Well I got the Creative NZ application handed in, all date stamped at 5 minutes to the cutoff time. Chris Knox weighed in at the 11th hour with a letter of support, so my chances have improved from 1% to 5% at a guess.
Great weather this weekend, the deciduous trees are getting leaf buds and my vege garden is full of food. There are some promising looking cabbages on the way. We've moved from mid- to late-winter. I made an industrial quantity of vegetable korma for dinner on Saturday, should last a few days (we'll probably be sick of it by then). I also planted a couple of flaxes and a koromiko in the back yard, and went for a good long bike ride around the bays. I recently discovered that nasturtiums are edible so I stopped along the way to snack on them and native spinach, and kawakawa leaves as breath fresheners. On the other hand I saw two of my old summer enemies, boneseed and boxthorn along the way. I'll tell the regional council.
I also played two gigs on Saturday and Sunday, both little five-minute improvisations. I don't want to repeat myself and do stuff off the albums and I don't have any substantial new compositions yet so I think what I'm doing is going for transparency, opening up the works in progress, doing my demo versions in public. I might have a new album in me this year, not sure yet. I don't want to pressure myself. Loose Autumn Moans I'm pretty happy with but I went through some rough times to make it. Now I want to get back into making art for the pleasure of it again.
I made one of my occasional musical breakthroughs on Saturday evening - had a go on my flatmate's violin and for the first time ever got a vaguely good sound out of it.
It's good to have the application out of the way - now I'm having another change of direction and going to work at the Kapiti Observer in Paraparaumu for a fortnight. One of the journalists is on holiday so I'm filling in, and getting paid for something should be a nice change. It was good to have a weekend to unwind so I'm looking forward to it. I need some money - the only sour note in the weekend is that I got a police fine for not having a front light on my bike. I've got a red one on the back which works perfectly. $55 that I didn't have anyway down the toilet. I'll put it on the student loan, maybe I'll be able to pay for it in 20 years. Grumble grumble...
Postscript: Monday 1am
Love triangle bullshit. I got passed on by female third of triangle this evening, explicitly for being a nice guy. In favour of an old friend. The horoscope today for Sagittarius was surprisingly accurate. The veil between worlds thins a bit at these times and such things as horoscopes become valid. I'll just tell myself I'm better than the political bullshit and not mind. But what does it mean? I should be nastier to more people as a way of scoring women? Or refuse to partake?
I also got a ticket for not having a front light on my bike last night - the rear one's fine. And it's the full moon. Beginning of Springtime. The great god Pan holds sway as a jester.
Postpostscript 1:13am
And I had a go on a drumkit this evening and got my arms and legs working together for the first time. This is great, full moon's got its tradeoffs but let's just say fuck yeah.
Postpostpostscript 1:24am
Old friend and I disagreed on merits of Thomas Pynchon vs Salman Rushdie. Guess which side I was on?
And I've been listening to Tonight's the Night by Young Neil again recently. That and the Joe Morris trio - forkin weekid.
Apparently the film festival set a new record for attendances with 75000 ticket sales. Great cash cow for someone. I got through the whole festival without seeing anything (not counting The Shipping News and Holy Smoke on DVD, neither of which I paid for anyway) - so that's some kind of achievement...
Posted by: Dave at August 3, 2004 12:18 PM