Lesley Truffle's Blog, page 19

Melbourne Trams in Spring

The advent of Spring initiates a whole new wave of city madness. At the very first glimmer of sunshine Melbourne folk tear off their puffa jackets, scarves and beanies and recklessly bare their skin.

Melbourne folk are Weather Bureau deniers. The first of September tells us that the last few months of epic rainfall and chill factor is truly over. And despite all evidence to the contrary, we cling to our childish belief that we can now break out the beach gear.

On the trams you get to sit next to optimistic girls in short shorts and thongs. They’re shivering and covered in goose bumps. There’s also a posse of blokes baring their thighs and tattooed biceps while trying to stay hip. Difficult when bushy beards are dripping and man buns are soggy from an unexpected downpour.

The floors are awash with rain streaming from wet umbrellas and the odd spilt café latte. You really have to watch where you plant your bag. But should the sun break out everyone’s mood lifts. Even if you’re wedged in the corner by a businessman’s dripping, uber-sized golf umbrella. The same umbrella that just poked you in the neck in Swanston Street.

Once the tram doors shut the near naked passengers are safe as houses, for the heating is pumped up to maximum. The rest of us are sweating like piglets in our winter coats and trying to catch every blast of cold air from the opening and closing doors.

It’s crazy but humorous when the sun disappears and the heavens split open. But the fun stops with daily news of flooded streets, homes washed away, busted river embankments and grief in rural areas.

Sitting on the tram I flip open my newspaper. I’m frequently the only person armed with a hard copy newspaper. I find it’s infinitely better than trying to read on a smart phone.

There’s a story in the newspaper about two cattle dogs, siblings Red and Blue. Their owner, Herbert Bettels 80, was swept away by a torrent of water in Chintin, 75km north of Melbourne. The flood waters swiftly carried Bettels off, leaving Red and Blue stranded on the roof of his submerged car.

Emergency Services and police deemed a rescue too dangerous and decided to wait out the flood waters. So two courageous farmers in a small tinny boat launched a rescue mission. Red had to be rescued twice because she leapt out of the boat. Cheeky minx. I study the photographs of Red and Blue grinning at the camera with their rescuers, Chris and Benny. As Chris put it, ‘I don’t think a dog’s life should be any less valuable than a human. They’re man’s best friend.’

Damned right.

Over my shoulder, a commuter is slyly perusing the photographs of Herbert Bettels being reunited with Red and Blue. I don’t mind. Good news is meant to be shared.

I remember a warm, Spring day last year, when a woman ran for the tram in Collins Street. She was in a bit of a flap as she fought way past the two blokes who were diligently blocking the doorway. There’s usually at least one serial door blocker on every tram.

The tram was chockers. The woman’s eyes were unfocused and she kept losing control of her handbag, jacket and laptop. She squeezed in next to me and raked through her handbag like a fiend, but relaxed when she located her phone. She beamed at me and announced she was losing everything. Everything. And did I know where the tram was going? She thought she might be on the wrong tram. Going the wrong way. We got it sorted.

I idly wondered if she’d been indulging in a champagne luncheon at the posh hotel opposite. But I had it all wrong. She leant in closer and confided that she was losing her mind. Apparently a few weeks earlier she’d met a new man. The type of man she thought she’d never get to meet. She whispered, I never thought it would happen at my age. In Spring too! Just think, if I’d arrived three minutes later our paths would never have crossed. We laughed with delight at the audacity and randomness of fate. She dropped her bag as she lunged for the stop cord and somehow got tangled up in the closing doors.

As she got off the tram she waved back at me. I grinned and silently wished her well.

by Lesley Truffle

The image is of Venus and Primavera (Spring) from a small section of the large painting:  La Primavera (Spring), circa 1482 by Sandro Botticelli. From the collection of the Uffizi Gallery.   There have been many interpretations but it is generally thought to be a mythological allegory about fertility and Spring.  Recently a disguised message was discovered in Primavera’s floral patterned gown.

Sandro Botticelli [Public Domain], via Wikipedia Commons.

 

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The Tomb of Love

 

A few days ago Alain de Botton – philosopher, television presenter, author and founder of The School of Life – spoke about modern relationships and love in Melbourne’s gloomy town hall. His show was titled: Alain de Botton on Love.

I’m not sure our drafty town hall is conducive to love. The couple in front of us were engaging in covert hostilities. De Botton is a witty, engaging communicator, but every time he made comedic asides about marriage the woman laughed like a drain and the bloke became even more incensed.

He sat stony faced with arms crossed while his partner shrieked with merriment. She kept it up even when the rest of the audience had stopped laughing. Had they had an argument on the way to the venue?

De Botton’s first question to the audience was – raise your hands if you are married and reasonably happy. Very few hands went up and the audience laughed.

As Giacomo Casanova wrote, Marriage is the tomb of love.

According to de Botton the problems with contemporary love originated with the 1850’s Romantic movement. He marked it as the point where romantic ideals replaced a more pragmatic approach to love. The Romantics popularized the idea every one of us has a soulmate waiting in the wings for us. And when we find our soulmate, our loneliness is at an end because we move into in a coupled world. Another romantic ideal is that real love is instant, euphoric and will last until death do us part.

De Botton maintains that the romantic concept of love changes how we view sex. Sex becomes the consecrating moment of love. And this means that when adultery occurs, it takes on the proportions of a real catastrophe. In the 1850’s there was the rise of fictional lovers such as Madame Bovary. And like Bovary we think life has gone horribly wrong if we can’t find our soulmate and attain the romantic ideal. Subsequently our love lives have become more difficult. It doesn’t occur to us that the premises we operate on are unrealistic and largely unattainable.

He also pointed out that we are shaped by our childhood experiences of love, especially by what went down in our family and how we first experienced love. We tend to seek out the same type of love we are familiar with.  In effect what we are doing is choosing our pain.

Given what de Botton said about sex being the consecrating moment of love, there might be mass confusion going down. I’m thinking that in the present era of quaintly named online dating sites, sex might only be only one or two swipes away but love appears to be somewhat thin on the ground.

Is this anything new or not? With so few folk valuing privacy, things we might have kept quiet about in the past are now the bedrock of social media.

Ashley Madison currently markets itself as the international leader in the affair dating space. Their intro blurb purports that the online company is the place where discretion really counts. This concept got mislaid last year when the Ashley Madison website was hacked and it was revealed that there were abut 37 million members globally. Discretion took something of a bollocking.

Ashley Madison’s current online advertising states that life is tedious but by joining up you too can come alive. Infidelity is the magic key for married folk but presumably it is business as usual for singles.

Augusten Burroughs doesn’t believe in romantic ideals. In his book This Is How he writes, I don’t believe in the concept of a soul mate. Because we are all unique, but we’re also simply too similar. Burroughs reckons we need to get right out of our neighbourhoods and daily routines and go someplace else. This would lift our chances of meeting someone new. As he puts it, I believe destiny and chance are the oldest poker buddies in town.

At CERN in Geneva, particle physicists are getting excited about discovering extra dimensions to the universe. Concepts that were deemed beyond reach of our understanding are now being revealed. Meantime the philosophy analyzing human love hasn’t made such quantum leaps. It is more slippery than an oiled eel and nobody seems to have a handle on it.

Not much has changed. In History of My Life – written over two centuries ago – Giacomo Casanova wrote,

What is love? … It is a kind of madness over which philosophy has no power; a sickness to which man is prone at every time of life and which is incurable if it strikes in old age … Bitterness than which nothing is sweeter, sweetness than which nothing is more bitter! Divine monster which can only be defined by paradoxes!’

The image above is Baude Cordier’s rondeau about love, Belle, Bonne, Sage. It’s in a heart shape, with red notes indicating rhythmic alterations. Baude Cordier (born c. 1380 in Rheims, died before 1440) was a French composer from Rheims. Some historians believe been that Cordier was the nom de plume of Baude Fresnel.  Permission details: Pub.domain.

by Lesley Truffle

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A Cat called Oscar and Bellingen NSW

Bellingen is everything that I always hope an Australian country town will be. It’s situated riverside in New South Wales, in the lovely Bellinger Valley, between the coast and the Dorrigo Plateau. Bellingen is also in close proximity to the Dorrigo World Heritage rainforest and some stunning beaches running from Urunga to Woolgoolga.

I was in Bellingen recently for the 2016 Bellingen Writers and Readers Festival. The opening night party was held at the Bellingen Brewery & Co. in Church Street Lane. It’s an old factory that has been rejuvenated and made into a place where you can sit and toss down a cocktail. Or three. The folk who run it brew their own beers and specialize in delectable organic food sourced locally. It’s all warm mood lighting, reclaimed timbers and local artisan’s work.

The main street of Bellingen has a village feel with well preserved – but not slicked up – old buildings dating to around the turn of the twentieth century. But the town is very much alive. The main street meanders around a few curves before smoothing out to a lush golf course.

Given the number of small galleries, arty craft and fashion shops and innovative eateries, I got the impression that a job lot of creatives have made Bellingen their home. At the top of the hill there’s a collective, which houses various businesses and the Purple Carrot, a layback café where nobody is in a rush. Even on winter nights they have live music going down. Along with a few outdoor heaters to keep you cosy.

The folk of Bellingen don’t seem to feel the winter chill. While we city slickers were shivering in puffa jackets and dodgy beanies, I saw several locals loping down the main street in shorts, singlets and thongs.

I stayed at Wisteria Cottage B&B and my hosts were Oscar, Lyn and Jeff. The cottage is situated behind the owner’s house that overlooks the valley below. It’s a stylish self-contained cottage with wisteria hanging over the front porch and rustling trees overhead. The cottage is surrounded by fruit trees, bamboo, ferns, exotic plants and couple of ponds featuring goldfish, burping frogs, and tinkling fountains.

These sounds create the sense of a retreat and it was blissful to sit on the porch and listen as twilight descended on the valley. Being winter the wind whistles and things go bump in the night. It was fabulous being cocooned under a warm quilt listening to soothing night noises, instead of the circling choppers that had been keeping me awake back in inner city Melbourne.

Oscar owns the garden and he lounges around in the morning sunshine on his own garden bench. By late afternoon he’s so worn out that he needs to take further kips on the front veranda. That’s Oscar yawning in the photograph above. Leaving aside his aberrant desires to filch goldfish from the pond, I can honestly say that Oscar’s manners are impeccable and he’s a wonderful host.

Bellingen is a special place and I’m looking forward to going back for a longer stay.

by Lesley Truffle

The photograph above  is of Oscar, one of my hosts at Wisteria Cottage B&B in Bellingen NSW. Evening was coming down the valley and Oscar was just waking up from his late afternoon kip.

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FOTOGRAFIEN Sven Marquardt exhibition

When I saw this exhibition I wanted to run away to Berlin. Sven Marquardt’s transgressive black and white photographs capture the dark gothic splendour of Berlin after dark. Marquardt grew up in East Berlin before the wall came down, and by his own admission, ‘I have always been a man who polarised people.’ (Kultur, Edition 26 2015 Magazine of the Goethe-Institut Australia ).

There’s not a huge number of Marquardt’s photographs at the Substation, but it’s wonderful show that includes a grainy black and white video of him hard at work in Berlin. In one segment we see him in a gloomy basement, setting up a posed shot that involves an elderly gent, two heavy looking younger blokes and a pair of horses surrounded by neon crosses. There was also some other livestock lurking in the background.

Because there are no titles the work becomes a subjective experience. And I found myself wondering – who are these sinister individuals and what bloody horrible crimes are they about to commit? A certain anxiety sets in when you realize that one of the props is a clapped-out bed frame with  bent metal springs and no mattress.

Nothing is explained but there is a humorous side to the video in that the distinguished old gentleman – seated at a table in a classy dark suit – twitches as he stares glassy-eyed into the camera with two heavy hands on his shoulders and a pair of gimlet-eyed heavies standing close on either side.

When not photographing, Marquardt is chief bouncer of the exclusive Berghain nightclub in Berlin; an industrial techno music club that is notoriously difficult to get into. Punters sometimes wait for hours only to be waved away at the finishing line. Marquardt started his career as a bouncer at a club called Suicides – that was situated behind a brothel – and then moved on to work at other clubs, including a gay fetish party group which eventually became Berghain.

I would have liked to include a photograph of the man himself but was unable to obtain an image that wasn’t armed to the back teeth with copyright. However, because Marquardt has been written about by journalists worldwide, his portraits and photographic work can easily be found on the web.

I suspect very few punters would be game to take on Marquardt at the door of Berghain. His appearance seems calculated to cast fear into those who might be thinking of transgressing on his dignity. It’s not just the silver metal rings that hang off his bottom lip like fangs, nor the pointy silver hardware weighing down his earlobes. It’s the crazy wild tattooed thorns that creep over his left cheek and forehead and the tattooed wasps that fly up into his elegantly receding silver hairline. His hands and wrists are also tattooed and decorated with heavy hitting silver skull rings and macho silver chains.

Marquardt is no slouch in the author stakes and has produced three art books and a memoir (Die Nacht ist Leben – The Night is Life). He has also collaborated with fashion designer Hugo Boss and other leading fashion designers.

While living in East Berlin he devoted himself to the club scene, photographing many of his colleagues at the Berghain. The nightclub is located in the shell of a former East German power plant and Marquardt has been in charge of security since the club opened in 2004.

Marquardt is very well qualified as a professional photographer having assisted Rudolf Schäfer.  He’s also  worked as camera assistant and photographer at DEFA (GDR’s public-owned film studio). His work is mainly shot in black and white with natural light and the images are all carefully constructed and posed.

None of the work in the exhibition is titled, so you make of it what you will. It’s beautifully crafted and shot only on analogue camera using emulsion film. Marquardt has no truck with digital cameras –

‘Apart from other things, the digital stands for fast-pace interchangeability and a flood of images. Anyone can capture every moment of their lives on their smartphones … To view 5,000 digital images during the shooting and to delete 4,999 because they’re crap, that’s not my cup of tea.’           (Kultur, Edition 26 2015 ).

This exhibition is on until 31st May 2016. It’s definitely worth seeing and will be of particular interest to those who love the quality, style and finish of analogue photography. Over thirty years Marquardt has honed his craft and mastered the medium. And he’s chosen to specialize in telling stories that you read for yourself in the faces of his posed models.

by Lesley Truffle

The image above is Marlene Dietrich starring in, Der Blaue Engel (1930) directed by Josef von Sternberg.  The Blue Angel was filmed in Berlin and Dietrich then left Germany for a career in Hollywood.  Photograph: PD-EU-NO AUTHOR DISCLOSURE, Creative Commons.

 

 

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Fotografien SVEN MARQUARDT exhibition

When I saw this exhibition I wanted to run away to Berlin. Sven Marquardt’s transgressive black and white photographs capture the dark gothic splendour of Berlin after dark. Marquardt grew up in East Berlin before the wall came down, and by his own admission, ‘I have always been a man who polarised people.’ (Kultur, Edition 26 2015 Magazine of the Goethe-Institut Australia ).

There’s not a huge number of Marquardt’s photographs at the Substation, but it’s wonderful show that includes a grainy black and white video of him hard at work in Berlin. In one segment we see him in a gloomy basement, setting up a posed shot that involves an elderly gent, two heavy looking younger blokes and a pair of horses surrounded by neon crosses. There was also some other livestock lurking in the background.

Because there are no titles the work becomes a subjective experience. And I found myself wondering – who are these sinister individuals and what bloody horrible crimes are they about to commit? A certain anxiety sets in when you realize that one of the props is a clapped-out bed frame with  bent metal springs and no mattress.

Nothing is explained but there is a humorous side to the video in that the distinguished old gentleman – seated at a table in a classy dark suit – twitches as he stares glassy-eyed into the camera with two heavy hands on his shoulders and a pair of gimlet-eyed heavies standing close on either side.

When not photographing, Marquardt is chief bouncer of the exclusive Berghain nightclub in Berlin; an industrial techno music club that is notoriously difficult to get into. Punters sometimes wait for hours only to be waved away at the finishing line. Marquardt started his career as a bouncer at a club called Suicides – that was situated behind a brothel – and then moved on to work at other clubs, including a gay fetish party group which eventually became Berghain.

I would have liked to include a photograph of the man himself but was unable to obtain an image that wasn’t armed to the back teeth with copyright. However, because Marquardt has been written about by journalists worldwide, his portraits and photographic work can easily be found on the web.

I suspect very few punters would be game to take on Marquardt at the door of Berghain. His appearance seems calculated to cast fear into those who might be thinking of transgressing on his dignity. It’s not just the silver metal rings that hang off his bottom lip like fangs, nor the pointy silver hardware weighing down his earlobes. It’s the crazy wild tattooed thorns that creep over his left cheek and forehead and the tattooed wasps that fly up into his elegantly receding silver hairline. His hands and wrists are also tattooed and decorated with heavy hitting silver skull rings and macho silver chains.

Marquardt is no slouch in the author stakes and has produced three art books and a memoir (Die Nacht ist Leben – The Night is Life). He has also collaborated with fashion designer Hugo Boss and other leading fashion designers.

While living in East Berlin he devoted himself to the club scene, photographing many of his colleagues at the Berghain. The nightclub is located in the shell of a former East German power plant and Marquardt has been in charge of security since the club opened in 2004.

Marquardt is very well qualified as a professional photographer having assisted Rudolf Schäfer.  He’s also  worked as camera assistant and photographer at DEFA (GDR’s public-owned film studio). His work is mainly shot in black and white with natural light and the images are all carefully constructed and posed.

None of the work in the exhibition is titled, so you make of it what you will. It’s beautifully crafted and shot only on analogue camera using emulsion film. Marquardt has no truck with digital cameras –

‘Apart from other things, the digital stands for fast-pace interchangeability and a flood of images. Anyone can capture every moment of their lives on their smartphones … To view 5,000 digital images during the shooting and to delete 4,999 because they’re crap, that’s not my cup of tea.’           (Kultur, Edition 26 2015 ).

This exhibition is on until 31st May 2016. It’s definitely worth seeing and will be of particular interest to those who love the quality, style and finish of analogue photography. Over thirty years Marquardt has honed his craft and mastered the medium. And he’s chosen to specialize in telling stories that you read for yourself in the faces of his posed models.

by Lesley Truffle

The image above is Marlene Dietrich starring in, Der Blaue Engel (1930) directed by Josef von Sternberg.  The Blue Angel was filmed in Berlin and Dietrich then left Germany for a career in Hollywood.  Photograph: PD-EU-NO AUTHOR DISCLOSURE, Creative Commons.

 

 

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Fotografien SVEN MARQUARDT exhibition at Substation Melbourne until 31 May 2016

When I saw this exhibition I wanted to run away to Berlin. Sven Marquardt’s transgressive black and white photographs capture the dark gothic splendour of Berlin after dark. Marquardt has lived in Berlin all his life and by his own admission, ‘I have always been a man who polarised people.’ (Kultur Edition 26 2015 Magazine of the Goethe-Institut Australia ).

There are not a large number of images at the Substation but it is wonderful show that includes a grainy black and white video of Marquardt hard at work in Berlin. In one segment we see him in a gloomy basement, setting up a posed shot that involves an elderly gent, two heavy looking younger blokes and a pair of horses surrounded by neon crosses. There was also some other livestock cluttering up the background.

I found myself asking – who are these sinister individuals and what bloody horrible things are they about to do? A certain anxiety sets in when you realise that one of the props is an old metal sprung bed frame with no mattress.

Nothing is explained but there is a humorous side to the video in that the distinguished old gentleman – seated at a table in a classy dark suit – twitches as he stares glassy-eyed into the camera with two heavy hands on his shoulders and a pair of gimlet-eyed heavies either side.

When not photographing, Marquardt is chief bouncer of the exclusive Berghain nightclub in Berlin; an electronic techno music club that is notoriously difficult to get into. Punters wait for hours only to be waved away at the finishing line.

I would have loved to include a photograph of the man himself but was unable to obtain an image that wasn’t armed to the back teeth with copyright. However, as Marquardt has been portrayed and written about worldwide, his portrait and photogaphic work can easily be located on the web.

I suspect very few punters would be game to take on Marquardt at the door of Berghain. His appearance seems calculated to cast fear into those who might be thinking of transgressing on his dignity. It’s not just the metal rings that hang off his bottom lip like fangs, nor the pointy silver hardware weighing down his earlobes. It’s the crazy wild tattooed thorns that creep over his left cheek and forehead and the tattooed wasps that fly up into his elegantly receding silver hairline. His hands are also heavily tattooed and decorated with heavy hitting silver skull rings and thick macho silver chains.

Marquardt is no slouch in the author stakes and has produced three art books, a memoir (Die Nacht ist Leben – The Night is Life) and collaborated with fashion designer Hugo Boss.

He grew up in East Berlin before the wall came down. It has shaped his work in that he devoted himself to the club scene and photographed those he worked with at the Berghain. The nightclub itself is located in the shell of a former East German power plant.

Marquardt is very well qualified in his chosen field having assisted Rudolf Schäfer and worked as camera assistant and photographer at DEFA (GDR’s public-owned film studio). His work is mainly shot in black and white with natural light and the images are all posed. Many of the models are Marquardt’s colleagues from the Berghain nightclub.

None of the work in the exhibition is titled. You make of it what you will. It’s beautifully crafted and shot only on analogue camera using emulsion film. Marquardt has no truck with digital cameras.

‘Apart from other things, the digital stands for fast-pace interchangeability and a flood of images. Anyone can capture every moment of their lives on their smartphones…  To view 5,000 digital images during the shooting and to delete 4,999 because they’re crap, that’s not my cup of tea.’           (Kultur Edition 26 2015 ).

This exhibition is definitely worth seeing and will be of particular interest to those who love the quality, style and finish of analogue photography. Over thirty years Marquardt has not only honed his craft and mastered the medium, but he specializes in telling stories that you have to read for yourself in the faces of his characters.

by Lesley Truffle

The image above is Marlene Dietrich in Der Blaue Engel (1930). Josef von Sternberg’s  The Blue Angel was filmed in Berlin.

PD-EU-NO AUTHOR DISCLOSURE Creative Commons

 

 

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Melbourne Trams In Summer

The tram lurches away from the tram stop at the top end of Swanston Street. We can hear the aircon but can’t feel it. All the windows are hermetically sealed. When the doors whisper open a blast of hot northerly wind enters and stirs up the city aroma of petrol fumes, stale perfumes, body odour and the unmistakable smell of Macca’s beef burger. Quite a few nostrils are twitching suspiciously. A fellow commuter must have a burger and fries secreted somewhere on their person.

The tram driver is a maniac. He approaches each stop like a Formula One driver and then chucks on the brakes as we’re about to overshoot the stop. Most of us are straphanging, clutching at railings and staggering all over the joint. I lurch sideways and stomp on a businessman’s toes with my stilettos. Oh God. He smiles grimly but is very nice about it. We all sweat some more.

Communication is zero as most commuters are clamped to a mobile device of some sort. Others create distance with headphones pumped up to maximum volume.  An international student straphangs as he leans down to whisper sweet nothings into his girlfriend’s ear. She giggles and squirms in her seat. They like each other.

The tram lurches to a sudden halt near the Vic Market. Only a few folk get off. An old lady tries to clamber on with dodgy knees and an overladen trolley of fresh produce.  Quick as a flash, the international student fights his way to the door, lifts up the shopping trolley and steers the oldster towards his girlfriend’s seat.

The girlfriend helps her sit down while the student ensures the tomatoes don’t topple and the celery doesn’t escape. Order is restored and the old lady rests her swollen ankles and looks chuffed. Strangers smile sideways at each other. A deep appreciation for random kindness and old school manners.

A young bloke busts into the tram, narrowly missing getting crushed in the closing doors. He smirks at the sweaty commuters. Country boy’s grin and hipster’s wardrobe. He shoves a shock of blonde hair out of his eyes as he scans the tram. The tram takes off but he makes no attempt to get a grip on the furniture. He’s determinedly free range. The cowboy’s Cuban-heeled boots clatter as he staggers sideways – going in the direction of a stylish girl who’s straphanging. She clutches her design folder to her breasts as he narrowly avoids knocking her over.

The fox is in the henhouse. The cowboy grins at her and she smiles back nervously. He admires the style of her summer frock. She tells him she made it herself. He’s all approval. Her smile broadens and she relaxes a little. He edges in a tad closer. The old lady perks up and even dour businessmen glance up from their smart phones. Two gamesters tear their sweaty eyeballs away from their shared laptop and gawp.

Bad luck. The girl gets off at the next stop, shooting the cowboy a look of intense regret over her shoulder. She’s gone. There’s a stampede of commuters struggling to get in the door. A young woman gets on: serious city dressing, sensible shoes and no-nonsense attaché case. Most blokes wouldn’t risk it but the cowboy knows his market. With a bit of a theatrical stagger to the right he lurches into her proximity. She coolly looks him up and down when he speaks to her. Her fierce look clearly states – Take care, I ate the last jerk who tried this on. I don’t like our man’s chances but he’s clearly up for the challenge.

We can’t hear what’s the cowboy’s saying because the spluttering announcements are killing our fun. He’s all deference and courtly manners.  She loosens up and permits him a wry smile. He morphs into a gentleman paying court to a smart woman. She doesn’t seem to buy it but she’s clearly putting him go through his paces. The old lady leans forward, sharp black eyes gleaming with delight. Just about everyone is slyly eavesdropping. The cowboy’s making great progress but time is not on his side.

The tram driver guns the tram past the Melbourne Town Hall as though pursued by demons. Then chucks on the brakes just as we’re about to overshoot the Flinders Street Station stop. The doors hiss open and there’s another cattle call to get off. The cowboy is the last to leave, narrowly missing getting crushed in the closing doors.

Everyone regretfully watches him go, insolence in his ship’s deck swagger. He disappears into the crowd and vanishes. The old lady sits back in her seat and sighs heavily.

The cabaret is over and it’s too bloody hot.

by Lesley Truffle

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The Four Elements: Earth, Air, Fire & Water

Last night David Suzuki, Naomi Oreskes and Tim Flannery filled the Melbourne Town Hall to capacity when they presented, For Thought: Hope for the Planet.

David Suzuki – Canadian author, scientist, environmentalist & broadcaster delivered a powerful opening address that cut straight to the heart of the matter. He recalled that decades earlier he’d been derailed by Rachel Carson’s 1963 book ‘Silent Spring’. And even though he and other activists had since fought many successful environmental battles, the underlying destructiveness that caused all the problems in the first place had still not been dealt with.

He then told us a true story that had elements of a parable. Suzuki talked about inviting an unnamed CEO into his office and how he asked him to leave his CEO persona at the door and to enter simply as another human being. Suzuki then proposed that they try to come to an agreement as to what was essential in life. Apparently the CEO was not too happy about this but he came in and took a seat anyway.

Suzuki then asked the CEO a question – what is crucial to any living being? Suzuki began with air – if we don’t have air we die within a few minutes and if we have polluted air we get sick. The human body is mostly water and if we don’t have water we die and if we have polluted water we become ill. If we don’t have food, we can last a few weeks but eventually we will die. And so on.

What Suzuki wound it all back to was the four elements that are crucial to maintain life: earth, water, air and fire. And there he rested his case.

I suspect that most of the audience were really hoping that Suzuki would tell us what the CEO had said when confronted with the elegant simplicity of the four essential elements of life. But instead Suzuki closed his address, smiled enigmatically and handed the stage over to Naomi Oreskes.

During Suzuki’s talk I’d became increasingly aware of the newborn baby being cradled by his mother in the seat next to me. He was making the sort of contented snuffling noises small animals make when they’re in the dark, well fed and safe. But it became increasingly impossible not to think – what the hell is in store for his generation and the generations that would come after him?

The baby woke up and cried. Many heads turned to spot the squawking dissident. Was the baby pissed off because he didn’t get to hear the rest of the story? Unlikely. It probably had more to do with the thunderous sound of so many hands clapping.

On the way home I thought of a North American Indian proverb,

Only when the last tree has died

and the last river been poisoned

and the last fish been caught

will we realise we cannot eat money.

I took the photo above while sailing down the Gordon River on the West Coast of Tasmania. There were several fires burning that week and the locals told me that often they were started by lightning or sometimes fire flared up from the underground fires that were fueled by peat moss.

by Lesley Truffle

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A Cat Called Nigel

 

 

 

Photo by Einsamer Schütze – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

Domestic cats regularly get bad press for killing the wildlife. Statistics are cited as to the average kill rate of your domestic moggy and local councilors provide beefed up statements to the press as to how they plan to curb the suburban slaughter. Sometimes there’s also a photograph of a tomcat with a gob full of feathers and an evil red glint in its eye. No doubt caused by the flash on the spy camera that caught him in the act.

A few years ago I shared my apartment with a huge black cat I named Nigel. He was a big game hunter: possums, rats and sometimes dogs. He never bothered with birds, probably because they heard him coming. When brawling with other cats he’d lure them up the outside stairs, leap up onto the ledge and then crash down on top of them as they rounded the corner. It was brutal.

There’s a local tomcat near my place who bears a striking resemblance to Nigel. The first time I saw him he was being chased by a Willy Wagtail who was mercilessly pecking him on the arse. They were like two characters from a Disney Looney Tune cartoon. Perhaps the cat had been caught out in the vicinity of a nest? Peck, peck, peck. The cat shot up a tree trunk, dug its claws in and clung there. He was a picture of misery.

The furious bird didn’t let up and it darted around the cat, squawking and landing sharp pecks wherever it could. It wasn’t the cat’s finest hour but it was compulsive viewing. The roles had been reversed and the hunter had become the hunted.

Nigel was a street cat. I first met him in a French cafe in inner city Melbourne when he strolled out of the kitchen and slipped up onto my lap. He made me laugh. To hell with health regulations, he’d settled in for the evening. Nigel had no interest in the food on the table, he just seemed to want our company.

The owner of the café told me he’d been abandoned. His owners had moved out of Fitzroy the previous year and the cat got left behind. Gregoire had been feeding him fine French cuisine ever since. The cat was something of a gourmet and very partial to chicken breasts marinated in tarragon, wine and garlic. He visited the cafe every evening and dined sumptuously.

Gregoire told me the cat had beautiful manners. He adored the cat but couldn’t give him a home because there was already a chubby white Persian on the premises. And the two cats hated each other.

Winter was closing in. Gregoire suggested I adopt the black cat and I did so after I heard he’d just been attacked in the alley by a couple of local dogs. A friend and I went down the back alley one night, found the cat and put him in my wicker picnic hamper. No panic. No distress. He just settled down for the short drive back to my apartment. We kept checking the hamper but he was preternaturally calm. Maybe he’d detected the ghosts of the delectable roast chickens that had passed through the hamper the previous summer?

At my place he leapt out of the hamper, dined elegantly and then made himself comfortable on one of my faux fur barstools. No dramas, no looking for an escape route. He sat between my friend and I and the only time he growled like a dog was when I moved off my stool to fetch more champagne.

I’d planned on keeping him inside a day or two before letting him out. I didn’t want to tag and collar him too soon in case he decided to leave and return to the alley. For eighteen months he’d relied on the kindness of strangers, and if he was wearing a collar folk would naturally assume he had a home.

But that night I realized Nigel had zero intention of going anywhere. So I let him out before he retired for the night. It was foggy and the grass was wet. I watched over him as he quickly did his business and then scuttled back to the warmth of the kitchen.

So the next day I got him sorted at the vet. Antibiotics, worming, nails, ears, the works – including an examination that involved a rubber glove and lubricant. I had to look away. His wounds were examined and teeth checked for later dental work. No problemos. Nigel eyeballed the vet’s every move but remained placid. Perhaps he knew that we were only trying to help him? He relaxed once he was back in the picnic hamper and even took a kip on the drive home.

And so began one of the most wonderful relationships I’ve ever had.

The Gayer-Anderson Cat is held by the British Museum London. It is bronze with gold ornaments and dates to the Late Period 600 BC.  It was discovered in Saqqara, Egypt by Major Robert Grenville Gayer-Anderson who restored it in the 1930’s.

by Lesley Truffle

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Rhonda’s Fabulous Guided CouTours of Arts Centre Melbourne

Last night I toured the bowels of Melbourne’s Arts Centre with trashtastic drag queen, Rhonda Butchmore (Thomas Jaspers), and her bow-tied usher/personal assistant Kyle Minall. Rhonda was fetchingly attired in a white arts spire headdress and a magnificently embellished black tutu made for her by professional tutu makers. The costume effectively turned Rhonda into a walking talking arts spire.

And talk she did. Aided and abetted by Minall, Rhonda breathlessly recounted wild but true tales of service lifts breaking down and horses being taken to the stage via the human lifts. And then strolling the red carpets watched by stunned theatre goers. There were also tales of chubby divas getting stuck in stage chariots and dogs being dropped down wells onstage and landing – or not – on cushions below stage. She also shared the juicy details of what happens when actors forget to remove their microphones.

We were led through the labyrinth on the lower levels and got to investigate the backstage areas, dressing rooms, service lifts, and darkened off limits areas that are normally prohibited to the public. It was great being invited to follow Rhonda’s glittering red Dorothy shoes down darkened corridors and visit the underground industrial complex that provides access to fully loaded trucks and animals for various productions.

Rhonda switched tack and became the deep-voiced headmistress who was all about safety rules. Mind your heads, darlings, and stay within the yellow lines. Now I really don’t want to lose anyone tonight. So just follow me, my darlings. Come along, we’re running a bit behind time. We must be very quiet now, darlings, we’re directly under the stage.

Rhonda dished the dirt while keeping herself nice and provided interesting facts and details about all the goings on. Meantime Minall provided the witty interjections that enabled Rhonda to reach full flight, while retaining a motherly attitude towards her charges.

She had to tilt her head sideways to get under the low beams in some areas. Wearing a pointy spire headdress on top of big hair requires timing and finesse.  Tell me now darlings, who has to leave to catch the 7.30 show? Just you two is it, darlings? Ooooh, I really don’t want you to miss the first act.

The tour group had a disproportionate number of ladies of a certain age and they lapped up Rhonda’s mannerisms and sly digs at various actors and Minall’s wicked asides at Rhonda’s expense. It was fun. Especially when we all crammed into the small dressing room that Rhonda shares with Trevor Ashley who is currently doing a marvellous cabaret turn as Liza Minnelli. Rhonda gossiped about the mementos decorating the room and Ashley’s costumes hanging there. Naturally there were more sequins than you could poke a stick at.

Fetching up on the tenth level we found ourselves right up under the arts spire. Any higher would have required ropes and hardhats. And then it was back down to the bar for a drink with Rhonda and Minall. The tour includes bubbles, darlings! Rhonda judiciously drank her pot of beer through a straw to preserve her luscious lipstick pout.

The whole tour hangs together effortlessly. Jaspers and Minall are accomplished performers who have honed their rapport working together on other productions. I haven’t seen it yet but they also do a monthly comedy show at The 86 in Smith Street Fitzroy titled, Granny Bingo.

Given their performances on the Arts Centre tour I suspect Granny Bingo would be a fabulous evening. And it will be great to see them off the leash in a venue that is dedicated to fun and outrageousness.

by Lesley Truffle

Rhonda’s Fabulous Guided CouTours of Arts Centre Melbourne is part of Midsumma Festival and runs until 31 January 2016.

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