When I’m not admiring my many degrees, being superior, dissing journos from TheAustralian, arguing that aliens abducted Marilyn Monroe and took her to a planet where she’d finally get the love and respect she deserved, I like to listen to music from the 1970s. In case you don’t recall, the 1970s were the best decade EVAH (superior blog speak for “ever”) for fashion, music and politics. How could anyone not love flares, Rod Stewart singing “Maggie May” and Bob Hawke in his union leader days. Incidentally, being divorced from the real world is really lovely. Now please excuse me while I get my servant to fetch my slippers, pipe and a copy of TheAustralian.
Hmmm, the cat never does what she’s told.
Anyway, the clip features Marianne Faithfull singing “Broken English”.
It doesn’t seem like all that long ago, but it’s been half a month since we had a good condemn. Although there’s been a bit of condemnation about the Lympics. So it must be time again to condemn. Here’s a twenty fourth open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this month so far? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)
You can condemn anything you like except La Femme Nikita. Well, you can condemn Michael. But not Nikita, Edward Woodward or Coldplay tracks.
[Via The Global Sociology Blog] Here’s something fun for a Sunday evening. This website enables you to select any day of any year going back to 1892 and find out what the top song on the (American) charts was. It’s suggested that you find out what the hit of the moment on your birthday was. Mine’s “Love is Blue” by Paul Mauriat and his orchestra. I don’t know if there are any quasi-astrological influences on your future destiny, but anyway…
On Tuesday 5 August, Australian country music singer-songwriter Reg Lindsay passed on, and in the ensuing few days the papers have been carrying tributes to the man and his music.
In doing a bit of reading for a couple of courses I’m teaching this semester, I was struck recently by the concision with which Mark Deuzepings how mediated so many aspects of our everyday lives now are - and how he deftly places this constant mediation - through email, mobile phones, the intertubes, and so much more - in its sociological context, leveraging off the work of Zygmunt Bauman. Some day, when I have time, I’ll have more to say about that, and there’s lots of nifty academic research - a fair bit from my colleagues at QUT’s Creative Industries Faculty - which is exploring many of the ramifications of everyday mediation. Loath as I normally am as a sociologist to believe the new new anything really is fundamentally new under the sun, I am starting to be convinced that a shift in the conditions of our everyday lives is taking place, though I’m totally unconvinced by claims that it’s “dumbing us down” or whatever.
We featured some of Marcus Westbury’s commentary on cultural policy here at LP around the time of the 2020 summit. Here’s a guest post which originally appeared at his blog - it’s the text of a talk he gave to a forum on “Creative People” organised by the Department of Culture and The Arts in Perth as part of the process they’re undertaking of developing a policy framework for Western Australia.
One of my obsessions at the moment and the focus of the next series of Not Quite Art is our changing cultural geography. By that I mean how the cultures that we are exposed to, that influence and obsess us are circulating in the world.
Currently, along with all the other festivals that are no doubt happening at the moment, Melbourne is hosting the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). Films worth seeing during MIFF include Persepolis(fans of Marjane Satrapi’s gorgeous graphic novels should make sure to see that flick). Since I already possess the DVD, I won’t bother forking out to see Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, but if you haven’t seen this Australian, ahem, classic, it’s a nice night’s entertainment. The other day, I saw Rock ‘n’ Nerd, which was an interesting insight into the career of Tim Minchin. Since deciding to change his image from that of a talented nice Perth boy with short curly hair to that of a talented nice Perth boy with a messy mane, Minchin’s career has gone from strength to strength. Rock ‘n’ Roll Nerd shows all the stresses and joys that go with being an increasingly popular singing satirist piano playing dude. The YouTube video features Tim performing “Dark Side”, a song about trying to be deep because you’re girlfriend wants you to be deep, even though you’re not deep at all.
Update: Fans of Summer Heights Highplease note that August 10 is Sorry Ranga Day. “Sorry, Ranga”. (Sorry Ranga Day is an initiative of ABC Commercial).
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
I’m still a bit pressed for time, what with the phd thesis - second draft now under construction - and the first week of semester, but I did manage to sample a bit of the Brisbane Festival goodness last week, going to two gigs on Tuesday night. Deborah Conway and Willy Zygier were, as expected, totally brilliant, and Feasting on Flesh was a fine piece of burlesque cabaret. (It’s on til Saturday if anyone wants to go.)
There are a lot of really neat ideas in the planning of the festival this year - including quite a few free events in the burbs, and the rather interesting idea of hosting bands in people’s backyards. That’s a nice way - along with the Spiegeltent in Queens Park - to make it a bit more of a genuine festival than just having people traipse off to headline theatre and dance performances at QPAC. I wish I had more time to enjoy more of it.
In honour of World Youth Day (doubt any “youth” read this blog, but what the hell), and just because a little music on a Friday night is nice, here’s a clip of Jennifer Warnes singing “The Song of Bernadette” from her wonderful Famous Blue Raincoat album.
If we took a holiday
Took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life
It would be, it would be so nice
It’s school holiday time (which doesn’t - obviously - mean parent holiday time!)… I’m due to submit the first draft of my PhD thesis on Friday some time (possibly late-ish). The marking’s all done. The conference is over. But that wonderful thing called semester starts up again on the 21st. And I don’t have either the time or the money to take my preferred break - which was going to be an intertubes-less week in a cabin by a beach somewhere reading books, followed by a week of partay-ing in Sydney or Melbourne, followed by a week back in Brisneyland under the doonah. So give me some vicarious holiday goodness! Do we get enough holidays? What do we do when we take them? Are we ever away in a wired world?
So, it’s over half way through June and time again to condemn. Here’s a twenty first open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this month so far? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)
You can condemn anything you like except vintage Blondie. The track is “Rip her to shreds” from their eponymous 1976 debut lp.
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
As for me, I’m over-writing “Lazy Sunday” as it’s anything but for me. I expect to be up to the early am hours tomorrow getting the first draft of my thesis into a shape I’m happy to submit to my supervisor. So while everyone else is more than welcome to post on their weekend doings, I thought I’d share some photographic insights for the benefit of any other research students out there - Mark’s tips on how to finish a PhD dissertation!
#1: Use the tried and true yellow post-it note method for the citations and references you need.
#2: The dietetics of thesis completion are as important as the dialectics. Stock up on a nutritionally varied range of stimulants.
#3: While prayer and/or meditation may be important aids to writing, ensure that candles are not lit next to piles of books but remain symbols only.
As you might know, Leonard Cohen is warbling his way through a world tour at this very moment. No word on Australian dates as yet, but here’s a little Leonard to, umm, brighten up your Sunday. The video is for the song “Democracy”. I heart Leonard.
All the standard info is here and here. The country’s official website is here. But I’m still not finding anything that explains Azerbaijan’s entry in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest!
Sadly, Dustin the Irish Turkey will not be taking the Eurovision Song Contest final stage tonight, after being eliminated in the semi-finals. But there’s still plenty to look forward to - awful Europop, truck-drivers key changes by the bucketload, hosts who can mangle an autocue in two languages, and some fairly bizarre pieces of surrealist theatre to accompany the inane tunes.
After making the sacrifice of sitting through both semi-finals, I can inform you that the only half-decent song amongst them this year is the French entry, “Divine”:
Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
In doing a bit of reading for a couple of courses I’m teaching this semester, I was struck recently by the concision with which 
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