The Adventures of Dangerous Meredith

Funny Business in 'Kids From Shaolin'

2010-03-25T11:55:00.002+11:00

Or “Is that a mountain in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me”

Kids from Shaolin is, first and foremost, a rambunctious martial arts adventure that is suitable for the whole chopsockie viewing family. Its wholesomeness is genuine and its intention to entertain appears to be paramount and I don’t think the filmmakers intended to give the audience any deep and meaningful subtexts to winkle out. This film wears its heart on its sleeve and what you see is what you get. But, apart from virtuoso displays of wushu, cute kids and a heartwarming story, what I think you see and get in the movie is lots to do with sex. Being a film intended for a general audience Kids from Shaolin never gets near to explicitly showing us the sexual act – the characters never even attempt to kiss each other or allude to intimate relations in any way. But the sexuality of the characters is a constant theme in this film, and is depicted in a way that is appropriate to the level of maturation in those characters.

In relation to the prepubescent child characters perhaps ‘sexuality’ is not a word some readers of this blog (if there are any) will feel comfortable with. What I am actually talking about here in regards to these young characters is the un-self-conscious curiosity in bodies that sometimes informs children’s play and which will, given a decade and the right mix of hormones and healthy psychological development, form part of the basis of an emerging adolescent sexuality. An example of this is the scene where the kids, in the rough and tumble of their everyday play (and as fledgling martial artists the tumbling gets mighty elaborate), sometimes, in all innocence, cop a feel of each other. There is a scene where the Shaolin boys and Wudang girls are playing a game where a blindfolded child has to grab, feel and guess the identity of another child. The scandalized Wudang father interrupts this game just as a Shaolin boy, sitting astride one of his Wudang daughters, is groping his way down her face and chest and is about to accidentally grab her tiny boobs. In other scenes, in the spirit of unembarrassed enquiry with which kids have been disconcerting adults for eons, the children in this movie also spy on each other taking a pee, and shout questions about a baby’s genitals across a river.

On his website, Jet Li has this to say about the inspiration for Kids from Shaolin:
The genesis of the storyline for Shaolin Kids was our own youthful mischief. The writers asked us actors about our experiences and we told them about what it was like to grow up in a wushu school. They took these anecdotes of playfulness and friendship, of teasing and tricks, and fashioned them into a narrative… the stories themselves are timeless: about girls and boys training together and growing up together. I like to think that the film conveys that feeling of camaraderie and joviality. (http://jetli.com/jet/index.php?l=en&s=work&ss=essays&p=2)

There is nothing in the above quote to suggest that Jet Li was thinking about sexual development when he said this. I think that this quote reflects the atmosphere of innocence in the film, which does indeed convey “that feeling of camaraderie and joviality.” For me, alongside the “teasing and tricks” that are shown, there is, for the film’s younger characters, that beginning of an awareness of bodies, and gender differences and the part these will play in human relationships.

As the characters get older, the depictions of sexuality become flavoured by a more adolescent or adult sense of knowing and self-awareness. The film handles the gradation of this depiction well. In between the innocent child and more knowing adult characters are the adolescent Lung San (played by Jet Li) and his eventual love interest, the tomboy Phoenix (played by Wong Chau Yin). The ages of these characters are never stated outright but their behaviour indicates that they seem to be in their late teens. Their sexuality is nascent – something that is just delicately coming into play in their consciousness. At the beginning of the film they are shown as not being able to figure out what to do with this, and by the end of the film, while they have not exactly gotten to the acknowledged holding hands stage, you get the sense that there has been a progression and that they are more comfortable with their emerging feelings for each other.
This progression is shown in many instances throughout the film. In an early scene, Lung San sits musingly on a river bank and, upon being asked by his chirpy little brothers what is wrong, says wistfully that he wants a phoenix, but the look of puzzlement on his face as he says this gives you the sense that he hasn’t quite worked out why. A nice device that is used a couple of times in the script is having Lung San come close to an admission of partiality for Phoenix but then converting it into a professed interest in something else. In this instance, when he says that he wants a Phoenix he then follows this up with a statement that what he wants is a wife for his father. We are left in teasing doubt as to whether he was actually thinking all along of the individual named Phoenix, or whether he was using phoenix as a euphemism for any woman for his Dad (or maybe also for himself). Later in the film he shoots a longing look at the tomboy Phoenix but then announces that what he actually wants is to learn her family’s Wudang style of swordplay. You are given the distinct impression that he is definitely interested in Phoenix but is too shy and perhaps too unaware of the nature of his interest to be able to articulate it yet.
A dramatic scene in the film is where Lung San demands to be thrown into the river along side Phoenix in order to share a punishment. His espoused reason for doing this indicates that it is a gesture of fellowship and camaraderie that she has earnt for selflessly backing up his course of action in an earlier scene. However, it also comes across as a rashly and extravagantly emotional gesture, symptomatic of a hotheaded up-and-coming hero in the grip of his first serious crush. Fortunately for Phoenix, it turns out to be a cover for a rescue plan and she is smuggled to a safe hiding place in a cave. When her father storms in to drag her back home (and perhaps to face further severe punishment) Lung San desperately protests and tries to prevent him. The viewer gets the sense that he is genuinely altruistically concerned about her welfare, but you also feel that, deep down, he just doesn’t want her to go.

Before the Wudang father’s appearance, Lung San and Phoenix are shown sparring. The ostensible reason for this is that Phoenix wants to repay Lung San for rescuing her by teaching him Wudang swordsmanship. However, the soft and graceful choreography shows a harmonious exchange of energy between these 2 teenagers rather than a brutal exchange of blows between combatants, and this suggests an equivalent harmonious exchange of feeling between the 2. Up until this scene, fights between these 2 have been a series of instances of one up man ship. Alongside the melting quality of movement of the fight in the cave, you get a sense of a melting of antagonism between these characters, and a new keenness for and enjoyment of their opportunity to physically engage with one another in some way.

Phoenix is shown in a feminine light in this cave scene – she wears a pretty frock and her mannerisms are gentle and softened. In the best patriarchal traditions it is implied that her rescue by Lung San has made it possible for her to abandon her tomboy ways and to capitulate to her feminine side. When we first see her in the film she is aggressive and controlling, and eager to enter into combat with Lung San in order to humiliate him. In an emasculating gesture she cuts the crotch of his pants so that we can see his undies during one such fight. However, her affected machismo is shown to be brittle. When she is dunked into the river by the boys she can’t cope. When a reluctant and embarrassed Lung San is nearly tricked into giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by his little brothers, she cries and runs away. Her progression towards being more ‘womanly’ (as depicted within the cultural confines of this film) is obviously being shown by the filmmakers as favourable and necessary.

Some action in between the scenes mentioned in the paragraph above and the cave scene shows a Lion Dance sequence, and indicates this progression of Phoneix’s feelings towards Lung San, and an acceptance of his (old fashioned Chinese) masculine prerogative to come to her rescue. In this scene, Lung San and a brother are performing in a Lion Dance alongside Phoenix and her sister. When it becomes apparent that the girls can’t match the physical robustness of the boys, Phoenix regretfully accepts Lung San’s proposal to improvise some Lion type business to cover up the female lion’s collapse in front of the audience. Instead of competing in acrobatics, therefore, Lung San’s lion is shown snuffling and licking the stricken female Lion while it lies on the ground. In order to keep up the act, the girls’ cause their lion to wriggle and vibrate, supposedly with pleasure. These actions between the 2 Lions are every bit as playfully innocent as an act between 2 large (for want of a better word) muppets can be. But the canoodling between the 2 lions is also just the teensiest bit sexy in its sensual and animal way, and reminds us that during the course of a human life simple acts of play can become something more loaded as we grow from children to teenagers to adults.

The next age group up from these teenagers consists of Phoenix’s 2 older sisters, Lung San’s adoptive uncle and (slightly older) adoptive father. These characters are shown to be focused on one of the most pressing and absorbing happenings in a young adult’s life within the cultural setting of the film – namely that of getting married. Lung San’s uncle and father are (reciprocally) in love with and want to marry Phoenix’s older sisters. These 2 young women have evidently decided that they are ready for the Most Important Adventure of a Young Woman’s Life as they are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to steal away to bat their eyelashes at their suitors and to help their mother persuade their father to their marriage with the Shaolin men. The Shaolin men go about their shy courting in an honourable and traditional manner but leave us with no doubt that they have strong feelings for their intended wives. In fact, you get the impression that after 10 chaste years of hard work on the farm and raising 10 foundlings they are, in the nicest possible way, gagging for it. One couple even elopes; such is their desire for their marriage. Fortunately for these couples, the final scene of the movie depicts their wedding.

Finally, there are the Wudang parents who have been grimly procreating away and churning out baby after baby in their quest to GET A SON GODDAMMIT! The Wudang mother is an engaging character who is something of a gynecological miracle. She gives birth to a daughter and then, when this baby is only a few months old, falls pregnant again. Even though this foetus is only 3 months old the mother is already showing. As this marvel of fertility, she is an embodiment of an important aspect of sexuality within the culture in which this film is set. She and her husband’s sexuality are all about producing children.

In Kids from Shaolin the characters flirt, tease, propose marriage, elope, wed and give birth. The dialogue contains earnest discussions of childbearing, tonics for women’s gynecological health, dowries, and the feng shui significance of the phallic shaped mountains. Even the villains of the film, a group of bandits who attempt a raid, are motivated, in part, by wanting to carry off the Wudang daughters. Actually, I find the bandits’ slathering references to the Wudang daughters’ little waists and big bottoms and their attempts to carry these same girls off in the final fight as a bit creepy in this day and age – a lot of those girls are underage!

Sex is never graphically depicted in this film and, in fact, many kung fu movies I have seen have been very coy about dealing with intimate relations between adults. But I think that, as wholesome and family orientated as this film is, it is very much about sex. Sex gently pervades this film and quietly bubbles along under the surface of the narrative, providing one powerful motivation for its characters. I think it’s sweet. So many western movies depict sex as a dramatic and possibly dangerous force – a thing responsible for divorce, violence, despair and Fatal Attraction type creepiness. It is nice to watch a film where sex is seen as important – as a force for romantic bonding and the means to have a family – but is also seen as something that just happens alongside the other normal human activities of play, training and work.

Shaolin temple 2: Kids from Shaolin

2010-03-25T11:51:00.001+11:00

In which I compare Kids from Shaolin to The Sound of Music and other musicals

Jet Li’s 2nd Shaolin Temple film is not exactly a sequel to the first but it brings us a similar brand of high kicking action in the same type of historical setting. Perhaps the words “high kicking” are quite apposite when describing the Shaolin Temple films as they not only refer to the wushu in these films but also a certain kinship they have with Hollywood musicals. In his book Kung Fu Cult Masters, Leon Hunt has this to say about Kids from Shaolin:
“In Kids from Shaolin / Shaolin Xia Zi (1984), the Shaolin and Wu Dang play out a bizarre kung fu version of 7 Brides for 7 Brothers, with… musical interludesi and scenery fetishism” p 74

While the 7 Brides for 7 Brothers comparison is apt I would also compare this film with The Sound of Music. A lot of the characters are little kids who show the same talent for wushu that the Von Trapp littlies show for singing. I could even draw a long bow and compare the effect the youngsters make sartorially - in The Sound of Music, Maria dresses her charges in clothes she makes out of floral curtains, in Kids From Shaolin the youngsters are distinguished by some of the most outlandish hair styles in the history of cinema. Both films feature lush and mountainous scenery, although the landscape in The Sound of Music does not have the same overt phallic significance as the peaks in Kids from Shaolin (hence Hunt’s reference to scenery fetishism).

The young performers in Kids from Shaolin do some pretty amazing martial arts (as do the adult members of the cast). A lot of the business in this film is devoted to showing the kids involved in lots of wushu style jolly japes and high jinks. Jet Li’s character is older brother to about 9 boys and he has a nice rapport with the lads. But be warned – with Jet’s boys plus a further 5 young, female children (plus 2 babies) in the cast there is a lot of kiddie energy in this film and the cuteness quotient is enormously high. I suggest repeat viewings of The Sound of Music, as well as McCauley Culkin, Shirley Temple and Margaret O’Brien films to deaden your nerves and acclimatize yourself to the heady heights of saccharine coyness that Kids from Shaolin climbs.

Don’t worry – you WILL enjoy Kids from Shaolin more than those other films. Just when the wee tackers start to become a bit too shrill and cloying, a kick arse fight scene happens and the cuteness factor comes under control. I recently saw Meet Me in St Louis starring Judy Garland and Margaret O’Brien and I was rather bored by it. What it needed to give it some zip, in my opinion, was a few good kung fu fights.

I have always thought that Hollywood musicals and kung fu movies are quite similar beasts in a wayii. In a musical the cast break into a song and dance routine every 5 minutes and this is similar to the frequency with which fight scenes are found in martial arts movies. One of the many charms of Hollywood musicals is that they transport their audiences into a parallel universe. This universe is familiar to our own (in either a current or historical setting) but it is a world in which it is normal to break into an elaborately staged musical number at regular intervals, and where even passers by happen to have beautiful voices and stunning dance abilities. Kung fu movies also take place in a parallel universe where a certain amount of the population are martial arts masters, and it is to be expected to see people flying through the air, perching on the top of bamboo stalks or catching bullets in their hands. During my recent reading I was delighted to find out that this parallel universe was actually given a name in wuxia (or swordplay) novels and films – jianghu. Here is a definition of jianghu – I got it off Wikipedia so it must be true:
Jiānghú ( Cantonese: gòng wùh) is the milieu, environment, or sub-community, often fictional, in which many Chinese classical wuxia stories are set… Jianghu is an alternative universe coexisting with the actual historical one in which the context of the wuxia genre was set…Wulin is a term referring to the smaller microcosm within Jianghu. Inhabitants of wulin are clearly differentiated from those within Jianghu, in that they all know some form of wushu or martial arts. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jianghu)

When discussing these films with acquaintances (who all seem to think I am mad for liking them) one of the criticisms that are leveled at chopsockies is that the acting is dreadful. (I am always amazed and dismayed at how dismissive people are of kung fu movies. And quite often these same people, on careful questioning, reveal that they haven’t actually seen many kung fu movies. “Oh, I saw half an hour of some Bruce Lee movie once. Didn’t like it. And I’ve seen Rush Hour” they will say airily, before going on to condemn all kung fu movies in sweeping and damning terms.) I actually don’t think that it is reasonable to make this generalization about the acting being bad. Quite often what these acquaintances are criticizing is a style of acting that is more theatrical or mannered or exaggerated than they are used to. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that this makes the acting bad – it is just an acting style that sits in a different frame of cultural reference. I think that this might be where a lot of kung fu movie casts betray their Peking Opera influences and even training. I also think it’s helpful to compare the acting in Hollywood Musicals to that in kung fu movies. Picture, in your mind’s eye, Doris Day as Calamity Jane or Gene Kelly and Co in Singing in the Rain – their acting styles are pitched big and could not be called subtle or naturalistic but are, at the same time, absolutely appropriate to the art form in which they are performing. If you are performing material that is geared towards the elaborate and excessive, and if your performance technique has to incorporate not only the delivery of spoken text but also virtuoso physical performance then you need to pitch your acting style to a level where the transition from speaking a line of dialogue one moment to doing an extreme physical movement the next is seamless and appears to be organic. Or if you are interpreting a character who inhabits jianghu, then your performance technique has to sit comfortably with the fantastic actions that take place within this parallel universe. This applies equally to Operetta, Peking Opera, Hollywood Musicals or Kung Fu movies.

There is little naturalism or subtlety in the acting styles of the cast of Kids from Shaolin. But this simply doesn’t matter. This is a high-energy and dynamic film that needs a big and bouncy approach to performance from its cast in order to complement the displays of wushu, the film’s fantasy setting, exotic art direction, enjoyably silly plotline, and the abundantly youthful spirit of its cast.

Footnotes:
i In terms of the “musical interludes” I find it a bit disconcerting how the characters break into song early in Kids from Shaolin - Jet Li, for example, mimes fruitily to a shrill and reedy tenor.

ii On the Yes Asia website I found this glorious quote about Martial Arts from Shaolin, which is the next installment in Jet Li’s Shaolin Temple films:
Internationally lauded as one of the greatest, this magnificent martial arts masterpiece marked the titanic, one-time only, teaming of renowned champion Jet Li (Romeo Must Die) with legendary director Lau Kar-Leung. The two mount unforgettable battles in the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and even on the Yangtze River with a kung-fu cast of hundreds. If the brilliant American musical director Busby Berkeley knew kung fu, this spectacular, eye-filling epic might be the movie he would have made.
http://www.yesasia.com/global/martial-arts-of-shaolin/1003909792-0-0-0-en/info.html
And I don’t think that I am the only one who is interested in the kinship between chopsockies and musicals. Leon Hunt in Kung Fu Cult Masters discusses this theme a few times (…there are points of convergence…) and refers to other critics who write about it.

Kids from Shaolin: Final fight scene

2010-03-25T11:49:00.001+11:00

This fight scene is a doozy. It’s a corker. The mother of all bar room brawls. Except it’s a Chinese mansion brawl. It’s 15 minutes long and it’s wild. All the characters get involved, as the Shaolin and Wudang families combine to drive off a troop of outrageously dressed and sexually rabid bandits. Not just the men (young and old) but also the young women (prettily dressed in pastel coloured clothes and elaborately coiffed hairstyles) and the cute kids all get stuck in. Even a crying (if not fighting) baby is present, clutched in the arms of its mother, a matronly figure who contributes to the melee by fetching a villain a right ding over the head with a brass bed pan. People fight with swords, poles, rope darts, spears, shields with razor sharp edges, a stick with a claw on the end, a slingshot, the odd household utensil and, of course, fists and feet. They fight in the garden around a dinky little bridge and water feature, in the living room and in the bedroom, on windowsills, cabinets, altars, through screens and curtains, over door jambs, on beds and under tables. The fighting styles seem to be an amalgamation of not only wushu but also some acrobatics, gymnastics and ballet (as an ex hoofer I can even name some of the positions for God’s sakes).

One nice section features Jet Li fighting 2 bandits with not only poles and swords but also the 3 section staff. Although this is a very brutal looking weapon that looks as if it could inflict some truly nasty damage on the average human body I love watching people fight with it. To my mind (and God knows I am no martial artist so please indulge me here) it looks like an implement that earns itself the title of ‘Weapon Most Likely To Flip Back And Break Its User’s Own Nose Or Ribs’. In other words, it looks as if it’s bloody hard to control, and to see it controlled so well and to such an aesthetically pleasing end is exhilarating for the viewer. It’s a weapon that lends itself to fluid and swift choreography and when you watch performers as agile and deft as those in this film then it can be a great weapon to see in action. In Kids from Shaolin you have not just Jet but the 2 bandits using it at the same time and it is an amazing display of skill.

Another thing I love about this fight scene is that, even while the camera is focusing your attention on some characters fighting in the foreground, you can glimpse and hear multiple groups of characters skirmishing in the background. This contributes to the scene’s out of control, frenetic energy and adds to the overall impression of outrageousness and excitement.
Many years ago I went to the ballet and, at the end, a stranger sitting near me suddenly turned and exclaimed to me “I just love to see what the human body can do!” Ballet, contemporary dance, circus arts and martial arts movies all show us just what a highly talented and trained human body can do, and in Kids from Shaolin in general, and in this final fight scene in particular we are shown the human body engaged in true, gobsmacking virtuosity.

Shaolin Temple 2: Kids from Shaolin (A list of random thoughts about this film)

2010-03-25T11:46:00.001+11:00

Repeat cast: Some of the cast from Shaolin Temple also have notable parts in this film. It is good to see Hu Jian Qiang (as the Shaolin uncle) and Sun Jian Kui (the impostor priest) do well in different roles to their monks of the first film. Hai Yu again plays an earnest and devoted father figure, and the gloriously elegant Yu Cheng Hui is great as the crotchety Wudang patriarch.i

The way the films look: The 3 Shaolin Temple films’ sets and costumes strike me (ensconced on a couch in suburban Melbourne in my tracky dackies) as gloriously bright and colourful. I find the lure of what I perceive to be the exotic in these films to be irresistible.

Jet in drag: Jet Li drags up for a few films, including Martial Arts of Shaolin and Dr Wai in the Scripture with no words. In this one he dons a dress and wig to pretend to be a maidservant. He really shouldn’t. When I saw each of these films for the first time I honestly thought it was a woman, and it always took me a few seconds to recognize Jet. When he was young he was much too pretty to get away with this kind of caper and looked disconcertingly good in a frock and makeup. I have noticed a fair bit of cross-dressing in the martial arts films I have seen. In his book, Chasing Dragons, David West has this to say about it:
“This convention can be traced back to Come Drink with Me, and it reflects a Peking Opera sensibility, wherein men played female roles and the audience was expected to accept their impersonation without question” (p 118)

Femo Nazis beware! The female sex gets a bad rap in this film. The patriarch of the Wudang family has 9 fine, healthy, beautiful daughters but he spends most of the film complaining bitterly about how unfortunate he is because he doesn’t have a son. I guess this is just one of those insurmountable cultural differences that a western lassie like me has to put up with (although not necessarily like) in order to watch, and otherwise be entertained by, this film. To be fair, the patriarch seems to be more reconciled to having all these daughters by the end of the film but this is only after he has
Finally had a son
Nearly drowned a daughter
Nearly had all of these daughters carried off by bandits

Only in a kung fu movie: Of course there are some of those wonderfully bizarre touches that fans of this genre love. For example – a dandy bandit masquerading as a cross eyed Taoist priest disguises himself as an Indian guru in order to dump a baby in a sack and a handful of snakes in a cave. As you do. We are given no explanation as to why this happens.

Good acting in the scene in the cave – the one where Jet’s character is trying to prevent Phoenix from returning home to a possibly dangerous situation. In his desperation he ends up throwing a tantrum in front of his adoptive father. Hai Yu, who contributes a nicely understated and sympathetic performance to this scene, plays the latter. This underscores Jet’s highly emotional performance, which isn’t just all about yelling – the look in his eyes convinces you that he really feels desperate. It is an affecting moment between these characters, and contains an indication of the strong and persuasive actor a more mature Jet would become.

A note about the choreography: In many kung fu films that I see I am struck by the way the choreography references and is informed by the setting in which it takes place. I love the way the choreographers use props, furniture, built structures and landscapes to shape their work, and their choreographic responses to these things are often wonderfully creative. There are elements of this in this film, for example:
The way the performers move over and around the rock formations during the fight scenes in the cave,
The use of household implements, furniture, garden and architecture in the mansion in the final fight scene
And even the shenanigans between the kids on the bridge and beside the river.

Footnotes:
i Apologies for spelling mistakes and incorrect word order in these names. I find tracking down the right names in these movies to be a nightmare. For one thing, when the credits roll, I am never sure if I am looking at the character’s name on the right and the actor’s name on the left hand side of the screen or vice versa. Then, when I see these names written down on websites like IMDB I am never sure if they are following the Chinese practice of putting the family name first and the given name second, or the western practice with the reverse order.

Shaolin Temple: Random Thoughts 2

2010-03-25T11:43:00.002+11:00

My favourite action sequence in Shaolin Temple is the drunken boxing duel between Jet Li and Yu Cheng Hui. It is breath taking. I am partial to this kind of dance-like material in martial arts films and for me this drunken boxing scene is the highlight of a film that is packed full of great physical feats.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a martial artist so when I comment on things like drunken boxing I am not attempting to assess them in terms of martial arts technique. I am commenting on them aesthetically and in terms of choreographic and performance techniques.

In this movie the viewer (and Jet Li’s character) is introduced to this form by a solo demonstration by Sun Jian Kui (who plays one of the monks). This solo demonstration is an expression of his character’s melancholy (which has resulted from the death of his wife and child). Later in the movie Jet’s character goes to avenge his father’s death and discovers a female acquaintance of his is being held prisoner by the very man he wants to kill: an evil general who is rolling drunk. Spurred on by his need for vengeance and his decision to rescue the girl he starts dueling with the general and, in order to match the inebriated general’s drunken sword (and therefore to get the better of the general’s unpredictably dangerous movements) he counterattacks with the drunken pole he saw earlier in the film. This fight scene has been well entwined with the sequence of events in the plot and the characters’ motivationsi. In later group fight scenes we see Sun Jian Kui again using this form, thereby neatly referencing earlier uses in the film of drunken boxingii.

But, for me, all of this fades into the background when I watch these 2 men fight. Drunken pole allows Li to show off his innately fluid quality of movement and his ability to negotiate his way through a passage of movement with precision, grace and energy. The quirky beauty of the choreography brings out these qualities (which are present to some extent in all his fight scenes in all his films) to their full measure.

But who is Yu Cheng Hui? He is featured in all 3 of the Shaolin Temple films but I can’t find any information on him. Compared to the other actors he is very tall and long limbed. I would have expected someone with this lanky build to move awkwardly but instead his movement signature seems to be one of elegance, swiftness and agility. As well as being an entertainingly flamboyant actor of great presence his physical movements are extraordinarily beautiful to watch. In terms of build he is a contrast to the shorter and more compact Jet, but they are equally matched in terms of gracefulness and poise and this is what makes this fight scene so unforgettable.

Footnotes:
i Actually I think the fight scenes in this movie are quite well integrated into the plot.

ii This referencing is welcome in a film that largely lacks choreographic cohesion. In Jet Li’s blog on www.jetli.com he explains that Shaolin Temple was not choreographed by any one fight director but as a collaborative effort between cast members.

Shaolin Temple: Random Thoughts

2010-03-25T11:39:00.002+11:00

I have 2 DVD versions of this movie and one of them is on a compilation disc of 10 Jet Li movies. It cost me $20. That’s $2 a movie, which may explain why the subtitles for Shaolin Temple belong to a completely different film – apparently a schmaltzy melodrama about a young American couple called Tony and Joan. The subtitles are of the “But gosh, Joanie, what’s your father gonna say. He was dead set on you marryin’ a lawyer” type of bilge. The accompaniment of 1950s middle American declamation to a martial arts epic set in Tang dynasty China is actually quite hilarious. For example, when a bunch of villainous soldiers are about to search for Jet Li in the Shaolin temple graveyard, according to the subtitles the instruction their commander furnishes them with is “Make him marry you”, which is almost certainly not what is being said in the actual soundtrack. I wonder if Tony and Joan’s movie is mystifying some DVD watcher somewhere with subtitles that say things like “What a wild girl – kill her sheep!” or an allusion to someone drinking ram’s penis soup as an aphrodisiac. This would cast quite a different pall over the doings of the psychologically stodgy Tony and Joan and no doubt disrupt the viewing pleasure of a fan of drawing room dramas. I have no pity for them. I think they deserve it.

But given the choice of watching either a movie about the dreary Joan and Tony or Shaolin Temple and I know which one I would rather pick. When I come trudging home from another grey day in my little grey life the last thing I want to do is to subject myself to 2 hours of turgid, middle class soap opera. The colour and dynamism of movies like Shaolin Temple are a shot in the arm for me.

And there is colour and dynamism aplenty in Shaolin Temple. To this old cougar’s delight, the temple seems to be populated by exquisitely toned, shiny young men. And the most exquisite and shiny of them all is, of course, a young and pretty Jet Li making his screen debut. Critic Elvis Mitchell has this to say about him:
In his debut film, Shaolin Temple, you know that you’re watching something new and very different. Usually when you see somebody that young bursting onto the scene there’s almost a sense of them jumping up and down with excitement; and that self-contained quality that you see in Jet Li to this very day begins in Shaolin Temple.i

I don’t completely agree with the first part of this statement – I get the feeling that little Jet is about to burst out of his skin with excitement in this film. But I do agree that that air of self-containment is also very much present. What is interesting for me is to compare his performance in this film with those in more recent films like The Warlords, Fearless or Danny the Dog; and to track his progress towards being a mature performer whose interpretations are marked by nuance, authority and sensitivity in the films in between. But Mitchell is right to comment on the sense of self-containment in the adolescent Jet in Shaolin Temple. It is palpably there, and was to be bedrock he could build his actor’s skills onii.

Don’t get me wrong - Jet acquits himself well in his first film. Naturally, his displays of wushu are superb and in terms of his acting his performance is good – earnest and expressive. What his acting lacks in subtlety at this stage of his career (and, in my opinion, he would develop into a very subtle actor very quickly) he more than makes up for in high animal spirits and, of course, physical ability. And subtlety perhaps isn’t required here as this film, like so many chop sockies, has a melodramatic script and over the top physical antics that call for a big, demonstrative acting style.

Kudos to the supporting cast: those beautiful, shiny boys contribute really amazing displays of martial arts virtuosity. There are some fantastic performers among the older cast as well. Hai Yu is endearing as the doughty Sifuiii, and his stocky body conveys a sense of refined power during his performances of martial arts. And Yu Cheng Hui is wonderful to watch as the villain of the piece.

The physical virtuosity of the performers and the sense of energy that they invest in their performances (physical and dramatic) are important in this film as they compensate for a lack of choreographic cohesiveness that can be seen in other, more sophisticated martial arts films.iv
Displays of physical mastery are what drive this film along and, for me, give it its main appeal. Early in the film we see the monks training with various weapons. This adds little to plot or character explication and is really just an excuse to show us a lot of super fit lads doing loads of tricks. It’s still bloody amazing to watch, though, and, as such, is highly entertaining.v
Shaolin Temple vibrates with an almost manic energy from beginning to end, as its characters bounce from one potboiling situation to another. It is packed with displays of physical prowess that couch potatoes like me can only marvel at. It is the perfect tonic for any grey day.

Footnotes:
i Taken from the Special Features of the Dragon Dynasty release of Tai Chi Master.

ii I actually have a theory that this quality was refined through the type of focus that training in and performing a physical discipline calls for.

iii I find myself wondering what Buddhists would make of this film. Even though many of the characters are Buddhist monks they seem to play fast and loose with Buddhist precepts. Sifu smilingly rationalizes the killing of animals and soldiers but hey! anything for a good movie.

iv Jet Li had this to say about the choreographic process for this film in the essay ‘We didn’t know how movies were made’ on www.jetli.com :
We didn't know how movies were made. And there were no action choreographers. Instead, the director told us the basic story, and we took what we had learned in class to design our own fight scenes. …We didn't know any better and we had no experience, so we made up most of it ourselves. It was a good learning experience.

v Hot fighting tip: next time I am trying to defend myself remind me to do a series of backward somersaults with each one landing on the crown of my head. Without using my hands. This is apparently a marvellous defence strategy.

can I import other blogs into this blog?

2010-02-12T14:35:00.000+11:00

can I import other blogs into this blog?

friction

2009-11-26T15:05:00.002+11:00

This is another old blog of mine that was originally posted on 360. The events it describes happened a couple of years ago. They stick vividly in my memory.

I met a wanker on Thursday night – a real one.

I had just had a lovely evening with friends at an event at RMIT University. I currently live in North Melbourne, and can walk from my home to RMIT in 15-20 minutes, which takes less time than catching public transport. And at night it feels safer too – I would rather walk along a well-lit and busy street than wait alone on a tram stop for ages, being scrutinised by every bloke driving by in his car. I feel like a target then.

A few blocks from my home a man quickly cut across the street and intercepted my path. He was well dressed in slacks and a blue shirt – businessman’s attire – with neatly cut hair. However the most arresting thing about his appearance was the pink and silly sight of his erect penis, which he was vigorously rubbing.

I consider the average penis to be a rather disinteresting sight. As an aesthetic attraction it really doesn’t have much going for it. Of itself, it’s pretty meaningless and only acquires meaning when I consider who it’s attached to, what I feel about that person and the context in which I am viewing it.

On this particular night it was attached to an idiot who had the presumption to block my path home. I said “NO! NO!”

“Oh yeah baby… come on…”

“Get away from me or I’ll kick it.”

“Do it baby do it… hurt me baby hurt me”

Not Oscar winning dialogue I grant you. In my defence I was in shock, in his… well, he was busy…

The thing is, and I want to be absolutely clear about this, I really did want to hurt him. I wanted to cause him pain. And writing this a few days later I cannot discover any shock or guilt or regret about feeling this, for all that I am not proud of it either.

It was my dearest wish to give him a running kick right in the middle of his dick. I held off because, although I wanted to hurt him, I didn’t want to damage him permanently. I have never visited violence on anybody so I don’t know how much force you have to use to render someone damaged, but I gather that sometimes it is surprisingly little. I had visions of his appendage snapping off.

He was quite undeterred by my threats so I had to back a few paces away as I didn’t want sperm on me (this all took a matter of seconds). Unfortunately he had my path home blocked so I couldn’t just run away. My timing was good – he missed me and came on the footpath, zipped up and walked away.

I started yelling at his retreating back – I can’t remember what I said but it was profane. I just remember that I wanted him to share a little of my humiliation. He did bow his head and finally break into a run. But for all I know, being verbally abused may be part of the sexual game for him. He is probably out there planning another little foray into the evening stroll of a woman who is a stranger to him, and who will provide him with a gratifying display of shock and disgust.
I walked home feeling irritated at myself as well as at the pervert. It occurred to me how ineffectual I had been. I had had seconds, after all, between when I first saw him and when he came. Would I have had enough time to slap him hard in the face, kick him hard in the shins, or even just push him so hard in the chest that it would make him fall over backwards. And then stand over him and push him down if he tried to get up again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. There seemed to be so many ways in which I could have spoilt his fun and I asked myself what had happened to me that I couldn’t have thought of any of them when I needed to.

The next morning I woke up and felt unclean. I realised that what disgusted me so profoundly was not the actual sight of his penis or even the fact that he was masturbating, or even the fact that he was masturbating in public. What got to me that when I had said and demonstrated no as emphatically as I could in the circumstances he not only ignored me (and that would’ve been bad enough) but he actually co-opted my response into his sexual scenario. No possible verbal response I could’ve given could have meant anything except as a spur to his orgasm, and this is what made it so violating.

I was reminded of all the times in the past this has happened to me (no, this is not the first time someone has singled me out to jerk off at in public – once in a cinema, once at a country race meeting, once on a long distance race at high school, 3 times on public transport). I have also been followed by men in cars and on foot, in daylight and darkness. I found myself thinking that OTHER people are beloved, OTHER people get through life unabused, OTHER people encounter OTHER people’s genitals in the context of a normal loving relationship, whereas the only penis I have encountered in 100 years belongs to a pervert whom I will want to hit if I ever see again.
Having started in so nicely and comprehensively feeling sorry for myself I the went onto one of my most compelling streams of thought at the moment, viz. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY LIFE!!!

Poor

Being pushed around by the Job Search Network and Centrelink

Lonely and currently manifesting the sex appeal of a slug (and Thursday night’s encounter didn’t make me feel any better – and presenting Meredith! Number 1 walking target for random sperm)

And other things I dare not allude to in public just yet

And it seemed to me that I am being jerked off on by life. And I am being ineffectual about it.

Any verbal protests I am making about it are being seen as a part of the nasty little games I am currently involved in, and the game continues despite the fact that I don’t want to play any more. My displeasure, my being on the back foot all the time – these are being co-opted into someone else’s version as to WHAT IS RIGHT AND HOW THINGS SHOULD BE AND WHAT SUITS THEM!

One such nasty little game, which has been making me feel bent out of shape for months, has been my dealings with the Job Search Network. The agency I am registered with is disrespectful and problematic to deal with. Their idea as to what I should be doing in terms of looking for paid employment does not correspond with mine. The activities that the Job Search folks would have me undertake are absolutely pointless and a huge waste of time. Their methods of looking for work are outdated, their equipment doesn’t work, they are disorganised, and they disapprove of volunteer, casual or part time work (!). The pity of it is that in order to qualify for unemployment benefits I have had to comply and participate in the fruitless activities. And the weird thing is that I am an extremely hard working and determined job seeker, who has recently chased up volunteer and casual work which has resulted in me securing a permanent position that will start in about a month and will take me off the dole. I should be this agency’s blue-eyed girl, and yet I feel constantly anxious that my efforts will be interrupted or derailed and disapproved of.

My agency is living in la la land, where their view of the employment market bears absolutely no resemblance to real life as experienced by me or anyone else I know. They are getting off on a fantasy of life as they think it is and, because compliance with their activities is a condition of my getting the dole, I have been forced to participate. Any protest I have made has been co-opted into their fantasy that I am a member of the great unwashed, a dole bludger who is trying to leach off society and wriggle out of work. My protest is therefore taken on board as an expected part of the normal dialogue they can expect to have with me, and not seen as a legitimate opinion coming from a mature and responsible adult.

The latest part of this forced and distasteful intercourse has been a barrage of phone messages from the agency telling me in excited, breathy and husky tones that I need to get in contact with them right away as they have found a great new position for me. They always end the message telling me that they won’t leave the details of the job – I have to ring them to have a discussion. Now, I know all about these ‘discussions’. The withholding of what is surely basic but necessary information in this context is a ploy to get me to ring them and have this discussion – in other words they have found a shit job they want me to do and they want to force a confrontation about it.

To complicate matters I am currently heavily involved in a project that will culminate soon. Over the next 2 weeks I will be very busy. I have a large responsibility to the other people working on the project. This project is being produced by the organization that I will soon start working for – it is important, I think, to continue to carry out my work well and to continue to make a good impression. However, the aforementioned volunteer and casual work I have had to do to get this work is disapproved of by the agency.

I currently don’t have time to go to participate in my job search agency’s activities, and I certainly don’t have time to start working at crappy jobs. I would literally have to be in 2 places at one time.

I was supposed to go to an appointment at the Job Search Network agency recently to discuss my job search activities (and no doubt this mysterious job that has the agency in such a lather on my behalf) and I didn’t. Later on in the day I check my email and found a message from the agency saying that they had booked me an interview with a cleaning company the next morning and that my attendance at this interview was compulsory. Needless to say, I didn’t go. The fact that an interview had been arranged for a job that I have no aptitude for, and arranged with no consultation with me, offended me.

Due to my non-compliance my dole will be cut off but that’s ok. I will scrape through and survive till I start getting paid for my new permanent job. I will get a final letter from Centrelink telling me that I have been “breached” by the Job Service Network agency, but I see it differently. I have chosen to withdraw from this exhausting game and I can feel nothing but the most enormous relief. In this one area at least, there will be no more game playing, no more forced compliance, no more time wasting, no more false assumptions to be suffered. The Job Service Network has to go and aim its dick into some other unfortunate’s face. The wanking stops now.

Postscript: Brave words but the job I was about to take up turned out to be a big mistake. I suffered enormous distress from work place bullying and because I was actually very ill suited to the position and I was to quit 9 months later.

Blogcomments for THE GALLOPING SKIRT / SHOUTING AT STREET LIGHTS / BEE'S BLOG / INTELLIBLOG / JACUI BB / NEVER ON SUNDAY and others

2009-11-19T15:36:00.001+11:00

I can't leave comments on other people's blogs (see blog below for explanation). So I am going to record my comments in a blog and post it.

Hear are the comments I have made about other people's blogs over the last little while:

The Galloping Skirt – Boo’s Field Guide To Nerds (Part 7) – well done Rebecca. A masterful and insightful conclusion to this wonderful series of blogs. I recognized all the characteristics here – the small bottles of dark beer, the monty python quotes, etc etc. I particularly liked your definition of games.

Shouting at Street Lights – Lest we forget – Michael I love Dido’s Lament. It is a favourite of mine. A million years ago when I was young and lissome I choreographed a performed a solo dance to it.

Bee’s blog – Forgetter be forgotten? – fun word play in this poem

Intelliblog – The sweetness of honey, the sting of bees – what a lovely little poem. I love its gentle humour.

Creative Journey – Wednesday again? Then Poetry it is – Jacqui, I saw this poem on PoemHunter as well (in fact I got onto that useful website because I saw you mention it on your blog). I was struck by the grand imagery and dramatic tone of this poem.

Never on Sunday – Poetry Wednesday – Clearing the path – a lovely, sparely written, bitter sweet poem, Heather. I love it where she writes “I sweep / plum petals or magnolia cones / to clear the way for heartier loves.”

Aussie lynn downunder – silent for a moment – another beautiful, reflective moment from Lyn.

Creative Journey – no one said this would be easy – and another blog about the creative process! Jacqui, I love this painting too. Of course I love the gorgeous colours but in this particular painting the composition is a very pleasing thing for me. Thanks for writing about your process so articulately.

Bakowski Poetry News – what writing poetry requires – good blog on the creative process. My Mum had a uni lecturer who used to advise write it down then get it write as a way for getting past your fear of the blank page. I have always found this to be true. I kind of applied the same idea to my choreography too – tackling blank ‘space’ like a blank page.

Intelliblog – O tempora, o mores – well written (as always) Nicholas. I want to respond but I just can’t. I actually despair over the human race and wonder if the sooner we blow ourselves up the better. We are not good for much.

Sidetracked Charley – My day in Taos – treats are good in the face of legal doings. I approve.

My so called life – Babysitting – hope the little tacker gets better soon. How in god’s name do you get pancakes to look like the cast of squarepants bob or whatever he’s called?

Never on Sunday – Christmas is nothing to write home about… - Heather, I can understand your dilemma. I suppose it’s out of the question to take yourself off somewhere for a treat or some pampering? Book yourself into a restaurant for a special lunch? Buy yourself a really special bottle of wine and curate yourself a do it yourself film festival at home? New Year’s eve / day is always a fizzler for me. I would really like a nice special celebration to welcome in the new year with family but it never seems to happen (my family’s neediness spikes at this time of year and they can bleed the joy out of the most determined merry making). I have decided that this year SCREW IT! Family can look after themselves, I’m taking myself off for a decadent lunch (even if it is on a budget). Good luck!

blog comments for AUSSIE LYNN / JACQUI BB / BAKOWSKI POETRY NEWS / INTELLIBLOG / BECKY / HEATHERBELLE and others

2009-11-19T10:08:00.001+11:00

I can't leave comments on other people's blogs (see blog below for explanation). So I am going to record my comments in a blog and post it.

Hear are the comments I have made about other people's blogs over the last little while:

Aussie lynn downunder – silent for a moment – another beautiful, reflective moment from Lyn.

Creative Journey – no one said this would be easy – and another blog about the creative process! Jacqui, I love this painting too. Of course I love the gorgeous colours but in this particular painting the composition is a very pleasing thing for me. Thanks for writing about your process so articulately.

Bakowski Poetry News – what writing poetry requires – good blog on the creative process. My Mum had a uni lecturer who used to advise write it down then get it write as a way for getting past your fear of the blank page. I have always found this to be true. I kind of applied the same idea to my choreography too – tackling blank ‘space’ like a blank page.

Intelliblog – O tempora, o mores – well written (as always) Nicholas. I want to respond but I just can’t. I actually despair over the human race and wonder if the sooner we blow ourselves up the better. We are not good for much.

Sidetracked Charley – My day in Taos – treats are good in the face of legal doings. I approve.

My so called life – Babysitting – hope the little tacker gets better soon. How in god’s name do you get pancakes to look like the cast of squarepants bob or whatever he’s called?

Never on Sunday – Christmas is nothing to write home about… - Heather, I can understand your dilemma. I suppose it’s out of the question to take yourself off somewhere for a treat or some pampering? Book yourself into a restaurant for a special lunch? Buy yourself a really special bottle of wine and curate yourself a do it yourself film festival at home? New Year’s eve / day is always a fizzler for me. I would really like a nice special celebration to welcome in the new year with family but it never seems to happen (my family’s neediness spikes at this time of year and they can bleed the joy out of the most determined merry making). I have decided that this year SCREW IT! Family can look after themselves, I’m taking myself off for a decadent lunch (even if it is on a budget). Good luck!

Bwca – tyke tossing – jeez, b, so sorry to hear about the toilet flushing incident. Can well understand why this would be an emotive issue for you. Hope life has taken a steady turn for the better ever since.

Trying to be Ann O'Dyne – Bunker Hill is no battle – God what a glorious looking place. And I envy you being able to immerse yourself in cats for a while. House sitting?

Shouting at street lights – achingly sad – Yes, this is very sad but very, very romantic too. Actually writing a passionate letter and then throwing it into the sea is a good way to put the seal on something in your own mind, yes? It's interesting that she included a lock of hair too. As well as the romantic overtones it suggests a little pagan sacrifice to me as well.

Bee's blog – witches chant from macbeth – when I was a little kid (in primary school) I learnt this off by heart (have forgotten it now). I just loved the spooky words and I so badly wanted to be a witch when I was small.

My Love Is Like To Ice

2009-11-18T17:12:00.002+11:00

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal's with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.

Edmund Spenser

PoemHunter.com sent this poem to me in their daily email bulletin. Is Poetry Wednseday still going on? If it is then you should check out Creative Journey, which is the hub of it. I have not blogged for ages - forgive me but I literally am not getting the chance to sit down in front of the net these days.

blog comments for BWCA, ANN O DYNE, SHOUTING AT STREET LIGHTS, BEE'S BLOG, JACQUI BB, MY SO CALLED LIFE, INTELLIBLOG, AUSSIE LYN

2009-11-02T17:12:00.001+11:00

I can't leave comments on other people's blogs (see blog below for explanation). So I am going to record my comments in a blog and post it.

Hear are the comments I have made about other people's blogs over the last little while:

Bwca – tyke tossing – jeez, b, so sorry to hear about the toilet flushing incident. Can well understand why this would be an emotive issue for you. Hope life has taken a steady turn for the better ever since.

Trying to be Ann O'Dyne – Bunker Hill is no battle – God what a glorious looking place. And I envy you being able to immerse yourself in cats for a while. House sitting?

Shouting at street lights – achingly sad – Yes, this is very sad but very, very romantic too. Actually writing a passionate letter and then throwing it into the sea is a good way to put the seal on something in your own mind, yes? It's interesting that she included a lock of hair too. As well as the romantic overtones it suggests a little pagan sacrifice to me as well.

Bee's blog – witches chant from macbeth – when I was a little kid (in primary school) I learnt this off by heart (have forgotten it now). I just loved the spooky words and I so badly wanted to be a witch when I was small.

Creative Journey – Multi blog poetry wednesday – great poem Jacqui! I agree with Bee that you do have a talent for imagery. I also enjoy your taught and disciplined structuring of phrases.

My so called life – it’s November did you fall back – I love daylight saving, that extra sunlight acts like a drug. You will need extra daylight if you are doing some remodeling.

Intelliblog – art Sunday – Picasso – thanks for this blog Nicholas. Picasso doesn’t appeal to my personal tastes but this doesn’t mean that I dismiss his importance to the world of art. Sometimes it is even more important to try to understand the stuff you don’t understand or like. I think this leads to a more robust intellect and personal aesthetic.

Sidetracked Charley – Sidetracked again – But Jacqui it sounds as if you are making plenty happen. Wonder just where this sidetracked feeling is coming from. Of course, traveling, although pleasant can have a disorientating effect.

Aussie lyn downunder – feels like summer – I know just how you feel. I know we need more rain to break the drought once and for all but the warmer weather and sunnier days are so much nicer to live in. I feel more invigorated but more relaxed at the same time.

Why I am not on Blogger much

2009-10-16T16:11:00.000+11:00

Note: this blog is exported from Blogger to Facebook and Alive not Dead but will be more relevant to those folks from Blogger who are good enough to read my blogs every now and again.

The problem: I am having problems leaving comments on other people’s blogs. What happens specifically is that I will write in the comment box and then click the submit box for the comment to be published. After I do this the comment box immediately proliferates and throws up another comment box and then another and then another. The computer screen becomes filled with what seems hundreds of these in a couple of minutes. I can’t do any thing else on the computer as any function is immediately cancelled out by yet another box appearing. The only thing I can do is lean on the off button for the computer until it turns off and then start the computer again.

This has been going on for a few months now. At first it was infrequent and seemed only to be happening to a few blogs with the ‘catchpa’ mechanism or what ever it’s called (those funny letters that appear when ever you try to submit a comment to test you out) but lately it has also happened on blogs that don’t have this.

This thing doesn’t happen every time I leave a comment but it has been increasing in frequency and now happens every 3 or so comments I try to leave. It is simply not practical for me to have to turn the computer off every few minutes.

This is not my computer’s problem. I know this because I don’t have the internet on at home and therefore don’t own a computer that I blog on. I use a variety of computers at libraries, internet cafes and sometimes (furtively) at work. This problem has happened on different computers so it must be a problem with the blog somehow.

Does anyone know what is going on? How can I fix it? Can I fix it? Does anyone know of an email address for some kind of IT support / customer service department for Blogger? I have tried looking for one but can’t find it. There are forums where you can leave an account of your problem in the hope that someone will answer and fix it there. However these forums have literally thousands of posts on them and I must admit that I am not hopeful of getting this problem read about and addressed. And on the off chance that someone does read it, that someone may be another member of the public and not someone with any authority to actually fix anything.

I will wait a little while and see if anyone can help out. But if I can’t get this problem fixed then I will have to move onto another blogging site and this I really don’t want to do. While I enjoy writing the blogs, for me half the pleasure comes from being able to read and comment on other people’s blogs and I have found that without being able to do this my own inspiration to write has dwindled to virtually nothing. If I moved to another blogging site I would be moving away from a little network of bloggers here on Blogger that I consider to be my friends and that seems to me to be a very lonely prospect. But I have to admit that right now even the idea of logging on to Blogger is creating a knot of anxiety in my stomach.

Vital lessons from the day words fell short

2009-10-06T13:37:00.001+11:00

Vital lessons from the day words fell short

DON WATSON

The Age, September 19, 2009

''THEY leapt from mountain peak to mountain peak or far out into the lower country, lighting forests six or seven miles in advance of the main fires. Blown by wind of great force they roared as they travelled. Balls of crackling fire sped at a great pace and in advance of the fires consuming with a roaring explosive noise all that they touched. Houses of brick were seen and heard to leap into a roar of flame before the fires had reached them … Great pieces of burning bark were carried by the wind to set in raging flame regions not yet reached by the fires.''

The fires described here are not the Black Saturday fires, but the Black Friday fires of 1939. The writer is Justice Leonard Stretton, who conducted the inquiry into Black Friday. Stretton also described the environmental conditions that fuelled them: '' … the forest from the foothills to the alpine heights were tinder … dry heat and hot dry winds worked upon a land already dry to suck from it the least drop of moisture.''

When Jack Rush, QC, quoted these passages to the current royal commission, he intended to suggest to the chief of Country Fire Authority that last summer's fires were not without precedent, and to ask why the authority's warnings on February 6 ''did not prepare people for the sort of fire that could be anticipated on February 7''. ''All I can say, Mr Rush,'' said the CFA chief ''is that we did our very, very best.''

The matter, of course, has nothing to do with the efforts of CFA firefighters. It concerns CFA management and, more particularly, what managers call ''communication''. It's unlikely that Mr Rush and his colleagues are wondering if they had anything but good intentions. The task on February 7 was complex and immense. They were like Horatius holding the bridge or the little Dutch boy when he saw the hole in the dyke. But with this difference: Horatius and the boy had no management strategy. Unschooled in value-adding as he was, when he saw the Etruscans massed on the other side, Horatius resolved to hold the bridge. Upon recognising a potentially serious dyke event, the boy put his finger in the hole. To go by the royal commission transcripts, the limits of their language being the limits of their world, CFA managers did not approach the task of warning us with the same spontaneous dispatch.

One CFA manager described the business of telling the public as ''messaging''; ''communicating the likely impact''; ''to communicate the degree of the circumstance''; providing ''precise complex fire behaviour information''; ''to communicate more effectively in a timely manner not just that it is a bad day, but other factors as well.''

He spoke of his task as ''value-adding'' and ''populating the document''. He and other managers talked a good deal about ''learnings'', ''big learnings'' and even ''huge learnings''. ''Of course, the learnings from these fires'', one said, ''the scientists will come out and give us an outcome of what sort of messaging and where we can go to better inform communities …''

Commissioner Ron McLeod asked the CFA chief if it might not have been more useful to have told people what firefighters in the Yarra region had been told, ''that they were liable to face a fire that could not be stopped, that had a flame height of 35 metres''. He wondered if more ''explicit terms'' might have ''added a bit more substance'' with ''implications … for people who might in other circumstances have chosen to stay as their preferred option''.

In reply, the chief could not escape the limits of his professional idiom: ''My view … is that for those people in that environment the weather conditions were very plain to understand. We had very clearly communicated the fuel conditions. I think the bit - if you think about it in terms of the fire triangle - was we had not communicated the likely outcome …''

We presume he meant to say that the only thing they messed up was the bit about the fire. They neglected to tell people in concrete language that any fire on February 7 was likely to be one they could not fight, and might not survive. If instead of ''fire activity with potential to impact'' we had dangerous, unpredictable, deadly fires, fires like the one Stretton described, the CFA's ''messagings'' might have persuaded more people to get out of the way. If instead of ''wind events'' the experts and the authorities had said the wind will blow a tremendous gale of searing air through forests so dry they will explode into fires that no one can stop; and that the wind will very likely suddenly blow just as hard from another direction and send these firestorms into the midst of people who just minutes before had thought they were safe - or something like this - perhaps more people would have recognised the danger.

It was not that they did not do their very, very best. More likely, when it came to telling people what they had to know, their management training made their best inadequate. Telling people requires language whose meaning is plain and unmistakable. Managerial language is never this.

Here is a possible ''learning'' for managers. Take Stretton's description of Black Friday and add the word ''event'' after any mention of wind or fire, and see if it adds value. Add ''impact'', ''outcome'' and ''activity''. Is the ''messaging'' clearer? What ''learnings in terms of outcomes'' do you take from this? The same test may be usefully taken by managers in other fields.

Don Watson's new book, Bendable Learnings, will be published on October 3.

TV Programmes: Tarzan / Lone Ranger / Zorro / Black Adder etc.

2009-10-05T16:36:00.001+11:00

TV programmes I have recently watched:

My TV antenna is broken so I don’t get the TV. Instead I can borrow out old TV programmes on DVD from my local library. Thanks to the library the programmes I have recently been watching (in lieu of the dreadful Big Brother) are:

The New Adventures of Tarzan (Volume 1) Where’s Johnny Weismuller when you need him? The dude who plays the character role in these 4 episodes is a lousy actor and sports a hair do that would not have been out of place on a band member of Duran Duran or The Human League. The plots are hilariously bad. Here is a plot summary from the DVD cover for just one of the episodes:

Madly in love with Tarzan, Queen Maya stays her hand. Suddenly, the natives notice Raglan lowering a noose through the temple’s chimney hole from above, snagging the Green Goddess and hauling it away. D’Arnot frees Tarzan from the altar, and the apeman rescues the Martling party, who were about to be thrown into a pit of alligators.

The Queen Maya in question is supposed to be Guatemalan (this is a very geographically confused production) but the actress who plays her is a tough peroxide blonde costumed like a 1940s exotic dancer. She staggers through her scene giving the impression that shagging the producers of The New Adventures of Tarzan has left her sore in places she doesn’t wan to think about.

The Lone Ranger (Volume 2) These 3 episodes lived up to expectation. The mask, the rearing white horse, the William Tell overture, the loyal Indian offsider – they were all there. A booming voice announces over the opening credits that the Lone Ranger was a “fabulous individual”. Excellent. The melodrama of the classical music soundtrack contrasts curiously but effectively with the action of the stolid western characters. I could absolutely go Tonto too.

Zorro’s Fighting Legion (Volume 1) 3 episodes from the black and white TV series. Much rushing about on horse back and nearly getting shot, nearly getting dynamited, nearly getting ambushed… but Zorro always escapes and saves the day. He has to. He is wearing the best costume.

The Black Adder – Series 4. Black Adder, Baldrick et al fetch up in the trenches of World War 1 in this series. This is brilliant comedy – hyperbolic writing, British stereotypes and perfect performances. The very last episode is very dark and unexpectedly moving, and it reminded me how great comedy can be a hair’s breadth away from tragedy at times.

Julius Caesar starring Chris Noth, Richard Walken, Richard Harris among others. Formulaic but competent telling of the life and times of the Roman emperor.

Palin on Art This is a pleasant series that features Michael Palin discussing, researching, journeying as a response to some of his favourite art. He visits the places where artists lived and the places they painted and talks to the people who knew them. Recommended for art enthusiasts.

All Aussie Adventures – Series 1 & 2. This is a popular comedy series made in recent years. It spoofs Australian travel programmes and, in particular, Australian travel programme hosts. There is a specific breed of Aussie bloke that reckons he is an alpha male who is expert in everything to do with the great outdoors. These men are to be avoided at all costs. These mock travelogues focus on the misadventures of a character called Russell Coight as he travels through the Australian outback. That Coight is an idiot is obvious to everyone except himself. In every programme he trips over tree roots, falls off gates and pinches his fingers in lids. In each episode he manages to accidentally kill a rare Australian animal, wreck someone else’s car, and alienate whoever happens to be around him at the time. The comedy is broad and, perhaps, predictable, but is well crafted and presented nevertheless. Glenn Robbins is very good as Coight – he times his pratfalls beautifully and he has the mannerisms and vocal delivery (instantly recognizable to any Aussie who has had these deadly programmes inflicted on them) down perfectly. In fact, he reminds me unerringly of a former landlord of mine. This smug bastard was an armchair expert in everything but particularly fancied himself as the adventurous outdoors type. He also was an idiot. Maybe that is why this show appeals to me.

Leunig Animated. This DVD is a collection of short animated versions of Michael Leunig’s cartoons. Leunig is an Australian cartoonist and essayist. He is extremely highly regarded and much loved. His cartoons and essays are regularly published in The Age newspaper here in Melbourne. His humour can be whimsical or caustic, and his cartoons are also often very moving. He is quite capable of commentating on topical affairs or the absurdity of human existence.

Scared Weird Little Guys – The First 15 Years. The Scared Weird Little Guys are an Australian musical comedy duo who are quite well known (at least here in Melbourne where I live). I saw them live for the first (and only) time at the Edinburgh Festival in 2001 or 2002. Until then I had only seen them occasionally and briefly on television, and hadn’t thought that much of them. I went to see their show at Edinburgh because I scored a free ticket. The show was great – it was one of the funniest and cleverest things I ended up seeing at the Festival. SWLG get their laughs from composing and performing funny songs (with the odd cover thrown in). The humour is quirky and impish. Many laughs are to be had from the lyrics, but they also generate laughs from exploiting their superb musicianship and performance technique. At the show in Edinburgh they were making people laugh through the use of key changes and instrumental arrangements in their music. They also have superb diction and use this to great comic effect.

Walking with Cavemen 4 part BBC science programme that uses special effects and heavily costumed actors to trace the evolution from upright apes to Neanderthal man. Very interesting and well crafted.

Life / Survival actually a kids’ nature programme. Beautiful photography.

Robot Chicken cult comedy series from the US. What a pity it wasn’t actually funny.

Also:

The First Eden

Kath and Kim – Series 4

Mythbusters – Ninja Special

Canada – Pilot Guides

Young Ones

Inspector Rex

We Know Where You Live

Feast Greece

1421 – The Year China Discovered the World

7 Periods with Mr Gormsby

Black Books

Billy Connolly in Dublin

Dr Who (Series 3 Volume 5).

Satff in carbon footprint trial face fines for high emissions

2009-10-02T16:16:00.001+10:00

Thanks to my cousin Cam for spotting this and emailing it around:

From The Times
September 14, 2009

Staff in carbon footprint trial face £100 fines for high emissions

Ben Webster, Environment Editor

People who emit more than their fair share of carbon emissions are having their pay docked in a trial that could lead to rationing being reintroduced via the workplace after an absence of half a century.

Britain’s first employee carbon rationing scheme is about to be extended, after the trial demonstrated the effectiveness of fining people for exceeding their personal emissions target. Unlike the energy-saving schemes adopted by thousands of companies, the rationing scheme monitors employees’ personal emissions, including home energy bills, petrol purchases and holiday flights.

Workers who take a long-haul flight are likely to be fined for exceeding their annual ration unless they take drastic action in other areas, such as switching off the central heating or cutting out almost all car journeys. Employees are required to submit quarterly reports detailing their consumption. They are also set a target, which reduces each year, for the amount of carbon they can emit.

Those who exceed their ration pay a fine for every kilogram they emit over the limit. The money is deducted from their pay and the level of the fine is printed on payslips. Those who consume less than their ration are rewarded at the same rate per kilogram.

The maximum that an employee can earn or be fined has been capped at £100, but is likely to rise once staff have grown accustomed to the idea.

WSP, the global engineering consultancy, has been conducting the rationing scheme among 80 of its British employees for almost two years. In the first year the overall carbon footprint of participants fell by 10 per cent. The company is discussing its scheme with several FTSE 100 companies.

Three quarters of the employees were rewarded and a quarter, including Stuart McLachlan, the managing director, were fined. Mr McLachlan tried to cut his carbon footprint by buying a bike and cycling 12 miles to work from Richmond, Surrey, to Chancery Lane, in Central London. He also installed energy-saving lightbulbs, but he still exceeded his ration — and was fined £100 — because he flew to his holiday home in South Africa.

The idea of personal quotas for carbon emissions is being advocated by the thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research. Everyone would be given a number of free “credits”, to buy gas and electricity for their homes, fuel for cars and plane tickets for holidays. Those who did not use all their credits could sell the excess to people who used more fossil fuels.

WSP is planning to expand its rationing scheme next year to cover 3,000 employees in offices around the world. However, it will set different targets for each country to reflect national average emissions. In Britain the target this year is 5.5 tonnes, which is one tonne above the national average for home energy and personal transport. The US target is likely to be double the British target, to reflect much greater emissions per person.

David Symons, co-ordinator of the scheme, said that US employees would be unlikely to join a scheme with the same ration as British staff. “The teams in the States would think they would be in debit straightaway.”

Mr Symons stayed within his ration last year by giving up his Mazda RX8 sports car and buying a diesel Peugeot 207. He met this year’s target largely because his partner had a baby and he rarely left home except to go to work.

One employee, Dan Dowling, 29, switched the mode of transport for his honeymoon in Rome from plane to train. His colleague, Emma Bollan, stopped blow-drying her hair and cut down on roast dinners. She said: “The big incentive is not the prospect of earning £100 but in trying to ensure that you don’t have to pay out.”

Several WSP staff added that peer pressure played a part in persuading them to stay within their ration.

Mr McLachlan said: “There have been some interesting competitive dynamics in the company as a result of having this transparency.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6832964.ece

words: sternutation / pink

2009-10-01T10:40:00.001+10:00

2 random words from Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day email bulletin:

sternutation

\ster-nyuh-TAY-shun\
noun

Meaning
: the act, fact, or noise of sneezing

Example Sentence
Julie knew that she had put on too much perfume when she entered the car and immediately heard a chorus of sternutation from the passengers.

Did you know?
"Sternutation" comes from Latin and is a descendant of the verb "sternuere," meaning "to sneeze." One of the earliest known English uses occurred in a 16th-century edition of a book on midwifery, in a passage about infants suffering from frequent "sternutation and sneesynge." The term has long been used in serious medical contexts, but also on occasion for humorous effect. In 1850, for example, author Grace Greenwood observed that U.S. senators from opposing political parties would often come together to share snuff: "And all three forget their sectional differences in a delightful concert of sternutation. No business is too grave, no speaker too eloquent, to be 'sneezed at.'"

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

pink

\PINK\
verb

Meaning
1 a : to perforate in an ornamental pattern *b : to cut a saw-toothed edge on
2 a : pierce, stab b : to wound by irony, criticism, or ridicule

Example Sentence
"The sleek curtain requires no sewing; we pinked the edges to add a bit of detail." (Jennie Voorhees, Martha Stewart Living, April 2002)

Did you know?
Our unabridged dictionary, Webster's Third New International, includes 13 distinct entries for "pink," whereas our abridged volume, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate, satisfies itself with the five most common. (Words get distinct entries in our dictionaries when they have different etymologies or different parts of speech.) Today's "pink," the only verb of the five, is from a Middle English word meaning "to thrust." Of the remaining four, the only "pink" older than the verb (which dates to 1503) is a 15th century noun referring to a kind of ship. The next-oldest noun has since 1573 referred to a genus of herbs. The noun referring to the color pink and its related adjective date to 1678 and 1720, respectively. Evidence suggests that a new verb "pink" — a synonym of the verb "pink-slip" — is also emerging.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

In Flanders Field

2009-09-30T11:34:00.000+10:00

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

I found this poem on the PoemHunter.com website. I had heard of it but never read it. The first 2 verses I found to be poignant and chilling, but I was disengaged by the final verse’s call to arms. How disappointing.

Check out Jacqui BB’s Creative Journey blog where she hosts the Poetry Wednesday tour. There you will find a list of poems other people have blogged today. Feel free to blog one yourself.

Excerpts from Death Sentence and other quotes

2009-09-29T10:37:00.002+10:00

To give you some context for this blog I am first of all reproducing some text I wrote about a book I wrote about in an earlier blog:
Death Sentence – the decay of public language by Don Watson. This is a really good book. I had been eyeing it off nervously on the shelves at my local library. I was assuming that it would be a dry and perhaps impenetrable text. But Watson does a simply terrific job of making it readable and witty as well as being scholarly and academic. The book examines public language – trends in speech making, pamphlet writing, policy writing, and media reporting – past and present. Watson unpicks some of the faults of present day public language and expounds on the damage these do not just to the way we all speak and write, but also perhaps to the way we think and feel. Alongside Watson’s text the book is littered with quotes and commentaries that highlight both the best and the worst of public language. Thus you will have a wedge of incomprehensible managerial rubbish alongside a quote from George Orwell. I recommend this book as a most interesting and thought provoking read. I would go so far as to say that it is a must read for anyone who works with language either as a professional or an enthusiastic hobbyist (all you bloggers out there…)

I have reproduced below some of the quotes that Watson includes in his book. First I will start with excerpts of the public language that Watson rails against in this book:

As we know, there are no known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know. P 45. Donald Rumsfeld

This kind of language puts me in mind of nonsense poetry such as Jabberwocky by Lewis Carol:
(From Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Although Rumsfeld is using real words instead of made up ones he isn’t making much more sense than Lewis Carrol in the above excerpt.

This next quotation reminds me of the character of Sir Humphrey Appleby in the British TV series Yes Minister:
Funding for legal aid is increasingly meeting less of the demand, but allocating additional funds on a one-off basis without a specific reason may be seen as an admission by the Government that funding is insufficient. P.113 department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet.

The above quote is Applebyesque in its peculiar and sinister circular logic, although it lacks the highly wrought structure and over educated vocabulary of Sir Humphrey when he really hits his straps. Here is a quote from the TV series -
In view of the somewhat nebulous and inexplicit nature of your remit and the arguably marginal and peripheral nature of your influence within the central deliberations and decisions within the political process that there could be a case for re-structuring their action priorities in such a way as to eliminate your liquidation from their immediate agenda.

And no blog mentioning ridiculous and abused public language would be complete without a token quote from Dubbya. Ah! But there are so many to choose from! Here is one that makes me laugh out loud:

We need to counter the shock wave of the evil doer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates. P. 81. George W. Bush.

Next I have reproduced some excerpts from great speeches that exemplify the best in public language. Some will be most familiar, such as this one:

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. P. 63 Winston Churchill.

This is not high falutin’ or sophisticated English, but it is, when you consider just why Churchill was making the speech, the very best public language for this particular broadcast. Churchill gives us a series of simple yet stark visual images in a series of short phrases that build up a punchy and urgent rhythm. The effect is desperate but compelling. As simple as the vocabulary is, by focusing on imagery the language still verges on the poetic and this contributes to the emotive pull of the speech. As public language this is genius – both the worst and best educated people listening to Churchill’s broadcast were transported into his head to share his vision. There is everything in the language to include them in this vision and nothing to alienate them from it.

Here is an excerpt from another famous speech (and this one never fails to move me to tears):

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of the creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the hate of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. P. 53. Martin Luther King, Address at the Lincoln Memorial.

Again we have language that is simple and accessible and verges on the poetic. Here is another excerpt from a great speech that Watson quotes:

‘Thus sir, has the perversion of British commerce carried misery instead of happiness to one whole quarter of the globe,’ William Pitt told the Commons.

False to the very principle of trade, misguided in our policy, and unmindful of our duty, what astonishing – I had almost said, what irreparable – mischief we have brought upon that continent. How shall we ever repair this mischief? How shall we hope to obtain, if it be possible, forgiveness from heaven for those enormous evils we have committed, if we refuse to make use of those means for which the mercy of Providence hath still reserved to us for wiping away the guilt and shame with which we are now covered?

Watson writes: “ ‘Covered’ in guilt and shame. ‘Wiping’ it away. We can only wonder at these sentiments. “ P68.

I guess this blog has just been a random collection of quotes supplied by Watson in his book paired with a few quotes they brought to my mind. It is pointless my trying to provide any commentary when Watson does it so much better. I will just recommend this book.

martial arts films: Clans of Intrigue, The Shadow Boxing, Martial Arts of Shaolin, Battle in Red Temple

2009-09-28T12:47:00.001+10:00

Martial Arts Films I have recently watched:
(Please note: films that I have watched that are part of the Melbourne International Film Festival have been prefaced with MIFF)

Clans of Intrigue (Shaw Brothers, 1977) starring Ti Lung, Pei Ti, Nora Miao, and directed by Chu Yuan. This is a wuxia film filmed in a historical setting with a nod towards James Bond. Our handsome hero (Ti Lung) lives a glamorous life as a Master of Thieves on a houseboat surrounded by a bevy of beautiful female martial artists. He finds himself involved in a complicated plot to try and uncover the identity of a masked assassin who is trying to frame him for a series of murders. The sets and costumes are elaborate and colourful (even for a Shaw Brothers wuxia film), the action is suitably graceful and there are those little bizarre touches (such as simulated cannibalism and some discreet lesbian sex in a pastel hued papier mache cave) that all of us who love kung fu movies have come to expect from the genre. I come in from a dull job in a grey world and I rely on movies like this to take me to a happy place. This is good escapist viewing and I really enjoyed this film very much.

The Shadow Boxing starring Wang Yu and Gordon Liu and directed by Lau Kar Leung. This is a sequel to The Spiritual Boxer, which I own and love. Wang Yu reprises his role as an apprentice vampire / ghost wrangler and Gordon Liu… also has a part (don’t want to spoil the plot by saying too much). This film was a lot of fun. It had a good plot and the performances were great. As you would expect Lau Kar Leung does a terrific job of directing. I highly recommend it.

Martial Arts of Shaolin starring Jet Li and directed by Lau Kar Leung. Jet Li kicked off his film career (pun unintended) in 3 films revolving goings on in the Shaolin Temple. This film was the 3rd of the 3 and is notable for being directed by the legendary Lau Kar Leung. I enjoy all 3 films immensely although I think they are as camp as a row full of tents. For me this one was the gayest of the lot. Like the others it is high in energy and has lots of really flamboyant fight scenes. A young and pretty Jet bounds through the films and demonstrates the charisma and athletic ability that all his fans know and love. A great supporting cast features such wonderful performers as Hu Jian Qiang, Chau Yin Wong, Cheng Hui Yu and Hai Yu who were all in 2 or 3 of the Shaolin Temple films with Li.

Battle in Red Temple. Starring Chia Ling, Delon Tan, Tung Li, Lung Fei. Directed by Karl Liao Chiang Lin. Standard historical kung fu / sword play type of thing. Didn’t really grab me.

MIFF Chocolate, Thailand, 2008, directed by Prachya Pinkaew. This film was really good fun and quite well made. It is an honest to god martial arts movie with the structure of the film revolving around a beginning section (in which we are introduced to our characters and the plot gets set up), and then features 3 big fight scenes before being resolved in a final showdown between our heroine and her supporters and the baddies. I liked the way that the 3 fight scenes in the mid part of the film were each set in a different type of factory – I thought that a nice visual theme was set up here. The final, climactic fight is a good looking set piece which takes place in a restaurant and then on the walls and balconies of buildings overlooking a small laneway in a busy Thai city. In this last fight scene I enjoyed the way the choreographer creatively responded to the architecture of the setting to give the movement sequences structure and originality.

What is it about martial arts films? Only in a martial arts film can you get away with a plot premise which is so politically incorrect – an autistic girl has a genius savant gift for learning physical technique and because of this learns martial arts from watching Bruce Lee films and Thai boxing. She becomes a debt collector to help her ailing mother (as you do). At the end of this film she even gets to fight another physically disabled youth in a showdown that had the audience cheering.

Also:
The Magic Blade
Lone Wolf and Cub – Baby cart at the River Styx
The Prodigal Son
Kung Fu Hustle
Revenge of the Dragon
The Spiritual Boxer
The Trail of the Broken Blade
Human Lanterns
Duel of Fists
Dragon Swamp
Duelist
Sword of Doom
The Lizard
Tai Chi Master
Project A.
Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment
The 12 Gold Medallions
Shaolin Hand Lock
Ong Bak.
Sex and Fury
Female Yakuza Tale
Lone Wolf and Cub – Baby Cart in the Land of Demons.
Bruce Li in Snake Island
Bichunmoo
The Bride with White Hair 2
Duel to the Death

Article: Artists are no longer mavericks at the fringes of society

2009-09-25T14:14:00.000+10:00

by NEIL PIGOT

The Age, September 14, 2009

Shakespeare wrote in Measure for Measure that “Truth is truth to the end of reckoning.” Shakespeare was a man who knew a thing or two. So what is the truth of Australian theatre? It's in decline. It's been in steady decline for most of the past two decades and, for some reason, policymakers cannot see it, and the industry and its audience have chosen to ignore it. Theatre in this country has, for too long, been trapped in a limited reality, a white middle-class sport both on stage and in the auditorium, comfortable in its homogeny, creatively self-referential and, it seems, almost determinedly culturally unrepresentative.
To fully understand the problems that surround the theatre, you must first look at the historical record with respect to arts policy.

It is clear that governments do not know how to position the theatre arts. We have to have them because . . . well, we have to! As a result, we are left with an almost obsessive desire to bureaucratise theatre arts. Since the early 1980s, theatre has increasingly been viewed by government as a publicly funded commodity, and so policies have been formed seeking to mandate its meaning and focus cultural practice towards a largely economic agenda, while at the same time finding increasingly more sophisticated ways of trimming subsidy. With major subsidised theatre companies now established on almost commercial footings, ticket prices have risen, cast sizes have shrunk, and programming has become inevitably less adventurous — affecting audience development and creative diversity. Mid-range companies have all but disappeared, leaving the development and staging of more audacious work largely to an under-resourced and often dramaturgically illiterate fringe. It's a program of fiscal strangling so dexterously handled that the Australia Council's most recent policy initiative “Making it New” may truthfully be called “Making it Cheap”.

With these changes has come a steady shift in the position of the performing artist. We are no longer the mavericks at the fringes of society. Subsidy has made us a part of the system. And whereas, in the clear light of day, performing artists should see their art form as a forum for ideas and social benefit, it seems we have become unwitting apologists for our governments' dysfunctional funding model, drunk on the lure of public acceptance and the false sense that a successful funding application means the work we are doing is creatively validated.

We as artists must take some responsibility for this distortion of the creative prism. For while most of us don't agree with arts policy, more often these days our only genuine engagement with it is to make an application for funding, complain of a lack of it, or attack another artist as undeserving of it. We have begun to think like accountants, and in our delusional, sometimes desperate and always marginalised state, our creative independence has been hijacked, and that tiny, unfundable thing that we could perhaps call our creative spirit is being lost.

The situation is further compounded by misconceived theatrical reporting. Reviewers often misunderstand live performance in the same way that governments do, rarely engaging with the creative ideas driving a project and more interested in the perfect or imperfect nature of the outcome. Too often reviews appear that are an expression of a reviewer's personal feelings rather than an overview of public response to a show or a critique of its place within the contemporary theatrical and social landscape. Important work is regularly dismissed, mediocre work often celebrated.

And in all of this we are losing our audience. Or at least, we're not developing new ones. The public have begun to view the theatre as a creative distraction, an increasingly expensive one, devoid of higher meaning and almost culturally redundant.

The performing arts are a tradition that has kept changing over centuries because the social and political issues that it addresses keep changing. More importantly, they are a relationship, and like any relationship, imperfect, requiring effort and acceptance from all those involved. Intellectual apathy within the profession, a warped political conception of theatre, self-indulgent reporting and a public that sees theatre as a series of increasingly expensive cultural diversions have combined to temporarily stall the form, leaving it loitering without intent. The desire is there to have a flourishing performing arts culture, and we have the facilities and the expertise. Melbourne sees it as integral to its international identity.

But if we don't collectively restart the ideas car, soon the journey back to cultural relevance will become exponentially more complicated. There is a very real possibility that the theatre as we know it will slide away from us. And that is the truth.

Neil Pigot is an Australian actor. He will appear in the Melbourne International Arts Festival's production of When the Rain Stops Falling.

For the record I nicked this article from this web page: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/artists-are-no-longer-mavericks-at-the-fringes-of-society-20090914-fms3.html
Kudos to Erin Voth for spotting this article in the first place and posting it on her Facebook profile (which is where I saw it). On Tuesday I posted a blog that was partially inspired by this article and partially inspired by a couple of quotes from Don Watson’s book Death Sentence. You can find my blog here: http://dangerousmeredith.blogspot.com/2009/09/death-sentence-for-arts.html

On the whole I agree with much of what Pigot has written. The only thing that stung a little was the reference to “an under-resourced and often dramaturgically illiterate fringe”. It is true that some Fringe artists could be thought of as dramaturgically illiterate but there are many who aren’t. Any dramaturgically illiteracy is often, in my view, a result of underfunding (Pigot rightfully pairs these 2 ideas in this one phrase). Too many artists not only create work but have to produce it as well and this puts them under terrible time pressure. Younger artists who do not have a developed practice can end up sacrificing rehearsal time to develop work so that they have time to work on administrating and producing their show. This hurts their work dramaturgically. However this is not the case with all Fringe artists. The Fringe festival here in Melbourne has just started and among the many shows on offer there will be a number that have been developed to a very high standard. The tragedy is that they will play to audiences of maybe 10 people a night and neither you nor I will ever hear of them.

Slough

2009-09-24T10:25:00.000+10:00

Pronounced ‘sluff’

verb

Meaning
1 : to cast off or become cast off
2 : to crumble slowly and fall away
*3 : to get rid of or discard as irksome, objectionable, or disadvantageous — usually used with off

Example Sentence
"As the war advanced the armies reluctantly sloughed off such amenities as two-man tents." (Paul Fussell, Wartime)

Did you know?
There are two verbs spelled "slough" in English, as well as two nouns, and both sets have different pronunciations. The first noun, referring to a swamp or a discouraged state of mind, is pronounced to rhyme with either "blue" or "cow." Its related verb, which can mean "to plod through mud," has the same pronunciation. The second noun, pronounced to rhyme with "cuff," refers to the shed skin of a snake (as well as anything else that has been cast off). Its related verb describes the action of shedding or eliminating something, just like a snake sheds its skin. This "slough" derives from Middle English "slughe" and is distantly related to a Middle High German word meaning "snakeskin."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

And now I know why I have always been confused about the pronunciation of this word. Turns out there are 2 sloughs and each with a different pronunciation!
The above text has been cut and pasted from Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day email bulletin.

Drummer Hodge by Thomas Hardy

2009-09-23T14:08:00.002+10:00

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined -- just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around:
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the drummer never knew --
Fresh from his Wessex home --
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.

Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.

My reason for posting this poem today is a little odd. It is not actually a favourite poem of mine – it’s OK but not completely my cup of tea. But it is in my mind today because last night I watched ‘History Boys’ on DVD and this poem was recited in it.

‘History Boys’ was written by Alan Bennet and directed by Nicholas Hytner and, to be honest, I wasn’t crazy about it. Bennet is a terrific writer but I didn’t think this film was completely successful. It left me confused as to what it was actually trying to say and I found many of the characters hard to engage with. But some of the writing was (as you would expect) very good and some of the acting was very strong.

One scene in particular was exceptional. In it a teacher (played by Richard Griffiths) and a student discuss the above poem. As the teacher talks about the poem you get the sense that he is talking about his own difficult and spent life. I thought the acting was exceptional and the writing superb. I searched the internet to see if there was a clip of this scene I could post but there wasn’t. All I can do is post this poem and recommend that you watch the film for this one scene at least.

Here on blogger there are a couple of theme days going – Jacqui BB hosts a poetry day on Wednesdays on Creative Journey and Nicholas V always writes a superb movie review for his blog Intelliblog on Mondays. Check them out and feel free to get involved.

Death Sentence for the Arts

2009-09-22T09:58:00.000+10:00

I recently read a book written by Don Watson called Death Sentence. The book is about the devolution of public language into managerial type jargon that can be used to obfuscate and manipulate rather than to enlighten or inspire. Watson discusses how harmful this language can be to a society’s psyche. One current manifestation of this in Australia is the plight of the arts:

“In the so-called culture wars of recent years an effort has been made to ignore them (words) pointedly. Conservative politicians, including many on the Labor side, have discovered words to label amorphous categories of malcontents as irrelevant or stupid. Words like elite, chattering classes and café latte are insipid in their usual environment but, like certain animals and chemical compounds, become poisonous and destructive in another one.

There is an old vein of anti-intellectualism in this, and another one of scapegoating. And a third insists that artists, like their distant cousins in universities, accept managerial or main game classifications. Writers and painters now work in an arts industry, where they can be expected to do what other people do in other industries: namely, add value, continuously improve and become world class. P116”

As a former professional performing artist, choreographer and arts project manager I was always very keen to see artists improve their small business nous and learn some rudimentary skills in areas such as marketing, financial management, and arts law. At the very least I have always felt that if artists were somewhat organized as small business people (and like or not that’s what many of them are by default) then they could use these skills to protect themselves from some of the nit picking thugs employed by Centrelink, real estate agents, the ATO, etc. Hell, some of them may even be able to make a living. However I have always deplored managerial jargon and don’t equate it with good or sound business practice.

Over the past few when I was working in project management or arts administration I found myself, at times, working alongside some people who used the kind of bastardized bureaucratic / managerial language that Watson decries in his book. These people often seemed to be hiding poor administrative or strategic nous behind language that was supposed to impress, mislead or intimidate the rest of us. They could not communicate in a way that was clear or useful. The real artistic work of putting pen to paper, brush to canvas, or rehearsing performances plus the real work of facilitating the presentation of artistic work such as ringing up potential venues, buying materials to make costumes and borrowing props all happened a long way away from the meeting rooms and conferences where the managerial gobbledygook was being spoken. But the funding situation in Australia is such that in order to get substantial funding or even recognition artists have to deal with this gobbledygook.

“The Council’s emphasis on grants will continue to be of great importance in ensuring the ongoing viability of the arts in Australia. However support at the demand end of the spectrum has the potential to provide multiplier benefits for artists which grants alone cannot provide.” Australia Council, p. 43, Death Sentence

Watson sourced this quotation from an Australia Council publication. The Australia Council is the Federal Government’s arts funding body. I worked in the arts industry as a performer, choreographer and arts manager for 20 years and I don’t even know what the above text means. If this writing is trying to convey an idea which may be of benefit to people like me then we are automatically excluded from that benefit by this torturously overwritten language. If this writing is trying to disguise our government’s inadequate arts funding policy while still trying to boost the image of that government then I resent it for wasting my time.

There were many reasons why I decided to retire from the arts industry but one of them had to do with the fact that I was sick and tired of attending seminars, talks, and networking events about funding and feeling that I existed in some underprivileged periphery. As an artist and as someone who assist other artists with their projects I should have felt central to any arts industry activity but at these events I felt marginal in comparison to the arts bureaucrats who all seemed to be talking some sort of code.

In Death Sentence Watson includes a quote from poet Henry Lawson (1867-1922). When I consider many of the younger artists I know this quotation often flashes through my mind:
“My advice to any young Australian writer whose talents have been recognized would be to do steerage, stow away, swim, and seek London, Yankeeland, or Timbuctoo – rather than stay in Australia till his genius turn to gall, or beer. Or, failing this – and still in the interests of human nature and literature – to study elementary anatomy, especially as it applies to the cranium, and then shoot himself carefully with the aid of a looking glass.” p67. Death Sentence

Movies: Last Tango In Paris, Action Boys

2009-09-21T10:24:00.000+10:00

Films I have recently watched:
(Please note: films that I have watched that are part of the Melbourne International Film Festival have been prefaced with MIFF)

Last Tango in Paris starring Marlon Brando. I had never seen this film before so I was curious to see why this film has such a huge reputation. I hated it. I thought it was turgid, unpleasant and pretentious. The famous, supposedly erotic, butter scene turned out to be a depiction of anal rape and that just doesn’t do it for me. I thought the whole thing was a wank but a large part of my problem with this film was that I didn’t like Brando’s acting. I know that what I am about to write would be considered as heresy by most actors but I thought he was terrible. I thought that he gave a very self indulgent performance whereby he seemed to be immersed in the business of being a Great Thespian and trotting out impressive actorly tricks (watch me cry! Watch me shout! Watch me gaze intently into the distance!) rather than just being the character. I also felt that he had a poor sense of rapport with the other actors – I couldn’t sense any connection between them. Viewing this film was an exercise in tedium.

MIFF Funeral Parade of Roses. I actually didn’t end up going to see this film. I had seen Action Boys on the same day (see reviewlet below) and had a wait of a few hours to fill before going to see this film. As these films were shown on the 1st of August and my birthday was on the 5th I thought I would organize a birthday dinner for myself (seeing as how I would be knocking around the city where there are restaurants galore for a few hours). I put the call out to see who wanted to have dinner with me. No one did. Oh. Oh. Um. I pulled myself together and thought “Never mind! I will find a nice quiet restaurant, treat myself to a delicious meal, take along a good book to read while I nurse a glass of yummy red wine.” Good idea in theory, huh? I went to a restaurant near the cinema and endured what I considered to be astonishing rudeness from the staff. When I entered the restaurant was quiet with just 3 other tables occupied. They had obviously just had a rush as every spare table was piled high with dirty dishes. I placed my order at the counter and sat at a table and waited for the waiter to come and clean my table. He studiously ignored me and proceeded to clear and clean every other table in the place except mine. He paused to have desultory chats with other staff members and, when every other table in the restaurant was clean EXCEPT mine, he went to a little table that had the restaurant’s stock of magazines and newspapers on it and proceeded to scratch away at miniscule spots on its already spotless surface. A waitress rushed up and flung my dinner on the table and I had to call her back and instruct her to remove the pile of dirty dishes on my table. She didn’t wipe it though. I scoffed my meal, stormed over to the waiter and made a few sarcastic remarks and left. By this time I still had a couple of hours to fill. I went across to the Forum theatre where the MIFF Festival bar was situated thinking that I would nurse a glass of red wine and a slice of cake there while I got over my temper and read my book. The Bar was closed. Who closes a bar in Melbourne on a Saturday night? I went home. I felt angry, disrespected and lonely. I didn’t want to wander around the CBD by myself on a chilly night. Of course I am OK now as this was weeks ago but I don’t mind admitting that I hated the world for a few hours that night.

MIFF Action Boys, South Korea, 2008, directed by Jeong Byeong-gil. This was a documentary about stunt men in Korea. Its director had studied at stunt school and had decided that although a career as a stunt man was not for him he would make this documentary about a few of his classmates who were working in the industry. I enjoyed being taken behind the scenes and allowed to see these unsung heroes at work. A particularly effective and engaging characteristic of this film is the humour the director manages to introduce (when referring to himself the humour is particularly self deprecating and very funny). However the film does have a serious side. We are left in no doubt that the demanding lifestyle of working in a dangerous occupation and on call to film directors requires great dedication, courage and sacrifices. Towards the end of the film 2 of the 3 stunt men being shown actually quit the industry following the on set death of a leading stunt player whom they respected. If you are interested in action movies then I can highly recommend this film.

Also:
Buddy
Buena Vista Social Club
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
The Sting
United Red Army
Yakuza Eiga
Still Walking

Non core promise

2009-09-18T10:27:00.001+10:00

On Tuesday I published a blog in which I mentioned the phrase ‘non-core promise’. For the sake of anyone from overseas who reads this blog I offer the following text to explain what this phrase means and where it comes from. The text below comes from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=non-core+promise

Non-core promise:
A commitment to deliver (a service, funding, an item) that is subsequently set aside. The broken promise is then explained with the glib expression "oh, but that promise was non-core". Now generalised to non-political situations, too. Origin: Australian federal elections at the turn of the 20th/21st centuries. The conservative party (known as the Liberal/National coalition) made a number of election promises which were broken soon after the election. The prime minister, John Howard, attempted to explain this behaviour by claiming that some promises are "core" and some are "non-core" and thus, don't count.

Not only did "No tax increases, no new taxes" turn out to be a non-core promise, but in the campaign, Howard had also given a solemn undertaking that "I'm not going to break any promises". That one was certainly non-core. Laurie Oakes (Australian political reporter/writer) Excerpt from National Nine News (network TV) 12 May 2005 as quoted at news.ninemsn.com.au

Jane Austen writing about non core promises

2009-09-15T09:56:00.001+10:00

Earlier this year I read a terrific book by Don Watson called Death Sentence. This book is about the “death of public language” and is an investigation into the decline in the standard of public language nowadays. In part it examines politicians and how they use (or abuse) words to obfuscate or generally weasel out of election promises or even constructive action. In Australia, John Howard’s phrase “non core promises” is now infamous. When I was reading this book I found myself thinking of Chapter 2 from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility which, although a conversation about domestic matters, is as fine an example of 2 wealthy people wriggling out of what they consider a “non core promise” as ever existed. Should we be relieved that some of our current day politicians do not have Austen’s intellectual suppleness or command of the English language, or should we be disappointed that she is not alive to target their verbal shenanigans with her incredible wit and perceptiveness?

I found Sense and Sensibility as an e-text on the Project Gutenberg website. I reproduce Chapter 2 for your reading pleasure below:

Mrs. John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum? And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods, who were related to him only by half blood, which she considered as no relationship at all, have on his generosity to so large an amount. It was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist between the children of any man by different marriages; and why was he to ruin himself, and their poor little Harry, by giving away all his money to his half sisters?

"It was my father's last request to me," replied her husband, "that I should assist his widow and daughters."

"He did not know what he was talking of, I dare say; ten to one but he was light-headed at the time. Had he been in his right senses, he could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half your fortune from your own child."

"He did not stipulate for any particular sum, my dear Fanny; he only requested me, in general terms, to assist them, and make their situation more comfortable than it was in his power to do. Perhaps it would have been as well if he had left it wholly to myself. He could hardly suppose I should neglect them. But as he required the promise, I could not do less than give it; at least I thought so at the time. The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed. Something must be done for them whenever they leave Norland and settle in a new home."

"Well, then, LET something be done for them; but THAT something need not be three thousand pounds. Consider," she added, "that when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone for ever. If, indeed, it could be restored to our poor little boy--"

"Why, to be sure," said her husband, very gravely, "that would make great difference. The time may come when Harry will regret that so large a sum was parted with. If he should have a numerous family, for instance, it would be a very convenient addition."

"To be sure it would."

"Perhaps, then, it would be better for all parties, if the sum were diminished one half.--Five hundred pounds would be a prodigious increase to their fortunes!"

"Oh! beyond anything great! What brother on earth would do half so much for his sisters, even if REALLY his sisters! And as it is—only half blood!--But you have such a generous spirit!"

"I would not wish to do any thing mean," he replied. "One had rather, on such occasions, do too much than too little. No one, at least, can think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can hardly expect more."

"There is no knowing what THEY may expect," said the lady, "but we are not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can afford to do."

"Certainly--and I think I may afford to give them five hundred pounds a-piece. As it is, without any addition of mine, they will each have about three thousand pounds on their mother's death--a very comfortable fortune for any young woman."

"To be sure it is; and, indeed, it strikes me that they can want no addition at all. They will have ten thousand pounds divided amongst them. If they marry, they will be sure of doing well, and if they do not, they may all live very comfortably together on the interest of ten thousand pounds."

"That is very true, and, therefore, I do not know whether, upon the whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother while she lives, rather than for them--something of the annuity kind I mean.--My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself. A hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable."

His wife hesitated a little, however, in giving her consent to this plan.

"To be sure," said she, "it is better than parting with fifteen hundred pounds at once. But, then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live fifteen years we shall be completely taken in."

"Fifteen years! my dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that purchase."

"Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy, and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. You are not aware of what you are doing. I have known a great deal of the trouble of annuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to old superannuated servants by my father's will, and it is amazing how disagreeable she found it. Twice every year these annuities were to be paid; and then there was the trouble of getting it to them; and then one of them was said to have died, and afterwards it turned out to be no such thing. My mother was quite sick of it. Her income was not her own, she said, with such perpetual claims on it; and it was the more unkind in my father, because, otherwise, the money would have been entirely at my mother's disposal, without any restriction whatever. It has given me such an abhorrence of annuities, that I am sure I would not pin myself down to the payment of one for all the world."

"It is certainly an unpleasant thing," replied Mr. Dashwood, "to have those kind of yearly drains on one's income. One's fortune, as your mother justly says, is NOT one's own. To be tied down to the regular payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it takes away one's independence."

"Undoubtedly; and after all you have no thanks for it. They think themselves secure, you do no more than what is expected, and it raises no gratitude at all. If I were you, whatever I did should be done at my own discretion entirely. I would not bind myself to allow them any thing yearly. It may be very inconvenient some years to spare a hundred, or even fifty pounds from our own expenses."

"I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should by no annuity in the case; whatever I may give them occasionally will be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they would only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger income, and would not be sixpence the richer for it at the end of the year. It will certainly be much the best way. A present of fifty pounds, now and then, will prevent their ever being distressed for money, and will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father."

"To be sure it will. Indeed, to say the truth, I am convinced within myself that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at all. The assistance he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things, and sending them presents of fish and game, and so forth, whenever they are in season. I'll lay my life that he meant nothing farther; indeed, it would be very strange and unreasonable if he did. Do but consider, my dear Mr. Dashwood, how excessively comfortable your mother-in-law and her daughters may live on the interest of seven thousand pounds, besides the thousand pounds belonging to each of the girls, which brings them in fifty pounds a year a-piece, and, of course, they will pay their mother for their board out of it. Altogether, they will have five hundred a-year amongst them, and what on earth can four women want for more than that?--They will live so cheap! Their housekeeping will be nothing at all. They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of any kind! Only conceive how comfortable they will be! Five hundred a year! I am sure I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as to your giving them more, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will be much more able to give YOU something."

"Upon my word," said Mr. Dashwood, "I believe you are perfectly right. My father certainly could mean nothing more by his request to me than what you say. I clearly understand it now, and I will strictly fulfil my engagement by such acts of assistance and kindness to them as you have described. When my mother removes into another house my services shall be readily given to accommodate her as far as I can. Some little present of furniture too may be acceptable then."

"Certainly," returned Mrs. John Dashwood. "But, however, ONE thing must be considered. When your father and mother moved to Norland, though the furniture of Stanhill was sold, all the china, plate, and linen was saved, and is now left to your mother. Her house will therefore be almost completely fitted up as soon as she takes it."

"That is a material consideration undoubtedly. A valuable legacy indeed! And yet some of the plate would have been a very pleasant addition to our own stock here."

"Yes; and the set of breakfast china is twice as handsome as what belongs to this house. A great deal too handsome, in my opinion, for any place THEY can ever afford to live in. But, however, so it is. Your father thought only of THEM. And I must say this: that you owe no particular gratitude to him, nor attention to his wishes; for we very well know that if he could, he would have left almost everything in the world to THEM."

This argument was irresistible. It gave to his intentions whatever of decision was wanting before; and he finally resolved, that it would be absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more for the widow and children of his father, than such kind of neighbourly acts as his own wife pointed out.

martial arts films i have recently watched

2009-09-14T11:40:00.001+10:00

Martial Arts Films I have recently watched:
(Please note: films that I have watched that are part of the Melbourne International Film Festival have been prefaced with MIFF)

MIFF Chocolate, Thailand, 2008, directed by Prachya Pinkaew. This film was really good fun and quite well made. It is an honest to god martial arts movie with the structure of the film revolving around a beginning section (in which we are introduced to our characters and the plot gets set up), and then features 3 big fight scenes before being resolved in a final showdown between our heroine and her supporters and the baddies. I liked the way that the 3 fight scenes in the mid part of the film were each set in a different type of factory – I thought that a nice visual theme was set up here. The final, climactic fight is a good looking set piece which takes place in a restaurant and then on the walls and balconies of buildings overlooking a small laneway in a busy Thai city. In this last fight scene I enjoyed the way the choreographer creatively responded to the architecture of the setting to give the movement sequences structure and originality.

What is it about martial arts films? Only in a martial arts film can you get away with a plot premise which is so politically incorrect – an autistic girl has a genius savant gift for learning physical technique and because of this learns martial arts from watching Bruce Lee films and thai boxing. She becomes a debt collector to help her ailing mother (as you do). At the end of this film she even gets to fight another physically disabled youth in a showdown that had the audience cheering.

The Magic Blade directed by Chu Yuan and starring Ti Lung, Ching Li and Lo Lieh. I really enjoyed this film. Each fight scene was more elaborately staged than the last and the film abounds in fabulously contrived set pieces. Many people I know would moan and bitch that this is what is wrong with chop sockies and why they are crap movies but I disagree. The bizarre gimmicks and baroque choreography that drive many of these fight scenes are precisely what I love about these movies, and why I think they are so imaginative, dynamic and just damned good fun.

Lone Wolf and Cub – Baby cart at the River Styx. There are a whole series of the Lone Wolf and Cub films that were made in the 1970s. These are Japanese samurai films with an interesting gimmick. Sorry but I am going to be lazy here and just cut and paste a paragraph I wrote about another film in this same series. The comments stand:
Great title huh! Directed by Kenji Misumi. OKAY CALL THE SOCIAL WORKERS! The toddler in this film is pushed through the countryside in a wooden pram by his assassin dad as he trudges from 1 gory fight to another. The wee tacker is constantly exposed to scenes of death and brutality and this has me seriously worried about his future psychological development. I haven’t been so horrified about the fate of a child since Jet Li’s character tied a rope around his own son and used him as a weapon in My Father is a Hero. Apart from this I actually enjoyed this film – there was a beaut fight scene every 5 minutes and I felt that it was quite nicely filmed.

Also:
The Prodigal Son
Kung Fu Hustle
Revenge of the Dragon
The Spiritual Boxer
The Trail of the Broken Blade
Human Lanterns
Duel of Fists
Dragon Swamp
Duelist
Sword of Doom
The Lizard
Tai Chi Master
Project A.
Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment
The 12 Gold Medallions
Shaolin Hand Lock
Ong Bak.
Sex and Fury
Female Yakuza Tale
Lone Wolf and Cub – Baby Cart in the Land of Demons.
Bruce Li in Snake Island
Bichunmoo
The Bride with White Hair 2
Duel to the Death

HELP we need your house

2009-09-11T16:50:00.001+10:00

LITTLE ACCIDENT, short film starring Meredith Lewis, directed by Johan Mard.
-Needed: Living room + kitchen in house located in Fawkner / Hadfield / Glenroy or similar suburb.
-1 DAY of interior shooting between Oct 22-27, small student crew, some lighting equipment & props.
-Some compensation for electricity and troubles / thank you credit / eternal glory.
Photos of interior would be extremely helpful. Script and Production Brief is available on request.
Thank you kindly.
-Johan Mard
www.nothingproduct.com

a favourite word of mine...

2009-09-10T13:00:00.002+10:00

ripsnorter

\RIP-SNOR-ter\
noun

Meaning
: something extraordinary : humdinger

Example Sentence
"Inevitably, good and evil clash in a ripsnorter of a final battle, but along the way, there is action, adventure, danger, comic relief and — always — very good eating." (Sue Corbette, The Miami Herald, January 22, 1999)

Did you know?
English speakers of the mid-19th century already had the term "snorter" at their disposal if they wanted a colorful term for something extraordinary, but that didn't stop speakers in the U.S. from throwing the verb "rip" onto the front of the word to create "ripsnorter." And they didn't stop there: By the time the 20th century had reached its quarter mark, U.S. speakers had added "hummer," "humdinger" (probably an alteration of "hummer"), "pip" (from "pippin," a kind of crisp, tart apple and a term for a highly admirable person or thing), and "doozy" (thought to be an alteration of "daisy") to the catalog of words for the striking or extraordinary.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

The above text was taken from the Merriam-Webster Word of the Day email bulletin.

Another Poem from Akhenaten by Dorothy Porter

2009-09-09T09:59:00.000+10:00

AKHET-ATEN
REGNAL YEARS 12-17

She Leaves Her Things

What sort of face
is she wearing
at the Northern Palace?

She’s left behind
all her cosmetics.
Even her tweezers.
Will my love be sprouting
thick eyebrows?

Grow hideous, Nefertiti,
tumble in public
your hairy grief
like a performing dwarf.

Even Hapu. The monkey pot.
Left him behind too.
I see the mark
of your fingernail
in his kohl.

I stole him
from my mother’s chest,
we were still kids
but your new breasts
nudged me to it.

I’d like one like that,
you said
so I pinched him.
Hapu
we called him
after the smart little monkey
who built temples
for my father.

I’m not touching your things.

Not looking at myself
in your mirror.

The sluts in my harem
can have the lot.

Books I have read recently...

2009-09-08T13:21:00.001+10:00

Witches Incorporated by KE Mills. Promoted as a “rip-roaring Harry Potter for grown ups” (Herald Sun) on its cover this book is a fantasy set in a world (representing Victorian era Britain) where the use of magic is commonplace and where most of its major characters are witches, wizards and their supporters. The book is reasonably entertaining with a good plot but I actually prefer the Harry Potter novels. One thing I didn’t like was that the 4 main characters constantly squabbled. I think it was meant to be witty and flirtatious banter, but I found their dialogue to be tedious and thought that the book lost momentum when they interacted too much.

Children of the Night: The 6 Archetypal Characters of Classic Horror Films by Randy Loren Rasmussen I can recommend this book for avid fans of black and white horror films. I have seen only a few. My television arial does not work so I rely on DVDs for my viewing entertainment. The DVD collection of Northcote Library has been an absoluter boon as it has quite an interesting collection of DVDs that covers not just movies, but documentaries and television series as well. In the interests of filling the long, cold, dark, lonely nights at home (cue violins) I frequently load up with DVDs, including some I would not ordinarily watch (just to fill in the hours). I don’t mind this at all as I think it is probably a mind broadening exercise that will shore up my knowledge in pop culture and challenge preconceptions I have of certain films and programs. Because of this I have watched a few black and white horror films. I hate modern horror films. I am an abject coward – it takes very little to frighten me and, unlike horror fans, I don’t like being scared. I also hate brutality and the explicit tortures that are lovingly filmed in detail in modern horror films leave me sleepless for days on end. But the old horror films, while still not among my favourite films, are far less scary and rely on creating psychological thrills (rather than close ups of minced flesh) for effect. This book has a very good premise for examining these films. The author makes a strong case for there being 6 archetypes – heroines, heroes, wise elders, servants, mad geniuses and monsters. The basic structure of the book is that there is a chapter devoted to each character type, and a brief paragraph devoted to a specific character in a specific film. The upside of this is that Rasmussen is able to undertake a very comprehensive survey of characters, the downside is that it all starts to get a bit sameish. I struggled to sustain my interest towards the end of the book, but die hard fans of the genre may find it more interesting.

Also:
Ulysses by James Joyce
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Eat the Rich by PJ O’Rourke
The Illustrated Virago Book of Women Travellers edited by Mary Morris with Larry O’Connor
Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon.
Why did it have to be snakes by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg
Death Sentence – the decay of public language by Don Watson
Miss Marple Omnibus by Agatha Christie
The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
To the Ends of the Earth by Paul Theroux
Discovering King Island by Jean Edgecombe
The Prester Quest by Nicholas Jubber
Mr Wong Goes West by Nury Vittachi
City of Shadows – Sydney Police Photographs 1912 – 1948 edited by Peter Doyle
Guards! Guards! By Terry Pratchett

exorcising your spirits while exercising your lungs

2009-09-07T15:14:00.001+10:00

This is another old blog from my 360 archive. It was written in response to a Halloween themed tour that was facilitated by a blogger called Rural Diva. On 360 we would have regular tours where one blogger would suggest a theme and whoever wanted to would respond by writing a blog in response to that theme. We would all post these blogs on an appointed day. The host would list these bloggers on his or her blog and we would read and comment on each other’s blogs. I remember that this particular blog elicited a couple of truly terrifying stories (remember yours, Jacqui BB?). Anyhow, below is the blog I wrote. Sceptics should look away now.

I do not have an actual story to tell about ghosts. In that I mean that my encounters with the supernatural have been a matter of a brief encounter here and there rather than a full blown and self contained sequence of events. The word ‘story’ suggests to me a narrative along the lines of ‘I was here, I saw this, so my friend suggested we do that, and then THIS happened, and I hid there, and we waved that, and we all said “Ah Ha!” and then we went home.’ My encounters have been a matter of a glimpse, a scream, thinking “I don’t believe I saw that”, and then leaving the lights on for the rest of the night.

Such encounters include once hearing the ghost of my family’s cat Blackjack shortly after he died – hearing his little feet pad softly across the floor just a couple of feet in front of me and hearing him meow (even though there was nothing to see). Another time I was staying at a lovely bed and breakfast in Edinburgh. One day I saw the figure of an elderly man dressed in modern grey jacket and pants standing at the foot of my bed with his head bowed. I shrieked and he faded into nothingness. Yet another time in my life, over a period of several weeks, I would suddenly smell a woman’s perfume around me. The smell would arise in odd circumstances where it could not otherwise be explained, and then just as suddenly disappear.

There is a ghost attached to the theatre run by the organisation I used to work for. I saw him a few times. He is a young Caucasian man, tall with light brown hair cut short and wearing a dark brown top. I saw him backstage and also sitting in the seats out the front – I get the impression that he liked watching us rehearse. And I have corroboration on this one – a set designer for one of our productions a few years ago saw him as well. There is one part of backstage – our loft costumes are stored – that had a definite atmosphere. Our director in residence said that she didn’t like being alone there and neither did I. Yet I didn’t get any malicious vibes from this boy – he just quietly sat and observed.

About 10 years ago I lived in a bed-sitter in North Melbourne. My mother came to visit me and slept over one night. We both heard foot steps walk across the floor several times during the night. Quite often when people think they hear ghosts walking in a house they are actually just hearing wooden floor boards expanding or contracting due to a change in temperature as night falls. This was not the case here – the floor was carpet on concrete.

During the encounters I have so far described my behaviour has been consistent. To my shame I have to admit that it is nothing to be proud of. I am a wimp. A coward. A scaredy cat extraordinaire. A glimpse of anything eerie elicits great yells of alarm, vigorous and colourful blaspheming and inventive streams of profanity. And after I calm down and, eventually, stop trembling I feel like such a booby. You see, none of the aforementioned ghosts did anything threatening. None of them evoked an atmosphere that was menacing or sinister or evil. The worst I can say of them was that their appearances were unexpected. Furthermore, if I got any impression from them at all, it was that of sadness. There was something forlorn about their appearances. And, in retrospect, I feel like such a churl. Imagine being a ghost. Imagine being stuck in the same old place all the time, maybe feeling confused or traumatised about your new disembodied state. Imagine girding your non existent loins, grinding your spectral teeth and finally managing to manifest in front of some helpful looking person… only to have them shriek and swear at you.

A few weeks ago I was in a bar on Lygon Street and I went to the toilet. Here I encountered the shade of a young girl who had died there. I was astonished (as I always am) but fortunately a little more mindful. I suggested to this girl that there were better places for her to be, and that she didn’t have to spend eternity in a toilet. So maybe I am improving.

But not all of my brief encounters have involved entities that deserved or invited sympathy. I awoke one evening to find 3 tall figures, 2 men and a woman, clad in dark cloaks gathering around my bed. They had sallow faces, dark hair, and the expression in their black eyes was intent and cruel. I instinctively sat bolt upright and screamed “Who the hell are you?” at each one in turn. And as I did this each one in turn disappeared. Another time I was walking around my bedroom when an entity that was shaped like a black cloud exploded into the room. I spun around and just instinctively roared “NO!” and that entity then disappeared too.

But you should have heard me the night I found the nasty boy in my bed. I had hopped into bed, turned off the bedside lamp, pulled my nice warm doona up to my chin and, prior to shutting my eyes and going to sleep, turned on my side to find my face inches away from that of a young man. He lay with the side of his face on my pillow. He had wavy brown hair, a pointed chin but round cheeks. He laughed into my face and the impression I got was one of enormous malice. What I yelled during the next few seconds is literally unprintable. His expression froze and then he, too disappeared. Fortunately I never saw him again. Maybe my choice vocabulary scared him off.

I have read that harmful ghosts or demonic entities should be dealt with by saying a prayer or evoking the name of your chosen guardian spirits, angels or Gods. Does “Jesus F*&%#ing H Christ” shrieked at the top of one’s lungs count as prayer or invocation? If it does then I am safe for life. I have also heard that any work against the occult forces should be performed with a clear intent and a strong focus of magical will. Is roaring “F*&%# OFF!!!” at glass shattering intensity sufficient to achieve this, do you think? I certainly hope so, because it seems to be my knee jerk reaction to any visits from the other plane. The funny (but true) thing is that they do seem to have done the trick… Perhaps as a relatively harmless human being, albeit with a terribly offensive vocabulary, I have more grace than the most determined demon. That is a comforting thought.

I will sign off here. I haven’t told you the story about the black demon snakes in my laundry basket or about the time I was visited by the angel. These are true stories but sound a bit way out in the telling, and I am too shy to expose them to the gaze of the sceptics in blogland.

I Please your uterus. You kiss my toes. It's fair

2009-09-04T13:56:00.001+10:00

The standard of subtitling in Kong Kong action films seems to have arisen dramatically and recent DVD releases features natural, correct English. However this genre of films was once notorious for risible subtitles. I have done a quick search of the internet and come up with the gems listed below:

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/humour/kungfusubtitles.htm
I have been scared like a mouse too much lately.
How dare you seduce man at such critical moment! (Evil Cult)

http://writersdreamtools.com/view/humor/view.asp?HumorID=31&offset=
I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.
Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep.
Gun wounds again?
Same old rules: no eyes, no groin.
A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries.
Damn, I'll burn you into a BBQ chicken!
Take my advice, or I'll spank you without pants.
Who gave you the nerve to get killed here?
Quiet or I'll blow your throat up.
You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken.
I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out!
You daring lousy guy.
Beat him out of recognizable shape!
I have been scared shitless too much lately.
I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair!
Beware! Your bones are going to be disconnected.
How can you use my intestines as a gift?
The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?
This will be of fine service for you, you bag of the scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your manhoods and leave them out on the dessert flour for your aunts to eat
Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough examination.
Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.

http://www.innocentenglish.com/funny-english-mistakes-bloopers/funny-movie-captions.html
I threat you! I challenge you meet me on the roof tonight for a duet!
I will kill you until you are dead from it!
You are too useless. And now I must beat you.
A normal person wouldn’t steal pituitaries.
Your spear is useless… You better use it for mixing excretory.
Now I feel flatulent, and you did it.
My innards have all been disturbed by him.
That may disarray my intestines.
I please your uterus. You kiss my toes. It’s fair.
This is the Martial Arts Competition, not a place for fighting! (from Kung Fu)

Word Thursday: Jactitation, hypnagogic, kanashibari

2009-09-03T15:11:00.002+10:00

NOTE: This is a blog I wrote a few years ago when I was blogging on 360. It is a favourite of mine and so, as I don’t have much time to write a new blog from scratch, I am going to republish it here:

The Meriam-Webster email bulletin recently delivered this word of the day to my inbox:
jactitation \jak-tuh-TAY-shun\ noun
: a tossing to and fro or jerking and twitching of the body
Example sentence:
“It is clear that Mrs Y.'s tics are far more complex in form than mere Parkinsonian jerks, jactitations, or precipitations….” (Oliver Sacks, Awakenings)
Did you know?
In the 17th century, lawyers began tossing around the word “jactitation,” which can be traced back to the Latin verb “jactare,” meaning “to throw.” Originally, “jactitation” was used as a word for a false claim or assertion being publicly thrown about to the detriment of another person. Run-of-the-mill slander and false claims of being married to someone were two common types of jactitation brought to court. Before long, “jactitation” had jumped over to the medical profession, where it continues to serve as a word for restless, jerky, or twitchy body movements. In 1761, British writer Laurence Sterne threw “jactitation” into his novel Tristram Shandy as a substitute for “discussion,” but that meaning never caught on.

I have treasured this word for years. I first read it in a novel by Kinggsley Amis called The Green Man. Now, I must re-read this because I was in my teens when I read it the first time but it has stayed with me. It was a very vivid novel. Check out this web link for more information -
http://www.answers.com/topic/the-green-man-1

UPDATE 3 September 2009: I have reread this novel and enjoyed it far less, as I found the protagomist to be a self indulgent wanker.

The main character in this novel suffers from jactitations and when I read this I said “Ah ha!” because I suffered from them too! I will be forever indebted to Amis for supplying me with the name of this irksome habit. Surely you have suffered from that thing that happens at night when you are just settling down to sleep when, all of the sudden and with no warning whatsoever, your body gives this huge convulsive and violent jerk. It’s just horrible. As a youngster I used to suffer from them often, and by the second year of my undergraduate degree at University I was having them EVERY NIGHT. It was nightmarish. I don’t suffer from them now but that is because I discovered that I wouldn’t have them if I slept on my stomach. Now I make sure that I fall asleep on my tummy.
Here is a link to some information from Wikipedia on the word jactitation –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jactitation

Wikipedia provides commentary on both the meanings of this word mentioned above (ie. The legal and physical meanings). Interestingly it mentions that jactitation is a hypnagogic happening. This is how Wikipedia describes hypnagogia –
“Hypnagogia (also spelled hypnogogia) describes vivid dreamlike auditory, visual, or tactile sensations, which are often accompanied by sleep paralysis and experienced when falling asleep or waking up”

I have never had sleep paralysis (thank god) but I have had hypnagogic hallucinations (mainly visual but sometimes aural). This is when you wake up but you are still dreaming. Basically when I have a hypnagogic hallucination I will open my eyes and see something frightening and bizarre. This has ranged from spiders, and slime on the wall, to demonic entities. Sometimes I have seen things that are so bizarre that they literally defy description. I will know I am awake because I will be able to move and talk. This is usually manifested by me trembling, screaming, swearing, running around the room and turning on the light. These things are not fun, and I usually get them when I am stressed. The first few times I had them I honestly thought that I really was going mad – that they were the onset of psychosis. I also scared the hell out of a couple of boyfriends. A counsellor I was seeing at the time was able to put my mind at rest. But she suspected that I was heavily into marijuana, as apparently heavy dope users can experience hypnagogic hallucinations as a result of their drug use. I have never taken drugs but I had the devil of a job persuading her that this was so (“Oh c’mon Meredith… you are in the Arts after all!”).

I found out about sleep paralysis when I taught English in Japan for 2 years. Sleep paralysis is a state whereby a person wakes up but they can’t move at all. Sleep paralysis can be accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations, commonly that someone or something is pressing down on the chest of the person who is being paralysed. It is also common for this person to have auditory hallucinations and to see the presence of a demon or witch. This is why sleep paralysis is known as Old Hag Syndrome in some countries. In Japan they call it kanashibari which means “bound or fastened with metal”. I got this definition from this Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanashibari

I found this syndrome to be quite fascinating, and plagued my students with questions about it over the 2 years. It is incredibly common in Japan. The vast majority of my students had experienced it and 100% of them knew some one else who had had it. I choreographed a dance work to Henry Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary about it. I called it kanashibari.

What unusual things do you do when you are asleep? I also talk and walk in my sleep a lot. My family and aforementioned ex boyfriends have some strange tales to tell in regards to my nocturnal antics. But I am blissfully unaware that I do these things so that’s OK.

All welcome: Drink and Think Artist talks

2009-09-03T11:39:00.001+10:00

Romaine Logere sent a message to the members of Drink+Think research presentation evenings:
--------------------
Subject: Drink+Think 090909 :: "The Getting of Wisdom" Edition
Spring has sprung, and the drink+think bounty is RRRRRripe for the harvest! This month is an exercise in the sacred and divine, as the holy twins of interactive research across Melbourne and Sydney hold court at the design hub gallery.
The first Saint to bear witness is the blessed Bruce Mowson. Bruce is currently completing a PhD in fine art and will be discussing one of his research projects, birdland. The project aims to produce new material and understandings about audiovisual installation art and immanence. Immanence describes a subjective state that emphasises an embodied sense in time and space. It is explored in the project artworks by using materials and techniques that heighten one’s sense of being a receptor – of seeing and hearing, rather than being an identity formed in language. The research works through the derivation of my notion of immanence from my environmental listening experiences. He has used artistic and philosophical material to aid and extend these concepts in relation to their investigation through the practical works.
Next comes the sanctified teachings of St. Martin Tomitsch. Martin received an MSc in Informatics in 2004 and completed his PhD in 2008, both at the Vienna University of Technology. His research deals with user interfaces that go beyond traditional desktop computing applications. In his PhD thesis he explored the concept of architectural display, focussing on the architectural ceiling for visualizing information at the periphery of user attention in everyday environments. He is especially interested in synergies between architectural concepts and ubiquitous computing environments. He is also involved in industrial projects, where he works as a usability consultant and interaction designer, and teaches courses in user interface design, usability engineering, and human-computer interaction.
Divinity can be reached@the design hub gallery [110 Victoria Street, Building 91, ground floor], on Wednesday 09th September from 6pm onwards. The Boss’s blood will be available but it may not have been bottled at His best moment and you will be expected to make a $2 donation to the "church" with every cup. Far better to byo your own grapey salvation.
For further information on this manifestation of miracles call or text mssg 0400 507412, or direct a glad heart to: http://www.facebook.com/l/;www.sial.rmit.edu.au/Events/Current_&_Upcoming.php
Halleluj!
: ))(( :
R

Suzanne White writes about Mercury Retrograde

2009-09-02T09:46:00.002+10:00

Below is some text I have cut and pasted from one of my favourite astrologers Suzanne White. Suzanne has a unique view on astrology in that she is adept at melding and analysing people through both their Western and Oriental astrological signs. You can check out her website or track her down on Facebook if you want to know more. In the meantime, read what she has to say about bastard Mercury retrograde:

Dear Readers, Friends and New Astrology™ App. members,

On September 6th, 2009 the planet Mercury goes retrograde. It will stay that way until September 29 when it starts to go "direct' again. Of course Mercury retrograde doesn't really indicate that the planet is acutally moving backward. But because of various scientific phenomena of which I am utterly ignorant, it appears to be in reverse. We call these times "Mercury Retrograde".

For some reason, we also attribute certain undesirable effects to Mercury's recalcitrant shenanagins.

During Mercury Retrograde, astrologers like to warn us, we should not sign contracts, make promises, take up with new lovers and expect their seductive promises to mean longevity beyond next Tuesday. During Mercury retrograde we should also refrain from expecting electronic equipment to function at full capacity. Computers and the like seem to sense Mercury revving up to back up and begin pulling all manner of tricks a nd engendering glitches and spikes guaranteed to drive us all bats.

During Mercury retrograde, we are also told that unresolved issues from the past tend to crop up. People and conflicts we thought we'd left behind in the past, come ambling in through our kitchen or office door which can raise all sorts of "dead" issues and snarl up the present in a big way. A dodgy parent you left in the dust when you were but a pup, returns to announce he or she is getting married to someone your own age. A child returns from a ten-year absence to ask you for money to climb Mount Everest. Things and events from out of the past, that you might rather would have remained there, suddenly surge from out of nowhereto re-bedevil you. My advice? Snarl and keep smiling.

These not so charming burps from the past can botch an otherwise cloudless September horizon. So, from September 6 through 29 be on the lookout for snafus of all variety. Don't commit to anything life altering. Sign nothing binding. Do not get married, engaged or start a new business during this twisty turny period. Keep all options open.

And if someone insists you commit or sign or promise, just say a polite NO. They can wait (and even sweat a bit) until October 1 when old Mercury recommences her journey frontwards.
Good luck. Fair warning. Next Mercury retrograde starts December 26 and runs through Januray 15, 2010. More about it then.

Happy Horoscopes!
Suzanne White
SuzanneWhite.com

Why they kill their newborns

2009-09-01T12:47:00.002+10:00

The below article was retireved from http://www.rightgrrl.com/carolyn/pinker.html

New York Times
November 2, 1997,
Sunday Section: Magazine Desk

Why They Kill Their Newborns
By Steven Pinker

Killing your baby. what could be more depraved? For a woman to destroy the fruit of her womb would seem like an ultimate violation of the natural order. But every year, hundreds of women commit neonaticide: they kill their newborns or let them die. Most neonaticides remain undiscovered, but every once in a while a janitor follows a trail of blood to a tiny body in a trash bin, or a woman faints and doctors find the remains of a placenta inside her.

Two cases have recently riveted the American public. Last November, Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson, 18-year-old college sweethearts, delivered their baby in a motel room and, according to prosecutors, killed him and left his body in a Dumpster. They will go on trial for murder next year and, if convicted, could be sentenced to death. In June, another 18-year-old, Melissa Drexler, arrived at her high-school prom, locked herself in a bathroom stall, gave birth to a boy and left him dead in a garbage can. Everyone knows what happened next: she touched herself up and returned to the dance floor. In September, a grand jury indicted her for murder.

How could they do it? Nothing melts the heart like a helpless baby. Even a biologist's cold calculations tell us that nurturing an offspring that carries our genes is the whole point of our existence. Neonaticide, many think, could be only a product of pathology. The psychiatrists uncover childhood trauma. The defense lawyers argue temporary psychosis. The pundits blame a throwaway society, permissive sex education and, of course, rock lyrics.

But it's hard to maintain that neonaticide is an illness when we learn that it has been practiced and accepted in most cultures throughout history. And that neonaticidal women do not commonly show signs of psychopathology. In a classic 1970 study of statistics of child killing, a psychiatrist, Phillip Resnick, found that mothers who kill their older children are frequently psychotic, depressed or suicidal, but mothers who kill their newborns are usually not. (It was this difference that led Resnick to argue that the category infanticide be split into neonaticide, the killing of a baby on the day of its birth, and filicide, the killing of a child older than one day. )

Killing a baby is an immoral act, and we often express our outrage at the immoral by calling it a sickness. But normal human motives are not always moral, and neonaticide does not have to be a product of malfunctioning neural circuitry or a dysfunctional upbringing. We can try to understand what would lead a mother to kill her newborn, remembering that to understand is not necessarily to forgive.

Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, both psychologists, argue that a capacity for neonaticide is built into the biological design of our parental emotions. Mammals are extreme among animals in the amount of time, energy and food they invest in their young, and humans are extreme among mammals. Parental investment is a limited resource, and mammalian mothers must ''decide'' whether to allot it to their newborn or to their current and future offspring. If a newborn is sickly, or if its survival is not promising, they may cut their losses and favor the healthiest in the litter or try again later on.

In most cultures, neonaticide is a form of this triage. Until very recently in human evolutionary history, mothers nursed their children for two to four years before becoming fertile again. Many children died, especially in the perilous first year. Most women saw no more than two or three of their children survive to adulthood, and many did not see any survive. To become a grandmother, a woman had to make hard choices. In most societies documented by anthropologists, including those of hunter-gatherers (our best glimpse into our ancestors' way of life), a woman lets a newborn die when its prospects for survival to adulthood are poor. The forecast might be based on abnormal signs in the infant, or on bad circumstances for successful motherhood at the time -- she might be burdened with older children, beset by war or famine or without a husband or social support. Moreover, she might be young enough to try again.

We are all descendants of women who made the difficult decisions that allowed them to become grandmothers in that unforgiving world, and we inherited that brain circuitry that led to those decisions. Daly and Wilson have shown that the statistics on neonaticide in contemporary North America parallel those in the anthropological literature. The women who sacrifice their offspring tend to be young, poor, unmarried and socially isolated.

Natural selection cannot push the buttons of behavior directly; it affects our behavior by endowing us with emotions that coax us toward adaptive choices. New mothers have always faced a choice between a definite tragedy now and the possibility of an even greater tragedy months or years later, and that choice is not to be taken lightly. Even today, the typical rumination of a depressed new mother -- how will I cope with this burden? -- is a legitimate concern. The emotional response called bonding is also far more complex than the popular view, in which a woman is imprinted with a lifelong attachment to her baby if they interact in a critical period immediately following the baby's birth. A new mother will first coolly assess the infant and her current situation and only in the next few days begin to see it as a unique and wonderful individual. Her love will gradually deepen in ensuing years, in a trajectory that tracks the increasing biological value of a child (the chance that it will live to produce grandchildren) as the child proceeds through the mine field of early development.

Even when a mother in a hunter-gatherer society hardens her heart to sacrifice a newborn, her heart has not turned to stone. Anthropologists who interview these women (or their relatives, since the event is often too painful for the woman to discuss) discover that the women see the death as an unavoidable tragedy, grieve at the time and remember the child with pain all their lives. Even the supposedly callous Melissa Drexler agonized over a name for her dead son and wept at his funeral. (Initial reports that, after giving birth, she requested a Metallica song from the deejay and danced with her boyfriend turned out to be false.)

Many cultural practices are designed to distance people's emotions from a newborn until its survival seems probable. Full personhood is often not automatically granted at birth, as we see in our rituals of christening and the Jewish bris. And yet the recent neonaticides still seem puzzling. These are middle-class girls whose babies would have been kept far from starvation by the girls' parents or by any of thousands of eager adoptive couples. But our emotions, fashioned by the slow hand of natural selection, respond to the signals of the long-vanished tribal environment in which we spent 99 percent of our evolutionary history. Being young and single are two bad omens for successful motherhood, and the girl who conceals her pregnancy and procrastinates over its consequences will soon be disquieted by a third omen. She will give birth in circumstances that are particularly unpromising for a human mother: alone.

In hunter-gatherer societies, births are virtually always assisted because human anatomy makes birth (especially the first one) long, difficult and risky. Older women act as midwives, emotional supports and experienced appraisers who help decide whether the infant should live. Wenda Trevathan, an anthropologist and trained midwife, has studied pelvises of human fossils and concluded that childbirth has been physically tortuous, and therefore probably assisted, for millions of years. Maternal feelings may be adapted to a world in which a promising newborn is heralded with waves of cooing and clucking and congratulating. Those reassuring signals are absent from a secret birth in a motel room or a bathroom stall.

So what is the mental state of a teen-age mother who has kept her pregnancy secret? She is immature enough to have hoped that her pregnancy would go away by itself, her maternal feelings have been set at zero and she suddenly realizes she is in big trouble. Sometimes she continues to procrastinate. In September, 17-year-old Shanta Clark gave birth to a premature boy and kept him hidden in her bedroom closet, as if he were E.T., for 17 days. She fed him before and after she went to school until her mother discovered him. The weak cry of the preemie kept him from being discovered earlier. (In other cases, girls have panicked over the crying and, in stifling the cry, killed the baby.)

Most observers sense the desperation that drives a woman to neonaticide. Prosecutors sometimes don't prosecute; juries rarely convict; those found guilty almost never go to jail. Barbara Kirwin, a forensic psychologist, reports that in nearly 300 cases of women charged with neonaticide in the United States and Britain, no woman spent more than a night in jail. In Europe, the laws of several countries prescribed less-severe penalties for neonaticide than for adult homicides. The fascination with the Grossberg-Peterson case comes from the unusual threat of the death penalty. Even those in favor of capital punishment might shudder at the thought of two reportedly nice kids being strapped to gurneys and put to death.

But our compassion hinges on the child, not just on the mother. Killers of older children, no matter how desperate, evoke little mercy. Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who sent her two sons, 14 months and 3 years old, to watery deaths, is in jail, unmourned, serving a life sentence. The leniency shown to neonaticidal mothers forces us to think the unthinkable and ask if we, like many societies and like the mothers themselves, are not completely sure whether a neonate is a full person.

It seems obvious that we need a clear boundary to confer personhood on a human being and grant it a right to life. Otherwise, we approach a slippery slope that ends in the disposal of inconvenient people or in grotesque deliberations on the value of individual lives. But the endless abortion debate shows how hard it is to locate the boundary. Anti-abortionists draw the line at conception, but that implies we should shed tears every time an invisible conceptus fails to implant in the uterus -- and, to carry the argument to its logical conclusion, that we should prosecute for murder anyone who uses an IUD. Those in favor of abortion draw the line at viability, but viability is a fuzzy gradient that depends on how great a risk of an impaired child the parents are willing to tolerate. The only thing both sides agree on is that the line must be drawn at some point before birth.

Neonaticide forces us to examine even that boundary. To a biologist, birth is as arbitrary a milestone as any other. Many mammals bear offspring that see and walk as soon as they hit the ground. But the incomplete 9-month-old human fetus must be evicted from the womb before its outsize head gets too big to fit through its mother's pelvis. The usual primate assembly process spills into the first years in the world. And that complicates our definition of personhood.

What makes a living being a person with a right not to be killed? Animal-rights extremists would seem to have the easiest argument to make: that all sentient beings have a right to life. But champions of that argument must conclude that delousing a child is akin to mass murder; the rest of us must look for an argument that draws a smaller circle. Perhaps only the members of our own species, Homo sapiens, have a right to life? But that is simply chauvinism; a person of one race could just as easily say that people of another race have no right to life.

No, the right to life must come, the moral philosophers say, from morally significant traits that we humans happen to possess. One such trait is having a unique sequence of experiences that defines us as individuals and connects us to other people. Other traits include an ability to reflect upon ourselves as a continuous locus of consciousness, to form and savor plans for the future, to dread death and to express the choice not to die. And there's the rub: our immature neonates don't possess these traits any more than mice do.

Several moral philosophers have concluded that neonates are not persons, and thus neonaticide should not be classified as murder. Michael Tooley has gone so far as to say that neonaticide ought to be permitted during an interval after birth. Most philosophers (to say nothing of nonphilosophers) recoil from that last step, but the very fact that there can be a debate about the personhood of neonates, but no debate about the personhood of older children, makes it clearer why we feel more sympathy for an Amy Grossberg than for a Susan Smith.

So how do you provide grounds for outlawing neonaticide? The facts don't make it easy. Some philosophers suggest that people intuitively see neonates as so similar to older babies that you couldn't allow neonaticide without coarsening the way people treat children and other people in general. Again, the facts say otherwise. Studies in both modern and hunter-gatherer societies have found that neonaticidal women don't kill anyone but their newborns, and when they give birth later under better conditions, they can be devoted, loving mothers.

The laws of biology were not kind to Amy Grossberg and Melissa Drexler, and they are not kind to us as we struggle to make moral sense of the teen-agers' actions. One predicament is that our moral system needs a crisp inauguration of personhood, but the assembly process for Homo sapiens is gradual, piecemeal and uncertain. Another problem is that the emotional circuitry of mothers has evolved to cope with this uncertain process, so the baby killers turn out to be not moral monsters but nice, normal (and sometimes religious) young women. These are dilemmas we will probably never resolve, and any policy will leave us with uncomfortable cases. We will most likely muddle through, keeping birth as a conspicuous legal boundary but showing mercy to the anguished girls who feel they had no choice but to run afoul of it.

Bad Date Blog

2009-08-27T14:55:00.002+10:00

This is actually an old blog that I posted on the now defunct 360 site at Yahoo. Someone held a competition to see who could write the best blog about a bad date they had had. I didn't win but I didn't expect to. The blog I ended up writing, which I have reproduced below, is one of my favourite blogs. I haven't had much time for writing lately so I thought I might just recycle this blog:

Bad Date Blog

I don’t go on a lot of dates – I don’t get asked out much. And while I would like, perhaps even crave, a more romantic action in my life I am very bad at eliciting it. Part of my reluctance comes from the fact that I am choosy when it comes to men, and I also hate letting people down. Therefore if some poor bloke asks me out and I turn him down I tend to feel guilty and uncomfortable about doing so.

The reason why I have a current policy of being so choosy is that I have terrible taste in men (and in people generally, perhaps). I sometimes think that I have a Neon sign mounted over my head that everyone can see except me. I suspect that it says something like “Arseholes, please queue up here!” Then, quite apart from that, I also transmit what I like to call my ‘rogue Mummy vibe’ or my ‘Auntie Meredith’ vibe. Life’s losers and professional victims tend to circle me like sharks circling a bleeding person. In a room full of crowded people, they elbow others out of the way to come to my side. Their eyes alight on me and a look of hope and great interest spreads across their faces. “Ah!” they say, “if that nice lady could just be my friend then that would be good. If she were my friend then that would reflect well on me, and if I could subdue or control or diminish or compromise the qualities that make her a person that reflects well on me then how happy and nice I would feel. And if I impress her with the tragedies of my life then I am sure that she would willingly, and at short notice, make herself available, without demur, for
· Sex
· Sympathy
· Life coaching
· Counselling sessions
· Organising my life
· Walking the dogs
· Making peace
· Watering the plants
· Other
· (circle any that apply according to desired relationship status and sexual preference)
“I am sure she understands,” they say to themselves,” that she was put on this planet to fill the aching void within me, and free me from having to do so myself.”

Why have I started the Bad Date Blog with this long vitriolic ramble? Because it explains a lot about my romantic past. I have not had many dates in my life, but a high percentage have been bad. But the trick to writing a good blog is, I think, to pick a bad date that was interestingly bad. During my one big love affair I had 3 years of bad dates. They were bad because they were filled with stony silences, my partner looking bored and absent, me prattling away to put him at his ease (which never happened) followed by perfunctory demands for sex. Bad? Yes – but too dull to write much about.

So who to choose? The handsome actor who constantly shushed me every time I mentioned I was on the dole, then looked around to see if anyone had overheard, following this up by perfunctory demands for sex? The British painter and decorator who put on the soundtrack to Zorba the Greek, danced around his lounge room in his socks and leopard skin print undies, announced he had herpes, and followed this up with a perfunctory demand for sex?

I could almost make a story about the 2 Israelis I met at an art exhibition. I thought I was meeting up with them AND a crowd of other folks for drinks. But the other folks never materialised and I realised that I had in fact been lured to a date where perfunctory doesn’t even start to describe the quality of the demands for sex.

“We love Australia… so beautiful… and Australian girls love sex… so do we… You drinking wine?... You like wine?... So do we… gets you in the mood for sex… We go surfing… we look at art… we have sex… We are in army in Israel… did we mention we like sex?... I am his captain… He is under command… but in sex we are all equal… Wanna have a threesome?... We go somewhere and have threesome”

“No.”

A short but astonished silence greeted this answer. There was a brief exchange in Hebrew, and the beta male quickly left the room. The captain turned to me:

“He go… he find another girl for sex… We have twosome… We go now.”

“NO!!!”

As this ejaculation was the only one I was going to allow to happen that night, the matter quickly came to a close.

The actual story I want to relate revolves around a man whose name I realise I have now forgotten. I went out with him a couple of times in the late nineties. I can see his face clearly in my mind, so I am quite startled to find that I have forgotten his name.

He was a tall young man, around about the same age as me. He had dark, curly hair cropped short, and a slim build. He was not handsome but had a pleasant face, with intelligent eyes and a ready, quirky smile. His manner was diffident and good natured and he was an articulate conversationalist. I met him when he gave me a tarot reading. One thing lead to another, we met a couple of times for a drink, and when my birthday came around he offered to take me out for dinner to celebrate. I appreciated the invitation, actually, as in those days I was choreographing and performing full time, and this means I was living the bohemian life and permanently broke.

We met in a café where he wished me a happy birthday, and announced that he intended to show me a really good time, but that I would have to pay for both of us because he didn’t have any money. He then gave me a card with an amusing message. I had turned 30, and the card depicted a grumpy old lady with her face screwed up as if revolted by something bad. I forget the exact wording but the message was something along the lines that turning 30 was akin to lingering around like a fart. Maybe my mood was affected by the fact that I was mentally doing sums and wondering if I could afford to take me and my swain out for a meal, but I found that I didn’t like being compared to one of the grosser bodily functions.

One very cheap and nasty pizza meal later, we retired to a cheap and sticky pub for a couple of drinks. My new age beau had been regaling me with stories of various psychic development workshops he had been to. Now, I find this kind of stuff interesting but I was wondering why he had been to so many – how to draw your spirit guides, reiki, tarot, astrology, recovering past lives, discovering future lives, talking to the angels, swimming with the dolphins, sending healing to the planet, sending psychic messages to the extraterrestrials – believe you me he had done them all. Finally he started telling me about the support groups he was attending. One was for men to get in touch with their emotions. His particular challenge was to get in touch with and express his anger. I was just wondering why it was so important for him to do this, when he told me about the other support group, which was for people who had grown up in abusive situations as children.

His father had had mental health problems. One of the ways these manifested was through extreme paranoia – the father was living in daily expectation of some unknown but deadly enemy descending upon the household. Family life revolved around placating the father by cooperating in his comprehensive preparations for coping with this calamity. Food was horded, hiding places had to be hidden in, escape routes had to be travelled, and the day to day activities of the family themselves were scrutinised for tell tale signs of slackness and betrayal. The worst thing was that the father regularly beat the mother, and before doing this the 2 sons were called in to take a seat and watch in silence – it was a kind of ritual. One day, when they were teenagers, the older brother snapped, grabbed a kitchen knife, and stabbed the father in the neck. This brother was serving a murder sentence in prison at the time of our date.

My date chatted on about the other members of the group – his experience had by no means been the worst. One story sticks in my mind – one woman in the group had a father who had built a torture chamber under their house and equipped it with implements of his own making and design. Every day after school, this woman had to go into the chamber, select one of the implements and then the father would torture her with it.

I was just drawing back from gazing into the abyss that my companion had been so explicitly describing when I found that I was being confronted with a slightly perfunctory request for sex. This chick, he said suggestively and wistfully, had once taken him into her bedroom, tied him to the bed and tickled him with a feather. Wouldn’t I like to…?

No.

No. Parts of me were still in the underground torture chamber, worrying about that woman, and I just felt numb.

Poor, poor boy. If this had been a bad date for me, it had been a terrible, tragic life for him. He had done well to emerge into adulthood as a warm and open human being, but his frantic addiction to alternative lifestyle workshops revealed him as a man with a hollow space that was more than I could fill. Moreover it was a space that was big enough to swallow me whole. I just had to walk away.

I wonder where he is now. Has he been able to reconcile himself to the fact that some damage just has to be lived with, that some hurts can never be workshopped away, and that he just has to draw a line in the sand and get on with his life somehow? Or is he still out there, nursing his dream of some nice lady who will swoop down and carry him off to her boudoir, tie him to her bed and restrain him from the awful burdens of being responsible for his own wellbeing, and tickle him into a state of comfort, wholeness and joy.

bizarre travel story

2009-08-24T14:55:00.000+10:00

My cousin emailed this news story to me last week:

Sydney to Gosford... via Brisbane?
http://au.travel.yahoo.com/special-features/sydney-gosford-via-brisbane/

We've all decied to take the scenic route home every once in a while, but
these six CityRail passengers got a lot more than they bargained for after
accidentally boarding the wrong bus.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the ordeal began on Sunday evening
when the CityRail service to Newcastle, via the Central Coast, was held up
at Hornsby station after an accident. After a two-hour delay, the passengers
were herded off the train and on to coaches hired by RailCorp.

Seven passengers bound for the Central Coast boarded a Pegasus coach.
Unfortunately, it was a vehicle hired to transport passengers from an
interstate CountryLink train which had also been delayed at Hornsby Station.

Among the unlucky travellers were an elderly couple, a teenage boy who was
supposed to make it back in time for a curfew and Jerome Conway, a student
studying at the University of Sydney.

The full extent of
their predicament was revealed shortly after the passengers noticed the
outskirts of Newcastle passing them by.

When questioned, the driver told them they were on their way to Brisbane and
regulations prevented him from diverting from his route.

According to Mr Conway, there were no signs or announcements to indicate the
destination of the buses.

"The driver told us, 'Sorry, mate, too late. You're going to have to go all
the way to Brisbane,' I just wanted to get home to Gosford," he said.

Mr Conway told the Sydney Morning Herald that the driver informed the
passengers about Pegasus's contract with RailCorp, not permitting him to
pick up or set down passengers between stops.

While the bus would make two stops along the way, they were in small towns,
and the passengers were better off enduring the 10-hour bus ride to
Brisbane.

Mr Conway arrived in Brisbane on Monday morning and was told he would need
to pay his own way back to Sydney on that afternoon's train.

A spokesman for Pegasus told the Herald the use of buses as last-minute
replacements for trains often created "confusion about who goes where...
because everyone is upset about having to get off the train".

RailCorp has offered to reimburse the passengers for their return journey
and additional costs.

Poetry Wednesday: Arymouse

2009-08-12T15:11:00.003+10:00

Arymouse, arymouse, fly over my head

And you shall ha’ a crust o’ bread

And when I brew and when I bake

You shall ha’ a piece of my wedding cake

Apparently an arymouse is a bat, and I think this odd little poem is from Scotland. I can't remember where I got it from or why I kept it on my memory stick.

Jacqui hosts Poetry Wednesday at her lovely blog Creative Journey

Films: Buddy / Buena Vista Social Club / Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure et al

2009-08-10T17:05:00.002+10:00

Films I have recently watched:
(Please note: films that I have watched that are part of the Melbourne International Film Festival have been prefaced with MIFF)

Buddy starring Rene Russo. I found this film to be bizarre. Based on a true story it tells the tale of a rich eccentric animal lover Gertrude Lintz who adopted animals including chimpanzees. The Buddy in the title was an orphaned baby gorilla who grew into a huge problem. The character as portrayed in this film is shown as having a very real love of animals and a sincere concern for their welfare. When watching this film it is also important to bear in mind how grim zoos were earlier this century. By taking orphaned animals back to her mansion and extensive gardens Lintz was trying hard to give them a better life than a small concrete cage in a city zoo would have afforded them. However, she obviously had unfulfilled maternal instincts because her treatment of her apes was very strange. They were dressed in children’s clothes, taught to walk upright and eat using human plates and implements and in all respects were trained to, well, ‘ape’ humans in their behaviour. Although I never doubted Lintz’s motivations I actually found watching all this to be a little distressing. Not surprisingly, Buddy finds the pressure to be human too much to bear and cracks it. Because of his enormous size and strength he is a real danger to Lintz and her household. Lintz resolves her problem; I was relieved to see, by sponsoring a huge gorilla enclosure at a zoo where Buddy is sent to live with some happy new Gorilla friends. I found myself hoping that the real life Lintz had learnt her lesson from this and put her resources into caring for animals in a more appropriate manner.

Buena Vista Social Club. Hats off to Ry Cooder and collaborators for going to Cuba and rediscovering this bunch of aging musicians, recording them and organizing live performances and this film. The elderly singers and musos are still capable of performing their music with oomph, and this film is crammed with charm and personality. It reveals a lot not only about Cuban musicians and music but also about Cuban social culture in general. In my book that makes it historically as well as musically important.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. A silly plot and 80s teen idiom have been cleverly worked into a very funny script. The likeable star actors deliver their lines with a breezy charm.

The Sting starring Robert Redford, Paul Newman and Robert Shaw. Deservedly popular movie about grifters taking down a mobster. The plot is clever, the acting is assured and expert, the direction is tight and the music is glorious.

MIFF United Red Army, Japan, 2008, directed by Koji Wakamatsu. This was one tough film. As the MIFF programme puts it Wakamatsu “reconstructs a shocking episode in the bloody history of Japanese radical extremism.” To my mind this film was structured in 3 parts. The first has a lot of documentary footage accompanied by a voiceover informing the audience of historical facts surrounding the rise of left wing student politics and terrorist groups in Japan in the 60s and 70s. Interspersed with this are brief acted scenes that introduce us to some of the characters that will feature in the story to follow. The documentary elements in this film were important for me because, although I was vaguely aware that there was a communist group active in Japan at this time, I had no idea just how extreme their activities were (bombings, hijackings, armed robbery and assault) or how widespread and violent student and working class protests were at the time. What follows this extended introductory section is a detailed account of a descent into the heart of darkness, and I think for the audience to understand something of the characters’ actions we have to understand how disengaged many young people felt from Japanese mainstream society.

In the second part of the film (which occupies perhaps half the screen time of this 2 ½ hour long film) any documentary footage ceases and the actors take over the telling of the story. The United Red Army takes to the hills – literally. A small group of young people construct camps in remote mountain sites where they can hide from the police, train themselves in the use of weapons and combat and refine their already extreme and hardline communist ideology. What follows is harrowing. Cut off from society, and made desperate by the external pressures of being on the run and living in hard conditions and the internal pressures of manifesting communist ideology in every word thought and deed, these young people degenerate. Normal standards of morality are suspended, as they demand of each other answers to ideological conundrums that no one can ever be reasonably expected to understand or answer. The more ‘alpha’ members of the group dominate and manipulate the others with a hypocrisy and cruelty that is sickening to watch. Many group members are murdered in a purge facilitated by the group leaders and the director shows these unfortunates beaten to death in explicit detail again and again. I was fascinated that this small group of people (maybe 30 in total?) talk themselves into a state where it seems necessary to them to carry out an internal purge as an expression of their adherence to their political ideals – it seems to be a microcosmic parallel of the macrocosmic purges of Stalin and Mao.

The third part of this film shows the final demise of the group. As the violence from the internal purges mounts some members of the group escape. The rest of the group, fearing that they will be betrayed to the police, decides to leave their hideout. Some are arrested and a last group of 5 take over an inn, barricade themselves inside with the innkeeper’s wife as hostage and spend some days withstanding a police siege before they are finally taken into custody. What was interesting to me about this last stage of the film when I watched it was the sadness I felt for these last 5 as well as an interest, bordering on concern, I felt for their fate. This was interesting because when I was watching them beat their comrades to death in the second part of the film I hated them for it. By the end of the film, as much as I deplored their activities, I was viewing them as lost youth and the waste of their young lives saddened me as much as the deaths of the other young people they had tortured to death.

This was a long film and every second of its screen time was relentless in depicting some form of moral or spiritual or ideological lack, confusion, and desperation. It was grim. But this film works because it does have a humane and moral center – I think the people who made this film wants you to see this kind of brutality as sickening and wants you to understand the danger of extremism. Personally, I hate watching the realistic kind of brutality that we see so much of in this film. Why did I sit through it? The director (supported by a good ensemble cast) did a brilliant job. My need to know what was going to happen to these people, and what the end of the story would be outstripped my need to have a fun and safe experience as an audience goer. I take my hat off to Wakamatsu for being able to do this.

Also:
Yakuza Eiga
Still Walking

I heartily recommend checking out Intelliblog as Nicholas may have posted a film review recently. Also check out The Galloping Skirt for Boo's description of the cinematic nerd. It's a scream. Both blogs are here on blogger

Sails of Oblivion: The Gig

2009-08-08T17:06:00.002+10:00

I follow Sam Sejavka's blog Sails of Oblivion (link to be found on the right hand side of this page). Sam is a highly renowned musician, actor and writer. His band The Ears are reforming for a gig on August 16 here in Melbourne. I have lifted the text from the media release of this gig from Sam's blog and pasted it below for your information:

After 25 years, legendary Melbourne art-punks The Ears revisit the past for a once only gig on Sunday afternoon August 16 at The Corner Hotel Richmond.Though strictly a Melbourne phenomenon in their time, The Ears gained wider notoriety as the template for Richard Lowenstein’s cult movie Dogs in Space. The lead character, played by Michael Hutchence of INXS, was closely based on Ears singer Sam Sejavka, and the song Dogs in Space was lifted from The Ears playlist.

Appearing on the same afternoon is an impressive list of eighties contemporaries.The Church’s Steve Kilbey is coming down from Sydney. The Brian Hooper Band is playing. Also Hugo Race (True Spirit, Wreckery), Nick Barker (Reptiles, Wreckery) and David Bridie with Phil Wales (Not Drowning Waving, My Friend The Chocolate Cake). Sean Kelly (The Models) is performing with his new band.The esoteric Ollie Olsen (Max Q, Whirlywirld) is DJ for the event and hard core comedian Greg Fleet is MC. The show is being organised by the evergreen Dolores San Miguel, renowned promoter of the Crystal Ballroom and The Exford Hotel.Most of these artists all have their roots in the same period, and have all made an impact on the Australian stage and beyond. Sails of Oblivion presents a unique opportunity for fans not only of the performers themselves, but of the fabulous Melbourne music scene of the early eighties.The Ears are represented by most of the original line up [Sam Sejavka, (vocals) Mick Lewis, (guitar) Carl Manuel (drums)]. Chris Walsh [The Moodists, The Fabulous Marquises, The Great Temptation] is standing in on bass and Andrew Park [deepspacemusic, Ash Wednesday's Modern Jazz] on keyboards. Original bassist/vocalist Cathy McQuade will be down from Sydney and, while not playing bass, will be reprising her vocal parts. Chanteuse Kerry Simpson will also be doing some back-ups.

The fortnight preceding Sails of Oblivion is that of the Melbourne Film Festival, during which Richard Lowenstein is celebrating the long-awaited DVD release of Dogs in Space [Aug 1], as well as We're Living on Dog Food [Aug 2], a documentary on the film and the scene surrounding it. Sails of Oblivion: The Gig will give fans of the movie the chance to see some of the truth behind the fiction.

Sails of Oblivion – Sunday August 16, 3-8pm, The Corner Hotel, Swan St, Richmond.

Films: Yakuza Eiga / Still Walking / Film ist. A Girl & A Gun et al

2009-08-03T11:32:00.001+10:00

Films I have recently watched:
(Please note: films that I have watched that are part of the Melbourne International Film Festival have been prefaced with MIFF)

MIFF Yakuza Eiga, France, 2008, directed by Yves Montmayeur. Stylish and interesting documentary on Japanese Yakuza films structured around a series of comments from directors, actors, writers, a fight director and some real life members of Yakuza gangs and families. Yakuza films are not my very favourite genre of films – I find them to be too blokey and testosterone drenched, plus I have never understood the attraction in glamourising thugs. Recently here in Melbourne the media have been avidly following the trials of various organized crime families and their networks. I don’t understand why we should be expected to care if these hideous people knock each other off – not to the extent of reading inches and inches of newspaper column space about it anyway. And I am not hugely interested in watching one tattooed gangster beating up another in a Yakuza film. But I do watch some Yakuza films, and I did go and see this documentary because of that. Why? First of all, I lived in Japan for 2 years (where I did NOT encounter any Yakuza) and I currently study Japanese (beginner level – watashi wa nihongo o sukoshi wakarimasu) so I have an interest in Japanese culture. As an aid to my Japanese studies I will watch most Japanese films just to enhance my comprehension skills. Yakuza Eiga did reveal some interesting things about Japanese culture and history such as the desperate struggle that most ordinary Japanese had to find food after World War 2. This led to the formation of a thriving black market and a rise in prominence for the Yakuza gangs who ran it.

The second reason I went to see this documentary is that I adore Hong Kong chop socky movies, and I am aware that Hong Kong film makers have always been heavily influenced by Japanese film makers (and vice versa). In order to better understand my current favourite genre of films I like to watch the films that influenced this genre, and this means Japanese Samurai and Yakuza films. Overall, what I admired about this documentary was how well balanced and even handed it was in its treatment of the Yakuza. There is a good mix of people who admired, distrusted or felt ambivalent about the Yakuza and the way they are portrayed in these films. This gives the audience a good insight into the place the Yakuza have held in Japanese society, and how Yakuza eiga (or films) have contributed to this.

MIFF Still Walking, Japan, 2008, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda. This family drama is likened to Ozu’s films in the MIFF programme and, having seen it, I can understand why. Both this film and the Ozu films I have seen focus on the commonplace existence of a family and the dynamics between its members. Similar to Ozu’s films is also the feeling that the director intends to take all the time in the world to tell his story. The tensions, loyalties and love between the family members are teased slowly out and gently revealed, and it is a testament to both Kore-eda and Ozu and their actors that, when watching these films, the viewer never feels impatient or bored with the everyday happenings on the screen but rather fully engaged with and moved by them. Another quality of these films is that a quiet humour is allowed to insert itself into the dialogue. The acting in this film was excellent from the whole cast, especially from the actors portraying the parents and very especially from the woman portraying the mother. The roles of the parents would have been difficult to sell to the audience. A central plot device is that the extended family has gathered to commemorate the untimely death of a revered son. As a result of unresolved grief the parents have become quite toxic, but the direction and interpretation of these characters ensure that the audience feels great sympathy for these particular characters. Good, assured film making.

MIFF Film is. A Girl & A Gun, Austria, 2009, directed by Gustav Deustch. The title of this film has been adapted from a quote from D.W. Griffith – “A film is a girl and a gun”. In order to describe this film to you I will quote from the MIFF programme (page 10):
“Weaving together a hypnotic mash-up of archival film from the first five decades of cinema, Deutsch splices together ethnographic films, war footage, science documentaries, explicit pornography and 1930s feature films to concoct a kaleidescope visual essay in five parts about love, sex, violence and death.”

This was a very powerful film to view. Extracts from films from the aforementioned genres are cleverly juxtaposed against each other while being aptly accompanied by a soundtrack made up of contemporary and classical music as well as music from some of the original 1930s films used. The sometimes surprising grouping of various film extracts threw certain qualities of those films into stark relief – the beautiful grainy quality of the monocoloured films, the charged quality of the performances of the actors, the sensuality inherent in natural images such as ferns unfurling or lava flowing. A word of warning – this is not a film for the sexually squeamish or prudish. The pornography shown is hard core and extremely explicit footage of penetration is shown. There is even a mercifully fleeting glimpse of bestiality. This is not meant to be a criticism of the film – I just mention it because not everyone is comfortable with viewing sex in public. I don’t think that the film maker intended the porn to make anyone overly horny or disgusting – he uses this pornographic footage to show other facets of the human condition (vulnerability, abuse of power, intimacy for example). The film is erotic, but, for me, the erotic charge came from footage showing actors performing scenes of flirtation fully clothed. The only minor quibble I had was that the film felt a little too long. However, over all, I thought that this was a pretty spectacular cinematic experience.

British Intelligence starring Boris Karloff and Margaret Lindsay. A black and white war time spy thriller with an entertainingly intricate plot.

A Tattooed Life. The editing seems to have been a bit brutal – I kept getting the impression that scenes were missing, as the plot would jump abruptly from one incident to the next without any of the usual plot explication to help the audience follow the story. The final fight scene is a humdinger and contains some very elegant images, including one where our Yakuza hero is shot from behind, his body leaning at a graceful angle to denote fatigue or pain, his back covered in tattoos, and his clothing draped from his hips.

The Killing Machine usual macho Sonny Chiba fare

Also:
Mystery Men
Stardust
The King and the Clown
Godzilla
The Bad Sleep Well
Nausicca of the Valley of the Winds
Tony Takitani
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Henry Rollins – Live in the Conversation Pit
Monty Python’s And Now For Something Completely Different
Joh’s Jury
Wonder Boys
Pirates of the Caribbean
Rhinoceros
Inside Deep Throat

martial arts films: The Magic Blade / Lone Wolf and Cub etc.

2009-07-31T12:16:00.001+10:00

Martial Arts Films I have recently watched:

The Magic Blade directed by Chu Yuan and starring Ti Lung, Ching Li and Lo Lieh. I really enjoyed this film. Each fight scene was more elaborately staged than the last and the film abounds in fabulously contrived set pieces. Many people I know would moan and bitch that this is what is wrong with chop sockies and why they are crap movies but I disagree. The bizarre gimmicks and baroque choreography that drive many of these fight scenes are precisely what I love about these movies, and why I think they are so imaginative, dynamic and just damned good fun.

Lone Wolf and Cub – Baby cart at the River Styx. There are a whole series of the Lone Wolf and Cub films that were made in the 1970s. These are Japanese samurai films with an interesting gimmick. Sorry but I am going to be lazy here and just cut and paste a paragraph I wrote about another film in this same series. The comments stand:
Great title huh! Directed by Kenji Misumi. OKAY CALL THE SOCIAL WORKERS! The toddler in this film is pushed through the countryside in a wooden pram by his assassin dad as he trudges from 1 gory fight to another. The wee tacker is constantly exposed to scenes of death and brutality and this has me seriously worried about his future psychological development. I haven’t been so horrified about the fate of a child since Jet Li’s character tied a rope around his own son and used him as a weapon in My Father is a Hero. Apart from this I actually enjoyed this film – there was a beaut fight scene every 5 minutes and I felt that it was quite nicely filmed.

The Prodigal Son – directed by Sammo Hung and starring Sammo, Yuen Biao, Lam Chi Ying and Frankie Chan. I really enjoyed this film enormously. It has plenty of humour, a little pathos and, as you would expect, excellent movement sequences.

I had only seen Lam Chi Ying in Mr Vampire before and I found both his character and his portrayal of that character to be fascinating. Lam plays a Chinese opera performer who specializes in playing young female heroine roles. Offstage his character is an expert martial artist. There is a scene early on in the film that derives its humour from the fact that some men try to pick up Lam’s character without realizing that the she is a he. I am developing a fascination for the history of the martial arts film genre. This is motivating me to find out more about things like Chinese Opera and Wuxia literature (both of which have had a huge influence on kung fu and swordplay films), and I always really enjoy seeing Chinese Opera sequences in martial arts films as it is very interesting to see these 2 art forms juxtaposed against each other. Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao (along with other key MA film figures such as Jackie Chan and Corey Yuen) all studied at the same renowned Chinese Opera school as children and teenagers, whereas Lam Chi Ying also studied Chinese Opera at a rival academy. In the extras on this DVD there is an interview with Sammo Hung saying something along the lines that he had confidence in Lam playing his character because he had been schooled in Chinese opera and therefore knew the correct style and movements when performing female parts. As well as Lam, the acting from the rest of the cast is uniformly good. Sammo Hung, in particular, steals some scenes when his character is introduced in the middle of the film. He is an excellent character actor and in this film he uses his wonderful comedic gifts to full effect.

Another element I enjoyed in this film was the choreography. Sammo Hung has a formidable reputation as a choreographer and director of martial arts films. The choreography in this film was the most enjoyable for me out of all of Hung’s films that I have seen. Again, the DVD extras furnished some interesting information. The prevailing kung fu style featured in this film was Wing Chun, which apparently had not been used in many films up until The Prodigal Son. Apparently, the aesthetic of its movements does not lend itself to creating interesting or entertaining choreography. I know nothing about martial arts so I have to take the word of the martial artists in the DVD extras on this (and I am happy to do so, of course). But if this is true then Sammo Hung and his team have done a great job with the choreography. It never looks boring; instead this film is full of dynamic sequences of movement filled with interesting angles, shapes and rhythms.

Also:
Kung Fu Hustle
Revenge of the Dragon
The Spiritual Boxer
The Trail of the Broken Blade
Human Lanterns
Duel of Fists
Dragon Swamp
Duelist
Sword of Doom
The Lizard
Tai Chi Master
Project A.
Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment
The 12 Gold Medallions
Shaolin Hand Lock
Ong Bak.
Sex and Fury
Female Yakuza Tale
Lone Wolf and Cub – Baby Cart in the Land of Demons.
Bruce Li in Snake Island
Bichunmoo
The Bride with White Hair 2
Duel to the Death

word thursday: henotheism

2009-07-30T15:26:00.001+10:00

henotheism \HEN-uh-thee-iz-um\ noun

: the worship of one god without denying the existence of other gods

Example sentence:
During certain periods of Egyptian history, the pharaohs and their subjects practiced henotheism.

Did you know?
"Henotheism" comes to us from the German word "Henotheismus," which in turn is derived from Greek "hen-" ("one") and "theos" ("god"). Someone who engages in henotheism worships one god but does not deny that there are others. Max Müller, a respected 19th-century scholar, is credited with promoting the word "henotheism" as a counterpart to "polytheism" ("belief in or worship of more than one god") and "monotheism" ("the doctrine or belief that there is but one God"). Müller also used the related word "kathenotheism," from Greek "kath' hena" ("one at a time"), for the worship of several gods successively.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

films

2009-07-27T17:16:00.000+10:00

Films I have recently watched:

Mystery Men directed by Kinka Usher and starring Hank Azaria, Claire Forlani, Janeane Garofalo, Eddie Izzard, Greg Kinnear, William H Macy, Geoffrey Rush, Ben Stiller and Tom Waits. I am normally very lazy in this blog when it comes to listing casts but the star power of the ensemble cast in this film is an important element in its watchability so I thought I should mention the actors. This is a silly comedy spoofing the idea of super heroes. The art directors have had a ball and the actors do well with the material at hand.

Stardust directed by Matthew Vaughan and starring Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, with Sienna Miller, Ricky Gervais and Peter O’Toole in small roles. The same applies here – a good cast make a straightforward fairytale watchable. And the art directors have also had fun here. This movie is based on a novel by Neil Gaiman who is a very good fantasy author – I haven’t read his novel but I bet it was just a bit more interesting than this film (don’t get me wrong – the film is inoffensive enough). A minor beef (De Niro fans leave the room now) – De Niro is good in his role but not outstanding. I have seen him in the Meet the Fockers films as well as the Analyse This films and he is OK but, in my opinion, not great. I don’t think he is a natural comedian. For me, his comedic delivery is adequate but it lacks the lift, or the timing, or the lightness of someone like Michael Caine or Steve Martin or Ricky Gervais. Sorry folks, that’s just my opinion, but I am not sold on De Niro as a comedian.

The King and the Clown. This is a terrific Korean movie set in 16^th century Korea and released in 2005. It is very well acted and the art direction is really beautiful. It depicts the fortunes of a group of performers who get caught up in the machinations of the court of a mentally unbalanced king, his jealous concubine and machiavellian courtiers. What was fascinating about this movie is that it features many scenes of medieval Korean street theatre, and it is very interesting to see the style of performance Korean minstrels employed in those times. The minstrels perform satire directed at authority figures. Their main weapon in lampooning their targets is sexually graphic ribaldry. Acrobatics and circus skills are an important component of the performances, as are masks, drums and brightly coloured costumes. The film is structured so that it alternates between set pieces featuring the theatrical performances of the minstrels and then scenes depicting life outside of the performances. The theatrical performances featured are entertaining and a curiosity in their own right, and give the film great zest and appeal. However, these set pieces also further the plot of the film overall, and reinforce the dynamics of the relationships between the minstrels and their audience. Although this film is not a martial arts film, I do believe that good chop sockies (of which I am a huge fan) work in the same way. The fight scenes (and martial arts films have been heavily influenced, after all, by Asian indigenous performative art forms like Chinese Opera) can be viewed as set pieces – gloriously entertaining in their own right. However, they also feed into and further the aims of the overall film. This makes these films layered and rich, and strengthens their impact.

Godzilla. I was curious to see the original Godzilla (1954). By today’s standards the special effects are, not unsurprisingly, not so special – a large rubber dolly stomps on various model trains and buildings. However, the director and cast have a good red hot go at building up the suspense and engaging the audience in the emotional lives of their characters. There is one sequence of images in the middle of the film showing injured people receiving medical treatment in makeshift first aid centers, and then images of a choir of schoolgirls. The soundtrack is that of the girls’ somber singing, their song being an expression of sorrow at the damages caused by the rampages of Godzilla. I was surprised to find that this moved me to tears. The film would have been released a mere 9 years after the end of World War 2. Perhaps the horror of mass destruction was resonating strongly in the cast and crew who made this film.

On the same DVD was the American version of this film. Basically, the Americans took the Japanese film, dubbed the major scenes in English and introduced an American character – a male journalist reporting from Tokyo. This character narrates much of the action and plot of the movie in voice over. As if this weren’t annoying enough, reaction shots of this lantern jawed and wooden faced man are interspersed into key scenes through out the film. The tedious recounting of the story and the unnecessary visuals superimposed onto the original film merely have a distancing effect and much of the sense of melodrama and tension of the original leaks away. Why could they not have just subtitled the original film and presented it to Western audiences untarnished? But apparently we westerners are (or were) incapable of taking on any story unless it is (or was) presented to us through a western filter.

Also:

The Bad Sleep Well

Nausicca of the Valley of the Winds

Tony Takitani

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Henry Rollins – Live in the Conversation Pit

Monty Python’s And Now For Something Completely Different

Joh’s Jury

Wonder Boys

Pirates of the Caribbean

Rhinoceros

Inside Deep Throat

The French Connection

This is Spinal Tap

White Zombie

Warriors of Heaven and Earth

Volver

Revenge of the Pink Panther

Room Service

And the there were none

Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge

The Replacement Killers

House on Haunted Hill

The Bat

Shock

Robin Hood

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon

Black Narcissus

Bulldog Drummond Comes Back

I am going to the Melbourne Film Festival...

2009-07-25T14:27:00.000+10:00

The Melbourne International Film Festival is upon us and I have treated myself to a mini pass which will enable me to see 13 films over the next couple of weeks. It is my birthday on the 5th of August so this is by way of a birthday present to myself. I do not have much work booked so, while I wont have huge amounts of cash for a few weeks; I will have plenty of time to watch some cinema. Below is a list of the films I have booked in to see. Has anyone seen / heard of any of them?

Film is. A Girl & A Gun, Austria, 2009, directed by Gustav Deustch

Still Walking, Japan, 2008, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Yakuza Eiga, France, 2008, directed by Yves Montmayeur

United Red Army, Japan, 2008, directed by Koji Wakamatsu

Chocolate, Thailand, 2008, directed by Prachya Pinkaew

Action Boys, South Korea, 2008, directed by Jeong Byeong-gil

Funeral Parade of Roses, Japan, 1969, directed by Toshio Matsumoto

Eros and Massacre, Japan, 1969, directed by Yoshishige Yoshida

Brendan and the Secret of Kells, Ireland / France / Belgium, 2009, directed by Tomm Moore

Members of the Funeral, South Korea, 2008, directed by Baek Seung-bin

Horrors of Malformed Men, Japan, 1969, directed by Teruo Ishii

Double Take, Belgium, 2009, directed by Johan Grimonprez

Ong Bak 2, Thailand, 2008, directed by Tony Jaa

TV: The First Eden, Kath and Kim, Mythbusters, Canada

2009-07-24T15:42:00.001+10:00

TV programmes I have recently watched:

My TV antenna is broken so I don’t get the TV. Instead I can borrow out old TV programmes on DVD from my local library. Thanks to the library the programmes I have recently been watching (in lieu of the dreadful Big Brother) are:

The First Eden This is a documentary series on the natural history of the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding countries, and the impact that Man had had on that history. It is narrated by the wonderful David Attenborough, who always manages to convey an impression of scholarly expertise, passion and a quaint, old fashioned English courtesy. There is something cosy and endearing about Attenborough’s delivery which never falters – even when he is regaling us with a description of a shark killing a seal. I could listen to him for ever.

Kath and Kim – Series 4 Kath and Kim are now comedy legends down here in Australia. This hugely popular TV show follows the lives of middle aged foxy lady Kath Day-Knight, her second husband Kel Knight (“purveyor of fine meats” – i.e. a butcher by trade), Kath’s gobsmackingly self centred grown up (in years only) daughter Kim, her husband Brett, and Kim’s second best friend Sharon. The series lampoons the suburban middle class – superficial, materialistic, happily ignorant, complacent and smug with a world view that begins and ends at their own backyard fence. Visually this show looks great and gets a lot of comedic value from Kath and Kim’s terrible perms, fake tans, and the way they wear clothes that are too tight and too young. But this show doesn’t just rely on cheap laughs gained from sight gags, funny accents or outrageous antics. I think the writing is genuinely clever. Kath and Kim and their cohorts murder the English language with unwitting displays of ignorance, and malapropisms abound. There is some smart play on words in the script, which is written by Jane Turner and Gina Riley who play Kath and Kim respectively. The acting is great too – beautiful comic timing and delivery, and the character types are instantly recognizable by any Australian.

Mythbusters – Ninja Special For the uninitiated the Mythbusters are a team of special effects experts who test out various urban myths to see if there is any truth in them. In this show they test out such myths as whether or not it would have been possible for Ninjas to construct footwear that would allow them to run on water (like they do in the movies) or catch a swinging sword in their bare hands. If I were a high school science teacher I would love Mythbusters and make my class watch it. The science behind the urban myths and the experiments the Mythbusters set up to test them is well explained, and the processes and gadgets that the Mythbusters invent as part of the tests are fascinating and fun. There are lots of explosions as well.

Canada – Pilot Guides A likeable British host travels through Canada. I found this travel guide interesting because, although I have never been there, I get the impression that Canada is very beautiful. It is a vast country with a great diversity of landscapes and an interesting mix of cultures. The sections on Arctic Canada were particularly interesting – the traveler saw the Aurora Borealis, looked at some seals, and went on a Dog Sled trek.

Young Ones classic British comedy series featuring the antics of Vivian, Rick, Neil, Mike and the Balowski family. I remember watching this show as a teenager – I had never seen anything like it and I thought it was hilarious.

Inspector Rex Austrian cop show. Inspector Rex is a German Shepherd who solves mysteries. Not only that, but he is shown in this TV series finding lost children, persuading a lady not to commit suicide, going undercover (as a stuffed animal in a museum and a pet in a household full of terrorists), arresting thugs, playing bad cop to his human partner’s good cop, and coaching a small child past a series of dangerous obstacles. I am not normally a fan of big dumb brutes but the melting brown eyes, athletic body, and endearing gambols made me wish he could come and lick my feet and sleep on the end of my bed – and that’s just Rex’s human sidekick Moser I’m talking about – the dog’s cute too.

Also:
We Know Where You Live
Feast Greece
1421 – The Year China Discovered the World
7 Periods with Mr Gormsby
Black Books
Billy Connolly in Dublin
Dr Who (Series 3 Volume 5).
Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong
Mansfield Park
Pilot Guides – Argentina
Midsommer Murders
Merlin’s Apprentice
Pride and Prejudice
Pilot Guides – Tahiti & Samoa
Bush Mechanics
Hogan’s Heroes
Arjuna (Japanese anime)
Samurai Champloo (Japanese anime)
Great Teacher Onizuki (Japanese anime)

films: the king and the clown, godzilla, the bad sleep well, nausicca

2009-07-20T15:09:00.001+10:00

Films I have recently watched:

The King and the Clown. This is a terrific Korean movie set in 16th century Korea and released in 2005. It is very well acted and the art direction is really beautiful. It depicts the fortunes of a group of performers who get caught up in the machinations of the court of a mentally unbalanced king, his jealous concubine and machiavellian courtiers. What was fascinating about this movie is that it features many scenes of medieval Korean street theatre, and it is very interesting to see the style of performance Korean minstrels employed in those times. The minstrels perform satire directed at authority figures. Their main weapon in lampooning their targets is sexually graphic ribaldry. Acrobatics and circus skills are an important component of the performances, as are masks, drums and brightly coloured costumes. The film is structured so that it alternates between set pieces featuring the theatrical performances of the minstrels and then scenes depicting life outside of the performances. The theatrical performances featured are entertaining and a curiosity in their own right, and give the film great zest and appeal. However, these set pieces also further the plot of the film overall, and reinforce the dynamics of the relationships between the minstrels and their audience. Although this film is not a martial arts film, I do believe that good chop sockies (of which I am a huge fan) work in the same way. The fight scenes (and martial arts films have been heavily influenced, after all, by Asian indigenous performative art forms like Chinese Opera) can be viewed as set pieces – gloriously entertaining in their own right. However, they also feed into and further the aims of the overall film. This makes these films layered and rich, and strengthens their impact.

Godzilla. I was curious to see the original Godzilla (1954). By today’s standards the special effects are, not unsurprisingly, not so special – a large rubber dolly stomps on various model trains and buildings. However, the director and cast have a good red hot go at building up the suspense and engaging the audience in the emotional lives of their characters. There is one sequence of images in the middle of the film showing injured people receiving medical treatment in makeshift first aid centers, and then images of a choir of schoolgirls. The soundtrack is that of the girls’ somber singing, their song being an expression of sorrow at the damages caused by the rampages of Godzilla. I was surprised to find that this moved me to tears. The film would have been released a mere 9 years after the end of World War 2. Perhaps the horror of mass destruction was resonating strongly in the cast and crew who made this film.

On the same DVD was the American version of this film. Basically, the Americans took the Japanese film, dubbed the major scenes in English and introduced an American character – a male journalist reporting from Tokyo. This character narrates much of the action and plot of the movie in voice over. As if this weren’t annoying enough, reaction shots of this lantern jawed and wooden faced man are interspersed into key scenes through out the film. The tedious recounting of the story and the unnecessary visuals superimposed onto the original film merely have a distancing effect and much of the sense of melodrama and tension of the original leaks away. Why could they not have just subtitled the original film and presented it to Western audiences untarnished? But apparently we westerners are (or were) incapable of taking on any story unless it is (or was) presented to us through a western filter.

The Bad Sleep Well directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune. This is a stylishly directed and suspenseful tale of revenge. Kurosawa has greedy and morally bankrupt corporate Japan in his sights in this engrossing film.

Nausicca of the Valley of the Winds. Another delightful Japanese anime from Studio Ghibli. This film is a science fiction story with a strong environmental message.

Also:
Tony Takitani
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Henry Rollins – Live in the Conversation Pit
Monty Python’s And Now For Something Completely Different
Joh’s Jury
Wonder Boys
Pirates of the Caribbean
Rhinoceros
Inside Deep Throat
The French Connection
This is Spinal Tap
White Zombie
Warriors of Heaven and Earth
Volver
Revenge of the Pink Panther
Room Service
And the there were none
Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge
The Replacement Killers
House on Haunted Hill
The Bat
Shock
Robin Hood
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon
Black Narcissus
Bulldog Drummond Comes Back

TV: Young Ones, We Know Where You Live, Inspector Rex, etc.

2009-07-17T11:30:00.001+10:00

TV programmes I have recently watched:

My TV antenna is broken so I don’t get the TV. Instead I can borrow out old TV programmes on DVD from my local library. Thanks to the library the programmes I have recently been watching (in lieu of the dreadful Big Brother) are:

Young Ones classic British comedy series featuring the antics of Vivian, Rick, Neil, Mike and the Balowski family. I remember watching this show as a teenager – I had never seen anything like it and I thought it was hilarious.

We Know Where You Live This is footage of a live comedy and music benefit for Amnesty International that was held in the UK and hosted by Eddie Izzard. What a shame that something so worthy should be so NOT funny. There is over an hour of stand up comedy but very little of it made me laugh.

Inspector Rex. Austrian cop show. Inspector Rex is a German Shepherd who solves mysteries. Not only that, but he is shown in this TV series finding lost children, persuading a lady not to commit suicide, going undercover (as a stuffed animal in a museum and a pet in a household full of terrorists), arresting thugs, playing bad cop to his human partner’s good cop, and coaching a small child past a series of dangerous obstacles. I am not normally a fan of big dumb brutes but the melting brown eyes, athletic body, and endearing gambols made me wish he could come and lick my feet and sleep on the end of my bed – and that’s just Rex’s human sidekick Moser I’m talking about – the dog’s cute too.

Feast Greece This Australian TV series featured a young man touring through Greece and was pleasant and interesting enough. But I was a bit puzzled – was it a foodie show or a travel show?

1421 – The Year China Discovered the World. Documentary based on the book of the same name written by amateur historian Gavin Menzies that investigates Menzies theory that a Ming dynasty fleet circumnavigated the world. Even if you don’t agree with this theory this documentary still provides a lot of colourful information on various world cultures of the 1400s.

7 Periods with Mr Gormsby. This is a New Zealand comedy series that I had never heard of before I spotted the DVD at the library. I am now hooked. Mr Gormsby is a high school teacher and quite a character. He has beliefs that seemed to have been set in stone during World War 1 and to which he cleaves with bulldog like tenacity. He is blunt, chauvinistic, racist and otherwise politically incorrect. Despite the fact that I would hate him if I met him in real life by the 7th episode I couldn’t get enough of him. I think that the secret of the series’ success is that by the end of the series you come around to feeling that there are worse things than Mr Gormsby. He has to teach Class 5F (ie. the delinquents and losers) at an all boys High School. Poor 5F are dreadful in that sweaty, clammy, awkward, fumbling way that 15 year old boys can be. They are not evil but rather just bemused and a bit disgruntled at a world that doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with them. Mr Gormsby treats them with the sort of gruff disrespect that would make the average social worker’s toes curl, but he does bother with some rudimentary discipline and they come to like him for it. What is also clever is that the rest of the staff at the school are a bunch of misfits (some of whom it is hard to like) and the education system is shown to be a beaureaucratic shambles. The school counselor, Steve, is appalling – hypocritical, selfish and shallow. You soon find yourself rooting for Mr Gormsby and 5F.

Black Books starring Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Grieg. I LOVED this. This series revolves around 2 men who run a book store and their friend who runs the gift store next door. The plot lines are absurd and the script is witty. Dylan Moran turns in a virtuoso performance as a weird, antisocial, slovenly eccentric. Hats off to Bill Bailey who, in performing a less attention grabbing character, nevertheless engagingly holds his own against the flamboyant Moran with a deceptively relaxed style of performance. Grieg is good as their friend Fran as well. The rapport between the 3 performers is excellent. Hilarious stuff.

Also:
Billy Connolly in Dublin
Dr Who (Series 3 Volume 5).
Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong
Mansfield Park
Pilot Guides – Argentina
Midsommer Murders
Merlin’s Apprentice
Pride and Prejudice
Pilot Guides – Tahiti & Samoa
Bush Mechanics
Hogan’s Heroes
Arjuna (Japanese anime)
Samurai Champloo (Japanese anime)
Great Teacher Onizuki (Japanese anime)

word thursday: wallah

2009-07-16T12:11:00.002+10:00

wallah \WAH-luh\ noun

: a person who is associated with a particular work or who performs a specific duty or service — usually used in combination

Example sentence:"Location, location and location. That's what it's all about, trumpet the real-estate wallahs." (Tony Baker, The Advertiser, August 3, 2005)

Did you know?"Wallah" comes from the Hindi suffix "-vālā," meaning "one in charge." Like its Hindi counterpart, "wallah" is commonly used in combination with other nouns. The first use of "wallah" appeared as "lootywallah" in a narrative penned by Officer Innes Munro describing his time deployed on the Coromandel Coast of India in the 1780s. "Looty," or "lootie," was a noun sometimes applied to a member of a band of marauders or robbers. In the narrative, Munro used the term to describe looting cavalrymen. In current writing, "wallah" is typically accompanied by words like "office" or "marketing."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

text taken from Merriam-Webster

books - children of the night

2009-07-14T12:23:00.001+10:00

Children of the Night: The 6 Archetypal Characters of Classic Horror Films by Randy Loren Rasmussen I can recommend this book for avid fans of black and white horror films. I have seen only a few. My television arial does not work so I rely on DVDs for my viewing entertainment. The DVD collection of Northcote Library has been an absoluter boon as it has quite an interesting collection of DVDs that covers not just movies, but documentaries and television series as well. In the interests of filling the long, cold, dark, lonely nights at home (cue violins) I frequently load up with DVDs, including some I would not ordinarily watch (just to fill in the hours). I don’t mind this at all as I think it is probably a mind broadening exercise that will shore up my knowledge in pop culture and challenge preconceptions I have of certain films and programs. Because of this I have watched a few black and white horror films. I hate modern horror films. I am an abject coward – it takes very little to frighten me and, unlike horror fans, I don’t like being scared. I also hate brutality and the explicit tortures that are lovingly filmed in detail in modern horror films leave me sleepless for days on end. But the old horror films, while still not among my favourite films, are far less scary and rely on creating psychological thrills (rather than close ups of minced flesh) for effect. This book has a very good premise for examining these films. The author makes a strong case for there being 6 archetypes – heroines, heroes, wise elders, servants, mad geniuses and monsters. The basic structure of the book is that there is a chapter devoted to each character type, and a brief paragraph devoted to a specific character in a specific film. The upside of this is that Rasmussen is able to undertake a very comprehensive survey of characters, the downside is that it all starts to get a bit sameish. I struggled to sustain my interest towards the end of the book, but die hard fans of the genre may find it more interesting.

Ulysses by James Joyce. It has taken me years but I have finally finished this monster. I started Ulysses when I first started blogging on Yahoo 360 (maybe 2 or 3 years ago now). My reading of this book has happened in fits and bursts. I got it in e-text form from the wonderful Project Gutenberg website (this website is a storehouse of free e-texts). Therefore my reading of Ulysses tends to coincide with my bouts of casual work. When I have a few weeks in an office and I am underemployed doing some boring reception work (as I am now) then I plug in my memory stick and get through a few chunks of Ulysses.

When I first started blogging on 360 there was a quite a network of people all participating in the same tours (360 talk for theme days) – Movie Monday, Literary Tuesday, Poetry Wednesday, and Word Thursday. I dropped out of touch with 360 for a year or 2 – I had a hard, hard time that left me bereft of energy or inspiration or goodwill plus I had trouble getting the internet at home (have given up on that ever happening now) plus all of this coincided with the breakdown of 360 as a blogging platform and the mass desertion of my online friends to blogging sites like Multiply (sorry but I could never get the hang of that site). But I have very fond memories of the halcyon days of those tours. I think I got involved initially because I was unemployed and would spend a large amount of time on the net at the State Library here in Melbourne (it was free). I realized that I was starved of intellectual stimulation and even social interaction and the 360 community answered those needs.

I have trailed off onto a tangent here. I think I started rabbiting on about 360 because every time I read Ulysses I spare a thought for Lina (aka red witch) who was a frequent blogger and the host of the Literary Tuesday tour. Lina was an erudite lady from Portugal with an absolute passion for all things cultural. She had a vivid, warm (and occasionally caustic) online voice. She loved Ulysses and I remember her posting a blog that featured a picture of Marilyn Monroe reading the book. Lina wrote that apparently Monroe didn’t read Ulysses from the first page to the last but would randomly pick a section and read it without regard for the sequence of the sections of the book. Lina said that this is apparently the best way to read this confounding text. I took her at her word and this is how I have been picking away at Ulysses ever since. Because my text is in the form of an e-text that I have copied into a Word Document I delete each section after I have read it. Now I am left with a mere 100 pages or so of text but I actually don’t have any idea where those 100 pages lie in the original book. And I don’t care. Reading Ulysses this way has been fun. This book doesn’t have a traditional narrative structure and, for me, the most rewarding thing about this book has been the way Joyce plays with the English language. Take the excerpt below, for example. The language is deliberately convoluted and over educated, and yet it is one of the most erotic pieces of writing I think I have ever read.

“The preordained frangibility of the hymen: the presupposed intangibility of the thing in itself: the incongruity and disproportion between the selfprolonging tension of the thing proposed to be done and the selfabbreviating relaxation of the thing done; the fallaciously inferred debility of the female: the muscularity of the male: the variations of ethical codes: the natural grammatical transition by inversion involving no alteration of sense of an aorist preterite proposition (parsed as masculine subject, monosyllabic onomatopoeic transitive verb with direct feminine object) from the active voice into its correlative aorist preterite proposition (parsed as feminine subject, auxiliary verb and quasimonosyllabic onomatopoeic past participle with complementary masculine agent) in the passive voice: the continued product of seminators by generation: the continual production of semen by distillation: the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy of the stars.”

Where are you now, Lina and all those other wonderful bloggers? 360 is being closed down by Yahoo soon and to be honest, up till now, I haven’t felt that sad about it as, in a way, I myself abandoned the site for a while at the same time Yahoo abandoned me as a blogger by allowing 360 to die a slow horrible death. But writing this blog and remembering those people whose writing I enjoyed so much and whose online lives I was so privileged to share for a while has made me feel sad.

I don’t suppose anyone will read this blog. But what the hell. Thanks for the tip about Ulysses, Lina (you were right). Thanks for the fun and ideas everybody. Vale 360.

Also:
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Eat the Rich by PJ O’Rourke
The Illustrated Virago Book of Women Travellers edited by Mary Morris with Larry O’Connor
Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon.
Why did it have to be snakes by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg
Death Sentence – the decay of public language by Don Watson
Miss Marple Omnibus by Agatha Christie
The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
To the Ends of the Earth by Paul Theroux
Discovering King Island by Jean Edgecombe
The Prester Quest by Nicholas Jubber
Mr Wong Goes West by Nury Vittachi
City of Shadows – Sydney Police Photographs 1912 – 1948 edited by Peter Doyle
Guards! Guards! By Terry Pratchett

Shortfall in social security payments

2009-07-10T09:44:00.000+10:00

I am currently doing some temp work at RMIT University and I noticed this article on their website. Of course, it doesn't tell anything new to anybody who has spent time on the dole, but it is good to see these issues being discussed anyway.

July 08, 2009
Report reveals emergency relief crisis

A landmark report co-written by RMIT University researcher Dr Benno Engels has found social security payments are failing to keep up with the costs of living, with growing demand for emergency relief in Victoria.
Under Pressure: Costs of living, financial hardship and emergency relief in Victoria was launched last month by Federal Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin.
Dr Engels, a lecturer in the School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning, said the report provided a disturbing snapshot of the financial hardships suffered by some of Victoria’s most vulnerable individuals and families.
“The fact that nearly all of the people we surveyed were receiving social security payments clearly shows that Australia’s welfare system is failing to provide people with adequate standards of living,” he said.
“When people struggle to afford the basics ¬like food, housing, bills and petrol, the slightest increase in costs can send them over the edge.
“Our research has shown that the combination of inadequate income, high costs of living and the absence of financial resources like insurance and savings is behind the growing demand for emergency relief in Victoria.
“We need real structural reform to support people before they reach crisis point, so they are not forced to rely on emergency assistance simply to get through each week.”
The result of a research partnership between the Victorian Council of Social Service, Emergency Relief Victoria, Good Shepherd Youth and Family Service and RMIT, the project included a survey of more than 2,000 people who had received emergency relief between April 2007 and February 2008.
The survey revealed 95 per cent of those who had sought emergency relief from a welfare agency received some form of social security payment.
More than half (58 per cent) of emergency relief recipients were women and 32 per cent were sole parents.
The survey also showed:
· 43 per cent rented their home, with just 28 per cent living in public housing
· More than 18 per cent did not have a permanent residence
· Of the 11 per cent who did some paid work, 46 per cent worked casually while 12 per cent had permanent full-time jobs
· 58 per cent of those who were working had lost wages or hours, or had been forced to leave a job, since the introduction of WorkChoices in 2006
· Gas and electricity costs were the biggest expenses that contributed to financial hardship, with phone, petrol, food and rent the next major expenses
· Gas and electricity costs were the most common reasons for financial crisis, except in fringe Melbourne suburbs and rural Victoria, where petrol was the biggest cause of financial hardship
The report recommends State and Federal governments implement key structural changes to reduce demand for emergency relief assistance, including:
· increasing social security payments relative to the costs of living and reforming the welfare and taxation system to enable social security recipients to afford the essentials of life;
· actions to ensure the affordability of essential goods such as housing, utilities, food, transport, health care and education; and,
· improving access to affordable financial products and services such as savings schemes, insurance and planning, for people at risk of financial crisis.
Dr Engels said the report had implications far beyond the emergency relief sector.
“If the structural reforms and recommendations outlined in this report were implemented by State and Federal governments, individuals and families who currently struggle to afford the essentials would be better placed to balance their budgets and would have the means to cover emergencies as they arise,” he said.
http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=xys2n44b9abq

The New Temple by Dorothy Porter from Akhenaten

2009-07-08T09:30:00.001+10:00

The New Temple

‘Are you counting my ribs?’

My brother looks over
his bare shoulder

Only sixteen.

I was watching
the new hard curve
of his bent back
as he planes the wood
for a pleasure boat

he’s so good with his hands

my old hands
dangle
like trawled octopus
good for nothing
but sex, prayers
and scribbling

it’s his back
that makes me stare
like a wall-eyed priest
at the glinting stone
of a new temple.

Books

2009-07-07T09:42:00.001+10:00

Ulysses by James Joyce. It has taken me years but I have finally finished this monster. Because I am pressed for time today I have just cut and paste an earlier blog I wrote about it below:

I started Ulysses when I first started blogging on Yahoo 360 (maybe 2 or 3 years ago now). My reading of this book has happened in fits and bursts. I got it in e-text form from the wonderful Project Gutenberg website (this website is a storehouse of free e-texts). Therefore my reading of Ulysses tends to coincide with my bouts of casual work. When I have a few weeks in an office and I am underemployed doing some boring reception work (as I am now) then I plug in my memory stick and get through a few chunks of Ulysses.

When I first started blogging on 360 there was a quite a network of people all participating in the same tours (360 talk for theme days) – Movie Monday, Literary Tuesday, Poetry Wednesday, and Word Thursday. I dropped out of touch with 360 for a year or 2 – I had a hard, hard time that left me bereft of energy or inspiration or goodwill plus I had trouble getting the internet at home (have given up on that ever happening now) plus all of this coincided with the breakdown of 360 as a blogging platform and the mass desertion of my online friends to blogging sites like Multiply (sorry but I could never get the hang of that site). But I have very fond memories of the halcyon days of those tours. I think I got involved initially because I was unemployed and would spend a large amount of time on the net at the State Library here in Melbourne (it was free). I realized that I was starved of intellectual stimulation and even social interaction and the 360 community answered those needs.

I have trailed off onto a tangent here. I think I started rabbiting on about 360 because every time I read Ulysses I spare a thought for Lina (aka red witch) who was a frequent blogger and the host of the Literary Tuesday tour. Lina was an erudite lady from Portugal with an absolute passion for all things cultural. She had a vivid, warm (and occasionally caustic) online voice. She loved Ulysses and I remember her posting a blog that featured a picture of Marilyn Monroe reading the book. Lina wrote that apparently Monroe didn’t read Ulysses from the first page to the last but would randomly pick a section and read it without regard for the sequence of the sections of the book. Lina said that this is apparently the best way to read this confounding text. I took her at her word and this is how I have been picking away at Ulysses ever since. Because my text is in the form of an e-text that I have copied into a Word Document I delete each section after I have read it. Now I am left with a mere 100 pages or so of text but I actually don’t have any idea where those 100 pages lie in the original book. And I don’t care. Reading Ulysses this way has been fun. This book doesn’t have a traditional narrative structure and, for me, the most rewarding thing about this book has been the way Joyce plays with the English language. Take the excerpt below, for example. The language is deliberately convoluted and over educated, and yet it is one of the most erotic pieces of writing I think I have ever read.

“The preordained frangibility of the hymen: the presupposed intangibility of the thing in itself: the incongruity and disproportion between the selfprolonging tension of the thing proposed to be done and the selfabbreviating relaxation of the thing done; the fallaciously inferred debility of the female: the muscularity of the male: the variations of ethical codes: the natural grammatical transition by inversion involving no alteration of sense of an aorist preterite proposition (parsed as masculine subject, monosyllabic onomatopoeic transitive verb with direct feminine object) from the active voice into its correlative aorist preterite proposition (parsed as feminine subject, auxiliary verb and quasimonosyllabic onomatopoeic past participle with complementary masculine agent) in the passive voice: the continued product of seminators by generation: the continual production of semen by distillation: the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy of the stars.”

Where are you now, Lina and all those other wonderful bloggers? 360 is being closed down by Yahoo soon and to be honest, up till now, I haven’t felt that sad about it as, in a way, I myself abandoned the site for a while at the same time Yahoo abandoned me as a blogger by allowing 360 to die a slow horrible death. But writing this blog and remembering those people whose writing I enjoyed so much and whose online lives I was so privileged to share for a while has made me feel sad.

I don’t suppose anyone will read this blog. But what the hell. Thanks for the tip about Ulysses, Lina (you were right). Thanks for the fun and ideas everybody. Vale 360.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (English translation by Philip Gabriel). This book is surreal, occasionally erotic, and gripping. I am going to be lazy here and quote from the dust cover: “Kafka on the Shore follows the fortunes of 2 remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at the age of 15, under the shadow of his father’s dark prophecy. The ageing Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his simple life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing dramas… At once a classic quest, Kafka on the Shore is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos…” For me, this book dealt with themes surrounding stolen childhood, the loss of innocence and dealing with emotional damage, coming of age, the need for protection and to protect, and the need to find the strength to stand on your own 2 feet. Murakami (and whoever wrote the dustcover notes) are much better writers than I am. If you want to know more about this enchanting book then go and read it.

Eat the Rich by PJ O’Rourke. This book is subtitled ‘A treatise on Economics’. Apart from a couple of chapters dealing with the theory of economics the book is made up of 8 chapters, each describing a visit that O’Rourke made to a certain country and his impressions of the economy and lifestyle of that country. Thus you have Sweden being examined as an example of good socialism and Albania being examined as an example of bad capitalism (just to name 2 examples). The whole thing is written in O’Rourke’s breezy, humorous style that greatly adds to its entertainment value. For me, this was important because anything to do with economics makes my eyes glaze over. If you read this book then do bear in mind that the trips O’Rourke took and the publication date of the book happened within a few years of each other in the late 90s. I kept reminding myself that things might have changed in each of these countries in the ensuing 10 years. I don’t want to accuse the book of being dated, though. I think it’s a good thing that this book made me want to go and find out about the conditions of these countries nowadays; and as a snapshot of economic and political conditions in the late 90s this book may turn out to be quite valuable (O’Rourke visits Hong Kong for the handover ceremony back to China in 1997, for example). I found O’Rourke’s view of things sometimes to be a bit to biased and invasive of my personal mindset as a reader. However, this is a minor quibble as he is very much owns his viewpoints and isn’t holding himself up to be an expert. Rather this book is the account of an ordinary joe who happens to be on the spot. For me, the book works best as a kind of travelogue with an economics theme. O’Rourke vividly brings to life the countries he visited and made me care what happened to them.

The Illustrated Virago Book of Women Travellers edited by Mary Morris with Larry O’Connor. As the title suggests this book is full of excerpts from travelogues written by women travelers over the last couple of centuries. It is a very interesting book with the writing ranging from the comedic to the poetic. There are lots of detailed and vivid descriptions of exotic locales, however, if I had 1 minor quibble about this book it is that I felt that some parts of the world were over represented – lots of writing about Italy, Africa and the Middle East. I would have been interested in hearing about other parts of the world as well. I may be displaying my ignorance however – perhaps certain parts of the world were not as open to travel as others during last century, and therefore perhaps the aforementioned countries are over represented in travel writing on the whole.

Also:
Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon.
Why did it have to be snakes by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg
Death Sentence – the decay of public language by Don Watson
Miss Marple Omnibus by Agatha Christie
The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
To the Ends of the Earth by Paul Theroux
Discovering King Island by Jean Edgecombe
The Prester Quest by Nicholas Jubber
Mr Wong Goes West by Nury Vittachi
City of Shadows – Sydney Police Photographs 1912 – 1948 edited by Peter Doyle
Guards! Guards! By Terry Pratchett

films

2009-07-06T10:33:00.000+10:00

Films I have recently watched:

Tony Takitani. Japanese film based on the story of the same name by Haruki Murakami. Subtly acted, stylishly shot and sensitively directed (by Jun Ichikawa), this is a melancholy mood piece about loneliness.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail Famously funny film. The commentaries from directors and cast are very interesting.

Henry Rollins – Live in the Conversation Pit. Rollins is an angry, opinionated, eccentric raconteur. He is also eloquent, passionate, humane, well read and funny. His spoken word performances are wonderful.

Monty Python’s And Now For Something Completely Different. This film is really just an extended comedy skit show. Not that I am complaining. I love Terry Gilliam’s animations and the Upper Class Twit of the Year skit best.

Joh’s Jury. I am not sure when this film was made but judging from the age of a lot of the well known Australian actors (Penny Cook, John Howard, Noah Taylor) in the film I would say it was made quite a few years ago. This film was made for TV by the ABC and once you get past the somewhat crappy production values I actually found this to be quite involving. The film is based on real life and shows the story of the jury involved in one of Australia’s famous political scandals and court room sagas. (Australians reading this will probably guess that the Joh of the title is Sir Joh Bjelke Peterson). I found it quite riveting.

Wonder Boys starring Michael Douglas and Toby Maguire. Beautifully written and acted film about writers and academics. Wickedly funny but with lots of heart. Highly recommended.

Pirates of the Caribbean. I have watched this film numerous times now but I still marvel at the audacity of Johnny Depp’s wonderfully eccentric and risky interpretation of Captain Jack Sparrow. Geoffrey Rush is great as well.

Rhinoceros starring Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel and Karen Black and directed by Tom Horgen. This is an exceptionally good film adaptation of Eugene Ionesco’s play of the same name. I actually don’t want to give anything about the plot away – I will just urge you to see it. This film contains one of the best scenes of acting I have ever seen. Zero Mostel puts in an astonishing virtuoso turn and Gene Wilder supports him with a beautifully judged performance. This scene features a transformation that manages to be completely gob smacking without the aid of any special effects whatsoever. Sorry to be so mysterious – just watch it.

Inside Deep Throat. This was an interesting documentary about the famous porn film starring Linda Lovelace. In the documentary there is only one scene featuring explicit footage from the film and the documentary focuses mainly on the controversy surrounding the film and raises a lot of questions. Personally, I am no fan of porn – it leaves me cold and I do worry about the exploitation of the people in the films, as well as the effect the films have on the psychology of the people who watch them. Call me a prude if you like, but I feel that porn potentially has a cheapening or deadening effect on our attitudes towards sex. I do not have a problem with erotica but here is where all the questions start to arise (and I can’t really answer any of them). What is the different between porn and erotica? The distinction can be blurry in some cases. And if I call something porn, maybe it is just erotica to other people? Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems – were they being exploited? Both were made scapegoats for appearing in Deep Throat and I was appalled at the way they were treated. Both were paid a pittance for their appearances in the film but the mob made millions from it. Were the makers of the film renegade, indy film makers (as claimed by the documentary’s directors in their commentary) or exploitative sleazes? Or both? As much as I dislike porn I also heartily loathe the knee jerk reaction of the Christian far right who worked damned hard to shut screenings of the film down and to make life hell for the people who starred in and made the film. As much as I do not want to have my sexuality affected by the sort of people who made Deep Throat I also don’t want it controlled by the unthinking conservatives who campaigned against it. What bothered me was that there didn’t seem to be a middle path – on one side of the equation were folks who were for the film and advocating things like no censorship at all (what? And let every pedophile have a field day?) and that porn should be accepted into the mainstream, and on the other side of the equation were the churchy lot who were attacking the film makers with what, seemed to me, to be considerable malice that was just as scary to me as the possibility of any threat of sexual abuse. There didn’t seem to be a middle path. No one seemed to be saying don’t use other people for sexual pleasure without any thought for their sexual, spiritual, emotional or psychological welfare, but at the same time blow jobs are not the work of the devil.

Also:
The French Connection
This is Spinal Tap
White Zombie
Warriors of Heaven and Earth
Volver
Revenge of the Pink Panther
Room Service
And the there were none
Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge
The Replacement Killers
House on Haunted Hill
The Bat
Shock
Robin Hood
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon
Black Narcissus
Bulldog Drummond Comes Back

TV

2009-07-03T09:36:00.001+10:00

TV programmes I have recently watched:

My TV antenna is broken so I don’t get the TV. Instead I can borrow out old TV programmes on DVD from my local library. Thanks to the library the programmes I have recently been watching (in lieu of the dreadful Big Brother) are:

7 Periods with Mr Gormsby. This is a New Zealand comedy series that I had never heard of before I spotted the DVD at the library. I am now hooked. Mr Gormsby is a high school teacher and quite a character. He has beliefs that seemed to have been set in stone during World War 1 and to which he cleaves with bulldog like tenacity. He is blunt, chauvinistic, racist and otherwise politically incorrect. Despite the fact that I would hate him if I met him in real life by the 7th episode I couldn’t get enough of him. I think that the secret of the series’ success is that by the end of the series you come around to feeling that there are worse things than Mr Gormsby. He has to teach Class 5F (ie. the delinquents and losers) at an all boys High School. Poor 5F are dreadful in that sweaty, clammy, awkward, fumbling way that 15 year old boys can be. They are not evil but rather just bemused and a bit disgruntled at a world that doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with them. Mr Gormsby treats them with the sort of gruff disrespect that would make the average social worker’s toes curl, but he does bother with some rudimentary discipline and they come to like him for it. What is also clever is that the rest of the staff at the school are a bunch of misfits (some of whom it is hard to like) and the education system is shown to be a beaureaucratic shambles. The school counselor, Steve, is appalling – hypocritical, selfish and shallow. You soon find yourself rooting for Mr Gormsby and 5F.

Black Books starring Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Grieg. I LOVED this. This series revolves around 2 men who run a book store and their friend who runs the gift store next door. The plot lines are absurd and the script is witty. Dylan Moran turns in a virtuoso performance as a weird, antisocial, slovenly eccentric. Hats off to Bill Bailey who, in performing a less attention grabbing character, nevertheless engagingly holds his own against the flamboyant Moran with a deceptively relaxed style of performance. Grieg is good as their friend Fran as well. The rapport between the 3 performers is excellent. Hilarious stuff.

Billy Connolly in Dublin. If you are a fan of Connolly’s humour then you wont need any description here. I love it.

Dr Who (Series 3 Volume 5). God bless Northcote Library for having DVDs of programmes like these. I grew up on Dr. Who (John Pertwee was my first Doctor) and I am always happy to watch a few episodes. David Tennant (who plays the Doctor in these particular episodes) is terrific as the Doctor, I thought. He imbues his portrayal of this iconic character with eccentricity, anarchy, charisma and just a touch of vanity. His Doctor is an engaging creature and you can easily believe in the Doctor’s genius and compassion.

Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong - I am a huge fan of Hong Kong kung fu movies so I was rather hoping this would feature Jackie showing us places where he had made various films over the years. But it didn’t. The ebullient Jackie beams amiably at the camera for parts of this programme but the whole thing is dominated by a patronizing American voice who gives tips on what to eat, where to buy souvenirs, and how we can be reassured by how like Manhattan some of Hong Kong is. The whole thing seems to be pitched at middle class folks who want to claim they have been to exotic locales without ever straying too far out of their comfort zones.

Mansfield Park – BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel. Mansfield Park is, perhaps, my least favourite of Austen’s novels (not that I dislike it outright – Austen is one of my very favourite authors). The heroine, Fanny Price, engages our sympathy but has a hard time engaging my interest (so many of Austen’s other heroines are more spirited or feeling). Poor little Fanny has had the life squeezed out of her by circumstances and poisonous old Aunt Norris. I have always thought that Austen was maybe a little too successful in her portrayal of a human being who has had any opportunity for personal development denied to them. The character of Fanny Price is too realistic a portrait of what happens when someone is treated like a servant, and constantly reminded of their poor relation status. This gives this book (and this series) a grim edge. But I found myself enjoying this series more than I anticipated. Maybe I am due for another reread (and reassessment) of the book. When rewatching this TV adaptation (I had last seen it years ago) I found myself admiring the mouselike Fanny for sticking to her principles. In terms of the acting, the cast is solid. For my money, the standout performance comes from Angela Pleasance as the bizarrely languid Lady Bertram (accessorized by a snorting pug).

Also:
Pilot Guides – Argentina
Midsommer Murders
Merlin’s Apprentice
Pride and Prejudice
Pilot Guides – Tahiti & Samoa
Bush Mechanics
Hogan’s Heroes
Arjuna (Japanese anime)
Samurai Champloo (Japanese anime)
Great Teacher Onizuki (Japanese anime)

Sanskrit words

2009-07-02T09:44:00.000+10:00

Chit
from Hindi chitthi "a letter, note", which is from Sanskrit chitra-s "uniquely marked".

Punch
via Hindi panch "five" ultimately from Sanskrit panchan-s. A mixed drink.

Cot
from Hindi khat "a couch", which is from Sanskrit khatva.

Pundit
ultimately from Sanskrit payndita-s via Hindi payndit, which means "a learned man, teacher".

Crimson
from Old Spanish cremesin, via Middle Latin from Arabic qirmiz "a kermes", which is ultimately from Sanskrit krmi-ja.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Sanskrit_origin

Poetry Wednesday - Medieval Poetry

2009-07-01T11:12:00.000+10:00

The Heavenly Banquet

I would like to have the men of Heaven
In my own house:
With vats of good cheer
Laid out for them.

I would like to have the three Marys,
Their fame is so great.
I would like people
From every corner of Heaven.

I would like them to be cheerful
In their drinking,
I would like to have Jesus too
Here amongst them.

I would like a great lake of beer
For the King of Kings,
I would like to be watching Heaven’s family
Drinking it through all eternity.

p. 40 from Threshold of Light – Prayers and Praises from the Celtic Tradition edited by A.M. Allchin and Esther de Waal. The editors don’t have many notes on the origins of this poem. They just tell us that it originated in the 10th or 11th century and the way they have organized this book suggests that it was written in Scottish or Irish Gaelic.

I think this poem is a scream. The poet nonchalantly combines the Heavenly host with quaffing. I feel that some poor Celtic bastard was trying desperately to wrap his head around all this Christian business and this is what he came up with. “Can you welcome Jesus into your heart” St Patrick would have intoned at him. “Hey! I’ll do better than that – I’ll have ‘em over for drinks!” I think measuring your faith in terms of just how big a lake of beer you order in for the saviour is a marvelous way to go.

The Hermit’s Life

All alone in my little hut without any human
being in my company, dear has been the
pilgrimage before going to meet death.

Making holy the body with good habits, treading
it boldly down: feeble tearful eyes for forgiveness
of my passions.

Stepping along the paths of the gospel, singing
psalms every hour: an end of talking and long
stories: constant bending of the knee.

My creator to frequent me, my Lord, my King,
my spirit to seek him in the eternal kingdom
where he is.

All alone in my little hut, all alone so, alone I
came into the world, alone I shall go from it.

p. 42 from Threshold of Light – Prayers and Praises from the Celtic Tradition edited by A.M. Allchin and Esther de Waal. The editors’ notes for this poem are “Here is a simple rule for a solitary, versified. Shortened. Eight-century. Kenneth Jackson, Studies in Early Celtic Nature Poetry (Cambridge 1935), pp. 105-106”.

I am afraid that this is where the asceticism of Christianity loses me. This little poem is quite beautiful but I also find it to be unbearably forlorn. The poet is certainly not asking for our pity and seems to have embraced his path willingly but I personally am chilled by the loneliness and self-denigration that leaks out of this elegantly simple verse.

I guess that I am spiritual pygmy with all the self-discipline of an orangutan on heat. As literature I love the second poem, but as a philosophy by which to live your life I am far more comfortable with the attitude of the carouser who wrote the first.

An excerpt from Ulysses

2009-06-30T12:08:00.001+10:00

I am ploughing my way through Ulysses by James Joyce and have hit the last 100 pages. I started it when I first started blogging on Yahoo 360 (maybe 2 or 3 years ago now). My reading of this book has happened in fits and bursts. I got it in e-text form from the wonderful Project Gutenberg website (this website is a storehouse of free e-texts). Therefore my reading of Ulysses tends to coincide with my bouts of casual work. When I have a few weeks in an office and I am underemployed doing some boring reception work (as I am now) then I plug in my memory stick and get through a few chunks of Ulysses.

When I first started blogging on 360 there was a quite a network of people all participating in the same tours – Movie Monday, Literary Tuesday, Poetry Wednesday, Word Thursday and Food Friday. I did not get into the latter much (as I am not much of a cook) and so I would participate in the Friday Five instead (whereby someone would list 5 questions and folks would post a blog answering them). I was a regular poster to the other tours for a while as well. I dropped out of touch with 360 for a year or 2 – I had a hard, hard time that left me bereft of energy or inspiration or goodwill plus I had trouble getting the internet at home (have given up on that ever happening now) plus all of this coincided with the breakdown of 360 as a blogging platform and the mass desertion of my online friends to blogging sites like Multiply (sorry but I could never get the hang of that site). But I have very fond memories of the halcyon days of those tours. I think I got involved initially because I was unemployed and would spend a large amount of time on the net at the State Library here in Melbourne (it was free). I realized that I was starved of intellectual stimulation and even social interaction and the 360 network answered those needs.

I have trailed off onto a tangent here. I think I started rabbiting on about 360 because every time I read Ulysses I spare a thought for Lina (aka red witch) who was a frequent blogger and the host of the Literary Tuesday tour. Lina was an erudite lady from Portugal with an absolute passion for all things cultural. She had a vivid, warm (and occasionally caustic) online voice. She loved Ulysses and I remember her posting a blog that featured a picture of Marilyn Monroe reading the book. Lina wrote that apparently Monroe didn’t read Ulysses from the first page to the last but would randomly pick a section and read it without regard for the sequence of the sections of the book. Lina said that this is apparently the best way to read this confounding text. I took her at her word and this is how I have been picking away at Ulysses ever since. Because my text is in the form of an e-text that I have copied into a Word Document I delete each section after I have read it. Now I am left with a mere 100 pages or so of text but I actually don’t have any idea where those 100 pages lie in the original book. And I don’t care. Reading Ulysses this way has been fun. This book doesn’t have a traditional narrative structure and, for me, the most rewarding thing about this book has been the way Joyce plays with the English language. Take the excerpt below, for example. The language is deliberately convoluted and over educated, and yet it is one of the most erotic pieces of writing I think I have ever read.

“The preordained frangibility of the hymen: the presupposed intangibility of the thing in itself: the incongruity and disproportion between the selfprolonging tension of the thing proposed to be done and the selfabbreviating relaxation of the thing done; the fallaciously inferred debility of the female: the muscularity of the male: the variations of ethical codes: the natural grammatical transition by inversion involving no alteration of sense of an aorist preterite proposition (parsed as masculine subject, monosyllabic onomatopoeic transitive verb with direct feminine object) from the active voice into its correlative aorist preterite proposition (parsed as feminine subject, auxiliary verb and quasimonosyllabic onomatopoeic past participle with complementary masculine agent) in the passive voice: the continued product of seminators by generation: the continual production of semen by distillation: the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy of the stars.”

Where are you now, Lina and all those other wonderful bloggers? I am sorry I disappeared and now most of you guys are either offline or dispersed to other sites (I am on Profiles and Blogger). To be honest, up till now, I haven’t felt that sad about the closure of 360 as, in a way, I myself abandoned the site for a while at the same time Yahoo abandoned me as a blogger by allowing 360 to die the slow horrible death it has for the last couple of years. But writing this blog and remembering those people whose writing I enjoyed so much and whose online lives I was so privileged to share for a while has made me feel sad.

I don’t suppose anyone will read this blog. But what the hell. Thanks for the tip about Ulysses, Lina (you were right). Thanks for the fun and ideas everybody. Vale 360.

Films

2009-06-29T10:57:00.001+10:00

Films I have recently watched:

Monty Python’s And Now For Something Completely Different. This film is really just an extended comedy skit show. Not that I am complaining. I love Terry Gilliam’s animations and the Upper Class Twit of the Year skit best.

Joh’s Jury. I am not sure when this film was made but judging from the age of a lot of the well known Australian actors (Penny Cook, John Howard, Noah Taylor) in the film I would say it was made quite a few years ago. This film was made for TV by the ABC and once you get past the somewhat crappy production values I actually found this to be quite involving. The film is based on real life and shows the story of the jury involved in one of Australia’s famous political scandals and court room sagas. (Australians reading this will probably guess that the Joh of the title is Sir Joh Bjelke Peterson). I found it quite riveting.

Wonder Boys starring Michael Douglas and Toby Maguire. Beautifully written and acted film about writers and academics. Wickedly funny but with lots of heart. Highly recommended.

Pirates of the Caribbean. I have watched this film numerous times now but I still marvel at the audacity of Johnny Depp’s wonderfully eccentric and risky interpretation of Captain Jack Sparrow. Geoffrey Rush is great as well.

Rhinoceros starring Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel and Karen Black and directed by Tom Horgen. This is an exceptionally good film adaptation of Eugene Ionesco’s play of the same name. I actually don’t want to give anything about the plot away – I will just urge you to see it. This film contains one of the best scenes of acting I have ever seen. Zero Mostel puts in an astonishing virtuoso turn and Gene Wilder supports him with a beautifully judged performance. This scene features a transformation that manages to be completely gob smacking without the aid of any special effects whatsoever. Sorry to be so mysterious – just watch it.

Inside Deep Throat. This was an interesting documentary about the famous porn film starring Linda Lovelace. In the documentary there is only one scene featuring explicit footage from the film and the documentary focuses mainly on the controversy surrounding the film and raises a lot of questions. Personally, I am no fan of porn – it leaves me cold and I do worry about the exploitation of the people in the films, as well as the effect the films have on the psychology of the people who watch them. Call me a prude if you like, but I feel that porn potentially has a cheapening or deadening effect on our attitudes towards sex. I do not have a problem with erotica but here is where all the questions start to arise (and I can’t really answer any of them). What is the different between porn and erotica? The distinction can be blurry in some cases. And if I call something porn, maybe it is just erotica to other people? Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems – were they being exploited? Both were made scapegoats for appearing in Deep Throat and I was appalled at the way they were treated. Both were paid a pittance for their appearances in the film but the mob made millions from it. Were the makers of the film renegade, indy film makers (as claimed by the documentary’s directors in their commentary) or exploitative sleazes? Or both? As much as I dislike porn I also heartily loathe the knee jerk reaction of the Christian far right who worked damned hard to shut screenings of the film down and to make life hell for the people who starred in and made the film. As much as I do not want to have my sexuality affected by the sort of people who made Deep Throat I also don’t want it controlled by the unthinking conservatives who campaigned against it. What bothered me was that there didn’t seem to be a middle path – on one side of the equation were folks who were for the film and advocating things like no censorship at all (what? And let every pedophile have a field day?) and that porn should be accepted into the mainstream, and on the other side of the equation were the churchy lot who were attacking the film makers with what, seemed to me, to be considerable malice that was just as scary to me as the possibility of any threat of sexual abuse. There didn’t seem to be a middle path. No one seemed to be saying don’t use other people for sexual pleasure without any thought for their sexual, spiritual, emotional or psychological welfare, but at the same time blow jobs are not the work of the devil.

The French Connection starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider. I know that this is a famous film, and it certainly seems to be well made and well acted but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

This is Spinal Tap directed by and starring Rob Reiner with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. Amusing mockumentary that is spot on in its depiction of the vacuous and self absorbed glam rockers and their entourage. Last year I saw the DVD of Some Kind of Monster which is NOT a mockumentary and which features fly on the wall footage of Metallica. This is Spinal Tap (which must predate the Metallica film by a decade at least) reminded me uncannily of some of the behaviours and personalities I had seen in Some Kind of Monster.

White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi. By coincidence I am currently reading a book by Randy Rasmussen called Children of the Night which is about classic black and white horror movies. It has this to say about White Zombie:
“Murderer Legendre (Bela Lugosi) in White Zombie (1932) is another variation on Svengali… Possessing the supernatural ability to create and control zombie slaves, he uses his power to satisfy greed and revenge as well as lust. Native Haitian zombies work his sugar mill. A smaller cardre of white zombies, all formerly men of prominence who held power over him, protect Legendre and carry out his orders. …Lugosi’s performance drips with a malevolence equal to Count Dracula’s.” And this quote doesn’t even mention the innocent young woman he enslaves by black magic for unspecified but undoubtedly disgusting practices. I am sure you get the drift.

Warriors of Heaven and Earth directed by He Ping. Enjoyable wuxia inspired film set in historic China. The acting is very good, as is the direction and art direction. Fabulous locations in China are used to good effect. This is not a martial arts film per se (the actors are not martial artists and are extensively doubled) but the action direction is brisk and serves the story well. Thanks to Nicholas V for recommending this satisfying film.

Volver directed by Pedro Almodovar and starring Penelope Cruz and Carmen Maura. Excellent chick flick with an interesting story and very good acting. Highly recommended.

Revenge of the Pink Panther. Wonderful slapstick from Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards.

Room Service. Wonderful slapstick from The Marx Brothers.

Also:
And the there were none
Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge
The Replacement Killers
House on Haunted Hill
The Bat
Shock
Robin Hood
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon
Black Narcissus
Bulldog Drummond Comes Back

TV

2009-06-26T14:36:00.001+10:00

TV programmes I have recently watched:

My TV antenna is broken so I don’t get the TV. Instead I can borrow out old TV programmes on DVD from my local library. Thanks to the library the programmes I have recently been watching (in lieu of the dreadful Big Brother) are:

Black Books starring Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Grieg. I LOVED this. This series revolves around 2 men who run a book store and their friend who runs the gift store next door. The plot lines are absurd and the script is witty. Dylan Moran turns in a virtuoso performance as a weird, antisocial, slovenly eccentric. Hats off to Bill Bailey who, in performing a less attention grabbing character, nevertheless engagingly holds his own against the flamboyant Moran with a deceptively relaxed style of performance. Grieg is good as their friend Fran as well. The rapport between the 3 performers is excellent. Hilarious stuff.

Billy Connolly in Dublin. If you are a fan of Connolly’s humour then you wont need any description here. I love it.

Dr Who (Series 3 Volume 5). God bless Northcote Library for having DVDs of programmes like these. I grew up on Dr. Who (John Pertwee was my first Doctor) and I am always happy to watch a few episodes. David Tennant (who plays the Doctor in these particular episodes) is terrific as the Doctor, I thought. He imbues his portrayal of this iconic character with eccentricity, anarchy, charisma and just a touch of vanity. His Doctor is an engaging creature and you can easily believe in the Doctor’s genius and compassion.

Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong - I am a huge fan of Hong Kong kung fu movies so I was rather hoping this would feature Jackie showing us places where he had made various films over the years. But it didn’t. The ebullient Jackie beams amiably at the camera for parts of this programme but the whole thing is dominated by a patronizing American voice who gives tips on what to eat, where to buy souvenirs, and how we can be reassured by how like Manhattan some of Hong Kong is. The whole thing seems to be pitched at middle class folks who want to claim they have been to exotic locales without ever straying too far out of their comfort zones.

Mansfield Park – BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel. Mansfield Park is, perhaps, my least favourite of Austen’s novels (not that I dislike it outright – Austen is one of my very favourite authors). The heroine, Fanny Price, engages our sympathy but has a hard time engaging my interest (so many of Austen’s other heroines are more spirited or feeling). Poor little Fanny has had the life squeezed out of her by circumstances and poisonous old Aunt Norris. I have always thought that Austen was maybe a little too successful in her portrayal of a human being who has had any opportunity for personal development denied to them. The character of Fanny Price is too realistic a portrait of what happens when someone is treated like a servant, and constantly reminded of their poor relation status. This gives this book (and this series) a grim edge. But I found myself enjoying this series more than I anticipated. Maybe I am due for another reread (and reassessment) of the book. When rewatching this TV adaptation (I had last seen it years ago) I found myself admiring the mouselike Fanny for sticking to her principles. In terms of the acting, the cast is solid. For my money, the standout performance comes from Angela Pleasance as the bizarrely languid Lady Bertram (accessorized by a snorting pug).

Pilot Guides – Argentina I’d go for the steak as much as anything else. It looks great but apparently is very expensive.

Midsommer Murders - Formulaic. Predictable. Presenting a view of rural middle class England that steers dangerously close to cliché. And, as has often been stated, Inspector Barnaby’s beat has seen a ridiculously high number of murders. But for all this (maybe because of it) - highly enjoyable. This show is to TV what Tim Tams are to comfort food.

Also:
Merlin’s Apprentice
Pride and Prejudice
Pilot Guides – Tahiti & Samoa
Bush Mechanics
Hogan’s Heroes
Arjuna (Japanese anime)
Samurai Champloo (Japanese anime)
Great Teacher Onizuki (Japanese anime)

Canard, thimblerig, roorback, louche

2009-06-25T12:08:00.001+10:00

I subscribe to the Merriam Webster daily word email bulletin, where they send you an email containing a word, its meaning and an interesting fact or 2 about its etymology. I tend to keep words I find interesting for use in Word Thursday blogs. Because of my slackness as a regular blogger I now have quite a backlog of marvellous words. Recent political events in Australia have inspired me to go through this backlog to see if I could find any words around a particular theme that I can use in a blog.
Here are 3 lovely, colourful words I found. The text defining and discussing them has been lifted straight out of the Merriam Webster emails:

canard \kuh-NARD\ noun1 a : a false or unfounded report or story; especially : a fabricated report *b : a groundless rumor or belief2 : an airplane with horizontal stabilizing and control surfaces in front of supporting surfaces; also : a small airfoil in front of the wing of an aircraft that increases the aircraft's stability

Example sentence:"Last week's storm," Chet declared, "showed us that the claim that lightning cannot strike the same place twice is nothing more than a canard."

Did you know?In 16th-century France "vendre des canards à moitié" was a colorful way of saying "to fool" or "to cheat." The French phrase means, literally, "to half-sell ducks." No one now knows just what was meant by "to half-sell"; the proverb was probably based on some story widely known at the time, but the details have not survived. At any rate, the expression led to the use of "canard," the French word for "duck," with the meaning "a hoax" or "a fabrication." English speakers adopted this "canard" in the mid-1800s. The aeronautical sense of "canard," used from the early days of flying, comes from the stubby duck-like appearance of the aircraft.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
***

thimblerig \THIM-bul-rig\ verb

*1 : to cheat by trickery2 : to swindle by a trick in which a small ball or pea is quickly shifted from under one to another of three small cups to fool the spectator guessing its location

Example sentence:The appraiser looked closely at the painting and then reluctantly told us that we had been thimblerigged into buying a worthless copy.

Did you know?The game of thimblerig seems innocent enough. The thimblerigger places a seed under one of three thimbles. He or she deftly scoots the thimbles around on a table, then asks the player to bet on which one hides the seed. But thimbleriggers are masters of sleight of hand and can move and manipulate the seed unfairly — so the guileless player doesn't stand a chance of winning. (The poor bettor is probably unaware that "rig" has meant "to manipulate or control usually by deceptive or dishonest means" since the 1800s.) When the same sham is played with nutshells, it's called a "shell game," and there's a related game played with cards known as "three-card monte."
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
***

roorback \ROOR-back\ noun

: a defamatory falsehood published for political effect

Example sentence:"The attacks on my character are nothing but roorbacks drummed up by my opponent," insisted the candidate.

Did you know?If you think dirty politics are new, think again. In the midst of the 1844 presidential campaign between James K. Polk and Henry Clay, a letter was published in a newspaper in Ithaca, New York, claiming that a reputable witness (one Baron von Roorback) had, while traveling in Tennessee, come across 43 slaves owned by Polk and branded with his initials. The letter caused an uproar that threatened to derail Polk's campaign until it was discovered that the whole thing was a hoax supposedly perpetrated by the opposing party. Baron von Roorback didn't even exist. The incident proved a political boomerang; Polk won the election and the name "roorback" became a byword for political dirty tricks.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
***

The political events that inspired my use of these 3 words is now being referred to here in Australia as ‘ute-gate’. (Do you foreigners know what a ute is? Ute is Australian parlance for utility truck. Utility truck = little wee truck farmers drive around in). If you want to know about ‘ute-gate’ then click on this link here to read about it: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/utegate-email-is-a-fake-says-afp-20090622-cta9.html

Australian politicians are frequently rude, mean and seem to have no qualms about dealing out a stream of low-level dishonesty, but full on scandals are not something that regularly enliven our political affairs. God only knows who has been getting up to God only who knows what in ‘ute-gate’, but at least it’s interesting. Or so I thought, until I turned to page 7 of The Age newspaper and read this little headline: “Whiff of cocaine in Italian scandal”. Journalist Paolo Totaro goes on to write this as an opening paragraph: “The inquiry enveloping Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has widened to include up to 30 women, a transsexual reality TV host, a female pimp and claims of party guests who were cocaine users.”
Now THAT’S a scandal. Those wicked Italians seem to be having so much fun compared to our fuddy duddies. In my backlog I found a word that I will dedicate to Mr. Berlusconi and his guests:

louche \LOOSH\ adjective
: not reputable or decent

Example sentence:Her novels are populated by louche characters wasting their days in brothels and seedy bars.

Did you know?"Louche" ultimately comes from the Latin word "luscus," meaning "blind in one eye" or "having poor sight." This Latin term gave rise to the French "louche," meaning "squinting" or "cross-eyed." The French gave their term a figurative sense as well, taking that squinty look to mean "shady" or "devious." English speakers didn't see the need for the sight-impaired uses when they borrowed the term in the 19th century, but they kept the figurative one. The word is still quite visible today and is used to describe both people and places of questionable repute.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
***

Meanwhile, elsewhere in back pages of The Age I read articles on the girl who died in Iran, continued unrest in Somalia, plastic bags choking fish to death in the sea.

Have a nice day.

The scribe in the woods

2009-06-24T15:45:00.000+10:00

The scribe in the woods

The woodland thicket overtops me,

the blackbird sings me a lay, praise I will not conceal:

above my little lined booklet

the trilling of birds sings to me.

The clear cuckoo sings to me, lovely discourse,

in its grey cloak from the crest of the bushes;

truly – may the Lord protect me! –

well do I write under the forest wood.

p.8 from Threshold of Light – Prayers and Praises from the Celtic Tradition edited by A.M. Allchin and Esther de Waal. The editors in turn credit this poem as having been taken from Studies in Early Celtic Nature Poetry, Kenneth Jackson, 1935. This poem is thought to have been written in the 8^th to 9^th century and was originally written in Gaelic.

Books

2009-06-23T13:23:00.001+10:00

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (English translation by Philip Gabriel). This book is surreal, occasionally erotic, and gripping. I am going to be lazy here and quote from the dust cover: “Kafka on the Shore follows the fortunes of 2 remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at the age of 15, under the shadow of his father’s dark prophecy. The ageing Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his simple life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing dramas… At once a classic quest, Kafka on the Shore is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos…” For me, this book dealt with themes surrounding stolen childhood, the loss of innocence and dealing with emotional damage, coming of age, the need for protection and to protect, and the need to find the strength to stand on your own 2 feet. Murakami (and whoever wrote the dustcover notes) are much better writers than I am. If you want to know more about this enchanting book then go and read it.

Eat the Rich by PJ O’Rourke. This book is subtitled ‘A treatise on Economics’. Apart from a couple of chapters dealing with the theory of economics the book is made up of 8 chapters, each describing a visit that O’Rourke made to a certain country and his impressions of the economy and lifestyle of that country. Thus you have Sweden being examined as an example of good socialism and Albania being examined as an example of bad capitalism (just to name 2 examples). The whole thing is written in O’Rourke’s breezy, humorous style that greatly adds to its entertainment value. For me, this was important because anything to do with economics makes my eyes glaze over. If you read this book then do bear in mind that the trips O’Rourke took and the publication date of the book happened within a few years of each other in the late 90s. I kept reminding myself that things might have changed in each of these countries in the ensuing 10 years. I don’t want to accuse the book of being dated, though. I think it’s a good thing that this book made me want to go and find out about the conditions of these countries nowadays; and as a snapshot of economic and political conditions in the late 90s this book may turn out to be quite valuable (O’Rourke visits Hong Kong for the handover ceremony back to China in 1997, for example). I found O’Rourke’s view of things sometimes to be a bit to biased and invasive of my personal mindset as a reader. However, this is a minor quibble as he is very much owns his viewpoints and isn’t holding himself up to be an expert. Rather this book is the account of an ordinary joe who happens to be on the spot. For me, the book works best as a kind of travelogue with an economics theme. O’Rourke vividly brings to life the countries he visited and made me care what happened to them.

The Illustrated Virago Book of Women Travellers edited by Mary Morris with Larry O’Connor. As the title suggests this book is full of excerpts from travelogues written by women travelers over the last couple of centuries. It is a very interesting book with the writing ranging from the comedic to the poetic. There are lots of detailed and vivid descriptions of exotic locales, however, if I had 1 minor quibble about this book it is that I felt that some parts of the world were over represented – lots of writing about Italy, Africa and the Middle East. I would have been interested in hearing about other parts of the world as well. I may be displaying my ignorance however – perhaps certain parts of the world were not as open to travel as others during last century, and therefore perhaps the aforementioned countries are over represented in travel writing on the whole.

Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon. This is the first time I had ever read any of Gabaldon’s work but I gather she has quite a following. The librarian who checked it out for me is quite a fan and raved about her novels, which seem to be all set in the 18th century and deal with the same network of characters. This book contains a novella and 2 short stories that center on the adventures of a character called Lord John Grey. Lord John solves various mysteries, and the common theme for all 3 stories is that they have some link to the supernatural or the eerie. Gabaldon does a good job of evoking the 18th century and her settings and characters are colourful - in one story Lord John even ends up in the Hellfire Club. The plots are interesting and the writing is briskly paced. A good read.

Also:
Why did it have to be snakes by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg
Death Sentence – the decay of public language by Don Watson
Miss Marple Omnibus by Agatha Christie
The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
To the Ends of the Earth by Paul Theroux
Discovering King Island by Jean Edgecombe
The Prester Quest by Nicholas Jubber
Mr Wong Goes West by Nury Vittachi
City of Shadows – Sydney Police Photographs 1912 – 1948 edited by Peter Doyle
Guards! Guards! By Terry Pratchett

films

2009-06-22T15:02:00.001+10:00

Films I have recently watched:

And then there were none. 1945 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel. I usually like these old black and white mystery films so I enjoyed this. The direction is pacy and there is a nice vein of quiet black humour running throughout.

Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge. …and another black and white film. This old adventure film is set aboard a ship this time. And guess what – Bulldog Drummond wins! Who’d have thunk!

The Replacement Killers starring Chow Yun-Fat and Mira Sorvino, and directed by Antoine Fuqua. This is quite a slick and entertaining thriller. I felt that the action was good but that it got a bit sameish in the way it was staged and filmed after a while. Personally I feel that us westerners have a long way to go before we can match the Hong Kong filmmakers in terms of creativity and originality in the way we choreograph and film action scenes. I listened to the director’s commentary and he actually says that he feels that Americans have a lot to learn from the Asians in this area. He also stated that, due to budget and other restrictions, he wasn’t able to give as much time and thought to the action scenes as he would have liked. Good on him for admitting this – it made me want to stand on a chair and cheer.

House on Haunted Hill / The Bat / Shock all starring Vincent Price. I don’t actually like horror films but I had never seen a Vincent Price movie, and his name is so synonymous with horror that I just had to have a look at these. I am sure that modern day horror fans would find these films to be very tame (they gave me a couple of starts but I am an abject coward). The acting and plots were better than expected. They are not good films, but, in a dated way, they are reasonably good bad films (if that makes sense).

Robin Hood starring Douglas Fairbanks Senior. I watched this film out of curiosity. I wanted to see what Fairbanks actually looked like (a beefy bloke with quite nice legs in pantyhose). This silent, black and white film looks very dated and, at 2 hours long, failed to grip me, but apparently it was considered “as one of the monumental accomplishments of the era” (I am quoting from the cover). What was a leetle disconcerting was the fact that some of the soundtrack seemed to have been orchestrated for synthesizer and cowbells.

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. This film lifts Homes and Watson out of their original Victorian setting and repositions them in World War 2. Subsequently the plot revolves around the Nazi attempt to steal plans for a new weapon. I believe that my Granny had a Thing for Rathbone when she was a young gel. He certainly has a lovely resonant voice and his long, sardonic face is well suited to this character. Watson is portrayed as a bumbling fool in these films and this isn’t quite in line to how he is portrayed in the books. In Conan Doyle’s novel he comes across as rational and reasonably clever – he just isn’t in the same intellectual class as Holmes. I always thought this was clever of Conan Doyle. Most of us are happy to take it as read that anyone who is a qualified Doctor must be a pretty brainy chap, so by making a qualified doctor Sherlock Holmes’ ‘dumb’ (or less intelligent) offsider Conan Doyle has consolidated the reader’s impression of Holmes’ freakish genius. But Nigel Bruce does a good job in the movies as he makes Watson quite endearing, and there is a nice rapport between Rathbone and Bruce.

Black Narcissus starring Deborah Kerr. Made in 1947, this is a broiling melodrama set in a convent in the Himalayas. Broiling melodramas are not to my taste but I wanted to see this one because I had seen a clip from it many years ago and it piqued my interest. This one little scene showed 1 woman trying to throw another over a cliff. The murderess was made up and shot (and portrayed by the actress playing her) so as to look quite evil – even demonic. It scared the crap out of me and I wanted to see if it had the same impact on me after all this time. It did. Scared the bejesus out of me. If you like old fashioned broiling melodramas (and the chilly Deborah Kerr) then you might consider seeing this film.

Bulldog Drummond Comes Back starring John Barrymore. Old black and white adventure film featuring this most quintessential of British wartime era heroes. This film features an elaborate plot designed to mentally torture Bulldog Drummond before blowing him and his fiancé up in a cellar. The villains are easily identifiable because they speak in bastardized continental accents, dress in black, and the male villain has a goatee. As project managers they are creative, meticulous, well resourced but overly ambitious and this always their undoing – they should just shoot the bastard and be done with it instead of giving him time to wriggle out of ropes and pick locks etc. Bulldog Drummond, his moronic side kick Algy and a plucky manservant breeze through the nefarious plots, and show that good old fashioned British dim witted valour and derring do will overcome dago fiendishness every time.

Also:
Godzilla – Final Wars
Early Summer
The Corpse Bride
The Thief Lord
Tokyo Story
The Eel
Trail of the Pink Panther
Ran
Yakuza Deka 1: Secret Police
The Importance of Being Earnest
Beetlejuice
Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla
Kurosawa – a documentary
Ginji the Slasher
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Monkey Magic
The Bullet Train
Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey
Gremlins
Mondovino
A shot in the dark
Bulldog Drummond Escapes
Cutie Honey
Metropolis
Wallace and Gromit – The Curse of the Were Rabbit
Jamaica Inn
Assassin of Youth
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Tulpan
Auto Focus
Tears of the Black Tiger
Forbidden Lies
The Quiet American
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Medieval Celtic Poetry

2009-06-17T15:19:00.001+10:00

God with us
A full household could not be more lovely than
my little oratory in Tuaim Inbir with its stars in
their order, with its sun and its moon.
That you may be told its story, it was a craftsman
who made it – my little heart, God from Heaven,
he is the thatcher who thatched it.
A house where rain does not pour, a place where
spear-points are not dreaded, as bright as in a
garden and with no fence about it.

P 10 from Threshold of Light – Prayers and Praises from the Celtic Tradition edited by A.M. Allchin and Esther de Waal. The editors’ notes say, “This is all that remains of a ninth-century lyric by an Irish monastic poet.

TV

2009-06-12T11:57:00.000+10:00

TV programmes I have recently watched:

My TV antenna is broken so I don’t get the TV. Instead I can borrow out old TV programmes on DVD from my local library. Thanks to the library I have recently been watching (in lieu of the dreadful Big Brother) are:

Pilot Guides – Argentina I’d go for the steak as much as anything else. It looks great but apparently is very expensive.

Midsommer Murders - Formulaic. Predictable. Presenting a view of rural middle class England that steers dangerously close to cliché. And, as has often been stated, Inspector Barnaby’s beat has seen a ridiculously high number of murders. But for all this (maybe because of it) - highly enjoyable. This show is to TV what Tim Tams are to comfort food.

Merlin’s Apprentice with Sam Neil in the title role. I didn’t much care for this. The charismatic Neil is always great to watch but basically this was just a jumped up teen soap masquerading as mythology. At the end everybody who is young and winsome ends up with a boyfriend or girlfriend and a deeper acceptance of who they really are. Yeah right, very middle ages…

Pride and Prejudice – BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. P&P is one of my very favourite books and I found this TV series to be very satisfying to watch. The production has been meticulously crafted and well cast, and is imbued with the wit, energy and tenderness of the novel.

Pilot Guides – Tahiti & Samoa. As we go into a cool and wet (hopefully – we are in drought) Melbourne winter these places looked to be idyllic.

Bush Mechanics – Excellent, engaging, entertaining, revealing and unique ABC series made with the collaboration of Aboriginal communities in central Australia.

Hogan’s Heroes
Arjuna (Japanese anime)
Samurai Champloo (Japanese anime)
Great Teacher Onizuki (Japanese anime)

I watch a lot of anime and Japanese films because I am learning Japanese (nihongo sukoshi wakarimasu!) and watching Japanese films helps with my comprehension skills. And it’s fun as well.

sanskrit words

2009-06-11T15:18:00.000+10:00

After a grumpy blog posting last Thursday (atrabilious) I am in a far more neutral mood today. Things have been damned tough for a long time but I had a few essential wins this week. I am not out of the woods yet, but I am in a far better position to tackle stuff than this day last week.
Here is another list of words we use regularly and that have their origins in Sanskrit:

Palanquinthrough Malay and Javanese palangki ultimately from Sanskrit palyanka-s, which means "a bed".[133] Tamil word "pallakku" is closer to palanquin.

Sapphire via Latin sapphirus and Greek sappheiros from a Semitic tongue, but probably finally from Sanskrit sanipriya.

Cheetah from Hindi chita "a leopard", from Sanskrit chitraka, which means "speckled".

Guru via Hindi ultimately from Sanskrit guru-s, which means "a teacher".

Jute via Bengali jhuto ultimately from Sanskrit juta-s, which means "twisted hair".

Mung bean through Hindi ultimately from Sanskrit mudgah, a kind of bean.

Panther via Latin and Greek probably ultimately from Sanskrit pundarikam "a tiger", probably literally "the yellowish animal", from pandarah "whitish-yellow".

Sari through Hindi sari and Prakrit sadi, finally from Sanskrit sati "garment".

Chintz from Hindi chint, which is from Sanskrit chitra-s "clear, bright".

Musk via Late Latin and Late Greek moskhos from Persian mushk, ultimately from Sanskrit muska-s meaning "a testicle".

Pepper via Latin and Greek piperi probably from Middle Indic pippari, which is from Sanskrit pippali meaning "a long pepper.".

Shaman through Russian from Tungus shaman, perhaps from Chinese sha men, via Prakrit finally from Sanskrit sramana-s "a Buddhist monk".

martial arts films

2009-06-10T12:56:00.000+10:00

Martial Arts Films I have recently watched:

Kung Fu Hustle directed by and starring Stephen Chow. This is an extremely funny film. It has a large cast featuring all kinds of terrific performers a special mention goes to the actress playing the fat landlady – a superb comic turn. The violence is actually incredibly brutal, but it is so played for laughs and is so unreal (what I privately call cartoon violence) that it adds effectively to the overall comic effect. The martial arts choreography is mostly by Yuen Wu Ping (with a little bit by Sammo Hung) and is, as you would expect, superb. The art department has also had lots of fun creating sets and costumes that are colourful and full of retro charm. Good special effects too.

Revenge of the Dragon – this film was of interest to me because the action director was Yuen Wo Ping (whom I regard as a great choreographer). I am not sure when it was made but I will take a guess and say the 70s. There is lots of martial arts action in this film – in fact the second half is dominated by action scenes. Not bad.

The Spiritual Boxer – starring Wang Yu and directed by Lau Kar Leung. This film is lots of fun. Wang Yu looks so young in his debut role but his performance is great – uninhibited and cheeky. I really enjoyed his depiction of his character as being possessed by various Gods and because of this using different kung fu styles. The last fight is great.

The Trail of the Broken Blade – starring Wang Yu and directed by Chang Cheh. Perhaps not one of my very favourite Shaw brothers films – Wang Yu went through the film with an expression on his face that seemed to indicate that he had a bad tummy ache, and I found the martial arts choreography to be uninventive and stilted. I also found the eye make up to be disconcerting – Wang Yu was sporting some dark blue eye shadow but he wasn’t the worst offender. The heroine had the longest and bushiest false eye lashes I have ever seen and Chiao Chuang (playing the second male lead) had the kind of eye liner that put me in mind of Brigitte Bardot or Jane Fonda at the height of their sex kitten phases. Close watching of this film rewards with some of those bizarre anachronisms so beloved of kung fu movie fans. In this one Wang Yu swims to Flying Fish Island to beat up some baddies and some very modern looking litter can be seen eddying around his determined face as he makes his way through the water. When he gets out you can clearly see his bright blue underdaks (they look like boxer shorts) showing up through his wet white cossie. And during the final fight scene, if you look closely you can see that the sky at one part of the set has a fold in it.

Human Lanterns – starring Lo Lieh and directed by Sun Chung. I actually hate most horror films as I have a very low tolerance for gore and am easily scared, but I was interested as to what a Shaw brothers kung-fu take on this genre would look like. Lo Lieh’s character is definitely not a happy camper, and in this film he has hit upon a particularly disgusting way of expressing this. I thought that the plot was actually quite good. Liu Yung and Chen Kuan-tai play 2 alpha males who allow their mutual enmity to blind them to the fact that a mad man is using their wives and sisters in his handicrafts from hell project. I particularly liked the martial arts choreography (by Tang Chia and Huang Pei-chi). It looked most elegant to my untrained eye, and I enjoyed it very much for its own sake.

Also:
Duel of Fists
Dragon Swamp
Duelist
Sword of Doom
The Lizard
Tai Chi Master
Project A.
Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment
The 12 Gold Medallions
Shaolin Hand Lock
Ong Bak.
Sex and Fury
Female Yakuza Tale
Lone Wolf and Cub – Baby Cart in the Land of Demons.
Bruce Lee in Snake Island
Bichunmoo
The Bride with White Hair 2
Duel to the Death
Mr Vampire
SPL
Born To Fight
Island of Fire
The Water Margin
Police Story

Films

2009-06-10T12:55:00.001+10:00

Films I have recently watched:

Godzilla – Final Wars directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (who also directed a terrific martial arts two hander called Versus). Godzilla stomps about looking as cranky as ever, even when it comes across a cute Godzilla toddler monster. Lots of other monsters attack Godzilla in this movie – it is kind of like watching a series of rock and roll wrestling bouts between bizarre looking rubber dollies. Most of the human cast seems to be composed of immaculately coiffed young people who engage in lots of CGI enhanced martial arts. When watching a Godzilla film I always wonder what the Illuminati (if, in fact, they do exist) are thinking. Do they invite their lizard mates over for beer, pretzels and drinking games to cheer Godzilla on? Or do they cringe quietly in their chairs?

Early Summer directed by Yasujiro Ozu. This is a most fascinating film. As with Ozu’s Tokyo Story (see mini review below) this film unfolds at a gentle pace and revolves around the lives of suburban Tokyoites in the early 50s. The family drama Early Summer centres around is the arranging of a marriage for a young woman. In looking at this one issue Ozu examines traditional attitudes towards marriage, duty to family, self-determination, and the role of women and how they contrast with newer attitudes that emerged after the war. This film shows great compassion towards its characters in its own quiet way, and, as such, is affecting. But there is also a sly humour at work. I am looking forward to watching more of Ozu’s work.

The Corpse Bride directed by Tim Burton. This is an enjoyable little film. Gentle sentimentality is interwoven with black comedy and the stop animation is really superb. However, for me it was the voice work that really brought the film alive. An all star cast with the likes of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, Christopher Lee, Tracy Ullman, Richard E Grant and Jane Horricks give vocal performances that are not only entertaining but nuanced.

The Importance of Being Earnest. 1952 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play starring Michael Redgrave and Margaret Rutherford. A superb cast expertly delivers some of the best throwaway lines ever written in the history of theatre.

Yakuza Deka 1: Secret Police Action film starring Sonny that-can’t-be-his-real-hair Chiba. Not the worst film ever made but perhaps a bit too blokey for my taste. There is a minor character that keeps popping up in bizarre disguises from time to time – an aging geisha, a transvestite, a Mexican – very strange!

Ran directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Tatsuya Nakadai as the pathetic and dreadful old king. This is Kurosawa’s version of Shakespeare’s King Lear and makes for an interesting companion to this play. It is pretty gripping stuff. I am no expert on Japanese culture but I felt that the acting was pitched in a very theatrical style that suited the grandeur of the story. I was often reminded of (the little I have seen) of Kabuki when I was watching many of the performances. Hats off to the actress who played Lady Kaede – she glided easily between eerie calm and mania and scared the hell out of me with her depiction of this embittered and vengeful character.

Trail of the Pink Panther starring Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Bert Kwouk and Joanna Lumley with appearances by David Niven and Cappucine. Directed by Blake Edwards. This film was made after Sellers was dead and basically was cobbled together from both used and unused material from other Pink Panther films as well as some new footage. Considering this it isn’t too bad. I like the crazy fights with Kato best.

The Eel Japanese film directed by Shohei Imamura and starring Koji Yakusho. A very watchable and well-made film that revolves around the experiences of a man newly released from prison and the woman who falls in love with him. Both these characters are trying to deal with difficult pasts and the film succeeds in making the viewer (well, me) care about what happens to them

Tokyo Story directed by Yasujiro Ozu. This black and white film focuses on quite mundane lives and happenings, and the genius of the film is that it drew me in and made me focus on the story of the characters with as much attention as if I were watching some high blown weepy or thriller. This moving film is beautifully shot and acted and has some very canny insights into human nature. A bonus is the detail in which life in the suburbs in Tokyo as it was lived in the early 50s is shown.

The Thief Lord Good adaptation of Cornelia Funke’s fantasy kids’ novel.

Also:
Beetlejuice
Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla
Kurosawa – a documentary
Ginji the Slasher
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Monkey Magic
The Bullet Train
Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey
Gremlins
Mondovino
A shot in the dark
Bulldog Drummond Escapes
Cutie Honey
Metropolis
Wallace and Gromit
Jamaica Inn
Assassin of Youth
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Tulpan
Auto Focus
Tears of the Black Tiger
Forbidden Lies
The Quiet American
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

books

2009-06-10T12:51:00.000+10:00

Why did it have to be snakes by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg. This book gives information behind the history, flora and fauna and cultural settings of the Indiana Jones films. For example, it explains the truth about vampire bats, the crusades or Shanghai in the 20s. Quite interesting.

Death Sentence – the decay of public language by Don Watson. This is a really good book. I had been eyeing it off nervously on the shelves at my local library. I was assuming that it would be a dry and perhaps impenetrable text. But Watson does a simply terrific job of making it readable and witty as well as being scholarly and academic. The book examines public language – trends in speech making, pamphlet and policy writing, and media – past and present. Watson unpicks some of the faults of present day public language and expounds on the damage these do not just to the way we all speak and write, but also perhaps to the way we think and feel. Alongside Watson’s text the book is littered with quotes and commentaries that highlight both the best and the worst of public language. Thus you will have a wedge of incomprehensible managerial rubbish alongside a quote from Winston Churchill or George Orwell. I recommend this book as a most interesting and thought provoking read. I would go so far as to say that it is a must read for anyone who works with language either as a professional or an enthusiastic hobbyist (all you bloggers out there…)

Miss Marple Omnibus by Agatha Christie. The novels included in this were The Body in the Library, The Moving Finger, A Murder is Announced, 4.50 from Paddington. We all know what to expect from Agatha and Miss Martha but it never disappoints all the same. Perfect before-bed reading.

The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse. This is a Bertie Wooster and Jeeves story and screamingly funny. Wodehouse effortlessly mashes together hyperbole, 20s upper class slang and classical quotation to give his first person narrator – that lovable idiot Wooster – the distinctive voice that is so beloved of Wodehouse fans everywhere.

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. I like good children’s literature and find it good to read when my brain is stressed and tired and can’t cope with anything too demanding but, at the same time, wants to be transported somewhere else. I think Wynne Jones is a superb writer. She has an audacious imagination, a wicked sense of humour and is, at times, unafraid to create scenarios that are bleak or nightmarish for her readers. This is an enchanting book.

Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett. For the uninitiated, Pratchett combines fantasy with social satire. His books are hilarious, imaginative and humane. I have had people say “Oh Pratchett, he’s just silly.” Well, yes, he is, but his is a kind of silliness that emerges from a deep cleverness. Underneath the silliness is a profound insight into the human condition that sneaks up and catches the reader unawares, often right in the middle of when they are laughing at one of the jokes. I think he’s a genius.

To the Ends of the Earth by Paul Theroux. Entertaining and well-written collection of excerpts from Theroux’s travel writings. Highly recommended.

Also:
Discovering King Island by Jean Edgecombe
The Prester Quest by Nicholas Jubber
Mr Wong Goes West by Nury Vittachi
City of Shadows – Sydney Police Photographs 1912 – 1948 edited by Peter Doyle
Guards! Guards! By Terry Pratchett

Medieval Celtic Christian Poetry

2009-06-10T12:50:00.000+10:00

Peace

The peace of God, the peace of men,
The peace of Columba kindly,
Mary mild, the loving
Christ, king of tenderness,
The peace of Christ, king of tenderness.

Be upon each window, upon each door,
Upon each hole that lets in light,
Upon the four corners of my house,
Upon the four corners of my bed,
Upon the four corners of my bed.

Upon each thing my eye takes in,
Upon each thing my mouth takes in,
Upon my body that is of earth,
And upon my soul that came from on high,
Upon my body that is of earth,
And upon my soul that came from on high.

p. 38 from Threshold of Light – Prayers and Praises from the Celtic Tradition edited by A.M. Allchin and Esther de Waal. This spell-like invocation in turn was taken from Carmina Gadelica, Hymns and Incantations with Illustrative Notes of Words, Rites and Customs Dying and Obsolete that was compiled by Alexander Carmichael and published around 1900.

The blessing of the Trinity

In name of Father,
In name of Son,
In name of Spirit,
Three in One:

Father cherish me,
Son cherish me,
Spirit cherish me,
Three all-kindly.

God make me holy,
Christ make me holy,
Spirit make me holy,
Three all-holy.

Three aid my hope,
Three aid my love,
Three aid mine eye,
And my knee from stumbling,
My knee from stumbling.

p. 48 from Threshold of Light – Prayers and Praises from the Celtic Tradition. This little poem was also originally sourced from the Carmina Gadelica. As with the other poem it has a spell-like, invoking feel to it. The sense of urgency built up by the repetition, and the vulnerability and poignancy contained in the last 2 lines, makes it easy to imagine this form of prayer as being identified as a probable channel for magical will and an attempt at making some kind of spiritual and psychic petition to, or even contract with, a powerful and protective God.

indicative of my mood today

2009-06-04T12:12:00.001+10:00

atrabilious \at-ruh-BIL-yus\ adjective
1 : given to or marked by melancholy : gloomy*2 : ill-natured, peevish
Example sentence:Conscious of his landlord's atrabilious temperament, Daniel knew to wait until the moment was right before asking for an extension on the rent.
Did you know?"Atrabilious" is a somewhat rare word with a history that parallels that of the more common "melancholy." Representing one of the four bodily humors, from which it was once believed that human emotions originated, "atrabilious" derives from the Latin "atra bilis," literally meaning "black bile." The word "melancholy" derives from the Greek "melan-" and "chole," which also translates as "black bile." In its original sense, "atrabilious" meant "melancholy," but now it is more frequently used to describe someone with an irritable or unfriendly temperament. A word with a meaning similar to that of "atrabilious" is "splenetic," which is named after the organ in the body (the spleen) once thought to secrete black bile.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Encompassing Prayer

2009-06-03T14:33:00.002+10:00

My Christ! My Christ! My shield, my encircler,
Each day, each night, each light, each dark:
My Christ! My Christ! My shield, my encircler,
Each day, each night, each light, each dark.
Be near me, uphold me, my treasure, my triumph,
In my lying, in my standing, in my watching, in my sleeping.
Jesus, Son of Mary! My helper, my encircler,
Jesus, Son of David! My strength everlasting:
Jesus, Son of Mary! my helper, my encircler,
Jesus, Son of David! my strength everlasting.

p. 6 from Threshold of Light – Prayers and Praises from the Celtic Tradition edited by A.M. Allchin and Esther de Waal

I discovered this little book in a second hand bookshop. I am not a Christian myself but I do find Celtic mythology, poetry and spirituality interesting (not that I know that much about it). I reckon that you have to go a long way to beat the Celts, Vikings or Anglo Saxons when it comes to a good invocation. The above poem is arresting and urgent. I feel this has to do with the punchy, staccato rhythm that comes from the short phrases and repetition.
The notes in Threshold of Light tells us that this little poem was taken in turn from a book called Carmina Gadelica, Hymns and Incantations with Illustrative Notes of Words, Rites and Customs Dying and Obsolete that was compiled by Alexander Carmichael and published around 1900. Alexander MacDonald, a crofter on Barra, supplied Carmichael with this poem.

So we know that a crofter was reciting this in 1900 but who knows how old it is? It is well known that the early Christian church in the British Isles borrowed heavily and readily from the pagan tradition it was trying to usurp. Something about the rhythms and wording (not to mention the reference to a shield) feels quite pagan to me. For me this poem is not so much an expression of Christian belief but an expression of the age-old human need for protection.