It didn’t help the weather was pretty shitty this morning.
“How was the weather in Sweden?, a colleague asked me this morning, expecting me to say it was cold and wet. “A lot better than it is here today…”, I told him.
On the second day back you can no longer sail by with the excuse that you’ve “been away for a month”.
You need to make decisions. You need to be making plans.
As I left the office this afternoon I confided to a colleague “It’s hard work returning to the office. I’ve had to THINK all day.” :)
By late afternoon the weather had cleared and I was left carrying my umbrella on the bus along Parramatta Road to Lewisham for my first usual Wednesday night at the pub with mates.
Everyone was in good spirits, and I don’t think I bored them too much with my travel tales. I guess it helped I brought back some gifts from Sweden :)
Graeme and Grant also recounted some tales of their weekend in Canberra, where they attended Graeme’s niece’s wedding.
It was one of the first approved “same sex weddings” (though I don’t think they can actually call it a wedding) in the ACT. In the midst of all the usual family “goings on” it sounded like a lovely occasion with high production values.
I haven’t been to a wedding for four or five years now. In fact, the last I attended has already ended in divorce which is sad. And I’ve never been to a “same sex wedding”. Too many independent singles in my group of family and friends. :)
After yesterday’s exhaustive day at work, though a good night’s sleep, I woke with every intention of going for a walk around Lake Burley-Griffin today, but never quite made it.
I figure if you’re staying in a lovely room you should make the most of it, and so I stayed in bed until about eight o’clock.
I was hoping to have a sleep on the bus home, but that wasn’t possible. There was a bloke behind me who crapped on for the entire three hours. He had a theory on everything from global warming, to the existence of God, the royal family, precious stones, you name it. And he apparently was an expert on every subject you would care to imagine.
I escaped into a world of music via my headphones. I have no idea how the young Asian bloke sitting next to him coped, though possibly he spoke English as a second language.
Although I toyed with the idea of NOT going to the pub tonight, I did, though left early only to come home for a quiet night in.
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…
“Oh my God, she’s going to ask for directions”, I thought to myself when the forty-something glamorous woman with a suitcase called out to me today. “Oh my God, how do you say I’m a tourist?” I thought to myself, as she beckoned me to stop.
She quickly recognised I was an English language speaker, and explained to me her car wasn’t far away, and asked if I wouldn’t mind standing in the free car space she had found while she went to get her car. “Only two minutes”, she assured me. With nothing else planned, I told her it wasn’t a problem, wondering for just a moment if I was being secretly filmed for French television.
A simple good act of kindness seemes to have returned some good travel karma, since it looks like I have an entire dormitory room to myself tonight at the hostel. I won’t jump to conclusions too quickly, since it’s not yet nine p.m. and there’s the chance of later checkins, but I’m hopeful of having a huge room to myself tonight. And to having the windows open! Yippeee. I’m on the sixth floor with quite good views over Paris, and there’s a lovely gentle breeze.
That wasn’t the case last night, when I shared with a Dutch couple and a Japanese bloke. Surprisingly, they were all early-risers. I woke early myself this morning and then went back to bed for a few more hours. It was one of those grey days you associate with all of those romantic images of Paris.
After the heavy tourist orientation of the last few days in visiting monuments, chapels and castles, I was keen for another day of hanging out in Paris doing some serious people watching today. And I figured The Marais, which is a reasonably fashionable part of Paris was just the spot to do it.
In a Sydney context, it’s kinda like Paddington meets Surry Hills, with lots of cafes, restaurants, fashion shops, people dressed completely in black (and white – eew, I don’t get that) and lots of poofs. So naturally enough, as I looked around while having a baguette for lunch, I thought to myself, “these are my people”.
Sunday in The Marais
I spent a couple of hours later in the afternoon in a bar called the Central Hotel. It’s kinda central, hence the name, and has the rainbow flag hoisted loud and proud. I also liked it because the bar staff didn’t seem to mind me making a glass of wine last a few hours without re-ordering,
Upon sitting down I found myself sitting right next two four Australians: a straight couple and a gay couple. They were obviously here for a trade fair or something like that, as they were later joined by a couple of other people.
When the sole French bloke joined their party they told him how beautiful Paris was, and what plans they had for the future. And then they began asking him questions about travelling to various locations around France, which he answered politely. But then I saw a really weird – and totally understandable – look appear on his face when they started to ask him more detailed questions. I actually heard one of the four Australians ask… “What time does the train go to Champagne and from what platform?” WTF?
It’s also the bar where I discovered French men aren’t universally attractive. For every French man who looks like Phillipe Olivier (Kylie Minogue’s boyfriend), there’s at least one hundred who look like Gerard Depardieu. And remarkably, like Latvia, every gorgeous woman seems to be on the arm of an incredibly unattractive man.
So that’s how I spent the day, really, sitting in the cafes of Paris watching the world go by. Can life get any better?
The truth be told I was a little nervous on approaching the Courthouse Hotel for tonight’s GLBTI Bloggers Meetup. First, I’d realised we’d forgotten the Q, and was half-expecting a protest on behalf of Queer Bloggers, incensed they had been left off the invite. Second, it had been raining for much of the day. Thankfully, The Other Andrew, had booked an undercover table in the beer garden, so all was fine there. And third, because I’m instinctively a shy person (despite my job and my bravado), I was worried I would have to be the outgoing one who would need to identify and welcome people. Thankfully, TOA who is much better than me in those regards arrived right on time. In fact, everyone seemed to arrive quite early which I thought was pretty amazing.
After Andrew, the first to arrive was Michael who delighted everyone with tales of travelling overseas with his dog for the last few years. He must have been asked the question about how he got his dog through quarantine a thousand times. In fact, he said, the only problems he had was coming back into Australia. He also offered some handy advice about the advantages of travelling overseas with your car, except in the UK. He also turned out to be a knitter, which delighted both TOA and The Witty Knitter who I had not realised was a NZer by birth. Having read her blog for about a year now, it was really great to meet her, and to hear her observations about life, the universe and everything. As well as knitting, she also blogs about blogging, as she is doing her PHd about people doing PHds, and part of that is to encourage people doing PHds to blog about their PHd. It is actually not that confusing when she explains it all.
Marcellous was also an early arrival, entertaining us with tales from the courtroom, and tales from the films he had seen at the Mardi Gras Film Festival, in common with A Girl Called Dusty.
I had to smile when Panther arrived around 6pm, as he and I had been on the same history walk two days earlier. I later recounted to Therin Of Andor the historical inaccuracies surrounding Number 96 which had been featured on the tour.
My near neighbour, Ninglun was also there, explaining NInglun was actually his name in Mandarin, and telling us that Kevin Rudd also has a name that converts to Mandarin, though I can no longer recall exatly what it was. It was great too, to see Dancing about Architecture (Riayn) who I had met at a non-GLBTI Bloggers Meetup a few weeks ago. She is such a lovely person and along with TOA she was one of the stayers after most people left at about 7.30pm to go home to have dinner etc.
So thanks to all those who attended. It was lots of fun and it was great to meet such a nice bunch of people.
Sadly, my “Swedish” is not sophisticated enough to understand the complexities of some of the discussions you might encounter at an event like Stockholm Pride. While it won’t be too much of an issue at events like the Schlagerkväll (the pop music night), I’m still very interested in going to talks and events, especially since Stockholm Pride usually has a very “global” outlook. I remember a few years ago there was a talk given about LGBTQI rights in Australia, for example. So I spent half an hour or so on the weekend scouring the program for events and talks that were likely to be in English.
The first event I came across was not only in English, it was also an issue which I have a really strong personal interest in. The event, “Rainbow in the night: Chinese queer film making” was a forty minute talk by a 30-something film-maker from Beijing called Fan Popo.
He began the event by screening about ten minutes of a documentary film, “New Beijing, New Marriage”, he made about gay and lesbian weddings in Beijing and the public reaction to them. Within twenty seconds, I realised I’d seen the film before, two years ago, as part of the exhibition “Secret Love” at the Östasiatiska museet (East Asian Art Museum) on Skeppsholmen, here in Stockholm. It was lovely to be “taken back” and to remember that wonderful exhibition which I wrote about at the time:
One of the most impressive works for me is a four panel work called “Hello Comrades” which one the surface, purports to show just lots of faces involved involved in similar pursuits including construction, the military, and playing ping-pong. When you look more closely, however, there are obviously homosexual images. The same “hidden” depiction is also found in a series of paper cuts in a dark room which only become apparent when light is shined on them. Most memorably, there’s a video work which depicts a demonstration of and public reaction to same sex couples seeking to be married.
Fan Popo then went on to talk about some of the other documentaries he has made. “Most people like to see documentaries at the moment, because they want stories about real people”, he explained to the audience of maybe 60 people, when asked the question about making documentaries versus fiction.
I was the first person to ask a question. “Having heard so much about your experiences in Beijing, can you explain what it’s like in Shanghai and other places?”, I asked. He explained that because Beijing is the seat of political power, that’s where most of the LGBTQI activist groups are based. “I had a boyfriend in Shanghai so I know a bit about life there too”, he explained, saying the scene in Shanghai is far more “commercial”. He went on to say he hoped Shanghai might become a little more “activist”.
There were also questions about what life was like outside the larger centres, about distributing information via social media, and the degree to which trans people are recognised in China, and portrayed in films.
The talk was really interesting and well appreciated, and he spoke about his life and work with both a passion and a wonderful sense of humour.
Fan Popo – New Beijing New Marriage
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Hi James. Would that be The Lewisham Hotel? If so perhaps my partner and I could pop by for a drink one wednesday as we live exceptionally close by. Let me know, you can email me direct if you wish.
Hi James. Would that be The Lewisham Hotel? If so perhaps my partner and I could pop by for a drink one wednesday as we live exceptionally close by. Let me know, you can email me direct if you wish.
Mark, that would be cool. I’m there most Wednesdays after 6 or 6.30. James