... the picture at the top of the page was not taken a few moments before this particular person impacted on the pavement spreading vitals to the four winds. It would be extremely tacky and insensitive to publish such a picture for your entertainment, or simply to enhance the cool vibe of this site, and if there's one standard I do intend to uphold rigidly, it is the extremely worthy standard of sensitivity. No, this is a picture of the late Dar Robinson; "The Worlds Most Spectacular Stunt man" and here is a link to a webpage showing several of Dar's spectacular stunts and a portrait of him with the sexy Morgan Fairchild.
Please don't confuse this image with Richard Drew's well publicised photo of a man plunging to his death from the north tower of the World Trade Centre on the 11th of September 2001. This is not that photo, and has nothing to do with politics, terrorism, or world affairs, rather it is an image I dragged from the bowels of my computer when looking for something that would provide a suitable atmosphere for this blog. This image was previously used to add colour and dynamism to invitations for my 40th birthday party and a number of the invitees remarked on what a morbid choice it was, but when you know the truth about the picture it only lends weight to the argument that you should never take things at face value. Although Dar may have suffered the odd bruise and ache following this death defying stunt, there was nothing particularly morbid about it. Stupid? Maybe. Morbid? Nah.
The appearance of this picture does, however, signify that I have now figured out how to add pictures and links to this blog in consequence of which I am now able to point you properly in the direction of the terrific sideroom blog where you can hear and read about independent music from the wonderful 80's Australian music scene.
I have also added a link (at the side of the page) to "Sweet Adeline", the Elliott Smith website (since I mentioned him in the last Blog and, well it's a good site).
You may be wondering (if you've read this far) what this blog is about. Despite my promise in the last post to not get hung up on tying this blog to any kind of coherent theme, I do know that it's important, at least from the point of view of healthy identity development, to try and not succumb to the temptations of self indulgence. And with that end in mind I attempted during an idle moment today to define some rules for this blog ... and ended up with basically 1 rule:
The Rule: This blog shall be about things other than me.
Having said that I feel it's only fair to deliver the caveat that whenever, during my ramblings, I feel a need for the blog to be about me, it will be. In the next post I will upload a photograph of a giraffe sticking out its tongue.
Showing posts with label Elliott Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elliott Smith. Show all posts
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
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 !!!
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 !!!
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