tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38926303217386855072024-03-13T11:49:29.790+01:00ZmondeUlyssesziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.comBlogger148125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-52687939408905976022024-02-07T10:00:00.001+01:002024-02-07T10:00:33.981+01:00Sunday Best<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><div>Emerging from the thrashed night's cocoon</div><div>The lizard is ok on the warm bricks</div><div>Mummy's mirror time is alright</div><div>The child is bright for us all</div><div>The cousins awake other towns</div><div>The kids go offline</div><div>Cars roll by</div><div>Like resolution</div><div>Some birds</div><div>Scratch at the sun</div><div>Sing for the sun</div><div>We'll go to Scitech</div><div>Then amass at Myers</div><div><br></div>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-65764583316471066732023-10-21T02:15:00.002+02:002023-10-21T02:17:05.946+02:00Evening walk with Nick & Dena in South Perth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-49530856021004177852023-09-12T15:08:00.004+02:002023-09-12T15:16:52.743+02:00portrait of deedee<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimtf-EP9u4Ru_qUVhl9X41fcgwxVxEzjcRxZ0SnzDYhMAy-Nl5bAsfEIrcjjGsTkXMxnRRuk-Dr75gFe-J13lmOKO8m3vgEwCskbBBMHbdGivPzHudctu2SPjFvRtZOlKWvLEfwTxPa7uuZUeH9NFz3A2_XONqTdgKaYgwrX1SpMkEW38vgtZLCV0OjzhI/s4192/_20210612_001140-EDIT-EDIT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4192" data-original-width="2354" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimtf-EP9u4Ru_qUVhl9X41fcgwxVxEzjcRxZ0SnzDYhMAy-Nl5bAsfEIrcjjGsTkXMxnRRuk-Dr75gFe-J13lmOKO8m3vgEwCskbBBMHbdGivPzHudctu2SPjFvRtZOlKWvLEfwTxPa7uuZUeH9NFz3A2_XONqTdgKaYgwrX1SpMkEW38vgtZLCV0OjzhI/w360-h640/_20210612_001140-EDIT-EDIT.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Probs no need to caption this one...just kick back & drink it in...</td></tr></tbody></table><br />ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-87959501572539656812023-04-22T08:28:00.000+02:002023-04-22T08:29:01.410+02:00some people write book reviews... <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-24243672330766973982023-03-05T11:21:00.011+01:002023-03-06T05:43:28.430+01:00pavement r reviewed<p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>everybody’s mostly white n agein and we have
to be seated cos it’s the perth concert hall and pond start and I sit alone
near the front watching them cos everyone else is in the bar drinking
mid-strengths and white wines cos it’s perth in summer and it’s still warm n
that and I’m just thinking like a 51 year old all the stuff about my family and
work and little incidents that flit in and out and how we’re all positioned
here at this venue to be entertained and the pond leader who is a perth man –
they all are i think - is doing his funk leader thing being all funky and groovy in a
slightly ironic way, writhing a bit, trying to engage the mostly empty venue of
distracted seated folks waiting for pavement to arrive, and he says laconically "if there’s one thing you can take from this gig it’s that my brother used to
work at captain munchies" and their stuff is alright maybe too slick or just
not quite rocking out enough I don’t know and maybe I don’t care that much...</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>and
adim kuuvolovski is sat behind me with his lookalike teen son and I know this
guy from the 90s indie band turnstyle I think I once even wrote about them and
somehow I am reminded of henry kissinger and anyway I hobble up to the bar when
pond is done and find my friends there sat around a table and all that greeting
is done and then there we are back inside under the dim and pavement is on the
stage and straight into it and soon enough spiral stairs says hit the front and
so people stand and move into the aisles and the security tries to stop it but
they can’t stop these folks from their hunger to stand and sway!...</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>and it stays like that but there is still not much room to move and
I think isn’t that just a metaphor for life now and we chat a bit sipping mids
and the songs are bought and so are we and pavement are pretty good although
people complain of a lull when they play a few newies but what the fuck my leg
hurts and I sit down for a bit and a woman in front is in ecstacy the whole gig
it seems really jittering around while her boyfriend stands by kinda stiffly
with a shit-eating half grin and tentatively puts his arm around her waistland which she doesn’t even seem to notice as her arms are flung skywards in
ecstatic dance as pavement bash out a solid rendition of summer babe and we all
agree this is a good gig...</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>and leader malkmus goes on a bit of a spiel after not saying
much the whole night and says they shouldn’t concrete over some grass tennis courts in
mt lawley somewhere and maybe get some funding from tame impala and call them
the tame impala mt lawley grass courts and he intros the band and they play some more including
a cracking go at 'fillmore jive' and they also earlier jammed on a song they
once had called 'perth' i think but could not really play or remember it but they had a go
and that’s when people go awwww that’s the pavement we love and then it is over
after an encore and we leave and drive home through the balmy perth night with
the experience bolted on to us in us in some commercial and non-commercial way some literally if they happened to have hit the merch stand...</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>something that brought us into a new realm and we said we should do this again
and made jokes about dance music and how it was either complete shit or not
really that shit</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXQxzbkNy_NpSspm63maEBKxOBldc_fysNGCsg5UM-CTqm49lUIPTZjytSQXZf17YSP9z3LC01QFwxm6tC-ZolgMArh1HF1Fk5xTH4fZKGCjelOW9E48i6TculfAaTB5Wgy9Xb9MKIwIJea1ynTGGAwwhrYG4t5nvr9LEcV6i0jqYYEWJPBPqQ7I02tg/s4000/IMG20230222203544.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXQxzbkNy_NpSspm63maEBKxOBldc_fysNGCsg5UM-CTqm49lUIPTZjytSQXZf17YSP9z3LC01QFwxm6tC-ZolgMArh1HF1Fk5xTH4fZKGCjelOW9E48i6TculfAaTB5Wgy9Xb9MKIwIJea1ynTGGAwwhrYG4t5nvr9LEcV6i0jqYYEWJPBPqQ7I02tg/w640-h480/IMG20230222203544.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><span style="text-align: center;"> <i><b>Pond: Lead man's bro used to work at Captain Munchies...</b></i></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzh7juDS6P4NJcEgp72wpwZaudbJtU18kBkwH97dR5JtXh9bBNmdG2U9Hh9Eneqo6sT7nTVLtRX83tb-iH2HXEOY85mrVb8agpyoZZy_iFITy1Nc45BpCtTKs3vl3jM2bw_E3H3tZX17Qyy5_6WrKjKxbuIRlD2AmPwv_xxmUceSqOLK3zTliaDP-2Uw/s4000/IMG20230222214753.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzh7juDS6P4NJcEgp72wpwZaudbJtU18kBkwH97dR5JtXh9bBNmdG2U9Hh9Eneqo6sT7nTVLtRX83tb-iH2HXEOY85mrVb8agpyoZZy_iFITy1Nc45BpCtTKs3vl3jM2bw_E3H3tZX17Qyy5_6WrKjKxbuIRlD2AmPwv_xxmUceSqOLK3zTliaDP-2Uw/w640-h480/IMG20230222214753.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Pavement get to it...</b></i><br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk-Yt6IP3_70tD6OtDqA7jVyas_Vzsdx7xNBgJkXEjW4Eh2UNJl75_JpXbJquTu7mlRfj8aH4G9sJgrsveH-83yIFr3d6GpuJ1QIJKQmfLMHzDA27CqQaq_3eyxHCna_5Tjetz8OfuAt5iRGdvzJ_Me5t2WV_MngTLbsGOtsVv-QrUUNii4mIv6Md6kg/s4000/IMG20230222220840.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk-Yt6IP3_70tD6OtDqA7jVyas_Vzsdx7xNBgJkXEjW4Eh2UNJl75_JpXbJquTu7mlRfj8aH4G9sJgrsveH-83yIFr3d6GpuJ1QIJKQmfLMHzDA27CqQaq_3eyxHCna_5Tjetz8OfuAt5iRGdvzJ_Me5t2WV_MngTLbsGOtsVv-QrUUNii4mIv6Md6kg/w640-h480/IMG20230222220840.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Behind these people, Pavement are playing...</b></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJL__8-CU5sXsBcBDtmABlL3h2BJg_187sBd-bO9wUgKPp3yDhMuUnLnRTBfzipARyx3jOnewgpGQ7V0MoW_an3xdSMGTsPBCITgdRnf9Y5MDqTkPi0diVRWFeTtphGjQMFbmZ4s2JRn4RDiNrzQHPvFreykIaMvcdbTTO6yRjG8bRG8cyJQ1SMiMl_Q/s4000/IMG_20230301_214610.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJL__8-CU5sXsBcBDtmABlL3h2BJg_187sBd-bO9wUgKPp3yDhMuUnLnRTBfzipARyx3jOnewgpGQ7V0MoW_an3xdSMGTsPBCITgdRnf9Y5MDqTkPi0diVRWFeTtphGjQMFbmZ4s2JRn4RDiNrzQHPvFreykIaMvcdbTTO6yRjG8bRG8cyJQ1SMiMl_Q/w480-h640/IMG_20230301_214610.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Is this Adom Koolovowki? 🤔</b></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigDzdy7Ih3BYPan-JS-9G20ceBnpberHOLmnRGXZ8bl40F_SzQ_NSQV5fj-Ww36XQdVZEqQ5AIDIwPCO8tbHwxOg1Xt94QqIo3d7vdW7Eofm5H4Y_Ihs-JtVeo9QL41_ubb7drW1LEPNVQJnggJDJTTxrqOts1vG4WfM8UDZZZmTnmJ1yvPJJWleHrwQ/s4000/IMG20230222225209.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigDzdy7Ih3BYPan-JS-9G20ceBnpberHOLmnRGXZ8bl40F_SzQ_NSQV5fj-Ww36XQdVZEqQ5AIDIwPCO8tbHwxOg1Xt94QqIo3d7vdW7Eofm5H4Y_Ihs-JtVeo9QL41_ubb7drW1LEPNVQJnggJDJTTxrqOts1vG4WfM8UDZZZmTnmJ1yvPJJWleHrwQ/w640-h480/IMG20230222225209.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Some gave Pavement 9/10. I pondered if anything could go above 7.5 once you hit 50...</i></b><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span><p></p>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com05 St Georges Terrace, Perth WA 6000, Australia-31.9580789 115.8638206-60.268312736178842 80.7075706 -3.6478450638211548 151.0200706tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-54789764991640364402022-10-12T15:29:00.049+02:002023-01-10T07:51:12.507+01:00down leighton beach... <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">don't know that much about leighton beach. it is between freo and cotty. part of it is a dog beach i think. our family cruised down there on a balmy spring day to find a calm ocean and a setting sun. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">not many people about. a family taking snaps (like us). a few travellers sat in the dunes smoking mowie wowie. our kid nick walked their way waving his little arms and some of the travellers laughed. we laughed too. good to see some traditions surviving the rush of time. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">nick has a healthy energy people respond positively to. i look at the sun, the miracle of that thing 150 million k's away we can see in our sky. there's a god i can get behind, i think as it drops away from this plane another time.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-18151079054165996812022-08-19T05:20:00.008+02:002022-08-19T07:09:19.133+02:00a few journals, colonel...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhysjXl0G1Wqedi_t6yvuxEFZnjYnsALrHdiNDkR1ZJirrDh6-tNXobZ7FZ-ADfecDaw9ZVlaDxClTwzV_BekczuwQqIf42gvNXfT0MGPaGhiez4u5euNRqMDIc5P_8ZoknwclcEF_WgGUb2GQvzp4-YLkMIiXzPOR7oDNp2y6C0nXrRPsAzF1l2mTgZg/s4000/jnls-aug22.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhysjXl0G1Wqedi_t6yvuxEFZnjYnsALrHdiNDkR1ZJirrDh6-tNXobZ7FZ-ADfecDaw9ZVlaDxClTwzV_BekczuwQqIf42gvNXfT0MGPaGhiez4u5euNRqMDIc5P_8ZoknwclcEF_WgGUb2GQvzp4-YLkMIiXzPOR7oDNp2y6C0nXrRPsAzF1l2mTgZg/w640-h480/jnls-aug22.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Acid-based paper journals preserve best...few of these journals dating back to 1999 are that...mostly it was 'any ol' notepad will do'...but of course there are a few moleskines amid the blotter pads...</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoUb4CaftQJF4sYV2JIJlZJBRQM5Y1jyG-LepalTvmWefhU5zqT0go1rrAWdfbLSt5iYNO_AP7zifYeXOkXGTGD0ZFDAEFvH8zLAM2AH3SQLWEW80BgwU9sSUMhY6PM-ZzKNkLn0V1ncqyGIXc8AIn-S81dQ5MNT_mebpoc-OmEkTag5Uxh9rX80AV3w/s4000/jnlpage-28feb06.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoUb4CaftQJF4sYV2JIJlZJBRQM5Y1jyG-LepalTvmWefhU5zqT0go1rrAWdfbLSt5iYNO_AP7zifYeXOkXGTGD0ZFDAEFvH8zLAM2AH3SQLWEW80BgwU9sSUMhY6PM-ZzKNkLn0V1ncqyGIXc8AIn-S81dQ5MNT_mebpoc-OmEkTag5Uxh9rX80AV3w/w480-h640/jnlpage-28feb06.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The curse of insomnia & piles of books...</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-11965508763503430892022-08-04T04:52:00.001+02:002022-08-04T04:52:42.007+02:00know way out<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-32985615406584891582022-03-23T16:09:00.001+01:002022-03-23T16:09:50.337+01:00Potsdam 2 PerthOur boy Nick is 10 months old now. He's a gift but it's hard bringing up kids on your own without much family around so my German fiancee and I have moved to Perth from Potsdam in Germany where Nick was born. <div>It's stressful moving your family across the planet in a pandemic, and we faced down some nasty last-minute travel shenanigans, but we made it, and after a couple of decades in Europe, it's sweet to be home.</div><div>Dena likes it too and is excited for our new life - and Nick seems really happy in his new home and with all these new relatives to be with.</div><div>Sometimes you just have to take the leap and set what happens.</div><div>Being mobile with my work helped too.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br></div><div>The Little Man with his Omi...</div><div><br></div>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-22211043189959140522021-12-04T21:18:00.003+01:002021-12-04T21:18:41.486+01:00Book review: The Morning Star by KO Knausso<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56567219-the-morning-star" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="The Morning Star" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1633256297l/56567219._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56567219-the-morning-star">The Morning Star</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3020048.Karl_Ove_Knausg_rd">Karl Ove Knausgård</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4293149260">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
That big jessy Karl is back with a novel. At first i thought he was trying too hard with all the differing points of view, trying to raze all the singularity of PoiOVoi of His Struggle. A lot of it seemed a bit flat, even bad. But he seemed to find his groove in the second half, did Karl, a welding occurred between concepts and events if you like, i did find that at any rate. In the end it didn't matter so much that hardly anything gets resolved, I thought, reading it. Some are saying it's a set up for another serialised behemoth. Ok. Or saying it's ham-fisted, especially the ruminations on death. Some are saying this novel demonstrates how bad a writer of fiction Karl actually is. I say fuck them. If you're not an academic yourself, you might, like me, like the way Karl blends the intellectualising of events and concepts and schools of thought like the life of Christ, death and theology with the absolutely fucking mundane like shopping, packing cars and eating corn flakes. I am want to agree with a friend who suggested Karl wrote very well about food shopping. I think he writes equally well about thanatology. Well done on this one, Karl.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/51129616-shane-starling">View all my reviews</a>
ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-71097710512935354292021-11-14T12:45:00.003+01:002021-11-14T12:47:16.298+01:00JNL:MP:091121 to be away from them all, all of them, or none of them, all these micro-histories or relations; to have rolled, or wanted to roll, in certain ways, or with certain crowds, knowing otherwise, other binds slipped in there, other fabrics, other entities drew up their britches, saw the sun go on its way or some other parallax, when the wisp of other clouds skirted by, see, now what <br>
<br>
sun-cloistered aunties or rim-oiled padres delivered boat sermons below parliament house before the dancers moved in with a motion to loosify the whole peninsula and so what the coral minority report? so what the pouring of libations at the extinction rebellion sit-down? so what the accumulator of german amplifiers and connoisseur of grotte cheese and ancient bam-bam <br>
<br>
to be away <br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0jPFvQXtOWb91h0cIGPaG4XJc2S8klJlNSab4QhOZSOWKGkVPCB-UBt2G0uFZ5v74YwUtk6TyuzJH4bdOJkTt-9iioNR_33sPtlL9gS9ZwKNU2X6SbrFVsTub1VoPNVRwA6El1OlEWKaS/s2048/templeholfsun-17.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0jPFvQXtOWb91h0cIGPaG4XJc2S8klJlNSab4QhOZSOWKGkVPCB-UBt2G0uFZ5v74YwUtk6TyuzJH4bdOJkTt-9iioNR_33sPtlL9gS9ZwKNU2X6SbrFVsTub1VoPNVRwA6El1OlEWKaS/s600/templeholfsun-17.JPG" width="600" /></a></div>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-61169003758055304002021-09-16T23:50:00.008+02:002021-09-17T00:09:30.620+02:00book review: no one is talking about this by patricia lockwood<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57302775-no-one-is-talking-about-this" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="No One Is Talking About This" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1614816186l/57302775._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57302775-no-one-is-talking-about-this">No One Is Talking About This</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5220577.Patricia_Lockwood">Patricia Lockwood</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4006821226">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
internet broke us. disintegratin on nerves. made us ghosts. portalfamous. baby with a giant head woke in us. an atavism? quiet purpose, media shunning. but power? grief. twitter don't do it. identitedium too much damage. love. can recalibrate? hop
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ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-77644829580886398972021-09-14T12:07:00.002+02:002021-09-14T12:08:27.041+02:00JNL:DRM:160821Zac is creating clones in a basement facility. One may be with a shock of curly blonde hair. There are a lot of clones and robots walking around. Am I watching them? Mook Dicktanski is there taking notes as he watches some theatre presentation. I walk up and stand next to him but we don’t speak. I notice grey hairs above his ears. The mood is neutral. I am not shocked by the clone-making abilities of Zac or anyone else. These are just the things that are occurring. Am I a clone? I wonder.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40178403-normal-people" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Normal People" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1535470520l/40178403._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40178403-normal-people">Normal People</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15860970.Sally_Rooney">Sally Rooney</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4138044325">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
The characters, they don't stay on the page. They go into you. They twist and turn in you like a knife. A word knife. You try and remove it but the phraseblade has already cut you. You'll recover but will never be the same again. It's very pictorial, scenes carefully selected to excite, and it does excite. But not always. Like life, the arcs get obscured and blurred in all these billions, in all these systems; then it just gets sometimes rather slow and shit; sometimes scary, dull and unfair. Broken in the slivers of beauty. Mental health ne'er a given. <br />Everything gets filtered through a class lens, even recovery and counselling. The same emo validity struggles played out in mansions or midtowns. The same inevitability of extreme experiences, the shaping ones. The scorn for those who skit along the surface, spoiling things. The sadness of social circles. The love of writing craft. Love itself. How to describe an epoch...<br /><br />It really is very good.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/51129616-shane-starling">View all my reviews</a>
ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-84139727340924656662021-05-04T12:40:00.002+02:002021-05-04T12:40:31.589+02:00nick cave said it would be a good idea<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZ6UhPWjb25zOCpe2LoRLIU93D1ANkPR8jUggQE68Bja8RkgytMwyLXMSJ2iZYEG-FYu3nNBGo_dEJsejblG_zZE_ZtDkc6ZCjLpbPrg2cZ-gvAcyklw9zMjS5r0mW-KiE3ZPSxj1LZxw/s1376/nickcave-apr21.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1376" data-original-width="774" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZ6UhPWjb25zOCpe2LoRLIU93D1ANkPR8jUggQE68Bja8RkgytMwyLXMSJ2iZYEG-FYu3nNBGo_dEJsejblG_zZE_ZtDkc6ZCjLpbPrg2cZ-gvAcyklw9zMjS5r0mW-KiE3ZPSxj1LZxw/w360-h640/nickcave-apr21.jpeg" width="360" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-34982035503078804012021-04-26T12:13:00.004+02:002021-04-29T01:09:18.625+02:00When the stress comes a meddlin' best you be pedalin'...<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>There are a myriad of motivations for turning a pedal from winning bike races to taming greenhouse gases, to group ride bonhomie, boshing traffic-clogged commutes to crimping waist lines.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: courier; font-size: 15px;"><b>If you’re reading this you probably have your own personal shortlist detailing why cycling is so awesome to you...</b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: courier; font-size: 15px;"><a href="https://pedalcover.co.uk/cycle-blog/press-the-pedals-and-mess-with-your-stress" target="_blank"><b>Read on...</b></a></span></div><p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqE6RJ23ym1kWBWwtoyFC7WfULRwT5rFl3LaeE-rYNOs2M8F27mqasR7NrH8GjmpqbAPFFvRMx1OTp387pgJ6hdw0WKqtu-7Pf1NbuggMIr-5Z3F6w5tIr8dvUtVP0gImqN9o6WxZgSUli/s1600/satride-ketzin-apr21.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqE6RJ23ym1kWBWwtoyFC7WfULRwT5rFl3LaeE-rYNOs2M8F27mqasR7NrH8GjmpqbAPFFvRMx1OTp387pgJ6hdw0WKqtu-7Pf1NbuggMIr-5Z3F6w5tIr8dvUtVP0gImqN9o6WxZgSUli/w640-h480/satride-ketzin-apr21.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-44729354231071007802021-01-24T13:32:00.013+01:002021-02-08T18:17:51.016+01:00foo's goldit’s a factory, burnt-out, disused, a wasteland, concrete and steel, rust, trash, late teen punks move through it, skateboarding of course, urinating, kissing, laughing, flippin the bird
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<br />
cut into that one of the biggest bands in the world, the 50 year plus foo fighters, mostly dave grohl in close-up singing from the heart about his youthful memories and something about war, or waiting for a war, playing his very fine acoustic guitar, and up close his ageing face and his little blanger beard and and his long rocker hair
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<br />
he’s still a rocker of course, he’s made a killing out of that, not in a warlike sense of course, or maybe it is, he has fought the good war for rock, he fought the battles to get his scream and sometimes normal singing and his riffs into the international pantheon, that’s no mean feat, his feelings are in shape, he still accesses them and shapes them into <i>rockart</i>
<br />
<br />
and then there are some faceless suits shaking their heads at something, maybe it's just the creative act, or chasing your dreams, or being young and dreamy and free and fucking about and not giving a fuck about the lifechoices capitalism offers its youngsters
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and maybe one of these nose-ringed young punks fucking around in this abandoned lot can do the same, go ALL THE WAY, just like dave went all the way
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and the band, the lesser foos, stand there in their allotted lot, waiting for their moment to start, but dave’s not finished with the heartfelt acoustic stuff, and they will only get to rock out as THE FULL FOOS UNIT in the last quarter of the song, headbanging because they are really rocking now, older men can still headbang and rock out like that, and dave has turned the emotive growling all the way up to grunty howling
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and maybe there is a small part of dave's brain that thinks there is a direct line between him and his old bandmate kurdt kobain, but somehow they are nothing alike, to me, but i can’t put my finger on why that is exactly, it’s probs just a failing of my own, and anyway the song is over now, it'll probably go to number 1. <div><br /></div><div><br /></div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CJd82T1_o1A" width="700"></iframe>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-23599810623120302072020-12-31T12:09:00.002+01:002020-12-31T12:09:31.771+01:00Book review: Citizen by Claudia Rankine<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20613761-citizen" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Citizen: An American Lyric" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1420944502l/20613761._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20613761-citizen">Citizen: An American Lyric</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/157979.Claudia_Rankine">Claudia Rankine</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3708643775">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
How does it feel to be the daily victim of systematic racism? To be black in a world coated in white, white-coded, even blackness? To exist in a powerful white machine when you are not white? To face those mundane daily humiliations that affirm otherness where none should exist. Not anymore. Not now. In this century. Yet it does. How does that feel? This beautiful book will give you some idea...
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/51129616-shane-starling">View all my reviews</a>
ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-42852543816821121562020-11-13T11:47:00.007+01:002021-02-08T18:23:55.751+01:00Book review: My Struggle: The End, By Karl Ove Knausgaard<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33757250-the-end" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The End (My Struggle, #6)" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538721866l/33757250._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33757250-the-end">The End</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3020048.Karl_Ove_Knausg_rd">Karl Ove Knausgård</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3595970525">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
And so it is done. Here the small excursions into kulchah criticism Karl engaged in in the first five books are significantly expanded. So there are really two very different books here. One a terse and terrifying critique of Hitler, Hitler's books and the Holocaust that asks many questions about the nature of identity on both a personal and societal level and how such horror is permitted and enacted and affiliated discussions of art, lit, language, culture, politics, philosophy; one the usual Karlautofic set in the present as he wrote book six and mostly detailing his family life and all that went down as the first books were published - some of which gets pretty heavy for Karl and his circle as the real life consequences of often unpleasant autobiographical revelation kick in. E.g. Getting sued, scorned by mother-in-law, friends, other writers.<br />I could try to explain why it is so compelling, but would fail. Something about the complicated everyman-cum-intellectual snared in life's systems with nothing to lose or at least the sense of nothing to lose. risking a great deal in the service of some reformation of what literature can be.<br />His estranged ex-wife whose mental health issues he documented in such excruciating detail calls him a narcissist. She may be right. Certainly these books have hurt people in rare ways. Not the good ship literature though...
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ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-58156466540584980972020-10-15T12:50:00.003+02:002020-10-15T21:36:49.999+02:00Book Review: My Struggle: Some Rain Must fall by Karl Ove Knausgaard<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55410469-some-rain-must-fall" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Some Rain Must Fall" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600697176l/55410469._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55410469-some-rain-must-fall">Some Rain Must Fall</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3020048.Karl_Ove_Knausg_rd">Karl Ove Knausgård</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3586671759">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
None of it matters: apeing Hamsun, Joyce, Bernard, Easton Ellis; the endless self-indulgence; the ever-expanding level of seemingly insignificant detail, like a Mandelbrot Set of the banal; the many valid questions about the shaky ground upon which the whole premise of 'auto-fiction' is built - many such questions asked by Karl's loved ones in law suits against Karl and Karl's struggle... none of it matters, not enough to stop you reading, absorbing the struggle.
Not enough to stop you laughing out loud in parts like his days working in the loony bin or his botched dates; not enough to stop you grimacing as once more Karl fucks things up with a love interest, or his family or friends, or loses the plot again on the drink. Not enough to stop you sympathising with his subsequent remorse and shame and efforts to be a 'good man' despite his own dodgy history.<br />Afterwards I thought, OK, that's five volumes of Karl's Struggle read in a couple of months - I need a break now. I picked up something else, but it just felt so weak in comparison, it couldn't hold my attention, my eye kept drifting to the 1000-page beast that is volume 6 of My Struggle that was sitting in the pile of books I had just bought below the tele. 1000 more pages of Karl! I couldn't resist. I yielded to a greater power I doubted I would ever fully understand. None of that matters.<br />The Power of Knausgaard compels you. <br />The End is nigh.
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ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0Potsdam, Germany52.3905689 13.064472924.080335063821153 -22.0917771 80.700802736178844 48.2207229tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-87528958860536190132020-10-05T11:38:00.009+02:002020-12-11T15:58:36.321+01:00Graphine: the wendy years<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwIn2whHloFZJQyR6l2PRceMFDcA9fgCXJuJ0CfqHsMuotT2ylFuO74WCXfB6OxrQ1u16mjj-_H075VBknAiqwrDk_3EB0Uex3JIcq13cMtq1ZNbEMGH2C1F8hvDoR_N48N1ecMDUD6c0a/s801/graphine_lighter_1_%2528ethnocentric_yanone%2529.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="400" data-original-height="272" data-original-width="801" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwIn2whHloFZJQyR6l2PRceMFDcA9fgCXJuJ0CfqHsMuotT2ylFuO74WCXfB6OxrQ1u16mjj-_H075VBknAiqwrDk_3EB0Uex3JIcq13cMtq1ZNbEMGH2C1F8hvDoR_N48N1ecMDUD6c0a/s400/graphine_lighter_1_%2528ethnocentric_yanone%2529.jpg"/></a></div>
Emerging from the mid-pandemic sporepods...perhaps the greatest 2020 EP release in the Berlin/Brandenburg area...🤯🤘🏽
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<br>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 450px; height: 600px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3747239397/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=2ebd35/tracklist=false/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://graphine.bandcamp.com/album/the-wendy-years-ep">the wendy years ep by Graphine</a></iframe>
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<iframe scrolling="no" style="border: 0;width: 100%;height: 50px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/band_follow_button_deluxe/3847241701"></iframe>
ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-84455687899047348252020-10-02T16:55:00.002+02:002020-10-02T16:55:57.025+02:00Book review: Under the Volcano by Malcom Lowry<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/126576.Under_the_Volcano" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Under the Volcano" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347256399l/126576._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/126576.Under_the_Volcano">Under the Volcano</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17439.Malcolm_Lowry">Malcolm Lowry</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2610849835">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
For 300 pages I tried and failed to connect with Lowry's lyricism. I don't know, it just evaded me, like Joyce evades me, like Homer evades me, like much that is canonical evades me. Then, like a 3D image coming into focus, I did make the connection, to a degree, in the last part of the book. I liked Lowry's rails against colonialism and musings on the cosmos and even his mind-melting descriptions of drunkenness in parts, but his warbling, harrowing style?... Not so much.<br />Glad to be moving on, probably back to Knausgaardian précision...or a book my girlfriend bought me about surfer drug dealers in South East Asia.
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ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-62146543177643331872020-09-10T08:39:00.000+02:002020-09-10T08:39:12.702+02:00remember<p>i don’t remember. anything. nothing. it’s just not there. i’m not sure why exactly. sure there were bad moments. was that it? draw the curtain? erect barriers. was that it? </p><p>anyway, that’s why i’m doing this. to remember. to know what it was. it’s not for you. i don’t care about you, just like you don’t care about me. not then, not now. i’m glad we have established that. i can move on with it now. it’s freeing. do you feel that? is freedom important to you? it should be. isn’t it one of the burdens of consciousness - to attempt the comprehension and meaning of freedom? isn’t it one of its gifts? do you see where i’m coming from? do you know where i am? who i am? i thought you didn’t care, i hear you ask. ok, early dissonance. sorry. don’t you have that? i know you do. </p><p>what do you do with yours? is it in a dusty jam jar in the attic with a fading and slightly rusty red metal lid? is it in the child who won’t talk to you or the ex-wife who has blocked your phone number? is it lying on the field being crawled over by centipedes in the night below the hopeful milk of the moon?</p><p>remember? i don’t.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqNWV95bjg1QZTA-tgH3BgyzEWhsdN0Xs-S10KLGrgJzaPKXVeg7Vo635kbxFg_407Yo6Gd43JnmZJz47in_NvgZYibWvOvmNR4ZZnSLr9sWM9_IaGU4eMSYXkTtrm-xj4a2qZnJEwdqJ7/s500/Glasto+20032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="500" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqNWV95bjg1QZTA-tgH3BgyzEWhsdN0Xs-S10KLGrgJzaPKXVeg7Vo635kbxFg_407Yo6Gd43JnmZJz47in_NvgZYibWvOvmNR4ZZnSLr9sWM9_IaGU4eMSYXkTtrm-xj4a2qZnJEwdqJ7/w625-h500/Glasto+20032.jpg" width="625" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-64307588582738399252020-09-09T07:53:00.001+02:002020-09-09T07:53:26.539+02:00Book review: My Struggle: Dancing in the Dark by Karl Ove Knausgaard <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54250455-dancing-in-the-dark" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Dancing in the Dark (My Struggle, #4)" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593003781l/54250455._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54250455-dancing-in-the-dark">Dancing in the Dark</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3020048.Karl_Ove_Knausg_rd">Karl Ove Knausgård</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3513127371">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
I.Can't.Turn.Away.It's.Just.Amazeballs.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/51129616-shane-starling">View all my reviews</a>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892630321738685507.post-75523496024200527662020-09-04T13:44:00.013+02:002020-09-09T08:07:06.695+02:00Tour de France 2020: Stage 6. A beautiful Cévennes mountain scorned by boring pros<p> Not angry, just disappointed.</p><p>The TdF went up a col that was a fave for me and my old <a href="https://teamsudvelo.com/" target="_blank"><b>SudVelo</b></a> cycling club in Montpellier - Col de la Lusette in the southern Cévennes. There’s a few things I miss about France and the Languedoc/Roussillon/Herault regions now I live in Berlin - the food obviously although Berlin food isn't bad and much better value; the good cheap wine; the handy vicinity to both the Alps and the Pyrenees, to Spain; the quirky southern French folk and their love of slapstick, sexual innuendo and fart jokes; the awesome weather; a barely legal basement diveclub called Association Tropical Club that had a gigantic musty mattress strapped to its door in a vain attempt to keep the thumping regaeton and weedy fug in...</p><p>I could go on but one of the things I miss the most is the awesome cycling country around Montpellier and in particular les Cévennes, a remarkable national park located about 50km north of Montpellier, beginning I believe in the town of Ganges. </p><p>A little bit raw and wild but very beautiful with its gorges and sweeping plains and roaming animals like boar and deer and white rabbit; canyons make it a rock climbing mecca, bouldering and caving and canoeing too. Its rolling hills and forests and trails make it a fave with campers and hikers and Robert Louis Stephenson described a lot of this in his 1879 book, <i>Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes</i>, although Stevo’s 12-day donkey trek was mostly further north - from la Monestir to St Jean du Gard. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned it then, but I wanted to sound worldly so hey, it stays in.</p><p>Anyway, if you ever get the chance, go to the Cévennes, the people are mostly friendly and full of French character and everyone seems to be growing or rearing something that ends up in something delish like a <i>rustique</i> tapenade or a jam or terrine or whatever. The roadsides are a smorgasbord of little stalls full of the stuff. <i>Nickel chrome</i>, as they say in these parts (awesome).</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd16kXxIAb4CFCumnQkPM7uWsDJL0j0sEQE2HsOuEcsXK8H2rSRXh2qUikeCaJX_ySCm062Gx0cFjU5DFaFlXIz4e7J76JYxGXZVdsSs3vXuaO8kqemTBVDf_CnLzlWTQZ42JbML8iSxNA/s837/lusette+train.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="557" data-original-width="837" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd16kXxIAb4CFCumnQkPM7uWsDJL0j0sEQE2HsOuEcsXK8H2rSRXh2qUikeCaJX_ySCm062Gx0cFjU5DFaFlXIz4e7J76JYxGXZVdsSs3vXuaO8kqemTBVDf_CnLzlWTQZ42JbML8iSxNA/w781-h520/lusette+train.JPG" width="781" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's not you Lusette, it's them...</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><i>Et donc</i>…la Lusette. As a cyclist it reminds me more of a Pyrenean climb than say an Alps climb – a little bit less civilised but all the more interesting for that; the macadam a bit rough, potholed, gravelly and broken up in parts and the gradient quite erratic, swinging between say 6-12% as it winds up the mountain, in parts exposed to what can be a ferocious Mistral wind, in others densely forested.</p><p>The TdF roadbook had it down as 11.7km at 7.3% and category 1 which isn’t far off HC, especially when you consider the preceding category 3 col de Mourezes was 6.1km at 4.8% with only a very short 3km light descent between and then the strangely uncategorised 5km 3-4% climb to Mt Aigoual to finish the stage. (By comparison L’Alpe d’Huez is 13.8km at 8.1%.)</p><p>Point is, it’s a tough climb in anyone’s book - for riders in the Montpellier area it’s pretty much the toughest local climb going. The doyen. It’s the kind of climb that should provoke attacks and refined selections in a GC group. No doubt that’s what the TdF route planners had in mind by bucking convention and sticking such a tough col in the first week of racing. <i>Chapeau</i> to them for that. But the attacks never came. The main peloton just tempoed it up and more than 30 riders hung in the GC group while the break stayed away. That tells you everything you need to know. </p><p>Afterwards the explanations came about keeping powders dry and rough roads and blah blah, whatever, it just sucked that a beautiful col, <i>our Lusette</i>, that was making her TdF debut didn’t become the site of something epic from the pros. Such a shame.</p><p>So yeah, not angry, just disappointed.</p><p>Hope you’re not smarting Lusette. You’re so much better than this.</p><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7YQGmj6iH3nZBQi8V1h52QwAxtnfPbqIY90H8YZIDLWzHcr8nyU7G9mmkOCEDb2_1yj0iFdPLJ227MdYqR2lVZqFAuJlJwurlrkiwKmB5X4ZOy2GZFn1PfPHSDiD0OpzCEvQO1PpEFsIf/s960/sudvelodudes.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="781" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7YQGmj6iH3nZBQi8V1h52QwAxtnfPbqIY90H8YZIDLWzHcr8nyU7G9mmkOCEDb2_1yj0iFdPLJ227MdYqR2lVZqFAuJlJwurlrkiwKmB5X4ZOy2GZFn1PfPHSDiD0OpzCEvQO1PpEFsIf/w586-h781/sudvelodudes.jpg" width="586" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SudVelo <i>coureurs Alexandre et Gabriel</i>: <i>Toujours animé sur ou hors du vélo; toujours heureux d'être sur la Lusette</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Here's a few pics of the day from <a href="https://www.rouleur.cc/blogs/the-rouleur-journal/the-peloton-decides-the-tour-de-france-2020-stage-6" target="_blank"><b><i>Rouleur magazine</i></b></a>.</div>
<meta content="Shane Starling" name="author"></meta>ziggymondehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08297121285713451424noreply@blogger.com0