Strange strange times.

Living in Australia is sometimes a little like living in the past. We get movies and books a few months later, and a lot of news doesn't quite make it here. Usually, it doesn't feel that long ago; it just feels like maybe 2003 because all the hipsters are listening to the Postal Service here.

But other times, it feels very very strange. The last couple weeks, it's felt more like...say, the 1950's. We've had a spate of violence; a man was bashed to death at the airport during a brawl between rival gangs. Ah, you're thinking, "Nija, gang violence isn't a thing of the past." I know. But... they're motorcycle gangs! Men on motorcycles raging through town and wreaking havoc.

So here's what happened, according to the Sydney Morning Herald: three men were coming back from a "social thing" in Melbourne. One of the three was the president of the Sydney Hells Angels, the other was a member of the gang, and the third was just the president's brother--not a member of any gangs. They were ambushed by members of the Comanchero bike gang, and the brother was killed.

There's a huge racial component to the whole story, and the Sydney Morning Herald, ever the bastion of good journalism is happy to promote that angle, citing an unnamed source "close to the bikie community" saying this:

"The incident bolstered opinion in the bikie community that the Comanchero and Notorious were "rogue groups" that were not viewed as genuine outlaw motorcycle groups. They are out of control. They have a very strong Lebanese presence. They have a very strong leaning towards a much more radical approach."

Of course, the president of Sydney's Hells Angels has also been "...quite parochial in relation to patriotism...very vocal about the things going on in the Middle East, terrorism coming into Australia ... and on following the Australian way."

Wait a minute. Genuine outlaw motorcycle groups? What's an ingenuine outlaw motorcycle group? A strong Lebanese presence--is the source trying to say they're more violent? Thanks SMH! Why bother with an obligation to objective journalism, anyway?

Then just this past Monday, you would not believe it. The whole city fell apart.

There was a shoe factory fire in St. Peters-- they still don't seem to know why this happened. The really odd thing to me is that Sydney still has a lot of industry right in the middle of the city; whereas it seems like most industry is pushed out to the far far suburbs in Atlanta. You have to go to all the way out to Gainesville to see a lot of factories. That's partly why this city sometimes feels so trapped in the past to me.







And, on the very same day--there was a huge power outage that went all the way from the CBD to the Eastern Suburbs, which has rendered more than a third of Sydney's emergency alarms useless.

But then, there was a gas explosion on the 29th floor of a fancy apartment block in Bondi Junction--they think this was a ruptured gas pipe. This is where Sydney feels just like Atlanta; right next to all the ugliness of factories and public housing, you have huge million-dollar condo blocks springing up, a burden on the roads and the waterways. This is where Sydney is absolutely in the present, in 2009, where the past looks nostalgic and I can feel sad for the buildings that have been knocked down to make carparks. It feels incongruous to be able to bicycle in only thirty minutes from the 1950's on one side of the city, to the 2000's on the other. I know Sydney won't always be like this. Eventually, the whole city will have to catch up, because that's what capitalism does. But right now, the city seems almost broken in two, half-paralysed, a stroke victim struggling to be symmetrical.

Some people think the bike gangs were to blame for all the chaos last Monday; some think it was random chance. I think it was the sound of a crumbling city, choking in the grasp of very strange times.

Skywriting: a really wasteful way to write.

First off, here's what Craig and I look like these days.
























I've been having the best time, y'all! I haven't been in town for two whole weekends; I love getting out of Sydney...leaving Sydney might be my favourite part of being here at all. Oh, and my other favourite part is the Sydneysider who's been taking skywriting classes.



















Skywriting has got to be a dying art, right? And, if no one says anything else about me when I die, I want people to say I was always charmed by practitioners of the dead and dying arts.

I visited Canberra last weekend, and here is a picture of Canberra's most striking claim to fame

















...wait for it... that's right, it's the largest aluminum structure in the Southern Hemisphere! It may not seem that impressive, but compared to Canberra's other great glory**, it's pretty fantastic. It's atop the Parliament building, I think, which is a pretty neat building anyway. It was designed with this huge grassy lawn that goes up to the top of it, and it was intended as a symbol of democracy. Anyone and everyone could walk onto the Parliament building; Paul remembers rolling down the hill during school field trips to the capital. However, in a post-9/11 ironic twist, everyone is now barred from the the lawn--to protect democracy from terrorism. I find it pretty hard to believe that Kevin Rudd's chipmunk adorability could inspire violent ire.




















**It's also got the largest gathering of polite public servants in the Southern Hemisphere.

Part of visiting Canberra was to see if I liked it enough to try to go to school there. Everyone in Sydney says it's approximately the most boring place in the world. But people in Sydney haven't visited Marietta, GA, now have they? Turns out, Canberra's fine. It's quiet and smells like eucalyptus. It's dry and people grow a lot of native flora. It's got a big man-made lake and some national buildings of dubiously attractive structure. There's a nice coffee shop and some ok bars. It's not as convenient as Sydney is, and I have gotten awful accustomed to the convenience of this city. But hey, there's arty stuff and I think, because I would be studying, it would be ok. It's got the best research resources in the country. And I'd still only be a three-hour bus ride from Sydney.

Paul and I visited the campus of ANU, my prospective school. It's a large, quiet, flat sprawling campus, perfect for riding a bike around. We did almost everything there is to do in Canberra: we rambled through the overwhelming and large National Museum, we spent some time at the National Film and Sound Archive. I saw some lovely wartime advertisements about how the Australian ladies were filling the gap left by the men--and how cute do they look on the job!! Women are ticklish, it turns out. I've said this before, I know, I know, but once more-- Australia seriously knows how to put together a museum. I mean, every single one I've been to, every exhibition, even little ones, has been well-researched and well-presented and fascinating. At the National Gallery, I got to see an original Jules Cheret poster and a bunch of Picasso and Daumier--wicked.

Since we've been in Sydney, I have felt the significant lack of large swathes of Atlanta's population. There are relatively few Jews in Sydney, mostly just concentrated around Bondi, which also–incongruously–features a high concentration of surfer dudes and is, therefore, best avoided at all times. There are almost no African-Americans! What's with that??! I'm such a card. But, and pay attention, because here is where I get to the point-- there are no Ethiopians in Sydney. Which is to say, there are no Ethiopian restaurants in Sydney, and as many of you know, I used to regularly force any number of y'all to go to Meskerem with me. I can't believe I never held a Nijaween there. Anyway, I've been doing without my usual fornightly fix of Ethiopian food, but no more! Canberra is home to the only Ethiopian restaurant this side of Uluru, and luckily my pal Paul indulged me in this craving. He invited his housemate, Taneesha, and some of their friends out, and we had a lovely dinner. The whole weekend was kind of bittersweet, as I won't get to see Paul for awhile now. He's moving back to Geneva this month, but at least I have an excuse to go to Geneva!

And Melbourne this past weekend was wonderful! We enjoyed vegan Tom Yum soup at our favourite Melbourne joint, and we also visited a donation-only restaurant called "Lentil As Anything." A really wonderful concept, where you pay what you can for good vegetarian (or if you're Australian, vego) food. A Slow Food Farmers' Market rounded out a delicious weekend. Look at all these apple varieties!


















But Melbourne's not just about food: we also visited the beautiful State Library of Victoria, featuring an enormous dome-shaped hushed and still reading room, with balconies full of books surrounded by exhibitions focussed on the evolution of the book. The exhibit started with an original leaf from a Gutenberg Bible and an original publication by William Morris and the Kelmscot Press. I love the printed page, the smell of books, the beauty of words, words, words, black as night on the creaminess of a clean page; the richness of my life is forever indebted to their work, and I was very excited to see that even this lonely, isolated and distant place has such evidence of our civilisation's history on display for all.


















The exhibition even had a section on artists' books, which are such evolved artforms you can't quite call them books sometimes. In fact, the book-arts are quite developed in Australia; I've been to two state libraries that featured exhibitions on them, and another exhibition put on by an art gallery.

And Melbourne. Everyone loves Melbourne, it's got loads of street art, and everyone's fashionable. It's got trams, the streets are made of diamonds and everyone's pretty. I've got to say, Melbourne is a damn charming city, though–even the car parks are attractive.


















The hardware stores are hip; though not as hip as a certain Ace Hardware during the summer months of...2006, was it?



















And the sunsets are beautiful.



















Now we're back in Sydney. And I still want Ethiopian food; lucky for me, Craig and I have just figured how to make Ethiopian berbere, Misir Wot, Gomen Wot, Kik Alicha, and an awesome Vegan Tom Yum Soup!!

Toxic Debt and Smoking Crabs: Delightful

I've put stuff up here before about the printmaking collective I'm getting involved with-- it's called the Rizzeria, and it's all based around stencil press printmaking. I just finished the Mastercourse, and check out the beautiful poster I made! It's inspired by Macquarie Dictionary's Word of the Year: Toxic Debt. The RISO machine is so much fun, like screenprinting, but at 120 pages/minute. Just call me speed demon.























We also played around with GOCCO machines in the class; they are just as fun as the RISO, though significantly slower. I printed the crab on brown primed canvas using red RISO ink on a GOCCO stencil press. I liked the GOCCO so much, I ended up buying one for my personal use! The crab was drawn by Craig, and it's becoming a bit of a personal logo for him; he's even started spelling his name krb. Total insanity.
















This past weekend, Paul ( from this post ) came to town! He's been working for Australia's Immigration Department in Canberra. It was sort of bad that he came, because he was getting his visa to move back to Geneva; but it was still really nice to see him and hang out in Sydney. We took him on what we're starting to call "The Craig and Nija Awesome Food Tour of Sydney." I really enjoyed showing him around; it's strange, but somehow showing a friend around Sydney make me feel like I really know this place...like it might be home. I don't know everything about it, I haven't seen all of it. But I'm sort of starting to get it.

This coming weekend, I'm going to Canberra to see his town and hang out with him one last time before he moves back to the opposite quadrant of the world. I'm also going to check out ANU; I've been researching a few Master's programs, and it looks like ANU might have the best programs for me. I've heard a lot of bad things about Canberra, so I'm interested to see it for myself. I've heard it's really boring and spread out, it's the world's first planned community, it's like living in a park, and there's just not much life to it. I've also heard Canberra's a lot quieter than Sydney. Honestly, right now, as I'm listening to my neighbour's blaring television, people screaming at the bus stop right outside my front door, trucks and buses groaning by, and unmuffled motorcycles rage past, quiet sounds like it might be a really nice place to be.

Lately lonely lovely lamely lucky me.

It's been 8 months since we moved away, away, and oh, so far. I miss my community, my home so much. I miss you all, and I wonder how people do this, how they leave a whole adult life for somewhere else.

In the last couple weeks, I feel like I haven't been up to very much...or maybe I just don't feel like it's worth writing about. But I managed to dig up a few interesting bits for ya--

A few weeks ago, the Sydney Theatre Company put together a tribute to Harold Pinter; Cate Blanchett and a few other brilliant actors conducted live readings from his oeuvre. It was a wonderful afternoon; we got to see Cate Blanchett in all her vibrant glory on a small stage, with an audience of about 800 people. We were inspired to read more Harold Pinter, we decided we should give theatre another chance, and we felt so damn cultured. Well, as cultured as you can feel after you waited about 2 hours in a very long line to get into a free event.

Last weekend, Craig and I went to Tropfest with a bunch of international students from UNSW. Craig managed to get a gig as an International Student Services mentor, and I just found out today he's been offered two other part-time jobs at school, too! Watch out for news of his first refereed conference coming up soon–Academia Australiana is about to be shaken up by a punk rockin' ginger.

Tropfest is the world's largest short film festival; it started at the Tropicana cafe, which is somewhere in Brisbane (pronounced "briz´bun"), and ended up taking place in Sydney, getting broadcast to all of Australia, and has just begun a spin-off festival in New York. It's outdoors, it's free, and it's very corporate. Since it was our first year in Sydney, we figured it was worth a shot. All my previous experiences with outdoor film in Atlanta were awful; people drunk and loud, not watching the movie and making it impossible for me to watch the movie. Tropfest, on the other hand, was lovely. You could hear every word, every sigh, every intake of breath. You could hear people listening. It was a nice night, and some of the movies were even pretty good. You can watch the 16 finalists for Tropfest 09 here.

An interesting thing about Sydney is how much illegal underground stuff goes on here; on the same night as Tropfest, a collective known as SquatSpace held their own film festival; they set up a projection system illegally, in some abandoned warehouse or forgotten space, and they show DIY films made by directors who aren't looking to be accepted by the mainstream. It's seriously illegal, too; they couldn't release the location until the day of the event, and even then only through SMS, to keep the cops from shutting it down before it got started. The amazing thing is that even though it's an illegal festival, put together by a bunch of anti-establishment artists and rent-defaulters, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a positive review about it right next to the article about Tropfest! The founder of Tropfest even takes the competition well, saying if he hadn't put Tropfest together, he would've loved to do something like Squatfest. I think we'll try Squatfest next year; that sounds pretty lovely, too.

My arm has been hurting a lot in the past few months; I hurt it years ago working at the JavaMonkey, but it's been getting worse. It feels like everything I do exacerbates it. I've had days where I couldn't even type without serious pain. I've talked to several Western doctors about it, and have been told that other than painkillers, there's no real way to heal a repetitive stress injury. But I don't believe them anymore, because as far as I can tell, Western medicine seems built on some wild principles.

And I feel so lucky, because my life in Sydney is so bountiful. In Sydney, I have access to the most amazing food from a beautiful co-op, I have been getting very cheap acupuncture for my long-suffering arm, free counselling from the university for feeling so lost, so far away, I have gotten involved with a printmaking collective and am learning how to print on a RISO machine. Stencil presses are my new love.

And I guess maybe this is how it happens; people leave a whole adult life somewhere, and find something beautiful whereever they end up. And that is really something to wonder about. I'll be posting more of my radio segments and recent prints/artwork soon.

ps-- on Saturday night, we went to a midnight beach party at La Perouse. The bay was beautiful, the waves were soothing, and the warm felt warm on my feet. We listened to Fela Kuti and watched Aaron build a bonfire. A pretty magical night.

I've always been a bookworm

Some of my recent adventures in bookbinding...

Black Friday

If ever a sequence of events could induce triskadekaphobia in me, it would be our fateful trip to Tasmania in December where two separate hostels put us up in room #13 as we watched our plans go up in smoke. However, because I know that the hospitality industry deliberately books room 13 last out of professional superstition (is that what you learn in a hotel management degree?) I didn't find it that weird since we booked our hostels late, surely a symptom of the overall lack of planning that sunk the ship of that particular trip. That is, we did ourselves in and stuck ourselves in a box labelled "13," not t'other way 'round.

However, we attempted to head south yet again, to attend the RocKwiz extravaganza at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne. It wasn't our fault this time that 13 crept into our plans, and Friday the 13th at that: Black Friday. The show was to take place on Friday night, and we had nothing to do with scheduling that.

The weather turned on us, though. Since Wednesday Sydney's been cold and rainy, utterly weird summertime weather, and as we sat there at the airport paying premiums on everything, we despondently watched our flight time tumble from 1:05 to 2:30, then 3:30, then 4:30, when it was finally cancelled, like a wounded and suffering horse being put out of its misery. They tried to stick us all on other flights, but by that time we knew we'd miss most of the show and our little weekend trip to Melbourne would wind up being too short and more of a blow to our wallets than we were willing to bear. We simply asked for our money back and came home.

Now we're looking forward to a weekend of rain and improvisation while the Melburnians soak up the sun under the sway of their highfalutin' beer lists. Black-cloaked bastards! Oh well. Hopefully we can make the best of it. It's Valentine's Day, after all, and the world's most wonderful and beautiful woman needs to be shown some appreciation and affection. Hope she'll be my Valentine.

I wish you all a happy V-Day; hope you get to spend it with those you love. Just stay out of airports.

-Craig

The Year of the Ox

A caveat: I apologise for not posting for so long; Dad reminded me today that certain members of my audience are avid readers who need fresh content on a regular basis. I will try to do better. I have been thinking a lot, and that is part of the problem; I have also been feeling a lot, which is the larger part of the problem.

As I watched the inauguration, I felt that I was absolutely in the wrong place. I should have been with you, and I was not. 8 years ago, I stood in the cold and the rain and protested as one of the country's most damaging stewards was sworn in; last week, I should have been in the same place, celebrating a small, flickering hope. Instead, I was here, with the poor substitute of television, watching Obama repeat the Bush terror rhetoric, feeling hopeless once again as he defended the excessive, selfish American way of life. I should have been there, I wanted to call you, and share my concern that he would do nothing but disappoint us, that our hopes were too high. Obama will have to work with the mishapen lumps of dry, crumbling nation Bush has left him, and I doubt anyone could sculpt a shining hope from this, a city on a hill for the world to see. I should have been there to jeer and sneer at Bush's back, to celebrate that he finally left us to rebuild the sandcastle he kicked over, like all bratty rich kids do. I should have been there, and I was not. Nothing felt right about Inauguration Day.

January 26th was our first Australia Day, a public holiday celebrating the day that Phillip and the First Fleet came ashore in 1788, the day the British empire stamped Australia and changed it forever.

January 26th is also the day India declared its independence in 1930 from that same oppressive empire, the day a struggle for justice began, a struggle that everyday affects my life.

It's called Invasion Day by Aboriginals, and for them it marks the day their troubles began.

I was at a loss– I didn't want to treat it like July 4th, like the Aussies do (barbecue, drinks, fireworks). It seems inappropriate to celebrate the anniversary of an invasion that devastated the world's oldest continuous culture and led directly to the extinction and endangering of countless unique species. I didn't want to treat it like any other day– it's a day that shaped my family story, that still shapes my views and actions.

In the end, we got together with two other ex-pats, talked about how strange it is, drank, and ate out, and got stuck in the rain. Still, this was not where I should be. Nothing felt right about Australia day; nothing could make me feel like I am in the right place.

















Sydney has a huge Chinese population, and this month, it seems the entire city is celebrating Chinese New Year, there are tons of events. Sydney calls itself the City of Villages; it's more like the City of Festivals.

















And this past weekend, as I walked through Chinatown, I realized how happy I was to be living in a city with a Chinatown. A Chinatown where restaurant signs and menus are in Chinese, with no concessions to my finicky vegetarianism. Where lion dances are performed on the street.

















A Chinatown where young white Australians can go to practice the Chinese they learned in high school. A city where Chinese is taught in high school! It's very exciting, and I'm sure it's because nothing feels right. I don't know if I should be here or somewhere else, if anywhere else would feel like the right place, but right now--I know that I'm fascinated.