One Little Piggy Went To Market… And Became a Citizen

Written by Jennifer Blake

On a Sunday morning in Marrickville, a trip down Addison Road would see a usually primarily empty lot transformed into a bustling market. Hippies and yuppies and puppies wander through, clutching string bags and green bags and canvas trolleys. Women marvel over rainbow silverbeet, men salivate over honey-cured bacon and children dance to off-key jazz. Couples and groups of mixed race, gender and orientation giggle at lambs and piglets in the petting zoo and sample organic cheese. On the surface it’s a picture of suburban bliss, but at its heart it’s symptomatic of a trend occurring in big cities all over the (developed) world: the reclamation of space for public use.

This trend is typified by the multiplication of farmer’s markets, community gardens, street kitchen gardens and collaborative urban art projects. It is a trend mostly driven from below, although hastily embraced by forward thinking local governments. And, consciously and unconsciously, it is expressing a conviction that citizenship in a city is concomitant with ownership of or (at least) investment in public space. It’s a backlash against the erosion of local citizenship caused by, among many things, the transnationalisation of food and labour markets, the increasing privatisation of leisure space and the diminished opportunities for interaction caused by the demise of local commerce.

It is a trend that harks back to the ideals expressed in the Green bans; that incorporates ideas about the rights connected with citizenship, individual welfare, and the value of public space for the private individual. The Green bans extended the imagining of social welfare and the rights denoted by citizenship beyond the economic conditions of man, and became concerned with his environmental conditions as well. Citizenship in a city included the right to a certain environment: to parks, to bushland and to low-cost housing. The Green bans acknowledged that the rights of a man or woman are intimately connected to the space in which he or she lives, and a right to that space is caught up in a man’s welfare.

Forty years later, we see citizens campaigning (using their voices and their dollars) to see the city for its use-value, not simply its exchange-value. Thus community groups (and lone graffiti artists) spray signs on vacant lots in Erskineville, demanding re-zoning for community gardening (just down the road from a Green Bans park, coincidentally). Citizens in Chippendale take matters into their own hands, Michael Mobbs beginning a nature-strip food gardening project that has seen three city blocks converted into a vegetable and fruit-growing oasis, with the assistance of Sydney City Council. Other efforts have been less successful, with a fruit and vege stand in Peace Park closed down for the lack of a permit last weekend.

Many of these attempts have been the labour of a few enlightened individuals – Mobbs is a perfect example, whose views about sustainability led him to put it into practice “we need to grow food where we live and work”. Their success is down to the enthusiasm of locals for climate-friendly food, local commerce and community interaction. Not all of these are conscious efforts at active citizenship, but enlightened or not, this is what they represent. They have thrived in the inner city where backyards are rapidly disappearing, sparking a return to community leisure as it has operated early last century. The City of Sydney Council have taken the challenge of active citizenship in public space up with enthusiasm – with many projects involving local food sustainability, and some more original art projects – two examples are I Heart Kings Cross (a communal urban knitting project) and Laneways by George, which has sought new uses for public urban space focussing on community and opportunity.

So next time you duck down to the local markets or marvel at a little bit of street art, remember that these are the things which empower us as citizens and connect us to our communities. And in this day and age, that’s not to be sniffed at.

The Other Middle East

Sarah Whyte takes a trip and looks at the fate of the Sydney Independent Music Scene.

Last Friday I went to The Middle East. It took me forty minutes to get there and I was met by two burly men upon arriving, having to show identification and my pre-arranged ticket. A little hesitant, I continued to walk on, only to be greeted by the melodious harmonies of mandolins, banjos, flutes and voices floating around me. My friends ran up to me with smiles, hugs and a jug of beer. I couldn’t believe we were finally here.

The Middle East is an Australian band that heralds from the tip of the Australian coast, from a small town called Townsville. The eight piece band played at the Manning Bar at the University of Sydney recently to a sold out crowd- who were aware that The Middle East was not only a currently turbulent geographical region, but also a band that makes you want to go home and pull out anything remotely resembling an instrument, or ideally several instruments at once in the hope of producing melodic noise.

If Townsville is the place where every dangerous reptile, shark, stingray or mammal resides in Australia, then The Middle East band acts as a musical antidote to such horrors- with soothing ballads, beautiful melodies and poetic lyrics.

The harmony between the three lead singers- a girl with flowing red hair and a short straight fringe, and two guys with rough beards and gypsy-like clothing- are divine. Listening to the music, you can only close your eyes and imagine that you are in paradise - perhaps Townsville without the killer creatures.

The Middle East is your typical ‘indie’ band. Indie music is short for Independent music (and not shortform for the soundtrack to Indiana Jones, as one enterprising friend once had me convinced). It’s light years away from the ‘mainstream’ music that you might find on Western music film clips where near-naked girls dance next to near-naked boys.

Indie music is eclectic in style and can range from folk-like dance music, to more adventurous and louder music, to anywhere in between. Being ‘independent’ somewhat collapses the conventions of genre that restrict other artists, meaning indie bands can draw on anything and call it art - so an extra tambourine or triangle should never be far away!

Yet the future of the Indie scene is currently in turmoil in Sydney. The closure of classic Indie venues such as the Hopetoun Hotel and threatened closure of the Annandale Hotel in Sydney’s Inner West, due to mounting costs and council demands, has shocked the Indie music culture and its devout roadies. These venues offered performance opportunities every Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights to varied audiences, giving up-and-coming bands staggering coverage within Sydney’s and Australia’s music community. Increasingly, Indie bands such as The Middle East are having to rely on online coverage, such as Myspace and Facebook rather than live gigs to promote their soft melodies and haunting harmonies.

Perhaps these bands should go on tour; and ditch Sydney’s diminishing venues for a crack at the Indie scene in the Middle East. It’s bound to be a hell of a ride.

Push up! Your body next to mine…

Is it hard to imagine a place less feminised, several years ago, than the community gym. Pictures of muscle tees and bulging veins dominated advertising. The only females were lycra-clad, equally bulging muscle women, a portrayal of the 80s ‘power woman’ perhaps equally repulsive to men and women.

This is no doubt what spawned the avalanche of ‘female gyms’ franchised from the USA, with patronising names such as ‘Curves’, ‘Contours’ or oddly in NZ, ‘Configure’. These gyms gave women the chance to work out away from ogling eyes and in a ‘safe’ space with other (presumably non-judging women). An exercise utopia.

Today as I wander into my (co-ed) gym, it has been remarkably feminised. Fitness First has a purple feature wall. Men and women run on treadmills side by side. There are more men on the service desk than there are women, and while there are still more male trainers than females, I would hazard a guess that there are more female members than males.

The upstairs ‘boys club’, where the heavy weights, pin-loaded and otherwise, reign supreme seems equally divided between the real muscle men, skinny guys gaining tone, and many women with biceps to rival Vin Diesel’s. This is likely a situation unique to my area – Newtown – but it is not only lesbians appropriating this once profoundly male space. Each trainer I have asked (male and female) has encouraged me to do more weights. In the long run, weights are apparently more effective at weight loss than pure cardio, as they force muscles to work for longer and continue to burn calories for hours after the actual movement has stopped.

Not that the battles have been won – stripping off in an all-female changeroom full of women in various states of undress and various body types is more intimidating, for me at least, than doing push-ups or squats with a bunch of men watching. (Note: I tend to find male gym-goers much more entranced with their own reflection than the females working out beside them in front of the mirror.)

The group classes are still dominated by women, and when our male trainer was recently replaced by a two-weeks-after-pregnancy female instructor, a fellow class-goer confided that she preferred male trainers – they push harder, she said, and drop the emotional crap. I disagree – this particular instructor, post-baby, is trying to get back to her fighting form, and is upping her weights each week and encouraging us to do the same. She’s more about process than results, and concentrates on building the strength required in order to lift more weight.

I still can’t decide which way the gendering of gyms is going, was going, should be going. But there’s something about sweating it out together that reduces everyone to the same level – lets face it, no one looks good on the cross-trainer.

We hereby elect to … Mind that starfish!

Written by Jennifer Blake

Yesterday the full cabinet of the Maldives first democratically elected government held a meeting six metres underwater. The unusual cabinet meeting took place in a bid to draw the attention of the world to the probable effects of climate change - impacts that will be felt in countries like the Maldives far faster than in the developing world.

80% of the archipelago’s tiny islands are less than 1m above sea level. UN estimates suggest that by 2100 - in 90 short years - the Maldives will be uninhabitable. In our lifetimes, we will see refugees of climate change.

Mohamad Nasheed, President of the Maldives, is no fool. “The Maldives is a frontline state and what happens to us today will happen to others tomorrow”. During the meeting, Ministers approved a resolution to urge a global commitment to reduce carbon emissions. Nasheed hopes the stunt will provoke thought ahead of the Copenhagen Climate summit.

Its a long time since we’ve seen this kind of creativity in political diplomacy - on a national or international scale. The Australian Government could take note. More importantly, however, I hope they will take notice.

Excuse me miss…

Hi! Hello There! Got a sec? I just wanted to talk to you about whalehunting/climate change/cancer/wariniraq/gaymarriage/childhunger - insert worthy cause here. Its the classic form of (legal) street solicitation. Abnormally happy people in bright shirts catch your eye, beg you to stop, and then deliver a heartstring-pulling spiel which inevitably has you thinking ‘Yes, I probably can afford that $30 per month. Its a good cause!”

Having done the hard-sell for charity (by phone, not on the street) myself; I’m always sympathetic. Its an awful job. People, I discovered, are rude.

Unfortunately, this same sympathy makes me an easy target for the charity-hawker. After many such encounters, I’ve built up my defences. I like the ones that begin with “How are you?” By the time you’ve said “good thanks”, you can be several paces ahead and they’ve lost the opportunity to keep talking. Today I got a “High five!!!”. That was easy. I can slap someone’s hand WHILST walking away.

The approach I struggle with is the question:

Do you support gay marriage? Well, yes, but I don’t really have time to stop.

Do you care that their are children starving in Africa? Well, yes, but I already give to a child fund.

Do you want to stop war in Iraq? Well, yes, but how is me giving you money going to achieve that?

If you say yes, you’re stuck in conversation. If you say no, you come across as a jerk. Its a catch-22 of guilt-tripping.

My latest tactic is to smile and say “I’m sorry”. I hope it conveys that I am both sorry that there are starving children in Africa, and sorry I don’t have time to stop.

For the well-paid but much abused charity hawker, I’m sure it doesn’t count for much.

What is the perfect brush-off?

We are a Mag Nation

Written by Jennifer Blake

Meandering down King St post-gym and pre-dinner I was delighted to peek into paper-covered windows heralding the arrival of a new store onto the artsy strip - the magazine powerhouse Mag Nation. With three stores in New Zealand and two in Melbourne, it’s about time Sydney-siders got a taste of freight journalism. 

Mag Nation stocks over 4000 titles of magazines - from cult overseas fashion and art bibles down to the nichest of niche interest trade mags. Prices range from your average newsstand glossy ($7ish) to $60 or $70 for some of the heftier, well-travelled options. 

Whatever your budget, a visit to Mag Nation is a visual treat - titles upon titles stacked neatly on shelves; glossy and papery, rough and smooth, blocks of colour and fabulous illustrations. And that great paper smell. 

Stores in Auckland and NZ boast free wireless and free coffee. We can only assume Sydney will do the same. No estimated time of opening for the Newtown store yet, but in the meantime wander over to www.magnation.com for a sneak preview.

Photos: by JB, Mag Nation on Ponsonby Rd, Auckland

*Edited to add:

In response to some inquiries, I will clarify that this post was not sponsored, or associated with the Mag Nation brand in any way. I stumbled across Mag Nation in Auckland recently and was impressed  - and thus excited to see it make its nimble way into Sydney.