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Suburbia, Smart and Byrne

The first two decades of my life were spent growing up in the western suburbs of Sydney. Long summers were spent walking or riding my bike in the blazing sun through suburbia. The concrete and bitumen seemed to melt beneath my thongs as I made my way past lone gum trees and street signs casting crisp shadows, sun-bleached billboards advertising products no longer available, deceased sulo bins, and nature strips with rock and roll haircuts.

One of my favourite visual artists when I was in high school was Jeffrey Smart. I remember seeing several of his paintings at the Art Gallery of NSW and being blown away with how unique and refreshing they were. Using subject matter which may have otherwise been considered throwaway, ugly, or mundane and turning it into something beautiful.

Corrugated shipping containers became a perfect study of light and shape. Street signs and kerb-sides reduced the composition down to simple blocks which found beauty in their simplicity.

Jeffrey Smart

George Byrne (also Australian born) found his place in this same world and brought it to the world of Instagram. As such, his medium is photography rather than painting. And rather than capturing the industrial space that much of Smart’s work did, Byrne instead captures the world of suburbia I am all too familiar with.

George Byrne

The subject matter – block colours, kerb-sides, street signs, bollards, road markings, palm trees and random passers-by in the middle of nowhere – puts the focus on light, shadow and composition in the same way that Smart did. It’s abstract, yet familiar.

George Byrne

Byrne lives in California and a lot of his photography has taken place between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. I’ll be in Palm Springs in five weeks and plan to channel (or rip off?) his aesthetic.

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Ear Candy 2020.02 – Sleep

Now I worry our horizon’s been nothing new
‘Cause I get this feeling and maybe you get it too
We’re on a rollercoaster stuck on its loop-de-loop
‘Cause what we did, one day, on a whim
Has slowly become all we do

A few tracks I’ve had on rotation in the last couple of months. Some old favourites and some freshies.

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New York to start a New Year

In New York, boy, money really talks – I’m not kidding

The Catcher in The Rye

When I moved to Vancouver, one of the places high on my list to visit during my time here was New York City. I first saw New York in July 2011 and it was everything everyone had hyped it to be, and more. To top it off, back then the Aussie dollar was worth more than the greenback so I was able to spend a good 5-6 weeks in the US , including 10 in NYC, without burning a hole in my pocket.

But that was an exceptional time. For someone in Australia, New York straddles the inconvenient circumstances of being at least two flights and 20 hours away, as well as enormously expensive. And since it’s so far away you can’t just spend a few days there.

From Vancouver it’s only 5 hours away, and with plans to return to Australia in 2020, as well as a week off over Christmas – it seemed the obvious time to tick ‘Christmas in New York’ off the list. To top it off The Strokes were playing a New Years Eve show.

It didn’t disappoint. Returning to a location 100 months later is a fascinating experience. It highlights the differences of the location as well as the differences within yourself. Last time around I was hitting all the tourist spots, museums, galleries. I was splashing cash at every bar in town until the early hours of the morning (with perhaps a touch too much confidence), meeting all sorts of wonderful people.

The Strokes were incredible

This time around was more about restaurants (including hitting every Aussie cafe in town), areas I hadn’t ventured last time, and finding new and interesting spots to photograph. And I still met a bunch of friendly folks. It really is an incredible place. Bizarrely I still knew my way around as though no time had passed at all.

But Summer in New York still wins easily over Christmas in New York.

The year began in the greatest city on Earth, and it will end in my favourite city of all, Sydney.

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2019 in Music

Will I be known and loved?
Little closer, close enough
I’m a loser, loosen up
Set it free, must be tough

Well, I’m a month later than most with their best of 2019 list, but given the Hottest 100 was coming this weekend, it crossed my mind that I should revisit this.

Songs

  1. Borderline – Tame Impala
    By far my most played song. I still can’t get enough and am super hyped for The Slow Rush and the 2020 tour.
  2. UFOF – Big Thief
    Both of their 2019 albums got a good workout, but this track most of all.
  3. Andromeda – Weyes Blood
  4. RICKY – Denzel Curry
  5. Nobody – Mac DeMarco
  6. Georgia – Kevin Abstract
  7. Heavy Hearted – The Jungle Giants
  8. Skinshape – I Didn’t Know
  9. Real Thing – Middle Kids
  10. Doin’ Time – Lana Del Rey

Albums

Igor – Tyler, The Creator
The best albums have a consistent sound, theme, and exist best as a whole, in the specific order prescribed by the album. Plenty of tracks from this album can be listened to individually, but I rarely felt like listening to one song – I wanted to listen to the album.
The album follows the journey of a relationship from the initial excitement, onto the desperation to make it work, right through to it’s tragic end and the bitterness that comes along for the ride. I wouldn’t have imagined this in Tyler’s future when I saw OFWGKTA ten years ago at the Sydney Opera House playhouse – but it makes a lot of sense in hindsight. He’s always been a terrific storyteller.

You make my Earfquake

Other notable albums:

  • Omoiyari – Kishi Bashi
    (Also an incredible live show)
  • Titanic Rising – Weyes Blood
  • UFOF / Two Hands – Big Thief
  • Big Smooth Cat – Dope Lemon
  • Here Comes The Cowboy – Mac DeMarco
  • Closer To Grey – Chromatics
  • Hiding Places – Billy Woods
  • Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present… LSD – Sia, Diplo, Labyrinth, LSD
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Streams 2019

Never put a fish in your car

I streamed a hell of a lot more this year than I have in years prior. The combination of slow work days and lousy weather in the second half of the year meant I gave myself more couch time than I have in the past (I get enormous weather guilt – when the sun is out I struggle to stay inside).

Here are the most notable ones.

Series

Euphoria
  • Euphoria
    My favourite of the year. The cinematography, the subject matter, the cast (it speaks volumes that so many unlikable characters maintained my interest). That carnival episode was incredible. My only gripe? All the loose ends, no doubt designed to bait me into coming back for season 2.
  • Chernobyl
    This was top of my list until I saw Euphoria. I feel most people have seen this so there’s not much to be said. Bleak, sad, heavy, powerful – as it should be.
  • Russian Doll
    This one popped up on Netflix and I started without knowing a thing about it. What seemed like a Groundhog Day ripoff at first blossomed into something more. Natasha Lyonne was great.
  • Escape at Dannemora
    Who’d have thought Ben Stiller had it in him? Like The Shawshank Redemption, but real. Great cast, true story told well. The contrast between how the characters are portrayed behind bars and on the outside is brilliant – with their horrific past crimes sandwiched between.
  • The Mandalorian
    I loved this. Simple, high production-value space-western which straddled the line between “adventure of the week” and a season wide arc. It strangely took me back to my childhood playing Space Quest more than anything to do with Star Wars.
  • What We Do In The Shadows
    Not as good as the movie, but I never expected it to be. Still worthy of sitting alongside the movie. Mark Proksch steals it.
  • Big Little Lies – Season 2
    Aside from Meryl, this stank. A season full of miserable characters which seemed to have no point to it. They should have quit after the much fresher first season.
  • Mindhunter – Season 2
    Visually brilliant as always, albeit a slow burn. Anna Torv had a lot more to work with this time but then vanished for the last 3 episodes.
  • The Office (US)
    I finally got around to watching all 9 seasons after having seen bits and pieces out of order over the years. I loved it and was thoroughly disappointed when I ran out of episodes (even with the quality dip in the final season, which came across like it had been written by a different team).
  • I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson
    I’ve been craving sketch comedy since the end of Awesome Show. This managed to scratch my itch.
  • On Cinema at the Cinema
    This will be on my list of must-sees every year it continues to exist.

Features

  • Parasite
    Favourite movie of the year. If you haven’t seen it, you should – and the less you know about it ahead of viewing the better. Watch it before the inevitable Hollywood remake.
  • The Irishman
    I love Scorsese. But for all the talk of what constitutes “cinema” around the release of this, it played more like a mini-series. Can anyone do the 3 hours and 30 minutes in one sitting?
  • Joker
    Clever take on old material and proof that Joaquin is always great.
  • Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
    Disappointing. A movie full of memorable scenes haphazardly stitched together. It almost played like a Tarantino clip show. Leo’s chat with the child actor was the highlight.
  • Avengers: Endgame
    The VFX highlight of the year. Ambitious, and yes predictable – but a bit of fun.
  • Us
    This was great, except for the final act, when Peele dropped way too much exposition. There is a beauty to leaving some things a mystery. Two-thirds of a good movie.
  • El Camino
    Great, as you’d expect – but unnecessary. I loved it to get my fix while I wait for more Saul. It didn’t ruin the perfect Breaking Bad ending nor did it elevate it.
  • Apollo 11
    Fantastic for any space or history nerds. The pictures do all the talking.

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Spring Forward Fall Back

Like the sun through the trees you came to love me
Like a leaf on a breeze you blew away

Growing up in Australia, the concept of distinct seasons was foreign to me. In Sydney it’s either summer, or not summer. Sure, some leaves fall in autumn and spring time is windy – but visually there isn’t a great deal of difference aside from the length of shadows on the ground.

I was struck by these differences in my first year living in Vancouver. Not only the change, but the speed of change. I’d never seen such green tree leaves as what hit my eyeballs in spring. And the colours which greeted me in autumn were so bright and saturated they didn’t seem to belong in nature. Maple red is on their flag for a reason.

I decided to catalog these visual differences as observed from my Canadian home, 25 stories above Vancouver. I love straight, clean lines. The visual un-distort / distort treatment I used turned out even better than I had hoped.

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Whitehorse, Yukon and the Northern Lights

Back in September I flew up to Whitehorse with the hope of witnessing the northern lights. Understanding just how many factors had to work together in order for this to happen (most of all the weather), we lowered our expectations and ensured we planned other activities at Yukon Wildlife Preserve. We saw deer, elk, muskox, foxes, wild sheep and caribou. The lynx were too shy so we missed those, and the moose and mountain goats were just too damn ugly to photograph.

We also were treated to some incredible autumn foliage. Summer is my favourite season back home, but in Canada it’s the season which follows.

After the wildlife tour, we went out the following two nights to try and spot the aurora. At 10 pm we piled into a van and were driven 30 minutes out of town to a field with cabins and campfires. I set up my tripod and camera and started snapping shots of the stars, assuming this would be all I manage to photograph. Fortunately at around 2 am the magic started dancing across the sky and I’d ticked another item off my bucket list.

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Welcome

Welcome to my attempt at having a blog again. I had one of these way back in the day before any of these blogging services existed, maybe 15 years ago? It covered similar topics to what I intend to cover here – music, art, movies, technology, photography, travel.

Lately I’ve been looking for a new hobby and desire to start writing again. I figured if I had a blog, perhaps the rest would flow again – or it could all go nowhere.

I’ve named this attempt rrhoea, a suffix meaning ‘flow or discharge’. It hits both my desire for a name with meaning which also satisfies my juvenile sense of humour.

Stay tuned to find out how much flows…