This is my third visit to Sidney since the early ‘90’s, and
where I met my long-time friend. We met up in San Diego, at the beginning of this
trip, again in New York, and then in Paris. She met me at the airport in Sydney
and after a four hour easy business class flight out of the vortex that was Fiji;
it was so good to see a friendly face.
Read a great book by William Gibson called “Pattern
Recognition” about the new world of PR and globalization. He expresses this
idea that some places are like mirror worlds of other places. Like England is a
mirror world of America for his character, Fiji was a mirror world of Maui for
me, and Australia is another mirror world. Places that are like the place of
origin, but just enough not like that place, with subtle and sometimes not so
subtle differences, to make you feel like you are looking in a mirror of where
you’ve been. Gibson expresses, and I agree, that it’s stranger than being in a
completely foreign exotic place like India or Laos, because you are expecting
difference in those places. What you don’t expect is someplace like, but not
like. The mirror world throws off your balance more, in some ways, then the
radically different place.
So in Sydney, I know they are speaking English but
frequently cannot understand a word they’ve said, and they frequently don’t
understand me. The money is like our money, but not. The rules on the road are
like our rules, but not. Drivers remind me of Mr. Toad in the Wind in the Willows,
and I frequently feel like Miss Mouse and want to cover my eyes. Sidney is a
big city, which I was not used to before this trip and am only a bit more used
to now, but the mirror world feeling gets me anyway. Home, but not home.
Here’s a quick recap of things I did in Sydney:
Went shopping in Paddington and bought a wonderful wooly
silver jacket sweater at a recycle shop for $20 (AZ) which was great for the
nip in the air. Then I saw this pair of boots in a shop window that sang to me.
I just had to have them. Luckily, they had my size and they were wonderfully
comfortable. They are black short boots with low heals. Very Kool. Of course
they cost way more than I’ve spent on a pair of shoes in probably my whole
life, but I bought them anyway. And the wonderful thing is, after I got back to
the flat and was agonizing about how much I spent, I got an email that my condo
had rented out for the most money ever the last month and the money was already
in the bank. So the boots were a celebration.
Spent a night at the Sidney Opera House for a spectacular
production of Turandot. I enjoyed it much more than the opera in Paris. I love
the Sidney Opera House. This is my second show there. I saw “The Mousetrap”
there in a small theater in the ‘90’s. It’s just a great place to see
productions, I think because there is something grand and yet homey about the
interior. The opera was better for me because I could read the translation in
English (instead of the French for Salome) and the opera itself was more
interesting to me, being a fantastical love story instead of a story with
biblical overtones. I also thought the
scenery, voices, and overall production far surpassed the production in Paris. The
creative use of costumes, and overall set design was very impressive, and the
oriental theme was elegantly expressed in set and choreography. Of course, I
know nothing about opera, so that’s just my layman’s opinion. I used to know
quite a bit about theater, having been involved in college and community theater
productions years ago but like most of what I used to know, that was years ago
and that’s just my two cents. I
especially loved the singer who played the slave girl. Her voice was angelic,
and her performance brought me to tears. The whole theme of love expressed through
sacrifice was pretty close to the bone for me, and I had a few thoughts during
the performance about the pain of making the sacrifice only to lose your love
in the end. It was a powerful experience for me.
Had a great bowl of Pho in a Vietnamese place, and a
wonderful chat with a friend of my friend.
Talked a lot with my friend about all the advantages of living in an
urban area; access to the arts, dining options, transportation, availability of
extra-curricular education, and of course…shopping!
We went to a Comedy Club to see, Judith Lucy, a popular
Aussie comedian. It reminded me of going to clubs in San Francisco in the late
‘60’s, early ‘70’s before I left the States for Europe. They even had a big
blown up picture of Lenny Bruce on the wall or I think it was Lenny Bruce,
although it could have been some Aussie performer. It’s interesting to me that,
although American culture is familiar all over the world, American’s are not
exposed much to culture from other countries. Of course, now with the internet
we think we are so much more in touch, but even now America is filled with
stuff made in America and there is very little interest or access to anything
else for most people.
Ms. Lucy had a loyal following in the audience, and had been
around for over twenty years. There were some very funny bits, and she had a
very professional grasp on her material. Some of her mannerisms did remind me
of Edina Monsoon, the dark-haired character in Absolutely Fabulous, especially
when she got worked up, shook her dark curly hair around, and her stuff got
really dirty. My favorite bit was the one where she did a dialogue of two
seventy year old ladies talking trivia about fixing an air freshener, and in
the midst of the dialogue she does a tickticktick of their life clock ticking
on while they are wasting time with this bullshit conversation, and at the end
she shouts out that they should “oil themselves up, find a twenty year old, and
“take it up the ass one more time” because their time, their time!! is fucking
running out…or something to that affect.
Although she was funny, she did not knock me out. To be
honest, very few female comedians have recently. I find most female comedians
to be too strident, too bitchy, or too pathetic. Some of them I don’t think are
funny at all, like Tina Fey. I just
don’t get what’s funny about her. She reminds me of about a hundred snotty,
sarcastic, bitchy office girls I’ve worked with in the years since working my
way through college.
The only female comedian I’ve ever really loved to pieces
was Whoopie Goldberg. She made me laugh out loud. I loved that she was
insightful and critical, but not mean. I’m so over the whole bitchy thing going
on in media today. Teaching people to talk bad to each other, be mean to each
other, and treat each other nasty. What is the up side to that for any of us?
Sometimes, because I look on the surface like a simple old lady, I get some of
this attitude from random sources (who will remain anonymous); and I think to
myself, if you only knew who I really am, where I have really been, and what
I’ve done, you’d be a bit more careful, because I got here after a long climb
up from a very deep nasty ugly hole of a place that has nothing to do with the
pretend televised tough “cool” place you guys have created in your heads. It’s all such bullshit! Wow!…not sure where
that rant came from, but believe I’ll just leave it in for your enjoyment. So,
back to female comedians and popular culture in general; some of it is
interesting, but a lot of it sucks. This lady didn’t suck and her natural
improv with the audience was wonderful, but she was not brilliantly funny for
me. Could be I just haven’t got my funny back yet, so maybe it will take a few
more comedy clubs for me.
So that was Sidney, mostly. It was sunny my first day, but
then turned rainy with a nip in the air. My clock was still off, so I spent a
few mornings just sleeping in. Again, was nice to be in a home instead of a hotel.
Thank the universe for my gal friends all over the world. They have been so
generous opening their homes to me, and it has been a trip saver having these
breaks from life road. I could not have done this long a trip without these
breaks. A special thanks to M in Holland, S in Hong Kong, L & S in
Christchurch, and S in Sidney!...Love you guys. Hope I have a home for you to
visit sometime in the near future. You are all most welcome when I do.
I had originally planned to go to Tasmania with my friend,
mainly because Kent had always wanted to go. While I was in Fiji I decided I
wasn’t ready to Tas for Kent with anyone. If I went, I’d have to go on my own,
and it turned out I wasn’t ready to do that either. I had also planned to go to New Zealand,
which is someplace Kent and I had planned to visit. I wanted to check out the
Barrier Reef. It turned out that was a lot to do in the four and a half weeks I
had, and when I got to Sydney the weather conditions were very bad. There was
major flooding throughout Australia, and the train from Brisbane to Cairns was
not running. I didn’t relish snorkeling around the reef in the rain, so I made
a choice to buy a rail pass and fly to New Zealand for a few weeks.
Just for fun…I wrote most of this in the train station at
the National Park in New Zealand waiting for the train to Wellington while sitting
in a comfy big leather chair sipping hot coffee and listening to great sounds
up on the top of a sacred mountain; every writer’s dream place. Really, for all
my side stuff, my life couldn’t be better. I am truly blessed to be having these
experience/insights, and to possibly be making THIS my new life. I added some
stuff on the train from Picton to Christchurch, on the South Island.
Another PS: University of California at Stanford sent me an
email today that my application for their Writing Fellowship was denied. I’m
not sure if writing is what I should be or need to be doing, and I wish some
kind of crack in the wall, light in the tunnel, or hint from the gods would let
me know what direction I should go in. I ask my friend what I should do, and
she said just write. Kent used to say, “writer’s write”. So until I get some
direction I will just continue to write. It is the one thing I’ve done longer
than anything else in my life, and it is the only thing that hasn’t disappeared
in the mists of the past.
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