| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The White Hat Melbourne NewsletterArchived Newsletter No.311 - 7th May 2009Contents
Community Service AnnouncementSunday is Mothers Day. Ring your mother! +----------------------------------------------------+ Cheap theatre & concert ticketsEven though a show may be ‘sold out’, most major venues keep aside a certain number of tickets until the last minute to cater for visiting dignitaries, ticketing stuff-ups, promotions opportunities (“I’m sorry Mr Rudd, we’re sold out. Ah, Ms Hilton I think we can fit you and your friends in – can we just take a little photograph?”) At around 6pm in Melbourne these tickets start to get released to those in the know at reduced prices. Now, it is a while since we have bought tickets this way because we have a certain dignity to maintain which precludes us to being seen to queue up for cheap tickets. However, you riff-raff seem to place no store in respectability – I’ve seen your Facebook page – so you might want to check it out.
+----------------------------------------------------+ Melbourne Jazz Fringe FestivalThe Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival starts this week. Sometimes the word ‘fringe’ is a warning signal for lots of attitood but not much craft or talent. That’s not the case with the Jazz Fringe Festival. There are numbers of fine musicians and groups performing. Details at The White Hat Guide to Jazz in Melbourne. +----------------------------------------------------+ Mothers Day at Cruden FarmDame Elisabeth Murdoch who recently celebrated her 100th birthday is throwing open her wonderful Cruden Farm Garden on Mothers Day. All proceeds will go to the aid public and private gardens, including those devastated in the recent bushfires. The cost is $10 for adults with children free. No booking is required. Take along mum and a picnic. Rupert – ring your mum! +----------------------------------------------------+ Jumps Racing
With the spate of recent falls we may have seen the end of jumps racing in Victoria. Over the years it has taken a terrible toll on horse and man. In the early days of European settlement, the horse was key to survival. The horse functioned as car and ute, the draft horse as truck and tractor and the bullock dray was the B-double. Kids rode to school four on the back of a horse. Stock grazed inland Australia kept in check only by the skill of horse and horseman. The Kelly Gang could stay on the run so long and cover vast territories through the skill of the horsemanship, and when riding a horse at speed through the bush you had to be able to jump. No wonder the crowds gathered to watch the horse racing, but especially ‘the jumps’.
In Australia, the steeplechase and poetry seemed to go together. One of the finest jumps horsemen Australia ever saw was a fellow called Adam Lindsay Gordon. You can find a small monument to him on the highway near Victoria’s oldest jumps track in Coleraine. When he came to Melbourne he held the record for riding the largest number of jumps winners in one day at Flemington. It is not surprising that he turned his attention to poetry, one of his collections should be called Buah Ballada and Galloping Rhymes. Banjo Paterson (unlike Henry Lawson) was also a fine horseman so it is not surprising that he gave us our most enduring poem about man and horse. It is interesting that many Australians do not know the important role he played in WWI as an officer and organiser of horses and men for the Light Horse. But it is no surprise that he would write a poem in praise of Melbourne’s greatest jumps jockey, Tommy Corrigan, and how those in Ballarat in the height of the 1890s depression would gather together what they had to lay a bet on Tommy and Lone Hand.
Tommy died in a fall at the Grand National Steeplechase at Caulfield in 1894. His funeral procession was two miles long and 100 jockeys and trainers preceded his coffin into Melbourne into Melbourne General Cemetery. It was probably the first time any of the jockeys had been in front of Tommy Corrigan.
Adam Lindsay Gordon with vision problems had given up jumps racing and followed his passion of poetry. Next time you listen to the last movement of Elgar’s Sea Pictures which make use of Gordon’s poem The Swimmer note how he compares the exhilaration of swimming far out through the surf with the exhilaration of the jumps jockey.
There is a statue in Spring Street of Gordon in his riding boots with saddle underneath his chair. There is also a bust in Westminster Abbey – the only bust to an Australian writer. Next time you are passing Spring Street or Westminster Abbey (and I know that we have several hundred subscribers in London) we suggest you pause for a moment to reflect on the possible end of jumps racing in Victoria and raise a metaphorical glass to Gordon, Paterson, Corrigan and Lone Hand.
+----------------------------------------------------+ MarketsA new fashion night market called Style After Dark is running on Thursday nights at South Melbourne Market. The Yarra Glen Craft Market is to wind up next month with its last market on June 7th. For compact details on what markets are on in each region of Victoria go to our home page and select the appropriate month from the drop down menu called ‘Market Planners’. +----------------------------------------------------+ Melbourne Folk Music ClubWhen does folk music become world music? When does folk music become ‘filk’ music? Where have all the flowers gone? Discuss these and similar questions each Saturday at the Melbourne Folk Music Club in Brunswick. Jam along or just listen. Details at The White Hat Guide to Folk & World Music in Melbourne Ring your mother. She’s already picked up the mail and there’s no card from you. +----------------------------------------------------+ Donkey Shelter Open DayThis weekend is open day at the Donkey Shelter in Eltham. Take the kids along. Details at The White Guide to Activities for Children in Melbourne +----------------------------------------------------+ An opera for singlesThis week, Lyric Opera are staging Purcell’s short Opera Dido and Aeneas in Prahran. (Maybe that needs a comma somewhere so it doesn’t sound like Iphigenia in Tauris.) Lyric Opera’s productions are usually contemporary and entertaining. Queen Dido of Carthage enjoys a one night stand with the passing prince Aeneas. This one night stand lasts for several months (things happened slower in the classical era) and in meantime Aeneas does some huntin, shootin and fishin. Then Aeneas announces to his sailors that they’re going to up-anchor and move on and found Rome. The sailors sing:
Does that bring back memories and were you a sailor or a nymph? Meanwhile knows that in opera, as in life, there are only two options. You can either go mad or you can kill yourself in a manner that allows for a lengthy dying aria. If any of you ladies out there have recently had a disappointing short term relationship and are thing of going mad we recommend you study Dame Joan. She has probably gone publicly mad more times than anyone else in Australia. If on the other hand you choose the death and aria route we suggest that like Dido you study the passacaglia. There won’t be a dry eye in the house and he’ll feel really, really stupid that he let you go. Then again, he’ll be alive and you won’t. You can find details of Lyric Opera’s performance of Dido and Aeneas at The White Hat Guide to Opera in Melbourne. Aeneas – ring Aphrodite. It’s Mothers Day. +----------------------------------------------------+ Last week's quizLeanne was first in:
+----------------------------------------------------+ Into The WoodsIf you enjoy a musical that makes you hum along but also makes you think, you can’t go past Stephen Sondheim. There are performances of ‘Into the Wodds at Melbourne Uni. Details at The White Hat Guide to Musicals in Melbourne +----------------------------------------------------+ La Mama For KidsLa Mama – the tiny theatre near Lygon Street – has a special presentation coming up for kids. Ring your mother. No point sending an email - she only reads them once a week. +----------------------------------------------------+ Save the planet - listen to quiet musicIn our Environmental Sustainability Newsletter last week we wrote: “Recently at Federation Square there was a worthwhile awareness-raising exercise whereby a set of 20-odd bicycles were connected to generators. Over the week, workplace teams were invited to come and compete against each other and in the end the energy would be used to power a one hour popular music concert with its amplification and lighting. What I found interesting was that after a week of sweat and exertion I believe the one hour concert still had an energy deficit. Maybe when our parents and grandparents sat in their turtle neck sweaters in coffee shops listening to acoustic music by candlelight they were doing more for environmental sustainability than those of us who enjoy going to high energy rock concerts.” Well, this weekend you have your opportunity to do your bit for the planet by going along to the Quiet Music Festival in one of Walter Burley Griffin’s incinerators. A wide range of acoustic music will be on offer. Details at The White Hat Guide to Music Festivals in Melbourne If you would like to subscribe to our free Environmental Sustainabilty newsletter send an email to: environment@whitehat.com.au Ring your mother. Use the landline, she never has her mobile turned on. +----------------------------------------------------+ Reader FeedbackLast week, Julie asked about an installation called the Weather Harp.
+----------------------------------------------------+ Classical musicThis week you could go out and listen to Katia Skanavi plays Schubert & Chopin, the Essendon Choral Society perform Vaughan Williams & Faure, go to Rippon Lea and hear Faure & Brahms. Then again you could just stay home with a good red wine, put on a CD, and get Brahms & Liszt. Details at The White Hat Guide to Classical Music in Melbourne Make a pre-emptive strike. Ring your mother now. If you leave it until Sunday you’ll hear the whole story of how everyone else has rung her and she was wondering if you would bother and how yours was the hardest labour of them all and it went for 14 hours and . . . +----------------------------------------------------+ Buddha's DayNext weekend is Buddha’s Day and there will be celebrations at Fed Square. Details at The White Guide to Ethnic Festivals in Melbourne +----------------------------------------------------+ Last minute Mothers Day presentsIf you haven’t bought a Mothers Day present yet, you can always get her a gift voucher which you can print out from your computer. You will find a number of activities which offer gift vouchers at The White Hat Guide to Romantic Places in Melbourne +----------------------------------------------------+ The White Hat QuizAnimalsThis quiz can now be found at Australian Animals
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
