As I arrived at the town of Songzhou – the home of a village of 2,000 practising artists – I wondered to myself, “what if I go one stop further?”. And so I did. And then I did again. And then I kept on going. Until eventually I found myself out in the countryside. It was an absolute pleasure to be able to take in some of those familiar non-urban smells that I’ve spent more than half my life with (though obviously not recently).
Catching the bus.
As I travelled on the bus through small villages there were particular images which remain with me: the massive amounts of corn on the roadside drying, the backyard recycling depots full of plastic bottles, and the seemingly “third world” living conditions of some of the housing. I travelled for as long as I felt comfortable until eventually I got up and off at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere. I felt reasonably comfortable there would eventually be a return bus, since there was a handful of people waiting on the roadside.
Corn stacks in ChinaSmall village outside Beijing
I must have been a rather odd site to have appeared from nowhere. Amongst those standing was an older bloke – maybe in his 50s – who was obviously a bit of a joker. He was walking around chatting to everyone and then came over to me for a bit of a chat. Through sign language he asked me why I had my pull-over wrapped in a knot around my kneck, suggested I put it on properly, and then we all laughed. We chatted for a while – he in Chinese, I in English – and made “the best of friends”. We sat next to each other on the bus. I was really pleased I’d gone that “one stop further”.
As I arrived back in Songzhu, with every intention of going to the artists village I wandered around for a while looking at the people and into the shop windows.
It was then I saw something which really upset me: a number of people in extreme stages of disability who were begging. It was the kind of image you most commonly associate with parts of India you might have seen on film or television. Suddenly going to an artists village seemed a little trivial, and so I wandered around a little further – trying to regain my thoughts – before heading back to Beijing proper.
Standing on a bridgeKate and I caught up late this afternoon for a while. And then it was off to meet some more Australian artists who are in Beijing at the moment, currently installing an exhibition in the 798 district. Statue made from incense sticks
We also had a bite to eat there. And then back home.
When I woke this morning there were two stories on the radio that caught my attention.
First, there was that stupid story from England about the parents “in trouble” for allowing their children to walk/cycle to school. Honestly…
And second, on a more local level, there was the story about an overnight explosion, fire, and emergency on nearby Cleveland Street.
According to all the reports this morning, it’s a case of suspected arson. As it’s reasonably close to where I lived, I’d like to say I could have been an eye-witness. I could have seen the blokes alleged to have committed the arson running from the scene.
And yet, the truth is I slept right through it. Slept like a log. There’s a Walkley Award I won’t be getting a nomination for :(
On the bright side, I’m feeling much better today. I’m still congested, my voice remains croaky, and I’m about 70%. So, even though I’ve missed out on Australian journalism’s highest prize, I’ve had a good night’s sleep and I feel much better.
Ahhhh, I’m exhausted. It’s been one of those really busy social days. After a late night at the theatre, I woke at about eleven o’clock this morning and had to make my way almost straight away to meet. Our plan was to go to the Food & Wine Fair in Hyde Park and then head off to the Sydney Theatre Company Open Day.
It’s been a few years since I’ve been to the Food & Wine Fair. I stopped going when it became too crowded. But since they’ve managed to spread everything out a bit further around the park, it’s now much more pleasant. It was still near impossible to find somewhere to sit down, but much better than it used to be.
“Shall we have a glass of wine to go with it?”, Colin asked as we purchased some food, a yummy crab salad from Jimmy Liks. “Well it is for charity”, I replied with a smile. I’ve never been to Jimmy Liks before, but on the basis of the salad, I’m gonna head off their sometime soon. Very nice.
And then we wandered through town across to Hickson Road for the first-ever Sydney Theatre Company Open Day. It was really terrific to go behind the scenes. “I can’t believe how much space there is”, I said to Colin at one point, as wandered through those areas you never get to see ordinarily. And at each point we visited, we were impressed with just how friendly the staff were, genuinely showing an interest in having loads of people walk through what is normally their behind-the-scenes workplace.
We sat in for parts of two workshops. The first was a “Writers Workshop” which featured the incredibly talented Tommy Murphy who explained at one point he uses Google Alerts to keep up to date with what people are saying about his work. (Hi Tommy, I think your work is terrific!!). The second featured Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett amongst others talking about the role and future of Sydney Theatre Company. They emphasised a new inclusiveness about the company, which I was really pleased to hear about.
Late in the afternoon I wandered home for a brief lie down and some make-up experimentation. The Other Andrew(in constume) had invited me to a Halloween Party with some friends of his. So I experimented for a while combining a bit of black and blue eye makeup to see if I could really come up with a genuine looking black-eye.
The whole concept for the outfit was that I was “The Wicked Witch Of The Western Suburbs”, though I ended up more looking like a “client” in the social-work sense of the word.
On the way there I popped in to my local pub to ask the bloke behind the bar how realistic my black-eye looked. “Pretty good”, he said, “…about two or three days old. No longer puffy, but it still looks like you’ve been in a fight”. Excellent.
The party was also excellent. Lots of people dressed in some great topical outfits. There was a “Joe Six-Pack”, and a Sarah Palin (complete with devil-like tail) and disturbingly convincing Amy Winehouse. And amongst the many people attending was MH who I chatted to briefly who came as a “Woman In Black”.
Overall, a fantastic Saturday.
Props and makeup workshop at Sydney Theatre Company
Costumes Workshop
On stage at Sydney Theatre as part of the Open Day
Halloween Pumpkin
Whaddya reckon? A career in theatre makeup or just a bad smudge?
Tonight at the pub with friends, I mentioned how I’d seen KB for sale in cans at the Strawberry Hills Hotel last night.
I had no idea KB was still manufactured and sold. There was a time in the early 80s, however, when it was probably the most popular beer in New South Wales, especially with its association with sport. I’ve never tasted a KB in my life, as it was popular mostly before I began to drink (in my late teens), so I don’t know if it was a good beer or not. So for a moment last night I was tempted to buy a can just to give it a try.
When I mentioned it to my mates at the pub tonight there was a welcome fondness for the beer and the brand. We then got involved in a discussion about other no-longer-popular drinks from our youth and began to compile a bit of a mental list.
Long before alco-pops, there were West Coast Coolers. They were very popular in the mid 80s during my time in Brisbane as I recall. As university students we all thought we were very cool, very with it.
Midori and Lemonade – again, this was from the mid 80s during my time in Brisbane. In hindsight, I can’t think of how I didn’t end up in a diabetic coma after every drink.
Carlton Cold – that was a massively popular beer for a while in the early to late 90s as I recall. Graeme theorised it went out of popularity because of a label change.
Sub Zeros – they were also a 90s thing, as I recall.
Graeme also mentioned a combination of Coopers Stout and Lemonade that was popular in South Australia for a while, though I can’t recall the exact name they gave to it.
And that’s about when we ran out of steam in the conversation. I thought by posting it here, it might inspire a few other people to record memories of drinks which were popular for a while, but which are now largely forgotten.
It’s Saturday morning and it’s overcast in Perth. I’ve just made some coffee and Sue is currently making toast and will join me soon to help compose this latest entry. Ah, she’s here.
Sue arrived from Melbourne on Monday night. Although she was here only a few weeks ago, we didn’t really have much of a chance to catch up, due mostly to Sue’s work commitments. So, I was very pleased when she announced she was coming back for another visit. I think she’s had a reasonably busy year with work, study and life generally, so this was hopefully going to be a fairly relaxed week with plans to lie by the apartment block’s “Melrose Place-style” swimming pool and read books. So far there’s been a little bit of reading and not much swimming. Are you relaxed Sue? “Yes”, she says.
After picking up Sue from the airport on Monday night, we wandered back to the apartment and settled in for a lovely evening of television watching. In some ways it was odd, once again, to watch programs like “Queer As Folk” and “The Bill” in the same geographic location and in the same time zone! We usually just talk about them on the telephone afterwards… and with a three hour time zone difference between Western Australia and Victoria at the moment, that can sometimes be difficult.
On Tuesday, Sue came in to work for the Social Club Melbourne Cup Luncheon. It was my first Melbourne Cup in a couple of years since I mostly have to work. The last time I really celebrated Melbourne Cup was when Sue and I went to Dunk Island three years ago, which involved watching the famous Dunk Island Cup where horses raced along the beach. This was quite different: a lunchtime event on the Sundeck of the ABC Building. What also made it different was the time zone: here in Perth, the Melbourne Cup is a lunchtime event which is much more sensible, even if I had a meeting soon after lunch. Sue writes: I’m not actually that interested in horses running around in circles for money, but meeting some of the ABC people James has been talking about this year was great. I work with only a small team of people in our physical office so being part of a much bigger social scene at work is a new experience for me. We had fun and the horses running in circles didn’t really take up much of the time at all.
Another social highlight was going to dinner on Thursday night at the Indiana Tea House at Cottesloe Beach. As we sipped our cocktails – Margarita and Cosmopolitan – the sun set spectacularly into the Indian Ocean. Surprisingly, there weren’t all that many people there, since it’s usually a reasonably popular spot. As we waited for our meals to arrive, we watched the surf club go through its training paces, with Rottnest Island silhouetted in the distance.
While here, Sue has visited some people she knows and has gained some first hand experiences of West Australian customer service. Sue writes: Do you ever find it weird being in a different Australian city to the one you are from and doing things like going shopping? I think it’s weird – you can recognise the shops and speak the language but you feel incredibly anonymous – I’ve never seen any of these people ever before in my life. You know sometimes when you go shopping at “home” you see people you have seen in the shops or at the footy or on the bus or something. There is something strangely recognisable about them. I have had this bizarre experience over the last few days of feeling like I am in another dimension or something. I look like these people, I sound like these people but I am not of these people – it’s hard to discribe. Seems a much more normal experience when you are actually overseas.
To compensate I have visited some old friends which has been really fun. Arthur Muhl the breakfast presenter from Sonshine fm is an old friend of mine and I popped in to say hi to him and to catch up on his news. (While at Sonshine I saw one of James’ local bloggers Rodney Olsen – that made me smile.) I had coffee in Claremont with my friend Anne who is the chaplain at MLC here in Perth. Those re-connections were great and compensated for some of the weirder exchanges with strangers in the shops.
My “I just don’t believe this” experience was buying lunch in a food court. Admittedly I was a bit over being in the shops by the time I got to the food court. I’d been trying to buy a strapless bra and that while seeming to be straightforward had taken much more time than I was expecting. I kept running into gangs of women with prams and lots of ladies on extending family outtings to the shops. I’d searched fruitlessly for appropriate colours and styles and stood in change rooms endlessly waiting for shop staff (assistants seems like the wrong word) to get me different sizes or styles. I was a touch harassed (and a bit dehydrated) by the time I thought “must have lunch NOW.”
Anyway I find the foodcourt and wander about trying to decide what I want to eat. I spot duck in a display and think – Duck yes Duck! So I wander up the counter and say I’d like the $5.80 size plate with the duck please. Duck was an extra $2, oh well I want duck so $2 is okay. “Would I like plain or fried rice with that.” “Plain thanks.” “Did I want anything else?” “What else can I have?” “YOu can have anything.” “Oh.” Couldn’t really see anything else I wanted but the sign said I could have rice/noodles, meat dish and vegetable dish on my plate for $5. “Can I really have anything” “Yes would you like the stir fried veges?” (No they look awful.) “I’ll have some of the lamb curry thanks.” So she serves me a reasonably large serve of lamb curry. I’m confused but say nothing. She moves to the register and says that will be $7.80 thanks. “Where is the duck I ask?” Duck – she looks dumbfounded. “Yes” I say “I wanted duck”. Duck is $2 extra she says. Yes I say I’ve given you $7.80 and there is no duck – that is what I wanted. She looks more confused. I try and explain – “I wanted the duck, you said it was $2 extra…. you said I could have the veges but I said the lamb curry (not saying to her) which I don’t think looks that great either but seems more edible than the vegetables on offer…”
She takes the plate and puts on three very small pieces of duck and returns to me. I say “look I don’t understand. I wanted duck and I’m paying an extra $2. I don’t think paying extra is bad but I do think I want more duck for $2 than you have just given me – I don’t really want the lamb I wanted duck.” She looks appalled at my bad manners. I contemplate walking away and leaving her with the lamb but I decide I’m not going to do that and stand my ground. “I’d like some more duck please.” She looks even more appalled but goes and gets another tiny piece of duck. I’m outraged and again contemplate walking off but take my plate and leave. Each mouthful chokes me! I’m outraged at her attitude and desperately want to go over and explain what I thought happened. (I hate it when people think I’m being rude.) But I sit there eating it without enjoying it and decide I just have to get out of this stupid shopping centre this very minute – I can’t take it anymore I need to go home.
I arrive and lie on the couch watching “Playtime Disney” and The Big Arvo. Not exactly my usual viewing but watching Colin Buchanan be nice to little kids and having fun is somehow incredibly thereaputic. James arrives home sometime later and laughs loudly when I explain the interaction with the woman at the food court and the service in the shopping centre. Didn’t I know that WA stands for Wait Awhile and that service in Perth is handled differently from the Eastern States. Somehow I think that this thing about capitalising Eastern States – what on earth is that about – is actually linked to the exchange described above. I’m convinced I had “Eastern States” printed across my forehead in some kind of ink that is only visible to West Australians!
Thanks for that Sue. At last, I get my computer back!!!
Yesterday was a very “Catholic” day with our trip to New Norcia and watching “The Sound Of Music” on television last night. I’ll write about New Norcia in my next entry.
Growing up in Lismore in the 1980s, I never found a particular affinity for “pub rock”, as my musical tastes weren’t in that direction but last night, stepping into the Northern Rivers Hotel, I couldn’t escape a wave of nostalgia.
Having recently reopened post the catastrophic 2022 flood that severely impacted it, “The Northern Rivers Hotel” was, at first glance, an unlikely candidate for re-opening. It’s located in the lowest part of town, and had flood water in the second floor. Yet, during my last visit over Christmas, the scent of fresh paint lingered, hinting at a promising renewal.
Last night, the smell of fresh paint had dissipated, replaced by the tempting aroma of freshly cooked food.
The Northern Rivers was bustling. As a family member remarked, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many people here before.” I couldn’t help but watch in awe at the youthful crowd, reminiscent of thirty years ago when I might have been one of them.
The dance floor was alive with the energy of 20-somethings dancing, reveling in the tunes of the Billy Gudgeon Band. Billy, a local talent gaining recognition in the country/rock circuit, had recently graced the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
The crowd defied the typical Lismore music scene stereotype, leaning more towards “farm kids” from nearby places like Casino and Kyogle than the usual hip crowds of Southern Cross University and Byron Bay. They enthusiastically danced to a mix of 80s covers and originals.
Today, the musical journey continued with Luke Yeaman at The Levee, offering soulful acoustic covers. Unfamiliar with Luke until my online search revealed his expertise in “wedding music packages,” I quickly grasped the appeal of enjoying familiar tunes presented in a unique way. His rendition of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” was particularly impressive.
Around the corner, another local musician Adam Gardiner entertained a smaller audience at The Metropole Hotel. Acknowledging the humble turnout, he smiled and said, “When I started, it was just the bar staff, so thanks for coming along.”
As I explored town, seeing many shop window posters advertising upcoming gigs, across a variety of musical genres, brought a smile to my face. While it may not match the “glory days” of Lismore’s music scene, with bands playing nightly at numerous pubs, it touched me to hear these sounds again on the streets, marking a significant step towards recovery after the flood.
I was sitting at Star City Casino the other night, and for just a brief moment I wondered if I should have been somewhere else. Normally on a Wednesday night I’d join a group of friends at a pub in Lewisham for a mid-week debrief about our lives over a few beers.
But on Wednesday night this week, another friend (“C”) and I had decided to go to see ABBAMANIA, a brand new musical tribute. And for just a brief moment, I thought to myself, “What the f… am I doing here?”.
At interval, I called a mate at the pub to tell him about the show. “What do you think?”, he asked, at which point I declared the show to be both one of the best, and one of the worst ABBA tribute shows I have ever seen. At that point my friend C, who had been to the famous ABBA concert in Perth, Western Australia, where they evacuated the entertainment centre due to a bomb hoax, suggested to our friend on the phone that he call Star City and make a bomb threat, so we would all have to leave.
ABBAMANIA at Star City Casino
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it was Jeff Kennett who famously described Star City Casino as an “RSL Club on steroids”, making it one of those lines I still laugh out loud about. Well, if Star City is an RSL on steroids, I have to say ABBAMANIA is an ABBA tribute show on steroids, and yet also cortisone. There were moments of absolute joy (literally “goose bump moments) with tremendous performances, such as “The Winner Takes It All”. There were also moments when I felt as though I was witnessing the world’s worst ABBA tribute show, such as when they sang “I’ve Been Waiting For You”. Although the song’s simple arrangement was quite good, it was sung with a “Nashville twang”. “Hive bheen whaiting ferrrr youuuuu”.
And that was a recurrent theme throughout the show: songs sung without meaning. I know what you’re thinking: what meaning could possibly be found in songs like “Mamma Mia” and “Bang A Boomerang”. But the truth is, when you listen closely to their music, even those songs with childlish lyrics are sung with such passion, joy and heartbreak. For example, the vocalist got “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) completely wrong in its interpretation. When Agnetha sang “There’s not a soul out there, no one to hear my prayer”, she was crying out for intimacy, not just a quick root.
There were also those terribly insincere faux Swedish accents, which inevitably re-inforce the idea Agnetha and Frida were idiots, due to their poor English. And there were dance moves Agnetha and Frida never did. Or dance moves they did, but to an entirely different song. And while the choreography of Agnetha and Frida was always a little more individual and a little more “down-home” (hey, they selected their own costumes and did their own make-up so what would you expect), the choreography of the Agnetha and Frida in this show was quite slick, in a clunky kind of way. Agnetha and Frida hardly ever danced in time together.
Later in the night, I listened in to a couple of nearby conversations about the show. Almost without exception everyone had a great time. I also heard people say how “how close to the originals they were”. It was at that point I wondered whether or not they had seen the same show I had, and whether or not they’d ever seen an ABBA video clip or live concert performance to make an accurate comparison.
But in the same way that if you repeat a story over and over, even if it’s incorrect, it ends up becoming correct, ABBA tribute bands have developed their own mythology about ABBA, far removed from the truth.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those purists who hates ABBA tribute bands, as I’ve been to see quite a few. I’ve also seen “Mamma Mia” a few times, and I’m completely happy with other people re-inerpreting ABBA songs, and seeking to recreate their live performances. I probably would have enjoyed the show more, had they not decided to promote the show as a “re-enactment of ABBA’s last concert performance”. Because it wasn’t. Instead, it was like a tribute show of a tribute show, if you know what I mean. It was more like a Bjorn Again tribute show than an ABBA tribute show.
Anyway, aside from that, I’ve had a reasonably lovely week. I went to dinner tonight with a colleague and a group of her friends who were all absolutely delightful. And also last night I went to Fruits In Suits, a monthly event I often attend. While entering the venue I was greeted by a well-known Eastern Suburbs figure who was there, standing outside saying hello to people, and clearly identifiable, when at the same time he was supposed to be somewhere else.
Lovely story!