Friday 27 March 2009

Another 45 comes home with me



I had to get my glasses adjusted at the optometrist, which happens to be next door to Baz at Egg Records. Cleverly, he had a box of singles & EPs on his counter. I said, Hi and what in here. I found an EP from 1993 from the Frumpies: "Babies and Bunnies" - lots of fun and thanks to the always entertaining Youtube, there's even some clips of the songs from this EP.



An extra on this vinyl is around the inner part where there's usually a serial number etched in - something a person doesn't often look at. There was no date on the record itself so i held it to the light to see if it was etched in. It wasn't but "SKANK AND CHILL" is beautifully engraved there. On the b-side is engraved: "UNFOCUSED HATRED SEEKS A VICTIM"


what a treat.




Killrockstars site

now I'm off to meet my good friend, Sylvia for a beer and no doubt a chat about her lovely fella & my fabulous gel... as well as, you know, stuff including this little treat of a record

Sunday 22 March 2009

Slide show promotion - Anne goes international



that's my scribble on the flyer - wot a dork! (if you click on the picture, it will come up bigger & readable)


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Siouxzi Mernagh has just finished her fellowship with Berlin ici (Institute for Cultural Inquiry) - an institution that organizes fellowships for people to work on projects that require lots of brains. Stuff like: Death Drive, Repetition Automatism and Seriality in the Intersections between Psychoanalysis, Cybernetics and Popular Culture
With thanks to Siouxzi up to 20 of my images (from the series I have posted online on my website (some other shots SM chose from here)will be shown as 3x4 metre slides during the course of a "Sydney" evening in Berlin she is putting on to celebrate the completion of her fellowship film. She wanted to show Sydney different to the usual Opera House & kangaroo look by presenting a quirky, inner west view - more like the Sydney she knows.
I share the Unseen Sydney part of the show with Megan Yeo - we are both rapt.
Lucky Megan leaves for Europe on Monday, just in time to catch the show - I'm looking forward to hearing all about it.

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Was it murder or was it suicide?

Or maybe just an accident...

A glaringly sunny morning and there's dozen policemen & big vans in our street before nine on Sunday.

Our house was door-knocked - I was lying in bed vaguely waking up listening to the news on Radio National.

Two pleasant policemen waited at the door while I got decent - ish.
The main fellow asking questions was very interested in those annoying noises I heard sometime between 5 and 6 AM.. I think that was the time.
"Are you sure it was two male voices"
"Yes"
"Could you hear what they were saying"
"No but I tried to listen to what they were saying - I thought it would be better than telly but I couldn't hear anything"

Rats!
In the early hours of the morning I was annoyed by the noises & talking but just as I thought I would do some, "bloody stop it with the cars doors will you!" yelling out the window but suddenly they either stopped or I went back to catatonic land.
The other thing is it may have been the media opening and closing car doors a dozen times & trying to talk quietly in our little street with all those trees and warehouses now made into apartments - sounds bounce all over the place.

Later, resisting the urge to gawk (a fine art in need of practice), AH went for a little walk & met other neighbours also not gawking. from what they heard from someone who heard - who probably heard something, it was a balcony fall... jumped or maybe he/she was pushed...

In-house events or "serious incidents" (as the nice policeman called it) are less frightening than say, the robbery outside our front gate or the aggravated rape just up the road in the park at 9PM one night...


One thing I do know - I'll be gawking at the news tonight.

That's just being honest.

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Saturday 14 March 2009

Grave Business



Camperdown cemetery Friday 13th March 2009.


I finished off some old slide film I had in my op-shop bought 1975 Ricoh Rangefinder and had it processed as print film (cross-processed)- it took a few goes to get the negative to scan ok.

Today as I post this, I'm feeling a little Gothic... and it's raining outside.


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Let that be a lesson



Marijuana grows wild in Missouri but eerily drawn eyebrows and 3 toned permed hair takes true mastery

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if you click on the image, you will get a better view - Dorothy Peterson: Trend Setter! And I know what else she thinks about when she's slipping on that uniform: shoulder pads would be nice.
(I told you she's ahead of her time!)
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visiting an art studio




A week ago I visited Meggs Yeo in her shared studio space in Petersham with the purpose of taking some photos of her and her work.
an enjoyable time was had.

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Saturday 7 March 2009

Saving Possum




Friday 6 March
AH and I potter into Sydney town & check out the Hyde Park Barracks, which is now a museum.
By 3PM I really need some lunch and the cafe there closes at 3. I suggest we go to the little place opposite the NSW Art Gallery - get a coffee & salad roll. On the way down Art Gallery Road, AH says, "what's that?" and spotted next to a large Ficus Hillii (fig) what we thought to be a rat but realised it was a very, very young ring-tailed possum, the size of a little guinea pig.
It was just sitting there, unafraid, enjoying a forage and munch on the fig fruits...

Fortunately there was gardener nearby and I brought him over & asked him to call a ranger to take care of the little one. The ranger was there in under 10 minutes. The gardener asked for us to stay with the possum, which was a good thing as I had to ask 2 people who stopped to see to please not use their camera flashes.
Then it occurred to me that I had a camera in my bag that would not need a flash to get a record of a really cute little creature.

Finally to the little snack bar for very good coffee and a salad roll.
Other native animals we saw or heard that afternoon were; Kookaburras, Sacred Ibis, Rainbow Lorikeets, Little Corellas, Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, Little Cormorant...

We popped into the the NSW Art Gallery and had a look at the 1600-1800s Korean paintings (Joseon Dynasty) - fabulous - there's some amazing surrealist looking pieces, 200 year older than the Surrealists we all know about (not quite the images I saw but the only samples I could find):




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(possum image copyright Anne Bentley)

End of an era - Bonds goes to China



There's been a bit of protest from people mostly the workers about to lose their jobs - fair enough.
There has, I suspect been a lot of shrugging of shoulders with an "oh well, that was bound to happen" and "what can we do?" etc etc
Bonds, home of Chesty Bond in his famous singlet (that has a minor celebrity spike in the late 1990s when gay men visiting from the USA reckoned the singlets and Tasmania's Blunstone boots were the thing to wear).
Now the lot (not blunnies yet though.. I think) are moving off to China, home of questionable work practices and pollution.
I wonder what will happen when Chinese workers get unionised to help stop the exploitation and punishment.

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(image copyright Anne Bentley)

Sunday 1 March 2009

Addison Road - Bathrooms on the outside









Addison Road, Marrickville, Sydney Australia - a crazy mixed up street.
Partially paved with bitumen, partially with cement.
It has a feeling of Carnie people sometimes (Carnival types) rather than the edgy, could be protection racket people on say, Marrickville Road...


A mix of residential, commercial (mostly scruffy secondhand DIY) and industrial buildings.





some of the buildings look like bathrooms.





And just to prove it girls serve beer in their underwear in the pub on the corner: "Lingerie Waitress" (just the one then?)







But it is the Ming On Trading Company that's my favourite building on the street.





bring it on, Ming On.

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(All images copyright Anne Bentley)
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