Bon Jovi - Cross Road

It's not news that I'm listening to this - many moons ago, I borrowed a copy of this best-of from the library and put it on tape at the time...so far so good, then. Problem is, somewhere along the line I taped over it (if memory serves, with one of those obscure Pink Floyd albums that I've never even listened to all the way through) and since then - this was all years ago - have frequently found myself hankering for the record, sometimes particular songs and sometimes just for the concentrated hit of several of those singles all in a row: "Blaze of Glory", "Bed of Roses", "Livin' on a Prayer", "Always", "Wanted Dead or Alive", "You Give Love a Bad Name", "Keep the Faith"...

Anyway, the yearnings have been particularly frequent lately, and I finished work early one night last week and set off determined to finally buy myself a copy; happily, it was going for $10 at jb (which is about as much as I could've decently spent on a Bon Jovi album after all) and, somewhat to Penelope's chagrin, have been listening to it plenty since (much finding myself with the tunes caught in my head as I walk around).

"Guggenheim Collection: 1940s to Now" @ NGV International

Much excitement in the lead-up to this on my part, going back to last year when I first heard about it, and the exhibition pretty much justifies all of that anticipation. It leads off with overviews of post-war abstraction in each of the US and Europe, and figuration in both Europe and the Americas (first room), then jumps spectacularly to minimalism, post-minimalism and conceptual art (large second room) before sliding into pop art and thereafter into four 'thematic chapters' ("the legacy of pop", "the natural world", "constructed worlds" and "between public and private").

Have actually been twice now - last weekend with Kelly (+ Glenn), Tamara and Vanessa, and the weekend before on my own (by way of a birthday/non-birthday activity) - with more trips to come, too, so these thoughts are by way of synthesised response...


The main event for me was always going to be the abstract expressionist stuff, and the show leads off with pieces by three of its most famous artists - one of Rothko's untitled canvasses of wave-blocks of colour, de Kooning's "...Whose Name Was Writ in Water" and an "Untitled (Green Silver)" by Pollock. All three are characteristic of more or less the most famous periods/styles of their respective painters (I could have wished that one of the two Rothko selections in the show would have been one of his solid swathe/banded ones, rather than the earlier Surrealist-influenced piece and the blotchy, less intensely pulsating transitional work which actually made the cut, but I guess the curators/assemblers might have thought that including one would be slightly otiose given that there's one in the NGV's permanent collection) and collectively make a most pleasing introduction.


In that first room, my other favourites are Pierre Soulages' "Peinture, 195 x 130 cm, mai 1953" (the representational/non-representational black on white with shadows cross), Adolph Gottlieb's amorphous and immensely aesthetically satisfying "Mist", and Jules Olitski's deliciously colour-drenched "Lysander 1". Morris Louis' "Saraband" seems to have been a winner with other folk (I quite liked it too, but more the first time than the second); Jesus Rafael Soto's "Vibration" and Asger Jorn's "A Soul for Sale" also much fun; and definitely experienced the hypnotic quality of Ellsworth Kelly's "Dark Blue Curve" with which Kelly was much taken (and which Tamara thought was altogether too 'insurance company logo').


As to that last, actually, a key part of the whole exhibition is the sheer size and scale of many of its components - it really adds to the experience to be able to immerse in them. That was a big thing (pun unintended) in the next room, too - the most untraditional, installation-oriented part of the show. There, I liked Sol LeWitt's colour-pencilled gridded wall drawing a lot, and also enjoyed walking on (Carl Andre's "5 x 20 Alstadt Rectangle" metal carpet squares on the ground) and into (Bruce Nauman's "Floating Room (Light Outside, Dark Inside)") the art. It's a cool room and if its constituents were generally perhaps a bit too 'Concept' to really speak to me, I like it being there.

Pop art has always been a non-event for me (I find it hollow and vacuous, which may be the point but that doesn't make me like it any more) and I don't like the stuff collected here under the "legacy of pop" umbrella any better. The "natural world" pieces, though, are brill in all different ways: Nigel Cooke's "Mummy" is cute and profound (I picked up on the fruit-stuffed-with-dynamite on my first pass, but missed the little head) in that 'illustration from a really cool children's book' style that so often appeals to me; Olafur Eliasson's horizon photographs are delightful; Elger Esser's minimalistic, stark "Ameland Pier X, Netherlands" is the kind of scene I dream of on good nights; Dave Muller's cloud and balloon panels are close to the most simply whimsical things in the whole exhibition.


As to the rest, not much of it was my cup of tea, though it was neat to see a Gregory Crewdson original-sized print (I liked it but prefer the more anonymously forboding dreamscapes of his that I've previously seen in magazines and whatnot to the 'naked dirty mother arriving at the dinner table' one here) and Rachel Whiteread's plaster cast of a basement is simply ace.

So!

"Human Rights Conditionality in International Trade: Revisiting the Debate" - Professor Rob Howse

What I know about international trade law could be written on a postage stamp, so it's lucky that this lecture was plenty accessible (and also that Jarrod was on hand to explain some of the lingo afterwards). Howse first argued that human rights conditionality is legal under international (trade) law, and then made the normative case - it all sounded good to me, but then what would I know? It's an interesting area though - I ought to read up about it a bit...

(@ Melb Law School one night last week, w/ Jarrod - trang and friend (Eng-Lai?) also there by coincidence)

Transformers

This showed flashes of being what I'd hoped it would be, but in falling short at all ended up pretty far from being anything that I could really recommend. I mostly enjoyed it, and there were a few particularly good bits (mostly the lighter moments, though these also went a ways towards detracting from the whizz, bang, explosions! sense of the whole), but it felt the whole time like I was Watching A Movie (everything was way too bright to start with) - which meant that I didn't really get into it.

(w/ Cassie and Tamara - unlikely companions to say the least for an excursion to watch a film like this one!)

Cecilia Quartet @ Assembly Hall, Collins Street, Saturday 14 July

This was a kind of offshoot from the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition that was going on around town last week - a free show by one of the ensembles (hailing from Canada) that had already been eliminated from competition. They did a Mozart string quarter first (F major - K590 I think), and then a contemporary piece called "Another Little Piece Of My Heart" by a Kelly-Marie Murphy which shares its title with a Janis Joplin song and, according to the quartet's leader, was inspired by Joplin, jazz and emotional vs physiological concepts of the 'heart'.

Against expectations, I enjoyed the Mozart more - found it generally hard to get a handle on "Another Little Piece" (though the second movement was ace and bits of the third were quite striking, and I could definitely hear the Joplin influences in the stop-starting and sudden urgent crescendos and declarations), even though I thought it probably better suited the style of the quartet than the Mozart (Laura agreed, commenting on the soloistic nature of all four of the players and the slightly jarring dynamic this created in their collective performance).

Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Hey, ho - the new Spoon album is just as excellent as the last three (that being as far back as I've got in the spoonography)...this is good news. I reckon that the best songs on the album are "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" and "Rhythm & Soul"; in a different way, "The Ghost Of You Lingers" is particularly ace too; "Finer Feelings" also fun, stealin' some licks from Dismemberment Plan I fancy. Not sure what I think about the trumpet-laden "The Underdog", which is a bit 'Spoon does latter-day Belle and Sebastian' - not that this is necessarily a bad thing, you understand...I'm just not sure. More than anything else, of course, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is, from its title onwards, just Spoon through and through - hey presto.

Emilie Simon & Nouvelle Vague @ Arts Centre, Friday 6 July

French-themed evening the Friday night before last: MS had French-themed drinks in honour of Bastille Day, and I made a cameo appearance at the beginning, liberating some balloons (bleu, blanc, rouge) on my way out; then met up with Meribah; after risking life and limb to hang the balloons from an overhead signpost thingy on King Street (we'd spent a few minutes before in Officeworks looking for suitable materials for a tricouleur, not wanting the balloons to be mistaken for Bulldogs colours or the red, white and blue of the US flag, before tossing in the towel and trusting to the perceptiveness of passers-by), we went to Bergerac for dinner (French-speaking waiters, yo) and I even remembered to order a French wine. Intention had also been to check out the French activities which were taking place at the Arts Centre before the show, but we arrived too late; anyway, met up with Bec P, Jane T and Jarrod there and took our seats.

Emilie Simon was on first, turning out to have more idiosyncratic oddly piano ditties in strange keys and fewer glammy electro-stomps than I'd anticipated...well, I suppose a whole set full of "Fleur de Saison"s was always going to be too much to hope for! I wasn't entirely sold on her - the eccentricity wasn't really grounded in anything underlying, the pop elements not strong enough, the whole not quiet seeming to gel - but it had its moments, and the show was enjoyable overall.

After a short intermission, then, Nouvelle Vague. As a touring concern, they're a five piece, with vocals shared between two girls, a vaguely gamine one with a pleasant voice, and a throatier, messier rock 'n roll Karen O type, and plenty of fun. Highlights for mine were the synchronised and syncopated "Ever Fallen In Love" (complete with shambolically synchronised dance moves) and of course the untouchable "Love Will Tear Us Apart", though I for one could've done without the extended fade-out and encore-ing that happened at the end (not to mention the handful of members of the obnoxious hipster set sprinkled throughout the Arts Centre crowd). Like Mlle Simon's, not a show to shake my world, but pretty entertaining.

Toby Creswell - 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time

Seriously, how bad could a book with a title and premise like this one be? In fact, it's really only medium-good - the writing is workmanlike and doesn't particularly capture the ineffable effect of great pop music, and the selections are by and large as one would expect (Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Neil Young, etc) - but I was still perfectly happy to go through it cover to cover, reading the entries about songs I know (probably about half of them) and skimming or skipping the rest.

Check it out, I'm famous (again)

Here - photo 7, for the impatient. (From the '07 Laneway Festival.)

Mindy Smith - Long Island Shores

The first two songs on this album, "Out Loud" and "Little Devil" are by far its best. "Out Loud" does the trick as an album opener: it builds pleasantly for a couple of minutes to the unexpected hook on "Ain't it time we need to change -" and then swirls home on the rush provided by that giddy upsurging wave of sweetness; leading in turn to "Little Devil", which is, along with Camille's "Paris" (see immediately previous entry), the only new song I've heard in the last few months that I've wanted to listen to over and over, back to back...I'm at a loss to explain why I like it so much - but it's definitely mostly in the chorus, something in the melody and the way she sings it, sort of yearning and hopeful and matter-of fact at the same time...there's real character and nuance to Smith's vocals on both verses and chorus, without any sense of overstatement, but also a winsome simplicity running throughout...it's really a wonderful song.

There's nothing else on Long Island Shores to match that initial hit...the rest is perfectly nice, but unmemorable - Smith is a convincing singer and a decent arranger, and her sound is a nice spin on contemporary country, but the songwriting is generally perhaps too subtle for its own good. Still, I reckon that the opening salvo is worth the price of admission on its own.

Camille - Le Sac Des Filles

Engaging and, in places, surprisingly (and nicely) bare contempo-French pop tunes. Best is the skip 'n' pirouette of "Paris"; also particularly nice is the last song, "La Ou Je Suis Né".

The Golden Palominos - This Is How It Feels

I heard this in Sister Ray's quite a while ago and liked it enough to find out what it was, but I must've been feeling poor that day, because instead of buying the cd I made do with committing the band name to memory - which name promptly got filed somewhere right at the back of my mind (still somewhere in my working archive of cultural references, I suppose, but in one of its deeper recesses) and slipped from my awareness. But then a couple of weeks ago I saw the cd in a store (may've been Sister Ray's itself) and remembered the name and the cd cover and brought it home.

Having had the benefit of quite a few listens now, I find it a bit surprising that this caught my attention in the first place. I like it, but it's...not challenging so much, but it does require attention and a bit of work. This Is How It Feels is definitely pop music, but it's fairly abstruse, tangential pop music in which the hooks neither sound particularly familiar nor fall in the expected places - rewarding, but possibly not, I suspect, in proportion to the effort that it requires to absorb.

Lori Carson sings, by the way, which is cool (I know her from the Stealing Beauty soundtrack and one solo album, the latter of which had a similar difficult-to-put-the-finger-on quality, come to think of it).

Unkle Ho - Circus Maximus

Broadly speaking I suppose this is a kind of sample-based hip-hop, but more in the vein of the Avalanches, say, than even DJ Shadow, never mind more traditionally or obviously 'hip-hop' outfits. It has a bowerbird electicism which often seems to go with the sampling aesthetic (maybe especially in Australia - or, at least, a lot of this kind of stuff that I've been exposed to has come from here), resulting in a record that's all over the shop stylistically (quite deliberately, I suspect).

I do like the album's style - it has a pleasing fluidity and something which, while to my ears is short of the natural musicality which infuses the very best musical mixing exercises (eg, the collaborations extracted and collected on the Heartland: An Appalachian Anthology cd and the source records for that disc), holds the sometimes disparate elements both within and across songs together. Worthy of note is a fantastic three song run from tracks three through five - "Bar Chutzpah" (high energy big beat clarinet workout), "Bally Broad" (trip-hop type thing with a bit of a laid-back soul-jazz thing happening honey-sleepy female vocals tripping through long vocal lines over laid-back beats and instrumentation) and "Hiroshi Waltz" (a sinuous little creature in waltz tempo, instrumental lines and sampled retro-kitsch-emotive vocals entwining around each other).

Aimee Mann - One More Drifter in the Snow

Of course I had to buy this cd, entirely comprised of Christmas songs or not - it's the latest Aimee Mann, which is plenty enough on its own. It's a bit of a strange beast, really - generally Mann seems much looser and more playful on this record than on any of her 'albums proper' (see especially her duet with Grant Lee Phillips on "You're A Mean One Mr Grinch"), but there are also plenty of straight, sombre Aimee Mann readings on offer, albeit generally with a particularly stately, old-fashioned air (her take on "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", which embodies much of these, is the high point of the record - and pretty high at that...it's very good).

Jasper Fforde - The Big Over Easy

Most enjoyable - twists and turns like a detective novel should, and has the added charm of Fforde's literary bentness (ie, distinctively skewed tendency towards the literary)...it certainly adds another layer to the mounting revelations about the murdered individual when he is, in fact, Humpty Dumpty, a shady character much beloved-of the ladies with an unexpected philanthropic streak who, it seems, was shot and then fell to his death from a wall, on which he was accustomed to sit (including, as on the fatal night, in order to sleep off an excess of alchol consumption).

(Footcare product manufacturing empires feature heavily in the plot, by the way, as do nursery rhyme characters a-plenty.)

Jack Spratt (down at heel detective and family man; inadvertent recidivist giant killer) is a fun main character - almost a stock character but somehow not quite, and very easy to root for (Fforde shows his knack for writing despicable yet not overdone villains is intact in the transition from the Thursday Next series, too), and he's surrounded by an amusing supporting cast, not all of whom come fully to life but that's forgiveable with so much going on around them, and no doubt they'll be more fully sketched in the subsequent books in this sequence that I've not yet read. More please!

Bridge To Terabithia

Quite a nice little thing - reasonably true to the spirit of the book though somewhat more sympathetic in its depiction of Jesse's parents and with less emphasis on the unkindness of his older sisters, and the new elements are well-integrated and effective. On its own terms it would've been good too, I think - a well-made, quietly involving children's film which ought to touch 'grown-ups' too.

(One criticism I had is that the actor who played Leslie was too cute, and not enough the tomboy - although, it must be admitted, that fact may well assist in drawing audiences into the story. Anyhow, she reminded me a bit of the secretary I had during one of my rotations - but I couldn't work out whether she was especially old-looking, or the secretary especially young of face...neither really seems right. Huh, people - it's all very confusing.)

(w/ Kevin and Serena)

Lily Allen - Alright, Still...

It seems somehow appropriate that I first heard this while sitting in Grill'd (the place which advertises itself as purveying "healthy burgers" - which turn out to be pretty good, by the way) about a week ago...perhaps it's because Lily Allen's music, too, while coming across like junk food, is in fact something much leaner, tastier and at once subtler and more exciting. I love the energy, the attitude and, most of all, the hooks - delicious!

The Encyclopedia of Music: Best of 1990's

Rather than attempting to say anything in particular about this 3x cd set, let me just list some of the highlights (and, for me at least, these really are highlights and not 'highlights'):
* "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" - Sophie B Hawkins
* "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" - Spin Doctors (though "II Princes" would have been far more appreciated)
* "Mmmbop" - Hanson
* "Crush" - Jennifer Paige
* "Break My Stride" - Unique II
* "Rush" - Big Audio Dynamite

Also (some of these are very much more in the way of being 'highlights' I'll admit) Aqua, NKOTB, Bad English ("When I See You Smile"!), Rick Price, Peter Andre, Ginuwine ("Pony" of course), Taylor Dayne, Sister2Sister, Screaming Jets, Ce Ce Peniston, the list goes on - and you get the picture.

The Shadows - Another 20 Golden Greats

I thought I'd check out the Shadows after someone described the guitars on "Hold On, Hold On" as Shadows-esque, which turned out to be accurate but there isn't much else about the band to hold my attention. Their signature device seems to be these guitarly covers of songs both familiar and obscure, with a small handful of originals, and while the sound is initially ear-catching, it soon ceases to be particularly interesting.

The Mamas and the Papas - Gold

Really, my reasons for buying this best-of can be pretty much expressed in two words: "Chungking Express". It's not hard to listen to the other songs (though some of the ones on the second disc lose their way a bit), but mostly I just wanna be able to play "California Dreamin' " loud whenever I feel like it - and now, I can and do.

Saint Etienne - Finisterre

Often the way it's gone with Saint Etienne records in the past is that, after an initial diffuse "oh this is quite nice" response, I lose interest before one day being hit hard by something about it while it's playing in the background and therefrom taking it completely to heart...so my initial diffuse "oh this is quite nice" response to Finisterre may well just be a waystation to some deeper response/relationship. But somehow I don't think so - I've never previously, after all, been listening to a Saint Etienne record for the first time while already being completely and knowingly in love with the band, and so I think the truth about this one might be that it just is pleasant and a bit ho-hum...but time will tell, of course.

"But where there's a monster there's a miracle": Neil Gaiman - Smoke and Mirrors

While the Sandman books are basically perfect, none of Gaiman's prose novels which I've read have especially satisfied me - they embody a real commitment to, and facility for, storytelling, but always seem somehow just a touch heavy-handed, as readable and at times subtle as they are.

Short stories, though, on the evidence of this collection (which, I realised almost as soon as I started the introduction, which itself contains one of the better stories in the book, "The Wedding Present", I've read before), may be Gaiman's most natural province outside of graphic novels - nearly every one of these is excellent, narrative-driven and haunting and often very dark, and only occasionally slipping into being overly obvious. Fairytales, parables and fables, with a handful of out-and-out chillers - very nice after-midnight reading.

Katherine Paterson - Bridge To Terabithia

Read this in anticipation of seeing the film and thought it was pretty good - surprisingly gritty, and affecting enough. But, while it's well done, I'm probably about 15 years too old for the tale to really speak to me.

Me and You and Everyone We Know OST

An integral part of the film, and very nice and moody on its own, too. Kind of like Jon Brion without most of the carnivalesque/music-box flourishes; the sound of drifty occasionally sparkly suburban anomie (my favourite kind, of course).

William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair

This tied me up for several weeks, on and off, but it was pretty much worth it, I reckon. I didn't know of the novel's reputation as a classic that no one reads - I expected it to be all witty, cutting social satire, deflating the pretensions of society with one incisive bon mot after another (the cattier the better), etc, and so exactly one of the kinds of novels that I most enjoy reading.

As it turns out, there is a fair bit of the latter, but it's not as constant or sustained as I'd anticipated, and more or less to the extent that it isn't, the novel drags in places, making it occasionally a bit of a slog. Overall, though, I enjoyed it - there's enough Story there to keep the pages ticking by even when the sharp edge of Thackeray's really being particularly scathing is temporarily missing, and the characters hang together as constructs (individually and relationally) and properly come alive in their ups and downs, which helps a great deal too.

"Othello" (Bell Shakespeare Company)

Quite good, but I wasn't really sold on the actor playing Othello himself - he had a certain presence but tended towards being overly mannered in his delivery, resulting in some weird diction and a bit of an odd effect overall, and moreover he was near completely overshadowed by the physicality and energy of Iago. And as a result, the play seemed to lack a centre - it didn't feel touched by greatness, even in the minor way that one might expect of most decent Shakespeare productions (though this was, in fact, perfectly decent).

(w/ Cassie and Tamara)

Tales From Earthsea

A few thoughts:
* I can understand why they combined elements of all four books into this one film, but it doesn't really work (Sparrowhawk, for example, is just really boring - a stock character - without the back story).
* For the most part, doesn't really capture the sense of scope (either internal or external) which is so important to epic fantasy - which is mostly down to the script but also has something to do with the visual realisation (the anime conventions are sometimes distracting).
* (Conversely, lacks the whimsy and light touch that characterises Hayao M's films.)
* Still, invokes enough of the conventions of that brand of fantasy to evoke a bit of a response in me (fleetingly, at intervals over the couple of days after I saw it).
* Overall, though, rather a disappointment.

(w/ Kevin)

Haruki Murakami - After Dark

Bought this, as it happens, while up in Brisbane the other weekend (from the bookshop attached to the State Library of Queensland, no less), and read a large part of it on the night flight home - an appropriate setting for reading any Murakami, and perhaps particularly this latest.

After Dark marks a bit of a different direction for Murakami - it's quite brief and has a pronounced (David) Lynch feel to it...it's also, for the most part, in the third person, a style which doesn't serve him especially well (nowhere near as well as the first person, at any rate). To be honest, I didn't find the novel (more of a novella, really) especially satisfying - it's at once too schematic and too unresolved...oh well.

"I am prepared for amazing things to happen": Me and You and Everyone We Know

Offbeat, beguiling, sweet-- unflinchingly honest -- a definite personal vision, but in a way resistant to description or delineation (impressions and shades rather than manifestos and Messages).

Things among many others to savour: the goldfish sequence; the 'hand on fire' image (and its lead-up); the score; the general wispy poetic disconnectedness of the mood.

Decided to watch it after a random passer-by commented on my IMP page that Miranda July seemed to fit with my listed 'likes'. Effect queerly difficult to pin down - at once pronounced and ineffable. But I like it very much.

Dead Like Me season 1

Also on the cd from Michelle were the first two (possibly the only two) seasons of this show Dead Like Me. Herewith the relevant part of the thank you email I sent Michelle:

I'm most of the way through the first season of "Dead Like Me", which I'm finding tres amusant. It's a cute concept which I thought, having watched the pilot, might be at risk of being a bit twee and maybe sort of boring, but far from it - I like it muchly, and generally the way that about once every couple of episodes it throws in something of such remarkably (and deliberately) bad taste that I can't help but laugh (the mauling of the protester by the service station bear comes to mind). Mandy Patinkin good value too - totally dorky yet with tons of gravitas (though we far prefer him as Inigo Montoya, natch - which is why you set me up with this show, right?). Also, George kinda reminds me of you - had you picked up on that resemblance? (I bet you hadn't - or, even if you had, that you aren't admitting it.)

To fill in the blanks: the premise is set up in the pilot, in which Georgia Lass (she prefers "George"), archetypal 18 year old slacker with an attitude (though to call her an 'archetype' doesn't do justice to the depiction of her character - but it's in the ballpark), is killed by a flaming piece of debris (a toilet seat, actually) which falls from a Russian space station, whereupon she discovers that she is now undead - a 'grim reaper' whose job it is to usher the souls of the recently dead to their next destination (the show is coy about where this might actually be). There's a motley collection of others in the city (Chicago?) sharing her portfolio (which is something like 'intrusively traumatic deaths' - which in practice means dying by, eg, being crushed by a falling piano, being crushed by a falling man while you're walking down the church aisle having just been married, (grislily) fruit guillotine, and, of course, mauling by aforementioned bear for whose rights you are ironically protesting); they meet at Der Waffle Haus, where Rube, their nominal boss, hands out their assignments on yellow sticky tabs; they're visible to the living (but look different from their 'living' selves - which is how they appear to other undead) and need to find some source of income in order to get by.

It's not really a black comedy/drama, though it's amusingly morbid in its general sensibility. Sometimes the deaths take on genuine pathos (the small child who dies in the train accident at night in either the pilot or the second ep, I can't remember, the gentle schizophrenic man who falls for George and then literally falls, the pair of lovers visited by Mason) while sometimes they're played for laughs - it's never depressing (and I say this as one who does occasionally get quite seriously down about the idea; well, who doesn't?) in part because it's so irreverent and in part because of the promise of something beyond which it holds out. Apart from the sporadic outbreaks of bad taste mentioned above (Mason's strip-searching in the airport comes to mind and then the subsequent bursting of the drug-filled baggie he's smuggled in up his rectum) I also get into the out and out profanity which pops up all the time, often but by no means exclusively from George, and also George's general anti-everything attitude (no surprises there).

(40-minute episodes; tops acting; decent characterisation and some nice development (though not as much as one might hope); neat episode structures; extended story arcs; generally clever writing.)

Carla Bruni - No Promises

Sometimes our friends just come through for us. A couple of weeks ago, I was reading about this album online somewhere; I'd heard of Carla Bruni before and had a vague idea that she was one of those old-sounding new chaunteuse types; I initially shuddered at the idea of anyone setting poems by Yeats, Auden, and others to music and laying them down on an album; but the review, while acknowledging the substantial 'hmmm' factor associated with the concept, was glowing about the record itself, so I was intrigued to hear it, not least because it included readings of two poems each by Dorothy Parker and Emily Dickinson (two of my fave poet types, of course); and lo, without any presaging, a cd arrived in the mail from Michelle holding a whole bunch of stuff - including, most fortuitously, No Promises. So yes, it's pretty good - chanteuse-y stuff with expected lounge influences and also a folksy, adult-contemporary-alt-countryish flavour which I like. It's nice.

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

So I've lived with this record for two or three weeks now, and I like it about as much now as I did after the first listen - which is to say, rather a lot. It really sounds like nothing so much as the new Wilco album, and so on the account of course I'm much into it; as far as their past stuff goes, the best 'hybrid' description is probably Being There meets A Ghost Is Born. They played, I reckon, about half of it at their show the other week, and the songs are the type to stick in the mind after just one or two listenings, and have that Wilco trick of getting particular lines (lyrical and otherwise) particularly embedded, and likely to pop up frequently and unexpectedly (I had the titular hook from 'Shake It Off" running around in my head at work the other day; the lines "the more I think about/The more I'm sure it's you" materialise a fair bit too; etc). That said, most of the best bits are the glorious electric guitar moments, obviously.

I always find it tricky to extract particular Wilco songs from their albums as my favourites, but at present I think I particularly like "You Are My Face", "Impossible Germany", "Side With The Seeds", "Hate It Here" and "Walken", though Sky Blue Sky really works particularly well as a whole (the bookends are important to that sense - "Either Way" and the first half of "You Are My Face" easing the listener in, and then "What Light" and "On and On and On" taking it out in mellow, thoughtful fashion. Anyhow, all round a very consistent set, and excellent with it.

Macbeth

The recent Australian one, transposing the play to a Melbourne gangland setting. I was predisposed towards liking the film, but actually found it a bit underwhelming - while the concept has possibilities, and those possibilities are realised to the extent that the moody, matt-and-shadow settings, garish costumes and foreboding score work well, this Macbeth struck me as fundamentally uninspired and unimaginative.

See, for me, while the film's good to look at, it fails to reconceptualise the subject-matter of the play in line with its altered setting - that's what I think is the underlying imaginative failure. A good example is the way the dialogue is delivered straight, in Australian accents - there's nothing wrong with that per se, but it's as if the makers of the film relied on the mere fact of difference/novelty to make this Macbeth watching, without any more (in fact, a further quibble here is that those lines aren't particularly well delivered - but that seems more a failure of execution than of conception).

Related to this are shortcomings in the way this revisioning represents its characters and the narrative as a whole. I don't mind unusual or new takes on either of these elements when it comes to Shakespeare and his canonical co - indeed, 'positively welcome' would be a better description than 'don't mind' - but it's disappointing when, as here, there doesn't seem to be any particular take at all.

Anyhow, I don't want to seem too negative about this film. I enjoyed watching it, and on one level it's well done. But it didn't satisfy me at all.

The Radio Dept - Pet Grief

What I'd expected, based on the two songs of theirs on the Marie Antoinette soundtrack - what would you call it, 'dream-indie-pop'? It's kind of wallpapery - pleasant and tasteful but not distinguished (the tunes not as striking as those on MA) - but nice.

Slow Down Tallahassee - "So Much For Love" cd single

Everything about this cd is just delightful. First, the music - a trio of two-and-a-half to three minute swatches of fuzzy, melodic girl-fronted indie pop, complete with oh-whoa-ohs, handclaps, keyboards and don't-look-now hooks around every corner. So the elements are all there, but in fact one of the most impressive things about the disc is the sturdiness and assuredness of both the songwriting and the execution...though of course being impressed is beside the point - the name of the game here is the music's immediate (and then continuing) effect which is, natch, where the delight comes in.

Over and above the music itself, though, is the aesthetic of the whole. The cd's a three-incher (ie, adorably tiny) and one of a limited run of 100 (mine's # 47); it came in the mail with a handwritten note from someone at the record company which puts it out (Cloudberry Records) - ending with the capitalised exhortation "don't stop indiepop!", no less - and a scissored-out scrap of a review of another band.

Here's what the band's myspace has to say (it's apt):

We met behind the bar of a seedy nightclub, serving endless drinks as Motown hits and disco classics stopped our hearts from giving in. Taking our inspiration from the paintings of Henry Darger, the writings of Dorothy Parker and Pablo Neruda, girl groups, playground gangs, paperback romances, tear-jerking pop and the burning ambition to write an album full of the greatest, most thoughtful pop hits that this country has ever seen, we formed a band and the fun began. JOIN OUR GANG, AND YOU WILL NEVER BE LONELY AGAIN.

* * *

Came across them through angels twenty, one of only two mp3-type blogs with which I more or less keep up (the other being motel de moka, which I secretly find rather inspiring).

Keating! @ the Comedy Theatre

I think that I almost certainly built this up too much in my mind beforehand, but it was still great. The best thing about it is the performance put in by Mike McLeish as Keating himself - the manic energy and posturing reminded me a little of Gob but with real charisma and, it seemed, genuine insight into his subject. Favourite songs probably the "the beginning is the end" one ("Gareth tell me more"), the "ruler of the land" reggae numbers, the Mabo bossa nova [?] and, of course, the Evans/Kernot love duet. Satisfying to have clear heroes (well, one hero really) to cheer and risible villains to hiss. Was glad of the way it ended, too - would've been a bit of a downer (pun unintended) without the closing rewriting of history (which also, of course, focuses all of our minds on the 'if only/what could have been?' question). All up, very pleasing!

(w/ Mehnaz, last Sunday afternoon following not one but two previous failed attempts on our parts to see it, tix having been sold out on both of those earlier occasions)

Nikka Costa - Everybody Got Their Something

Kicks off with "Like A Feather", the stripped-back funk of which is still both weird and cool six years on from when I must've first been hearing it on the radio, but the definite highlight of the album comes next - "So Have I For You", in which Costa channels Janis Joplin by means of a slidin' funk-soul-rock'n'roll meld, one of those that feels not so much like a hybrid as a reaching back to the original roots of the forms (albeit infused with a modern sensibility, much of which is imported by the glitzy production). The next couple, "Tug of War" and the title track, are good too, but she isn't able to sustain the quality over the whole record; still, all up it's well worth the listen...definitely a good 'un.

Everclear - Sparkle and Fade

I remember "Santa Monica" fondly - a neat tune and lyrics which make explicit the aspirational tenor of much of that kind of 90s post-grunge rock - and occasionally get out the triple j hottest 100 cd with the song on it, and have less distinct memories of "Heroin Girl" and "You Make Me Feel Like A Whore", but really it was more So Much For The Afterglow which provided the radio Everclear songs which aren't an entirely insignificant part of the soundtrack to my recollections of late high school, and that album would probably give me more than this one. Sparkle and Fade's okay, but it's nothing special and very uneven - a small handful of decent songs, and the rest all slur into each other.

Queen - Greatest Hits

There are lots of artists whose albums I feel no need to listen to, but for whom I'd quite like to own a best of; I mentioned in passing while talking to Kevin a while back that Queen are one such, and he kindly made a gift of this best of to me not long after. For me, the main point of having these collections is usually twofold - being able to listen to particular hit/famous songs whenever one feels like it, and getting a sort of high level overview of the artist's career - and it's more the first of those which is going on with Queen. Still, taken as a whole this 17-song set shows them to be a lot less overblown than I usually imagine them to be - or, perhaps more accurately, that the overblownness doesn't particularly get in the way of the songs. Most are familiar (endlessly familiar) from the radio - though I never realised that "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" is, in fact, the song of that name, nor that it was by Queen!

2007 Law Week Oration - "Does Australia Need a Bill of Rights?" (the Hon Michael McHugh)

This was quite interesting, but more by virtue of who was delivering it than the oration's actual content. Justice McHugh's approach was to enumerate instances of deficiencies in the existing protection of human rights in Australia (focusing on immigration and detention, racial discrimination, and counter-terrorism laws) and argue that the alternatives to a (constitutional) bill of rights - ordinary legislation, common law, implied constitutional rights - are inadequate; he spent some time on the related arguments that the Westminster system of responsible government, independent judiciary, etc provides the best guarantee of human rights, that a bill of rights would be inconsistent with parliamentary sovereignty, and that such an instrument would politicise the courts and diminish respect for the judiciary.

Conversation afterwards was lively. Shaun, Jarrod and I repaired to the Corkman for fish and chips, a drink, and a fairly solid argument (mostly me v SEG) about first a variation on the old capitalism v socialism thing, and then (more on point) the legitimacy of implied constitutional rights; I must admit, Shaun probably ended up having the better of the first of those, but I'd score the second (which took place on more equal terrain, I suppose) as a hard-fought draw.

Plenty of others at the oration, including (very much without limitation) Nicolette, Vegjie and Sunny, which is par for the course with these things.

Y Tu Mamá También

This really took me by surprise. Steph pressed it on me a while back, and I was sceptical - nothing I'd heard about it particularly suggested that I would enjoy the film. (Two teenage boys go on road trip with older woman; prospect of sex and self-discovery; set in Mexico; ho hum.) In fact, though, from the cheeky opening scene through the depiction of the trip up to its climax (so to speak), and then on to the film's subtle and affecting epilogue, it offers a genuine journey. It's one of those pieces of art which just has something about it - it doesn't seem especially profound, but then again, maybe it is, you know? (It's quite straightforward in a lot of ways, but is somehow at once poetically economical and thoroughly earthy.) In any case, I liked Y Tu Mamá También very much.

Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway

Glossy of-the-moment pop - a mix of big ballads and anthemic rockers. Good value, though the first six songs on the album are far better than the second. "Since U Been gone" is the certifiable classic, of course, but I've plenty of appreciation left over for "Behind These Hazel Eyes" and "Gone" in particular. Hooks galore and songs well sold by Clarkson.

Tatyana Tolstaya - The Slynx

Though it's not a Great novel, there's something of an air of greatness to The Slynx (and not just because Tolstaya is Leo Tolstoy's great grand-niece...naturally, being the kind of reader that I am, I've never read Tolstoy anyway). It's a savagely dystopian vision of post-apocalyptic Russia with a certain amount of contemporary (and satirical) resonance - though I suspect that resonance would've been greater if (a) the novel had been written, say, 40 years ago and/or (b) I were Russian or at any rate more familiar with the culture than I am - and it has a darkly imaginative power which is compelling and not a little unsettling. At times it reminded me of Orwell, at others of Bulgakov, and its grotesque elements are well woven into the whole. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending; it further muddles an already muddled everything. Nor am I really sure what it's saying. But there's a thread running through it - some ineffable thing which gives the novel its haunting, memorable character despite its other failings.

Things to remember: the mice, the Slynx itself, the books, the plagiarism, the decrees, Benedikt, the Oldeners, the Degenerators, the pushkin, the exclamation marks, the golubchiks.

M J Hyland - Carry Me Down

This is excellent - a terse, tense, almost incidentally evocative piece of writing. It's told through the eyes of eleven year old John Egan, who is intelligent, opaque, and disturbed, and the narrative takes on those hues of his character with a sustainedness and a plausibility which is extremely impressive. It's difficult to get a handle on, but it's also thoroughly gripping from the first paragraph - Hyland eschews simplistic 'explanations' (both explicit and, the which is more difficult, implicit) for her characters' actions and thoughts, or for the circumstances of their subsistence, and also avoids straightforward or obvious resolutions to any of the (sometimes familiar) event-structures she throws up; she embeds in the fabric of the novel the same commitments evident in its content; the characterisations and plot strands are deliberately incomplete, and this incompleteness serves an important function in the whole.

It's odd. The book that Carry Me Down most reminds me of is The Catcher in the Rye, which I didn't particularly enjoy when I read it, and the details of which are by now very unclear in my mind. But a trace of the way it made me feel has stayed with me, evidently, and been reactivated by Hyland's novel. I'm not sure what it is, really. But it seems to me that there's something quite remarkable about Carry Me Down, in its apparent simplicity and deeper, murkier currents, and most of all (and wrapped up with all of that) in the way it completely inhabits the mind/world of its central character and pulls the reader along, almost claustrophobically, with him all the way down.

Steven Carroll - The Gift of Speed

I read about The Gift of Speed when it came out (2004, apparently), but my interest in reading it was piqued by a review of Carroll's latest, The Time We Have Taken, in an Australian Book Review a couple of issues ago. In particular, it was this passage which made me sit up and take notice:

...something else is being attempted, something rare in Australian fiction. The Time We Have Taken is breathtakingly ambitious, a Proustian narrative, allusive, reflective, elegiac and concerned very little with events as turning points in themselves. Instead, the minutiae of daily life and the unstoppable flow of time are at the novel's centre. This becomes a moving celebration of the quotidian and of the terrible beauty of the moment that we cannot see until change has rendered it past.

I've not read the more recent book, but in those lines, the reviewer, Christina Hill, captures much of the nature of The Gift of Speed. The narrative takes as its historical bookends the arrival and departure of the West Indian cricket team on its famous 1960-61 tour of Australia, and the events of tour are woven through the novel amidst several other strands, most prominently that of the sixteen year old Michael, growing up in suburban Melbourne and furiously practising his bowling with the aspiration of reaching a perfect moment, a moment of grace. The short chapters are told from several alternating points of view (one - and only one, I think - is told from two), present tense third person except those of Michael's aging grandmother, which are presented in the first person; the style is quite lyrical and very Australian.

I must admit, I admired this novel - liked it, even - more than I enjoyed it. About a quarter of the way in, I distinctly heard in my mind, in tones of woe, the words "oh no, it's a coming of age novel!", and while that didn't turn out to be entirely accurate (and even to the extent that it is accurate, that aspect of the novel is well done - the relationship between Michael and Kathleen Marsden, for example, is sensitively and precisely portrayed), there's enough of that here to put me on my guard. More tellingly, there isn't much of a story to it - which is hardly a criticism (and perhaps especially when that doesn't seem to be what the author set out to do in the first place), but makes it that much more unlikely that I'll really get into a book, and while The Gift of Speed has a lot going for it, it doesn't have the extra kick that a To The Lighthouse, say, or an Invisible Cities has, to really push me past the lack of story and bring me to love it anyway. So, overall response definitely positive, and it's grand to read a good novel set in Melbourne (even if near half a century ago), but it hasn't inspired me.

Two videos - "TempBot" (dir Neill Blomkamp) and "The Country" (Billy Collins)

Two things recently sent to me without much or any explanation.

Jon from MS sent me a link to this video, completely sans comment (unless you count "cool short video", which I don't). It turned out to be called "TempBot", and to follow the travails of a robot temp in an office environment; I can't decide whether it's deceptively straightforward or deceptively subtle, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

And a few days later, Charlie, one from my open diary days (a long, long time ago), sent around this - an 'action poem' called "The Country" (subject line and entire content of accompanying message: Billy Collins is GOD. (Also: I'm not dead, just thought you all should know.)). It's a poem, set to animation; it begins "I wondered about you when you told me never to leave a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches just lying around the house because the mice might get into them and start a fire..." and then turns into a sweet, curiously profound-feeling parable of sorts. It's too lovely for words, and makes me feel warm and happy and somehow uplifted.

Frida Hyvönen - Until Death Comes

The cover says it all, really. Hyvönen's an eccentric with a piano, following her own meandering muse: her songs are wilful, simple, off-centre, self-enfolded, stop-start and surgingly tuneful (see: "You Never Got Me Right") and often out and out ballads (the one and a half minute-long "Valerie" is another highlight); her voice is soulful and honeyed but with that Scandinavian catch and chill; the music is like streaks of sunlight falling on winter sand...cool and profane, terse and poetic, it's finely wrought and immaculately executed, a reminder of the possibilities of music.

Tom Clancy - Clear and Present Danger

This is what I did on Saturday night: listened to Camera Obscura (Underachievers Please Try Harder), Saint Etienne (Finisterre), Philip Glass (The Photographer) and Godspeed You Black Emperor! (f#a#∞) while feeling a bit mopey and sort of disconnected for not particular reason and in the meantime writing a bit; started reading Clear and Present Danger to distract me from myself. Have duly finished it, and with a renewed appreciation of Clancy's ability as a craftsman and less insult done to my sensibilities by his politics than I'd expected.

"The Art of Bollywood" @ NGV International

I've been aware of and reasonably interested in seeing the exhibition, but I suspect I would've missed it had Kelly not suggested we check it out over the weekend (she wanted to go in part for the subject she's tutoring). Anyway, it was fun - I didn't learn much about Indian history, culture or cinema (not that I'm particularly knowledgeable about any of the above, but sometimes these things tend to wash a bit over one, especially at the level that the material for such exhibitions is generally pitched), but I liked looking at the posters and watching the film grabs. Highlights definitely the too-very-for-words technicolour of Bobby (definite 'oh my god' factor) and the unintentional humour of the action-packed exploitsof 'fearless Nadia' (though I was disappointed I didn't get to see the whip fight atop the moving training). Also liked the two focusing on a dancer being watched by others, mainly because of the wonderfully cheesy reactions shots of the audience members (the heroic Errol Flynn-like one with the giant jaw in the first, and the somewhat puzzled-looking man and the solemnly approbatory woman in the other).

"SF local mix" (IMP - April 2007)

Pleasingly, most of the artists on this cd were completely new to me - I'd only even heard of two (the Aislers Set and Jolie Holland) before. It's a nicely constructed mix, weighted heavily towards acoustic and lo-fi indie-pop, with a twee flavour to several of the cuts - the kind of music that I enjoy but only rarely take to heart...so I've liked listening to the mix, though I probably won't return to it all that often (with the luxury, of course, of always being surrounded by more music than I have time to listen to...so it goes).

(from Jaime in San Francisco, CA)

"Score!" (IMP - March 2007)

Music from films (hence the title of the mix - which, somewhat embarrassingly, I only this second got) and suitably cinematic/dramatic - leads off with Morricone's mighty "L'estasi Dell'oro" and continues in pretty much that vein, nearly all entirely instrumental and tending to be themes. I've enjoyed listening to it, but unfortunately the cd is scratched, so I can only listen to the first half.

(from Chris in New York, NY)

Scarlett Thomas - Dead Clever

The first in Thomas's Lily Pascale edgy series of detective fiction. A bit more generic than Seaside but still an engaging and not entirely straightforward read. To me, seemed to take a turn for the Secret History about halfway through, prompting me to wonder whether my thinking that was due to the influence of said novel on literature in general, or just on the way that I read the stuff.

James Morrow - This Is The Way The World Ends

Went for a bit of a browse in the city library the other day (in the course of which, incidentally, I encountered a strange prevalence of novels with Bowie-referencing titles - three all told, which has to be some kind of statistical anomaly) and came up with this and a couple of others. It's one of those smart, thistly, rather weird sci-fi books with a strong satirical bent - it's kind of like Vonnegut crossed with Dr Strangelove. Everyman George Paxton signs an unusual contract in order to attain a body suit that's promised to protect his young daughter from the effects of a nuclear blast - it's free, but he has to acknowledge his complicity in the nuclear arms race by perpetuating the proliferation of the suits. A nuclear exchange and holocaust duly takes place on his way home to his family, killing everyone, and he is rescued by a strange submarine which turns out to be crewed by representatives of the 'unadmitted' - temporary avatars of those who would have lived were it not for the holocaust and who now intend to put Paxton and five others on trial for their crimes. It's stormy and strange and unsettling; I don't particularly like this kind of stuff but it's effective.

Complete Piano Music Volume 1 (Debussy - Haas; Philips)

I've never really listened to Debussy properly, but my cloudy impressions and the fact that his music always gets described as 'impressionistic' led me to expect that this would be all dreamy, misty, oceanic mood music. In fact, I was surprised to discover, it's often quite churning and turbulent, exciting the mind's eye and causing the occasional stomach-flip, and all in all positively demanding attention (even if it seems to work best, at least for me, on the level of suggestion). Includes his Préludes and a bunch of other stuff - my ear has most been caught by the Images, and especially "Hommage à Rameau" (somewhat arbitrary to mention that one rather than any number of others - it just happens to be one which has resonated on several occasions and recently). Much more exploring to do with his work - looking forward to it.

Camera Obscura - Underachievers Please Try Harder

Less glitzy and more downbeat than their latest (see immediately below) but equally nice. It has to be said, Underachievers is quite Belle & Sebastian, but the best moments on the album - "Suspended From Class", "Number One Son" and "Books Written For Girls" - take that influence and run with it to end up somewhere neighbouring but subtly and integrally different.

Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country

Ravishing and delightful - ten sparkling, sometimes melancholy-edged, sometimes upbeat, sometimes both at once pop treats. Favourites: "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken", "Come Back Margaret", "Let's Get Out Of This Country", "Country Mile" and, especially, the sprightly 60s-hued "If Looks Could Kill". Which is half of the album already, and the balance aren't far behind.

A M Hammacher - Magritte

There are two main parts to this coffee table book - an introductory overview of Magritte's work (headings: "Magritte's Lucid Dreams", "The Problem of Magritte's Titles", "Magritte and the Linguists", " 'Unthought-like Thoughts' " and "The Hidden Affinity Between Magritte and Coleridge") and then 40 colour plates with analysis...I enjoyed the second part more, but then obviously most of the point of reading these books is to look at the pictures. This one spans the whole of his career and has a fair few that I hadn't seen before, and I was interested to see that some of his early stuff was quite stormy and expressionistic (eg, "The Birth of the Idol") and I was also taken by the ominous "The Huntsmen on the Edge of Night" (neither of which I can find online) from the relatively early days. Here are a couple that I already knew but which are still too great for words ("Time Transfixed" and "The Tomb of the Wrestlers"):



(also)

Jasper Fforde - The Well of Lost Plots & Something Rotten

In these ones, as in Lost in a Good Book, Fforde allows himself more outright jokes and cute gestures, and as a result they're far more fun to read than The Eyre Affair (another part of that might be the investment in the characters and world of the books which develops over the series). They're wonderful to read, anyway - by this point in the series (the most recent, I think), Fforde's well and truly found his tone and it's a treat. The literary allusions are the main game, and the fun that results from Hamlet, Heathcliff, the Cheshire Cat, Humpty Dumpty (not to mention the cloned Shakespeares) and plenty of others striding around and basically being themselves while also reflecting in their various ways on their own characters and reception in the 'real' world, but it's also cool to follow the way Fforde distorts our 'real' world into the 'real' world of Thursday Next (cricket --> croquet, various rewrites of history, Goliath Corporation, etc). I wish there were more!

Curse of the Golden Flower

Struck me as kind of like a cross between Raise The Red Lantern (which still haunts me, though my initial impressions were mixed) and Hero - the ritual and oppressiveness and Gong-Li-doing-her-thing of the former crossed with the martial arts and ruminations on empire of the latter. I didn't enjoy it as much as either of those other Zhang films - it's very heavy and, for me, doesn't pay off (it's melodrama dressed in period clothes) - and the colour-drenchedness started to wear after a while but there's no denying its very-ness.

(w/ parents)

Laura Veirs - Saltbreakers

In some ways, it's funny that I've followed along with Laura Veirs in the way that I have. I got into her through her first widely-available record, Troubled By The Fire, which I still think is by far her best - it has a kind of crystalline plangency, a simplicity and a clarity which is delightful. But the next two, Carbon Glacier and Year of Meteors (excluding Orphan Mae, which actually predates TBTF but only got a wide release after Carbon Glacier hit), are quite different, and while they're both pleasant and interesting, and have some good moments ("Salvage A Smile" is a fave), neither especially excites me. Saltbreakers is much in the vein of Veirs' latter-day style, and while it's probably the best of the post-TBTF records, I suspect it may be the last of hers that I'll automatically buy...it's good but there just isn't enough sparkle.

Live: 29/5/05; 20/1/07 (I've just noticed how enthusiastic I was about her again in the immediate aftermath of that more recent show, which wasn't even that good...so perhaps it'll prove cyclic).

Fratres (Arvo Pärt - Benedek - Hungarian State Opera Orchestra; Naxos)

The main draw with this recording is the multiple recordings of "Fratres" in various arrangements that I hadn't heard before (in fact, I don't think I've heard any of these done before) but it also includes Pärt's "Festina lente for strings and harp ad lib.", "Summa for strings" and the ubiquitous "Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten".

Stephen R Donaldson - The Runes of the Earth

A re-read. Still good.

(last time)

Wieland Schmied - Giorgio de Chirico: The Endless Journey

De Chirico was a kind of proto-Surrealist, his key work done in the early 20th century, a major influence on Max Ernst as well as on those who came after him. I'm much more drawn to his mysterious, dream-like plaza scenes ("The Red Tower" & "Mystery and Melancholy of a Street"):


than to the mannequin ("manichino") ones (though, as "The Disquieting Muses" evidences, they're not mutually exclusive categories):


I haven't delved deeply into his work (this book is the first substantial collection I've read/looked at), but I get the impression that de Chirico's paintings were characterised by a number of repeated ramifying motifs and life-long preoccupations...much is made here of his friendship with the poet Apollinaire and the way in which he was influenced by classical mythology, particularly the figures of Ulysses and Orpheus.

The Watson Twins - Southern Manners

This is very nice (much better than the Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins stuff I've heard, by the way) - a melding of folk, country, general americana and a bit of an inoffensive easy-listening strain (best song "High School" would have fit right in on the Virgin Suicides soundtrack, which I've actually been listening to a bit lately, goodness knows why). Hem is the closest analogy I can think of, with touches of the Cowboy Junkies, Mazzy Star (sans electric guitar) and the Sundays stirred in...

Andrew McClelland @ Alley Bar, Friday 20 April

Auspicious beginning when I arrived just after 8pm to meet Swee Leng as planned and found her outside talking to the night's entertainment (they slightly know each other) who guaranteed me a good time (I didn't tell him that I've never paid to see comedy before and was possibly a bit of a sceptic). Still, his promise was fulfilled - I enjoyed the show, based around the theme of "Andrew McClelland's somewhat ambitious plan to make the world a better place" (or words to that effect). Much laughing. Particularly enjoyed the bit where the girl sitting next to me (she looked vaguely familiar, as if we might have met at a party long ago, or perhaps clerked together or something) totally lost it for several minutes. McClelland has a very endearing presence - he's like a giant puppy dog, quite physical and plenty energetic, and his material is good too (though a lot of the charm's in the delivery). It wasn't profound and nor was it meant to be, but it struck me as very solid and well done.

Lisa Miller @ Readings, Friday 20 April

Had some spare time between knocking off work and going to Andy McClelland so sauntered up to Readings in Carlton to see Lisa Miller's album launch - half a dozen songs or so, some old, some new. It was nice.

Frank Miller and Lynn Varley - 300

About what I expected after seeing the film, which is very faithful to the novel. Enjoyed the film more, actually - probably that medium lends itself more to this kind of story-telling. Interesting that some of the scenes in the film which I'd thought were very 'graphic novel-y' (eg, the slowed down fight sequences in which the Spartans swivel and pirouette through opponents) in a "I can imagine how these were drawn in panels" way actually don't appear in the novel at all.

Wilco @ the Palais, Wednesday 18 April

Solid show; I'm glad I went, and it was sure fun to see Wilco live. Still, three main reasons why I'm not more enthusiastic about it:

1. Having listened to Kicking Television as much as I have, I was already familiar with a lot of their live tricks (eg, the ramping-up of "Handshake Drugs"), and most of the old songs they played were off that set. The new ones sounded good, though - quite rocky, with some flourishes.

2. The Palais is a nice venue but I'm not really used to going to shows where the act is so far away and so small. It was like watching the Wilco toys. It was cute the way Jeff Tweedy was all bow-legged the whole time, or at least that's what he looked like from on high (he also has an endearing stage presence and banter).

3. They didn't really play any of my favourite favourite songs, though "A Shot In The Arm" got a run and was the highlight for mine.

Support act was Glenn Richards from Augie March, who played mostly (but, I think, not all) Augie March stuff - didn't excite me.

(w/ David)

Tori Amos: Video Collection - Fade To Red

Watching this was a real trip down memory lane, back to the days when I adored Tori. I think that even then I was aware of and a bit put off by her sheer self-absorption, and that's something which comes through very clearly in these videos, none of which I'd seen before except "Spark" (downloaded back in the time when that was still unusual) and "Crucify" (caught on rage once, years ago) - she is everywhere in them, front and centre, as dramatic (histrionic) as you could wish. I was a bit disappointed that the videos don't particularly reflect the colour schemes of the album covers - I tend to do this a lot in general, but with Tori albums in particular (and especially venus and choirgirl) I very much think of the music in the same tones as the colours of their respective covers.

"Songs from Julian"

A mix cd from Julian F; no immediately apparent theme (except maybe a small NZ slant) but lots of excellent music, most of it by artists previously unfamiliar to me.

The song most likely to be stuck in my head is "Death and the Maiden" by the Verlaines, and particularly the sung-chanted refrain: "Verlaine, Verlaine, Verlaine, Verlaine, Verlaine, Verlaine, Verlaine, Verlaine...". I would guess that they're from the early 80s; presumably they're named after Paul rather than Tom Verlaine (if either) but they do sound a bit like Television. Hella catchy either way. Also particularly enjoy "The Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton" by the Mountain Goats (I laughed out loud at the "hail hell" bit the first time I heard it, and it's got a heck of a great tune - I oughta listen to more of this guy's stuff), the stately folk/country-tinged low-key rockism of "Body's in Trouble" by Mary Margaret O'Hara and the heart-struck drama of "Sparrow Falls" by Woven Hand (which must surely be the guy from 16 Horsepower and is as good as anything on Secret South).

Other pleasing things about the mix:
* The closing song, "Infiltration", is by Sam Phillips, and is just the kind of thing I like - that sort of country-infused adult-oriented singer-songwriter stuff. But there's also a story about Sam Phillips in particular...see, somewhere along the line the Stealing Beauty soundtrack became a bit of a key record for me, carrying a great deal of emotional/affective freight (dreamy, airy, a bit melancholy but also very light - about exactly what you'd expect, given the music) given that I've neither seen the film nor ever had any direct external association formed with the soundtrack, and the two songs which close it are the key tracks in that respect: "You Won't Fall" by Lori Carson - and "I Need Love" by Sam Phillips.
* Whereas by contrast, "Dead Dogs Two" by Clouddead is normally precisely the kind of thing I would dislike, from the title to the self-consciously experimental and slightly tinny sound, but it's completely ace.
* Roxy Music! "In Every Dream Home A Heartache" is overblown and grand. hee hee.
* The singer in Van Der Graaf Generator sounds an awful lot like Bowie.
* "Run Run Run" by Goldenhorse is neat, and not really what I would've expected of the band based on their entry on the She Will Have Her Way set - equal parts 80s post-punk, 90s indie-pop and general post-millennial indie.

Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

Was inspired to read this despite my only lukewarm positive response to The Eyre Affair after a conversation with one Buffy at T's party the other week, during which I (a) learned the true ending of the 'real world' Jane Eyre and (b) was told again that they improve after the first. Glad I did, too - Lost in a Good Book is lighter and more fun than the first in the series. Thursday Next is an engaging central protagonist and it's nice to see recurring supporting characters appear (and those characters are generally treated fondly); in this one, too, particularly enjoyed the Kafka pastiche.

Jodi Picoult - My Sister's Keeper

Picoult's not an author that I'd ever have been likely to read without one of her books being foisted on me - I've not (and still don't) know much about her, but my vague impression has always been that she's a kind of writer for the middle-brow and for women (this is me at my most open-minded and unsnobby, évidemment) - though the vagueness of that impression is becoming obvious as I try to specify it right now - and unlikely to do much for me. But having one of her books foisted on me is exactly what happened a while back, thanks to Trudy from MS, and having read My Sister's Keeper, I find that (1) my preconceptions about the content of Picoult's work were entirely accurate and (2) my preconceptions about their effect were, as it turns out, a bit off the mark, 'cause while you could never mistake this novel for high literature, it has a lot going for it and worked for me nonetheless.

The premise is this: Kate is born with leukemia, of a form that can only be staved off by frequent transfusions - and, sometimes, more invasive transplantive surgeries - from a very close match. Neither her parents nor her elder brother is close enough; her parents, confronting this battle for their daughter's life, decide to have another child who will (through a bit of scientific engineering) be a suitable match...so what happens when that second daughter, Anna, begins to grow up (she's 13, I think) and wants to make her own decisions about her body, after a childhood of being subject to constant discomfort and pain, both physical and emotional?

The short chapters are told from a range of alternating points of view in the first person present tense, which works well: those of Anna; each of the parents (Brian and Sara (that latter sometimes from a few years back, to provide the back story and fill in why she made some of the choices she did)); Anna and Kate's troubled brother Jesse; Campbell, the lawyer who retained by Anna on a pro bono basis; and Julia, the court-appointed guardian ad litem.

For me, the main pull of My Sister's Keeper is the emotional dimension rather than the 'ideas' aspect - Picoult is very good at involving the reader, at showing multiple sides to a story, and she works the situation for all the pathos that it's worth. There were times when I felt that I was being manipulated, but those tended to be the points at which there was some kind of actual emotional response, so I didn't mind.

Dixie Chicks - Fly

Their well-publicised spat with US country music radio notwithstanding, one of the most immediately obvious things about the Dixie Chicks' most recent album was its fm radio-friendly sheen. Fly, by contrast, while hardly rough around the edges, allows itself more spaces and more unevenness, and is a better album for it; nice to hear the lap steel and dobro more prominently too. First half is noticeably stronger than the second, songs like "Cowboy Take Me Away" and "Goodbye Earl" sticking in the head. They don't take themselves too seriously, either - there are plenty of good-time songs and yee-haw moments, none of them grating.

So Frenchy So Chic - 2005 & 2007

Bec P set me up with these, seemingly mainly for the sharin'. The 2005 set has struck me more than the '07 one - the songs on it seem much more distinct, not necessarily in the sense of being more differentiable from each other, but rather in that they tend to be more intrinsically memorable in their own rights. Anyhow, some favourites across the two sets:
* the two which kick off the 2005 disc, Helena's "Né Dans La Nature" and Keren Ann's "End Of May", both touched with shades of Francoise et al
* also the third on that disc, in a different vein, "Qui De Nous Deux" by M, which I've definitely heard before (one doesn't quickly forget that kind of crooning)
* the rainy-day moodiness (apt of course, given the title) of Daniel Darc's "La Pluie Qui Tombe"
* Fabienne Del Sol's take on "Laisse Tomber Les Filles"
* the skittery dream-brood of Mansfield TYA's "Pour Oublier Je Dors" (I really do wonder about the extent to which I'm taking my cues for these responses/descriptions from the titles of the songs)
* Rose's "La Liste"
* Dominique A's "Dans Un Camion" (another I've heard before)

Actually, I've heard bits of the 2005 one before. Hanging around with Sarah V - the only real live French person I've actually meaningfully known (I think) - one time, the subject of music came up, and it was one of the cds that she picked for listening in Basement Discs...if memory serves, she liked "Qui De Nous Deux" (that was probably where I previously heard it, actually) and also Paris Combo's "Baguée" and "Poêmes" by Les Hurlements De Léo, and I definitely recall the disgusted face she made when I said that I'd heard and liked "Laisse Tomber Les Filles" when it came on.

Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run

Thought it was about time I heard me some Springsteen beyond Born in the USA and the usual radio tracks; glad I did, for Born To Run is bloody magnificent. The key tracks are the epic soarers slap-bang in the middle of the record - "Backstreets" and "Born To Run" - but the whole album is utterly grand. It's rock and roll as celebration and aspiration, and it works from the word go.

The Devil's Backbone

Penny gave this a huge rap, so I went to see it on Sunday afternoon at ACMI. Enjoyed it - it's suitably ghostly, and the 'western' elements are well done too.

"You Don't Need Darkness To Do What You Think Is Right: New Geographic Music"

It had a Kevin Shields track I hadn't heard before ("Outro") and a Nagisa Ni Te track called "Me, on the Beach" which I thought might be a reference to "Mimi On The Beach" (having listened to it now, it doesn't seem to be), plus some Pastels, and it didn't seem to be a record label comp, so I was intrigued; it was going cheap, so I was sold (so to speak). It's a fairly quiet, dreamy set, hanging together well as a whole - that certain kind of indie that will never excite but possesses a quiet charm nonetheless.

Raymond E Feist - Magician, Silverthorn and A Darkness At Sethanon & Honoured Enemy (with William R Forstchen)

Have read Magician several times since first encounter in primary school (I actually own a copy); the other two in the series probably only once each prior to this time. Went through them quickly, but I don't think I'll be re-reading the series again any time soon - this time, they just seemed a bit bare (even the massive Magician, though that one least so) despite the epic, fate-of-worlds scope. I don't think that I've lost my taste for fantasy, but those tastes have changed and maybe I'm more demanding nowadays.

The other - Honoured Enemy is a full-length novel (though on the short side) and set as an outtake from the Riftwar (ie, during the event of Magician). It's quite fast-paced and narrower in its focus, and reasonably taut, but the writing suffers from the same flaws.

Trewin Copplestone - Modern Art Movements

An old book of my uncle's which has been lying around my room for years. Published in '62, revised in '67 (my paperback edition '72) - covers 20th century movements in what we traditionally think of as 'art' (ie, of the painted kind). No mention of abstract expressionism but I suppose there will always be quibbles with these kinds of survey works.

Accessible overview commentary and plenty of full colour plates - a good 'un and not noticeably dated. (Though there is the question of whether there has been a substantial 'art movement' which could be placed in the same tradition/lineage as those in this book since it was published - Pop Art comes naturally to mind, but to me that seems more of a clean break (not to mention infinitely more shallow - which is kinda the point, but that doesn't mean I have to like it), and likewise with various streams that could fall under the umbrella of 'postmodern art').

Examples:

Fauvism
Matisse - The Green Stripe



Cubism
Gris - Still Life in Front of an Open Window



Expressionism
Munch - The Dance Of Life



Futurism
Boccioni - Electricity



De Stijl
Mondrian - Composition



Surrealism
Dali - Premonition Of Civil War

Gene Wolfe - Innocents Abroad

I remember that series of Wolfe's that I read a while back was good, and that plus the neat cover illustration (I later discovered that it's a Magritte - figures) was enough to get me to borrow this collection of his short stories. The inside of the dust jacket contains some rapturous praise from the Washington Post Book World, comparing him to Dickens, Proust, Kipling, Chesterton, Borges and Nabokov, before going on to nod at H G Wells, Jack Vance, H P Lovecraft and Damon Knight (who?), and I can see where this kind of enthusiasm comes from, even if I don't share it in full measure. Wolfe's a wonderfully intelligent craftsman of genre fiction - his stories start in unexpected places and twist even further away from what one would expect, but they're always true to themselves and always (perhaps like all the best fantasy and horror writing) seem like diffracted reflections of the familiar.

Marisha Pessl - Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Have wanted to read this for some time now, and with much (albeit ambivalent) anticipation; as it turns out, I do like it - sure it's pretentious, but I think that Special Topics just about pulls off its central conceit (that is, its structuring in overtly literary terms, chapters named after famous works of literature &c), a success which owes something to the multi-faceted way in which Pessl develops that notion, something again to her ability to evoke a mood and a difficult-to-describe sense of depth, and perhaps still more to her commitment to not allowing those structuring ideas to obscure Character and Story within the novel.

Storywise, the most obvious reference point is The Secret History, from the introductory self-conscious musing on the narrator's own Life Story through the central motif of the eccentric group of college students orbiting around a charismatic lecturer via a death that is flagged in the opening pages and plenty of other parallels, and I'll make the comparison: Special Topics is not as good. But it's still an engaging, serious-minded and impressively conceived and executed, and surprisingly subtle thing of a novel and, I reckon, pretty much deserving of the raves.

New Buffalo - Somewhere, anywhere

Starry and lovely - this is very fine. Not as immediate as The Last Beautiful Day, but if anything even more affecting than that other.

The Illusionist

Jarrod wanted to see this because of the Philip Glass score and I was happy to go along because (a) I'm a drifter and (b) The Prestige was good and I like Edward Norton and don't mind a Glass score myself. Anyhow, it's not by any stretch of the imagination mind-blowing, but The Illusionist has a few tricks up its sleeve - the main things going for it are the blurry soft-focus effects and the quality acting of all four of the leads, Norton in particular.

300

I was keen to see this - I'm always up for a spectacle, and 300 seemed likely to fit the bill, not least because of the Frank Miller connection. It is a genuine spectacle, and I liked the hyper-realism (well, the hyper-everythingism, really) and the battle scenes...it's well done. I'd probably watch it again, just for the visuals and the spectacular battles, but it doesn't quite come together in the way that Sin City, say, did.

(w/ Sid)

New York Dolls, Phoenix, Jarvis Cocker and the Pixies @ "Best of V Festival", Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Wednesday 4 April

By happy arrangement, each of the acts playing here was better than the last, at least by my lights (the squealing teenage girls who basically totally lost it while Phoenix were on stage, say, may well have begged to differ). The New York Dolls were quite good albeit totally not my kind of thing - they were into what they were doing, anyway (trashy rock n roll - equally parts Van Halen and the Stooges), and didn't seem to mind the relative lack of audience at that point. Phoenix were okay as well - I'd only heard "Too Young" and a couple of others before, but it turned out that I'd gained a pretty fair idea of what they were about...slightly disco-y of-the-moment indie-rock with an eye to the mainstream. All of their songs kind of sounded the same and they were pretty Killers-esque in places, but you know, they were okay.

So anyway, between Phoenix and Jarvis Cocker, we met up with a friend of Nenad's (one Steve) who got us into the seated area in front, which was seriously something like a hundred times better. Hardly anyone was sitting down, with most folks standing near the front, but the rising 'bowl' arrangement of the stadium meant that anyone standing on any of the steps had a brilliant view from only a few metres away - it was grand. Jarvis, impossibly thin, was ace - put on a real show, complete with constant jerky 'dancing', karate kicks, wriggling around on the ground, and, at one point, an extended swing and hang from one of the giant speakers, plus plenty of witty banter between songs. And the music itself was tops too - I hadn't heard any of his solo stuff before, but it seemed very much like Different Class era Pulp (I've had "F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E." stuck in my head since the show, and many of the songs have stayed with me from that one hearing (the "black magic" one was cool, and of course the magnificent show-closing anthem "Cunts Are Still Running The World" (it may have a different title than those words of the chorus, but I doubt it)). Wonderful!

And, finally, the whole reason I'd gone along - the Pixies. And they were just great, pure and simple. Rattling through all of their famous songs ("Monkey Gone To Heaven" and "Wave Of Mutilation" thrown in very early on; "Here Comes Your Man" flood-lit with rainbow coloured lighting to go with the joy it brought somewhere in the middle; "Debaser" and "Where Is My Mind" nearer the end (and "Gigantic" to round off the encore)), and doing so with both a remarkable tightness and an air of loving every minute of what they were doing, it was an honest to goodness live music experience, borne upwards by the anticipation and appreciation of the crowd. Black Francis (hard to think of him in those terms, having been long accustomed to "Frank Black") sang and screamed just as he does on record, Kim Deal was just hella cool, and the four of them really seemed like a band; more than that, they really seemed like the Pixies. The sound was great, the guitars tearing away (though I'd somehow expected them to be rougher-sounding live), and I realised for the first time just what monsters of anthems some of their songs are (I've always thought that the production on Doolittle, the only of their records that I've listened to a lot, does the band no favours at all). I like the Pixies without ever having been fanatical about them, but their set the other night was really something else, both on its own terms and for the new life with which it's imbued their songbook and the band itself for me.

(w/ Nenad)

Black

An installation/performance (four actors in a confined central stage with audience sitting, standing or moving around and above them) presenting a kind of cut-up, non-narratival interpretation of the death of the "Black Dahlia". The space within which it takes place is significant (in more than one sense) and plays a constitutive role in the surrealistic, dream-like ebbs and flows (and occasional abrupt outbursts) of the actors' movements and dialogue; Black is a dramatised presentation of both the events it 'portrays' and the broader collective processes of imagining and reification of those events (and the forces and compulsions lying beneath what is seen or consciously known, making themselves felt only through their effects and in shadowy hints at the edges of awareness and vision). Interesting and compulsive - I liked it.

(w/ trang)

Peter Hartcher - "Bipolar Nation: How to Win the 2007 Election" (Quarterly Essay issue 25)

Didn't initially strike me as one of the most obviously incisive QEs that I've read, but on further reflection I think that the quality of analysis in Hartcher's piece is actually quite high, and that I may've been misled by the seeming familiarity of what he has to say - though the broad outlines of his argument aren't new, the particular way he wraps them together adds something. Takes the ideas of Australia as the "lucky country" and "frightened country" as orienting themes and looks at the strategies employed by Howard and Rudd to date, particularly in relation to national security and the economy. People have been talking a lot about this next federal election - more than I remember them doing about the last one - and me, well, I've been thinking that an awful lot may ride on who gets in, even more so than usual.

China Miéville - Un Lun Dun

Miéville's first foray into "childrens' literature", and very nicely done it is, too. Un Lun Dun has the weirdness of his other work, but it's less dark and more whimsical, and also less dense, all of which works well (not least given the book's intended audience). It doesn't have the darkness of the Borribles books or the creepy unnervingness of Coraline, say, though I think it has some affinities with both, but neither is what Miéville is shooting for here. One thing that the novel does have is an endless inventiveness - as always with him, there are countless images to savour which appear fully-formed in the mind's eye (not to mention the generous number of illustrations, drawn by Miéville himself, which appear throughout) and, in this one in particular, he really goes to town with verbal invention as well. The explorer with a birdcage containing a bird for a head (actually, the bird is the explorer, using a human torso and limbs as a vehicle), the super-strong diving suit-enclosed school of fish (named "Skool", of course), the heroic bus conductors (and buses with feet), the killer giraffes, the binja, the words-come-to-life ("utterlings"), the intelligent broken umbrellas ("unbrellas"), and Curdle the milk carton, to name just a few...

Stephen King - Night Shift

I've read these before - Night Shift is one of the collections of King's short stories. It's from earlyish in his career, and the stories are less developed than his later ones, but still very recognisably him.

The Best of McSweeney's volume 1 edited by Dave Eggers

Have been reading this on and off for the last few weeks, and have probably now read as much as I'm going to in the near future. Has its moments, but no real standouts ("The Republic of Marfa" by Sean Wilsey is my favourite). Noticeably more overtly 'experimental' than volume 2.

The Wrong Man

A bit too clever-clever and somewhat derivative of The Usual Suspects; distinctly offbeat in a way which is distracting and probably deliberately so; big cast for a film I'd never heard of before I watched it on dvd (Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu). Enjoyable.

Air - Original motion picture score for "The Virgin Suicides"

Airy and nice, apt to and part of the film.

Update

A while between drinks here - my laptop gave up the ghost and I've not yet got around to sorting out a new one, and the frustrations of work have been, well, frustrating. Still and anyway, here goes.