The Storymaker
How would you like to amble into a bookstore, order a book not in stock and watch while a computer-operated machine prints and binds the book in about seven minutes? For about $20? While you watch the machine and chat to the assistants? Convenient!
Well there is one of these machines in Melbourne - at Angus and Robertson's Bourke Street store opposite the Post Office.
Newsboys
"Here Ye! Here Ye! Thingo who works at the cafe on Tuesdays has put on five kilos! Dude says the ticket machine wasn't working at East Richmond Station. Gets fined anyway! Barista pretends to make a skinny decaf latte but uses full fat milk then laughs at lady behind her back!"
This is the real news of our city.
Absence
(Think friendly Japanese expat bower bird bookmaker, stuffed in a capsule hotel.)
People-person Hiromi Tango has holed herself up into that little space no larger than a late model Ford Festiva at Platform (where the old guy with second-hand books lived and died) and is living out her art project Absence.
Blanket Magazine's patchwork poster launch
Blanket Magazine has been publishing in the fine, time-honoured tradition of downloadable pdf since December 2006. It's less about writing than it is about visual stuff (art, design, photography). Actually, it's kind of like a giant, bimonthly, downloadable folio. (But hey, so's the newspaper, only journalists won't be getting a better paid job, ever.
Worried Noodles
Bean bag, bean bag. Whatcha doin’ sittin’ on that bean bag?
Reading Shrigley’s Worried Noodles!
Tree stump, tree stump. Whatcha doin’ dancin’ round that tree stump?
Dancin’ to the tunes of Shrigley’s Worried Noodles!
Lamp post, lamp post. Whatcha doin’ danglin’ from that lamp post?
Dangling my copy of Shrigley’s Worried Noodles above you.
THE THING Quarterly
A hundred and twenty bucks doesn't get you much these days in the way of human companionship. Sure, you could wrangle together some stranger for a buck fifty or so, but everyone knows the top shelf stuff starts at four figures, minimum.
It wasn't always this way. Remember love letters? Real ones? Coming home to find an envelope with your name written on it.
Separately Together
Separately Together brings together (well, separately, but together) emerging artists from University of Melbourne and VCA whose work hijacks language and text for the visual arts. Throughout August they will be incubating their most personal thoughts in the exposed glass cabinets of Platform's subway space.
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