Blatant Procrastination

Soooo close to the end of the school year.
I have absolutely no patience for end-of-year coursework. I just want the exams over and done with, so I can take the summer.
Summer summer summer. I swear I can smell it. I want the holidays now.
Got to keep my head down, study hard for just another week, live through exams, then I can relax. But I keep getting distracted making playlists of summer songs and trolling Tumblr for photos tagged with 'summer love', and gosh. Summer, why aren't you here?
I want the hot air and the bright blue sky and the sun that shines down until well into the evening. I want to taste salt water on my tongue and spend my afternoon cleaning sand off my eyelashes, towling it off my legs. I want to laugh about our stupid bikini tans. I want to go to the supermarket and buy a tub of ice-cream and a packet of spoons, then sit on top of the primary school playground eating it with the group. I want to lie on my towel in the sand, feel the sun beating down on me, stare through the sunscreen-grease-thumprints on my sunglasses lenses. I want to run towards the water and then realise it's way too cold. I want to have sand and salt tangled in my hair from too many days at the beach. I want to take my camera everywhere I go, take photos of everyone laughing happily, even if half of them turn out to be blurry or have my thumb in them. I want to not have to care about schoolwork for the first time in forever.
No worries, no cares. Just sunshine and friends and days that never end.
Please summer, hurry up.
Got to keep  it together for 4 more days of classes, one week of exams, a few extra other class days, 4 days of orientation. Then I'll have summer.
Then the summer will be mine.  

Escaping the Tower - Mookychick Feminist Flash Fiction

Once upon a time, a princess was locked in a tower...

'Hang on,' said the princess. 'What am I doing here?'

'Um', said the narrator, 'some witch put you there, remember?

'But why?' asked the princess.

'So a prince can rescue you', replied the narrator.

'Well, I'm pretty sure it's easy to escape from here. Look, there's some conveniently-placed foot-holes in the brickwork.'

'You aren't meant to notice that. That's for the prince.'

'Well...can't I just climb down now and save him the bother?'

'...No. The prince will come, and after he rescues you, you can marry him!'

'What if I don't like him?'

'Of course you will. You'll be eternally in love with him!'

'Can I change my mind?'

'No! You're only meant to have one love your whole life, duh.'

'What about Prince Charming? Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White...he sure gets around. No one calls him a slut. Why is that? And why do you assume I want a prince? Maybe I prefer princesses instead, think of that?'

'Bloody hell,' said the narrator. 'Can you just shut up and be rescued?'

'No,' said the princess. 'I don't think I will.' And she climbed out of the tower.

This is an entry for the Mookychick FEMINIST FLASH FICTION competition. Enter now.

Defeatist - Cameras

I have no idea why I love this.
I think it's all the elements thrown together that make it so perfect. The black and white, the unplaceable time period, the lack of special effects, the beautiful lingering cinematography, the desperate love, the crooked fairytale.
Not to mention the song itself, which manages to obliterate your heart. That guitar and those vocals and the wrenching chorus all combine to make 4 minutes of sweet and beautiful agony.
It's the story of a wolf, and a girl. But it's not what you think.
I'm running out of praise. Just watch this. Several times.

Band Appreciation: Ball Park Music

Australian band Ball Park Music specialise in quirky, cheerful indie-pop. Their first major album, "Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs" is being released soon, after a couple of years of EPs and singles buzzing around the Rage-level indie scene.

My favourite songs of theirs are -

"Chill out, it's alright, kiss me, it's nice to be alive"

What a glorioius, glorious day.

Sky the colour of a swimming pool, the sun's shining down, the wattle is finally out and is its usual bright yellow, and everything's beautiful. After weeks of cold and rain, this is just what we need down here.

I had a heap of homework, but at 2pm I decided trigonometry could wait. So I put together a playlist, donned my leopard-print sunnies and white lace jacket and took the dog for a walk around the park. Beautiful beautiful weather, makes you believe that everything is right in the world, even if it really isn't.



Photo taken by me a while ago, but it looks the same outside at the moment. Dodgy quality because it was taken on the old camera.

Sunny Days Outdoors playlist (song title first):

1. Jake Ryan - Summer Camp
2. Over the Rainbow - Gin Wigmore
3. Something Easy - Georgia Fair
4. Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
5. Time to Wander - Gypsy & the Cat
6. It Can Wait - Illy feat. Owl Eyes
7. Control - Jebediah
8. Peter Pan - Jinja Safari
9. You Don't Scare Me - Josh Pyke
10. Fall - Lanu feat. Megan Washington
11. Young Love - Mystery Jets feat. Laura Marling
12. Older Brother - Pepper Rabbit
13. In the Sun - She & Him
14. It's Nice to Be Alive - Ball Park Music (Post title comes from that song's lyrics, more on the band soon)
15. Fall At Your Feet [Crowded House cover] - Boy & Bear
16. Don't You Think It's Time - Bob Evans

Hope you have good weather wherever you are!

Z

R.I.P Amy Winehouse

In my lifetime, I’ve witnessed the deaths of Princess Diana (even though I was only two), Steve Irwin, Michael Jackson, Elisabeth Sladen, Elizabeth Taylor and many more. For each of those listed above, it was an unbelievable event, for they all appeared to be such invincible people, who could not be brought down by something like death.

Amy Winehouse, unlike all those listed above, did not appear indestructible. On the contrary, she seemed dangerously fragile in her recent appearances. Yet her death, even though it’s not wholly unexpected, is still immensely shocking.

I’ll always remember this morning, when I found out she was gone. The sick, stunned feeling when I turned on the TV to find them talking about it; standing in my room watching the heavy rain and thinking, ‘Amy Winehouse can’t be dead! She can’t be!’

It took me a while to realise why exactly I was so upset. I can’t claim to be her biggest fan. I’ve listened to both her albums, and have several of her songs on my iPod (which I’ve been listening to all morning). It’s because I was waiting.

No one can deny that Amy Winehouse had amazing talent. Her songs ranged from heart-broken ballads (Back to Black, Love is a Losing Game, In the Box) to brassy odes on avoiding rehab (Rehab, obviously) and paying out gold-diggers (F***-Me Pumps). Yet even her talent couldn’t save her from the problems that plagued her life. As time went on, she seemed to fall deeper and deeper into a black hole. But I waited and waited for her to come out of it, to rise up and stun us all again with another musical masterpiece.

Surely, somewhere under the chaos, that talent was still there, just waiting to be unleashed? Each time there was an article about her doing something positive, I was so happy for her, convinced she was on the way to recovery. I’d been waiting for years, but I hadn’t given up hope. I was sure it was only a matter of time before she put all her trouble behind her and went back to doing what she did best – being an amazing singer/songwriter.

Now we’ll never know. We’ll never know if she would have overcome the drugs and blown the world away with new material. We’ll never know if she had more in her.

I like to believe she did. I like to believe that if she hadn’t died, she would have eventually broken free, cleaned up, gotten back in the studio, released a third album to great acclaim and toured the world, dazzling us with those bruised-velvet vocals and sharp, heartbreaking lyrics.

But now she won’t. Amy Winehouse is gone. It doesn’t make her a sudden saint, but all we can do is celebrate her talent, and cherish the music she did make.

Rest in peace, Amy.

The Best Australian Music Videos, part 2

Part Deux.