Cafe #5: Ti Amo2 Cucina Antica

Date: Friday, February 09, 2007, 10.30pm
Location: 305 Lygon Street, Carlton
Coffee: latte, good

I have just come from Brunswick East, where I was scoping out the area where lay a house I'm to see on Sunday. I don't know if I'll go, though, as it is further out than I expected and not near anything particular - just big roads and old neighbourhoods.

Readings is next door and it is good to see it still open.

Thanks to google, where I found a blurb about Freud's conception of construction, I now know why interpretation is local and construction is global. Interpretation is based on the specific text or mind or conversation or personality. Construction is made with the larger context of culture and cultural understanding and influence. At least that is what I think.

I had a nice day today. I saw an apartment in Balaclava. This is where I would like to live. Not only is it on the Monash end of town, but it is the Jewish area. I saw so many yalmukahs! There were Jewish delis and bakeries - with bagels and ruggelah and blintzes and gefilte fish and eggplant dip! But no knishes. I couldn't find knishes in Bondi either. I miss knishes! Are knishes American Jewish food? Or New York Jewish food?

The idea of living in a Jewish neighbourhood tickles me and may feel like home? I want to see what Australian Jews are really like. Are there Jewish Australian Princesses? At the same time I resist this urge. I am so angry at Israel as a state and Jews as a people. That Wall and occupation are so unforgivable and it is worst of all that it is precisely the Jews who are doing it. Yet there is this constant need in me, at least here in Australia, to identify as Jewish - I can drive friends crazy mentioning who, what, how is Jewish. I blame my mother. I don't understand quite why I feel this way when I distrust the whole notion of nationality and ethnic identification. Though I don't seem to have an ethnic attachment to a bit of land itself, that attachment that often accompanies war, I do seem to have this desire to be part of a specific, individually ethnoculturally defined community. Maybe if I lived in the Jewish bit of town I'd get over it? I didn't see any Hasids but I suspect Balaclava is a fairly Orthodox area - I heard a woman wish another Good Shabbas.

In addition to Jewish food shops, there was also a surprisingly large number of bargain stores crammed with nice, cheap, frivolous crap - beautiful candles, frames, glassware, baskets and all sorts of junk. Precisely the kind of junk shop I use to decorate my house! Also plenty of cafes. But no used bookstores. Unfortunately the potential flatmate wasn't a match. When I mentioned having Canberra friends stay over, the quiet, little, young Chinese accountant looked very dubious. She was not the social sort, but very sweet. Too bad. In addition, the apartment was ugly brown and small, though the available room was big. I'm beginning to despair of a room!

After leaving the apartment I went to St Kilda beach, since it is on the same tram line as Balaclava. It would be lovely to live such a short tram ride from the beach!

I bought some not so good peaches and plums and a bottle of iced coffee and read on the beach. Waded a bit. Then took a loooong train ride back to Carlton.

It is amazing how little I can eat when I have all day to play, work, walk - I haven't been hungry. Such a revelation! Hope I can keep it up.

No book tonight as the cafe is closing, so I should go. Mayble I'll stroll around Readings.