I had to go into the city centre relatively early to catch up with a
friend over breakfast, which then gave me plenty of time to just
wander about the city doing a mixture of window shopping and actual
shopping. I tried to buy a new pair of sunglasses, but Melburnians
are not traditionally sunglass wearers, so there was little variety
in the stores and I couldn’t find any pair I liked. I also looked
in some clothing stores for a new suit, but ten days of cafe
breakfasts and gelato have made the idea of buying a sleek and
slim-cut modern suit a little… optimistic.
About the
only place I was able to find something to buy was at Muji, a store
selling the concept of Japanese minimalism. Also the products of
Japanese minimalism, but primarily the concept. Your life may be
messy and chaotic, but you can buy a simple bamboo tray, plain linen
sheets, or a wooden propelling pencil and momentarily grasp the
beautiful feeling of having all of that dross in your life gone.
Marie Kondo is probably behind it, philosophically if not actually.
She’d probably be very disappointed that I bought some pens and a
notebook that I don’t actually need and thus added to my dross. Oh
well.
In the
evening, with nothing better to do, I decided to make use of the fact
that I’m living a 20 minute walk from one of the best jazz bars in
the country. It’s kind of a waste that I haven’t been there
every night, but then again one can only be so hep before one morphs
into Johnny Depp or something. So off I trotted to the Jazz Lab to
see The Pearly Shells, who provide further evidence of a certain
Melburnian paradigm I’ve noticed: older musicians here just keep on
playing. The members were aged between 40 and 80, as far as I could
see, and clearly still had the talent, and inclination, to keep
getting out there and performing. Although every second song or so
they’d invite up a guest drummer, or pianist, or rhythm guitarist
young enough to be their grandchild to sit in for a song or two.
Whether they were proteges or actual grandchildren was hard to tell,
but either way, it was wonderful to see this music as an
intergenerational affair spreading from Boomers to Zers.
There was
also a burlesque hoop twirler, because hey, why not? And she added a
vaudevillian flair that suited the music and the atmosphere.
They
played a mixture of the own compositions and standards, including a
remarkable rendition of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ as a swing
dance number. If I hadn’t heard it with my own ears, I wouldn’t
have thought it was possible. But it certainly got the crowd up and
dancing. Given the average age of the performers, it’s perhaps not
surprising that many of the audience were in a similar demographic.
We got to witness the majesty of elderly white people cutting loose
and jitterbugging around the dance floor... at least until their hips
gave out.