Ships in the night

Top: 'Art deco wall mirror' (ebay $41.50).
Bottom: Ship Talk 1988, Edward Ruscha (Christies $1777000)

If I had the cashola I'd buy both. But I don't. 'Champagne tastes, lemonade budget' strikes again. And the mirror was interstate pick-up only damn it.

Hit the road with $900

My $900 government stimulus package handout arrived in my bank account two weeks ago (danke Kevin). I spent the first week just dithering about how to actually spend it. That's what they want to do with it right? Call me a sicko but I'm more of a "saver" by nature. I know that might seem hard to believe in this consumerist age but that's what happens when you're brought up poor, fed rabbit and told it's chicken ("but that's not shaped like a chicken drumstick"..."Just eat it" OK I guess we'll just call it chabbit, gulp)... that, and becoming a vegetarian, but that's another story. (It might also explain my recent interest in le lapin).

I am "chabbit" hear me roar!

So yeah I've always been one for keeping an emergency fund - my "get out of town" money as I like to think of it. Not much, just enough. Enough for a bag, a plane ticket, and a few days in either a hotel or hospital, depending on how the cards fell. Beyond that there was also that pipe dream of owning my own house, or should I say, owning my own house deposit, followed by owning my own mortgage. Dreams just Dreams. Or hideous bourgeois nightmare (depending on the mood)? The world economic crisis has eased the pressure to conform to the middle age middle class dream. Did someone mention falling house prices? Myth or just music to my ears?
Well if we do all end up on the road, less cruisey-Kerouac-style, more ashen-morning-Cormac McCarthy-style then I guess none of us will be talking mortgages - instead it'll be all "have you seen my latest trolley mods?" and urban defense. If we have trolley motor shows you'll find me in the "shabby-jap-chic" division - inspired by Lone wolf and cub. I know, I know, I won't be jesting when the apocalypse comes... or will I? Speaking of McCarthy's The Road it seems they just keep pushing the film's release date further and further back. Just now I read a rumour that it'll be straight to DVD. Does anyone know if when it's actually going to be released? Brace yourself America.

Lone Wolf & Cub
The Road

But in the meantime the government is doling out money - which we all seem to be happy to take with one hand while pushing the hair out of our eyes with the other and those nervous "don't hospitals need money?" thoughts to the back of our minds (a bit like eating chabbit). Finally tiring of playing the "Do I still have an extra $900 in my bank account?" game, that involved hourly online bank account analysis I decided to part with the cash, which was not "hard-earned" by me and thus easier to blow, and have bought a new digital camera, finally filling the absent camera hole left in my life by Anon Thief of Scum who stole all three cameras from the household a few months ago.

Several hundred dollars remain from Kevin's spending stimuli...but not for long I'm sure. Have already committed some to organic chocolate and packets of garden seeds. My Ebay vintage clothing watch list is also several viewing hours long.

After my friendly librarian revealed today she had blown her $900 largely on DVD box sets of television shows from the 80s (the confession arose as she demagnetized the Degrassi DVD I was borrowing during check out) this left me wondering about the rest of you: What did you spend your economic stimulus package handout on?

Borrowing Bukowski

I finally got around to renewing my public library card a month or so ago. It's good to be back. Like the first swim after winter. Standing in a public library facing all those shelves full of books. So many strange & wonderful possibilities of borrowing combinations. Not knowing what you'll emerge with, what new doors will open in your mind. Better than a university library. Better than a gallery archive. Better than any non-lending library (pfft! what a tease). It's not grand, it's not precious, its not pretentious. But it's all yours. You can borrow so many books you break your back getting them home. When you get home you make coffee-table high stacks out of them & gradually paw your way through them clutching your tea cup as autumn sinks in. Renewing them over & over... Until you know you can renew no more & you break your back lurching back with them all. Promising to yourself that you'll get less next time and failing. Somehow unable to face the loans counter unless you're arms are at breaking point. The thrill of scraping through without overdue fines... one of life's small mercies.

I love cruising the shelves and watching my fellow book cruisers. Being a member of the public amongst other members of the public in the public library. It's a good kind of public. It's quiet. A little taste of monastic living. Nooks & crannies. Little stools & carpet to sit on. Little muslim girls getting excited about DVDs & public game consoles. Neatly dressed skinny men with wire-rim glasses hovering in about the autobiographies of old film stars. Pudgy patrons nudging the books in the health section. Spanish tourists making "chic-onomic" use of free internet facilities. Asian students sleeping or tapping away on lap-tops in the reading room. Newspapers of the world on sticks like wordy fairy floss at the fair.

One concern. Where have all the vagrants gone?

So I borrowed some Bukowski.

a strange visit
20 years ago when
I was a starving writer
a lady in a gold Cadillac
pulled up outside my humble place
got out and
knocked on the door.
she was well dressed,
smiling,
really beautiful.

she sat on my couch
and I poured her a drink
as she said,
"I am the Queen of
Rats in a woman's body."

"you look great,"
I said

"I have come to invite you to live
with us
in Rat Kingdon.
the world is going to end
with a bang
soon and all that will be left
will be Rats and a few
roaches.
we admire you and I have come
to invite you to join us
before it's too late."

"come on", I said, "let's go
into the bedroom and talk it
over."

"you're being frivolous," she
said. "I'm asking you seriously if you will
join our Kingdom of
Rats.
will you?"

"have another drink," I
replied, "and I'll think it
over."

she got up then, walked to the
door, opened it, walked out.
I stood at the window,
watched her get into her
gold Cadillac and drive
off.

20 years ago
I thought it was someone's
idea of a feeble
joke.
now, I am no longer so sure.

sometimes I think I should have
left with her.

other times
I am sure that I
did.

-Charles Bukowski

Here you, listen to Bukowski here

Watch list: Bunny Money #2

These guys from the seller Crib Point Antiques caught my fancy too. They're all SylvaC rabbits. I prefer Thumper at the bottom but as things goes he never sold.

Above: c.1940 SylvaC rabbit #3097 (sold for $49.99)

Above: c.1937 SylvaC rabit #1302 (sold for $97.55)

Above: c.1950 SylvaC rabit #5290 (relisted $?)

The top two bunnies remind me why I could never have a rabbit as a pet. There's just something so perpetually sad about rabbits.They just seem so fragile & defenseless. I can blame television to some degree for shaping my attitude towards rabbits. Was anyone else out there subjected to those tear-jerker video clips from Watership Down that featured the the dying bunny set to the tune of Art & Garfunkel's Bright eyes? I could never bring myself to ever watch the entire movie. The ABC in Australia used to play the trailer practically every afternoon during prime time children's TV when I was a kid. It devastated me every time. It still devastates me. I just watched it again now on You Tube & I'm a complete mess. Brings back every dead pet / friend /relative experience you thought you'd dealt with. I dare you to watch it.

Thanks to Kinder Trauma for this appropriately reworked version of Edward Munch's The Scream.

Watch list: Bunny Money #1

Some very lovely bunnies have surfaced on Ebay in the lead up to Easter. The yellow guy above is my fave. Talk about "practi-cute-ability". Yep, decorative and functional! Who could resist this little guy? Can't you just imagine how gorgeous he'd look with his little basket filled with coloured easter eggs? I think this 'Goebel Easter Bunny' has made his seller, retrocollectable, very happy. You can't touch this MC Hammer price: $42.25 SOLD! (but not to me dammit!)

A belated Good Friday to you all

Feeling like you've been wasting your Easter long weekend? You should know there's a much more fulfilling way to spend it. Head to San Fernando, Philippines. Every year a young man is crucified on Good Friday.
Photo: Philip Jones Griffiths / Magnum Photos