Herald Diary

I've been reflecting this week on why the media is so keen on carving up niches for us, stirring up what we don’t have in common rather than what we do. Last week two pieces connived, generationally and culturally, to separate us into one camp or another. And why are we so willing to find safety and belonging in these bogus, spurious constructs?

Selinger-Morris, argues in Back off Bohemians that it’s now ‘cool’ to be conservative and (talk about thin ground) offers Bob Dylan as a ligit convert because he once ‘fantasised’ (meaning took a peak, shuddered and returned quickly to his boho-reality) about a nine-to-five existence and a white picket fence, and what about Miranda Devine’s piece where she tried to suggest in The Boom and Bust of Generation Wars, that the flocking to Anzac Cove by this year's Generation Y was nothing less than a resurgent sign of respect for institutions and the sacrifices of our forebears? More like a pilgrimage (excuse) for homesick expats to congregate, share a beer and a smoke under some familiar stars, if you ask me. (My daughter, a ‘Generation Y’er’ would have been there too if the lack of camping gear hadn’t brought her undone. She turned to the next best alternative: Earls Court. And yes, by all accounts, there was a very healthy ‘respect for the institution’ bit. As in pub.

Based on that and more of the same flim-flam, it all seems to me a case of the media drawing up cultural and generational divides as an excuse for not much else to bang on about last week, rather than any true reflection of our complex inter-cultural and generational identities. Back off Bohemians did make me chuckle though. What? Like there’s some vast, amorphous mob of child-neglecting atheists in velvet jackets out there threatening to usurp a small, vulnerable enclave of Conservatives in pussy bows? Firstly, I'd like to know where these Bohemians are because I’ve been living here for 20-odd years and frankly (in the boomer category anyway) they are thin on the ground. I even moved to Balmain hoping to find a few child-neglecting atheists in velvet jackets. But, perhaps like the disappointed Conservative moving to St Ives and finding, to their horror, that some mothers at their playgroup actually have sex for fun, occasionally skip church and even entertain the thought of returning to work one day, nothing is as definitive as the media would have you believe or behave.

I grew up in a very conservative household until my mother divorced my father and went to live with her boho-aristo lover. I was immediately drawn to this sensuous, smoky, burgundy, leather-bound-book-smelling enclave of artists, aristos and rat bags. This new world was as authentically Bohemian as my past life had been authentically conservative. But, it has to be said that in their unadulterated forms both produced progeny as extreme and with, you might say, equally predictable outcomes. Suffice to say that one is a member of Whites (an exclusive gentlemen’s club) and shoots little birds, the other is penniless, hopeless and plays in a band.

I like to think, along with my invisible basket-weaving neighbors, that we fall somewhere in the middle ground and are, consequently, a little hard to recognize. Can’t speak for all of us but underneath my Sarah Jane frocks, a robust bohemian soul still beats. I know because I see it reflected in my kids….all creative, all unconventional and all with that sensuous, smoky, burgundy, organic aesthetic. Of course they’ve got that Conservative influence as well but I don’t have to worry about that side. That influence is in their face everywhere they turn today.

Byron Bay was, of course, the Mecca for Australian bohemia. An artistic, unconventional community which, if not for everyone, was nevertheless a
picturesque fantasy to ogle at for those who had put away the beanie and bong and ‘grown-up.’ I visited last Christmas and, rather like visiting a safari park, I
found my own presence, and those like mine, destroyed the very thing I had gone in search of. Like any other Sydney suburb it was now populated with perky young things in pink sports shirts, trailing white handbags and lapdogs. I came away vowing either to become a fully tie-dyed, basket-carrying member of the
aesthetic or to butt out.

Byron’s great misfortune, it seems, is its accessibility and uniqueness. What a treat then to stumble across another little bohemian gem last Friday on one of my bi-monthly adventure trips, this one crystallized in all its authenticity by inaccessibility and secrecy. Hidden away on its own stretch of beach in South Sydney, this ‘shanty estate’ of falling-down corrugated iron and weatherboard batches, water tanks, unchained bicycles and a 15-year buyers wait list, was not only a delightful picnic spot but testament to the fact that some (all eight of them) waterfront inhabitants still find expression in modesty and subtlety.

It’s certainly bohemian to convene with nature, not sure it’s quite so bohemian to put down Keats and don tracky-daks and Nikes for these adventures (even to take them off again for the Pre-Raphaelite nudie frolics in the all-but deserted tributaries of Sydney harbour). And, aside from spectacular, ‘deserted’ is the word that describes our adventure routes. Whether on foot, bike or kayak - and I’ve done over 45 day trips around the Sydney area and never repeated a route - another hiker or kayaker is a rare sight. I go with a girlfriend and we take it in turns to surprise the other with the destination and mode of transport. Our only stipulation is that it should cost nothing but require some form of exercise. Thank you dear taxpayer for this extraordinary resource of National Parks and waterways and thank you for letting us have it all to ourselves.

Good news. The bohos of Sydney are alive and well. I saw them with my own eyes one night this week, firstly as they stalked in their lovely long, slim, black-legged way from the tunnels of North Sydney towards Luna park concert hall, then in their black thousands to pay black homage to the prince of Bohemian cool, the smoking, blaspheming, black and godly Nick Cave. Halleluiah!