Crutch Woman? Word Woman? Enthusiasm Woman?

Today in the cafe... A customer entered carrying crutches, her broken leg heavily bandaged. "I've been in rehab but I've had enough," she announced to the near empty, early morning cafe. "I had enough of rehab and nurses and the awful hospital food and the vile coffee, so I've escaped. They said I can't go because I'm a public liability, but to hell with them. I'm here and I'd love to have The Dreaded One's Breakfast and do you think you could make me a really nice cup of coffee? Thaaaanks, darlin'.

I nodded, wide-eyed and stunned, because she didn't stop talking. Where was it all coming from? Who was it aimed at? She got a couple of customers who were bemused or amused or just intrigued. One guy looked to be all three of these as he shared some time with her. The look on his face was priceless. He told her a story of his own injury and unbelievably, she stopped talking and listened. When he finished, she nodded and was off again, but she had really listened.
When I delivered her coffee she OMGéd several times very loudly because she was enjoying THE BEST COFFEE EVER! When her breakfast arrived (poached eggs with holandaise, wilted spinnach and mushrooms) I thought she was going to fall off her chair with the outrageous pleasure of it.
"Seriously... SERIOUSLY this is the best breakfast I have had in my ENTIRE life!"
She kept talking and talking and talking. I think she said more in that hour than I say on average in an entire month.
When she paid, she was so grateful. Everything was so beautiful. She took a business card to tell all her friends and she was going to come back and bother us again because she loves the place so much. She spotted my card with the link to my short story collection. She asked if I was the author. I nodded, rendered, as I was, practically speechless. It was her turn to be wide-eyed.
"Reeeeeally," she said in awe. "You're so clever. So talented and clever. I can't wait to read the stories. I can't wait to come back to this absolutely beautiful little cafe. It's been a real pleasure meeting you. You have a beautiful day. Have a really, really beautiful day."
Hands-down, my favourite customer of the day.

An Esoteric Poem For Someone

An Esoteric Poem For Someone

Together, alone,
They said things,
And they said things,
And they said things,
Long into the night.

Jeff Goldblum,
Jeff Goldblum,
Fucking Jeff Goldblum.

No one else was there,
To hear these things they said,
No one else was there,
To witness the friendship that they shared.

Jeff Goldblum,
Jeff Goldblum,
Fucking Jeff Goldblum.

But everyone imagined things,
And so they said things,
And they thought things,
They believed all these things,
That were never said.

Jeff Goldblum,
Jeff Goldblum,
Fucking Jeff Goldblum.

But they made it through,
Not caring what others thought,
And they killed Jeff Goldblum,
Fucking Jeff Goldblum,
Clandestine,
Surreptitious,
Jeff Goldblum,
They killed him until he was dead.

And their thing
Was a cool thing.

Pixel Review, Melbourne 2016

Pixel

Reviewed by Lee Bemrose



My review request for Pixel went something like this:

“Hey Australian Stage – I'd really like to review this. It looks so trippy that I might not need to take any pre-show acid like I usually do.

Hahaha - joking. This show looks so trippy that it's SCREAMING for pre-show acid.

Joking again. My pre-show drug of choice is actually ecstasy.”

Although in reality my pre-show drug of choice is a glass of chardonnay, there were moments during the show that I felt like I had taken a delicious cocktail containing all of the above. There are many moments of wonderful trippiness.

First up though – the dance element of the show. Breakdance and body-popping are dance styles I've only ever been exposed to via short music clips. It's always seemed a novelty, a slightly freaky gimmick with a backdrop of jerky, thumping, shouty music.

But this is a full-blown, intricately choreographed dance performance showing these forms of dance in (for this writer) a whole new light. The dance in Pixel is real and pure dance; there is nothing gimicky about this performance. It's masculine, it's tricky, there is showmanship, there is strength and finesse... you've seen the head spins and the arm spins and the angular weirdness before, but not on this level. It's break-dancing, Jim, but not as we know it.

So what's different about it? Because the performance is longer than the music clips you might have been exposed to, you have the chance to appreciate the skill involved. Once you get used to it, you see it for having all the beauty of the best ballet.

You might see the word 'breakdance' and associate it with shitty 80s electro synth and drum pads, but here the music by Armand Amar is just dreamy. By turns orchestral, exciting, melancholic, whimsical... if there wasn't such magic going on up there onstage, you could easily close your eyes and drift of into the lushness of the music.

But the magic going on up there onstage... whoa.

Aside from the dance (I forgot to mention that there was the most amazing contortionist who at one stage did a duet with one of the break boys and it was one of the most wonderfully weird and playful modern dance sequences I have had the pleasure of seeing), there was the lighting trickery. This is where the trippiness comes into the thing. You will find yourself wondering what the hell is going on. Obviously it's all technology, but it may as well be magic. They somehow project light onto a... a sheet of magic and the performers interact with the light by... magic so that there's a kind of interactive dance between the dancers and the pixels of light. There are 3d effects that can only be described as... magic.

And it's all happening right there in real life in front of you.

I actually don't know how they achieved some of the visual effects that I saw. But I did love the marriage between technology (or magic, as I like to call it) and the raw and elegant physicality of the human body.

All performers had their moments to shine. Even the roller skate guy and the hoop guy, both of whom I also forgot to mention. Such masculine elegance.

Artistic director, choreographer and all round magician Mourad Merzouki and his collaborators have produced the kind of performance that makes you think, if shows like this are being made now, what are they going to be doing in a few years' time?

Woven Hand, Story And Pictures

This is a new favourite song of mine. It came on today as I was finishing up in my empty cafe. I turned it up loud (I suggest you do the same). It's dark and haunting and really fucking beautiful.

Sometimes at the end of the day in my empty cafe, I just want to stay there with my music and my solitude and I just want to howl at the world because nothing is going right and sometimes I think I'm going to lose my fucking mind. Your petty demands about the temperature of your hot drink... do you really think this is important enough for condescension? Have you seen how others are living in other parts of the world? Have you seen how others are living on your own street?

But it's my job and so I smile (sometimes) and do my job while my mind is actually racing a million miles an hour thinking about every detail of everything, all the shit going on in the world and all the shit going on in my life and all the shit going on in everyone else's life. I think about the people I love and the people I don't love enough and I think about the people who have it so much worse than I do... the customer who is always sick or the customer who is always over-worked or the customer who is worn down by the needs of her family or the many customers who for whatever fucked up reason are just odd misfits who will never know the hugs and the shared laughs and warm friendship the rest of us know.

All this thinking, all this seeing, it wears me down.

Sometimes in the afternoon in my empty cafe I want to howl because everything is wrong.

Othertimes, I listen to beautiful music like this, and I just wish I could drift away into forever.

A Thing About Love

She looked at him, and he could see that she was broken. He had been unkind to her, which was the last thing in the world he wanted.

I'm sorry, he said. But the thing about love is that it doesn't die in one place just because it grows in another.

She looked into his eyes and forgave him his clumsiness.

He looked into her eyes and knew that he was the luckiest man alive.

Oblivion

I've lost. It's over. I'm lost. I'm too many things and not enough of one thing. I needed to be one thing. But I was never going to be one thing. I was never going to be good at just one thing. I was only ever going to be pretty good at many things, and I was always going to be distracted by other things. I'm a loser, baby.

This world is too crazy for me. I don't see a happy future for humanity. The greed, the murder, the destruction, the repression... I just don't fucking get it. I don't understand my role in this mess that is humanity, and I think oblivion is a far better option.

There is not enough love. Not enough caring. There is too much hate. Too much greed. Why don't we care more about each other?

Eternal sleep. Now that's a thing.

The Proposal

You understand that this is it. We will never see each other again.

Yes, I understand the situation. We won't ever see each other again.

Hand held gently to cheek. Deep eye contact. Long embrace.

But hey, what about this. What do you think of us writing something?

Writing something?

Yeah, you and me, our words and our thoughts and our ideas. Yours and mine together.

Hey... yeah, we could totally do that. Your words and my words and our thoughts and our ideas.

Our story.

Even though we will be a world and a lifetime apart. We could totally do this.

Yeah. Let's do this. Let's make a beautiful, funny and weirdly broken story together.

Let's do that.

Okay.

Okay then. And... Goodbye.

Goodbye. But we'll be in touch. To tell our story.

Yes. Yes, of course. We'll tell our story.

Kiitos. Love you, see you soon.

Yes, Kiitos. Love you, see you soon.

And that was the last time they saw each other.

Haiku Anarchy

When you left,
You took my happiness with you,
Actually -
Fuck syllables and structure.
Fuck Haiku.
Fuck everything.
Up.

One Lucky Soul

Saw this on my walk home from the cafe today. The moon looked spectacular. I was feeling melancholy (oh that old friend is back and hanging around again), but kind of okay. I mean, when you think of the real treachery going on in the world, the innocents being bombed and gassed and raped by tyrants and pathetic deviants, the corruption, the hatred, the dying and the injustice... if you have the luxury of pausing on your walk home from your banged up little cafe to your cosy home to take a photo like this, you have to appreciate that you are one lucky soul.

I am one lucky, melancholy, grateful, soul.

A Mutley Moment

Today in the cafe... I was telling my new helper a story and she actually spat an entire mouthful of coffee onto the wall with laughter. It didn't spray, just blurped out in a stream and splashed loudly against the wall. It was spectacular. It's had me sniggering like Mutley all day.

And yes, occasionally I actually do sound like Mutley when I laugh.

Grumpy & Kafka Woman

Me and Loredana coming off a massive laugh about a tiny but really really funny thing.

Love.

Shadowland, Review

Shadowland

Reviewed by Lee Bemrose



This is another performance I didn't really know much about before seeing it. I saw a sort promo clip somewhere and thought it looked like fun, the kind of thing my inner child might appreciate after being neglected for so long.

For some reason – something to do with it being a show about tricks with light, shapes and shadows, I expected it to be a collection of unrelated vignettes, which is why I took out my pen and notebook; narrative, I don't need to take notes, but a collection of short pieces... ergh, must scribble in the dark.

As the show got underway, though, I realised that this was actually a story, not many stories. And a gentle fantasy story at that.

The story appears to be of a young teen girl yearning for something... escape... the future... something. She either falls asleep or steps into another world. The mood is one of dark and whimsical fantasy. This world certainly is the stuff of dreams, of strange otherworldly creatures, of villains who chase you, of surreal landscapes and strange chance encounters. It's a quest story, with the heroin being given a burden and being forced to go on a journey and overcome many obstacles before reaching her goal.

As children, we've all been shown how to make the shadow of a dog's head or a cockatoo on the wall. Much of Shadowland is built from this simple trick of light and shadow, but taken to a whole other level, obviously. The things the Shadowland crew do with the shadows of the dancers' bodies is quite magical. You and your inner child will become besties again.

The dreamlike sequences of visual trickery are interspersed with the raw physicality and beauty of the dance troop under 'natural' theatre light. I haven't seen a dance performance for quite a while and I don't know why that is. Such grace, such strength, such impressive teamwork... it's a beautiful thing to behold. The balance of seeing the dancers (and their enjoyment of what they are doing) and the shadow and light trickery is deft. It breaks things up. Each serves to remind us of just how clever the whole thing is.

And usually I hate encores... seriously, you took several group bows – has the show finished or not?

Happy to say that this encore was a good one. Again, so fun. A nod to Pilobolus' roots with the stirring New York by Alicia Keys followed by a nod to their temporary host town of Melbourne to the wonderful lyrics and musicianship of Colin Hay's' Downunder (unfortunately, this song also fills with me with sadness given the repugnant activities of those soulless copyright parasites who now basically own the rights to a creative piece they had nothing to do with. Lawyers... worse than bad encores by a long way... but I digress).

So yes, it was a joyous encore. Look forward to Shadowland, Sydney and Brisbane. It's SO fun.

Kiitos, Kiitos, Kiitos, Kafka Woman

Kafka Woman and Grumpy, last day in the cafe. Sadness. Proper sadness. And proper happiness that it happened at all.

Mel On Tutu Tuesday

Today in the cafe... I was packing the outdoor furniture away and noticed a very cool woman across the road. Amazing dreads, amazing clothes. Wish she'd come into the cafe, I thought as I continued packing down. On my way back outside, Cool Doof Chick appeared in the doorway, carrying the small round outdoor table inside.

"Where do you want this?"

"Erm... there is fine... erm..."

"I'm Mel and I'm here about the job. Nice tutu, by the way. Tutu Tuesday?"

It was the interviewee I had lined up for today in my search for Kafka Woman's replacement. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but based on this first encounter and The Vibe, I think we have a winner.
Which is not to suggest that I am at all happy about losing Kafka Woman. Quietly gutted, would be a better description.

Spy Stories In The Little Cafe Of Awesome

Today in the cafe... there's a regular I've been curious about for a while. What does he do? He seems like a stay at home person but he wears good casual clothes. He seems casually successful. What does he do?

I suggested to Kafka Woman the idea that we somehow follow him back after he has collected his large latte with one sugar.

Mystery Large Latte With One Sugar enters. Kafka Woman's eyes widen as I start to make his coffee.


"Can I follow him? I've always wanted to be a spy. I think I'd make a good spy."

"A good spy needs a good disguise," I advise her sagely.

"Okay. Where's my disguise?"

I point to the curly little moustache stuck to the mirror, a remnant of Moustache Mondays (yes, we are that kind of cafe). Kafka Woman is onto it. She dons her disguise and her jacket and Grumpy is immediately all "whoa - where is Kafka Woman? Who is this person with the little curly moustache who I've never seen before?"

With that, Kafka Woman is in pursuit of our mystery guy.

Upon Kafka Woman's return, we debrief. Mystery guy went left down Gertrude, right into Fitzroy Street, then left down a little cul de sac. As Kafka Woman started to cross Fitzroy, Mystery Guy started walking back toward her, whereupon she drew upon all her spy skills and sneakily hid behind a tree, much to the bemusement of the people in the parked car next to the tree... why is that moustached woman in a fluffy jacket hiding spy-like behind that tree? Is she an actual spy? She sure looks like an actual spy. We think she must be an actual spy.

Kafka Woman took off her little curly moustache (Oh shit THERE you are, said Grumpy) and hung it back on the mirror.

"It was like he entered some kind of time-space portal... I lost him. But I am a professional. Trust me, Grumpy, I WILL get to the bottom of this."

I am happy to say that this is a true story with mostly actual dialogue. I laughed about this almost as much as I did about the weirdly broken thermometer... but that's a whole other story.

Weary Of This World

Broken

Tonight, I am broken.
I am broken by the struggle,
I am broken by the imbalance
And the injustice.

I am broken
By the ruthless ones
Who break the broken ones
For reasons I will never understand.

I am broken
Because a broken one
Crushed so many innocents
On Promenade des Anglais.

I am broken because today I saw
A broken boy tear the wings
Off the most beautiful butterfly,
I'm broken because I saw

Her beautiful heart, broken.

Right now, I'm broken,
But I've been broken before.
I'm broken,
But I'll mend.

Drinking From The Tips Glass

Today in the cafe... there's a customer who has a quietly, endearing theatricality about her communication. The previous time she visited I remember wondering if she was a TV personality I should recognise, but I think it's just her way.

She placed her lunch order today in her unique way, wide eyes and breathy enthusiasm. As she bustled away I asked her to remember the butterfly (her table identification creature). “Oh of course!” she replied in her Thespian way.

I took her order to The Dreaded One and hung about in the kitchen for a few minutes. When I returned to the cafe... two things absorbed in a nanosecond. The first was that the butterfly customer was standing at the counter with the fizzy orange juice drink she had purchased. The second was that Kafka Woman, in my left peripheral vision, was doubled over in fits of uncontrollable laughter, one hand on the counter to steady herself. Kafka Woman, for me, has the most infectious laughter I have ever encountered. I don't need to know what she is laughing at to start laughing, so I started laughing.

But I knew something was up so – being the professional I am – I focused on the customer and what might have gone wrong.

“I'm a bit put off,” she told me. I assume there must be something wrong with the drink. I look at the glass. There was something that is not fizzy orange drink in the bottom of the fizzy orange drink.

“Yes,” The customer goes on, looking a bit disturbed by the whole affair. “There are an awful lot of coins in the bottom of my glass...”

The pieces fall into place. She had picked up our tips glass, taken it all the way back to her table, somehow not noticing that the glass was quite heavy due to the coins it contained, and she had poured her orange fizzy drink into it and taken a sip or two before realising that for some reason, there are coins in her drink.

I couldn't help myself. I started to laugh more as I told her what she had done, wondering how someone could do such a thing. My increased laughter fuelled Kafka Woman's laughter and she doubled over and laughe even harder, if that is humanly possible.

If Kafka Woman had not been present when I first walked back outside, I might have been able to act concerned and empathetic and treat the situation with some kind of false sensitivity. The fact that KW was already wiping tears of laughter away meant I never stood a chance. Now, needless to say, we were both fucked. Absolutely fucked with laughter.

The customer was not fucked with laughter. She wanted a refund for the ruined orange fizzy drink and although it was entirely her fault for putting the drink in the tips glass, I gave her the refund because by now I was feeling a bit guilty about all the laughter.

Later, after more laughter in the kitchen, Kafka Woman went over to check that the rest of Butterfly Customer's lunch was all right. Everything, it seemed, was fine. Except...

When I asked about the murmured conversation between Kafka Woman and Butterfly Customer, Kafka Woman told me that Butterfly Customer didn't want to appear humourless, it's just that she is a clinical germaphobe. She opened her bag and showed Kafka Woman some of her medication.

“Fuck,” I said to Kafka Woman. “Why couldn't that have happened to a normal person?”

The Silver Lining

Bad day in the cafe. Look at how many people are not there.

But Kafka Woman was there. This was a fun day in spite of things.

I am big hugs grateful.

If explanation is needed, this is a photo of Grumpy taking a photo of Kafka Woman dancing behind Lucky Cat with a Woo Hoo Cup balanced on its head, obviously. Many months ago Kafka Woman was a stranger who wandered into the cafe and sat in that blue chair on the left of your screen and read my short story Remembering Argos, and a connection was made. It was a very random encounter that like all such rare, random encounters has lead to beautiful things.

Trust

I saw your lie
You with your secret note
I saw that lie
I saw your deceit
And it crushed my heart.

Goodbye Beverley

This is a photo of a random human being. I might have lived the rest of my life not knowing her, but I didn't. She walked into the cafe one day looking for work. She worked with us and became a friend. One time in the cafe when we were closed, she played her banjo while I sang Solitary Man, first time I have sung with anyone.

In my previous post I said I wasn't feeling anything. Today I felt lots. I even cried a bit. And I'm okay with that.