The Talk
Hey blog,
So yeah, been a while, hasn't it? You're looking - well. Don't say that, you don't look exactly the same as a month ago at all! You're ... taller, I'm sure.
Oh, the lily? I just remembered you like them ... I know they're my favourite, but you like them too, don't you? Really? You never told me that when we were ... fine.
Look, I know this is awkward. We haven't really communicated for so long, and even when we were it just wasn't like old days.
Remember that song by Carole King, It's Too Late? 'And it's too late, baby, now, it's too late - though we really did try to make it. Something inside has died, and I can't hide, and I just can't fake it?' That's kinda been playing in my head a lot lately. I don't know what's changed between us or why, I just know something has.
The thing is, it's not that I don't want to keep posting to you, blog. I do. I still have thoughts and opinions on what's going on in the world and you know you're always the first friend I tell them to. Stimulus, response, blog post. Stimulus, reponse, blog post. You understand me so well.
I don't know why we've lost touch. It really isn't you, it's me. There was a time when I would've raced to you first to share exciting news and developments as they filter into my consciousness. I could tell you all about my Europe trip, or Dima,
the new boy I have a big crush on, or how
Mel and Kochie's knock-off of 4 Minutes has got me seriously questioning why I actually bothered to return to Australia if this is what was waiting, all that stuff. But ... I dunno. I just don't feel that buzz anymore, y'know?
I know I've probably taken you for granted too long blog - and I don't like to think of my future without you in it in some capacity. I just think it's better if we stay friends for now. And you know, the best thing about quality friendships is you can let the channels of communication slide for days, months, even years - but that moment you finally get around to catching up, it feels like only yesterday that you were hanging out together. Quality time over quantity time and all that.
Please don't take it personally - I promise you we're not the only couple going through this. It happens to the best of bloggers/blogs. There's
Dave & House - I think they're pretty much over now, and you know how tight they were once.
Sam's pretty much dumped Culture for
Junior (I don't see myself doing that with you though - I'm a one-blog guy). And the
munkey and
non-turtle have gone pretty quiet too. On the plus side,
Ms C's back, and I know you've missed her, haven't you? Yeah, me too.
I just don't feel I can keep up anymore. It's like you want me to be a
Jeremy or
Jacob and just keep bashing them out to you, but you know deep down I've never really been that disciplined.
Oh, don't bring Facebook into this, this has nothing to do with him. Our relationship was cooling long before I met Face. I'm not dumping you for Face, we're just good friends, OK?
Look, I don't want to break up with you altogether, blog. I just need some space. I really hope you'll allow me to come visit sometimes as I know I'll get lonely and want your company. If that's too much like one-sided dependency for your liking, I understand and respect that.
See you soon blog, I hope. Miss you.
QP xx
Labels: blogging, random musings, yewma
Open letter
Dear pervy men who arrive at my blog from 'Holly Brisley Sex Scandal'*,
Please leave. Now. Yes, I did have one - one - picture of Holly Brisley here, once. Over two years ago. But no doubt you'll be devastated to learn:
a/ she was fully clothed and not doing anything remotely degrading and/or involved with barnyard animals; and
b/ I only used a picture in the context of comparing
her and her Home and Away character to NatBass and Nat's Neighbours character respectively. Probably the gayest use of a Holly Brisley (or indeed NatBass) online pic ever in the history of the universe.
Furthermore, it was soon brought to my attention by the charming chaps at News.com that I was in fact using one of their photos without express permission, and so I took it down under threat of possible future legal action. There isn't even a pleasant, wholesome, G-rated image of Ms Brisley here anymore, let alone a flash o'gash.
So I'm sorry you've come here under false pretenses - but please don't come again. I could not be more serious - or literal.
Chookas,
QP
*(There is a link here to the offending site if you're really that curious, but be warned, very NSFW - you'll be instantly flashed with booby upon arrival).Labels: blogging, Holly Brisley, random musings
New twist on an old classic
I don't know why I find
Garfield minus Garfield so drawer-wettingly hilarious - I just do. There's something about Jon Arbuckle as a deranged schitzo that's just ... Well I won't oversell it, judge for yourself.
I think this is my favourite:
Or maybe:
It's just ... it's just ... Lol! When you consider Jon has never meant to be able to understand Garfield's thoughts anyway, it does put his sanity into a whole new questionable light.
I say this as a Garfield lover during my formative years, btw - though I do feel that the lazy orange tabby, much like the dysfunctional clan of Evergreen Terrace, has long expired past his use-by date. In reality, a 30-year-old kitteh would be a very old, frail, diseased, myopic, flea-ridden and flatulent kitteh indeed.
Labels: Garfield minus Garfield, random musings, yewma
Anybody else...
...Find the idea of
Schapelle 'eating out' (in Bali) somewhat....nauseating?
Particularly when one bears in mind that Schapper's current Bali buddy is one:
*urmph*
Excuse me *urmph*...I think I'm going to be...
Too late.
Labels: Benny Hillesque bad double entendres, random musings, Renae Lawrence, Schapelle Corby
Why renting is a knut
(With
nods, apologies and possibly royalties to Comic should she bring out the lawyers.)
- $220 for removalists to move all QP's shit into bf's much nicer place: Tick.
- $215 for cleaners to joan* it up so QP could get all the bond back for himself and ex-flatmate: Tick.
- 2 full days including one off work to move into said nicer place where moving in is forbidden on weekends: Tick.
- Sore back and arch of right foot: Tick.
- Much satisfaction and pride despite aforementioned pain when last object was unpacked from last box and strategically placed in new location on Friday: Tick.
- Ominous visit on following Saturday morning from owner of subject location and various accompanying family members, including very enthusiastic-looking daughter: Tick.
- Comments heard on Saturday directed to said daughter including but not limited to 'Wow, you have a bathtub! (Unknown person) is going to be so jealous!' Tick.
- 60-day notice period issued to QP and bf 2 days later on Monday evening: Tick.
- Expensive 3.5 week Europe trip planned with return tickets purchased for a departure date of, oh, about 62 days from now? Tick.
- Horrendous Sydney rental market with almost no properties available, such that those that are are overpriced, in poor condition and a shitfight to see/obtain long-term lease for? Tick.
- Tears and womanesque sobbing from QP: Tick.
(*'Joaning': v To clean and in particular scrub maniacally until all surfaces are essentially reduced to air particles, in a style reminiscent of Faye Dunaway's portrayal of Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. 'Sheryll-Ann joaned and joaned incessantly as the face cream dripped from her cheekbones, the axe in grasping range, but knew deep down the surfaces would never truly be clean.')
Labels: pain, random musings, renting
Older chicks rule
The untimely death of a certain Oz actor has somewhat overshadowed news of the release of
Oscar nominations - and what with the US writers' strike now in its 11th week there are still no guarantees the ceremony will even go ahead. (Aside: Anybody else really feeling the
Ugly Betty/
Desperate Housewives/
Dirty Sexy Money withdrawals? Just me? Righto.)
Still, the awards will be issued one way or another, and I'm thrilled that one of my all-time faves, Julie Christie, is frontrunner for Best Actress, for her devastatingly good work in Sarah Polley's
Away From Her.
The first and to-date only time Christie won a Best Actress Oscar was back in 1965 for John Schlesinger's
Darling, when she looked more like this:
And personally, I don't think the woman in the top photo is any less radiant, captivating or compelling to watch on screen than the woman in the bottom photo.
Perhaps Christie is just of that fortunate breed of actresses who seem to become more beautiful the older they get - Kate Hepburn, Anne Bancroft, Helen Mirren etc. Or maybe, as I like to hope, the world is increasingly comfortable with older women and resolved to accepting that turning 40 does not automatically negate her beauty, sex appeal and sexuality.
After all, going by the Oscars alone, Christie will be 66 if she wins this year. Last year, Mirren was 61. Among the other Best or Supporting Actress nominees, Laura Linney is 42, Tilda Swinton 47 and Ruby Dee is 83!
It's rare for an actress on that side of 40 to be nominated for lead roles - supporting maybe, but seldom lead - and rarer still for an actress of that vintage to win, as will likely be the case with Christie, playing a woman who is somebody other than a man's mother or grandmother. In the scenes prior to Christie's character Fiona entering a care facility for her growing Alzheimer's, she is seen as an independent, childless free spirit, otherwise healthy, sexy and still desperately in love with a man who has betrayed her. A noticeable contrast, perhaps, to Mirren's win, in which she donned the chub suit to play a woman traditionally not renowned (not publicly, anyway) for her raw sexuality.
Still - and maybe it's reading a bit too much into a single ceremony or industry - I hope this is a sign that the world is not quite so perennially obsessed with yoof as might otherwise appear. It's always shat the inner femmo in me that actors' ageing threshold is always far greater than actresses' - or as Goldie put it in
First Wives Club, Angela Lansbury is Monique's mother, but Sean Connery is Monique's boyfriend, coz he's 300 years old but he's still a stud. How does that work?!
I firmly believe Madge deserves kudos for helping to make 50 the new 40. Likewise Kyles for making 40 the new 30. In TV land, 4 of the 5 Desperate Housewives are still sex kittens or vixens at 40+. Over at
Ugly Betty, 44-year-old Vanessa Williams is making at least one of the planet's gay boys question whether he is genuinely all 100% butt pirate. And yes, Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross, Nicollette Sheridan and (probably) Williams have all had plenty - some would say way too much - assistance from aunty Bo to get to the point where they are today, but they are still portraying characters - original wives, mothers and grandmothers - who traditionally have not been allowed to be sexy or desirable on screen.
Perhaps this is an inevitable symptom of the baby boomers entering their 50s and 60s. And for every Julie Christie winning an Oscar, there will still always be a top 10 of highest paid actresses of the Dunst, Witherspoon and Barrymore vintage. But if Christie does win the Best Actress gong this year, it will be unprecedented for two actresses over 60 to have done so consecutively. I hope this is a sign of things to come.
(PS - A great Julie Christie film worth tracking down is 1977's
Demon Seed, based on the Dean R Koontz novel. Woman is trapped in and impregnated by her computerised house - as you do. Far. Keen. Weird. Very trippy, very 70s and I don't imagine any other actress could have pulled off the role.)
Labels: Julie Christie, Oscars, random musings
The perils of Frankie
So I have this ... friend ... called Frankie. Fandango. Muffinhead. And Frankie currently finds himself in a bit of a quandary. Frankie is currently working for an organisation towards which he has certain significant moral, ethical and political...reservations, let's say. Obviously he can't go into too many details about said organisation on a public blog, suffice to say its CEO probably won't be caught dry humping Sharan Burrow anytime soon.
Now, before y'all get stuck into Frankie for fraternising with the enemy, hear him out. He was particularly unhappy at his last job after a restructure effectively led to the death of his team and many fine people with whom he greatly enjoyed working left to find pastures greener. Frankie was slated to begin essentially a whole new position in a whole new team in a whole new office anyway, and he was about as enthusiastic about starting with this new job/team/manager as he is about Angela Bishop. And Frankie DEFINITELY isn't enthusiastic about Angela Bishop.
So he set about finding something bigger and better, but after a few weeks of job interviews that didn't translate to job offers, rejection letters or even, rudest of all, complete lack of any kind of response to expressions of interest in certain positions, Frankie grew despondent. When he was finally graced with a swift response, interview and offer from this particular organisation - with a chunky pay rise, no less - if nothing else it was a bit of a boost his increasingly fragile ego was needing.
Frankie, who happens to be a writer, has rationalised staying with this organisation on several levels:
1. Currently he needs ongoing income greater than any other point in recent history, given his schedule of moving and overseas travel over the next few months. And fortunately, he's only contracted for six months, so he has a get-out-of-jail card after that time should the need (most likely) arise.
2. Frankie's job essentially involves providing objective facts and information to the organisation's members about day-to-day workplace matters - he's not directly involved with the more troubling lobby/representation aspects of the organisation. Information dissemination is Frankie's game. And any good writer can report facts objectively without editorialising - that's what the nice folk at Fairfax and the ABC and sometimes even News Ltd do, isn't it?
3. Frankie likens himself to his public service friends, even though his PS friends probably won't like the comparison. Frankie thinks of his buds in the PS who have worked for years under the Howard administration even though they despised that administration even more than Frankie did - but hey, it was their job to enforce the law, not defend it. Well, unless you're Barbara Bennett, of course. Plus, they were always aiming to quietly effect change where needed from the inside, which is never a bad thing, right?
4. Frankie gets his own office, which he's never had before.
Of course, Frankie knows the counter-arguments to all 4 points that y'all have no doubt mutterered quietly to yourselves while reading this:
1. Doing a job, any kind of job, just for the money and no other reason can be considered whoredom. And I don't mean the empowering, I'm-a-fucking-great-sex-worker-who-loves-their-job-and-gets-paid-well-for-it-so-fuck-you-if-you-don't-like-my-job-coz-I-do sort of whoredom, I mean more the 'hey man, take you 'round the back alley here? I really need my visit from Aunt Tina, wink wink' sorta whoredom. Sometimes there are just more important things than cash.
2. Yeah right - Nuremberg defence, just following orders. Fuck off. You voluntarily choose to join the enemy, you can't whinge when they ask you to take out your friends.
3. PS folk have a legitimate Nuremberg defence, you don't - plus they always have the hope that, as eventually happened last year, their evil overlords will finally be vanquished and the sun can shine again, the happy townsfolk can return to their villages with gaiety in their hearts, bunnies can jump in meadows again and etc. Your overlords remain firmly entrenched. There's no hope.
4. The office is 80s beige blandness. It almost feels like it should have one of those green 80s phones that Ann Reynolds had in the governor's office in Prisoner.
I've pointed all this out to Frankie but he's still very reluctant to leave, at least not before his contract runs out. Nonetheless, he's keen to find out other people's thoughts and experiences. He wants me to ask y'all if you've ever worked in a job where you literally feel your soul slowly fading. At what point does the need for money negate noble principles - which let's face it, are nice and noble and all but don't pay the pickle man. When you can't be with the job you love, honey, do you love the job you're with or do you stay unemployed and pure?
I'll forward onto Frankie any and all correspondence.
Oh - and welcome ye to 2008.
Labels: random musings
Death of the murder
I don't read enough. It's true, and I'm thoroughly ashamed. As someone who claims to be a writer, I am not thoroughly immersed in enough wide-ranging narratives of diverse authorial voices.
Sometimes I think of my relationship with reading and literature as analagous Bart's brief adventures in the fourth grade classroom at
Cypress Creek:
Teacher: You don't know your multiplication tables? Long division?
Bart: I know of them.
So, continuing along the gratuitous all-life-is-reduced-to-Simpsons-quotes path, when
Jay Sherman tells Patty and Salma that he 'said to Woody Allen, well Camus can do, but Sartre is smartrer!' I can giggle knowingly at the reference, even though I've only ever read Camus' two shortest books and, at most, three or four chapters from
Being and Nothingness. (Oh, and
No Exit, but that was because we workshopped it in Drama. But plays don't really count. Hell is other people though, JP definitely was onto something there.)
One genre in which I'm relatively well-read, however, is crime fiction, specifically British murder mysteries. I'm positively nannaesque in my love of Christie, Rendell, James etc and their corresponding high-brow Brit TV adaptations. And much as I love the grandes dames of the genre, I'm equally compelled by the new wavers - Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson, Minette Walters, Val McDermid etc - who write for the cynical CSI generation that has no patience for Lady Gwendoline Highbottom being poisoned during the garden party with that suspicious glass of lemonade with the unmistakable fragrance of bitter almonds, served by that swarthy sub-continental type.
There's something oddly comforting about being taken to a depressing, fictional northern, Sussexian or Scottish city in the middle of a grey winter, to join a bitter, alcoholic, middle-aged male detective and his sexually-tensed female partner investigate the grizzly discovery of a charred teenage corpse at the banks of the (insert name of river flowing through fictional northern, Sussexian or Scottish city here).
There's no way around it: The Poms do grizzly and depressing brilliantly, and their crime writers are no exception. The Yanks are too plot-driven and the Aussies don't seem to appreciate the genre enough to nurture a strong, unique narrative - though I will say, in a nauseatingly self-indulgent plug, that my aunt
Gabrielle Lord is among the best.
Whipping Boy, Bones and
Lethal Factor among others are outstanding.
(PS - Note to Oz TV producers: When the hell are you going to do the
'Scobie Malone Mysteries?' Hello, definitive Australian murder investigator by internationally-renowned writer so you can sell it to the overseas markets? Honestly.)
I'm concerned, however, that the days of quality Brit murder mysteries may be numbered. I'm currently reading Rendell's latest Chief Inspector Wexford mystery,
Not in the Flesh, and with Dame Ruth nearing 80, I fear this might be the last we see of the good Kingsmarkham CI. Similarly,
my all-time favourite, Dame PD James, is nearing
90 and we haven't had a Commander Dalgleish mystery since 2005. Reginald Hill has just
'killed' Andy Dalzeil and I know the next book on my to-read list,
Exit Music, will be the last we see of Ian Rankin's Rebus.
So in the future, it would seem my thirst for the genre will be primarily quenched by Peter Robinson's Chief Inspector Banks (and much as I like this man's work, I can't shake the feeling he's too much of a 'lighter' Rebus) and McDermid's impotent Dr Tony Hill and his totally dysfunctional relationship with DCI Carol Jordan. Will that be enough?
I'm sure other authors will emerge in the void left behind by the greats - I'm just not sure if they'll be as compelling. Frankly, I'm starting to wonder if it's just too quaint a genre to sustain in the forensic age. Forensic science has taken all the guessing and ambiguity - and therefore the fun - out of the whodunnit. Nowadays it's essentially the 'howdunnit' genre, which is interesting and all, but to me it's a bit like substituting a Mahler symphony with the Schrodinger equation. Sure, it's complex, thought-provoking and probably has a satisfying resolution to those who can follow it from the start, but there's little music or lyricism involved.
In the meantime, however, I've just bought the
Marple (Geraldine McEwan) box set and am enjoying every minute. I know by definition I should have a knitted blanket over my knees, digestive biscuit by my side and keep yelling at my half-dead husband of 53 years to turn up the volume while watching, but I don't care. I need my fix, man.
Labels: British crime fiction, literature, random musings
Women who look a bit like ducks
And according to my boyf:
That's all.
(What? I gave you serious in the last post and you just sat there without saying anything. I don't know what you want!!)
Labels: lookalikes, random musings
Welcome, new visitors!
*chortle*
So today, I've had three hits from these search queries:
'Christopher Pyne gay'
'chris pyne gay'
'chistopher pyne gay'
And
in other, COMPLETELY UNRELATED news that happened to be published today ...
You know what? I'm not even sure why I'd bring that up right now!
Labels: random musings
In the real world, she'd be your older sister at best...
So in between Hunter Valley sojourns, InDesign training courses and catching up to 2006 by setting up a Facebook profile, I've been pondering actresses cast as blokes' mums, even when they're clearly not old enough to be so.
I reckon it all began with
The Manchurian Candidate, when Angela Lansbury was cast as Laurence Harvey's Bitch Mother From Hell. Harvey at the time was 35; Angela was...37. As it happened, she was a good enough actress (this was pre-Jessica Fletcher times when Angela was essentially originating BMFH roles) to pull it off, but you wouldn't be surprised if the poor thing felt a little bit slighted by that.
The trend's continued in movies over time, but it seems to be at its worst in soap. 53-year-old Leslie-Anne Down is currently playing mum to 48-year-old Jack Wagner on B&B; and as an indication of how ridiculous this becomes when characters' children start having their own children, over at
Days 54-year-old Lauren Koslow (Kate) is
grandmother to 22-year-old Rachel Melvin (Georgia).
But the example that's got me most rattled is Jane Hall, a recent addition to Gaybores. Jane's character Rebecca has just been revealed to be Oliver's mum, and yet 36-year-old Jane is only eight years older than David Hoflin. It came as a relief to me that the woman I remember playing a
teenager on 'All Together Now' like, not so long ago, was not in fact in her early-mid 40s, as the Gaybores writers seem to want us to believe her character is. (I'm still cutting myself over Kyles hitting 40 and Madge 50 next year, but anyway.)
So what gives casting directors and producers carte blanche to age actresses by a decade or two? How did Jackie Woodburne, for example, go from playing a teenager in Prisoner to a mum of three teenage children in Gaybores less than 10 years later? Have the femmos been right all along? Do women just become older 'quicker'? Does the patriarchal society perpetuate the myth that once a woman hits 30 all she's good for is motherhood, and that she ages five years for every equivalent-aged bloke's one?
Even the shiny yummy mummies on
Housewives have children of a credible age. Is Australia really so short of actresses they can't fit the right vintage to the right character?
It makes me think Goldie Hawn was onto something in First Wives Club: 'There are only three ages for actresses in Hollywood: Babe, District Attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy.'
Labels: random musings, women
