Sound and Vision
If I don't write about it shortly after the fact, it seems I just forget, but I'm finally getting around to mentioning the Sydney Film Festival screening I attended with M. two weeks ago, at the Metro Theatre, sort of an odd venue for movies, as it's a concert hall normally, but it worked out well enough, in a cross-referential way, as the movie was the concert film for Lou Reed's Berlin, performed live for the first time ever in Brooklyn's St Ann's in 2006. It played the Sydney Festival, the annual arts-around-town event, in 2007, but the tickets were terribly expensive, so we didn't go, even though M. is a long-time devotee of the album, as am I. A lot of people disparage it, and there are elements I find a little over-the-top, but nevertheless, it is as complete a concept album as was ever produced during the period when concept albums were all the rage. Because it was the follow-up to Transformer, I think a lot of people were just so disoriented by the album's thorough departure from its predecessor, that they never gave it a proper chance. And having seen this concert, or film thereof, anyway, I have to tell you it's time to go back and listen to Berlin again. Julian Schnabel did a great job as the director, capturing the concert experience quite effectively. Antony Hegarty, of Antony & the Johnsons, was a featured backup singer, performing an encore on lead vocal of "Candy Says," from the Velvet Underground's eponymous third album, and, it's rumoured, Schnabel's daughter was one of the choir members. What was most remarkable, somehow, was the pure emotionality of Lou Reed's performance. He was deeply involved in the story he was telling, and I even thought he was on the verge of tears. This is a concert film to stand up with all the best concert films. I may see about renting Stop Making Sense, well, after I go see Shine a Light, just to round things off.

Trail Mix
Wow, that mid-week 8k could have gone better. I went into the nearby park, following the road that winds along the river, crossing Delhi Road over into a small subdivision that more or less backs onto the industrial park I work in, intending to cut across a bit of the Great Northern Walk trail to loop back through and around. It amounts to nearly 8 1/2 kilometers, but that was about as close as I could plot, and a better route, on the map, than the 5-6k extension I'd worked out earlier. I didn't get lost, but still ended up having run for more than an hour, well beyond what my pace should have led to, largely as a result of the trail turning out to be far more difficult than anticipated. Having reached a rocky escarpment, I discovered the trail had disappeared, and had to spend some considerable time locating a marker. Once that was done, I was faced with a steep, winding staircase, cut in among the natural rock, leading back down to Delhi Road. By the time I got down, I was breathing normally, so the run back wasn't too hard, at least not until the final stretch leading out of the park, which, while not terribly steep, is a bit long, at least for that stage of the run. God only knows what I'm going to end up with once the kilometers really pile up mid-week, or where, for the matter. Tomorrow's 5k will have to serve as a muscle-loosener for the 16 on Saturday. I am ow.

Progress
I've been tracking my marathon training in Map My Run. I'm pretty satisfied with how I'm going, although Saturday's 8K was harder than I expected. I guess I didn't get enough sleep or went out too hard at the start, probably the latter, since I still finished within the 5:30/K range. I don't know that the MMR reports are particularly useful. I suppose if I was tracking calories or weight loss, maybe more so, but the bars seem to be pretty even. (I also don't know if that link will work for anyone, although I believe I've allowed my training profile to be public.) It's not reasonable to suppose that I'll keep up the 5-5:30 pace over the upcoming weeks, as the kilometerage (?) piles up, let alone over the actual race, but wouldn't that be something? This Saturday, Hal Higdon ups the ante to 14K, and the midweek runs go from 5-6-5 to 5-8-5, and pretty much every week thereafter just climbs and climbs. Ow.

Luck
According to the package insert, "Shisa" (talismans from Okinawa) are paired decorative sculptural images, more or less like a cross between a lion and a dog, which are placed on rooftops or flanking doorways or gates to one's home. "Shisa are wards, believed to protect from various evils. When found in pairs, the shisa on the right traditionally has an open mouth, and the one on the left, a closed mouth. The open mouth is to let good spirits in, and the closed mouth is to keep bad spirits out. Originally, pairs like this were called 'shisa and guardian dogs': the left, with its mouth closed, is the guardian; the right, with it's mouth open, is the shisa. Some people believe that one is male and the other female and provide various justifications for which is which. For example, the female has her mouth shut, as she should; or, the male has his mouth shut to hold in all the family's good fortune. The shisa is a variation of the guardian lions - fu dogs - of China. mine I picked up in San Francisco when I was there last.

Now, they're sitting outside my front door, helping me win the lottery or something.

Wooden Spoon Premiership
I reckon the Rabbitohs are pretty well assured of the wooden spoon this year, even if we're only just coming on to halfway through the season. Round 12, at ANZ Stadium, against the Dragons, started off with an early try by Souths, only to see the opposition take the lead, with only a (very) late final try to make the score remotely more even. Still, it was a good game, with only a very little of the kind of poor ball handling the Rabbitohs exhibited early in the season, and some remarkable moments of play on either side, particularly when Illawarra failed to capitalize on a series of knocking on advances in one that should have ended with a try, save for the persistence of one defender. That was one of those sporting moments that only come up rarely, and worth the game.

Go Souths.

Winter Morning Walk
This is the view as I walk to the bus station each morning. Kinda pretty, especially for one of the less attractive buildings in the city.

Tony Stark makes you feel, he’s a real cool cat with a heart of steel
But Iron Man, all jets ablaze, something something something. Yeah, I used to know all the songs from the original Mightly Marvel Marching Society so-called animations, but never mind. The Iron Man movie is terrific. Robert Downey Jr. nails the part, as does Gwyneth Paltrow (although I don’t recall her particular character from any of the comics I ever read, she’s does the role about as cartoonishly as possible), Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, a star turn as a villain if ever I saw one. The movie manages the complete Iron Man history through the 1990’s, including the Iron Monger vs. Iron Man climactic battle, and moving straight to one of the better armor designs (Monger fought the interim red-and-silver Man), without the digressions thirty years of comic history inevitably require. I guess if they ever decide to do Captain America and Thor, an Avengers movie wouldn’t be far off, but I’ll settle for a sequel, and even a third, despite the screw-ups in the Spiderman and X-Men franchises.

New Camera
My digital camera gave up the ghost eventually, which was sometimes frustrating, but not disheartening at the prospect of having to buy another, since it was free, but it took me a while to get that done. I now have a baby digital SLR. O.k., it's not really an SLR, but you can attach lens adapters to it to achieve that effect, and it does allow manual overrides of f-stops and so forth, so it very nearly comes to the same thing. As far as I'm concerned, it's an SLR. Pathetically, the first thing I did with it was take pictures of the cats.


But I did get a nice autumnal shot the other day of some local eucalypts that I rather like.


I took a walk through Sydney University, too, but I'm not as happy with those. Still, the Newtown hipters always hand me a laugh. Funnily enough, only one guy in a triby.

Tracking
I suppose I ought to post my progress training for the marathon here, but it’s still early days. In fact, looking more carefully at my calendar, I discovered that I’m only now in Week One, so I’m a week ahead of schedule, having hewn to the Hal Higdon method’s recommended mileage last week. My clever little spreadsheet, which converts Hal’s mileage to kilometres, is apparently too clever by half, since I was recording distances covered last week in the next week’s row. Well, no harm in being more conditioned for the big day.

Which reminds me of something one of the other runners here said about days off: they’re “scheduled deconditioning” days. Makes being lazy sound better, doesn’t it?

News
So, I’m in the new flat (week four) and the new job (week three) and have now newly enrolled for the Sydney Marathon – 21 September, if anyone’s interested – which I’m newly training for (week one; nothing much happened last week)

The new flat is working out well. I got the dryer installed finally, although it’s a little problematic, in that the space allocated in the laundry for me means I’ve only got one tap hook-up (I only ever use cold anyway) and it sits too love above my top-loading washer to get the lid all the way up. Since the washer is only a couple of years old, I’m not replacing it anytime soon, even if front-loaders are more efficient. I do still need to replace the basin in the bathroom, though, which the previous owners had cracked. It’s not bad, either looking or insofar as leakage is concerned, but a new one was purchased and sits in its box in the hallway, just waiting for me to stumble over it in the dark. And I’ve never lived anywhere darker since that basement apartment in Ann Arbor. Daytime’s not bad, but I’m not there in daylight much, especially as we head into winter. Luckily, it’s not cold.

Meanwhile, the cats have worked out the pet door and are off enjoying the great outdoors, what there is of it. The upstairs cat, who goes from window to next-door-rooftop direct, is not happy to find new competition for exploration rights.

The new job is demanding. I’m here at eight and don’t leave until five or later. This is partly due to the demands of learning the new software and new company and partly due to the fact that I need to run three days during week for the marathon training (yes, I am using the Counsellor’s recommended Hal Higdon method, although one of my colleagues, also in training for the marathon, is using their official novice’s program; insofar as we coincide with our schedules, we’re mapping out routes in the vicinity using Map My Run).

The buses are terrible. Mornings aren’t so bad, although it’s always a scramble for boarding before the seats are all taken, and the seats are cramped anyway. Nights, however, are where it all comes apart. If the bus arrives, instead of sailing by, either full or “Not in Service”, it’s almost always not the one that takes the freeway, which means an extra twenty minutes or more travel time, winding through the northern suburbs. It would be a lot easier if their signage was better illuminated and larger. And once we get to the CBD, it’s a crawl to the last stop, where I transfer to a George Street line, where there are no bus lanes, so we contend with all the rest of the traffic (and not to complain unduly, but also with every other businessperson trying to make their way west).

That all will change, eventually. The Chatswood-to-Epping project is underway (as it has been nearly since I got to this country – which sounds like a longer period than it’s been) and due to finish sometime this year, theoretically. I’ve heard that they used the wrong glue on the vibration-reduction matting under the rails and had to tear them up to start over, but I don’t know if the 2008 schedule is still, ahem, on track. The North Ryde station is five minutes away, so I’m anxious they should finish. There looks to be a fair bit of work yet to go, though.

Jasper Johns: Watch Out Crossing the Street
Robert Rauschenberg is one of a small pantheon of modern artists whom I revere. I’d probably revere more of them if I could remember them all, but never mind.

I remember the first retrospective show I saw, at MOMA, including the fabulous “Bed” and “Obelisk”, among many others I knew largely from books. A later show at the Guggenheim was somehow less compelling, and consisted largely, if not exclusively, of more recent work (so I guess not so much a retrospective).

Anyway, I guess that signed screen print of the Talking Heads “Speaking in Tongues” limited edition cover art I’ve got up on the wall just got a little more valuable. After David Byrne departs this mortal coil, it ought to be an eBay killer, but I only wish him well, really.

Shh
Today's the last day at my present job, and I've already put my forwarding order in place for my mail and switched off the land-line in preparation for moving next week. It's not that this blog's terribly active, but it's about to become much less so for a little while, until I've straightened out home internet access and so forth.

Talk among yourselves.

Bitter Draught
Does it help that Obama's right? And it's not just small towns, either. I've known plenty of bitter people in cities who cling to emotive issues or draw distinctions between themselves and others over inane political discourse, people who simply won't accept reality and back their arguments with religion, or simplistic interpretations of the Constitution, or nothing at all, just resentment that someone else might not be treated as badly as they have been. And, frankly, I'm tired of Clinton running the GOP playbook. I wonder if she isn't a little bitter herself. I'm sure McCain is.

New Job
I'm moving on, commuting to North Ryde every morning, starting in the next two to four weeks. That maternity leave replacement job has been turned into two jobs, with one of them for me. The offer came in around lunchtime, and I snapped it up.

Working at the Catholic Education Office was a good job, especially as it came just when I needed employment rather badly. They've always been supportive of me, especially during such periods as life was difficult, and I'm grateful to them. It turned a bit sour last year, when we abandoned the SQL database I was hired to install, and returned to an bit of 1980's legacy technology. But although I started my job search the moment that decision was made, it's taken all this time for someone to be willing to take a chance on me.

Bloody North Ryde, though. That's not going to be fun.

I'll be working

Not Sweeps Week
I rented a few weekly DVD’s, including one Australian film I’d neglected while it was in cinemas, Ten Canoes, a movie of Aboriginal Australia, a tale-within-a-tale of jealousy and desire and living the right way. I don’t know why I didn’t get to this when it was a new release, even, let alone why I didn’t go see it in a movie house, especially as I’d seen a fascinating short documentary on the making of. Anyway, it’s terrific. I liked the framing, with the top story in black-and-white, the present and past in color. Presented in three formats – all aboriginal language, aboriginal language with subtitles, or English voice-over narration with aboriginal language and subtitles (the theatrical release version) – it’s very accessible and offers a glimpse into aboriginal culture not commonly found. I highly recommend that if you haven’t seen it and can get it you put it on your list. Internationally renowned aboriginal actor David Gulpilil narrates, and that’s his kid, Jamie, as the young man.

Can the Nobel Be Far Now?
At least Dylan got his Pulitzer while he’s still alive.

”Vive Fafnir, Vive Giblets”
Fafblog’s back with the Medium Lobster & ever’body – and not so hard on the eyes anymore.

Employment Matters
With reference checks underway, it’s entirely possible that by this time tomorrow I’ll have a job offer. Unfortunately, it’s for a job I don’t think I want.

While my present employer is wonderfully flexible and pays generously, the work, well, there is no work. I’m bored beyond belief here, and there’s little I can do about it. The database can’t be managed by me, only by consultants, so I can’t actively improve its functionality. There simply aren’t enough reporting requirements to give me much joy in running the extracts. The underlying database is technology from the 1980’s, unused in mainstream corporations, and clunky at best. But I’ve been trying for a new job for nearly two years now, getting nowhere. So what’s wrong with this one?

It’s a maternity leave replacement contract, mainly, which means it’s employment for a set period of time. Given my current job-hunt experience, that presents a worrying condition. It’s also located in a relatively remote suburb, accessible by public transport (a bus + a train + a bus or a bus + another bus), but far from most recruiters and most major corporations. This means that interviewing for a new job would be difficult and time-consuming, whereas right now I need only adjust my hours by 30 minutes and I can make any interview anywhere in reasonable time.

Although it affords a marvellous opportunity to work again with mainstream software (SAP – about co-equal with PeopleSoft, and probably well above Oracle – a program I haven’t used before, but by learning would increase my profile in the HRIS marketplace), can I risk short-term employment?

Sure, new mothers don’t always come back, and some extend their leave, which would mean no guarantee of returning to the same job, and some want to come back to a modified role, potentially leaving room for me (and there was some suggestion that the function was perceived as requiring two people, although also that there wasn’t room in the headcount). In the course of the two interviews, I got different impressions of the incumbent: she didn’t care for the job was one, but the other was suggestive of her investiture in it. The company also does consulting work, so there’s a potential to transition to that team, if they’re satisfied with my work, get the impression that I’d make a good consultant, and have enough projects to go around.

What to do, what to do? New jobs come up all the time, although I don’t always get the interview, or the second interview (and, obviously, haven’t been getting the offers). Is this just too vague to take the chance?

’70’s Nostalgia Moments
Remember Phantom of the Paradise? Well, it just kind of jumped out at me when I was looking for a DVD to watch, something trivial to relax with after spending the day doing various chores and a little more packing, so I revisited this rather cheesy Paul Williams vehicle, directed by Brian DePalma, of all people. It’s not nearly as bad as I remembered. I doubt Mr. Williams will perform any of the songs at his Enmore gig, though.

On the other hand, Eastern Promises is one tough film, even if the logic of how Naomi Watts gets involved is more than a little unlikely.

Quiet Sunday Night
Except for all the Irish yowling from the DVD I rented, Once, featuring Glen Hansard, of the Frames. (There will be those reading this – and I’m looking at you, Mom & Dad – who should be warned against the movie purely for its soundtrack, for which the movie is actually more a vehicle than is usually the case; nevertheless, I loved every song and every repetition of the theme.) M. had recommended it to me and supplied me with a copy of the soundtrack, but I never got around to it at the cinema and hadn’t really thought much about renting it. However, faced with either this or 30 Days of Night, and oddly enough I chose the grownup movie. It’s very beautiful. It also addresses relationships unusually. I also enjoyed the bit with the vacuum cleaner.

The rest of the long weekend was largely spent packing.