A good story in a picture is much better than being alive. Being alive is complicated and hard, but a good picture -- I can get lost in it.
- Judith Joy Ross
My favourite paper, the Sydney Morning Glory Herald, which I have been reading for the last 25 years on daily basis marks its 175th anniversary
If you happened to walk across the Hyde Park as I did today you would have come across huge photographs from the SMH gallery archives. The amazing images the size of minibus were peppered along the walkway from Macquarie Street starting with black and white images salted with historical importance and gradually moving to the colourful contemporary shots as one reached the poverty end of the Hyde park - the William Street.
By way of background, back in 1980 the Saturday paper cost 20 cents in Villawood Hostel today at Bondi I shell out $2.20 - it is still a bargain! The SMH is priceless to me as the newspaper ad posted on the notice board at the Sydney Technical College led me to a job at the NSW Parliament where I survived and thrived for 20 years under Dr Cope and Patricia Azarias. As luck would have it I met young Warrick Fairfax in mid 1980s and I even stayed one weekend at Fairfax retreat at Blackheath thanks to David and Analysa, the daughter of the founder Fairfax. (This bit is specifically designed for a particular character named Ross Pickens (his real name ;-)
Speaking of history my friend Richard, who won the prestigious Julian Ashton scholarship in 2006 AD, provided me today with informed commentary as we walked through the State Library special painting exhibition. By lunch time even my brother-in-law, Michael, who is based close by at the American Embassy, was impressed over expresso with Richard's encyclopaedic and biographical knowledge of artists and art. The highlight of the day, a four-hour one, was the exhibition at the Art Gallery entitled Self Portrait Renaissance to Contemporary. The images started with Gerlach Flicke dated 1495-1558 (by the way in High Tatra Mountains - Gerlach is the highest peak), and even the long lost characters like van Gogh, Andy Warhola and Rembrandt together with Chuck Close born in 1940 invaded our pupils ... What a feast!
CODA: ICEBERG PRESENTS WINTER 2006AD: If Icebergers @ Bondi had any epitaph that they would rather have more than any other, it would be to say that they had disturbed the sleep of our generation. For most of us this is the aim/Never here to be realised./Who are only undefeated/Because we have gone on trying -
COMIN ATTRACTIONS: Come and try winter swimming at Iceberg rite the passage starts on 22 April @ 11 am! As the legal eagle Terry Burkes instructs us: Live Love BONDI!
