ink notes #1

Amanda has posted details for the first Ink Notes challenge. The idea is to use music as a writing prompt: to listen to a song or instrumental piece and see what inspiration comes. The embedded video is the music she chose this time. If you'd like to participate there's still plenty of time as Amanda's allowing two weeks for people to blog their writing (story, poem, non-fiction, whatever) and provide a link to it at the bottom of her post.

My story follows after the video. I wrote it with the music playing and you might like to read it the same way. It was a pretty fun exercise. If you have a writerly bent I hope you'll give it a shot.



From the window

He watched her from the window, sitting to the side where the curtain hid him from view. She was kneeling next to one of the beds in the vegetable garden. Her fingers, pale and exact, reached into the rows of young vegetables to pull each unwelcome weed from the soil. Methodically she made her way across and down the bed, shifting sideways on her knees from time to time.

He tried to mentally record it all: the turn of her wrist as she threw each weed onto a growing pile, the curve of her shoulders and back as she leaned to reach the far side of the garden bed, the exact nut-brown of her hair and the tortoiseshell clip that held it tightly so it wouldn’t fall into her eyes as she worked. Perhaps she wouldn’t leave while there were plants still young. He sighed. He didn’t know what would keep her here; that much was clear.

Then she was done and reaching into her bag of gardening tools for a short, thin knife. She moved to other rows, to vegetables fully grown and ready to be eaten. She studied the beds, bending to each worthy specimen – two zucchinis, four or five spring onions, a butternut pumpkin; fat roma tomatoes, basil and coriander from the herb bed to the side. She turned with hands full towards the door that led to their kitchen, but then stopped.

A moment passed before she made her way instead to the outside tap. He had to lean into the window to see her hands under the rushing water. She lifted each part of her harvest to the flow, then shook off the water and placed it in a cotton carry-bag. So she wouldn’t be home tonight. Again. He wondered briefly what dish she would make with them. She was the gardener, the vegetables were hers. But he had often turned the soil for her back when they could not stand a whole afternoon apart and he still felt a pang as she placed the bag of produce into the basket of her bicycle.

As she led the bicycle out to the driveway, he pressed his fingertips against the cold glass. Even if he knocked now she wouldn’t hear him. She was already too far away.

not for the reason you think, christian lander

He's always calling me correctly, but I get out of this one, because even though I am technically a white person who loves Bob Marley, I am also Bajan and quite rightfully love most West Indian music. And Marley did make some amazing music.

In other news, I must really love the Dancer Boy, because I've just spent way too much money to buy a Beyonce ticket so he doesn't have to go to the concert by himself (his friends don't have the money). It's not like I hate her music or anything ~ and she's the kind of artist who pulls out all the bells and whistles for an arena concert ~ but it's unlikely I would have seen her in concert if there were no obsessed 14-year-old desperate to be there (tragically he knows the entire dance in the 'Single Ladies' music video).

What I DO get out of it is a fun roadtrip to Sydney with a kid I like and to be there when he gets to do something that he's thrilled about. It's almost a tradition ~ I've been on similar roadtrips with his brother and sister. And in the end it's only money.

Now that I come to think of it, this month the government is giving me $900 free in K-Rudd's stimulus package. I guess I'm already spreading the wealth. You're welcome, Economy!

dream weaver

Last night I dreamt that I was walking down the street and came across a friend of mine sitting in a line of people who had clearly been waiting through the night. I asked her what the line was for and she said, 'to buy Led Zeppelin tickets'. I was surprised, because I hadn't heard they were touring, and she offered to buy me a ticket. I woke up just when I was hurrying off to the ATM to get the money for the ticket. I wish I'd dreamt the concert, too. :)


I think this dream may have been the result of my boss telling me that she needed to leave early because, and I quote:

I have to go pick up my daughter. My partner is driving Chris Isaak around while he's in town and Chris is having dinner with Eric Clapton and so he's driving him over there.

Nice work if you can get it.

2 things challenge: many/few

Here's my entry for the latest 2 Things Challenge. My interpretation of many/few is made up of two photos from the Tegan and Sara concert I went to a few weeks ago.

The FEW on the stage
















and the MANY watching.
















Every concert is about this, and it's one reason I love live music as opposed to just listening to the CD. When a live show is going well, everything seems to align in the moment and there's a real connection between the artist/s and the fans.

I got another idea for this theme on Sunday night, but had no time to execute it. Very frustrating. If I can find the necessary setting to take the photos I have in mind I will post them later in the week.

roadtrip by numbers

5: people actually travelling to Sydney and ready to leave on time

2: people NOT travelling to Sydney yet creatively managing to delay departure by two hours

288: km from Canberra to Sydney

0: good CDs in the car

1: really fun game/conversation/debate about who we would turn gay for (J, Drummer Boy, the feline, amai and me (though reflecting on it now I should have said))

1: collective sigh that ran through the car when Jake Gyllenhaal's name was mentioned in the above.

[1: cool Daniel Craig interview I found while Googling all those links. Also this is funny.]

















20: minutes we spent going the wrong way down Princes Highway. :)

35: metres of sidewalk packed with people who got there and lined up before us.

3: bands playing.

2: bands that rocked.

21: songs on the set list (Dark Come Soon, You Wouldn't Like Me, I Bet It Stung, Walking With A Ghost, Hop A Plane, Living Room, So Jealous, Like O Like H, Give Chase, One Second, I Know I Know I Know, Burn Your Life Down, Knife Going In, Nineteen, Where Does The Good Go, Speak Slow, Call It Off, The Con, Relief, Dancing In The Dark (Springsteen cover), Back In Your Head

22: photos I took during the show

2: songs we were hoping to hear, but didn't.

















8: (I think) scary, paranormal stories told on the way home.

20: minutes of the homeward journey I spent trying to figure out what I would do if a ghost appeared on the road while I was driving and deciding we would all probably just die.

3:30am - time we arrived back in Canberra

tegan and sara

I'm going to see Tegan & Sara in Sydney on Thursday night. I liked their music before (I have friends who've liked them for ages), but in the last month I've been looking a bit more carefully at their lyrics. I'm quite intrigued by their songwriting. This song, 'I Was Married' is from their 2007 album The Con. The lyrics are included over a slideshow of concert stills. There are so many live videos on Youtube, I'm starting to wonder if cameras will be allowed. Not that I plan to take bootleg video ~ the sound quality is always total crap ~ but it would be a cool to get a couple of photos.



I also really like the lyrics (added below the video) in this song, 'Relief Next to Me', from the same album. I think this will sound good live.



Relief Next to Me

I miss you now
I guess like I should have missed you then
My body moves
Like curtains waving in and out of wind,
In and out of windows
I can't untangle, I can't untangle
What I feel and what would matter most
I can't get close and I,
I can't get close
And now there's just no point,
In reaching out for me
In the dark,
I'm just no good at giving relief
In the dark,
It won't be easy to find relief
And I'm not proud
That nothing will seem easy about me
But I promise this
I won't go my whole life
Telling you I don't need
But I promise this
I won't go my whole life
Telling you I don't need


I'll tell you now
I guess like I should have told you then
The thunder moves
Like damn drawers slamming in my frame
Slamming in my framework
I can't untangle, I can't untangle
What I know and what should matter most
I can't get close and I,
I can't get close
And now there's just no point,
In reaching out for you
In the dark,
I'm just no good at giving relief
In the dark,
It won't be easy to find relief
And I'm not proud
That nothing will seem easy about me
But I promise this
I won't go my whole life
Telling you I don't need

christmas music

The Book Guardian introduced me to playlist.com (and many, many great songs), but I wasn't planning to add it to my blog...until her Christmas list appeared. My favourite part of Christmas is the music, so what a nice way to infuse the blog with some Christmassy goodness. Of course I procrastinated, but after seeing a list from Yankee Girl (and watch the clip...it's so cute, especially the ending) I realised I had to pull my finger out and get a list together or Christmas would be long gone. So I stayed up till 2am last night playing with songs to find my favs. Appearing in my sidebar until December 31st...enjoy!

big day out 2009

I decided to give Big Day Out a miss this summer - lots of other uses for my money right now. In keeping with this decision I knew it was a bad idea to check out the line-up. It's like deciding to be vegetarian and then accepting an invite to a barbeque. At someone's house who really knows how to barbeque.

Neil Young? Artic Monkeys? The Prodigy? Infusion? Pendulum?

Neil Young is a legend, and I've wanted to see both The Prodigy and Infusion for the longest time. There's probably another six bands on the list I'd love to see live.

Dagnabbit!

Here's hoping not all of the sideshows are sold out. I'm kind of scared to look.

so far in the future it's like fortune telling

I just bought two tickets to see P!nk in June of next year. Yes, tickets for her June 2009 Funhouse tour Sydney show(s) went on sale this morning. Are they trying to catch everyone before they spend all their money on Christmas presents?

Sheesh.

Anyway, I saw her 'I'm Not Dead' tour last year and she was fantastic. Sadly I had to be at a first aid course when those tickets went on sale and my online-purchasing-challenged friend got us tickets that were almost in the nosebleed section. Not this time, baby!














I'm giving the other ticket to Dancer Boy (aka Keyboard Kid) for Christmas and his birthday (they were bloody expensive tickets). His birthday is actually in June and he'll be fifteen, so about time he went to his first arena concert. We both love P!nk. She's so fierce!

living after midnight, jolene

I think it illustrates just how varied my musical tastes have been over the years that I am looking at advertisements for upcoming concerts by Judas Priest and Dolly Parton with roughly the same level of nostalgia.

more lyrics

I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Released 1991)

Broken windows and empty hallways,
A pale dead moon in a sky streaked with grey.
Human kindness is overflowing,
And I think it's gonna rain today.

Scarecrows dressed in the latest styles,
The frozen smiles to chase love away.
Human kindness is overflowing,
And I think it's gonna rain today.

Lonely, lonely.
Tin can at my feet,
I think I'll kick it down the street.
That's the way to treat a friend.
Bright before me the signs implore me:
Help the needy and show them the way.
Human kindness is overflowing,
And I think it's gonna rain today.

the thrill

There she goes

There she goes again

Pulsing through my veins

And I just can't contain

This feeling that remains

(Sixpence None The Richer)

I love this song so much. Such a succinct description of that feeling when you first fall in love. Even the music builds to this kind of gentle exhilaration.

i got nothin'

Well, I got something, but no time to blog it today. Which is why I'm sending you over to see Arwyn, who's got something extemely fun (check out the link she posted to the flickr group, too ~ lots of gems in there). I like this one, too, from pep010:

At some point this week I will definitely be creating (and posting) a song chart of my very own. Because it must be done.

misheard lyrics

Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz apparently penned the following lyrics to express his frustration with blind followers of the Emo trend trying to 'out-Emo' each other:

I am an arms dealer.
Fitting you with weapons in the form of words
And don't really care, which side wins
As long as the room keeps singing
That's just the business I'm in

This ain't a scene, it's a god damn arms race
This ain't a scene, it's a god damn arms race
This ain't a scene, it's a god damn arms race
I'm not a shoulder to cry on, but I digress

Now that actually makes a little sense. Unlike the lyrics I've been mistakenly singing along to:

This ain't a city, it's a god damn horse race.

Which really didn't make any sense at all. 'Rat race' might have been okay, but 'horse race'? Hmmm.

Anyone else been singing the wrong words?

a silly band name meme

Courtesy of sleepless.

Here's how it works:

The first random article on wikipedia.org is your band name.

The last part of the last quote here is your album title.

The third picture here is your album cover art.

I'm shocked it came out so well, but it's definitely luck. I tried the three links again this morning just before posting this and none of them were nearly as cool. :)

daniel johns: a lot going on inside

Speaking of Daniel Johns, I found this interview with him on Youtube. It's from Enough Rope, an interview show hosted by Andrew Denton, easily the best interviewer in Australia. They cover his fame at a very young age and the way his inability to deal with the expectations and pressure (and violence in some cases) led to some really serious illnesses (anorexia, reactive arthritis, etc).

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I found it interesting the way he talked about the album Diorama and making a deliberate decision to write and perform more positive music. He got to a point in the early days where he hated his own music, and given that he describes music as "the only religion that makes sense" to him, that's a dark place to be. I think he enjoyed the creative process, but hated the attention and pressure releasing the music created. In the interview it seems like he can talk about all of this now because he's just in a completely different mindset to before, and finally happy. Even if you're not a Silverchair/Dissociatives fan, it's an interesting interview.

This interview on Rove (another interviewer I love) was done right after Diorama was released when he was dealing with the arthritis. The quality is pretty crap, but it's a funny interview and interesting. Plus you get to see him with long pirate hair (I'm a big fan of long hair on guys, if it suits them).

three days and counting

...till I leave for 18 days in Japan.

I'm so excited! I have a glorious JR railpass which takes me pretty much anywhere I want to go by bullet train (so smooth, so quiet, so much more comfy than a plane while being nearly as fast). I've contacted people all over the place to catch up with. There are about three people I haven't found yet (the email addresses I had for them were mobile phone addresses, which have changed over the last four years) but I have people on the case in Japan, and will hopefully still get to see them while I'm there.

I'm going to just three live shows while I'm there - one is Carole King/Mary J Blige/Fergie, one is an indies band I like a lot (KING), and one is a band I've never seen before (that link's for you Roofshadow, in case you're curious what the boys are up to lately) but which features the guitarist and the drummer from my second favourite indies band ever, Plastic, which unfortunately broke up in July. They're just playing support (that is, they aren't new members, just fill-ins). I'll just be glad to see them play, especially 'my' drummer boy, Tsuki. The one other band I was hoping to see isn't playing while I'm there...sad.

I also plan to go to at least one place I've never been before and do at least one thing I've never done before. I just haven't quite figured out what those will be just yet. Suggestions welcome. (Ai, where did you see those fun monkeys??)

soundbite

Bernard Fanning, lead singer of Powderfinger, to his bandmates at the Silverchair/Powderfinger concert in Canberra on Tuesday night:

Man, this is such a beautiful crowd! I swear I've fallen in love twelve times already.

Right back atcha, Bernie!

the song that's been in my head for the last three days

for all you unique flowers out there

Yesterday I was thinking that I rarely post here on Japanese stuff that I'm into. I think it's because there are only a few friends of mine from 'the Japan era' of my life that read this blog. I've been thinking about resurrecting my old blog, which I posted on while I lived in Japan, to use for things like reviews of Japanese dramas and the like. But maybe I'll cross post some things here anyway. People can always skip the stuff that doesn't interest them.

And for today's post:

I know that SMAP are a fairly crappy group musicwise (I often like their comedy or acting) but I randomly came across SMAP singing "Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake No Hana" again this morning on Youtube and it had me singing like a karaoke queen while I got ready for work.



Lyrics in romaji and translation: http://www.kiwi-musume.com/lyrics/smap/sekainihitotsudakenohana.html

The basic theme of the song is that we are sometimes so busy comparing ourselves to others and trying to be 'number 1' that we completely miss how special it is just to be a unique human being.

And can I just ask, who is this dude doing a Chinese remake of the song??? He seems to have quite a following. Maybe I'll have to ask Noddy (current Chinese boarder).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2r7PF-jgyI