La voce to me

Yesterday, I went about the course of collecting actual Linguistic data (I know, I know living red letter). I ventured into the suburbs of Central Melbourne with a flotilla of my fellow Linguistadors and recorded a 22-month-old girl named Molly talking at us.
It was actually a lot of fun: Molly showed us her DVDs and was surprisingly film literate for a toddler, having seen Finding Nemo, Alice in Wonderland and The Little Mermaid, which is more than Esmond- although she insisted Ursula the sea witch was nice and liked Ariel. Not an interpretation I'd encountered before.

Although...

She also argued with her mother over whether a pink koala toy was a pig or a marsupial and won with the astounding display of reasoning 'koalas aren't pink', which none of us could refute (although Koala joeys are hairless.) She also brought a little of that lovely child reasoning when, upon being informed that a dentist was a 'doctor who looks at your teeth', she inquired, with some alarm, 'why?!'
All in all, not a bad way to collect data for one's subject; in fact, Barbara told us about a man who gave his children special backpacks which would record his young children speaking...and caught his wife carrying on with, as Barbara put it, 'Mr. Neighbor'.
So, practical, too.

In other news, I went to two parties this weekend, and so am just the belle of the ball, aren't I? One was a get together with the guys from B.E.S.T., who were my 24 hour play group (I meant to blog about that...oops), where we watched a bunch of movie musicals and realised just how rapey Grease is. Sadly, I had to go to bed before Les Mis was put on, otherwise I very well may have brought Gavroche back to life, nine years (what the hell?) after his untimely death.
T'other was an Amadeus get-to-know-the-cast affair, where two very promising candidates for quotes of the year were delivered. One came from Henry Shaw, director extraordinaire, and was in the manner of a film trailer voice-over; t'other came from Dave, who plays Salieri, and was a brand new species of Pokemon; both can be found on the Quotes page.

And, finally, according to Victoria Andrew, I was in tune for an entire song last Wednesday. This is a personal record.

Pretty little picture

This weekend I bought some pink headphones: I needed headphones and the pink ones were the cheapest. The shop hand tried to play on my insecurities and said 'yeah, they're cheaper, but they're pink', and when I took them to the counter, he raised his eyebrows and said 'oh, you've gone for the pink ones' and I replied, no joke, 'yes, I'm secure enough in myself'. So, I walked out, having saved seven dollars, and feeling very good about myself. I relate this story only to share my moment of glory and explain to those of you who skype me know that I haven't suddenly admitted to a newfound love of pink.

In other news, Geoffrey Rush was fantastic. The show was amazingly funny, and Jason, Adrian and I have a whole gamut of new inside jokes; it was actually very sweet, because this was lil' Jason's first trip to the theatre and he was obviously enraptured.

They don't really mean what they're saying! What is this magic?!

 

The music was delightful, the cast were exceptionally strong (apart from Geoffrey Rush, there was a guy playing the slave Hysterium who was bloody hilarious). So, money and time well spent.Yay!

And finally, I may have made a friend at work, which is nice: she's from Dublin, she's a cinephile, she's heard of the bechdel test. We went to see 'Savages' together because we'd both turned up to a shift that wasn't on, and were the only ones in the cinema, and spent the screening sporadically laughing at the ridiculousness of that. It was very fun. Her name's Queeva and I'm making her a tag now, because it worked out so swimmingly with George.

Feel the Burn

Dear listeners,
tomorrow I am going to write up everything I've done this wonderful holiday, and that was fully intended to be my fiftieth post; I thought it had the requisite glamour to it. But it has been outdone. Oh yes. Because, mere minutes ago, I heard possibly the greatest put down of my life. Flawless in its cruelty, perfect in its utter unprovokedness. This one takes the Oscar for Most Damaging Comment.

I'd like to thank the academy, you cunts.

You see, Aspen, Jason, Logan, Martin and I were driving along in Aspen's car, having just frequented the local supermarché. Jason had just made another querulous remark about his admittedly spartan childhood, specifically relating to the lack of birthday parties in his life. And Aspen responded, unquaveringly deadpan,

Isn't it depressing Jason?The only friends you'll ever make, and they'll vanish before your birthday.

They say you could feel the burn from Auckland. Having been at the epicenter of the detonation, I certainly felt the heat; such intensity, but it didn't scorch me- it felt healing, as though the fire bleached all the impurities from my body. I don't know if Jason felt quite so positively about it, though.

I'm crying on the inside.

But yes, that is what I hand to you for our fiftieth outing together, reader: the greatest insult I have ever heard, and sadly I was not the one to deliver it. Alack.

Jason and the Big Black Blob

"I had an epiphany about a year and a half ago; see I had always wondered why they were called 'tea spoons' and 'table spoons'..."

I didn't hear the end of this no-doubt epic tale, because I was rendered immobile by laughter. I think we have Australia's 'this isn't even a narrative'- and it was delivered by this man:

The face of modern philosophy?

You understand why I was floored.
But, yes, the first time I was broken by laughter in Australia. Let's hope the first of many.