Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
I spent Friday night on an art gallery opening crawl - at two of the three galleries that were featuring works in the Brisbane Artist Run Initiatives Festival - Kiln in Paddington (which has the most steampunky art website in the world, I would venture to wager) and Jugglers in the Valley. Danielle O’Brien’s prints and paintings started an octopus theme, which continued on at Jugglers. Later on, I enjoyed the Five Spice Tofu and a Shanghai Beer at the fabulous Super Bowl in Wickham Street - so a really pleasant evening.
I didn’t have my camera with, but here are some photos of Kiln from an opening last year. It’s a transformed former tram substation, so a wonderful example of post-industrial architecture, and you can see why it sits nicely with a steampunk theme.
Postindustrial Art Space by *phenomenologist on deviantART
If you’d like to see a larger image of the photos, click on them then click on “full view” once you’re inside the gallery.
Postindustrial Art Space II by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Brisbane art appreciation VII by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Postindustrial Art Space III by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Octopus themed art? Well, you’ll want this video, then.
Octopus themed art is very big in Brisneyland.
And I second the endorsement of Super Bowl - the review is worth clicking through to if you’re after a very good and very reasonably priced Malaysian Chinese joint in the Valley.
I don’t like 5 spice tofu. I think the 5 spice thing is overrated.
I spent yesterday preparing my partner’s “London Survival Pack” (she is moving here at long last), which meant shopping in Selfridge’s where they have enormous whole Monkfish in the foodhall. Selfridges is cool, like any of the good department stores in Tokyo. I also saw a 20000 pound bottle of whiskey.
Around Oxford Circus there were all these really tall, really beautifully dressed muslim women in splendid long black dresses and sometimes headscarves, with very exotic eye makeup and much much jewellery. I don’t know if they were tourists or locals in their Sunday best, but they looked very exotic and beautiful, in a very Persian-Goth way. The PersoGoths. Also there were the odd cluster of women in the full obscuring getup, and they were also strangely tall, so when I would turn a corner and see them I suddenly felt for a moment like I had walked onto the set of a Sci-fi movie, star wars or something, like I was on Tattoine with Sand folk. Of course, the English weather prevents such desert-planet comparisons from lasting very long…
… today I am packing to move house, and going to my new house to learn how to use the washing machine, and give a present to the owners’ 8 & 10 year old daughters - a travel blog! Then I am going to meet a possible Japanese conversation partner. Have to keep my hand in and all that.
What’s going on in your neck of the woods? It was bad enough the Bears gobbling up Fitzroy and then rebirthing as the Brissie Lions but sat. the crowd was pro bloody North Melb.
The Fitzroy Dockers recorded their first ever win today, since the inaugural ex-pats’ Grudge Match in 2006. Now I remember what it feels like not having to rationalise a loss as the fault of this or that, I think I may even train next year.
East Coast Eagles SUCK!!! Winning rules!!! Etc!!!
And I feel like it’s the early 1990s all over again with my Swannies, FDB.
Saturday: Worked and slept.
And got myself a perfectly good almost-new washing machine for free from the neighbours. It’s half as big as my old washing machine, but it’s big advantage over the old Hoover is that it actually works.
Sunday: Was supposed to work, but slept in too long and landed up taking a sickie.
Didn’t watch Dr. Who. Instead, downloaded the first episode of a quirky sitcom series that seems to be a combination of Bewitched and Terminator.
I keep getting these little surprises that cost me thousands of bucks. The latest was this morning when it seemed yet another cap had fallen off a tooth. After we dismantled the drain under the bathroom basin and retrieved the damn thing it was clear that the whole tooth had sheered off at the gum line.
It’s in my premium chewing zone, so it looks to me like I’ll need another titanium peg. The last a few years ago cost $5k. That’s bad enough, but I’ve just spent $2.5k on renewing a crown and a few sundry running repairs.
That was my Sunday morning. The rest of me is a bit less decrepit than that and this afternoon I started training for our planned assault on what was the tallest building in the world in the 1890s, the Münster Lutheran church in Ulm where we plan to be on 30 October. It has 768 steps. I found a spiral staircase with 34 steps, so I walked up and down (down and up, actually) 10 times in less than 10 minutes without knocking up too much.
One tooth costs more than a air fare around the world. That hurts!
Any one humbled at Israeli media “rescuing” of losing Fatah Palestinians fleeing resumption of internecine warfare in Gaza?
Don’t be.
Haaretz ( rather than any aussie media) reports that Israel, after artistic photo op of blokes in jocks, sent these back- you guessed it- to Gaza.
Makes you think of Walter Benjamin, doesn’t it?
Thread relevance?
Brecht.
that’s some hard work you got ahead of you there, Brian.
For toothwork I recommend Japan. I broke 3 teeth playing soccer injapan. Total cost for removal of a nerve and porcelain caps: $100. After health insurance: $30. I kept one of my receipts for a while, as a keepsake. It was a receipt for a $1 service.
Saturday Morning, finished taking some notes from Edward Countryman’s American Revolution. Aboriginal kids from next door were in, playing on the computer while I watched DVDs: The Prestige, about duelling magicians, All the King’s Men,both good. Watched Wild at Heart on TV, the Bill, then a DVD of Miss Potter - also very good.Began taking some notes from Crevcoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer.
Sunday morning, watched Insiders.Kids from next door came round to use the computer, told them to come back later, which they did. Took some more notes from American Farmer, Blogged a bit.Watched Blood Diamond, though I was interrupted a few times from the kids at the computer.In the end, I told them to go home, but let them back in in early evening.Meanwhile watched a bit of The Fountain, but it was so terrible I gave up on it. Also watched Nicholas Cage in Ghost Rider, which was OK, but the S/E were pretty crappy.
Sunday Night, watched Dr. Who. (They did smash the window.) And Foyle’s War. Then crashed.
Foyle’s War, as always was great, did not watch Dr Hohum.
Spent Sunday Buying a heap of plants and planting them. Nature obligingly provided plenty of rain to water them in.
@#&^$ dog misbehaved in first advanced obedience training session first thing
Really worth getting up early on my only free day, NOT!
Japan dentistry sounds great , but i imagine the cost of accomm etc knocks that around?
Thailand on the other hand….
Me and a girlfriend are saving atm.
Thailand is around $1000 return. $4000 will get you a crown or two no probs, with plenty of $ for some serious r and r, and a nice donation to the Kareni refugee camps (or whatever cause takes your fancy) to boot.
http://suburban-gothic.blogspot.com/2007/04/stark-eurasian-travel-update.html(PS Our dentist is in evening wear in this pic as our daughter noticed a rough spot after the proceedure, and she obligingly took 5 mins to buff the tooth for us, despite having changed into her formal wear and being on her way to a posh banquent. Original work done in full whites and masks
sg and sc, I’ll have to ask my daughter why she saved her dental work until she came home when she lived in Japan. Anyway I’m sure you couldn’t just blow in on a holiday visa and get it done.
I go to a clinic in the CBD here. The hygienist who is a chatty honest woman tells me that diplomatic and other people posted overseas often do what my daughter did because of the quality of the work you get done here.
Artificial titanium pegs are a different ballgame. If the dentist makes a mistake I believe you can end up with a paralysed face. Also although it’s unlikely you do need to monitor them because the gum can die around the peg, which is big trouble.
The bottom line is I trust my dentist, so I’m not going anywhere. He did a masters degree in Cambridge because he had the opportunity and because he reckons it allowed him to keep playing rugby union for longer. Recently he did a course in Switzerland so he could plant his own titanium pegs instead of referring patients to a specialist. And charge the bucks they charge, no doubt.
accommodation in Japan is actually pretty cheap - Super Hotel is $50-70 a night with free breakfast (true, not Thai prices). I bet, Brian, that the reason your daughter put off the dental work is the language challenge. I didn’t have a choice (damn soccer ball broke my stupid teeth and it hurt), so I went to the only dentist that was open. He didn’t speak any English and I don’t know any japanese dentistry words, so he wrote poetry for me, for example:
Google translation is such a wonderful thing…
Recently was involved in a sort of parlor-game style disputation in which the goal was to identify the most ridiculously bad rock-n-roll lyric ever written. I’ll share our top three discoveries and open the floor to new contributions.
Here are a few basic ground rules:
1. It’s better if the line comes from an artist with a high reputation (i.e., a terrible line from the Beatles is much funnier than an even worse line from say Uriah Heep)
2. You can’t cite anything from Rush, Yes/Jon Anderson, or the Queen song “Ogre Battle,” or else they would take up the entire list.
Here’s our winners so far (new entries welcome)…
#3. from Bruce Springsteen:
“The amusement park rises bold and stark” (Born to Run, ouch)
#2. from Queen:
“I challenge the mighty Titan and his troubadors!” (from Seven Seas of Rye, so it just barely passes the Ogre Battle test)
and the number 1 worst rock lyric of all time is from, ahem, none other than Bob Dylan himself…
#1. “Your dancing child with his Chinese suit, he spoke to me. I took his flute.”
Other entries?
sg, you are probably right. And fear of the unknown. She did have to get a broken arm fixed up one cold, wet night all by herself in Kyoto and that worked out OK.
was it oasis or blur who said “I’ve done it with a doctor, in a helicopter?” That counts, I think.
Same as sg, there is no way i would have ever considered getting work done overseas unless placed in an emergency predicament, but now that we’ve been through it, am fine with it.
Her aussie dentist inspected the work when she got back, and said surprisingly it was a great job, ($50 for the reconstruction) though also said she had seen some nasty ones in the past.
Having been through the process, have no more concerns about that hospital than those in Brisbane.
Heck, my dentist in cairns gave me meds (without any warning of side effects) that put me in hospital for four days in a pretty precarious situation a few years back.
I reckon the Dylan songbook is filled to brimming with shite-tastic lyrics j_p_z, so should probably not pass the Ogre Battle/Jon Anderson test either. My personal teeth grinder:
“Crying like a fire in the sun” - from “It’s all over now, Baby Blue”
Fire can cry? Whoda thunkit.
sc, it’s when your dentist/doctor in Thailand does something like that when it gets scary. I’m just constitutionally cautious.
Rubie Tuesday - it’s a metaphor, dude.
A fire in the sun can’t be seen, but all the same (all the more?) it is hot.
Or do I mean sad? Metaphors aren’t my strong suit either.
SG - please don’t sully the good name of Blur. That was most definitely Oasis, as is my entry (although from my POV, Herr Zenger’s rule #1 may be violated):
“Wonderwall”
blur have a good name?
I went to see Brett Anderson recently (’cause, you know, I’m in London daaaahling). He was very very good. I strongly recommend his new album.