Saturday, August 30, 2014

Not Pretty Enough (bei mir bist du shayn)


I lived in St Kilda when Muso's and artists were moving on, paving the way for grunge to evolve into cool. They left the gays and Jews to cohabit in a blissful marriage of tradition and experimentation: The 1990's. It was all designer runners, comic teeshirts, 3/4 denim, warehouse parties, Midsummer, Miss Candy, The Palais, Russian bakeries.

To fireworks, dance music and Calvin Kleins (the pills not the jeans) the new millennium was welcomed. The Y2K bug didn't destroy us, but the new era killed St Kilda. The place soon became so cool it was hot, and it melted into one big festering mess of poo-beige.

The pretty people demanded nicer amenities, the removal of the prostitutes from each street corner, a clean up of Blessington Street, and a curfew on noise. They wanted a gentrified St Kilda. A nice place to raise designer kids and irritating dogs...or was it designer dogs and irritating kids? 

The old Jews survived the most horrendous experience of the holocaust, arrived on our shores, and built this wonderful city. Then they not only existed but thrived through it's darkest days, its hard days and its party heydays, to be left with this...Meh.  Nudne.*

Which brings me, of course, to Fitzroy this week... bushland? FFS!!!?! 
"... Cr Fristacky said she would have preferred a mural of scenery of bushland or the Abbotsford Convent. "I would say [the Sofles piece] is OK in a magazine or a book. But in public art I have my reservations."

To see the offending Adnate Sofles Smug collab check out Dean's page 
 *Apologies for bad, inappropriate or offensive Yiddish I am just a Goy