Tube duel
Thursday, 17 April, 2008
Saturday 5/4/08
I got up, showered, did breakfast/Bible/pray, turned on my computer to print some things, then caught the train to Circular Quay and walked to the Customs House Library where Bec and Guan met me for our writing day.
In our continuing quest to find new and interesting places to write in, we thought we'd try it out as we went to the State Library last time. My goodness, I don't know why I haven't been sooner! The place is so cool and everything looks like a designer thought long and hard about it. As you go in, there's a café on your left—
—which we didn't have time to try. On your right, there's a nice little waiting area for reading and other stuff:
—and then above you three storeys up there's a skylight and a box kite-like sculpture suspended from the ceiling:
The floor is glass, and under your feet there is a full scale model of the Sydney CBD, complete with little fairy lights:
On your left there is the magazines and newspapers, with this incredibly funky chandelier hanging from the ceiling—
—and then next to that, there's the computer terminals for the catalogue—
—which are probably the funkiest terminals I've ever seen. Even the toilet doors are cool:
We headed up to the Reading Room which is on the third floor and it was divine—up high, with plenty of light streaming in through the windows, dark wood tables with neat little white lamps, the walls completely covered with bookshelves.
Oh, did I mention that they have free wireless internet at the moment? They're trialling it.
So we sat in the Reading Room with our assorted paraphernalia and wrote for around one and a half hours which is, in my opinion, a good stretch, and then we walked up to Pitt St for dumplings and yum cha. (It was sunny so I had my black lace parasol out, and we were stopped by some American tourists who had been admiring it for four blocks and who wanted to know where they could get one. They also loved the rest of my outfit: I broke out the black lace thing I bought in the Dandenongs for the first time and wore it over a black singlet and long black skirt. But they didn't like my Kinokuniya bag—“No, she needs Prada,” said the man, and I almost started laughing.)
We went to Sky Phoenix in Skygarden and consumed our fill of dumplings, mango pudding, tofu dessert and custard tarts, and then went our separate ways—Bec and Guan back to the eastern suburbs, me to Tapestry Craft to see what they had by way of yarn. It wasn't just the American tourist's comment; I know I need a new bag. The little handbag (more like a pocket with a shoulder strap, really) I bought in 2005 for $8 finally carked in a couple of weeks ago (the zipper gave out) and I'd been thinking for a while I should make one for myself and customize it so that it had enough room to fit my wallet, mobile, A6 journal, pen, keys, lip balm and tissues—something like this (but in black) and perhaps felted (yes, I keep talking about it and never do it!) I wanted something wiry and sturdy to knit with but Tapestry Craft didn't have anything like that. I wandered around the store twice—overhearing a knitting lesson in progress and being rather amused by it. In the end, I just bought a row counter which I thought would be useful for knitting on the go (it is!)
Then I walked to Bathurst Street and caught a bus down Newtown, alighting at the southern end. I was looking for the At The Vanishing Point gallery because a girl at church told me that she was having some of her work hung there. It took me a little while because I got the address wrong, but I finaly found the place and took a look around. I also stopped in at Etelage, a jewellery making and bead store run by a lady from my old old church, and bought a book on beads and jewellery making for $10. And then I made my way back north (stopping in Tree of Life to have a stickybeak) and wound up in Camperdown Memorial Park just on 4 for the start of Cardboard Tube Fighting League—the Australian branch.
This was something wholly instigated by Fish. A couple of months ago, he kept saying to us, “Cardboard Tube Fighting League!” and we both said, “What?” and then he set a day, advertised it online and advertised it on Facebook, and then the media got in on it and ran a story in the Inner West Courier(plus a photo where Ben's face is completely obscured by Fish's cardboard tube on Facebook). Then the Sydney Morning Herald picked up the story with a massive amount of space being devoted to it on page 3 (with a great photo of Fish decked out in cardboard armour profiled against the sky). Then ABC Radio rang, wanting Fish to talk on air. He didn't want to, so he got Ben to do it, and Ben was interviewed on ABC Illawarra and ABC Adelaide the Tuesday before this (he did an excellent job too!)
No one was sure how many people were going to show, so it was a nice surprise to see that all these people had turned up to watch, and a stack of people had turned up to participate—old and young. Some of them had gone to a lot of trouble too, sporting cardboard armour, shields and helmets of various kinds (I liked the Thor-like wings that one guy had!)
Ben was helping out, dressed as a cardboard booth. He got people to sign waivers before they picked up their standard cardboard tube:
Notice the cardboard toast on the front of the booth.
This guy went to a lot of trouble:
And here was Fish all decked out in his cardboard armour:
Here was the prize: a cardboard tube sword:
Before the battle began, everyone posed for a photo, tubes raised high in the air.
(I think this was mainly to satisfy the media people who were there, which included, I was told, BBC Radio, The Sun Herald and—get this—the National Archives of Australia.)
Fish went over the rules (no jabbing; no grabbing the tube; avoid the head; if you hold your tube out horizontal and it is dangling at a 90 degree angle, you're out) and then everyone paired up with someone of comparable size (so that grown-ups weren't battling kids). Then he and Marty called out them out pair by pair to duel it out.
Most people went for the hard slashing which was a bad idea because their tubes broke pretty quickly. People soon found that the best way to preserve their tube (as the aim was to be the one with the last unbroken tube), they had to not treat their tube like a sword.
At the end of the first round, Marty and Fish duked it out:
Then the second round began. I found it terribly funny watching everyone fight because some people were so into it. I don't think I've laughed that much in a long while!
While the fighting was going on, Ben and Duncan F were walking around recording the first episode of their podcast on Ben's iPod. There was this boy being chased by two girls who had joined themselves together with cardboard tube armour, and Ben and Duncan stopped them to interview them about what was going on.
Eventually a group of people were left for the third round which was a free-for-all. And then finally one guy was declared the winner and was given the prize.
Clean-up followed but thankfully there weren't too many cardboard scraps that needed to be picked up off the grass.
Here's me in Fish's helmet:
Christie took some of the cardboard her car, and Duncan dropped me and Ben at Fish's in their other car so we could retrieve our car. They invited us over for dinner and a movie (which I said was fine as long as I could get a truckload of knitting done). At their place, we decided on Indian, and walked down to the video store to rent a movie. We settled on Ratatouille which none of us had seen (and even though Ben isn't fond of animated movies, he went along with it). Then Duncan and Ben went off to get nibblies and drinks, and Christie and I went to pick up the food.
It took us 45 minutes because traffic was a nightmare and we got lost in Newtown's back streets on the way. But we finally got it home, and we ate a very yummy dinner along with Duncan and Christie's friend Warren, before settling down to watch the movie (me knitting away furiously).
I enjoyed it very much but think I'll have to watch it again. Afterwards, we said our goodbyes and headed home.
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
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That looks like sooo much fun, and I do wish Sydney was in easy driving distance.
Well, you know, you could always move! ;P