Happy Friday People

Wakey wakey, a little Katie Makkai for your day.

oh my goodness you must go

please note, male readers. you might think you're not interested in this post, as it's about clothes, fashion etc. but please do persist. read it. or if you really can't be bothered, just scroll down for some treats at the bottom. hurrrr. you won't be disappointed. double hurrrr.

yesterday we drove up to bendigo to see the golden age of couture exhibition, which has been brought out to australia from the victoria and albert museum in london.

may i say what a spiffing idea to host this show in bendigo? it's the only place in the country it will be seen, the place was heaving with fashion freaks, and lucky us got to skip the lengthy queue because my mum walks with a stick.

hooray for the disabled!

it was just us three. mum, me and princess.

let me tell you about princess and fashion. while her mama is not too sartorially challenged (i have been called the glamorous one in our family) (don't laugh those of you who have actually met me) (stop it now) (i mean it), princess has both beautiful taste and a stunning little frame, gorgeous features and inherent style. and she's only 12.

she also has a fierce intellect and terrifically generous, kind nature, but we're not talking about that.

this is something of the history of princess and clothes:

- up until about the age of 4 or 5, her hair was wild, curly and lush. i would primp it up with all manner of clips: strawberry clips, tweetie-pie clips, purple-sequinned clips. i have a photo of her at age 3 on the st kilda boardwalk with wild yellow sunglasses, green fake-fur coat, purple leggings, and major attitude. think photos of matilda ledger out and about in soho atop heath's shoulders.

- also up until the age of about 4 or 5 she would wear what i dressed her in. then it changed.

- she has been a very girly, pink-addicted person, until a few years ago, so when she was about 8 or 9, she started liking black, and green. black, of course, is an imperative in this fair city, green as anyone knows goes gorgeously with dark, mahogany hair and olive skin. she has instinctively steered clear of fluros (dead-set proof of her innate style) and ugly patterns, and colour clashes.

- she has always been a very dressy girl. even now when she is more into jeans and tops, she accessorises very seriously. she has a serious silver jewellry collection, with a few yellow gold pieces. she doesn't over accessorise although there was a time when she did.

- when she was about 7 she decided she wanted to sew a dress for her little cousin, who was then about 3. we bought some fabric at spotlight, and she hand cut and sewed a kind of pinafore. at that stage, ex-husband ali was out visiting and i'll never forget coming home one afternoon and finding the two of them, hard at work on the dress. he was sitting on the couch cross-legged, sewing in hand. our little girl had asked him to help her and there he was sewing, like a turkish tailor. this dress was worn precisely once, a photo taken, and then put up as a wall hanging in my niece's room.

- more recently, princess has been sketching beautiful designs of frocks. she really does do a good job of it. she has the mannequin shape down pat, the curve of hip, the tight-little waist. she has been asking myriad questions about fashion, and more specifically, the history of fashion. what did people wear in the 1800s? when did women wear those hoops under their dresses? when did they have their bosoms spilling out? when did they have high necks? how much money do fashion designers make? how do you become a fashion designer? how do you become a famous fashion designer? she's quite impressed by alannah hill because we see her around occasionally in her black merc. princess calls her 'esme', after a character in twilight; she does look a bit vampira with her hair and red lips. once she was behind me at the lights, eating something as she was driving. she was wearing dark gloves.

Now, as of yesterday afternoon, the questions have all been about couture. I have been struggling to answer them, but I did my best.

The reason for this going to the show and talking about clothes. And these:

this was a wedding dress princess particularly liked.

these were miniature items to show what kind of couture the average client would have.

so then all the way home in the car it was i want couture, i don't want target or jay-jays. i want to have nice clothes.

what have i started?

tomorrow i'll talk about what it was that i liked at the collection. i have a new-found love of richard avedon photography, and the confirmed belief that no-one does fashion like the designers and models of the '40s and '50s. no one. not kate moss, not sarah-jessica parker, not posh spice.

no one.

now for the reward patient male humans.

is this not the most beautiful lingerie you have ever seen? i found it while researching the other stuff. it's from strumpet and pink and i am now going to check prices.

melting and throbbing right now.

more of this tomorrow as well.

shame about the parquetry floor. do hate a parquetry floor. it offends my aesthetic for some reason. not symmetrical enough? all the lines going different ways? disturbs my brain. but the knickers, oh the knickers.

happy tuesday to you.

for your viewing pleasure, see i'm always thinking about your needs, dear reader

this week, we have watched into the wild and the secret of the grain.

i won't bother rhapsodising.

just see them.

now.




hafsia herzi in the secret of the grain. french with english subtitles.







scene from into the wild. screenplay and direction by sean penn. always a good start in my opinion.

my current obsession

the latest thing that has me incredibly pre-occupied is the missing australian britt lapthorne.

i'm not sure why i am so interested. sure, it's a sad story, her family are beside themselves, so i guess imagining their pain and distress makes me feel really strongly about it, but usually it's stories about children who set me off in this way.

i've been thinking about it more today, and i think one reason why i am so interested in it is that i was once her.

i backpacked on my own overseas for a period, meeting up with great people, and having a wonderful time, from greece, to turkey, to israel, to egypt and beyond. while i was older than her (25), i probably wasn't that much smarter. i've done some stupid things (not saying she has) and i've been drunk in foreign places and fraternised with local men (also, not saying she has). jesus, i ended up marrying one.

i've been on the back of a motorbike in bali, driven by a local, both of us pissed on indonesian palm wine. i've been in dahab, south sinai, where everyone was smoking dope, except me, though i did drink. i kissed a kurdish boy in eastern turkey, also while drunk, in a hotel corridor. i've been driven in cars by strangers, met up with people who dialled the wrong number and wanted to take me for a drink, had eyeballs with strangers who i met on cb radio. that was back in the '80s.

all i'm saying is that friends and family would have probably called me sensible, even back then.

and all i'm saying is this is no reflection on britt - i'm just marvelling that i made it through.

here's what i think's going to happen, unfortunately. my reasonings are based on experience in turkey, when my mother was diagnosed with cancer while we were living there. it went from the doctor saying he was pretty sure it wouldn't be cancer, to stringing us along for days beyond when he would have reasonably had the pathology results. i had to push and push and chase for the result, and then be told on christmas night (once, he perhaps thought, we had enjoyed our christmas day, didn't need to spoil that seasonal joy with some bad news about cancer) finally, that yes, she did have cancer. there were no hard feelings, it was just unfortunate, and i really believe that he didn't want to be the bearer of bad news. i wonder if there is a similar cultural thing going on it croatia.

my gut feeling is that the body found recently will be britt. they've said it's too decomposed to be her, that it was highly unlikely (at the same time, notice, maintaining there was still a small chance, ie they couldn't completely rule out that it was her, needed to do dna tests etc) and now there are whispers that they got it wrong with another body found in water previously - that they thought it was an older body than it turned out to be. there are also whispers now that the body they found is of britt's height, has blonde hair and is female.

this is their way of letting the family down gently, not that there is such a possibility. their reasoning is that by saying it's not her, they are being kind to the family, letting them have hope for a little bit longer (all the while knowing or suspecting it will turn to despair). this type of thinking is culturally opposite to the way we operate here. it's similar in japan - traditionally they would outright lie to the dying cancer patient, or whatever, and only tell the family the true diagnosis/prognosis. and everyone would keep it a secret from the one person who ought to know.

it's a similar way of thinking - build up to the truth by a series of lies.

of course, as has been mentioned by britt's father, there are other elements to this story, which is becoming increasingly bizarre.

- the serbian nationalist with tattoos over his body being sent by the afp to help

- the report of the mother of the hostel owner trying to mail an australian passport from the post office the day britt disappeared

- the original baffling question of why people travelling/partying with her, left the day she disappeared, knowing she hadn't come back to the hostel

- why her mobile phone was found in her room, with a call made from it to the hostel owner's phone

- have we heard anything about the cctv footage? i'm smelling a cover-up.

and most freakishly for me, why did one of the friends she was travelling with leave a comment on britt's facebook page saying something along the lines of "that picture with you and the cake is the favourite one of mine :)" TWO DAYS AFTER BRITT DISAPPEARED.

that's weird.

and the whole thing is just awful for the family. i feel for her mother and her father so much.

i think we'll be learning very soon that they've found her, and at least her family can have some peace. they'll be able to bring her home but i don't think they'll ever find out what really happened to her.

more germaine whimsy

and yes, it shall be whimsy. while it makes me a little nervous to just write a non-edited, unplanned piece on this topic, this woman - for it is indeed the week of the greer - i am just going to write my feelings out, and anybody who wants to be picky and neg me and say it's ill-structured, rambling and incoherent, can just bugger off. this is my blog, and i'll be incoherent if i want to.

the last time i did a week on someone, it was david hicks. back when i had hours of university master-avoiding that needed to be done every day. it was a requirement of full-time study, it was in the course guidelines.

i have no such excuses now, dear reader. i am working rather more than i would choose, but enjoying earning money for the first time, properly and regularly, in more years than i care to say. and while i like to say this is the week of germaine, i am aware that i haven't posted all week.
so, to germaine. or more precisely, this article which appeared last saturday in the age.

i've picked a bone with traceeeee before, over peter garrett's suiting up and seeming to forget all his old song lyrics. i'm sure it was her that wrote an article saying something like "leave him alone, he's gonna work it from the inside."

still waiting on that one, trace.

but to the latest. the headline is greer's latest rage more glib than lib.

i know that sub-editors write the headlines, so that's not traceeeee's fault, but the headline does announce the tone that she embraces in her article.

what does glib mean anyway? according to one source, it's any of the following:

smooth and slippery; speaking or spoken in a smooth manner; easily fluent; careless; insincere.

so it's a negative word, it seems, something suspect and something not altogether pleasant. exactly how many see greer it seems.

my reading of the hutchinson article made me think that she had missed the point. while she admits to being fascinated with the greer, and sees herself as benefitting from the social swathe the female eunuch cut through the world at that time, and the resonance since, she then goes on to methodically attempt to undermine germaine, and to cast her as suspect - geographically, politically and feministically.

she talks about the new essay on rage, particularly on aboriginal male rage. hutchison implies that germaine is wrong in thinking, from her lovely, far-away english residence, that indigenous men are self-destructing out of rage, and not grief. hutchison says that germaine was not at the sorry day in canberra, and obviously the broadcast that she watched in her lovely, far-away english residence didn't show all the aboriginal people who attended. hutchison was there, she saw that the indigenous people there were in the background, under trees, not pushing themselves to the front. so germaine must be wrong in thinking the aboriginal men were absent. ah, point scored. i haven't read the rage essay yet, so i don't know exactly what trace is referring to. but it's clear she thinks she scored over germaine about this. i'm also not sure why it's important for people to try to bring this woman down. to try to prove her wrong. and to try and cut her legs out from under her.

but going back to the rage vs grief thing - they aren't separate. they can and do co-exist. it could be argued that you can't have one without the other. what does rage come from, and how does it differ from anger. what are the degrees on the continuum. i need to read the essay to try to understand better. but back to the sorry day, perhaps on that day people showed their grief - grief is far more socially acceptable than rage. but surely the rage is there, in all of them (us?). to show rage at the sorry day would have been to show poor manners, lack of dignity, lack of good-heart. i don't know, but i guess that indigenous people like everyone else would pride themselves on their collective good-heart and their dignity.

hutchison then goes on to talk about the joanna murray-smith thing, where germaine called her "an insane reactionary who held feminism in contempt." again she tries to score points, saying the she knows that murray-smith's family are left-wing inellectuals, her mother taught hutchison english, and her father was "revered in literary intellectual circles." well, being literary, or left-wing doesn't automatically exclude a person from being an insane reactionary and anti-feminist. are all these states of being mutually exclusive? i think not.

but as usual, germaine has made her controversial comment, just a few words, and we don't know the context, she hasn't offered an explanation for it, we don't know what question she was asked to respond to. nothing. but it has to be noted that murray-smith has been criticised by other people for being right-wing and anti-feminist, eg. Alison Croggan, see article.

this is what really gets up people's noses about germaine as well. she doesn't give herself to us. she doesn't lay herself bare. we don't know anything about her. maybe in the past she was very open about her own personal experiences, couched within her writing on certain topics; sexuality, gender issues, menopause, father-daughter relationships. but in the media at large, she gives them nothing about herself. i have no idea if she's ever been married, ever been pregnant, ever had a lesbian tryst, ever been depressed, ever driven drunk, ever taken drugs, ever stalked anyone, ever plagiarised anything.

to me, she has never fallen. she has never done an insipid new idea interview. she doesn't give permission to bigraphers, but will call them parasites. why don't they create something for themselves, she wonders. why don't they get a life?

on the question and answer show last week, germaine was insulted most shockingly by the murdoch paper man. he called her old. someone whispered sotto voce that it was below the belt, perhaps it was carr. germaine threw out a facial reaction but nothing else. she doesn't seem to be affected by people trying to tear her down.
you have to admire the woman for that, if nothing else.
the whole traceeeee article just seemed to me a set-up for tearing greer down. scoring points.
oooh, look at me. i spat on germaine greer!

this was the big, green, slimy slagging at greer from hutchison, who said: "while her observations about the cultural and social crisis in aboriginal australia are astute, her cause-and-effect arguments fail spectacularly."

but where's the detail in your argument, traceeeee? you can't make a statement like that and then just leave your readers hanging. where's your proof?

at the end of the article, hutchison is getting quite bitchy, always a sure sign of someone who is desperately trying to make a point and has nothing of real substance to rely on.

"But it didn't stop Greer flying off in a rage - yes, rage - about [Murray-Smith]"

i don't know that greer has either said rage is a bad thing, or something that she doesn't feel. are you trying to highlight some sort of irony there, hutchison, by referring to geer flying off in a rage?

but finally, traceeeee writes that greer's closing comment "if i was more animal and less pseudo intellectual i'd be a much happier person" was profoundly sad and confronting to the feminist ideals she "trumpeted all those years ago."

sad? did you not see germaine's full cheek with quite a bit of tongue in it? i think she meant it literally, but she was also being funny, she was being self-deprecating and i understand what she meant. i wish i was a little more animal too. i wish i didn't analyse anything and everything, try to understand everything, get affected by everything. i wish i could just let things be, feel things, not have to work so damn hard every single day to exist without imploding.

and how on earth is that confronting - do you mean contradictory - to any feminist ideals? we all are animals, really. why can't i be a person who wants to be more in touch with my primal stuff, less living in my head, but also wants to choose about whether i wear lipstick, remove my body hair, wear what i like. it's all about choices, and choosing to react in a certain way when i realise that some things i can choose, some things i can't. and that's about it.

so tell me. do you fear the greer?

this is a post i've had sitting in drafts for about 2 years. i confess i was reluctant to post it back when i wrote it (shortly after steve irwin died) because i didn't want people criticising me for being a greer fan-girl. but two recent commenters have let me know that they too admire her, so with the numbers of support, and those two readers at my side, i want to open it up a bit. it's timely because she's here, and i'm going to see her keynote speech on rage at the mwf very soon. and also there are news articles creeping out of the woodwork each day it seems.

last night i watched germaine on channel 2 at 9.30. i can't remember the show - q and a?? - but there was bob carr, a murdoch-suit from the australian, julie bishop, and some young dude who was the only one that germaine really nodded in agreement at during the entire thing. they talked about a lot of different things, taking questions from the live audience.

i swear, it was like the germaine show. the audience clapped her several times, and while the others were so tightly held and robotic (and particularly bob carr with his fruity, snotty, pompous voice and self-serving attempts to be political towards the end of the show, bishop also tried this), germaine was reactive, animated, facially expressive, moving her body back and forward trying to see people's faces as they talked, rolling her eyes, gasping, laughing explosively at one point. and oh, the words out of her mouth were sublime. she was, quite simply, mesmerising. she was self-deprecating, referring to the female eunuch as just a book, a product of the times and that she wishes it were a better book, that it was too scholarly (i think that's what she said, i have the show taped and haven't watched it again) and that she wishes there were other books after that picked up the tempo and carried things forward. she said it wasn't the book that was important, it was the era and what was happening. and she was gracious - refusing to bite when the newspaper-turd insulted her by calling her old. while any old hack knows they can be guaranteed a good germaine quote, ie a controversial one, if they only ask the right question, she was remarkably restrained when provoked a couple of times on this particular occasion. she didn't bite, even though people were placing their metaphorical prodding fingers quite close to her sharp teeth.

and it made me think - who will we have when she is gone? i can't think of another smarty-pants in her league, who is such a light in the intellectual world. of course, there are brilliant, brilliant people everywhere. but there is no one quite like germaine.

anyway, i found this old draft and here it is. look her up on youtube. read her stuff. it's awesome.

* * *

in a world which seems to detest germaine greer, i wish to raise my hand, and say that i find it amusing, and slightly puzzling, that this one woman, who lives over the other side of the world, can arouse in all of us such a maelstrom of reaction.

let me state upfront: i admire the greer.

but then i have a habit of kind of going against the flow. while she's no underdog, i do tend to support underdogs. and while i don't agree with everything she says, i like the way she says everything. loudly and controversially. she calls it as she sees it, without seeming to have any real personal agenda. she seems to be a truth-seeker, trying to understand and to disseminate the products of her fierce intellectualisation of everything she comes across.

there are some reasons why i think she really affects people in such a visceral way. and you can't deny that she does.

with the whole steve irwin thing, the tone of the commentary at the time revealed the hate for this woman. it's funny to me that while she said something about him that many others had also said to that point, once germaine greer said it, the reaction was immediate and deafening. and let's be honest - she wasn't the only one who might have made an ironic connection between his pursuit of certain dangerous members of the animal kingdom, and his dramatic, watery end.

lying in bed this morning, i was thinking of reasons why greer affects people so strongly. this is what i came up with:

1. she is a woman and she is opinionated and she is outspoken. now before you get all femmo on my arse, think about this. while there has been a little sub-dialogue of whether we still need feminism, with the apparent thought that we have equality of the sexes, there is still a lot of inequality in many areas of society. but going beyond that, the fact remains. alot of people tend not to like an outspoken woman. what is forceful in a man, is perceived as somewhat less than attractive in a woman. and women like that are often targeted to be taken down.

2. she is not conventionally beautiful. fact: if germaine greer were typically beautiful, she would be easier to ignore. or easier for people to give what she says some credence. beautiful people have a power that others don't. people like to look at them, and they like to be friends with them and they like the beautiful person to think kindly of them. people want to be close to beautiful people. and i've got the idea that not only did greer not trade on her beauty in her youth, she railed against the conventions of beauty and challenging women and men to look at themselves and each other a bit more closely. i might have this bit wrong, about her and beauty. i think she was beautiful when she was younger, and she's still a looker in my opinion. and i'm still working out for myself my ideas about beauty and power.

3. she doesn't live here. she has abandoned this country so what right does she have to make comments about our affairs? greer has been an expat for yonks. some of our expats we like, for example... um. well, we like kylie. and barry humphries. but we love to hate germaine. she probably made a good decision to leave and go somewhere where people didn't hate her. i wonder how they feel about her in england.

4. she is childless. older women who haven't got children and who haven't done an interview with new idea moaning about their barren wombs are suspect. the thought that she might be voluntarily childless is even more confronting to us, and absolute proof that she is suspect. that there is something wrong with her. that she is nutty. what woman doesn't want a baby all of her own?

5. she is stubborn. greer, in addition to being outspoken, also seems to be impulsive. she talks without thinking, perhaps. maybe she makes statements that she would later revise, maybe not. but the fact that she sticks to her own party line, would annoy the shit out of a lot of people. other strong personalities like to be able to score points off a rival, but you can't score points off someone who won't engage.

6. she is fiercely intellectual. greer is a thinker, on which she has based her entire intellectual life and academic and journalistic output. this is what we have come to expect from men, but not women. again, she is bucking the system, and not behaving.

7. she is successful. quite simply, she has a voice. when germaine publishes an article, the whole world listens. perhaps this is because it is usually controversial, and contrary. contrariness seems guaranteed with germaine greer. there would be a lot of people who envy her reach, her audience (an audience which while mixed in its response, at least hears her).

8. she has never really fallen. apart from the incident when she was sat upon by a disgruntled student for a couple of hours and held hostage at her house, she has not really shown vulnerability. she is tough, rock hard, yet at times shows a weird tendency to do the unexpected, like appear on celebrity big brother.

9. she is a bit kooky. the aboriginal stuff fits in with this. she steps on people's toes. she gathers to her chest certain causes, appropriates them in perhaps inappropriate ways, such as saying she never steps off the plane when she travels to australia, never steps onto the tarmac without an express invitation by the local indigenous traditional landowner. if this isn't kooky, i don't know what is.

but as kids are saying these days, who gives? [in my youth it was who gives a shit? i'm glad to see the young are using cleaner expressions in some instances these days.]

people who take themselves too seriously give. and this is another thing germaine is guilty of. she seems to have little or no sense of humour. she will scoff at people and roll her eyes when she disagrees with them, or thinks them fools, and she will laugh loudly (and sometimes inappropriately) at something she thinks ludicrous. but is it funny? is she pleased and entertained or just thinking how the fuck can i exist amongst such idiots?

i know, i know

for someone who has said they have little interest in the olympics, two posts in as many days on that very topic.

unless something dramatic happens (something more than a rower lying down or another drug cheast bust) i PROMISE this will be it for me on the olympics.
i confess to watching about 20 mins of the mind-numbingly boring opening ceremony last night. immediately i noticed the military-feel of all the syncopated people, doing their big-group collectivist thing. surely we weren't being subjected to propoganda?
maybe it's my individualistic social conditioning, but after a very little while, the spectacle of it was diluted by the feeling that i was watching an army being put through its paces.
reading the paper this morning, it seems i was not the only one to have this feeling. there are reports of people being injured during rehearsals, practising for 48 hours and falling asleep in the grandstand.
yeah, human rights are so fixed now in china, all it took was the olympic games.
also, i saw a kind of bent sieg-heil from the children in costumes (were they regional wear? no tibet national costume i'm sure) while they were singing the national anthem, and having goose-stepping soldiers bring in the chinese flag. is that kosher? aren't the olympics meant to be a political-free zone? it all made me feel uncomfortable, and as if i were watching propoganda.
all this and more consume me this fine melbourne morning.
other thoughts for the day:
1. i am extremely happy with our new bordello-red velvet couch from going, going, gone. half price, just a few little fabric glue flaws. it's sitting very lushly in our lounge room now and i'm looking forward to watching the rest of west wing as a lie there like some hooker, eating my low-fat ice cream.
2. alannah hill's son was wearing a geelong jumper today. it made me think ever so much more of her. also the fact she had all sorts of crap spilling out of her black mercedes into the gutter. also her hair wasn't frou-froud, with nary a flower or feather in sight. she even smiled at me when i said "go cats".
3. where do i get the recipe for healthy'ish sausage rolls? all my cook books save one fancy-pants one are in storage. i guess i'll have to trawl the internet but i am finding net recipes can be SHIT and WRONG and DON'T WORK (witness creme brulees failure).
4. i should have gotten a coffee from d. chirico this morning. i broke the plunger last night, will have to buy another.
5. i'm happy to see a profile on chris lilley in the weekend magazine. just recently we were talking about how we'd not read much about him at all. my mum saw him recently at st. kilda library. she recognised him, and he saw that she saw. so we'll be looking out for a character like mum in his next series. will keep you posted.
6. we now have a plan involving a funky deco cbd pad.
7. i do love a good plan.
8. geelong slaughtered melbourne last night. i didn't watch any of the game. i suppose this makes me a bad geelong supporter, in addition to a bad australian
9. i really, really do hate gladiator sandals. they look especially bad on mary-kate olsen, now she's chunked up a bit.
10. even though we pay removalist men to move our heavy stuff, why do we feel so bad for them when it's a really bulky, difficult item? it's partly because they often make a big deal about access, and the object, and how tough a job it is. they are angling for a tip/more money. i say, it's your business, you're the professional. i don't care how hard it is, just do it. that's what you're being paid for.

11. love the couch.

you've come a long way, baby.

really?

back when i was young and the kids drank big ms and the mothers drank tab and the fathers drank melbourne bitter, or vic bitter, none of that fancy shit, and when no one really thought much about going to the shops on your bike and buying a bag of lollies; when fish and chips were a weekly treat, when going out for dinner meant the local chinese restaurant, and chicken and sweet corn soup was exotic but not too outlandish so that it was the only thing, along with dim sims, that fussy 7-year-old male virgos would eat. back then, thinking back, it's easy to think that things were simpler.

that men and women were a little more cut and dried in their gender roles.

i know things were being challenged in the '60s and '70s - hell, at the moment i'm re-reading nancy friday, and i've read greer, as well as naomi wolf who kind of tries to pick up, along with paglia, the new wave of thinking.

but why, when all is said and done, am i still washing a man's underwear and hanging them up, working out what to eat for dinner, worrying about the management of the household, AS WELL AS THINKING ABOUT EARNING MONEY, thinking about my mortgage, trying to summon some sort of interest in sexual pleasure (fuck nancy friday and her libidinous life; she was/is childless).

at least i don't iron his shirts. what a fucking emancipated woman am i.

it's official

it's not porn. it's art. and it's rated pg.



but even so, i don't want to put the whole picture here.

why not? i'm not sure. i don't find it offensive - my god, i have a daughter and we've always been very relaxed with nudity around the house, as were my parents, and i think she's beautiful. there's something, though, about the power, the potential, of a child, a girl child, turning into a woman. as a mother i think it's lovely and gorgeous and natural. but i know there are people who take that admiration too far, and change it into something sick. maybe my reticence is about what people might think about me putting the whole picture here, and that people might judge me for doing that. i know my intentions are pure, but others don't. much like bill henson, perhaps?



in the main, this is why, i think, that charges couldn't be laid against bill henson:


pornography:

1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement 2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement.



i don't believe that the photos are intended to cause sexual excitement. that's not to say that they wouldn't for some people. but then we've all heard about paedophiles using department store clothing catalogues and other advertising print matter as "stimulation material".


i feel slightly wrong putting the following interaction in the same post as the above - can groups of words be tainted by association? i feel weird even including my daughter in a post where i've talked about paedophilia - but i give you the conversation i had in the car this morning with my 11 year old daughter.





[radio news - story about world-wide child pornography arrests]





princess: what are they talking about?





mg: um it's about people who have downloaded photos of children that are inappropriate and show abuse, the police have arrested a lot of those people.





princess: gross!





mg: yes, it's a real problem. [goes off on tangent about how maybe it's like people addicted to gambling/drugs/alcohol and the compulsion to do it.]*





princess: i think being addicted to drugs is better than doing that. the children wouldn't want that, and at least with drugs you're not hurting other people.**





mg: yes, you're right there, though the effects on family and friends of drug addicts happen, it can affect everyone around you. if you're addicted to drugs.





princess: yeah...





mg: did you hear the story about the artist, the photographer who had some photos taken away from the gallery by the police-





princess: oh yeah!





mg: i just didn't want, these two stories are different. you know, the people who abuse children, the ones who were arrested for downloading pictures, and the bill henson artist who took photos.





princess: what were the photos of?





mg: well, he takes photos of landscapes, buildings and people. with the people, they are all ages, and sometimes they are clothed and sometimes they are naked.





princess: ew.





mg: remember when we went to all the galleries last year, in florence and paris, we saw so many naked humans, statues, remember david, he was so huge? with his huge penis? and all the naked cherubs and angels-





princess: the top of the vatican ceiling? heaps and heaps of naked-





mg: right!





princess: yeah, in the old days it wasn't a bad thing.





mg: even all those religious paintings we saw, with all the gold and crosses and jesuses, and he was often naked except for a little piece of material across his lap-





princess: yeah!





mg: right. so it's been like this for hundreds of years, the naked body is a natural thing, ok we don't walk around in public in the nude, but the body is beautiful and natural and normal.





princess: mmm [sounding doubtful. she's only 11]





mg: anyway, the photos that caused the problem were of a 13 year old girl and she's naked and in one you can see her little breasts, buds you know, and she has her hands in front of her private parts.





princess: did her parents- she would have given permission-





mg: yeah, and her parents did too.





princess: she would have had to sign forms and all that. the police can't say anything. it's her choice. and her parents said yes.





mg: i think a 13 year old would be able to give permission. especially a 13 year old who is willing to pose for a nude photo, that girl would probably be pretty mature and smart.





princess: yeah, at that age, girls are wanting to get more identity.





mg: what about at 11?





princess: i would never do that, gross, but at 11 you just want to fit in, not be different. at 13, you are being more different.





mg: mmm.





princess: so, now they've made a big deal about it and made everyone look at the photos? before it would have just been in the gallery and not many people would have even known about them.





mg: yeah, maybe the girl now is upset about it.





princess: maybe, i'd be mad at the police. anyway it's ART, definitely!









* this is the only parallel i can think of that allows my brain to process the idea of people gaining sexual gratification from viewing child pornography, that it becomes an obsession and a compulsion they can't control.





** look, she's only 11, no matter how smart she is.

continued, the art world

i'm not sure what i think about the goings-on in sydney with the photographs being removed by police from bill henson's exhibition, and the news that charges will be laid.

but my thoughts are:

1. i guess if he wanted to depict something special about vulnerability and youth, he could have used a scrawny, under-developed 18-year-old model.

2. it made me feel uncomfortable, while looking him up on the internet, thinking i might inadvertently download something "unacceptable". all in the name of research doesn't really cut it, hey pete townsend?

3. a quick google trying to find american photographer sally mann - who has had her share of controversy for publishing photographs of her children naked over the years - showed me that there have been court-cases in the states where parents dropping off rolls of film to be developed at k-mart and the like have been arrested and charged with child pornography over photos of their children naked.

4. don't all parents take snaps of their babies and kids naked, and in the bath, and rolling on the rug, and at the beach?

5. when i was a teenager, david hamilton was incredibly popular. hell, he was to the poster, card and calendar business in the '70s what anne geddes and her pumpkin-hatted cherubs was to the poster, card and calendar business in '90s. the girls used to love his photos, which were dreamy and romantic, shot through vaseline-coated lenses and usually featured pubescent girls and boys in "various stages of undress." there was even a movie bilitis, and while that was soft-core porn, the posters of ballerinas in tutus and sylvan-wood-nymph boys in pastel togas were not sexually arousing to me, anyway. but then i was that age myself, and not some paedo.

6. i'm nervous about even linking the names david hamilton and sally mann above to any webpages because what you can see is possibly inappropriate.

really melbourne city council?

i was going to write a post about the on-going censorship by this council, against young artists. but i can't be bothered, i haven't got time to go through all the archives trying to find pictures of this and that.

but just remember. the artist who had the palestine/israel installation. painted over.

the recent one, with the nude man and mickey mouse ears. stopped.

which of the above three am i most comfortable with? the first two. the ones where the images are connected to ideas and attitudes. do we not have freedom of thought?

the one i'm not that comfortable with is the nude man one. i don't know where it was displayed or where it was intended for display. if in the street, then i agree that people who don't want to see naked people in a public space shouldn't have to. if in a gallery, or a room, or even a little-used alley-way or lane, then it should be allowed. what the hull?

and when will it be over?

ps and the whole thing about john so never wanting to upset china shits me as well.

two women. one lebanese, one israeli.

these are emails i've received through a newsgroup i belong to.

the first one is from liza barki-harrington, a jewish woman living in israel. The second is from zena el-khalil, a lebanese woman living in lebanon.

interesting reading.

first, from liza in israel:

Hi,

Thanks for everyone writing and asking about us. I decided to write an update of what it all looks like from my perspective (not a news agency). So I appologize that this is not a pesonal email.

First of all, I finally surrendered to ongoing pressure from the south and left Haifa for Beer Sheva tonight. This was after Haifa was hit by 10 rockets today, one of which hit a 3 story building. I was at the universityand heard them falling. The Haifa area is particularly dangerous because of the petro-chemical industries and oil refinery located right at the foot of Mt Carmel and surrounding area of over 270,000 people. Since people are being pretty obedient about entering the shelters, no one was killed today.

By the 6th day, the northern part of Israel has been hit by over 1500 rockets and missiles targeting dozens of cities and villages, Jewish and Arab alike. Up until now, our toll count is 13 civilians and 12 soldiers killed. In addition we have 3 kidnapped soldiers, one in Gaza (by Hamas) and 2 in Lebanon.

I think the Hizballah were very surprised by the force of retaliation of IDF. They said they identify a weakness in Israel and that is the "great regard for human life"and that is why they kidnap soldiers. They thought we'd immediately engage in negotiations and refrain from attacking them.

However, it seems that Olmert and Peretz ( P.M. and Minister of Defense), who are not former army generals for a change, are doing a good job at staying calm, quiet and are letting the army do its job. The army is attacking only Hizballah infrastructure and rocket/missiles launchers.

It must be understood that Hizballah are Shiites that use the locals' homes/schools, sport facilities etc to hide an arsenal of over 10,000 rockets and missles, some with a range of over 100 miles. IDF continually warns the local population of areas that are going to be targeted (bridges, Hizballah neighborhoods etc). None the less, any attemptsof the Lebanese or Syrian army to help Hizballah are stopped immediately.

It was the Lebanese Army that used their radars to give Hizballah the exact location of one of our ships, which led to the death of 4 soldiers. These radars do not exist any longer. This is a wide operation that we hope will put an end to the violence of Hizballah against Israel and against Lebanon. Not one country in the Arab world is supporting them because they bring harm not only to us but also to our neighbor. It is that clear understanding that "enough is enough" that brings Israel to refuse negotiations to release prisoners and to accept the on going assaults by Hizballah.

We have reached the point where we are all united in our understanding that we must endure the on going missile attacks on Haifa and other cities so that the army can do its job and make them understand that enough is enough. We are not cold blooded killers that target innocent people but we cannot and will not accept this any longer. So personally, we are ok. Now all of us are in Beer Sheva. I suppose living in the south of Israel has to be justified… however, having had a just a taste of what the habitants of the border cities in Israel are subject to throughout the years on a daily basis makes you appreciate them more. I hope these days will be over soon, with as little innocent casualties on both sides. However, we will endure whatever necessary so that Hizballah understands that this is not the way to talk to us.

Thanks again for writing and please stay in touch,

Liza.



---------------------------

now, from zena in lebanon:

Dear Friends,
The account by Ms. Zena el-Khalil was sent to me via a Turkish-Lebanese friend of mine in Istanbul. She sent it on Friday, July 28th, several days before the unfortunate attack on Qana.
Stuart

From Zena el-Khalil: I have started coughing, but I don't know why. I am not sick. I don't have a cold. I think it's a reaction I'm having to stress. My body feels weak. My mouth is always dry, no matter how much water I drink. And I'm afraid to drink too much water because I don't want it to run out!

Last night was probably the most frightful night I have ever experienced in my whole entire life. I was so tired and exhausted... have not slept in days. When there is finally a quiet moment, the tension in my stomach and heart prevents me from falling asleep.

Last night we counted at least 15 bombs falling into Dahiyeh (Beirut Suburbs).. and these were just the ones we heard. At some point during the night, I said to myself that if I didn't at least try to get some sleep that I was going to go crazy from fatigue; and that that was what was going to kill me. Haven't been able to eat either, so am losing physical strength. It's all psychological at this point. I know I have to be strong, and I will be, but I can't deny what I’m going through.

And I think it's important that people hear about the downside as well as the bravery. So many of us are already working hard to fix things, we are running around Beirut trying to get food and water and medicine to people, we are doing things online, etc, but it doesn't mean we are not scared, sick or tired.So, last night amidst the worst shelling we've had so far, I realized that I was not afraid of the noise anymore; how quickly you get used to it. I realized what was hurting the most was the "UNKNOWN". What is going to happen tomorrow? When will this all end? How are we going to start re-building again? Are the refugees going to be ok? How are the people in the south? And why punish a whole country? What is the real plan behind all of this? How much worse is it going to get?

My husband and I have been housing foreign "refugees" helping them to find their way out of the country. Two managed to leave this morning, a German and Swiss. The other two are British and American. The craziest thing is that out of all people, the American embassy has been the LEAST helpful to its citizens here. The phone line to the embassy has been practically out of service. My friend, Amanda, (whom I just met a few days ago, by the way) had to hire a cab to take her to the embassy (which is a ride out of Beirut) and all they could tell her was that they didn’t know what they were going to do and to keep checking the website. Only thing she has gotten on the website is that she now knows that there is going to be an evacuation (5 days later), but when it happens, she is going to have to pay for it! Yes, they are saying to their citizens that they are going to bill them for their ride out! Can you believe that?!

Trying to evacuate people has put me under stress. The question is what am I to do if I had the opportunity to leave? Would I leave? What do I do with my friends? My family? My art studio? I have a British passport; I could be evacuated with my husband. But what would happen to my best friend Maya? She has a very rare and bad case of CANCER! I have been taking care of her since she was diagnosed a few months ago and I know that my care for her is what has helped her do so well. Her type of cancer is "untreatable", but ironically, the day the shelling started, her doctor told us her tumors had shrunk! Unbelievable- a true miracle. I can't leave Maya!What about art work in my studio? What about all my brushes and paints and glitter and books! All my books! Again- the crazy things that cross your mind. What about our photo albums? All our family pictures? The memories...What about the doodles I drew on my balcony a few summers ago when I was suffering from a bad break up? What about all the love letters I have saved? Letters that document my youth that I wanted to some day give to my daughter.

What about my other best friend? My dog, Tampopo? My beautiful Jack Russel Terrier who has never let me down. Who has always been a source of purity and compassion... Who has eyes of an angle... Dogs are not allowed to evacuate. My American friend Christine is going to have to leave her dog with me; a black pug named Baousi (means Kiss in Arabic). She is heartbroken! She almost didn't want to evacuate. She went to so many embassies to try and register with them and see if they would take her dog. Don't worry Christine, I will take great care of Baousi.


My sister has been volunteering to help the refugees who are being sheltered in public schools. Right now they are calling on Lebanese citizens to help out with money, medicine, food, water, blankets and mattresses. She has been going to people and asking for money and then going out to buy medicines for refugees- her own initiative! My mom has joined in too. A friend has put together a website for accepting donations:http://atrissi.com/helplebanon/

Biggest cynical statement of the day: I

srael has told people to evacuate from the south because they are going to annihilate the south of Lebanon. However, the people can not leave because all the roads have been destroyed/blocked. And yesterday when people did try and leave, the Israelis opened fire on them! A massacre is happening!

Update on the attacks, as of yesterday:

- Israelis have been bombing the south of Lebanon with phosphorus and other chemical bombs.
- Israelis have bombed all ports along the coastline of Lebanon.
- Israelis have bombed all our local army radars and some outposts
- Israelis have bombed/attacked the fire fighting brigade and the Search and Rescue Brigade in the South. Innocent civilian lives were lost. It was a massacre - the buildings were also housing refugees.
- Israelis have continued to bomb the suburb of Beirut, Dahiyeh & Haret Hreik
- Israelis have now killed over 100 civilians and there are several hundreds wounded - and they continue to bomb the south
- Israelis have started hitting roads that lead to the mountains. They hit a main one leading to the Shouf.
- Israelis have hit a gas plant in the mountains... I can't keep up with what they have hit. ***

Israel has begun to target Lebanese army outposts. They have killed Lebanese soldiers. They are no longer just targeting Hizuballah. They mean to kill all of Lebanon.

The reality: Israel is trying to bring Lebanon to its knees. Israel is trying to destroy Lebanon and the Lebanese spirit. Israel is trying to turn Lebanese against each other. Israel is trying to turn us into animals scrounging for food, water and shelter.

Israel and the United States of America are trying to drag Syria and Iran into this too. They are using Lebanon as bait. Lebanon is stuck in the middle. The Americans and Israelis are trying to launch a regional war!!

Please help in any way you can.

Please pass on the message, this email - reprint if you wish.

Please tell people what is going on.

Please put pressure on your respective governments to step in and do something.

Lebanon is a peaceful country. We are the only country in the region in which people of all religions co-exist peacefully.It is unbelievable how biased the news is. They are not reporting the real damage being caused. They don’t report that the Israelis are killing innocent civilians. It seems from this end that all they are focusing on is G8!

Are the Israeli & US government really just trying to wipe us all out?? Well, you can tell them that I'm not leaving. And there are many of us who are not leaving. We love Lebanon. We love what we have spent our lives building. Tell them about people like me.. who build culture and tolerance. Who work for peace and understanding. Who work to educate. Who work to promote love and compassion. There are thousands like me here. What about us?Tell them about people like me, that despite all of this, I have still not learnt to hate. They can take everything from me, but not my dignity. Not my morals and beliefs.

They will never never break my spirit.

Tell the Israeli citizens what their government is doing to us. Tell them that violence begets violence. Remind them that Lebanon is their neighbor and that co-existence is possible. How are we going to ever reach an understanding through violence? We were so close... We were so close...

Please stop this brutality!

Still with love, Zena el-Khalil.

new turkish islamic swimwear

the newspaper tells me that these are now available in turkey. that "conservative women" don't swim because they don't want to bare their flesh on the beach.

well, that's bullshit. more than 15 years ago, i saw conservative women swimming at the beach on the south of turkey. they were wearing their clothes: big baggy skirts/pantaloon things with big baggy t-shirts. and headscarves.

they got wet. they lolled in the shallows. they laughed and screamed and giggled. they stayed in for hours and hours. they were just loving that water.

and then when they got out, their clothes clung to their every curve. their every mountainous bosom, rounded hip, pendulous belly. you could see their bras through the thin, transparent t-shirt fabric.




and i thought to myself "that looks sexier than a high-cut maillot."

which is exactly what this little number will look like, once it hits the med.

well, maybe not sex-ier. but pretty damn RAUNCHY nevertheless.

walkabout

last week in the paper I read about walkabout. it was on at acmi, a cinema centre at federation square. david gulpilil was at the premiere, I think. I skim-read the article, getting all excited and decided I had to take princess to see this wonderful movie.

I saw walkabout, the movie, when I was about her age or a little older. I remember not understanding much of it, but being impressed by all of it.

i wanted to share with her this movie, which was a part of my childhood. along with the drover’s wife, a short film, walkabout signified the beginnings of consciousness in my child-brain. it was this movie that introduced me to the idea of the Other – difference.

Today I happened upon the piece of paper I had scribbled the screening details on.

I called the ticket office.

MelbourneGirl – hi. I’m calling about ‘Walkabout’. Can you tell me the rating?

Bookings Girl – I’m not sure we have a classification for it

MG – maybe it came out before the classification system [laughs politely]

Bookings Girl - let me just check

[leaves the phone for a few minutes]

Bookings Girl – um, we are using a General Admission

MG – okay, I want to bring my almost-nine-year-old daughter. Also, does it start at eight exactly?

BG – yep, usually.

[MG and Princess get on the tram at 6.19pm. It takes 45 minutes to get to Fed Square. We go to the ticket office]

MG – can I have two to Walkabout please?

Ticket Girl – sure

[usual routine, MG hands over plastic, blah de blah]

[MG picks up high-end DL promo card which reads:

“Chambermade’s Walkabout. Richard J Frankland’s stage and screen response to the Nicolas Roeg film. Written, composed and directed by Richard J Frankland, after the film script by Nicholas Roeg and play scri…”

MG – what are we seeing here? Isn’t it the film?

TG – no it’s a stage, multi-media play

[MG’s jaw drops]

MG – what??????!!!!!!

Princess – mummy, what’s wrong

MG – nothing sweetie, I thought it was the movie but it’s a play

TG – do you want me to cancel the tickets?

MG – um

[we have caught a tram, it’s late on a SCHOOL night, I am the bad parent keeping her child out late, all in the cause of culture and learning]

MG – no, we’ll still go

[Princess and MG walk around town eating maxi bon ice creams. Princess keeps stirring her mother, asking about how long until the ‘film’ starts, and laughing. She makes quote signs in the air when she says film. It is all very amusing. MG laughs indulgently but feels like a dick. ette.]

Eight o’clock sees us in the queue.

Princess – there are no other kids here

MG – well you’ll be the most sophisticated child after seeing this stage play

Princess – you mean “film” [and she does the hand quote thing.]

We get into the theatre. There is an orchestra on stage. The stage is covered with red sand, there are some boulders, some fire wood.

The production is wonderful. I relive the movie anyway. I cry and cry. When I said before how I didn’t really understand the movie, now I do. It filled in the gaps.

There is a scene, at the beginning, where the father takes the two children into the desert. When we were on the tram I had told Princess about the story.

MG – there are two children, an older girl and a younger boy. They’re in the outback. I can’t remember how they get there, but then they meet an indigenous boy who helps them and they make friends. I couldn’t remember how it ended either.

So, the scene. The father asks his daughter to get the food out for lunch. She spreads the picnic rug and readies the hamper. Behind her, the father pulls out a gun. He points it at her. She is kneeling there, vulnerable in her school uniform. Somehow it all goes wrong, or right, and the two children escape and the father kills himself. Princess was recoiling physically in her chair; her back straight and head up to the ceiling in a grimace. She couldn’t watch it.

Princess – what’s happening?

MG – I’ll tell you later, I’ll explain later.

And at the end, the aboriginal boy sings himself to death. Watching the movie, I probably just thought he’d gone mad, with no thought, no attempt to see that it’s never that simple. Tonight showed me that he had become as lost as the children, he had strayed too far from his country, that there were no songlines for him to follow.

In the tram on the way home, Princess sat on my lap and snuggled her chin in underneath my chin. I clutched her to me.

MG – did you learn something tonight?

[Princess nods her head]

Princess – I liked everything except the bit with the father.

I know she misses her own dad. What does her mind make of a man who would kill his own children? How can she hope to understand that?

For her, this is the most disturbing thing she saw tonight.

For me, it was the statistics screened at the end of the show. The numbers of black deaths in custody in this country, the age expectancy, infant mortality, levels of incarceration. It was the way the school girl and the black boy on the brink of manhood, on walkabout for his initiation, talk at cross purposes, don’t understand each other. Completely miss each other. They see a shooting star. She says how romantic it is, and starts to see him as a potential lover. He sees it as meaning that someone has died, perhaps from his tribe, and because he is away, he cannot be there for the mourning and burial. This separates him from his kin, and is the beginning of him becoming lost.

We are so many of us lost.
My heart aches.

on a cold sunday

it's cold in melbourne but today was sunny. and it's the end of the holidays [clapping and satisfied smile]

well i've been busy the last few days but would like to share a special experience: seeing the vienna boys' choir.



i did go the tear during the first song, then for the rest of it, we were laughing about how we had been madly waving to the wrong girl-child in the australian children's choir [who were singing with vienna boys], watching the little ones falling asleep in their chairs and slumping down more and more until they were out of sight behind the bannister, worrying about the puddle of water i was sure the bunch of roses i had ready for special girl were making on the floor [terrible grammar there, but no time to go over], trying to open small packets of jelly beans, then trying to squeeze my fingers in to get some out, then dropping them. then i fantasised about writing a blog about the whole thing. about how maybe the boys are held against their will and made to sing, about how one boy on our side at the end had arms longer than anyone else [they were really long], and how he only became slightly more animated once they sang a song in German. i wondered about them hitting puberty and whether any of them go through rebellious phases, like teenagers here. i thought about arcane audition processes and terrible corporal punishments for not hitting the right notes [think farinelli]

i was expecting a huge choir but there were only 28 of them. i wonder if there is a base group and they rotate for tours, some of them looked so young. i imagined what they do in their downtime - playstation on the tour bus? comic books? catching a movie wherever they are, from harry potter to star wars. i suppose they are just ordinary boys. i also wondered whether the older ones get groupies, perhaps nicky webster was one [when she was younger of course]

they wore cute sailor suits but without the berets [spewing about that]

they are called the wiener sängerknaben.

hello!

for anyone who has read my bits on hotwater bottles, mine has sänger written on it.

sängerknaben means boy singers. so my hottie is a singer, as well as a hottie.

this is a tenuous link and perhaps boring, but for me it is meaningful.

ps target is selling hotwater bottles with "hottie" on them. but still i will stick with the sänger.