Fans of Marcel Duchamp are in for a serious treat, with the Art Gallery of New South Wales named as the sole Australian stop for a huge exhibition celebrating the acclaimed artist's life and work. Kicking off in Tokyo on October 2, to mark the 50th anniversary of the artist's death, it's set to be the most comprehensive Duchamp exhibition to ever hit the Asia-Pacific region. The Essential Duchamp will open in Sydney in April 2019, showcasing an impressive 150 works and related documentary materials from throughout the art legend's 60-year career. It'll offer a rare glimpse at Duchamp's seriously fascinating life and a body of work that's considered one of the 20th century's most artistically influential. Some pieces, like Chocolate Grinder (No 2) from 1914 and 1910's Portrait of Dr. Dumouchel, have never before been seen in this part of the world. The exhibition's on loan from, and organised by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which boasts the definitive collection of Duchamp artwork. Director Dr Michael Brand said the Art Gallery of NSW's excited to be part of this important collaboration. "The Philadelphia Museum of Art is an encyclopedic museum of the highest order with a grand tradition of both research and innovative exhibitions," he explained. "The Gallery is delighted to introduce to Australian audiences for the first time, the full creative accomplishment of this maverick artist who changed the way we look at art." The Essential Duchamp will be on show at the Art Gallery of NSW from April 2019 to August 2019. For more info, visit the AGNSW website. Image: Gary Stevens via Wikimedia Commons.
Grab yourself a damn fine coffee and a slice of cherry pie. With the return of Twin Peaks just a few short weeks away, Golden Age Cinema is embracing the dark, disturbing world of David Lynch. To mark the cult series' long-awaited revival, Golden Age will host two free catch-up screenings of the first and last episode from the '90s. They'll also be showing the prequel film Fire Walk With Me alongside two other Lynch pictures: the dark romance Wild at Heart and his haunting debut Eraserhead (the film sessions are ticketed). The bar, meanwhile, will be serving an array of Twin Peaks-themed treats, including (damn fine) filter coffee, espresso martinis and a cold-brew coffee Negroni, plus custom-made cherry pie from Daisy's Milkbar and sheriff-approved doughnuts from Shortstop. There'll also be a photobooth, Twin Peaks trivia, and live music by Phanosland.
This month, MAY SPACE plays host to Neoplasm, a surreal and visceral solo show from artist, curator and writer Claire Anna Watson. Known for her installations, video and photographic works questioning (recently) concepts like scientific manipulation, here Watson is exploring "ephemeral matter" as a jumping off point into discussions around humanity, our relationship to the environment and the associations between science and the food we consume. To what extent do we control the natural environment? What exactly happens when natural elements are distorted and synthesised? And what could the consequences be of our ongoing customisation of the natural world? Are humans "unwittingly cultivating a world engulfed in mutations?" From an artist with both sharp sociocultural curiosity and a playful penchant for the absurd, Neoplasm promises to be an arresting show. Plus, while you're there, you can treat yourself to One day I will live in a forest — the latest solo exhibition from the endlessly imaginative sculptress Mylyn Nguyen. Image: Claire Anna Watson, Neoplasm (still), 2017, HD Video.
A George Lambert-style self portrait by Yvette Coppersmith has nabbed the 97th annual Archibald Prize — her work Self-portrait, after George Lambert was chosen from a talented bunch of 58 finalists. The prestigious portrait competition pulls a compelling lineup of artworks each year, portraying an eclectic mix of artists, musicians, politicians, sports heroes and other notable Aussies. This year's $100,000 prize attracted a whopping 794 entries from across the country and New Zealand, their works depicting homegrown icons ranging from NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to actor Guy Pearce and musician Courtney Barnett. Coppersmith's winning piece pays homage to the stylings of acclaimed fellow artist George Lambert, who himself took out the 1927 Archibald Prize. The win's been a long time coming for Coppersmith, who has been a finalist five times. She's also only the tenth female artist in history to have taken out the top prize. As is custom, all the winning portraits and finalists will be on display at the Art Gallery of NSW. The finalists for the Wynne and Sir John Sulman prizes will also be on display at the gallery — and, this year, both winners are Indigenous women. Pintupi artist Yukultji Napangati took out the former — which awards the best landscape painting of Australian scenery or figure sculpture — for her depiction of a scene among sandhills west of Kiwirrkura in Western Australia. The Sir John Sulman Prize goes to the best mural, subject or genre painting, and was this year awarded to Kaylene Whiskey's work of Cher and Dolly Parton. The exhibition will be on display from May 12 until September 9. And if you do't agree with the judges' pick for the Archibald, you can cast your own vote for People's Choice at the gallery. Image: Self portrait after George Lambert, Yvette Coppersmith. Photo shot by Jenni Carter courtesy of AGNSW.
It's time to make the pilgrimage to the Supernatural Amphitheatre once again, Golden Plains has opened the ballot for 2017. Taking place over a long weekend under a full moon, Meredith's other beloved festival returns for March 11-13, 2017. And they've announced on heck of a legend to top the bill: Neil Finn. As always, the lineup will appear on one stage in the Supernatural Amphitheatre, fronted by one of history's greatest songwriters. Crowded House legend Neil Finn will play a special career-spanning set under the full moon. It's been seven years since Finn played The Sup', so this should be pretty special. The full lineup will drop soon. Meanwhile, Golden Plains is set to be the same festival you know and love — no dickheads, no need to hide your goon sacks, no commercial sponsors — but with a new sound system, new campaground, new foods and kids under 12 can attend the festival free. The ballot for GPXI is open now until 10pm on Monday, October 17. Visit www.goldenplains.com.au for details.
Packing well for holidays is one of the vastly underrated artforms of our time. Knowing exactly what to bring and what to spend your dimes on before the actual trip takes a long-practiced, realistic ability to predict the weather, activities and highly Instagrammable moments of your future vacation. But not everyone's got the coin to drop on exxy designer threads before they land. So we've taken it upon ourselves to pack your suitcase with affordable goods, whether you're headed for a riotous camping adventure to your chosen annual music festival, hitting art galleries and destination restaurants on a cultural endeavour, or opting for the classic ol' beach holiday. Best bit? It's all from the one place — ASOS. And because they know some of the world's most keen travellers are penny-pinching students, they're offering a 20 percent discount just for students from Wednesday, February 23. THE MUSIC FESTIVAL CAMPING WEEKEND You've loaded up your rental (or pa-rental) car with tents, tarps and tinnies. You've pored over the festival timetable and listened up to the lineup. You're in full-on camping festival mode, and the trick here is to pack light, but pack smart. You've got to toe the line between statement pieces and everyday essentials — you'll need both for this adventure. Word to the wise? Leave the exxy cocktail dresses and dress shirts at home, but remember to bring pieces that make you happy; you'll be in them all day in the hot sun, pouring rain and occasional mud-slips. And bring more undies than you think you'll need. WOMENS ESSENTIALS Reclaimed Vintage Pull Over Hooded Festival Jacket $95 Cheap Monday Denim Short Dungarees $99 Pimkie Wellie Boot $34 MENS ESSENTIALS Nike Court T-Shirt 739479-100 $51 ASOS Check Shirt in Viscose With Long Sleeves $53 ASOS 5 Panel Cap In Black Canvas With Contrast Patch $26 THE ARTY CULTURE ADVENTURE Whether you're scooting between galleries, tasting All The Wine or sauntering through some serious shopping districts, culture adventures can be the trickiest for packing light. You'll want to bring every last pair of kickass shoes in your closet. You'll have plans to debut every new outfit you've recently impulse bought. But here's the thing, you're carrying your wardrobe with you. So choose a couple of pieces you can wear day-to-night and one pair of all-purpose, super fly shoes. That way you can throw more dosh on new pieces on your holiday shopping sprees. WOMENS ESSENTIALS ASOS Oversize T-Shirt Dress With Curved Hem $47 Glamorous Bell Sleeve Smock Dress With Festival Embroidery $51 ASOS OTTAWA Heels $74 MENS ESSENTIALS ASOS Super Longline Long Sleeve T-Shirt With Hooded Drape Neck $38 Reclaimed Vintage Drapey Duster Jacket $138 River Island Chukka Boots In Brown Faux Leather $95 THE CLASSIC BEACH HOLIDAY Towel, sunnies, bathers, sunscreen, book, beer. So begins the checklist for the age old beach holiday, the classic retreat for city slickers. This vacation's the easiest to pack light for, but that doesn't mean you have scrimp on style. Invest in a few new beachy staples and you'll be staging your own magazine shoots on your next ocean-bound road trip. Just remember to slip, slop, slap, wrap etc. WOMENS ESSENTIALS South Beach Mix and Match Wrap Cut Out Bikini Top $30 ASOS Stripe Rope Belted Beach Shirt Dress $60 ASOS Strappy Maxi Dress $38 MENS ESSENTIALS ASOS Mid Length Swim Shorts With Turtle Print $38 Base London Tiberius Leather Sandals $74 River Island Round Sunglasses In Silver $43
“People are realising that they’ve become pretty disconnected from their food — where it comes from, who grows it and what goes into it,” says Indira Naidoo. “And that’s why a lot of people are growing their own. They’re learning to grow organically, without pesticides, and discovering the taste is so much better because the food is grown fresh and picked as you need it, without storage or refrigeration or transportation.” Since transforming her inner-city balcony into a fresh feast, Indira has been promoting Australia's urban farming revolution. In her new book, The Edible City, she visits some of the nation’s most productive community gardens, including a rooftop retreat for Sydney's homeless, a bush-tucker patch connecting Indigenous school students with their heritage and a worm farm helping a Melbourne restaurant to reduce food waste. In the process, Indira gives readers inspiration and tips for starting their own projects, as well as 40 urban garden recipes. The Edible City follows her popular growers guide for beginners, The Edible Balcony. “More and more, our cities are becoming about concrete and steel,” she says. “There aren’t too many green spaces around. So starting a community garden is a beautiful way to connect with nature. And it’s also a place where you can make social connections. With iPhones, and travelling in cars, we are really isolated from our communities and disconnected from our neighbours. But gardens allow us to work towards something together.” Indira shared with us five of her top tips for starting an urban garden — be it your own project or a community venture. YOU’VE GOT TO LEARN HOW TO POT BEFORE YOU LEARN HOW TO FARM “I think the first mistake that new gardeners make is that they can get a bit too enthusiastic. They go to their garden centre or hardware store and pick up lots and lots of seedlings and things – tomatoes and capsicums and chillis – and head back and plant a lot of stuff. And it gets overwhelming and a bit out of control. So, I recommend starting small. “Start with some woody herbs, like oregano, rosemary and thyme. They’re hardy. They don’t need as much water and they can take higher heat or higher cold. Then move onto soft-leafed, green herbs, like basil and parsley, and then lettuce. After that, try tomatoes and fruit, and then root vegetables.” FIND THE RIGHT SPACE — AND SIZE DOESN’T MATTER “The key thing is to find the right space to grow in. Make sure that it gets at least six to seven hours of sunlight per day. Vegetables love sunlight. You need a water source as well, whether that’s a watering can or hose. “If you don’t have much space, grow in pots and choose plants that you eat a lot of. I eat plenty of salads and greens and herbs. So, on my window sill, I have one long, thin, pot that fits nicely, and sits on a little tray, so it catches the water. I put all my lettuces in and just give them a bit of water every morning. It’s so easy. I pick the outer leaves and the plant keeps growing, so one can last me three or four months. It’s perfect. If you have more space, for a bigger pot on the ground, put in a tomato seedling – a cherry variety. They’re fun and delicious. Nothing tastes better than a home-grown tomato.” ONLY GROW WHAT YOU HAVE TIME FOR – AND STAY REGULAR “Think about how much time you have. I set aside about ten minutes a day for my plants. I’ve got about thirty pots and they keep me busy enough. Don’t put in too many if you don’t have much time. “Once you start planting, make sure you do things systematically. A garden needs regular attention. You can’t just look after things on a Wednesday and then ignore them for two weeks. You don’t need a lot of time, but you do have to be noticing changes daily or every second day, doing some watering, doing some weeding and checking for bugs or pests. It’s about putting in a little care over a period of time.” PROMOTE PLANT HEALTH TO KEEP THE BUGS AT BAY “Plants are just like humans. When you get run down, that’s when you get sick. So, if you keep your plants healthy – if you feed them well, make sure they’re in nutritious soil, fertilise them every two weeks – they’re less likely to get a bug problem. “I like using organic sprays, like Neem. They don’t harm the environment, so you still have good bugs in your pots, but they do put off an odour that moths and butterflies don’t like, so they don’t lay their eggs. And I also do a lot of companion planting. Bugs don’t like the smell of marigolds, so I put them around my basil. Sage and rosemary are good like that, too. “But you can always get bug problems, even if you’re the best gardener in the world. Insects are amazing colonisers and they find a way to get into everything. So, don’t get too despondent. I just say to myself, ‘Oh well I’m giving food to other creatures on the planet.’” GET THE TIMING RIGHT “As I explain in [Edible Balcony and Edible City], most vegetables are season-sensitive, so there’s only a few you could plant all through the year without any problem. It’s important to look at the seed packet or the little label on the seedling. “The beginning of spring is a really good time for planting across most of Australia. It’s perfect for greens, tomatoes, capsicum, chilli, eggplant ... You can put your seeds or seedlings directly into your beds or pots. I’ve a got a sunny windowsill, where I have a seed-growing tray, with a seed-growing mix which is lighter and sandier than normal potting mix. So I just pop in a few seeds and wait for them to germinate.” Tour Europe's urban gardens with Indira Naidoo in 2016 In 2016, Indira will travel to Europe to visit urban gardens in four cities – London, Amsterdam, Vienna and Berlin. And you’re invited. “It’s a way to show people that there are cities (unlike in Australia, sadly), where urban growing is taken very seriously. As the UN says, 20 percent of our food now comes from urban farms around the world, and there are lots of spaces we don’t think of that work – like underground tunnels for growing mushrooms and aquaponics systems. It’s just extraordinary, all the ways that we can grow food in cities, close to where we live.” Indira's book, The Edible City, is out now through Penguin Books.
It has been nearly a decade since Italian mainstay A Tavola first opened its doors in Darlinghurst and the team has become a regular Sydney local in the years since — first opening a second A Tavola location in Bondi, then Besser Italian eatery in Surry Hills and, most recently, opening Flour Eggs Water pasta bar in Tramsheds in September 2016. Now, owner Eugenio Maiale is tightening up the brand, saying goodbye to Besser and replacing it with a second location for Flour Eggs Water. "I was actually going to launch Flour Eggs Water two years ago but wasn't quite ready, so Besser happened instead, but Besser was slowly morphing into Flour Eggs Water anyway and I really want to concentrate on the one brand," says Maiale. As the name suggests, Flour Eggs Water is all about handmade pasta, and if you've been to Tramsheds you would have seen their epic pasta-making setup. The Crown Street fitout will be identical, but the menu will be tailored to the new digs. We're particularly keen to try the seafood strozzapreti with prawns, mussels and ling cod. Seasonality and fresh ingredients will continue to be the focus, and the signature pappardelle, cremino al cioccolato dessert and house salad will appear on all A Tavola and Flour Eggs Water menus. They're also serving up local and Italian wines on tap. Similar to the Tramsheds chapter, guests will be able to watch their pasta made right in front of their eyes. "A Tavola is more of a restaurant, while Flour Eggs Water is more of a pasta bar," says Maiale. "It's a place to come for fresh, handcrafted, hand-filled and extruded pastas using the best possible ingredients." The Crown Street location will have a particular emphasis on pasta education, with pasta-making and cooking classes with special courses for couples, kids and team building events. Flour Eggs Water by A Tavola location is now open at Shop 3, 355 Crown Street, Surry Hills.
If, like us, you've been eagerly (and none too patiently) awaiting the next show at White Rabbit, we've got good news. The Sleeper Awakes is here — and it's quite incredible. Titled in reference to the 1910 science fiction novel by HG Wells — in which the hero awakens from a 203-year-long coma to a dystopian world where a special council use propaganda to keep an enslaved, poverty-stricken populace under their control — the exhibition finds parallels between this fictional universe and 1940s China, when Mao Zedong and his revolutionaries set out to build a new nation. Does current day China look like the "socialist utopia" they envisioned? Expect to see work from some of China's most original contemporary artists, exploring the contradictory complexities of life in present-day China, where "unprecedented freedom, ambition and optimism coexist uneasily with anxiety, isolation and ubiquitous state surveillance." Highlights include Some Days, a series of large-scale photographs exploring memory by former photo-journalist Wang Ningde; Republic of Jing Bang, an imaginative multimedia installation by Beijing-based artist-to-watch Sun Xun; and Weight of Insomnia, a painting robot that will create an entire landscape painting from a digital feed during the exhibition, dreamt up by Chinese Neo-Realist painter Liu Xiaodong.
Frankie's is kicking things into overdrive to make the most of its final year in its original digs. The CBD's beloved bar and live music venue will be demolished in 2022 to make way for the new Hunter Street Metro station. Alongside Frankie's regular weekly events, including TNT Trivia and Frankie's World Famous House Band, the team is promising "more bands and bigger bills", plus $1 pizza slices every night of the week. Head down to Hunter Street every day between 4pm and 6pm and treat yourself to a selection from Frankie's fan-favourite pizza menu. Each day there are a selection of pizza's available by the slice, with a couple chosen as the $1 slices each night. You can also splurge on a full-sized pie and take your pick from Frankie's abundance of toppings. The CBD institution's menu underwent a revamp in 2020, enlisting the help of Dan Pepperell (Restaurant Hubert, Alberto Lounge, Bistrot 916) to give new life to its food offering. Pepperell and Frankie's owner Anton Forte took an extensive research trip to New York, scouring the city for the best pizza by the slice before returning to Sydney with a swathe of ideas for Frankie's. Grab yourself a slice of zucchini pizza with lemon, chilli, garlic, stracciatella and mint; the Texas, which combines two different cheeses, roasted corn, red onion, jalapeños; or the Bismark with truffle salami and egg yolk. Top image: Katje Ford
If you've been looking for a reason to go away for the weekend, block off a couple of days in March and enter this competition for your chance to head to Canberra for Enlighten 2017. Touted as the original Vivid, Enlighten celebrates art, culture, music, performance and innovation. Held in Canberra's iconic Parliamentary Triangle, the event site is transformed into a buzzing hub of activity, with spectacular architectural projections on iconic national attractions and a programme of free and ticketed interactive performance and installation works. We're giving away return flights for two from your nearest capital city, one night of accommodation at The Avenue Hotel Canberra, chauffeured transport and food and drink vouchers to use while you're there. The best bit: you'll be the one to flick the switch and turn on all the lights at Enlighten 2017. Over each weekend from March 3-12, the city will light up with live music, performances, events and exclusive exhibitions. Large-scale projections will bring to life Canberra icons including the National Portrait Gallery, Australian Parliament House, National Library of Australia, National Gallery of Australia and Questacon. Highlight events from the programme include the amazing, interactive digital architectural projections splashed across the National Portrait Gallery, the Enlighten Night Noodle Markets (which based on Canberra's population should be significantly less hectic than the Sydney version, meaning you'll be able to jump in and eat as many dumplings as you can) and Sunset on the Roof — drinks, music and snacks at the Australian Parliament House's rooftop bar for two nights only (March 3 and 11). A glowing, black-light, industrial 'dance zone' is popping up in a high-security factory production corridor on March 3. DJ Robot Citizen will lead the charge in showcasing Canberra's underground dark-electronic music scene on the night (who knew), and high-vis vests and glow-sticks will be supplied. Visit Enlighten 2017 and delve into the whole programme. After that, enter your details below and say yes to the terms and conditions to go into the running to win. [competition]606686[/competition]
Newtown Social Club is turning two and you're invited to help them celebrate 24 glorious months of live music, glorious pub grub and late night beer times. From 3pm, a huge lineup of local legends will be performing across two stages. Grab a local brew on tap and head on a journey through time and space with the likes of psychedelic Sydney favourites Richard In Your Mind and indie foursome Slumberhaze. There will also be a super-secret special headliner, but mum's the word on who it'll be. It's a birthday party, remember? So bring your best wishes for NSC. They're one of the prevailing live music spaces in Newtown, in the age of the lockout law. Monday Schmonday, this is one Sunday endeavour worth being a tad sleepy at your desk for.
White Rabbit Gallery are following up their epic summer exhibition Paradise Bitch with something wildly (and literally) monumental. A metric ton of fake marble, two tons of leather, three tons of compressed paper, five thousand porcelain leaves, 8000 identical books, 130,000 minute photographs and 600,000 painted dots are charging into the Chippendale gallery space this March for Heavy Artillery, a brand new exhibition examining mass and scale in contemporary Chinese art as a means to convey even larger ideas. Going big and in-your-face is a hugely effective way for artists to tackle the bigger concepts — life and death, technology and nature, change and eternity — and inevitably stop viewers in their tracks. But Chinese contemporary artists take this even further, using historic monumentalism for contemporary experiments. As the White Rabbit team points out, "Gigantic statues of Mao erected in the 1960s still dominate town squares all over China. But for contemporary artists, monumentalism is a way to express new realities and new ideas ... Mixing what they have learned from the West with China’s classical culture and crazy commercial zeitgeist, the former student [artists] are taking contemporary art in bold new directions." Like most of White Rabbit's exhibitions, the works in the show are all new acquisitions — and they've never been shown in Australia before. See He Xiangyu’s Tank Project (2011-13), a Soviet-Chinese tank replica made from hand-stitched leather, Geng Xue's The Poetry of Michelangelo (2015), a video tribute to Michelangelo using a lump of clay, and Polit-Sheer-Form Office group's Library (2008), a huge, huge archive of blue books. Other artists include Liu Wei, Hsu Yung-Hsu, Aaajiao (Xu Wenkai), Guo Jian, Liu Chang, Liu Jianhua, Song Hongquan, and Taiwanese artists Ah Leon, Lin Yen-wei, Chou Chu-Wang.
The masterminds behind Devon Cafe and Devon on Danks have just opened their next venture in Darlinghurst. Meet Lazy Suzie, a Malaysian, hawker-style bar and restaurant. Located in the former IconPark crowdfunding space, owners Derek Puah and Zacharay Tan are serving up Penang street food from morning till night in an intimate setting. Tan (who has helmed the kitchen at both Devon cafes) will also serve as executive chef, and has created a menu of the street food he grew up with using local ingredients. "I spent a month last year in Malaysia eating and drinking in Penang to research the street food by hawkers who have been perfecting their craft for years," says Tan. "There was a gap in Sydney food for Malaysian hawker food where people could go to eat and drink in a casual space, and Lazy Suzie includes many traditional dishes but using native Australian produce." Signature dishes include Penang char koay teow, Hainan-style silken tofu with Australian succulents and an unusual bubur cha cha dessert served with shaved blue pea flower ice and taro ice cream. On the bar side of things, bar manager Marco Oscar Oshiro Giron is whipping up Malaysian-style drinks, drawing his inspiration from Malay kopitiams (coffee shops) and mamak stalls; think cocktails infused with pandan, jasmine and lemongrass. The Rama-Rama Spritz will combine gin, blue pea flower, jasmine and dandelion, while the Kopi Tiam is a concoction of cognac, cold drip coffee liqueur, coconut, cardamom and espresso. Come the weekend, Devon's signature brunches will also be available at Lazy Suzie, but, like in their Surry Hills and Waterloo cafes, they'll be served with a twist. Expect dishes like a roti B.E.L.T and buttermilk pancakes topped with banana and roasted coconut ice cream. As for the interior, Lazy Suzie exudes a "deliberately moody atmosphere" and features a load of local, recycled materials, from fire-charred timber to oxidised copper. Whatever the fit-out, we're excited to dig in to these bright, playful plates and cocktails that look as tasty as they are beautiful. Seriously, that purple ice cream. Lazy Suzie is located at 78 Stanley Street, Darlinghurst. It's open Tuesday to Friday from noon to midnight, Saturday 10am to midnight and Sunday 10am to 3pm. For more info, check out their Instagram.
First it was dog poo. Then it was glitter. Now a new website has once again raised the bar of ridiculous things you can anonymously send your enemies in the mail. Dicks by Mail is the company’s name, and their business model is simple: money comes in and penis-shaped gummy lollies go out. If you can think of a better, more tastily vindictive way to spend $15, then frankly we don’t want to hear it. According to their website, Dicks by Mail is a service for anyone wanting to inspire feelings of "sadness, disappointment and betrayal" in their enemies. Their helpful FAQ suggests a number of possible targets, including co-workers, ex-boyfriends, estranged parents and the Westboro Baptist Church. But really, the possibilities are endless. Each bag of 5oz dicks is accompanied by a note that reads "eat a bag of dicks," just in case the message wasn't already clear. They also recommend sending the dicks to a person's place of work, for maximum embarrassment. "You will remain anonymous and silently chuckle to yourself for years to come as you picture them slowly degrading into a shell of the person they once were," reads a maniacal declaration on Dicks by Mail’s homepage. "Their slow decent into madness will be much tastier than the bag of candy dicks you sent to them." What’s really amazing is that this isn’t even the first dick-sending service on the internet. Ship a Dick has been mailing out giant cardboard cocks for over a year now, although we probably wouldn’t recommend eating them. Now for the bad news: Dicks by Mail is currently only shipping to America and Canada. Still, if the website proves popular (and we have a sneaking suspicion it will) then hopefully they’ll think about expanding. Whether this website is a legitimate enterprise or turns out to be a slapdash moneymaking scheme like ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com remains to be seen. After being in business for about 24 hours, glitter-brain Mathew Carpenter website had made a cheeky five figures in less than a day, had a cheeky one million visits, 270,000 social media shares and sold over six figures in glitter within an hour. Then he sold it for US$85,000. Crafty bastard. Via Elite Daily.
Taking over Parramatta from October 11-14, Parramatta Lanes turns the suburb's many hidden spaces into festival sites, filled with live performances, music (you can get a taste of what's to come with this Spotify playlist, curated by The Plot), art shows, talks and — most importantly — a selection of Sydney's best gourmet eats. In between getting your cultural fixes, you'll be getting your mouth around deliciousness from all over the world, be it bowls of steaming laksa, flatbread sandwiches, traditional sweets from the Middle East or something called ice cream nachos. Over the four nights, there'll be ten food 'lanes', 30 vendors and countless dishes on offer. In short, there's a lot going on. Whether you live in the area or are planning on making the trip out there (Parramatta Station is only half an hour from Central, just FYI), here's your guide to some of the noms you can (and will) chow down on at the festival. Start planning now. EFENDY The Efendy crew, headed up by chef and owner Somer Sivrioglu, will be leaving their much-adored Balmain home to bring you a Turkish feast. Prepare for hummus with pomegranate and sujuk (spicy sausage), cha begendy (charcoal lamb cooked on a spit and served with eggplant puree) and keşkül, which is a Turkish pistachio and almond milk pudding. Where? Batman Walk — The Hidden Bazaar. SUNDWEESH Also bringing you delights from the Middle East will be Sundweesh. Founded by obsessive foodie Manar Barakat (who's been knocking about in the kitchen since she was a kid), this truck specialises in epic 'sundweeshes'. Named after the way Manar's dad pronounces 'sandwich', her version sees flatbread packed with mouthwatering combos, like kofta, tabouli and hummus, and peri peri chicken and slaw. There are veggie and vegan options, too. Where? Batman Walk — The Hidden Bazaar. KNAFEH Follow up your Middle Eastern main course with a traditional dessert from Jerusalem's streets, courtesy of the bearded bakers at Knafeh. You'll be sinking your teeth into hot, sweet cheese pastry, soaked in sugary syrup, baked and topped with pistachios. Where? Erby Place — The Oasis. ALEXANDER'S BAKERY Moving from Israel to Macedonia, Alexander's Bakery bakes traditional pastries from the Balkan country — and you'll definitely want to make a trip for these bad boys. Their burek are pretty famous (people have been known to travel from far and wide to their Rockdale bakery) and — lucky for us — they'll be setting up shop at Parramatta Lanes. Try a slice of their traditional ricotta cheese burek and slide into pastry heaven. Where? At St John's Cathedral — The Piazza. TEMASEK If it's hot, Asian spiciness you're craving, then swing by Temasek for a bowl of perfect, steaming laksa. You'll also see nasi goreng and beef rendang on the menu. You won't be disappointed with either of the three. Where? Willow Grove — The Spice Garden. THE EMPORIUM Parramatta's Tuscan-inspired wine bar and restaurant The Emporium will be showcasing its excellent regional Italian fare. Go for slow-cooked beef short rib with chimichurri and pickled zucchini roll or the perfect on-the-go snacking food: arancini. They serves theirs with tomato, basil, mozzarella, rocket and pesto. Where? Erby Place — The Oasis. BUTTER Butter will be skipping out of Surry Hills for the weekend, armed with a stack of fried chicken in shoeboxes. Line up for their epic chicken sandwich, a 3 Pac with slaw or, if you're a vego, the Biggie Shroom burger. For a side, grab a serve of laces (that is, shoestring fries with 'shitaki' spice). Where? Roxy Car Park — Slow Food, Fast Tunes. KOI If you can get through an evening at Parramatta Lanes without trying more than one dessert, then you have way too much willpower. Chippendale's Koi Dessert Bar will be hitting the festival with a selection of their impeccably good looking cakes, including mousses, slices and mini panna cotta jars. Where? Leigh Memorial Uniting Church — Sweets 'n' Beats. STROOP BROS Your next sweet stop is Stroop Bros. Run by cousins Alex and Troy, this hand-built cart delivers stroopwafel, a Dutch treat made up of two spicy waffle discs with chewy caramel sandwiches between them. It's baked on-the-spot, to order — and there are ice cream sandwiches too. Where? At Centenary Square — the Food Truck Food Court. PAPER STREET ICE CREAM At their Bateau Bay headquarters on the Central Coast, Paper Street Ice Cream pushes the boundaries of ice cream as we know it. On top of small-batch, home-made scoops with exotic flavours, like mango, lime and chilli jam, they'll be offering you ice cream cannoli and ice cream nachos. Where? Willow Grove — The Spice Garden. Parramatta Lanes will take place over four nights on October 11-14 from 5-10pm. For more information, visit parramattalanes.com.au.
For the last few months, Circular Quay has been the planning headquarters for a culinary culture smoosh. Now, the collaborating parties have decided to share the results. Popina Kitchen is a meeting of the minds behind Bondi's Middle Eastern cafe Shuk, and Salt Meats Cheese, Sydney's Italian empire that now has establishments all over Sydney. It opens today — Monday, December 5 — on level two of Circular Quay's new Gateway Dining precinct. The result is a Mediterranean and Middle Eastern restaurant looking to evoke the aesthetic of its namesake — that is, small bars wine bars popular within the ancient Roman Empire (not the Serbian village with a population of less than 500, incase you were confused). While it seems safe to assume that there will be less prostitution and gambling at this popina, there's every reason to believe the wine selection will be just as varied — if not moreso — as when Julius Caesar was having his internal organs julienned by senators. Popina Kitchen boasts a 180-bottle wine wall with a tripartite concentration on Italian, Argentinian and Australian labels. An extensive cocktail list makes use of key ingredients from the food menu and some enigmatic titles — The Italian Nod and Highlands of Aegea, for example — to broaden the experience of those looking to get a bit squiffy. Head Chef German Sanchez (who's also on the pans at Shuk) has created a menu that refuses to sit still geographically, leapfrogging between Italian, Argentinian, Turkish, Lebanese and Israeli dishes. The mezze menu skips from Argentinian beef empanadas to coconut labne with beetroot and balsamic, while the pizza spectrum stretches from capricciosa to green tahini and lamb kofta. Sirloin and snapper dominate the mains section — the former accompanied by escabeche veg and a soft-boiled egg, and the latter with borlotti beans and ceviche salsa. Meanwhile, dessert harbours offerings like the alfajor, a cookie sandwich with a filling of mousse and coconut ice cream that hails from Spain and Peru. We initially reported back in June that Popina would open as a rooftop bar. That's still happening, but the rooftop space won't open until 2017 due to licensing issues. But rooftop or no, there's still a litany of reasons to, ahem, pop in. Popina is now open at Level 2, Gateway Sydney, 1 Macquarie Place, Sydney. For more info, visit popinasydney.com. Images: Alana Dimou.
The Australian art industry's most talked about face for 2017 has been revealed, with the announcement of this year's Archibald Prize. This year's winner is Camden artist Mitch Cairns, who painted a stunning portrait of artist (and Cairns' partner) Agatha Gothe-Snape. He'll receive a cheeky cash prize $100,000 and bragging rights for life — and hey, when you've been shortlisted in the Archibald Prize four times already, you're already there. The subject of the portrait, Gothe-Snape is a celebrated artist in her own right, exhibiting at the 20th Biennale of Sydney and recently opening a solo exhibition at Tokyo's Mori Art Museum — a first for an Aussie artist. Her work constantly engages with the way the public engages with contemporary art, how we read it, understand it, and debate it. "In this painting, Agatha is both an active subject and a recalcitrant muse embracing and resisting simultaneously any idea of what it is to be fixed. Ultimately this is what is most attractive about Agatha. She embodies an uncompromising agency whilst having the grace to accept the ready complications inherent within our life as artists," says Cairns. "I composed this portrait with love in the full knowledge of its inevitable and palpable quake." Here's the work in full: South Australia's Betty Kuntiwa Pumani is the winner of the 2017 Wynne Prize with her striking ode to her mother country, and Joan Ross is the winner of the 2017 Sulman Prize for her mixed media work Oh history, you lied to me. See the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prize exhibition, including Mitch Cairns' winning work, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from July 29 to October 22. More info here.
Vivid LIVE is expanding this year with its Artist Talks Program (May 27 to June 13), which will see artists taking the stage for their Vivid show and also for a special Q&A. Artists like New Order, Anohni and Wafia will be chatting to audiences across multiple Opera House foyers, as well as in the Playhouse. The talks are designed to give audiences the ability to both hear artists perform and also reflect on their creative process. Perhaps the most highly anticipated talk, New Order in conversation with filmmaker/MFS label head Mark Reeder ($25+BF), is the only ticketed event, but will definitely be worth the bucks. The talk will focus on the years of Factory Records, Joy Division and Manchester. Veteran rock journo Paul Morley and former NME photographer Kevin Cummins will also delve into Manchester as part of The New Order Project. Festival headliner Anonhi will join collaborator and Australian artist Lynette Wallworth in the Playhouse to speak about our fragile connection to the natural world. Legendary experimental composer Max Richter will chat to Paul Morley (mentioned above), and Song Exploder see Hrishikesh Hirway unpacking Hiatus Kaiyote's Grammy-nominated songs in a live session with the band. MusicNSW will lead a panel on women in the Aussie electronic music scene — with Wafia and Flume/A$AP Rocky vocalist Kučka holding separate free sessions. FBi Radio's Chris Twite will chat to Polica about their work before their Vivid show, and Double J's Myf Warhurst is taking an integral part in this talk series. Having a hard time choosing? With most events completely free, you won't have to.
Maybe you're old enough that you can remember where you were when you heard the news of his death 21 years ago. Maybe you grew up only ever knowing of his loss and his legend. Either way, Nirvana fan or not, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck is essential viewing. This isn't your usual music documentary, or the standard package of talking heads, childhood photos and backstage pics — though they're all there in some shape and form. As the name suggests, this is a mosaic of his tumultuous life as it happened, drawn from the most intimate resources and largely spoken in his voice. Filmmaker Brett Morgen uses art, music, journals, home videos and audio montages provided by Cobain's family to journey, step by step, from the birth to the death of the rock icon. First he's a bright child, then a disaffected teen, a creative genius, a reluctant star, a drug-addicted celebrity and a doting father. What he rarely seems, though, is happy. Indeed, think of Montage of Heck less like a portrait of Cobain and more like his thoughts and emotions being allowed to roam free. Biographical information is included, but this is about who he really was, rather than interesting trivia. Things get dark, clearly; however, the fleshed-out image the film composes of the troubled musician is probably the most complex audiences have ever seen. Examinations of tortured artists rarely come across as quite so honest, or so genuine in peeking behind the veil of their public personas, or so willing to embrace the complications of their subjects. Morgen's style has much to do with the movie's air of authenticity, the writer, director and co-editor piecing everything together with a lived-in mood and a stitched-together look unlike the bulk of similar offerings. From animation that brings Cobain's drawings to life and scrawls his handwritten lyrics, lists and love letters onto the screen, to footage of his brand of wedded bliss with Courtney Love, to revealing chats with those who knew him best (Love, Cobain's parents and sister, his ex-girlfriend Tracey Marander and Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic), it never feels anything less than hand- and home-made. The wealth of content the feature has at its disposal is certainly astonishing, both in providing much more than a glimpse Cobain's most personal moments, and in allowing fans a few opportunities to really geek-out — such as spying his sketches for Nevermind's album cover and his suggestions for 'Smells Like Teen Spirit''s music video. That Montage of Heck is the first effort made with the support of his loved ones shows, though this is as far from a glossy tribute as you can get. It might be light on performances, but the film also has an amazing soundtrack, obviously — and the way Morgen weaves Nirvana's music into the mix is so well done, it causes goosebumps. That's the kind of reaction Montage of Heck inspires. By the time it makes it to the MTV Unplugged clips from what turned out to be one of the band's last major performances, expect your eyes to get misty. With so much said about Cobain for the past two decades, it feels fitting that a compilation of his own words actually says the most. Never basking in the cult of his fame, nor wallowing in his demise, this is Cobain being Cobain. It's not just a montage: it's a haunting, heartbreaking cinematic poem about a lost icon — and perhaps the finest music documentary of its generation.
On Friday, November 25 we were lucky enough to head along to a waterside mansion in Sydney's stunning Elizabeth Bay, to celebrate summer and drink Grey Goose cocktails among sweeping, magnificent views of the stunning harbour. Global ambassador Joe McCanta was there, mixing up classic Grey Goose cocktails like the Le Grand Fizz and the espresso martini. There was also a frozen version of the Le Grand Fizz — it was next-level refreshing in the breezy heat. At the party there was a French bakery-inspired entrance, international DJs, people rolling around in clear, blow-up balls, and many many blue umbrellas with people lounging around and enjoying the sun. Food was served, martini masterclasses were held and extraordinary, French Riviera-inspired experiences were had. And just as the world's artists have flocked to the Riviera for their dose of sun and inspiration, guests at Boulangerie Bleue — some of Australia's finest artists, designers, models, athletes, musicians and stylists — were all there to inspire, and be inspired. Take a look through our photos and experience the glamour for yourself. Dive into the luxury that your city has to offer — check out our Luxe Guide to Sydney and Melbourne. Food, spas, glamorous hotels and extraordinary experiences are waiting. Images: Steven Woodburn.
Visiting Vine Double Bay? Then prepare to say goodbye to the venue's French provincial farmhouse-themed entrance and hello to thriving new al fresco bar. That'd be The Garden, which takes over a space that has undergone a greenhouse-inspired makeover — complete with hedges, hanging plants, potted greens and a plant library, creating a light and breezy space perfect for spending a lazy, sunny afternoon. Vine's current executive chef Drew Bolton heads up the menu at the new hotspot, which opened on September 7. Expect his usual focus on fresh, natural, organic, farm-to-table produce in the new al fresco setting. Plus, for those keen on a tipple as well as something tasty, esteemed mixologist Jason Crawley has hand-crafted the drinks list. The co-founder of Simple Syrup Co was recently named number six on Bartender magazine's most influential countdown, and has come up with a range of options featuring fruity, aromatic gin and vodka-based cocktails, as well as classic beers, wines and spirits. The bar joins what's fast becoming Double Bay's busy restaurant and bar scene. In fact, nearby The Sheaf's own garden bar opened in June last year. Find The Garden at Vine Double Bay, 2 Short St, Double Bay. For more information, visit the restaurant's website.
If you don't mind cracking Harbour views with your workout, then set off on the Bradley Head to Chowder Bay Walk. This beauty starts at Taronga Zoo and follows the shoreline for four kilometres, winding up at Chowder Bay, where you can celebrate with a dip in a Harbour pool or a glass of wine at East Coast Lounge. Along the way, don't be surprised to find yourself sharing the path with Eastern water dragons. To extend your adventure, carry on to the Spit Bridge or, if you're going the other way, the Harbour Bridge.
Attention all lovers of the cold and the sweet: Good Times Artisan Ice Cream, Potts Point’s newest dessert parlour, is open and it’s like a Wonka factory for soft serve. The Good Times project is a joint effort between Nathan Sasi, the ex-head chef of Nomad, and wife Sali Sasi, founder of Poppy Renegade and director of brand partnerships at The Iconic. For the first stage of their tenure, they’ve be collaborating with dessert legend Christine Manfield who’ll be instore working her magic for the first week. Good Times aims to revolutionise the humble soft serve cone and do away with all associations of McDonalds, pig fat and the 50 cent price point. It’s been a relative quick journey from conception to opening (only about eight weeks) but the couple had a clear idea of what they wanted. Sali says they were inspired by the from-scratch culture happening at places like Butter and Burger Project but wanted to take it even further and have complete control over everything on the menu by crafting it all from scratch. Gluten and dairy intolerant people will be delighted to know they can grab a completely gluten-free waffle cone or dairy-free soft serve. “When you’ve got intolerances, whether it dairy or gluten, often you have to forgo ice cream or the cone. I can’t stand that!" says Sali. "Gluten intolerant people always miss out on cones. So we do make gluten-free waffle cones fresh daily in house.” The process of creating everything in house is a labourious one, but they’re all about the ice cream. “It’s a lot of hands on deck, a lot of man hours, but we believe that you don’t need to forgo quality to have something that’s quick and easy,” Sali says “I have no doubt there’ll be days we’ll run out of ice cream and will have to shut the doors early but it’s not about money or churning out cones, it’s about making really good ice cream,”. Courtesy of Christine, the menu is chock full of gourmet, bespoke ice cream sandwiches and soft serve with flirty and risqué titles. You’ll find the ‘Bite My Cherry’, ‘Rainbow Parade’ (a flavour made with the upcoming Mardi Gras in mind) and ‘Ziggy Stardust’ cones alongside the ‘Stoned Pony’ and ‘Lickalottapuss’ ice cream sandwiches (sass levels: 110 percent). They hope to collaborate with other chefs in the future to keep the menu fresh and fun but in the meantime, the cooking smells emanating onto the street have all the locals enchanted. “People literally come up to the door and ask us “What are you making?’ as they walk down the street," says Sali. And tonight from 6pm you can taste it for yourself. Good Times Artisan Ice Cream, Macleay St, Potts Point, open from 3pm daily.
The program for Good Food Month 2017 has landed, announcing a 31-day program to feature 180+ events this year. You can expect the return of some old favourites — like the ever-popular Night Noodle Markets — as well as some ambitious new initiatives. First up, Hyde Park will play host to an epic new festival hub, inspired by California's Palm Springs, dubbed 'Hyde Park Palms' and designed by Sydney design studio Caroline Beresford (The Cannery). The hub will host a bunch of talks, parties and feasts, starting on October 5 with an opening night party overseen by The Rockpool Group. Two days later, South African chef Duncan Welgemoed of South Australia's Africola will be swinging by for an evening of drinks, snacks and beats. Then, on October 8, Neil Perry and Marco Pierre White are taking over the hub kitchen to prepare a three-course dinner emceed by Jill Dupleix. And, if Mexican's your thing, grab a ticket for October 14, when Sydney's Dan Hong (Mr Wong) and Mitch Orr (ACME) will be joining forces to share street food they sampled on a recent trip to the country, as well as dishes inspired by Los Angeles and a Noma pop-up. Lazy Sunday brunches will be happening throughout Good Food Month — on October 8, 15 and 22 — with guests to include Matt Stone and Jo Barrett of Oakridge Wines. Finally, you can work off all your indulgences at Not Another Manic, a Lycra-clad workout/dance party with Retrosweat's Shannon Dooley planned for October 16 and 17. Also opening on October 5 are the aforementioned Night Noodle Markets. This year, look out for House of Crabs, Din Tai Fung, Chur Burger, Indu, Gelato Messina and Black Star Pastry, plus the usual mix of live music, DJs and dancers. Meanwhile, if you've been hankering after a meal at high-end restaurants like Aria and Catalina, but haven't been sufficiently cashed up, you'll be pleased to know that Let's Do Lunch is making a return. This event gives Good Food Month guests the chance to eat fancy-pants food at more-affordable-than-usual prices. On top of all that, there'll be an assortment of one-off happenings about the city. There's little info as yet, but expect a sushi and whiskey party at Sokyo, as well as a feast at Pilu at Freshwater transporting you to Positano, Praiano and Sorrento with matched wines. Good Food Month runs October 1-31 at various locations across Sydney. For more info, check out the website.
When it came to putting together a live action version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, director Jon Favreau must've found himself thinking about the bare necessities. We don't just mean the catchy song that helped make the major Disney version such an enduring hit, though the tune does feature again this time around. In trying to bring the story's wilderness setting and talking animals to life, the actor-turned-filmmaker had to consider which aspects were essential. Would it be killer special effects? An all-star voice cast? A fresh new talent to play the film's only human role? Capturing a sense of movie magic? Yes, no doubt they all crossed his mind as he prepared to tackle the tale of man-cub Mowgli (newcomer Neel Sethi), his jungle upbringing and the creatures — wise panther Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley), hypnotic snake Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), honey-loving bear Baloo (Bill Murray), giant primate King Louie (Christopher Walken) and fearsome tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) — he encounters. Indeed, the proof is in the enchanting end product, which blends both the book the animated film people know and love into a photo-realistic, live action package in the best way possible. So just how did the man that partied with Vince Vaughn in Swingers, kickstarted the current superhero cinema craze by directing Iron Man and made everyone crave Cuban sandwiches in Chef approach such an ambitious project? With Favreau in Australia recently to promote The Jungle Book, we took the opportunity to ask him about making talking animals look real, tracking down Bill Murray, getting advice from the kitchen and more. ON ADAPTING (AND PAYING TRIBUTE TO) SUCH A BELOVED STORY "I think you have to capture the spirit of the animated film, but if you're doing it in a photo-real way — which is what we set out to do — making it a G-rated kids movie probably wasn't going to work for us. So we felt that doing a PG-rated movie that skewed a little bit older and appealed more to adults as well as kids was not that big of a leap. We did try to include music and characters and tone, and cast it in a way that felt like it was related to the older film. And it's always tricky as a director when you're trying to balance tone. Because not only were we influenced by the '67 animated Disney film, but we're also influenced by the stories written by Rudyard Kipling that were quite a bit darker and scarier and more adventurous. So we tried to combine those things and pay homage to all the influences." ON CREATING A GRAND CINEMATIC ILLUSION "There was an opportunity here to do something really exciting and fresh and new that would surprise children and adults alike, because we're using technology that has never been used before. And people who see this are very hard-pressed to figure out what's been generated by computers and what's real. And there's very little real at all. It's very hard to wrap your head around it when you see it. I think nowadays, honestly, there's so much competition on television, on the internet, on cable. There's so much good programming and so much good content out there that if you want to ask people to go to the movie theatre and spend their money and sit with 3D glasses on, you'd better give them an experience that they can't get anywhere else. And that was the appeal here. It's like being a magician coming up with a magic trick. You really want to create a grand illusion. There's nothing like the big screen and 3D to do that. So there's a lot of techniques that I combined in a way that really hadn't been done before. I borrowed a lot of the technology from Avatar when it comes to motion capture, and building out the characters and the world. I also studied pretty closely how they did Gravity and how they put those live action characters into this computer-generated environment." ON CREATING 'REAL' ANIMALS (AND TAKING CUES FROM AN AUSTRALIAN TALKING PIG) "So much of the planning is so technical. But at the end of the day, after you plan how the magic trick is done and you figure out what elements you need to deliver to be able to convincingly fool the audience that they're looking at something real, then you have to wind it back and make sure you infuse it with character and emotion — and in some cases music — and make it feel effortless and invisible. Because the real reward here is that you show people a movie that's very tech-heavy, that's completely synthetic, but yet they feel like they're looking at real animals in a real jungle and feeling real emotion for real characters. And that's always tricky. Some movies do it well. Although here, over ten years ago, Babe did a great job with relatively low-tech effects. So it shows that if you have a good filmmaker and a good story, that does half your work for you." ON GETTING HIS DREAM CAST (AND GETTING HOLD OF BILL MURRAY) "This is a dream cast for me — I didn't think I would get them all. I didn't think I would even get access to Bill Murray, who is notoriously difficult to get a hold of. He doesn't have an agent so you can't get to him through the normal channels. So through writing letters and leaving messages and sending artwork I finally got a call back from him, and that was a one of the great victories in this process. I would've had to change the character [of Baloo] if it was someone else." ON HOW WORKING WITH CHEFS PREPARED HIM FOR THE JUNGLE BOOK "I think the best preparation was actually the training I did with the chefs [on Chef]. Because I had to learn how to cook and I worked with the chefs on the film, and they're very good at overseeing other chefs. A big part of their culture is you have a head chef but then there's other chefs who are also very talented and well-trained and want to present a vision. And part of being an executive chef is bringing together all of those talented people and having them work towards the same goal — and overseeing all the artists and overseeing the vision of all these technical people was a big part of The Jungle Book. Two thousand people worked on this movie. And sometimes one person is working on a shot and another person is working on another shot that are going to be right next to each other, but they don't really reference each other's work until it all lays into the film. I had to stand over the whole process and make sure it was all consistent and fits together in an invisible way. Chefs are very good at keeping consistency in their restaurants from dish to dish and from night to night, and watching how they oversaw and inspired and maintained quality control over the process was quite inspiring and informative for what I do as a director." The Jungle Book is currently screening in Australian cinemas. Read our full review.
It's easy to look at abstract art with an air of confusion, yet it is this initial reaction that strikes at the core of the discipline. The very soul of the principle of abstraction is to challenge a point of view, a way of thinking, or an entire mindset. Superposition of three types gathers brand new and specially commissioned works from 13 Australian artists who have spent their careers experimenting and pushing the boundaries of their craft. The exhibition focuses on challenging conceptions of colour and form in art by displaying works that use varying media to create new and unique ways of expressing dissent from traditionalist art. The exhibition takes place at Artspace, one of Sydney's leaders in contemporary art, from February to April, and will combine not only the colourist work by Sydney Ball, Rebecca Baumann, live-artist Huseyin Sami and a host of others, it will also incorporate audiovisual performances, including a choreographed experience from Shelley Lasica. Image: Brendan Van Hek, Colour Comp.
There's something brewing in Geelong, quite literally. The sleepy port city has been inundated in recent years with a plethora of world-class breweries, restaurants and wine bars and has quietly become Victoria's alternative foodie capital. White Rabbit Brewery and Barrel Hall is one such new neighbour. While they're new in town (they opened their doors late last year), they've quickly settled in and become a must-see stop on the unofficial Geelong food and beer tour. We took a stroll through the brewery with head brewer Jeremy Halse — who better to dish all the secrets on Geelong's beloved brewery than the man who cranks the cogs? STEP INSIDE Like all good things, you'll start your White Rabbit journey at the start. A dramatic entryway, piled high barrels and modern fermentation equipment parts to give you a glimpse of the length of the brewery. Jeremy says the entrance gives a taste of what's to come. "The way we designed the whole building is to take you on a journey, it's educational," he says. "It shows off the different facets of brewing that we do here, from the modern to the old school with the barrels." LOOK FAR AND WIDE Keep heading into the brewery and you'll come to a platform that gives you a view of the whole brewery and its inner workings. "As you walk through the brewery, you're following the brewing process. We've got a viewing platform where you can step into the production area and into an upper level – you can interact with the brewers when they're working, see steam coming out of vessels when we're mashing or boiling," Jeremy says. "It really opens up the whole process, we want to de-mystify brewing". A tip for all you home-brewers out there keen to see the professionals at work: during the week is when you'll see the most action. GET A LOAD OF THE OPEN FERMENTERS One of the most interesting elements of the White Rabbit brewery are the open fermenters. If you're not familiar with the ins and outs of beer making, open fermentation is an old school method. It's actually the old school method. At one point all beer was brewed using an open fermentation process and nowadays the White Rabbit brewers use their two open fermenters to experiment. From the viewing platform you can check out their rig, literally and you should — no brewery has anything like it in Australia. BARREL THROUGH THE BARREL HALL The Barrel Hall is both a namesake and highlight of the White Rabbit brewery. The rows and rows of barrels are currently fermenting White Rabbit's new barrel-aged red ale, a beer Jeremy has spent some time perfecting. "We always aimed make one beer at a time and make it really, really well. And that's always been in my head. That's why we've been very slow to release new beers, because we want to make the best, most balanced beers that we can," he says. "Unless we're loving it, we won't release it." GET IT FRESH FROM THE DINING HALL TAP By the time you reach the dining hall, you'll probably be fiending for a beer. In winter, a roaring wood fire will entice you into the rustic dining space and you should prepare for a long stay, nestled in the cosy hall. The White Rabbit menu echoes the beer itself — simple but beautifully balanced. We recommend a ploughman's board, piled high with Serrano, pickled veggies and sourdough or the beef bourguignon (with White Rabbit Dark Ale on the side). Jeremy's beer recommendation? "Our White Rabbit Jackalope is my go-to at the moment. We call it a whiskey sour as it's our sour wheat beer and we aged it in some ex-whiskey barrels. It picked up some of that whiskey character and turned out really beautifully." Find White Rabbit Brewery at 221 Swanston Street, South Geelong. Open Sunday to Thursday 11am – 5pm, Friday to Saturday 11am – 9pm.
The transformation of The Dolphin Hotel into one of Surry Hill's schmickest establishments is finally complete. First they kicked open the doors to their public bar, followed by the launch of their dining room. Now for the massive cherry on top: an intimate 50-seat wine room with its very own dedicated kitchen. Owner Maurice Terzini, of Iceberg's fame, has tapped Sommelier of the Year James Hird to take care of the Dolphin wine list, and take care of it he certainly has. Thirsty patrons will be able to choose from more than 35 wines by the glass and over 150 wines by the bottle. If you don't like wine, they also offer a selection of cocktails made with locally distilled spirits. Not sure why you've come to a wine room though. The kitchen will be headed by chef Sam Cheetham, who's created a menu full of dishes designed to compliment your drink. Think crispy sweetbreads with egg yolk sauce and guanciale, and savoy cabbage stuffed with rabbit, pork and truffle. On top of that, the wine room is also home to The Dolphin Salumeria, a salumi cabinet packed to the brim with mouth-watering cured meats by local suppliers like Continental Deli and LP's Quality Meats. The Dolphin Hotel Wine room will be open 5pm to midnight, seven nights a week. It can also be booked for private functions outside of regular opening hours. Find The Dolphin Hotel at 412 Crown Street, Surry Hills. For more information visit www.dolphinhotel.com.au. Photos by Jason Loucas.
Underbelly Arts is in its tenth year, and what better way to celebrate than with a new festival director, 21 brand spanking new commissioned artist projects and a new home at the National Art School? If you're a first-timer, this is how it works. First up: the Arts Lab. Artists spend a two-week residency working on what will become their exhibited festival work(s). You can visit the Lab for a behind-the-scenes glimpse into their progress (6pm tours will run Tuesdays to Thursdays from September 25 – October 6). The lab fosters collaboration between the artists and simultaneously opens up the artistic process to the public. Next is the festival (October 7 – 8), where all is revealed — and you get to spend blissful hours wandering around incredible contemporary, experimental art and having the occasional snack. So what's in store this year? A lot. Festival director Roslyn Helper is using a music festival format to curate projects bursting with creativity and ambition, embracing everything from installation, dance, visual art, radical opera, dance, sound, internet art, activist and interactive theatre. The vibe is all about creating an immediate, impactful connection between artists and their audience. Apparently, the majority of this year's artists are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. "The artists are squeezing the stories of their multi-geographical, multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-historical, multi-gendered upbringings," says Helper. "I am honoured and excited to share them with you at Underbelly Arts 2017." Tickets are now on sale, with general admission getting you access to both the festival and all Lab events. UNDERBELLY ARTS 2017 DATES: Arts Lab — September 25 – October 6 Opening night party — October 6 Festival — October 7–8 Images: Tom Jones, Gabriel Clark, Christine Francis.
Summer is coming to Chippendale's Old Clare Hotel. The recently revamped luxury lodgings opened for business a few months back, wowing us with their stylish interior and food offerings so good they border on offensive. To be honest, we didn't really need another reason to want to pay them a visit. But then who are we to say no to a high altitude pool and bar? Officially open as of Friday, November 20, The Old Clare Rooftop Pool and Bar is located on the fourth floor of the boutique hotel, which occupies the site that formerly housed the Carlton United Brewery Administrative Building. Visitors will be able to enjoy killer views of the city while lounging around on deckchairs in the sun, before cooling off with a dip in the proverbial drink. As for literal drinks, you can expect summer cocktails a plenty courtesy of Matt Fairhurst, who is also the beverage manager at the yet-to-be-opened Kensington Street Social downstairs. The Miami Vice, for example, is part pina colada, part frozen strawberry daiquiri, and seems like basically the most perfect poolside beverage that anyone could possibly imagine. They'll also have beers, ciders, spirits and gin & tonics with a twist, as well as fresh juice and non-alcoholic spritzers. Get a preview of the rooftop #Clarepoolbar at the Clare bottle shop this Sat 14th and Sun 15th Nov from 3-7pm. Expect tastes of the outrageous Miami Vice frozen cocktail, Strawberry Daiquiri layered with Pina Colada. Bring down the heat with chilled Murray's Fred beers and live music from Cory Jackson. P.S. Chances to win bar tabs for the Rooftop Pool and Bar opening (next) weekend for the best guests. -- #TheOldClareHotel #Clarebottleshop #unlistedcollection A photo posted by The Old Clare Hotel (@theoldclare) on Nov 10, 2015 at 10:06pm PST The Old Clare will also use the rooftop space for group fitness sessions that will be open to both hotel guests and the general public. Classes will include yoga, cardio boxing, circuit and personal training. The Old Clare Hotel can be found at 1 Kensington Street, Chippendale. The poolside bar will be open from 3pm Wednesday through Friday, and from 11am on weekends. Images: Nikki To.
Like many a great singer-songwriter before her (cue Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits), Kate Tempest began as a dealer in words. In 2013, she became the first ever person under 40 to win the Ted Hughes Award for innovation in poetry. In 2014, she attracted a Mercury Prize nomination for her hip hop-driven debut album, Everybody Down. Now she's published a novel. Billy Bragg loves her. Chuck D is a fan. Check out her fresh, authentic freestyling for yourself. Kate Tempest plays the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent on January 21 at 7.30pm and January 22 at 11.45pm. This is just one of our ten picks for Sydney Festival's best gigs. Check out the whole list.
Phil Ferguson, aka Chili Philly, is a Melbourne-based artist proving that crochet is not just for nannas. Creating wearable crochet art in the form of just about anything — from burgers to beer bottles, goon sacks to pea pods, tea bags to sushi rolls — Ferguson has become an Instagram wunderkind, clocking up a casual 140,000 followers to @chiliphilly in a flash. Ferguson's cheeky craftwork is now the subject of a new exhibition at Australian Design Centre, titled Crochet Social. It's his first major solo exhibition and features his crochet art alongside the quirky and slightly awkward self-portraits that have gained him so much popularity on social media. As part of the exhibition, ADC is also presenting a series of events and workshops to incite audiences to jump aboard the crochet bandwagon. There's a 'Cocktails and Crochet' night, a makers market, talks and panel discussions. Images courtesy the artist. Installation images by Simon Cardwell.
Redfern is getting its very own cellar door courtesy of the team at contemporary winery Cake Wines. Located in a renovated warehouse on Eveleigh Street, this inner-city venture from Cake Wines founders Glen Cassidy, Sarah Burvill and Mike Smith will host tastings, workshops and a number of other cultural events all built around the love of a good glass of wine. Opening Thursday, March 10, the cellar door will, according to the Cake Wines team, "be an absolute representation of everything we're about, bringing people together to enjoy great wine in a relaxed and unintimidating environment". Aside from the cellar door at Nomad, it looks to be the only one located in the confines of the inner-city. There are plans to run casual wine education classes, tasting, talks, low-key Thursdays, Friday dance parties and Saturday afternoon gigs, as well as various other events, with the view to incorporate other ideas across a number of different disciplines. They've already partnered with March's Art Month, and you can expect more collaborations with major cultural festivals, including Vivid in May. Visitors will be able to sample Cake Wines' 2014 and 2015 wines by the glass or the bottle, along with a number of other local small-batch wines. They'll also have a range of locally-made beers, ciders and spirits, along with a selection of meats and cheeses. The Cake Wines Cellar door opens Thursday, March 10 at 16 Eveleigh Street, Redfern. For more information visit cakewines.com/cellardoor.
Started making those Christmas pressie lists yet? If it seems like a hectic task, remember where you live, y'lucky thing. All throughout December, you can head to one of Sydney’s many village centres, grab a coffee from your favourite barista and mosey around a bunch of local independent shops, scoping out beautiful, handmade and bespoke presents. Whether your local hangout is Paddo or Pyrmont, Glebe or Green Square, you’ll discover all sorts of unique, interesting treasures. In Paddo, for example, there are books galore at Ariel and Berkelouw, gorgeous millinery at Neil Grigg and Hatmaker, and items dreamt up by Australian designers at The Intersection — think Ellery, Josh Goot and Rachel Gilbert. Meanwhile, head to Glebe for a rummage at the Saturday morning markets, to Sappho for books (and a glass of vino shopping break!) and artwork at the Glass Artists’ Gallery or the Inner City Clayworkers Gallery. While you’re at it, you’ll have a chance to win a $2000 shopping voucher. The City of Sydney is running its annual Best Window Competition again, all you have to do is photograph the best-dressed shop window you see on your travels and post it on Instagram, using the tags #sydxmas and #bestwindow. A judging panel, made up of Megan Morton, Jules Sebastian and a City of Sydney Business Precincts rep, will decide the winning photo, the criteria being creativity, photography quality and authenticity. Meanwhile, the business with the best window will score a $2500 voucher courtesy of Red Balloon. Entries close at midnight on Tuesday 22 December, so get shopping.
Bloody Melbourne. They're having a great time right now, cuddling up to kitties while they sip their precious cat-flanked cappuccinos at Australia's first cat cafe. Yeah, enjoy it while it's exclusive y'lucky feline-surrounded jerks. Because an official campaign to bring yet another Sydney cat cafe (the first, Catmosphere, has apparently been funded) to fruition is under way and guess what? There's an adorable-beyond-all-reason pop-up kitten cafe coming to Paddington to mark the occasion. We'll say it again, just in case you closed your eyes for maximum squealidge. There's going to be a pop-up kitten cafe in Paddington. In association with Maggie's Rescue, Sydney Cat Cafe is hosting a pop-up cafe from May 14-17 at William Street Gallery. Sydneysiders can book cuddle sessions with fluffy little kittens handpicked by the Maggie's Rescue team, with the opportunity to pledge funds towards turning the Sydney Cat Cafe concept into a permanent fixture. Only 15 people can clamber into the pop-up at a time, booked on a half-hourly basis for $5 per person. And no little ones, for safety and tail-pulling reasons, this pop-up is restricted to cat lovers above the age of 8. While you're there, snuggling and nuzzling your new whiskered BFF, you can also think about pledging funds to towards the Sydney Cat Cafe Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign; hoping to raise $15,000 to cover part of the seed funds needed to realise the café. Alright, alright, donating, donating, how do we pat the kitties? Enquire after availability by emailing info@sydneycatcafe.com.au — and spots are already filling up, so get on it. KITTIES. The Sydney Cat Cafe and Maggie's Rescue pop-up kitten cafe is open at William St Gallery, 14 William Street, Paddington, running May 14 -17. The cafe is open 9am to 7pm Monday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm on Sunday. Image: Dollar Photo Club.
Woolloomooloo's fine dining seafood restaurant, Manta, is joined this month by a new pop-up aperitivo wine bar. MOLO at Manta will open at the wharf on April 28 and is all about simple, sophisticated Italian fare and authentic liquors that bring the best of the Italian coast to the Australian seaside. The man behind the curtain at MOLO is Riccardo Bernabei — who, in addition to his 35 years in the industry, gets his love of all things Italian from his nonna. A grandmother's home cooking is a strong premise for a menu and we're already loving the incredibly creamy look of that buffalo burrata topped with caviar, which will be a signature dish. Along with the burrata, MOLO will serve a seasonal menu of share plates, along with digestives, bitters, grappas and wines from lesser known vineyard regions like Sicily, Sardinia and Basilicata. Manta's executive chef Daniel Hughes and head chef Steve Hetherington have collaborated closely on the menu, which is written in both Italian and English. While the full menu is still being finalised, patrons can expect dishes like handmade fettuccine with pine mushrooms, gremolata finished rainbow trout and whole fried whitebait served with sardine vinegar. Keeping with the 'genuine' Italian dining experience, guests' first drink will be accompanied by a specifically matched cicchetti, the Italian version of the French amuse bouche or palate cleansing small bite. Many of MOLO's dishes also focus on four ingredients or less, an homage to the Italian mantra of showcasing the freshest produce. A majority of these ingredients will be sourced directly from Italy, with Italian artisans in Sydney also producing items specially for MOLO, including freshly baked bread that will be delivered twice daily. MOLO at Manta will open on Friday, April 28 at 6 Cowper Wharf Roadway, Woolloomooloo. Open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday, 11am to 11pm.
When I first signed up for a day of whitewater rafting on Tropical North Queensland's Tully River I was pumped. I can't say it had ever been on my bucket list, but as a new resident of North Queensland I was keen to do anything that meant I got to explore the deep north – so I couldn't turn down this RedBalloon experience. My alarm on the morning of the adventure went off at 5.15am, and my dreams of being flung out the raft and thrown into white water came to an end. Mild panic had begun to settle in. By the time I arrived at the meeting point in Cairns where our tour bus was waiting to drive us to the riverside destination, I was scheming ways to get out of it. We travelled down the Bruce Highway past sugar cane fields, banana plantations and cloud-covered coastal mountains. About an hour later, the road started getting narrower, the surrounding vegetation more lush, and glimpses of the river opened up to full views. We got off the bus and our guide Gregor helped with my helmet and life jacket, then I grabbed a paddle and headed down the path with five strangers towards our raft. As we paddled towards our first lot of rapids I tried to recall the instructions on what to do. I realised that upon entering the raft, I'd been way too focused on wedging my foot in between the seats to ensure I was attached no matter what and forgot to listen. As the menacing whitewater looked like it was about to engulf us I didn't know whether to squeeze my eyes shut or hold on tight, or both. Neither of the options included helping to paddle. [caption id="attachment_593255" align="alignnone" width="1280"] This is me terrified and holding on to the rope.[/caption] Then Gregor's clear, calm voice came from the back of the raft, "Okay guys, this is how today will work," he said. "Listen to me and you'll be fine. I promise to give really simple instructions. We're going to have heaps of fun getting to know this river." I wasn't 100 per cent convinced but I did listen to him. My life was in his hands. "Okay guys, here we go! Paddle forward, forward, forward aaaand relax. Now back paddle, back, back, back aaaand relax." I did relax. Honestly. As soon as we'd cleared the first lot of rapids I knew I was in safe hands with a pro river guide and a bunch of people who were a mix of fairly experienced thrill-seekers and newbie thrill-seekers like me. Gregor maneuvered the raft through the first lot of rapids expertly. With names like 'Double D Cup', I couldn't help but giggle (nervously) as we approached them and then scream/laugh as we rode through them. Gregor informed us they were the trickiest set we'd encounter. I didn't want to ask if he meant before lunch or throughout the whole day, so I kept my mouth shut and rejoiced with the rest of my team that we'd aced it. As we floated into calmer waters we got out of the raft for a swim, letting the cool, crystal-clear waters take us past springs and falls while the magnificent rainforest growth of the gorge towered overhead. Ulysses butterflies flying above us came along for the ride too. After a refreshing shower under Pony Tail Falls we hopped on to dry land for a barbecue lunch in the middle of the rainforest before setting off to tackle the rest of the rapids. This time around, it was panic-free. By the end of the day I was jumping off a 5-metre-tall rock formation. As I bobbed up to the surface, I was chuffed with myself for being a bit of a daredevil. I knew I would've regretted not giving the jump a go, which sums up how I felt about the whole day. From the first "aaaand relax" from Gregor, my worries seemed silly. Photos from the day show that I was holding on to the safety ropes a lot, which made my team mates ask whether I'd actually done any paddling. But I did. I promise. Book your white water rafting adventure (or gift it to someone else) at RedBalloon. Images: RedBalloon.
One of Australia's most redeeming qualities is its ability to give good afternoon sun. There's something about its familiar glow that almost demands casual drinks – whether it's cracking open a cold beer after a day out, heading to the pub after a long day of work, or deciding on a whim that your backyard is perfect for having friends over. We love summer afternoons, and we've partnered with Heineken 3 so you can get the most out of them. We've spoken to a few of our favourite chefs, musicians and artists to get their insights on creating the perfect balmy afternoon. Having colourful paper backyard decorations may not be essential, but it's sure to take your casual backyard gathering to the next level. We asked the incredible paper engineer Benja Harney to help us out with some tutorials for easy backyard decorations. The first is a burger piñata, the second is a lantern covered in colourful streamers, the third is a string of sandwich bag bunting. Harney has done some incredible work in the past, so these simple projects are maybe a bit of an insult to his skills. He's worked on window installations for Hermès, he's made paper versions of Adidas shoes, and makes paper vegetables, grass and furniture for clients on the regular. His studio space is Surry Hills is filled to the brim with coloured paper and intricate paper sculptures. Not only is he good at his job, he's also really good at teaching. Follow the instructions below and make your backyard a little more fancy (and fun) the next time you have people over for a Heineken 3. BURGER PINATA When was the last time you whacked a piñata? It's fun, and even more fun when your piñata is shaped like a novelty version of your favourite food. This one is a little more tricky, so Benja has kindly drawn up some templates of the shapes you'll need to cut out to make your burger ingredients out of coloured cardboard. Print off the PDF in A3 and trace. Easy. You'll need: Thin cardboard (in the colours of your burger ingredients, and A3 size), thin corrugated cardboard, tape, scissors, glue, lollies, string. Method: Cut out your coloured cardboard into the shape of lettuce, tomato, burger bun and any other ingredients you want to pop in your burger. Use four strips of corrugated cardboard (about 15cm wide) and tape to make a square frame. Place a large piece of corrugated cardboard over the top, so it resembles a shallow open box. Glue your pieces of coloured cardboard to the box — it should now look like a burger. Flip the box over and fill it with lollies. Then, cover the box with a piece of thinner cardboard and tape it together. If you want to make it a little easier on your guests, you could glue this piece down instead of taping it, so it comes apart easier when you start to smash. Pop a piece of string onto the top and hang. SANDWICH BAG BUNTING This brown paper bag bunting is the easiest backyard decoration you'll ever make. Who knew that some scissors and string could turn the humble sandwich bag into a classy decoration for your backyard? You'll need: PVA glue, scissors, string, brown paper sandwich bags. Method: Grab yourself some brown paper sandwich bags from your local supermarket (they'll set you back a maximum of $2 — cheapest project you'll ever do). Cut each bag into a triangle shape like the one above, making sure that the 'seam' of the bag isn't at the triangle's point. Place a long piece of string inside the fold and glue it there. Repeat, repeat and repeat until your bunting has reached the length you want it to be. A LANTERN OF STREAMERS This is a simple way to spice up those cheap paper lanterns most people have in their backyards. It's colourful, looks like a jellyfish and blows in the wind. Make multiples and hang them in a row for maximum effect. You'll need: A cheap lantern from a discount store, string to hang it up, glue, scissors, three colours of streamers. Method: Cut the three colours of your streamers into pieces, all different lengths. Glue the top of each piece of streamer around the lantern in layers, starting from the bottom and repeating until the whole lantern is covered. Enjoy your summer afternoons with the new low-carb Heineken 3 — we're helping you make the most of them. Images: Kimberley Low.
It was a sad, sad day when The Vanguard closed its doors and left a collective hole in the hearts of music-loving Sydneysiders. Luckily, we haven't had to wait long for the space to be brought back to life. The venue has reopened as Leadbelly, a new bar and restaurant that offers live gigs Thursday through Sunday — for free. Live music junkies Luke O'Donohoe and Zac Davis — who are also the co-owners of Tipple Bar & Bistro in Surry Hills — are the new owners of the Newtown venue, and jumped at the chance to open their second venue in the iconic King Street space. "We want to keep the legacy of Vanguard alive," O'Donohoe told us in June. "They've done so much with the local music scene over the years." Their love of music runs deep, which is obvious from the venue's nomenclature. Named after the notorious musician Lead Belly who, as well as being the grandfather of blues guitar in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, was also a convicted murderer. Go figure. "The actual venue will pay homage to music itself," said O'Donohoe. "We don't think there's enough free live music in the city and it will be a point of difference for us." The venue hopes to pull in enough on the bar and restaurant side of things to keep the free acts coming. On the libations front, bar manager and 'Olympic' bartender Ben McFarlane (who's worked in various venues for both Merivale and the Urban Purveyor Group) is heading up the seasonal cocktail list, while the food has a bit of Southern U.S. flare. Think Louisiana-style po' boys and in-house smoked brisket. They're also slinging pizzas from their very own oven. As new residents of Newtown, their local ties will also extend to the prevalent craft beer scene — but not just with the usual suspects Young Henrys and Wayward. The bar will have its very own Leadbelly Lager, specially made for the venue. Yup, this place will fit right in. Leadbelly is now open every day except Monday from 4pm at 42 King Street, Newtown. For more info, go to theleadbelly.com.au.
Nightcrawler glides through the streets of Los Angeles, following the efforts of a young man doing whatever he can to make a living. Trying to survive and thrive, Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) warms to a career as a freelance cameraman. He stalks the Los Angeles streets by night to find and film humanity at its worst, all for television news consumption — and maybe gets a little too good at his new profession. Nightcrawler also brings two familiar creative forces together, but in a new fashion. For writer/director Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler marks his first helming effort after more than two decades writing screenplays for the likes of The Bourne Legacy, Two for the Money, The Fall, and Real Steel, among others. For star Jake Gyllenhaal, his leading man looks are whittled down to a lean, mean figure of determination and desperation. Their combination results in what's widely regarded as one of the best films of the year — and certain highlights of both of their careers. We chat to Gilroy about collaborating with Gyllenhaal, creating such a distinctive character, and telling this dark, cynical and twisted tale of modern life. How did Jake Gyllenhaal come to be involved in the film as an actor and a producer? Jake's agent read the script. Jake responded to the script. I flew to Atlanta when he was doing Prisoners. We had a four-hour dinner, and we had just an instant creative spark. If I was going to distil it down, Jake very much wanted to rehearse and be a collaborator, and I very much wanted to collaborate with Jake. He never changed a word of the script, but what we did do is, we rehearsed for months before we started to shoot. We would discuss the script, the scenes, the character. We would then start to rehearse the scenes themselves, trying them different ways — "what if the character was this? What if the character was that?" And was Jake's physical transformation part of that? During the process, Jake came up with a number of very crucial components. One was that it was his idea to lose the weight. He was thinking about a coyote, which you see at night in Los Angeles. They're very hungry and lean looking creatures, and Jake used that as a sort of symbol animal for himself. So it was Jake's idea to lose like 26, 27 pounds, and it utterly transformed him. It was a very bold decision. Very difficult to keep that weight off, and it changed him physically, but it also gave him a tremendous odd energy in the film. I feel like he just wants to consume everything around him — and it's not just food. I feel like he wants to consume ideas and people and anything he can get his hands on. It is a very scary energy that it adds to the character, and to the movie. It was Jake's idea to put his hair up in a bun any time he does something larcenous. These are the small things. Jake and I worked as creative collaborators on this film in every way. Let's talk about Lou Bloom. He's such a distinctive character. Where did Lou Bloom as a creation come from? I have tremendous empathy for tens of millions of young people around the world who are looking for work, and being offered internships and wages that you can't sustain yourself on. So I was very interested in a younger man who was desperate for work. That was the doorway that I came through for the character, which is why at the beginning of the film, he is truly desperate for work. I took that desperation and started to play around with it, and use it as an inner force that has driven this character over the bend in terms of what he was willing to do and not to. And that was pathway to lead me into the character. Looking at the film more broadly, what inspired the story? There's many components — the media, at face value, as well as questions of ethics and the complicit nature of the audience in consuming news stories, and also the current state of the American economy, trying to chase the American dream... Well, the story on its largest level, I wanted to do an entertaining, engaging story, so obviously there's suspense and there's uncertainty and there's drama. So all those things I knew were going to be the things that were at the top of my list when crafting the story. As I started getting into the story, it started to become personal on the level that you just talked about. Which is, I feel that the world I am seeing right now, that I am living in right now in Los Angeles, and I guess the United States, and probably globally in some degree, is one where everything has been reduced to transactions. It seems like the bottom line is driving everything, that capitalism — and I'm not advocating any other system other than capitalism, because I don't know if there is anything better — but capitalism seems to be becoming hyper-capitalism, and it is forcing people to do things in the workplace that I don't think is healthy and I don't think they would normally be inclined to do if they weren't being forced to do it. I saw in Jake's character the opportunity to create an employer who has started a business and very much embodies that principle — that because of the landscape and the lack of work for people, he can pretty much get people to do whatever he wants to each other. The film is set in Los Angeles, showing a side of LA we don't often see. How did the location shape the film? Could it have been set and made anywhere else? Well, the location shaped the film in the sense that Robert Elswit, the cinematographer and I, were trying to show the Los Angeles you don't normally see. Los Angeles is usually a very urban environment with cement and buildings. Los Angeles for me is a place with much more of a wild, untamed energy. It is place of mountains, ocean and desert. So we were looking for locations where civilisations met a national park, as in literally. Or we were up on top of a hill looking down, on top of almost a mountain, looking down where you could see forever. We were trying to show a large, sprawling landscape that was physically beautiful — that really was as untouched by man as it tamed by man. And that the character of Lou is like a coyote moving through this nighttime environment of this wilderness. The sense of tension is unrelenting — not just in the action scenes, with cars racing along the street, but in all of Lou's conversations. How did you maintain that sense of pressure throughout? The pressure, in many ways, came from the script. The script is designed that way. He is an unsettling character. He is a character who has all these touchstone qualities of humanity — he wants a job, he wants a relationship. He is earnest, he is polite, he is respectful. But at the same time, he is utterly unhinged, and because we shot so close to him, and we would always keep him in frame, and because the score was always going counterpoint, I think the tension is an inner tension of "why am I so emotionally involved in this character?" Or "why are they making me pay attention for this guy? Why am I rooting for him at times when I know I shouldn't be rooting for him?" And I think there's a subconscious energy that starts to build up, a disquieting energy of tension. Questions of "where is it going?" and "why do I like him?", which was as much a design of the script as anything. Given that Nightcrawler falls into a number of genres, were there films that inspired you in writing and making it? The films that inspired me more weren't so much journalism films, but films where the hero was also the antihero. Where you could take a character who was your hero and your villain at the same time. One of them was Scorsese's The King of Comedy. And another one is actually Nicole Kidman in To Die For. I loved that film, and I thought she did a great job. I love the idea that she is so perky and personable, and she is a complete murderer. But at the same time, she is your hero — she is your hero and your villain. That was very illuminating when I saw that film. That film was in my mind. Nightcrawler opened in cinemas on November 27. Read our full review.
You might not have heard of Minor Figures, Australia's new cold brew-on-the-go coffee popper distributors, but you will soon. The coffee wizards, comprised of Jonathan Chiu, Stuart Forsyth and Will Rixon, have had a massive year since setting up their own microbrewery in London in August of 2014. After taking out the 'Most Innovative Product' award at the London Coffee Festival, they found their particular brand of ethically-sourced, ready-to-drink, long-life cold coffee on the shelves of Whole Foods, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols. Now they’ve conquered the north, their sights have been turned to us here in the Southern hemisphere. Jonathan and Stuart are both Melburnians at heart and when they collectively decidedly to bring their on-the-go cold brew to Australia, Jonathan packed up and came with it. Attempting to offer an alternative to the coffee powder-made, factory-produced iced coffees dominating the Australian market, Minor Figures has just launched two cold brews: a straight black version and one with organic milk. We had a chat to him about what it's like to move halfway around the world for the love of good coffee. So Jonathan, what made you come back to Australia after such a long sabbatical? I’ve been over in London for eight years. We started the Minor Figures business in August last year and one thing we realised pretty quickly was that it’s a summer drink and we were going straight into winter and we wanted to be able to sell all year round. Stuart Forsyth, one of the co-founders, and I are both from Melbourne, so we thought it seemed like the logical market to open a second office. From #bellsbeach to #bournemouth. #coldbrew #beach #esky #surf #takeanywhere #specialtycoffee A photo posted by Minor Figures (@minorfigures) on Oct 8, 2015 at 10:09pm PDT So the idea is specialty coffee in a stay-fresh popper. How exactly do you make it? Ours is a cold brew, we use an immersion method. We put our coffee straight into a tank, we control the oxygen and temperature of the tank and brew it for around 18 hours, using cold filtered water, and then we filter it out, catch all the coffee grounds and make sure it’s super clean. Can you walk us through why we should trade in our flat whites for cold brew? What happens when you brew in cold water over a long period of time, it reduces the acidity and bitterness of the drink and it leaves a naturally sweeter, clean coffee. It’s different from, say, if you had hot coffee that’s gone cold, that would be bitter, thicker almost, whereas this is cleaner, lighter and it’s a great alternative to a hot milky coffee on a hot day. It's just water and coffee, so you can’t hide behind anything — it has to be really high quality. Who brought the #ducks to the #swan party? #InDisguise #coldbrew #coffee A photo posted by Minor Figures (@minorfigures) on Apr 25, 2015 at 4:25am PDT What’s your aim with Minor Figures? What’s in the future for the brand? The future for us is to be the ones who make cold brew coffee more mainstream accessible so that more and more people drink good quality coffee, rather than the rubbish iced coffees that are out there. This is in a Tetrapak so you just stick a straw in and you’ve got real, specialty, single origin coffee ready to go whenever you want. We want it to be for everyone, not just the cool kids in the know who’ve got the disposable cash to buy it. It’s not about being just for the cool kids. I was out sampling at Narre Warren a couple of weeks ago and I was happiest to see the mums of Narre Warren buying it to go on their caravan holidays, rather than the cool kids in Collingwood. Find a Minor Figures cold brew coffee distributor here and get gulping the good stuff. Images: Simon Shiff.
Over the span of the universe, ten years is the blink of an eye. In a human lifetime, a decade can zip by unnoticed. In the realm of public works (a realm so dense that all previous laws governing time and space break down around it) ten years is, in practice, a millisecond. Projects can drag on for eternity before we see a single blade of grass (hell, in six seasons of Parks and Rec they only managed to fund one weeny little park). So you can understand why people may secretly believe Leslie Koch, president and CEO of The Trust of Governors Island in New York City, to be some kind of time-travelling magician. Since her instatement in 2006, she's worked with city government and private sector alike to transform a flat, derelict military island off Manhattan into a thriving public space with nearly half a million visitors each summer. Under Leslie's guidance, the first phase of the master plan, including 12 hectares of parkland, was opened to the public in May 2014. The second phase (named The Hills for the rolling Teletubbyland-esque vista and 360 degree panoramic views of New York City) is slated to open in July, a year ahead of schedule. And the next phase for Governors Island is even more ambitious: a 13.4 hectare innovation incubator and public campus to service the growing startup culture in New York. Leslie's flying in to Sydney to appear as one of the keynote speakers for REMIX Sydney 2016, so we found a tiny window in Leslie's obviously jam-packed schedule to sit down and talk big. [caption id="attachment_572737" align="alignnone" width="1280"] The Hills, Governors Island.[/caption] THE PESKY PROBLEM OF HAVING MORE IDEAS THAN EMPLOYEES Revamping Governors Island as a startup haven is a superhuman feat in itself, but let's backtrack for a moment. America is in a bind: the age of manufacturing has passed and technological innovation is now the hot economic commodity to sink graduates into. Tech startups are bread-and-butter for the emerging generation of computer scientists. However, there's a gaping crevasse between practice and education theory. The tech industry waits for no one, particularly not one who spends four years and a small fortune on a tertiary education only to emerge and find the skills they've learned are not the skills employers want — nor, often, are they even relevant anymore. "I was meeting with a very successful serial entrepreneur the other day and he said, 'Look we actually can't hire enough people for the ideas that we have'," Leslie Koch muses "There's no shortage of ideas, there's a shortage of people." The solution, she believes, begins with physically merging private sector components into the education model, eliminating the lag between industry practice and educational canon. It's an inevitable direction, considering our career path structure is changing — everyone's a freelancer, untethered by company loyalty, each in possession of a long resume dotted with short tenures. If you want to stay employable in a competitive marketplace rocked to and fro by the all-powerful internet and all her resplendent memes, you've got to freshen up your skills every now and then. ON BUILDING THE SILICON VALLEY OF THE EAST COAST Governors Island represents more than a green lung to New York City's concrete playground. In its second phase it will become an incubator for innovation, the Silicon Valley of the east coast and, as Jack Donaghy would say, 'innoventually' develop a solution to the human capital crisis in the tech industry in NYC. But just what is so magical about Silicon Valley that's worth mimicking? Does innovation bubble up from the very ground water? General consensus is the Valley works for two reasons. First, early in the game, big companies collaborated with educational institutions (to mould their chickens before they hatched). Second, a close physical proximity, as well as a focus on innovation, encouraged knowledge convergence and cross-fertilisation between tech startups. The underlying lesson here? Physical space organisation is incredibly important for knowledge sharing (there's a reason why open-plan offices are everywhere, and it's not just to keep you off Facebook during work hours). ON CREATING AN 'INNOVATION INCUBATOR' ON THE ISLAND The next stage for Governors Island is to build an 'innovation incubator'. It may sound like jargon, but the articulation of an 'incubator' draws on those ideas that people, and young startups in particular, hugely benefit when they physically share space with their contemporaries. "[A technology incubator] gives companies flexibility in leasing and acts as a social space, a cross-fertilisation space, that you wouldn't have in a conventional 'I'm going to rent my office, hire my people and I'm never going to interact with the other companies in my building' model," says Leslie. The needs of early stage technology startups go beyond infrastructure and financial support — expertise and knowledge must be shared freely to the benefit of all. WHY NEW YORK CITY GENERATES A DIFFERENT KIND OF STARTUP TO CALIFORNIA The Silicon Valley of New York (coming soon to Governors Island!) won't actually be all that similar to the Californian model. The startups coming out of New York (such as Tumblr, Kickstarter, Etsy) are an intrinsically different breed than the West Coast startups (Facebook, Google, Apple) — they're flavoured by the city. Leslie is very aware of this. "The second chapter of my career was in technology on the West Coast. I worked at Microsoft and, like its analogist companies in the Valley, it started in the suburbs and there were a few of us who commuted out to Redmond, Washington. What you're now seeing is companies recognising that to innovate, there's something about being in a city rather than isolated. When you create campuses with an urban flavour, that really makes sense for innovation." A city, unlike the 'burbs, is a cluster model in itself. The Governors Island incubator model will perhaps not be a scaled down version of Silicon Valley but of NYC itself, with educational institutions and private sector components physically merged instead of adjacent. "High-tech companies move to the city because of the messiness of the city and the interactions you have with all kinds of people and different kinds of industries… I personally believe that cities are the place where innovation takes place," she says "What I couldn't have planned for was the amount of emotion that New Yorkers have for Governors Island. We made a place people have embraced, have come to love, even though it's a place no-one has ever spent the night and it's never been open for more than 120 days a year." Australia has only 10 percent the urban density of America so notions of space can be a tricky to wrap your head around; space is a nuisance most of the time. But the cluster model is starting to take hold in Sydney and it works, no doubt in part, thanks to the mapping done on the front lines in the US. [caption id="attachment_572738" align="alignnone" width="1280"] The Hills, Governors Island.[/caption] WHAT'S NEXT? Sadly, Leslie recently announced she'll be stepping down as CEO after the Hills opens to the public. "This is a natural inflection point and when you run a seasonal recreation destination, you're on-duty every weekend so the thought of having my first summer off in 11 summers was just too good to pass up." And what a hard-earned summer it'll be. You can catch Leslie speaking at REMIX Sydney from June 2-3 at Sydney Town Hall. Your mates Concrete Playground will be there too, introducing you to Sydney's most successful entrepreneurs — the businesses we couldn't write fast enough about — with a special curated session on 'How Long Does It Take to Become an Overnight Success?'. More info right here. Top image: Iwan Baan/Governors Island.
Hitting Sydneysiders with an epic program of immersive, challenging, and mind-blowing art for another year, the Biennale of Sydney 2016 is an art lover's event like no other. Spanning multiple locations across the city and surrounds every two years, it's not hard to feel a little spoilt for choice. But before the festival wraps up in early June, we thought we'd save you some time and hand over our pick of the artworks you can't afford to miss. CHIHARY SHIOTA'S 'CONSCIOUS SLEEP' (2016) Insomniacs beware, this one might hit too close to home. Taking over the convict barracks of Cockatoo Island, Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota shows just how chilling a few hospital beds suspended by thousands of metres of black thread can be. Replicating the conditions encountered by prisoners back in 1861, Shiota's installation feels like stepping into a giant arachnoid's underground lair. It might seem like the stuff of nightmares, but the artistry of this space makes it a hauntingly beautiful experience. KEG DE SOUZA'S 'WE BUILT THIS CITY' (2016) Creating a cubby house from laundry bags, tarps and hessian sacks is just the start of Keg De Souza's contribution to this year's Biennale. As a unique, technicolour display of makeshift architecture, We Built This City has turned 16 Vine Street, Redfern into a hub of conversation for all the right reasons. The largest of her constructions to date, this tent is set to host The Redfern School of Displacement, bringing audiences talks and tours discussing global issues of displacement. Head along to this installation, and make sure to swing by for a guided 'Tour of Beauty' of Redfern and Waterloo, presented by SquatSpace. WILLIAM FORSYTHE'S 'NOWHERE AND EVERYWHERE AT THE SAME TIME NO.2' (2013) It's difficult to detach from your roots. For choreographer and artist William Forsythe, his longtime association with the Frankfurst Ballet and later the Forsythe Company has gone on to inform much of his recent artistic installations. Connecting the movement of dance with a spectacular series of 40 hanging metal pendulums, audiences are invited to navigate this unpredictable architectural space. The challenge? To avoid actually touching the objects themselves. MELLA JAARSMA'S PERFORMANCE 'DOGWALK' (2015-16) Taking things to a whole new level of bizarre, Mella Jaarsma is putting on a fashion show like no other. Alright, 'fashion' might be the wrong term to use here. But with costumes as elaborate as these, it's tempting to believe you've stumbled into some twisted couture show. Every Wednesday evening until June 1 head along to Jaarsma's installation Dogwalk at The Art Gallery of NSW, a 60-minute dog-walking performance filled some seriously creepy animal-skin costumes. Picking a part the bond between humans and animals, this show is definitely one to get you talking. DON'T FOLLOW THE WIND'S 'A WALK IN FUKUSHIMA' (2016-ongoing) Get a dose of global history at this one-of-a-kind Carriageworks installation. Brought to you by the curatorial collective Don't Follow the Wind (featuring Chim↑Pom, Kenji Kubota, Jason Waite, Eva and Franco Mattes), A Walk in Fukushima sees their collaboration efforts with 12 artists following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Step inside an inaccessible radioactive area of the Fukoshima Nuclear plant through 360-degree virtual reality headsets. You'll be intrigued and immersed in an abandoned landscape unlike anything you've seen before. BO CHRISTIAN LARSSON'S 'FADE AWAY, FADE AWAY, FADE AWAY' (2016) Camperdown Cemetery is home to some of colonial Australia's biggest names, but that doesn't concern Swedish artist Bo Christian Larsson. In fact, he's taken matters into his own hands by dressing each tombstone in a custom-made white cover. By obscuring the identities of each grave, Larsson hopes to rid this historic cemetery of its ingrained class hierarchies. And with nearly 2000 of these stones to see on site, this is sure to be one unnerving art excursion. LEE MINGWEI'S 'GUERNICA IN SAND' (2016) As kids, mastering the art of constructing the perfect sandcastle was a pretty tough gig. Protecting our sandy creations from trampling feet and rising tides certainly seemed like an almighty challenge to our younger selves. But imagine taking on the task of reproducing a famous Picasso creation with only one humble ingredient: sand. Taiwanese artist Lee Mingwei took this on, using the fragility and impermanence of this work to reveal the creative power transformation allows. With the help of eight dedicated volunteers, Mingwei has transformed the concrete floor of Carriageworks into a stunning recreation of Guernica. Audience members were encouraged to literally walk across the work on April 23 (later swept and restored by Lee Mingwei and his team). TARO SHINOD'S 'ABSTRACTION OF CONFUSION' (2016) Prefer things a little more zen? Why not make a trip to AGNSW and transcend the daily grind with Taro Shinoda's work Abstraction of Confusion. Take a seat on his tranquil tatami mat and let the simplicity of this installation wash over you. Drawing inspiration from philosophy and the power of meditation, you'll leave feeling as if you've been wandering through the paths of a beautiful Japanese garden. APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL'S 'HOME MOVIE' (2016) Film lovers, this is one to watch. Thai artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul brings his distinctive cinematic style to Carriageworks with his latest short, Home Movie. As a way of reflecting his time spent in Chiang Mai during turbulent political events, this seven-minute creation symbolises the relentless violence and instability that continues to terrorise the Thai nation. ALEXIS TEPLIN'S 'ARCH (THE POLITICS OF FRAGMENTATION) (2016) Consider the future of our world in a whole new light with Alexis Teplin's latest performance and installation Arch (The Politics of Fragmentation). See her abstract linen paintings act as the backdrop to this thought provoking performance, which poses the question "when decadence fails us in our quest for utopia, where do we end up?" This is one depiction of a fictional reality we are intrigued to see play out. Learn more about the Biennale program here.
First there was camping, but nature is icky and the hard ground is no Posturepedic. Then there was glamping, which is certainly a step up but still requires you to be outside with only a thin velour track pant and tasteful white canopy between you and the bugs. But now, thankfully, there's a way to get the best parts of camping (good company and fire-cooked food) without having to leave the city or wear ugly hiking shoes and unflattering shorts. Hunter and Barrel is the new dining concept hitting Sydney and Melbourne in late 2015. With a menu focused on coal-roasted meats and seasonal vegetables, big barbecued skewers, sharing boards, stews, soups, pies, and generally hearty fare, H&B will deliver the sensory experience of camping without the inconvenience of actually, y'know, camping. Think warm, hearty dishes such as slow-roasted beef rib, seafood and pork belly cooked over the restaurant's coal grill, washed down with your classic craft beer or barrel-aged wine. Although contemporary horror films have taught us to fear the foreboding idea of a remote cabin (thanks Evil Dead and Cabin in the Woods), the primal part of our psyche still longs to get back to nature. Bradley Michael, the CEO of Seagrass Boutique Hospitality Group who own Hunter and Barrel, told Good Food the venue would have a “sexy camping, hunter’s cabin feel.” The décor at Hunter and Barrel, designed by ODO, will feature big rocks and rustic pipes — and your drink will be delivered by a suspended wall covered with barrels (whatever this ends up looking like). Hunter and Barrel is set to open in Cockle Bay, Sydney on October 10 and Ringwood, Melbourne on October 29. Via Good Food.
Art has prevailed in the battle to fill a Melbourne rooftop with naked people. In the latest development surrounding Spencer Tunick's newest work, the New York artist has been given permission to hold a nude photoshoot on top of the Prahran Woolworths car park — just over a week after the store said no. It was announced in May that Tunick would be returning to Australia in July to stage another of his famed mass nude photos, all as part of Chapel Street Precinct's Provocaré Festival of the Arts. Seventeen years after assembling 4500 naked volunteers for a snap near Federation Square as part of the 2001 Fringe Festival, the polarising artist plans to amass another contingent of naked (and pretty brave) folk for a work titled Return of the Nude While Tunick has photographed around 5000 nude people in front of the Sydney Opera House during the 2010 Mardi Gras, snapped the public painted red and gold outside Munich's Bavarian State Opera, covered in veils in the Nevada desert and covered in blue in Hull in the UK, his initial attempt to craft his latest piece against a Melbourne skyline backdrop was knocked back by Woolworths. A petition spearheaded by the Chapel Street Precinct Association (CSPA), the festival's host organisation, in response —and due to community pressure, the store has decided to let the shoot go ahead. A spokesperson for the supermarket giant advised, "in further discussions with the festival organisers they indicated a willingness to be flexible with dates and times to ensure the shoot could happen without inconveniencing our customers during busy weekend trading. As a result, we're now able to accommodate the request to temporarily clear the rooftop for Spencer Tunick's group shot on a Monday morning during a traditionally slow trading period." The shoot will take place on Monday, July 9, with Tunick given an hour to complete his vision. And if you'd like to participate — anyone over the age of 18 can git their kit off and get involved — there's still time to register. Participants each get a print of the photograph and, we're sure, a big boost of body confidence. Provocaré will take place across the Chapel Street Precinct from July 5–15, with Return of the Nude being shot over one hour on July 9.
Want to take a journey through post-lockouts Sydney in two pretty sad minutes? Sydney-based production company Shifted Pictures have created a haunting timelapse video of the effects of the NSW lockout laws on various venues around the CBD. Released online today, stunning new short film Closed Sydney documents venues that have closed down or were sold in the time since the lockout laws were introduced by the State Government in 2014. As we've seen too many times in the last two years, a significant amount of Sydney venues claim that since the introduction of lockout laws, venue patronage has decreased casting financial strain on business owners and employees. Hugo's threatened to sue the NSW Government after they closed down in August 2015, and just today, the Keystone Group counted the lockout laws in their reasons for financial stress and move into receivership. And that's just two examples. Closed Sydney was produced using motion control timelapse technology, with the final film using over 3800 still images. Tim Pass, one of the film's producers shared his inspiration behind the visuals. "It's been an idea that's been kicking around since the Hopetoun closed down. Not long after the lockouts came in, it seemed we were losing a live music venue, nightclub or restaurant every other week. If we didn't document them now, we'd be too late. "It might be too late for the venues shown in the video, but hopefully if people keep talking about these issues and come up with some real solutions, we don't have to lose the nightlife of an entire city." The footage is set against an original composition written by avid Keep Sydney Open supporter and Art Vs. Science keys player Jim Finn. Be warned: it's best to grab a box of tissues before you hit play.
Some days are good days and some days are bad days but only one day is International Daiquiri Day. And what better way to heat things up this chilly July 19 than by visiting a cosy little cocktail bar in celebration of all things rum. Such as rum. And things that go well with rum. And also locations which are fit for the consumption of rum. In fact, this whole month is Bacardi Rum Month. Need we say more? First mixed back in 1898 by American engineer Jennings Stockton Cox while working in the humble Cuban mining town of Daiquiri, the iconic blend of Bacardi rum, lime and sugar has since become a specialty of mixologists all over the world — including several right here in Sydney. Over the years, the daiquiri been bastardised by slushy machines and TGI Fridays into pink, icy mush, but there are some noble bartenders taking this misunderstood cocktail classic back to its traditional form. As usual, we've done the dirty work and sorted out where to head this Daiquiri Day for the most delightfully rummy cocktails in town. Get sipping. EAU DE VIE SYDNEY For a killer cocktail, it’s hard to beat Eau De Vie Sydney. It’s cool, it’s romantic, it’s fun — and their drinks are top-notch. Watching the beverages being made is the real treat though — who would have thought there was such a stunning array of old-school cocktail-making contraptions out there? Eau De Vie Sydney does wonders with an original take on the Bacardi Daiquiri: rum, lime and sugar laced with a dash of egg white makes for a Sunday treat as silky and soft as you could possibly desire. And the iconic Bacardi Bat Logo in aromatic bitters provides a sensationally spicy floral aftertaste. 229 Darlinghurst Road, Darlinghurst QUEENIE'S If you’re celebrating Daiquiri Day with a gang of mates, head down to Queenie’s and get your Jamaican vibe on. It’s cosy, colourful, and offers enough tasty food and drink options to put you in the best darn mood this side of the Caribbean. The Coconut Daiquiri is a signature Queenie's cocktail — as rich and creamy as Marley’s voice, the coconut puree with Bacardi Carta Blanca and fresh lime gives an old island favourite a new lease on life. Ask your bartender for a little salt and chilli around the rim for a kick up the proverbial you know what. Level 1, The Forresters, Corner of Foveaux and Riley Streets, Surry Hills STITCH Oh baby... you had us at three dashes of absinthe. Stitch slings a daiquiri better than most, and International Daiquiri Day is all the invitation you need to get down to their York Street basement. Try their house specialty — it's pineapple-infused Bacardi Carta Blanca, Cointreau, lime juice, vanilla sugar and three licks of absinthe. It's hard to be too troubled by anything after a couple of these bad boys in your life. 61 York Street, Sydney WORLD BAR A longtime Sydney stalwart, you can still get it all at World Bar. Beverages, tunes and even a ball pit in the mix now and then — what more does a Sunday need? Plus they love putting delicious things into teapots, which we're certainly not averse to. Here you'll find The Bacardi Blaquiri Teapot — lashings of Bacardi Carta Blanca, De Kuyper Blackberry Liqueur and fresh lime with a spot of added sweetness, shaken (not stirred). Perfect for sharing (although drinking the whole thing by yourself is also a very valid option). 24 Bayswater Road, Kings Cross VASCO Vasco is Cleveland Street's small Italian bar with a rock 'n' roll twist: think trucker caps, cut off denims and all things Vasco Rossi. They love the originals as well as the classics, and that goes for both their menu and their cocktail list. The team here are all about fusion, and this particular cocktail is sure to knock your winter stockings off. Bacardi Carta Blanca, green chartreuse, fresh lime and house falernum, shaken and strained in a vintage coupette. Goes down a treat at Vasco with an Italian hot dog. Happy Daiquiri Day! 421 Cleveland Street, Surry Hills Top image: Dollar Photo Club.
“Your nose like a delicious slope of cream. And your ears like cream flaps. And your teeth like hard shiny pegs of cream.” Diner en Blanc — like Howard Moon's poem — will have you in all white. But sorry Booshers, the fourth Sydney edition of this event is just for the sophisticated. Now on five continents, the Diner en Blanc began in Paris just under three decades ago thanks to François Pasquier and friends. This year, around 4000 of Sydney's creme de la creme will once again dress in all white on Saturday, November 28, for the event held at a predictably stunning and highly Instagrammable location that remains secret until the very last moment. Following an evening of elegance, fine dining and live music, the foodies then pack up their crystal, dinnerware, tables and litter. Like ghosts (white 'n' all), they leave behind no sign of their rendezvous. (But don't get any ideas: a white sheet thrown over your figure will not do for an outfit). Diner en Blanc guests must either be invited by a member from the previous year, or get on the waiting list for a $43 ticket (+$11.50 membership fee). Diner en Blanc returns to Sydney on Saturday, November 28 at a mystery location. For more info, check out the website.
