Archive for August 2001

In December 2000 I flew from Melbourne to San Francisco, where I saw my father . He’s a mathematician: algebra, geometry, calculus–he does all that. It was good to see my father, but San Francisco is not a city that excites me terribly, and I didn’t spend much time there.

From San Francisco I went to New York . (Everyone knows what New York looks like.) I took these two photos– and –near the Rockefeller Center. I stood in the middle of a crowd, marvelled at the beautifully-lit flag, and waited for the wind to flap it just so. It’s difficult, I discovered, to perform this act for more than a few minutes at a time without feeling very foolish.

London. I didn’t take many pictures in London. Or do very much in London, but that’s okay–I’ll go back soon. (I’m carrying around a £1 coin in my wallet to spend when I go back.) These columns hold up the British Museum; this was taken in Trafalgar Square. Pigeons don’t fly there now–the new mayor of London has had them banished…

I spent Christmas in London. I do recommend the hostel I stayed at–the Astor Museum Inn, just opposite the British Museum.

On December 28th I took a train to Paris. I suppose I sort of wasted Paris by not going there with a lover. Great charms were in the offing: my first-time visit has dulled them.

Notre-Dame is quite wonderful. The gargoyles , surprisingly, were added in the 19th Century.

On New Year’s Eve I took a train to Madrid . Madrid is not worth very many pictures; Barcelona is, but when I was choosing pictures to scan, I skipped over Barcelona for some reason–sorry.

From Barcelona I went to Bilbao, mostly to see Frank Gehry’s gleaming Guggenheim . There’s some good (or at least interesting) art inside too.

This is Centraal Station, Amsterdam . One of the few photos I took there.

When I was seven I spent ten months in Cambridge. I went to school in Coton, which is just outside Cambridge. This is my school, looking down from the top end of the soccer field. My scanning software guessed that the image was a black and white photo–England is a sullen, gloomy, place, but I still like it.

I took a lot of photos in Prague . There’s some story about this dog –it’s called Red Riding Hood and lives on wolf street, or it’s called “wolf” and lives on Red Riding Hood street–something like that, I can’t remember exactly. Prague has a pretty good river , a concrete slide , a groovy Russian-designed subway system , and another Frank Gehry building .

Next, Edinburgh. Now Edinburgh is painfully pretty city . Also, the castle has very clean toilets . (I’m planning to move to Edinburgh.)

I took a bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur; the bus stopped for a while here . This is my aunt , and this is my cousin .

And that’s it for my trip.

All the photos I scanned can be found here.

Joyce Lankester Brisley, Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories (1928): “And when they got near home it did seem queer for Milly-Molly-Mandy and little-friend-Susan to go straight past the Moggs’ cottage and not have to stop and say good-bye to each other. They squeezed each other’s hand all the rest of the way home to the nice white cottage with the thatched roof, because they felt so pleased.

“When bedtime drew near they had their baths together, just as if they were sisters. And then Milly-Molly-Mandy in her red dressing-gown, and little-friend-Susan in Grandma’s red shawl, sat in front of the fire on little stools (with Toby the dog on one side, and Topsy the cat on the other), while Mother made them each a lid-potato for their suppers.

“First Mother took two well-baked potatoes out of the oven. Then she nearly cut the tops off them–but not quite. Then she scooped all the potato out of the skins and mashed it up with a little salt and a little pepper and a lot of butter. And then she pushed it back into the two potato-skins, and shut the tops like little lids.

“Then Milly-Molly-Mandy and little-friend-Susan were given a mug of milk and a plate of bread-and-butter, and one of the nice warm lid-potatoes. And they opened the potato-lids and ate out of them with little spoons.

“They did enjoy their suppers.”

Out of all the things I read as a kid, this passage was the most mouth-watering. (Our potatoes never seemed to have the right sort of skin for making lids.) It’s still mouth-watering, but now I can’t believe my parents got it for me to read. I also can’t believe that this sort of thing was written, ever. My grandmother was around in 1928, and she’s alive now. But written it indisputably was (and I suppose that for the time this sort of fluff was quite unremarkable) so I suppose I should try for understanding instead of settling at disbelief.

Once upon a time everyone was white, life was uncomplicated, and every day you took to school a lunch box filled with an apple, a ham sandwich, and a slice of chocolate cake. Your parents got married before you were born, and stayed married after it. Milk was delivered to your doorstep, and you could go out leaving your house unlocked. On Sundays there was a roast: that was then, and this is now.

The best meal I ate overseas was one I had at “Dynamo” in Prague. I wrote down what I ate on some cigarette packet foil: Pork Medallions with “Prague” champignons, ham, cream sauce, and “potatoe” pancakes. Apple Juice. Hot Raspberries with vanilla ice-cream. Apricot Brandy. It was so fucking brilliant. I’m not often moved by food, but I do have particularly vivid memories of this meal–and of the raspberries in particular. The address seems to be Pstrossova 220/29. I can’t remember how to interpret the 220/29, and the first “s” in Pstrossova has a wiggle over it.

Hi. I’ve started work, and am looking for a place to stay near to Richmond Station. If you have any leads, let me know!

Or maybe not: I’m actually quite enjoying going to house interviews. You get to see how people live–how they set their lounge room up, the posters they stick on their walls, where they stash their shoes–and you also get to ask personal questions of people just as soon as you meet them–what do you do? how old are you? what sort of hours do you keep? do you cook? It’s a gloriously voyeuristic experience.

Someone compared it the thrill of watching Big Brother but it also reminds me of Fight Club and Jack and Marla’s (ab)use of support groups for the terminally ill. Night after night after night to a different group they go: the meetings of course seep with anguish and grief, death and dying, but in fact neither Jack nor Marla is looking for anything so morbid: what draws them in is the emotion raw strangers put out. You don’t customarily get strangers crying on your shoulder at some point between your Ikea-filled home and work. Or between work and your Ikea-filled home. People can sit right next to you on the subway, talk to someone on their mobile phone, and completely ignore you. This is why it’s necessary to fight, to turn placid, impassive strangers into men of mutual hate.

Doing house interviews doesn’t come close to capturing the emotional grit of a support group or a fight, but it does (I would say) fall on the same axis. Perfect strangers are kind, welcoming and interested. They show you round, offer you coffee, talk about their future plans; and you do the same.

It’s all very interesting, and it’s not yet (after two weekends) tiresome. But I do hope I find a suitable somewhere soon.

I’ve added some things to Beebo.Org recently: there’s now a colophon and a search page. There’s also a list of words I’ve looked up on-line.