How the garden grows...

UFO club

shepherd st garden customs

the first thing i did when i moved in was to find a bike. luckily, the bower and reverse garbage have heaps of spare parts. the first bike i restored was the middle one, a front + rear suspension mountain bike with a funny kid's bike handlebar. it's my cycling to work bike.

soon after, one of our guests eileen showed up with another old bike, a kid's pink fixed gear bike. we fixed it up nicely and now it has been restored with some mountain bike parts, perfectly useable and with a higher handlebar making it possible for short adults to use it too

two weeks ago i found a rusted old frame and decided to go full hipster and make my first fixed gear bike (in native hipsterese, "fixie"). turned out great, and everyone loves the rusted green paint job

overall, the all bikes and parts together cost me about $50. not a bad deal for free city touring

now that we got a welder for the house, expect crazier designs from our customs bike shed. featured in the pic is my smug smile for our three successful bike restorations

engineering report over, live long and prosper

list of documentaries screened at the party

during the party we screened two documentaries. here is the information for further reading. the first one was screened during the afternoon (sorry for the poor sound and early cutoff. we'll try to have a better sound setup next time). the second series was left on loop all night.


What Would Jesus Buy?

From IMDB

An examination of the commercialization of Christmas in America while following Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse (the end of humankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt.) The film also delves into issues such as the role sweatshops play in America's mass consumerism and Big-Box Culture. From the humble beginnings of preaching at his portable pulpit on New York City subways, to having a congregation of thousands - Bill Talen (aka Rev. Billy) has become the leader of not just a church, but a national movement.

7 Billion Others

From the website: 

In 2003, after The Earth seen from the Sky,
Yann Arthus-Bertrand, with Sybille d’Orgeval and Baptiste Rouget-Luchaire, launched the project “6 Billion Others”.
5,000 interviews were filmed in 75 countries by 6 directors who went in search of the Others.

From a Brazilian fisherman to a Chinese shopkeeper, from a German performer to an Afghan farmer, all answered the same questions about their fears, dreams, ordeals, hopes:

  What have you learnt from your parents? What do you want to pass on to your children? What difficult circumstances have you been through? What does love mean to you?

Forty or so questions that help us to find out what separates and what unites us. 

Questions played (looped not necessarily in this sequence):

• After death
• Being at home
• Differences
• Dreams and renouncements
• Family
• Fears
• First memories
• Forgiving
• God
• Leaving one's country
• Love
• Love stories
• Tears
• Meaning of life
• Nature
• Progress

---

thank you everyone for participating!

Cupboard of Cold gets Coloured

The life of the unemployed is pretty dam hard I must say, going to sleep never before 2am and waking up after 11am everyday... With 3 of the 4 tenants unemployed life is lookin up. Ellen is off gallivanting and making out with people in Melbourne. Tamika and Ash go crazy in the warehouse creating gardens, benches, screen prints, art works and most importantly the crazy fridge!; All with help from CSs n HelpX of course. Joao works like a good boy to bring home the bacon (now that the vegans are gone). So plans are coming along and the place is moving forward in a really good way, more and more is getting done to make life easier to live.

Who woulda thought being unemployed and restless while it rains (all the grass seeds away might I add) that we’d have so much fun around the house. Minus the whole getting ahead in the money situation we’re doing pretty well.

Now for the most important part of this blog...

The fridge! My new small business plan... hahah ok so I was paining a “white” board for a notice board and shortly after opening the tin my eyes deceived me and the paint was blue, a lovely blue bad defiantly now white- thanks a lot there Dulux. So I painted the board anyway with a roller and it worked out sweet! But with so much paint left over in the roller paint holder thingy it seemed such a waste to not paint something and id already closed the tin back up and couldn’t be bothered opening it again.

Asking Mamma Ash about 100 times wielding a paint roller, “Can I paint this?” “No” “Can I paint this?” “No” “Can I paint this?” “No” “Can I paint this?” “No” “Well can I paint the fridge then?” finally the fun sucker that is Ash said “yes” stoked as I began painting...

Then the idea started storming in my head, we could make it retro with powder blue and pink, or draw clouds, or the ocean, we could make it into a television, or add glitter... No no no there all lovely ideas but way cooler (excuse the pun) is as fridge that eats you! And so became the amazing new fridge...

The blue layer first, then the mouth was pretty tricky with my impatiens of not wanting to wait for the paint to dry colours got mixed but its all sweet. The eyes we had to sacrifice a sexy fireman plate but its all worth it and the other eye is an old washing machine circle I picked up one night whilst walking home drunk... it does oright ey...

I think Blue is become a kind of theme for us...