Goodbye to All That

On the eve of our departure for America I take computer in hand for one final entry. It is hard to contemplate, or even comprehend, what sort of country we will return to, but an objective analysis of this society has convinced me that it, too, may be suffering from a tremendous upsurge in xenophobia and racism. I have seen nothing personally to verify this, mind you, yet I have read quite a few editions of the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspapers here and seen the same disgusting rhetoric that has gained a foothold in my own benighted homeland over the last few months. Fortunately, my actual experiences yesterday completely contradicted that sense of a fascist zeitgeist, but I will have to back up to tell the tale.

We left Melbourne on the Monday morning train and endured the 11 hour ride back to Sydney. It is not as bad as it sounds, because on the train there is no one to constantly pester you about wearing a seat belt (there aren't any) and you are free to move about as much as you want. The passenger trains do not have lounge cars here, however, so your walking about and stretching is confined to trips made to the "buffet" car where a narrow passage is provided for passengers to order food and beverages. Small alcoves between the cars allow for some stretching room, and of course, there is always periodic swaying, clumsy trek to the toilets. The food is not bad on these trains, and true to her habit of photographing attractive meals, Jayne decided to snap this shot of her choice for lunch.

We arrived at Sydney just as it was getting dark and, ironically, we had to catch an urban line which backtracked the same route we had just traveled. We arrived at a station that Google Maps told us was no further than 750 meters from our next lodging, but of course it did not tell us that distance was almost straight up. Fortunately our host

came and collected us at the station in his car, and brought us to this lovely restored Victorian era mansion where I now type these lines. It must have cost a fortune to change this palace into six luxurious, self contained apartments, and the effort has truly paid off for guests such as ourselves. This apartment has everything, and is thoroughly modern and clean. What was even more incredible was the arrival next morning of our host with a continental breakfast try for our enjoyment. As always, my lovely partner recorded the attractive meal:

Arncliffe, the suburb where this place is situated, is close to nothing and conveniently located to less than nothing, which may partially account for the host's royal treatment and the low price, but we chose it for an entirely different reason. Blanca Tovias, a scholar of Blackfeet Indian studies who I met years ago when she was doing research in our Special Collections reading room at the Montana State University Library, lives nearby with her husband Philip, and we wanted to spend our final days in Sydney visiting with them. Blanca has retired

from the faculty of the University of Sydney to pay attention to her grand children, and Phillip is a retired engineer. They are lovely people and devoted an entire day to showing us their world. Among the sites we took in were the beach at La Perouse and a monument that marked the place where a French exploring vessel arrived at Botany Bay in 1788 just a couple of days after the arrival of the British first fleet of convict ships. Not only did La Parouse miss his opportunity of claiming Australia for the French, he had the dubious further honor of having one of his crew members die during his visit (making him the first European to expire on this continent) and then became lost at sea after the crew departed for France. Tough luck.

But all this attention to the misty past and Gallic exploration is not the multi-cultural lesson I wanted to convey in this essay. You see, Dr. Tovias was actually born in Mexico, and only came to Australia after marrying her husband who she met while he working on a project in her home town. She is the only person I have heard who speaks Australian with a Mexican accent, which would be impossible to duplicate by the most talented mimic. Obviously you would expect an educated person of such ethnicity to be the sort to celebrate the expanding cultural society of Australia and you would be right. She and Phillip took us to their favorite coffee house, operated by some Lebanese and situated in a neighborhood that is home to a growing population of people from Nepal, who live along side of a substantial Chinese residential contingent. Blanca explained how much they love the vibrancy of the shops here, and among the stops we made after

coffee was a Lebanese bakery with the most delicious and beautiful arrangement of goods I have seen anywhere (and I have been to Paris)! The proprietor allowed Jayne to take her portrait behind the counter as she loaded us up with a variety of goodies that Blanca ordered. Phillip next ducked into a hookah store where he bought charcoal for his Christmas barbecue, and we took the lot back to the car to drive back to their home. In short, it was a lesson in how all societies with a little effort can learn to live with one another, and appreciate their differences, even celebrate them. Thank you, Australia, for restoring my hope.

Pedal Power

Our last days in Melbourne have been both exhausting and relaxing. We spent yesterday running around downtown again, taking in the OTHER Art Gallery of Victoria which featured painting, sculpture, and design from Europe, Asia, and other places other than Australia. One

particularly poignant display was a painting that the museum thought was a Van Gogh, "Head of a Man." For sixty years the gallery thought the work was an original by the celebrated Dutch artist, but a 2007 analysis by the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam put it to tests and proved it was not. It was a real pity, because the curators thought they had the only Van Gogh in Australia. I resolved then and there that if I ever won the Powerball, I would purchase a Van Gogh and give it to these good people to enjoy in perpetuity.

After reviewing some pretty incredible art, we caught a free tram to go deeper into the town center where our guidebook recommended we visit a Victorian era “arcade,” a shopping center set back from the sidewalk and quite elaborate in its interior design. I was somewhat underwhelmed, since the place was so small, but it did contain one storefront that had a selection of original paintings and drawings done by Theodor Seuss Geisel, popularly known as Dr. Seuss. While I would have enjoyed an original sketch of the Cat in the Hat, we had to pass it up. We made our way to lunch after that, and then caught another free tram to the Victoria Market, a giant open air assembly of merchants of various ethnicity hawking cheap merchandise in a babel of tongues. We then returned to the inter-city train station where we heard there was a Banksy exhibit. How one would feature original

works that are done on graffiti walls bewildered me, and I remain in bewilderment since we decided against the thirty dollar ticket price. However, adjacent to the venue was a curious little riverside carnival that we determined to investigate. It was a very odd, and very cool

place where temporary food vendors and bars had been set up around about four different croquet setups, all busy with young people playing the game. Returning to the train station from this place were a string of African food booths, selling the cuisine of Ethiopia and other countries while a stage show of African dancers performed to a hypnotic beat. This was truly sensory overload.

Today we stuck close to our little rental home and prepared to pack up and leave, but we did make one last outing. Availing ourselves of

our host’s kind offer to let us use her bicycles, Jayne and I took a bicycle path to visit a riverside café about 4 kilometers from here. What a great ride! The Yarra River, while hardly a pristine course of water, is quite charming with many homes lining its steep banks. The

bike path we were on went all the way to the downtown, too, and was used by other riders, joggers, and strollers. This accommodation for outdoor recreation was outstanding, and I must say I have not seen the like in Sydney. Indeed, one of the first newspaper stories I read when we arrived in Australia featured an interview with Tour de France champion Cadel Evans who declared he would never ride in Sydney because it is too dangerous. I totally agree.

We ended our bike ride by stopping at the park that lies in the rear of our house to watch members of a local baseball club playing a game. Yes, you thought all these Aussies played cricket, rugby, and that bizarre Australian Rules Football, but here they were, playing American baseball with real spirit. We watched a few pitches, and saw some pretty impressive infield errors, before returning home. Tomorrow it is back on the train to Sydney.

Back to the Future

In the book Future Shock, which I was required to read as a sophomore in college, author Alvin Toffler predicted in the 1970s that living history communities would eventually spring up in America allowing people to have the option of living their lives in the past, or at least a interpretation of the past. The idea intrigued me at the time, since my only experience with such places had been an elementary school outing to Henry Ford’s bizarre Greenfield Village and a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia when I was eighteen. Both places were staffed with people taking the option of living in the past, but neither one seemed particularly convincing or inviting.

Fast forward to my experiences as a Civil War reenactor. Gathering together with hundreds and thousands of like minded lunatics who wanted to recreate the world of the 1860s, I found an experience that most resembled Toffler’s prediction, but only as a temporary world; a weekend’s escape from the twentieth century. I had read about plans to establish a permanent site for a Civil War reenactment village, but to my knowledge nothing ever came of it. Visits to Tombstone, Arizona, Lincoln, New Mexico, and Virginia City, Montana during the intervening years all left me with the feeling that Toffler’s vision would never come true for the history of the American frontier. Nevada City in Montana might come close, but unless I am mistaken few of the reenactors there are paid for their trouble.

Our visit to Sovereign Hill on Thursday convinced me that Toffler’s prediction can possibly become true. Set in the 1850s, this town is a recreation of frontier Ballarat, staffed by over 350 paid employees and probably a volunteer compliment equally as large. The buildings were superb reproductions, as evidenced by comparing old photographs with the present structures, and even the miner’s cabins and tents along the gold panning creek gave the impression they had just been erected and abandoned for the day by occupants whose lust for gold kept them at their claims from dawn to dusk. The personnel were accurately dressed, and they slipped from first person interpretation to contemporary explanation effortlessly. Even groups of school children, who need to book their visits years in advance, were properly decked out in nineteenth century garb and shepherded about by teachers in similar attire, learning their lessons in basic subjects along with manners and comportment. They were so regimented, and so polite and willing to play the game, that it added to the illusion of actually being in the past. There were four different schools being taught at different locations in the town.

We spent the afternoon in this wonderland taking in the shops, watching some of the demonstrations, riding the Cobb & Company stagecoach, and having a delicious late lunch before checking into our cabin accommodations at a nearby caravan park. By the time we got there, Jayne and I were pretty well done in, and none too

enthusiastic about the next activity I had scheduled; taking in the towns light and sound show about the Eureka Stockade event that started at 9:00 p.m., a time when we are generally in our pajamas. Add to that a fierce wind and rain storm that had started during the day but only turned uglier at nightfall and you have a picture of our reluctance.

We should not have had the slightest hesitation. In spite of it being a cold, wet, and blustery night, we made our way back to the town to watch one of the best multi-media historical presentations I have ever seen. It began in an exhibit hall with interactive stations that helped one place the gold rush into context and appreciate the incredible hardships that goldseekers had to endure to get to the diggings. Then we were seated in an indoor theater and presented with a projected show that gave an overview of the 1854 miner’s revolt. Just as I was getting comfortable and smugly reassuring Jayne that we would not have to go outside for the show, a guide appeared on the stage and told us to follow her outside for the rest of the show! We were herded into the middle of a cold, rainy, muddy street that ran through the miner’s shacks and storefronts where the narration continued. Jayne, dressed only in two sleeveless dresses and a shawl, at least had an umbrella, but I gave her my coat, too, or she never would have made it. That would have been a pity, too, for once the gold camp portion of the presentation concluded they provided a bus that took us over a mile up the hill to ANOTHER open air theater where the story continued. It was fascinating, thrilling, and downright awe inspiring as we watched the tale unfold in

a scale model of Ballarat with working campfires, burning buildings, and various special effects. I was not uncomfortable; we were sheltered from the rain and I have a tendency to dress too warm anyway, so we enjoyed the entire show together, hypnotized by its professionalism and realism. Bear in mind this was all conducted in the dark, and when the bus took us back down to the main street the scene was lit by soft glowing street lamps that lent an eerie realism to the concluding performance, a live address by an actor portraying one of the miner’s leaders. We went home after that stunned by what we had seen and spent a comfortable night.

So, if it is true one can live in the past in this future world we find ourselves, I think Sovereign Hill came closer to that ideal than anything I have ever seen. We both agreed that the potential for Virginia City to replicate some of the things we saw here in Australia ought to be explored.

Robbery Under Arms

Ballarat. Even the name sounds exotic. Scene of the epicenter of Victoria’s 1854 gold rush, Ballarat is now simply a suburb of Melbourne, with commuter trains going back and forth mulitple times every day. This is our destination tomorrow, when we will go to spend the night in a holiday park adjacent to Sovereign Hill, a recreated gold rush town with costumed guides and plenty of opportunity to spend money. It sounds like an Australian Tombstone to me, and I am quite excited about our visit.

I first heard about Ballarat (and the Australian gold rush, for that matter) when I was still in Magee Junior High School and reading Sherlock Holmes for the first time. The Boscombe Valley Mystery set Holmes and Watson on a puzzle that resulted in apprehending an English murderer who had formerly been a member of a bushranger gang in Australia. On the lips of the murder victim were uttered the word “rat” which the great detective realized was actually “Ballarat,” and so here I am about fifty years later.

Jayne was quite sick the other night and coughed violently, causing both of us a bout of sleeplessness that really wore us out. She stayed home today while I made a trip to a bookstore adjacent to the University of Melbourne where I knew they had a copy of Rolf Bolderwood’s classic Robbery Under Arms. It was a long journey in the surface tram, which I learned crawls along the city streets at a fraction of the speed of the commuter trains. They stop multiple times between the official stops, and the trip was an ordeal I would not care to repeat, even though I got to see a lot more of the city. I felt like I was on a Cobb & Company stagecoach headed to the gold fields, but at least I was not concerned about being bailed up by bushrangers.

Exploring Melbourne

Melbourne is a wonderful city, filled with an interesting mix of old and new architecture, lovely parks and green spaces, and a transit system that is initially confusing yet curiously effective. We got up this morning and rode the train from the suburb of Kooyoung, where we are staying, into the Flinders Street station and began a long walk east to the Fitzroy Gardens, a park that was established in the 1860s.

It was spotless, with lots of busy caretakers to make sure it stayed that way. Among the sites along its shady lanes were a pavillion green house filled with the most beautiful array of flowers, the reconstructed cottage of Captain Cook’s parents brought over from England, and a “fairy tree” which has long since died but still bears the intricate carvings created in the 1930s of little people, koalas, and kangaroos.

Exiting the park we embarked on a fruitless quest for some second hand stores a guidebook had told us would be in an adjacent neighborhood of the same name. It was not an entirely wasted trip because we saw some pretty old buildings along the way that are reminiscent of the architectural style you would see in the French Quarter of New Orleans and a giant, somewhat grim looking St. Patrick’s Cathedral which rivaled many we saw in Paris.

Turning back to the core of the city, we made our way first to the Melbourne Museum, but we decided against going in to view the eclectic mixture of natural history and human history exhibits. The Royal Exhibition building in front of the museum was impressive, with a giant dome and a polished wooden floor that we admired from the doorway. Both are situated in another lovely park that a sign proclaimed had been designated as a world heritage site. It was not entirely without fault, however, since the flies were particularly nettlesome along this stretch that required us to continually employ the “Australian Wave” to keep them at bay. (I can see why the popular image of the old-time swagman with corks dangling from his hat brim came to be.)

At last we found ourselves at the State Library of Victoria, and we quickly made our way to the fifth floor to view the treasures they had on display. An incredible collection of documents, photographs, and artifacts told the story of Melbourne and Victoria’s

history from aboriginal times, to the first white contact, and finally to the modern date. We saw a portion of the flag flown by the rebelling miners at Ballarat’s Eureka Stockade, a diary of an active young woman from the 1890s who detailed her daily life in the city, and of course, Ned Kelly’s armor! As impressive as that display may have been, I was completely aghast to see Ned’s Jeriderie manifesto on display as well, done in his own hand (well, done in Joe Byrne’s hand, but at least Ned dictated it). I really liked the text from page they chose to highlight in the display case. Ned was certainly no Shakespeare:

...is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also who was has no alternative only to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct of a parcel of big ugly fat necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow hipped splawfooted sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords which is better known as Officers of Justice or Victorian Police...

While we were looking at the Kelly display the library’s manuscript curators came to do some maintenance and we had a nice chat, international colleague to colleague. We also viewed the library’s main reading room from the balcony, which allowed us to see people deeply engaged in reading and study with nary a house computer in sight. Such is life.

Such Is Life

In one of the more significant events of my adolescence in Tucson, Arizona, I stumbled across a phonograph album in an El Con Mall department store. The album was the soundtrack to a film by Tony Richardson and starring Mick Jagger: Ned Kelly. Kris Kristopherson and Waylon Jennings were featured on the album and the interior notes of the cardboard cover gave the most sketchy details

of Australia’s “Iron Outlaw.” I bought the album, waited breathlessly for the film to show up in Tucson (which it did, eventually, as the second feature at a local drive in movie and even then only for a week) and I have been interested in Ned ever since. I have read quite a bit about him, and find his myth to be a compelling sort of Australian Jesse James figure, notwithstanding the recent comparison by Robert Utley of Ned to Billy the Kid.

I remark on this because today, during our 11 hour train journey from Sydney to Melbourne, we passed through the heart of “Kelly Country,” including Glenrowan, the site of his last stand against the police that had come to track him down, and Euroa, the site of his gang’s first successful bank robbery. I was beside myself with awe, even though my dear wife continues to refer to Ned as “Stupid Head” and spent most of her time reading as we passed through these historic sites.

Now we are comfortably settled into a pool side cottage that is nothing short of palatial compared to our other lodgings during this trip. After the lengthy train trip, and a short jaunt in a sweaty cab across downtown Melbourne, we were welcomed by our host who

had thought of everything. In addition to the well stocked larder for our evening meal and detailed instructions on how to use the train to get from the suburb of Kooyong to downtown, she even offered us bicycles to ride and showed us the bike paths. Unlike Sydney, it appears you can ride a bike here without taking your life in your hands.

Our final day in Sydney was somewhat of a disappointment. We went to Paddy’s Market where I bought a Ned Kelly t-shirt, as I always do when we visit, but when we tried to go to a restaurant in nearby Chinatown I picked the very worst one. To make a long story short, after plunking down sixty seven dollars I was presented with some shrimp and rice served in glop of unspiced cream sauce which

covered the squash it was cooked in. I doubt I have had a worse meal on this continent, and I have eaten some pretty sketchy meat pies, believe me! Our apartment in Sydney, although located convenient to the conference I attended, left much to be desired as well. We are glad enough to now be here in Melbourne, and tomorrow we will explore more. After all, the Victoria National Library here has Ned Kelly’s armor on permanent display...

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Conference Wrap Up

Years ago I used to do a stand up comedy routine at the annual meetings of the Society of Southwest Archivists. For weeks prior to the event, I would pour over tired old jokes to see if I could somehow flip them to direct the humor at librarians and archivists, and eventually I would come up with enough to fill up a couple of small notecards with reminder cues that allowed me to keep up the patter for about a twenty minute presentation. It was very nerve wracking because I knew once I had to begin drawing tickets for door prizes (ostensibly the reason they kept asking me to do it) I would have to ad lib, and horrid were the tremors of “flop sweat” that I endured. I needn’t have worried. Every act for a decade turned out OK and the audience enjoyed regardless if they won a prize or not.

This meeting of the Art Library Society of Australia and New Zealand was different. Other than my nervousness about doing a Power Point presentation, I felt no pressure at all from these lovely people and was perfectly relaxed. This was especially true yesterday when, as part of a panel discussion that ended the conference, I was able to respond to questions with a clear head and a easy stomach. It also

helped that every presentation prior to the panel discussion was worth listening to. One of my favorites was presented by Michael Proud of the National Library of Australia regarding their handling of a massive photographic collection backlog. It warmed the cockles of my archival heart to hear them say they realized early on how ridiculous it would be to attempt item level description for these images and opted for arrangement and description practices of archivists to gather the photographs into large, relevant subject series. Still taking the time to individually number the items, the practice allows for the future addition of item level cataloging data at leisure or demand. If only all library managers were so enlightened! We work so hard to create searching platforms that are merely online collection advertisements designed to give the uninformed the illusion they are actually doing research.

I had so many people come up to me and say they agreed with my True Archives web blog and its vicious anti-Information Science rhetoric, too. That was worth coming to the far side of the globe to hear all in itself, but of course we have more things to look at before Jayne and I return to our benighted homeland. Today is the first day I have had to myself after two days of conference activity and Jayne has been a bit of a homebody during that time. Sticking close to this gulag of an apartment (the television does not work, the carpet is old and stained, the kitchen supports wildlife, and there is no artwork on the walls except for a collage of old greeting cards) Jayne has been bored out of her mind. While I was out at the conference banquet last night, and had the pleasure of seeing Russell Crowe walk by my table with his son, she was stuck here watching YouTube videos on this dinky, slow-loading laptop. I have to get her out into downtown Sydney during our last day before heading to Melbourne on the train tomorrow.

I am a Stranger Here Myself

I appeared before an international conference yesterday. (It was “international” because I was one of two American presenters, we were welcomed to country by a fellow of Aboriginal ancestry, and there were a couple of New Zealanders on the program as well.) In all a most intimate gathering since there were only about sixty five to seventy registrants gathered in the lecture hall of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The conference began with one of the most delightful talks I have ever heard in any gathering of information professionals. Benjamin Law, an Australian writer of Chinese-Malaysian descent, spoke about his family history in Australia with humor, grace, and touching detail. Benjamin is a gay man whose parents were divorced at a crucial time in his life, and anyone would reasonably expect a fellow with his background and experiences would have endured an adolescence of feeling like an “other” to the world around him. However, this young man flourished in Australia, became a successful magazine essayist, and his memoirs on his childhood, The Family Law, has been republished in numerous editions around the world and served as the basis for a smash hit Australian television series of the same name. He was an absolutely stunning speaker and he paid tribute to the archives and libraries where he did his research for the book. I told him after the talk that I sincerely hoped our American public television network would pick up the option on the show. (It would certainly be an improvement to their somewhat tired current lineup of British comedies.) Benjamin’s next book is an examination of the LGBT communities in various locations in China, Malaysia, and India which he has titled Gaysia. I hope our library will purchase his books if it has not already done so.

Those who know me well can testify that I have never really been intimidated by public speaking, but this time was different. Not only was my subject controversial, I also had the horror of a session timekeeper with a bicycle horn to give notice to windbags hogging the stage. I began by apologizing to the audience by identifying myself as an American and naming three disadvantages I was working under: I have a tendency to speak slowly, I have never given a Power Point lecture in my life (although I did show a video once), and last but not least, I had nothing to do with electing the current idiot that is slated to take the Presidential oath of office next January. With that said I

launched into my illustrated tirade which, on the surface, would seem to be insulting to each and every one of my listeners. I decried the contemporary librarian obsession with all things digital, damned the practice of destroying collections to make room for maker spaces and other such irrelevancies, and insisted that those whose work does not focus exclusively on curating the codex should cease referring themselves by the honored title of “librarian.” Along the way, I used some of my most provocative artwork to illustrate my points and got more than a few polite laughs. The real payoff began when after the talk so many of these Australian professionals came to be privately to confirm they felt the same way, and that they were glad SOMEONE was finally saying it out loud. I would hate to build a reputation as being the Don Rickles of library presenters, but this was most gratifying to hear from an audience I had mildly insulted and who had enjoyed it.

Meanwhile, back in our rented apartment Jayne suffered through another day of no television reception by proacively visiting a nearby electronic shop and purchasing a cable to connect our laptop to a giant screen monitor that dominates the living room of this hovel. As a result, we are now able to watch YouTube videos to keep her amused during the day while I attend the next sessions tomorrow and appear in a panel discussion on (you guessed it) the “future of the library.” Should I see any rotten tomatoes among the participants swag bag contents I will excuse myself.