camberwell market

Nothing much to say about it actually. The last picture is of the only thing I bought. It was $2 and George Formby is an interesting figure. I just read about him on wikipedia and I am really worried about this line: 'George Formby was born George Hoy Booth in Wigan, Lancashire, on 26 May 1904. He was the eldest of seven surviving children born to James Lawler Booth and his wife Eliza, née Hoy, although this marriage was bigamous because Booth was still married to his first wife, Martha Maria Salter, a twenty-year-old music hall performer.' I really feel like there is something stunningly wrong with those sentences, but I don't trust myself today to identify a major error. Anyway. 

I did identify this error: at the record stall above (second picture) they had a copy of this record: 

They'd put a post-it note on the album saying it was rare, $95, and was by 'Toy Mahal'. Hey, I know that is what that looks like up there, and sure maybe they'd never heard of the actual Taj Mahal, but how did they look it up to find out who it was by, and not realise that it was by Taj Mahal not Toy Mahal? It was bad enough to be mansplained about some Beatles Let It Be era bootleg by some dufus, then this (oh and also another stall was playing a Kiss greatest hits tape, which reminded me, what is it with Kiss? What redeemable features did they have? I suspect none). 

I actually really like Camberwell Market, actually I really do. Also, it's not like I had a bad time or anything. It's just, you know, sometimes things get to me.
 

the early 70s was all juxtaposition

October 1970, everyone had their arms out in the air, from Barbra to, um, whoever that is on the left, to Thumbelina. This is from the Springfield Leader and Press 11 October 1970. Don't ask me to explain any more please. I can't talk now. 

'You've already said too much'

what a week

 

It really was a huge week, with not exactly three new lectures to deliver but let's say the equivalent of two (split one in half to make two, and add about 30% of new material into a 2-hour one, but make them all more or less make sense). 

During the week one of my phd students asked about lecturing, I think the train of thought came from nervousness about public speaking. I had never really thought about it too much (however much is too much) but in responding I framed it as a kind of performance - which it obviously is - though as I said then, it's not performance of the type of 'this is my life, reject it and you reject me', like a play or a monologue. So in my lecture this afternoon for instance one student just got up and walked out, which was interesting, but for all I know he had diarrhoea, it's better that he left in that case. There used to be an interesting toilet under that particular lecture theatre, I don't know what's there now. 

Above is an image related to about the only really interesting thing I did this week, some brief time in the Public Records Office looking at material relating to Churchill aka Hazelwood. Lots of fun plans and memos. I wish I could have spent more time doing that. But you know. Not possible. 

At least now it's Easter, which is boring, but also, opportunity to relax a little for a short time anyway. I'm nearly 59. 

saturday walk

On Saturday Joni, Perry and I went for a walk in the Gresswell Conservation Reserve not looking for anything much aside from to find out what was there. Guess what! Nature. Also, as above, a large concrete (1912) tank designed apparently by John Monash. Classy. There is very little evidence otherwise of what used to be there:

...and additionally, there have been quite a few new streets built in amongst what is now apparently regenerated bushland (I have no idea what it was like 60 years ago when the various hospitals/sanitoria were there). 

The kangaroos (yes there are two) in the first picture were just near the corner of Bendoran and Coronation on the left of the map, probably close to the dotted line. Otherwise I'm super confused about where anything is relative to the above 1966 map.

nation 58-9

As you saw I was dabbling with late period Nation (just before it merged with the Sunday Review to become Nation Review, a whole different social upheaval of a publication) and I liked it so much I decided to go for the full epic sweep, so I got the first volume. 

In some ways, plus ça change - it looks the same (except by the early 70s they had almost completely dispensed with illustrations; the late 50s had small fairly generic pen sketches breaking up the text) and I think that though it was a bold venture in the late 50s - potshots at Menzies, Bolte et al - by the early 70s it really had the courage of its convictions. 

The 'Adelaide hanging' coverline above is part of the Nation's tenacious continued reportage on the case of Rupert Max Stuart who you may know was convicted of killing a small child in Ceduna in the late 1950s and almost hanged for it but the case became a national concern largely because it seems fairly apparent that he didn't do it, or at least, the confession the police said he made was written in such a way that it's almost impossible that he confessed, and that was the sum total of the case. You can read about more than you would ever want to read about it, in this badly written wikipedia entry. Do I need to say that, while obviously Stuart should not have been prosecuted for this crime, much less sentenced, no-one ever talks about the poor child who died? Anyway...

Nation in 1958-9 offers me personally less than the seventies volume but I am going to persist through the sixties and, I suspect, learn a massive amount. As it is, I am going to extract quite a bit from these early issues - not least the material on Arthur Warner, who I'm keen to learn more about (this is a good summary but I bet there's dirt). 

Writers in these early issues include Ken Inglis who is always good (and was a major contributor to the Stuart case material) and Bernard Hesling, who wrote the Bee Miles article in the issue above. Hesling is good on detail but his style is a kind of fast-paced light approach which hasn't aged well - he seems too damn flippant for anything. Still, Bee (I always thought it was Bea, what do I know) Miles introduced him to the Griffins at Pakies - that's more than I could ever say about my life.  

commute

 

I've had some commutes in my life, West Brunswick to Warrnambool probably the longest. So North Melbourne to Parkville - you can walk that in less than half an hour - is not a major problem and I am not going to pretend it is. I really just wanted to record though the situation just prior to the opening of the new rail line that goes very close to home for me and very close to work for me too. In the meantime though the traverse between the two during peak hour is a freakin' nightmare's nightmare, in terms of the amazing duration as the bus goes into Elizabeth St with the avowed intention of turning left at Flemington Road but just sits there for tens of minutes as traffic crawls through that ludicrous junction. 

I am going to assume that the new underground is not going to make any impact on that actual crawling traffic, or very little, but I will be able to forget it after this year. Yes, I should really just walk it, that would make more sense, but sometimes - like yesterday for instance, very little sleep and a late lecture - I was a bit of a basket case as they say. I bet 'basket case' is a super offensive term in its original coining. It sounds awful when you start to think about it. Don't think about it. 

weekend

I just get so tired. I have been extremely exhausted on weekends recently. But it might be because of the heatwaves. 

So, see below. Do you think this is fair? Do you think there is a big difference between 'all the coffee is gone' and 'the coffee is all gone'? I don't. I feel like I translated this perfectly adequately. 

Incidentally, the coffee was almost all gone. Woolworths has a special on 500g packs of the right coffee, ground, but they didn't actually have any on the shelves, I've been thrice now. 

This morning just before the sun came up Perry and I walked around Carlton. This is a dark laneway, but lightened by the phone camera. Looks good doesn't it. 

See ya later! 

nation 1971

I couldn’t help myself. As a staff member I am allowed to borrow volumes of magazines and I was looking for a specific issue of New Society in the wrong place and instead came across what I think is the full run of Nation. You know how some people are addicted to porn or Minecraft? I am addicted to things like this. 

Fucking Nation had everything in the early 70s. Bob Ellis working out his future screenwriting career in television reviews. John Mant on urban planning. Sue Nichterlein on Graham Little. Wendy Bacon on going to prison for eight days. 

Look it’s a little before my time, but it’s full of people who had a big impact on my first few decades, and I find it fascinating. I even find it fascinating that Nation saw it unremarkable to run a regular report from London via one Russell Lansbury with no apologies – whatever happened in England was as Australian as anything else. 

It gets me thoroughly distracted. A small piece by Katie Martin on a very horrible topic sent me down a massive rabbit hole. It is called ‘A ten-dollar look’ and it’s about the towing service which took possession of the car in which Ronald Biggs’ oldest son, Nicholas, died. Biggs had escaped the country by this time but his wife Charmain (who soon after changed her name to Brent) was still in Melbourne (and would remain so until her death just under ten years ago). She crashed her car in Kilsyth. Reporters were charged ten dollars to view the car, I don’t even want to relay what was in it, and it’s 53 years later. I had never really thought about the Biggses living in Melbourne, but they did, for a few years, under the name Cook. They lived at 54 Hibiscus Road Blackburn North (yes, the house is still there and yes, of course I am going to go and look at it). So, rabbit hole for Charmain Brent and fascination about what she studied when she went to university later in life – looks like an arts degree. Fascination also about Katie Martin, who is not the Katie Martin who currently writes for the Financial Review or if she is she’s very well-preserved for a seventy-something-or-older-year-old. 

The letters pages are amazeballs. Clement Semmler in defence of seat belts (he and another correspondent, Bill Purves, reacting to an anti-seatbelt letter from one Roger Page). An ongoing debate – for months – about phonetic spelling, mainly between D. L. Humphries of East Kew and Harry Lindgren of Narrabundah (with a few interjectors such as Daryl Haslam of Mt. Waverley).  

Ellis’ television reviews are extraordinary. In the 6 February issue he writes about four new Australian programs shown in one night on Channel 7: The Group, which sounds like a forerunner to the notorious shambles The Unisexers* and featuring amongst others ‘oh yum Wendy Hughes, bosomy, breathy, ravishingly virginal, the dumb blonde of every man’s dreams’.** It  was followed by a show called Catwalk which sounds extraordinary, in Ellis’ description a kind of glam soap opera the Americans claimed as their own 15 years later. ‘The idea that such adult content on Australian television is now a commercial proposition,’ says Ellis, ‘still has me quaking with pleasure.’ He has few good things to say about the next show, The Shockers, so I’ll pass over that, but the final of the four, E-Force One, sounds extraordinary – ‘a small band of dedicated men fighting to save our natural environment.’  Ellis describes it very amusingly and the fact that one of the characters, played apparently by Neva Carr Glyn (though this might be a joke or a mistake, as he also says she plays ‘the landlord’s swinging old mum’ in The Group) is called Elsie Meatsfoot. This is criticism at its finest IMO: ‘Apart from gigantic incompetence, the episode was smug, self-righteous, paranoid and woefully shabby-genteel, behaving as if it had a million-dollar budget in a squalid little studio, and brandishing one of the worst actresses in living memory, and it finally succeeded in doing the impossible, which was giving pollution a good name.’  Two weeks later Ellis is praising Humphries*** and Garland’s Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie to high heaven: ‘If only we are smart enough to try and live up to Barry McKenzie, instead of trying to live him down, crafty enough to absorb him as a part of our national soul, as laudable in his own way as the wild Welshman, the fighting Irishman or the crazy Yank, instead of trying to vomit him out of our national consciousness as if he was some mere incidental dirty dago…’ Gosh. I think we did. 

I’m so sold on this volume of Nation I’m even pleased to see they gave The Female Eunuch to a man to review, I mean, just because it seems so 1971 to do so. What they might not have been expecting (but they ran it over almost 4/5 of a page of the 15 May issue) was Lillian Roxon’s summary of her career including a response to ‘Germain Greer and her double-edged dedication’ (in TFE) which she says ‘changed my life and is she ever proud of herself!’). Roxon was responding to an article by someone called ‘G. J. M.’ in the 17 April edition – ‘Third Floor Only’ – which pondered the state of women in journalism and which, she felt, misrepresented her career. 

OK I’m half way through 1971. Mirka Mora is defending G. R. Lansell from John Reed in the letters page (‘Mr. John Reed forgets that Mr. Lansell who is twenty-eight years, eleven months and a few days, came only by change to dwell on art criticism… Mr. John Reed who is 300 years old and  a few days…’ and McMahon is prime minister. I’ll come back to this. I may or may not bore you with the details.  

* I actually hate it when people write about cultural phenomena/works of art in withering terms when they haven't actually personally experienced them. That's what I'm doing here and I hate it. 

** Hughes was the main character but only in the pilot, after which she was recast. 

*** I dug up my copy of Nation: The Life of an Independent Journal of Opinion 1958-1972, ed. K. S. Inglis 1989 and it says that the two men more responsible for Nation than anyone, T. M. Fitzgerald and George Munster, were introduced by Humphries at 'Lorenzini's, a wine bar and coffee shop in lower Elizabeth Street', presumably in the mid-to-late 1950s. Humphries said to Fitzgerald, 'I want you to meet a friend of mine who's a genius'. (p. 8). 

mrs ely - I

Thanks again to the remarkable research of the person I previously referred to as 'reader Kim', more information has come to light on the person we have come to know as Honore Bowlby-Gledhill or Honore Cecilia Paget if you prefer. Perhaps you prefer a few other of her names, and perhaps you like Mrs. Ely the best, in which case you are roughly as up to speed as Kim and I. 

I said in the post linked above that I had found a vague Australian link - that Honore's grandfather was governor of Queensland. There's a lot more connection than that, I have to tell you. She was here in the late 1930s, and she called herself Mrs. Ely, though what she meant precisely by this I don't know, as it does not seem there was a Mr. Ely (or at least, he wasn't with her, if he existed). 

I will go into greater detail of what I know about her activities as Mrs Ely in due course. In the meantime I just want to mention that I made time today to go to the Public Records Office to investigate the will of Ambrie Martin, a woman who was born in Brunswick in 1913 and died in Prahran in 1997 leaving $120 000 to her one son Peter. What has Ambrie (what an amazingly great name) got to do with anything? Well her husband (another Peter) left her for Mrs Ely in 1938 and while this presumably did not last Ambrie divorced him in 1941 and from what I can tell they did not see each other again, though I can't be sure of that. 

I will go into this more comprehensively soon. Right now I have other things to think about as my electricity has gone off with the dishwasher in mid-cycle so you can imagine how I feel. Not as happy as Ambrie did in 1941 (see below). 

west brunswick this morning

Perry and I racked our brains to figure out where we could go this morning to have a pre-sunrise walk on a 35-something degree day. We decided to go to Brunswick, actually to Holbrook Reserve, but it was too dark and Perry didn't want to walk down the path. I got that. So we just wandered in the area, where we'd been just over two months ago. I went there in 2020 as well but I didn't mention that to Perry, mainly because I don't remember doing it, also, he doesn't understand either English or the Past. 

I kind of like these flats, they're nifty. 

The only people around were cyclists, as I recall. A lot of people had their lights on at home, though, for some inexplicable reason. 

Great looking house. It's one of the ones with inexplicable lights. 

This was us... 

in which I hit a new low on self-obsessed venting

But only a new low for me, I say in my own defence. Anyway, I don't know why I was in this stupid facebook group (yeah, I'll call it stupid now I've been booted out) but it got up my nose that they made a little post about the Magazine single 'Rhythm of Cruelty' and claimed the song was 'penned' by John McGeoch and Barry Adamson. Well, McGeoch and Adamson wrote the music, but Howard Devoto wrote the words. So I felt the need, for no good reason, to point this out. There then ensued an argument between myself and a fellow member who seemed to think I was debating that to 'pen' meant to write/compose; in fact this was how the original anonymous poster reset the terms - that 'pen' meant to write music. I mean this is demonstrably untrue. Anyway, the last person in this exchange, whose name I have scratched out, then went on to tell me (this is cute) to 'F. O.' because I was wrong about the meaning of 'pen', and that everyone knows to 'pen' is to 'write' something. Some more argy ensued accompanied by some bargy and then, as far as I can tell, I was booted out.* Works for me my dudes. 

 *I realised later that I wasn't booted out, it was just fb being glitchy. There was more rancour. The other party has not conceded defeat as of 11/3. I have to not get involved in these idiotic arguments with nobody. 

what do things mean

 There is an article in today's Age about Kew, the suburb, which includes one of those before and after swipe things. You tell me wtf you think this means:

I realise you can't engage with it but you can probably see that the part on the left and the part on the right are of the same two buildings, but on the right they are more in the distance. If they were matched up more closely, I think there would be very little difference, except the person on the left might not be there. The distinction is actually really minor. So what is it meant to indicate? Secondly, what kind of time frame is '1920-1954'? I'll tell you - a meaningless one. Particularly as it pertains to two buildings that have basically barely changed (actually I think that memorial was slightly relocated at some point. If that's what this before&after is supposed to indicate, well, the pictures don't make it clear at all). 

I watched a bit of 2012 Neighbours this morning, it was not that hard to follow. I also watched a bit of 2024 Neighbours and it was really cool to hear all of Paul's crimes over the years - a few of which include actual murder - recounted. I felt the frustration, it seems to me there are a lot of people who just won't listen. About Paul and other things. 

guy pearce he's

In 1991 I was editor and main writer of a terrible magazine called Star. Or perhaps Star! Anyway, this is a layout page with various copy edits, apparently printed out exactly 32 years ago. Sorry no Guy Pearce pics.  I think I have posted a version of this so-called interview (what else would you call it?) previously. I hope you're not allergic to exclamation marks. Or obscenely huge and malformed possessive apostrophes.

This was on the back of that. 

simpsons season 26 ep 5 'opposites a-frack'

I always like to watch a little something with my breakfast and this morning SBS was playing of all things The China Syndrome. I saw this film when it came out, at Hoyts Cinema Centre in late 1979, I was 14. As it happens this was the first time I went to the movies by myself and it was a spontaneous decision made from boredom. There was a little consternation about this at home when I came back from the city but, you know, no-one had asked me when I would be back and no-one had ever told me not to see a film by myself (these are the trials of the eldest child). 

Seeing a little bit of The China Syndrome on TV is not in itself noteworthy but amazingly I then had some morning tea and returned to the TV and watched the second half of 'Opposites A-Frack', which I had almost given up on as uninspiring, if not depressing. I am so glad I didn't. 

Spoiling the ending: Something I failed to notice until today about these season 20something Simpsons is that even though I don't hate them and think the harsh criticisms of them are misjudged - i.e. it's still a pretty good show - I don't laugh at them, either. Well, I kind of hate myself for finding this so funny and believe me, this is not a reflection of my life, honestly, but the final scene (continued over the credits!) of Mr. Burns sitting up in bed with Maxine Lombard, the 'liberal' 'assemblywoman' (that's a word?!) who challenges his every view. The big point of most of the story is that they are opposed on everything but they are instantly sexually attracted to each other and celebrate in many ways their intense passion. However, the end just has them looking at emails, ads on their tablets and making half-aware conversation with each other. I'm sorry but it's very, very funny.

I think this is 'there's a sale at the garden furniture store' (yep, that first word means 'in a garden furniture store'. 

Here Mr Burns is complaining about how most cars these days are black or grey and that it's rare to see a red one. 

Seriously, I laughed and laughed, and I don't do that much at anything really (usually it's at something Laura says certainly never on my own at the television). 

Anyway. the other amazing thing was this: Maxine Lombard is played by Jane Fonda!!!

pinecone

That old joke/cliche about you buy your kids an expensive present and they play with the box. Well, Perry has a hankering for pinecones which I guess makes sense for a creature who is not that food motivated but still compelled to do the things puppies/young dogs/dogs generally do, which is destroy something they can easily manipulate. It's all about texture I guess. 

Yesterday we went to Eaglemont and Preston, I might treat you to some pictures from that trip later, although really it was fieldwork for work so there was a lot less quirk. As you can imagine, less quirk than the usually fairly quirkless pictures series I typically post is pretty nonquirk. I will say this: Perry was very well behaved. There's light at the end of the tunnel. He certainly deserves to decimate this pinecone, which he picked up in Eaglemont yesterday. 

travancore walk

Today I was completely exhausted, it has been a big week - one of those weeks where you don't even really realise how big it's been until you get through it and you're like wow. So anyway Perry and I took a shortish walk through Travancore this evening. 

The Travancore estate came into being in the mid-1920s as a 'model garden subdivision' (usual nonsense from real estate agents) which means that much of it was built at roughly the same time and many of the houses are pretty spesh. I'm starting here with a couple of oddities though that I can't quite get a handle on vis-a-vis their integrity:

This impressive window above, look I'd have to say that if I was on a game show with Eddie McGuire prompting me to answer whether this huge window was original or installed in 1978, I'd probably ultimately say it's original although it's also quite possible that it's an old window from somewhere else that has been stuck on the front of this house. The overall effect is really pleasing though. 

Then there's this one. Geez. I think it's probably original. But It might also have been constructed in 1981. The glass bricks really confuse. Ok onto some just inarguably nice things...

Really nice porch. 

Fab 

How could you not. 

I totally admire this, to the point that I want to come back one morning when the sun is shining on its face rather than behind it, so I can really, you know, really see it. 

This is sumptuous. This made me think that rather than get Lachlan to make a deck in my courtyard, I should just grow every freakin' plant I can. 

I mean sure, it's possible someone died in there 14 years ago. But it's still marvellous out here. 

Great looking block of flats (obviously not from 1925). The upstairs would have quite a view, the downstairs a view of a wooden fence and a driveway to a carpark. That's what the tenant in the middle picture is enjoying observing. 

 Wouldn't it be funnier if she said 'I gotta go shoe shopping... I mean shoes shopping.'? 

I mean she's Michelle Wolf and I am just a fan so what do I know. I just thought that might be funnier.