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So the Sex Party is preferencing One Nation.

What the fuck?



Now what do I do?

You know what?

I think I'm going to fucking do it.

Big WTF

Here I was thinking 'oh, there are no good comedy shows anymore, no one taking potshots at pollies, doing parodies, oh woah are the young in this country, missing out on comedy gold.'

Not so friends. I know at times my life is like living under a rock. I'm secluded, I do my thing, and I try to filter out the static. But I think I'm also filtering out a lot of pretty excellent stuff.

Like this for example:

Explanation of preferential voting system from Dennis the Election Koala

Go here and all is explained.

And this

 

THIS

Hipster versus indie versus everything else

OK, I asked my daughter about this. While I'm trying to work out how to embed an audio file into this blog, here are the notes, transcribed verbatim from Princess:

P: Hipster's more mainstream, sort of more 'brandy' will wear the Chinos rolled up, the Vans. That have that certain type of hair that's more quiffy, and sort of shaved on one side a little bit more edgy than the indies. And they might have piercings or tattoos or that stuff, they might have been skaters but then they started to decide to dress vaguely nicely.

And then like indies are more like opp-shoppy, you have mainstream indie now, it was in the shops a while ago but it's become a bit more rocker-chicky so that's changed. Um, indies wear a lot more layers, there's more girl indies than boy indies and you would never see a hipster with a ukulele. Ever. 

Me: A girl indie will carry a ukulele?

P: Not always, it's not like 'I'm going out of the house. Take a ukulele!' But [friend's name] has one. A good indie has a ukulele. Boys as well.

Me: But there aren't many boy indies.

P: There are plenty of boy indies.

Me: You said you won't see many boy indies.

P: [keeping patient, for the interview] I said you won't see many girl hipsters.

Me: Oh. What about the Ned Kelly beard? Like I was saying before...

P: Well, indie's younger. Maybe indie turns into hipster as they get older, I don't know, because none of my friends who are indie have facial beards! I'm sure they'd love to grow them but... they're not allowed, and they're teenage boys.

Me: You said before that confidence is important for indies because it starts younger and you have to be confident to wear opp-shop clothes, non-mainstream clothes...

P: Well not always opp-shops but they sort of come from little boutiquey shops a lot. Like if you find a true indie, you'd never find them shopping at Sportsgirl, they might find one thing and that's like a specialised indie one thing... Yeah so hipster, it's a lot more branded, like shops like Globe, General Pants, American Apparel. But we all like American Apparel, it's just too expensive.

Me: You were saying before [we were talking before I started taping] that indies are into jumpers and hipsters more into jackets. And you were saying the guys wear puddle pants with the Vans, rolled up-

P: With no socks.

Me: No socks. Could that have originated as an indie look?

P: No, because Vans are branded. And really expensive. You have to think about the money here as well. Indies are dressing at opp-shops because they're thinking... consumerist... blah blah blah...  Whereas hipsters have no qualms about that.

Me: So there's also an intersection between social politics? Attitudes? Conservation? Philosophies?

P: Maybe [sounding doubtful]

Me: What about dumpster diving? Have you heard of that?

P: That's Feral.

[laughter]

Me: Just talk quickly about 'bogan' and 'yobbo'

P: Okay. Yobbo is bogan, no one uses the word yobbo anymore, because saying 'yobbo' makes you sound like a yobbo so you don't say it. You say bogan, so... yobbo just shouldn't even be in the dictionary. I've never heard it, from someone. It's ridiculous.

Me: So there's another group?

P: Oh yes, we have heaps. So then there's like, crossing over from that you have the North Face Guys, right.  And they all dress in, sort of like, a little bit hipsterish cause they'll wear the Chinos but they'll wear the Chinos with runnery kind of, not runner runners, but you know those Nike things with the really thick white bits?

Me: ...

P: And they wear those North Face jackets zipped right up to under their chins and have the hoods up so they can mug people. They always have a backpack, always. Like a sports backpack and they go to parties and never take it off, because there's usually illegal things in there.

[Recording finished.]

The only other thing I learned was that you know how we say 'google it' they also say 'image it' so when I said what do hipsters wear, she said 'image it.'

So here we are:







 

 

 





Some pages on the differences

 Hipsters - lots of definitions on the one page

 The hipster test

Just to say it: this whole exercise I feel is very unhipster, however, it seems also that no one wants to be a hipster or if they do/are, then they are original hipsters and everyone else after them are bogus.

So

if fellatio can be abbreviated to fellashe - a not inelegant phrase if you ask me. Then, the question is, what syllable would cunnilingus be truncated at.

Has to be cunni, but then you could only use it if you were wearing this type of apparel:





drinking this type of beverage:




rocking this sort of hair:





and listening to this sort of music, oh and dancing like that too:

I do love a Saturday morning

And then I do love the rest of the day as well.

Things that were good about this week:

Seeing this in the media

Here's another one:

Full story here. Although you know it won't really be the Full Story, because that can't really be written down anywhere.

Then there was this, a visual tree guide:

I hope you can make it bigger, it was bigger on the website.

There was some good writerly news that I mentioned might be imminent a little while ago. One of my short stories is being published in the Big Issue Fiction Edition, out on 16 August. Without knowing who else is in it, I'm sure it won't be hard for people to work out who I am. It's a bit exciting though which means there's been three bottles of champagne consumed this week. Not all on one night and not all by me.

That news came through on Wednesday, and that was the same afternoon my mum and Princess and I went to see Monet at the NGV. There is a pool with white bowls, much like the ones from my kitchen. The water moves around and the floating bowls chime against each other. It's gorgeous:



The Monet exhibition was beautiful. We went in at about 4pm and had an hour. It's a good time to go and often we make this type of stealth-approach on a Wednesday afternoon to see the exhibitions. They aren't crowded and it's a lovely mid-week treat. Loved seeing three of his paintings of London in smog/fog. Very Turneresque and just divine. Particularly this one:
 

There was only one painting of the waterlilies and the iconic green bridge but that was well-advised I think, if it was deliberate. Everyone knows about the waterlilies and the little green bridge, so the "Nymphaea" room was filled with paintings of the waterlilies (and even a few irises thrown in) and there was one in particular, round-framed and delicate. So pretty.

In one of the text boxes, a quotation from Monet:

It took me a while to understand my waterlilies.

This resonated with me so much, especially as this week I've been trying to work out what my second book-thing is 'about'. Who the fuck knows? I read today that EB White, when asked by his publisher why he chose to write Charlotte's Web gave a lovely response, describing his inspiration and why he chose to write about a pig and about a spider, then at the end he wrote: 

I haven't told you why I wrote the book but I haven't told why I sneeze either. A book is a sneeze.

I don't know if either of these sentiments make much sense to you but they do to me.

This was good. A panorama pic of Tokyo and you can zoom right in. When I zoomed right in it made me think of some of the scenes in 1Q84 like when they go down a ladder off the side of the freeway. I think I want to read that book again. This week too I bought Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I have a lot of books on standby. They are patient.

Tokyo zoom

Then this piece of excrement:

Misogyny lurks in Winton's world of fiction

Such bullshit but it niggled at me and I spent far too much time thinking about the reasons why she is wrong. Luckily, other far more articulate people than me got into the letters pages to rebuff this stupidity.

And finally, this was waiting for me at the back door when I got home yesterday. I know it's not right to call one of your children stupid but really, when there's a shed open and available for shelter. Also a fucking garage...