Are you guys sponsored by the RACV?

3 August 2006

Official Statistics
Papa Gino's - 8:50
Official Start - 9:11
Official Finish - 12:42
Cafe Noturno - 1:17
Al Monte Ice Creams - SS - White Chocolate, (6/10) HM - Countreau and White Chocolate (1/10)

The night started again with the bearing of gifts. A laminated and mounted print of the CITY MORGUE was presented and now takes pride of place on my office's pin board. Pre dinner conversation focused on work issues, specifically, the dysfunction of the institute, when is an infectious case an infectious case and the innovation of remote captioning.

Dinner conversation focused primarily on local imbeciles. In ShinyShiny's case, giving a lift to the local wanderer who then proceeded to ask if he could also get some money or drugs. ShinyShiny could only offer a bag of pistachio nuts. After acting disappointed that they were not foundoulis, he then tried to take the whole bag of nuts. A compromise was reached where the bag was shared. The imbecile has been passed in the car since then and now provides an excited wave of recognition. They must have been some pistachios. In my case, an elderly man stopped me whilst on the final stretch of a morning run to test me on my bike path traffic rule knowledge. Despite lane markings indicating cyclists and pedestrians should keep to the left he rambled on about always having to keep to the right so you can see oncoming traffic approaching. I didn't really mind given my heart rate was above my theoretical maximum and could of easily suffered a heart attack at any instant. Even if he was a bit strange he had a wealth of local historical knowledge to draw upon.

We also revisited the topic of notice board nazis. The pan toilet article remains on the institute notice board for some reason, Wala as noted earlier had a 6 month life span, but Russian history is luck to stay up for a day. Health and safety also got a guernsey during conversation, with almost all institute staff sabotaging the face masks they were required to use for "safety" reasons so that they could breathe without restriction. What a place, I was lucky to have gotten a get out jail free card after a 12 year stint with the crazy fucks.

Things of interest for the evening included:

The State Library. Shinyshiny looks fondly at this place given the kids love of rolling down the sloping lawns and playing on Architectural Fragment by Petrus Spronk. Page 12, 13 and 14 of this Maths teaching aid go into some detail about how Architectural Fragment was created. The sculptures of St George and the Dragon and of Jeanne D'Arc are also quite impressive. The story of St George and the Dragon can be found here. The James Joyce Seat of Learning seemed a little bare to us, so a calling card was placed to give anyone curious to sit at the seat of learning something to look at other than bare stone.

QV was next on the list and its' modern interpretation of lanes and alleys is piss poor. The mock alley names are also a bit of a joke given the block has been turned into a crap shopping mall. Having said that - not all change is for the worse. Having a super market in the middle of the city isn't such a bad thing, and the art store Artuno with its Anime paintings on public display is pretty cool too. Anime is a of curious interest given the examples on display are of females with disproportionately large breasts with white splotches on them. It's hard to get answers to the significance (cultural or otherwise) of this type of image without being inadvertently directed to hard core porn sites or vague sites on anime that don't delve into the representation of the female form, or more specifically, sticky looking substances on the female form. I did however come across this interesting critique Cyborg girls and shape-shifters: The discovery of difference by Anime and Manga Fans in Australia.
Whilst one structure from the sites original hospital days remains, ShinyShiny was also reminded of his days spent visiting his sister and operating the telephone exchange. An Asian grocer in QV also led us to discuss the ubiquitous waving cat or Maneki Neko (beckoning cat).

It is remarkable what you can get away with if you have a clip board or a torch. A few weeks back we were asked ...are you FP? This week if we were sponsored by the RACV. The image that generated this question was of one of our calling cards with the logogram for the RACV and the slogan.... Membership has its privileges. The excitement of potentially getting a review must have caused a lapse in concentration from the organiser of Chant Drum Sound at Rasta wannabe night in Section 8 as she ignored the strange image and instead focused on the RACV logo. Quite amusing for us, to say the least. The clients at Section 8 on this night were just as funny. White middle class rebellion involving dreadlocks, marijuana and whispy beards. If you didn't know where Section 8 is by the way try Stevensons Lane off Tattersalls Lane in Chinatown. Around the corner a little, Stevensons Lane by the way has some nice stencil art - Osama Bin Laden with the words Ha Ha is making some kind of statement.

At Heffernan Lane is laneway commission by Evangelos Sakaris: Word and Way, which links the Greek and Chinese cultures of Lonsdale and Little Bourke Streets by disguising quotes from the ancient philosophers, Heraclitus and Lao Tzu, as public signage. Some laneway commissions are removed after a short period of time, so I hope that this one remains as it's pretty cool.

Little Bourke St has very distinct North/South characteristics. Restaurants abound to the North (some of which have nicely presented plastic replica plates on display) and Service lanes for Shops dominate the South. There is a plaque placed for the 150 year anniversary of Victoria that celebrates the contribution of the Chinese community. The Plaque looks like it cost $1.99 and is placed on a building with hideous brown bricks that probably cost less. If we are going to celebrate the contribution of a community, surely we can do better than that. Num Pon Soon built in 1861 as a club for Chinese immigrants is worth a look. It houses the earliest known surviving Chinese shrine in Australia and possibly the earliest outside of Asia. Along the lines of the anime discussed earlier it is worth acknowledging the contribution that international students have made to the face of our city. The shopping arcades off Little Bourke abound with Little Kitty, anime , robots and astroboy merchandise.

Bullens Lane has a pretty cool stencil: Peace Reigns Supreme where a series of bombers is depicted with smiles on their nose cones.

We also witnessed a vagrant rummage through a bin to find an unfinished Big M - and then skull the contents - always nice to get a reminder of how the other half live.

Parallelling the notice board Nazis at the institute, we were amazed to find that a calling card lasted less than 20 minutes at an ANZ ATM at the corner of Little Bourke and Swanston. Another was put in its place on our way back to Carlton and we stood around until we had the privilege of seeing the publics response to the juxtaposition of images and words. It is interesting to note that our initial timid manner in exploring public space has been replaced with a blaze' attitude. Bouncers now go quiet when we encroach on what they may perceive as their space, our manner barely acknowledging their presence.

On the way back to Carlton, going past RMIT we were the first to notice a burst water main on Franklin St, adjacent to the security office. The same security officer who questioned why we were standing next to THE CITY MORGUE sign last adventure was the first to spring into action, although I'm unsure whether she recognised us.

Last but not least, we were transfixed by workers who were repainting lane markings on the corner of Swanston and Victoria. Quite a job: taping the area, laying a thick layer of paint and then throwing some form of powder on top. It must be heart breaking when people with no sense of direction then meander right into the freshly painted area leaving their foot prints (not us mind you, but some Indian family walking the streets in the middle of the night for some reason).