Lock Down No. 6

Sunday, 8th August 2021

The Lock Downs are becoming a blur now. Now likely to continue intermittently through the rest of the year or until the vaccine rate is significantly high enough to open the city up again. In the CBD, it's looking very sad and derelict. No doubt it will bounce back eventually.

On the bright side, my walk along the river this morning revealed two interesting, if not exciting things. First, a new river foam sculpture in that spot where the water flows back upriver. It always seems to produce interesting foamy objects but not all the time.

However, of great excitement to everyone walking beside the river this morning was the appearance of a seal! It came up to Dwights Falls where a few Kyacks were floating around, then headed back downstream with a fish! The whole trip up from Turner St to Dwights Falls didn't last very long and I was very lucky to be there to see it. I was actually late in getting out this morning too.

Lock Down No. 5

Sunday, 25th July 2021

Now in the 5th Lock Down, winter seems even colder. Perhaps not extreme, as other parts of the world right now, but still miserable. This morning on my usual walk along the Yarra, it was about 5C, and up on the playing fields at Yarra Bend Rd the moon floated over the City. When the sun goes down over the City like that, it will be hot. Nice perhaps, but months way.

More River Anomalies

Sunday, 20th June 2021

During the 4th lockdown in Melbourne, the weather turned wild. The wind was fierce and there was a lot of rain. For those living in the outer suburbs towards and on the mountains, the storm was particularly damaging with many trees down and causing power outages for more than 150 thousand houses. Due to the unprecedented amount of damage caused by rain, wind, and falling trees even at this time, there are still homes without power, that is, more than two weeks later. There are also many homes that have been damaged and thus rendered unliveable.

Locally, around here the river flooded its bank which was to be expected. What was surprising was how that flooding remained for days due to the water coming down the Yarra from the catchment areas. Flash flooding here has been worse but usually subsides quickly over a 24 hour period. This was different, it remained much longer. The flooding did mean that when on the weekend people were out and about along the river, the flooding required them to detour around. So there seemed to be people everywhere. This was an interesting and unusual occurrence. Now the opposite has happened. The flooding has passed and the street has been blocked off for drainage works. So no one can get through from the end of the street down to the river.

However, the river keeps generating curious relations, which I usually document for no other reason than they happened. It is probably only due to the current dynamics of the river at this point that these two discs of foam came to be produced but their size and form suggest that the conditions have been around for a while.

An Accidental Perspective

Sunday, 25th April 2021

It won’t be long before this particular viewing position–for those brave enough to venture up there–will be gone. In fact, it may no longer be accessible that old way. However, a similar and much safer elevation will be available in the future for those who buy apartments on the site. But for now, it remains as it has been for decades an iconic location dominated by that advertising sign and timepiece.

So, whenever these photos were taken–possibly 2018/19?–such a magisterial and quietly elevated view of Melbourne will in one form or another become visible again. As it is, there is something definitively sentimental in mood as seen through that hazy, steely cool atmosphere that shrouds the diverse geometry of the city. As featured earlier on this page, great views of the city can be had from a few vantage points but this one is unique for one simple reason. It has the Yarra as 'hero' and rarely does Melbourne’s great river get featured so prominently against the city skyline. As the ancient artery now transformed, it flows silently through Melbourne's heart. And with that highly poetic, glistening meander, that last gentle wiggle the serpentine waterway executes so graciously, it will end rather unceremoniously in the Bay. In the foreground, however, emerging from the Punt rd/Citylink clutter, it becomes regaled in a serene urbane grandeur in preparation to becoming a formidable boundary between the South Bank/CBD precincts. The rest of the city looks on. Cheers Patrick. 

“I want out”— Emancipation in Musical Plurality

Sunday, 7th February 2021

Consider as a paradox the notion of "escape" in the diversity of music today. Whether it really is some kind of conundrum might depend on the shape of the discourse, what’s included, what’s excluded, and how individuals view the big picture. And it is big. Indeed, it spans at least the past hundred years but the critical moment is now. But what does "escape" here mean?

We are at a time when the production and diversity of music are not only greater than ever before in history but accessible in a form that effectively neutralizes a music's cultural context and origin. No examples will be given here, it is simply self-evident to any individual willing to reflect on it. The cultural specificity here certainly doesn’t exclude anyone with access to the Internet and time to listen but it also helps to be aware of how you are listening.

So there’s a lot of music out there. When that Music is divided into genre, culture, and time, many lineages are formed that do not overlap and may well never do so in the future.

Pondering the idea of commonality, it is convenient to start with the idea that we are all human and on one planet. From this point, the state of commonality breaks down as the diversity of humanity at an increasingly focused level of detail becomes exponentially complex and nuanced. To such a bewildering extent, in fact, as to consume vast amounts of time in analysis. Instead, we look for convergences that we can quickly appreciate.

“One day in New York they dined at the Côte Basque with Elliot and Helen Carter. A man came up to their table, discreetly asked the composer for his autograph, then quietly returned to his own table. Stravinsky had not recognized him, though they had met before. It was Frank Sinatra.” (Walsh. 2006. p.521.)

Music is Music? To get to the import of this text, one ideally must read through Stephen Walsh’s first volume on Igor Stravinsky and then 521 pages of the second volume to arrive at this observation. Of this apparent creative dichotomy one is tempted to say, “Only in America”, but it is only in America where the reportage of such incidents gets coverage. That is, it is an important part of the culture that this be expressed in simple terms. It is part of the rich tapestry of a pluralistic dream.

And it is all around us. February 2021 editions of the New Yorker Magazine and the New York Review of Books contained articles on two different yet contemporary musical identities; Dusty Springfield and Charles Rosen (both of whom are dead and the latter and older, died later). Why would someone be interested in both musical identities? Because it is a central prerogative of “our” time. But putting aside extended reasoning on that, for almost the past 50 years there has been few if any restrictions on anyone who wanted to follow with interest the careers and output of both artists. Not to mention an ocean of other artists.

In Simon Callow’s New York Review of Books essay, Charles Rosen is quoted as saying,

“Romanticism is not a style but a project. The Romantics abandoned the idea of the center in art: they brought out the value of what had been considered marginal. They overturned the hierarchy of the genres…. Schubert’s Winterreise or Schumann’s Dichterliebe are just as much masterpieces as the St. Matthew Passion.”

At that historical moment in the “Romantic” period of music, a fragmentation of perspectives, of attribution of greatness was finding confirmation and over the coming century that would carry through and across evolving, at least, Western culture. Today, it could be argued that there has been the emancipation of all cultures from their musical traditions, largely driven and sustained by the power of the middle class and their embrace of “pop” music.

Acknowledging the Didion documentary, “The Center Will Not Hold”, let’s take this further. Part of the musical appreciation zeitgeist today likely includes an active interest is searching out little-known musical genres, artists, and their contexts purely for the purpose of defining oneself as open and responsive to the vast landscape of musical cultural practice. As the ability to create sound has expanded through evolving technology, and the changing delivery mechanisms on the Internet, what quickly appears to be missing is a cultural context, a valid context, in which the sound is produced. There are too many “Labs” and not enough realworld scenarios producing great, memorable sound experiences. It is notable that there is a constant need to redress this either through recordings of the world or constructions of mythical landscapes like the KLF’s “Chill Out” album of 1990. One can easily appreciate a sound experience where one is walking in a city with sounds of that city streaming to their headphones. Those sounds could be from someone walking simultaneously with the listener but across the street. So it would be listening to a different sonic perspective. But this is the music of possibilities, not explicitly or intentionally some kind of music of happiness.

So–All Music, Everywhere–is still itself a cultural experience being lived through. We really don’t know the consequences for musical appreciation through a more or less uniform delivery system independent of time and place and activated on the whim of an individual. If there are any consequences, is it fair that they are evaluated against that of the past? Putting the question of Music aside for a moment and getting back to the idea of “freedom”, what we can determine, indeed briefly think we experience is a custom “freedom” fabricated through the ability to give our lives a continuous soundtrack of our choosing.

Footnotes
To put the Walsh quote in context, the Wikipedia entry for La Côte Basque which closed in 2004, recalls the restaurant by quoting The New York Times which called it a "former high-society temple of French cuisine at 60 West 55th St.”. It was no ordinary diner.

References
Stephen Walsh. 2006. Stravinsky. The Second Exile. France and America 1934-1971. Jonathan Cape. London.
Amanda Petrusich. 2021.  “Old Soul. Revisiting the Sounds of Dusty Springfield”. The New Yorker. February 7, 2021. pp.72-73.
Simon Callow. 2021. “A Taste for the Difficult”. The New York Review of Books. February 11, 2021. Volume LXVIII. Number 2.

Into the New Year

Tuesday, 5th January 2021

Countless words, stories, and exhortations over that singular global event of 2020 have flowed ceaselessly through media channels to the point where any follower–any concerned conscious person–let alone a direct participant in the drama is starting to reach for the “mute” control; the “pause” icon to stabilize the psychic turmoil. Pointless really as it all continues to reverberate in the echo chamber of the mind as amplified feedback.

A year ago today, who would have thought it could happen. The paranoid or hardcore realists would be unfazed, of course. Something like that was going to happen and it was always a question of when. This commentary is useless though. It would be better to know what was going to happen and when so one could plan for it or not. Failing that the easiest and probably sanest option is to simply accept it.

So what of this coming year? Can we feel optimistic? Can we revel in recovery? The joy of getting up when you are down. Well, clearly this is all a collective view to get the big picture with sporadic low-res detail. Each of us, unfortunately, will continue to struggle with those personal, intimate even, issues that cling to us for unspecified periods of time and then drop away unexpectedly, almost without notice or fanfare. Amid all of that, one needs to step away momentarily and get a view of one’s core being.

One simple joy I experience every day is a walk along the river. The objective is to notice things and reflect on them. Sometimes they are in the form of an expectation, like are the Tawny Frogmouths in the old peppercorn tree? Other times things are seen that are fleeting or the result of some recent activity. Like the way the water dances in the rapids at a certain low water level or debris that gets trapped in strange places. The river transports a huge amount of detritus from suburbia, and that gets caught in unusual circumstances.

Or there are creatures. Snakes (Tiger here) and lizards (Dragon in this case) that appear when one least expects them. Sometimes they just sit there, other times they wriggle away.

The river has become a kind of oracle, the walk a kind of meditation on what will come. Nothing is explicit as is the way of all oracles. It is simply a matter of noticing. It’s actually a kind of self-awareness. By looking at the world around and sensing the dynamics of the flowing water, I become one with it and am primitively prepared for the day. It is wakefulness, a tuning in exercise because nothing is really prepared for. There’s no diary entry, itinerary or even an imperative for action. Just a brisk gust of the intangible to brace for the day.

Melbourne in August

Friday, 21st August 2020

I took a walk today across the Yarra river at the Johnston st bridge and up Studley Park Rd to the City lookout spot which is on the Yarra Boulevard off lane. I hadn't walked there before which is strange as it commands one of the great views of Melbourne. The view is fleetingly observable driving toward Abbotsford along Studley Park Rd. The view reminds me somewhat of the New York westside skyline one sees from a New Jersey Transit train before entering the tunnel under the Hudson.

The City rises so majestically in the distance and to me is a landscape of my own history. This skyline, of course, will continue to change as it has been for the past 45 years, about as long as I've been conscious of it. [Edit] What I should have added here on reflection was that it is a view of a "ghost" city that in the coming months would become even more ethereal. [14/01/20201]

The tall "smoke" stack on the left is actually part of the Carlton and United Brewery complex in Abbotsford. When the wind blows in the right direction during the barley roasting, the smell is very distinct.

In the foreground is the Abbotsford Children's Farm and the sprawling Convert Arts Precinct off to the right.
The building behind the windmill is the Sophia Mundi School.
The Yarra, out of sight, is directly below in the foreground.

On my way back I took the shot of the Yarra with the tall "Boiler House" apartment tower which is part of the Riviere complex where I live. What divides this picture from the others is Studley Park Rd.

To walk along the Yarra at this point is to marvel at how natural and almost untouched this landscape appears only 3k from the CBD. Historically, the river was a boundary between the inner working-class suburbs and the outer upper-middle class suburbs of Kew, Hawthorne, etc. How times have changed and change again.

Leaving...

Thursday, 13th August 2020

As everyone knows, this year has been particularly challenging. That's putting it mildly. It has however, caused many people to re-evaluate their situation.
In light of this, and perhaps more importantly my view of my creative motivations has led me to a resolution to leave the Studio.
It's not been an easy decision, in the end the pragmatics of what I'm doing there, cemented that course of action. I've just gotta go, and unfortunately, I'm not the only one going.
It will take a few months to move out and moving stuff is what I'm particularly dreading because I don't know where a lot of it will go other than a recycling depot. That's a bit hard to take really.
The space itself has never been more user friendly and when the warmer weather comes will be more enjoyable to be in.

I'll comment on this departure in more detail in due course.

BeBox Update

Friday, 3rd July 2020

I recently sold my 1995 Be Box (see pictures from the 21st March below) and it now has a new home and a new (old, "Matrox Millennium") graphics card. 32 bit up from 16.  Woo Hoo!

Really glad it went to someone who appreciates it.

The River and Bayes' Theorem

Sunday, 7th June 2020

The river (Yarra, Melbourne) has a habit of showing me things that are somewhat hard to believe and I generally ignore them after marvelling at their existence. Early this year I picked up a yellow child's billiard ball from its edge with the number 65 (see "Five Months In" image below) printed on it. Seeing the yellow ball was a  completely random act, even before I noticed the number.

Now there is this. A plastic bottle filled to nearly full, perfectly vertical and wedged on a log. Note the temporal element here.

The temptation is to say that the bottle was deliberately placed there. That would however, be a very dangerous act and for what reason? True, there doesn't need to be one. People do strange things.

If this is a completely natural occurrence then the probability of it happening like this is very low, one might think. Here we have to work with the Hypothesis given the Evidence.

So things happen and this half of the year has been a time for them. What next?

As of 13 June 2020, it's still there and I'm leaning more towards some one having put it there.

Now July 3rd and still there.

Gone by July 17.

Codicil

Friday, 22nd May 2020

I wrote yesterday that I believed I would hear no more about the matter but, of course, I was wrong, well in part. As with most of life’s sagas, there is a resonance that can be followed up. This I did on the spur of the moment and discovered more that took my feelings one way then later the other.

To my regret, I missed something written to me weeks earlier and last night I found it, checking on a whim, and read it. The effect was to amplify an emotional state that was just forming, like a cosmic dust cloud becoming a galaxy. However, it remains far from stable and as usual, there are more questions than answers. The truth is a matter of perspective and impossible to know in totality.

Information too is a strange commodity. What I read last night had a profound emotional impact but was followed up today with more information that again changed the tone of my feelings. Understanding what happens across years of people’s lives can’t be achieved in a few sentences. But in a few words, a new view of things can be initiated.

Anyway, apart from not really resolving anything, if anything ever could, it did seem to change the reason for a particular outcome that to some people might be worth pondering. I believe now that for one person, the decision was correct and hopefully, they will flourish due to it. For the other person, the consequences sadly were the complete opposite and prematurely terminal.

It is one of those situations, where I reflect on how little I actually know and when it comes to people, what we think we know can be a delusion that simply masks our ignorance. Of course, even asking questions does not guarantee finding the right answers.

On the back of an envelope of a letter I received in August of 2013 there was a quote from McCullers. It is worth reflecting on McCullers life here:

Carson_McCullers

I won’t include the quote but in a way it is pertinent to this current thread as was the whole letter to the future direction leading to this text. It is a pity I was never able to reflect on the letter in detail and discuss it with anyone, as the author's position was certainly confirmed 3 years later under different circumstances.

So if someone ever reads this they might be inclined to ask, what is this about? Maybe by then I’ll have more answers but I doubt it.

Past Moments in Continuity: A Time for Reflection

Thursday, 21 May 2020

The past came rushing back the other day, leaping over a void of silent years to report on a sad recent event. This triggered memories and questions, more questions in fact the longer I reflected on it, but also confirmed that the decision I made those many years ago was in essence the correct one or perhaps more philosophically, the appropriate one at the time. To be more accurate however, that decision was predetermined for me by someone else 4 months earlier. Even then it was difficult to accept but right. It didn’t feel like it then and for a period afterwards, but I slowly filed the emotional bundle away and got on with my life. OK, so I hope you get it that this is going to be a very abstract entry.

The trouble with that experience was that it was filled with optimism at a time when I was sorely in need of it. It was, however very short on credible reality and I finally opted for the pragmatic direction and that proved, in part, to be manageable and to a degree, progressive for that time in my life. In some ways it was also the path of least resistance. I had unwittingly applied Occam’s Razor to an emotional issue.

Still, I was left with memories that hinted at what might have been. For a period of time I could imagine a different life, a new life, a better life, somewhere else. Rather than going back, it would be a kind of personal Renaissance, complete with a supportive entourage. There was however no detail to any of this and a lot of inescapable caveats floating around. It seemed easy to overlook the caveats (some of which were imposed upon me and rightly so) and look to a new future. It was all too sketchy, too nebulous and one-sided. It was my dream, not really shared by anyone else.

It came as a surprise to me that in a way, I had possibly, inadvertently, handed a situation to others and in the past few days, I had gleaned a bit of how that had all gone, and of course, it was Icarian. Up and then crashing down. Happy times eventually turning in the opposite direction. Paths diverging.

This may seem hubristic but I side stepped a moment, relatively quickly really, and that particular life direction was taken up by someone else. That moment, it should be noted was preconfigured some months earlier and not by me. Anyway, sort of like deciding not to take a flight, or catch a particular train on the spur of the moment. I just caught another one that was slightly different in outcome. This might seem harsh, or particularly insensitive but it certainly isn’t “schadenfreude” as I feel way to melancholy for that. The experience just seems like a personally poignant example of a particular life changing decision made that was emotionally charged. Thd direction that I foregone by me was taken up by others and that is what this is all about.

While this recent event I heard about was happening (about a month earlier), and I should say I actually only know the sparsest details about all of this even now, I was reading Walter Kaufmann’s translation of Nietzsche’s “The Birth of Tragedy”. Kaufmann died unexpectedly at his home in Princeton in 1980 (9 years before I got there) aged only 59. In reviewing Kaufmann’s philosophical outlook and life at that time, I had no way of realising that I would need to return to thinking about that so soon. It helps, a little now, as I work through the emotions that I feel about my life those years ago.

One thing I know for sure now, is that I didn’t really know those involved at the time, and over the years since, I know them less. That’s just the way silence is. What I do know is that it was an experience that didn’t seem to have closure then and now I’m just curious as to what happened in those intervening years. Closure seems irrelevant, even indulgent. But of course, it is none of my business and while the Internet has revealed some information that I have to interpret, detailed first hand accounts have not been forthcoming. And probably never will be.

Those involved directly in this saga will have to endure the consequences of a fateful moment years ago that I had some agency in. Of course, I am not responsible for the actions of other people but I did create an opportunity and it was embraced. I can only surmise that for at least the first two years everything was rosy. Perhaps, those memories will triumph eventually, over the others of that time.

As I will likely never hear of this matter again, I wish the future well to those remaining.

Five Months In

Saturday, 16 May 2020

I wrote here in late December 2019 that I hoped the coming year would be more productive. Well, was I at the wrong end of the hope spectrum with that sentiment!

The first 6 months of 2020 have been, for virtually everyone on the planet, beyond belief. The world has been so shaken and unsettled that it is currently hard to imagine what life will be like in 6 months time let alone a year. I’ll stop here because there have already been billions of words written on this and I’ve really nothing to add generally.

The question remains though, what’s the future? Actually, that is for me. I don’t know. How do I return to “productive”? I guess I don’t or as productive as I was late last year. I think it is the wrong question. The question really is, how do I live from now?

Around February this year I was walking along the path beside the Yarra. It had been raining heavily and the banks were littered with the usual trash that floats down the river. At a certain point, my attention was drawn to a yellow round object that sat on top of a pile of debris. For some reason or other, I decided to look at it more closely so reached down and picked it up. I was initially disappointed as I thought it might have been more substantial than it was but as I rotated it around in my hand, I realised that the number on the toy ball was propitious or at least coincidental. Numbers rarely, if ever strike me that way but finding this object with the number so brazenly printed on it struck me as very weird.

So as the world was just beginning to sense a totally unnerving future, I at least was humble enough to think that it was only a number with a positive or negative significance to me. It still is. This year, however, will live long in the memory of everyone on this earth.

3 Time Machines

Saturday, 21 March 2020

There are things that you keep and things you don’t. Why you keep things is often not a matter of logic or laziness but emotion and history. I’m extrapolating for sure, but of interest here is 3 such objects (images below), actually “machines” that I have managed to hang onto for more than a quarter of a century. They are all audio related, two explicitly, one indirectly but also the most powerful in terms of audio potential. They all work fully and are in remarkably good condition.

I call them “time machines” even though the time travel is retrograde only, well perhaps they, in their stillness, kind of say something about my future, a place yet traveled, who knows. They have now become historical vehicles describing, in a way, my state of mind 25 years ago and how that had changed from a decade earlier in the 1980s. That’s another story for another time I think.

Order of presentation here is not significant as I can’t remember which I acquired first, etc., and I have placed no priority on them, although, perhaps there is for me personally. Some I achieved more with than the others, some meant, at the time more to me than they did a little later or even now. So considering them is simply to reflect on a variable experience.

So they are from the 1990s and represent my fading enthusiasm towards the promise of computer/digital music, at least, here in Melbourne. They were all acquired in Melbourne, one from a retail store the others on-line. At the time, ironically, I was living in the still but fading “hipster” suburb of Fitzroy where my Studio space currently is. In the last 25 years that suburb, and the neighbouring Collingwood, have changed almost beyond recognition. Again, ironically the suburb is full of digital creatives…like the rest of the planet.

And the hardware is:

• Yamaha 03D Digital Mixer with ADAT extension module
• QUASIMIDI Rave-o-lution 309 Synth/Drum machine with all extension modules
• BeBox Computer. Dual 133MHz PowerPC 603e processors and extensive I/O

Now, at this time, these machines have to go. Ideally, to a good home. I can’t justify keeping them anymore and probably will never seriously use them other than to check they are working. That doesn’t see right but I suppose that is why they are still around. The BeBox OS (BeOS) is rev-locked. It can’t be officially updated any further as the current version is the last of that era. Although compiling later versions of the OS for that hardware might be possible.

Yamaha 03D Digital Mixer (1995)

I bought with Steve Law (Zen Paradox) who also bought one from Allens Music when the store was on the Southside of Bourke (It has been on Bourke St a few times I think) around 1995/6. Steve wore his out through extensive use; gigs and studio work. Mine simply rested. Well, I did learn a bit about mixers and I even reverse engineered the MIDI output commands to drive the mixer from a computer. There was interesting potential there but the MIDI commands were long and complicated because just about everything on the mixer could be controlled through MIDI.

QUASIMIDI Rave-o-lution 309

The “Rave-o-lution 309”, an TR-808 or perhaps more closely, a TR-909 copy the 309 with advanced synth technology, was a curious purchase for me. It looked interesting, flexible and extensible. I bought it,for some crazy, about the time I bought a “Sherman Filter Bank” and that device was legendary. I sold the "Filter Bank" that in a second but couldn’t as easily sell the 309. Anyway, the 309 still works after 25 years! And still looks OK. I changed some of the knobs because they overall weren’t that interesting or functional but apart from the extension upgrade it is original.

BeBox Computer (1995)

The BeBox was my purchasing homage to the NeXT machine. I had a NeXT “pizza box” bought in the US in 1991 but it was old and slow, and NeXT no longer made hardware, so when Be came along I went for it. BeOS, like NeXTStep was a great OS and promised to be a great media machine. The history of Be is interesting and like CP/M it failed to get the future it probably deserved. NeXT/OSX won out with Apple.
This machine is interesting because it still has the original software on it and in particular, an audio app by DAK (David A. Karla). The App is called Rack704 and was basically his version of a drum/synth machine. I remember that we did gigs on Brunswick St (Punters Club and Binary Bar). Of course, David bought a BeBox too, so that is how the software developed. It still runs on my BeBox today.
While tinkering with the BeBox in the late 1990s, getting a CD writer to work, etc., I transitioned to Linux where I stayed until academia required me to use Macs (OS9!) in 2002 and I have been an Apple user ever since.

Final Thoughts

There is one other device: a portable DAT machine (Onkyo?) which has not been included in this list and it also dates back to around 1994. It is small, a so called ¾ DAT system and it still works I think. As I have a few DAT tapes I would like to perhaps access one day and it's not that big, I guess I can still hang onto it.

I have hung onto this stuff for so long without doing anything fun with it that clearly now it is time to pass it on, as in part with it. Psychologically, it's probably the right time too. So I'm comfortable with that.

Tuesday, 14 January 2020

There was a strange red sunset last night which did not bode well for the next day. And it turned out to be a long time since the air quality over Melbourne was this bad. It has been classified as hazardous and will probably last all day. Hopefully, tomorrow it will clear.

Sunday, 29 December 2019

In the few remaining days before the new year and the start of the last year of the decade, I've been reflecting on what has been a frustrating past 6 months. Apart from some health issues of a rather minor though inconveniencing sort, the period has been curiously misaligned, to put it one way. I generally brush these things aside and just get on with it but reflecting on the whole period, it has been particularly debilitating from a fundamental living perspective. There's no point in going into detail but the end of the year, I hope, marks the end of such unproductive events. So, as I put together my "Flatpacked Distractions" cutout of Pellegrini's Bar (The Famous cafe on Bourke St that every true Melbournian knows intimately and with profound sadness) I started to reflect on how great it is or rather privileged it is to live in Melbourne at this time. And, it is not easy to live here either, like most influential and recognised cities of the world, Melbourne has grown very fast since I returned from the U.S. in late 1993. That has been both good and bad, of course. So I think my two images of the City from Abbotsford, kind of put it in context.