01. My Melbourne International Film Festival picks this week:
- The Siege of Paradise – excellent documentary about overtourism in Italy’s Cinque Terre, told through the eyes of local residents, business owners, and a young social media influencer. Sad, funny, terrifying, thoughtful.
- Sheep in the Box – a story about AI bereavement bots and unfinished business. I was expecting to bawl… but I didn’t. Still interesting though (and lots to think about re: AI).
- La Gradiva – about a school trip to Pompeii. And so much more. Dialogue between the teenagers (and their interactions with the teachers) was outstanding. My heart ached for one character (Toni). My pick of the films I’ve seen so far.
- Kings of Venice – who doesn’t love an underdog story? This one is a little different – it’s paddle ball versus pickle ball, and it’s full of crazy characters.
02. All the program launches: Opera Australia 2027. German Week. Birrarung Riverfest. So many activities ahead.
03. A perfume inspired by the archives of the State Library and Archives of Tasmania.
04. Is it just me or does everyone love census night?
05. Listening: Role Model covers Olivia Rodrigo. Obsessed.
06. Bargain jumper.
07. Eating: Pidapipó’s August special – winter pavlova ice cream. Divine.
08. Cooking: Bratkartoffeln from The Potato Book by Poppy O’Toole (I love this book).
09. Launch of Victoria Hannan’s new novel, I Love the Whole World!, at Readings. She was in convo with Kate Mildenhall, who said that after Kokomo and Marshmallow, this book is a ‘joy bomb’.
OK, what’s census night?
It’s when the government collects statistics on the population of Australia – every household fills out a form on the same night about who lives in the house, age, income, employment, education, how much unpaid labour, housework, caring they do etc etc. The info is then used for planning services and social supports. Do they do some similar in the US? Maybe it’s called something different?
Yes, but it’s over about a month, and they don’t ask about some of those things. What they ask depends upon who designed the census that year. You get the census in the mail and then they have a lot of trouble getting enough of them back. Mostly ours is used for allocating representatives to states. More population equals more representatives.
I bloody love Census night too! Ex local government social research and policy manager so understand its importance to planning and decision making. Since the last one I have retired and am widowed so very quick process.
Knew I wasn’t the only one 🙂
It may have been quick census for you this time but no doubt a reflective one given all that has changed in your life since our one.
In Ireland they have a ‘time capsule’ field on their census – wish we had the same. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/from-grief-to-paw-prints-people-share-ireland-census-time-capsule-messages
Mr. Gums and I were saying the other day how much lower key since Census night was this year, or felt at least. Perhaps that’s because it’s pretty much fully online so there’s not the whole buildup of the delivery of the booklet etc. and the flexibility about when you fill it out. We did ours a few days before in Melbourne but for Canberra as we planned to – and did – arrive back on census day! However I agree it’s a special thing to do.
Those flavours!
I agree about the flexibility on when to complete the census as taking away a bit of the excitement.
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