Andrew Zuckerman - Music

A handsome collection of photo portraits of famous musicians, accompanied by surprisingly substantial written pieces by the musicians themselves, mostly circling around the themes of their artistic and creative practice and what music means to them. Subjects including the contemporary and more or less so (Fiona Apple, Julian Casablancas, Bic Runga, Dizzee Rascal), others whose heyday was just a few years earlier (Billy Corgan, Sinead O'Connor), a bunch of classic songwriters and legends of their various fields (Burt Bacharach, Chrissy Hynde, Dave Brubeck, Iggy Pop, Afrika Bambaataa), a smattering of uncategorisable multi-talents and general provocateurs (Laurie Anderson, Henry Rollins, Yoko Ono), and a range of composers of various kinds (Philip Glass, John Williams, Danny Elfman).

John Rolfe and Peter Troob - Monkey Business

An amusing insiders' account of life in an investment bank written by two former Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette associates.

Hanna

This was a good one. The overt fairytale elements and motifs combine well with the rapidly paced action and the parallel coming of age-type thread; Saoirse Ronan perfectly cast.

Thor

Watchable enough; I liked the way that the magic of Asgard was rendered in a 'technology sufficiently advanced' kind of way, an idea made explicit in an exchange between two of the characters about midway through the film. Nothing special, though - more flash than substance, more sizzle than sausage.

Melancholia

For better or for worse, actors carry something of their past roles with them into every film they make; for me, in the case of Melancholia, this meant that the first half of the film (title-carded, in characteristic von Trier fashion, 'Justine') was underlaid with shadowy echoes of Marie Antoinette, another mood piece with Kirsten Dunst at the centre of a gaudy, elaborately appointed series of events and settings, and like that other, lent both intimacy and distance by Dunst's ability to convey a mingled sense of rich (if inchoate) internal emotional experience coexisting with a sort of listless, alienated affectlessness (here, through the sequence of formalities at Justine's abortive wedding, and in the other, across a series of events and vignettes mostly at Versailles).

The most striking part of the film is its vivid, symbolically-charged prelude, in which the major images and happenings of its second section, 'Claire', are foreshadowed; frankly, parts of the rest of its more than two hour running time drag. But it's certainly an experience - I'm glad that I've seen it.

(w/ Andreas)

Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot - The Numbers Game

Enjoyable and at times enlightening - a useful guide to the way that numbers are used and misused in public discourse, particularly by media types and politicians. The sorts of things that any of us would realise about the many number-type facts and figures that are constantly bandied about (expenditures, averages, comparisons, cause-and-effects, etc) if we stopped to consider them, but usually don't...a lot of salutary reminders, the most important being implicit and underlying - namely, to think critically about exactly what any particular number or statistic means.

Conan the Barbarian

Not very good. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but for some reason I am, a little bit.

13

A nasty, effective Thai thriller/horror about a man is given the opportunity to win a fortune on a mysterious reality 'game show' if he can complete 13 increasingly difficult, violent tasks.

Holly Throsby - Team

I've been sort of vaguely aware of Holly Throsby for a while, and liked her well enough when one of her songs has crossed my path (eg 1, 2). Seeker Lover Keeper is the first time I've really focused on her, though, and one of the highlights of their show the other night was Throsby's "What I Thought Of You", a gradually building and ultimately rousing folk-pop-ish number. "What I Thought Of You" is the lead-off track on her most recent album, Team, and its standout song, but the whole thing is nice - sombre, subtle and good.

Wilco - The Whole Love

They're practically part of the establishment nowadays - almost inevitable, I suppose, when you've been around for a while, become pretty popular, and kept on turning out records of impressively consistent quality every couple of years or so - but there's still a decent-sized contrary streak running through Wilco. On The Whole Love, this is most evident in their decision to put the record's most abrasive track, "Art of Almost", at track 1, though the 12 minute long, wonderfully-titled and wonderful "One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)" is also a decent argument; in some ways more to the point, it's also apparent in the countless small surprises and unexpected nuances and diversions across the set, which shapes out as yet another high quality outing, if maybe not as memorable as most of theirs.

JCVD

Jean-Claude Van Damme and metafictional gestures are not two things that one expects to find side by side, but that's just what JCVD offers, in a muted, uncategorisable movie featuring Van Damme playing a version of himself who gets caught in a real life hostage situation, including one extended scene in which the actor addresses the camera, and us, directly, musing on his life and career and perhaps presenting something that resembles the 'real' Van Damme in both the film's world and ours (or does it? etc, etc).

The Story of Mary MacLane by Herself

I wanted to like this one - starring and written by Bojana Novakovic, who impressed in both Eldorado a few years back and Woyzeck more recently, and interesting-sounding in the promotional grabs. But unfortunately it was a bit of a mess - a sometimes engaging one, but overall too loosely conceived to really work, even allowing that its terrain is more a sort of a-narratival, fourth wall-breaking invocation of an idea of a character than that of a conventional drama or depiction of a person's life. Admittedly, it might have helped had I known more about the titular figure before the performance - but nonetheless.


(w/ C)

Moneyball

Well made and real-feeling. Didn't excite me, but I enjoyed it.

(w/ C)

Seeker Lover Keeper @ St Michael's church, Monday 28 November

Exactly the way you'd expect a Seeker Lover Keeper concert in a church to be. Blasko, Seltmann,
Throsby all sounded great, individually and together - often in harmonies. And seemed genuinely nice too! They would've done the whole of their lp (*), plus one of their solo songs each ("Bird On A Wire", "Emotional Champ" and a great Throsby song called "What I Thought Of You") and covers of Neil Finn's "Sinner" (fantastic) and a Stevie Nicks song called "Wild Heart" (makes perfect sense that they'd be Nicks fans).

Support act Henry Wagons.

(w/ Trang, one of her friends (Trinh?) and Meribah)

Bound

Tightly plotted noir/caper film that gets plenty of mileage out of its central protagonists being lesbians. Pretty good.

The Ides of March

An extremely well acted, enjoyable political morality drama, if just a tiny bit heavy-handed at the end. Ryan Gosling impresses again, surrounded by a quality cast.

(w/ Cass, David, Justine)

Nicole Krauss - Great House

It's easy - indeed, a pleasure - to read, but despite the wonderful prose - consistently fluent and clear, and scattered with images, sentences and passages that particularly sparkle - and strong narrative voices and emotional undertows running through the book, Great House doesn't readily or ever fully offer up its secrets and deeper meanings; in that sense, it's much like the towering desk that is its structuring metaphor and pivotal plot object, locked drawer and all.

The book is carefully constructed around that central object and idea, its crucial absences, repetitions, losses and doublings finally interlocking - and at the same time unlocked by Weisz's final disclosures - at novel's end, though with at least one crucial element left unsaid (locked), I think, namely the question of who the father of Lotte's child was. Someone - I can't remember who - once said to me that they thought the test of books with fragmented, non-linear structures was whether they would still be good if the plot were instead presented from start to finish; Great House is all the rebuttal to that idea that's needed, its intricate construction designed to embody its thematic and narratival preoccupations.

Unlike Man Walks Into A Room and The History of Love, there is no overwhelming climactic ending, but only having read the last sentence did I feel that the pieces were beginning to fit; thinking about the book, and flipping back through it again, it seemed me that a buried phrase almost exactly halfway through the book, Isabel in a single sentence referring to a "later' involving her and Yoav, suggested that perhaps, Weisz's vision for the future of his children, Yoav and Leah, with its hint of resolution, might come to pass. It's an aptly subtle suggestion; the other points at which the characters' various stories are left are left similarly unresolved, poised - Nadia's encounters with Weisz and then Dov, Arthur's internal and external paths to something approaching true understanding of the necessary gaps in his life with Lotte, the haunting appearances and absence of Daniel.

I liked Great House a lot; I'll forgive a lot for writing as sustainedly good as Krauss', and indeed, there's nothing here to forgive. There are deep undercurrents in it, and it's moving and poignant without ever being straightforwardly so, and Krauss' ability here to keep the many interconnected themes and underlying metaphors which shape her novel and its characters' lives is impressive. Great House is very good indeed.

The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac

A steady stream of familiar songs; in common with most people my age, I imagine, Fleetwood Mac have always been there in the background for me, and sometimes, their music just fits the moment.

Jasper Fforde - One of Our Thursdays is Missing

A welcome return to the world of Thursday Next, this one related - in a further spiral down Fforde's metafictional rabbit hole - by 'the written Thursday Next'...that is, the character who plays Thursday in the series of five books (one, two, three and four, five) featuring the 'real' Thursday, Jurisfiction agent extraordinaire, over the course of which it transpires that the real Thursday has gone missing (or has she?), dragging the written Thursday into an investigation of her own through both the shifting genres of BookWorld and the confusing RealWorld.

"Way to Blue: The Songs of Nick Drake"

A really pleasant evening of music at the Melb Recital Centre - an ad hoc travelling group, joined by Australians Luluc and Shane Nicholson, doing Nick Drake songs with varying degrees of adherence to the original recordings (ranging from a very faithful, and very effective "River Man" to Krystle Warren's soaring, unexpectedly completely apt gospel take on "Time Has Told Me"), but all with great respect and feeling for the songs.

It was low key, but they got it right - all of the vocalists were nice to listen to, and their contrasting voices and singing styles kept things interesting, along with the novelty of hearing these songs sung live, backed by a full band and six piece string ensemble no less. I liked Lisa Hannigan's contributions, and Vashti Bunyan's wispily pretty, waverily folk voice was a perfect fit, but Warren was the real revelation, her remarkable voice taking Drake's autumnal melodies somewhere new but always clearly recognisable.

(w/ C, Trang and Arthur)

Harvest Festival (Saturday 12 November)

The line-up was promising; a large part of  it could have been targeted straight at my about-a-decade-ago self.

Arrived early afternoon in glorious sunshine. Saw a bit of This Town Needs Guns; they were quite winning in that somewhat mathy, hint of emo-y Dismemberment Plan-ish indie-rock way.

Then the Walkmen, rocking hard and gratifyingly intense, enjoyable; with the exception of a couple of songs (this is probably the comment of a casual listener, but "The Rat" still seems head and shoulders above anything else they've recorded), they've always kind of eluded me, but I liked them last time I saw them live too.

After that, Mercury Rev; for me, it's always been about Deserter's Songs, and they didn't disappoint, doing its three flat out classics, "Holes", "Opus 40" and "Goddess On A Hiway", and drawing their set almost entirely from it and All Is Dream. Frontman Jonathan Donahue came across like a real hippie, striking grasshopper poses and declaiming positivity, but the music came through clearly, with a bit of a psychedelic streak jagging through their baroque, orchestrated pop tunes.

Saw the top and tail of Bright Eyes - enough to appreciate how far he's come since the sparse, wracked self-examination of "Something Vague" and Fevers and Mirrors...based on the bits I saw, he's more in the vein of an alt-country troubadour/rock star a la Ryan Adams nowaday, and pretty good at it.

Then the National, for whom we managed to get close to the front, dusk arriving, and they were good as expected - there wasn't a song they could have played that I wouldn't have wanted to hear, and - across the last three records in particular - their output is so even that even my favourites are only songs that I like just a little bit more than all of their others. Matt Berninger was charismatic and slightly awkward-seeming in that dapper way of his and sounded better than the last time I saw them; the band was tight; it was good.

And after them, Portishead, who were easily the act that I was the most excited about, and whose set turned out to be the clear highlight, not only of the festival but of the live music year so far. By this point we were basically right in front, in the centre, and so perfectly placed, with dark fully fallen, for immersion in a set that mixed touchstone moments from those first two indelible records with cuts from 2008's unexpected, astonishing Third. I must admit that I had a funny feeling somewhere in my stomach standing there waiting for Beth Gibbons to start singing as the set began, a mix of anticipation and nervousness that she might no longer have it after all this time - but she sounded great, as did all of the music and sounds they conjured up, jagged guitars, heavy beats, and floating keyboards and samples all integral as they nailed, gloriously, one song after another. I'm not sure I've ever really thought of Portishead as one of my absolute favourite artists, but they do occupy a special place in my heart, and this set was brilliant.

Then, finally, caught a bit of the Flaming Lips, but wasn't especially enthused by that point - like their Festival Hall set a while back, seemed more about spectacle than music. And then mass exodus, shuttle bus, train, home.

Good venue (Werribee), well spaced and located stages and other amenities, decent vibe helped immeasurably by the perfect festival weather, singificantly brought down about the absurdly long queues.

(w/ C and her friends Sachini and Mikaela; also briefly saw David + Justine, CStCW and Nenad)

[No connection to the last 'Harvest Festival' I went to, a few years back!]

Richard Matheson - Button, Button: Uncanny Stories

Economical and mildly unnerving, but somehow not of the kind that linger - unlike, say, the somewhat similar stories of John Collier.

Midnight in Paris

It's difficult to tell how knowing, how tongue in cheek, Woody Allen is being in this film, from the familiar-to-the-point-of-cliche picture postcard montage that opens it, to the completely-in-love-with-Paris cinematography throughout, through the almost archetypally apt casting (Owen Wilson as a bumbling, wide-eyed American in Paris, Rachel McAdams his annoying, also American, fiancee, Marion Cotillard an alluring frenchwoman); possibly, the very question is beside the point, so immersed is the film in the Paris of cinema, art and the imagination, and so inseparable Paris from all of those facets of itself.

It's certainly not particularly substantial, but it ischarming, particularly the 1920s sequences, inhabited as they are by a series of scene-stealers - Alison Pill as Zelda Fitzgerald, Corey Stoll hilariously doing Hemingway, Adrien Brody not far behind as Dali - and many pleasing others including Cotillard as the impossibly beautiful artists' muse, Kathy Bates as a sympathetically pragmatic Gertrude Stein, brief cameos from a befuddled Bunuel and cryptically matter of fact Man Ray, and roles of varying significance for F Scott, Cole Porter, Djuna Barnes, Pablo Picasso and sundry others. And for various reasons, some universal and others more personal, it made me feel a touch wistful, too.

(w/ C)

Harvard Business Essentials - Power, Influence and Persuasion

One that PG lent me a while ago; I've been meaning to read it for a while because, ultimately, power, influence and persuasion are what my current - and likely future - line of work is about. It's very much a distillation - hence very practical, concrete, simple - but useful.

Submarine

Quirky and very indie, with something of a sweet side - but has a definite tough streak too, like a bit of tinfoil embedded in its centre. Funny and identifiable-with, and actually pretty cool, new wave / classic gangster iconography, metafictional cinematography and self-reflexive voiceover narration and all.

(w/ C)

How I Met Your Mother season 6

Seems a touch more serious than 1-5, with a focus on both Barney and Marshall's relationships with their fathers, perhaps fewer laughs, and not much progress in Ted's progression towards his kids' mother, with much of the season taken up by the seeming cul de sac of Zoey. But it's still as smart, sweet-hearted, romantic and likeable as ever, and I do want to find out how it's going to end - one of its most striking features is its commitment to long-term story and character arcs.

Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose

Her collab with Jack White from a few years back, and it's ace - a sort of honky-tonk blues country record, equal parts ballads and more up tempo tracks, with a couple more out of left field.

Lantana

I remember thinking, when I first saw this - which must have been about ten years ago, it having been when the film first came out, and this more recent viewing being a tenth anniversary showing at ACMI - that I really liked it, and that I was almost certainly too young too fully appreciate it. Now, ten years on, I feel the same way - this is a wonderfully well-made, carefully crafted and truthful film that I think would gain another layer altogether for viewers who were long-term married, and intimately familiar with all that the film suggests comes with the state.

Followed by a Q&A with Kerry Armstrong, Vince Colosimo and producer Jan Chapman.

(w/ Sunny and C)

Lindsay Tanner - Sideshow

When Sideshow was published a while back, it landed to plenty of detailed and more or less informed coverage and commentary - so much so that I almost felt I didn't need to read the book itself. But it's an easy, interesting read, and I've worked my way through it at intervals; its central set of premises - about the relationship between contemporary media, political discourse and the practice of politics itself, and the increasing trivialisation of all of the above - is plainly unarguable (though a proper analysis of their complex connections to each other and to wider trends in society would be the subject of a much more detailed work than Tanner's book sets out to be), and Tanner's experience in the belly of the system adds to the analysis.

Okkervil River @ the Forum, Friday 14 October 2011

A good show! Live, Okkervil River bring the rock, and their songs - already striking on record - are the more exciting for it. I only knew about half the set, but enjoyed it all; Triffids cover was a nice touch too.

(w/ C & her friend Sachini)

The Grates - Secret Rituals

Coming on brightly, rockingly and more than a bit Metric-y, but without the same quality of songs, though still a solid bit of pop-rock.

Laura Cantrell - Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs of the Queen of Country Music

Like all of her records, sweet and eminently listenable. Unlike the others, though, not hugely memorable or captivating, either as a whole or in individual moments. Still, nice.

Wild Nothing - Gemini

Reference points are funny things. One of the most striking things about both Pains of Being Pure at Heart records is the extent to which their influences are so unabashedly visible - and yet, listening to Wild Nothing's rather sweet Gemini, it's the Pains themselves who are one of the most obvious reference points, particularly their first lp. Other albums and artists that come to mind over the course of Gemini - Neon Golden, the Radio Dept, the Cure (especially Disintegration / Wish), the Stone Roses, Cocteau Twins (particularly on "Drifter"), Blonde Redhead (mainly on "Confirmation")...a list of influences and fellow travellers reflecting conspicuously good taste. The album itself is very enjoyable too, more than the sum of its influences, and nicely diverse while in some ways held together by the band's clear appreciation for the greats who've come before them.

Battle of Wits

A surprisingly gritty - children die, the female love interest first gets violently turned into a mute and then drowns alone - and actually more or less anti-war HK film set during the warring kingdoms period in China. Quite good, too.

Cults - Cults

Cults hit at least two pure pop pleasure centres for me, and they hit 'em hard - girl group vocals and melodies (along with the associated 'minor symphonic' feel) wrapped up in 21st C bedsit indie-pop stylings, xylophones and all. And more than that, their songs are filled with little flourishes and surprise right turns that actually make me smile - the bit when the drums first kick in on album opener "Abducted" and then the unexpected mini guitar solo near the end of the same song, the loopy bridge/chorusey vocal uptick on "Walk At Night", the way "Oh My God" leads off lyrically and then just keeps on going, and so many more. An inventive, often surprising, and very pleasing record.

"Deutsche Musik!"

A mix of German music very kindly put together by Wei's pals Almut and Urs; suitably diverse given the broad theme, and very enjoyable. Favourites: Nylon's "Liebesleid (Die Liebe kommt, die Liebe geht)", the morose "Finger weg von meiner Paranoia" by Element of Crime, the pop kicks of Mia's "Tanz der Molekule", and, most pleasingly, the ramshackle, tossed off-feeling, and above all else catchy "Liebe zu dritt" by Stereo Total.

Moon

This second watch made me again appreciate how economically and well this film is put together, and how neatly it nudges the viewer in certain directions - with the hallucinations and Gerty particularly. Also, how good Sam Rockwell is in it.

(previously)

Arvo Pärt - Tabula Rasa

The object is a mysterious thing. I'm intimately familiar with Part's Tabula Rasa, which this book re-presents in its original recording, along with the original liner notes and photos; in terms of what's new to me, there's also a new short introductory note, a Part discography, and - the main event - 'autograph' manuscript copies of the Cantus and "Tabula Rasa" itself, and scores for all four of its pieces. Not being especially musically literate - which didn't stop me, a few years back, from tracking down and buying a copy of the score of the piano/violin "Fratres" - the scores don't mean a lot to me, but when I saw this in Readings yesterday, I knew that I wanted to own it anyway. Call it the aura, or something.

Comic Book Tattoo

A big (30 x 30cm, and thickish) book of short comic narratives, each inspired by a Tori Amos song; there are 51 in all, most around a dozen pages long, and each with a different writer and illustrator. The brief was for the artists to create something reflecting or expressing how the song made them feel, rather than attempting a literal rendition of the song itself or its lyrics (whatever that would mean).

I must admit, I skimmed through it a bit, and not many stuck with me. I liked the whimsy of "Caught a Lite Sneeze" (Mike Maihack) and the heftier, more substantial "Winter" (John Ney Rieber / Ryan Kelly), also the amusingly inverted "Leather" (John Bivens) and the dreamy, actually moving take on "I can't see New York" (Adisakdi Tantimedh / Ken Meyer Jr); I also thought that the gentle "Pretty Good Year" (Derek McCulloch / Colleen Doran) almost exactly caught the tone of the song.

Also, along with this piece, it made me want to go back and listen to her back catalogue again.

George Megalogenis - The Longest Decade

A good bit of political writing - from '06 but still interesting - whose strong point is the material from the detailed interviews that Megalogenis was able to conduct with book of the book's principals, Keating and Howard. The core argument, reflected in the book's title, is that between them the two men, as Treasurer and PM, broke the decade-long boom-bust cycle that had previously characterised the Australian economy, and moreover that there were deeper continuities between the two, not only on economics, but also on social policy and even, to an extent, in foreign policy. Readable, enjoyable, insightful.

Jim Brickman - Beautiful World

Soft, pretty, new age-y piano music - pleasant incidental background music. (A gift.)

Red Cliff

This was the original two-part version, and it turns out that while the cuts for the western release were judicious, it's a fuller and better film, and epic, with the additional material included - most notably, the character of Pit and his relationship with the princess, but also a fair bit of general background and shading in of the other characters and context. Stands up well on a second watch, too.

Emmylou Harris - Hard Bargain

It's pretty remarkable how Harris has kept making such great music for so long; listening to Hard Bargain earlier today, I found myself thinking 'what if?' about her old singing partner, Gram Parsons. This one, her latest, is unusual in that it's mostly her own compositions, but it's no less strong for it.

Neil Young - Le Noise

Never got round to mentioning this one - a collab from last year (I think) between Young and Daniel Lanois. Otherwise basically a solo record - a couple of acoustic songs, and the others wrapped up in layers of distorted guitars and sometimes looped vocals. Not the most penetrable, but at least interesting.

Drive-By Truckers - Ugly Buildings, Whores & Politicians: Greatest Hits - 1998-2009

Enjoying this a whole lot - fiery, crashing, all-out-guitars southern rock with the occasional countryish ballad thrown in. "Zip City" is the standout. Like the good middle ground between Bon Jovi and Neil Young, and a thousand followers of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Between the Lines 4: Find Shelter

This series is put out by an Austrian label, but has a strong international focus, with only a few Austrian acts scattered across the two cds making up Find Shelter. The word here is 'indie', with a focus on the ethereal (especially when a girl's singing) and the lugubrious (more often for the boy vocals), many of the songs displaying a bit of a folk flavour and a number of others not shying away from the mildly epic. Most of the artists are new to me - the main reason I bought this was in the hopes of discovering some new music - but the whole set's pretty listenable.

Current favourites:
* "Lie in the Sound" - Trespassers William. The single most ethereal track across the whole set, and the best, "Lie in the Sound" is simply gorgeous, a dreamy Mazzy Star-Camera Obscura styled floater that also reminds me of Mira in its rising and falling starriness.
* "Room" - Nive Nielsen & Deer Children. Another entrant in the surprising little sub-genre of Scandinavian americana (see also First Aid Kit, Baskery) - though Nielsen hails from Greenland rather than Sweden - "Room" reminds me of Laura Veirs' more haunted folk-pop explorations, flowing along on Nielsen's expressive, controlled voice, a slowly plucked banjo, and a lovely melody.
* "Merci De Rien Du Tout" - Marianne Dissard. And another americana blend - this one taking significant elements of the French chanson (in fact, it leans more on that latter than on the prairie widescreen elements in its background). Dissard's intimate vocals sell the song and the idea; google tells me that she did the girl vocals on Calexico's classic "Ballad of Cable Hogue", which entirely fits.
* "Landslide" - Unbunny. Strummy, wavering-guitary, left of centre singer-songwriter tune which lodges in the head on first listen and stays there.

And others that have particularly stood out:
* "Fly Butter Fly" - Ping Ping
* "Pigeons" - Page France
* "Swim Until You Can't See Land" - Frightened Rabbit
* "Fortune Teller" - Forest Fire
* "Come Out" - Kristofer Astrom
* "The Washington DC" - Mexican Elvis
* "What's Out There" - Nina Nastasia
* "My Beloved" - Scout Niblett

Three Kingdoms

Mediocre Hong Kong martial arts action-adventure focusing on one of the heroes of the war of the three kingdoms. It's glossy, and the action scenes are pretty good, but story and character are more or less missing in action, with massive amounts of plot seemingly taking place in the gaps between scenes and never explained.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong

I was a bit sceptical about The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - what I'd heard about that first lp, while positive, had led me to expect an anaemic, derivative retread of ground covered by previous greats. But when I actually listened to it, I quite liked it, and, to my surprise, have kept on listening to it at intervals since...it's good. And so I came to Belong with moderately high expectations - which the record, in every aural sense bigger than its predecessor, has met while wearing its influences as clearly on its sleeve as ever.

It starts with the first song (and title track), which sounds - particularly at the start - exactly like a Siamese Dream era Pumpkins song, which is no bad thing, especially when the guitars are so satisfyingly fuzzy and distorted, and the verse-chorus-verse so sweet and big. Then there's the distinctly Cure-y synth line that comes in at the end of the driving (if unfortunately named) "Heart in Your Heartbreak", followed by more of the same in "The Body" before, a bit later, they really go all out on "My Terrible Friend", which, voice aside, could have come straight off Wish...and on either side there's the mellow, downbeat "Anne With An E", which draws heavily on the prettier, softer end of Kevin Shields' palette, and the JAMC-cribbing "Girl of 1000 Dreams".

Impressively, though, for all of that, they sound like a band with their own identity, which is due in large measure to their ability to write good songs, in which their style comes through without being overpowered by the spot-the-influence trappings; moreover, Belong marks a bit of a progression for them, towards a fuller, more widescreen sound...the Pains are turning out to be pretty good.

Romeo Must Die

Entertaining, but for the wrong reasons - this film is a mess, full of unnecessary elements, though the  incongruities (some of them admittedly deliberate) create some humour. Even the fight scenes, which ought to've been a highlight, were weakened by the too obvious use of CG in spots.

Eilen Jewell - Queen of the Minor Key

I've seen photos of Eilen Jewell, and she looks like a little blonde girl with big eyes, a bit on the delicate side, but what she sounds like is smoulder, smoke and heart-break, seedy dive bars, cigarettes and a hint of sex. Queen of the Minor Key is excellent, melding country, blues, surf-rock and old style rock and roll and rockabilly elements, sometimes shimmying along with a quiet twang, sometimes grooving and stomping ahead at full pelt - it's a varied set, but tied together by the smoky mood and Jewell's compelling voice and presence at its centre.

(also: Sea of Tears)

Jolie Holland + The Grand Chandeliers - Pint of Blood

Well, this is exciting - all four of my favourite countryish chanteuses (Lucinda, Gillian, Laura (Cantrell), Jolie) have come out with new albums this year. This is the first that I've really properly listened to - probably because Holland was my most recent discovery of the four - and it's a good listen without reaching the heights of Springtime Can Kill You or even The Living and the Dead (though shivering-chiming second cut "Remember" in particular stands up to anything on either of those earlier records, and "Little Birds" also stands out), from which it feels a natural continuation. And like all of her albums, it's much better when listened to closely, with the attention it deserves.

I Am Sam OST

Exceedingly tasteful soundtrack to film of a few years back - contemporary artists covering Beatles songs, generally a bit too reverently, making for a pleasant but not especially interesting or illuminating listen.

Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams & The Crippled God

The end of it all. The massive, multi-layered complexity of the series and impossibility of keeping all the pieces in one's head without recent reading made me think that I should re-read Dust of Dreams before tackling The Crippled God, particularly given that Erikson had explicitly set them up as two volumes of a single final novel; also, doing so added to the sense of anticipation about hitting the finale, which promised so much.

Anyhow, reading these two in succession makes it clear how much they do fit together as an integrated conclusion to Erikson's epic Malazan series, as a whole heap of things are gathered together and set up in Dust of Dreams that then come to fruition in The Crippled God - and more generally, that last is a fittingly explosive end to the whole ten-book cycle, most (though by no means all) of the main threads pulled together, its first half highlighted by the Shake's stand at Lightfall as Light and Dark are finally thrown directly into conflict, and its second all about the convergence and shattering series of engagements in and around Kolanse as the remaining Malazan forces and virtually every other major power clash over the heart of the crippled god himself. It's a spectacular ending, worthy of the series as a whole - like the nine that came before it, it's something out of the ordinary.

(Previously: [1-8], then starting again with [1-3], [4-5], [6], [7], [8], & [9] ... plus (1), (2), (3).)

"Hamlet" (MTC)

A very solid production, though not outstanding. (Last season's "Richard III", also starring Ewen Leslie, was better, for mine.) This Hamlet is clearly sane throughout, if given to outbursts of anger and anguish - a far more satisfying reading than Bell's from a couple of years back - and Leslie's performance is strong, while the supporting cast is slightly uneven, but generally fine; I thought more attention could have been given to the delivery of lines, which sometimes seemed a little overly rote/conversational, with not enough attention to the language itself. Fortinbras is omitted, some care is given to Ophelia's character, the production's choices make sense of Horatio's uncomplaining loyalty, Gertrude, Claudius, Polonius are all largely as one might expect.

(w/ C)

Charles Burns - Black Hole

Another from the Borders voucher - this one Kim's recommendation. It's unlike anything I've come across before, starkly, sinuously beautiful and gritty - altogether memorable.

Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games

This series has been hotly touted, and its Battle Royale-esque premise appealed; having read this first entry, I get it - the book is very well crafted, pacy, exciting...also, notably bloody for a kids' book.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt 2

A suitably spectacular close to the series. Nothing revelatory or significantly different from what has gone before, but very enjoyable anyway.

(1, 2 & 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

(w/ C)

"Love Victoria" (Malthouse)

Saw this because a friend of C's was in it, but its familiarly polymorphous take on modern relationships didn't grab me.

Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs: Instrumental

With the passing of time, it only becomes clearer that Deserter's Songs is a flat-out classic; this instrumental mix is a reminder of its swelling grandness, largely preserving the original arrangements, and adding various types of instrumentation/programming in place of the vocals, often with the effect that things become even more grandiose and epic, most effectively on "Goddess on a Hiway".

John Doe and the Sadies - Country Club

A warm roots-country record that takes a few listens to grow but then settles in comfortably, Doe's rich voice wrapping around the songs as the Sadies, possibly the world's best backing band, do their thing.

Thao & Mirah - Thao & Mirah

Clattery, enjoyable ear candy.

How I Met Your Mother (seasons 1 to 5)

Finding myself watching this a lot on tv, I was sufficiently hooked to go through the whole thing to date on dvd. It's really a very nice show, insightful, sharp-witted, fresh-feeling, and sweet-natured without tripping into sentiment. The love of wordplay is a feature, as is its use of structure - along with the basic framing device, the frequent temporal stop-starts and reversals are very effective, not least in keeping things interesting - and the deliberate, self-conscious use of repeating motifs and images (the yellow umbrella being probably the most obvious, but the technique is apparent from the very first episode, with the blue french horn). But what really keeps me watching is the characters and the situations they find themselves in - with all the inevitable self-aware qualifications, HIMYM seems like an idealised version of the familiar.

Intolerable Cruelty

Nice. Been feeling kind of Coen brothers lately. Not sure why.

(last time)

Mean Girls

Still good.

(previously - #1 & 2)

Alternative Nation: 100 Alternative Classics

One of a stack of cds I picked up from JB Hi-Fi for the impromptu road trip we took down the coast and through various forests of Tasmania once it became apparent that the volcanic ash would strand us for several days past the planned long weekend (this was ages ago now), and while it's a terrible name, it's excellent driving music.

Colette - Claudine at School

One of three books that Sarah V gave me this time, having bought them for me straight after she got back to France after our literary acquaintance began in '05 and carried them with her since (the other two being copies of Lautréamont's "Maldoror" and a biography of Apollinaire); it's most amusing, and really the cover grab says it all: "the famous French novel about an amoral young innocent".

London

- Tate Modern. Very good, in fact probably the best of the major modern art collections that I saw this time around. The main action for me was in three of the four major survey exhibitions: (in the order that I went through them, reflecting my own preferences) "Material Gestures: New Painting and Sculptures, 1945-1960", "Poetry and Dream: Surrealism and Beyond", and "States of Flux: Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism" (the fourth, "Energy and Process", focusing on arte povera, was less exciting). "Material Gestures" focuses on abstraction and figuration, and includes the Rothko room, a darkened chamber given over to nine large works from the 1950s Seagram series - all dark reds and blacks...a room that I've literally dreamed about being in before, having seen photos of it in various Rothko monographs. Finally being there was really something - an experience for the heart and the mind. Also illuminating was the large, luminous, and rather beautiful "Water-Lilies" (after 1916), its presentation in this setting providing a compelling argument for the connection between Monet's late period semi-abstraction and the subsequent works of Rothko et al.
- "Jake or Dinos Chapman" @ White Cube Hoxton Square. Deliberately ugly anti-aesthetic art. The bestial childen were striking. (Wei)
- "Alternative London" street art walking tour. Guided East End street art tour, with a bit of history and contemporary street-level politics thrown in - nice. (Wei)
- [Oxford]. A nice interlude, and a very Oxonian experience thanks to Jarrod and Jaani, put up in a fellow's guest room at Magdalen, croquet at night on the college lawns, punting, blackberry picking, etc - and a trip out to the house where my earliest days were spent.
- "Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It" & "The Worlds of Mervyn Peake" @ British Library. Enjoyed the sci-fi exhibition, which reminded me of a school project I did in grade 5 (?) on the subject - though not in a bad way - in its thematic-chronological approach. The Peake was smallish - accompanying a broader set of events focusing on the author/illustrator at the time.
- "Nightwatchman" (Prasanna Puwanarajah) / "There Is A War" (Tom Basden) @ The Paintframe, National Theatre. Put on in a pop-up space, a pair of well written, strongly performed and staged plays. The first staged a familiar personal/professional (in this case, sporting)/political narrative of discovery through the dark of the night, and while it may have been just a tiny bit pat in places, it had a basic sturdiness and craft that made it worth the viewing; the second, an a-realistic, blackly funny excursion into the absurdity of war, wouldn't have been out of place at the Malthouse, and hit its points well. (Wei)
- Museum of Childhood. Fun - main collection given over to all sorts of toys, games and sundry paraphenalia of childhood...the doll houses were my favourite, remarkably ornate and coming in all varieties. Miscellaneous other bits and pieces, including "The Stuff of Nightmares", a visual re-telling of The Brothers Grimm's "Fundvogel". (Wei)
- "Takashi Murakami" @ Gagosian, Britannia Street. Hyper-hyper-sexualised commentary on modern Japanese society. Enjoyable in its OTT-ness. (Wei)

Paris

- "Modern Collections from 1905 to the 1960s" & "Contemporary Collections from the 1960s to today", and "Paris-Delhi-Bombay" @ Centre Pompidou (Musee national d'art moderne). I wasn't sold on the building - it's a bit obvious - but the two showpiece collections are both very good, starting from Matisse and fauvism, and aiming for a representative survey of the major movements since. (I only skimmed through the "Paris-Delhi-Bombay".)
- (A literary walking tour with Sarah V). We always said that maybe one day we'd meet in Paris and, five and a half years on, finally did; Sarah picked me up in the morning and took me on a day-long literary ramble, concentrated around the 5th and 6th - one of the highlights of the whole trip.
- Musee des arts et metiers. I'm not normally all that interested in how things work, but this museum did sound kind of cool, and it was. Plus, it's the home of Foucault's pendulum. (Meribah - who, by happy coincidence, was reading Eco's book at the time)

Jennifer Egan - A Visit From The Goon Squad

Just as good as its victory in this year's Tournament of Books would lead you to expect. It's about time, and turning points, and what it is to be human and alive; the sentences are wonderful, the characters affecting and real. Reading it, one feels happy, sad, reminded of how deep life runs, the piercing everyday specificity of all the moments and choices and actions that make up a life. Despite the formal playfulness of the 'linked short pieces' structure, there's something unassuming about Goon Squad; for all that, it's a quiet marvel.

Elizabeth Knox - The Vintner's Luck

A while back I ended up with a $250 Borders voucher, asked a few people for one book suggestion each, and then bought them. I'm not sure, but I think The Vintner's Luck is the first that I've got around to reading - Kelly's suggestion, and while I'd normally have been very dubious about the premise (Burgundy, 1808: a young vintner meets an angel in his vineyard and they agree to meet every year thereafter on the same date), she was spot on as usual. It turns out to be a rather luscious, passionate novel, full of human and historical drama - and a love story on more than one level, too. I'm glad that I've read it.

Steven Erikson - The First Collected Tales of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach

Three short novellas focusing on the havoc wreaked by the eponymous pair, marginal travellers in the main series of books. Enjoyable and often darkly funny, and the action scenes have some bite; excitingly, the final book in that main series is out now.

Vienna

- Schloss Schonbrunn. Figured I wouldn't have time to make it to Versailles, so this was my chance to see a palace. It was actually kind of fun, if inescapably somewhat tacky; the gardens were worth the hour or so I spent in them, too.
- Albertina. Spent most of my time in the two showpiece exhibitions of works from the museum's permanent collection - "Albertina Contemporary: Gerhard Richter to Kiki Smith" and "Monet to Picasso". From the first, it was Richter's work that most appealed, some abstract, others blurrily representational, even the abstract ones bearing hints of the objects from which they're abstracted; liked the pop-inspired Raymond Pettibon pen and ink works too. The second was a pretty good survey; my favourites were Munch's sublime (in both senses) "Winter Landscape" (1915) and Paul Delvaux's mysterious nocturnal vista "Landscape with Lanterns".
- Haus Der Musik. An interactive sound museum, exploring the experience of sound and how it's processed by the brain. Cool, but seemed to do horrible things to my inner ear or something, leading to some nausea and dizziness...but apparently I'm a bit of a wimp about those things. (Ruth)
- Esperanto Museum. Part of the 'Collection of Planned Languages' in the Austrian National Library. Who knew? (Ruth)
- Globe Museum. Random, but why not? Claims to be the only museum world-wide where globes and globe-related instruments are acquired, investigated and displayed to the general public. It's sure an impressive collection. (Ruth)
- Wiener Riesenrad. I have a weakness for ferris wheels; we went a night; the view was memorable; the amusement park in which the wheel sat, less so. (Ruth)
- Belvedere. Only went to the upper Belvedere - the permanent collection. Klimt and Schiele were the main events and neither are particular favourites of mine, but it was worth seeing a whole lot of their (and other Vienna/Austrian) artists' work together.

Europe museum and gallery round up - Berlin

Briefly (and incompletely):

- Memorial to the Murdered Jews of England. The memorial itself is impressive, public art with a sense of weightiness owing at least in part to (but not wholly dependent on) its object. The underground information centre was good too - very sombre-making. (w/ Jade, Ruth)
- Deutsches Historisches Museum. Large, well put-together survey of German and pre-German history and culture, from 100BC to today (or near enough - 1994). Impossible to go through comprehensively, but it held my attention, and I'm not normally one for historical museums at all. (Jade)
- "Based in Berlin" @ Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. Part of a wider set of exhibitions of contemporary Berlin art. Didn't especially take me. (Ruth)
- Hamburger Bahnhof. Several exhibitions in a wonderful space. I liked the large-scale Richard Long pieces laid out on the floor and far wall of the central hall/exhibition space, but the Rieckhallen, a long, converted basement space accessible from the main building by a long corridor, provided a true highlight, filled with a great range of 20th C and contemporary art set out in a series of bare, industrial chambers. To name just a few: Dan Flavin, Richard Serra, Sol LeWitt, and Gordon Matta-Clark are represented with characteristic, and striking, pieces; Donald Judd's "Untitled (Bull Nose Progression)" also left an impression. And three others whose names I hadn't heard before particularly impressed me - Jeff Wall's "Little Children" (three circular photos mounted high on a wall, porthole style, each with a child shot against a moody sky backdrop - accompanied by a model pavilion and exterior/interior schematics by Dan Graham with the circular photos inside), some deceptively flat, plain paintings by Thomas Schutte ("Museum", "Sackgasse", "Tor"), and Bruce Nauman's darkly Beckettian installation "Room With My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care". (Ruth)
- Museum Berggruen. Smallish but carefully chosen collection of key classical modernists with a strong focus on Picasso. Also, some very nice Klees, and Matisse and Giacometti plus a couple of Braques. (Wei)
- "Surreal Worlds" @ Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg. A mirror building to the Berggruen (spiral staircase and gallery layout), just across the road. Exhibition covers early antecedents of surrealism (inc. Max Klinger and of course de Chirico), then running through the usual suspects, though disappointingly light on for Magritte. Tanguy's "Je suis venu, comme j'avais promis, Adieu" was a delightful discovery. (Wei)
- Australian Chamber Choir 2011 European Concert Tour - Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church. Europe dates were planned in part to be in Berlin to coincide with the choir's touring itinerary, since not only is ZG a standing member, but Kim was also touring with them. Enjoyed it, though I wasn't much of a fan of the (divisive) final work, Philip Nunn's "I Heard The Owl Call My Name". (Wei & others)
- "1900-1945: Modern Times. The Collection" @ Neue Nationalgalerie. A hot day, to the point of oppressiveness, as it was for much of my stay in Berlin, and I was pretty tired, so not ideal circumstances. Still, a cool ven der Rohe building, some nice pieces, and it contributed to my sense of the overall landscape of early 20th C German art, plus I discovered Georg Schrimpf ("Rundfunksender (Furstenfeldbruch)" [Radio transmitter], "Bahnubergang" [Railway Crossing], "Zwei Madchen am Fenster" [Two Girls By the Window]), whose elegant, finely rendered paintings reminded me of de Chirico's metaphysical style and appealed to me very much. (Kim)

A quick round up

Thursday night, last minute trip organisation in full swing (flights and accommodation in process of getting worked out, packing not so much as yet); tomorrow's a work day and will be out at night, then flight out's Saturday; thought I ahould do a quick few capsule notes before the upcoming month in Europe obliterates all recollection.

* * *

Seeker Lover Keeper - Seeker Lover Keeper

As sweet as you'd expect a Sally Seltmann / Sarah Blasko / Holly Throsby collab to be. Best is "Even Though I'm A Woman", followed by "If the Night is Dark" - both Seltmann-composed (though Throsby sings the former), which is unsurprising given that she seems to be some kind of low-key songwriting genius, without meaning any disrespect to Sarah Blasko, who is also clearly lovely and amazing.

* * *

Deb Olin Unferth - Revolution

I'm not much of a one for memoirs, but I read some extracts in Believer and have read a bunch of interesting bits and pieces written by Unferth elsewhere on the internets and that was enough for me to order Revolution and her debut novel Vacation from bookdepository. So Revolution is very winning and full of great writing and unforced neatnesses; I liked it a lot.

* * *

"Moth" (Declan Greene - Malthouse)

Very impressive; reminded me a little of "Terminus" from a couple of years back - high praise - in its fluidity and confident theatricality (for want of a better way of putting it). Sharply, authentically, pungently written; it uses dialogue and stage in service of a work that couldn't have been done better in any other form. It employs artistry in the service of the everyday, or maybe vice versa, or more likely still, both at once.

(w/ Sunny, Kai + Neil, Hayley and Adam W, & C)

* * *

"Princess Dramas" (Elfriede Jelinek - Red Stitch)

Stylised, disorienting, challenging - I had to work at this while watching it, consciously trying to be open to what it was doing and suspending/interrogating various immediate reactions, principally aesthetic and linearity (not just in the narrative sense) oriented ones. I have a feeling that the production, while vivid, may have obscured the words of the play itself but maybe that's unavoidable. "Princess Dramas" is the most difficult play I've been to for a while, but with more time to chew it over, it may well be one of the more rewarding; at any event, I've been sufficiently intrigued to try to track it down in translation.

(w/ C)

* * *

"A Golem Story" (Lally Katz - Malthouse)

A much more traditionally narratival,character-y work than Apocalypse Bear Trilogy, and a lavish, sumptuously mounted thing it is. It's played relatively straight in its telling of the legend of the golem of Prague, all enwrapped with Jewish mysticism, and it's certainly engaging, but for me didn't hit home as hard as it clearly aimed to. Good, very good actually, but for mine, doesn't quite have the whatever-it-is that just sets some theatre apart from the pack and makes it really special.

(w/ Kai + Neil, Adam W, Trang and David; Sunny also ended up coming with friend Anthony)

* * *

Kick-Ass & Scott Pilgrim vs the World

A matched pair of dvd hires (with C) - Kick Ass still kinetic and fun and slightly surprisingly hard-edged on a second viewing, Scott Pilgrim an unadulterated, snap-crackle-Pop delight, just like I'd imagined it would be.

"Whodunnit" (Playhouse Theatre, Hobart)

With all apologies, there's only so much to do in Hobart, so one night of our extended sojourn, we went to see this affectionate riff on the classic English country house murder mystery. It felt kind of provincial (would 'amateurish' sound less snobby?) - a nearby audience member actually took out a bag of nuts and started eating her way through it shortly after the second act started (average audience age: probably about 50) - but it was perfectly good natured, fine.

(w/ C)

Tina Fey - Bossypants

I do like Tina, of course I do, but this was slightly disappointing; I suppose the bar is set high by 30 Rock, so when Bossypants turned out to be more a few hours' worth of pleasant diversion with the occasional chuckle than cover to cover comic genius, there was a small element of let-down. Still, she makes the world a better place.

"Monanism" (MONA, Hobart)

MONA was what drew me to Tasmania, and happily I made it over there - with C - in time to catch the inaugural, eponymously apt exhibition. MONA itself is an impressive set-up, with its own ferry from town, a striking building housing the museum itself, very engaging and effective self-guided 'tour' material on customised ipods issued to all visitors at the door, and appealingly labyrinthine internal layout; we made a day of it - 11am ferry out, 5.30pm back, only a short break for lunch at the internal cafe - and while museum fatigue had started to set in by the end, I didn't feel close to having exhausted the art.

In part, that was because there's a focus on video and 'moving image' work (generally taking longer to absorb because of their specifically temporal dimension), reflecting the generally extremely contemporary flavour of the collection. There was something of a feel of the works being the collection of an individual (rather than an institution) - there were a few threads running through a lot of the works, particularly certain expressionist-surrealist and kitsch-grotesque elements, as well as a bit of a Romantic streak, although a thoroughly post-modernist, contemporary flavour is very much dominant in the exhibition as a whole.

There weren't many individual pieces that really stood out at the time or immediately after, but with the benefit of the passage of a week or so, here are some that have particularly stuck:
* Reynold Reynolds - "Secrets Trilogy" ("Six Easy Pieces", "Secret Life", "Secret Machine"). I stood there and watched the whole of this, a series of stop-motiony HD video transfers from 16mm and stills that reminded me of Svankmajer's Alice, cryptic meditations on art, science, philosophy, consciousness, corporeality, nature, life.
* Patrick Hall - "When My Heart Stops Beating". In a room - on one side, a wall of square boxes that can be pulled out to intone, repeatedly, 'I love you' and reveal a poetic, elliptical set of thoughts about love and loss; and on the facing side, a wall of vinyl records, spinning, each in its constituent layers radiating out from the centre. In some ways obvious, but also cute, and not entirely unaffecting.
* Anselm Kiefer - "Sternenfall / Shevirath Ha Kelim". A large room, unusually (for this exhibition/gallery) well lit by sunshine from outside. Large lead books, shattered glass on the floor. Monumental and personal. Unsurprisingly, artist studied law, literature, linguistics.
* Balint Zsako - Untitled (2010). Two women painting themselves then the canvas in a giddy flurry of inky, acrylic and water colour.
* Nolan - "Dog and duck hotel". A painting of a duck in the air alongside a hotel. Appealing. Curious.
* Callum Morton - "Babylonia". From outside, it's a huge, knobbly rock. You walk inside and find yourself in a low-ceilinged hotel-style corridor, swirling Italian-sounding romantic music, a mirror at either end of the corridor reflecting into infinity, all very Alice in Wonderland.

... and there are scattered images from others that have stuck in my mind, too, fragmented, disjointed, adding to an already cluttered internal associative landscape, which is all to the good.

All in all, a very satisfying trip.

Baskery - Fall Among Thieves

Kind of a blues-roots-country-jam thing - 'noise and beats' (Greta Bondesson), 'bottom and rattle' (Stella Bondesson), 'rhythm and whine' (Sunniva Bondesson), banjo and all - created by a trio of Swedish sisters. Enjoyable, but not memorable; best moment is the slamming, knees-up "One Horse Down".

Ghost World

...and another; like Heathers, its impact now diminished, though I still remember how it made me feel on first encounter.

(Previously - the first time, then the second.)

Heathers

Sometimes a film can be a signpost, different each time you come to it. Last time I watched Heathers, about six years ago, its razor-sharp, barbed edge and midnight-black satire still had an immediacy to it; this time, the primary register for me was nostalgic, a reflection of the different point in my life that I'm at...six years is a long time.

Source Code

Watchable, but really nothing special, neat premise notwithstanding.

(w/ C & Sunny + Sunny's friend Katherine)

"Six Characters in Search of an Author" (La Mama)

Lively, engaging, enjoyable staging of the Pirandello in the intimate surrounds of the La Mama theatre; as called for by the play itself, thematises and then obliterates the fourth wall with a touch at once light and serious.

(w/ C)

Terry Pratchett - I Shall Wear Midnight

He just keeps on keeping on; while Pratchett's more recent books have lost half a yard in laugh out loud-ness, their quality has remained remarkably high considering the number he's turned out, the large majority Discworld novels. I Shall Wear Midnight, a Tiffany Aching entry, continues the run - without in any way setting the world on fire, it's a very good read.

Shane Jones - Light Boxes

A quirky little bit of metafiction; on the insubstantial side, but good.

Fish Story

Quietly whimsical Japanese film in which an obscure (pre-Sex Pistols) punk song saves the world from comet destruction decades later. (See also, in far more riotous vein, this one.)

Craig Mathieson - Playlisted

A collection of short essays, each nominally about a song, more broadly about the artist behind the song, and (usually) more broadly still about some aspect of Australian music or pop music generally (there's one exception, a slightly longer piece on possible de facto Australian national anthems). Nicely contemporary, and hits on most of the biggest and most prominent - and representative - acts going around, most of which I've heard a lot on the radio over the years. A pretty good read, though more as a diversion than for anything more substantial.

Sucker Punch

A great big spectacle - it holds the attention and it's exciting, steampunk zombie nazis and all. But as visually striking as the film is, and as vividly realised, it's as if some more subcutaneous imaginative layer is lacking - I'm not sure whether it's in the vision or the execution - something that would have given Sucker Punch an extra dimension that would have raised it from the level of 90 minutes' simple entertainment to the something more that it seems to aspire towards.

Mix cd (untitled)

A pleasing mix of folky-chamberish-miscellany from a rogues' gallery of eccentrics and iconoclasts. Favourites: "Go Do" (Jonsi), "Black But Comely" (Baby Dee), "Dreamer" (Tiny Vipers), "Saro" (Sam Amidon) - and also the mix made me realise for the first time how wonderful Joni Mitchell's "Amelia" is, and that one, which I've heard before but never really got, is the highlight.

(from JF)

Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be

Sub Pop's website quotes Dee Dee, the driving force behind the Dum Dum Girls, as describing her MO as "blissed-out buzz saw", in which case: mission accomplished. The referents here are obvious and cascading, most particularly the Ronettes and the Shangri-Las and then the Jesus and Mary Chain, but it's done with a nice touch and a fistful of good tunes - neat.

Giant Drag - Hearts and Unicorns

Scuzzy, catchy, loose-feeling indie-rock; at times Giant Drag come on like a noisier, trashier Breeders, at others they're a bit dreamier and strummier, more dazed. Actually, sounds very 90s to me, though it came out in 2005 - not that that's a bad thing.

James Blake - Echoes

Haunted contemporary chopped-up electro-soul. Been listening to it for a while now, but haven't made up my mind. Still, there's something about it that sticks in the mind.

"Best of the Edinburgh Festival" (Melb Comedy Festival)

Three acts - Carl Donnelly, Tom Allen, Seann Walsh. All pretty good - good for a Friday night.

(w/ some folk from work plus alumni - ET + 1, ZG + 1, EB, AM, HM)

Amélie Nothomb - Sulphuric Acid

Not up to her usual standard - her usual sharp-edged fable/fabulist style feeling a bit thin on this occasion. Many of the motifs are quintessentially Nothomb - most notably the fascination felt by one central female protagonist for another - but the premise (a satirically rendered concentration camp reality tv show from which viewers have the ability to select those who are executed) doesn't serve her well; the prose, too, isn't as sharp or as pleasing as in her other books.

"Sadness is my boyfriend": Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes

Lykke Li's first lp, Youth Novels, piqued my attention with its interestingly sparse, rhythm & melody popisms, but despite a handful of stand-out songs, didn't really sink into my musical landscape; her second, Wounded Rhymes, while in some respects quite different, has taken me in a similar way.

For me, the highlight is "Sadness is a Blessing", the most overt of several homages to classic girl-group pop on the record; also outstanding are the shuffle 'n' snap of tracks like "Rich Kids Blues" and "Jerome". And there are other good moments, too, and not really any obvious low points - but somehow the whole doesn't really inspire. Still, I guess, I do like it quite a bit and sometimes bits get stuck in my head for a while, and you know, greatness doesn't lie under every bushel so overall the record is still well ahead of the game, etc.

Roxy Music - Avalon

It starts with "More Than This", nowadays inseparable from Bill Murray and Lost in Translation, and in any event addictive. And it turns out that Avalon as a whole is really good, synths, sax, smoothness and all - colour me surprised, because normally this wouldn't be my kind of thing at all. At times it reminds me of the Cocteaus' amazing Victorialand, at others of ABC (less surprisingly); I find myself wanting to listen to it without knowing exactly why, or what it's giving me - which is perhaps how pop music should be.

Arrested Development

Things have been a bit hectic lately, and I've been rewatching Arrested Development in the gaps, as a way of unwinding. Extemporanea tells me that I first watched the show in '06, but in the years since I've often dipped into it, caught parts while others were watching, etc; going back and watching it from go to self-reflexive 'whoa' only makes its greatness clearer...no other tv series is even close in terms of the amount of joy that Arrested Development has brought me.

Howl

An odd sort of film, but it made me happy. The beats have never been a particular touchstone for me, but of course the idea(l)s they stand for resonate very strongly, and this rendition of the "Howl" obscenity trial dramatises (performs) the poem itself - through a series of animations that are interspersed with scenes from the trial and a retrospective 'interview' with the poet - in a way that Ginsburg might have approved of...the film also made me realise how much the beat generation have influenced the modern hipster, consciously or nay, for better or for worse.

(w/ C)

Glenn Richards + Amaya Laucirica @ Northcote Social Club, Friday 18 March

Early Summer has sunk in quite a bit over the last few weeks, and I was keen to see Laucirica, albeit as a support act...it was pretty much the way one might've imagined she would be live - I enjoyed it.

As to Glenn Richards, I was open-minded - I remember those early Augie March radio songs very fondly, but haven't particularly followed their/his career since. Anyway, his set was a pleasant mix of folky/rootsy pop-rock with that distinctive troubadour flavour, quite nice for a Friday night but not memorable.

(w/ David + Justine)

The Hollowmen series 1 & 2

I've been noticing lately that my expectations of modern life have apparently been heavily shaped by sitcoms, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but is certainly a thing and perhaps best in moderation; unrelatedly, I've been meaning to sit down and watch The Hollowmen for a while - and the combination of those factors led me to go through the two series (they're only six episodes each) in the last week or so.

The show's undeniably amusing - much of it did chime with my experience and impressions (albeit in exaggerated form), and of course satire depends on that kind of recognisability for its effectiveness and humour. The depiction of the public service rang less true than that of the Central Policy Unit and the other political operators who move through the show's corridors - but that's probably just quibbling given the show's intent, namely to send up the whole system as much as possible.

Catfish

As well as being a cautionary tale of sorts, Catfish is a documentary, or at least a 'documentary' (I'm not sure I believe it really was entirely real and unscripted). Given the premise - man develops relationship through facebook, but it turns out that not everything is as it seems - it's easy enough to predict the general direction in which things go, but what's surprising is how gentle the depiction is (it's also a bit sad, though for me the element of hope in the ending was more prominent)...and it did make me think about the pitfalls of getting to know others - both online and otherwise - and the different ways in which we construct our selves, and in which those constructions can be meaningful.

(w/ Caroline - last Saturday)

Starship Troopers

Generally, I value films that provoke me, but those made by Verhoeven tend to be an exception - there's a nastiness to them, a brutality, that rubs me the wrong way...

Anyway, I think Starship Troopers was the first of his that I saw, back in high school, and I really hated it. Since then, though, I'd revised my opinion upwards, having realised that it must be a satire (while feeling some disappointment in my younger self for not having picked it up at the time) - but catching it on tv last night (my life is rather glamorous) made me realise that the satire really isn't that cutting or clever, and in fact it is basically a flashy sci-fi b-movie seemingly as interested in glamorising the militaristic values it depicts as criticising them (on the other hand, it did have the bonus appearance of Neil Patrick Harris, now better known to me as Barney from How I Met Your Mother...again with the tv).

Joseph Kosuth - "(Waiting for -) Texts for Nothing" Samuel Beckett, in play (ACCA) / The End @ Malthouse / "The End" (Beckett)

So I arrived at the Malthouse/ACCA precinct lateish afternoon, planning to see the Kosuth first; the main event was "(Waiting for -) Texts for Nothing" itself, an installation of neon white Beckettian (including Godot) words running high on the walls on the inside of a large dark room, and immersive, the kind of installation that you think about while experiencing, but whose effect is much more in the way that it sinks in, subtly, at the time and afterwards as it stays with you.

After that, picked up tickets for The End (and also Moth and A Golem Story) and then went outside, planning to maybe start a letter I've been meaning to write and also do some reading for uni - only to come across Kim at one of the outdoor tables, waiting for a photo shoot of some kind (I'm hazy on the details). So we shot the breeze for a while, and after a bit, the photographer and other subject came by, they wandered off, I read for a bit, and then Sunny arrived, and then Trang and a friend of Sunny's, Caroline, then Kai and Neil (we'd had dinner in the meantime).

In due course, the call came and we filed into the Beckett Theatre (incidentally, and curiously/coincidentally, not named after Samuel B). Completely bare stage - plain black backdrop. Performance started unassumingly and unannounced - Robert Menzies entering through an unobtrusive door in the black backdrop, moving to the centre of the stage, and then spending an age peering at his surrounds, before beginning to speak, the beginning of a remarkable performance, a 70 minute-ish monologue, a ruined tramp, recounting the some of the last days of his degraded existence in language everyday, profane and occasionally lyrical and finally ending on a note of something else...

Afterwards, I said that I wanted to read it, and Sunny told me that it wasn't in fact a play at all, but rather a novella - and today I remembered that I actually own a book purporting to compile the complete short prose of Beckett (a gift from a while back), and turns out that that indeed includes "The End". So I did read it, this afternoon, and it's given me a renewed appreciation for the craft of the stage production, as well as for Beckett himself...the word 'genius' gets bandied about, but surely he must qualify.

First Aid Kit - The Big Black & The Blue

If you crossed the Indigo Girls with Joanna Newsom and then made them Swedish, you might end up with something like First Aid Kit. The 'Swedish' element isn't merely a detail - for whatever reason, a lot of pop (or, in this case, folk) singers coming out of the country seem to share a certain timbre and enunciation (and, of course, accent) - but the main musical style from which they draw is squarely American, namely the folk/mountain tradition that still holds such fascination for our (or at least my) modern ears, and they do it well, too.

Robyn - Body Talk lp

Context can make all the difference. This record collects songs from the two 'Body Talk' eps and adds some new ones; when I listened to the first of those eps last year, my main response was disappointment, and yet most of the songs have made their way on to this lp, where they (mostly) sound suddenly fresh and exciting, just like her last full-length. It goes one-two-three - "Fembot" opening and serving as mission statement, "Don't Fucking Tell Me What To Do" buzzing and building, and then "Dancing on My Own", whose greatness I somehow completely missed on the first pass. And then a run of five more of equal quality - "Time Machine" is probably my favourite of those - before the rest, which is a bit more hit and miss but still good. My faith is restored!

School of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire

A step up from the itself quite charming Alpinisms, Disconnect From Desire moves further in the shimmery-droney anthemic pop direction of the best moments from their debut - it feels more fully formed, as if the band's ideas have coalesced, and it's a better record for it. Listening to it, I feel a bit of a drumming in my chest and a suggestion of lightness in my head - a sign of good pop music.

Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud - A Life on Paper: Stories

A collection of short stories from across this French fabulist's more than thirty year career, A Life on Paper reminds me a bit of Borges, a bit of Calvino, a bit of Kafka, and a bit of John Collier; Chateaureynaud shares with all of them the ability to take the everyday - the ordinary - and introduce an element of the strange to disconcerting effect. The stories are short and have a fable-like air, an effect arising as much from the elegant, epigrammatic style of the prose as from the stories' subjects, which range from a man who one day finds the word 'mortal' ineradicably emblazoned on his chest, to an antiques broker with a supernatural ability to source anything his dealer's clients can conceive of, to a small island community where sirens have survived to modern times, to a man who stumbles across a museum dedicated to entirely to him and his life. And there's a strong metafictional streak running through, too (just like in the work of seemingly every other French writer ever)...there's much to like here.

Martha Wainwright - I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too

There's something very seductive about Martha Wainwright's singing - the rough edges are attractive, alluring, as is the intelligence and emotional openness and even rawness (or at least the appearance of such emotional disclosure). I've kept listening to her first album - it's turned out to be a grower - and this one is also good, though not yet as addictive. It feels like there's more going on on I Know You're Married..., and perhaps the pop song-craft doesn't come through as clearly - but maybe this is another that I need to live with for a while.

Predators

Predators opens with a man in free fall, his parachute opening just in time to save him from a messy landing, and continues in a similarly frenetic vein thereafter. The man is Adrien Brody, convincing (against the odds) as an amoral mercenary - and he quickly links up with the sorts of variations on the 'human predator' type you might expect in a movie like this (a Chechnyan soldier, a member of the yakuza, an Sierra Leone death squad-er, Danny Trejo, etc) as they band together in an effort to survive the game preserve into which they've been dropped, hunted by Predators. I have a big soft spot for the original Predator, and this one's not a million miles from it - not exactly high art, but it delivers.

Date Night

It's not that Date Night is disappointing, exactly - it's perfectly watchable, and even has a few laugh out loud moments - but it could have been so much better...Steve Carell I don't have any strong feelings about, but with Tina Fey alongside him, Mark Wahlberg and William Fichtner to play with, an extended cameo from James Franco and Mila Kunis (both of whom have caught my eye lately), and an early appearance by Mark Ruffalo to boot, the film has comedic talent to burn. But it never quite gels, caught perhaps between its zanier impulses and the desire to remain grounded in an emotionally real context involving its two central 'boring marrieds'.

Blonde Redhead - Penny Sparkle

When I first listened to this last year, it seemed a bit indistinct, a bit too pretty and insubstantial. But having returned to it over the last few weeks, I've realised that for all of its smoothness (a process that's been on at least since 23, and probably earlier) and airiness, the fraughtness and jagged edges that, in combination with the band's more dazzling pop impulses, have always been crucial to their genius, are still there, just a bit more subterranean - and that Penny Sparkle is in fact very good, insistent, sensuous, lingering.

Plan B - The Defamation of Strickland Banks

"She Said" caught my ear on the radio. I though it was a duet - one guy singing soul, and another rapping the alternate stanzas, but it turns out they're one and the same person, recording as 'Plan B', and on repeat listens the song stands up very well, coming on like a new "Billie Jean".

Strickland Banks is essentially a modern soul/r&b record with hip-hop/rap elements, but it's inspired by a range of musical streams from the 50s and 60s, even classic rock & roll at times - it makes for engaging listening.

Easy A

Knowing, a bit snarky, fun.

Amaya Laucirica - Early Summer

There's something of the woozy, late night country of bands like Mazzy Star and the Cowboy Junkies to Early Summer, including hints of the Velvet Underground at their gentlest, along with pronounced but integrated folk and psychedelic threads; there's a lot to like on it, but the clear highlight is the airily widescreen "This World Can Make You Happy", on which Laucirica sounds rather like Isabel Monteiro (frontwoman for the sadly missed Drugstore - wikipedia tells me they're still alive, but it's been a long time between drinks...but I digress). Also very sweet - "Most Times I Feel Alright", "When I Think Of All The Places", "Sun On My Face".

Au revoir les enfants

I wasn't sure I'd find anything in this to draw me, but I did, the film's naturalism working well with its more subtle tones of elegy and regret. Also - and this is very much a personal dimension - it invoked two novels that I always strongly associate with French literature and art generally, The Counterfeiters with its schoolboys behaving badly, and The Red and the Black via the central character's name, Julien.

Jenny and Johnny @ East Brunswick Club, Thursday 10 February

Similar set to the one they played at Laneway (understandable given that they only have one record to draw on, plus Lewis' solo back catalogue), with a few added - including a rousing version of "Carpetbaggers" and a very stripped back and slowed down "Silver Lining" (it's obvious that Lewis has thoroughly left her old band behind - it was the only Rilo Kiley song they played, and as it was she forgot the words). Rilo Kiley are actually quite a big band for me, and I've followed Jenny Lewis since because she really is a star; there was nothing here to set my world alight, but it was a relaxed, enjoyable gig, played in hot, sticky conditions at the East Brunswick, with the added novelty of there seemingly being some kind of back stage issues, leading to the band taking and leaving the stage through the crowd, along the near wall.

(w/ Hayley and Meribah)

Laneway Festival, Saturday 5 February

Hadn't been to a Laneway for a few years, but was lured back by the solid line up and positive buzz about last year's, at the new venue at Footscray. Heavy rain was forecast, and we arrived beneath grey skies, expecting at any minute to be drenched, just in time for Stornoway, a bunch of Oxonians purveying bouncing, folksy, rather twee guitar-pop who'd been highly recommended by Penny, and they were good - both music and band charming and charismatic in a slightly dorky way.

Following them were Jenny and Johnny, who were nice, taking the stage in matching sunglasses (and rounded out to a four piece by a drummer and another guitarist - Jenny played bass) and selling the songs from I'm Having Fun Now in style. Unsurprisingly, the catchier, rockier numbers tended to come to the fore ("Committed", "My Pet Snakes", "Big Wave"), but they brought the other cuts out well too - and absolutely killed with the epic version of Acid Tongue's "The Last Messiah" that closed the set.

Next up (all of this was on the same stage) was Beach House, whose woodsy, sometimes clangorous dream-pop actually sounded really good in a live setting - I haven't really listened to them before, but this set made me think I should check them out more. (And the crowd was super into them.)

We were meant to be seeing Blonde Redhead next, but an on the day reschedule led to us catching Local Natives instead. They were pretty good, though I suspect that the festival setting flattened out some aspects of their sound that might have distinguished them more on record, most notably the harmonising - but they were tight, loud and anthemic, so not too bad at all.

After that, we intended to check out Yeasayer but went to the wrong stage and found ourselves at Les Savy Fav, which was just as much crazy as the last couple of times I incidentally saw them (once at an earlier laneway festival, and the other time as part of a double header with Pretty Girls Make Graves), complete with fence climb, river swim, river-water-drink-from-shoe, wriggle-into-unsuspecting-audience-member's-tee-shirt (said tee still occupied by audience member), marauding runs through centre of crowd, etc.

...and then, finally, Blonde Redhead, having picked them over Deerhunter, and unfortunately they were only so-so - solid enough, but there wasn't much engagement from the crowd, and when it was over, I had a definite 'was that it?' feeling...well, it happens sometimes.

Anyway, by that point, we weren't super excited about any of the closers (Cut Copy, Gotye, !!!), so we left and headed out in search of a cold drink, which brought us to the Footscray Hotel, quiet and patronised only by a handful of locals when we arrived, but soon (and amusingly) completely overrun by other festival-goers who'd had the same idea as us.

(w/ Meribah)

> 2005
> 2006
> 2007

Stephen R Donaldson - Against All Things Ending

Against All Things Ending takes a long time to get going - it's something like 70 pages in before anything even happens, the intervening time having all been taken up by the characters talking to each other and thinking about things...which isn't necessarily a bad thing, for the genius of these books has always been the way that they've dramatised both the interior and the external journeys and quests of their central protagonists, Thomas Covenant and, as the series have gone on, Linden Avery. I think that the first and second chronicles are a notch above these 'last chronicles', but the quality has only slipped a bit, and this is still fantasy well worth reading.

Italo Calvino - Cosmicomics

A collection of pieces which are really more imaginative excursions than short stories, for all that they do have identifiable protagonists and at least the outlines of narratives, and as such the obvious comparison is Invisible Cities. And indeed, the two books turn out to have a lot more in common than their superficially different subject-matters initially suggest (a series of descriptions of fabulous cities visited by Marco Polo, framed by longer philosophical conversations between the Venetian explorer and the emperor Kublai Khan, versus Qfwq's by turns breathless and oddly matter of fact accounts of crucial moments in cosmic 'history').

Ultimately, I think, Cosmicomics is principally concerned with the creative and productive forces that, for Calvino, drive Everything; the literary device of representing these both literally and anthropomorphically functions on at least two levels, one purely metaphorical (and playful), the other suggesting more profoundly that we can only make sense of such cosmic happenings (or circumstances) by way of metaphor (something like, 'if no one can imagine the big bang, did it really happen - and what does it mean to say that we can imagine it?')...and as such, it's fundamentally concerned with the theatre of the imagination, and the implications of what transpires there. For example, this, which closes "The Spiral", the final piece in the collection:

And at the bottom of each of those eyes I lived, or rather another me lived, one of the images of me, and it encountered the image of her, the most faithful image of her, in that beyond which opens up, past the sem-liquid sphere of the irises, in the darkness of the pupils, the mirrored hall of the retinas, in our true element which extends without shores, without boundaries.

If that is what Calvino's about here (and it's not clear that it is), then no wonder that he only partly succeeds. I found Cosmicomics interesting to read, but it doesn't approach the limpid perfection of Invisible Cities - it may be missing the point to insist on the book having a point, but nonetheless I felt it lacked a clarity of focus, something to raise it above the level of a diverting, even often entertaining, play of ideas to being something more.

(Incidentally, book club rode again with this one after a long hiatus - a hot day upstairs in AB's current North Carlton apartment, WL joining us by skype from the UK.)

True Grit

So the Coen brothers do a western, Jeff Bridges at its centre, and turns out it's darn good. In many respects, it's quite a straight western, really, but there's certainly something of a Coen bros flavour to it, most notably in the dialogue but also a bit in how it's shot, and in the sly humour and mingling of tones/registers (funny how those ideas - phrases - both have a musical connotation (origin?), though I use them here in an emotional or 'genre-y' sense). V. enjoyable.

(w/ Andreas)

"Oh How They Come and Go"

A bit of a David 'best of' in some ways - it's a mix cd from him, from several months back - with tracks from Spoon, the Flaming Lips, Thom Yorke, Julian Casablancas, "River Man", "I See A Darkness" (the Johnny Cash version) and others. I hadn't heard either the Spoon or Yorke songs ("Tear Me Down", which is kind of Television-y and very Spoon, and "Hearing Damage", respectively). Best, for mine, is "Hideaway" by Karen O and the Kids (off the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack), saved for last, which, slow and end-of-the-worldly, sounds like it was recorded by some lost Velvet Underground-associated chanteuse some time in the 60s, equal parts Nico and Nancy Sinatra.

"What's the worst that can happen?": Splice

A sci-fi/horror riff on the dangers of science - and, more specifically, the ethical minefield associated with genetic engineering and particularly human DNA - Splice has some shocks up its sleeve, delivered in a lowish budget but consistently unnerving frame. People who saw it at MIFF last year talked it up, and the presence of Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley was also promising, and it pretty much comes through - the premise is intriguing, if not fully developed, and it goes to some uncomfortable places while forcing the viewer to retain at least some sympathy for its three central protagonists (not least the alien, uncanny Dren).

Metric - Live It Out

Energetic, slightly rougher-edged precursor to almost-minor-classic Fantasies.

Tift Merritt - See You On The Moon

Another elegant modern country record from Tift Merritt, this one more spacious, perhaps more mellow than the last couple, but equally golden.

Ken Blanchard - The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey

Lent to me by PG as I begin acting again (for three months, this time) - will be useful, though more in the way of spelling out techniques and systems that one has already been applying intuitively than by actually bringing any completely new insights.

Black Swan

Black Swan is certainly intense; it's also really good. It's an extremely interior film, which makes sense given that Black Swan is thoroughly concerned with identity and everything else that lies just below the surface of consciousness; in the creeping sense of unease and disquietude, of things being somehow not right, that it produced, it reminded me of David Lynch, and of Amenabar's memorable Open Your Eyes, which figures, since, from opening dream sequence to shattering end, it shares with them a preoccupation with effacing the distinctions between the inner and external worlds, between dreams and waking life. And it's also about art, and the toll that it takes, and in this it's lifted by a brilliant turn from Natalie Portman - one simply forgets that it's her, and it never feels as if she's acting at all. Her achievement is to take us deep into Nina's mind, when that very mind is shattering before our very eyes.

Black Swan flourishes its motifs with a boldness typical of Aronofsky - mirrors, doubling, control/letting go, dreams/reality - which works to the film's advantage because its themes demand such grand treatment, particularly in the context of its structuring metaphor, the tale of Swan Lake itself, recounted early in the film as a 'white swan/virginity - black swan/seduction - liberty in death' plunge, and then played out in terms which could almost be as literal or as figurative as each viewer pleases.

I thought after seeing the film, yesterday, that my dreams might be affected, so vivid and intense an experience was it - and (unusually) that actually happened...I think it'll stay with me.

(w/ Sunny and his friend Caroline)

Jenny and Johnny - I'm Having Fun Now

It may just be knowing that this is a girlfriend/boyfriend side project, but I'm Having Fun Now feels loose, tossed off, casual. That said, it's an enjoyable listen - basically relaxed boy-girl countryish rock with a dash of indie, and it doesn't hurt that the girl is Jenny Lewis; best are "My Pet Snake" and "Committed", both of which ride super-catchy tunes while making much of the vocal interplay between Lewis and partner Johnathan Rice.

Kira Henehan - Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles

An intriguing and often very funny entry in one of my favourite sub-genres - postmodernist existential detective novels (cf The Raw Shark Texts, Icelander (*) and, of course, the grandfather of them all, The Crying of Lot 49, Murakami a neighbour too, especially in A Wild Sheep Chase (*) and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (*) mode).

      There once was a one person who
      Knew that all that she knew was untrue
      She fell asleep in her head
      When she woke up instead
      Of being one one, she was two.

In Orion, we're in the hands of a wilful and inscrutable (even to herself) narrator, one Finley, engaged on a mysterious Assignment set by the equally mysterious Binelli - an Assignment whose very nature is unclear to Finley, but which has something to do with puppets. Her syntax is curious, but then so is everything about her (in more than one sense):

      They are also an unending source of pain and fury for myself and The Lamb. We are neither of us even close to a size 9.5. Who is. A penguin. A clubfoot. A saintly redheaded sister with no need for shoes, not ever again, wafting about the clouds in her wherewithal, no doubt, in her birthday suit, in the buff, with specially made size 9.5 wings erupting from giant shoulder blades to carry her wherever she might deign to go. An entire room filled with handcrafted, timeless, useless shoes.
      One could go mad.
      One does go mad, often, and then the other one, and then both for some time, and then some shoes get thrown about and the memory of the sister desecrated and defamed and then all are yelled at and then all get crappy Assignments next time around.

There's much confusion in Finley's world, not least on the question of who she is; many of those she encounters seem strangely doubled. (Not that this prevents her frequent application of 'logic' to what she encounters.) There's also a large snake, Lavendar, who is her 'beast of burden' and goes everywhere with her in a satchel, sometimes emerging to the consternation of those around. And there's also the odd recurrence of Tiki Ty's Tiki Barn, whose owner makes magnificent shrimp:

      Wherever we went, wherever the concerns in need of Investigation took us, we always stayed at Tiki Ty's Tiki Barn. And unlikely seeming as it seems, it always seemed to be exactly the same place.
      One learns that certain questions are unanswerable.
      This is why we need words like 'conundrum'.
      Tiki Ty's was always where we stayed and was always a large bright generous sort of bookstore-slash-vintage surfing memorabilia museum. The books were not necessarily about vintage surfing memorabilia; I perhaps misspoke. There were few, if in fact any, books on vintage surfing memorabilia at Tiki Ty's and perhaps in the whole of the world. Vintage surfing memorabilia being one of those memorabilias that people prefer to see accidentally or even on purpose, in person, but rarely, if ever, to read about.
      Though perhaps they would enjoy a picture book of vintage surfing memorabilia?
      This may not even be the case.
      This may be something that warrants further investigation, but perhaps by someone else.

Very pleasing indeed.