Saturday 5 August 2017

Birthday party, Pitt Street Mall

When I came down from Martin Place to Pitt Street Mall today on my way home there were groups of people all dressed in red. There must have been a hundred people with red clothing, hats, angels' wings, capes, and leotards. They sped up the mall toward the north and stopped at King Street where the traffic signal was red, then turned back into the mall again, hurrying on. 

The sounds of horns and whistles accompanied their frantic movement. At one stage they stood immobile for a while watching a busker perform, before moving off again to attend to some other minor event. They reminded me of the revelers in Michaelangelo Antonioni's 1966 London classic Blowup. As I walked south in the mall there was a man and a woman dressed in red walking beside me. Why was everyone in red, I asked. "Birthday party," said the woman, before speeding off with the crowd, which turned north again.



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