wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful.

a delight on stage. she absolutely shines, and her voice is perfect, untouched, one of the best live things i have seen this year. just incredible. its actually hard to find the right words to put here. she's in melbourne at the forum tomorrow, and perth later in the week. do not miss. some amazing intimate venues, emotionally flooring, definatley a once off kinda thing, unmissable, so if you have a chance, go see.

stuff that worked really well: off the new album? big jumps & jungle drum. lifesaver was my favourate off fishermans woman.

any downsides? they didnt play serenade, which is my absolute favourate song. and somehow i lost my keys which is incredibly frustrating and shit.

i rode 35km yesterday.

the best part? my time was quite quick - and didnt even feel tired at the end. the section from anzac parade road to malabar/maroubra was the hardest. it was mostly flat but I had this unwavering oncomming wind that made it feel like an uphil slog. and a magpie that constantly swooped me, six or seven times, which actually scared the crap out of me. the return trip to leichardt was uphill, but with the wind at my back it was no trouble at all, the biggest hassle was the traffic on gardiners road

this is a terrible cycle!

i crash out when iget home from work, usually sleep 2-3 hours, wake up, bum around, shower, then at midnight i'm wide awake, i try and force myself to sleep, usually by now, get maybe 6 hours before having to get up for work again, and you know by the end of the day im usually pretty tired...

on barack obama:

i've been following the US elections for longer than i care to admit. I find the process, the math, the psychology all very fascinating, and following the season for the last 18 months has been incredibly interesting. generally, the politicians that i identify with usually don't seem to get very far. measured, intelligent american ones doubly so.

and so i was pretty excited when obama announced he was running, but i kinda figured it would be one of those things that you wish for and wonder 'what if' later on.

except this time, its true. it actually happened. it's kinda stunning. usually the bullshit wins. but not today. hopefully he'll win by a lot.

i think the thing that i like most about him is the way he conducts himself in interviews. the books, the speeches, and the ideas are good, but in interviews he actually thinks about the question asked, and then gives these thoughtful, rational, calm, common sense answers. its kinda rare in people, and especially in leaders. if he is as half as good as his promise i think things will be ok.

i had a great weekend in melbourne.

i'd like to thank alli, jess, sarah, the extended family, the casino crew, fenn, hannah, rel, tom, the termites, the pac net kids, warbux, lauren & paul.

no photos, just memories.

i was exhausted to the point where i slept most of friday night and pretty much all of saturday, and a good portion of today. by the end of this weekend there's a good chance i'll have spent more of it asleep than awake

sadly, i've missed a few social opportunities over the last few days because of this. and that sucks a little. i'd prefer to be fully functional.

this week i've recieved an avalanche of bills (winter heating, urgh!) which has made me a little hesitant about planning these upcoming interstate trips

i might be able to think when i'm not so tired.

its a wonderful day outside.

sony ericsson everyday masterpieces

This is my little brothers big payday, probably the biggest campaign he's been involved in. He did the photography for this series which recently blanketed most bus stops in Sydney. (big image).

with perfect weather and perfect melbourne in a festival vibe, parklife was pretty fricken awesome. let me count thee ways.

metro area: highly recommended, we didn't know how this one would work out; but they do good stuff live; a realy good set - lots of heavy/pushing/intensive baselines.

goldfrapp: i saw her in 2003 and didnt think much of it - i wanted to hear felt mountain but all i got was some stuff off black cherry and it wasnt very polished. but thankfully things have changed - and she put an an excellent live show. a really good set; solid selections across all 4 albums. her voice is incredible - filled the tent with some lush sound. opened with utopia. the stuff from supernature sounded especially good, unmissable.

diplo: the tent emptied because soulwax was on at the same time. i think if people knew how many songs he;s been involved in producing this wouldn't have happened. anyway, a good set, good for a little dance. genre-wandered the entire time. bookended the set with a lot of MIA stuff, which the crown went fucking nuts for.

plump djs: ok i was kinda dissapointed. they played a ho-hum breaks set, pretty much all filler and not very exciting. the stuff they played off the new album coulda just been from the CD. i've seen a lot better from them.

peaches: i dont know a lot of her stuff but the energy from the band and the crowd interaction was very powerful even to this casual observer, so i stayed around. a really good festival show.

2 many djs: wow. unfuckingmissable. an incredible set - completley joyus; happy, free-wheeling couple of hours. so. much. fun. i dont have the all the superlatives to describe but these guys are supremely talented. probbably* one of the best dj sets i've ever heard. watch out for the justice/juggernauts mashup.

finally:

melbourne's birramung marr is a top notch outdoor music festival venue. i can't think of a better one actually. we've got 4 very large sound stages, each at slightly different levels so there was no noise cross-pollution between tents. the layout is very tight (no long walks to get anywhere), and the creative space is just very interesting; even just to hang around in and be apart of - the gardens, bridges, embankments, hills. all of this with the immediate backdrop on the melbourne skyline, the city only one block away. and the yarra river and parks on the other side.

act-wise, i didnt really miss anything that was dieing to see despite some of the big clashes. dizee rascal was the only thing i completely missed.

the crowd was excellent; all the cashed-up bogans were in bed after the grand final partying from the night before, leaving just the people who wanted to dance and have a good time. more good news: fluro is finished as a fashion trend (thank fuck) for summer although we may still have to deal with flannel for a bit longer.

thanks to tom, fenn, hannah, rel, anna and george for making it an awesome day

a full moon tonight, i watched it for an hour out of the the window, the right hand side of the plane. never seen it so close and so clear.


that was a great weekend in melbourne. thank you to everyone who kept me company. ill be back soon.

There are very few songs more beautiful than this one.

A perfect marriage; the strings, the vocals, the beats, an incredible production.

And for a while I didnt even notice - I was entranced by the video clip. It's another Gondry, and I think we can forgive some of the effects - that was 1998, many years before google earth came out; but the flying motion, the paterns in the ground and the landscape reasonate with me. They'res a bit there (at the 1:15 mark) where the ground starts to split open, revealing the dark volcanic rock, occasionally covered in moss. THAT IS my memory of iceland; of Þingvellir (where i broke my leg) - it's still incredibly vivid in my mind, to watch the ground being ripped apart. Its also interesting to note the visuals and the audio in sync here; a concept later fully realised in Star Guitar (+++)

My other bjork favourates? notable mention goes to All is full of love, very weepy; gushworthy.