The audience reaction to Dianne Reeves at the Sydney Opera House was tremendous. My friend Colin noted that he’d never seen such a reaction to a performer there. “Does she know that Sydney audiences don’t do this?”, he whispered in my ear, as people got to their feet just before intermission.
I first saw her during last year’s Sydney Festival. At the time I thought it was one of the best shows I’d ever seen in my life. Her vocal range was terrific. As much as her upper range could soar, almost piercing your ears, her lower range could literally cause the theatre floor to vibrate.
Likewise, her musical range was also fairly broad. Of course there were a number of standards such as “Twelfth Of Never” and “You Go To My Head” (which almost made me cry) and I guess even Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” could now be declared a classic. But in explaining that throughout history jazz musicians have always “jazzified” the contemporary songs of their day, she led into a number by Joan Armatrading. There was also a number by Peter Gabriel and Chris, a work colleague who was there, observed there was also a refrain from a Joni Mitchell song, though he couldn’t recall which. In fact, there were several times when I could also pick up recurrent themes from popular songs but, long before I could identify them, the musicians had moved on. As I wandered home I was on a total high, humming her final tune most of the way there.
Last night’s show was quite different. A tribute to the work of Sarah Vaughn with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Although I’m not an expert on orchestral music, I’ve sometimes felt the SSO tends to overplay “popular music”, although it could be a characteristic of the acoustics of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Thus, there were occasions last night when I felt this concert failed to live up to the show I saw eighteen months ago.
However, there were some incredibly amazing moments. The highlights for me were her performances of “Embraceable You” (which showcased her magnificent vocal range), “Misty” (loook… at…me………) and “Send In The Clowns” (wildly dramatic and with a totally unexpected musical thematic variation). There were also a couple of pieces I don’t know the names of, combing the orchestra and her style of scat-singing gorgeosly in a wild celebratory orchestral jazz style. One in particular, combined the percusiveness of the scat-style with hand-clapping by the orchestra in a joyous, dramatic moment. It was for me, THE highlight of the night.
In some ways, last night’s show wasn’t as mind-blowing for me as her performance eighteen months ago. I thought it was a little more “staged”, a little less spontaneous, a little more scripted, and maybe lacking some of the surprise of the State Theatre show last summer. But I still loved the show, and I can’t wait for her to come back again.
After the last few days of activity, it’s been a quiet day for me. Just a day of hanging out around the house listening to music, watching a little bit of television, surfing the net, and chatting on the telephone. The most energetic thing I’ve done is walk down to Noodle Star for a bit to eat. Gosh I love Singapore Noodles.
“You’ve lost a lot of weight. You look fantastic” is the most common phrase I’ve heard this year, usually followed shortly afterwards by a secondary question, almost whispered, “You’re okay, aren’t you?”. “Yes I’m OK”, I’ve told lots of people this year, as they’ve queried my weight loss. Although not as much as I’d hoped, I’ve slimmed down a bit this year thanks to the combination of “low levels of exercise, sensible eating, and a reduced level of alcohol consumption”.
Magic eh? I haven’t changed my lifestyle in any kind of radical way, I’ve just been a little more “sensible”. The result is I’m now down to about 75-78kg which is still overweight for someone my height, but getting much closer to what I should be. Hey, I remember being over 100kg only a few years ago. So it’s definitely a year for celebration in that part of my life. I guess part of the reason I’ve also lost weight this year was that I took a few months off work to travel to Sweden, Iceland, Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark and Turkey.
This was my fourth trip to Stockholm in five years. Every visit seems to get a little longer. I’ve concluded I’ve “lived” in Stockholm for about six months over the last five years. Although I still haven’t met my goal of living in Stockholm for an extended period, I feel like I’m getting there incrementally.
Having experienced a bit of winter, two summers, and two springs, I’ve concluded May is probably the best month of the year in Stockholm. There’s a wonderful optimism about the place, thanks to the warmer weather.
Although I love snow and ice, the period between the winter months and the warmer months (when everyone leaves for a few weeks), is definitely a very liveable period there. While there I developed a lovely routine, as I was able to stay in apartments (thanks to airbnb). It was a really relaxing period for me. I loved it very much, as you’ll see if you read some of my blogposts from this time. I’m toying with the idea of heading to Stockholm Pride in 2014, and maybe an adventure further up north.
Anzac Day in Turkey – Looking out to the TV sceens with the cliffs in the background.
As I wrote at the time…
There was a point half way through the day when I couldn’t stop giggling. Along with the rest of the tour group, I was standing on a beach on the south east coast of Iceland. We were all very cold and it was snowing. The on-line brochure and accompanying research I’d done before-hand suggested clear blue skies as a backdrop to viewing a series of large basalt structures in the ocean. As we stood there, peering out through the snow, and desperately trying not to fall over (due to the wind gusts), I kept thinking how wonderfully ridiculous it all was.
This year I also went to my first ABBA Day in Europe and to the Official Opening of the ABBA Museum in Stockholm, both of which were memorable moments, and which I wrote about in the ABBA Magazine and spoke about on ABC Radio on several occasions.
ABBA Quiz Winners
Fireworks for the ABBA Museum Opening
A few months later I travelled to South Africa, where I was invited to speak at a radio conference at the Wits University. It was a really interesting time to be there, as it was the time when the health of Nelson Mandela really plumetted. Indeed, there was a general belief in South Africa at the time he had already died and was being kept alive artificially. In many ways, it was a life changing experience, as I got to meet and chat with locals there, and gain an insight into their lives which went beyond what I read about and watch through the prism of journalists. As I blogged at the time…
Interview with Mo-G at Kaya FM in Johannesburg
“We still live with apartheid”, the bloke in the bar told me. He told me of the sadness he felt that the man who parked his car for him tonight was old enough to be his father. “I’m doing fine because I went to university, but these people are still recovering financially from all of those years.”, he said. When I asked him how long it would be before the years of inequality would be left behind he told me he didn’t know, though conceding it would be decades, not years. Both he and my driver expressed concern about what might occur in South Africa following the death of Nelson Mandela. My driver, in particular, told me he thought there would be some blood-shed. His argument was Mandela was the uniting force which held the nation together amidst long-running arguments. In stark contrast, I’ve also been advised these kind of arguments are somewhat alarmist, since Mandela hasn’t been a major public force in South Africa for at least a decade. When I asked the bloke in the bar tonight why he thought Mandela was being kept alive, he was at first taken aback. “How do you know he’s dead?”, he asked me with a wry smile. When I told him that’s what all of the papers are now saying, he told me no one is really willing to say that publicly here. Both he and my driver told me they thought the key issue was an argument amongst Mandela’s children and grandchildren over both property (there’s a photograph in particular that’s worth a lot of money, apparently) and about where Mandela should be buried. There’s a complicated story about how one of Mandela’s grandchildren has exhumed the bodies of three of Mandela’s children and moved them to his own property. There’s a legal battle underway about this, and I guess in the background to there’s an underlying concern about who will “own” Mandela’s body when he dies.
Did I mention I also met a really nice bloke there? :)
My friend Sue came along with me for two or three weeks of my trip to Europe and remarkably we didn’t kill each other. I say that with humour, as there’s always the potential for conflict when friends and family travel together. We also travelled together to Tasmania, and we’re planning a trip to China together in May. The fact we didn’t want to kill each other means we obviously have a friendship that’s matured and firmly cemented itself over the thirty-something years we’ve known each.
Other friendships haven’t gone so well, and later in the year, a friend and I had a “discussion” about how our friendship had changed/disintegrated over the last year or so. That happens, I guess, over time. I guess part of the problem is that we’re both a little “high maintenance” and maybe a little bit “on the spectrum” in many ways. Hopefully 2014 will be better.
Robert and Sandra
As part of my travel, I also got to know Robert and Sandra who live in Stockholm a little better. We’ve been internet buddies for about three or four years now. As I spent a lengthier period of time in Stockholm this year I got to know them better and concluded pretty quickly, “I really, really like these guys”. Long distance friendships aren’t easy for me. I’m not one for chit-chat. I’m not very good on the phone and in email. And I really don’t like (or use) Facebook, but hopefully one day we’ll be living in the same city. Maybe Stockholm? Maybe Sydney? Actually, they’ll be in Sydney in February, which I’m looking forward to.
For the first time in a number of years I haven’t gone home for Christmas. This year I just didn’t feel like it. Also, I figured that since I took three months off work this year, it was my time to stay in Sydney and look after things at work. Thankfully, it hasn’t been too hectic, as the weather has remained fairly mild, and all was good, as I’d done a fair bit of preparation for the holiday period. And so as I approach 2014, there’s no sense of “end of year panic” for me, thankfully. It’s been a difficult year for my family in Lismore in many ways I won’t go into here. But on Christmas Day, as we did a Skype call together, things seemed to be a little more positive. Michelle is heading off on her first overseas holiday (aged 40) to Thailand. Karren is pregnant with her second child. Pat has now officially retired, and Nancy is in much better spirits after an operation to solve several years of pain. I’m desperately hoping things will be better in 2014.
For about a month this year, I got excited about the idea of doing some online dating. I’ve tried this before, concluding a lot of the gay dating sites are about sex hookups or are full of people with unrealistic expectations. I once did an internet date where I felt I was being “interviewed” for the position of boyfriend. Yeah, I know they work for a lot of people, but I haven’t had much success previously. So I tried rsvp. Once again, I’ve come to the conclusion “it’s not them, it’s me”, as I found myself pretty underwhelmed. I’m not very good at small chat, and that’s what I think you need to be able to start off with for internet dating. I’m concluding that, if I’m to meet someone, it’ll probably be through someone I know already, or maybe someone through work. Though I’m always reminded of a former manager who told me, “You don’t get your milk where you get your bread…” Think about it. Not that I’m desperate to meet someone.
My friend Michaela (with whom my friendship has deepened this year) and I have chatted about this a few times this year. We’re both in our 40s, both single. We’ve both noticed a lot of our friends who’ve recently partnered have begun to patronise us with statements about how we “Shouldn’t worry as we’ll soon meet someone”. Although I know what they’re saying – it gets increasingly harder to meet someone as you get older – I’ve concluded being in a relationship isn’t the be all and end all of my life. I’ve also reached the point where I’ve concluded I won’t have kids, and there’s a possibility I won’t have a relationship. But I’ve also concluded there are lots of other ways of living the second half of your life that don’t involve either. But hey, if Fred Nile can meet someone at eighty, there’s hope for the rest of us. :)
As I read back on these “Year In Review” posts over the last decade or so, I note there’s a theme. Each year it seems I write something about how terrible my life is (in some ways), and how fantastic it is (in other ways). The truth is – I have a truly blessed life. Although there are negative things which I reflect on (probably) far too much, there’s so much that’s good in my life. As I approach 2014, I think it’s time for me (finally) to stop reflecting on the negative and start thinking more about the positive, and to definitely avoid that 48 Crash that Suzi Quatro once sang about.
I turned 48 this year, and as Suzi Quatro reminds all of us celebrating their 48th birthday this year… crash crash, forty-eight crash.
It’s Tuesday night and I’ve just been to the launch of the new Richard Glover book, Desperate Husbands, at Shearers Bookstore in Leichhardt. Oddly enough, I’ve just discovered today there’s two h’s in Leichhardt, which has come as quite a revelation.
The last few days have been reasonably uneventful as I’ve slept in, watched television and haven’t done very much at all. I love holidays! An example of my general malaise is that it was only at 5pm today that I heard about the terrorist raids. I’m reassured though, by the cab driver who brought me home who asked if I knew anything about these raids he’d just heard about.
My other favourite cab driver today, who took me to the book launch, I discovered was listening to Vega 953. Curious, I asked him what he listened to for music before Vega and he replied WS-FM. He was in his late 20s/early 30s. And then, when I told him why I was interested, he told me he mostly listens to 702, but turned the radio over because he thought I looked like such a cool dude that I wouldn’t like 702. He told me he thought Vega was also boring and that Rebecca and Tony had no personalities. This made me smile.
Anyway, nothing else to report except that I turn 40 tomorrow. My plans for the day include a walk around the botanic gardens, lunch with Colin, a “Swiss Cellular Treatment For Men” (bought for me 12 months ago), followed by drinks at Henry Henry. I think it will be a good fun day.
As I’ve been starting work early the last two days, I’ve been coming home mid-afternoon. Well, not exactly mid-afternoon, more like four o’clock, which is still a fair bit earlier than when I arrive home most days. It’s been great to get home while it’s still daylight, to wander around the house wearing just my shorts, and to commune with nature, as spring has well and truly arrived in Sydney.
I also had a chance to do it briefly on Saturday when I had to go to Macquarie University. While waiting to do what I had to do, I found a quiet, sunny courtyard, and while lying down on my back, enjoyed some great views of the sky. Magic stuff!
Of course, my friend Patrick was here on the weekend. And while he and mate, Sam were wandering around Sydney, including paying a visit to the new mega-Ikea at Homebush (I still miss the old Moore Park Ikea), I went about my business in a part of Sydney I really don’t know all that well.
Indeed, the first thing I noticed when I got off the train at Epping was the large photograph of John Howard, leading to one of his nearby electorate offices. It was then I reflected on some of the various articles I’d read recently about how the seat of Bennelong had changed somewhat, in particular the increasingly large Asian population. It’s all true…
Later in the evening, Pat and I caught up back at my place. We decided on dinner at the nearby Il Baretto, an Italian bistro we had dined at previously. As they don’t take bookings, they have an arrangement with the nearby Carrington Hotel which was full of potential Il Baretto patrons with plastic numbers awaiting their call.
Happily, we chose to sit at one of the benches along the window rather than a table down the back which was a little claustrophobic. Enjoying our meals – fettucine with duck and a veal roll (both excellent), followed by tiramasu and pancetta (both excellent) – we chatted happily, drank wine, and enjoyed the view as people walked down Bourke Street, presumably on their way out for a night on Oxford Street.
We decided, however, to come back home to watch Pat’s DVD of Melodifestivalen, the annual Swedish contest leading up to the Eurovision Song Contest. As usual, it was great fun, though disappointing that, once again, some of our favourites including Nanne, Magnus Carlsson and Andreas Lundstedt failed to make it through. Poor Magnus had a look on his face as if to say, “Well that’s it, I’ve tried a few times, I’m never gonna represent Sweden at Eurovision, so what’s next?” Well, that’s what I take was going through his mind. I could be wrong…
The only other social highlight of the last few days was heading off down to Sydney Theatre on Hickson Street last night to see a screening of the new documentary In The Company of Actors. Introduced by Robin Nevin and Andrew Upton, the documentary is a behind the scenes look at the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of “Hedda Gabler” which played successfully in New York a couple of years ago.
Amongst those in the cast were the well known actors Hugo Weaving, Aden Young and Cate Blanchett who all bravely revealed a little of themselves as they sometimes struggled to achieve their artistic goals. Weaving comes across as a really nice affable kind of guy and Blanchett comes across as a really committed actor whose goal is to make truly memorable theatre. Well, actually, they all do that, one of the most memorable lines from the movie (for me at least) also has relevance to my own career.
Although my own industry is sometimes criticised for being merely ephemeral, because the actual art and craft lives and dies almost instantly, there was a terrific line in the movie about how important theatre was because it created something which lives on in people’s memories.
A good thought, and a good film.
Taken in the courtyard of the Australian Film, Television & Radio School at Macquarie University.
Il Baretto Restaurant
Sydney Harbour Bridge – Taken from Hickson Street, Sydney…
