An open thread where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
Frists of Fury!
Not only am I FRIST but I do actually have something to say: those interested in things literary should check the books pages (or perhaps even the news section) tomorrow for the announcement of a lucrative new literary prize whose conditions will make culture warriors and/or RWDBs foam at the mouth.
Oh, wait, they’re already foaming at the mouth. As you were.
Oh all right, sceond. Whatevs. Pfft.
No, no, I gladly concede. Ladies frist. I’m sure my watch is just wrong or something. Happens all the time.
… that will make culture warriors and/or RWDBs foam at the mouth.
It is named after a communist then? Should be interesting, anyway.
I have a literary question for y’all. A few months ago I opened up the pages on Lennie Lower’s only novel, ‘Here’s Luck’, and loved it – a great Australian comic book set in 1930s Sydney. Sure, there are two women named with the somewhat demeaning soubriquet of ‘Steak and Eggs’, but this seems to be done mostly for as the excuse for Lower to make a joke.
It was, in short, a wonderful book, and I later managed to hunt down a cheap 1970s publication called something like ‘The Legends of Lennie Lower’, one of those ‘best of’ collections; it was buried in a pile of books in a Brunswick bookstore where the owner seemed to have dispensed entirely with those tiresome things called ‘bookshelves’ in favour of a more random method of stocking books. (He just threw them any old where.)
Although the book does contain a few brilliant articles and short stories, some of it shocked me. I know humour is supposed to be un-PC, but Lower freely makes jokes about things such as wife-beating; and in general a lot of his humour seems to work an implicit assumption about the place of women (and men) in society.
So I’d be interested to hear from the other LPers. What do they think of Lennie Lower? Is it possible that he used up all his comic energies in ‘Here’s Luck’, and that the original ‘anarchic’ Lower started making the same jokes to satisfy a conservative audience? Should we just turn a blind eye to the sexual politics in his writing, simply on the basis that he was writing at a different time when people had different values?
What do y’all say?
j-p-z:
Good on you
Jaysus, TimT. It’s very late in the day for some big questions there. But j_p_z’ll no doubt know the answers to these things ethico-literary.
TimT:
Liked his “Here’s Luck” … but then I liked Nino Culotta’s [John O'Grady's] “They’re a Weird Mob” and television’s “The Sullivans” too.
What sexual politics? Talk to old women and old men who lived through the times about which Lennie Lower wrote; you may be in for a for a few surprises ….. both pleasant and nasty.
As the saying goes “The past is another country; they do things differently there”
I overstated the case with Lower somewhat. At his best, he has a brilliantly anarchic take on things we take for granted: there’s not a social convention that he won’t overturn to fantastic comic effect. In ‘Here’s Luck’ it takes the form mostly of a sort of a slapstick (with axes), and the curious semi-stream of consciousness narration by Stanley Gudgeon, who somehow manages to mix together various literary influences (Shakespeare, Henry Lawson, etc) together with extremely funny results. In his later articles, it took more the form of purely verbal nonsense, somewhat of the sort that S J Perelman and Woody Allen developed (he could turn language on its head).
The Pixies were absolutely amazing at the Big Top in Sydney tonight (well yesterday). I was very pleased when they covered Head On. Anyone else go or see them interstate?
Of course TimT, Lower, like say SJ Perelman, wrote some stuff that doesn’t quite stand the tightarsed test of much changed times.
But like SJ etc, his best still does. You either have the funny or you don’t.
” The best way to tell gold is to pass the nugget around a crowded bar, and ask them if it’s gold. If it comes back, it’s not gold.”
And Lennie had it. At least until they cut his throat in a bungled operation. Love to read what he’d write about that.
ahh the Pixies – Lucky you!
I hear the Smashing Pumpkins are playing in EUrope soon. I think i’ll try and get along.
The four of us (boygroom and me offspring) are off on a jetplane tomorrow.
Itinery is looking like Thailand, Laos Cambodia, London, Amsterdam, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hong Kong China and home in June July ish.
We’re backpacking and couch surfing our way around, so anyone who would like to feed or home some poor but friendly aussies are more than encouraged to email me!
True, Nabakov – much of Lower’s humour was necessarily opportunistic. He used whatever jokes came his way in order to meet the rather demanding requirement of filling upwards of five humour columns a week! And I’m sure ‘Here’s Luck’ has been dissected and inspected many times over by critics for its sexual politics, though it remains a brilliant novel.
This is the first blog I ever read, about 5 weeks ago, have become addicted to blogs. Also this the first time I have ever responded.
Can anyone tell me why I can’t get onto the ozpolitics blog? I have been trying for three days and no luck.
Happy Saturday
Media reform laws were proclaimed last week.
Hello take-over bonanza.
Probably leaves enough time between now and the election so that any negative reaction from teh voters has subsided.
People keep saying that Packer won’t buy Fairfax. I think his father would have. Seems that Jr is more interested in the casinos, especially the ones in Asia. Although I wouldn’t write off the power of the Packers’ long-held fascination with Fairfax.
Looks as though some of the biggest moves will be in regional television and radio though – be interesting to note how changes in regional radio ownership will play in marginal electorates. No doubt the local MPs are all briefed up and ready to go with defensive arguments for when the massive US Clear Channel gobbles up even more of their local content.
Of course, no new entrants allowed in TV. Oh no. That would be anti-competitive, wouldn’t it. To allow more competition…
As an afterthought, check out Condilicious.
Gravel, according to the Poll Bludger:
Try that link and you might have more luck.
Accoring to Reuters, David Hicks must be sent home by May 29.
Here’s a question for Graham Bell, or others with military knowledge…
w/r/t this business of the British sailors held in Iran, does there exist any reliable intelligence method for independently verifying whose claims are correct (viz., inside territorial waters or not?). Or is it to be an endless round of smoke-blowing, and unknowable he-said/she-said?
PC, I don’t see any news nowhere -not of foaming at mouths even. Will consult Technorati and see what is there, otherwise, ‘please explain?’
In other news, my daughter is cleaning the monitor and singing Billie Holiday.
Oh, I say.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/arts/articulate/200703/s1886442.htm
Genevieve, check the Sydney Morning Herald website. I don’t think The Age or The Australian picked up on it.
Also, be sure to look through the book reviews…
Shorter everyone quoted in the SMH except Dr Cat: oh no, literature shouldn’t mess with the political!
This I don’t get, though.
Genevieve, it’s a couple of weeks since it was announced that it was going to be announced, so to speak, today (and NB my prediction in the second paragraph. Heh) — so I can’t think why it is that of the Big Three papers, only the SMH and their excellent Susan Wyndham is onto it.
The Oz’s equally excellent Murray Waldren, after several years of editing good literary pages, has moved or been moved from the position (don’t know the details, and even if I did would probably not blog about them) just this last week, so there might have been some kind of fumbled handball there, and in any case the somewhat salacious and somewhat beaten-up Frank Moorhouse story may have eclipsed what I’m sure Frank would agree is a much more important literary story.
But hey, a story containing the phrases ‘vengeful ex-wife’, ‘affair wth teacher’, ‘long-time homosexual lover’ and Much More is going to beat a story about money for writers and encouragement for positive representations of girls and women onto the front page every time.
I have the dead-tree Age this morning, but haven’t looked through it yet — there may be something hidden away in there.
Agree 100 percent about Mr. Moorhouse’s saga and said payper’s editorial decisions.
Within the very narrow findings of Ms Lindsay’s study, mentioned by the SMH reporter, one might suggest that it is the process by which such characters arrive at a positive or empowering point of view, or attempt to discover one, that is going to be available to exploration within a novel, rather than a QED.
She writes as though they are part of a ‘suburban social worker’ novel (or worse still, a completed real life study), said type of novel being most recently eschewed by the Orange judges.
I’m sure Australian judges are savvy enough to fly by such nets.
If they stick to the prize’s remit, it should be a bit harder to take the piss out of this award than it is to take the mick out of, say, ‘multicultural writing’. By focussing on qualities inherent in the writing, rather than the identity of the author, they’re not excluding anyone from entering the award based on things over which they have no control (age, gender, race) etc.
And in any case, it’s private patronage, not state patronage. They can base the award on anything they like.
Whoops, and of course our writers too. Of course.
When I was told the conditions of the prize, you know what the very first book I thought of as an ideal winner was? Frank Moorhouse’s Grand Days.
The conditions do specify an Australian author — but even that is open to interpretation. What they will have to do, and quickly (though I’m sure the ASA, like the professional body it is, will already be all over this one), is decide who gets to define the terms, and then be consistent about it.
That, SL, is the nail on the head, and is the reason why I always look with utter bemusement at the annual angst about whether or not the Miles Franklin criteria ‘should be changed’ — especially when all they have to do is ask a lawyer one simple question about the nature of a will.
Genevieve — one can, in fact, pick a novel that has been written with one eye on winning the Miles Franklin, or any other prize with conditions, in a heartbeat. Almost by definition, it won’t be a good enough novel to win that or indeed any other prize.
My respect for M.J. Hyland, already considerable, has tripled since she wrote a novel that has nothing to do with Australia, thereby ruling herself out of contention for the Miles Franklin, because she wanted to write a good novel more than she wanted to win a big prize.
Well, get your own
blogliterary prize then.I don’t like people supporting Port Adelaide, but nothing much seems to get done about that.
Rubbish. You’d have to be an ‘arts for art’s sake’ purist (and there are not many of them) to think that the message of a book does not in large part affect its popularity and reception.
If Dan Brown wrote a novel that was as technically skilled as The Da Vinci Code, but took the view that the Catholic Church was simply an ordinary bureaucracy with ordinary problems and faults, how well would it sell?
TDVC took off because it suits readers to believe that dark, unlikely and fantastic conspiracies exist and that the Catholic Church is behind most of them.
Re-education camp for you, young man.
Rubbish. Youâ??d have to be an â??arts for artâ??s sakeâ?? purist (and there are not many of them) to think that the message of a book does not in large part affect its popularity and reception.
Actually, it’s even worse than that; I don’t think she can have been listening properly. (Although it is a bit disconcerting when a journo calls out of the blue and asks for a comment about something; it’s easy to say something dumb under those circumstances.) The novels concerned will not be judged on their message. Their eligibility for the prize will, at least to some extent — but not their literary merit.
PC, pisstakes aside… you’re shitting me, right? I could no more intend to win the MF or Aus/Vogel etc than I could milk a bull – apart from satisfying the age qualifications attached to the latter.
I remember going through THTSTP after getting the MF nomination forms from the publisher and counting the number of pages set in Australia. Didn’t have a hope in Hell was my considered view.
hmm, should never use that quote from Joyce, it is not very specific is it.
I hope I was not suggesting anyone would write anything with an eye on a prize. Rather, that Australians are too smart to do such a thing. In other words, the ‘nets’ are not going to stand in the way of good writing. But I was not very clear, I’m sorry.
So, how does that work then? Obviously we have our hands bound so we can’t use the handball any more, but then what?
Yeah, I don’t see how the prize is controversial. More literary prizes just equals more money for writers! Plus, even if there *were* something to get prickly about, the definitions and conditions seem so broad that nearly anything could be shown to apply. Maybe now my unfinished novel in verse, about futuristic robot hookers with hearts of (aluminum and) gold, will finally find a home.
The point is well taken about works written trying to ingratiate themselves to a prize not being so great, but that’s only because the criteria are still too vague, so people write what they think the judges will want to hear, on a hunch, instead of knowing *exactly* what the judges want to hear.
I think it would be fun if there was, say, a literary prize, where each year the (yearly-changing) criteria and subject of the work was bewilderingly intricate and exact, and only open to already-published writers. Then we would really see an equal test of skill, a joust for the prize as such, as each writer tried to clear the hurdles of writing about, say, a twice-divorced air-conditioner repairwoman who lives in a renovated schoolbus in Perth, and who discovers she’s descended from a secret clan of altruistic werewolves. On your marks, get set… write!
Hey!
Maybe we could do the LP short story contest!
Oz that’s great. I’m going to see the Pixies this Thursday and I can now cut myself a little don’t get too excited so I’m not disappointed slack. The Pixies we’re pretty much the only band I hadn’t seen that I realistically thought I’d ever see and I thought I never would and now I am.
Perhaps there’s a reader out there that hasn’t listened to them so if I could just reach out for a second… Credited with being pioneers of the soft/loud school of rock, the Pixies developed a simple template that could be easily replicated to a very good standard and offered an alternative to the following schools – loud/loud; loud/noodle; soft/soft; noodle/noodle. In a lot of ways they picked up on the Jesus and Mary Chains attempt to get a lighter use of noise and hiss without needing the Beach Boys. The material is the mix you’d expect from a pasty white Spanish obsessed singer , a female bassist, a Filipino guitarist and a drummer that didn’t self-combust. Songs about rockets, lifts, catholicism, activists, physics, and love – all in mostly under three minutes. They sound as good in the originals as they do on the demo tape, as they do acoustic, as they do on a Japanese tribute album. Great album covers, shite videos, but if you can get your hands on a copy of their Newport acoustic set you’ll have yourself a lovely afternoon.
j-p-z:
] nor anything about the level of skill of the operators [though I think the Iranians would likely be skilled in their use]. It MAY have been a cross-border snatch operation for a specific purpose or it MAY have been an opportunity grabbed by someone looking for fast promotion; don’t know.
TV news has here had shots of the Iranians waving hand-held GPS around; they’re fairly accurate [quiet all you air crash investigators; don't spoil my story; yes I do know the limits of GPS] but nothing I saw on TV indicated where and how they were used [on the return trip perhaps?
Who would know for sure are the US government, the British government, the Russian government …. and maybe a few other governments that just happened to have their for-peaceful-purposes-only satellites over, above, near, close-to and around the area at that time on that day. You can bet every single image of that particular part of Planet Earth at that time has been gone over with a fine-tooth comb …… so there would probably be a few hundred people who actually do know but absolutely NONE of them are going to share that with ordinary folk like you and me. The Royal Navy ship would nave its own log of course but the British won’t say too much until they get all 15 of their sailors back.
Trouble is as I understand it Iraq and Iran have been arguing since forever about where the boundary is, so they might both be right.
From what we know however (as opposed to what we’ve been told) the Iranians are likely to have had some justifiable grounds for their action.
j-p-z and Ken Lovell:
Yeah, The conclusion of the Iran-Iraq War certainly didn’t resolve every inch of their border disagreements.