Design-work on Westfield Shopping Centre in Sydney
The first time some family members came to visit me in Sydney, I remember thinking how slowly they walked. Even though I’d only been living in Sydney for six months myself, I’d obviously already picked up some pace. Seventeen years down the track, I think I walk even more quickly. And when I walk quickly and with a sense of purpose, I sometimes fail to notice some of the detail of the many things around me.
But today, I walked a little more slowly and thus noticed some of the interesting design elements of the new-ish Westfield Shopping Centre in Sydney’s CBD. In particular, there’s some concrete work the Market Street wall of the shopping centre that’s worth having a look. It’s a nice reminder concrete can sometimes be a beautiful architectural design element.
Balgowlah RSL
I was walking more slowly as I was ahead of time to meet up with friends at Wynyard to catch the bus to have lunch and afternoon drinks for a friend’s fiftieth birthday at Balgowlah RSL. As far as RSL’s are concerned it’s pretty hard core (in a good way). The blokes of the fishing club were selling raffle tickets. There was a bloke cooking up $2 sausages on the barbie outside. There were very few people under the age of fifty. There could probably have been a separate car-park for mobility scooters. There were loads of people playing the pokies. And inside the toilet there was a pretty strong reminder about the reasons why RSL clubs exist, and therefore why people shouldn’t graffiti the toilet walls.
We had a lovely afternoon of drinking, chatting, and generally enjoying each other’s company. Oh, and Judy won a 6-pack of beer in the raffle. Happy birthday Donna.
As we caught the ferry back from an afternoon at Manly’s 16ft Skiff Club, we headed straight to the front of the vessel. I NEVER get sick of catching the Manly Ferry, though I’d imagine if I had to do it every day, it might get tiresome.
But today there was another reason to find a spot at the front: we had an overseas visitor. Or rather, a former Sydney-sider who has been living in Ireland for about a decade. Coming back for him must seem both familiar (family and friends) and unfamiliar (so different from his day to day life in Dublin).
Many photographs were taken, but this is actually my favourite. As we made our way to the quay I looked back towards the Opera House, and all of a sudden I saw it: the perfect opportunity to snap two Sydney “icons”.
As we caught the ferry, we made one or two jokes about the age of the people heading to tonight’s concert at Taronga Zoo by The Sports and Jo Jo Zep & The Flacons. “They might still have folding chairs, but it won’t be long until they have walking frames”: that kind of thing. Though we’re no spring chickens ourselves, it was pretty interesting going to see a concert featuring two legendary bands of the 70s/80s, who I don’t think have performed together for over thirty years. Though the band, The Sports performed well, I’ve seen Stephen Cummings perform better. Joe Camilleri, about to turn seventy, was excellent, as were The Falcons.
After a couple of days visiting San Sebastian and Bilbao, we’re on the train headed back to Madrid. In common with the trip from Barcelona to San Sebastian, the trip takes about five hours, and once again, we’re passing through the vast countryside of Spain.
At first, the landscape from Barcelona to San Sebastian was largely flat. In some respects it resembled those parts of Western NSW (around Broken Hill), across the border into South Australia. The closer we got to San Sebastian, the more mountainous it became. Slowly, as we approached San Sebastian, it began to feel less like “Northern Spain” and more like “Southern France”. The border between the two countries is only a short distance away. The train, which had reached high speeds, slowed dramatically, as we travelled through gorgeous small mountain townships until, eventually, when approaching San Sebastian, it became snail like.
My first impression of San Sebastian was one of slight disappointment. Though there were some lovely older buildings, and in the distance, a statue of Jesus overlooked the city, there were too many tourists for my liking. And yes, I’m aware of the irony of being a tourist and not liking tourists. Though initially I said it was like the Gold Coast (which Sue chastised me about), it’s most definitely a tourist town with lots of up-market shops.
San Sebastien
On Sunday morning, we caught the bus to nearby Bilbao, where we met a lovely man who Sue knew from the University of NSW. He’s from a nearby town (forty-five minutes by car from Bilbao), who had spent six months studying in Sydney, and was now back in his home town, studying, and hoping to start a new job. He was an excellent tour guide and guest for our six hour visit to the city. It was also fun to hear his reflections on living in Australia including the initial struggles he had with “university mealtimes” being closer to 6.00pm, compared with the much later times he was more familiar with in Spain.
Bilbao is home to the world famous Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry. As we walked around the museum, the audio tour explained the building was designed to be “as interesting as the artworks themselves”. Outside there were two major works by Jeff Koons – “Puppy” and “Tulips” – which were wonderful, and which attracted a lot of attention. Inside, there were some terrific works by De Kooning and Basquiat, as well as a rather timesome exhibit of folk-art. Yawn. Had we more time to wander around, I’m sure there would have been more to see.
Bilbao, Spain
Wandering around the city, we took in various historical sights, had an awesome lunch at a place which translate as “Mammas”, and had some gelato at a local place, known for experimentation eg: squid-in and cod flavoured. An awesome day. I really liked Bilbao. It had a “university town” feel about the place.
As I was starting to feel the effects of non-stop travelling, I slept for most of the bus trip back to San Sebastian. Last night, while Sue wandered into the old part of San Sebastian for dinner, I stayed in my room, napped, read a few things, and just “relaxed”. My feet were also a little sore, as we’re generally clocking up fifteen to twenty-thousand steps daily.
One of the other disconcerting things about visiting Spain at the time of the year is waking early and discovering it’s still dark. Sunrise is about eight in the morning.
San Sebastien, Spain
And so after waking and having breakfast, this morning, we put our bags in lockers at the bus station, and caught the hop-on-hop-off bus, taking us eventually to Mount Urgull. At the top of a fairly steep “mini mountain” (I needed to take a rest halfway up), there’s a statue of Jesus (yes, another one), overlooking the city. There isn’t however, a church in sight. At the top of the mountain, Jesus overlooks spectacular views of the city, surrounded by eighteenth century cannons.
Tomorrow, we’ll spend the day travelling to and from Toledo. For me, that’s the end of this wonderful trip. I’m catching a plane tomorrow night, with an overnight stay in Delhi, before arriving back in Sydney later in the week.
Not long after arriving in Sydney in the mid-1990s, I remember being blown away by the elaborate wigs of drag queen, Maude Boate.
Maude was a regular performer at the legendary, sadly missed Albury Hotel. Working alongside Maude at The Albury, was barman, Tim Chappell, one of the Academy Award-winning costume designers for “Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert”. Apparently, that’s how some of the Maude Boate-designed headgear and dresses ended up in the movie.
In contrast to the permed and blow-dried wigs of so many drag queens, Maude had cartoon-like headgear made of plastic.
The other connection between Maude and Tim was that both came from my hometown, Lismore. I remember discovering that about Tim about the time he won the Academy Award. But it wasn’t until a few years later I discovered Maude Boate was in fact, Michael Gates, also from my hometown.
“When I was growing up in Lismore, drag was completely unacceptable”, Michael says on a short video that’s playing as part of “Maudeville” an exhibition currently at the Lismore Regional Art Gallery.
Being of a similar age, I knew exactly what he meant. And yet, at the same time as Jim Brigginshaw, the editor of the local newspaper, The Northern Star was writing inflammatory anti-gay editorials, people like Mike Bray and Vera Bourne (the mother of a schoolmate) were hosting Gaywaves on the local community radio station, 2NCR-FM, Mike ran a gay restaurant called “Double Dutch” and the local social group, Tropical Fruits was just starting out.
Maudeville at Lismore Regional Art GalleryMaudeville at Lismore Regional Art Gallery
Thirty five years later, Tropical Fruits is now a multi-day festival (with a pool party and street parade) that attracts a lot of visitors from elsewhere (the actor Alan Cumming was the star celebrity guest this year), and there’s an exhibition at the local art gallery paying tribute to the work of a man who achieved a great deal through his drag persona.
Design-wise, Maude Boate continues to influence how many of Sydney’s drag queens dress. In the short video, Michael also describes how he makes wigs for the stage production of “Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert”.
Maudeville at Lismore Regional Art GalleryMaudeville at Lismore Regional Art Gallery
It’s a lovely exhibition. Well worth a look. But be quick, noting it closes January 30, 2016.
One of ABBA’s last recorded songs is a track called “The Day Before You Came”. It’s a sad, haunting piece, though with an optimistic side to it, as Agnetha recounts how boring and predictable her life was “the day before you came”.
But the music is so incredibly sad, particularly for the final sixty seconds of the song, where it’s just Frida sighing/moaning/singing over a simple backbeat.
Accompanying the song is a video clip which looks so incredibly Swedish. The setting is winter, the sun is rising later in the morning, and as Agnetha goes to or from work, it’s cold, wet and dark.
Obviously we don’t have the same weather here in Sydney, but that’s what it’s starting to get like at the moment. And it’s evident in the general mood of the place, as you see people catching buses and trains around the city.
Railway Square, Sydney
As previously noted, I’m not a great fan of winter, and neither, it seems, are most Sydney-siders. The Easter Weekend is always tinged in sadness, as it effectively marks the end of summer, and the beginning of winter. And with Anzac Day coming up (and no public holiday long weekend in NSW) which is almost always wet, there’s a miserableness about the place.
Catching the bus tonight you could see it in the faces of people at Railway Square.
Meanwhile there was a big argument involving a bunch of 15 or 16 year olds, which no one wanted to even acknowledge was occuring, even though we were all watching it with some disbelief.
At the heart of it was an argument between a teenage boy and a teenage girl. They looked about the same age and were similarly built. The girl was there with just one other female friend, while the boy was surrounded by half a dozen mates. On the surface it didn’t look good, as they swore at each other.
Within a minute or so, the argument turned to violence as the girl pushed the boy to the ground and then began kicking him in the stomach. None of their friends got involved. On two separate occasions the girl kicked the boy, leaving him in tears as she and her friend disappeared into the night. It was a pretty amazing scene.
And while all this was happening, the people at Railway Square looked out the corner of their eyes pretending not to watch, as they waited for their buses. I include myself in that.
It’s another beautiful Spring day in Sydney and, once again, I’ve woken up with a bad case of the sniffles. Although I live on the first floor of my apartment block, which means I’m literally in the treetops when I wake up in the morning, the downside of this is regular annual cases of hay fever. I don’t know why but this year the hay fever’s been much worse than in previous years. In fact, I had a day off work this week, hardly able to get out of bed. Thankfully, I’m feeling much better now, though the sniffles remain.
My Tree
Although I haven’t actually made any firm plans for the weekend, aside from a fairly vague idea of wandering down the road for the Surry Hills Festival (which has just firmed up thanks to a mid-blog telephone call from The Other Andrew) that’s probably not a bad thing. In the midst of this terrible hay fever, I’ve had a reasonably busy week with a night of theatre, dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant and another work-related event that took me to the forty-first floor of Governor Macquarie Tower which enjoys spectacular views.
The dinner on Thursday night with my friend Colin (and two of his friends) was definitely a highlight of the week, as we attended one of the “closing down dinners” at RQ Restaurant, a terrific Asian restaurant on Crown Street. Although I can’t remember exactly how many courses we had (it was one of those fixed-priced degustation menus), I do remember it was an evening of great food and conversation. As they have a daughter doing the HSC at the moment, it was a great night out for John and Catherine, who had also been to the night noodle markets the previous night, which Tom from Tom’s Place also enjoyed this week (even if they had run out of red wine!).
Such was not the case last night when Colin and I went to The Ensemble Theatre for the opening night of Noelene Brown in “Glorious”, a play about the American socialite and singer, Florence Foster Jenkins. Vaguely familiar with the true-life story of Jenkins, and as a big fan of Noelene Brown, I was really curious to see this play. As noted in Wikipedia…
From her recordings, it is apparent that Jenkins had little sense of pitch and rhythm and was barely capable of sustaining a note. Her accompanist can be heard making adjustments to compensate for her tempo variations and rhythmic mistakes. Her dubious diction, especially in foreign language songs, is also noteworthy. Nonetheless, she became tremendously popular in her unconventional way. Her audiences apparently loved her for the amusement she provided rather than her musical ability. Critics often described her work in a backhanded way that may have served to pique public curiosity. Despite her patent lack of ability, Jenkins was firmly convinced of her greatness. She compared herself favourably to the renowned sopranos Frieda Hempel and Luisa Tetrazzini, and dismissed the laughter which often came from the audience during her performances as coming from her rivals consumed by “professional jealousy.” She was aware of her critics, however, saying “People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.”
Wikipedia
Ensemble Theatre
The most memorable part of last night’s play, along with some good one-liners, was how Noelene Brown managed to sing the entire night intentionally off-key. There was not one occasion when she actually hit a note, reminding me of my own, often disastrous attempts at singing. Very funny. Although not a hugely memorable play, it was an evening of great fun.
And it was especially fun to see a play set in the bizarre world of 1940s New York social life, as I’ve become a little bit interested in New York this week. Aside from the hay fever I’ve had, the other bug I’ve caught this week is the “travel bug”. I went to my tax agent on Monday (and Friday to sign the paperwork) and if all goes to plan, I should receive a fairly healthy return within a few weeks. With the Australian dollar so strong at the moment, I made a mental promise to myself that if the return was indeed a healthy one, I would set aside some money to travel to three places I’ve always longed to visit: Stockholm, Paris and New York.
