Poppalina

Toy Society

I dare say that you're all familiar by now with the Toy Society and it's methods. It's an ingeniously simple concept. Toys are handmade, packaged, and hung in a place where someone will find and take them home. Street art. An act of love.

 

The kids did a drop yesterday, delivering toys to a particularly fun-challenged street in Footscray, a working class suburb of Melbourne. Most of this neighbourhood is transit and emergency accomodation, comprised of refugees from war-torn areas around the world. Almost no one speaks English, and is even less likely to have internet access.

The street is always full of people just hanging around outside, and the drop gathered an audience quickly. People were quite nervous, at first, about what the kids were doing. They were reluctant to get involved, wanting to know what the catch was. Much gesticulating was required to convey that it really was a gift.

Eventually, one little boy took the plunge (a particular favourite of Mym's, so she was pretty pleased about this).

   

Check out this smile, as the penny drops.

  

Beautiful.

And a fitting parting gesture from us.

Thanks, Bianca.

Immortalised

Probably the most popular post I have ever written is this one. Even after all this time, people hit it, link to it, and download the pattern, every day. The photos have been featured on Flickr Explore, it's still under discussion at Ravelry, and people across the globe have knitted up the Scariest Balaclavas in the Known Universe (scroll down for proof), no doubt freaking the permanent hell out of anyone unfortunate enough to bear witness.

All this from a post that took me maybe five minutes to write. The ones I labour, agonise and cry over are, for the most part, residing in the Where Are They Now file. But anyway...

Today, the piece de resistance. By a graffiitti artist in Leeds, UK (click to view large):

  

Specifically, this person, from here.

Fantastic.

Totem

Personally, I find the Melbourne Fringe the most groovy festival of all, and that's really saying something in a city that has a festival for whatnot or other about every 5 minutes.

So I donned the lippy and my best black clothes and went in to Fed Square for the launch of Totem.

On account of the fact that I was in it.

But there were so many people, I couldn't see my bear anywhere.

 

Seriously, I couldn't find her.

   

I looked up...

 

But she was not there.

I looked down, and became momentarily distracted by Andricon Girl's dolls. I've admired her work for years.

 

I looked and looked, until I had quietly worked myself into a po-faced frenzy, convinced that they had lost her, or maybe left my bear out because she wasn't cool and groovy enough.

But then the crowd gaped just enough for me to catch sight of her. There she was, right in the middle of everything, residing comfortably on a quilt on the floor.

Such was my relief that I promptly burst into tears, and had to quickly nick outside for a fag.

After all, it's not every day you see your work in a Real Live Exhibition, and realise that you really did grow up to be an artist.

However, this crying like a girl at the drop of a hat thing?

Has definitely got to stop.

Totem - Dolls with Soul. Federation Square Atrium, Melbourne. Until October 12th.

Dream is Over

I have wanted to die.

I have felt like I was dying.

But I did not, of course. Too easy, I guess.

It's just that five years of waiting, and loving, and shutting up and keeping my cool and hoping against hope that things would work out in a fairytale-ending kind of way turned out to be a complete bust. As it was always going to. But I had to try. It's what I believed in. It's what my daughter believed in. Even the dog was in on it. Now, of course, I just feel like an idiot. A demoralized, exhausted fool, who stubbornly refused to even plan for this eventuality, on the grounds that it might have undermined my faith.

I have no plans, immediate or otherwise, to commit suicide. And that's On The Record, guys, so you can stop calling me. Not that I don't appreciate it, you understand. But if I could have a dollar for every time I hear that anxious tone in people's voices.... 

Actually, I used the time when I wasn't crying, or taking the Lord's name most grievously in vain, to finish the Big Bear for the exhibition.

 

  

So, it would appear that Life Goes On. But we are leaving where we currently live and will be heading off into the Wide Blue Yonder just as soon as we possibly can. Well, sort of, anyway. Heading for a more rustic, poetic life, no doubt attended by absurd levels of bone-crushing poverty. Because we are Proud Like That.

And though we may find ourselves sincerely regretting the absolute finality of our actions from time to time - especially while I'm sitting in the queue at Centrelink waiting to hear what options I haven't got to choose from - we will still, if only in our hearts, be free.

And that's a Good Thing.

And I'll be taking my brand new laptop with me, of course. Thank God for the blog, and all who read it.

And thank you to Judi, for taking the photos.

Family Values

I have it on Good Authority that there will be cupcakes.

See you there, Melbourne Groovers.

The Magnolia Project

Mid-Winter is a most interesting time to be in Melbourne.

 

People do things like stand outside, in the freezing cold, dressing magnolia trees in doilies.

And proud I am to number myself among them.

I'd do a whole lot more, too, than lower my body temperature for the privilege of attending one of Miss Pen's afternoon teas. Man, I haven't seen a spread like that since my Nan was alive. Lemon tart, raspberry friands, home-made crumpets, to name but a few, washed down with lashings of real hot chocolate.

I thought I'd died and gone to Enid Blyton Heaven.

Thanks to hml for the afternoon tea photo. I was beside myself with excitement and forgot to take one.

More photos here.

Pie of Death

Took the No.1 Johnny Depp Fan to see Sweeney Todd.

Fabulous.

To my amazement, she came out craving a meat pie.

I thought she was kidding.

She was not.

So I bought her a pie, and then concentrated on hanging on to my breakfast while she downed it, with impressive gusto.

Personally, I'd be surprised if I eat a meat pie again, like, ever, after seeing this film.

And that girl of mine is some Hardcore Freaky Kid.

Jen Stark

The work of Jen Stark is amazing.

Check it out.

Flashback Friday is coming. Honest.

Emily Barletta

I love the work of this woman

Now if she'd been teaching me year 7 biology, I would have paid a Lot More Attention.

WTF?

Serbia?

Serbia?!

Bloody Hell.

Our house was firmly and unanimously of the opinion that the Ukraine had it bagged.

The gender bending. The star-spangled, silver safari suits. The polka. The monster mash to the polka.

How could you lose?

The mystery that is Eurovision.

(sigh)

It's my favourite night of the year.