Dream house

Via Poppytalk.

Catch the sun in a jar

Available from dstore.com.au. I'm adding it to my Christmas wish list.

Love this idea!

Idea vending machine

Sad kids and other dudes

An exhibition at a local art gallery (you can preview it online) may be the work of my favourite, but heretofore anonymous, graffiti artist. Last year I took photographs of some examples of his/her work and blogged about them in February, March and April.
So is Stormie Mills the culprit? The exhibited works are similar but not exactly the same, and the artist apparently lives in Perth. My examples are somewhat simpler in style, as well, although something that you have to paint on a fence while looking over your shoulder to check that the police aren't coming to arrest you may be necessarily less polished than something you paint to sell in a gallery. Perhaps my Sydney graffitist is a disciple of Stormie Mills', rather than the artist himself.

People in glass houses...

I had a good laugh at the item in my local newspaper, which reported that a Popefest Pilgrim had asked a Sydneysider whether the moon they could see here was the same one they saw at home in the USA.
"How dumb are those Septics?" I guffawed, as I pointed out the article to friends and family.
Should have kept my stones to myself, I realised, when I saw this display in the Nelson Bay newsagency:



I'll bet Edwin Hubble's grave is registering on seismographs over this gaffe.

Guerilla art, part three

While Queequeg and I were sailing the ocean blue and other nautical things last week, we had a chance to put some more Aussie beaches on the map at the World Beach Project.
I made this handprint at Zenith Beach, Shoal Bay, almost exactly 18 years after the Master (AFSM) and I had our first kiss on that spot (awwwww). As you can imagine, Queequeg was pretty grossed out by the whole idea of a romance, especially one involving his parents.
He made a picture of a whale at Diamond Beach, where Tezznbev also got into the act, as did my sister's Little Princess.

A la recherche du temps perdu

Browsing through the books in a secondhand dealer (because Lord knows I need more books: my reading pile got down below a metre while I was on holiday last week) I came across this little retro gem.
This book--well, not this actual book but one of its sisters-- was on my high school Textiles & Design book list. I fondly recall its advice on caring for worsted fabrics, how to tell the difference between cotton and rayon, and what constitutes a jacquard weave. After all, I did top the class in Year 11, so I must have learned something. It certainly wasn't my slapdash sewing skills that won me the honour!
Dear old Rosalie wrote this book in 1962 (reprinted in 1964). Its sister was first put into my hands at the Canobolas High School some 20 years later, and now this copy completes the circle 20-odd years after that.
Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

Light on the Hill

101 uses for a Kevin Rudd. Following in the footsteps of "the definitive John Howard biography", one of my favourite pre-election sites. Make sure you click the switch.

New South Whales

Call me Ishmael. This pair of humpback whales were making their way up the coast to get laid at the Great Barrier Reef as Queequeg (aka the Dude) and I cruised aboard the Pequod (aka Moonshadow IV) outside Nelson Bay. We followed them around for a while and they put on quite a show, with some tail slapping and waving of fins. Just like big, scary dolphins, really.

Herman Melville's Ishmael describes the humpback whale thus:

He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. He is the most gamesome and light-hearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any other of them.

The devil's wisdom

Say, hast thou naught descried that met thy wishes?
Thou didst o'erlook a boundless territory,
'The kingdoms of the world and all their glory,'
But all insatiate thou art,
Lusted for naught at all thine heart?

Mephistopheles, in Faust Part II Act IV, by Goethe.

Very Machiavellian.

Impressionism

And we sit there, by [the river's] margin, while the moon, who loves it too, stoops down to kiss it with a sister's kiss, and throws her silver arms around it clingingly; and we watch it as it flows, ever singing, ever whispering, out to meet its king, the sea--till our voices dies away in silence, and the pipes go out--till we, commonplace, everyday young men enough, feel strangely full of thoughts, half sad, half sweet, and do not care or want to speak... we fall asleep beneath the great, still stars, and dream that the world is young again.

Jerome K Jerome, Three Men in a Boat, Chapter 2

Music: Nocturnes: Sirenes by Claude Debussy
Image: Sunset on the Seine by Claude Monet

One week until P-day

Yesterday I stopped in at Cardinal Pell's Moneychanging Emporium Inc (prudently located across the road from the temple rather than inside it). Unfortunately they were all out of Pope-on-a-rope, and I hesitated to ask for the T-shirt I really want ("John-Paul, George [Pell] and Ratzingo: Australian tour 2008") just in case I was spotted by an oversensitive SES volunteer and incarcerated in a tin shed in Kellyville for the duration.
For those who haven't seen the monstrosity yet, you'll be pleased to know that the Merchandise Marquee only covers about half of Hyde Park, right under the benevolent gaze of Apollo atop the Archibald Fountain. Let's hope the pilgrims spill a few drops of holy water on the trampled earth so that the grass grows back quickly after they've gone.

More guerilla art at Bare Island

The Dude and I went down to Bare Island to make some art for the V&A Museum's World Beach Project. The rock stacks in the picture were our first attempts, but then we found some pieces of flat, grey sandstone that the Dude assembled into the shape of a reef shark. We've submitted it to the Project, and it should appear on the website in a day or two, so please check it out. Updated 7/7.
I challenge everyone who is near a beach to have a go at this form of guerilla art. It's free, fun and easy, and Australian beaches are sadly underrepresented in the project!

Tell me in the comments below when you've done it.