No harm, he’s armed, Setting off all your alarms

February 28, 2011

Today was the first day of my 2nd year at university. When I woke up naturally at 7.46am, my first thought was, oh no, how long have I overslept for?! But luckily for once that was not the case. I still can’t believe I woke up a quarter of an hour before my alarm! And I can’t believe how fast the past four months of summer holidays has just slipped away. It seems barely last week when I was jumping on the $999/return deal to fly to LA, and it feels barely yesterday that I was power-walking through San Francisco and riding on cable cars. Yet, at the same time it feels like an entire lifetime away. I think I’ve had four main distinctive phases this summer:

1/ November: California lovin’
2/ December: late nights, dashes in and out of everywhere
3/ January: wishy washy old self, dreaming of all the possibilities and living my life through daydreams and the internet
4/ February: actual lovin’, every day blurs into the next in the HOT HOT HEAT of summer, wishing I could rewind or fast forward time

I guess time truly flies when you’re having fun, huh.

Here are some (sorry, but shitty… it wasn’t my camera and it took a long time to work out how to 1/ get it out of black and white mode; 2/ get out of manual point-and-shoot mode; 3/ take an okay picture) pictures from Friday night, pizzas made from scratch, grâce à l’ami petit:

Rum & Pepsi, my phone getting charged, CC & dry

Tomatoes courtesy of his backyard.

Pre-Basil.

Note to anyone else who also likes sniffing boys books: acquaint yourself with a boy who has a vast book collection.

I spent an hour in a queue at university in order to obtain a Maxx sticker, which is what entitles me and my student ID to a discount when buying ferry tickets. For half an hour of this, my parking was expired and I was panicking over whether or not I was going to get a parking ticket. Luckily not, but you’d think that the major university in the biggest city of this country would have more than two people on computers sussing out timetables and enrollment qualification business!

In addition to this, currently on my timetable for the year, I have jazz combo on Wednesday night… at 8-10pm. Now… whilst that time is completely acceptable for when we have recital assessments, but on a weekly basis?! Gaaah! Especially when I had been hoping to play hockey this season, I really don’t know how everything is going to work. I’m not a happy chappy about my combo, but I meet them tomorrow, so we’ll see what happens, I guess.

Completely irrelevantly, I’ve had a draft post sitting in WordPress for the past week or so, but I just never got around to writing it properly. Too much food consumption. Chocolate. More Chocolate. Yes, it deserves capitalisation, that’s how much I love Chocolate. Going to sleep with Blonde Redhead, a Radiohead play list or The Raveonettes on repeat all night. Waking up reluctantly to wine and dine and do it all over again.

I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to use the local dialect for petit ami. That is, without feeling like I’m saying “cunt” in my mother’s presence or something to that effect. I’m a person of extremes, I know. I also know that I’m going to get a blister or two this week (already developing), and that I will start posting sporadic, spontaneous shit on here. Weekly wish list? Oh, yes please.

So we hold it close, When we feel the most – Like a love that we could not leave behind

February 20, 2011

Three photos I took in LACMA a couple of months ago. I don’t know what it is with my obsession – and often OCD – about numbers; especially the number 3.

I have such a great love of art galleries, art museums… and as I mentioned here, I’m often more preoccupied with the space itself, rather than what’s in it. I took those photos in a section of the art museum where the minimalism just got too much and I was far more interested in the floorboards and white walls, than the large canvases featuring large blocks of colours that were on said walls. I know, I know – it sounds terrible – but whilst I’m into countless forms of art, there are just some things I find more fascinating than this “minimalistic” theme in this wing of things.

“Those who are trying to find love will end up with hatred, frustration and insanity. Those who are trying to find wealth will end up totally neurotic, psychotic and totally crab. Because if you are trying to find something, you have basically, intentionally, intuitively, and individually accepted that you do not have it.” – Yogi Bhajan

I read this quote just before, and it’s completely gripped me in the sense that I find it so true. Or at least, the latter part of it. Such a bittersweet declaration that most of us would not think of viewing things this way. Or perhaps, more correctly, we wouldn’t want to.

The good news with me posting this blog entry is that, hurray, I’m still alive and haven’t suffered from any major nerve damages from my wisdom teeth removal surgery on Thursday. The bad news is that all those worries I had about general anesthesia should have been the least of my worries. Shortly after surgery (sometime after 8am), I woke at around 9.15am and the first thing that gripped me was how sore my throat was, from whatever pipes they had shoved down it to help me breathe and suck out saliva, etc. The next thing that I felt was the fact that I couldn’t feel most of the bottom half of my face. All of this so far is pretty standard, thus far, and I was relieved when my surgeon said I should be able to feel in a few hours, and that I would be able to eat rather normally by that evening – fantastic news, really, as I was starving by that point.

However, my paranoia and problems began when I started asking my sister, my friends and friends of friends who had had their wisdom teeth removed as well, to see how long it was before they regained feeling in their mouths. My sister merely said “a few hours”, and the worst I’d heard was “12 hours”, so I was thinking surely, by midnight at the latest, I would be able to feel and move my mouth. I spent much of the day mooching and lounging around, reading, watching TV, falling asleep in the boy’s arms whilst watching TV – that sort of thing – and making a general dick of myself by not being able to talk properly because I couldn’t feel my tongue and my jaw was locked up pretty tightly.

By the midnight, 1am mark, everyone had gone to sleep, and I asked my mother to wake me up in the morning to see whether or not I could feel or not, or if I should ring my surgeon up (apparently she had nightmares about this, oops). I was starting to freak out that I wasn’t even feeling any tingling in my face, you know, signs that the local anesthesia was wearing off – and my bottom lip was cold! I even started having thoughts as to whether I’d rather I had a paralysed leg or a paralysed bottom jaw… my imagination pretty much took off and ran far, far away into the realms of worst case scenarios. After failing to sleep in bed, I ended up on the couch, channel surfing and trying desperately to fall asleep. I ended up making myself a “cup-a-soup”, which I had to keep sticking my finger in, to make sure it wasn’t too hot and that I don’t burn my mouth – because obviously, I couldn’t feel a thing. Luckily, the hot soup seemed to help bring some further tingling and feeling into my tongue, except that it didn’t affect anything else. The last time I glanced at the clock was 3am and my imagination was driving me insane.

The next thing I knew, I woke to my cat prodding my face at 5am. And I thought my face! I can feel! I’ve never been so happy to be woken up at such an hour by my cat before, and the rush of adrenalin resulted in me not being able to sleep for the rest of the day.

Anyway, the point is – yes, I can feel everything now, thankfully, although unfortunately, these painkillers aren’t doing anywhere near enough to help sedate this constant pain I have, even when I’m not moving my mouth. I succeeded in my endeavour to devour an amazing burger from Burger Wisconsin today, but I had to cut it up into tiny pieces with a knife and fork in order to eat it. In the meantime, I keep checking on these stitches of mine, wishing and hoping that they would quickly dissolve and my wounds will heal so that my favourite pastimes (it seems to be) of talking and eating wouldn’t be so painful!

I’ve been listening to Radiohead’s new King of Limbs – does anyone have any thoughts on it yet? It’s on its second play right now, and I’m rather undecided. I guess it will be typical for it to grow on me (as I expect it to), but thus far only one track has really stood out to me.

I try not to hurt anybody I like, But I don’t have the drugs to sort it out

February 16, 2011

With less than two weeks to go until my second year of university commences, I’ve been trying to make the most of my remaining summer holidays. Even though this largely entails daydreams, poetry/prose/song writing, music playing, internet philandering and movie watching, rather than actual outdoor activities that involve basking in the sun. That said, I’ll be doing my fair share of exercise in two games of hockey tonight, and as for getting enough sun… well I’ve retained my tan lines from last week, and ferrying to and from uni will be plenty of fresh air for me, once that starts.

In my sleeplessness last night I did something that a lot of people must think I do often, but in actual fact is a rare occurrence – I sat down with an acoustic guitar and wrote a song from start to finish. By rare I mean that, of all the instruments I can play, I actually hate playing guitar (typical bass player syndrome?); and also the fact that I finished the song, with accompanying music and all – which usually takes much longer than just a couple of hours of sleepless strumming around to achieve. Mind you, by “finish”, I just mean that the song is in existence now, except realistically, for me to ever let anyone hear it, I would really need to jam out all the other instrumental parts, and possibly even score add extra instrumentation… perhaps I’ve been listening to too much Sufjan Stevens, and I’m getting too imaginative and musically ambitious in my head in terms of harmonic and percussive layers.

So, since I can’t and won’t show you my song, here’s a playlist instead. I think I’m going to dub it the end-of-summer playlist – a variety of new and old loves, largely chilled out stuff and also, in hindsight, largely bass-driven – although I promise this was completely subconscious and not on purpose! (Guess I’m majoring in the right thing then?):

1. Odessa – Caribou
I just like the bass line and the percussive feel throughout.

2. New Theory – Washed Out
Just. So. Chill.

3. 23 – Blonde Redhead
Absolutely adore this song, and they played it amazingly at Laneway.

4. Afraid of Everyone – The National
From whence the title of this post was snagged.

5. I Know You Know – Esperanza Spalding
Yeah yeah, I know she just won a Grammy and made most people go “who the hell is that?!”, but us jazz students have had our ears on her for ages. Especially those of us of the female, bass-playing variety. The link is to a live version, cos I think it’s awesomer than just the album recording. I don’t know how she plays bass like that whilst singing…

6. Dissolved Girl – Massive Attack
Another bass driven song.

7. From the Ritz to the Rubble – Arctic Monkeys
Bass mania. And love to the partying ways.

8. Used To Be – Beach House
There’s a reason everyone seems to love this band.

9. Blush – The Raveonettes
I absolutely LOVE this song. The lyrics are so sweet, so sad, and so beautifully, brutally truthful and relevant.

10. Miami – Foals
One of my favourite Foals songs – and yes, it was amazing live. Love the bass line, once again.

11. Strobe – Friendly Fires
A chilled out feel, nice beat but just sad enough to keep it interesting.

12. Evil – Interpol
I’ve loved this song for years, and I guess it’s one of their most recognisable songs. I hadn’t listened to it for ages until our road trip last week, and then at a 21st birthday party and post-party the weekend immediately after. And I can’t help but need to mention that this is possibly one of the most recognisable bass lines ever. Also, I wrote a, uhh, thing on this song last year. Maybe I’ll post it at some point, if I grow some balls.

13. Last Day of Magic
It’s been almost two years since I saw these guys live; they’ve got a new album out in two months, so I’m curious to see what it sounds like, asides from the single they just dropped. I can never quite get over how underratedly sad this song actually is.

Is anyone else excited to see what the Radiohead album coming out this weekend will bring?

For love is the breath, For the scariest things are not half as enslaved

February 14, 2011

Even though I’m not its biggest fan – Happy Valentine’s Day. Even though I’m far from domesticated, I did something sweet and cooked the poor boy dinner last night and even delivered it to him, because he’s been essay writing and studying for an exam that’s on tomorrow.

I think the main thing that I can’t stand about Valentine’s day is all the articles in the newspaper, magazines and on the internet about “tips” or “do’s and don’ts”, etc similar “how-to” guides for males. Sure, it’s nice that the world of consumerism is trying to help males in this world with trying to please their lady-friends – but I just think that even the tiniest romantic gesture would be a thousand times sweeter, if he conceived of the idea himself. Furthermore, I think romantic gestures in general would be way more romantic when not conducted on Valentine’s. It’s the one day of the year where so many girls say “no I don’t want anything for Valentines” or “I’m not expecting anything, it’s okay” – in terms of chocolate, roses and a card – whilst they are secretly teeming with anticipation in the hopes that maybe their boy will do something sweet anyway! Seriously – how many people knows someone like this?!

On the wave of social issues, here’s some food for thought: if someone (with seemingly no reason to lie or shit stir) told you that someone in your circle of friends went around saying something waaay untrue of a veeery private nature about you a couple of years ago – would you ever ask/confront the person in question whether they did or not? Knowing that they will very likely deny it even if it were true?

Also, I always find it funny how much you can tell about a person by the way they deal with money amongst their friends – and how nit-picky people get about owing small change. And in case it wasn’t obvious enough, I wasn’t saying that in a good way either.

Another thing that’s stressing me out this week is that I am getting my three remaining wisdom teeth surgically removed – under general anesthesia – and frankly, I am freaking out about it. In addition to this, it’s three days before the surgery now, and I still haven’t gotten all the paper work sorted yet! My surgeon works at three separate clinics (if not more, unbeknownst to me), and my health insurance needs a fax reply to them to confirm the procedure that I’m getting done, before they will approve paying for it. The trouble is, they faxed it to him main office, which isn’t the one I’m seeing him at (and thus doesn’t have my files), but he only works once a week or once a fortnight at the clinic that I’m seeing him at, so everything is getting lost in translation between fax machines and three different clinics and the health insurance company. ARGH!!!!!!!!

Here are some photos of Yeasayer from Laneway a couple of weeks back:

We parked too close to the water and watched the Seven Swans, Who cares? Who’s right, we mis-gambled pros and cons

February 11, 2011

Between the 6th and 10th of February, I single-handedly drove more than 1700km on our road trip, circumnavigating much of the North Island.

There was too much drama in merely resizing the 69 photos I picked out for this post, let alone if I were to recount the trip in descriptive detail. We drove from Auckland to Gisborne, then from Gisborne to Wellington – where we saw Sufjan Stevens at the Opera House – and then back to Auckland, continuing further north up to the Whangaparaoa peninsula where we camped for our final night. We sang-along, played I-spy (with my English Rose/Asian eyes), played 20 questions, pulled over at random beaches and lakes, fed ourselves too much, complained about the heat, laughed, cried, fought, read, waited, and waited, and most of all, watched in awe as Sufjan Stevens put on the greatest show I’ve ever been to thus far in my life. I don’t think any concert this year will top his show. I was gutted that he didn’t play my favourite song of his (“To Be Alone With You”) in Wellington, but had played it in Auckland, especially after we drove such a long way – but I’m certain that the Welly gig trumped that of Auckland’s, the night prior. Plus, he played more songs in Wellington than in Auckland. I was afraid that the house was going to come down, after such a raucous demand for an encore, but all was worth the while when he resumed onstage. I feel a bit smugly apologetic to the inexperienced concert-goers who left before the house lights came on, before the encore, before the show was over!

I have to admit, I wasn’t allowed to take any photos at the show, so everything below from the concert are actually contraband – although I did nicely obey and cease to photograph after personally being told off. The one major downside to that is, moments after having been told off, the most picture-perfect moment presented itself, and made me want to cry. I wanted to cry because of how amazing he was, how amazing the show had been, and how I was distraught I couldn’t photographically record the single moment in which all of this was epitomised. When Sufjan got back onstage for his encore and sat at the piano on the very destroyed stage that was covered in props, scattered confetti and leftover balloons, the angle at which he sat, the angle at which the piano was placed in relation to the angle my seat was at… the precise lighting and the way it was cast onto him… everything about that moment was about the most photogenic thing I had ever seen. And in all of irony, in my bag by my feet was my forbidden camera. Furthermore, in my car that was parked a $12 taxi-ride away in Newtown, sat my longer lens. Nonetheless, I felt myself hold that breath longer than any other during the show. I still can’t decide if, when I want to cry thinking about the Sufjan Stevens concert, it’s because of the sheer amazement and awe he brought upon me onstage that night, or because of the missed photo opportunity, or because he didn’t play my favourite song. Maybe it was all three. But maybe the combination of all these things all contributed to making the evening even more bittersweet.

Anyway, here are some photos from the roadtrip. The first beach pictured is a place I would love to revisit:

The random beach we stopped at on our way to Gisborne. First heat attack of the day, once we left the comforts of air con that was courtesy of mum’s Toyota!

Sunset at the beach in Gisborne.

We parked too closed to the water and watched the Seven Swans. Somewhere between Gisborne and Wellington.

Got a bit scared it might come looking for food, so promptly shut the car door after this was taken.

Monsoon Poon in Wellington for dinner.

Good old Wellywood.

Some sculpture thing taking place near the waterfront.

Self.

There was a set of nice poetry in the City Gallery that I enjoyed the most.

I always seem more preoccupied with the way a gallery looks rather than what’s in half of it…

Iconic.

Art work outside Te Papa.

View from inside Te Papa.

The restaurant we returned to on the second night, since we couldn’t get a seat previously.

Amazing dinner. That garlic butter on the steak, on the hash brown with the coleslaw, oh my godddddd.

Sufjan Stevens had an 11-piece band, with screens that were brought down or risen off the stage, depending on the projection display for each song. They were also all wearing florescent gaffer tape!