Other christmas cultural events
Whilst on holidays I have been trying to dissosociate from deadlines and days; the only disadvantage of this is that I haven't managed to visit any galleries or art exhibitions. However I have had my own little cultural explorations of the delights of the city...
Thursday night Rachel roused me out of bed (contact with fresh linen seemed reasonable after 850km of driving across NSW and Victoria and South Australia) to see Babel with her and her friends. I waited outside Nova Cinema for five minutes, wondering if the sandal wearing 40 somethings were her "mature age" friends from uni (R being technically a mature age student too); but on her arrival we established we should be at Palace cinema.
After the flick her friends came out, they ended up being 7 in total, 2 were vaguely familiar looking in that Adelaide way; I remembered one for his travelogue feature on being in San Francisco for NYE (along the lines of experiencing that feeling of anxiety at being far from home surrounded by scary strangers and feeling safer by staying indoors; how fitting that I met him at a screening of Babel 3 nights before NYE); another I recognised as one of those incredibly familiar campus faces-Andrew turned out to be a "physicist"* now residing in Canberra.
His partner Imogen described their trek from Canberra to Adelaide "straight across the Hay Plains..." and I was so pleased to recognise the description and have experienced the journey too. There are so many interesting little towns along the Murrumbidgee and Murray; surprisingly landscaped and built up towns, with two storey buildings and a community presence; even some of the Riverina towns like Darlinton Point are very cute, with outdoor pools, shady trees and second hand shops that I can't wait to visit.
R and I and myself swapped notes about Christmas visits with in-laws (do they hug you tightly in a hug that never ends, like Andy's Mum, or stick their bum out and pat your back, like I's Andrew's Dad?) and NYE plans... we joined the larger group to swap notes about Brad Pitt's acting, and (SPOILER ALERT ABOUT PLOT OF BABEL) my complete lack of recognition about the suicidal girl, and what I would have done differently in the desert (covered my head; using red thread to track my path; sought water at the cactus; dug the water bottle into the dirt to try and collect water condensation).
I did jest a little about whether I failed as a hp in recognising the signs... I guess it's possible to miss signs unless you are consciously running through a checklist... what I find quite amazing is that in my 8 years of work with cancer patients, I don't know of any suiciding**; and would probably only describe 2 as having extreme symptoms of clinical depression, which were situations exacerbated by cancer, but certainly not caused by it. Perhaps all the energy goes towards coping . Oh, this is a morbid subject, but that is the kind of film that Babel was; it brought out all kinds of musing on communication; about how people cope when they travel and are faced with tragedy, how our fears and anxieties can be heightened by genuinely innocent circumstances.
Our conversation took place at the Exeter in the dying hours of a Thursday night; the youngsters were out and oh, I cringed, to recognise myself... but good on them, for getting out there, getting dressed up and getting excited.
Since then, socialising has been at home and other people's houses: I had dinner at Coro with Nick and Annabel and their son who is talking ("Mummm-meee"; "ham-mer"), and survived a huge rainstorm: thunder, lightning, purple and grey haze, it was fantastic and left the asphalt and bitumen a slicked black colour; Unley Road at 1am was completely empty. Today I had lunch at the Mozza's (who could be reading), they have the most amazing library, all it needs is J wearing a visor at a felt covered table with low hanging green lights. They were so good, it was so nice to see them, and certainly too short. So happy birthday LISA!!! First to turn 31. I am very lucky to have such anchored and literate friends-I always know where to find them.
Finally we popped in to see Louise, who has finally finished filming SWING, along with her partner Chris. It's a 30 minute short film about a Vietnamese girl who quits working for her family at the restaurant and gets a job cleaning for a Vietnam Vet played by Chris Haywood... (who appeared on tonight's ABC top 20 babyboomer films wearing a very fine maillot)... so that shall be screening in the Adelaide Film Festival in March, I am excited!!!
The other bit of "adelaide made good" news was reading about the new director of the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Although I haven't met Christie Anthoney, she's holidayed often with her brother, sister in law and my sister; apparently my nephew has a very soft spot for her, thanks to her encouragement of his creative vision as a child; how she praised his use of colours and ecological knowledge when creating collage drawings; he'd hang on to her side like a water urchin and let him take him into the water, clinging to her like she was his family too. She sounds like a special person, and a great person to be the new director.
*not an indictment on his credibility or credentials, just an attempt to avoid giving him an incorrect label
**It's possible that I might have missed feedback; I only know of one situation anecdotally
Thursday night Rachel roused me out of bed (contact with fresh linen seemed reasonable after 850km of driving across NSW and Victoria and South Australia) to see Babel with her and her friends. I waited outside Nova Cinema for five minutes, wondering if the sandal wearing 40 somethings were her "mature age" friends from uni (R being technically a mature age student too); but on her arrival we established we should be at Palace cinema.
After the flick her friends came out, they ended up being 7 in total, 2 were vaguely familiar looking in that Adelaide way; I remembered one for his travelogue feature on being in San Francisco for NYE (along the lines of experiencing that feeling of anxiety at being far from home surrounded by scary strangers and feeling safer by staying indoors; how fitting that I met him at a screening of Babel 3 nights before NYE); another I recognised as one of those incredibly familiar campus faces-Andrew turned out to be a "physicist"* now residing in Canberra.
His partner Imogen described their trek from Canberra to Adelaide "straight across the Hay Plains..." and I was so pleased to recognise the description and have experienced the journey too. There are so many interesting little towns along the Murrumbidgee and Murray; surprisingly landscaped and built up towns, with two storey buildings and a community presence; even some of the Riverina towns like Darlinton Point are very cute, with outdoor pools, shady trees and second hand shops that I can't wait to visit.
R and I and myself swapped notes about Christmas visits with in-laws (do they hug you tightly in a hug that never ends, like Andy's Mum, or stick their bum out and pat your back, like I's Andrew's Dad?) and NYE plans... we joined the larger group to swap notes about Brad Pitt's acting, and (SPOILER ALERT ABOUT PLOT OF BABEL) my complete lack of recognition about the suicidal girl, and what I would have done differently in the desert (covered my head; using red thread to track my path; sought water at the cactus; dug the water bottle into the dirt to try and collect water condensation).
I did jest a little about whether I failed as a hp in recognising the signs... I guess it's possible to miss signs unless you are consciously running through a checklist... what I find quite amazing is that in my 8 years of work with cancer patients, I don't know of any suiciding**; and would probably only describe 2 as having extreme symptoms of clinical depression, which were situations exacerbated by cancer, but certainly not caused by it. Perhaps all the energy goes towards coping . Oh, this is a morbid subject, but that is the kind of film that Babel was; it brought out all kinds of musing on communication; about how people cope when they travel and are faced with tragedy, how our fears and anxieties can be heightened by genuinely innocent circumstances.
Our conversation took place at the Exeter in the dying hours of a Thursday night; the youngsters were out and oh, I cringed, to recognise myself... but good on them, for getting out there, getting dressed up and getting excited.
Since then, socialising has been at home and other people's houses: I had dinner at Coro with Nick and Annabel and their son who is talking ("Mummm-meee"; "ham-mer"), and survived a huge rainstorm: thunder, lightning, purple and grey haze, it was fantastic and left the asphalt and bitumen a slicked black colour; Unley Road at 1am was completely empty. Today I had lunch at the Mozza's (who could be reading), they have the most amazing library, all it needs is J wearing a visor at a felt covered table with low hanging green lights. They were so good, it was so nice to see them, and certainly too short. So happy birthday LISA!!! First to turn 31. I am very lucky to have such anchored and literate friends-I always know where to find them.
Finally we popped in to see Louise, who has finally finished filming SWING, along with her partner Chris. It's a 30 minute short film about a Vietnamese girl who quits working for her family at the restaurant and gets a job cleaning for a Vietnam Vet played by Chris Haywood... (who appeared on tonight's ABC top 20 babyboomer films wearing a very fine maillot)... so that shall be screening in the Adelaide Film Festival in March, I am excited!!!
The other bit of "adelaide made good" news was reading about the new director of the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Although I haven't met Christie Anthoney, she's holidayed often with her brother, sister in law and my sister; apparently my nephew has a very soft spot for her, thanks to her encouragement of his creative vision as a child; how she praised his use of colours and ecological knowledge when creating collage drawings; he'd hang on to her side like a water urchin and let him take him into the water, clinging to her like she was his family too. She sounds like a special person, and a great person to be the new director.
*not an indictment on his credibility or credentials, just an attempt to avoid giving him an incorrect label
**It's possible that I might have missed feedback; I only know of one situation anecdotally
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