Tegan and Sara - Love You to Death

Another sheerly terrific, racingly heartfelt record full of highlights in similar vein to Heartthrob, though perhaps a touch sleeker. Part of this happy convergence with which I associate Chvrches, latter day Taylor Swift, before them Robyn (in the vanguard) and others, each act with their own history and trajectory which both subliminally and actually colours where they've landed just now; on Love You to Death, "Faint of Heart" and "Stop Desire" are two of the most delightful, both with great chorus spikes.

Donnie Darko

For me, at least, I think that movies can provide a truer reflection (or refraction) of my experience of the world than any other form of art. Even though it was books that I first took to, music that then lodged most deeply during my most impressionable teenage and early young adult years, and theatre and (visual) art that often prompt the most complex and profound responses in me now, it's movies that - as a form - come closest to the phenomenological in what they offer: immersively experiential, and therefore emotional, associative and intellectual all mixed.

So: Donnie Darko. This was one of my favourite films back when I first saw it - several times - but then it kind of waned in my mind over the probably more than a decade during which (a) I didn't watch it again and (b) a whole lot of other stuff happened, and I began thinking of it - when I thought of it at all - as a film that I used to like, with that liking maybe fixed to a specific point in time for me (a recent rewatching didn't especially shake that, although it reminded me of some of the reasons why I'd liked it so much). But watching it again last night - on a big screen - it all came rushing back, right from the opening scene, and I was caught up in its magic the whole way through. It doesn't need parsing - this is just a great film, which has always affected and resonated with me, and still does.

(w/ David - a 15th anniversary screening at Nova)

"Max and Olive" (Potter, Melbourne Uni) - second trip

After my first visit, I found that I couldn't stop thinking about this exhibition, even (especially?) amidst what turned out to be a very intense week. So I went again the following weekend.

 

(w/ Al)

"Double Indemnity" (MTC)

Slick enough, but I'm not sure I would've got much out of this if I'd been familiar with the source book or its film adaptation. Committed performances and a twisty story made for an engaging evening but all in all it seemed a touch on the thin side, like there wasn't much to it.

(w/ Meribah)

Sarah Thornton - Seven Days in the Art World

Enjoyable in its tour through the various scenes in the world of contemporary art - auction (Christie's), 'crit' (art school seminar involving peer feedback - California Institute of the Arts), art fair (Basel), prize (Turner), magazine (Artforum), studio (Takashi Murakami's), biennale (Venice) - and associated actors including dealers, collectors, curators, critics, auction house experts and, indeed, artists.

Explicitly takes an 'ethnographic' approach which perhaps enabled access but may also account for the somewhat lack of a point - or, more accurately, a perspective or critical view - to much of the description; also largely missing (by design, but still very noticeably) is anything much about the relevance of the qualities of the art itself. Also drags a bit in some of the latter chapters.

All up, despite fascinating topic and a sense of being grounded in the reality of what it describes, not as good as another in somewhat similar vein that I read a few years back.

How to Vote Progressive in Australia: Labor or Green? edited by Dennis Altman and Sean Scalmer

Interesting topic; timely publication. Some contributors obviously have a dog in this race (ie current ALP and Greens MPs) and others address the question from a range of perspectives. Notably, I'm pretty sure that all accept the Greens will be a significant part of the political landscape for the foreseeable future (which is certainly how it seems, but hasn't seemed a cert - or near enough to - until relatively recently).

10 Cloverfield Lane

Tight and suspenseful, each successive plot point something of a surprise when it eventuates even though it had been signalled earlier as a possibility - the film plays fair by laying it out like this but still bites because you don't know which of the possible paths it will take. Made even better by the realisation that, as this piece lays out more or less uncontrovertibly, the film is fundamentally about domestic abuse, and all of its pieces fit together in support, including the final act and ultimate choice on which the film ends; also that the main character is played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead aka Ramona from Scott Pilgrim!

"Max and Olive" (Potter, Melbourne Uni)

As in Dupain and Cotton - active at the same time, and entwined to the extent of having been briefly married to each other. Focuses on their respective work in the 1930s, with a few from the 40s. Very good.

"There's no particular subject that I prefer - the light is why I take photographs" - Olive Cotton

(on tour from the NGA)

Eleanor Friedberger - New View

Relaxed, somewhat retro-leaning singer songwriter fare, with melodies that weave around and often emerge late in the piece though without the experimental flair of the Fiery Furnaces. Not bad.

Tennessee Williams - The Glass Menagerie / Malthouse

Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart.

Tennessee Williams is one of those figures who has something of a hold over my mind. Thanks to extemporanea, it's possible to reconstruct that the last time - and the main previous time - that I experienced him with particular sharpness was a good seven years ago; but in the perpetual netflix of my unconscious, he's always flickeringly there on distant rotation.

Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.

Having re-read the text just before seeing the Malthouse's current production (Eamon Flack), including Williams' extended production notes, I was well primed for what turned out to be a faithful staging, with the addition of the 'screen device' that is written into the play text working well with play's themes and feeling, as well as being very of the moment (in fact the last play I saw, the current Miss Julie, used video and projection in a similar way although to different effect), and Tom's presumed homosexuality much more clearly suggested than in the subtext of the play as written.

The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music. That explains the fiddle in the wings.

Good set, lighting, acting (Harry Greenwood, Luke Mullins, Pamela Rabe, Rose Riley - all contriving to look of the period). It didn't quite catch fire but still, pretty darn fine.

"I don't suppose you remember me at all."

(w/ Ash)

Ryan Adams - 1989

Well I like both Ryan Adams and Taylor Swift, but - as this track by track cover album made me appreciate - for different reasons I guess. Adams is sincere here, translating Swift's songs into wistful alt-country troubadour vein, but unfortunately for the most part it doesn't really work - Swift is a quality songwriter but she writes for the 'pow' of her own style and without that delivery and production, affairs are a bit dull, even something of a downer. Exceptions: "Out of the Woods", "This Love", "I Know Places"; not sure why, but those are the three that have come to life for me a little in these first couple of listens.

Also, a good review: ... during a performance in Nashville, Adams, who had discussed his annoyance at being confused with the singer Bryan Adams, performed an elegant acoustic cover of that singer’s 1984 megahit “Summer of ’69.” He didn’t appear to be joking. Instead, he placed the song, as he does with Swift’s music, immediately within his own emotional register. It sounded like a Ryan Adams song. The audience, which in the light of day might be inclined to mock the vanilla middle-American soft rock of Bryan Adams, sang along. It knew all the words.

(1989, the original)

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

Michael Cera in the most non-George Michael Bluth of Michael Cera roles.*

Three of the most interesting youngish female actors going around at the time (film came out in 2010, six years ago): Brie Larson, Alison Pill, Anna Kendrick.

Smaller roles from Aubrey Plaza and Mae Whitman (aka Ann from Arrested Development).

An enjoyable turn from Kieran Culkin, who looks kind of like Tom Hiddleston to me.

Vegan powers!

Flash and sparkle, garage rock and everything pop, attitude and heart. Just right.

(last time; soundtrack)

* Edit for confusing syntax. This was meant to mean "the most Michael Cera role of all Michael Cera roles, apart from George Michael Bluth", and not "the Michael Cera role that is most unlike George Michael Bluth". Obviously.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

I've dipped in and out of the X-Men series, though it looks like I've managed to watch all of the first three (apparently without any of them having left a particularly strong positive impression) and I reckon I've seen most of First Class on tv along the way. So I've picked up enough for Days of Future Past's time-travelling bringing together of the two sets of X-men (younger/older: McAvoy/Stewart, Fassbender/McKellen) to make sense, but not been immersed enough for the emotional beats to hit fully home; still, this was good.

The Jungle Book

Quite the enjoyable romp. Rightly confident in its animal and jungle CGI, and pings along nicely story-wise too. Plus a top shelf voice cast - notably Bill Murray as Baloo, Christopher Walken as King Louie, Ben Kingsley as Bagheera (although I couldn't place it till the credits).

(w/ Rob and Laura)

Steve Carr - A Manual for Small Archives / others (CCP)

Three sets of works here but only Steve Carr's grabbed me. "Range" (bisected customised golf balls), "Smoke Bubble", "Watermelon" (a video ending with a satisfying bang):

(w/ trang)

Community season 6

Right on form, and if this is how it ends (as seems likely, that memetic "and a movie" notwithstanding) then it's on a good note, and one that feels like a proper ending, with many of the joys that the show has offered throughout its run, now coloured a maybe slightly darker hue by the passage of time. As an aside - it's impressive in these last couple of seasons how well the show survives the departure of some key cast members and integrates new ones.

(1-3 (again), 4 (again), 5)

"Miss Julie" (MTC)

I've learned to go for these 19th and early 20th century European playwrights in picking my subscriptions at the start of each year, because however loosely or closely adapted the stagings turn out to be, they often offer an experience that other art doesn't and which feels quintessentially of the theatre. In the case of "Miss Julie", the effect was hard to pin down - it has an impact, and drew me thoroughly in, yet at the same time felt elusive due to its frame of reference being somewhat floating, not clearly moored in milieu nor therefore perspective (the live video projections of the action being played out within the glass box of the kitchen set worked for me, though).

Also, it's interesting reading about Strindberg and this play in particular after the fact of seeing it (especially Alison Croggon's take), and comparing that against my own (uninformed at the time) experience - not being aware of the misogyny or the ways in which Kip Williams (also responsible for last year's great "Love and Information" and the all-female "Lord of the Flies" from a couple of years back) has reshaped it for this current staging.

(w/ Meribah - also, by coincidence, my theatre companion for both of those previous two Williams-directed plays!)

The End of Violence soundtrack

Ry Cooder, and as soundtracky as they come. I've been listening to the film's other soundtrack - the one with songs - for years, and this more score-like, entirely intrumental one makes an apt, ghostly complement, Cooder's familiar guitar theme reverberating and drifting at intervals.

Kirsty MacColl - Kite

There's an interplay between the lightly, brightly jangling guitars and the lilting, always at least potentially melancholy folk touches that always delights when coupled with sensitive singing and tightly, interestingly constructed songs - like here. This came out in 1989, which seems to have been peak time for this kind of stuff (to varying degrees - the Sundays, the Church, post-the Smiths, and in fact Johnny Marr features very recognisably on a couple of the songs on Kite).

"Marilyn Monroe" (Bendigo Art Gallery)

Mostly an excuse for an excursion, but Marilyn is such an iconic figure of the 20th century that it was kind of worth it to be immersed in images of her, including a generous range of 'moving pictures' extracts / extended montages as well as a small selection of her personal possessions and (less interestingly for me) film and performance costumes and dresses.

Richard C Miller - "Marilyn Monroe" (1946)

Milton H Green - "Marilyn Monroe as Pensive Ballerina" (1954)

Seward Johnson - "Forever Marilyn" (2011) - hugely and garishly installed in the centre of Bendigo

(w/ Erandathie, Nicola & their friend Freddie; Nic's partner Simon opted to be anti-Marilyn and visit the permanent collection of the gallery instead)

"Susan Norrie: Field Work 2006-2016" / "Fabrik: conceptual, minimalist and performative approaches to textiles" (Ian Potter Museum)

The Norrie work is two videos, collectively titled aftermath, depicting the site of the LUSI mud volcano in East Java, Indonesia: one showing the activities of local shrimp farmers harvesting in the region, and the other depicting the desolate, near-apocalyptic landscape of the mud's continuing flow (that second is genuinely arresting). Both totally culturally off-base, but the first made me think of Beasts of the Southern Wild and the second reminded me at points of certain Icelandic vistas.

"Fabrik" had some appealing pieces, particularly Sarah crowEST's "... a charge of indeterminacy inseparable from a material body ...", its snippets of fabrics stitched on to cloth plus tea stain called those delightful Tanguy imponderables to mind (I was intrigued, upon googling it a minute ago, to discover that the couple of images online are slightly different from its form as I saw it today, suggesting an organic growth), and Clementine Barnes' 'colour studies', tiny, colourful, finely embroidered pieces which, to continue the theme of comparison to painters, reminded me of Klee's colour block works.

(w/ trang)

The Pierces - You & I

A pleasantly swirled together mix of indie-ish pop, mid-tempo rock moves, a folkish streak and a healthy tendency towards drama, somewhat in mid-late period Cardigans territory (especially on early highlight "It Will Not Be Forgotten"); there's also "Glorious", which reminds me more of Love's Forever Changes (circa 1967) in its melody and progressions than anything more recent, although obviously the production marks it clearly as contemporary; and "Kissing You Goodbye" (cascadingly girl group-y). Overall nice but not memorable; much stronger in its front end than the rather indistinct second half.

Carl Wilson - Let's Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste

This was originally one of the delightful 33 1/3 series, with an unusual subject - the 1997 Celine Dion album, Let's Talk About Love, that housed "My Heart Will Go On" and was already a huge smash even before Titanic and utter ubiquity.

Wilson is a music critic with all the predictable biases towards the challenging and experimental, about which he's utterly open at the outset, as he is about his reflexive dislike of Dion (and her music, and the elision between the two is relevant), as it's at the heart of the whole project of the book, which is to use an investigation into Dion and her music - including cultural context and reception, musical antecedents, fanbase, and the qualities of the music itself - as a way into a much broader inquiry into taste, value and identity.

[In the course of a history of 'schmaltz' as musical genre:] Celine Dion's music and career are more understandable if she is added to the long line of ethnic "outsiders" who expressed emotions too outsized for most white American performers but in non-African-American codes, letting white audiences loosen up without crossing the "color line".

It makes for a very impressive piece, always keeping in mind where Wilson himself is coming from, while effecting a sort of fusion of horizons between that perspective and the frames through which taste and its formation and (class-related) boundary-policing take place, devoting a full chapter ("Let's Talk About Who's Got Bad Taste") to Bourdieu, cultural capital, the way it tends to be defined - of course - by and for those sufficiently privileged to claim and enjoy 'refined' art and experience.

One typically fine - and central - section is his treatment of sentimentality, first re-presenting Kundera's excoriation of sentiment and kitsch in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (a book that I really should re-read) and others in similar vein, then highlighting that the reflexive resistance of sentiment may itself be sentimental:

What self-conscious aesthetes such as Kundera, [Stephin] Merritt and I might be guilty of sentimentalizing is ambiguity, that shibboleth of our postidealistic age. Which can make us dupes of another kind, prone to taking surface complication and opacity for depth, and apt to overlook the complexity that may lie even within the sentimental on more patient, curious inspection.

What keeps it credible is his immediate acknowledgement that, of course, sentimental art can be lousy - before repeating the point that it's not sentiment itself, but what is often done with it, that is the problem. That's also the chapter that ends with a quite lovely couple of paragraphs about a music-related moment early in Wilson's relationship with his "future exwife":

That it did not remain enough, that there would be a sadder side to the story, does nothing to mar it, nor to diminish one watt in my memory the soft autumn light that fell across her face as she sang Buddy Holly's words to me.

In the end, it does seem like he's been through a genuine journey and progression through the exercise of thinking about the many layers associated, not so much in his case with what it's like to be a Celine fan, but having confronted himself with "how much is involved in not being a Celine fan". And his conclusion, that we should all consciously try to be aware of not only the ways in which we all have our own tastes, that we shouldn't (even implicitly) think about taste in a way that assumes the ideal is that everyone should have the same 'good' taste if only the conditions were present, that we all have an enormous amount of identity-formation and self-regard at stake through our tastes, and that we should strive to be open to understanding and valuing the tastes of others with a truly democratic spirit, is powerful and convincing and not at all relativistic.

***

Also, this edition includes a whole stack of shorter - and interesting, thoughtful - riffs on the original book and pieces touching on related themes, from such apt contributors as Nick Hornby, Krist Novoselic, Owen Pallett, James Franco and, poignantly and in closing, Wilson's ex-wife and prominent author Sheila Heti (a description of a playlist that ends with "A Case of You" and made me gulp a little).

***

And, only somewhat a propos but quite resonantly, this:

It's not that I'm some immovable stoic. If you want to know what makes me cry, more reliably than anything this side of George Jones singing "He Stopped Loving Her Today", it's usually some squishy moment from a TV show about a teenage girl. My So-Called Life, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, Freaks and Geeks, Joan of Arcadia ... You name them, they've turned my waterworks on.

I have an idea why. It isn't just the sad pretty girls. Nor is it, as I first thought, just an escapist return to the febrile ordeals of adolescence, the scene of the crime of self-invention (but through female eyes, because the teen male is not exactly renowned for his psychological acumen). No, the truth is that my so-called adult life is mortifyingly similar to that of a teenage girl, or at least the bemused existentialists who stand in for them on TV: It's a comedy-drama, centred more on groups of friends than family or workplace. The loose plotlines are mainly an excuse for endless talk about relationships, books, bands, What It All Means and how far we can bend the grownup rules before landing in trouble. Usually we bend them too far. My work entails spending a lot of time at cultural events and parties, figuring out how to assimilate to new social groups, to which the answer is always: Awkwardly. With a lot of crushes. But my life is also guided by a vocation, a secret mission like Buffy's (vampire slayer) or Veronica's (girl detective) or Joan's (special envoy for God). Mine just involves more typing and less stalking the undead. This is where the grislier side of the identification comes in: the mission tends to distance me from the center ring of adult life, the hurlyburly of business and domesticity, where the normal grownups live. All of which, I fear, has arrested my development.

***

Some brief autobiographical notes:

1. Because my mum was a fan, some of my earliest musical memories are of Celine Dion, often (in retrospect surprisingly) played very loud. I've thought before that my later musical tastes were probably heavily shaped by those early, formative exposures to music from both of my parents that, while in no way cool, were at their heart all about melody - on my dad's side, I mainly remember Elton John, Neil Diamond, Roy Orbison and Engelbert Humpdinck.
2. Even at my most self-consciously alternative in musical tastes (late teens and early twenties), ballads were never far from the surface and nor was out and out pop music (that old winamp playlist from uni days...).
3. In fact a few months ago I even purchased - via the itunes store - half a dozen or so of Dion's biggest - and most sentimental, power-ballady - hits as part of my ongoing attempt to have every song that I might ever feel the urge to listen to in any kind of mood immediately available. (Maybe it was more than a few months ago but apparently I've listened to "The Power of Love" some 27 times since, admittedly including a few times while writing this now.)
4. Of course, while my fondness for straight up ballads is sincere, and feels to me like a response on the same level as I have to any other genre/form of music, it'd be dishonest to claim that I'm not a tiny bit pleased with myself to have such catholic tastes, or that my comfort with saying I like such mainstream stuff (exhibit A more recently: Taylor Swift) is independent of the bulletproofness that I assume I have thanks to also being deep in more conventionally 'credible' tastes, at least by the standards of years gone by, which itself is a form of cultural capital and self-identification, and especially nowadays, things having shifted a fair way from the debate about alternative vs mainstream (and rockism vs poptism etc that was playing out contemporaneously when Wilson's book originally came out in 2007, a point he himself makes in the afterword to this new edition) to a point where omnivorousness is arguably the greater virtue in the eyes of the ruling arbiters of taste, whoever they now are in our dispersed brave new world.

Buddy Miller - Cayamo Sessions at Sea

This is Buddy Miller we're talking about, so it's unsurprising that this is a wonderfully relaxed and high quality record; add in the fact that it's a collaboration album - each of the eleven songs with a different person, all but two covers - and the effect is cumulative (not just summative) given how good Miller is at making the most out of such pairings.

Everything here is good, really, but some particular stand-outs are Shawn Colvin's sensitive vocal take on "Wild Horses", Kris Kristofferson's wry version of his own "Sunday Morning Coming Down", the more uptempo fiddle-y duet on "Love's Gonna Live Here" (with Kacey Musgraves) and the excellent grouping of Brandi Carlile and the Lone Bellow (both pretty restrained) on closer "Angel from Montgomery".

Scott Pilgrim vs the World soundtrack

Someone mentioned Scott Pilgrim the other day, and I was in Dixon's soon after, so here we are. Yes!

• The Frank Black song, "I Heard Ramona Sing", is good (as his solo stuff seems to be with an impressive high strike rate).
• So are a whole lot of others by acts who I don't know ("Sleazy Bed Track" by the Bluetones; "It's Getting Boring by the Sea" by Blood Red Shoes) or don't know well ("By Your Side" by Beachwood Sparks; "Teenage Dream" by T.Rex - epic).
• "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl"! A real old sentimental favourite.
• A very Metric-y Metric song, "Black Sheep".
• Amusing Sex Bob-omb and other movie band entries.
• Beck's string-laden "Ramona", a bit of a throwback to Sea Change (in retrospect a really rather good album, though I remember finding it only kind of pleasant and maybe a bit on the dull side at the time).

"Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei" (NGV)

A second visit, with David this time (previous visit).

Jeff Buckley - You and I

Actually it took time for Jeff Buckley to really grow on me - I came to Grace late, and more or less at the same time as Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk - but his music has wound up being important to me in the same way that it is for so many others, and so I was curious to listen to this set of kind-of demos recorded in 1993 as an early calling card, just guitar and voice, and nearly all covers (though there's a well-developed "Grace"). It's not revelatory, but it's tinged with that special something that characterises all of his music; most interesting for me is the Smiths pair, "The Boy With The Thorn in His Side" and "I Know It's Over" (especially that second one)...also, you'd think that Jeff Buckley doing "Just Like A Woman" would be pretty great, but disappointingly, it's not especially memorable.

Mad Max: Fury Road

A careening thrill. Looks, and is, spectacular.

Sunshine

High stakes wonder; good. Effective soundtrack helps, as does a charismatic cast including Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, Michelle Yeoh and Hiroyuki Sanada (aka the actor who always plays the noble Japanese guy in western movies ... at which he is very good).

(last time)

"Jan Senbergs: Observation-Imagination" (NGVA)

I hadn't come across Senbergs before, and this extensive retrospective of his work was a reminder of art's endless abundance, as a whole (one never more than scratches the surface of all that's out there) and in individual works (likewise, for any particular artwork, never mind artist, movement, etc), as well as a very pleasurable experience in its own right - discovering and enjoying someone new.

Senbergs was born in the late 30s I think, and the earliest pieces are from the 60s; as the exhibition notes say, the influence of Max Beckmann is visible especially in those dark-hued early-career pieces. I was drawn to the ones a bit later on that were seemingly touched by surrealism (often via screenprinted elements), like "Column and still objects 1" (1968):

By the 1970s, he'd hit a vein of post-industrial cityscapes, devoid of human presence, often playing tricks with perspective, and powerfully symbolic without being explicit as to exactly what was in play with the symbolism ("Garden plan with short path", 1973, was my favourite of these)...it makes sense that he lists Barthelme and Borges as influences.

Come the 80s and there's a series of pieces from a trip to Antarctica (compelling but gaining a lot from their subject, obviously) - like "Mawson" (1987), as in Mawson station:

And man-made structures planted in the wide open spaces of both America (Pennsylvania) and Western Australia, as in "Blue angel of Wittenoom" (1988):

Plus some impressive pastel drawings (the artist quoted as describing "the direct and primitive black mark on a wall" as the "omnipotent" expression of creativity), and then circling back to where it started, via some striking renditions of Black Saturday, with a series of imaginatively cartographic pieces ... capriccio - "an architectural fantasy where buildings and other architectural elements and places come together in imaginary settings" - "Melbourne capriccio 3" (2009):

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

I had low expectations which were then exceeded - Batman v Superman isn't complex, but it's good in that unremittingly dark, kinetically exciting, lucky-there's-no-time-to-think kind of way. Ben Affleck doesn't demonstrate a lot of range as Batman, but maybe that's partly the point with this version, and he convinces anyway; Amy Adams a bonus as Lois Lane.

(w/ Andreas, Laura M and Peter B - at imax)

Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell

Plaintive, pretty and stripped-back but neither precious nor bare, Carrie & Lowell hits the mark. In arrangement and level of orchestration, it's quite the contrast from the last - and only previous - Sufjan that I've listened to, Illinois (more than a decade ago, wow), but there's plenty of continuity too. High points are sprinkled throughout, "Should Have Known Better", "All of Me Wants All of You", "Eugene", "Fourth of July", "The Only Thing"...

"Paris Underground" (Doncaster Playhouse)

Very safe, gentle 'Parisian' cabaret - suitably, given that the average audience age for this Friday night show was probably upwards of 60 - taking in song, tap, magic, burlesque/dance, and Cyr ring. But didn't take itself too seriously, and fun. (*)

(w/ mum and Serena)

Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit

Been listening to this for a few months, on and off; it's terrific for a whole bunch of reasons, and likewise familiar on at least two levels (musically, and in the lyrical references). Very enjoyable.

Veronica Mars season 3

In many ways, that this one takes place in college rather than high school makes surprisingly little difference, with a lot of the elements basically transplanted to the new setting (one important one, which might be by drift as much as setting, is that social class is much less prominent as a theme than in seasons 1 and 2) - though with less of both Wallace and Weevil, both of whom I missed, though that was somewhat offset by the enjoyable greater prominence of Dick Casablancas. Anyhow, pretty great maybe though not quite as perfectly mixed as the first two seasons. Unresolved ending came abruptly; lucky I'm so late to this one so that the kickstarted film's already out there!

"Picnic at Hanging Rock" (Malthouse)

I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, but it was successful; the framing via the five contemporary schoolgirls worked, and the first half or so of the play in particular was effective in rendering the post-colonial hauntedness of the Australian bush, sticking closely to the events of the film and achieving both a sustained mood and some moments that are genuinely unsettling through good use of lighting and other tricks - I don't think I've ever seen even elements of horror attempted on stage before in this way (the only sort-of example I can think of is the schlocky The Rabble take on "Frankenstein" from a couple of years ago). There are a few mis-steps in the later stages - the trampoline is incongruous, the hysterical swarming of Irma didn't hit quite the right tone - but this was still a very sound production that I enjoyed a lot.

Chairlift - Moth

Chirrupingly bouncy, mixing tightly funky moments of finessed indie like "Show U Off" and more straight-ahead whirls like "Romeo"; "Ch-Ching" is kind of both. The third album in a row from Chairlift that I've liked well enough without getting really into.

(Does You Inspire You; Something)

Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life

Extracts from correspondence:

"I just got up to the bit where Jude does the horrible imitation of himself in front of the mirror - alone, after cutting himself - and I actually had to put the book down and stop reading for a bit (hence this email). This book is brutal. A few chapters ago I thought fleetingly about not even reading any further at all - at least not just now, maybe coming back in a few months time - because I could feel it upsetting me in the ways that it was calling to mind, even through only faint echoes, people from my own life."


"The book is just not playing around - it means to destroy you. It has some of the most intense passages I've ever read.  Do take care with it."


"I need a bit more processing time - it is definitely a book that has a huge impact ... but I'm still not sure if it's actually any good. (I think the answer is 'yes, with reservations, but maybe the reservations don't matter'.)"

"Turn everything off just to turn it back on" (2015 cd)

Last year's soundtrack (compiled in January but it's taken me this long to get round to noting it here):

1. Really Wanna See You - Lydia Loveless
(Somewhere Else; Bloodshot, 2014)

2. You & I (Forever) - Jessie Ware
(Tough Love; Universal, 2014)

3. My Baby Don't Understand Me - Natalie Prass
(Natalie Prass; Spacebomb, 2015)

4. Learn To Say No - Lydia Loveless
(Indestructible Machine; Bloodshot, 2011)

5. Miles From The Sea - Calexico
(Edge of the Sun; Anti, 2015)

6. All Your Yeahs - Beach House
(Thank Your Lucky Stars; Mistletone, 2015)

7. Leave A Trace - Chvrches
(Every Open Eye; Glassnote, 2015)

8. Shine A Different Way - Patty Griffin
(Servant of Love; PGM, 2015)

9. Vez Primera - Carla Morrison
(Amor Supremo; Cosmica, 2015)

10. Shake Sugaree - Rhiannon Giddens
(Tomorrow Is My Turn; Nonesuch, 2015)

"Hard Edge: Abstract Sculpture 1960s-70s" (NGVA)

Late afternoon Saturday wander. Pleasing: Tony Coleing's "Frondescence" (1968), the little wooden maquette (model) for "Vault" from when its design was first submitted to the City of Melbourne, other angularly colourful pieces.

(w/ Meribah)

"Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei" (NGV)

The staging of these two artists' work and careers in conversation with - and reflection of - each others' is convincing, taking in shared preoccupations and approaches (like the duality between their desire to obscure the stylistic and authorial elements of the individual artist and the centrality of their own personality to the reception of their work) as well as subjects (cultural objects; Mao!), common well-springs (eg Duchamp) and overt dialogue and influence.

I guess both are conceptual artists par excellence, which means that their art is foremost about ideas. One of the things I've always found irritating about Warhol is that it's the same idea monotonously over and over (although admittedly the moments when he captures the genuinely iconic have a real charge, like his Elvis and the "Screen Tests" which here included Dylan, Reed, Edie Sedgwick, Nico and more); Ai Weiwei, by contrast, appeals to me because of his sense of humour and political forcefulness, even though it turns out that, while he has many ideas, it tends to be only one per work.

Asides:
1. This exhibition seems to be in the process of being super popular - this was the third time I'd visited the gallery with the intent of seeing it and the queue for tickets was as long as on the previous occasions when I'd decided against it.
2. Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull were there at the same time as us (this was last weekend), their sighting apt given Warhol's fascination with celebrity.

(w/ Alex)

White Night Melbourne, Saturday 20 February

Seemed much thinner and less exciting than previous years. Always hard to know whether it might've just been my particular route and time, and in this its fourth year some of the novelty might be expected to've worn off anyway, but looking at the program makes me think that might be an objective fact - perhaps due to the uncertainty until relatively close to the event about whether it was going ahead this year? Definitely felt the lack of the really large-scale cbd exterior projections that have characterised previous years, and nor was there any sense of discovery or scattered treasures throughout the landscape. Having said that:

• it was still somewhat great to see the familiar face of the REB all lit up
• "The Dresses", down the very southern end in the gardens, was pretty (Tae Gon Kim)
• the NGV front projection was good ("Still Here" - Josh Muir)
• given how little else seemed to be happening, we spent some time with "Manifesto" in the chilly time just before sunrise
• sunrise was also pretty.

Started around 3.30am, which wasn't actually that difficult given how all over the place my sleeping and other habits have been lately.

(w/ Erandathie)

(2013, 2014, 2015)

Anomalisa

Rightio, I've always been a bit vague about this, but actually it's not that complicated. Charlie Kaufman has written a bunch of films but only directed one before: Being John Malkovich and Adaptation (both dir. Spike Jonze), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry), Synecdoche, New York (the one that he also directed). Anyhow, Anomalisa worked for me and I'm very glad that I didn't know anything about it going in other than Kaufman, puppets and JJL - it felt real (reality <--> perception), Hotel Fregoli metaphorical site/syndrome and all, and I liked the kind-of coda of Lisa's letter (which was in her own voice and not Tom Noonan's, right?).

(w/ Daniel L and David)

Wilco - Star Wars

I do enjoy Wilco's approach to music-making; on Star Wars, that includes deliberately making the most uninviting track ("EKG") the opening one on the record (Cf The Whole Love). The rest of it is sweetly well-worn, modest while still interesting. Not a highlight of their starry (pun unintended but who knows, maybe the image was planted in my head by the title) career, but nice still.

The Village Bike (Red Stitch)

The (possibly deliberate) messy intermingling of satire, farce and character/social drama within The Village Bike didn't fully take hold of me, but I enjoyed the performances, and even though it didn't feel like a cohesive whole, the Situation made it engaging enough. Also, given that - insofar as it's primarily about any one thing - it's maybe mainly about the interplay between our basic drives and our attitudes towards sex, which is a subject about which it'd be hard to be clear or take any particular 'position' without being reductive, maybe the lack of formal or thematic resolution is apt.

(w/ Jen G and Anna F + mother)

Bells ring

Last Sunday, afternoon. I stopped by the Malthouse to while away an hour between things, on my own - the site of so many memories and associations, going back to the days when it hosted the writers festival. Drifting through the air outside in the sunshine, Mazzy Star on shuffle; perfect. Sometimes when listening to music, for moments, and moments on end, the feeling can be so strong that you might almost burst.

Legacy: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours

When you're covering a song from Rumours, you're going to face at least - and possibly more than - one of four challenges: you're tackling one of the super-famous songs, you're doing a song that's super-great, you've got one that while maybe not super-famous has still attained a kind of minor iconic status over time (I'm thinking especially of "Gold Dust Woman" and maybe "The Chain" in that category), or else you're doing one of the other, less notable tracks from the record.In fact, though, it matters less which of those challenge(s) you've got than might at first seem the case, because every song on Rumours is very good and the whole album is so extremely part of the pop air that we all breathe, and so, in other words, it's really only a matter of degree any which way.

Anyhow, there are some bright moments here (a track by track set of covers) and actually they do tend to be the more particularly famous and recognisable songs, including Tonic's peppy "Second Hand News" and the Corrs' sweet version of "Dreams" (already well-known to me from radio play many years back) at the top and Jewel's simmering "You Make Loving Fun". Also, at once faithful to the original and decently in the voice of the coverers are both Elton John's "Don't Stop" and the Cranberries' "Go Your Own Way". Overall, this is a pleasant listen rather than particularly illuminating or exciting, but still, pleasant is not such a bad thing. Also, release date was 1998, which explains some of the artist picks, including several that I've already mentioned and also Matchbox Twenty.

(notes on a different Fleetwood Mac covers album here, including repentance for not initially understanding the greatness of the band and this album in particular)

Amy Espeseth - Sufficient Grace

Covered-over traumas from the past and present-day corruption of the soul come to the surface in the dead of winter in an isolated, rural and deeply religious Wisconsin community, seen through the eyes of a child, Ruth, who is at the centre of it. It has the ring of authenticity to it, in voice, setting and psychology.

(a gift from Susan a good 12 months ago)

Veronica Mars season 2

A scattering of thoughts on season 2:

• Smart move to set up another season long central mystery with large personal implications for Veronica. Not really a propos, the crashed bus full of school children (actually only half a dozen, but that's more than enough and the motif is the same) can't help but bring to mind The Sweet Hereafter.
• I guess the name 'Veronica' is a call back to the Archie comics, but it makes me think of Heathers instead (which of course draws on that same source). I like how Veronica Mars is so unintrusively but clearly embedded in pop culture, both through meta-references like that one (*) and the role that pop culture quite naturally plays in its characters' lives (**).
• (*) Another example might be the guest appearances of both Michael Cera and Alia Shawkat in the same episode, which can't have been a coincidence. Also possibly not coincidental: the way that both this show and Arrested Development are obsessed with family as a theme.
• (**) Also nice is how Veronica goes to the soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides for her breakup music.
• Lots of plot and at times a bit soap opera-ish, but I don't mind that here in context.
• Does a decent job moving its main characters around and giving them things to do and room for development, including giving some more supporting figures from season 1 more prominence and introducing some new ones. It is fun never quite knowing which way anyone - well, most of them - is going to turn or what their true colours will be.
• Krysten Ritter shows up as a classmate. If I'm honest, it's hard to tell whether it's just because she's attractive or because she also has talent/charisma but she's eye-catching wherever she appears (Don't Trust the B... was fun while it lasted).
• Obviously, easy to watch, just like the first season.

Carol

Cinematic, romantic, blurrily subjective (from the perspective of both Cate's Carol and Rooney Mara's Therese) and quite beautiful. Also, I wonder whether the name of the film/character and the Christmas-time setting is a coincidence?

(w/ Kevin)

Lorrie Moore - Self-Help

Acerbic, witty and moving, these stories do what short stories are supposed to. Includes "How to Become a Writer" and another that I've read somewhere in an anthology before, "How to Be an Other Woman". Several of them got to me, but "Go Like This" is the one that made me feel the saddest, that made my breath catch in my chest, that most made me feel.

Natalie Merchant - Paradise Is There

When Natalie Merchant released her lovely, resonant solo debut Tigerlily, in 1995, she was more or less the age that I am now; last year, two decades on and now past 50, came Paradise Is There, made up of the same songs but re-recorded (and reordered) with the benefit of experience and the different perspective that comes with time. So of course I had to listen to it.

I came to Tigerlily during university - via the local library, over summer 2001-02 (so, tipping from second year into third - in retrospect the start of a period that shaped me a great deal) - and it's one of those albums that, even if I don't think of it that often, has become deeply woven into my life, songs like "San Andreas Fault", "Wonder", "Beloved Wife", "Carnival", "I May Know The Word" and more which have become more familiar than words and which I really hold dear. There's a sweetness to it and a sadness coexisting with hope in its gentle melodies and Merchant's somehow both hesitant and fluid vocals that was irresistible then and still is.

In that context, the versions on Paradise Is There were never going to replace the originals in my affections. These are not radical reinterpretations; rather, overall, these new versions tend to be more orchestrated (more strings), a bit fuller in sound (including a certain deepening of the timbre of Merchant's voice) and longer, but remain clearly recognisable. Do they cast new light on these familiar songs, and do they have something to say about the journey that their writer and singer has been on in the 20 years since she first laid them down? Do they also make me reflect on the time that's passed and what has changed in my own life over the (more like 15 year) period since I first discovered them myself? Yes to all of those questions, in small ways but not negligible ones - and so, something to be grateful for, as quiet as all of this may be.

Sarah Blasko - Eternal Return

Very and nicely smooth from Blasko - she's so, so good. (Also, as a somewhat random aside, the only album I can think of that I've ever listened to where the first two tracks are my two least favourite.)

Veronica Mars season 1

"We Used To Be Friends" was always my least favourite of the Dandy Warhols' radio singles, but thanks to its use as the show's theme song, by the time Kristen Bell's Veronica Mars utters those lines about midway through this engrossing first season, "we used to be friends, a long time ago" - in the same rhythm as the song, no less - it carries a charge.

I knew that the show had a sizeable cult following and the concept of high school noir was intriguing (Brick being the only obvious predecessor in that sub-genre), plus Bell was appealingly waspy as Leslie Knope's Eagleton rival in Parks and Rec, so this seemed a likely prospect - and yes, it is very good!

As it turns out, high school is a good setting for a show about a (teen) private investigator - after all, to those living through it, the stakes are high and everything feels meaningful, and there's a ready cast of contrasting types and motivations, not to mention plenty of rules (there to be broken) and mystery. And Veronica Mars (people use her full name a lot) is a terrific character to have at the centre of events - smart, tough and hard-edged while also vulnerable and prone to kindness towards others, an outsider who used to be an insider, and convincingly all of those thing as a function of both personality and (traumatic) events - and while the figures in her orbit vary in interestingness, all are memorable even if only because of their archetypal nature. (I do like Logan; also likeable in a smaller role is Tina Majorino of Napoleon Dynamite fame as Veronica's IT specialist; Alyson Hannigan also flits through two or three episodes as Logan's flighty sister.)

Also notable: issues of class are foregrounded throughout, from the very first line; and it gets right the number of twists, and the balances between lightness and the darker elements, and the overall mystery (who killed Lilly Kane? ... which reminds me that Amanda Seyfried is also good in her many appearances in flashback) and the episode-by-episode investigations into which she's drawn by various schoomates).

Aziz Ansari - Modern Romance

A bit fluffy but pretty much on the money, on a subject about which we are all such great theoreticians. It helped that that I could imagine Tom Haverford while reading it, even though Ansari's own voice and personality obviously differ plenty from the character he plays.

Heather Christle - The Trees The Trees

I've been reading this slim collection for, I think, three or so years now, on and off, and grappled with most of the 58 poems comprising it several times along the way - it's struck a chord, meaning and objects and images and phrases slipping one into each other.

                              THEN WE ARE IN AGREEMENT

                 pick a hand      it has nothing in it      you can keep
                 my hand as long as you need it      you never know
                 what a long day this has turned into     you can say
                 it's only time       but what isn't      maybe if I asked
                 nicely      you would represent me      in court      in
                 the future       in many ways       we are alike      we
                 both have one of my hands     and at least one of us
                 likes it      I won't speak for you      but am honestly
                 waiting         in  hopes that you might  speak for me
                 make statements       deny statements       the vital
                 thing's to make a little noise

(context)

Laura Stevenson - Cocksure

Terrific! Every bit as enjoyable as 2013's Wheel; sweetly, sharply piquant, and nearly every song a miniature - or, in the case of the first and last tracks, not so miniature - epic.

The Hateful Eight

Years of watching Tarantino have trained us all to pay close attention to dialogue, character and set-up (including shifts in apparent power relations) in his films but - unsurprisingly - there was no way of telling how this one would turn out or who (if anyone) would be left standing at the end; that uncertainty, plus the presence and impact of all of the usual technical things that he does so well (including characters and set pieces that, even if sometimes on the thin side in this one, enable their inhabiting actors' charisma to come through[*]), adds up to three hours that never drags. Yet, easy as it was to watch on a Sunday afternoon in a crowded movie theatre, I don't know how much there was to this one, or whether I'd watch it again - I have a suspicion that it might ultimately be hollow, insubstantial.

(w/ Julian - at the Astor and on the 70mm film at the 2.76:1 aspect in which it was shot, complete with program, overture and intermission)

[*] I don't think it was one of her great performances, but it was committed - and it was a treat to see my old favourite Leigh in such fine touch.

"Julian Rosefeldt: Manifesto" (ACMI)

Four video works, dominated by the multi-screen one that gives the exhibition its name - Cate Blanchett in multiple (about a dozen?) characters including teacher, rock star, ballet impresario, dock worker, housewife, news reporter and more, declaiming a range of art movements' manifestos.

Two musical things

1. "Summer Rain", Belinda Carlisle. This evening, out running as it lightly rained. There seem to've been more of these music/life moments over the past six or nine months, which must be a good thing.

2. David Bowie. Generally I'm quite unaffected by the passing of people who I don't know in real life but this one is different - I don't know why. I feel a real sense of loss.

Garbage - Garbage (20th anniversary edition / remastered)

This album was pretty epochal for me and so of course it's good listening to it again, the songs travelling along paths seared into my awareness long ago. The b-sides haven't aged well, though, apart from strong residual affection for "#1 Crush".

"The Biography of Things" (ACCA)

This one pretty much passed me by, sad to say. Nothing here that I could sink my teeth into.

The Lobster

Very good. Still not sure how to read the ending - razor sharp endpoint of critique of idea of relationships as founded on shared qualities, actually romantic (the internet seems to have plumped for this one), or both? Of the big names, Farrell and Seydoux most enjoyable.

(w/ David)

Marissa Nadler - Songs from the Big Wheel

Elegant, clear modern folk.

Grimes - Art Angels

Sinuous, beguiling, brilliant - astonishingly, even better than Visions (which turned out to be seriously excellent as time went on). Every song is good but there's a particularly murderously good run through the record's mid-section from tracks 6 through to 10 - "Kill v Maim", "Artangels", "Easily", "Pin", "REALiTi" - throughout which it feel like she's reached some kind of almost transcendent state of flow, spinning out one glorious piece after another; also particularly blissful is the earlier "Flesh Without Blood".

Artists

... but the real piece of procrastination recently involved exporting my itunes data and then mucking around with excel to get it to tell me which artists I've spent the most time listening to since itunes became a part of my life in around 2007 or 2008.

1. Patty Griffin
2. The National 
3. Aimee Mann
4. Taylor Swift (sure I like her a lot, and listened to Red in particular heaps, but this is still kind of startling)
5. Beach House
6. Buddy Miller (not including his collabs with Julie Miller)
7. The Arcade Fire 
8. Jolie Holland
9. The New Pornographers
10. Laura Cantrell 
11. Robert Plant (another that's a bit of a surprise, but then I have really enjoyed his latter-day run since - and including - Raising Sand)
12. First Aid Kit 
13. Belle and Sebastian 
14. Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea 
15. Lydia Loveless 
16. Spoon 
17. Neko Case 
18. The War on Drugs (this is entirely the one album)
19. Sharon Van Etten  
20. Radiohead 

Anyway, give or take, seems pretty much right, though it was surprising to see what a big gap there was between Patty Griffin and everyone else; turns out I've spent some 158 hours listening to her music, or almost a full week all up - whereas the next on the list, the National, clocks in at 'only' 88 hours, with the rest stepping down in much smaller increments after that. Also, once again, I wish that a 'lifetime' version of this was possible, and not just the last few years!

"74-93 (as culled from Christchurch secondhand cd shop bargain bin, October 2015)"

Much fun on this one - the title of this mix cd from JF self-explanatory (except that they're all Japanese artists). Most enjoyable (some of those titles possibly the results of google translate efforts): "Sky Drew Ball" by Masato Tomobe, melodic singer-songwriter on piano (1993); "Sukiyaki Etoufee" by Makigami Koichi, which is kind of like a lower-fi "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1992); "Eve of Destruction" by RC Succession, which sounds like heartland roots rock with a punk dash, in a good way (1988); "If Purple" by Haruomi Hosono, which is hazily lovely and feels like a precursor to that Squarepusher pair "Tommib" and "Tommib Help Buss" (1987).

Song list

Ok - so it seems like this is now an annual thing too. Procrastinating from writing a couple of other things that I really should, update on my most frequently played songs according to itunes (it would be nice if there was some way of working out the stats over, say, a 12 month period rather than just for the whole of my itunes-using time).

1. (12 months ago: #1) Different Worlds - Brittany Cairns (215 plays)
2. (2) This World Can Make You Happy - Amaya Laucirica (140)
3. (3) 100 Million Little Bombs - Buddy Miller (138)
4. (4) State of Grace - Taylor Swift (133)
5. (5) New Year - Beach House (126)
6. (7) 23 - Blonde Redhead (122)
7. (8) Useless Desires - Patty Griffin (117)
8. (6) It Must Come Through - Jen Cloher and the Endless Sea (116)
9. (9) The Mother We Share - Chvrches (112)
10. (=15) Slow Show - The National (110)
11. (10) Starry Skies - Laura Cantrell (104)
12. (11) Out Loud - Mindy Smith (102)
13. (12) Aeroplane - The Everybodyfields (100)
=14. (new) Learn To Say No - Lydia Loveless (99)
=14. (=15) No Bad News - Patty Griffin (99)
16. (new) Vez Primera - Carla Morrison (94)
17. (14) Sweet Talk - Jessie Ware (93)
=18. (=15) Don't Tell Me - Buddy Miller (92)
=18. (=15) Godspell - The Cardigans (92)
=18. (13) Coming Home To Me - Patty Griffin feat Julie Miller (92)
21. (19) Red - Taylor Swift (91)
22. (=20) You Keep Me Hangin' On - Janelle Arthur (88)
23. (=25) From This Moment On - Shania Twain (86)
=24. (=25) Afraid of Nothing - Sharon Van Etten (83)
=24. (=20) Even Though I'm A Woman - Seeker Lover Keeper (83)
=26. (=28) Wild Old Dog - Patty Griffin (82)
=26. (=23) Manchester - Kishi Bashi (82)
=26. (=37) Bloodbuzz Ohio - The National (82)
=29. (=28) Circumambient - Grimes (81)
=29. (=28) Hey, Snow White - The New Pornographers (81)
=29. (=28) I Couldn't Be Your Friend - Tegan and Sara (81)
=32. (=28) I Don't Ever Give Up - Patty Griffin (80)
=32. (=25) The Bleeding Heart Show - The New Pornographers (80)
=34. (=23) Ode to LRC - Band of Horses (79)
=34. (=20) Blue Lips - Regina Spektor (79)
=36. (=45) Let's Get Out Of This Country - Camera Obscura (78)
=36. (=35) I Got Nothing - Dum Dum Girls (78)
=36. (=28) All I Can - Sharon Van Etten (78)
=39. (=42) Strong Enough - Haim (77)
=39. (=45) Abducted - Cults (77)
=41. (=50) Fake Empire - The National (76)
=41. (=35) I Think I Broke Something - Dan Rohmer and Benh Zeitlin (76)
=41. (34) Don't Let Me Die in Florida - Patty Griffin (76)
=44. (new...though actually a re-entry) Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson (75)
=44. (=37) Mexico City - Jolie Holland (75)
46. (=42) Red Eyes - The War on Drugs (73)
47. (=39) Burgundy Shoes - Patty Griffin (72)
=48. (=39) Lie in the Sound - Trespassers William (71)
=48. (=39) Modern Love - The Last Town Chorus (71)
=48. (=42) With God On Our Side - Buddy Miller (71)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars has never been a big part of my life, which probably goes a fair way to explaining why, while I found this one entertaining, somehow it wasn't particularly exciting.

(w/ Andreas)

Bits and pieces from Singapore

Quick wrap from impromptu dash to Singapore between Christmas and new year's:

At the Art Science Museum, "Collider: The World's Greatest Experiment" & "The Nobel Prize: Ideas Changing the World". Both a bit heavy on the 'facts' side for me, though both made noble (ha ha) attempts to present their content interestingly and interactively. The highlight for me was really an add-on to the 'Collider' exhibition (which is about the Large Hadron Collider underground at the Swiss-French border, with a history of particle physics thrown in), a piece called "The Gift of Mass", described thus: "This immersive audio-visual installation invites the visitors to live the impossible experience of acquiring their own mass. The visitors go virtually from a Universe in which particules having no mass move without distinguishing themselves, to a Universe where mass is formed through an invisible sea, the Higgs Field" - as you walk towards the screen, your body acquires mass and form via coloured projection.

At a small gallery called Deck, "To Measure the Depth of the Ocean", showcasing the work of five important modern Singapore photographers. My favourite was Foo Tee Jun.

Across the several exhibitions at the Singapore Art Museum, a contemporary art gallery (works from across south-east Asia but a focus on Singapore), a few that stood out were Ho Tzu Nyen's "No Man", an video installation with projections of fantastically costumed figures on both of a pair of mirrored walls facing each other in a darkened room, Matthew Ngui's "Every Point of View", a forest of pipes exploring ideas of democracy, Heman Chong's "Calendars (2020-2096)", Sarah Choo Jing's "The Hidden Dimension II" (detail still below and video here) and Loo Zihan's installation "Of Public Interest: The Singapore Art Museum Resource Room", particularly for the reasons given by previous visitors for withdrawing particular books from circulation.

Also, in a slightly different vein, the soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides completely hitting the spot as I sat outside by myself in the heat one evening after a dusk-ish ride on the Singapore Flyer (I'm drawn to ferris wheels, I don't know why).

China Mieville - Three Moments of an Explosion

Excellent collection of cerebral Mieville weirdness, with each story (some of them are very short) built around something substantial and often fascinating - an idea, an image, a question. Shot through with concerns of class and politics both structural and personal. Icebergs over London, lost oil rigs breeding and returning to shore to feed, slantwise reinterpretations of existing paintings revealing uncanny new objects, people are infected by a condition that manifests in trenches appearing around them if they remain still for too long, several hauntings, and much, much more.

Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games series

Still leanly pacy and sharply satirical; coming back to these after the movies makes me realise actually what a good job they did in translating the book's spirit, plot and characters to the big screen - how faithful the adaptation was.

(previous time: 1, 2, 3)

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

Nirvana and Cobain were never any more big a deal for me than they were for everyone else of more or less my age and sensibilities - ie still quite a big deal but, in my case, in more of a diffused and generalised way than imbued with a huge amount of personal meaning. So I didn't expect this documentary to particularly affect me, and it didn't (although it uses its home videos and other personal sources well), but what it did do was remind me of the whole grunge thing, how messy it actually was before it became completely packaged and mainstreamed and all that.

John Higgs - Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the 20th Century

Chewed through this during recent trip. Enjoyable skate through some of the biggest ideas - of various kinds - to have shaped the century and does a good job of both organising them into sensible chapters and highlighting both expected and less obvious connections: relativity, modernism, war, individualism, id, uncertainty, science fiction, nihilism, space, sex, teenagers, chaos, growth, postmodernism, network.

Terry Pratchett - The Shepherd's Crown

The last Discworld novel. Truth be told, I thought it was fine without being that great, but that seems almost beside the point in any number of ways.

Randall Griffin - Georgia O'Keeffe (Phaidon)

I spend a lot of time leafing through and reading bits of books about art and artists, but don't tend to get through many from start to finish; this one was an exception, aided by the straightforwardness and brevity of the text (which I found a bit unsatisfying for those same reasons, but catch 22 I guess) and how much I love O'Keeffe (since to a very large extent, I respond to her paintings in themselves and without needing any particular context for them).

Community season 5

Sharp!