RIP Astrid Spielman was one of my first Australian friends, and I met her long before I moved to Sydney. Of all the Australians I met in that now brief period of 2000-2002, I think she was the one who really “got” the transition, for myself, and my ex, but could accept it in a way that not a few in the US could, and that was because of her vision and status as an artist. Astrid had been a rocker with Particles, a Sydney punk/post-punk band of the early ‘80’s., and the Yokos - great band name – before moving on to become an artist in the area of photography and video. But she was primarily, to me, a friend, and a challenging one, not content to let intellectual slackness slip by. Astrid had a burst aneurysm recently. The treatment was working, to the extent that it could, but a follow-on stroke took her just days ago. I have had, during this period, occasions to think of Astrid and to hope for the best .and now, in some small, clichéd regard, that’s where we are. I know I haven’t made the effort myself to maintain that friendship, which is a common failing for me, but I held it close in my heart nevertheless, and I will miss Astrid, with love always.

Gritty A Walk Among the Tombstones is a not half-bad adaptation of the Lawrence Block novel, but half of it is the rest of the Matthew Scudder series, and that's at least part of how the movie fails, ultimately. Liam Neeson falls in and out of his hard NY accent, and his team-up with the street kid, TJ, is, as every critic bothering to deal with it has mentioned, inexplicable and ultimately pointless, but my issues are somewhat different. The book left Scudder slightly off the hook for the vengence required by the end, but also left him open in the series to something darker than it had otherwise painted him to be. The movie tries to do the same, to a point, but ties the revenge to his past in a way that makes him out to be incapable of the redemption his sobriety would otherwise. So we're left wondering who Scudder is, without any questioning by Scudder, as is more characteristic, at least to this point in the series, of the literary PI. I'm surprised, a little, that it's taken this long to make even one of these novels into a movie. Neeson is perfect (barring the accent), and the movie captures much of NYC as a lived place. They could have started earlier and had a franchise, but I don't think we're going to get that, but if nothing else, I think I'll go back to the books before long.

Rules of the Road The first rule of cycling in the city: they don't see you. Melbourne is a cycling-intensive city, more so than Sydney, but both cities haven't got the infrastructure or the culture to keep their cyclists safe. What that means is that it's up to the cyclists, so today's rally is important. I commend Sydney's mayor, Clover Moore, for her efforts to establish bicycle lanes, and condemn both Labor and Liberal state governments for their efforts to rid themselves of both her and cycleways. Cities are not for cars, they're for people. That has to be balanced. And bicycles are better for the environment than cars. It isn't just about how many cars can be funneled into the CBD, but that seems to be the motivation of most of our politicians, and, unfortunately, the short-sighted, narrow-minded perspective of many citizens. This, too, is part of how someone can be killed riding a bike, and it needs to change.

Landmark Preservation Still no sign of Miranda.