i saw a new bit of urban art on a brick wall off flinders lane near where i get my morning coffee
it looks like a yowie or big foot type character and it's made of scraps of wood ...
turns out that it's an Urban Doolagahl
and it's part of melbourne's laneway art commissions
audio of the artist, steaphan patton, telling the story of the doolagahl
here's the doolagahl sneaking around near where i work,
some other doolagahl locations around melbourne
i was terrified of these big mysterious ape-like creatures when i was a kid.
i first heard about big foot and yetis while watching Leondard Nimoy's In Search Of (or hearing it ...my dad used to watch this show late at night with the volume turned up, and i could hear it even though i was in bed, at the other end of the house, with the covers pulled over my head, my imagination running wild.)
in particular i remember the big footage,
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via Wikipedia - Frame 352 from the Patterson-Gimlin film,
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it scared the living daylights out of me.
later, when i found out there was an australian equivalent, the yowie.
stories like these go round and round. there is a catalyst episode talking to people in the blue mountains who claim to have crossed paths with a local yowie. (there's a yowie research centre in katoomba)
and the town nearest to where the original bigfoot movie was taken, willow creek has an annual bigfoot festival.
there's a short story too, "where we must be" by laura van der berg, about a failed actress who gets a job dressing up as bigfoot and "ambushing" willing payed up customers who want the thrill of an "encounter". she gets the sack because her gait and yell is too feminine and some of the customers have complained that the experience wasn't scary enough.
this may have been made into a film.
i wonder why we try and scare ourselves?
every now and then i want to read something scary.
just recently, i chose a book i thought would scare me, dark matter, again set in isolated, icy conditions, this time on spitzbergen, where the "narrator", via a diary, is haunted by a harrowing, ghastly presence.
i read it and wished it had been creepier. i hadn't been bone-chillingly scared by it.
on reflection, i'm completely relieved.
i like that the doolagahl seems to be a cheeky presence.
i also found a blog dedicated to literary and music reviews called sasquatch radio.
the familiar taming the abject and scary.
i'm really glad i'm not a young kid anymore with my head under the blankets having to listen to leonard nimoy's curiously creepy tones.
update 2 may - the doolagahl near my work has gone! moved off to where the pickings are richer perhaps? maybe to one of its native hunting grounds near tathra on the south coast of NSW. i read an article recently in the smh (about mountain bike trails, one of which is called the Doolagharl circuit),
The doolagharl is a creature of Aboriginal legend said to be more than two metres tall with arms down to its knees and a mane of thick, stinking hair. This south coast "yeti" has stalked people in the bush and along the escarpment for thousands of years, according to the Ngarigo and Yuin tribes.
While many say the doolagharl is extinct or just a fanciful story told to scare children, locals still believe in the power of the Chewbacca lookalike around the coastal town of Tathra.
ride the Doolagharl vicariously here
the mention of chewbacca reminded me of wookies generally,
and the wookie that lives with us at home (okay, cookie)
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