Contacting me
You can contact me by email at: mg@myglamorousaunt.com
Post #119 Saturday 2 November 2019 – Banksy
Letters from America
Saturday 2 November 2019
I went to the Banksy exhibition at the Entertainment Quarter. If you go, it’s better not to buy tickets online – they are a much better price at the door. Also, to avoid walking around looking for the exhibition hall, go straight to the end of the main entrance road off Lang Road (I walked all around the place before I figured it out :-)).
Even though the Banksy images are such well known street art there was nothing “old” about the look of the show – mostly original stencils and various prints. Here are some of the street images from Google:
The organiser of the exhibition was manager/accomplice to Banksy for many years, Steve Lazarides. Banksy himself is still unidentified.
One of the best things about the exhibition was the use of videos – streaming on loop around the hall between the exhibits. They told the story of the extraordinary rise of the guerilla grafitti artist with his witty, anti-consumerist themes. It was a very well done story and made the exhibition a really coherent experience.
There was film called “Exit Through the Gift Shop” mentioned in some of the commentary of the exhibition, a film I’d never heard of. In the evening when I was home I looked it up and found a copy on youtube to watch.
The film was an extended commentary on the consumerist art market hype that Banksy parodies (and was itself a clever hoax). It started out purporting to be a documentary on Banksy, being made by a dotty French American amateur photographer/film maker. This character had, according to the film, doggedly followed Banksy for years on his secret missions trespassing at night to plaster his distinctive stencil posters and do his grafitti on buildings and signs all round the UK and both sides of the US. When it becomes apparent about half way through the film, that the quality of the documentary is hopeless, Banksy enters stage left (appearing simply as a dark hooded figure – no face – being interviewed) and persuades the film maker to become the subject of the narrative. So he does, and somehow sets about to transform himself into a grafitti and print artist (like Banksy) with a huge output (none of it displaying any talent or skill whatsoever). The reconfigured “documentary” then follows the film maker’s hugely successful first exhibition in Los Angeles (playing to the cynical undiscriminating art market hungry for the next “thing”). It’s done with a light enough touch though, to make it excellent fun to watch.
Here is a link to the film if you’d like to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHJBdDSTbLw
It reminded me of a documentary (but not a parody “documentary” at all), about Andy Warhol’s protegee, David Basquiat, who perished very young, apparently a victim of his own success. From the wrong side of the tracks, with no training, he suffered trying to cope with the hype of his spectacular conquest of the contemporary art market at a very young age. His tragic fate perhaps an outcome, at least in part, of the social realities that are the focus of Banksy’s work. Here are some images of Basquiat’s pictures – in a heavily worked totemic grafitti style.
And here is a link to the documentary film about Basquiat, which turned up in my internet searches when I was getting these images of his paintings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6ibOFlSM6o I think the film features (the real) Andy Warhol and (the real) David Bowie.
xx MG
Post #118 Monday 28 October 2019 – more on the Whitsundays
Letters from America
Monday 28 October 2019
Following on from my earlier post about adventures in the Whitsundays, I wanted to add another image. These are the Norfolk Island pines, with their very distinctive geometry, everywhere on the Whitsunday islands. This is the ridge of the cove at Refuge Bay where we anchored overnight.
I managed to find an internet link which gives the back story to how the pines came to be here. I had some ancient recollection they were not native. https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A7952664
So it was Captain Cook who brought the seeds of the pines to northern Australia wishfully supposing they might provide timber suitable for masts.
I have always found it hard to be on the water in the Pacific and not think of Captain Cook, Joseph Banks and all the great naturalists. For quite a while one of my favourite non fiction books was a book called “Darwin’s Armada” by Iain McCalman. It’s an account of the great sailing voyages of Darwin’s peers. It’s absolutely compelling reading (if that’s your kind of thing). It’s ages since I read it but one of the passages that still stays with me vividly is an account of how the Pacific peoples must have experienced navigating, with only the simplest instruments and no charts – what resources, skills and understanding of the sea they must have had.
But then I am very partial to all things Charles Darwin (and his milieu). The Voyage of the Beagle is so engaging. Here is a favourite passage in which Darwin describes interactions with wild llamas.
xx MG
Post #116 Monday 19 August 2019 – A new coat
Letters from America
Monday 19 August 2019
I posted this selfie on Twitter last week. This is my new coat. I had to concede my favourite old pale trench coat was finished. Such a lovely, quality thing I bought in Double Bay ages ago, I had finally worn it out.
All this sentiment reminded me of the improbable scene in La Boheme where the old coat gets serenaded before being pawned to buy medicines for the rapidly declining Mimi, who is flushed with TB.
Caruso’s version of the song – The Coat Song:
It’s a little while since I went to the opera. But it’s a much longer while since I bought student rush tickets for $5. In those days the opera theatre was often half empty. The audience always included elegant Hungarian women in mothball furs though. It’s great the opera is so popular now but it’s so sad the days of student rush are over. Those heavily discounted tickets gave impoverished students the incredible privilege of going to the opera several times a week when the season was on – what a life!
xx MG
Post #113 Sunday 23 June 2019 – Pretty Balmoral
Letters from America
Sunday 23 June 2019
The lovely thing about Sydney, well there are many but this is also one of them, is that even when it is overcast it can be very pretty.
I was at Mosman last week during the week, a bit of an event because I don’t go over the Bridge so much these days. Afterward I dropped down from the steep ridge that Military Road follows, to the pretty harbour beach, Balmoral (surf beach for the under threes). I had a nostalgic and quality fish and chips from the Bottom of the Harbour fish and chip shop, which I think has been there about 20 years, loyally taking cash only and reminding some of us of scandalous tax avoidance schemes from the days of when…
It was an overcast day. A steady number of citizens walked their dogs along the foreshore. I have always liked the somewhat art deco style of the concrete foreshore walkway, complemented by the little bridge across the isthmus which you can just see at the end of the beach here in one of my afternoon snaps.
MG xx
Both sides of the Bridge
Post #109 Thursday 14 March 2019 – Aquijo
Letters from America
Thursday 14 March 2019
This week I could see from my balcony the tops of two incredibly tall masts rising up out Sydney Cove. I couldn’t see what they belonged to so walked down yesterday to have a look. Coming round the West facing edge of Mrs Macquarie’s chair, looking out across the current Opera on the Harbour set for West Side Story, was an enormous ketch. I took a snap, including the dinghy in the foreground on the left for scale.
I searched the web when I got home for “maxi cruising ketch”. After a bit of clicking around I discovered that this is Aquijo, the largest ketch in the world at 85 metres. She is currently cruising the South Pacific and was most recently visiting New Zealand. Her masts and rigging were designed in New Zealand and she was built in the Netherlands in 2016.
I don’t want to be boorish about boats, but this was pretty special.
A couple of links:
https://www.yachtingworld.com/extraordinary-boats/aquijo-10478 https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/central-leader/107444289/one-of-the-largest-sailing-superyachts-docks-in-auckland–and-for-800k-you-can-charter-itxx MG
Post #108 Sunday 3 March 2019 – Neighbourhood charm
Letters from America
Sunday 3 March 2019
At the end of Victoria Street, where the road ends and becomes a paved pathway a little lane way joins up with the path. It’s a dead end that meets the last apartment blocks on St Neot’s Avenue (which you can get to only by sandstone stairway). It’s a charming part of the Potts Point neighbourhood. A local wit has added some cats to the traffic sign in the lane way.
And this is a view of the lane way with the sign in place (well it’s a bit obscured in the hedge), looking across to the City. It’s not the best photo of all time but it’s still a lovely evening outlook.
MG xx
Post #103 Sunday 18 November 2018 – Signs of Summer
Letters from America
Sunday 18 November 2018
There is a gecko that lives somewhere on the south side of my balcony. It must hibernate over winter. Come October November evenings I can hear it start to make the little series of chk chk chk chk sounds that are so reminiscent of warm happy times. It still amazes me that the gecko comes every year twelve floors up to my highrise home.
Another favourite sign of summer is the appearance of great quantities of mangoes at the local shops – flavour, fragrance and texture are all summer.
xx MG
Post #77 – Saturday 10 March 2018 – Detroit
Letters from America
Saturday 10 March 2018
Recently I made a new friend who is an Australian living and working in the US. We talked about America and he asked me where I had visited. One of the places was Detroit where I visited for work quite a few years ago now. My new friend immediately asked whether I knew Shinola watches (which I didn’t). Shinola is all about the best in Detroit’s legacy of quality industrial design and processing.
I later spent time enjoying the Shinola website. I really appreciated learning about this venture. Here is a fine example of what they are about:
And here is a version for women that I like:
When I visited about 10 years ago Detroit it felt a city with a great past and great past wealth. The most striking thing first up was the miles of abandoned houses in what must have once been affluent suburbs. It was the closest thing to a culture shock I have experienced, just for a few moments, in the Anglo world.
When I first visited Detroit I had just finished reading a novel called Middlesex by Michael Eugenides which was set in part in Detroit, including Detroit during the civil unrest and race riots in 1967.
So when I arrived my conception of what had happened in Detroit was a work of my imagination based on this novel. And as I was driven from the airport into the centre of the city through these abandoned suburbs I could not believe what I saw. Street after street of empty boarded up overgrown and burnt out houses – a living testament to a disruptive modern historical event, a bombed out war zone that the survivors had never rebuilt, but had just been abandoned there for 40 years. And the houses were clearly houses that had formerly been grand. There was an established well heeled life that went with these streets, and it was visibly wiped out. It was just inconceivable to me that this could be part of a modern peace time consumer city culture.
I searched the internet and found photos of the once splendid houses in those abandoned suburbs. The photos I have included here show the houses all overgrown with green. This is what it looked like to me because I visited in summer.
I recently saw a 2017 film by director Kathryn Bigelow simply called Detroit. It deals with a key incident that occurred during the race riots of 1967 and is quite a harrowing watch. I had heard about this film long before I saw it, in a radio documentary about the process of depicting living history. The documentary had remarkable interview material from people who had lived through the violence 50 years before.
Detroit already had problems by the time of the unrest in 1967 – the chief being declining manufacturing sector and car industry.
Sadly the GFC brought more disruption to the political geography of Detroit when the collapse of mortgage securities enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw more houses abandoned in outer suburbs, with owners forced to walk away (literally) from their untenably financed houses.
But there is often talk of rebuilding Detroit – with high tech, the film industry and similar ventures. First stop Shinola watches. Thanks to my new friend for telling me about them.
MG xx
Post #66 Sunday 17 December 2017 – The Little Prince, complex love and the rose
Letters from America
Sunday 17 December 2017
I have just come home from my December visit to Canberra, just in time to send out this week’s Letter from America.
It was a great visit. The weather was pure Canberra summer, all hard blue sky although we had a huge thunder storm in the middle of the second night. I had an unexpected pleasure from the profusely flowering roses planted right under the balcony of the hotel room. With the intense heat during the day and the long afternoon, by early evening the scent of the roses coming up into the room was very strong – a lovely evocative perfume which took me by surprise. Here is a photo taken by me looking down over the balcony straight onto one of the culprits:
This beautiful flower reminded me of an unforgettable book that is treated as a children’s book (which plainly it is not), Antoine Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince.
Here is a link to Chapter 8 of the book which concerns the Little Prince’s relationship with the rose. It is a tale of complex love and painful awakening to the meaning of things. I highly recommend looking at it and the author’s charming drawings. The chapter is quite short perhaps 300 words, and, as I said before, unforgettable.
http://papermine.com/pub/2005#article/34735
“The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her . . . I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her . . .”
MG
xx
never complacent in love