this is not a book

While reading a post on my friend's blog, she mentioned a website called this is not a book.

www.thisisnotabook.org

Wow. I love quirky stuff like that.

Last Day of Semester - a garden variety blog post

The last day of semester.

This means I get to spend the next two weeks freaking out as I attempt to finish my HEX major work and memorise the marches for ANZAC day.

Bugger.

But today was, in my opinion a good day.

The day began at 7.30 when I woke up, looked at my clock, and then swore profusely because I needed to leave for my bus at 7.40.

Needless to say I missed that one.

Period one was Latin, which as usual was replete with Monica insinuating numerous things which ought not be insinuated, and with Mezentius being squished by his horse, after which our teacher told us a story about when he was in high school... in other words, mildly unproductive.

During periods two and three, I had a double free period in which I did my chemistry homework. I really need to be more organised. I also should have done the creative writing piece I was meant to hand in yesterday, but instead I did the crossword from Women's Day magazine. As usual, those crosswords make me feel intelligent to no end.

Period four was chem, in which we learned about galvanism. We also got to see what an iron nail looks like when it's soaked overnight in a solution of copper sulfate. It looks pretty nasty.

Five and six were history in which we finished watching Leni Riefenstahl's 'Triumph des Willens' (Triumph of the Will). This was followed by a wide ranging and in depth political discussion about the nature of Nazism, adoption of little African children and the Stolen Generation. I love history.

I wrote my creative writing thingy during periods 4-6. It was meant to be on Belonging. I don't think I adressed Belonging at all.

Although on the upside, my teacher already thinks I'm a dropkick, so it's not like his estimation of me is able to drop further.

Periods seven and eight were maths, in which we ate hot crossed buns and watched youtube. Our maths teacher is awesome.

We watched a bunch of videos, but two which stood out for me were 'Octopodi' and 'Kiwi!'

Octopodi relates to the love two cartoon octopuses have for each other. It's cute.

Kiwi! on the other hand was out of this world. I almost cried.

Enjoy the holidays everyone. I'll try not to drag this blog into the black pool of misery I am bound to become as I attempt to finish my major work. Who knows. I might actually get it done.

Naptime

Today I spent a remarkably productive double period having a nap.

It was awesome.

Reminiscing (or Where's Mah Jew-Fro At??)

Today, as I happened to be going through the study, I found a stockpile of photos. And I mean real photos. Which came from negatives and such. They catalogue my life (and that of my sisters) from 1998 to 2003.

So I'm going to look back, and take you all with me as I do so, wondering what the hell happened and why I am no longer adorable. Because I was. Once.

1998. My last year of preschool.
This was my heyday. I wasn't any more photogenic then than I am now (take a look at the school ID photo Vivien added of me on facebook. It makes my eyes bleed.), but I had the last vestiges of my platinum blonde Jew-fro (there, Monica. I called it a Jew-fro). I was able to pull of pigtails. And I did it with panache.
In retrospect, I had bitchen hair back then. Of course I hated it at the time, but looking at the photos of five year old me, I wish I had had the foresight to scalp myself.

For those of you who didn't know me when I was extremely young (namely everyone reading this blog), I initially had Marilyn Monroe hair. I kidd you not. Up until age four, I had the most fantastically curly white blonde hair. Then for some unknown reason it started getting darker, but at age five, I still had a bit of blonde in there. By 1999, my hair was solidly the boring brown colour it is now. I also had ringlets in preschool.

What the *expletive deleted*?! Did I not spend a few hours trying to get ringlets, only to give up and put HAIR WAX in whilst hoping for the best?

The answer to that is yes.

I so should have scalped myself.

1999: Kindy. There are some marvellously cute photos of me in my new school uniform (which in its own right was heinously ugly). By then I was far too mature for pigtails (or so I thought. Hell, I'd wear pigtails now if I didn't think I'd look like a massive wanker), but I could still wear a ponytail and not have my hair resembling one great big dreadlock by the end of the day.

As a bit of a sidebar, that's why my hair is ALWAYS in a tight french braid. It's because I don't trust it.

There are also some really cute pictures of me not in school uniform. Back in the days where forest green leggings coupled with brown doc martens and an eye-burningly bright magenta jumper was considered the height of cool.

This is also the beginning of my overalls phase.

Best. Phase. Ever.

I hated them at the time, but looking back, wow. I can't even articulate how awesomely I dressed back then.

There's also the Euro/North America trip we took back when dad was diagnosed with cancer. Good memories.

2000: Year 1&2. Maaaaaaaaan that was a traumatic year.

There's only one thing worse than being pulled from your year group. That's being thrust into the year group above you as 'the nerdy kid'. That's one of the reasons I left Emanuel as soon as I humanly could.

Otherwise, more overalls. I had a magenta pair with Sylvester the cat on them. Actually, when I think about it, I had a lot of magenta clothing over the years. I'm wearing a magenta singlet at the moment. Trippy...

There were also red overalls, and yellow overalls, and a fantastic purple pair which my youngest sister now wears...
Overalls to the max.

2001: a Space Odyssey.

Sorry. I couldn't help it.

Year 3. I had Mr Lucre that year. Head of Drama at Emanuel (K-12).

That was the year I played Horatio in the school's production of Hamlet: 3001. That was fun.

Otherwise, this year begins to mark not only the end of the two plaits phase, but also catalogues the last of my jaw pre-surgery. But for that we would have to move on to...

2002: Year 4. There are some rather gory photos of me just after smashing my face onto concrete (oops). I broke my jaw in 27 places, smashed most of my front teeth, bit through my left cheek... I looked nasty.

On the upside, the reconstructive surgery left me with a greatly improved jawline.

The only other photos from 2002 are from speech day. They focus on my older sister, Sarah, and myself.

Sarah got lots of prizes because she was the head prefect blah blah blah.

I, as it turns out, was blacklisted from receiving any prizes. It had always puzzled me as to why, even though I always got the best marks, I didn't win any prizes. I found out today from Erica, one of my primary school Hebrew teachers whom I now babysit for and who was there as I looked through all these old photos, that the head of primary had sent around a specific memo saying that I was going to be leaving Emanuel at the end of that year (because I was transferring to the public system) and thus I was not to receive any prizes, deserving or not. The prizes were to go to students who would be staying at the school.

I was unimpressed when I found that out, to say the least. I am so opening a can of verbal whoop-ass on him the next time I happen to be at Emanuel.

But enough complaining about the internal politics of Jewish day schools.

It's time for 2003...

Year 5. Sheltered little Adela entered the big bad world of public schooling. And was scared shitless.

Emanuel at the time I left had perhaps 500-6-- students in K-12. My year, with 34 kids, was the smallest in the school. At Hurstville Public School, there were over 1000 children. Year 6 had over 200 students. The OC comprised of 4 classes of 30 students each, as opposed to Emanuel's 15 students in a composite 5/6 class.

But photographically, all that remains are photos of Sarah's Bat-Mizvah.

All I can say is, Dayumm.

The dress I wore on that day looks better on me now than it did on me then.

So. That's me looking back on photos I haven't seen in ages. I would have to say that I really lost a lot of cuteness as I aged. Bummer.

And seriously - where's mah Jew-fro at?


To summ up today's post, my mother just found out that I want to do Mechanical Engineering at uni.

Her response was "Why don't you just aspire to primary school teaching at UWS."

Elitist much??

I Wish I Had Old Skool Skillz

Today I made potato noodles, because thanks to Pesach and the bloody commemoration of the fact that the Jews left Egypt in such a hurry they didn't even have time for their bread to rise blah blah *expletive pertaining to inappropriate acts being perpetrated against ones mother* blah, you're not allowed to use anything involving wheat flour which could come into contact with moisture thus prompting leavening, which is verboten etc.

It doesn't seem logical to me either, but moving on.

Basically potato noodles involve beaten egg mixed with potato starch which is dissolved in water which creates a yellowish liquid which is then cooked in the same manner as a crepe before being sliced into noodle shapes and used.

Apparently my paternal grandmother Sarah was mad insanely gun when it came to making potato noodles.

I don't think I was met with the same kind of success.

As any of you who have added water to any kind of starch will know, this produces a mysterious solid/liquidy thing which compacts whenever you try to stir it, which means it's a bitch to hydrate. It's kind of like glue, but harder to work with.

The ensuing mixture, when cooked, has a texture rather similar to what you would assume - it's like egg coloured glue. They even taste rather like egg coloured glue. Or at least what I assume egg coloured glue would taste like.

Perhaps this is how it was meant to turn out, but somehow I doubt it.

If I were a Jewish Polish girl in the 1950s, my marriage prospects would be shot.

I hate religious festivals.

Religion

Those of you who had some semblance of a religious education, or failing that those of you who have seen the movie 'The Prince of Egypt' will be familiar with the concept of Passover (Pesach).

Basically, it's all about the Jews leaving slavery blah blah blah. The whole Exodus thing. They even gave it its own book of the Torah.

That's why I find the amount of preparation we're undertaking for Passover (and I only use the shoddy English translation because I can't be bothered working out the HTML code for Hebrew lettering) mildly ironic.

The house has to be massively cleaned, people are coming for the festivities, so we have to rotate the furniture for three rooms to make everything fit, and we have to get all KlP (Kosher lePesach - Kosher for Passover. It's like Kosher, but more anal).

And note that this is for a festival about the delivery from slavery and resultingly from HARD WORK AND OPPRESSION. To quote whichever edition of the Haggadah we have at home 'Tonight we only recline'. Admittedly there's a preamble prefacing that statement, but the fundamental meaning is the same. It's about not panicking or engaging in manual labour as you move the sofas and various musical instruments (with the exception of the piano, because that would just be stupid) from the living room into the kitchen, the extendable tables into the dining room along with chairs, and then having to do place settings for 20 people at four in the afternoon when you've just gotten home from school and people are arriving at six and everything still needs to be cooked and your mother is contemplating a nervous breakdown... but I digress.

But of course I forgot one important fact. The Haggadah is meant to be read by a man (coming from an all female family, I tend to forget that). It's the women who go about preparing the house for passover, burning the Chametz (leavened products made from grains, which aren't allowed in the house during Passover. We tend not to bother with that - toast is too awesome a food), preparing the food, and generally panicking if anything goes wrong. Which it will.

And this is because of all the western religions, Judaism is one of the most misogynistic (first place goes to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints i.e. the Mormon sect who practice polygamy).

So I'd just like to say: thanks mum and dad for picking a religion which was bound to turn me to atheism.

Illness

Roughly once a year, my immune decides that it's had enough, and decides to punish me by giving me a rather bad cold which lasts about a week and a half. every couple of years it decides to REALLY spite me, and I end up with some horrible illness such as tonsilitis in conjunction with bronchitis, and then I have to take a couple of weeks off school to recover. But that hasn't happened since year six.

Luckily.

Unfortunately, I am in the midst of my annual cold. Having progressed past the foreboding stage (when the symptoms haven't started as yet, but I know they're about to) into the sore throat stage (which is reasonably self explanitory), I then entered the congested phase (where my sinuses decide to hold a revolution) which has now moved into the final (and most painful) stage of continual coughing.

In this part of my cold, my diaphragm decides that it has epilepsy, and thus does its best to empty my lungs of air as quickly, as often and as forcefully as it possibly can.

Since I swim, sing and play tuba, my diaphragm is reasonably good at its job. Which makes it irritating when it spends all of its time expelling the two litres of air I inhaled in a space of time significantly less than a second. It's also painful when this is what's been happening for the past 24 hours.

This phase of cold also means that should I do anything which necessitates me inhaling quickly, my diaphragm takes offence. Which is irritating in the fact that it means that I can't practice the music I need to memorise in time for the ANZAC day march. But it also allows me to empathise with people who have chronic respiratory disorders.

The whole concept of being unable to engage in activities which necessitate good breath control and lung capacity seems rather horrible.

For example, of all the extra-curricular activities I engage in, were I to develop a respiratory condition, the only ones I would be able to continue with any measure of proficiency would be debating and public speaking, because they merely involve talking.

So to all those people out there with asthma, people with any variety of silicosis, and to the rather smaller group of people out there who have emphysema which didn't occur as a result of smoking: I salute you. I just never intend to join your ranks.

Translitteration

From Kindergarten until Year 4 I attended a Jewish school - Emanuel School (although at the time I attended it was still The Emanuel School, abbreviated to TES).

This meant numerous things.

Not only do I know the correct plan of action should: a gunman enter the school; a bomb be planted on the grounds; the school be under siege; etc. ad nauseam, but I can also recite prayers in Hebrew with the kind of fluency that can only be gained from having to do so daily for five years.

It also means that I'm reasonably proficient in Hebrew.

Being a Jewish school, we were taught Hebrew from Kindy in the desperate hope we'd beat Moriah in Hebrew come the HSC, which as it turned out, we actually did in 2009 (Moriah are our deadly rivals. A joke which explains the situation reasonably well goes as follows:
How many Emanuel kids does it take to change a lightbulb?
Ten. One to change the bulb, and the other nine to run down the hill to Moriah to brag about how well they did it.)

This early start in Hebrew had two main effects.

The first, rather more disconcerting one, is the fact that I can still sing along to the alphabet song in Hebrew. The fact that I still remember it creeps me out somewhat.

The second it that I know how Hebrew is actually pronounced. So it pisses me off when an author translitterates something in a mediochre manner.

I am aware that I have not as yet vented my spleen regarding the text I was just forced to study in English - The 5oth Gate - on this blog, but suffice it to say that I thoroughly dislike it. And one of the main reasons is because the author translitterates in the shoddiest manner I have ever come across.

Translitteration is the practice of taking a language which is in character format and phoenetically substituting the characters to english ones. This is all well and good for those who haven't ever learned Hebrew or Yiddish and would thus regard text therein as a bunch of squiggles, but that doesn't mean the author is allowed to merely stich whichever letters he so chooses in whichever order he chooses on the page, and then call it Yiddish (or Polish, which he also did) because it's not.

It's crap.

I had two main issues with Mark Baker's translitteration of Eastern European languages.

The first regarded a mention of the shtetl of Łodz. Łodz is pronounced in a manner akin to the word lodge (the 'o' sound is slightly lengthened, but that's about as close as it'll get without the use of actual phoenetics). Which made me wonder why Baker said that the Ł was pronounced as a W. I know it isn't, because a bunch of my ancestors came from there. The rest of my Polish forebears came from a tiny town called Mława (pronounced kind of like Mølava). Again note the fact that the ł is pronounced as an l not a w.

My other main issue was the fact that although he is from Melbourne, Baker's Hebrew and Yiddish pronunciation is that of an American Lubovitch from the eastern seaboard. It pissed me off, more than the fact that my teacher couldn't even read out the translitteration as it was written, let alone correctly.

If someone is going to translitterate something so that the masses can get the gist of it, THEY SHOULDN'T SUBSTITUTE LETTER SOUNDS IN A MANNER THAT MAKES THEM SEEM LIKE A WANKER!

Thanks go to Damon for inadvertently giving me the idea for this post.

A Little Red Joke

Khrushchev, Stalin and Gorbachev are on a train.

All of a sudden the train comes to a halt. They get out of their carriage to see what's going on. As it turns out, the driver and all of the workers have gone on strike.

The three men confer with themselves as to what the course of action ought to be.

Khrushchev speaks first.

"I know." He says. "We'll raise their wages and put more money into stimulating the economy in the hope that they'll go back to work."

Stalin is unimpressed by this idea.

"I say we just shoot them all and drive the train ourselves."

The other two are unswayed. Gorbachev then says:

"I know, guys. Why don't we just get back in the carriage, close the blinds and pretend that the train's still going."

Hydrogen

I'm entering the Rostrum Voice of Youth public speakign competition, and as they provide set topics for us to choose from, I've chosen 'A modern curse'.

This is my speech. I've tried to make it as funny as possible.

Frank Zappa wrote in his autobiography that

“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and THAT is the basic building block of the universe.

This is not a case of pessimism vs. optimism – it’s a matter of accurate assessment.

Not only is there more stupidity than anything else in terms of universal quantity, but there is a wonderful quality to this stupidity. It is so intensely perfect that it completely overwhelms whatever it is that nature has piled up on the other pan of the scale.”

I would have to agree. We are slowly becoming a stupid species because, in flagrant disregard for Darwin’s theory of evolution, we are allowing the stupid to survive, nay, flourish in a gene pool which is gradually being polluted by their lack of common sense.

When I say stupid people, which I will numerous times over the course of the next few minutes, I refer only to those people who for some inexplicable reason lack that innate sense of ‘If I do this, there will in all likelihood be some horrible violent consequence, so the most intelligent thing for me to do would be to abstain from my planned course of action’ which the rest of us were born with. That’s why the Darwin awards exist.

The Darwin awards are awarded posthumously upon those people who kill themselves in such ridiculously idiotic ways that they did the species a favour by removing themselves from it. Their catchphrase is: Chlorinating the gene pool – evolution in action. Recipients include three men who were playing Russian Roulettte.

Using a semiautomatic weapon.

We are in the grips of a modern curse. And that curse is niceness. You see, our problem is that society is too nice. Instead of dumping teenagers in the frozen steppes of Siberia, and waiting to see which ones make it out alive so as to ensure peak genetics get into the gene pool; we protect humans when they are at their most reckless and irrational point – young adulthood.

There’s a reason most car accidents involve people from the 17-25 years age bracket. It’s because at that stage, the brain undergoes a series of changes which temporarily (for lack of a better term) block the frontal lobe – the part of the brain which governs manners and sensibility – from interfering with our plans, thus making us more likely to engage in reckless behaviour.

There is however one important point: not everyone engages in stupid behaviour. Some people remain sensible. If natural selection were to be allowed to run rampant, those lacking the capacity for logic in their formative years would weed themselves out of the genetic mix eventually, leaving only the able-minded to go about furthering the species.

Instead we go about protecting these hoodlums. The ‘yoof’ of our generation. We force them to wear seatbelts, tell them not to binge drink, smoke, do illicit drugs, engage in unprotected sex. In other words, we tell them what they ought to have worked out on their own. We help them to survive so that they can propagate. And so they do. Society enables the survival of the genetically unworthy, and it’s slowly turning Australia into a nanny state.

Think about it. The big banks engaged in the mild stupidity of lending people money that they didn’t actually have to loan in the first place, and the government stepped in to save them from their own misdeeds. The government introduces mandates to ensure that instead of letting evolution do its thing, people lacking common sense aren’t presented with the opportunity to bungee jump off of buildings onto pavement, or to drive their cars off of cliffs while they watch solar eclipses instead of the road, or to go for a skinny dip with a killer whale whilst enjoying the combined effects of marijuana and alcohol.

The government mandates every aspect of our lives in which stupid people would be allowed to stupid themselves to death. The stringency of driving tests ensures that they actually need to be competent with a car before they are unleashed onto the roads to evolve. Occupational Health and Safety regulations ensure that regardless of whether they have the propensity to do so, no-one is allowed into areas where they could be injured and such as a result of falling tools or rampaging forklifts.

Even sports equipment carries warnings which seem obvious to the average person, but which allow stupid people to survive. For example, I play Lacrosse. On the back of the Goalie helmet is an inscription. It reads:

Lacrosse is a dangerous sport. Death or serious injury could occur while playing. Wearing this helmet will not prevent serious head, neck and/or spinal cord trauma. Do not use this helmet to ramm, stab or headbutt other players whilst wearing this helmet.

If people lack the common sense not to assume that since they’re wearing a helmet, they’re invincible, so they can feel free to attempt to impale others on it, they don’t deserve to live. I know it seems harsh, but it’s the truth. If they think a piece of moulded plastic with some padding on the inside and a mesh faceguard will mean that nothing can harm them so that they can now engage in behaviour generally restricted to mountain goats in the mating season, then if they maim or paralyse themselves whilst engaging in the aforementioned pursuit, they deserved it.

Another piece of evidence pointing to the fact that we are becoming a nanny state is the fact that Ponzi schemes have been declared illegal. In my opinion, if someone at the email address: fluffybunnyfuntime@hotmail.com sends an email claiming to be a Nigerian prince who will give one million dollars to everyone who emails him their credit card number, and the person receiving the email believes it and sends off their credit card details, it’s their fault. It shouldn’t be up to the government to protect them from their own lack of deductive powers.

A final example of stupidity is the advertisements for funeral insurance plans which are broadcast during every ad break on SBS. An ad I saw a few weeks ago began with the statement “A recent study has shown that there is a 100% chance that you will die.” If that sends people scurrying off to buy a funeral insurance plan which isn’t going to benefit them in the slightest, it’s faintly pathos inducing, but mainly funny.

As Paul Twitchell wrote in ‘The Far Country’:

As you grow older in your observation of the peoples of this Earth world, it becomes obvious that stupidity is the reigning virtue. The masses are always willing that somebody take the responsibility of caring for them.

Our curse is that through niceness we enable stupidity, and unless we take decisive action to give stupid people the freedom they need to remove themselves from the genepool, society will not progress.

Aeneas

I've spent a lot of time pondering exactly why Aeneas is such a (for lack of a better descriptor) douchebag.

Think about it. Throughout the Aeneid, he (or someone else) is in the throes of a slaughterous (if one can use such a word) rampage, or Aeneas is engaging in some kind of relations he ought not be having with whomever he's having the relations with because whenever he engages in the aforementioned relations, it always leads to death and mild destruction.

BOOK 1: Juno, in a slaughterous rampage, tries to kill Aeneas because she dislikes him. Unfortunately, she fails, so Aeneas goes forth to Carthage, meets their queen, and begins his inappropriate relations.

BOOK 2: As a subset of his inappropriate relations with the aforementioned queen of Carthage, Aeneas tells of other people's slaughterous rampages during the sack of Troy.

BOOK 3: The aftermath of the slaughterous rampages of the sack of Troy. Aeneas continues his inappropriate relations.

BOOK 4: Aeneas' inappropriate relations bear fruit. He engages in much impropriety with Dido. Jupiter is unimpressed. Jupiter tells Aeneas to get the hell back on track to Italy. Aeneas does so. Dido is unimpressed. Dido kills herself.

BOOK 5: Juno is unimpressed (although not to the extent of a slaughterous rampage). Thus whilst the Trojan men are having a marvellous time with their Sicilian counterparts, she gets her messenger to get the Trojan women to burnt the fleet. They oblige. Aeneas is unimpressed. Aeneas' mummy asks Neptune not to lay waste to the Trojans as they sail to Italy.

BOOK 6: Aeneas goes to the underworld (although unfortunately doesn't stay there for good), where he is once again visited by the fruits of his aforementioned inappropriate relations (namely Dido's ghost). He feels guilty. Dido is unimpressed.

BOOK 7: The subject of Aeneas second round of inappropriate relations is introduced: Lavinia, daughter of the king of the Latins, who at the start of the book is in all likelihood destined for Turnus, another king. Juno is still unimpressed, so she sends on of the Furies to stir everyone into a slaughterous rampage. Aeneas' inappropriate relations once again bear fruit, and the slaughterous rampaging begins on a rather grand scale.

BOOK 8: Aeneas collects some buddies to build up an opposing slaughterous rampage. Aeneas' mummy asks the god of fire (who happens to be her husband, but not Aeneas' father. Oh my, Venus, you whore) to make Aeneas some pointy implements to augment his slaughterous rampaging. He does. Everyone is muchly impressed.

BOOK 9: Aeneas for some reason has left the camp. Juno, still unimpressed with him, tells Turnus of this turn od events. Turnus capitalises. He sets fire to their fleet, but jupiter turns their ships into nymphs (I mean we knew he was a bit of a nymphomaniac, but still). Nisus and Euryalis decide to lay some waste to the Latins, but their slaughterous rampages occur whilst their opponents are asleep, which means their actions are somewhat less Cricket.

BOOK 10: Here we jump from slaugterous rampage to slaughterous rampage. Many people are slain in imaginative ways. Turnus acts like a bit of a bitch my killing Pallas, Aeneas acts like a bit of a bitch by killing Lausus.

BOOK 11: Regardless of the fact that Aeneas let Pallas die, Evander is nonetheless impressed, and stays all buddy-buddy with Aeneas. The Latins engage in a little internal turmoil, so Camilla amasses a force and begins to lay some righteous waste to the Trojans. Camilla gets killed. Turnus is unimpressed.

BOOK 12: Aeneas and Turnus finally get around to going all slaughterous on each other. Aeneas wins. Juno is unimpressed.

With regard to plot, it's almost as bad as 'Le Mort D'Arthur': namely, man number 1 slew man number 2 and took his horse. Man number 1 was in turn slain by man number 3 who took not only his horse but his wife and teenage daughter. Man number 3 was killed in revenge by man number 4 who as it turns out was man number 1's brother. Man number 4 however had no interest in either horses or incest, and instead opted to take man number 3's land instead.

But back to the initial question: why is Aeneas such a dickwad for such a majority of the poem?

The answer: mummy issues. Aeneas has a Oedipus complex (his mother is Venus, after all), and in an attempt to address his self-loathing, and in all likelihood his sexual frustration as well, Aeneas goes about killing people, pissing off powerful goddesses, and doing things he shouldn't be doing with women he shouldn't be doing those things he shouldn't be doing with.

Communism, a Facebook Quiz and Facial Hair

Since I won't be able to post this weekend (I think) because I have marching band from 9-4 both days...in Cumberland (which, by the way, I refuse to reco9gnise as a real place. If it doesn't have a train station, it doesn't exist), I'm writing an extra post today as compensation.

Contrary to the order listed in the title, I will begin with the facebook quiz, which I found in the notes of my friend (and sister of the girl I sit next to in english), Zio/Zoe.

I am to answer wittily the questions below using the titles of songs by a single band/artist.

Behold the convolution.

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 10 people and include me. (That is to say, post it on your own profile rather than replying here, and tag 10 people after the note's done...)

Pick Your Artist: Frank Zappa

Are you male or female: Valley Girl (feat. Moonunit Zappa)

Describe yourself: The Muffin Man (feat. The Mothers of Invention)

How do you feel about yourself: Dancin' Fool

Describe where you currently live: Joe's Garage

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: San Berdino

Your best friends are: Montana

Your favorite color is: Let's Make The Water Turn Black

I know: Disco Boy

What's the weather like: Cosmik Debris

If your life were a TV show, what would it be called?: My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama

What is life to you: Dirty Love

What is the best advice you have to give: Don't Eat The Yellow Snow

If you could change your name, what would it be: Montana

What is your favorite food: Peaches En Regalia

And I managed to get all of them from the US CD release of Strictly Commercial.

I need to find something more constructive to do with my time... I know:

Communism.

I was watching 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' on ABC2 yesterday, and he made the most fantastic call. Whilst poking fun at an Iowa Senator who believed that opposition to the universal healthcare bill was akin to the peaceful protest of the Velvet Revolution, he made a comment comparing the US president to the person whom most Americans believe was the head of the USSR at the time of its collapse, calling him Barack Ostalin.

The Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was in fact Mikhail Gorbachev, but these are people from the lower 48 we're talking about. I'm happy that they know where Russia is.

Back to my initial narrative, this remark fitted nicely with something I had seen on 'The Colbert Report' (also on ABC2). After talking about an especially stupid politician, with a picture thereof on that little sidebar thingy they have on news shows, he said something along the lines of 'Usually I just stick a Hitler mustache on politicians, but I was so amazed by his work that I'm going to upgrade him to a Stalin mustache.'

This is especially humorous to me, because last holidays I found some old yearbooks from when my dad was at school. Apart from discovering what I already knew (Abe Greenbaum was a massive nerd: Chess club; Reach-For-The-Top-Team; Model UN. His best friends had Beatles haircuts), I also discovered that the Canadian federal police had suspicions of communism.

As it turns out, the Bathurst High School model UN team represented the PRC for three years running. The yearbook report he wrote in the 1973 Phoenix was enough to start the RCMP opening his mail before it was delivered to see if he was a communist spy (and this was when he was 16). Whenever we were in Canada and he recieved mail, it would be stamped 'opened by the RCMP'.
The report is as follows:
This year we are once again representing the Peoples Republic of China, keeping up with our reputation of protecting the third world power and defending the rights of the downtrodden. Due to our great diplomatic work, we have had 'Trickie Dickie' for dinner (we roasted him at our Paris Peace Talks). We prevented the American Imperialist Running Dogs from making the Vietnamese Republic look like the bottom of a shake-and-bake bag. We also control, I mean we are allied with the Albanian and Tanzanian delegations (which we represent also). Today O.I.S.E. Tomorrow the L.R.C.

1972's Phoenix involves a quote from Mao Tse Tung.

It amazes me that some political satire was enough to trigger ongoing government surveillance. But that was the seventies.

Communism was to them what Jihad is to us: something for a few extremists to engage in, in a manner which doesn't affect us but which causes the government to freak out.

I love how we learn from the past.

Illumination

For those of you who either came into contact with me over the past week, or happened to visit my facebook page, you will have known that this week I embarked on the ambitious (read: suicidally idiotic) task of starting and completing my calligraphy entry to the Royal Arts Show.

I started on Wednesday, I finished on Thursday. I delivered it today.

It was a somewhat intense process. To say the least.

First, the lines I had traced onto tracing paper to transfer onto the cardboard I would be using so that my lines of writing would be straight didn't actually transfer.

Then my frame was too narrow because the word 'legs' in the 11th line of the excerpt made that line too long. As it turns out, cutting 4mm of cardboard off of a frame using a Stanley knife is somewhat difficult.

And then I spent four hours on the first letter (look at the photos in the link http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112812&id=1040680302&l=3d2a9c3c7c).

All this made me realise just how much it must have sucked to be one of the monks in the middle ages whose job it was to do this kind of thing all the time. If nothing else, they all needed girlfriends.

Although I must say, the text itself was rather fun. It's from Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'.

I rather admire Coleridge's style. Anyone who can be stoned off their face all the time and still manage to write good (if somewhat left-field) poetry must be doing somethign right. He used the word 'eftsoon', which immediately raised my regard for his writing.

Here are the first three stanzas:
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin ;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din."

He holds him with his skinny hand,
"There was a ship," quoth he.
"Hold off ! unhand me, grey-beard loon !"
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

Behold one of my favourite phrases: 'grey-beard loon'. Say it out loud a few times. It just sounds good.

Also from the first section, my favourite stanza, due to its rhyming pattern.
Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon-"
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

I can picture Coleridge sitting in his opium den, pipe in one hand, pen in the other, in a bit of stupor going "Hmmm. Noon. Soon. Spoon. Balloon. Croon. Oh! I know: Bassoon!!!"

And then Coleridge uses my second favourite word (after 'propitious'). He writes 'Spake'.

For those of you unfamiliar with this concept, 'spake' is the intransitive perfect from of the verb 'to speak' which was was popular with the middle english poets (Chaucer uses it as if he had Tourrettes).

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on the ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner,
"And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

There were also times when Coleridge was a touch uninspired when it came to rhymes, but we should probably cut him some slack, after all, he was stoned at the time.

Case in point:
"God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!-
Why look'st thou so?" -With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS

Thus...Albatross... I suppose it's the thought that counts.

High Heels and the Feminist Construct

I was listening to the radio on Tuesday, and almost every (AM) station was talking about the fact that this season's heels are supposedly ridiculously high.

ABC news radio cited the example of this year's Oscars (which I didn't watch, so I can't comment), which were supposed to be especially 'feminist' (their words, not mine. Apparently the fact that a woman won best director for the first time made it 'feminist'), every woman had to be helped onto the stage by a man because of the ridiculously high heels they were wearing.

As I've already said, I didn't actually watch the Oscars, nor do I have any inclination to do so, so I'm unable to give my own opinion of the ceremony as such, but with regard to the women being helped onto the stage: WHO CARES?

Seriously, why is it such an issue that women are wearing incredibly high shoes? It's not as if feminism is regressing, and I highly doubt that it's all part of an elaborate plot by men to subjugate us, so why all the furore?

High heels do admittedly have detracting factors. The shrinking of one's Achilles tendon being an especially notable one. But such effects only occur with habitual wearing. Just like everything else, heels in moderation are actually a good thing.

They make short people, such as myself, seem taller. At 165 cm, my height is towards the short end of average. At 165 cm with an extra 15 cm of shoe, I'm just short of six feet tall. Which is an improvement.

It could be said that I'm pandering to the masculine defined construct of what women should look like etc. but I'm not. I'm just using Lamarck's theory of evolution in the vain hope that it'll work.

Just as Lamarck believed that giraffes, whilst trying to reach leaves which were progressively higher up on trees stretched their necks, and passed on this characteristic to their offspring, who further stretched their necks and so on, I'm hoping that if I wear high heels, by body will grow, and I will become taller. This is the theory of learned behavior. I'm reasonably certain that it's not going to work, but whatever.

And now returning to the initial issue of the Oscars, if a bunch of actresses and the like decide to wear painfully high shoes, I'm happy for them. Admittedly, if the shoes are so high that they can't actually walk in them, then that poses a bit of an issue with regard to practicality, but it's entirely their choice. It doesn't mean that women will engage in a mass exodus from the workforce, deciding to become stay at home mothers who live to do nothing more than pander to their husband's every whim. Perhaps it's just because, like me, they're short.

Music

I'm a bit of a classical music nerd. I started piano and singing when I was five, cello when I was eight, and tuba when I was twelve. I headbang when I listen to Verdi.

As a result, people are often surprised when they find out that my favourite type of music is heavy metal.

It's really not that surprising - classical music and heavy metal are incredibly similar. In fact they need not even be different things - for example 'Hall Of The Mountain King' by Edvard Grieg, performed by Apocalyptica (four cello players who started off classical, and then diversified into metal).

Listen to 'Dies Irae' by Verdi, and then listen to 'Disposable Heroes' by Metallica. They're practically identical. Stylistically, classical music and metal are practically the same thing. They involve complex instrumental solos underscored with a supporting mix of instruments. Think of a metal band as a chamber orchestra on steroids.

In an orchestra, the viola is the equivalent of a bass guitar. Most of the time they started off as violin (or guitar) players (depending on which side of the metaphor you're following) getting all the - to quote Frank Zappa for a moment - 'bitchen solos', and then as the result of internal politics they get demoted to where they just stand (or sit) there playing sustained notes from here unto oblivion.

Admittedly, every so often, someone bucks the trend - Bach's 'Ciaccona', or '(Anaesthesia) Pulling Teeth' by Metallica - but generally, they're the butt of everyone else's jokes.

The double basses are just like the synthesiser player: they're perpetually frustrated because they're not a violin/guitar player. Their part is alright, but it's never amazingly enjoyable. Or challenging. Or interesting.

Brass players could are quite similar to the lead singer - they leave a lot of spit in the area around them. I'm in a brass band, and the moment rehearsal finishes, you walk with your eyes on the ground so as to avoid the massive pools of spit left by people's instruments. I the same way, lead singers spag. It's a fact of life. Sitting in the orchestra pit of anything is particularly unpleasant if you're a tuba like myself and you're near the back of the pit - right in the middle of the 'wet zone'.

Percussionists (with the exception of mallet and timpani) are just like drummers - half the time they can't read music. The Muppets really got it right when they made Animal the drummer.

Of course, the marvellous thing about metal bands, is there's minimal ponciness in their music. Ponciness is something I thoroughly dislike in music. Debussy was good at ponce. Admittedly late Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Rossini, Handel etc. managed to compose some reasonably hardcore music, but the (in my opinion) good stuff is far outweighed by fluttery little flute cantatas and violin concertos.

There's also minimal postmodernism in metal. Don't get me wrong - I thoroughly like the concept of postmodernism in historiographical study, but I really dislike it in the arts. Listen to Elliot Gyger's 'I Am Not Yet Born' (on the Shall We Dream CD of the Sydney Childrens Choir - I'm pretty sure they're the only ones to ever record it); To Look Yet Not Find by Brett Dean; anything by Paul Stanhope or Joe Twist. Postmodernist music is unpleasant. It's unpleasant to sing (especially I Am Not Yet Born. Singing compound fourths is not fun.) and it's unpleasant to listen to. It's just not nice.

Finally, metal has the advantage of sounding astoundingly meaningful when written out. For the majority of last year, the folder in which I stored my school books had the lyrics from 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)' by Metallica and 'On Suuri Sun Rantas Autius' by Matti Hyökki (a good performance of it is by the Tapiola Choir from Espoo, Finland. If you can't find that one, Gondwana Voices sang it in a collaboration with the Tapiola Choir on the New Light, New Hope album). People would read the Metallica and be amazed at how deep it was, did I write it myself etc. I would then rather enjoy their expressions when I told them it was Metallica. Metal, written out, sounds fantastic. I even enjoy the pleasantly ironic juxtaposition of the music with the lyrics - you wouldn't think they could attach a guitar riff to what is in essence rather good poetry, but they manage.

Which brings to mind one final pair of songs which are remarkably similar: On Suuri Sun Rantas Autius and Low Man's Lyric by Metallica. Listen to them. You'll see.

Hullo All

To start off with, a quick note on the name of the blog.

'Never separate a simple man from his cheese' is a bulgarian proverb. I have no idea whatsoever with regard to its meaning or provenance, but it sounds interesting enough.

I'll be blogging on pretty much whatever takes my fancy at the time of writing, and today it's the glory of fanfiction.net

Fanfiction is a wonderful website. It allows you to write your own work, using the premise which an author has already thought of, thus making your life far easier, because let's face it, it's easier to write when someone's already thought of most of the plot developments.

But fanfiction is marvellous for another reason: Harry Potter is beating Twilight.

I don't necessarily know your views on the matter, but I thoroughly dislike the Twilight series. It just lacks that certain something that makes good books good. In short, they're stunningly mediochre.

Harry Potter - although the books started to go downhill after about the 3rd book because J K Rowling decided to actually give the characters personalities, which was unfortunate, because that's when the teen angst started - has that certain something. But yet for the current generation of preteens, Twilight is in some cases the only thing they'll read. Or watch. Or dress in. Or write on. Because there's a rather intense merchandise market as well. Huzzah for capitalism.

Regardless of this, Harry potter has 447 000+ stories, whilst Twilight languishes at 136 000+, not includign crossover stories or stories concerning themselves with the movies.

All I can say is thank heavens. Fanfiction is one of the last facets of the internet unsullied by 'Twi-hards' as they are called.

One of the other last bastions of resistance is the Darkside forum (http://www.freewebs.com/thedarksidecometh/index.htm) which allows members to vent their spleen regarding the proliferation of Twilight in the world around us. I rather like the dark side. I admire their struggle. And I really must applaud them for the fact that they managed to inspire such an abusive letter from Stephenie Meyer's seemingly rather angry 'webmaster', Seth.

Keep up the good work.