I love the work that Roundangle does. Their multi-sensory adventures are challenging and fun. This one was at the Melbourne museum, and made for the under-five crowd. So i invited Isabella and Lynne to join me and we had a lovely day.
At the beginning of the show, we were invited to crawl past the cardboard city, through the plastic-filled tent into the forest of the senses. Most adults thought this was a children-only affair, but Ilan and i agreed that we were definitely going to join in this adventure.
Plus the stage manager insisted that i “Crawl Through the Tent Michael!!”
(i paid my $2 and i’m not missing a single moment!)
They taught us the Indigenous phrase for ‘welcome to country’ – WoMinJaika – and as each group called out their part of the word, we were called to our part of the journey.
A forest fairy made us all into seeds, growing us with sun and water and love, sharing the treasures of native Quandong and Lemon Myrtle. An old woman of the mountains showed us how to make soup with Mountain pepper leaves and Old Man’s Weed.
A delightful honey bee took us into the flower forest and showed us how to sprinkle our pollen on the flowers. This was really fun.. huge flowers that opened up and produced fruit as we showered our pollen.
And then the spirit of the rocks, who brought his very small puppet mate along to share wattle seeds. (Really yum seeds and great puppet work!)
Afterwards Lynne said one thing she liked was that they weren’t doing that hyper-energetic, super-lively “children’s theatre” thing, but rather playing to a crowd of all ages, and telling warm engaging stories with a sense of kindness and humour. i think by the end of it, most of the adults had learned to join in as well.
i wish it was on again soon: i’d tell you to go and see it. Especially if you can take children along with you. Great work Roundangle people!
Bunjilaka: WhatsOn Display Page.
Here at the Grandview, we’ve just joined a very wonderful food co-op. Exciting times for foodlovers.
i deliberately used some bad English in an email. (i mean grammatically non-standard English.)
My housemate was appalled.
So i took it all too far, with a genuine LoLcats poster from icanhazcheeseburger.
i’m fascinated by the way new language evolves in a new environment. LoLcats has become one of the latest new English dialects. If i put on my linguist hat for a minute, it’s easy to find a quote from David Crystal (one of the world’s most amazing academic linguist people), in an article at the BBC.
Word play For English speakers there are cult websites devoted to cult dialects – “LOLcat” – a phonetic and deliberately grammatically incorrect caption that accompanies a picture of a cat, and “Leetspeak” in which some letters are replaced by numbers which stem from programming code. “There are about a dozen of these games cooked up by a crowd of geeks who, like anybody, play language games,” said Professor Crystal. “They might not be reading Shakespeare and Dickens but they are reading and cooking up these amazing little games – and showing that they are very creative. I’m quite impressed with these movements.”
Word play For English speakers there are cult websites devoted to cult dialects – “LOLcat” – a phonetic and deliberately grammatically incorrect caption that accompanies a picture of a cat, and “Leetspeak” in which some letters are replaced by numbers which stem from programming code.
“There are about a dozen of these games cooked up by a crowd of geeks who, like anybody, play language games,” said Professor Crystal.
“They might not be reading Shakespeare and Dickens but they are reading and cooking up these amazing little games – and showing that they are very creative. I’m quite impressed with these movements.”
Okay that really belongs on my work blog, but hey, everyone loves the LoLcats, don’t they?
It was katie’s birthday, so i spent the whole day making cupcakes with margot. Seriously fun, if slightly nerve-wracking. Turns out mum is the genius when it comes to getting the mixture in the patty pans. She learned from her Aunty Phyl .. back in the day.
And look, here’s the cake backstage at Handsome Steve’s.
Yes i know Katie really wanted a profiterole mountain made out of mini-magnums, but i just couldn’t work out how that would be as much fun.
So tough luck kt you’re stuck with a mountain of cupcakes.
Some serious research before-hand led me to find out that there are dedicated cupcake bloggers out there. That’s right, people who blog about cupcakes and nothing else. take a look at the vietnamese coffee cupcake recipe.
Daryl the lovely minister at Northcote’s heathen / community church, has pulled together a bunch of performers for a big event in support of bushfire sufferers.
$10/15 money goes to uniting church Victorian bushfire appeal.
Daryl says: “Please come and have a great time with us in solidarity with those who have not only lost so much but now contemplate a long physical and emotional rebuilding process.”
(Some moments of reflection involved.)
PS: i caught Heidi’s choir, and they were really good. Heidi sang solo and she was fab. Then Zeena and i fled the choir scene, over to Wesley Anne where “The Tiger and Me” were playing. They Were Good. Alt-Country-ish.
plus: get your Flyer here: Northcote-Concert-Flyer(pdf)
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photo credit: alana jonez
Oh thank heavens i’m back home. G Love and Special Sauce is on the stereo, Sam’s getting fish n chips from the new place on Sydney Road .. and the massive heat wave faded away just before i arrived. Tim and Nathan are here, with beer.
Life is perfect.
Sometimes you can have enough of a foreign place and living out of a backpack. Phnom Penh is beautiful in its way, but the poverty gets to me (not as much as it affects the locals obviously), my comfort zones are stretched, the heat and dust wears me down. i needed the comfort of home.
mmmm .. off to Victoria St to get me some frozen lychees.
photo credit: roboppy
Note to Self: next time i’m about to take a 3 hour sea journey .. do not eat pig trotter soup from a street stall in South Vietnam; just in case the journey is extremely rough.
i had to take a photo of myself halfway across, to find out exactly how green my face was .. but i’m not publishing the photo here. Oh no.
Landed on Phu Quoc Island, a large island which has been sometimes Cambodian, but mostly Vietnamese . (Known as Koh Tral to the Cambodians the island is much closer to Cambodia .. and rumour has it they are not too happy about losing the island either.)
After a 20 minute moto trip, met up with Zeena and Phat .. and did my best to be good company for the evening we had together, but unfortunately i was horrible sick. The smell of their dinner made me go and have a lie down on the beach.
Oh dear.
The pig trotter soup tasted great, too! Really nice soup, and i had fun ordering it, with a fellow traveller from Holland. One of those classic situations where neither party speaks any of the other language.
. PS: i’m on a tropical paradise. Shutup michael. Stop your moaning.
photo credit: JasonDGreat
i’ve had another buckwheat experience ..
Saturday night was so great, Madame Zu Zu was in fine form, and the Open Studio crowd so much more into her than at Bar Open the week before. Dancing everywhere. Lovely vibes, happy people.
..but then i tried one of the new crepes.
i was so looking forward to it. and i tested for buckwheat reaction before diving in; but i really should have asked. i must be healthy at the moment because it took three mouthfuls to set me off. so i went home, and fortunately had a couple of Finurgen tablets left over from the time i had to go to hospital after my birthday pizza night last year ..
The tablets stop all the symptoms and allow me to sleep. Good. but, oh boy, a couple of Finurgen tablets would knock out a horse!
The next morning i couldn’t move, i could barely talk. Tim and Sam came around, wanting to take me out to breakfast, and all i could say was “Bbbckwhhht lllst nght, ca’nnt mmmv” .. and i’m still feeling groggy monday morning;
PS Later that month: the new sign reads Crepes (Buckwheat). Thanks.
xox, michael
(image: hi dad by tashland at flickr)
