Owns plasma TV, but still a racist

Photo of accommodation poster

This poster advertising share accommodation in Sydney is pretty typical of the genre — a list of features, tear-off tags with phone numbers, and the notice that you’d be the fifth person in a 3-bedroom apartment.

But there are two features worth pointing out.

1. Boasting that “Nobody sleeps in the living room!!!!!” reminds us that it’s now normal to over-crowd CBD apartments. These buildings were designed with a certain occupancy, so may the gods help them all in the event of a fire.

2. Saying “Europeans, North- and South Americans or Australian applications preferred” is just a coward’s way of saying “No blacks or Asians” — which is a bit rich for someone choosing to live in Sussex Street, right next to Sydney’s Chinatown.

Owners of mobile phones 0415 520 775 and 0403 220 688, you may well own a plasma TV and “really nice furniture”, but you’re still racist turds.

If it wasn’t for the fact that doing so might count as harassment, I’d suggest that we all phone you and say so.

Carriageworks: an industrial cathedral for contemporary arts

Better late than never: over the next week I’ll post material collected earlier this year — starting off with a visit to Sydney’s newest contemporary performance space, Carriageworks on 21 January.

Our link to the Eveleigh Railway Workshops is weird. ’Pong was arrested for taking photos there, though eventually the charges were dropped. But now toxic waste has been removed (so they say), and space which was once full of sweaty tradesmen rebuilding rollingstock is now full of arty types enjoying the acting and sipping wine.

I must admit, I was worried it was just a facade job…

Photo of Carriageworks facade

… but once inside you see what Director Sue Hunt describes as “an industrial cathedral”.

Photo of Carriageworks interior

As the sun shifts through the afternoon, swathes of light streaming through the skylights turn the interior into a giant sundial. These cameraphone snapshots don’t do it justice. I may post more soon, but for now see more at the Carriageworks website.

My village really is home

When Clover Moore, Sydney’s time-share Lord Mayor and state MP, started talking about “a city of villages”, I thought she was giving it a tug. (No anatomical pedantry, thanks.) But now it’s the city’s official slogan, and a few relaxed Sundays have persuaded me she’s got it right — at least for the inner and inner-west villages which have some historical reality.

Photograph of Enmore Rd, Enmore

This photo ain’t art. But last night’s view from the front bar of the Warren View Hotel really does say “This is my village”.

From the art nouveau shell of the old post office on the left — apparently used by the mission of Our Lady of the Snows to help the local homeless — and past the over-priced pharmacy to The Sly Fox Hotel, and then on the other side with its medical centre, pharmacy and greengrocer no-one goes to, this is our Victorian village.

Sure, the Golden Barley Hotel is technically in Enmore too, and it’s only just down the hill a bit. They’re nice people and all — but it just feels like it’s in the next village, Marrickville.

But just was is it that creates this sense of “my village”…?