MCG Tour
Still basking in the glow of winning the 2024 AFL Grand Final, (Go Lions!) I was looking for a means to extend the buzz, and what better way than by doing the MCG tour.
Established in 1853, the “G” is considered the beating heart of the great city of Melbourne, and beneath that beating heart lies a behemoth underbelly. Tours are run regularly, each one led by a passionate Victorian who may or may not have cleared the forty-year waiting list to become a member. There is a 100,000 cap on MCG memberships, and when you fall off the perch, it dies along with you. With only 20,000 tickets available for the AFL GF each year, it’s a chook raffle!
We walked onto the hallowed ground and found out some tidbits to add to the folder of useless information that occupies quite a large part of my brain. When it’s cricket season, the grounds get mown daily. When it’s AFL season, mown weekly. Who knew? The grass around the boundary line is astroturf, corporate boxes can go for as much as $400K (I’ll have two thanks), and there’s an interesting display showing how far athletes long, triple, high jumped, and pole vaulted in 2006, compared to more current times, and the results are astounding!
From the deck, we headed down to the player change rooms and into the space most recently occupied by the Brisbane Lions pre- and post-GF win. I was up for the stench of success, sweat and liniment, but sadly the BO of elite athleticism had already evaporated. It was interesting to see the assumingly adrenaline-soaked walk from change rooms up the tunnel to the stadium was through a mundane car park. Huh. Not sure what I was expecting (a velvet lined catwalk with disco ball, maybe), but not this.
We nestled our povo butts into the luxurious leather seating in the “Long Room,” envious of the birds-eye view members have of the game. We ogled the decadent dining décor and rubbernecked impressive paintings, artworks, and photos of past and present members of the sporting aristocracy. It was an awesome peek at areas in the G that you just would never be able to access. Go!
The Lume
While sport is art in my world, I am open to other expressions of skill and creativity and found that recently at The Lume. The Lume is one of the world’s largest digital art galleries, an immersive experience that makes walking around an art gallery, looking at paintings on a wall, seem kinda droll.
Currently, the Lume is presenting Leonardo Da Vinci: 500 Years of Genius. Along with displays that take you on a journey through the mind of a master inventor, artist, scientist, philosopher, and musician, you can don a dicky virtual headset to do a Florence flyover, see some actual pages from the Codex Atlanticus (a 12-volume set of drawings and writings by the master), and most impressively, enter a digital world where the lines between art and reality blur.
An engrossing rendering of the life of Leonardo Da Vinci, he was most definitely on the spectrum. Dude has 13,000 pages of notes and drawings covering innocuous things like “how to make an olive press” through to big brain ideas on flying machines, war catapults, parachutes, and solar power, just to name a few. I can just picture him, waking at 3am, sticky-outy air, lighting the candle, and furiously sketching his recent manifestation.
There are pleather pouffes to perch on or long, low bean bags to lounge in to absorb this multi-sensory, breathtaking experience. A recreation of the ambiance of the Renaissance, it’s a completely surreal environment to describe, and I’m not sure I have the words anyway, so again, just go!
