This weekend, as I exhausted my Stuff White People Like quota – visiting the Kelvin Grove Farmers Markets [#5], supporting a local artisan [#49], downloading an episode of This American Life [#44] and generally raising my awareness [#18] – it made me wonder how many fellow Brisbaneites might have done the same.

There are more and more people visiting the Kelvin Grove Urban Village on a Saturday morning to buy fresh produce, which truly warms the cockles. Just knowing those farmers are toiling away in the field all week, rising at the crack of dawn on the weekend and shuffling around all day in a stifling market stall so that the good people of the BrizVegas inner north won’t starve, makes me feel so, well, white. And doesn’t it feel good ?!

The central market thoroughfare, crowded with bobos carrying tote bags bulging with thai basil and fresh galangal, comes alive with music and the sounds of coffee discussion. To jostle with fellow customers, glistening with the perspiration of do-gooding and caffeine, in order to get the most organic-looking pineapple from Narangba is a great way to while away a morning. And of course, everyone knows not to patronise the Asian sellers who have obviously just bought up big at Rocklea and are flogging exorbitantly priced, poor quality fruit. They’re not the true celebrated heros of our beloved farmers markets.

What often goes unnoticed is the behind the stalls work. Here is where the children of the Asian vendors crouch over styrofoam boxes, artfully sorting the cherries and the plums with fingers swift from hours of piano practice. Lucky are the children who work for their education, for they will inherit the wealth. No doubt those kids are already in line to be full-fee paying students at UQ, so although we’re not quite fiddling while Rome burns, we self-satisfied bobos are certainly eating well while we drive our Prius’ and look forward to a carbon-taxed future.

In recovering from our local spate of natural disasters, and now watching the horror unfold in New Zealand, one can’t help but feel nauseous about how soon the effects of the dozing climate change giant are upon us. Or, if you’re from the other school of belief, that the Mayan calendar seems to be a year out and it’s, Apocalypse Now !

We know that victims of recent, sudden disasters will be burdened with psychological scars long into the future, just as communities in prolonged drought live heavily under pressure to subsist. In fact, ‘solastalgia’ is a word coined by environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht to describe this deep feeling of dislocation and loss that occurs when one’s local environment suffers detrimental change. It was initially purposed to understand the link between ecosystem loss and mental health concerns within mining communities, but has since been applied to a broader range of community studies. (Read more on solastalgia here)

So what of those of us who live in relatively stable ecosystems – like BrisVegas – where it’s not so much a change in climate we are experiencing, as a rapid-onset, reconfiguration of our city’s landscape? The BrizVegas of today with its GO cards, and its farmers markets; its ferris wheel and its tunnel network; its yippies, its hippies and DINKs; is a far cry from the Brisbane backwater of old in which many of us grew up. Thus, in a genuine state of solastalgia, we may find ourselves experiencing an odd homesickness in our own backyard.

So, in answer to the question so often asked of travellers, “Are you glad to be home?”.

Well, in one sense, yes. Of course.

But in many ways it never feels like coming home, because so little of home exists anymore that it’s often difficult to recognise. In sync with the rest of the world, BrizVegas now consumes more but produces less locally, is more in debt, larger and more populated than ever before.

It’s not all bad news, though, because at least now we can drive the Clem7 to get from Bowen Hills to Woolloongabba 4.36mins faster than last year.

This weekend, the BrizVegas cultural centre precinct welcomed visitors through its doors again for the first time since the floods. On Saturday, the area was so crowded with city folk, that one could be forgiven for mistaking oneself in the TATE Modern or Pompidou Centre, rather than our own usually barren, almost inert riverside ‘arts’ space.

It was as much the playful, whimsical nature of the 21^st Century : Art in the First Decade exhibition, as the gratifyingly air-conditioned spaces which drew visitors in from the sunshine. Free entry probably helped too (and was much appreciated after of some of GoMA’s outrageously expensive admission prices of the past). The pieces in the exhibition were for the most part really accessible, colourful and interactive. Hey, here’s an idea ... why not apply the same principles to building and public infrastructure outside the gallery ?

There’s no denying that Brisbanites flock to big ticket exhibitions like paparazzi to a Hollywood premiere… think Warhol, Picasso, Valentino of recent years. Our cultural constitution is so glutted with sport, alcohol, food and celebrity, we leave almost no room for art appreciation. Never would we seek out the work of unsung artists or patronise an arts event that isn’t publicised to within an inch of its life on every billboard, bus and newspaper for months leading up to it. And anyway, we’re too busy gastro-socialising over brunch in a little New Farm cafe.

It may be that before we commit ourselves to going to the theatre, or visiting an art exhibition, we require confirmation from other parts of the world that it will be worth our while.

We went to see Warhol @ GoMA because everyone knows he’s a genius, right ?

Valentino ? Well, he’s one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s favourite designers.

And Wicked has been a huge hit on Broadway for years, so must be alright.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with taking cultural cues from overseas markets. It puts BrisVegas in the protégé position; being mentored by cities we’d like to be when we grow up. We just have to be careful not to completely eclipse the sunny, subtropical, humbly Christian, trashtastic breeding ground of our own city, from which local and really quite wonderful ideas continue to spawn.

21^st Century : Art in the First Decade @ GoMA till 26 April.

Go see it !

Has anyone seen these signs around our fair city ?

I only encountered my first one last week @ Fortitude Valley State School on St Paul’s Terrace. Previous to this, I had been ignorant of this trial initiative by the Brisbane City Council to avail select school ovals for public use over the Christmas holidays. Some participating schools were Buranda, Kelvin Grove, Cannon Hill, Morningside and Murrarie.

Listen here to Geoff Wilson (State Minister for Education) chatting on ABC Breakfast late last year about the scheme.

It seems like a great idea and I’m keen to hear what people thought about it …

So, what’s the deal, Can-Do-Campbell ?

Did it work ?

Does this mean you’ve come to the realisation that BrizVegas is desperate for more quality public open space ?

Thanks in advance for getting back to us.

For those who haven’t yet heard, David Jones Toombul is now boarded up and closed for trading, signaling the death knell for shopping centres with class. So fond was my grandmother of this particular department store, that I’m sure she would have chained herself and her loyalty card to the Manchester department, were it a socially-acceptable way of protesting its closure.

In its halcyon days, it was hallowed ground where one could fondle fluffy towels, browse haberdashery and nibble on scones in the ladies tea room to the sounds of piano muzak. It harks back to an era when the word ‘Chermside’ meant a sleepy outer suburb, and had not yet become the universal term for ubiquitous consumerism fuelled by cashed up bogans. The idea of Sunday trading was abhorrent and late Thursday night shopping was still a titillating end-of-the week indulgence. Product lines, though not inexpensive, were of genuinely sound quality, offering a more superior alternative to the comparative crap of Myer, or in more recent times, K-Mart and Target.

In fact, rumour has it that David Jones will be replaced by Target Country, though whether it’s because the northside is being mistakenly rezoned as rural, or the demographic truly has changed, is not for certain.

Thanks for the memories David Jones. I'll always remember your ultra-cool green vinyl chairs in the second-flood powder room.

Let us consider for a moment this sweetly ironic BrizVegas vignette :

Those of you familiar with this city will know the grungy, ethnic, but now largely gentrified microcosm of West End. Recently, I happened to be enjoying a sticky but pleasant evening quenching a thirst with soda and lime, on the vomit-stained terrace of the Rumpus Room. Not even the self-obsessed gaits of the motley collection of wannabe artists (read future arts council employees) passing my field of vision could dampen my spirits.

One particular jaunty dreadlocked hippie veered off towards a large fig tree to embrace his hippie friend, making sure to co-ordinate heart chambers. After a brief and earnestly animated exchange – of the sort only those who have shared life-altering performance pieces at Woodford can – he goes to leave. But before he does, bends down to collect a crisp and glossy white plastic Bed, Bath and Table bag.

What does it contain ?

A bong ?

Perhaps compost or worm castings ?

I honestly wondered what his friend had gifted him. Then, with a shake of his fisherman’s pants, off he ambled, light on his earthy feet towards the nearest community garden (a guess). Though I never found out what his bag contained, I’m hoping it really was new sheets from Bed, Bath and Table. Because I like entertaining the image of his nugget frame resting peacefully on 180 thread count Egyptian cotton inside his rusted kombi.

I'm taking orders now.

Let me know your size and colour preference.

0403 776 139

[Profits to go to the Premier's Flood Appeal or other associated disaster relief fund]

Since she ascended quietly to power as Australia's first female premier in 2007, I found myself needing to present apathy about Anna Bligh's offering of increasingly more of Queensland to the hungry mouth of ugly capitalist development in order not to slash my wrists as penance for the ongoing loss of good design opportunity. This of course, is typical of Gen-Y problem-solving ... playing ostrich in baleful acceptance of the inevitable.

My estimation of her as a leader rose when I heard the unashamedly boganic way she made her entrance to the opening of the Gold Coast's Broadwater Parklands in 2009. To the unignorable sounds of 'Eye of the Tiger' she torpedoed up to the foreshore in a speedboat, literally making waves. Anna, the botoxed ribbon-cutter, had arrived.

Yes, it's true that she's responsible for the annihilation of a great deal of what once made Queensland wonderful - leafy green public space, quality suburban development, publicly-owned utilities - but the manner in which she's navigated the state through one natural disaster after another is Leadership 101. Premiers of other states are no doubt asking when it'll be their turn to host a natural disaster !

It is this warming to our cow-cocky-clad-leader and the reawakening of latent pride in Queensland that has made my resettlement in BrisVegas all the easier. Though allow me to clarify... I'm not talking about draping my bikini-clad self in the Australian flag and flying to Bali. This blog intends to be a way to draw heads out of the sand in regards BrisVegas culture. Because it's too easily hypocritical to scathe the vox populi if one forcibly removes oneself from it.

We Are Queenslanders.