You should be more like Merlin and walk everywhere

Many years ago now, when a friend moved to Newtown, she remarked that it "must be on the Mental Health Ley-Lines". This was because* of the high incidence of seemingly-crazy people who wandered the streets of our venerable suburb at all hours of the day and night. Presumably they follow the mysterious "crazy-" forces associated with points along the aforesaid Mental Health Ley-Lines, or something.

* (It is probably much more likely to have been something to do with the destructive health policies of the fucken National government 1990 - 1999, but that's beside the point.)

Years and years later, she's still there, and the crazies are still there too, picking up the force-fields with their built-in "crazy-o-meters" and wandering endlessly from point to point. Of course they are. Who ever wins votes by throwing money at improving community-based mental health care? Subsequently I find myself sharing a bus with this guy a lot more often than you'd expect to if you hadn't studied the statistics of chance.

If you can't read it, the writing on the back of his jumper says:

I AM A SOLDIER IN CHRIST'S ARMY

I didn't actually know Christ had an army. Depending on whether or not he's actually dead, I suppose they could be the "Army of the Dead" out of Army of Darkness, or The Lord Of The Rings. Or not. Perhaps he's just advertising the Salvation Army. I wonder if he's armed? At least he's not a soldier in Allah's army, I guess.

Anyhow, go him. He also wears a Placemakers beanie, and smells like a damp old couch that a large dog has slept on for about ten years.

o o o

If you're reading this and thinking to yourself "Fuck me, drinks-after-worker, that's a bit on the nose -- leave the old fullah alone" then fair enough, I take your point. But I've already pretty-much made mine; imagine the reinstatement of decent, comprehensive community-based mental health care. Wouldn't that be a bloody miracle, then?

Birthday cakes

In the beginning, there was the birthday and the birthday was with cake and cake was the birthday. And the same was in the beginning with *cake:

* Actually, you can probably see that that is a pan of chocolate brownie, rather than cake, but this is a minor detail best left from the narrative for fear of obfuscating the essence of the passage.

This photograph was taken at the best possible moment -- festooned with 34 lit candles, seconds later the candles started to melt as one and a layer of hot, coloured wax was deposited on the cake. You may have thought that this would be an impediment to the consumption of the cake, but it was not; the cake was served hot and almost-cooked, with a large amount of fresh whipped cream. It was paired by our sommelier with a stunningly-good 2006 Johannesdorf gewürtztraminer.

Later on the cake was unfairly targeted by a vicious smear campaign, as one's tummy complained long and hard about the ingestion of this confused mixture of substances.

o o o

Some time later, it came to pass that a second cake was proposed, and the birthday promptly moved upon the kitchen bench and made it so. And the birthday saw that the cake was good:

You probably won't recognise the cake as the classic "Ghost" design, with a sheet of marzipan 'draped' over a conical sponge cake, but veritably that is what it is. It's also not the most moist number ever; it is due to be introduced to a bottle of marsala, or possibly tripel sec, in the very near future.

Severed Heads - We Have Come To Bless This House (5.38 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

You possibly should never expect the worst.

Shaolin from Africa, we apply the massacre

More goodness from Awesome Tapes From Africa: the other day I ran across this. Straight outta Ghana, Black Monkz are celebrated for being West Africa's best and truest English-language hip-hop crew, and they may also possibly be the most ardent followers of the Wu Tang Clan in the entire continent.

These guys are seriously awesome. Supposedly, the Black Monkz have so much respect and admiration for Wu Tang they held a Ghanaian-style funeral for Ol' Dirty Bastard when he passed away. And in their recordings I can hear distinct echoes of the MC-styles of -- at the very least -- Method Man, Ghostface Killah, and GZA The Genius. Check Monk Funk Classic:

Black Monkz - Classic Instrumentals (2.64 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

I'd quite like to be able to soup up the audio on these tracks sometime; keep an eye out and I'll post if I upload any re-mastered mp3s.

Black Monkz are also well into some Deep Black [Ghanian] Consciousness, as demonstrated in this track and video:

The horse, the man, and his son?

One of the cool things about the shops in Newtown is that as a general rule, they make a bit more of an effort with the ethnic diversity of their showroom dummies. I particularly enjoyed this little hybrid/multi-cultural family in a Riddiford St window:




Especially the accidental pseudo-religious effect produced by my phone camera when trying to deal with the blow-out from the from-above lighting. Sorry about the crappy photos.

Tilahun Gessesse with the Walias Band - Untitled wailing Ethio-funk classic (14.4 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Awesome Tapes from Africa is not exactly my Favourite New Blog; more like a perennial favourite for a long time now. If I had time I'd possibly start one in kind: "Awesome Tapes from Newtown", or something.

The best cat in the world

Surely this is the best cat in the world:

The cat was found in great pain trailing a gin trap clamped to its front left paw in the Christchurch suburb of Yaldhurst on Sunday.

Have you seen the size of that fucken thing? That he was dragging down the road?

The injured cat is recovering well and will be put up for adoption if it is not claimed by its owner by the middle of next week.

"He is a big, friendly cat and there is a good chance someone is missing him."

I know it's still months until Christmas, and even longer until my birthday again, but... can I please has?

Someone?

Sign o the times mess with your mind

This -- a dread screwed dubstep version of Prince's classic single Sign '☮' The Times -- may very-well be the greatest cover-version ever:

Kode9 feat. The Spaceape - Sine of the Dub (3.63 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

In 2006, after a series of highly-regarded 12" singles, Kode9 and The Spaceape released Memories of the Future -- which is possibly my album of the decade.

Certainly, if you like (the hugely-hyped) Burial and you haven't heard this, you owe it to yourself to check it out. I don't particularly like Burial, and personally I think that Kode9 in general -- and Memories of the Future in particular -- are more deserving of all the acclaim instead.

More dubstep tuneage at Undomondo...

I stumble into town just like a sacred cow

I've always loved how one of the Chinese takeaways in Riddiford street is called China Grill:


So much so that I thought we should have a little song:

Iggy Pop - China Girl (4.69 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

There's gotta be a name for this kind of thing -- like a greengrocer's apostrophe. It's analagous with the tradition (?) of suburban hairdressing salons bestowing such names as "Snipz" or "Cutz" or "Streaks Ahead" or "Hair Today Gone Tomorrow" or whatever upon themselves. Anyone reading this a linguist? An etymologist? A linguistic etymologist?

Guest blogging...

I wrote a guest post on The Aucklandista about my trip to the Sylvia Park Mall:

At Sylvia Park Mall, you don’t get anything even remotely as much fun:

No bizarre floaty vortex-place for you, matey. No coffee mugs, even. (Probably.) Nope, at Sylvia Park Mall you got you your Bed and your Bath, and your and er.. Table. Woot.

read more...

Misandry FAIL

Polite, though:

Marked by our memories of a future past

Last night I was at a bar and I found myself trying to explain what it would be like to experience reality in four dimensions, instead of only three. At the time I felt utterly sober and lucid, but in retrospect I believe I may have been a little bit drunk. Either way, I had them eating out of my hands and marveling at the wonders of the universe.

I didn't actually mention Tralfamadore, but my explanation was cribbed heavily from Kurt Vonnegut's classic descriptions of four-dimensional reality in various novels of his (but in particular Slaughterhouse 5). To paraphrase (thanks wikipedia):

Tralfamadorians have the ability to experience reality in four dimensions; meaning, roughly, that they have total access to past, present, and future; they are able to perceive any point in time at will. Because they believe that when a being dies, it continues to live in other times and places, their response to death is, "So it goes."

Of course, there was never the remotest possibility that I would be able to do as good a job of it as Carl Sagan:

It's important to recognise that while Vonnegut's (and indeed the common) fourth dimension is identified with time -- for example, in Einsteinian relativity physics -- the dimension described by Sagan is a fourth spatial dimension. So in effect, he and I (and indeed Vonnegut) are describing two different things. And have described. And will describe. (Sorry, that was gratuitious.)

If that wasn't enough, Cliff Pickover asks us to consider how it would be to encounter four-dimensional beings in our three-dimensional spacetime. I gave it a shot. I think that is was for exactly this exercise that the phrase "my mind boggles" was coined.

And, The Commonsense Nihilist (whose blog has been going bloody great guns in general lately) recently posted on how to create four-dimensional paintings.

Gig on Saturday

As Tom details here, The Stumps are playing on Saturday night at Happy with Elise&Jem (from Melbourne) and Black Boned Angel.

I don't know Jem, but Elise (originally from Palmerston North) is from such notable Melburnian acts as On, and BadCopBadCop.

Be like, "Warriors! Come out and playiyay!"

I'm not exactly sure when this appeared, but it was very recently:

Evidence of expansionism by the Eastern Suburbs' Strathmore 44 gang?

Fake plastic sushi

One of the best sushi spots* in town, a little place in Brandon Street, also has the best Fake Plastic Sushi:

* Unverified.

What did they do to chill the joy away?

Apparently there is a "love field deviation" on the corner of Normanby and Riddiford Street, in Newtown:

Thank you to the person who posted this sticker and performed this valuable public service. I'll keep well away from this tree-protector cage thingummy, cos god knows I can do without a deviation in my love field.

I'm enchanted with the possibility that the sticker is is somehow a reference to the form of the tree-protector cage thingummy, which is more than a little reminiscent of classic diagrams of di-polar (electro)magnetic field-lines in (for example) geo-physics:

(click on the diagrams to read lots more)

But I expect that it is more likely a promotional tool for an exhibition of the same name by Wellington painter REMO (Roger Morris), held earlier this year.

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour

Down at the local, the arm-wrestling competition begins tonight:

I'm hoping to get along to have a bit of a perve.

Champagne and misery where are you?

On and off, over the years, a good number of people have asked me why I don't have any work from my Spaceships Of The Mind series available in my online-portfolio.

Are ''Friends'' Electric?, 2002
Oil on canvas, 64x99 cm
(private collection)

So over the weekend I pulled finger, and uploaded some.

That's me in the background, losing my hearing

Evidence of the first Stumps excursion into the northern lands (aka Auckland, NZ). People seemed to like the show. Girls danced. It was certainly the most intense 50 min of furious noise-rock carnage that we have yet exacted upon a paying audience. Later on, that monitor at front stage right started smoking and we had to stop. Gig: Saturday night.. hearing returned to normal: Tuesday arvo.

Picture by Robyn. There's a WHOLE bunch more here.