? I said I smell it too, it's really disgusting. He went to the kitchen and came back. “I've been slow-roasting hot dogs all night!” One had jumped from the pan and made it halfway up the carpeted stairs, before petering out. We both sat there trying to figure out what this lone sausage's ultimate objective was.





Actual performance discussed here

Hillsboro market

Went with my parents to the Hillsboro market after riding my bike to Freddy's through a heatwave for the new New Yorker - the one with the twenty best fictioners under 40 inside. Freddy's didn't have it, but I did notice that if you go on-line you can read grueling stuff about each of them on how they got to be where they are today. Lots of uncertainty and mental anguish. Personally I'll be surprised if one or two make it to 40.

Market was cool on hot pavement. I kind of regret not buying the dolmados the charmless Mediterranean dude was hocking, but as I said he lacked charm. Had two razeberry beers. They were good, but would not have wanted a third. Watched my mother try a newfangled health concoction and then shrug grimly like she was Alan Partridge. The vendor's perma-grin chagrined which has been a problem with toothy vendors ever since the Hillsboro market started up again.

Standing next to cousin Kenny's bbq stall was the husband of my sister-in-law's bride's maid, Liz. Bill played in the Fender benders who played at my college graduation. Bill recommended Kenny's, particularly the brisket burrito. “He's Liz's ex,” he added. I was staggered. “What, Liz once married her cousin!”

Beer and burrito made up for the disappoint of the old book shop being taken over by new owners. I had to ask where the literature section was and the girl says these here are the classics. I said so what these are all the old dead guys and she says John Steinbeck's still alive and I said Steinbeck's been dead for thirty years!

Ran into Norm and Dorothy outside. Norm has the distinction of being my high school counselor and marrying my Mom's sister Dolores. Together they had two children, Shari and Jody. When Dolores left Norm, she married Derald. Norm married Dorothy and they had a Jody themselves giving Norm two Jody's. Norm and Dorothy's Jody wasn't there that day, as opposed to the last Hillsboro Market when she was. Norm and dolores' Jody on the other hand I have never seen there, which doesn't mean she doesn't attend just that my Hillsboro Market appearances have been infrequent. Norm and Dorothy also had a son named Mark who suggested me and him get a place together around the time Jody married a hunter in their parent's backyard. That never eventuated. Derald and Dolores didn't have any kids, but Derald once caddied for Glen Campbell in Palm Springs.

Sandy and Kenny (not cousin kenny, but Kenny who ran a local tire shop for a number of years in Hillsboro before letting the son who looks just like him take over ) were also there with their antique cars and standard poodles. A haggard looking lady licking cotton candy rather extremely let the big poodle lick the extraneous bits off her face. I brought this to my Mom's attention before we went to the car because Dad was feeling grumpy.

Serious time for an interesting man

Walker Percy's Mentalist Prose

“Not in a thousand years could I explain it to Uncle Jules, but it is no small thing for me to make a trip, travel hundreds of miles across the country by night to a strange place and come out where there is a different smell in the air and people have a different way of sticking themselves into the world. It is a small thing to him, but not me...

“Me, it is my fortune and misfortune to know how the spirit presence of a strange place can enrich a man or rob a man, but never leave him alone, how if a man travels lightly to a hundred strange cities and cares nothing for the risks he takes, he may find himself No one and Nowhere.”

- The Moviegoer (1961)

title of this post borrowed from The Cannanes's utterly undetestable Beautiful Name (words D. Nichols)

Sock it to me

8pm yesterday met Matt Neff at Rom Toms for pilsner. I needed the one they call Bayern to vacate the space in my head that was occupied with school hassle: measles vaccinations, tuition fees, classes being dropped and then reinstated, international money transfers; these all had to be dealt with handily and overcome. Hell I even went to my parents' bank and urgently opened a couple of accounts. The bank manager, an energetic Latino, probably thought I was gay.

I'm listening to the Bob Quine VU Tapes. It's 75 degrees Fahrenheit and I'm outside as per the silver Jews' song. I'm of the opinion that presently there's nothing else that matters musically than these shitty sounding Quine tapes, particularly these savory sister Rays that are easily the length of a wildlife documentary and considerably more animalistic.

After Rom Toms, I put my crumpler in Matt's bimmer and we walked to East End, a punk club on a street corner a few blocks east of the waterfront where all kinds of industrial shit goes down. Matt handed me a two dollar German lager in a tall boy can, the Wipers came on the jukebox and we went and sat down at the table where Mikey and Danny Young of Eddy Current suppression Ring were sitting. Mikey said “you look familiar did we see you in Seattle last night?” I repeated to Mikey and Danny the same thing I said to Matt. Last time I saw you (at Billboard in December), I threw my back out. Visits to the masseuse, the physio and finally the osteopath over the next three months cost me a lot. Mikey bought me a beer, I bought their CD, had the band sign it and after a real good set from local punks, Blood Beach, they tore the roof off the place. Back at Matt's place we had a real good cry to side one of derek and the dominos.

Hey twenty six minutes into this twenty eight minute Sister Ray and I'm getting a little bored with it. Wait it just picked up again. Oh yeahhh. Sock it to me Lou!

4.30am, via Jacana

Sans deodorant for the duration of my intercontinental air transit (20+ hours). Ended up stinking rather badly.

Started in Jacana when I asked my usually accommodating driver if he could spare some roll-on and he said I could if i would but i don't so I won't. He wasn't carrying; he's not a user and it's not an issue because he smells fine, in fact I would go so far as to say he is mostly unscented.

5.45am. In the throes of final boarding for a flight to Brisbane, Sheryl Crow comes on the PA singing that song my mate Clarkey says makes her wanna hurl. I secretly adored this track up until the moment when its sentiment "If it makes you happy, why do you have to be so sad" became so goddamn appropriate it made me wanna hurl too.

On the plane sleep-deprived and deliriously Sheryl Crowed, I read Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King and am suddenly overcome by inspiration. I have a novel idea and it's a novel one and spend the next hour attempting to bottle it. In hindsight, the idea relies rather heavily on Henderson's considerable hiney, but it's a start. I'm besotted with Henderson's voice. I like this description of an ostrich: "How ostriches could bear to run so hard in this heat I never succeeded in understanding. I got close enough to see how round his eyes were and then he beat the earth with his feet and took off with a hot wind in his feathers, a rusty white foam behind."
Now I'm a fan of the on-demand set-up of in-flight entertainment I just wasn't impressed with the selections being offered. I watched The Ghostwriter by Roman Polanski first and got bored so fast I skipped ahead to the good parts of which there were none.

Watched a smug John Cusack in the Actor's Studio. Stopped watching it once his career dried up (circa being John Malkovich)

On Jesse's advice, I ordered cognac. The steward flew upstairs to get me it and came back exclaiming oh yummy I was smelling it the whole way! Sat down to watch Extreme Fishing in preparation for my brother's humorous tales of fishing the local waterways. The show stars a failed British actor named Gregson Robb (that's not his real name and did he fail in porn were thoughts that occurred simultaneously).

Ordered a red wine and watched a jolly good episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with catherine O' Hara as Funkhauser's deranged sister fresh from the nuthouse.

After this I put on a disgustingly-poor doco about that Austrian guy who kept his daughter in the basement. Managed about ten minutes of that before it became intolerable.

In LA, I laid down a wad of cash just so I could arrive in Portland eight hours earlier than I was supposed to. The United bird suggested I repack one of my bags in order to make weight or cough up a $100 for checking in a bag that's overweight. I went to the side counter, got down on my knees, sore from drunken dancing, and rummaged through the contents teeming with delicates, hip-hugging undies and French auteur box sets (not mutually exclusive), stuff getting agitated as I sweated to get my suitcase ten pounds less heavy in front of a crowd of interested onlookers.

After changing my flight I phoned Mom to update her. Thankfully she was home and she hit me with a lot of impertinent questions, which I could barely hear because this cleaning lady behind me insisted on running her vacuum at the back of my heels. I told her the call was costly and the cleaning lady said okay, alright like the new estate song and then Mom said I'm bringing the kids (she's a bigwig local babysitter) and I said just warn them I stink okay.

They’re just songs by boys from two years ago

First ten songs that came on my shuffle on 2nd March 2008

Robot factory, Swell Maps
Security, The Saints
Slide, Luna
Are you old enough?, The Reels
Baby Comes Around, Ariel Pink
Postal Blowfish, GBV
Nothing Indeed, Minutemen
Sympathetic Anesthetic, Fire Engines
Cryptograms, Deerhunter
Woman and Man, Ween

Diaphanous sand crab vs striped skink observed from a hammock during the final stretch of a great read*

If not for two dark all-seeing orbs the sand crab would be wholly diaphanous.

The lightning quick skink not quick enough on this occasion. Using its claw, the crab squeezes the life from the amphibian and then lassoes it around violently like a length of rope. The crab retreats down its hole when Dirk comes up keen to discuss alternative treatments for a scrape he received snorkeling. Apparently he was out of breath and lunged for the surface, arching his back like so and a jagged bit of coral lacerated his beehind. I pointed to the skink, he left for some paw paw.

Moments elapse, before the crab deems the coast clear and returns to collect lifeless skink. Skink arises and in a last gasp tries to escape, but the diminutive beach beast coolly collects him in his claw tightens his grip like a vice. Back-up arrives in the form of three neighbouring crabs, scuttling near. Crab with claw-toting skink does not appreciate this — having back-up — and begins dancing angrily in the sand. The three crabs exchange sneaky glances. Should they at least go for the tail the skink shed in fright a few centimetres from the hole. It's all over I reckon when the crab drags the skink into its hole, but incredibly, the skink pops its head up moments later, only to see the head pulled down as quickly as it popped up, the skink dragged down to the dungeon of its unquestionable demise.

I told Mom what had happened and she got pretty upset. "That's sick," she said, to which Dirk, lathered in a treatment that would cause an unpleasantly stingy reaction virtually unending, replied, "no Mom, that's life and death on the beach!"

*the reading material in question, Thomas Berger's Vital Parts, revisits the strangely enriching misadventures of Carl O. Reinhart, who, at age 44, is hitting all kinds of incendiary comic pinnacles. I would loan the book to my dear sister-in-law who would just as quickly hand it back to me and in her gruff voice protest: "he's a pervert, right?"

"He's man treating desire simply at its most base level, Pam."

Boy makes a frivolous delivery

collecting parcels from here next year

I haven't been doing much. Mostly a lot of reading. I saw Shutter Island, arguably Martin Scorsese’s most insufferable film. There was a lot of personal anxiety I had to neutralise in order to get through it. Michelle Williams is very good, though in it only briefly and Dicaprio gets an A for Effort, D for delivery.

They showed a trailer for Prince of Persia beforehand. I was more in the mood for that one and I’m never in the mood for crap like that. Every utterance from Jake Gyllenhall’s mouth was so deliciously unironic it totally became the opposite of that. But as my new Irish poet friend Sean says irony is always there like city streets and he points outside the shop front and sure enough the streets are still there. I took Jesse to this great Pho restaurant on Victoria St before the movie. I don’t know it’s name, I only know it by sight, it does have Pho in the title. Eight dollars for a big regular with rare beef and chili, lemon, mint and sprouts on the side.

There is a concerning gap between the quality of books I am reading and the quality of sentences that I am writing. Still the man of letters in me must persist.

Barry Hannah’s Airships is so mind-blowing I have added it to my list of fav books. I’m giving it to my new poet friend who I met yesterday at the book shop down from where I had breakfast. I don’t know the name of it, but the café is the Ginger Lee and that’s what I et, the Ginger Lee signature dish: poached eggs, bacon, toast and red dipping sauce. Sean witnessed some marriage documents and I turned him on to Thomas Berger. I stayed through the entirety of the Mercury Rev album chatting to him. He introduced me to Al Purdy, this Canadian poet and I wrote my email on the back of a poem that he wrote on Saturday after being up all night. I’m going to go back in there on Saturday. You should drop in too if you’re around, Sean’s gonna be there all day.

More books I’ve read:

Gringos by Charles Portis. I finished this upon arrival in Bendigo. Like all Portis novels, it’s very pleasurable. He’s top 5 funny fucker when it comes to smoothly capturing goofy American naivete. Like McGuane his novels are all kind of similar. Thomas Berger on the other hand, whiz-bang funny man, explodes genres for beer and skittles. I just read The Feud which surprised me how perfect it was. You know what’s far from perfect: Lorrie Moore’s Gate at the Stairs. It misfires a lot. She writes well on grief, but there’s almost an overdose of Lorrie going on here. All the characters make Lorrie Moore jokes even the Arab. It’s like Jerry Seinfeld playing every character on Heroes or something. The jokes continue to fly even when the story turns unbearably grim and that’s one bus you either get on or run from.

In Bendigo, we ate porterhouse and drank local varietals. Frances and Stephen, my splendiferous hosts, didn’t seem to mind me talking about my problems and they were only too happy I play them hirsute rock music from Sweden as long as I discussed my recent encounters with celebrity (true).

Poor Frances was trying to sleep and Stephen and I were banging things to the primitive sounds of Beat Happening. She made her point by locking me out of the house, apologising subsequently (an honest mistake). I prepared vegetables for a roast the next day, while her and Stephen went to the shop for a chicken.

We ate chicken and vegetables and watched Moon the movie made by David Bowie’s son and starring Sam Rockwell, who is fun to watch. It’s a heckuva movie but for chrissakes don’t watch the extras, it’s a half hour of your life you will bitterly want back. I went to bed after that and read some more of the Robert Lowell biography by Ian Hamilton.

The next day Fran and Steve took me to the Bendigo Art Gallery, which is something to see. I liked the pottery dogs, Frances liked the fridge. Not sure what Steve liked but it wasn’t the Whitely’s that I know because he said as much.

Anyone reading this wants the Robert Lowell bio let me know because I’m selling it back to the bookshop on Lygon st. this Saturday. It’s mostly heartbreaking, but gee I’m glad I read it. And it’s scholarship is immense.

I watched that movie Stepbrothers about these two guys with bigheads and bad attitudes. Poor Mary Steenburgen. She seems happy with that face made of leather.

I applied for the Creative Writing program at a few places, most of whom regret to inform me they didn’t like me that much, they didn’t say whether they liked me even a little. Anyways Northern Arizona did and I’m starting there in the Fall.

You can't have him

Was just listening to sister Lovers/third on my way to work this morning because I do that when I’m sad not knowing the immortal alex Chilton had actually died. RIP AC I felt like you and me were tight. His music had so much goddamn life in it and that’s why I always turned to it because in those times I obviously needed it. He gave me life.

PAVEMENT REUNION

I have two friends both called Tristan. One is very slight of build and the other is something of a tank. The bigger fella I’m not as close to, but he got last night’s setlist and that’s why I’m bringing it up: 27 mind-blowing cuts to stroke the ear. Their arsenal of song is astounding.

At one point in the show I heard an indignant guy yell out: this ain't heavy metal!

Well it's the closest I've come to heaven. I really don’t know how I physically existentially managed to see Malkmus on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (life presently in disarray), but I did and I did it with a fervour usually reserved for bundles of dynamite. Dreams came true all over the place.

The band couldn’t stop smiling. They sounded incredibly special and loud enough to drown out my furious belting of their tunes. Get these five guys in a big room with their toys and as stupid as it sounds, magic happens.

I took some notes in an attempt to explain their charms to myself and to an audience on the radio earlier in the week.

Can we start with Stephen’s voice and what comes out of it?

* I find it very stimulating. Couldn’t do an entire album of Steve a capella — no I need the rest of it.

* The first song I ever heard was Half a Canyon off Wowee Zowee, the opening yelp perfectly encapsulating how I felt at the time. I was 24 and a mite bit angsty.

* The lyrics have a literary-bent. Discuss the appeal of riddle-speak and a bands' charms partly these inscrutable secrets.

* A pose that is ironic in the sense that he’s not self-important enough to think that his words can feed Africa. Doubly ironic is that his words are vastly more quotable than Bono’s. Triply ironic is whether Bono gives a shit when he’s on the golden toilet in his jet and no he does not.

Malkmus seems to pretend he doesn’t care and there’s something alluring about that, but the fact of the matter is, he cares more than you would ever know, except he doesn’t care much about the videos Pavement made otherwise they wouldn’t all stink. They’re okay I guess (the vids), pretty corny and fail to reflect the art-damaged aesthetic of their sleeves, and that’s what bribles.

The Most Mature Immature Film Ever Made

10/10

Pip Proud

Pip died. David has more information on his blog. Mia says he’s in a better place hanging with Bach and Mozart. Perhaps he’s having a beer with Barry Hannah as we speak.

Here’s a review I wrote a few years back about Pip's first gig in forty years. Thanks to Ariel Pink for recognizing a true outsider and making it happen. If this performance was any indication, Pip's poetic fires raged undiminished until the end. You can’t ask more from a life than that.

Ariel Pink, Pip Proud, East Brunswick Hotel, Melbourne

Could Pip slip? Don’t know, but our nerves sure shake. Last time Pip played was pre-Woodstock, for goodness sake. Since then, the far-out Oz folksinger’s been speaking to angels and literally blinded by love - a 37-year hiatus. Our faith is restored the moment he starts singing about ‘dueling dildos’ – with suction sounds added for shits and giggles.

Fronting an unfathomable rhythm — sitar moans, eerie keyboard drones and the like — Pip and the guitar girl duet: “Will you tell me about Los Angeleeeze? Where they stripteeeze all day and all night, will you tell me?”
“You don’t want to know!” she cautions, while drummer David Nichols hypnotises us into believing he’s Mo Tucker.
“Tell me, you bitch,” Pip pleads and so on. It’s really something else.

RIP Barry Hannah

“The canned dream of the South is something I’ve resisted my entire career; it disgusts me,” Hannah said. “And being Southern isn’t always a graceful adjective; it’ll kill you sometimes. Often, it’s shorthand for ‘Don’t bother reading this because it’s just gonna be a lot of porches and banjos.’”

more from a profile written by Wells Tower in 2008

When I came in to work this morning after being out all night with my barber there was an email from H telling me Barry Hannah had died. Barry was 67 – my number in third grade basketball. I had my own trading card and everything. I was four foot ten and eighty five pounds. I was a natural blonde. I wanted to be a coal miner. But enough about me. Barry was a strange writer and a true love of mine (different from being lovers) and like most things in life that I love I have trouble describing why it is that I love it more than the next thing. Often with me it comes down to a writer of special sentences and Barry was one. He didn’t write non sequiturs per say, but his sentences would take you to unexpected places and that blazing talent of his was enchanting to me and a constant reminder of why reading is such an unearthly delight.

Karenina (1873)

‘I think,’ replied Anna, toying with the glove she had pulled off, ‘I think…that if there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.’

Vronsky was gazing at Anna, waiting anxiously to hear what she would say. He sighed as if a danger had passed with these words of hers.

Is Tom Courtenay your Dad?

not unlike yo la tengo on Thursday

At a Sicilian eatery James Dutton and I washed down a variety of pizza pie and mouth-watering eggplant fritters with several Sicilian ales, a bottle of superb Sangiovese, flanked by two wild and crazy girls. Actually they were sensible rock chicks who grew gradually less sensible as the night progressed (which is only sensible).

This is about Yo La Tengo though and at the Thornbury Theatre the trio sat on the lip of the stage and took our questions. My boorish blithering probably sucked the fun out of the indie rock press conference for some, perhaps even the band themselves! Questions from me not limited to:
• What’s your favourite motel chain?
• What’s your favourite chapstick?
• Ever met Alex Chilton in Bangkok?

My, their answers to these questions were perfectly droll. Ira looks just like Garry Shandling these days.
A guy stood up in a Flipper t-shirt at one point and James McNew said nice Flipper t-shirt and I blurted out play some Flipper, which of course wasn’t a question. They didn’t play any Flipper.

De Campo quickly knocked back a tequila shot at the bar to gain the fortitude to ask them what their wedding song was. It was ACTUALLY kind of cute. Then they played a fizzy tropical number which seemed appropriate to us as that’s sort of the vibe we’re gonna be investigating.

Towards the end of the night, the most sensible woman in rock asked Georgia if she had ever been a victim of a kidnapping crime. Georgia said no but I once ran from bullies who had stolen my pizza, losing my clogs which the perpetrators then threw at me!

James Dutton asked if they ever met Patty Hearst and they were like oh yeah when you arrive in the US she’s one of the first people you meet. Anyway, James and his sensible wife were fishing for Stockholm Syndrome and the band nailed it. Ira played feedback-fanging exquisite acoustic. Cool covers of Love and the Dead C. Highlights of the original variety included a godly Pass the Hatchet and a sweetly-slaying From a Motel 6. Yeah.

Never really been a fan of Yo La live. Love their records, but the expert musicianship tends to make me yawn, but last night they were folk-rock trailblazers like The Feelies. You my friend know fuck nothing, I can hear James Dutton saying now in his best David Niven. I found him and his wife schmoozing Ira at the merch desk. “Hey Ira,” I said. “What do you think of the Cannanes?”
“I like the Cannanes.”
“What’s your favourite album then?”
“Uh…uh…is?”
You mean “Love?”
“Uh-yeah…with?”
Um…Nature?”
“Nature?”
“Yes.”
“You mean, Love affair with nature!”
I then introduced Garry, I mean Ira, to the Cannanes rhythm guitarist James Dutton, thus making Ira’s vacation a 10/10.

Ron Mueck

Attended his exhibition at the NGV featuring a series of disconcertingly large or small life-like humans made of silicon and horsehair and one rubber chicken in mostly near-death poses (the giant chicken hanging upside-down had had its throat cut). The ones who were not dead or close to dying were either just born, naked, disgusted, sleeping, paranoid or both! Few — like the dude chilled out on a lilo at the pool Jack Nicholson-style or the kid peering down to examine how severely he’d been knifed — did none of those things, while one humongous lady lied in bed looking fluey. Ah, the rich tapestry of life.

Eeriest part was how much more authentic the models were than the assholes taking pictures of the naked and the dead on their mobile phones. Who are these assholes going to show these creepy photos to? Other assholes, I guess.

Also got a guided tour from Beckett on the AUST/NZ fashion collection at the Ian Potter that she had a part in curating, as well as Ricky Swallow’s handiwork, two more shows I can recommend.

Saw Rentboy the other night and put a review of it up on this

From 'Palimpsest'

Bird (Gore's nickname for Tennessee Williams) hitting bullseye as JFK and Gore look on, 1958.

"When Jackie heard that we were in Miami, she asked us up to Palm Beach for lunch. The Bird had no idea who they were, but took my word for it that Jack was running for president. We arrived an hour late. Jack was firing a rifle at a target on the lawn. He was not a very good shot; and I was as bad as he. The Bird casually took the rifle from him and shot three bull's-eyes, "Using only my blind-eye," he cackled.
Jack knew exactly how to flatter authors. Always say you admire their least successful work. He praised Summer and Smoke and the Bird began to find him presidential. He also found him sexually attractive.
"Look at that ass," he said thoughtfully, as Jack led us into the damp, moldy-smelling house.
"You can't cruise our next President." I was stern.
"Don't be ridiculous. The American people will never elect those two. They're far too attractive."

- Gore Vidal

Key post

I'm on the computer updating our company newsletter listening to Viva-Radio's Public Sensory Radio Program (tagline: Music to make mutant babies to) play a song by the Master's Apprentices' called Fresh Air by the Ton that's a pretty good blues jam and blogging about my minor experience of it all.

Vacation snaps

De Campo and I went to Bright for four days after Christmas. Bright is three and a half hours by car. These photos are from that trip.

Pit stop in Glenrowan to extend a few vertebrates (old mosh pit injury) and to eat some average tucker. Got our photo taken with Ned Kelly, outlaw who only stole from the banks. Where are our heros now, dare I say?

Our digs.

We slept on that.

We balconied and bbq'ed on that thing there.



Vicky, the masseuse at Bright Massage, applied her elbows firmly into my gluts and drew us a map to a swimming hole far off the beaten track that was every bit the idyllic picture of youthful innocence that is the final scene of Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. Thanks to Vicky I can get out of a chair now with considerable more ease.

Blissed out set-menu at Boynton’s. Champers to begin.

This mustard pickle butter number was fricking tops.

I had ocean trout with their sav blanc and it bleeping ruled.

De campers went for the pork belly and apparently regretted it a little afterwards. “No you don't,” I said. “YES, I do,” she answered.

Duck salad and the merlot for moi.

De Campi took to the whole snapper like a frenzied sea devil.

Cannanes will play here and it will be awesome we decided (Wandi Pub, Wandilogong)

Year in Reading

I told De Campo to look real purdy whilst reading Fred Exley's gut-wrenching 'A Fan's Notes' on vacation and dammit if she don't pull that off right good

Books I’ve read in sequence, and in brackets, how I’d rank them. Below that is a short spiel.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (35)
Homeland by Sam Lipsyte (34)
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanel West (3)
Hunger by Knut Hamsum (8)
Wait Until Spring, Bandini By John Fante (21)
Untitled by Gavin Butler (22)
Cadence of Grass by Thomas McGuane (9)
The Savage Detectives by Bolano (33)
Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (20)
The English Major by Jim Harrison (19)
Will it be funny tomorrow Billy? by Stephen Cummings (29)
Burnt Orange Heresy by Charles Willeford (24)
Sport and a Pastime by James Salter (30)
The Sporting Club by Thomas McGuane (5)
Returning to Earth by Jim Harrrison (27)
House on its Head by Ivy Compton Burnett (18)
Middlemarch by George Eliot (6)
Aja by Don Breithart (31)
Nobody’s Angel by Thomas McGuane (14)
Old School by Tobias Wolff (26)
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (1)
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower (7)
Who will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore (25)
Less than zero by Bret Easton Ellis (28)
Vineland by Thomas Pynchon (13)
Sam Fuller by Nicholas (32)
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (23)
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (12)
Laughing Gas by PG Wodehouse (17)
Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson (11)
Three Men and a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (10)
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates (2)
The Lazurus Project by Alexander Hemon (25)
True Grit by Charles Portis (4)
Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan (15)
Captain Maximus (stories) by Barry Hannah (16)

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
A second-hand account of a ludicrous character. My feeling is that this novel that took Diaz eleven years and won the Pulitzer Prize shouldn’t have been written.

Homeland by Sam Lipsyte
A sarcastic bag of lame.

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanel West
Short and sharp. After the shitty start, I needed to regain my reading rhythm and what better read than this dependable masterpiece. Gets a little darker and a little less funny each time, but it’s considerable genius festers inside me, haunts me down, gets in my dreams. Wow.

Hunger by Knut Hamsum
This actual Nazi was a favourite of Fante and Bukowski, they themselves starving writing non-Nazi’s. What I loved most about it was how the Hungry could go from euphoria to despair in the space of one paragraph. Hamsum was really keyed into man’s fragile mental state in a world gone mental. How a gust of wind could turn a lovely day reading the newspaper at the park into a risible state of outer turmoil under the most desperate of circumstances!

Wait Until Spring, Bandini By John Fante
A loosely autobiographical novel about growing up in Twenties small town Colorado. A young Fante imagines his buff brick-laying Dad hooking up with a wealthy widow. Lays more than bricks for her. Heartbreaking.

Untitled/unpublished by Gavin Butler
A loosely autobiographical novel about waking up in Canberra in the foetal position and going ‘Dude, I’m a 40 year-old public servant.’ Brims with a fierce hilarious anger reminiscent of Amis. Birthday milestone prompts a reflection on growing up on punk rock. Includes some of the best, brazen, most satirical attacks on pompous ex punkers and the journalists who get a woody over them. Plus some original thoughts on pop cultures’ “thinkers” — you know the guys who spend Mondays around the photocopier discussing the latest middlebrow horror from Africa. This book has it all - even a three-dimensional female character. Even though the main guy is a little unsympathetic you get over that when the style and humour is this good. But who will ever get to read it? Appalling that this book is not fought over by Australian publishers so the people can get on with reading it and raving about it.

Cadence of Grass by McGuane
Among McGuane’s very best. Word of warning though: there’s a soporific scene early on that goes on forever describing the repetitive work of a cowboy. Bored shitless from it, I looked into it out of curiosity and found that that scene fulfils McGuane’s interest in the Zen-like methodology of Japanese literature. Personal points awarded for creating a gigantic transvestite farm-hand who lives with his parents and has a penchant for cranking Beefheart in his bedroom. The book closes with a haunting tone poem/elegy to the cowboy that seems to reside more on the astral plane than the Montana soil it makes footprints in.

The Savage Detectives by Bolano
A new voice in literature, but also an infuriating one.

Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Touching novella beautifully told. Does to suburban LA what Yates and Cheever did to those places in Connecticut.

The English Major by Jim Harrison
Top shelf Harrison.

Will it be funny tomorrow Billy? By Stephen Cummings
Memoir by local rock and roll singer about his new wave meltdowns. Talented writer who goes next level when he goes unhinged, but then he tends to upset a lot of people. Still probably worth it. The writing about touring the US should at least be anthologised.

Burnt Orange Heresy by Charles Willeford
In slimy tropical 1970’s Miami, a devilishly opportunistic art critic plots an elaborate scam on a legendary French painter who’s been silent for years. Seriously creepy pulp by a master of the form.

Sport and a Pastime by James Salter
Strange novel about relentless, imaginative sex in Paris. Chilling in parts.

The Sporting Club by Thomas McGuane
McGuane’s debut is a literary pissing contest tour de force if that makes sense. Not for girls.

Returning to Earth by Jim Harrrison
Three perspectives centred around a 45 year-old Native American father dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Richness and humour of life one moment, gently preparing you for death, the next.

House and its Head by Ivy Compton Burnett
Burnett’s known for putting her sting on the English aristocracy and does so brilliantly here. Her dialogue is deliciously ironic.

Middlemarch by George Eliot
An entire world is encased in this massive marvel.

Aja by Don Breithart
Fun read about the inner workings of Steely’s celebrated album.

Nobody’s Angel by Thomas McGuane
My hero with another solid effort.

Old School by Tobias Wolff
A private school with literary prestige holds writing competitions for the chance to pal around and pick the brains of visiting writers: Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, Ernest Hemingway, et al. Terrific premise that in retrospect perhaps tries to do too much.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Flawless head-spinning evisceration of middle-class pretensions.

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
Modern guy working Yates’ territory very well.

Who will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore
Most exceptional thing about this book is I cried at the end. Pretty wild given she’s best known as a comedian. A minor work.

Less than zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Against all odds, the nagging surface level tedium of LA’s lost souls achieves a poignancy in this insidious first novel by the well-deserved writing star

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
There’s a race of people — although that designation is perhaps too generous — they-re stiffs, zombies; I don’t really see the point of them in this novel. They live in the woods off the coast of Northern California not far from where a lot of the action takes place. Are they information burn-outs? The book basically asks what if the hippies pulled a Rip Van Winkle on us and woke up in ’85 with Bonzo in the White House. In addition to the Thanatoids mentioned above, there are anarchists, ninjas, psychedelic and bubblegum and surf rock bands, hilariously bad TV show ideas, copious acid consumption and doobies galore. Bret Easton Ellis seemed to execute this theme a little better in Glamaroma, but Pychon’s artillery is so deep. A perpetual stoned belch of funky prose.

Sam Fuller by Nicholas Garnham
My only non-fiction read if you don’t count Didion and I don’t — too allusive. Read it in anticipation of the Sam Fuller retrospective at Cinemateque. Author makes gnarly claims to Fuller and Norman Mailer to being all but separated at birth.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
The heavily medicated California in Less than Zero was seemingly hi-jacked straight from the pages of this collection, particularly the titular essay about nomad teens in Haight-Ashbury around the time their vibe got crushed by dystopian come downs, bad acid, paranoia and whatever.

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
Even non-tokers cant help feeling a little baked trying to keep up with Pynchon’s steady stream of wacky characters. It’s actually not a whole lot of fun trying to keep up with all of them, there are possibly too many to begin with. However I totally dig Pynchon’s anthropology of early 70s LA surf culture and genre-aping pulp. Contains the funniest anecdote ever about a giant burrito.

Laughing Gas by PG Wodehouse
P.G.’s pitch-perfect prose has a parade on Hollywood and it’s preposterously hilarious.

Cooking with Fernet Branca James Hamilton-Paterson
Dazzling comedy. Could lose the whole spy angle though.

Three Men and a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Indoor types, pasty shut-ins rather, attempt to cure their vague malaise by boating up the Thames. Funny as hell with a suppleness of prose.

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates
The best short stories I’ve ever read.

The Lazarus Project by Alexander Hemon
Originally from Bosnia, Hemon visited Chicago in 1992 and then when Bosnia went under siege he got stuck there. Picked up English and has since written a number of books in it. Has some cool ideas. This one is a about a writer, a Bosnian expat in Chicago, researching this Lazarus feller, victim of an unlawful murder at the hands of the police chief in early twentieth century Chicago. The writer traces Lazarus back to his home country accompanied by a bonkers photographer and learns who he really is. Fine meta-fiction. Dumps on Auster's work rather savagely.

True Grit by Charles Portis
Pays a kind debt to Huck Finn with a 13 year-old narrator whose precocity will knock your socks off. With a suspense-filled heroic finish.

Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan
Fresh prose for 1964.

Captain Maximus (stories) by Barry Hannah
Swaggering short heavy stuff, except for the notes from the unmade Altman film at the end, which is swollen, tedious and hurty.

View last year's.

100 Fantastic Things About Fantastic Mr. Fox (However Redundant)

1. foxy
2. fantastic
3. cuddly
4. clooney
5. streepy
6. schwartzmannish
7. inventive
8. witty
9. ironic
10. adorable
11. droll
12. urbane
13. fashionable
14. stylish
15. architectural
16. comic
17. profound
18. animal-friendly
19. artful
20. uplifting
21. charming
22. family-friendly
23. funny
24. cute
25. rocking
26. stonesy
27. musical
28. folky
29. Jarvis cockery
30. ratty (as in willem dafoey)
31. swift
32. super
33. zen-like
34. twinkly
35. scrappy
36. warm-hearted
37. lovely
38. Murray (as in Bill)
39. actorly
40. scientific
41. canny
42. creative
43. human
44. humane
45. game
46. well-dressed
47. delightful
48. compassionate
49. silly
50. caring
51. imaginative
52. romantic
53. wistful
54. heart-aching
55. blissful
56. nutty
57. alcoholic
58. athletic
59. winsome
60. enchanting
61. wonderful
62. dashing
63. clever
64. sly
65. sublime
66. winning
67. emotive
68. entrancing
69. extraordinary
70. heartfelt
71. superb
72. splendid
73. literary
74. dreamy
75. flawless
76. cunning
77. thoughtful
78. modest
79. endearing
80. entertaining
81. mesmerising
82. joyful
83. charismatic
84. magical
85. poised
86. pitch-perfect
87. life-affirming
88. scientific
89. sporting
90. suave
91. scheming
92. well-structured
93. rip-roaring
94. sui generis
95. chic
96. masterful
97. exuberant
98. inspired
99. elegant
100 sweet

Andrei Rublev is a pussy

Now that you know that, you can go back to sleep in the cinema where the movie is playing. Tristan and I are asleep. I’m writing this on my phone asleep, even though you are not supposed to use your phone at Cinemateque (it’s distracting for others and can lead to brawls), but how am I to know – after all, I’m asleep.

I’ve slept through a lot of this three and a half hour movie. Tristan has to, but his excuse is that he took some hay fever medication beforehand, but I know the real reason, he thinks Andrei is a pussy. I wake up during a raid and see a panicky horse attempt to descend a flight of stairs covered in blood. The horse slips and falls off the stairs lands on its back and I shudder! I can’t believe I just saw a horse do that and think maybe that’s why it was banned in Russia for five years and then I go back to sleep. I wake up and the raid is still going. The Asian enemy (Tatars) are pouring boiling oil into the mouth of a decent fella.

Rublev is not shit, but it’s overrated to the max, a masterpiece of tedium and as beautifully sterile as you can expect from someone who gets eye-popping visuals and a laborious mise en scene without any real emotional pay-off.

Gawd could Andrei be more of a sad sack loser? The second I saw him, I thought cool, we’re in for some art-is-taking-it-to-the-Church punk rock because the actor playing him smouldered a little bit like our man Viggo. Wrong. As this boat of a film demonstrates, Andrei has not much backbone. He’s a passive putz pussified to the hilt, brooding about the miseries of life in the medieval mud-splattered suburbs. Fugg do I tire of films that Bible-spank that churchy heaviosity. For Andrei's sake, I'd much prefer it if this was movie was set in 1995, the year Pavement released Wowee Zowee.

Dude you make a three and a half-hour movie about a guy who weeps when a hot witch throws her naked body at him and you got problems. Roger Corman should have remade this as drive-in smut just to make Tarkovsky’s piles twitch.

I would not watch this again if you tied me up and threw a naked witch on me! My favourite scene is the one where the horse itches its back in slow motion (pictured).

If you see this movie on DVD at a prospective lover’s house run like that shithouse is going up in flames!

Goodtime Glen

He came out and did his little song and dance. Jig was kinda up as his joints needed a few icy hot applications. Multi-tasking: he sang the tunes we sing along to on a regular basis very well, while he dug into his pocket for an acorn repeatedly (to no avail).

He forgot the words to Gentle on my Mind, his first song, even though there appeared to be one of those autocues on stage. Between song chatter was limited to garrulous rambling. Then he’d get songs mixed-up and stories would end abruptly. Not only did we excuse these missteps we encouraged them. We thought they were awesome.

Six piece band surrounded him like a gridiron line would a quarterback. Only difference was they were behind him. The grey balding piano player looked like one of those guys with a pristine 78 collection. Glen when he was introducing Classical Gas goes to him you know this one and the guy says yeah it’s great. Glen almost seemed disappointed that the guy knew it.

Glen was so good on the guitar you questioned whether he ever played the same song twice. Once he strapped in to the device and got his hands near it, the sound travelled from it instinctively, rhythmically like the whole operation was out of his hands. Potential headline: Huge blocks of chocolate baritone melted by finger picking hot fudge on Sunday.

If any hearts had stopped beating (and I’m sure some did, average age last night: 87), then Glen’s Lone Ranger theme would have made them feel like they were on top of Silver all over again.

Glenn was a little too goofy to cry a tear to last night. But that’s okay we got to meet his daughters, Debbie and Ashley, one of whom he sang a lovely duet with about doing the wild thing with her. The floodgates almost burst on that one let me tell ya.

The Mortal Storm

Innsbruck, Austria is a mountainous, yet feasible cross country ski trek from the German village where Frank Borzage’s Mortal Storm (1940) is set in.

Here Viktor Roth, on his 60th birthday, is about to be honoured by the university he lectures at for achievements in science, except he doesn’t know that yet. Anyway, he’s a jolly good fellow, dignified and old, as Jonathan Richman might say. We meet his family at breakfast. Two energetic young boys (one played by a 21 year-old Robert Stack) bound into his room and wish him a happy birthday in a sing-song fashion.

A tender moment between them is shared. Viktor tells them they mean as much to him as his own flesh and blood. The boys turn around and say we don’t think of you as our Stepfather. Victor gets choked up, and so do you (and it’s not like you are the bastard son of anyone or anything).

The Father and his Sons do look nothing alike. The Dad is hard-lined and severe, while the boys are perfect Nordic blondes and blue-eyed. We also meet his stepdaughter — the great Margaret Sullavan. Her gift to him is a cashmere scarf that she ties around his neck as he heads out the door.

His lecture turns out to be a surprise party. A German song is sung. Two students approach the lectern and say a few kind words. They are played by Jimmy Stewart and Robert Young. A gift is presented. The audience, made up of students, peers, and his family, who are located in the balcony of the lecture hall — applaud with collective vigour.

Evening comes and we’re back at the Roth’s for a family dinner. Jimmy Stewart is also here. Cut to the servery where Robert Young is stealing a kiss from Margaret as she adds candles to the birthday cake. He threatens to announce their engagement and she appears to be in two minds about it, but ultimately feels it would be hard to resist (also to be in two minds about it: Jimmy Stewart). Cake arrives and Dad makes a fine speech about good humour, tolerance and other virtues that underpin their family and reinforce their position as a well-refined and progressive unit.

Robert Young proceeds to steal some of Dad’s thunder by announcing his engagement to Margaret Sullaven, while they both get upstaged by Adolf Hitler whose ascendancy comes over a radio news bulletin. Allegiances are quickly established. Young and the two Aryan-looking sons are thrilled with the country’s new direction and keen to make Germany a force by any means necessary.

In opposition are the Dad, Jimmy Stewart and, you could say, Margaret. Not that they are pacifists so much, just free thinkers. After all the Dad is a bloody scientist who can prove that blood doesn’t mean shit! You can imagine what happens. The poison of the Third Reich’s doctrine, led by sweaty, scar-faced and hideous Nazies, begins to spread. Even the most functional families get torn apart. Absolutely harrowing.

This was the second masterpiece of 1940 starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. Ernst Lubitsch’s Shop around the Corner was the first, a charming romantic comedy about small business capitalism (also starring Viktor Roth).

Not surprisingly Germany banned the importation of MGM products upon the release of this, a masterful film whose shadow looms large (two great recent flicks: The Lives of Others and Inglorious Basterds are hugely indebted to it). I love Margaret Sullavan. She is great. She went deaf in her late forties and no longer could act and then committed suicide.

The Unicorns

It was another vastly overrated day for Stroke Clapton, eavesdropper for Terrorism Taskforce. At a secluded hut inside the Queensland rainforest the special agent was twiddling his thumbs. Officially bored out of his brain, he searched frantically for a paperclip, overturning a filing cabinet and two plastic trays. He unbent the bit of metal and used it to swab his ear, gaining ample relief.

He then unwedged his Speedo and walked outside into the hot, humid morning to feed Maurice. Maurice was an ugly lizard recovering from a collision with a motorbike. It glared through one puffy eye. Stroke yawned. All night Stroke had been sitting at a giant switchboard, eavesdropping on international calls, trying to snuff out suspicious dialogue through selective surveillance. As the western world teetered on a timorous knife edge, it was up to guys like Stroke to prevent another 9/11-type thing from happening. He was doing his best. But over the past week there had been nothing. No potential terrorist threat at all. Stroke dropped a small rodent into Maurice’s deformed maw.

In a few minutes, this would all change. A red light on the veranda would flash and a horn would sound. This would signal Stroke into the control room to strap on some bulky headgear and listen in on a call from Montreal to Melbourne. The conversation would be between two men about an upcoming tour. A trio of rambling musical geniuses called The Unicorns who were intending to visit Melbourne.



The music, as Stroke would later discover, was a tragicomic masterpiece, containing sing-along lyrics about living, dying, necrophilia and crying, all backed by classic melodies and loopy effects, fantastically scratchy guitars, sweet as liqueur vocals and cannibalistic keyboards driven ravenous by musky aromas. But the conversation would be eerie, with answers coming courtesy of Nicholas "Niel" Diamonds, a Unicorn himself. Stroke listened and he learned…

What are you doing now?
"We're just making dinner".

What are you cooking?
"Alden made this crazy like pizza out of eggplant and flax and a human placenta ".

No.

"Yes, in Canada it's a little bit more common. But what we do here is we get a placenta from after the baby thing happens and you can eat them and they're actually full of protein and so we've made this pizza".

Pause.

"I know that that might freak you out. Jamie and I used a bit of placenta and made a salad. We made a salad dressing sauce with some of the umbilical cord".

No.

"No, what?! Now you think I'm bullshitting. My mother's a nurse, she has access to that kind of stuff and Jamie's mom's a midwife. We can get other stuff too". Like what? "Nail clippings. The dirt under the nails we clean off. Canada is all about being resourceful. We try to make do with what we have here. There's a lot of tundra. Every month we are required to kill at least one buffalo and what you have to do is make it last all winter. There's one in our household right now. It's a pet buffalo, we don’t eat that one. We ride it around. Slappy. 'Alden don’t, get off, you're going to hurt his back!' "

How did you meet?

"I met Alden when I was 16. We were both dating the same person and didn’t know. It almost came to blows. She was neat. She was really nice and neat and tidy. She liked Frank Zappa and smelled really good. She smelled citrus-y. It was a natural scent. She showered three times a day and still smelled like oranges. She is our muse… I met Jamie at a bridge building tournament. We were doing engineering at a school for mildly retarded people. We really admired each other's bridges and that kind of bridged the gap. I put a peanut on my bridge and it collapsed. Jamie managed toothpicks and olives".

"I'm six feet tall, Alden, at 4'11", is the shortest. He is a gymnast and the bar is his specialty. We bring the bar with us on most of our tours. It's a real spectacle. We wear nice clothes on stage. We like Armani suits. We believe in looking good. We come from a very Aristocratic background. We've also got a funny terrorist costume, but we're wondering if we can get that through customs".

Stroke stopped eavesdropping there. His ears promptly gulped shut as he pondered the recent exchange. It was disgusting, derelict and most of all, unAustralian, he surmised. These dangerous punks needed to be stopped and Stroke decided he was the man who could do it. He planned to close in on them with incredible force, perhaps removing their pants from their travel bags after they check in at Tullamarine, or redirecting their guitars to Shanghai. Just because The Unicorns are devilishly smart, pretty and elusive doesn’t mean Stroke will be denied making a capture. At any rate, the concerned citizens of Melbourne await the exciting conclusion.

(2004)