I had to make a Sydney icon just for this post

... in all these years, the only Sydney icon I've made is my default 'one way both ways' road sign - which is, alas, no longer in situ.

After seeing my boxes off in a truck this morning, and taking some more accumulated household items to the local Salvos Store, I set off into the city for to see the exhibit 'Sydney Moderns' at the Art Gallery of NSW.

( Herin I talk about arts )

I came away with a stack of postcards, and a mounted card copy of Cazneaux's "Sydney Bridge". Just, y'know, in case I move away or something.

Also I took some photos in the parks on my way back to the station. On my phone, which has very poor ability to manage light and shadow (the trick which used to work on my old point-and-shoot camera, of focusing on something in the shadow to get the right light setting before moving your frame to take in sunny parts as well - doesn't work on the phone). I'm regretting not having taken my actual camera, but some of these are OK.

( Photos under here )

Three of Cups - Marty McConnell

At some point it becomes true that all stories
are love stories. all making, love making.
I didn't make this rule. but it binds me
all the same. I wish there were a law
against condescending against love. against
the economy of fear that says your joy
means less joy for me as if love
were pie, or money, or fossil fuel
dug or pumped from the earth, gone
when it's gone. it's just not true. the heart
with its gift for magnificent expansion
is not coal. not fruit set to spoil or the dollar
cringing in its wallet. when you say darling,
the world lights up at its edges. when mouths
find mouths and minds follow or minds find
minds and mouths, hands, hips, toes, follow –
how about you call that sacred. how about you raise
your veined right hand and swear on the blood
that branches there, yes. I take this crush
to be my lawful infatuation. I will bend toward joy
until the bending's its own pleasure. I will memorize
photographs and street maps, I will acquiesce
to the maudlin urgency of pop songs and dance,
and dance – there's a perfection only the impossible kiss
possesses. there are notes you can only hear naked
in the dark of a room to which you will never
return. anything that moves the world toward light
is a blessing. why not take it with both hands,
lift it to your lips like a broth of stars. this
is the substance that holds our little atoms together
into bodies. this sweet paste of longing
is all that binds us to the earth.
and all we know of the gods.