dogpossum: March 2004 Archives

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March 24, 2004

no, i'm not actually a barbie

i'm concerned that my last post made me sound like an anorexic barbie, panicking about her appearance and arse.

i'd just like to state, categorically, that:
1) i am not a barbie
2) i am not anorexic
3) i do actually quite like my body
4) i am going to the gym to get fit enough so that i don't die at herrang in july (provided i get the grant so i can go do the field work)
5) i do secretly fancy myself as a linda hamilton type. i think i could look good in muscles

so why the gym, not-barbie?

i wasn't getting enough exercise and was increasing in girth. not a huge problem in itself (i always feel the same size, and am surprised when i can't fit into pants), but had practical concerns: i couldn't afford to keep myself in pants; it was harder to dance a lot; i was getting less flexible - mass = harder to bend; and so on.

so far it has been observed that 'yes, you are getting smaller' and 'you jiggle less now'. unfortunately, the latter point also applies to the bust area, as the natural consequence of weight loss. and while The Squeeze greets my front with ever-increasing mournfulness, i am assuring him that a stronger 'poss will also mean more robust displays of affection, which he quite likes.

"no, i'm not actually a barbie" was posted by dogpossum on March 24, 2004 5:11 PM in the category

March 22, 2004

queen of the gym

i care only for fitballs, stretches and weights. the rest is for babies.

i am now queen of the gym. i have a Serious Weights Face and am obsessed with the stretch poster. it's huge, and has about a million little drawings of different stretches for different muscle groups using different equipment. it also has a map of the human muscles (front and back). i add more stretches to my list each time i do my stretches. i'm all about back, shoulders and hips. i don't do ones with accessories, except my fitball situps with the swiss ball. i love that thing. i have one at home, but i use it only for excited bouncing when we have guests.

i also love yoga, but am thwarted in my attempts to go regularly:
1) it's on at 11:45 on sundays. no good if i've been up late.
2) if i forget to book a place i miss out. goddamn shit.

i love that yoga shit. i just love the stretches and yoga. i love the instructor - we only do baby yoga, and she's very patient. she's also at least 60, moves with a 10 year old's fluidity and can put any limb anywhere. at any time.
i have noticed that my funny shaped arms, which do not appear to actually straighten to 180 degrees (thank you for point that out, Squeeze), are impeding my attaining perfect form and Nice Poses.
but i do a totally bitchin down-dog now. i even slip it in when i'm doing my stretches during my Program.

i also love weights, but i think it's a linda hamilton thing, rather than a real passion. i like to pretend i'm looking more and more like the Red Singlet Girl i see there every time i go. she lifts about a million kgs a go, is tiny, lean and super fit. she's all super smart, wards off dough-arse gymjerks with witty comebacks that don't leave them cranky, and looks good in bike pants. i aspire to looking good in bike pants. those short, cotton blend ones.
(you KNOW it's all about the fashion for me).
i want to be really strong. really tough. and yet also fleet.

i find the cardio stuff stullifying. and i wonder about those chicks who sit on the exercise bikes (from which the knee bans me) for, like 30 minutes. they are so going to have big muscley 'up' bums. and big muscley legs (like The Squeeze).
i am going to be lean. or maybe rippling with muscle. i haven't decided yet.

aerobics:
1) hurts my knee because it's all bouncy shit
2) involves the stupidest music, though i like it when the instructors sing along unashamedly. it makes me smile. they are so digging their endorphines. how cute.
3)is so simple compared to lindy hop it's not challenging at all
4) isn't as physically demanding as lindy, so i don't get tired enough.

having to ease off on my knee means i can't keep the pace up enough to get really really tired. i'm obviously the toughest person in the world, and that's why i look so goddamn good in swimming costumes.
no, no, as i remind myself, i look wonderful whatever i wear, it's just that my body has a whole range of textures and sensual delights that Vogue has never even imagined. having said that, i'm not ready to go swimming in what amounts to my underwear. it's just not decent. one day i'll get a new rashy and then i'll be safe from cancer. i love swimming. so i'd better get one soon.

but back on the aerobics thing -
it's probably more the case that i've learnt how to do aerobic exercise low-impact through swing marathoning, and am having trouble Stepping It Up for aerobics.
probably.

i have now done body combat (which i adore. at first it was because i liked pretending i was boxing, now it's because i like the way we're encouraged to get really tough, to pretend we're really fighting people by the instructor. i like the noises we're supposed to make. i try not to laugh inappropriately. but it cracks me up).
i've also done body jam, the one most like dance, which was most interesting, but also bloody harsh on my knee. it was taken by two women with interesting names - one was dimmy, who was obviously greek. i kept thinking about that all through the class. i kept going over the whole hiphop/latin dance + greek instructor thing. dimmy was probably short for ... something.
see. this is what aerobics does to your brain. it makes you boring. that's why dance is better - you're too busy thinking about steps and technique to worry about ethnic patterns.

i've done cardio box, which was unbelievably hardcore, requiring maximum strength. it was also the only class with more than two men in it. in fact, it was 90% men. and taken by a man (and not lovely richard from body combat - no flared tracksuit pants with matching shirt for cardiobox-sam. he was hardcore). they didn't tell you how to do anything - you just had to know how to do it. so i had to ask how to do everything. i liked using the boxing gloves, sparring and hitting the boxing bag things. i'm not sure about skipping. but i liked experimenting with weight transfer and leading with my body.

so i liked cardio box, but i hurt for a week afterwards.

i've also done beginners aerobics, which had some of everything, and was ok. i am avoiding body step as it's lethal for knees. i'm also avoiding tri and body attack. just because. this week i think i'll try strength and stability, as i saw that it involves swiss balls and has a male instructor. variety is all that's keeping me coming to these things, so i seek it out in all its forms.

i have also noticed that obsessive interests are really uninteresting to read about. well, at least it's not dancing any more.

"queen of the gym" was posted by dogpossum on March 22, 2004 6:43 PM in the category

belle de jour

blog research continues.
today i read a blog called 'belle de jour', which was linked from this blog ordinary morning which i really like. seems this belle de jour is Controversial - lots of newspaper time. she's (supposedly - who'd know for sure? and who cares either way) a Lady Of The Night. the blog is suitably saucy, but also fairly well written, which is a relief. there's far too much shit in the blog world. at any rate, if you're interested, here's the link. there aren't any embarassing pictures so you can read it at work. i lost interest after a page. i think i like the blogs with kids in more than the blogs with pussies, i've decided.
ahahahahahhahaha

sorry. that was crude.
but i still like the kiddy blogs more.

"belle de jour" was posted by dogpossum on March 22, 2004 6:17 PM in the category

March 18, 2004

oh my!

i think i swear a lot. i'm not sure i should put me swearing so much (and so aggressively - oh my!) in a public space. where The Mother might read it. or even more worrying, where dad (who doesn't have a million years in social work to cushion the blow) might read it.

"oh my!" was posted by dogpossum on March 18, 2004 10:55 AM in the category

a haraway moment

today i suddenly thought (while i was reading this blog), how do we know what someone's gender is when we read their blog? i've sort of been thinking, off to the side of my brain there, where i don't notice it, 'wonder if this person's a girl or a boy' when i read a new blog.

and then i thought, 'oh, i must be easy to pick'. what with that big picture of myself up there at the top. you'd be surprised how many of my readers (my readers - fahahfhfha)have said 'hey, where did you get a picture that looks like yourself from?' or 'hey, that picture really looks like you!'. maybe i'm a more convincing artist than i'd thought?

does gender change the way i read a blog? i'm noticing that most of the ones that i'm getting from this site and sticking in my favourites (- blogs and friends' sites - blogs to read) are by blokes over 35 with at-home jobs.

i was looking for some 'feminist' blogs, or at least blogs by women who weren't writing cutesy stories about their goddamn motherfukking cats (sorry, but really - CATS?! what the goddamn fukk?!! how can i be expected to bear this bullshit...?). i'm liking reading the identity blogs, but i'm not afro-american, so i'm looking for some other sorts of resonances... oh, i should add that most of my most-read blogs are by gay men, or hetero men with kids.

"a haraway moment" was posted by dogpossum on March 18, 2004 10:53 AM in the category clicky

March 17, 2004

thing i saw on a blog today

wish lists

holy fukk.
i hate this stupid, tiny text box. why is it so goddamn small? what kind of idiot only writes such tiny amounts? who the fukk thought BLOG people would only write such tiny entries? were they on CRACK?

i guess so.

ok, rant over. but note that the size of the box i write these entries in is directly responsible for the bullshitty state of many of my entries. the ones without caps, for the most part.

thing i saw on a blog today: wish lists.
what? is that crazy? talk about santa lists. do people really go to other people's wish lists and actually buy them that shit? for those of you not in the know, a wish list is really just a list of shit people want to buy from somewhere like amazon or ebay.

i dunno. these seem a bit bullshitty to me.

i guess i might write a wish list on a scrap of paper here at home, but it's mostly things like cds or books to keep an eye out for in second hand shops.
The Mother has a list of things she's looking for for me, but that's mostly to stop her buying me things like The Ugliest Jumper In The Whole World (i'll put a pic up sometime soon, then offer it to the highest bidder). while TUJITWW is kinda facinating, it's not so useful... though i'm up to about ninemillion bonehandled knives now, so maybe i need to amend her list. The Mother is a crap-magnet. that's her official family title. she just loves crap. she loves hunting it, killing it, dragging it home to decorate her nest with it or mail off to other people so they can decorate their nests with it. the whole pink book thing is part of that i guess.
not to say that i don't enjoy her regular parcels - the last one had in it:
- a tasswing tshirt
- a pack of lavender egyptian towels
- a silverpolishing cloth
- half a dozen bars of hippy soap
- two blocks of handmade tasmanian chocolate
- some little sparkly stick on things
oh, and some other stuff, too that i can't remember. it was pretty cool. i like all the soap, we ate all the chocolate, i actually cleaned the silver teapot set m and broos gave me about a million years ago (and they look fukking ooorsome).

but still. my list for The Mother is mostly a matter of my placating her rabid hunter-gatherer instincts, rather than an 'oh, i might like to own all this shit' list.

... but what if people actually bought you that shit? maybe that'd be cool.
maybe.
pft.

"thing i saw on a blog today" was posted by dogpossum on March 17, 2004 12:56 PM in the category

what, me blog?

i'd not heard of them until a few months ago

ok, so i know i should be working(that actually seems to be a good way to end the day working - i was mucho productivo yesterday afternoon. yahoo!), but...

blogs, right.

now, i'd not heard of them until a few months ago, when i found a link at the bottom of a fellow list-member's post. no, scrap that. i read a little article in a newpaper about them. looked them up, thought 'argh, teenage poetry', cringed and moved on.
and now, i'm blogging myself. i hadn't intended to blog. The Squeeze bought me this domain for my birthday in 2002, and we'd meant to get cracking on it right away. but i couldn't figure out dreamweaver, and The Squeeze is so far beyond me in geekdom that we couldn't communicate well enough on the subject for me to learn anything useful. we were also fussing over our freeswingpress site, which also didn't get off the ground, as we couldn't agree on design, he got caught up in the tecnicalities, i wrote a million articles and we moved on.

but now i'm blogging. like i said, i hadn't intentended to blog. i had wanted to learn to intynet.
this is a big thing for a girl who hadn't had much time for the internet since she discovered it in 1993 in the uq computer labs. sure, i'd done some online publishing in a journal (don't ask me to link - it's a somewhat shameful memory) in about 1997, but it wasn't really my thing. i was nuts about discussion lists, but that's an email thing, rather than an internet thing (yes, i do discriminate).
but discussion boards led me to it.

it was The Squeeze who got me interested in the internet in a serious way. he's mr computer nerd. i'm not. well i wasn't. but i don't think i'm really an internet geek. there are other things i care about more. i think that the internet has kind of moved from geekworld into the realworld. for me, anyway.
well, our having adsl at home has helped me get interested. and finding out about music online. my current chapter's on djing and music use in swing communities. the internet is really important in this - i know that i found out about swing music in a big way from online sources when i was researching this chapter... part of me is feeling so uncomfortable with the way this is so obviously marking out djing as an elite, or inaccessible role in the swing community. the way swing is marked 'elite' by the major role the internet and online communications play. argh. what's a feminist to do? get out of swing, i reckon. right now i'm convinced it's untenable for a Sister.

but anyway, now my thesis is really interested in online community stuff. i've come a long way since my frustrations with cyberpunk bullshit in 1994. and so's the internet.
now there are far more interesting people to play with online.

but i'm still not sure this is the thing for me. i'm sure as shit not interested in just wacking my shit up on the web and letting it stand alone. i like the interactive stuff best.

but i'm really looking for some interesting online academic work. so i can really think and really write. rather than just blathering. oh well. keep hunting, i guess.

"what, me blog?" was posted by dogpossum on March 17, 2004 12:22 PM in the category

what a tangled mess

i've just been reading some things about identity blogs. i went from here to here and then looked around, before getting stuck here, where i found a reference to an article i'd read for the thesis just recently.
things are just getting too tangled. i've been working with henry jenkins' book 'textual poachers' at the moment, for my thesis which is on communications practices in swing dancing communities, particularly in reference to f2f and online activity. then i find like a million references to his column 'digital renaissance' in MIT's journal technology review. i have a friend who's a hardcore swinger/blues man, and he's an MIT alumni. i discovered jenkins was at MIT after sol and i discussed the sorts of things MIT offered. one step back, and i went to see a paper by a guy called tommy defranz, on afro-american vernacular dance and media/film, which totally inspired me. he's at MIT, a prof in dance. i was telling sol about tommy's paper, and sol then notes that a friend of his was working on afro-american vernacular dance - lindy in particular.
so, now all i need is for henry jenkins to make a comment about lindy/swing on my blog, and the whole thing'll be so tangled i have to give up blogging, dancing and my phd out of sheer frustration.

"what a tangled mess" was posted by dogpossum on March 17, 2004 12:00 PM in the category

March 15, 2004

The Mother is Online

does this mean that IÂ’ll soon be trafficking in circus performers as well?

Ok, so I know I should be working. I kind of am.

Well, not really. And I know no one was fooled by that. Not even me.

This year The Mother discovered the internet. It started mostly at Christmas, when she and dad came up to stay with us for a few days (which was, incidentally, the nicest Christmas IÂ’ve had since IÂ’ve been a grownup. Yes. ItÂ’s true). SheÂ’s madkeen on romance novels - pink books to those of us In The Trade. She owns millions and millions. She knows all about them. Really. She does. This is a long term interest. Not something sheÂ’s rushed into in the last month or so. She really owns millions of them. And she has a network of book shop owners (mostly middle-aged women. Not that that should surprise you - middle-aged women are of course The Powers That Be. They know everything. Really) across the country keeping An Eye Out for her. With me here in Melbourne and my bro up in Brisvegas and her own city of Hobart to cover, sheÂ’s pretty much got the east coast under control. Sydney? Pft. She did that in 1999/2000 when dad was working in Wollongong. SheÂ’s SO over Sydney.

The most recent (and most disturbing) of her contacts are the ladies in the rendezvous bookshop here in Melbourne. That is pink shop mecca - itÂ’s hardcore shit. They sell nothing but pink books. Their customers (or should that be clientele?) are all middle-aged women. Their dÃ©cor is heavy on the Romantic, the Victorian. The be-tasselled. They have a lot of time to talk in there - when The Mother goes in (with me trailing reluctantly, and somewhat petulantly, behind her), they greet her by name, proclaiming their Joy at her Return. As well they should - this woman spends more than a little there each month.

In fact, The Mother is such a valued customer/client that they have her credit card details on record in there. When IÂ’m about to come down to Tas for a visit, IÂ’m sent in to pick up Â‘someÂ’ books. Yeah, right. I rush in, the ladies recognise me, pass me a stack of books (having been pre-warned that my arrival is imminent by The Mother), and I rush out. ThereÂ’s no chitchat - theyÂ’re good at dealing with uncomfortable family members (only my gender grants me some degree of comfort in this decidedly matriarchal space). No cash changes hands. TheyÂ’re all paid for by The MotherÂ’s credit card. I am also allowed to request ordered-in copies of real books (SF, crime, etc). I am not unaware of the nature of these gifts. I know when I am being Paid Off.

And then I carry this half-tonne weight of quality reading material over the Bass Straight. I take a large suitcase with me every time. I know I can rely on The Mother to get me through the baggage weigh-in without fines or charges for overweight bags. She is Queen, no, empress of sly. After all, who would suspect a comfortable middle-aged ex-pat Brit who talks a whole damn lot of nefarious dealings?

So yeah, sheÂ’s down with the whole romance novel bookshop thing. She is unrivalled in her knowledge, her contacts, her cross-border commutes.

And now she has the internet.
The woman canÂ’t type, has learned-helplessness and the guilt trip honed to a fine edge and doesnÂ’t have online access at home. This is the woman who worked for the dept of health for years and years and years and never learnt to answer or send her own email. She never typed a thing for anyone, ever. Even after she was moved up from the lower ranks of social work to the upper echelons of management. If she was a man, it wouldÂ’ve been exploitation. But she was a middle-aged woman. And it just Was.
So now sheÂ’s getting jiggy with the internet. That Christmas with us she discovered that windows is actually reasonably accessible (point and click, the back button, one-fingered typing), and that ADSL is very kind to newbs. No time pressures. She can spend as long as she likes on the computer. Christmas day, weÂ’re finishing lunch. Dad and I are abandoned at the table while she dictates her online demands to The Squeeze, whose spineless - or self-preservatory - approach to dealing with matriarchs was finely tuned by growing up in a household with only a sister and mother.

And what exactly is she doing? WhatÂ’s she looking at? Online second hand bookshops. ABEBooks to be precise. Now she can search through millions of bookshops from her own (or my own) home. But sheÂ’s not particularly happy with mediated communication. So she rings them. Interstate, international. SheÂ’s on first name bases with the proprietors of millions of second hand bookshops all over the world.

Yesterday she sent me an email that, somewhat stream-of-consciously stated -

Â“i only get in to see my emails at the weekend dad gets a little niggled at other times and he hasn't got the laptop organised yet, i don't think he is too keen on me being on the internet too much.Â”

Which followed the line
Â“i have found the cirque and have joined their clubÂ”

And while I like the thought of my mother joining the circus (or circus club), I know she means that sheÂ’s joined a mailing list. Now sheÂ’s adding Canadian circus performers to her List. Does this mean that IÂ’ll soon be trafficking in circus performers as well?

"The Mother is Online" was posted by dogpossum on March 15, 2004 2:48 PM in the category

March 13, 2004

we are dirty hippies...

... but cheerfully so

Today was the sort of day that makes Melbourne people say things like Â‘oh, this is why Melbourne is wonderfulÂ’, forgetting the rest of the year for the sake of one decent autumn day. Clear, sunny, a cooling wind, but not cold.

An excellent gardening day. I pulled out another tomato plant (the huge, mutant type that The Squeeze found so worrying), and picked as many cherry tomatoes as I could find. Once again the eggplants gave me an itchy, prickly rash and I was yellow from tomato sap. But The Squeeze is happy again - new bubs in (another row of beans, because he loves them and theyÂ’re nitrogen fixing), space cleared for spinach, the baby carrots carefully stepped over.

There are bubba eggplants growing on the bushes and they are the most beautiful fruit you could hope to grow. Gorgeous, smooth dark purple skins, a spikey green skirt round their necks, lavender flowers. Itchy, prickly rash. DoesnÂ’t seem to affect The Squeeze, only me. Eggplant allergies are common, but at least I can eat the bastards.

I pulled off a million more beans, inspected the compost (still full. Goddamn tomatoes), fussed over my herbs.

IÂ’ll post some pics of the veggies soon though they look a bit dull. Some things dying off, some big patches sitting quietly under mulch. AutumnÂ’s here, and weÂ’re slow with the next round of stuff.

IÂ’ve plans for an uber herb garden in the front yard. A big, ornamental thing all around that pathetic, slimey-caterpillar infested little tree in the middle of the dead grass. We donÂ’t like the front yard - too exposed. But thereÂ’s no room left out the back, now weÂ’re pretending weÂ’re on The Good Life.

So I figure a herb gardenÂ’s a good idea. We ordered some seeds from eden seeds - marshmallow, thai basil, comfrey, coriander, thyme some other things I canÂ’t remember. I pine for anise, but itÂ’s an annual. IÂ’ll get seeding annuals later in the year, once my perennials and hardier things are in. IÂ’m pushing for mostly annuals at the moment, so I can establish some long term things. Damn. Forgot rosemary. Oh well, will have to take cuttings off the back plant. The plan is to dig it up now, let it sit under the mulch over winter while we get some seedlings going. Will be cheaper and more reliable than buying plants. I think we might need to think about a greenhouse arrangement, but The Squeeze isnÂ’t keen. Just wait til he tries germinating these seeds outside in Melbourne winter. I reckon IÂ’m up for the plan. WeÂ’ve got some old wire drawers in the shed, and IÂ’ll just buy some clear plastic from the hardware shop. Oop-ah! Greenhouse.< /p>

IÂ’m going to use my four types of mint from the back, chives, etc that we have seed for already. ItÂ’ll be top stuff. Especially since that front yard is so goddamn ugly these days. Very scorched earth. But thereÂ’s something odd about the dirt out there oh well, our north facing advantage should stand us in good stead

Gardening is nice. ItÂ’s so satisfying to grow your own stuff. I love having a decent herb garden, and growing a bigger herb garden that I can experiment with tea herbs will be really nice.

We are dirty hippies.

But cheerfully so.

"we are dirty hippies..." was posted by dogpossum on March 13, 2004 5:55 PM in the category

some changes...

i've added some new things to this site, but it's still a bit messy. apologies for gaps, uneven lines, etc.
but heck, i am all over this MT thing!

"some changes..." was posted by dogpossum on March 13, 2004 12:59 PM in the category

March 12, 2004

technical...

i'm still working on that left margin, kids, so hang in there. i know some people have said they feel they might be missing out on the very important stuff on that far left side of the front page, but really, you're not.
i'm still learning - when i figure out how to change that margin, i'll do it.
but right now i'm proud of the font on the blog entries - 150% rather than 200%, so there aren't so many horrid spaces everywhere. i like clutter. :)

"technical..." was posted by dogpossum on March 12, 2004 10:52 AM in the category

todayÂ’s been kind of odd already

itÂ’s only quarter to 11, but IÂ’ve been awake since 8:30

Which might not seem very early, but for a girl whose body favours 11 hours sleep at a time, itÂ’s a bit odd. Especially since I went to bed at about 12:30 last night. So only 8 hours. I was lying there this morning, thinking Â‘why am I awake? WhatÂ’s woken me up?Â’, enjoying the feel of clean sheets and just the right amount of blankets, being quietly confused. But The Squeeze hadnÂ’t gotten up yet, so thatÂ’s why I hadnÂ’t already gone through my woken-up-at-8-back-to-sleep-til-8:30-woken-up-for-goodbye-kiss-back-to-sleep-til-10 routine. Just threw me right off.

And now IÂ’m sitting here, up for ages (relatively speaking), wearing my warmer purple sensual-delight cardigan (the chick-magnet one) and long trousers, with my fingers and toes getting chillier by the minute. Seems autumn has come to Melbourne. itÂ’s overcast and the sky is really low. Rain seems imminent, which is shitty as I have laundry to do. Stinky dance clothes. Urk. I even had porridge for breakfast, in honour of autumn I guess well, no actually in honour of the lack of bread in our house.

IÂ’m going out for lunch soon, so I should be working. But IÂ’m not. The chapter is getting bigger and bigger - 14000 words so far, when I should be keeping it to 10 000. seems now that IÂ’ve started writing about dancing, I just canÂ’t stop. I have so many things to say. So many interesting observations to make. The Supes thinks itÂ’s all very clever and all, but is concerned that because I know so much about my topic I might be losing sight of the bigger issues in all that detail.

ItÂ’s difficult to know so much.

So IÂ’m trying to think of some bigger issues. Sure, IÂ’ve got gender and class and stuff under happening. But she wants me to think bigger.

Bigger than that?

Man.

Really, I have to be able to say what exactly my thesis tells us about media in swing communities. right now I can say a Whole Fucking Lot. In fact, 14 000 words worth. But IÂ’m sure she means that I should be plugging into some critical theory, rather than some spurious anecdotal theory. Ah, pah. So IÂ’m trying. I really am.

So far I think that IÂ’m trying to say that swingers - fans, really - use media in particularly interactive ways. They donÂ’t just consume it, they use/make/play with it. Which is fairly aw-duh in the fan-studies world. But I think itÂ’s important that swingers are using a whole range of communications media in very interactive ways. I think itÂ’s important that swingers - who are all about the body and face to face communication - are also big users of online communications media. Could just be a side-effect of their demographic, though - lots of young (18 - 25 year old aw fukk, now I feel old ), middle class kiddies with their first jobs. But I also have this theory that swing wouldnÂ’t be the way it is without the internet - the online communications media is central to the community, built into it from day 1. There are no paper media in swing. Even radio is relatively low-relevance (which is odd in such a music-centred culture).

And I think they do all sorts of interesting things with media that other fan communities donÂ’t. So IÂ’ve written them all down. And most of them have to do with the way they use online media in their face to fact interactions. And the way their community(s) are both localised in a big way - all about the body and actually touching other people - yet also seriously globalised - all about talking with swingers in other countries. IÂ’m interested in the ways they share ideas, about the flow of information and ideas and culture in swing. I think swingers do it in unique ways.

But thatÂ’s kind of the supervisorÂ’s point. Sure they do lots of things in unique ways, but what can this study of their uniqueness tell us about media use in fan communities generally? Hmph. I dunno.

I suspect it has something to do with the ways swingers - as fans and dancers - tailor existing media forms to meet their ideological discursive needs. They take something like a discussion board and use it in very swing-specific ways. And further, that these specific uses are localised, not only in terms of geography (ie Sydney swingers use swing talk in different ways to Melbourne swingers) but also in terms of localised communities of interest - SwingDJs uses the discussion board format in different ways to Melbourne swingers use swing talk.

But all thatÂ’s hardly new. ThatÂ’s the sort of research thatÂ’s been going on for ages in other areas. Like weÂ’ve never talked about uses of technology before. I like it as a balance to the whole technological determinism thing, but even thatÂ’s old news - youÂ’d have to be pretty brave to argue that technology is changing us in any media studies forum today. So I kind of think that swingersÂ’ use of media is a combination of uses-of-media, and media-affecting-people. Rather, I think itÂ’s that people have integrated media - online media - into their lives so comprehensively that itÂ’s an integral part of most things they do. Swingers are wired - they use online communications every day, in many different ways. It affects where and when and how they dance. ItÂ’s not a technological determinism thing .
I think it might be more a cyborg thing.

Well, thatÂ’s the word that kept coming to me yesterday when the Supes and I were discussing it. I think itÂ’s important to remember that online, electronic communications media are about people talking to each other - communicating. And that people will make use of the things they have available - media poaching? I like Henry JenkinsÂ’ thought, here. I like the idea of poaching - taking what you want from Â‘officialÂ’ sources, and doing what you like with it.

And swingers are all about poaching.

I also argue that swingers are all about reproduction, representation, reperformance. We do the same things over and over again, but we vary it each time. This is central to swingers, where lindy hop - the dances we do - are revived dances. we have reperformance built into our culture from the start. And we do a lot of re-performance things. We listen to the same songs over and over, we do the same dance steps. We even address this issue openly - we talk about individual styling, and making these re-performances unique. We talk about reperformance as creative endeavour. And thatÂ’s where (IÂ’m arguing) we get into trouble with copyright legislation - weÂ’re all about reperformance, but thatÂ’s not terribly cool when it comes to re-producing music media.
So all this reperformance is about poaching - tactical uses of official discourses and texts (go de certeau, go). We take stuff we find and we make it our own. Through reproduction, reperformance - doing stuff over and over again. And we get a whole lot of pleasure out of it. hell, we totally love watching people perform that same old routine from Hellzapoppin', over and over again. And the reperformance is central to the making of community in swing - you signify your group membership by being able to take part in the rituals of reperformance - dancing the strolls weÂ’ve danced a million times before, knowing the songs weÂ’ve heard a million times before. And making them our own - styling it individually, creatively. And thereÂ’s a great deal of communal pleasure in this reproduction. We really enjoy reperformance.

And the media is central to this - it allows us to share these reperformances, to exchange ideas and dance steps and music and well, heck, swingers are all about exchanges.

Maybe thatÂ’s my thing: swingers value exchange really highly. But that sort of comes back to my thing about face to face being important in swing - we like to get together to dance. And the media facilitates that.

See what I mean? IÂ’ve got lots to say. But IÂ’m struggling to find a bigger picture oh well, back to it, I guess.

"todayÂ’s been kind of odd already" was posted by dogpossum on March 12, 2004 10:40 AM in the category

March 9, 2004

the best things i said yesterday

including online

yesterday i said on swing talk that i preferred "blow-your-hat-off-charlie showmanship" in dance competitions to "that canned, fake, cheezy shit".

i felt clever when i wrote 'blow-your-hat-off-charlie' and it made my friend zot laugh. now i think i'm a bit of a wanker, but it was still a damn smartypants thing to say. very much in the spirit of jon's dad brian, who brought jon and i much delight with his phrase 'billy the bloody goose' - admonishment for erring sons.

yesterday i also told The Squeeze while we were lying in bed discussing our day, that if he could see all the words i'd written that day, it would blow his pants off.
even reading that now makes me laugh. oh man, it's a funny image. i'll draw a picture of it, and you'll laugh too.

so, all up, i'd say yesterday i was pretty damn clever. but today i'm practising humility.

"the best things i said yesterday" was posted by dogpossum on March 9, 2004 11:35 PM in the category

i am the bullshit housemate

unrepentantly so.

i used to be an obsessive cleaner and tidier. when i moved out of home (ten years ago), i was all about housework. i lived for clean. i loved tidy.
now i am crap.
it was a gradual process, the descent into bullshit. and i blame the internet. i had more time to clean before the internet. i certainly had more time to sew. now i am the bullshit housemate.
though i really think it's a part of the process of learning to sharehouse again. in 2001 i moved out of brisvegas and a dinks flat, and into a household of 4. i was number 4. a huge, big double story terrace called 'poowong'. i had to learn how to be in a sharehouse, not a couple house. again.
i had a shelf in the fridge and a shelf in the larder. and i had about three tonnes of crockery. see - i came out of that relationship a winner. all the tablewear i could ever need.
in poowong i learnt not to complain about other people's nocturnal activities, i learnt to do My Share of the cleaning (though that was usually everyone's share, as i couldn't hack the dirt of 4 - 6 people in one winter household), My Share of the dishwashing and My Share of the billpaying. i used to know how to do all these things. but melbourne retrained me for share housing in the new millenium.
so i share housed for a few years. now i live with The Squeeze. and i am the bullshit housemate. i've fallen back into my old ways - no washing up. ever. it does not exist for me. i think it is my single worst relationship trait. i can't wash up. it's pathological.
in poowong we used to have washing up stand-offs, where we'd go without doing dishes for days and days and days. it was usually broken by the weakest link, who was usually jane's boyfriend dave. he was a med student, so i guess it was a reassuring weakness.
now it's not that we have washing up stand-offs. it's more that we have a mountain of dirty dishes and then The Squeeze sets to and we have a mountain of clean dishes.
when i was last dinking, i used to claim that my attitude to washing up was very zen - i had learnt to just let the dishes Be.
now i'm just the bullshit housemate.
no excuse. just a definition.
but i'm not an utterly fukked housemate. i do the laundry. but i think that's more the indulgence of an Unnatural Passion. i do adore clean fabric. rather, i think my laundry issues are founded on a more-than-passing desire for fabric. the more the better. guess that explains my love of bed as well.
i used to cook a whole lot. but then The Squeeze learnt to cook. so now i don't.
and it's this realisation (which he came to last night), which led to the official household declaration that i am a bullshit housemate.

good thing i put out, or i'd be out.

"i am the bullshit housemate" was posted by dogpossum on March 9, 2004 11:24 PM in the category

March 8, 2004

it's international women's day when i start this...

nanna

my nanna died in my first year in melbourne (2000). i had been back to wales to see her just the (northern hemisphere) winter before. i'd been travelling in europe, visiting family i hadn't seen since i was 7. i was 25. i think. but when i got to glynnneath, i was very ill with a nasty cold. so i spent a lot of time lying on the couch talking to my nanna while she did the crossword. we spent a lot of time talking. talking about when she was young, when my dad (her son) was young, about my family, about her family, about the bits that were our family. the stories used to start with me saying "nan, how did you meet grandpa?" and she'd say "ah, shurrup girl" and i'd say "no, nan. tell me" and she'd say "no!" in her high welsh accent. and i'd say "you might as well, nan, i'm not going anywhere". and then she would.

this photo is of my nan and grandpa when they were in the army, during WWII. he was irish and she was welsh. they called him Taffy and her ... something (i'd have to look it up in my journal from then to remember), because he sounded welsh, while she sounded irish.
she told me she'd made one of those "this is the man i'm going to marry" statements. and we both laught, because it was funny. especially because That Man was in the kitchen, sulking over his newspaper at the time.
then she told me the courting story, which mostly consisted of her stalking this probably-thin, definitely-anal young irishman, who had a wonderfully light and beautiful tenor and wouldn't eat in public.
she said that all the courting couples would sit in the grass, eating fish and chips. but he wouldn't eat in public, so she would eat and he wouldn't.
my nan was a big, gruff-but-affectionate woman, lots of freckles like my dad, dark roan, curly hair. i'm curly haired too, but my dad was a redhead and i'm not.
one day my nan went upstairs on the stair-chair thingy (she couldn't climb the stairs because of the angina that killed her just a few months later), got her red photo album. then she showed me the scarf and tiny bottle of perfume my dad had bought her when he was a kid on a school trip. we laughed at the suggestive text on the scarf that that little boy-dad hadn't understood. there was still perfume in the bottle.
we looked through the photos sitting on her bed. most of them were pasted in. some had been scribbled on. i poured over them for ages. i made her explain the stories over and over again.

later that year when my mum went back to the uk, before she died, she got copies of all the photos that came out of the book. the ones that were pasted in didn't come out. she made copies for me and for my dad.
and this photo is one of my nan and my grandpa. rae and gerry.
now gerry is old and cranky and would never tell anyone he misses her. she was big and soft, but strong, and built like a footballer. and she leant on the kitchen sink just like my dad does. she made me new potatoes especially, so i could see just how wonderful potatoes could be.
once when i was about 10, she and i were swimming in our pool, doing freestyle (or australian crawl in her words), and the family exclaimed that we swam in exactly the same way. considering i learnt to swim in england, and then in fiji, and we were then swimming in our rural NSW pool, that was a fairly impressive demonstration of the strength of genetics.
i like to think of that, when i'm swimming.

i should swim more often.

"it's international women's day when i start this..." was posted by dogpossum on March 8, 2004 11:05 PM in the category

the sort of photo i want to take

this is a photo of one of my friends. he sent it to me in an email as photo-revenge when i'd gone nuts sending photos and photo links to all my far-away-friends.
i like this photo. in fact, i like photos of my friends a whole damn lot.
but the point of this story is not to comment on broos' considerable visual appeal.
when i had this photo up on this site the other day, as a test run (and to shit broos), The Squeeze declared that this was the type of photo he'd like to make.
and you know, i thought he was already making these sorts of photos

"the sort of photo i want to take" was posted by dogpossum on March 8, 2004 10:21 PM in the category

illustrated girl

terri came around to see my new house a little while ago - well, a fair while ago now (november or december '03)- sporting this little number
she'd been talking about gettin' some serious ink for a while, but this was the first time i'd seen it. it's just huge (that's a whole big tattoo there, all over her back, just in case you hadn't twigged yet).
and quite beautiful, i think.
terri is quite the decorated girl. as one noted social commentator had pointed out, she can accessorise like a muthafukkah. and i think this is quite the ultimate accessory she's sporting. not to trivialise... though fashion (and accessorising) is certainly no trivial matter to terri. or to me, for that matter. it is quite an art to know what little detail will finish off an ensem in just the right way.
it's truly impressive work. you can't help but touch.
and you know what? it doesn't rub off.
that's the sort of thought that goes through your head when you're looking at someone else's tatt. especially when you're undecorated yourself. terri as a number of other tattoos, and some interesting piercings. she's also beautiful, and one dang-hot dresser. she's queen of the op-shops, is a complete crap-magnet, but doesn't come out of it dressing like a crazy person. she looks groovy. fashionable. seriously accessorised.

"illustrated girl" was posted by dogpossum on March 8, 2004 10:04 PM in the category

fuss fuss fuss

some things that are annoying me about my site:

- the double spacing in the entries. i don't like the wasted space. waste-not-want-not, i say.
- the big spaces everywhere. perhaps it's an agoraphobia thing. spending 15 years in a hilly city has spoilt me for wide open spaces. they are Not To Be Trusted.
- the way we're reminded at the end of each entry that it was 'posted by dogpossum'. yes, yes. we'd kind of gathered that. perhaps if i was a collective, i'd dig that feature. but i want it GONE.
- the entry pages. because i haven't started looking at that yet.
- the way you're asked if you'd like to 'continue reading "blah blah"'. i think i will make the main title on the index page (for each entry) the link. i am still unsure about whether i should put whole entries on the index page. hmmm....
- the lines. at the end of each day's entries on the index page, between 'comments' and 'post a comment' on the entry pages. what the fukk? redundant, much? sheesh. that will also GO when i get to those pages. in fact, the whole entry page is wrong. just, please, give your attention to content, rather than style...
perhaps.

things i'm not sure about on my site:

- the main 'dogpossum' title with the little picture (yes, that's me. kinda circa this time last year, but heck, i ain't drawn me in a while. does this make me a badly drawn girl?... sorry) should this be flush to the left? centred?

things i want to add to my site:- little 'i'm reading'/'i'm watching'/'i'm listening to' bit on the index page. though i'm not sure i should clutter it up. i'm kind of torn - clutter or clean lines? i like both.

"fuss fuss fuss" was posted by dogpossum on March 8, 2004 5:55 PM in the category

i like my text to roam free

i've been working on this intynet thing all goddamn day...

...The Squeeze taught me how code worked this morning, and we were done by 1pm. i've been fiddling ever since. and what have i got to show for my efforts? a new banner/title thingy, two little pictures and some coloured font.
pft.
now i'm working on the archive of recent entries - i want to list them by categories, rather than in a big chunk. or do i? i know i want to list some by category...
the little ship is the search title... not sure how obvious that is.
should i put a box around the picture and its list of links? i'm not that keen on boxes. i like my text to roam free
and the searching poss picture has a huge big space between it and the search box. sheesh. even The Squeeze can't make that go away.
i'll get it tomorrow. unless i'm actually working.

i've neglected my sewing terribly. i had planned on finishing two pairs of trousers for a friend and getting into my pink and red fleece cardigan, but it just didn't happen. at least sewing gives the satisfaction of material results.

"i like my text to roam free" was posted by dogpossum on March 8, 2004 5:30 PM in the category

March 7, 2004

i piked on the jack and jill

i thought it was like scrabble...

Well, I piked on the comp.
I just couldnÂ’t stand the bullshit. It was skank.
In fact, I really canÂ’t stand swingers' obsession with selling themselves things. Promote, promote, promote. Buy this. Buy that. If you donÂ’t, youÂ’ll remain a shitty dancer. YouÂ’ll never reach your full potential. No one will ever want to dance with you.

God, itÂ’s enough to make you anorexic.

It reminds me of all that media that targets women through their bodily self image - eat this, donÂ’t eat that, cut that bit off, buy this dress, wear these shoes, cut your hair, grow your breasts. Stupid. Making us paranoid.

I think it is all about encouraging self doubt. There is this perpetual pressure to improve. ItÂ’s all about what you look like - how good do you look dancing? So much time is spent watching each other, watching each otherÂ’s bodies. Eating disorders have nothing on this. Swing is just as addictive, even more conducive to obsessive behaviour. Far worse on the body.

My knees, my knees...
And now, my shins, my shins, my calves! Pft.

But I like the dancing. I like dancing with people. I like the feeling of two bodies working together to music. ItÂ’s nice. It can be wonderful. But lately, itÂ’s just not interesting me enough. A sad, sad day when quilting supersedes dance in the excitement stakes.

So I piked on the comp. I had liked the thought - jack and jills are fun, silly, casual. But this sounded serious. All that reassuring talk in the emails and on the website that the important part is to have tried, rather than to have won was making me nervous. I hadnÂ’t thought about winning, or losing, til I was reminded of it. I though the win was in the random matching-up with a dance partner. I thought the win was well, i thought it was like scrabble. ItÂ’s not about the score, but about the words you play, for me. And about pleasure from other peopleÂ’s words. ThatÂ’s how I felt about jack and jills - the joy was in teaming up with a stranger to make clever words/dance moves. And then moving on to another partner, to see what moves you two could make together. And that the audience enjoyed seeing us making words and got the joke when we punned. Like those competitions in discourse and wit in the courts of kings hundreds of years ago. A celebration of wit, of talent, o f creativity and strategy.
But no.
ItÂ’s not about whether you win or lose. ItÂ’s about tryi...
...
...rying? So itÂ’s not at all about recognising the beauty and thrill in every individualÂ’s dance? ItÂ’s about aspiring to uniformity and conformity - about trying to win - rather than about celebrating what each dancer is now, at this moment, with this partner, to this music, for this audience?
I should have suspected as much from a business based on teaching. Not learning - teaching.

And at the end of the day, the organising schoolÂ’s teachers always win. Not so much a matter of rigged or scammed, but a matter of assessing competitorsÂ’ abilities according to a set of criteria that also (curiously) aligns with the qualities they look for in their teachers. And a matter of choosing judges whose own values align with theirs
So really, youÂ’re being judged on how well you align yourself with the values of this organisation. How well you play the game their way.
When I was last in a jack and jill, and forgot myself, pulled out some serious active-follow stuff (refused the millionth spin, pulled out some sassy time-marking instead). My lead panicked. And later, I wondered if the judges might have seen that and read it as my failure to Â‘followÂ’. Following, of course, is doing as youÂ’re told. Is playing nice. No room for sass, here. Unless itÂ’s play sass. Not actual sass. And then I got to thinking about how the judges are looking for a particular type of dancing - a particular type of following and leading. And in rewarding those dancers who represent that type of dancing, you are not only reinforcing their own sense of well-done, but also reinforcing to every other dancer in the audience and competition, that this is The Way It Should Be Done.
So competitions become a matter of social and cultural control. Performance as hierarchy?
Oh, we found an antidote for jams, but is there an active, tactical response for competitions?

It makes me uncomfortable.

But I like the thought of a bunch dancers getting on the floor and giving their all for the crowdÂ’s pleasure, for their own pleasure, for their partnerÂ’s pleasure. I like to see dancers dancing so well it makes me all jiggly inside. And I like that sort of competition - where every other dancer acknowledges that theyÂ’re really KickinÂ’ It, rather than that theyÂ’re really Following the Rules.

I think IÂ’ll write more on this. When IÂ’m not so tired

"i piked on the jack and jill" was posted by dogpossum on March 7, 2004 8:18 PM in the category

it goes slow...

IÂ’ve decided to take a break from trying to make this website...

...The Squeeze says heÂ’ll help me tomorrow. Now I can speak a few more words of html - img, font not so useful on their own. It goes slow. But at least I know what I want. I think. Well, I know what I donÂ’t want.
Instead IÂ’m making clothes. The red silky is coming well: goddamn it I forgot to stay stitch the armholes, so I had to just bias tape them. it looks pretty, but I think itÂ’s too big.
I made other people clothes as well. Ah, satisfaction.
IÂ’ve decided to trade some new clothes for some herb garden work. IÂ’m dead keen on a serious herb garden. Research has ensued. Will trade stitches for digging. Organic, of course!

"it goes slow..." was posted by dogpossum on March 7, 2004 7:52 PM in the category

March 5, 2004

cranky d'poss

sheesh! this is so annoying!

i can't figure out the whole stylesheet/template thing. last night i understood the difference between them (stylesheets tell the computer how the whole thing will look, templates tell the computer how individual types of pages should look), and i thought i could figure out how to insert images. no. but i have managed to change the colour of the heading (banner? title?) on the main page. navy blue and underlined. all entirely accidental. could be worse i guess... no doubt it will be. i keep taking breaks from this so i don't go nuts, but i can't leave it alone. i am SO going to master this whole code thing. i will NOT be content with this boring format!

"cranky d'poss" was posted by dogpossum on March 5, 2004 3:34 PM in the category

March 4, 2004

further jack and jill misgivings

my misgivings about entering the jack and jill increase...

...when I received the "Important Competitor Info!" email from the organisers today. I feel it's best to mistrust exclamation marks in a subject line. I'd entered thinking I'd be up for a bit of fun, but now it's all getting far too serious -

Along with the excitement and fun, there are a few important pointers to help things run as smoothly as possible in the night.
1. Please arrive at Collingwood Town Hall at 7pm!
2. The process for your arrival is to go to the registration desk in the foyer. The wonderful ladies on the door will check that you are registered as a competitor before, allowing you free entry into the event.
3. Once the registration table allow you through, please move to the Competitor Registration table. At this table your registration will be checked and competitor numbers will be issued (Please note: every lead and all girls in the Jack & Jill will require numbers). Remember you are not allowed to compete unless your entry fee is FULLY paid and you have been issued a number if required. . IT IS IMPORTANT that you do this before .
4. The competitor meeting at 7.30pm! where all competitors will be briefed on the specifics of each event. Please make sure you are present for this!!!! The order for the Swing Showcase will be drawn at this briefing and the order of Jack and Jill heats will also be announced.
5. All Competitor numbers must be worn on the back or rear, so judges can see clearly. Not on legs, bottom of skirts, or other imaginative places etc.

Far too many exclamation marks. Really, are four absolutely necessary? Still no word about the start-time for the jack and jill - not even on the website. I canÂ’t stand the thought of sitting (or standing, as seems more likely) about til IÂ’m on. I have almost no interest whatsoever in watching the Â‘showcaseÂ’ categories - I am prone to derisive snorts and disrespectful exclamations at inappropriate moments. I know I shouldnÂ’t, but I canÂ’t help but laugh at the misfortunes of others. ItÂ’s not so much that they canÂ’t dance - thatÂ’s not what IÂ’m laughing at - itÂ’s more the earnestness of their participation.
For godÂ’s sake.

All this and IÂ’m still gagging at the thought of the latest group email from this crew - IÂ’m really not up for the whole Â‘familyÂ’ bullshit thing. It really makes me ill to read things like the comment that they are Â“truly the largest dedicated swing family in the worldÂ”, particularly when you keep in mind that you have to pay to join this family. Eeek. I think of Manson every time I read these sorts of comments.
ItÂ’s all getting a bit too nauseating.

But how to back out gracefully? And do I really want to forfeit my $12? I need an excuse. HavenÂ’t I got a thesis to write ?

"further jack and jill misgivings" was posted by dogpossum on March 4, 2004 2:28 PM in the category

stacey cooks

at high speed...

...she apologised at least a few times for not giving us her entire attention while she was cooking for us last night. and then she added that she "gets totally into it" that it takes over her whole head. or words to that effect. i didn't mind. i liked it. i could wander around the house looking at her things, or trying to understand the hard-core tekk talk outside.
the food was wonderful - declared 'hybrid moroccan' by stacey's cousin reeny, who should know, having been married in morroco, to a morrocan, with henna all over her hands.

"stacey cooks" was posted by dogpossum on March 4, 2004 1:55 PM in the category

an exercise in prune-ness

it's damn hot

and it's windy - really windy. the windows are rattling in their frames, and the plants are looking seriously whipped and dehydrated.
going outside is an exercise in prune-ness, with the moisture in your skin being baked out, even as the sweat gathers in your creases.
damn good laundry weather, though.
i'm hiding inside with the windows and curtains closed, keeping the bit of cool inside. and i'm trying to work. at least i've got the chapter in front of me today. the ethics applications forms are done again, and off to be looked at by the various committees... i'll sort out the grants forms with the supervisor and then finally get them in. again. this trip seems to be sucking up time more than its fair share of time. it had better be worth it.
i'm still trying to figure out stuff on this site, bit by bit, when i should be working, of course. so these entries are kind of crap...
guess it's better than pissing about on the swing talk board...

"an exercise in prune-ness" was posted by dogpossum on March 4, 2004 1:28 PM in the category

sew-and-sew

...i've an excellent new blouse on the go - gorgeous red silky stuff

i'm busy busy with worky things (and learning how to do intynet stuff), so i've neglected my sewing. it's a shit, as i've an excellent new blouse on the go - gorgeous red silky stuff. not really silk, but some fancypants new fabric, which has a softer wrong side, so it feels better against your skin than regular old slick, synthetic satin. i'm working on a mandarin style blouse, opening at the centre front, with big knots and guides made from the same fabric. i'll edge it with silvery grey bias binding. shhhwweeeet. now i've just gotta get the time to set up sewing central...

"sew-and-sew" was posted by dogpossum on March 4, 2004 10:41 AM in the category

March 2, 2004

ethics sigh

once again i'm wading through ethics application forms...

...and grant application forms. IÂ’m glad I handed in my applications with plenty of time before the due date. There are, of course, plenty of things to sort out. The biggest in both seems to be justifying why I need to go to Sweden to do my research. ItÂ’s funny, because Â“why Sweden?Â” is the silliest question to ask a swinger, particularly one with any sort of Savoy style lindy hop in their lineage.
So IÂ’m explaining why I need to go to Herrang. In painfully clear and simple terms. While itÂ’s an arse doing this, itÂ’s really helping me sort out in my own mind what it is exactly that I want to do on this research trip. Why go? What do I want to do? Who do I want to talk to? What do I want to ask people about? What will I look at? Pft. IÂ’m sure my project can only benefit from this sort of fiddlydiddly enquiry.

"ethics sigh" was posted by dogpossum on March 2, 2004 4:21 PM in the category

ethics sigh

once again i'm wading through ethics application forms...

"ethics sigh" was posted by dogpossum on March 2, 2004 4:21 PM in the category

public dance spaces that aren't

this picture of a dance card comes from a site i found when doing some research on the history of swing dancing in melbourne.

the original card was found under the floorboards of the melbourne exhibition building. it's such a nice thought - evidence that the exhibition hall and the flinders street station were dance spaces. now they're all about static exhibition and the display of massed public movement, respectively.

ur. seems exhibition buildings and railway stations have more and more in common the more you think about them.

...both public spaces, but access to the exhibiiton hall is usually mediated by whatever exhibition is on - be it devoted to weddings, chocolate or motorbikes - and access to the flinders street dance hall is nigh on impossible.
my first year in melbourne i was keen on discovering my city.

...it's funny how you get over exploring a city when it becomes your home town. i remember the absolute thrill of riding trams - the way i would feel just all-over happy and smiley sitting on the tram, just Being In My New City...

but back to the story. i was keen on exploring new things. the exhibition building dominates the city end of nicholson street. i'd been to the new museum, and i quite like its design. i also quite like the way it clashes so seriously with the old exhibition building, but i hadn't gotten into the exhibition building yet. so one day, with some time to kill before a dance class i just boulder-dashed my way into a wedding exhibition without paying. i remember winding my way through stupid cake and dress and ribbon and florist stalls, trying to get some sort of long-range perspecitive on the building. it's a sort of cross - four wings with a central bit.
it's big.
it's got a nice floor.
i like the thought of it filled with people dancing like nuts.
rather than filled with giddy brides and mother-in-laws and groooms and father-in-laws and bride's maids and best men to be.
the dance hall in the flinders street station is far harder to get access to. it's almost mythical in the melbourne swing community. it's supposed to be huge and wonderful, a sprung floor. yet unbookable, denied by heritage listings or jealous transport authority. and there hasn't been a lindy hop - swing dance - event in the exhibition building since lindy's revival. there are always rumours that someone's planning a huge extravaganza dance event in there. but i'm not so sure it'd come off. even if just one wing was used. a sound tekkie mate of mine reckons it'd be impossible to do the sound on properly. the ceilings are so high - i can imagine the music just flying up there and getting lost, all those dancers wandering about, desperately trying to find 1. hah.
i read somewhere recently that connex, who run the trains here since it was privatised, want to give the old station back to the government, get them to keep it up. but that the government aren't keen.
i'm not sure who i'm rooting for.
and i like the thought of the flinders street railway station as a giant white elephant. well, a giant yellow elephant. i'm not even sure if that's a true story.

but still.

i still stare up at it as i pass, wondering where exactly the dance hall was.
and i'm always on the look out for old dance halls in melbourne. cab drivers are the best source. and nannas on the bus.

but none of them are lindy hoppers. i've yet to meet a real, live lindy hopper. they were jitterbuggers if anything. guess it's too long ago now - it was the 30s. and i suspect that lindy was never really here in australia.
what a thought. it facinates me...

"public dance spaces that aren't" was posted by dogpossum on March 2, 2004 12:18 PM in the category

honey

"honey" was posted by dogpossum on March 2, 2004 12:15 PM in the category

public dance spaces that aren't

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this picture of a dance card comes from a site i found when doing some research on the history of swing dancing in melbourne. it was found under the floorboards of the melbourne exhibition building. it's such a nice thought - evidence that the exhibition hall and the flinders street station were dance spaces. now they're all about static exhibition and public transport, respectively. both public spaces, but access to the exhibiiton hall is usually mediated by whatever exhibition is on - be it devoted to weddings, chocolate or motorbikes - and access to the flinders street dance hall is nigh on impossible.
my first year in melbourne i was keen on discovering my city.
...it's funny how you get over exploring a city when it becomes your home town. i remember the absolute thrill of riding trams - the way i would feel just all-over happy and smiley sitting on the tram, just Being In My New City...
but back to the story. i was keen on exploring new things. the exhibition building dominates the city end of nicholson street. i'd been to the new museum, and i quite like its design. i also quite like the way it clashes so seriously with the old exhibition building, but i hadn't gotten into the exhibition building yet. so one day, with some time to kill before a dance class i just boulder-dashed my way into a wedding exhibition without paying. i remember winding my way through stupid cake and dress and ribbon and florist stalls, trying to get some sort of long-range perspecitive on the building. it's a sort of cross - four wings with a central bit.
it's big.
it's got a nice floor.
i like the thought of it filled with people dancing like nuts.
rather than filled with giddy brides and mother-in-laws and groooms and father-in-laws and bride's maids and best men to be.
the dance hall in the flinders street station is far harder to get access to. it's almost mythical in the melbourne swing community. it's supposed to be huge and wonderful, a sprung floor. yet unbookable, denied by heritage listings or jealous transport authority. and there hasn't been a lindy hop - swing dance - event in the exhibition building since lindy's revival. there are always rumours that someone's planning a huge extravaganza dance event in there. but i'm not so sure it'd come off. even if just one wing was used. a sound tekkie mate of mine reckons it'd be impossible to do the sound on properly. the ceilings are so high - i can imagine the music just flying up there and getting lost, all those dancers wandering about, desperately trying to find 1. hah.
i read somewhere recently that connex, who run the trains here since it was privatised, want to give the old station back to the government, get them to keep it up. but that the government aren't keen.
i'm not sure who i'm rooting for.
and i like the thought of the flinders street railway station as a giant white elephant. well, a giant yellow elephant. i'm not even sure if that's a true story.

but still.

i still stare up at it as i pass, wondering where exactly the dance hall was.
and i'm always on the look out for old dance halls in melbourne. cab drivers are the best source. and nannas on the bus.

"public dance spaces that aren't" was posted by dogpossum on March 2, 2004 12:04 PM in the category

melbourne exhibition building

exhib bldg street elevation.gif
This is a picture from a site called (â€œTimber building in Australiaâ€). I kept thinking about the Exhibition building, and went looking for some photos of it, or some information.

This site is really interesting - it explains that the Exhibition building today is really only a part of the original plans, and when you look at the original plans for the site, you can see that the new museum is sitting right where other bits of the exhibition building used to be.
I really like these gardens - theyâ€™re one of my favourites for picnics. Lots of huge trees, and nice paths that youâ€™re not supposed to ride your bike round, but I do. I like riding through the park at night, especially when the buildingâ€™s all lit up. You do worry a bit about smashing into a pedder in the dark, but still
Iâ€™m also fond of the big fountain outside the front of the building - the Hotchgurtel Fountain (thankyou, city of melbourne website). Itâ€™s always empty now, as weâ€™re on stage 2 water restrictions, but still. Right now theyâ€™ve got some interesting plantings around the fountain - spinach and lettuce as ornamentals. We rode past there the other day, and I was tempted to fill my bike basket with spinach. After all, itâ€™s public land, and the spinach could only benefit from a little judicious pruning. Thatâ€™s one of my favourite things - vegetables as ornamentals. Function and form.
When you go through the photos on the timber buildings site, you can see bits of a car exhibition in the building in some photos. While itâ€™s pretty terrible to think of that lovely floor going to waste under a bunch of stinky cars, itâ€™s also a fairly accurate image of how most Melbournians experience the building - obscured by stuff, and broken up into temporary corridors and mini-piazzas, while overhead the ceiling just looms.
I know they do big musicy things in the building occasionally, but Iâ€™ve never been to one. It would be nice to see the building used for dancing and music. Or a play! But again, the sound would be difficult to manage

"melbourne exhibition building" was posted by dogpossum on March 2, 2004 10:45 AM in the category

hex? colour=#80080... please?

I'm trying to figure out how to change my templates so i can make this site look pretty.

no joy. it's driving me a bit nuts - i sort of understand how this coding thing works, i can sort of understand what little wordies mean which things on the page, but i'm still not sure about how to do some things... it's so frustrating.

meanwhile, all these entries so far are just practices, where i'm learning how to do things. i want links to new pages in my entries to open as new windows, but i was reading somewhere that this is an awful thing to do to people who use JAWS, etc - visually impaired people who rely on programs that read the text on pages for them...
still. i'm kind of a sucker for a sexy popup.

"hex? colour=#80080... please?" was posted by dogpossum on March 2, 2004 10:14 AM in the category

March 1, 2004

entry #1

now i'm actually at the point where i can write and post entries without any problems, i'm sort of at a loss as to what i should actually write.
i'm not really sure i'm ready to publicly expose myself on the intynet. and i don't know what sort of tone i should take.
i originally wanted to start this site so i could let all my friends and family see what i'm doing. but then, i'm not sure i want the whole entire universe seeing what i'm doing...

at any rate, this is my first real entry (not counting all the practice ones). maybe i'll have learnt to use capitals by the next?

"entry #1" was posted by admin on March 1, 2004 12:09 PM in the category

a practice picture

"a practice picture" was posted by admin on March 1, 2004 12:07 PM in the category

a practice picture

"a practice picture" was posted by admin on March 1, 2004 11:59 AM in the category

public exposure

really, never send me anything you don't want put on the intynet.

"public exposure" was posted by admin on March 1, 2004 11:55 AM in the category

bruce @ the press club, 2003

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never send me photos of yourself. i can't be trusted.

"bruce @ the press club, 2003" was posted by admin on March 1, 2004 11:50 AM in the category

jill or jack

second thoughts about competing

i registered for the jack and jill competition in a local lindy hop dance weekend here in melbourne, mostly as a lark. and now i'm not so sure i'm up for it.
i have trouble with competitions generally, plus there's the whole dancing-in-public-for-a-prize element. god, i've already considered potential on-somms. what should one wear for an exercise in public humiliation?
and i do have problems with paying 12 bucks for the privelage.
ag.
perhaps i'm just not carrying the right sort of ego for competitions. maybe i'm just a shy baby.
maybe i should just follow my instincts and back out now.

"jill or jack" was posted by dogpossum on March 1, 2004 11:43 AM in the category

dogpossum is as dogpossum does

and dogpossum doesn't use capitals.

"dogpossum is as dogpossum does" was posted by dogpossum on March 1, 2004 11:32 AM in the category

the second thing

this is the second thing. just as exciting as the first, i'm afraid. i'm going to practice using italics and bold.

i don't have enough to say to fill in this second bit.

"the second thing" was posted by admin on March 1, 2004 11:32 AM in the category

the first thing

today i'm trying to figure out how to do this blogging thing.

i should be working on my thesis, but i can't. i'm having trouble focussing. so i figure this way at least i'm sitting at the computer, and not sewing or riding around the 'wick.

"the first thing" was posted by admin on March 1, 2004 11:23 AM in the category