Today is hot. The only way to accurately describe just how hot today is would be to utilise the much underused analogy 'hotter than satan's armpit'.
Friggin' satan.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Continuity
I was flicking through the channels and came across Troy.
If ever there was a movie in which no-one gave a damn about continuity, this is it.
To begin with, the Trojan war went on for a good 10 years. The movie pegs the war at about three days, maybe four.
With each morning, there's a lovely shot of the sun rising... from Troy's western shore.
When the civilians are running into Troy as the greeks arrive, if you look carefully, you'll see my favourite extra: a Llama.
Not to mention the fact that Aeneas is practically a child. The man was in his thirties and carryign his crippled father on his back when he fled Troy.
And there was no sword of Troy. Srsly guys.
And that wasn't even getting started on the historical innacuracies, but since I don't have several hours on my hands, I'm not going to bother.
If ever there was a movie in which no-one gave a damn about continuity, this is it.
To begin with, the Trojan war went on for a good 10 years. The movie pegs the war at about three days, maybe four.
With each morning, there's a lovely shot of the sun rising... from Troy's western shore.
When the civilians are running into Troy as the greeks arrive, if you look carefully, you'll see my favourite extra: a Llama.
Not to mention the fact that Aeneas is practically a child. The man was in his thirties and carryign his crippled father on his back when he fled Troy.
And there was no sword of Troy. Srsly guys.
And that wasn't even getting started on the historical innacuracies, but since I don't have several hours on my hands, I'm not going to bother.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Beardie Weirdies
Those of you who know me will be aware of the fact that I am not a fan of facial hair below the nose. Eyebrows are great, I just take issue with stubble. And any mustache other than a Stalin. Because foreign policy aside, the man had a great mow.
This dislike of stubble is so profound that I avoid university campuses like the plague during exam time, because they're flooded with guys rocking their 'beard of knowledge' - namely the bum fluff that roves about their faces as they try to convey the fact that they're studying so hard they don't have the five minutes max per day it would take them to shave.
All the St Georgians out there will remember when Mr Mo went from clean shaven to stubbly back in '09. It's not like we'd never seen him with stubble before, each year at LSS he was rocking the 'holiday beard' as we called it, and so imagine our horror when the holiday beard persisted for two entire years of school. It must be said in his defense that the beard growing might be an attempt to break out of the boyish persona he developed from starting teaching at St G fresh out of university, and at a school where he was a good 10 or more years younger than everyone else on the teaching staff, because now that he has a daughter, he now has to conform to his role as paterfamilias. Perhaps this contributed to his being kicked out of the Under 30s club growing at St G because he was too mature.
Regardless, this post is here because I saw the most marvellous thingie on a blog I follow - a chart ranking the trustworthiness of male facial hair.
Enjoy.
Click it and it gets bigger (which is kind of what she said...) alternately, go here to find it in its natural habitat.
This dislike of stubble is so profound that I avoid university campuses like the plague during exam time, because they're flooded with guys rocking their 'beard of knowledge' - namely the bum fluff that roves about their faces as they try to convey the fact that they're studying so hard they don't have the five minutes max per day it would take them to shave.
All the St Georgians out there will remember when Mr Mo went from clean shaven to stubbly back in '09. It's not like we'd never seen him with stubble before, each year at LSS he was rocking the 'holiday beard' as we called it, and so imagine our horror when the holiday beard persisted for two entire years of school. It must be said in his defense that the beard growing might be an attempt to break out of the boyish persona he developed from starting teaching at St G fresh out of university, and at a school where he was a good 10 or more years younger than everyone else on the teaching staff, because now that he has a daughter, he now has to conform to his role as paterfamilias. Perhaps this contributed to his being kicked out of the Under 30s club growing at St G because he was too mature.
Regardless, this post is here because I saw the most marvellous thingie on a blog I follow - a chart ranking the trustworthiness of male facial hair.
Enjoy.
Click it and it gets bigger (which is kind of what she said...) alternately, go here to find it in its natural habitat.
Begging Forgiveness (or, a bitch about improper scansion)
I haven't blogged in a while. I apologise. I suppose that the fact that my life has been completely boring of late isn't an excuse, because although my life has been frighfully ho-hum, world politics is getting marvellously fruity, and I like nothing more than dispensing political analysis.
Because I'm cool like that.
I'm trawling youtube for decent music to listen to, and so far I've got nothing. So I've gone to my fallback - Sacra by Apocalyptica. Any piece of music which features phasing between 12/8 and 4/4 is bound to be something I'm willing to listen to over and over again.
I have a feeling that I'm drawn to music with fruity and/or questionable time signatures. That's probably why I like Suicide and Redemption by Metallica. It starts and ends in 5/4.
There is one flaw with this reasoning however - by my above logic, I should like music composed by Ross Edwards. Which I most unequivocally do not. It's as if the man opens up Sibelius or whichever music writing software he uses and then selects notes and beats at random and then just formats time signatures around whatever drivel appears on the screen and then calls it avant-garde or whatever he happens to call it.
I'm so apathetic at the moment that I can't even be bothered to rant about modern art. For those of you who haven't uttered the name Ross Edwards in my earshot, I have a very good and angry rant on the subject of modern art/s. I'm just feeling too blegh to put it on the internet.
Suffice it to say that The Promised Land was a bitch to perform and didn't even sound any good. Don't even get me started on David Malouf's lyrics therefor. Not only did they not make sense, they didn't scan well. And if I learnt nothing from Latin, it was that it's not that difficult to get stuff to scan well. Seriously. especially if you've just chosen random words and stuck them together. If you've done that (as Malouf indisputably did) there is no excuse for bad scanning.
My, my. That was a mildly pointless stream of consciousness. I was only motivated to blog so as to test whether or not my interface between my blog and facebook works. Theoretically, when I publish my post, my facebook profile will be automatically updated to reflect that fact. Gosh I love technology.
Because I'm cool like that.
I'm trawling youtube for decent music to listen to, and so far I've got nothing. So I've gone to my fallback - Sacra by Apocalyptica. Any piece of music which features phasing between 12/8 and 4/4 is bound to be something I'm willing to listen to over and over again.
I have a feeling that I'm drawn to music with fruity and/or questionable time signatures. That's probably why I like Suicide and Redemption by Metallica. It starts and ends in 5/4.
There is one flaw with this reasoning however - by my above logic, I should like music composed by Ross Edwards. Which I most unequivocally do not. It's as if the man opens up Sibelius or whichever music writing software he uses and then selects notes and beats at random and then just formats time signatures around whatever drivel appears on the screen and then calls it avant-garde or whatever he happens to call it.
I'm so apathetic at the moment that I can't even be bothered to rant about modern art. For those of you who haven't uttered the name Ross Edwards in my earshot, I have a very good and angry rant on the subject of modern art/s. I'm just feeling too blegh to put it on the internet.
Suffice it to say that The Promised Land was a bitch to perform and didn't even sound any good. Don't even get me started on David Malouf's lyrics therefor. Not only did they not make sense, they didn't scan well. And if I learnt nothing from Latin, it was that it's not that difficult to get stuff to scan well. Seriously. especially if you've just chosen random words and stuck them together. If you've done that (as Malouf indisputably did) there is no excuse for bad scanning.
My, my. That was a mildly pointless stream of consciousness. I was only motivated to blog so as to test whether or not my interface between my blog and facebook works. Theoretically, when I publish my post, my facebook profile will be automatically updated to reflect that fact. Gosh I love technology.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The Times, They Are A-Changin'
Come gather 'round, people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown,
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone;
If your time to you is worth saving
Then you'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics who prophesise with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again,
But don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'.
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Come Senators, Congressmen, please heed the call:
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled,
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticise what you can't understand:
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,
Your old road is rapily agin'.
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast:
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past,
The order is rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Today was one with more reflection over the past than usual.
Following an average day (swimming then school), I headed off to the State Library to see what they had on the My Lai massacre (HEX). With that accomplished (for the record, they didn't have much of what I was looking for - but then they never do... Fisher Library all the way!!) I was in the city with nothing to do. And since it was a wednesday, I decided it would be an idea to drop into SCC (Sydney Children's Choir) for a visit.
With the annual Christmas choral extravaganza taking place in a week, rehearsal was fully in swing. During the first half I helped the supervisors sort the red choral robes (so unspeakably bad, but yet so good - it's kind of like Stockholm Syndrome: you find yourself inexplicably attached to them) into height order so as to facilitate the allocation thereof.
As the allocation took place, I had an opportunity to chat with choristers whom I hadn't seen since the choir's 21st anniversary concert back in late june. Sitting in on the rehearsal for part of the second half showed me how much had changed in the 18 or so months since I aged out of the SCC - there were new kids everywhere, all the male soprani I remember were now off in the marvellous magical land of Alto 2 (guess which section I was section leader of back in the day...), and about to leave because they no longer really qualified as trebles... It was somewhat depressing. It made me feel old, and I thoroughly dislike feeling old.
I then happened to spot an old friend waiting outside the rehearsal room (Vox, the Sydney Philarmonia's youth choir has rehearsals wednesday evenings after SCC), and so I exited for a chat (but not after Lyn (our fearsome and awe inspiring conductor) noticed me and had everyone say hello... I love getting the alumna treatment).
Angus and I started in the SCC back in 1999 when we were in kindergarten, and both about two feet tall and blond. Now of course, he's still blond and significantly taller, and I'm still stunted and short... And my marvellous Jew-fro is gone... But seriously. He knew me back when I did things like turn up to a rehearsal and announce loudly, and in a tone of indignant socialism "Did you know that they're putting a GST on breast pumps?!" (In my defence, I was five or six. This of course didn't stop Lyn bringing that little anecdote up at the 21st anniversary concert... Luckily she didn't name me. It was only after that I found out she was talking about me. I must say I had completely repressed that gem of a memory). Good times... Good times.
It was great remembering the old days of Opera House christmas concerts with the horrid red robes and the nauseatingly kitschy electric candles we all had to make us all look angelic and such... the days when supervisors stood waiting in the wings to drag the bodies of the choristers who passed out from heatstroke off the stage... back in the day where there were only seven choirs in the SCC structure... as compared with the current 20 or so.
It made me realise just how much I miss being part of choir. Bloody expletiving HSC.
And then this evening, whilst on facebook, I was facebook chatting with one of my friends from my latest hospital stint, and the following was said:
Kelsey: ADELA I thought of that song the other day
You know the times are changing song
And almost cried because I realised how much I missed you
She was referring to Bob Dylan's "The Times, They Are A-Changin'" which I spent a lot of time singing whilst we were stuck in hospital (I had a ukelele with me, and I had a repertoire of about six songs... stuff got repeated.), and even ended up calligraphising on a 2 metre piece of paper which now hangs above the door in the classroom (hospital sucks, and it helps to have a reminder that everything is transient, including medical incarceration).
And to be honest, the song affects me the same way. Every time it comes up on my ipod, I remember all the girls I spent 8 weeks living with and how much I miss them.
It also reminded me of just how quickly things change. Change is scary and unfamiliar. To be honest, I wish everything would just stay the same.
I wish I were still a cute little blond six-year-old with socialist tendencies, I wish my blood still did what it was meant to, and most of all, I wish my dad were still alive. The times, they are a-changin', but I really wish they weren't.
And admit that the waters around you have grown,
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone;
If your time to you is worth saving
Then you'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics who prophesise with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again,
But don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'.
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Come Senators, Congressmen, please heed the call:
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled,
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticise what you can't understand:
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,
Your old road is rapily agin'.
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast:
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past,
The order is rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Today was one with more reflection over the past than usual.
Following an average day (swimming then school), I headed off to the State Library to see what they had on the My Lai massacre (HEX). With that accomplished (for the record, they didn't have much of what I was looking for - but then they never do... Fisher Library all the way!!) I was in the city with nothing to do. And since it was a wednesday, I decided it would be an idea to drop into SCC (Sydney Children's Choir) for a visit.
With the annual Christmas choral extravaganza taking place in a week, rehearsal was fully in swing. During the first half I helped the supervisors sort the red choral robes (so unspeakably bad, but yet so good - it's kind of like Stockholm Syndrome: you find yourself inexplicably attached to them) into height order so as to facilitate the allocation thereof.
As the allocation took place, I had an opportunity to chat with choristers whom I hadn't seen since the choir's 21st anniversary concert back in late june. Sitting in on the rehearsal for part of the second half showed me how much had changed in the 18 or so months since I aged out of the SCC - there were new kids everywhere, all the male soprani I remember were now off in the marvellous magical land of Alto 2 (guess which section I was section leader of back in the day...), and about to leave because they no longer really qualified as trebles... It was somewhat depressing. It made me feel old, and I thoroughly dislike feeling old.
I then happened to spot an old friend waiting outside the rehearsal room (Vox, the Sydney Philarmonia's youth choir has rehearsals wednesday evenings after SCC), and so I exited for a chat (but not after Lyn (our fearsome and awe inspiring conductor) noticed me and had everyone say hello... I love getting the alumna treatment).
Angus and I started in the SCC back in 1999 when we were in kindergarten, and both about two feet tall and blond. Now of course, he's still blond and significantly taller, and I'm still stunted and short... And my marvellous Jew-fro is gone... But seriously. He knew me back when I did things like turn up to a rehearsal and announce loudly, and in a tone of indignant socialism "Did you know that they're putting a GST on breast pumps?!" (In my defence, I was five or six. This of course didn't stop Lyn bringing that little anecdote up at the 21st anniversary concert... Luckily she didn't name me. It was only after that I found out she was talking about me. I must say I had completely repressed that gem of a memory). Good times... Good times.
It was great remembering the old days of Opera House christmas concerts with the horrid red robes and the nauseatingly kitschy electric candles we all had to make us all look angelic and such... the days when supervisors stood waiting in the wings to drag the bodies of the choristers who passed out from heatstroke off the stage... back in the day where there were only seven choirs in the SCC structure... as compared with the current 20 or so.
It made me realise just how much I miss being part of choir. Bloody expletiving HSC.
And then this evening, whilst on facebook, I was facebook chatting with one of my friends from my latest hospital stint, and the following was said:
Kelsey: ADELA I thought of that song the other day
You know the times are changing song
And almost cried because I realised how much I missed you
She was referring to Bob Dylan's "The Times, They Are A-Changin'" which I spent a lot of time singing whilst we were stuck in hospital (I had a ukelele with me, and I had a repertoire of about six songs... stuff got repeated.), and even ended up calligraphising on a 2 metre piece of paper which now hangs above the door in the classroom (hospital sucks, and it helps to have a reminder that everything is transient, including medical incarceration).
And to be honest, the song affects me the same way. Every time it comes up on my ipod, I remember all the girls I spent 8 weeks living with and how much I miss them.
It also reminded me of just how quickly things change. Change is scary and unfamiliar. To be honest, I wish everything would just stay the same.
I wish I were still a cute little blond six-year-old with socialist tendencies, I wish my blood still did what it was meant to, and most of all, I wish my dad were still alive. The times, they are a-changin', but I really wish they weren't.
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