An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
57 Responses to “Saturday Salon”
Leave a Reply
Please read the comments policy. If you would like an icon beside your comment, please register a Gravatar.
There is a Comments Preview function below the typing box which activates when you start typing.
I know that Jetstar is a budget airline, and you pay extra for meals: but $10 for a barely-warmed meat pie of the type that you’d expect to pay at most $1.10 for in a struggling and grotty corner shop isn’t exactly value-for-money, is it?
Is it true that Graincorp will mix GM and non-GM canola varieties together, as noted here? And are the implications as described?
A vehement protest against one of the Rudd Government’s more stupid ideas.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/books/losing-our-voice/2009/05/29/1243456730637.html
And Bob Carr shows his true RWDB colours.
Good article Paul.
I urge people, particularly those from South East Queensland to follow closely the struggle of the residents of Tweed and Kyogle Shires, just south of the New South Wales and Queensland border, against the plans of their out-of-control, unaccountable local councils and the elected NSW state dictatorship to impose the madness of a World Rally car race on their area in September. Residents of the area have been kept in the dark about the plans of the World Rally organisation and the local shire councils. Even before the Development Application has been considered, and in spite of strong objections from the local community and threats to wild life the World Rally organisers have been advertising the rally.
NSW state dictator Nathan Rees, who has a perverse fetish for the ecologically destructive sport of motor racing, has promised state taxpayer dollars to subsidise the event. There are fears that NSW Government may take the matter completely out of the hands of the local councils and impose the decision.
On Thursday, there was a large protest against the World Rally races. For more information go to /sites.google.com/site/norallygroup, candobetter.org/NoRepcoRally.
The book publishers are making the same arguments that the music industry did when the Howard government allowed parallel importation of CDs. It was going to kill the Australian ‘voice’ in music. Well it didn’t, and neither will it happen with books.
Zarquon #6, I for one don’t want to read Australian books rejigged with American spelling and where e.g. “footpath” has been changed to “pavement”, “Mum” to “Mom” etc etc. It’s a profoundly disturbing thought.
Zarquon @ 8,
That may be soo, but as an Australian writer with a contract with a flourishing Australian publisher who has an option on my next book (on which I’m very slowly working at the moment) I don’t want to take the risk. And I think we’re very lucky to have a spokesperson like Richard Flanagan. The whole idea is completely stupid.
I meant @ 6.
I recently wrote about the Vivid Festival in Sydney and the protest against it known as Gloom Festival. The spectacle of the Opera House daubed with Brian Eno’s images sounds amazing, but some Sydney artists reckon it’s diverting funding from local projects.
Also @Zarquon 6 the argument is that parallel importation will allow cheap international editions to be imported which removes a chuink of revenue for local publishers which in turn will mean less Australian books will be supported. The music analogy doesn’t fit, because we’re talking about a much smaller industry with smaller turnover.
Gah, apologies for broken linkage… [Fixed]
I have a 16 year-old friend, Kate, who has recently begun a relationship with a young man who was injured in a motorcycle accident a few years ago. Nathan now has a lot of trouble with speech and locomotion although he is otherwise pretty independent, lives on his own, and has no trouble at all in communicating his feelings for her. It’s great to see them together, mutually-attentive and supportive. Like Kate’s family, I am really proud of her tolerance, patience and open-mindedness.
The only sour note is that one of Kate’s closest friends is outraged about their relationship -repulsed may not be too strong a word- and refuses even to meet Nathan. She refers to him as a “retard” and insists that Kate can do “so much better”.
I suppose it has always been so, but it’s confusing to witness the attitudes of young people to those who are “different”: on the one hand, such acceptance, and on the other, such abject bigotry.
Mal Turnbull and his team are not short in the bigotry department either Ozymandias.
17 Uighurs, from north-western China, who have been held for seven years at Gitmo, despite being cleared of links to terrorism charges, should not be given shelter here
according to the heartless ones.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/30/2585292.htm?section=australia
Good article, Paul.
Paul @ 8 – Increasingly people are realising that they can just order books direct themselves from overseas, not pay GST and often cheaper than buying from local stores. Continuing the ban on bookstores from doing the same won’t stop parallel importation.
Its rather odd idea that Australians should pay more for Australian published books than overseas people.
Ozymandias @12, this person doesn’t sound like a friend at all. If Kate’s friendship with Nathan endures, I imagine the supposedly “close” friend will be discarded. Even if Kate and Nathan part company, I think this “friend” will no longer be close.
Two of my kids have intellectual disabilities and it breaks our hearts when we see the subtle and not-so-subtle exclusions from social activities-a birthday party to which Paddy was the only class mate not invited springs to mind. The emotional wounds are deep for all of the family.
Kate sounds like an exceptional young woman. I wish them both well.
On another note, I spent the afternoon cooking chips in the canteen of the local football club and am now in the throes of making quince jelly and will be making quince paste later in the week. A life so exciting it’ll tear the flesh from your bones!
Who says Conservatives don’t have a sense of humour?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkeZ2P4SiY8&feature=channel_page
It is a joke right?
Can anybody close to the ALP explain WTF they have gone even further Right than Howard on indigenous policy and the Intervention as announced in today’s papers?
Lately I’ve been dipping once more into James Merrill, a poet for whom I’ve always had more respect than innate love (though that is my fault and not his). He’s sort of a walking embodiment of what it means to be cultured, and almost always brilliant, but it’s often (to me at least) a brilliance that sort of drives you crazy instead of making you feel at home, as the brilliance of say Schuyler usually does (despite the ironic fact that it was Schuyler who was in fact crazy, while Merrill was quite sane).
But I have to say, Merrill had guts. Well worth reading is “Days of 1994″, the poem that concludes the “Selected” (and IIRC the Collected as well) and so is more or less his “goodbye to all that.” Here he is, in old age, in his last illness, lying on a sickbed in a friend’s house (the room is in a half-basement, so that he is, as it were, symbolically half-buried). Here, in this dire circumstance, is what’s on his mind in the final lines of his book…
“Below the world, the thousand things
Here risen to if not above
Before day ends:
The spectacles, the book,
Forgetful lover and forgotten love,
Cobweb hung with trophy wings,
The fading trumpet of a car,
The knowing glance from star to star,
The laughter of old friends.”
Someone give that man a medal.
Been re-reading the Iliad, too, this time the Fagles instead of the Fitzgerald. It’s still really true: Homer is better than the movies. (btw, has anyone here ever read Pope’s Iliad? People make extraordinary claims for it, but I’ve never read it.)
@j_p_z:
I love my Fagles Homer – his translation flows gloriously. My parents got me his Iliad/Odyssey pair a few years ago, and I really should reread. I haven’t read Pope’s Iliad either.
Japerz, tender poem. In the dry bones and impending end – are all the jewels of memory – the observations that give brilliance to the things that are only accrued after living a life. But they are chimerical in nature. Being very old is like being very young – its very very beautiful and you only have it for a bit then it disappears. Unless these ephemeral moments are caught in language like they are here. There is something to be said for someone who leaves this gift behind. Thanks. I will get his collection.
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken
Yes to Pope, j_p_z; but I’d read & Re-read good translations of the Greek (inc Chapman’s, tho I prefer others) so, whilst I remember ploughing through Pope’s (for EngII in the early 60s, I think) I don’t remember it. Rape of the Lock, tho, I love, especially since I’ve been able to imagine Paul Keating’s declaiming it. So I can’t have rated Pope’s against the translations I’d read, or, for that matter, Milton’s “Debate in Hell” or Samson Agonistes. But the whole Patrocles-Hector-Achilles saga rated high in my “conning blokes who draw cars, tanks, motorbikes etc all over their folders” into a love of literature (“War” was a legitimate syllabus theme … & Homer a wonderful lead into Owens)- along with Kate Hepburn’s “The Trojan Women” (& King Lear). God I wish Greek as well as Latin had been a compulsory subject for UQ matric into Arts!
Which reminds me of the most gut-wrenching stage performance I’ve ever seen; the last night of the “Two Anthonys’” (Sher & Hopkins) legendary King Lear at the Barbican (late summer 1983); with Lear played as an Altzheimer victim – so powerful that people, sobbing compulsively, walked out rather than face the terrible conclusion. All these years later, my mind still plays its rawest parts. Until then, I’d never envisaged Lear in the same way as I did The Trojan Women – the ultimate denunciation of cruelty, in families as well as war. Sadly (in a way), it cured me of setting it & TW as year 12 paired dramas; sticking to Macbeth and Oedipus Rex
PS: No, I didn’t expect blokes/ blokettes to do more than follow texts (hopefully, tho I never counted on it) during a second run of videos/ records. They were meant to be acted / proclaimed by great bards.
“I suppose it has always been so, but it’s confusing to witness the attitudes of young people to those who are “different”: on the one hand, such acceptance, and on the other, such abject bigotry.”
It’s only confusing if you assume young people would be substantially different to the community in general in terms of the spectrum of attitudes they exhibit. Otherwise this is pretty much par for the course. What would be startling – and wonderful – is if there were no young people with the attitude that this ‘friend’ has.
j-p-z.
Did dip into Pope’s Iliad when I was very young, about 17.I have a better appreciation of Pope now than I did then, so it didn’t do a lot for me. (I was more fascinated by the fact he was supposedly a hunch-backed Catholic. That’s Arthur Mee for you.) I remember being annoyed by the rhyming couplets. I was back then much more into the Beat poets,and other modern poetry so I don’t suppose it was my cup of tea. The little I’ve read of him as an adult, though, I’ve quite enjoyed.
DeeCee — The Sher/Hopkins Lear sounds pretty intense — who played what?
It’s so tough to get a good Lear performance: Lear either goes over the top or is annoyingly underplayed to avoid risk A, and the Fool is usually too full of soulful pathos, which gets under one’s skin. Who could do it now? Sean Connery, maybe, or Bob Hoskins? I’d like to see Rupert Everett and Steve Buscemi swapping the roles of Edmund and the Fool.
You know what would be really great? A three-person version with Cate Blanchett doing all the female roles, Ian McShane as Lear, and Philip Seymour Hoffman doing everybody else. That’d knock a few socks off.
As for Trojan Women, well, did the Serban/Great Jones version of “Fragments of a Trilogy” ever tour Australia? That was Medea, Trojan Women, and Elektra all performed on three consecutive nights, with a score by Elizabeth Swados, and entirely performed/sung in Greek, Latin, and classical-sounding gibberish. One of the most stunning (almost literally; you sort of staggered out of the theatre, barely able to walk) things I’ve ever seen. Medea and Elektra were performed by the unearthly Priscilla Smith. Trojan Women was done environmentally in a vast empty space, so you wandered about with Greek soldiers shoving you out of the way, trying to get glimpses of the chaos. One of the most affecting stage pictures I’ve ever seen was at the end, where the whole cast slowly gathered together and started swaying back and forth as they sang the closing drone, holding these two enormous ladders tilted at angles on either side. Gradually you started to realize it was the hulls of the Greek ships sailing away after the destruction.
I’ve got it! Pee Wee Herman as the Fool. That’d solve the pathos problem…
tigtog — yeah, those Fagles versions are a cracking good read, aren’t they? Not only that, they’re really well-made books, it’s a pleasure to page through them. (I used to think the best pairing was Fagles for the Odyssey and Fitzgerald for the Iliad, but Fagles is starting to win me over for his Iliad too, for sheer readability, and nobody to my knowledge ever made a great physical volume out of Fitzgerald.) Poor Lattimore isn’t really in the same league.
Would love to see what Ampersand Duck could do, making a book of selections from the Greeks.
Some wise critter once said that a good cigar is the only human-made object that engages all five senses as a work of art. I think the Fagles books do 3 out of 5, (unless, like Ezekiel, you actually eat the document) plus they do the inner eye and ear, which has to count for something.
jane @ 16, Kate *is* an exceptional young woman, in many ways. Her hooking up with a man with disabilities is a beautiful example of “seeing the person”. And I sympathise with your family’s heartache over the exclusion of your children from mainstream social activities like birthday parties. When I went shopping with Nathan a couple of weeks ago I was astounded at the number of people who pulled their children away from us, one even shielding her child’s eyes. One shop assistant also spoke exclusively to me, even though Nathan was the customer, and asked me: Are you his carer? Err, no. I’m his mate.
klaus k @ 23, I actually do believe that out and out bigotry is less prevalent in younger people than it is in older generations, though there is obviously still a way to go. Kids today are far less overtly racist than they were in my youth, having grown up in a multicultural society and with sports stars, musicians, actors, etc from a much wider range of ethnic backgrounds. I guess my “confusion” was more about how someone like Kate can have such an intolerant friend.
j-p-z’s query about Pope’s Iliad set me thinking about some of my early reading experiences, and inspired this post on my blog. Hope you enjoy. (And comment, if you wish.)
http://beingahistoryheadandotherthings.blogspot.com/2009/05/on-discovery-of-books.html#comments
tssk@17 – hehe, that was very funny
But, it probably wasn’t intended that way – it looks as if it’s a case of lightweight artistic ability wanting to make a splash, so a shallow pool of talent as presented by the conservatives fits the business model.
serious c – hehe
Has LP jumped the shark?
MB leaves a link to a tepid piece on another blog…hummmmmmmm.Big response to that one.
Sign of the GFC maybe….. we all got work to do?
Oh and Kim ? Kim where are you dear ?
Well as long you are all doing OK , thanks for all the great reading over the years. Never thought I’d hear or read about interesting people like Deleuze and Guattari , the extensive histories of the churches or encounter anyone quite like G Bird.
So long for now.
Had fish and chips for lunch at Normanville, went for a walk on the southern Fleurieu and then had coffee on the way home at Yankalilla. We had great weather this weekend, and it’s was nice to get out and just admire the scenery.
Disco Dave @ 25 Re Lear: From memory Michael Gambon as Lear, Sher as the fool, Hopkins as Edgar, Jenny Agutter as Regan (forget the rest). Minimalist set, old army greatcoats, Sher made up & dressed as a clown… even minimalist movement -nothing to divert attention from the drama (especially the storm scene, the blinding & the discovery of Cordelia’s body) … and magnificent voices delivering magnificent lines. Adrian Noble’s Stratford version was so famous, I couldn’t get tickets in 82. Back in UK mid 83, I booked as soon as I got off the plane & managed to get 2 (returns, way up the back) for the final performance . Programmes had sold out before we arrived, so all I have is the ticket stub in a travel diary somewhere, and memories. Interestingly, until then, the only other performance of a great classic I’d seen in a minimalist set was an early 1960s performance (Brisbane) of Beethoven’s Fidelio played in a box – decades before Chicago did it.
In 1986, I saw Sher again as Richard III in the RSC’s Australian season; a bit of a disappointment after Lear.
Next to Noble’s Lear, I’d rate Athol Fugard’s (with John Kani & Winston Ntshona) Sizwe Bansi Is Dead and The Island, the latter with Antigone the play-within-the play, as the most powerful plays I’ve seen.
Paul Scofield’s Lear was pretty damn good.
Like to see Jack Nicholson tackle the role now, provided the work was intelligently updated as per McKellan’s film version of “Dick 3″. Best delivery ever of “…but if the devil tempt you to do good” line.
And I saw a great video of Sher’s legendary “Bottled Spider” Dick 3. I reckon Bill S would have dug it for sher showmanship if nothing else.
The thing though is that many great actors that have worked the silver screen come with a lot of knowing baggage about their previous roles and are tempted to wink at the audience eg: Hopkins in Taymor’s Titus.
Still I guess the same went on at the Globe with a lot of ad-libbed in-jokes we wouldn’t get now.
Seriously though, I do reckon Nicholson’s got a good King Lear in him and would be smart enough not to break the fourth wall in any way.
And I reckon Heath Ledger would have made a good Hamlet in a dirty bloody Polanksi MacBeth kinda production.
And next time they put my favourite play, “The Tempest” on screen, I’d strongly barrack for Daniel Day-Lewis as Caliban. Or Prospero.
Or both (with a bit of make up and acting magic) – which I always thought was one of the brooding subtexts of the play.
With Emily Watson as that bossyboots, Miranda.
And Crispin Glover has to play Trinculo.
Yup. ‘This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.’ O RLY?
“which I always thought was one of the brooding subtexts of the play.
“Yup. ‘This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.’ O RLY?”"
Hey I worked that out all by myself when I was 15 and my Dad said “you like SF, here read this” and handed me his father’s complete works of Shakespeare in one big fat big fat big fat book with tiny text, open to The Tempest.
And just to urge me on, and because they enjoyed the films themselves, my parents then embarked on getting out from the local cinema distributors a whole bunch of 16mm copies (This was pre-video in a third world country) of whatever decent screen versions they had of Shakespeare.
Starting with “Forbidden Planet”, followed by Polanski’s Macbeth, Olivier’s Hank 5 (which my parents first saw in London cinemas during The Blitz), Welles’ Chimes Before Midnight, Nicol Williamson and his scrapey little dagger, Zefferilli’s Romeo and Juliet, Reinhardt’s Midsummer’s Night Dream and more.
In short I encountered Shakespeare as riproaring eyedazzling entertainment first and was slyly encouraged but never pushed to work out what was going on beyond the images or words. Home schooling at its best.
And speaking of Olivier’s Hank 5, there’s a marvelous little moment at the end when they’re back in the proscenium arch scenerio and taking their bows – and there off to one side is a nondescript balding bloke with long side hair sorta half taking a bow too with no one paying attention.
Now I think about it, my parents would have seen it post Blitz. But it didn’t stop them (or me) from choking up a bit at the moment when William Walton’s soundtrack turned a hawk into a spitfire.
Then later, I read the full version and discovered and then realised why Olivier had artfully dodged the nasty bits. My first lesson in how propaganda should really work.
For mine, “encounter(ing) Shakespeare as riproaring eyedazzling entertainment first.. (being) slyly encouraged .. (by just) the images (&) words”, was way less grande, (but earlier, it must have been grade 4 or 5,) via the impossibly garish “Classics Illustrated” comics, (the Hamlet of which is available on ebay now). I’ve, or rather, my daughter’s, still got mine, and more besides….In retrospect, I’m not sure I’d recommend Gogol before bedtime for 10 year-olds.
Ok who can help me? Can anyone explain the two goats wearing jumpers I saw in King St Newtown last night? One was standing on top of a table. One had a leash. Anyone??
Rugby League supporters? Were the jumpers light blue?
They were obviously customers of this fine establishment.
Adrian is there something you want to say about how quickly you were able to direct me to “Goats Online”? No Ambi it wasn ‘t the Blues in retreat. Look, there are pretty strange occurrences in King Street but I have never seen goats in jumpers on tables at 10 pm at night before. I refuse to believe I am the only one who sees them. Im sure other people do. Someone on this blog has to know something about the goats.
I’ve seen the King Street goat too, Casey.
Thank you, adrian, for not linking to the other infamous online goat link.
That really gets up my goat.
Yes good, good Liam. Thank you. But there are two now and they wear clothes. WTF? What infamous goat link?
Just trying to assist you with your query Casey, which I saw as a genuine quest for information regarding goat clothing. I thought the Pygmy Purple Party Pants were partcularly fetching, and a steal at $135.
Instead of fretting about clothed goats on King Street, perhaps you should get with the program and clothe one of your own. You know it makes sense.
Liam, I know nothin’ of any other online goat link your honour. I swear.
goatse, At least.
Don’t look for it. It’s a scarring experience, and it’s definitely not work-friendly.
Yes indeed. See? Larvatus Prodeo – its like the Library of Alexandria for all your goat needs and website shockers. Thank you one and all.
You mek fun of my boy-friend? Is nice, strong, good goaty-boy.
Did it have something to do with the Chaser?
I hope not. Those guys have definitely passed their use by date. As in not funny anymore. Unlike goats online.
“Mr Milos, it’s not normal to experience mature love with anything that has four legs”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzr5Cubph9Y
You did look, didn’t you, At least.
I told you not to.
You can read all about it in Wiki, David! And not see a thing. But I have seen it before, shortly before blocking that person’s page on Facebook. Not so wonderful on the feed first thing, you know?
The Kid just delivered a cracker of a speech at Cairo U. Breathtaking.
HuffPo’s got the text.
And I just discovered SBS 2 – All those movies at a night time. How can I pick? Will be fragmented by indecisiveness. Love it.!
If this isn’t real, it should be.
http://monkeyjedi.blogspot.com/2009/06/dear-senator-fielding.html
We should all apply.