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The White Hat Melbourne NewsletterArchived Newsletter No.328 - 28th August 2009Contents
Nicholas Building Open StudiosAs we mentioned in our previous newsletter Friday evening is open studio at the Nicholas Building near Flinders Street Station. This is your once-a-year opportunity to wander through the studios of young designers (some Bohemian, others less so) and maybe purchase some of their creations.
Writers FestivalThe Melbourne Writers Festival finishes this weekend. Details at: http://www.mwf.com.au/2009/content/mwf_2009_home.asp?
Reader Feedback“Thank you once again for a most entertaining, informative and inspirational read!!! “Hi, loving your newsletters. Went and checked out costco the other day to see if membership is worth it. When I turned up there was a crazy amount of people lined up to get in with the most enormous trolleys I have ever seen. Seriously- you could pop a mattress in it and use it for a spare bed when the rellies come to come to visit. Thankfully as was browsing didn't have to wait as long as those suckers. Once in I literally lost a few hours of my day- that place is huge. No wonder the trolleys are so big, there is so much stuff. If you are after 2litre jars of sundried tomatos, a tent and a life time supply of tampons in one box then this is the place for you. Seriously though, looking around its worth getting a membership, there is something for everyone, lots of bargains and you would probably make your initial $60 back in savings on your first shop. oh and while you are there check out the elevator- it is easily the size of a garage!
Open Garden at Cruden FarmOnce again the centenarian, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, opens her garden to the public. This is a wonderful family day and we can recommend it thoroughly. Details at The White Hat Guide to Private Gardens in Melbourene.
Pedants' Dating ServiceSarah had refused to attend the apostrophe-challenged Melbourne Writers Festival so she and Damien met at one of the pre Fashion Festival events. Damien went off to the bar to order their accustomed drinks. Damien always had a lemon, lime and Angostura Bitters. It sometimes took some time to explain to the person behind the bar that Angostura Bitters was the full and proper name for the more vulgarly abbreviated “bitters”, but Damien did not begrudge the time thus spent if it helped educate a fellow seeker after truth. He then ordered Sarah’s gin and tonic water being careful to explain that tonic water was the beverage required and that tonic was a general term referring to an invigorating stimulant and had Damien not specified “tonic water” then, who knows, he might end up with gin and powdered rhino horn. “Although” thought Damien “I sometimes wonder if Sarah might benefit from a little dose of powdered rhino horn.” Damien’s visits to the bar were always lengthy because he never neglected his educative duties, and when he returned he found Sarah surrounded by strangers in animated conversation. One had already bought her a drink – a frivolous multicoloured cocktail with cream and fruit on the top. “Sarah will never touch that.” thought Damien. Sarah did. “You must have spent weeks putting that outfit together!” said one of the fashion crowd. “It’s . . it’s . .” “Doris Day meets Michelle Grattan” interrupted another. “Oh I love the ambiguity,” “If God had intended ambiguity” thought Sarah “He wouldn’t have invented apostrophes.” Still, she was enjoying the attention and could see Damien from the corner of her eye hovering with drinks in hand. She took a lengthy swig on her cocktail. “Here, I’ll get you another” said her new male friend, “How did you find it?” “She found it” thought Damien still holding his two drinks which now looked decidedly plain “by scraping away the fruit salad on the top.” Damien retired to a table a little distance away. Sarah had never expected that turning up in the cloths she wore most days to work would cause such a stir. “I love the dichotomy between the belt and the sensible shoes. It gives a whole new dimension to retro.” “Sarah won’t allow them to use a prefix as a word in its own right” thouhjt Damien. Sarah did. “What did you say?” said a voice from beside Damien. “Hello, I’m Kate. What did you say about pre-somethings?” said the young lady without looking up but staring fixedly into her glass. “It’s nothing important” said Damien attempting to see what was capturing her attention. One of her false eyelashes had fallen into her drink and in the slowly rotating liquid was spreading a thing black geometric trail. “Do you think the black stuff’s toxic? We could drink it and find out.” said Kate. “Then we would both be In-Toxic-Kated.” said Damien immediately realising that his attempt to cleverly juxtapose words had not worked at all. He looked up to see three sets of eyelashes slowly flashing at him. It had worked for Kate. As they shared the dangerous potion, Kate’s attire dispelled any doubts in Damien’s mind that anything further down might be false. “Here,” said Damien “let me take you home.” He guided Kate on a path that was in clear view of Sarah. Is Kate’s virtue safe with Damien? Is Sarah’s new friend bi and could she ever go home with someone who is merely a prefix? Is mascara really toxic? Find out next week . . .
Fashion FestivalMelbourne’s Spring Fashion Festival starts next week. Details at:
Melbourne DayAugust 30th has traditionally been celebrated under the name of ‘Melbourne Day’ or ‘Enterprize Day’ as the birth date of the European settlement of Melbourne. Those who believe that Little Johhny Fawkner was the true founder of Melbourne can celebrate this event by attending a number of the events listed at: http://www.melbourneday.com.au/ Those who believe that John Batman was the true founder of Melbourne are urged to boycott Enterprize Day and to gather at Batmans Hill to plan their rival ‘Rebecca Day’.
Lenny The PenFrank awoke with a pounding in his head. He realised the pounding was coming form his office door. “It’s me, Jason!” “I’ll be with you as soon as I’ve finished the filing.” Frank picked up the lacy knickers from his desk, pondered whether to file the under ‘N’ or ‘K’, then emerged onto the landing. “I’d forgotten today was work experience day, Jase.” “It’s called Professional Development and I prefer to be called Jason.” “And I’d prefer that dame last night hadn’t turned out to be married. Life doesn’t always give you what you prefer Jase. Come on, we’re off to meet Lenny The Pen.” “Why are we using the back exit?” “I saw a photo of the husband. Don’t they have a unit on Risk Management in your Crime Scene Investigation course Jase?” “Why are we going to see Lenny The Pen?” asked Jason. “He’ll help fast-track your professional development Jase - keep up kid.” Frank hastened his step down the bluestone alley. “You see, Lenny’s a pen man.” “A pen man?” enquired Jason. “Yes, a pen man. Forgeries. Passports, marriage certificates – that sort of thing. His work is not top notch but his prices are reasonable and, as he tells his customers, they only have to convince people for long enough until they have done their job and the spiel is as important as the document.” “The spiel?” “Yes, the patter, the story you use to distract them from examining the document too closely. You know, at customs they might ask ‘So you’ve just arrived from Bali?’ and she says ‘Yes and I got this wonderful pendant there’ indicating the trinket in her cleavage ‘Should I declare that? I don’t want to do the wrong thing.’ ‘No, madam, everything seems to be satisfactory – very satisfactory.’ says the customs man continuing to stare at her cleavage. Lenny The Pen always says that you can pay a fortune for a forgery that’s 99%, but a forgery that’s 80% accompanied by a good spiel will beat it every time.” As they approached the main street Frank slowed his pace. “Here’s your lesson for the day in Risk Management, Jase. Stick your head around the corner and if you see a bloke with shoulders about yay big” said Frank extending his hands an extra 10 centimetres to either side of Jason’s shoulders “engage him in conversation while I make alternative plans.” “What should I talk about?” “Ask him if he’s been to the Dali exhibition and what did he think of it. I don’t know Jase, you’ll think of something – you’re never short of words to fill any pensive silence.” Jason investigated but found no threatening presence on Swanston Street so beckoned his mentor out. Frank, now feeling a little more relaxed explained “You see, Jase, Lenny The Pen had a quiet little business operating out of Guildford Lane but always had a dream of pulling off a big job. Then, one day his chance came around. See this logo here” said Frank pausing to rap on a cast iron bollard. “That’s the Melbourne logo that had been around for over a hundred years. A bullock, a dead sheep that’s been strung up, a whale and a sailing boat. It says ‘Melbourne kills animals, harpoons whales then ships the products off to somewhere important’. Well I know you’re vegetarian Jase so its not going to press your buttons and, at the time, we were trying preach to the Japanese that it was an evil thing to kill whales so the authorities thought it was time for a new logo. Lenny The Pen thought he’d give it a shot. He’d been doing a good trade in Greek passports recently so he could do a Greek column with his eyes shut. Then, as a forger, you never get to sign your work, but Lenny always managed to sneak in a pen or a quill as his hidden signature. So Lenny put up this design for a Melbourne logo consisting of a column and a quill.” “What does a Greek column and a quill have to do with Melbourne?” asked Jason. “Nothing really, but Lenny could do a good Greek column and he could do a good quill.” “What did the selection committee say?” “They said ‘At least it doesn’t have a whale in it’ and gave him the prize. For a time there, the ‘Column and Quill Scam’ was given the same veneration as the ‘Great Bookie Robbery’ “Some of the boys stopped calling him Lenny The Pen and would rib him by adopting a toffy voice and calling him ‘Leonard The Quill’. After a while it started to go to his head and he began to call himself a ‘graphics communication consultant in corporate realignment’. See this here” said Frank pausing to rap on a veranda pole outside the Victoria Market. “There’s the old logo with the whale, and this style of veranda is called a ‘corporation veranda’. It was the standard issue of the Corporation of Melbourne which was the previous name of the Melbourne City Council and the logo was the corporation logo. So it was true that Lenny The Pen had been involved in corporate realignment and in just about any block in Melbourne you can see how some of his scams changed the face of the city. ‘How did you pull off the BHP Billiton logo Lenny?’ ‘It’s all in the spiel’ he would say. But with all this passing success he had forgotten who he really was. He wasn’t ‘Leonard The Quill – Graphic Design Consultant for Effective Corporate Realignment’ – he was just plain old ‘Lenny The Pen – Pretty Good Forgeries at Pretty Good Prices’. He gradually went back to making a more honest living by producing section 487 visas and the odd bank cheque.” “But still he dreamed of one last iconic job and one day he walked into a gallery of emerging artists and realised he had found the perfect partner to help pull it off.” “He found someone with drawing skill better than his?” asked Jason. “Nah, Jase. All the art on display was either by people with no drawing or creative skills rearranging the works of others in the form of a collage . .” “It’s called conceptual art.” interrupted Jason. “Yes, whatever” continued Frank “and a few scratches and doodles by people ‘challenging the concept of the mere facility and craft that society chooses to recognise as “great art” and rises to the higher creative level of meta-commentary on the socio-capitalist technical exercises that have no value other than the perceived one overlaid on them by people being prepared to buy them’. No, there was no-one there who could draw, but the person who wrote the commentaries would be a perfect partner for his last big scam.” “And what was that?” asked Jason. “Ah, you see” said Frank “Lenny The Pen has always liked symbolism so he wanted to close out his career with another logo for Melbourne. It’s just a rather ugly chunky capital M but the accompanying postmodernist pitch was brilliant. As Lenny always says, it only has to convince the right people for long enough for it to do its job. He reckons it will probably take about three years for them to see through it and by that time he’ll have retired to the Bahamas under an assumed name. I wouldn’t be surprised to find him doing a little corporate realignment with the RMIT student who did the spiel. She could be quite a looker if she got rid of the baggy black clothes and did something with her hair.” Having sat (or more precisely, walked his way) through Frank’s lengthy dissertation Jason had become exasperated. “Well all this ancient history may be of interest to you Frank, but you said Lenny could accelerate my professional development!” “That’s right Jase. Lenny owes me a couple of favours before he disappears to the Bahamas. When you get your Cert 4 take the certificate over to Lenny the Pen. In the morning you’ll have a Masters.” [Lenny The Pen was later to be involved in the design of the new ANZ logo known as The Scream.]
Last week's quizWe received numbers of replies to last week’s quiz -Backstage at the theatre – including from Leanne, HVM, Peter J, Sammy the Snail and Gemma. However the first was from George so here are his reponses.
The Bald Archy PrizeThe Bald Archy Exhibition – the irreverent take on the Archibald Prize, finishes this weekend at Chapel off Chapel in Prahran.
MarketsThe Know School Farmers’ Market has closed but there are new farmers’ markets due to open in September in Williamstown and Newtown. We will announce these soon at The White Hat Guide to Farmers' Markets in Melbourne & Victoria.
Terry TaoAustralians love to celebrate a medal winner and the Fields Medal is only presented to the best in the world once every four years. Australian Terry Tao is the current holder of the medal which celebrates the best mathematician in the world. He has been called the ‘Mozart of Mathematics’ and in most other countries would be held up as an inspiration to teenagers. He easily made it onto our list of 200 Significant Australians. On Monday night he is giving a free talk in simple English on how he uses the internet in his everyday work. We will be there. Bookings are essential and you can find details at: http://melbourneuniv-web.ungerboeck.com/coe/coe_p2_details.aspx?eventid=5372&sessionid=fd0fflejlfb7fc7 If your secondary school child knows the winner of Australian Idol but not the winner of the Fields Medal you had better start your planning to become a self funded retiree. And if your child has not been informed and made excited about this event, contact your school and ask them why. And if they say "who's Terry Tao?" find another school.
From the White Hat InboxMarion unsubscribed from our food newsletter saying she had never subscribed to it in the first place. We sent her back details of her original subscription, to which she gave this reply: “Oh dear! White Hat, I'm so sorry. I do subscribe to several food sites (Delia Smith, 101 Cookbooks, Elegant Sufficiency, et al) and also Best Recipes, to which I used my [that Alias]. But I honestly don't remember subscribing specifically to White Hat. (When your first email came through it was in an odd, faint, type, and I thought it wasn't the genuine article.) Sorry again. I'm the sole occupant and user of this Apple Mac .... so it must've been me who subscribed (I am after all 73 yrs old, but I thought still pretty savvy). Anyway, two things: 1. Can you please re-subscribe me? 2. Have you a good recipe for Humble Pie? With kind regards, Marion Tanunda, South Australia” Sally wrote: “Hi White Hat and thanks for your service…I love it and have passed you onto my friends who have also come to look forward to your news. I don’t know if the below event is classified as being available as a free information spot but here goes… CELEBRATING FASHION WEEK IN THE BURBS ! What to wear, how to wear …? What is best for your figure? Find out what your figure type is best dressed in .make every day your best step forward ! One day only Upstairs at Plumme’s. 43 Ferguson Street Williamstown .. SATURDAY AUGUST 29TH , 9 TO 5 Clothes at cost by sponsors Pls call 0408 127 090 Thank you Sally” We replied: “We will list the event – but “The Burbs?” We know Willy is out west but its not really part of (adopts disapproving look) “The Western Suburbs”. The burbs don’t have picket fences and premiers. I like to think of it more as a village than the “burbs”.” Sally responded: “Dearest White Hat You have captured my heart with your empathy and I wonder if you could change burbs to village, inner village or whatever. I understand how I insult the area by its reference and God helps us if we ever start hanging onto the apron of our burby cousins. I appreciate you giving this a go…. Quite simply, I think I can make a difference to women’s life by introducing new options that improves self esteem, etc What a gem you are to assist My best Sally” We also had the following personal message: “hi from falls, remember i told u about the ski instructor who was going 2 give me private lessons without expecting anything in return. well he did expect something & when i told hin i wasnt that sort of girl he said hed make my life hell & now i have to sneak around the back ways so i don’t run in2 him & i just so wanted to leave & i rang crystal & shes skipping some of her astrology classes 2 come up next weekend & i rang craig and he said i should stick it out 2 the end of the season so that i can leave the mountain with dignity on my own terms & i never heard him speak like that b4 & hes coming up 2 so im going to try 2 tuff it out for a week or so. wish me luck. luv nat”
The White Hat QuizTo celebrate Writers Week and the Fashion Festival occurring at the same time we thought we should have a little quiz about writing and fashion.
Send your answers to quiz@whitehat.com.au No prizes – just glory and a warm inner glow. White Hat is dressed by Henry Bucks of Collins Street and prefers to fly Qantas Business Class. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always give you what you prefer.
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