Written by lainie at 10:50 PM on May 5, 2009 in Music, Holidays / Road Trip.

Found while wandering around Melbourne: Oliver Lane

You know how sometimes you read a food blog (like The Food Pornographer) and you get this suspiciously "Malaysian" vibe? At the risk of sounding like one of those tumpang glamour Malaysians (omg, Guy Whatsisface is half-Msian!), this website, FoodSwings, must be at least half Malaysian. I don't care.

Cause "swing" reminds me of "swingers" yeah, and if there's one thing Malaysians do, it's swap food. You order the chicken, I order the fish, we'll totally pick off each other's plates. Yeah. Pass me that plate, over your brother's head. I want some of your mashed potatoes. Have some of my pasta. It's horizontal plate juggling.

Fed Square from across the road

Websites will tell you that the true reflection of Melbourne city is found in the Federation Square. Personally, I don't think that's quite true, but hey. It still has a lot of things to see.

Dress in the display window at Fed Square's Australian Racing Museum caught my eye

I have been, and will over the next few days, frequenting the Fed Square on a daily basis, due to the Melbourne International Jazz Festival. Jazz performances and masterclasses are being held all around Melb for over a week. I can't wait to compare this with the upcoming Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival.

You might even see me on their bloody live Fed Square webcam. I don't know, I refuse to download the Windows Media plugin. Feels too dirty for my Mac.

[ I forgot to upload this post -- the jazz fest is over dy ]

I've been getting a feel of the local jazz scene by watching some of the free performances in Fed Square. Will also be heading over to The Paris Cat and Bennetts Lane. Also 303, La Mama's, Lebowski's and Bar Open. Suggestions welcome for gig nights/other venues!

Incidentally, the best jazz gig I saw by far was one I stumbled upon on Brunswick St. Daph, Tim and I walked by Uptown Jazz Cafe and heard some really good music, so we headed up. There was a cover charge, but it was waived for us (yay!).

The saxaphonist really made my night with his music -- and I've just learnt that I was watching Australia's renowned jazz player Bernie McGann in action, with The Andrea Keller Quartet. So I'll definitely be heading back to Uptown Jazz Cafe. I love the feel of the place, and the staff seems made of really cool people.

The music-appreciation vibe in the place is just sweeeeeet.

Beer DeLuxe's Hamburger Grill had an egg and bacon burger. And coffee. Warmed me right up. Average burger, very good coffee, and friendly staff.

 You see that burger above? That was where I discovered seagulls are bullies and will POUNCE on anything you throw their way. I almost expected a bird, lighting its cigarette, dressed like The Fonz, to come coerce my burger patty from me.

Fed Square is a random place. I had a stranger come up and serenade me a song, while I was nursing a hot cup of coffee (he sang pretty well, I almost wanted to ask if he was going to be in the jazz fest). Another day I was greeted by this:

Protesters demanding peace for Tamils (in Tamil Tigers territory) from Sri Lankan military....

I also met an arts writer for the music scene, Lisa (Dib?), from the website The Dwarf. Funny name for a website. I tried explaining I used to write for an arts website called Kakiseni, and got a blank stare. Nothing makes me feel so far away from home than being surrounded by people who don't know Kakiseni.

It's nice to be in a country that doesn't arrest their buskers (like how Meor was detained). So I get to see stuff like this on the street:

Kristy Jinks (who found my video on Youtube) and Ben Fumi, busking along Southgate.

Was in a really good mood during this performance. I'd just watched the fireshow, and was trying out some award-winning limoncelli gelato from Tutto Bene. Had just met my sister's friend Stephanie for dinner at Southbank's Blue Train Cafe. Stephanie mentioned her friend would be visiting Melbourne. The friend? RETA!

Tis a small world.

Well. I'm off. Here's a pic meanwhile of a charming band called Flap!, from the Melb Jazz Fest. I'll have videos of them up soon. You can check out Flap!'s Myspace page first, if you'd like. I think I watched them perform all the songs but Tetris.

Written by lainie at 01:44 PM on May 6, 2009 in melbourne, Events, Arty stuff.

Off the cuff: I stumbled upon an art gallery in the CBD. Hand Held Gallery is exhibiting Paul Compton's tender things. Of course it's art, when else will I mention a bloke's tender things on my blog?

Expect illustrations of tiny treasures; characters embroiled in dark ironies, stylish heartbreaks and delicate melancholy. So precious in its tragedy, it makes me want to murmur adjectives and pinch its cheeks.

tender things card made low-res and less awesome by my webcam

tender things will be on till the 26th of May, @Hand Held Gallery in The Paramount, Bourke St. You really should pop by. I'll be back again. After I'm done looking through the Everyday Tragedies zine I purchased.

[ This is a pimp-out from a 3-minute gallery walkthrough; please do not consider this a review, which would render me a rather unemployable writer ]

Written by lainie at 12:25 PM on May 7, 2009 in Rants.

Before I head out. Anyone who asks me about this black tshirt (and it does attract questions) will most likely be told about Najib's administration and the fucking arrests going on in my hometown.

1BLACKMalaysia!

Written by lainie at 02:52 PM on May 15, 2009 in Stupid, but fun..

I went around looking for tshirts the other day (having not packed much to Melbs). I wanted slightly more fun stuff, but kept finding stuff like....

A bit tak best la, yknow? Melbs is going through some Twilight craze here. Yes, I heard the squeals. I know some of you KL-ites want to be shopping in this shop too. Just not my thing.

That being said, I found this tshirt statement online that pinned down the friendly bickering behind the Sydney-femme-fashionista vs Mebourne-intellectual-woman image just nicely:

Click on the image above to head to the Red Bubble website, lots of interesting tshirts there.

Written by lainie at 02:39 AM on May 30, 2009 in melbourne, Events.

I'm still in Melbourne. Work for The Nut Graph has started. I picked a symbolic day, May 13th . One of the perks of working for an online-based website, travel + laptop = gainfully employed, huzzah!

I've been looking at some pretty awesome things over at Melbourne. I can't keep up with everything (and if you know how enthusiastically I can attend events from one end of town to the other in KL...no I swear, I can't keep up here). I still can't get over how the standard of coffee is so decent here, I can stop at any ol' cafe and get a decent latte.

Reta visited Melbourne briefly, and we had overly-large portions of hot soup on a cold day:

We took breaks in between. Aussies have serious kiasu problems when it comes so serving sizes. Most of my meals have been too big for me here. I'm never going to wonder why those Aussie backpacker boys I meet can scarf down so much, ever again. It's just homegrown skills.

Reta and I went kai-kai in quite a few places. One of the first places I made her go to, during our random walks in laneways, was an adult shop:

Hehe. I still remember Reta standing at a distance in the laneway, while I beckoned her to come closer before I ducked inside.

We passed by this shop called Alphaville in Brunswick. Ohai, Jean-Luc Godard heads in jars everywhere! Of course we had to go in. I loved the stuff in this shop. The clothes looked nice, and they had brooches made out of B&W faces of Foucault, Camus, Nietzsche and Beckett. I was so tempted to get the Camus, but I don't wear brooches .

Walking along Southgate with Reta. I think this was after we froze our arses off by the Yarra River.

Gazel and Tommy have been very accomodating, temaning me for many events. They took me to Sondheim's A Little Night Music, presented by Opera Australia, in the Melbourne Arts Centre. It was probably more funtastic for Lainie than the both of them . I think Gazel found it a bit hard to keep up with the lyrics cause of the counterpoints.

I'm still wondering if I should write about what my night was like, but that would mean distracting from the fact that A Little Night Music took place in this building:

Yes. Behold, the magnificent steel erection. That's nicknamed the Eiffel Tower of Penis Melbourne. I know I've been accused of being too filthy-minded, but OH, CMON! I also made them teman me to Melbourne Museum of Printing, for their open day.

They had staff there with demonstrations, prints, designers, letterpress, and I just loved it so much. Also one of my favourites in Melbs so far, what an awesome place. Huge crowd too, there are a lot of design/typography/letterpress freaks in Melbs.

We were allowed to handle quite a lot of stuff here. This is how I ended up pawing my nose black. I forgot, okay, this is exactly why it's a bad idea to put make-up on me, I rub my face all the time -_-.

So I had to find the washroom tucked away behind the museum to wash off the black nose. It is wallpapered with handprinted stuff from the letterpress machines outside.

Will definitely have more pics on the MMOP. There was a pretty looooooud band performing there, The Primitive Calculators. They gave my sister a raging headache.

The terbabas that happened after (what are sisters for?).