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4A Members
One of the best things I’ve done this year is subscribe to the Edition Series of Sydney’s 4A Gallery. 4A is a gallery which specialises in Asian art, both art by artists from Asia, as well as artists from Australia with an Asian background. I’ve been to a far number of their exhibitions and they’re always usually very good. The works are interesting, and they’re presented well.
What has been great about the Edition Series is the random nature of it all. For a $500 annual contribution, I’ve received three random art works (with the fourth just about to arrive). I’ve had no say in the works, which has been a really appealing part of the project – the surprise element. There have been three limited editions prints, and one piece of porcelain. The works have all been very lovely, and I’m pretty confident they’re worth more than the $500 I’ve contributed. In fact, I know the Jason Wing screenprint has been selling at the price of $500 by itself.
And so it was a real pleasure to go to the 4A Members Exhibition with my friend Kate, and to see all four works on display. The other works were very interesting also, but I have a soft spot and fondness for the work of the artists I now have in my own collection.
Sydney View
It was a view I hadn’t expected, as a few of us went out were very kindly taken out to lunch today by the boss as a very special thank you for the year.
And not only was the view great, but the food was too. I had a fettucine with beef ragu, and a chocolate creme brulee which were both very good. And the service was good, and it’s a great place. I’ve nothing else to say, really, except it was absolutely fabulous.
Aside from that, I’ve nothing much else to report, except that my friend Colin is now out of hospital (for the second time this week) and doing okay it seems.
For me, it’s just been a night sitting at home, surfing the net, listening to music etc. Hopefully there’ll be something more interesting to report over the weekend.
Christmas Is Almost Here
Though I grew up with plastic Christmas trees, a “real one” is so much nicer. But on the other hand, I don’t like the idea of chopping down a tree for only a couple of weeks. I also live in a small apartment, so a big tree can look out of place. So, for me, a small tree suits best, and also if it’s living.
Guess what I found at the supermarket this morning?
Aside from the supermarket, I popped into the shops in the CBD today. As you’ll see from the photograph, there’s a few people wearing masks, but not many.
Though not as crowded as a peak hour tram on Bourke Street in Melbourne, the light rail trip through the city today was also reasonably crowded.
A couple of colleagues from Melbourne were in Sydney this week, and they too remarked at the lack of prevention. “I was the only person at the airport wearing a mask”, one told me.
“Everyone has forgotten everything”, I said to some friends over dinner tonight. “I’m worried about what will happen after Christmas”, I added, mentioning the post-Thanksgiving breakout in the United States.
The US is clearly in a different position to Australia in many respects, and that gives us a degree of protection.
But still I worry we might be at risk again, as we go out shopping for Christmas, and get together with family members and friends. I’m not an epidemiologist, of course, so I can’t be sure of how a further outbreak might occur. But, still, I’m worried, as I think we haven’t quite got the balance between rights and responsibilities for our own and other’s people’s health.
I might need to pull out the facemasks I bought a few months ago and start wearing them again.
Surry Hills Festival
Yesterday was such a beautiful day. It was perfect weather for a lunchtime wander around the Surry Hills Festival. There were LOTS of other people who’d come to a similar conclusion. What I experienced this year was pretty good : still very community focussed, but with broader appeal. Much improved from the years when the festival had aspirations to be a “big rock festival” with (I thought) little connection to the community itself. Here are some photographs I snapped.
Det var kallt och det regnade
For the first time in a few years I had dinner tonight at Surry Hill’s Trinity Hotel. In a galaxy far, far, away I used to be a fairly regular patron there, especially as on a Wednesday night they had a pretty fantastic trivia competition (which my group often won). But circumstances change, and I’ve been there hardly since. I only called in tonight because it was cold and rainy, and I didn’t have the energy to head out to my other regular Wednesday pub haunt after Swedish class. I had the haloumi salad which was good, though not great. A little over-cooked on the grill, actually.
When I went into Swedish class, it was chilly, though not raining. By the end of class, it was rainy too. So much for the brief period of summer we experienced on the weekend. None of us were really prepared for the change in the weather. As I chatted on the street after class and waited for a bus with a class-mate, it also became aware none of us was all that well-prepared for class either. It was one of those “heavy grammar” nights. Only one of us in the class is really any good at grammar – that’s Grant – while the rest of us tend to glaze over a bit. I think it’s because words and phrases like dative, imperfect, passive and so on have never been part of our educational lexicon. In fact I got the giggles half way through class when we started talking about the passive form. Yes, I know… quite childish.
On arriving home, I began to catch up on the early-evening television programs I’d missed, including The Drum and the Britney Spears-featured episode of Glee. I think Glee is a brilliant show and I’m quite a fan of Britney too. Actually not so much Britney, more her regular song-writer and producer Max Martin who, it may surprise you, is Swedish. (Martin Karl Sandberg, född 26 februari 1971, i Stockholm men har även bott i Kalmar)
Over the years he’s worked with everyone from the Backstreet Boys to Celine Dione. And as Wikipedia notes
In 2010 alone, he has written and co-written 5 top 10 singles, including “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz, “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” by Usher, “Whataya Want From Me” by Adam Lambert, as well as “California Gurls” and “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry.
Aside from Katy Perry, these songs and these artists mean nothing to me. But that’s because I’m a mid 40’s bloke from Sydney. Yes, I know my musical tastes sometimes resemble those of a 13 year old Swedish girl, but I’m not entirely that classifiable.
So the episode of Glee? Highlights were obviously “Hit Me One More Time” and the re-enactment of the Madonna duet. Beyond that, I don’t know because the end of the program was chopped off. Bloody commercial television and their late starts plays havoc with PVRs!
In the meantime I continue to sneeze with this bloody dust, pollen, whatever in the air. It got worse, today, by the way, when our annual building evacuation forced us out onto the plane tree hell that is Harris Street, Ultimo. Hopefully tonight’s rain may settle things a bit.
VHS Memories
I had a brief cry when I watched an old family video this week. There were so many people in the video – even quite young people – who are no longer with us. When I shared the complete video with extended family, I warned them they might cry. But hopefully, they might laugh as well.
Going through a box of old videos I discovered a VHS called “Home 96 / Dreamworld” which I’ve had digitised. I knew exactly what “Dreamworld” meant: it was shot in the early 80s when some extended family visited the theme park on the Gold Coast. I shot the video, and appear only briefly in it as a teenage boy.
I didn’t really know what “Home 96” referred to, as it’s at least 25 years since we’ve watched the video. I haven’t had a VHS machine for years!
Additionally, there was a bit of mould on the videotape. So it was necessary to track down someone who could safely remove the mould and digitise the video. After a fair bit of research, I found https://movingmemories.com.au/ a small company in Earlwood, where the owner Emmanuelle did an awesome job restoring the tape. Restoration and digitisation cost $75.
As I watched “Home 96”, memories came flooding back of a return visit to Lismore in August 1996, and a brief visit to family in Brisbane. So many faces, so many people no longer with us. Chatting with a younger family member who recently had a baby, I asked him “Is that you as the baby?” to which he replied, “No I wasn’t born then”.
Even though video recordings are everywhere these days, thanks to mobile phones, I think these are the only two videos of our family which exist from that era, so they’re very special. And so pleased I made the effort to have them digitised.
Lots of younger family members who were born around the time of these videos, or even after, have written notes of thanks for making the effort. They’ve also admitted to a few tears, seeing our family from all those years ago.
don’t be afraid to start buying some now, perhaps half of what you want in cash? That way if the rate goes down over the next month you’ve locked some in at the top