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Vegan freakshakes in Canberra
Freakshakes! They originated from Canberra’s very own Pâtissez, and burst from Australia, onto the world stage, with great media hubbub in July 2015.
…and now there’s a vegan-friendly version at both Canberra stores! It’s now going to be a permanent fixture on the menu but the flavour option might change every month or so.
Currently, the Vegân Freak is:
“Lychee coconut shake – raspberry coulis – coconut vanilla bean mousse – coconut chips – lychee, raspberry & coconut icecream pop (holy mother of vegans this thing does not taste vegan).”
So sweet, so coconut
I had a Vegân Freak yesterday (not quite as sexy as it sounds! But almost…) at the Canberra Manuka store. I was a bit worried about the lychee element as I’ve tried to avoid eating them after seeing a particular scene in We need to talk about Kevin. But they were tricky to detect in the shake, so that was for the best.
I had told the staff I found out about the Vegân Freak from Vegan ACT. I heard them saying to each other something like, “It was through a secret vegan society!”. I’m sworn to secrecy regarding whether I can confirm if SVS exists or not.
Oh the shake was so overwhelming. So much sweetness, so much coconut (this has also been mentioned by others, too). I was determined! I was hardcore! But I failed (softcore). I had skipped lunch but it still didn’t work, and I was so hopeful that I’d do better than my last competitive eating foray. But I just couldn’t finish it, so very sad and I so hate food waste. My gameplan was based on the architecture, starting at the top. I ate the icecream pop, then 50% of the mousse, then super-sculled most of the liquid. And then I felt as overly sweet as Shirley Temple (the child actor, but I guess also her namesake beverage). The shakes are the smaller size compared to the “origin” freakshakes, but there’s still so much in a serving! The description describes it as “not tasting vegan” – I don’t know what to say about that, but it does have a really overt cream-fat kind of taste, so it’s kind of accurate?
I appreciate that Pâtissez now offers a vegan freakshake option, and it’s also encouraging for there to be an something for those with dairy allergies. Apparently Pâtissez are developing a vegan chocolate freakshake for Winter – which is so good, we don’t need everything to be fruit-based! (there are some other great flavour suggestions on their facebook page). It would also be beneficial to have some vegan beta-testers. I volunteer as tribute!
When I went to pay, they said, “1 vegan freak?”, and I said, yes, thinking of Bob and Jenna Torres’ book, Hello my name is vegan freak: being vegan in a non-vegan world.
Best vegan burger ever! (sorry Mum)
Today’s follow-up (quality assurance!) visit was to the Canberra City (Civic) store, I had the only vegan main option, the Veg Head burger with fries and Pâtissez special sauce:
“Herby chickpea, corn & sweet potato patty, charred zucchini, roast capsicum, grilled eggplant, roasted red pepper, vegan aioli, house marinated fetta cheese.”
Damn, it was the best vegan burger I’ve had (in case my Mum’s reading, it’s not as good as your bean-patty one! But if you’re not reading, then it’s the best). Like, even better than the one at Red Lime Shack in Adelaide. It was so good. I did ask the Pâtissez staff a lot of questions, and confirmed that the chips were fried in cottonseed oil, and that the aioli is done on a soy base (not sure if this is a fortified type, though). Staff were obliging, but I think that there needs to be a quick FAQ or better team-briefing, given that many people with allergies will often opt for the vegan menu item and have questions.
The beast, legend & challenge.
My friend E had the Vegân Freak, so we could compare it with my yesterday-version at Manuka. I sternly warned her that I couldn’t even complete it, but she said she was “born for this”.
And annoyingly, she truly was! (but reassured me that it was due to my coaching). The evidence is as follows…
Damn, she did it
Yesterday, I found that the trick after my shake-fail was to get some vegan chips from Grill’d to get a good savoury/salt balance (very soon after!).
As a modified version of the ye olde technique of McDonald’s dipping chips in a sundae, E utilised some of my Pâtissez burger side-fries as freakshake dippers. I think we need to register this an innovative concept for the IDEAS BOOM. I hope Pâtissez will think it’s a good idea to start serving a tiny cup of chips with freakshakes! (you’re welcome!)
Freakshake Google trends graph
It can be tricky to find out about freakshakes, as I think the term has now been copyrighted or trademarked by Pâtissez, and they recommend tagging with #Patissez and #FreakShakes
When I was trying to get a trend graph from Factiva, I found it a bit complex (because of the terms) and experimented with advanced search commands like freak and shake* near each other, or dessert-topped shakes, but I didn’t really get anything satisfyingly representative, so the image above is from data source Google trends. You can see the clear peak in popularity in July last year, and then it all gets a bit muddied with the varying names, etc. …and it didn’t seem to allow truncation symbols, so I used both freakshake and freakshakes, in addition to Pâtissez. Even if the interest doesn’t continue over time, it looks as though the cafe is continuing with innovative food offerings – I’m hopeful that will result in more vegan options, too!
The freakshake phenomenon is just part of the Frankenfood portmanteaus, and it could possibly be compared with the vegan Plant-based Disgrace in Sydney. I’m keen to try the Disgrace, but given my lack of success in finishing Vegân Freak, I might have to share it with a few other people.
As always, this post isn’t sponsored and all food etc. is at my own cost. I’d love to know if you also thought the Vegân Freak was super intense! Or if you’ve been lucky enough to eat the Disgrace.
Watched and read list of 2015
My annual book and movie list!
My tally for the year was: 46 movies, 42 books, 1 play, 2 web series, 1 comedy show, and 1 short online movie (a big book-reading improvement on last year’s tally of 55 movies, 17 books and 2 TV series).
As for games, I spent a lot of time playing Pokemon shuffle, but that’s about it (I usually only like games with shape-matching but no characters, so it’s a bit limiting – although I had a go at Trials fusion and new Tetris). I didn’t visit the library as often as I’d like, but I bought a lot more books than I would normally (i.e. more than zero), and made sure that at least one other person read my copies to make them a bit greener. I also forgot to note which art exhibitions I saw, but that’s a goal for another year.
2015 was definitely my year of reading Richelle Mead’s series: Bloodlines, Georgina Kincaid, Age of X and Dark Swan (Eugenie Markham). But now I need to read Soundless (from late 2015), and The Glittering Court is coming – when all I want is to petulantly demand another Age of X or Dark Swan book (they are pending/unknown). It was really pleasing to read the concluding book of the Bloodlines series – a colleague once said I was a “completionist”, and for sure, I do like it when things are done, I hate waiting on book release dates. I was delighted to read the next Jewel series instalment, The White Rose, but now have to wait for the next one, The Black Key, to be released this fall (in America – autumn is in late September, so maybe 235 days?). Yuck. This is why I read things after the hype is over and there is no waiting, but I guess it is good to support art and culture in-process, but sometimes I can’t stand the anticipation.
It was also a big year of reading Cassandra Clare’s series: The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices. And now to wait for The Dark Artifices. Life is just waiting for more books, it seems.
I’ve continued my love of trashy movies, but made them a bit more educational with Norwegian subtitles, it would be so helpful if subtitle language availability was made clearer across library catalogues and other listings. And I read the very worst book in the world, Zelda’s cut, which was so frustrating and depressing. I made my mother-in-law read it so that we could bond through our mutual dislike of everything about the characters and storyline.
Arnold in library in Junior movie
January
- Trolljegeren (Troll hunter, Norwegian movie with English subtitles)
- Bloodlines series: 3, The indigo spell, 4, The fiery heart, 5, Silver shadows (books)
- Jo Nesbo’s Jackpot (Norwegian movie with English subtitles)
- Men in black (English movie with Norwegian subtitles)
“Goddamn bugs.” = “Fordømte insekt.”
- Ickle Pickle’s Cinderella (play)
- Junior (English movie with Norwegian subtitles – DVD busted 40 minutes in)
- Age of X series, 1, Gameboard of the gods (book)
“Seeing the outside of her body was nothing compared to seeing the inside. Even now, he was probably analysing her outburst, and she already felt too raw and exposed. If she kept her back to him, maybe she could hide the hole in her that she felt he’d ripped open.” p. 300
“She’d never heard of lingonberries but Nordics seemed to love them.” p. 358
- Headhunters (Norwegian movie with English subtitles)
- The boyfriend dilemma by Fiona Foden (book)
- World class trains: the Polar Express (movie – I thought it’d be about Santa but it was about Sweden, this was probably due to my very general keyword search of Norway/Norsk/Oslo/Norwegian, which is why I also watched the DVD Sissel in concert: all good things)
- Sweet land: a love story (movie)
“Different kinds of happy”
- Mortdecai (movie at the cinema)
- Georgina Kincaid series, 1, Succubus blues (book)
“The sweater and khakis combination looked both respectable and subdued, though the color scheme blended a bit too well with my light brown hair. It was a librarian sort of outfit. Did I want to look subdued? Maybe.” p. 43
“I could still feel where his power had touched me, rather like a tactile version of the afterimage one sees with a camera flash.” p. 321.
- Georgina Kincaid series, 2, Succubus nights (book)
- Georgina Kincaid series, 3, Succubus dreams (book)
“It twinkled like starlight, seeping into me.” p. 102
- Georgina Kincaid series, 4, Succubus heat (book)
“A flower of agony and euphoria burst open in my chest.” P. 356
February
- Georgina Kincaid series, 5. Succubus shadows (book)
“She was still using that librarian voice, but I had to admit she looked more like a succubus than the last time I’d seen her.” p. 80
“Out here in the middle of nowhere, stars clustered the sky, and night insects rained down a symphony of chatter.” p. 177
- Georgina Kincaid series, 6. Succubus revealed (book)
“Our souls are like …oh, I don’t know. It’s like they’re encased in amber. They’re there, and I can see them inside us.” p. 253
- The butcher’s wife (English movie with Norwegian subtitles)
- Immortal: love stories with bite (book)
- Pitch perfect (movie)
- Bloodlines series, 6, The ruby circle (book)
- Confidence (movie)
“See this? That’s your love line, that’s your money line, and that’s looking very, very good. And that’s your life line going all the way down – uh-oh. See that little gap there. It means that at one point, you could have a little trouble. But it’s up to you to make it better.”
- Asterix and the Picts (book)
- Bleak: the web series
- The Katering show episodes
March
- Taffin (movie)
- Age of X series, 2, The immortal crown (book)
“You’re too entrenched in mortal thinking if you think this is a coincidence. Don’t you know I’m looking out for you?” p. 181
- Norwegian wood (movie)
“If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well.”
- Eugenie Markham/Dark Swan series: 1, Storm born, 2, Thorn queen, 3, Iron crowned, 4, Shadow heir (books)
- Little big man (English movie with Norwegian subtitles)
“…it would’ve been deliciously wicked.”
“Something snapped in my head. I decided life wasn’t fit to live, and the only thing to do was to mingle with the twinkling stars.”
- Blue caprice (movie)
- A somewhat gentle man [En Ganske snill mann] (Norwegian movie with English subtitles)
- The Mortal Instruments series, 1, City of Bones (book)
“…you’re an artist… That means you see the world in ways that other people don’t. It’s your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn’t make you crazy – just different. There’s nothing wrong with being different.” p. 29
“The face of the angel was fierce and beautiful and sad.” p. 169
- The world is a playground, comedy show by Chris Endrey
- Zelda’s cut (book)
“She had her hand clamped over her mouth as if to hold the kiss and the power of the kiss inside her. …Still she kept her hand over her mouth, still she felt, under the unconscious grip of her fingers, the heat and the power of his kiss.” p. 75
“The messages became more and more of a ritual, a sacrifice to an unresponsive god…” p. 396
- Worms in the night (book)
“…if anyone saw me I’d look normal – not like a bogan or anything.” p. 1
“…our sunroom: seagrass matting, cane furniture with lime-green cushions…” p. 14
“He’s such a spunk, but he’s always distant.” p.17
“The worms will come.” p. 22
“The worms will get you,’ the voice said clearly. ‘The worms come in the night.’” p. 22
“Look out for the worms. They’ll get you,’” p. 23
April
- Before midnight (movie)
“I don’t know where I’m from, but I’m very hairy.”
“I just naturally feel bad about everything, and you give me that look, like it’s my fault.”
- The Mortal Instruments series, 2, City of Ashes (book)
- The tale of Desperaux (movie)
- The Duff (movie at the cinema)
- Leviathan (Russian movie with English subtitles at the cinema)
- The Mortal Instruments series, 3, City of Glass , 4, City of Fallen Angels, 5, City of Lost Souls (books)
- The Mortal Instruments series, 6, City of Heavenly Fire (book)
“Simon didn’t need a mirror to know he was wearing eye-liner. The knowledge was instant, and complete.” p. 133
“And when I die and they burn my body and I become ashes that mix with the air, and part of the ground and the trees and the stars, everyone who breathes that air or sees the flowers that grow out 707 of the ground or looks up at the stars will remember you and love you, because I love you that much.” pp. 706-7.
- Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray (movie, but unsure which version)
- Cinderella (movie)
- Maleficent (again! movie)
- The Infernal Devices series, 1, Clockwork Angel (book)
“One must always be careful of books,” said Tessa, “and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.” p. 93
“He didn’t know what books 103 meant to her, that books were symbols of truth and meaning, that this one acknowledged that she existed and that there were others like her in the world.” pp. 103-104
“…a lot of vampires were beautiful. Their beauty had always seemed to him like the beauty of pressed flowers – lovely, but dead.” p. 197
“There was a clear picture in her head of the sea. It had drawn back entirely from the shore, and she could see the small creatures it had left gasping in its wake, flapping and dying on the bare sand.” p. 470
- The Infernal Devices series, 2, Clockwork Prince (book)
- The Infernal Devices series, 3, Clockwork Princess (book)
“There were still flecks of dried blood around his collarbones, a sort of brutal necklace.” p. 78
“…she had understood-oh, she had been told it before, had known it before, but that was not the same as understanding…” p. 159
“Life was an uncertain thing, and there were some moments one wished to remember, to imprint upon one’s mind that the memory might be taken out later, like 372 a flower pressed between the pages of a book, and admired and recollected anew.” pp. 372-3.
“She held his face between her hands as they kissed-he tasted slightly of tea leaves, and his lips were soft and the kiss entirely sweet. Sophie floated in it, in the prism of the moment, feeling safe from all the rest of the world.” p. 373
“I feel like you can look inside me and see all the places I am odd or unusual and fit your heart around them, for you are odd and unusual in just the same way.” p. 412
“’What you are, what you can do, it is like some great miracle of the earth, like fire or wildflowers or the breadth of the sea. You are unique in the world, just as you are unique in my heart, and there will never be a time when I do not love you.’” p. 537
- Testament of Youth (movie at the cinema)
May
- The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde, Notes by Robert Mighall (book)
“If thought could exercise its influence upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or conscious desire, might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity?” p. 103
“He went towards the little pearl-coloured octagonal stand, that had always looked to him like the work of some strange Egyptian bees that wrought in silver…” p. 120
“…getting the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates, and stitched over with iridescent beetles’ wings…” p. 133
- Not suitable for children (movie)
- The unbecoming of Mara Dyer (book)
“I was a goldfish without a castle to hide in.” p. 54
“My shoulders sagged as if someone let all the air out of the smiley-face balloon that was my heart.” p. 274
- The evolution of Mara Dyer (book)
“I’ll walk forever with stories inside me that the people I love the most can never hear.” p. 258
“The papers flutter when I open or close the door, like the walls are breathing.” p. 305
- The retribution of Mara Dyer (book)
“I love you. Today. Tonight. Tomorrow. Forever. If I were to live a thousand years, I would belong to you for all of them. If I were to live a thousand lives, I would want to make you mine in each one.” p. 453
“…it feels like we’re alone in a sea of beating hearts and breathing lungs.” p. 466
- Kung fury (online movie)
- Rabbit Hole (movie)
“Oh! I like the way it cracks.” “Mmm-hmm. Of course you do.”
June
- We need to talk about Kevin (movie)
- Grey (book – I also wrote a fanfic about this first book from Christian’s perspective)
“My anxiety mushrooms; this deal could all go to shit.” p. 90
“I undo my bow tie. Perhaps it’s me that’s empty.” p. 292
“Anxiety blooms in my chest.” p. 379
- Orange is the new black (book)
“…I understood that these stories held their own accuracy.” p. 141
“Lack of empathy lies at the heart of every crime…” p. 298
July
- Fanny och Alexander (Swedish movie with English subtitles, at the cinema)
- The skin I live in (Spanish movie with English subtitles)
“…there’s a place where you can take refuge, a place inside you, a place to which no one else has access, a place that no one can destroy.”
“I breathe. I know I breathe.”
- Summer Coda (movie)
“…I don’t really know you. But I feel like I do.”
“…and we all have stuff that we wanted to say that we could’ve said. …we never put a time-limit on these things. They’re just so easy to put off. But just because he didn’t say it, doesn’t mean that you didn’t feel it. It just means that you’re the only one that will ever know.”
- Angel (movie)
“What in tarnation would I be doing with toys?”
- Homesick (Norwegian movie with English subtitles)
- St Trinian’s 2 – The Legend of Fritton’s Gold
“I’d rather cover myself in jam and sit on a wasps’ nest.”
About a puppy: “I bet if he could talk, he’d be trying to tell me just how much he loves me.”
- Remember Me (movie)
“Our fingerprints don’t fade from the lives we touch.”
August
- Ironman (movie)
- Faberge (movie at the cinema)
- Hansel and Gretel (movie)
- Jackass 1 & 2 (movies)
September
- Mazerunner: The Scorch Trials (movie at the cinema)
“People in the mountains? Mountain-people? That’s your plan?”
- The children’s Bach (book)
“That’s what they should have on TV every night… Not that violent American rubbish. They should have the Sunset Report. Brought to you by the Federal Department of Nature Appreciation.” p. 35
“There was no way he could have known that her heart, for the thousandth time, felt as if it had turned into a sharp splinter.” p. 77
- The Bane Chronicles (book)
“…her remembered face like the distant familiar beauty of stars, not to be touched but to shine in front of his eyes at night.” p. 17
“Magnus had learned to be careful about giving his memories with his heart. When people died, it felt like all the pieces of yourself you had given to them went as well. It took so long, building yourself back up until you were whole again, ,and you were never entirely the same.” p. 34
“This was what humans did: They left one another messages through time, pressed between pages or carved into rock. Like reaching out a hand through time, and trusting in a phantom hoped-for hand to catch yours. Humans did not live forever. They could only hope what they made would endure.” p. 42
“Everything about this exchange was wrong. This was not how the reunion should have gone. It should have been coy, it should have had many strange pauses and moments of double meaning.” p. 283
“The heart had its reasons, and they were seldom all that reasonable.” p. 331
“…a trouble sundae with dark secret cherries on top.” p. 331
“And silver, though few people knew it, was a rarer metal than gold.” p. 396
- Heart of Darfur (book)
“seeing the overwhelming needs and fears in the world we can all be excused for wanting to withdraw.” p. 106
October
- American Pie Reunion (movie – it was as awful as it sounds)
- The Visit (movie at the cinema – this was just so terrible, I have written more about this previously)
November
- The Dressmaker (movie at the cinema)
- Sex and the City 2 (movie)
- The White Rose (book)
“I wish I could unzip my skin and show him the place inside me where Ash lives, tangled up in blood and bone and muscle, impossible to separate or remove.” p. 117
“I rub my eyes. There’s too much in my head, and not enough space for it all.” p. 172
- Mockingjay Part 2 (movie at the cinema)
December
- The Good Dinosaur (movie at the cinema)
- Murder by the book
“…the big cabinets where rare old books and memorabilia grew silently older and rarer behind glass.” p. 70
- The Eyre Affair (book)
“The barriers between reality and fiction are softer than we think: a bit like a frozen lake. Hundreds of people can walk across it, but then one evening a thin spot develops and someone falls through; the hole is frozen over by the following morning.” [didn’t write down the pagination!]
- 50 shades of grey (movie)
- Magic Mike II (movie)
- Death of a Butterfly (a Detective Sigrid Harald mystery)
“The backs of his hands were lightly sprinkled with brown age marks, but the hands were still capable – a craftsman’s hands, strong and square, yet with the promise of lyrical, gentle touch.” p. 10
- Magpies, squirrels and thieves: how the Victorians collected the world (book)
“His relationship with his employer was edgy and barbed, liable to erupt in furious explosions.” p. 22
“…Robinson was suggesting that it was not only beautiful objects themselves that were important, but also the very ‘pursuit’ of collecting them. Tracking down objects, studying them, comparing and treasuring them…” p. 69
“This portrait… …was showing off the part of him that mattered – his collection.” p. 189
“He became a collector of stories.” p. 343
- The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (movie)
Health food shops in Canberra
Just in time for healthy new year’s resolutions! Canberra has some wonderful (but not always easy to find/know about) health food shops and places to bulk-buy or bring your own containers. Make sure you check they’ve definitely re-opened after the holidays!
I have a theory about the proximity of health food shops and art galleries – a good opportunity to improve your entire health and outlook…
South Canberra
Dry goods at Mountain Creek
Mountain Creek Wholefoods, Griffith: A classic favourite. Extensive, intense tea range and lots of health shop products, dry goods that can be measured out (hot tip: there are even barrels under the counter), and a separate area with lots of eco-gifts. Great range of frozen goods and a lovely café to boot.
Parking: Free (specific time limits), very close.
Closest gallery: M16 artspace
Just part of Let’s be natural
Let’s be natural, Mawson: The giantest health-food shop! Their display of bring-your-own-container goods is overwhelming. Lovely vibe and they have the easiest discount club, it’s an automatic percentage off every visit, you don’t have to remember anything. I think there have been yoga classes in the past as it’s such a big space, and beauty treatments are also available.
Parking: Free (specific time limits), very close.
Closest gallery: Mawson Gallery
Front window of Greenway organic
Greenway organic, Tuggeranong: Interesting ingredients, staples like nutritional yeast and dairy-free ice-cream. Lots of dry goods for dietary requirements e.g. celiacs, as well as frozen food and a wide range of chocolate bars. They get new products in a lot, but it can be worthwhile to phone to check that what you need is in stock.
Parking: Free (Don’t park at Homeworld as it’s very expensive, usually Hyperdome is best as you can get a few hours free), relatively close. Or nearby on-street parking near the restaurant strip exit.
Closest gallery: Tuggeranong Arts Centre
North Canberra
Through the window of As Nature Intended
As Nature Intended, Belconnen markets: Lots of what you’d expect in a health food shop plus fruit and vegetables and delicious cakes (see the cabinet). Really good vegan frozen food options, and lots of beauty products. Similar to Mountain Creek as it has a café component (very big) but many more meal options.
Parking: Paid, nearby carpark.
Closest gallery: Belconnen Arts Centre
Through the window at the Food Co-op
ANU Food Co-op, Acton: Community-based, non-profit cooperative with bring-your-own-container options. Also sweets, vegan cheeses, unusual vegetables and fruit. Similar to As Nature Intended and Mountain Creek in that there’s an in-store café (the lunches are great value and generally vegan).
It has been around for ages, I don’t remember when it was in the Union building, but before the current bricks-and-mortar, it was in a transportable building near the Law Courts, and prior to that, a different transportable near the current site.
Parking: There is a loading zone out the front, but it’s more polite & good karma to park in the proper spots. There is a useful map on the Co-op’s website.
Closest gallery: Drill Hall Gallery
Peepshow at Naked foods
Naked foods, Braddon: I must admit, I was surprised when this opened, given the long-standing ANU Food Coop isn’t too far away. This is on my “to visit” list, as I never seem to get there during opening hours – “The store is set out in the style of a lolly shop – but the wares for sale are anything but.” – …and I’m like a little kid leaning my head on the glass trying to open sesame the doors.
Parking: Paid, nearby or up the road.
Closest gallery: KIN Gallery (check out the Hamlet in general)
and the best for last…
Canberra Organic Food Collective, Dickson: Grass-roots, affordable organic dry foods. Bring your own container options, it’s easy to decide what you want to order from the price-list (kilogram quantities). The only place I’ve found in Canberra that sells real, genuine, potent cinnamon. Worth it for that alone, but also other good spices, rice, nuts, beans and more.
Parking: Free, on-street.
Closest gallery: ANCA
Other
There are a few health food shop chain stores in Canberra (Go Vita, Healthy Life), but they are pretty easy to find so I haven’t listed them. You can also buy health foods in giant containers at Costco (dates etc.), but I didn’t visit there as I balk at paying a nightclub cover charge, let alone a discount shop admission fee. I have found that Supabarn have really well-stocked and unusual “health food” aisles, too. And some places I’ve missed are in this fulsome list from Vegan ACT.
For fresh vegetables and groceries, there are lots of good independent places like Choku Bai Jo, the regular farmers’ markets (North and South), Fyshwick markets, Organic energy, markets at the Botanic Gardens, and more…
As always, this post is not sponsored (my own time, money and opinions), but probably contains some South/North Canberra bias! All photos are from today apart from the Let’s Be Natural one (taken in April).
Looking in on The Visit movie
A few weeks ago my parents saw The Visit film. They thought it would be just a nice movie about grandkid/grandparent visits. They got a surprise. I suppose the blood on the poster looks like something less sinister, strawberry jam, maybe. We went along to see it later, to understand just how much it would have varied from their expectations.
Don’t continue reading this if you still want to watch it! (although, Mr Sonja says that everyone has seen it now and we are completely off trend). And what I have to say might put you off anyway.
Embroidered woodlands
Unfortunately The Visit was a little bit ruined for me as someone commented on the youtube trailer: “Those aren’t their grandparents, they killed the real ones and hid them in the basement. Spoiler alert.” (argh you put spoiler alert at the wrong end of the sentence and ruined my experience! I think if a movie is being so heavily promoted on youtube, that the front-up spoiler comments should at least be managed). Like Brent McKnight, I assumed that there would be some sort of body-swapping or possession – I guess body-swapping did happen in a sense, though. I also wondered if there was a cult in the mix, given the description on the official website: “Once the children discover that the elderly couple is involved in something deeply disturbing, they see their chances of getting back home are growing smaller every day.”
I missed quite a few parts of the movie as, like at Melissa King’s screening, there were some very disruptive movie-goers talking throughout the film with phrases such as “What the-!” and “Don’t go in there!”. I was really hoping they might walk out, and if I’d sat above them (rather than the row below), I would have touched their shoulders at a jump-moments to help them understand the impact you can have on someone’s viewing experience.
Becca and Tyler’s visit to Nanna and Pop-pop was bound to be unpredictable as a week-long hazing of “getting to know each other”. At one point, Tyler says “I hope things don’t get any more awkward, because I’m at my limit.” That was my feeling throughout, even though I love critically panned movies. Glimpses of the driveway on the way to “Grandma’s house in the woods” was reminiscent of the scenic twists and turns of Manderley’s driveway in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (very apt given they both feature characters with the same name). The foreboding underscore of the whole film – what lies beneath – was offset by the meant-to-be-comedic elements such as the expansive vocabulary of the children (eerily similar to the teenagers in Dawson’s Creek). The tension of the red chapter markers as a count-down to the finish mimicked Sophie Calle’s count-down of “days until unhappiness” in her work of art, Exquisite Pain.
Well, well
Of M. Night’s films, the only other two I’ve seen are The Sixth Sense (another movie beginning with stopword -the) and Lady in the water. Perhaps because of my viewing of Lady in the water, I really thought that The Visit had a shared, consistent theme – water. Water featured as the rising damp that would have created the faux “toxic mould” in the basement (a Bluebeard-like forbidden room), the story of sleeping underwater, aliens spitting into a lake, Nanna’s fascination with the well, her history of drowning her children and the rainy weather in the final scenes. If there was a lake beneath the house, that could be why the bodies of the actual grandparents were placed in the basement, for a “deep, really beautiful sleep” (strong burial, ground hibernation themes consistent with alien incubation). Nanna could have been almost excavating down to the underground lake when they were playing hide-and-seek in the labyrinthine setting beneath the house.
Could Nanna be from the Lady’s Blue World? She does have a mermaid-like habit of shedding her clothing, but that could also be the persistence of that traditional role of women being naked for art, as exposed in the Guerrilla Girls’ “weenie count” of male vs. female nudes.
To balance the prominence of water, Nanna is also skilled in the use of fire – the fairytale elements (highlighted in Sheila O’Malley’s review) of Little Red Riding Hood’s surprise host, and fattening up children with biscuits and putting them in the oven. My friend K asked me if The Visit was the “fairy bread movie, you know the Hansel and Gretel one”:
“The film unfolds like an urban myth, a variation on the Hansel and Gretel tale. Is there more to Nana’s fixation with baking cakes and cookies than meets the eye?” (Nick Dent’s review).
Baked goods are a weapon throughout – as a beguiling introduction/welcome at the train station, but then as a burnt walnut lure for Becca to venture downstairs like a breadcrumb trail through a darkened forest, a trap to leave the room after bedtime. Even in a raw state, biscuit dough acts as a barrier on Becca’s computer, hampering communications with the outside world. Based on the movie poster, and the focus on Nanna as being skilled in stereotypical home-crafts, I wondered if her intricate (yet still managing to remain rustic) dishes were going to be poisoned (like the welcoming hospitality of Troll II). Even Nanna’s appearance was “cookie cutter” Grandma stereotype.
Sean Roberts (Reel Time episode 73) has described the third act as “More of a revelation than a twist”, and that the grounded organic nature of it, rather than being shocking, unfolds with the chronic waiting throughout the movie, just like a visit with family.
Paired with the build-up towards the ending, was an increasingly uncomfortable perspective on ageing, and the final blow, a treatise of fear towards mental illness. While Becca hunts for the elusive elixir (forgiveness for her mother to act as a salve for a fractured family), the entire movie warps the idea of treatment, salvation or rehabilitation for psychiatric patients. Brian Truitt has noted that the movie touches on themes of “…redemption, forgiveness and the passage of time”, but it seems that redemption is only available to absent fathers or a mother who didn’t share the whole story of a traumatic family rift.
Much of what is happening is about clinical behaviours, but also playing on the idea of “elderly people are weird” and the director’s “…deep-seated fears and insecurities” about the elderly (Shyamalan has openly acknowledged this in Yeap, Sue. Shyamalan tale takes on primal fears. Kalgoorlie Miner, 26 September 2015, p. 38 via Factiva), also highlighted by David Chen.
While The Visit is a horror-comedy, a lot of the “funny” bits are generally about a “demeaning senior-citizen freakshow”, as described by Tim Robey:
“…the movie’s fear of the elderly is pathological, and barely even satirical… Essentially it treats old people – not these grandparents in particular, but old people generally – as if they’re already dead: smelly nightmares looming up at you in their soiled nightclothes. The black-comic hysteria of the tone doesn’t let this kind of point-and-gawp callousness off the hook, when what we’re beholding is a prime candidate for the most gerontophobic film ever made.”
The classic fairytale elements of visiting family-as-strangers in a remote location, “…edged with fable and nightmare” are not enough to overcome the demonisation of ageing and mental illness.
As the action pepped up, Becca and Tyler were able to overcome their blocks from their father-abandonment issues. Becca’s fear and horror at her own reflection is subverted in her stabbing of Nanna with a mirror shard, and Tyler’s frozen terror at a sports game morphs into tackling and kicking Pop-pop to death (who, before anointing Tyler with his own scatalogical concoction to mitigate a spell, tells him how much he disliked him from the start). The power is given back to the victims (the children), and the [first set of] murdered grandparents are written off with the mother’s observation that they were caring, and nothing is made of the failure of the mental health system. Christopher Campbell has put it best:
“They’re not robots or aliens or pod people or villainous masterminds or anything fantastical by any means. The twist is that they’re insane. So then it’s not just elder shame, which it is still, but it’s also mental illness shame.”
I know someone who strongly believes that the conclusion of the movie was that Nanna and Pop-pop are genuinely aliens. Perhaps they were watching a different Visit movie, but to be honest, a supernatural twist would have sat more comfortably.
blogjune time sundae
Okay, we are in August. But I have been thinking about blogjune since June!
I posted much less this year, and was dreadfully behind in keeping in touch with other people’s posts. I have only just caught up on hundreds of posts in my feed from people who did blogjune (so, some of June and everything since). I have missed lots of them too, but that’s okay (as is an August-timed reflection!).
Low-key blogjune was because my priority for June (and beyond) was/is to relax. I started towards this in a small way during last blogjune, thinking about what I wanted to have more of in my daily life. Yesterday’s card on self-care, selected by Doreen Virtue couldn’t have been more accurate. I spend (invest?) a lot of time working and volunteering in the library sector, so I figured if I could have more relaxing baths, face masks, recreational print reading and seeing friends, it would be an achievement. These are the things that migrate to my “to don’t” list when everything else borrows my time and energy.
Foot bomb
“The capacity to offer your own time to service is grounded in the privilege of having that time in the first place.” (Kate Bowles’ post via Kim’s retweet) (and which tasks end up eating the time privilege?). Task creep and expansion is like a sundae made of time allocation, all the melty bits drip down into the tiny spaces between the wafers. I really did end up spending more time on life balance activities which is a success. More books! More movies! More fun!
My blogjune output for this year has been 8 posts, or maybe 9 including this one (I did 30 last year, and 23 in 2013). Each year, my desire to post more during that month means I reduce my cull rate and try to be a bit more open. This year I also helped facilitate the blogjune posts for a group blog (Canberra Library Tribe), which made me appreciate what an accomplishment regular posts are for other group blogs. I’m particularly thinking of ALIA Sydney, which hosts many guest posts every blogjune (I was very pleased and honoured to be able to contribute a post in 2012). I also helped to organise two Arlis/ANZ activities during June: an exhibition tour and a day roadtrip. This definitely made me realise that it’s easy to make time for volunteering when it’s enjoyable!
From this self-development focus, I really enjoyed Janice’s blogjune post about her Aurora experience. I’ve always thought the Institute held a lot of mystery – almost like MLM companies or something a little bit cultish. Her point about personal reflective learning made so much sense, and her link to Mike Robbins’ “Bring your whole self to work” TedX talk really rang true for me:
“…nothing changes until you do. So it’s an internal process. And if you think about this for yourself, where are the places in your life, where are the places in your work, where are the situations, the circumstances, the conversations you that you want to have? The risks you want to take, and where do you find yourself holding yourself back in with compassion? Can you challenge yourself to step beyond what might be safe, what might be comfortable?”
Another element that resonated with me from her post was about personality types and library work. Part of my desire for more personal time is about considering my next career path direction. When I began studying towards being a librarian and library technician, I had absolutely no idea about the niche specialisations and options available, and what would be the best fit. I really should have investigated more before diving in, but the beauty of doing information studies is an understanding of the value of research. There’s a good post about a study on the Myers-Briggs psychological types found within librarianship – i.e. what are the most common personalities in the library field and what type/who is drawn to work in our sector. If you don’t know your type, there is a free and easy test online (complete with cute illustrated explanations of each type). I feel like understanding this is going to help with my next direction, but it would also be good to find out more about this same data being sampled across library sectors (e.g. is there a personality type more suited to some libraries over others, like special, government…?).
Steph talked about “Commando shopping” (I have always thought of this as “Surgical shopping”, slicing and dicing through the bargains), as a very direct way of finding what you need in a restricted timeframe. I think there is definitely a temptation for a “Commando career path”, which seems very desirable in hindsight. But everything feeds into everything else, and a direct route is not always the one that provides the most learning opportunities. My life/work balance is also being improved by a new business idea that includes art. As part of my self care, I really need to spend time making art, which I haven’t done for a long time.
Internal shifts and learning can be hard to articulate, but I feel really positive about the way I managed my time for blogjune. As Constance said, this year’s blogjune may have been smaller numbers-wise, but the discussion involved more significant and impactful discourse.
Vintage slice for copyright
Happy Cooking for Copyright! (I have accidentally been typing this as Cooing for Copyright, which I really hope happens but I’d prefer for the pigeon to survive, than die in a pie for copyright reform).
Beat it
Why is it all happening? FAIR (Freedom of Access to Information and Resources) have done a naughty thing and posted handwritten recipes to their website. Why would this make them “baddies”? It technically breaches copyright law:
“FAIR claims copyright law reform is long overdue – and it’s focusing on the fact that in Australia copyright in published works lasts 70 years after the death of the creator, but for unpublished works, copyright lasts forever. This means old diaries, letters, even recipes are locked away.
Sue McKerracher, spokesperson for FAIR, and CEO of the Australian Library and Information Association, said, ‘We’d like the same copyright terms for unpublished works as for published works. Then our libraries, museums and historical societies could put these treasures on the web for family historians, researchers, and everyone else who is fascinated by our social history.’”
If you squint, it could also be Crooning for Copyright. That would be fun in quiet library reading rooms – barbershop flashbomb! They could sing from unpublished song lyrics. The combs in their back pockets would give them away, though. They’d be whisked out by the guards the instant they tried to see their preppy reflections in the silver embossing on book spines.
My cooking was off to a good start except the caster sugar leaked all inside the shopping bag. Possibly this could be because of a self-serve checkout. Maybe the person that packed my bag just shoved it all in there and the vegan margarine box dented the sugar packet. I wish the food duopoly would just pay more staff so that I don’t throw everything into the bag in a rage because I’m paying them for me to be on the checkout. Mr Sonja said “no use crying over spilt sugar”.
Crunchy ginger slice
I baked Margaret’s vintage Crunchy ginger slice. I’m not the best at following recipes, and was doing quite well till the topping. I started to worry that it wasn’t thick enough so I emptied the icing sugar bag into it. Then there were heaps of lumps (which are meant to be stirred out), it looked like the saccharine equivalent of swimming carnival when they fill the pool with corks and non-swimming kids have to grab them all. Like bobbing for apples except they are in a molten ginger lava and the apples are sugar lumps. I ignored the saucepan of topping for a few minutes because I was envisioning my slice being the equivalent of the skinny untanned guy at a competition for really swole golden body builders. How would it look compared to all the pretty #CookingforCopyright dishes? Then I turned back and all the lumps were gone! I’m sending thanks to my mysterious kitchen angels. I realised this meant maybe I had followed the instructions so I covered it in coconut.
I licked the beaters and had my usual fear that even when they’re not in the machine, they’ll suddenly come to life and shred my tongue. Then I burnt my mouth on the topping spoon. But the slice looks good and I’m not embarrassed to take it to the library tomorrow! (which is almost as important as copyright reform)
Homesick festival
The Scandinavian Film Festival is only running in Canberra for 9 more days (it opened on Tuesday), so it’s a short time to see all the Norwegian features. It has four Norwegian films: Beatles, Homesick, Out of Nature and Underdog. Apart from enjoying the movies, hearing the Norsk pronunciation really helps to get a sense of the language (and I need all the help I can get!).
Tonight I saw Homesick (De nærmeste) (it screens again next week), you may have seen an intimate shot from it in the Festival’s promotions.
Poster at Palace Electric
Before I saw the movie, I was really thinking of the concept of homesickness, and how it relates to my heritage. The story was a lot more confronting than I expected – and I had planned to see it again as Norwegian practice, but I won’t be doing that and definitely not with family! I don’t want to spoil the story, so I’ll just say that generally I thought that Charlotte had a unique vulnerability and an abandonment pattern. The motif of family jewellery was really powerful, with the circle of a necklace symbolising group membership. It was very challenging, I felt more awkwardness in it than a satisfying “Nordic melancholia”. I noticed a few different words though, so it wasn’t without benefit.
SKI jumper
One good thing about the movie was seeing another moviegoer in this wondrous and totally relevant home-knitted jumper. He said a friend made it 20 years ago. The front had SKI knitted in navy, little Vs picked out on the white woolly snow expanse. He didn’t understand why I was so enthralled with it, I can’t really explain it either.
I’d like to have a proper immersion experience in Norwegian culture – I guess the point of this is that not every part of a country will be what you want to watch. It is odd to feel homesick for a place you don’t really know – a sort of hiraeth. My family is Norwegian, and having grown up in Australia, I’d like to have a better sense of Norway to help resolve my anaemic cultural identity. It’s existing in that interstitial space between, when your name means people regularly ask about your background but the answer never satisfies, it’s the pieces that don’t match up. When I worked in hospitality (15 years ago), an older colleague said he gained such a feeling of connection when he went back to the “mother country”, seeing behaviours in context which then increased his self-understanding. I didn’t grasp the significance at the time, but he said that one day I’d be overcome by a nostalgic longing for my heritage. He was right.
Fiona Watson has said that homesickness can be triggered by anything: “You see an image and it immediately goes straight to your heart.” Mary Jaksch highlights the importance of visiting the landscape of your parents and grandparents: “I now know where I come from, and have reconnected with my roots.”
City News’ Canberra Confidential
Recently the City News’ Canberra Confidential column chortled at Visit Canberra being a bit “excitable” for tweeting about resources for researching the wartime experiences of relatives (family history research and geneaology). They must never have felt the satisfaction of discovering how your ancestors met (on an overnight boat trip, and married the next day), gaining knowledge about future propensity for medical conditions (sitting at a table-full of people, all with intense party tricks due to hypermobile joints), the spookiness of seeing your features in an ancestor’s portrait or learning about your namesake. Perhaps documenting and preserving your family story isn’t what everyone would choose in a holiday, but for some it’s a definite drawcard for visiting Canberra (the AWM, NLA, AIATSIS, ACTHL, NGA and more). Increased traffic to these institutions shows that for many people, family history and genealogy IS exciting. Genealogists (tourists and locals) contribute to Canberra’s economy and have a deep appreciation for our cultural institutions, collections and their services.
If it’s not exciting to learn about the past, the success of Who do you think you are? as a television program must be an anomaly.
I have a searing hope that I might visit Norway again soon. I like the idea of carrying places within us, “…keeping the old environment alive inside…” (this quote was in a very different context, but it’s from van Tilburg, M. & Vingerhoets, A., Psychological aspects of geographical moves: homesickness and acculturation stress, Amsterdam University Press, 2007, p. 106). In the meantime, I’ll hope to enjoy the other movies in the festival and keep watching Desperate Housewives with Norwegian subtitles.
My golden superwhale
For a long time, superannuation has been the whale in the room for me. It’s a whale, and not an elephant, because it has a heavy, fluid sort of feeling. A creeping damp which I ignore, but is gradually staining the carpet and washing over my feet. I think, “I’ll deal with it later”, as everything begins to float on the rising sea.
Can you?
It took a while to realise, I wasn’t quite sure that she was a whale, but then she said: “What am I? Did you guess? I am a fish.” (Croser, Josephine. & Muirhead, David. (2013). Can you guess?. Flinders Park, SA : Era Publications)
Superannuation is such a wet, deep thing that I can’t dive in, and yet I have an intense worry and fear, but I don’t want to think about it at all. My bed is a small ship, bobbing along on an ocean of financial unknowing. Or maybe I won’t have to ever think about it, I could be dead and not ever have to consider it:
“I can’t help but pull the earth around me, to make my bed” (lyrics from Florence + the Machine’s “To Wreck”).
…I’m so embedded in the dirt, grateful to the earth for cradling me. The moisture of this alien thing feels like a threat, making an earthquake in my cocooned stability, my head in the sand. I don’t want to be in the water below the hole dug along the coastline.
We had an aquarium in our bedroom. All my feng shui books said how wrong this was (water affecting money where you sleep), and my energywork mentor said that our black ghost knife fish poorly impacted our money energy. I marvelled as he swam, but I worried that each undulating tremor of his rippling fin reshaped my money landscape like the tides on sand. We moved house and he died in the bathtub. I was sad but also relieved. I wanted to bury him in the garden, but took the coward’s way out with the rubbish. Then the idea of superannuation evolved into a much larger ghost knife fish, into a whale.
I brought all this sea-money baggage to the Canberra Library Tribe’s #GLAMRtax event last Thursday. The presenters were a financial planner (Scott Malcolm from Money Mechanics) and an accountant (Jane Hadrill from Hadrill accounting). “Ugh, superannuation,” I said to Scott, demeaning his love for something that he really does find super. Maybe it’s just because I’m aware of my total depth of misunderstanding, I’m treading water and can’t see the edge of the pool. The superannuation whale is a deadness draped on my shoulders, a dragging albatross, the devastation of a wasted and rotting carcass on the beach.
Scott and Jane helped me to realise that superannuation is actually mine (often, 9.5% of salary) – not an extraterrestrial force, but something that is kept for my future. Super can become lost too, like a seahorse following a different current (you can find it too or keep track of it). It’s providence, not punishment. I was so glad to hear good stories and perspectives about money, because I have been underwater about it for so long.
I realised that my golden superwhale was terrible (and terrifying), because I’d trapped her sublime beauty in a SeaWorld globe. From her prism, she had tried to reach me with all the power of the ocean, a salt line on my arms, a flood in the courtyard. I had thought that she was just a weird policy beast, but now I know she’s feathering a nest for the future. I just need keep her healthy, in a nice environment. I’ve lifted the dark, foreboding liquid, and visualised lightness and freedom, an expansive body of water for her to swim freely, flecked with the gold of future funds, attracting abundance.
When I’m an ancient elf living in a woodland cottage, she will dance in the nearby sea, spyhopping and lobtailing as we share our longtail money together. I am grateful to my guardian golden superwhale, for having been patient through all our dark water years and now into the lightness.
Goulburn vegan mini-break II
We trekked up to Goulburn to research for an upcoming Arlis/ANZ (Arts Libraries Society, ACT chapter) roadtrip.
Last year our chapter visited Braidwood. In the years to come perhaps we’ll go to Cooma, Gunning, Gundaroo, Murrambateman (nearby Crisp Galleries), Mittagong (antiques/crafts and I’m excited by veg*n places like nearby Berrima Health Vegetarian Café) or Crookwell (they have a Potato Festival! …need I say more?).
Vegan breakfast at Grit Cafe
Our first stop was Grit café, which had been recommended for its vegan options. The food was nice (a modified big breakfast) but I’m sorry that I got a bit hangry with the lady at the counter, because she opened with the vegan options being salad. Regrettable.
My modified big breakfast was still enjoyable and they are able to veganise smoothies with soy or almond milk. Next time it would be better to call ahead, to see if they had any raw vegan desserts like the scrumptious-looking ones in their facebook albums.
I do feel bad about my poor manners, but it was also the disappointment of huge anticipation for their cakes and vegan-friendliness.
Sex Bomb ad in Pub window
We enjoyed the toy shop in the main street which sells a projector painting set which claims “The children have it, with a color of the sky.” I remember having the sky when I was a kid. Less on the sliding scale of family-friendly was a painted sign in the pub’s window but sadly we weren’t there on a Wednesday.
Detail of Marilyn Psuchake’s 3 Poles
Marilyn Psuchake’s 3 Poles were stunning, Here+Now was my favourite one, with the mosaics providing a preview of the local buildings. There is a great shot of them (as a group) by creakingbones. I should have been more organised and looked at the Art in public places brochure.
The Lilac City Markets were just wrapping up and were high on the chutney index, and it was intensely windy so all the petals were flying off the nearby rose garden. I can see why it’s called the City of Roses (but the next festival isn’t till March). Apparently the “go-to” markets are 3rd-Sunday-of-a-month at Riversdale Homestead and the 4th-Saturday-of-a-month Goulburn Brewery Craft Markets.
Detail of Amanda Stuart’s mongrel country (nil tenure)
The Library was closed which was disappointing, but it helped us to find the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery. These dogs (Amanda Stuart’s mongrel country (nil tenure), 2013) were guarding the outside. This image of another iteration of the sculptures out in the “wild”, which gives such a joyous and free feeling of bounding across open country.
Inside, the Gallery’s gift shop had some inlaid coloured clay plates by Sugden/Hamilton (I recognised them from last month’s visit to Braidwood).
The current exhibition is Rod McRae’s Wunderkammer, filling the gallery with installations focused on taxidermied animals (all ethically sourced), addressing environmental topics. It was confronting, but that’s what made it work – and I saw a sad connection with all the roadkill on the way back home.
Hydrangeas and a pretty window
We had a few misses with antique shops, because Glenholme Antiques and Collectables is now closed (the owner has retired). I consoled myself by looking at the hydrangeas. These were one of my childhood flowers and the colours are an interesting indicator of soil condition.
Café Book is also closed on weekends which was disappointing as I’d like to see their book stock. Other places that we should try next are Shaw’s Antiques, Michael’s Old Wares and Collectables, Accolade Antiques and Yarra Glen Pottery.
We tried to find Gallery on track but must have taken a wrong turn, in any case we were treated to a small informal graffiti show under the bridge.
Just a small part of The Argyle Book Emporium
We initially went to the old street address for The Argyle Book Emporium (don’t go to 176 Sloane Street, it’s now at 260 Sloane Street). We found them on the second go, and my goddess, it was astounding. Amazing. The building was previously the police station, and the strong holds are just full of books covering every surface, as though they’re melting Dali clocks draped everywhere. It was the highlight of our visit. They sell records too.
Vegan option at 98 Chairs
I had a great vegan dinner in June last year at 98 chairs, and they again made some custom menu options for us. The veganised roasted mushroom, garlic & Dutch cream potato soup was my favourite, then we had the vegetarian (for me, without cheese) combo dish (vegetable assiette, fresh spring rolls, kimchee, corn grain and miso salad, red cabbage, mushroom and leek pie). I liked the different elements on the dish but discovered I’m not evolved enough for kimchee. Mr Sonja loved the zucchini fritters too.
I have yet to try the other vegan-recommended places (Ban Thai and Gouburn Workers Club).
Mandelson’s foyer, Goulburn
We stayed at Mandelson’s, an 1846 historic guesthouse. It was very beautiful, and had the feeling of Professor Xavier’s mansion. There are lots of sitting rooms, they used to have high teas which I can vividly imagine.
There is also an expansive quilting room which has lots of imported batik fabric (for sale!) and sewing detritus, which was why Claire (one of the owners) was keeping the door closed. The entryway has the original marble black-and-white checkerboard floor which would be suited to dramatic entrances (I wonder if the early Masonic presence in the town contributed to the choice of pattern? Pure speculation but could be an interesting theory!).
Wataru the puppy
No roadtrip is complete without some #PatADay action. We met another visitor, the owners’ grandpuppy, Wataru, who was just cuteness overload and so soft. He is bilingual so he can woof in Japanese (wan-wan).
Goodman’s ad (1847, February 11).
Previous guests (back in the day) include photographer George Barron Goodman, who advertised for people to sit for portraits at Mandelson’s, when he was visiting in February–March 1847 (Advertising. (1847, February 11). The Sydney Morning Herald(NSW), p. 1.) and (Advertising. (1847, March 22). The Sydney Morning Herald(NSW), p. 1.). He was making daguerrotypes, a precursor to the modern photograph.
Goodman’s ad (1847, March 22).
Goodman also promoted his collection of views of Australia’s interior landscapes, which he employed as excellent embellished scenery for portrait backgrounds (Advertising. (1847, January 2). The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 1.). Perhaps Goulburn was added to this collection once he visited?
Someone on Tripadvisor said Mandelson’s was “a bit like Cluedo” and I can see why – it would be a fantastic setting for a Murder Mystery party or lots of other events.
The Big Merino’s butt, Goulburn
On the way back, we didn’t visit the Big Merino (again) but here is a Merino butt pic.
I was sorely tempted by Collector and the new café on the way past, but we ran out of time. I used to really enjoy Lynwood Café, and I agree with theyellowhouseintheU, it is a big loss, but she says that Some Café is really worth a visit – see yellow’s post. You can still buy Lynwood jam, though. I fell asleep for most of the way home.
Braidwood gallery crawl III
On Sunday, my dear friend Lani and I enjoyed a relaxing Braidwood/Bungendore roadtrip. The itinerary is quite similar to two previous Braidwood roadtrips (May 2014 and June 2014). I guess I enjoy it as a destination, given that I had an undocumented journey there since then with the lovely Ms C too.
Dojo bakery had run out of bagels (which are vegan!) so I had bread rolls instead (not very exciting but I appreciate that they have an ingredient chart to say what’s dairy-free).
Exhibition poster
Our main motivation for this trip was to see Franki Sparke’s Pictographics show at The Left Hand. It alone was so, so worth the trip. It’s on for one more weekend (2 & 3 May). Sometimes I forget how uplifting it can be to see an exhibition, that it puts the joy back into art.
Sparke’s landscape stencil
We loved seeing the carved erasers which are gorgeous objects in themselves and reveal “behind the scenes” (as owner Julian explains, all their shows aim to give an insight into process and making). Even the tinted stencils curled up on each other on a plinth like layers of skin pulled off a healed wound, different depths of the paint outlined the teeth of building windows and spattered at road edges.
The FyreGallery was in-between shows, but had some nice stock of Karyn Steel’s Braidwood postcards.
Lots of handmade poppies
It was just after Anzac day, so String still had a display of poppies and banners, it’s my favourite shop not just for their wares but because it keeps the same scent as my Grandma’s house (this was the exact reason I used to love Benedict House). In the adjacent Altenburg and Co, there was an interesting show on the environment of the south coast by Mirabel FitzGerald. “Among the trees the light permeates and displaces everything, a continuum of spaces, solids and fractured forms.”
We walked up the road to Longbarn, they have a wonderfully violent-looking wheat thresher thing with embedded shells. I like to touch it when I visit, it’s like a grown-up version of daring yourself to stick a finger in a lit candle. It hasn’t cut me yet.
Braidwood’s cutest dog
There were lots of adorable dogs on main street as usual, a French bulldog and heaps of others, I hardly got to pat any. This cutie was outside the bakery. At the end of the day, Lea told Mr. Sonja that “She patted all the dogs in Braidwood”. I really wished I had. It was a very low #PatADay score.
Tiny Sugden/Hamilton miniatures
On the way back, we dropped in to the Sugden/Hamilton ceramic studio and shop, which I’d been meaning to visit for a while. The miniatures in the window are so charming, they also have some nice brooches, but the inlaid coloured clay bowls are my favourite (particularly the MP homages).
Unfortunately the McLeod Gallery was closed and William Verdon jewellery had a mysterious carved stone display. Next time I’d like to try the vegan food options in Braidwood itself, as it was the wrong day for the market (so no pizza for me).
We called it a day and headed back through Bungendore. It didn’t feel as engaging as Braidwood, perhaps it’s because no longer contains the sense of being “other” because it’s gradually becoming more of the shoreline of Canberra (in recent years a government department grew there). I do enjoy the mysterious teddy bears on the trees along the way, though.
Fruit salad on or in a cup
I patted the cat (dozing next to the fireplace, didn’t even wake up!) at Village Antiques and there was a really nice Japanese hand painted tea set, but I decided that I didn’t need a fruit salad decorated cup because people always try and make me eat salad, the rotten stuff. I don’t need a picture of it in my life too, no matter how pretty.
Art Inspector strikes again
We tried to find some of my brother’s work at the Bungendore Woodworks Gallery (his name is Rolf! He has recently started his own cabinetmaking business). He might have a something there but couldn’t see the shelf for the trees. We checked out the Ken Knight painting show upstairs and were most entertained by some of the mischievous entries in the gallery diary.
Mercifully the Woodworks café’s soup of the day was unintentionally vegan so there was something I could eat. The waitress said I was the first vegan she had ever met there. I focused on looking normal.
We then drove back to Canberra and I said goodbye to all the bears nailed to the trees.
Worms and the Underground movement
It’s been an exciting month with lots of reading about composting, because our new garden beds have the most dreadful soil. Only one worm has made an appearance, which was just because of big rains (when there’s excessive water in the soil, worms escape to the surface, only to reach a terrible sunny purgatory). The lack is worrying because worms are like underground gas-chamber canaries, so the ground must be very tired. When I read worm books, I think of the data coursing through my brain like an information worm, reminiscent of those dreadful library posters showing the internet as a hypercolour tunnel.
Letter ‘S’ worm – apocalypse sign?
Despite the worm drought, it’s been exciting to find some other bugs in the soil (sorry no pictures). M thought they were witchetty grubs (they are white with a red/brown head). However, my Mum thinks they are a root-eating grub – and back in the day, they were fed to pet dogs (I don’t want to think about that).
Olive Clark’s Dance of the worms
Composting is the only solution I can think of to fix the soil to make it a suitable venue for a wormy party – Peter Cundall calls them “…the underground movement.” (Murphy, 2005, p. xv). It could become The Place for dirty wormy raves, maybe I should play them the Worms song (Clark, 1953) to facilitate mad dancing.
I just finished helping a neighbour empty their above-ground compost – which was unfortunately full of rubbish (non-bio plastic wrappers, dog toys, buckets… it covered a large area). It made me feel better about the state of my own dirt-patch. Sir Albert Howard (founder of the organic farming movement) says that “Every compost heap has its own history.” (2009). But I wish it wasn’t a rubbish dump history. Haven’t people read that book in the Babysitter’s Club series where they realise a biscuit packet can’t decompose?
If a compost heap is a snapshot of history, it’s like an inverted family tree of earthworms. Van de Water wrote in a farm-nostalgia style about the origin of fishing bait, unearthing that first part of the catch: “The angler who purchases his lures from a languid sporting-goods clerk forgoes part of the adventure, misses the opening chapters of the romance, never hears the first movement of the symphony. The redolent manure heap behind the barn; the rusty potato fork plunged into the rich and quivering earth; the revelation of pink and brown, divinely ordained bait among the scattered clods; the ecstasy over the bluely glistening night crawler…” (1949, p. 66).
I’m not yet invested enough to puree vegie scraps to “pamper my worms”, but I do like the idea of a food-like end product: “Your compost should look and feel like rich chocolate cake – dark brown, moist and crumbly.” (2009, p. 11). Peter Cundall did always say that good soil was “so good you could eat it”. At the other end of food, I was excited to read about the Bhawalkar Earthworm Research Institute (Pune, India) creating a low-cost, waterless, worm-driven toilet. I don’t know much about the topic, but there is a composting toilet at Canberra’s Sustainable House – surely if there can be one at one residence in the ACT, there could be more, especially in new developments?
Worms in Thompson’s Compost book
In terms of aesthetics, my compost piles haven’t ever really scored highly – when I wanted to use a tyre (but they do have a lot of chemicals), Mr. Sonja decried our garden as looking “too industrial”. So I did the cheapie thing and bought lid-bins (meant for rubbish) and cut holes in the base (if you end up doing this, you can put some holes in the sides, or put a pipe down the middle, if you’re not inclined to turn/stir it). To make a “normal” heap (i.e. one that isn’t in a container) a bit prettier, you can grow zucchini, pumpkin, cucumbers or melons on top – plant seeds about 3cm deep at the edge of the compost and water regularly (Cullen et al, 1992, p. 68). Green mulching would be fun as well, but I would feel sad to cut the plants down. Thompson et al (2008) suggest building a compost bin from stacked hay bales, the top of the which can be used for planting vegetables or flowers.
I aspire to growing comfrey (or borage) and making comfrey tea just for my compost, like we are just two girlfriends having a brew together (except one of us is rotting). But I enjoy this idea more than actually doing it, a bit like flossing – more about intention than practice. I could even become the sort of person that asks other Canberrans going to the coast, ‘could you bring me back some seaweed, for my garden?’. I’ve read different things about whether you need to rinse seaweed but Taylor et al (2010) say that the sea salt shouldn’t be concentrated or present because the nutrient elements are absorbed as separate entities. But you still might want to chop it into bits. For the impatient composter, Taylor et al has a recipe for “Fast-cooking 14-day compost”, which is tempting because the extreme heat means you can bake potatoes in the ground!
I love this cover!
I’m also reading an awesome retro YA book (with a delightful cover), Worms in the night – I don’t know what kind of worms they are yet, but a character warns “Look out for the worms. They’ll get you,’” (Harewood, 1991, p. 23). I look forward to finishing it because the mystery of the worms is just so ominous. I would still like our garden to have more, though.
Reading list:
(2009). Composting : a down-to earth, water-wise guide. Camberwell, Vic : Penguin
Clark, Olive. (1953). Worms. http://nla.gov.au/nla.mus-vn2054441
Cullen, Mark. & Johnson, Lorraine. & Aldous, David E. (1992). Backyard and balcony composting : the complete guidebook. Melbourne : Bookman
Harewood, Jocelyn. (1991). Worms in the night. Sydney : Pan Australia Horizons
Horsfall, Mary. (2011). The mulch book. Chatswood, N.S.W : New Holland
Murphy, David. (2005). Organic growing with worms : a handbook for a better environment. Camberwell, Vic : Penguin
Taylor, David. & Allsop, Rob. (2010). The compost book. Chatswood, N.S.W : New Holland Publishers (Australia)
Thompson, Ken. & Cosgrove, Laurie. & Gilbert, Alan. (2008). Compost. Camberwell, Vic : Dorling
van de Water, Frederic Franklyn. (1949). In defence of worms and other angling heresies. New York : Duell, Sloan and Pearce
Watched and read list of 2014
A bit late! Oh well. I only read two books and a trilogy in the first nine months, and then I caught up with twelve more books in the remaining 3 months. Which makes this really more of a movie list, with 55 movies and 2 TV series (I didn’t see many movies growing up, I’m catching up). I didn’t count non-fiction books, because they’re work-related (but in hindsight, perhaps not an optimal decision). In making this list, I’ve realised that I’ll watch and read basically anything that’s available. This isn’t a highly sought-after superpower, but if a book or DVD feels neglected in a 1 km radius, I will give it some attention. I am still recovering from watching all of Dawson’s Creek over several months in 2013 (I loved it).
Kate has a good, measurable goal of a book a month (plus many other “real person” goals) and to note them on Goodreads. As a binge-reader/watcher, my goal is to visit the library at least once a fortnight so I always have a pile of books or DVDs at home, ready for when I get the craving.
Credit for reading list tracking to E, who got the idea from another archivist, and of course Read Watch Play.
My word of the year (milquetoast) was from the movie Extra Man. I didn’t really have a favourite from the list, but I find that the more I enjoy something, the more I want to remember quotes so that I can keep it close (like pinning a butterfly to remember the colours, even if it is still faded from the real experience). Maybe it was Maleficent as I watched it twice. Magic Mike was fun but I forgot I had the DVD in the computer drive, so I spent ages trying to work out which internet tab was playing an interminable melody until I realised it was the DVD intro auto-play.
I’m excited to read the rest of the Bloodlines novels (last one out in February) and the sequel to Jewel (White Rose), but it isn’t out till 6 October! Ugh. At least it’s a little closer with each passing moment.
February
- Little red riding hood (movie)
March
- 50 shades of grey trilogy (books)
- Rewatching seasons 1-3 Game of Thrones (TV series)
- I saw the devil (Korean movie with English subtitles)
April
- Orphan (movie)
- Män som hatar kvinnor (Swedish movie with English subtitles)
- March hares (book)
[in the British Museum reading room] “It was as indeed as good as a play, this marvellous aggregation of human dramatic possibilities surging tirelessly before him. He wondered that he had never thought of seeing it before.” P. 4
[various notations about Pale flaxen hair picked with lemon in its lights and a Dainty rose-leaf of a chin]
“Placing her elbows on the table, and poising her chin between thumbs and forefingers, she bestowed a frank scrutiny upon his face, as intent and dispassionate as the gaze which a professor of palmistry fastens upon the lines of the client’s hand.” P. 30
“David piled up in reverie the loathly epithets upon the over-large bald head of his friend with savage satisfaction. “You preposterous clown!” he snarled at the burly blond image of the absent nobleman in his mind’s eye. “You gratuitous and wanton ass! Oh, you unthinkable duffer!” p. 139
“Who the deuce could it be?” p. 156
- Doughnut by Tom Holt (book) (lots of fun quotes)
- The Hunger Games: Catching fire (movie)
- Filth (movie)
- The people next door (movie)
- The gods must be crazy II (movie)
- Lego (movie)
- The hunt (Danish movie with English subtitles)
May
- The other woman (movie)
- Now you see me (movie)
- Miss congeniality 2 (movie)
- Butter (movie)
- Jackass 3 (movie)
- Magic Mike (movie)
June
- Maleficent x 2 (movie) The first movie I’ve ever enjoyed enough to see twice at the cinema! I wrote about it twice during blogjune, perhaps my double-consumption was symptomatic of having to write as a daily habit.
- Bruce Almighty (movie – couldn’t get through it)
- Horrible bosses (movie)
- Beasts of the Southern Wild (movie)
July
- How to train your dragon 2 (movie)
- The day of the triffids (series, 1981)
Ep1: “You’ve got eyes, use them goddamnit”
Ep 5? “The trouble with triffids is what we don’t know” “All the knowledge is there, in books, if only we’d take the time to read them.”
- Midnight in the garden of good and evil (movie)
- Café de flore (movie)
“Antoine radiates happiness from every pore.”
“Everything you touch turns to gold.”
“Dickwad! Quit busting my balls! I’ll rip out your eyes, scumbag! I’ll rip out your eyes… scumbag! And kick your teeth out your ass!” “I’m proud of you, tiger. Don’t smile. Let’s go home. Don’t smile. You did great.”
“Never wake up the monster who leaves its lair to eat little children!”
“Do you believe in soul mates?” “I’m not sure”. “I like it. I like the idea. That someone, somewhere is made for you, forever.”
“I just want to know more about my dreams. …I often dream about a little monster.”
“We can’t give in to setbacks or the opinions of so-called fat cat specialists.”
“It develops from the inside. It’s a matter of love, faith. Everyone can develop their paranormal abilities. It’s a question of desire and will.”
- Extra man (movie featuring Katie Holmes as a vegan!)
“It’s at a magazine. An environmental journal.” “I’m sure it’s all just a front for po***graphy.”
“Don’t be such a milquetoast.”
“I’ve never told anyone this, but sometimes, in my head I actually imagine there’s somebody narrating my life as if I’m the protagonist in a classic novel.”
“I need to put on my eyemask.”
- Finding Amanda (movie)
- Blue is the warmest colour (movie)
“A worm crawls out of a plate of spaghetti and says: “That was some gangbang!””
Art school truth
- Straight As (movie)
“Katherine alluded to the fact that you’re unreliable, so you have to promise.”
“Wow. Just so you know, you’re kinda being a c***.”
August
- Lucy (movie)
- Prometheus (movie)
“Nah, I’m out of here.” “Hey, Fifield! Where are you going?” “What? Look, I’m just a geologist. I like rocks. I love rocks. Now, it’s clear you two don’t give a shit about rocks…”
- My life in ruins (movie)
- Her (movie)
“The past is just a story we tell ourselves.”
“You’re failing your children! Lose 2000 Mom points!”
“The point is to get there first ‘cause then you get extra Perfect Mom points because the other Moms then know you’re a perfect Mom.”
“You’re always going to disappoint somebody.” “Exactly. So fuck it. I feel good. Ish. For me, I feel good.”
“You think I don’t know that I’m not a person? What are you doing?”
- Bernie (movie)
September
- The Woman in Black (movie)
[looking at drawing] “Why do I look so sad?” “That’s what your face looks like.”
- Rainman (movie)
“Of course, I don’t have my books and, cos there are no bookshelves, I’m definitely going to be bookless.”
- Mr and Mrs Smith (movie)
- The Hot Chick (movie)
- The Labyrinth (movie)
“I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.”
- Snow White and the Hunter (movie)
- Season 4 Game of Thrones (TV series)
October
- The door in the floor (movie)
“…because of how it must feel against your skin.”
“Don’t expect any mercy from me. I’m going to grind you into a fine powder.”
“The whole rest of your life, whenever you need to feel brave, just look at your scar. Your hand will grow bigger, and your finger will grow bigger, but your scar will always stay the same size.”
- Is anybody there? (movie)
[on death:] “What happens is, you think the last thought you’re ever going to think.”
“You accumulate regrets, and they stick to you like old bruises.”
“You spend your life accumulating stuff, and then you can’t find anywhere to put it.”
- The reckoning (movie)
- The secret of Dorian Gray (1970) (only first 30 minutes as the DVD busted)
“Ah, Mr Business and Miss Pleasure.”
- Bliss (movie)
“It’s got nothing to do with the doctor.” “He’s got sausage fingers.” “Yeah, I know.”
“This was written in 1649.” “Yes.” “Well, it’s a bit out of date, isn’t it?” “We’re talking about eternity and you’re quibbling about 350 years! If it was true once, it must always be true.”
“Didn’t I notice you lift your eyebrow in a disagreeable way?”
“Only a crazy man would write a love letter that takes 8 years to arrive.”
“…and the trees …were not too busy to take this sigh back through their leaves.”
- Gone girl (movie)
- The glovemaker by Stacia Brown (book)
“Sometimes, when Walwyn was working on something, he would read a sentence or two out loud, and she could hear where her thoughts streaked across the horizon of his words, like old stars that light up the night sky as they are falling.” p. 238
“The words were beautiful. They swam toward her; they slid up onto the bank. the words became flesh and then the flesh took on wings and 337 then the wings made a picture; she could see things in her mind as she was going along. The words tapped at her, a woodpecker drilling a trunk. Then the tapping became new words and the new words grew, and what was grown was love.” pp. 336-7
November
- Bad neighbours (movie in English with Norwegian subtitles)
- X-Men: days of future past (movie)
- The internet’s own boy: the story of Aaron Swartz (movie)
- Canterwood crest series, 15: Comeback, by Jessica Burkhart (book)
“He was wearing one of my fave colors on him – a fire-engine-red tee. The color looked amaze against his pale skin.” p. 121
- Deliver me from evil: a sadistic foster mother, a childhood torn apart, by Alloma Gilbert (book)
- Pan’s whisper, by Sue Lawson (book)
“Sorrow swoops in my chest like a swallow.” p. 135
December
- Life after Beth (movie)
- W.E. (movie)
“Your majesty, you certainly know your way to a woman’s heart!” “I wasn’t aiming that high.”
- Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (movie)
- Vampire Academy (movie)
- A Little Help (movie)
‘You’re pretty sassy for a hygienist, aren’t ya?’
- The Inbetweeners 2 (movie)
- Sightseers (movie)
“What were you like at school Chris?” “I wasn’t like anything, I was like, invisible.”
“It’s a bloody heritage place! …They’ve not been preserved for hundreds of years so that wankers like that can use them like a bloody toilet!”
“…That tree won’t involve itself in low-level bullying.”
“Poor boy. Those cheap crisps are full of horrors.”
“No, no, no, you don’t want clutter. You just want some plants and cushions and pictures and a tablecloth there…”
- Cold hands, warm heart by Jill Wolfson (book)
“What little social know-how I did possess came by analyzing characters on TV shows like reruns of Degrassi (both classic and Next Generation). I figured that if I 50 decided which character I most resembled, I’d have my social blueprint for knowing how to talk and act.” pp. 50-51
“So did he think I was nice at least? Being nice wasn’t a bad thing to be. No, nice was awful. the worst. Nice was coddled eggs and applesauce. Nice was totally bland and forgettable.” p. 58
“Everyone keeps talking about finding a heart for me, as though one were hidden behind the couch in a game of hide-and-seek, or it had been misplaced along with someone’s cell phone.” p. 60
“…the exposed heart beat back and forth like a small animal that had been chased and was breathing hard, cornered in a cave of strange red rock.” p. 80
- Bloodlines series, 1, Bloodlines by Richelle Mead (book)
- Bloodlines series, 2, The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead (book)
“Was he supposed to kiss me? Was I supposed to let him? Had that been the real price of my salad?” p. 88
- Ondine: the summer of shambles by Ebony McKenna (book – pleasant but with some clear anti-vegetarian rhetoric, p. 182 and a steak rant, p. 166)
“Laundry duty washed away another layer of skin, so really, all she had were memories.” p. 82
“He gave her a grin hot enough to melt her slippers.” p. 256
- Maze runner (movie)
- Bonechiller by Graham McNamee (book)
- The memory keeper’s daughter by Kim Edwards (book)
“A film closed over the past as she spoke, a barrier as brittle and fragile as ice forming. It would grow and strengthen. It would become impenetrable, opaque.” p. 88
“…for an instant she stood again amid the sound of rushing water form the mill, happiness as full around her as the night.” p. 89
“The geode was warm and damp. He gave it a sharp crack on the rock, splitting it open to reveal its crystalline purple heart. “So beautiful,” Norah murmured, turning it in her hand. “Ancient seas,” David said. “The water got trapped inside and crystallized, over centuries.” p. 111
“And the distance between them, millimeters only, the space of a breath, opened up and deepened, became a cavern at whose edge he stood.” p. 115
“…she was excluded from the conversation: object, not subject.” p. 181
- Magic bunny series, Holiday dreams by Sue Bentley (book)
- The year my voice broke (movie)
- The Jewel by Amy Ewing (book)
Dipped in iridescence
We holidayed in Adelaide this week, and enjoyed the glittering gems at Australian Minerals (Hahndorf) and the collection of twinkling treasures in South Australian Museum’s Iridescence exhibition. I could happily spend all day looking at the luminous stones, butterflies, shells and birds – but I do feel conflicted about looking at stuffed creatures. I thought about the museum context of mounted insects and how they would have informed Hirst’s capture of the seductive colours of butterflies in an exhibition I saw a few years ago.
Australian Minerals
As a child, I was enraptured to learn that the word “iridescence” could describe the elusive shine on bubbles and the flickering colours in oil spills on the road. I had only noticed oil colours after reading a version of The Colony of Cats, where a girl asked to be dipped in oil (rather than gold) in the hope of capturing a rainbow in her pocket. Similarly I was recently delighted to learn the word “petrichor”, even though a word can only hint at the corners of capturing an experience.
Iridescent butterflies
Today I had my first acupuncture session, and I was saddened for the butterflies pinned to their boards. I hope they get to fly around the exhibition at night-time, feeding on iridescence to top up their own meters.
Cat cafe playtime
Last week I visited Australia’s first Cat Cafe in Melbourne (or Meowlbourne, as artfully put by Aoife Boothroyd).
The kitty residents are delightful – some very inquisitive and playful, balanced by more sedate “don’t touch me” cats. The new policy about restricting children should also be extended to those who are Cat person versus Cat person person. What does this mean? It’s the difference between people that like cats, and people who understand how to interact with other people who also like cats. It’s having an apprecation of whether someone wants quiet time or wants to play (being considerate about animals’ needs as well as the other people there).
The main rooms can be quite busy with people depending on whether they’ve been booked out for that time slot (you enter on the hour). I didn’t really want to hang out with other cat people, I came for the cats – so I slunk off into another room and sat with the cats who don’t like others (we had lots in common – Clara and Lynx were the best).
Cat statues
We were relaxing together, and then another lady came along with her fancy noisy feather toy, waved it at the cat in my lap, then they ran off together into the sunset. She totally cut my [cat]grass, like I was lying on the beach telling my life story to the man of my dreams and a distracting vapid bikini type walked past. Of course the cat ran away of their own enticed will, but that lady should have been sensitive enough to realise that we were already having a nice time without her prying.
It’s okay, I won in the end because I found some cat toys behind the couch which were very exciting for all the residents. It occurred to me that perhaps I’m more of a cat than Cat person or Cat person person.
Lynx and reflection
Of course you visit for the cats more than for the drinks (‘more cat playroom than cafe…’), I understand that this will change with the menu expanding in the future. Hopeful that they’ll have something like the delicious-looking high teas at London’s Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium or the organic local fare at Paris’ Le Café des Chats.
ARR, matey!
Some of the cats are also getting wise to photo shoots and offering their preferred poses – this photo from Rachel is very similar to mine above. If the cats had some glamour shoots, I think people would buy good-quality photos. Australia’s first vegan B&B, Bed & Broccoli, already does this by selling prints of some of their animal residents.
It would also be great if you could buy drinks as 1 for the price of 2, with the price of the ‘suspended coffee’ going towards all the cats or a cat of your choice (their very own tip jars). This could be tracked with donation boxes featuring each of the cats (the boxes could be mounted on the wall so the cats could climb on them, similar to perches featured in this article). Each cat could sponsor another cat currently in a shelter.
I’d recommend a visit to the Cat Cafe, I was lucky as a walk-in, but it’s best to book ahead.
Onion October
October has been a layer-y month for me – I feel like things just keep stacking on top of other things. I always think of Wendy Orr’s Peeling the Onion when I hear the word “layers”. It’s a good term to describe my home method of organisation – piles or horizontal filing. Imagine a floordrobe made of paper. I very much admire Teresa’s posts which have a nice focus with by-the-month updates, and make me feel less angsty about only posting every 4 weeks. She describes hers as: “A monthly capture of my feelings and doings, in the raw”.
Australian Venus
I set myself a challenge at the start of the month to reduce my sugar intake – this is layer-themed as well, because I want to be super muscular and get rid of my sheath of fat. I’d like to achieve a flat stomach, like the Australian Venus by Rayner Hoff. I also thought that I was so sugar-infused that if I was stranded on a desert island (this scenario is posed to vegans daily), the cannibals would find that I’d probably taste like maple-infused meat (this was only a minor motivator).
To modify my sugar habit, I’d hoped to go cold turkey, because I took Gretchen Rubin’s Moderator/Abstainer Quiz and I thought I was an abstainer (is it just me, or is that a really gross-sounding word?). It didn’t completely work. A friend who has achieved 0 sugar started taking magnesium and cinnamon. I eat a lot of cinnamon.
Hari’s carrot cake
Even though I’ve had sugary vegan treats once a week (carrot cake from Hari’s in Sydney, raw peanut cheesecake by E, chocolate slice made by my Mum, raw cake by B, and my botanical cuisine reward jar), they were all made by other people, and still much less than my usual amount. I also remember each one vividly!
Another lady at art school tried to reduce her intake of desserts by making a rule that she could only eat things she had baked herself. I have tried this for a few years with less success. As a result, I would normally eat raw homemade cake mix every day. Mostly to console myself about our broken oven (so it’s not like cooked cake is an option). That provides some context for being pleased even with this level of sugar – because I really did used to eat a lot of cake mix. Plus hunny bunny chocolate every 3 days. And 1-2 botanical cuisine jars a week. As well as some cake from Sweet Bones or The Front Gallery. Writing this list gives me the same realisation as those gross TV shows where they put a week’s worth of food in a tube (so wasteful!) to shock people.
Flying chocolate cake
Despite the “moderator” approach, I still had a celebration botanical cuisine Melbourne nights dessert tonight. I pretended I was drilling into the earth through the stratum of cashew and chocolate like the geological coffee plunger in William Kentridge’s mine film. I felt the sugar rush (as exciting as the game in the lego movie) like pressing the recharge resonators button on an ingress portal.
As it’s a Friday, NGAC was doing their usual BiblioDessert – a 3pm tweet about desserts for library people (you normally need a boost by then). So I was obliged to eat some sweets. I will continue to eat less sugar next month, but I did spend a lot more time thinking about sugar and was sorely tempted by my sugar lip scrub. Other things have happened since last month, but sugar and avoiding sugar have been my main obsessive activities.
Stealing flowers
This weekend we caught a lady stealing flowers from our garden. I’d like to say red-handed, but they are purple irises so they don’t leave much residue. In primary school, when we had a spate of firebugs, the teachers would smell suspects’ hands to see if they had a smokey scent. Luckily I didn’t have to do any palm-sniffing for floral notes, as we saw her ruin an iris stem right in front of us. Snap! That’s the sound of a dream ending in the rush of slaughter.
I ran up to her and said “You’re welcome”, as it was the least confrontational opener I could conjure in my rage. She reflexively replied with a gaily “Thank you!”, then turned and froze when she saw me (I wish I could attribute this fear to my massive biceps. Perhaps in a few months…). She started bargaining and saying that they were for a relative who was unwell, and that she could offer money, and after all “I only took 3!”. She didn’t understand that they weren’t for sale. If she had knocked on our door and said that her Mum was sick, and really loved flowers, I would have dug some up for her and put them in a nice pot. It was weird that she cheapened the whole ordeal by saying she could pay – they weren’t for sale anyway. It made me doubt the story, and wonder if she could have bought some other flowers. I just replied “okay” to every new excuse, and waved goodbye. It was just so odd and disrespectful, as she had been furtively driving past in slow-motion, and left her car running as she leapt towards the bulbs.
Sonia orchids (not irises)
The experience reminded me of a scene in Tritten’s Heidi’s children, where they return from berry-picking, but instead of refreshing berries, they have only the coins received from selling them. As the Alm-Uncle said about the taste/money transaction, “What can it buy as sweet as the berries you have sold?”. I’m happy to share the sweetness of our flowers, but not with those who have poor manners and even more questionable motives. At the very least, if her Mum really is sick, I hope they provide some cheer.
Margaret Olley would pick flowers on her walks (she called it pruning), to immortalise as paintings. But I’m sure she wouldn’t have taken all the flowers that were in one garden. I feel conflicted about my response, and wonder about the justification of my cynicism. The next morning, I realised that I haven’t enjoyed many of our flowers because they’re gone – leaving a scarred history on almost every plant. Cellular memories of a thieving (not thriving) history. It’s not a unique experience, as mentioned in Amy Stewart’s post, as well as in a thread on combative strategies.
On a happier note, the Sonia orchids in the image (sorry no irises left for enjoyment or photography!) are celebrating today’s wedding anniversary. They were expensive, and from a florist. These are inside so they are definitely safe!
Sea skull
I had a mini-farewell with a friend this week – I don’t know when she’ll be back, but she seemed surprised by over-dramatic goodbyes. Maybe it’s because distance is so fluid, friendships so often depend on physical proximity.
By the seashore
When we hugged, I felt my ear make a suction grasp on her cheek, and I thought about how we all have an ocean inside our heads if only we could hear it. Doreen Virtue shared a lovely shell photo which looks just like one that we dug up years ago at Lennox Head.
Ears and shells and golden ratios.
Braidwood gallery crawl I
Today’s roadtrip from Canberra to Braidwood was a test run for an upcoming day trip for ARLIS/ANZ ACT Chapter (Arts Libraries Society Australia & New Zealand). We really enjoyed the town (thank you Ms. E!) and it looks like there’s lots more to discover.
It took under an hour to get there, but we needed to start with victuals! We went to the end of the main street and got drinks and pastry from Dojo bread, who also run bread-making courses through The Farm Dojo. I think all the pastries contained dairy, so I had secondary enjoyment by staring like a carbcreeper.
Braidwood Farmers Markets had excellent vegan manoush pizza – delicious thin crust with za’atar, lemony sumac and sesame seeds. The markets are on the 4th Saturday of each month. Dojo have a stall at the markets too, so if you can’t see the bread you want at one place, try the other!
Our first cultural stop was the fYREGallery and STUR gallery + store, who have some lovely gifts including baggies of vintage erasers and matchbox gardens. They’re showing FromAtoB: photographs & sculpture by Joteva & Ned Bott, till 29 June.
Ducking for cover
We meant to go to Left Hand gallery but I got confused and we walked to 18 Lascelles Street instead of 81 Lascelles Street. Oops. There isn’t much to see at 18, but we did see some nice ducks on the way. They ran away from us.
Plaque at The Pig & Whistle
My other gallery oops (at the other end of town) was the Pig & Whistle, which looked like it’d been closed for a little while but still has signs for the gallery and parking (I’ll update this if I find out more).
All the things! All the string!
Walking into String was like being inside an oversized cabinet of curiosities. There are so many miniature things to find, that it’s best to visit and find see it in person. If you like Melbourne’s Wunderkammer then you’ll love String. String was my favourite place in Braidwood – note that both String and Longbarn are closed all of July.
Admirable penmanship, mostly
In the same building as String, Altenburg & Co was showing some great desert paintings, there’s also a Perspex-covered part of the wall in the giftshop section with graffiti from 1913. Each year seems to record the household’s yearly balance.
Clucky
String’s other business Longbarn (a few blocks away, look for the old bicycle on the corner) is a house layered like a cake with a magical “storybook lovely” cottage garden, full of charming French furniture. They also have chickens! They ran towards us – sorry we didn’t have snacks!
Bugger rock
The Boiled Lolly has the wonder of a retro lolly shop with rows of bottles lining the walls, and little packets of the sweets behind them. I found this really comforting, as I didn’t get to experience old-fashioned sweet shops so I only have Dahl’s description of Mrs Pratchett to go by (see The Great Mouse Plot chapter in Roald Dahl’s Boy: Tales of Childhood). There are lots of customised rock candies including “Braidwood rock” which would be a nice local gift, or the “Bugger rock” if you need a present for someone you dislike.
Squillex
There were many unfamiliar lollies including a bottle of “Squill: herbal flavoured candy” (I have a new resolution of not using the terms candy or cookies, favouring lollies, sweets and biscuits, but this is a label quote). Squill! It sounds like the noise your brother makes if you are having a fight with him and land a stomach punch.
There’s a squill candy recipe in The Australian Women’s Weekly (16 August 1972), reproduced on Trove (scroll to page 69), it has brown and white sugars, glucose, aniseed oil, squill tincture/essence, icing sugar and water. I am ashamed to say I wasn’t game to try it, and now that I’ve found out it has aniseed it is an unlikely scenario. According to urbandictionary, squill isn’t a kind word.
Classic Ringo
I patted 8 dogs, a #PatADay record! Here is Ringo who had two-toned hairspray and was very sweet. The 7 other dogs included a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, German Shepherd, and a 57kg Neapolitan Mastiff (3 kilos less than me!) and some other little dogs who weren’t that interested.
Roseate petals
Flowers at St. Bede’s Parish – I think these are pink wood sorrel, which are very pretty as a groundcover even if they are invasive.
Next time I’d like to see the church’s stained glass windows, and to go to Sugden/Hamilton ceramic studio and shop and McLeod Gallery and William Verdon jewellery. I’ve also heard that despite the name, The Old Cheese Factory apparently does some great vegan food if you call ahead.
Vegan in the Parliamentary Triangle II
An update on finding vegan food in Canberra’s Parliamentary Triangle, Parkes ACT, Australia. Previously tried and tested in my post of June 2013.
With over nine months since last battling for vegan fare, you would be forgiven for thinking there was ample gestation time for a new veg*n establishment. Nay! So here’s a summary of what you can get from the existing non-veg*n places – not entirely comprehensive, but there are limits to being a vegie legend in a lunch break.
Old Parliament House Terrace Café (prev. The Kitchen Cabinet with Ginger Catering, who are now at the Arboretum) is now under new management (Restaurant Associates), so they no longer sell farm vegetables or vegan chocolate (disappointing). There is a vegetable wrap but I’m not sure about the condiments.
Pork Barrel still offer basic pizzas (but on a special occasion, a great beetroot tart), Coffers (Treasury Building) and Café Milieu (John Gorton building) still offer sandwiches and basic rice and vegetables).
Library leaves
Bookplate (National Library) still have custom salads (pro tip: ask for hummus), but all the ready-made salads have meat (including the grazing plates). The less formal Paperplate downstairs (not open on weekends) has ready-made wombok noodle salad and couscous broccoli salad that are both vegan, but you’d best check the dressing ingredients on the day.
Portrait greens
Portrait Café (National Portrait Gallery), like OPH, is now under new management. The previous people (Broadbean Catering formerly known as Portrait Catering, now at National Museum) offered custom salads, lentils and zucchini balls, but they preferred a phone call ahead. The good news with the new management is that they have something on their menu that is already vegan! I can’t overstate my excitement about this development. It is a jewelled quinoa salad with sultanas, toasted seeds, confit garlic, herbs and preserved lemon. Brian the friendly besuited manager even checked that the confit was vegan. The heirloom tomato salad can be made vegan sans feta, but it wasn’t as amazing as the quinoa. Be wary of the chai latte liquid mix, as it contained honey (at last check).
NGA Café (National Gallery) no longer have their vegan cupcake, and continue to occasionally have vegan items (as surprises rather than standard). With some prompting they can make a custom vegan salad. On special catered occasions they’ve made wonderful veg*n things but they just aren’t on the everyday menu. Be wary of the chai latte powder mix as it may contain dried dairy products, but if the lovely Amanda is at the counter, she can make a delectable chai tea (make sure it’s the chai tea bags) with soy milk on the side or in the teapot.
Galileo Café (Questacon) have sesame crackers and fruit cups, and are willing to make custom vegan wraps in quiet periods (i.e. not the school holidays). The manager Lianah was very accommodating and happy to check all ingredients.
At the other end of the triangle, Hideout had no vegan options, I asked if they’d consider stocking Veganarchy cupcakes, which would be delicious and worth making the trek.
Double drummer had lentil and pearl barley salads, as well as lots of ingredients for fresh juices. It was so busy that I didn’t get to ask about the options – make sure you check the salad dressing first.
The café at National Archives has a vegetable wrap, be careful of the hot chocolate as it has milk products in the mix. Across the road, the café at Prime Minister and Cabinet building has sushi, salad and boiled vegetables.
Lakeside Lushness
It doesn’t really abide by the rules, but I went to Waters Edge for Xmas dinner and they made some wonderful vegan dishes (modified versions of menu items). Waters Edge and the Hyatt (haven’t been back since the last post) are the most expensive on this list.
Places I haven’t tried for lunch during the week are Queen’s Terrace Café (Parliament House), Lobby Restaurant, and the Deck (Regatta Point) and others. I haven’t included establishments that aren’t in reasonable lunchtime walking distance of the cultural institutions, I would like to go to Maple + Clove for their focus on handmade and nutritious food, but the person on the phone was quite firm about not catering to vegans.
Please remember that it is safest to check that menu items are definitely vegan and allergy friendly, and that they haven’t changed since last check – and let me know of your experiences with vegan food in the Parliamentary Triangle.
It’s encouraging to see the progress at the Portrait Café, and that their staff are happy to verify that menu items are genuinely free of animal products. I’m really thankful that they’ve actively responded to feedback. I’ll provide another update in the future, I’m hopeful that there may be more good news of permanent vegan menu items (not just salad!) to plant-power the Triangle masses.
Gardening in the heat
I toiled away in the heat today, for a harvest of potatoes and some fetid compost. The plants could have kept going for a little while, but the hot spell had made them faint in their enclosure. I couldn’t contain my anticipation as I dismantled the “cat-proof” fence. Witness Ms. Cat’s squinty-eyed disapproval of the boundary line.
Ms Cat hates the fence
The cats did work out how to get in through a gap, but the wire was still better protection than last year’s attempt to grow potatoes in a tractor tyre. Those plants lost the will to live after Mr. & Ms. Cat both thought it was a pleasantly private place to attend to their needs. After that we called it the “shittery” because it was a horrible wreath of awful. Understandably the plants preferred the great nursery in the sky. Later I read theories about tyre chemicals leaching into the ground, so I washed the tyre and gave it to a friend for her dog (not as a toilet, you attach hessian on the top to make a hammock).
The monster mash
It was quite exciting to discover all the potatoes hiding under the sugarcane mulch like savoury easter eggs. I scrabbled through the ground like a mole and continued the excavation, there were so many layers like dirt chocolate with crunchy bits (my favourite pre-veg*n chocolate was Bertie beetle which had similar textural surprises).
I had been told that piling up the mulch near the potato plants would make it easier to harvest. Lies! Although this shouldn’t be considered a thorough scientific study as all our plants grew from potato scraps in the compost. It was sheer luck they were in roughly the same area to make for convenient fencing.
Avocado surprises
I made a great find with four sprouted avocado seeds! I put them in a container for the windowsill. I just checked them – they haven’t grown anymore, but a worm had hidden inside one of them during the 8 hours since the relocation. Protip – leave the avocado seeds on the edge of your garden to give any earthworms the chance to crawl out. I’ll have to see if he’s vacated the premises in the morning. There are more instructions on growing avocado plants on Australian avocados site. I always feel tempted to write “avocadoes”, like a deer herd of green fruit.
Small & imperfect
The reason we let the potatoes go was because we planted tomatoes two years in a row, and I freaked out about crop rotation. Some of the tomatoes didn’t know they were banned this year so they still woke up. Of course I didn’t realise that potatoes and tomatoes are family, so that was a bit of a waste of time. Anyway, we grew tomatoes in pots this year. Compared to our past bounties, this year’s crop has been quite disappointing. The heat is sort of an excuse, but there are a lot of other gardens in Canberra that have done better.
Ms Cat with peglegs
Mr. & Ms. Cat have reached their own goals for the season, having killed 2 ½ cucumber plants (the third was mostly killed by the heat), 2 zucchini plants and at least several potato plants. How are they so nefarious? They like to dig, or just squash a plant by sitting on top: “It was in my spot”.
You can see Ms. Cat likes to guard the stump near the black zucchini, “the last of his kind”. She’s a pirate cat with a pegleg on each front paw. Miaowyarr.
Vegan in Adelaide
Back from our brief holiday in Adelaide, which I rate as a hot contender for vegan capital of Australia! When my Mum travels she sends postcards which only contain descriptions of food eaten, probably the source of my view of holidays-as-food (she now chronicles the weather so as not to be eating-centric).
In Hahndorf I desperately wanted to go to The Fairy Garden, but we didn’t have time so just ate at The Seasonal Garden Café.
Mmm chips!
I had the quinoa burger (vegetarian but made vegan, it was delicious but not as good as a burger I had later) and a nectarine cake (pretty tasty but needs coconut cream or something to go with it).
So many cakes!
I felt a bit weird from the heat and so much cake so we went to Chocolate Bean for more cake (logical!). I’m pretty sore that I didn’t realise there was a lavender cupcake (my favourite flavour), on one visit I had the vegan choc hazelnut praline cake and another time I had the vegan peanut butter cheesecake. The praline one was better but too much for one person. I’ve previously enjoyed their chocolate soup but unfortunately it’s dairy-based.
Halo of sauciness
We met with family at pinehill bistro in Glenelg, I didn’t have high hopes and their menu didn’t list any vegan items. So it was exciting when they offered to make stuffed eggplant (although one of my friends would cite eggplant, mushrooms and onions as the vegetables-of-first-resort for veg*n options on the fly). It looked nothing like I expected but I was pleased to be able to eat something, and it was quite good.
“Squeeze me and eat me” – orange
Then we headed to Grind it (also Glenelg), they had a few vegan options on the menu so I got the quinoa patties. I had to refill the parking meter, on the way back, I saw another cafe had a sign with a cartoon orange saying “squeeze me and drink my blood!”. When I returned to my seat, the quinoa patties were waiting there interfiled with dead slices of orange. Awkward. The patties were a bit dry and the green sauce was super hot! They had also placed a spoon with nectarine and yoghurt on the plate which was surprising given it was advertised as a vegan dish, so I didn’t risk it.
Hello bug friend
In Brighton there was a very familiar caterpillar (but not identifiable for everyone in our group! Previously documented by Helen) – on the way to the Brighton Jetty Classic Sculptures. My favourite sculpture was Monica Prichard’s Sand City.
Unfortunately we missed out on the Brighton Jetty Bakery which has lots of vegan options. Next time.
Most delicious Adelaide dessert
In Goodwood we lined up to get a table at Eggless Dessert Café, and it was so worth it. Their menu is on a different theme each month, and Ken at the counter said there was a family that came once a month and ordered every single item. Efficient! I had the spring rolls and then the black sticky rice sundae (rice, f-ice cream, coconut cream and toasted coconut). The waitress recommended the sundae over the plain rice with coconut cream. It was amazing. I could eat 5 of them. Both the spring rolls and the sundae are on the February menu, too.
Goodwood saints?
It was also fun to walk up and down the street, the stobie poles are emblazoned with angels, there is a mosaic couch, teapots growing succulents hang from the pedestrian railing, corrugated iron magpies are pinned to the fence and finally a pink cat shop (nsfw).
Most delicious Adelaide burger
Our last stop was in Port Adelaide at the Red Lime Shack. I am so glad we went there, because it was the best vegan burger I have ever had on all counts – flavour, charm, price, romance, whether I would eat 100 of them, etc. I had the walnut, sage and roast carrot burger, which tasted “convincing” without being meaty. The tahini mayonnaise may also rekindle my mayo love affair, which had lost the spark when I’d tried other vegan mayos that had the taste and appearance of bodily fluids (not in a good way).
Pretty pie, pretty plate
The raw key lime pie was delicious and reminded me of the raw vegan food made by Raw Capers here in Canberra – really good texture made with good quality sweeteners and a health focus. M thinks that the most tasty part of a cake is the little “V” at the centre (broken off in this photo). I think this is more the anticipation of first bite, but perhaps the theory requires some exploration.
On our next visit, we’d like to get to Zen house, Two bit villains, Vegetarian delight, and Godzilla. There are heaps of restaurants listed on the Adelaide Vegans site – it’s my hope this will one day be the case for Canberra, see the current veg*n restaurant list on the ACT Vegan & Vegetarian Society site.
Thanks Adelaide, I am very full.
Ampersand Duck studio visit
The ARLIS/ANZ ACT chapter were very lucky to visit the studio of Caren Florance: book maker/designer, artist and letterpress printer. Caren collaborates with writers and artists to produce traditional printing adventures (fine press volumes, chapbooks and broadsheets) and the less conventional (zines, mail art, artist’s books and digital works). Florance’s personal practice is undertaken through Ampersand Duck, “a private press with a twist based in Canberra” (Ampersand Duck (April 2008). Snail Mail One, p. [1].).
ARLIS/ANZ ACT chapter members with Caren Florance
Finding the stories and process behind Caren’s beautiful letterpress creations was a revelation and rekindled the joy of touching deckle-edged, feathery papers of her books. Poetry married page through traditional printing, from heavily embossed imposed words to letters gently kissing the surface of the paper leaving ink remnants and memories. We saw works at the zygote stage with setting the letters and proofing, through to completed bound books with poetry by Rosemary Dobson and a typeset artist book with linocuts by G.W. Bot and poems by Anne Kirker.
Caren also supports emerging artists through the Ampersand Duck Broadside Residency, by providing graduating students an opportunity to work in the studio and produce an edition of prints using handset letterpress. The studio is filled with work in progress by the residents, as well as completed books and prints by established artists. Nicci Haynes, an artist friend, has condensed the whole of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake – you can see it in the poster behind the cat below. Sadly we didn’t get to meet the other cats on this occasion.
Materials with Nikki Haynes’ Finnegans Wake print
We are delighted that many posters, artist’s books, zines (and even more!) made by Ampersand Duck are held at the National Library – they are also in other public and private collections nationally and internationally. One of the zines even has a view of Studio Duck, compare it with the photo from our visit (at the top):
A view of Studio Duck from Snail no. 2.
Thank you Caren for welcoming us to your studio and providing an insight into your working process. We look forward to having more artist studio visits during our 2014 program.
To find out more about Ampersand Duck’s letterpress universe, see her site and personal blog. Or explore the various print offerings!
Drugs library please with a cherry on top
The Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia (ADCA) has lost its funding, so their library is also out like the baby with the bathwater. ADCA provides a drug resource service (National Drugs Sector Information Service, NDSIS) to support those working to prevent or reduce the harm to individuals, families, communities and the nation caused by alcohol and other drugs. This includes non-government agencies (such as those addressing homelessness); government departments, police and prison services, health professionals, professional organisations and more.
Identifying and disseminating this supporting evidence is a large task done by some of ADCA’s 15 staff members: librarians, library technicians and experienced library staff – it’s a small yet important organisation. This national information clearinghouse for the Australian alcohol and other drugs field was established in 1974, and the huge collection has made an invaluable contribution to our health legislation. In addition to assisting ADCA clients, another benefit (Shelling, 2006) arising from the continual task of collating and curating this information is the DRUG database through RMIT, Informit. Without monthly database updates, the reduced currency of the database will have detrimental impacts on the health professionals that rely on it to provide contemporary research outcomes, meaning that they cannot provide the best patient care.
Jane Shelling (Manager NDSIS at ADCA), discusses the important role of the ADCA library:
“Perhaps the biggest benefit of working for this NGO [ADCA], and the reason staff retention is so high, is that you truly belong to a special sector. The NRC [National Resource Centre, now NDSIS] is assisting people from all over Australia who are working in varying capacities to help those with alcohol and other drug problems. Many are not well paid and are themselves working for a non-government agency but are passionate about their work and grateful to library staff who help them with research and information gathering.” (Shelling, 2008, p. 11).
In a presentient article, Shelling also observed the growing trend of library closures in the addiction field in the US, and how in Australia, “…librarians need to speak out, advocate within our own organisations and out in the real world for quality information, libraries, and LIS professionals… Infiltrate and promote at all opportunities: special libraries are worth the effort not just to LIS professionals or researchers but to everyone. Find your voice and make it heard.” (Shelling, 2012, p. 3).
We all need to find our voice to stand up for ADCA library, as without their contribution, people working with those most at risk will be deprived of evidence-based research assistance. The ADCA library has such a diverse range of clients because “…alcohol and drugs can touch all parts of society.” (Shelling, 2012b), and it is to everyone’s benefit to maintain this service.
The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) is waging a campaign against the defunding, going directly to Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash’s home town of Young, NSW tomorrow during the National Cherry Festival. It is hoped that this presence will highlight the damage caused by the decision to cease funding ADCA’s vital work. Please join ALIA in fighting for ADCA library! You can find out more about the campaign, visit the National Cherry Festival this Saturday 7 December (tomorrow!), tell others about the issue with the hashtag #saveADCA, and sign the petition, or text “save the books” to 0426 143 349.
If this isn’t enticing enough, the National Cherry Festival itself has a wonderful program so you can display your ADCA library support at all the different activities. I can testify that the Wilders Bakery Cherry Pie Eating Championships are a highlight, registration is at 2pm on Saturday. Here is my less than successful attempt from 2009 – I have spared you the most graphic shots. I took my strategy from a portly young man competing before me. Perhaps I shouldn’t have viewed him as a mentor, as he was a bit unwell after competing in several heats. It’s a long story!
Amy (Cherry Queen 2009) watches the carnage
My thoughts and best wishes are with ADCA and their staff, I hope that the festival stall on Saturday will contribute to a revision of the funding decision. Remember to tear yourself away from the pies, and find out more about ADCA library at ALIA’s stall, then even visit Young’s own South-West Regional Library branch (open M-F 9-5 and Saturdays 9:30-2).
References
Shelling, J. (2006). ADCA recommends… alcohol and other drugs resources for the health library. Incite. 27, 25.
Shelling, J. (2008). Working for a Non-government Special Library. Incite. 29, 11.
Shelling, J. (2012a). Collective amnesia – are we complicit in the closure of special libraries?. Incite. 33, 3.
Shelling, J. (2012b). A push technology personal librarian project. Australian Academic & Research Libraries. 43, 135-145.
Woodland zweiheit
During our Hawai’i ceremony, I felt breathless like the Cure’s Love Song, the sun shone through the leafy canopy and the forest so kindly bore witness.
I walked towards him at the waterfall, the celebrant said the words, and my partner gave the most wonderful and thoughtful vows. We exchanged leis which were made with an orchid called “Sonia” (purely a coincidence!).
Pink podophilia
Thank you to Frieda Gayle, such a wonderful and thoughtful celebrant, who even hiked to several areas to find the perfect place and really did organise everything!
Many thanks to Shawna Lee for taking us to the rainforest and the beach, and for your heartfelt hula and beautiful photographs. We couldn’t have asked for a more magical ceremony, and we are so grateful for all your assistance.
Mother Barfoed with roses
Yesterday we had a family celebration at a rural property in a Canberra valley, with thanks to Leonie for letting us picnic and croquet on her lawns. It was lovely to share a quasi-wedding experience with my family, as our Hawai’i ceremony was really an announced elopement.
My dodgy photos won’t do justice to the beautiful flowers and food, so I’ll link to Leonie’s professional photos when they’re available. I’m looking forward to seeing the family photos, but I’m a bit worried about the couple ones, as being photographed is one of our areas for improvement.
Quiche by Veganarchy
It was a very relaxed affair, but I think that’s because everyone contributed towards the day – there was even a gift of a hand-built deck in our backyard, so we’ll always remember this moment in time when we play on it. We also had a nice moment opening cards from overseas family, who also sent a traditional Norwegian spoon for sharing porridge. I’m sad that I didn’t take a picture of the food before it started being demolished (a good testament for vegan catering!) and melting in the sun –it was also amazing that the layered cake survived the trip in the bouncy Terraplane.
Mum organised all the details – making the cardboard table pad, stamping the cutlery napkins, finding tableware and furniture, even down to hand-quilting a hot pink rug. Intense! I think it stems from her project management expertise. I am so thankful for her caring and organised nature and to spend this special moment together.
Wedding cake by The Cake Cabinet
We forgot to bring our board games (carcassonne and dominion), but my father and brothers had set up a croquet lawn, so we enjoyed pretending to be in Wonderland. Somehow one of the brothers Barfoed managed to break one of the mallets, I didn’t realise it was such a violent sport.
Mallets with unknown collective noun
It was nice to see all the furry cows and hear the kookaburras’ songs. There was a spot in the forest that reminded us of our ceremony spot in Hawai’i, a funny connection between such different landscapes.
How to plant a flower
You can see below, Mr. Cat on my veil (made by Effie Dee), and the largest earring contains one of my Grandma’s gallstones. She always said they should be made into earrings (my previous post provides context), so artists Lan Nguyen-Hoan and Tarn Smith have been transforming them with silver. When the series is complete I’ll share better pictures. It was really gratifying to fulfil my Grandma’s wishes and feel like she attended, in a way.
The gallstone wish
We had a wonderful experience at the ceremony and the picnic, and I am so glad that we both decided to speed-date on that fateful night so many years ago.
Our excellent (and of course highly recommended) facilitators:
Hawai’i:
Celebrant: Frieda Gayle, first listing on Kauai directory
Driver, photographer, hula dancer: Shawna Lee
Hair & make-up: Chelle at Koloa Town Salon & Day Spa
Marriage paperwork and local advice: Ellen at The Wine Shop Kauai
Pizzas: Merriman’s Gourmet Pizza & Burgers
Post-ceremony art exhibition enjoyment: Galerie 103
Australia:
For both events:
Dress: Claire at Nocturne Design
Veil and brooch: Effie dee and her shop with custom made pet portrait brooches
Tux t-shirt: Millie at T-Bar Canberra Centre
Gloves: inherited from Grandma
Shoes: second-hand online
For Canberra picnic:
Gallstone jewellery: Lan Nguyen-Hoan & Tarn Smith
Hair & make-up: Jess and Anne at Rhubarb & me
Flowers: Anna at The Snail & Petal
Wedding cake: Nie-kiewa at The Cake Cabinet
Vegan picnic catering: Gabby at Veganarchy
Photography (beautiful pictures to come, the ones above are my dodgy ones) and venue: Leonie at Snowgum Studio
Tusen takk! xxx
Blooms on the Big Island
During our holiday on Hawai’i Island, seeing hibiscus in context has really improved my attitude towards tropical plants. I think I confuse them with frangipani flowers, whose dubious reputation stems from car stickers which tarnish all flowers’ “particular style of beauty” (this phrase used with thanks to author Zenda Vecchio, who uses it to describe clothes or accessories not suiting someone’s particular style of beauty).
A few years ago the infestation of adhesive frangipani gave rise to the responding trend: “Frangipani stickers: Australia says no.”
Sharry Baby orchid
We visited the Akatsuka Orchid Gardens showroom (Volcano, Hawaii). It would be a lovely project to make a scented maze with all their plants, but I have a weird feeling that keeping flowers inside seems like a plant version of veal calves.
My favourite orchid was Onc. Sharry Baby “Sweet Fragrance”. It has a wafting chocolate fragrance, it would be fun if it came with piped music like The Four Seasons’ Sherry playing on a loop, out where the bright moon shines. I have absolute immunity to that song because I used to hear it ten times a day when I worked as a seamstress undergoing aural torture. I have similar experience with Mariah Carey’s Christmas album.
Naupaka flowers
A wistful plant I’ve learnt about is the Naupaka, which grows on the coast and in the mountains. Both types appear as a half flower, but you can put two together to make a whole – an opposite of the floral rhyme: loves me, loves me not.
There are different stories around the two types of the flower, one is that two lovers were forcibly separated and went to these different parts of the landscape. They either distributed the flowers in their respective areas, or the flowers bloomed from each person’s sadness. Putting the flowers together reunites the lovers, McDonald’s book mentions the naupaka kahakai ‘auwai completion ceremony (which I think is the same thing), but I haven’t yet found more information on this topic.
The story has also been developed into an award-winning book by Nona Beamer, illustrated by Caren Loebel-Fried, and the legend is in more detail on Hale Moana B&B’s post and within Hawai’i Volcanoes & Haleakala National Parks’ Nature Notes. It’s so beautiful, I wonder if it would have positive floriography for my bouquet, but today we chose the Sonia orchids for our wedding leis instead.
Say yes to all the flowers, say no to flower stickers.
Veiled kitty
I’m not sure, but I think our cats know of our Hawaii elopement plans. We are leaving today and they are treating us with suspicion and disdain. More than usual. I do hope they like our housesitter.
I’m relieved that things are mostly organised for our Canberra wedding picnic, even though it’s a few months away. This is in contrast to our “plan when we get there” Hawaii ceremony in a couple of days. I have the dress, shoes, veil, jewellery and gloves. I inherited the gloves (as well as a jar of gallstones) from my Grandma a few years ago, it was quite emotional to go through the bag of gloves and think that we were holding hands through time. I miss her a lot.
I found a hot pink remote controlled helicopter, but didn’t find a good spy camera (as an attachment) to undertake the wedding photography. So I might find a real life spy but this could be too derivative of Sophie Calles’ The Shadow (1981).
Cats with veil by Effie Dee
Effie Dee, a splendid (and very patient) artist, made my wonderful veil with spare fabric from my dress, with a clay portrait of Mr Cat. I wanted to have a photo of one of my cats wearing the veil so they felt more included before we abandon them, but they were uncooperative. So impetuous. Im-PET-uous. Ms Cat is trying to charm for attention in the background, and Mr Cat is being unimpressed with me, or sniffing the netting? Or it is a two-headed cat.
Pineapple drawing by Vicki
This week, my work team sent me off with a great surprise morning tea resplendent with inflatable palm tree. Vicki drew this pineapple on the whiteboard and everyone was wearing very kitsch grass skirts and leis, and the table was covered in vegan food (everywhere you looked, it was themed, even the printer wore a skirt. They would be great wedding planners). I had been told it was a “mandatory work meeting” so of course I was freaking out that it was something bad, and then I saw the team dancing in Hawaiian shirts. Quite unexpected! My social awkwardness in being surprised (but of course, very grateful and touched!) reinforced to me that our plans for private ceremonies are the absolute best thing to do.
I’ve been looking forward to the holiday, but it’s like a time lapse video of a plant growing, it’s mainly just shaky and I will feel happier when it blooms into the actual holiday. I hope to see the Bishop Museum’s Lego exhibition and the Hawaiian Hall, and to gaze at the stars at Mauna Kea. I will send the cats a postcard so they don’t feel excluded.
Bridethulu progress
I had a busy weekend containing my bridethulu-ness, stemming the flow so it doesn’t ooze out as bridezilla interactions. We’re organising our Hawaii elopement, as well as a performance art reenactment when we return, as a scaled-back way for family to be involved. But this does create two tiers of tasks for the different events (like different tiers of a cake, perhaps).
To prepare for the Canberra reenactment ceremony, we met Anna at her shop, The Snail + Petal (named after what you find in the garden). She showed us some amazing vines to use as a cake wreath, and grey leaves and pink roses for corsages. Trying to rearrange the flowers when I got back home reminded me that floristry is not one of my core strengths, as reflected by the image below.
Rose and vine
I went to Goldcreek to find the Extravagant Bra Solutions shop, hopeful of an extravagant bra for our modest do, but apparently the store closed 2 years ago, which was disappointing because I’d hoped to support a small business. The Darling Central Boutique is there instead, and a very kind lady with beautiful skin and perfect purple eyebrows gently and calmly let me know that I was searching for the invisible bra shop, it was like being a Discworld character. I was feeling borderline bridezilla because I had walked up and down the Gold Creek strip hunting for this nonexistent place. At least I found Darling Central! Here is a Gold Creek magpie looking as puzzled as I felt.
Gold Creek magpie
I trudged over to the Canberra Centre which has had so many changes and finally had bra success, despite changerooms definitely not being the place to discuss asymmetry. Bra shops would also be an entrepreneurial place to have mole checking and pap smears because it feels quite intimate and invasive, better to get it all done in one go. This jewellery store sign caught my eye – I think they forgot the “You love him, he loves you” combo. There is a ring I would like for our ceremony, but I think we’ll be using lollipop rings so that we don’t have to travel with something so small and valuable. The main reason is that we haven’t bought them yet – we don’t have engagement rings either so the jewellers really are missing out.
Forever contract
After all that fuss, I had to postpone my dressmaker appointment with Claire (Nocturne Design) because of not having the bra ready in time. It will be sewn into the dress like a secret supportive amulet, so I had needed it ready for the appointment. This image is from before, Claire had made a very tiny toile, it’s also a nice way to advertise dress options or have a Barbie commitment ceremony. Or practice ballet poses.
Ballerina bride
The corset is indicative only, the main focus was on the handkerchief skirt which has different panels for more movement in line with the fairy theme. I think it was also so that she wasn’t a topless bride, but I had also suggested to my Mum that pasties would be a good option for a warm environment. She was not receptive to this idea, but I might bring some as backup – what if I’m driven to lose so much weight (by WIC and comments like this) that the corset doesn’t fit? I’ll need to have something to act as camouflage, because my pink bits won’t match the hot pink of my shoes, and it might make the photographer uncomfortable.
I’m glad to have made some progress towards both ceremonies – we have also gotten our shoes and started to arrange a little hat for me. We just need an outfit for Mr. S, decide cake fillings, and find a spy camera so that we can save money on wedding photography, and buy pink glitter mushrooms to scatter in the Hawaiian forest. I’m stopping listing our things to do because it’s making me feel like more of a bridethulu, so I will go and relax by eating home-made garlic bread in the bath. It might not get the bridal body that others have suggested, but it will prevent me from going over the edge and taking over a seaside town.
Wild strawberries this side of the rainbow
We weeded the garden yesterday, but saved this wild strawberry weedling. I think it grew from a composted strawberry from one of my smoothies.
My strawberries
I needed to use up some old homemade jam (I say homemade, but it was a bit of cheat breadmaker recipe), so I adapted O.D.’s Strawberry Jam Cake. I wish I had read the reviews as it was certainly heavy, but then I did over-mix the flour. Normally I make chocolate cakes which are a lot more forgiving.
Vegan strawberry cake
Vegan strawberry jam cake
Ingredients:
No-egg equivalent of 2 eggs (or applesauce mixed with water)
¾ cup soy milk or almond milk
1/3 cup vegan margarine
¾ cup white sugar
Dash of vanilla
2 cups plain flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons strawberry jam
Rind and juice of one orange
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and line a cake tin with baking paper.
Mix the no-egg, soy milk, vegan margarine, sugar and vanilla.
Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Gently mix in the strawberry jam and orange juice and rind.
Bake for 35 minutes. Top with coconut and chopped strawberries. Best eaten with coconut yoghurt or almond cream.
It could also taste better if you soaked the strawberries in sweetened lime juice and then covered them in coconut, or replaced the flour with hazelnut meal/coconut flour, or added some coconut, or replaced the margarine with coconut oil.
I am more interested in the spirit, rather than the law of recipes, so I’ll probably make these changes next time. This Vegan Strawberry Cake by Josh of My Vegan Cookbook also looks a lot more promising.
Beribboned pins
I adore this cartoon addressing emphasised femininity – it shows ‘hairy’ legs (“Not feminine enough”) being transformed, resplendent with pink bows (“Is this better?”). I tried to find the artist but the image wasn’t indexed in TinEye, but I will update this if I find out.
Better?
Just think, if this takes off as a grooming/decorative practice, we could save the 24 minutes a week that is normally spent shaving (UK Escentual beauty poll in London, 2013).
An actual valid, scientific study gave a result of 96% of a sample of 235 Australian women regularly remove their leg and underarm hair (Tiggemann, Hodgson, 2008), so it would be a lot of time saved if the Escentual poll was representative (and internationally transferable). However, we would actually spend more time bow-tying – it took me 10 minutes per leg, and I think that the bows might last a few days, perhaps 3 sessions a week at 20 minutes = 1 hour a week. Clearly more if you’re an octopus or spider.
So it’s inefficient (how surprising for a beauty practice!) but think of the diversity of self-expression – different colours for days of the week (denim for Fridays, of course), “corporate” bows in a demure pinstripe or ripped metallic bows for the neighbourhood punks. Bows for everyone!
Anyway, this was a DIY job, the process would be quicker in specialised hairbow salons.
Hairy legs are encouraged by fashion designer Anthony Capon (Project Runway Australian winner, Season 2), who says that men “…still have to have hairy legs…” if they are going to wear skirts, because “…you don’t do it to look feminine…” (Cuthbertson, 2009).
Professional male cyclists have also been asked about the reasons they shave: “’I ventured that perhaps it was because he thought his legs looked more attractive hairless and he had been influenced, like so many people, by the regrettable encroachment of the aesthetic values of porn films on mainstream grooming habits.’” (Worsley in Richard, 2012).
Accessorise! I also adore these Hairy Legs Mary Janes patch by lemon-butt and Chloe Henderson’s shot of growly bear legs. Noises from the closet – argh, straw feminists!
Reading
Beaton, Kate. (2006-2013). Hark, a vagrant: 341.
Cuthbertson, Kathleen. (2009, September 9). Designer Anthony Capon wants men to wear skirts.
Escentual. (2012, August 8). Survey –what is your biggest beauty chore?
Henderson, Chloe. (2011, November 19). Fuck off, I’m a hairy woman.
Idée Inc. (n.d.). TinEye Reverse Image Search.
Richard, Kay. (2012, August 9). Lucy’s Olympic hair-raiser. Daily Mail.
lemon-butt. (n.d.). Hairy Legs Mary Janes Patch.
London, Bianca. (2013, April 5). Shaving legs is women’s least favourite beauty chore – shame they spend TWO MONTHS of their lives doing it. Daily Mail Online.
Tiggemann, M. (2008). The Hairlessness Norm Extended: Reasons for and Predictors of Women’s Body Hair Removal at Different body Sites. Sex roles, 59(11/12), 889.
VaginaPagina. (n.d.). Picture one: Hairy legs. Labelled ‘not feminine enough.’
Teeth and gallstones
My family has an usual hobby of collecting body parts. Mum kept the extra teeth she had removed and in an ill-advised move, gave them to me as playthings (I was 5).
Gran’s gallstones
I thought they were really unusual shells, I would plant them in the garden like creamy skyscrapers. Their jagged tops mimicked the stereotypical scalloped edges of clouds and were a perfect match for meeting with the sky and solving the puzzle. They have been lost to the soil (not sands) of time, because they are resting in peace with my shell collection, buried below the camellia leaves. I think that my shell garden was trying to live up to Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary’s reputation.
Grandma kept her gallstones in a jar, with a dream of making them into earrings. She never had pierced ears, so it made sense that she saw the clip-on earring aesthetic in calculi. They seem more like carved wooden beads than something that could come out of the body, it’s like Jenny Holzer’s shock at the range of colours in her mother’s dying body.
I inherited Grandma’s gallstones a few years ago, as well as her glove collection, a hairbrush, nail kit, scarves and of course a huge sense of loss. I miss her a lot and I still surprise myself when I think of telling her something and then I remember. I had a wonderful conversation with Blaide today that I could make the gallstone earring project, and if I wore them then I could symbolically have my Grandma at my elopement (the “old” in something old, new, borrowed and blue).
I am harvesting and collecting quite different body parts of my own, but that’s a story for another day. In the meantime, ABC Open has an interesting project, “My Crazy Passion”. So far there are videos featuring people who collect/obsess about tractors, cacti and crochet. No body collectors yet.
Terrarium Moon Day
I received a really fun gift from Iome, a DIY terrarium kit from Perth-based the little green project (amazingly survived in the mail!).
DIY kit from the little green project
It was custom-made with a cat statue, even though the cat is stretching (relaxation?) I think the pose looks quite similar to my Mr. Cat’s pre-bathroom aerobics. At least the terrarium will be a great litter tray for Miniature Cat – and a small cat will only make snail-size turds.
Completed terrarium!
In contrast, the biggest terrarium I’ve ever seen was in the 1986 Troll movie with Julia Louis-Dreyfus (check out the trailer), when an apartment block is converted into troll land with lush greenery and a humidity only matched by butterfly rooms. Luckily our cats patrol the area to ward off nasty trolls, and to protect the nice Norwegian ones.
Adelaide weekend catch up
Here’s a catch up for blogjune – or considering how I’m going, perhaps it should be dissected to blogju or blogne. A roundup of my very brief weekend trip to Adelaide for a friend’s farewell.
I had some unexpected running practice at Canberra airport because I thought my flight had closed. It had not. I watched another Dawson’s Creek episode while I waited, which made me much calmer.
On the plane, a man sitting in front of me reclined his chair and smashed into my head because I was leaning down to get my bag. I felt less calm. Why isn’t it common to have the courtesy to tell the person behind you that you’re planning on reclining your seat? I think I read this tip in The Penguin Book of Etiquette, or was it somewhere else, I’m unsure.
I had a weird conversation with a flight attendant about whether vegans eat chocolate (yes, but only if it doesn’t contain animal products including dairy, gelatine, or sometimes honey).
I arrived in Adelaide for the farewell party, and tried vegan cabbage rolls at Suzie Wong’s Room which were delectable. But then I haven’t tried regular cabbage rolls so I don’t really have a reference.
I danced the nutbush outside a very noisy party at The Lady Daly Hotel. They didn’t see us through the window (the real dancers were inside through the glass doorway), which is lucky because we couldn’t really remember the moves.
I met 2 chickens and patted 3 cats.
Turner is a puzzle
I visited Zenda Vecchio (South Australian author), she is making steady (but painful) progress with her puzzle of Turner’s Venice, the Bridge of Sighs (exhibited 1840, oil paint on canvas (bought from Art Gallery of South Australia’s shop during the Turner from the Tate exhibition, which is now at National Gallery of Australia, but I’m not sure if they have the puzzles).
We talked about Zenda’s upcoming book The Swan’s Egg, which is at the proofing stage – I’m designing the cover (I previously designed another of Zenda’s book covers – with the help of Wesley Hobday – see post on “Becoming Kirsty-Lee”, launched in May last year).
Grevillea Mason’s Hybrid, Adelaide
I saw some beautiful plants, perhaps the loveliness of Grevillea ‘Mason’s Hybrid’ (previously sold as ‘Ned Kelly’ and ‘Kentlyn’) will rehabilitate my view of Grevilleas. If you’ve ever had to remove one, you’d understand my dislike of the genus. There was also an unwell honeyeater in our yard once that I tried to capture so that she could be seen by a vet or the ranger, and she was totally unreachable in the horrid Grevillea. The honeyeater died and I blamed the Grevillea. At least it provides a good spot for native animals and birds to hide from predators, even if the predator is trying to assist.
It was nice to come home to Canberra Airport’s sculptures:
”People coming to Canberra ought to have their spirits lifted and be inspired on arrival in the national capital; this sculpture [Andrew Rogers’ “Perception and Reality 1”, 2012, bronze] will take their breath away. It’s a very, very powerful work.”
(from Diana Streak’s article “Striking pose to alter perception of airport”, 3 April 2012, Canberra Times)
…and I opened a gift from a friend, which is a terrarium kit! So now I know my plans for tomorrow.
One of these things
One of these things is not like the others, did you guess which thing…? If you guessed the pink pulled sugar rose, then you’re absolutely …right! It was made by Eric Menard, the National Gallery’s Executive Pastry Chef.
Eric’s sugar rose
There is a much better photo of the pulled sugar rose from the National Gallery’s instagram. I read a story a long time ago about a boy finding the ideal gift for his sister, he had planted a sugar cube to grow a sugar tree. Perhaps the sugar cube that was planted was a rose variety, and that’s how this sugar rose really came to life.
I’d like to eat the sugar rose (which I assume tastes like happiness, bursting love-hearts and sunshine), but it’s better to keep it forever at the top of the pantry (for stealing furtive, sugar-longing glances). This means I’m doing the same thing as when Mum kept my brother’s icing booties from his christening cake for at least five years, maybe longer if she still has them. The booties had very fine detail and I used to lick them when I felt sad. I wonder if she noticed the imitation stitching getting fuzzed over the years. I had been reduced to slowly ravishing the booties, because a lock was installed high up on the pantry so it cut my regular sugar cube supply line. My brother and I worked together to reach the lock, then we would drink Ice Magic to condition our teeth against sugar.
The sugar rose has also been used by artist Liam Revell to comment on the transience of fashion. His sugar rose brooch that was gradually eaten by the wearer in Kate and Rose (2006). His wonderful photographs show the consumption of this impermanent decoration (Revell, Liam, A Decorative Effect (2012), scroll to page 19).
Another sugary element at the Gallery is Duchamp’s Why not sneeze Rose Sélavy? (1921 reconstructed 1964) with trick sugar cubes. Delicious!
It must be a rose day because I’m watching American Beauty while I’m writing about roses. A feedback loop…
Barnacle trees and Guide Dog statues
Today I visited the Turner from the Tate exhibition (National Gallery of Australia) at lunch, seeing the beautiful, sometimes stormy vistas was recompense for our cold weather. The children’s room was fantastic, it was like walking into a seascape barnacled with iPads on easels. I decided to come back another time so I could devote more time to drawing on the electronic and physical watercolour paper and contemplate the different rooms.
Guide Dog statue
My favourite story of the sea is that migrating wild geese (Branta bernicla) grew on goose-trees (barnacle-trees) north of Scotland. Ripe barnacle fruit would fall into the sea and transform into barnacle geese (the theory came about because barnacles looked like embryonic geese) (The barnacle tree in Lehner, 1960, p. 86). It makes sense that people saw such a world of possibility in a mysterious and powerful place like the sea. While I saw iPad barnacles at the Turner exhibition, there were no barnacle geese.
There were no frilly knickers in the shop, but there were plenty of boxers for men and badger shoes for children. The tea-sets were lovely but unfortunately made of bone china, the paper plates decorated with roses were more geared towards my level of household upkeep.
Outside, there were lots of camera-shy green rosellas playing and feeding in the yellow gum blossom (Eucalyptus stricklandii, Yellow-flowered blackbutt?) between the National Gallery and the Portrait Gallery. An Indian Myna was burrowing through the discarded blossoms on the tiles.
Later in the day, I saw a lady at the shops bump into the Guide Dog statue and then apologise to him. I’m fairly certain the Guide Dog statue didn’t mind as he was thinking about marking his territory on barnacle trees. Then she was embarrassed and looked around furtively to see if anyone noticed. I pretended to be contemplating the mesh design of the trolley.
…see more of the Barnacle tree in Lehner, Ernst. & Lehner, Johanna. (1960). Folklore and symbolism of flowers, plants and trees,. New York : Tudor Pub. Co.
Floriography telephonics
Today I re-learnt how to use a cassette tape player, discovered the term “bridal brain” (thanks to a colleague!) and got some impromptu yoga tuition in the work hallway.
I also started to organise a soiree for the Canberra Library Tribe (Save the date! It’s 6pm, Friday 30 August) which will remain mysterious until we release the invitation into the wild.
Floriography book, 1891
Then I read about flower language for my bouquet “research”. I found a lovely little book from 1891, “The Language of Australian Flowers” in which the editor notes:
“In the present edition it has been thought advisable to include a selection from the Flora of Australia and New Zealand, and it is confidently believed that the “LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS” will play no mean or unimportant part in promoting the federation of the Australian colonies.”
Sounds like tall poppies! I was pleased to see that dandelions (our courtyard’s featured flower of choice) means “Permission to call.”
I will be installing some little telephone boxes for the local flora and fauna to endlessly phone the beguiling and genuinely interested Podolepis acuminata.
…they might put a hold on calls if they read Sandy Griswold’s ode to The Lowly Dandelion with its “lovely golden blossoms” and “pretty topaz diadem”. Permission to call!
Snail start to blogjune
blogjune – it’s the third of June so here is a three day wrap-up! Changing from monthly to daily posts for this month was possibly a little ambitious, but maybe this will further focus my time management.
I was unwell on Saturday so I was sad to miss the opening of Blaide Lallemand’s painting exhibition at CraftACT’s pod, Lonsdale Street Traders. Make sure you head along! If you’re not based in Canberra, there’s also a video of the interactive paintings.
To console myself, I watched lots of episodes of Dawson’s Creek, I’m now up to Season 5, episode 4. There are only six seasons so there’s not long to go (then I’ll be beyond consolation). Perhaps I should frame this as a sociological study of the 90s, but my viewing is mostly for nostalgic reasons (and as background refamiliarisation before I watch Apartment 23). It also means that the cats get to hear their favourite sitcom intro song, in addition to increased lap time and being harassed by toy dinosaurs.
Meadow Argus butterfly on John Maddock and sons “Old Rose” plate
I spent Sunday cooking minestrone soup, chocolate coconut cake and spaghetti veganaise. The vegan chocolate coconut cake was very successful – I adapted a Taste recipe by replacing the butter with cocoa butter (expensive but the value is in the flavour) and milk with soy milk, and flour with hazelnut meal. I also added cocoa nibs. I guess I just can’t follow recipe instructions. Verdict from Mr. Sonja was “delicious”. It’s a lot better feedback than “What happened?” or “Very rustic” (hmm).
I reduced my tyre changing rookie status, but the bolts were so tight that I had to stand on the wrench. It was like the fairytale where the princess wishes she was heavier (the princesses received their weight in gold as a reward, another variation was choosing between being dipped in oil or gold). It was unpleasant but not as bad as last week when I almost crashed because the tyre burst. Drama, excitement! The biggest reward in changing the tyre was finding a lovely butterfly on the ground, I was sad it had gone to the great nectar in the sky but I do secretly enjoy collecting them.
Today (Monday) I planned lots of library tweets for the @aliangac account (ALIA New Generation Advisory Committee) and culled a swarm of emails (it’s good to know that cialis is still popular!). While I was at work today there were lots of lovely sunbeams coming in through the windows and I managed to catch all of them around the building with my feline hunting skills.
I miss you Mr. Caterpillar
The caterpillar makes an ideal pet, this year I had the short-lived joy of being a caterpillar’s friend.
At first I couldn’t work out what was diminishing my vase of mint cuttings. Gradually, Mr. Caterpillar betrayed his presence with fragrant faeces sprinkled on the bench like poppy seed confetti. It was a blissful honeymoon for us as I looted the garden for succulent mint and watched Mr. Caterpillar skeletise the vulnerable leaves. Some days Mr. Caterpillar would be crawling about like a hinge and I would make encouraging sound effects. I told him that when he grew up we could go for walks (I would be skipping, he would be flying with his new gossamer wings) and if the sky was too scary he could go on a lead like a biological kite so that we were safely attached by an umbilical cord.
The coming changes were a bit scary for him though, he’d quote Martin Wesley-Smith’s score, “I’m a caterpillar of society (not a social butterfly).” He was reluctant to think about wings that might detract from his verdant chiselled abs: “See me flex all my splen-did pecs! – What con-di-tion! What de-fi-ni-tion!” (Wesley-Smith, 1999, p. 9). We even considered his celebrity endorsement for some premium abdominal workout machines.
Mr. Caterpillar says hello to Ms. Violet
All too soon, it was over. I told a more thoughtful friend at work about My Ideal Pet, and he noted the cruelty involved, even if The Great Outside did possess a gang of wild young magpie hoodlums with a taste for the green worm. So, I released Mr. Caterpillar to The Great Outside in The Mint Garden Bed. A few days later a caterpillar was perched on the wall right next to our doorway – I can’t work out how he got there as it’s quite a distance. I think it was Mr. Caterpillar coming to say goodbye. I guess this is why I wasn’t allowed pets as a child, even ideal ones like caterpillars.
I miss you, Mr. Caterpillar. You were already a swan in my eyes.
Ways to regain a sense of balance
Relieve stress, feel more balanced and resolve creative blocks by being “in the moment”.
Use all your senses to connect with the world.
This lifestyle choice is ably explained by Fiona and Kaspa of the Small stones project.
Here are some of my ideas for being present, relaxed and appreciative of the environment around us:
Make a list – a useful strategy, except in powerpoint presentations.
If you can’t sleep, write down all your thoughts on a notepad next to your bed.
This also helps to improve concentration on a single task.
Artist Hannah Bertram has even has a List Makers Project about how to make lists and the people that create lists.
Take a walk and enjoy the flowers in your neighbourhood, and remember to leave some for others to admire.
Appreciate native plants without picking them, particularly in national parks.
If you desperately need to take a cutting from a geranium, remember to maintain the plant’s architectural poise.
Find an art gallery in your local area, visit your cultural precinct or do some drawing.
Read an old issue of National Geographic instead of a fashion magazine.
Feel the quality of the paper and enjoy the beauty of the photographs.
Update your keyboard. The new keys will have a luscious grippy texture and make typing feel exciting again.
The impact of this may seem exaggerated, but it’s similar to music improving everyday activities.
ABC Classic FM had an excellent “Ironing is wonderful” promotion which illustrated this concept.
Duncan Macleod has written a lovely summary of the chores-music advertising.
Remember to recycle your old keyboard, or give it to a friend in a bundle with some homemade biscuits.
That way they won’t feel too sad about having a non-grippy textured keyboard (or they can fill the key valleys with crumbs).
Notice more birds in everyday life.
Donald and Molly Trounson have written a comprehensive and fully illustrated guide for bird observation and education.
It is Australian birds: an index of 864 photographs simply classified for easy identification.
The wrens’ brilliant blues really jumped off the page, but the colour seems less astounding in a reproduction of a reproduction.
Check for a copy of Australian birds at a library near you.
Or listen to the birdcalls from the Australian National Wildlife Collection.
Use satin pillowcases and change your bedlinen for a more restful sleep.
Make another list …if that will help.
TEDxCanberra, sustainable living & food
Thanks for visiting! An art practice sits within general life experience, so sometimes I will write about things which may not be explicitly art-related but might be conjuring up a body of work or some new ways of thinking.
TEDxCanberra 2011 was over a month ago, but it still continues to inspire me – idea digestion takes a while! I’ll also justify this by noting that these events are meant to be a wake up call, so a delay is inevitable as ideas are put into practice.
I was lucky enough to attend TEDxCanberra 2011 through a complimentary ticket from my workplace.
I really enjoyed Nick Ritar’s talk about living sustainably – and from this, I have embraced permaculture in a small way by answering nature’s call in our garden a few times, but I will need to find a more long-term solution.
Especially as we have recently removed the privacy-enhancing Diosma shrub from our yard.
Nick spoke about the importance of growing our own food, and there are lots of ways to learn more – naturally from your library, which supports your community and encourages sustainable resource-sharing.
Blatant book name-dropping (book-dropping?)
Clive Blazely says that:
“Growing your own vegetables is the single most important step to a sustainable, healthy life. When vegetables are grown at home they are fresh and free of chemicals, eliminating food miles and cutting CO2 emissions by up to 30%. It takes a few hours of work a week. In just 40 square metres you can grow 472kg of vegetables which is enough for four people.”
From Growing your own heirloom vegetables: bringing CO₂ down to earth, p. 24. You can find out more about the Diggers Club here.
Feasting on Floriade’s “Tasteful Sensations”
Recently Floriade – a festival of flowers – was held in Canberra, with a “Tasteful sensations” display showcasing the beauty of bush tucker, herbs and vegetables. In the Floriade picture below, my culinary ignorance asserts itself as I can only identify parsley and perhaps rhubarb. A beautiful garden and knowledge of plants are definitely only aspirations at this stage!
Australian bushfood cuisine
As well as growing our own food, we can minimise the environmental impact of our food choices by looking at sustainable, local Australian cuisine.
Vic Cherikoff’s book Uniquely Australian: a wild food cookbook: the beginnings of an Australian bushfood cuisine is very readable with lots of glossy, lust-worthy food pron pictures.
In his book, Vic discusses the possibilities of using eucalypt, desert wattles and desert oak saps as natural sweeteners. These could really change the landscape of the sugar and artificial sweetener industry, as we have seen with xylitol and stevia.
You can find out more about Vic and his Australian recipes here.
You may also be interested to read The urban homestead: your guide to self-sufficient living in the heart of the city which has very easy step-by-step instructions and down to earth advice about reducing your footprint. You can see Kelly and Eric’s blog here or follow them at @rootsimple
Back to the source of inspiration – you can find out more about Nick Ritar’s Milkwood Permaculture here or follow him at @Milkwood_Nick
Here is my burgeoning compost heap, resplendent with the TEDxCanberra catering floral decorations. The rest of our yard – for now – is a very successful dirt garden.
Trove note:
The book links above will lead you to Trove, which is an Australia-wide discovery service – a catalogue for many libraries. To find a book in your local area, from the individual Trove book record, click on the “All libraries” tab and then the relevant state/territory tab. Click on the library name to go to that library’s catalogue. See the Trove help for more information.
Happy reading and gardening!