"Suburban" (Ian Strange, NGV Australia)

I like art that brings out the shadowy side of the suburban - the obvious reference point here is Gregory Crewdson, and it's an apt one for this set of photo works, a three-screen video installation and some fragments from the painted-on buildings (or, in some cases, literally burning) that feature in them.

Anyway, I liked this small exhibition - the images do successfully tap into something interesting.

(w/ Alice)

Mark Latham - The Latham Diaries

This just felt like something I should read. Interesting, though very hard to know how much of a grain of salt a lot of it needs to be taken with.

Also, random monologue directed at me from scrappy looking middle aged lady in Bourke Street who saw me holding this book the other day: "I thought that man had potential but (waves hands) (indistinct) he couldn't handle the pressure". I didn't express an opinion.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

A while ago I started watching Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter but got bored and gave up; Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is probably in a similar vein, but much more fun...I guess Gemma Arterton and Jeremy Renner fighting witches with a mix of semi-automatic crossbows and guns and hand to hand combat while wearing leather and serious faces will do that.

Frances Ha

Moving pictures about being young(ish) in New York; charming, and believable in the important ways. Being in black and white helped, no doubt, and likewise Bowie's "Modern Love". (Afterwards, I went to the supermarket, bumped into people, felt both footloose and ground-bound.)

Red Riding Hood

Disappointing. Director Catherine Hardwicke of Twilight renown was a plus for me, and Red Riding Hood with the promise of plenty of mood, why not? Plus Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried, one who I've liked since high school and the other (a bit surprisingly) good in everything she shows up in. So it's unfortunate that the film itself is so uninspired, not to mention the dire acting by the two boys making up the other points of the love triangle.

Two Marnie Stern albums

This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That (2008) & Marnie Stern (2010)

A short list of things I like about Marnie Stern:
1. The fascinating, intricate, and frequently glorious guitar/percussion/sung-shouted textures of her songs.
2. Especially the guitars!
3. And the climaxes, which often, once they hit, either return and return or just keep on going on and on from first appearance.
4. Song titles like "Roads? Where We're Going We Don't Need Roads" and (appositely) "Female Guitar Players Are The New Black" and fragments of lyrics flying past in similar veins.
5. The way that it really doesn't sound much like anything else you've ever heard, in a good way.

I like This Is It... more than the self-titled, but both are ace.

(The Chronicles of Marnia)

James Button - Speechless

I enjoyed this - the insights into PM&C, Rudd and Button's relationship with his father, and the potted recent history of the ALP, in equal measures. (Also enjoyed that Cass gets a mention in the acknowledgements.)

Thirst

Park Chan-wook's vampire film. Like Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, brutally violent, physically as well as psychologically, and like those others, supremely stylish - stark and, at times, strikingly beautiful. But, also like those others, somehow not wholly satisfying; perhaps too much the intellectual and cinematic exercise, with not quite the depth that could have elevated it beyond that.

Stories I Want To Tell You In Person (Malthouse)

Funny and rather charming, and it was pleasing to see both the Apocalypse Bear and the Hope Dolphin! Also, I expect that Katz karaoke-ing "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" will linger. Not that authenticity was necessarily the name of the game, but it did feel like a rendition of 'the real Lally Katz'; indeed, she / her 'character' reminded me of a couple of girls who I've known.

(w/ Cass, Mehnaz, Paul D and, as a last second sub-in for a scratching, Julian F)

The Dark Knight Rises

Somewhat flawed, okay, but only by comparison to the two that came before it, especially The Dark Knight; still immensely satisfying.

(last time)

Stephen Grosz - The Examined Life

I. Two impulses, perhaps in tension, perhaps not: 1. I'm suspicious of the pat revelations and 'truths' that are peddled by the therapy of popular imagination ('oh, I'm no good at relationships as an adult because I have an unresolved fear of abandonment from my childhood' etc). 2. I've thought plenty of times in the past about trying to find a good psychoanalyst, not because of a desire to solve - or resolve - any particular issues, but because I imagine that it might provide an interesting, and different, perspective and framing way of thinking about my self.

II. During my honours year, I did a subject called "Freud, Fiction, Lacan". Some of the students in the class - there were perhaps 20 in all, maybe less - were thoroughly convinced by the value of psychoanalytic theory. I was not. I recall perhaps the most committed of those others saying to me, over a post-class beer, I think, "Howard, why are you so resistant to psychoanalytic theory?". Having said that, Lacan in particular struck a bit of a chord, and I came away with some useful insights and a desire to grapple with it more.

III. Wei sent me this book a while back (the modern way, via a bookdepository order), and quite deliberately, following some conversations we'd had over skype. Grosz is a practising psychoanalyst, and in The Examined Life, he recounts a series of encounters, mostly with patients, each encapsulating and illustrating some truth about how people make sense - or otherwise - of themselves and their lives. It's a premise that had the potential to be severely didactic and heavy-handed, but instead it really has made me reflect on the way that the stories we tell ourselves, often all unknowing, structure and shape our selves and our lives, including (albeit in a somewhat unformed way) how that may translate for me. I was writing about Siri Hustvedt just earlier today; I can see a similarity of approach and style in Grosz's writing, even though it takes a different form.

Neil Gaiman - Absolute Sandman vol 2

I think these are maybe my favourite storylines in the series - the 'season of mists' and 'a game of you' sequences, and they pop even more vividly to life in these 'absolute' editions. (A side by side comparison leaves the originals looking dull in a way that they never were on previous pass-throughs.) The miscellany at the end is pretty good too.

(vol 1)

The Go-Go's - Beauty and the Beat

Only having heard "Our Lips Are Sealed", I'd imagined that the Go-Go's would be pretty bubblegum if likely peppy with it, but actually there's a pleasing toughness to their sound - more Blondie than Bananarama - and particularly on the bonus live set that accompanies this 30th anniversary reissue (the album originally came out in 1981). And, in fact, Beauty and the Beat is just all-round good. (Plus, I've now learned that Belinda Carlisle of "Heaven is a Place on Earth", "Summer Rain" and "Leave a Light On" - not that I knew the name of that last before coincidentally hearing it in jb just the other day - fame was their singer.)

Siri Hustvedt - The Blindfold

I had the strangest feeling while reading The Blindfold that I had read it before, and even now, having finished it, I'm not sure whether that's a product of an over-hasty read years ago (it doesn't show up on extemporanea, so would have to've been pre-2005) or rather of the hauntedly familiar nature of the text itself, for which my Persona postcard was an ideal bookmark.

In terms of writers of more or less this last extended generation (let's say those starting out from around the 80s, so as to exclude the first wave of postmodernists who kicked off in the 60s/70s - Pynchon & co), there are really four who stand out for me, four particular favourites. There's Donna Tartt, aloof (less than a novel a decade is just ridiculous) and enigmatic but all the more beguiling for it, Haruki Murakami, the dreamer whose world you wish you could live in (and sometimes, in his company, almost feel that you do), Scarlett Thomas, the smart, hip girl for whom you could all too easily fall, but whose brand of coolness you think you recognise and know makes it a bad idea to invest any real emotional energy in her acquaintance - and Siri Hustvedt, who's perhaps most like the wise best friend, deeply insightful, subtle, intelligent and generous of spirit.[*]

So, evidently, whether I've read it before or not, it was high time that I came/returned to The Blindfold, Hustvedt's first. And while it doesn't reach the heights of What I Loved and The Sorrows of an American, it's nonetheless a finely wrought, deeply incisive portrayal of modern urban female identity, selfhood and their discontents, and often chest-tighteningly compelling.

[*] I owe that little piece of fancy to Nicolette, who once told me that, for her, Hemingway was like the secret boyfriend that she was a bit ashamed of, or words to that effect.

Annie - "The A&R" ep

Five cuts of sweetly pulsing, 21st century nostalgic electro-pop, and in fact getting a bit into Saint Etienne territory in places (especially on "Hold On") - nice.

(Anniemal; Don't Stop & "All Night")

These New Puritans - Field of Reeds

An intriguingly abstract record, like the shadowy echo of a mix of Kid A, the back half of Low, and Victorialand, with a bunch more avant garde jazz-y and chamber-type influences mixed in; trumpets float in mournfully at intervals, likewise vocals, both with the air of a haunting. Quite remarkable. Also, the soundtrack to many recent hours in the domed reading room of the State Library, white light streaming in from overhead.

The Box Tops - The Best of the Box Tops: Soul Deep

Alex Chilton's old band, active (at least under the name of the Box Tops) from '67 to '70 - a blue-eyed soul kind of pop, and likeable.

The Lumineers - The Lumineers

Pretty minor, but pretty nice too, as far as contemporaried-up folk-pop goes.

Now You See Me

A good trailer, an appealing cast (Mark Ruffalo, Melanie Laurent, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman - the actors playing the magicians whose exploits are the nominal centre of the film, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco, being less of the drawcards, but still a pretty good second-line) - it was enough, and particularly seeing as I was feeling that I should do something luxurious on my unexpected day off today. So anyway, it's a fun entertainment, perhaps inevitably in the shade of The Prestige, but nicely spectacular and plenty enjoyable.

Aim High in Creation (MIFF)

In which a Sydney film-maker decides to fight coal seam gas production in Sydney by making a short film in accordance with the principles laid down by Kim Jong Il for North Korean propaganda films, and travels to North Korea (or the DPRK) to meet the elite of the cloistered state's film-making industry - directors, actors, musicians, technicians - to learn their techniques. I'd been drawn to it by the premise, and particularly the promise of communist kitsch, but in fact what made this film (actually a documentary about the making of the short) so winning was the insight into North Korean society and its people, even allowing for the inevitably tightly controlled nature of the exercise.

(w/ Cass)

The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (MIFF)

An entertaining ride through the operations of ideology, illustrated through analysis/deconstruction of a range of films and filmed material, as seen through the eyes of the amusing Zizek.

(w/ Daniel L and David)

Dirty Girl

I don't quite know why I find Juno Temple so appealing. She's cute and all, but not so much as to explain her particular charisma (and besides, not really in the usual way for me, ie pretty, willowy brunettes) - I guess there's just some kind of movie thing going on. Anyway, whatever the reasons, Temple as the titular 'dirty girl' in a high school-ish film set in the 80s seemed a likely winner, and Dirty Girl is pretty alright - edgy enough, though, like most films of this kind, also possessed of a pretty wide sentimental streak, and while, tonally, it's a bit all over the place, there are some nice moments, an enjoyable if somewhat marginal supporting cast - William H Macy, Milla Jovovich, Mary Steenburgen, Dwight Yoakam, the first three in particular amusing because of the past roles that I associate them with - and a solid performance by co-star Jeremy Dozier, plus a cameo by Tim McGraw, not that I recognised him. (Also, a bag of flour called Joan whose texta drawn facial expression changes according to Temple's Danielle's mood.)

Einstein on the Beach

I was wrapped up in Einstein on the Beach from start to finish, but that's not to say that the occasional rogue thought didn't slip in, and one of those came late in the piece, the music having subsided to a single organ-sounding synth line, none of the company on stage, backdrop wholly black except for a large white bar rotating slowly from the horizontal to the vertical; the thought, and its immediate answer, were 'so does the emperor have any clothes?', and 'absolutely yes'.

I mean really, wow, this was an experience beyond words. I've liked Philip Glass for a long time and Einstein, a four hour plus abstract modern opera, must be the high watermark in that regard (a search of extemporanea reveals that I had this to say back in 2010 - ... "Einstein on the Beach" (seeing a good live performance of which remains one of my mostly fondly cherished cultural hopes) ... ) - so I was really anticipating this, and it met those high expectations.

Working on the level of abstraction and suggestion yet tapping into something direct and immediate too...which goes part and parcel with the surrealist imagery (especially that first act with the train, which is like something straight out of Magritte). It is dreamlike, and also intensely human for all of the starkly abstract imagery and repetition; seeing the connection to those images and to the actions of the performers has put Glass's music in a new light for me too. Genuinely a rare, indeed unique, experience - just what one values in art.

(w/ Jarrod, Al and Steph N)

Magic Magic (MIFF)

My reasons for wanting to see this one, as set out pre-watching: 

Because: 
1. Juno Temple is awesome. 
2. The program description says Michael Cera plays against type, which I hope to mean that he is EVIL. 
3. Christopher Doyle is a genius cinematographer (ie Wong Kar Wai films).

So, judged against those criteria, Magic Magic was satisfying! I got to watch the intriguing and odd Juno Temple on a big screen for an hour and a half, see Michael Cera deliver a distinctly un-George Michael role (he clearly knew exactly what he was doing), and relish how very nicely it was all shot. And, more generally, it's quite a nice little thriller with some horror elements, in which the terrifying monster that might end up getting everyone isn't quite what you might think.

(w/ David)

Neil Gaiman - Absolute Sandman vol 1

Sandman's something of a minor touchstone for me - the only graphic novel to've attained that status. Contains the first 20 issues - previously collected in Preludes & Nocturnes, The Doll's House and Dream Country - but recoloured (the colours brighter and richer) and on oversized, high quality paper. All up, a satisfying way to re-experience these memorable stories.


First time (all out of sequence)
[1] & [3], [2], [4], [5]&[6], [7], [8], [9], [10]

Second time
1-4, 5-10

Kristin Slipp & Dov Manski - A Thousand Julys

What a nice little record - 11 jazz standards ("Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" in two different versions), performed to piano/Wurlitzer. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is the only one that I knew, but, as is the way with standards, all the others sound like I might as well have known them; and I expect it helps that I'm not familiar with the versions by the likes of Billie Holliday et al for which they're better known, because that lack of expectation has allowed these songs to sink in, the spare, modern readings - at once direct and somewhat oblique - given them striking a chord with me. (I came to it via a glowing review on popmatters.)