Oh, and I have to get some new joggers

Awful mother-daughter conversation overhead on tram. Nagging, stingy. So mundanely base, and yet frighteningly familiar.

Daughter, new uni student, trying to get her mum to buy her an annual metcard. ‘But you bought Alex one.’ She won’t let it go.

Daughter so well dressed – leather handbag, pearl earrings, sophisticated black sweater and jeans – that at first I can’t tell if she’s 20 or 35. Mother is dressed in that ‘funky’ boutique style favoured by some middle-aged women; shapeless garments in good quality fabric and red wooden beads.

Absent brother ‘Alex’ (travelling overseas) had only messaged his mother once, to ask her to pay his phone bill. This mentioned twice.

Mother tells daughter that Alex got her to pay for it by telling her his friends’ parents spent heaps more money on them.

Daughter asks mother if she’s checked the internet for messages from Alex.

The mother had checked his Facebook, ‘But he’s hiding a lot of photos from me. I think he’s doing a lot of drinking.’ Surly daughter mutters, ‘What did you expect?’ Mother poisonously, ‘He’ll get himself into all kinds of trouble, drinking in a place like THAT.’

Daughter checks the internet on her phone. Mother peers over shoulder, ‘You can check Facebook on your phone?’

As I disembark, mother is telling daughter they’re going to buy some linen, for uni. ‘But that’s all we’re buying…Oh, and I have to get some new joggers.’

Bombastic Melbourne Christmas gestures, including insect romance (porn?)

Brunswick: so delighted to see this riding home one night.

And right next door. How about that hedge?

These two are from another street in Brunswick. Slightly more modest, and a little bit delicately beautiful, I think.

Dazzling kitsch from the Abruzzo Club on Lygon Street.

This was at Esprit in Carlton: just horrible. If you don’t buy stuff from a chain store, you’re not generous, and should feel guilty? (According to beautiful girl with a dreamy cloud of curly hair, who actually looks a bit whingy and insipid?)

More Lygon St East Brunswick action. I guess the Coca Cola industry benefits quite well from Australia’s climatic conditions at Christmas?

Who’s going to stand up for everyday Australian blandness in the face of this cloying whimsy?

Had a weekend in Blairgowrie, hence had time to take photos of Christmas beatles close up. My friends and I actually set these two up. This was the courting period.

Now is this actually mating? Not being familiar with the biology of Christmas beatles, we were unsure. For more insect porn, see Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno. Seahorses are the most romantic.

Christmas bike. Awesomely decadent, entirely unnecessary. Brilliant. At Canning Street lights (best bike lights in Melbourne?)

I featured this guy in my last post. Blow up Santa on blow up snow globe, which actually blows with snow (it’s electrically powered). He’s located in an alley in East Brunswick. People stop and gawp (including young teenage boys on their skateboards, not too cool evidently?)

Anyway, he has a night persona, but it’s friendly and not threatening.

Last I saw he wasn’t doing so well, but yesterday I saw the woman who lives there wearily trying to fix him up, looking a bit weary and sick of the whole thing actually (I guess she’s under pressure from her kids).

Favourite search terms for 2011

post ironic use of omfg

pictures of people getting involved with the wrong people

google says no to independent thought

apping of western culture in india

intra fridge

infrastructure is sexy

i’m cry in the cinema

which of the following factors can be used to help explain why generation y women no longer feel the need to be feminists?

call her ‘julia’ but not abbott ‘tony’

hairy female underarm in slut walk

there is an awful lot of money riding on the continued perception that women are disadvantaged

are teenagers and technologys destroying our beautiful language

what the hell is occupy Melbourne

“even silence has an end”

chernobyl climate change

Romanticising the Joneses

My nanna used to live on the main street of Toodyay (tiny historical town in WA). She talked about a lot of people we didn’t know and I always told myself she knew everything that was going on in that street. She probably didn’t though. I just liked the cliche, seeing community in the village-style surveillance.

Growing up in Albany, I sometimes used to walk around with mum looking at houses. It was one of our more successful bonding activities. I’d comment too loudly on the houses – ‘Ew! That’s horrible!’ – and mum’d have to tell me to quieten down – ‘Shh.. they might hear you!’

In this era of phone cameras, sometimes I take photos of the front of houses. It feels a bit dodgy though, and I rarely share them with anyone. Is it invasion of privacy? It’s not like any member of the public can’t just walk by and look at it anyway.

Many people seem to dress their house up specifically for the gaze of outsiders. My main concern, really, is that I’ll scare them if they see me taking photos, that they’ll think I’m stalking them or plotting something vile.

Anyway, I took a few of the Christmas decorations in Brunswick East. I figured they’re fair game, as they are definitely in the nature of a big of a public display.

Walking around, it seemed to me that Christmas decorated houses tend to cluster in particular streets. Perhaps the presence of one is like a virus, inspiring others with the spirit of Christmas community and/or mild competition. Obviously I was unscientifically quick to jump to the clustering conclusion; maybe it was just another community-suggestive cliche I wanted to believe in.

Anyway, here is the exhibition so far. Voting opens today.

4 December: Topiary christmas tree

5 December: Blow up santa sitting on blow up snow globe

Erected around 6 December: Christmas commodore decorated with pearls, candy canes, and seashell-shaped alfoil

and on the other side of the same house front yard, a little tree, with that topiary tree looming in the background.

6 December: This is my favourite though. It has a pleasant homeliness.

Like a tractor

Just now the ALP decided to change their platform to extend the legal definition of marriage to same sex couples. But they also voted for their politicians to have a conscience vote on the issue of gay marriage, rather than having to vote according to party lines. This means that any gay marriage law is unlikely to get enough votes to pass.

In the debate Senator Helen Polley said it was hard for people like her to stand up and, ‘as a minority’, argue against ALP support of gay marriage. Similarly, MP Deborah O’Neill suggested, sounding like an annoying first year arts student, that the gay marriage supporters’ tactics included construing the anti-gay marriage as ‘other’. These politicians felt, as opponents of marriage equality, that they were somehow a persecuted minority, and were unable to see the irony in that.

A lack of imagination, and the closely related inability to understand or acknowledge nuance, is what makes politicians and politics so boring. On message on message on message, driving their message home in the same predictable way, like a tractor.

They think that’s what people want, the certainty and predictability. Maybe they’re right. Just repeat the words ‘Make History Melbourne’ (Greens) or ‘Victorian families’ (Labor) or ‘environmental vandal’ (Greens) or ‘bad tax’ (Liberal) and the voters will roll over and show you their bellies, the logic goes.

I’ve just been reading this, another David Foster Wallace gem from Up, Simba, an essay in Consider The Lobster.

‘It’s hard to get good answers as to why Young Voters are so uninterested in politics. This is probably because it’s next to impossible to get someone to think hard about why he’s not interested in something. The boredom itself preempts inquiry; the fact of the feeling’s enough. Surely one reason, though, is that…cool, interesting alive people are not drawn to the political process. Think back to the sort of kids in highschool who were into running for student office: dweeby, overgroomed, obsequious to authority, ambitious in a sad way. Eager to play the Game…In fact, the likeliest reason that many of us care so little about politics is because modern politicians make us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard to name, much less talk about.’*

*1) I was a prefect at school, and occasionally suffer from being ambitious in a sad way 2) I do know some nice politicians who don’t hurt me deep down in ways that are hard to name*

Meanwhile in Portland

Warning – cycling nerdiness below.

Do you enjoy cycling in the Melbourne CBD?

The City of Melbourne’s draft transport plan has a target of 6% of all trips to the municipality being by bike by 2016 and 12% by 2030. It observes, that [obviously] the main thing that stops people riding is a feeling that they’re not safe.

The council is now writing a new five year bike plan. Here’s the old 2007-2011 one, which had a target of 10% mode split by bike to the CBD during the morning peak by 2011.

I’m not sure if they’ve achieved this target; the Bicycle Account, set up as a way to measure whether the bike plan was working, hasn’t been done since 2008. The account claims that between 7am and 10am, 9% of all road vehicles in the CBD, Docklands, and Southbank were bikes.

Not exactly the same measurement used in the Bike Plan target, and as the figures are partly based on the annual Bicycle Victoria Super Tuesday count, which BV promotes fiercely each year, it may be overestimated. Still, it does suggest they’re probably meeting their (unambitious) target.

Bureaucratic vision in Portland

Portland’s local government has looked after its bike riders by investing in safe bike lanes and parking, providing good information about cycling routes and facilities, making bike-safe laws and policies, and educating drivers.

These efforts have seen cyclist computers triple since 2001. In 2008, 8% of people rode to work by bikes (admittedly not that more than Melbourne, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the statistics have a slightly stronger evidence base). 18 per cent of Portlanders use their bicycles as either their primary (8 per cent) or secondary (10 per cent) means of transportation to work.

Here is the vision statement in Portland’s 2030 Bike Plan, which is about 250 pages long (Melbourne’s bike plan is 50 pages). An example of bureaucrats with vision. Whether they get there or not is another matter, but at least they know where they want to end up.

I particularly love the coupling of ‘safe and splendid’ at the end – offseting the impact of a boring adjective with a wonderful one. Unfortunately this is about as good as bureaucratic rhetoric gets.

Portland in the Year 2030. It is the year 2030, and Portland looks much different than it did a generation ago. By sharply reducing reliance on personal auto use, Portland significantly lowered its carbon footprint, eased traffic congestion, improved air quality and enhanced public health. One of the community’s most valuable assets – the public right-of-way – was reclaimed for all Portland residents. By repurposing much of this space for pedestrians, bicyclists, mass transit, freight use and green infrastructure, Portland streets more efficiently move people and goods, filter and clean stormwater, absorb emissions and improve Portland’s health, safety and livability.

Bicycling is now a fundamental pillar of Portland’s fully integrated transportation system, with more than a quarter of all daily trips taken by bicycle on the city’s worldrenowned bikeway network. Residents and visitors know they can readily find a low-stress, effi cient and comfortable facility – be it a bicycle boulevard, bike lane, cycle track, paved trail, natural surface trail or other well-designed, maintained and marketed bikeway – to get from where they are to where they want to go.  As a whole, Portland’s cohesive tapestry of bikeways forms the hub of a vibrant regional active transportation network.

With a foundation in bicycling as a normal means of transportation, the youth of Portland’s early 21st century Safe Routes to School program have matured, resulting in a Portland that is healthier, cleaner and more sustainable than it was at the end of the last century. Bicycle safety education and encouragement is integral with the youth experience in all Portland schools, and bicycle-related tours, events, races, rides and activities reinforce the childhood experiences of nearly all Portland residents.

Children, women, immigrants, seniors and other populations that have historically not bicycled in large numbers now bicycle in higher proportions than ever before. Th is resulted from a land-use shift to a dynamic mosaic of mixed-use neighborhoods – allowing residents to work and learn, buy and sell, play and pray, all within an easy bicycle ride of their home.

Portland has also experienced a shift in the health care industry towards a genuine commitment to fi tness and nutrition as the foundation of personal wellness across the spectrum of age, wealth and ethnicity. Portland’s thriving economy derives from its fit and healthy employee base. Every business encourages employees and visitors to bicycle and offers high quality, plentiful bicycle parking .

With more money in their pockets and circulating in the local economy due to community has come to embrace bicycling as a hallmark of the Portland region. Thousands of green, sustainable, local jobs in manufacturing and distribution, retail sales and services, tourism, and professional services derive from Portland’s successful bicycle-related industry. In 2030, bicycling is fully intertwined with Portland’s regional transit system. Streetcar, light and commuter rail, water taxis and bus transit are all planned and operated with the needs of bicyclists in mind and as high-priority customers who will reach transit stations by bike and partner to reduce reliance on the automobile.

Visitors to Portland find bicycle transportation to be a signature feature of their experience. Bicycles, maps and route guidance are readily available throughout the region’s town and neighborhood centers via shared bike kiosks, rental companies, hotels and corporate and academic campuses.

The cultural shift to bicycling that began in earnest at the turn of the century is no longer an oddity. Bicycling is not seen merely as a sport or the exclusive purview of young progressives. Portland residents do not identify themselves as ‘bicyclists’, but as users of a preferred means of transportation for regular daily activities.

The rise in bicycle use has been accompanied by a sharp increase in safety for all residents due to the use of international best practices in bikeway design, bicyclist and motorist safety campaigns, enforcement of high-risk traffi c behaviors and evolution of laws and attitudes. Improved safety is tied to the increasing numbers of bicyclists, many of whom have reduced their driving trips and come to appreciate the lower stress experience of pedaling for daily transportation.

Related to the decline in driving-related stress has been a burgeoning civic commitment to mutual courtesy. Portland has become the nation’s center of research, teaching and learning in green and sustainable urban planning, design, architecture and engineering. Through innovative partnerships and our commitment to Portland as a living laboratory of progressive change, residents have helped spread the revolution far and wide, evolved academic curricula and models, deepened their understanding of the rich benefi ts of sustainable transportation and reformed their previous automobile-centric approach to community design and operation.

Researchers from across the world come to Portland, eager to see what it has done and then apply the lessons to their own communities.

This vision did not just happen as a result of geography, climate or historical happenstance. It was carefully planned and fully funded by citizens determined to set a threshold for sustainable urban living in the 21st century. The vision came about because Portland’s leaders recognized that bicycling could be a significant and incredibly positive means of transportation for tens of thousands of residents and an economic powerhouse for businesses who realize the benefi ts bicycling brings to health, safety and livability, as well as to the economy and the environment. By investing in bicycling as a hallmark of its transportation system, Portland was made more human and healthy, safe and splendid.

– Portland Bicycle Plan Steering Committee