i leave my rage to the sea and the sun

Sometimes I wish that Laura Marling was not so good at music, because then she could write a novel and it would be the most stirring work of fiction ever created.

Also, I now realise that I have Laura's exact hairstyle from the 'Alas I Cannot Swim' era. This makes me very happy. I wonder if people mistook her for a boy, too. 

It's ok Laura, they're just jealous of us :)

Josh Pyke - The Corner Hotel

On Friday night Lovely and I, my friend Holly from work and her friend (who is also named Holly, funnily enough), went to see Josh Pyke at the Corner Hotel

 

They were also selling puzzles, but I couldn't go past a Josh Pyke hand held fan. So pretty. 

Josh Pyke was one of my first introductions to the indie type guitar based folk music that I am now so fond of, as my tenderly impressionable teenage mind first began tuning into the frequency of triple j, which acted as my refuge through those stressful late highschool years, dreaming of the day when I would turn eighteen and would be allowed into places like the Corner and the Hi Fi Bar; to this day it remains a kind of safe house for me to hide from the incessant repetition of commercial radio stations, as I am fast approaching a time in my life that stretches beyond falling in love in da club etc. etc.
But ever since those first days, I have been devoted to Josh's music (I am quite proud of the fact that I can recite all the lyrics to one of his most anecdotal songs, Middle of the Hill, on cue. I think that allows me to refer to him on a first name basis, right?). Lovely once said to me that his songs aren't made of just lyrics but a collection of sentences that he has put a melody to. I must say that I have to agree, but it's one of the reasons I love them so much, each song is its own little story with a tune, and not one of them is superficial. Listening to one of his albums right through is like finishing a book of short stories, I always feel really satisfied that my mind has been enriched. That and they just make me really happy.

I had seen Josh play once before, years ago at the Hi Fi Bar, and was quite excited to see him play again; he has a really fun stage presence, an impeccable live voice and this really cute sway/dance that he does while playing his guitar. As I am severely vertically challenged,  I had a little trouble being able to see him, but Lovely being the gentleman that he is, demanded that I stand on his feet and held me up during my favourite songs (isn't he romantic, enduring bruised and crushed toes for little old me *swoon*). That he had already had a number of beers previous to our meeting up was probably a contributing factor, but I was immensely grateful nonetheless.
Josh played a set that spanned over all three albums, including Middle of the Hill, which I quietly mouthed every single word to, and one of my long standing favourites, Forever Song, which I also thoroughly enjoyed. He also managed to deflect shouts from all kinds of drunk hecklers with amusement and good humour, which I think is a an admirable quality in a musician.

I read an interview in Frankie where he confessed to being a huge fan of metal, and I suppose if you just look at him you could mistake him for a drummer in a hardcore band.

But then he goes and does this

This makes me so happy. Incidentally, it's from the film clip for Make You Happy, so I think it has achieved it's purpose. Apparently the actual boat was sold on ebay, and in an ideal world I would ride this boat to work every day. But then I would also work at the shelter for orphaned baby unicorns and live in a hobbit hole.

Nananananananana Knitting

So it was my special lovely's birthday on Monday, and as part of his present, I knitted him a Batman scarf :) No I didn't know they existed either,but I found this pattern on deviantart and knew it would be perfect

This is my partly finished scarf, with the latest issue of Frankie as a backdrop.

 The pattern I came up with is a double ribbed (knit two pearl two), 26 stiches across, 20 down for the grey and black, and 10 down for the yellow, using  8 ply wool and US size 8 needles. 

But being the silly goose that I was, I forgot to take a photo of the finished product before I wrapped it up and gave it to him, but I'm sure I can acquire a photo of it around his handsome neck soon enough :)
So instead here's a photo of it spread out on my bed after a long afternoon of knitting and watching episode after episode of Chuck.

Romeo and Juliet - The Australian Ballet

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona (where we lay our scene),

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife..

The fearful passage of their death-marked love,

And the continuance of their parent’s rage,

Which but their children’s end nought could remove,

Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Ruby and I and two of our other friends went to see the Australian Ballet Performance of Romeo and Juliet. It is one of Ruby and my most favourite stories, so the chance do see it performed through dance excited us immensely. 
Overall, the performance was visually stunning; the first half was imaculatly staged, (the balcony scene!!!!)dresses and skirts that flowed like water, spiky capes for the Capulets and tights(tight tights!!!) everywhere. Hooray! The ballroom scene gave me shivers, I loved everything about that; the choreography, the costumes, the music. Lana Jones, who played Juliet, was such a beautiful dancer, I could watch her for hours and hours. Especially in the balcony scene. I'm gonna keep mentioining it because ity favourite. IT WAS SO FREAKING MAGICAL!!!

However, there was a lot of inconsistency with the actual setting of the performance, which we all found a little confusing; the opening act was obviously set in around the time that Shakespeare intended, with swords and royalty and all that. But then later on Nurse delivers a message to Romeo on a pretty modern looking bicycle. Friar Lawrence and his monks are replaced with a Holy Man and Hari Krishnas (which I actually really liked, it was a different take on the religious element that worked really well within story), but at the start of the second act they were all in India (?!?!?!) The costumes and the setting were gorgeous, but this act also included a pretty pivotal scene in which *SPOILER ALERT* Tybalt kills Mercutio and then Romeo kills Tybalt to avenge his best friend. This is usually a very affecting part of the story, and is the catalyst for the rest of the tragedy to unfold, but I found it hard to feel the full emotion of this sequence because I was still trying to figure out why the fuck they were in India. We decided that perhaps the director was trying to convey the idea that the story of Romeo and Juliet reverberates throughout the world and can be translated into all languages, countries and cultures, but personally I think it would have worked better if they stopped at the Hari Krishnas. But that's just me.

But on the whole I enjoyed it immensely, the season runs till the 24th of September at the Melbourne Arts Center. It's not exactly cheap, but the richness of the performance certainly makes up for that.

Whilst writing this post, I was listening to the stream of Tori Amos new album 'Night of Hunters', and the final song struck me as very appropriate for this particular story. That and I can't get the chorus out of my head.
Enjoy!

First Days of Spring...

because it really does feel like it 

Cosmic Love

There are lots of fashion concepts and designs out at the moment that I really like but probably would not wear, either because I'm too shy or I can't think of anywhere to wear them to or I am just too attached to my second hand dresses, granny cardigans and floral prints etc etc etc. But as you know, I love colours, and science, and so now I am thinking that I really should have taken up astronomy.

Pretty, huh?
Although the spaceship has sailed on my astronomical career, I like the idea of being able to wear a bit of the galaxy as a way to bring some colour into my day. Like I said, I'll probably never wear these, with the exception of perhaps the skirt, and the bullet necklaces from hiyamoon. But I like to imagine, and sometimes I like to pretend.

These are the songs I would listen to while wearing these clothes and or boots and accessories, dancing beneath a sky of glow-in-the-dark stars.Or on a field trip to the planetarium.

Bonjah - The Corner Hotel

As I have previously and very loudly professed my love for this band in the stalking episode of this blog way back in 2009, I will not bore you with spouts of gushing adoration or the desire for musical love children yada yada yada. I will however say that Bonjah's live performances are very much like a good cheese or a nice bottle of red wine, in that they only get better with age. You would assume that this would be the case for all bands, what with practice and experience and perhaps even a tour budget, but this can often replace that all-or-nothing intensity they had when starting out and were still fighting to break into the industry. You have probably heard me go on and on how much I would have loved to have seen Tori Amos play back in 1992, before she had a tour bus and costumes and emotional stability; that's an example of what I'm talking about.


But back to Bonjah; I remember driving up to Bendigo with Ruby just to see them play at the Karova lounge, I remember dancing like a dirty hippy with two middle aged fans wearing Bonjah t shirts, and I remember smiling awkwardly and staring at my feet as Ruby got them to sign her CD. This time around they have two albums under their belt, and what I remember is how packed out the Corner Hotel was, how there were lots more hippies that could put our feeble dancing to shame, and I remember how loud and good the music sounded. But the thing I'll probably remember the clearest and for the longest, when I am sitting in my tiny flat with my cats drinking white wine and reliving my 'glory days', is that after the second encore, Bonjah, Daniel Lee Kendall and the Joe Kings, who we did not see but who looked like they would have been good purely on the basis of their hair styles, performed the most ridiculous cover of 'I Touch Myself' by the Dyvinyls I've ever seen. It was beyond hilarious, and reminded me of how live music is often the catalyst for spontaneous super-groups, and why I love it so.

Photos courtesy of this flickr
These are actually pictures of them busking on Bourke St, I couldn't find any pictures of them from the Corner, and have no blurry iphone photos or shaky videos with poor sound quality to share.