It's Fringe Time

(I'm squeezing this blog entry in on the last day of February, making the most of Leap Year! )

One of my favourite festivals of all time, Adelaide Fringe Festival has kicked off, and I've had a brilliant start.

The first show I went to see was called "Made in Australia". It featured songs that were either written or performed by Australians. It was different, original and a lot of fun.

A mix of well-chosen songs that represented many faces of very special country that is Australia, were performed by two enormously talented musicians, Catherine Campbell (singer) and Matthew Carey (piano).

Early in the set was a very comical and hilarious song about The Big Banana in Coffs Harbour. Australia's penchant for Big Things is amusing (and sometimes unfathomable) to the rest of the world, but we can't help ourselves. They are so quintessentially Australian. I wish I could remember all the lyrics.

A very clever and satirical "Dwayne's Song" by Eddie Perfect made me laugh out loud while it poked fun at racism. After the tender rendition of Paul Kelly's "From Little Things Big Things Grow" was performed, we heard this particular song, which the dark and brooding Nick Cave has described as having "one of pop music's most violent and distressing love lyrics" . I won't spoil the fun for those that will go and see the show, but l'll just say that it's one of Kylie Minogue's classic hits.

I couldn't agree with his quote more. I've never understood why the original version is so upbeat, when it's actually a thoroughly disturbing song about a person who is pleading his/her lover to stay, despite having been repeatedly mistreated by that same lover. It's basically an anthem for low self-esteem. So to have the song's deceptively happy facade stripped away, then to hear it with the dark, ominous and depressing core all exposed like that, was incredibly satisfying for me. This song and the arrangement alone were worth the ticket price.

It was one of those shows that you come out smiling, filled with warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I'll be going to see four more Fringe shows, and I do hope they'll all be as good as this one.

And if you get the chance, please go see it. Highly recommended.
All the Adelaide Fringe info, including this show's details, can be found here.

Poltergeist: The Unfriendly Ghost

Strange things have been happening at my humble abode in the last few months. Strange noises, phone conversations getting interrupted by sound that's similar to sand storm, light bulbs exploding (both inside and outside), toilet backing up with rust, and lastly, a parcel vanishing from the front porch, then somehow finding itself again at the delivery centre.

While I believe that paranormal events that logic nor science cannot explain do occur, things have been pretty peaceful in general that I hadn't really spent much thought on it. But these series of events have made me wonder if I have a stray poltergeist hanging out at my place.

When the outside light bulb blew up, I didn't think anything of it. But when the bathroom bulb exploded, it was so loud and it happened with so much force that I was glad I wasn't standing inside the room. I'd have been hit with shards of glass.

Having watched more than enough horror movies in my youth, and as someone with sometimes excessively vivid imagination, when the light brownish rust, reeking of metal backed up and stained my toilet (it was happening gradually, then it went out of control), I was half expecting the water to turn into blood. Or a pale hand to emerge from the toilet bowl. But things didn't get that dramatic. Still, a plumber was promptly organised.

But the freakiest thing of all was my parcel which I was expecting. It didn't arrive on the day it was supposed to, so I had to spend yesterday chasing it up. On their record, it said that it was delivered, and the item had been scanned. And my neighbour saw it on my porch at aound 9am. I didn't hear the door bell, and when I left the house to go for a walk a few hours later, the parcel wasn't there. When I insisted that I absolutely don't have the parcel, they did some serious search and located it at another centre miles from here. The item somehow made its way back to that place, and it had been re-scanned back at the delivery centre. They can't explain how the parcel got there from my place after having been delivered once. Unless the delivery guy played a prank for no reason (which he swears he didn't, and his delivery log proves it), it makes no sense.

I'm not the slightest bit scared by all this, but it sure is annoying and inconvenient.

If you're reading this, Ms/Mr Ghost, you've had your fun. You can go now.

Baby Boom

As I get older, more friends of mine are either seriously considering having children or have already embraced parenthood. And the prospect of having nieces and nephews is getting more realistic every day. Yes, it's a baby boom in my corner of the world.

I adore my friends' children and I'm more than certain that I'll dote on my nieces and nephews too, when I have them. BUT the idea of having a baby myself does not appeal to me one iota.

I can't remember ever wanting children. When I was younger, people used to tell me that I'll get clucky when everyone around me starts having children. Well, people around me ARE having kids, and they are incredibly cute, yet, I can't even feel the tiniest stir. Occasionally, I stop and ponder to see if I have accidentally overlooked my inner urge to procreate. I might check again right now. Let's see....nup. Nothing. It's just the way I'm wired.

Then I located my missing maternal instinct. It had migrated all the way to Little Rock, Arkansas in The US. The Duggar Family (pictured) consists of staggering 17 (yes, that's right, SEVENTEEN) biological children, all from the same parents, including two sets of twins. And astonishingly, the couple Jim Bob and Michelle want more. The scene from The Meaning of Life where they sing "Every Sperm is Sacred" did come to mind as I read their story in utter fascination.

If that's not my worst nightmare, I don't know what is. But hey, if the Duggars are happy, then that's all that matters. Having said that, I'm really curious to know what the children think of their situation, particularly since the older kids are assigned to look after their younger siblings and are basically responsible for raising them.

In any case, I'm grateful to this family, because from now on, every time when someone asks me why I'm not going to have kids, I can just say "Well, the Duggars in the States are having them for me".