About the Title ...

Elliott Smith reminisced once in an interview that as a very young boy he would get married frequently to a local little girl he was in love with in a sidewalk wedding, then later, they'd have a row (an argument - not a means of propelling a boat) and the marriage would be annulled, only to have the whole process repeated a few days later.

There was something in that story that really appealed to me, that sense of the temporary, the lightweight. How decisions could be arbitrary and not binding. One of the great downfalls of adulthood I think is the binding nature, not only of decisions, but even of opinions. Like Billy Crystal (or was it Meg Ryan?) said in "When Harry Met Sally" - "It's out there now so you can't take it back". Well, I reserve the right in this blog to "take it back". For all writings to be arbitrary. For this journal to be non-thematic, not necessarily factual and not based on any criteria of excellence in terms of art, humour, emotional resonance, social relevance, coherence or public interest.

All the above is, in reality, simply an elaborate justification for a title which I actually got by looking at the list of "songs in progress" written on a piece of paper stuck to the wall next to my computer. The "song in progress", however was inspired by Elliott's comment, and I think the title has a ring to it, so it'll stay, for the time being.

Todays literary quote is from Philip Roth's book: "Operation Shylock": "when life looks least like what it's supposed to look like, it may then be most like whatever it is." Kind of an alternate take on John Lennon's "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans" but I think Roth is better, a bit closer to the bone maybe.

On the ABC tonight they had one of those public forums and the subject was "Happiness", ie; what is it? How do you get more of it? etc etc. Of course, 90% of the discussion centred around money, and I probably would have talked about money too, at this point in my life, but I was reminded of an opinion I arrived at a few years ago about happiness; that happiness is an invention of Hollywood. And like so many other elements of the modern western collective conscious, it is an illusion. Just another measure of our inadequacy designed to sell Coca Cola. But that's probably just the bitter whining of someone that never had enough money and too much time on their hands to think. (ya reckon?)

I want to point you in the direction of a great blog about independent (mostly) Aussie records of the (mostly) 1980's - a great time and place for indie music - that I just discovered, but I haven't figured out yet how to post links, so just google: side room 7" OK? Do it ... do it now ... go on !!!