The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say

The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say — because they were too obvious.

Here is the face of an old quarry that can be found down next to Salamanca Square. A fair chunk of the Salamanca area itself is nestled into an old sandstone quarry itself. The demand for berths and storage saw the creation of new docks and sandstone warehouses in an area that had once been known as the 'Cottage Green'. The former row of original cottages were demolished for sandstone warehouses, and by the mid-1840s the bustling dock area had become known as Salamanca, in honour of the Duke of Wellington's 1812 victory against the slippery frogs in the Battle of Salamanca. [HOORAH FOR BLIGHTY!]

As I've noted before, the whole waterfront area is re-establishing it's credentials as Hobart's night-time entertainment capital (that is, if one equates the concept of 'entertainment' with 'getting on the piss and having a scrap').

This is only fitting, as early in Hobart's history, it had developed a reputation as a rowdy and debaucherous place. A mixture of crowded terrace housing, pubs, hotels, brothels, and gambling houses as well as various other forms of seedy entertainment for visiting sailors, cock-fighting [ohh-err missus] and dog fighting not least popular in the area.

Sadly, the brothels and gambling dens are gone, and all we're left with are drunk and angry teens shouting "nerfuckenpricks illfuckenkillya whatareyafuckenlookingat" before being dragged off by the police to the jeers of equally drunken girls.

Comments

Roddy said…

I wonder what your great, great, great grandfather would have said? He lived half a block away in Morrison st.
Do you think he would have preferred the yobs of yesterday or the yobs of today?

6 July 2009 at 17:36

Kris McCracken said…

Roddy, the yobs today are not a patch on the yobs of yesteryear.

7 July 2009 at 11:00

Anonymous said…

its a dolerite quarry...DOLERITE! nice picture anyway... inspired me in a key element of my school work

28 October 2011 at 06:56

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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