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Vi

vi_b

About Me


I know who I am.
..

A MESSAGE TO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO BE MY MYSPACE "FRIEND"

I am a passionate supporter of new music and film, and I love the idea of making new friends. Praise be to Myspace for allowing me to do it all from the comfort of my own office chair. But! I'm not here to see how many "friends" I can get indiscriminately; I'm not here to be harvested by some friend-requesting bot rather than a real live person; and I'm not here for anything I haven't said I'm here for. So if you want me and I DON'T know you as a real, live 3-D person in my real, live 3-D life, we've got to address some issues. Yes, they're tough. Tough, but fair. That's me.

1) THE AGE ISSUE. I'm not twenty-one years old. If this is a disappointment to you in any way - for example if I don't fit your audience demographic, or am not what you're looking for as you hopelessly try to recapture your youth - you might want to reconsider having me as a Myspace contact.

2) THE ULTERIOR MOTIVE ISSUE. All my adult life I have followed this rule: don't compete with women and don't flirt with men. (Actually, now that I'm older than twenty, I have also extended this rule to forbid competing with men and flirting with women.) This also applies to Myspace and I will NOT be indulging in any kind of online hanky panky with you.

3) THE "FRIENDS" ISSUE. Although Myspace can't approximate anything resembling real friendships, I'm giving it the good old Aussie red-hot go anyway, and asking you to contact me at least once - in some way - after I've approved you as a "friend". If I haven't heard from you within a few days, I'll assume you're not really interested in me as a person and will delete you from my "Friends" list.

Peace and dulce de leche,

Vi


My Interests

Words... Reading them, writing them, hearing them, and when conditions are oh so right, tasting them. (Although yes, of course, Victor Monasterio , digesting them counts too.)
Music... from my mother's heartbeat, to children's laughter, to yet another perfect Elvis Costello song, my life is empty without it.
Things on a screen... Four eyes and proud of it. I worked hard in front of the telly and cinema screens for this cracking myopia.
Family, friends... my reason for living.
Also: crocheting funky things with outrageously expensive Italian fibre and beads , beautiful food, silver jewellery, travel, reciting comedy sketches with anyone who's game enough and geeky enough, riding my motor scooter (very slowly), talking, listening, and blogging.

I'd like to meet:

My inner child. She needs a good spanking.

Vi has a squillion friends (but here is a select and cuddly sampling)

The Teamajor

Dreyu, my faithful manservant

Lovely Mark, my comrade-in-dagginess

Oats!

The Little Bear

El Flaco

Nere

Gorgeous JP

The incomparable Ron Sexsmith

Davey boy

Timmie

Eddie Baybeeeeee! (and Lula too)

View all of my friends real and imaginary...

Music:



Arcade Fire
Architecture in Helsinki
Burt Bacharach
The Beatles
Belle and Sebastian
Blondie
The Church
The Clash
Andy Clockwise
Editors
Elvis Costello
The Cure
Custard
Hal David
Sammy Davis, Jr
Nick Drake
Dylan
Neil and Tim Finn (alone, together, or in Split Enz)
Ella Fitzgerald
Michael Franti and Spearhead
Judy Garland
Marvin Gaye
George
George and Ira Gershwin
Leon Gieco
The Go-betweens (when the girls were still there)
Stephane Grapelli
The Hauntingly Beautiful Mousemoon
Hitchcock's Regret
iOTA
The Jam
k.d. lang
The Lucksmiths
Annie Lennox
Madness
Joni Mitchell
Old Hollywood musicals (particularly MGM ones)
Astor Piazzolla
The Police
Powderfinger
The Pretenders (and Chrissie on her own)
The Ramones
Josh Ritter
Ron Sexsmith
silverchair
Frank Sinatra
The Sleepy Jackson
Mercedes Sosa
The Specials
Dusty Springfield
Sting (when he still had some sort of edge)
The Sunnyboys
Drew Sutherland
Talking Heads
Tango (the real stuff, yeah?)
James Taylor
Marc Teamaker
Glenn Tilbrook
Too, too many 60s bands to mention
U2 (when I still gave a damn)
Loudon Wainwright
Martha Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright
Tom Waits
Paul Weller
The Whitlams
Yo La Tengo
... and the list grows on...

Movies:

All About My Mother, Billy Elliot, Death in Venice, Ieri Oggi Domani, Manhattan, Napoleon Dynamite, Rear Window, Singin' In The Rain, To Kill a Mockingbird. Not everything, but the kind of cross-section that's meant to make people think I'm a complex and fascinating creature.

Television:

Telly, being what it is these days, is best watched on DVD, so first up is DVD copies of everything I loved on telly the first time round: anything from Joss Whedon, Northern Exposure, Dr Katz, Fawlty Towers and Black Adder and their lovechild Black Books, Monty Python, MASH, Hamish McBeth, Arrested Development. RIP our Bluths! (Stupid bloody Fox.)
.. ..
Dramas? I've now bonded to Grey's Anatomy, and although it's not 100% drama, I do enjoy Boston Legal on occasion, if for no other reason than for showing two straight men (not that there's anything wrong with that) who openly love each other and actually share Deep and Meaningfuls: it's fiction, but I like to pretend that there are men like this out in the real world.Drama, comedy... where does RocKwiz fit?

Books:

Anything by Gabriel García Márquez, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, almost anything by by Nick Hornby, anything by Anne Tyler, anything by Rumer Godden, out of a skewed sense of loyalty any collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (I don't care how many girls out there identified with Jo March, I AM Jo March), Green Eggs and Ham, Oh, The Places You'll Go! and Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss, and collections of Peanuts strips by Charles Schultz. This list could be longer than the music and movie lists combined, so I'll stop right here. But not before saying The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and (yes, yes, so sue me) The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.

Heroes:

They know who they are.

My Blog

For Drew, Ma, Sr. Poschenrieder, and Others

In another blog, I once described my friend Drew Sutherland as someone I met in a throwaway way. But as luck would have it, he didn't turn out to be a throwaway kind of person. I spent the long weeken...
Posted by Vi on Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:55:00 PST

Howm I soundin?

I love a glorious noise.  The closest I get to jealousy in my pretty green-free nature is reserved for people who can sing, play an instrument, or tap dance:  music is, after all, the voice ...
Posted by Vi on Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:38:00 PST

From CS Lewis

"To love at all is to be vulnerable, and your heart will certainly be wrung, and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an a...
Posted by Vi on Sun, 16 Mar 2008 02:58:00 PST

Thats Amore! - Songs You Love to Sing with an Accent

I've been thinking that That's Amore! - Songs You Love to Sing with an Accent is an album I'd like to buy, if it existed.  And since it doesn't exist, why doesn't it?  If they can relea...
Posted by Vi on Mon, 14 Jan 2008 04:02:00 PST

A letter and a prayer

  I'm moving house.  I'm kicking up dust and memories. Today I found two handwritten cards that reopened the deepest of wounds and brought me to my knees.  And when I could get no ...
Posted by Vi on Wed, 09 Jan 2008 11:56:00 PST

Daily.

DAILY It's the daily tearwhen no one can hearIn my cup of teawhen no one can seePart of my routinefor what could have beenFamiliarlyfor what cannot beWith my workoutbecause it didn't work outWhen I ha...
Posted by Vi on Tue, 30 Oct 2007 04:01:00 PST

Go here; see this.

Graeme Murphy's last hurrah is iOTA's first foray into superstardom.  I always knew the day would come, but nothing could have quite prepared me for the experience of walking the Sydney stre...
Posted by Vi on Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:23:00 PST

Because sometimes I say things right the FIRST time...

... I am posting this again. I originally posted this on Valentine's Day, when thoughts of those whom I love and who love me made me so grateful that I felt as if I not only had one overflowing cup, b...
Posted by Vi on Mon, 08 Oct 2007 04:32:00 PST

Final postcard from Ho Chi Minh City

29/9/07 It's my last day in Saigon, but I don't leave until late.  I even have a late checkout, so I'm in no hurry.  I decide to walk to the Benh Thanh market for some last-minute souvenirs ...
Posted by Vi on Sun, 07 Oct 2007 11:03:00 PST

Postcard from the Mekong Delta

28/9/07 I have a fist in my chest again.  Here's what happened.  When I got measured for my suit, Tung took the receipt and said he'd pick up the suit and be dropping it off at the hotel on ...
Posted by Vi on Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:53:00 PST