friday wrap-up

it was pretty embarrassing to be on a crowded tram yesterday morning, to feed all the squandered silver coins from the money box on top of the bookcase into the ticket machine, to try to buy a daily ticket, to have all of it stuffed into the slot bar one coin, and then to get the message "machine returning money" and have it all dumped back out at me, like some fricking one-armed bandit.

but i wasn't in vegas, or even in crown. it was a tram, and it made such a noise and i could feel all the people nearby staring at me.

then i had to reach in, and grab it all back out. that seemed to take ages. those little openings are pretty small, and i haven't even got man-hands.

i decided to get a two-hour ticket then. less coins, less chance of it rejecting my money a second time. and as it turned out, a blessing because i was in and out of town within an hour.

and it was ok, it worked, phew. got my ticket.

later in the day saw me meeting my dad to see gran torino at the george. despite flinching any time he said gook or slope head, which i'm thinking was pretty much the point of him talking like that, i enjoyed it immensely, and cried in the end. it was interesting; the religious themes, the redemption themes, families, bigotry, changes in america, war. all of that really good, meaty stuff. life and death, and what do we know of them? it was also funny in a wry way. and that's the good way.

then i went and had lunch with dad, who is very eastwood'esque himself, with the way he doesn't really ever say much, and he also can make the same kind of growling/sighing sound that clint makes several times in the movie (exaggerated in this case, but think dirty harry and the way he clenches the jaw. that's my dad.)

as an aside, in the same cafe was col'n carpenter, whatever his name is, kym gyngell, and he and his ladee ordered the same focaccia me and dad did - chicken with avocado, cheese, lettuce, tomato. it was very nice, but col'n and dad both had trouble cutting through the bread with their knives, while me and col'n's ladee picked ours up and just ate like pigs. she was very young, much younger than him and i wondered if she were not preggers?

heh. no one is safe when i'm in the hood.

what else. oh, guitar hero. we are enjoying it. i reckon that the kids' brain synapses are being strengthened and stimulated really nicely, it will help with their school work and sport. as for mine, they're in pretty bad shape anyway i reckon, i don't think anything can help mine. but i'm sleeping like a log - fall into bed exhausted after a little guitar hero action. last night we busted clokes using his "character" on our family games, so the money we earn as a group he can then take and buy his dude jaunty fedoras and trilbies with. i said fuck that, make a family character who can earn some $'s and then we can buy her a fedora!

clokes is working on getting another guitar so we can do battles side by side.

bit of a convo on the radio this morning about jen aniston getting dumped again by john mayer. everyone seems to think he's an arsehole, and she's the good one, but srsly, look at her record, and someone has said they dated her, some dude from a band, and that she was high-maintenance, hard work.

what do you think? are you high maintenance in a relationship? i know i am. and clokes knew as well. because i told him over and over. and then i showed him just for good measure.

as for john mayer, read him on twitter. i don't think he's an arsehole necessarily. he doesn't come across as a twat, just an ordinary guy who likes his music. it's quite refreshing the personalities you can follow on twitter. there aren't heaps. the best ones are john cleese, demi moore and ashton kutcher, john mayer is ok, i'm hooked into soleil moonfrye, who is frank zappa's daughter? (pretty sure; i seem to remember her sibs have got some interesting names too - wasn't there moon unit and dweezil?) jamie oliver also tweets, and you can see he gets a bit pissed off with people asking for recipe tips - he's forever saying politely "my website has alot of recipes..."

but twitter generally doesn't have a patch on blogs. 140 characters only? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING? and anyone who's not a celebrity are so boring. sorry clokes. even some of the celebs are boring. the rapper dudes i can't read; and stephen fry gets the gold star for most tweets - it's tedious. at least john cleese is funny, if irregular.

how about the earthquake, ay? i felt it this time, it rocked a bit. and the blackhawk helicopters that everyone is freaking out about. there might be more, there might not. i don't think it's a problem, but who knows.

so, TGIF is all i can say. with ali in the country (princess' dad) my life always gets a little jumpy. been ok this year so far. he's brought a girlfriend with him - she's turkish as well and so heart-stoppingly beautiful, she is gorgeous, like some flashing-eyed gypsy girl. princess is off to sydney twice in a little while, once for a weekend and once for a week. long-time readers will remember the last vigil when princess went to america - oh my god was she really only 8??? - so this time i'm so relaxed and "sure, why not" about sydney. she'll have a fab time. we've delayed her getting her braces on, because i don't want her to be away from home with a sore mouth and unable to eat and miserable on her holiday. the way ali likes to holiday, food is a huge part of it, loads of fresh fruit and seafood; she doesn't want to miss all that. so i've persuaded her to put them off.

so that's about it. i plan to do some writing for the rest of the day. stay away from the blogs. take the gigi for a walk. pop into my mum's.

happy friday to everyone, and enjoy the weekend.

x

and so it starts, with lots of words.

can we believe in this man?

so i stayed up and watched the inauguration. once everybody had arrived, the actual swearing in ceremony was quite quick. like princess diana, obama muddled the words of the oath, but it seems that was because the chief justice got in a mix. it was an endearingly human moment.

a snapshot of my impressions:

- first, let's get the cosmetic out of the way. why did michelle wear that outfit? the avocado green gloves were distracting and the glitter of her dress and coat, with strange ribbon-tie seemed inappropriately glitzy, and the colour was bad. this girl is gonna go down bigtime as the fashion vultures have been circling, squawking since she wore that "butcher's apron" on election night. also, she has some serious posture problems going on. she looks like a tall woman trying not to be. i'm sure she'll settle into it. he already looks the part, michelle just doesn't yet. but she's got the makings.

- i was glad to see obama in an overcoat, and i was interested to note he didn't wear a scarf, unlike bush. i suppose bush had nothing to prove, but after just watching the end of west wing, where santos didn't wear an overcoat to his inauguration, as a show of "youth and vigour", it was something i looked out for. he wore a red tie, while others adopted purple (ie the senior bushes) purportedly as a sign of bipartisanship (purple = a blend of red and blue). the clintons had yellow accents - from memory, a scarf for bill and earrings for hillary.

- the kids had obviously NOT been told to sit up straight, be on your best behaviour. and i like that. they were natural kids, fidgeting and the oldest one malia bowed her head a few times, and had her eyes open during the prayers

- the pastor who spoke first, rick warren, is already receiving some criticism for concluding with the lord's prayer. one thing i noticed was in his listing of jesus' akas, he pronounced a word "isa". the transcript of his speech has it written as "esau" who actually was, according to wiki, the son of rebekah and isaac, not jesus. the word "isa" is the arabic word for "jesus", and is in the koran as so.

- the other pastor who spoke, the reverend joseph lowery, all i have to say about him is he the man.

 "Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around . . .. . . when yellow will be mellow . . .. . . when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right."

the delivery of this part of his benediction was timed perfectly, and he had everyone smiling if not laughing at his racial commentary schtick.

- the poetess, elizabeth alexander, who delivered her poem, was stilted and robotic, perhaps an effect of speaking in front of millions, and perhaps also a result of her intention to be plain and clear. her words were prosaic, not flowery, and while some are criticising this, i think it rendered her words all the more poignant. they were stark, they were plain, they were clear. an omen perhaps of what is to come with the obama administration?

- i thought an olive branch was extended to the muslim community, as well, or an indication of inclusion. i also liked that non-believers were also included by obama. we were last on the list, but it's better than being left out. i also noticed that when obama was introduced, it was as barack h. obama. strange, i thought, is it meaningful? i wondered. i was sure clinton had been introduced with his full middle name. but later, during the swearing in, "hussein" was spoken. maybe there was no getting around it, and a president elect's full name must be used.

- obama's address, too, was plain and clear. he spoke without the "soaring rhetoric" and i for one was glad. i felt he wasn't trying to use the moment for his own personal glory, to feed the ego, to butter people up with words. one writer has said the speech presented "the most sophisticated view of the world and our role in it of any inaugural address in history" and without being able to compare, i instinctively agree. this is a man, who because he has spent a lot of time figuring out where he belongs in the world, and who because he is bi-cultural and bi-racial with more fluid and multiple identities than most of us, has a handle on many perspectives. he has an overview of the world, of america and of himself that few (if any) u.s. presidents have before him. he has an understanding of what it means to be different, to feel like you don't quite belong anywhere, but can manage to belong everywhere. this layering of identities is something that will be a great asset for him; strength in hybridity, and his ability to move between worlds. "passing" is a loaded term; it implies some sort of subterfuge or deceit, that a person who is half black and half white can be equally as comfortable or effective in both environments. but barack obama is a human bridge who will hopefully use his knowledge and understanding of how the world works and how identity and power works, to fix things.

and oh my, i could see no tele-prompter, no notes. he was just talking, speaking, as if discussing his ideas (well thought out, and well prepared) with a bunch of people, asking for their help, telling them what needed to be done. i bet he has been thinking about how to fix his country, if not the world, for years. this is a man who lives in his head alot, but who also is such a fine writer and communicator, that he can translate his ideas well. his voice is rich and beautifully accented, no evidence of the hoarseness that dogged clinton, another great communicator.

it's a big ask, expecting one man to fix the world, and anything can go wrong. i hope that politics don't get in the way too much, and i hope that his slim shoulders can carry the load for all of us, for the whole world. everybody loves hope, hell, we can't help ourselves.

robert altman

so the first mistake was choosing to do a robert altman retrospective.

is there anyone else who thinks his layering of voices effect extremely tedious and impossible to understand?

i enjoyed short cuts*, but couldn't hear any of the player, so i decided we should do a retrospective. we're all about retrospectives at the moment. we are also doing coen bros, and wes anderson, and i know both will be more satisfying than mr altman. and even with movies i've had trouble hearing in the past either because of loud music or inarticulate speech, i figure i can catch what i missed because we use... subtitles.

clokes loves saying "for the hearing impaired" when i remind him to put them on. so maybe i am a little deaf. i like to think it's because of all those bands i saw as a youngster, rather than my advanced age.

i do realise using words like "youngster" does not help my youthful image.

anyway. we started with number 1 which is beyond therapy.

if you have seen this, i would love to hear your thoughts.

if you haven't seen this, don't waste your time and money. we turned it off after about 10 mins of hoping it would "get better".

reasons why it was atrocious:

1. jeff golblum is not leading man material. sure, he was funny in the big chill when he had to sleep in the aeroplane bed. BUT THAT'S IT. the fly = no. the tall guy = no. jurassic park = no. the only decent thing this guy's been in is the life aquatic, but that wasn't because of him.

2. julie haggerty - never was there a more annoying actress on the face of the earth. she was annoying in flying high, why could someone think she would be good in a rom-com? it was like robert altman had visions of her as some diane keaton-annie hall manifestation.

wrong. wrong. wrong.

3. "it's like a porn movie, without the sex" this is what my husband said about 30 secs before we turned it off.

4. trying to build interest in the characters by having all these nutty people in a restaurant is just nutty.

i don't have any more points. i've wasted too much of my life already with even writing this much.

we are back on west wing.

* the irony is short cuts is apparently not available on dvd in australia.

yes, i know, i know. time for something of substance.

while i've been going on orgiastically and self-indulgently about fabulous dictionaries and the like, and buying myself new season peonies at the market, and getting pissed off at the amount of bread we go through each week (4 loaves plus. doesn't include fancy-pant d.chirico loaf or two on the weekend), i am aware, dear readers, of the momentous unfolding happening over the seas, in the usa.

like most other people being vocal about it, i am thrilled that obama has won. new era, fresh start, first black president, victory for minorities; it's all fantastic. i'm guessing the kkk and other bovver-booted, shorn head nazi-typepeople are gathering in dark corners, plotting something. i do fear for barack.

and today in the paper, a small article caught my attention.

i am going to be watching this man closely:





it's rahm emanuel. first pick for chief of staff. a lot better looking than leo mc garry, and with a shit-eating grin that promises some good times. with clinton experience, that can only mean good in the oval office, and good on the hustlings. apparently he also swears alot, and can use his favourite expletive as a verb, adjective or subject, depending on the context. and this is his only flaw? i think not.

so, is it goodbye to "diva, whack-job" sarah palin? the george negus nightline show the other night had a commentator who suggested 2012 will be hillary vs sarah. quite serious he was.*




will mccain get a head reduction? i did like his gracious acceptance of defeat and his good wishes to the obamas, though. there was no evidence of the snark we get in australian politics, the bad loserish sour grapes crap.



i do feel they've got it quite in hand, we can all relax. what a handsome pair.



and back here, with mr rudd, i have to say i'm sick of seeing him with his arms around people, looking all matey matey. it gives me flashbacks to howard; small man, glasses, trying to be popular and "down-to-earth." while i'm ok with rudd thus far, and i think his handling of all things recessionistic/financial etc is pretty good [insert technical jargon here] i don't like the way he's picked up on howard's way of responding to issues using the expression "i think i can speak for the majority of australians when i say..."

i also didn't like the way he reacted in such a strong and personal way to the henson thing, and more recently didn't get what keating was on about re gallipoli. i got it - why couldn't our prime minister? am i smarter than him?

also, i heard george negus refer to barack as "the boy" during the program. not quite as bad as the bert newton slip way back when, but still, i cringed and i'm sure negus did too. and all the producers. and the panel sitting there. he would have been referring to obama's age, but it sounded bad.