Rocklea Sunday Markets

I went to the Rocklea Sunday Markets a little while ago, and I found the mixed bag of vendors and attendees to be quite entertaining, so I've put together a humble collection of what I saw. 


Also, evidently, a lot of beautiful flowers. I shan't apologise. 

This dude was a sudoku fiend. I have a sneaking suspicion he dons a red suit for
kids come December, I mean, that beard needs to be put to use!
Then again, he also had some badass tatts...

So yeah, never underestimate your local flea markets as a source for portraiture practice. There are also Saturday morning and Wednesday night farmers' markets with tons of wonderful fresh produce - and a lovely flower/florist market across the road too. I'll say it again - I love Brisbane. 

Spotify in Australia! YAY! Requires Facebook Account. BOO.

So, evidently this post is going to be a little bit of a rant. But it's valid. It's a valid rant.

Spotify finally came to Australia, and you can only use it if you have a Facebook account.

I was still living in China when I decided that I would quit Facebook as soon as I returned home. Even now I get asked 'why?' a lot, and I suppose the simplest answer is that I did it becase I felt like I couldn't. I felt like Facebook had carved a place for itself in my life, and that there was no way I could function as a social being without it. I don't like the idea of that thing being a corporation, and that corporation having so much power over the relationships and events in my life. (That sounds a lot more ridiculousconspiracytheory than I want it to.) Also because I was being signed up to notifications about swimwear collections. I don't know what the fuck that was about because I never even talked about the beach in any of my status updates anyways, so their special intel was clearly wrong.

I digress.

I love not having Facebook. I think it's one of the best decisions I've made in my life so far as a young adult - but here's the thing. I didn't totally delete it, nor did I just 'deactivate' it (which everyone knows doesn't work). I still have the page, I just deleted all my friends. It's the only way to ensure that I can still 'like' local businesses, enter great competitions, and get updates from vital university study groups, whilst not ever actually 'using' Facebook. It also means future employers know I don't have a super gross/kinky/overtlypublic page, and if I were to ever throw in the towel, I would have to search through and find each one of my friends again, request their friendship, and concede to each one of them that I couldn't survive without it. I don't think this will ever happen though, because I still get invited to all the parties and I still see all of the photos of my friends' holidays and I still talk to my overseas friends - all better and more meaningfully.

It also means that I have an account when I need one - like when I'm registering for Spotify.

I think what I want to express here, is that it's totally bullshit that someone who loves music needs Facebook to be able to get Spotify. I mean, on the download page there's a quote from Mark Zuckerberg about how much he loves Spotify. Talk about conflict of interests! - AT LEAST DON'T BE SO VULGAR ABOUT IT, FOR CHRISTS SAKE! I don't want to need Facebook! When will this madness end? Will I need a Facebook account to pay bills online? Will they team up with Ebay next? What if I need a Facebook account to use Skype?

I first found out about Spotify almost a year ago, when I was in Shanghai, when it was available to my roommate Hanna because she's from Finland. It struck me as something wondrous, and I began counting down until its Australian arrival, and now I'm just a bit bitter.

I don't appreciate Facebook having such wide-reaching tentacles. I'm not worried about my information being collected, I'm not even really worried about my privacy. I just feel like Facebook is an obnoxious drunk that turns up to all of my parties and tries to feel up my friends. That's what it's like. And you say "Go away, Carl!" And everyone says "Let him stay, it would be wierd if he wasn't here." And so you reply "But he's a fucking douchebag" And then they tell you that "We know he sucks, but he's the social glue" and that he sets people up with new people all the time and that he takes photos and projects them on his ass. And then they say "You've taken the analogy too far." And you concede that yes you have, but you're still pissed, so you just walk away humming Champage Supernova and have some more punch.

And then you blog about it, and it feels a bit better. At least you're not wasting your hours stalking pictures of the idiots you went to school with that you don't even like or know.

48 Hour Film Competition - I'm a documentarian by trade

Hey! I've been hanging out with a swashbuckling group of people who are making a film for an international 48 hour film festival. It's a whole separate tumblr project, and possibly a kind of draft for a new venture of mine - helping creative people document their projects.

http://48hourfilmfestival.tumblr.com/ is where it's at.

Everybody here has had little-to-no sleep over the weekend, and they're so committed to the work it's just awesome. I'm so glad to have done this, and the tumblr will be totally finished over the next couple of days. The aim was to document the whole process of making a film in 48 hours. I hope you like it.

She Stole My Every Rock and Roll - another sneaky Anywhere Festival Review

Okay, I don't have long to type right now, but I just wanted to mention that I saw "She Stole My Every Rock and Roll" last night at the Jet Black Cat music shop in West End, and it was SO DAMN GOOD. 

I'd never been to a real spoken word performance before, and this totally just blew me out of the water. So emotive and so powerful and so impressive! I can't believe people can do that with words. I'm serious, it's like, all of their lines were totallly understandable but just had SO MUCH MORE meaning than normal sentences. All of the beats and the rhythm was so great too - the interplay between the actual words and the way they were spoken. 

Also, again, the relationship between the content and the location was FANTASTIC - the Anywhere Festival must be damn proud of itself if the quality of the two shows I have seen is anything to go by. 

Both pics from their website.

The two super talented ladies (Betsy Turcot and Eleanor Jackson) (left) are performing this again tonight and maybe even tomorrow night? PLEASE go see it if you have even the slightest interest in the way remarkable human beings use words. The zine of the performance is sitting here on my desk and I've already re-read through half of it. Even on the page it's moving. 

I have to mention too, that it's a love story (but so much more than that) between two women, and I'm not gay, but I was totally engrossed. I'm going to be honest and embaress myself here and say that prior to last night I didn't give a lot of thought to queer film because I presumed I wouldn't be totally engaged. And so now I realise what a STUPID FUCK I was to think that and I feel like my universe of potential interests just exploded. I mean the sexy parts were SO SEXY. I feel like anyone who saw She Stole My Every Rock and Roll who was actually interested in women must have just creamed. Yes. Ijustsaidthat/seriously/sorrymum.

And I'm doing more exciting things this weekend so stay tuned.

The Alleyway Project - a tasty review.

For an intro to this show, read my previous post about The Alleyway Project. 

Photos mostly by Lynette Letic.
   
   

Errbody from the show. :)

     

If I needed just a handful of words to (a) describe this show, and (b) give you something to hook you in to reading the rest of this review, then I would probably use the following:

'vulgar' 'funny' 'alarming' 'dark' 'young' and 'chalk'. 

If I had paid for a ticket, I would have said 'yes, good sir, that was worth my money!' Especially seeing as how there were sacks of goon hanging from cords attached to power lines. Fan-fucking-tastic. 

Milk crates were present as promised - tick. 

It was in Winn Lane and when I walked in they were playing that whistling song about young folks, so it's hipster as hell - tick. 

Everything performed that evening stung like a rapier to the gut of our sick youth culture - big goddamn tick.

   
   

    
   

If you brought your parents along, then I'm truly sorry. I really liked seeing Genevieve Butler and Dan Eady puke on each other before and after having sex in an alleyway, but the middle-aged couple beside me looked so alarmed I thought they might start clutching their chests where their hearts are and fall backwards tumbling down the stairs. Oh yeah, about stairs, we were sitting on them! Yes, sitting on stairs, and it was super great. Very clever too because of the whole levelled-seats-so-everyone-can-see thing. I think The Alleyway Project could be the pin-up-girl for the Anywhere Festival, really. These kids embodied what it's all about - the interplay between location and content. (Snapped the pics below on my iPhone, click them to enlarge and have a look at how Winn Lane turned into a theatre.)

The actual show was a combination of 4 separate pieces which transitioned seamlessly. Simple lighting was really effective and minimal use of recorded sound was so effective I actually thought those sirens were real ambulances in the Valley and that the actors were kind of ad-libbing with their gritty surroundings. Impressive. 

I think the nature of this show (and location) rendered itself more suitable to the group scenes rather than the monologue-type performances. Benjamin Jackson had a bit of a tough time opening the show and bringing the audience together from their splintered, chatting, pre-show groups. It was very break-the-fourth-wall stuff, which has never been a favourite theatre mode of mine, but it worked alright and others in the crowd seemed to respond well to their involvement. I didn't see the twist coming either, and the dude  definitely had enough energy to pull off that length of stage time. 

    

    

    

    

Michael Johnson gave an impressive performance as Dale. I'll be honest and say that at the start I thought he was being a little melodramatic, but as the piece went on I found his style fitting for the scene and I've got to admit that calling chicks in high heels "praying mantis'" was lol. The script here was really quite poetic. Some beautiful imagery mixed with real melancholic d+m type stuff. OH - and he made some sick joke about smegma AND THE OLD PEOPLE WERE SITTING BESIDE ME AND WATCHING THEIR FACES WAS PRICELESS. Those poor people just couldn't handle it. Such alarm, such concern. His faux-vomit was also very realistic - kudos for that. Karen Dinsdale was next, in a very short monologue about the boy who spoke about her/before her. Her performance as Wren was great (she did the manic-pixie-dreamgirl extremely well) but I just felt some awkwardness about whether or not the piece was really necessary. The subtlety about the boy's overdose and death was nice, and his piece so poetic, and the audience were hanging on his words and everything was going so well. From a script-writing perspective it was a bit stilted. 
    
  

 

 

Next came Caitlin Dooley, Lucy Whyte, and Athalia Foo in a horrific and scathing portrayal of private school bitches. I mean seriously, this thing was like Mean  Girls on cocaine and speed and Vitamin Water all at the same time. I think I was predisposed to like this piece more, as a survivor of a private girls' school I have endless patience for people paying out over-privileged under-brained nasty people. And boy, were these chicks rough. A truly hilarious dance number was followed by bullying so heinous it was the Samuel L Jackson of comedy (and by that, I mean it couldn't have gotten any blacker). The climax of this piece  came right after one girl made the other girl lick bin-juice off of her phone. Following that, the first girl forced the second one to skull a carton of pre-mix, then when she couldn't do it, made her sit down and pour it all over her. THEN we find out that the second girl had slept with the first girl's dad (twice!) and when the first girl uploads the video of the sex the go viral she says "...earrings are one thing, but this is truly the best gift anyone's ever given me." Because we all know that being the one girl who totally ruins the other girl gets you, like, a billion upgrade-you-status-at-school points. In the meantime of all this happening, the Asian exchange student is having an epileptic fit (frighteningly good performance). The parents wished they didn't believe this shit. 
     

 

 

 

Lastly, the previously-mentioned Genevieve and Dan throwing up all over the place. Don't make the mistake of thinking it was some kind of dry-wretch either. This shit was full-blown, all-out, chunks-and-stinky vom. It was a well written script and teetered perfectly on the line between hilarity and vulgarity, occasionally crossing over on each side. Especially amusing, was her realisation that he didn't have any ecstasy for her, but instead had eczema on his crotch. I simple misunderstanding - happens to the best of us. Also amusing is when she asks for a handkerchief to remove some of the spew from up in her dress, and he replies "hankies are fucking disgusting". I'm serious guys, there was actual vomit everywhere. 
    
    

 

    

I suppose a certain kind of person would LOVE this show (read: me), and then other kinds of peoplewould have really truly not liked it at all (read: those parents are still having nightmares). For example, I really like swearing, and there was a lot of foul language. I mean, my favourite thing about it was that it was so brutally accurate. Exaggerated, yes, but still a painfully insightful judgment of our drinking and fucking culture at the moment. I think you should be sad you missed it. 

  

The Tip Shop Project #2 - vote for your chance to win $500!

(To read the original #1 post and actually understand what the heck this is about, click here.)

The project is done and over and it looks fantastic!!! I think the most impressive thing to show you, first of all, is the classic before-and-after shots. So...

This is what the cupboard looked like when we first bought it:

So yeah, as you can see, it was just an average piece of furniture. Some kind of television cabinet or something else entirely unremarkable.

 And then we made it awesome!:

I think my favourite thing about our work is the irony. The outside of the cabinet is white and clean and covered in illustrations from vintage kids' books that we sourced from the tip shop and then chopped into bits. BUT THEN - you open the doors and it's like SHAZAM, and you get hit in the face with all the lush reds and golds and the velvet and shine. Now it's a drinks cabinet, with a pull-out tray for mixing, shelves for glasses and draws for bottles. Subtle lighting reflects off the red paint to coax you inside as well... the whole thing is really quite shifty. I like to think of it as an adults' tardis. Some kind of naughty optical illusion. You could have this baby sitting in your bedroom and even a nun wouldn't suspect a thing - three little pigs on the outside, Bombay Sapphire and Captain Morgan and Bicardi on the inside. 

Doing it up was truly a team effort. Actually, it was a lovely family project made by a mumma and a pappa and girl. First we sanded and washed the whole thing, then we painted the outside white and the inside red, then came the chopping: piles and piles of books to cover a total of six panels showing on the sides of the cabinet. Then we put in new shelving inside and covered the inside walls with velvet-and-pins panels. Next was the goldleaf cover on the inside and a few coats of varnish on the outside. My mum blogged about the process too.
 

 

So now the important thing is to vote for your favourite piece in the competition! When you place your vote you have the chance to win $500 cash! And the winner of the competition recieves $500 cash too, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE vote for our piece!! We decided to go to Stradbroke Island for a few nights if we win - wanna join us? Kidding. Although I guess you could if you wanted to.

 

 

 

 

On a serious note, there are eight other wonderful entries. I don't mind if you don't vote for us - as long as you vote at all! Nancy Brown is an artist we're friends with who does wonderful workshops with Multicap centres for the disabled and she gave an old table a new life with carrot-bodied print-made dragonflies! That sentence made no sense, better read her blog.

The winner will also have their work shown at the state library, so hopefully I'll show you a nice snap of the family in front of the winning peice. Lol. Alternatively, drinks at my place?

a cool person bought my work! (at Lust for Life)

Well well well, I bark at you now as a very happy little dog. As you know (read: as I informed you earlier) my work was showing at Lust for Life's 'Viva La Femme' exhibit. I don't know where that dog thing came from just forget about it. But don't forget this: a cool person paid money for something I created.

I've only been back for a couple of months, but even so, this was the first time I'd ever (read: as in, my whole life) shown my work to a professional standard in a for-fucking-real setting. The exhibition opening night was a fantastic evening, and I got super drunk because I was so damn nervous. Seriously, the calibre of work on show was simultaneously awe-inspiring and terrifying. My favourite work was that of Symone Male and although Sarah Hickey was one of the big-name drawcards of the evening, all of my friends were drooling over Emily Devers' work. It was withoutadoubt exemplary. Go check her out. 

So now to the crucial information: the person who actually worked to earn money which they then spent on something that came from me. I was lucky enough (read: as soon as the red dot went up I madly dashed to the curator begging to be introduced to my patron) to meet this wonderful woman who, as it turned out, I have a shitload in common with. It was almost insane - the level of detail of similarity in our lives. To the point where we both eat from a Chairman Mao dinner plate. HOW INSANE IS THAT!?!!? SHAZAM. Her name is Eleanor and she does so many awesome things in Brisbane, please have a poke around her site. You won't regret it.

  

  

My friend Dan and I at opening night.

 

 

Also, I just want to say here that this really is a big deal for me. Regardless of the fact that four differet people (including the purchaser) told me my work was underpriced, it is a very profound thing to suddenly realise that other people might really truly actually value what you do. And value it enough to spend their hard-earned money on it. I never imagined my photograph would sell, and in fact I already have the screw in the wall where I was going to hang the piece upon its return home. (I'm looking at the empty spot now and it's the epitome of bittersweet.) I digress. I just want to really clarify, that I don't think I will ever forget this landmark. It's experienced by all artists and writers and creative others, and it is just so fucking validating. The honour of being included in this exhibition was enough of an ego-boost, but selling my work has kicked me into overdrive. I have such vigour and such new thirst to be super-saiyan levels of productive. Like I'm on speed or something. Like I'm on Crash Team Racing and I just drove over one of those lit-up arrow panels that give you a shitcrazy boost. Just like that.

 

 

PROOF.

  

So we had a brilliant evening and finished at The Brunswick Social for Mint Juleps and dumplings!

Oh - and the exhibition will be up on the walls and showing for about 2 more weeks, so head on into Fortitude Valley and support locals artists.

  

the alleyway project - winn lane next Tuesday night - Brisbane's 'Anywhere Festival'

Alright people of my fair city, this is a brief post to let you know that I've been asked to attend and review a super intruiging piece of theatre next Tuesday night as part of Brisbane's 'Anywhere Festival' - the basic concept of which is that the performance in question has to be anywhere apart from in a theatre. (Hence the use of the adjective "intruiging".) Check out their website for all kinds of kooky performance locations. I think I love this festival most of all because it's gonna make such good use of the city and its surrounds. I know that sounds a bit nanna of me, but seriously, I think I even heard one of the performances is going to be near a riverbed! How fresh is that!?!?! (I meant 'fresh' as in 'prince of Bel-Air' as well as in physically 'in-the-wild-kind-of' fresh.) As far as I know, Brisbane is the first place in the world to host a festival of this nature. Damn, we're cool. Go us. 

The particular show I've been asked to review is going to be in the oh-so-hip Winn Lane in Fortitude Valley, and it is aptly titled 'The Alleyway Project'. 

  

 

 

 

The team of crazy kids putting this one together is rather impressive and if you have the time, pop on over to their pop-up blog and have a browse. If you can't be fucked clicking your pointer on that link you lazy-ass, here are the details:

"Set in the heart of Fortitude Valley, four playwrights turn a dirty alleyway into the legends of nights out – where drunken youth roam free and the pavement becomes a stained and silent tapestry of history."

The Alleyway Theatre Project invites you to grab a milk crate and squeeze right up next to the stories of the Valley’s night animals.

This pop-up theatre can be glimpsed for two nights only and is filled with your favourite actors from Brisbane.

NB. Ticket price includes a drink on entry!

Playwrights: Dan Evans, Eloise Maree, Dan Maloney and Maxine Mellor
Director: Kat Henry
DATES: Mon 14th & Tues 15th @ 7:00pm ONLY
TICKETS: $20/$18
PLACE: Winn Lane, Fortitude Valley, 4005

Apparently tickets for the two evenings above are already sold out (read: ITS GOING TO BE AWESOME) but a third performance is certainly rumored - so keep your wiskers horizontal! (It's a cat thing, they started it on their blog then I got carried away thinking of cat puns. And now I'm rambling.) 

  

  

 

 

So yeah, stay tuned and try to make it to a riverbed before we talk next!!! Also, there is something here about free food. Yeah that's what I said - FREE FOOD.
You can thank me when we see each other there. 

 

The Queensland Literary Awards - helping out at Avid Reader

The betrayal of our Premier to the literary community of Queensland is already well-documented. It is a shocking and unjustifiable decision that makes me genuinely sad. What Mr Newman's cut means for the industry, for emerging and indigenous authors, and for people growing up in Queensland - what kind of shitty message this 'cost-cut' sends to the world. I can't believe I ever liked that guy. What a douchebag.
  

 

This is like, one quarter of what arrived each day I was helping out.

  
  
I don't want to dwell on it negatively like this for too long though, because from the burning rubble of Mr Newman's mindfuck, a movement has well and truly begun, and we're seeing a community come together. It's a sign of defiance and it's fucking fantastic. I spent two days at Avid Reader this week volunteering for the independant version of The Queensland Literary Awards - which will flourish this year.

In this month's Queensland Writers Centre newsletter, a note from Kate Eltham was included and she agreed that "the grassroots response of the Queensland literary community has been nothing short of astounding." She also singles out a few of Brisbane's most awesome writers/personalities, one of which is Krissy Kneen, with whom I've been working at Avid Reader with! Krissy is the bomb, and she's working so damn hard, it just renews my faith in the very essence of grassroots movements. I went to the post office with her and the wonderful Michelle (you know, to help lifting boxes, because I'm so strong and shit) and in just one day, we filled a whole car with boxes and boxes of submissions. Processing all the entries takes hours every day, and every day new volunteers turn up to help because they love books and they want to be proud of their community - and seeing all these people come together for this makes me proud of my community.
  
  

These are my favourite pants. Easily.

 

You should also know that the submission deadline for the awards has been extended to the 20th of May - so there's no excuse not to submit your work-in-progress. Especially because they're calling for more "emerging writers'" submissions.  This is their latest press release:

"There has been an extension to the deadline for submissions to the Qld Literary Awards. Originally slated to close at close of business on the 6th May, submissions will now be open till Sunday 20th May. The reason for the extension is a change to the rules of entry. After many queries from publishers we have decided to change the 'residing in Australia' status to clear up all confusion and to bring the awards into line with similar awards in other states. The guidelines previously stated that an author needed to reside in Australia for a minimum period of three years prior to the closing date of the award. This particular rule has caused great confusion for submissions and due to a high number of requests to bring this award into line with awards in other states we have agreed to adjust the rules and to extend the deadline for submissions.

The guidelines and entry form can be downloaded from queenslandliteraryawards.com and from www.avidreader.com.a

We encourage everyone to enter this year particularly in the Emerging Qld author and David Uniapon catagories which will continue to have publication support from University of Qld Press.

We have already received a huge amount of submissions to the awards and we welcome more submissions for all awards by the new 20th May deadline. Good luck."

The piles of processed entries ready to be judged - they're being stored
under the State Library of Queensland, and I got to go to this special underground
place where they store all the SUPER old newspapers.
IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME.

If you have any free time over the next  few days, I urge you to get in contact with Avid Reader or Krissy and help out however you can. As usual, buying books by Queensland authors is one of the best ways to put your money where your mouth is - and buying them from an indie bookstore like Avid is even better.

So I just want to conclude by saying thanks to my hometown. I'm so proud to be from Queensland and I'm pissing myself in excitement for the awards. Eloquent, I know. Wink.

New Balance Minimus Shoes - i swear on my life this isn't a paid promotion. are you kidding i wish.

I have a friend who is training for a half marathon. It's inspirational. She lives in Finland, too, so sometimes (read: often) she has to run through crazy-deep-snow to train. That's probably not that impressive to my Russian readers, but to us Brisbane kids, that's fucking insane.

I've always been a runner - but only, like 10km. Half marathons are 21km. Which is double what I can run when I'm fit. Which is half of what a real fucking marathon even is. What a KOOKY world we live in.

So anyways, that's what I was thinking about that when I bought these shoes.

And then yesterday I went to see The Avengers and decided I wanted to get super-duper fit like Black Widow, because lord knows I can't get super smart like Tony Stark or super green and monstrous like The Incredible Hulk or be from a different planet that likes hammers like Thor or learn how to shoot arrows like Hawk Eye or become the Captain of America.

And lord knows I love comic books being turned into movies. It's just about my favourite kind of movie. The Avengers was also made by Joss Whedon, and lord knows he's just about my favourite creator of just about anything.

I digress.

I was talking about running. And now I'm talking about 'barefoot running' and how just yesterday I saw a young man who wasn't wearing shoes step on broken glass and how I don't like feet, let alone dirty feet, and so I'm never actually going to run barefoot. I also don't like those shoes that look like gloves with little toes and everything. Call me old-fashioned, but I just like the idea of normal shoes and socks. Fuck I love socks. They keep your feet so nice and they keep everything clean and they're soft and comfortable.

These New Balance Minimus shoes are a good compromise (I hope/think/pray because fuck they were expensive). The soles are made by those Vibram people who do the wierd foot-glove shoes, and they're all thin and flexy and superfine. Most people have Nike Free's, and normally I like Nike shoes to run in, but I've hear so much shit about the Frees I didn't want to risk paying this big-ass pile of money on them.

Ummm so now I don't really know where I was going with this post. My apologies.