I wonder how many media organisations put their female employees thru the same judgemental tests? Goebbels was one demanding freak. Seems to have created an ugly template that later ministers of propaganda followed. And more than a few film directors. Tho he drank from an historical well.

Remember Mrs. Miniver?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Miniver_%28film%29

I’ve also dug out & dusted off my old copy of The Hollywood Film Industry (Edited by Paul Kerr). Chapter 12 by Thomas Guback is interesting: Shaping the film business in postwar Germany: The Role of the US Film Industry & the US State.

Guback reveals that Spyros Skouras, President of 20th Century Fox would urge his industry to “work harder & harder to create missionary spirit…to help enlighten humanity” (pg. 251). He also talks about FREEDOM.

Plus ce change…eh?

Doubt Beazley would’ve won…Rudd hit parks, schools, hospitals, workplaces as a breath of FRESH AIR. Helped to undermine Workchoices campaign. Was hard to imagine Beazley having that kind of energy. Came across as USED, 2nd hand. Nice guy…but flat tires. Rudd’s charm, Potterish exuberance, early 60s mod, big smile won the day.

Reading:

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=tuXZVHh4BFgC&pg=PA23&dq=film+in+the+third+reich&sig=abusTGoKFCoBC-1kDQAn9BQ9sv8#PPA24,M1

(Filming Women in the Third Reich By Jo Fox, Angela Gaffney)

Trying to think of any women in Bushevik land & starring in Black Hole media who fit the bill….brrr. Can think of one leggy thing immediately.

But the bottom line, the study authors said, is that the findings don’t support the use of NSAIDs to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s, at least not yet anyway.

Yes, it is not the case. Against The Day may not be a great novel (yet) but it is a wonderful read. I suggest just dipping in and out of it over several years. It’s a big rich Christmas pudding of a book and you’re bound to find brandy-soaked plums, nuts and raisins on every page and often running over more pages if not whole chapters.

Themes will gradually emerge like steam from the pudding. It’s basically a return to the form of Gravity’s Rainbow but aged like a rich tokay. Fuck the plot, just take your shoes off, remove your undergarments and wade in and splash around at random.

I reckon Against The Day is a ribald raucous new world cheerfully demented big band r’n'b show compared to Joyce’s Ulysses as a bawdy surrealistic self-conscious old world modernist concert. Duke Ellington vs Stravinsky.

Yup, the more I read ATD, the more I reckon it will be treated by history as kindly as Ulysses. I already think it’s better than Gravity’s Rainbow.

I feel like Coetzee has become more heavy-handed as a moralist. Having read those early novels and then this one the contrast is stark. This too is reflected upon in ‘Diary’, of course, so he is already there ahead of my discomfort, speaking to it and about it.

I found the whole thing unsatisfying but am still deciding how much of that is dissatisfaction as intended effect.

I think that kind of (I’d argue) very deliberate, strategic withholding of readerly satisfaction and evasion of readerly expectation has become one of his things.

that it is like fictocriticism or is related to it in some way.

Absolutely.

Klaus K, if you don’t read anything else, read Disgrace. One of the novels of its decade, if not of its century. He’s a moralist in the great 19th century tradition of George Eliot and the Russians.

One thought that struck me while reading: that it is like fictocriticism or is related to it in some way.

It was not me who was sci-fi man. I only liked that stuff when Kurt V played around with it.

Did you get around to reading D OF A BAD YEAR?

Yes, joe2, that RTS thread on “Blindness” was demanding but loads of fun. Mr.crighton, moderator Tim and we two were the stayers. Maybe when Ken returns we can lean on him for one of your sci-fi selections. Rat up a drain-pipe here, no worries.