Last year I spent a pleasant hour or two sat at the back of a busy bar in Byron Bay, New South Wales. I had a pint of something acceptable and almost like beer, fresh fish, well-battered was to hand, the company was good. Then, with all the energy of the Pacific Ocean behind it, a nascent deluge plummeted earthwards.It was very noisy - Australians have a love affair with corrugated iron and the building was bejewelled with the stuff. I went deaf - in these circumstances all conversation passes me by; I suffer from the inverse cocktail party effect. Instead of hearing one voice in a melange of many, I hear none, not even those close to me. I've always been blessed with this affliction.
I usually read a paper in these circumstances, or a good book. It makes me appear anti-social but since that's fairly accurate, it's no problem. On this occasion I had nothing to read but I did have my camera and a long lens. Thus armed, I sat at the back of the bar and captured images of bottles.
What better way is there to spend some ruptured time?
3 comments:
Wow. That photo came out really well, I wish I could get my camera to do that with darkness and light!
Great words, by the way. Deluge Plummeted. Perfect.
I'm that way too, with crowds. And, with leaves blowing in the wind. If it's just one leaf, I can see the movement, but when all of them are moving, they appear still to me.
Weird, eh?
I believe I'm currently living in the land of near-beer. I was at a six year-old friend's birthday parting painting faces this past weekend, and thought I heard the magic word Guinness being spoken.
I was apparently suffering from heat and whining-induced auditory hallucinations and was being offered a Bud or a Coors (does it matter?) Light instead.
I demurred, politely gestured with the bottled water in my hand, and said in the sweetest of Northern-hellcat-turned Southern-belle voices, "No thank you, honey. I already have one."
In the oddest of ways, I felt like a man at that moment, for some reason. I'm sure it's quite deeply sexist of me in some ways and would land me in hot water with men's rights advocates, but oh well. That's how I felt, like I was giving someone a friendly 'fuck you' like my husband and his friends do. It was quite a lot of fun, actually.
And though I love tin roofs to distraction, I think sitting with my camera in a noisy crowded bar making up stories about friends and strangers and taking pictures of bottles or (hypothetically speaking, of course) shuffleboard tables, piles of emptied but dirty neon-lit ashtrays, dart boards and pool tables, empty bar chairs....but you get my point. What a perfect place to have a book or a camera or both. And a good reliable pen. For all that overheard dialogue, of course. You could write a book, or a play, or a country and western song (sorry Dave) with the stuff that goes on at the Rose on a Friday night, imagine a whole book of illustrated bar/pub stories.
Thanks, Josephine, just having the light in the right place was all it needed. And also the words, great playthings, aren't they?
Lee, please keep me a seat.
If that's the way you get your fun, Bluesmama, then I'm sure us chaps won't mind.
Since I'm by nature a quiet bloke (to a fault), most of my time in bars is spent listening and watching. I don't take too many photos of people, though, as that's a sure route to a bloody nose.
Good to here from you again, by the way. I hope all is well with you.
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