Did Michele send you?

Just thought I better post something new so it looks I'm one of those exciting hip bloggers that you simply HAVE to come back and read on a regular basis.

Yes, I know, I'm a sad excuse for a human being and I crave attention. So sue me.

If the heading to this post makes no sense... that's your problem, not mine. ;-)

How to provide yourself with a high level of amusement for about 60 seconds

1. Take bowl and spoon and place them on kitchen bench.

2. Take ice cream container from fridge and place near bowl and spoon.

3. Start scooping ice cream from container into bowl, using spoon.

4. Increase scooping force applied to spoon where ice cream is proving difficult to transfer.

5. Watch in startled amazement as last scoop of ice cream flies out of container at speed, passes well over top of bowl and thuds into side of fridge.

When I come to power...

(the first of what may well become an ongoing series)

When I come to power:

- Cars will be modified so that the faster you drive, the more unpleasant the experience. I'm thinking the engine should produce some kind of smell that makes a skunk's scent seem blissful in comparison. Electric shocks are also an option.

- Tailgating will be seen as a sign of mental imbalance and lead to a committal hearing.

- Using a suburban street as a speedway on a Friday night will generate the kind of social disapproval that is currently reserved for child molesters.

- (Just so there's at least one carrot along with all the sticks) Police vans will randomly monitor vehicle speeds. The slowest car detected each hour will be entitled to free petrol for a year.

- Traffic cops will be given authority to shoot to kill in appropriate circumstances. Given that a significant proportion of drivers appear to have some kind of death wish, this will merely be helping them along to their desired destination.

Thrill 4-9: Leave your Y-chromosome at the door {Ribbons Undone}

[Yes, due to popular demand tonight's review is a double-header!]

Despite the fact that Tori Amos' work is often so obviously the work of a woman (witness the entire concept behind Strange Little Girls), I've never felt excluded from understanding one of her songs at a deep level.

Until now.

Ribbons Undone is so blatantly and obviously a song about motherhood, in a sentimental fashion that seems to be a unique trait of Americans (for the male equivalent, one need look no further than "Butterfly Kisses") that I found myself reaching for the skip button on several occasions. Only reaching, mind you. I never quite did it, because I believe in giving all songs a chance no matter how often they fail me.

Okay, almost all. I turn the radio off every time that Bloodhound Gang song about the Discovery Channel comes on because I believe it to be the most meritless piece of "music" to hit the airwaves in decades. And remixes are not songs.

Anyway, the point is that I don't hate Ribbons Undone. I just find it really hard to connect with. My urge to press 'skip' is largely because the first part is so slow - there's nothing here either musically or lyrically to make me want to continue listening. Things look up markedly at "she runs like a fire...", not only because the pace increases but also because the music somehow emphasises its Celtic side. Celtic music is not sweetly sentimental in the way that American music can be.

The good work is temporarily undone by the line "You're a girl", or rather the backing vocal repetition of it. Heck, mostly it's just the word girl. This and the next couple of backing vocals sound like they're the work of Kelsey Dobyns, who apparently is Tori's niece.

*Puts on his Simon Cowell hat...*

Either the required genes didn't go through that line of the family, or she needs to spend a lot more time having singing lessons before ever being let loose in a studio again.

Bottom line: I'm not grinding my teeth by the end of 4.5 minutes, in fact I can now happily let this one play. Nevertheless I'm not even close to riveted and I'm quite thankful it's not any longer than it is.

Thrill 4-8: You Really Could Have Had Me {Mother Revolution}

My reaction to this song has been extremely unusual.

The first time I listened to The Beekeeper, this was the song that I instantly fell in love with. I got to the end of a 79-minute album, had about 5 minutes before I had to go do something else, and I had absolutely no hesitation in going back and playing this one again.

And then, it all went a little bit sour. Not a lot, just a little bit. You see, I had a reaction that I had never had to a Tori Amos song before. I started feeling that this song was better than her performance of it.

It's something I've often felt about other 'lesser' artists, that they've come up with a good idea but not been able to see it through. If I ever became a performer, there's quite a lengthy list of songs I'd really like to cover - some well-known, some obscure - because I think the original artist didn't do their own creation justice.

I honestly was surprised to feel this way about a Tori Amos song. Much of her work is so uniquely hers that's it quite hard to imagine anyone else having a crack at it and not embarrassing themselves.

The Scarlet's Walk album was an interesting departure in that (at least initially) many of the songs seemed like they were deliberately using particular styles so that they sounded like something you had heard before, only not quite. I can no longer recall what most of the songs reminded me of, although I remember a review referring to I Can't See New York as a sort of 70s arena rock, and Gold Dust definitely sounded like film music. There's a bit of the same conscious use of styles on The Beekeeper. The most obvious examples are the strongly gospel-flavoured songs, but that's a very different direction to the Scarlet's Walk styles. Whereas I think Mother Revolution could have fitted on Scarlet's Walk rather well.

Ahem, yes, that last line was my actual point. But I think in this instance she's identified the stylistic archetype without quite mastering the idiom she was going for.

I've started loving Mother Revolution again for what it is and I'm gradually getting over my feelings of disappointment, but I still can't quite shake the sensation that what I really want to hear is an ever so slightly slower version by a black female blues singer with a dark edge to her voice that Tori lacks. THAT would have been a song I could fall utterly in love with.

Thrill 4-7: Painting by Numbers {General Joy}

Sigh.

I really do quite like this song, or at least elements of it. It's got a nice use of really deep growling piano notes. I really like the way the guitar imitates the piano.

It's just that General Joy seems so... general.

This probably isn't in any way true to the genesis of the song, but I can't shake my personal impression that this song is a case of deciding to make a Statement. It sounds like someone decided "I'm going to write a song about war" and went off and did it rather than waiting for inspiration to come and to write about whatever happened to turn up.

The lyrics lack interest and they're not distinctive Tori. There's a one track allegory where characteristics like Joy and Sorrow and Happiness are personified. Which might work if they were fleshed out a bit, but the same lines come around several times far too quickly and the thrust of them was pretty obvious the first time. And the reference to "hawks" changes in a fairly predictable way that is oddly reminiscent of my own attempts at songwriting. Given my general lack of platinum albums, this is not a good comparison.

I've noticed that I like the song better when it's not immediately after "Sleeps With Butterflies", so to some extent it's the old problem of crashing after a high point. Nevertheless, even when I play the song on its own I find my attention wandering after a while. It just doesn't grab me.

A culinary conundrum

...if you have dinner after midnight, does it technically become breakfast?

Mum, I swear I'm looking after myself! There were just so many other interesting things to do.

Ahem.

I hereby declare my intention to give up chess for Lent next year...

While I'm here, I also declare "golden grape" tomatoes to be this month's best new stir fry ingredient. Last month's winner was coriander. No award will be made in months where the judges consider none of the candidates to be of sufficient quality.

Sudden thought from catching about 5 seconds of television

(Yes, I know I'm being unusually prolific this evening)

Why on earth do sports commentators insist on using the language of war and violence all the time? Opponents get thrashed and beaten and so on.

I just heard someone describe one team as the 'arch enemies' of another. Frankly, I'd much prefer it if they at least occasionally got together for a couple of drinks at the pub. If things got really going, there might even be karaoke.

EVERYBODY'S doing it

This completely cracked me up, in a good way. Could this be the ultimate blog?

One part of me marvels at the inventiveness of someone like this. The other part of me wonders why nobody thought of it sooner. It's only a couple of months old, after all.

ROFLMAO, "Who am I to judge?", that's a good one.

*Wanders off to find what else he can stumble across on the internet*

Emotional lability

When it comes right down to it, it really only takes a small moment to completely transform a person's mood.

Or maybe that's just me, but I don't think so. I suspect most of us can have a day ruined or brightened in a very short period of time. It depends on which moments grab our focus.

I'm thinking about this because today (to be accurate, only the second half of the day) has had several highs and lows built into it.

There was a BIG high on discovering that a friend has succeeded in securing my first ever ticket to a Tori Amos concert. It was a surprise because I was expecting to have to wait another two days. A ticket in the dead centre of the Sydney Opera House is beyond my wildest expectations on how I would eventually see her perform live (although not my wildest dreams). Further joy occurred later on as I succeeded in securing a flight to Sydney using frequent flyer points.

There was a large dose of satisfaction as I suddenly realised that today I rather enjoyed the job I am so keen to leave. Having a large number of concrete, defined tasks instead of one horribly vague and neverending project made all the difference.

There was a clap of hands and a shout of 'yes!' as I reached a new high in my chess ranking, followed by a slight halt as I realised I was now only one point below Matt's ranking before he died.

There was a moment of intense grief as I discovered in the newspaper that Matt had been intending to propose to his girlfriend/partner of 8 years. She's now wearing the engagement ring, which was sitting in a parcel he never opened. It was worse because the first report I read suggested the parcel actually arrived just after his death. I now have reason to believe that's incorrect, but that barely diminishes the Hollywood-script tragedy of the story.

And there was a moment of profound gratitude when I opened a card from a friend that sincerely thanked me for doing something that I do because I enjoy it, not because people ask me to.

To think I claim to lead a fairly dull life.

Only the good

If my memory's accurate, I met Matt in the first few days of 2005.

It was a dinner with friends, and we were the only two people who didn't already know each other. So I was making a conscious effort to get to know Matt, and he obviously was doing the same. And we seemed to hit it off. He was intelligent (heck, to be a doctor that's pretty much mandatory), witty and generally a really nice person to spend a few hours with.

I thought it would be good to keep in touch, so I was very pleased when we started playing chess against each other online a couple of weeks later. He's turned out to be a much better player than me unfortunately!

On Saturday afternoon, 9 Australian Defence Force personnel from a crew of 11 were killed when their helicopter plunged straight into the ground on the Indonesian island of Nias and burts into flames. This morning I found out Matt was one of them.

Was he a close friend? No (dammit, I met him once and once only). But I thought he could be. And I think it's for that reason that I'm in tears.

I don't make close friends all that readily. Okay, I suspect hardly anybody does, but I'm acutely aware of the small number of people that I can sit down with and have a long and involved conversation about anything and everything, not least because most of that small number are not physically located close enough for regular conversation.

I know that I'm not going to get through life without knowing people who die, but right now I'm asking God to explain why it had to be someone I really liked. There are any number of people to choose from who I get along with fine, and would be saddened and shocked by their death, but I wouldn't be left wondering whether the relationship could have been better.

What exactly IS it about me that inspires people to leave, one way or another? And given that the circumstances of their leaving are often not under their control, what is it about God that he thinks this is a good way to shape my destiny?

It might seem I'm taking this rather too personally, but I honestly believe that a fundamental part of what has shaped me over the years is a profound difficulty in dealing with the loss of people I care about (whether or not they recognise how much I value them). And I think maybe the biggest single reason I am reluctant to let people in - especially other guys around my age - is a fear of losing them again.

It's not an irrational fear, because it's happened so often. And this time, there's no question it's final.

Rest In Peace, Matt. I wish I knew enough about you to say more.

Thrill 4-6: Light as the breeze {Sleeps with Butterflies}

I have fallen utterly in love with this song.

It's warm, it's tender, it's slightly sad (those lyrics about letting go, surely they can't be entirely happy?). The chorus sends shivers of pleasure through my spine almost without fail.

And to think I was worried about the Beekeeper album on the basis of sampling this song! It's like a beautiful rich lullaby urging to me lay down in a perfumed garden and cast my cares away. It will be alright. Just float and breathe slowly and deeply.

I still suspect I prefer Tori Amos to have a little bit of edge on her once in a while, but if this is a sign of the "flowers" she can produce... hand over the fertiliser!