Childhood Icons - tribute to Farrah.

Farrah Fawcett is dying, and I feel sad. It's a sadness mixed with nostalgia and I was thinking that for me, she was one of the real icons of my youth. I remember we went on a trip to Sydney as a family in about 1977 or '78 and I had a haircut. I asked the hairdresser to give me hair like Farrah's and it came out beautifully with the wings and all. Until I washed it, then it went back to its normal, anti-glam bouff. That trip, even the hotel was iconic - in the middle of King's Cross, it was the funky Gazebo Hotel next to the el Alamein Fountain. There was plush carpet throughout and an under-pool bar with a window showing the water and people's legs and bottom halves.

I remember also a conversation with my cousin about Farrah's nipples. You have to understand, these days, the sex symbols tend to have big boobs - think Jordan, Pamela Anderson, etc. But back in the '70s, erect nipples were what separated the nice from the naughty. My cousin made some comment about how her nipples always seemed to be stiff. I said something like "oh that's easy, you just use frozen peas." He then made me demonstrate what I meant. His eyes almost popped out of his head.

We loved Charlie's Angels. You had Kelly, the beautiful one, Kate the smart one and Jill Munroe, the sexy one. She could ride a skateboard and put a man into a full Nelson like that. Her teeth were white and many, she didn't have a standard nose-job nose, and she had big hair. For other big-haired people, she was a Goddess. These days, all the girls want flat, straight, boring hair. Farrah ushered in a new era in hair, again a backlash against that flat, straight Marcia Brady hippie hair. For us girls who were never going to be able to have Marcia hair, not for another 30 years when straightening irons came in, Farrah was our Hero. My daughter cannot believe that the only things we could do with our hair at home were: blow-dry to a huge frizzy mass, or curl to a crisp with a curling iron. You could get your hair crimped at a salon, and of course you could get a blow dry but we just didn't really bother with that shit in the late '70s. We didn't have products until hair gel arrived in the '80s. I don't remember Edward Beal salons using anything other than hair spray and that was just for the oldies. No pomades. No gloss. No anti-frizz sprays. No sculpting mousses. We had a pair of thinning scissors in our bathroom cupboard and I did a little damage with those on myself. It was like the Wild West of Hair Care in those days.

Of course, Farrah fell from grace, like all icons do if they live long enough. That's the problem. Women get old, and then they are undesirable. Redundant. There's always a new chicky-babe coming along. No body gives them work, no body wants to make pin-up posters of them any more. It'd be a bit the same for men, sure, but different as well. And she never got her John Travolta come-back. Tarantino obviously didn't think it would work with her. She became a joke, she was mocked for slurring as if drunk or drugged during interviews, for being daffy, for staying with abusive Ryan O'Neal. Their son Redmond is a drug-fuck-up and Ryan's daughter Tatum is as well. Farrah and Ryan broke up but in the last few years I think have come together again. He is loving her and looking after her and she had one of Rod Stewart's ex-wives video her final decline. She has cancer of the anus, particularly indelicate, and she is being open and wanting to live her final days in the public eye. No hiding away for her. People will have mixed ideas about this. Is it showy? Who knows. Probably. For a person who's lived their adult lives in the spotlight, I guess it might be hard to let go for some. I feel sorry for her, I do admire her willingness to be shown projectile vomiting in a documentary, and she'll always have a place in my heart. I loved her in a real girl-crush way. I can't really think of another woman from that era that I thought was so wonderful. So pretty. So sporty. So sexy. Such good hair.

bliss tuesday

CORRECTION: bliss tuesday is to be postponed. they called me last night. i have to teach a bunch of primary schoolers pe today. that's not how to pee, it's Phys.Ed. stop laughing now.
hopefully bliss tuesday will become bliss wednesday. i'll let you know.
* * *
tomorrow this is what i'm going to do:
1. for breakfast, i shall have poached eggs and coffee.
2. i will take the gigi for a 1-hour walk. i might try and run a bit. might.
3. i will start reading the jungian books mum lent me, for research for my writing.
4. i will wash and pin my hair. i have a new "hair system." more details later. this is just a quick update.
5. i will write those two letters to the bookshops. or maybe just one, to the sybers books in chapel street. the other day penny wasn't there, it was another woman. which means they have staff.
6. i will take down the recycling if clokes doesn't do it tonight.
7. i will vaccuum.
8. i will re-do my nails.
9. i will write at least 1,000 words.
10. i will not blog.
11. I WILL NOT BLOG. and this means checking blogs, or writing on my blog.
12. you have been warned. then on wednesday i will report back. you have to be the person that i'm accountable to. you have to be tough, you have to be exacting, you have to be harsh. don't take any of my shit.
13. time for dinner now. tuna mornay, vegies and rice. mmm
14. iyi akşamlar.

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.

Are You a Keira Lover or a Keira Hater?

Well, I thought I wouldn't be able to ever enjoy a Keira Knightley film. It's the lips I think. The pouting, it just gets to me. She'd ruined the movie about Dylan Thomas for me. The Pirates of Caribbean never worked for me. Atonement was alright but she just wasn't that great in it and I preferred the book. As usual.

Then, I allowed myself to be persuaded to see the Duchess against my better instincts. I'm happy to see virtually any movie, I just love films, in fact, the only film I've ever walked out of was Frances, just before the lobotomy scene. Even as a 12-year-old I sat through the coathanger-in-vagina scene in Sybil. Obviously not scarred at all by that memory.

My mum made me see it with her. I went in, thinking it might just be awful.

BUT I LOVED IT. And, I was surprised, she was good in it. The lips were not at all distracting for some reason. She was compelling. Of course, the character was compelling really. I left the cinema and it stayed with me, into the next day, and even the next. I kept thinking about her, and the story, and her hair.

I'd already bought the book that the movie is based on, and being a bit of a fusty old academic, I am just adoring the adherence to solid research, but also the author - Amanda Foreman - writes well. Oh, she does. So now, each night, I leave my body in the comfortable bed, and I wing my mind to Olde England, where the Duchess of Devonshire holds court at parties and balls, I read her letters to her mother, and her mother's letters to her, I read snippets of articles from newspapers. She even wrote a book called The Sylph, a type of roman-a-clef that was an admittedly thinly-veiled account of her life, married and social. I want to buy this book.

Did you know the Duchess was Princess Diana's great, great, great, great-aunt, or somesuch? I couldn't count the family tree generations properly, but she is from the Spencer family and her childhood home was Althorp (same as Diana's).

They had so many life parallels, these two women. Both married older men who were repressed or remote, witholding and cold. Both the husbands had mistresses when they got married, and continued on with them. Both the women became famous/notorious for their fashion leadership and innovation. And both made waves and impressions on society with their ventures into areas where young ladies of their society did not "venture" - for the Duchess it was politics and her support for the Whigs, for the Princess it was holding AIDS sufferers hands, and later landmines. Both became more famous and popular than their husbands, who were the original title holders. And both (possibly) had illegitimate children?

So now I go to the Duchess. It's wonderful. As is she.

And did I mention the hair?

"These hairstyles were labor-intensive and required cushions and wool, pomatum and powder, and an array of decorations. They were uncomfortable, they attracted insects and mice, and they could be fire hazards. "

haircut - warning to boys. girly whining inside. you will find emotionality and other boring non-male stuff.

long-time readers will know that i have a hair thing. my hair is very thick, and out of control, and is possibly the bane of my life. i should probably just keep it short, but in a weird way, it's something i hang on to. i've got to have something.

when i was little this was the kind of hair i liked:









this was the kind of good hair that girls wanted. nothing's changed much, has it?


in this hair-angst regard, i seem to have much in common with african-american girls. i'm reading a book called queen bees and wannabes - helping your daughter survive cliques, gossip, boyfriends and other realities of adolescence.

i tell you, it's fascinating.

even though princess is only 10, as i've said before, she's 10 going on 16, and so i reckon the earlier i arm myself with some insider strategies and knowledge, the better.

the author of this book is an educator working in the united states, and says that amongst teenage white girls, it's all about weight; skinny is better. with the black girls, it's hair. who has good hair and who has bad hair. good hair is like "white hair" - hair that is soft and swings and is straight, and not "nappy" (whatever that means.)

a while back i asked all of you to recommend some hair artisans. i said i had a final solution i was considering. well, since talking to phillip at the hair place in malvern central, i've decided against a perm. before you scream, it wasn't going to be a frizz perm; no no no. my hair doesn't need a perm to do that. i was thinking some sort of reverse, taming perm, to get some definition. you see, i don't want to straighten - i want to embrace the volume. but the dryness, the frizz. it's killing me.

anyway, phil said not to perm. so i have to get tong things which will straighten when i want, or i can do different things with them, he can kindly show me, to get different looks.

this is so wannabe.

so you all kindly suggested cutters. and i've chosen one and have an appointment tomorrow, with someone who apparently is good with crazy, thick hair.

i promised then to report back, and this is a semi progress report. and then i guess tomorrow i'll let you know how it went. and i tell you where i chose.

boys, i don't expect you to understand. but that's ok. the girls are getting me.

and just to make the boys feel included, what is the male equivalent of hair anguish for you guys? and don't say penis size, we know all about that one.

put simply

who is the best hairdresser in melbourne?

apologies to male readers who have recently started joining me here. if you are going to hang out at all with me, you need to just put up with my occasional girly-whinges. bevis copes, i don't know, maybe you could email him for tips.

no, i really want to know. who is the best?

i think i have come up with a "final solution" for my hair. readers who have been with me for a while will know of my hair iss-ews.

think phyllis diller on a good day.

no. it's not that bad.

[laughs]

i embrace its "volume" and ignore the "strength"*

hairdressers have told me they have never seen such thick hair. the most direct one, a man but not gay, told me it's like horse's hair. i laughed it off but inside, yes i died a little. they have fucked up the colouring, they have fucked up the cutting, they have complained about the weight of it, the way they always run out of colour and have to re-load the little trolley.

i have had a brilliant idea about what to do with it, which i will keep to myself for the moment.

but can you tell me?

who is the best hairdresser in melbourne?

i don't care about cost. i need someone who can take me in their capable, professional, experienced hands, and tell me, nay assure me, they won't fuck up my hair when i explain to them my bold plan.

other bits and pieces:

1. what do you say to an-almost-ten-year-old child when they tell you they want to make their will, and want their "body to be burned" and half the ashes to be scattered at a particular park in istanbul and the other half "you can keep, mummy."

2. what the fuck are howard and costello on about with their fomenting of fear of muslims etc?

3. does fomenting mean what i think it means? i can't be bothered looking it up.

4. are optus going to charge me another late-payment fee, because now i haven't paid the last late-payment fee by the due time?

5. i confess to being possibly the only person who has never, until now, watched an entire ep. of sex in the city. you see, i read about it when it was headed our way, in um around 1998? and rubbed my hands together and cackled at the thought of it, knowing i would adore it. then i went overseas and they didn't have it on the tv where i went. when i came back a year later my world had been turned upside down, and i'd missed a year's worth of shows. the other night we got the first shows on dvd. i am really really loving it.

6. princess has gone to camp. for two nights. it'll be a piece of cake considering how i coped in january. remember those days, dear readers?

7. removed

8. i went out with a group of girlfriends on friday night. we ate indian and then went to a bar. our bar bill was $460. we were only slightly out of control. only one of us vomitted the next day and it wasn't me. i had to co-host an 8th birthday party. boys. football. say no more.

9. i'm cooking spaghetti bolognaise tonight. i'm off wheat and dairy, but the soy milk looked very strange in my coffee this morning. we'll see how long it lasts.





* euphemism for "similar to horse's hair"

hair angst

i realise it's a while since i complained about my hair. it's been behaving sort of, kind of, alright recently.

until today i went to the hairdresser to fix up the colour, get it thinned out and a blowdry for going out tomorrow night.

did i mention it was a new hairdresser? new place. new colourist. new cutter.

you also need to know my hair has been called horse hair by more than one of these professionals. it's something i live with each and every fucking day, it shits me when they tell me this, but i just smile good naturedly and nod in agreement. when they say it's so thick, i just smile and go "a-ha!" and when they say "oh my god you have SO MUCH HAIR!" then i stab them in the eyes with the metal end of the comb. you know that really dangerous pointy end.

let me just say, when i was young this is the sort of hair i wanted:










and then when i was a bit older it was this:










and then this:










unfortunately, on a bad day, this is what we've got to work with:











that's a joke. you can laugh now.

so, she's doing the cut. that went ok.

then the colour. let me just say it was basically two tone, you know, one of those skanky deals that have even got a name, i read in the paper last week, "top deck". please don't judge me. when i got it done it seemed no one had one, it was cutting edge and unique.

now they are everywhere, and i decided it was time to go... top deck.

so she had to lighten the dark at the back and underneath, and do the roots. then it all went wrong, about 3.25 hours into the session. the colour wasn't right, in fact it was bad. it looked better when i had walked in. so she had to quickly put on some other gunk which burned my scalp to fix the colour. which it did. pretty much.

i am tired of having these marathon sessions at the hairdresser, which cost me a fucking fortune, and always, always seem to go wrong.

why do i do it?

anyway. it's not over yet. i have to go back now for the blowdry, which there wasn't time for before.

at least it will be sleek and smooth and non-phyllis for a week or so. as long as i can leave it and keep out of melbourne's rain. until my scalp is SCREAMING for a wash.

does anyone else take more than three hours at the hairdresser? boys, you can answer too.

my hair

[consider this a whisper: it's been a tough week in our family because of a death. i have been grappling with how to balance my blogging. when i write full-on posts it seems people don't comment. perhaps they are too confronted? or it's boring? i am just trying to connect. i am reading other people's blogs and they are great. perhaps that's where i can find my comfort. and not expect to find it here. here can be where i purge... perhaps. anyway today i am writing on the superficial. it's not so scary for people perhaps. hair. we all have it.]

i have got the thickest hair. any hairdresser i have ever been to comments like this:

"you have got SO much hair"

or sometimes this:

"your hair is SO thick"

my favourite hairdresser jeff called it horse's hair the first time i went to him. luckily he picked me and my sense of humour, and my reasonably unshakeable self-esteem. this is why i still go to him, because he knows hair, his wife has hair like mine, and he knows how to cut it.

however, i have been growing it long the last four years or so, so he hasn't been cutting it, just colouring it. then when i became a full-time student 18 months ago, i started to do the colouring myself. it's not great, but it works for me. i even cut it myself the other day. i had all these dried ends so i divided my hair [dry] as if i was to plait it, then pulled one clump forward over my shoulder, snip with these huge shears. same with the other clump. [i can hear girls wailing in horror right now]. but it looks fine. and got rid of those nasty ends. and it didn't cost.

then on saturday i went to a girlfriend's hairdresser just for a wash and blow. she blowdried it the best i've ever had. it is flat. it is sleek. it is shiny. everything that my normal hair is not.

everyone says how good it looks. how young i look. princess keeps saying i should get it done like this every week. i see in her eyes how she wants her mummy to have nice hair like the other mummies. instead of horse's hair.

so i am duly not washing it until it becomes so itchy, until my scalp is screaming.

care to hair-share? what have you done to your hair?