The topic for the month of february is : urban planning

I figured out the laughing with the help of this guy. But feel free to send me your laughter anyway.

I'm trying to record laughter but it's not going all too well. My friends find it hard to laugh under pressure. Is there anyone who has a nice heartfelt laugh that I could borrow? Needs to be female.

ADVERTISEMENT

Are you a band looking to record some songs? Try my friends at Studio Sonores. It's not the fanciest studio in the world, it's in an old bomb shelter, it's a bit cold in there and inconvenient to get to. But as opposed to most other studios they understand that music sometimes wants to sound warm, wobbly and fuzzy, like a seaotter sleeping in a toaster. If you know what I mean. I don't like studios in general or the people who work in them, that's why I love Studio Sonores.

That's the Melbourne skyline seen from Ruckers Hill, as I remember it. I used to go there every night, look at the city and think "This is where I live now."

But I don't live there anymore. Things got too complicated, I couldn't rent an apartment or a work space since I didn't have a proper visa. I couldn't get a job and I had the strangest insurance and healthcare arrangments. I was technically on a very very very long vacation.

Maybe it's because the sun goes down before I go up here. Maybe it's because I've listened to Who Are You from the Twerps album 50 times in a row today. But I miss Melbourne a lot right now. I miss my best friend D. I miss our plans to get married to get me into the country. I miss the excitement over the arrangment in itself, it is after all the only form of relationship that is truly open and honest about its intentions. I miss our talks, my cynicism vs. her optimism. I miss how she always won the argument.

But in the end, the sham marriage is a much too great story to be kept a secret. At least when you make a living from telling stories. I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut or not write a song about it.

It's not a huge problem, there are worse problems in the world. You make a decision and then you deal with it, that's what my old shrink used to say. But the dream planted a seed and the seed grew into a tree and I'm just not sure how to chop that thing down.

Tell him.

I'm reading a book. It's a book about the climate changes, it's thick and it covers a lot of evolutionary theory. It talks about spandrels, characteristics that are simply byproducts of another characteristic. It talks about the chin.

"The chin is where it is because it is the only bridge that can merge the human jawbone, whose function for the organism is obvious - to allow food intake. But the chin as such has never been subject to natural selection. It lacks adaptive origin."

I put the book back on the shelf. Anyone with a heart (and a chin) knows that the function of the chin is so much more than a bridge between our jawbones. It's there to be kept up when the times are hard. It's there to lean against a lovers shoulder, or rest against a clenched fist. It's there to measure the length of a tear, a finishing line if you will. How could these features not have affected natural selection?

I'm waiting for the tram, the famous number seven, when the number one passes by. I look up and see an advertisement for Laleh. It's a concert. At Scandinavium. Laleh is playing at Scandinavium!

There used to be a song contest at our school in Hammarkullen, like a mini Eurovision. The kids got to write songs, have someone perform them, and then everyone got to vote. It was one of the highlights of the year. In year nine I remember watching the rehearsals with my heavy metal friends, snickering like Beavis and Butthead at all the cheesy lovesongs. Then a young girl from year seven stepped up and started singing and it was the most beautiful voice I've ever heard. It melted even the heaviest metal. We just sat there.

The summer after she called me, said her name was Laleh, said she got my number from Tommy who got it from Farzad who got it from someone. She had heard I played guitar and maybe I could help her form a band to play her songs? I gathered up a drummer and a saxophonist and got a rehearsal space. We played the local youth centers, it was a bit hit and miss. Laleh was great, but we weren't the right band for her. Too inexperienced, in music and in life.

Just before we fell out of touch I asked her to listen to one of my songs. She said she really liked it. I blushed. I'm not sure what happened after that, my diary pages from that time doesn't tell. But what they do tell is that I all of a sudden started writing songs like crazy. It was like the cambrian explosion. I was inspired.

I'm sure Laleh could sell out Scandinavium anytime, she's a star. But it just hasn't hit me until I saw this advertisement on the tram today. Scandinavium. That's huge! I work around the corner from there, in the shadow of that building, I'm gonna go and get a ticket on my lunchbreak.

On the topic of platonic love, which I think we should make the topic of this month:

"Armisen and Brownstein text each other every night before bed. Brownstein says of their friendship, "Sometimes I think it's the most successful love affair either of us will ever have." Both claim that it wouldn't work if they were romantically involved. "It would be colder, because we've both treated our romantic relationships in a cold way," Armisen says. "Carrie and I are more romantic than any other romantic relationship I've ever had - that sense of anticipation about seeing the other person, the secret bond. But things don't become obligatory. I'm not thinking, I'm doing this because you're my girlfriend; I'm just thinking, I love Carrie.""