it was certainly a day

So it has been a weird couple of weeks in the sense that firstly I stopped my long association with Duolingo, and that feels like a bit of a loss, and also the Little Dum Dum Club, which is a podcast I've been listening to for over a decade now, perhaps a slightly guilty pleasure and tbh also not always a pleasure, ended, suddenly and without warning (another tbh: I had been considering possibly it was time for me to stop listening, because I felt either it was losing its mojo or I was losing the mojo to listen to it). So... things which anchored me, are a little bit absent. 

Today I went to the SLV to look at some stuff I'd ordered. I am doing a conference paper about Island City, which was proposed to be built off the coast of South Melbourne for a brief period of time, then axed in an instant once the plans were released (February 1974). I was looking into some of the conservationist/activist groups around at that time and I checked this out. 

I do recall the controversy around the building of the Newport Power Station, which is of course a very real thing today and just sitting there on the banks of the Yarra not greatly upsetting anyone anymore. This publication, amongst other things, raises the case that I well remember for the 'heat bubble', the upshot of which seemed to me then and still seems this way now, to have been a warning to the comfortable and smug eastern suburbanites not to get too 'it's out of sight, should also be out of mind' about this structure because it was going to pollute the east. I don't really know if this happened. 

This: 

is a cool diagram someone spent a lot of time on in the mid-70s, and they published it in this newsletter:

I love the idea that there was a publication called Beach Use. The above is as glossy as it got (with the printed, um, letterhead? of the first page, and the rest I guess roneo'd or something. Anyway, pretty cool. 

Speaking of beach use, I saw a bit of Jacinta Allen promo today that talked about a young-ish man who was walking the length of all of Melbourne's 600km of railway to raise money for cancer research (I think), and it mentioned he walked to Stony Point from, I assume, central Melbourne and I thought well I wonder how long that would take. So I looked it up on mapsonmyphone and got this: 

Yes, according to mapsonmyphone the only way to walk to Stony Point from the CBD is via Phillip Island. Does that make sense to you? I wanted to set it to go via Hastings (for instance) but it wouldn't countenance that as a possibility. Anyway it's nonsense but there you go. 

Other things that happened today - I went shopping for my mother, who has covid (she feels fine). I had work meetings and listened to an interview with Sam Prekop, who I like, and also Marc Maron's interview with Elizabeth Olsen, which was a very enjoyable listen, actually. I also did admin and tied up some loose ends on a new book chapter that's coming out soon. 

So, it was certainly a day. 

not remembering things

Who knows what I do and don't remember. I was sitting here and remembered that I had done an emergency fill on RRR on Monday for the show Local and/or General. I put a lot of work into that - I mean as much as one could between agreeing to do it at around 5pm and actually doing it at 8 - and made it work I think. Then by the next day I had completely forgotten about it, at least, had anyone reminded me I would have had no problem recalling it, I just put it out of my mind entirely and did not reflect on it. I remember that doing the program, my voice was quite husky and last night I think Laura mentioned this, and I agreed because I recalled having slight trouble with it, but I didn't go to the place, in my memory, where this happened. This morning in a meeting I was talking to a colleague who had recently had covid whose voice was a bit croaky and recounted my own recent issues with same, but couldn't remember when it had happened, but didn't strain myself too much over trying to recall the details. It is only now, sitting on the couch two days after the original voice-losing program, that I am putting it all together and also, recalling that I put a lot into that program, and then completely forgot about it almost immediately. Isn't that odd. 

I have an appointment tomorrow morning that I had completely forgotten for some days until I was reading a New Yorker article in which someone with the same name as the person I had the appointment with was mentioned, and with a start I suddenly had to try piecing together the details of when that appointment was. It's at 11:30 tomorrow. So I don't think I'll forget that but who really knows.

I have a long list of things to do this week. Of course not all of them are getting done but some are perilously close, and others are absolutely completed. That feels good, to strike stuff off the list. The most satisfying was giving both the cats flea treatment. Nancy absolutely despises it (whether it actually causes a physical sensation to have that apparently quite toxic fluid on her skin I am not sure. She might just hate the noise of it. I don't know) but Helmi, who up until now has been completely agnostic about it, has suddenly also come to fear and hate being treated for fleas and worms. 

This is what I played on Monday night. 'A' stands for 'Australian' and 'L' for local. 

Blue Divers - Kitchen Light On (A)

Lucy Roleff and Lehmann B. Smith - Offering/ Not for Long (A/L)

Mess Esque - Sweet Spot (A/L)

Julia Jacklin - Lydia Wears as Cross (A/L)

Punko - Painted by the Moon (A)

Blueprints - Spring Prep (A/L)

Eggy - FIll in the Blanks (A/L)

Diana Ross feat. Tame Impala - Turn up the Sunshine (A)

Ron Peno and the Superstitions - Just a Little (A/L)

The Sports - Reckless (A/L)

Doroth - Take it Easier (A/L)

Shrapnel - Son of Choice / Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory (A)

Modal Melodies - Disco Hotel (A/L)

Frollen Music LIbrary - Heart of a Crab (A/L)

Ancient Air - Always Begun Again (A/L)

Tenements - Kitchen Sink (A/L)

The Stroppies - Caveats (A/L)

Summer Flake - You're a Star (A/L)

Eggy - Magic 8 Ball (A/L)

Some things I saw today: