Cafe #22: Moo Wine Bar

Date: 24 June 2007, 5.30pm
Location: Mooroolbark (shopping centre)
Coffee: $? - mocha, okay
Reading: Being and Time

Mooroolbark is the penultimate stop on the Lilydale line. The weekly tickets Connex has been giving me in place of the yearly ticket I lost have been zone one and two tickets, so I thought I should explore zone two - go to the end of a line - while I have a ticket to do so freely. On A's recommendation I chose Lilydale, as it is in the Dandenong ranges. Despite its hilly setting, it isn't an inspiring town. Strip-type shopping complexes and not very nice houses. I walked around a bit in the suburbs, skirting the sporting oval on which was being played a game of intertown football, then bought a couple potato cakes at the fish and chip shop, where I had a nice chat about my studies, outdoor toilets and other Melbourne-related trifles with a North Fitzroy couple on their way back from holiday in Marysville. When they said goodbye, off to pick up their boarding dog, I wandered back to the station and took the train back one stop. Mooroolbark is a bit nicer than Lilydale. The shops are slightly more upmarket - antiques and jewellery/arty knick-knacks - and the neighbourhood looks a lot like Canberra, with different trees. I didn't notice any fancy houses.

The wine bar is playing irritating music - new Michael Jackson, I think - and has dark wood veneer tables with cool black and cream chairs that loook a bit like a thigh-press machine: the back of the chair is a roll attached to the seat by two curling back steel arms.

Last night was a good night. I accompanied E to the National Institute of Circus Arts' second year BA student show. It was very sexy, with performers working on tissu (long ribbons hanging from the beams), rings (also swinging from the beam), trapeze and swing, tightrope and ropes (siimilar to tissu). There was a lousy clown cum magician; jugglers, including a body juggler; a trick bicycle and girls revolving in metal wheels; and a duo of boys who swung and threw weights on long strings around. Also tumblers. Aside from the fun of all the arial tricks, the music composed for the show was outstanding, giving it such a mysterious fun (Cirque de Soleilish) atmosphere, with undercurrents of primitiveness and Easternality. I LOVED the music - great beats, sound effects, ambience and sexiness - to accompany the rippling muscles of boys too young for me to be admiring. After the circus E and I went drinking and dancing. There was a great 7-piece funk band, Cold Sweat, playing at The Laundry on Johnston Street and I had a bit of a boogy.

The week ahead sees more Heidegger, Derrida and Weber. I need to get a significant amount of work done. Good luck to me!