Unusual night buskers on Swanston Street:
1. Bloke with telescope - 'View Saturn and its rings'. No, this is not the set-up for a Uranus joke!
2. Bloke in a bunny suit (Easter, not Playboy) playing electric bass, looping, overdubbing, then singing using a traffic cone as a megaphone. Funky!
A quick interaction with the water wall near the City Square. Again, what a fabulous thing, especially in Autumn - a simply sensational city thing. Melbourne, you rock! I only started my hasty 'artwork' so high because there was a leaf already stuck there (work smarter, not harder) to immediately realise that the water could run down/up my sleeves!
The way the water falls looks fantastic, the wall itself is tiny corrugations. Folk make their names, or messages (usually brief, like 'Hi' from leaves).
I believe my work here is done!
Blue Autumn (spied and photographed by my eagle-eyed mother).
Hacki and Möppi - father and son clowns from Germany, with young volunteers from the audience. (I went to a lot of trouble to find that umlaut on this different computer, I'll have you know!)
Prestidigitation 1.01.
And now: a stage-smoke-filled carton contraption with one floppy side...
An awesome smoke ring making machine (it was windy, so the rings didn't last long!)
"...put a ring on it!" VIDEO if you're curious.
In their evening shows (indoors) Hacki and Möppi were able to feature the fine art of 'bubble constructions', and the smoke rings went the length of the room without degrading. Unbelievably perfect.
Federation Square gets a skyward thumb from me* - it is a very successful collection of elements.
Gulls were flying around looking awesome with this in the background. I snapped away but didn't catch one, but the background is still worth it.
I discovered a street piano...
Unlike the nearby public library, there are no rules about your standard or what you play here.
I was surprised the lid wasn't bolted shut - I could take a peek. This is what is called an overdamper mechanism. If you look under the lid of an upright piano and you cannot see the hammers... you probably have a piano that a technician will walk away from (if not run!). The reasons are myriad - ask me!
A street piano, engaging spontaneous activity and smiles from passers-by, is a good use of such a piano!
It's not always there - the next day it was gone. But being 'out and about' would not be recommended for a fine piano, of course. Even street pianos, like hobos, seek shelter at night. Meanwhile, hobos have never had more musical outlets - sure beats an upturned plastic bucket and a stick!
I made a little street piano FILM for the fun of it.
The light was like that, a strip between shadow - there are no Instagram-style filters in my vocabulary! These lawns are cool - they are artificial - I want one! The girl had a Rubik's cube and one other item (which she reached for as I snapped, was it a slinky?) Other than that, just one fallen leaf in close view.
Hasty snap on departure. Utterly apt, this awareness campaign - Rhinoceroses on skateboards - the perfect analogy for a tram! On the front of some trams there is another version of the poster, with speed-lines and a car about to be hit. I'll never look at rhinoceroses the same way again!
* I like Federation Square as a space, but their Wi-Fi policy sucks... not the Wi-Fi itself, but the fact that if you plug a laptop into a power point, anxious officious officials will furiously swoop and tell you it is 100% verboten. OK, back to the usual routine (public library) where there is no such Catweasel-like wanton fear of untagged elec-trickery leads!!! GAH!
Meanwhile, back in the library, there are even power points in little holes in the floor under island tables, for the convenience of - ME!
Finally, I've blogged about bikes and pianos, but never would have dreamed that there'd be a PIANO BIKE, but there is... and it is another use for a piano that would otherwise be destined for the piano graveyard!
In other weird (barely bloggable) news, I broke my glasses on tour, had to stick them together with sticky-tape to go to the 24-hour Coles and buy super glue to perform a repair. They broke in the same place they've been super glued the last time I physically ran into something that was visually misleading to me, also on tour (in Belfast!!). Annoying and stressful.
