So, like, right, I totally heard before I, like, totally left that, like, Americans are totally patriotic, right? Ok. So having spoken to, like, a couple of New Yorkers I hadn't really got the God Bless America punch in the face. Right?

Thus I mentally noted, in my morally-superior-cafe-latte-drinking-
university-educated-Australian-stereotype-denying way that in fact Americans,
or at least New yorkers, may not have been as
gun-to-your-throat-freedom-crying patriots as I had once conjectured.

Then one day, as I gazed wistfully, as only a young woman who wears flowers in her hair and douses herself in perfumed oils to immitate the feeling of love and romance whilst dreaming of life and sunshine beyond the present, such as myself, has a tendency to do, I noticed for the first time two star spangled banners whiping in the chilled like vodka wind of the New York fall morning.

The presupposed blueprint for the day was an adventure to Brooklyn to eat a pie and sauce, drink a real coffee, see a friend at her cafe and then to see an Ibsen play performed entirely in Norwegian.

In order to make the day a complete experience I thought I would create an activity in which to indulge so that the journey as well as the destination was full of culture and dimension.

And so was born:
Flags of The Neighbourhood

"Oh, where are the flags in your neighborhood?In your neighborhood?In your neighborhood?
Say, where are the flags in your neighborhood?The flags that you see each day."

The games began with a bang and a boom as 2 blocks from my dreamy abode...

Flag No.1
















Then 5 steps away...

Flag No.2









and with that I burned a hole through the ground and hurtled my way on a charging subway train, Brooklyn Bound - when really I should have just rode my bike and parked it outside an Italian Restaurant:

Flag No.3
















Me: Excuse me. Which way is Ataliantic Ave?

Passerby: Just turn left at the flag.

Flag No.4
















Brooklyn is in big bloom as a bustling borough for the arts thus:

Flag No.5









Patriotism is hiding everywhere:

Flag No.6
















This is a Marine Terminal - not as in "Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns" -Jack-Nicholson-in-A-Few-Good-Men kinda way. It is a place where boats dock and deliver things to the people of Brooklyn:

Flag No.7
















Flag No.8










Flag No.9









Please note I have only wlaked about 6 blocks at this point.

Flag No.10
















I was now running late for my Norwegian play, but this photo-taking-flaggy thing was taking over my soul...to point.

Flag No.11









Symbolic?:

Flag No.12
















I mean seriously! This was getting out of hand!

Flag No.13










And for the grand finale:

Flag No.14-19 aka: At Peace with Resistance.
















After 20 flags in less blocks and 3 hours I was beat and beaten -New Yorkers: Your retardedly over zealous patriotism is, well, its noted by this morally-superior-cafe-latte-drinking-university-educated-Australian-stereotype-denying-floral gurl.










God Bless America.

Previously on Love Won't Play Any Games With You Anymore (LWPGWYA?):

So, I had taken an oh so tranquil New York walk in...
















and found...





















DISCO ROLLER SKATING!

And this is where our realities shall intersect as the trajectory of the narrative resumes from whense it ended or...

One Saturday in Manhatten (continued):

After the discovery of disco roller skating in the middle of Central Park, I placed my faith in the city with the hope that it would unveil a myriad of adventures and intriguing sights if only I defied the subway and its exorbitant $2USD per ride compulsory ransom which includes a short but very much enclosed and confined journey with psychopaths.

In other words I desided to walk home.

I walked down Madison Ave, on the look out for Rockerfella center which I completely missed, depsite the fact it takes up about three blocks, but found instead a store whose sign read: 'Bargins For the Millionaire'...

...

?

NY didn't quite feel like home anymore...who actually shops there?

Then I passed...

















a church...

















that I thought looked cool and tourists seemed to be taking photos so I thought I'd join in the touristy fun...despite the fact I have no idea which or what church this actually is ("Its all about aesthetic and fuck all to do with morality"

And then merandering down the streets paved with Tiffany and Co and remanants of romantic 60s movies washing the streets I stumbled upon...


























...the blather of consumerism alive and pulsating into the setting sun. And I realised quite quickly that Times Square looks way more impressive in photos when their taken at night.

The lovely afternoon adventurous stroll intended to discover the intricacies of the New York city scape had soon enough evoporated into a blobby mass of coldness and hunger and a desperate need to pee. So I went east to 42nd street and popped into...


























...no, not a museum...


























...no, not a conservatory for music, but...















Grand Central Station.















It's not exactly Flinders St but its not bad, ey?

And with my face pressed firmly into some strangers chest plate and someone elses hand in place that may have changed my religion I caught the crammed and busy subway home to lil' ol' 23rd street to enjoy the view from my apartment...















Yes, the small sliver of light at the top center of the photo is the empire state building...



























This is from the other window...

So! How's Melbourne?

One Saturday in Manhatten...

So I went for a walk to...















and it was...



















...tranquil.

When suddenly on a sunny saturday...















...there were people ice skating! Its cold in fall here but...this is absurd!
After noticing the big 'Trump' signs everwhere I kept on walking through...
















...and it was...















...oh so New York.

When suddenly, the sound of a disco bass line resonated through the land and the brightly coloured leaves and pulsed like a pace maker heartbeat amongst the gazzillion people who also thought it a particularly sound idea to enjoy a Saturday afternoon in...














.

So like any well trained party dancer does I followed the beat like a flashdancer counting herself into 'What A Feeling' ("and 5,6,7,8 and leap and kick and down and flick")



and I found...





...




























...disco roller skating!!!





















As always I pulled my camera out reluctantly, not wanting to appear like a tourist, and tried to take pictures without anyone noticing (which is a ridiculous thing to do! Am I destined to live in a perpetual state of denial of what I am?!) If I could pretend to be an AH-TEE-ST with a big fuck off camera I would be ok with that, but some ordinary and manky tourist??? ("Nobaody likes a tourist") pfft! Not 4 ME, thank. you. very. much!

So the pictures do not communicate how cool and apt these people were at their craft and the joy with which they danced/skated. The DJ I must say was kicking!







































This woman was amazing. She was about 50 if not 60 years old and still wore a velour jumpsuit. A little disturbing but inspiring none the less! The guy in teh background was a maniac ("maniac, MAAAANIAC" but also just a bit weird and sweaty and dancing at a disco skating rink without skates or a top).

One Saturday in Manhatten TBC...

Similies and Metaphors used in Suzuki and Viewpoints training*

1. When practicing the four basic movements, one through to four, you must not be like a tree swaying in the wind; you must be like a concrete obelix.
2. When sliding forwarded in basic no#1. imagine you are pulling a car, full of children, out of a dam with your peliv area.
3. When sliding forwarded in basic no#1. imagine you are pulling a sledge, full of children, out of a dam with your pelivic area.
4. The bottom half of your body is like a stone pedestel and the top half of your body is is bouquet of flowers.
5. The bottom half of your body is like earth, the top; sky.
6. The bottom half is fire, top; water or nuclear reactor and peace on earth.
7. Your diaphram is a tyre
8. When turning in the Slow Ten Walking imagine you are attempting to turn the earth on its axis and begin to spin it in the opposite direction. Or imagine you are moving a cement building on its foundations 180 degrees
9. When practising Basic No#1 imagine you are working against a string current of water. When you are wlaking you are pushing against the current.
10. In basic no#4 your pelvic region is like a corkscrew.
11. Become more shapely in the shapeiness.
12. We are not zombies.
13. You are a sports car not a toyota carola
14. Tom (leopard print/bike shorts guy/lovely guy/brilliant teacher): Say 'I' when I say your name like you are in a classroom and the teacher has asked the class what 2+2 is and you know the answer and you put up your hand as if to say 'I, I, I know the answer!'"
15. Don't forget to breathe...or you will die.
16. Taken from Lee Strasberg method acting school:

Student: I'm tired of 'being' a cat.

Teacher: I had to be a monkey for 6 months for Lee Strasberg before I got to progress

And Yes! Acting is a real job...

I think.

*please note these are actually quite useful when training as they allow the imaginative engagement with the work. The instructors realise and make note of the often...strageness of this use of language.

“Clothing can be seen as a vessel that holds the human spirit.”
-Rebecca Lyon (found at the National Museum of the Native American)

There are many problems that one can, will and must encounter when traveling. One of which is the opportunity to only present a small fraction of yourself to the ever expanding oyster that you have placed yourself within. This small fraction, represented through clothing, controlled by airline luggage limits as well as the personal issue of strength, is usually a rather practical fraction.

As those within the radius of my inner circle of likeminded social misanthropes and advantageous butterflies (well let us be honest here, even those people in the deep recesses and the cavernous periphery of the spiral that is made of brief encounters and snippets of conversation), will know that I am not, as such, a terribly practical person.

Vague, self concerned and smiley? – yes.
Open to new experiences, happy to be the fool and suspicious of, yet intrigued by, academic banter? – yes.
Floral, passionate and at times sensitive? – I would like to think so.
Connoisseur of jazz ballet, indefinitely indecisive and flip flopper of the English language to the point of absurdity minus the humo*r? – But of course.
Logical thinker, maker of sense, and practical in life’s mundane and ordinary sequence of events? - …

…

Me thinks not.

The truth is naked and cold like a stone but I piffed that stone into a river many moons ago with a Shakespearean flourish when grappling with the science of ‘skimming’.

The point of this trivial blather (however contrived through encumbered and fraudulent prose) is to state that the hour of my discontent is due, primarily, to the unsatisfactory selection and the lack of spicy variety which informs my glad rag choice for this trip. If this devastating, if not highly overrated and exaggerated, lack of self expression amongst the plethora of “rehearsal” clothes or “warm” jumpers – never to have been worn in ol’ Melbourne town prior to this journey, but alas are painstakingly practical – is the hour of my discontent then the minute hand that chips away at the marble of any self assurance or sense of character remaining is unquestionably my new hair cut!

I can’t put it up, I can’t put flowers in it (!), it makes my face look round and chubby not slender and oval shaped and my mum has made Janette Howard comparisons…what more can I say!

If clothes, as Rebecca Lyon hypothesizes, have the capacity to contain even the notion of the human spirit, then not only am I stripped down like a lump of plasterscene (plastercine?) before Gumby, unanimated and soulless left to the machinations of outside judgments, but also the small fraction of personality that I can expound to the world is one not dissimilar to a cabbage patch kid doll.

In summery, I am tired of my clothes and I don’t like my hair cut.

*insert ‘u’ at will.
**New York Fashion Police Department, but you worked that out already, right?

After re-reading some of my rather rushed posts I feel that not only must I take this oppotunity to articulate the grammer of the feet but also grammer of the English language. With a half an hour limit on the internet and a Wilco concert in Pennslyvania to try to organise to get to, grammar will have to be as fast past as moving your 'centre of gravity' (pelvic region from which all performance and Suzuki training extends from.

saturday: Due to my utter, undeniable presence of cool the big black man with an intimidating body but a pleasant smile accepted my application for a NYC public library card. And BAM!: Internet for free! I always feel like I am cheating the system when I am in the library like I should really borrow a book to make it worth tehir time, me sitting here getting the interent for free. But that makes no logical sense at all. Went looking for a gallery, but ended up at ignite festival. Twas ok, nothing...inspiartional. Book reading was interesting. Found So Ho and Bleeker St. Then went to see Okkerville River at the Bowery Ballroom. Totally Radical Gig! Bounce in my step when I left The Bowery. Its Alice's birthday today! Happy 2nd Birthday Bella!
Sunday: DUMBO festival. Way cool.

Monday: Energy form everyone is not necessarily down, but unfocused, takes a while to get back into it. We do in the end. Ellen is our instructor and we listen like squirrels to her every word.
Tom wears bike shorts in class and I think I have spotted a pattern...bike shorts for teching. leopard print linen pants for training.

Tuesday: After today's clss I start to feel the burden of self doubt. I feel unfit, fat, unenergetic, uncreative and "in my head" for viewpoints, Viewpoints, as is Suzuki, a sensation class, you have to learn to feel it, not so much think academically about it. Adena and myself both feel like we were 16 year old high school student attacking this sort of work of the first time desiding on shapes and things to do before we have even arrived at the point of working. This feels yucky.

JD is our teacher for viewpoints and we are unintentionally late for class and get a little scolded. Nothing harsh. You just do not arrive late for a SITI class. I concur. We are asked to tell soemthing interesting about ourselves so JD can rememebr us. I can't think of anything. Ugh.

Wednesday: Feel much better today but suzuki (as it was for everyone) was trying. Stephan was our instructor and it was just hard physically but also mentally. A good sleep and a good feed hopefullly will result in a more energetic and successful day tomorrow. Viewpoints was better today, lept in and persisted. Had coffee with Adena, the mad Itlaian Lori, Barish and Ana. A lovely debreif and exchange of ideas was had by all.

The review continues...

wednesday: Akiko is our instructor and although her english is slightly broken she is funny and energetic; contagiously so.
Barney (purse of the lips to surpress the smile when he tells us his name...but I am obviously the immature one!) is our teacher for viewpoints today and we love him to pieces. He makes us conscious of space, negative space and spacial relations. I walk out into the city as if "all the world is a stage!" Flourish and Exuant.
A couple members of teh company trains with us each day. Tom wears leopard print linen pants. Can't help but wonder why.

Thursday: After a gin fused soiree the previous evening with the mad Italian Loriana - fuelle on by bar tender Abbey and her freebie 'whip it out' Wednesday shots, class takes on a different challenge. No 3 mins of stomping (tagahashi). The god I am facing through this training must be on my side. The human cracks in the form emerge as Akiko demonstrates "Basic No. 4". We realise that no one - not even after 16 years of trainging - can perfect these moves, its thesis is to aim to perfect them, without ever reaching your goal, constantly raising the bar is the point.

friday: First day that I feel really tired and unenergetic. My shins hurt, my feet ache, and my legs stings. My focus wains and instead of consciousness I feel self conscious in my work. The Challenge: how do I over come this?
Stephen is our instructor ominous instructor - powerful stern and serious he explains the blather of capitalism taht we are surrounded by. I am no socialist wanting to smash capitalism but the acknowledgement of theatrical practice with politcal radicalism gave me a tingly feeling in me tummy that happens when the world makes sense for a breif moment in time. Barney taught us how to dance by letting us embody the equation shape+time=movement. Luckily he is the first to point out the occational naffness of the vocabulary of this work and the often 60s 'love-in' esque exercises that are practiced. But he moves in such an articulated and baeutiful way that we trust where its heading.