Lost in Translation

For all my hype about Halloween I forgot that I’m one lazy Susan.

Instead of painting the town red in Dracula Spectacular makeup and madness, I followed Scarlett Johansson’s lead in ‘Lost in Translation’ and wore a pink wig.

It would have been so much more fun to dress up like Bill Murray. Next year perhaps.

Donning the blushing bob has inspired me to visit the hairdresser today and chop off my hair.

When i was younger i was jealous of girls with straight glossy hair. It would shimmer and glide over shoulders or be swept up in high ponytails with ease and grace. I had a frizzy, mousey mop of tangled curls.

I was oblivious to hair products except when used in toxic amounts by Boy Band members.

I eventually tamed the frizz was tamed, a few years after I took a punt and dyed it red. Oh happy day.

I want an avant garde hair style, like in the Kaaz Yearbook. I want something completely unattainable unless maintained by an army of professional hair stylists, enough hairspray to crave another hole in the ozone layer and a blowtorch. Or at the very least an industrial strength hairdryer.

But ruled by reason and a lazy streak, I settled with a bob, Molly Ringwald style.

Now i just need to learn the lipstick trick.

Mo mo Movember!

Usually a pinch and a punch are suffice to ring in a new month - but not on this auspicious day. Men around the country (and world) have their top lips a quiverin’ in concentration as Movember kicks off today!

Lauren carney

For all those follically challenged gents out there, here are a few old wives tales which supposedly induce thicker, stronger, longer hair growth:

1. Reduce stress – so whack on some Sigur Ros on the turntable

2. Enjoy a protein rich diet - one website lists brewer’s yeast as a top notch source of protein

3. Cut out caffeine

4. Stand on your head to increase blood flow to your scalp

Or you can just buy some Movember merch - like these tasty chocolate treats

Ring my bell

I'm toying with the idea of entering a triathlon. After sweating the equivalent volume of an Olympic standard pool during my morning run, i figure that swimming may actually be a wiser option this summer.

So in a bid to kick start triathlon training, i made the first logical step - fall in love with these beautiful bikes.

Yet to be manufactured into a working prototype, they are everything i could possibly want for a triathlon. Bright colours, a snazzy frame and a chirpy bell. Stand clear fellow competitors!

Friday Night

Emma Davis album launch, Leroy Lee and Agnee Kain @ Red Rattler, Sydney (29/10/2010)

The Red Rattler is inconspicuously tucked away in the industrialised section of Marrickville. Smack bang under a flight path.

The somewhat casually converted factory, is bathed in a red glow, and is a burgeoning “creative playground for performers, musicians, artists, designers, multi-media makers, experimentalists, film-makers, theorists, activists, collective organisers, and local punters”.

The mood of the night was more family BBQ than political rally, for the launch of Emma Davis’s debut album.

Ornate winged-back couches with saggy velvet cushions and a handful of booths lined the exposed brick walls. Milk crates sat in clusters around the large dance floor. Festively fake cobwebs clung to the rafters, lit up by the lights of the occasional low flying plane.

The crowd swelled in size after the set by two-piece Agnes Kain. A mixed bag of quirky upbeat folk ditties, interspaced with somewhat languid lyrics inspired by a stint in London. What they lacked in polish they made up for with amusing banter and cheeky bravado.

By then boisterous on brew and excitement of Davis’s impeding performance, the crowded room drowned out the vocals of the following act – Leroy Lee. Slight of frame and softly spoken, Lee’s pared back approach failed to capture the crowd’s attention, despite pleas for quiet.

Unfortunately regaled to background music, it felt like a long wait until Davis stepped on stage. Once she did, a hush quickly settled over the room. Davis smiled sheepishly at her home crowd obviously littered with family and friends.

A slew of songs from pop gem “Happy song” to “All of This” had the plastic Halloween skeletons rattling melodically, from the motion of the swaying crowd.

Mark Stevens provided vocal accompaniment and when not providing a solid beat with his double bass, he used a set of wooden blocks to thriftily substitute for them being “too cheap for a drummer”.

Davis’s earnestly sweet vocals transformed The Spice Girl’s “Wannabe” and Ida Maria’s “I Like You so Much Better When You’re Naked”, into blissfully folk creations. However in a rather unfolky twist, the crowd chucked scores of undies on stage in response to the Ida Maria cover.

A stray t-shirt can in handy later in the set, when it was discovered Davis’s guitar was somehow picking up radio transmission. The t-shirt muffled the radio/guitar when Davis settled herself behind a keyboard to play her newest single “Machines”.

Though Davis gently prompted people to purchase an album on the way out, after the love-in vibe of the crowd I don’t think she’ll be begging for buyers.

Feet First!

Kobi Levi wrinkles my brain.

Levi hand crafts these "wearable sculptures" - I'm sure i would break my hip if i attempted to walk in them, but they would be worth buying just for the mind-blowing aesthetic value.

Making it up

I have a rather limited arsenal of makeup skills to call upon.

Most people are clever and slather their faces with glitter and gloss when they’re a tween – so they get over the Mimi look without too much photographic evidence

and develop the dexterity of a neurosurgeon by the time they hit big wide world.

At the very best I can usually avoid poking an eye out with a misguided mascara wand and be satisfied with clumpy lashes. Then in an attempt to feel like a 1950’s film star, I liberally powder my nose…and end up looking like I’m in cardiogenic shock. Plait my hair and Wednesday Addams would be my home girl.

Perfect for Halloween.

But that won’t slice the cheese Mister. Not after stumbling across this series of hauntingly beautiful "landscapes":

I guess I could always just avoid injury attempting to embed twigs in my scalp and stuffing my nose with moss, by renting out a costume like this –

Tree Head Girl

My name doesn't sound half as fly as the magically alliterate Bindi Booth.

But i do appreciate a sup of tea from a fine china cup.

Holla! Halloween!

Suit Up!

Monstralis 2 by Tim Bywater

Halloween is this weekend. Usually I don't celebrate - but how can i resist prancing around to the 'Dark Side of the Moon' under the midnight moon with the league of Zombies?

Magnet for Magnum P.I.

My sassy sister is following in the footsteps of the Brady Bunch and is jet setting to Hawaii!

Hopefully she can control her reaction a bit better than the Brady's

if she runs into the man with the mostest moe and tightest trousers...

Mr Tom "Selling it" Selleck.

Hubba Hubba.

"Say It" (in a letter)

Dear Future Self,

I've just bought you a very lovely present. A sure fired recipe for sore soles and a raspy voice - yup, you're going to shake a screw loose when you see the Born Ruffians on the 3rd January.

xo

Fi

ps. sorry Future Self but i really did need that piece of cake at lunch today and i promise to try harder to cut down on buying books, as i know i'll regret spending all those pennies when you're hiking in Nepal without any moola for lunch ...but how could i leave behind a double whammy of Bill Bryson?

s'more weekends away please!

Was it Colonel Mustard, by the fireplace, with the marshmellowing stick?

I’ve just come back from a s’wonderful weekend away in the Blue Mountains with three of funniest girls I know.

Truth be told they would easily rival the Three Sisters for entertainment value.

Unfortunately I left my camera behind (blast! bugger! Bollocks!) so I’ll have to paint some lovely word pictures to remember the weekend.

As the train trundled up the steep mountainous terrain, a sense of tranquillity that only weekends away and exceedingly high altitudes, enveloped us. Well-kempt flowerbeds in flamboyantly camp colours, dotted station platforms, replaced the grit and the grime of the city.

Stepping off at Mount Victoria, the crisp air was deliciously seasoned with smoky chimneys and the pepperings of possibilities.

Unfortunately our attempts to re-enact “Tomorrow When the War began” were curtailed by storm clouds. The battleground was relocated to the log cabin’s living room.

Huddled under mohair rugs and toes toasting by the fireplace, murder was on the cards.

What could be satisfying than Cleudo? Maybe a second round of Cluedo with cheese, Maggie Beer’s fig & fennel paste, olive bread, white wine and s’mores.

The weekend away has rekindled my love for broad games, so i did a quick wiki search to see what other games are out there to rival Cluedo.

Of course as time marches on all mediums of entertainment have become bigger and better to hold sway over the general public (why oh why are there SO many 3D films?).

Apparently this includes the average broadgame playing family. Deducing a murder mystery sounds positively tame in comparison to – PANDEMIC! Winner of 2009 family broad game of the year

“four disease have broken out in the world, each threatening to wipe out a region.”

Instead of slipping into the sexy guise of femme fatale Miss Scarlett or pandering around fuddy-duddy Professor Plum, you apparently have the choice of being any five possible specialists: dispatcher, medic, scientist, researcher or operations expert.

Pardon the pun but Pandemic doesn't sound like it cuts the mustard.

I shouldn’t bag out Pandemic, as Articulate (in which you have describe words to team mates without using the word) sounds like a craptacular way to past time. Oh no sir. Articulate can convert any would-be broad game hater (testify Rosie!)

What else besides fermented grapes or heavily yeasted hops can get a group of otherwise highly educated ladies slurring words, skewing logic and screaming out nonsense, with a steely edge of competiveness? Best broad game ever!

Besides broad games the weekend also included a spot of antiquing, brunching, reading, lunching, strolling, souping, book browsing, hot chocolating, watching The Nanny, marshmellow toasting and Ga Ga Ga-ing to Glee.

(Note: the days revolved around the impending excitement of mealtimes)

Yay for the weekend!

Spin the wheel! Spin! Spin!

This week has all the speed of a starving snail.

Though now that Wednesday's nearly over, i'm halfway over the wall to the weekend.

Judgment of Paris I, (oil on canvas), 72 x 120in.

Sure it's somewhat sad i discard weekdays like wilted flowers, itching for two days respite from work, but i heart weekends.

Perhaps i need to be more systematically sponaneous during the work week? Tansey was able to manipulate inspiration by inventing the "color wheel". A simple spin of the large, wooden wheel (containing three rows of words) would determine the subject matter of his next artwork.

It's hard to get out of the mentality of counting days like a prisoner - as a student there's always the end of semester within sight. As Christmas nears, the realisation that i'm now working full time is finally sinking in.

I suppose i could take mini breaks during the week, like right now and just continue to meander through this retrospective of Tansey without deep and meaningful musings.

It's my party and i'll cry if i want to

I feel like a contestant in a Japanese Baby crying contest.

Slightly rotundate from too much cheesecake and red wine (Happy birthday twins!)

But i'm also mid-tantrum and wailing like a baby because i've lost my (edit: my sister's) USB - with a work presentation on it. Rats.

...Is it wrong to think these are extremely cute images?

Weekend weather report

Bed time.

8pm on a Sunday evening.

The weekend has proved much too fruitful and now i'm zonked. I really should stop trying to pack a whole week into two days.

Friday night was dinner at a dumpling house, before a quick and somewhat ironic dash through the rain to see Cloud Control at The Metro.

While the weather raged unrestrained outside, the Blue Mountain natives were flawless. Though they presented a tight gig, the music was mesmerisingly fresh & whimsical, and devoid of mechanical polish.

It wasn't till after a short spell of karaoke at Kelly's did i stumble into slumber, only to force myself out of bed a few short hours later.

It was almost as if i had fallen through the Wardrobe and awoke in Narnia mid winter - as it was beyond freezing.

With a gale whipping around us, we fought like lemmings through the 12km's to be rewarded with a feast of eggs and coffee.

The cold snap failed to thaw and proved to be perfect weather for the Twin's Indian Feast.

My siblings have always been strong advocates for equal (birthday) rights. The main jist of their adgenda is that they have separate cakes for their birthday. Who am i to stand in the path of justice?

My brother's girlfriend in all her loveliness baked these yummy delights

It's only fair that the equal rights of twins extends to savoury dishes, so i did what any selfless sibling of twins would do - i ate twice the normal amount of food at the Indian Feast. Oh be still my heart - delicately tender butter chicken, doughy soft nann, sweet eggplant, lashings of yogurt, fluffy egg rotti, spoonfuls of dahl mmmm

I then had to haul myself around Canada Bay this morning. I don't think the 7km will make a dent in the previous night's effort, but i didn't let that stop me from munching my way through Yum Cha for lunch. Ten Pin Bowling is equivilant to a weights workout right?