I went to Casterton

It is only 30 kms up the road and very pretty in Autumn.
Dame Mary Gilmore, the woman on our $10 banknote lived in Casterton, Victoria in 1907 when this substantial hotel was designed and built.
However, she escaped and the hotel is now closed down. Young Mary Jean Gilmore had been taken by her husband to the Strathdownie sheep station and if I look up I can actually see the Strathdownie road from my window.  Vistas can be good out here in The Western District.
When that hotel was absolutely thriving in a wealthy community 30 years on, it got some neighbouring buildings in a completely different style.
Murrell's Shoes is charming example of Art Deco and has not been ruined:

It bravely faces the stonkingly Art Deco Casterton Town Hall. Totally Style Moderne in every way.

That dog-on-a-rock is there because Casterton [named for a place in Ireland] is the home of The Kelpie muster - an event where $12,000 has been paid for one dog [I wonder though, how mixed the seller's emotions were as he left without his clever doggie].  Those red dogs which are so focussed on sheep herding originated in the Victorian Casterton when it was noted by her Scotsman owner that "one of Kelpie's pups" would be just as clever at moving sheep as she was. There are A LOT of sheep around here.

No Kelpies needed at No Place For Sheep however. A most excellent Australian blog I commend to you. Follow the link to vent your spleen on Bananaby Joyce, Donald "7/11" Trump or the witless Tara Brown who has been in a slummy Beirut slammer for much more than 60 Minutes.

The Quarrymen rock the west

Yesterday I got this image of a western district quarry when I went there to order some driveway surfacing.
It was beyond fascinating and sorry to say it is also beyond my descriptive capability to do the thrill any justice. Of course there was a huge huge tiered hole in the earth and many trucks. Actually there was every truck ever used by three generations of quarrymen. They could sell tickets it was so amazing. However, the guy asked me not to reveal the location "if you put that photo on the internet". I hope you like it as much as I do.  It's the earth's crust, people.

For the record: 28-8-2015

So proud of Melbourne today.

"Show us your papers" was never going to work in MELBOURNE.

over the hood

West out of Lake Bolac Victoria in a brief burst of sunshine in a day that otherwise just rained and rained, and here comes the 77th logging truck of the day.
They roar east, they roar West. After 6pm with no light but pouring rain, 22 of them hurtled past me in the 40 kilometres East of Skipton alone.
Please do follow the link for the story of the great twister of 2006.
I am out there, so you don't have to be.

smart as Jeffrey

Today on Mount Mercer looking toward home and Mount Buninyong 

I thought the view was a painting by Jeffrey Smart.

Anywhere I look is 'toward home' because I have had no home for far too long.

Boxing belongings all week and having to assess the retainability-factor of every thing.

Exactly how much of it is necessary? Does the Dalai Llama pack?

Does he cling to favourite books?

some of these came by mail from The Gotham Book Mart and still have the notes inside that Patti Smith wrote. After a while she put in a copy of her 7" vinyl single 'Hey Joe', she must have been so pleased to have it out. and then she didn't work there any more. 

British VOGUES 1971, 1972, 1973 all arrived by air-mail and so did their binders.

Joyously received and 40 years later I am no less shallow of thought.

Do I tote all this with me to my very end or find the strength to treasure the memory and yes I'm looking at you Marcel Proust.

le temps perdu indeed.

(images by author, text is first draft, only draft)

RIP Wilbur

Update July 2014 - since 2010 when I wrote this:
"In the centre of Rokewood with a lovely view of the church spire (and the pub), Wilbur the hog accepts the admiration of passing travellers. I finally stopped to capture his magnificence for your enjoyment He knows I don’t eat ham or bacon or pork."

Wilbur has passed away, peacefully in his sleep with a full tummy.  His death was widely reported in various daily  papers. I went past today and the junction was not funny anymore.

*******

This week I drove the C146 and enjoyed, as I always do, the sight of this spire emerging from distant trees and telling me I have reached Rokewood where my Tuxedo-Cat Miss Kitty lives on a farm with my friend.

The church under this spire was built in 1862 by

Edinburgh-boy Alexander Davidson who

had eloped here with his cousin Eugenia Cooper, to avoid

a scandal and be married by their uncle the Revd. John Cooper.

They built themselves a substantial cottage in Rokewood and as well as his uncle’s church under that steeple, he designed bluestone mansions right across Victoria’s Western District for all the rich graziers competing with each other for the most rooms and biggest ballroom -
Kurruc-a-Ruc and Wurrok both in Rokewood, ,
Mooleric, and Barwon Park in Winchelsea,
Barunah Plains in Inverleigh, Narrepumelap in Wickliffe, Darra at Meredith,
Titanga and Gala at Lismore, and just up the road from me -Yeowarra which was originally called just YEO -

Photos of all these rockpiles can be found at the National Trust Register

And here’s a fact for Hot Andrew - Between June 1885 and March 1887 Davidson held the appointment of Architect for the Melbourne Tramway Trust and designed the MMTB building at 48 Nicholson St Fitzroy.

terrific honorifics

The conservative Australian government
has asked Her Majesty if they can restore
 the bestowal of her Sovereign Honours,
selected from lists submitted to her office
and usually awarded to mark her birthday
or the new year.
One year The Beatles were OBE's but John Lennon sent his back.

Instantly the/my Australian Twitter milieu has been
elevated and that is just so Australian. Also funny that
these honorifics feature in a week when
  HIS EMINENCE Cardinal Smell hightailed it back to
the luxury of the vatican apartments after
two poor shows - one at the royal commission and the
other at his farewell cathedral mass.
Some of the Twitterers know as little about it as the very politicians waffling so seriously, and have been elevated to The Peerage of Lords, Earls and a Marquis. This hardly matters when one thinks of all the Peers and Knights with legal convictions. 
All explained in the essential reference Yes Minister:
Bernard: “Of course, in the service, CMG stands for Call Me God. And  KCMG for Kindly Call Me God.” 
Hacker: “What about GCMG?”  
Bernard: " oh that stands for God Calls Me God".

Bless us all, as there is nothin' like a Dame Annie ODyne.

Bat-immobile

Clearly Batmobiles do not function in daylight on
Nepean Highway, Moorabbin.

My photo, c.1990, using Nikon SLR and I could just spit for missing the front end like that. 
While I am in some other world, the car is now at Movieworld QLD.
Anton Furst got the Oscar award for his production design on the 1989 Tim Burton batmovie and this particular vehicle.

Things are quiet Chez O'Dyne, out in the paddocks looking after 3 cats (and one can open doors), and a very furry dog which is shedding it's coat. Apparently German Shepherd people refer to this as "blowing their coat". It's everywhere and the ducted vacuuming just blew up.
Mainly it's quiet because I am recovering from being 'flamed' by a grouchy relative who doesn't approve of my posts.
If you are reading this you must be on the list of bloggers allowed by the last time AOD went under the radar.
Life is too brief to be bothered with people who bring nothing but aggravation.
Batman thinks so as well. He has left his busted Batmobile to the pit crew above and flown away. Haunted creatures of the night and aren't we all.

vote early

Today at The Guardian - 'whistleblowers play a crucial role in keeping the "public reason" alive. Assange, Manning, Snowden, these are our new heroes, exemplary cases of the new ethics that befit our era of digitalised control. They are no longer just whistleblowers who denounce the illegal practices of private companies to the public authorities; they denounce these public authorities themselves when they engage in "private use of reason".

We need Mannings and Snowdens in China, in Russia, everywhere. There are states much more oppressive than the US – just imagine what would have happened to someone like Manning in a Russian or Chinese court (in all probability no public trial). However, one should not exaggerate the softness of the US: true, the US doesn't treat prisoners as brutally as China or Russia – because of its technological priority, it simply does not need the brutal approach (which it is more than ready to apply when needed). In this sense, the US is even more dangerous than China insofar as its measures of control are not perceived as such, while Chinese brutality is openly displayed.

It is therefore not enough to play one state against the other (like Snowden, who used Russia against the US): we need a new international network to organise the protection of whistleblowers and the dissemination of their message. Whistleblowers are our heroes because they prove that if those in power can do it, we can also do it.'

Nymph & Nymphaeas

what a thrill to see in Melbourne, 50 paintings by Monet, the guy we all know for his nymphaea (a.k.a water lilies). He began painting in Paris about 1860 and was accepted by the Paris Salon in 1865.  By 1890 he had purchased Le Pressoir  (a cider pressing house and orchard) west of Paris at Giverny where  he spent 20 years creating his garden, and fighting with the local council to get a permit for his pond. He had a rowboat made as a floating studio and spent the rest of his life recording the changing light on the pond, the bridge and the plants. Most of the works now at NGV usually reside in Paris so do try to see them here - think of the expense you will avoid. Since art is money and the money rests on the provenance, I always want to see the back of famous paintings, so here is a Monet and also his palette with the outer curve sawn off, probably when he

got too much paint on the cuff of the suitcoat he seems to have worn for painting.

 

The NGV missed the obvious opportunity unique to them, of covering their own ponds 

with waterlilies. Their giftshop was selling rubbery ones for $20.

After the art, the tart.    Nymphette Chloe

.

 - then with my dear friend and tolerant arty cohort Art Of Pants we had a delicious wine in the  Chloe room at Young and Jacksons, reputedly Melbourne's oldest surviving pub where the painting called 'Chloe' has always been the main attraction.

Painted by a contemporary of Monet, Jules Le Febvre, a medal winner of the 1875 Paris salon, she was purchased in 1880 by a Melbourne surgeon Fitzgerald. Melbourne was shocked when it saw her nudity on loan to the art gallery and she was removed to Dr FitzGeralds house where he hung her so she was visible from the street. Publican Young bought her in 1909. She hangs alone these days, but 'Young' was a big art collector and over 200 paintings, sketches and statues used to be on display throughout the hotel.

Do please click here for the story of how the damn commonwealth bank nearly ruined the corner of Swanston and Flinders Streets (the same way they succeeded in ruining what had been a fine historic intersection in Ballarat); and here is a very very old photo of Y and J's before YandJ bought it.

hair! heir!

I would have said that Johnny Rotten was 'a child of Thatcherism'.
Wrong wrong wrong.
So my education by blogging continues today when dreary tubby old Johnny is in the news of two continents alongside the passing of Margaret Thatcher ex-PM of the UK.
I was there in 1976 for it all, so I should know better than thinking that the initial UK 'Punk' movement of fashion/music/behaviour came out of the society created by Thatcher governing.
In fact, poor Margaret had to preside (after 1979) over the punked society that actually fomented under Harold Wilson the 1974-76 PM.
Why it did is a mystery to me because he was very kind to the battlers (do read his Wikipedia entry - no really). For articulate comment on this week in London, please read That's So Pants (which never is).

blinking inking

If this lot had seen my camera they might have punched me as I waited and waited for a photo-op break in the Friday afternoon traffic roaring between us on the busiest street in Ballarat (where every single one of the ten bus routes passes) so please be stunned by this charmer, having a smoko, mid-ink.

My Seniors Card-holding friend Joan has a peacock feather inked on her foot and it is lovely. A tattoo tradition reserved only for princesses in Polynesia - vertical rows of tiny birds inked down their legs. How cool is that?

In Ballarat the Bogan Princesses only need the cash, and because the interior of this parlour in the image above is visible from my bus when it passes after dark I have seen their sign inside which says 'Minimum $150'. I wonder what you get for that? a happy face? This girls entire abdomen must be costing more than the NewStart allowance that's for sure.

Popeye and Bluto must have been my first exposure to skin ink, other sailors of course, drunk on shore in Marseilles and why not? Even Royalty in the navy has tatts - although I would bet the ranch that HRH Chuck is the one exception to that.

Japan has their Yakuza crim tatts and a museum of tattoos, with actual human skins if you please.

My first awareness of real world tatts would have been reading that girls in reform-schools like the infamous Winlaton, inked themselves with charming legends like I love J O'K, so when I read that dear Cher did it in the 1970's I thought that she was very hip to do a tough-girl thing without being a Tough Girl.

The headmistress at my school always threatened us with Winlaton if we wagged school, and thanks to the internet I now know that girls sent there for truancy were actually then denied any education. KAFKA LIVES!

And here is Daughter O'Dyne and the tatt she got herself for her 21st -

love the liberry

Love The Liberry is a journal blog by librarians, on all the batty customers who come to their counter. There are some gems in there that make me think they should get a pay raise for absence of any homicides. Today there was no homicide after I entered my library

I had been there a week ago, looking for a particular biography, and failed to find it, despite knowing my Dewey very well.

Today I tried again so intensely that I actually asked the librarian who replied "In the Business section because it's a biography of a business-woman". Right ....

and this is the exit view across Sturt St to the Memorial Bandstand dedicated to the band on The Titanic. The weathervane has a Titanic shape silhouette. There was probably a librarian on the ship as well, but no memorial for her.
Ballarat - you're welcome to it.

Shrimp is no Barbie

These are my VOGUE stacks, going back to 1969 and the issues from 1970 to 1973  are in handsome navy red and gold stamped VOGUE binders.

Jean Shrimpton is on many of the covers, and while the girly 1960's are typified by MOD culture evolving, the concurrent prevailing 'look' was known as 'DollyBird' and she was their goddess. 


A film has been made based on the early part of her career when she went to New York City for a VOGUE shoot with David Bailey. I won't be seeing it, and the publicity will irritate me, but I have all these 
for my Shrimp fix instead. She is a recluse now and I don't blame her one bit. 


Meanwhile, over at    WORN OUT    it is Flamingo Park time so please visit.

today in the 'Rat

Today I went to

Ballarat Fine Art Gallery

and saw an exhibit of works

by Michael Shannon.

Any of them would be a

pleasure to view daily.

I also had to see the re-installed and

revered Eureka Flag after the restoration work.

The room it is in is very dark and flash is not permitted,

so I am surprised at the image really.

Seeing this flag is my version of

hallowed ground.

"The design of the flag was taken by Captain Henry Ross, one of Eureka's miners and a Canadian expatriate, to three women, Anastasia Withers, Anne Duke and Anastasia Hayes, to sew up in time for a large rally at Bakery Hill, at 2.00 pm on 29 November 1854. ".

Can you imagine the life of a woman on the diggings? All mud, dust, and tired drunken men. A bit like waiting for a popstar boyfriend to strike it rich with a hit record.

As I came out of the gallery a bike club

was assembled to resume

their ride to Warrnambool.

If you click to embiggen, you will see

a Ned Kelly doll lashed to one bike and he

has a Smurf in his pocket. I had not

been aware that Ned's infamous suit of iron

even had a pocket, but I did enjoy

the outlaw confluence of bikers,

Ned, and

The Treacherous Event Of 1854.

From the bus stop on Sturt Street,

this alley next to the old post office has

a view of the Art School built behind the gallery recently ...

... and this is the view I had

while waiting to go

11 kilometres out to

the gum trees on the edge of town

where, in spite of the CFA advising

that the area is

not defendable should there be a bushfire,

it is very pleasant to be.

Update:

An attempt to enlarge Ned & his pocket Smurf.

The flag by someone allowed to assert themselves.

Crippy Crimble

This festival is promoted by Christian cults and retail trade. Parties, $pending, credit card blowout, and none of it related to baby Jesus. It is impossible to opt-out. I blame the 'three allegedly wise men' allegedly following a star (as if) and bearing those wildly inappropriate gifts. We all know that joke -
"What would have happened if it had been three Wise Women instead of three Wise Men?
They would have asked directions,
arrived on time,
helped deliver the baby,
cleaned the stable,
made a casserole,
and brought practical gifts.
and
when they left...
"Did you see the sandals Mary was wearing with that gown?"
"That baby doesn't look anything like Joseph!"
"Virgin, my arse! I knew her in school!"
"Can you believe that they let all of those disgusting animals in the house?"
"I heard that Joseph isn't even working right now!"
"And that donkey that they are riding has seen better days too!"
"Want to bet on how long it will take until you get your casserole dish back?"
"That drummer boy was hot."

Hoping you all come out the other side of it all ... X X X

Majesty

Pre-Olympics Melbourne was so very different when Her Maj arrived in 1954 when small children were shepherded to the front of the crowds lining the streets, and sat cross-legged in safety, waiting for a glimpse of Her Maj. Those of us in school received a medallion, and I have been wearing mine this week, pointlessly in my remote seclusion.
This surreal illustration which appears to assume an 'inclusion' of various members of 'our society' is less real than if PIXAR had done it. embiggen, and then shreik.
The 'Pieta'-like glamour lubra and child defies opinion. I searched for artist name, they wisely 'anon'.
For those of you who have never trekked to the immediate proximity of Her Maj, trust me, the star thing applies. May she live long and prosper ...

a good clean show

A friend took this photo in WA. If you CNTL+ to embiggen you will see the poster has A GOOD CLEAN SHOW on it, not once, but twice. The good old days.

Newspaper Article
https://www.trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/49004386
DAWNETTE AND THE PERFORMING Wonder Dogs. M2211. Available floor shows and par ties.
At a Christmas Eve party,children living nearby will see
"Dawnette" give a show with her performing dogs. Lady
an Afghan hound, is to be the dogs' Father Christmas and will
wear a long beard and scarlet cloak.

Tooting and coming

As you all know, SoCross Station is my natural habitat, and as I passed through last week I just had to record seven regional trains but thankfully not the noise level of the seven engines roaring.
But wait, that's not all, I also bring you Tutankhamun whose HUGE effigy stars there at the moment.

(images copyright Ann O'Dyne 2011)

I wish the ancient civilisations had invented trains. They might have evolved sufficiently by now to be bearable.

now and then

You would never guess him from that one. I just love Harry and will be furious if they kill him off as I want him to go off into the sunset with brainy Ruth.
He would probably want his ashes in one of these urns when he dies.


He is the prime character in one of our favourite shows ...

for 9 seasons.

It has no actor credits, start or at the end. have you ever noticed that?.