clayton nutz

city roof top . summer night .
last night. like a dream. never felt so good .
sleepy smiling



to the krew,
lunch was rad.
gonna miss youse.
x

to the moles,
last night was...
might miss youse.
x

lalalalala

i’m crying all the time
salty stinging tears
and mourning for the past carbon-dated years
but knowing now for certain that you were always right
because if a breeze could blow you out of my life...
it’s only smoke and ashes baby

during one of my andrea-workshops, we did an excercise of writing to music. it is interesting to see the world when one of your senses is being completely persuaded by an artificial medium. the people look sadder or happier, more arrogant or perhaps more misplaced. for the first time in ages i actually thought id miss the train - if only to write.

i was reminded of when earl rejected enz's rap as poetry. or the class at uni deticated to lyrics as poetry - ian and his bob dylan. i thought about all the different music i listen to and what purpose it serves. when i feel like crying the cranberries is always nice. currently i go to sleep to augie march. on sunday, i listened to the whole of grace - tired and still, happy and content with where i am. the past days have been filled with a ludicrous mix of stuff - some too shameful to mention - the killers in chris' car, j-zee with enz, sufjan at the office.

music is fun. a hip kind of poetry. there is an atmosphere it creates that a lot of things cant. i am still torn about what to take away or what to listen to first this morning. iron and wine has been banned - though don continues to sing about papa :)

pilsner+lunch=feeling yuck

just cause im in the rhythm of posting on a regular basis, i feel i should write something today. i looked up some eastern european folktales... i was going to copy the best one. i couldnt decide. then i got picky and wanted them from a particular region. then i decided the day was passing and since i only have three and a bit more in this office - i should get on with the work that needs doing.

we're discussing a new band. an end to jonny:popular. im not sure how i feel about it. granted, the new band is rad - a word for those of you from the ninja turtle era. maybe there will be a j:p revival in years to come. a bad australian film made about us. maddie in a tank top. me in a leather hat...

my room was covered with tiny pairs of wings. on my birthdays, aunties and neighbours would bring glitter and little plaster fairies and angels. books and pink cupcakes and i would pick the sprinkles off one by one, concentrating on them, rather than the eyes that accompanied questions about school and friends. when the house was littered in plastic cups and torn streamers, i would stack the books and boxes as high as i could. i would stand on top, sprinkling a handful of glitter and wearing a pair of wings that id been given – i would jump.

my parents would drink whisky on the balcony and put off the clean up until the next day, as i smashed face after face of the laughing pixies. jumped. landed. jumped. landed. eventually they would throw out the books with crippled spines, and tell my aunties and neighbours to stop buying statues and glitter. that I was too old for it. i started to sniff the nail polish they would bring, to light fire to the perfumes and to pour the bath oils and scented lotions down the sink. i swallowed bath bombs whole. until I met him. until i saw the flight his little pills gave him. the similar need to feel, to fall. the want to engage, to forget, to escape.

but after a year, he still couldn’t say sorry. he would say it if he bumped me or ruined something i’d started – but not when he’d fucked up. when he had been cruel or when he had been wrong – he couldn’t say it. i wore his disregard like a bruise. high on my arm. on my right cheek.
he would look in my eyes and smile, thinking i expected no better from him anyway, he'd whisper, ‘i love you, i love you’.
i read book after book, looking for the answer. squashed their spines, tore their pages. i stood at the top of stairs and sprinkled glitter.

happy birthday walsh

there were banana's in the fruit bowl this morning. though greenish - i took one. because that's how it is in my house. if it's there and you don't take it - you won't get a second chance. maybe - without knowing it - my household has always been trying to teach me about the world.

a lady took a glass of water at the races on saturday without waiting for me to offer it to her. she unbalanced my tray, covered me in water and in turn - ruined my phone (which was tucked safely - so i thought - in my pocket). i was brought quickly to rage. i was cuttingly responsive and by saturday night, i smiled very little. i have lost some numbers - so if in the coming weeks you call - and i sound frightened (because i don't recognise the number)... it is because of her.

fortunately, by sunday all was fine. some impromptu shopping, chocolate cake and news. good news. for those of you following the italian story... piero called on saturday and a and i will venture to italy in the coming month with balaclava's and switchblades - in an effort to reclaim his heart.

this morning on the train - i wrote a story about peas.

ye olde post

some weeks ago my bag got all full up with an address book and maps and forms and lists - forcing me to make some decisions. my glasses now sit by my bed. my journal is under a stack of cds without covers on my desk. pens? well they're never around when you need them anyway. so i live between my saved phone outbox and scraps of paper (usually important work documents) and scribbles on my hand or just above my knee. i need to, those of you who know me - know i have the most fleeting memory ever.

this week i've been all over the shop. shit to write down, shit to transfer, shit to change or apply for or get rid of. there are many random things i would like to link to this - or many discussions i'd like to have about cruelty and cowardice. but also about the awesomeness (also inappropriate to mention at this point in time) of particular people i know, some only recently met - that completely overthrow the former. you know who you are... and you rock.

now because i'm conscious of time... the shiz - by far - is below. the funniest thing i have seen all week c/o madeleine...











'does this stop at clifton hill? i have to change to the epping line'

and you, call... i want to make paper boats :)

remember

I knew that she was going to tell me something awful had happened. I didn't want to pursue it, to look for it. I preferred the news to find its way to me.

1. Nan’s hand on the small of my back.
2. Chocolate chip cookies.
3. Pa at the window.
4. Mum’s quilt wrapped around me.
5. The yard empty of birds.
6. The tree waving at me through the window.
7. The lump in my throat.
8. The smell of his aftershave.

When I was seventeen, I wrote that list. The list of what I wanted to see.
In truth, I don’t remember any of it. All I recall is from photos and super 8 film. At least that way - your dad is whoever you want.

notes from the underground

my advice is not to walk down hoddle street with a scythe. i'll recommend you not believe the homeless man when he says the coffee scrolls in the bin are fresh. to smile politely when he grabs your arm and asks if the blood on you is real. to know that track 5, (4:39secs in) is the best moment on the new jt album. i'll warn you to look out for the masked bandits on bikes - or the goths that hang out in the foyer of a bar that wont sell you take-away coopers. i'll tell you not to go to bed late - when you have to work for 11 hours the following day and let you know - that warehouses are cool - until the police come.




also (just quietly) this guy is the shit.

scribbles...

Bang. The door shuts. Someone drunk is driving home.
Bang. The white ball hits the blue 2 and goes into the pocket.
Bang. An empty beer glass is slammed on the table.
Bang. Money goes down. Horse 5, race 11. For a win.
And suddenly it all comes back to me.

I’m twenty three.
I’m sitting on the lounge room floor, surrounded by smashed glass and time.
He is screaming something.
Words that make no sense. I press my hand into my forehead.
I’m not sure whose blood is on the carpet.
I’ll tell the landlord it’s wine.
‘Well… what do you have to say?’
Finally something comprehendible.
‘I love you.’ Learned.
‘Yeah, yeah…’
I raise my eyes as high as I can . I feel dizzy, so I look at the blood again. It is drying into the carpet.
‘Well I don’t love you. In fact, you know what?’
I hear him fall and suddenly we are eye to eye, ‘I fuckin’ hate you.’
He doesn’t mean it. He never means it.
That’s what he says. The next day, that’s always what he says.
‘Did you hear me, fuckin’ look at me, did you hear me…’
He slaps my hand from my forehead and I stare back.
I stare back so angrily that it hurts. My forehead throbbing.
I’m empty.
And all I can do is weep.
‘Fuckin useless,’ he mutters as he pushes himself up.
I hear him open the front door and feeling the silent breeze I wonder if he will come back.
I know that he always does.
But every time, I still wonder.
Time is a voided silence.
My palm rests upon broken glass.

Bang. He throws the ashtray across the room.
Bang. He kicks the coffee table over as he walks towards me.
Bang. His fist connects with my left cheek.
Bang.
Bang. His body falls to the floor.
Bang. Mark puts a beer down in front of me.
And suddenly it all comes back to me.

I’m twenty six.
I’m sitting in the Blackburn pub.
Mark knocks his beer as he reaches out for my hand.
‘Fuckin useless,’ I mutter. The stain in my memory - dried into the carpet.
‘I love you,’ he whispers.
And I want time to stop.

blackman, badges and blood

this was my favourite painting. there are 45 paintings and some sketches.


back in '01 - i house-sat a place with original blackmans' (charles had been robbie and adrian's neighbour)... they had a cute dog named toby - do any of you remember?

then i bought some cute badges and some fake blood. now im ready to go home...

new scribbles

In the 1930’s a German engraved the word Rosi into the back of her neck with a sharp scalpel. Her hair was a mess of curls, with a silver bow, tied on the left side. The auburn locks fell past the nape of her cream dress, hiding the scar. The ornate peach, lime and pink flower ribbons swirled over the chest of the dress, and circled around her small waist.
I ran my fingers over her joins; her long neck, narrow shoulders, bent elbows, thin wrists, and remembered the time I had asked if I could get a tattoo.
‘A barcode on your wrist, Soph, what for?’ Mum had replied, irritated by my interruption.
‘In my novel all the characters have them. Like an identification system, so they can be controlled. I just thought it was a kind of cool idea.’
‘Hold out you hand,’ she said, taking off her glasses and getting up from her desk.
I did as I was told.
‘See these?’ She ran her finger over the tips of my fingers.
‘The lines?’ I asked.
‘Police have been using fingerprints for years. We’ve all been coded already.’ She let go of my hand and went back to her desk.
‘But my characters don’t have fingers.’
It was a lie, but she’d never have known it. She had never asked to read my manuscript. Nothing I had ever written.

For the hours that followed I could feel her fingers tracing mine. The sensation made me miss her. Miss what she had once been to me. Or at least, what I had remembered her to be.
I cradled Rosi in my arms as I squeezed between the tables and chairs that adorned the store, dressed with dolls and ornate furnishings. The dolls and shoppers were masked in a kaleidoscope of colour, by the tapestry of gilded mirrors and elaborate masks that hung from the walls, making everything seem as unreal as everything else.

I had spent hours as a child looking at myself in the mirrors; front on, mixing my rounded mouth with a glass eye of a French doll created in 1916 and the other, my own eye, masked in gallant gold glitter. My sister, Rati, would taunt me, avoiding her own strange facial composition, while my mother would ask if I had found myself yet. I picked up a black marker - and wrote my name on my own neck.

antiques...

mid crazy laptop bargaining and digital pen buying - i have secured myself a way-too-heavy-to-take-typewriter. it is awesome. english and german letters... the original case and brush. i love it.

retracted... and yes, out of focus. mel - dear friends... had been drinking sangria.

happy cocktober

its that time. beer. beach. bodyboards. sick days. sleep days. sun days.


lead up: two days prior involving jagerbombs and a book launch. pj's on balconies. sand pits and bbq-ed goods. dunlop volleys and stirrup pants.






week1: red wine, spag bol, golf, painting, a plane ticket to wintery paris for jan, an engagement, a 6y anniversary, some tears, a package to save lost love - sent to italy... piero! what are you doing?

week2: annual cocktoberfest bash (hosted by spads with no frakes!)... followed by fringe fest (a play by the emo foundation) and some strawberry tart at a little cake shop in st. kilda...





stay tuned for the warehouse party...

friday fun

what you need:
piece of paper
crayons

1. lay a piece of paper in front of you. fold it in half vertically to make a rectangle.
2. with the creased edge at the top, fold down the top two outer corners of the rectangle, until the points meet. the paper should be in the shape of a triangle, with a slim rectangular base.
3. fold one side of the bottom edge up along the base of the triangle shape. turn the boat over. repeat on the other side.
4. then, pull the sides apart gently at the bottom to make a three-dimensional boat.
5. decorate the boat with crayons or markers.

sail away, sail away, sail away...