4 types of street art, 3 types of food

Melbourne seems to inspire street art and food (among other things). Here is an incomplete catalog:

Street Art Type 1: Unintentional Plant Sculpting

There are a lot of low power lines in this city (they could also be phone lines), and many of them are located right above rows of trees. To avoid conflict, the trees are trimmed into 'Y' shapes. This seems to start early, so there are rows of mature Y trees all over the place.

Street Art Type 2: Intentional Street Art

There is also a vast amount of street art in the traditional sense (according to the aesthetician Nick Riggle: art that makes material use of the street). It's everywhere. We need to devote at least one proper post to this, but the above is one especially clever (and subtle) example.

Street Art Type 3: Coffee Art

Two flat whites with feather designs that we drank sitting on Acland Street. One came out better than the other (we've heard about places with fancier stuff too, but this is pretty representative).

Street Art Type 4: Strangely Dressed Americans

Let us explain. It was a friend's birthday party, and we'd promised to bring him brownies. Our plan was to bike over, since there's not a good way to go via public transit. A storm rolled in, though, and tested our resolve. We decided to put everything in plastic bags, including ourselves. This was the result.

And yes: it stopped raining moments after we'd left the house. But by then we were running late, and didn't want to turn back. Also: Colin did put on a helmet.

Food Type 1: Homemade Vegetarian American-Style Food

This is a Reuben Sandwich. The sauerkraut is homemade (all Naomi's work). The fake meat was imitation bacon, but it was more like corned beef than like bacon. The only thing the sandwich'lacked' was thousand-island dressing...

Food Type 2: Slightly Fancier Versions of Australian Junk Food

This was called a 'Tim Tam Slice.' Naomi picked it up at a cafe in South Melbourne. Tasty even without coffee being drunk through it.

Food Type 3: Fancy-ish Desserts Brought Home on a Bike, Getting Only Slightly Squished

A 'Royale' from Brunetti's bakery in Carlton (near Melbourne Uni). Sort of a chocolate hazelnut mousse cake. Colin stayed at the university for dinner recently, but wanted to bring home a dessert.


Here are some words that will appear in upcoming posts: 'grading,' 'garden' and 'Canberra.'

Sweet summer (not pictured).

It's technically not summer here yet. But we had a couple gloriously summery days recently. Colin even broke out the shorts once this week when he went into his office (not pictured). But here's a view of Melbourne Uni campus:



We went out for ice-cream last week to a place called 'Jock's Ice Cream' in Albert Part (the neighborhood north of us). Apparently, when Obama won the election in 2008, they came up with a flavor ('flavour') called 'Obamarama' that was a smash-hit. They didn't have any of that when we went, but we did get some scoops of a flavor called 'Triple X Chocolate' (not pictured). Here's another dessert, though:



That was the packaging, promising great things. The inside looked like this:



They were profiteroles in a chocolate sauce. Not bad, but it didn't quite live up to the packaging.

There's a small lemon tree in the back yard. It has produced two lemons so far. They were both very sweet - you could pretty much eat them straight. No pictures of those, though. But here's a bee pollinating some of the new blossoms on the tree:



We're starting to think that the basic premise of Melbourne is eating and drinking outside. There are sidewalk cafes everywhere (not pictured). But here's Naomi eating vegetarian dumplings by South Melbourne market:

Bread and bottles

Yesterday we fasted for Yom Kippur. So we've been thinking about food, for a change. Here are some highlights from the past week.

This was some especially good-looking and good-tasting sourdough bread:


But what does one have on bread? Butter? Sometimes. Peanut butter? Often. Cheese? Sure. But in Australia...

Colin finally got the nerve to buy a little jar. And he's decided he likes it. Naomi, not so much. "...yet," says Colin. For those who may not know: Vegemite is a yeast-based spread, apparently a by-product of beer making. It's extremely salty and, yes, extremely yeasty. The internet tells us that it is less intense in flavor ('flavour') than the British equivalent: Marmite. We're not sure we believe this.

Speaking of products of beer making:

This is from a local brewery, from the Melbourne suburb Richmond. It's very good - better than some of our earlier Australian beer experiences. It has a lot of fruity flavors ('flavours'), but without losing its identity as beer.

Our last close-up photo for today:

We were given this by the Melbourne Lyceum Club.

The Melbourne Lyceum Club is a long-standing women's club based in central Melbourne. Several of their members run a philosophy circle, and a few months ago they decided they'd like to have someone present on Spinoza. Since Melbourne isn't exactly brimming with Spinozists ("...yet," says Colin), they were eventually directed towards Colin.

The presentation was a lot of fun. Naomi came along. The club members were a fantastic bunch, and the club itself is beautiful... quite a treat.

Returning to yesterday: we went to High Holydays (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) services at Kedem, a progressive, lay-led congregation. The services were lovely, and the congregation was unbelievably welcoming (as in: lots of invitations to meals at various people's homes).

Food isn't the only thing we think about. Really. We'll prove it in the next post...

Spinoza, cookies, rain and spiders

Colin recently got back from his first trip to the US. Yes, it was weird 'visiting' America. This was the occasion:




For some reason, Colin was invited to present. When he got the invitation several months ago (when we were still in New York), Hopkins was a short train-ride away. At this point, it was a somewhat longer trip - but well worth it. In a whirlwind, jet-lagged week, he heard 15 talks on Spinoza, delivered his own, caught up with some very good friends, saw a bit of Baltimore, spent an evening with Naomi's family (Naomi was able to join us for a bit on Skype), flew to Albuquerque, saw his parents for a couple nights, ate a chile relleno burrito in Madrid (Madrid, New Mexico), did a little mud stuccoing, met his mother's new cat, started a new Spinoza paper, survived a 10-hour layover in LA, and came back to Melbourne. It was hard not getting to see a lot of friends, when they were so close... but he'll be back again before long.

After the long, trans-Pacific flight, arriving home again in Melbourne was sweet. Very sweet:



Naomi made a pile of these. They're insanely tasty... orange Florentines.

There hasn't really been a consistent theme in our lives since then.

There has been a consistent amount of rain, however. Out the window, one sees this:



Just inside the window, one sees this:



We've been told the spiders have been unusually prolific this season. These types seem pretty unconcerned with us - they just want a corner to hang out in. Unfortunately, their aesthetic sensibilities (pro-cobwebs) and ours (anti-cobwebs) don't match, so we've had to usher them along...