Persea Licentiosus- colloquially known as Neville. Characterised by rough, bumpy, dark green skin; horns; awful teeth- and delicious, creamy innards (perfect with a squeeze of lemon and some freshly ground pepper) . Don’t attempt to consume him unless you’re first willing to sell your soul / your most expensive household item.
Meet Neville, the Devil’s Avocado*.
Neville and the Devil are on another level when it comes to feasting and late night revels. When it comes to that pair**, no expense is spared.
Rhyming over!
Neville speaks his mind, regardless of what others might think. Sometimes his opinions are unpopular; sometimes they’re inconvenient; sometimes they’re confronting- and even controversial. I don’t always agree with every single thing Neville says, but I do agree with his right to speak his mind. And because he speaks his mind- and never pretends to be something he’s not ( like, say, a Grape- and good thing, too; you never quite know where you stand with Grapes ), you know he’s truthful and won’t bullshit you. Avocados that don’t bullshit you are Avocados you can trust! So, at the end of the day, you could say I’m Neville’s advocate.
*Technically, the Avocado is a fruit, just like the Tomato. But c’mon! The true test for deciding what should and should not be a fruit is, in my opinion, the following questionnaire: A) would you want it on your icecream? B) would you want dried up bits of it on your breakfast muesli? And C) would you wear plastic versions of it on your head when you’re going for a tropical look onstage? ( I mean, would they go with the maracas at all? ) If the answer to all three questions was “OH HELL NO”, then you know it’s not a fruit.
**pair/ Pear, because in some parts of the world the Avocado is referred to as an ‘Alligator Pear’. This name may have a certain childlike charm, but it’s probably not widely enough known for my lame little attempt at wordplay to be understood by too many people. I probably didn’t need to tell you any of that. But I did. Oops. As an apology for wasting your time I’ll send some spare minutes over to you in a care package- along with some pissweak soft cheeses, some overbearingly hard crackers, and refreshingly moderate wine***- ASAP.
***Don’t worry- none of the things will have faces……including the postman. Don’t freak out if you see him…..he won’t see you! Also don’t freak out that his lack of face will mean he won’t be able to accurately locate your house to deliver the package to the correct address- he has an inbuilt GPS system implanted into his brain (thanks, Elon! ).
I’ve made some of my recent more raw and personal posts private. It’s quite possible that I didn’t need to tell anyone this, but I wanted to anyway, as I personally feel it’s important to let the people who took the time to read them-and to leave kind, supportive, comments – know that I deeply appreciate them ( you guys know who you are ).
Intuition is a reliable thing in my experience, so when I get an urgent intuitive nudge toward being a bit more careful about revealing too much about my personal life here, I will follow that nudge without question. It’s not that I feel particularly self conscious about being raw and real…I mean, that’s kinda my thing. I’m NOT censoring myself here; I’m all about authenticity (I don’t think there’s enough of that in the world, frankly). It’s not like I feel I’m in any immediate danger from anyone or anything creepy like that, either. It’s more that…well, I won’t tell you exactly why. It’s hard to explain without completely contradicting myself and spilling my guts publicly. So I’ll be mysterious for now. Let’s just say that my intuition quite suddenly DEMANDS that I establish a bit more of a demarcation between my private and public self from now on. So I ain’t gonna argue.
This will be tricky for me, as this blog is pretty much my main outlet for certain difficult things at the moment. I guess I’ll just have to get more creative with the way I say things. Those sharp enough to read between the lines and solve my riddles ( or who care enough to do so anyway) will. I know I could always do password protected posts, but honestly, at present that’d just make me feel silly. What a load of faffing about you’d have to go to just to hear me whine about things and overshare. I’m not quite that egotistical (not yet!).
Aaaaanyway. That’s all for now. Thanks again to you nice people who are always ready to offer up words of support, relatability and general kindness. It’s reassuring to know people like you exist.
Well, it can be when Sparks and Cyriak get together to make it so.
Cyriak creates such beautifully weird animations, and until yesterday I’d forgotten all about his existence ( shame on me! ) . His style compliments the wit and musical talent of the Mael brothers perfectly. This particular work of art came out two years ago, and lord knows where I was at the time, but somehow I managed to miss it. If you missed it too, please check it out- the music is fantastic and infectious and the animated video darkly funny. You really have to possess a special talent to present this kind of subject in an upbeat way.
This version of the video has an interesting little bit at the end wherein Cyriak shows us- in MINUTE DETAIL- EXACTLY how to make a music video! ( But not really. He totally glosses over the details. It’s a lot of fun, though) .
I know, I know. I’m posting another song by Sparks. You suspect I’m developing an obsession. Well, you suspect right! Having only recently discovered how utterly brilliant they are, I’ve now become a ‘Sparks Evangelist’ ( as Edgar Wright would put it ). So I can’t promise that I won’t be making a habit of telling everyone how smitten I am with them. It’s my mission to convert you, so that you too can become smitten, and we can all swoon over the lovely Sparks together. Really, I haven’t been this excited and inspired for years. Ron and Russ are not of this world- in fact, I suspect they’re from the same planet most of my favourite musicians are from: the planet of CUTE KING DENTAL FOOT – which is but a stupid anagram* of its REAL name, the planet of TOO FUCKING TALENTED. I do hope they stay here on Earth for a while.
Anyway, pardon my gushing, but in my experience music is a type of magick. I love nothing better than to be under its spell.
*I’ve never been too good at the anagrams. The next best one was “TONGUED INK LATTE OFC ” ( you won’t find that at Starbucks…but honestly you MIGHT find it at one of the hipster cafes in Melbourne). I’m not sure it counts as a proper anagram because of the abbreviation/ text-speak thingy at the end there. Eventually I resorted to an online anagram generator to see if anything interesting would happen. It DID happen. Apparently there are 10,000 possible anagrams ( stupid ones) of “TOO FUCKING TALENTED”, my favourite being ACTON FUNGOID KETTLE ( which I’m guessing is what the tongued ink latte is made in. Of course).
Incidentally, the planet of CUTE KING DENTAL FOOT has a national/ international anthem. It’s in the tune of ‘Old King Wenceslas’ and the lyrics are as follows:
Unwording and unravelling unstarting is unstartling
Slithering through withering requires much unfiguring
The spook I speak is so bespoke an all-inclusive inside joke disjointedness too harsh to smoke because of pieces I unbroke
Unloving and unveloping ungiftwrapping the unshed skin
erasing but unemptying unmade the bed I’m lying in
The entropy is prearranged disorder neatly rearranged a twist of fate though, unmaintained enpuddled me when it unrained
Undoing and unthinking things unpromising the things I’d bring
( to refill the rehollowing don’t sing a song worth swallowing )
Under, over, afternoon my unheld hands unhold a tune wax; unwax the apple moon under, standing, I unswoon
sobering unseens unsway dawn unlocks our blooming grey
my store of stares so blank today that even I might look away
*
Explanation for those who need it: You don’t need to “get it”. There’s nothing to “get” here. It’s just elastic-y wordfun. Don’t panic. Of course, there are certain themes hidden within, but if I explained them to you that would defeat the purpose.
Anyway, I wrote this 3 years ago. Posting it here feels quite exposing and awkward. But over the last few days, something has shifted- or snapped; I can’t tell. I’ve realised that I’ve wasted too much time caring about what people might think of my art; my thoughts; my anything and everything ( apart from my clothing choices and style, of course! I embrace my eccentricity in its superficial form. Why wouldn’t I? My body is clingwrap over my soul, and my clothing is giftwrap over the clingwrap. That will likely sound a tad conceited, but it’s not meant to. You could giftwrap anything- it doesn’t mean there is any “gift” within. I’m hoping that will make some sort of sense.)
I know what you’re thinking: “is she high or something?”. No. I wish! Alas, I just didn’t get much ( ie. any) sleep. What you need to know about me is that I have 2 modes: OVERDRIVE and OFF. The switch has just been flicked from the latter to the former, so I’ll be “making hay while the sun shines” , so to speak. Apologies in advance if a sudden influx of blog posts by me bombards your reader-feeder. I will try to space them out somewhat by having them queued up for even dispersion into the wide field of the internettles ( ouch!) .
Citreum Malitiae aka Mocking Lemon. They seem friendly at first, but this is just a ploy to lure you in. Once they have your attention they will set about ridiculing your clothing choices/ hairstyle ( or lack thereof if you are a bald man) and generally make rude comments about your physical appearance ( and that of your Mother) .They also bite.
When life gives you these lemons, BURN THEM. ( Yes, with fire. I mean…what else would you use? Although in this case, the high moisture content of the fruit might make burning difficult). Or you could punch them in the face as hard as you can, then juice them while they’re still unconscious. Alternatively, as a less violent option I guess you could also feed them some fish ‘n’ chips just to see what happens?
Something I used to enjoy doing in my spare moments was coming up with creative “When life gives you lemons..” quotes. The best one I ever came up with was: ” When life gives you lemons, shove them down your jeans and pretend to be Robert Plant”, which is admittedly a bit rude ( Sorry; I’m quite juvenile when it gets down to it). But it’s a joke that Led Zep fans will instantly get. (Well, if not instantly….Eventually) . If you can think of something much better/ weirder, don’t hold back.
This is my new anthem/ motivational song for mornings.
For a top quality synth you can’t go past a RONALD
What clever, insightful, endearingly silly yet mindbendingly talented humans. I’d dick around with them.
“I don’t care what you do- dick around- I will too/ I don’t care what you do, I’ll dick around next to you” might just be the most romantic song lyrics I’ve ever heard.
At this point I feel that my life is just a way to dick around before I die. It’s so serious that it’s silly, and so silly that it’s serious.
Anyway, just needed to ensure that people understood the importance of this brilliant piece of music.
Or, rather, making the books. Yep- I’ve been learning various bookbinding techniques and doing some experimenting. Here are some pictures to prove it:
Yeah, I know. The background is badly “fixed”. I just wanted to blur out the distractingly ugly cushion in the background so as to draw attention to the booksies. It’ll do. These are softcover journals ( which I used to dislike, but am now finding rather charming and rustic). They’re small and cute and a lot of fun to make. They’re also a great way to utilise lovely leftovers of the vintage fabric and leather scrap variety.
Behold- some more photatoes!
Some contain plain white pages, and others feature a variety of paper colours, weights, and textures. Some feature heavy duty watercolour paper ( my favourite) . This means they can be used to write in, draw in, and even to paint in.
I’ll be trying to flog a few at the local markets, anyway.
I also made a hardcover journal for my kiddo. Both she and I have an acute fascination in the Victorian era, so this journal was made in the theme of Weird Victoriana. It comes complete with storage pockets for weird ephemera ( eg. creepy photographs of circus freaks; hilarious ads for terrible, deadly medicines etc.) .
The lace is elastic and is there to help keep the book closed. To open, just pull the lace up over the top of the book and to the side.
Yes, those ads are for “SAFE ARSENIC WAFERS” ( to help one look young, of course), and cigarettes which apparently “cure asthma, wheezing, and Winter cough”. Fantastic!
The pages within are made of various tea-stained and dyed papers ( which I did myself- it was a labour of love. Totally worth it for my darling goth daughter), and interspersed with darque, gothy, Victorian illustrations and imagery:
So there you have it! My little foray into bookbinding. It’s early days yet- I’m making a lot of mistakes ( an unavoidable and dare I say crucial part of the learning process) but therefore learning a lot.
Thanks for kindly lending me your eyes. You can have them back, now, as this is the end of this post. Adios!
Various photo experiments and happy-snaps over the last 6 or 7 years. They’re all fairly self explanatory apart from the 3rd one, perhaps. This was an attempt at using an infrared filter for the first time. Yes, it’s very grainy ( looking at this photo now, I actually enjoy the graininess ), and yes, the colours were added in Photoshop. My kid looks like a ghost, and this was intentional.
I dare not call these images “photography” ( even though I do tag them that way here for the sake of convenience), as that sounds too formal, and implies some level of professionalism. Instead, I prefer to call these little f(lights) of fanciful fun “Experiments in Light Appreciation”. No fancy gear required.
After looking through a bunch of old photos I’d forgotten taking, I’m feeling the need to have some fun with light appreciation again. Mostly to try to re-inspire myself again after the last creative wave crashed and ebbed back into the void.
Been feeling some kind of way about life lately, you see. There’s this feeling of social isolation I’ve had since I was a kid- and it just keeps growing as I get older. It’s more than just a loneliness. It’s a feeling of being homesick for somewhere I’ve never been and missing people I haven’t met. It’s hard to explain…..but it gnaws away at me from the inside. My creative projects and experiments have always been- and always will be- the best way to distract myself from the ache. Some day- maybe in the next life- I’ll find my place.
My sketchbook is full and I haven’t shown you any of it. Until now, obviously. These are just a few pages…
Sketchbooks are lovely, but they intimidate me. I feel that I’ll ruin them by scribbling all through them. I get around this by layering other drawings/ painting/ collage/ scribbles on top of anything I don’t like the look of. I don’t stop until I do like the look of them ( or until they at least say something vaguely interesting).
At the moment my brain is constipated; there are a LOT of ideas in there, but nothing seems to want to come out. They’re all stuck in a traffic jam at that bottleneck between Ideasville and Expressionville.
Anyway. Click on the images to get a closer lookie.
As the title of this post implies, today I’ll be talking about books- specifically books that I love. It will by no means be an exhaustive list. I might even go against tradition and actually attempt to make this post short and to the point. (Already I’m seeing that I could’ve just used the word “succint” there. This probably doesn’t bode well for the rest of the post, but hey- you’re already here. Just go with it).
Just as other people do, I love different books for different reasons ( and for different seasons. I’m not just saying that to rhyme, either. My tastes in reading are genuinely influenced by the weather and time of year).
Let’s get on with it then.
SUMMER READS:
NB: Here in Australia, where I currently live, Spring has just sprung. This means Summer is not far away, so I’m just getting myself mentally prepared.
I’m not a fan of Australian Summer. I find hot weather uncomfortable, oppressive and draining. The brightness is blinding for my light sensitive eyes; the pressure is on to be significantly more social ( ugh ) and spendy ( eeek! ) because it’s holiday season; daylight savings is on, so that + no air-con = even less sleep, generally shitty moods and massively reduced creative inspiration. Basically, FUCK OFF, Summer.
As the discomfort increases and I slowly but surely morph into a lady version of Bernard Black ( or perhaps more accurately, Manny in the ‘Fever’ episode) my appetite for reading also increases. It’s the perfect activity for general escapism and avoiding Summer People and their infuriating, perverse joy over melting into a pool of sweat and heat exhaustion for three months straight. At this time I’m generally drawn to the fictional and the funny. Books such as these following ones have helped me through Summers past:
‘Ayoade on Ayoade- a cinematic odyssey’ . Or just anything by Richard Ayoade:
If, like me, you’re a fan of Richard Ayoade, you’ll know that in addition to being handsome, witty, intelligent, creative and obscenely talented, he’s also HILARIOUS. These qualities are usually showcased through his various scriptwriting, directing, and acting endeavours, but over the last few years Mr. Ayoade has formed a habit of writing very funny books. I hope he doesn’t break this habit anytime soon, because these books are proving crucial to my Summertime mental health regimen.
‘Ayoade on Ayoade- a cinematic odyssey’ was the first book of Mr Ayoade’s to grace my bookshelf. I enjoyed it so much that I read it several times over that particular Summer ( it’s a quick read. Too quick! ). It’s hard to describe the book, but in a nutshell, it mainly consists of Ayoade interviewing himself. His questions are- to steal a line from the book “…cryptic like the caressing breeze of an extractor fan..” and his answers to himself equally so. But additionally, the reader is treated to screenplay ideas ( and scripts ); various email exchanges, and a definitely accurate and comprehensive history of the evolution of film. An example follows:
1818
The Perambulascope. As the name implies, this system produced a ‘moving picture’ effect by the spectator running round a sequential series of images mounted inside an enormous circular drum. Said spectator would have to charge at full speed while looking at the paintings, such that ‘he appear’d like some infernal crab b’seized by satanic scuttl’ry’. The fast motion would blur the images together into one. ‘The Whipped Peasant’, ‘Giraffe in Distress’ and ‘The Grateful Slave’ were the top attractions of the day. However, there were many fatal collisions. ‘Hosing the drum’ was the Georgian precursor to community service. “
Richard Ayoade- ‘AYOADE ON AYOADE- a cinematic odyssey’
As proclaimed by the orange dot on the cover ( it’s yellow on my particular copy. What new devilry is this?!), it is surreal and hilarious.
In the second book, ‘The Grip of Film’, Ayoade takes on the voice of Gordy Lasure, a street-smart, straight talkin’, gun totin’ Schwarzenegger lovin’ man’s man with four ex-wives and a passion for film ( from the 80’s. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger ). This book is a giant pisstake of the Hollywood film industry ( and its consumers ) and this too produced plenty of laughs when I read it, but not quite as many as the next book:
‘Ayoade on top’, which focuses in on one film specifically: ‘ View from the Top’, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. This book is the definition of “Premium Roast”, and I love it. I have no intention of EVER watching ‘View from the Top’- not even for ironic laughs- but I appreciate the way Mr Ayoade took one for the team in order to bring us this wonderfully entertaining book. I particularly enjoyed the chapter dedicated to Gwyneth Paltrow’s pretentious website, ‘Goop’. From the first page of this chapter, you know you’re in for a good time:
On 5 October 2018, after a lawsuit instigated by California’s consumer protection office, Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop was ordered to pay $145,000 for making unscientific claims about vaginal eggs. One of the most surprising things about this verdict is that, by logical inference, it must be possible to make scientific claims about vaginal eggs. It is also surprising that someone would want to pretend that there is such a thing as a vaginal egg. Vaginal eggs are the result of taking the name of a body part and placing it next to the name of a breakfast item. Vaginal eggs are no more real to me than penis toast or anal pancakes. As my mother would always say to me, nothing that can hatch belongs in your vagina.”
Richard Ayoade – ‘Ayoade on Top’
All in all, these books are a great laugh, and if you’re still hungry after reading them, they can be followed up by binge-watching Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace ( an 80’s-hospital-drama parody horror comedy, starring and written by Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness) for dessert. If you want a quick taste of what you’re in for there, here is one of my favourite scenes from the show ( it’s a short one; well worth one minute and 54 seconds of your time) :
More next time. Although I’ve no idea when “next time” will be, given that I’m notoriously, consistently inconsistent. There could be times before- and beyond ( can I make that claim? )- “next time” in which I post things other than my opinions on books. And given the nature of time, the term “next time” could be misleading- implying that that there are different types of time than the one ongoing present that we’re currently experiencing. Anyway, I might have to back out there, as I’m not knowledgeable enough about the nature of time to get all ‘Fabric of the Cosmos’ on your arse.
NOIRCOTIC 