Winter's finally dropped down here in the deep south of New Zealand with a 3-day blast of Antarctica blowing in from the ocean and dumping a big white money shot all over the hills. The above's from out front of the house on Monday. A few days ago we were ripping out blackberry in one layer of clothing and it was this trifling climatic shit that inspired us to ignore the forecast and frame up a summer house-type thingy in the garden from scratch. Our approach to DIY is upcycle-heavy (because poverty) semi-competent-with-caveats (because we can't afford to hire anyone), aristocratic in conception (contemptuous of bylaws), intuitive in its execution (stunt-laden/actively dangerous) and tends to devolve into one of us clutching something too heavy to hold and screaming obscenities while the other saws madly at a miscalculated element before whatever we're making topples and flattens us both into rose-coloured paste.
It was fitting then that we should launch into a badly-planned project just before a blast of snow. I know I bitched about them a couple of weeks ago but there's nothing like a chainsaw (electric) to expedite a white-knuckle heavy timber situation and I cut the whole project with my toothy little yellow monster in about half an hour. We got two footings concreted in and called time, heading inside to eat a roast and bingewatch The Tudors. You know, the one with all the clothes and tits and Natalie Dormer nearly giving herself an aneurysm and pre-Superman-Superman exhibiting all the charisma and dynamism of a brown vinyl recliner lying on its side in a landfill covered in seagull shit. Remember Jonathan Rhys Meyers going full wall-eye and buttfucking every word he was probably drip-fed via an earpiece? And the script- an embarrassment of riches in its own right, heaving with retarded anachronisms, oinking softcore exhortations, tryhard monologues and excruciating mansplaining.
It's exhaustingly bad on so many levels and you wonder just how that level of fuckery happens, and through four bloody seasons, jesus. As a writer I get contact-anxiety imagining the hellish logistics of it all and am endlessly grateful to have only myself to blame. James Frain did good work though, with his slightly googly naughty monkey face. His Cromwell could examine my conscience anytime, as long as he kept the chain on. And the velvet ohhh yeeeeaah.
One season to go then back to life, back to reality. This week I think I'll post something Port Chalmersish.
It was fitting then that we should launch into a badly-planned project just before a blast of snow. I know I bitched about them a couple of weeks ago but there's nothing like a chainsaw (electric) to expedite a white-knuckle heavy timber situation and I cut the whole project with my toothy little yellow monster in about half an hour. We got two footings concreted in and called time, heading inside to eat a roast and bingewatch The Tudors. You know, the one with all the clothes and tits and Natalie Dormer nearly giving herself an aneurysm and pre-Superman-Superman exhibiting all the charisma and dynamism of a brown vinyl recliner lying on its side in a landfill covered in seagull shit. Remember Jonathan Rhys Meyers going full wall-eye and buttfucking every word he was probably drip-fed via an earpiece? And the script- an embarrassment of riches in its own right, heaving with retarded anachronisms, oinking softcore exhortations, tryhard monologues and excruciating mansplaining.
It's exhaustingly bad on so many levels and you wonder just how that level of fuckery happens, and through four bloody seasons, jesus. As a writer I get contact-anxiety imagining the hellish logistics of it all and am endlessly grateful to have only myself to blame. James Frain did good work though, with his slightly googly naughty monkey face. His Cromwell could examine my conscience anytime, as long as he kept the chain on. And the velvet ohhh yeeeeaah.
One season to go then back to life, back to reality. This week I think I'll post something Port Chalmersish.
| | Following the serialization? I still shit my pants when I read these recent bits, especially at night; hope they're doing something for you too (PS buy the book). Here's Bjork doing Nattura (not official vid but just ignore it) feat. my other boyfriend Brian Chippendale percussing like a fucking dark god even if it is a mixtape. Run downhill while the horn blows and the turned beasts lunge at your thighs. |
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