Another temporary art thing appeared at Taylor Square recently.

We caught it mid-construction, but the final results are spectacular. It’s Dale Miles’ work, Underworld.

I love that this terrific beast is arising from the dingy downstairs toilet at Taylor Square. A real underworld.

As I was out spotting Mardi Gras carnage this morning, I came across something I had not noticed before.

It’s on Crown Street, at the foot of the “No Stopping” sign outside Urban Uprising, near the corner of Campbell Street.

A cement sculpture of a teddy bear and a mobile phone. They are fixed to the pavement.

Does the bear say “culture?”

Or perhaps “vulture” or “sculpture?”

Intriguing.

We missed the parade last night, but headed out this morning to take a look at the carnage.

Feathers, glow-sticks, flags, head-pieces, goon-bags, discarded shoes, more feathers.

They were all spotted on surrounding streets – Bourke, Crown, Palmer, Burton.

Oxford Street was looking remarkably polished.

More so than those kicking on.

These weird geometric objects appeared behind a fence on Taylor Square last night.

I walked by on Friday morning, as council workers tore plants out of their planters and pots, and tossed them into the back of their trucks.

They plant those flowers, take them out, plant them, erect new planters, take them away, without any real connection to what’s going on with the plants – they seem pretty healthy. Still, those planters have been strange from the moment they appeared.

I walked past later, at about midnight, and a fence had been erected around the Taylor Square public toilet. I peeked over the top, and this is what I saw.

I’m pretty sure it’s Dale Miles’s Underworld (the latest in the Taylor Square Plinth project – we blogged about Louisa Dawson’s work in October). He’s shown widely since graduating from the National Art School several years ago – see more here.

He says it’s a response:

to the mysteriousness of the shape of the space enclosed by the entrance fence and the two descending staircases. It is the mystery of the void inverted, the spider exiting its funnel.

The original idea is this. More pictures to come.

I love peeking through the gaps on neighbourhood redevelopments, like this one on Campbell Street, Surry Hills.

Sometimes the city streets seem so fixed – apartment blocks and shops and street signs are such planned things.

I love moments of change – not so much when restaurants or other businesses fail, that’s always sad – but those moments of transition when a house or a warehouse implodes to form something new, they’re totally exciting for me.

The Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst, warehouse below has been in redevelopment for months. At first, you could peek in and see the hollowed out shell. But now it’s pretty dark and full of floors.

I guess I just like moments when you realise how ephemeral the buildings and structures of the city are, it makes me like them a lot more.

A bright pink fridge shouting PARTY appeared on Farrell Avenue, Darlinghurst, recently.

In these environmentally aware times, it’s no surprise to see the pink party fridge cast off in the street. But don’t they know the state government offers a $35 buyback for old fridges?

The parking situation in our inner city locale is about to get worse.

Spotted yesterday on Surrey Street, Darlinghurst, were some brand new parking ticket dispensers, still under wraps.

Sure residents can continue to park without charge or time limits, but it’s all too bad for your friends/family/tradespeople/others. I wonder what the hourly rate will be?

I hope this doesn’t spread throughout the neighbourhood.

About this time last year, almost to the day, one of our readers spotted would-be Nazi graffiti on the road in Darlinghurst. Then this appeared over the weekend, near the old toilet block at Taylor Square.

But as one of our readers, Tony, noted in the comments at the time:

Well, actually, this is not a nazi cross (Swastika) at all. The real cross is the other way around (mirrored image).

This ‘reversed Swastika’ can be found in numerous places:

1. The Nydam Bog (look at the bottom of the page).
2. A buddhist temple
3. The flag of the city Hirosaki, in Japan

So we could be facing a very angry Danish from the year 200AD, a peaceful buddhist monk, a Japanese backpacker eager to come back to Oz… or an angry (and probably drunk) kid that doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. Place your bets ;-)

So there you have it, and it’s reappeared at the tail end of another summer holiday.

Sad news.

A year ago our friends Blake and Alexis showed you how to build an inner city aquarium. Well, if you’re following their instructions, you might need to hit the brakes. Here’s what Blake had to say…

We had to abandon the fish tank recently due to health concerns.

The poor buggers kept getting sick. We figured it was the water quality or pH, so we did a few tests, which were inconclusive.

Even with water conditioners and fish medicine, they kept dying. So, despite the advice from the aquarium guy to “Just keep buying more fish,” we eventually decided it would be best to to fill up the old shipping crate with soil and focus on the creation of life rather than death.

So far, we’ve been much more successful with garlic chives than with goldfish.

An activist/street artist called the Invisible Man has left small plaques on walls and telegraph poles around inner city Sydney, particularly Surry Hills and Darlinghurst. But recently, the Invisible Man’s branched out.

At this spot on Premier Lane, Darlinghurst, and on a few other walls around town, the Invisible Man’s appeared as a copycat of This Is For That’s alphabaffiti.

We’ve had people searching the blog for various combinations of ‘Darlinghurst’, ‘Sydney’ and ‘invisible’ or ‘invisible man’ every day for the past month or so. And at least one report, in the comments, of hand delivered material from Invisible Man.

Then one of our readers, Steve, noted this plaque on the corner of Farrell Avenue and Kirketon Road, Darlinghurst.

Hard to see, I only caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. It’s stuck to the curb that forms the garden bed on the little traffic island at the intersection of Farrell Avenue and Kirketon Road.

This one is for Lisa Marie Smith and references something happening with her in Bangkok in ‘96 – and on a side note, asks to ‘FREI BOGAN SCHAPELLE CORBY’.

It’s also got what looks like a giant spliff on it.

And then this…

Walking down to Cafe Hernandez on a recent morning, we noticed this artwork on a shelf, dated 2007 – clearly by the same artist – Damien Jones.