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Monday slash Tuesday slash omygerrrrd

29/11/2016

 
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​Another incredibly busy week and some huge news, constant readers.  For us, anyway, and hey, maybe for you, if you're in the market for modestly-priced boutique accommodation in our part of New Zealand.  We've decided we need to make our semiparadisical setting pay its own way, so we're going to install a cottage with benefits in the lower garden for visitors to Port Chalmers.  

Despite our spectacular and still quaintly noncommercialised surrounds, most holiday stay shit is pretty pedestrian around here so we think there's a niche for something sylvan and private that's queer, freak and pet-friendly.  Bike trips are picking up in popularity so we'll be catering to independent travellers and self-drivers who want their minds and eyeballs soothed with green and ocean views with bonus strictly no whiny kids or gross Air BnB party clowns.
Does that sound like a good idea?  We sort of think it does.  We hope it is.  The cost of minor dwellings isn't very fucking minor yo, and this will be a legal build, which breaks our outlaw DIY code.  

It's all very frightening.  Different.  Confusing.  Grown up.  So if I don't get round to posting anything this week it's because I'm dealing with prospective suppliers and builders and what have you.  But I might find time to drop something.  It's not that I don't care.
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Photo du Jour:  airplane

28/11/2016

 
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on the post down the road

The Blackthorn Orphans Serialization:  Pathei Mathos 4

25/11/2016

 
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Kala'amātya reined his red horse to a halt and gazed back over his shoulder, counting those that trailed behind him.  Two dozen guards, porters and attendants formed the thin procession, the company forced to assume the shape of the narrow trail, none of them spared a heavy burden of provisions, gifts and accouterment.  A white palanquin formed the nucleus of the increasingly dispirited assembly, borne by stalwart men, their sodden grass cloaks no longer any use against the incessant rain.  Though he was yet to glimpse its secluded passengers, he was not troubled by the circumstance, his task set, his reward negotiated in advance.

The day had barely hauled free of the dismal, unfledged light of dawn, though noon had come and gone, kept cool and dripping by a hidden sun.  Rain had redoubled the weary porters’ burdens, the milky clay beneath their feet a greasy quagmire in which they slipped and stumbled, crying out and clasping one another against the prospect of a fall.  Kala'amātya had passed through the belly of Guangxi once before, though on that occasion he had been unencumbered by a small army of inagile companions.  The crowded, jewel-green mountains lost their heads in pewter clouds, looking as though they had been flung down from the sky and buried waist deep in the rock beneath.  Misted gorges echoed with the roar of hidden torrents that wound between the cliffs; he frowned as the palanquin was set down, and one of its bearers shouldered his way toward him, water spilling from the wide brim of his hat.

“Lord... the lady asks that we rest now.” the bearer informed him, panting as he bowed his head.  “She says she can go no further.”

“Tell her that she must.” he muttered, urging his mount onward.  Another backward glance informed him that the troupe had settled on the track, adopting the stationary palanquin as a warrant for the unscheduled respite.  The bearers crouched by the lip of the precipice, seeking the shelter of its eaves.  Porters set down their chests and bundles and took out packages of sticky, leaf-wrapped rice, cramming the grain into their mouths while glancing anxiously toward him.  He drew his staff of heavy ju wood from his horse’s harness and slid down from the saddle, striding back toward the delinquents.

A shudder rippled in the ground beneath him a moment before the advent of a deep, resounding crack that ripped through sodden earth and air.  His eyes turned instinctively toward the sky but no bolt had crashed down from the dismal heavens; instead, the puggy trail bowed, sagged, and began to disintegrate, crumbling as the rock below sloughed away from the hillside into a sucking, grinding cataclysm.  It drowned its victims’ cries as it bore them down the flank of the mountain, crushing them into the savage mass of trees and stone and earth that flowed like water into the mist, toward a unseen valley floor.  Kala'amātya grasped the overhanging branches of a stunted tree, anticipating the imminent failure of his own footing, but was spared; the ground beneath him had broken with the massive wedge that had slid away, their violent dissociation shaping a concave face of clay and freshly-scoured limestone.  No more screams drifted upward in the beating rain though he detected a low, keening whimper through the sound of it.  Turning his head to assure himself that he was not mistaken, he sought its source below the edge of the surviving trail.

The white palanquin had become wedged on a tangle of broken trees.  It lay on its side while a passenger begged for assistance from within.  Wiping the rain from his face, Kala'amātya walked out along the remaining track and swung down onto the shorn stone of the cliff face, sliding on his haunches toward the pinioned vehicle until he attained its supporting ledge.  A wrinkled matron’s face, flat-featured and high-browed, appeared from behind the chair’s spattered drapery; she exclaimed at his approach, praising the gods that had flung her entourage to their deaths for their judicious lenity while he lifted her from her frame and set her down onto the crumbling ledge beside him.  The chair's remaining occupant, having lost her grasp upon the uppermost door, dropped down through the wooden framing toward the opposing one, now yawning out over the drop.  Her bare feet had already passed through it into the empty air when his fist closed on the fabric of her robe and took her weight, slamming his arm against the cracking timber.  He dragged her back up through the drapes onto the ledge.

Delivering them to the safety of the stable ground proved less difficult than he had imagined.  The elderly matron, having no wish to join her ancestors, scrambled up onto the road with remarkable, almost pithecoid alacrity.  The younger passenger climbed before him, independent of his aid; despite the station implied by the cargo that had attended her, she wore a plain, stone-white kimono of humble cloth and plicated amplitude.  Her black hair hung in a tangle of broken combs beneath her hood.  She sank to her knees on the edge of the trail and looking down, he saw the features of the girl who had brought the lilies to his barrack hut.  The matron abandoned her own cursory toilet and scolded them.

“This is my mother’s sister.” Suki murmured.  “She has no sight.”  He took the cue from her formality and abjured mention of her name.

Shuffling toward him the older woman reached up with both hands and attempted a manual survey of his features, only to be thwarted by the great discrepancy in their statures.  She scowled more deeply at this discovery and groped downward, following his arm to his hand where a count of his cool fingers caused her to fling it down and stumble backward in disgust.

“It is you, the kyuketsuki, the oni... you have tricked us into this misfortune and now you mean to devour us!” she exclaimed.  The matron at once began to chant, crouching and devoting herself to pious defence against his peril.  His horse returned, blowing snorting breaths at the small party of survivors.  

“This creature has saved us both from falling." the girl advised.  "He means no harm.” 
“Because it has already satisfied itself in wickedness!”
“Stay here then, with the virtuous spirits of the wood.” she sighed.

Kala'amātya caught the loitering horse and beckoned to the pair; the old woman squinted obstinately as her niece explained his proposal, which she treated as an affront to the manners accrued in a lifetime of sheltered luxury, the pitch of her objections ascending as he lifted her into the saddle.  The girl shook her head against the prospect on her own behalf, her insistence intensifying as he approached her.  Catching her arm, he pushed his hand into the fold of her robe, setting it against her stomach; her gaze rose to his as he perceived the gravid proportions the fabric disguised, attained in the three months since their last encounter.  The old woman pressed her dry, penurious lips together as her ward climbed slowly into the saddle before her.

“Does it please you, to have begotten evil on this girl?” the crone snapped.  “No matter.  She is made of wickedness, and if the paint were scrubbed from her face you would find the mark of it there, where she has devoted herself to witchcraft, to compound her crimes.”

“You are mistaken.” he told her.  “I have no part in this.”

“Though they come from all around to eat the fruit, none will own that they have planted seed.  Thus it was in my day, and so it is in hers.  The palace guards have followed her to your house and back again, a dozen times!”

“Tokogawa himself has done the same.” Kala'amātya replied.  The rationale enraged her.

“Tokogawa does not lie with demons when he is betrothed to a family beyond reproach... he has not disgraced himself with a dozen nameless lovers in Kyoto!  Nor consorted with the tsukimono-suji, and consigned himself to hell.”  Recovering, the old woman sought the composure she cherished most, speaking with the cool, serrated assurance of her station.  “If you are not the sire of this accursed child, you are close enough to be so in the eyes of others, and that is the heart of all such matters.”

Kala'amātya did not reply, but murmured to their patient mount, leading them once more along the slippery track as it reached upward into dripping forest.

CONTINUED NEXT WEEK
© céili o'keefe  do not reproduce

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RubyHue Lipstick Review:  Nars Moscow Pure Matte

23/11/2016

 
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Though I love the Nars Pure Matte line, Moscow held me at bay until recently.  So many people have called it so many diametrically-opposed things; definitely red, not red at all, bright, deep, muted, dramatic; it's like everyone was just going off something their sister's best friend's cousin told this guy they knew.  Lipstick lovers- we can do better.  

​I'll have a go right now. 
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Okay, so a quick glance at someone wearing Moscow could possibly register a red lip situation.  But have a good squint at the squiggle swatch above right there.  Moscow's on the left beside MAC Lady Danger, which to me is a good example of where true red ends and orange begins.  I'd call Moscow terracotta, copper or russet before anything else; I mean, Nars Rouge Basque is redder, and that shade's still a long way short of true red if you're asking me.  Maybe it's the name?  Moscow always makes me think of bold scarlet on an icy blonde and confusion is probably what I deserve for cherishing such a basic-arse stereotype.  

Moscow is unequivocally warm, as you can probably see, so anyone with neutral to toasty tonings should be perfectly fine.  It's a friend with benefits for redheads and auburnies who find true reds too clownish; the skeptical can feast their eyes on the cave-beast pallor of my hand up there and assure themselves that this shade really isn't too much against our particular epidermal fortunes.
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I wouldn't call Moscow too much in any direction, to be honest.  It's no deeper or stronger than any of the mid-range neutrals like MAC Retro or all those delightful liquid matte dried dog sick- sorry, greiges- everyone's doing to death right now.  It won't blow anyone's socks off or get you frogmarched out of the office.
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Close inspection of the tube shot directly above will reveal another of the surprises lurking up Moscow's figurative sleeve; a super-fine, old gold glitter or pearl.  It's a very long way short of visible nana frost but lends a subtle and flattering dimensionality that sits really well with an eye look featuring the coppery richesse of UD Baked or MAC All That Glitters.

It's the thinnest of the Pure Mattes that I've experienced, going on at around 70% opacity and retaining a slight suggestion of translucence even when thickly-applied.  Moscow is also near-creamy, comfortable and visually forgiving, making it a great 'gateway' matte for someone a wee bit afraid of this textural genre.
I don't have any problems with it, personally, and am only slightly disappointed that it wasn't a bit more dramatic.  But then again, there isn't exactly a dearth of drama in my lipstick drawer so I should probably just learn to appreciate Moscow for its flattering and reassuringly organic wearability.  It really is the nicest and definitely the most sophisticated member of this ocherous orangey group that I know.
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L2 R (MAC unless stated) Russian Red, Nars Moscow, UD F Bomb,
​Nars Rouge Basque, So Chaud, Dubonnet, Ruffian Red
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Monday slash Tuesday slash Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae

22/11/2016

 
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A native fruit pigeon or Kereru is frequenting the lower garden at the moment.  It is an enormous bird, at least half a metre long, although it was chilling in a small kowhai tree the other day just a metre or so above R who was busy weeding and we didn't notice until it shat voluminously and went to sit in the adjoining paper birch.
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From there it lumbered into the rowan next door and commenced stripping all the new leaves, consigning them to its capacious gullet. I thought it would prefer the flowers, but apparently not.
The bird seems to spend much of the day here.

​Watching it 'land' in the rowan is particularly gratifying.  The manoeuvre is hampered by the pigeon's patent inability to hold two thoughts at once; all of its actions are governed by simple chains of single and sometimes conflicting  impulses, resulting flight cessation before perch decided because leaves are yummy which equals crashing through three tiers of inadequate branches before a foothold is found. 

When a wood pigeon is concerned about your presence it will often come closer to you, just to satisfy itself that you really do pose some sort of danger.  Since humans are its main predator (yes, despite supermarkets overflowing with prepared chicken, there are plenty of dimwatt arseclowns who insist on eating endangered native birds) the Kereru is fortunate indeed that most of its soi-disant enemies share its limited intellectual capacity.
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​When it has crammed as much of the rowan as it can fit into its crop, the pigeon retires to the shelter of the alder to sleep for the rest of the afternoon, where it would snore like a fat drunk after a lunch bender, if birds could snore.

Trees are reward in themselves, but when you can stand in your own garden and photograph beleaguered native species enjoying the amenities, you know you've gone a small way towards making amends for your presence on this overcrowded planet.  If you don't have a yard to plant, consider joining a local conservation org.  The rewards go far beyond personal gratification.
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Photo du Jour:  Oriental Poppy 'Patty's Plum'

20/11/2016

 
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R took this lovely detail shot.

I have three different clones of this sought-after variety; one super-large and sprawling with a weirdly cinereous, bruise-coloured flower that nudges ugliness, and two smaller, slightly frillier plants with a sweeter plum bloom, of which this is one.  So not all Patty's Plums are created equal and this may account for the mixed regard in which this variety is held.  I personally went to great lengths and some expense to secure this poppy, and while they will  flower well in half shade and do look great with roses, all in all I prefer other varieties, like the deep reds and large whites.

My fucking poppies are flopping this year on account of all the bloody rain.  Poppy flop sucks.

The Blackthorn Orphans Serialization:  Pathei Mathos 3

18/11/2016

 
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Between the austere rigors of his training at the Yagyu martial school and the nocturnal divertissements of Edo’s floating world, Kala'amātya moved as though wrapped in the folds of a dream, devoting himself to the pursuit of precision and extremity in the two environs and discovering that they were obliquely confederate.  He eschewed the sparring staff, finding the struggle to evade the incisive attentions of the katana more profoundly instructive.  His master at the Yagyu school smiled often, gratified by the speed with which his lessons were assimilated, though he would not speak with his strange pupil outside its walls despite the convenience of their respective dwellings.  At night, sorrow stalked him, worsened by the spectral longing he still felt for those most complicit in effecting it, its black face buried not by chashitsu beauties but with the aid of the Yoshiwara's most recondite savants.

When no one would face him outside the compulsion of battle, he was sent to the valley of Sekigahara to assist in implementing his patron’s martial will.  Back in the capital his accomplishments, bleached black and white in reportage, lodged like frozen stones inside the hearts of those that might have rejoiced in any other hero.  On his return, Kala'amātya reviewed his instinctive distaste for armour, bound his long hair into the queue of his newly-awarded station and redoubled his reputation for saturnine eccentricity by commissioning a pair of long odachi in place of the suite of smaller swords that were expected of him.  His choice was deemed an unseemly departure, though this disapprobation remained a private thing.


It was on an evening late in summer that Ieyasu Tokogawa resolved to embark upon an inspection of the barracks grouped around his palace.  The prunus trees cast wide circles of deeper shade beneath the horned moon as he strolled through the grounds, accompanied by a pair of silent guards.  With his pale coif, liver marked brow and plain grey robe he commanded little attention; the sound of the neatly-tended gravel beneath his feet was all the fanfare that his mood required.

The sight of the rectangular barracks had always pleased him.  The shutters glowed from within the largest structure and the shogun abandoned his guards to listen for a while to the talk that issued from within the crowded mess.  Its samurai debated a single and apparently implacable concern; Tokogawa announced himself before the sliding door and stepped inside, blinking in the lamplight as the men pressed their foreheads to the floor.

“What is this?” he demanded, taking a seat at the head of the narrow room, easing himself down onto the matting slowly.  “Do not whisper behind your sleeves, like women.”

The eldest warrior inclined his head respectfully, eyes on the ground as he replied.

“We are made cowards by portent.”  
“What portents are these?  What was my victory at Osaka, if you do not call it providence?”
“What troubles us wore the mon of our great lord into that battle, while holding secrets in its heart, like a thief, using honour as a shield against honest gazes.” the general admitted.  The samurai awaited his response in silence.
“Of whom do you speak?”
“The nameless one.” the elder replied, grim-faced.  Tokogawa’s scowl deepened with his umbrage at the pusillanimous nature of the allusion.  He squinted hard at their self-appointed representative, who had begun to regret his own outspoken impulse.

“You know that I have made this barbarian a general.  Remember, how the road to Kyoto was lined with skulls from end to end... so many of them were taken by him alone that the captains could make no count of them.  He came to me, his armour painted with the blood of my enemies, as though he had burst forth from the lakes of hell, his face and hands, all wet with this most precious colour.  He kills, not for pleasure, not for the thought of land or great advancement, but for Tokogawa.  In all of this, he paused only to clean his swords, and receive my orders.”  The white-robed men listened without speaking.  He continued, his gaze moving slowly over their faces.  “It is said that a warrior must have ninjo, kindness... this is the feeling of our ancestors, and I cannot question their wisdom.  But it is my thought that sympathy should rest with old women and monks, where it can do no harm.  You fear this creature because he does not share your weakness.  He is a stone, blind and deaf to mercy.  This is what I would have on the side of Tokogawa.”

“Great father, it is well known that yōkai have such cunning in war.  We have heard that it will accept no payment for its service.  Our wives and daughters are corrupted, shamed and dishonoured by their weakness, in their curiosity... the monster spends more hours in idleness with them than with the sword.  The creature debauches women of your own house!  If these are not the ways of a devil, they are the acts of a ronin.  We beg you to consider these things without anger.” the man insisted, belying the servility of his posture with his petition’s vehemence.  “We ask only that you do not speak of our part in this to the nameless one.  Its wrath may take a form that bests our swords, leaving us with nothing with which to defend your house.”

Tokogawa stood slowly.  A speckled moth circled the lantern, ruining its wings against the paper.

“Better one demon general than a thousand cowards in my service.  Men of honour have no insults for those they have not the heart to face.”

Marching stiffly along the narrow, dogwood-shaded way toward the quarter that housed his controversial prodigy, the old man muttered his impatience at his aging legs; no light shone from within the hut and he frowned about it in the shadow of the overhanging trees, marking its resident upon a stone bench beneath them.  In his hand was a cake of smooth white limestone; he lifted it from the blade of the odachi and sheathed the frightening weapon in deference to his guest.  A small idol of blackened bronze stood beside the door of the hut, long arms ending in clenched fists that lay by its sides; its face was not clearly apparent to the shogun as he stooped to peer at its features and he abandoned the attempt and snapped at the guards who lingered on the path.  The creature’s black hair hung in a long braid past his shoulders, merging with the gloom behind a face as pale as the whetstone.  He offered his visitor a ladle full of water from the stone bowl seated beside him, and the old man accepted.

“I will not trouble you with idle talk.” Tokogawa began.

“Candor does not offend me.” Kala'amātya replied.

“You accept no payment for your service.  I ask why this is so.”

“I have few needs, and no desires beyond my private means.  In future, I may avail myself of what is owed to me.” he said.  “But not today.”  The shogun frowned.  "If you are troubled by granting a fair reward in respect to the tasks I have performed, dismiss me, and I will name my price.  This matter is entirely in your own hands.”

“Were I to dismiss you, would you seek to serve another lord?”

​“I would seek it at first light.”

The prospect of ordering his men against such a foe wrinkled the shogun’s pied brow.  The creature’s patently inhuman features enraged him, but he maintained his composure, concealing his frustration.

“I do not wish to see you take another’s colours... I have come with a request.  A task must be undertaken, and I am trusting it to you.  Should you succeed, I will grant you a prosperous han, and you shall be a daimyo.  In this place, you shall surely find shelter from that which troubles you... we are protected from the evil of other lands by the divine wind.”

The shogun’s personal guard lingered for a short while after the man himself had departed, ensuring that they had not been overheard.  When they were gone, Kala'amātya stood and slid a hand into his robe, finding a secreted knife as something disturbed the flowering cornus beside his dwelling and moved along its walls toward him.  Through the lace-thin branches came a girl in a trailing coat and furisode cut from dappled, rose-stained red, bound at her breast with a broad black obi.  From her sleeve she drew a stem of lilies, their petals whiter than a winter sky, and handed it to him with a slow nod of her head, its formality melting into a wry smile.  Her long coat whispered on the stones as she sat down in the darkness at his invitation, shadow shifting on her face.  Their heads were filled with the flowers' honey-dripping scent. 

“A year passed in Kyoto and no word to me.  I believed myself out of favour.” he told her.

She smiled again, bringing her sleeve to her chin.

“Good works have occupied me.”
“I trust there have been young men grateful for your virtuous endeavours.” 
“They have been very attentive.  More so than you were.” she replied, dark eyes creeping past him along the path.  “But there were spies in every garden and so I came home, only to find there are even more spies here.”
“What of the foxes in Kyoto?”
“They are most cunning... they have heard there is a strange yōkai in Edo, and...”
“Ponder what use might be made of such a demon?” he suggested knowingly.  “The foxes of all lands are of one mind.”
“I am now but a month distant from becoming one myself.”
“Then they did instruct you well.  Let us drink to that.”  

They saluted the moon that swam in their little grey bowls, and drank to the fulfillment of her long-held, though clandestine, ambition.  The girl found she no longer regretted the silence of her companion's features, whether affronted or amused, and found contentment in his equanimity.

“Are you still to be married in the spring?” he inquired.  
“I do not look too far ahead.  How is grandfather?”
“As ever.  He has just gone from here.”
“Yes, I know.  I fear that I must speak with him before long, though I am not so eager.”

She leant toward him, and drew one of the lilies to her face, breathing their perfume.  He nodded out along the path.

“Let no one see you come to me or leave this way.  The bushi talk of me as though I eat their dogs.”  She leant on her hand and rose from the bench, smoothing down her robe.  “Are you well, Suki?” he asked.

​“Well enough.” she smiled.

She turned, and bowed her head, stepping back between the supple branches.

​CONTINUED NEXT WEEK
​© céili o'keefe  do not reproduce

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The Dentist Dodger's guide to Orthodontic Extrication: I go and get a Tooth Pulled- a Review

16/11/2016

 
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Recently, a toxic moron was elected to the American presidency by a herd of hooting munters who thought tearing up the social contract they rely upon for everything they cherish was the smartest thing they've done in years.  Given that he's more emblematic than germinal, meaning the whole fucking world is already scooting on its anus toward some sort of greasy combed-over oblivion, I thought I'd pop a matte brown cherry on that umber sundae and get my dodgy tooth ripped out.  Why the hell not?

It was a good call in a heaving main of terminally dumb shit, so I'd just like to take a moment to conceptually pat that ham-faced, doily-headed ball bag of a creature on his leaky old man arse and thank him for positively recontextualising my orthodontic pain.  

​If that's wrong, I don't want to be right.
Let's have some background.  Possibly because they are so jankily idiosyncratic, my teeth possess a strange Jungian significance in both my conscious and unconscious mind; I share them with my blood relatives and they feature in my dreams.  They used to distinguish me from three hundred other punters grinning in the blacklight on trance nights.  They are weirdly totemic.  For these and other reasons I am one of the people who just do not go to the dentist and am strictly of the opinion that allowing people to tinker with shit that isn't broken is how you end up on the unnecessary procedure treadmill with five grand's worth of unpaid bills fermenting under your fridge magnets.

But you know, I'd been in a lot of dental pain for a couple of months.  Yes, months, because a prolonged fuck-tonne of pain is ironically the only thing that could have nudged me toward a cubical to get it looked at.
Want to see the actual tooth in question?  Ha ha, too bad!  I don't do trigger warnings.  Here tis- the last molar on the left, disembodied in green disinfectant and a plastic shroud.

If all this feels gratuitously offensive, allow me to rationalise relating these details like some sort of gloating maniac by professing the deeply philanthropic hope that my fellow phobic sufferers will be inspired to stop nursing their gross fangs and go to the fucking dentist.  Let my bad experience be your cautionary tale.

Still in the market for something really disgusting?  Check out the size of the temporary filling (orange mass) below and all the scandalously out of hand ruination happening behind it.
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After lalalaing a deeply-cracked tooth for a year and then ignoring said filling as it demonstrably failed, I had an abscess jammed up over the root (not pictured).
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That means pain.  Pain when you sit, pain when you stand, a lot of pain when you eat and pain whilst arguing with your partner about going to the fucking dentist.  Alongside the standard on-site agony, I was treated to its thrilling adjunct; referred pain, which is like someone stabbing a screwdriver into one's jaw magnified outward, Matrix-style, along obscure neural pathways so that you imagine half your other teeth are looking to quit the building too.

All this tortuous bullshit was the result of leaving a single, simple and eminently resolvable problem too long.  Don't do that.  It's not just dumb, but actively destructive to sit at home hoping fairies will magic away all that pain and infection tomorrow.  It will only get worse, spread sideways, and there are some pretty serious and costly complications that can arise in lieu of timely treatment. 

Go to the fucking dentist, fool.
This was my first extraction.  I decided to have it out because fuck root canals and reconstruction- they're expensive and fragile and everyone should research those options really thoroughly before committing to them.  Don't allow yourself to be talked into that shit in the chair.  Both senior teaching dental surgeons I'd spoken to were fairly frank about the minimal benefits of reconstruction in a non-cosmetic position.  Their candour was intriguing when contrasted with the recommendations of dental practitioners who have a substantial financial interest in prolonging and complicating your care. 

​Regarding the procedure itself, I had mentally curated a tremendous Clive Barker array of horrors, splinters, agonies and stitches in spite of my partner's assurances to the contrary; he has a crowded mouth and is an extraction veterano.  But I have the MC1R mutation that makes gingers both more sensitive to pain 
and resistant to anaesthetic (you don't have to be full redhead for that gene to express in case you were wondering about yourself) and the kind of obsessive, morbidly speculative consciousness that boosts any potential hazard into sizzling orbit.  It's possibly difficult for a regular person to imagine the state of towering, reflexive panic I had worked myself into whilst dodging the dental bullet, but by the time the pain was topping out all analgesics and tears were rolling down my face in the waiting room, I no longer gave a fuck about any of that and would have happily forced someone to rip out that suicidal molar with their own fucking teeth at gunpoint.  

Don't worry, fellow phobics- as it turns out, the procedure is by far the lesser of two oral evils.

​We can't really afford regular dentists so we go to the local university dental school.  Extending my wretched deferrals until all the students had fucked off on holiday turned out to be really great thing because I got the house surgeon instead of someone still practising with needles and pliers.  I demanded and received next-level pain relief (remember, you can do that); we went with 1.5 doses of hardcore local, administered in two places and if you're still reading this piece I probably don't need to tell you that the cessation of abscess pain is a precious reward in itself.  This was only enough to numb a very discrete area around 3 or 4 centimetres square (in contrast, R couldn't talk and had numbness for the whole afternoon with far less anaesthetic), but that level of insensitivity was perfectly adequate.


When you're a big fucking baby on the inside it's easy to forget that, to strangers, you present solely as large tense freak in black with fixed expression.  You also tend to forget your ability to infect everyone around you with your personal blend of apprehension and hostility, something I remembered in enough time to ask the visibly uptight nurse what to expect rather than, you know, throatpunching the first person to come at me with something in their hand.  The people who have to tear bits off other people for a living get wound up about it too sometimes, so engaging them rather than lying rigid and hissing slowly was the right thing to do.
The nurse said I might hear cracks and 'ear sounds' as the tendons securing the tooth gave up, and possibly feel some sort of weird pressure but when the time came, the surgeon just selected the tooth with an implement I didn't even get a look at, rocked it a couple of ways slowly and then boop, there it was.  Out.  No sounds, no graunching, absolutely zero pain, some pressure (nothing startling or horrible) and the entire process lasted about 20 literal seconds.  If I could have allowed myself to blink by this stage, I would have missed it.  I should say that this was an uncomplicated extraction of a conventional molar with no breakages etc., but that's a pretty standard presentation.
Pain/trauma/horror rating?  A truly pathetic 2/10.

Possibly due to the enviable slickness of the surgeon's technique, I had no pain or bleeding in the days that followed, either.  You shouldn't smoke, suck a cock or tongue the shit out of the extraction site for a while and you do get a bloody taste in your mouth for a day or so, but all those skin, gum and bone cells work quickly closing up and after three days there's what feels like total sealing of the wound and blissful painlessness.  The gap seems less weird to me that it might to you because I'm congenitally hypodontic, but it's out of sight at the back.  Cletus Syndrome: minimised.

On the bright side, this craggy little bitch goes well with the wisdom tooth R had pulled a wee while back (see fig. 4), which means I've finally harvested enough human tissue for earrings.  Awaiting vegan powers.
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Photo du Jour: Calendula detail

15/11/2016

 
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I think this is a really spectacular image and one of R's best.
Almost straight out of the camera after three months of rain in the top garden.
Nice work babe.

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Monday slash Tuesday slash New Zealand Earthquake: we survived 

14/11/2016

 
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​A lot of people overseas seem to imagine NZ as some sort of diminutive Hawaii-type situation, maybe with a central volcano farting lava and some hungry seismic shit just itching to swallow tourists whole via giant earthly fissures.  Which is like picturing France as a baguette shop but oh well; geography is hard and like, totally irrelevant.

"New Zealanders are counting the cost of the earthquake that swallowed roads, twisted railway lines and left towns and cities smashed and deserted."  The fucking Guardian just printed this breathless shit in their rolling updates.  It's utter conflated bollocks, of course.  To think we just gave that rag some of our hard-earned money.


NZ is actually 1600km long, so what happens at one end means fuck-all to the other.  You know, sort of like in America or India or France or Namibia.  What happens in the middle doesn't even affect anywhere else, so the 7.5 magnitude quake a third of the way into the South Island last night didn't even wake us up here in Dunedin, which is two thirds of the way down the same piece of dirt.  So disregard the overcooked bullshit you're possibly reading in the overseas media about all-encompassing catastrophe blah blah.  Two very unlucky people died (so far), some windows and chimneys bought it in the adjacent areas and some roads and rail are out due to fairly substantial (but not unusual by our standards) landslides (slips, we call them).  Your tourist friends are perfectly safe.  There are no tsunamis.  There might be some transport hold-ups over the next few days but nothing that can't be worked around.  The damage is more a product of our ghetto/tenuous/coastal infrastructure than the relative severity of the earthquakes, by the way.  Here's a pretty good depiction of the quake from someone's security cam.  It was a long-arse thing but the Japanese probably wouldn't have looked up from their bento boxes and/or tentacle sex.

Here's a few pics from the areas in question.  This is the worst, most picturesque damage; there's a bit of minor road cracking and shit over a larger area north of Christchurch.  I don't mean to minimise anyone's actual loss of life, livelihood or convenience- Kaikoura really is going to be pretty fucked for a while- just attempting to calm the tits of anyone out there thinking NZ just slid into the Tasman sea.  (pic credits: various)
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​There's a supermoon tonight.  It's raining so we'll just have to feel it in our bones.

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liked this storm image by Rachael Talibart

13/11/2016

 
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Maelstrom, Storm Imogen, East Sussex: Rachael Talibart 
​Landscape Photographer of the Year awards in the G.

The Blackthorn Orphans Serialization:  Pathei Mathos 2

11/11/2016

 
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A crane-feather moon formed the eye of a dark iron sky as Kala'amātya's feet were lowered onto black sand, beyond the reach of the hissing wash.  The small, sun-browned men who had carried him over the breakers scanned the low dunes anxiously, their compatriots stumbling through the shallows with an oak trunk longer than any of them were tall.  The Pusan pirates dumped the coffer onto the sand and waded back out to the small, fat-bellied ship that threatened to founder on the sloping shore with every slowly rolling wave.  He dragged his belongings up the beach into the sea grass, his clothing whipped by the breeze as the boat’s bow lantern swung in the darkness, a perfunctory farewell.  From the vessel the barren blue coast had seemed reassuringly desolate, the autumnal wind hissing across it in a foretaste of winter.  He hauled the chest behind him, heading along a cleft in the sandy hills.

At the top of the dune a searing yellow light flared from all points without warning; he put out an arm to shield his eyes and beyond the glare glimpsed a multitude of faces, brandishing their fierce conical lanterns to maintain their bewildering effect.  Neither his Mandarin nor far more partial Gangwon dialect placated them; weary, he offered no resistance, going down onto his knees and permitting them to bind his long arms to a cane and drive him before them while a portion of their number struggled with his trunk upon their shoulders.  

He watched the ground change, the night-sky sand gaining a mantle of needles fallen from the black pines as they followed the bank of a meandering, sea-bound river, frogs chirping amid the water hyacinth.  The party made its way into a village full of the whispered sounds of dusk, where simple thatch and cedar domiciles awaited them; the yoke was cut from his shoulders and he was ushered inside the most consequential building, a bare room walled by white paper laid over lattice, pale grass matting scuffing softly beneath his bare feet.  The men around him resembled the tribesmen of his own homeland with their short stature and tea-skinned faces.  He could make nothing of the admonition dealt to his captors by their master nor the address directed at himself, its clipped syllables aligned by percussive delivery into a demand, but he felt the man’s stare and in his apathy waited too long to lower his own toward the floor.  The daimyo rose and commanded his retainers to seize the prisoner’s head, standing between them to peer down into Kala'amātya's eyes, moving to one side to admit more light from the lantern that was brought to bear.

It seemed he was not to be disposed of that night, shut up instead inside a grain store and placed under a heavy guard in the charge of a barefoot monk.  The small man chanted in his robes of crocus gold outside the barricaded door, Kala'amātya sitting in the darkness of the empty granary and listening to its soporific cadence until the mist-draped dawn soaked through the cracks in the boards.

Having amassed his fierce, ornate company, the daimyo was assisted into his palanquin, his prisoner compelled to march, shoeless and shirtless, behind the swaying chair.  Kala'amātya recalled little of that day, save for stares from peasants toiling over the rice harvest, the basket placed upon his head lest some impulsive ronin rob the daimyo of his chance to present the curious monster to his own master, and the impression of elegance and order that blended indistinguishably with his general memory of Edo.  The spacious ways of beaten grey earth, like powdery repoussé under his naked feet, the hypnotic geomancy of its fitted timbers, storefronts mouthed with sliding panels, white script swooping across their inky noren under flaring roofs that seemed to relish their freedom from the ground; every novel element absorbed him.  The lack of mounted wayfarers made for unbroken streams of human traffic though the procession that contained him commanded precedence, rendering the final leg of their journey a particularly conspicuous affair.  Through the weave of his makeshift hood he glimpsed portions of the sprawling fortress into which they were admitted, via a paranoid array of gates and guarded stations, its turrets standing aloof on sloping, moated footings of titan bluestone.  Its towering stories wore temple eaves over walls of eggshell white from which windows stared like small blind eyes, dolphin figures cast in gold squirming atop the gables in the midday sun like fettered chimera.  Another storage chamber awaited him while the daimyo made the declarations of fealty that were the object of his journey; rats squabbled about his feet as he waited in the darkness, the nature of his fate, for once, as mysterious to himself as to those that partook of courtly ritual overhead.  




Lamplight, and a startlingly occidental face greeted him upon his emancipation.  The latter introduced himself, after some prompting from his unsmiling escorts, as a Dutchman, and made an uncertain offer of his services as a translator, switching to French when it became apparent that he was not understood.  Kala'amātya said little in reply as they were led up narrow flights of stairs, along a corridor lined in precious woods stained oxblood red and into a hall of audience where fire-plumed jungle fowl, ivory-faced women and the twisted forms of forest trees stood in lacquered relief upon the walls.  Like characters from tales suggested by the images, men sat in robes of sober blue and black and white, hair bound in knots upon their heads.  They murmured their concern at the creature pushed onto his knees before their overlord, the figure occupying the midst of the scene to which all other forms were ornament.

The blonde Dutchman cleared his throat and whispered to Kala'amātya, though no one else could have understood his conclusions.

“The great man you see before you... he is Ieyasu Tokogawa... shogun, their sovereign... though he is but a warlord... little better than a pirate.  Remain as you are, hold your tongue, save when addressed by Tokogawa.  Nothing but the direst grief will come of disobedience.”  His voice was hoarse and broken, befitting his balding velvet and filthy, partial linen and a person seemingly purveyed from some distant shipwreck, the stink of unfamiliar liquor soaking his skin and lank tow hair.  Kala'amātya kept his head low as he replied.

“Why do they summon you to speak for me?”

“The weapons in your chest... some of them are alike to those of my countrymen...”  He trailed off, lifting an eye as a question was directed to him by their lofty host.  “Tokogawa asks what manner of beast you may be... it is thought you may be nio, on account of your golden eyes.  This is fortunate..."

“How so?”

​“Nio are the guardians of their heathen tabernacles... look to me, and show your assent...”

A ripple of controversy played over the courtiers’ faces.  The shogun scowled, and put another query to the translator, keenly intent upon an answer.  The Dutchman winced, and raised a hand to the side of his face.

“A misstep, perhaps... Tokogawa asks how it is that you are nio when it is obvious to all that you know nothing of your mother tongue.”
“What else might I be?” Kala'amātya hissed.
“I... I cannot think... perhaps, perhaps you are...”  The shogun reiterated his demand.  Beside them the samurai began to mutter in disgust as the interpreter trembled uncontrollably, performing gestures of appeasement and grinning like a frightened dog as he began a halting dissertation.  Men fumbled beneath their pleated robes as he spoke, seeking amulets and protective talismans.
“What have you told them?” Kala'amātya demanded.
“All I can say is that you are some form of demon... I have done you a kindness... when they put you to death, they will not dare torment you.”

The shogun rose.  He was a small, stout man in the latter portion of his years; deeply-scored creases marked a countenance remarkable only for the ineffable cynicism they conferred, a startling counterpoint to its broad, stolid planes and relating closely to the figures on the walls.  One hand lay concealed in the breast of his robe while the Dutchman summoned enough composure to relate his observations.

“Though it seems we can learn little of your... your nature... it is apparent that you are a warrior... thus I will grant you the choice of hara kiri, in preference to the axe.  If you are a demon, the evil luck that you have brought upon my house will be extinguished as your remains are... are burnt and... burnt and scattered.  If you are some blameless spirit, you may... reclaim your honour, in death.  Accept this weapon...”  The samurai beside Kala'amātya climbed from his knees and handed him a short, curving sword in a plain sheath of sharkskin, stepping back to mark the prisoner he had armed.  “This man...  He will be your second.  He will take your head, when you have made the necessary wound.”  The Dutchman made a short sign with his trembling hands, grasping an imagined blade and directing it into his own stomach.  Kala'amātya looked down at the weapon he had been allocated, momentarily contemplative.

Though it took him but a second to draw it from its housing, the samurai anticipated the gesture and his katana flashed as it sliced down over their heads; Kala'amātya caught the blade, its razor edge slicing his palm and skidding sideways over the glassy bone beneath.  He tightened his grip and prised his opponent’s arm toward the ceiling before plunging his own weapon into the startled warrior’s chest, forcing his body into the wall behind him as he cut down through his ribcage.  The blade in his fist pared flesh like nothing he had ever held.  As he released its victim, he flipped the knife in his sound hand and stared down at its fluent silver arc, enthralled by its perfection and heedless of the furore he had inspired.  The gutted man slid slowly to the floor with one leg folded beneath him, the other pushing up the matting with its heel, his blood as black and oily as the gleaming wood in the darkness of the chamber, spattering over his lips with the heaving of his lungs.

The shogun seemed to conclude his study of the stranger, disregarding his outraged retainers.  In the far corner of the room the Dutchman crouched, sobbing in a fit of alcoholic incontinence; the regent looked to him and began to speak once more, attenuating his statement in recognition of the interpreter’s disintegrating faculties.

“Though... though I am shogun...” the man began, halting and tremulous.  “The moon... it, the moon does not ask my leave to rise at night.  Your blood does not run red, and thus you are... not a man, but who are we to judge that which the Kami place before us?  You, you kill this man... that is regrettable... but if something is lost while the exceptional reveal their worth... we should not mourn their passing... overmuch.”

Kala'amātya placed the blade on the tatami at the shogun’s feet, and stood back, admiring his logic.  He glanced sideways at his intermediary.

“You may tell this clever gnome that it would please me to serve him.  Inform him that I am temperate, frugal, discreet, resourceful and expensive.  Tell him that, as a man of experience, he will understand that my price is set not by my own hand, but by the others who will seek my services, should he decline my offer.”

The body of the dead samurai shivered fitfully against the foot of the wall.  The Dutchman punctuated his translation with numerous apologies.  The shogun nodded, indicating with a single syllable that the interview was over, and Kala'amātya accepted a robe from the bushi appointed to accompany him outside.  The same moon that had painted the hateful ocean waves shone down upon the pebbled paths that led to his new quarters.  He barely recognized his own shadow as it fell across them.

CONTINUED NEXT WEEK
© céili o'keefe  do not reproduce

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didn't like this election result

10/11/2016

 
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our deepest sympathies to everyone with sufficient intellect and empathy to realise what just happened
every one of us must act conscientiously to protect the society and environment that remains to us

sometimes people have to drink the water to work out that they've been shitting upstream

let's see how they like the taste

Monday slash Tuesday slash fuck yeah DIY hallway do-up photoessay

8/11/2016

 
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So we broke out the drill and hammer and took down all the unsightly ad hoc shelving made from leftover decking and old chipboard (mmm chipboard) etc. and filled the holey walls.  

Although this is a very modest 1860's weatherboard cottage of around 90m2, its creators decided to devote around a third of that precious acreage to a bizarrely capacious central hallway, presumably to convince the casual caller that ten toothless rickety brats and four dogs were not being made to share the same bathwater out back while the other five were being trafficked dockside in exchange for molasses or moustache wax or some shit like that. The hall is bloatedly oversized and completely fucking useless, which can only mean one thing: it was born to be a gallery. That coupled with our love of collecting shit we have nowhere to actually put just felt like destiny.

​A gallery it would be!
We haven't (only) been sitting around with our thumbs up our arses over the last week or so. 

I woke up the other day, stumbled into that darkest portion of the hallway that had been partitioned off with shitty curtaining and transfigur'd over the years into a sort of ghetto walk-in wardrobe and decided enough was eeeenough.  No more trying to find really important shit in the dark with the aid of a half-dead craft lamp because there was no actual lighting.  No to stubbing my toe on the edge of the homeless old sewing machine.  No to shoving things into the fucking black corner of eternity behind the racks of clothes and knowing they would be lost in space and time.  No to fending off clinically obese and half-sentient industrial dust bunnies that seemed increasingly cognisant of having outgrown the vacuum cleaner lumen.  

No to fucking all of it.
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Like all sensitive students of urban architecture and Brad Pitt, we wanted our new formal entrance gallery to respond to our environment.  This particular environment leaks like a senior sister wife when the central gutter fills with hail, so it was important that everything cool went on one side so we can get buckets under the splits in the ceiling panels whenever that drip drip drip dripdripdripdrip sploosh wakes us up at 3.45am  😐  ​
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It's true that high-end glamour comes at a price.  Just ask the Duchess of Cambridge.  

​I sent R down to the service station with the $20 we had left til payday and a very strict brief.  But I needn't have worried; the entire project came in under budget thanks to the magic of pooling all the various dregs of claggy black acrylic hanging round the house, using that old half-tin of outdoor white on the ceiling (Solarguard's superior water-resistance hurrah) and by just not doing anything at all to the shitty timber floor.  
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Not bothering to do anything to things has a lot to be said for it.  Have you ever given a single flying furry fuck about the floor at someone else's house?  Neither have we, so we chucked some rugs down and called it a day.  

​There are a couple of 'good' pieces here, but most of the items in this tableau were obtained for very little money from auctions etc. and many have no particular cachet beyond our personal enjoyment of their rustic or exuberant exoticism- just in case this comes across as our being materialistic wankers.  

Now OG Rangda can repel all the inauspicious spirits and the Iban baby carrier and Kohistani head dress have a place of their very own instead of squatting unsatisfactorily in the lounge.  We love to sit in the adjoining bedroom and peep in on that which we have wrought when the evening sun glows through the fanlight.  One day soon we will actually have time for that, perhaps when the decadal spring clean we're halfway through is finally finished.  Normal blogal transmission will resume next week.

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liked this image by Eikoe Hoeso

6/11/2016

 
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ordeal by roses #38
  Eikoe Hoeso / Yukio Mishima
See more here

The Blackthorn Orphans Serialzation:  Pathei Mathos

4/11/2016

 
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“The closest I've come to a bouncy castle, before this is... I'm not telling you now." Susan complained, lifting her head from William's arm and narrowing her stare at his smile.  "It was a jungle gym...."  His expression devolved into lazy-eyed confoundment.  "A jungle gym, you know... those things kids play on in parks.  I ended up with bruises on my bum and a cider hangover.  If it’s going to be outdoors, it has to be something padded... or a golf course with that nice soft grass." 

“Golf courses?  Are you sure there’s no werewolf in your family?” he laughed, folding his arms behind his head against the silver floor.  “You don’t want to believe I was a bouncy castle virgin because it disturbs your cozy vision of my omni... slut... tifer... my omnislutiferousness.” 

“That’s not a word.”  

​“English isn’t my first language.” he sighed, his hand wandering to her breast.  They lay together in the midst of the structure to which she had referred, unclothed but for the length of blue ikat he had worn into the garden, Susan's own garments draped from several of the inflatable turrets surrounding them.  The midnight sky was lightly veiled by a haze swept up from the city, though the foremost stars retained their trenchant brilliance.  She arranged lines of idle association between them, able to devise no novel constellations and touching fingers to her face in an inquiry into her own sense of pleasant dislocation.  It was furnished by consumption of the dawamesk William had concocted in the kitchen and perfect secrecy from various fruits, pistachios and a dose of the hashish he obtained from nameless associates.  

"I am completely shitfaced but I can't stop eating this stuff." she confessed as she leant over to suck one of the three remaining sweetmeats from the pallor of his stomach; rolling back, she reached out for the telephone lying in obscurity at the base of the wall and began reading through his numbers.  “There’s three... four Pandoras in here.  Who knows four Pandoras?  Who’s Crazy Pandora?  And Phaedra?  I love that name.”
“Crazy Pandora's in Spain now, I think... Phaedra’s a sixty year old witch with gold bridgework and is more of a sabre-toothed tiger than a cougar, but I still would.”
“Who's Javier B?"
"Oh... just this guy..."  
“Exactly how gay are you, William, because I don't fancy walking in one day and finding someone's shiny bollocks in mid bloody air."  His disturbing laughter echoed through the trees around them as his head fell slackly sideways.
“I don’t know..." he sighed.
"Yes you do..."
"Oh cloudcheeks, please don't flimsy-scale me..."  
She frowned, then laughed.
"I'm Kinsey scaling you."
"Whatever... it's just a little black line, and my scale needs more directions, poupée... dimensions..." he explained.  His hand rose again and wandered over her face, tracing the shape of her brows.  "It's not really a thing for me.  I don't look at men and think, wow, that guy’s hotness is putting me off girls forever, and vice versa... that's crazy.  And wasteful.  I just can't get political about something as dumb and strange as sex.”  Susan smiled at his sincerity.  “If I get a choice, I suppose I do swim toward estrogen island rather than gonad inlet, but there are a few pillow-princess inches on my person that would find it hard to dire au revoir owner/operator blowjobs.” he laughed.  “But je ne sais pas... if you’ve got your hand down my pants, all I'm really thinking is wow, you read my mind."
“Wow, you put some thought into that.”
“Genius is located on the slut chromosome.  It’s science.”
“Nothing to do with how much time you spend with a bong thinking about sex, then.”  
“Ever tried girls?”
“No..." Susan sighed.  "I always think of lesbians as experts.  I’m too lazy.”
“You’re sure?  Phaedra loves a brunette with an accent and I don’t mind taking time out of my busy schedule to make sure you’re doing it right.”
“Thanks, but no.”
"Don't be backward about coming forward with nasty scenarios, cloudcheeks... your wish is my I thought you'd never ask." he smiled. 
"I don't really have a secret thing..."  Susan rolled her tongue behind the denial, fueling his suspicion.
"Well, you can cross semibestiality right off the to-do list."

She slapped his arm.

"Alright... I do sort of have a thing... about men.  Watching guys going at it.”  
"Mon dieu... so it was a lie about the bollocks in the air... in fact, nothing would please you more..." William declared, taking up his phone.  “Anything for you, baby.  Bear or twink?”
"No!  I don’t mean now...”
“Mmm Javier... está muy bueno.  I never have, but he’s got a great personality.  And a monster cock.  I'm just assuming you're a size queen...” he grinned with the phone to his ear.  “Javier?  Sup?  I’ve got this freak here and she’s begging me to go gay for pay.  Throwing Cs right at me while I’m talking to you.”  William fended her gently with his arm.  “I’ll deal you in for half if you can get here in twenty minutes.  Yeah yeah yeah...”  He looked back at her dubiously.  “Well, she says she just wants to watch, but I can't guarantee she won't strap on and tap in...”

Susan seized and threw the telephone from the edge of the castle, rolling him over and spanking his rear while he lay with his face pressed to the vinyl, incapacitated with laughter.

“Your face...” he gasped as she perceived the ruse to which she had fallen victim.
“You are so fucking immature!”
"I know... je suis désolé.”
"Oh no..." she cried, pushing him over onto his back and discovering the remaining dawamesk flattened by his stomach to the floor of the castle; he caught her leg and dumped her onto her back though she thwarted the kiss he attempted by covering his mouth with both hands, shrieking as he pushed his tongue between her fingers.  A pocket of sap smacked in the fire he had set in the midst of the magnolias, at which she started violently, then lapsed onto the vinyl with relief.  “Every time I hear a noise I think it’s your brother about to take my head off with a shotgun.” 
“Why?  Has he said something?” he asked, settling alongside her with his ear to her navel, drawing the blue cloth over their legs.
“He doesn’t have to... he just looks at me, and I know he knows that I know.  Not that I actually know anything about him... and I think I prefer it that way..."  
“There's a lot I don't know either." William admitted.  "I was at one end of the world and he was at the other a lot of the time... some of what I've heard is just third-hand backwash bullshit..."  He remembered the dawamesk and peeled it off himself, sucking the sweetness from his fingers.  "I could tell you the things I believe.”
​
CONTINUED NEXT WEEK
​© céili o'keefe  do not reproduce

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Photoessay: Our Garden, Spring 2016

1/11/2016

 
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Two months of rain and low-slung, claustrophobic cloud have sealed off the sky and turned our harbour basin sodden.  

The pine needle paths slide greasily sideways underfoot.  Pin-shanked mushrooms open their  pallid parasols over the dead wood they're consuming.  

​Blackbirds tilt and sag upon the steaming grass when the sun drops a hot golden concession to the season through the clouds.

The new roses that we planted last year are raising tendrils that seem too sappy and slender to bear their long-anticipated fruit.

The Lovely R goes forth with camera, braving cold dumps of condensation from the birch and hornbeam and the sensation of the wet ground leaking through the arse of his pants as he documents the emerging garden.

​I'm glad, because I don't have to.  His commentary is at the end of this post.
From top left: scilla, magnolia yunanensis, unknown daffodil, wallflower, osteospermum daisy
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Sophora (kowhai tree), kale flower, forget me not, sisyrinchium Devon Skies
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Rhododendron, geum/avens, clematis Guernsey Cream 
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​Oriental poppy Patty's Plum, wild cranesbill, viburnum plicatum, erodium trifolium 
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Arctotis daisy, aquilegia Nora Barlow
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Geranium phaeum Samovar, armeria, pansy, astrantia major.

Technical notes: R used a Panasonic GH1 body with two old macro lenses, the Tokina 90mm AT-X and the 
Vivitar 55mm, plus a more modern Panasonic 45-150 with an Achromat close up lens attached.  Most of these pics are pretty much straight from the camera.  
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​​R says: "I had to heavily-bracket the exposures to achieve decent capture and keep the highlights from blowing out, particularly with the manual focus lenses.  Live-view cameras such as this micro four-thirds body make the difficult angles presented by garden subjects so much easier.  This format is great for macro with its greater depth of field control and lots of cheap old classic lenses will adapt to these bodies.

I try to be really patient, wait for the wind to absolutely settle and keep one eye on the background elements, even when using a narrow focal plane.  The wrong blobs in the wrong place can really sink an otherwise great pic.  Watch out for human and pet hairs and stray spider web on your carefully-chosen subjects.  They are everywhere.


I typically use settings between 5.6 and f8, which is pretty par for the course in macro (small scale) work.  Both of these old manual lenses show nice out of focus (bokeh) characteristics.  Some lenses really are better at these sort of liquid backgrounds than others and it's worth investing in them if you're interested in this look.  The Tokina in particular is famous in this respect, to the extent that it's called 'the Bokina'.  I don't advocate expensive gear and this lens is pretty pricey at $3-500 depending on the mount but you can still get lucky online and it's one of the few pieces worth forking out for.  The Vivitar 55mm is easier to find and this combination goes for around $200 in NZ, depending on the mount.  It was made circa 1978 by Tomioka, a renowned Japanese manufacturer.  They were distributed under different branding; the Vivitar is a common version. "   

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