Quotes

Thanks to sneha for linking me to Overheard in New York.

Ah, the city.

You have to love any place where strangers break out into spontaneous wit (or un-wit) at each other.

Inhospitable

The question on the form demands
that I declare an art
But I lost my patience long ago
strapped to the crash-man’s cart

(So close your eyes and deep breath in
and count up to the one-two-three
and when you open up you’ll find
we’ve scalpeled up the sea)

I’m at the transit station
standingwaiting for the start
But I lost my patience long ago
strapped to the crash-man’s cart

(So close your eyes and deep breath in
and count up to the one-two-three
and when you open up you’ll find
we’ve scalpeled up the sea)

I’ve often heard the stories told
that promise me to me
But I lost my patience long ago
to wait around and see

Slow Day

All we ever do these days is stuff stuff stuff
and while away the hours with the fluff, fluff, fluff
So hide the time away in bags
and hope to have enough
Coz all we ever do these days is stuff stuff stuff

Safe as Houses

For some bizarre reason, some time after I got a duplicate set of house keys made for myself, all the other house keys except mine stopped working in the lock. We tried making duplicates of the one I had but they didn’t work either. Nobody knows why. It’s as if some cunning magick was worked upon my key by the Keyman (Mister Minit, if you must know), and now the door answers to no other. Generally, this is alright as there’s usually someone at home, and even if not, I always bring my set of keys out with me. Except when I don’t.

Consequently, today is the third time we have broken into our own home. We got a ladder and my brother climbed in through a stairwell window. In torrential rain.

This is but one in a long list of oddities in the security features of my house. Such as the alarm system we never turn on, because we did once, and it went off at midnight when someone went downstairs to get a drink, and nobody knew how to turn it off for an hour. And also the security camera that my dad leaves off because it used up too much electricity, and also he didn’t want to invest in a complementary recording system so we could play back if, eg, a masked man broke in and took all the cool stuff.

As such, the last line of defence for my house is our dog, who has been known to let himself be scratched behind the ears by random strangers, through the gate. Who only wakes up for breakfast and whom we have caught waiting at the side of the house just in case, on the random off-chance, our neighbour throws food over the side. Because, you know, it always pays to be prepared. One day food might just come over that fence and on that day he’ll be ready.

Potential burglars please do not take advantage.

Tiger Baby

Lost in You album samplers

Love Will Tear us Apart (Tiger Baby Cover)

Obsessive compulsive

Organising mania:

7 notebooks (of which only 3 are for taking notes)

5 folders (I’m going to need a 6th soon)

4 colours of stationary

4 colours of post-its

My only concessions are my ipod and generally two slim volumes of things to read. Currently, one’s a collection of ezra pound’s verses, and the other is jing en’s copy of c.s. lewis’ The Great Divorce which is fantastic and has nothing to do with divorces in general.

Purchases

It’s mich’s birthday today! Happy birthday, mich.

I have bought a large number of things that I am quietly pleased about today.

An Artic Monkeys album

A Kaiser Chiefs album

An anthology called ‘Amphigorey’, by Edward Gorey, who did very very macabre children’s books and tim burton-esque illustrations.

‘Ariel’ by Sylvia Plath, over Amazon

I’m considering tossing in a le tigre cd and a collection of 1930s – 1940s comics called ‘Krazy and Ignatz’ which is pure art.

So. Day well spent. Money, not so much.

-

A sample of the works of Edward Gorey. He delivers the alphabet in various ways for small children to meet various bizarre ends. Each entry comes complete with a minimal little charcoal ink drawing that looks very Victorian.

A is for AMY who fell down the stairs

B is for BASIL assaulted by bears

…

M is for MAUD who was swept out to sea

N is for NEVILLE who died of ennui

Who can resist the queen

ian – omg sam sam sam

ian – omg omg omg

ian – i want to move to britain

…various expostulations…

ian – oh

ian – most of all

ian – its the land of

ian – the spice girls

sam – …

sam – you have the worst reasons to be an anglophile

ian – who can resist the spice girls!

ian – who can resist the queen?

…

ian – you will never understand lah

ian – nevermind sam

ian - you will never understand me

sam – i’m quoting this convo for a blog post

…

ian – i think my middle name should be…

ian – ‘archibald’

Artic Monkeys

There and Back Again

Today’s been great. I find out that because of various scheduling changes I essentially have wednesday and friday free, which is great, because I can meet people on wednesday and spend friday going down to Comfort Delgro. I also spent my morning lecture tuning out and scribbling away, so that’s also good.

I’m going to go down one of these days and pick up Ariel, Sylvia Plath’s last poetry collection. I’ve read some of her stuff, and it’s fantastic. Go look up ‘Daddy’ by Plath.

- Edit: I’ve been trying to figure out for AGES how to turn off wordpress’ autoformat, because it automatically ‘fixes’ anything I ident. Fr’instance, that Pound poem from a few days back. It’s driving me INSANE.

I’ve been using several cunning workarounds, but YOU WIN TODAY WORDPRESS.