A Brother's Social Agony

It is a rare day that I do not consult Wikipedia for something. Today, in order to try and explain my recent social behaviour I needed to investigate phobias. Luckily for me Wikipedia has a list of phobias covering everything from Coulrophobia — fear of clowns, to Lorelai Gilmore's Arachnophobiaphobia — the fear of people who are afraid of spiders. Unluckily for me, however, there doesn't seem to be a scientific term (yet) for either a 'fear of socialising at night time', or a 'fear of witnessing heterosexual activity'. The latter has always been a major issue for me, in fact the actual problem does have a name and it is Androphobia - fear of males, it's just that the fear manifests itself when confronted by the sight males attempting to engage in the mating process with females. Unfortunately this is pretty much the standard activity for a large percentage of people on any given Friday or Saturday night, hence my fear of social gatherings.

And so on Friday one of my favourite bands, Camera Obscura, came to town. Although I had purchased a ticket, for several days prior to the show I considered not attending. Even when I turned up to the venue I still felt that I would be far too uncomfortable to hang around for any longer than it would take to scalp my ticket. As it turns out I did stay for the show but in order to do so I had to separate myself from my friends and blinker my focus directly at the stage.


The band's performance was quite good, hardly life affirming, but they're not really that sort of band that induces you to rip your shirt off and attempt to invade the stage. That said, although I was unable to view the rest of the crowd's reaction, I personally had a pleasant time mouthing all the words and bopping along to such personal favourites as Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken, If Looks Could Kill, Suspended From Class and Teenager. I was buoyed by the band performing the gorgeous I Love My Jean, and amused by Traceyanne morphing Let's Get Out Of This Country into Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al. However, I was a little disappointed with them not playing Eighties Fan from their much overlooked debut album Biggest Bluest Hi Fi.




I had perked up considerably by the end of the show, however still felt it imperative to depart immediately following some brief post-performance chatter. After a gig is when the heterosexuals really start to make their moves, and so I thought the sooner I was out of there and safely tucked up in bed the better.
I have a ticket to see Love Is All on Wednesday, but am very fearful of attending. I think the Love Is All crowd will be a lot more hipster orientated, and if Vice Magazine has taught us anything it's that hipsters love heterosexual activity and aren't afraid to shove it in people's faces. I'm expecting an uncomfortable evening.

Is It Wicked Not To Care?

It's often lamented that people don't write letters anymore. Some say it has become a lost art. Yet when Mohammed Bouyeri wanted to send an important message to Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali he went to great lengths to ensure she got it. Fearing the Dutch postal service may not be efficient as it could be, he decided the most effective form of delivery would be to stake the letter to the corpse of film-maker Theo van Gogh. Of course, this required van Gogh to actually become a corpse, but when you absolutely positively have to get it there overnight murder is only a minor obstacle.

During lunchtime today I had planned to purchase Ayaan Hirsi Ali's autobiography, Infidel. I strode directly from my office on the corner of Collins and Elizabeth streets, along Elizabeth, up through the Bourke St Mall and into Reader's Feast on the corner Swanston St. I approached purposefully the new non-fiction display, and without a glance sidewards, plucked the book from the shelf with all the calculated execution of a postman conducting his rounds. Or a murderer conducting his. With some time to err...kill before having to head back to work, I decided to peruse a few pages of the book before purchasing it. It was upon this perusal that I realised that the book wasn't quite what I expected. The book seemed to focus heavily on her life growing up in Somalia and Kenya. Now far be it for me to deny someone their youth, but I had figured the book would be a little more concerned with Ali's refugee status in Holland, her rise to Parliament and infamy as an outspoken critic of Islam and campaigner for women's rights. Obviously the point here is that her youth laid the foundation for the figure she would become, but I couldn't help feeling the urge to sigh "Come on, get to the good bits." And so like a NGO report into the situation in Sudan, the book was shelved.