Cyrillic

The days pass quickly when I listen to Кино́. I listen to songs repeatedly, carefully attempting to familiarise myself with Viktor Tsoi's growling Russian diphthongs. I get caught up in those prickly guitar lines and those melodic hooks which seem to always centre upon a B minor arpeggio. The production is shabby, the sound inexplicably panning from one speaker to another. There are noticeable mistakes, wrong notes and poor timing, but with each repeated listen I seem to love it more and more. I don't think of the mistakes, I think of other things. I think about Tsoi. I think about Leningrad in 1984. I think about a place where I can be alone.

I present Кино́ to others, but it is purely out of naive habit. I never seriously expect to get a glowing response, a requited sense of awe when I send over Последний Герой or Красно-желтые Дни. It never particularly disappoints me to hear their dismissal, but it only serves to reinforce the isolation in this practice. It's the same as my beloved night time isolation, that time when hours were vague and my existence was entirely unaccountable. Back then, I didn't care about what anyone else thought, but now, it's different. Approval culture is everywhere. From Likes to Followers, boyfriends and jobs, during the day, it's impossible to escape that desire to demonstrate personal value.

I listen to Восьмиклассница and I think of those ridiculous attempts to impress others during adolescence: You say you got a C in Geography and I don't give a damn, You tell me somebody got bruised over you, I say nothing and we walk on... It forces me to recall a time when I naively presumed that my elderly crush would be impressed with my happenings. It's all so laughable in retrospect, because such mindless gloating only really highlighted how young I was (and how inappropriate it was to be even interacting in such a way). I'm sure my news couldn't have impressed him, but then he allowed me to operate under this impression that I was ultimately worth something.

Now, I present to others, I present without thinking. I present without any genuine desire to connect. Yet I cannot help but get consumed by the purported regard of others. I am continuously preparing for that possibility that fondness could morph into annoyance, in much the same way love invariably morphs into indifference. Such thoughts leave me feeling so tired and wretched that nothing, not creative success, not tens of thousands of Likes, not even the assurance of family and friends can ever make me feel truly "liked". I cannot stop, so I try to make the days pass quickly, I listen to lots and lots of Кино́. I try to escape to a place where I cannot be found.

Tantrums

I've recently developed this exercise to combat creative self-doubt. It's only a small act that takes place in my tatty magenta-coloured Claire Fontaine A6 cahier. I sit there and with Winston Churchill's Parker pen, I write the heading: What's the Nishi? It's Japanese Cockney rhyming slang my friends and I had made up: Nishinagahori / Story / What's the Nishi? We say it to each other all the time now as a kind of nifty in-joke salutation and in this context, I use it to drain out every fret and anxiety.

It's been hard, embarking on the Consequential Lyrics project on my own. I haven't had any sort of creative consultant on hand, someone to shriek and shake my arm enthusiastically during late night conversations. I've struggled in those moments when I've been compelled to pitch what it encompasses exactly. The premise is simple and intimate, it's both personal and universal. It's been hard but I've risen to the challenge of doing what the project actually requires: faithfully describing the consequence of these songs, sensitively describing the meanings I've assigned to them (without embarrassing anyone too much or getting sued).

In my practice of writing What's the Nishi?, I feel as if I'm sitting down to talk to a hysterical seven-year-old, one that has been throwing a tantrum for no discernible reason. It's important to to listen that raging child, to address them, to allow them to safely express their every angst and plague. At some point, there comes a moment when the anger recedes and the tears stop and there's no longer any rational basis for that anxiety. It's plain to see, in the matching magneta-coloured cursive print, that each of these anxieties can be broken down and addressed in a perfectly rational way.

There's another heading that comes after What's the Nishi?, I write in big letters: How to Progress? Under that heading, I try to combat those anxieties by being kind to myself. I try to think up practical solutions as to how to get over it, whether it be a practical obstacle or an emotional concern. I consider everything one at a time and I break it all down, thinking about what can I do today, this hour, this minute. I congratulate myself on how far I've come, the great amount of work I've already done and I acknowledge how good it will feel once it's actually completed.

I realised some time ago how much I've relied on other people for that creative confidence, how much I drew upon those shrieks and arm shakes. I thought compliments could fill me. I thought if I had enough of them, I would suddenly believe that my work had value. The problem was that I'd neither accept compliments or if I did, they would fade quickly. I never had enough to combat the self-doubt I harboured, but at the same time, I never wanted to quit. I just thought I was doomed to anguish: never believing, never accepting, always doubting.

I wrote a note for my desk:

Consequential Lyrics is worthy of your time and concentration. It is unique and it will encourage others to share something beautiful and important. A compliment won't make you feel better. Completion will.

I realised that's what I need to do to feel better, to calm the hysterics. I need to follow through, I need to complete this. I have forever dreamt of a creative compatriot, a Marr to my Morrissey (or even the other way around) and I wish I could have pulled this off with someone by my side, but I just can't. I just have to sit and push on through alone. I need to consistently convince myself that there is value in this. Whenever I begin to feel that hysterical child pipe up, I know that it's alright. I'll always have time for her, I'll always stop, listen and ask: What's the Nishi?

Compliments

Missy Laur said something curious to me the other day. Compliments are like advice, we only tend to accept them from people who don't know us very well. It was a timely bit of insight and so thought-provoking, too. At that point, I had been contemplating the nature and the function of compliments. How desperately they are craved and how difficult they are to accept.

I once thought I was simply echoing the values of my family. On the face of it, I would consider humility to be of paramount importance to us, but then I would think of my brother and his sickening bouts of narcissism. He thought he was absolutely amazing at everything, so smart, so handsome and talented to boot. Yet he would follow me from room to room, begging me for a compliment. Any compliment at all.

My instinctive response to a compliment is to swear. I've never thought to rationalise why I'm compelled to react like that. Do I feel like they're lying to me? Do I feel like they're attempting to combat my self-loathing tendencies? Perhaps I simply never learned how to gracefully accept kind words. I never learned how to use them, to rely upon them in moments of doubt.

I've slowly trained myself to respond in a more congenial way, to smile and say thank you very much. I often tell myself out loud to respond gracefully. It is a purposeful cue, knowing how inclined I am to aggressively argue them down. Most kind words get lost that way, after all, it takes such energy to act appropriately, to act in such a way that would suggest that I agree (even when I don't).

I'm uncertain how it happened, but things have moved on a little. I suspect I must have been subjected to thousands of these things and they snap back at me occasionally: a friend saying I cannot wait until you write a novel, another describing my designer freckles, a lover referring to my touch. Do I believe in those words now? Does it make me a narcissist? An egotist?

You sat across from me, not too long ago, at a table at China Bar. I'm going to give you some advice. You said. I was alarmed. Am I not going to like this? You smirked a little. That depends. Don't doubt yourself so much. You elaborated a little, referring in part to my shyness, referring in part to my detailed disclosure of my desire to exist solely as a brain in a jar.

It's just as Missy Laur said. Compliments are like advice, we only tend to accept them from people who don't know us very well. It takes me a couple of moments to recall your compliment, maybe even longer than that. I deliberately try to get used to the prickly awkwardness of its sentiment. This is what it must feel like to believe you're alright.

Concentrate

I don't remember much from that night. It was upstairs at Pony and we were there for a show. Some acquaintances were on stage and an unlikely pair of friends were hooking up in a corner. I'd occasionally see glimpses of someone I thought knew, but I was hopeful and mistaken.

For some reason, I think it must have been the second time we met. You bound up to me, breathlessly with a trademark enthusiasm. I don't remember what I was wearing, but you were wearing your AMIENS WHATEVER tshirt. It was a in-joke and I never understood what it meant.

We somehow got onto the topic of the words we weren't allowed to say. I told you about how, as a ten year old, my best friend told me off for referring to movies as films. It was in exactly the same way that my estranged brother told me off for using the term genre. Saying a word like that was just so embarrassing.

You met me with a similar anecdote, of how you casually and accidentally referred to cordial as concentrate and consequently, kids taunted you endlessly with that term for years and years. It riled you up and upset you, in the same way it upset me. It was baffling how an ordinary word could come across as nerdy or pompous.

My details of that night are sketchy at best, but I often contemplate that youthful compulsion to say a dumber word in order to convey a dumber image. I think of it more and more, now I am allowed to be as open and gregarious as I want. I live now without bullies and censors and I can speak, free of reproach and ridicule.

Pinstripes

I could see his face flush with panic whenever he saw me. It was only a subtle sign, but I could see it, behind his thick-rimmed glasses, behind his tar-coloured eyes. He knew my after-hours appearance at the front desk typically indicated that something was wrong and it so happened that every other hour, something was wrong. My door key had been deactivated.

However, on this occasion, I had to insist that nothing was actually wrong. I had been sitting across the room, curled up on a beanbag. I was concentrating upon writing about the potency of particularly perfect pop songs, the subtle but ever-relentless snobbery of once-trusted friends and Sydney's ever-irritating influx of one-way-streets and prams.

I had just started writing in my new, navy-blue Semikolon notebook that I received for Valentine's Day. My Parker pen was bleeding stolen red ink everywhere... and even now, I cannot remove its ink from my fingers. It's as if my fingers and palms were wounded by Cadbury's great stationery cull of 2011. But I have to remind myself, they were going to throw away that ink anyway.

When the requisite pages were filled, I approached the desk and started a conversation with the handsome doorman. He spoke of his double life. Long days, wearing suits and carrying himself with the utmost formality. Taking on the work of his superiors and receiving absolutely no credit. He told me of lonely nights behind the desk of the hostel, struggling to stay awake.

I suppose if we were talking strictly in the terms of pick-up parlance, I responded with a DLV. I said I struggled with notions of professionalism. I gush and I flirt and I laugh and carry on. I refuse to pin my fringe back and I always wear drainpipe jeans. Yet, I feel as if the quality of my work is excellent and I have (the arguably misguided) faith my employers will see that.

Ever since that night, I've been thinking about how he managed to articulate his attraction to professionalism. He spoke of his unequivocal desire to be a part of that corporate environment. Just as I once had faith that volunteering would lead to a paid job in broadcasting or even the music industry, he believes that being a corporate lackey will lead him somewhere... and that with professionalism, comes respect.

"You don't seem like a lawyer..." He said, I never even caught his name. "Well, it happened." I muttered apologetically. I told him about C&CM, about the music essays and the podcasts and the documentary I had been working on... but I couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed that I couldn't share his enthusiasm to step up, to change and adapt to meet the expectations of the rat-race.

The conversation halted suddenly when a dishevelled Dutch back-packer stepped in off the streets. I didn't think to wait, I didn't even think to appear distracted until he was free again. He was lovely and pristine and together. I don't see how he could have understood my inability to do as he does. To save face, I thanked him and said goodbye.

By friend, Norbi
Weeks later, I found myself with a film crew in the back alleys of Melbourne. Hands still ink-stained, legs still in drain pipes. It seemed like an accident to me, but after months of discussing, planning and writing we were finally filming this thing, this fashion segment I had once imagined. At no point did I hesitate, neither in my direction or guidance to cameraman, presenter or contributor... and much like in my days of producing radio, I had the utmost clarity about what I wanted this to become.

"I've just never seen you like that!" My Louise gushed after the shoot. "It was crazy for me to see you take control of everything..." She paused a moment. "You were just so professional!" I couldn't help but recoil slightly at the mention of that word. Yet I felt a some kind of unearthly gratitude that although I have no burning desire to become a corporate lawyer, I won't always be a complete shambolic mess. Quite incidentally, and quite accidentally, I still have that capacity to possess a quality I never thought I'd have.

The Hip Tilt

I wasn't allowed to start a fashion folio, not until I had finished my Year 12 exams. My desire to pursue something fashionable, something artistic failed to impress my parents, but at this stage of the game, I could hardly care less. As my school friends got wasted, I bought a spiral-bound book with a translucent purple cover and I started to sketch girls, inspired by the pasted scraps of glossy paper ripped from fashion magazines. I started my first fashion folio, I started to imagine who I could be.

The girls I sketched were gruff, yet willowy, with side fringes and fashionably asymmetric garments. I drew awkward, couture dresses and near pointless white-singlet-indigo-jean combinations. All the while, I would pay careful attention to the female form. I ensured that each girl posed differently, with a head tilt or a fist clenched. There was always a cohesiveness about it, the eyes were always flat black lines, hooded to disguise any realistic demeanour. Their bodies were always stretched out and slimmed down to avoid any hint of a hip.


When I was meant to be studying for Criminal Law, I sketched furiously. I presented my initial efforts to my supportive best friend. After examining the drawings closely, she cried out: "It's great! You've got the hip tilt and everything!" I had never heard the expression before, but as she went on to explain the physiological significance of the tilt, it was the first time I ever considered that the hips might play some sort of a role in the balance and proportion of the female form.

It would take some time before I would accept the hips. I felt a great deal of reluctance to accept that curve: the exaggerated breasts, the small waist and big hips. I can only imagine this had much to do with those glossy images I poured over. In 2002, no such images were represented in the fashion magazines I collected. Yet I still admit, I wanted to be one of them, I wanted to be straight up and down, like a stick. I thought this was the absolute embodiment of sexiness.

Again and I'm not quite sure how, something changed, something in the public consciousness. I felt there was a greater acknowledgement of different shapes, of pears and apples and an almost universal adulation for the hourglass figure. Lovers raved on and on, insisting of how they unequivocally loved curvy girls, how they perceived hips as handle bars. Not only that, I spied Tyra's team of wannabe Top Models, discussing how they could effectively shape their body, to contort it in a manner that would exaggerate the curve I once so vehemently detested.

I never ended up drawing a girl with big hips. I gave up in 2005, three quarters of the way through my fourth fashion folio. I had presented my sketches, along with my stencil graffiti artwork to a panel of teachers, during an interview for a creative arts certificate. After I was rejected from the course, I could never bring myself to sketch again. It seemed pointless to imagine how I'd ever fare in trousers made of belts or a hoodie made of chainmail, inspired by the Smiths' Bigmouth Strikes Again.

I only recently started sketching again, I started teaching myself vintage fashion illustration from Walter T Foster's instructional book, Fashion Illustration 1920-1950. I love it, even though the girls are even more slender, stretched out and slimmed down. There are no hips, no breasts and only the tiniest waft of a waist. I do it, not to vanquish my own curve, but to embrace that simplicity of line and how it so easily suggests an arcane ideal of the female form.

Love Yourself in Two Weeks

I was surprised when my clever friend Jamboshoeshine told me he had learned to avoid advertising in London. It seemed an impossible feat, after all advertising was an incredibly potent presence. Everything from the posters which punctuated the walls of the tube, following the gradient of the escalators, to the glorious corporate lightshow of Piccadilly Circus. I noted the tourist posters, invitations to Kensington Palace and Hampton Court. I recognised the seemingly endless run of West End musicals I would never attend. I also noted the lack of a hypodermic needle effect. I didn't suddenly feel compelled to spend money without due consideration. All I noticed is that I noticed them.

There was one particular piece of advertising that did remain with me. It was a poster in a bus shelter, across the road from Paddington Station. We passed it each day. At night, the message basked in a neon hue, orbited by moths and other insects. It was an advertisement for Special K. It featured an athletic girl, posing to emphasise her hips in the trademark red, one piece bathing suit. Her long brown hair had vague waves and her smile was broad, her mood ecstatic. The tagline proclaimed: "Love your shape in just 2 weeks."

I felt uncomfortable with that familiar promise. It was familiar, as I had seen similar consumer incentives in the past. Just try it! Even for a short time! We'll guarantee you'll love it! The Special K ad was different somehow. It carried a sinister inference of self loathing, an implication that physical pride can only come from weeks of starvation. I could never quite articulate it at the time, but I remember expressing my discomfort about it to Andrew: "Should it really take two weeks?"

It was only when I came upon the advertisement again at the Old Street tube that I realised what it was. This time, the Special K poster had been defaced. "In just two weeks" had been aggressively crossed out, over and over again. A speech bubble had been drawn and from the smiling girl's mouth, she said "you r beautiful as you are". I couldn't help but be moved by the defacement. Not only was it succinct, but it was a rare message to behold. We have grown accustomed to such notions of personal dissatisfaction, but it is never expressed so as to acknowledge the true nature of that core belief. It is an a universal mantra that millions of girls share: "I need to lose weight to be beautiful."

But how much weight do I need to lose exactly? When does that point of satisfaction come? After two weeks? Then will I stop hating my body?

"You r beautiful as you are" defies the traditional tenets of consumer desire. If our own idea of beauty is contingent upon buying a product, losing weight, getting that job, writing that article, making them love us, then we may never have our fill. The original piece of advertising seeks to reinforce the idea that self-love is possible. In two weeks time, no less. It would be remarkable to think that we are enough, that we are beautiful, in this moment, free of art and artifice. That is why I am determined to believe that defacement. After all, I don't want to wait two weeks to love myself. Two weeks is a long time and Special K just isn't that tasty.

A Resemblance

It was some years ago. I was in Year 12. I had successfully managed to overload and underload my workload at the same time. I had four subjects at school (English, French, Maths Methods, Music) and two subjects out of school (Latin, University Music). It had the ultimate effect of two spare periods each day to laze about, drink Diet Coke with a Lemon Twist and complain about how overworked I was. It's a shame, really, because I will always regret how I performed in Year 12. Some might say that the lazing about and coke swilling had an adverse effect on my overall performance. This might be so. But this entry isn't about my deplorable lack of effort, persistence or foresight. This entry is about my vanity. That old chestnut.

It was during one of my spare periods that someone told me I shared a resemblance to a famous lady. It sounds odd but this very rarely happened to me. Perhaps famous lady people just didn't share any characteristics to me, but it wasn't as if I had any desire to share a vague facial similarity with a famous lady person. It just highlighted that very universal truth, that all famous lady people are beautiful. I had come to terms with by own ugliness, if I can use that term. I didn't have any desire to tan my pasty white skin or else bleach my dark dark hair. I knew if I did, I would probably resemble many of the other girls in my year, but I would be betraying the freak in me: the girl with buck teeth and braces who loved Freddie Mercury far far too much.

It happened when I was finishing up a Latin lesson. I was saying my goodbyes when Nigel's wife suddenly said, "You look like a George Romney painting." She shuffled off to search for her art book in a back room of the house. She shortly returned with the page open.



I didn't know what to say. I could never gracefully accept compliments, especially in that instance. She was so stunning and although I could see the resemblance, in the colouring, in the facial structure, in the expression, I could never admit it. It would be denying that ugliness that I had become so accustomed to. I am ugly. I will always be ugly. I cannot resemble someone so beautiful.

Years later, it happened again when we came across her in Art History. Her name was Emma Lady Hamilton and she was the frisky mistress of Lord Nelson. I developed a very real affection for her actually, I liked her wanton tendencies and her interest in recreating the more bawdy episodes in classical antiquity. A group of us would be sitting in a tutorial, looking at a very similar George Romney painting when Joan pointed out the resemblance. I didn't know what to do when they all started looking closely at the lithograph, then looking closely at my face. I'm sure they were lying when they said they could see it too.

At this point, there is a twist in this story. I stopped thinking of myself as an ugly person, I'm not quite sure how. It might have been the dramatic haircut or the attractive boyfriend, but I could look in the mirror and not see myself as ugly, not as I once was. I had changed. I don't know what it was about being with him, but he somehow changed my perception of self, the understanding I had of my own beauty. Perhaps it was because I found him so completely and utterly beautiful. Maybe he said something nice about my appearance at some point. Whatever it was, I can't really remember.

The odd thing is that we once talked about this very topic, resemblances. It was on MSN where we mutually agreed that he looked like a cross between Julian Casablancas and Freddie Mercury, though I don't think he was too pleased about the Freddie Mercury part to be completely honest with you. When I sent him that picture of Emma Lady Hamilton, there was a pause in the conversation. "I don't see it." He said. I couldn't believe it. Why could he not see it? Does he not think me beautiful? What the FREAK?! It was his refusal to accept the very resemblance I refused to accept, in addition to his indifference for Queen's second album and his eventual infidelity which would make me dislike him very very much (although, probably not as much as I should).

For my reader(s): Who do you look like? Do you feel that this resemblance makes you any more of a beautiful person than you would otherwise be?