Doubling Up on Double Peonies

Can a flower be too gorgeous, too exuberantly pettaline? No, No, No, Non a vera! Here the double luxury of pink peonies multiplies lavishly in the mirror. Right now my house is something of floral fiat, gardenias in sugar bowls, peonies in pewter jugs, a posey of pansies in the wobbling-base composite vase which is the lid of the ginger jar with a round beaker in it, that spins -just like earth a bit skew on its axis, which I could pretend is phototaxis.

A Room with a View - Phoenix Canariensis

The Phoenix palm - Fibonnacci-ist of the garden - somehow always manages to be centre stage, even when it's leaning North-North-East. It will be no surprise this is done in prussian blue, and a calligraphy brush, a great lesson in the difference between the beginning and the end.

Cross Purposes - Shocking Hazard in Suburbs

At first glance I thought this pole with its red tape, yellow tape (repeat, repeat), was a new species of street art, but no, it's a warning that this Pole is not to be crossed. It does suggest some a joke of the What-Do-You-Get- When- You-Cross-a Pole kind. Pondering possible answers, I think they might involve Poland, The Rubicon and Sticky Tap, and perhaps Vorgon poetry ?

Old Shades for Sale - Bart Brassica and the Door to Door Salesman

Now, it seems a door-to-door salesman has materialised, in a sudden kind of way, on Bart  Brassica's front porch selling Shadows. Bart's regular shadow upped and left due to certain, let's say, less than sensitive remarks by Bart who was in a pickle from drinking fermented beat pickle liquor. Granny Egg took this photo of the salesman talking to Bart with her telephoto 'Paperrarzzi' camera, and has been ringing everyone she knows telling them to avoid Bart's place like the plague. The question is will Bart, a notorious cheapskate, pay for anything he doesn't absolutely need?

Non Persona Non Grata

In a moment of implicit intergenerational evolutionary discontinuity, the author of this sign at Macquarie University playing fields has decided that a child is not a person.  Then there is that ominous claim of a removal right, and the disproportionate burden of 'all' children on 'an' adult.

While this discontinuity from Darwin's thesis is strange, the Author of Signs goes on to make a severe connection between the BBQ and the tennis court lights, demanding an embargo, which makes one imagine a history of a preciptious descent into blackness ( though maybe it was the marauding cliff face that  roams the playing fields) and points, players, balls and racquets lost, while the snags sizzle on.  Also I wonder about the see-saw effect in the supply of volts here. 

Three Scenes from Tanpopo

It seems that even the same smallish restaurant,Tanpopo, which I've now sketched quite a few times, always has some new aspect to try and catch, the way the fluoro light shines down on the chef at the back , the slight movement of the paper lanterns in the breeze from the door or the cerise cushions that miraculously stay in place.

In addition to our standard order of gyoza and ramen we added in the grilled cuttle fish, a generous garlicky mix of tender grilled pieces with lots of fresh greens. Delicious.

Lagoon-Wise - Keirle Park's Framed View

November is a sticky month in Sydney, and this week the fold up chair came into its own [- though surely there was a Mr Hulot moment when I stood up and the chair stuck to my derrier] so I sat under a Norfolk Pine and looked back across the carpark, the road - which obligingly reduced its presence to a thinline of ink, and took in the afternoon shimmer on the lagoon - which you will have to imagine as the shimmer shimmied off on its way to paper via paint.

PS This is a new method, paint first, pen later, and reminds me of things I painted in primary school that were folded up when wet.

Mysterious Mr Brassica shaped space found

 

As constant readers will know, Bart Brassica has a peculiar colourised shadow (see the Colourised Shadow post ). A recently discovered snap taken from the Marlborough Hotel outside of Cooma, NSW, shows a dark  Bart Brassica shaped space has taken up residence on the verandah that looks out over the nearby hills and telegraph poles. There is a theory doing the rounds in Lambertville that Bart got entirely  pie-eyed on fermented beet pickle one night and had such an argument with his shadow, it being the only thing would ordinarily hang around once Bart got started on fermented beet pickle, that the shadow upped and left him. Rumours are the shadow stowed away in a box of vintage farm animals that were purchased on Ebay and subsequently shipped to Australia, where the shadow has stayed ever since, preferring his more definite self that the stronger light allows.

In Fine Mettle - Hatching a Good Understory

In the last year, since visiting Japan and being impressed, while pressing my  light weight boot on the finer points of street art, that is the well-designed hatches for the various sub-plots of services which are to be found in every city, I've had my eye out for similar local  designs of fine mettle in metal but have little to report. In both wistful contemplation of the last visit and anticipation of my next, I am offering up this image as a graphic reminder of possibilities.

Torch Songs - Melusine Moments of Illumination

In May I sketched my dolphin torch, an ode, of sorts, in black and yellow to its stalwart aid, on black trips at night to the meter box, more often of late, late night walking back from my writing shed, when all the world is seemingly asleep to it shines my way back down the stairs, across the damp lawn to reconnect with the back door light.

Sidelining Tuesday at Keirle Park

There is might be a survey of popular stances for men watching sport, the classic folded-arms-with- a-tilt to-one-side-, for the knowledgable aside, and the ever reliable, hand-in-pocket-leaving-the-other- to-point. After the empty nest of Wednesday afternoon at Keirle Park, a one-off switch to Tuesday finds a field of under 8's playing tag footie with a contingent of sideliners, the most elegant  productive of which was the small girl in the tutu who left with a daisy chain of clover flowers, gleaned from steadfast attention to the field rather than the players.

Tea Tree Blossom Season at Keirle Park

 

Is there something more introspective about  Wednesday's that drew my attention to the flowering tea trees that edge the carpark of Keirle Park? Perhaps one should rightly attend to the significant floral events like these as well as the busyness of people. You can't see them in the background but there were people skating, tennis players ambling over and back from the courts, dogs with dog walkers and the odd waiting parent, like me.