Did you know that for every $3 cappucino consumed by the caffeine deprived masses which include myself, less than 3 cents will go to the growers of its base ingredient, coffee? I am suffering great cognitive dissonance here. I buy $3 coffees from Uni because I feel I cannot live without it yet at the same time feel guilty that most of my money is going to assholes who are benefiting from this free trade. Coffee companies in the western world are experiencing increased profits yet the coffee growers are suffering from dropping market rates due to overproduction and decreasing coffee consumption. Just last week I found out that Wholefoods Cafe sells 'fair trade' coffee which also costs less than your ordinary $3 cappucino say from The Den or Hargrave Cafe. So Monash students, go buy your coffee from Wholefoods and 'liberate your latte'!

So sorry everyone for not blogging. Things have been sooo unbelievably unbelievable the last few weeks, and it still is. But right this moment, I feel as though I've used enough of my brain power for the day and shall now slack off ;). Hehe.

There's so many things that I have wanted to blog over the last few uneventful weeks on this site. I shall do it in chronological order.

1. I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 about almost a month ago. It is a *fantastic* film. It didn't teach me anything new, however it pieced all my knowledge regarding Bush and the war on Iraq, etc, together and so now I know how everything is related. I really respect Moore's courage to be able to stand up for what he believed in and do such a fantastic job at the same time -- not to mention the brilliant soundtrack to go with ;). Apart from very interesting (and disturbing) footage and Moore's undeniably brilliant efforts to inform the public, what made the film for me was when he recited an extract from George Orwell's 1984 as the conclusion. I didn't know whether to be horrified or not, because subconsciously you know that no matter how much you want 1984 to stay fiction, there is evidence that some of it does indeed happen in real life, yet you prefer to supress and ignore it. Moore, by reading it out, just made me feel that there is no need to supress it because the way things are going, it is going to be more and more like 1984 -- the playing around with societal heirarchy so that the government can continue to do whatever they want. And that disappoints me greatly.

2. Mink Engine: Yay! I go all happy and warm and fuzzy when I think of Mink Engine and I'm soo glad I went to see them play! Sarah and I went to catch this absolutely funky, Japanese influenced Australian neo-electrorock duo at Loop Bar a few weeks ago and I just love them! Check out their website for a little idea of what these guys are about - www.minkengine.com. The duo, Touchmetiger and Askii, work together to provide a whole load of sound and visual excess. Askii does the sounds which is heavily influenced by early electro music like Kraftwerk, and Touchmetiger (absolutely one of the coolest people I've seen) does these awesome animated visuals that are projected onto a huge screen on the wall that goes perfectly with Askii's work. I can't wait to see them play next - which is going to be at Federation Square at the Australian Centre of Moving Image!! It's going to be huge!

3. Casionova! Haha. Just imagine some nerdy guy wearing waist-high school boy shorts, knee high socks, tucked-in crisp white shirt, thick rimmed glasses and a comb over that could survive an apocalypse - and you get Casionova! This guy makes music solely from a whole range of Casio's home keyboards from the 80s. Yup. He sets on the drum beats on one keyboard, plugs another into a distortion pedal and there you go. He has his way of coming up with the most experimentally creative sounds just from a pair of dodgy keyboards. He also tweaked around with a Commodore 64 and transformed that into an electronic device that just played a bunch of notes when you press on each key. He even plays a few songs with a Nintendo Game Boy! He's an absolute classic, I tell ya. I got the priveledge of going on stage to play a song with this dude when I touched his "soldering iron of luurve" - it was literally a soldering iron, you sicko. ;)

4. The Mayor Of Sunset Strip - I don't know whether I liked this film or not. I mean, I like Rodney Bingenheimer (and the Bowie bits, although minimal, were cool - his mohawk!!) but I don't think much effort was put into the film at all. Very uncreative interview questions, a very mediocre soundtrack (especially for someone like Rodney who likes to promote non-mainstream music) , unfortunate ways of dealing with the parts that were meant to be serious and sad, etc. I liked the idea how there was hardly any narration except for the people featured providing it, but that's not revolutionary. Some cool footage and good timing of events, but other than that, it was quite lacking. Rodney definetly deserved better than that. Another thing that annoyed me was that I had this complete LOSER sitting right next to me was laughing with the mighty might of his mighty lungs at every single thing that was remotely funny. Boy, I wanted to slap him but that is unfortunately not quite acceptable in today's society.

5. I went to see The Impressionists and Man Ray exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria about two weeks ago. The Impressionists exhibition consisted of selected works from Musee d'Orsay in France that included those by Van Gogh, Monet, Renior, Sisley, Toulousse Lautrec, Cezanne, Seurat and many other Impressionist artists. It was a mighty collection and I was very surprised to see one of Monet's Haystacks there too. The beauty of going by yourself to an art gallery is that you can take all the time in the world on the paintings that you like and skimp over the ones that you don't quite like without offending the other person. Being deprived of such a important era in art history by living in this country called "Australia", it was my very first time seeing such influential work in the flesh. No matter how pretty these paintings look in photos in expensive art books, it doesn't compare with experiencing how the light reflects against the heavy and expressive brushstrokes on the actual painting itself. Van Gogh's work captivated me in those books and it captivated me even more in real life. I stood and stared at Starry Night over the Rhone for atleast twenty minutes. And before I finished with the exhibition, I quickly ran back to have a look again. The ugly side of going alone is that you have no one to talk to and therefore you overhear conversations from other museum goers. They tend to annoy me at very high levels. An example "Hmm... Oh so this is Monet's Haystacks. I reckon he used the wrong colour here. It should be more intense. And I think green would have been a better option" -- I don't think I can muster any respect for anyone who would try to question Monet's painting. I mean *yells out loud* the colour is like that for a reason!!! And another example "Oh I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 the other day", friend: "What's that?!", other friend: "Oh, isn't it about September 11? I don't think I really want to see that..." - ignorant losers. I hate going to big museums like this because you get a bunch of pretentious ders who think they know a lot about art but SO don't. I mean, I don't know that much about art but even I can see through them. Other than that... great paintings and the Man Ray exhibit was brilliant!!!

6. Ski-Rack's "Hunger" night. Just last Saturday I went to Bowienetter Ski-Rack's house with a bunch of the Melbourne netters to watch The Hunger, both the film and the TV series. I haven't seen either of them so it was quite an interesting experience. The Hunger (the film) was er... hmm... okay. It's certainly not up my alley. It just confirms how much I do not want to associate Bowie with the 80s except for Scary Monsters and Merry Xmas Mr. Lawrence (which I love). BUT his part in the more recent TV series is GREAT! I love the whole 1. Outside Murder-Art theme going on. How awwwwwwwwesome is the deranged Julian Priest?! I don't know about the rest of the episodes though. It seems to me like a bad mixture of a bunch of mediocre film students and the attempt of questioning society about life - with a huge television budget to boot. Oh but I just love the first episode... Bowie as Julian Priest is just too cool. He's so suaaave and classssyy... and beaaaautiful and oh so crazy. I can't believe I had no idea about this til now! *shocked*

7. I got a pair of glasses!! Yes. I'm getting sick of using contact lenses... (even though they don't require much effort at all), I want to start looking like an intellectual person ;). I got these cool red semi-thick rimmed glasses made by 'D-viations' (hehe, reminds me of DeviantArt) and when I put them on --> instant arts student. Buahaha. No really, I just wanted some more flexibility... sometimes I just want to give me eyes a rest!

Okay, well that's quite it for now.

I am turning 20 this Sunday 29th Aug. I can't believe it. 20!! I don't know what to do with this... for some reason it is rather anti-climatic. I should be panicking right now about how little I have achieved in life so far and trying to cram everything in before my birthday. I remember the night before I turned 19, I did about 5 paintings that night just to be able to say "I did x-amount of paintings when I was only 18 years of age". I guess I am quite proud of what I have achieved as a 19 year old -- to have had an art gallery exhibition and three sold paintings is no mean feat.

Do you notice how I always speak in terms of art? And hardly ever about my chosen disciplines of Engineering and Commerce? I don't know whether that is supposed to mean anything. But what I know is that I feel that I'm growing each time I do art or read up about art - I feel that it is relevant. I do my engineering and commerce homework as routinely and ordinarily as when I brush my teeth or take a piss in the toilet. Hmm...

xx Georgina