blossom dearie

I dig
I'm in step
When it was hip to be hep, I was hep
I don't blow but I'm a fan
Look at me swing
Ring a ding ding
I even call my girlfriend man
I'm so hip


One of my biggest regrets, and I have a few, too many to mention, was not going to see Blossom Dearie when she was here in Melbourne not all that many years ago. My conscious and unconscious pre-occupation with last week's heat, flame, darkness and destruction, means I've only just learnt she died on February 7, 2009.

When I first heard her voice I thought that's a very smart, clever, hip, piano playing pixie. I was right.

I've picked this youtube clip because although it's longish it does contain some typical songs. Unfortunately the sound and vision are disconcertingly out of synch a bit. But it does sound great. I'm Hip is at around 6.40 into the clip.

Blossom Dearie live clip on youtube - 9 mins.  (This clip can't be embedded. You'll have to click through) 

Update: Another reason she's great. From NY Times: 

"Ms. Dearie didn’t suffer fools gladly and was unafraid to voice her disdain for music she didn’t like; the songs of Andrew Lloyd Webber were a particular pet peeve."

thursday feb 5

Leonard Cohen, 2009-02-05 (Thursday, February 5, 2009) 8:15pm AEDT, Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

set 1
01. Dance Me To The End Of Love
02. The Future
03. Ain't No Cure For Love
04. Bird On The Wire
05. Everybody Knows
06. In My Secret Life
07. Who By Fire
08. Chelsea Hotel #2
09. Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye
10. Sisters Of Mercy
11. Anthem

set 2
12. Tower Of Song
13. Suzanne
14. The Gypsy's Wife
15. The Partisan
16. Boogie Street
17. Hallelujah
18. I'm Your Man
19. A Thousand Kisses Deep [recitation]
20. Take This Waltz

encore 1
21. So Long, Marianne
22. First We Take Manhattan

encore 2
23. Famous Blue Raincoat
24. If It Be Your Will
25. Democracy

encore 3

26. I Tried To Leave You

27. Whither Thou Goest

Amazing gathering of all crew, stage roadies, lighting etc arms around each other singing humming while Mr Cohen thanked crew, audience, Australia everyone and everything. Went on forever.

pre lenny

If I was using twitter I'd be saying " off to see lenny tonight". I wouldn't write "woot".

Its a good job I remembered the tickets were electronic and have printed them out after looking for them for 20 minutes. It's also a good idea that I looked up to see it starts at 7.15 pm, yes 7 bloody 15, not 8.00pm or 8.30pm . So I'm cancelling that meal and meetup at the Corner Hotel before the show for 14. I'll be at the Corner though to eat something.

Anyway to keep you busy here is an great interview with the man that not "everybody knows" about:

"Norwegian producer Kari Hesthamar, Cohen looks back over his life and shares some thoughts about earlier days. Along the way he considers the different paths his career has taken, talks about various creative projects he was (and still is) involved with, and sweetly reminisces about a beautiful young woman he shared some time with on a wild Greek island, whom loyal fans will know by the name "Marianne."

We'll also hear a brief excerpt from an interview Leonard Cohen gave to Robyn Johnston in 1985, when he last toured Australia.

Radio National Interview with Mr C.

modern times

In November 2008 I purchased a cheap,  $87 on special, colour inkjet printer to work off a computer in another room for convenience. Last week it ran out of ink. Today I found out it will cost $120 to replace all 4 cartridges.

This caused me to say a rude word out loud in the shop.

The nice lady said "Yes I agree".

She then said "We have this clearance printer on sale for $50 including full size cartridges"

I now have another new printer.

wild & crazy banjo

Steve Martin has released his first all music album. It's called The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo. Steve wrote most of the 15 tracks. It was produced by John McEuen, known for his playing in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Other pluckers or warblers of note on the album are Earl Scruggs, Mary Black, Tim O'Brien, Vince Gill, Dolly Parton, Tony Trischka and Pete Wernick.

Apparently it's exclusive to Amazon for 90 days. You can get the MP3s off Amazon for 99 cents each [only available for purchase in USA] but then you'd miss out on the 24-page colour booklet, with Steve writing about each song and his lifelong love affair with the banjo.

Amazon has kindly made the first track on the album, Daddy Played the Banjo free for download as an MP3.   

Worth a read is the lengthy but solid article and interview with Steve by Nancy Cardwell at bluegrasssnow.

Here's Steve with Tony Trischka and Bela Fleck playing The Crow on Letterman. 

dopple or ganger?

FXcuisine.com

Who I am?My name is François-Xavier (FX) and I am a French-speaking Swiss man living on the shores of Lake Geneva, an hour from France and Italy. I also speak Italian, German, Spanish, Russian and - obviously - English.

What do I do?
I do not cook for a living nor did I ever study cooking outside my home and a few 3-hours classes. My professional background is in finance/law and I deal with international clients. If you think that to cook is unbecoming a professional, this is not the right website for you. 

Why this website?
I am passionate about gastronomy and cooking and created this website to share my adventures with Internet users the world over.

What will you find here?
I publish two articles every week about spectacular, intriguing or very tasty recipes that worked for me. I don't report about the many failed recipes or uninteresting visits or bad restaurants I visited unless they are especially entertaining. Most dishes I cook and photograph never make it to here.

penis all day stretcher

MyNewSize specializes in cosmetic penis enlargement surgery (phalloplasty). Utilizing state-of-the-art facilities and the leading phalloplasty surgeon, men can be confident they are receiving the best surgical outcomes available. MyNewSize is owned and operated by former penis enlargement surgery patients, giving us the unique opportunity to structure the company around the patient experience.

Or if surgery seems a bit icky and permanent:

MyNewSize™ Penis Enlargement Equipment is molded from durable polycarbonate material and is available in several sizes. Accurately fitted, the device attaches around the (head portion)/upper shaft of the penis, implementing a dependable and easy method to connect the vacuum system.

Max-\/ac Penis Enlargement Equipment is versatile, able to function as a Penis Weight Hanger and a Penis All Day Stretcher (ADS). MyNewSize’s Penis Enlargement Equipment grips securely and allows for incredible weight tolerances to be safely suspended from the penis in a relaxed and comfortable way.

Used as a Penis Weight Hanger, heavy weights cause microscopic tears in the suspensory ligament. As healing occurs, new cells fill in the microscopic tears adding massive length capabilities of the penis.

Used as a Penis All Day Stretcher (ADS), the penis benefits from continual light traction, assigning the body to produce new cells, resulting in rapid permanent length gains.

vaginal rejuvenation

"The procedure" we're talking about is something called laser vaginal rejuvenation, or LVR. It is performed, surprisingly enough, at the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Los Angeles, which claims to have pioneered the technique, and which describes it as:
"...a one-hour outpatient surgical procedure designed to enhance sexual gratification. According to Master [sic] and Johnson,* sexual gratification is directly related to the amount of frictional forces generated. We can accomplish this with LVR.... LVR will effectively enhance vaginal muscle tone, strength, and control. It will also effectively decrease the internal and external vaginal diameters as well as build up and strengthen the perineal body."
Observing that "no one wants to age or lose optimal function anywhere," the Institute goes on to inform us that the procedure is intended for women "who for whatever reason lack an overall optimum architectural integrity of the vagina."

====== We shall now pause for a moment to allow female readers to check the architectural integrity of their vaginas. ======

Lifted from SHAMblog. Read more...

Yes there is a before and after pic gallery at LVR site, appropriately in Flash. Depending on where you work it may not be a good idea to madly open the gallery on fullscreen view.

before i die

Things to do before I die:
#37 Flirt with Romona and make her laugh. [While being interviewed at a writers festival]

offspring evelyn jan 10

on the road again

Today, Boxing Day , we head down the road to Apollo Bay and the Otways. We'll stop at Werribee Park and have a lunch and possibly do a tour of the Open Range Zoo. Then on across the boring basalt plains to Geelong, city of hope, where we will visit a relative and then with the 3 hip Taiwanese lesbians self identified queer guests we will scandalise invade pick up our food supplies at an ordinary supermarket. Hopefully the carsick one won't feel the need to stop every 10 ks and we should make the Bay by nightfall without incident. Argueing over air con and music choice in either Mandarin or English will not be granted incident status. We all agree we can listen to Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave. So far so good.

The next 4 days look to be around 20c - 23c at the Bay - good for me - not so for the heat lovers and swimmers.

Televisual delights

I'm hoping for a bit of chillin' tv. If I can get decent reception, always a gamble at the bay, I'll be trying to grab the couch for these programs:

Fri Dec 26 - ABC1 Kylie Kwong China - 8 pm, maybe Miss Marple after that or more likely on SBS at 8.30pm is the doco - The Night James Brown Saved Boston . Later at 10.10 on ABC2 is soundtrack: Wet Wet,Wet followed by Rock Profile of Oasis.

Sat 27 - Iron Chef and Rock Kwiz on a lean night.

Sun 28 - Chan 7 - 1.45 - West Side Story, 7.30pm - Seven Wonders of Industrial World - Bell Rock Lighthouse - I've seen it before but it's a beauty, 7.30 on SBS Lost Worlds - Germanic Tribes followeed by Foolproof Equations for a Perfect Life - about the Brain. ABC2 ALL DAY is running great music - 7 am, Meatloaf, 7.25 Genesis, 8.25 Lou Reed, liver at Montreaux, John Lennon Live NYC,

10.20 Newport Folk Festival 1963 - 66 - yes the one where Bob was said to have been booed and unplugged.

Mon 29 Dec - 9.30 Crime Investigation - John Wayne Glover the North Shore Granny Killer.or on ABC1 @ 10.55 The Mafia - or Red Dwarf on ABC2

Tues 30 - 7.30 SBS The Doctor Who Makes People Walk again, Doco, then Return of the Bible Plagues, followed by Hot Docs - Respect Yourself - The Stax Story - or flip over to Rush Hour with Jackie Chan on ch 7 or Fr Ted at 8 on ABC2 followed by Hamish McBeth

Wed 31 NYE - won't miss Dinner For One on SBS @ 7.30 a 20 minute delight I always enjoy and then simply because I'm a wild party guy - Can't Stop The Music - Village People on 9 at 12.15

Reading:
On food and cooking : the science and lore of the kitchen  McGee
Little black book of stories A S Byatt
A question of upbringing   Anthony Powell - first of the series of 7 called A dance to the music of time
A writer's people : ways of looking and feeling  V S Naipaul
 Reading & writing  : a personal account V S Naipaul
Sir Vidia's shadow [text] : a fascinating memoir of Theroux's friendship with V.S. Naipaul
India [text] : a wounded civilization V.S. Naipaul
Four days in November : the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Vincent Bugliosi.
Where flavor was born : recipes and culinary travels along the Indian Ocean spice route by Andreas
Viestad
The cellist of Sarajevo  - Steven Galloway
The Irish story [text] : telling tales and making it up in Ireland / R.F. Foster
Modern Ireland, 1600-1972 / R.F. Foster.
Cultural amnesia : notes in the margin of my time / Clive James.
Modern Indian cooking : the next generation of Indian cooking / [Hari Nayak and Vikas Khanna
Beyond belief [text] : Islamic excursions among the converted peoples / V.S. Naipaul

Will also be searching for the perfect fish n chips at the bay and trying to buy fresh fish to cook - used to be impossible.

Best Wishes for the season, Drive safely - that stupid old prick you want to run over might just be me.

12 days of christmas

Frank Kelly plays Fr Jack in Fr Ted

motor industry

xmas catering

This year it's my turn to host the family xmas do. I calculate around 25 people for late lunch. I had the brilliant idea to bbq a pig.  No fiddly antipasto, cheeses and fancy salads. Simple earthy tastes with fresh bread. Sophisticated peasant. 

Last time I did something like this was years ago. I looked up hints. I found a lot of advice like this:

"Getting the spit through the pig is tricky, especially if it's a fat pole and you get to prise the little piggy's jaws open to fit it through the mouth. Getting the whole thing to stay on the spit while it's roasting needs lots and lots of strong wire.

If you use coal or wood, you will need more than you can possible imagine. More. More than that, even. No, get more. That's still not enough. You'll run out, the pig will be half raw, and you will look a git.

Controlling the heat is almost impossible. Ambient temps, breezes, fat flareups and the like mean that it's almost certain your pig will be charred on the outside and raw on the inside. Once the spit has been set, raising it and lowering it is a bitch. You will get the height wrong again and again. When you get it right, it'll only stay right for a while because the fire will change on you.

People will smell the pig for miles, and will come to ooh and ahh. You, on the other hand, will be intimate with this fucker for at least 9 hours, and you won't be able to smell it at all, let alone eat it. At the end, you'll want a celery stick and a good lie down."

After that, and seeing it's the weekend after next, I'm now drawing up a list of who will bring the fancy salads, cheeses and some sausages. And I'll do the antipasto.

females succeed at uni

An Australian study into the sexual history of 185 students at the University of Sydney found male science "nerds" were the least likely to have had sexual intercourse.

At the other end of the spectrum, female arts students ranked as the most sexually active.

The study of 16 to 25-year-olds, published in the journal Sexual Health, said: "Males in the study were less likely to have had sex as a group compared to the group of females in the sample.

"Science students were also less likely to have had sex compared to their counterparts in other faculties."

NB: Before anyone one sniggers - yes I did notice "Males in the study were less likely to have had sex as a group..." Group sex - no thanks I'm an engineer.

youth outa control

xmas blog meet from elsewhere

Ms Elsie Wear of The View From Elsewhere is visiting Melbourne. This is an excuse to hold a Blogmeet. The Blogmeet will be at The Builders Arms Hotel, in 211 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy from 1.30 pm onwards (yes daylight!) on this coming Saturday the 6th December 2008. Possibly running until much much later that day.

Ms Elsewhere is arguably in the top 5 of Alice Springs' Premier female, bike riding, cat loving, script writing bloggers.

A special welcome is extended to those who have never attended a blogmeet before. Commentors please come along. If you are a bit shy just lurk around the pub without declaring yourself, identify the bloggers, (they'll be the ones having breakfast at 1.30pm and asking if there's wifi). If you don't like the cut of their jib from a distance, just pretend you were there for some other reason and slink off, or get half tanked and come over and have a quick snark and run off. Just like blogging. Big things have come out of previous blog meets: like ...ah, er.. yeah some big things.

NB: There is no truth to the rumour that Cast Iron Helen picked the Builders Arms because it's on Ralph Magazine's list of top 10 Melbourne Pubs.

pussy

Supermarket diary continued:

Today at the checkout I slipped in behind the neat 30 year old guy in a T shirt and jeans because he had a smallish basket of goodies. My gaze drifted toward his shopping on the belt:

• 20+ small packets of expensive gourmet cat food
• 4 very big packs of Ferrero Rocher chocolate thingos
• 1 packet of kitty litter
• 8 potatoes
• 1 large packet of Trojan condoms

That's all.

I'm still working it out.

times are tough

Overheard. Near the potato section at supermarket today.

Blonde mum 1
"And then there's the school fees"

Blonde mum 2
"Yes, and the rest. Fiona had to get a laptop for VCE. Oliver got jealous and demanded one too. Luckily we got Rudd to pay for it. We both salary sacrificed a laptop"

Under Fringe Benefits Tax legislation one laptop or notebook computer can be provided per employee per FBT year without incurring Fringe Benefits Tax where that laptop is primarily for use in the employee’s employment. The FBT year runs from 1st April until 31st March in the next year.

All laptop computers purchased after 13th May 2008 need to be used primarily for use in the employee’s employment to be exempt from Fringe Benefits Tax.

The salary sacrifice request form includes a declaration from the employee that the laptop relating to the salary sacrifice request is primarily for use in their employment. This documentation and declaration will be held on file should an audit be undertaken by the Australian Taxation Office.

van re-ignites - he's back to form

From Randy Lewis of the L.A. Times:
For anyone who wasn't at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday night, there'd be little chance of explaining how Van Morrison's repetition of one seemingly innocuous sentence -- "This is a train" -- could turn into a deeply spiritual incantation.

But transcendence is what Morrison has been after with his music from the beginning, and it's what he achieved frequently on Friday, when he played his watershed 1968 album "Astral Weeks" live in its entirety for the first time. That included the repetitive vocal workout on the "train" phrase from "Madame George," one of the cornerstone songs of "Astral Weeks," an empathetic portrait of a transvestite's journey through the streets of Belfast, Morrison's birthplace.

To these ears, it evolved from statement ("This is a train") to question ("Is this a train?") to invitation/command ("Get on the train!"), an intensely moving progression that crystallized his alchemist's approach to music.

He's long known the power of a mantra -- the chanting of a word, phrase or verse has become a potent signature of his music. Every good gospel preacher knows the cumulative power of repetition. Morrison doesn't preach, he seeks -- an answer, or communion -- and the chant becomes his method in relentless pursuit of one or both. When everyday language just wouldn't do, he shifted to syllables, growls, moans, sometimes just phonemes, anything that would take him, and his audience, where he wanted to go.

In "Beside You" it was the phrase "you breathe in/you breathe out" looped back on itself enough to replicate the fundamental life process. For "Cyprus Avenue," he sputtered out words, "My Generation" style, about being tongue-tied in the presence of his beloved. Fiddle player Tony Fitzgibbon paralleled him with skittering bowed runs while pianist Roger Kellaway dribbled out notes accordingly.

And in the climactic "Madame George" it was the circular "the loves to love the loves to love the loves to love."

True to form, he showed no interest in recreating what he did 40 years ago in a New York recording studio, but was focused on revamping the song structure dramatically in service of the present.

The performance opened, as the album does, with the title song, and was followed by "Beside You." He then abandoned the original's song sequence by continuing with the album's closer, "Slim Slow Slider," and then moving into a 1-2 punch created by placing the two jazz waltzes, "Sweet Thing" and "The Way Young Lovers Do" back to back. The arrangement impressively balanced competing time signatures, a ¾ waltz seamlessly working in tandem with a subservient 4/4 pulse.

The wondrous youthful timbre of his voice then has evolved over the years into a richer, fuller instrument , with every bit of its remarkable elasticity very much intact.
The poetic imagery he crafted for "Astral Weeks" was light-years beyond the straightforward narratives of his early rock hits with Them, such as "Here Comes the Night" and "Gloria," or even his first solo hit "Brown Eyed Girl," the latter two reconstructed during the show's career-spanning first half. He reached forward as far as "The Healing Game" but spent most of that first portion tapping the '70s and '80s material he's visited only sporadically in concert in recent years.

It was easy to see why Morrison said he'd always wanted to do "Astral Weeks" live with the kind of large and resourceful band that backed him at the Bowl. As it turned out, that band did not include bassist Richard Davis, who'd been on the original recording sessions, because Davis had a last-minute family matter come up, Kellaway said Saturday. Instead, longtime Morrison band member David Hayes handled the woody stand-up instrument that's so crucial to the album's unique sonic palette.

The jazz-rooted compositions of "Astral Weeks" are poetic stories of young love and the quest to find one's place in life. They were, and remain, ideal source material for musical improvisation that gives way to the sense of wonder for which Morrison has always striven.