china doll monday

Before slipping out of Sydney once again, I had a hankering to hunker down at one of the restaurants now part of the old Woolloomooloo passenger terminal and wharf. China Doll grabbed my eye and stoked the taste buds but I had no idea I was in for one of the best Asian meals of my life. I won't go all Trip Advisor here, but the slow-braised Wagyu beef in the Panang curry was so insanely tender I could cut it with the serving spoon. I spent a very happy couple of hours sipping Laroche Petit Chablis and wading through several dishes while also satiating my appetite for more of the current Kindle selection, "After the Deluge." In between reading and watching the chopsticks in action, I noticed the weather-faded and grease-streaked sun awning was doing a pretty neat impression of a tobacco filter on the city skyline, particularly the silhouette it made of the Centerpoint tower. So I dropped the Kindle - for a moment - and picked up the 5.

old haunts

Revisiting some old stomping grounds in Sydney's Paddington, it was astonishing to see how the pubs along Oxford St. are being transformed into more stylish lounges, employing bistro-like kitchens to update the standard pub fare and placing greater emphasis on individual decor to distinguish themselves. I was most surprised to see how one of my old favorites, The Light Brigade Hotel, has shed its traditional origins and embraced the modern. The rows of polished bar stools arranged neatly around the lounge were wonderfully eye-catching and again I bled the colors to lend a little more atmosphere and highlight the gleaming steel.

alan's blues

Walking toward Potts Point from the Cross in Sydney early this morning I was amazed to hear the unmistakable sound of a steel guitar over the bursts of traffic noise. It was coming from the Potts Point market, near the doorstep of the infamous "Bourbon and Beefsteak" bar. There, on a bench between a fruit juice stand and a cluster of potted palms and flowers for sale, was a man playing some Robert Johnson blues on a National steel guitar, providing a wonderful soundtrack to the casual wandering of the customers and the happy nattering of the vendors.

After listening to a couple of songs, I wandered over to him and began chatting about the guitar and his playing, as I've long been a fan of the Delta blues. It turned out that the guitarist, Alan, had quite a story to tell of his life with music, which took a turn from rock to blues when he was walking down a street in Adelaide in the early '60s and heard a unique sound coming from one of the pubs. Backtracking and ducking into the bar to investigate, he found the legendary American blues duo Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. I was stunned when he mentioned them. There aren't many folks these days know of this incredible blues pair, whose harmonica, guitar, and vocals make your feet tap from the first bar. It was amazing to me Alan had heard these two live, in the 60s, in Adelaide of all places.

"I was playing in a sort of Beatles band," Alan said, "but I'd never heard anything like this." He got hooked when Brownie sang a line recounting a conversation he had with a friend about happiness, something he didn't think he'd be able to recognize if he found it, and that sank in for the young Alan.

Years later, he'd moved to Sydney, played Jazz, rock, and folk but he was still devoted to the blues. He bought his third guitar, a used Martin, and his wife, he says, told him three was enough. "She finally walked out after I got to 17," he chuckled.

Talking about the day he bought the National, he sounded as excited as he must have been the day he laid eyes on it. He had just put down $5,000 on a brand new Martin ("A mate looked at it, and he said 'It just looks like a normal guitar'," Alan said, shaking his head at his friend's ignorance) but when he saw the steel guitar glittering in the store, he momentarily forgot the brand-spanking new guitar of his dreams. Minutes later - and despite the store owner mentioning a 25% discount on all items in a couple of weeks - he walked out with the National. He couldn't risk someone else grabbing it up.

That was in 2004. Now, he appreciates how the gorgeous sound of a steel guitar lent an edge to certain blues guitarists back in the States who needed a distinctive sound, an edge, to ensure the coins came to their street corner rather than to the competition at the other end of the block.

We chatted for so long I began to feel guilty for distracting him and for depriving the market of its astonishingly unusual musical attraction. Alan jumped into Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and a couple nibbling their bacon and egg sandwiches began dancing away next to him.

Now I'm listening to Sonny and Brownie on my laptop back in the hotel. "Oh honey, take it easy, 'till I make a little money..."

endangered cats

While on an automotive theme for a moment, I was thinking this morning after posting the alfa rainbow shot about the sad demise of the hood ornament. One supposes it's likely due to the prevalence of vandalism these days, and perhaps a cost consciousness among manufacturers in a less-than-gilded age, but the little sculptures that used to mark a marquee are now few and far between. Winged Victory on the Rolls Royce, the tri-pointed Mercedes star, even the gnarled ram's head of Dodge. And of course, the lithe and ferocious silvery cat of Jaguar. Makes the sighting of one such as this from a Jag reposing in a Toorak street in Melbourne all the more wistful. With the 5D Mk II at 105mm and f5.6 and 1/250 sec.

alfa rainbow

I should have taken this as a portent and bought the darn thing. Nearly every day I pass by a Fiat dealership and ogle its trio of Alfa Romeos, all of them Spiders. As we returned from a stroll around Polanco on a warm Sunday afternoon and wound our way back to the corner with the dealership, I noticed the spectrum of light cast on the front fender and lights of the convertible Spider and thought I'd try to capture it. You can never replicate the true intensity or vibrancy of the colors but I still thought the 5D Mk II did a fine job. I still think it's an omen. Must. Own. Spider.

hosteria la bota

A long weekend in Mexico City is a true gift as many of the city's more than 20 million inhabitants take the opportunity to revisit home towns, head to parties in the surrounds, or simply lay low and exhale. We thought it a good time to go check out the emerging Calle Regina block to see what gives. The New York Times had finally published a piece by a friend of a friend about the bar scene there, giving us a great excuse to head into the center of town for a change. The Times must have had the piece "in the can" as we say for quite some time because we discovered the bar we wanted to meet at, Hosteria la Bota, had actually moved one block into Calle San Jeronimo. It's still a great dive though, with a good mix of odd drinks, including some Spanish mixes, and walls lined with hundreds of little wooden boxes that once housed cigars or other bits and that had been transformed into miniature art galleries of their own. I was thrilled just to be able to relax over a tequila, which arrived with a lime positioned neatly just so. The Canon G11 is the perfect low-light option for these sort of adventures as it seems to retain the feel, especially as you crank up the ISO and introduce a little more grain.

marais marvel

Okay, so I've been letting monochrome or its variations get the best of me lately. I attribute it to too many coffee table book purchases and an inexplicable burst of affection for all things Avedon. But recent searches through my photos for a personal project have rekindled my fondness for color and leave it to Paris to furnish an appropriate example. It's a shoe store in the Marais that had a color palette that immediately told you this isn't the place to take your grandma for comfy walking shoes. The store design was perfectly in keeping with the product, which was edgy, fun, and sexy. Yay for color.

chandeliers

Queenstown Park Hotel, New Zealand, 2009.

old faithful

Feeling hemmed in today by the ferocity of the noise as the apartment above goes through renovation, so needed to remind myself that tranquility does exist somewhere. New Zealand is still fresh in my mind, and so I finally got around to transferring my shots from my travel laptop to the desktop. Thought this was suitably inspiring, planning to put it onto some Velvet Fine Art paper as soon as I get the chance. This was taken on the road between Queenstown and Glenorchy as we returned from a four-wheel drive trek to the Dart River.