persiflage: minor tweaks

Steve had good ideas for how to simultaneously draw out the tension of the final pages of Persiflage and set the reader up for its deflation, so I've just been patching up his suggested final edits. It's a whole different ballgame reediting something you've drawn but it is perhaps even more satisfying to continue to make it work, or to make it work better, in revision. 

I still have the next one running in the background of my thoughts a lot of the time. A kind of a revenge story I think although I am not sure whether the revenge will be conscious or unconscious. Perhaps unconscious is better. Yes, I've just decided, it is. It will also be a coronavirus story, very 2020. I think I might make it ridiculously overreaching, an epic of preposterous proportions. I may also make it more adult than Persiflage, which sets you up to imagine bizarre sex by depicting a naked woman on the first couple of pages (never seen again) but otherwise only goes so far as to show a vanilla postcoital scene towards the end but is otherwise only shocking in for instance the violence depicted above (which is however clearly framed as faked, cinematic). You're going to love it, well, I am anyway.  

I think it's always best to have something in the works and percolating while you weather the extreme letdown of response to the earlier thing. Gets you through the disappointment/irritation. It's all vanity anyway and as long as you know that you're fine. 

Steve is confident that Persiflage will be out before Christmas. 

coming out

Emerging from lockdown is tougher than I thought, and a few around me have mentioned the same for them, particularly those who identify as introverted. Seeing people suddenly flock to the streets (I haven't been into any shops or anything this week, aside from the ones I normally frequent, so I can't say with certainty what it's like in there, but I have seen people outside bars/pubs and at restaurants) has been a little bit confronting. It has reminded me though of how for most of my life I have needed to retreat periodically to reassess and renew, that is, heavy social activity is exhausting and often feels transactional. I don't know if that's a rare feeling but I do know a lot of people are happier being out in public than I am. Which is probably why some people play their dramas out in real time with real people, and I blog. 

Speaking of which, I note with some interest that having hit over 200 posts this year I have posted more on this blog than I have done in probably a decade. I have not been trying to hit a target, at all, and as mentioned in previous years I think the main inhibitor until recently was the extreme difficulty I found switching between my 'main' associated email account. Somehow, blogger (or someone) fixed this problem and it is now as simple as clicking through a couple of times. So the psychological impediment is gone, and it's easy. I suppose the circumstances of 2020 have also made it more attractive, a lot of time at home alone with all kinds of minutiae going on to record, subtle cat dynamics and old records turning up in the mail, the normal fuel. And the background noise of insanity going on in the world outside. Yesterday I heard someone in the street going through a manic iteration of yelling 'meow' in crazy sing-song ways. I didn't look out the window, I don't know if they were alone or trying to make someone laugh. It didn't make me laugh I just thought 'ugh, stop the fuckin' madness'. 

Today I am finally getting my car back from the mechanics' and tomorrow I am going to visit Ferdie, who has his first walk proper walk today after his cruciate ligament operation, these things will change my outlook I am guessing. That said I am unlikely to be doing much in the next fortnight as rent and car repair costs put me on a very small budget until next payday. 

fifty years ago today

 

1970 was a horrendous year for so many reasons, and this stupid comic strip from The Age fifty years ago today just sums it up. The first frame is particularly gross and no wonder I turned out the way I did. I did read the comics in the Age but the comics in The Sun were far better. We got the Sun because my grandfather and uncle both worked for it (my other grandfather worked for the Age). 

In 1970 we were living in Kew, and my sister Tamsin was two months old. The house in Kew dated back to I guess about the 1880s, wooden, on a huge block of land. It had one really great room, which we called the sun room, which was at the back of the house and was I imagine a recent (1950s?) addition. It also had a magnificently large back yard. I just went looking on Melbourne 1945 for it but there's insufficient detail, unsurprisingly. 

I started school at East Kew primary in 1970, so I had almost completed 'Grade Prep' with Mrs (or was it Miss?) Ewart when I learned about the freeing of microencapsulated substances by the rupturing of a wall. I was looking forward to worldwide computers, in the abstract, but now I am not so sure. 

dreamspun sherpa my oldest friend

Yesterday I travelled to Clifton Hill to pick up a 1950s teach yourself Finnish book which an old friend/colleague had advertised as a veranda throwaway on fb. I thought it might complement my use of the suomi app to get me a little more comprehending of this difficult language (you should see the first three pages of vocab in the book - christ! - which comes after 24 pages of basic explanation). Anyway we talked about how she was slowly chucking out her late father's accumulated books - he was a polymath I guess or a dabbler - and we then discussed the ins and outs of post-divorce or post-mortem stuff dispersal. Of course I'm torn between the luxury of surrounding myself with stuff, and the uselessness of it. But you know in recent weeks I've come to think about one item which has been a constant daily element in my life for probably close to fifty years, certainly more than 40. It's my lurid orange Dreamspun Sherpa blanket, '100% Vonnel Acrylic Fleece'. 

Sorry the bed is messy I think I must have thrown back some blankets around 4am possibly a high pressure system before the rain. Then cat anchors kept it in disarray. I just wanted to show how much my Dreamspun Sherpa stays close (of course, in Summer it goes into the cupboard and has a rest for a few months). These blankets first came on the market in '71.

Age 25/3/71

SMH 14/3/71

I texted my mother to ask if she remembered buying these for her family (my memory is, it was a bit of a heralded event and we all got one) and she responded 'Why' then 'No' but also the valid question, 'were they singles', because no this is a double and I always had a single bed when I lived at home. 

The lurid orangeness of the blanket is one of its best features and it has indeed accepted and held this bright colour. Christ knows when I last washed it. Never? I also wonder whether the wool  industry came down on 'acrylic fleece' the way dairy opposes non-dairy 'milk'. 

Right now the blanket is recording in its diary how Helmi is really shitty with Nancy for being on me and on the bed. I imagine she (H) is ready to retire for the day. She just sniffed Nancy then swiped her. Nancy = no shits given seemingly.

24 october 2019

Last day in Stockholm

After thinking about this for a year I have to conclude it says 'My Vegina', not (the only other possible option) 'Mr. Vegina' - there are no lower case Rs anywhere else on the sign. Just go with it. 

The national library:

 

23 October 2019

I know, I know you wanted to know what happened on 22 October 2019. I think it might have been some of the things I said happened on 21 October. Does it matter a lot to you? If so, I apologise. I guess you could just count yourself lucky I'm being so generous as to share all this with you, my last few days in glorious Stockholm. This big skyscraper is where the conference was being held, and a key argument. The rest of the pictures are Java Whiskers, the cat cafe I went to. 

 

we all live at the baked potato

 

So... I just had some nuanced feelings so nuanced it's almost going too far to call them feelings, about the above. I take my hat off to the person who wrote the three sentences/paragraphs, who totally knew what they were doing/saying and seriously, if you know what you're getting into you know, so I don't think anyone should cavil at this product, presumably all the original members are getting some kind of cream off the top at the use of the name, or at least signed a contract/release in 1973 or whatever saying 'I'll take fifty quid now and never think about Soft Machine again'. But also, there is a case that the most Soft Machine thing that Soft Machine 2020 could do is change their name to something else (though clearly they skirted around it for a long time before just going with it). 

John Marshall is the group's third drummer I think, and first played with them in 1972. It goes without saying he is good, he also played on a personal favourite of mine, Jack Bruce's Harmony Row. Kudos. Babbington played with them in 1972 as an additional member (according to wikipedia, which irritatingly does not have one of those irritating graphs showing you who played when). Etheridge came in in '76. Travis is a total newbie and indeed the poor fool is barely older than me i.e. he is about as old as Soft Machine (he was born in mid-64, it was born in mid-66). So, none of them played with the classic line-up and only Marshall ever played with Hugh Hopper but all except Travis played with Mike Ratledge. The group has had no founder members since Ratledge left in 1976. 

That's why I love the last line, 'absolutely at the top of their game'. The top of whose game? The Soft Machine were last at the top of their game (on record, anyway) with the release of Volume Two, with its truly vile cover and  entirely brilliant contents. That was, um, 1969. (A 'soft machine' is a woman's body, you see, and the band were in no way gay like William Burroughs). 

Since that time (or the time of Third) as far as I'm concerned, and I have not looked into it deeply at all, and nor am I qualified to judge the content and I am very biased by prejudice/prejudiced by bias, the musicians under the umbrella have just not cared enough about bourgeois things like what the band's called this time around, etc. I have been in the same boat tbh, with at least one band (I've mentioned this before and won't go through it again) where key members left and we were like - well - do we just keep going with the old name and cling to the raft of a little bit of product recognition amongst an otherwise uncaring public - or - do we strike out with a new one. I think (though I'm not sure, hard to remember now) on some level we had confidence in the next record, but perhaps given that confidence we should have pressed the reset button. 

I don't even know why I've made such a thing about this. It's not important if this record is called Soft Machine  Live at the Baked Potato or Amy Winehouse Live at the Baked Potato. We'll all survive and if consumers are lackadaisical enough to purchase a product like this expecting Mike to be there playing a solo somehow then more fool them. 

celtuce

 Delaware Morning News 28 March 1942 p. 7

I had never heard of Celtuce. It's actually a thing. It was big in the US in the mid-40s, I am not entirely sure why but maybe easy to grow in wartime victory gardens? Maybe my mother will grow some for me in her laneway garden.

simple shedding

St Louis Post-Despatch 18 May 1902 p. 47

As mentioned a couple of days ago I was surprised to see that a year ago in Turku with that lavish spread I was apparently unproblematically consuming various kinds of cheese. Bread is less surprising because I was eating bread up to two months ago without too much issue, indeed, going to good bakers like Crumbs in Kensington or making my own bread without care. 

Oddly enough I now perceive cheese (as part of the dairy slavery cabal) as cruel and weird, and while intermittently I dabbled with fake cheese I feel now that that stuff (perhaps depending what it's made from - should I try them all out experimentally?) actually makes me feel unwell, probably it's too rich in something. Not only can I now do without cheese and even cheese substitutes, I feel a little nauseous when I think about cheese generally. Remember that Simpsons episode where the cheap mafia milk is rat milk? Well, to me rat milk or cow milk, I make no distinction. That said, I really like this stuff called 'Like Milk', which is apparently made from peas, and I am also fine with oat milk, though I was disappointed to read in Wikipedia that the Oatley company is kind of morally dodgy these days. 

Bread is different, though I do often recall my father detailing the yeast process to me in terms that the yeast thinks it's going to have a life but then it gets baked and dies, although really, I am pretty sure yeast doesn't have ambition. But while I can't entirely remember when I last had bread, I do know I don't really want any anymore (I also recall that in the last year or so, bread has often caused me pain). So I don't know that I'll be going back to that anytime soon.

I suppose the time is approaching when I absolutely cease engagement with a culinary aspect to my tourism, whether it be local or global, and perhaps also going out to a restaurant aside from a completely vegan-friendly restaurant is off the cards. I don't want to rarify myself out of existence with these kinds of things but it seems natural and normal so why not. 

21 October 2019

That's the Swedish National Library there. It's very nice inside. But I would also say the Finnish National Library would not allow a 7-11 on the corner. 

Above is the liquorice I bought, as I head towards an actual dedicated liquorice shop which I didn't actually go into (I can't remember where I bought the liquorice above, but it wasn't there). I didn't see the need to buy books in Swedish on liquorice (only the deep desire). 

Hello old friend. Water damaged singles outside a junk shop on the way to the conference I was on my way to. No, I did not buy it. 

The conference

Below: the only reason I am pretty sure I didn't steal this book, which was in the fancy upstairs cocktail-reception area in the conference venue, was that I would then have to carry it back to Australia with me. 

What are these? Seriously, I don't know

Hello old friend - again

I did buy this. It's pretty good

I kind of wish I'd bought this

Meanwhile, Ginger Baker had recently died and his funeral was about to happen. Rant in peace Ginger

 

I apologise

... to regular readers. I was looking through recent posts earlier today (I was on the couch and Nancy was lying on my shoulder/right arm so I was just trying to find a way to entertain myself while she slept, I know this sounds pathetic (a) because she's not a baby, and it is the kind of thing that pathetic cat people do and (b) I don't need to make up excuses for why I read my own writing, but that's what happened) and I realise that I don't often read the last few posts when I write something, so I repeat myself quite a bit. I can only imagine what it would be like to read the whole last 15 years of this blog, I bet I basically replicate whole posts, it's a bit depressing to realise I can actually do that, that my way of presenting material is that formulaic. 

I saw on tiktok this evening (Nancy was on my arm, probably) some new reconfiguration of a tetris-type game that idealised it as a way of gauging how 'old' your brain is. The idea is that you tell it how old you are (oddly, they had a woman who was basically a girl, so, probably 20) saying she was 44, and then she is so bad at the tetris-y game that it's apparently proven she has the brain of a 53-year-old. Firstly, I get why if you wanted to market some shitty app to kids, you'd make it so you're bagging old(er) people, but I don't get why the 20 year old is '44', and nor do I get promoting a game that bags you if you make a mistake by suggesting your brain is old. But what do I know, I'm older than 20, 44, and 53 (not combined, but sometimes it feels like it). 

I have Moths in my past. No listen, this is weird. About five years ago (?) I signed up to MyHeritage, whatever that literally is, but I had completely forgotten about it, but I got an email from them yesterday saying someone had added to my family tree, or made a match or something (yes it's a bit dating-app-y but maybe that works for the genies). I checked it out, someone had added some ancestors to my mother's mother's father's family, and his grandparents were Sarah and William Moth. I'm not kidding. I didn't know there was a surname Moth, although I looked in the white pages and, well, there's one Moth in the phone book. It's kind of cool though god I'm glad my name isn't Moth, though of course it wouldn't be via those people, because it's my mother's mother's father's mother's father's father. Then I got a message from some guy who is related somehow (I'm not entirely sure how) to my mother's mother's grandfather's sister - I think - though he said he was not related to her but to her husband's children. He's going to send me the family tree link so I can make sense of that. After which I am going to try hard to forget it. I don't want to become a genie.

I have a book in the spare room which is my father's mother's outline of her, and my father's father's, lineages. It's pretty zany. I looked some of them up in the newspapers but they didn't do anything amazing, and most irritatingly, if they buried gold bullion somewhere well it doesn't say. I just wonder whether my father's father's family, the most brutish and sad of the four grandparental forebears, all bent down to pick things up the way I do, in a way that I realised to my strong irritation is the same way my grandfather did. Like a monkey finding a berry. 

20 October 2019

Got to love those Scandinavian breakfasts. Although I'm surprised by what I took on, as today I wouldn't be eating any bread or cheese (maybe exceptions have to be made for holidays). 

The dining room. I was up before anyone else. It was delightful in there and I highly recommend the Park Hotel, if that wasn't clear hitherto. 

Getting the ferry to Stockholm

Is this Åland? 

In the bar / lounge area of the ferry

Fucking hell. I don't remember what I was reading here. 

I was going to say I didn't indulge but actually I think I had a little bit of eurocent to get rid of. 

After that strenuous day, for some crazy reason I felt like drinking a beer. I also felt like eating curry and I did but it was bland, to Swedish taste I suppose (that's probably a slur).