Today for Pain in the Arts we were trying to take photos with old pinhole cameras. It was fairly difficult getting decent exposures, because it's been really dark today. These three of mine didn't tunr out great or anything, but I still quite like them. I took the one in the middle on the roof, and the other two are from out the front of this cafe at the corner of Swanston Street and Little Collins Street.
Just been watching Motorcycle Diaries, which is about Che Guavara's journey around South America, from Buenos Aires to Caracas, and how about how this shaped him as a politician and an activist. It focuses particularly on the plight of the indigenous farmers who were kicked off their land by the Hispanic landowners and a fair bit of the film takes place in a Peruvian leper colony, where Guavara questions why the sick and the healthy need to be seperated if the disease isn't even contagious.
I really enjoyed this film, but I realise that Guavara's character is fairly idealised. Some critics have said that Motorcycle Diaries is like a film about Hitler that emphasises his vegetarianism and his concern about unemployment. So I've also decided to post this photo, of one of the stencil pieces Dylan did on the fire escape when he lived here last year:
Mission Exposure is on this week, so we have five extra people staying here with us at Urban Seed. Tonight we took them on a city walk, where we walk around Melbourne observing what's going on in the city and comparing it to what's going on in Mark's gospel.
When we got to the casino, and were looking at the great big Roman coin that has a picture of Caesar riding a horse, Ali decided to use lip gloss to stick a $10 note onto the coin behind the horse, making it look as though the horse was crapping out money. Needless to say, the security guards didn't like it, and so we were asked to take it down and leave, and were told that otherwise they would get the police.
Wrote some stuff about Crown Casino after my own Mission Exposure last year.
Just been reading some of Jesus' stories about growing crops, in Mark 4 (we had a look at some of it at church) and thinking about the South Central Los Angeles farmers who were evicted and had their crops bulldozed earlier this week.
Russell Street has been well known in Melbourne as a place where people deal drugs, particularly heroin. Leading up to the Commonwealth Games there was a big police crackdown on drugs in the CBD, and so the market moved out to places like Collingwood, Richmond and Footscray. Some people think that as Russell Street apparently isn't a drug market anymore at this has provided inertia for a 'clean up' of Russell Street, particularly the west side, between Bourke and Lonsdale Streets. I was at a meeting on Wednesday afternoon where there was a lot of talk about this. They were talking about stuff like getting new paving stones in (to lift morale of traders and encourage them to improve) and encouraging students to move into the upper floors above shops, because many of them are vacant. On Thursday morning I went for a bit of a walk down Russell Street to have a look around.
The Hungry Jacks in Russell Street is always open. They have a big flourescent sticker on their window saying so.
Kings Kebab is a new shop, and they have been staying open late at night, and doing the whole kerbside trading thing, meaning there's more people out in Russell Street at night. Some people reckon this has been discouraging drug dealing.
This is Bullens Lane, which is off Russell Street.
There have been a lot of problems in Bullens Lane with bad waste management and with air pollution, which is why there are so many air conditioners. Apparently it's a lot tidier and cleaner now. People have been putting up advertising posters, so people must be using the laneway, probably to get into Bar Altitude, which has recently been renovated.
It's thought that more people passing through this lane is discouraging drug dealing and using here. However, in Bullens Lane there's also evidence that the drug market hasn't been pushed out of the CBD as some people would like to think:
(There's a syringe sticking out of the paper bag in the corner.)
This is the game arcade that is seen by some as an encouragement to drug dealers.
There used to be two game arcades in Russel Street, but the other one was recently relocated.
There are a lot of Asian restaurants and Asian grocery stores in Russell Street.
This is the Exford Hotel, which is being seen as a model of what Russell Street could be. Apparently a lot of students hang out there, and they have free wireless Internet.
This is an old ViewMaster that has been embedded into a door in Russell Street.
I had a look inside, but someone had stuck pencils in the eye-holes or something. Apparently it's been there for years.
There are a lot of vacant shops in this area of Russell Street, and some people are apparently hoping they'll be leased as cafes.
I'm a bit bothered by these ideas of 'cleaning up' Russell Street. So far it doesn't seem to me as though many of the Russell Street traders are even that enthusiastic about it. It seems more like it's people in other parts of the CBD who are pushing for it, to make the rest of the city seem nice and pretty. I'm also a bit bothered by the ideas about pushing the drug market out of the CBD, because it just hides the problem away where it's less likely to be noticed.
We were down at Fed Square watching the football last night. Japan scored a goal toward the end of the first half, and in about the last quater Australia scored their first ever World Cup goal, followed by their second and third. By the third goal the crowd had run out of flares. After the game finished eveyone just spilled out into the street, so the Flinders/Swanston Street intersection was blocked off at 1am.
At this point I ran out of bandwidth with Flickr, and am thus going to have to upgrade to a paid account.
Saturday night we went and saw Candy, an Australian film which is largely about heroin use. Was fairly upsetting. I was really glad we went and saw it though. It looks at a lot of stuff that we don't see much of here. Mostly we're just around people when they're injecting in our laneway, or they're nodding off, or when they're off the drugs. We don't see much of what goes on at home, or how they support their habits, or what it's like going through withdrawal. Often we just hear people talk about what it was like for them back when they were using.
Kahn Awkward's seen it too, and mentions his thoughts on it here.
I took this photo about a year and a half ago, at a golf course in Scoresby:
and now Wendy Wears has based a fabric work on it (she found it on Flickr), and given it to her boss because he likes golf:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"Just been reading this. Was wondering if there was a connection between Jesus saying that God is one, and saying that the most important thing is for us to be undivided by loving God with everything we are. So I've been considering other things compete with God for my heart, my mind, my strength, my soul.
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
(Mark 12:28-34)
I've not been doing much the last two days, because I've gotten a bit of a cold, and have been pretty tired due to busyness and lack of sleep. Yesterday I mostly just hung around our apartment while Ray did Jono's dreads, and in the afternoon I started cleaning up my room. I find that when my room is in a mess, that's what my mind tends to be as well. Afterwards I was wondering what the implications of that are for people who don't have their own private space, but have to live in public space. I ended up hanging a whole heap of leaves from the ceiling. I want to put heaps more up, but don't know if I will. Today I left my window open so they'd blow around and stuff, and they got all tangled up again, which meant more room/mind maintenance, so I'll probably not leave the window open all day tomorrow. Ray said maybe they looked better tangled, but I feel better with them untangled.
