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Overview
Is this vogue? Or bogue? It's the eternal question pondered by Big Ego Books founders, artists and all-round hilarious bloggers Raquel Caballero and Emily Hunt.
On their insanely funny blog, these two wonderfully opinionated Australians weigh up the great and shit bits of our lives. Magic Eye? "I wish I had the skill of Magic Eye so I could write it on my resume." Vogue. Macarons? "Why are people still eating them? And why are publishers still publishing books about them? They taste like shit and they're really annoying to look at." Bogue.
You'll find Raquel and Emily's latest greatest iratest Vogue/Bogue rant in the latest issue of Sturgeon. In case you've not met Sturgeon yet, it's a bi-annual Australian arts and culture publication published by Artbank — and boy is it pretty. The first issue was launched in November 2013 and this will be the fifth issue, guest edited by Miriam Kelly (curator and collection coordinator at Artbank). There's even original artwork by Sydney artist Leo Coyte on the cover. It's available to throw a measly $15 at in newsagents, museum stores and bookshops across Australia from May 16.
But before you go and buy yourself a shiny new copy of Sturgeon, we have a little surprise for you. We love Raquel and Emily's Vogue/Bogue, and make a habit of reading it aloud and giggling over bits in the Concrete Playground office. So we asked them to do a special guest post just for CP, just for Sydney. What a coup. Here 'tis!
BOGUE
R.I.P. THE MONORAIL
We will never get over this. We haven't forgiven or forgotten! The monorail to us symbolised the future, Jetsons-style. It's clear this country was going backwards when they decided to tear down the monorail. Sure it wasn't an economically viable mode of transport but does everything have to exist just to make a buck? Can't we have cool stuff just for the sake of it? Well apparently only people with $$$ are allowed this luxury. We just read on Wikipedia that Google owns a piece of the old monorail carcass (AKA a carriage) and uses it as an office meeting room because of course they do! Google thinks they're sooo cool, those dorks.
BROADWAY BERMUDA TRIANGLE
Similar to Bermuda Triangle, the Broadway Shopping Centre is a portal to a negative supernatural vortex. The streets around BSC are also haunted, probably from the Scientologists and their creepy uniforms.
We've seen people murdered, a bank heist, three fires, a suicide off the walkway, a naked woman throwing chairs outside Oportos, a guy masturbating in the bushes next to the bus stop, nearly being killed by a semi trailer whose driver was drunk and a old woman falling flat on her back holding a baby as the lights had changed. Enough proof! Some one needs to light a candle and de-Satan that zone asap!
THE DEVONSHIRE STREET CENTRAL STATION TUNNEL
A.k.a - The dreaded tunnel, the boring tunnel, bad busker tunnel, horrible mural tunnel, slippery tile tunnel.
The walk seems endless once you're in.
Walk in the right stream, no eye contact, spray-painted nightmares of City Rail as mural art, no air, murder in the air, no tract for footwear and over-takers. It is awful down there.
We have a few suggestions for easy and fast improvements.
One – hurry up and build a travelator in both directions like at the Domain Car park, it wouldn't cost much. People are TIRED before they go to work and after they come home from work. A super fast travelator would be a perfect people moving machine, in a horrible tunnel like this one.
Two – improve the awful sad murals! They are not art. The council needs to organise a competitive-war-grant to improve the art down there. We're thinking a 'mural war'. In one night the artists have five hours to paint a mural (from 12am to 5am), and the winner gets unlimited Opal, Uber and free drinks at every pub in Sydney for one month — paid by Sydney City Council. Number of Instagram likes will decide the winner.
GREEDY LAND GRUBBERS
Greed in general is a BOGUE. So is being a scab (an example of which is when you bring weed to a party and everyone flocks to you to smoke a puff and then they all leave as soon as the joint is done! Seriously guys, soooo rude!) Anyway back to the point. Greedy land grabbers are a major BOGUE in Sydney as everyone knows. The government is greedy selling off all the TAFE campuses which are sitting on prime real estate (tut tut), destroying beautiful buildings like the Sirius in Miller's Point – and kicking out a whole community of elderly people while they're at it (but who cares about that when there's money to be had)! Not to mention Westconnex because more cars on the roads is exactly what this city needs – not. Oh sorry, we forgot that cities are for cars – not people! Property investors are greedy buying everything up and then charging impossibly high rents. Meanwhile all we can do is pray hard for, not a recession – but a depression. As our friend George always says, "I'll be happy when people are forced to sell chicken skewers on the street." Amen!
As a P.S. We just want to say one word: BOOMERS. Everyone knows why, we don't need to explain it.
RENDERED HOUSES
While we're on the topic of incredible Brutalist masterpieces — how about all those hideous rendered properties? You know the ones we mean: those ugly, grey or beige — but mostly grey — buildings that are meant to look slick and modern but they're GREY so they just look depressing and dirty. They are everywhere we look now! Seriously, the other day we were driving around and every second house was rendered grey! And what we want to know is: who started it? Who invented this horrific look? Was it Colorbond®? We just had a look at their website and we're blaming them to start off. The second question we ask is: who the hell thought this looked good? Was it perhaps the BOOMERS? Those tasteless land-grabbing bastards! They think that rendering is going to add value to their shitty properties? Those idiots. They are totally devaluing their properties because they already look dated! Jokes on them! Actually jokes on us for still living in Sydney where we actually have to PAY them money to live in these abominations.
VOGUE
GOULDS BOOK ARCADE
Aaah the day Gould's Book Arcade closes down and is redeveloped into a grey rendered apartment block is the day we leave Sydney for good. We've found so many incredible books here in the past, that we were worried about including it (scared other fellow book obsessives will start raiding it). But we got nothing to worry about – Gould's is not for dabblers. It is for HARDCORE scavengers only. Even we who get our nails dirty dealing in books EVERYDAY sometimes walk in thinking we're ready for the trawl, but stop short at the door like, "No way. We can't deal with this shit today." If you even think about going to Gould's you have to ask yourself this question: "Are you going to do it?" Because – as Emily's High School year book photo quote says – "If you're gonna do it, then do it. If you're not gonna do it, then don't do it." And usually you're like, "Nah I'm not gonna do it." Ok see ya!
CHINATOWN FOOD COURTS
Oh man, we're getting hungry just thinking about this. It's hard to even formulate the words when we're so hungry, so we'll just do this in dot points.
- The food is cheap
- The food is TASTY
- You can buy booze from those weird stalls that just sell drinks – nothing else.
- It's quick. You get your food quick. You eat quick. It's all QUICK.
- After that you're in Chinatown and Chinatown is fun because the bars are shitty and you can get cheap jugs (not saying where or people will start going there to ruin it). Cheers!
ARTEXPRESS
The annual exhibition held at the Art Gallery of N.S.W is like the baby brother of the Archibald Prize. Every year my mother would take me along to see artwork and it would BLOW MY MIND! Art Express is a total Sydney Vogue because it is aspirational! Everyone in year 12 Art wanted secretly to be chosen to show in Art Express, amiright?
Coming across an old catalogue from 1997, my favorite one ever, and so many memories flooded by. Memories of Leunig, Crowded House and Brett Whiteley. Art Express is dork zone, but that's why it's so amazing. Also, the standard of painting, drawing and sculpture is so far superior to anything we've seen recently.
SYDNEY FERRIES
In the dire situation we are in, at least we are a city that exists on the edge of a beautiful harbor. Some of the lucky ones get to transit to their work place, on a daily basis via the peaceful ferry. The ferry is the best and only nice form of public transport that exists in this busty town. Rain is worst on buses and trains, because even on the water, more water is ok because nothing compares to traffic.
And it's the same price to pay for travel as a train or bus.
And sometimes when the waves are rocky and the seas are rough - you feel like you might die. Everyone needs to feel like they are going to die more than they think.
LOCAL HISTORY
Booooooring! You may be thinking…. but you are WRONG! Local history is incredible, we warn you of becoming an obsessed historian. Knowing your old studio at Sydney College of the Arts was once probably a lounge room for the mentally insane, or your studio at National Art school was a solitary confinement cell, you start thinking more about the past lives that inhabited the walls around you. You never really own a place. Local history can be melancholy too. Seeing old photographs of theatres past and Victorian mansions are hard to look at because they no longer exist. The worst is when a local council decides to place a plaque of a photo showing what used to be there.
But! There are still gems to be found. Just look up, ignore the shops and look higher at the old buildings that no one notices anymore. Sydney does have beautiful architecture, its just hidden under all the shit.
Read more Vogue/Bogue in the latest issue of Sturgeon magazine. Find out where to buy it near you at Sturgeon's website.
Top image: Sturgeon.