Covers

I borrowed a copy of the Ministry of Sound Uncovered vol. 2 from a friend and, I must say, I quite like it! I think my favourite is this cover of Kanye West's Heartless by William Fitzsimmons.

It turns from a minimalist pop/rap blend with a bit of help from the autotune machine for the singing bits...


...into a bleak guitar and piano lament that highlight's Kanye's hurt at the broken heart :(

Painting of the Week - Ophelia by Millais

John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851-2

Tate Britain, London
(Source)

A few years ago, I went to the Millais exhibition at the Tate Britain. I will unashamedly say that the exhibition was excellent and it spanned his paintings and drawings from the the age of 8 (!) until his late portaits. I resisted purchasing the catalogue because it was pretty damn thick and I already had a large number of books I was hauling back to Australia. I regret that decision because the exhibition showed Millais' change in influence and technique over his career.

Having said that, Millais come to prominence in his 20s as a co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The group rejected the criteria on style and subject as prescribed by the Royal Academy, instead wanting to return to the simplicity of works from the early Renaissance (i.e. before the work of Raphael). An admirable aim. Having said that, there is something about Pre-Raphaelite works that I hate. I've previously mentioned my dislike for Victorian Art, but I think my specific dislike for the PRB stems from finding the works of others somewhat pompous (stand up, Rosetti!), and their predilection for declaring pouting, heavy-lidded, long nosed women 'beautiful' to be erroneous. Despite my general dislike for Pre-Raphaelite work, I do like this picture.

Modelled by the most famous PRB 'muse', Lizzie Siddal, Ophelia shows the fine brushwork and meticulous attention to nature and detail championed by the movement. There's also dramatic tension in seeing the mad girl newly dead or dying, slowly being dragged under as her ballooning gown gets filled with water. Incidentally, I think Siddal looks a lot like Tilda Swinton in this painting, someone who may be striking, but certainly not beautiful.

CHEESE!!! With extra books!

I finally submitted the final bound version of my thesis. So here I am, posing with them in front of Professor Jones' personal library in their eye-gougingly red (Oxford Red!) and gold lettering glory.

Me and my 300 page baby (x2)

That's it! Depending on who you talk to, The Phud is officially OVER!!! (The Uni reckons I'm not a Dr. until I get my fluffy hat. Tight!)

Good week last week!

I just feel like sharing the goodness that was my week last week.

Monday - lost 2kg, got cleared of cancer, had a great afternoon nap.
Tuesday - productive day at work, good session at the gym, delicious roast lamb leg dinner!
Wednesday - productive day at work, good session at the gym...I can't remember what happened in the afternoon.
Thursday - *pritti hearts* birthday of my husband *pritti hearts*, another productive day at work, got interviewed for another job, finished thesis corrections.
Friday - CAKE!!! THESIS CORRECTIONS PASSED!!! OFFERED JOB!!! EXCELLENT SICHUAN DINNER!!!
Saturday - My birthday, duly celebrated with tea, cakes, pastries, dinner, and drinks.
Sunday - Yum cha + cake.
Monday - More cake, given the go-ahead to print out final copy of thesis, printed out final copy of thesis.

Yes, my week last week was damn good. Seriously good stuff. Here's to this week being just as good!

Anyone want an octopus in a specimen jar?

Someone has left these jars in the lab. No name, no date, nothing, and no one has come to claim them. They're quite nice specimens and it seems a bit of a shame to chuck them out, so if anyone wants them, stake a claim! I think they're in formalin, but I can put them in 70% ethanol if you like.

Octopus 1

Octopus 2

Octopus 3

Octopus 4

Octopus 5

Any takers? Anyone?

Sculpture of the week - Dropped Cone by Oldenburg & van Bruggen

Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen, Dropped Cone, 2001

Neumarkt Galerie, Cologne, Germany
(Image source)

Continuing on Pop Art, Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish/American artist who came to prominence in the late 50s and early 60s firstly with performance art and then with the replication of popular objects with papier mache and plaster. Van Bruggen was an art historian, curator, and critic who first collaborated with Oldenburg in 1976 on the reconstruction and relocation of his work Trowel I to the Netherlands. The pair married in 1977 and continued to collaborate on making awesomely cool colossal sculptures of everyday items.

The 40f tall ice cream cone, drips over the edge of the building on which it's been dropped - you can imagine the giant tears from the huge kid who did it! But there's more to this being cool other than through size and friendly demeanour. Dropped Cone is also architectural in its presentation. Through its location and shape, it draws parallels church spires and the modern church -the sculpture was commissioned by the owners of the Neumarkt Galerie - a shopping centre, and the sculpture was described by van Bruggen as "a cornucopia of consumerism".

To my beloved husband (well, one of them, anyway...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY :D

with bonus tiger cub love!

Ever wanted to see guys singing and dancing like Lady Gaga?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Here you go

Painting of the week - Still Life #30 by Tom Wesselmann

Tom Wesselmann, Still Life #30, 1963

Museum Of Modern Art, NYC
(Source)

This week's painting (of sorts) is inspired by Mischka who enjoyed herself muchly in NYC and in MOMA. (In contrast, we all know how I felt.) Like much of Wesselmann's other work from the 60s, Still Life is a combination of painting, sculpture (that's a real fridge door with 7-UP bottles), and collage of of commercial labels he found on the street. The use of those popular objects, combined with his bright coloured scenes of domesticity, meant he was grouped as a Pop Artist with his contemporaries, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

Wesselmann himself disliked the label as he believed that while his works celebrated popular culture, his work was also a modern reimaging of genre types. Still Life #30 reflects not only the tradition of depicting inanimate objects that the name reflects, but also landscape through the scene out of the window, and the nude - the positioning of the two oranges near the tower is no mere coincidence!

Poor grammar in music

Poor grammar and spelling has given me the shits before. I don't proclaim to be an expert in all grammatical rules but when people can't seem to establish the difference between *your* and *you're* (FFS, your is a possessive, you're is a contraction between 'you' and 'are'), and everytime I read the word *definately* on emails or Facebook, I feel like tearing my hair out.

But the newest addition to the list is poor grammar in music, or more specifically the way songwriters seem to have trouble with the verb *to be* in the first person singular present tense - i.e. I am. For example:

"The was I are."
Should be: "The way I am" - 'are' is the conjugation for second person (you are) and third person plural (they are).

"I'mma be on the next level." (or pretty much any other line in the song)
Okay, in this case, they have conjugated the verb correctly if you stop a just 'I'm'. But the insertion of the article 'a', and then having the definitive 'be'...it's just all sorts of wrong. The amusing thing is that when I'm sleeping and this song comes on the radio alarm, it sounds as if they're saying "I'm a bee..."

More food stuff

To celebrate EFW, the lab and I went to Fandango for lunch where I had the

Pesto eggs with a side of bacon and mushrooms!

And then to celebrate the return of my thesis (with minor corrections - W00T!!!), I went to Le Triskel where I had

L'Originel - Apple, cinnamon, icecream, Calvados and FIRE!!!

Healesville!

On what is being proclaimed (but probably will not) be the last good weekend of the season, I toddled on over to Healesville/Yarra Valley with Mr. & Mrs. Koh and Jen to visit some wineries for eating and drinking.

Our first stop was the Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander where we were met by some Radelaidian friends of the Kohs. I was advised to eat the parmesan & truffle oil fries, but where we primarily went to eat their mighty fine pizza. In fact, it was so fine that when they hit the table, we all dove in and it wasn't until a number of slices were eaten that I remembered that I was supposed to document them!

Nom nom nom

Innocent Bystander is (justifiably) well known for their pink moscato. They also served it in their sorbet (delicious!) but I went for the pink moscato-flavoured turkish delight!

Just like the wine, it was delightfully nice and light in flavour but in hindsight, I might prefer rose-flavoured delight.

Trying to be cool by wearing Jen's sunnies

Yeah, they suited her much better

We then moved onto Tarrawarra where we were greeted by some lovely autumn sights.

The nice walk from the carpark to the cellar door...

the pretty cool looking entry to the Museum...

best of all, the gorgeous view over the Yarra Valley
(click to enlarge!)

Here I purchased a lovely and smooth Tin Cows pinot noir 2008. Not my usual red type (more of a shiraz and grenache girl), but it was so nice that I even managed to con those from Radelaide to get some!

Our last stop was Yering Station where I invested in yet another bottle of tawny after being taken in by how warming it was. Miam.

But I must finish this entry with a comment about one of the real highlights. I was at Woolies on Thursday where I discovered these:
They were NUM!!! So I purchased some for the ride to the Yarra Valley. Now, because I'm slightly retarded, I left them in the warm car while having wine tastings. They melted somewhat and stuck to the packet but the others being some real troopers and not wanting to hurt my feelings, ate them even though they were somewhat squishy. But you know what? Serendipity!!! The meltiness made them EVEN better! Orgasmically so! So yes. Buy them, melt a little, then lie back and enjoy the sensation.

Song of the week - Make you feel my love by Adele (Bob Dylan)

When is this girl going to release her second album?! (huff!)

Student Food Review - Old Town Kopitiam Mamak, QV Square

I met up with Suboo and we discussed how the Student Food Reviews were going to work. We didn't really nut out any hard and fast rules other than to talk about whether the food was any good and to cap prices at $15 - although under $10 would be preferred. More criteria may become apparent as more food gets eaten.

So to kick it off, we headed to Old Town Kopitiam Mamak at QV Square.
The authentic, bona fide Malaysian Suboo said this place was okay although contrary to others, she said the chicken rice was substandard based on a previous outing here and warned me off it.

That was okay for me because as a noodle fiend,

I had seafood laksa ($10.50)

Firstly, the serving size was pretty good for $10.50, I suppose if at a standard size for this kind of dish. Given that it was *seafood*, it did indeed have mussels (frozen), prawns (three!), calamari, and fish loaf in a curry-ish, not too coconutty broth. It lacked clams *sigh*, but oh well. It also lacked rice vemicelli noodles but my discussion with Suboo (who personally thinks they're not supposed to be there) make me think it's probably due to personal preferences. What was a pleasant surprise was my discovery of the presence of curry leaves actually in my soup! They actually tried to make the curry flavour from something other than paste and/or powder! The chicken and vegetarian options ARE under $10 - I think each were $9.50.

Suboo had roti canai ($4.00)...

And might I say...it looked mighty tempting and I couldn't say no when she offered me some! The bread was warm and fluffy - it also had the right scent to the extent that Suboo made me lean over and inhale the goodness. It came with some sambal sauce (meh) and a light coconutty curry sauce for dipping (very nice!). I believe Suboo was very happy with it and polished it off quick-smart!

followed by the Chinese Malaysian Rojak ($7.50)

I have never had or even heard of this before. It's apparently a *fruit salady* dish covered in a sweet...black...sauce. It consisted of pieces of pineapple, apple, cucumber, and crispy fried chinese donut (you char kwai - a pleasant surprise!). Suboo mentioned it was missing something that was supposed to give it a crispy bite but figured that the donut made up for it. Also, apparently the pineapple tasted funny but on the whole, the place was okay.

This bit might be too much information but I feel that when reviewing cheap foods, it is necessary information. Suboo and I walked out of OTKM feeling on the slightly uncomfortable side of full, but quite happy nonetheless. Within half an hour of our leaving, I started getting what I will delicately refer to as *sensitive stomach issues*, followed by *evacuating* (hi Nance!) although it did not progress to *The Sweats*. Whether this was related to food intake, I can not say for certain. But it did happen so cheap eaters, caveat emptor.

So on the whole, Old Town Kopitiam Mamak serves food on the slightly more excy side of cheap, that is not bad and in the case of the roti, pretty good. But tummy troubles may ensue although I will say that it may have been due to my gourmand tendencies.

Crimes against fashion

With a new camera at the ready, the old favourite returns!!! I spied this one walking down the street.

Theyre' not CFMs, but I didn't know streetwalker chic was back in fashion!

Compare and contrast!
(source)

In other news...

I finally managed to replace my old and broken point-and-click camera. No, I did not replace it with a DSLR. After doing a bit of research about what I wanted and what I was willing to pay for it, I settled on the Canon IXUS105, although quite frankly I don't feel I need the 12 megapixels which seem to be the standard starting points nowawayds. I then embarked on going around to a number of stores to compare prices and figure out which one I could barter down to a lower price. In the end, I decided I was too pov and asked Pooey to get one for me. Given the strong AUD and weak GBP, I was looking at getting it for $250 or about $50 less than what they're selling it for here. BUT then I heard about a CRAZY sale going on where the cameras were going for $198 each THIS WEEKEND ONLY!!! I promptly asked Pooey to not go through with the buy, woke up early and raced on down to the store!

And now I am no longer camera-free. Here's an example of a pic:

An extreme zoom of our TV from my seated located on the floor. Nice Megasaurus burger.

The shits!

Continuing on my prior post where I ruminated on something in our everyday modern life that annoys me, I must list *Loudspeakers*. These are not bullhorns, they're what I call people who speak REALLY LOUDLY on their phone, mobile or otherwise, in a public space, usually about some sort of inappropriate topic.

I think the first time I came into contact with one of these was on a bus in Sydney in 2003. Pooey and I endured a girl exclaiming, "OH MY GOD!!!", "I KNOW!!!", "WHAT?! WOW!!!", and so forth for the duration of the trip. Despite a lot of muttering and dirty looks from other passengers, not to mention the sheepish appearance of who I assume to be her boyfriend, she managed to keep it up for the entire 15 minute trip. It made me wonder whether people take note of the volume at which they speak on public transport.

The answer is *no*. I know this for sure because this past weekend I listened as another loudspeaker talked to someone about their relationship woes, then promptly turned around to their friend, and REPEATED the entire story, this time with both sides of the conversation! Incidentally, that boy is useless and they couldn't believe he said that to her.

Of course, it's not always bad. One loudspeaker on the bus spent 30 minutes bitching to her friend about workplace politics (I got the impression she worked in a bank or some sort of financial office). But it was a full bus so the majority of the trip consisted not only of listening to her go on and on, but also various people making incredulous looks at each other to the point that it actually evolved to a number of passengers (myself included) making jokes about what she was discussing to each other. She was still going strong by the time a number of my co-commuters and I disembarked. As one fellow exclaimed as he got off, "Wow! I'd hate to be in an office with her!" And we all slowly trudged away to our respective homes, linked by our bonds of suffering and hatred of loudspeakers.

Painting of the week - Delphic Sibyl by Michelangelo

Michelangelo, Delphic Sibyl, 1508-12
Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Vatican City
(Image Source)

For reasons I don't quite understand, this is possibly my favourite figure from Michelangelo's EPIC Sistine Ceiling fresco. Bordering the scenes from Genesis, Michelangelo painted a number of biblical and classical seers who allegedly foretold the coming of Christ. The Delphic Sibyl - not to be confused with the Oracle at Delphi (Pythia), being one of them. The Sibyl looks away from her attendants and is about to enter a trance, as seen by her open mouth, wide-open gaze and unfocused eyes.

This was one of the first completed figures of the ceiling and is therefore quite small compared to the later figures. According to Vasari, Michelangelo took a look at the partially completed ceiling, realised the first bits were too small and accordingly made figures of the second half of the ceiling much larger. I'm also pretty sure the image I've used is post-restoration as seen by the super-bright colours of her gown and cape.