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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»
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Sen. Faulkner’s call for Labor to get its act together very sharply before it loses another “generation of activists” seemed a significant new development in politics.
Julia Gillard was put in as a circuit breaker when the Ruddbot appeared to malfunction, twelve months on, the universe as we know it hasn’t imploded in upon itself because we have finally had a woman running the country.
Faulkner’s main thrust appears to deal with Labor regaining its connection with its membership, working people and the community from which it was originally derived.
But do we also see evidence of a poison chalice some suspected Gillard was taking up in the form of the leadership?
Is/has she been good, bad or inexperienced? Can she and her government improve in the meantime, increasing their capacity to cope both with issues arising and with Abbott and the reactionary msm?
Or do Wran and Faulkner’s comments mark the start of a movement toward leadership change itself, while a small window of opportunity might still remain open before the run into an election?
Could someone like Combet deal with Abbott better, or is Gillard the best of a not untalented bunch that also includes a former pm balefully gazing forth, in the wake of his own apparently lost opportunity?
I second that.
The transcript of Senator John Faulkner’s assessment of the ALP:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2011/06/10/the-wran-lecture-senator-john-faulkner/
I was in PNG when the Howard Pacific Solution on Manus Island was being implemented and there was a lot of talk about neo-colonialism and the unconstitutional aspects of holding foreign nationals without charge or trial etc. It seems that now the PNG Supreme Court will look more closely at the constitutional position particularly as those intended to be held have not broken any PNG law and cannot be charged with anything in PNG. I haven’t researched the matter but there could be a constitutional impediment to reopening the Manus holding centre.
So, we are down to the Malaysia solution – with or without caning – or the Nauru solution ; the ABC will no doubt give us Scott Morrison’s views by thr bucket load.
It’s amusing that for all the brouhaha around Faulkner’s observations, nobody in mass public space — and it appears not Faulkner himself — commented on any matter of substance bearing upon the ALP’s standing. Instead the same silly cliches were trotted out about “back roomn deals” and “focus groups” and “power brokers” and “letting people speak”. This shows clearly that Faulkner is just posturing, and that the ALP is still unwilling to confront its key problem — in what way, if at all, is its current approach to devising policy connected with ideas like social justice and equity as these are seen by those who were once its supporters?
In the early 1970s, it would have occurred only to the radical left to describe the ALP and Liberal/Country Party coalition as “much the same”. Today, it’s a banality not contested all that much even by the ALP or LNP.
Nobody joins a voluntary organisation without imagining that they share its vision. If the organisation has no vision, or it is muddy, or more often honoured in the breach, the organisation goes into decline or becomes something else entirely. It seems that this is where the ALP is headed, and unlike the LNP, who are culturally attached to a more or less clear set of fears, shibboleths and associated property interests, incoherent though they might be, and can just muddle along, maetaphorically borne up by the cultural tide, the ALP needs to build its own support vehicle or sink beneath the waves like so much political jetsam.
Speaking on behalf of the Communist Party of China, I present Bob Carr:
http://bobcarrblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/dont-meet-this-cunning-monk/
The elephant in Faulkner’s room is that his lost generation of activists have probably mostly joined the Greens (which, I think, explains the attitude of the ALP towards us).
OK, am I the only reasonably progressive person about who just thinks this labour government is so utterly incompetent and hooked on using focus groups to make decisions that they have completely lost the plot? Their handling of the live-animal export issue seems to have joined the growing list of occasions where they have muddled along with a combination of knee-jerk over-reactions and frightened inertia!
http://www.theage.com.au/national/criticism-over-delayed-probe-on-live-cattle-trade-20110610-1fx52.html
PS I can see I’ll be voting green for the forseeable future – if only because it upsets that idiot Lapkin at the IPA so much!
PS I didn’t put the above post in the Live Cattle Exports thread because I intended it as a more general observation on the current government btw.
The ALP was formed as the political arm of the Union movement. How has the Union movement allowed it’s political arm to become the puppet of the corporations?
It’s constitution states that it is a Democratic Socialist party. How do you operate as a Corporatist party when you still call yourself Democratic Socialists? What a mob of numptys. Delusional I think, farcical, deceptive even.
Carr’s argument seems to be that acts of separation are only permissable with the permission of your annexer. Your party is in trouble when your elder statesmen are people like Carr.
I agree with Bob Carr about the Dalai Lama. Tibet doesn’t need to return to a religious dictatorship, and the Dalai Lama’s politics are offensive and dodgy.
(Don’t know about claims on Yunnan and Sichuan though).
The Dalai Lama is what he is, a religious leader, a politician, a figure of inspiration to many and hate to others. He could be compared to the Pope in those ways. But the nature of the Dalai Lama does not change the quasi-colonial exploitation of the region of Tibet or the oppression of the Tibetan people and their demonstrable struggle for political and cultural freedom.
Carr conflates all of these things and ends up parroting CCP propaganda. He uses a misunderstanding of history as a justification for demanding silence on discussion on politics in China. Oh, and everything he wrote about Taiwan is wrong.
I thought the ALP were Social Democrats (whatever the fuck that means.) They dumped their socialist objective years ago and that was part of the beginning of the rot.
So FB is trying to tell us that the Hamster is dead, comforts us..
I think the ALP “died” to some extent in late 1994, when Faulkner, as enviro minister, put up a list of hundreds of forest coupes or tranches, that ought to remain free of logging. The more senior minister, Beddall, could not find it in his heart to allow even one of these, marking the ALP’s turning of its back on the Greens and counter culture generally, later reinforced by events in Tasmania concerning a gerrymandering of its system by lib-lab.
Its easy to see that the environment movement, with its emphasis on protection of commons, use of resources for the many rather than the few and its concern for retaining/ developing the social basis for civilisation were derived of soc dem thinking and were the next step in what was actually, earlier, a labor project then reaching a stage of consolidation ( of commons, enviro resources with a different, post capitalist outlook toward consumer capitalism and what could constitute a cultural “essential” ).
The thing with labor is, we’ve always given it one more chance, it always seems there is way too much of value within it. Yet the baser impulses always seem to win out.
They call themselves Social Democrats, which they aren’t now but their constitution states Democratic Socialist which they’ve never been. I agree with your statement about the begining of the rot but how the hell did the unions allow it to happen?
sg: an open invitation to you to unpack your statement that the “Dalai Lama’s politics are offensive and dodgy.”
I’m not at all up to speed with this view or indeed with much to do with Tibet and the DL so I’m interested in what your view is. I’ll state up front that I’m a Dharma student, ie, a practitioner of meditation and reader of the Bhudda’s teachings but I’m not affiliated with any order. This is a growing tendency in the West as the Dharma teachings undergo a renaissance and Western practitioners seek to avoid the dead end of monastic tradition.
This weeks action in the NSW Labor opposition could have been enough to set Faulkner off. Upper House and former planning minister, Tony Kelly threw in the towel – and possibly faces ICAAC scrutiny over the Pearl Beach land deal – and was immediately replaced, unopposed, by Steve Whan who was dumped by his Lower House electorate at the March debacle. Whan is the son of Bob Whan a former NSW MP – just to throw in the ALP tribal connect.
What did the Dalai Lama say of the murder by Navy Seals of Osama bin Laden?
What that means Paul is that they want to institute a social system that distributes the benefits of the capitalist system of production widely across the whole population.
It also means that that in doing so they do not adhere to the psychopathic ideology, to which you so rigidly adhere, of mass slaughter in order to create a utopian society.
They are moral people, Paul, founded in sound and decent values.
Their party may have lost its way but can self correct.
The ideology that you promote has left carcasses across continents.
You can’t bring back the dead that your ideology has killed.
@20
I hope he said “Thats karma, arse-hole “. But i don’t think so.
The upcoming Hollywood blockbuster may give us the answer
The ALP is a vehicle. Whoever controls the wheel is the direction in which it drives.
The agonising paradox is that those who drive it in a corporatist direction make it more and more unlikely that good, honest people with either social democrat or democratic socialist want to even bother get in the car and compete for the wheel.
This matters because if the Greens ever become the mainstream centre-left party then those same corporatist professionals will flock to them.
I ran an analysis of ALP primary votes at the federal level since 1983 here: http://tradeunion.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/a-narrative-of-alp-decline
Only if they cast Clint Eastwood, jumpnmcar. (Tries to picture Clint Eastwood in an orange robe with a shaven head – fails.)
re: the Dalai Lama, he spent most of his life trying to reinstate a religious dictatorship that was actually really unpleasant before it was overthrown; he only accepted the separation of church and state (in some vague form) when he retired last year. He’s homophobic (or at least, the public statements I’ve read being attributed to him are) and I’m pretty confident he doesn’t see a role for women in power.
And let’s not kid ourselves about the type of religious system that the monks were running. We’re talking about a society where peasants paid tithes to monks, all education was controlled by the church, and there was no ability to dispute or change it. If you visit one of the great Tibetan buddhist temples (I visited one in Xiahe and another in Langmuir) you’ll see people circumnavigating them through a process of prostration (lying on their stomachs, getting up, moving one step, lying down again). This is not the way modern people should view their government.
When I was in Xiahe and Langmuir in 2002 there were two groups of people getting fat on the labour of the uneducated Tibetan peasants: Chinese migrants and Tibetan monks.
Just because they’re buddhist doesn’t mean we should support their aspirations to return to a religious dictatorship.
Why do you ask Fran?
Just a passing interest?
Or, given your attachment to psychopathic killers (Leni, as you affectionately call him) and mass murder ( Not as collateral damage as you tried to indecently excuse yourself in your apologia for what you said on Saturday Salon 203) are you looking for new ideas?
sg,
taking on the Beatles and the Dalai Lama? What next, apple pie?
Fran, apparently he was asked about the relative weight of compassion and justice at a panel on compassionate action at the University of Southern California and his response, which can be found on Youtube, was (paraphrasing quite a lot as his English is a little disjointed and the audio was indistinct): Again, one must make a distinction between the action and the actor. In the case of Bin Laden, his action was of course destructive and the September 11 events killed thousands of people. So towards the action, the destructive action, there must be justice, his actions must be stopped. [And here his words become indistinct and difficult to follow but it sounds something like, stopping action will have long term benefits, even for the perpetrator] But, whatever form that action to stop destructive actions takes, it must come from compassion and a sense of concern for the actor.
This has everywhere been reported as “Dalai Lama says Bin Laden’s death justified”. Unless some of the indistinct portions of his response contained more explicit endorsement of the killing, I think it is more accurate to say that the Dalai Lama took care not to criticize the killing of Bin Laden.
sg, your views were popular in the 50s and 60s, from the likes of Anna Louise Strong, but today a more nuanced position should be possible.
I have a more nuanced view, MH, but I was asked what’s wrong with the Dalai Lama.
I think the big problem is that he ate too much apple pie, which has been shown conclusively to turn those who consume it into religious conservatives with a penchant for authoritarianism. This, in essence, is what’s wrong with America: too much apple pie.
The response I heard lacked nuance of the kind you outline Su. It was a simple endorsement.
@GregM
I’d argue that pretty much 100% of the premature industrial scale deaths in the 20th century were the direct or indirect result of the failures of capitalism. As an apologist for that system, these deaths are on your hands. Lenin — a small player in a country that was capitalist roadkill was a mere bystander in the carnage.
The great leap forward, forced collectivization and the genocide in Cambodia were “failures of capitalism”?
If the failures of capitalism are to be ‘owned’ then Leninism is a failure of capitalism.
Greg M.
Fuck me dead! I’d have thought at the very least you’d know the difference between socialism and communism, ie communism as practised in USSR and China, which really was/is little more than the czarist/imperial system under a different name.
On another topic altogether, I just clicked on Larvatus Prodeo I’m feeling Lucky, which usually brings me straight onto LP and got a Google Book page about an 18c French voluptuary. Seriously.
Harley asked:
Of course. China had failed to industrialise. The KMT was unable to oversee modernisation and instead launched a murderous crackdown on the workers in Shanghai in 1927. Japan — the nearest capitalist regime, invaded them and the KMT essentially ran dead or collaborated.
The democide in Cambodia was a response to the disruption of rural Cambodia by the industrial scale bombing associated with the US-lead imperialist assault on Indochina and its backing of the regime of Lon Nol. Ultimately this barbarous regime was stopped by the intervention of the Vietnamese Stalinists, in the teeth of the opposition of the US then in alliance with the Chinese stalinists.
Arguably so. Leninism was a response to combined and uneven development in Russia, the failure of a powerful moderning capitalist class to emerge and complete “the democratic revolution” and the need for this modernisation to be completed under the leadership of the rather weak and ill-disciplined proletariat.
Jumpnmcar @22 and David Irving (no relation) @24
Bruce Willis can deliver that line, and he already has a bald head.
I’d thought I had my moral philosophy pretty sorted when it came to rapists.
This gives me twinges…
Off the cuff, I’d have to say that the most a convicted rapist should ever expect from society is tolerance. Then again, if we assume that people can make mistakes and rebuild their lives, this is a pretty crap result for trying to be a better person.
Ahh… 15 minutes of cutting and pasting and still stuffed the link..
http://www.qt.com.au/story/2011/06/11/rapist-is-stripped-of-flood-award-bob-riddler/
Apologies….
You have accused UteMan for being dishonest in citing 98% without evidence.
Now defend yourself on saying that “100% off the premature industrial scale deaths in the 20th century were the direct or indirect result of the failures of capitalism”, in justification of the psychopathic indulgence of Leninism that you immerse yourself in.
Don’t make stuff up though.
Like you did about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where you were shown to be a complete liar.
@35, you might read Frank Dikötter’s “Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe” for a new analysis of the effects of the 大跃进 using previously inaccessible PRC provincial sources.
Bruce Willis? Maybe, but the orange robe is still a stumbling block for me.
@ darin – I thought the same thing.
I’m in two minds about it, but I think it basically comes down to whether you want to punish a convicted criminal trying to turn around their life, especially when they have already done their time for their crime (which is what the media attention will be doing I am sure). Surely it’s better to give them the award, if only as positive reinforcement.
We have a justice system & an independent judiciary for a reason – it’s not for the state government to arbitrarily decide whether someone has been punished enough.
I am making depressingly slow progress on my honours project.
progress is still progress Jacques
#43 , you ned to clean up the house, cut the lawn, cook up several dishes of complicated food and take the dog for a walk. It won’t get it done any quicker, but at least above eliminates a further set of excuses for dodging it, later.
#35, Why are you worth your weight in gold?
Fran, is the quote from another source or are you saying that the USC excerpt boils down to a straight endorsement? I didn’t paraphrase that much, he really did say what I have written, I just excised a few repetitions. Not that I have any great interest in defending him but it does niggle me that the headlines bore no resemblance to the speech.
Darin, he should not be made to pay in perpetuity, apart from its injustice, that response tends to increase the risk of reoffending. However all the comments are supportive, he now has a facebook supporter page and both he and a few of those comments call the rape and armed robbery a “mistake”. A mistake. I can’t help but contrast this with the disgusting threats of violence against women like Nina Funnell, the complainants in Assange’s case and “Claire”. I don’t endorse Bligh’s handling of this but the inescapable conclusion I draw is that known violent rapists are held in higher esteem by many than women who have the temerity to complain of rape.
And there was a news item yesterday reporting that one in six women on Uni campuses have been raped. I’m pretty sure this is worse than in the eighties but I’d have to dig up some figures to be sure. Subjectively I’d say that attitudes towards women have got a lot worse and the nastiest stuff is more openly expressed than ever before. Can never be sure whether this is my personal experience or a genuine trend but it certainly feels like backsliding rather than progress ATM.
Jess and Darin, how can you be “in two minds” about a decision to exclude someone from society? Isn’t 12 years in prison enough for you?
That’s a good point about the comparative difference in the response, su. But I think you shouldn’t conflate the response to a government decision with support for the person (or condoning his crime). I think the response shows a healthy respect for the rule of law (though I haven’t looked at the facebook page).
I just gotta go through it, is all. I’m actually a barely competent programmer.
Peter Hartcher in the SMH today:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/labor-peers-into-the-abyss-20110610-1fx05.html
That’s the point I’ve been making for awhile, why would anyone vote for the ALP?
Just had a communication from a FB friend, Selim Gool of South Africa, with a report from “Z net”, concerning the banning of John Pilger’s new film and accompanying US visit (yesterday). No explanations, right of reply etc from the so called philanthropic foundation responsible.
JP was in the process of sending off a comminique to some called “Noam” , at his end of proceedings, yet the lack of comment locally has me wondering if the msm aren’t sitting on this antic, also.
Thanks, Jacques!
So on another thread David Irving (no Relation, apparently) made some rather inflammatory comments about Metallica in response to my completely reasonable and – I think we can all agree – balanced critique of the Beatles (and their inherent shitness). According to DInR Metallica aren’t that great and I should be talking about good metal, like (his examples!) Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More.
Now, any reasonable person well knows that neither of these bands are in the canon. There are clear reasons for this based on their lyrical content. Have they written a song about suicide? No. Have they quoted classical poetry? No. Have they been accused of satanism? No. Have they practised satanism? No. So they don’t get to be in the canon.
Furthermore, Rage Against the Machine are clearly a bunch of poseurs giving a teenager’s pouty bedroom rant version of rebellion. Nothing they have ever produced will compare to the poetry that is Suicidal Tendencies You Can’t Bring Me Down, let alone the majesty of Sepultura in such masterpieces of political theory as Inner Self.
Finally, have Faith No More been converted to string quartet yet? Apocalyptica have shown that, as classical music, Metallica is vastly superior to anything made before 1984. Suck on that, Bach, you wimp.
I find it disappointing that some people on this site can be so ignorant of the fundamentals of aesthetics. How do you manage in life?!!!
damn! In moderation! And I was sure that the limit was 4 links, not 3!
SG has threatened to bring his execrable taste in music over here – just before he does, look at this and wonder. Pity the generation that had to put up with Madonna, when we had Mama Cass (clearly the better dancer too)
Rally for Muckaty here in Newcastle. Bleak weather has us all huddled under a tent in Civic Park.
We’re talking about music here, Russell, not the inspiration for the Wiggles.
Incidentally, it’s a fact established in natural law that no band whose name starts with “The” can be good.
DI
“you could at least have picked a half-way decent metal band”
You are asking the impossible.
The Mothers of Invention?
@ sg, well there’s still the aspect to which they’ve blotted their copybook so it might be difficult to have things go back to the way they were.
And I wonder what his victim(s?) would have to say about the issue? I can see that awarding him an award for bravery might be hard for them, and if so then he should lose it. As far as I’m concerned he owes everything to the people he harmed – doing the jail time isn’t really enough in terms of repairing the damage he caused.
That said, I still thought it was wrong that he was denied the award just because he had a serious criminal conviction. As I said above, I think a unilateral decision by the state or whoever supplies these awards like this is wrong.
Ok, just saw su’s comment at 46 & 47 – pretty much said what I was trying to say – only better.
Can anyone explain why Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders attend the funerals of every soldier killed in Afghanistan? Presumably there might come a point when they could not attend every funeral.
I don’t think their equivalents attended every funeral during the Vietnam or Second World Wars, so what is the rule or convention they are going by – or is it just ‘do this for now and if the numbers become too big we just drop it’?
sg exhibit A
but then maybe they weren’t animal enough
#62. To sanctify it.
dave, thanks for making my point for me there…
Now that I’ve been freed from moderation at comment 53, you can read my devastating critique, and weep!
pfft metal on the brain! Admiring a metal band for lyrical content? Conversion to a string quartet? Are we serious here?
The things about taste is everyone has it but unlike life and death it is slightly less defined.
SG – thanks for that, I’ve had an evening of being 17 again: THE Easybeats, THE Seekers ….. btw my generation find itself going to funerals where the heartstrings are gently pulled to the sound of that popular choice: “I’ll never find another you”. Lord knows what inappropriate noise will be played when the heavy metal generation starts falling off the perch.
pfft.
The Triffids, The Saints, The Birthday Party
And what is more, The The are pretty good also.
oh dear dave, such reactionary piffle! Check the link at 52, and try your damnedest to pretend to be unimpressed.
furious balancing, really, The Birthday Party?!
Metallica? Too clean. But Faith No More not so much:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgqszSezo0w
About 1:20 in, now that is rock.
Fran’s defence of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in 1958 to 1961 which killed over forty million Chinese people. Blame it on the capitalists:
And people wonder why we need a Mental Health Act.
GregM said:
FTR, I proved that UteMan’s figure was a misreading of the testimony of hiw witness, Braithwaite.
Capitalism was the dominant economic system at the start of the 20th century, and where it was not yet dominant, this was a failure of its organisation. Its contradictions authored World war 1 and its attendant mass slaughter and were key to the effective collapse of governance in Russia in 1917, and the direction subsequent events took. Capitalism backed the White Armies and was thus at the heart of the Civil War. Capitalism’s failures authored the depression, and the rise of f@scism in Germany and military bonapartism in Japan and during WW2 the collapse of governance in China. It was thus responsible for WW2 and for preserving the hold of Stalin over the USSR and for the rise of Mao. There can be no doubt that imperialist hysteria over the threat from China was at the heart of the attempt to occupy Indochina and the subsequent human disasters there. In Indonesia, capitalism backed a regime responsible for about 500,000 murders just in its first few years of power. Likewise its attempts to secure its interests in Middle Eastern oil lie at the heart of brutality across the region. In Latin America, the sub-continent, Asia and Africa, the desire to protect access to resources and to contest the field with the USSR led to support for the most brutal of regimes and movements. By the end of the 20th century capitalism was bombing Iraq, backing a violent and corrupt regime in Pakistan that threatened the use of nuclear weapons against an ally and continuing to back Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine. Its violence in the first decade of the 21st century has also been impressive — escalation against Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan have bought a rich harvest in human morbidity.
So yes — responsibility for “pretty much 100% of industrial scale killing in the 20th century” ought to be lain at the feet of capitalism. It’s a deeply flawed and incipiently violent system. Everywhere it goes, it urges in humans psychopathic responses to problems requiring equitable collaboration. It’s a nasty business indeed.
Unlike you, you mean?
Now you are making stuff up.
That’s hilarious Fran.
To paraphrase: “It is capitalism’s fault, because it wasn’t universal”
Ah, The Mothers, Russell @ 59. A personal favourite of mine, I must say. Zappa parodied the pretensions of metal better than anyone else.
More precisely, it’s capitalism’s fault because it wasn’t a coherent system for meeting human needs. It failed to address key human needs and blundered in places wher it was strongest, authoring war and misery as the solution to its immediate and narrow stakoholder needs.
It is doing much the same on climate change.
I’m gratified Duncan, that you find capitalism’s track record of “achievement” hilarious of course. As always, YMMV.
Anyone else going to the cross-country phase of the Melbourne Equestrian 3DE today? (Fine?) Certified ironwomen and ironmen galloping around jumping jumps the size of houses on superfit horses. Surely beats watching a crowd of them run around and around and around a track (or around and around a track with jumps and occasionally dying in front of you – strangely enough the 3DE set don’t kill their horses very often)
You’re right Jacques de Molay, it’s rock. But it’s not metal, and thus not the pinnacle of human musical achievement. If it’s good enough for Dalton Trombo, it’s good enough for you…
(All this talk of Faith No More reminds me of how good the album with “Mid Life Crisis” on is! I’d completely forgotten them… downloading may have to occur).
Tina Fey’s response to Tracy Morgan, the 30 Rock actor, who made some seriously awful homophobic remarks recently:
ZZZZZZzzzzingggggggggg!
Oh zzzzziiingggggg – SNAP!!
Wonderful woman, I hope I never get on her bad side.
Su@ 46
The quote:
Dalai Lama ‘says bin Laden killing justified’
Fran, I am equally horrified and fascinated by your idea that the disaster of the Great Leap Forward was caused by capitalism, but your explanation @35 doesn’t make any sense at all, so would you care to elaborate?
Speaking of metal, I went and saw Faust on Friday night – at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, no less. And if you want to quibble that it wasn’t metal, it was definitely heavy concrete, what with the cement mixer, chainsaw and sundry avant garde noise. Recent clip here.
If not Faith No More, then Mr Bungle and Fantomas. But I wouldn’t hold Metallica up to anything beyond the 20th century. When a metal band with planet-sized egos hires a band therapist with an ego sized to match, they’re in trouble.
For fully emo poetry and dirty metal to match, Eths of France and Otep Shamaya from the Republic of California. For a critique of modern power structures, how about Prong?
Helen, the last time I went to a 3DE was at Gawler and had the dubious honour of collecting a contestants teeth after a hishap at the sheepyards jump.
A while back, someone here (I think it was “BilB”) posted a link to a new material called graphene — a carbon-derived paper like material with enormous strength and versatility — that people at UTS were working on.
I just came across this at ZDnet:
IBM builds complete circuit from graphene
If this can be fully commercialised, one would think there are very significant implications for IT, communications, and perhaps PV.
MH asked:
Did you read post #72?
Broadly, it’s clear that China needed to industrialise, but as in Russia in 1917, the starting point was essentially a subsistence agriculture society emerging from a devastating capitalist war with a tiny base of disciplined workers with which to build.
Both the failure of capitalism to deliver modernity to Russia and China and of course its role in authoring crippling wars and the near inevitable, in the circumstances, civil wars lay at the heart of the political arrangements post 1917 in Russia and of course post–1945 in China. It was very clear that when China’s ruling elite became discredited that they would, in the first instance, look to their northern neighbour, the USSR, for guidance, support and of course a paradigm. As in Russia, industrialisation was carried on at breakneck speed, and with breakneck consequences in human and environmental terms.
China, is for all practical purposes, now a contemporary bonapartist capitalist regime now muscling up to the West. The brutality of the regime was the overhead that capitalism extracted to build an industrial base capable of competing with the west.
oops … delete which in the last paragraph
Should read:
China
, whichis for all practical purposes, now a contemporary bonapartist capitalist regimeisnow muscling up to the West.[Done - ed]
So capitalism failed to deliver modernity to China after 1911 (?) and this led to the CCP (the ruling elite?, who are different from the ruling elite of the Republican era?) to copy the USSR in the GLF which led to the deaths of 40m people? And now capitalism has delivered modernity to China?
sg @ 53 ..metttallllica are a bunch of pseuds fit only for spotty pouting schoolboys in rich private schools.
Now, for something that actually sounds heavy, unlike mettalika who consisently sound like they have been recorded in a cardboard box in the 19th century, I’d try, say, Mr Drew St. Ivany & The Physic Paramount.
I do agree with you over the Beatles however, absolute shite.
Here’s a new Beatles song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zsL3Pr2tOA
For all you who think the Beatles are shite, I hope your heads explode.
sg @ 25: I read your comments on Tibet and found nothing either informative or considered there. Yours is a common enough view that depends on acceptance of official imperialist CPC propaganda and a deep ignorance of the culture and history of Tibet alongside of apparently zero acquaintance of the DL’s statements (for which see: http://www.freetibet.org/about/statements-dalai-lama)
Your repulsion at the act of prostration is pathetically Eurocentric; prostration is a meditative practice with a long heritage. Your view of it as symbolic of some form of self subordination to greater political or spiritual authority is absurd and totally uninformed. Here’s a personal reflection: long ago, when first expected to bow to a Buddha, figure my Desert Irish body rebelled at the prospect of symbolic subordination to any other. I learned, however, over time and through consulting teachers, that the act of bowing as well as of prostration is a means of honoring one’s own aspirations to best practice of the Five Precepts. I won’t go any further down the path of personal experience and Buddhist thinking for fear of rupturing your Eurocentric parochialism. Suffice to say again, however, that your unreflective contempt of ancient spiritual practice goes to your own mind state, not that of others.
As to Tibet itself being being a pre-modern religious state prior to the Chinese invasion in 1959 I would warrant that there were numerous other nations in the same category at the same time. There still are – witness Iran for one – with the trappings of a parliament alongside religious rule, the absence of any real separation of state and church and brutal oppression of popular dissent. There are other nations in similar straights much more worthy of criticism, in my view, than pre-invasion Tibet or the Tibetans in exile.
My own view is that the real tragedy of current conditions in Tibet under the jackboot of brutal CPC oppression is the loss of cultural knowledge in the wake of targeted Chinese attacks on Buddhist temples, monastic orders and artworks. The artworks in particular were literally ‘mind maps’ for how to achieve very specific mind states. We have lost extremely valuable healing knowledge, as is now widely recognized in the West after engagement by Western scientists of the mind and psychologists, especially in relation to treating mental illness and the regenerative capacities of the mind.
Some references on the latter then: Marsha Linehan’s work on treating BPD and other notoriously difficult disorders derives from Buddhist mindfulness practice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_M._Linehan); the work of neuropsychologist Rick Hanson provide a modern rationalist account of how meditation changes your brain (easily googled).
So, before you dismiss old cultural practices it might improve your cred if you just knew something beyond the limits of CPC propaganda.
Clearly, Beatles detractors can imagine what music would be like if they never existed.
Clever, clever folks.
Katz @92:
Having lived through the fifties, I shudder to think.
But I can guarantee Metallica would never have come into existence.
sg @ 78,
If you haven’t got it I recommend FNM’s last album ‘Album of the Year’ that features these two crakcers from one of their best shows:
‘Collision’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nDam0tTPNc
‘Ashes To Ashes’
Yes, poor FB and AKN,.
85 ought to be comprehensible to the village idiot, in light of the pages Fran thoughtfully included earlier, yet none so blind as those who will NOT see.
Like wise AKN’s comment- what contrast to someof the guff elsewhere contained in this thread.
Fortunately, one observes, a diamond is well contrasted and located, glittering as it does in a surrounding cowpat.
No Stones. No Who. No Led Zep. Hendrix would have lived and died as a sideman for dinner bands.
Clapton would have stayed with the Yard Birds. Cream would never have existed.
Brian Wilson and Neil Young would have stayed off drugs.
No Woodstock.
But on the plus side, skiffle bands would have continued to be huge.
The great Fantomas got a mention I see here they are at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2005 with Frank Zappa’s Terry Bozzio on drums:
I think you’re wrong about the Stones, Katz. (After all, they were contemporary with the Beatles.) However, they would probably have stayed together for a few years playing to hardcore blues fans, then Charlie would’ve gone back to playing jazz, Mick would’ve got a job in the City, etc.
On the up side, Gerry and the Pacemakers would’ve been HUGE!
They would have been the Stones, but not as we know them.
Zorronsky, no teeth lost today. Wonderful horses and wonderful riding!
Yeah Katz, sure, Little Willie John, Bo Diddley and Link Wray, Stockhhausen, John Cage, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, La Monte Young and even Bob Dylan owe everything to the Beatles….yawn…pull the other one, the Beatles were pure showbiz through and through, followers of trends never setters of them, never (ever) innovators. They had a good producer. They all did their best work after the band split up but even then it’s all pretty mediocre. And credit where credit is due: Yoko had far more artistic innovation in her little finger than the “fabulous mop tops” would even remotely have know existed without her
Just think, if the Beatles never existed then we wouldn’t have had to put up with Abba and the Bee Gees.
that’s…. “known existed without her”….
sg @78 a pinnacle of human musical achievement? They and their music are mere shadows of some real talent…followers, not leaders!
“But I can guarantee Metallica would never have come into existence.”
Every cloud has a silver lining.
The Beatles?
A great vocal blend, great tough rock band, great writers, as Nic Cohn says, a perfect closed personal circle. Intelligent, witty, experimental, blessed with good help.
*BUT* the early Beatles is a continuous reminder of how great 50s R’n'b is. Let alone your Coltanes etc. Zappa was mentioned above. He loved doowop. Nothing comes out of a vacuum. There is always something happening, sometimes it’s hard to find.
Metallica? The Americans never understood metal. In fact, there never has been an American metal band. Metallica are a metal band like the Stones are a blues band. They pretend so hard it’s art. But it isn’t real.
Pardon me, I know this isn’t meant to be a serious conversation. But really!
I think you’re wrong, James (although I agree that Metallica are poseurs). Zappa parodied it with the genuine affection that comes from understanding, Faith No More got it (as have all of Patton’s other efforts), Alice in Chains kick arse, and the Dresden Dolls’ rendition of War Pigs has to be seen (and heard) to be believed.
I agree about the Stones, but. Dilettantes, but I still like their early work.
Katz:
This would have been bad because…?
“The Americans never understood metal”… is just cultural cringe. Right up with there with the silly idea the British have that they invented modern pop and rock. Spare me. American and British metal are different beasts, but the idea that one is superior and one is not … it’s just silly. It’s as silly as the notion of Metallica – the band, along with Iron Maiden, who brought metal into serious acceptance in the mainstream – are poseurs.
So many myths by people trying to claim a national character to music. Heavy metal is the pinnacle of musical achievement, and music is a universal language – how then can you try and constrain it within national stereotypes?
I’m sure there’s a native American saying about this…
Been listening to 1920s Delta blues the last week or so. Blind Willie Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt and more. British blues influenced bands like the Stones are said to have shown white (especially) America what black American musicians had achieved so they’re worthwhile as popularisers. But beyond that they’re good musicians. The Beatles were great pop song writers – Brian Cadd on Rockwiz last night said something about writing songs that mean a lot to people – the Beatles wrote lots of songs to which people attached emotional involvement. As for the empty bombast of most metal bands…
my god that was badly written. It’s as if I’ve spent the afternoon drinking beer…
I Came from answers.com.bz If you plug in the byrds vs the kinks you get a different answer.
None of the above music styles would have started if it hadn’t been for Delta Blues.
If you wish to wallow in the sticky egotism of personal choice, feel free.
This discussion is about influence, not arbitrary and self-indulgent and/or embittered measures of “quality”.
Yes, Delta blues were at the roots of rock and pop music. But without rock and pop few people would have heard of Delta blues.
For proof of this, take a look at the biography of Son House.
For gawd sakes, Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” is one of the great metal albums of all time. Of course, the bands reputation has been sullied by subsequent events but there is no denying the power of that album.
As for metal’s “empty bombast” just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean it is empty. Check out Sam Dunn’s documentaries “Metal: A Headbangers Journey” or “Global Metal.” Metal means just a much for many more so than any Beatles’ song.
Remember most metal is silly but gloriously so (i.e the Anvil documentary). But the best metal is amazingly, visceral music. It is not meant to be intellectualised. You feel it with your gut or your genitals (and if really good, both). Leave the brain out of it.
As for Faith No More, the band ceased to exist once Jim Martin left and became just another side band for Michael Patton. Which is why “Angel Dust” is their best album given the tensions between the two.
I’ve enjoyed the dialogue about industrialized cultural production immensely. FWIW: anyone unfamiliar with Adorno’s critique of jazz might like to pause for a moment and follow his train of thought:
Or, in short, better to have an inexpert competence at a 12 bar blues than to be a perfectly programmed consumer of culture.
For some reason the last few published posts all had comments disabled. I’ve fixed that now.
“Looking at how particle jets and subatomic particles like W and Z bosons are created in heavy lead ion collisions compared to lighter hydrogen proton collisions gives us an insight into the conditions that existed in a quark gluon plasma when the universe was just milliseconds old.”….
while this sentance sounds like an early Kevin Rudd press conference
, it is actually pretty damn amazing and another reason to properly fund research science…..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/14/3243341.htm
Eric: yeah I agree. It’s pretty neat to think that we can discover so much about the universe at large from a small blue planet in a tiny galaxy in the middle of nowhere.
Jess your blue planet in a tiny galaxy reminds me of this gem of a moviehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181151/
Sorry didn’t work, try again http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181151/
Why can’t I comment on tigtog’s Hoax Syrian Blogger thread?
Are comments shut on that thread?
Well yes, but what does he tell us about how particle jets and subatomic particles like W and Z bosons are created in heavy lead ion collisions compared to lighter hydrogen proton collisions and how does that give us an insight into the conditions that existed in a quark gluon plasma when the universe was just milliseconds old.
I mean he’s got to have turned his mind to that at some point and he should share his thoughts and conclusions with us.
@Nickws, the comments weren’t shut down deliberately. The last update to WP seemed to set up some commenting glitches, and Jacques just rebooted everything, so they got unglitched but we’d fixed the glitches, so that actually reglitched them once more, and I had to unglitch them again.
Excuse me, feeling a little dizzy now.
“Which is why “Angel Dust” is their best album given the tensions between the two.”
TICK!
Fuck, I’ve missed a doozy here.
AKN, Tig Tog- thanks.
Some of the rest I’m not quite so sure of.
“None so blind, etc”, again.
On music, and especially the Delta blues have a listen to Stack O Lee by Mississippi John Hurt. It’s amazing the full sound they could create with just voice and an acoustic guitar.
(BTW There’s something strange with preview – everything from the link on appears and disappears as I remove and replace characters in the youtube video id – delete the 8 and it comes back, delete the u and it comes back again)
Commuters once again praise the efficient services offered by privatised rail: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/metro-trains-rated-australias-worst-20110614-1g27t.html
Even though Jim Martin never supposedly played on the album? The tensions were so bad between he and the rest of the band at that point Billy Gould (bass) is said to have also played either most of or all of Jim’s guitar parts on Angel Dust.
GregM: you’re being lazy; google Adorno and particle jets and subatomic particles for yourself.
On breaking news: Gillard declines to meet the DL; Tibet sighs in relief. Bob Carr calls the DL a pre-modern witch doctor and the DL resigns his political leadership of Tibet. Ya’ just gotta hand it to the Sussex St mob for sheer political savvy.
BTW: public sector rally against O’Farrell’s knackering of the IRC on today in Macquarie St, 12:15. In union is strength!
FDB, it all started because sg wanted a stoush based on his claim that the Beatles were a shit band on another thread.
Still, some good came out of it, including a lot of nice videos.
Getting back to the stoush… Shaun has it dead right up above, though I disagree about leaving the brain out of it – a lot of the lyrical material metal has produced is vastly superior to the “oh blah di oh blah da” crap of pre-80s pop. And at least metal bands have tried to sing about something other than industrially-manufactured love stories, or paper-thin rebadging of stalking/sexual harassment stories (I’m looking at you, Sting).
But there’s a serious heart in all the entertaining backwards and forwards here, which is what it reveals about Australian preferences in art. Here we have Australians – people from a culture that has never contributed anything to heavy metal – complaining about the “pretensions” of metal, or how a certain band are “poseurs.” And this is why Australia will never produce a band like Metallica, a movie like Star Wars, or a TV show like Buffy. Because Australians are so scared of being seen to be pretentious that all we’re willing to make is pub rock and the odd “gritty drama” (i.e. crap). This is why America is the cultural centre of movie-making and the UK has contributed so much to music – because they take themselves seriously in these endeavours, and are willing to tolerate pretension in order to generate art. Whereas Australians sneer at any effort to do anything more emotionally powerful than Sink the Pink.
Unless of course it’s a traditionalist wank-fest, in which case Australians will gather round to snaffle up the sao. Which is why we hear metal being accused of pretentiousness, while someone like Clapton – or in fact all of the rock genre that he is part of – is lauded as anything but the stale waste of time that it really is. That whole rock scene is just an extended screen grab from a 70s lounge room, where a bunch of guys gather to wank over some pr0n. That’s pre-80s rock in a nutshell – a group of 4 guys masturbating over their shared image of “love”. Metal, 80s pop and the sub-cultural music that followed it changed all that, marvellously for the better.
These movements elevated the musical performance from admiration to real engagement. They turned it from circle jerk outwards to genuine mutual appreciation. They changed the scale of the experience from a chamber recital to a thunderstorm. They also changed the lyrical range, from whingeing about that girl who won’t put out/ reporting on a sexual assault / idolizing a girl to the full range of material covered by poets and writers since the invention of the written word.
Which is precisely why someone posting here can seriously claim that a bunch of guys in jeans and t-shirts, trying their best to do what they love well, are poseurs. And it’s precisely why Australia will never contribute significantly to modern popular culture.
SG, I’d point you at Dave Graney. His whole persona is a massive conceit. We can do pretentious, but we do like to be self aware about it. But maybe your thesis explains the lack of change in ACDC over the years?
And more meaningful lyrics? Most of the newer metal I see now is on rage – the lyrics seem to be mostly ‘I hate my life, I hate you’ and aggressive machismo (I suppose the the Blues lyrical themes were similar with sorrow in place of hate). But perhaps judging Metal by this subset is similar to judging Australian culture by the Top 40.
And Clapton can be boring, he can be good. Most people would probably find him at his most boring when he’s at his most pretentious cf Jeff Beck
paul of albury, I don’t know much about Dave Graney, but I’m not particularly fond of the “self aware” style of pretentiousness. It’s a way of begging forgiveness for your attempts at creativity, and it reinforces the fundamental cultural conservatism of the Australian musical genre. This is why it’s okay to like the fundamentally unlistenable musical experiment that is Frank Zappa, but a prog metal project like Vanishing Point (Australian) would be “pretentious.” Because the former is not taking himself seriously. It’s a cop out. You’re making music here, kids – put up or shut up.
This is why Marillion never took off in Australia. An ungainly, slightly self-conscious Scottish guy prancing around a stage in a naff outfit, singing beautiful songs. wtf? This working class Scottish alcoholic is challenging my masculinity! Something about it doesn’t quite work, even though it’s brilliant, so it’s much better if I listen to some Jagger, because even though it’s not as interesting at least he won’t embarass me in front of my mates. And that’s what most of the history of rock is about – guys proving they’re cool enough to hang around with their mates without crossing any boundaries.
As for modern metal – there’s a strong argument to be made that it’s a failed project. The aggressive machismo, particularly, is a modern misinterpretation of what was happening in the 80s. I think it’s a phenomenon similar to the increasing brutality and extremism that has entered western pr0n.
Incidentally, I’m happy to extend my argument to include the claim that pro wrestling should be treated with the same seriousness as modern dance, and reviewed by the same people in the same forums. The fact that it’s not reflects poorly on the intellectual achievements of the contemporary critical world, not on the worthiness of pro wrestling.
Zappa! Unlistenable!! Those are fighting words, sg.
Since I’m at work, I can’t look up anything that will disprove your ridiculous assertion, but just wait until I get home.
Come on David Irving, of the unrelated persuasion, you can do better than that! Do you think Australian rock is not conservative, or that Australian musical tastes are constrained by a conservative attitude towards self-expression?
Public sector rally: 12,000 in Macquarie St in the pissing rain. A good result.
SG it seems you’re judging Australian cultural tastes by the tastes of Australia’s (commercial) metal listeners. It’s something like judging the Australian electorate by Lindsay, plausible but sells us short. You’re correct about the fear of anything different but I’d suggest other genres of music are far more open to innovation.
It’s about time that Metallica’s lyrics were studied in schools as poetry, along with pro-wrestling instead of dance.
Only a fool wouldn’t recognise the poetry in these randomly selected lyrics:
Head strong, what’s wrong?
I’ve already heard this song before
You’ve arrived but now it’s time
To kiss your ass good-bye
Dragging me down
Why you around? So useless
It ain’t my fall, it ain’t my call
It ain’t my bitch, it ain’t my bitch
I for one am sick of these elitists telling me what and what isn’t good or worf studying.
As to Australian ‘rock’ being conservative, maybe your problem lies in your definitions. ‘Rock’ is by it’s very nature conservative, and Australians produce a lot of innovative music that resides outside your narrow definitions.
yes adrian, we need only look at the critical reception received by Frente to get a clear idea of what happens to Australian bands who innovate outside my narrow definitions. How did the Fast Forward rip-off go? “Accidentally was released,” was the title I think.
They aren’t my narrow definitions – they’re the constraints the Australian music industry places on itself, and that Australian listeners place on music.
paul of albury, I was actually referring to comments made on this thread (e..g about Zappa “parodying the pretensions of metal,” Metallica being “poseurs” and “pseuds” etc.) I imagine the viewing public are far more sympathetic to metal (and, unsurprsingly, pro-wrestling) than some of the people I’m responding to here.
Actually SG, Zappa took himself very seriously – as a serious composer too, to boot. His meticulous attention to skill, craft, and art among the members of his band was legendary. I don’t think you’re very familiar at all with Zappa if you make the claim he was not “taking himself seriously” or a “cop out”.
Fair enough Tyro Rex, I don’t know Zappa well. But I should point out that you can be a serious musician and still not “take yourself seriously.” It’s about presentation of what you’re trying to achieve, I think, as much as the skill underlying it. I think a lot of people confuse being serious about how good you are at your music with being a serious musician in a rock/pop context.
Every time I ever hear anyone talk about Zappa (and the little I’ve heard/seen of him) there seems to be this element of experimentalism about his music (which is good) combined with a kind of jokey light-heartedness which enables people to appreciate the experiment. Maybe that’s just my perception of him and his milieu; but I often hear people criticize, e.g. Pink Floyd as “pretentious” and compare them with Zappa in this vein (often with an added “except for early Floyd, of course” type comment – earlier pink floyd being much weirder and less serious than later Floyd).
Maybe in the case of Zappa it’s just my impression based on those who laud him.
Zappa’s ‘Son of Orange County’ was a superb attack on Nixon with a brilliant brass section. “I just can’t believe you are such a fool…”. Serious, political, meticulously scored rock.
No sg, there are many bands or individuals outside these constraints. Just sounds like you have never heard of them.
Try David Bridie/My Friend the Chocolate Cake/Not Drowning Waving, Darryl Hanlon, Liz Stringer, Don McGlashan, David Lane, or Go-Betweens just for starters.
There’s a coincidence, I just tracked down Wantok Music, which is one of Bridie’s babies I think.
Metallica had nothing on this for style and class.
Wedding date decided.
14 April 2012
Congratulations, terangeree.
sg & adrian @ 143 & su @ 144
see
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/johnnys/2009/12/02/not-paddling-deep-sea-diving-%e2%80%93-20-years-of-george-and-david-guest-post/
for a little more on the less conservative side of Australian rock music
Eric, Yes! – been playing Telek’s West Papua- Freedom for the last couple of days. I’ve been on a search for music I heard a lot of when I was growing up, songs from the Torres Strait, but there aren’t a lot of recordings out there, so Wantok is a real find.
Congrats Terangeree.
Alright, sg, you asked for it.
Unlistenable, my arse.
I’ll take a wild guess sg – I reckon you were born in the mid sixties.
It’s a possible explanation for your myopia re anything pre-80s; you just don’t know what you missed.
Actually, deep down, he does.
Labor going after people on the Disability Pension under the age of 35 along with all new applicants.
Aside from the numerous errors made by the News Ltd hack in the article (supplied dodgy information perhaps?) here is the nub of the piece:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/prove-disability-or-go-to-work/story-e6frea6u-1226075235069
Surely the Greens aren’t going to agree to vote for this next week?
adrian of course there are individuals and bands outside the constraints; the point is that they’re few and not well treated here. Consider, for example, Dead Can Dance, a musical export from Australia that’s probably been heard by as may people as Kylie Minogue. They can’t even tour in Australia very much anymore because their fan base in Oz is so small. This is the price you pay for experimenting. But I bet someone now is going to pop up and say that they’re pretentious and musically illiterate, or something.
And being political is a very narrow yardstick for not being conservative.
Eric’s article also makes my point about the narrow range of expression available to Australian music.
Congratulations Terangeree – will you marry in Japan? And will you be settling here?
Jacques @ 153,
The Abbott Government strikes again. No, hamg on, we’re supposed to have a Labor Federal Government, aren’t we/
Congratatulations, Terangeree. May you both have a long and happy life together.
@153 & 155..yes, more disgusting stuff, I really held out hope for a while cause I was so over the Ruddster, but it just keeps going from bad to worse now.
sg@154 yes there’s quite a bit of good scholarship in cultural studies and related pomo disciplines on Australian “import” culture – we import artistic styles and genres and we resent those who “export” original ideas. The Fairlight CMI is a classic example….the one bit of music technology that completely changed the whole the way music is recorded the world over that we ignored at the time and now forget was Australian…but we endlessly import a commercialised sampling culture.
With DCD, and others, I think Australia has been historically very very good at electronic and experimental music (I am a bit biased here as it’s my area) but that kind of music doesn’t really fit the good ole Aussie larrikin pub rock totally pissed off your head screaming covers into microphone image..so it’s ignored but quietly gets on with it anyway and is recognised just about everywhere but here.
That’s interesting Eric, thanks for the information!
Jacques de Molay @128 Well we know Jim was at least in the studio at the time (or a studio at least).
Matt Wallace does say that he and Gould worked out the guitar parts and Gould play a fair bit of the guitar. Though some of the tracks do sound unmistakably like Martin.
A good excuse to listen to the album again and see if I can hear the difference.
You know, just once I’d like to see someone apply an attitude like the trolls Tigtog mentioned on HAT towards a profession *other* than writing.
“I wanna be a stuntman. How come the people who hire stuntmen won’t let my first stunt be jumping off a skyscraper while setting myself on fire and wrestling a tiger on the way down? I’m sure I saw some established stuntman do that in the movies last month. If they don’t want me to do that straight off, it’s just because I’m not in their little clique.”
“It’s rather like the way dentists can take a drill to peoples’ teeth, cause they’ve got a degree and all so they can do what they like. But if some student picks up a drill, they’ll do you for practicing without a license, they will.”
Apparently, a new Mervyn Peake novel has come out, Titus Awakes. Cobbled together from notes left behind by Peake by Maeve Gilmore (after his death from a progressive neurological disease). but wasn’t that how “Titus Alone” was written? So to me, it would have to be the last. What’s Awakes written from – his old shopping lists? Suspicious, me.
Helen, thanks for that, as a bit of a Peake fan myself I wasn’t even aware of a new novel..does sound dodgy tho.
“Found in an attic” apparently – seems a little too wonderful for me – but then again, the story of Mervyn and Maeve is a bit impossibly cool and romantic, anyway…?
grah! in the absence of an appropriate thread:
I condemn Freesias. Graaaaah!
I also condemn anyone who plants the above anywhere near bushland.
It’s amazing how the landscape is transformed at this time of year by Freesias. Yes, yes, I know – “oh, aren’t they pretty!”, I hear you say.. Sure they are, and so are the dozens of species of native orchids and lilies that are being displaced by these rampant, overly-perfumed little weeds.
Also, Asparagus….if you are too lazy to grow it in your veggie patch and insist on planting it in remnant swamps, have the decency to only plant [non-fruiting] male plants. But really….please don’t plant Asparagus in swamps…it has to be one of the hardest weeds [other than freesias] to manage in native vegetation.
Re the new Titus Groan novel.
Helen,Eric,
I vaguely rememver hearing something about this quite a while ago = a few years ago in fact, in my regular scanning of books pages. In a deqd tree paper I think, so it must have been in the Oz press. Be buggered if I can remember where, though.
Helen, way up thread – I didn’t go to the 3DE at Werribee. Awfully jealous that you went. I have a huge amount of awe for the horses and riders. Such skill and courage.
Years ago I attempted a cross-country course in Ireland. Very slowly and with instructions as to how to handle each obstacle. I was on the is huge Irish hunter; a cross between a Thoroughbred and a Clydesdale, who wasn’t exactly agile, but a huge jump on him. Even with careful instruction, I manage to come off twice. Talk about being overfaced. But, it was great fun and only fell into the thick Irish mud, so it didn’t hurt a bit. The pre-ride whisky helped keep the courage up.
Fine, it was one of those lovely golden winter days, and there are several things which makes the XC day at Werribee park a great day. 1- you kind of wander about at will looking at different obstacles as you want to -it’s such a satisfyingly unstructured experience. 2- Fresh air and exercise. 3 – you get to poke around the Helen Lempriere sculpture garden and have a look at Werribee mansion and all that stuff at the same time – don’t forget the old orchard and the riverside picnic spot. It’s just a great day out if the weather’s nice.
Paul, now I look at the date on the Telegraph article, the manuscript was discovered back in 2009 as the article is Jan 2010. And here I was thinking I was such a fan – never even came across it until A*eb**ks sent me an email about the published book this morning.
Helen @ 167,
That must be it.
re Titus Alone. I seem to remember from the Penguin intro that Mervyn Peake managed to scrawl out the notes etc before his illness got the beter of him; shades of Eugene O’Neill writing Long Day’s Journey into Night while suffering from advanced Parkinson’s Disease. I have nothing but admiration for writers with such devotion to their craft. Such people ultimately make the world a better place and restore one’s faith in humanity – a litle bit.
Well if nothing else this Peake bit of the thread has caused me to order the BBC DVD of Gormenghast which sounds pretty good from the reviews (I have an all region player)..and at $26 including shipping I’d be a fool not to….
Belay that order! I just found it at the ABC shop for $20, so that’s good. Has it been shown in Oz? I don’t have TV.
Eric,
yes. Several years ago. But I think on a commercial channel, which is why I only watched a little bit of it. Must order it myself.