glenroy/broady

Had to go to Broady yesterday for reasons I am not yet ready to share, and went on the train, so took some paths not so travelled lately, it was sort of interesting. 

A couple of benches. The top one is, I suspect, a local handiperson's handiwork, and it's nicely done. The next is I imagine a council construction that some clever clogs has seen fit to burn, presumably on purpose. I mean these are never used, were never used before one of them was made unusable, as far as I know. 

I often have the experience of knowing something's gone but not knowing what it was, so this patch of grass intrigued me not a little because I was very certain that there was once a building of some sort here, but what the hell could it have been? Apart from anything else, clearly (not in the pictures, but in real life) access was very limited. Anyway, here I present my picture of an empty space. 

curation and archiving

So it's one thing to move house, and obviously quite another to totally put everything you own in the right place. I'm really lucky (or canny) because this apartment has a lot of storage space, even not counting the second bathroom which I do not use as a bathroom. But I did of course stash stuff away in places that it didn't necessarily want to be permanently and so this morning I thought I'd address a bit of that. Mainly, all the 7" singles I had in the cupboard, just stacked up willy-nilly (there was also an unexplained handful shoved in a box I unpacked which I then put in the upstairs bookshelf- random). So, with a view to perhaps relocating the cupboard all the 7"s were in, I started pulling them out and going through them. I had actually thought about them in the abstract some time ago in a kind of almost out of sight, almost out of mind kind of way - do I need them? Maybe I don't. The thing is, I could kind of sell them, I guess, but I don't even really need to do that - I suppose I would rather have the money than the space they would take up, yeah. I have some singles that I bought new in the early 80s and have played once or twice. One in particular I came across and remembered that when I bought it from the artist I wrote them a letter saying, I don't regret buying it (which was about the nicest thing I could say) and they responded: that's not a common response (or words to that effect). Anyway, that single is now worth over $100 (discogs says it's worth $125, less their $10 of course. Others have paid more for the same thing). I suppose I don't mind getting that kind of money from someone to be relieved of a record I actually think is kind of shit, but at the same time, I feel bad that someone is so dumb as to think it's worth owning. By the same token, I am obviously that dumb too (now I think about it, had I looked it up on discogs and seen that no-one's ever paid more than 20c for it, then I'd just throw it out like I threw out the really scratched up copy of William Shakespeare's 'My Little Angel', a song by the way I adore, but I have it on at least one LP, maybe more, and don't need it on a 7", that's for sure. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to sell a bunch of these singles somewhere - not online, but to a shop I trust, so I won't make a huge amount but nor will I have to have a little place to keep these things and fret over their condition etc - and use the money wisely, probably putting it towards one of those albums I've been meaning to put out for years, perhaps the asylum seekers fundraiser record I made with Mia ten years ago. It has some good stuff on it, seems a shame to let all that effort go to waste, not just my effort. 

As I went through all these records I found a lot of junk too including broken and otherwise fucked records like the one above. I don't know what it is, where it came from or how it came to have a bite taken out of it, but there you go. Luxaflex claims to have 'all the answers', I actually thought they were the company that made the flexi, i.e. a luxaflexidisc but looking them up on line I am now of the opinion that more likely it's Luxaflex the awnings/blinds company, not directly connected with the manufacture of the record. Anyway, it's broken, I should just throw it away shouldn't I. I actually find that kind of thing hard to do. Conversely once I do it, I don't think of the thing ever again, so that's a bit ridiculous.  

vacant block

This block has been vacant in our street as long as we have lived here. Vaguely in my memory I seem to recall at the beginning I thought, the house that was there has only recently been demolished, but it has been vacant at least since 2004. It is pretty extraordinary to think that someone has been 'sitting on' this empty block for close to 7 years now, if not longer, even if it's the Office of Housing. The stop-start construction of four units on a similarly sized block is going on just up the road, though actually come to think of it it's more stop than start. I have no more to say about this presently.

deep south of hume

There is a finger of (what I think of as, though at that stage it might officially not be) the Jacana Reserve that comes to the smallish bridge that crosses the Western Ring Road into the City of Moreland where marvellous things are happening. One is this



An actual seat, as far as I know the only one in the entire area, which is ridiculous in such a vast parkland space, and the only time one is encouraged to sit contemplatively rather than whatever else one is encouraged to do in the park - I dunno, ride trailbikes, or teach your five year old to ride trailbikes, or perve on kids from your 4WD, or drive your ute up the hills, or walk around with an oddly-held stick as though you were lord of the manor out for a spot of black swan shooting - so this seat is all rather wonderful, and I condone it.

From a distance it looks like it is a good place to view the sward; what is revealed when you get up close and sittery is



a little more of the western ring road than one might have wanted to see, but you know, it's the truth, the naked lunch, the crux of the matter if you will. If you can't handle the crux then don't sit on the seat.

Also in the region is this marvel:



That's right. This new unit gives every impression of fronting directly on to the park space. I love this kind of thing and as far as I am aware - with a few half-way versions, eg the houses in Eaglemont that have their mail boxes in the reserve but their street addresses on the Boulevarde - there is only one other comparable example, in Glenorchy (West Moonah actually) in Hobart. That is, if that is what this is. I hope they get a proper wall/fence and genuinely face into the park. This would be a great precedent. I would like to see a lot more of this in the Jacana region if it could possibly be swung.

Another thing I love is urban agriculture. There is a little bit of this just near the above:



And once again I endorse it, not just because it brings people into that scariest of states - contact with the neighbours - but also encourages local activity, food production (in this case I'm sure of an extremely limited sort, but that's OK) and productive use and beautification (I find it lovely) of underutilised suburban space. It's grouse and there should be more of it.