Ruby Street

I’m way out past star cups, tingling with shoobydoo sounds. I’m the space lady who had too much to dream last night of mellow groups, an album leaf, tristesse or the languid. So, I was young and in love geographically challenged stuck in a car during a traffic jam. (Is it possible to detach yourself from the moment through music? You’re supposed to think about it) Am I ever likely to hear again "Seven and seven is", "Psychotic reaction"? I walk along a drive of tentative sounds. I’m expert enough to navigate using a guidebook though highly unlikely to begin my emotional nourishment. Oh, the music glacier is slow, tarpit thick. There's nothing to be afraid of! I quake and tremble using a rubber balloon to make all kinds of bizarre noises. And I’m brave enough to listen to earth littered with cigarette butts and empty cans. I’ll ruin my eyes on the CD digipak because I’m into the controlled and crafted side of noise. There's a heap of horns to be found there a...

... you can get your free 2006 Boys' Summer Collection: new Australian gay fiction , downloadable now from gay-ebooks. There hasn’t been an anthology of Oz gay male fiction since the days when BlackWattle Press was publishing, and that's way back last century (I should know, I was there at the beginning, wielding a hot stapler around a kitchen table). This download contains eight new fiction works showcasing a diversity of styles and themes. Summer's here and the time is right ...

... The Trials of Van Occupanther by Midlake . These are real songs, despite the slightly nutty title.

Every so often I have my hair 'done'. It's a luxury, a kind of time-out. Two hours or more to think and dream along different streams. A public kind of dreaming, especially on a Thursday evening, when it's crowded. I get to read fashion magazines. I am far from the type for these. I could not wear the clothes featured, nor put on the shoes or contemplate the make up nor the diet fantasies proposed and propelled along their pages. It is all wonderfully alien, yet territory for thinking. My hairdresser, Sam, gives me decent coffee, maybe a small Greek biscuit from the cake shop across the way. I don't talk much. The staff and other customers gossip around me and there's a lot of laughing and screeching. This is both comforting and friendly, but also exclusive. Or, as I realise, it's me who excludes. That I have nothing to say into this. But that isn't the point for me. This time, and I wonder if it will stick, I think of ways in which I might need to chang...

Is there a way to describe the phenomenon of typing up some drafts and thinking, as yr doing it, 'this is crap', then reading them a few months later and thinking, 'that's not too bad'? I'm at the 'crap' stage this afternoon. I hope the other stage follows. Hmm, maybe.

The SMH has just published an update on an older article about a 'hum' that some people can hear and most don't. It's something I have experienced. It occurs in certain locations. I hear it where I live (and I have heard it elsewhere in Australia, and New Zealand). I hear it not just inside the house but in the street and garden. So it isn't equipment inside my house. I've checked all of that. I don't have tinnitus or other hearing problems, having just had a check-up recently. It is not unlike the distant roar of a plane but, unlike a plane taking off or landing, it is constant. There is no rising or falling, it is steady. It is not unlike the distant sound of someone playing the same music at the same level for hours and hours on end, throughout the night and into morning. I have thought this is a possibility but I have never been able to find the source in my neighbourhood. As it has no real variation other than intensity, (ie there is no tune or any d...

... I thought the 'new' Beatles album, Love was supposed to be released on Monday (Nov 20th) but my local had it for sale yesterday. So, I bought it. It's a terrific work of imagining, or re-imagining if you want - just like any mix-tape or mash-up or sample-based work. I'm not sure it would mean much (matter much) to anyone who hadn't gotten into the originals, or at least grown up with them. Tho' one of the guys at my CD store, the youngest guy, waxed enthusiastic over it and I'm sure he wasn't born when this stuff was released. So the nostalgia factor isn't the only one (I have most of this material on an old kind of material called vinyl, anyway, some of it 'mono', if anyone knows what that is). The sound is sharp and you can hear things you've never heard before. Some of the originals are alternate takes as well. As I said, it's a mash-up, essentially. So if you hate mash-ups don't go there. I love 'em. It's nearly 8...

... a 1958 version of 'Autumn Leaves' by Miles Davis (well, Cannonball Adderley, strictly speaking) while thinking of Mark's falling leaves for Jacques Prévert ... Solarized by Sola Rosa

At The Studio, Sydney Opera House, 24-26 November, IMPRO-LAB: transparencies , an instantaneous, improvised meeting between music, dance, sound and vision, featuring a collaboration with two legendary Japanese artists, musician Otomo Yoshihide (Peril, Player Piano) and vocalist Ami Yoshida with renowned Australian artists: dancers Peter Fraser, Yumi Umiumare, Tony Yap and Tess de Quincey alongside musicians Jim Denley (Machine for Making Sense) on wind instruments, Chris Abrahams (The Necks) on keyboards, poet/vocalist Amanda Stewart (Machine for Making Sense), video artist Sam James and lighting designer Clytie Smith.

For a little while now we've been able to see, up close, a number of silvereyes in our cherry tree, having a big feast of cherries. Firstly, I have to say that Sydney isn't the ideal place for growing good edible cherries. They need a much colder climate. When I was a kid my father was regularly sent a box of the first cherries of the season, grown down south in Young. Nonetheless, our tree does get cherries which, while you wouldn't harvest them and have a big feast, there's always a few that we eat just to show we can. They taste a little too 'fresh', if you know what I mean. And we can see the birds up close as our house at the back is two storey and our kitchen window is right on the cherry tree - and the native magnolia tree, with the jacaranda just a spit further away. It's as though we're in a hide and the birds don't notice. It's a good thing to see before having to drag off to work. Anyway, the cherry tree is very attractive to the smal...

Reading went well, so most of you missed a good one. Quality poetry and great coffee, and a coupla friends did turn up amongst the crowd (thanks Pete and Josie). Perhaps a tad cold (it was outside, tho' under cover) but very congenial. I sold books. I had to give out prizes. Went for a drink afterwards. But I've got the vertigo back a bit and I notice that it's affecting the way I read or present myself. I feel not quite there or not quite balanced. This is the second time I've felt it to be so. A touch of a worry. --- Finally collected my TAB race winnings. A whole $11.60 from a layout of $24. Thank goodness I only do that once a year. I've had a reasonable track record of picking the Cup winner (ie I've gotten lucky) but this year just missed by a whisker. --- And now for a coincidence. Annette and I have been discussing the latest green card lottery business (why not, I say). And she told me that the US Department of Labor (not Labour) has a job code for poet...

Poetry Reading Featuring Jill Jones ● Wednesday 8 November, 7pm - 9pm ● plus Open Mic.Poetry Competition * FREE ENTRY * Sappho Books & Espresso Bar ● 51 Glebe Pt Rd. Glebe ●