awful tragedy, Tim's mum Thelma has kicked her bucket and shaken off This Mortal Coil.
Went to the shindig wake at Eamon's Red Scooter, where they played Thelma's last requests over the sound system. She wanted everyone to get up and dance, first to We Are Family, and then "oh what's that song, it's from Rocky Horror .. yes the Time Warp".
So sure enough, as Tim said, "You are evil if you don't dance" everybody got up to shake their booties. What a great dance, such a good bunch of people the Ratcliffes.
Delightful send off for an amazing woman. Thank you Thelma for all your loveliness and straight-talking.
Louise's cat Zena is a total darling, but he just isn't interested in catching any kind of rodent. Not for dinner, not for fun. Not at all.
"They tried to make me catch a rodent, i said no no no !" (To the tune of Amy Winehouse 'Rehab'.)
Now i think i know why .. someone has been messing with his genes. in this video from Reuters, they say the mouse has been altered to remove the smell of fear from his hereditary knowledge bank.
But what have they done to the cat? Are they saying that cats only chase mice because the mice are afraid? That the cat is culturally inclined, rather than genetically, to chase the rodent? This opens up a whole can of cat food!
Anyway, this cat looks a whole lot like Zena. i think he's been living a double life.
Delightful friends, i gotta say that .. That infamously strange hotel experience was not the sum of my travel time in Cairns, nor did it epitomise the overall joy and usefulness.
Yay for SnoRkelling! On my birthday i went to Green island and dived headlong into the reef. Covered up in a huge lycra body suit to protect against the stingers and lice, i gazed in bliss at the totally gorgeous, wondrous underwater panoramas. Mmm, delicious and delightful. Yum. i could have snorkelled all night, um .. day.
Cairns is a beautiful place, especially when you get out of town. Rainforest, reef, tropical rivers .. my time was a bit too work-focussed, so i was mostly indoors and in the city.
i've never seen a city beach more abandoned .. perhaps because of the "Beware of Crocodiles" signs. One person walking on the beach in ten days. Thousands strolling along the promenade.
Amazing history panels. Turns out there used to be a fabulous beach with stunning sand dunes, but dredging in the 1930's destroyed all that. Need for shipping channels etc. (Are you paying attention, Victorian govt? no, i guess not.)
i also caught up with the very amazing Avril Duck who is a theatre director up in Gordonvale. Avril used to live and study in Melbourne; she's preparing for a play in 2008 focussing on the experiences of local parents. The other week they had a reading on the radio. Sounds good .. perhaps i can post a copy here.
And look, i carried a book around with me the whole week (yes, that book), and i was often wearing my iRiver mp3 player, with wires hanging off me everywhere. In very many places people glanced at me with no suspicion whatsoever, just the friendly happy-go-lucky Cairns vacant gaze. Lovely place .. i'd go there again.
When i went dancing in that hotel in Cairns, i really didn't think too much about the consequences. But i did think about how people might perceive me - a fortyish male caucasian on my own. So i tried to be discreet, non-threatening .. not stare at anyone.
How delightful is the sun! When you haven't had a holiday in over a year, there is truly nothing like a work-sponsored trip to Byron Bay. Yes i am the luckiest person alive, no doubt about that. Here's the whole story:
got bitten by a tick the very first night, and it still hurts three weeks later (on my ear)
went to a super boring cultural evening, where the local singers all had US accents
narrowly avoided a brown snake crawling across my sarong
drove my hire car for 200km along unsealed roads (trying not to read the 'thou shalt not' sticker prominent on the windscreen), then later took all the wheels off to sweep out the tell-tale orange dust
went to the most outrageously stupid 'rainbow gathering'
watched really bad cable tv
on the plus side
saw whales and dolphins frolicking all over the shop, pretty much parading down the main street
sat in on new enrolments at the Byron Community Centre
had a whole cabin to myself for days on end
walked fifteen kilometres along Belongil Beach to Brunswick Heads, and back in a day
bought organic carrots in the Mullumbimby grocery
swam in blissfully cold mountain springs in the Washpool National Park. mmmmm that was good.
so i came back, brown all over, with knotted hair, and in a very tranquil state, but in need of a strong cultural fix. Lou suggested a gig down at Glitch bar on the Sunday night, just as i got off the plane. Enclosed in a small dingy dark bar in north fitzroy surrounded by strange young people wearing black and making weird musical noises .. i felt so at home.
So i had a go at playing indoor soccer. The boss got a team together, and joined us into a competition at the council. We were so bad, we lost again and again, eg 13 goals to 3.
The other teams played rough, although it was supposed to be friendly, and they had skills - which we did not. Rohan could do a fair simulation of Maradona, Maria kicked a major goal, and Nick the coach was a real player, but i could barely stay upright. Massive hand bruises thanks to falling on hard gym surface. Ouch.
Trying to drive later on, had to get Louise to operate the gear stick. Too friking painful. That's it, i'm over sport for ever.
xo michael (image, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick by Gertrud K. at flickr, thanks)
Saturday night was so great, Madame Zu Zu was in fine form, and the Open Studio crowd so much more into her than at Bar Open the week before. Dancing everywhere. Lovely vibes, happy people.
but then i tried one of the new crepes.
i was so looking forward to it. and i tested for buckwheat reaction before diving in; but i really should have asked. i must be healthy at the moment because it took three mouthfuls to set me off. so i went home, and fortunately had a couple of Finurgen tablets left over from the time i had to go to hospital after my birthday pizza night last year ..
The tablets stop all the symptoms and allow me to sleep. Good. but, oh boy, a couple of Finurgen tablets would knock out a horse!
The next morning i couldn't move, i could barely talk. Tim and Sam came around, wanting to take me out to breakfast, and all i could say was "Bbbckwhhht lllst nght, ca'nnt mmmv" .. and i'm still feeling groggy monday morning;
okay i'm at work, so i shouldn't be looking at YouTube. Except i was looking for work reasons. i wanted some music related to time: all i could find was a Snow Patrol song from that horrible tv show "prison break". Which i used in class. The kids thought it was lame (they were right), but they picked up it was about 'doing time' (which i'd missed).
.. and i don't work in a cubicle. But this lady does. Well she pretends she does. There's one episode where she gets people to send in photos of people crammed into their work cubicle. There's another where she puts on a super hero outfit, and decodes some management speak. i think she's funny. Here's my favourite, Cube Lady's take on office romance:
Anyway you can follow her crazy adventures at the cubefarm. Hey who was that magician that Nathan loves? The one who convinces people on the street to hand over their valuables?
i am very envious. Here is a pic of Tim, Fiona, Sasha and Paul on the train in New York City. i'm following their adventures over on samandtim.blogspot. Their blog is like a fun game, where the reader has to make up what's going on, from the pictures and the headings.
ok, here goes: SamandTim and PaulandFiona are on a train, with Sasha, and the train is in New York. They are all travelling from the bronx zoo back to the hotel where they'll have dinner. And Sasha is drinking from his favourite red cup. Just after Sam took the photo, Paul sighed and said, "Are you ever going to stop taking photos?" Which nearly made Fiona snap at him. But she took a deep breath instead.
Tim is grinning because he loves seeing Sam do funny things on the subway; she's being zany while she handles the camera. Sam made a joke after taking the shot, and everyone laughed. Then Sasha looked up and smiled, saying, "Was i in the photo?"
hey guess what, handing in thesis right now!! yes i feel very amazing, totally thrilled and completely happy. Oh the relief. Now i can go out dancing every night for a week.
it was a chilly wednesday morning when i finally had the whole thing printed off and bound. Had to print several pages double sided with colour vs b/w. Hours at the office after work. Drove to Footscray, returned half a million library books, and handed over the two-inch thick volume. "Well that must be a relief," said the head of department. Yeah. i'll be feeling that relief for months!
PS sigh, one day paul will post another story to our collaborative blog! i am sure of it. No, actually i'm not sure. i think he must have lost the ability to communicate. Maybe he poured red wine all over his computer. or maybe they don't have internet in canada. i wonder if he even reads the blog? He never comments. Now that he's a North American he doesn't want to hear about Melbourne any more. i bet he never even told his friends about this blog.
He just went, "Start a blog michael, we can do this together" but he forgot to say, "i'll post once every three months". And i forgot to say, "blogging is a weekly thing, you use it to keep in touch with friends". Maybe he didn't say "start a blog" maybe he said "it's foggy here" ..
Latest Updates at samandtim.blogspot very exciting news this morning at 7am, Nathan Godkin drove Tim and Sam out to Tullamarine Airport, for the first leg of their trip to New York City !!! i can't believe they're going with only a handbag worth of luggage between them. Most of the space in tim's backpack is taken up by paul's new blundstones ..
Here's wishing the best of travel times for these two amazing people. i've heard a rumour they're going to visit Paul and Fiona in the land of Halifax. Hey Four Fingers Gang, i'll be following your adventures .. much love michael the thumb
the musical highlight for me would have to be the night of farewell for housemate Louise and gray. It was their party really, and they did some amazing setup, including candles down the alleyway, and a genuine earth-mapped pinyata, with roaming dinosaurs hanging off the hills hoist.
Lu made her room into a band room, with drum kit, amplifiers and all sorts of electronic connections to complement the Farfisa organ. She was so thrilled when people brought their instruments to play (but not so thrilled when Ben played so hard that he bled on her guitar).
Now there's blood on my guitar you @**&\ .. and it's all your fault ..
My favourite moment was in the back yard, under the summer tent, Renato on piano accordion, Kiri on the fiddle and Tarquin playing clarinet. Sublimey!
Rhiannon said at one point, "We were expecting the usual michael quiet evening, and we arrive to a Genuine Northcote Party." People kept played until five am; but by then i was asleep, having watched the very final episode of Buffy downstairs with Sam and Booshi. (They watched the whole seven series in around ten weeks! Now that's an achievement.)
Sasha put on an album last week of remixes to Nasrat Ali Khan - StarRise. As much as anything that Sasha does it was the right type of music for moment.... he makes better music choices than I do... next step the great American novel. Perhaps i should let him loose on my paintings... hmmm i had always expected him to outshine me but not by the age of three.
Hey guess what my sister the international traveller has put together a video about child labourers in Cambodia. How good is that!
(i mean, it's not good that there are factories employing children to do shit work, no .. it's good that Katie gets to do something creative and useful while she's at work! and i mean the video is really good. Yay Katie Chalk!!
Sam and Tim went to Tasmania. i went to the airport. That was fun too, especially when we rocked up the first time, and there was serious disco playing in the car as the kids got out. Tim says, "You can't go til the song's finished." But i was mean, and i drove off, dancing in the driver seat.
It was a great mix, on 3RRR, song after song of goodness. We heard a full on version of oh, what was it, with Siouxsie on backing vocals .. remind me Tim.
it's pauli's birthday todaaay he's a wonderful artist and educator who lives in Halifaxiwith his lovely belle Fiona and their amazing Sasha, hope you have a wonderful day magnificent paul lots of love plus hugs michael
Sam and Booshi downstairs don't have TV, they just watch DVD and youTube. Especially The Moon from the Mighty Boosh. At the New Year Party, Boosh had a youTube room going downstairs. It was fun. They watched Evolution of Dance.
i really enjoyed David Attenborough narrating slug sex, it is astonishing.
Who is David Blaine? Is this street film a spoooof, or is he the real magician? Forget channel nine, i will watch the whole series
Sad to say, gotta face facts, the little fella has gone to meet his Big Cat Mama in the Sky. It's been nearly two months now, and i still get the sads sometimes.Ju-Yuen the amazing artist made a beautiful card to remember Max, so he's sitting on the bookshelf in spirit now (pic top right).
Maybe i've been in denial. "No, he's just gone on a holiday. Yes i know he's never been to Venus Bay before, but this time he just went."
i think the clinching moment was when Annie came to visit and said, "Ugh, what is happening to his nose? That is seriously unhealthy. Get me a bucket i'll drown him myself." The cancer was really bad. Or did she say a spade?
Lovely Shannon came to accompany Maxie on his last trip to the vet. He was a bit shocked when the drug hit him, "Ow!" said the look on his face, as he gave a big hiss, and slumped over.
There was all this "What do we do next?" difficulty, as Sol said i could have his ashes back, or take his body with me. Then he went, "Just go home, come back later to pay," cos the distress was taking hold.
Huge thanks to all the people and animals who gave Maxie so much love in his life of adventure and serious relaxation. Huge thanks to Max for all the comfurt and attitude.
Questions for the Citizenship Test: How many runs did Bradman make in his second last innings? What colour is a Frangipanni Bush? How many people died at Gallipoli? Which highway was Mel Gibson riding in his recent audition for Mad Schmacks? What happens to twisties packets when you put them in the oven? What happened to Judy at the end of Seven Little Australians? What was Michael Hutchins trying to do when he died?
whatever. Found this series of Chaser videos on YouChoob One selection here, you can find the rest. We can swot together, then do the test.
You may have heard the rumours - so here is the proof. I went surfing with my new pal chris AGAIN [who does know how to surf - see bottom picture], who had his new mini waterproof digital camera. So here is a few photos of me floundering in near freezing water - around 4 degrees C. It was actually very pleasant except for the ice cream headache from ploughing headfirst into an Atlantic wave..... very cold!! needless to say! WINTER SURFING in CANADA
As you can see though it was a very sunny, but really windy day in January - see the foam sailing off into the air in the back left .... enough information you say...
yes true,
but isn't it ironic in part that the boy from oz goes surfing in near freezing water, in the Atlantic Ocean, in the middle of winter whilst managing to avoid it for thirtysomething years back home????
The melb'n city skyline is invisible again, but this time it's great news: a light shower is passing through, bringing the cool change after five days of side-splitting heat. (Like pigs roasting on a spit, we were!)
Half an hour ago we had bright blue skies and the muggy remnants of yesterday's tropical torment. Now there's a veil of mist across the city, and the delightful chill of rain on trees. You know that delicious fragrance, when the rain hits greenery?
mmmmm! oh that was a light shower, fifteen seconds of intense rain, a few sporadic drops and it's clearing again.
Okay, enough weather report, back to study. mic x.
