The Loose Connections Recommender #24

On Turning Lemons Into Lemonade & Other Useful Cliches To Abide By

I was in the supermarket carpark yesterday, lugging bags of groceries and heading for my trusty ute, when I heard loud men’s voices behind me. Yelling. Swearing. Immediately I stood up a little taller and tried to emanate don’t fuck with me vibes.

As they got closer I could hear one yelling ‘Fuck it! Fuck the shops! Fuck the shopping!’ and my stomach lurched. Then they appeared in view and I saw they were a couple of middle aged, sweet faced Greek fellas, and they were laughing and patting each other on the back. The other one yelled back ‘Yes! Fuck the shops! Let’s go sit in the garden!’ and then they walked on laughing uproariously and I breathed out with relief and resumed my standard god these bags are heavy crab walk. Their back story will always remain a mystery I ponder at 2am but whatever occurred, they made a great choice at the end to resolve the frustrating mystery situation by going to sit in the garden.

I recently had a similar moment of my own. Feeling somewhat beleaguered by life and its seemingly insurmountable demands, not the least of which was a veritable mountain of boxes that had sailed over the seas from Los Angeles to Sydney to land out front of my house and demand I welcome them into my already overcrowded home. Two lives converged and made one terrible mess. For weeks all I did was sort through stuff and throw things out. I could barely cook dinner let alone work on any of my creative projects which were all crumbling into the quicksand I felt I was standing upon.

I am one of those probably annoying people always seeing silver linings and bright spots and lights at the end of the tunnel but I felt pretty dark. Grim. My buddy Andrew was in the area and popped by to say hi and laugh at me in my hell of boxes and because he has a great eye for the absurd he joked we should make a music video. Knowing I had a new sequin dress* on my rack just waiting for action and a single coming out the next week and could actually really use a video, I said, let’s do it. So we did.

Andrew engaged in the glamorous business of making music videos

I think it’s turned out pretty good. And after turning those lemons into lemonade, I felt so much better.

Fuck life, make art!

The Best Things In Life Are Free (Except Records).

Don’t Play What’s There, Play What’s Not There. (Thank you Miles Davis)

Make Good Choices.

Every Cloud Has A Silver Sequinned Lining.

• Another thing I’m rather ecstatic about is that Transatlantic Light, the album I’ve been trying to make and making with The Great Beyond since 2018 is READY TO ROCK and available for pre-order on clear pink exclusive limited edition vinyl via Impressed Recordings. GO GET IT!

You can pre-order on Bandcamp here. I’ll be talking more about this album but truly, I love it so much and everyone involved with bringing it to life. I think you’ll love it too.

• You know what else is pure gold? These brilliant Radio L’Envie playlists curated by Paul duFrene. You are sure to find all kinds of music you haven’t heard and will now love - his maxim is Trust Curators Not Algorithms which I endorse heartily. Also here on IG.

• I also love this exhibition by Australian artist Sara Phemister. Her vibrant works burst with love and colour and joy and fill me with the same. I was thrilled to notice my own book Lovers Dreamers Fighters in this painting of her bookshelf (fourth from left!)! And I listened in to the speech made by the curator of Tyger Gallery who said a beautiful thing about how when you buy a piece of art, you’re not just buying art, but all the years of experiments and experiences and failures that went into making the final product. Hell yeah.

  

  Artworks by Sara Phemister

Thank you for hanging out in my loose corner of the world with me today, making lemonade and talking about art and music.

‘Til next weekend,

Lo x

PS You know the drill, please press the heart below, comment or share if you enjoyed cos I love it when you do that and it helps Substack algorithms recommend me!

*I wrote a few Recommenders back about needing more sequins in my life, and soon after, Jules, an extraordinarily talented seamstress who made costumes for film with my mum for years and then toured forever as Tina Turner’s personal costumier and now sells her one off creations made from her stash of gorgeous fabrics on Instagram at doss_handmade, put up the sequin dress for sale and I just knew I had to have it. Serendipity.