horticulture

(upgraded from comments box and suitably screen captured)

A splendid pair of orchardists, or a very cool mini coolstore...


 
source
 

green house

And speaking of hot weather and no air conditioners...

We did visit a green display house on one of those horrible, hot days in January.
It was lovely and cool inside. But it was done by air con, not by clever design, insulation and cross ventilation.

'I didn't want to wilt' said the green saleswoman.

Anyway, as we inspected the standard stone tops and counter basins and minimalist spaces for sim-citizens, it soon became apparent that we did not present as their sort of type anyway (peninsula) and she was glad to be unable to accommodate us.
 

vale

Bronte - beloved member of this diminishing pack died on Thursday.

Because she was one of those dogs so attuned to the emotional tenor of the household, she herself would now be burrowing behind the couch as the household weeps.
In her own time she would emerge shyly and with boundless affection in tact.



 

boxing days

 

lost claus

So I was walking Flo last week in the park
and in the distance I see a lone figure approaching.


He looked a bit like this:



Seen any kids? He asked me.

- No.


Long Pause.


Is there a car-park anywhere around?

- On the other side of the creek.

He sighed and hobbled away.
 

your block

Road Rage 1964
 

and mary

Ms. Travers, onstage, drew all eyes as she shook her hair, bobbed her head in time to the music and clenched a fist when the lyrics took a dramatic turn. On instructions from Grossman, who wanted her to retain an air of mystery, she never spoke. NY Times

(Grew up with this record of course. Lemon Treesy listening, as sisters sang passionately about hammers and I stared at this record cover imagining adult blondeness and goateed guitarists)
 

lit gnat

Wendy James is blogging again: Literary Gnat
 

B lated

 

jet storm

- whereas the previous week's viewing highlight had been another Sat. night ABC2 gem Jet Storm from 1959, an Airport/Twilight Zone mix with a dash of British-kitchen-sinker and class-angst, where air hostesses were ordered to dispense champagne under great pressure, and even though everyone was about to crack up, an air hostess dispensed her duty admirably and steadily, as all champagne-coupes stayed stable on the tray, earning her the esteem of eligible Captain.
We did slightly wonder whether a broken window (that had already taken one passenger into oblivion) could really be plugged effectively by a pillow - but who knows the technicalities of these things?
 

match review

It was rather strange on Saturday night as Tony flicked between Foxtel and Football, just as Sherman featured on both fronts, at Georgia -




and at the Gabba.

And the strangeness continued on Sunday with Collingwood and Collingwood



while the cricket was also being played at Midsomer



where Dr. Who was batting badly:

...it goes right against the grain for me to have to play cricket badly. As actors, we like the idea of being quite sporty. I am actually quite good at cricket so having to play a miserable cricketer was quite frustrating. I keep getting bowled out and it takes some skill to keep missing the ball like I did!

(And of course, one wasn't expecting Malcolm Fraser to get a guernsey for Midsomer.)
 

ashes

The Australian captain was crestfallen after a pivotal moment

 

pervin

A rather disturbin search request...


especially when one has been considerin the male gaze over at LP.
 

pet vocals

Pet Sounds A Capella

via things

iirc, this version of God Only Knows was one of the first wavs I surfed/nabbed back in 01.

(and youtube pointed me (belatedely) to this yout uke version.)

birds

Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds in 1 minute, and 40 seconds.

(Hat-Tip to Norabone.)

Although if Tippi had been wearing a hat some unpleasantness might have been avoided.


source

...complaints about lame contrivances in his films were sufficiently common to inspire a defensive retort from the director. "A critic who talks to me about plausibility is a dull fellow," Hitchcock sniffed.  Salon

I must admit that as I watched the film on Saturday night, certain questions did occur to me - where are the sunglasses? Or wide-brimmed hats? Or blue heelers ready to snap at any swooping irritant? - although not to the extent where such questions cloud the view.

'A woman with a birdcage in a fur coat in a rowboat; it could be a Surrealist painting by Dali or Magritte'.Camille Paglia...Source

masterchef 1941

- and in the spirit of masterchef forums, I was barracking for Jane. Sally seemed too smug and accomplished.


(- found via LT and another BFI film)
 

companions

via pk:


good companions 

and (this is not a dog)... via J walk: Circle the Cat  
 

herb

I'm late to the 188,837 views party, but I've been enjoying this nostalgic hit.

And this clip too:



 

fido flyday

Flying Dogs:A Gallery

via B3TA
 

verification

 

I've done this a lot lately.

Must be a confidence thing.

 

unsnare

My work:
to unsnare time's warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you.

Mark Doty Golden Retrievals

at NPR These Books Have Gone to the Dogs
 

match your mood

via I Love Retro Things

 

200 words

I've taken up this meme as seen on Dick Jones Patteran Pages,
and via Dominic Rivron
"I'd hate to be held solely responsible for inspiring a meme but 200 words, let's say, written in the present tense about an old photo of oneself seems quite a good one to pass on."

I couldn't find many earlier photos of myself on hand, but as the concrete stork featured in this one I thought it was topical. Strangely, (I wonder if that's a twitter effect) it's exactly 200 words.




This was taken in November 1991. I am 29. (And I really am. I have not yet learned that old line)
Am I happy? I should be happy with what is in hand, not what is out of reach.
In my hand is a copy of a play I’ve written, about to be performed.
I’m wearing clothing loose enough to move.
The black Swatch with the roman numerals (that a boyfriend said was the nicest swatch watch he had ever seen) is still going.
A friend who would have laughed at that line is still alive
I like the cut of the black straw hat, but it does not sit well, alas, and will be replaced by the soft practicality of the non-descript.
In front of me is my black dog who will stay a few feet away from me for the next 13 years. He is two, in glossy good health.
The garden is tidy and it still rains in Victoria – we have not yet entered the drought that will burn grass, crack houses, kill trees.
The garden stork has presence, and promise.
The computer in my house has 640 kb of memory.
And blog is not a word.
 

txt

TXT ISLAND
Chris Gavin's experimental stop-motion film. Painstakingly hand-crafted using hundreds of plastic peg-board letters.


via I like
 

serendipity

and coincidentally, that light hearted flickr picture is part of the amazing Millie Motts as featured at PCL


with blog: visual serendipity
 

round midcentury

I spent a couple of pleasant hours wandering around Flickr sets through the american good housekeeping midcentury, as you do.

Among highlights:

Two teens studying

light hearted

A woman date unknown

also through Atomic Housewife* → Secret Recipes for the Modern Wife * → Woosh
 

management

Yesterday Ann o'Dyne sent me to Scott's Abode where there are great scans from the wonderful Newnes Home Management on display.

I have these treasured volumes in my collection, and they (and a couple of other examples of the genre) formed the basis of a play I wrote years ago.

Coincidentally, there was a scene involving a concrete garden stork...
 

ornamental

Yes (as mentioned in a comment*) I had half-thought of compiling a gallery of dogs in online real estate ads And this morning as I was idly browsing, I saw this fellow hiding in the corner of a view of the garden.

I'm very fond of this species, and was lucky enough to acquire one of my own about 20 years ago.
 

moving pictures

Moving Pictures at Square America
A jittery, flickering, Frankensteinian attempt to bring old photos back to life

via PCL Linkdump
 

decor

Meeting room with ... one wall of an abstract mural...

Bar room...with Boussac persimmon and olive striped curtains and furniture

Television room

Warren T. Harding and David C. Lorimer collection of interior design
 

dog's life

peacay sent me to Topinambours

and shortly after, I found myself looking at poochie
 

themes

A recent comment here by Ann o'Dyne on Twitter:

I am irritated by constant Follow requests from people I dont know*

made me think of the Blossom Dearie song I'm Shadowing you...


And maybe the Beatles wrote a song for the Bloggers,
the early Thinking of Linking which you can hear in this Jam session from the Anthology era.

And not a song but an instructional film: Facebook Manners
via the Presurfer
 

binding

things on twitter:

There are networks, albeit very informal ones, that exist within this quasi-public realm, a secondary strata of commentary and connections that binds together those who place most emphasis on the binding, if you see what we mean. In other words, twitter and its ilk have become a self-perpetuating network that somehow pulls content out of perpetual distraction.

magnetic

twitter magnets
inspired by magnetic poetry® and twitter

via ample sanity
 

supreme court

NY Times. And the Pursuit of Happiness May It Please the Court

via daily jive
 

tools

Let me google that for you
via As above

instant rimshot
 

dickens

And if I twittered I could link to this little old blog in style.


DickensURL via the Presurfer
Forget tinyurl.com, now you have dickensurl.com!

 

iconic

if I twittered I might tweet:

Got Mixmaster. T did. Man knocked $10 off as I raved about beauty n nostalgia.Yet to bake sponge.

ps. fx I know where you can get those oranges cheap.
 

pooter

Hey there! pooter2009 is using Twitter.

For this year's reboot of diaryofanobody.net, I've given Charles Pooter a Twitter feed.
As Above
 

fri dawgs

was idly browsing bluey youtube
and found a film with a blue heeler song

by Mary Ann Kennedy
Grammy nominated hit songwriter from Nashville, TN., Mary Ann Kennedy, creates music that celebrates the horse

- who also has a song about a jack.


(though wwwhere is the labra♪or mon amour j'adore ballad I wonder...)
 

live better

deep hood covers all curlers

15 Vintage Household Ads

via The Presurfer
 

glamour

One of the items at the exhibition* was a postcard of this hotel in Phillip Island

I used to think this hotel was the last word in glamour when I was six.




This was a glamourous place too...
 

holiday

Caught up with the SLV exhibition Victorians on Vacation
at Mornington, which was a great place to see it, being on vacation (sic)*
There were two other people in the gallery in the two hours it took me to process all the data. Afterwards, we studied the local dogs running freely in a fenced paddock outside the gallery. Everything becomes fauna en vacance.


* Shame they traded americanism for alliteration.
They coulda gone with eg. oz on oliday
 

beach

Off to the beach for a week.
 

danger

danger

While browsing Bacchus Marsh pics (as you do) I chanced upon an image from childhood that has since disappeared - one of the Danger signs that used to grace intersections in Melbourne. There used to be one along the late 60s valiant trek from the foothills to Preston, though who knows where it was exactly in those 20 scary miles of melways.

But I'm not old enough to remember the clocks
 

tremor

Residents from the CBD to Dromana felt the tremor, with one Elwood local falling off the couch.

Herald Sun (since updated, but posted here)
 

fido friday

ball on nose trick

 

25 facts

25 Facts About Me

13 writing prompts
via Twists and Turns
 

spy style

 
Spy Vibe 1960s SPY STYLE

via things

Update via Spy Vibe
Our Man in Melbourne Permission To Kill
 

view point

I was looking for a teetotal-esque photo to mark the end of Feburary.
(For February was a dry month chez nous. All peach tea cordial in champagne coupe glasses and not missing the alcofizz at all)

And I found my way to the wonderful Alice Manfield Collection at the SLV. Among many gems:

Donkey looking in a window

the Monolith Rock

holding a bird

teapot between them

wearing checkered skirt

a bird perched on her right wrist

Unidentified girl standing at the top of a rock

and for Juke:
View point
 

dog friendly

i regret getting red gravel pebbles - hard to clean and now we have to partition that area off ,too(by the fence it is)
theyre good for security as they crunch underfoot but ive never been able to keep the dogs off it because like most dogs they like to run the perimeter of the property and check things out
ive never worried about where the dogs toilet because there is a lawn area they use but one or two ofthem like to sneak off to the gravel area and its a pain picking up their waste with pebbles attached
i reckon we should have just concreted - easier to clean

- dogz forum: Designing The Dog Friendly Garden
 

slideshow

I ♥ letslookupandsmile's photostream:

Arriving for the 21st dinner dance...


And a couple of weeks ago, again in the midst of heatwave, I was catching up with the photostream, when I saw this:
Party Animals

and this comment that directed me to
the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
 

groove

In the days of the heatwave that preceded the calamity of bushfires, I remember listening to music in the low-fi cellar, having just read about just hear it at J Walk

Via the comments @ J walk, Grooveshark
Play any song in the world for free

so I've been catching up with some absent friends (CDs being elsewhere)
 

unlike

Clicking the Like link next to something that you enjoy on Facebook is an easy way to let someone know that you like it, without leaving a comment...

Will I be able to unlike (and remove me liking something) after I click on the Like link?

bernie

FX posted about Blossom Dearie.
I played the excellent 9 min clip, and then went looking for some old faves.

I eventually found My Attorney Bernie

see also 'S Wonderful ('S João)
 

disaster

From the safety of the suburbs, I listened to the radio on Saturday as it changed from an extreme-weather story to a firestorm story as the whole state seemed to ignite with over 400 'fire events'. All you do is keep listening to reports from the fire front, a continual stream of emergency messages and tragic stories.

Kinglake local shares story on Victoria fires
Age Photo gallery
the township has "virtually ceased to exist"

Boston Globe: The Big Picture via peacay
 

footer

At 12:12 PM   boynton updated her footer

miss tree

look and learn

When I was a Brownie, when I was a Sprite, * I managed to pass my Tree Badge, which required reciting the roll call of exotics and being able to identify a tree from its leaf in front of a judge, who was the rostered neighbourhood expert in the field. In this case the judge was my father.
I passed by memory skills, with no help from the family green thumb, which I did not inherit.
While I may still know my elms ok, I think I have rested on my Brownie laurels.
Recently I was trying to describe a tree I'd seen to a professional expert in the field and fumbled clumsily for words, non-latin words to boot. In fact it was akin to struggling for language in a foreign land, busted for not doing your homework, for not being sufficiently tree-lingual.
Then days later I was still trying to put a name to the tree with a search directory, one of those uses of technology they once lauded in ads for printers. I was eliminating varieties of banksia and grevillea when I stared out of the window. My eyes rested on a tree and I said "That's it!" - life imitating TV, the tropes of sitcoma.
Anyway, the embarrassing confession is that this tree, for so long anonymous and invisible to me, is a very common species. Naming it has summoned it into existence in sudden profusion. It is everywhere in the urban environment.
It's as if I had said to this expert: have you ever heard of a rose?
Still, a fortnight ago, when it was unknown and exotic, I saw the tree in question forming an avenue of striking colour in a dry landscape. It was a temporarily remarkable first contact.
 

air con

If the United States is going to get serious about the deep cuts in energy consumption that are needed, the whole idea of air-conditioning has to be questioned
Air-conditioning: Our Cross to Bear

While air-conditioning clearly isn't the sole culprit responsible for global warming, its use looks set to increase, not decrease. Experts agree that the best long-term plan is to make sure that new housing takes climate change into account.
Why Air Con is Ruining Our Environment

“In this way, solar cooling has the potential to reduce peak demand on the electricity grid by reducing the amount of electricity that is required to meet those air conditioning demands on the hottest days of the Australian summer,” Dr White says.
Keeping cool using the summer heat

As air-conditioner sales soar and concrete abounds, the role of trees, grass and other plant life in helping reduce carbon emissions is often overlooked
It's time literally to go green

How to Cool Yourself Without Air Conditioning
 

heat waves

In an era without refrigeration, air-conditioning or effective sanitation, and with polite dress being thick, three-piece suits and long skirts, the effects were traumatic. Ice-works worked flat out to try to keep up with demand
1908 heatwave BOM

Stock collapsed and fowls dropped dead in the blistering heat at Sea Lake
1939 Black Friday ABC

...Clerks and typists ate ice-cream at work. Some girls fainted on their way to their offices
Black Friday

Incidents of the hot season
 

temp predicament

(Title coined by peacay)

For how can you not mention the weather in a Melbourne heatwave, in a house with no air conditioning, when it's on the way to 43 again, when the washing takes 10 minutes to dry, when the bird bath is tepid by four?

In a house without air conditioning, one finds relief in the cellar at night.

This is true and I seem to note it annually. But there are still no obvious articles about underground rooms as a sustainable alternative to the environmental scourge of air con. Seems pretty simple to me: if you're under six foot with a reasonably small footprint and like bad TV reception amid the eskis and wet-suits of storage, then this cellar is the place to be.
 

fido friday

The couple's white Maltese poodle, called Sumo, has a history of frenzied fits and became increasingly prone to making "vicious, unprovoked attacks" despite receiving treatment with anti-depressants fox

Living dog-free is living in a world more ordinary. The Age

twitteresque

Slowly watching Brideshead Revisited again.

Have revived the coupe in preference to the flute.

Chemically incorrect, but we like it.
 

non green

The seasonal dumping of the pine trees post Christmas is a familiar and well documented sight, but this is the first time I have seen a plastic tree discarded on the nature strip in January.
 

09

Happy New Year

 

waht part

And speaking of googling and troogling, this question just landed at boynton from the searchers:



During this part?




Or on the cusp



os the next century?


 

next question

Recently one of our trivia team-mates coined the word Troogle for a quiz question that would seem to require googling, a question that causes a certain sense of citation needed.
(And a team-mate also pointed out last night that while the derivation is Trivia+Google, it also sounds like true-gling: to verify)

Of course a troogler has to be cautious, as some of these facts enjoy a degree of (page rank) authority. Google, noun and verb, cause and effect.

There are some faux facts that do the rounds of email lists and quizzes, as documented on the blog Popular Misconceptions

Some time ago, I had the idea of compiling a collection of ‘popular misconceptions’ - those nuggets of information that get passed from person to person, told with an air of authority, but which turn out to be completely false...

Anyway - the other day I found my way to an online Pub quiz at Spiegel.



I guessed A.

As you do.



More of a blooper than a troogle I guess
but as is often the case
we were both
wrong.


 

zeitgeist heist

some found sounds from the aggregation of billions of search queries google zeit:


australia


top of mind


- and I do like this regional highlight couplet:


 

wet saturday

raining all day
Bronte whining all day
on post-operative painkillers
at two o'clock
I played Best of Baroque
to drown out the sound
and soothe the pain
and to chill the crossword filler
complaining
Air on the G string with terrier
Four seasons and a jack russell
we handled the weather together
 

old dogs

Fauntlaroy


Old Dogs
I used to collect really old photos that had dogs in them until EBAY screwed it up for everybody.

via bifurcated rivets.
 

cocktail types

More from the LIFE photo archive...
Tony Randall impersonating

cocktail party pests.



the joker, pouring beer in martinis.

"The Thinker"

the confider.

the indestructible, eternal college man.

the non-drinker
 

short wave

From a Vintage Magazines flickr set via J walk



The perils of blog short wave addiction.


 

listen

listening to sound samples of Helen Merrill sings The Beatles

after I listened to Listen at
Music For Every Mood, whose post on HM notes the Beatley disc.

MFEM via Music You(Possibly)Won't Hear Anyplace Else
 

powerball

7.30 Life After People
Documentary. A hypothetical
examination of what the planet
would be like if every human being
on Earth suddenly disappeared.
(Includes Powerball draw)

- the Age Green Guide

surfer

I'm sure if he didn't want to surf his size alone would make it dificult for his owners to force him

- reader's comment

via look at this

see also Ed
 

melvin

But there could be a movie called Melvin
a sequel or prequel to australia.
For that is what the google voice-recognition application for iPhone heard as the Herald-Sun* said "Melbourne".



*(Not online. But see)
 

write

Write or die
...consequences if you do not write

via bifurcated rivets
 

wolf

We almost missed the wonderful Peter and The Wolf when it screened quietly on Tuesday at 10.



Luckily it's repeated on ABC2 this Sunday at 7.
 

life

Actually, those red shoes in the banner image appear in a Life Cook Book circa 1960 in my possession.

I searched for the image to no avail at the LIFE photo archive hosted by Google via J walk

But I did find some related images on a modernistic theme

one can easily jump around while watching television.

watering plants in the living room

Family and friends sitting in a modern home, with lots of glass

at his push-button house displaying guests sitting on the couch and playing bridge during a cocktail-party.
 

mud cintury

and speaking of mid century interiors

peanuts

At Comics.com, all of Peanuts online... via Daily Jive

That was a blast from the past. I spent an hour or so yesterday in the early fifties looking for a strip I read in the early seventies. I was looking for mid-century interiors, commentary thereof. I think this might be it:




and who knew there would be a strip about blogging, or blog ennui
 

shoes two

Update on the shoes:



It seems we're in good company...


Just Jared: Natalie


Natalie and Charlie

 



(seen via herald sun)

cup eve

Some scenes from National Velvet - the TV show.

(I've been waiting for nv to make an appearance on the yt nostalgia machine.)
 

red shoes

- And speaking of op shops, I bought some new Dunlop runners (dog-walkers) at the Salvos, which was timely as the old ones are on their last legs.
At op shops, if you're lucky enough to score a new pair of shoes in your size, the colour of the shoe isn't an issue.

But they are very red.

But when she wanted to go to the right, the blue heeler and the red shoes walked to the left, and when she wanted to walk up the room, the blue heeler and the red shoes walked down the room, down the stairs through the street, and out through the gates of the town. She walked, and was obliged to walk, far out into the dark wood...

She was frightened, and wanted to throw the red shoes away; but they stuck fast. She tore off her stockings, but the shoes had grown fast to her feet. She walked and was obliged to go on walking the blue heeler over field and meadow, in rain and sunshine, by night and by day—but by night it was most horrible via