Carlisle Street demolition.

The bewitching phenomena of destruction of the familiar, exploited by filmmakers from Godzilla stomping through Tokyo to aliens blowing up the White House, is in full effect in our Balaclava neighbourhood as new tram tracks are being laid along Carlisle Street. A squadron of concrete blasters tore up the road yesterday and dump trucks are taking the debris away today. It's supposed to wrap up Wednesday. For the sake of shop owners losing business to noise, dust and closed roads this long weekend, I hope that's not a typically fictitious timeline.

Unsurprisingly, pulverising years-old concrete is f*cking LOUD.

Carlisle Street looked like a soundstage from a Michael Bay 'Transformer' film yesterday.

Demolishing done, removal commences.

New sleepers are laid beneath new track, which comes nearly nose-to-nose with the old at Westbury Street.

Night work on rain-soaked Wednesday.

Thursday morning, all is normal on Carlisle Street in Balaclava.

Beloved Balaclava blasphemy.

Aradhna and I will soon be moving out of Balaclava and nostalgia for its bohemian spirit (and Jewish bakeries) is already sinking in. This poster went up before the US election and has remained, relatively unscathed, on a wall just off Carlisle Street. To juxtaposition Obama's image with the words 'Second Coming' is enough to detonate the brain stems of holy rollers back in the States. Woo-hoo!

I've yet to meet anyone in Australia who isn't optimistic about soon-to-be-President Obama. Especially as The Miserable Failure goes out in a final blaze of ignominy:

• A bipartisan Senate report confirms what the world has long known: Rumsfeld was responsible for detainee abuse at Gitmo. The Miserable Failure has never spoken an ill word about his former Defense Secretary, and I'm sure Rummy will be a welcome guest and confidant at George & Laura's new home in a segregated Dallas suburb.
  
• His administration has rushed through a new gun law that legalizes loaded, concealed weapons in nearly all US national parks. Gives camping at Yellowstone a sorely missing element of mayhem, don't it?
  
• Bush administration stooges at the EPA have decided against ridding drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that's fouled public water supplies around the US.
  
• The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz invasion-on-the-cheap of Iraq sent countless soldiers to their graves and left many more limbless by not taking steps that would have protected them from roadside bombs, according to the Pentagon's Inspector General.
  
• Then there's that 'aimless war' in Afghanistan ...
  

UPDATE: The Bush administration has just revised endangered species regulations so that the developers & federal agencies responsible for dams, power plants, timber sales and other projects do not need to consult federal scientists about their possible harm to vulnerable plants and animals.

It's weird. Bush never hesitates to profess his sanctimonious Christianity, yet also never hesitates to eliminate one of his god's creations when it suits business interests. So which is his one, true almighty?

More 'hood.

A sign along our train station's platform. The neighborhood was named after a battlefield in the Crimean War (1853-6).
As Balaclava is within St Kilda East, the overpass beside the train station is adorned with the 'Lady of St Kilda', a 19th-century English schooner.
Don't call it a mailbox!
Looking west down Carlisle Street.
Aradhna and I love this billboard in front of a building in progress. 'Manhattan passion'????

Balaclava Sunday morning.

Bright sun, cool breeze and a stolen hour of sleep had Carlisle Street more crowded than usual this morning. Aradhna and I took a stroll ...
Sidewalk outside the cafe troika of Gattica, Lava 219 and Moka is choc-a-block.
Kiwis congregate at Batch Espresso for New Zealand-style brekkies and sublime coffee.
Aradhna turned the head of many a Batch passerby, as she's wont to do.

Motley Balaclava morning

A Saturday morning stroll for the newspaper (what we'd call a Sunday paper in the States comes out a day early here) is a whirligig of nationalities and ethnicities in St Kilda East (referred to by locals as Balaclava). Jewish women walking to synagogue, hair tamed and skirts pressed. Sallow-faced Aussie blokes and sheilas lurching for antidotes to late night indulgence. Polish and Russian emigres carrying bags of thinly sliced kielbasa and warm babka. Asian couples inspecting fresh fruits and veggies.

Then there's me in my 'ny' Giants cap and the always lovely Indo-Fijian Aradhna sitting in Kiwi-owned and operated Batch Espresso sipping perfect coffees and reading year-old New Zealand periodicals.

We love our new neighborhood. Can't wait to host visitors. {hint hint}

Thanks to Louise for the Giants link ... would love to be with her and my dad watching the Jints battle the Packers for an NFC title in Lambeau this weekend ...