Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum has a great photo blog containing past and present images of Sydney.
This shot is one of my favourites.
Staff at the museum in the ’80s are doing exercise classes –
Check out the shorts on the guy in the middle. I had no idea Sydney had its own version of Richard Simmons.
I unearthed this photo of my sister Shelley and I taken sometime in the early ’80s. We had also been to exercise classes (does anyone remember Jazzergetics?) I don’t know what was going on with the hairstyles. I sincerely hope we didn’t go out like that in public…..
What were we thinking???
Selma In The City 
Who said the ’80s weren’t fun? You look completely and totally enthused to be jazzercizing. 😉
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Yes, I can just feel the unabashed enthusiasm emanating from my laptop screen 😉 Man, the 80s, was a strange time.
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At least you were not wearing leg warmers 🙂
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I remember Jazzercise, probably the same thing.
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OMG we called it Jazzercise. I am so laughing about the ONJ reference…
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Oh Selma…I have WAY more embarrassing pics than that of the 80’s. My hair was so high it was like the B52’s….hahaha. I would die if any of them ever saw the light of day.
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Love the photo Selma! You and your sis are adorable. “It’s a sign of the times….” it was indeedy.
Nice to read a happy post today at SITC. I was so pissssssssed to read how you’ve been treated lately. Hope things are really and truly on the upswing SOON!
Big hug, G 🙂
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Hi Selma,
Now THATS what I call coordination!!!
The guy in the middle on the left has obviously got it right, its a pity that the rest of the team are out of ‘whack’.
That photo of you and Shelley, oh my, my, my! Was that taken on a Saturday morning after a T.G.I.F. night? 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I probably have a picture of my sister and I somewhere too…all big hair, leotards, heading to jazzercise. Ahhh, long live the 80’s!
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OMG, your Richard Simmons comment is too funny. 🙂
At least you were exercising. I can’t believe I finally allowed myself to learn the “Hustle” dance…
Did you also do Jane Fonda exercises. I remember “going for the burn” with her videos. Thank goodness, now I exercise differently!
BTW, you look great even though it’s an 80’s pic. We all think we look so dorky from “older” times and when you have children who make comments or… more watch out!
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Enjoyed this post. I often look back at what I wore in the 1970s. What you’ve got to remember is we all did 🙂
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So that photo was taken at a funeral…? What a couple of ‘sour pusses’ you were… or were you going for the ‘unaffected’ look?
🙂
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girl we had ‘jazzersize’… and oh yes,, i too was there…….
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Wow… the 80’s. Between the hair, leg-warmers, and the constant emotional state of “nothing you say or do can or will make me smile and enjoy myself… except disco dancing” I’m surprised civilization as we know it actually managed to progress past them.
Great post, and yeah, jazzercise. Goodness, girl, we were just SO COOL!
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In Edinburgh, hair looks like that anyway on an average autumn day with all the wind we get…
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wow!
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Oh my God, I owned that striped leotard. …and love the dos on you and your sis. You guys look like trouble. 🙂
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“Sydney had its own version of Richard Simmons”
HA HA HA HA
Oh the 80’s were a RIOT for hair!
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The photo of you and your sister reminds me of another aspect of the 80s,Postmodernism.
Two sisters –together-linked- one in front of an open door, the other close to a wall. Both in white t-shirts. Both look unhappy, annoyed,
bored – “to cool for school”. But their negative countenances are juxtaposed, contradicted, deconstructed, doubled,redouble and undoubled by the two Mickey Mice that exist in the space behind the sisters, in the realm beyond the open door. Like the sisters, the Mickeys are two (doubles –of a sort) but unlike the sisters they are not linked but are separated; both are obscured- one more than the other. The lesser obscured one is smiling. The other is in the shadows, his ear protruding-a Zizekian mark in a Deluzian space,free-floating like a Bauderillian sign in a Derridean text within a Lacanian context reinforcing the Irigarayian phallocentric double gaze of the Mickeys through the open door (the hymen, the womb) and onto the sisters,destroying and creating the discursive, semiotic whiteness (white walls, white t shirts, white skin) of their world and propelling it and them unto the land beyond beyond, the (non) spaceless space of the both and/neither nor.
DavidM
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NAT – whenever I look at this photo I just want to say ‘Smile. It’s not that bad!’ Aaaah, those were the days….
KAYT – I like that – unabashed enthusiasm. It was a strange time, wasn’t it. The fashions really were something else!
IAIN – hey, nice to hear from you. Oh, I had forgotten about the leg warmers and those elasticated headbands that cut off your circulation. No pain, no gain, right?
LINDA – I think it probably was the same thing. Very energetic. I couldn’t do it now. It was fun to do it with my sister but she was (and is) a fitness freak and always pushed me. I remember after one session not being able to sit properly for days. I think it was squats that were the culprit. I blame Jane Fonda.
PWADJ – what a blast from the past, eh? I caught my son singing ‘Let’s Get Physical’ the other day. I couldn’t believe it. He loves his ’80s tunes. We have a music network on TV here called Music Max and they play a lot of the old stuff. I caught ONJ’s clip and it was hilarious. I can’t believe it was banned in certain places. ‘Let me hear your body talk’: no one writes lines like that anymore!
ROMANY – I got my hair cut just before this was taken but before that it was long and big. I had so much hair spray in there I was frightened to go outside on a summer’s day in case I burst into flames. When the wind blew my hair didn’t move. I could have kept my keys and my wallet in there if I wanted to. LOL.
GERALDINE – thanks, hon. I do believe things can only get better from now on. You do have to roll with the punches a bit in life, don’t you? A friend of mine always says :’Have faith in yourself and let the Universe provide.’ It seems to work for her. I’m going to give it a try.
CHRIS – it’s a great shot, isn’t it? For all the non-Aussies here, the TGIF Chris is referring to is actually a show on Australian radio on Friday afternoons. It stands for Thank God It’s Friday. It’s very funny. I can’t remember for sure, but Shelley and I may have had a TGIF night out around that time. Good one.
SNACKIEPOO – oh, I remember the leotards. A friend of ours used to wear a hot pink one along with her ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ T-shirt. It was so pink it made your eyes go in and out of focus. I think it may have glowed in the dark.
GEL – I have a confession to make. When no one was looking I used to watch Richard Simmons and work out to his show. I also had a Jane Fonda tape and a mini tramp. I used to bounce around on it to that ‘Maniac’ song from Flashdance. Thinking about all that has just cracked me up!
ANTHONY – I know. It’s true. We were all wearing the same things. It really was hilarious. It’s such fun to look back at the old times!
BEAR – hahaha. Can you believe how cranky we looked? Definitely an I-got-out-of-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed-this-morning moment!
PAISLEY – oh, that cracks me up. I think many of us caught the aerobics bug back then. I remember asking people at work in the mornings what they had done the night before. They would invariably reply: ” Oh, I went to aerobics and then watched Dynasty.” Good times!
KAREN – it’s too funny, isn’t it? My sister had a thing about doing sit ups because Elle Macpherson the big Aussie supermodel at the time was rumoured to do up to a thousand sit ups a day. Whenever I tried to get Shelley to do something she would always say :’Wait a minute, I have to do another hundred sit ups first.’ It was crazy!
CRAFTY GREEN – I can imagine. LOL. 😆
DEOLA – I know. It was a funny time.
EPIPHANY – hahaha. We thought we were trouble but the truth is my legs were killing me from all the lunges and Shelley had pulled a muscle in her neck. No wonder Jane Fonda was so angry all the time!
MELEAH – I know. So many hilarious hairstyles. They must have sold so many hairdryers back then. I love remembering it all!
DAVID – you are a character. Only you could deconstruct my exercise routine from the ’80s. Actually, there is a lot of truth in what you say…….LOL. I do love the ‘semiotic whiteness.’
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I’m wondering if it’s not as much the hairstyles as it is you had just woken up? 🙂
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Selma, while we’re being nostalgic do you remember RAZs,SunnyBoys, and Glugs from the 1970’s? – Raz’s were raspberry flavoured. Sunnyboys were orange flavoured. But what flavour were Glugs? I can’t remember, Do you?
David
(for those who might not know: Razs, Sunnyboys,and Glugs were confectionaries that come in a triangular package and could be had either as a drink or a flavoured ice-block.)
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MICHAEL – I think you might be right with that one. Hahaha. Great to hear from you!
DAVID – now we are really going down Memory Lane. I do believe Glugs were Cola flavour. ZAPs were Lime flavour and POWs were pineapple flavour. I used to love those ice blocks. They sold them at the school tuck shop. They call it a canteen now. I gave my son some money to get a treat from the ‘tuck shop’ the other day and he looked at me as if I was speaking another language. ‘It’s canteen now, Mum,’ he said. I am behind the times!
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Ahhh… but who remembers the Jubbly and it’s flavour?
It also came in a tetrahedron pack and was most commonly consumed frozen.
*The flavour was orange.*
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Hi Selma,
Glugs were definitely Cola flavour. They were sold and marketed by Coca-Cola Bottlers Adelaide here in S.A. and I should know, I worked for Coca-Cola for over 20 years.
By the way, I thought that I should let you know that I ‘snuck’ one past you on Hope Exceeding. hee hee hee! 😉
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BEAR – I have to say I don’t remember the Jubbly. But it’s a great name. I wonder if Jamie Oliver stole it – he always says : ‘Lubbly Jubbly.’
CHRIS – thanks for letting me know I missed the comment. I had so many emails after I missed those four days last week that I must have inadvertently deleted it (WordPress emails me all my comments). So sorry. So after working for Coca-Cola for 20 years does that mean you never drink it? Are you suffering from Coke overload?
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