11 October 2001 (box of crap treasure # umpteen)

You may remember on 5 January I mentioned I had found a box of crap which included a 'diary' from 11 October, 2001. It was actually a little disingenuous/lying to call it a diary as it is actually only five pages, and all relating to only one day - 11 October, 2001. I thought about typing it out, but decided it was better for you to read it as written. This also means I don't have to read it (and I am not tempted to add or subtract anything). By the time you read this, these pages will have been recycled comprehensively into something useful. 

For a little context, Mia and I (and Andrew and Ellen) were heading off to the US to tour with our band Huon. Then September 11 'happened' and I guess we were uncertain about whether we would go at all, and then we decided we would, and we did. This must have been me recording activities leading up to that time, well obviously it was, but I mean it was because of that. I was very close to completing my PhD, I think. 

fuck finland

I have absolutely no idea what any of this means.

In November I guess last year in probably my second last or last night in Stockholm I purchased a diary (in Swedish, just for the exoticness, but it was a nice diary) and spent some me-time mapping out the dates my rent was due and the dates my pay was due, etc etc nothing that interesting just looking to the year ahead and a few things that I knew were coming. Hilariously, I found that diary again today while cleaning up, and of course it has virtually nothing in it because I had virtually no appointments or goals. But then I thought, well look I did enjoy the idea of a Swedish diary but damn it how much would I love the idea of a Finnish diary? And maybe even the diary itself. So I went looking online and once again, well, I don't know how much this happens with other languages, but seriously, the Anglosphere is so Anglocentric that the idea that you'd even want to buy something as utilitarian as a diary in another language is unbelievable to (for instance) eBay. Try looking for a diary in the Finnish language, and you get all kinds of books about the Finnish language for English speakers, and then a whole lot of diaries about Finnish Lapphunds, and then a whole lot of diaries with a particular 'finish' (presumably 30 December LOL). Now, of course you can get to websites for Finnish bookshops ('bookshop'+'Helsinki') but then you run into the problem that they cannot conceive that someone outside a few (non-English-speaking) European countries would be interested in a diary in the Finnish language, and to be honest I can kind of understand why that's an odd idea but you know some people are into licking other people's anuses, I'm into Finnish things. 

There is a kind of Finnish eBay, I forget what it's called but all transactions are conducted in Finnish. I do actually want to buy at least one Finnish-language history book, for a book I'm writing - I mean look, I have a book in Portuguese for the same project and for which I google-translated four or five pages, it wasn't hell. But there is just no understanding that someone might want to partake of these things. I am reminded of a time during the year when I was very desirous of obtaining a 100th anniversary t-shirt for a Helsinki suburb I love as advertised on their facebook page but no chance - the person selling them was very certain I had to show up in person to get one. 

I mean I'll live, but it is kind of weird. Surely there are other affluent Australians who enjoy random arcana. Someone should be brokering this shit. 

in memoriam 21 september

So, another September 21 passes by. It has always been important to me, as the following entries from my various diaries show, and not only because of its vital use as a stopgap, or wedge or period of rest, between other dates in September the exact numerical delineations of which I am uncertain. It is also the birthdays of my friend Gavin Butler and my brother-in-law Robert Barrese.

To say I have kept a diary since 1994 is a piece of nonsense, but I have had appointments diaries since then and I have, literally, kept them (except, as you will see, 2006 which is AWOL). Here is what I did, or at least intended to do, on the past 15 September 21s.

1994 merely says ‘Masters – SS’ and the word ‘Masters’ is circled. I don’t think the Schutzstaffel were my masters then, that's a joke, a stupid one, but that is kind of what it looks like I'm saying in the diary. I don’t know what it means. I wasn’t planning to do masters at the University of Sydney, or anywhere, and that was the year before I graduated anyway. Ah! Looking back I see that the previous week is labelled ‘Porter/ Masters’ and a small line is coming out of ‘Masters’ to another phrase, ‘Rose Fancier’. I think this might have something (well, alright, everything) to do with the writer Olga Masters, and I was studying literature then, and 'SS' probably stands for 'short story', since Hal Porter and Olga Masters were both noted for writing in this form. I wonder if anyone teaches Hal Porter these days, something tells me his reputation has undergone a bit of a battering, for reasons largely but not entirely unrelated to his work. The 21 September 1995 entry is marked merely ‘Market’ and this (or something else) happened ’11:45 – 10ish’. I was going to work reshelving books at the Badham library 5-8 but I crossed that out, and instead did a shift 9-12 am the next day (I am assuming this was a rescheduled because the 22 September arrangement is double underlined as if to say, 'no, not 21 September 5-8, but 22 September 9-12). In 1996, by which time I had moved back to Melbourne, 21 September was - oh goodness, do you remember? - a Saturday, and my diary for that day features an ’11:00 show’ at Flinders Street (!?). 1997 there is a ‘grand final’* and ‘Canberra’ (where I was to be for three more days after that time). 1998 indicates nothing; I suppose I sat in suspended animation (or anticipation: the next day I received $237 from Rolling Stone); also in the other 1998 diary, which was one we used for phone messages, there is the circled word ‘rubbish’. 1999 – a big line from 12 to 6 pm with no explanation. 2000, a date to meet an historian of note at the Deakin University Burwood campus’ Café Plateau, and in the evening (or at least, under ‘notes’) The Dave Graney Show. 2001 is blank and indeed it is not for three days (Monday 24) that something happens: ‘Chapters 7+8’. Could mean anything. 2002- nothing (the day after, some essays due). 2003 – back from Heathcote but nothing special on that particular day, which was a Sunday. 2004 nothing. 2005 ‘recap tests’ for second year subject and that night it appears I had dinner (there might have been more to that story: a ‘W’ is crossed out). I can’t find my 2006 diary, so there’s a worry, for posterity at least. 2007 – I was in Adelaide for a conference; this entry also has prominently but for no apparent reason the address of a well-known 20th century architect who did not live in Adelaide. In 2008 there is nothing more than a reminder to be minding Kenzie. That reminder about minding reminds me to reproduce here and now Toby Dutton's impressive recent portrait of Kenzie right here and now:














And all of this brings us up to yesterday, the most recent 21 September we have had. I rode my new Huffy to work for the first time in a long time. It's not new, it's second hand, and I've had it for months, but it is mine, and it's tops. I felt very smart and important. It rained at night and it was a Monday. There you go.

* A week later, I realised this was the VFL grand final. In those days I was an ardent supporter of the Preston Knights. They didn't make the finals.