take no prisoners

arcadia

Originally uploaded by Illuminata.

It’s rare but not unheard of that Drew, Eugene and I go out for a meal together. A weekend breakfast is most likely, but tonight it’s been dinner in Chinatown, a stroll afterwards with icecream, and now, to my infinite fascination, they take the bond-through-competition option – Gamesworld. Drew, whose killer instinct rarely fails him in pub games, thrashes Eug 6-3 at shufflecock – they play brutally enough that the disc leaves the table and flies across the room; they move on to a car race. When I come up behind them they are neck and neck; Eug gets ahead, Drew gives him hell with some vicious sideswipes but minutes later Eug comes in 7th, Drew 8th. They move to the little rows of footballers… I switch the Palm to camera but miss a great shot of a little girl on tiptoe to look into the table. Lots of laughter, Drew wins. We wander towards the entrance but I can’t help myself – I ask Eugene if he doesn’t want his revenge. He cheerfully admits it, and they browse for a new game. In the noise and hype I leave them to it, but as we round corners toward each other they are talking more fluently together than they ever can in front of me. I wonder what about. They find more cars; a tactical error on Eug’s part, I fear: Drew is an excellent driver and will not be beaten twice. He wins, by a second. They buy more tokens. When I look up again, they are side by side, guns levelled at a shared screen. I stop watching; it’s definitely no longer about me, and that’s as it should be.

hell in a handbasket

Have to say I’m enjoying the ballyhoo created by the release of Mark Latham’s book. The level of vitriol has surprised even those who thought him boorish during the election campaign, but it appears to me to be the well-vented bitterness of a man who believed – and was given to believe – that he could make a difference, and who learned in the process of failing to do so that the good guys are very nearly as rotten as the bad guys, and in a whole lot bigger mess. So he retired to the family home where he could raise his kids, talk with his lawyer wife, and lay his terrible new knowledge on the line for us all. Read his honest, touching and funny interview on Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope here.

models take it off for art

at the art gallery of nsw

Originally uploaded by Illuminata.

From Volante, the students’ voice of the University of South Dakota, comes this charming and almost perfectly tasteful article about life modelling as a slightly racy but respectable casual job, ideal for students. The going rate here in Sydney, by the way, is around $25/hr.

At right, c’est moi, in the Old Courts of the Art Gallery of NSW, separated from the Sunday hoi polloi only by a flimsy structure of easels draped with purple velvet. To read of the inevitable, click on the photo.

french AND japanese

I really should blog about my birthday dinner. Drew asked me what kind of restaurant I wanted to go to, and I said French or Japanese. He went one better and took me to Jazushi, a Japanese/Eurasian fusion experience complete with live jazz. The website, by the way, isn’t beautiful, but the food is exquisite.

It’s served tapas style: you order a couple of dishes each and share them all. They’re $15-20 a plate, so you won’t get much change from $100 for two all up, but it really is a fine dining experience. We had a fish mezze plate, a warm vegetable salad, a dish based on the lushest pork-belly meat and (omigod) camembert tempura. If you ever had that old ’80s favorite, deep-fried camembert and cranberry sauce, wipe it from your mind. Tempura is the Way. It came with – I can’t describe it – a burnt cream sauce? Wonderful.

We almost got a red snapper dish as well, but it would’ve been too much. Chocolate brulee wasn’t though, and Drew had a very nice poached pear but I think the waiter was wrong to recommend it over D’s original choice, the plate of Japanese desserts. But you can’t expect a waiter to recognise the acerbity behind D’s mild front; he may look like the poached-pear type but in fact he’s the obscure-and-not-very-sweet-beans-and-coconut type. Nonetheless, it was a superb meal, enhanced by a fine crisp dry fruity white wine and I must say, we were both looking fabulous.

this is the other one

proportions not classical

Originally uploaded by Illuminata.

A doctor at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital’s Rachel Forster Breast Clinic syringed my lump and decreed it harmless.

But he found another dark area on the ultrasound which he decided was of concern, so he took a biopsy of that and I have to call back in a week for the results.

I refused to have a mammogram. The stats for detection by mammogram are a 90% success rate, for ultrasound 80%, but I’m under 50 with one small lump and no history of cancer either personally or in the family, and a mammogram is unpleasant for anyone but really painful if you have small hard breasts. I had to put my foot down; the doctor who did my initial exam tried that chiding voice they use when they assume their science and statistics unquestionably overrule your personal issues. She used it again afterwards to tell me she couldn’t guarantee that I didn’t have cancer, and I resisted saying a 90% detection rate’s no guarantee either, lady. Thanks, I thought, but I’ll make the choice about when it’s necessary for me to go through that. It may be next week, but it wasn’t today.

I’m sore enough from three needles being jabbed and wiggled about.

knowing too much

A few months ago… April, actually, though it might have started in March, I was thinking about this whole seer/oracle thing and thinking ‘what predictions can you make?’

Apart from the obvious ones like the more-or-less-impending end of the world, there was one that came out of the mud of my subconscious quite clearly, only it was sad and alarming and preposterous, and while I was quite certain it would happen, I didn’t know enough about when and where to mention it to more than a very small number of people.

I remember telling Drew and Faruk when Drew and I were visiting Faruk in Tumut. We met Faruk in Istanbul; he’s a friend of Drew’s but, despite my best efforts, not really a friend of mine. I think I remind him of his ex-wife in some way, which is funny, because she likes me even less than he does. But this is by the bye; I did tell at least these two people of my conviction that somewhere, soon, an entire city would be laid waste.

web of world music women

the week ends with a bang as dave (this is dave) does his magic high over south king street till very late saturday night.

it’s been a heavy month; modelling-wise september is mercifully light – hopefully i can now fit in rest, recuperation and musical progress.

tonight i’ve been listening to angelique kidjo… ayé, what a woman… and to Nübun, a kurdish band whose music is banned by the turkish government in an attempt to suppress kurdish nationalism, and marvelling at the jawdroppingly bold beautiful vocals of Nure. that tape was given to drew and me by kurdish carpet sellers in istanbul.

and i was giving the iva bittova tape a bit of a spin a while ago… i think i’m sensing a pattern here…