Lockdown 6.0: current mood

Sniffing: 

3 drops Cedarwood, 2 drops Bergamot, 2 drops Vetiver, 1 drop Rose

Listening:

Lesbian mothers

Wow, crazy. My thoughts on what it means to be lesbian mothers have been published here at Mamamia!

Feeling quite as progressive as the Disney Channel!

Fishing at Dunbogan

Fishing at Dunbogan
Originally uploaded by koalawrangler.

D___ and I went fishing in Dunbogan today. Dunbogan is so peaceful. It's the sleepy town that Dunbogan Val, one of the koalas at the Koala Hospital hailed from.

I should clarify: when I say D___ and I went fishing, well she went fishing while I:

* read Cloudstreet
* ate mango
* drank Japanese green tea
* took photos

Although I was frequently called into service as first mate (read: lackey), fetching fishing nets here, bait there, hooks here again.

We set up fold-up chairs on a little jetty thing which allowed me to read and D___ to fish, side-by-side. We could see the cloud rolling in over the mountain (North Brother, I think) which brough the rain, followed by sun.

D____ caught two bream in quick succession, both keepers, but I made her throw them back since we wouldn't get a chance to eat them. You should have seen the mutinous look in her eyes, as if to say: "I caught it so I'm sure as hell gonna kill it and eat it!". Not the kind of barbarity I would expect from an executive, but there you go. Fortunately, she finally came around to my way of thinking on the matter.


After a bit, we moved up the river and then drove to a place called Trevor's Corner. It's where the river meets the ocean. Just as we arrived there, we were afforded the gorgeous vista of a pod of dolphins arcing through the water towards the sea. They were merely a stone's throw from us. It all happened too fast too take a photo. It was magical.

Right on

I love the term "right on". It's so 70s...and yet so functional.

I also love Joanna Newsom's (no relation to Debbie) "The Book of Right-On" from her debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender. She accompanies herself with a harp of all things. There's a something of a Manson Family throwback about her. Check it out.

She asks me why I'm just a Hairy guy...

Lynda at Remote Control wrote a recent post about her love of the soundtrack to the "American Tribal Love Rock Musical", Hair. I have the very same LP she has, the original Broadway cast recording. My parents purchased it around the year I was born so it was something I listened to growing up.

Then, when I was about 11, a groovy family friend took me to see the film version of Hair (starring a very hairy Treat Williams and Beverley D'Angelo in snoot mode -- bizarrely, they later also starred together as Stanley and Stella in the 1984 made-for-TV remake of Streetcar Named Desire).

Anyhoo, for me, the film's soundtrack is the definitive one, just like the Broadway version of the Rocky Horror Show soundtrack pales against the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack. I had the double-LP of the Hair film soundtrack for about 20 years and only recently upgraded to CD, which always feels somehow less authentic than the vinyl. I felt the same way about Grease.

As a young teenager, I was suitably shocked and titillated by "Donna", "Colored Spade" and "Sodomy". I was also confronted by the scene in the movie when a prison psychiatrist asks Woof (the character played by Donnie Dacus from the band Chicago) if he is sexually attracted to men. (Long hair was naturally equated with effeminacy, and male effeminacy with homosexuality. It was an era sorely in need of Judith Butler). Woof responds with the delightful:

"I wouldn't kick Mick Jagger out of my bed, but uh, I'm not a homosexual, no."

But as an adult, I can laugh at the tragically hip way the music in Hair attempts to capture the right-on vibe of the 1960s. For me, Hair always felt like a 70s contrivance of the 60s, much like Happy Days sought to reconstruct the 50s in the 70s. I now also flinch a little at the casual use of the word "pederasty" in the song "Sodomy" (used simply because it rhymes with "nasty"). They're probably claiming the sexual rights of consenting free-lovin' hippie teenagers but this flippant usage trivialises its more serious implications of child sexual abuse.

Marie Antionette

We saw Sophia Coppola's Marie Antionette last night. Lavish costume design, sumptuous scene composition, thoughtful cinematography, even delicious-looking cakey things (let them eat...). There is a beautiful shot taken at ground level of the women walking from behind, their skirts being buffetted by long grass. But the story was naff. There are constraints when telling a 'true' story but this film's favouring of style over substance is to blame for its limp portrayal of Marie A.

A coupla weeks ago D___ and I saw a doco on Marie Antionette that was more compelling and produced more drama that this shallow offering did with all its big-budget mise-en-scene (Sophia's Dad is exec producer). The screenplay was crap and the characters were flat. Coppola perpetuates the construction of Marie A as a vacuous party girl who never truly develops beyond a sort of C18 Paris Hilton wannabe. Then suddenly we were obliged to feel sorry for her when she was arrested during the French revolution. Is it adding value to depict her as obsessed with shoes and cake and all the while oblivious to the diminished lives of her subject. As D___ rightly pointed out, it would have been useful to juxtapose the palace opulence that dominated every scene with the abject poverty of life beyond the palace walls. And perhaps to develop a bit of self-awareness in Marie A during the course of the film to encourage us to identify with her...or give a toss whether she got the axe or not.

I thought Aussie Rose Byrne did a good job though.

I didn't mind the inclusion of modern music (esp. Siouxie and the Banshee's "Hong Kong Garden" during a ball scene), but Bow Wow Wow's "Fools Rush In" felt clunky and out-of-place.

A yawn. 1.5 stars.

City cats

I'm always drawn to cats in cities...the way they can transform whatever's beneath them into a lounge. The stresses of city life don't seem to bother them.

This cat belongs to the Newtown bookshop, Books on King, where books are just another interesting thing to lie about on.


I saw this blue beauty on Brown Street. I liked the way her fur is coloured from the same palette as the blue-grey street and walls.


Finally, these are cats that live on the periphery of the city -- out in Hornsby. They are kept in a wire enclosure to prevent their attacking the wildlife.