After Alex... (New Years Eve 2019, NYC . 9412)

After Alex... (New Years Eve 2019, NYC . 9412)

.
You pointed out the light as we went on a walk that afternoon.
Which is why I name this 'after' you.
You stopped at every place I asked you to and never looked bored, nor were impatient.
It was the last day of the year.
We were invited to a party, but I said that I preferred to just be with you.
You smiled in agreeance as we headed back to your place and ordered in.
We drank to celebrate life and us.
I tried to keep up with you, and ended up on the bathroom floor at 3am.
I should have known better.
It was a good reminder to be myself when I am with you.
It was a good reminder that I don't need to impress you,
as you accept and love me just as I am,
as I do you.
.
We woke up together on New Days day.
I felt the luckiest person in the world.
Not because I didn't have a hangover,
But because you had your arms around me.
We lay in bed for ages
just being with each other.

It was the perfect start to a new year.

copyright matthew schiavello 2020

A quiet day on the bay

AK and I went for a walk around the bay (Port Phillip), one Saturday. We took a train to one station, then walked for hours and hours, to another station on another line. I think we stopped for coffee twice. At one point, the water was so, so calm, I just had to take some photos. I was particularly captivated by the yellow poles sitting out there on their own, amidst the  silver blue seas and sky. In some parts, you couldn't tell where the horizon line was, as the sky and seas melded into one. Here are some of the my photographs from that walk:

                                              ‘The Bay on a quiet day #57′

                                                       ‘Yellow Pole #63’

                                                  ‘Yellow Pole #71’

                                                ‘The Bay on a quiet day #77′

all photographs copyright matthew schiavello 2015.

Holidays 2013, Netherlands and Belgium pt 5 : Amsterdam Library

Petra, the landlord of my apartment in Oud West, suggested I go to the public library in Amsterdam. 'Take the elevator up to the top and admire the views over the city', she said. She was not wrong, the views are great, unfortunately I had a lot of dust on my lens so the photographs I took are unusable unless I  spend a considerable amount of time cleaning up each image... and too be honest the photos don't warrant that time spent. Petra did mention in passing that he library was lovely as well.....Jeepers, is it ever! It is such a cool space I walked around taking many a photo!

The library was opened in 2007 and is spread out over seven floors. Walking about I noticed lots of space to study and lots of natural lighting. The website for the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam (Amsterdam public library) can be found here. The website itself is standard boring stuff, but if you are planning a trip to Amsterdam do check it out for the address details and visit the library, if only for the great view over the city. I thought I would share some images of the Library:


Did you want to sit and chill, or even read a book (you know those things that are kind of like kindles, except they are thick and made of paper... and you can only fit one book into a book, unlike a kindle.. as weird as that sounds....), anyway, if you want to read a book, then take a seat!:

Did you want to study? We have the run of the mill boring desks and tables, or you can use one of these study pods!

Did you want to borrow a cd? Feel free to browse our shelves:

Dvd's? We got them too and for some reason have coloured the spines of them. As you can tell by this photograph, I was obviously in the English dvd section,  they also and obviously had many Dutch dvd's... err.. somewhere else!:

Take a seat in these concrete looking, but actually light and soft seats, while you listen to music online, on our Apple computers:

I think someone must have suggested when they were building the library to put a cool looking light installation in the middle of a walkway.... 'Great Idea!' everyone said. I have to say it does look very cool and caught my eye from across the other side of the building. I was transfixed wondering 'what is that??? I need to get closer!'. I zoomed straight over, not even looking where I was going, just focusing on the lights and needing to get closer to them..... I must have been a moth in a past life!

Behind the above curved wall, infact on the inside of it, was a subtle and shifting light installation that spanned the whole inside length of the curved wall. There was a gap in the curve in which you could enter. It was really lovely to just stand there and watch it. I did wonder how many people had actually noticed it. Here is a photo of one moment of one small section:
 

looking down into the children's section:

The Library also had a couple of different exhibitions on when I was there. I saw an interesting photographic exhibition and some sculptures:

Lastly, looking through from where I was exploring the sculpture exhibition, I just couldn't resist taking another photograph of those lights!:

All photographs copyright matthew schiavello 2013

Darkness and Light: 'The happiest days of my life' & 'A post for Lou Reed'.

I thought we would take a short break from the holiday blog posts this week, just for this week. I was going to post a piece of writing titled 'The happiest days of my life'. A piece that is filled with darkness and light and then the news came on about Lou Reed's death. I then wanted to post some of his music as a remembrance of him, partly because I love so many of his songs and partly because I was shocked that many people did not know who he was. Much like the man himself, Lou Reed's music is filled with darkness and light... As I thought about this, the realisation came that it might be fitting to have both prose and ode to Lou in the one post.


Part 1:

'The happiest days of my life'

I want to say that the time
I was with you,
was the happiest time
of my life.

But that would be untrue.

Is it clichéd to say, that
we clung to each other
like drowning men
cling to floating debris?

I want to say that the happiest days of my life
were the days we spent together,
not the days we fought
or hated each other
venomously.

Nor the days
we planned and schemed
our next victory against the other,

but the days
in between.

Those precious
few days in between.

Even then,
happiness
is too strong a word
to describe the calm relief,
the respite from
our constant war.

I can say,
that there were moments with you,
which were the happiest moments
of my life.

And in all honesty,
they were.

For all the shit,
all the hurt
and the spite,
we still had these moments

that were so beautiful
they kept us together
for (much, much) longer
than we should have been.

copyright matthew schiavello 2013


Part 2:

Lou Reed.

Lou Reed died this week, on October 27th, aged 71. He was a prickly character who wrote songs (sometimes about characters), that influenced many, myself included. If  being part of the Velvet Underground wasn't enough, Lou Reed had a long solo career and also collaborated with other artists. His catalogue included tracks like; Walk on the wild side, Waiting for the man, Sweet Jane, Rock and Roll, Heroin, Venus in Furs, Perfect Day, Vicious, Dirty Blvd, Romeo had Juliet.. to name but a few.

For those of us who know and love him and for those who don't know his music, here is a small selection of Lou Reed's work. May he rest in piece:

From the 1972 Lp- 'Transformer' here is the wonderful track 'Walk on the wild side'. With so many great lines, rather than pick one to type up, I'd ask instead that you just listen repeatedly. Brilliant story telling and a kick arse bass line (As a Tribe called quest once asked, 'can we kick it? yes we can!'):



Another track off the 1972 Lp- 'Transformer', is the beautiful 'Perfect day'. Heartbreaking lines like 'Such perfect day, you made me forget myself, I thought I was someone else, someone good.':



From 1988's 'New York' is this great tune 'Dirty Boulevard', with lyrics that force you to question critically:
 'This room cost 2,000 dollars a month
you can believe it man it's true
somewhere a landlord's laughing till he wets his pants
No one here dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything
they dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard

Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em
that's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
and get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard.'':
 


From the Velvet Underground days, here are a couple of tunes.

Off 1967's 'The Velvet Underground and Nico' comes 'Waiting for the man. A song all about trying to score drugs':


From 1970's lp 'Loaded', here is the track 'Sweet Jane'. A song covered by many, for obvious reasons...How can you not sing along to lines like '... anyone who has a heart, wouldn't want to turn around and break it.....':



If you liked any of these tracks and had no idea who Lou Reed was.. go out and explore his musical legacy. If you loved the Velvet Underground tracks, go out buy the early records and put them on repeat, maybe you might be inspired to go out and start a rock and roll band like so many others!



next week..more holiday adventures!

Holidays 2013, Netherlands and Belgium pt 2: Amsterdam

During my stay in Amsterdam, I had a great apartment in Oud West. It was a 30-40 min walk into the heart of the city or a quick 10-15 min tram trip. The apartment was small but bright. Importantly it had everything I needed, a bed, shower, toilet, kitchen and washing machine!
Yes, practically speaking I felt that a washing machine was very important for this stay away, because last time I had to mostly hand wash clothes in hotel bathroom sinks!

Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, interestingly  (or maybe not..) the Dutch government sit in the Hague, rather than in Amsterdam. The word Netherlands translates to something like, low country/lands and part of the country is below sea level. In fact the Schipol Airport was built on a reclaimed lake and is the lowest airport in the world, at 4 meters below sea-level! (gee as I write this I am hoping that tour guide was telling me the truth!). The tour.. yes, I think  I was the youngest person on the couple of bus tours that I took... and truth be told, I am not that young. Recently at work one of my work colleagues was freaking out that it had been forever since he had finished high school.. like a whole 5 or 6 years and now, OMG he was feeling so old!!!...he then talked about how time was just slipping away.. jeepers, I finished high school.. 20 plus years ago!!!  LOL anyway, back to my holiday!!!

I walked around Amsterdam so much and was constantly, wonderfully surprised by the beautiful sites! The canals are just gorgeous and though I tried not to stop too much and stare like a total tourist (there are lots of signs warning of pickpockets!), there were times I just could not help it.

Nothing says Amsterdam more than Canal houses and Tulips (well, and bikes, and the red light district, and weed and......). Funnily enough, though I missed tulip time in Amsterdam, back home in Australia, the tulips were all in bloom! Anyway, at some daggy tourist place that we (the bus tour) stopped at, I decide to ditch the group for a while and went to the cafeteria to get a coffee and stumbled across some dodgy plastic tulips placed in front of some black and white wallpaper of canal houses! I just had to take a photo:

One morning I awoke really early and headed out into town to take some photographs. This is the intersection around the corner from where I stayed. I love the early morning greyness of this image. The bicycles lined up waiting, still asleep like most of the residents. The early morning tram scuttling off screen and the coffee shop on the corner, lights on, waking up and getting ready to caffeinate the masses into their day:

 From here I walked into town and took many photos of the canal boats in the early morning calm:

Heading into the heart of the city. The early morning light was so beautiful and created a kind of haze:

 

More photos of canals:

A canal houseboat close to the heart of the city:

I stayed near this next canal and loved that at the seeming end of it there was this chimney from the power-station, continuously polluting the environment and spoiling the scene. There is something about that juxtaposition of the scene we want to see as a tourist (beautiful canals, swans in the water etc) and the reality of  modern life and what is needed to make things run... (power station... etc) that I find exciting... yes, I am odd!:

For something different I took a photo of some canal houses and their reflection in the canal. I then thought, oh, it is so predictable!  So I decided to make the photograph black and white.... and then on a whim decided to flip it upside down to disorientate everyone!

All photographs copyright matthew schiavello 2013.

Holidays 2013, Netherlands and Belgium pt 1: Clouds

This year, through a series of fortuitous events, I was lucky enough to be able to go overseas for two weeks.

Stressed at work? what better way to relax than a quick trip overseas? To go to places you have never been to, that you don't know much about, place in which you don't know anyone there or even speak the language! A place to just 'be' and to experience.  The place was decided on a whim, "what about Amsterdam?" he asked me. I shrugged, "ok, why not? I've heard it is good". I was to fly into Amsterdam and 13 days later fly out of Brussels.

Despite the long flight to Europe (21 hours or so), the fact I can never sleep on the plane and find it cramped, even for a shorty like me! I do look forward to catching up on all the trashy fun movies I have missed. This time was no exception, films like; 'Orblivion', 'After Earth', 'A good day to die hard', 'G.I. Joe-Retaliation', 'Star Trek- Into madness', 'Midnight in Paris'... as well as classics like 'Funny face', 'Bridget Jones' Diary' and TV programs like; 'The middle' and 'Parks & recreation'. I am sure that I am missing some other things I had watched! Still, it was a movie marathon!!!

Something else I love watching and am often transfixed by, are clouds. Floating, ever shifting and changing... whether watching from below or above... it can be mesmerising. There is something about clouds that fills me with a sense of wonder and hope. A sense of inspiration and of the endless possibility.

I thought I would start my series of blog posts of my trip to the Netherlands and to Belgium, with  a post collecting some of the images I took above the clouds.... both on my way to Europe and on my return back home. These are all taken around 30,000 feet up!

Going there:

I love the lines in this one.. the horizon, clouds and airplane wing:

One my return home I captured these images of the sky just before dawn, at dawn and then later in the day:

Not sure which way I prefer this image of the sky, 

30,000 feet up, just before sunrise.. 

this way:

or this way, the right way up:

The sun starting to poke itself above the horizon line:

Later, much later in the day:

All photographs copyright matthew schiavello 2013.

The last sister to be married.

In June this year my sister Leanne recently married Frank. She is the youngest of my four sisters and the last to be married. At the wedding my aunty asked me when will I get married and I replied when the law here allows it. I have posted some of these images on facebook, but thought I'd share them here.

Leanne and Frank- Bride and Groom

My nephew and one of his very mischievous looks:

My beautiful stepmother-the mother of the bride, looks on:

Now that the church bit is done, my brother and brother in-laws' head off for a quick drink before the official reception. Choosing a cocktail is a very serious affair!:

My niece looks up at mum and aunty:

My brother did a good job as M.C. and is  below captured in a very Las Vegas moment:

My dad gives a speech as my brother looks on in the wings- 'Stand back junior and watch how it is done!':

Father and daughter dance:

One of my sisters tried taking a few shots of me, on my own and with others, this one was in focus. Another of my infamous non-smiling photos:

All photographs copyright matthew schiavello 2013.