2020: A Life On Pause

Of course 2020 couldn't end without another coronavirus outbreak in Sydney, which has resulted in around 170 new cases from community transmission in the last two weeks. It also appears that a returned traveler from New South Wales is the origin of eight new cases in Melbourne in the last 24 hours, which ended our run of two months with no local cases. In response (and with the expectation of further COVID-19 positives among close contacts) the Victorian Government has re-mandated the wearing of face masks indoors, limited gatherings in private homes from 30 to 15 people, and will close the border to all of New South Wales as of 11:59pm on 1 January 2021. Happy New Year's Eve everybody!

 

2020 has felt like a year with my life on pause. I began working from home in March and have been fairly homebound for most of the year. There were no gigs, comedy festivals, movie festivals or art gallery visits while Melbourne was in its various stages of restrictions and lockdowns during the first and second waves of the pandemic. The last two months have seen us all cautiously re-enter public spaces as things began to open up again. It's been nice to catch up with friends in person, eat at restaurants and exercise at the gym.

I have been fortunate to live here and not be facing what my family and friends are dealing with in the United States as the pandemic rages out of control. Thankfully we have a vaccine on the horizon (my brother has already gotten his first shot as a frontline worker) and hopefully things will start to return to a new normal soon. I look forward to being able to travel again at some point, but for now I will continue to wear my face mask, follow public health advice, and do my best to support artists and businesses that have done it so tough this year.

Life In Coronavirus Lockdown: COVID Normal

COVID-19 cases in Australia (source: The Age)

I don't think in our wildest dreams that any of us thought Victoria would have gone 31 straight days without any new COVID-19 cases and ended our second wave. We have celebrated "double doughnut" days of no new cases and no lives lost (although there was one new death today from a previously cleared case) and "triple doughnut" days when the last active case in the state was cleared and left hospital on 24 November.

Victoria is now on the Last Step of the roadmap for reopening, which means most things have reopened with certain density limits, you can have visitors to your home, face masks are no longer mandatory outside (unless you can't socially distance from others), and as of today up to 25 per cent of private sector workers could begin returning to their offices. I have started venturing out to catch up with friends, eat at restaurants, go shopping and head back to the gym (although the timetable is still very limited). The Melbourne CBD is starting to come back to life, with events such as Urban Blooms and the Myer Christmas Windows attracting people back to the city.

As of today there have been 27,904 cases and 908 deaths due to COVID-19 in Australia. The only current active outbreak in the country is in Adelaide, which was the result of the virus escaping hotel quarantine (sound familiar?). Most state and territory borders will be open as of 1 December, which means people can travel interstate without having to quarantine for 14 days. I think we are all cautiously optimistic as we head into December and start living a COVID Normal summer once final announcements are made in the next week.

West Side Place Artcade

West Side Place is a new residential, retail and hotel high rise development being built on Spencer Street in the Melbourne CBD. While their retail arcade is currently vacant they have handed over the shops to a variety of contemporary Australian artists to do an "Artcade" of installations for the next six months. Ebony and I headed over there this afternoon to check out the space and see this public art gallery.

 

Artists that are featured include John Aslandis & Mayonaize, George Rose, Adnate, Rone, Meggs, and Reko Rennie. It is a kalidescope of colors with the murals and installations, but unfortunately you can't go inside the spaces to get a closer look. 

 

My favorite was by Rone as his piece was a nod to his Empire exhibition at Burnham Beeches. If you are around Southern Cross Train Station, go check out Artcade before the retail stores move in.

Life In Coronavirus Lockdown: Reopening

COVID-19 cases in Australia (source: The Age)

It has been a long road for metropolitan Melbourne, but after 111 days we finally emerged from our lockdown at 11:59 pm on Tuesday, 27 October. It took an extra week to get here due to an outbreak in the northern suburbs, but the good news is that it is contained and we are under the 14 day average threshold of five new cases and five mystery cases per day. Melbourne is now on the Third Step of the roadmap, which means there are no restrictions on reasons to leave home, retail and hospitality have reopened (with distancing rules in place), and you can meet with friends and family either in groups of 10 outdoors or with up to two people from the same household inside your home once a day. 

 

The city is coming back to life and there was genuine relief and excitement when the announcement was made on Monday by Premier Dan Andrews (wearing his weekend North Face jacket). If all continues to go well over the next week we should see a further easing of restrictions in metro Melbourne on 8 November, including the elimination of the 25km travel radius and 'ring of steel' border with regional Victoria, which will bring the state back together again.

 

As of today there have been 27,581 cases and 907 deaths due to COVID-19 in Australia. The big political issue of the moment is borders between states and trying to get those open before Christmas. All the other states and territories minus Victoria and New South Wales have no cases and are finally opening up to each other. The question is when will we get to join them? Then there is the prospect of international travel bubbles with countries in the Asia Pacific, with New Zealanders being the first to travel to Australia and not have to quarantine on arrival.

Life In Coronavirus Lockdown: Roadmap To Reopening

COVID-19 cases in Australia (source: The Age)

 

Slowly but surely Victoria is getting on top of its second wave and is now on the road to reopening the state. The roadmap was released a few weeks ago and we are already a bit ahead of schedule. While regional Victoria has nearly no cases and reopened to the Third Step on 16 September, metropolitan Melbourne is basically still in lockdown. The First Step on 13 September allowed for singles to form a social bubble with a person from another household, people to be outside for two hours a day, and moved curfew to start one hour later at 9pm. 

 

On 27 September since metro Melbourne surpassed the 14 day average of between 30-50 new cases per day, we were able to move to the Second Step. This meant the curfew was removed and allowed for the reopening of childcare and return to schooling for most year levels in Term 4, an increase in permitted workers for certain industries, and up to five people from two households to meet in public during the two hours outside a day. These restrictions will be in place until at least 19 October, where the Third Step can be triggered if we have a 14 day average of under five new cases a day.

As of today there have been 27,078 cases and 886 deaths due to COVID-19 in Australia. Victoria's daily cases have averaged in the low teens for the past few days, with 365 active confirmed cases. The biggest story of the past few weeks has been Victoria's COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry, where various department secretaries, Ministers and the Premier testified last week. On Saturday the Minister for Health resigned from Parliament. On Monday the three counsel assisting the inquiry delivered their conclusions based on the evidence, which were pretty damning. You can read more about it in the article Devastation and despair: Hotel quarantine failures blamed for 768 deaths.

Life In Coronavirus Lockdown: Stage 4 Restrictions

COVID-19 cases in Australia (Source: The Age)

 

As cases continued to rise in Victoria, metropolitan Melbourne ended up going into Stage 4 lockdown on 2 August 2020 for six weeks. These restrictions meant that a curfew was put into place from 8pm - 5am, and you needed to stay within a 5km radius of your home when shopping for essentials or exercising outside for one hour per day (allowed with one other person). All but the most essential services and retailers were closed, and you had to have a worker permit from your employer if you couldn't work from home. Schools throughout the state went back to remote learning and the rest of Victoria went into Stage 3 restrictions (including mandatory face masks/coverings).

 

Thankfully the restrictions have been working, and the second wave is trending downward. Over the last few days Victoria has started to get under 100 new cases per day, the lowest numbers since early July. As of today there have been 25,746 cases and 652 deaths due to COVID-19 in Australia, with the vast majority of recent cases occurring in Victoria in the health and aged care sectors. Borders between states and territories remain closed, and while Queensland and New South Wales have had some small outbreaks, they have been able to contract trace and keep clusters under control.

For me Stage 4 hasn't changed things too much since I was already mainly staying at home except to go grocery shopping once a week. I have accumulated an assortment of reusable cloth face masks to wear for when I head outside. At work I am currently contributing to the COVID-19 effort for the next few weeks by working on school closures and reopenings in a jobshare arrangement where I am on from Wednesday - Saturday and have Sunday - Tuesday off. I've also been focused on the wildfires back home in the Bay Area as my cousin is current evacuated from her home (whieh thankfully is still standing) and my brother was on an evacuation warning before that fire became under control.

As things improve in Victoria attention is turning to the easing of restrictions and how we will begin to reopen. Premier Dan Andrews has flagged that he will be making announcements about a roadmap out of restrictions on Sunday, 6 September. The new case numbers and levels of community transmission this week will determine if Stage 4 restrictions will extend beyond 13 September. It's good that there is some light at the end of the tunnel as we head into spring and may be able to get out and see people again.

MIFF 68 1/2

Normally at this time of year I would be racing between cinemas to line up for my next movie as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). However, this year's physical festival was cancelled once the coronavirus pandemic hit. With Melbourne currently in Stage 4 lockdown, MIFF thankfully has gone online as MIFF 68 1/2 and is available for streaming across Australia. Since there weren't any mini passes available this year, I was good and only purchased six films to watch instead of my usual 10 plus.

I started with the Opening Night film First Cow by Kelly Reichardt, which is based on the Jonathan Raymond novel The Half Life. Set in the Oregon Territory in the 1820s, the movie is about the unlikely friendship between Cookie (John Magaro) and King-Lu (Orion Lee) as they enter business together selling oily cakes at the market with the secret ingredient of cow milk they've stolen from wealthy Englishman Chief Factor. The tension of the film is will they eventually be found out?

My usual preference of film genre at MIFF is documentaries, and this year was no exception. The Go-Go's told the story of one of the greatest all female bands as they emerged from the LA punk scene in the late 1970s to international stardom. It contained archival footage of them performing, photos and interviews with all of the band members as they detailed the trials and tribulations of the band's history. Martin Margiela: In His Own Words featured the avant-garde Belgian fashion designer speaking for the first time about the inspirations for his key fashion collections throughout his career. Margiela shunned fame and publicity in order to let his clothes be the focus (and he still doesn't show his face in this film).

My other three films were part of the Social Justice 3 Pack bundle. 9to5: The Story of a Movement detailed the women who came together and organised female office workers in the 1970s and 80s into a huge movement for better pay, professional recognition and ultimately as a union. These office women's stories were the inspiration for the movie 9 to 5, and unfortunately the struggle of underpaid primarily female workforces continues to this day. My favorite film of all the ones I watched was Coded Bias, which explored the research done by some female academics into the racial and gender biases that are written into the coding for AI and algorithms used by the main tech companies. It's an incredibly important film that shows the real life impacts of this so-called "impartial" technology on society. 

 

My final film was Hong Kong Moments, which documented key dates in the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong as told from seven citizens from all walks of life on both sides of the movement. Filmmaker Zhou Bing allows them all to speak for themselves and the film documents daily life alongside the street battles between police and protestors. It culminated with the local district council elections, which saw a large group of pro-democracy candidates elected.

MIFF 68 1/2 is available for streaming from 6 - 23 August 2020.

Life In Coronavirus Lockdown: The Second Wave

COVID-19 cases in Australia (source: The Age)

Back in June things were looking promising in Australia as restrictions were lifted and places started to gradually open back up. I had three glorious weeks of being able to travel into the Melbourne CBD to go to the gym after work. However, coronavirus transmissions were bubbling away in Melbourne's north and west, likely from security breaches in hotel quarantine (there's currently a judicial inquiry to investigate what happened). As a result, Victoria's coronavirus case numbers started to increase again, and on 9 July Metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire went back into Stage 3 lockdown. The rest of the states and territories implemented travel bans against Victoria and we became the pariah of the country.

As of today there have been 16,906 cases and 196 deaths from COVID-19 in Australia, with the vast majority of these numbers coming from Victoria. Even current outbreaks of cases in New South Wales and Queensland can be traced back to people who have recently been in Melbourne. The closing of borders with Victoria resulted in every single Victorian sports team moving to hubs in other states (mainly Queensland) so seasons could continue. Now that Greater Sydney has been declared a hot spot their sports teams are also having to move so as to avoid 14 day state quarantines.

Every day around 11am I watch the Victorian press conference to get the daily update on numbers from Premier Dan Andrews and Victoria's Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton. Despite being half way through our current six week Stage 3 lockdown, and a week into mandatory face mask/covering wearing, our numbers have not been improving as hoped. We were getting a few hundred new cases a day, but the last two days have been the worst yet with Thursday seeing a record-high 723 new cases and today 627 cases. The main transmission sources of this second wave have been in workplaces with more casual/insecure workers, abattoirs, public housing, healthcare workers and aged care homes.

It's quite disheartening that the current restrictions aren't bringing down the new case numbers. It was flagged today that further data analysis will be done in the next couple days to determine if Melbourne needs to go to Stage 4 lockdown. In any case, I don't think our current lockdown will be ending in the next three weeks on 19 August as currently planned. I also doubt I will be making it back into the office this year.

For some historical perspective, this article in The Age by Zach Hope looks at the parallels of our current situation with the 1919 Spanish flu in Melbourne - Masks, lockdowns and a second wave: A century on, history repeats itself.

Life In Coronavirus Lockdown

COVID-19 cases in Australia (source: The Age)

It's been an interesting year in Australia so far. Just as the bushfires that raged throughout the summer were being extinguished, the coronavirus pandemic started to hit. After some initial restrictions on return travellers from China in February, the majority of restrictions came into effect three months ago in March: Victoria declared a state of emergency, return travellers from overseas were mandated to self-isolate for 14 days (later became mandatory 14 days hotel quarantine), schools moved to remote and flexible learning, and social distancing measures and strict limits on numbers of people allowed to gather together were implemented.

The economic impacts were swift as whole industries essentially shut down overnight, including the arts sector, sports, restaurants and hospitality, cinemas and gyms. My social calendar dried up as activities I had planned in the coming months were cancelled, including concerts, NGV exhibitions, the French Film Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and Melbourne International Film Festival. People were mandated to work from home if possible, which is what I have been doing since 24 March. In Victoria, restrictions meant you could only go out for the following reasons:
1. shopping for food and supplies
2. exercise
3. medical care
4. work and school - if necessary
5. visiting family and friends (from mid-May 2020)

Thankfully, unlike in many other countries, the restrictions and community efforts have resulted in Australia flattening the curve. As of today there have been 7,320 cases and 102 deaths from COVID-19 in Australia. Many of our cases have been from returned overseas travellers, with little community transmission. Large scale testing and contact tracing is helping to catch cases earlier and limit their spread. As a result, the country is gradually easing restrictions and we are starting to emerge from lockdown and see many things open up again (although still with social distancing). Sports have just started up again for the NRL and AFL. State borders that were shut should hopefully begin reopening soon, and we may have a trans-Tasman travel bubble with New Zealand in a few months.

It's nice to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Living alone it's been a bit isolating, despite my introverted nature. I've been catching up with Sean weekly to watch episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race, but otherwise my only interactions with people are through video conference meetings at work and weekly trips to the grocery store. I'm probably most looking forward to the gym reopening as I have had a lack of physical activity despite trying to exercise at home. We still aren't sure when we'll be able to return to the office, but I would like to get back into the Melbourne CBD. Hopefully we will avoid a second wave of COVID-19 cases, but only time will tell.

C.W. Stoneking- Brunswick Music Festival

The annual Brunswick Music Festival is currently happening in venues around town and tonight I attended a sold out performance by C.W. Stoneking at Estonian House. Opening the evening was Melbourne folk singer Anna Cordell, who played an ethereal sounding set on electric and acoustic guitar featuring songs from her latest album. Given the rapidly evolving situation with the coronavirus pandemic, she joked it was hard for her to avoid singing songs about sickness and death.

C.W. Stoneking came out onto the stage and started his solo set with "How Long." He played songs from all three of his albums, including favorites such as "Goin The Country" from King Hokum, "The Love Me Or Die" from Jungle Blues, and "I'm A Jungle Man," "We Gon' Boogaloo," "Good Luck Charm" and "The Thing I Done" from Gon Boogaloo. During the hour and half long set he was his usual amusing self with song intros, and handled a couple ladies in the crowd well who were calling out for him to show his ankles.

There were a few audience sing alongs to "The Zombie," "Talking Lion Blues" and "Jailhouse Blues." C.W. was only half joking when he said we should enjoy this show because after this weekend there won't be any gigs for a long time (restrictions against gatherings above 500 people come into effect on Monday). For C.W. he's already feeling the impact of coronavirus as he's had to cancel a month long US tour that was going to start next week. It is strange times were are currently living in, but he sent us out gently into the night by closing with "Jungle Lullaby."

Here's a live version of "Good Luck Charm"

Parasite

I have been hearing great things about South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's latest film Parasite for months now, and I finally managed to see it tonight at the Cinema Nova with Belinda. The movie focuses on two families at opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. The Kim family, who are struggling to make ends meet, catch a break when son Ki-woo takes over a tutoring job from his friend for the daughter of the wealthy Park family. Ki-woo then works to get other workers in the Park household fired and secretly replaced by the rest of his family, including the longstanding housekeeper Moon-gwang.

When the Kim family thinks they have it all under control, Moon-gwang returns when the Park family is away on a camping trip and reveals that her husband has been secretly living in a bunker in the house. It is then that the Kim's accidentally reveal themselves and the tables turn as Moon-gwang threatens to expose them to the Park family. From this point the film takes a dark turn from a comedy to a thriller that culminates at the young Park boy's birthday party at the house. The movie provides strong commentary on social class and income inequality, and you can see why it has won so many awards this season and will probably do well at the Oscars in a few days.

20 Fabulous Years Of Tammie Brown

As part of Midsumma Festival Sean and I attended the first of three shows at The Melba Spiegeltent to celebrate 20 Fabulous Years Of Tammie Brown. Tammie came out on stage wearing a sleeveless gold lame dress and 80s shag blond wig. For this solo show she danced around the stage and sang songs from throughout her career, with a focus on her latest release Schubert.

The show kicked off with "Round 'N Round," and Tammie demonstrated she is a #QueenWithACause through tracks such as "Sexy Orangutan" and "Queen Killer." She also had a couple bops in the set with "Love Pinata" and "Porta Potty Prostitute." In between songs Tammie was very deadpan and spoke about a wide variety of topics, including the environment and Amazon rainforest, old Hollywood stars, her life growing up, trans deaths, and necrophilia. Just like Tammie it was a unique and entertaining show with a mix of serious and humorous moments.

Here's the video for "Round 'N Round"

Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines

Sean and I went to the NGV today for their latest world premiere exhibition Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines. Haring and Basquiat were both part of the New York City art scene in the 1980s and their works involved social and political commentary using a variety of media including street art, paintings, sculptures and other objects.

This exhibition explored each artist's career and how they intersected with each other through more than 200 artworks and materials from their archives. They both developed their own visual language of signs and symbols in their works. Many of Basquiat's pieces featured a crown, while Haring's common motif was the crawling baby. Both artists were friends, and occasionally collaborated and referenced each other in their work.

Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines is on at the NGV until 13 April 2020.

Orville Peck- Pony Australian Tour

There was huge anticipation in the crowd for tonight's show with country crooner Orville Peck on his first Australian tour. The show sold out so fast it was upgraded from Howler to the larger Corner Hotel. Melbourne singer-songwriter Gena Rose Bruce opened the show playing her dreamy and melancholy songs as a duo on two electric guitars.

Orville Peck came out in a gold fringe mask and powder blue embroidered suit with pink button down shirt and started the evening with "Big Sky." He and his fantastic band played nearly every song off his debut album Pony, ranging from the ballads "Dead Of The Night," "Queen Of The Rodeo," "Roses Are Falling," and "Kansas (Remembers Me Now)" to the upbeat "Winds Of Change," "Turn To Hate," "Buffalo Run" and the barnstormer "Take You Back (The Iron Hoof Cattle Call)."

Orville was such a great showman on stage as he intro'd each song, joked around, and even stated he wanted to move to Australia and work in a koala sanctuary. We were lucky enough to be treated to a new, unreleased song called "No Glory In The West." He also played covers of songs from some of his country idols with "Something To Brag About" by Tammy Wynette and George Jones (which he sang with band member Brea Salvede), "Ooh Las Vegas" by Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris, and for the encore "Fancy" by Bobby Gentry. It was such an entertaining show and Orville's voice and talents brought together people from different backgrounds to watch him perform live.

Here's the video for "Dead Of The Night"

Vampire Weekend- Father Of The Bride Australian Tour

It has been six years since Vampire Weekend last played in Australia, and tonight's sold out show at the Forum was surprisingly their first ever headline show here. This was supposed to be a Falls Festival side show, but it became their only show in Victoria as the Lorne site was shut down due to extreme weather conditions and bushfire fears in the lead up to New Year's Eve.

Belinda joined me on the absolutely packed main floor of the venue. There were no support acts so the crowd was ready to go when Vampire Weekend hit the stage and started the set with "Bambina" off their latest album Father Of The Bride. It was an epic concert that lasted nearly three hours as they played songs off all four of their albums. I had no idea they were a bit of a jam band live with multiple drummers, guitar players and keyboardists.

"Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" was played a few songs in and nearly became the undoing of the entire show due to a loss of power to the guitars and bass twice mid-song. This led to a couple of lengthy delays as the road crew tried to fix the problem. Thankfully the third time was a charm and they made it through the whole song to the relief of everyone in the room. The band sounded amazing and frontman Ezra Koenig’s singing was just like the vocals on the albums. My highlights were the older tracks from the first two albums, including "A-Punk," "Oxford Comma," "Holiday," "White Sky," "Horchata," "Cousins" and "Giving Up The Gun." With the stage backdrop of a giant globe that rotated on its axis, Ezra talked about current events during the show, including the impact of the Australian bushfires and his support for US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

The main set finished with "Jerusalem, New York, Berlin," and for the encore they started with "Sunflower." Ezra then asked for audience requests, which included "Diplomat's Sun" and "The Kids Don't Stand A Chance." To close out the evening they played "Ya Hey" as two large inflated globes bounced through the crowd on the floor of the Forum.

Here's the video for "This Life"