With a title like “Oxford Street Reflections”, I guess you were expecting a treatise on the twenty year period (almost) since I first visited Oxford Street.
You were probably expecting a post about my first tentative steps into the Unicorn Hotel.
You were probably expecting me to talk about how Oxford Street has changed, and how that relates to changes in Sydney overall.
You were probably expecting that and more, but I’m here to tell you the title “Oxford Street Reflections” is the title I’ve chosen for a photograph I snapped a short while ago at Taylor Square.
I love the way the Oxford Hotel reflects on the road in this photograph. And yes, when it rains, we get excited in Sydney.
You know how some things only capture your interest when you see someone else looking at them?
I can’t keep track of the number of times I’ve walked past the sign for the Lyle Roberts Senior Memorial Bush Food Garden, down by the river bank at Lismore.
There’s another sign explaining a little about who Lyle Roberts Senior was, an Indigenous elder, who I’ve mentoned previously. But until today, I’ve never stopped to read the sign which explains the Bush Food Garden in greater detail.
And it’s only because today I saw someone else stopping to read it, and to look more closely at some of the plants that I decided to do the same myself.
Lyle Roberts Senior Memorial Bush Food Garden
In the midst of getting some exercise, it was awesome to stop, to read, to look around and to observe the kind of things you don’t often see when you’re running around with headphones on. You might think youre “in nature” when you’re doing that, but you’re not really unless you stop, to think and observe.
One of the other things I noticed today was that the winter covers had been removed from the Lismore Baths. It was a warm day here, and a swim would have been lovely. But it’s still closed, of course.
And I noticed this very cute display in a music store shop window. Also closed.
A few months ago when I went to China to visit my friend Kate, she was hosting a group of Australian artists. At the time, they were based in Beijing, but they had been travelling around the country ahead of a group exhibition called Hard Sleeper at Beijing’s Red Gate Gallery. Tonight, I was so proud of Kate and my new artist friends I met in China as the exhibition debuted in Sydney at the Damien Minton Gallery.
“Have you seen my fellow travellers?” one of the artists asked me as we chatted early in the night. As they travelled together and clearly enjoyed the experience very much, there was a sense of excitement and a sense of a reunion amongst the artists, many of whom hadn’t seen each other since the end of October/beginning of November when the project came to an end, and the exhibition opened in Beijing. I was also quite excited to see them again. “How do you two know each other?”, someone asked me and another artist. “We climbed the Great Wall together“, he declared. “And we met Max Walker”, I added.
I also enjoyed tonight very much also because I’ve never actually seen the completed works. I’d heard the artists talking about what they were doing, but I’d never actually seen the works on show together, as I left before the exhibition opened. Seeing the works on display at the Damien Minton Gallery was very exciting.
Gallery artists Peter Gardiner and China de la Vega exhibit new work based on their experience in China, 2010. We also welcome onboard for this exhibition fellow artists Guy Maestri (courtesy Tim Olsen Gallery), Phil James, Frances Belle Parker and photography by the coordinator, Catherine Croll. Hard Sleeper, 7+/-1 Australian Artists in China was a wonderfully eclectic exhibition produced as the culmination of a two-month immersion into Chinese art and culture undertaken by 7 Australian Indigenous and Emerging artists as apart of Imagine Australia – the Year of Australian Culture in China. Led by “China Facilitator” Catherine Croll, the group including: Fiona Foley, Guy Maestri, Frances Belle Parker, Peter Gardiner, Phil James, China De la Vega and Zhou Xiaoping began their adventure by travelling via local transport (hard sleeper) to some of China’s most interesting provincial cities and historic sites including: Pingyao, Xian, Hua Shan, Chengdu, Chongqing, Dazu Grottoes, the Yangtze River, Wuhan and Shanghai (read more at http://www.CatherineCroll.com). During their tour they met with local contemporary artists, participated in forums, engaged in public and private debates, toured artist’s studios and arts districts, conducted classes for hundreds of primary school children in earthquake ravaged Sichuan and served as VIP guests at the Australian Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. This was followed by a month of frenzied activity during their Red Gate Gallery studio residency where the artists produced an extraordinary range of artwork.
A highlight for me was the philjames work which couldn’t be shown in Beijing which was Mao as Homer Simpson which was both fun, and a great commentary. But I also loved seeing works by Frances Belle Parker whose work was about the flooding of an area of China to build a new city. But most of all, I was very proud to see Kate’s photographic work as part of the exhibition. How cool.
It was a lovely night and a fabulous exhibition that’s worth taking a look at.
When I saw the trailer online for Older n Last Time, I thought the film looked a bit silly, a bit amateurish. When I saw the movie today, I was absolutely convinced otherwise. It’s a really great little film. Watching the trailer back again tonight after seeing the film today, it all makes sense as a great “highlights package”. But before seeing the film, I was completely confused about what kind of film it was going to be.
As it turns out, it’s a really nice film that tells a great story, with honesty and heart. At the centre of the film is an older gay male couple who, throughout their lives, have had a number of foster children. In this film, their foster sons have “grown up”, with one embarking on a gay relationship, the other on a straight relationship. Associated with this, there are plot-lines about the desire to have children. There’s also a plot-line about one of the son’s meeting his birth mother, played beautifully by Cat Martin, who has endured a fairly tough life, but who is getting back on track. The film explores the notion of identity and how important it may be for people to know where they came from (presumably to help them better understand the life journey they’re undertaking).
The film is part of the Mardi Gras Film Festival, and after the film there was a brief Q&A session with the cast. The film’s director explained how he works in “theatre in education”, taking drama to schools, and how this was a labour of love. He also explained he had three films in mind, with today’s film being the second. He said he has a third in mind, and without disclosing anything about the film, he offered the third wouldn’t be a follow up, as this was to last year’s film, Damaged Goods.
I didn’t see last year’s film, though I’m now curious to do so. The director explained that it had only one screening at last year’s Film Festival. He also explained he’d had difficulty, so far, in getting the film screened which disappointed the largely supportive audience at today’s screening. “They desperately need to re-cut the trailer”, Graeme observed as we walked out of the screening. Both Grant and I agreed instantly and emphatically with his assessment.
And as we walked along Oxford Street, and went into the Oxford Hotel for our “free drink” (you present your festival ticket), we continued to chat about the film (which is surely a sign of a good film). As we had a drink, I also noted how good it was to see a film shot in my neighbourhood. I loved seeing my ‘hood up there on the big screen.
The guy who runs the restaurant I remember meeting years ago, though I don’t recall his name. And the doctor who makes a brief appearance is a bloke I’ve seen on the streets of Surry Hills over many years. And the baker in the film, played by Kim Diep, is from my local bakery. He’s been serving me for fifteen years, including from the time he was just a child. Now he’s probably in his early 20s and I can remember him as a kid behind the counter of the family-run bakery. Now I’m feeling old.
It’s Saturday night and I’ve just been for a walk down the street to get some takeaway Indian food. Oddly enough, it’s been quite some time since I’ve walked down Crown Street on a Saturday night. What struck me most was the large number of people standing on the roadside smoking outside restaurants. Even though we’ve had the new smoking laws in NSW for several months now, I think it’s only this week that I’ve actually noticed the impact.
The other time I noticed it this week was when Kate and I went to a venue called Spectrum (formerly The Lizard Lounge) for a book and CD launch on Wednesday night. As a smoke-free venue, Kate was forced to spend much of the night standing outside on Oxford Street.
Kate’s A Rock Chick
For a while, Kate worked as a rock photographer and many of her photographs are contained in the book, Inner City Sound, described as the legendary Australian rock music book (which) is being republished after more than 20 years. To coincide with this event Laughing Outlaw (in conjunction with author Clinton Walker) has compiled a magnificent double CD.. The launch was good, and the band which played, The Plug Uglies were also good, although I thought some of the comments made in the speeches about the musical content were a little self-serving. Yes, it was an interesting period in music, but to claim it (1976-1985) was the only period of history when the music industry failed to listen to the musical tastes of young people was both churlish and inaccurate. Although most of the crowd attending would hate to admit it, they were such classic baby boomers, nostalgically remembering their adolescence.
Launch in Sydney of ABBA – The Movie on DVD
On a different musical tangent, I also went to the official launch of the DVD version of ABBA – The Movie, filmed during ABBA’s 1977 concert tour of Australia. It was a really great night catching up with all of the usual ABBAmail crowd and it was great seeing the movie on the big screen again. Maybe because it was on the big screen I became aware of so many of the continuity errors in the film, mostly due to the way in which it was made. ABBA insisted the movie should not interfere with the tour, so the filmmaker, Lasse Hallstrom wrote around them. That aside, the concert footage is just fantastic!
One of the other really interesting things I did this week was going for a drive around Castlecrag, which is a suburb of about a thousand houses located only 7 kilometres from Sydney’s central business district, but its careful planning and conservation of the natural bushland enable its residents to enjoy the suburb’s increasingly rich diversity of fauna and flora and wander through hectares of healthy Australian bushland.. Thanks to the design of Walter Burley Griffin, it was like driving around a suburb of Canberra, though of course not as flat.
The other highlight of the last week was going out for Yum Cha with Colin and his niece and nephew in law, who had travelled from Newcastle to see “The Producers”. Great conversation and great company.
Otherwise, a reasonably quiet life with work taking up most of my time.
It’s Saturday night and I’m at work, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to update my website.
Today has been a “blah” day… feeling a little hung-over… after attending last night’s “Andrew Olle Dinner”. As the guest speaker was Lachlan Murdoch, there was a large crowd of people in attendance, and Damien and I were lucky enough to be sitting with people we actually know and like.
Lachlan is a little taller than I had imagined and just as good looking as his photographs suggest. I joked that he looked young enough to be an “Andrew Olle Scholarship Winner”. But of course, none of us were there for that, we were there to listen to his words of wisdom.
The central thesis for his lecture was that profitability doesn’t diminish, but enhances journalism and media diversity.
“Entry requires that you either rely on taxpayers’ money to draw your pay cheque, or that your newspaper folds twice over and, God forbid, don’t ever think about a profit. Far from corrupting the craft, profits enhance it. Expansion drives diversity and diversity protects and strengthens our craft.”
He also attacked the notion the Farmhand Foundation drought-relief charity, supported by News Ltd, was trying to aid the sale of Telstra.
I’ve been sitting here tonight, listening back to the raw files from one of the very first interviews I recorded for The Limb Shift. It’s a strange feeling, editing these conversations just a few months later.
I remember being in the audience when I first saw Don Elgin speak at a conference in Kellyville, Western Sydney; I was absolutely blown away by his story then, but hearing it again through the edit, I’m picking up on the smaller, quieter moments of grit that make him such a specialist in this space.
Don’s story starts differently than many of those who lose a limb to a sudden accident; he was born with a limb difference, his below-knee left leg having not formed properly. Like many born with congenital differences, his childhood was a marathon of surgical interventions to prepare his body for a prosthetic—including open-heart surgery at age three and procedures to “build” a thumb. He describes the reality of growing up in and out of wards with a characteristic bluntness: “I was three days old when my dad drove me to the Royal Children’s Hospital”.
His reflections on his “rock bottom” at age eleven are particularly heavy to listen to. He describes a time when he was “dead set, suicidal” because he didn’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with the bullying. The way he tells the story of his father walking in on him is a masterclass in the “tough love” that shaped him:
“My dad walked in. He saw me crying. One day he said, ‘mate, what’s up? Why are you sulking?’ I said, ‘it’s not fair, dad, why did it have to be me that had one leg and and why not my brother or one of my sisters?’ … My dad was awesome. He gave me probably three pieces of advice at that point. He goes, ‘mate, why not you? It’s only a bit of your leg. You can deal with it. You’ve got a good attitude'”.
Don talks about how he spent that night “painting a picture” in his head, imagining if he had lost both legs, his arms, or even his sight. By reframing it, he decided that “all I was doing was reframing the situation… all of a sudden, this thing that was bloody torturing me… was now my greatest asset because I thought, this is nothing”.
It makes me think back to his birth in 1975, and that fierce Australian spirit his mother showed when the hospital matron suggested she didn’t have to take him home because of his limb difference. Her response—”Bullshit. That’s my boy. He’s coming home with me”—is really the origin story of Don’s entire outlook.
One of the most visual parts of this interview for me is when he describes the shift from trying to blend in to choosing a “robotic” look:
“I always stood out. And then I just wanted to blend in. So my legs were made so that they would be cosmetic looking legs… [Then] I saw that they had these like robotic looking legs where the poles were on display and there wasn’t covers on them. And I was like, ‘I want one of those.’ I want one that just that just screams, ‘this is an artificial leg.’ And and I was really comfortable because I’d spent the first fourteen, fifteen years of my life getting comfortable with this”.
Editing his thoughts on chronic pain is a sobering reminder of the daily reality behind the “inspiration.” He’s so candid about the fact that if you take ten thousand steps, you are reminded you’re in pain five thousand times. Yet, his resolve is unshakable: “I refuse to have a crap day because we don’t know when our last one’s going to be. And if I’m going to have a challenge to have a great day, it’s because my legs are sore and I’m going to have to work harder”.
As I wrap up this edit, his final advice to those newly facing amputation hits home:
“My first piece of advice is just take a moment… accepting that change is a huge thing, and it doesn’t mean you have to like the change, just means you have to accept it, because then it will stop the battle that you’re going to have every day… take photos of the people that come and see you, you know, and and as weird as this sounds, try and find a way to enjoy this, because this is your life now and it’s not a bad thing. It’s what you’re going to make it”.
