there’s something very majolica majorca about this design (joey yung’s “ten most wanted” album), down to the mirror containing the eye with elongated lashes. what are they selling, makeup or music (or joey yung)?

that’s what i dislike about hong kong album covers - they seem to pinch things with little imagination (shya-la-la is a pretty bad offender), but i’m forgetting music is an overly commercial production thing over there. images that sell.

mad hatter’s tea party wahey. the price on the mad hatter’s hat is wrong. but we still managed to win best dressed table. crazy library people.

hana presents alice with her first magazine cover - alice looks closer at the “dot” on her nose…

melmo is a ficticious magazine created for the film, and is also a replica of olive!

even the cover tag line is taken from an old issue, replacing ‘olive girls’ with ‘melmo girls’…

olive is now defunct, ceasing publication after the aug 2003 issue, but the film hana and alice was released in 2004 so somewhere during filming their paths crossed. it’s a pity the reference came out too late to keep it alive.

i’ve kept all my old issues, a couple of years’ worth. what i liked most about the magazine was the concordance of culture. if you possess a certain aesthetic, their style of dressing will appeal to you, and the music and films suggested will already strike a chord.

rip slyme, okuda tamio, and ego wrappin’ are some of the musicians covered in issues. of course there was some creep in by hello project’s matsuura aya and johnny’s talent, but they were mostly for cuteness factor. photographer ninagawa mika used to have a monthly page, collaborating with writer sakurai ami. mangaka minami q-ta had a monthly comic, and naomi lemon (nao of seagull screaming kiss her kiss her) also had her own page of drawings.

so if it follows the rule, then hana and alice, and by extension, shunji iwai’s films, all belong in that world of olive girls culture.

i want to take pictures of everything without hesitating.

the efficient promotion team behind the silents has posted the video of nightcrawl to youtube. oh, it’s too much - damn damn damn damn. you know that selfish feeling you get, not wanting to share them with anyone else (that is you, rest of australia)? but yet they must be heard.

tiny japanese man, apologizing for his “broken english” when he need not. when damo said to come closer to the stage, we did. even though the words sung are not words but improvised, my ears kept picking up ‘new ways’. that’s what i wanted to hear, i guess. and he’d clap towards us and at the band at the end of songs (or ten minute freakouts, if you like) and had the tigers bow together with him at the end. i don’t need anything artificial (unlike the guy in the crowd rocking noticably forwards and backwards) because it’s all unity.

interview from last year. the bands that make up his network are ’sound carriers’. and “most important is ambition which brings positive energy”.

‘rhode island is famous for you’ and ‘give him the ooh la la’ as sung by blossom dearie

waitress at les deux moulins who looks like…

bookclub with stina over 2706 kms

“if we had those waterloo sunset pills there would be no neeed for anti depressants. “

cassette culture

novala takemoto translations, especially about old fashioned letter writing and this: “The beginning of love is unrequited love, and the root of love is when your partner fixes a little image of you in a beautiful misunderstanding. “

thank god i’m not working tomorrow

somehow i opened my fat trap and from the frog footman became alice in wonderland after one of the other girls at the library couldn’t make it. i am going to be alice in wonderland! it is going to be food table of many judged by ian parmenter. we will have heart tarts, a cheshire cat, teapots and a spare place at the table. i almost feel like i’ve got a part to play and a princess attitude to ignore. and none of that disney whitewash here. maybe i won’t get a blond wig and be a black haired alice. nobody at my workplace is a natural blonde anyway.

edit: while “researching” (now i know what an alice band is), i end up reading designer kato’s points. “do not make your image by yourself” i.e. don’t be so quick to judge what looks good and what doesn’t on you.

i always think i don’t look cute, and i’m overgrown and have my father’s face, but here’s an opportunity to try some new things. i just don’t want to wear the 80s puff sleeve ballgown that one of the librarians brought in though.

my mum picked up the phone the night before while i was out. “this is rachael’s mum. don’t call her anymore, she doesn’t like it.” bang!

i saw him in front of me as i got off the train morning - oh shit i was walking as slow as i could. feeling creeped out again, thinking he might have spotted me and could be hiding around some corner.

i am really blase about fireworks, since i live close to a racetrack, and they seem to have them every other friday cos who wants to watch horses drag stupid carts in a circle anyway. the casino has them whenever they think something special is on, like when they open a new holiday inn. sometimes i’d rather they stop it so it doesn’t sound like someone is shelling my place.

i had a dream where i could improv so well musically i was watching myself in the third person. i could even wear those tiny vintage dresses all those other cute girls wear. and probably because neither of those is true i had a very long pointed nose.

naturally since finding youtube like other lost fools, i’ve been watching lots of stupid videos online, and i have so little irony to offer

• the barking cat (i can’t believe you haven’t seen it yet)
• god i love her voice - it’s halfway between a baby and an old woman
• i find nothing excrutiating about 80s synth pop or the overblowness (i’m thinking twice about covering it though - why did everyone else have to do it - yoshikawa hinano, boyracer, tommy february6 etc)
• i reserve the least irony for them

aibon caught smoking!

see, nobody is as cute as they think they are.

i made myself go to the big day out last sunday. it was hot. i got sunburnt in stupid places. i left straight after sleater-kinney, who made the day for me (i can’t stop saying how much i still love carrie brownstein). everyone was using phone cameras and digital cameras/slrs to take pictures. i felt like an anachronism with my old yashica. (but film forever etc etc)

and i’ve been spending time with this lovely duo while they’re in town. today was lunch in central park along with the two chris’s, and jasper was smearing strawberry everywhere.

it was so hot again that my eyeliner ran riot, but i feel like i could take on the world.

i am feeling web nostalgia lately, for bad design (i want the right words not layouts), the general crappiness of diaryland (which meant i would study the words i posted harder), and even the times when i would refresh uber.nu a hundred times a day for new posts. and remember when livejournal was the equivalent of myspace, the cliquey shit you love to hate?

but the web is ephemera, what’s the point?

to save you from the image of the cow in front of the tokyo tower, here are a couple of photographs i dug out of my mother’s box, and decided to hang onto for a bit…

i started this line of thought because i picked up my parents from the airport today, after they spent chinese new year with my grandmother (she gets worse every twelve months, mum said, and she got upset when i told her that her mother had gone to heaven a long time ago. it’s cyclical though. there’s a new baby, three kids who actually scare it with peekaboo games, and another baby on the way.).

my grandmother looked after these twins years ago. mum doesn’t remember their names. i can’t get over the wistful look of the one resting on the blinds. please let me out! i wonder where they are now?

my cousins and some other kids posing for the camera. i don’t think i had been born yet when this photo was taken.

after joining a major label (sony) i was worried halcali were going to turn into singing puffy twins, what with tip tap tips and all.

but their flow is back with the oshare track factory in tow (two of our favourite members of rip slyme). twinkle star is the best song since baby blue, i say. i suddenly feel like some doughnuts…

after the meeting finished, there wasn’t much point driving all the way back to work again, so i took the opportunity to go op shopping. i almost bought a very transparent white skirt, but decided that the creator had actually used their old lace curtains on the bottom and decided not to. but i did pick up this book as a consolation, nick drake songs tabbed for guitar. but i’ve listened to very little nick drake, making it an opportunity to hear some more.

the cover image is strange. fuzzy, like out of focus, but like the light behind him has caused it. maybe i read too much into looking at pictures of dead people.