Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Vampire Weekend Cousins video



Here's a little consolation present for those of you who aren't in the "official fan club" who got gipped out of tickets to their oaf show something royal. Stupid band.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Zach's Valedictorian Speech

This kind of reminds me of the time in Mrs McCausland's year 9 English class when we had a poetry assignment in which we were given a theme at random and had to find a poem on that theme and then do a presentation relating that poem to Jane Eyre.

My theme was 'poverty and wealth', and I thought poetry was lame, so I did my speech about Old Mother Hubbard's dog, who was forced through no fault of his own to suffer the injustice of Mother Hubbard's poverty when there was no bone for him left in her cupboard, and how it's just like Jane Eyre, because both of them probably had a fireplace, even if they couldn't always stoke it.

...except Zach's analogy makes a lot more sense.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Steve Martin Interviews Burt Reynolds on The Tonight Show 1978

Yes people, it appears to be Steve Martin Day on TeaPartyTV. We don't know why or how. But at least now you know that he filled in for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show one time in 1978.

Steve Martin's Business Card



...thanks, Andrew Bush

Thursday, July 9, 2009

The Way We Were; Tea Party Reminisces, Game 1

Welcome to the launch of a sporadic 'Guess Who' style game/non-game I just invented, in which The Pagan or I post an old photo of someone and you guess who it is, hopefully with hilarious consequences. The first person to guess wins a lifetime of tres satisfying recurring introspective speculation over whether or not someone out there in cyberland (we now have six, yes, SIX followers) guessed before them. As does every runner up; we are an egalitarian institution. (Or you could just check the tags at the bottom of the post)

Know who this is?

Monday, July 6, 2009

Tasmanian guy trafficks blue m&ms, confuses supreme court.



The rise in Tasmania's illicit blue m&m trade has gripped the nation this week, with the sentencing of a 21 year old man for importing 400 units of the controlled substance across to Launceston from Melbourne.

The budding young candy baron's career was tragically cut short when police intercepted him at Launceston airport, finding on his person three credit cards under a false name, a mobile phone, and a cylinder of blue m&ms stashed in his undie-pants.

The man had allegedly bought the m&ms for $15 each and intended to sell them for $30 back in Launceston, where m&ms still only come in the traditional red, orange, yellow, green and two shades of brown. Demand for the coloured candy we on the mainland have been taking for granted for years now is high, a fact the young man tried to take advantage of, forging documents and purchasing flights under a false name to secure the controlled confection.

Unfortunately for the man, someone along the line mistook the m&ms for MDMA, which carries higher charges, increasing his criminal and public profile and destroying his trans-Tasman chocolate importation career forever.

In what became a very confusing case, the judge eventually moved to charge the man for accidentally buying the wrong illegal substance.

Official comments from presiding Justice Tennent stated: "You wanted to improve your financial position. The result was you lost over $6,000. While you obviously intended to sell the ecstasy tablets (m&ms) you engaged to buy, you were never able to put the plan into effect because of police intervention and could not have in any event because of the deception practiced on you."

The judge went on to say "This is clearly an unusual case. The sentence must reflect your intentions, that is, to buy a significant quantity of ecstasy tablets and sell them for a profit. It must also reflect the steps you took to give effect to those intentions. It must also reflect that you were never able to put those intentions into effect although that is really reflected in the nature of the charge brought against you."

*Keanu-style "whoa.."*

The man is currently serving a three month sentence with two years of good behaviour.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Phoenix solicits from me a concentrated form of hipster-rage. Its important to face your demons...then go to anotherfuckinghipster and feed them.







'tudeing



...so when looking for something entirely different (I swear) I stumbled across this fanny tickler. stay for the cheese (at 1:10 - GO ON)

when he says he wants to feel the warm morning sun in the land where he was born he's talking in dirty codes across the ages to me. Me! This is the definition of a 'pants man'

Crucial update for all tea party guests

In crucial news a new wave of fashion poses has hit. Be the first and impress your friends.

It is the collar grab! and it's bringing the sexy back to candid snapshots. Celebrities are on board.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Monday, June 29, 2009

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Everyday Normal Blog Post

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Monday, May 11, 2009

I am a MASTER of architecture

It is important to preface this post with my mental state, tentatively titled in the literature as ‘crisis point apathy’, so that you, dear reader, know that I had buried my Legally Blonde-esque Harvard law graduation experience fantasy under a dumpster load of diagrammatic interpretations of pedestrian movement. UTS is a little off colour as it is – you can pay/sleep with the lecturers for credit, and if your willing to do neither you merely have to produce work that is underpinned by neither sense or logic. The latter strategy worked best for me, as the emperor-has-no-clothes syndrome kicks in around the thirty second mark and propels you to the top of the bell curve. Thus I got through my masters of architecture with minimal fuss (lies! It was horrible) and in two for one providence ensured that come graduation time I was a creature of low expectations.

My mood was less dark than this would suggest, however, as I approached the glorious UTS tower to receive my testamur. It is a rare occasion when I admit pleasure or satisfaction in anything, but I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for somehow managing to get through it all and be, basically, an architect. (though not legally, for those inclined towards cease and desist’s) The graduation was held in the tower building, which is a bit of a shocker, apparently there are two other examples of its type, both in the ex soviet union, and one of them has fallen down. The grim efficiency in the aesthetic did not match the character of the event though; chaos was the order of the day. A rather unhappy looking woman was telling everyone that they had sold too many tickets to the ceremony, so peoples nearest and dearest would not be allowed in. The lady offering up this information had a physical presence that showed neither a commitment to the pleasures of fatty food or the endorphin rush of regular exercise, and was coping with the abject fury of yours truly with a retreat into bureaucracy and the Nuremberg defence. Nonetheless, a furious challenge to forcible ejection allowed my folks in, and the passive victim of the machine was unwilling to take any proactive steps such as to get security to drag them out.

What followed was depressing, I got to put on a polyester graduate gown that smelt of bleach and seemed to bestow on me the same gravitas as a kid in a spiderman outfit, and then sit through the ceremony that was run as though they had four more to get through by five. Oh gross, I’m over it, here are some pretty pictures to get us all through the day.

Monday, April 27, 2009

The Paddington Reservoir


I finally got around to visiting the Paddington Reservoir – a new and much anticipated public space on Oxford St. opposite Paddington Town Hall and Juniper Hall. The site is interesting; first a water reservoir, then an auto garage and, since the collapse of part of the roof in 1990, an urban ruin. In its previous incarnation as a boarded up relic of a time in Paddington’s history that was only recently, but irrevocably lost, it evoked a kind of endearing pathos. Like the poor kid at a rich school, it stood, at the same time pathetic and stoic in the corner of the playground, seemingly immune to the taunts of the nouveau riche around it while it held the mystery and promise of its decay behind the graffiti covered fences and violent sounding ‘Trespassers will be Prosecuted’ signs. That these signs only served as a weak challenge to Paddington’s youths, and the barriers after decades of children scaling their heights were full off holes, only served to cement its right to exist as a final bastion of danger and adventure in a suburb full of safety locks, Playstation 2’s and ever vigilant nannies. To me it also rather nostalgically stood as a ghost reminding the upper middle class types who stalk Oxford Street these days of the all but erased working class roots of their suburb.


But, dear readers, we are progressive types who do not dwell like cowards in the safety of the past. Decaying infrastructure, to people like me, holds such promise and tempting opportunity that I can scarcely bear to face or condone it’s re-use for fear of not living up to the challenge of the bones. There is a certain futility in this though, and determined to be brave, I set out to visit this icon of my youth.


The architects responsible, Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, are well known for their work in this type of re-jigging of infrastructural and public buildings, having previously undertaken the CarriageWorks project at Eveleigh, and projects at Port Arthur and Customs House in the CBD. The first sight you get of the new reserve is from an elevated roof and sunshade device that sits above the site, mimicking the brick arches of the reservoir in grey steel. This serves as an effective signpost and sunshade, despite being a touch unsubtle in its referencing of the original structures brickwork. Despite my initial need to criticise, it was immediately inviting, the promise of the walkways and stairwells into the reservoir were too tempting to bear much surveillance of its street presence. Once inside, the beauty of the structure, finally unveiled to those beyond clambering over walls, is undeniable. The original building seems handsomely preserved, and enough of it remains to provide a tactile and solid base from which the new work is pleasantly subservient. The juxtaposition of ancient bricks and box fresh raw concrete in particular is great, and invites all sorts of musings about why exactly that is the case. The workmanship reveals in a modest way the great skill that must have been exercised in the detailing and on site craftsmanship. Less subtle is the steelwork that seemed a little over engineered to my eye, but that could have been the enormous lift that it forms. The lift is one of the few bits of the re-design that was pretty lame in my view. The Architect seemed to leave the paired back, materially restrained approach of elsewhere and succumbed to the complexity of the structure by cladding it in panels of what appeared to be steel, with some rubbish cut into it. I’m sure they would have a story about how it was related to footprints on the site or something equally tangential, but it seemed a distraction to me, the premature ejaculation ruining an otherwise lovely evening. Of sorts.


These are pretty amazing spaces, and TZG have cast their expert hand over it, doing a far better job than might have been expected given the weight of expectation, and the lethargy of our governing bodies. As I wandered around though, peering over reassuringly high balustrades and through locked doors, I could help feel that the excitement had somewhat left; that the redevelopment had somehow put a child proof lock on Paddington’s last risk filled cupboard. By the time I was leaving the sun was almost down, and I decided to walk down to the lower garden one final time. To the east of this space is a locked area of reservoir, and as I walked through I heard skateboards rattling out through the bars, as some kids who somehow squeezed in used the curved edges of the reservoir to perform their pernicious little tricks. As I hurried out, muttering something about the precursors to a life of crime, I decided that I was well satisfied. The ghost of the old decrepit artefact I remembered still lurks deep in the chambers, reprieved for another generation of rotten little monsters.

The Virtuous Pagan

Monday, April 20, 2009

Hi Peeps,

Welcome to teapartyTV, the online repository of our teaparty ramblings concerning art, architecture, politics, friends, loves, and any other banal rubbish that crosses our keyboards. Not sure where this go-cart will take us, round in circles probably, but heres hoping you’ll jump on board for a bit.

Hot off the press is my top five tea party topics,

*Coffee
*Forgiveness (see Sex)
*Architecture (but not the surry hills library, more on that later)
*The Pet Shop Boys, an obviously crucial condiment saucing up any civilised discourse
*The Apocalypse