further update

The good news is that my luggage is here and i'm a human being again but the broken space bar on this computer is almost more annoying than the the one at home at least in terms of therhythm of my typing I've lots of observations on the character of the place and my trip to the National Maritime Museum yesterday but that has to wait for a better keyboard.

some observations

The traffic lights make Spae Invaders sounds, different ones for "walk" and "don't walk"

No one told me there's an ale named Victoria Bitter! This is funny to those in fandom who might have already known this.

Burger King here is called Hungry Jack's.

I went to the National Maritime Museum yesterday and saw among other things:
- a book of fabric swatches I was able to paw through that were from Master & Commander -- it was the greatest thing evr for a wannabe costumer (there were costumes from the film on display too and it was awesome)
- a massive anchor from the HMS Sirius that wrecked in 1770
- D'entrecasteuax's nature sketches
- a range of historical pocket watches
- The Sailor Style exhibit contains a section on Sailor as gay icon and a Village People video.

Excerpt from my paper journal:
I've yet to discover anything about the inner workings of Sydney's character -- it's already such a bizarre place -- the scale of it -- everything either seems too small -- rundown houses and buildings from 1880's - 1930's pushed together or totally outsized, like everything at Darling Harbour. A city for giants or hobbits. Easy to live here and understand how large the world is I think and easy to think you belong out there instead of in here. More than anything Sydney feels like the last outpost of colonialism -- a sort of history that in the US is erased by media and agression and here is celebrated and even obsessed on because history is so important for such a young country.

More than anything it is good to sit by the sea on a cloudy day and know that I've done something remarkable by coming here, where no one is embarassed to put their bare feet in public fountains. How can a place like this be home -- it seems to antithetical to permanence -- they've done such a good job of preserving nature and the land, but the modern world doesn't belong here , it feels like such excess, walking around with the sort of covetous pride that carries people through NYC.

When I went to West Viriginia for Guitar Craft, I wrote of feeling ghosts of the not yet dead for the lingering sensation of all the artists that had stayed in that mansion; people more pragmatic than me laughed, and it was a strange time for me, seeing echos of people summoned inside our guitar circles. One night, I stood out on the lawn, in men's clothes, hand in pocket and became someone else for a little while. It ws like when I was a child and I would match step, gait and posture of the random pedestrian in front of me so that I would know that they were thinking. My postrue here is already different -- it is such an open place, but one that encourages the keeping of secrets -- because it's fun and because there is so much space here that if you let them out they might fill up the whole world.

Phone Post:

(no subject)

Went to Kings Cross which is crazy and pwoerful and reminds me of the street kids I hung out with in Italy. There's a plaza and a found at the bend in Darlinghurst road with signs pointing to all the great cities. New York City 16026 -->

Then I took a long and quasi-successful wander. Successful -- Darlinghurst, which involved a bit of tourism interesting probably only to me (and a few of you), which I'll report on when I know what I want to say about it. Funny how my magic places in all cities always have such perfectly situated benches though.

Then I tried to find NIDA, not by the route they gave me and a very bad map. This was a very bad idea and after walking miles was given up on. Tomorrow I'll take the bus they said and it will be fine.

More probably tomorrow night, or next time a phone post strikes me.

BTW, was playing phonetag with deslea not delchi and am seeing the first tonight.