June 30, 2009June 27, 2009June 26, 2009Sing-a-long FridayI am so so stupidly excited about seeing Simon and Garfunkel tonight. I honestly never thought I'd ever see them live ever. Ever! I spent a whole teenage summer, between serving customers at a roadside vegetable stall, listening to Bridge Over Troubled Water on an eight track in my uncle's car. I loved every single song on that album - and most of them still, plus many more, to this day. Squeeeee!!
Posted by Michelle at 4:29 AM
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June 25, 2009No Perifs, Bro'I have a lot of experience with falling. In fact, my body has evolved to cope with falling in a lot of ways - unfortunately not in ways that would stop me from falling in the first place - but in ways like being rolly-polely shaped, for instance. My mind has developed a set of hair-trigger protocols which activate from the moment my balance is compromised until the "fall" is either resolved, or completed. This morning, in a small, but densely packed camera store in downtown Melbourne; Chaz and I were in search of a camera strap when the forward motion of my feet was suddenly stopped by the upward rise of a step. Of course, my eyes had not detected this change in terrain as my periphery is poor, especially in the "see-stuff-aboves" and "see-stuff-belows" areas of vision. My foot hit the rise of the step very hard (walking pace is faster than it looks) and my cat-agile brain sent an initial warning to my foot there was a step and I would need to raise the foot higher if I wanted to clear it successfully. Unfortunately for me, my foot and the camera shop: this was no ordinary step. My lightning fast synapses sent an urgent directive to my foot to raise to a level to clear a normal step. If this had been a normal step rise, this signal would have been enough and I would have planted my foot as planned and righted myself with only a slight tripping stumble, and little more. I would have remained upright, and maybe, if I had been extremely lucky: no one would have noticed. This step, however, was not your every day, garden variety step. It was never going to let my feet pass. It turned out it was one of Melbourne's Most Enormously High steps from the olden days, when steps weren't regulated nor standardised. My foot shot this feedback to my brain, which in turn realised this was now a "five alarm fall" and braced for impact as my body continued on its forward momentum and began to topple. When I have run out of options to save myself from a fall and have fully committed myself to hitting the ground, I try very hard to lead with my shoulder and "tuck and roll". This, unfortunately, was not an option in this classic "Feet Planted Behind a Big Step: Forward Falling, Hands Full of Shopping" position I found myself in. My only option by this stage was the "Hands Out: Drop Shopping: Brace for Impact". This set of protocols normally works very well. As mentioned before, I have evolved physical characteristics and crumple-zones that help absorb the energy generated from impact with hard surfaces, so personal damage is often minimal. More often than not, this scenario ends with me on all fours on the floor, impact taken on knees and palms, store/service-station/tram passengers looking at me in various stages of bewilderment and/or hysterical laughter. This did not work so well in the densely packed camera shop. On my way to the floor, my Hands Out position meant I impacted not the floor first, but the display of cameras that was in front of me. While I was happy not to knock the display over, feeling it move a good hand-span or so along the floor under my downward moving hands; I was pretty unhappy to have my hands drag down through the shelves, knocking them, and their contents to the floor. I think I shut my eyes as I realised that there was a good chance I was damaging cameras. Expensive, digital, cameras, I thought. Oh Gravity, thou art a bitch. Fortunately for me, the whole display turned out to be thick cardboard, and the cameras were dummies (didn't even know there was such a thing) so all I had to worry about was feeling like a complete idiot and that, I am well versed with. Interesting point, while Chaz was shocked at my sudden disappearance from his side, and in turns amused and concerned (mostly amused) at my flailing ruckus, none of the people who work in the store, nor the one other customer, seemed to bat an eyelid. They weren't worried about the stand as Chaz put it back together, returning scattered items and shelves to their rightful places. They weren't phased by the fact a middle aged, highly roll'y woman had just crashed into their display, nor were they concerned at all if she was hurt or bothered or any such thing. I'm not sure I'll bother shopping there again.
Posted by Michelle at 2:36 PM
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June 17, 2009Wednes Day Links
I was lucky enough to go out of town last weekend. My room mates and I drove out down to Warnambool, met up with some other intrepid travellers (the Scots) to do a spot of whale watching (the whales mentioned on this site were *our* whales). We were very flippin' lucky, by all accounts our two whales were the first spotted in nearly a month! Go us! go them! whoo! It was a great weekend, full of wine, me talking too much/too loudly/too stupid-headedly. The hotel we stayed at had a revolving door. Upon using it to gain access to the booking-in procedure of the hotel, I took the opportunity to regale my fellow travelers with a tale of an old friend, who, once upon a time and while using a revolving door not unlike the one we had just used to enter this fine establishment, had it explode on and around him, shattering glass firing in all directions across the hotel lobby he was trying to leave. An amazing story, you'll have to agree, and one most vivid in my memory. Both my room mates looked at me, as they often do, with slack-jawed amazement - I assumed because of my storytelling prowess and gift of pathos, sharing wonderful anecdotes of days gone by. But alas, this was not the case. It was Fox who broke the silence first "Jesus, Michelle, that wasn't a friend of yours - that was on youtube!" Willo agreed with her and I had to think for a moment. Was it true, it was so vivid in my memory. I could see the entire thing as if I'd been there; as if I had been hovering near the ceiling of the lobby watching down on my poor friend who was nearly wounded from the explosion of revolving door glass; as if I were the very CRT camera that had filmed the.. entire......thing......... So here's the video: and I am officially a senile old biddy who can no longer tell the difference between the internets and real life. Things I wish I could change about myself:
Posted by Michelle at 1:06 AM
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June 14, 2009June 12, 2009June 10, 2009Mid Week MuddlingsI am at Kent Street and would “live blog”, but there’s not a lot happening, and the internet connection is very slow. It is warm, cosy and quiet here, with Johnny Cash is singing about being a poorrrrrrr wayfaring strangerrrrrr (I know this song, but I don’t know how - Jack White covered it, perhaps) at the moment, which is extremely hum-able. Today has been quite chilly in Melbourne. Although I understand (it’s okay to talk about the weather, when the weather is so interesting) the temperature dropped below 10 degrees Celsius today, but not on my watch. It was hovering around 13/14 when I was out and about, though Willo has said the words they’re (The Newspaper people) using to describe temperatures overnight are “viciously cold”. Thank goodness for apartment heating and snugly beds. I love this bar: it’s snug and the lighting is soft; it’s warm and friendly here at Kent Street. Davey just teased me about interrupted his “rolling” (his cigarette) to pour me another mulled wine, but poured me one anyway. Davey, along with all the bar staff here, are relaxed and amiable. They always have a warm greeting and a banter or two to toss about. There is one gas heater high on the wall that cooks the air to a t-shirt-sleeve warmth to counter the wintery chilled blasts that the door lets in when each new visitor or smoker slides it open. The air inside is scented with the cloves and orange zest of mulled wine that has just finished brewing on the counter. There are candles and lamps which softly light the conversation nooks and crannies, giving the room soft warm highlights and dark secluded corners. DJs play a wonderful mixture of music, and if you’re lucky, most of the time it’s of a volume that still enables conversation. Movies often play (on mute) on the screen above the front door. It’s so great to watch familiar classics like Jaws, Rebel Without a Cause or Nightmare on Elm Street with the sound off for a change. I see so many details I never noticed before, scenes I don’t even remember seeing. Kent Street is a place to meet friends, roommates and neighbours. Chaz dropped in for a glass of wine on the way home. Willo and Fox are here too - we all have our laptops and are muddling around doing what we do on our computers. They are writing copy for a new website; I am making the strange (and poor) video you see here which is, by the way, an extremely poor representation of the bar, but will do for now. Think of it as a failed sketch. A poor, low-light representation of Kent Street on Smith PS: you may (or may not) have noticed the look of thejamjar.com has changed recently. Previously, the site was built from an old wooden table, two stools, some sticky tape and a vast number of staples. In getting rid of all the botchery, I've lost some of the colour but intend to repaint soon. Please understand that renovations tend to go in fits and bursts, and apply your patience accordingly. Thank you :) PPS: I remember now, I first heard Wayfaring Stranger from EmmyLou Harris.
Posted by Michelle at 11:46 PM
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June 8, 2009June 7, 2009June 5, 2009June 3, 2009Wednes Day Links
When I was still under 10 years old, I was given a little transistor radio. It was sky blue with silver dials and had an earphone socket (for one earphone bud) which I used almost exclusively to listen in on the AM band as often as, and for as long as I could. I loved that radio. _Loved_ it. It replaced some of the reading I used to do by the hall light after my parents had tucked me into bed and turned out the bedroom light. While it was absolutely true that I was so terrified of the dark (and still am, btw) the hall light had to be left on; the light was also useful for reading which always seemed so much more desirable to do "on the sly" rather than in broad daylight where anyone could see me chowing through Alice in Wonderland, The Water Babies or my trusty Encyclopedia. I'm fairly certain that given my night-owlishness and my love of television (no matter what was on) my parents would have been happy no matter what I was doing in my bed so long as I stayed there - which before the reading and the radio kicked in, I seemed to have had a continuous, parental-annoying aversion to. So when I got this radio, I squirrel it beneath my pillow, under my ear (because wearing the ear bud in bed for long periods of time became uncomfortable - I have delicate ears - like a little bird...) with the volume just loud enough for me to hear but not so loud as to have my mother know I was listening and (potentially, because I'm not sure she ever did) confiscate the radio. And I would listen late into the night to the Beatles, and the Seekers, and Dusty Springfield, Englebert Humperdink and Tom Jones - not a lot of rock and roll was played on my radio in those days - more like Easy Eeeasssy Listening songs of the day. Sunday nights were the best nights to listen to the radio because the local radio station would play shows from the BBC. I would listen to the likes of "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again", "Sorry I Don't Have a Clue" and, of course, "The Goons". And I would giggle. Giggle hard into my pillow. Trying to stifle the hilarity to protect my habit. Last night I listened to old radio shows in my bed - this time with soft earphones and a connection to YouTube.com, but still trying not to laugh too loudly at the funniness that is Morecambe and Wise, or the genius of Peter Sellers, Harry Seacombe and Spike Milligan during a video recording of the Last Goon Show. I listened to these shows and I was transported to my childhood. I had such a great time - though some of the comedy hasn't weathered time as well as others, I recommend the Goons if nothing else. It's their final show so they drop all their classic lines. It's interesting to me that years later, as an adult, I heard my mother once comment to my then-husband, when he had expressed his amazement and consternation at how much money and, more to the point: time, I spent reading books, that I hadn't read much as a child. It surprised me to think that all those years of reading by the light of the hall had been, and still remained, a secret. And, more astonishing after some thought, that I had read the entire adventures of Alice in Wonderland before I was nine. That's a chapter book, for those who don't know. Sure it has pictures, but not on every page! And, by the by, it scared me shitless - in the half dark, straining my eyes, probably after spending after school with Dr Who's latest escapade fresh in my mind, plowing on, unable to stop reading about the crazy arse shit that goes on in that story. So all this staying awake too late, and revisiting my childhood sneakiness made me think about what I would tell my 8 year old self if I could send a message back in time:
Posted by Michelle at 4:20 AM
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June 2, 2009Nature vs Nurture David: "I don't care what you say. I look introspective as fuck." Simon: I met Dylan Moran! Me: Really?? Simon: yeh! Me: Did you talk to him? Simon: Yeh!! Me: Did he know you spoke to him? Simon: Yeh, he did! Me: Did he say anything to you? Simon: Yeh, he did!! Me: Ooohh man.. what did he say?? Simon: he said.. "FUCK OFF!"  Tandia: "Redrum!!!"
Posted by Michelle at 10:09 PM
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