13.4.07

Saying goodbye: Kurt Vonnegut Jr (1922 - 2007)



No doubt you've seen the stories now that Kurt Vonnegut Jr died on Wednesday as a result of injuries sustained in a fall a few weeks ago - this isn't so much about news as saying thanks old man and farewell.

I don't claim to have great insight into the man or his writings - I read many of them in my teens and I'd say that a revisit is well in order as I got the feeling at the time that while I really liked what he had to say (and the darkly satirical and often out there ways he did so), I was missing a lot of things.

I remember being impressed with the way that he managed to create a whole world across his books, with minor (and major) characters bobbing up in unexpected places and this under the surface sense that this was a world quite similar to ours but different in many ways.

There was an interview with him on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show recently where he took these amazing logical twists and turns and was a fascinating guest that Stewart had trouble keeping up with and I highly recommend taking a few minutes to check it out.

Watching: Priceless (Hors de prix)



Priceless is a fluffy romantic comedy about love and money in the jetset coastal resort areas of France. (The Riviera? Monaco?). The two leads - Audrey Tautou and Gad Elmaleh (both hugely popular stars in France)- carry the film beautifully.

The story is simple, Irene (Tautou) is a young woman who is happy to take up with any man who will have her as long as he is able to afford her taste for luxury and Jean (Elmaleh) is a poor waiter/barman in a luxury hotel who Irene initially mistakes for a millionaire. Jean is instantly smitten with Irene and keeps up the facade as long as he can until it all comes tumbling down.

She skips town, he follows, spends his savings to be with her a little longer and somehow falls into the life of a similarly kept man/gigolo. Friendship grows as Irene helps Jean make the most of his new unexpected "career" and as it's a romantic comedy, things take a few more twists from here.

I've already mentioned the performances of Tautou (familiar from Amelie) and Elmaleh (great to watch as a comedic actor) and would also have to throw in the locations themselves as additional eye-candy.

The story is a little edgier than your standard Hollywood rom-com - the behaviour of the two (particularly Irene, the old hand at this game) is perhaps a little unsavoury (but then again, their respective partners seem well aware of the rules of the game) and it makes some pointedly cynical (but funny) observations about love, flirting and seduction along the way.

There's not a bunch of substance to this film but it keeps you interested and chuckling and is a fun watch.

Here's the trailer.

12.4.07

Watching: Keating remixed

Economic rationalism aside, I'm a fan of old Paul Keating - he had a vision and a great talent for giving the bad guys what for.

This video was put together by Red Symons (yeah, Skyhooks & Red Faces Red Symons) from a recent interview where he showed that he's still got it. He described Peter Costello as all tip and no iceberg and John Howard as a dessicated coconut araldited to the (leadership) seat. Bless you Paul, come back any time you hear.

Cutting some slack (for now) : Kevin Rudd




Little by little Kevin Rudd is starting to concern me. Is he more than a slightly more cluey Kim Beazley? The big question I guess is whether he is more than a more palatable John Howard-lite?

A story in The Age yesterday has me wondering. In essence it says that in spite of the fact that Alan Jones has been found to have
broadcast(ing) material on Breakfast with Alan Jones that was likely to encourage violence or brutality and to vilify people of Lebanese and Middle-Eastern backgrounds on the basis of ethnicity

(essentially encouraging the Cronulla race riots of 2005), our alternative Prime Minister has said that


nothing he had read so far about the authority's report had caused him to reconsider appearing on Jones' show.

"In terms of the future appearances (on) Alan Jones' program, there's nothing I've read at this stage that would cause me not to go on," he told ABC radio.


Now I've expressed my feelings on the Cronulla riots before (here) and the disturbing racist/nationalist dogwhistling politics of the Howard government and so I'm not surprised that John Howard might come out and say that Alan Jones is a good bloke. Jones' audience consists of rusted on conservatives who appear to hang on his every idiotic word. (This is a guy who for a long time loudly supported a plan to turn around several Australian rivers to irrigate the dry interior of this country).

Kevin Rudd has a regular spot on Jones' show (one of the highest rating in Sydney) and is known as someone who enjoys and knows how to use the media spotlight so it's understandable that mightn't want to lose a media channel but he (or his advisors) have it all wrong in this instance for a number of reasons:

  • Jones' audience will never turn around and vote Labor

  • People who don't listen to Jones do so because they don't like him

  • Supporting Jones endorses his actions, which many people find distasteful

  • Rudd needs to emphasise the differences between himself and Howard


The final point, that of needing to emphasise the ways in which Kevin Rudd (and a Rudd government) isn't like John Howard and his mob is the most important of all.

In recent times, it hasn't just been the Alan Jones thing that Rudd has been following Howard on. There has been the issue of performance pay for teachers, "clean" coal, maintaining the current imbalance of funding between public and private education - (70% of students use public education but it only gets 35% of federal funding), dropping opposition to subsidising private health insurance and an Australia-China free trade agreement.

Now I'm still prepared to give the ALP and Kevin Rudd the benefit of the doubt here as the removal of the Howard Government from office is a priority. It may well be that Labor is trying to remove as many wedge issues from the debate as they possibly can as Howard is a master of wedge politics (the use of simplified but emotional issues to create division) and Labor is trying to focus as heavily on dissatisfaction with the new Industrial Relations system as they can.

I just get the sense that there is a little too much strategising going on and not enough principled planning. We want to know that things will be done better, not just slightly less worse. We want a West Wing kind of leadership, not a lesser of two evils.

Sucking up to Alan Jones is not what we want.

All is forgiven for now Kev in pursuit of a win at the next election but that had better be what it is actually about and not just being tweedle-dee to Johnny's tweedle-dum.

(Thanks to Certified_Su for the image too, it's great)

11.4.07

Uploading: Cotter camping trip pics

Another busy day in the neighbourhood but I've broken free for long enough to pop up some of the pics from the bike camping trip referred to yesterday. Click the pics to see the full size versions on Flickr









10.4.07

Going: bike camping

The owl and the pussycat
went for a ride
on bikes of purple and black

They went to the Cotter
which wasn't that far
yet further on the way back.

Under stars they did camp
and listened to songs
sung in a voice so divine

There was Cherry Cherry,
Kentucky Woman
and of course Sweet Caroline


Don't have time for a full roundup of the weekend's camping expedition but it was fun - hell, so much more than fun - and I hope to have pix and a fuller roundup soonish.

Got work stuff to do now though :(