Bourne Out

Moved back home to be with Dad...

2008-09-11T15:29:00.000+10:00

Hello Gentle Reader,

I have retired this blog and am slowly adding its content to my personal blog: The Brains Trust.

Which means you can still get a regular dose of cool Melbournian things - but now mixed with obvious internet punditry and inane observations.

Enjoy

Simon

Detail of girl

2007-07-31T17:06:00.001+10:00

Suzanne is in a book!, originally uploaded by Paula Ramírez.

We've all seen her. In tunnels and alleys. On bridges & brick walls. An iconic face that is part of Melbourne's hyperactive graffiti community...

Who is she? And who's obsession is she? Well, Suzanne Brenchley has just answered those questions and a few others in this piece in The Age.

A nocturnal visit to the Shrine of Remembrance

2006-10-20T13:35:00.000+10:00

They Shoot DJs Don't They

2006-07-10T15:11:00.000+10:00

Shoot the DJ,
originally uploaded by One Thousand Words.

The past is only a click away...

2006-04-12T14:20:00.000+10:00

The photos of an Italian visitor to Melbourne in 1959-1960 have been posted on Flickr.

Melbourne looks, well, more sparse and less green.

Ca de vin

2006-04-11T17:16:00.000+10:00

More photos after the jump,
originally uploaded by One Thousand Words.

In Postal Lane, between the GPO & Myer you'll find the narrow but welcoming embrace of Ca de Vin.

As befits an alley venue its roof is part sky and part retractable awning, while its walls are simply the old worn stone of this Victorian era public edifice. Ca de Vin takes full advantage of the location while also successfully stopping any wind tunnel effect. In fact, once ensconced, it's hard to imagine you are only metres away from the hurly burly of the Bourke Street Mall.

The food is simple and direct - mediterranean with an obvious bias toward the Southern Italian coastline.

We came to snack. We had olives - a mix of black and green, some stuffed and most de-pipped - heated in olive oil and served in a frypan. Perfect with the house Sauvignon.

Later we tried the turkish bread and dukkah. Not as distinctive or as tasty. Apparently all the bread is baked on the premises. The pizzas look bellisomo.

Well, we're already planning what we'll eat on our next visit - possibly one of those plates of mussels we saw on a serving bench.

Ca de Vin is open most days from 10:30 and the kitchen closes around 7pm.

The tide is low...

2006-03-30T14:48:00.000+11:00

The tide is out - 2,
originally uploaded by One Thousand Words.

And Melbourne's answer to Sydney's Olympics is over.

They had a flying girl, we had a flying tram, boy and a duck.

They had the history of Australia and we had AFL footballers walking on water.

They had John Farnham and we had, er, John Farnham.

Oh, never mind.

Commonwealth Games Whitewash

2006-03-25T07:59:00.000+11:00

In the Guardian, UK artist, Banksy rages against the obliteration of Melbourne's graffiti.

Melbourne and London are genuine epicentres of the skewed human touch that can bring a little sparkle into the drudgery of public space. A feat that is of immense value, despite its apparent worthlessness. And a feat that is not so easily achieved by trying to run around a track in under four minutes.

Which is why, of course, we now have the 2006 Graffiti Games.

CBD Beach

2006-03-22T23:17:00.000+11:00

Southbank Beach - 4,
originally uploaded by One Thousand Words.

Surfs up in Southbank - all part of the madness that is the Commonwealth Games...

The Beach at the Arts Centre is... part of Festival Melbourne 2006.
The Arts Centre will create an iconic Aussie beach on the lawns between the Theatres Building and Hamer Hall, with free entertainment everyday of the Games from 15 to 26 March from noon until late.

Yes, The Beach will be hitting the city complete with bathing boxes, heroic lifeguards, giant seagulls and lots and lots of sand...

...watch out for the incredibly rude giant seagulls who’ll be on a chip-stealing mission; the moustachioed lifesavers on stilts who’ll be on beach patrol making it safe (and fun!) for all; the synchronised waterskiers with their wading pool stunt spectacular; and eccentric jugglers who will delight with their unbelievable sideshow tricks. And don’t miss Sink or Swimburne, a series of surreal performance vignettes and parades from the students of Swinburne’s Department of Arts.

...catch all the big moments of the Games on the big screen, as well as classic beach movies including Gidget, Storm Boy and Morning of the Earth.
So grab your towel, thongs and sunscreen, kick back on the sand or dance between the flags for Factor 30+ entertainment. And hurry, The Beach only lasts for the Games!

What an exciting press release! Here's more gumpf on "the event".

All the world's a kiosk

2006-03-20T13:34:00.000+11:00

The world's a kiosk II,
originally uploaded by One Thousand Words.

Plasma & LCD screen manufacturers must love the latest trend of incorporating large touch screens into public signage. Naturally, Federation Square has got into the act.

Note that touching the individual building shapes on the screen triggers nothing.

Luna Park Writ Small

2006-03-18T16:41:00.000+11:00

Luna Park Writ Small,
originally uploaded by pyjama.

Someone's been busy in the sand pit.

Stencil Graffiti Capital: The Exhibition

2006-03-11T21:47:00.000+11:00

Stencils & Exhibitiion,
originally uploaded by One Thousand Words.

An exhibition of photographs of stencils & graffiti from a book shown on lightboxes by the Citylights crew in Hosier Lane, one extremely graffitied & stencilled alley...

Permutations.

Braimfood is gone

2006-03-01T12:57:00.000+11:00

Braimfood is gone,
originally uploaded by One Thousand Words.

No surprise here, Braimfood has closed.

When it was good, it was damn fine.

Rusty Pigeon

2006-01-31T11:25:00.000+11:00

Rusty Pigeon,
originally uploaded by One Thousand Words.

A visit to the tourist slum that is Melbourne's Southgate.

More snaps after the jump...

Shipshape

2005-12-02T18:01:00.000+11:00

Shipshape,
originally uploaded by One Thousand Words.

The Silos Apartments by Architect Nonda Katsalidis. Lovely to photograph, but don't look at the back of it... This 1997 creation is not ageing well with clear signs of render rot. Mmm, maybe I should show you rather than tell you about it. STAY TUNED.

Photo du jour: Star Grid

2005-11-17T18:10:00.000+11:00

Star Grid,
originally uploaded by One Thousand Words.

Another month, another Bourke Street mall shot...

Juliet's Balcony

2005-11-02T17:36:00.000+11:00

Julet's champagne bar is a fine way to look down upon the fashionable. Sit on the 1st floor of the GPO and stare into the shallow souls of its customers. A nice way to end the working week.

Photo du jour: Bourke St Flapping

2005-10-30T12:45:00.000+11:00

Macro Wholefoods

2005-10-28T09:33:00.000+10:00

New South Wales organic & health foods supermarket chain, Macro Wholefoods, has opened one big-arse store in Richmond. It goes the whole free-range hog, selling fruit and veg, meat, prepared meals, cakes, wine, incense, water filters, cosmetics and more. The prices are comparable with most health food stores (and often a little lower) and they have a full range of house brand products. And not a dreadlock or pierced lip in sight. What is the world coming to?

Macro Wholefoods Market, 153 Bridge Road, Richmond

Wake up, you've arrived

2005-10-19T09:26:00.000+10:00

Sydney has the Harbour Bridge & the Opera House. We have the Cheese & Crabsticks.
On the 30 minute drive from the Airport along the Citylink tollway you'll be struck by the sight of the Melbourne Gateway. Built by Kennett Government favourites Denton Corker Marshall (a la Verge) it is clear signpost that you're entering a town with plenty of architectural attitude.

A dinner at Taxi

2005-10-02T10:00:00.000+10:00

Verdict: the food = great good; the location = great position. The rest = not so great.

A couple weeks we booked a birthday dinner at the Taxi Dining Room. Not long after this we were excited to learn that Taxi had been named Restaurant of the Year by The Age. Wow, now we were looking forward to experiencing a culinary event.

Pity that.

Let's first mention Taxi’s location – which must be the envy of every restaurant in Melbourne - Taxi is opposite Flinders Street Station, flanked by the Yarra River & Princes Bridge, with Southbank in the distance and having it's own corner of Lab's now iconic Federation Square.

So, it is in the heart of picturesque, postcard perfect Melbourne. Which has the natural disadvantage of being a geek magnet - attracting tourists, out of towners, or, shudder, all those suburban folk who flock to the unofficial Town Square or meander across from the station.

Luckily, Taxi (and its downstair bar, Transport) have put measures in place to deal with the tide of human detritus that washes upon their shores… They have created a large squadron of bouncers in black suits (who've possibly watched the Matrix too many times) and who are ready to ask "Is your name on the list, have you booked, etc." using a very intimidating questioning tone. They also carry clipboards and have earpieces. Nice touch.

These brave people are the frontline troops. Mission: to keep the hoi polloi from getting in. They are the membrane, the bulwark, the last line of defence. God bless them. They’re out the front, on the red (?) carpet, doing their tour of duty in The Cool Wars. "Is your name on the list, have you booked, etc."

Cunningly, even if you are cool enough to get into the bar or perhaps like us, are privileged to have a dinner reservation, you will still have face another squadron of crack security staff who, once again without a moment’s hesitation are ready to shoot down intruders with questions like "Is your name on the list, have you booked, etc."

Woe betide any of you the dim young drunks who wander upstairs looking for a souvlaki... I believe the bodies of such enemy combatants are deposited into wheelie bins and ferried away in wee hours of the morning…

The final obstacle in what it starting to seem like a video game is the staff that greet you inside.

Yes, we have booked, etc.

Very quickly, after being given the wine list, we are told that a sommelier is available who can help you with selecting a wine... Nice to know.

The wine list is at least 8 pages long and takes a good five minutes to read. Helpfully, while we read it, we were told 6 times that they had a sommelier available. Great, but we’ve agreed on a choice. We ordered a bottle and then rubbernecked the aforementioned view.

And now I'm afraid my reporting skills were completely overshadowed by the vivid cityscape outside. I presume the restaurant has a well though out decor of the but I can’t remember. The view I can. I am, however, trying to forget the posy misstep of having a DJ providing the music for the dining room. Read that last sentence again. Well, no doubt in theory, having a DJ sounds cool but in practice it looks a little bit desperate. Bookshops wannabe coffeshops. Writers wannabe celebrities. But why would the restaurant of the year wannabe a nightclub? Beats me.

Okay, so what about the food? Well. It's good. The menu features strong Japanese influences with a dab of haute cuisine. Wagyu beef seems to be all the rage at the moment. The food is just good. But nothing that had our table dropping their utensils and staring at each other in disbelief. Nope.

(I was sort of embarrassed by my childish instinct to order the banana and chocolate chip souffle for dessert. Let's just say my curiosity wasn't rewarded.)

By the way, it is advisable to make a reservation. And a sommelier is available who can help you with selecting a wine.

A visit to the NGV

2005-09-30T11:33:00.000+10:00

With only a couple of days remaining, we went to have a look at the Dutch Masters exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.

It was very much a faux exhibition with very few masterful pictures other than 4 or 5 Rembrandts and 1 Vermeer. The majority of the paintings were 17th Century lifestyle pornography from a burgeoning Dutch bourgeois high on their spice, colonial wealth and influence. More social than art history. Still (no pun intended), it was nice to see real life objects featured side by side with their painted counterparts.

Indavertently choosing an After Dark session, it was a most charming evening - being soothed by the élan String Quartet, being sated by Peter Rowland's terrific food and being mesmerized by Mario Bellini + Metier 3's renovation.

Cute manipulation: the exhibition's exit, of course, delivers you inside the NGV store...

Photo du Jour: August Backpacker

2005-09-21T09:56:00.000+10:00

The Shopper in a bubble

2005-09-19T08:04:00.000+10:00

In July 2002, when Japanese department store, Daimaru, closed its ambitious Melbourne Central store, it left most of the remaining tenants for dead.

Two years later the centre has re-opened with some of its original stores as well as a freshly minted but predictable collection of up-market fashion chains shops. Nothing new or that interesting really - and apart from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Store - just a junior Chadstone.

The basic layout hasn't changed much but both the internals and externals have been re-skinned.

Inside the main Lonsdale to Latrobe drag, chocolate and cream regency stripes cleverly conceal the complex's water pipes, conduits and air-con.

In particular, I like the large bubbles that now cover the two storey walkway over the Little Lonsdale street. Here's Norman Day's take on Ashton Raggatt McDougall's makeover.

More photos & impressions soon.

Melbourne in a nutshell

2005-03-24T09:21:00.000+11:00

This Opinionated Guide to Melbourne gives a pretty good summary of our fair city - it's just a pity author Mark Nottingham left out the Mornington Peninsula & Yarry Valley wine regions.

Avalon Airshow - for those who missed it...

2005-03-23T17:31:00.000+11:00

I coudn't make it. But Flickr could... Here's a Flickr slideshow of the 2005 Avalon airshow.

In The Mind Of The Transcript

2005-03-21T09:44:00.000+11:00

On the new digital channel, ABC2, each episode of In The Mind Of The Architect is currently being repeated about 8 times a week. The series stands up well, but what surprises me is how much more has been built in Melbourne since the series premiered in 2000. The companion web site has comprehensive transcripts of each episode.

ABC2
Tuesday - 8.35am, 4pm , 7pm, 9.45pm
Saturday - 12.30pm, 9pm
Sunday - 11am

Our Cultural Kommissars

2005-03-15T16:53:00.000+11:00

As a primer for a visit to The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, here's a recent article from the The Age which is a profile of three powerful people in the Melbourne art scene... Curators Max Delany, Juliana Engberg and Chris McAuliffe: Artists, know these people

Best Brunch: Brainy Braimfood

2005-02-11T15:46:00.000+11:00

Braimfood is the brainchild of David Braim. Wedged between the cooking implements of Essential Ingredient and Prahran Market's Meat & Seafood Hall, it has a limited selection of tables and a long bench seat to accomodate it's satisfied customers. Or you can take a number and join diners from the other Cafes in the outside Market Square area.

Put simply, Braim makes damn impressive food you can eat on the spot or take with you to impress others.

Check out the pre-made meals, the noodle salads and the quiche. And the staff, bar one or two exceptions, are some of the most friendly and attentive I have ever seen.

Note: On Sundays, Essential Ingredient's choice of shopping music usually has a cacophonous collision with the free Jazz outside.

Shop 501 Prahan Market, 163 Commercial Road South Yarra VIC 3141

2005-09-21 (Wednesday) UPDATE: Braimfood are no longer serving food on Sundays. Apparently Braimfood is now running the Como House cafe.

Current Favourite Restaurant: Verge

2005-02-06T09:40:00.000+11:00

Verge Restaurant scores on all points - park views of the Treasury Gardens, a beautiful Denton Corker Marshall-designed restuarant, elegant and adventurous food, attentive and approachable service and a tip top wine list.

We've been three times in as many months. The first was a memorable set menu Christmas dinner which included:

Gyoza of pork and blue swimmer crab with steamed Chinese cabbage and a spicy lemon dressing

The other two times were for New Year's Eve and a birthday lunch. On each occasion, staff and food was excellent.

1 Flinders Lane (Corner of Spring Street), Melbourne. Phone: 9639 9500

Day Trip: Bendigo Glances

2005-01-24T15:55:00.000+11:00

Bendigo Gallery has a terrific street presence - huge close up photos of alabaster white classical bust sculptures, appropriately setting the mood for a mix of the modern and old.

Inside the gallery are two (typically) large white rooms set next to a more traditional room:

"These rooms were designed in the grand European tradition (notably the Tate Gallery, London) with polished wood floors, ornate plaster arches and cornices, and diffused natural sky-lighting through rooftop lantern towers."

If you visited the NGA annexe when (during it's St Kilda Road renovation) it invaded the Museum's old digs on Russell or have been to the Art Gallery of New South Wales then you'll immediately recognise this kind of room.

During our visit we checked out the Experimenta House of Tomorrow - an exhibition I had been consciously avoiding for most of last year.

Best of the bunch was Patricia Piccinini's detailed "Young Family 2002-03" from her "We are family" series- and Marcus Lyall's hilarious "Slow Service" which uses a high speed video camera to capture the moment his subjects were pelted with pizza, custard, pea soup, etc.

Also on show was Bookplates from the Corrigan Collection, Bendigo Art Gallery - and we didn't dwell long on this. To my mind an exercise in padding - it could have made a fascinating poster of ephemera rather than being strung out across four walls.

Tracey Moffatt: Fourth. Weak pseudo-paintings consisting of hand-coloured style images from the Sydney Olympics broadcasts. Have a look for yourself.

I just realised I know one of the exhibition curators - Liz Hughes - I was once an overacting extra in her short, Cat's Cradle:

"At a factory with blazing furnaces, workers leisurely talking or looking in newspapers, don't even notice the family as it walks toward a furnace, carrying the corpse."

"workers leisurely talking or looking in newspapers" is code for my bad acting. Small world.

42 View Street, Bendigo Victoria 3550 Australia
Entry by Donation. Ph: 03 5443 4991

Music: Dsico Fever

2005-01-17T15:59:00.000+11:00

Dsico (that no talent hack) is the Mr. Potato Head of Mashup & Bootlegs, he currently has Alchemy's DJ Residency on SBS FM - 92.3, Saturdays, 1:00am - 3:00am.

Silver Palace

2005-01-17T15:56:00.000+11:00

Palace's Cinema Como has just been renovated into a deep, slick black and silver temple for workshippers of the silver screen.
Cnr Chapel St and Toorak Road, South Yarra. Telephone: 9827 7533

Pound for Lb

2005-01-17T15:46:00.000+11:00

The Lb (as in pound) bar - is a smallish, nifty bar that captures the essence of Melbourne's al fresco footpath dining - and only metres away from the catwalk of Chapel Street. The menu is pretty much limited to toasted pide bread but they offer some tasty variations. Make mine the bratwurst! Now if it only had air-con...
5/566 Chapel St Sth Yarra Phone: 9826 1114

Wolf your pizza

2005-01-17T15:43:00.000+11:00

Mr Wolf - a supreme pizza restaurant now inhabits the culinary space that was Luxe. In a world of wannabe designer pizza huts, Mr Wolf blows away the competition.
9-15 Inkerman St, St Kilda, VIC 3182 Phone:(03) 9534-0255