This is a beautiful little song called ‘Existential Crisis,’ written and performed for you by the one, the only, the lovely Emily Rose.

It breaks my heart a little bit. It’s all angsty and teenagery and reminds me of how I wouldn’t be a teenager again for quids. I remember these emotions and the sense of powerlessness OH SO WELL. As though I was 14 yesterday.

What do you guys think? And tell me: how did your teen years treat you?

The Arts Centre Melbourne is absolutely killing it with its summer season lineup this year, in this blogger’s humble opinion. Who popped in for one night only on the weekend? Just Gotye, that’s who.

Oh wait, you want more? How about seven choreographers, 12 street dancers, three break dancers and some local talent, in the international street dance sensation BLAZE? And one of the best parts, to my mind? On performance days during the run of this show, the public spaces around Hamer Hall will be turned into venues for free music, dance and street art performances.

There will also be some Christmassy shows, the iconic New Year’s music festival Summadayze, a bunch of stuff for kids (Giggle and Hoot‘s first ever live show, anyone?), and Oh Suivant!, a funny, arty and rather intimate circus-clown performance.

In fact there’s a show on every day and every night of summer, except Christmas Day.

I’m hoping to out to a number of these shows this summer, and I’ll definitely be heading off to see The Key of Sea live concert, which is on this coming Friday night.

This concert sounds amazing and I can’t wait. Produced in association with The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival Inc, and principally supported by Amnesty International, it is a one-night-only opportunity to hear some of Australia’s leading musicians who have paired up with musicians from refugee and asylum-seeker backgrounds.

They have released an album (actually two of them, this is the sequel) from which all profits go to Australian refugee and asylum-seeker charities, and Friday is a chance to hear some of them live in concert.

Here is a little video to tell you more about it.

Giveaway

Melbourne friends, do you want to come too? The Arts Centre is giving away a double pass for The Key of Sea, this Friday. Just leave a comment below saying you’d like to come along and I’ll draw a winner at midday on Thursday (13 December).

For extra places in the draw, tell your friends: Tweet about it using the hashtag #summerseason, and share it on Facebook, making sure you let me know you’ve done so. One extra place in the draw for each.

All images of performances (from top: Leo, Oh Suivant!, BLAZE), and rehearsal sessions from The Key of Sea, are used with permission from Arts Centre Melbourne. I am not being paid for this post, however, I did receive two tickets to see The Key of Sea.

UPDATE: This competition is now closed. Congratulations Andie. And The Key of Sea was amazing! If they do it again next year, I highly recommend you go!

Melbourne’s train network, Metro Trains, has produced this kinda cute and kinda disturbing song to discourage people from doing silly, dangerous things around trains (like jumping the tracks, standing near the edge of the platform, driving around barriers at level crossings: apparently people do all these things!). The song is called Dumb Ways to Die. There is also a website, here. And a bunch of gifs on Tumblr, here. What do you think? Will it work?

Please pardon this proud (step) mama post. When Em turned 14 in July this year, she asked us for a ukelele as her present. She taught herself to play it. She wrote a song. So, to take you into the weekend, here is some sweet music from Madeleine’s very beautiful big sister.

Happy weekend. xo

Happy Sunday night! This evening is brought to you by this intriguing little teaser video. It looks like the aftermath to quite the party, don’t you think?

We are recovering in the aftermath of a rather lovely party of our own chez Bulger today, and I’ll tell you all about it shortly. Also, my parents have been visiting this week, which is why you haven’t heard from me lately, and it was just wonderful. They left to head back home this afternoon and I feel rather bereft. I can’t tell you how much I miss them, all the time, but especially now that I am a mum myself.

Meanwhile, I am still on a bit of a high from seeing two of my favourite bands, Mumford & Sons and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, in concert, on the one night. It was one of those “submerged in the music” evenings that make me just so grateful to live in this world. My joy was only slightly marred by the fact that both acts started late and I had to leave before they finished to get home in time to feed Madeleine. Ah, the rock ‘n roll life of a new mother.

How was your weekend, friend?

(UPDATE: photos and details of the garden party are now available here)

Yesterday on a long walk we happened past this telegraph pole and, lo and behold, the people of North Fitzroy are making wishes. This makes me so happy! Just three days after I put up my little poster, people had taken home “hope,” “a fresh start,” and “a belly laugh” in their pockets. I wonder what they’ll wish for next. I’ll try to get back after a week or so and report back to you.

We had such a lovely, gentle weekend: long walks through the city; making fajitas at home with friends; baking cupcakes; cuddling a baby who snores like a tractor; and I finally managed to write some long overdue letters to friends in Belgium and Germany and America, drawing pictures on the envelopes.

As you may have noticed, on Friday I launched my new blog, to absolutely no fanfare. I’ve made the move from Weebly across to WordPress, which was a torturous process because I had to cut and paste every one of my blog posts! Yeesh. This means I lost all the wonderful comments that were on the old site, something that gives me not a little sadness because the comments are what this blog is all about: community. You! I miss you! The silver lining is that WordPress allows for a much better management of comments, so I’ll actually be better able to interact with you in the future. The blog you see today is a kind of Stage 1, my content in a basic template. Shortly I’ll start working with a very talented friend who will help me customise things to make it look and interact a lot better. Maybe then I’ll permit myself a little fanfare (perhaps even a competition or two).

Also, I want to introduce you to an amazing cafe I discovered last week, the Grub Food Van. We headed up there with friends, including Madeleine’s little boyfriend, who oddly enough showed a lot more love for his green balloon and his slice of hazelnut gateau than for my princess. Hmm. Thankfully she slept right through the insult. At Grub, there’s an indoor cafe area as well as a kitchen inside a silver caravan to serve food to diners in the sunny courtyard. But my favourite space is something nestled in between: a kind of giant greenhouse with cafe tables and a vegetable garden and a ping pong table and a partial kitchen hidden behind a wall of sweet pea. I planned to go back and take some proper photographs for you, but our walk took us in the opposite direction on the weekend, so these iPhone snaps will have to do.

Speaking of greenhouses, did you ever see the movie Greencard? I’ve had this movie on the mind lately. Partly because I often sing the song from the closing credits to Madeleine when she cries, and partly because this movie is a kind of Utopian vision of inner city life. A glorious, crumbling rooftop greenhouse smack bang in the middle of Manhattan, crying out to be restored. A volunteer army of ‘Green Guerillas’ creating verdant spaces for play and food in the poorest of districts and the most barren of cityscapes. And a giant of a Frenchman (who a friend once described as “he looks like God held out a lump of clay and then just chucked it onto his face”) who is so… elemental… that he is all kinds of attractive. I first saw this movie in my early twenties and oh boy I wanted everything in it!

But back to that closing credit song. I looked everywhere to see where it came from, and turns out it was composed just for this movie. The chorus is perfect to sing to a crying baby:

Keep your eyes
On the prize
Don’t be dismayed
Don’t be dismayed
Deep in your heart
You must believe
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
Some day.

Happy Monday.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Dear Lennon and Maisy, how have I not seen/heard you before? I am in love!

And…

What would you do if you’d never been to Paris before and you had one day, just one, precious day, to see as much of this magical city as you could? Where would you go? What would you see?

That’s the content of my post on the English Muse today, here.

I have been listening to Of Monsters and Men’s My Head is an Animal album all week. It makes me so happy. And I just love this track, “Little Talks.” When I hear it, I feel like somebody has handed me a shining gift and, when I open it, the gift is freedom. Maybe that’s what I’m craving.

WeWereMonkeys : Of Monsters and Men – Little Talks from WeWereMonkeys on Vimeo.

It seems like the closer my beautiful Baby B is to arriving, and the more exhausted my body feels from carrying and nurturing her, the busier I get.

I am swamped with work. Literally swamped, with towers of notes and briefings spilling over my desk and into the lounge room and onto the sweet little rocking chair that Mr B bought for me to nurse baby, not laptop.

We’ve had weeks upon weeks of house guests and dinner guests and travel plans and outings and shopping trips to try to prepare for baby’s birth. So much housework! How does our home get so messy and so dirty so quickly?

I’m trying to write my next book, get started on an exciting new creative, collaborative project that will launch next year, and keep up with my blog.

This is all fun and I feel deeply loved by my friends and family, but I am also in somewhat of a spin. I’m prone to sudden bouts of dizziness and moments of “I must lie down, NOW,” which do not work well with deadlines.

And I am not sleeping. What with the kicks (not that I’m complaining about those, oh how I love those kicks), the cramps (I WILL complain about the cramps), the carpal tunnel syndrome I’ve had in my hands and wrists since the start of my pregnancy, the back spasms when I roll the wrong way, and the stuffy nose, very little sleep goes on during those long night hours.

I wish I knew how other people did it. I don’t see other pregnant women looking as done-in as I feel. They have that glow everyone talks about.

And of course I’m nervous. I know that this is just the beginning of sleepless nights and incessant demands on my time. That I am about to enter a whole new realm of indentured service to a tiny, beloved dictator. We don’t have the financial luxury of me being able to be the stay-at-home mum I long to be, so I will need to juggle the dictator with deadlines, too.

But when all is said and done, I’m doing ok. I will figure it all out, somehow. From what I hear I’ve had a very easy road in this pregnancy, and I truly am grateful. Just tired.

Oh, and another thing that is cheering me this week, alongside “Little Talks,” is my memory of France last year: of being there with my friends, of exploring Paris and basking in the heat of the south, and of little Baby B beginning to grow inside me, although I didn’t know about that yet.

So in my guest post on English Muse today, I’m bringing you a visual treat from two great cities: Paris and New York. Come travel with me, won’t you?

Meet one of my favourite* bands in Melbourne, Skipping Girl Vinegar. They just sent a monkey named Baker into space. This is Baker. Almost in space.
First, they built a little space ship out of foam and gaffer tape. They piled into an old Volkswagen Kombi and drove out to an open field on Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia.

3. 2. 1. Blastoff!

Baker soared up, up and away, carrying with him a small video camera, and an MP3 player that beamed their new single “Chase the Sun” and other messages from the people (and monkeys) of Earth out to the universe.

He made it to 110,000 feet, almost to the edge of space, before his balloon burst and he deployed his parachute, drifting gently back home.

Watch Baker in action (and listen to the lovely song) here:

What did you think? I suppose I liked Baker’s safe landing best of all. Although after all his adventures, I wanted them all to run up and hug him.

Ok, I wanted to run up and hug him. You know, “Hooray! You’re back! Safe and sound! Let’s go and have a cup of tea together.” That sort of thing.

*I am making one of those nerdy “I liked them when” claims. I liked them when they called themselves May Fly. They were supporting an artist I went to see at The Basement in Sydney aeons ago. At least 10 years. I don’t remember the headline artist but I do remember these guys and their glorious harmonies. I bought their EP. If you ever come across a single called “Said and Done” by May Fly, have a listen. It will transport you.

In the meantime, I’m listening to their latest album “Keep Calm, Carry the Monkey” as I type this. It makes me sigh in the best way.

(All images from Skipping Girl Vinegar on Facebook)

This is the top comment on the YouTube video of Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan‘s sweet track I Don’t Know. Scrolling down, others say things like “LOL that’s how I got here too” and “omg!!! the same thing happened.”

I guess there’s a lesson in here on picking song titles that are also good search terms (and possibly on concentrating more on grammar and spelling in school. ARGH, Naomi, you did NOT just type that! Chill, word Nazi, chill.)

Continuing on…

Me? I’m simply in love with Hannigan’s uncomplicated yet heartfelt love song, and the blue-and-white paper cutout garden she creates as she sings.

Elsewhere: I’m also blogging on English Muse today, sending out the first of a weekly series of ‘antipodean dispatches’ on travel, books and whimsy. Do drop by and tell me what you think… here.