Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi Beach

When the annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibit was held again at Bondi beach this year, we decided to go have a dekko.

Mountain Man at the Ballet!

RedHotNew
Originally uploaded by pahari.

Now that you've recovered, let me say that we went because we got free tickets to the Dress Rehearsal of a ballet performance at the Opera House.

This was a relatively painless opportunity to go see what all the fuss was about. So we trekked across suburbia to the glittering Opera House; reaching late, of course. They did let us in but in seats in the wings near the entrance doors.

The evening comprised of 3 performances by modern composers and choregraphers.

Bottom line: I really enjoyed it! I like the pieces, especially "Almost a Tango" and the music on a couple of them was very Philip Glass-like so that went down well too.

It was nice to go out in the intermission to the open air area with a glass of good Australian riesling and the view of the harbour. Enchanting!

It might be the first step in the civilising of a philistine...

World's Smelliest Flower- And Largest too!

World's stinkiest flower....


What you are looking at, folks, is a picture of the Titan arum plant- originally from Sumatra- and said to be the largest flower in the world. The Tropical Garden in the Sydney Botanical Garden has had this flower for a some years and has been waiting for it to flower- it does so only once every 10 years or so. They were expecting it to flower last year, but that was a false alarm. This year it did- on 3 October.

The plant starts out as an underground tuber then a large leaf comes out reaching a height of up to 2m and then finally the flower. It has been described by Botanic Gardens Trust executive director Tim Entwisle as "a deformed phallic shape" that looks like a "big banana-shaped thing with this frilly skirt that opens up upside down." The scientific name of the plant is actually Amorphphallus titanum which is sort of the same thing said more tastefully and cryptically in Latin). When we saw it the flower was about a metre tall.

The thing is, when it flowers it also lets out the most horrible smell said to be like rotting flesh (how would they know?). This happens mainly at night and we were told that at peak stinkiness, they had to change the guard at the exhibit every 3 hours as they would get overwhelmed by the 'burning' smell.

When we went (Medha, Saira and I) there were quite long queues to see the flower and we could be in front of it only for a minute or so. Nonetheless it made for an educational and interesting outing to see something quite unique.

More information on this grotesque plant is available here

Update- 10 August 2006:
A flowering is imminent of a Titan arum plant at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York and there is much anticipation and excitement in the air! Read more.

Or for up to the minute information you can visit the Garden's blog about the blooming plant; webcam feed available.