Anna Couani #58 days of The Cross

I remember days around The Cross

where the non-alcoholics went

we sat down in coffee shops

and drank coffee

rather than stand up in pubs

drinking piss

but there were wine bars

like Lorenzini’s

also with seating

and we drank stuff like

vermouth

live music occurred

in that basement venue

I remember the big Arts Balls

in Paddington Town Hall

precursors of Mardi Gras

there were art students

us, architecture students

gay people

trans people

bohemians, pre-hippie

Europeans, mostly refugees

when rent was cheap

and rooms were seedy

there was grime

The Push crowd were more conservative

more sexist, more Anglo Aussie

drinking a mile away in the city

being journalists, writers and academics

writing history to paint themselves radical

when it was the Commies in Chinatown

and their offshoots

who promoted the Aboriginal cause

then the anti-Vietnam marches

it was The (bohemian) Cross

that germinated multi-ethnic thinking

and fostered the visual arts

The Cross just a step away from the art school

it was sad to see everything

wrongly appropriated

people mistakenly acknowledged

real achievements ignored

false heroes applauded and
real heroes buried