More Culture than a tub of Yoghurt
July 20, 2008 | 9:28 pmWe’re having a go at being cultural types lately and have been catching exhibitions instead of going to movies. Don’t worry – we’ve been seeing a few of them too, but I’ll update you about them in a later post.
The first exhibition we went to was the Art Deco exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. Em & Jeremy were in town from Sydney so we caught up for lunch on Degraves St and then staggered over the river to the NGV. NOTE: we crossed the river via a bridge – it’s not *that* polluted.
While Kitt enjoyed the exhibits (especially the fashion), Nykolai and I were through the whole thing in about 15 minutes, dodging the crowds and getting a quick look at the items. Our favourite pieces (the ones we stopped and really enjoyed) were the two old cars. Awesome beasties – especially the old Cord that has a Lycoming V8 in it (they make the engines in the aircraft I usually fly). There were also a couple of snake-based items – a lamp and a vase – that warranted a pause as we passed by.
So, Nykolai & I were out pretty quickly and after a quick drink at the cafe, decided to go explore the rest of the NGV. After breezing our way through art from all ages we finally wound up hanging out in the back garden where Nykolai and some other kids were climbing a rope based installation (don’t worry, people were allowed on it).
Kitt eventually made her way out while Em & Jeremy spent a bit longer really drinking it all in.
A couple of weeks later, Nykolai and I went to see the Game On exhibition at ACMI with Kitt’s brother and his two kids. Ahh, the joys of those old arcade games that I sunk hundreds of 20c pieces into all those years ago. So much fun to go around and show them to Nykolai in their cabinets and tables. Of course, he’s played a few of them in the “retro collections” on our consoles or his DS. The kids really enjoyed the handheld collection (all chained to tables but running so the kids could play them) and spent a bit of time playing the old Star Wars arcade game. Man I loved to play that one back then.
I held off on playing any games – partially to prevent embarrassing myself when I couldn’t clock a high score, but also as it was pretty crowded and I didn’t want to get in the way.
We checked out the other exhibits (history of various games & genres, well known characters, etc) and the kids got to play a bit of Halo 3. Eventually it was time for Stuart and the kids to leave so we all split and headed for home.
OK – so it wasn’t quite as cultural as Art Deco, but at least Game On was an exhibition!
Next Saturday we’re off to see the Bell Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, at the end of the month we’re seeing Devo live and then in September we’re taking Nykolai to see “Just MacBeth” – the Bell Shakespear Company meets children’s writer Andy Griffiths on a Scottish moor – woo hoo :)
