Morning things

Halloween pumpkins at Safewoolworthsway. UGH.

My three most salient points on this matter:

A) Oh-my-flippin'-gosh-is-this-America?
B) $24. FOR A PUMPKIN!?
C) If anyone comes around trick or treating, I'll be breaking out the inner misanthrope.

The mutant strawberry

^ The biggest stick insect I've ever seen. Totally made my day.

Walk

Candypink

Rosey

Things that make the world better (this weekend)

1) Rammstein's new album Liebe ist für alle da. Amazing. Again. Although maybe that's just because I've been looking forward to it all year and that excitement has expressed itself in loving pretty much every single track. Althoug Mehr doesn't really do it for me. But the rest are good and I like how there's elements of previous albums hinted at. Although there's not quite so many little trick phrases that can have many meanings that I've found. Yet. I'm sure they're in there, but I've just been focusing on enjoying it rather than getting into serious meanings at the moment. The track I like most is Haifisch. Not sure why, mostly it's the chorus. Roter Sand is gorgeous, too.

It's seems a fair bit darker than previous albums, but it's in a rather absurdist way. And yet it's logical, because it's progression from previous albums (and just a progression from what they've already done otherwise apart from that - they're all about pushing buttons). Quite a few songs reminded me strongly of others - in particular, Wiener Blut made me think of Spiel Mit Mir.

Anyways, it's dark, it's hot and it's amazing.

And I apologise to the neighbours for playing it so loudly, over and over again.

P.S: Rammstein, I love you, please come to Australia!!!

2) Dinner with friends. Made the most awesome potato bake ever, and a couple salads that I'm definitely going to have to make again in future. It was nice to have a relaxing meal with people I love spending time with :) I'm not so fond of cleaning up, which is why the glasses were still out this morning...

3) Bed and sleep. Which I think I'm going to go do something about now!

Ewww...

My least-favourite train station...

Exhibitionistic

Pompeii

^ Went to the Pompeii exhibition today and wore impractical shoes again, just like I did with the Dali exhibition. You know, I had thought, "Oh, it's impossible that I'll be lining up for an hour to wait to get into the exhibition!"

What happens?

We couldn't get in to see it until an hour after we got to the museum.

So we took the opportunity to look around the rest of the museum, which was surprisingly small and had surprisingly little. Maybe I've just been spoilt after seeing a couple of museums in Berlin that you could get lost in?

That aside, they did have a gorgeous small display dedicated to stones (photo below). That was my absolute favourite thing there. Although the bug exhibit was pretty awesome too. Even though it had a number of ENORMOUS live spiders. Have made a mental note to never go to Sri Lanka based on the size of one of those spiders alone.

The Pompeii exhibition was crowded, but the artefacts were amazing. I fell in love with a fountain fixture that was shaped into the bust of a satyr and wanted to bring it home to install in the bathroom. It was so intricate and beautiful. There were also some small god and goddess statues that were just amazing. They also had alabaster cremation jars, marble tables and a beautiful double lamp stand.

I was surprised to find out more information about what actually went on when Mt Vesuvius exploded and that it wasn't really a sudden thing. There had been earth tremors in the days following up to it and there were quite a few hours between the first erruption and things going to absolute bollocks. Apparently, all but 2000 of the town's 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants left the area.

However, there were the people who died.

And what a horrible death it must have been.

There were a number of casts of people and animals who had died because of the erruption and been buried in the ash. I got about half-way around that display before a lump appeared in my throat and I couldn't help crying a little (thank God it was dark in the room). I don't know why, but it made me think of Black Saturday and when I closed my eyes, I had images of some of the burned-out cars and homes turn up so vividly in my mind's eye. Couldn't help thinking about the people who died that day and how there was no warning.

I know I was incredibly lucky to live in a town that survived the fires, even though they got pretty close in the end. There were those surreal days where my town was on the front cover of newspapers because they didn't expect it to be there by the end of those particular days. So as much as life has gone on, I don't think I've really gotten over all of the Black Saturday stuff totally. It was a nightmarish time and yet I feel really selfish saying that because compared to so many other people, things ultimately ended up being okay for me and my town. It wasn't the case for so, so many others, including some friends of friends, the neighbour's parents' neighbours, a family I interviewed...

Anyway.

Some pictures of pretty things:

Devil Kitty

Devil Kitty mucking around in a cardboard box outside tonight.

Bud

Blackberry leaf

Orchid

Pretty things from this morning

Dali!

Went to the Dali exhibition at NGV on Friday and waited in line for an hour. Or maybe it was slightly more than an hour! But ugh. It was a lot of standing and I didn't wear shoes designed for standing for that long. At least I was with Elyse and we spent the time laughing and being silly and probably providing people around us with enough Overheards for a month. Part of the line we were in is in the third photo down.

The exhibition was great, though. I loved the Freudian influence - it's kind of laughable, but the works are so well done (ie: his technique, the representations of the real within the surreal, etc). Dali's jewellery was amazing, too! And I think the NGV did a great job of creating rooms to house the works that were inviting and suited the material. 'Twas nice.

After that, we went to check out the Persuasion exhibition (penultimate photo). It was okay, but as with the Black in Fashion exhibition housed at NGV in the Myer textile exhibit room, it was small. Although it was very pretty.

Then, on the way back to the station, we saw random groups of people in black wigs, glasses and aqua dresses. Including men. Was kinda random.