Relatively busy

02/03/09

Today I don’t have too much planned… Well… There is a gentleman called Terry and his wife I want to meet for morning tea, who are interested in family history and who are related to me via a great grandfather’s cousin. Rather distant, but always fun to meet new people! I have a leisurely breakfast, put on my new dress and float in the sun down to the Legion Club on Coogee seafront. I spot the Legion Club, an old blue backlit sign, and nearby is a little café. I meander vaguely around near the Club, peer n the dark windows and wonder if I am too early (huh??). A pleasant late-middle-aged gentleman potters thoughtfully and determinedly towards me. He is in blue shirt and has grizzled hair above a friendly face. He introduces himself as Terry, though his wife is sadly unable to come due to babysitting duty! We stare at the menu and chatter about all sorts of things, shoes, ships, sealing wax, cabbages, kings… Well, not quite, but it feels like it. He is immensely likeable, easygoing, fun to talk to and full of good ideas. He and his wife have been free spirits it seems, travelling from one end of the world to the other during a busy life, living in various interesting places. He gives me tips about New Zealand and the USA, and tells me the places he has lived… I think he ought to write them down and tell him as much! J
My brunch arrives – though I am mildly and momentarily perplexed by the fried eggs on my toast… I ask before the waitress shoots off and it turns out she has muddled up two plates and my scrambled brunch is being suspiciously inspected by a chubby and equally perplexed Italian. Brunch sorted I tuck in as we chat over coffee and juices…
Still, all too soon it is time for us to leave – I want to get out and about to Luna Park and he has get back to his babysitting wife.
[Thank you! ;)]

Right, a quick change (not going on ferry and rides in THIS dress!) then off to the bus to Circular Quay! I also do an uncharacteristic amount of thinking ahead and remember to take my opera outfit with me too to change into…
I perch myself in my favourite seat (on the left by the back door, one row up…) and watch the world go by in the sun. A schoolboy gets on – He’s in shorts but it looks a little incongruous since he makes me think of Just William, but is clearly too old for them and may well be the school hunk… the headphone instead of the cap disabuse the Just William notion anyway… We pass a poster for a film called ‘Love the Beast’ starring Jeremy Clarkson – Could be interesting! J

Looking at the passers-by I come to the conclusion that everyone creates their own little personal shell of clothing and belongings to protect and project their image. Lately, following Innocent’s cheeky, personal style, this image projection has become more ‘fun’ as if people are striving to share a little piece of their cheeky, personal self, usually reserved for friends and family, with the world, laying bare the more intimate shell usually used around mates… Yet, should you approach them as such, you can almost guarantee they’d be affronted!

Here is Circular Quay again – I like it up here! I hop onto a ferry, noting once again the two sets of Aboriginals playing along to eerie soundtracks on didgeridoos and clap sticks and inviting people’s photographs. I find that my ferry is 'Alexander’ again and am pleased by this for some reason. Maybe he is always the ferry on this particular stretch. There is the familiar grinding rumble as we turn and we have chance to inspect the ocean liner ‘Aurora’ as we leave the stop. The first stop is the one for Luna Park, so I only have a short trip this time. I get off onto the rusting jetty in the sun and view the great, eyelashed, goggle-eyed, be-toothed clown’s face as I enter the Park itself. The first thing I am struck by is the emptiness of the place. Even for a Monday afternoon it is deserted… It is also jaded, tired, affectionately old-fashioned and nevertheless delightful. It does feel like a ghost amusement park though, baking in the sun, and still and quiet but for the 1950s style music hall tunes pumping out into the void.
This ghost-amusement-park is nonetheless rather fun as I wander between rides with exotic names, admire the ferris wheel, and listen to Glen Miller.
I get myself on the Ferris wheel after admiring it from below; it is a large white framework with candy-coloured carriages hanging from it. Bright red, blue, yellow, green, they dangle like swaying fruit in the breeze, pausing every so often to let someone on or off… The views from up here are pretty good – you can see over to the Opera House, where I’m headed later, and have an uninterrupted view of the Harbour Bridge, plus all the people around, though not many in the park itself! I enjoy the blue sky, the twinkling sea and the light breeze as I revolve in peace for a while, then I am let out of my little fruit-coloured cage and back into the main park.
I head towards the exit as they close early on a Monday and am caught by a rather sad story near the exit – the original Ghost Train ride here at this Luna Park (the first one was on Coney Island) burn down in the late 70s, killing 7 people, and the Park was not rebuilt until the mid 80s, minus the Ghost Train...

Sobering thought in mind, I head back to the Quay (neatly stepping straight out of the Park and onto a ferry – hooray!), where I investigate ferries to Manly. It seems that they are $16, not being included in the weekly pass I have, and they take a while to get there, so it doesn’t really seem worth it today. I mooch happily around the Rocks instead, deciding to go to Manly tomorrow! I wander past the shops this time and out the other side. I have a brief look at the Harbour Bridge and decide against climbing it – it’s a lot of effort, time and money for a view that’s missing one of the most iconic pieces of architecture Sydney has…
;)
I spot the Observatory in the distance and decide to go and investigate that instead… It is high on a hill overlooking Sydney, but well-worth the short clamber behind the Rocks. The building itself is currently closed as it’s getting late. There is a lovely light everywhere now – bronzed late afternoon sun glows off the trees, hills and suburbs spread out below like a page from a child’s picture book. I particularly wanted to see the domes and gardens here anyway, so I wander around the neat building. It belongs now to Sydney Powerhouse Museum but the gardens are open until dusk, which here in Sydney is fairly late! I’ll need to be away and changed before then for the opera! I sit in the dappled shade under a large friendly tree below a studded, panelled, verdigris’d dome, which is glossy in the sun. I relax and enjoy the warmth, the cool grass underfoot and the architecture in front of me. A few people trot by on errands of their own and smile quickly as they pass. I bask in the evening glow and notice that my skin has started to smell of sunshine. I leave, reluctantly, and hurry back into the Rocks again to find some dinner. I pass an enormous fig tree on the way – it must have been there before the path was conceived, let alone built. However, I am also slightly hampered by the impressive collection of overripe squashed figs and seeds beneath my sandals!
Squelch
Squish
Hobble
Squelch
Crunch
Slide
Scrape, scrape…
Squish
Squelch
Sigh…
I am – unsurprisingly, you know me! – drawn into a little art shop which is still open along the street in the Rocks. I admire several paintings of the Harbour and various birds and the lady in the shop effuses over my home-made necklace… Maybe I do have a market after all…? ;)
I find a nice bathroom in the Rocks and change for dinner – neat frock on, hair up, makeup doing the best job it can. I meander around, following my nose until I locate a pizzeria which looks and smells nice. I have run out of time to keep looking for anywhere else, so pizza it is!
It is called Amo Roma, and is, while not at all busy, very good indeed. The staff are friendly, they don’t mind at all when I say I have a limited time frame, and serve me accordingly, with a smile. I think it also helps that their background music CD, I later find out, is a mixture by one of the Puerto Rican waitresses, who has picked some of my favourites – I enjoy my Margarita pizza with Willie Colon, Celia Cruz, Juanes, and the Buena Vista Social Club playing such tunes as Oye Como Va, La Camisa Negra and a cha-cha sporting a didgeridoo… Guaranteed to make the food taste good! The pizza itself is enormous and tasty, with a scattering of fresh basil on the top making it delectable. It is a pity about the apple juice, though that’s not their fault – like pretty much all the apple juice around the rest of Australia, good quality and bad, it is flavoured… Why the locals feel the need to make perfectly good apple juice taste of apple chewits is beyond me… :P

Stuffed to the gills with good pizza, I head off to the Opera House at the briskest stride I can manage on a full stomach (so not very fast at all!) and, ticket clutched in excited, sticky paw, I enter beneath the great soaring arches that make the opera House such an icon… I am ushered up a vast, curved staircase into a wood-lined ante-room which leads up into the Circle. I have picked a good place to go for cheap seats – there are no pillars in this enormous concert hall – it is perfectly laid out, every item in place, every seat comfortable, the ceiling maximised for sound and the whole place reeking of minimalist opulence. I settle down in my velvet seat to enjoy Mendelssohn’s version of Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. I feel privileged to be here, in my $30 seat, experiencing this piece. The hall is crammed with sound and the orchestra demand everyone’s rapt attention.
I come to the conclusion, at this very moment, that it is eminently possible to be perfectly happy on one’s own – enjoying an experience alone, but with hundreds of other like-minded people, all enjoying it alone too. I admire the organ; it is a beautiful, symmetrical beastie, elegantly and geometrically laid out above the stage. The building’s interior has a very 1960s, 1970s feeling to it, though everything is perfectly placed for optimum performance. The boxes are curved and there are transparent donuts above the stage to better direct the sound.
The piece itself that we are listening to flows beautifully. It has a delightful elegance and seems to resolve itself neatly which is pleasing to my ear.
Soon, though, some orchestra-black-clad people extract themselves from the main body of musicians and begin the play proper. It is a minimalist, though impassioned performance. This is so different from the version I saw in Hobart!
The parts are very well-enunciated and some of the actors seem almost accentless. The rustics are a little more couth, the main protagonists a little less comic and a little more tragic, though still very funny. This is highbrow Shakespeare, though I have no doubt that he himself would have enjoyed this version just as much as a slapstick one! The rustics emerge as Opera House staff (everything is appropriate to the setting – someone has clearly though very hard about costumes, props and characterisations). An usher bustles in, followed by a builder, a chef, a cleaner, a security guard and a chap who swaggers onto the stage announcing that he has a pizza for ‘Mr Tim Pani. Is there a Tim Pani in the house?’.
The set is largely provided by the music, which punctuates the scenes subtly and fluidly; this is raw Shakespeare with a soundtrack. The music, well, the instruments, also provide the entirety of the props – Dimitrius and Lysander duel with brass, the herb which causes all the trouble is represented by some kind of dainty horn and Bottom’s new and horrifying ears are represented by brass horns peeping out either side of his head! It is very clever and highly amusing in a very refined way.
The fairies are cleverly denoted by their outfits too. They are dressed the same as the other characters at first, but when they stop being invisible and begin to interact with other characters, they have brightly lit jackets – each gentleman has a scattering of blue lights over his tuxedo, while the ladies have shawls or corsages which twinkle the same. It is very clever, simple, very effective and ethereal. For the final moment, fairies appear down the front four rows and distribute glow sticks to the audience there, who wave their faint blue glows with the fairy chorus at the back of the stage, leaving the auditorium in darkness but for the twinkling of the fairies and the elusive waving of little blue lights.
That was a thoroughly enjoyable version and was well worth a visit.
I emerge, peaceful and happy, into the twinkling night, warm and balmy, lit by moon, stars and artifice, safe beneath the glossy, warmth of the Opera House, before wandering back towards the Quay, bus and home to bed.

J