Mecca

Birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Salzburg Vienna
Musikverein, Vienna
Art Nouveau at Obecni Dum, Prague
Birthplace of The Ramones and Blondie, New York

Dvorak, the Moldau and the magnificent Vltava River

Antonin Dvorak's The Moldau is an orchestral piece that describes the journey of the Vltava River, which also happens to flow right through the heart of Prague. Prague proved to be one of the most beautiful cities I visited recently; forget the crowds at the castle and Karluv Most, head south for a spectacular hill top view.

Princess and the Pea

Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna


Nymphenburg Palace, Munich

Magnolia Bakery Delights, New York

Life's tough...

It's been difficult getting back into work-mode.
What with reagents not quite ready to start experiments, my thumbs are well twiddled by now!
To ease guilt of inappropriate use of internet facilities, try this:
www.workfriendly.net

Around the World in 48 days

The business end of my Northern Hemispherean summer: I'm leaving for Melbourne tonight after a cruisey week in Toronto and New York City.

There's a book by Julian Barnes titled "England, England" and a theme park in Japan which encapsulate some aspects of this whirlwind tour.
Barnes writes of an entrepreneur who builds a theme park containing all of the great icons of England, and the real life Japanese version contains white miniature replicates-to-scale of world monuments- come see the Eiffel Tower, Stonehenge, Buckingham Palace and the Empire State Building all in the one convenient location.

So I could babble on about some of the things I've seen, but you can imagine that when in Paris, you'll probably go and see the Notre Dame.

A few highlights:
* The pastries in Portugal, the food in Paris and the deli in Angel behind the antique market which supplied our Hyde Park picnic in the sweltering London heatwave.
* In Sintra near Lisbon, climbing up the ruins of the Castelo dos Mouros and looking over to the Palacio Nacional de Pena.
* Meeting some Glaswegian students at their local as I watched Australia beat Croatia to march into Round 2 of the World Cup. Our own triumph followed when we won a food voucher during the trivia quiz.
* Finally making it to Austria (a childhood dream/Mecca of sorts). Whereas in London, there are statues to Kings, Queens and Military, the first statues I found were of Haydn and Mozart. It was a thrill to be perched in the balcony of a Viennese concert hall watching an orchestra in period costume playing a mostly Mozart program. And the train ride to Salzburg with amazing breathtaking alpine scenery - stunning!
* Discovering the Art Nouveau movement in various guises beginning with Charles Rennie Mackintosh of the Glasgow School, Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele of the Secession movement in Austria, Alphonse Mucha in the Mucha Museum and an exhibition on the Croatian Art Nouveau movement in the amazing Obecni dum building, both in Prague. My favourite experience belongs to Vienna: basking in the warm glow of Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" at the Belvedere.
* Another musical pilgrimage, visiting CGBGs in New York before it closes in September for yuppified apartments - a sad demise for the birthplace of American punk music. In the 70s, this club hosted The Ramones, Blondie and other music for uplifting gourmandisers. The room is tiny, dark and dank with walls plastered with posters and stickers of the last 23 years.
* In Prague, watching a thunder and lightning storm rumble up the Vltava River towards our spot on the hill near the Vysehrad. Our vantage point encompassed the southern part of the river all the way up past Karluv Most and to Prague Castle - an incredible sunset spectaular.
* And seriously, it would be worth all the pomp, circumstance and excessive ...excess to live in a Palace if that's a ticket to explore/ponder/play/daydream in the accompanying palatial grounds: I would revisit the gardens of the Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna and the Nymphenburg Palace, Munich in a heartbeat.

Will update with photos when I get back home-sweet-home!

As much fun as it is to see the sights, my trip was really made by intermittent pitstops visiting ex-pats. It was nice to have a 'home' to come back to after traipsing around in the European summer or crazy New York weather. Many thanks to Cam (+Pat+Eric+Candid+Paul), Geoff, Nancy (+Laura) and Leonie (+Ben) for looking after me and showing me the favourite parts of their newly-adopted cities!

Apart from a blister here and there and a tan to rival solarium addicts, I've been healthy and happy. I have also met a lot of lovely people, travellers or otherwise.
However it will be fantastic to resume a semblance of normality - my travel bug is well and truly satisfied for a little while yet!

Ola_Och

Portugese tart for the day ahead...

Lisbon

Sintra - Lisbon nobility summer hangout

Luis Ponte I - Douro River, Porto

Kool fonts everywhere in Porto

Edinburgh Castle

Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art

furious five_cover art

i must admit, i don't often stop to think about cover art. even though we live in an increasingly visual culture, i'm ruled by fonts for books and my ears for music.if anything, i recognise books and ceedees by their spines... i could make a great list of "best spines" (you'd be right in thinking that this revolves around fonts!)

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in no particular order*
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Ocean Songs - Dirty Three

for a cover that represents the all-at-once rollicking..calming..turbulent temperament within

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it's a tie: Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series / Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher seriesi love these detective series. greenwood's harks back to an elegant, feminine 1920s style and i just dig that b-grade font of fforde's

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Plastic Fang - Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

before they stole his thunder, jon spencer and his blues explosion were pioneering dirty blues/garage way before white stripes and black keys. and he's got tons more charisma in his little finger than jack, meg and those akron ohio dudes combined!

werewolves /wide-eyed horror /comic styled gasps /kool font...the BLUES IS #1!

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Nightmare Before Christmas - Tim Burton

i used to love going to cinema bookshops to check out old movie posters - they have so much character and represent an energy that slick modern posters don't seem to possess. i have many a soft spot for the posters of 50s sci-fi monster movies or old school Italian filmmakers Fellini /Bertolucci /Leone or the wide spectrum of Japanese anime or those crazy screwball comedies from the Depression era.

and then there's hitchcock too.

i love poring over a new Astor calendar!

having said all that, Tim Burton is a director with a true, unique vision and the fractured fairytale Nightmare Before Christmas poster embodies the tone and style of the film (with a bonus great font).

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Cammers You Am I Dress Me Slowly
does this count? my dear friend cammers once made me a copy of You Am I's Dress Me Slowly. the makeshift cover featured red card with a photograph of Rose Porteous -in all her faux glamour- posing for the cameras at the Logies unaware of Lano and Woodley creeping up behind, fingers curled, ready to Attack! absolute hands down favourite

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* nick hornby type declaration: if you were to ask me in another moment, this list would resemble another beast...

Anyone for waffles?

You Had Me At Hello

For all the grandstanding about needing study time, for all the warnings to my nearest and dearest that I have No Time For Fun Until June, for all my big mouthing blah blah- I think I deserve this current state of inertia.

After three days of self-induced hermitage, I'm still sitting at the computer, brain overloaded from (re)reading papers, mental space brimming over full capacity and a small brain nook of floating fluorescent microscope images looking to land on a Powerpoint slide or two.
It's true: all work and no play makes no good sense!

So while other sensible people are attending Eurovision parties or watching silly Sunday night movies or having a few beers, a moment of procrastination allows an introduction to my new Korean claypot!

My good friend Ji showed us her own claypot and shared a few insider tips over a very lovely dinner last week (Thanks Ji and Soapy!).
Day One: The claypot has already been christened with vegies and bean curd in a soy bean and chilli paste soup.
Day Two: As I was a little too enthusiastic with the vegies the first time 'round, I stirfried the rest up with some beef and a bit of kecap manis sauce, lined the claypot with some steamed rice and popped the vegies on top.


Delicious! And it's all kept warm and snug as a bug - imagine how great it will be when winter really hits Melbourne...mmmm.
Ahem, so No Time For Fun Until June - back to it then.

time flies like an arrow. fruit flies like a banana

This may well be my last post for a while as I'm about to head over to my first Northern Hemispherean summer. Although it's only a short blitz around the world, the work/travel preparations are starting to invade my mental and physical space. Exciting prospects that leaves little time for the extracurricular.

ACMI is currently featuring the new media installation monkey bear robot to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 8 hour day. Each creature stands for Play, Rest and Work respectively and punters stand on floor touch pads to manage these different aspects of life. More weight on one over another leads to a certain death. A balance between the three and you are rewarded with a semblance of a Vitruvian man. As antiquated and unrealistic as this 888 idea sounds these days, it's an ideal worth striving for.

So jfox is going into hibernation as the Robot identity gets a massive workout for the next month. In an online effort to place more weight in the Monkey department I present some small projects.

Unless I can work out how to blog on European keyboards, we'll see y'all in August!

Happy Hippy

Just to confirm a sib's suspicion of my secret life as a hippy (wearing clothes with flowers on them doth not maketh a hippy doth it?), I recently volunteered with Conservation Volunteers Australia. This involved some planting and vegetation management in Blairgowrie on the Mornington Peninsula. Not bad for a hippy's day out eh?

Our group of 6 met up with local volunteers to remove a few weed species and also plant some native grasses and trees. We considered ourselves lucky to be at this beachside location and were even more grateful for the gorgeous overcast day, a minor blip in Melbourne's current crisp cold snap/hailing/etc.
The weed removal created trailers and trailers worth of unwanted vegetation. However, I spent the majority of the day planting: a bit of fertiliser, some water saving crystals and a fresh young green plant.

It was quite a thrill to be placing these lifeforces into the ground, an incredibly rewarding experience. We all vowed to return in a year to see how our little patch would mature.

The rest of the afternoon? Looking out over the Sorrento back beach whilst a wedding party celebrated, surfers hurled themselves at giant waves and clouds rumbled across the sky.

Lazy/Tired Recipe

I'm a slow eater.

At the end of a meal when everyone else is sitting back, content hand on stomach/beer belly, I keep on keepin' on, ordering another lamb cutlet (Movida), another bowl of rice (Aloi Na) or holding the last crab claw as the mains come out and begging the waiter to please-leave-the-bowls-of-tea-to-rinse-fingers (every single time we've ever had mud crab in a Chinese restaurant).

It drives my family crazy to always be waiting for me to finish eating.

The only time I will permit myself to eat quickly is after a long hard day at work. This is food at its most functional and fundamental level, to eat is to live.

Have these basic ingredients on hand for when you're feeling Lazy/Tired.

Trust me - it's a half hour, one-pot, flexible no brainer.

Comforting Noodle Soup
dried flat rice noodles
beef strips in Pawpaw's Chinese Marinade 101
sliced fish cake
1 bunch Chinese vegies -bok choy, gai larn or choy sum
enough water to cover ingredients
few slices ginger
handful of bean shoots
coriander and/or spring onions

[1] Bring water to boil, add dried flat noodles
[2] As noodles are about to be ready, add ginger slices, fish cake slices and vegies
[3] Add beef strips and bean shoots as vegies are cooked
[4] Pour out into bowl, top with coriander and spring onions
[5] Scoff down!

Pawpaw's Chinese Marinade 101
My nana taught me this most basic marinade - hence the lack of measurements. Good for stir fries too!
- splash of light soy
- splash of dark soy
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt - pinch of pepper
- 1 tsp corn flour
- dash of oil
- 2 splashes of water
Mix well through beef strips.
Marinated meat can be cooked immediately or left overnight in fridge.

I actually made this last weekend but as I was feeling lazy/tired [no photo]. This approximation will have to do!
Check out Vernoona, Sartorial Splendour, Cassiopeia Gegenbauren III and Serenity Later for other Lazy/Tired recipes.

Cat's Miaow

My sib acquired Singing in the Rain recently so this could be a reason for the nebulous title (highly recommeded film if you haven't had the experience yet).

Spent a cruisey afternoon at the National Gallery - a must see is William Kentridge's 7 Fragments for Georges Melies. His work combines animation, cawffee and short film; it reminded me of Michel Gondry's work in its creativity and playfulness, very inspiring.

oh i do like to be beside the seaside

:: Inverloch ::

Women of Substance

Forget about men who sing high, last week I had the pleasure of seeing a couple of women of substance: Beth Orton and Sharon Jones with the Dap Kings. If only I had made it to Martha Wainwright – music nerd-dom trifecta.

Let’s start with Beth Orton.

Anticipation is a big part of a gig experience. I’ve been a fan of Beth Orton for a few albums but this was the first time to see her live with the added bonus of the Palais Theatre as venue. Her latest album Comfort of Strangers is her most engaging, the production stripped back to bring weight to her vocals and warmth to her songs that was perhaps lacking in earlier albums. Previous reports had been glowing so the lead up to the gig has been most enjoyable.

Blessed with fourth row tickets, we had a great view of the stage and the lovely Palais Theatre proscenium. The set list didn’t delve too much into her back catalogue though there was an airing of Sweetest Decline and Someone’s Daughter. These sounded refreshed with more simple arrangements than in recorded versions.

The rest of the set was solid: we heard most of Comfort of Strangers and despite spilling forth unformed thoughts, Beth proved to be unassuming and charming in between. It was a fantastic gig and, as we left, the chilly winter wind snap-froze the crowd’s happy reception.

And she doesn’t take herself too seriously either, we all agreed Best Band Teeshirt prize goes to a black Beth Orton tee emblazoned in a RAWK-Metal/This-Is-Spinal-Tap font.

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To a woman of a different kind of substance: Sharon Jones.

Sometimes you hear or see something and you know ya gotta have it. One time we walked past a sign saying “Crepes and Coffee $5” - you hafta have that. When I first heard Sharon Jones on PBS, I had to get my mitts on the album.
The anticipation for this gig induced enthusiastic happy dances galore on my part (to the embarrassment of some…I do enjoy happy dances!). Northerly whispers from the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival indicated that this would be an act not to be missed. We caught SJ&DK for their show stealing support slot for the Black Keys as well as an impulse show six days later. Nothing like word of mouth: folks braved Antarctic conditions to queue out the door and round the corner of the Espy for the experience.

There’s no year marked on their second album Naturally so you could be mistaken for thinking this soul/funk music hails from a previous era of music such is the resonance of their sound. However, judging by the crowd’s reaction, these guys are definitely of the moment.

The Dap Kings were put together for Jones by Bosco Mann of Daptone records and they were an awesome support, tight brass section and rhythm section. However, the undeniable star of the show was Jones herself. She exuded an amazing magnetic presence, strutting and dancing her way across the stage. It made me wish for hips with which to swing - the one other band that makes me feel this way being Royal Crown Revue. Audience members were pulled up on stage to join in on the fun as well (ahem, moreso at the Espy), it really was way too much fun. We felt bad for Black Keys to have to follow up such an infectious exuberant performance.

Three sold-out shows in a week? If you missed out this time, make sure you don’t the next.

chill factor

it's been a good week

perfect start: sharing this delicious creation and the rest of the day with one of my favourite people...


chilly end: at a queenscliff pier watching the storm change the colour and light of the sky...

Mario Andretti says

nah, i'm no (mercury) rev head, don't know anything about racing car drivers! However, a wise friend just advised:

If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough