Month: October 2006

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Asleep at the wheel again

Well, I’ve been nodding off again. You’ve just missed Melissa Jackson‘s Fringe Festival performance. Her frantically making her famous hats in the front window of her Gertrude St shop in the leadup to what used to be called the Melbourne Cup and which we are increasingly accepting as the Spring Racing Carnival.

But here’s something that may be worth trotting along to: the Map 44 Urban Art tour at 2 p.m. this Saturday (14 October 2006) departing Dante’s, led by a man described in the official literature as half Aboriginal and half Ethiopian, Jason Tamiru. Seems many of the shop windows on Gertrude St between Smith and Brunswick Sts have been decorated and he’s going to show us around.

And now to Aesop (pictured). They have a beautiful website, I’ll grant them that. They peddle skin stuff at $60 for 200 ml, with quotes from Voltaire, Virginia Wolf, and Camus. They have redefined luxury on the back of the industro-chic so lapped up down the road at Industria, promising elixirs so wondrous — we’re talking topically applied antioxidants — that they are sold in these austere apothecary’s vessels.

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“Birdman Eating”: damn good baked eggs on Gertrude St

That’s Tim, presumably the Bird Man himself, proprietor of this oddly named cafe next to Dr Follicles in what was formerly Organic Gertrude on Gertrude St, near Smith St’s corner (9416 4747). What he needs to do is strike up some entrepeneurial deal with the ready reservoir of fellas waiting for a mop chop next door (I’m thinking a brass bell with a rope which travels through the wall to bling bling a couple of minutes before it’s your turn, or a little doorway through which espressos could travel). It’s a spic and span place, probably a bit too s ‘n s for my tastes, but it’s brand new, and cosy clutter will no doubt round off its sharp corners over time. It’s an interesting place with an interesting menu, a breakfastry that lists eggs and bacon as extras, but boasts interesting options including: