Festival First Night

Ali, Jo and I went to the Sydney Festival First Night on the weekend, where the Black Arm Band and Al Green were playing.

I loved the Black Arm Band, they have a great vibe about them, and Dan Sultan is quite the performer. Al was also fabulous (those roses into the audience and his white glove made quite a stir).

The sky was full of bats, and the place was absolutely packed. Here are some photos I took.

the festival stage

Welcome to Country, smoking ceremony

the bats were company

a proud family in front of us

A happy 2010

I should've posted this a few weeks ago - better late than never. I love the teabags and the stapler best.

illustration by Esther Aarts, via grain edit

journalism vs non-fiction

Melbourne writing journal, Meanjin has a blog, Spike, and they have an article up today on the intersection of journalism and non-fiction.

It's really interesting. It's something I've thought about a lot - wondering whether news reporting hinders or helps your creative writing. I think I've decided they have very different purposes, and use different parts of your brain, and so are enjoyable for different reasons. I think writing too much news might kill the creative spark, but it also helps develop concision, a feel for words, sentences, and stories.

Spike also had another good article yesterday revealing J.D Salinger's reluctance to see Catcher in the Rye turned into a film.

tricks of light

some photos taken on my phone lately

Bathroom minstrels

Nick clued me into this eery film clip of Grizzly Bear performing one of their songs in a small Parisian bathroom. It is the perfect soundtrack to the dark of night, I think.

Williamsburg

Utterly beautiful illustration by Sophie Blackall, from her blog Missed Connections, where she illustrates ads from Craiglist where people try to reconnect with strangers they've run into.

via A Cup of Jo

The geometry of style

How cool is this post on Design Sponge about the maths of floristry!!

Also, most awesome bunch of flowers ever.