Oh! It's a blog. When life gives you lemons... throw them at someone you don't like.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Aborted attempts no longer
I am writing a book. Indeed, it's almost finished. It's more-or-less a compilation of this blog and my previous blog, This is a Tree (which I'm tempted to use as a title), without the bits not concerned with Japan. See, I had been wanting to write some kind of a book about Japan, and figured, why write a bunch of stories I'd already written? So with the addition of some before and after stories, glossary of our Japlish slang, and copious footnotes, it'll be finished. I've also stuck stubbornly with the unedited blog entries, since I figure that makes for a better read than a version sanitised with the benefit of hindsight, or affected by the tinted view of retrospectovision. I'm determined to make this the first of five attempts at writing that I will actually finish. The first attempt was an ambitious attempt to create another trilogy of Star Wars novels with my Dad, when I was about twelve. All I remember was that we killed off Admiral Ackbar, Max Rebo (the blue elephant in Jabba the Hutt's band) was a central character, and the key villains were a frog-like race called the Qu'iunni'i (kee-oo-nee-eye, I think). Yeah, I can't imagine why that never got off the ground. The second attempt was whilst at university. I wanted to write a fictional story about anthropological and cultural theory, but in a fantasy country of my own creation, to achieve an entirely un-ethnocentric tone. Remarkably, drugs were not involved. The third attempt arose out of my first urge to document our collective adventures in Japan. Dani and I came up with the idea of dramatising the many adventures of a dozen or so of our dearest friends into a sort of soap opera, complete with fictional names. We never got further than thinking of witty fake names for ourselves. The fourth attempt followed the third; I wanted to make a book about adventures in Japan by compiling the many hundreds of emails between my friends and I over the course of two years. I did compile and organise it all, but it proved to be mostly for my own amusement, and besides, publishing hundreds of personal emails may not have been the best thought-out idea I ever had.
There's a little editin' goin' on. I've taken the blogs of my friends off the side, since most of them aren't really active any more. Also the recent acquisitions has been completely updated and replaced. All of those were acquired in a single day, after a mini-shopping spree at JB Hi-Fi, and a pillaging of Aimee and Stuart's computer. Five Eels albums! Goodness! I'm also spending today backing-up this and the older blog on Word, just in case of impending disaster. Exciting!
As I said before, I went to Melbourne for a four-day trip over the past weekend, and I've decided that it may very well be deserving of the tag of "11th-best city in the world" that Lonely Planet gave it in the giant Cities book I have. That makes it better than... well, everywhere besides NYC, London, Paris, Sydney, Barcelona, Bangkok, Istanbul, Rome, Cape Town and San Francisco. Pretty lofty claim, that. Still, it is a very cool city, with an awful lot going on. Yes, my ancient and somewhat irrational Melbourne-and-Victoria-hate has finally disintegrated utterly. Please don't banish me, beloved South Australia!
Without writing a boring I-did-this-and-then-I-did-this post, over three days (since I didn't get there until Friday evening) I packed in the following: hippie market at St Andrews, Healesville Sanctuary, Chinese restaurant, karaoke, bars, brunch at Nicola's lovely cafe, trash market at Camberwell, city shopping, local rock festival (as in, loud music, not geology), Bridge Road shopping, exhibition of political cartoons, pub trivia (second place, by one point! Alas!). A busy trip, then.
As an aside, one of the ongoing games of Aimee and myself was the invention of names for potential bands. Amongst my better ideas (better, according to me, that is): Help Help I'm On Fire The Habits Department Of Unclaimed Umbrellas Informative Billboards Platonic Lesbians Southern Crustaceans My favourite, however, is still simply Ducks. I'd love the idea of a band going onstage to announce, "we are Ducks!" Adorable.
Meanwhile, one of the great things about Melbourne are its neighbourhoods of inner-city stuff; Collingwood, Richmond, Fitzroy et al. Those places that are still busy and funky and full of shops and eating and stuff, where people actually live. The city of Melbourne itself (and Sydney, for that matter) doesn't feel that much bigger than Adelaide, just busier - but it's that inner-city-living feeling that Adelaide really has very little of that I like. That, and its noticeable leap up in terms of diversity. Of course, more Cool Stuff and a bigger, more diverse population inevitably results in more self-important tools. And honestly, given the choice between Harmless But Narrow-Worldview Bogans and Self-Important Trend-obssessed Tools, I might actually go for the HBNWBs. But that's a minor gripe. Melbourne! Go there!
So I've just added a couple more long-delayed posts to Oh! World and I came across some spam. Spam, glorious spam! I can't believe my useless little blog is getting spammed. Also, spam.
In response to my entry on Tangier, which mostly amounted to "Tangier sucks and is very sketchy," I came across this comment:
Very interesting article. I have been to Morocco only for five days, but it was really great holidays. Most of all I liked Tangiers, it is a city in the north of Morocco near the Straits of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean! It has a rich cultural heritage and is a city full of life. And I wasn't surprised when I found that many people buy in Tangiers property. And the climate is mild. Also I saw many interesting sights such as Hassan 2 mosque, souk of Djemaa el Fna and other interesting places. Also I was impressed by our trip to the Sahara desert.
Right. So you more or less have the following: Me: Tangier sucks. Spam: I like Morocco too, especially Tangier! It is full of life and lovely people.
Thanks, Spam Man! May you not make any sense forever more.
Good lord, I haven't blogged for a long time. I blame having an actual full-time, hard-working job for... the first time ever, I do believe. Term 1 has been survived, and now I am basking in the glory of two weeks holiday. I've been doing as little as possible - walking around the lakes, going to the library, cooking - nothing thrilling. Tomorrow, however, I'm going to Melbourne for a four-day weekend of fabulousness with some equally fabulous friends. As a kid, I liked to hate Melbourne, though I can't really remember why - possibly just because of a perceived obligation to hate everything in Victoria. Thankfully, that perception is long gone, and I can acknowledge now that Melbourne is fantastic. It'll be nice to spend some time in a genuine Big City for a few days. Meanwhile, since I haven't written in so long, here's a recap of the past couple of months: work, regional sports day (we came 5th of 8, woe), work, wonderful Easter trip to Port Hughes with the entire family, work, pub, visit from Mum and Dad, work, state Field Days in Lucindale with Jess, pub, work, report-writing madness... and that's about it. Exciting, no?
