The Hipster Project

Breaking News

I'm getting evicted with three days notice. I expected that as everyone else moved out the family who owns the house would want it back but I didn't expect to be booted out so suddenly. Fortunately I think we've found a place for the next month at least. It's an empty house so once Clara the intern leaves at the end of January I will need to find a new house mate if I want to keep it. It'll be great to have a place of our own so we can get rowdy/have guests over/make a mess as we please.

Gigs I would be attending if I was in Melbourne

There are so many great gigs over the next few months. An excellent idea would be to go to them and tell me how they were, or even get real hipster-techie and record them for me.

I must confess that all my information comes from one edition of the EG (Entertainment Guide from the Age) I got when I was sitting in business class when I left Australia (yes, I know that people in economy class also get newspapers, but I was still sitting in BC and your jealousy is an ugly monster growing inside of you). For some reason Thursday's paper had the Green Guide (as usual) and the EG. Is that standard now? If so, what is Friday's new supplement?

So, the list….

Jens Lekman
Jan 10, The Toff in Town

My Brightest Diamond, St Vincent
Jan 15, The Toff in Town
(St Vincent plays in Sufjan's band)

Sufjan Stevens (yes, I would have gone both nights)
Jan 16-17, Forum

The Police and special guest star Fergie
Jan 26, MCG (realistically I probably wouldn't go to this but it could be pretty cool)

Battles
Jan 29, Billboard

Billy Bragg
Jan 30-31, Prince Bandroom

LCD Soundsystem
Jan 31, Forum

Spoon
Jan 31, The Corner
(I'd probably choose this over LCD Soundsystem)

Rufus Wainwright
Feb 1, Palms at Crown??
(but could I bring myself to seeing a gig at Crown?)
Edit: Either EG misprinted the info or someone told Rufus that it was lame to be playing at Crown. It seems he's actually playing at Hamer Hall.

Sonic Youth, The Scientists
Feb 20-21, Metro

Feist
Feb 26, Prince Bandroom

Okkervill River
Feb 26, The Corner
(I'd probably end up here instead of Feist because she's already sold out)

Broken Social Scene
Feb 27, Corner

Stars
Feb 28, East Brunswick Club

Beirut
March 10, The Corner

Sinead O'Connor
March 25, Palais
(again, I probably wouldn't actually make it to this because it's too expensive...although I just read that it's her first time touring Australia, but that's got to be bogus. I saw her on Good Morning Australia with Bert once.)

Wilco
March 26, Metro
(I didn't see them when they were in Melbourne in August and am now being punished for my poor form last year. Two appearances in a little over six months? What is this?)

I also remember reading somewhere that Arcade Fire are touring but I haven't found the details yet. I think it's sold out anyway.

Don't you love when a run of really great things happen in the space of a few minutes?

I just got home from the office. It's late and dark and the house is empty which isn't an alluring prospect in this creepy house, especially since the cable TV has been cut off by the landlord. Last week, against my usual track record I got freaked out by ghosts (the woman who lives downstairs said she saw one already), so I was determined to stop being a big baby and fight the fear head on. Lo and behold, I realised I had the perfect antidote to my quiet house in my suitcase full of christmas presents. My new Ipod dock! Oh how the music flows! This little contraption makes a lot of noise. And to celebrate my joy, Ipod served up the Beach Boys and then The Shins as the first two tracks on shuffle! It quickly turned sour when Damien Rice turned up (how did I tolerate that angst in 2005-6?) but was saved by new music I haven't even listened to yet (acquired at inappropriate times and places in Australia: apologies to my friends who had conversations with my back as I huddled over my laptop).

Further greatness when I realised that a new hair parting created while mindlessly playing with my stupid haircut in the car actually worked and now it ever so lightly dances around the edge of cool haircut territory. Maybe that's a stretch, but at least it seems to have left late-90s unhip land. In the office today male colleague T told me he preferred the last haircut a lot (insert memory of the time the receptionist at RMIT said "What have you done? Your hair looks terrible!"), but male colleague F insisted that it looked lovely and that T's opinion is less important because he is gay. He argued that if my haircut is approved of by the guy who digs girls then everything is OK. I wholeheartedly agreed, hi fived F and realised that I represent all that my work tries to prevent. Oi vey.

Additional note, as much as I have tried not to be concerned by my haircut (It’s just hair, it will grow, etc etc) in the same way that a capitalist society inadvertently supports ongoing environmental degradation, I believe that modern society supports bad haircut obsessions. I know, it’s something we, as a world community probably don't want to face up to, but you know, I think we just need to draw on the strength of each other and stand up and say, "So you got a bad haircut, big F-ing deal! The world does not and you should not care either." Come on, let's all say it together.

One more pleasurable moment had in the last half hour…when I got out of the car I heard very faint music that sounded like Edith Piaf. What a beautiful sound to hear on a dark still night in Banda Aceh. So unexpected and unexplainable that it's even more mysterious and chill-inducing. As my ears focused I realised it was the call to prayer from a far off mosque, but I didn't study cultural studies only to concern myself with what is actually being produced. I heard Edith Piaf for a brief moment, so it might as well have been her. Death of the Author…hell yeah!

Holidays over

I got back to Banda earlier today and am back in the office already. The strongest reminder of my brief and 100% brilliant trip to Australia is the extra squishiness of my belly thanks to a week-long binge of Christmas food. Last night in KL we did a late night run to McDonald's (instigated by self-confessed hippies who would usually sneer at those who enter the Golden Arches of Shame - but this is what a steady diet of fish and rice will do to a normally uptight hippie). When I protested at being forced to order food I was reminded that I'd be sweating, pooing and vomiting food out as soon as I got back to Banda, so should eat as much McDonald's as I could before then. I ate a red bean "prosperity" sundae and it was dee-lishus.

Even though you didn't know it existed I would like to apologise for not posting my Christmas Mix before Christmas. I will put it back into the incubator for next year. I'm downloading some Christmas music today so with 363 days to mull it over (next year is a leap year don't you know!), it's sure to be smokin.

Was greeted by an earthquake when I got off the plane this morning. It wasn't that strong but the arrivals terminal looked like it wanted to fall over anyway. I'm guessing a group of determined people could push that building over if they cooperated.

My year in review using photos I forgot to post at the time

I'll work in a vaguely reverse-chronological order.

November: Clara and Jesse by candlelight at Canai Mamak, Banda Aceh.













November: My personal mission statement realised. Found in a food court in KL, Malaysia.













September: Ryan Cook sleeping because he's about a nano-second old, and exhausted. Shepparton.

















End of July, maybe August: Kids posing for photos with weapons of war, Prishtina, Kosovo.













July: Ice Banana and Bum Bum. Subtle adult humour, Mostar, Bosnia.

















July: Dinner by the Mostar bridge, Mostar, Bosnia.













July: My 45-minute tour of Dubrovnik and all I see is this surly American tourist, Croatia.

















July: Oh dear, kitten will chop its head off, Istanbul, Turkey.

















Easter: Abby and Chloe in the garden, Rushworth.

Easter: Chiara, Em and Abby rockin' out, Rushworth.

Unsure of date (sometime after Paul got his new Mac):Marty and Sarah are cool for a brief moment. Lara's house, Northcote.
















Phew, now that they are out of my "to be posted" folder I can breeeath easy and move on to 2008! (Do you really think I have a "to be posted" folder? Do you know me at all?)

Why I love being the token white person

Even though there are banyak bule (many white people/foreigners*) in Aceh, it's still pretty common to get singled out. Sometimes this can get tiring (e.g. being yelled at from cars and motorbikes), but let's be honest about one thing, I love getting special treatment of any kind, so I'll let the politics of the matter slide. Today it really worked in my favour.

I went with a couple of colleagues to the site of a Balai Inong, which is a kind of women's community centre common to Aceh. My work is funding the construction of three of these in tsunami-hit areas, and have facilitated the development of committees to control and monitor the construction. Every now and again we attend a ceremony for the turning of the first sod or soil or whatever you call that. This is one of the construction workers digging the hole for an offering of rice and flowers. I've lost the photos of the actual offering. Nice one Sarah.












This morning, about a month after I took that last photo, we went along to another ceremony and voila! A Balai Inong!












Any celebration is good right? But my enjoyment is quadrupled when...pulut is served!












Pulut is my favourite Acehnese dessert and it is sensational. You get some sticky rice, ladle coconut-y soup with banana over it and add some other stuff whose ingredients I can't even begin to fathom. Today, when someone found out that I loved the dessert I was immediately ushered into the eating room to get the first serve. Everyone found the image of me sitting alone in the room stuffing my face pretty funny. Sadly, I am the photographer, so it's a mental image only.

This is truly a special occasion dessert. The first time I had it was at Fazil's wedding. Here is Fazil (he is a security guard at the office) at his house before the wedding:
















And here is me eating the dessert at the wedding:












This is another perfect example of special bule treatment. Even though we didn't know anyone at the function (apart from the groom), we got to sit in the VIP dining area with senior members of the family! The rest of the plebs had to sit outside wherever they could pull up a chair. Suckaaaahs!

I am aware of the absurdity of me posting about how being white gives me unfettered access to dessert before posting about the fascinating event that is an Acehnese wedding. I aim to rectify this soon.

*We could discuss the use of the term 'bule' for HOURS, but I'll save my thoughts for the next time I get stuck next to a socially-retarded water sanitation specialist who finds this topic 'fascinating!'

E! News 101 Top Celebrity Blog Makeovers!

I know that most of my readers are Australian and have better things to do than have pay TV, but here I have cable and therefore watch E!News. It has pretty much filled any gaps in my pop culture knowledge that the Simpsons and Gilmore Girls couldn't.

So now I refer to E!News 101 Top everything (makeovers, celebrity slimmers, most expensive weddings, richest rappers and so forth) even though no one reading this blog gets it...Which I think is what makes a PC reference even cooler.

Woah, long introduction. Now I know why the Gilmore Girls just say stuff without explaining it. They'd have to talk even more to fit in all the background and there is obviously no more room for dialogue in that show. Damn, I explained that PC reference too. I've got to get better at this.

So, to get to the point, my blog is obvs NO.1 on the celebrity blog makeover list (and don't even bother questioning my celebrity)

Before you make some rude comment about my inability to create something as nice as this header (Benjamin I have you in mind), I will admit I received a little bit of help from Meaghan. When I say a little bit I mean she did it all. Although, I did get pretty HTML savvy when I made my header CLICKABLE! You heard correctly, no it's not in your dreams. My header is clickable now. I can hear the collective sigh of relief.

Please feel free to tell me how much you love my header in the comments (no, don't send me an email, or gchat/skype me about it. Now that I have a pretty blog I can get all "blog etiquette" on you).

The day Sarah learns that her studies have impacted on her blog in the wrong way

If there is one thing I learned at uni it was that people who read material online are stupid and slow so you have to write in simple language. This is also true of writing for newspapers (The Age usually aims for a year 10 readability level if I recall correctly).*

So it is with shame that I learn that I my readability score is far from ideal.

Cash Advance Loans

(poo, bum, wee. Maybe some key terms from kindergarten will balance out all my super-academic language and bring my score down a little.)


*I tested The Age, and surely enough its website is a rated as 'High School'

Decision made and it was the right one

If you didn't read yesterday's post this won't make much sense. So read it now, and ask yourself why you didn't read it in the first place. Did you think it was clever to ignore chronology? Don't blame the internet's non-linear structure. You can read, so read the dates OK.

So, I went with Option B (saw a film). In the end the decision was made for me because my friend seemed to think it was a silly idea to stand in the rain. I can see where she is coming from.

Boy am I glad I saw the movie! It was a Dutch film called Polleke which I now realise is from 2003 which makes me less cutting edge than I thought. It's probably been played on SBS about four times by now.

Polleke is a film about an 11 year old girl who is in love with her Moroccan friend Mamoun and has idiot parents but lovely grandparents.

Polleke is a total winner, which is something I do not say lightly considering my racist feelings towards the people of the Netherlands.

In fact this film has forced me to look at myself in the mirror and face my prejudices towards my Dutch brothers and sisters. I feel shame.

It was one of those films that the whole audience loved and we clapped and cheered as the credits rolled. The Indonesians knew not the take the nasty Moroccan uncle too seriously and laughed at him where I might have been angry or upset, so I was able to laugh too.

We sat under the aircon so I snuggled into my blanket* and pretended it was winter! Tonight I might sneak in a cup of hot chocolate, but I will have to figure out a way to get it from my house to the venue without any spillage.

***READER PARTICIPATION TIME***

Q.Which movies should I see when I'm in Melbourne?

*if you don't take a blanket to the cinema you should start. Perfect way to combat the over-cooling common in almost every cinema on the planet.

Because I can't commit to anything let alone a blog host

It's annoying when people move their blog, but Blogger is really bringing me down. I don't have the time to create a new header, and as you can see the basic templates are simply not an option. I don't suppose anyone feels like making me a blog do they?

Moving on to the theme of today's post: decision making.

Anyone who has eaten with me in a restaurant (particularly in Malaysia which I think of as my darkest decision making period) knows that it is not one of my strengths. I can stare at a menu full of tasty food options, be quite confident that I will like it all, and still get anxious when the waiter walks over. I used to ask the waiter what I should order until one guy said "Why would I know what you want to eat?" Which is an excellent point.

So you can imagine my anxiety today when I am faced with a real challenge. Please help.

The options

a) Today is International Human Rights Day ("Hari Ham Internasional" in Indonesia) and tonight there will be a demonstration. Everyone wears white clothes and we get torches! Sounds pretty great right? But it's raining and...

b) For five days there is a European "Film Festival" At the European Commission. Last night I watched "Zozo", a Swedish film about a boy who leaves Lebanon for Sweden during the war. It was so great to watch a good film.

If I only made decisions based on what I want to do (something I am naturally quite good at), I would go for option b, but there is a fair bit of guilt associated with saying "sorry human rights day, I'd prefer to watch some bourgeois European film".

Is it the small decisions we make daily that make us who we are? If so I have to participate in Human Rights Day activities right? But what if it's more important to expand my cultural world through film than stand in the rain while my white clothes turn see-through?

I am feeling so conflicted right now that I am going to listen to music for a while in hope that the answer is hidden in the words of popular song.

16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence

Did you know that we're in the middle of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence? It's true!

From 25 November to 10 December people all over the world are saying no to violence against women...and you can too! (I knew you'd be pleased.)

UNIFEM has just launched a "virtual" book (not my lame-o use of " ") that you can sign at:

http://www.saynotoviolence.org/

If that wasn't enough excellent news in itself, when you sign the book Nicole Kidman will send you an email! She is busily tapping away at her computer composing email after email (over 11,000 so far). The poor dear must be rather tired, but hell, she needs to learn what real work is all about for a change.

So make Nicole work a little bit harder and sign the book now!

Deck the halls...

Holy moly, I'm going to be in Melbourne for Christmas!

The Interlude that didn't end

The 'brief' interlude to my KL report lasted for over a week. So I will get back to it and show you a nifty picture from the Indonesian Embassy in KL.















The people lined up here are mostly Indonesian migrant workers who need new passports or updated documents. They get in there early in the morning (there is a queue at the front gate before the embassy opens) and stay there all day waiting to see someone. There is lots of food and drinks to keep everyone going for the day.

Fortunately the queue to get a visa to Indonesia is much shorter. You go there in the morning, hand in your papers and wads of cash and return three days later to pick up your passport that hopefully contains a shiny new visa inside. I won't talk about how this almost didn't happen for me because this dull post will become even more so. Actually, in that respect this post captures the feeling of standing in the visa queue perfectly.

The burden of fame: an important lesson in dealing with over-exposure

I am so famous at the moment it's crazy.

I get Google Alerts for anything relating to Aceh and the other day I was sent a link to this very blog!

And today I was searching for information on Violence Against Women in Aceh and the second item on Google was a page featuring a document I'd written!

Don't worry, I won't let the celebrity go to my head. I'm just a normal person you know. I like normal things like anyone else. Sure, people come up to me in the street and are all like "I love you so much" but that's cool. It doesn't really affect me.

But you might just want to go here and take a look at the Qanun & Aceh picture in the right column. You might even want to follow the link and read my fascinating document....or not.

Actually I just followed the link myself, and the website isn't great. I guess I am just a B-grade internet celebrity after all.