Juno and Kimya Dawson

I just saw Juno (which, incidentally, is just as wonderful and funny as I thought it would be) and am now hooked on The Moldy Peaches and Kimya Dawson, who I'd never heard of before. Or so I thought.
After looking her up I found the song I Like Giants on the internet and realised it was the same song I'd heard on the radio 6 months before that I'd been trying to find ever since.

Sweet musical serendipity.


Juno sountrack on Amazon
Kimya Dawson's latest album on Amazon

I Laughed

Courtesy of HolyJuan

This is a game show from Japan. I'm not sure what the rules are but I DARE YOU not to laugh.

Street style - Centre Way

(above)
Jeans and top: Extinct
Jacket and bag: Vintage
Shoes: Big W ($14.95)























(above left)
Jeans: Hem & Haw
Shoes: Fat

Rose Street Artist Market

In case you were wondering whether the 100 metre walk from Brunswick st to the Rose St Markets was worth it, this guy's taken it upon himself to make it worth your while.

Dilettante Opening

On my recent trip to Perth I was invited to the opening of my friend Didi's new high end fashion boutique in the city's expanding west side shopping district. Featuring exposed brick walls, metal-chain curtains, skeletons in glass cabinets wearing designer jewellery, and a back wall covered entirely in creeping ivy, Dilettante is a design masterwork and, stocking international labels like A.F Vandevorst, Anne Valérie Hash, Jens Laugesen, Lutz, Luella, Preen, Tsumori Chisato, Undercover, and Vivienne Westwood and local and New Zealand designers Arnsdorf, Romance Was Born, One Fell Swoop, T.V, and Jimmy D as well as shoes by Costume National, Hussein Chalayan and Olivia Morris, it is unlike anything else currently operating in Australia and a truly magical shopping experience.
And if you're like me and don't have a spare $3000 to spend on a pair of Vivienne Westwood high-waisted pants, you can always get a tub of Smith's Rosebud Salve for $9.


Didi Paolucci, owner and buyer at Dilettante and fellow ex-nightclub doorgirl.


Jodee Knowles with Kasia Kanik.


Kyoung Kim.




Kristen Angel, owner of Nyepovia.
To fund his high-end men's boutique in the newly developed Williams Lane, he packed his wardrobe of designer clothes and moved to the West Australian desert to work in the lucrative and physically demanding Mining Industry. This is a guy who works hard for what he wants.

The Future of Graffiti

Functionality over aesthetics.

The Real World

I'm cleaning out the overflowing canvas bag of things that used to belong in my school locker and I'm sad.
I've left the bag sitting in the corner of my room for over a month, delaying this eventual sorting and discarding of the last two years of my life, and now that it's being done I can't help but feel overwhelmed by this familiar, lonely feeling of loss and mourning. It hadn't affected me that much up till now - my leaving the course - not in such an absolute and final way. The day I cleared out my locker I walked through the school on my own, for what I knew was the last time, and allowed myself to indulge in some melancholy sentimentality. But it wasn't a new feeling. I'd felt it before, at the end of my first year, and also during the last few months of second year in preparation for the inevitable; I wanted to spread out the sadness.
But this is different. This is just me and my stuff and a low ache of regret; for my decision to leave and then my decision to stick to this decision while others are fighting to stay.
Have I done the right thing? I know I have, 100%, but I'm the one who cried every year when the annual 24hr Appealathon fundraiser ended on TV, or when I’d finished a novel, or when a long-running sitcom aired its final episode. I'm a sentimental, maudlin kind of person (although I try to hide it), and I'm simply not equipped for coping with endings and goodbyes.
So now all that’s left at the bottom of my oversized camping bag are a bottle of witch hazel, deodorant, a Beethoven CD borrowed from a classmate for Abstracting, a red square of towel from a first-term face washing ceremony, and some salt sachets. And as I look at these things, leaning on the edge of my bed with my cat and puppy for company, I realise it’s not the institution, or the building, or the curios I will miss, but the 28 or so people I shared it with, day to day, for over 45 hours a week.
And I don’t feel quite as sad anymore. Because they’re still available to me, I hope, and whether I had two or three years of stuff to unpack, the feeling of loss at losing my connection to those people in that context would probably be exactly the same.

Tiger Tiger

I'm sitting at Tiger Tiger in Perth, digesting my Granola Muesli with Poached Pears. No-one in Perth serves porridge; it's a little disconcerting. They also don't know the difference between a long mach and a strong latte, but Tiger Tiger do have free wireless so I'm not about to complain.
At a nearby table sits Peter from Create Digital Music with his entourage who are in town for the byteme festival. They have commandeered an entire table and covered it with an assortment of macbooks and other digital paraphernalia. One of them has an iphone which he's allowed me to play with for a couple minutes. Hearing him rave about it in his Californian drawl has sparked a new feedthegirl obsession.
I. Want. One.

Ten Things I Do to Myself That Are Not Nice

1. Shower with the water hotter than what is comfortable.
2. Forget to take pain killers when I have a headache till it turns into a migraine.
3. Eat more chinese dumplings than my stomach can hold.
4. Wear my tight jeans on days when I'm feeling bloated.
5. Wear shoes that I know give me blisters.
6. Squeeze pimples that don't need squeezing.
7. Stay up till 3 reading reviews on Amazon on a work night.
8. Put off doing my laundry till I've run out of clean underwear and towels.
9. Avoid calling my parents for so long that when I do it becomes 'an issue'.
10. Spend my last $40 on books on a Monday when I know I don't get paid till Friday.

Perfect Porridge

So Benn and I went to Caffé Cortilé in Block place on Saturday for a late breakfast. While we waited for our food we entertained ourselves by sending random Bluetooth messages to other Saturday morning breakfasters commenting on their coffee and asking what food was good to order. I never knew this game existed. It’s good having tech nerds as friends.

Benn ordered the Eggs Atlantic, which looked to me like a small serve for $13.50 but he said they were very good and the balance of Hollandaise and Balsamic was just right.

I had my usual – Porridge – and by God, I think I’ve found porridge paradise.
The porridge usually comes prepared with water and cream but I asked for my usual Skim Milk and the flavour didn’t suffer in the least.
It was served HOT. This seems to a basic element of porridge preparation that is just too hard for most eateries to comprehend.
It was a perfect grainy consistency – still rough and oat-like and neither too soupy nor Clag glue-like.
The berry compote was sweet and warm (thank God someone understands that this is essential).
It was sweetened with Vanilla Honey! Did you get that? Vanilla Honey! Sweet god of culinary goodness.

The café is in a cute, covered alleyway but is itself neither cute nor particularly cool. The clientele were mostly upper middles with some young trendies thrown in for colour. Benn and I were probably the coolest people in the place but, to be honest, what Caffé Cortilé lacks in eliteness it makes up for in its mastery of The Porridge (I may love the dirty, dingy mess that is Degraves but you couldn’t pay me to eat the soupy slop they try to pass off as porridge). At $8.50 a pop it errs on the side of expensive but, once again, the quality makes it a reasonable sum to part with. Just don’t ask for Diet Coke too or you’ll be walking out $12.40 poorer.

The Porridge Manifesto (or something)

Now porridge is an interesting dish. Seemingly simple and uncomplicated, a good bowl of porridge is warm comfort itself. But it is not as simple a meal to get right as one may think. There are a number of factors that must be considered when preparing the perfect bowl of this most underestimated of breakfast foods.

Type of porridge
While quick oats may be good enough for on-the-fly at home preparation, when I pay upwards of $5 for my porridge, I expect good quality rolled oats that maintain their roughness and don’t resemble a slimy sludge once heated. Rice porridge is also a good alternative for the gluten-intolerant, as is plain white rice heated with milk.

Type of milk
This is very much a personal preference and for me the ideal is hot water with a little skinny milk. But full cream milk, soy milk, cream or coconut milk are just as good, if a little less kind on the Tsubis.

Temperature
Hot, hot, hot! There is NO excuse for lukewarm porridge. None. That is all.

Embellishments – a subject worthy of its own list.
- Due to the current banana crisis, my favourite porridge additive has been unvaryingly impossible to come by so I’ve been branching out into the world of fruit compotes. These vary greatly in palatability and are therefore a risky addition to what may otherwise be a perfect bowl of porridge. Too sour and they require a mountain of sugar to redeem the flavour of the dish. Too cold and they mess with the delicate balance of temperature. But if done right, a good fruit compote will add a new element to the porridge and help bring out its grainy goodness.
- Honey and cinnamon – old favourites that never go out of style.
- Brown sugar – not as good as honey, in my opinion, but for those that find honey too sweet it adds a pleasant and unassuming flavour.
- White sugar – One word… No.
- Nuts & grains – Flaked almonds are excellent under any circumstances. Quinoa is also good for those wanting to feel like they’ve eaten something really healthy.
- Chocolate – belongs in a croissant, not on your cereal.