Melbourne Winter In Bloom

“The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for it and it would not be a wasted life.” – Katsumoto, The Last Samurai

***

During isolation and lockdowns, I’ve found myself noticing and appreciating nature more than I usually would. Deprived of the noise and bustle of normal life - traffic, busy social gatherings, and a never-ending to do list - I’m enjoying being in a place of quiet stillness. It’s helped me notice and appreciate the little things, like the way wattle leaves steadily drip with rain after a heavy winter’s downpour, or the different songs of the birds living beside my window and how they talk to each other as dawn breaks.

The philosopher Iris Murdoch said that contemplating nature helps to calm the soul and takes oneself out of one’s self, a concept she called “unselfing”:

Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but kestrel. And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important. And of course this is something which we may also do deliberately: give attention to nature in order to clear our minds of selfish care.

The last few weeks of August in Melbourne are some of my favourite for being in nature. At no other time of the year am I so acutely aware of the changing of seasons as when we rush towards spring. The icy and dark days grow longer and warmer, the mood of the city lifts as we leave winter behind for another year, and the first blush of spring erupts in the streetscapes as flowers come into bloom. In recent weeks, these little moments of colour and joy have been a welcome antidote against the bleakness of lockdown and the pandemic.

Melbourne’s magnolia appears in all its splendour around the first week of August, with their colourful constellations anticipating spring’s arrival. Resembling floating pink and white candles as they unfold precariously on delicate branches, I’ve always loved their waxy texture, and their creamy, full and fresh fragrance. The below photos are from taken from North Melbourne and Kensington in 2018 and 2020 (click to scroll through).

I spotted these white Ornamental Pear blossoms (Pyrus Calleryana) on my run through North Melbourne on a sunny bluebird Saturday in mid-August. I was stunned because the flowers had been nestled safely in their buds only the day before. Evidently the beaming sun and warm weather was enough to coax them out of their winter hibernation. I love the powdery wintry white of the blossoms, and how their stamens (yes, I did Google flower anatomy) are carefully marked with pink pollen.

These Forest Pansy (Cercis Canadensis) photos were taken in my family’s backyard in August 2018. It’s probably my favourite tree, because it changes so completely in each of the four seasons, giving one the impression (or illusion) of having four different trees. In the last few weeks of winter and in spring, the naked branches explode with outrageous, vibrant pink and purple blossoms. The foliage returns shortly after for the late spring and summer, when the tree is filled with deep maroon heart-shaped leaves. In autumn, the heart-leaves become firey, smouldering hues of yellow and orange, before falling off in the winter leaving a haunted and spindly skeleton of a tree. The overall effect is very romantic, and rich in symbolism.

Content Link Block

Select a page and create a visual link to it. Learn more

Blog

The below photo was taken in late August 2018 just outside the beautiful Mark the Evangelist church in North Melbourne. I was drawn to the way both the polychrome brickwork of the building and the peach blossoms caught the late afternoon light, creating an overall rose-gold palette. With the church in the background, I couldn’t help but think that the blossoms and their wrought branches resembled a crown of blossoms, which would have been more comfortable and visually appealing than their thorny historical counterpart. I think the slightly macabre crown of blossoms complements the Romanesque and Gothic aesthetic of the church building quite nicely.

Peach blossoms in late afternoon light
Congregation of Mark the Evangelist, North Melbourne
August 2018

And finally, the below snap of pink cherry blossoms was taken in August 2019 in a backstreet of Glen Iris, in Melbourne’ south east suburbs. I was taken by the softness of the petals, which looked and felt a bit like crepe paper. The soft, bright pink blossoms are so striking and vibrant against the ashen black branches as they emerge from their deep red buds.

Once the pandemic is over, I hope to travel to Japan to witness the Sakura festival, which celebrates the blooming of cherry blossom trees and welcomes spring. A Japanese concept which is closely linked with cherry blossoms is mono no aware (物の哀れ, もののあはれ), which means “the pathos of things” or “empathy towards things”. It’s that feeling - mostly nice but occasionally overwhelming - of being deeply aware of something beautiful and transient, which evokes a certain sadness about the impermanence of life. In these difficult and uncertain times, I’ve greeted the return of the late August flowers like dependable old friends, and have been filled with hope and joy by their innocent, reassuring presence.

***

“It is true, as they say, that the blossoms of spring are all the more precious because they bloom so briefly.” - Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji

Cherry blossoms in Melbourne
August, 2019

Yo-Yo Ma, The Middle East, and David Bowie

Yo-Yo Ma, posted on Song Exploder Instagram, 21 December 2018

What I’m listening to:

• ‘Yo-Yo Ma - Prelude, Cello Suite No 1, in G Major' in the Song Exploder podcast: This is a very special podcast featuring Yo-Yo Ma, one of the most famous cellists and musicians in the world. The production and audio qualities are sublime. Yo-Yo Ma breaks down the Prelude from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suite No 1, in G Major. While the episode is ostensibly about the musical work, it’s also a thoughtful meditation on Ma’s life, music, and growth as a performer. Yo-Yo Ma has recorded the Cello Suites several times: in 1983 at age 27, in 1998 at age 42, and in 2018 at age 62. Ma recalls the first time he listened to the original 1936 recording by Pablo Casals, and what he felt at the time, and the personal remembrances about his father who introduced it to him. The listener is intimately stepped through the mechanics of playing the opening notes of the prelude, and it actually feels as if Ma is personally instructing you in a lesson. When reviewing his own recordings, it’s interesting to note the emotional, technical and musical development of Ma as a performer and a person.

“There’s no question that with life experience, as you experience loss and love and tragedy, you are slightly changed. As a musician, you make your living to being sensitised to these changes, and digest them and make sure that you are always giving your full self to whatever you’re doing, which means that any experience that you’ve had has to be revealed in the process of making music. That almost forces you to make yourself vulnerable to whatever there is to be vulnerable to, because that actually is your strength.”

• Thelma Plum’s cover of Powderfinger’s “These Days”: I first saw Thelma play at Falls Festival in Byron over the 2019/2020 new year period, which feels like several lifetimes ago now. I think she’s one of the most beautiful, powerful vocalists and lyricists in Australia, and this cover is so soothing in these Corona times.

This life, well it's slipping right through my hands
These days turned out nothing like I had planned

It's coming round again
The slowly creeping hand
Of time and its command

• ‘Cardigan Song’ by Kikagaku Moyo: an insightful YouTube comment describes this song as having “telluric vibes”. After Googling this, I learned that “a telluric current or Earth current, is an electric current which moves underground or through the sea”. Very apt: Kikagaku Moyo are a Japanese psychedelic folk band(!), with soft vocals, delicate harmonies, and exploratory instrumentals, all of which combines to create a cosmic soundscape.

• Gang of Youths cover The Middle East’s Blood on Triple J’s Like a Version: one of the most beautiful songs ever written, heard as if for the first time with David Le'aupepe’s powerful, honest vocals and the band’s sensitive arrangement. Everyone I speak to about this song has a story about why it’s so moving, and why it often brings them to tears. I remember being 17 and falling in love for the first time, listening to it while sleeping on a mattress we’d laid out on my balcony on a hot summer’s night. Extraordinary.

It was the only woman you ever loved
That got burnt by the sun too often when she was young
And the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood
And there's nothing you can do about it now

Dale Marsh's painting of Teddy Sheean hangs in the Australian War Memorial. (Australian War Memorial)

What I’m reading:

• ‘Behind China’s newly aggressive diplomacy: ‘wolf warriors’ ready to fight back’ by Rowan Callick in The Conversation: I spoke with Rowan about democracy and authoritarianism in China and the fate of Hong Kong in July last year on my podcast Bloom. This piece in The Conversation highlights the growing nationalism and revanchism of the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping and his “New Era”, and how it’s manifesting through “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy.

• ‘Noticing nature is the greatest gift you can get from lockdown’ by Lucy Jones in The Guardian: A reflective piece which homes in on our changing ways of being in society during the Coronavirus lockdowns. Many of us have found peace in the stillness. The single-tasking has helped us to be mindful of the everyday beauty and intricacy that surrounds us in the living world: from the lives of birds and other critters, to the colours and shapes of plant life. The sentiments remind me of the line from The Doors’ “Tell All the People”:

Can't you see the wonder at your feet
Your life's complete

• ‘Accounts of WWII hero Teddy Sheean’s act of ‘outstanding bravery’ inspire continuing fight for Victoria Cross’ by James Dunlevie and April McLennan in ABC News: an extraordinary account of the bravery of seaman Teddy Sheean, who died firing an anti-aircraft gun at enemy aircraft which were strafing his shipmates in the water. The evocative painting above gives you some idea of his exploits.

• ‘Caliban’s speech’ (Act 3 Scene 2) in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest:

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep
Will make me sleep again. And then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.

Caliban’s speech has always reminded me of a stanza from Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s poem Life is a Dream (La Vida Es Sueño)

¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción,
y el mayor bien es pequeño:
que toda la vida es sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son.”

What is life? A frenzy.
What is life? An illusion,
fiction, passing shadow,
and the greatest good is small,
That all life is a dream,
and that dreams themselves are a dream.

And finally, something beautiful:

• David Bowie on artistic integrity:

“Never work for other people at what you do. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest it in some way, you would understand more about yourself or how you coexist with the rest of society. 

I think it’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfil other people’s expectations. I think they generally produce their worst work when they do that.

And the other thing I would say is that if you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

Content Link Block

Select a page and create a visual link to it. Learn more

Blog

Andrea Motis, Helen Garner, and Charlie Mackesy

It’s been a hectic week on many fronts, so I’m pleased to have been able to follow through with last week’s (impulsive) decision to produce a weekly blog. Hope you enjoy a quick summary of the podcasts, music and articles which have stayed with me this week.

What I’m listening to:

• ‘Stephen Fry: City of Myths’ in the new "We’ll Always Have Athens" podcast. I love anything Stephen Fry, but particularly his podcasts, which distill his best quality for the audience’s pleasure. Also appreciated this new podcast series for its fostering of post-Corona wanderlust.

• Andrea Motis & Joan Chamorro Quintet playing Box Barcelona Music Sessions. One of the brightest young talents and most brilliant musical groupings going around, the opening rendition of the late Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” is out of this world.

• Tyler, the Creator’s Tiny Desk Concert with NPR Music. I love these NPR Tiny Desk performances, which allow so much of the artist’s personality to be explored. There’s a lot of joy in this jam, and the backup (lead*) vocalists - Kaye Fox and Kiandra Richardson - are sublime. Worth watching for the Spanish step change alone. While you’re here, check out Tyler performing EARFQUAKE/NEW MAGIC WAND at the 2020 Grammy’s. Verily, The Creator.

• Snakehips (what the hell are snake hips?) and MØ’s cover of Childish Gambino’s ‘Redbone’ at BBC Live Lounge. Nothing better than discovering new voices through covers of your favourite tracks, and there’s something special about the earthy honesty of the lead singer’s voice and this arrangement, which infuses the words with a kind of meaning I don’t get from the original.
  

What I’m reading:

• ‘I wish my single life was enough for me’ in The Outline. Speaks to the loneliness many come to feel in their late twenties and early thirties, with all of the major ‘adulting’ planets in alignment, except for somebody to love and be loved by: “My life is basically the best it’s ever been in every way, but I have not loved someone who loved me back in a number of years now, and the longer this persists the more sorrowful it makes me.”

• ‘Helen Garner: ‘I may be an old woman, but I’m not done for yet’ in The Guardian. Beautifully rendered, honest piece on ageing, writing and life by one of Australia’s greatest (and funniest) contemporary writers. “What I really mean is: How will I stay alive, if I stop writing?”

• ‘Wolf warrior’ diplomats reveal China’s ambitions’ in Financial Times. A disturbing read on China’s hardening diplomatic posture, supported by its “lupine envoys” as The Australian later coined them in its 16 May editorial.

• ‘Rwandan Genocide Suspect Arrested After 23 years on the Run’ in The New York Times. A lucid piece about the historic arrest of a man substantially involved in crimes against humanity in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. Demonstrates the indefatigable efforts of the International Criminal Tribunal in seeking justice.

• ‘We feed you’ in The Saturday Paper. Innovative digital storytelling, featuring portraits of low-paid migrant workers in Australia who have not been afforded the same protections as other workers in the wake of the COVID-19 health and economic crisis. Life and dimension is added to their stories through interactive audio files, gifs, cartoons, and beautiful portrait photographs. “Over the last two decades, low paying work has increasingly been done by workers with no right to stay in Australia. It is especially the case in the food system. Temporary migrant workers plant, pick, pack, slaughter, slice, cook and deliver food for everyone else.”

And finally, something beautiful:

• I’m a big fan of artist and Instagram sensation Charlie Mackesy. I’m going to write a standalone piece on his work and new book ‘The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse’. His sensitive and gentle work reminds me of a 21st century Aesop’s Fables, and it feels so timely with the COVID-19 pandemic. More to come, as they say.

• You can check out his website here and his Insta here. I’ve also included the first post I saw of his below, which was published just as everything started to dramatically change in Australia in response to the pandemic. There was - and still is - a lot of fear in the community about the future, but this beautiful image reminds us that adversity is easier to overcome with others than on our own.

Charlie Mackesy, 13 March 2020, at https://www.instagram.com/p/B9pMt4KHcrO/

Bluestone and Mother’s Day

I’m trying to get into the habit of writing a weekly blog, rounding up interesting things I’ve watched, listened to, read or written in the past week. Hopefully this provides fertile ground for developing long-form pieces, and gets me into the habit of regular writing and publishing, even if I’m not entirely happy with what I write, or if I leave some things out:

So, here’s the first ~lo-fi~ version -

What I’m watching:

• The BBC/Hulu adaptation of Normal People, Sally Rooney.

What I’m listening to:

• Billie Eilish’s rendition of Bobby Hebb’s Sunny from Global Citizen’s One World; Together at Home concert.

• Mac Miller’s Circles

• Dope Lemon’s Smooth Big Cat

What I’m reading:

• This really sensitive photo essay called “Put out to grass: when animals are allowed to grow old”. Most of the subjects have been rescued from slaughterhouses or farms after cases of cruelty. Recalled for me how sickening I find factory farming, and how any kind of animal cruelty makes me uncomfortable even with the idea of being human.

• The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months, by Rutger Bregman in The Guardian.

• 10 reasons why COVID-19 favours a Trump re-election victory, by Associate Professor Timothy Lynch in UniMelb Pursuit.

• This charming piece on Bluestone and Melbourne by Stephanie Trigg, in The Conversation and in longer article form (before her book is published). It explores how bluestone has shaped Melbourne as a city - or as Ben Wilkie put it on Twitter, “the intermingling of human and lithic histories”. It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time. Melbourne and bluestone have always been synonymous in my mind; not because it constitutes so much of our built environment, but because - probably for reasons of synaesthesia - it reminds me of the character of the city: a little bit melancholic, calmer and cooler than Sydney sandstone, and strong and durable. One of my favourite things is the glistening and reflective light of bluestone streetscapes after it’s rained. It also reminds me of the stunning Parisian cobbled roads made up of intersecting concentric circles. I love the texture of these streets, and how they used to feel when driving or riding over when I lived in Paris in July 2012.

Parisian Bluestone, Yutaka Yamamoto, 2018 available on Instagram

And finally, something beautiful:

• I’ve been a fan of New York based artist and illustrator Mari Andrew for a long time. I even went to one of her private sketching workshops in Melbourne in 2018; it was a surreal experience to see an Instagram character assume material form.

• Today is Mother’s Day, and Mari posted this beautiful image from a year ago on her story. Like most of Mari’s work, I think it’s really thoughtful and touching and is particularly welcome for those who find Mother’s Day difficult, lonely and saddening for various reasons. It also adds complexity and dimension to the notion of motherhood, drawing attention to the negative space of idealised, affirmative concepts.

Mari Andrew, 11 May 2019, at https://www.instagram.com/p/BxUYs-Bh916/