Pushka's Design Project

You thought you loved Pushka? Witness the beloved coffee-hole after its pending transformation and your heart might just explode. Over the next year, as each season turns, the undersized greatness that is Pushka will be part of a constantly evolving design space engineered by the creative practitioners behind the Melbourne-based Bower collective. Bower, who brought you 32 Centimetres for the latest Anode festival, have bumped into Pushka with plants, paint and imagination. Throughout 2010 Bower will take everything down, whip out the gaffa tape, and install an entirely new interior design. Due to the incy-wincy space of Pushka, Bower will get their Michelangelo on and focus on the ceiling. Call it a mid-life crisis, but one where you buy four different sports cars throughout the year; this is going to be a series of pin-tucks like never before.

The seasonal installations kick off this month with a launch party from 4pm on December 4th. You're all invited.

Pushka, 20 Presgrave Place, Melbourne

Bellas Gets Pimped

Sister Bellas is a semantic enigma. So cool you could ice your beer on her neck, so hot we couldn't possibly complete this sentence with a PG rating. The truth is, Sister Bellas has always known how to charm. She's just added an air conditioner to help bring the mercury down and brought in a new chef to heat up the menu. Enjoy Emmanual 'Manni' Hutton's gazpacho marinated calamari, gourmet burgers and fresh baguettes as the whiz-bang a/c dries the summer sweat off your upper lip. Then share a cocktail-jug with your favourite lady-friend.

Sister Bellas, Sniders Lane (off Drewery Lane), Melbourne
Open 11am-1am Monday-Friday,
3pm-1am Saturday – Sunday
Bellas on Facebook

Sundae Workers Series

After seeing the likes of Rowland S Howard, Mountains In the Sky, Qua & Kid Sam on its stage over winter, the Sundae Workers Series has just amped up for round #3. You've just missed the New Zealand-based Songs, who played on Sunday 29th November but there's still three more Sundaes to mark in your 2009 diary!

Mark 1: Sunday 6th December:
The Church w/ Alexander w/ Thomas (Oh Mercy) & Gold Tango

Mark 2: Sunday 13th December:
I Heart Hiroshima (Bris) w/ Danimals (Syd), Love Connection & The Breadmakers

Mark 3: Sunday 20th December:
Kelley Stoltz (USA) w/ The Uv Race & Ships Piano.

Need we say more?

The Workers Club,
Cnr Gertrude and Brunswick Streets, Fitzroy
Every Sunday from 4pm

Through the Looking Glass

Diploastrea Heliopora
From outer space, The Great Barrier Reef looks like a speckled trail of DNA, running down Australia's eastern coastline. It's the world's largest living structure made by living organisms, and it generates well over $1 billion every year. After a snorkelling trip to The Great Barrier Reef, Alice Alva has returned and interpreted The Reef in fabric form, taking inspiration from the colour, texture and patterns of the Australian landmark. Diploastrea Heliopora is currently on display in the Through The Looking Glass window.
November 23rd – December 16th

Inventioninnovation
Ah, the eternal war between technology and man … horses replace legs, trains replace horses, and iPods take over the world. Australia-born, Germany-based artist Madeleine Brady tracks the eternal influence of technology on the 'worker'. Via illustration, and an unusual squirty window-cleaning device, Madeleine mines the notions of masculinity, logic and economy in her window installation for Through the Looking Glass.
December 18th – January 18th

The Workers Club,
corner of Brunswick and Gertrude St, Fitzroy

Blackbird Summer Market

The brains behind the Blackbird Summer Market are preparing their ultimate Saturday afternoon: beer, shopping, bands, burgers, photo booths and, uh, Tarot readers (no, seriously, there will be a Tarot reader). And if you don't like at least one of these things, therapy is seriously advised. To be held at The Workers Club, the Blackbird Summer Market will be a blissful Saturday afternoon to end all Saturday afternoons, with up-and-coming fashion and jewellery designers, and bands Skye Harbour, Love Connection and Maudita.

The Workers Club,
corner of Brunswick and Gertrude St, Fitzroy
5 December, 11am – 4pm

$2 Pots at the Workers Club

When did all the '$2' shops' turn into '$2 And More' shops? Was there public outrage? Did it happen in a flash of lightening while our backs were turned, or was it so gradual we just never noticed the change? Whatever happened — inflation, greedy shopkeepers or a curse from the dollar Gods — it's never been okay. Lucky the folk at The Workers Club know the value of every buck. Every Monday, from 5pm, Carlton Draught will be flowing freely (well, for $2 a pot, anyway. Don't be stingy).

The Workers Club, corner of Brunswick and Gertrude St, Fitzroy