At the back of Flinders Street’s Platform1 are some stairs. Go down them and enter a world entirely in miniature. There are teeny trees, bridges, aeroplanes, cars and centimetre-tall construction workers. There are kites, tin toys and train-tracks leading to places in people’s minds.
The Hearns brothers established their hobby store in 1947. Both were pilots, flying for Australia during WWII. After the war they pursued their love of flying by building little kit planes, which they sold in their store. Over the years it grew to sell all other forms of transport.
‘Grandfathers bring in their grandsons - shopping where they used to shop.’ Says Ro, Hearns’ owner for 32 years. And there’s not many store owners who can say that.
Bless buskers. And spruikers, and the Diamond Company sandwich-board guys. They’re all islands of individuality standing motionless in the late-afternoon blur of people in the CBD. They’re brave: standing still against a tide of officeworkers rushing around them, like a post in a river. Braver for doing it in this late-autumn chill.
The roasted chestnut vendors, though, have it made. They get to delight passersby with the smell of roasting chestnut flesh, (and warm themselves over the grill). Roast chestnut stands are now a familiar cold-weather fixture - the equivalent of Mr Whippy vans on the other side of the year. A brown paper bag of chestnuts just of the grill is like having a little bag of mini-roast potatoes. They’re starchy – twice as starchy as a potato. Chestnuts have two skins: be sure to remove the obvious dark outer shell as well as the pithy white bit. They’re good for cooking too, used in sops and sauces. There are worse ways to spend $4.50 than buying a bag of chestnuts on a cold, busy Melbourne street.
It's always a bit of fun spotting Melbourne places in films and on the telly. Times the fun by 12 when it's in a hand-drawn comic book, created by local artist Bernard Caleo. It's called I Knew Him, and new cells go up every few weeks.
The thing about laughing clubs is that they don’t rely on jokes, oversized shoes or sarcasm (eh-hem) to get a laugh. It’s unconditional laughter. Laughing-clubbers laugh at nothing - although it’s likely they’re having a laff at themselves.
Federation Square’s first laughing session is on this Sunday (and on the first Sunday of every month).
And in case you're looking for context before deciding to join in, here’s an old profile of the original laughing club in Mumbai (Bombay). There are now over 5000 worldwide. So who’s laughing now?
Make time for a proper cuppa. That means it’s just you and the tea: no newspaper, no radio… It also means brewing a pot. Think about adding warming winter spices, like cinnamon, clove, ginger and cardamom.
No loose-leaf tea? No problem. Grab a teabag. Remove the label and staple (or paper tab) – careful not to tear the bag. Pour the tea into the pot. Add piping-hot water (and spices if you like) and the lid. Meanwhile…open out the teabag so you have a tube. Stand it on its end (on a heat-proof surface). Twirl one end closed. Light the top of the tube. Then watch it lift off like a little hot-air balloon. Now: gently swirl the teapot to release the flavour more evenly. Sit near a window and pour yourself a cup. Take at least 15 minutes to drink it.
Y’know that little triangle of land outside Parliament Station, bordered by Spring and Macarthur Streets? There’s a fountain, some statues and palm trees (date palms from the Canary Islands – five of them, often hosting gossiping rosellas). That fountain was made by William Stanford in 1872 while he was in Pentridge for stealing horses. True. He promised to behave if he was allowed to cultivate his talents. It’s carved out of bluestone from the prison quarry, and took four years to complete. It so beguiled the powers that be, that Stanford was ‘discharged to freedom by remission’. He established a successful masonry business in Windsor (carving mostly headstones), married and lived happily ever after.
La Mama is literally the mother of independent theatre. Founded in 1967 as a theatre for new and experimental plays, it acts as a production company, of sorts - providing the theatre space and paying the plays' writer and director; others (actors, designers, etc) receive a split of the door sales.
Audiences are invited to stick around after the performance and chat with the cast and crew, and have the chance to win the raffle (a book). The raffle tradition began when artistic director Liz Jones edited La Mama - the Story of a Theatre (written by Helen Garner and La Mama’s founder Betty Burstall). Sales were...slow, so the books were raffled. (Other worthy reads were raffled once they ran out.)
Seeing a La Mama production is itself something of a raffle. You may not get it, but it was great to be involved. On the other hand you may hit the jackpot.
Support La Mama by seeing its productions, but at the moment it needs support to simply survive. It recently committed to purchase the tiny 40-seater theatre on Faraday St, and just managed to scrape up the deposit – thanks to a large number of people who opened their wallets and gave what they could. Now it has to come up with the purchase amount…
3) Get some perspective: go to the State Library of Victoria and read the newspaper for that day, say, 20 years ago.
4) Take five minutes and sit on one of the benches outside the Town Hall to admire two iconic Melbourne buildings in one glance: the golden brown Manchester Unity, which was built during the depression and the Century Building by the same architect, Marcus Barlow, at the other end of the block. The towers of each of these buildings busted through the 40m height limit, getting through on a technicality – that they were mere decoration.
5) Snooze.
6) Go to the footy, especially those who never go. (Erm: Doggies and North Melbourne will be a cracker this weekend - Sunday at Docklands.)
7) Forage for fungi at T’Gallant winery (see earlier post) - for the next two Sundays. It's the perfect opportunity to get out and about and savour the sounds, sights, smells and tastes of Autumn.
8) Slip a compliment into the Complaints box at the supermarket (‘…great that you’re stocking more organic produce’, or ‘...like your thinking: putting the popcorn kernels in with the rice and flour rather than with the snack foods…’).
9) Admire a city street, after the rain, particularly around dusk when it feels all Taxi Driver. Bring a camera to record the colours and reflections.
10) The Gyuto Monks of Tibet are touring their Happiness Connection show/chant/meditation is on 24 & 25 June at the Incinerator (a Burley Griffin-design that’s worth a look).
It's possible to slow down technology - in a good way. Phones, computers and (their love child) Blackberries were designed to give us more leisure time. And there are a number of people out there leisurely using theirs to record their days, and sharing the results. Like Jason Evans' Daily Nice and David Horvitz (work pictured) who will, among other things, send you a photo of the sky every day this year.
Make the day-to-day deliberate by setting a task. It could be a daily phone-photo or a Met ticket torn (a la Mintie wrapper) into one long unbroken streamer.
Remember when smoke billowed from suburban-backyard incinerators? Before recycle bins and hard-rubbish collections, these freestanding brick chimneys regularly launched flakes of ash into the breeze, to float over to the neighbours’ hills hoist – freshly strung with washing.
Industrial incinerators inspire a similar sentimentality, especially ones designed by Walter Burley Griffin. He lavished the same design nous on projects large and small: from entire cities (Canberra) to theatres (the Capitol) and rubbish-tip incinerators.
More than just a monument though, this Incinerator (with the city tip still operating next door) was ‘recycled’ into a multiarts venue. And it’s Arts Week in Moonee Valley, so among other things, you’ll also see aRtECYLE, which is rubbish. Really. Refashioned into outdoor sculptures.
We were too slow to post a reminder for last week’s No Diet Day. It encourages people to eat cakes, to celebrate the unfettered joy of food. Here’s our tribute: the Lazy Daisy cake recipe from the Australian Women's Weekly Cookery in Colour (maybe why it's so green). You'll also be making history, as it's from the seventies (why a green cake sits on an orange plate).
Why not roll up your cake-baking sleeves this weekend. Then invite over some friends.
(Email us if you're brave enough to try making this one - and to eat it - we'll write out the recipe for you.)
If we’re so obsessed with the weather in Melbourne, why are we are not more familiar with ‘stratocumulus’ and ‘cirrus’? Or in other words, the ‘low, puffy layers’ and the ‘delicate streaks of falling ice crystals’ respectively. Join the Cloud Appreciation Society, and you join a band of merry cloudspotters who say to all who’ll listen: ‘Look up, marvel at the ephermeral beauty, and live life with your head in the clouds’.
They make rubbish look beautiful. They commandeer the NGVA’s commentary of works and tell an unofficial story of the permanent collection. They run tours of Brunswick to affect that holiday feeling. And they’ll sit in the subway, take whatever you give them (old tickets, a business card, a bookmark) and stitch it all together to make a two-week diary of the city. They’re the Next Wave of next big things, and they’re all subjects of Slow apparently…
This year's theme, Closer Together, strings together two-weeks'-worth of shows exploring: 'closeness and its conflicted nature - as a catalyst for connectedness, community and exchange, but also of claustrophobia, confrontation and invasion.'
Catherine Clover sifts through the city’s white noise separating sounds. She hones in on rain playing on upturned buckets, the rhythm of cicada song and, say, the noise of Melbourne Town Hall’s elevator. Given the lead, these little compositions say ‘home’ to anyone who has lived in Melbourne – pinning down that sense of being home that you can never quite put your finger on. The soundscapes are often paired with photos. So, you can see tiny pieces of leaf litter gathered in the cracks of broken concrete while listening to the chirrup of birds chime in with the city thrum.
It’s lovely stuff that might inspire a liberation of ears from being plugged with headphones while travelling around town.
They’re illegal, carry out their deeds at night to avoid detection and are active in a growing number of cities around the world. They’re Guerrilla Gardeners. Their crime? Attacking ugly patches of public land with hand-trowels and flowering annuals in covert greening campaigns. Typical targets include roundabouts, verges and other neglected areas, which are beautified with plants. Richard Reynolds’ website has a global noticeboard of activities plus a how-to guide for beginners.
For the more timid green-thumbs among us (less guerrilla, more…pansy), there’s Permablitz. These little groups raid suburban backyards (with the residents’ consent) and turn lawns into edible gardens. Permablitz (as in permaculture meets backyard blitz) also has a noticeboard with upcoming events.
From Monday it’s National Volunteer Week (12-18 May), which honours volunteers. Der, you might say. But previously it operated as a kind of recruitment drive. Volunteers are now so prevalent that the week's focus has shifted to say 'thanks'.
Those matchmakers at Good Company - who introduce professionals to short-term projects with charities - are hosting an Exchange of Ideas and Inspiration forum. Tony Wilson and Emma Race will be telling stories of recent successful volunteering outcomes before being joined by Peter Batchelor (Minister for Community Development).
The main shortfall of The Doodle Notebook is its secondary title: 'How to Waste Time in the Office'. It suggests that making something out of nothing is only worthwhile when it’s on someone else’s time. But it’s delightful anytime. And it’s been dying out since walkabout phones were invented. There’s an online Doodle gallery here, but nothing beats pushing a pen around a piece of paper. Except maybe sculptures made from belly-button fluff.
Melbourne is staunchly slow. So slow that while the rest of the world gathers for Pangea Day on May 10, we’ll turn up the next day. On May 11 at 4am, Cinema Nova is screening four hours of feel-good shorts simultaneously with cities around the world. It’s a global community event that is bound to be memorable. Even if only for the novelty of watching free movies at 4am.
Email us to start a thread or share something slow.
Slow guides
The Slow Guides are for anybody who wants to slow down and live it up, seachange without shifting postcode. They celebrate all that’s local, natural, traditional, sensory and most of all gratifying about living in Sydney and Melbourne. Click on a book for a preview.
How to buy a book
Start off slow and get your book the old-fashioned way; pop into a store and say g’day. But if you’re too entranced with what’s happening in your garden, or too preoccupied gazing on a cloud, you could always order one online.
Gallery
Photographer James Braund on his favourite photos from the book. Next month, our pick of the pics.
Affirm Press is a new Melbourne-based publishing company committed to publishing books that have a positive impact on the community, that influence by delight rather than being earnest or right-on.
Contact
Corner of Wellington and
Jacksons Roads, Mulgrave, Vic 3170 info@slowguides.com
At the back of Flinders Street’s Platform1 are some stairs. Go down them and enter a world entirely in miniature. There are teeny trees, bridges, aeroplanes, cars and centimetre-tall construction workers. There are kites, tin toys and train-tracks leading to places in people’s minds.
