Last weekend was a busy one. On Friday we went out to Northcote, a suburb about 45 minutes by tram from here. We went to see a band we've seen before, Buttered Loaf. We're becoming quite the Buttered Loaf groupies - we saw them at a free outdoor concert at the big market in town, at a bar in our neighbourhood, and now at a bar in Northcote. They have a groovy, jazzy sound, and it was a nice night out.
Saturday afternoon was mostly spent running errands of various kinds, and Saturday night we went to a 30th birthday party. The party was held for one of the girls in Leslie's course, and mos
t of his friends from college were there. It was held in an events hall in an outer suburb - we had to take a train to get there. It started at 7, and there was dinner and dancing and drinks until well past 1. Lots of 80s and 90s music was played, the kind of songs that make you say "oh wow, I remember that song!" At least, they make you say that if you grew up in the 80s and 90s. The hostess described her music as "daggy," an Australian word meaning (as near as we can tell) out of style, uncool, a bit naff. Daggy music makes for great dancing, though, and we had fun partying till the wee hours.On Sunday Leslie had a shoot to do with his friends, and I went to a charity football match with a co-worker and his friends. The footy match was between members of local bands and DJS on a local public radio station. I can't say what the shoot was like, but the football match was awesome. The match was on in an oval a few blocks from our house, and it was billed as "kid, dog and goat-friendly," and while I didn't see any goats, there were plenty of kids and dozens, maybe hundreds, of dogs. Doors opened three hours before the match, and there were a bunch of bands who played to entertain the crowd. Some of the bands playing in the pre-show were also players in the match. Everyone was all over the playing pitch before the match, listening to the music, throwing footballs around, playing with their dogs, playing with t
heir kids. The match itself wasn't very serious football - some of the players' children were on the teams, so there wasn't a lot of tackling. The announcers were all mates with the players, so they made fun of them more than calling the match. Between quarters everyone swarmed the pitch again. It looked like the Sheeps Meadow in the height of summer with all the Frisbee playing and dogs having a ball. During the last quarter three streakers (2 men and a woman, all seemingly unconnected) took to the pitch in the middle of play. They ran around and turned cartwheels and bowed to the crowd. While they were on the field, the announcers didn't call the match at all, just what the streakers were doing. There were plenty of cops there, but when the streakers were through they just went off the pitch and put their clothes back on. No one got arrested, and no one was uptight about it. It was great fun.In the evening Les and I went to the Astor to see a double bill of Paths of Glory and 12 Angry Men. Both were excellent, but I liked 12 Angry Men much more - in Paths of Glory all the good guys lose and nothing good happens to anyone.
2 comments:
That was some double-bill: so much to digest in both films that it must have been hard to take both at once. I hope your film centre provides a good opportunity to relax in between.
PoG would have been hard to top, I would have thought, but I have only had the frustrating experience of seeing but not hearing 12AM - an indifferent 16mm projection, when the pictures were OK but the soundtrack impossible. I have subsequently seen the very fine play and for filmbuffs, such as yourselves, the screen version must be an intriguing galaxy of stars you know elsewhere.
Apart from Kirk D, Kubrick sensibly follows his practice elsewhere, - to contribute to the newsreel effect -, of using faces not otherwise widely known. A piece of trivia that you probably known is that the actress who played the woman prisoner at the end won not only the hearts of the French soldiers on screen but that of Kubrick, becoming and, -contrary to Hollywood mores -, remaining his wife for the next fifty years, until his death. Not that he had much more to do with Hollywood, once Spartacus was out of the way, but still another way in which he was exemplary.
I love reading of your adventures - please keep sharing. And I'm very glad for the photos of Yourselves, as Yourselves are very much missed!
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