The_sifter gives a fair account of last Friday night's efforts. He does omit to mention about 3/4 of what we drank - including the COLOSSAL shot of Fernet the bartender practically poured down his thoat at Motel - but he's probably playing it cool for the ladies. 
Shown is some of our party detained by an amusing notice en route to the "Courtenay Quarter".Y'know, am I getting old, or does that goddamn handful of city blocks lose some more of its class every weekend. At the moment I'd almost rather go drinking in Tawa - and that was a dry suburb until 2002. Or perhaps our friend Anon can us take out for a night on the tiles of Newlands sometime?
[Speaking of ladies; apparently I was the only one who found this notice, posted on the department's intranet, more than a little amusing. Actually when I saw it I choked.]
I had a very quiet but very productive rest-of-the weekend. On Saturday I was mostly unscathed by the consumption of the night before; I even tried to liven up the afternoon by drinking a Bloody Mary but it just put me back to sleep. So I watched a very cool and alarmingly twisted French movie from a few years ago called Les Amants Criminels (Criminal Lovers). It starts off a bit psycho-sexual Bonnie and Clyde or even Badlands, goes a bit Grimm's Fairytales, and then goes places I don't even want to know about. Highly recommended. Includes cannibalism.
Because I'd slept all day I was awake pretty much all night, and took the opportunity to finsh mixing-down the new The Stumps album. (Yes, another one). It has finished-up sounding amazing; I even uploaded it to my label-guy in the States and he confirmed it by sending me an email in which there were a lot of CAPS and EXCLAMATION POINTS! Now I need to find a backer - person or persons who wants to lend me $1,500 to get a record pressed and get my label off the ground. Know any music-lovin philanthropists?
Anyway, that all went so well and I was on such a buzz about it, I got up early early early on Sunday and finished off my solo collaboration with Howard Stelzer. Howie lives in Boston, is a really nice guy, and makes amazing music using cassette-tapes and a pile of recycled and home-built electronics. The collaboration has come out just grand. It is supposed to be being released soon as an LP on Eclipse Records.
Late on Sunday afternoon I went along to the closing party of the 91 Aro Gallery; I got to see The Rick Jensen Trio play some estatic free-jazz, which was really nice; what was even nicer was that the gallery told me they'd sold some of my CDs. So, that night I went out to spend the proceeds and get wrecked with David, Paul and The Jarman. This is the best photo of the night.Yesterday I had the day off - some time-in-lieu owing to me from the massive stockpile I have accumulated in the last three months. I spent most of it sleeping. In the evening I went to see the new Wallace and Gromit film with The Jarman. Entertaining enough, I suppose. I suspect I'm a bit over the whole thing, though.
10 comments:
Ah... now I know why you didn't come to Saturday's party - it was your *own* productivity that you were worried about (as opposed to that of you at work... ;-)
Nice hats.
Turn them upside down, add a stick and they'd be massive martini glasses.
So how come we've both written about fouling in the last 2 days?
Oh man, ask Stephen about Sunday's detailed conversation comparing the relative merits of capitalist and socialist toilets. The word 'matter' will never be the same again.
Oi Stephen, paragone dispute time. Which is more important: music or painting?
J' Ha! You must've thought I was such a twat for begging off the party because I was worried about doin' good at work...
Kate' you are disturbingly prescient. Or, or is it just that you have such great thoughts ;)
Martha' Can't say f'shure but my comedic output of the last few days has been significantly more scatological than usual. I notice Venus is bright in the northern sky; could it be this that has turned my thoughts to the soil of night?
Dave' yes, and neither will 'substance' :) Oh, and music (is more important). Hands down. In an anthro-socio-historic context anyway. And I expect it will continue to be so.
Ah ha ha, in our current cultural context (not to mention your bloody anthro-socio-historical context), music does seem much more relevant to most people than painting. However, ours is a mostly visual culture - display advertising, tv, the flicks, comics, etc - and that culture is built on the visual culture of the past, i.e. painting. A really good example of this is that, of all the ways we could have developed to interact with computers, the one that took off was the graphical user interface, basically an interactive painting - where you click on an 'icon' of all things.
In fact, from an evolutionary perspective, there's an argument painting played a crucial part in the development of symbolic thought and thus language. From that point of view, painting's pretty fundamental, built into the structure of our brains, while music looks like an optional add-on.
I agree about Courtenay Place: it's getting more and more bridge-and-tunnel as time goes on. Mind you, I'm getting old, too...
I don't think that there's anywhere on Courtenay Place itself worth drinking these days, certainly not at weekends (I've been known to be dragged to Jet after 11 on a Tuesday night). The key words for civilised drinking: Upstairs (Motel, Beau Monde), Downstairs (Good Luck, Monkey), Alleyways (Matterhorn, Motel again) and Sidestreets (Boulot, Tupelo, Havana).
You're right of course, Tom, although I have to say that I make a point of never going to Matterhorn anymore - there's something horribly wrong with that place these days, not that I can work out what; the last couple of times I've been to Havana it's been like a little mini-version of Coyote or The Grand or something (though the last time I was out of my tree, so who am I to point the bone); and Beau Monde is great, apart from the proprietors, who seem to be amateurs and, quite frankly, arseholes.
I just realized I haven't linked to your blog yet; how rude. Will get onto that...
I must say that I haven't been to Matterho much in the last few months, except for dinner, though that may have something to do with the fact that my ex is still a regular.
Havana seemed a far cry from Coyote and (S)hooters last time I was there, though it was a midweek night and most of the crowd had come from an exhibition opening. Though now that I think of it, that opening was in the Hutt...
I've never had any problems at Beau Monde, either, though it's usually been pretty quiet whenever I've been there so maybe the proprietors weren't under any pressure. Boulot's been a bit more of a regular place, though I preferred it when Johnny was at the bar and I haven't seen him around for a while. Maybe the latest mystery bar will be a contender once it settles in (and no, it's not Lovelock's).
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