the other story of the day at port adelaide...

this is what bridget's day looked like:



this is what bridget's bosses' days looked like...



hmmmm.

there are a lot of dolphins around the place at the port. this one is a flying dolphin. ah-huh.



this is a strange painted laughing dolphin. whoops its sideways too, sorry.



here's the top of the stairs that everyone seemed really scared of. and my new melbourne shoes!



this was at the port markets, some people just get on a theme and get just a liiiiiiitle too carried away with themselves. oh well, at least it keeps them off the streets.



there's a great vintage clothes shop in the markets too, i tried on fur coats, they're... kinda... creepy.



i had a rocket icecream! ah the nostalgia.



all the daytime activity finished, and we had to wait around for about 4 hours until the performance at night. of course we spent the majority of the time at the pub. i don't know who looks more bored here, bridget or matt...



but the prize goes to... this guy:



well he already won the prize actually - the meat tray raffle at the pub. rockin.

x

one of the best lunches i've ever had

strips of beef cooked fresh with onion, lemongrass and chili, on top of carrot, cucumber, mint, rice noodles and bean sprouts. then you pour the dressing - a sweet, sour and bit spicy - over the whole lot. crunchy, chewy, freash and cooked all at the same time, so incredibly yummy. and topped off with jasmin tea.

if you're an adelaidean, go to the old food court at the markets, the vietnamese place on the right as you go in the north end, its number 4. you won't be disappointed.

x

this is a little story about the day Mark went to the Port...

There's Mark, can you see him?



Here's Mark's lunch. Fish and chips - yum!



and here's Mark's dessert. Ooo ice-cream, and a coke!



Mark went for a little walk to work off all that yummy lunch.



"Wow, you're up so high!" says Mark.



Ooo careful Mark, its a long way down!



"I love Batmobiles" says Mark.



Whoops, I think Mark bumped his head against that mannequin!



Mark asked the lady some questions, she looked at her cards and told him he would meet a beautiful princess. And that he should bet on the number 9.



Then Mark took a little rest, "It's been a busy day!" he says.



Mark took a bit more of a rest at the hotel. He drank lots of drinks and smoked some yucky cigarettes.



Then it was dinnertime! Here's Mark's dinner - sausages, mashed potato and gravy mmmm.



Mark had lots and lots of drinks and then he danced on the table outside the hotel.



He was having so much fun!



And then it was time for Mark to go home. Wow, what a great day it was.

its good news week!

Debbie got the job as Gallery Manager at Object in Sydney, I hear she was head-hunted. whoop! sad for us though coz she's leaving in a month, so quick.

Mark has had all sorts of good response to his article in Australian Art Collector. Some guy called him to say he was going to fly from Sydney to Melbourne to see the show at Bus Gallery where he is showing at the moment! wow! lets hope that guy has his chequebook handy.

Kristy was offered a job in marketing at the Adelaide Festival - so deserved, you'll have a ball, well done Kristy! (and someone new for me to play with at work yay)

Bridget found out that she's been accepted into the residency program at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Kitakyushu, Japan. There's only like about 15 people accepted each year into this program, and it has all these amazing visiting artists and curators, the likes of Hans Ulrich Obrist, Laurence Weiner and Maurizio Cattelan. For you non-art people, they are somewhat like art gods. She'll be gone for six whole months starting from September. Needless to say, she's rather excited.

On the other hand, I've had no good news. None at all. And then I was having celebratory dumplings at Dumpling King with Bridget tonight and as I bit into one of the little steamed Shanghai dumplings, a scalding hot explosion of dumpling juice spurted out from the dumpling and burnt me on the lip.



(not the actual dumplings but looks just like them)

It bloody hurt. Those things should come with a warning.

x

takin' the bull by the horns (so to speak)

wednesday night at downtown art space we had a corker of an opening for meet&greet - an open exhibition for adelaide artists - including no less than 64 works. was a feat in itself to hang such a show i can assure you (well done peter, mark and tamzin).



note the sold sticker - the building sold at auction this week for a cool $3.6 million. we popped into arts sa that afternoon just to let them know we'd bought it and to check that the increase in downtown's funding would be ok - funny, none of them would see us (haha). i guess its a matter of time before townhouse disease takes hold.



lots of cool kids came out for the opening... here's the lovely anne, lovely louise and half of lovely shaw



akira!! don't look so worried! its all not that bad!



this girl made a very good impression of a drunkard at one point by holding a full box of empty bottles with one arm, whilst standing in a bucket. i'm not sure why. not surprisingly, one of the bottles fell out and smashed on the ground. next time maybe lay off the vino lady! still, no great harm done.



after the marathon opening a bunch of us ended up at the falafel house to fill empty bellies.
it was chips with garlic sauce all round (tasty, thanks for the tip peter)



peter with hat hair



mark with hat head and chip lip



tamzin showing her true bogan colours



i'm not sure whose idea it was (i suspect sofia) but suddenly it was decided that we were going to the very classy Woolshed on Hindley Street to ride the mechanical bull. funny how these things seem like a good idea at the time.

james and sofia - looking all innocent-like



but actually it was quite a good idea, most entertaining! sofia was the first cowgirl off to the rodeo...



then mark put his chaps on. not too bad an effort...



and he here is making a hasty retreat. nice dacks mark, purple's definitely your colour



then it was james, hanging on for dear life. he leaped off after about 10 seconds! disappointing!! i'd picked him for more of a daredevil...



then romi, after a leg-up, not too bad!



but then there was peter "the cowboy" mckay. complete with cowboy-esque hat, he held on...



and on...



and eventually fell off in grand fashion. very impressive! the only disappointment was that he didn't hold his hat in the air and yell yee-haw



the ladies checking out the action...



then one of the woolshed regulars had a go and managed to break the bull until it was crying in the corner. no more bullriding for anyone. here's tamzin looking really disappointed that she missed out on her turn



and if you're wondering, no i didn't ride the bull. unfortunately i was next after tamzin on the bull's dance-card. shame...

x

peaches in breeches

I was watching one of those new bizarre gameshows on telly just before and this was an actual question...

Which of these is a children's television show:
a) pears in flares
b) bananas in pyjamas
c) peaches in breeches

Hilarious! Their question writer must be really bored with their job. But then I thought, bananas in pyjamas is actually a pretty crazy idea anyway.

x

feradelaide and the chef

Last weekend I volunteered as an artist minder at Womadelaide.

Artist minding basically means being the first point of contact for artists for just about anything whilst in Adelaide for their gig – you pick them up from the airport, check them into the hotel, orientate them to Adelaide a bit if necessary, get them to the venue on time, get them into their dressing-room, introduce them to the stage manager, accompany them to publicity calls, etc etc etc and just generally be around to assist if they need it. I was assigned 3 separate groups of performers, Asha Bhosle, an incredibly famous Bollywood playback recording star (statistically the most famous person in the world), who was performing with the Kronos Quartet (also pretty damn famous), an 18 piece gamelan orchestra from West Java called SambaSunda and an 8 piece group from New Caledonia called Celenod. As you can probably tell, I had a busy weekend. And it was 37 degrees on Saturday.

I saw countless tie-dye wearing hackysack players. I saw some pretty damn impressive hippie dancing. I even saw some guy stop mid-dance, turn around and ask the general crowd "does anyone know where my wife is?". I saw an 11 year old boy wandering through the crowd wistfully singing Bob Dylan’s Blowing in the Wind. Someone else told me they saw an even younger kid singing “We are the World”. Hmmm, next generation of emo maybe? I also ate a handmade byron bay organic jamfilled doughnut. I forgot to take a picture of it, but I think the doughnut summed up Womad - decadent, expensive, very messy, and pretending to be good for you.

I won’t bore you with the story of how hard I worked, or how hot and bloody dusty it was, because a much more exciting thing happened.

On Sunday afternoon I was standing out front of the Hilton, where all Womad artists stay, waiting for somebody or something - I can’t remember what now. Anyway, there were a few people milling around too, I didn’t take much notice of them. Then suddenly my gaze locked onto a man standing on the Hilton front steps. It was the Chef from The Cook and the Chef! (Shame on you if you don’t know what I’m talking about, and I’m not going to explain, but go here to have a look.) (Those of you overseas are excused from this shame.)

I gasped! It was really him! He was in full cheffy outfit, arms folded, chatting to some minions and surveying his kingdom (ie Victoria Square and assorted drunkards). I immediately rang Bridget to share my excitement. I then tried to nonchalantly walk close enough behind him to hear his voice, whilst still on the phone to Bridget so she could hear it too (if you’ve seen the show you’ll know what I mean). Bridget demanded that I get his autograph for her, so I went to the concierge to get a piece of paper as I had nothing - I know, so ridiculously unprepared. When I returned he had gone!! No!!! We were most upset. I won’t admit to this but I may have lurked around the Hilton foyer until I found where he was, which may have been in the Brasserie, and I may have then sat in the middle bar area so I could see him through the palm fronds as he had a very serious conversation with someone about the glasswasher (I think). I may have then rang Bridget to update her as to his location. We may be now trying to invent a reason for an expensive dinner at the restaurant, so that we can spy on him further.

x