I spotted THE most gorgeous hibiscus today on a back lane-way in Centennial Park.
It was one of those moments when I just had to stop and take a photograph.
Hibiscus spotted on Poate Lane, Centennial Park
It was one of the first things I showed a friend when I arrived at his place for lunch. He had spotted it also, remarking that it really stood out on an otherwise greyish back lane-way.
Lunch was fun, as you might expect.
And after a few hours sitting, chatting and listening to music I came home for an afternoon nap.
Gosh I was tired. It’s been a reasonably exhausting twenty four hours.
I went out on a “date” last night. My first in quite some time, and I was thus a little apprehensive. But we had a good time.
And then I needed to be home, as I had a few overnight work commitments.
By the time I’d listened to a few hours of radio, fell asleep, woke up and listened the next item I wanted to hear, and then had a further nap, my body clock was beginning to show signs of tiredness similar jet-lag. I wish.
I got out of my sick bed briefly tonight to go to the Opening Night of the new exhibition by Bill Henson at the Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery. Henson is a reasonably controversial photographer with allegations of teenage pornography previously levelled at his work. Irrespective of that debate, his photographs are always beautifully shot and presented, and so I was keen to see whether or not he would be as interesting or as controversial this time.
The topless teenage girls are still there in this exhibition, along with two other image themes, working ships and parklands. All three thematics are shot at the period just after dusk but before it has truly become night, that wonderful period where the light somehow conveys the peacefulness of a day’s end. But there’s also a danger in some of these photographs, especially in the ones featuring the teenage girls (notions of sexuality) and in the parklands (you might imagine a murder has just occured or is about to occur). I don’t really understand how the working ships fit into the exhibition, though I’m sure they do.
She’s a Swedish singer who I saw in concert a few weeks ago.
A few months ago I tweeted her and said I would be coming to her concert. And she actually responded. I was more than a bit surprised since she only follows one person on Twitter, Oprah!
The day after the concert I tweeted her again, saying how much I’d enjoyed her show.
Sarah Dawn Finer
Today or yesterday she was obviously catching up with her correspondence and responded with a “thank you” tweet. How cool is that?
It was definitely a highlight from today which, otherwise, was spent at home doing nothing much at all, except occasionally falling asleep.
I think by tomorrow my body will be fully re-adjusted – though we do have daylight saving change-over tonight – in the meantime, I’m finding that occasionally I get quite tired fairly quickly and just fall asleep.
Oh, and waiting for my bags to arrive.
“We tried to call you on your mobile”, the woman from the courier company said to me. “Yeah well, the battery ran out, and both chargers were packed away”, I told her.
In the grand scheme of things, it was only a minor inconvenience having to spend most of the afternoon at home waiting for my luggage to arrive.
I woke early this morning and went to the supermarket at about eight o’clock to buy some food. After a month away, the cupboard was bare.
I couldn’t believe how many people were at Coles this morning. I, at least, had an excuse for being there so early and in such a desperate need to purchase food. For the others, you had a sense they were suffering public holiday withdrawal from the shops being closed yesterday.
I chatted on the phone with friends and made a few social arrangements for the next few days.
It’s been a really lovely experience over the last four weeks writing this holiday blog. It’s so nice to have a permanent record of my experiences and thoughts along the way. I read a few posts today and it took my back, even if I did pick up the more than occasional spelling mistake.
As an experiment, I also went back to my tweets and posted a “twitter version” of my holiday, with nothing but tweets and photographs taken at Katarinahissen.
We’re all a bit short of time, these days, and there’s nothing worse than someone banging on about his holiday or hours, though friends, family and workmates can expect to experience this over the next few weeks.
To ease the pain, I spent an hour or so creating a slideshow of my holiday snaps. The five-minute version of my holiday.
I present it to you now…
The musical accompaniment is Stockholm inatt by Peter Joback. And even though the lyrics and the images don’t match, or really actually make any sense in relation to the visuals, I never intended them to. It’s all about the mood. It’s about the vibe. It’s the groove.
If you’re a regular reader to this blog it won’t surprise you to discover that I went to the pub tonight. It’s a Wednesday night tradition after all. Some weeks I don’t go, but most weeks I do, to catch up with friends for a chat over a few bevvies.
But tonight it managed to surprise two people at least. First, my friend Sue who called expecting me to be at home. And second, a colleague who came into the pub and almost fell over backwards when he saw me. “Are you here for the Cuban Night?”, he asked me, referring to the music that was playing in the pub’s back-room. “Nah, just beer and a chat”, I told him.
You know how some albums become lifelong companions. You don’t listen to them every day, but every so often, you pull them out and they feel like coming home. For me, one of those albums is Blood Oranges by Melanie Oxley and Chris Abrahams.
I first discovered this album in 2003 and was immediately captivated. Though I knew of Melanie Oxley primarily through her family connections to the band The Sunnyboys, this album was such a revelation. Its songs explore deep emotions with beautiful, often melancholic instrumentals, but they also carry an undercurrent of optimism. It’s a masterful balance of sadness and hope.
For me, the highlight of tonight’s concert was their performance of several tracks from Blood Oranges, including my personal favorite, “If I Let It Go?”
It was a thrill to hear these songs live again. Interestingly, some of their more upbeat tracks, like the pop-oriented “Troublemaker” and the title track “Blood Oranges,” were reimagined with a more laid-back, intimate feel. As well as they songs I first heard twenty years ago, they did songs from their more recent releases, too.
Performing at the Annandale Arts Centre, a beautifully converted former church, the duo — accompanied by a fantastic jazz double bassist, Jonathan Zwartz – created a warm, intimate atmosphere. This was a far cry from the legendary Basement venue where I first saw them perform, but it was perfect for the occasion. The smaller crowd and stunning setting made for a truly special night.
Melanie’s voice is simply beautiful and ethereal, delivering lyrics that are at times dark, yet always seem to hold a glimmer of optimism. Chris’s piano work is wonderfully meandering, often exploring minor keys with a touch of Burt Bacharach-like flair on the more upbeat numbers. The interaction between him and the double bassist was fantastic, at times almost improvisational.
It was wonderful to hear that after 30 years of performing together, Melanie and Chris may be becoming more active again. They’ve even started an email list to keep fans updated on future performances. This concert felt less like a one-off gig and more like a sign of new beginnings. It was a beautiful evening of music and a lovely reunion with an album that has been part of my life for so long.
Spotify began operation in Australia today. Thank goodness. If the name’s not familiar, Spotify is a music-streaming service which began life in Sweden a few years ago, and which is now available in over a dozen countries worldwide. In short, it gives you the capacity to search for and listen to practically anything that’s ever been commercially released. You can either put up with the occasional ad, or choose the paid service, without ads, and which also gives you access on your mobile. I signed up when I visited Sweden last year, and just as well, since you now need a Facebook account to access the service, it seems.
Anyway, the great thing about Spotify in Australia is that it gives you access to loads and loads of Swedish music of all types, and so tonight I spent an hour or so searching for the most obscure Swedish musical references to see how good it was. Although there are some inexplicable absences, there’s some pretty amazing stuff to be found. And my biggest discovery, thanks to Spotify is a new album by Andreas Kleerup called, “Aniara”.
In stark contrast to his previous solo CD which contained loads of pop and dance songs, this is a theatrical, dramatic work. Best of all, the album features the voice of Helen Sjoholm, a Swedish singer with an amazing voice who I’ve seen perform on stage a few times. Helen has a wonderful, clear voice, with a great sense of emotion and strength, and so even if you don’t understand Swedish, you can still kind of follow that what she sings about is pretty important.
When you listen to Aniara, there’s no doubt that what Helen has to say is worth listening to. By way of background, thank goodness for Wikipedia, I’ve discovered Aniara was a science fiction poem written by the Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson. There was previously an opera based on the poem, but a couple of years ago, the Stockholm City Theatre commissioned a new work featuring the talents of Andreas Kleerup, Carl Bagge and Helen Sjöholm. According to a press release I found, “Aniara, directed by Lars Rudolfsson, premiered at the Stockholm City Theatre in autumn 2010 and sold out all 40 performances. The set, in which Helen Sjöholm, Claire Wikholm, Dan Ekborg, Helge Skoog and Sven Wollter all had supporting roles, received rave reviews and Kleerups music praised in the media. The album features vocals by Helen Sjöholm, instrumental music of Andreas Kleerup and Carl Bagge and monologues performed by Sven Wollter, Claire Wikholm, Dan Ekborg and Helge Skoog.”
According to Wikipedia, the “poem consists of 103 cantos and relates the tragedy of a space ship which, originally bound for Mars with a cargo of colonists from the ravaged Earth, after an accident is ejected from the solar system and into an existential struggle.”
As you might expect the work is entirely in Swedish, and the musical style is not exactly “show tunes”, but I’ve spent the night absolutely mesmerised by it.
I’ve got a bunch of postcards I’ve been carrying around for a couple of days. I really must send them. In the meantime, greetings from Narvik where I’ve found a pub with wifi.
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9 Comments
If we pay you money will you get rid of the double-columns and go back to the former look???
This may seem trivial – I am eating Wild Hibiscus Ice Cream. It is made by ingrid anabel eco-organics and contains such things as – Rosella, egg yolk, locust bean gum, milk ,cream and more. As beautiful as your photograph , so it is.
If we pay you money will you get rid of the double-columns and go back to the former look???
No, I like this for the moment, so you’ll have to suffer in silence, or subscribe via a reader.
OK, a partial compromise. The change is to compensate for a lack of actual content, of course.
Yes, yes, yes…that’s all I wanted – it’s very readable now. I don’t want to smash the screen anymore. Woo hoo! The rest of the design is fine.
Judgeg you are commenting about the layout and he’s telling us he’s been on a DATE!! OMG!!!! A Date!! Whoo hoo.
Yay for Sue. Substance over style!!!!
OK I’ve reverted…
This may seem trivial – I am eating Wild Hibiscus Ice Cream. It is made by ingrid anabel eco-organics and contains such things as – Rosella, egg yolk, locust bean gum, milk ,cream and more. As beautiful as your photograph , so it is.
Sounds fantastic. I love ice-cream, especially the more exotic flavours.