in gravyland

Burning of the Clocks

The pre-Christmas season was just lovely. We went in the Burning of the Clocks parade! This event marked the winter solistice. The music, fire and fireworks down on the beach at the end were most moving. Same Sky do loads of great community art events around here. The original compositions play on their website. Check out the soundtrack from the 2006 finale. It builds and builds. Many a fine musician calls Brighton home.

More photos here.

This all has a lot to do with why we are feeling so pagan and connected to the seasons, the elements, our European roots and Gaia herself while living here.

Spring solstice this week! My how time flies.

Gra & Puddy Tat with the grand folly of the royal pav in the background.

Winter Ceilidgh

Pronounced Kay-Lee. A jolly good knees-up. At the Brighton Dome just before Christmas.

Nick Cave on Brighton

I feel very connected to the area, very much a part of it,” he muses. “I have a strange sense of belonging which I’ve never really felt since I left Australia - in fact, I never really felt it in Australia. Walking along I have found that I have these weird feelings, feelings I’ve never really had before, of a real love towards the place. I’m here for the duration. The duration of my life.

Nick Cave talking about Brighton, from an exclusive interview by Bella Todd, in Brighton and Hove’s The Argus newspaper.

“This Hotel has been fitted with the latest tapware”

We spent Friday night in Bunbury last night. Our good friend Fiona Hillary was exhibiting in the ECU graduation show at the Bunbury Regional Art Galleries. The quality of the work on show was amazing, and Fi’s work in particular was just spellbinding.

Then we were out to an Indian restaurant and a lot of talk about art and life. Gee I love hanging out with artists.

We stayed the night at the Lord Forest hotel, one of those 1980’s style atrium hotels with the pool in the bar in the lobby and plants growing all around. It feels very 1986 in there.

But there was one thing that just caught my eye. In place of the usual thing where the hotel asks you to hang up the towels because they “care about the environment” (something I never believed), there was this wonderful notice:

NOTICE.
This Hotel has been fitted with the latest tapware. Please Note: A quarter of a turn is all that is required to open or close the tapware installed in your room. It is not necessary to use force as these taps will open and close with your fingertips.

Wonderful. How it raises the trivial to significance. I took a lot of notice of the tapware, let me tell you.

There is art everywhere in the world.

Womadelaide 2005: March 4-6 2005

Last year we had a great time at Womadelaide.

They’ve just announced some of the lineup for next years show, still on at the Botanic Park in Adelaide, from March 4th to 6th 2005.

We’ll be there. Who’s coming?

Update: Here are my posts from Womadelaide last year.

New Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series!

Chris Tann (thanks Chris!) alerted me that the BBC has just started playing a new series of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy radio plays.

They are currently playing on BBC Radio 4, and are also available online where you can listen to crisp high-quality episodes. However, the current episode is only available for a week, then it disappears.

Get your ears over to the BBC Hitchhiker’s site to listen and for more info.

Have a deLuxe Spring

My multi-talented and amazing partner Libby is guest DJ at Luxe Bar this Wednesday night.

Here’s what she says about the gig:

Come and celebrate the spring vibe…

I’m going to be a DJ for goodness sake, at the luscious Luxe bar, 446 Beaufort Street, Mount Lawley this Wednesday [29th Sept] (tomorrow eve) at 8pm.

Here’s a taste of some of the loving, grooving tunefuls and daggy hits that will be played for your wiggling pleasure.

Unashamedly fun and eclectic…

Crazy Penis
Michael Franti & Spearhead
The Cat Empire
Queen
Blur
Rolling Stones
Missy Elliott
Adam Ant
Basement Jaxx
Abba
ZZ Top
Faithless
Deeelite
Kruder & Dorfneister
Adbulah Ibrahim
Jimmy Little
Sweet Honey On The Rock
Iggy Pop
Velvet Underground
Edwin Collins
Backyard Dog
Grace Jones
KC & Sunshine
Salt n Peppa
OutKast
Tone Loc
The Strokes
Air
Bea Bea Primrose
Bjork
The Soggy Bottom Boys
The Police
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
The Strokes

Special prizes for:

the best air guitar or lip-synching/hairbrush wielding rendition of your favourite song

Plus a chance to (re)learn how to wiggle with a hula hoop to one of the classic hula hooping songs of this century (alright alright alright alright)

Yes it’s a mid-week thing and very late notice but really, don’t we always need more music and fun in our lives? Especially the parental units out there. Go on… Call up a dancing buddy and get on up - or just meet Gra and I (and maybe even Miss Bea) and a few others for a cocktail (or milkeshake in her case). Lifts home available for some of the Southern folk at various points during the evening.

Requests in advance welcome, or bring it along on CD or vinyl

With love and wiggles

Libby

So come along!!!! Hope to see you there.

Circus Saloon

Freo’s resident circus troupe and circus school, Cirque Bizirque, is holding a fundraiser night on Sat 12th June at the circus at 8 Phillimore Street, Fremantle.

The night is called Circus Saloon, and for $15 for adults and $5 for Children you get a night of circus performances, casino gambling on a number of tables with play money, a play money auction at the end of the night, and free drink on entry.

Come dressed in old western costume. These will be music and fun, roving performers, and drinks and food for sale. These circus events are always lots and lots of fun, so come along and help support the circus school.

Door open at 7.00pm and the show starts at 7.30pm. For more info and tickets you can email cirquebizirque [at] iinet.net.au

Fahrenheit 911 wins Palme d’Or at Canne

The Guardian reports that Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911″ has won the Palme d’Or at the Canne film festival, and that this might change the world:

This was the year that Cannes flexed its muscles - and France flexed its muscles, too. Michael Moore’s anti-Bush movie Fahrenheit 911 is the first documentary to win the Palme d’Or since Jacques Cousteau’s The Silent World in 1956. The festival hung a garland on Moore for his scathing denunciation of the President’s dubious democratic credentials, the Bush family connections with the Bin Ladens and the diversionary war on Iraq. It was a spectacular rebuke to Republican and corporate America, a stunning exocet of scorn launched from the epicentre of old Europe.

Link

Interactive artworks commissions from Experimenta

Experimenta is asking for submissions for their New Visions Commissions for 2004:

What are the New Visions Commissions?

The New Visions Commissions program is an Experimenta initiative that provides emerging artists with a unique opportunity to develop interactive media art works in collaboration with industry.

It is free to submit a proposal, and all entrants must be Australian citizens.

Experimenta encourages digital / new media artists, film / video makers and animators to use the commissions to explore the potential for interactivity in their practice.

Submissions for the 2004 New Visions Commissions program close 12 July 2004.

Experimenta does cool stuff. I’d be applying for this if I had a bit more time up my sleeve.