Perspective from Melbourne's poorest people
Catherine Deveny
October 8, 2008
When you have nothing, Wall Street's crash seems irrelevant.

THE other day I went out on a soup van that provides food for the poor. Living on a pension must be difficult enough. Imagine how hard it is living on a pension and suffering a mental illness, being a survivor of abuse, battling addiction or coping with your life imploding. Now that's a full-time job. Try that and being homeless.

I'm surrounded b... read more

As some of you already know, I finally got around to undertaking some of that world travel that people are always talking about, and bloody hell it was amazing. It’s really difficult to communicate how fantastic it was to finally make it to New York and London. Too finally walk the streets of cities that I had only ever seen in films or on TV and that had always felt like destinations that would only ever be visited by others, was truly incredible.

The joy I felt at times traversing though... read more

– Getting to spend time in London with my Sister and Brother in Law - Puffin and G-Force, I love and miss you guys heaps.
- Catching up with Scott in NYC, and getting to meet Wally, Tom and Ron.
– Catherine Opie at the Guggenheim Museum
– Spending the afternoon with Nick and Jessica at the Portobello Rd markets.
- Finally getting to see Josephine again.
- Going to the Annie Lebowitz exhibition in London
- Playing Super Mario Kart (and losing badly) with Tim at club ‘Meat Whiplash’ in Lo... read more

While we’re on the topic of the arts, I was looking though the online guide for the Melbourne International Arts Festival for this year, and the first thing that comes to mind is PATTI SMITH OVERLOAD!

Firstly on Thursday 9th and Friday 10th October have two showings of Patti’s film ‘Patti Smith: The Dream of Life' being held at ACMI, with the Friday session being followed by a Q&A session with the great woman herself, along with Director Steven Sebring.
Following that, Patti holds two... read more

I was catching up with a mate the other day (hi-ya Lil), who mentioned that there was a screening of the fantastic Todd Hayes film ‘Poison’ coming up at the Astor Theatre over the next few weeks. This reminded me of when I first saw this film, late one Saturday night on SBS (a lifeline for me during this time, being a country kid and all that) and being absolutely astonished. I had simply never seen a film like this before, a film that was so experimental in nature and so bold in it’s depicti... read more