Despite the rather dodgy weather, we spent most of yesterday afternoon wandering around Cockatoo Island, as part of this year’s Biennale of Sydney. For the three of us, the most memorable works were in stark contrast to each other: the playful work based around gym equipment, “Bush Power” and the dramatic, beautiful film, “Inferno 2013”.
“Bush Power” is a really fun work of art. The artists have combined gym equipment with lots of crazy things including a plastic human skeleton, hoses, and even child’s swimming pool. As you use the equipment, there’s a range of flow-on effects: sometimes what you do produces music, other times, it can lead to the production of bubbles. There were a lot of smiles amongst those who viewed and participated in the work.
In stark contrast was the film, “Inferno”. With lots of strong Jewish religion imagery, the film contrasts religious belief and practice a few thousand years ago with today. We sat there, quietly mesmerised by the film’s pure emotion and beauty.
Other interesting and memorable works included: the giant waterfall by Eva Coch, the “smoking houses” by Randi and Katrine, the videoscape by Nathan Gray (in the abandoned bomb shelter) and the soundscape by Sonia Leber and David Chesworth. And of course, the “ghost train” by Callum Morton.
Eva Koch, I AM THE RIVER, 2012Randi & Katrine, The Village, 2014Gerda Steiner & Jorg Lenzlinger, Bush Power, 2014Gerda Steiner & Jorg Lenzlinger, Bush Power, 2014
The things we all really liked about the day were the broad variety of works and the beautiful way in which they were presented (some seriously good projectors and screens). And of course, the amazing environment you find at Cockatoo Island. I’d highly recommend a visit.
Earlier today, I spotted a couple of teenagers painting graffiti on the wall of Lismore’s levee, previously hidden behind the former RSL Club.
The club closed almost twenty years ago, after going into receivership. More recently, the building was home to First Steps Early Learning Centre. The building was damaged beyond repair in the floods earlier this year, and only a shell remains.
The former RSL Club turned childcare centre.
But on the positive side, the demolition of the building has opened a view of the levee previously hidden. Already there is a fair bit of public art along the levee bank, but I thought today how wonderful would it be to have parkland along the river, with the levee serving as a giant canvas for the artistic creativity of the region.
Graffiti on the levee bank in Lismore.
Graffiti is not everyone’s cup of tea, but hopefully, there might be room for all types of art as Lismore rebuilds.
I’m back in Lismore after a break of several weeks, and there’s room for optimism, with an increasing number of shops open in the CBD.
Lismore’s legendary Tropicana has re-opened.
“Keen Street is the best”, one of the women at Tropicana (a fruit and vegetable shop) told me when I called in today. For several months Keen Street has been a construction zone. Money that was approved prior to the floods has been put to good use for post-flood reconstruction.
Not many shops are open, but at least the lights are back on in the Star Court Arcade.Back in Lismore.
In the last five to ten years, Melodifestivalen, the Swedish final leading to Eurovision, has been plagued by controversy.
The controversy derives almost completely from the complex voting system. In what seems to me like a giant national version of “scissors, paper, rock”, there’s a popular vote (telephone voting), a Swedish Jury vote, and now an International Jury Vote with one or both cancelling out the decision of the others.
On top of that, there are four heats leading to the final, and there’s something called “Andra Chansen” (another chance) which sometimes means a third-rate song from an earlier heat still has a chance of making it through to represent Sweden.
The voting system has led to some controversial decisions. In 2005, for example, Nanne Gronvall won the popular vote for the contest, but Martin Stenmarck won the jury vote.
Other times, you have to wonder about who votes. Last year, for example, Anna Bergendahl was selected to represent Sweden. Weeks later, her song – which I like very much – had disappeared from the Swedish charts while runner-up Eric Saade was still top of the charts. And then at Eurovision, poor Anna made history when she failed to make the Eurovision Final. It was a “day of national mourning” for the Swedes, as Sweden has a pretty good reputation for pop songs and has won Eurovision a number of times.
During the week, Danny and Eric camped it up a bit for the media.
For just a moment, this morning, I thought Sweden was about to stuff it up again. As I woke early this morning, and went immediately to the SVT (Swedish TV) website a bloke called “The Moniker” with his song “Oh My God” appeared to be doing very well. In fact, for a brief moment he was ahead in the international voting section, the Swedish voting section and he seemed to be getting a good response from the audience at Globen, the sports arena in Stockholm where Melodifestivalen is held.
“Oh My God”, I thought to myself. “They’re going to send the third rate version of Mika to Eurovision”. But thankfully, in the end, Eric Saade – last year’s bridesmade, never a bride – made it through.
Eric Saade gets the news he has won Melodifestivalen
Oddly enough, I like his song from last year a little bit more. Even though “Man Boy” had a pretty dodgy lyric “Manboy, manboy you can call me manboy” the lyric for this year is even worse. “Stop, don’t say it’s impossible, because I know it’s possible” is not a great opening line, is it? Still it’s a fun, memorable song, and he performs it well, and he has a bit of the boyish charm that Alexander Ryback from Norway had a couple of years ago. So don’t tell me it’s impossible, because I know it’s possible Sweden just might have half a chance of doing well in this year’s Eurovision.
Chatting with my friend, The Best Judge tonight there was a collective sigh of relief that Sweden hadn’t stuffed it up again.
Despite the lack of initial planning, Saturday unfolded into an unexpected “pub crawl” adventure.
Originally, my agenda included a lunchtime workshop at Surry Hills Library, organised by friends, followed by an event hosted by the 4A Art Gallery. Still recuperating from my operation, I find daytime naps essential for my recovery, typically lasting five minutes. This time, though, my brief rest in bed stretched into a couple of hours. On waking, I messaged my friends to convey my apologies, and they later shared the success of the workshop, bringing some relief.
Later in the afternoon, I hopped on a bus to Sydney University for the 4A Art Gallery event, known for showcasing contemporary art, primarily by Australians with an Asian heritage. Expressing my enthusiasm for the gallery, I shared with my friends that I’ve acquired a few art pieces from there.
Upon arrival, it became apparent that I had overlooked the details, as the sole art form exhibited was a video projection, and the main attraction was a lineup of youthful DJs. Despite being old enough to be parents to the majority present, we didn’t feel out of place. “This has a late ’90s/early 2000s vibe,” remarked one friend, as the event featured enough music samples from our youth to evoke a sense of nostalgia in the midst of contempoary beats.
DJ in chain mail, for Club 4A
After a couple of hours, we made our way to Newtown, securing window seats at both The Newtown and The Coopers pubs, enhancing the experience on the delightful afternoon. Engaged in conversation, we relished observing the lively crowd strolling along King Street.
Climbing the rainbow staircase at The Coopers Hotel, Newtown.
As the evening progressed with a few beers and wines, fatigue set in once again, prompting my return to Surry Hills. And no, it wasn’t because I got legless!
The post-COVID lockdown era and numerous renovations brought a pleasant surprise—the renowned Turkish restaurant, Erciyes on Cleveland Street, had reopened. Ericyes is the location where many people have grabbed late night kebabs, Turkish sweets, or have enjoyed a meal. My particular favourite there, over the years, has been the Egg Penirli.
Erciyes Turkish Restaurant, Cleveland Street
Though I still have a LONG WAY TO GO in my recovery, I feel like, slowly, life is returning to some kind of normality.
There was a moment a few days ago when a couple of older family members took an afternoon nap, and I was awfully tempted to join them. But I had work to do.
I think my family has been slightly bemused by me working from home this week. While they’ve all mostly had fairly manual jobs, by their reckoning, I spend my life listening to the radio, having phone and video conferences, and writing and sending emails. They’ve been surprised by the length of my day, and by the fact I can simultaneously have conversations with them, AND do my job.
While many people take a break at this time of the year, it’s one of my busiest. I still try to come home every year, and for the most part, will work from the local office during the day, and see my family at night. But this year around, after almost a year of working from home, it’s been great to be able to use the VPN, and spend a little more time with my family.
Aside from showing signs of ageing, they all seem well. I’m no longer the younger family member; I’m more around the middle these days. The older family members are relying on me more, and the younger ones are looking up to me for advice.
There was a funny moment the other day when a younger family member had the sudden realisation of where I fitted into the family. He’d previously only known me as “Uncle Jim”, without really understanding my place in the family. He also seemed surprised to discover that I’d travelled around most of the country and much of the world. “You’re a bit more interesting than I’d thought”, was the look that appeared to cross his face.
Earlier in my life, I couldn’t wait to get back to Sydney after coming home for Christmas. You know what it’s like when you’re young and you think NYE is the most exciting night of the year? . But now, I’m looking more towards a retirement life in Lismore, and I’m enjoying hanging out with my family.
One of the lovely highlights of each year is sitting around with my family, going through some old photographs, and digitising them. Every year, it seems there’s a new collection of photographs emerging from a biscuit tin, envelope or such.
Back in the good old days of mud pies!My first day of school. “If you wore pants that high these days, the other kids would bash you up”, my nephew told me.Wearing a home-made ABBA t-shirt in early 1979, by my estimate.
It’s also been lovely to catch up with extended family and some old school friends. There was one I’d hoped to catch up with, but didn’t hold much hope, as his partner has recently developed a spinal injury, and they’re spending a lot of time in care and rehabilitation. But we caught up for a glass of wine, which was lovely. I ran into another old school friend at Office Works. I also visited one of my aunties. She’s now 92 years old and still living at home, with strong support from her children. She’s still physically very healthy, but showing some signs of ageing. Though her memories remain fairly strong, she’s not very good with names. “What’s your name, again?”, she asked me several times. Once we had established that, we were able to continue chatting.
I’ve been to the shopping centre a few times, but haven’t seen anyone I know. The same at the Worker’s Club and at the Civic Hotel. Twelve months ago, The Civic was celebrating “Tropical Fruits”. Things were a little more downplayed this year. And downmarket!
“The shopping centre looks better than this time last year”, I told my friend Paul over a glass of wine. Nearly four years ago the town was devastated by a major flood, and many shops shut down permanently. Paul says things still haven’t fully recovered, but there didn’t seem to be as many closed shops as the last time when I was home, which was half way through this year.
Flood marker at the Stockpot Kitchen in the centre of Lismore
As I’ve wandered around town, I’ve kept looking at things and remembering how they were different when I was growing up here. Such and such shop was there, the phone boxes were there, that’s where the tennis courts were. That kind of thing.
“Is that it? Is that all there is?”, I overhead some visitors say, a bit surprised at how “short” this year’s Tropical Fruits Street Parade was. I was a little inclined to agree, as I remembered the last parade I attended seemed to be a little larger, and there were more people on the streets watching.
The start of the Tropical Fruits street parade, which is on Bundjalung Widgibal land, now known as Lismore, my home town.Tropical FruitsAnd now the party begins at the Lismore City Hall
At the Tropical Fruits launch with the awesome former Mayor of Lismore, @JennyRDowellTwo lads from Lismore. With Maude Boate at the Tropical Fruits launch in Lismore.
“I hadn’t realised it was so soon after his death when the book was released”, I told my friend. We had just been to see a screening of the movie version of “Holding The Man” at Sydney’s Verona Cinema. We were right in the midst of the film in many ways. St Vincent’s Hospital. “The Wall”. “I could lead a walking tour of the area covered in the film”, I joked. A couple of people at the pedestrian crossing laughed out loud. At the end of the film, the credits tell you Timothy Conigrave completed the book at the end of 1994 and died ten days later.
Buying that book, sometime in 1995, is one of my first memories of moving to Sydney. As I wrote a few years ago…
When I first moved to Sydney one of the things that most impressed me about the place was the late night book-store, Ariel. Having spent all of my life in the country (I include my four years in Brisbane in that), I’d found myself suddenly living in Australia’s largest city. And one of the great things about that was that I could walk up to Oxford Street and purchase a book at the oddest hours.
I swear it must have been about nine o’clock on a Tuesday night when I bought, “Holding The Man”, because I’m pretty sure I was late for work the next day. It was sometime in 1995, though I’m not exactly sure when, when I walked to Oxford Street, bought the book and came straight home to read it. It must have been three or four am when I finished reading the book.
In such a short period of time I had never experienced so much laughter and tears, as the story of Tim and John was revealed to me. From their furtive teenage sexual encounters to their deaths from AIDS in the early 90s, it was such an incredibly well told beautiful story, made incrediblY strong by its absolute authenticity. Indeed, it was an authenticity which cut a swathe through the emotions of so many of my peers.
A few years later, I went to the opening night of the play, and wrote about the apprehension I felt that was soon swept away…
By the play’s end, however, I was in tears. But as emotional as it was for me, I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for those who knew Tim and John. I was sitting next to Noel Hodda, for example, one of the founding members of Griffin Theatre Company which Tim was a part of. Also in the audience was Penny Cook, a close friend of Tim’s, who was referred to in the play. As the play deals graphically with the impact of HIV/AIDS – “a footballer who loses his body and an actor who loses his mind” – it must have been quite harrowing for them to go over some of those experiences again. Or maybe it was cathartic? But for me it was probably one of the best nights of theatre I’ve ever enjoyed, with a tremendous ensemble cast and faultless direction and staging…
I felt a similar sense of apprehension about seeing the movie. “How can they possibly cover such an important story in a film”, I worried.
Holding The Man
Overall, I didn’t laugh as much (or cry as much) as I did in either the book or the play. But in lots of other ways, I gained some really amazing new insights into the story.
“Tim was a really flawed character”, my friend said, as we walked along Oxford Street. To be honest, before seeing the movie I’d never really thought that before. But there’s a moment in the movie when the lecturer at NIDA says to Tim something along the lines of him always wanting to be the centre of attention, which kinda re-enforces that idea. I also thought the film was far more “sympathetic” (I’m not sure if that’s the right word) towards John, as we watch his sad, slow, drawn out death. Though Tim is there with John to the end, you’re left with an almost incomplete view of how difficult Tim’s own final days must have been.
This is not a criticism of the film. Quite the opposite. It’s meant to demonstrate how the film differs from the book and the play, and how each of these different manifestations has made me think deeply about this story. This is not simply a word for word adaptation of the book.
The script is great, the acting’s great, and it’s beautifully filmed.
