Helpmann Awards 2013

Saw the 13th Annual Helpmann Awards tonight.  That is, I was in the Opera Theatre where they were being presented.  In the flesh.  Not watching TV.

It was my first awards ceremony.  Professional awards ceremony, anyway.  It was in desperate need of a dramaturg to tighten up the structure, but all awards ceremony must suffer in that way, I suppose.

I’m too utterly sick of life to describe what happened.  Needless to say that there were good bits, tedious bits, and my curiosity has been sated.  I doubt I’d go next year (assuming I was invited), but you never know.  Part of the problem was that, strangely enough, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to convince any friends to accompany you to a four hour awards ceremony.  Strange that.  The problem being that poor little me had no one to talk to, which made the afterparty interesting.  I sculled two glasses of champagne, had some warm sundried tomato on pastry thingy, and a mini-pork-pie (or some type of meat), before I hustled out of the Western Foyer, where the party was being held.

Anyway, pangs of depression being sometimes able to be warded off by writing, I did this on the train, and shall now inflict it on you, dear reader:

What use is my persona held in this
Bright neutral world?  It waits upon the slip –
From joy, from cares, from all and naught and all
Again – and yet the Earth ne’er registers
The aberration.  I would lose this soul –
I’d spray my beating blood into the wind –
And not a dwell on loss would flit the nerves.
Yes, yes, obliteration is the bed
That none expect is warm, but that’s where I
Will gladly be cocooned, and shipped in that
Last metamorphosis that wings us all
Away.  The artist should leave air behind,
Withdraw his hand and leave his scratch to stay.
Yes, writers should be architects, and leave
Only their labour’s edifice.  What use
Is there in trophies, armies silent on
The shelf?  What extra happiness if all
The work is done, and typed, and printed – none!
The minor joys – from smirks in stalls and thrills
From pretty compliments – are but the garden ’round
The artefact.  To be remembered, that
Alone is…is…is what I…I would want
To nudge a grin a hundred years from now,
Or pull a tear from future stones.  Yes, that
Is why I strive, to set the chance before
The final sigh, but satisfaction has
To come from snaring well and catching traps
Sublime, and not the drool of praise-made drips.
Give me the canvas void and I will take
The joy of filling that which was a vacuum.
This form of mine is nothing but a conduit,
And the pipe should not be used to store.
Let that which stays keep that that wants to stay;
And live to briefly carry that which wants to pass.

Good lord is that disjointed when I read it back.  Yikes.  I like the bit about “the garden ’round the artefact”, but the rest is useless, most likely.  “Canvas void” is nice.

The point being that, sitting there for four hours, I came to the realisation that, whatever the reason I write, it isn’t to win an award.

And now I shall sleep and hope that my soul is brighter tomorrow.

69/whatever.