We went to Sydney.
We had to get from our hotel, which overlooked Hyde Park, to the north side of the city. We asked three people, all in the tourism/hospitality industries, how to get there. We got three different answers. The first would have had us going the wrong way up a (fortunately clearly marked) one way street. The second was so vague and tentative that it wasn't even worth pursuing, although the person concerned seemed confident they were the right directions. The third would, according to our street directory, have had us knocking on the New South Wales Governor's front door. Ultimately I worked it out for myself.
What I like about Sydney is that you can walk into a record store (Birdland, in Pitt Street, to be precise) and ask for a copy of John Zorn's 50th Birthday Series Volume 11, the three-disc Bar Kokhba set, and - WHAMMO - there it is.
What I don't like about Sydney is:
1. Driving.
2. The fact that, everywhere I turn, I am reminded of how hopeless the task of saving the species from global warming really is. If you accept that carbon emissions are doing the damage, and that the bulk of those are being created by man (as opposed to by, say, cows farting, or peat bogs) then presumably a large part of that is the product of big cities. Sydney is a big city. It is fast. It burns a lot of energy. People on the whole don't appear to have the time (time is money) to conserve. Everyone is either on the mobile phone, drinking a takeaway coffee or one of those drinks that come in the long thin cans, or driving their oversized four-wheel drive (or all three at once). Heck, even the complementary breakfast at the hotel came with roughly one part packaging per one part food.
[As for that John Zorn CD, well, I thought I knew these songs - I have, in (ahem) one form or another, all of the official Masada-related releases except "Live In Jerusalem" and "Masada Rock", and a few unofficial live recordings as well - but I have never heard them quite like this before. This recording (which is so clear and immediate that you might as well be in the crowd) evidences a chamber ensemble (percussion, violin, cello, upright bass, drums, guitar) playing like a jazz combo. It has the same band > audience > band intensity loop as on the "Live At Tonic 2001" disc. It taunts you to try to sit still throughout, and you can't, you can't ...]
