Category Archives: Travel

Just Keep Writing

18 Sunday Nov 2018

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I arrived back in Melbourne yesterday at 8:00am. It was a red-eye flight and I had very little sleep: I had one screaming toddler, one loud snorer, and a man sitting next to me who seemed unhappy with the amount of space I wanted to take up. I can’t say I blame him, economy seats are not large.

I had a fantastic time in Japan, my Facebook friends have all been spammed with my food photos, and my various landscapes, but here is a sample of the good ones:

I managed to keep up with NaNoWriMo while I was travelling. I had plenty of time on trains where I was able to sit down and just write for an hour or so. I’m lucky enough to be able to get my 1700-odd words out in about an hour, usually, and being unable to scroll through my social media while ‘thinking’ about writing certainly helps.

My NaNoWriMo manuscript’s working title is ‘Well Suited’. The two main characters are both professional, and very well dressed. My hero is a three-piece suit wearing graphic designer and my heroine is a sharply dressed legal adviser. I mocked up a cover but I don’t like it enough to show anyone.

Now that I’m back, I think it will be harder to get my words done. I’ve filled up my days a lot now that I’m home. I’ve even had to pull out of a project until after December 1 because I was trying to do too many things at once. Even now I’m blogging instead of NaNo-ing!

Better get back to it. Much love!

Letters from abroad

04 Sunday Nov 2018

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I am coming to you, dear readers, from the Shinkansen service destined for Hiroshima*. I am travelling again!

This time I’m going around Japan. I’ve been here for just over a week already, I had a few days in Tokyo on my own before I joined a tour group last Tuesday. I had hoped to get to the Studio Ghibli Museum on my second day in the city, but I managed to get food poisoning.

harajuku, tokyo, fashionm japan

Harajuku fashion district in Tokyo

I had thought I would be safe in Japan; it’s a highly developed country with an obsession with cleanliness, but maybe I just got lucky. I managed to get through most of India without any issues and ended up having an issue with the food on the airplane to come home!

My impressions of Japan so far are that it is a highly organised and highly regulated society. The rules are well-known and they are strictly adhered to by most. I’m on a package tour which allows me to have a planned itinerary and tour guide available to answer my random questions.

I haven’t yet had any conversations with him about the state of Japan’s drug problems, or societal problems other than the ageing population, which was discussed briefly.

I had a surreal experience at the train station in Kanazawa. The local police were handing out small packets of tissues which had a leaflet inside with mug shots of wanted criminals. The police were so jolly and polite I wasn’t sure what was going on.

The landscapes here are completely different to those back at home. It’s probably the most extreme difference I’ve seen in all the travel that I’ve done. Geologically I suppose that Japan must be relatively young; it’s mountains are all high and steep, and haven’t yet shrunk with the passage of time and the erosion of wind and water.

It’s autumn here and the leaves are turning. While the pines remain evergreen, the maples, plum and cherry trees are putting on a show of colour; red, magenta, orange, yellow. Hillsides covered in this array of colours are breathtaking and remind me that I’m a long way from the uniform grey-green of eucalypts.

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Maple tree in the Hida Folk Village, Takayama

I have almost two weeks more here, I will try to get time to put up another post or two, but it will really depend on scheduling and energy. I’ve started doing NaNoWriMo again this year and so far I’m keeping up with the daily word counts. Travel time is particularly useful for making up my word counts! The story is slowly coming together. I went into this year’s novel with less plot development than I’ve had in previous years, but I think it will come together in the end. Probably in the second or third drafting stages.

I’m having a lovely time so far, food-poisoning notwithstanding, and I’m looking forward to my next two weeks and the projects I’ll be coming home to after that.

Big Love.

*The train didn’t have wi-fi, so I’m posting later.

Going Wild – 2017 RWA Conference

19 Saturday Aug 2017

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I’ve been pretty busy lately, including this blog I wrote for the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild about my trip to Brisbane for the RWA conference.

Now I’m working on getting my manuscript ready to submit to some publishers ASAP to take advantage of the renewed enthusiasm from going to the conference.

I’ll update you all soon.

Self-indulgent café poem

26 Wednesday Aug 2015

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I thought it would be best to give this post a title which describes the content. But first, a little bit of a run down of my Edinburgh Fringe Festival experience now that I’m more than half way through.

I have written down the name of every show I’ve seen so far along with how much they cost, because my inner accountant likes that sort of thing. I just counted them and, as of last night, I have seen to 43 shows. I sometimes think I haven’t seen that many, or that I should try to see more, but then compare with some random person I get chatting to at a show, or over some food, and I realise, actually, I’ve been jamming them in. The thing is that most of the shows are in the afternoon and evening, so you can spend the morning fucking about and still see six shows in a day. 

As is always the case with festivals some of the stuff I’ve seen has been really bad, and some has been phenomenal. My tolerance for crappy shows has been gradually diminishing but I’m still blown away by things which are beautiful. Or hilarious. 

Being here as a solo traveller is a bit surreal. I’m not staying in as hostel, so I am not making hostel friends, and I’m not doing a show, so I don’t have performer friends. It’s a funny sort of limbo, a bit like working in retail or doing job interviews; you forge superficial connections to people for extremely short periods of time and then you go your separate ways. Well, I wrote this poem about it while feeling emotional after Rob Auton’s “The Water Show”.

Is this real life?

A connection forged over food.
That fleeting chemistry
Of socially acceptable chat
Doesn’t ever really make it past that.
The connection that never makes it through to anything
Other than a single serving friend.
The idea of a relationship
Is always better than the relationship.

I’m tired; it’s tiring to start every day alone
Of having a glimmer of someone else
Flashed in front of me
Only to be snatched away
When you go back to your real life.
What if this is my real life?
And all I ever gave are snippets snatched
From people who are just passing though?
And each one is, in its way, beautiful.

So beautiful I might weep
But I can’t, because that’s weird. Apparently.
Those moments in life when I think it’s all too much
And my emotions are so close to the surface
That I’m sure everyone can see them.
In those moments I want to embrace them
And let everything inside show
To watch as your faces crumble trying to
Comprehend what I’m showing you.
Trying, wordlessly, to get my feelings back inside my shell,
Trying to feel safe again.

Safe. Where nothing unexpected happens.
Where nothing hurts.
Where no one smiles,
Or laughs,
Or cries.
Safe and blank and empty.
I watch you walk away
Back to your friends, and your job, and your flat.
Your real life.
A place I can’t follow
Because this is my real life.

Edinburgh Fringe Brain Puddle

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

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I’ve spent today so far hanging out at my accommodation because yesterday I slipped on the cobbled streets of Edinburgh and hurt my right foot. This is my fourth day at the Fringe. I’m pretty devastated.

Since arriving I’ve seen so many amazing things. I’ve been filling my brain with all sorts of art and I don’t really how, or if, I’m going to be able to keep it all straight in my memory. I feel like there will be things that be pushed out when I try to fit something new in. That being said the idea of having an immersive experience where everything sort of blurs together into one abstract blob sounds kind of amazing too.

Maybe I’ll start last night and work backwards. I saw Beardyman, who is a sort of musical improviser. I have seen a bit of his stuff on YouTube and he was one of the few people who wa on my list even before I got to Scotland. The show, One Album Per Hour, is made up of song titles suggested by the audience before the show and he sort of makes up a genre and song based on those titles. My suggestions wee “Vampires on Speed” and “Watermelon Floyd”. I was really excited when he read out the first one and proceeded to make up a song which started with organ like massive chords and a dodgey Transylvanian accent through a dancey rave party high section, coming back to the organ chords at the end. It was pretty cheesy but I don’t know what else I was expecting from a suggestion like that.

I wanted to show off a bit about that last one, but I’ve seen too many shows so far to give them all a review. I’m also quite tired as I didn’t sleep very well, my foot kept hurting, so I’ll make a list and of the ones, so far, that are worth seeing:

Unfortunately some of these have already finished. Three plus weeks is a pretty long time to do a show. Apparently this is the point at which people start to go a bit insane which should be interesting. I’m hoping that I’ll be up for a short trip into the centre tonight for a show or two. It seems like a waste not to go out at all with so many things to see and so little time.

I’m feeling a bizarre combination of inspiration and brain fart. I feel like I really want to be able to produce something as great and mind blowing as some of the shows I’ve seen here, but I also feel this crippling sense of intimidation. I guess it’s that thing of comparing oneself to others; sometimes you come out well sometimes not, but usually the comparison is not worth drawing and is completely unhelpful. As much as I know it is unhelpful, I none-the-less am compelled to do it.

Perhaps this experience is a bit like being in India; you realise it’s true scope and effect on your mind only much later when you’re at home and have had time to assimilate the information properly.

I am learning, however, that I really struggle to respect someone if I don’t like their art. Strike that, I don’t have to like it, nor do I have to completely comprehend it, but I must respect the art if I am to respect the artist. Comedians who are dismissive or insulting to groups of people fall into this category. That isn’t art, it’s being a jerk.

So I have more than a week more here to drink in all the things, and hopefully venture to a couple of the other parts of nearby Scotland. I hope my foot will be more up for walking soon too!

Oh look, Amsterdam!

12 Wednesday Aug 2015

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Hullo dear readers!

I Amsterdam sign outside the Hermitage Portrait Museum

I Amsterdam sign outside the Hermitage Portrait Museum

I have now been in Amsterdam for about 10 days staying with some of my beautiful friends who moved here about two years ago. So far I have touristed thoroughly, in addition to eating all the things, sitting with some neighbours and pretending I understood what they were saying (and mostly getting a vague idea), BBQing in Vondelpark and cycling about the town, Weesp, where my friends now live.

I had hoped that I would be able to do some writing while I was away, but it doesn’t seem to have happened. Travelling is tiring, y’know? I have taken a few pictures around the place, and seen lots of cool museums.

One of them, the Eye Film Museum, had an exhibition by a South African artist/animator William Kentridge. The photo below is of his stencils which were used in the films that they had in the exhibition.

Stencils by William Kentridge

Stencils by William Kentridge at The Eye Film Museum

Watching the film installations in this exhibition, and having read the little blurbs that went with them, it became clear that I didn’t get it. Like, at all. I mean, I can be pretty arty, I can look at abstract paintings or see avant garde theatre and usually have some appreciation for the work but these film were just a bit beyond me.

Perhaps it’s fatigue to do with being away from home, perhaps it’s to do with his commentary on South African culture, which I admit I don’t know much about, or perhaps I just don’t get it.

The experience of being in the Netherlands was pretty surreal to start with, but after a while the architecture and the language and the flat landscape and the cars driving on the other side of the road and all the bicycles all combine and you realise you’re far from home and it’s nice. I leave here on Saturday for Edinburgh to catch the Fringe Festival. I suspect it’s going to be intense. I might have more time for blogging there but then again I might not.

An art group painting the fountain in Vondelpark

An art group painting the fountain in Vondelpark

Oh India!

10 Sunday Aug 2014

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Part of me wants to open this post by saying I’m sorry for not posting. But I’m not going to. The reason I’ve been uncharacteristically quiet recently is because I went to India, then I moved house and started back full-time at uni as soon as I got back. I’ve been busy, I suppose you could say.

The first thing you might be wanting to know is why India? I suppose there were a few reasons. Firstly, I took a subject in the first half of the year which looked at European empires in the early modern period (that’s 1500-1800) a large portion of which was devoted to the British in India. I was interested to see some of the places where these fascinating, world altering things happened. Secondly, India is different. It’s one of the most different places I could think of to my home Australia and that sounded like a good reason to go. Thirdly, I’d never been to a country where you needed to get vaccinations – no Bali, or Thailand or Malaysia – I’d only been to Europe, the United States of America and New Zealand, and they’re not really that challenging, you know, culturally they’re similar, or at least familiar in certain ways. And lastly, it was cheap. I knew that I was leaving my permanent part-time job, and would be returning to full-time study, and therefore less income, on my return, so being able to get the experience of throwing myself into a completely different setting without spending too large a chunk of my savings was an important consideration.

Traditional dance demonstration in Udaipur, Rajastan.

Traditional dance demonstration in Udaipur, Rajastan.

The second thing people generally want to know when I say I’ve just been in India is where did I go? Well, I joined a prepackaged tour and we took in Delhi, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Jaipur, Pushkar, Bharatpur, Varanasi, and Kolkata in three weeks.

I went alone, but I was travelling with a group which had both advantages and drawbacks. The advantages were in having a local guide, who spoke excellent English and could translate for us where required, that the itinerary, bookings, travel etc. were all taken care of, and that I had travelling companions who I got to know quite well. The drawbacks were that the group, twelve in all, were all women, predominantly Australian with a couple of Brits (which says something I’m sure, but what I don’t know). This meant that any time we went out as a large group we were a spectacle. People stared. No, men stared.

Camel back safari into the desert near Jaisalmer, Rajastan.

Camel back safari into the desert near Jaisalmer, Rajastan.

I can say men stared because nine out of ten people we encountered were men. Men in shops, men in the street, men in trains and buses, men in restaurants. I suspect it has to do with purdah, the veiling/seclusion of women in both Hindu and Muslim cultures, but when asked our guide insisted that women are uncomfortable being in jobs where they are constantly coming into contact with strangers, and therefore chose not to be in those roles. Although I was in India for only a short time, I was continually aware of the very male nature of the general public I encountered.

India is beautiful. It has a long and rich culture and history. It has some gorgeous and diverse natural surroundings and environs, great temples and palaces, and a people who are proud to follow their traditions and to take pride in their way of life.

India is dirty. The streets are full of rubbish and stray animals – cows, dogs, goats, monkeys, squirrels – the water is polluted, the air is polluted, and there is a serious sewage issue. India is loud and intense. The colours are brighter, clothing is highly patterned and full of bold colour (particularly compared to grey old Melbourne fashion!) and the air is full of noise, from temples to car/bike/rickshaw horns (so many horns!), and people going about their business. 

Yep, that's me at the Taj Mahal.

Yep, that’s me at the Taj Mahal, Agra.

At the end of the trip I have a much better appreciation for what I consider normal. I had an understanding of what I expected, what made me stressed, what I could do to self-soothe, and what I ultimately needed and wanted to feel happy and calm. It’s amazing what you can deal with when you’re faced with a series of things which make you uncomfortable and you have to focus any reaction on the most salient thing and the other things just slide away. For me, the biggest thing I had to cope with was the cows, I just couldn’t get comfortable around them. I kept expecting them to lunge at me, even though they generally just stood there looking docile and not giving a single fuck about the chaos around them. 

Visiting India was one of the hardest, most rewarding, most exhausting, most exhilarating experiences in my life. I cannot begin to describe what it felt like to be in a place that’s so completely foreign, to be such an outsider. It feels like I’ve been able to redefine myself through comparison, but I also feel like I’ve learned a lot about myself and hopefully grown from the experience. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming (whatever that is).

Epic Night of Epicness – A Review

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

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Featuring: Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Brody Dalle and Sweethead.

It’s Thursday 6 March, 2014. The day starts with me getting up at 6am. I stumble around in the dark (yeah it’s dark then, who knew?), get all my shit in order and head out the door of my house at about 6:45am towards the train station. What follows is this:

Walk to train.
Train to city.
Bus to airport.
Plane to Sydney.
Train to city.
Walk to hostel.
Go for lunch.
Accidentally buy shoes.
Then come back to my room for a little lie down before heading to the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

If you are planning to see these guys play during their current tour DO NOT READ ON! Seriously, spoilers and stuff. Trust me when I say going in without preparation will make it so much better.

The gig officially starts at 7pm with Brody Dalle and her band. Being a bit of a nerd, and believing that you should give support acts your time, I turned up very early. I had time to have a bit of a chat with some of the staff behind the bar, with the ushers, with the guy who checked my ticket at the door. I was clearly one of the very few seated audience members who thought being early was a good idea. The standing area (mosh pit) was about a third full, but the stands were conspicuously empty.

As a result of having a chat with the usher, he offered me a seat upgrade. What a stroke of luck! I ended up being five rows from the front of the seated area, off to the side (but at a better angle than my original tickets). Score!

At bang on 7pm Brody Dalle and her band strode on stage. There were still very few punters in the audience, but to their credit the band seemed unphased by this.

Brody Dalle and band performing at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, 6/3/14.

Brody Dalle and band performing at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, 6/3/14.

Dalle herself is a fantastically rock front woman. She has a killer vocal style which sits somewhere between singing, screaming and growling. I honestly don’t understand how she can talk normally and still produce such intense, guttural sounds. She is slim, blond, and knows she’s kicking ass. Her stage presence unquestioned. I was not familiar with Dalle’s body of work, but I feel like this is something that I should address at my earliest convenience.

The set list is as follows:

  • Die on a Rope (The Distillers song)
  • Dismantle Me (The Distillers song)
  • Rat Race
  • Don’t Mess With Me
  • Meet the Foetus/Oh the Joy
  • Ghetto Love (Spinnerette song)
  • Underworld

Following her set, the roadies cleared the stage and started putting up new equipment. It had not been announced who, out of NIN and QOTSA, would be playing first, by all accounts it was going to be decided by coin toss, but the keyboards and synthesisers on stage made if pretty clear that NIN would be on first that night. I was exceedingly excited. I have been a fan of NIN for a long time, ever since a highschool boyfriend introduced me to their work. I’ve listened to Trent Reznor’s singing, screaming, yelling and crooning to soothe me to sleep on more than one occasion after a bad day. I’ve bounced up and down to them at parties, and more recently I’ve used their newest album, ‘Hesistation Marks’ as motivational music at the gym. Something about Trent’s cold, controlled fury and industrial beats really helps when I’m doing weights!

Nine Inch Nails perform at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, 6/3/14.

Nine Inch Nails perform at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, 6/3/14.

So at 7:50pm, when the smoke machines covered the stage and the lights went down announcing the band’s presence on the stage, and Reznor’s legendary self at the front I screamed and whooped and bounced and was generally filled with nervous anticipation.

The NIN setlist was as follows:

  • A Warm Place
  • Somewhat Damaged
  • 1,000,000
  • Letting You
  • Terrible Lie
  • March of the Pigs
  • Piggy
  • Sanctified
  • Came Back Haunted
  • Me, I’m Not
  • Copy of A
  • Survivalism
  • Only
  • Wish
  • Burn
  • Gave Up
  • The Hand That Feeds
  • Head Like a Hole
  • Hurt

The highlights from this set were the entire arena yelling ‘fist fuck’ in Wish and Trent’s dance moves (an honourable mention should also go to the manskirt that he was wearing). I also very much enjoyed that several of the songs played were remixed versions, and the audience were required to pay attention to find out what the song was. These were moments of uncertainty followed by a collective cry of recognition from the crowd. In addition to being generally awesome, Trent jumped down off the stage and touched the crowd and the mosh pit lost its shit.

I took a few photos, but I made a conscious effort to enjoy what was happening in front of me. In an age where I can see a concert through the lens of a camera basically any time I want I wanted to savour the experience of actually being near one of my all time favourite performers.

Once the set was finished, with ‘Hurt’,  a song choice that seems to be a signature of NIN but none the less has pros and cons (pro: it’s a fucking amazing song, con: everyone felt a bit deflated by Reznor’s emotional rendition of a difficult song) there was another short interval in which the stage was completely reset.

NIN had a fairly empty stage; they had low hanging lights, used a lot of smoke machine and used the lights to carve trails through the smoke. The effect was pretty cool, if occasionally a bit too heavy on the smoke so that the band members were obscured. QOTSA had a massive screen behind their set, they had big red, retro-looking speaker stacks on the stage, and they had laid what looked like shiny red linoleum on the floor. If not for the fact that I was there, I wouldn’t have believed it was the same gig.

On the screen behind the stage a huge countdown introduced them. As the band walked out, Joshua Homme had some serious swagger going on (although as a rock star wearing a leather jacket and a guitar it would be hard not to swagger). It was very attractive. They then dove straight into a powerful set which was full of their great songs and had everyone in the house going off tap. The mosh pit was writhing like a living organism and a couple of times when I looked over a circle had appeared in which some patrons were clearly dancing with considerable vigour and the others decided to give them some space. I worried that someone had started a fight, but I think it was just good natured overly excited dancing.

Queens of the Stone Age perform at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, 6/3/14. This is during the epic jam.

Queens of the Stone Age perform at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, 6/3/14. This is during the epic jam.

The QOTSA setlist is as follows:

  • You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire
  • No One Knows
  • My God Is the Sun
  • Burn The Witch
  • Smooth Sailing
  • …Like Clockwork
  • If I Had a Tail
  • Little Sister
  • Fairweather Friends
  • I Sat by the Ocean
  • Make It Wit Chu
  • Sick, Sick, Sick
  • 3′s & 7′s
  • Better Living Through Chemistry
  • Go With the Flow

Encore:

  • The Vampyre of Time and Memory
  • Feel Good Hit of the Summer
  • A Song for the Dead

The highlight of the show was the epic jam that happened in the middle of one of the songs (I think it was ‘3’s &7’s’, but let me know if that’s wrong), the song lasted for about 15mins. The band would be jamming away and they’d go to a quiet part and the crowd would think they were done and cheer, but they weren’t done.

I’ve read some reviews which were of the opinion that QOTSA played a better gig. I have mixed feelings about that analysis. Sure, QOTSA had a more pronounced crowd response, but I would argue that their music is better suited to rocking out than NIN. Additionally, Reznor has said in interviews that he has been striving to make the shows interesting for him to play as well as interesting for us to attend. I think that part of that manifests as a slightly experimental, and as a result more challenging concert experience. Additionally, for this show anyway, the audience were much drunker by the time QOTSA got on stage so that probably helped too. I should probably mention here that I’ve been a NIN fan for longer than QOTSA so I guess I’m always going to think they’re amazing.

It was now 11:30pm but my night was not over! After the last song of the QOTSA encore, I gathered myself up and headed up to the Oxford Art Factory to see Sweethead; a band composed of two guitarists, Troy Van Leeuwen and Dean Fertita and the drummer, Jon Theodore, from QOTSA and singer Serrina Sims.

Sweethead front woman Serrina Sims performs at the Oxford Arts Factory, 7/3/14 (technically, it was after midnight)

Sweethead front woman Serrina Sims performs at the Oxford Arts Factory, 7/3/14 (technically, it was after midnight)

I didn’t know any of the songs, and I’d only heard about the gig a couple of days earlier when it was announced, but I thought for under $20 it was worth checking out. I’m very glad I did! Sweethead are a tight bunch, they have consistently rocking tunes and Serrina does some excellent front woman work. From the black catsuit, to the thigh high diamonte heels to the repeated pouring of liquid over herself, she doesn’t shy away from the spotlight. I would have liked her vocal to be turned up a bit more in the mix but other than that it was a stand up show. The set was only 30 mins, having starting at 1am after already playing a set of well over an hour, you couldn’t blame them for keeping it short and sweet.

I have put a couple of pics into this post, but for the comprehensive set, check out my facebook album. My thanks also go to Tone Deaf for the setlists.

I’m not going to try to rate my night because I think trying to quantify it into something that simple looses all meaning, but it was, truly, one of the most spectacularly memorable nights of my life. Well worth the ticket price!

St Kilda Festival 2014

10 Monday Feb 2014

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Yesterday afternoon I braved the harsh summer sun to wander around St Kilda and soak up some of the festival good times.

The St Kilda Festival is a free annual event which runs for a bit over a week and culminates in Festival Sunday (yesterday). There is free live music, and rides, and stuff, and they close off the streets and it’s generally pretty good. A lot of people seem to get very drunk and wander around not closed streets and cause ruckuses so it has it’s problems, but most festival type events do.

I was there for a couple of hours in the afternoon, so before the real drunkenness started, and I snapped  couple of cool shots with the 50mm lens on my Canon 1100D.

New Music Stage: House Of Lawrence.

New Music Stage: House Of Lawrence.

House of Lawrence are a Melbourne based psych rock four piece. They were pretty awesome. You should check them out here.

The crowd in front of the main stage.

The crowd in front of the main stage.

Detail of a wall inside the St Kilda vaults, which are underneath The Esplanade.

Detail of a wall inside the St Kilda vaults, which are underneath The Esplanade.

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Alfred Square Stage: Chris Russell’s Chicken Walk

Chris Russell, of Chris Russell’s Chicken Walk, a two piece which was just drums and guitar, described as blues, and they definitely rocked. You should check them out here.

It would be impossible for one person to capture everything that was happening on festival day and do it any kind of justice, so I didn’t try. What I saw, I enjoyed, and what I enjoyed I have shared with you. Yay for Australian Live Music! Rock on!

USA – Urban Monuments

30 Friday Aug 2013

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Post number six in my collections from the US; urban monuments. There are some places that just inspire photos, and a lot of them that are from New York! It’s like I’m all about the east coast.

I like the idea that these are man made objects that have become the object of worship and awe. There is something about these places that triggers a response to take photos in tourists, this reflex to capture the moment, even though you may never look through your photos again.

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Grand Central Station with at least one person coming from the LGBTIQ Pride Parade, can you spot them?

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The New York City Public Library. This reminded me really strongly of a scene in the Harry Potter Lego video game, and when I showed a colleague at work they said the State Library in Melbourne was better.

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Radio City Music Hall. I really liked the art deco stylings and the use of neon lights, it’s very different to a lot of the stuff you get here in Melbourne.

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The classic night time shot of Times’ Square. I actually didn’t enjoy it that much (the Broadway show I saw excluded, because that was amazing!), it was full of other tourists and street hawkers trying to get money from me, but it was definitely an experience I am glad I had.

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Manhattan city skyline from the top of the Rockefeller building. The day was weirdly overcast, but still very warm and glarey.

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Obligatory photo of Lady Liberty. It was the same day as the photo of the skyline but the sun had come out by then. I tried to get a bit arty with the angle, I’m not sure I succeeded.

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World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. Each of the pillars you can see in the background represents a state and their contribution (and losses).

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On the fourth of July the Washington Monument was lit up by fireworks as the sun set; it was pretty spectacular. Unfortunately the monument is still covered in scaffolding because it split during an earthquake a couple of years ago.

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This is Elvis’ grave at Graceland, Memphis. You can see from the contributions left there that people literally worship it. According to the guided narration device, they will display any and all tributes on the grave until such time as the elements degrade them. The graves along side are Elvis’ parents and twin brother who died as an infant. I must say it’s weird visiting graves when the weather is nice, it seems unfitting.

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To contrast the impressive image of the original Lady Liberty, here is a shot of the replica in Las Vegas. There is something about the city that makes me wary; some seething underbelly of human misery upon which these glittering, gaudy monuments are built.

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The last photo in this group is of Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach. The weather here was a bit strange, it was a little bit cold, and the clouds were coming down over the hills behind the ferris wheel. I think it was also a lot less busy because it was not a nice day so I got a different feeling of the area than what’s shown in movies and TV. It’s hard to imagine this as the Baywatch Beach from this photo.