It’s all happening

I’ve been forgetting to update. Things have happened.

 

Third year started and already there is so much work to do, but I love my subjects and it’s been really good seeing people again (especially Allie) and getting back into some sort of ‘normal’ routine. Although the early starts aren’t so good. My subjects this semester are Politics x3 and General Education x1: Propaganda & Satire; Australian Foreign Policy; The Art of Political Science; Introduction to the Australian Legal System. My politics lecturers are amazing. I have my favourite professor for one subject, Dr Levey, so I spend Tuesday mornings basking in his greatness.

 

 

 

Drawings by Allie (paying attention during Australian Foreign Policy, obviously).

 

I went to the Mardi Gras for the first time, except the crowd and trying to find friends in the complete insanity meant I basically didn’t see the parade at all. Still, the vodka + rum was nice, and seeing people I hadn’t seen in a while was good too.

 

    

 

My Wog friend Alex had a horrorpunk themed birthday party which was a lot of fun. Messy and fantastic. Kylar and Jack came as my replacements for Annie and Zig. A vey wasted girl in Kings Cross was nice enough to share her cigarettes with us. They were Vogues and actually quite nice. I made Alex a mix of music from the mother country (well, MY mother country). This was the track-list:

 

Van Gogh – Klatno (live) : Belgrade, 1997

Elektricni Orgazam – Nebo : Belgrade, 1981

EKV – Ja Znam : Belgrade, 1983

Azra – Krvava Meri : Zagreb, 1980

Prljavo Kazaliste – Noc : Zagreb, 1979

Riblja Corba – Necu da zivim u bloku 65 : Belgrade, 1982

Idoli – Moja si : Belgrade, 1982

Zabranjeno Pusenje – Guzonjin sin : Sarajevo, 1988

Partibrejkers – 1000 godina : Belgrade, 1984

Sarlo Akrobata – Mali covek : Belgrade, 1981

Elektricni Orgazam – Odelo : Belgrade, 1982

Bijelo Dugme – Pamtim evo deset dana : Sarajevo, 1974

 

    

 

Hung around Liverpool a couple of times and saw The Unborn with Jasmina which was actually quite scary. Also, Gary Oldman is brilliant!

 

  

 

Morgan and I helped Zig out with a COFA project which involved photobooths. I got to wear an eyepatch!

 

I fell in love with this poem:

 

Rhododendrons

 

It was the dream
I was allowed
to touch you in.
We were strangers.
You kept your eyes closed.
I cannot really say
if there were rhododendrons
or anything like music or
even if I asked you.
Only your blue skin and the pleasure it gave you –
the way you moved,
the way you caught your breath
whenever my hands moved
so I kept on moving them.

-Thomas Lynch

 

& ten more copies of Feels Like Friday #7 sold at Sticky in Melbourne!!!!!!!

Update…

I received this email the other day and it made me pretty happy:

 

 Hi Ivana,

 

elle from sticky here. I am really enjoying Feels Like Friday. please
keep it going. I really like your writing. and now I have a query for
you….
 
I was wondering if it would be OK to use a scan of your work for a
powerpoint file to be submitted to australia council as examples of
the types of work that we (as an arts organisation) support.

…

 

Sticky have been very good to me and I am really excited to go to Melbourne just so I can hang out at the shop all day long!

 

Two new pieces of writing by yours truly are up on The Dwarf: my not-so-nice review of Iglu & Hartly’s album & Then Boom. Watch me turn “this is a pile of shit” into 350 words. Also, my fangirl rant about the Tegan and Sara concert is here.

 

Yesterday was a nice day. I dropped off some photos to be developed in Cabramatta (never, EVER will I develop photos in Liverpool again. Rabbit Photo charged me $18. My awesome people in Cabra do it for $12). Then I went to the city, obsessively listening to Alisa and Azra on the way. I wandered Basement Books and bought Junkie Love by Phil Shoenfelt which looks pretty interesting – the cover has a syringe and love hearts, and on the back is a quote from Nick Cave about liking the book, so…how could I resist? (Also, it was only $7!) Then I went to Hyde Park and was writing/reading/smoking/drinking coffee/minding my own business/waiting for Morgan, when this random dude with no shoes comes to talk to me. I figured he was just a random drunk who was bored, but then he says he was sent over to invite me to “join their party” and points to this group of people sitting on the opposite side, one with a guitar, one a hippie looking girl with glitter on her face, etc. I say I’m waiting for a friend and so he stays around to talk. He’s from Brisbane, has been in Sydney for a few months, slept in Hyde Park last night. Then Morgan arrives and Dave (I think was his name), the shoeless dude, continues talking to us, then the hippie girl (Elise?) joins us and they convince us to join them. So we sit with them for a while and they’re all random people that met each other that day in the park and have been ‘recruiting’ other people to hang out with them. It was so incredibly weird and random and funny. Morgan and I were a little anti-social so we didn’t talk to anyone except Dave and his girlfriend (I assume she was, anyway) because they kept talking to us, but the sunshine was nice and we hung around for a while before we left to make use of my ‘present’ of which we didn’t have enough to share with everyone. Then we smoked across from a church which made us feel pretty good. So we hung around for a while and discussed how amazing Josh Beech is, and then Morgan had to leave, and I wandered the city a bit more but it was a Sunday evening and everything was closed so I got some food and headed off.

 

I went to Liverpool where I met up with Jasmina and Nenad and we went to the cinemas, and with very little movie choice, watched The Day the Earth Stood Still which was SO BAD; it was hilarious. Keanu Reeves cannot act. At all! It was too funny.

 

Today I had to get up at 7.30 because I had a ‘job training’ appointment at 9. The only reason people go to job training is because they will stop getting their Centrelink money if they don’t. I don’t GET money from Centrelink so I realised it is completely fucking pointless for me to go. Oh and not to mention USELESS. The trainer is a condescending asshole who treats us like we are retarded and/or five years old. It was incredibly painful to sit through. I’m going tomorrow to ask them whether I can get money for going, and if I can’t, they can fuck right off. Seriously – he SHOWED US HOW TO USE A COMPUTER. He showed us an inspirational video then asked us comprehension questions. He says things like “ok so if you do three hours in the morning, then three hours in the afternoon, how many hours is that – anyone?” UGH. I wanted to shoot myself. But it’d probably be a better idea to shoot him.

 

I’m making Feels Like Friday #9. Yay!

If you have come looking for love, you have come to the wrong fucking place man.

I’d been relatively inactive for the last few days that yesterday made me exhausted. I didn’t sleep much, then I got up early (at 10…) and made my way to the city. Met up with Kylar at Kinko’s and got rid of almost $20 worth of 5c, 10c and 20c coins. I didn’t realise until we were putting all the coins into the machine that it would have been so much easier if I’d taken the coins to the bank and exchanged them for a note. But anyway. I made FIFTY copies of Feels Like Friday #8 and ten of #7 to send to Sticky. If anyone from Melbourne is reading this, you will soon be able to buy copies of #7 and #8 from Sticky so please do so! #6 was available in the past but I’d like to put that issue behind me like I always do a few months after I make them. That’s the problem with making perzines…

 

ANYWAY. Kylar turned out to be really useful as he stapled all the zines for me. (Thank you!) But his collating skills aren’t all that fantastic. (Speaking of collating, I used to have this badge that said “copy, collate, staple” and it was ‘borrowed’ by this kid Tee in high school who didn’t even know what zines were but liked the badge, and I haven’t seen it, or all the others he ‘borrowed’, since.) After Kinko’s we wandered around for a bit, had a classy daytime gutter party, hung around Hyde Park, put up a few of Kylar’s radio show posters (Spirit House, Mondays 10pm, 89.7 FM – did I get that right?), I bought a couple of CDs with money I found left on my bag in the morning (thanks dad!) and then I went to work.

 

I hadn’t been to work in a while but I was nicely relaxed because Kylar is such a thoughtful person. Also, the supervisor I dislike wasn’t there and the girl I was working with was quite nice, albeit an idiot – “I don’t really leave the North Shore much”.

 

By the time I got home it was around 9.30 and I was exhausted. It’s the time spent on trains that kills me.

I just spent about an hour on the phone with Jasmina. I hadn’t talked to her in forever. Was nice.

 

Cassette Kids – We Are (mini album)

Really, really good but after seeing so many of their live shows, a bit of a disappointment… I see this is the direction they want to go in and it is great but I really wish they’d stuck to what they used to do back when I first started listening to them. It was that gritty sort of sound which has now become way too polished. But still, if I disregard what they used to sound like, I can still appreciate that We Are is really good. ‘Techno Dan’ is probably my favourite song. I also really like that they put the lyrics in the sleeve.

 

Warhorse – Gun$ (EP)

I don’t really know much about Warhorse yet and I haven’t seen them live but once at Exquisite Corpse the door dudes gave me a piece of paper with Warhorse written on it and Annie says they’re amazing live. This EP is really fucking good and I look forward to attending one of their gigs. They sound like they’ve grown up on a healthy dose of Iggy Pop and The Cramps. The little Red Eye sticker said “for fans of Brian Jonestown Massacre” but I haven’t listened to them so I wouldn’t know. ‘Skeletor’ is my favourite! “If you have come looking for love, you have come to the wrong fucking place man.”