Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger

Mmm, I never read The Night Watch, but somewhere along the line, Waters has gotten really good. Essentially a post-war haunted house story, redolent with psychological ambiguity and unease, and delicately steeped in post-Victorian and Freudian notions of the unconscious and the uncanny, The Little Stranger is full of strikingly lucid, elegantly clear prose and note-perfect descriptions, wedded to a building sense of eeriness and a story that grabs from the beginning and doesn't let go. It draws heavily on older, classic examples of the type - The Turn of the Screw isn't an unreasonable comparison - but distinguishes itself both through its craft and, relatedly, by the manner in which it develops into a subtle parable about class, as seen through the lens of the relationship between Faraday and the Ayreses. A really terrific novel, and one which has left me with no doubt that Waters deserves the acclaim she's increasingly been receiving.

Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

An extremely off-beat Gus van Sant project from the 90s about a woman born with abnormally large thumbs and magical hitch-hiking powers who finds her way to a utopian cowgirl ranch; studded with interesting actors (many in 'blink and you'll miss them' cameos) including the always watchable Uma Thurmann in the lead role, it ought to've been at least moderately good, but in fact it really goes nowhere...there just didn't seem any point to it - I found it completely baffling.

Lisa Germano - Slide

Another draught of gauzily pretty, ineffably damaged 4ad pop from Germano, Slide has an old favourite in "If I Think Of Love" and the original version of "Reptile" and much else besides.

Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea @ the Corner, Saturday 20 September

A good show - she played mostly stuff from Hidden Hands, which suited me fine, but also pulled a few numbers from Dead Wood Falls (and a couple from elsewhere, including, as she did last time I saw her, "Folsom Prison Blues"), and I enjoyed it all.

(w/ M)

"One Night the Moon" (Malthouse)

I thought that this was good, but flawed. It's an evocative, atmospheric staging (the first ten minutes or so, in particular, are stunning) which benefits a great deal from the simplicity of the film which it interprets and the strength of that underlying material, including its songs, but which is held back by some relatively minor but intrusive issues in terms of overall pacing and a couple of the performances (including the singing). Overall, worthwhile though.

(w/ Kevin)

(500) Days of Summer

I really liked (500) Days of Summer - indeed, I'd go so far as to say that it's perfect.[*] The set-up is simple: boy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets girl (Zooey Deschanel) and they fall into a relationship - but then he falls in love, and she doesn't. But the presentation of the story is less so: it's giddily non-traditional in its zooming back and forth through the 500 days promised by the title, whimsical to the point of tweeness at times, and filled with little cute bits, but also quite determinedly subversion of traditional romance narrative forms - while saving up for the end a message that may just be more romantic than that which typically emerges in those narratives themselves.[**]

I love the way that it has Zooey Deschanel as the perfect girl (only she's not). I love the way that she first notices him as they stand side by side in an elevator and the strains of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" escape from his headphones - and then sings along to it, all natural-like, to him. I love how, at karaoke, she does Nancy (Sinatra) and he does the Pixies - and the utterly believable and sweetly excruciating awkwardness of the bit where she asks him, outside on the road afterwards, whether it's true what his friend said, that he likes her, and he totally lies while being desperate to tell the truth. I love how it's tossed off that she likes "Born to Run" and Rene Magritte and, surely, everything else that a boy might want a girl to like. And I love how perfectly it captures the rush of falling for someone and everything that comes along with and after that initial giddy hope and joy.

At first glance, it seems that the film is set up for the viewer to identify with Tom - and, indeed, I did, in terms of the little things (the way that his clothes fit on him in the same way that mine do on me), the not so little things (the formative impact of gloomy british post-punk music, the devastating effect of the materialisation of a pretty girl who shares many of the same cultural referents and likes as him), and the not little at all things (his assumptions about relationships, love and mutual understanding, and how they're put under stress as the story progresses). But Summer isn't simply some fantasy figure, nor merely archetypal or significant only in terms of how Tom interacts with and relates to her - rather, she's a realistic character in her own right, and, oddly, I see much of her in myself, too.

(And did I mention that it's also very funny, not to mention having a sweet soundtrack?)

This isn't one of those films that's really knocked me off my emotional orbit like, say, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did. But it's left an impression on me, and I've taken it a bit to heart - I'm not sure, but I think that maybe I feel about (500) Days of Summer the way that a lot of people (but not me) felt about Garden State. It kind of made me happy and sad in the same proportions; it made me feel and, the which is possibly the more difficult trick for a film like this, it also made me think.

* * *

[*] Perfect, that is, taken on its own terms, of course.
[**] My thinking that its message may, in fact, be more romantic than that legible in its more 'traditional' counterparts is, now that I think about it, very possibly reflective of the extent to which I could, were I so minded, see the development of both Tom and Summer as parallel to my own; an unfortunately extremely piquant illustration which springs to mind is my previously-held view about the more romantic interpretation of the end of Lost in Translation and a particular conversation, a few years back, in which it came up (the record of which I haven't been able to quickly find here in extemporanea).

Paint a Vulgar Picture: Fiction inspired by The Smiths edited by Peter Wild

What the title says - each story taking its title from a Smiths song, some bearing an overt Smiths influence, other a more tacit one, and one or two seemingly simply taking the song title itself as a jumping-off point. Not many made much of an impression, although the two by writers who I've previously read - Scarlett Thomas' "Paint a Vulgar Picture" and Catherine O'Flynn's "You've Got Everything Now" - both have much of the flavour that makes me like their longer work; if there's a theme running through the stories, it's probably a fascination with the working class, the down-on-their-luck and the generally disenfranchised (punks, queers, drug-takers, criminals).

One Night the Moon

Saw this while at uni (quite literally - it was in one of the ERC's viewing rooms, with Kevin) but thought I should rewatch before seeing the current staging at the Malthouse this weekend. Simple, but good - in its dreamy way, reminiscent of Picnic at Hanging Rock in places, and the music is good, too.

The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema

Reminded by their "Hey, Snow White" on the Dark Was The Night set of how great the New Pornographers can be, I went looking for a reasonably priced copy of Mass Romantic the other day to finally listen to it; I didn't have any luck, but did come across their two most recent, Twin Cinema and Challengers, and picked them up instead. I haven't really listened to the latter of those yet, but hey, guess what? Twin Cinema is excellent!

The ones that I've particularly got my teeth into so far tend to be the ones on which Neko Case features prominently - something which she seems to do more frequently on this record than on Electric Version - and "The Bones of an Idol" and "The Bleeding Heart Show" are my current favourites. The latter, in particular, is absolutely vintage New Pornographers, up there with the title tracks from their first two records, "Letter from an Occupant", "From Blown Speakers", "The Laws Have Changed" and (my particular favourite) "Testament to Youth In Verse" as one of their bulletproof best moments. When they hit their straps, which is frequently, there's something gloriously barnstorming, roof-raising, about their take on modern power-pop, and they're very hard to beat.

7 Worlds Collide - The Sun Came Out

If I have this right, 7 Worlds Collide is a project pulled together by Neil Finn - they've put this record out for Oxfam. He's assembled an impressive cast of luminaries to write, sing and perform on songs - I reckon that the highlights are the two Jeff Tweedy, three-or-four-Wilco-albums-ago-sounding, numbers, "You Never Know" and "What Could Have Been", Glenn Richards' (Augie March) chiming "Duxton Blues", and "Reptile", the set closer and the song from which it draws its name, contributed by the always delightful and surprising Lisa Germano. There are also cuts from Johnny Marr (who plays guitar on several others), Phil Selway of Radiohead, KT Tunstall and others; all up, it's a pleasant collection rather than one that reaches any great heights, but it's very listenable even leaving aside the star-studdedness.

Yasmina Reza - Art

A terse, unsparingly intelligent and very pleasing three-hander focusing on the assumptions and accommodations that we make with ourselves and with each other in order to get along, bringing those ideas to light through the device of the differing responses to a work of modern art purchased by one of the three individuals who make up the play's dramatis personae. Reza was the playwright behind God of Carnage; I think I like Art more, though to an extent, comparing a play one has seen performed but not read, with another that one has read but not seen performed, is like comparing apples and oranges.

Ian C Esslemont - Return of the Crimson Guard

Esslemont collaborated with Steven Erikson in conceiving the world of the latter's Malazan series, and while Erikson has been making the running with the novel-writing, wikipedia tells me that Esslemont's contributions are regarded as equally canonical, and that's certainly the best way to approach this one, which for all intents and purposes is part of the series proper, enriching it by drawing out more about some characters who haven't yet featured prominently in Erikson's books, and also chronicling crucial developments at the centre of the Malaz empire itself, including directly surrounding Laseen. The prose isn't quite as good as Erikson's, nor the weaving of threads as mind-bogglingly complex - Return of the Crimson Guard is more heavily military than any in the 'Malazan Book of the Fallen' series to date - but it's still very satisfying.

V for Vendetta

(For the second time - still good.)

"God of Carnage" (MTC)

An entertaining assault on bourgeois hypocrisies and mores generally with a bit of a dark streak (which comes with the territory - and, indeed, is probably essential to the success of any play or other work in this vein) running through it. For mine, this play is something of a one-trick pony, but it's intelligently put together and genuinely sharp-edged, and was well performed (Hugo Weaving a stand out), so I enjoyed it nonetheless.

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

Aimee Mann @ the Palais, Saturday 5 September

Aimee Mann just might be my favourite artist currently going around (Radiohead, as ever, I place in a different - though not necessarily higher - category) and this was her first ever Australian tour, and so I was pretty excited about the show, an excitement that was only slightly diminished by the news that she was only touring with a pair of keyboardists rather than with a full band.

Anyway, I was always going to enjoy it, and I did - she drew from nearly her entire solo discography (I don't remember anything from Whatever), although with a bit of an emphasis on I'm With Stupid, Lost in Space and the Magnolia soundtrack, including enough songs from my 'personal canon' of Aimee Mann numbers to provide distinct highlights (she's never really had 'hits' as such, such as could comprise a more official canon, but I suppose the nearest would be the big Magnolia trio of "Deathly", "Save Me" and "Wise Up", all of which she played and all three of which would be in my personal list, too), but then I've listened to all of her albums so many times that every song she played (barring a b-side and a duet with Ben Lee) were intimately familiar to me. Mann herself was in good voice, and very likeable besides; the instrumentation did feel slightly bare, but it at least put a different complexion on a set of songs that, as I mentioned just before, I knew very well. It wasn't in any way revelatory, but I enjoyed the concert very much.

(Support act was Ben Lee, about whom, as ever, the less said, the better. "Cigarettes Will Kill You" was charming when it came out, but his entire career since then has just been an exercise in the utter lack of charm. I don't know what it is - he just annoys me.)

(w/ M and Wei)

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Twice Upon A Time - The Singles

Siouxsie and the Banshees have always been there in the background for me as historical and musical contemporaries of crucial acts like the Cure and the Cocteau Twins, but I've never really listened to them. This set is, I think, a best-of tracing the second half (although it may be slightly more than half) of their career; based on it, I think I can say that I like the band's sound but the songs themselves aren't lighting any rockets beneath me.

Ronald Welch - Sun of York

Whether it's a case of cause and effect or some common underlying root cause, it's easy for me to draw a direct line between this historical novel, which focuses on a few years during the War of the Roses in 15th century England and which I think I must have first read some time in primary school and returned to at least once a few years on from then, and much of what I enjoy reading today (most notably, George R R Martin's magnificent 'Song of Ice and Fire' series). Read now, some of the deficiencies in its craft are evident, but it still stands up as a pacy, well-coloured, surprisingly violent bit of historical fiction, dealing of course with an inherently dramatic and interesting period.

Silver Summit - Silver Summit

Better live, where the atmospherics and textures went further (tending to be a bit flattened out on record), but still at least interesting in recorded form.

"Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire" (NGV)

The exhibition was crowded when we went, as it apparently has been for the whole time that it's been running, meaning that circumstances weren't conducive to having any kind of real experience of the art - but I didn't mind that too much, as, while I like him well enough, I'm not a huge fan of Dali in the first place, and so was approaching the show principally as an opportunity to get more of a sense for his work and to see how it was all put together. (I wanted to go in any event because, like him or not, he's certainly Important, and especially in the 20th century art scene, which is pretty much my thing.)

Anyway, so I enjoyed the exhibition, crowd notwithstanding. Sympathetically curated, it didn't focus too much on the 'personality' aspect of Dali that can be so off-putting (and distracting) and thereby brought into greater prominence the quality of the work itself, which is (for mine) undeniably high. (Also, unlike the one from a few years ago, which was exhibited somewhere in Southbank, if I remember correctly, it concentrates principally on his drawings and paintings, with some of his cinematic work and a small annex containing jewellery, rather than on his sculptural and more 'design'-oriented work.)

It's arranged more or less chronologically, and I must say that some of his earlier stuff, showing strong cubist influences, was amongst the most appealing to me; indeed, it's possible to see strong elements of many of the key streams of 20th C art in his work over time - apart from his early dalliances with cubism, there's surrealism, of course, the movement with which he was most obviously affiliated for much of his career, and also a strong dose of pop art (indeed, it's arguably in a particular form of pop surrealism, often dabbling strongly in kitsch, that Dali's own influence is most apparent in contemporary art)...something else that is how good a painter he is technically, particularly in his 'mature' and post-atomic, and increasingly apocalyptic, work. At his best, his work is deeply mysterious, potently symbolic and strongly suggestive of the unconscious terrain - this exhibition was well worthwhile.

(w/ Yee Fui, trang and M)

Luluc - Dear Hamlyn

Pretty much what the show led me to expect - tranquil, contemporary (but not too contemporary) folk, well done.

Madonna - Ray of Light

For some reason I felt like listening to this, and duly tracked it down, a couple of weekends ago; its smoothly sparkly, vaguely eastern-influenced modern-90s electronic-dance-pop feels instantly familiar (not least because I heard the singles from it on the radio a lot back in the day), and goes down easily.

Brandi Carlile - The Story

I picked this up because it was cheap (it was three cds for $10, and I already had two) and I remembered reading some positive things about it on the internet when it came out, and put it on in the background a few nights later while doing something else; about a minute into the second song, the title track, I was compelled to turn it up, caught by Carlile's sudden, dramatic soar into modern rock anthem territory, her voice rising suddenly as power chords crashed in while the song hit its spectacular chorus for the first time, and to keep it up loud for the rest of the record, as it became apparent that Carlile had the chops to make good on that early promise. The Story is a set of country/roots/rock delivered with more personality than is usual for this kind of music, and at times with a pleasant rawness. It's good - nowhere near great, but good.