Letters from America These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a ♦ mature Sydney escort ♦
Monday 6 April 2020
There were a couple of other photos from the forest adventure, so I am posting them as well. Next we might do flowers in field, swimming in the river… various bucolic pursuits.
Hair flick in the forest, and not a lot else
Looking back
Looking down
Yes, now I can see Norman Lindsay’s forest nudes in these pictures too, thank you Mr Moss for pointing that out 🙂
Norman Lindsay sculpture at Faulconbridge
Also PS I owe an apology to subscribers to the Letters from America. I have had some issues with my MG email account. I hope to sort them soon and get back to emailing again.
Letters from America These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a ♦ mature Sydney escort ♦
Sunday 2 February 2020
I was whisked away for an impromptu break earlier last week. It was perfect weather.
I did absolutely nothing but surf, swim, lie around in soft white sheets, drink Campari and soda, and so on :-). My hair ended up a sandy dry wreck – a small sacrifice.
I tried out these retro swimmers, which I bought a couple of weeks ago on impulse from an online shop. (I spent so much time after Christmas monitoring the district Facebook groups and the bushfire sites, the targeted online advertising machine finally caught up with me and kept offering me swimmers. I relented.) Then I went and got a bit sunburnt.
I wonder where all those extra spicy kilos from 2019 went lol.
Letters from America These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a ♦ mature Sydney escort ♦
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:
flower violence
art for the burbs
a trusty Council contractor
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.
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.
Letters from America These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a ♦ mature Sydney escort ♦
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.
Scientific method: “…if a person lies on the ground and plays strange antics, such as throwing up his feet in the air…”
Letters from America These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a ♦ mature Sydney escort ♦
Saturday 26 October 2019
I am back from lovely holidays sailing with friends in the Whitsundays. I have an excellent tan to show for it. I actually didn’t want to come back. The South African guy at the charter yacht company was no help either, just suggested I read the book with the self explanatory title “Sell up and Sail”.
This was the outlook when anchored overnight in a place called Refuge Bay:
In the evening I could hear a slightly mournful bird call. At first it sounded like a dove but it was too insistent. It turned out to be a couple of pheasant coucals calling to one another. (Don’t ask me how I figured it out, it was intuition confirmed by internet searches.)
Here are some images of the bird itself which I borrowed from Google:
Flying … (this type of feet first flying, good for short distances only)
I put this second image in because it has the fence wire for size. I have actually seen these birds and I can warrant they are concurrently large birds and small dinosaurs.
The “sell up and sail” caper is something I like to enjoy vicariously these days by watching youtube channels. My favourite channel is one called Free Range Sailing. It’s a youtube vlog maintained by an Australian couple who are cruising in a very modest yacht, mostly in tropical waters. Apart from the sailing, they do quite a bit of free diving on the reefs, spearfishing and exploring on shore. Pascal is a very good and resourceful cook. She also seems to be the creative lead in making the vlog – which is high quality well edited video. Her partner Troy is an excellent hand at keeping their 30 foot 50 year old yacht on track and in shape. He seems to handle the inevitable breakdowns of gear in good form and has a droll sense of humour. They are of course, “free range” so it all appeals to my tree hugging temperament. You aren’t going to find them zapping around churning up the peace of the natural world on jet skis any time soon. Highly recommend! And here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbU2ulPD3rJ4OZCNH7-gjjQ
Letters from America These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a ♦ mature Sydney escort ♦
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.
So I had a date last week during the week, at Mosman, 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.
Bottom of the Harbour – tax schemes from the past
MG xx Sydney escort who does both sides of the Bridge
Letters from America These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a ♦ mature Sydney escort ♦
Tuesday 18 June 2019
In the course of my recent excursions during May when I was away from work for a couple of weeks, I had the pleasure of going up to the Newcastle Art Gallery for the first time. It was a Saturday early afternoon and the occasion was the opening of a retrospective exhibition of the works of the Australian artist, Virginia Cuppaidge. Virginia was interviewed at the opening, to a very attentive audience. The paintings in the exhibition covered her work over a 40 year career spent in New York. She has recently returned to Australia to live.
Here is a photo of two of her pictures from the 1970’s:
And here is a sculpture made by the Australian Clem Meadmore, with whom she worked for a time in New York. The sculpture is entitled Virginia and lives in the Sculpture Garden at The Australian National Gallery in Canberra.
I became aware of Virginia’s paintings because I was friendly with her mother: author, botanical illustrator, japanophile and horticulturalist, Judy Cuppaidge. Judy and I became friends when Judy was in her 90’s: a more lively and remarkable person you could not hope to meet and, as she said, with her macular degeneration: “blind as welder’s dog.”
I’ve been planning to make a recording of one of Judy’s short stories, so you know what I sound like before we meet.
Letters from America These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a ♦ mature Sydney escort ♦
Saturday 9 June 2019
It has been a busy time in May with various excursions and some enforced leave. I have been in the country some of the time and it has been exceptionally pretty, though progress with development has been very s l o w.
Even though it has been very dry, I have been there just after rain a couple of times and managed to get some lovely images, when the earth is all shining and luminous.
Letters from America These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦
Sunday 10 February 2019
You have not heard from me over summer, so it’s a long overdue greeting for the New Year.
As some of you know I had some bad experiences last year with a stalker and it has taken the shine off my happy escort life. During this last couple of months I have been doing another job in addition to escorting, so I haven’t been posting and I have reduced the hours I am available. The new scheduling arrangement will continue for the future. I will post my availability for each coming week by Sunday evening on the front page of the website (please text me if you don’t see it, I might be running late).
It was a very dry period leading up to Christmas and the wildflowers on the country block were very few this year. In past years there has been a profusion of colour and variety but this year it was all very subdued. I did see one wildflower that I haven’t seen before though. Although it was quite common looking – simple structure, bright yellow – I am pretty sure it was a new sighting for me.
Here it is:
The natural world managed to be beautiful in the city too. There was a very small, perfectly formed pale green moth on the window sill at Potts Point one morning. Here it is:
And I managed to get a fair amount of snorkelling and diving in over the summer. Be warned this is not a lingerie shot! 🙂 It was taken during a dive on the south side of Botany Bay at a place called The Steps.
Letters from America These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦
Sunday 21 October 2018
I have been busy down in the country building (as always) and exploring. This is a snap taken down by the creek near my place. It was a lovely spring day and I wore my luminous pink gumboots to protect me from the swamp and any snakes. I don’t know if any of you have read Slaughterhouse-Five – or have seen the old movie – but the hero of the story makes a striking entrance emerging from an underground shelter after the bombing of Dresden in virtual rags and an incongruous pair of silver boots (scavenged from somewhere). My glow in the dark pink gumboots always make me think of that scene – they are so dazzling.
I have been busy down in the country building (as always) and exploring. This is a snap taken down by the creek near my place. It was a lovely spring day and I wore my luminous pink gumboots to protect me from the swamp and any snakes. I don’t know if any of you have read Slaughterhouse-Five – or have seen the old movie – but the hero of the story makes a striking entrance emerging from an underground shelter after the bombing of Dresden in virtual rags and an incongruous pair of silver boots (scavenged from somewhere). My glow in the dark pink gumboots always make me think of that scene – they are so dazzling.