prayers to sweet granny lard for some sanity

I suppose it's Trump that is making me so sick of America. I was listening to Conan O'Brien's podcast which I often do, and he was talking about going to Casablanca and joking about things happening to him that have resonances with the film Casablanca, and no-one else in Casablanca was interested in this. To which one clearly thinks, yeah, why on earth would they be interested in that? Because it's a load of fucking bullshit. It's like that British thing of laughing at people's surnames, like they don't know what their surname is. I guess it's generally a white thing, using the world like it was a filmstrip created to amuse them. 
 

moreibyrnong

This afternoon Perry and I walked a different section of the Maribyrnong, near the Anglers, if that's what it's called, on the west bank. Most of the buildings seem to date from the 1960s. 

This house (below) is super empty. I have never seen a house so empty. 

Fabulous bird.

So this stepped feature looks like it's at the end of the street doesn't it. Well it is. But there is a river inbetween. 

On the way back. 

Very satisfactory overall. Next time I think we will explore the hilly residential part near Highpoint, pretty sure I've never been there. 

1 groom st is a industrial

When was the last time I told you how much I enjoy this building, in Clifton Hill, on the corner of Alexandra Pde E and Groom St? You possibly don't even recall, but I know I've discussed it. I saw it again last week and it was a nice experience. I wonder what it's like inside. the exterior seems to be an amalgam of three or four different walls, but I particularly like the archway. 

I just went searching on various keywords to discover when I actually did last tell you how much I enjoy this building and I couldn't find any evidence. That's a nuisance. I am pretty sure I did some research into it and it had some kind of social significance that wasn't just being a building at the heart of a shoe and boot manufacturing area. 

At this point all I can tell you is the important information from Domain or something similarly stupid that '1 Groom Street, Clifton Hill VIC 3068 is a Industrial, with 3 bedrooms, and 1 bathroom'. 

 

ragnar kjartansson 'mercy'

Laura and I went to see this on Saturday, it closed yesterday. It was really engaging in many ways. I didn't capture the best of it really (in pictures) but I think in my mind I did. 

Inspirational 

speaking of fridges...

Today I had an attack of madness and cleaned behind, on top of, and all around outside my fridge. I clean inside it every few months but I can't remember when I last cleaned outside it. It was kind of disgusting (and you should have seen my nails, though I'm glad you didn't) but it feels really good to have done it. 

I also reordered the fridge magnets and removed almost all of the extraneous cards and bits of paper I had on it. This was it in January this year:

Here it is this evening:

I have so many amazing fridge magnets, I'd forgotten how good they were, many of them. Completely useless items in so many ways. If you're good I'll tell you about some of them. Actually it's probably less important that you are good and more important that I can remember. I've never been to Dreamworld, I know that much. But that one third from the left on the top row is a bizarre fridge magnet in the shape (kind of) of a laptop with Helsinki on it. I did buy that in Helsinki, near the parliament. I'm trying to recall whether I bought the Norway one in Norway or whether I got it for a dollar in an op shop in, you know, Bendigo or something. Either is possible. 

Anyway I am generally not that much in favour of cleaning because usually it just means that things get shabby and dirty again soon and you notice it more readily but at this point I am mildly pleased with myself. 

No books in it.

where is the newmarket book fridge now

What happened to the book fridge at Newmarket station? Fuck, it smelt bad but it was good. Now there's just these bins. I didn't look inside them but I bet they're not book bins. 

 

wet yrnong

It rained a lot the last couple of days so Perry and I thought we'd go down to the part of the Maribyrnong we liked and see how full of water it was, compared to usual. We saw this bird.

He or she is an elegant bird, for sure. 

So this I think is Solomon's Ford (I saw someone somewhere recently misspelt this as Soloman's Ford which is actually funny when you think about it).* 

Yeah, it's pretty full of water, given that under normal circumstances you could actually use most of those submerged rocks as stepping stones. 

On the way back to the car we saw this bird. Not quite as elegant but very loveable. 

* This is the Solo man. He drinks Solo, which is a foul tasting pseudo lemon lolly drink that men are meant to like but let me tell you #notallmen. 

melbourne royal show

This morning I paid a brief visit to this year's Melbourne Royal Show (yes, this didn't properly hit me for a while, it's going to be hard for me to think of it as anything but the Royal Melbourne Show, but whatever). I did my own research via a wikipedia link to a short interview by Raf Epstein about the change, the explanation for which didn't quite make sense but it happened in 2022 and they're sticking with it because it gives them an 'opportunity to grow' lol). 

I went on my own, so, I could do what I wanted, and I did. I looked at quite a bit of craft. 

There is a bit of a general overall obsession with these kinds of cows, I can see it's a thing rn. 

So what you are about to see is one of the most truly amazing pictures you have ever seen, and it will haunt you for the rest of your life, so if you don't want to be haunted by a picture... oops too late

I would buy that if I could. I wonder if that is possible. 

And that's that. Will I go again next year? Not alone, I suspect, so possibly not. 

abbotsford st picture

 

river valley

This afternoon Perry and I did what we always said we were going to do and looked at the housing estate on the other side of the Maribyrnong from where we've been walking lately. It's pretty remarkable really. It's called River Valley. It's remarkably steep. 

This wall is something else. Incredible. I don't know what else to say. There seemed to be music coming out of it, which I think might actually in some weird way have been being projected from the apartments on the street above, but not sure. 

I'm pretty sure that the car you see here was barely able to take the steep hill here. It certainly slowed down a lot but didn't quite roll backwards. 

This is the path that mapsonmyphone suggested we take to get back to the river. However, we got distracted by another option...

...which ended up with us in a weird kind of area that had tracks on it from either a previous or future path. 

When we got back to the river we found this island. 

Then essentially we basically as it were went back to the car and drove home. Perry was pleased with how it all went. 

I'd love to go back another time, I wonder if Perry would like to explore more.