Saturday, May 31, 2003

This man is not a larrikin, but Google Images thinks he is.
boynton was out doing a quick scout about for images on behalf of esnet who expressed some interest in the word. As larrikins "were as much recognisable by their get-up as by their behaviour..." she was trying to find some representative jpegs. Perhaps another Google suggestion was closer to the mark, or even the same bloke in a cloth doll version. But not Sir Douglas Mawson. The odds would be about 100 to one against.

Friday, May 30, 2003

boynton likes the look of these souped-up commodore PC's. (via b3ta) Although the toaster remains her favourite model. But if we're talking serious retro appliance convergence, she wonders if someone can work in her favourite: the classic Sunbeam Mixmaster? And if in the future her telephone is going to be web-aware, she hopes it can still look something like this (via Scrubbles)
boynton's feeling a bit under the weather today -( which is quite really sunny). Not quite as bad as tourette syndrome barbie, but NQR enough to go and seek out some quality vitamin D for company. (via Lindsay Marshall)

Thursday, May 29, 2003

boynton has spent some of the morning simply soaking up the sun. She has many years of sun deprivation to make up for, and perhaps a bout of SADness to fend off.
She recalled reading an article about writers and their chosen work-places, with solitude listed as the key ingredient. But boynton sides with Shaw (who constructed a revolving hut to follow the sunlight) and votes for the sun as number one, or at least lots of natural light. This is an article that goes into even greater detail about GBS's writing equipment: Shaw does not seem to have been faithful to one particular brand of fountain pen. In lieu of sun, and to foretsall SAD, perhaps boynton could work at this desk, or wear these glasses. If you have reading glasses, why not writing glasses, although she can't go past these literary shades for style.

Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories (via Fiendish is the word 5/25)
How to write sex scenes - the 12 step guide(via Plep)
latest in the war between Artists and Critics (via The Writing Life)

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

A time of general displacement? Boynton's trivia team has moved on and is now "between venues". The other night we travelled eastwards and found ourselves in a foreign land; a themed pub pub, a cavernous trestled tavern, of unknown faces, stupid global questions instead of our preferred local, personalised and folk-loric quiz. Indeed it was so loud and so dense that boynton watched it with the dumb detachment of a dreamer, or a child, a spectator at the silly sport that had all the soul but none of the wit of ten pin bowling. Then a strange thing happened. In the midst of this smoky exie quiz angst, boynton started talking ephemera ( as opposed to trivia) with a fellow (albeit serious) collector, who assured her that a wonderful shopful of old packaging etc was a mere 200 metres away from the very pool table where they were perched. Miss know-it-all boynton was skeptical, so at the end of the round they wandered down the road in search of proof, boynton growing more doubtful by the metre "are we heading to Doncaster?" she even asked...when suddenly there it was! And it was! And it had a name that may as well have been" O ye of liitle faith boynton" or "Hey Presto". Because it was full of tins and toys and football things, old names like Juicy Fruit and Flash, old household names that no longer roll off the tongue, if they ever did, but whose oddness and quaintness make them sound almost like incantations themselves, spells to conjure up memories, nostalgia, folk-lore. So boynton was momentarily enchanted - the child gazing in wonderment at the toy store as her guide said See! See!..."Bet you'll be back with your cheque-book tomorrow" he said, as we walked back into the smoky loud hall of trivia...
Alas - boynton has returned by day, but she bears the boynton inability to buy such treasures at full price, preferring instead to hunt them down in the wild of op shop or garage sale. She treated her visit there like a visit to any other museum, real or otherwise, browsing not buying. She called into St Vincents instead and bought some sheet music: I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby (And My Baby's Crazy 'Bout Me) Novelty Song ( and aint that the truth) for an outlay of 50 cents

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

This is what boynton would probably have to say for herself. (via J walk)
(nb you may have to reload (we say refresh here) to hear it.)

Monday, May 26, 2003

Haunted ...walking through this suburbe, non-descripte, of popular moderne mid-century houses, Boynton saw a real estate sign that said. Central locality...life, but the street tells another story. Only the early morning carolling of mowers and hedge-trimmers would indicate a pulse . Perhaps all inhabitants have taken a vow of silence, allowing only their dogs to speak, their Labradors to leave paw prints in the footpath. A few houses along there is a large Canary Palm tree still in its early century suburban context. Boynton imagines that this horticultural trend had something to do with nouveau or deco, either way these trees- even those officially designated significant- are, alas, probably the last stands of the wrong exotic. They are ok for heritage cemeteries though, where they can preserve their old precedence over the indigenous, eucalyptus species that can nonetheless form an appropriate backdrop. And that cultural standoff , the cringe of leaves, ought to be preserved. On the same site see also Suggested Gravestone terminology and the Tabulated guide to the Conservation of monuments, which explains in a rather creepy way, movement among the monuments in perfectly rational terms including inscriptions fretting, soil creep and soil slump, rabbit burrows, and cattle leaning: Much damage can be done by cattle and horses leaning on monuments to scratch themselves

and a walking tour of the conventionally haunted melbourne

Sunday, May 25, 2003

Is it shaped like a hot dog? Boynton has passed a quiet Sunday playing parlour games like 20 questions.(via Incoming Signals)
This has often seemed just as uncanny to play IRL as it does on-line, and just as open to dispute once one strays outside the binary lines. Thinking of her dearest companion she was stumped by “Does it have a pointy snout” Depends what you mean by pointy surely. And it is disconcerting to see where we did not agree.
Is it tall? You said No, I say Yes.
Is it smart? You said Yes, I say Doubtful
.
No. No way Jose. On this point Douglas absoloutely begs to differ