Melbourne is a machine that spins 24/7. It hums, it bustles, it grinds, but mostly it spins because its economy seems to be almost entirely circular. You can rent a flat and the landlord can use this income to secure a credit card from the bank that allows them to buy a coffee and a pastry from the leafy back alley bakery where you work. The money goes around and around except for 1% which enters the sacrificial channel that runs around the coastline to Portsea where it is used to build vulgar holiday house macmansions on the clifftop.
It takes a lot of dedication on the part of Melbournians to keep the money wheel turning. That “Most Liveable City In The World” label doesn’t designate itself. The rent on the flat is high and the landlord must pay a lot to maintain their investment. The bank wants a high interest on that credit card and the coffee and pastries are not cheap. It’s all on a knife’s edge. If your cog in the engine stops spinning for any reason, at any time, you may start a cascade that ends with you lying on a filthy blanket on Swanston Street and if you fall, it appears that there is no longer any safety net to catch you.
We spent a week in Melbourne this September catching up with various iterations of family. It was a blast but eventually the roar of the machine gave us tinnitus so we followed the money and went to Portsea. The hum is so much quieter there.
Interiors September
The doors are done! We didn’t have time to hang them because travelling but soon. There is some debate over whether they might look a bit tizzy (fatal) on our old shack and if this is the case we will have to paint them again, solid brown. We may canvas you for an opinion at the time. We have to find a decent set of barn hinges the right size so will be lurking at all the tip shops.
Shop September
Plans for the souvenir shop are proceeding apace. Now we’ve seen shopping dominating the cultural life of ‘Big Melbourne’ we’ve decided to broaden our examination of all things shop. The first thing we’re going to need is a postbox.
Here at gowtywood productions we have been in small business of one kind or another for most of our working lives. We have about 80 years of combined experience, good times and bad. It would not be overstating the case to say that we sometimes wake in the small hours in cold dread of what might await small businesses who have built their platform online in the assumption that the internet is a social good that will remain stable, available and reliable. We can’t imagine how small business tolerates the pernicious hell of all that ‘convenience’.
Here’s our postbox, a work in progress. Mailing address to follow once it is installed and we have given the postperson a poke to make sure they are on the job.
rgbDesigner September
This month from rgbDesigner we have a selection of images generated by Robert Gowty who is the developer. Bear in mind that he has access to tools not in the store version (eg. layers - coming soon)
You can buy rgbDesigner on the Apple AppStore here. Designed for iPad.
Reading September
Our book of the month is The Darling Buds of May by H E Bates. We got our copy from the Library.
“ Standing in the evening sunlight, gazing across the pile of junk, the nettles, the rusting hovels, and the scratching, dusty hens, Pop sighed loudly and with such content that the sound seemed to travel with perfect definition across the surrounding fields of buttercups and may, gathering its echo at last from the mingled sounds of the remaining geese, the voices of cuckoos calling as they flew across the meadows and the small, passionate, invisible nightingales.
‘Perfick, Pop said. ‘You couldn’t wish for nothing more perfick nowhere?’ ..”
Melbourne could do with a few more PopLarkins.
I think once the doors are vertical, the classic “Moorabbin” screen door motif will resume its rightful perspective! Great reflections on Melbourne. It’s often hard to see things clearly when you’re inside of them.