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It’s a Family Kind of Week, Obviously

Today’s theme over at A Step Ahead of the Competition is ‘Old’, for which I posted a photograph of my 91 year old grandfather, holding a photograph of his younger self in front of his face. I really had trouble deciding between that photograph and another from the same set, the one above featuring both my grandparents holding their wedding picture. So in a completely personal and un-gaming/pop-culture/urban adventure related move – I thought I’d put it up here.

Hi Nanna and Pa! You are famous on the internet now.

*waves*

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Semi-Derilect Convent Adventures

Weeks ago, my mother was in town and I went on a daytrip with her to the Abbotsford Convent. One of the great things about showing someone around the city you live in is you get to be a tourist again. It was an interesting place. No longer in use by the Sisters of the Good Shepard (as it was for 100 or so years,)  there is a bakery and a cafe doing good business, and nun’s cells now serve as offices and consulting rooms for various artists and alternative medicine practitioners.

Many of the buildings are presently abandoned and falling into disrepair, and for some reason I never tire of looking at that kind of urban decay. It’s always been the case, I’m resigned to the fact that most other people can’t figure out why I am so thrilled and mesmerised by any kind of vacant building. It’s just something about the atmosphere I think, the presence of a place that has had years of life in it and is now silenced and still and empty. Lots of joyfully sticking my camera lens through broken windows was to be had that day.

It turns out I wasn’t the only one who thought the place photographicly juicy. I came across a clutch of quite fancy looking cars at the very back of the grounds.

They looked out of place, particularly with the clothes on the hood. I was curious as to their owners.

Then as I was snapping shots of  a wonderfully rusty vintage petrol pump nearby…

…I heard the distinctive sound of a a camera taking high speed shots.  It seemed to be coming from the building on front of me.

I got closer to the set of green double doors pictured here. I could here voices, and so I closed one eye and peered through the crack in between the locked doors. At first I couldn’t see anything at all. The all of a sudden a head popped in to view, some distance away. It was the head of a young woman – a tribal design had been painted on her face and her hair was in an ornate platinum blonde coil on her head. She shifted slightly, sitting up, and a pale breast came in to my view, followed by the delicate curve of her waist. Then gentle laughter, and then a small cloud of feathers went up in the air, almost incandescently white in the bright lighting that must have been set up. I had obviously stumbled across some kind of fashion/fetish/art photoshoot. l began to feel a bit of a voyeur at that point so I moved away from the building. It  was quite an arresting vision though, not something I had expected to stumble across, and really quite beautiful. At that point my mother announced that she was ready to leave. So we went.

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Shameless Plug #2

I took these photos as publicity for an upcoming independent theatre show.  I’m playing the role of the “Writer”,  in August Strindberg’s “A Dream Play” – a 1901 expressionist flight of fancy written originally in Swedish and translated and adapted by Caryl Churchill in 2005.

It promises to be an interesting show, so if you are in Melbourne, consider yourself invited!

http://www.theatrealive.com.au/whatson/1395/

I haven’t managed to work any Helium references in yet, but give me time…

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Be Careful What You Wish For….

I guess I should have suspected this.

Early in the morning hours I was caught mid-preparation and duly photographed.

Life Goal Achieved. Idle cartooning thoughts made a reality. Should I be worried? Is the photographer in question just checking off items on a list so she can bump me off with a clear conscience? Only time will tell…

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A Full Life

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Shameless Plug

As I may/may not have mentioned here, I am in the midst of directing a play as part of Short and Sweet, which is an annual competition held at the Arts Centre, Melbourne.

The play I am working on this year is called “Kanat and the Red Army” by Dan Giovannoni and it is a really solid piece of writing. (Obviously I think it’s good or I wouldn’t have picked it…)

It tells the story of a couple from the former Czechoslovakia, and features them – as adults – re-telling an important event from their days as students during the Cold War. The play is about music, about freedom and censorship, about stories and memories and the differences between them.

It manages to cram a lot of meaning and sentiment and humour into ten minutes and I was immediately taken with it on the first reading.

Also – it has a drum-kit. And a drummer, Elijah Ungvary who just happens to moonlight as an excellent actor. (Or is it the other way round?)

Here he is in one of the publicity images I shot, looking a bit like a fashion model.

He is joined by Elly, played by the gorgeous and talented Zoey Dawson.

So if you are in Melbourne come down and watch it. Its part of Week One, which is Wed 3rd December – Sat the 6th, all shows at 8pm. You’ll also get to see 9 other short plays, so the odds are good that you’ll enjoy one or two of them.

Tickets through Ticketmaster or in person at the Arts Centre Box Office

End of plug.

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Nobody Here But LOTS of Us Dead Folk

I went a little farther from home to find a new graveyard for my latest Graveyard Book reading session, (Three quarters of the way through the story now by the way… I don’t want it to end!), and the cemetery I ended up in was considerably larger than the ones I’ve already visited.

This was a real Necropolis, a huge sprawling affair with chapels, mausoleums and a shed disguised as a house that had had a fleet of earth moving vehicles inside. So it was obviously still very much open for business. Unlike the other cemeteries I visited I saw quite a few people paying their respects, and at one stage even walked past half a dozen of the ground-staff having a leisurely chat under a gazebo.

The photo photo below suggests they are pretty serious about keeping people out after hours, too.

(Or is it for keeping people in I wonder?)

It was much to large for me to explore thoroughly, but I noticed one or two things before I settled down to read. Like for example this memorial.

And I was going to go all the way to Graceland, go figure.

The spot I eventually settled down to read in was naturally the shadowiest, oldest, most shambolic, and thus most authentic part of the graveyard. I shared my little corner with a magpie, whom I began to photograph until he looked at me like this -

The bird didn’t actually say so, but he gave me the feeling that he did NOT consent to be photographed, and if I continued to snap away then he might just be forced to come to me in the dead of night with a visitation of terror and madness.

The only other resident right by my designated reading spot that I thought warranted a photo was this lass…

The rest of my time there I put down the camera and picked up the book. Bliss.

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Almost Nobody Here But Us Dead Folk

Another day, another trip to a graveyard to read The Graveyard Book.

I went and found a new graveyard today, a little further a field than the last, but still quite close to my place.

I say ‘Almost No One Here But Us Dead Folk’ because I discovered this cemetery has a live-in caretaker, in a small residence right in the middle with a sign marked “PRIVATE”.  (Insert jokes here along the line of “at least his/her neighbours are quiet.”)

Unfortunately I didn’t get that much actual reading done this time, so I’m not much further along in the story. One of the chapters I read today I had had the good fortune to have already heard Neil himself read earlier this year at a children’s book festival. This meant that every time I read the words the “Bishop of Bath and Wells”, I heard them in Neil’s delightfully distinctive voice – which was fun.

I think the two I’ve visited they are the only two Graveyards in my vicinity, so I shall have to re-visit them to finish the book. Or begin to explore more distant places of rest.

This particular graveyard had a “Garden of Angels” for the burial of babies. There were quite a few toys scattered among the plaques. Like this..

Well if there is a young boy living in the cemetary as there is in the Graveyard Book, at least he’ll have something to play with.

I also stumbled along a pleasingly ambiguous inscription while looking for a nice shady spot to read.

Another feature of note in today’s graveyard was it had a Vault. Just the one, but it was pretty impressive looking.

It was locked, but I managed to sneak a picture through a broken stain glass window.

I wonder how Septimus (1890-1925) and Clara (1866-1910) feel about sharing their vault with the traffic bollards the caretaker (presumably) has decided to stash there?

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Nobody Here But Us Dead Folk

I went to my local graveyard today, took a packed lunch and everything. I was there to enjoy the all-too-rare good weather and to start to read my favourite author’s latest, The Graveyard Book.

It was a lovely, if solitary adventure and I enjoyed the whole experience so much that I have decided to read the book only while in the graveyard. (Well, any graveyard – I don’t have to limit myself to todays.)

If nothing else the restriction will hopefully mean I can take my time with the story, savouring it like a fine literary liqueur. The temptation to gobble it down in one or two greedy sittings is very real when you like an author’s work as much as I like the inimitable Mister Gaiman’s.

So far – three chapters in – am loving it.

If you are a Gaiman fan, or even if you have never heard of the chap, I wholeheartedly recommend you get yourself a copy of The Graveyard Book and read it in your local cemetery – aloud, if you feel the need.

I read it out loud myself, firstly because it slows me down and secondly, well…  the dead like a good story too.

Below are a few photos I took of my particular local place of internment.

Note the grave broke ope. (Vandalism I presume. Or a restless former resident…)

I do like the pointing hand on top of the headstone in the last photo too. Its a nice touch. “I’m going straight up, dammit!”