Stories: All-New Tales Edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

A good collection of stories, some by writers notable for their work in particular genres and others by those associated with more 'general' fiction. The choice of writers gives an indication of the theme, such as it is, of the anthology - the genre types generally being recognisably of their genre but known for working at the margins and incorporating more 'literary' elements (Michael Moorcock, Gene Wolfe, Walter Mosley), and the others a catholic mix of unarguably literary types and bestseller list popular fiction writers (there can't be too many short story collections out there featuring both Joyce Carol Oates and Jodi Picoult). What these stories have in common, as Gaiman suggests in his introduction, is that they're all genuine stories in the sense of being about the imagination and the 'and then what happened?' - many have fantasy and/or horror (or fable/fabulous) elements, but generally situated in the real world.

Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum

So one night last week I was feeling the walls closing in on me a bit, and needed a distraction - and voila.

The New Pornographers @ Hi-Fi Bar, Saturday 13 November

Touring without Bejar but with Neko, and they seemed a band completely comfortable in their own skin, right down to the ultra-casual outfits - ripped through a set of songs drawn from across all of their albums, starting with "Sing Me Spanish Techno" and ending (main set at least) on the high note of "The Bleeding Heart Show". In fact, they showed the happy knack of being able to pick the high points from their back catalogue for their live show; pretty much all of the songs came to life, but "Testament to Youth in Verse" (still my favourite of theirs), about midway through the set, stood out.

Also, support was an outfit from Brisbane, Little Scout. They were pretty sweet, and actually really good - melodic, colourful indie-pop.

(w/ Meribah)

(last time - December '06)

Ashley Crawford - Directory of Australian Art

Actually sets out to be a directory, in the sense of containing listings of practical information about the Australian art world as well as more general historical and encyclopedic material; chapters titled 'A brief overview of Australian art', 'Investment', 'A select dictionary of Australian art and artists', 'Around the galleries' and 'Art people'. I learned quite a bit from reading it - both from the concise, readable overview of the history of 'Australian art' it provides, and from the context it gave me for various individual artists whose work I've come across around the galleries over the years.

Happy Together

There's something about Happy Together that reminds me of Godard's Vivre sa vie - apt, as Wong Kar-Wai and JLG have more than a bit in common. I've intended to watch Happy Together for ages - in fact, I bought the dvd a good couple of years ago, thinking that I could watch it before heading off to Buenos Aires, where most of the film takes place. It's a beautiful setting, and WKW and cinematographer Christopher Doyle use the city and some spectacular natural settings from elsewhere in Argentina to dizzying effect, enhanced by the Piazzolla soundtrack and of course by (and with) the 'narrative' of two unhappy lovers, Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung (a dream pairing if ever there was one), and a third with who has also become becalmed in BA while drifting on his own journey (Chang Chen). It's a film that has an impact at the time, but then really lingers, the intensity and textural quality of the mood it creates sinking further in as the film and its images become part of one's own internal landscape - like things already familiar, but now heightened.

The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers & The Return of the King

Have been rewatching these (long versions) since getting a new tv a few months back, and they're still extremely impressive, not least in the way that they're still exciting after multiple viewings and while knowing exactly what what's going to happen.

Disquiet, Please! More Humor Writing from the New Yorker edited by David Remnick and Henry Finder

The kind of humour that you'd expect given that it's all drawn from the pages of the New Yorker - literary, satirical, self-deflating, urban, strongly Jewish-flavoured (and short)...Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Woody Allen, Garrison Keillor, Steve Martin, George Saunders, David Sedaris, etc, including plenty of newer voices, most of whom I didn't know. Diverting, but only a handful of laugh-out-loud moments (McSweeney's humour, by contrast, regularly has me helpless with laughter) - which maybe comes with the territory, the humour tending much more towards the wry than the broad.

"Mortality"

You have to learn everything, even how to die. - Gertrude Stein

ACCA exhibitions always have a particular flavour, and they're almost always good. "Mortality" is a suggestive title, and the physical layout and 'environment' of the exhibition is suitably dark; that said, while themes of death and passing loom large, the perspective it takes on 'mortality' is broad enough to include all phases of life and some of its key markers, most notably infancy and early childhood, and desire and relationships. There's a strong emphasis on the moving image - video work, mostly - and a mix of other pieces in the series of darkened rooms through which one moves when exploring the exhibition.

Individual works that stood out, for various reasons:
* Bill Viola - "The Passing". Nearly an hour long, so I didn't see all of it, but I did catch the last bit and there was something very monumental and moving about it - drowned in water, it had the heaviness and immensity of, well, mortality.
* David Rosetzky - "Nothing like this". A video work which loops a few short vignettes (sometimes with small variations) with a series of voiceovers delivered in different sequences (and, again, with variations) so that there's no necessary relationship between any particular narration (or the character delivering it) or images, all framed as anecdotes from the uncertain mores of, I guess, modern romance.
* Charles Anderson - "dis/appearance: repatriation". A room installation, "various found and prepared objects, improvised constructions, light, bandaging, honey, and bee's wax" - bunk bed, table with objects, etc, much heavily swathed in white bandages and with lights set from underneath scattered around. Something of a Mary Celeste feel.
* Giulio Paolini - "L'altra figura". Two plaster cast heads on plinths in classical style (meant to invoke/pass as white marble), their gazes cast down at the shattered pieces of a third on the ground below (being the ground of the gallery itself).
* Tony Oursler - "Talking light". A dark room with only a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling in the centre, flickering on and shedding light when it speaks, loud-whispering menacing phrases at intervals - "look at me ... look at me ... give me colours ... give me colours ...". I wondered if it was Pynchon-inspired (on balance, probably not).

Chloe

Felt like watching something on the big screen last Tuesday (Melb Cup Day), and this had the significant advantage of having been directed by Atom Egoyan, whose The Sweet Hereafter is, I still think, a small, quiet miracle. Chloe's not in the same league, but it sets itself at doing something quite different and mostly succeeds. It's a very adult movie, both in the frankness with which its characters discuss and engage in/with sex, and in the hard-edged ways in which they relate to each other (up to and including the manners in which they reveal their vulnerabilities) - and while none of its moves are exactly surprises (the film deliberately signposts the direction in which it's heading from very early on), it holds the attention.

(w/ Jade)

Stephen Donaldson - The Mirror of Her Dreams & A Man Rides Through

Like Thomas Covenant, the central figure of Donaldson's other fantasy series, Terisa Morgan is plucked from a less than happy existence in a world that is recognisably our own and finds herself a central figure in a struggle between forces that she only partly understands, some of which reside within her own person, while grappling with doubts about her own agency and self which are essentially existential.

This (Mordant's Need) series doesn't have the same depth and complexity of the Covenant books, or the symbolic, archetypal power of those others, but it stands up well to repeated re-reads (last time), and while it's a relatively minor work, Donaldson is one of the greats of the field and The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through unmistakeably have his stamp on them.

Jane Smiley - A Thousand Acres

I'd been saving A Thousand Acres for a while, and it was worth the wait and anticipation. Set in contemporary Iowa - farm country - it deliberately invokes King Lear, but would have stood as a marvellous novel even in its own right. Oddly for a city boy like me, its theme of the relationship between landscape and people resonated, but in fact the whole thing caught at me. There are no tricks or gimmicks to A Thousand Acres - it's a story (about family and other things), populated by characters, in which themes are readily discernible...but it does it so well.

Sharon van Etten - Epic

I listen to a lot of countryish female singer-songwriters, and Sharon van Etten is one of 'em. She's good, and has a pretty strong voice (both literally and, songwriting-wise, figuratively) though it feels like she perhaps hasn't quite come into her own yet - that she may still be a bit raw. One to watch out for.