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.

Blank

Something's not right
Something is wrong
It's just that I'm not feeling...
How to express this accurately...
No that's it
Expressed perfectly and accurately
I'm not feeling
I'm just not feeling.

But hey. Given the current state of the world
The hate
The killing
The pollution
The overpopulation
The rampant idiocy
Of religion
And our leading politicians
The brutality committed
Against innocent and gentle people
And gentle and innocent animals
The greed
The consumerist mentality
In which we wallow
The overpopulation that has grown again
Since I last mentioned the word

Given all of this
Please forgive me
For not feeling.

Today... Thoughts Of Hamlet's Melancholy

"I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air—look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me. No, nor woman neither."

Sometimes you're just barely hanging in there and no one knows it.

And you wonder why you bother. You may as well share your thoughts with the wolves and say goodnight.

If I don't write something funny soon, I'm fucked.

The Art Of Kafka Woman

Today in the cafe... a little platter of half eaten morsels has been left in the dish-washing area. Grumpy looks at with a faint wince of distaste. "Who left this little mess here?" he asks, expecting the answer to be The Dreaded One's assistant because bloody typical.

"Kafka Woman," The Dreaded One replies.

"Kafka Woman left this here?" Grumpy asks, now looking and sounding like it's the most adorable art installation he's ever seen. "Oh that's all right then."

Viola And Lee And The Magnificent Leaf

There is something about this photo that I like so much. Viola, she is lovely. That leaf... what a magnificent leaf.

White Goth

I had a dream in which my hair was thick and grey.
I said to someone, I think I'll change the colour of my hair.
I think I'll make it white.
Death-white, because death is white.

And thinking about my white death,
I was okay,
Because we all die.
Enjoy the love,
Because 100 years from now
Everyone you know will be dead.

And then I had a dream,
in which I had no dreams.

Kaspar The Friendly Host

I'm an introvert who is fascinated by people and their stories. I've always considered myself an outsider, an observer, a solitary man. I feel lucky to have friends, such good friends. I am a quiet person who occasionally enjoys staggering levels of fun.

By Friday night, after dealing with the whole spectrum of humans all week, I've had enough and want to retreat to my cocoon, my sanctuary, my nest.

Yester-Friday, however, I invited some good people back to my sanctuary. Badaboom Beverley, Kafka Woman, another couple of friends Kate and Shannon. We had fondue and lovely and fun conversation.

I am Introvert Man, but I love having the right people over to thank them with hospitality. Thank you for being a friend. Thank you for being such a good co-worker. Thank you for being a memorable part of my life. Thank you.

We had fondue and good conversation, lots of laughs. I don't know what the others felt, but I felt it was quite a beautiful night. There has been some jokey conversation lately about my middle name, and Kafka Woman said something about Casper or Kaspar. This made me smile. I have some vague memory of having an early childhood thing about the cartoon character Casper The Friendly Ghost. It was a very unexpected name for Kafka Woman to put out there. I have a memory of my long-forgotten father painting Casper on some shitty piece of wood, and it was perfect.

Kafka Woman and I had had a weird day. It's complicated. I over-think things. Stuff that isn't real becomes real after I over-think everything. The day was quite awful for both of us. So it was good to end it as the friends I like to think we are. We drank. We laughed. We talked. We went around to a local music pub and danced for a while.

And I felt fortunate. I feel fortunate.

Thank you.

Dear Diary by Andi Snelling, Butterfly Club 2016 Review

Dear Diary

Reviewed by Lee Bemrose



Andi Snelling's one woman show Dear Diary has been doing well at various arts festivals since Melbourne Fringe last year, and seeing her opening night performance at The Butterfly Club, it's easy to understand why. Andi is a thoroughly engaging comic actor and story-teller with quite a superb singing voice. Yes, there are songs because this is kind of like a cabaret show, where The Person On Stage tells stories, sings and dances and does whatever fun stuff takes their fancy.

In Dear Diary, the schtick is that TPOS is telling the story of the last 24 years of her life via actual diary entries. Yep, she's kept a diary since she was, I think, nine years old. The child is there, the young teen is there, the blossoming older teen and the adult, they are all there.

From the outset, as Andi emerges from her suitcase, her physical performance is striking, slightly weird and comically quite superb. The audience is hooked long before she has uttered a word.

Hearing the personal thoughts of the performer at various ages is funny in that they are the universal voices of people of those stages of growth, but in the background there are more existential things to ponder; the nature of growth and aging and the idea that were are all basically living stories, but will anyone but our own selves ever know the complete story? The suitcases within suitcases put me in mind of those Russian dolls, and how we are in a way layers of ourselves through our whole lives. There was also a nice play on the tree falling in a forest idea that raised the very relevant question of why, exactly, diarists write diaries. Who are we writing for? If no one else reads these so very private musings, do they exist? Do we exist? Did we exist?

This is all stuff that is sparked during the show, but you don't really think about until after the show, because during the show there is much too much to be enjoyed on a lighter level. The list of birthday presents the young teen has scored, the snogs the older teen has scored on her adventures overseas, first sexual encounters... all authentic and funny and, yeah, nostalgic.

As well as an accomplished actor and voice-over professional, Andi is obviously a trained dance performer. I wasn't expecting so much physicality in such a show, but her physicality is simply a delight to watch.

There's a section called Guest Diary that may or may not involve a level of audience participation. I was both cynical and disappointed by this section. Once you realise what it's all about you will probably wish, like my group did, that it had been more fully utilised. If genuine, it could have been a longer segment of the show. As it was, this section with its lengthy introduction, seemed like filler.

One opinion that my plus one, The Dreaded One, had was that the show seemed a little self-indulgent. I dunno. Isn't cabaret, by definition, self-indulgent? Certainly a diary is self indulgent, so a cabaret-type show about a diary... well der The Dread One. Certainly this has obviously crossed the mind of The Person On Stage, because she took the wind out of those sails with a pretty damned funny re-working of the Carly Simon classic You're So Vain.

The very real, adult Andi Snelling appears to have much creative success. But a few Russian doll layers back, according to her diary, there was bad personal stuff going on. She shared this with us too. I had mixed feelings here too, coming away thinking that it was all just a showcase of her talent.

Which luckily for us, she has bucketloads of.

At The Butterfly Club, Carson Place Melbourne until June 5