Baby Mama

Arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday and haven´t entirely found my feet yet after the longish flight; possibly, entries here will be infrequent as I hop around the americas for the next few weeks, but that remains to be seen!

Anyway, saw this film on the plane - Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in a clash-of-opposites comedy, with the former a career-focused 37 year old who is paired with the latter (nice, as a genuinely sweet character, unlike the type she normally plays) who agrees to be a surrogate mother for Fey´s character´s child. It´s rather fluffy, but sweet-natured...a good in-flight film. Maura Tierney (a blast from the past!) and Steve Martin (as a long-haired hippie business tycoon) also pleasing.

Okkervil River - The Stage Names

A somewhat unexpected treat - Okkervil River are really good these days! Here, their thing is basically a sort of ragged indie rock, often with a bit of a rough-edged country/contemporary folk flavour, and they're just as convincing selling out and out rockers like opening pair "Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe" and "Unless It's Kicks" (my current favourite) as mellower dreaming-in-the-sunlight cuts like "A Girl In Port" and "Title Track", not to mention the Spoon-esque rave-up that is "A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene" or "You Can't Hold The Hand Of A Rock And Roll Man", crunching like a late Smiths song, or enigmatically anthemic closer "John Allyn Smith Sails". It's rather delightful how it plays with the pop music canon, too, most notably on that last, which segues seamlessly into a slowed down "Sloop John B" melody and makes it work as the natural close to the record as a whole, and "Plus Ones", which plays wryly with numbers in famous pop songs (eight Chinese brothers, etc). Excellent.

Band of Horses - "Tour ep"

I'm not sure where this came from or when it was recorded - it was in amongst a bunch of stuff that Jon gave me a while back - but it's pretty nice, demo and live versions of mostly familiar tracks, albeit some under unfamiliar names. Brought back fond memories of the Band of Horses live experience.

Jesse Zuba - Bloom's Literary Guide to New York

Kinda boring, unfortunately. A potted history of NYC, as focused on headline political happenings and developments as on the writers and movements who chronicled them, but the analysis never rises above the superficial, nor the prose above the workmanlike. There's no real verve to it, no sense of excitement.

Shoot The Piano Player

A part of me thinks that more or less the whole point of this film is the style, but on reflection that's probably unfair (even were it true, that wouldn't be a criticism in this case) - while its attitude to the gangster/noir flicks on which it's a take is at least partly ironic (or perhaps self-reflexive), Shoot The Piano Player also works for many of the same reasons that its generic (in the sense of genre-y) inspirations do, not least in the treatment given to its central character and his of-course-shadowy past. It's so easy to get swept up by these films...

Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

It took me a lot of listens to get Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, but this afternoon, it's finally taken...lush, luscious, full of longing, and at once dramatic and intimate, it's the album of which, in retrospect, Surfacing and Afterglow were more concise, more contemporary, and less good versions. It has a kind of glow, an energy and a languor, which owes much to its understated electronic elements, which are on the verge of being dated but not quite tipping over...I don't know how much or how regularly I'll listen to it going forward, but it was worth persevering at least to this point.

Whistler - Whistler

This is a sweet little folk-pop album, poised between chipper and melancholy, as it usually goes in this genre; as much could've been expected, of course, from "If I Give You A Smile". They remind me a bit of Drugstore (at their least noisy), a bit of the Sundays, sometimes (as on the drowsy-druggy "The End") of Mazzy Star...

Also, as a historical note: here.

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Peppy, likeable pop music with many details to savour, from the bop and attitude of early highlight "Oxford Comma" to the electric piano (?) / violin hook in "M79" to the one-two of "I Stand Corrected" and "Walcott", the latter painting in sparkling light what the earlier had set out in muffled tones so that each enhances the other. Heard bits and pieces before; repeat listening to the record as a whole shows the 'afro' elements still prominent, but less so than on initial impression...it's really just neat 21st C indie-pop music, with all that that entails.

Rushmore

Nice! Less stylised than Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic or Darjeeling (being the other Andersons that I've seen), but equally deadpan and pleasing. I think we're supposed to root for Max Fischer; somehow, despite his many obnoxities, I did. It's genuinely funny, and it's kinda got soul, too.

Final Fantasy @ the Toff in Town, Thursday 11 December

Whimsical indie violin-pop, tension-laden and playful, with loops. This was really good; I'll need to listen to He Poos Clouds more carefully.

(w/ Ruth and her friends Simon and Mat)

Legacy

Interesting, this.

The Cardigans - Gran Turismo & Long Gone Before Daylight

Two Cardigans albums, the first exhibiting a bit of a tendency towards jaggedness and a rougher edge mixed in with the band's usual melodic focus, the latter more expansive and mellower, but the records have much in common for all of that. I like them both very much, though neither inspires me to really listen to it over and over.

The Thin Red Line

Man, this is just as good every time I watch it. Drops off in the last 40 minutes or so, once it breaks the two hour mark (and after the battle for the hill), but up to then, it's simply stunningly poetic by any measure, never mind when assessed against other war movies (because, make no mistake, that's exactly what this is, be it as naturalistically beautiful and abstractedly philosophical as it may be).

Peter Høeg - Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow

For mine, this is an excellent novel on any terms, but there are two things that particularly stand out about it - the vividity with which it creates both its chilly settings (the city, the sea, and the ice) and the delightful eponymous character from whose perspective we see its events (the grab on the back blurb, describing her as 'a wonderfully unique creation of snow and warmth and irony ... shimmer[ing] with intelligence', is spot on), and the way in which it completely obliterates any distinction between 'genre' and 'literature', at least as those labels might apply to it.

The plot never stops moving forward, even when Smilla finds her investigation temporarily stymied at various points, and the mystery builds before being satisfyingly resolved, and Høeg doesn't mind throwing in a bit of action as he goes, but the novel's concerns are serious, as is the way in which it explores them, and the way in which it ends, after tying up all the loose ends of the mystery, is satisfyingly unresolved; the novel takes its central mystery seriously, but doesn't treat it as the be all and end all.

The language in which it's written is a feature, too - the first person present tense voice gives the reader ready access to the indefatigable Smilla and to events as they unfold, and is apt to the landscapes, both physical and emotional, in which it unfolds.

(I was interested, incidentally, to read a week or so ago that the people of Greenland had voted in a referendum to take what looks to be a large step towards complete independence from Denmark - see also here.)

The Sweet Hereafter

There's something very lucid and just faintly mournful about The Sweet Hereafter; were it not so plainly spoken, it would seem like an elegy, though I couldn't say to what. So many of its happenings would so easily be susceptible of a sensationalistic treatment - the domestic abuse, the lifestyle and diagnosis of Stevens' daughter, the interview in which Nicole tells her lie, the central accident itself - but everything is handled with a restraint and a quiet which is, cumulatively, rather devastating. There's some lovely stuff on the soundtrack, too - some Jane Siberry, and at least one song on which Sarah Polley herself sings. (The last, and only previous, time I saw this was some time in late high school - almost a decade ago now - but I recall it as having had much the same effect on me then.)

Belle and Sebastian - The BBC Sessions

I wonder if Belle and Sebastian are my favourite band these days? I think they might well be. The BBC Sessions has reminded me of all the reasons why I like them so much by the simple expedient of collecting, across the bbc sessions recordings proper and the bonus 'live in Belfast' disc, many of their absolute best songs - "The State I Am In", "Like Dylan in the Movies", "Judy and the Dream of Horses", "Seymour Stein", "There's Too Much Love", "The Boy With the Arab Strap", "Dirty Dream #2" (a list the incompleteness of which only serves to remind how many other great songs the band has up its sleeve) - and presenting them in versions not terribly different from those so familiar and loved in their lp incarnations...one which is worthy of note is "Lazy Jane", of course an early version of "Lazy Line Painter Jane", which has a very different feel from the barnstorming ep version, being quieter, more 'Stereolab', and more 'calypso' than the other in the absence of Monica Queen to contribute the girl vocals.

Though the songs making it up aren't as consistently great as on the other, I prefer the Belfast disc, both because of its liveliness and fuller sound, and for the three covers - a sweet take on "Here Comes The Sun", a surprisingly faithful "I'm Waiting For The Man", and a sunnily electric version of "Boys Are Back In Town". That said, the bbc sessions disc ends with four B&S songs that I'd not heard before, of which my favourite would have to be "Shoot the Sexual Athlete", though the others, "The Magic of a Kind Word", "Nothing in the Silence" and "(My Girl's Got) Miraculous Technique" all have their charm...oh, lovely!

Lykke Li - Youth Novels

I know that this is lazy, but I'm going to do it anyway: Lykke Li is like a cross between Annie and Robyn. Her sparse electro-pop has a lot going for it, particularly a sense of a certain delicate artistry at work and genuine emotion woven into it, but it's one of those albums which would really have benefited from some trimming of songs - after scene-setting opener "Melodies & Desires", Youth Novels leads off with three of its best songs, "Dance, Dance, Dance", "I'm Good, I'm Gone" and "Let It Fall", before disappearing into trough of four consecutive tracks without a decent melody between them ("My Love", "Tonight", "Little Bit" and "Hanging High"). After that, following the interlude of "This Trumpet In My Head", it picks up a bit with "Complaint Department" and then scores big with an excellent, diverse run home ("Breaking It Up", "Everybody But Me", "Time Flies", "Window Blues") which highlights all of her strengths - strong melodies, arrangements which give the songs space to breathe, and creatively conceived, sparingly used details.

The Departed

Pretty good, but not as good as the original, mostly in that it doesn't quite come to life in the same way; still, had I not seen the other, maybe I would've thought The Departed a masterpiece. Probably not, though. All of the actors impress; Nicholson in particular because of the way he dials it down considerably from his most manic. (Mark Wahlberg also stands out for his ability to channel the aspects of himself - or, at least, his public persona - which most suit his character.)

Interstate 60

A quirky, enjoyable little indie film with an excellent cast up its sleeve, most notably Gary Oldman as the puckish O W Grant and Chris Cooper in an extended cameo and reprise as a man who simply cannot abide lies. It's a rather fey premise - rich kid aspiring artist Neal Oliver (James Marsden) finds himself granted a wish ('to know the answer') which sends him on a brightly surreal road trip down a highway that doesn't exist on normal maps and down various perceptual side-roads - but works well, though it plays somewhat unevenly. Canadian, which figures.

Australia

I didn't really expect this to be good, but the Baz factor got Michelle and I through the door anyway; all of my reservations turned out to be justified, as Australia is, indeed, an overlong, terribly cliché, not particularly interesting take on the romantic/epic/landscape melodrama thing...not wholly unenjoyable, and the scene where the cattle stampede towards the cliff edge is admittedly spectacular, but really just a bit blah. Hugh Jackman wasn't as good as usual either, though what are you gonna do with a role like that?

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I think the age of the franchise shows with this one - it's high-spirited enough, but really only sorta fun and not particularly exciting at all.

The Prestige

Though he's not particularly flashy, I think that Christopher Nolan may be one of the best writer/directors going around. The comment about non-flashiness may seem an odd one to make about the guy who did Memento (The Prestige isn't exactly a straight-up concoction either), but the impression I get from watching his films (the abovementioned two, plus Insomnia and the Batman ones) is that Nolan's a consummate craftsperson; amidst all the cinematic legerdemain that highlights the films he makes, there's a rock solid technique and understanding of the basics. Watching The Prestige a second time reinforced that; knowing the architecture of the film in advance gave me a far better appreciation of the aptness of the choices that he makes at each stage, be they casting (Bowie and Andy Serkis - genius), camera angles, lighting, music or other...

(previously - and here)

"In reflection"

Kim's masters recital, at St John's church in Southgate tonight:

Sonatine - D. Milhaud
Le Merle Noir - O. Messiaen
Toward the Sea III - T. Takemitsu
And then I knew twas wind - T. Takemitsu
Trio Sonate - C. Debussy

(I particularly liked the Milhaud - jazzy and wry - and the Debussy.)

Slow Down Tallahassee - The Beautiful Light

Every bit the gem that the cd single suggested a full length would be, The Beautiful Light starts at a furious pace, its first three numbers, "The Beautiful Light", "Down The Alleyway" and a slightly retooled "Candy" (the other two songs from the single, "So Much For Love" and "UR Grace UR", also reappear in rerecorded form later on the album), all breakneck, utterly taut, two-and-a-half to three minute power-pop epics; they slow it down for fourth track "Never Be Lonely Again", which brings the girl group elements of their sound to the fore, and at about that point on first listen, I was thinking greatness. The rest of the album doesn't really come near to following through on the promise of that initial rush (as far as albums of this kind go, I think it's shaded by We Are The Pipettes, but the high points are equally high, which is saying something; by comparison to the other, by the way, Slow Down Tallahassee are less glossy, and have a more garage-y sound), but there are plenty of ideas scattered through the balance, and there's no shortage of melodies and hooks to love, either.

Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther

Maybe it's just a reflection of my listening habits and preferences, but I find the music on this album difficult to categorise; it sounds a bit like a lot of things, but taken all together, its sound and effect are hard to distill. What can I say? It's a pop record, warm, contemplative and sometimes melancholic, copping licks from Virgin Suicides-era am radio by way of Fleetwood Mac, Belle & Sebastian-styled folk, and Sufjan at his (not particularly rockin') most rock, but dressed up in today's threads, not least in the crystalline, organic-sounding production. It's not a concoction that ought necessarily appeal to me, but appeal it does - the songcraft is hard to deny, as are the songs.

Jolie Holland - The Living and the Dead

Admittedly, it's the time of year when I fall for this kind of music, but Jolie Holland is seriously really good, and The Living and the Dead sees her bringing it in a sprightly vein which I find delightful. My faves are probably the most straight up country-rockers - opening trio "Mexico City", "Corrido Por Buddy" and "Palmyra", and "Your Big Hands" - which are the kinds of songs to which I dance when no one's around (today, in the sunshine outside while I was supposed to be hanging out the washing, with the album cued up on my ipod); if I'm already feeling light, they make me feel lighter, and if not, then they give me that sense of having a small something in my chest, tugging upwards, making me feel at once happy and sad. Overall, not as strong a record as Springtime Can Kill You, but it gives me something different from that other, and it's some good anyway.

Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism & Plans

These're pretty nice; I like Transatlanticism more, but both are very listenable, and I don't mind the airy kinda mellow-pop sorta indie-rock (intimate/grand) thing at all, though it's not really where I'm at just now. They're kind of still a bit undifferentiated for me, though (see previous) - maybe one or both will really hit home later down the track.

Terry Pratchett - The Fifth Elephant

Maybe it's a chicken and egg thing, or maybe not, but Pratchett seems to loom large in the reading history (and, in many cases, present day reading habits) of a remarkable number of people who I know - or make that the circles in which I move, maybe. Anyhow, I popped into the secondhand bookstore on Scotchmer St ("Already Read"?) the other weekend, while the photo shoot was going on at home, and saw that someone had obviously recently offloaded a large number of Pratchett paperbacks (it looked to be close to a complete collection); I wondered whether they'd also been responsible for the several consecutive Sandmans I noticed in the window. I happily picked up three of the few that I didn't already own, and was amused to see the person before me at the counter - female, early middle aged, very North Fitzroy - also had an armful. The man's made his mark.

(Anyway, so I also re-read The Fifth Elephant over the last few days...yeah.)

(a propos - last time)

Virginia Woolf - Street Haunting

In Tamara's words - this was a gift from her of a while back - a slight portion of Woolf, but a pleasing selection nonetheless. Part of the delightful pocket series put out by Penguin a while back in honour of their 70th birthday, it contains six story-vignettes (the line between fiction and personal essay is blurred in most of them) in characteristic style. As is usual with writers better known for their longer form prose, the pieces here have a different feel from her novels - they're less weighty (which is hardly surprising), and seem less perfectly formed and rounded off (which is perhaps less predictable, but may - I don't know - have something to do with the circumstances of their composition) ... there are some tendencies towards over-preciousness, perhaps - writing from the perspective of a snail, for example - and some unexpected, but (not that I've thought about it) not entirely inapt, resonances of Emily Dickinson in places, too.

Sparrow

Steph got it right when she said afterwards that this, running as part of the Johnnie To retrospective at acmi, was a cheeky film - it has an insouciance and a wit which is legible in its dialogue, cinematography, music and general tone. Interestingly, that cheekiness is less apparent in the plot, which is admirably economical: a close-knit quartet of pickpockets find themselves targeted after stealing from the wrong person, and then become entangled with a beautiful woman who is herself enmeshed with a very powerful and none too scrupulous man, leading to the marvellous set piece climax in which the two groups stalk through the dark, rainy city, umbrellas and concealed razor blades in hand, engaged in a high stakes pickpocketing contest. It moves quickly and lightly, with a bit of a Hitchcockian flavour, and gives us a happy ending - much fun.

(w/ Steph (and her friend Allen), Kai and Michelle)

Emiliana Torrini @ the Forum, Tuesday 18 November

I haven't listened to much of Torrini's stuff - really only Fisherman's Woman, though I noticed the other night that I also have Love in the Time of Science on my ipod, without being entirely sure how it got there - and this show turned out to be pleasingly both as I expected and a bit different again; in amongst the glistening, folksy, quasi-lullaby type tunes that I really associate her with (which made up a solid half or so of the set - of those, "Today Has Been Okay" particularly stood out), there was a variety of more electronic and even rock-edged numbers, many of which provided the show's highlights. Torrini herself was charming, too, telling stories in a pronounced Icelandic lilt (often with a liberal dose of profanity), giggling, and generally engaging the audience between songs.

So, mm, it was nice; among other things, it's left "Nothing Brings Me Down" in my head for much of today.

(I didn't get the name of the support act, but they weren't bad - modestly epic indie chamber-rock in the vein of Gersey.)

(w/ Michelle)

Renegade

A western, I guess, but as much an exploration of alternative consciousness (primarily via psychotropic substances) as a genre piece, leading to some beautiful cinematography, though I didn't get much else out of it, Vincent Cassel, Michael Madsen and Juliette Lewis notwithstanding.

Hard Candy

Stylish and fairly effective, but I was left feeling that this could have been so much better - I found it unsatisfying, in the end, mainly because, in attempting to follow through on the promise of its initial moves, it ended up losing some of the conciseness that gets it off to such a good start. I did think, though, that it had the courage to follow through on the implications of its premise, which is always admirable.

"Houwa"

[19/11, 4pm]

It's funny how films (and other such things) can come to inhabit us.

Yesterday, Penny happened to mention in an email that she started watching All About Lily Chou-Chou the other night and that she hadn't quite fallen for its dreamy detachment; triggered by that, I expect, I just caught myself sitting here at my desk at work with music from the soundtrack running through my head and a tightness in my chest and feeling of sadness that come straight from the film itself. It doesn't go away, I guess.

Further update / "Idiotic plot twists"

Still on track with nanowrimo, by the way: 23,421 words and with a whole weekend ahead of me - listening to the New Pornographers and enjoying the sunshine, I feel good about it.

I was just browsing the forums on the website, and came across a topic headed "Idiotic plot twists". Here are some of my favourites that people have seen fit to put up from their own current efforts, and their current word counts according to the website widget thing:

* * *

i just had a small localized mobile black hole try to eat my character for the sake of wordcount.

[50,107]

* * *

they found a way to turn people inside out and tried it on my MC...

[615,839 - I am dubious about this word count, btw]

* * *

a character is freaking out over a file which i have just decided contains nothing of any importance at all. He nearly crashed a van in the process.
Meanwhile, my MC is living in a half occupied house (one of the occupants hasnt been seen since chapter 3) with a twelve year old girl who obviously is a nutcase and a talking bird who just emailed the MC's mum and is a major suspect in his abduction. And he doesnt realise anythings wrond despite waking up in a room full of mousetraps.

[21,395]

* * *

My characters found a duck.

No, I'm not kidding.

In a post-apocolyptic world where they have only seen a few species of animals twenty years after the world died, they found a duck. Random duck, right before the beginning of the funeral of their most important leader in history. So what did they do with said duck?

They debated eating it.

But then eventually decided to follow it back to the duck nest to see if there were more; they almost missed the funeral cause they were too busy watching the fluffy little ducklings run around all awkward-like.

[35,616]

* * *

My MC just got rescued from slave traders by a bunch of talking moles. Why? I couldn't tell you. Where the talking moles come from in a story where NO OTHER ANIMALS have spoken a word or been given a voice of any sort, beats me.

[16,182]

* * *

Lol I totally just like Stuck in this random dog and forgot about it, literally, the dog no longer exists in my story, poof gone without explanation.

[20,034 - hey, I actually did this too, though I could never have described it in such hilarious fashion. Also, I have hopes that the dog may reappear in some more or less significant fashion...]

* * *

Clearly animals play a big part in this kind of thing - or maybe they're just the ones that particularly appeal to me...

Stranger Than Fiction

This movie is neat, and much more low-key than I'd expected, given the premise (Will Ferrell discovers that he's actually a character in a book being written by a famous novelist who is slated to die and then attempts to find said author to convince her not to kill him). Ferrell's damn good (a la Carrey in The Truman Show and, of course, Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love), Emma Thompson as the scruffy, overwrought, death-fixated writer is simply brilliant (particularly given that I last saw her in Brideshead, a completely different role), Dustin Hoffman plays a literature professor who's like a straighter version of his character in Huckabees with characteristic understated aplomb, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is as much of a charmer as ever in hitting the nail on the head with her depiction of an independent-minded harvard drop out cookie baker; the film bubbles along but it's both morally and emotionally serious, and finely crafted too. A minor gem.

Punch-Drunk Love

Yep, I got it right the first time. This movie is great. Also, struck by the way that all of the still shots - I'm thinking particularly of the ones showing Barry, motionless on the street near the start of the film - are framed and shot like photographs, and gorgeously colour and shadow-drenched ones at that. Paul Thomas Anderson is some kind of brilliant.

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Sunny presented this handsome book to me a while back; I've worked through it (or bits of it) in two ways, namely reading the entries for films that interest me (from the end of the book towards the beginning - ie, from most recently made to oldest) and, with Michelle, going from the beginning and counting how many I've seen (for the record, 134). A lot of my favourites in here; as well as several that I really didn't think much of at all. Very nice!

Arvo Pärt - A Portrait

And still more; still magnificent. Interesting to hear some bits of the symphonies, too - quite a different kettle of fish from the rest of his stuff that I've heard, but there are some clear resonances connecting them, too.

"Jump Into Fall" (IMP September 2008)

Hella fun, this one - one of the best I've received yet through IMP - and proof that good things come to those who wait on more than one count. Most particularly, I've been hearing about Lykke Li and wanting to hear her, and "Let It Fall" lives up to the hype, a sparse, catchy, slightly fragile scando-pop thing in the vein of "Be Mine!", "Chewing Gum" &c, and totally delicious; also, I've been hearing about MGMT and was glad to hear "Indie Rokkers", a buzzy, moody, somewhat M83-meets-Arcade Fire-esque number that I like rather a lot.

Actually, the shadow of the AF hangs over several of the songs on the mix, most notably French Kicks' "Abandon" and the Handsome Furs' "Dead + Rural", both of which I also like. Elsewhere: the strangely funky (plus Bowie-eque bridge-featurin') "No One Does It Like You" by a group called Department of Eagles, which kicks things off and got totally stuck in my head the other day; Santogold's "I'm A Lady", groove and melody in equal parts (which I like in part because, not despite, the start-of-chorus hook is almost identical to that of "West End Girls"); the gleeful loopiness-tempered-with-real-pop-smarts of tracks like Ferraby Lionheart's "A Crack In Time", Elk City's "Loz Crusados" and Chairlift's "Evident Utensil" (a particular fave); the Carps' "All The Damn Kids" and Cut Off Your Hands' "You and I" bringing a bit of post-punk infused scuzzy modern indie rock (likewise, in a different way, the Maccabees' "First Love"); the anthemic surge of American Names" by Sebastien Grainger, well placed near the end; and a number of others, none of which fail to leave an impression.

(from Vina in New York City, NY)

The Dark Knight

Back when this was having its theatrical run proper, everyone was talking about it. At the time, I wondered what it was that had created such excitement - one part the Heath factor, one part it being the next instalment in a blockbuster franchise that had been re-energised with the first Nolan entry, and (probably) one part the actual quality of the film, I was thinking. Anyway, it's really seriously good - dark in a gritty, morally ambiguous (and, I'm inclined to think, ambivalent) way rather than in the (admittedly fun) baroque, gothic fashion of the Burton instalments, and viscerally exciting as well as genuinely intelligent. Lots of great turns, too - Bale really inhabits the character, and the others aren't far behind (loved the William Fichtner cameo in particular). The extent to which it and Batman Begins fit together as a single work is impressive, too.

(w/ Steph and Sunny @ IMAX)

Scarlett Thomas - Bright Young Things

Edgy, extremely readable and rather pleasing, if fairly insubstantial and well short of what was to come in the form of PopCo and The End of Mr Y. I think that Annie is pretty clearly the 'Scarlett' character in this one; I guess she was the one with whom I most identified, too, though I suppose I must reluctantly admit that there may be a certain amount of Jamie there too (Paul's not ridiculous either, but clearly further off than either of those other two; Thea, Emily and Bryn, in the meantime, are right off the radar as far as that particular game goes). Yup, pretty cool.

Terry Pratchett - Jingo

A reread, natch. I'm a bit surprised that I apparently haven't read it since at least before 1 Jan 2005, but I guess there are a lot of Pratchetts out there.

Update

(from an email to kb)
* * *

Well, the non-work part of my life has been practically taken over by
nanowrimo. I'm on track! The target's 50,000 words in a month, working
out at 1,667 words per day - and I just broke 20,000 last night, so it's
looking good. (No comment as to the quality of the novel, natch.) I'm
handing over to Tamara after she finishes her exams on the 20th, so only
a bit over a week to go...I do believe that there will be PIRATES.

Howard

P.S., I finally caved in and joined facebook - though I hope to at least
stick sufficiently to my principles that only my 'real friends' also
become 'facebook friends'!

Interruption

Having a go at NaNoWriMo at present - the plan is for me to do it until Tamara finishes her exams, round the 20th or 22nd I think, and then hand over to her - so updates here will be irregular or, more likely, non-existent, till that's over with. (Up to 10,241 words as of right now - need to've done 13,336 by the end of today in order to be on track - I've been trying to do the solid 1,666 per day required but got a bit behind over the second half of the week.)

Burn After Reading

Of the other Coen brothers films I've seen, Fargo must be the closest in tone to this, their latest. Like that other, it's loosely grounded in genre but enfolds within itself disparate and weird elements - spy, caper, crime, domestic drama, slapstick, absurdist and black comedy, etc - and while it's not as moving as Fargo oddly was, it's funny and leaves one with a good feeling. Much of the humour comes from the nous with which the characters are played - Malkovich, Clooney and Pitt are particularly good at conveying nuance (often nuances of idiocy and gormlessness), but Frances McDormand isn't much shaded, while Tilda Swinton has less to work with but, as usual, pulls her weight (lookin' very Julia Gillard, incidentally!). So, a good one.

(w/ Michelle)

"Country Influenced" (IMP August 2008)

The country influence is pretty nominal in the case of some of these songs, but not being a purist, I'm willing to pay it as an overall mix. Unsurprisingly, a fair few that I already knew (7 of 20 - from Neko Case, Wilco, Beth Orton, Rilo Kiley, Radiohead, k.d. lang and Camera Obscura) and lots of other familiar artists (Patty Griffin, Decemberists, Hem, Springsteen, etc), and the rest are nice too.

(from Scott in Cary, NC)

Book club II (ongoing) / Michael Ondaatje - Divisadero (extremely belated)

Of course, the other one's still going, in fits and starts, and possibly somewhat against the odds given its origins in MS, but nonetheless! The ledger so far (all dates approx.):

• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (July 2006 - at Bluestone)
  
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell & Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (October or maybe November 2006; a split book club after voting divided the then members almost right down the middle - at Lounge upstairs)
  
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (March 2007 - at Aloi Na)
  
• Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje (late 2007 - at Nicolette's)
  
• Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan (March 2008 - at Breizoz (the creperie on Gertrude St))
  
• An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke (August 2008 - at Nicolette's)

Next up, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

In its current incarnation, the other members are basically Nicolette (convenor), Tamara, Kathleen and Bec P...

* * *

Also, it seems I never wrote up Divisadero! It was so long ago now that many of the details elude me, but I did like it. I recall it as being rather literary (Stendhal references and all), but also pretty real - genuine characters and emotional impact and all that, and with mood to burn, too.

Vale book club

Well, I think that the original book club is now on permanent hiatus, with a couple of its critical members out of the jurisdiction and the remaining organisers faitly unmotivated at this point; in another sense, the rock upon which it's foundered has been Orlando, but really, I think it had pretty much done its dash by then anyway. By way of a rundown (I may have missed one or two, but I think this is all of them):

• Democracy by Joan Didion (March 2006 - at Cassie's)
  
• Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (April 2006 - ? I missed this one)
  
• The Red and the Black by Stendhal (May 2006 - at Rue Bebelon's)
  
• The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (June 2006 - at Andrew B's?)
  
• The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham (July 2006 - at the North Fitzroy Star)
  
• The Magus by John Fowles (September 2006 - ?)
  
• In Cold Blood and short stories by Truman Capote (November 2006 - the Star, again) [I didn't manage to read this one]
  
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (January 2007 - at Ash's)
  
• The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (August 2007 - at the Ath)
  
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (December 2007 - at Gluttony on Smith St)
  
• The Witches and short stories by Roald Dahl (January 2008 - at Tamara's)

(and there was the long weekend away in April of this year, though there was no official book selection for that one)

(it's characteristic that three out of the four people whose places I can remember having been venues have since moved - in fact, come to think of it, all four of them might've...in one case, no less than three times)

Members from the outset were Wei (as initial convenor), Cassie, Andrew B, Kai, David and Ash, with Tamara coming on board from the Stendhal and Julian F a bit later (Midwich Cuckoos, maybe). Also involved initially was Sarah O'B, before she went overseas, and various others came along to the first couple of meetings, too.

Well, it was nice while it lasted...but then again, there's no shortage of other things to do (or occasions for book-readin') at the moment!

The Cardigans - Emmerdale

Their first, I think - very early on, at any rate (the one with "Rise & Shine" and "Sick & Tired"). Nice, if on the slight side.

Brideshead Revisited

So it was a Saturday night, and we went to see Brideshead Revisited en masse. In the words of the email invitation Tamara and I had sent out (this part mostly written by her):

Why? Because it's Brideshead - because we were "in search of love in those days, and ... went full of curiosity" - because of the magnificent Emma Thompson - because it's billed as "a story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence", which isn't quite how we remember it and we ache to know more - because of lots of pretty young things we haven't seen in much else but rather like the look of - because of the clothes and houses and accents and scenery - because it will be utterly infuriating if anyone sees it before we do. (Also, we thought it would be fun to go see this one with a gang of others. Tamara is in favour of going in costume and Howard has made indefinite promises to appear in tweed.)

Watching it, I was struck more than once by the realisation of how many layers there are to my relationship with Waugh's novel; much of the back story is here and here (and, in a different way, here), but given that I've still only read it once, and was left more with an impression of the book's effect than any real sense of its details at that, perhaps it's not surprising that so many layers have built up around 'Brideshead Revisited' in my mind...my idea of it has been able to develop without being constrained overly much by the minutiae and particulars of the thing itself.

I wonder, too, how that relates to my reaction to the film; it pretty much hit the spot as far as its emotional register went - like the book (or at least my abiding impressions of the book), it's nostalgic, wistful (indeed, sad), and strangely charmed, while also possessing a certain intensity of vision which is oddly harmonious with the general haze covering its proceedings - but left me conflicted in several of its other aspects (the way in which it deals with Catholicism, for example)...though I wonder to what extent I'd simply glossed over those other aspects in my reading/recollection of the novel.

Though a bit obvious in places, overall it's a well-made film, helped by some suitable-looking leads (though of the minor characters, Blanche, for one, was way different from how I'd always imagined) and a willingness to remain reasonably faithful to the spirit of the source material, if not always to its letter (I felt that it worked fine on its own terms - it made sense, albeit with more of a focus on the romantic melodrama element than I remember from Waugh's version). It left me very ambivalent for reasons which I haven't quite nailed down, but may (as I sketched out before) be somehow related to the fuzziness of my sense of the book (and to its significance to me); still, it got me a bit.

(w/ Tamara and, in approximate order of arrival, Buffy (a friend of TV's), Kelly, Rob & Laura, Kathleen, Nicolette, Jaani, Sid & Maansi, David & Justine, trang & Arthur, Bec and Kim - making it a complete disconnect from the "Endgame" troupe of the night before, incidentally)

"Endgame" @ Fitzroy Theatre Space (Eleventh Hour Theatre)

This was my first exposure to Beckett, either on stage or on the page, and it left an impression. Four characters - Hamm, Clov, Nagg and Nell - enacting (playing out) what does indeed seem to be an extended dying fall, the setting a derelict house in some unspecified but almost certainly ruined landscape, the themes existential, and staged with a strong sense of the grotesque. At times the language takes on genuinely Shakespearean cadences, albeit considerably contemporised; at others, the back-and-forth reminded me of the exchanges in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; it's perfectly pitched and paced, bleakly funny and occasionally hinting at the profound.

This was an impressive production, too - there's a strong thread to it, from the opening violin strains in pitch dark through the use of the traverse stage in the tiny (60-seat) theatre, and the actors were strikingly good (particularly Peter Houghton as Hamm).

(w/ Ruth, Emrys, Vegjie, Sunny and Keith)

Haruki Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Murakami's memoir of his career as a long-distance runner; a bit of a bagatelle, but not one to which I resented giving the few hours that reading it required.

Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Oh my, this was very, very good. It made me feel all sad and stirred-up inside, particularly the first half (all the going on about fascism in the later parts was fine, I suppose, but seemed to me almost beside the point considering what had come before).

The inside front page of my secondhand Penguin edition quotes Graham Greene as saying that "Miss McCullers and perhaps Mr Faulkner are the only writers since the death of D. H. Lawrence with an original poetic sensibility" and I reckon that phrase - 'an original poetic sensibility' - gets it just right. It's one of those books where, trying to pin down what it is that I like so much about it, all I can come up with is 'there's just something about it'...there's craft in it, but more than that, it's the overall style and sensibility, both intangible but woven into every line, which distinguishes The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and gives it its impact.

In many ways, Singer stands at the centre of the book, but it's the characters over whom he exerts his strange fascination - Biff Brannon, Jake Blount, Doctor Copeland, and most of all Mick Kelly - who most touch and linger, which may be precisely the point. Only the truly specific can be universal, I've heard it said; be that as it may, just such a path is taken by McCullers here, and to wonderful effect. I've taken it a bit to heart.

Zoolander

Yeah! But I don't think I'll need to watch this again for a while.

Batman Begins

Plans are afoot to finally watch The Dark Knight (assuming we make it out to IMAX before its run ends), so I thought I should at last watch the first Nolan Batman.

It's very good - dark, complex and epic, but none of those to a ridiculous or implausible degree (within the parameters of this genre of film, anyway)...and it hews to generic conventions sufficiently closely (and uses them sufficiently well) that the rather significant digressions from those conventions don't undermine its dramatic impact. Great cast, too, well-used, from Christian Bale down (naturally, I got a kick out of Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon). A good one!

Julie O'Hara Quintet @ the Spiegeltent, Sunday 19 October

O'Hara has a nice voice and gave the appearance of greatly enjoying what she was about, and though she tends more towards the lounge/polite end of the vocal jazz spectrum than is my preference, it was done well and I enjoyed it.

(w/ Ruth and Sunny)

Alien3 & Alien Resurrection

Also rewatches; each (and 3 in particular) is a significant notch below the first two, but they're pretty okay anyway. Resurrection, naturally, benefits from having Jeunet at the helm, and Ron Perlman (not to mention Winona Ryder) running around doing his thing.

The Duchess

Far too by-the-numbers for its own good, but surprisingly well made for all that (and much better than the trailer makes it look).

(w/ Steph)

"Book of Longing" @ Arts Centre, Friday 17 October

Poems written by Leonard Cohen and set to music by Philip Glass; performed by an ensemble including Glass himself..."Book of Longing" promised much, but didn't quite work, the 'Cohen' elements not cohering especially well with the 'Glass' ones. The instrumental aspects were more successful than the vocal - distinctively Glassian but with hints and shades of the songwriter's style - but the singers, while fine (one of the male singers in particular had a beautiful voice), were much in the mould of past vocalists who have recorded with the composer, and their voices weren't of the kind that lends itself to Cohen's murky, often overtly sensual verse. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't all I'd hoped for.

(w/ Ruth)

Shaun Tan - Tales from Outer Suburbia & The Red Tree

Delightful...I'll recur to these, and to Tales in particular, I'm sure.

The Magnetic Fields - i

There could be no mistaking this for anything other than a Magnetic Fields album; compared to 69 Love Songs, though, it palls. There are some pretty moments, but not enough, and too many songs that come and go without leaving any impression (though closer "It's Only Time" is really lovely).

David Mitchell - number9dream

Whee! number9dream is a real trip - one thing about Mitchell, he sure can write. Sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, chapter after chapter, it's all effortlessly readable, no matter which new voice he may have adopted at the time (taken as a whole, too, it's impressively different from Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green, both of them seriously accomplished novels and great reads in their own right); Eiji Miyake is a tremendously engaging main character and narrator, and it's his development as much as his voice which provides the thread holding it all together amidst the crazy flights of fancy (some of which turn out to be not so fanciful after all - or do they?) and nightmarish excursions into the Tokyo underworld (Kafkaesque, with a heavy dose of Blue Velvet - although, and there's no getting away from it, the most obvious reference point is really Murakami). Mitchell's a real talent, and I can't wait to read more of his stuff.

Joan As Police Woman - To Survive & live @ East Brunswick Club, Friday 10 October

I have to say, Joan As Police Woman hasn't really taken with me - I like her stuff well enough, both Real Life and To Survive, but it doesn't particularly strike a chord. Seeing her live gave me a bit more of an insight, drawing out both the melodic and the rhythmic aspects of her music, but even so, I can't say I'm especially a fan - it's okay, and for me, not much more.

(w/ Michelle)

The Princess Bride

(Again. It doesn't particularly pall.)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

It didn't take my breath away this (third?) time; I suppose that so much of it hinges on the final scene, and when you know it's coming, it's not the same. But it's still really, really good (I'd forgotten how actually exciting the fight scenes are, too).

"Look!" and "Klippen/Klippen" @ NGV Australia

Just a 'for note' - too lazy to write about these in any detail. Not much in "Look!" really caught me; the sculptures/soundscapes in "Klippen/Klippen" were appealing, but I'm not wired for the kind of thing that they are.

(w/ Michelle, taking advantage of 'art after dark' hours a while back)

Jules and Jim

This really is just a sheerly delightful film, particularly the first half, which is nigh on perfect; but it deepens and really sticks in the latter part, as things become increasingly occluded and the relationship between Jules, Jim and Catherine become ever more entangled. It's a carefully crafted ode to the ephemeral, a film primarily of spirit rather than intellect or heart, and I liked it very much.

Days of Being Wild

Vivid and blurry, like all Wong Kar-wai films. I'm not sure I've ever seen Leslie Cheung in anything before - at any rate, not in anything in which I've taken notice of him (saving Ashes of Time) - but he's great in this, sulky, drowsy, languidly dangerous, little-boy attractive; Maggie Cheung, younger, I think, than I've ever seen her before, is soft-edged and vulnerable; and the others caught, directly or elliptically, in his orbit are almost as memorable. For me, the pleasures of Days of Being Wild aren't as immediate as those of some of his others, but it's still magnificent and would certainly repay watching.

Also, a propos not of this one in particular, but certainly of its director, here's a nice poem in the latest Believer - kind of a hipster poem (I mean, come on, "I run into Damon and Naomi in the street"?), right down to the multiplying layers of self-consciousness about what it's doing and saying (ie, aimin' to have its cake and eat it with the towers of hipster culture it constructs), but still, very nice for all that, and I think successful in what it aims for.

* * *

"Galactic" by Joshua Clover

And the neighbors are playing a recorded muezzin into the courtyard
And the people upstairs are having a party and laughing out the window
And the women are arriving in sparkly silver shoes
And the style I am told yesterday in London is called Galactic
And it was over last month says Bigna tan and beautiful with Romansch accent
And I am feeling very global about all of this we talk Borges translations
And catch up on the very latest fashions and is that not paradise?
And home again the next day I run into Damon and Naomi in the street
Stopping over en route to a wedding in Morocco it doesn't even feel coincidental
And we discuss Japanese noise bands and later I go to the leftist bar with wifi
Near the bookstore and the blue clouds and is that not paradise?
And thinking is a feeling too but one that cannot come to rest in another
And I am in love with everybody which is miserable and lasts
Five minutes amidst this great muchness of things I go down
To the noodle shop to act out scenes from a Wong Kar Wai movie
In my head about which the sweet-faced counterman probably has no idea
Though he gives me some knowing looks and we are waiting together
In the noodle steam and in the tamarind and lemongrass steam
For an international letter with a key folded inside or for love to return
And in walks a sexy boy with scarred lip and We Are The Power T-shirt
And he is tremendously real just as abstract ideas are real and the absence
Of beloveds is real and the incomparable Faye Wong having of late
Moved to Beijing from the real world of the movies is still exactly as real
As the steam in the noodle shop is real and how is this not paradise?
If love is for the one if love is a redoubt against the many it is useless to me
It is some holiday and my friends are scattered like confetti on the earth.

* * *

One of the things I like about the poem, see, is the way that it captures something of the cinematic/real nature of so much 'modern' experience ('post-modern', natch) - and the way that it double-codes 'scenes from a Wong Kar Wai movie', because, you know, when one watches a scene from a Wong Kar-wai movie, it is indeed 'a scene from a Wong Kar-wai' movie, but it's also real - you know, real...

The Wind Will Carry Us

Extremely slow, but strangely enthralling. I want to watch it again, though not in any particular hurry.

(w/ Ruth)

She & Him - Volume One

At first I wanted to listen to this because it's Zooey Deschanel's record, and they don't come much cooler than her. Then, I wanted to listen to it because I heard "Sentimental Heart" on a mix cd and it was simply great. But what's made me listen to the album over and over since I got it is the pitch-perfect invocation of 60s girl group and soul-infused pop that Deschanel and M. Ward have conjured on it, complete with the requisite country and easy listening strands - sweet and warm, and at once artful and sincere, it's a slight record but a very pleasing one, with only a couple of weak tracks which one barely notices.

"Art Collection by 30 Japanese Artists"

As billed, a collection of modern and pop Japanese art, so I probably shouldn't have been surprised by the preponderance of manga and/or Warhol-styled stuff, but, neither being particularly my bent, and the rest of it also being fairly uninteresting, there wasn't much to entice me. The most vivid exception was the three paintings by Tamaho Togasaki, geometric urban-scapes which were much to my taste (see here http://www.celeste-world.net/paint/oil_06.html).

(@ Collingwood Gallery - part of the Fringe Festival; w/ Michelle)

Toni Childs @ the Corner, Wednesday 1 October

Curiosity killed the cat; nothing so drastic here, but it really was curiosity more than anything else that led me to go to this one. I quite enjoyed the part of the show that I saw - the first few songs from near the front, and the rest from a more comfortable vantage point at the back of the room - but, while I responded to Childs' energy and zest for what she was doing, the music was a bit middle of the road for me, and I was kinda tired too.

(Support was Jess McAvoy, who I've seen before and didn't particularly interest me.)

(w/ Kevin)

Jolie Holland - Springtime Can Kill You

Wicked album name, to start with, and seasonally apposite (although not yet particularly this year, happily). Springtime Can Kill You is a modest-seeming record but a real grower; a deliciously warm folk-soul-country-am radio pop hybrid, Holland's pleasantly scratchy voice complements the transistor radio feel of the music, all smooth flows and gentle swells...and when I listen to it attentively, it leaves me with a small lump in my throat. A grower, and a keeper.

Stalker

At 2 1/2 hours long and slow-moving at that, not one for the faint-hearted. Still, as Kevin put it (in reference to Tarkovsky), 'being "slow" is no more a criticism than being "fast" is praise - it's what you do in the time that counts. Well, as to that, there's something hypnotic about Stalker, and a kind of massive naturalistic beauty to many of its scenes, and for those reasons alone it's worthwhile, though I have to say that the metaphysics left me a bit cold.

(watched Mon 29th; for personal reasons, this one needs an asterisk beside its name)

Fallen Angels

Very much a companion piece to Chungking Express - late night diners, alienated gangsters, air stewardesses ungraspable, tinned pineapple with significant expiry dates - though moodier and without the other's giddy lightness, and splashily violent in bursts. The film's kinetic editing and camerawork coupled with blurry slower-paced interludes and downbeat, contemplative voiceovers put me in mind of the two Godards I've seen lately (Bande à part and Alphaville), but what it mostly is, is pure Wong Kar-wai (albeit less luscious and drenched in colour than his pre-Blueberry latter-day films).

Goldfrapp @ the Palais, Friday 26 September

Sometimes seeing a song done live changes the way one hears it from then on, and so it was with "Utopia", when Goldfrapp did it early in their set a couple of Fridays ago (it was second up, following fellow Felt Mountain cut "Paper Bag") - uncharacteristically to say the least, I think there were actually tears in my eyes as Alison sang the song's first, skyscraping notes, her startlingly strong, clear voice sending the syllables upwards with the reach of her arms, and there were many small refashionings all the way through. (Another, later in the set, was "Number 1", which I'd never before realised was such an anthem, nor for that matter such a simply great song.)

The focus was on Seventh Tree, of course, but they also did a satisfying number of the best tracks from Black Cherry and Supernature, the cuts from all of their albums flowing well in the live setting (violin, harp, guitars, keyboard and programming, drums, and miscellaneous). Indeed, all of their moves really come to life in concert, both the lush pop songs and ballads, and the more dance-edged numbers; Alison herself was naturally the focus, and she compelled the gaze, gestures and movements completely in sync with the songs, but the tightness of the backing band and the strength of the songs themselves were also clear, and likewise the consistency of the outfit's back catalogue, making me realise how much time I've spent listening to their music since Felt Mountain first came out (I have an early memory of listening to it on headphones in the Bourke Street HMV), and how steadily in the years since then. It was a great show, put on by a pretty great band.

Support was Pikelet, who were (as people have been telling me lately) quirky, eclectically poppy and rather good; my favourite was the first one with the accordion.

(w/ Michelle - in the second row, no less)

Tideland

Kind of like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas combined with Alice in Wonderland, and every bit the mess that you'd expect to result from that admixture. Very Gilliam, and as such of course visually striking in patches, but overall too all over the place to amount to much.

Alphaville

Mm, I think I'm developing a bit of a taste for Godard (or 'JLG', as he calls himself according to Adrian Martin's review of a recent biography of the director in the latest Monthly) - this one's a sci-fi noir melange with strong satirical overtones and lots of fun in a deadpan sort of way. I hate to put it like this, but there's just something so cool about it.

(previously: Bande à part)

[Edit: I meant to mention that it was also pleasing to gaze at the fashion and general aesthetic and map them on to that of Welcome To Alphaville, one of my favourite clothing stores...]

Jhumpa Lahiri - The Namesake

Well-written and readable (not necessarily the same thing), and thankfully not at all in the picaresque, magic realist, fabulistic vein of much 'Indian literature' - rather, it's notably, and impressively, precise and crisp in its use of language - but lacking anything to particularly pull me in, quickly and painlessly though I got through the book. I'm just not that interested in this kind of story.

Scoop

Insubstantial but entertaining enough, Allen and Johansson quite amusing together. Not as good as I'd hoped, but on reflection, really much as I'd expected.

Siri Hustvedt - The Sorrows of an American

This just might be the best book I've read all year; in fact, I'm almost certain that it is. It's kind of the way I see API in my mind, except more grown up, and written in the kind of prose that I most admire - spare, elegant, deceptively transparent. Nothing seems forced, everything hangs together perfectly - it's real writing in a way that a lot of showy contemporary stuff doesn't get near.

Like What I Loved, it begins with a letter, this one found by middle-aged intellectuals Erik and Inga Davidsen as they go through their recently deceased father's effects and suggesting an illicit involvement of some kind with a mysterious woman, years ago. From there, it reveals itself to be a kind of character/milieu portrait which functions both 'horizontally' (that is, taking its subject-matter in cross-section, more or less at a point in time, albeit with a strong emphasis on historical shading-in of that present time) and 'linear-temporally' (in that it does have a reasonably strong forward drive, generated by the 'detective story' threads making up the narrative and by the characters' arcs.

My comments about A Plea for Eros and What I Loved (see above) at the time that I read them go some way to describing what it is about Sorrows that so appeals - in both thematic preoccupations and style, Hustvedt is just my type, even though her particular foreground subjects have little immediate pull for me. As far as modern literature goes, it doesn't come much better than this.

Alien & Aliens

I've seen these before, but for some reason was in the mood to revisit them (nb: it's surprisingly difficult to find Alien 3 in dvd stores!). They don't grip quite as much on re-viewing, and I'm sure the small screen doesn't help either; still, both remain impressive in design and in execution.

R.E.M. - "Bittersweet Me" cd single

In the context of New Adventures in Hi-Fi, "Bittersweet Me" is only really a middling song - but that's no serious criticism given that, for mine, New Adventures is the best of R.E.M.'s many great albums, not to mention one of my favourite records by any artist full stop. This single has a couple of alternate versions of songs from the album, a fairly tough "Undertow" which adheres closely to the studio version and an acoustic "New Test Leper", and a live take on "Wichita Lineman" which isn't as good as it might've been, but is still pretty dern good.

Neko Case & Her Boyfriends - Furnace Room Lullaby

Great, in the way that all Neko Case records are. With the benefit of hindsight (and having listened to them all out of order), I can hear this as the big step forward for her - of the studio lps at any rate, while The Virginian was plenty listenable but a bit rough around the edges, Furnace Room Lullaby is much more polished, and better for it, a midday-through-to-late-afternoon (shading into night) precursor to the noirisms of Blacklisted (itself followed by the most fully realised of her records to date, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood).
My heart has lightened as spring has announced itself in the past few weeks; it strikes me that Case's music can be listened to at any time of year. It sounds good in the blazing heat of summer, but likewise in the chill of winter; the resonance it carries is altered but no less poignant in the mezzanine months. I don't tire of it at all.

The Edge of Love

Tamara and I have been trying to get it together to see this for a while, both inspired by the likely look of the film (in my case, at least, encouraged by the trailer). Anyhow, we finally managed it last night, Shaun joining us (because he likes Dylan Thomas, of all reasons!), and I'd have to say that it was about as I anticipated, though not all that I'd hoped. The 1940s setting comes to life, which is to say that it's at once vivid and somehow faded, scarlets and spotlights and soft, nostalgic edges, in sets, costumes, and all the little details; in the central roles, Keira, Sienna, Cillian, and Matthew Rhys as Thomas himself, all look right and do solid work.

Actually, locating the centre of the film is no easy exercise, which is one of the problems with it...the figure of Dylan Thomas is the hinge but he comes across as something of a cipher, and the relationship between Vera and Caitlin, while rendered with some conviction and depth, isn't quite developed in a way which convinces that it's what The Edge of Love is actually about; the spectre of the war haunts events, somewhat as it does in Atonement but even more so, yet can't be said to be the film's central concern in any meaningful sense. It's a film that either doesn't quite know what it wants to be, or does know but doesn't quite succeed in getting there...I think it shoots for melancholy, sweeping, romantic (the lush Badalamenti score is a strong hint in respect of all three of those), and at the same time warm, a bit earthy, filled with life, but it's just not quite there; it sets itself at meaningful character study but also indulges in broad-brush impressionistic gestures, and again it falls a bit short of what it aims for. (It also feels much longer than it is, which can't be a good sign.)

On balance, though, the good outweighs the bad; I wouldn't watch it again, but I was pretty happy to have seen it.

Though lovers be lost love shall not ...

An idea

So I thought that maybe I would try to watch all of my favourite films, as nearly as I can ascertain (given that unlike songs or albums, say, one revisits films relatively infrequently if at all) - 20 or 30, or maybe even 50 (yes, I have a list) - over some short period of time, not for any particular reason really, but just because. Might be a seriously bad idea, though, given that most of 'em fall somewhere between somewhat and extremely sad - or, at least, that's what I get out of them - and maybe it's not so wise to take risks with one's mood over spring, when all things are fragile in any event...well, we'll see.

The Last Town Chorus @ Hi-Fi Bar, Friday 12 September

Very nice indeed; for mine, the pleasures of Wire Waltz are, while real, not particularly vivid, but live she was scintillating, ipod backing track clear but relatively muted in volume, allowing her sweet, strong voice to come through with the clear vibrato of the lap steel in overlapping waves. All too brief at only six songs (or was it five?), but including "It's Not Over" and "Modern Love", and totally worth it.

(w/ Michelle and a friend of hers, Sarjeet; having little interest in seeing the other support, Sunshine Brothers, and none in seeing the main act, Ash Grunwald, I stayed for about three songs of the former's pleasant enough but uninteresting trumpet-led reggae-dub stylings before making my getaway...life's too short.)

21 Grams

Primed for it though I was by Inarittu's gorgeous contribution to Chacun son cinéma, I almost gave up on 21 Grams about 15 minutes in - the grittiness combined with the rapid jumping between stories and times was keeping me at a distance, and I was pretty tired. It repays the effort, though, unfurling into something that's intense and true-feeling. The performances are uniformly excellent, including that of the director himself, at once heightenedly dramatic and firmly anchored; it packs a heavy emotional punch, too. The film's no masterpiece, but it shows plenty.

My Blueberry Nights

Extracted from an email (one reference omitted; footnotes added):

It was pretty good, but not near his best earlier ones.[1] Very much his take on an 'American' film[2] - reminded me rather of Edward Hopper's paintings[3] - but still plenty languorous, romantic, moody, etc, etc.[4] Norah Jones did a good job![5] (Actually, he got good performances out of all of the leads - including a nice cameo from Cat Power.[6] Rachel Weisz probably the best but Natalie Portman also good as a raucous Vegas gambler.[7])

(w/ David and Wei)

* * *

[1] The framing story couldn't help but put me in mind of Chungking Express, in particular.
[2] Something was lost in the translation, I fear - My Blueberry Nights isn't as rapturous, as rhapsodic, as say 2046 or ITMFL, and the dialogue is, dare I say it, positively clunky in places.
[3] But more smeared and impressionistic - or do I mean expressionistic? I'm never quite sure with WKW's films.
[4] Albeit with some surprising grittiness in the David Strathairn/Rachel Weisz segment - which is graced by some seriously great acting from both of the above.
[5] In kind of a dreamy, wide-eyed, almost excessively ingenuous way, but she did it well, and that was the point of the character.
[6] A couple of songs from The Greatest, including the title track, made it on to the soundtrack, as did a nice cover of "Harvest Moon" by Cassandra Wilson; all quite nice but the music doesn't function in the same hot-wire-to-the-spine way as it does in, eg, Chungking Express.
[7] Jude Law the least dynamic but held his own...y'know, I don't mean to be too critical about the film, though - it was, for all that, still pretty captivating.

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello

Wonderfully mounted animated short - genuine steampunk, with all the frills. The silhouette style works a treat, and goes well with the Victorian gothic elements as well as the tech-industrial trappings that come with the territory.

Stay

One of those perception-thrillers - a bit of star wattage in Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling (not to mention Bob Hoskins and Janeane Garofalo in smaller roles), and a dab hand with camera sleight of hand (which turns out to serve the underlying premise of the film rather neatly). The problem, of course, is that there are generally a limited number of ways that films of this nature can turn out, and Stay indeed reveals itself to be one of those familiar types by its end...still, it's not a cheat, and it's effective enough, so...

(also w/ Michelle at home, involving some slightly ridiculous measures to emulate the night-time ambience that she insisted the film needed while we watched it at 4 in the afternoon)

Southland Tales

A right mess, this - basically a totally incoherent and completely affectless cinematic diatribe against right-wing politics, consumerism and pop culture vacuousness (vacuity?), with a bit of space-time continuum rip into the bargain. Without question, the best thing about it is the Rock's performance, though you could star-spot to your heart's content with this one (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Justin Timberlake also prominent, to name just two).

(w/ Michelle - at home)

The First Emperor (Tan Dun)

The Nova's running a series of screenings of last and this season's performances of the New York Met opera; this one, focusing on the first emperor of Qin (sung by Placido Domingo, no less) and written by Tan Dun (among other things, the composer of the music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), feels like a fusion of Chinese and western opera (not that I particularly know anything about either)...I enjoyed it! (And, somewhat surprisingly, found my heart beating faster than normal at several points.) Though it has to be said that the music never quite launched to a higher level...

(w/ Sara)

Hellboy & Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Michelle was all excited about the new one, based on its trailer (I've always been put off by the ridiculous-seemingness of Hellboy himself, but was persuadable given del Toro's and Ron Perlman's involvement), so we watched the first film on dvd and then, the following Friday night (and with Jarrod in tow), saw the sequel on the big screen.

The first one is really only okay - it has some great images and a sly sense of humour (and Jeffrey Tambor up its sleeve), but it's too uneven and has too many dull patches to succeed on any terms, even as a comic book adaptation (not that the bar is lower for such, but rather that the parameters for success are different). The sequel, while in a similar vein as the original, has a much more rapid-fire pace, both in terms of action sequences and jokes (it's laugh out loud hilarious at points), and is truly spectacular (it's hard to imagine del Toro's Hobbit as anything short of a resounding success) - it's rare to see such vividly imagined and rendered imagery deployed almost purely for the sake of entertainment in the service of an unashamed genre piece such as this, though I still find the basic lack of gravitas of Hellboy himself, as likeable and well realised a figure as he is, distracting, particularly when pitted against the epic scope of the film.

"Writing Melbourne"

Steven Carroll, seeming only to have about two different ideas about his novels, which he repeated at intervals (not a criticism, btw); Michelle de Kretser, elegantly and softly spoken; Toni Jordan, unpretentious and amusing on the subject of her novel Addition; and a Nick Gadd, who writes crime fiction with apparently something of a literary bent, but didn't make much of an impression - all on the subject of writing (about) Melbourne in its various incarnations and elements, and none particularly dealing with 'my' Melbourne...which was at least partly the point of the session as a whole.

(w/ Cassie)

The National - Alligator & Boxer

It's true - in Alligator and Boxer, the National have wrought something special, a pair of albums each imbued with whatever it is that sets a rock and roll record apart and marks it as something a little bit transcendent...as between the two, well, Alligator is pretty great, but it's Boxer that really amazes - I reckon Julian F got it exactly right when he called the record a future classic, because that's just what it sounds like. It has a resonance that can't be mistaken.

Every single song on Boxer is good, and it's perfectly sequenced, its individual tracks subtly reflecting and building upon each other as they go, the whole much more than the sum of the parts. The album leads off with one of its clear highlights, the downbeat anthem "Fake Empire", at once totally contemporary chamber-pop influenced indie rock and classicist synthesis of the several pop music strands to be heard wrapped up in its sound, and then kicks it with the propulsive surge of "Mistaken For Strangers" before rounding off its first suite with the one-two of the murky, lovely brood of "Brainy" (very different sounding from its immediate predecessor on the record, but wreathed in the same post-punk aesthetic) and "Squalor Victoria" 's faster-paced but equally haunted rockisms.

Then, Boxer's dark, velvet heart, "Green Gloves" and "Slow Show": the first mysterious, subterranean and never quite resolving; the second providing the payoff, its coda - "you know I dreamed about you for 29 years before I saw you" - delivering one of the album's most apparently straightforward emotional payloads, yet in a way which still leaves one suspended somewhere between anticipation and resolution.

After that, "Apartment Story", another contemporary take on the Springsteen thing (see also "Keep The Car Running"), and done well, and then two deceptively low-key tracks, "Start A War" and "Racing Like A Pro", separated by probably the album's sprightliest moment (at least on purely musical terms), "Guest Room", which reminds me, it has to be said, of the handful of latter-day U2 songs that have held anything of the old magic (especially a couple of the better moments on All That You Can't Leave Behind), though if there's a stadium rock band's lp to which Boxer as a whole merits comparison, it's unquestionably R.E.M.'s New Adventures In Hi-Fi...anyhow, those two - "Start A War" and "Racing Like A Pro" - while not immediately memorable, turn out to be two of the deepest running songs on the record, and certainly two of those which I most commonly find echoing in my head...after which the band brings it home with the relaxed elegance of "Ada" and "Gospel", not stretching for anything over and above the rest of the album but instead finding the ideal way to wind things up in light of what has come before, on a gentle decline in which things continue to unfurl and re-ravel.

All told, it feels like there's a single thread running through the album - which has more than a little, I think, to do with the fact that it's the first album in ages that I've genuinely wanted to listen to over and over from start to finish (the last one before it was probably Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga once that one took root), and the first in even longer that I've felt like listening to in the dark, at night, with no distractions and nothing in my awareness except the music (the last couple having been, I reckon, Fox Confessor and In The Aeroplane... back in the first half of '06, or perhaps the Marie Antoinette soundtrack).

Alligator, which came before Boxer, can't help but suffer by comparison; despite, in "Abel" and "Mr November", housing the two most clarion songs to appear on either album, it feels a more muted record than that other, and it's certainly less perfect. Still, when it hits, it really hits - both of the abovementioned are great, and the jittery, catchy "Friend Of Mine" and the contemplative driftiness of "Daughters of the Soho Riots", not to mention the opening run of "Secret Meeting", "Karen" and "Lit Up", also stick indelibly...and I feel that it probably still has more room to grow on me, being that bit more understated and shadowy...

It strikes me that I haven't managed to say much about the National's sound on these two albums, but the truth is that their music has sunk in for me at a level which feels as if it has very little to do with the details of the sound itself - it's a tonal thing more than, say, a melodic or an instrumental one in particular...it's great, is what it comes down to - that's all.

Atonement

Atonement came with some pretty positive reviews from people who oughta know, including some of the 'even better than the book' variety (having not been overly enamoured of the book when I read it some time back, this impressed me less than it might otherwise have, but even so...), and I can see what all the fuss was about, though I don't think it's by any stretch a great movie.

What it is, is a great-looking film - both in its lavishly wrought details (locations and costuming especially) and in its stunning set pieces (fountain, library, Dunkirk), it's nothing short of sumptuous. It's also a film that, to a very large extent, succeeds in having its cake and eating it: it mostly convinces as a melodrama, with the attendant emotional heft, and also mostly succeeds in conveying its several messages about responsibility, regret, imagination and 'atonement' (the conveying of which necessarily depends in part on the undermining of those emotional effects, admittedly while reinforcing them in a different way); likewise, Knightley and McAvoy look the part and, whether through good acting or the fortuity of having well-cast actors (or, more likely, a bit of both), put in performances serving both of those impulses within the film, walking a fine line between genuine expressiveness and a more distant inscrutability or unknowability. (All of the actors who play Briony at the several stages of her life are very good, too, particularly the first two, Saoirse Ronan and Romola Garai, with Vanessa Redgrave having less to do than either of the others.) If, in the end, it doesn't quite succeed in reconciling those two threads, then the failure, such as it is, is, I suspect, an unavoidable one in large measure.

Oldboy

Violent, spectacular, and visceral in more than one sense, Oldboy isn't for the faint-hearted. It's certainly gripping, and stylish, too, painting from a broad but consistent tonal palette - but, all up, it didn't give me all that much, its moves wreathed in internal conviction and force but without much external reference...or something like that, anyway. Put another way (though saying something slightly different), it was well made and held my attention, but I'm just not that into this kind of film.

Paul Davies in conversation with Phillip Adams - More Big Questions

Lent to me by Cassie after one of those late night, several-drinks-in conversations a while ago: Davies and Adams in conversation on, indeed, big questions, tackled from a scientic perspective in clear, lay terms. I got a bit out of it - this is stuff about which I'm not particularly knowledgeable but that I'd like to know about (that is, the basics of current thinking about the chemistry of science, theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, etc - wanting to know about the Big Questions goes without saying!).

"Ghosts"

A mix cd from David - very enjoyable. There's a notable degree of musical/thematic coherency to the mix, ranging as it does across a cross-section of current indie-modern-rock act (or whatever they're called these days), with a couple of familiar songs from touchstone artists (Neil Young's "Don't Let It Bring You Down" and Tom Waits' "Hang Down Your Head") thrown in, and a pair of more electronic-infused cuts to begin and end (Ladytron's "Ghosts" and Panda Bear's "Take Pills"). From Radiohead, covers of two of my favourite songs, "Unravel" and "Ceremony"; from Phantom Planet, a song, "Quarantine", that sounds an awful lot like Radiohead. The standout's the Walkmen's "Another One Goes By", in its scuttle and sway like an end of the day second act to the marvellous "Louisiana".

"The moral of the story"

A bit of a waste of time, to be honest. The program described it in these terms: ' "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily - that's what fiction means," according to Wilde. Barry Maitland debates with Peter Mares whether the best novels are moral, immoral or amoral. ' which is all very well, but as it turned out, completely misleading, the discussion being much more closely focused on Maitland's latest, a subject which held very little interest for me. Well, you can't win them all.

(mwf '08 - w/ Cassie, Tamara and David)

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (MTC)

One thing's for sure, the mtc went all out in an attempt to bring us an authentic "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" experience, and it's a handsome production - the set looked great, as did the costumes, and the faint snatches of music at intervals were a nice touch...also, I think (fortified by having read the play very recently) I'm right in saying that they did the thing in toto, without any omissions at all (it was Williams' original version, rather than the Kazan-triggered rewrite). Even so, it wasn't wholly satisfying - the accents wavered pretty badly at points, and the performances were generally solid rather than electrifying, a shortcoming which is difficult to overcome in a play such as this, where essentially everything hinges on the characters' interactions, often one on one...but still, I thought it was pretty good all told.

[part of an MTC subscription with Steph, Sunny & co]

Cassettes Won't Listen - Small-Time Machine

Bought on spec, based on CWL's spectacularly good remix of Asobi Seksu's "Strawberries", but for the most part it comes across quite disappointingly as a somewhat more retro and considerably less memorable Give Up (not to mention five years on from that other), albeit with a bit more of a kitchen sink approach to its laptop-pop mode; things only really pick up for me on "Cutting Balloons" and "Lunch for Breakfast", each distinguished by some more dynamic beats and melody/rhythm lines than are to be found elsewhere on the record.

Justice Michael Kirby - "Answering the Critics - Human Rights and the Constitution"

Engaging but also measured, and he held the line for a national rights instrument. Interestingly, he seemed tacitly to accept that any such instrument would be along the lines of the Victorian Charter model rather than anything more ambitious; at least three possible explanations for that spring to mind, being variously beliefs on his part (from most to least plausible) that (1) advocating anything more radical (whether in the form of more direct human rights protection via ordinary Commonwealth legislation, or, even more so, constitutional amendment) would be doomed to failure, (2) a Charter-style Act is actually the best model for national rights protection, all things considered (perhaps having regard in particular to the UK Human Rights Act), and (3) simple oversight.

Anyway, I reckon all signs are pointing towards us getting a national human rights Act at some point in the next few years, always assuming that Rudd gets another term in office (as he surely must unless something goes badly wrong)...

Caroline - Murmurs

Maybe it's a Japanese thing, but the cover and sleeve design for Murmurs reminds me of those for Tujiko Noriko's Make Me Hard and Shojo Toshi. Indeed, Murmurs is a bit like a whole album of "White Film"s as done by a far more sweet-voiced vocalist (exhibit A: "Where's My Love", one of the softest, most sheerly lovely electro-pop things you'll ever hear); edgy it isn't, but all of the soft-toned textures and wide-eyed drifting don't come at the expense of proper melodies and interesting decoration...it's nice.

"Uncovered" (IMP July 2008)

Covers, of course. Some enticing prospects on the tracklist, but sadly only the first half of the cd works, so I miss out on hearing such intriguing combinations as The Boy Least Likely To doing George Michael's "Faith" (would probably be pretty good), Vampire Weekend teeing off on "Exit Music (For A Film)" (difficult to imagine) and Bright Eyes taking on "Mushaboom" (the mind simply boggles). Still, it makes me happy to've heard Jens Lekman singing "You Can Call Me Al", and anyone who doesn't get at least a bit 'aw shucks' about the prospect of Tegan and Sara covering "Rebel Rebel", well, anyone like that is obviously different from me (though it must be said, the cover itself is pretty average). Also notable: Of Montreal's take on M.I.A.'s "Jimmy" and Ben Folds' "Such Great Heights" - but the unexpected highlight is the Arctic Monkeys' "You Know I'm No Good", though some of that is surely attributable to how great the song itself is (something which hadn't really sunk in till I heard their version of it).

(from Angela in Clarkston, MI)

Tennessee Williams - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Sometimes the form makes all the difference; I don't think I would've liked Cat on a Hot Tin Roof half as much had it been a novel (or, more likely, a short story), well, even to the extent that that's a meaningful counterfactual at all, I mean. That said, in a lot of ways I'm drawn more to the play form than to the novel in any event - my inclination is always to pare things back, to live in the gaps and the spaces, and of their nature plays lend themselves more to such economy than their more descriptively fulsome cousins. Restraint can be more evocative than a torrent of words - and so it proves with Cat, for all of its melodramatic impulses. Williams' stage directions are unusually interiorised, most strikingly in the following long passage where the playwright actually breaks the fourth wall, at least on the page:

Brick's detachment is at last broken through. His heart is accelerated; his forehead sweat-beaded; his breath becomes more rapid and his voice hoarse. The thing they're discussing, timidly and painfully on the side of Big Daddy, fiercely, violently on Brick's side, is the inadmissible thing that Skipper died to disavow between them. The fact that if it existed it had to be be disavowed to "keep face" in the world they lived in, may be at the heart of the "mendacity" that Brick drinks to kill his disgust with. It may be the root of his collapse. Or maybe it is only a single manifestation of it, not even the most important. The bird that I hope to catch in the net of this play is not the solution of one man's psychological problem. I'm trying to catch the true quality of experience in a group of people, that cloud, flickering, evanescent - fiercely charged! - interplay of live human beings in the thundercloud of a common crisis. Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one's own character to himself. This does not absolve the playwright of his duty to observe and probe as clearly and deeply as he legitimately can: but it should steer him away from "pat" conclusions, facile definitions which make a play just a play, not a snare for the truth of human experience.

but they serve their purpose - they deepen one's appreciation of the play itself, characters, themes, structure(s), though only ever by casting light, realigning perspective, and never by cheating and introducing anything entirely extrinsic or new.

The above, too, serves as something of a statement of purpose for the play, and one which, I think, is fully achieved by the end - again, for all of the dramatics that take place, above all else Cat feels real. It doesn't have any gimmicks up its sleeve, nor any particular conceits (at least beyond those which are common to all plays, which map on to those common to all literature as written), but instead strives for, and reaches, a kind of truthfulness which cuts to the heart of the relationships and mores which are its subject (I felt that indefinable 'truthfulness', or perhaps 'honesty', more clearly in Williams' original version than in the alternate version, with its revised final act, prepared under original director Elia Kazan's influence and evincing more of a developmental arc, and liked it correspondingly more). Maggie and Brick are drawn in a broad, confident hand, and while their interactions with each other, and those between all of the other characters, are unquestionably 'stagey', they breathe with an air of reality, and one genuinely engages with them as people, and not merely as 'characters'. It's swamped in atmosphere, too - a sense of time and place. Without wanting to be too backwards lookin', they don't seem to write 'em like this any more.

Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson - Rattlin' Bones

Nicholson's voice complements Chambers' well, and this record seems like a genuinely collaborative affair, but inevitably I've approached it as 'the new Kasey Chambers album', and as such, it's much as I'd expected based on the launch - much more of a bluegrass/country flavour than probably anything she's done before, and certainly more so than the thoroughly enjoyable Carnival, but retaining the crystalline, spacious production and modern touches which give the music its immediacy and much of its charm. For all of that, though, it hasn't left a great impression on me so far (and I've had the album for a while) - perhaps, I've listened to too much of this kind of stuff before, and in moving in this direction, Chambers has left behind some of the idiosyncratic elements (both edginess and sweetness) which distinguish so much of her previous work.

Clouds - Favourites

It's all very confusing. There's these guys, the Sydney outfit who I know through Penny Century and, before that, the appropriately named "Anthem" (thank you cassette tape of "100% Hits volume 4"), and then there's a Scottish mob from the 80s, whose "Get Out Of My Dream" was one of the highlights of the CD86 comp, and apparently there was another before them (also Scottish, for good measure) back in the 60s. Anyway, so this compilation: there's much to like on it, most notably the willingness to experiment with unconventional song forms while retaining a clear pop sensibility and the sound they nailed seemingly from the very beginning (crisp, state-of-the-90s indie girl rock), but the songwriting is probably a bit too indirect for the band's own good, with the result that one is left with an impression of a series of swirls of colour rather than of clearly defined pieces; tellingly, one of the few songs to stand out is their woozy take on "Wichita Lineman".

"Lands End" (Compagnie Philippe Genty)

Oh my god, this was amazing. A sort of surrealist dance theatre show, complete with giant puppets, billowing oversized stage-filling balloons, striking lighting, and sliding panels and screens which continually frame and reframe the stage as they move. Taking cues certainly from Magritte (the men in long coats and bowler hats are only the beginning) and probably in some measure from Lacan (re: that latter, I'm thinking naturally of the 'Seminar on The Purloined Letter', etc), too, it's genuinely dream-like, beautiful, unsettling, whimsical, fantastic; and set to music something like a cross between Four Tet and Victorialand, but exceeding any such attempt at categorisation. From our position near the front, in the centre of the row, it was easy to become immersed in the flow of scenes and images while allowing their 'meaning' (or, perhaps, 'narrative') to take shape at a more abstract level. "Lands End" made a lot of sense to me, both emotionally and imaginatively, and more 'intellectually' (in some respects, precisely inasmuch as it elides the distinctions between those various types of responses); I haven't had such a wonderful experience in a theatre setting maybe ever.

(w/ trang + Arthur)

Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts

One for the fans, or at least for those with some existing interest in Glass - it's perfectly watchable, but doesn't shed a huge amount of light on either the man or the music. He comes across as very down to earth and affable, with a healthy lack of ego and rich spiritual life, but there are hints of lacunae, dissonances - in particular, in his relationships with his parents and with the women in his life - which aren't explored; and no attempt at all is made to say anything about the music itself, although there's an implied comparison to the pointillistic paintings of one of Glass's artist friends. Still, watching it reminded me how much I like his stuff, so it has to go down as a success at least to that extent.

(w/ Jaani - a sold-out session (at MIFF), impressively)

"Strengthening Human Rights and the Rule of Law"

Seminar back at MS, a week or so ago - Robert McClelland on the above subject. Earlier that day, he'd announced that Justice Branson (FCA) would be the new head of HREOC; at the seminar, he unveiled a few initiatives (possible national anti-terror law, consideration being given of ratification of first optional protocol to CEDAW, standing invitation to special rapporteurs and investigators) which, given the necessarily woolly nature of human rights talk, are all reasonably substantive, I reckon. He was rather more 'down home' and less polished than I'd expected, but seemed sincere enough and didn't come across as if he was bluffing at any point, including while fielding questions afterwards. President Maxwell (Vic CA) delivered a response, the main themes of which were how different/refreshing it is to have a Cth A-G speaking of human rights in the way that McClelland (and the Rudd government generally) has been and the fact that the idea of human rights is neither the particular province of the 'left' nor particularly radical.