TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

10:16 PM
Posted by jodi rose

So, I got the lowdown from one of my excellent new writers group friends about the money I could be earning if I happened to write press releases and bio's for a major, major label. Lordy, integrity is an expensive business! Still, the music is much much better where I am...

...and the company isn't so bad either ;)

The writers meeting was excellent - some very measured and productive critiques of really interesting work, and then getting raucous with yet more Australians afterwards. Who knew. Not only half the sound artists are fleeing to Berlin, it's a haven for our writers too. Great meeting smart, fun people who make each other laugh.

Oh, yes, that's right, and I somehow managed to embroil myself in having some work discussed next week. Yikes, am going to have to get myself over that two years of writing terror damn smart.

Just remembering what it was that I wanted to say again. With all this. Kind of tricky when you're made your life into the material for your 'art' and then start going back over that - does it become a feedback loop, or is it all well-mulched compost that grows into something bigger and flourishes in a new garden? (Don't know what's with the horticulture references, I have the exact opposite of a green thumb. They all look the same to me)

Besides all that, I'm doing my best to dig my heels into the rocky slope before I slide all the way down into a deep winter depression. The snap freeze in these parts is feisty, and without all kinds of material and immaterial comforts and sustenance it can look pretty grim. Still, on the bright side, there is a whole new level of wardrobe to explore. My minimal techno boss just paid enough for me to buy the doona-in-coat-form that I fell in love with today, which I hope will stop me from literally freezing on those occasions when I managed to leave my apartment and make it out onto the streets. Although I will have to write harder and faster to keep the starving wolves at bay.

Just as I was processing my latest dilemma about swallowing pride and doing crap work, because, really, starving and freezing is SO not an option (even if it does make a good story afterwards) the man at the table next to me (in the very hip cafe overflowing with arty types) said to his galerist or curator (I couldn't work out which was which):

"I want to make money in a special way. In a real way. I don't want to fuck myself while I am alive. You would make money, but not in that way."

Not sure exactly what he meant in the middle there - maybe something about not selling out - but it was perfect.

Art and money, that's what it's all about in this town.
How to make them meet and blend.

Hey, it's nice when everyone around is struggling too. Well, almost.
Except for the phat success stories who the kids are emulating.

Trying not to let myself get terrified into complete inaction by the prospect of all this insanity continuing. I mean, something has to change, sooner or later, right? There must be a way to leap across this tiny gap in the road and find myself over in that nice sunny meadow.
As Philippa reminded me - very glamorously from her current highly credible writers digs at Shakespeare and Co in Paris - 'even if you're driving from one side of the country to the other, you only need to see the road ten feet in front of you, to get there'. It doesn't matter that you don't know what's up ahead, or how any of it will work. Hang on in there. Stay along for the ride. Yep, it's gonna be a bumpy night.
But you know what, the dawn will come. I know, it's always darkest and indeed this has been a long long night. Keep the faith.

I thought it was only my kreislauf but realised that it's more than that. A simple lapse of faith. The only way to get over that, is to leap once more into the abyss, and not worry about how deep or far you go. Just take that step, and let the current carry you where it will. My stepmother tells me a wonderful story about a woman in the early 1900's who tried to commit suicide by jumping off the newly built Avon Suspension Bridge, in Bristol. Apparently her voluminous skirts caught the wind and billowed out around her, effectively forming a parachute so that she floated safely down to the depths of the chasm and lived to a ripe old age of 95. Actually, I made that last bit up, but you know. News of my demise has been greatly exaggerated!!!