Nimrod

I have a job working at a feijoa orchard now. I've actually been there for at least a month. Its good points include the fact that it's literally a four minute drive away from my house, and that I have the opportunity to eat feijoas constantly as I work. I am responsible for picking the fruit -- both fresh ones from trees, and ones from the ground that are to be used by Marc Ellis's company Charlie's to make juice. It was supposed to be that I'd be required to grade and pack them as well, but it seems the owners are content having me strain my back outside of the packhouse (you'd be surprised how much of a toll being constantly bent over for eight and a half hours a day has on your body).

So this brings me to the bad points. The work is not exactly easy. Although picking fruit from the trees may be alright physically, it's very much a knack that one has to acquire to be able to determine which fruit are ripe and ready for picking, and which are the almost-ripe-but-not-really kind that Alison likes but that are apparently not fit for sale. Also, as with all jobs of this kind, the management are rubbish. The job advertisement on Student Job Search said I'd be paid twelve dollars an hour; upon my arrival for my interview I was told I'd start on ten dollars and fifty cents an hour, and work my way up once they felt I was picking the fruit quickly and efficiently enough. However, I've been there for at least a month, as I said, and I haven't received a pay rise. A quite well-skilled Brazilian worker who has been there since before me is also earning the same 'non-optimum' amount.

Almost all of the other pickers are Tuvaluans who understandably speak to each other in their native tongue as often as possible, because they are not very clear English speakers. This is not a racist sentiment I am expressing here, but it does make me feel alienated -- decidedly lonely -- when I'm told where to sit at lunchtime, away from their group, whilst they talk and laugh in another language and listen to loud music that is sung in another language with an irritating, cheap synthesised instrumental in the background. I started trying to strike up conversations with the Brazilian man, who also does not know much English, with significant success, but suddenly and without warning he stopped coming to work, so I tend to go home for my lunch now. It's a welcome chance to watch a snippet of bullshit daytime TV and speak to my sisters.

Obviously one of the most significant factors against my job is that the work is mundane, repetitive and boring and has me climbing up the walls once I get home at about four thirty in the afternoon. The fact that it's outdoors means that rainy days are not only depressing, but they actually have the physical effect of soaking me to the skin, and (oh my goodness no) leaking through the cover of my mobile and making the ink in my custom cover run. So I'm currently conceptualising a Sigur Ros cover to replace my Pink Floyd one that I've had since I bought the phone. There are also mosquitoes positively everywhere, and roosters that never shut the heck up. Yesterday, I stood in a rooster poo. It was as big as a rooster and almost made me slip over. But I've just rattled off a rant here and the job is in reality better than I have made it sound. It's good working so close to home, when the weather is good it is actually enjoyable to work outdoors, and the owners are flexible enough to allow me to work only on the two weekdays that I don't have uni, Tuesday and Wednesday -- though at the moment I am working full-time, since it is the holidays.

This is a low-quality-but-still-neat-to-listen-to recording of the Sigur Rós concert in Auckland last Monday (follow the initial link, then right-click and save target as IC_B_002.mp3), recorded by frenger.jp of the Sigur Rós Message Boards. I am still entranced by this concert, more than a week on, and all the music I've listened to since has been Sigur Rós. Listening to this recording now, I realise that Georg Holm's bass playing that night was so superb. Rather than the smooth, almost bass synth-esque sound that he usually contributes to Sigur Ros's music, the bass tone was coarse and throaty, while maintaining the long residual notes that are so important to the nature of the music. I really liked it. One of my favourite Sigur Ros moments is on Takk... when Georg's wonderful thrumming bassline carries the residual tinkling of Hoppípolla into Með Blóðnasir, and this was delivered even better live.

Jonsi's singing was at peak perfection as well. A highlight of the concert for me was the performance of Ný Batterí, where Jonsi alternated between vocal lines, from ethereally gentle baby-like coos to dramatic, emotional uses of the full capacity of his lungs. There were several points like this throughout the concert where I found myself getting quite choked up. Wow, I mean it was just brilliant. This recording of course doesn't do the experience proper justice, but for people who were at the concert in particular it is a great way to reminisce and tap into some of those amazing feelings again. All the memorable moments are there. As an aside, I discovered as I was writing my blog entry the other day that I share my birthday with Jonsi, when I saw the birthday thread on the Sigur Rós Message Boards. I thought that was pretty cool, personally...

I love how he sometimes shows this immense pain in his face when he sings, and it's down to the audience to interpret what is causing that pain, through the visuals and the music alone because we do not understand the Icelandic lyrics and in many cases Jonsi's not even singing in a real language at all. Sigur Rós are so good. And Jonsi is so good...