Brisbane City of Lights

 As part of the Brisbane Festival there is a nightly laser show over the Brisbane River. Last Thursday we happened to be at South Bank at the right time. I didn't have my tripod with me, so the longest exposure is about 1/3 of a second or so, with me leaning against a pole for some stability. Hope you like.

GoMA Up Late

We made it to the Surrealist Exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art for their Up Late sessions a couple of Fridays ago. The neon writing is on the inside of the buildings I photographed in this post.

Supanova Brisbane 2011

I'm a month late with these, but I thought I'd throw them up anyway. Enjoy the nerdiness:

Book Launch: My Heart Wanders

Yesterday we spent a lovely afternoon in the sun at St Francis Theological College for the book launch of My Heart Wanders by Pia Jane Bijkerk -  stylist, photographer, author and blogger. Her blog has a huge, international following and she is an inspiration to many of us in creative industries. I had a quick flick through the book during the day and can't wait for a free weekend to sit down with a cuppa and immerse myself in it.

 

What I learnt at Muse on Monday night

If there is a massive crowd of people clapping to the beat, ONE person who is off-beat will ruin the rhythm and everyone will stop clapping.

Philly Jays Gig at the HiFi

We'd gotten to know Philadelphia Grand Jury's songs through spin class (Going to the Casino) and Triple J, and downloaded (from iTunes, of course) a few of their songs without realising they were all the same band until going through our play list one day. How embarrassing.
We hadn't been to a live music gig in ages, so we were very excited to hear that they were coming to Brisbane, although I was slightly worried I might start a Pavlovian sweat when they played Casino. This, luckily, did not occur.
We started the night off with a Greek dinner, then proceeded to the Lychee Lounge for cocktails to kill time before the first opening act started playing at 9.
The Philly Jays finally came on about 11 (I am SUCH a nanna, I was about ready to go to sleep by that time), and they immediately got the tightly packed in crowd pumped. Sadly their set was a bit short, but the approx. 45 minutes they were on were amazing. Such great energy! We'll definitely be back next time they're in Brisbane, and you guys should all come along!! It was a great night out for us oldies.
I'm also very keen to see some more live gigs at the HiFi, that venue is great - you feel THISCLOSE to the band!

A 1 minute compilation of crappy footage I took on my phone. Since my phone doesn't record music very well I put a track under the whole thing, The Good News, by Philadelphia Grand Jury, of course.



Also, some terribly pixelated, blurry and low-res photos...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author encounters at #micallefavid & other shenanigans

So, Shaun Micallef was in town last night to delight us with the release of his, no doubt wonderfully hilarious, novella Preincarnate. A group of us rocked up to the HiFi in West End (since the Avid Reader book shop was way too small to hold this crowd), ready to be entertained, and we were not disappointed. He spent the introduction attempting to hide behind the curtains, only to appear at the front of stage to read passages from John Howard's recently released autobiography Lazarus Rising.
In the end, we did get to hear Shaun read a few pages of his own book, followed by a lively Q&A.
Of course we all lined up to get our books signed, and a fitting group photo – thanks, Shaun, for being a good sport!

Sidenote: I also ran into Benjamin Law on the way to the toilet of all things, whose fabulous book The Family Law I devoured last weekend. I've always loved Benjamin's articles in Frankie, so I was very keen to get my hands on his book, in addition to my friend Andrew's recommendation. Go read the book, it's funny and poignant. I would also like to add, I really love it when I meet people whose work I like, and then they turn out to be as lovely as I'd hoped in real life!

 

Awesome production of Macbeth at Brisbane Festival

We just got home from a great production of Macbeth, showing at (or rather, next to) the Brisbane Powerhouse. They had built a kind of amphitheater our of what felt like MDF board (not very comfortable) with the grungy exterior brick wall of the Powerhouse as a backdrop:

The audience:

The cast was fantastic! Weirdly the 3 wicked witches somehow became an old lady, an old dude and a young guy who reminded me of Frank Woodley, but that actually worked pretty well (although it took me a little while to figure out what was going on). It also took a while to get the ear used to Shakespeare's English, but once I got into it I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Lighting and sound were used to great effect, as was fake blood.
I hadn't read any Shakespeare since High School, but this has really whet my appetite for more plays. I thoroughly recommend you get your butts there. One tip - take a pillow and a warm jacket; the usually balmy Queensland weather didn't want to play tonight and turned cold and windy.

In the area in front of the Powerhouse there was some kind SciFi-ish milk crate spherical structure that begged to be photographed:

KKx