NAKED CITY: 2011 – GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN!
The arrival of 2012 will be greeted with the usual pyrotechnic orgy of fireworks over Sydney Harbour, supposedly bigger and better than last year, but predictably a groundhog day of what we have witnessed for the past 20. The only thing that really changes is the cost but who are we to be party poopers when Council largesse explodes like a heavily shaken bottle of porphyry pearl.
Mercifully not everybody in Sydney makes a beeline for Lady Macquarie’s chair to get a front seat view of Clover’s crackers. Believe it or not throughout the city there are still small intimate gatherings where concerned citizens gather not so much to welcome the New Year but reflect on everything that we have lost in 2011. It would be impossible to list everything in this column but here’s just a few of the notable departures in 2011 for which our city and the world at large is considerably poorer.
THE PICCOLO BAR (KINGS CROSS) – An icon of bohemian Sydney since the 1950s the Piccolo in Roslyn Street came to a mysterious and inglorious end this year and the Cross lost one of its greatest characters in owner Vittorio Bianchi. With the closure of the New York Cafe in late 2010, the end of the Piccolo saw the last vestiges of the old Kings Cross swept away in favour of the backpacker buck and the Saturday night boozer.
OCCUPY SYDNEY: Whilst it might have lacked direction the forceful removal of Occupy Sydney protestors from Martin Place proved one thing. It’s okay to be homeless and take up public space in the CBD – just don’t exhibit a social conscience.
THE GREAT COCKATOO CULL: One of the joys of Sydney is the sheer volume and variety of wildlife in the CBD and immediate precincts, from possums and bats to ibis and rats. The sulphur crested cockies that supposedly reaped havoc in the Haymarket and Potts Point were a joy to behold. Their numbers have been temporarily cut but look out baby – they will be back!
RIP: Locally we lost some great contributors to the cultural landscape like broadcasters Tony Barrell (ABC), John Blades (2MBSFM) and Wally Wrightman (Eastside Radio), bookseller and activist Bob Gould, artist Margaret Olley and actors Harold Hopkins and Bill Hunter.
Internationally the world lost author and evangelical atheist Christopher Hitchens, singer Amy Winehouse, American TV host Dr Creep, New Orleans singer Coco Robicheaux, British rock singer Cuddly Dudley, actor Peter Falk and director Sidney Lumet – to name just a few.
THE HOT LIST: New York based expat Sean Wayland is back home for Christmas and has put together an all star band to play Notes in Newtown on Thursday 29 December. Sean will be joined by Virna Sanzone, James Muller, Alex Hewetson and Nick McBride and will be playing original compositions that he has honed with his unique keyboard style in the Big Apple over the past number of years. If you have a firework phobia the Mu-Meson Archives in Annandale promises a complete sanctuary on New Year’s Eve (and no view of the fireworks whatever) with their “End Is Night – Armageddon” party alluding to the Mayan Codex that the world may well end in 2012. It’s an el cheapo $15 admission with details at www.mumeson.org
