what rhymes with chaos?

Pocket Hipster app

Have you ever been walking down the street, thinking about messaging that enigmagnetic boy/girl when suddenly the thought "I WISH I HAD AN IPHONE APP THAT MADE FUN OF MY MUSIC CHOICES!" assailed you like a blunt instrument to the solar plexus?

If the answer to this question is 'yes ma'am!' then boy have I got news for you! The brand new POCKET HIPSTER app is now available. I provided the voices for 'Sebastian Fowler' the pretentious English hipster and 'Atticus Jackson' the too-cool-for-any-kind-of-educational-learning-facility Californian hipster. I also wrote some of their ridiculous one-liners. The app makes fun of your music, and also you, and guides you to music that is better than yours.*Note: neither of these voices is my actual voice. I am using my magical superpower known as 'voice pretending', also known to layfolk as 'acting.'

You can get it from the itunes app store or just click here.

Amusingly I don't own an iphone, so now in addition to not owning a device that can read the digital version of my novel, I also can't watch and enjoy this app that I voiced. Oh great and sage-like Alanis Morrissette, what are your thoughts on this matter?

 

 

PS thanks to the kids at JosephMark for having me on board for this project. I had twelve kinds of fun.

 

Gatsby 8 bit

Great Gatsby, the eight bit video game? YES PLEASE!

 

*sidenote: the wikipedia entry for 'Saturn Return' lists both this book and my novel A Beginner's Guide to Dying in India as literary references. This pleases me in strange and unusual ways.

Dear vending machine in the emergency ward at the Royal Brisbane hospital: I hate you.

Not only do you have the motherfucking nerve to charge $2.70 for a nestle crunch bar, but open insertion of my hard earned currency, you fail to deliver said exorbitantly priced confectionary. Not only this, but considering how long it took to get the clerical staff to admit my chronically ill progenitor I was correct in doubting  that their attention would be adequately focused on this new dilemma.

Subsequent to this thwarting of my attempt to gain endorphin inducing comfort food, I ventured to the hospital cafe in the hope of acquiring some delicious sustenance and time away from staring at the floor in the emergency ward listening to the anecdotes of speed freaks. (Sidenote: no one should ever bother with government sponsored 'kids, don't do drugs videos,' just show them a ten minute video of some toothless guy detailing his colourful medical history and all should be well.) Sadly however, the proprietors of the ingeniously named 'Nescafe cafe' had elected to provide their patrons with a selection of rave music to enjoy with their cardboard and sock flavoured food. I do not use the term 'rave music' erringly, I am an aficiando of electronic music, not some grandma who yells 'that's not music!' as soon as an 808 clap comes within earshot, and this was pill popping, foot stomping, reach for the lasers hands to the ceiling can't stop the feeling let's all get reeling RAVE music.

In a hospital cafe. At 2pm. Like this, only much, much worse:

 

I've often heard it said that vending machines kill more people every year than sharks. Is it not then time for us to massacre at least one malevolent machine in retribution? People are always worried about computers evolving artificial intelligence and beginning a skynet style war against humanity. I say that's looking in the wrong place. The vending machines of the world are already stealing from and killing our citizens. At the very least, should be not pit these two foes against one another in an en masse battle to the death?

  VS

THEY MUST BE STOPPED.

For those of you less inclined to the unsubtle but nonetheless irrefutably effective means of extreme violence, there is the option of placing a simple 'OUT OF ORDER' sign on any and all vending machines in your vicinity. Starved of their lifeblood (money) vending machines will assuredly be forced to move to other habitats in search of sustenance, until eventually resorting to cannibalism and devouring each other in a scene not unlike the finale of the Transformers movie, but with better acting.

 

 

100 Stories for QLD

Dearest humans of earth.

These are times, no question about it. We've had floods and cyclones and enough strange and near-apocalyptic weather that people are beginning to wonder if that terrible John Cusask movie 2012 wasn't actually a documentary filmed in the future.

 

The good news is that there is something you can do to make the world a better place. The first is to never see a goddam Roland Emmerich movie again, because let's face it the world is a dark enough place without his heinously melodramatic disaster porn.

The other thing you can do is buy and subsequently read 100 stories for QLD; an anthology that brings together writers from around the world in an anthology of short stories to raise money for the flood victims. My short story Stunt Kite is featured. It's about your weird neighbour. Yeah, you know the one. Those of you with functioning mathematical faculties will have determined that this means that there are 99 other stories by other writers, most of whom are talented, more successful and better looking than me.

Anyway the point is that instead of engaging in stereotypical writerly behaviour (alchoholic nihilistic hermeticism) we've come together to create this anthology of great stories and 100% of all proceeds will go to the flood victims. So you get a great collection of stories, the flood victims get a little bit of a helping hand, and I get an excuse to write a blog entry mocking Roland Emmerich. Everybody wins! The book is out March 8 and you should buy between 1 and 6 million copies, depending on your financial status. (Tony Abbott, I'm looking at you!)

Now let's all sing along with Bill Withers:

 

The Price is Free

Dear the Government,

How are you?  I know that you are rather busy unreasonably oppressing refugess in direct violation of the UN charter that you signed, but I wondered if you might address something for me.

 

The thing is; I love libraries. At a library I can instantly attain one of the things that I love most in the world: books. Not only this, but I can sit and read them in air conditioning with a view of the river and really weird fluroscent lighting, all for zero dollars. This is convenient as it just so happens that free is my favourite price. Not to play the poor starving artist card, but as it happens I am a poor starving artist. It says so right here, where I wrote it in purple texta:

    This is a picture of a piece of card with the

words 'I am a starving artist' written in purple

texta.

This ironically means that I can’t afford to buy lots of books. Thus libraries are wonderful. The only problem however, is that whilst reading a book I am temporarily prevented from writing books of my own. If I were to attempt to do such a thing my books would basically just be regurgitations of whatever books I was reading in a specific time period. This kind of thing is called plagiarism and is generally frowned upon, unless your name is James Cameron in which case people like to give you academy awards and several billion dollars for being very extremely good at plagiarism.

I would like the goverment to set up other services where I can get things that I enjoy for free. Here is a list for your convenience:

Booze.

Nature (this used to be free, but is not mostly owned by rich jerks who build giant fences.)

Sex.

Food (but not the dead animal flesh kind).

Art (the good kind, not the I-went-to-art-school-because-I-wanted-an-excuse-to-wear this-yellow-lycra-jumpsuit kind.)

Video games.

Foot rubs.

If you could get right on that it would be very much appreciated. In turn I will continue to pay my tax dollars which I earn through selling my books to people who are allergic to libraries. By current estimates by tax contirubtion is 0.00000000000000000000000000000000314% of the national GDP and in light of this fact I would think that you would take this suggestion very seriously.

Thankyou and I hope you have a lovely day incarcerating people who are escaping from war-torn countries.

 

Yours Since Clearly,

JM Donellan

 

This is an artpiece made of art by an artist that says' Todo Esta Muy Caro' which is spanish for 'everything is very expensive.' If the artist had been working in Australia, he may have instead written 'todo esta muy, muy fucking caro.' Except that we probably wouldn't have let him in account of that fact that he spoke foreign talky sounds. And even worse, is an artist.