ryokogal

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

If the Patrick Watson band’s musical output can be compared to a wonderfully eccentric carousel metamorphosed into a steam-engine that spins out magical, whimsical and delightfully demented tunes, Robbie Kuster’s drumming has to be the fuel that keeps the steam engine going. This is also the most decent shots of a drummer I’ve been able to get, but the pics are still a bit grainy so I may adjust, later.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

This was a bit of a challenge for me, because I was being law-abiding and did not bring my camera on the first day. I struggled with the camera phone, and may I state for the record how much I loathe taking pictures with the camera phone? It’s so fiddly and unsatisfying. SLR photography ruined me forever. I’ve fixed it as best as I could with photoshop, though. The Phenomenal Handclap Band were really terrific live. They’re a loose outfit of various indie and funk band members from New York, and the music can best be described as psychedelic funk meets old-school indie electronica with just a hint of acid jazz. In some instances they reminded me of Luscious Jackson, particularly their signature tune, 15 to 20. However, in their stronger melodies, I would say they do a credible revision of `70s funk, enough to get me quite delighted. As some of you know I’ve been enjoying discovering and listening more to old school `70s funk music in the past few months so being able to listen to this was ace. However, the band’s music evokes remembrances of grooves from not just the `70s but also the retrospective revisions of said grooves in the `90s, so there was enough street edge to the tunes to satisfy the indie-rock part of my nature as well. As for the tunes themselves, they were catchy and sing-along-able, perhaps consciously derivative but that is part of what makes these guys work. And sometimes, you just want good old fashioned melodies you can sing, dance and shout along to as well as performers who know how to deliver the goods with organic gusto. It was a tight, energetic set, and all the musicians were charismatic and knew how to engage with the audience. I would say that they gave good funk, and did justice to the good old `70s style, so I thoroughly enjoyed grooving to them. In fact, I was not able to keep myself from dancing, much to the detriment of my already sore feet! Pity these pictures are kinda sucky eh. Oh well. Next time I will be brave and enquire about cameras beforehand. No more camera phones. Ghastly things.

Since I didn’t take photos of the other acts, I’ll just give a brief rundown here of Day 1 for Sunset Sounds. I saw The Middle East again, and was well-pleased with their music. I’m definitely liking these guys a lot, both for their melodies and what they put into their music. Like many others, I suspect they’re going to be big. After The Phenomenal Handclap Band, I meandered over to Kaki King, but I really wasn’t feeling it, so I left to catch Emiliana Torrini. I was a bit tired and bogged down by sore feet, asthma, and claustrophobia (too many people!). Also the sound system wasn’t doing Torrini much justice so I wasn’t really feeling her music either. It was a pity because there were some nice tunes happening and I really loved some of her earlier music. Her newer stuff I couldn’t connect with, though.

The next act, Art vs Science pretty much stole the show. Mind you, I like electronica, but the kind of electronica represented by Art vs Science is not really my scene. However, they packed a mean wallop on the stage and were infectious enough for me to start dancing again. Alas, poor feet! They weren’t afraid to be hard-hitting and the music had an unapologetic crowd-pleasing vibe, with some heavy-duty electronica pyrotechnics that were sufficient to satisfy even some cynical music geeks! I was amused to observe the shenanigans of some of the concert-goers who went completely wild. Good times. It was a pity I wasn’t feeling too well, or I would have headed on over to Moby’s set.

Overall, the highlights of Day One for me were The Middle East, The Phenomenal Handclap Band and Art vs Science. It was a nice day, ill-health notwithstanding, and I had a really good time. However, Day Two completely blew Day One out of the water for me. Also, I was able to bring my camera for Day Two, because I’d noticed that there were other non-media people sporting big cameras. I asked the nice security lady what was allowed, she told me, and next day I was super-spygirl Ninny. So, you guys can look forward to pics of Patrick Watson, Andrew Bird, Lisa Mitchell, Yves Klein Blue, Grizzly Bear AND Sarah Blasko in the next few days. With reviews of course. For now, sleep.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

I thought I would do a general updates post today for those of you who don’t have me elsewhere and don’t know what’s going on in the Ninny-verse. I’m currently on a brief break from thesis writing because my paws were hurting me, but I am going back to working on Chapter Four this week and have started dipping into the textbooks again. My plan for this year is to balance more efficiently my academic time with my creative time. I am feeling positive that this will be possible. I think I got rid of most of the things that would distract me, while retaining others. Also, I am very excited and focused about my research topic still, so this helps. Positive energy is important, even if we do need the balance of our negative times as well. Or else we’d all be fuzzy golden bunnies.

2010 Plan

Academic

(1) Finish up remaining chapters of my phd thesis (fingers crossed)
(2) Submit, write and present at one conference.
(3) Work on one Advanced Studies Options course for Ph.d. completion.
(4) Finish one academic journal article for submission.
(5) Attend two reading groups at least semi-regularly.
(6) Write more reviews for m/c reviews.

Creative

(1) Get a working draft of Saltwater Orphee done by December.
(2) Polish up and submit 2-3 poems, 2-3 short stories for publication. I’m sitting on quite a few in various stages of completion.
(3) Do exciting stuff with the team over at Cabinet des Fees, which I’ve recently joined upon the invitation of Erzebet Yellowboy. There are a lot of exciting things planned for this year, so stay tuned!
(4) Publish on this blog and The Mythogenetic Grove regularly. You have been warned, I may be very prolific. I think it’s important that I return to the roots of blogging.
(5) Work on developing the Mythic Folk community.
(6) Work on more visual arts. Paintings, photography and whatnot. I have a couple of photo-essay type series planned for this blog, as well as a couple of paintings I’d like to hawk on Etsy.
(7) Practice the guitar regularly, write and record more songs.
(8) Publish more reviews here, as well

And that’s it! Think I can achieve all of these things? I’m not sure I can but I’m ready to give it a whirl. Not having a life helps! Also, this means that I will and must spend less time in Web 2.0 playgrounds. I expended so much of my words and my creativity there over the past year that I ended up not just reading less, but achieving less as well. Nobody’s fault but my own, that. This year will be different.

The above photo is from my Glebe Point Street series, and I’ve only done minimal retouching with photoshop, though I am hooked on sexy, juicy, curves adjustment. Mmm, pretty pixels.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

Yes, I am still playing with photoshop, and here’s one of the photos I took in 2008, when I flew down to Sydney to listen to Joanna Newsom perform at the Sydney Opera House. I took a series of shots outside the Glebe Point Street churchyard, but never posted them because I was unhappy with the color balance and lighting, so revisiting these shots is cool.

I had a rant to post, but decided against it because I don’t want this to be known as a rant-blog. On the other hand, my experiences have made me feel that some things must be stated for the benefit of all Grumpy Geek Girls who travel the Globe. So you know, no matter where you are in the world, if you want to befriend one of us, you might want to pay attention. If you couldn’t be bothered, then, it’s all good :

Dear People of the World,

Please don’t assume that people from certain nations who arrive on your shores are blank slates, ready and waiting to be written on. Don’t assume we’re mimics, or only half an individual, and that you’re everything to us because we’re new. It doesn’t work that way. We may fall in love with your city. We may fall in love with your people. But we are complete and complex individuals, and each of us has our own life-journey. We evolve. We grow. We can choose to either veil ourselves in shadows or glisten. We may sometimes be golden. We may grow fins and wings. But we are not blank pages. If you want to scribble on us, respect our space. We may let you ink a flower or a star, or some cool hiragana on the epidermis of our consciousness. We may even enjoy the tickle of your quill and the ooze of your ink. We may enjoy exchanging and sharing ideas. But we are not the things you introduce to us. You are not everything to us, and you must accept this, and accept that we will like you even more if you do. This is not meant as a slight or an insult, but it really is uncool to think we’re dolls or completely vacuous and malleable. Don’t do uncool stuff like declare to other people that we never liked a certain thing until we came to your city and met you. Sometimes this is shockingly ill-informed and shows you haven’t been paying attention. Also, don’t be uncool enough to suggest we only turn up in certain places because of you. It will only cause us to be embarassed, not only for ourselves, but for you. We may take to avoiding you like you have the plague. And yes, we may like you, but more of these things may cause us to like you less, and you may find us drifting away. Because we’re not blank slates and therefore not perfect, possessing our own insecurities and triggers. Be nice. Don’t play head-games. Most importantly: don’t flatter yourselves and we’ll be cool.

Love,

The Ninny One

Ps: Here’s the before picture. Note that it’s the same churchyard. The same way ninnies are still the same ninnies. Yes, it is an object lesson.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

Yes, I am still playing with Photoshop! I got over my aversion for doing extreme edits of photos. I always felt one’s dubious “skillz” as a camerawoman should speak for itself and therefore used to pride myself on not dabbling with too much post-work. I state this, not in self-praise but as an explanation for the way in which I judge my own photography and my penchant for minimalism in most things. I never wanted to use post-photography shortcuts. However, lately I’ve realized that part of being a photographer is the post-work you’re willing to do and the risks you’re willing to take, either in a photo editing program or in the darkroom. It’s inevitable that sometimes your skillz meet the limit of your lens or your position, or even the general weather!

I’ve learned that Photoshop is the digital equivalent of spending hours in the dark room. One day, I swear, in my perfect home, I will have a darkroom. After all, my first love will always be film photography, and it’s just the general cost of good film as well as my dubiousness over how photo shops process one’s film that keeps me using my Olympus instead of reverting to my Nikon SLR camera. I took a whole slew of shots in the UK in 2005, that suffered from shoddy and grainy digital film processing, which did no justice to the alchemy of SLR photography. Granted, I was still learning at that point in time, but that was no excuse for the shoddy and grainy prints I received. It was one of the reasons why I switched to digital. Anyway. So yes, I am beginning to trust photoshop and beginning to get rather adventurous with what I’m doing. The results may sometimes be a bit dodgy, but I’m learning!

Today’s foray into photoshop is in a way an homage to a truly awesome person whom I’m very glad to be friends with. Not only is she multi-talented, awesome and a great mother, she’s also generous with her knowledge and time, and that is a true asset in this day and age. I am talking about Stace Dumoski, founder of one of the pioneering fantasy e-zines on the web, Phantastes, as well as former editor for a slew of awesome arts and crafts and photography `zines. I’ve been nagging her for quite some time now to get the `zine archives back up, and you know what? You should, too! It’s an homage because Stace, being a medieval literature grad, is a lover of castles, and has done some gorgeous photography post-work with old buildings. You can view some of her work here, to see what I am talking about.

FYI, what I did here: I resized the photo, blurred the areas I did not want to be in focus at different levels of blurring to create depth. After which I played with hue and saturation. Then, I played with colour balance because I wanted everything to be suffused with a golden glow. After this I went crazy with curves adjustment. So hawt. Oh what I wish I could do with an actual dark room!

And here’s the original picture, sans all the editing! (apart from resizing and adding the text, of course!)

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

This is probably my last batch of photos from The Middle East, also for Woodford. I really enjoyed the one day I spent there much much more than the muddy day I spent in 2007, when Woodford, Australia and QLD was still brand new to me. I will always associate Woodford 2009 not just with all the reasons why I nearly didn’t go (which turned out to be inconsequential in the end), but with the beautiful, haunting music that spoke to me. It told me that 2010 shouldn’t just be about “not settling for less than what you deserve”. It’s also about this: not being afraid to be golden.

So, go out there, and be golden, my friends. Luxuriate in life, no many how minute and banal your everyday existence may seem to be.

Other Photos of The Middle East:

Part One and Part Two.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

Celtic fiddle, guitar…and stepdancing!

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

I was very regretful that I could not stay till the end of the Freshwater Girls’s set but I was hopelessly lost at that point in time and worried. I was on the opposite end of the festival grounds, and I estimated a long trek to the entrance. The best bus out was the 6:10pm bus, because the next one would have been at 10:10pm and I might have found myself stranded at midnight on some train station. And so, I regretfully made my way back out of the tent after taking a couple of photos. I did kick myself all the way home for not staying a bit longer, because I did find the way out and it wasn’t that tough! Ha. But anyway, do check them out. These four girls have beautiful voices and harmonies and are from the Yuwaalaraay, Gamilaraay, Wiradjuri, and Yorta Yorta of New South Wales. They sing in English as well as these four languages and play a pretty mean guitar.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve been playing around with photoshop and learning how adjusting curves can provide a dramatic boost to already good shots. Of course, they really can’t save all shots, my attempts at retrospectively editing my Mogwai photos are testimony to that. But still, curves adjustment and playing with blur effects can add depth to a shot. I’m still learning as I go, so some results are going to be quite dodgy, and I have no pretensions at being a professional photographer anyway. I enjoy taking photos of performers, an exercise I began in 2007 after I’d read a lot of performance theory as well as Heidegger, and wanted to capture that indefinable thing about the human soul, in action. It is a beautiful thing, I think. I did a whole set on S.E. Asian Cosplayers for a paper I presented in 2007, but never got around to posting those. I will, eventually! But my first love, when it comes to photography will still be in the hidden everyday moments, like in the picture above, when I was at Manly Harbour in 2007, misdirected, a bit starstruck by Sydney and Australia.

I actually had something to rant about today, re: unsolicited advice and homilies given by people who really have no clue and over-interpret your facebook status messages, your tweets, your blog posts or IRC mutterings. But really, these people exist everywhere. Some will always feel the need to feel important by offering unwanted advice or trying to tell you how to run your life. We artistic/writerly types can be expressive. Don’t expect us to be perfect, we’re not members of your Stepford Inc corporation. Don’t act like there’s something you need to “fix”. You don’t know us.

Despite my ups and downs, I think I’m handling my shit well enough. So don’t assume that those of us who express stuff don’t have the emotional maturity to deal with what’s going on in our lives. Because that’s insulting! I’m stating all this because I am constantly astounded by how wrong people can be. Like, they take wrongness to an art-form. My overall conclusion is that humans either need to get a life or take more photos of birds and boats! One of the reasons why I love photography and photoblogging is because I sometimes feel these snippets I observe from my life that I share have more currency and more reality than all the faux constructions of my text done by eyes who project judgments and insecurities. Truth be told, I’m exhausted from dealing with people’s projections! And please, please, PLEASE, don’t patronize me over this post either. Sometimes the world needs a good rant and I’m fucking tired of cowards.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

Apart from Angie Hart, The Saruzu Quartet was the main reason why I would have been bummed if I had missed Woodford this time around. I’d already decided to give Kaki King a miss, since I’d already seen her four times in 2009, and while I loved her music, I wasn’t quite sure what to think about her shenanigans @ Womadelaide. Unfortunately, I woke up later than I had planned on waking up. I nearly missed their performance, and would have, had I not run into a group of travellers at the Caboolture train station who wanted to share a maxicab so that we could get to Woodford an hour earlier than the Festival Bus. They were a nice and friendly bunch of people; it’s nice to have positive travelling experiences every now and then! Anyway, I made it just in time for the Quartet’s last set, and they played My Favourite Things, which I do believe is my favourite cover of the tune, with Amanda Palmer’s a close second.

Because I came late, I was a little too far behind to get good shots. So I had to do some post-work here. However, the process of editing a photo brings its own joys, and I do have to thank the lovely Stace Dumoski for all the advice and hints she’s given me about photography post-work.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

One of the reasons why I really wanted to go for Woodford was to see Angie Hart perform. After all Frente! was so much a part of my grunge/alt music experience in the `90s, and I’ve often had a tinge of worry that some of Hart’s vocal stylings had influenced my own (fortunately that has changed a fair bit since my teenhood attempts at singing!). She was awesome. One of the most down-to-earth singers I’ve had the pleasure of hearing speak, she apologized to us as she took off her socks and shoes in the humid heat of the Concert tent. She gave so much of herself in her singing that photographing her was a pleasure, and she made not only my day by playing that good old Frente! classic, Ordinary Angels. I’m going to have to post more of Angie and her band. Especially of her cute guitarist on whom I had a bit of a photographer’s crush. Haha!

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

Poor Yoda. Never stood a chance. The Dark Force is strong in the thistly feline.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

Oh no, not another foodie post! I’m really posting this for friends who wanted to know how my stab at this traditional meal would turn out. So, enjoy this rather picture-intensive post! While not a Christian myself, I always enjoy any special day where people come together to celebrate connections and cook meals to be shared. This is part of the reason why I enjoy cooking for friends every now and then, when my budget and energy allows for it. I derive a certain amount of joy from cooking for people, after all.

Today, I invited a friend, another international postgrad student, over to partake of my first attempt at Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding. Verdict: She liked the roast beef, I thought that maybe it could have been juicier but it was my first try and I may have followed the wrong recipe. Still, it tastes nice enough and I’m happy I got it done right, brown on the outside, pink on the inside. That’s the way carnivores like our meat!

Note the even slices of meat. I knew I was not capable of such a feat so I delegated it to Y. She did well!

Butternut pumpkin, chopped up, carrots, baby potatoes. The pumpkin and carrots were so sweet and flavourful and were roasted without any augmentation, just their natural goodness and some extra virgin olive oil.

Sadly, my Yorkshire Pudding was not light and had the consistency of muffins. However, it was delicious enough that both of us enjoyed it. The butter as well as the vegetable and meat drippings made for a tasty and savoury pudding, even if I got the consistency messed up! I may get Yorkshire Pudding right one day, but I really did enjoy this Yorkshire Muffin/Cake and may just make it like this again. On purpose!

Can’t have roast beef without peas, and the onions brought out the flavour.

I’ve had a lot of hits and misses with making gravy, but this one was just perfect. And I didn’t need to use any gravy aid whatsoever. Am rather chuffed with the result!

Have a Merry and Safe Year’s End Season, Friends! Whatever you celebrate or don’t celebrate, believe or (dis)believe, the most important thing is our common humanity and how good we are to each other as human beings. So go forth, share food, love and good thoughts. And come home safe and sound!