First Impressions

It was a case of love at first sight with Etsy seller Brookish' Mr Darcy Proposal Dish Towel. We were introduced over Facebook, I declared my interest and my wonderful boyfriend ensured that we were introduced. Like all good romances, we suffered a Set Back (me wanting to frame the towel vs. my boyfriend's strong belief in creation for use), but now we've overcome our Hurdle and never the two shall part. It's another Etsy Happy Ending.


Love that packaging.



Here's to a long, happy relationship

Many thanks to my beloved credit card holder and the fantastic Brookish, whose service and presentation is unparalled and whose gorgeous pieces are more than perfect.

Closer

Well, it's been a big almost-two months since my last post. It seemed like just as I was starting to get back into the habit, I spend two weeks with my boyfriend with no internet and lose the taste for it. And then my grandfather died and school got busy, so I had very little time even if I did have something non-funeral or -school related to say.

In any case, it's been a crazy time and I look forward to getting back into the swing of things. I've found a lot of fun new blogs in the past month and therefore a lot of new people and ideas to inspire me and look forward to making a better contribution to the blogosphere in future.



That's my grandfather at about 20. You can find more family photos from this era at my Flickr

At the week's end

I used to pride myself on having a stupendously awesome memory, but I have found that stress and advancing age (I am 21) have made it distinctly sucky of late. To compensate, I have resolved to try to take more photos of my doings. This has the added benefit of having something to show my parents (who've moved to the other side of the country) and mostly house-bound grandmother.

Here's a few snaps from this week:


This is Sticky Insitute, which I'm writing about for school. It's literally underground; in an arcade that leads from Platform 1 of Melbourne's busiest train station, Flinders St Station, to the other side of road so that train passengers can by-pass traffic.


I took this shot of my reflection in the mirror behind an art installation in Campbell Arcade where Sticky is. It was a slightly disturbing display of what looked like bodily organs among other things mounted on sticks in dirt.


I spy with my little eye...


Truant teenagers sitting on the roof of the shopping centre drinking! I'm assuming they were truant teenagers because anyone else would have been allowed into a pub to drink and wouldn't be stupid enough to drunkenly hang out that high up! The one in brown fell and took the bottles with him!


I sampled this choc-vanilla cupcake on Wednesday at Melbourne's latest cupcake bakery...The Cupcake Bakery...I must say that I was pretty disappointed- dry, bland-tasting cake and oddly textured frosting that either indicated the presence of a large amount of preservatives and additives (and/or was made from powder) and perhaps some crazy mixing. It definitely paled in comparison to...


This awesome cookies'n'cream creation from Little Cupcakes, which I had for the first time on Tuesday and then again on Friday (sheer gluttony, I know!). The cake was moist and rich without being overpowering and the frosting was lovely and buttery, though not too sweet despite the chunks of biscuit.


Frankie is one of my (and everyone else in the blogosphere, I think) favourite Australian magazines. There is an awesome 'road test' of meat substitutes and some great stuff from Marieke Hardy in this issue.


I bought this, along with Frankie, at the airport when I was dropping my brothers off. I can't resist anything to do with Iggy Pop and this was no exception, but it turned out to be a really good mag (I don't know if it's this issue or this magazine) with a new and intriguing manner of interviewing 'the greats'. The obituaries were rather cool, too.


This is the top corner of the 'Word' cover, which may seem rather dull, but I found the placement of the price tag (over Moz's head) fascinating symbolically and wondered what he'd make of it.

Busy, busy, busy!

I've made it to the really busy part of the academic year, which feels like a bit of an achievement considering how many sudden hurdles I've had to jump this year. Thankfully, I'm not quite staring down the 'serious' few weeks yet, though, and I thank God for small mercies!

Lately, my life has revolved around my school work, my responsibilities to my family and dreaming of being able to do fun things. I'd love to have more time to go op-shopping with my boyfriend (who is very good at trawling for hidden treasures and an all-round op-shopping asset), hanging out with my friends and go to exhibitions and movies without having to plan for months ahead and keep one eye on the clock!

This is what I wore today:


(Another appearance by the naughty tree in the backyard)

I wore:
Stripey dress: impulse buy from KMart one night!
White t-shirt dress (underneath: Cotton On
Cardigan: Katies (new!I've needed a brown one for years!)
Boots: Novo (also new!)
Turquoise pendant: a present from Vietnam

because: Whether we think it's right or not, Spring is here and the stripey dress is floaty enough for heat, but is warm enough for the cold with a t-shirt dress and cardigan. The pendant matches the aqua on the dress and the boots are still novel enough that I want to wear them all the time.

And for something different, this is what I had for lunch:


(Well, not that different, I have this every Monday at least)

I must own to being a little slack with my diet and exercise in the past few days (and thus thoroughly deserved the obvious looks from other people trying to work out if I was a few months pregnant!), but I rarely miss having one of these salads for lunch when I'm at school.

Tomorrow, I'm off into the city to conduct some interviews for an article I'm writing on zines and Sticky Institute for school, so wish me luck!

Topshop

Y'know, looking at the Topshop website always leaves me feeling faintly depressed. First of all, the conversion rate from AUD to GBP is pretty crappy, so the price of a garment plus postage is usually more than I can allow myself to spend on one item (that old thift/vintage wearer chestnut!). Plus, because I'm not able to go into the shop to look at the quality of every item that catches my eye, I'm paranoid that if/when I do hit 'buy' and finally receive the parcel, I'll be horribly disappointed.

In any case, I had a look today and as usual, I wanted a million things for Spring and Summer. While I can't have everything, I can at least enjoy looking, so I made a Polyvore set.

Top Shop Picks by deplorable_world on Polyvore.com

Everything I liked I could imagine working well transeasonally. The dresses beg for pretty stockings and the lovely lace and roses would work well with basics all year. We're only really beginning to see the floral/Liberty prints on the high street in Australia, so it's all still novel and fresh to me, and I thought these relatively basic items would transcend trend (providing the fabric and stitching held out that long!) and layer well. The cute black shoes and croc bag are the sort of thing I would keep and wear for years, ditto the recently released Kate Moss collection faux fur.

Fame...

I feel kind of internet-famous right now.

I was casually trawling through a sub-section of a newspaper website when I came upon something that made me pause and then get vaguely paranoid.

In 2007 (nearly 2 years ago), I was a big LiveJournal user and I posted this to my LJ (and never locked it, I might add!). It was a jokey thing, obviously, but I thought the ideas that The Veronicas had evolved from an earlier Australian sister-group called S2S had merit.

As did someone else around the same time, who was clearly a bit confused, but at least not passing off the idea as theirs!

Anyway, so this morning through The Vine, I found a post by someone called SineadMcFly saying basically the same thing I had on my LJ, minus my second step of Jackson Mendoza.

Yeah, it's not a big stretch of the imagination to decide the two (or three) are similar, but I think saying they're the same thing (as I did) is a wee bit suspicious.

I even googled "s2s is the veronicas" out of paranoia and found I was the first and only entry!

So tell me, does this make me internet famous; you know, with my half-baked ideas being STOLEN and passed off as someone else's work a la you thought we wouldn't notice? If so, it was a lot easier than I thought!

"That's peanut butter...."

Not much going on lately- I've been writing an opinion piece on Wikipedia and a web site proposal for school, both of which necessitate a fair bit of time spent on the internet. And to be quite honest, a decent wedge of that has been time wasting.

So these are my two current favourite YouTube videos for entirely different reasons.



This brings back a lot of happy memories of 80s and early 90s animated movies and TV shows for kids- the sort of stuff I grew up on. The fact that it's an ELO song and from a musical also counts in its favour.



Every time I watch this, I suspect it might just be the best thing on the internet. Early Stooges footage with 'square' commentary = sheer awesome!

Hairs and graces

Today, I finally had a much needed hair trim and as it had been a couple of months since I last had an X-TENSO treatment, I had my roots and fringe touched up too. As a result, my hair is now lovely and shiny (and dead-straight), though I had forgotten how off-putting the smell can be!

In celebration of my casting off my split ends, I made a mosaic of some of my Flickr favourites with gorgeous brunette hair.



1. Untitled, 2. Ipso Facto, 3. Curling Experiment: Step 5, 4. and now for something..., 5. Made in U.S.A. (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966), 6. Untitled, 7. Anna Karina Une femme est une femme, 8. Hedy Lamarr, 9. Brunch 002, 10. summertime in tennessee bow, 11. Untitled, 12. Skipper Illustration, 13. Dolly Read, 14. Girls In Their Own Style, 15. IMG_5814 bis, 16. Blair Waldorf, 17. The Awakening, 18. cilla99393, 19. anna, 20. Untitled, 21. Nigella Lawson, 22. Daria, 23. cher and twiggy, 24. Vivien Leigh on the set of GWTW with a cigarette, 25. Catch 22, 26. Follow the trail, 27. Private Detective, 28. Francoise Hardy, 29. snapshot20080607200529, 30. Roger Moore & Jane Seymour, 31. Zooey, 32. Jane Birkin - US Vogue August 1, 1966

This goes with that...

A lot of people finds music triggers particular memories and while I do associate David Bowie's 'China Girl' with the first time Andrew and I kissed, Meatloaf's 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light' with my sister (I sing Meaty and she sings Ellen!) and the Macarena with the discos I went to in primary school, I tend to find that my strongest memories that are attached to certain songs or albums are focused mostly on what I was reading at the time.

I was 12 when I 'discovered' Australian author Isobelle Carmody's fantastic post-apocalyptic fantasy series, 'The Obernewtyn Chronicles'. I read the first three- 'Obernewtyn', 'The Farseekers' and 'Ashling' over and over and was inspired to read Marion Zimmer-Bradley and Mercedes Lackey as a result.



My favourite of the Obernewtyn novels for one main reason- hot Rushton angst!

But aside from being my 'fantasy' phase, it was also the time where I was obsessed with The Corrs. You remember them; that Irish band with the three hot sisters and attractive yet still overlooked brother (poor Jim!). Anyway, I was a huge Corrs fan from about 10 onwards and played their CDs to death.





Two CDs my parents probably wish had never come into existence!

A couple of years later, Kylie Minogue delivered her long-awaited (hey, I know I wasn't the only one anticipating it!) follow-up to 'Light Years'.



'Fever' was the album that brought us 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' and 'In Your Eyes', but Track 2 is the one I remember best- 'Love At First Sight'.

I was still in the (post-apocalyptic) fantasy phase and at that time, I'd been reading Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurt's 'Empire' series and will forever associate Kylie's breathy warbling with Mara and Kevin's tension-filled dealings. Every time I hear that song, I still get indignant over the fact that Mara didn't tell him about the baby!



A must-read series if you're into fantasy.

Two years later, my tastes had changed almost completely. Tired of unexplored sexual tension and craving a more believable yet still distant setting for my fiction, I embarked on my historical romance phase (via 60s spy novels and dystopian classics like '1984') and haven't looked back since. In the beginning, nothing could beat a Victoria Alexander for style, substance and laughs.



Few series could beat Alexander's Effington books- even now.

The Sex Pistols can also stake a claim on style, substance and laughs (depending on who you ask), but in an entirely different way.



'Jubilee' was my first Sex Pistols CD and I still think it's one of the best compilations out there.

It sounds strange to pair punk rock and bodice rippers, but to my mind, there is no better combination to a teenage girl trying to come to terms with the world (punk for the unadulterated emotion and romances for the tenderness and happy endings). Fortunately for everyone I share space with, I have reached the point now where punk rock is a 'sometimes food' rather than the only thing I consumed, but my love of romances is still going strong.

Kate Miller-Heidke

I've been enjoying the quirky musical stylings of an Australian performer recently- Kate Miller-Heidke; a classically-trained alt-pop singer/song-writer.

Her song 'The Last Day on Earth' makes me teary. I saw the video clip for the first time a few days ago and had to gulp back sobs at the poignancy of the lyrics and the randomly tragic video (her tears around the 2:27 mark had me sniffling hard-core). I would give something, probably not my right arm or first born, to know what it's about for her, though I'm worried it's something like some awful Sylvester Stallone movie or something similarly unspeakable.



On a less wrist-slitting note, I loved her 'Can't Shake It' because it deals with something I think we've all experienced- dance floor self-consciousness- and I found her 'accent' very cheerful and warming. Her unique aesthetic is more obvious here than in the last video (though I cannot work out why Aussie video clip producers insist on using flashing colour changes on people's faces at present) and despite my suspicions that she's wearing a nightie here, I must conclude by saying that anyone who describes their moonwalk as like they've stepped in shit is alright by me ;)

Tea time

I took my grandmother out for tea on Friday afternoon. She's been in and out of hospital since the start of May and has been in a nursing home to rehabilitate enough to come home since the start of July, so she has been quite isolated from real life and in dire need of distractions.

I took her to a tea room-cum-porcelain/antique shop in the nearby suburb of Ivanhoe and after she polished off some scones, I was able to rearrange all of the tables and chairs and push the wheelchair around the shop to show her all the china!



Nan had scones- one date, one Devonshire-



and a pot of Earl Grey to wash it down.



I ate a butterfly cake (like an uninced cupcake with 'wings' cut out of the top to make a hole you fill with jam and cream and then wedge the 'wings' into)



and sipped a Coke Spider for energy (it's very tiring hefting a wheelchair in and out of the car and steering it over steps while holding the door open with your behind, not to mention later rearranging the furniture!).

We enjoyed ourselves so much that I have resolved to embark on a regular Friday visit to the tea room for Nan and I- some quality 'girl' time away from my father and grandfather where we can coo over hundred-year-old doilies.

Rock 'n' Roll Evolution

One of my favourite aspects of rock 'n' roll and its offspring is that it's cannabalistic- every new song is influenced by an older one and will undoubtedly inspire future songs. Sometimes, I like to track the progression of certain ideas and stylistic elements through the generations of songs; almost like a '6 degrees of separation project', except often there's not 6 conduits ;)

I can successfully navigate from Gary Glitter to Nine Inch Nails, for example; though that probably sounds abhorrent to some. I shall demonstrate with YouTube videos below:



Step 1- Gary Glitter's 'Rock 'N' Roll Part 1'- the less popular older sister of what most people know as 'The Hey Song' a.k.a 'Rock 'N' Roll Part 2'. Glitter's classics are all obviously influenced by the early rock 'n' roll hits in terms of ideas and lyrics and to a degree, r'n'b through the use of repetitive beats and rhythms, though he brings his own unique seedy edge to things ;)



Step 2- Iggy Pop's 'Nightclubing', which vaguely samples the 'Rock 'N' Roll' riff: the Wikipedia article for Pop's album 'The Idiot' refers to a source as describing the 'Nightclubbing' sound as "a mischievous quote" of the Glitter song, in fact. On an unrelated note, this is one of my favourite YouTube videos ever; those drag queens are gorgeous and the deliberate crudity of the editing is mesmerising.



Step 3- Nine Inch Nail's 'Closer'; which takes its beat from 'Nightclubbing' (according to the 'The Idiot' Wiki). By this point in the string, the shared sound has been sped up a bit, but the relationship with the two earlier songs is clear.

And for a nice, neat end,



One of the best mash-ups on YouTube and an interesting diversion from the path.

Grinding Halt

This was yesterday:




I ran errands, went to school and was conscious of my health. I bought stationary (the green with birds is a note book) and then used it. I take one of the little blue pills every day around dinner time for cholesterol and had to add the yellow last night for some back pain that developed while I was doing my usual hour+ on the exercise bike.

Today, more errands.

Easy does it

It was the first day back at school today after over a month off, though that time couldn't be called a holiday considering the rigours of the period. It was actually rather a relief to get back into a routine and receive the next round of assignments.

As of today, I'm in my final semester of a Graduate Diploma of Media Studies, though I believe I take mostly Journalism units. The course is only a year long and I felt it a fitting conclusion to my undergrad work (a BA in English and History), as it has enabled me to hone certain skills I had already developed; such as writing non-fiction with some semblance of style and panache. This semester's assessments will consist of some rudimentary coding (CSS and HTML), blogging and reviews and a couple of essays, so I am quite looking forward to working. I'm hoping this portion of the year won't be plagued with the same stress and issues I had to contend with earlier, if only so that I can get my grade average back up!

Inspired by the weather; teetering on the cusp of Winter and Spring as it is, I decided to transseason-ify a Summer favourite and regretted it later when I found myself sitting on cold metal with no insulating layers!


(I felt a little like foliage!)

I wore:
Dress: recued from Savers
Skivvy: Katies
Boots: Novo
Purple Socks: Equip

because: The dress was for convenience, the skivvy for warmth and the boots for walking (to and from school; so that I can make sure I get time to exercise even when I'm too busy for my usual hour on the exercise bike).

While I have always felt perfectly comfortable in this dress, I have found myself increasingly moving away from loud prints on synthetics (my signature) over the past 7 months and contemplating getting rid of all my old clothes. I think I hold on because of the patterns, though, and uncertainty over how to dress comfortably and stylishly while not looking about 72! That's clearly a question for another blog post, though.

Needles and Pins

I had a quiet day today- reading and cleaning mostly, in anticipation of the start of a new semester of school tomorrow, though I did watch a little TV and do some mending.

I've been a great one for mending since I was a restless 15 or 16 and used to collect my stepfather's work clothes and socks and my younger brothers' jumpers and t-shirts to very crudely patch and darn on cold weekends. It has always seemed to me to be a skill everyone, whether male or female, should have and I have enjoyed watching my stitches become more even and invisible over the years as well as my instictive abiltiy to size up a garment's flaws and fix them improve. Recently, I have started filling in a rather sizeable hole in a pair of my boyfriend's jeans with black velvet.

I picked up my l33t mending abilities during a crafty phase- I had the obligatory knitting week (that never produced much other than a small, roughly triangular thing that was the result of letting others have a go and forgetting to count loops), I made piles of beaded bracelets, customized clothes by ripping or hacking off bits I didn't like and cross-stitched when I had the patience. I think the crafting was born more out of frustration with my situation and impatience to get on with my adult life (those old teenage chestnuts!) than real desire to create, but being able to sew a decent anchoring stitch has stood me in good stead; especially as my collection of vintage clothing and lingerie grew and needed loving maintenance.


I had to replace one internal button and tighten another on this coat (my current favourite; a lovely, warm 80s gem I got for $8 from an op shop) and I plan to accumulate some large, decorative silver ones with coats of arms etc for the front.

I've also been making and burning playlists in the past few hours- another thing I spent considerable time doing as a teenager. A hangover from my OCD and obsessive listing and organising, I've probably made a playlist for every occasion that typically included most of the same songs.

Today's playlist:

Cry For Love- Iggy Pop
Cracked Actor- David Bowie
Moving In Stereo- The Cars
Telephone Lines- ELO
I Want You- KISS
I'm Affected- Ramones
Same Old Scene- Roxy Music
Don't You Give Me No Lip, Child- Sex Pistols
No Feeling (Bootleg)- Sex Pistols
Token of My Love- T.Rex
Psycho Killer ('Stop Making Sense' Version)- Talking Heads
Alternative Ulster- Stiff Little Fingers

Bye Bye Baby

Last night, my boyfriend and I officially farewelled our friend Maggie, who is leaving for Poland in a few days and will probably be leaving Australia for good. Andrew hadn't planned much, but I felt that Maggie's last hours with us should be memorable and decided we should go to Little Creatures Dining Hall - the awesome local HQ for Aussie beer makers Little Creatures - for dinner.

To be quite honest, I've been obsessed with the Dining Hall since I went there for dinner last week and have been planning and scheming to go back as soon as, so hanging out with Maggie for the last time (only for a while, hopefully) seemed a perfect excuse to visit.

As we were coming from Geelong; an hour or so out of Melbourne, we took the train down to spare Andrew the pain of abstaining from one of his favourite beers and consequently, we were able to pick up a ton of American/'foreign' candy on arrival at the station. I must say that I didn't like Twizzlers all that much and Three Musketeers chocolate bars are like our Milky Ways, but I adored Tex bars.

We arrived at Little Creatures hopped up on the imported sugar, only to discover 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' was being projected onto the huge front wall. An ensuing conversation revealed that Andrew and I both had a thing for Willy Wonka a.k.a Gene Wilder: not precisely the sort of thing you want- or expect- to have in common with your boyfriend.

We ate:


Beetroot and feta dip with flat bread and olives (not me, though) and washed it down with Little Creatures Pale Ale (Andrew and Maggie) and Phoenix Organic Cola.


Unbelievably awesome potato, rosemary and mozzarella pizza.


Proscuitto-wrapped prawns (NOM NOM NOM)


Shirtless acrobats (devoured with eyes only!)

And apple and rhubard crumble, the best cheddar I've ever had (as part of a cheese board) and fries with aioli (my hands were too greasy for photos by this point).

After a freezing wait and tram trip back into the CBD that included a mini Peter Andre singalong, we three managed to squeeze into a photobooth for a commemorative strip and made the 11:00 PM train back to Geelong.


(Andrew and Maggie with said strip).

The consensus was that the night was a roaring success :)

Getting to know you...

Back when this blog was merely a twinkle in my eye (don't you just love that turn of phrase?) I made this Polyvore set as inspiration for the artist who was doing the design a.k.a my poor boyfriend. The things in the set were chosen as representations of my style and what I like and I thought Andrew would be easily able to come up with something I'd adore based on it.

He didn't.

We argued and haggled for literally months before he eventually made my matryoshka banner and by that point, I was just relieved to have something I actually related to, rather than something Andrew had come up with and wanted me to use (including, at one point, a brown design with only thin borders for decoration).

In any case, this set is still relevant as a summary of things I find aesthetically pleasing and some concepts/phenomena I find interesting.

Blog idea collage by deplorable_world featuring Chloé boots

P.S: You might be interested to know that I actually own the Bowie t-shirt in the set and was wearing it when I met my boyfriend :)

An Awfully Big Adventure

A while ago, I stumbled across 'An Awfully Big Adventure' searching for Hugh Grant movies on my video shop's catalogue and was quite happy that I did!

The movie is set in post-war Britain and follows Stella- an awkward young girl- as she starts works with a theatre company and learns about the world. It's a great story (which I'm not going to spoil for you!) and visually pretty incredible; lots of wonderful 40s costumes and a few quirky scenes such as a pirates' football game!

Sartorially, I was drawn to Stella's modest outfits which, in keeping with the post-war era and REAL LIFE, were made of the same few revolving pieces like a good woolen coat, a handful of blouses and skirts or slacks and some really pretty dresses.



I found her 'work' outfits unbelieavbly charming:


(I've never seen overalls look so good)

The lady actors of the theatre company had some lovely outfits and I loved their hats in particular:







(yes, the theatre company smokes a lot!)



And Hugh Grant wore some interesting head gear too:



(loves!)

The rich, dark colours of the movie really set the scene for me and really brought a period I'd always thought of as grim and rather dull to life. I was mesmerized by the contrast between Stella's hair and her milky skin, too.

And like all good movies, I want to read the source novel now too!

More pictures can be found at my Flickr.

Manifesto

Hello there, this is Ming. Without resorting to impersonal and restrictive labels in search of a definition and without making claims about what my humble little blog is, can and will be, I, Meaghan will endeavour to clarify Ming.

Ming is:

Me, but not only
My life, whims, fancies, schemes and suspicions
The meeting place (mingling place, if you will) of anything and everything without presuppositions or pretensions.

Ultimately,

Ming is:

Easy but fancy- no bullshit or deception, only open and honest celebration of lives and loves. Think of Ming as luxurious ethics, the bliss of a life well lived and the ease of self-righteousness, only less wanky.