techno park yesterday

Perry and I went to Techno Park yesterday. Do you know it? It's a block of buildings near (perhaps technically in) Williamstown which has long combined residential and industrial uses. A few (3 I think) years ago the council tried to force the residents out, and last year it decided no actually they can stay. It's a really interesting model 'going forward' (sorry to use that phrase but at least I put it in inverted commas). 

Now I've been here quite a few times before, but I never previously noticed a direct walkway to the bikepath at the back of it, alongside Kororoit Creek, so that might be new, or it might be, I never noticed it before. What do you think.

And on the actual creek we encountered this long cool drink of water. Or whatever the phrase is. 

dog park yesterday

The dog park is very renovated but still inaccessible. Laura hypothesises that they are growing the grass back. This is probably true but it won't stay grown back for long once they do open the gates. 

altona coastal park yesterday

Fact is, we started a walk in Altona Coastal Park yesterday but decided it was too hot already, it wasn't even 9:30. Saw some more nice birds there, if the birds get exponentially nicer the further you go into the park, mate, you're laughing. 

Going to come back really soon and become one of those man-walking-dog/man-being-dragged-by-dog icons. 

five years ago is still five years ago but not for long

So yes five years ago I was still working on those pictures most of which frankly I am pretty pleased with. There's one I am a bit regretful about but I'll cope. I liked, though I can't really recall the reason for, the toad spawn motif I seemed to use a lot of then. 

Neither of these beautiful boys are with us anymore, sadly. But they had really great lives, no doubt about it. 

the paperback

A few days ago I said I didn't know how old The Paperback was, only that it had remained more or less unchanged (obviously not in terms of stock) since my childhood. Well, I think it dates from the early 70s, and was definitely in existence in 1972. I know that because of this ad, from the 22 April 1972, in the Age, p. 13.

I see being late night was a thing even then. That is late for a shop even now, imagine what it was like in 1972. Its lateness is so important to me that some time in the last year I noticed - either on social media or a sign on the door, I can't remember - that it was going to be closed in the evening for a couple of days, and I felt anxious about that lol. 

five years ago

I genuinely am not self-obsessed, ask anyone, or at least I hide it from myself if I am by finding myself interesting as a phenomenon. But by accident I have a lot of ways to find out what I was doing on any given day in the last, let's say, 9 years because that's how far back my phone photos go, and a little more vaguely twenty years I can refer to this blog and even further back I have appointments diaries that go back to the mid-90s. Ridiculous really, I have no reason to keep those things in particular and will probably chuck them sometime soon.

Anyway I can tell you what I was doing five years ago - I was 'reading' this book, in a language I can't read. 

This was in pursuit of completing the book Community Green, which was published in, um, 2024. I had visited Käpylä, which is a small WWI-era suburb of Tampere, and I went through a lot of hoops to get a copy of this history by an author who was either dead or resistant to being contacted by someone in Australia who only spoke English. But I worked with the information I had. 

I was also in that week reading Peter Blazey's excellent book on Henry Bolte, probably the best political biography published in Australia, at least until Judith Brett came on the scene. 

I suppose I photographed this section of the book because it mentions Bolte's lack of interest in 'the implications of urban development' and the 'country member' joke, of course. No wonder Bolte h-a-t-e-d this book. 

I don't remember exactly when I moved to where I live now, but there are some pictures of the cats from five years ago where the backgrounds suggest that I had recently moved in, certainly it looks massively different and there's furniture etc which I don't even really remember, and certainly isn't around anymore. Here's Nancy looking like a 90s metal video. 

At this time I was also doing the pictures for Shane and Duncan's poetry book. I'm surprised, I thought this was much more than five years ago but there you go. The more or less finished version is here.

Five years ago I guess I was reading Sally Rooney's book before last (?). 

I can't remember why I accepted Tegar's friend request but the friendship didn't last. 

Seems five years ago I was looking at my formative picture books. 

Or at least some picture books I owned, because I completely don't remember this one from childhood:

This one I definitely do

I completely don't recall this but I really feel it could be useful for something. Like maybe some sort of lonely hearts site. Maybe I should tell my friend Tegar. 

75 years ago

What's insane is that I was looking for - and found - something else entirely in the Melbourne Age for 12 October 1951* and I found this, and then realised it's from exactly 75 years ago. Nothing much more to say about it. Probably didn't happen, though. More likely it's a drawing. 

*p. 8