Sunny Garden

But maybe it doesn't feel particularly different here to me because I've kept coming to the place. I've always lived nearby, so I come here to see movies. And to run, obviously. Things like that. I think it was more interesting before I was here. I think it probably did have a phase where there was a no-shoes, tie-dye dress code. For all the people being radical and individual, anyway. And the union was pretty active. Someone once told me that, since the union owns the cinema and that whole retail area, they got to give all the buildings their names. And the Schonell Cinema - the big one upstairs - is apparently officially called the Ho Chi Minh Theatre. (p. 173-174)

    A few things to do. Mid-morning I'm in the neighbourhood, at the uni libraries to read some Erikson. And I didn't know half of it when I was talking on the weekend about how much this place had changed.
    For a start, where I'm sitting is underground and surely used to be dirt below a path when I was studying here. Back in a time I'm now thinking I should be referring to as the old days. The old days when the microfiche machines were cutting-edge technology and everyone got a tutorial on how to use them. (p. 187-88)

    I sit inconspicuously at a terminal around the middle of the fifth row. I stumble through the catalogue, trying out key words that take me off on tangents. Remembering the name of the book would help. In the distance I can see librarians sitting at a counter and I wonder if I should email them and identify myself as the person floundering back here, needing to be saved. I'm prepared to wave to direct them to me if it'd help, even though it'd be an uncommonly public admission of my ignorance. (p. 188)

Continue with the Perfect Skin tour.

Excerpts from Perfect Skin are © Nick Earls and are used with permission.

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Sunny Garden is designed, written and maintained by Liz Perkins, in cooperation with Nick Earls and Penguin Books. Any questions about Sunny Garden should be directed to Liz

All original contents are © Liz Perkins.