MELBOURNE — There are art lovers who view the surrealist works of Spanish great Salvador Dali as a bizarre treat, a look up the skirt of the art world and its many critics.

The Wednesday night showings of Dali’s collection at the National Gallery of Victoria are no exception, with hundreds lining up to take a peep at some of his better-known Freudian creations.

But it’s in the winding halls of the collection — 200 works sampled from his teen years until his death in 1989 — where these initial views of the Catalonian artist can be shattered.

While Dali and his outrageous twirled moustache were once as famous as his artwork, this exhibit exposes the man behind that larger-than-life media persona.

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NINTENDO — My sweaty hands are firmly wrapped around the plastic controller, my thumbs tapping red buttons like Morse Code, sending a pixelated, winged child into a fury of jumps and attacks.

Kid Icarus flies before my eight-year-old eyes on my beloved Nintendo Entertainment System. He shoots arrows at flying creatures on the fuzzy Electrohome television atop an oak veneer cabinet in my parent’s living room. I sit as close to the edge of a plaid ottoman, my toes dig into the golden shag carpet, my gaze so fixed that my eyes are red and dry.

I’ve pushed Icarus deep into the first fortress, shooting at the mob of weird and wonderful enemies being revealed with every new screen.

Entering another room of the fortress, I see a blue and purple man trotting back and forth, lobbing what looks like fruit from Pac-Man towards me.

“What the heck is that?”

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