Three plays... in three days

In a live performance frenzy, I've been to three plays in three days.
Firstly: Quack at Griffin Theatre. For lovers of gore, you need travel no more.
Secondly: Jersey Boys. Channelling my inner Frankie Valli (and loving it).
Thirdly: August: Osage County. The Steppenwolf Theatre Co production. All I can say about August: Osage County is run, don't walk to the box office. It's brilliant.
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Darlo, how I love thee

I've been listening to Alain de Botton podcasts about Heathrow and The Joys and Sorrows of Work. That man does something to me, in the way I see the world: he helps me see it with more charming detail than usual.
So. I arrived home in the early evening last night and made a trip to the washing line.
A torchlight was playing in next door's yard, wielded by their little girl who was sitting on top of her cubby, which sits quite high - like a second storey on a house.
I yoo-hooed at her and she yoo-hooed back. We talked about the fingernail moon (which it turned out we'd both been admiring) and I told her I loved to see her sitting on top of her cubby in the dark. She's been back there today and that's been the first time for some months.
The King of Darlinghurst wasn't that keen on the torchlight last night, but all in all, it was like being in Cloudstreet.
Heavenly.
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Vincent van Flying Fox

My model for this drawing was the flying fox at the front counter of the Australian Museum in College Street in Sydney.
He only has one ear. Hence his name -Vincent van Flying Fox, given by me.
He is drawn in charcoal and chalk on architectural film. He's about 1.5m x 1m.
And he reminds me of all the noisy little fruit bats that fly in and out of Darlinghurst of a summer's night. Some of them party in our palm trees.
This little guy's flying times are done, but he certainly has a good profile being on the front counter at the museum.
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Sharpness and blurriness

Arriving in one's home town when it's raining is the perfect way to see it.

A couple of weeks ago, as Australia headed to the ballot box, I flew into Melbourne. In the rain.

I texted a friend in London: "It's raining. Love a wet home town." And he texted back: "Not sure if I understand that - but lots of UK towns are wet."

I wanted to explain what I meant and in truth, I wasn't quite sure myself what I loved about it.

I texted back: "It's that mistiness rain brings - a bit like memory."

So rain blurs the edges of things, which is beautiful, because there's such a sharpness about returning to a place you left two decades before. You know it at its very heart. But in another way, you don't know it at all.

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