the ’sham

This whole business of reading stories from one year ago sometimes forces my lazy arse to meet up again with people I haven’t seen in ages.

The other day I bumped into Rohan on the street. “You’re not around much any more!” he complained. He was in the process of chucking out a bunch of things from his house onto the kerb. He has one of my typewriters to return to me.

The same complaint (that I’m not around so much) has been said by Gail at the Bowlo, Sam at Charlie’s Deli, and Rachelle next door. Sarah Sauce I bumped into on the street - she says she rides past my balcony almost every day and I’m never there. Sigh.

I guess one of the hazards of “hanging around so much” for a particular period, as I was in April-May 2006, is that it creates a sense of disappointment when you partially “disengage”. This ’sham project was set up so that it might continue (in a low key way) after its official finishing date - unlike a classic artist-in-residence, in which the artist leaves never to return.

Sure, I still live here. I am still around! But my life has, to a certain extent, “returned to normal” after the ’sham experiment. Racing around like crazy here and there and all over the place, not to mention trips to Melbourne, etc. And now, with a hot new girlfriend who lives in Bondi, I suppose my ’sham-attention is less undivided.

Anyway, what I was getting at was that the process of reading-podcasting makes me remember folks I haven’t seen for a while. One of those folks is Lucy, in North Petersham. One year ago, on Mothers’ Day, Luciana, Lisa and I took Lucy to lunch at the Bowlo. So this year, on Mothers’ Day, we once again called in with flowers to wish our adopted auntie well. She was very pleased to see us. And her children had returned from their overseas adventures, so her big family house didn’t seem so empty this time. Lucy gave us big bouquets of basil and chili from her garden.

As we were walking away, I thought about other people’s lives. They carry on quite happily and independently without you. For a whole year, we didn’t see Lucy. Then we call her up and slot right back in.

Listen to the episode here [mp3, 3.5min, 1mb].

Read the original entry here.

This is fun. Today I wrangled Luciana the next door neighbour to come over and read with me. It’s the episode where we go for a walk to the video store, past Moz the hairdresser, and look in at dog grooming and scrapbooking. We meet Lucy for the first time, the lovely Chilean lady who lives next door to Lisa. Luciana makes interjections, and clarifications. She has a good memory!

Listen in here [19 minutes, 8mb, mp3].
Read the original posting here.

PS, if you feature in one of the blog entries from last year, and would like to read along with me in one of these podcasts, let me know! We’ll get together and make a recording.

In this episode, I liase with my neighbour Luciana about our real estate agents, sit on the front porch like a vechietto (that’s Italian for (”little old man”), and go for a walk along the Petersham/Lewisham border with Lisa Kelly. You can download it here. [7mb, 7 min, mp3]

In a serendipitous turn of events, Lisa Kelly got in touch recently, wanting to hang out over the Easter weekend. We met up on Sunday (April 8th 2007). She said she wanted to “go for a walk”. Neither of us mentioned our border walk of one year ago. She said she wanted to go to Lewisham, she’d never been there before. So we headed in that direction.

There was no anxiety about leaving the ’sham this time, instead we hooked around the back of Petersham primary school and plunged down into Lewisham. It was quieter than Petersham. Certainly, there are fewer planes going overhead. We stopped and spoke to a gorgeous old Portuguese woman after spying her excellent pumpkin patch. Her husband, she told us, is the farmer. He had trained his pumpkins to climb up old floorboard planks onto the roof of his garage, after which they trailed along this overhead trellis thing and drooped their orange-fleshy fruits below. One was so huge it had to be held up with a kind of sling made from an old hessian bag. It’s shape was like a teardrop, and I wondered whether the gravity had done that.

On the far side of Lewisham, we encountered the silo apartments, which are a re-development not dissimilar to the Newtown ones, hollowed out old wheat silos with flats inside. There seemed to be a sort of common room thing provided for the flats which was cool, we thought, although it looked empty and unused. We tut-tutted about the big expanse of land alongside the silos which was not being used to grow vegies. Just some decorative expensive looking plants.

On the way home we stopped to check out the secret future site of our Petersham community gardens. Oh yes, it’s gonna be fun.

The original blog entry upon which this podcast is based is located here.

In lieu of spending time with our own mothers (who are in Perth and Milan) Luciana and I decide to take Lucy out to brunch at the Big Bowl. Lucy’s become our Petersham Auntie. On Thursday, I swing past her place to leave a note in her letterbox. On Friday she rings me back, very excited: “Are you SURE you want to do that? Because, you know… no pressure!” But of course we want to, we wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise…
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A deliberately quiet day. My health is improving, and I’m padding myself out in beanies and thermals just in case. At lunchtime, Luciana came around with some hot chocolate. I helped her with a database search for her essay on Cuban cinema. In the afternoon I rugged up and headed north of the tracks to get some vegies from Georgie. Quite by chance, on the corner of Brighton and Palace, right outside the Palace Pantry, I bumped into her. She was walking her kids home from school. I tagged along, the smallest girl dawdling all the way. She seemed to find fascinating details in every crack of the sidewalk. “If I just keep on walking, she eventually catches up,” Georgie said.

*

On the way home with my box of vegies, I bumped into Rohan. He was just returning from work. I’ve known Rohan since the late nineties, when he ran a gallery in Chippendale. Last year he moved in around the corner. But we’ve never really hung out in the ’sham. We just spot each other by accident every now and again, and chat on the street corner. Usually, we have those kind of encounters which start out as “just a quick hello”, without any intention of lasting more than twenty seconds, and then evolve into a twenty minute yarn. Because the conversation is always on the verge of ending, I stand there, uncomfortably, with my heavy box. To put it down would be to shift mode, to begin “serious” conversation. To stand like this, halted in our separate trajectories, is to steal time. This is not a meeting. That’s what I like about it. He tells me about exterminating pigeons. The finer details of this occupation of his are fascinating and disturbing. Gradually my shoulders droop, my wrists begin to go numb. Fatigue sets in. “You should come over some time!” Rohan says, and we say goodbye.

Saturday, 7.21am:
An overcast morning. I open the kitchen door to survey the street. The block of flats across the way has done a big “hard rubbish” purge. An old mattress, metal ironing board frame, wooden clothes rack, dead TV. Actually, it looks like someone has moved out. That’s the second family this month. Chris said the building’s owned by the church - they house refugees there for up to six months at a time. A man shuffles past the pile of junk, noses around, selects a plastic mop, and continues on his way. Without warning, Drazic appears at my feet. Has he been out all night? I scoop some grutz into his bowl. He wolfs down his breakfast.

And now, I’m sitting in the dark, with a cup of lemon and ginger, typing. All is quiet.

So far so good.
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Some days the desire to get out and hit the streets just aint there. Its drizzly and grey outside, and it’s a public holiday to boot. My internet’s running slow, I’m bored with all my music. What to do? Just go with it eh? Have a bath and read a book maybe. An invite from the ’sham scrabble club would go down a treat right now…
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What a day! Five events on a single Sunday. Life in the ’sham is certainly subject to cycles of compression and relaxation. After yesterday, I felt like hiding away at home, pulling down the blinds, vacuuming the loungeroom, having a bath, clipping my toenails. I was thinking to call up Lucy for a visit to her garden, but I’ve put it off for another day. I’m no superhuman when it comes to social interaction.
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Wednesday:
Things are returning to a more manageable pace. I had coffee with Anna from the council, down at Sweet Belem. She hurt her back at the Cook’s River Festival last week, and is only just beginning to recover. The most exciting news Anna had for me was that a pair of Filipino artists is heading for the ’sham! They arrive in early May, here to set up an installation for the Sydney Biennale. As part of their residency here - above the Petersham Town Hall - they are required to do some kind of public presentation. This is great news. I suggested we join forces and do a slideshow down at the bowling club, with drinks and Fiona’s catering and music and all. I reckon the Filipinos will have some amazing tales to tell. And for me it’s a good chance to answer that curly perennial question: “So, what kind of art do you do?”

[Speaking of the Bowling Club, this Sunday will be a good time to check out how the noble game actually works, how many folks are needed for teams etc, in preparation for our big North versus South 'sham bowl-off. After this research, I will set a time and date and we can start training in earnest... Do get in touch if you'd like to join in the tournament. I reiterate, no prior experience required...]
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Sunanda Creagh has written an article about little ole me, here.

If you get the print copy of the paper, there’s a picture of Luciana and Wolfie and me rollerskating. Perhaps some clever bored person who steals time from their office job to read this will make themselves look busy scanning in the article and email it to me. Hint hint. Then I can post it up here and send you a thousand thanks. [NB! This has been done! Thanks to Lisa from North Petersham, and also to Sarah from the Marrickville Council.]

Oh, and if you’d like to compare stories…MY account of Sunanda’s visit to the ’sham is here.

Anyways, just in case the Herald website goes belly-up some time in the future, I’ll include a transcript of the article below. Hooroo.
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