It’s Saturday night in Lismore. It’s still warm. I’ve just watched “The Bill”. There’s a few things to report from the last few days, so I thought I’d take the time to write a few words.
New Years Eve? I spent that watching television – “Absolutely Fabulous” and “Gimme Gimme Gimme” were screening on ABC-TV which made for a very nice and relaxed way to see out the new year. I watched the Sydney fireworks on television and felt, briefly, that perhaps I should have gone back to Sydney.
The sound of the “Tropical Fruits” dance party – held at the Lismore Showground – was, however, a pleasant reminder that a quiet life can also be a good one. The music was loud enough to keep me awake for a while. Although I had toyed with the idea of going to the party, I’m glad I didn’t as I’m sure it could have turned out to be a messy experience. Photographs in the newspaper over the last few days have suggested to me it was a combination of dirty smelly lezzo hippies and dance party boys that would have made me feel a little uncomfortable.
I did, however, go out on the gay scene last night, visiting the karaoke night at “The Winsome”. It was actually quite enjoyable, although the crowd was the sort of crowd I wouldn’t think twice about hanging around with in Sydney. I don’t mean that in a bitchy way, I just mean if I walked into a bar and saw the same twenty people sitting there I would have walked to another bar or have moved on. I hope that reads okay and doesn’t make me sound like a total bitch… but you know what I mean.
The only other things I have done over the last few days are watch television and read the newspapers… and occasionally hop onto the internet.
I’ve just arrived home after The Other Andrew and I went to the closing night of this year’s Sydney Film Festival. It’s been a busy few weeks for me with travel planning taking up a fair amount of my non-work time, and so I haven’t bothered much with the festival this year, aside from the opening night a few weeks back.
I hadn’t even looked at the program, and wasn’t really all that aware of this year’s closing night movie until I read something about it on the internet earlier today. “French animation” was how I described it to Andrew when I called him mid-afternoon, whatever that means.
Before the film itself started a number of thankyous were made and a number of “people’s choice” awards were announced. A new award for films of less than one minute in duration (sponsored by Telstra with the mobile phone market in mind) was also announced. I thought the “people’s choice” mobile film was lame. To me it looked like a mini video-clip or a trailer for a longer film. I didn’t get any sense of “mobile cinema” about it at all. In contrast, I really liked the one chosen by the expert panel. It was a film about how the town of Gosford, near Sydney, was dying and in desperate need of some tender loving care. It was funny, heart-warming, well-made and conceived. And it looked like it had been shot on a mobile phone.
State Theatre
I also really liked the closing night film, Persepolis which is described on Wikipedia in these terms…
The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, and shows how her family’s hopes for change were slowly dashed as the Islamic fundamentalists took power, drastically curtailing personal liberties, forcing head coverings on women and imprisoning thousands; the story ends with Marjane as a 21-year-old expatriate.
The story was well-told, funny, touching, and very memorable. Marjane is a great character. She’s feisty, has a sense of humour, and is a great survivor. Indeed, the song, “Eye Of The Tiger” by the band “Survivor” plays an important role in the film. There’s only one occasion when she wallows in some self-pity, but then she quickly fights back. The character of her grandmother is also excellent. With memorable lines such as “a first marriage is only practice for the second”, she comes across as a really amazing person who obviously saw a lot of changes during her life in Iran.
The film also helped me better understand some of those changes. Although I was alive for the Iranian revolution in the 1970s, I wasn’t really all that aware of what happened and why. This film helped fill in some of the gaps in my own knowledge, and I suspect for a lot of people in the audience.
All except the people sitting in front of us and to our left. “I blame DVD’s”, said Andrew as an explanation for why they would think it was a good idea to take off their shoes and put them on the arms of nearby chairs. “And rudness”, he added. I also wanted to punch the hippies sitting in front of us. Not only did they talk during the opening credits, leave their mobile phones on (one of them actually rang during the film), but they were also constantly moving around. As their heads moved around I couldn’t help but notice their unwashed hair. Ugh.
But if we thought their use of a mobile phone was surprising, it was even more surprising to see the number of mobile phones which emerged during the closing credits. As we looked down at the people in front of us (in more ways than one) a sea of mobile phone lights emerged before our eyes. I don’t imagine they were all doctors and nurses on 24-hour emergency call.
Honestly, they didn’t need safety lights at the State Theatre tonight, they could have just relied on the mobile phone glow. It was like being at a pop concert in the 70s when, instead of candles swaying back and forth, it was mobile phones which provided the light.
We had plans to meet to exchange the wonderful eeepc which had been such a wonderful gift during my recent sojourn in Europe. I used it to blog my travels on a daily basis, and even if I couldn’t actually blog daily due to an absence of wireless connections, it was far more convenient than using an internet cafe to record my thoughts as I travelled.
Yulli’s Surry Hills
After we quickly established the difference between a WEP and a WPA connection (as I recall), Damo discovered it was going to be a fairly easy tool to use, so long as there were wifi connections in the part of China he was travelling to. That remains an unconfirmed matter, of course.
And even though there were some issues with a smaller keyboard and the lack of an external mouse, we were both confident after a short-while they could be overcome.
It’s only two weeks til Damo leaves and he’s a little bit stressed about things. I suspect the break tonight helped him relax a bit, which is a good thing after all he’s been through over the last few months. :)
Without wishing to misquote him, I suspect he was mightily impressed with Yulli’s, a new bar on Crown Street, Surry Hills. Most memorable were the dolmades, along with the “chips” which included a range of vegetarian options.
The bar was still as comfortable as when Michaela and I visited a few weels ago. We had a great night, and the staff, as per last time, were extremely accommodating. A great place for a Monday night.
Susannah Place is a series of four terraces located at The Rocks in Sydney which were built in 1844 by an Irish family. The houses were kept in the family for many years, and were mostly rented out to working class families.
Throughout most of the period of European settlement, The Rocks began to develop a “colourful reptuation”, which continued throughout the nineteenth century, culminating in the notorious “Push Gangs” which dominated the area in the 1890s.
In 1900, the outbreak of bubonic plague, resulting in 303 diagnosed cases and 103 deaths, further enhanced the less than salubrious reputation of The Rocks. In an effort to “clean up” the area, due to the outbreak of plague, many buildings were demolished by the newly established Sydney Harbour Trust. Although the plague was given as the official reason for these demolitions, many have argued, there were other pro-development reasons as well, such as the planned construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. These houses were were not, apparently, affected by the plague of 1900 and so were not demolished. In fact, I understand they were inhabited up until the 1980s.
Further modernisation of the area continued until, in the 1970s, in protest at further demolition, and at the eviction of long-term Housing Commission residents, Green Bans were established, ensuring the preservation of many historic buildings, such as Susannah Place.
Inside The Shop
Sydney Rock archaeological dig
Susannah Place
Susannah Place
Susannah Place
Susannah Place
Susannah Place copper
Susannah Place
Sydney Rocks archaeological dig remains
The terraces are now owned by the Historic Houses Trust of NSW which has maintained them. Inside the houses, which have been restored, but not renovated, there is period furniture, representing the style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Even in In the backyard, there was an outside toilet and a copper washing basin, much like the one I remember bathing in as a child.
It’s a reflection, I guess of how things have changed: what was once slum accommodation is now a tourist attraction. On a video we watched inside one of the houses, one of the former residents quipped that when she lived there in the ealry 60s it was hard to get a credit account at a department store if “The Rocks” was your address, but by the 80s, people would almost ask you for an autograph if you told them you lived in the area!
I recently returned home to Lismore for the funeral of my Aunty Joanie. My parents’ generation has only one remaining member, an aunt in her 90s who lives in Brisbane. Joanie, was 96 when she passed, and she held a very special place in my heart.
I was fortunate enough to have seen her recently, when I was home for Christmas. While she was, understandably, frail at 96 (and living in a nursing home), she knew vaguely who I was, even if she couldn’t quite recall my name.
It was good to be able to say goodbye and to catch up with family who remember “that generation”.
My cousins and I were reminiscing at the funeral about the incredible changes they’d witnessed throughout their lives. Born before the Great Depression, they lived through several wars, raised families during the baby boom, and had seen so much dramatic shift in the world.
As they’re passing, I guess we’re the “old ones” now :) And the world we’ve experienced will seem as “foreign” to the coming generations, as our parents and grandparents did to us.
One thing I noticed at the funeral was that she had outlived all her peers. At that age, her friends were all gone, and only her children, grandchildren, and other family members were left to remember her.
This post is a reflection on the past couple of weeks, including some photos I’ve taken.
Aunty Joanie (Connors, nee Dunn)A bunch of North Coast cousins: Christine Ianna, Julie, David and Leonie Connor and James O’Brien, celebrating the life of Aunty Joanie. Sharing the same maternal grandparents, and lots of childhood memories.My cousin Julie has been going through some of my aunt’s things and discovered four large ABBA posters from the late 1970s, which I owned. Unfortunately a lot of my ABBA collection was destroyed in previous floods in Lismore. But these survived, and they’re in excellent condition. Always a good idea to have an aunt who lived on the hill in Lismore.A sign of my own “ageing”, Karran captured this photograph of me on the way to visit her in South Lismore.
Now, back in Sydney, and I’ve been catching up with friends, including seeing a few movies I’ve blogged about lately. Mardi Gras is just around the corner, and I’ll be marching this year with People With Disability Australia (not the ABC this year). Nonetheless, I popped in to say hello to my ABC Pride people at Fair Day.
Getting an ABC Pride tattoo on my prosthetic at Mardi Gras Fair DayBranded!
Though it’s not the end of the month yet, and I might add to this over the next few days, these are some of my memories/posts from other platforms. Not worth a blog post in their own right, but still lots of interesting bits and pieces, I guess.
October 2 : After YEARS of staying in hotels with crappy clock radios, it’s awesome to be able to hear ABC Radio sounding good, and easy to find on the hotel TV on channel 25. @abcmelbourneOctober 3 : The difference between Sydney and Melbourne? In Melbourne, this is an artwork at the National Gallery. In Sydney, this is performance art most weekends. (in the backstreets of Surry Hills and Darlinghurst)October 4 : Working today at ABC Melbourne so I took a look behind the scenes.October 5 : Thirty years ago today, the ABC offered me a job as the Morning Presenter in Renmark. Lots of great jobs and people along the way.
October 12 : At my local pub, the barmaid told me she just received a phone call from someone asking for her husband to come home. “What does he look like?”, she was asked, to which she replied “They’re all fucking bald…”
October 14 : Email from a friend in Melbourne. “I expected Virginia might stumble a bit this morning, her first day on air after a long break at the radio mike, but she didn’t and was just brilliant.” @abcmelbourne@LaTrioli
October 14 : I’m not sure what this means weather-wise, but how great was/is this morning’s sunrise?October 17 : How cool is this? A surprise morning tea, held this morning. Many thanks to my awesome workmates for organising, and for turning up. Genuinely touched by all the lovely comments in the card.October 17: In the crowd, attending the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in SydneyOctober 19 : Isn’t it fantastic in an ironic sense that Brisbane’s casino is called Treasury and is located in the old Treasury building. #gambling – how we fund the nation, these daysOctober 19: So many tall buildings in Brisbane these days. I remember when Sir Joh’s office was both figuratively and literally the highest office in town.
