Author Archives: dogpossum

DJing hubris, heirarchy and hokum

And so I return to the issue of how a DJ should regard their role, prompted in part by this discussion on SwingDJs.
Before I start in, I suggest you take a peak at that thread, not only for the content, but to see how posters use photos and their real names on this discussion board. That’s kind of unusual for discussion boards, though less so for swing dancers, who ultimately realise that being ‘honest’ or not using aliases online is relevent to a community which is ultimately embodied. Membership of this community is also heavily dependent on reputation and regard for etiquette (both online and embodied).
This is stuff that I write about in my thesis in great detail – the uses of online media by an embodied community, and the ways this online participation is informed by embodied practice and relationships.
But to be on-topic, and address the issue of DJs and their role…
Firstly, I should point out (again, in thesis mode) that I’m fascinated by the tension between ‘communitas’ or community responsibility and the DJ as ‘artist’. The two positions often seem at odds, though they are occasionally combined in the notion that a DJ should be in some way an educator (a role of great status in a such a pedagogically centred community), ‘exposing’ dancers to new and ‘historically accurate’ music.
As you might expect, these sorts of arguments are tied up with conflicting notions of aesthetics or cultural ‘appropriateness’, the relationships between music and dance, the power and status of a DJ in a particular local community, the way these DJs participating in a globalised community of interest (SwingDJs itself) bring concepts of ‘DJ’ and ‘DJing’ to their local discourses, etc etc etc. It’s all very complicated and interesting, which is why I wrote a chapter on it. But more on that later. Let’s look at the specific arguments raised on SwingDJs.
Here’s an interesting comment from one of the posters in that thread:

As a DJ, isn’t our responsibility to the dancers, not to an aesthetic about artistic expressively? In my role as an event producer -or as a DJ for an hour- I am indeed being trusted to “choose for everyone”. … I’m not saying that I’m even 1% of the artist whose music I’m playing, but I am the one who gets to decide what song, when it’s played and in some cases, how it’s played. My job is to watch the room and please the dancers …

(Greg Avakian Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 07:51)
And in response:

…As a DJ, isn’t our responsibility to the dancers…
…My job is to watch the room and please the dancers…

This is pretty much my approach, at least to the extent I’m running the event. I consider it a specific kind of party, rather than just a time for swing dancing. I work very hard to play music that people enjoy, and to play it in a way that helps them achieve an emotional- and social freedom that encourages them to dance. That’s my focus. To that end, I sometimes edit songs, or change the pitch/tempo, and I do it with the dancers – not the musicians – in mind.

(Matthew, quoting Greg Avakian, Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 15:16)
These discussions fascinate me. We have much the same talk going on on Swing Talk, the Australian discussion board, but on SwingTalk the participants are DJs and dancers, rather than DJs (who are also dancers), as on SwingDJs. The discussion on SwingDJs is also informed by a wider national swing dance discourse which is older, more complex, and far more sercurely focussed on social dancing than in Australia, particularly Melbourne. Here, we are continually working to ‘convince’ people that social dancing is essential to ‘good dancing’ and far more important than classes or competitions, let alone that DJing is actually a fairly demanding craft, requiring specific skills and resources.
…I should note here that I’m well aware of the fact that the latter argument is in fact self-serving, as well as contributing to the development of heirarchies of knowledge and cultural practice (very much as Matt Hills describes heirarchies of knowledge in fan communities…). And this of course begs the question, do DJs have delusions of grandeur?
Matthew’s point that he considers a DJed dance as a ‘special kind of party’ rather than ‘just a time for swing dancing’ echoes this.
Sooooo…..
How does all this fit in with how I regard my own role as a DJ in that community, and as a dancer?
I’d like to address that second point, as I’m fascinated by the way my attitude to dancing has changed since I started DJing, but I doubt I’ll have time for it here.
So how do I regard my role as a DJ in this community, considering the fact that I’m also reading criticallly, as a feminist with decidely Red interests?
Status and power
First, I’m well aware of the way being a DJ accrues status. It’s not a financially driven status (though I appreciate the $30/$25 deals, they’re certainly not enough to live on…though it does fund my yoga and (comparatively) modest cd purchasing). But it is certainly a social status which is quite interesting.
In Melbourne, status in the swing dance scene is largely determined by one’s standing within the largest dance school (things used to be different, but this school now dominates all embodied dance and online discourse, so…). If one is the school’s principal, one has highest status. Then come visiting teachers. Then come local teachers, then teaching cadets. Within the general body of the school (ie not within the rarified circles of teachers), being a member of the elite troop is the next level of cred, followed by being a member of the lower level troop. Now, if one does not have institutional affiliation, one’s staus is kind of amorphous. Because the school does not teach or endorse alternative dance styles (why promote another company’s product?), many students simply don’t recognise other lindy styles as lindy. Which is ironic, considering the oldest old school styles are in this ‘unrecognisable’ basket.
So if you want some status, outside this formal heirarchy, but through your dance ability, you have to be able to contribute to this embodied discourse in the appropriate ‘language’ (and now I’m thinking of Nancy Fraser and women’s participation in the ‘official’ public sphere). In other words you gotta dance ‘right’.
DJing, status and power
So where does DJing fit into all this? There are other roles which accrue status – being an MLX organiser is one (though probably not the way I do it – I need to cultivate an air of inaccessability, as per the school’s relativley inaccessible heirarhcy. Not sweat all over people, demanding a dance and throwing myself down stairs). But DJing is another.
Why? Well, for a start, and perhaps most imporantly, you’re ‘in’ with those who organise the events – teachers. So you got institutional affiliation. Secondly, you got distance – you’re up there on the DJ podium and relatively physically inacessible, but certainly socially distant (you’re literally not on the same level as the dancers).
Beyond that, you certainly gain status if you’re a ‘good’ DJ. Being a good DJ, however, is a matter of opinion and observance of fashion. Again, you have to speak the right ‘language’. One of the most fascinating things about learning to DJ has been figuring out how to affect linguistic drift on the local musical accent. In other words, convincing dancers that music other than hi-fi, groovey, funky late era jazz and soul is actually ‘good’ for dancing.
The most effective way of achieving this is to sneak alternative music song types into my play lists. Paving the way with hi-fi but ‘classic sounding’ recordings of new bands (thankyou Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra, Kansas City Band, late Count Basie and Mora’s Modern Rhythmists), you can prepare a crowd of dancers for earlier (and in my opinion, frequently superior) versions of these now-familiar songs.
Why DJ at all?
Can you hear the whole ‘educating dancers’ theme in there? I know I can. And it makes me uncomfortable. So why do it?

  • I like the music
  • I want more people to play that stuff so I can dance to it, so I need to contribute to a market demand for it (hey, go capitalism, go)
  • I really do feel that lindy hop works ‘betterer’ with this stuff from the 30s and 40s which prompted its development in the first place
  • there’s some bloody amazing stuff in those older recordings which people do like. Once they give it a go
  • diversity = good

So how do my goals as a DJ work in with the whole DJ status thing?

  • I gotta get the dancers recognising ‘my’ music as ‘good’ if I want to be able to play it. If they don’t like it, they won’t dance. If no one dances, I don’t get gigs
  • If I have a reputation as a ‘good’ DJ, then people are more likely to accept my choices in music

All this, as I’ve said, makes me uncomfortable. I do, really, want to make the dancers happy.
It’s like a drug – a room full of dancers totally going nuts on endorphines and adrenaline – you breathe it in from the DJ stand. And while it SUCKS to have have to stand there and watch, rather getting in amongst it, it’s still wonderful. I always have a moment of ‘I guess this is what it’s like to be in a cult’ when I’m DJing well and the room is really pumping. Talk about group emotional experiences and so on. There’s no more powerful a drug than a room full of people all feeling the same thing at the same time. And music is a wonderful tool for achieving that state.
So when I do a good job as a DJ, I not only get off on the vibe, but I also really enjoy seeing people having a great time.
How do I balance this ‘me’ stuff with my feminist politics… or how does a feminist swing dance DJ do ‘communitas’ in this environment?
Argh. That’s hard. But there are things that I try to do:

  • encourage women DJs or women interested in DJing. Heck, encourage anyone interested in DJing
  • share. Share knowledge, share resources, share networks. I don’t share copies of music, but I certainly share names of artists and songs. Not only because I’m a born tutor, but also because I want to share the love. And what could be wrong with hundreds of other people loving Benny Goodman as much as I do? And there’s certainly nothing wrong with giving names to other DJs so that they can thenplay the songs so I can dance to them!!. What a total score!
  • question inequity in the DJing culture. Not that there’s much I can do about it – it’s naturally an exclusive space (what with the money, technological and time resources it demands) – but I can try. And I can think about ways to improve things
  • be accessible to dancers I don’t know or who feel intimidated when I’m DJing. Be receptive to feedback, requests and comments. Juggling this with the demands of actually DJing on the night can be hard, but… It feels the same as seeking out new dancers to dance with, or always saying yes to new dancers who ask me. If you give now, you get. It’s a win-win situation, and you’re contibuting to a more inclusive, friendly, healthy community. Perhaps undoing some of that heirarchy bullshit
  • encourage people asking about song names to buy the whole album

This last point is becoming more and more important to me. Because it’s so easy to download songs (though I challenge most people to find half – or even a tenth – of the music we play on torrents or other illegal sources), people tend not to look for the whole album to buy. This sucks because:

  • you’re fucking over a whole bunch of artists and technicians in the music industry. Even if an artist is dead, their family isn’t. And the American jazz industry has a long, long, long history of fucking over black artists. Don’t be a part of that.
  • you’re not learning. When you buy a whole album, you’re learning about an artist and band and period in history that helps you understand who that one song fits in. It helps you find new songs. And because of the cross-pollitationy nature of jazz in the 30s and 40s, you’ll find new artists you love. And you’ll learn new stuff about the relationship between music and dance in that historical moment, your dancing will improve, and your DJing will improve!
  • I had to buy it, and I’m poor. So why should I subsidise your music collection? I’m giving the song to you free when I DJ.
  • when you download or copy or ‘steal’ a song from my collection, you’re screwing me over. Particularly when you DJ it at a gig later or (even worse), then trade it with your mates or sell it to your mates or students! Bad, naughty, wrong!
  • you can’t be a good DJ if you don’t love the music. If you love an artist or band or song, you seek out more of it. I believe that the best DJs are those with a passion for their music, and a thorough knowledge of an artist’s career, or a style or genre. And what could be wrong with learning shit?

I know that a lot of these arguments also justify not sharing playlists or song titles or artists. I imagine that as I get more experience and develop a larger (and more esoteric) collection, I may become more reluctant to share knowledge. But it’ll be interesting to see…
DJing as art
And while I feel uncomfortable with the idea of a DJ as art (is this some sort of Australian tall poppy cultural cringe hangover from high school thing – should I be over feeling self conscious about wanting to be artistic and creative in a public context?), sometimes it feels like art. Or at least creativity. It feels like the natural partner to dancing. As a dancer, you feel the way the music affects mood in the room. The longer you’ve been dancing, the greater your dancing stamina, the more you learn about musical structures, the more susceptible to this you, and also the more aware of it you are. But as a DJ, as I’ve said elsewhere, you have to step outside a little, to understand with your conscious brain, how it all works.
Ironically, the incontrovertible rule is that you cannot be a decent DJ if you are not also a dancer. And you cannot, possibly, ever, do a decent DJing job if you don’t also have ‘one foot on the dance floor’, keeping an eye (and your emotions?) on the mood of the dancers.
I also wonder if you can be a half-decent DJ if you don’t have empathy going on. I’m beginning to wonder if being a good DJ is like being a good dancer – you gotta have good social skills. You’ve gotta be a good observer, to be know how to make people feel good about themselves, and to find pleasure in making people happy.
SO,
Can you be a crap person and a good DJ?
Or is that just another example of DJ hubris – implying that all (good) DJs are good people?

nutella bad? no!

I’ve just stumbled across choice, the mag produced by the consumer affairs association. I’m not sure how I feel about it, beyond the fact that it’s perfectly suited to generating low level anxiety about rather inconsequential things.*

Perhaps the most upsetting thing I read in this mag was that nutella has so much trans fat it’d be banned in Denmark.
This distresses me because nutella is the one sweety we buy at the supermarket and keep in the house. All other lovely sweeties are bought spontaneously and randomly.
And what is trans fat? Bad. And it’s in manufactured foods. Here, read:

Trans fat is found mainly in deep-fried fast foods and processed foods made with margarine or shortening. It’s created by a process called hydrogenation that’s used by food manufacturers to improve the stability of vegetable oils and to convert liquid oils into the solid fats needed to get the right consistency in foods such as cakes and pastries.
Trans fat is also created naturally by micro-organisms in the rumen (or forestomach) of cows and sheep — so beef, lamb and dairy foods also contain small amounts of trans fat, depending on the overall fat content.Trans fat is bad for your heart. Weight for weight, it’s probably worse for you than the saturated fat that we all know to avoid.
Trans fat increases the level of bad LDL cholesterol in much the same way as saturated fat. And worse, it seems to also lower the concentration of good HDL cholesterol that’s protective against heart disease.

(from this page)
I guess the bottom line is, eat organic fruit and veggies, if you’re going to eat cakes and biscuits, make your own (using butter or olive oil) and don’t eat shitful takeaway food. Not really big news, is it?
*no, don’t be silly. of course i’m not implying that the consumer affairs people are carp. i’s just being picky.

yoga fc

It’s world cup time in Melbourne, and even I’m getting a little bit excited. SBS is the world cup channel, with stacks of neat little films on the soccer theme, games, and novelty shows like the one about the socceroos theme song, and of course, Nerds FC. Tonight was the final show (though you can catch it repeated every night at 8pm on SBS from Thursday on), and it was so exciting!
But perhaps my favourite soccer story is actually another yoga story.
My Wednesday morning class is really fun – I’m the youngest yogi there by about 30 years, and usually the least rowdy. We’re not just talking silly jokes and heckling. We’re talking people physically jumping on each other and doing physical comedy (isn’t yoga wonderful?).
One of my favourite people is Rosa, who’s pretty much representative of half the nannas in Brunswick – short, Italian, pushy, friendly and fun. Our teacher Frank is Italian as well, and excellently wicked. Rosa is just a noob yogi, but as per Frank’s general approach to yoga (whether you’re the 10 year old daughter or the 90 year old nanna) is ‘have a go’. It’s nice because he’s careful to work with you if you’re a little bit fragile or scared or cranky.
Last time I was in the class Frank took care to tease Rosa. With one leg up on a table, Frank exclaims “Rosa! You’re not swearing at me in Italian are you?” and she wasn’t – but Frank can lip read.
Then, as we did the kneeling thing (which I don’t like at all), she exclaims “Ah! I don’t even kneel down in church!” and we laughed and Frank responded “bit stiff there, Rosa? Too much world movies” and she swore at him again.
This week, once he had her balanced upside down on a pair of chairs in a headstand (truly amazing – Rosa isn’t young, and she’s pretty round – we were all suitably admiring and she was justifiably proud), Frank declared “now she’s up there, she’s going to make us all spaghetti” and we laughed, because none of us doubted she could.
And later again, doing the kneeling thing again,
“There Rosa, now you’ll be able to stay up later watching World Movies”
and Rosa said “if I can’t sleep tonight because it hurts…”
“ah, no, Rosa, we’re getting you into practice for when the World Cup starts – it doesn’t start til 1am you know.”
And more laughing.
I love that yoga class, because it’s not all quiet meditation and seriousness. It’s fun and friendly and with lots of laughing. So we all feel comfortable and brave enough to do stuff that scared us.
There are quiet times for being in our bodies, but there are also silly, laughing bits. And lots of partner work and hands-on stuff from Frank. There’s also only a small number of poses, but we make sure to do them properly and then hold them for ages.
… the only thing better than my yoga classes would be going to the kids yoga classes. Can you imagine?
and i’m not the only one who likes silly yoga jokes – so do the patriarchy and fussy

gastropodry

I’m really trying to think of the last thing I cooked…
oh yeah, right. Corned beef. I’d only had this a few times, in central Queensland, where a sandwhich with ‘corned beef’ in it at a country pub or cafe has nothing to do with cans, but more to do with hours in a pot of simmering water. It’s a country thing, I guess. Anyhoo, I came to corned beef as an adult, and decided I liked it. Not every week or even every month, but every now. And as Sylvie said, it’s a good way to feed hungry farm hands when you live in a beef-farming area.
I’ve made it a few times, because The Squeeze likes it, and I try to source one made by a local butcher (because they’re better, and our local butchers rock), and I use the Stephanie Alexander eggy saucey thing (look, I can’t remember what it’s called, ok? I just know it involves boiled egg yolks, capers, taragon, parsley, chives, virgin olive oil, is wonderful with cold meats and basically rocks). This time I used a supermarket one, neither The Squeeze or nor I was impressed (which is difficult to achieve, seeing as how I love to eat and The Squeeze loves corned beef more than anything) and we didn’t even bother with sandwiches the next day (which is, of course, the point of it all).
Other than that, I had dinner at Singapore Chom Chom last night with The Squeeze and Woobs, which was good (cheap, tasty ‘Sinagaporean’ food – which is like saying ‘Australian’ food – kind of general. In this case, it’s a combination of Indonesian, Singaporean, ‘Chinese’ and Indian dishes. About perfect for my tastes. And with many noodles). I had prawn noodle soup, Woobs had BBQ pork noodles, Squeeze had that silken tofu/pork mince dish with rice and beans and an extra fried egg. At $7 a dish you can’t really go wrong, can you? We try not to spend more than $10 each on dinner on these pre-dancing meals, so we seem to spend a lot of time in Asian greasy spoons (or should that be greasy chopsticks?). Which pleases me. Though I have to say I’ve had enough of dodgy Japanese. Woob’s obsession with Japanese food and The Squeeze’s endorsement of said obsession has left me in Minority Seat, but still…
We tend to compromise on Malaysian as The Squeeze loves laksa, I like Nasi Lemak (even if it is breakfast food) and Woobs eats whatever. Though eating Malaysian or Singaporean is like meat and three veg for a skip, as Woobs’ family is from Singapore.
We need a compromise cuisine. Or a sponsor, so we can go to decent Japanese.
Food this week, otherwise: take away Wednesday. Something stir-fried Tuesday. Beef Monday. A chicken salad at Nandos on Sunday, nothing, but a hamburger at 1am on Saturday for me, and …something on Friday that I’ve forgotten.
Oh, the shame. It’s been a bad week, really – business plus for us here in the ‘wick. I promise to do better next week.

bubs blues dj. down around the river

I’m doing my first ‘public’ blues set* at the blues pit this Sunday, and’ve been going through my music to sort out stuff I might play. I  got to thinking about how I may handle it, as a DJ. My feeling is that the deal will work much as with lindy hoppers – combine tempos, careful transitions, manipulate energy levels.
But I’ve noticed a few things that make it a bit different to DJing for lindy hoppers:
– the tempo range is far smaller. While I’ve been reading that varying tempos is actually more important in blues dancing in the States than one might expect, the range is actually fairly limited. With lindy, I tend to think that I’m working between 115 and 250bpm (pretty much – give or take). With blues, I’m looking at a range between about 45 and 115bpm.
I know that there are other DJs who may vary the tempo range a little more for blues (but I can’t really talk more about that), but from my experiences at the Blues Pit, I reckon this is the safe range.
SO
– the energy levels are more important as a result. Working with such a small tempo range, I think you have to be a bit more aware of how the music makes you feel.
I’ve seen blues DJs get up and play a series of songs seemingly at random – it feels like they’re just playing ‘their favourite songs’, one after another. Just being ‘slow’ isn’t really enough to make songs work together. The problem with blues is that the tempos are so low, the vibe in the room can be so mellow, that it’s all too easy for the crowd to sit down, start chatting, and not get up again. So I really do think you need to work the energy levels and mood of the room. Just as with lindy, I guess.
– there’s a greater tolerance for a wider range of musical styles in blues dancers than lindy hoppers (in Melbourne atm, anyway). I know there are purists who won’t tolerate ‘non-swing’ or ‘non-jazz’ or even ‘non-blues’ in blues dancing, but I’m tending to lean towards the camp who feel that ‘blues dancing’ is such a wide and flexible notion, that we can really borrow ‘blues music’ from a wide range of blues styles: 20s blues, slow drags, 12bar blues structures and the ‘blues key’, rhythm n blues from the 50s (60s, 70s, etc), etc, but even move into stuff like funk and soul. Not to mention the more ‘arty’ piano- and small combo- driven instrumental stuff (like Junior Mance, Oscar Peterson, Jay McShann, etc).
My personal feeling as a dancer is that ‘music for blues dancing’ feels best if it has a solid beat. By solid beat I don’t mean insistent beat, but that kind of deep, solid and low-down bass that makes you move your hips. So I’m happy with a kind of hip hop beat as well.
Having said that, it makes complete sense to me to play mostly from the jazz and blues genres, not just because it suits blues’ positioning within a swing dance community which favours lindy and other jazz dances, but because that stuff is simply often so much more musically interesting and challenging than some of the newer or non-jazz stuff.
I also feel that you can’t really do, say 20s charleston without doing slow blues or drags – it just feels like you’re leaving out half of the musical and emotional story.
– the lyrics seem more important with 12 bar blues (in that traditional form) than they do to lindy. So I think that playing more songs with vocals is perhaps more workable than lindy. I really like this style of blues music, mostly because I like the combination of humour, sadness, longing, desire and irony. In his book ‘stomping the blues’, Arthur Murray talks about how ‘singing the blues’ isn’t just about singing sad songs. it’s also about singing (and dancing) to drive out the blues. So you get these interesting contrasts between sad, sad lyrics and upbeat, energetic melodies and rhythms. Or you get seriously slow, saucy rhythms and melodies with funny, sarcastic or ironic or just plain funny lyrics. All this hung on a relatively simple musical structure (A, A, B or whatever it is).
So it feels like the lyrics are especially important, and encourage us as dancers to move in these layers of meanings – not just sexy all the time. Not just super-slow.
Having said that, I think it’d be a bit dull if we left out other musical styles, such as slow drags, which have all those other wonderful musical and social meanings.
-> I think that all of these points are a result of the fact that (or contribute to) blues dancing is less ‘structured’ than lindy (well, not when you do lindy the way I do: “structure? What, you can do lessons in this shit?”), so people feel free to experiment and innovate.
In addition, blues is so slow, you really have time to work on expressing all these feelings and contrasting emotions. So you can do technically difficult steps which aren’t possible at higher tempos, and you can really milk every musical iota out of the songs. Because you’ve got the time. So it really helps if the music is more interesting.
Other things I’m thinking about as a DJ:
– the set is an after-class set, and most of the dancers will be new to blues dancing (as regular blues dancing nights are relatively new to melbourne), but most of them will be familiar with swinging jazz or blues music (from their lindy).
– I’ve only got 45 minutes, which is tricky, as blues dancing takes a while to warm up to, good blues nights last late into the night, it feels right to take longer with each partner (more than the 2 song rule for lindy, definitely right for loooong songs), and it takes longer to work through moods – the curve or wave is kind of longer.
– the room is seriously crowded – it’s small, there’s far, far, FAR less room for each couple than in lindy rooms. And I’m standing at floor level to DJ, so my view of the dance floor will be limited.
As per usual, I’m set on avoiding the ‘teach dancers about music’ thing or ‘expand their minds’ thing, or ‘be historically accurate’ thing, even though it’d be nice to really get into some old scratchy blues, eg. As with lindy, if I go in there with a mission, I will almost certainly stuff up. It’s always best to work with the vibe the room is giving off.
It’s going to be really interesting: I’m wondering if these ideas I have about the similarities between DJing for lindy hoppers and blues dancers will hold up in practice.
I’d be interested in any feedback from people who’ve DJed for bot …
*ie not a private party
…yes, you have read this post before. but not here. here

enough

look at this:

pretty, huh?
and i lifted this: . god i suck. it’s not like i think angel’s hot or anything – in fact, he infuriates me. i find buffy herself utterly irritating – all that ‘meee, i hate being the slayer. it’s so haaard being a slayer. meeee’ whinging. but i’m obsessed by angel’s terrible, terrible posture. so when i see him with his shirt off (flaunting this tat), i can’t help but be fascinated. how could his trainer possibly let him get so hunched? didn’t anyone ever say “dood – you need yoga”?
look:


it’s even messing with the line of his jacket in that last one.
dang.
you know why he looks out from under those low brows? because he’s so hunched, his face looks doooown, naturally, so he has to look up from under those brows.
there’s no way he’d be able to kick arse in fights with that sort of terrible posture.
that’s some serious upper body tension.
hah
looks like half the leads in melbourne.
look, i have to stop. i don’t want this to end up being one of those weirdo-fan unicorn sites.

simple pleasures

The best part of looking at site stats today was finding my site was a hit for a search for “how nanna would make pumpkin soup”.
That pleases me.
I wish I had more to offer in the gastropod way of things. But I don’t. Buggered if I can remember what I’ve eaten this week. I’ve been so busy with the thesis, and I DJed three nights straight over the weekend (Thu, Fri, Sat), including my first after party. Which I was happy with, though I guess it’s hard to stuff up a 45 minute set, isn’t it?
My DJing issues are continuing with a search for a media player to which I can drag songs from itunes (using itunes as my library), but which also produces useful play lists. I mostly want to be able to preview songs on headphones before I play them, and for this you need two media players as macs can’t understand why you’d want to have two versions of one application open at any one time. Sometimes this rocks, but sometimes it sucks. This is one of those times. I think I’ll settle for a combination of DJ1800 (about $AU70) for previewing (no sensible playlist option), the usb headphones (plugged into the imic I need to buy from Brian, or into the usb directly) for listening to the DJ1800 songs, and itunes for actually playing to the sound system, searching, creating playlists, etc.
But if you’re looking for gastropod action, I have a little tub of nice bocconcini in our fridge atm, and some nice hydro tomatos on the window sill (I was in bed when the potato man came this week – 8am is TOO early!) and some sweet rocket in the garden. Make of that what you will. I choose to make nice salad.
I am also going nuts with mandarins and apples at the moment. It’s that time of year. We have a bowl full on the coffee table, and I push segments down The Squeeze’s neck every evening while we watch Buffy and Angel. Soon he will have strange Buffy-citrus dreams.
Meanwhile, I had a dream where I was stabbed by a platypus with its poison spur. It was also a dream about the house I lived in in Brisbane, and also about houses generally. I know that if I’m having house dreams, it’s anxiety season. And of course, the source of this anxiety would be the thesis. And the fact that my supervisor goes away 2 weeks from now, for 3 weeks. Arriving back one week before I’d planned to submit. Yes. Isn’t that nice?