Philosophilia* at home – ask me anything you like

Here in my secret bohemian palace above the hotspots of Redfern Street, I’ve been watching the world outside my windows – and on my TV screen – change dramatically for 25 years.

When I first moved here in 1999, Redfern Street – known during the day for its rag-trade wholesalers and resident beggars – was a spectral wasteland after 5pm. At close of business, the roller shutters slammed down and the shopkeepers and junkies left the bleak tar footpaths to the muggers. The only place open after dusk, tucked away up a flight of creaky wooden stairs, was charming old Pron Prohm Thai restaurant, which I was convinced must be some kind of tax write-off, because it had 14 tables and I rarely saw more than eight customers in there at a time. (I miss it; the food was honest and good, and the Mai Tais were splendid.) Hazem’s father had not yet arrived to set up the convenience store. The pub on the corner was empty but for barflies and poker addicts; it kept changing its name, but still no one came. South Sydney Council, like the electorate, had very little money.

But Redfern was never the dysfunctional ghetto the Daily Telegraph liked to claim – community is so strong here. It’s several communities, in fact, and multiple places and people through which, and whom, those communities connect and interconnect. The Aboriginal agencies and elders, the churches and pastors, the volunteers and civic leaders and health professionals and first responders; and the shopkeepers, hairdressers, bartenders, artists and street characters. Who would deny Mary or Uncle Max their roles as integral nodes in the Redfern social and cultural network?

This column is my way of making sure I stay connected to Redfern, to South Sydney. Cloistered away here in my Art Asylum, I sometimes feel like the American followers of my videos are more real to me than the people in my street – and I don’t want that.

I probably should tell you how I got to be Philosophilia. I’d been a ballerina and got a degree in literature and philosophy, and I was going to be an edgy, interesting, theatrical rock star, but the break never came, and the band fell apart one too many times. I was also working as an artist’s model (and as a stripper earlier), and then there were adventures in sculpture and cabaret and performance art, and a crazy novel I was writing, and the terrifyingly sane one I’m writing now (which, weirdly, has the crazy one condensed inside it), and then TikTok and YouTube, and my Masters …

Or maybe I’ll just answer a reader’s question. Ask me anything you like.

*Philosophilia
Philosophilia is a YouTube channel promoting intersectional, activist philosophy. Its core principles are radical reasoning and radical love.
Email philosophiliaathome@gmail.com