sport

Something that strikes me often about the Melbourne suburbs is their quietness. Walk through most suburbs on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and you won’t hear much at all, except traffic (on the busier roads), the occasional lawn mower or leaf blower, perhaps the remote sound of a TV, or the bark of a dog behind a gate. More than once I’ve asked myself: where is everybody? I encounter few other walkers as I make my way around, and occasionally feel oddly conspicuous as a solo pedestrian. Sometimes parks are busy, and certain shopping/cafe strips, but many places seem eerily deserted.

The suburbs are not totally silent, though. On the wall of the Collingwood Neighbourhood House in Perry Street I came across evidence of an intriguing psychogeography project: a list of sounds heard by Lauren Brown, ‘listener in residence’. Continue reading →

Reaching Smith Street, the boundary between Fitzroy and Collingwood, I noticed an intriguing ghostsign on the corner of Argyle Street. The words I could decipher from the faded lettering were: ‘The Sportsman – Sporting paper sold here – Advertisements received.’ There was a word or two I couldn’t be certain of, just below ‘The Sportsman’: I guessed that they might read ‘The Best’ but it’s a shot in the dark. (A sporting chance.) Of the faded purple sign to the right of The Sportsman, it is hard to make out anything at all. Until recently there was something over the top, indicated by the remnants of a metal frame. But the only legible sign on this wall belongs to a paper I’d never heard of – The Sportsman. Continue reading →