Detournement

It’s funny how show­ing vis­it­ors around your city reminds you about how much you love it. In the last few weeks, I’ve hosted vari­ous people through Moon­light cinema and Brun­swick St and espresso in Degraves St and graf­fiti tours. We have the most amaz­ing food and intim­ate little bars and divine rain­forest. I love Mel­bourne in the summer. In the winter, I want to hide away, leave for Europe. But the fire­places are okay, invit­ing me in for spice wines to warm me. 

I want to live in Europe one day but this is the city for me as far as Aus­tralia is concerned.

I also love the random nature of encoun­ters through Couch­Surf­ing, through run­ning into Andrew Mac in Hosier Lane and being invited into his sten­cil exhib­i­tion (review here), people I see in the street and just end up chat­ting to. I feel like a flan­eur in my city this week, as though I am moving on its under­cur­rents and deflect­ing its demands.

At the same time though, I am rendered observer only. 

This morn­ing in Degraves St, I walked past Amanda Van­stone peer­ing into a café and was rooted to the spot as my brain tried to pro­cess her pres­ence (was it really her?) and come up with the ideal cul­ture-spore to cast at her, as her secur­ity star­ted to take far too much interest in me, as she turned to look at me (it was her), apo­lo­gised to get me to move out of her space and then walked off, leav­ing me frus­trated with myself and speech­less. What could I say to her that has not already been said? What inter­ven­tion would have been suf­fi­cient? “Amanda, grow some com­pas­sion.” “Amanda, how can you live with your­self?” “Amanda, I just want to let you know some of us love the diversity that is this city, the street you’re stand­ing in with its iron cur­licues and its European feel, and we want diversity without assim­il­a­tion but without ghet­toes either, and you are everything I des­pise about closed-minded politi­cians and yet here you are, human, rounder and shorter than me, power­ful, much more power­ful, owl-blink eyes and black-grit heart.”