The Sesqui Show?

No, I don't think it's a brilliant title for an art show either. Never mind. We visited Gallery Adagio in Glebe Point Road this evening to attend the opening of an event described as The Sesqui Show - 150 Year Celebration: A response by artists to the history of Glebe. Maybe it was, Maybe it wasn't. That hardly matters.

Our friend Craig was exhibiting four of his vividly coloured works; Fauvist pieces that begin with a photograph. I was able to catch less than half of the show, most of it being upstairs in the small gallery. Not to worry. I may not have missed much. I did like some of the Peter Travis ceramics on show. I suspect they may have been the best of all that was on offer.

Dinner after the show was, to say the best one can, thoroughly ordinary. We joined Craig and a few of his friends at a cheap and cheerful pasta, pide and pizza place called More's a little farther along Glebe Point Road. Not the best in the strip. Not by a long chalk.

On the way back to the bus ... yes, the van is STILL off the road ... I ignored a dog that barked at me from a pavement cafe. I was aware that Spike paused, I thought to pat the dog. It turns out that her glass-blowing tutor Uri was sitting with the woman who owns the gallery in which we bought our Holly Grace. I pushed on regardless while Spike chatted, thereby missing an opportunity to maybe be sociable and meet some people of importance in Spike's life. I can be an insufferable and stubborn old fool at times. I will NOT be that rude again and just because I was not aware of who the dog's owner was I have no damn excuse for being a dickhead.
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End of story

A call from the DG's office brought an anti-climactic end to my relocation. I drove into town to pick up a letter he wanted me to receive "urgently". It contained written confirmation that after more than three months and an investigation costing tens of thousands of dollars the DG has formed the opinion there was no misconduct. I've had my office key and building swipe returned to me. I go back to my desk on Monday.

What was the point of it all, I wonder?

Spike and I attended the launch of the Glebe Art Show in the evening. It was a smug, self-satisfied but badly organised affair. (God save us all from the acquisitive middle-classes.) Most of the art was decent enough; technically competent but it did lack something in the way of heart and originality. A few pieces were better than decent but they were the exception.

I had to enter by a rear door because the level access to the library was locked. And - hard to believe - perhaps as many as 30 or so of the 240 works were upstairs in a building with no lift. The Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, opened the event so she gets my testy letter. Verity Firth, Minister for Education and local MP, came over to chat. Good person. I like her.

A former colleague from my PDCN days, Craig Andrews, was there too. He had a couple of Fauvist pieces on show. It's great that he's painting. I hope they sell.

Chai Latte

When did chai latte enter my life as a favourite thing? Who invented the idea, I wonder?

Spike and I met Sharon at Sappho Books on Glebe Point Road. We sat in the cafe at the rear of the building, in the section where second-hand science fiction and fantasy paperback novels are stacked from floor to ceiling. Sharon and Spike drank coffee of various types. I drank Chai Latte, my currently favourite hot beverage. We roamed inattentively over the weird and wonderful landscapes lurking behind the gloriously coloured, sometimes ridiculous, covers before us.

There is a lot of Brian Herbert on those shelves, which should surprise no one really; the Dune trilogy was losing its way by the middle of the second book, while Frank was still with us. It became simply silly when the son took over. Money for old rope, if you ask me. Stephen Donaldson too. It seems we may have become bored with Thomas Covenant who, when I first heard mention of him (in 1980 or thereabouts during a meeting with that National Organisation Of Labour Students national organiser, the reptile John Dennis) seemed like an interesting charcter. Spike bought five novels, most of which (I think) fit somewhere in the many and varied series of multi-volume tales of other worlds in galaxies far away, a long time ago. I looked for Wuthering Heights and The Monkey's Mask but neither were available. We bought them next door in Glebe Books, new of course.

Now I think of it, it was Halimah who introduced me to Chai when we worked together for the Physical Disability Council of NSW. She was mildly astonished that I'd never heard of the drink so she took our tea pot from the office kitchen and walked two blocks from the St Helen's Community Centre to a cafe noted for decent Chai. Upon her return, Halimah and I sat on the lawn drinking Chai in the sun like refugees from the days of the Raj.
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We bought a Holly Grace to celebrate ...

Holly Grace glass