The radio that you listen to in the morning often sets the tone of your day. I've been through various stages, from the light classical of Classic FM (wonderfully gentle way to wake up but they do tend to prattle a bit between songs) to JJJ (Adam and Will, not the current jokers) and RRR/PBS (Melbourne's finest), finally settling on my very own 2XXfm. (Which is always diverse and interesting)
The PussyCat on the other hand likes a bit of NewsRadio first thing and so for the last week or so this has been the station of choice and I have to say, for an info junkie like me, it's pretty damned good.
NewsRadio is exactly what you would expect, wall-to-wall news. No ads, the bare minimum of station promos, just news bulletins on the quarter-hour with traffic, weather, sport and finance tacked on. (In the morning at least).
In between all this, they manage to sandwich in at least one more in-depth look at the story of the minute, so while you might think it could get a little repetitive, there's enough variety to keep you listening. (It's generally a different in-depth story each time).
There are occasional technical hiccups, which you would expect on a station that doesn't stop talking (they usually involve stories not starting on cue), but these are always handled smoothly. (These are encouraging for a community radio hack like me as it shows that it's more about how you handle them than the fact that they happen at all).
NewsRadio is also the station that broadcasts Parliament when it is sitting and looking on the website, I see that they also have podcasts of Questiontime available.
Cold Chisel featured some great performers and songwriters (Jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss and Don Walker) but massive overplaying on commercial radio and wholehearted adoration in bogan (i.e redneck/white-trash) circles has meant that they don't get their dues today among "hip" types.
I grew up in outer suburbia at the time of their success and might come back to my varied (sometimes snobby) love/hate relationship with the band another time but lets just say that my ears pricked up when I read that a bunch of Oz music notables were putting a tribute/cover album together.
Rising Sun (The Living End) - the original has a certain rockabilly quality to it but The Living End really emphasise this - perhaps over-emphasise it. When they do their rockabilly thing, you get the feeling that they only have two or three basic songs in their repertoire. It's a lively song none the less.
(I've added a YouTube video of this track at the bottom)
Standing on the outside (Dallas Crane) - you get the sense that Dallas Crane are in many ways the inheritors of the pub rock crown from Cold Chisel, it's different but the same. Singer Dave Larkin puts all the passion and scratchy-voicedness into this song that he can muster.
This is the song that I've had floating around my mind for the last few days, particularly the line "I had a friend broke through illegally, pulled a job on a small-town TAB, five grand down on his own little piece of Eden". This comes back to my appreciation of the fact that Chisel songs seem to be more grounded in real life (and not how hard it is to be a musician on tour).
Forever now (Pete Murray) - a slightly updated version that keeps the basic feeling but centers around Murray's voice. I'm less of a fan of these pretty-boy singer types than most, it's nice enough I guess but is neither far enough away or close enough to the original to really impact
No sense (Ben Lee) - sounds like more of a new song, but in a good way. I've always had some kind of respect for Ben Lee though. For some reason this sounds like it might have been a Crowded House song circa 1987. Highlights the strength of the song writing and doesn't sound like a vehicle for Lee as much as Murray's one.
Water into wine (Evermore) - A Chisel song from their comeback album (The Last Wave of Summer) that I really haven't listened to so it's interesting to examine it as a song in it's own right. Not being able to compare it to the Chisel delivery is a shame though, as while the structure of the song feels right, the delivery is a little wussy. Don't really know that much about Evermore either. Overall, it's a little soft. Nice but soft.
My Baby (Thirsty Merc) - Respectful and lively version with some funky keyboard and nice fat fuzzy guitar, vocals very Barnesesque (without the rasp). I've had an image of TM as a bit of a JJJ band, somewhat inoffensive but maybe I'll give them a go. (I welcome the return of keyboard to rock)
Khe Sanh (Paul Kelly) - As a bit of an alternative Oz anthem, this would be a daunting task for most bands so it makes sense that it was handed over to an equally iconic Oz muso in Paul Kelly. He puts a slight bluegrass/country spin on it - which is interesting, it's hard to ever dislike a PK song really and I guess it's nice to hear the lyrics a little more clearly on this one. The lyrics still hold their power, in spite of nearly three decades of maniacal thrashing from commercial radio. This is the song (above all others) that has given Chisel their bogan associations - my image is of redfaced drunk guys with arms around shoulders half singing half shouting this one.
Bow River (Troy Cassar Daley) - Troy gives this song a distinctly (and unsurprisingly) stripped back country sound, in some ways it seems a little slow but he's made an effort to make the song his own. The rockier nature of the original makes this song suffer a little in comparison, I generally don't mind a little bit of country but it seems to lack a little passion. The use of banjo on two songs in a row distracts a little too.
Saturday Night (Grinspoon) - Grinspoon launch themselves headlong into this song with an enthusiasm that puts a smile on the face, trying to outdo Barnesy in the sing/screaming stakes but there's a slight desperation in the over-the-topness of the track which seems to miss the slightly laid back sense of cool that came from the original. The vocals behind the main lyrics just seem slightly strained, like they are the class swots desperately trying to impress teacher. Definite points for energy and balls-out cheesy guitar.
Hound Dog (You Am I) - Putting aside my You Am I issues for a moment (I get what they are doing, it's just not quite the sound for me), I'm impressed with this take on a less well known Chisel track. (Which I guess is the kind of track you would choose if you were trying to be a little cool about it all). It's true to the sound of the original but has updated the rock sound a little (mainly in stripping back some of the guitar flourishes and throwing in a little more distortion).
Listening back to the Chisel original though really emphasises the power and emotion that Barnes is able to put into his voice. One comparison that popped into my mind (a little surprisingly I might add) was Kurt Cobain. Tim Rogers by comparison sounds a little too proper and pronounced, like he learnt how to sing this song at a rock finishing school. (But as I say, Hourly Daily aside, not such a You Am I fan)
Choir Girl (Katie Noonan) - As this song started, I was cringing, it just seemed so out of whack and so much more like a vehicle for Katie Noonan's (impressive) cocktail lounge stylings. It's just her and a sparse piano backing and just at the point when I thought it was definitely going all wrong, the goosebumps kicked in. It seemed as though the rhythm and phrasing were completely out but somehow she manages to hold the notes/lyrics and/or pauses until the last possible moment before they would be wrong and make them even more powerful than the original.
For a song about a girl going in for an abortion, it makes a real difference to hear it sung by a woman and each line has added oomph and meaning. Beautiful.
You got nothing I want (Alex Lloyd) - I was a little surprised by Lloyd's version of this at first. It's an energetic country jam which kind of springs on you after you have been lulled a little by Katie Noonan's Choir Girl. At first, you just think WTF? but then you realise that this approach to what was originally a relatively shouty rock song actually works quite well. It clearly suits Lloyds voice much more than a faithful cover of the original would have and it becomes kind of fun. The instrumentation kicks along as well and really complements the vocals.
When the war is over (Something for Kate) - Twenty plus years of rock/pop history are on display right from the opening line of this version, Paul Dempsey's near whisper butts up against a very 80s "everybody sing" harmonised take on it that you just couldn't do in rock these days. (Well of course you could, it's just that noone does). This version again pays its respects to the original but creates a much thicker, rockier sound where the vocals aren't as prominent but still generate a similar level of emotion. It misses Ian Moss's soaring guitar and Don Walkers understated keyboards but hacks out its own uniqueness.
Four Walls (The Waifs) - another lesser known Chisel track, this one is again fairly true to the original. What is the frackin' obsession with banjo is one question that pops into my mind though. A little bit of a nothing track I'm afraid to say, very stripped back, the singer sounds a little tired perhaps and the plinky backing is a little distracting. I actually tend to tune out when listening to this one.
Cheap Wine (Shane Nicholson) - You often find that when someone puts a tribute album like this together, they take the opportunity to put themselves (or some friends) on amongst all of the other more impressive acts, often cherrypicking one of the bands more popular songs. This track has this feel.
Shane Nicholson's main claim to fame appears to be as a member of Kasey Chambers band and the mixture of his slightly insipid whiny vocals with the twangy country style slide guitar call out for the attention of whitebread adult oriented rock radio stations that still find the original a little too rocky.
Shipping Steel (The Flairz featuring Dave Larkin) - Another lesser known Chisel song but a good rockin truck driving one. As it begins, the guitar is promising but the vocals seem a little off - like a girl rock band but a little tamer perhaps, a little unconvincing. Dave Larkin (Dallas Crane) chimes in to strengthen up the chorus with but the contrast between his rockin vocals and the lead vocals is too much. The guitar and drums drive the song fairly well, even with it's slight tendency towards cheese.
Now because I haven't heard of these guys either I was on the verge of putting them into the above category of (possible) friends of the producer/label but I just googled them and damned if these guys aren't talented little bloody overachievers. A West Australian band consisting of 3 x 14 year olds who released their first EP in 2004. Bearing this in mind, it makes more sense now - it's not a girl on vocals, it's a teenage boy. This song is a brave experiment and it'll be interesting to see where the band goes (other songs on their MySpace page are interesting/cute). I get the feeling that this may still be a favour to the label but how can you knock the kids really.
Janelle (Augie March) - This song has been one of my favourites for a long time and I've also been an admirer of Augie March for a while now (though the sameness of recent efforts and onstage antics/sulkery have put me off a little) so I was particularly interested to hear this version.
The good news is that Augie March have done a nice job - it is perhaps a little overdone at the start, the original begins with a lonely feeling of sitting listening to the blues in a darkened bar at 1am and then builds in intensity whereas this one peaks sooner but overall the emotion is there and the song doesn't just sound like any other Augie March song. They've added bits to it, I can't explain why but a visual that I get is a gypsy caravan or perhaps the Speigeltent, something vaguely circusy anyway. Keeping the keyboard was a must and adding something accordionlike works pretty well.
Flame Trees (Sarah Blasko) - This starts well (there's something about Sarah Blasko's voice that is kind of hot) but before long you get the sense that this version is just a little too melancholy, a little too reflective. There is certainly a sense of nostalgia tinged with sadness in the original (which is why it is one of the most beautiful and popular non-rockin Chisel songs) but also a sense of movement, which just doesn't quite come across in the Blasko version. By the time it does ratchet the pace up a notch, it's too late.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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)
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
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.
I've been working on a video project for uni using this clip that is pretty durned cute - thought that it might be worth sharing with the world.
I've tagged it with cute, cats, cat and cheetah - why do I get the feeling I'm going to get so many more hits on this than any other video I've put up? :)
Georg Dreyman is a highly regarded playwright and loyal socialist who (perhaps unfortunately) is in love with a beautiful actress - Christa-Maria Sieland - who the Minister of Culture has a major thing for. Being a right bastard, the Minister calls on his connections in the much feared Stasi (the secret police) to dig up some dirt on Dreyman to put him out of the picture.
This job falls to the talented and loyal Hauptmann Wiesler, who gets to know the couple well in the course of his surveillance of them.
(I won't go into further detail here but I'm sure you can see we have the beginnings of an interesting, chilling and yet beautiful tale)
Here's the trailer.
I've had a bit of a fascination with East Germany for a while now - as the communist state which I feel I can most closely relate to on a cultural level, it's interesting to get some kind of idea of what life might have been like in a place removed from corporate domination and materialism gone mad. (Not to say that what it was replaced with worked any better given the need to use fear and coercion to keep it running of course).
The idea of privacy and particularly of losing it to a faceless and repressive state system has come to the fore in recent years, particularly as a result of the war against terror which has seen the creeping up of more and more invasive and repressive state powers in the name of 'security' and the slow erosion of long held principles of law.
Anti-"sedition" laws (which in essence can criminalise making disparaging remarks about the Government or monarchy), extensions on surveillance powers and the ability to hold 'suspects' for extended periods of time without charge and making it a criminal offence to tell anyone (even family) where you were or why you were there when you are released point to a potentially frightening future.
These haven't been turned on the general population yet, for the most part, however the mere fact that they are available to the powers that be is somewhat chilling should these powers fall into the wrong hands.
The Lives of Others takes us directly into a world just like this - though it was interesting to see at times how systematic and bureaucratic such a system might be. After the Stasi agents methodically search Georg's apartment, cutting open cushions and such, the lead officer hands him a card telling him that "In the unlikely event that we have caused any damage, you are entitled to put in a claim for compensation".
Performances across the board are compelling (the Minister is particularly creepy and Ulrich Muhe puts so much across with just a stare), the music and photography is beautifully bleak and while the story leans a little toward the classy Hollywood drama at times, it's gripping and moving.
I've read complaints that it makes the Stasi guy too sympathetic and that things were never like that and there are no documented accounts of such things - these people seem to be missing the point. At it's heart, it's a story about people that happens to be set in East Germany in the 1980s. The time and location are pivotal parts of the film but it's still mainly about people.
Goodbye Lenin! it's not - it's pretty much the other side of that coin - but it still holds a similar level of fascination. (Goodbye Lenin! is a great film in it's own right but it's a comedy and doesn't really touch on the dark side of things)
One of the favourite issues that comes up seemingly every few weeks on tabloid tv current affairs programmes is that of speed cameras and how the government is doing you, the otherwise law-abiding speeding driver, wrong.
The ethical twists and turns that these programmes take in coming out and slamming people for breaking other laws (parking in disabled spots, scamming Centrelink, lying to dodge speeding fines) while simultaneously crying out that speed cameras are nothing more than revenue raisers for greedy governments and promoting ways to "beat the speed camera" are absolutely breathtaking.
A Current Affair last night got just a little obsessed with this, running three related stories back to back.
They began by talking about a new speed camera system being introduced in Victoria that uses two separate cameras located at a certain distance apart that calculate the average speed that you must have been travelling between the two to figure out whether you slowed down for the camera but then sped along to the next one.
Now let's put aside for a moment the slightly scary prospect of CCTV like surveillance of every car on the roads and look at the stated intent of the system - to prevent speeding and to avoid the common practice of drivers only obeying the law because they are afraid of being caught.
They even drag in a motoring journalist to make this point and in the process, trivialise it and perhaps even try to put some kind of near national pride spin on it.
"Slowing down at speed cameras then speeding up is almost a national sport. These cameras will certainly stop people doing that," Cadogen said.
The ACA journalist then got obsessed with the notion that a driver could whiz past the first camera at 200km/h and then stop by the side of the road, take a little rest and drive past the second camera at a legal speed and not get busted.
I'm not going to get into how many different kinds of stupid this idea is but our hero just couldn't let go of it when he was talking to one of the traffic cops implementing this new system. It was like he had uncovered Watergate, found the stained blue dress and shot video footage of John Howard getting jiggy with Amanda Vanstone all in one, such was his level of excitement.
Eventually traffic cop admitted that this was possible but there are still road patrols and whatnot to deal with such anti-social types. The reporter then realised that he was probably being a tool and quickly moved on.
ACA followed this up with the standard stats on how much money is raised and how many fines are issued by each state every year (neglecting to put it into any context whatsoever - such as what proportion these make up of car trips, how many accidents are prevented, where the money goes etc) in some kind of bizarro attempt to say that punishing motorists for breaking the law is bad.
This is the same genre of tv that routinely cries out that criminals across society (well ok, mostly petty poor ones - heaven forbid we look into corporate/advertiser crime) aren't treated harshly enough and punishments need to be jacked up all round.
Personally, I don't give two hoots if there is a speed camera on every street at 20 metre intervals if that slows drivers down. Let governments raise all the money they need this way and put it into providing services for the community.
Another argument put by the anti-speed camera mob is that speed cameras fail in their purpose of slowing down traffic (to the legally prescribed limit) because drivers just slow down when they see them and then speed up again. ACA got all riled because the South Australian government (I think) was deceptively hiding speed cameras in wheely bins, fruit crates and bushes. (Interestingly, SA had the lowest revenue raised from speeding fines - connection there perhaps?)
The purpose of a speed law is to create safer roads - the purpose of any law is to create a safer society. If you only obey a law because you are worried about being punished, then you should accept the consequences of breaking that without bitching and moaning. You make a decision and you own it.
Again, I say put them bloody everywhere and see how much traffic slows down once speeders have received half a dozen fines and the message finally sinks in.
Actually, if revenue raising is such a horrible thing, change the system entirely - give community service orders to all speeders (as well as demerits). This would benefit society even more and teach people even better lessons. (Of course, the costs of administering this is another matter I guess)
They finished up with their favourite piece on people who have challenged speeding fines in court and won - one guy because his GPS said that he was (conveniently) only doing 59 in a 60 zone (he had been charged with going 85 and the other raising the more valid question of the accuracy of some of the handheld speedguns.
Ok, so if there are legitimate problems with the equipment, it's fair that these should be pursued and rectified. At the same time, these people have spent thousands of dollars to get out of fines in the hundreds of dollars and clogged up hours and days of court time. These people weren't actually called heroes but this is how they were portrayed. I wonder when the next story on "our failing legal system - how a clogged up court system affects us all" will go to air.
No mention in this story of Justice Marcus Einfeld, who (alledgedly) tried to get out of a $77 speeding fine by claiming that the car was being driven by a woman friend of his who turned out to have died three years earlier. (He later claimed that he was talking about another friend of his with the same name) I guess this didn't quite fit into the heroic category. (I assume they have covered his story at some point but can't find anything online - I wonder what angle they took in this case. It's ok to speed but wrong to lie about it?)
Wow, I had no idea this bugged me so much - I'm not saying that I think all laws are right and that we should blindly follow the ones that don't benefit society - in fact I think we have some kind of duty to society to constantly work on our system of justice - but speeding laws seem like the wrong place to start.
Jumping on people for parking in disabled spots (morally wrong sure and illegal but not so dangerous) while trying to encourage people to weasel around speeding is just wrong.
My rock buddy Jo made it up to Sydney on the weekend for the V Festival and sent me this wrap up email - it's too cool and too funny not to share. Thanks Jo (you lucky cow ;)
Phoenix and Nouvelle Vague playing as we arrived - never thought I'd hear 'Dancing With Myself" and "Too Drunk To F*ck" done as a bossa nova, but surprisingly entertaining.
New York Dolls - what can I say ? Glam punk pioneers, and poster boys for the long-term cosmetic benefits of a life time on the junk (c.f. Kim Deal, infra.). David and I actually screamed out loud at the horror, the horror, when David Johansen took off his sunglasses. And then his jacket. We both vowed that we'd have to leave if any other items of clothing were removed, but thankfully were saved that particular ordeal. All killer, no filler!
Gnarls Barkley - terrible sound quality, but a testament to the sheer joy one can get from bands who persist in wearing ludicrously over the top fancy dress. Sadly, they may never again reach the giddy heights of the entire band being dressed as Star Wars characters (Chewbacca on drums was uncannily like Animal from The Muppets). This time it was lovely crisp tennis whites and enormous sweatbands - Centre Court at Wimbledon generally an underrated motif in band costumery, although I guess Mark Knopfler was the pioneer of the dubious headband - will we ever come to grips with his horrifying legacy?!
Jarvis - living, breathing proof that skinny blokes in National Health Service specs can still get the girls (and boys) whipped into a complete frenzy. Best between song banter since Turbonegro - played his set just as the sun was going down, and said "ooh, it's about to get all atmospheric. You'll be able to touch each other". And lots of jokes about the French, always guaranteed to get a laff. Final song, of course, a rousing rendition of The C*nts Are Still Running the World. Not a dry eye in the house.
Beck - all the hits'n'memories from the world's most winsome Scientologist. And puppets! And a Pixies cover - crazy!
Pixies - Black Francis as surly as ever. Kim Deal off the junk and clearly on the pies, and has started dressing like the mum of one of your mates. And yet despite that, fully rockin' .
Groove Armada - totally fun. Gloss taken off the show a tad as a result of copping a stray couple of punches at the end when a skirmish broke out between two testosterone fuelled boys fighting over an inflatable ball - kids, eh?! Sporting quite the shiner today, but nothing that a spot of Siouxsie eye make up can't fix !!
Pet Shop Boys - we were second from front! Genuinely surprised at how tremendous they were. When we got home, Barry downloaded all of the concert pics from his phone, and a few little video snippets taken during their set. Pretty much all you can hear is me singing loudly and incredibly badly, interspersed with the occasional piglet-y squeal. Just be thankful that I was so restrained during Groove Armada ! So impressed that we've all bought tickets for their show at the Hordern next Friday - yay !!
(I'm just impressed to see what I think is correct legal citing in a music review - something sadly lacking in the rock press in general)
There is virtually no furniture in our shared space at Chez Ridley that was bought new - with the exception of the bookshelves, tv (is a tv furniture?) and a beanbag, everything is second hand and has either come from family, friends, previous housemates or Aussie Junk. (Aussie Junk is a great tip based recycling shop - they even extend this philosophy to their website, reusing one from 1997 - right down to marquee text)
While some may think that this just cements the mild squalor of share-house life, I like the sense that it lessens our eco-footprint a little and it brings a certain eclecticism to the mix.
(I also suspect that my parents - uh, thrifty is a nice word I guess - ways have rubbed off on me to some extent)
There's a certain thrill to the hunt when you score something second-hand, particularly when you are out looking for it (not looking is even better) and stumble across something that you need. I've known some people who couldn't imagine having everything but the newest and shiniest and I wish them well in their identical, treeless suburban estate lives.
Back in Melbourne, hard rubbish day (usually 3 or 4 times a year) was always a great time to just wander the streets and pick through parts of people's lives that they've decided to leave behind. It's a bit like walking through a contemporary antiques shop in some ways. (I haven't been to many but the thing I like about antiques shops is the sense of being in a musuem, but one where you can pick everything up and where you have more of a sense that everything has some story to it)
There are whole subcultures dedicated to making use of the things that other people have discarded - the French film The Gleaners & I is a beautiful celebration of this. (It also makes the interesting point that this is the foundation of a lot of post-modern sampling culture).
All of this is my (probably longwinded) way of saying that I'm quite the fan of Canberra's hard rubbish day equivalent - Second Hand Sunday. (SHS)
Second Hand Sunday works on the principle that you register your address on a website a few days beforehand and then a complete list of participating homes (ie people hoping to throw out their old, still usable crap) gets published in the Sunday paper. (The government doesn't follow through with picking up the leftovers as you get with hard-rubbish day but nevermind, points for effort anyway).
PC (I'll spare you the explanation of the no doubt nauseatingly cute pet names for now) and I stumbled across a few things on the way to brekky yesterday morning - notably a low-set lounge chair and stereo setup - and I remembered that it was indeed SHS. Fortunately PC shares my love of a spot of gleaning and plans were made to go a-foraging.
Now there's a little strategising to be done with a hard-rubbish day / second hand sunday - you might think initially that the primo locations would be the well heeled areas - in Canberra that would be places like Yarralumla, Red Hill, Griffith, Manuka and Campbell perhaps but the thing is that rich people tend to get that way by being a little on the stingy side.
Aspirational is where it's at - particularly people moving into shiny new homes in big estates who are gradually upgrading all of their old stuff to keep up with the neighbours. Areas around Belconnen and Tuggeranong were very well represented in the listings in the paper - kudos to Kambah in particular for their community spirit in being by far the most enthusiastic participants.
Hippy-esque left leaning university type suburbs were also a nice source of goodies - at least on first impressions anyway. (O'Connor, Turner, Ainslie etc)
Long story short, here is a sampling of the haul. (SP did some nice work with some tupperware, tins and a bananas-in-pyjamas knitted coathanger as well)(There is also a pretty nifty ergonomic chair in the haul but I've always found them a little odd so that quickly disappeared into Eric's room)
Highlight for me (our loungeroom is crying out for comfortable chairs - aside from my pride of place Aussie Junk recliner rocker, it's a challenging place to sit) was this baby - a little ratty at the front end but nothing that a bit of fabric won't fix up.
We've been on the lookout for an amplifier for quite a while, so finding this combo of a record player, speakers and amp was quite the treat.
Of course, sometimes things are left out for a reason and while the speakers seem pretty useful, the record player quickly showed itself to be a little iffy - unless of course you like the (random) variable speed thing.
My attempts to pull it apart and see if there was anything obviously the matter was I think the main part of the problem in terms of things getting worse.
Well it was either that or my choice of test album (thanks Electric Pandas)
The amp is offering it's own particular challenges - the times it worked (so far just in one speaker or the other) it has sounded great but the more I've tinkered, the worse it has gotten. (So obviously, more tinkering is in order there)
I just happened to glance at a 50 cent coin that was sitting on my desk last night and I was transfixed by what appeared to an image of a woman whipping a bird.
There is a long (and proud, apparently) tradition of using our 50 cent coins in Australia to celebrate various significant events (uh - like the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana) - mainly because it's our largest coin and being twelve sided (a dodecagon, if you were wondering) I guess it's not distinctive enough already.
(Click on the image for a full size view)
At first I thought it was a nice (if not slightly random) collage of sporting images mixed up with images of native fauna - only after a bit of looking did I realise that it actually represents traditional Victorian events revived for the games.
Obviously, there is our most proud tradition, the bird whipping event. It is an event based on free expression and with roots to the earliest days of European occupation of this country - originating in farmer frustration with drought. Points are given for speed and accuracy but primarily for "making the whip sing".
This shouldn't be confused with a similar event - the bird teasing event. A gentler event in many ways, this consists of tying a small piece of bread to the end of a piece of string at the end of a stick and using it to lure a bird to walk around the "teaser" in delicate patterns. Points again for speed, time before the bird gets bored and flies away and how high up you can make the bird stretch.
(To be honest, I'm not entirely sure which of these two events is depicted on the coin so I thought I should cover both)
Directly above this is the "Chase an emu while walking like an Egyptian) event. This is relatively new sporting event in Australia, designed to celebrate a proud tradition of multiculturalism in Victoria and acknowledge our indigenous history. (It serves a secondary purpose of winding up Howardists in the federal government how want to abolish multiculturalism and wish that Aborigines would just go away).
To the right of this is a complicated event - the "Frog pretend". You will notice that it is the job of the athlete at the top to put themselves in a position judged by a panel of frog scientists to be the most similar to a frog hanging onto a stick. The origins of this sport are shrouded in mystery and it is assumed, clouds of smoke.
Below this is a depiction of basic kangaroo safety. If you are sitting and sense that a kangaroo is jumping on you from the sky, assume the crash position by leaning forwards and resting your arms on the seat in front of you.
Finally, we come to the swimming event. This is essentially the same as competitive swimming around the world but in Australia, we add an element of nature to the programme by having each swimmer compete with a platypus. Games and world record times are only validated if the swimmer is also able to best the platypus - only fair considering that humans are much larger than them.
Curiously, there is as yet no information about any of these sports to be found on Wikipedia (or even Conservapedia). This is disappointing but perhaps just serves to highlight how truly unique these events are to Melbourne.
Another distinctly Australian quality to the games is that (particularly in the Frog pretend and Chase an Emu events) some of the athletes portrayed are actually doing a fairly mediocre job of it. Heroic failure is a cornerstone of Australian history (Burke and Wills, Gallipoli) and something celebrated to this day. (Australian Idol)
We were watching SBS News last night (Australia's best - and therefore most important and depressing - source of world news) and Jelena asked why there is such an obsession with David Hicks in Australian news. (There had also been an update on Dateline preceding it)
Her overall point was certainly a valid one - that this is just one guy but because he is Australian, hours and hours and hours of airtime and miles of print are dedicated to him but at the same time, who knows half of anything at all that is going on in South America. (Apart from Hugo Chavez perhaps.)
I had to think about this for a bit but I think that there are a few main reasons for this.
It's easier and more engaging to hang a story on a person than a set of ideas
The war on terror and particularly the whole debacle that is the U.S "system" of military commissions and Guantanamo Bay AND the Howard government's subordination to U.S will is a pretty complex bunch of issues, ideas and problems that can be hard to focus a story on. Particularly a story that viewers/readers can necessarily connect to.
Having a person in the mix adds an essential human quality to a story - people are able to make more emotional connections to someone - whether it be "string the lousy traitor/terrorist up" or "well everyone deserves a fair trial regardless of what they may have done".
It brings our (Australia's) responsibilities in the issue to the fore
There are a lot of things going on in The War Against Terror (or TWAT as I like to call it) that are horrible but which we (Australia) don't have a lot of sway over.
Violence against the innocent (obviously), monsterous war profiteering by big well-connected corporations (e.g Dick Cheney'sHalliburton and big oil), erosion of civil liberties, torture, militarism gone mad and divisive attempts to create fear in the name of greater power.
Australia, through our elected government, can jump up and down and stamp our feet about some of these things but in the grand scheme of things, our opinions won't get more than a diplomatic "I'll take that on board now smile for the cameras"
(And of course, that's assuming that the Prime Miniature is of a mind to object to anything in the first place, little neo-con that he seems to be)
The David Hicks matter however is another kettle of fish.
Australia is the only Western "Coalition of the Willing" nation to allow their nationals to be kept at Guantanamo Bay and put through the Military Commission system, a system which to all purposes appears to be highly dubious under any reasonable interpretation of international or American law. (I'm not a lawyer but it certainly doesn't appear to offer any sort of fair trial in any established sense)
This is one area where Australia (more specifically the government) is able to take a position and their (I guess our) refusal to do so is an important issue.
In an election year, this is particularly pressing.
It's like a frackin soap opera
Recent developments in the Hicks case have just gotten more and more out there, giving it a definite (though possibly legal trainspotterish) soap opera quality.
The sudden dismissal of two (out of three) members of Hick's defense team at the last minute and the gradual dropping of all charges but one suggest a lot of game playing and situation manipulating by an increasingly desparate (and seemingly highly politicised) system.
The fact that the outspoken military lawyer Major Michael Mori (thinking woman's crumpet to a number of women I know here) is also under threat of disciplinary charges for his actions in Hicks' defense is just another episode.
It's a wedge issue
Over the last few years the Howard Government has been very effective at using highly emotive and divisive issues to define itself and create a lot of froth and bubble in Australian society as a tool for holding on to power.
Australia's role in the war in Iraq - directly tied to our part of TWAT - has become one of the more substantial issues of our day and is one that is hard for people to be neutral about.
As opposition grows and it looks like this issue could be one of many that forces a change of government, interest grows - just as anything that changes existing power structures anywhere is interesting.
(Let's just hope that if a Rudd government gets in - please, please,please - that there is in fact a more enlightened approach to things. )
Everything you expect from a modern circus; acrobatics, clowns, juggling, dazzling aerial work but with incredible costumes, music and overall spectacle.
I come back to the quote that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture" and this seems to fit in this instance.
Here's the search results page for Varekai in YouTube but it's hard to do it justice on screen.
These are some of my personal highlights. (Interestingly some of the costumes for minor characters in the Australian tour are completely different - and in my opinion better)
I took my new girlfriend (tee hee) out for a birthday dinner last night to a French restaurant in town (Ardeche - pretty bloody tasty I might say too) and while browsing through the menu was struck by the inclusion of French fries in the description of the boeuf bourguignon. (Essentially a beef stew with big honking chunks of melt in your mouth beef)
(Let's not get into the failure of 4 years of high school French to get me through the pronunciation of bourguignon here either)
Looking through all the other items, everything seemed so refined and then these french fries just kind of leap off the page at you.
Of course, far be it from me to make the connection between the French in french fries and French food, surely it's just coincidence right? Fortunately my somewhat more worldly dining partner was able to set me straight and make the point that they are actually a common part of a number of dishes in France.
Lightening things up a little because, oddly enough, not everyone is interested in educational/learning theory first thing on a Monday morning (actually, that would be Muntzday today - Happy birthday gorgeous), here's something else.
After getting back on the Trivial Pursuit horse on the weekend (with much fun), I thought it was time to share a very evil and disruptive website that I've been trying hard to avoid for a week or so now, in the spirit of offering a mental distraction from work that we all need once in a while. (Like when, oh, I don't know, blogging perhaps :)
There's quite a nifty online version of Triv available here - http://www.gamefools.com/onlinegames/free/TrivialPursuitBringonthe90s.html that offers a scaled down version of the game (playing for 3 pieces of pie) against the computer. It also allows you to jump in first on questions that the computer has to answer and steal the turn back, which is a nice work around to the problem of waiting for it to get through its go.
It's 90s themed, not too taxing and makes nice little chimey sounds when you get it right.
And I thought I knew everything that was worth knowing ;)
I was doing a bit of reading the other day and came across the following tidbit that I thought was really interesting - it's all about how they (the mysterious they) believe our brain works in terms of learning and memory.
Two memory systems, working memory and long-term memory, shape human learning. Working memory is the center of all conscious thinking, including deliberate learning. However it is limited in memory capacity. The well-known limit of seven plus or minus two chunks of information first articulated by Miller (1956) applies to working memory.
In contrast, long-term memory is a permanent, large capacity repository of information consisting of organised structures called schemata. However, it has no processing capabilities. There is an interaction between working memory and long-term memory in that, the more related knowledge that is stored in long-term memory, the larger chunks working memory can absorb.
Therefore, novice learners with little related knowledge in long-term memory are much more susceptible to cognitive overload than are more experienced learners. This is why prior knowledge of the learner is an important individual difference characteristic that must be considered with designing instruction
So in essence, the more you know about something already, the easier it is to digest new information about it. (Maybe this is just common sense but it's exciting to me - I'd normally say I need to go out and get a life at this point but I'm pretty durned happy with the one I have at the moment)
(find out more about this in:
Colvin, Clark, R. & Mayer, R. E. (2007). Using rich media wisely. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (pp. 311-322). Upper Saddle Creek, NJ: Pearson Education.)
