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»
Frist and how exciting that I’ve got something to actually say: we’ve just had a rather scary earth tremor in Adders, apparently at its worst in the Hills but quite scary enough here on the plain, where I thought the house was about to fall down. Freaked-out friends in the Hills are leaping white-faced out of their beds and rushing to FaceBook to compare notes.
Earth tremor? I’d assumed it was a boisterous possum on my roof.
Reminds me that, in ’76, one John Nash, self styled clairvoyant, predicted there was to be an earthquake and tidal wave sent by God, at noon, to punish the sinners of that God-forsaken town. Don Dunstan, through sheer force of will, held the catastrophe back from the balcony of the Pier Hotel, declaring everyone safe and Mr Nash not welcome in the town.
Mr Nash for his part had moved to Warwick, Queensland, convinced it was the safest place in Australia. Within days of his arrival that town was drowned as the Condamine had its worst floods in living memory.
That must be it. My copy of Don Dunstan’s Cookbook shielded me from the full force of the Great Quake of 2010.
Yeah I felt the tremor/earthquake here too in the western suburbs but it honestly didn’t really concern me for some reason. I could feel it coming and at it’s peak the walls and ceiling shook a bit and then off it went. Bit of a wild Friday night.
Who says nothing ever happens in Adelaide?
Christine Nixon is now in real trouble. It’s a great shame, and her downfall will be an undeserved filip to that enemy of the people, the police union. But, alas, this is a situation she has brought upon herself.
I felt the earth move last night but I don’t think it was anything to do with an earthquake! Heheheheheheh!
“Christine Nixon is now in real trouble.”
How’s that Sam? I would suggest with the entry of Jeff Kennett, into the discussion, the clear political motivation of those calling for her resignation have been fully exposed.
The wash up to the fires should never have been turned into a political bunfight and I think it will damage Ted Baillieu in the lead up to the vic election.
He had appeared to be a quite reasonable and sensible bloke but now seems unconcerned about the trauma, amongst bushfire victims, that this hysteria is provoking.
Kennett is a disgrace and is the one who should resign… from Beyond Blue. I have heard people, who have lost loved ones, calling for some peace around these matters and he has just inflamed things considerably. Which makes his position as spokesperson for the depressed totally untenable.
Kennett is Kennett.
But that doesn’t help Nixon. She is going to be heavy criticised in the rounds of in the Royal Commission report. She can hang on by her finger nails until then but not a nanosecond afterward.
Nixon is dead meat hanging on the hook.
That earthquake was a tiddler – just 3.8. Not a lurch or a jolt, just a shudder. There was no rocking and swaying, long running rumbles or waves rippling through the ground. And no damage reported. Alarming for people who have never experienced one, but not otherwise. On the other hand, houses here aren’t built for it, because they don’t need to be, so I would be worried in a good sized quake.
Although I’m moderately sanguine about smaller earthquakes like this one, I get alarmed by even the thought of snakes, and I have no idea about how to deal with bushfires. It’s not cultural knowledge that I grew up with, so bushfires and snakes are frightening unknowns for me.
Yes, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an actual quake. Certainly a tremor though. Feral A, I too thought ‘gigantic megafauna-throwback possum on the roof’ at first, but that didn’t explain why the floor was shaking.
The rumblings in Adelaide are nothing compared to what Nick Sowden is currently experiencing.
Pavlov’s Cat – floor here shook momentarily too. But I was in a section of my house where the stability of the flooring is uncertain, and the local fauna are well-fed, what with all the nearby orchards.
It was one of those occasions when the more parsimonious explanation turned out to be wrong.
I suppose so Troy@12. John Howard started the ball rolling for that young bloke with his line that a victory for Obama would be a victory for al-Qaeda.
It’s all very nasty stuff and I bet they do not get why.
“If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.”
For those who missed the story of young liberal Nick Snowden see…
http://www.smh.com.au/business/monkey-business-can-come-back-to-bite-20100416-sk69.html
Anybody actually seen this?
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/salo-film-cleared-but-review-sought-20100417-sksf.html
Personally, I think Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom is among the most boring books I’ve ever read. I’m not sure if I finished. When it comes to boring literature, its up there with the works of Fanny Burney and Charlotte Bronte.
The ABC had a headline in its online news this morning Adelaide hit by earth tremor. That brought to mind a few other recent headlines: Cyclist has head on collision with blowfly and Patron at comedy festival hysterically amused.
” Phil Coxall believes there is ”huge potential” for building between 130,000 and 150,000 medium- to high-density dwellings along Parramatta Road, without the resistance encountered in outer suburbs because almost no one likes the strip as it is.”
I gather the plan would be for the buildings to start at Camperdown and to end around Auburn.
No mention is made of where the traffic – 80,000 cars each day – are to go , must be a problem if they are going to put a light rail down the centre of the road.
Mind you people of a certain age will be able to tell me if this road used to have a tram line running down it- I’m pretty sure that trams used to go as far as Haberfield or Leichhardt?
Parramatta Rd is a car yard strewn urban wasteland so this kind of thinking is to be welcomed.
The developers will be happy, the ALP will be very happy and well funded, the local branches can all be stacked to support He who must be Obeid and with luck a cabal of property investors pay for it all.
The only tricky bit is funding the underground tunnel – maybe Tripodi can make another trip around the world to find international infrastructure suckers er sorry, investors who haven’t heard of NSW before.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bid-to-pump-life-into-traffic-artery-20100416-skge.html
murf,
Trams cerainly went to Leichhardt. I can’t remember if they went to Haberfield. Years ago, in my first sojourn in Brisbane,(1965) trams were afascib=nation for me reminiscent of my childhood. They’d been removed from Sydney by then.
And, since this is Saturday Salon, I might as well tell one of my favourite Brisbane stories. I’d hitched up from Sydney and got to South Brisbane, somwehere near, I think the Storey Bridge. I crashed in a bus shed there. About 1 am in the morning I was woken by the cops, who told me to cross the bridge to Brisbane. So, I walked across the bridge. I noticed all these peoiple walking back and forth across the bridge. Anyway, I got over the bridge, found a bus shelter and crashed out on the seat. Shortly after I was woken by the cops. They toild me to get ver the other siode of the bridge. I explained I’d already been told by the South Brisbane cops to come over to this side of the bridge. They laughed, and said, “See all those blokes walking backwards and forward acroos the bridge?” I said, “Yeah.” They said, “Join them.”
That was my introduction to Brisbane.
When we first arrived in Brisbane, we were put in the Yungaba hostel under the Storey bridge. Wondered why it was noisy.
Paul Burns: de Sade was a genius who foreshadowed a lot of Nietzsche and one of my favourite writers. His anti-clericism is profound and actually gave birth to a tradition of satirical pornographic tracts written by French revolutionaries banished to the UK and other parts in the pre-revolutionary decade. They were highly salacious and lampooned both the church hierarchy and the noblity. They also reflected the sexual and moral depravity of both groups which was an open secret.
Paolni’s “Salo” is named after the Italian town that was the centre of Mussolini’s party quarters and support base. Well worth a watch as it breaks the rules profoundly in so far as it uses people who look like legal minors but, unlike Henson’s prurient interest in children, actually has significant artistic and cultural merit. It is an absolute ripper attack on industrial capitalism, the church, markets and the professional bourgeoisie.
Roger @ 16, earth tremors aren’t that common in Adelaide.
I was around at a mate’s place, drinking and pretending to play guitar, when the tremor cruised through. I asked him if he maybe shouldn’t have something done about the possums in his roof.
DI(nr),
I was being more amused about a trembling being described as a hit, but you’ve got to get a headline out of it, I guess. My preference would have been Earth moves for Adelaide.
Actually, to be seismic about it, the Lofties/Flinders region is a little more active than many other areas of Oz.
RJ — I should think the headline of choice would be “Adelaide Shaken, Not Stirred.”
Or maybe for those having a drop when it hit, it could be “Beer and Trembling.”
AN @ 20,
I’m well aware of the intellectual significance of Sade’s work. His reading on anti-monarchical anarchist thought in Juliette is probably essential for anyone wanting to understand anarchist thought on monarchy, for example. Justine is truly an 18C classic, with that wonderful ending, where after having been saved from all kinds of degradation and finally having found salvation and happiness,Justine is struck dead by a lightning bolt (if I remember it rightly) is one of the great moments of black/gallows humour in world literature. 120 Days of Sodom however, is mostly a list of really boring and not very well written pron, though I have no doubt it reflects an exaggerated view of 18th C ancien regime debauchery.
Though I’m not a fan of De Sade, I am a very big fan of Pasolini, so I’ll probably check the movie out, assuming it is available.
“Rudd doesn’t get the international press of a Sarkozy or a Lula, but he seems to be emerging as the world leader’s world leader.”
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/15/everybody_loves_kevin_rudd
anthony nolan included “They also reflected the sexual and moral depravity of both groups which was an open secret.”
… and of the authors?
Umm, Anthony Nolan, they were legal minors. They were 13 to 16 year old kids. You are the only person I have ever come across who has ever suggested they were not.
Such were the times in Italy that that was acceptable in that country then.
Times move on and with them morals. What was acceptable there then is not acceptable now. Whatever Pasolini’s artistic pretensions.
Actually, Roger, we did have a bit of a chuckle about the earth having moved.
Paul Burns @ 15,
I’ll be curious to see if our conservative government here in SA allow Salo to go through. I’m pretty sure SA is the only state that can ban movies within it’s own borders and the now former AG Michael Atkinson took great delight in doing so. John Rau is from the Right which probably means they will ban it.
Does anyone remember that ‘controversial’ movie from a few years ago called 9 Songs? When it came out on DVD I saw it in the new release section at the local video store and thought I’ll grab it next week only for Atkinson to have it ripped off of the shelves statewide during that week. Still banned in SA.
Another thing Atkinson and that Family First nut did five minutes before the election was to ban the covers of all R rated DVD’s (action, horror etc) in video stores unless they reside in a special R rated section with the soft porn.
This is the kind of shit that happens when religious extremists get too much power which is what makes the thought of federal Labor’s mandatory internet filter run by Stephen Conroy and his Australian Christian Lobby goons all the more chilling.
Having never seen the film I’ll try and order the notorious Salo quick smart before the thought police get on to me.
The irony is that “South Park” gets away with far more than Pasolini would have thought of (Mr. Slave!), but being an animated show about eight year old kids, it all passes under the radar.
Linked text
I’m well aware of the intellectual significance of Sade’s work.
And Fanny Burney’s and Charlotte Bronte’s, I hope!
Fanny Burney’s detailed account of how she had a mastectomy without an anaesthetic (a key document in the history of breast cancer research) and Charlotte Bronte’s novel Villette, about neurosis, hysteria, sexual repression and obsession (brilliantly anticipating Freud), are both pretty riveting reading, I reckon.
Paul.
I’m with you on Justine and 120 days – one a classic, the other a catalogue that becomes very boring.
Speaking of artistic obscenity …
On Tuesday I went to the Malthouse to see Elizabeth – Almost by chance a woman, by Dario Fo and translated for this production. My son went to the same performance with his school theatre group. He was amazed by the scatalogical level of dialogue, in the commedia dell’arte style and loved the performance, particularly the first act. Julie Forsythe was wonderful as Elizabeth. It’s a great production but not everything worked. I think the performance will get better during their season as they improve their changes between character’s different stances reflecting the satire and drama, and hone the script.
Base human drives and emotions are always great foils from which to medidate on power and why it is so.
Brett @ 25 followed up your lead to the comments on Rudd because I thought Obama’s compliment to Rudd via Red Kerry went remarkably unnoticed, or at least uncommented on, by our MSM. There was one rather hostile response to that post at ‘foreign policy’ so I fired back. Unfortunately I overdid it in referring to Rudd’s ‘astronomically’ high opinion poll ratings when ‘historically’ would have been more accurate. Still I guess one biassed barb deserves an equally biassed response.
PC,
i do enjoy Fanny Burney as a diarist, but as a novelist she approaches the unreadable.
I have never been able to warm to Charlotte Bronte. I think I expected great things from her and was most disappointed when I didn’t get them. (I read all her novels one after the other, and had to force myself to finish them.)
OTOH, I think Anne Bronte’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall is one of the most underated books in English lit. I absolutely love it, though I haven’t read it as many times as I’ve read Wuthering Heights. Only twice. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read Wuthering Heights.
Oh, and PC, I will try Villette again, after your recommendation.
The novel I found most disappointing was Shirley, possibly, because of the blurb it was the one I expected to enjoy the most. (I love 19C political novels.)
I think we had this discussion about Burney before yonks ago when you asked me why I didn’t like her. (And, apart from The Lives of the Poets, I dislike Samuel Johnson just as much. Pompous old fart.)
Residents stand up to dictatorial imposition of high rise monstrosity on Milton
In response to the overwhelming rejection by residents of plans to erect a massive 31 story residential and commercial tower atop the Milton Railway Station, Minister for Infrastructure and Planning Stirling Hinchliffe has declared the project to be of state interest and “called-in” the development approval proces so that the normal legal avenues can be bypassed. However, Concerned Residents Against Milton’s Excessive Development are determined to stand up to Hinchliffe and have called a public meeting to protest his decision.
What you can do: Please show your support for the embattled residents of Milton by attending the meeting at 6.30PM, next Thursday at the Milton State School. More information: Ph 0404 833057, 0408 101117, enquiries[AT]cramed.org, cramed.org.
And I do like Jane Eyre, except for the great wad of Xtan guff at the end of the book, which sort of ruins it.
And I’m having one of my insomniac episodes but I’m too fatigued to write. I’ll just make mistakes and have to redo it all when I’m fresh. Its nights like these I really appreciate LP. Besides I’m not feeling very well, hopefully because I pigged out on chocolate cheese cake and creme caromel a couple of hours ago.
PC,
I had time to do a bit of thinking and I can now give a more considered response to my feelings about Charlotte Bronte and Fanny Burney.
I came to Charlotte Bronte after I had read Emily Bronte (not for the first time) and Ann Bronte. I expected her work to have the same kind of emotional resonances as Emily’s and Anne’s, and that is undoubtedly present in Jane Eyre, except she deadens the novel’s impact because of her dreadful ending – those passages of Xtan theology etc thatgo on for pages and pages and pages. Her other books, The Professor, Villette and Shirley I just found incredibly dull after the other Brontes and I couldn’t help comparing her in my mind either with the best of George Eliot. (I’d just discovered Middlemarch a couple of months before). I just found CB’s work quite unsatisfying and deadly dull, with the exception of the best parts of Jane Eyre.
Now, Fanny Burney. I do really enjoy her letters and journals. Her novels – I’ve tried to read The Wanderer and Camilla several times are just so badly written, they’re a real chore. (She kept on reminding me of Marie Corelli, though I know she comes from a latter period. She doesn’t compare with the great women writers like Austen, Eliot, and the author of Mary Barton and North and South. (I’m so tired her name escapes me.) She was probably best left undiscovered so far as her novel writing is concerned.
So far as De Sade is concerned, I’m more interested in him for his political ideas. Even Justine, without the ending, would be pointless pron. Juliette is incredibly boring for most of it, except for his political thought. The man was, of course, among other things, barking mad, and unless I’ve read bad translations, not a particularly good writer.(Leaving aside the sheer nastiness of some of his ideas. But as a political thinker, especially regarding the concept of monarchy, he is important from an anarchist perspective.)
So, I hope that explains my comment about their dullness. I’m so tired so I hope all the above makes sense.
I went and had a crack at trying this blog thing myself. Now I reckon my usage of the English language is not the best and just as well then I don’t have a great deal to say – especially compared to the authors here and Paul Burns’ recent output.
Hence, I’d keep it on the quiet, but Brian posted a comment to one of his excellent posts on climate change science that he intended to have a look at what’s going on within the CO2 molecule. He suspects that it would not make a difference to his previous posts, and he’s right there – as the properties are not changed by knowing what causes those properties.
But those properties I do have a little bit of an idea about, having played with CO2 lasers that exploit intra-molecular vibration modes of the CO2 atom that absorb and emit IR radiation. Which makes me alarmed at the deniers ability to peddle their porkies so readily. I asked if any deniers would be willing to put a finger of theirs on the line, in front of a CO2 laser, in front of TV cameras, to expose the fraud of global warming should their pinky not be burnt off. I don’t expect many takers. http://galahs.blogspot.com/2010/04/carbon-dioxide-laser.html (Any corrections or tips greatly appreciated)
GregM: haven’t seen Salo since it was unbanned briefly in the 90′s so my recall of the film and the age of the actors is dim. Thanks for the clarification.
Apparently, the price of “relatively healthy food” rose by double the rate of low quality convenience food between 2000 and 2006 (60% compared with 30%). A nantional food surevey hasn’t been done since 1995 and a new one is to be undertaken.
Consequently, we don’t know if patterns of food consumption have been changed by this skew in the comparative prices of food categories, but it will be interesting to see.
One suspects it has, as rates of obesity in Australia have ballooned. (Sorry couldn’t resist). If the new survey shows that food consumption patterns have indeed changed, it will underline, again that price does matter in consumker behaviour, even where something as vital to human wellbeing as food is concerned and when the cost of even the most expensive nutritious food staples is still comparatively low.
We may assume then that putting an effective and ubiquitous price on carbon emissions would work in rather the same way, though probably even more so, since much of what we do to emit CO2 is entirely discretionary.
On an entirely separate note, I am rather enjoying the shutdown of European air travel. I’m sorry for a friend whose intricately organised conference plans have been disrupted, but on tghe whole, humanity is the better for the shut dwon in flights.
One of the amusing sibebars here has been the reluctance/unwillingness of leaders such as Angela Merkel and those British Royal folks to attend the Polish Grand Poobah’s funeral. Last time I looked on the map, Germany and Poland shared a land border, and bearing in mind the channel tunnel, English aristocrats could get to Poland without leaving terra firma, assumng they wanted to do so.
Any excuse …
Damn.
It was looking so good too ….
Fools Stockmarket
Why do capitalists always stuff things up?
Paul B, thank you for that detailed response! V interesting and I hope it took your mind off not feeling well, and that you are feeling better this morning.
I agree with you absolutely about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Wuthering Heights, and also about Shirley, The Professor, and Burney as a novelist. I think you may be exaggerating or mis-remembering the amount of ‘theological guff’ in Jane Eyre though (probably because it annoyed you so much), especially as the person who spouts most of it gets rejected in the end for the passionate Byronic hero. Besides, that religious dimension is absolutely crucial to understanding the minds of most of the characters in 19th century novels. Jane uses theological logic to help her run away from Rochester — but it’s really just about self-respect.
The North and South, Cranford etc writer is Elizabeth Gaskell.
I’ve been celebrating the BREAKING NEWS THAT POPE BENEDICT HAS QUIT!!!
PC,
I agree with you about the religious dimension in 19C English novels, but most of the time its not so much in your face as I found it to be in Jane Eyre.And I could be misremembering. I really do prefer the 20th C Wide Sargosso Sea. ((Another author’s name forgotten.) I have no problems with it in Dickens or Eliot, for example.
I came to Burney through her diaries and journals. I have Joyce Hemlow’s edition of her Selected Letters and Journals on my desk as we speak and have read through a lot of the collected edition at UNE library. I was reading bits and pieces of it last night after I got off line. I hadn’t looked at it for over a year. Enthralling stuff.
Remembered Gaskell’s name when I woke up this morning. (Love Mary Barton.) Haven’t read Cranbrook, but I did enjoy the TV series though not as much as North and South. (Another good read.) Did she write John Halifax, Gentleman? I remember reading an edition of that with a gold-embossed spine when I was a kid. Think it was a first edition. My old man used to collect them.(Runs in the family. I collect first editions of obscure history books on the 18C if they’re not too expensive.) Just got Pares’ George III and the Politicians the other day for $20 and lashed out on Allen French’s The First Year of the American Revolution for over $200 a couple of months ago. Needed it for my work anyway, so it was a good excuse.)
If these things are so bloody dangerous, why is the Government allowing them to be sold on the shelves of our electronic shops.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7596241/Samsung-warns-of-dangers-of-3D-television.html
Yet another example of why capitalism sucks.
A message from culture-jammer Mickie Quick -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mickie/44678479/
I was also lucky enough to see ‘Salo’ when it briefly unbanned in the ’90s. I think it’s probably a great and intellectually rigorous work. But it’s hard to recommend to people wholeheartedly, because as times, it’s literally disgusting. It’s also hard to see how it could be used as a piece of p0rn, because it doesn’t let the viewer off the hook at all.
Are you kidding me Fine?
I was (un)lucky enough to see Salo too (before it was banned) in Sydney.
I think it’s hard to see that it has any cultural merit whatsover. An hour and a half or of young adolescents being forced to behave like dogs and eat human extrement.
Puleaze! I felt sick afterwards!
Although I did think there might be a market for “I Survived Salo” t-shirts at the time.
No wonder the gay was eventually murdered…
“No wonder the gay was eventually murdered…”
Classy comment reb of hobart. Yes, sadly Pasolini was murdered. Does the word ‘homophobia’ strike any chords with you?
“No wonder the gay was eventually murdered…”
Apologies Fine, that was a genuine typo. I meant to say “guy”. I’m openly gay myself, it would be kind of funny to be called homophobic.
Coming back to Salo, I think that people will want to see it partly (largely?) because it is “controversial”. But I think people will ultimately be disappointed. IMHO it has very little artistic or intellectual merit.
However I would agree that it’s hardly pornographic. To me it was just scene after scene of some group of European elitists making a kidnapped group of kids perform extreme acts of degradation, including swimming in a pool of human shit as well as eating human shit.
If some people consider that “art” all well and good. Just not my scene I’m afraid.
However its content is no more offensive than some of the R rated Horror movies that are available in DVD shops these days..
reb of hobart,
Just so we don’t get any more misinformed comment about ‘that gay’ Pier Paolo Pasolini.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Paolo_Pasolini
You might note that the circumstances surrounding his death might, and I stress might, suggest it could have been either a crime of passion, a homophobic crime or a political assassination. Best to be informed before you slag off.
And er, how do explain his making of The Gospel of Saint Matthew, probably the best movie ever made about the life of Jesus. Certainly infinitely superior to Mel Gibson’s recent pornography of violence about JC.
reb of Hobart,
cross posted. Still, the bio must surely be of interest to people.
Hi Paul,
I haven’t seen The Gospel of Saint Matthew so I can’t really comment on that one.
Have you seen Salo?
If you enjoy watching people eating shit, you might get a kick out of it…
A snuff movie with a budget. If it had some greater “intellectual statement” to make perhaps it was just too clever for this simpleton..
reb of hobart,
No, I haven’t seen Sslo, and after what I’ve been reading about it on this thread, I’m not sure if I want to. I certainly don’t want to buy it, and I tend to buy DVDs rather than rent them, so I’m pretty selective about what I watch. In any case, I tend to go for historical epics.
OTOH, I do believe people should be given the opportunity to see it if they want to. I gernerally think censorship of anything except really really hardcore prn is a bad idea. Censorship of the depiction of simulated or real sex inevitably leads to censorship of ideas that have nothing to do with Pron, including ideas governments are unhappy with, even when those ideas are harmless. (Witness the current controversy in Texas, USA, where they’re banning Thomas Jefferson from classroom history texts for chrissake, because he advocated the separation of church and state.)
Get Mamma Roma instead Paul. I got my copy from ebay. Zero chance of finding it in a video library around here.
su,
just looked it up. I think I saw that on SBS a long while ago.
Oh, the heck with Salo, it’s a lot of putrid rubbish. Life’s too short. You don’t even have to see it to realize this (I sure didn’t watch it), just do about 90 seconds worth of homework and voila you get a few non-wasted hours of your life as credit for skipping it.
OTOH Pasolini for all his excesses was a pretty good poet, even in translation.
If you want a bit of real political satirical art that’s truly shocking and provocative and is the genuine article but without being disgusting, sit down for an afternoon and read “The Designated Mourner” by Wallace Shawn. Then go out afterwards and buy some hair dye, b/c your hair will have turned white while reading.
The other day I was in this great second-hand bookstore and I found a beautiful rare hardcover copy of TDM. Sat down and read it again that day (I saw it done live once, about 10 years ago, by the author himself) and it was every bit as alarming all over again, but without the hideousness of Pasolini.
Leftists will love it — all your favorite bogeymen are attacked just the way you like, and yet despite the superficial sense of pandering, it’s really a great work of art, about many more things than just politics.
Or if you just want a larf (albeit about non-larfing matters), you can’t go wrong with “In the Loop”.
Apropos Salo, I’m sure this article from 2005 will be of interest to fans of Christos Tsiolkas, of whom I know there to be many in these parts.
Christos is a lovely bloke and I’m looking forward to his tv adaptation of ‘The Slap’.
‘Salo’, putrid rubbish? Well, it’s putrid in parts, but I remember it as a great examination of how fascism functions. I notice there’s been a film adaptation of ‘The Designated Mourner’ directed by David Hare. Looks interesting.
Fine — well, the film version of “TDM” is better than nothing, I guess, but I wasn’t a big fan of the film. (Admittedly only saw a portion of it.) Would recommend reading it first and forming your own private impression. The cast, although highly talented, is somehow not the *right* cast: Mike Nichols in the lead just can’t quite measure up to Shawn himself, who I suspect sort of writes for his own idiosyncratic voice.
You don’t quite get the sense that Nichols really means it, I thought.
Granted I saw what was probably a performance under ideal conditions, sort of in the manner of “Vanya on 42nd St”. FWIW, to help you visualize the piece, here is what they did (I’m a big advocate of environmental theater): they performed it in an abandoned building that had been some sort of a businessmen’s social club — to even get to the show, up on like the fifth floor, you first wandered through all these empty rooms with the furniture draped over, so when the guy starts by saying “a special little world has died,” you had just come through exactly that. They did part one in a big sort of living room, with the audience sitting in sofas and easy chairs right next to the cast, while they told you this whole bizarre tale in a literally conversational tone.
Then — this was a masterstroke — after the interval, you moved to a different part of the building, and part two was done in a sort of abandoned squash court, sitting in bleachers under these bright fluorescent lights.
Quite an effect, I must say. Anyway perhaps you’ll like the film version, I’d just say read the thing as well.
For the record. Am feeling a bit better today so am going to spend the day note-taking for chapter six. No point getting into writing as I have Homecare coming and its a bit difficult to concentrate with a noisy washing machine going and the vacuum cleaner whirring. Besides he’s a nice bloke I’ve known for years and used to hit the piss with years ago, so its nice to have a chat.
In some ways Armidale is a very small town.
Also, I’ve just had volume three of the Naval Documents of the American Revolution delivered. and that’s cheered me up immensely.
OK, this has to be one of the quickest black humour reactions to breaking news (Carl Williams dies in prison: reports) that I’ve seen in a long time:
Nature imitates art.
In other sad news, the 2008 Melbourne Cup winner, Viewed has died of a twisted bowel. Goodbye old boy.
Abbott’s latest piece of filth.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/21/2878417.htm
What’s really disturbing about this is that Rudd hasn’t condemned it outright.
Anyone read Alan Kohler’s “The carbon strangler“?
Well worth registering (for free) if you can’t read it.
Hey, over on the Redneck thread we wuz discovered by American RWDBs!
Boo to Paul N for closing the thread – the wingnuts were just getting warmed up and I was just off making popcorn!
Yeah, I was a bit dissapointed too, Helen – there were weeks worth of innocent fun to be had with them!
Indeed there was. And, they could’ve learnt all about Orstralia as well.