The trip to Manly always evokes memories of the song “Reckless” by Australian Crawl, a song from my final year at high school. As an Australian of a particular age, how can you not catch the ferry without singing the line…. “as the Manly Ferry cuts its way to Circular Quay”…?
Oddly enough, I was listening to Swedish pop for most of the trip. It was mostly Magnus Carlsson, the former member of Barbados and Alcazar, in case you’re wondering.
But in one of those wonderful moments of synchronicity, as I was about to leave the ferry I found myself standing next to three Swedes chatting in Swedish.
View of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from the Manly Ferry.
I’m guessing it was a mother and her daughter and probably a friend. One of the daughters was chatting about her handbag, and how old it was.
I smiled (and actually got goose-bumps) as I understood most of the conversation.
I must have had a look of understanding on my face, as I saw from the corner of my eye the mother shake her head in my direction and say, simply, to the others that she thought I understood what they were saying. I looked at her and smiled in recognition.
I still don’t feel comfortable (confident enough) with my language skills to have responded, but it was good nonetheless to realize I wasn’t a complete idiot when it comes to my understanding of Swedish.
I was heading to Manly to catch up with Donna, Greg and Judy for a few drinks at the 16 Foot Skiff Club, a terrific venue that overlooks the water. We had a great afternoon chatting about this, that and the other.
And since arriving home tonight I haven’t done all that much. I’ve listened to some music. I’ve surfed the web. Not much else.
16 Foot Skiff Club at Manly.
Overall, it was a pretty enjoyable Saturday. The major priority for tomorrow is Swedish homework.
Even on a Friday night, it can be hard to find somewhere to eat in Sydney after nine o’clock.
This is not a new thing, but it seems to have worsened since COVID, with many restaurants closed.
I remember arriving in Rome a few years ago, and the incredulity of the waiter to my assumption that at 9.30pm I was already “too late” for a meal. He just didn’t understand why I would even think that.
And then in New York, being able to see a show on Broadway, and then going to a fairly nice restaurant meal at around 11pm. Salman Rushdie was dining at a nearby table
Although Sydney often likes to think of itself as a “world class city” our opening hours for restaurant meals seem to harken back to the 1960s.
Getting a meal at 9.00pm on a Friday night seems to be the equivalent of the six-o’clock-swill in 1950s hotels here. You need to get in early or go with whatever is available.
And on Sydney’s Oxford Street now, that seems limited to burgers.
If you don’t want to go to the Sydney Casino, you need to go to Chinatown, and that’s what I did last night.
Though a little expensive, East Ocean is the best place!!. You can go in there at midnight, and the food is still good. This meal actually lasted me three meals, with a late night snack and lunch the next day also covered!
In other Oxford Street news, a major hotel renovation which has been proceeding at a glacial pace has taken a step forward as a legendary sign is replaced, which suggests a more “upmarket” venue is emerging.
The Brighton Hotel. The infamous “Lick Her” sign that used to accompany the liquor store.The building has been under renovation for maybe a year or so, but finally they’ve gotten around to changing the sign. The Brighton has become The Riley.
It’s Good Friday, and earlier today I called in to the Catholic cathedral in Darwin and was struck by the range of cultural backgrounds present. There was an incredible diversity in terms of faces, and languages overheard.
As I understand it, the original building was destroyed by Cyclone Tracy in 1974, and what stands now is a pared‑back, modern replacement, rebuilt as part of a city forced to start again.
In many ways, today’s congregation felt like a continuation of that rebuilding.
According to the 2021 Census, Darwin is one of Australia’s most culturally diverse cities. Around 22 per cent of Greater Darwin’s residents were born overseas, and more than 32 per cent of people speak a language other than English at home, well above the national average. Catholicism remains an important anchor for many migrant communities, particularly people from the Philippines, who are now the largest overseas‑born group in the Northern Territory, overtaking the UK in recent years.
The city’s demographic story, however, doesn’t begin with immigration. The Larrakia people remain the largest non‑Anglo population in Darwin, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up over 10 per cent of the Darwin population, compared with just 3.2 per cent nationally.
Since Cyclone Tracy, immigration has reshaped Darwin in steady, practical waves—driven by reconstruction, defence, education, healthcare, and hospitality. Increasingly, I’ve noticed how prominent people who appear to be Indian or Nepalese are in everyday life, from service roles to small business.
That multicultural reality of modern Darwin was especially vivid at the Rapid Creek Markets last weekend, where the mix of cuisines, languages, and communities felt like Darwin in miniature.
Standing later in the cathedral, watching people from so many backgrounds gathered in a shared ritual space, it felt like the same story playing out.
“Tell the story about the bed…”, someone yelled out from the crowd attending the opening night of the Michael Riley retrospective at The Commercial Gallery in Sydney tonight.
As noted by Wikipedia…
Michael Riley (1960–2004) was an Australian Indigenous photographer and film-maker, and co-founder of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative. A significant figure in Contemporary Indigenous Australian art, Riley’s work is held by many public art institutions including the National Gallery of Australia.
The exhibition at The Commercial Gallery features about twenty very beautiful photographs taken by him during the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. They’re all black and white portrait photographs, shot simply and processed reasonably heavily. All of the subjects are Indigenous Australians living and working in Sydney at the time.
There’s some beautiful father/daughter, father/son photographs, along with some stunning single person photographs, including one of a bloke called Darryl who is a friend of a friend. I’m not sure how old Darryl is now (as we chatted tonight I kept looking at the grey of his temples and in his three-day beard growth) but in the photograph, it looks like he’s in his early twenties. With long dark hair and his eyes closed (and looking very, very attractive), you wonder what’s going through his mind. He actually told us tonight the story behind the photograph (which was hilarious), though I don’t know if I should re-share that story here.
But since the story about the bed was told publicly by Michael Riley’s sister I suppose it’s okay to re-share here. She told the story of how her brother secretly recorded a conversation between her and a friend as they chatted as teenagers about “boys” by secretly placing a cassette recorder under her bed. He later embarrassed her by playing it back to her. The story illustrated in some ways how Michael Riley (through photography) spent his life quietly documenting the lives of those around him. He sounds like he was an interesting bloke.
Michael Riley
Many of those attending tonight’s exhibition were also at the opening night last night of an exhibition at Sydney’s Carriageworks which documents twenty years of the Gadigal Information Service. What was “Radio Redfern”, but became “Koori Radio” is beautifully documented in a series of photographs, sound files and videos. “They’ve even got the fridge”, a couple of friends commented, upon seeing the sticker-adorned fridge of the community radio station. As I looked closely at the stickers on the fridge, they tell the story of community radio stations around Australia run by Indigenous people.
For me, the interesting part was seeing the carefully laid out program guide, reminding me of my time in community radio where programming decisions were often made around people’s availability, rather than what the audience would want. “I can’t do 3 o’clock because I have to pick up the kids from school”, was a phrase you would sometimes hear people say to explain why their program should be on at a particular time in the times of democratic program making.
Also interesting was to listen in to some oral history from volunteer presenters against a backdrop of a video/photograph. By that I mean, it was a video you were watching, but it was done as if it was a portrait photograph, so the people didn’t actually move (or maybe just a bit).
Linda Burney launches the Gadigal Information Service exhibition at Carriageworks in Sydney
The exhibition was opened by NSW Labor politician (Deputy Opposition Leader), Linda Burney who became a little tearful as she remembered her own time as a community radio volunteer, and how important radio was to that particular period of Indigenous activism in Australia during the 1980s and 1990s.
Yesterday morning I went to see a movie preview of “Biggie & Tupac”. What? Who? When I mentioned the movie to Damien he said, “Oh, the rappers?” I was taken aback, since I had never heard of “Biggie & Tupac” the movie or the rappers before going to see it. The story? It concerns two rappers, Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls who were killed in the late 90s. While it has been largely believed it was the result of some east/west coast feud, the film makes a case for the involvement of corrupt police officers and the head of Death Row Records, Suge Knight, who ironically is serving a prison sentence. There are some genuinely touching moments – especially with Biggie’s mother – and some funny moments. Although I think the pace falters at around two thirds of the way through the film – I found myself saying, yes, it’s time to end it now – I think it’s a good movie. Highly recommended.
Some friends and I went to see “Mind Games with Marc Salem” at the Sydney Opera House Playhouse. He has studied psychology, sociology and anthropology, among others, and says he’s just very good at noticing things, at picking up non-verbal cues. And so for about 90 minutes, he uses all of these skills to “read people’s minds”. It was great fun… especially since some of the “trickery” is hard to deconstruct. One of my friends suggested that as he asked for doctors, teachers and lawyers, the so-called honest professions, they may be the ones it is easiest to pick when they are lying or attempting to lie. Some of his tricks were just good maths. Some were undoubtedly examples of good memory and observation. Some I just can’t figure out how he did what he did.
A heavy rainstorm followed as we waited for a cab to the Sydney Festival Bar. We had a few drinks… chatted… had a very enjoyable night.
“I don’t know if I can go to work tomorrow”, I told Colin over a drink tonight.
“I’m bloody exhausted. So much has happened this week. And a lot of it quite draining. And I’m really tired”, I told him as we sat in the bar at The Ensemble Theatre.
The day started off with participation in a forum about “The Media” for a group of young students who are Muslim. Amongst the many issues we dealt with were representation in the media, participation in the workforce, and the difficulties in accurately covering the complexities of any religion.
“Could you describe the difference between a Jehovah’s Witness, a Mormon, a Seventh Day Adventist and a Catholic?” one of the participants asked at one point. Unless, of course, you were a journalist who had some degree of specialisation in religion, of course, the answer is no. That doesn’t mean you don’t try to understand and to accurately portray issues, the argument went, but it was worth noting that most journalists are generalists.
My central argument was about broader representation in the workplace leading to a better understanding of a range of issues. “Twenty years ago”, I noted, most newsrooms were overwhelmingly male. In the same way that having a closer to even representation of women in the journalist workplace has, hopefully, led to a better understanding of a broader range of issues, I hoped a broader workplace participation by a broader range of people would lead to a better understanding of all Australians and thus better journalism.
At the end the discussion one woman, rather shyly, wanted to make the point that being Muslim is an important part of her life and identity, but not the only identifier.
It was a really terrific discussion and I was pleased to be part of it.
And then tonight, in stark contrast, I went to the play, “The Little Dog Laughed” at Ensemble.
“I read some reviews online. And apparently there’s some male nudity in the play”, I overheard someone say to another as we made our way towards our seats.
“Looking around the crowd tonight, I don’t think it’s going to be problem”, came the response.
He was referring to the significant gay male audience attending tonight’s play.
Although most times I visit The Ensemble, the audience is older, quite Anglo, and quite “North Shore”, tonight the audience was reasonably young (30s to 50s), with a lot of gay men attending.
And why not? The play is about the complex life of an American actor on the verge of “greatness” in Hollywood, but who treads the difficult line between his personal life (as a mostly closeted gay man), and his professional life.
The complicating factor is that he pretty much falls in life with a young rent boy he hires for the night.
The twist, however, is that the rent boy falls in love with him, also, despite having a girlfriend that has recently become pregnant.
I won’t go too much further, and thus spoil the plot, but it’s a story with a good plotline, and it’s not in any way shape or form, predictable.
We both enjoyed the play immensely. Colin, in particular, was very enthusiastic in his appraisal of the play, and of the cast who he described as having excellent timing, and having worked together in a really good way. We have seen a couple of the actors – James Millar and Lindsay Farris (a bit of a star) – in previous productions, though were unfamiliar with the work of Alexa Ashton and Alexandra Fowler (terrific, as the actor’s agent). We both agreed they were a well chosen cast. “And they got the accents RIGHT”, Colin noted.
“It’s great when you can see a play and you think about your own life, and the choices you’ve made”, I reflected as we sat at the end of the night enjoying a glass of wine.
It’s a play I’d highly recommend, though a word of warning… despite having read the online reviews of previous overseas productions… this particular production does NOT contain nudity.
PS. In the midst of all this, Colin and I managed to fit in a bite to eat at Garfish at Kirribilli (very nice soft-shell crab), and I went along to a brief after-work drinks with some colleagues at an organisation I deal with through work.
I remember being a little underwhelmed the first time I visited the National Museum in Stockholm. I recall thinking at the time it wasn’t very “Swedish” at all, with lots of European art, but nothing which told me much about Sweden. I’m pleased to say things have changed significantly in the last three years, and I spent most of the day there, with three main exhibitions.
The first I looked at was a silverware exhibition, with a large decorated banquet table the main focus. I couldn’t decide if the wire cage which surrounds the table related to the value of the collection, or was perhaps making a statement about the animalistic nature of the banquet, with chairs on their side. Perhaps it had an intended purpose, but ended up with another?
The second exhibition I looked at was called “Lust och Last” and it featured a broad range of eroticism – painting, sculpture, installation, video and photography – from the collection of the gallery.
My favourite work was a sculpture of an hermaphrodite. The body is reclining with its back facing you, though you can see the outline of breasts from under the armpits. There is a mirror, however, located on the wall behind the sculpture which allows you to observe the penis, and thus realise the complexity of the work.
He was an assman, I guess
Hermaphrodite statue at National Museum in Stockholm
Long banquet table at National Museum in Stockholm
There’s also a terrific installation piece of a headless man surrounded by papers and books, some of which had an erotic connection, others didn’t. Located above his head is a series of female torsos made from a very flesh like material (the same kind of material as dildos, or so I’m told). The work is called, “He was an assman, I guess”.
The same artist, Lars Nilsson also has a video work which features a woman masturbating in a darkened forest. The really interesting thing about the work was the stylistic similarity to some of Bill Henson’s work from a couple of years ago.
The third exhibition I looked at is called “Four Seasons” which consists mostly of 19th and early 20th century paintings of the Swedish city and countryside. There’s a couple of wonderfully romantic paintings of central Stockholm in snow (it’s amazing how little things have changed in 100 years) which I really liked, as well as some beautiful, joyful paintings of Swedish summer. I decided, by the way, I don’t like autumn. It’s not a very happy season, is it?
The museum also has a great section on design. As you might expect there’s some wonderful Swedish design classics, including some bent wood furniture, but there are also some wonderful prototype designs for televisions and netbook computers.
After wandering around for several hours, I spent a bit of time having a coffee and a brief look in the shop. Even though I had previously decided I wasn’t going to buy stuff here and take it back with me, there’s a couple of things I quite liked in the shop, including a clock that plays bird noises. How cool!
