(re Marrickville Council sponsored mosaic outside newtown town hall)
ear Friends of Mosaic,
With no wish to Johnny-come-lately upset any apple carts here are some thoughts on content as of meeting on 17/1/97. Diago Rivera, Goya et al would seem to indicate that whatever poetic licence there was stemmed from peoples' reality and how to depict it. They and other dissidents were given the rough end of the pineapple by the rulers of their day as well.
* Previously forgotten days. Aboriginal pre-colonial background of this area. Generic names of custodians, how they lived prior to and after dispossession, other information to repossess reality. Kevin Tory of TUCAR/Tranby offered help. Consult Jenny Munro of Sydney Metropolitan Land Council. Aboriginal History Society.
* Early days. How the place was settled and 'developed'. Lots of historical stuff in libraries, including Newtown (ppsst, over the border in S.S.). Bruce Baskerville has written history for Marrickville Council (ppsst, 'yours'). Comes the war, the 'first' one.
* My days. Dad's 'World Fit for Heroes' proved bullshit. Depression. Unemployed Workers Union. Evictions. Resistance. Free speech fights. Dole. Bagmen. War saves the system in number 'two'. Only a few million more dead than before. A world in ruins so capitalism booms again. See Wendy Lowenstein, 'Weevils in the Flour', other sources.
Work. Work. Work. Work you bastards work. Build the 'Nation'. What's that? Bosses lockouts, strikes, victimisation, septic tanks/other empire builders bring big industry, more worker's tenaments while the shit labour of wogs, dagos, slopes and reffos in general also create a new Oz, greatly enhanced thereof but with all the old problems. South Sydney, Marrickville, Botany become our red belt. See Communist/Labour/ASIO (mine of 280 pages - '47 to '63 which is available) archives, press etc.
'The Russians are coming' and always world war 'three' threatens or there's 'locals' with northern neighbours where young Oz dies again for some other bastards. On home turf there are the usual free speech fights over attempts to shackle the foremost exponents of a different way to go or who try to defend the little we won. So industry goes phut, as it must, and we are back where we started. Wiser, no doubt.
* All the days. As people live and express their culture of the time it becomes written into the ongoing social fabric of their own and future generations. Choral and Drama Societies, Works Brass Bands, rotondas on Sunday. Then living theatre on the streets, on picket lines as miltant ideas grip minds. Now R&R, R&B, pub gigs and buskers and open air fairs and festivals. Old Bill was right. Life is grim. Life is a lark. Life goes on.
What is culture? Well there's cricket, footy, horses, dominos, cards, fishing, teams/clubs in pubs (look at some of the old back street drinking holes, the best), athletics, tennis, two flies up a wall and a few like dodges for a start. Some classical individuals in these and other arenas with local connection spring to mind. Fame is fleeting. Who cares?
It's the ('pertaining or belonging to the common people; vulgar; uncultured; n. a common person') plebians who matter. They did it all. All that's good in the above ravings. Nameless faces in old photographs, nameless numbers of rioters in the yellow press, nameless people who took those more unfortunate than themselves into their homes, nurtured and set them up again.
Nameless.
Countless.
The poor help the poor. The rich help themselves. And to everything else they can get their hands on.
* Future days. We stand together on the steps of the Newtown Town Hall and with arms outstretched, welcome the Brave New World as the dawning sun rises over Centre Point Tower and its first beams light the Newtown Post Office clock(deceased).
How bloody boring.
So how do you depict all that in a twenty five metre mural? As if you wanted to. Fucked if I know. Try getting pissed and stoned while thinking about it for a start. That's how I wrote this.
Good luck.
ear Friends of Mosaic,
With no wish to Johnny-come-lately upset any apple carts here are some thoughts on content as of meeting on 17/1/97. Diago Rivera, Goya et al would seem to indicate that whatever poetic licence there was stemmed from peoples' reality and how to depict it. They and other dissidents were given the rough end of the pineapple by the rulers of their day as well.
* Previously forgotten days. Aboriginal pre-colonial background of this area. Generic names of custodians, how they lived prior to and after dispossession, other information to repossess reality. Kevin Tory of TUCAR/Tranby offered help. Consult Jenny Munro of Sydney Metropolitan Land Council. Aboriginal History Society.
* Early days. How the place was settled and 'developed'. Lots of historical stuff in libraries, including Newtown (ppsst, over the border in S.S.). Bruce Baskerville has written history for Marrickville Council (ppsst, 'yours'). Comes the war, the 'first' one.
* My days. Dad's 'World Fit for Heroes' proved bullshit. Depression. Unemployed Workers Union. Evictions. Resistance. Free speech fights. Dole. Bagmen. War saves the system in number 'two'. Only a few million more dead than before. A world in ruins so capitalism booms again. See Wendy Lowenstein, 'Weevils in the Flour', other sources.
Work. Work. Work. Work you bastards work. Build the 'Nation'. What's that? Bosses lockouts, strikes, victimisation, septic tanks/other empire builders bring big industry, more worker's tenaments while the shit labour of wogs, dagos, slopes and reffos in general also create a new Oz, greatly enhanced thereof but with all the old problems. South Sydney, Marrickville, Botany become our red belt. See Communist/Labour/ASIO (mine of 280 pages - '47 to '63 which is available) archives, press etc.
'The Russians are coming' and always world war 'three' threatens or there's 'locals' with northern neighbours where young Oz dies again for some other bastards. On home turf there are the usual free speech fights over attempts to shackle the foremost exponents of a different way to go or who try to defend the little we won. So industry goes phut, as it must, and we are back where we started. Wiser, no doubt.
* All the days. As people live and express their culture of the time it becomes written into the ongoing social fabric of their own and future generations. Choral and Drama Societies, Works Brass Bands, rotondas on Sunday. Then living theatre on the streets, on picket lines as miltant ideas grip minds. Now R&R, R&B, pub gigs and buskers and open air fairs and festivals. Old Bill was right. Life is grim. Life is a lark. Life goes on.
What is culture? Well there's cricket, footy, horses, dominos, cards, fishing, teams/clubs in pubs (look at some of the old back street drinking holes, the best), athletics, tennis, two flies up a wall and a few like dodges for a start. Some classical individuals in these and other arenas with local connection spring to mind. Fame is fleeting. Who cares?
It's the ('pertaining or belonging to the common people; vulgar; uncultured; n. a common person') plebians who matter. They did it all. All that's good in the above ravings. Nameless faces in old photographs, nameless numbers of rioters in the yellow press, nameless people who took those more unfortunate than themselves into their homes, nurtured and set them up again.
Nameless.
Countless.
The poor help the poor. The rich help themselves. And to everything else they can get their hands on.
* Future days. We stand together on the steps of the Newtown Town Hall and with arms outstretched, welcome the Brave New World as the dawning sun rises over Centre Point Tower and its first beams light the Newtown Post Office clock(deceased).
How bloody boring.
So how do you depict all that in a twenty five metre mural? As if you wanted to. Fucked if I know. Try getting pissed and stoned while thinking about it for a start. That's how I wrote this.
Good luck.
