You have no idea how tickled it makes me that a poet won the 'Written' leg of the 2012 SOYA Awards.
Andrew Bifield. What a man.
Below is my favourite of his submissions...


AFTER THE BUCK'S NIGHT

More than nine months passed: our great objections
Had deflated. I won money on
The timing of the news. They had gone
Through six months more than nine of our dissections
By the time the child was due. We laughed,
Drank, drew conclusions; had a brief return
To form: three months more, there was a turn,
And the baby wasn’t born.

The notice said bright colours: most wore Hawaiian
Shirts. The priest was an old broom, wooden and tall;
The church was brown and modern, and small.
So was the coffin. The sky had rolled from cyan
Into grey as the directors gave
Cards out at the door. Someone up back 
Disrupted the service with a heart attack.
The disapproval waved
Through the church, because they didn’t know;
And at the wake they realised. It was the real show.
Now the lucky duck is off to New York to attend the PEN World Voices.
Plus he gets $5000 in cold hard cash. Probably to invest in some of those trendy boat shoes whist in New York i would say.
Plus a year long mentorship with Markus Zusak. He's some dude who wrote a bunch of books and won a bunch of awards. Not a poet though.

'Let me know when you're done bowlin' - Sally Paton

Ten-pin bowling enthusiast, Sally Paton, may have mistaken the largest skate competition in the Southern Hemisphere for an afternoon of...well bowling. But the hoards of people who showed up to Bowl-a-Rama weren't fooled.

Saturday's VANS Bowl-a-Rama has come and gone. I'm not particularly in the mood to write that much. If you want to know more about the outcome go check the site. Instead i will note the amazing change in organisation at the event, the amount of freeloaders heisting anything and everything, and an abundance of pre-pubescent skater groupies present on the south Bondi grassy hill. 

Enjoy the shots.

xx

Calling all artists, designers, creatives. THAT MEANS YOU......YEAH YOU

So i've become involved in a new little project called 'Oxford St Design Store' (formally The Dollar Store).
It really is the bees knees.
And that's not a biased opinion because that was my thought pattern before i became involved.

It is currently the shell of a former derelict store space on Oxford st, numero 58, but come late february it will be a pop up retail space.

Yea yea. Another fucking retail store.

Shhh and let me finish. Jeez.

It actually has the aim of challenging the idea of what a commercial retail space should be via bridging the gap between creatives and consumers. Not just a store but a space for creating and opportunities to learn new skills and actually communicate with the designers themselves.
So it's going to be a store full of anything and everything under the design umbrella; fashion, jewellery, prints, kitchenware, photography, illustrations, instruments, posters....whatever.

We have the idea. We have the space. We have supplies to spruce up the space. Now we need products.

If you're interested in selling something/s you have created go ahead and email me at
kaya.strehler@hotmail.com.
I don't mean, 'oh i knitted this really neat scarf to get prepared for the harsh Australian winters but i'll sell it instead' - you know who you are.

The store takes a measly 25% commission to pay for the bills, but the rest if yours. We do all the dirty work.


Also as a final vouch for the forthcoming enterprise, half the space is being transformed into a workshop area for after-hours and weekend play time. I'll keep you posted.


Again, if you're interested email me at kaya.strehler@hotmail.com

http://www.dollarshopsydney.com.au/

"I’ll take all of Paris Hiltons inheritance, just to watch her suffer."

Samantha Rose Andison.

Samantha Rose.

Samantha.

Sam.

However you take it, it always goes down smooth.

We crossed paths at College where a mutual fondness for doing nothing and subway cookies was established.

Blonde hair, pale skin, green eyes. Also known as stupidly gorgeous. Not that she's stupid. Oh no, quite the opposite. Just her level of gorgeous-ness is stupid. Unfair. Uncommon. Unwhatever.

To avoid 'getting caught up in the same topics, banter and dramas all the time', Sam has become a friendship nomad. This ends up giving her a lot of time on Facebook where she meets other 'friends' of the nomadic nature. She did admit, however, that she would happily settle down and be BFF's with either Eddie McGuire or Donald Trump. Whoever gets in first i guess.

I asked her to construct her own Frankenstein, the result was a mixture of genetically blessed celebrities that when all their features mixed together would of looked God awful. At least this Frankenstein was given Paris Hiltons inheritance curtesy of Sam and her weariness of financial security.

I then asked her if she could swap some words in the english language for one another, what would they be?
She replied, 'i'd just jumble every word you just said so that it wouldn't make sense and i wouldn't have to answer it..'
I told her not to be a smart ass...

*For anyone interested her final decision on the word jumble was 'fucking legend' for 'Samantha'

Bing? What is Bing?

Who ever came up with this campaign is now sipping Old Raj martinis in diamond encrusted glasses around his personalised pool which has trained dolphins for sheer entertainment. Brilliant.