Lots of Literary Laughs

Did you see that alliteration? Nice work hey? I'm rather proud. Ok, moving on.

Yoh yoh yoh, but i do love a good laugh every now and then, i mean, more than the next person. I am a serial laugh-seeker. I laugh relatively easily so i am always a little cautious when i suggest funny things to people in fear that they actually are not that funny and i am going to look like a tosser for recommending it.

I am throwing caution to the wind with this one. Also, i got the link from my older my sister (who's opinion i generally trust and she says it is funny, so my ass is covered). McSweeney's Internet Tendencies is a funny, funny thing. Funny in a clever way that pisses you off because you didn't think to say/write it first. Funny in a way that makes you want to ask whoever is reading it to you to please please stop, i cant breathe.

The short imagined monologue by comic sans is possibly the funniest (shit, didnt check that with my sister, oh well. Blame me there.) so read that one. I nearly urinated.

Noddy Badge to all the writers of McSweeney, you flipping legends.

Peace out yo.

The List (definite article)

I have recently learned that the following things deserve an unexplained, undeniable noddy badge from me because they are wonderful and extraordinary:

1) The humble vuvuzela

2) Vusi Mahlasela

3) Alicia Keys, The Black Eyed Peas, Black Jack and Shakira

4) Giant Dung beatles rolling giant soccer balls

6) Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

7) Flags x1000

8) 85000 people singing together

9) LADUMA!!

10) South Africa and South Africans.

Can you feel it?

I can. I did. I will.

peace out yo.

This lighting technique

Holy shit balls. Check this out. People always say that technology makes what should be kept classic and clean too complicated. I say fuck them all. This is the coolest song and coolest video in existence. So a noddy badge goes to complicated and technological. All hail generation X.

Peace.

This Music Video

Islands by The XX. WHo would have guessed yeah? Best music video ever! I know that it seems seriously repetitive but holy shit, when you watch it carefully it is flipping awesome. Also, the persistence and patience of those dancers, yowza. Not entirely sure i could kiss someone over and over so many times in the same way.

It is so subtle and cool and all the people are amazingly good looking, oh how i wish the world was like this video in real life. So cool. So for all of the above reasons, it gets a nody badge. yay.

Song + ears = memory

You know when you hear a song and it makes you think of a really cool time or a specific person that you love? I really enjoy that feeling, even if it sometimes makes you sad and makes you want that person or that time. It is kind of cool that something written by a complete stranger can make you feel so strongly and have such a profound impact on you. Also that whoever wrote it has no idea that you are forming memories and feelings around their words.

This is a general noddy badge, for a whole lot of songs and for a whole lot of memories and feelings that they bring up.

So while you try to make things Tessellate by the Seaside while Waiting for the 7:18 because the person you have Oncall is on his way, give a noddy badge to all of your thought songs.

Peace out in the free world.

xxx

I'm Here

Spike Jonze has always kind of been a hero of mine. His music videos are awesome and his feature films are pretty damn cool too. But this one is mos def one of my favourites. Love in an absolute world? I kind of like the sound of that. Also, the webpage rocks so that designer gets a noddy badge too.

But Spike, you deserve one for just being cool in general but this short film right here tipped the scale for me. So here is a noddy badge for you. Congratulations.

Piece.

Unhappy Hipsters

Sometimes i get sad, dont we all? Yes. So when i get sad i read unhappy hipsters to make me feel happy again, You should to, for when you are sad and need to be made happy again.

So, go here when you are sad.

sad + unhappy hipsters = happy

noddy badge for you because it really is lonely in the modern world.

out.

My sister.

When i started writing this blog thing what ever you will call it. I promised myself that i would try not to write about stuff that was too personal, stuff that other people couldn't relate to but i just have to slip just one in there. So here goes.

My sister is the coolest person that i know. When i grow up i really do want to be just like her. She is older than me - not by much but by enough to make sure that she is always one up on the coolness scale. More than anything else i want to make her proud and happy with me. She dresses coolly, she is clever and pretty and she refuses to do what everybody else is doing. But all of that crap is totally insignificant in comparison to what an awesome person she is. This is going to sound lame and completely cliched but it is true. I love her more than i can say and one day i just hope that someone will feel the same about me.

So to you Sweetlime, i give a super duper noddy badge, because my life just wouldn't be the same without you.

xxx

In b-flat

So i have always loved this song. It is by Beatenberg. Who are awesome. One of the best things about it though, is how i rediscovered it and i still love it. A distant friend of mine used one of the lines from the song as her Facebook status recently and it rang a bell in my head. I dove into the generally chaotic pile of songs that it my external hard-drive and found it.

It is still the same song that i used to listen to and i still enjoy it just as much. Which, in my view (not very respected or worthy of any respect) is a sign of a pretty damn good sign, yes? Yes! So Beatenberg gets a Noddy Badge, for being cool and not dying on me.

So go listen to it here and while you are at it, listen to some of their other stuff too. Here is the link to theor myspace page. Have fun.

This Guy

O, so ages ago i was at a concert and my friends and i spotted this guy from far away and being the little stalkers that we were when we were young, naive little creeps, we track this poor guy down. So i pose for this ridiculous picture while my friend takes it over my shoulder of this unsuspecting bloke.

Looking back on this occasion, i always thought that it was severely embarrassing that we did such a thing. But now, when i think about it logically, we were kind of cool. In a sneaky, sleuthy kind of way, like Harriet The Spy. Also, we got so much enjoyment out of it. Also, this guy is really REALLY hot, yes? Yes!

So this is a double whammy today. Two Noddy Badges. Two times the badge, two times the party. The first goes to groups of girls who are supersneaky but also superfun and who dont give a shit if they look like loserfaces. Nice work lovelies. Badge number two goes to this guy. Whoever you are, clearly you like OK GO and Fokoffpolisiekar. Also, you have cool hair and you made us happy so there. Good job. Congrats. Who ever you are.

quick drying.

A can of spray paint costs approximately R45. You get about 50 A4 stencils from an average can of spray paint plus a couple of free hand tags if you are sparse with your sprays. This means that you can become fairly well known in a fairly small town for roughly the price of a hamburger and chips.

So if you dont mind green fingers or that irritating clicking sound that the cans make in your bag, then make the world your canvass, quite literally. You would be mazed at how freeing it is, really.

So kudos go out the spray paint. For being just so damn convenient. Noddy Badge to you, quick drying spray on lacquer. you rock.

Alex

All the people that i know with the mane Alex are equally awesome. Just like Dan is a hot name, Alex is a cool one. Male or female, if you are called Alex, you are cool in my books, it is like it is a birth-given right or something. So call your kids Alex.

They have great taste in music, they dress coolly, they take regular showers. Pretty much everything i like in a friend. It has, in my circle of friends become known as "the X factor". We are all pretty sure that this unconditional coolness springs from that final letter, there is just something about a two syllable name that ends in X.

X marks the spot guys, so to all the Alex's out there, big ups to you guys, you rock. Here is a Noddy Badge for you. Enjoy it.

Peace.

Australian #2

Meet Gail Sorronda and her pretty designs. She is yet another Australian designer. I really like the black balloon dress. Don't you? Also i like that all of the photograohs of her clothes are in black and white. classy. 

noddy badge to you, Gail Sorronda. Sorry you grew up in Queensland. But thank you for making Winona Ryder, Mischa Barton and me really rather happy. 

 

Sexual Colour.

His name is Gabriel Wickbold. He is Brazilian. He is young. He is supercool. 

His photographs are a little bit creepy. a little bit out of the ordinary. a lot cool. I really like his pictures because they are so alive, and colourful and vibrant. I like them because they are not the norm. and also mostly because they involve beautiful naked people and lots of glitter and paint. fun. 

For pure creative artistry and the sheer balls to use all of those naked folk and paint. The noddy badge goes to Gabriel. nice work. 

Check out his website here. 

Rumi

I wish that i didn't love reading fashiontoast. Rumi is exactly the type of girl that fat, ordinary girls like me are supposed to hate. I mean come on, she walks around with a camera trained on her for every minute. what? crazyness. also, she is so pretty and skinny that i just want to hit her really hard with a volley ball filled with frozen butter. 

But. I dont. Mostly because she lives on the other side of the world but also mostly because she is pretty cool. I really like most of the stuff that she wears and i love her photographs too. She leads the kind of life that i wish that i lived. Mainly one in New York but also one filled with really cool people, who dress well and go to the theatre and have multiple talents and are cultured and clever. So i read her blog. Because the existence of naturally beautiful and habitually wealthy people fascinates me. 

So even if her noddy badge is a reluctant one. she gets one. just because.   

see if you agree. read her blog.  

Take the dive.

There is nothing quite like a really bad stage dive. Really and truly. When that person puts there life in the hands of thousands of unwilling strangers and they feel no shame whatsoever in dropping said person ON THEIR FACE...the world is not a just place but man oh man is it funny.

Now, i am not a masochistic maniac but i am perfectly able to find the humor in this kind of situation. When people who choose to do stupid, really really fun stuff and it just epically fails, it is really quite satisfying. So to all the stupid ass holes out there who risk their necks and faces so that all of us can have a good fat laugh at your expence. Thank you. Noddy Badge for you, loser.

xxx

Keep the funk.

Truly great drum and bass D.J's. Noddy badge for you. 

G.K's sunset

He describes the sun setting behind his neighbor's house as "flaming orange in the windows, as if the Mr. and Mrs. had spontaneously combust because of a faulty fuse, a frayed electrical chord or a box of oily rags in the basement." 

Only Garrison Keillor could pull that off with class. Now that man could write a filthy paragraph or two and still appear to be a perfect gentleman. I know that it is probably not very fashionable to enjoy his writing and it sure isn't going to earn me any cred whatsoever if i ever find myself in need of a topic at a dinner party in the upper-east side for radical thinkers or revolutionaries but i do love his books. Novels and memoirs alike. Although i do think that his Lake Wobegon books were/are his best. 

So, to G.K, thank you. For late-night stifled laughs and everything that i learned from your stories (fashionable or not). For that, from me, you get a Noddy Badge. and a half. 

If for nothing else then for writing a love poem after my own heart, brief, simple, rhyming: 

Kate Kate, 

She's so great,

I would wait eight hours straight,

To attend a fete

For Kate. 

Oh Claude.

Claude Maus. is. awesome. This is an undeniable fact in my mind. I am even willing to overlook the fact that he is Australian and the fact that he did away with the name Mamscalco for his very earnest sounding pseudonym in light of his extreme coolness. A graphic designer turned fashion designer, the use of fur and leather with such light cotton stuff is just so flippin' cool it makes me want to cut up my clothes and dye them all black and grey. I cant wait until i am rich and old so that i can wear some Claude Maus designs and (hopefully) pull them off. 

But until then, i shall just have to do with drooling over the latest collections as well as saying. "Oh Claude, Noddy Badge for you, well deserved, good on you mate." 

Here is the website, check out some Claude for yourself here. 

Below The Knees.

I have the most sporadic and random taste in music humanly possible. Really, no joke. From hard-core practically lyric-less hip hop to old california rock. All of this aside, there are a couple of staple favorites that are a common streak on my list of tops. While everything else spiders off into random and unheard of directions, The Shins are always around. I don't really care when their last album was released or how long it has been since they wrote something new (a very long time). All of their stuff sounds the same and they are miles behind everybody else but i love them, for real, they make a bad day bearable and a good day really great. 

So here's to The Shins. Big it up for unarticulated lyrics and historic albums. 

Noddy badge for you. 

xxx   

Zoo Lake

I live the perfect distance from the perfect lake. Past spar for a Super M and then round the lake. Kudos to the ducks, the toxic-waste-green water and the mysterious fountain in the middle. And the noddy badge goes to Zoo Lake. awesome.

To a Crisp.

On saturday the 27th of March Joburg Burning hit us all with all of its mighty force. Five venues, 33 of South Africa's finest bands and hundreds of Joburg teenagers all looking for a party. It was i night to remember, truly one for the books. The streets of old Melville were flooded with skinny jeans, freshly lit cigarettes , black all stars, hair dye and waist belts. Conversations between friends were shouted across the oblivious traffic, car guards mingled with the indie masses outside Paul's tavern and Roxy's and the rock bar (just dont have the heart to use its given name) overflowed on to the crowded streets. The activity on main road spidered out into Wesdine and Richmond as we all lost hope with the promised shuttles and prepared to trek to Back 2 Basix and The Bo. A group of kids walked past me singing Sho Shaloza on the way to Rock Bar. Anything could happen and everything did.

Apart from all of the normal favorites like Ashtray Electric, Thieve and Taxi Violence i discovered some new material. When i walked into Rock Bar looking for a cold drink and a place to sit down i made a happy discovery. Not only did i get my G n T but also an entirely new musical experience. Elliot Loom were playing and it was the most perfect set for the way that i was feeling. Man oh man, these cats were cool. Their set was the perfect balance of positively chilled instrumentals and eerily soulful lyrical moments. The perfect mixture of music to sit down to and rock out to. I never wanted the set to end, my only wish is that i knew more about them, i didn't even get a chance to chat to them after their show. My second coincidental was a mistake of timing. I was headed into Roxy's to see Ashtray Electric play, i happened to be extremely early, my group of natives headed out to Fontana for a late supper, but i stuck around and happened to catch the end of Josie Field's set. Not sure if this is the evil Joburg judger in me but i always thought that she was just pretty and hippy but essentially talentless and cliched. I. was. so. wrong. She is flippen cool. With just her and her acoustic she would have been cool, but coupled with her man on electric, her set was face-melting.  Sort of reggae, but not, classic and groundbreaking, i dont know how she managed it but, she was great. I am a newly turned fan. 

Unusually i found Desmond and the Tutus strangely disorderly and unimpressive. Usually, their unfailing energy and enthusiasm is infectious and unavoidable. When they play you cant help but feel happy and clappy and shiny. This time they just didn't do it for me. The songs were the same and the crowd was largely made up of the same groups of people but Shane and the guys were clearly not feeling it. Their hearts were just not in it. For the first time ever i got the feeling that they believed themselves to be too good for what they were doing. Not cool. The only thing that rescued the show were the unruly crowd-members who managed to get up on stage. A special noddy badge goes out to the guy in the green who made my night with the most epic fail of a stage dive i have ever seen. THANKYOUTHANKYOU. noddy badge to you. 

Apart from Desmonds' fail and the lack of a reliable shuttle to the hard-to-get-to venues, i think that the night of the 27th of March is in undeliable need of a...

noddy badge. nice one. 

thank you Joburg, we burnt you until you were black and awesome. 

Ramfest

Gigs at Emmerencia dam are always chilled, cool and fun. But Ramfest this year was truly one of the fun-nest things that i have done. It wasn't that it was well organized, because it wasn't, they ran out of beer and space, it wasn't because of the people there, because the jock flock seems to have found a new nesting ground in what used to be a field free of pink golf-shirts and loafers. I think that it was the combination of a perfect day and great music.

Parrow and his cap, Die Heuwels and their lyrics, The Narrow and their mosh-pit-of-doom, Lark and their Inge topped off with Pendulum and their laser show that could melt your face off with pure awesomeness!

I find it funny how when these out-doorsy, open gigs come to town, al the crazies and excentrics crawl out of the woodwork. In the core of just one afternoon i saw a transvestite, three mohawks, two topless girls and a man dressed head-to-toe in leopard print. I know that Joburgers have this rep for being judgmental crowd followers but come on! I challenge any Cape Townian to find something actively un-fun about the people at this concert. Everywhere you looked you could find some for of acceptance and freedom. I only wish that what i saw at this concert could be around more often.

This is one of those occasions that i can undeniably and unequivocally say:

Noddy Badge to you, Ramfest. you rocked.