Vintage & Jazz

I have a vintage suitcase obsession… can you tell?

I come here to buy buttons to decorate and individualise my daughters clothes. I love picking through these cases while I drink my coffee…

Believe it or not, she wasn’t the creepiest doll in the vintage shop…

This little camel was made of leather and was so very adorable. I nearly bought him but I didn’t have the heart to take him from the two little dolls he seemed to be watching over…

This little lady was placed just so, watching over cafe patrons as they sipped coffee, delighting in delicious biscuits and fawned over the vintage delights in store. It is so hard not to, the place is filled with just the right amount of interesting and diverse niceties.

My daughter asked me to photograph these bags for her. How could I resist?

Meeting with friends at the Gelato Bar. The owner, Bruce is “stuck in the 1950’s” and I absolutely adore the place decked in vintage. Bruce knows his cafe’s, establishing Bad Manners Cafe on Glebe Point Rd, Sydney which became one of Sydney’s iconic cafe’s. He makes a fabulous coffee and the affogato is definitely worth writing home about. You must try it on vanilla gelato which is made fresh in store from Bruce’s secret recipe. To die for!

When I grow up… I want a wall of camera’s just like this!

This last photo I took for Pierre.

My favourite flea market book seller, “Shelf Respect”.

Ordained to Dance

The following poem is a collaboration between myself and a very dear friend of mine, the incredibly talented Syrian/American poet Assef Al-Jundi.

With my index finger I trace
a smooth invisible arc
down the glossy round surface
of this orb.

I exhale crystal goblets
of fruitless faith in the calm of
numinous white blossoms

while alternating waves of pace
and rhythm perform
a ceremony of shifting guards.

Almost lost—
subtle voices a slice
above, below audible,
wine without cups,
heaven-less clouds,

backs turned to mystery,
the nomadic prison
resting in wisdom,
ancient pages unreeling
amid azure skies
of naked eloquence.

Alarms shriek
in every quarter of this wistful city.
I look for you to make love
the path to abide this
supernatural immensity.

With eyes shut fast
in aching sensuality
I’ll choose a landscape
like a canvas of tears
dreaming.

I’ll find release
in the strands of my knowing instincts.
Make permanent
the jubilant abandon of my twinging spirit.

Sorted
the remnants of my prophet’s revelations
clung to drunken ramblings of
unfortunate muses
only to arrive
full circle.

© Aaliyah Hannan and Assef Al-Jundi

Arabic words painted on the image are:
Passion, Love, Beauty, Imagination, Soul, Affection, Ardor, and Flame (Lahab)

Midnight Bloom

a midnight bloom…

Love

Birthing, a new sun – Soul