can any good come out of Thornbury*

I felt I would write a blogpost before I became consigned to history as a self-confessed crazy cat woman or was totally overtaken by spammers.

The gloom has suddenly descended here in Melbourne in the way it does, once daylight saving ends. My flat, which is somewhat diminutive, now seems a little dark and dingy at times.  It's about the size of a hatbox, except that it mysteriously has a good old-fashioned, suburban-sized bathroom.  It's about the same size of my first flat in Balmain -- different dimensions, but better bathroom. But after all it's all about location, location, location in the inner city and here, as there, I find myself gravitating to Life on the Street...as in, High Street plays the role of my former lounge room, and I'm even recognised now at a cafe as a regular who always sits in the same place (i.e. near the wall socket) and orders the same thing.

Melbourne has really boomed, tho: there are all sorts of long radial streets leading out to suburbs draped in darkness. Melbourne's almost starting to remind me of LA in this (and only regard): you can be walking along what seems like a fairly suburban street and suddenly you're in another 'neighbourhood'. I mean, not only is Northcote cool these days, but apparently Thornbury and Fairfield are too.  I even drove over to Station St just to make sure, and I saw a glimmer of what people were talking about on my drive. Thornbury (the time I went there) just seemed to stretch on into the night, with the infinite possibility of mysterious bars cropping up.  Someone loftily said that 'Brunswick St is the new Chapel St', but I'm not sure I'd want to spend much time on either of them. Northcote has much more of that organic feel that Brunswick St seems to have lost over the years.

The other thing that's nice about Melbourne is the friendliness factor. Another ex-Sydneysider and I were commenting on this the other night. People aren't affronted if you start a conversation with them.  They often start up conversations with you. It's like Alice Springs, without the Obscure, Extraneous Waffle that accompanies many a random conversation there.

And down here... Today, I went to Dymocks to redeem a book voucher. I was in the city for a meeting, and while I was there, I realised that I'd only been outside the Golden Triangle of Northcote, North Fitzroy and Clifton once in the whole time I'd been back in Melbourne.  I used to like to accuse Sydney people of sticking to their boroughs (or burrows) -- now I'm doing it myself.

Back to Dymocks: the good thing about Dymocks, apart from the fact that they have a shop in Alice, is that they let you rack up loyalty points whatever the purchase.

But when I got to Dymocks on Collins street, I realised I didn't have my loyalty card with me because I'd left it behind in Alice where it was stored in an alphabetised box behind the counter.

The woman at the counter stared at me and said 'What?'

I repeated everything and added, 'They do things differently in Alice.'

Ah yes, indeed.  Now there's an oasis of story opening before me. C, another Alice expat, and I had a conversation today about this, and what was the Alice view of things (largely relating to Abl affairs, tho this is about nationhood too) -- if there was one, without getting all hegemonic.

In Alice, I went to lots of meetings with people saying things like, 'Can we trade off a takeaway-grog-free day against extended trading hours?' or 'Hospitalisations for stabbing were down in the last quarter.'

Here it's more: 'You have to understand how an Abl person feels when they enter a shop and it's full of white people', and 'Hardly anyone came to the anniversary of the apology in Federation Square.  They were giving away the balloons.'

Incongruous mental images flash through mind of being only white person in queue in local shop many times over the past six years.  And of asking some Aboriginal people sitting under a tree if they knew what had happened in Canberra on the day of the apology, and them shrugging. And I don't quite know where to place those images.

Anyway, too late for philosophising.  It's time for a bath in the hatbox.

* A biblical allusion (for anyone who might have missed this exciting little verse): 'Can any good come out of Nazareth?' -- a cynical, laconic comment, not a peachy, Cecil B. de Mille extravaganza type comment, as I remember things.

Comments

[Stephanie]

Just to say: our pizza place and the nursery we go to (both in St Georges Rd) keep our cards in the box by the till. But they're not big chainstores, so maybe that's the difference...

The other long funky northern street strip is of course Lygon St. So much so that if you say the restaurant or bar is in Lygon St, it's increasingly assumed it's the Brunswick end, not the Carlton end. That's a huge shift. In saying this, I realise how incredibly parochial that sounds. But that's what we're talking about here, isn't it?

I must be tired, because I'm suddenly also getting a huge rush of defamiliarisation about "nursery". Is that a word used in other countries for the place you buy plants? Or just here?

[Janet]

Even Coburg North (along with Preston and dare I say some of Resevoir)is kind of cool now. Which I never, ever expected. We thought we had moved far beyond the flannelette curtain.

[Mindy]

How long has there been a Dymocks in Alice? I'm trying to remember if I ever went there.

[DrNaomi]

Stupid Deb Cameron on 702ABC Sydney tried this week to demonstrate how friendly Sydney people were (because Barack Obama thought we were friendly). She totes missed the point. Sydney is an abusive and rude city that only seems friendly if you come from Chicago. Whereas Melbourne is genuinely friendly.

What team are you gonna barrack for El?

[elsewhere]

Well, it seems I must head further north into the wilds of East Brunswick and Coburg, then.

Stephanie -- I googled 'nursery' and found some 'plant nurseries' in America (you've probably done something like this now). Like you, I might have thought it was a British-derived term or an Australian-only version of one.

Mindy -- Dymocks was there the whole six years I lived in Alice. But I do remember visiting Alice before then, and Dymocks not existing -- at least not in Alice Plaza.

Dr Naomi -- I don't know why Sydney should be less friendly. Perhaps it's the terrible public transport. You'd think the larrikin/convict ethos would mean Sydney people are more outgoing, but maybe they're simply less genteel than Melburnians.

I always barracked for Norths in the past, a team I chose on a whim, but turned out to be a good choice at the time. Maybe I should switch to Collingwood, given that it's Yuendumu's team (that might be too much of a switch).

[Francis Xavier Holden]

The only place I know that uses a box of cards is the cat food shop. And we have two cards - one for Euks and one for IAMs (I like to change around and think up diets for the cats) then after 10 bags of expensive food we get a free bag and a useful giveaway every now and then.

It's all in Ms FXs name or the cats - very confusing. I keep forgetting the name and I think they think any male buying cat food is suss. Or maybe its the Dad's Jokes and puns I keep making to the teenaged workers. I keep arksing them why it isn't computerised - they just look at me.

[Francis Xavier Holden]

Come out to Preston if you want to be the only white person in the queue. The other day I was the only person not in a full burkha in the butchers queue. Ok there were only 3 of us in the queue but ...

[elsewhere]

Can any good come out of Preston?

[Jenny P]

Oi! Be careful what you're implying there. Though I was born in Brunswick and crawled through Coburg, I spent my best years all over Preston: High Street, Plenty Road, Murray Road, Tyler Street State School, West Preston State School and Preston Girls' High School.

[genevieve]

All my grannies lived in Preston at some time or another. But they could not really be said to have 'come out' of it (rather, Swan Hill and Badaginnie respectively).
Nice post title, though!

[Mindy]

About Dymocks - I asked hubby if he remembered it and he did, just near Bi-Lo. I remembered being disappointed at how small it was then. Somehow it just didn't seem big enough to comfortably browse. Then when the eldest was little I couldn't browse because he was pulling everything off the shelves.