tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52258932024-03-14T08:54:04.998+10:00Symposiastsit's plural because there are two of us.Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.comBlogger1019125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-18696145538216531502010-05-20T21:14:00.003+10:002010-05-20T21:50:52.438+10:00<b>Hi Elanor</b>. Am I still allowed to write on this thing? At least, in non-diary form? I guess as we're both, like, students again, it would make sense to start having opinions on things and stuff. But it's been such a long time. The workforce has made me complacent, crushed my spirit, and made me happy with things like twitter, $19 bottles of red wine, and expensive scented candles. <div><br /></div><div>So anyway, I feel the need to express an increasing unease about what's been going on of late. As everything's already been said by everyone on every other medium, this will either sound redundant or over-wrought, but basically <i>I have a real fear that by the end of the year Tony Abbot will rule the country. </i>And then I will have to leave. </div><div><br /></div><div>I mean, I assume that even horrible bigoted Australians still think he's a bit nuts and not to be trusted <i>with the nation</i>. And even the most conservative types want to preserve their right to have secret abortions, and secret bottom drawer porn. But what scares me is that even people like me, who were always slightly uneasy with Rudd but willing to put up with him in order to make the country ever so slightly better, are <i>disgusted in him</i>. It was a very low bar we set. But actually, maybe that's not so alarming since we'll never vote Coalition, which means he doesn't need to earn our vote, and can focus his energies on trying to solidify the middle ground and alienating everyone in the process... but still. We didn't expect much and it's still turned to shit. Anyway, unease expressed.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the flip side, the Liberals are hilarious at the moment -- maybe it's because Kerry O'Brien seems so invigorated and terrifying lately (Joe Hockey looked petrified on the 7.30 Report last night, as if he was expecting vivisection). They're acting like a pack of slimy, squabbling young libs (which they were I guess) spinning any kind of shit to win an argument. And I'm not being partisan here. That's just the way it is, which makes me even more uneasy: when they're so obviously <i>lying</i>, why can't Rudd <i>argue the point</i>. Everything's just trapped in this routine of spin being combated with more spin, with no one actually pointing out when stuff isn't actually true, or might be true, but also might be a reasonable non-evil response to things that are highly complex. Anyway, rambling. All of this has been said before, so I may as well go back to twitter.<br /><br />I also have an opinion on <a href="http://popfrippery.blogspot.com/2010/05/oh-my.html">this</a>, which is similarly awful <span style="font-style: italic;">and </span>hilarious.<br /></div>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18023865047019803963noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-24000035994003318742009-08-03T22:06:00.006+10:002010-01-11T01:46:55.757+10:00Diary: Monday 27 July - Monday 3 August<span style="font-weight: bold;">Monday 27 July</span><br />Saw <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/content/341/film_id/11687.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Guest of Cindy Sherman</span></a> at MIFF. It's a documentary about the New York art scene from the perspective of Paul H-O, who in the 1990s hosted the public access TV show <span style="font-style: italic;">GalleryBeat</span>. The film traces how he then became the boyfriend of photographer Cindy Sherman, and his growing (somewhat churlish but not mean-spirited) discomfort at being a nobody attached to a huge art star. I felt a little uncomfortable at finding myself implicated, through watching it, in the furthering of a kind of opportunistic self-aggrandisement based on reflected glory. But it's kinda interesting, too.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tuesday 28 July</span><br />Stayed at 3CR all day after the Breakfast Show to help out on reception/scrounge around for content for the <span style="font-style: italic;">Stick Together</span> show. Then went to see <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/content/341/film_id/13782.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Outrage</span></a> and <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/content/341/film_id/13289.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Girlfriend Experience</span></a> at MIFF.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Outrage </span>is a documentary about closeted gay Republican politicians (who the film outs) and the damage they do to gay citizens because their closetedness and fear of discovery within a political party/base that clearly despises their true selves causes them to legislate in very anti-gay ways. You just feel bad all over. Anyway, on the upside, Washington DC is hella gay. On the downside, why are so many Republicans? <span style="font-style: italic;">The Girlfriend Experience</span> is Steven Soderbergh's global financial crisis film, in which the brunt of the crash is borne by New York escort Chelsea in that she has to listen to all the rich guys freak out and whine.<br /><br />After the film, went back to 3CR overnight to edit/produce that week's <span style="font-style: italic;">Stick Together</span>, which I made using other people's interviews and a very elastic interpretation of the show's 'workplace and social justice issues' brief. I mean, the people in it <span style="font-style: italic;">have jobs</span>...<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Media from the Margins. We take a look at what media skills training can mean for prisoners in Britain, and the situation for women working as journalists in Iran, with Phil Maguire from the UK Prison Radio Association and Kathleen Currie from the International Women's Media Foundation.</blockquote>The <a href="http://podcast.3cr.org.au/pod/3CRCast-2009-08-02-49953.mp3">podcast sounds like this</a>.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wednesday 29 July</span><br />Saw <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/content/341/film_id/13742.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Fish Tank</span></a> at MIFF. I wanted to see it after reading about it earlier this year in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/17/cannes-film-festival-round-up">this <span style="font-style: italic;">Observer</span> article by Jason Solomons</a>. And having seen it, I can't really add more to what Jason Solomons said, except that I agree. So, thanks for pointing me in its direction, sir.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thursday 30 July</span><br />Saw <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/content/341/film_id/12562.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">United Red Army</span></a> at MIFF. It began at 11am, and it <span style="font-style: italic;">still </span>wasn't over by the time I had to leave at 2pm, as I had somewhere to be by 2.30pm. In short, it was THE WORST FILM EVER. It was even worse than that description can possibly convey. DEAR GOD. Avoid.<br /><br />Raced to 3CR so that I would not be late to meet with Bea Viegas, who plays Juliana in the <a href="http://www.balibo.com.au/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Balibo</span></a> film, for our interview.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Friday 31 July</span><br />Worked at CASA House, then went to see <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/content/341/film_id/12460.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Exploding Girl</span></a> at MIFF. It's about gentle people who dress well and spend their uni break at home in Brooklyn just, you know, hanging out. What's not to like?<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Saturday 1 August</span><br />Saw <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/content/341/film_id/11389.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">A Lake</span></a> at MIFF. My brother was with me and asked me beforehand what it was about. I recalled a vague sense that there would be snow, a young man, and like, atmosphere. A few minutes into the film I had to lean over to him to say, "Oh yeah, and he's painfully in love with his sister." A lot of people walked out of this film, and I really don't understand why. I liked all the blurriness and tension. I spent the film repeating "Be cool, Alexi" over and over, and held myself tensed because the woodchopping sounded so violent and I didn't want any axes to connect with people. I experienced a powerful sense of release when my fears of violence came to nothing.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sunday 2 August</span><br />Started reading <span style="font-style: italic;">Perdido Street Station</span> by China Miéville. It is a book of many treats, vocabulary-wise, but also, for instance, this explanation of Garuda social organisation:<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">The point is that you <span style="font-style: italic;">are </span>an individual inasmuch as you exist in a social matrix of others who respect your individuality and your right to make choices. That's concrete individuality: an individuality that recognises that it owes its existence to a kind of communal respect on the part of all the other individualities, and that it had better therefore respect them similarly.</blockquote>My favourite treat so far, though, has been this:<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">'...and then there were two,' sang Derkhan, a snatch of a children's counting song about a basket of kittens that died, one by one, grotesquely.<br /></blockquote>Oooh, I LIKE.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Monday 3 August</span><br />Saw <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/content/341/film_id/12652.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Katalin Varga</span></a> at MIFF. It was, I dunno, fine I guess. Except for that whole 'in summary, ladies, the consequences of going on a rape vengeance quest are a) forgiving the perpetrator and b) being violently murdered' thing.<br /><br />Then went to 3CR to edit the Bea Viegas interview for tomorrow's Breakfast Show. Then home.Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-53919870118319328712009-08-01T16:25:00.014+10:002010-01-21T01:11:00.028+10:00A promiseI swear, I won't subject this blog to any more hysterical spasms brought on by reading the <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight </span>books. At least, not after this.<br /><br />See, I finished the last book this afternoon, and I just wanted to give my final word about the experience. It took a week to read all four, and I have to say, it has been the most good-humoured week I can remember. More than good-humoured, really. Kinda joyous. But in a controlled way. The books didn't consume me. They made me happy and wrapped up in them when I was reading them, and then when I had to set them down to participate in my life, the happiness would colour the rest of my time, too. So I went to work, I made a few radio shows and did some interviews in preparation for a few more, I saw films at MIFF, I slept well and woke early. I <span style="font-style: italic;">functioned </span>better than usual. And all the while, I was quietly ecstatic. It was a good feeling, you know, all that wandering around smiling inwardly and radiating contentment.<br /><br />The only problem I've had is not being able to adequately explain to anyone why I've been so taken with these books. For instance, yesterday, I stayed at my desk at CASA House after hours to read a bit more while I waited for it to be time for my 7pm MIFF screening of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Exploding Girl</span>. And as my boss was leaving she wondered why I was staying back, and I explained that I had some time to kill and would just read a bit of my book. And she looked at it with recognition before I could cover it. "I know, I know," I said, "I'm not supposed to be reading this. Teenagers are losing their minds over it. The thing is, I'M LOSING MY MIND OVER IT, TOO." And she said, "Teenagers, hmm, I know forty-year-olds who are <span style="font-style: italic;">obsessed</span>." And she wondered why that was - she hadn't read the books and the reactions she'd seen bemused her. And I couldn't really explain mine, and then she talked about how she worried that it might be a cultural echo of some tendency to be thrilled by dangerous bad boys. And I found myself saying, "But, <span style="font-style: italic;">Edward isn't bad</span>!" And she just looked at me. "Don't you think that's what all women in abusive relationships tell themselves?" Oh no! "But," I protested, "he feels such crushing guilt at even the thought of hurting her!" Again, she looked at me. "Elanor, you <span style="font-style: italic;">know </span>that men commonly have that guilt when they hurt their partners. Sometimes, their apologetic despair is part of the problem. It makes women stay when they should leave." And I actually found myself saying, "But... but it's not <span style="font-style: italic;">like </span>that." I knew how feeble that sounded. But I actually believe it. It's <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>like that. I mean, I don't want Edward Cullen to be my vampire boyfriend (I'm embarrassed to say that this lack of interest in him romantically stems from the powerful way your mind rejects any scenario that would separate him and Bella - <span style="font-style: italic;">they belong together</span>, you guys). And I guess thrilling to a romantic fantasy from the sidelines, desperately hoping it all works out, does bond you in some way to that fantasy as a relationship model. I mean, you want all the characters you care about to get what they want - and in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight</span> books especially because they want what they want so <span style="font-style: italic;">much</span>. And isn't it always like this? You don't want Mr Darcy for yourself, you want Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy to be together, and you <span style="font-style: italic;">definitely </span>want the way Elinor Dashwood suffers without Edward Ferrars to end, etc etc etc. As a reader, you just like to be there to see it. The <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight </span>books repay you by very effectively communicating how intensely happy this makes the characters - and the countervailing AGONY. It's like mainlining <span style="font-style: italic;">feelings</span>. And I guess it's a fair question to ask - whether the pleasure afforded by this <span style="font-style: italic;">intensity </span>obscures one's (my) perspective on the health of the relationship being modeled. But I really think Edward and Bella provide a good model - hear me out! - and do so <span style="font-style: italic;">especially </span>in the context of intimate partner violence. I found it very difficult to make this point at the end of a long day at a sexual assault service, because I am, at heart, barracking for a romantic fantasy in which the boy is constantly fighting the powerful urge to kill his girlfriend but-love-makes-this-okay. Yes. This is - bluntly - the case I'm making. But here's the 'good relationship model' part that's not captured in that bluntness: 1) the books frame violence against Bella as the most abhorrent possibility ever to be entertained by anyone - and 'violence is abhorrent' is a good message, no?; and 2) there are no excuses for it. Even the super-special-one-of-a-kind-thirst for your girlfriend's blood doesn't grant you any leeway whatsoever re violence against her. To act violently/lose control/any of that shit - these are just not options that the book allows conceptually, or the Edward character allows behaviourally. For me, that underlines a strong message that perpetrators of violence <span style="font-style: italic;">make choices</span> - to harm, to decide the parameters within which they justify their actions to themselves so that 'I would never hurt her' doesn't actually mean 'never', etc etc. So yes, I like Bella and Edward's relationship for a variety of punishingly lame reasons. But I think the least lame reason is that it's a relationship in which, ahem, <span>'Love means the restriction on intimate partner violence is absolute</span>'. Seriously, you guys.<br /><br />Anyway, I wasn't really thinking about these things yesterday while I was reading the final book - alone, at work, after hours. I was too engrossed. I do remember feeling glad that no other staff were around when I got to the end of the section being told from Jacob's perspective, so that nobody was there to witness me rock back in my seat gasping with shock/joy. And then I remember walking to Greater Union enveloped in an emotional high, trying to keep myself in check until I got into the darkness of the cinema so that I could grin ecstatically without freaking people out.<br /><br />After the film I made my way home, still in full contemplation of how well the book was working out. I assumed this wouldn't be noticeable to anyone else - that my face didn't betray the gleeful responsiveness of my mind. But as I walked in the back door and set my bag down on the kitchen table, turning things over dreamily in my head, I came to understand that maybe my face doesn't lack expression in the way I think it does. My brother looked over at me. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Whoah</span>," he said, "come back down to <span style="font-style: italic;">earth</span>."Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-68560152803321424832009-07-28T09:55:00.005+10:002009-08-04T15:46:02.651+10:00Tuesday things<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />3CR Tuesday Breakfast Show</span></span><br /><ul><li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.3cr.org.au/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271782073741028722" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 71px; cursor: pointer; height: 92px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8MdBD3iFJFJka6zt-cYiYy8A-n4Bl34fYsGH0XTQPYhW3gbuigfKVrTqHXJC-4KHr1MU34k-0KRuSNoGrvxEf24ZT2ETJ-PS8OzKEKYoQcgu_KOsgBNm-3rBI2nUMiPJqkP9UA/s200/logo.gif" border="0" /></a>played my interview with <b>Maureen Tolfree</b> about her brother, Brian Peters - one of the Balibo Five. Brian Peters was a Channel Nine cameraman who went to East Timor in 1975 to report on the Indonesian invasion with Nine reporter Malcolm Rennie. They were killed by Indonesian troops on October 16, 1975 in the town of Balibo along with the Channel Seven news team of Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart and Gary Cunningham. A new film, <i>Balibo</i>, tells the story of what happened to them and to another Australian journalist, Roger East, who went to East Timor to investigate their deaths before the Indonesian invasion in December 1975. <i><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1906" target="_blank">Balibo</a> </i>is screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and to national audiences from August 13.</li><li>Steph was joined in the studio by <b>Martin Baldock</b> from <a href="http://www.equallove.info/" target="_blank">Equal Love</a>, to talk about the campaign and the national day of action this Saturday August 1, with the rally beginning at 1pm at Federation Square.</li><li>played an interview by Bree McKilligan from 3CR's <a href="http://www.3cr.org.au/jumpcut" target="_blank">Jump Cut</a> with Melbourne filmmaker <b>Kerry Negara</b> about her documentary <i>A Loving Friend</i>, which looks at the response of the Australian art world to artist Donald Friend's self-avowed sexual relations with young boys in Bali. <a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1826" target="_blank"><i>A Loving Friend</i></a> screens at the Melbourne International Film Festival on Sunday August 2 at 2pm at Greater Union. </li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">BREAKFAST PLAYLIST:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Magnetic Fields</span> - When My Boy Walks Down the Street - <span style="font-style: italic;">69 Love Songs, Vol. 2</span><span style="font-size:0;"><br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >LISTENING Tuesday July 21-Tuesday July 28.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/elanorruth">Last.fm</a> says this week was spent in the company of:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Whitest Boy Alive</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Dreams</span><span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Rules</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Miike Snow</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Miike Snow</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bachelorette</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Isolation Loops</span><span style="font-size:0;"><br /></span></span>Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-15670002748325533002009-07-27T16:55:00.011+10:002009-07-28T12:47:26.264+10:00Recent days<strong>Thursday 23 July</strong><br />I went in to 3CR to meet <strong>Maureen Tolfree</strong> for an interview about her brother - Brian Peters (of the Balibo Five) - and about the film, <em>Balibo</em>. I'll play the interview on tomorrow's Tuesday Breakfast Show, and probably on my next Women On The Line. Anyway, I stayed at 3CR editing that until it was 3pm, when I went to a meeting about the 2010 <em>Seeds of Dissent Calendar</em>, then I went to the Trades Hall to record a talk by <strong>Carol Adams</strong> on <em>The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory</em>. It featured a slideshow of all these meat advertising images she's found or been sent by readers, and it was pretty fascinating.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Friday 24 July</strong><br />Worked at CASA House, then met up with <a href="http://popfrippery.blogspot.com/">Guy</a>, Leah and <a href="http://snoo-snoo.blogspot.com/">Amy</a> for drinks/dinner. As Guy walked with me to the train station, I confessed the real extent of my humiliating <em>Twilight</em> film habit - "Ummmm, sometimes, I even put it on in the background while I'm doing other things, like the other day I was researching interviews..." - and it made him consider watching it. I went home and fell asleep watching it.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Saturday 25 July</strong><br />I couldn't resist any longer - I got the <em>Twilight</em> book. It has had an absurdly powerful effect on me. I spent Saturday reading it, chortling with glee, and hugging it to my chest when overcome by the pleasure of it. It was an entirely enjoyable experience. Seriously, you guys.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Sunday 26 July</strong><br />Woke early to continue reading <em>Twilight</em>. Then at 11am went to the Forum MIFF office to pick up our Mini Passes. Then had some time to kill before our first film, so went to the ACMI Lounge to drink coffee and read more <em>Twilight</em> - with some scrap paper deliberately placed over the front cover to hide its identity. It shames me that I feel shame about reading it, because it doesn't deserve such cowardice. Frankly. it's MARVELLOUS.<br /><br />12.15pm: saw our first MIFF film, <a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1640"><em>The Milk Of Sorrow</em></a>. I recommend it. It's about living in crippling fear of rape, but it's tone is not at all harrowing. Yes, the placement of a certain potato made my uterus pang so I squirmed in my seat throughout the film and for sometime after. But mostly it's just kinda beautiful, with oddly lovely songs.<br /><br />After the film we went and ate some eggs in Degraves Street, where I kept secretly reading <em>Twilight</em> while my little brother openly read Miranda July's <em>No One Belongs Here More Than You </em>- I think this made him feel cooler than me. Which I wouldn't normally mind - he does look way cooler than me, probably is - but dude, it's <em>my</em> copy of the Miranda July. Anyway, then we went to Dymocks so I could buy the remaining three books of the <em>Twilight</em> series. I also bought China Miéville's <em>Perdido Street Station</em>, because I'm seeing him at the <a href="http://www.mwf.com.au/2009/content/mwf_2009_events.asp?name=2115">Melbourne Writers Festival</a> and I haven't read a thing. Also, I had a general sense that buying a China Miéville book alongside books 2, 3 & 4 of the <em>Twilight</em> series might make me seem less ridiculous?<br /><br />We still had some time before my next film - Simon wasn't coming to it as our MIFF schedules differ this year. I see this as growth. Anyway, so we popped in to the <a href="http://www.acmi.net.au/len_lye.aspx">Len Lye exhibition at ACMI</a>. And I think I'll pop back in to it rather frequently as MIFF continues. It's a nice way to spend time - watching <em>Colour Flight</em> or waiting for one of the metal kinetic sculptures to come alive and cause delight. And it's free.<br /><br />Anyway, it <em>still</em> wasn't 4.45pm - when I was due to go see <a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1752"><em>Treeless Mountain</em></a> - so we went back to the ACMI Lounge so I could finish the first <em>Twilight</em> book. Which I did. And, as I'd spent the last day smiling and sighing, my brother finally ventured to ask, "What's so great about it, anyway? Like, is it better than Harry Potter?"And I said something about how it was different - it's not so much about big themes of decency responding to fear and hatred in a society with the whole world at stake, it's more about <span style="font-style: italic;">feelings</span> and caring about characters and enjoying how they care about others - like, it's their emotional world that's at stake. Also, there are vampires. He might still read it, I guess.<br /><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1752"><em>Treeless Mountain</em></a> had sweet kids in it, and sometimes they were sad. Basically, it's a film about two young girls waiting for their mum to come back, and how they spend their time. I liked it, but it dragged a little, too.<br /><br /><br />Went home and started reading <em>New Moon</em>, the second book in the Twilight series. It got a little embarrassing really, what with me sitting on the couch in the living room in full view of my family, becoming shakily devastated. Fell asleep with the book on my chest.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Monday 27 July</strong><br />Woke early - 5.45am - so I could fit in more <em>New Moon</em> reading before heading to work at CASA House. Had to relent for showering and dressing, but I got a lift in, so was able to continue reading until I stepped out onto Lonsdale Street. As I waited for my coffee, I caught myself smiling inwardly and radiating contentment. This is sad, isn't it.<br /><br />Anyway, tonight I'm seeing <a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1680"><em>Guest Of Cindy Sherman</em></a>.Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-87484827660011829012009-07-25T12:47:00.009+10:002009-07-28T01:02:12.960+10:00My Complete MIFF ScheduleThere have been some changes and additions (and there could always be more additions) but as far as I know my <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/">Melbourne International Film Festival</a> this year looks like this:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sunday 26 July:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1640"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Milk Of Sorrow</span></a><br /><em><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1752">Treeless Mountain<br /></a></em><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Monday 27 July:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1680"><span style="font-style: italic;">Guest Of Cindy Sherman</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tuesday 28 July:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1700"><span style="font-style: italic;">Outrage</span></a><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1706"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Girlfriend Experience</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wednesday 29 July:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1733"><span style="font-style: italic;">Fish Tank</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thursday 30 July:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1736"><span style="font-style: italic;">United Red Army</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Friday 31 July:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1775"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Exploding Girl</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Saturday 1 August:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1809"><span style="font-style: italic;">A Lake</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Monday 3 August:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1859"><span style="font-style: italic;">Katalin Varga</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tuesday 4 August:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1895"><span style="font-style: italic;">The White Ribbon</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wednesday 5 August:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1917"><span style="font-style: italic;">Antichrist</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thursday 6 August:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1922"><span style="font-style: italic;">Defamation</span></a><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1931"><span style="font-style: italic;">Bluebeard</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Friday 7 August:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=1948"><i>The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not for Sale</i></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sunday 9 August:</span><br /><a href="http://tickets2.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/session.asp?s=2001"><span style="font-style: italic;">Dogtooth</span></a><br /><br /><br />Anyway, here's something I found out this morning - if you go to the <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/" target="_blank">MIFF website</a>, and you leave the page idle for a little while, this hack message about Rebiya Kadeer comes up:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAnB7b8aOFAhumkF3gDk5Ma1qDGkZurtmq3z06CBkIJ35Ajs5NCSnuPLTMtkfUS0NCaITIgk5fz7GH1BwFcyqb8d8-3LBPuUuythLC6ZKYkMSDDhSJSMAUYmuzZ-0kTHct1GrtIA/s1600-h/MIFF+hacked.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362228064297759378" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 400px; cursor: pointer; height: 152px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAnB7b8aOFAhumkF3gDk5Ma1qDGkZurtmq3z06CBkIJ35Ajs5NCSnuPLTMtkfUS0NCaITIgk5fz7GH1BwFcyqb8d8-3LBPuUuythLC6ZKYkMSDDhSJSMAUYmuzZ-0kTHct1GrtIA/s400/MIFF+hacked.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Click on the image if you want to get a better look.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAnB7b8aOFAhumkF3gDk5Ma1qDGkZurtmq3z06CBkIJ35Ajs5NCSnuPLTMtkfUS0NCaITIgk5fz7GH1BwFcyqb8d8-3LBPuUuythLC6ZKYkMSDDhSJSMAUYmuzZ-0kTHct1GrtIA/s1600-h/MIFF+hacked.jpg"><br /></a>Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-178525453589391212009-07-21T11:31:00.010+10:002009-07-21T16:52:26.848+10:00I am not supposed to be a teenage girl, but... I must confess to a few things I did this week that made me wonder about my level of adult sophistication.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5m1xqNEp_p88C1Y3iNAoQrT41g_tzX0kxQRkh92-OOrGz0cDUJv8gVpVoaNmtGV5WMmNvSW01BuYyeDmGkuRRd6dV_35lmO5Udm3YVoRo2M7vTKNh_J06A5fGzq5J8bZ19Yqp8A/s1600-h/harry_potter_and_the_half_blood_prince_potter-_poster2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5m1xqNEp_p88C1Y3iNAoQrT41g_tzX0kxQRkh92-OOrGz0cDUJv8gVpVoaNmtGV5WMmNvSW01BuYyeDmGkuRRd6dV_35lmO5Udm3YVoRo2M7vTKNh_J06A5fGzq5J8bZ19Yqp8A/s200/harry_potter_and_the_half_blood_prince_potter-_poster2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360728154055980514" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">1.</span> Last Wednesday night, I went with my family to the Westgarth Cinema to see <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince</span>. On its opening day. As is tradition in my family. Yes, I am still doing this. Largely because I <span style="font-style: italic;">want </span>to. Clearly, I am not a grown-up yet. Also, I LOVED it. I thought it was GREAT. In the past I have always left a Harry Potter screening raking over the niggling disappointments I found in the film, but I had zero criticisms for this one. So it seems that as I get older, I have <span style="font-style: italic;">less </span>critical responses to a children's film about a boy wizard (although obviously, Harry Potter's not really even <span style="font-style: italic;">about </span>wizarding or magic or whatever - it's about confronting the rise of fascism...) <-- see I <span style="font-style: italic;">still </span>say stuff like that! Anyway, as soon as we got home from the film, my brother started re-reading the final two books, and I was jealous of him. I sat reading my book, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ben Lewis</span>' <span style="font-style: italic;">Hammer and Tickle: A History Of Communism Told Through Communist Jokes</span>, while looking frequently over at him, asking him where he was up to and so forth. Then I finished that book and started my next one, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nick Davies</span>' <span style="font-style: italic;">Flat Earth News</span>, all the while still peering over my brother's shoulder at irritating intervals. He eventually went to his room and didn't come out. Anyway, this morning I exercised some restraint - I decided to stay here at 3CR doing volunteer reception instead of bunking off to go into the city to meet my brother and watch the <span style="font-style: italic;">Half-Blood Prince</span> again. In response he decided that since I wasn't going to meet him, he might as well go and re-enrol in uni - just, you know, as an afterthought. As if having a future is what you settle for when movie plans fall through. Uh, we are so mature.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwCGWTc9kSwjcgPmMz-QqSyyb_c6OMIY8X7aDAFsDFrsotYBT5YeNus-JQy677UkZvp9Eo6QDxiygWq46AMLmjNyqJFK_k9n79FBovvmCCs4E72RoAEW6kv9nhEEZnbMbW8uA7nQ/s1600-h/twilight_bigteaserposter.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwCGWTc9kSwjcgPmMz-QqSyyb_c6OMIY8X7aDAFsDFrsotYBT5YeNus-JQy677UkZvp9Eo6QDxiygWq46AMLmjNyqJFK_k9n79FBovvmCCs4E72RoAEW6kv9nhEEZnbMbW8uA7nQ/s200/twilight_bigteaserposter.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360728157056343922" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2.</span> In the past week, I have watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight</span>, like, seven times. Probably more. And it's not like I've had a lot of spare time this week. I <span style="font-style: italic;">made </span>time for <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight</span>. With disturbing frequency. And I can't really explain why I like to watch it so much, why I <span style="font-style: italic;">want </span>to watch it so much, why I wish I was at home right now so I could watch it again. And dudes, I <span style="font-style: italic;">already </span>watched it today - very early this morning before heading in to 3CR to do the Breakfast Show. What is the matter with me? Could somebody rational please tell me that <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight </span>is actually, like, good? Because I'm beginning to think so, and I'm at the point where I don't think I'm wrong.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Other things last week:</span><br /><br />On Tuesday, after finishing up <a href="http://symposiasts.blogspot.com/2009/07/tuesday-things_14.html">my day at 3CR</a>, I went to the 3CR Promotions Sub-Committee meeting at Peko Peko, where Nicole and I swapped some TV. I gave her all my <span style="font-style: italic;">True Blood</span>, plus season 3 of <span style="font-style: italic;">Big Love</span>, and season 5 of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wire</span>, and she gave me <span style="font-style: italic;">Breaking Bad</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Nurse Jackie</span>. I haven't watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Breaking Bad</span> yet, but I have watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Nurse Jackie</span> and I LOVE IT. It contains a rather excellent cat joke, and Peter Facinelli doing robot laser 'pew-pews'. Recommend.<br /><br />After the meeting I went back in to 3CR overnight to produce the <span style="font-style: italic;">Stick Together</span> show, featuring the interview I did with Jeff Sparrow about <span style="font-style: italic;">Killing: Misadventures in Violence</span>. <a href="http://podcast.3cr.org.au/pod/3CRCast-2009-07-19-14122.mp3">It sounds like this</a>. I got home at about 4am, watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight</span>, then slept for the rest of Wednesday until the aforementioned <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potter</span> outing at 6pm.<br /><br />On Thursday I stayed overnight at 3CR again, producing <a href="http://www.womenontheline.org.au/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Women On The Line</span></a>, featuring my interview with Malalai Joya. <a href="http://www.womenontheline.org.au/audio/this_week/WOTL.17.07.09.mp3">It sounds like this</a>.<br /><br />After the all-nighter, on Friday I worked at CASA. And then spent the weekend just, you know, reading books and watching <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight</span>. I think what I like about it is that the people in it are friendly, low-key, and prone to declarations of undying love.Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-52167271353349861712009-07-21T09:20:00.003+10:002009-07-28T09:55:22.816+10:00Tuesday things<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">3CR Tuesday Breakfast Show</span></span><ul><li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.3cr.org.au/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271782073741028722" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 71px; cursor: pointer; height: 92px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8MdBD3iFJFJka6zt-cYiYy8A-n4Bl34fYsGH0XTQPYhW3gbuigfKVrTqHXJC-4KHr1MU34k-0KRuSNoGrvxEf24ZT2ETJ-PS8OzKEKYoQcgu_KOsgBNm-3rBI2nUMiPJqkP9UA/s200/logo.gif" border="0" /></a>played my interview, in two parts, with <b>Malalai Joya</b>, Afghanistan democracy and women's rights campaigner. She was in Melbourne last week to talk about the state of democracy in Afghanistan and her new memoir, <i>Raising My Voice</i>. You can support Malalai Joya's work and contribute to her safety by making a donation to the <a href="http://www.malalaijoya.com/" target="_blank">Defense Committee for Malalai Joya</a>.</li><li>played my interview, in two parts, with <b>Jeff Sparrow</b>, author of <i>Killing: Misadventures in Violence</i>, about going to abbatoirs, death row and on kangaroo hunts where killing is part of the everyday, to see if these places could provide some insight into the experience and impacts of killing in combat zones.</li><li>Steph spoke to <b>Michelle Carey</b>, curator of the <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/program/australian_post_punk" target="_blank">Post-Punk Underground program</a> of the Melbourne International Film Festival. </li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">BREAKFAST PLAYLIST:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Mayfair Set</span> - Dark House - <span style="font-style: italic;">Young One<br /><br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >LISTENING Tuesday July 14-Tuesday July 21.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/elanorruth">Last.fm</a> says this week was spent in the company of:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Yoko Ono & The Plastic Ono Band</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Between My Head And The Sky</span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Joakim</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Milky Ways</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Clean</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Mister Pop</span><span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Low</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">I Could Live In Hope</span><span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Long Division</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span><span> and</span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span><span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span></span> <span style="font-style: italic;">The Curtain Hits The Cast</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mount Eerie</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Wind's Poem</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kes Band</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Kes Band II</span><span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Camille Deane</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Up Here</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Mayfair Set</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Young One</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jay Reatard</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Watch Me Fall</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Deastro</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Moondagger</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Noah and the Whale</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The First Days Of Spring</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Deerhunter</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Rainwater Cassette Exchange</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Grand Salvo</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Soil Creatures</span><br /></span><br /></span></span>Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-67758208825916008192009-07-14T16:22:00.005+10:002009-07-14T16:55:54.816+10:00Tuesday things<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">3CR Tuesday Breakfast Show</span></span><br /><ul><li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.3cr.org.au/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271782073741028722" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 71px; cursor: pointer; height: 92px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8MdBD3iFJFJka6zt-cYiYy8A-n4Bl34fYsGH0XTQPYhW3gbuigfKVrTqHXJC-4KHr1MU34k-0KRuSNoGrvxEf24ZT2ETJ-PS8OzKEKYoQcgu_KOsgBNm-3rBI2nUMiPJqkP9UA/s200/logo.gif" border="0" /></a>Steph spoke to <b>Fleur Watson</b>, curator of the <a href="http://www.stateofdesign.com.au/" target="_blank">State of Design</a> festival.</li><li>heard Steph's interview with <b>Peter Stewart</b> from Bundanoon about his town's decision to ban the sale of one-use bottled water.</li><li>I spoke to <b>Rachel Maher</b> for the monthly <a href="http://newmatilda.com/" target="_blank">New Matilda</a> update, today focussing on recent articles about media issues within <a href="http://newmatilda.com/2009/07/13/we-have-no-race-problem-china" target="_blank">China</a> and <a href="http://newmatilda.com/2009/07/09/newmodel-totalitarian" target="_blank">Sri Lanka</a>.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">BREAKFAST PLAYLIST:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kes Band</span> - Amelia Airheart - <span style="font-style: italic;">Kes Band II</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Aleks and the Ramps</span> - Whiplash - <span style="font-style: italic;">Midnight Believer</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Mayfair Set</span> - Let it Melt - <span style="font-style: italic;">Young One</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Bats</span> - Like Water In Your Hands - <span style="font-style: italic;">The Guilty Office</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wreckless Eric</span> - Excuse Me - <span style="font-style: italic;">Greatest Stiffs</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">CocoRosie</span> - Joseph City - <span style="font-style: italic;">Coconuts, Plenty of Junk Food</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >LISTENING Tuesday July 7-Tuesday July 14.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/elanorruth">Last.fm</a> says this week was spent in the company of:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Beach House</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Beach House</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Devotion</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Used To Be</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Various</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">New Weird Australia Volume One</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mount Eerie</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Wind's Poem</span><span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kes Band</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Kes Band II</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Camille Deane</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Up Here</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Mayfair Set</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Young One</span><br /><br /><br />Later in the day I interviewed <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jeff Sparrow</span> over the phone about his new book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Killing: Misadventures in Violence</span>, for this week's <span style="font-style: italic;">Stick Together</span>. </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span>And then <span style="font-weight: bold;">Malalai Joya</span> came in to 3CR and I interviewed her for this week's <span style="font-style: italic;">Women On The Line</span>. She gave me a hug. It made me think I need to start a list...<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">List of People With Whom I Am Proud To Have Had Actual Physical Contact<br />(I swear, I shook their hands at least):</span><br />Catharine MacKinnon<br />Ali Abunimah<br />Malalai Joya</blockquote><br />...Uh, I can't think of any others just at the moment.<br /></span></span>Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-9023567630838135462009-07-12T21:37:00.005+10:002009-07-12T22:20:50.158+10:00MIFF Mini Pass<span style="font-weight: bold;">I bought my <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/">Film Festival</a> Mini Pass and filled it up with this:</span><br /><blockquote>Sunday 26 July:<br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=11458&pg=59"><span style="font-style: italic;">Treeless Mountain</span></a><br /><br />Monday 27 July:<br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=11687&pg=3"><span style="font-style: italic;">Guest Of Cindy Sherman</span></a><br /><br />Tuesday 28 July:<br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=13782&pg=9"><span style="font-style: italic;">Outrage</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=13289&pg=15"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Girlfriend Experience</span></a><br /><br />Wednesday 29 July:<br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=13742&pg=4"><span style="font-style: italic;">Fish Tank</span></a><br /><br />Thursday 30 July:<br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12562&pg=2"><span style="font-style: italic;">United Red Army</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=90114&pg=6"><span style="font-style: italic;">Petition - The Court Of The Complainants</span></a><br /><br />Monday 3 August:<br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=13525&pg=1"><span style="font-style: italic;">Red Army/PFLP: Declaration Of War</span></a><br /><br />Tuesday 4 August:<br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=13282&pg=67"><span style="font-style: italic;">The White Ribbon</span></a><br /><br />Wednesday 5 August:<br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=13830&pg=18"><span style="font-style: italic;">Antichrist</span></a><br /><br />Thursday 6 August:<br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12430&pg=3"><span style="font-style: italic;">Defamation</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12462&pg=14"><span style="font-style: italic;">Bluebeard</span></a><br /><br />Sunday 9 August:<br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=90068&pg=7"><span style="font-style: italic;">Dogtooth</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Other things I might buy tickets to. Please let me know if I shouldn't:</span><br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=11736&pg=11"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=11736&pg=11"><span style="font-style: italic;">Alphaville</span></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12565&pg=10">All Tomorrow's Parties</a></span><br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12468&pg=8"><span style="font-style: italic;">Double Take</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12197&pg=17"><span style="font-style: italic;">Morphia</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12195&pg=3"><span style="font-style: italic;">Unmade Beds</span></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> <a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12465&pg=12">Everyone Else</a></span></blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Some things I've already seen, that you might like to also:</span><br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12639&pg=13"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12639&pg=13"><span style="font-style: italic;">Looking For Eric</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/films?y=2009&filmsrch=&film_id=12547&pg=9"><span style="font-style: italic;">In The Loop</span></a></blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">One note of disappointment:</span><br />I was really looking forward to seeing <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><a href="http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/10901155.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Spring Fever</span></a> as part of the festival program, because I read a positive thing about it in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Observer</span> during Cannes. But it is not. Please, WHY IS IT NOT?Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-39602425859828548342009-07-07T18:17:00.004+10:002009-07-07T18:41:24.482+10:00Tuesday thingsAt about 4am this morning, I finished watching season 4 of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wire</span>. Then I pottered about until it was time to go in to 3CR.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">3CR Tuesday Breakfast Show</span></span><br />It's NAIDOC Week, which 3CR marks by doing <a href="http://www.3cr.org.au/news/beyond-bars-broadcasts">live prison broadcasts</a> with Indigenous men and women from inside four Victorian jails. So on Breakfast we did this:<br /><ul><li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.3cr.org.au/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271782073741028722" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 71px; cursor: pointer; height: 92px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8MdBD3iFJFJka6zt-cYiYy8A-n4Bl34fYsGH0XTQPYhW3gbuigfKVrTqHXJC-4KHr1MU34k-0KRuSNoGrvxEf24ZT2ETJ-PS8OzKEKYoQcgu_KOsgBNm-3rBI2nUMiPJqkP9UA/s200/logo.gif" border="0" /></a>Rachel spoke with <strong>Phil Maguire</strong>, Chief Executive of the <a href="http://www.prisonradioassociation.org/" target="_blank">UK Prison Radio Association</a>, about establishing radio stations inside British prisons, making award-winning radio by and for prisoners.</li><li>Steph spoke to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lachie Type</span> about the <a href="http://www.studentsofsustainability.org/" target="_blank">Students of Sustainability</a> conference this week.<br /></li><li>I spoke to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Amy McQuire</span> from the <a href="http://www.nit.com.au/" target="_blank">National Indigenous Times</a> about the over-representation of Indigenous prisoners in Australian jails.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">BREAKFAST PLAYLIST:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dirty Projectors and David Byrne</span> - Knotty Pine - <span style="font-style: italic;">Dark Was The Night</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Miike Snow</span> - Animal - <span style="font-style: italic;">Miike Snow</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Beach House</span> - Used To Be - <span style="font-style: italic;">Used To Be</span> 7"<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lawrence Arabia</span> - The Undesirables - <span style="font-style: italic;">Chant Darling</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Grand Salvo</span> - Brother - <span style="font-style: italic;">Soil Creatures</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lykke Li</span> - Time Flies - <span style="font-style: italic;">Youth Novel</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >LISTENING Tuesday June 30-Tuesday July 7.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/elanorruth">Last.fm</a> says this week was spent in the company of:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tenniscoats</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Temporacha</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Totemo Aimasho</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Live Wanderus</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Peter Broderick</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Music For On Paper Wings</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Vivian Girls</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Vivian Girls</span><span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Palms</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">It's Midnight in Honolulu</span><br />and some <span style="font-weight: bold;">Phil Collins</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">PJ Harvey & John Parish</span></span></span>.Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-24681982746015120882009-07-04T18:50:00.015+10:002009-07-14T20:54:42.216+10:00This Is Not The Trip<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiDVMcLLonmgmpXje0_FEWXNE2AIOz9n_iS1dbDD9B9X_WyyuiP7MhfUVTf-IhfcVFA98RcrLKV7GHmcWxPFJnee2fsYFiARUg4y-NjnA7PMVbFg9QGnUL0uNxI7IDng78M0dHjQ/s1600-h/3480586496_41c04865c4_m.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiDVMcLLonmgmpXje0_FEWXNE2AIOz9n_iS1dbDD9B9X_WyyuiP7MhfUVTf-IhfcVFA98RcrLKV7GHmcWxPFJnee2fsYFiARUg4y-NjnA7PMVbFg9QGnUL0uNxI7IDng78M0dHjQ/s200/3480586496_41c04865c4_m.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353009662572348834" border="0" /></a>Hello.<br /><br />I <span style="font-style: italic;">do </span>plan to bore you mercilessly in the coming while with detailed posts about each city I went to in ten weeks of travelling. But not just yet.<br /><br />I've been back in Melbourne for three weeks now, and you will hear about that first.<br /><br />P.S. There was a lot of saved TV to get through, as you'll notice.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sunday 14 June</span><br />Asleep.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Monday 15 June</span><br />Back to work, my rostered shift at <a href="http://www.casahouse.com.au/">CASA House</a>. In the evening, my sister arrived from Hobart to spend two weeks with us while she did some additional forecasting training (she's a meteorolgist, a forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorolgy), so we had family/travel chats. Then downloaded the new episode of <span style="font-style: italic;">True Blood</span>. Watched it.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tuesday 16 June</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;">3CR Tuesday Breakfast Show</span></span><br /><ul><li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.3cr.org.au/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271782073741028722" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 71px; cursor: pointer; height: 92px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8MdBD3iFJFJka6zt-cYiYy8A-n4Bl34fYsGH0XTQPYhW3gbuigfKVrTqHXJC-4KHr1MU34k-0KRuSNoGrvxEf24ZT2ETJ-PS8OzKEKYoQcgu_KOsgBNm-3rBI2nUMiPJqkP9UA/s200/logo.gif" border="0" /></a>Rachel spoke to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vicki Fairfax </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jayne Lovelock</span> about the <a href="http://www.multiculturalarts.com.au/events2009/emerge.shtml">Emerge Festival</a>, celebrating Melbourne's multicultural diversity as part of Refugee Week. Vicki spoke about the Love Burma Love Freedom exhibition.</li><li>Steph spoke with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Joe Lorback</span>, activist with the Melbourne Anti-Intervention Action Collective about the latest on the intervention and the 2 year anniversary rally on 20 June.</li><li>Jess spoke with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Andrew Scott</span>, academic and author of <span style="font-style: italic;">Politics, Parties and Issues in Australia</span>.</li><li>I spoke with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dr Caroline de Costa</span> about charges being laid in Queensland against a woman and her boyfriend for 'procuring an abortion' using misoprostol. Caroline is an obstetrician based in Cairns and was one of the first doctors there to get the right to dispense medical abortion drugs. We didn't talk directly about the case, but focused on some of the issues it raises for abortion law reform in Queensland (see her previous Crikey article about law reform <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/01/22/why-abortion-law-reform-is-also-needed-in-queensland/">here</a>), and the ongoing 'controversial' context in which medical abortion appears on the public radar in Australia.<br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">BREAKFAST PLAYLIST:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Shugo Tokumaru</span> - Rum Hee - <span style="font-style: italic;">Rum Hee</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tenniscoats</span> - Rolling Train - <span style="font-style: italic;">Tan-Tan Therapy</span><br /><br />Spent the rest of the day at 3CR planning that week's <span style="font-style: italic;">Stick Together</span> show, reading up on the proposed Building Inspectorate, begging unionists to talk to me in the midst of tizz about introduction of the legislation in parliament the next day. Went home to catch up on <span style="font-style: italic;">Dollhouse</span>. It's still really good, you guys.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wednesday 17 June</span><br />At 12.30pm, interviewed <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dave Noonan</span>, National Secretary of the CFMEU Construction Division. Cobbled rest of <span style="font-style: italic;">Stick Together</span> show around that. Finished with an hour to spare before the 6pm Community Radio Network broadcast. The synopsis went like this:<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">On today’s show, we get reaction to the Rudd Government’s tabling in Parliament of draft laws for a Building Industry Inspectorate to replace the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The ABCC’s coercive powers over construction workers will be retained, and we hear from <b>Dave Noonan</b>, National Secretary of the CFMEU Construction Division. Before that, we hear from the author of a new book looking at the union and community campaign that brought the Rudd Government into office.<b> Kathie Muir</b> has written the first history of the campaign, and her book is called, <i>Worth Fighting For: Inside the Your Rights At Work Campaign</i>. </blockquote>The <a href="http://podcast.3cr.org.au/pod/3CRCast-2009-06-21-86836.mp3">podcast went like this</a>.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thursday 18 June</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_JBIfg7siqe_aYuDR0qo1ArPlCIh-1E0eymEFlHwOhCUq9kcTzhfcceXn67oMqmNOsvIbP4CdJ8L-GnnJXWX2GyqXcyj1-e5LNHUCu4_LvCAtNF4JD19mzW8FEedKBKpvM5KV8A/s1600-h/graphics_db3f99fc935f08102ae4bdeae3def329.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 148px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_JBIfg7siqe_aYuDR0qo1ArPlCIh-1E0eymEFlHwOhCUq9kcTzhfcceXn67oMqmNOsvIbP4CdJ8L-GnnJXWX2GyqXcyj1-e5LNHUCu4_LvCAtNF4JD19mzW8FEedKBKpvM5KV8A/s200/graphics_db3f99fc935f08102ae4bdeae3def329.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352943832043659042" border="0" /></a>Worked at CASA during the day. In the evening, went to the Corner Hotel to see <span style="font-weight: bold;">Deerhunter</span>. They looked much younger than I expected. (I suppose being ignorant of their - to my mind - extreme youth probably means I should read more music articles. But I was really struck by it. I had just assumed from listening to their music that they were, you know, mature. But they were quite endearingly not.) Google has since informed me that Bradford Cox is only one year younger than me... but he's just a kid! Anyway, it was their second Melbourne gig, and they were set loose from usual performance boundaries because an organiser had gamely told them to 'do whatever you want'. So it started pretty tight - they knew their stuff backwards and it still burst with vigour - got progressively looser as the night went on, almost broke apart, got adorably hilarious. <a href="http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/reviews/events/19026/Deerhunter--The-Corner-Hotel-Melbourne-180609-.htm">This review acquaints you with how things proceeded</a>. Somehow, it wasn't obnoxious at all. It was delightful. I can't remember precisely all the stage-talk that made me smile, but it really did. One bit I remember happened after Bradford Cox had been by himself doing <span style="font-style: italic;">Don't Fear The Reaper</span> for ten minutes or so, had tired of it and so had stopped, then became uncomfortable with being on stage all alone. He went almost shyly to the microphone: "Please, come back out here, you guys."<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Friday 19 June</span><br />Worked at CASA in the morning, then went to 3CR to get briefed about some radio training I'd deliver to Collingwood College students the following Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Met Leah and Guy for coffee, as Leah was about to fly away travelling. Went home to watch <span style="font-style: italic;">Silent Witness</span>. Then <span style="font-style: italic;">Caprica</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Saturday 20 June</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Damages</span> Season 2. Then, <a href="http://popfrippery.blogspot.com/">Guy</a>'s Alcopops-themed birthday party. I chatted with Lauren's boyfriend Ben about <span style="font-style: italic;">Caprica</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Battlestar Galactica</span>, etc. Other people had conversations about <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lady GaGa</span>. I don't take part in these discussions yet, as I <span style="font-style: italic;">still </span>haven't listened to any of her music. There are some foolish quotes out there, though. So I haven't yet moved beyond Guy's assessment that <a href="http://popfrippery.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-just-read-eg-piece-on-gaga-properly.html">"she doesn't quite understand the concepts she's playing with"</a>, but it appears <a href="http://popfrippery.blogspot.com/2009/06/this-blog-will-not-die-like-all-others.html">he may have</a>. Anyway, at around 1am, the dancefloor kicked off, which was my cue to flee, as all my non-dancing, always-find-me-in-the-kitchen-at-parties type friends are currently overseas. COME BACK.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sunday 21 June</span><br />We all went with my sister to Mordialloc to visit our grandma. On the way home, my brother and I got ourselves dropped off in the city to go see a film. We saw <span style="font-style: italic;">I Love You, Man</span>. It was as you'd expect, as in, quite okay, as in, hey, I like to run with that post-<span style="font-style: italic;">Freaks</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Geeks </span>set and so does Terry Gross from NPR's <span style="font-style: italic;">Fresh Air</span> and that relaxes me about enjoying it. When it was over, we decided to see <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span>. Which was AWESOME. Well, it was.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Monday 22 June</span><br />Day 1 of delivering radio training to Collingwood College middle school students. I know they thought I was lame. They were astute in that way. Went home to watch more of <span style="font-style: italic;">Damages </span>Season 2.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tuesday 23 June</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">3CR Tuesday Breakfast Show</span></span><br /><ul><li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.3cr.org.au/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271782073741028722" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 71px; cursor: pointer; height: 92px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8MdBD3iFJFJka6zt-cYiYy8A-n4Bl34fYsGH0XTQPYhW3gbuigfKVrTqHXJC-4KHr1MU34k-0KRuSNoGrvxEf24ZT2ETJ-PS8OzKEKYoQcgu_KOsgBNm-3rBI2nUMiPJqkP9UA/s200/logo.gif" border="0" /></a>Rachel's interview with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Azadeh</span>, an Iranian theatre studies graduate and law reform campaigner in Tehran with the <a href="http://learningpartnership.org/fr/advocacy/campaign/onemillionsignatures">One Million Signatures</a> campaign, about how the group is using street theatre as a way of highlighting injustices in Iranian law.</li><li>I spoke to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lyn Morgain</span> from the <a href="http://www.also.org.au/" target="_blank">ALSO Foundation</a> about the <a href="http://www.also.org.au/get_involved/events/rural_forum" target="_blank">Rural Forum</a> on issues for GLBTIQ people in rural settings.</li><li><div>Steph spoke to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dr Shiv Chopra</span>, a Health Canada whistleblower, about the food saftey issues raised in his book <i>Corrupt to the Core</i>. He would speak that night at the Green Building, 60 Leicester Street, Carlton.</div></li><li><div>Steph spoke to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rachel</span> from <a href="http://www.thesharehood.org/" target="_blank">The Share Hood</a>, a neighbourhood resource sharing initiative and workshop.<br /></div></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">BREAKFAST PLAYLIST:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bachelorette</span> - The National Grid - <span style="font-style: italic;">My Electric Family</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Grizzly Bear</span> - Two Weeks - <span style="font-style: italic;">Veckatimest</span><span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Aleks and the Ramps</span> - Destroy The Universe With Jazz Hands - <span style="font-style: italic;">Midnight Believer</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >LISTENING Tuesday June 16-Tuesday June 23.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/elanorruth">Last.fm</a> says this week was spent in the company of:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Aleks and the Ramps</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Midnight Believer</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">CocoRosie</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Coconuts, Plenty of Junk Food</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bachelorette</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">My Electric Family</span><span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Matteah Baim</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Laughing Boy</span><br />and some <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Mayfair Set</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Get Back Guinozzi !</span><br /><br />The rest of Tuesday was spent training kids in radio. Then burritos with Guy? I think so.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wednesday 24 June</span><br />Final day of training Collingwood College kids in radio. We had them out on Smith Street interviewing John Clarke and other local folk. And they got their podcasts edited and finished in time, which had been a worry. Farewell, young people.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thursday 25 June</span><br />Worked at CASA, then met with Guy and Lauren for long enough to witness the handover of Lauren's birthday present to Guy... A SLANKET. I only learned of the existence of these/the excitement they cause, when I got back to Melbourne and saw the late-night TV ad. In response to which I thought, "Hmm, my uppers arms DO get cold when I'm attempting to read under the doona... but perhaps this points to me being more of a Doona Suit than a Slanket kind of girl?" I've since looked at the <a href="http://lazypatch.com.au/">Doona Suit</a>, though, and it is NOT what I thought it would be. It's not even all-in-one! FAIL. Anyway, at the time I still didn't fully appreciate the Slanket's cultural significance, and so was not perhaps enthusiastic enough with my 'ooooh, beige' as Lauren presented it to Guy:<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzFntXbwe1KwXzKgv1gGTL4ei2a26X0SmN2WIlBUXk9pFsCFr_2ToINK8iFcDhW3mICjIYyGmPo9L2QSckx_ANd9RKYip_zpt9yXsfxAHinmyd22Xpblvlq2aFujnZ-FypS_gDDA/s1600-h/beige.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 215px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzFntXbwe1KwXzKgv1gGTL4ei2a26X0SmN2WIlBUXk9pFsCFr_2ToINK8iFcDhW3mICjIYyGmPo9L2QSckx_ANd9RKYip_zpt9yXsfxAHinmyd22Xpblvlq2aFujnZ-FypS_gDDA/s400/beige.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352996139931075618" border="0" /></a>But then I caught up with <span style="font-style: italic;">30 Rock</span>. In which a Slanket features in a joke that made me laugh so much, I threw up. (This outcome was doubly pleasing to me as, in a previous <span style="font-style: italic;">30 Rock</span> episode, retaining the capacity to laugh so hard you throw up had been underlined as desirable.) Anyway, it took me fully twenty minutes to regain composure from the laughing fit, and twenty further minutes to recover from my spluttering, out-of-control attempts to repeat the line in question out loud to my brother. Impossible, it turns out.<br /><br />Now, I don't want to ruin the immense joy of this one sentence for anyone. But I'm going to type it anyway. Because, COME ON. It made me throw up:<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">"Lemon, isn't there a Slanket somewhere you should be filling with your farts?" </blockquote>Aaah, I like it when people understand couch.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkDWQaKP2y-xSyePSDPc3D88QIlcC54bjNjdViRbQpsqgjaKvgeODc-r9-KEO2EsTGHadI0LfOCNFif4s7GP7-L2JicNkhTG6x4S2JWGmgn00jhoRn08tOKq6lRPUGGxtz3muLQ/s1600-h/balibo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 221px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkDWQaKP2y-xSyePSDPc3D88QIlcC54bjNjdViRbQpsqgjaKvgeODc-r9-KEO2EsTGHadI0LfOCNFif4s7GP7-L2JicNkhTG6x4S2JWGmgn00jhoRn08tOKq6lRPUGGxtz3muLQ/s320/balibo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354467273847544914" border="0" /></a>Anyway, it's still Thursday, so after I left Lauren and Guy, I made my way to Carlton to meet Nicole and Bree for the preview screening of <span style="font-style: italic;">Balibo</span>. Director Robert Connolly introduced the film, and talked about having just returned from Dili where it was screened for the cast and crew there. He said it had been strange to screen a film in which the current President of East Timor is depicted as a charismatic 25-year-old rebel leader, especially when José Ramos-Horta was also in the audience for the Dili screening. Connolly related how people cheered at some of Ramos-Horta's scenes, including Ramos-Horta. Now, I had no idea of Ramos-Horta's part in the Balibo story. Perhaps it is something I should have known. The film is based on <a href="http://www.scribepublications.com.au/book/coverup">Jill Jolliffe's book</a>, and as the film's opening credits notified me of this, I felt bad that I hadn't read it. We've had her on the Breakfast Show a few times to talk about modern East Timor (the assassination attempt on Ramos-Horta for example) and I always feel guilty when I don't pay enough attention to the work guests have done. Actually, I think we had her on for the Balibo inquest and the <a href="http://sea.lib.niu.edu/inst/living.html">Living Memory Project</a> too. Damn! Anyway, it looks like a <a href="http://www.scribepublications.com.au/book/balibofilmtieinedition">revised edition</a> of the book is coming out, with <a href="http://www.scribepublications.com.au/news/melbournelaunchofjilljolliffesbalibo">a launch at Readings on August 13</a>.<br /><br />Getting back to the film itself, it begins with an East-Timorese woman, Juliana, travelling to Dili to give evidence at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_for_Reception,_Truth_and_Reconciliation_in_East_Timor">Commission For Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor</a>. Just FYI, this commission's findings and its cases for prosecution were massively undermined by the subsequent setting up of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia-Timor_Leste_Commission_of_Truth_and_Friendship">Indonesia-Timor Leste Commission of Truth and Friendship</a>. The latter's galling shortcomings are outlined in <a href="http://www.uniya.org.au/news/news_23may07.html">an open letter here</a>, and in <a href="http://www.ictj.org/images/content/7/7/772.pdf">this report, <span style="font-style: italic;">Too Much Friendship, Too Little Truth</span></a>. But anyway, I was watching a film. And I was hoping the commission being depicted in these early scenes was the first one (it was, according to the <span style="font-style: italic;">Balibo </span>press kit). Anyway, Juliana speaks to the investigator about the massacre she witnessed as a child on the Dili Wharf on the day in 1975 when the Indonesian army invaded the city. She recalls seeing a man on the wharf, Roger East, who had been staying at her father's hotel. So the film takes us to Darwin earlier in 1975, where we meet Anthony LaPaglia's Roger East. He goes fishing, drinks beer, and goes to work where he's told that a young man in green fatigues has been waiting to see him since before the office opened.<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Roger East: "Who is he?"<br />Co-worker: "He says his name is José Ramos-Horta."<br />Roger East: "Who?" </blockquote>As you can guess, this lack of recognition gets a rather shocked laugh from the audience, and neatly communicates that we will be journeying through substantially different times.<br /><br />As Ramos-Horta, Oscar Isaac is, as aforementioned, disarmingly charismatic. He's turned away at the office but finds East later on the pier eating fish and chips. You are won over by Ramos-Horta pretty easily in this fish and chip scene, and maybe I won't detail it because, you know, it's pleasurable. You might want to see it. Basically, he wants Roger East - a former foreign correspondent - to come to Dili to run the East Timor News Agency, and he needs a quick decision as flights out of Darwin to Dili are likely to be stopped in the next few days, what with the Indonesians advancing and all. Anyway, they talk, disagree and so forth. East thinks Ramos-Horta should be looking for a younger journalist, not someone who is 'past it' like him. Ramos-Horta says they've had younger journalists from Australia in East Timor already. Five in particular. They'd disappeared four weeks earlier and the Australian Government didn't seem to care much, etc. East does some digging, his interest piqued, and agrees to go to Dili if Ramos-Horta will get him full access to investigate the fate of the Balibo Five. The film flashes between East's journey to East Timor and that of the Balibo Five, and we're off. There is annoying stuff at the Dili hotel run by Juliana's father, bonding between the Australians and the child Juliana, pfft, but the film does well in mapping the various motivations the journalists had for being there - with Channel 7's team (Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Tony Stewart) arriving first, pursued by Channel 9's Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters who are playing catch-up after an incensed Kerry Packer sends them in to prevent a Channel 7 exclusive on the invasion. They are confoundingly oblivious and self-involved to begin with - seeming not to register that what's happening might matter a fair bit to the people it's happening to - but eventually pay enough attention to the seriousness of what is going on. An example of this 'growth' comes when Shackleton's team reaches a Falintil garrison near the Indonesian front line. The garrison leader suggests that maybe they shouldn't dally as things there are tense. To which the Shackleton character replies, "Great. That's what we're after." I was like, DUDE, things being 'tense' means people could die. You're intruding into a precarious situation and taking up the time of the small number of guys who are all that stand beween a fledgling nation and the Indonesian Army, and they need to be ready to fight if things kick off. Check yourself... MATE. However, bombs raining down on them and a night spent sheltering with East Timorese villagers seems to open their eyes to the bleeding obvious, ie. the Indonesians are invading, people will be killed, all hopes of an independent East Timor dashed, and the international community is doing nothing about it. They are moved. It is <span style="font-style: italic;">so</span> white. I mean, it's fine that they are moved, it's to be expected. It just made me squirm a bit - like, oh right, so now that they've discovered they have feelings about injustice, their feelings matter and should go on record in a piece to camera. I mean, I suppose that was good, really. And on the whole I think the film does well with such discomfiting aspects - yes, they behave very whitely and it took them a while to get it, and while we see that there are better informed and directly affected people who should be the voices we listen to on this story, the privileged weight that Australian reporting would carry is what we're stuck with. The film smoothes our hackles on this point. And eventually both news teams work together towards the aim of documenting the invasion itself as "proof of a violation".<br /><br />Similar discomfiting moments arise in the parallel story of Roger East's pursuit of the truth about the Balibo Five. He, accompanied by Ramos-Horta, is pursuing a story about the fate of five white guys while the Indonesian army advances towards Dili. Sidenote: it's kind of amazing to see that it took actual <span style="font-style: italic;">walking </span>through rural wilderness behind enemy lines for 14 hours to get to the site of the story. The thing is, at one point they literally walk through a landscape scattered with East Timorese corpses. So, why are they not the story? How is the Balibo Five's story more important than theirs? It's a constant question. And one that leads to a breaking point between Roger East and José Ramos-Horta. They brawl in the swimming pool of an abandoned church mission school, with East nearly drowning Ramos-Horta and memorably calling him a little shit. He calls José Ramos-Horta a little shit! Again, different times. Roger East's position is that getting to the bottom of the Balibo Five story is the only way what's happening to East Timor is going to matter internationally. As an answer to the film's constant question, it's maybe not enough. I don't think we as viewers should be satisfied with it, even if the film doesn't <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>move beyond it. But more on that later. So Roger East continues his trek and reaches Balibo, and we flash between what he finds, and what happened on the day the Balibo Five were killed. These scenes are dealt with excellently, and we watched them with horror. The principle point is that the Balibo Five were not collateral damage in the confusion of battle. They were trapped. They identified themselves as journalists from Australia, and were then murdered. And what they daringly filmed - which I have decided to hope was really what they managed to capture on film - was burnt with their bodies.<br /><br />Returning to Dili - after a classic crappy bit where the local brown person draws fire away from the white person so that he can escape - Roger East sets about staring into his fish dinner and being sad. Until José Ramos-Horta comes by with witnesses to the Balibo killings who've come forward after hearing of East's quest. Not to deliver everything your news story needs on a platter or anything, Roger, but maybe you could take a break from your feelings and interview the witnesses (sorry about the snarking - it's just weird how frequently the film makes its central heroic Australian characters so very very annoying. Get a grip! You are not dealing with nearly as much stuff!). The interviews are done, and it's critically important that they happened at all - and that East filed the story - because the invasion of Dili is upon them, so we get to the scenes on Dili Wharf that Juliana was recounting to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the beginning of the film. We see the Dili Wharf massacre, and what happens to Roger East, and I have to say, the way it's done is LAME. Awkward visual metaphors involving fish and his repeated declarations that "I'm Australian". But why does that matter? Look around. What about everybody else? The final scene has Juliana in tears after recounting the horrors she saw, and the investigator saying a line that clanged for me as pretty insensitive scripting. He said, "Roger East was a very generous man, wasn't he?" And I was like, well, yeah. Credit him, of course. He did well. But she's talking about a day on which her dad died, a lot of people died, and to make a point that Roger East generously gave of himself... it felt odd. And then the investigator asks if Juliana can come back tomorrow to give more testimony, and she says she has decades worth of stories to tell, this was just one. But, you know, we won't be in the cinema to hear about any of the others.<br /><br />So, the film ended on a note that made me bristle a bit, but I think it was mostly good. Before the end credits, we get an overview of José Ramos-Horta's time in exile as an advocate for East Timor, and the cheering crowds when he returned. And it's best to end there, I suppose, before we get to uncomfortable compromises post-independence, and so forth. A few names jumped out at me as the credits rolled. One was Alex Tilman, an East Timorese activist and actor who was in the ABC series, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/answeredbyfire/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Answered By Fire</span></a>. I saw him speak in 2006 at a forum with Vannessa Hearman, when he was a representative for Fretilin in Australia. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Balibo</span>, he's listed as playing a Falintil driver or something, and I admit I didn't notice him when I watched the film. Another name was Jose Belo, who is listed as having played the camera operator recording Juliana's commission testimony. If it's the Jose Belo I'm thinking of, he's the editor of <a href="http://temposemanaltimor.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Tempo Semanal</span></a>, an independent newspaper in East Timor. I thought it good that such an important figure in East Timorese journalism should be part of a film about Australian journalism and East Timor. And then I thought, hold on, how important do you have to be - and how much time do you have to spend as the man who gets Australian journalists up to speed on East Timor - for there to be more than a tiny part in a film about your country? And then I thought, hold on, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2508702.htm">isn't Jose Belo facing jail for criminal defamation</a> as alleged by East Timor's Justice Minister? Where is President Ramos-Horta on that, I wondered. Thankfully, Ramos-Horta has made public statements against the defamation charges. So, phew. Not awkward for running into each other at film premieres and such.<br /><br />That's pretty much all the thoughts I had about <span style="font-style: italic;">Balibo</span>. Bree thought its style was 'too Hollywood'. I didn't really get to pursue with her what she meant by that, but I think it had something to do with the film's weakest moments, which were: 1) the kneeling over a dead body and screaming "<span style="font-style: italic;">NOOOOOOO</span>", 2) the aforementioned problems with the Roger "I'm Australian" East wharf scene, with that whole mess about fish swimming upstream and a stretch for poetic meaning. But disregarding those, it's pretty good. Anyway, it's the opening night film at MIFF this year.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Friday 26 June</span><br />Worked at CASA. Didn't go to <a href="http://www.last.fm/event/1016286">Mum Smokes</a> as I'd intended. Just stayed home and watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Silent Witness</span> (the one where they went to Zambia. Which was very shit. <span style="font-style: italic;">Silent Witness</span> shouldn't be shit.)<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Saturday 27 June</span><br />Didn't go to <a href="http://www.mistletone.net/category/events/castle-tones/">CastleTones</a> as I'd intended. Watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Willow</span>. It wasn't as good as I remembered. In fact, it wasn't good at all. I thought all the heroic red-head casting by Ron Howard was a nice touch, though. Then watched <span style="font-style: italic;">The Bad News Bears</span> (the original). I had fond memories of this film, with kids smoking and cussing and whatnot. But there wasn't as much of that as I thought. Finally, watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Synecdoche, New York</span>. Aaah, good. What a relief, I liked it very much. Charlie Kaufman makes good thingy.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sunday 28 June</span><br />We decided to begin a dangerous course of action today. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wire</span>.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Monday 29 June</span><br />Felt sick, so didn't go into work. Ethernet cable broke, so didn't organise guests for the next morning's Breakfast Show. Just stayed in bed watching <span style="font-style: italic;">The Forsyte Saga</span> (2002 version). Then it was time for more of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wire</span>. Just as I feared, it turns out I love <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wire</span> too unhealthily. So I didn't get a lot of sleep before I went in to 3CR on Tuesday morning. Everybody, SHUT UP ABOUT IT. DO NOT TELL ME ANYTHING.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tuesday 30 June</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">3CR Tuesday Breakfast Show</span></span><br />All my fellow co-hosts were away, so I did the show by myself. Lack of internet on Monday meant I didn't get interviews, so rebroadcast old recordings.<br /><ul><li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.3cr.org.au/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271782073741028722" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 71px; cursor: pointer; height: 92px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8MdBD3iFJFJka6zt-cYiYy8A-n4Bl34fYsGH0XTQPYhW3gbuigfKVrTqHXJC-4KHr1MU34k-0KRuSNoGrvxEf24ZT2ETJ-PS8OzKEKYoQcgu_KOsgBNm-3rBI2nUMiPJqkP9UA/s200/logo.gif" border="0" /></a>heard again the speech by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rachel Johnson</span> from the International Solidarity Movement about what she saw in Gaza after Operation Cast Lead. Replayed in light of the Red Cross report into the humanitarian situation in Gaza 6 months on.<br /></li><li>heard again the speech by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jeff Halper</span>, coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions - an organisation that works to stop the destruction of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank. Replayed in light of Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak's visit to the US to present his 'settlement freeze' plan.</li><li>heard again from <span style="font-weight: bold;">Antony Loewenstein</span>, author of <span style="font-style: italic;">Blogging Revolution</span>, speaking about what he found when researching his book about the power and limitations of web-based dissent. Replayed because he talked about Iran/web stuff.</li><li>played Rachel's interview about sea piracy in Somalia, with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dr Carolin Liss</span>, a researcher at the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University in Perth, who completed a PhD on piracy.<br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">BREAKFAST PLAYLIST:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Grand Salvo</span> - Needles - <span style="font-style: italic;">Soil Creatures</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dirty Projectors</span> - Cannibal Resources - <span style="font-style: italic;">Bitte Orca</span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Miike Snow</span> - Animal - <span style="font-style: italic;">Miike Snow</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >LISTENING Tuesday June 23-Tuesday June 30.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/elanorruth">Last.fm</a> says this week was spent in the company of:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dirty Projectors</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Bitte Orca</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Deerhunter</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Microcastle</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Grand Salvo</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Soil Creatures</span><span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Miike Snow</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Miike Snow</span><br />and some <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Bats</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tahiti Boy & The Palmtree Family</span></span></span>.<br /><br /><br />The rest of the week is mostly <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wire</span>, a few meetings at 3CR, and more of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wire</span>. Yep, unhealthy.Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-27049419159089725952009-05-04T19:03:00.001+10:002009-05-05T07:56:10.320+10:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyOZiLb9U12eJ7oLkeiBT8T2Qjd0cxDQljwBblPKNi7Vq2oA22l06w26p_evA2rCnxpuY7IrSy-dkEJXSZ3E9vnA19sthaXrbLQ7TBwPoDlU9AbBv0Qj5G324-5zbjdE93dgPY/s1600-h/kate3.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 309px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyOZiLb9U12eJ7oLkeiBT8T2Qjd0cxDQljwBblPKNi7Vq2oA22l06w26p_evA2rCnxpuY7IrSy-dkEJXSZ3E9vnA19sthaXrbLQ7TBwPoDlU9AbBv0Qj5G324-5zbjdE93dgPY/s320/kate3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5331888102060641458" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I'm always shocked when larger-than-life, slightly ridiculous characters reveal deep currents of prejudice (I'm <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">talkin</span>' about you, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">KAK</span>). Don't know why, no rationale etc. And I know <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Pru <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Goward</span> </span>is conservative and horrid on many levels, but I just assumed that wouldn't apply to <a href="http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,25424876-29277,00.html?from=public_rss">this</a>, possibly because she gave birth to Katie (Kate?) Fisher. Re <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Where did I really come from</span>:<br /></div><div><div><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">There is nothing wrong with encouraging tolerance and diversity but why you would do that by talking about same-sex relationships? I find it a mystery," Ms <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Goward</span> said.</span><br /><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; ">That doesn't even make sense within its own internal logic -- there's nothing wrong with encouraging tolerance and diversity, but why would you actually want to encourage tolerance and diversity? And Ms, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Goward</span>, former Sex Discrimination Commissioner (albeit a Howard appointee), why would same-sex relationships be shocking or damaging to children when opposite-sex relationships are presumably just part of the rich fabric of life, or something. Do you only register discrimination within the scope of sex discrimination? Apologies for this rudimentary politics, but I think Goward needs to learn to love 'the gays', just like Katy Perry (although not Donna Summer as I have been duly informed). Surely you can't have said that, Pru? But to be fair, I was alerted to this by NW tweeting me a link to a News.com.au publication... </span></div></div>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18023865047019803963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-65736403250678397162009-04-05T08:38:00.004+10:002009-04-05T08:39:59.337+10:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYil88JF2dEXBuSznzXJiPd5g6ga0uZTnQl0yJzzON4CxortK7N99Iy_E4JCklvn-8F_WfbBNiDxeULr1WHP-LtwLRQV9G1G54wiBqz-9UFMxVJb6RwKtgh7QYBS9aVPoprWXR/s1600-h/Aeroflot_meal_2007.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYil88JF2dEXBuSznzXJiPd5g6ga0uZTnQl0yJzzON4CxortK7N99Iy_E4JCklvn-8F_WfbBNiDxeULr1WHP-LtwLRQV9G1G54wiBqz-9UFMxVJb6RwKtgh7QYBS9aVPoprWXR/s320/Aeroflot_meal_2007.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320969515447444178" /></a><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>One more thing Elanor. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This</span> is your meal.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-81498763879660261092009-04-05T08:20:00.003+10:002009-04-05T08:34:58.668+10:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Goodbye Elanor</span>, and good luck on your Aeroflot adventure. I won't say I'm worried, 'cause while, yes, 1994 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">was</span> a bad year, I'm sure things have improved. I note their website boasts of a "New World of Safety", which is much better than an old world without safety. And here's the safety card you might get if you fly an ILYUSHIN 96-300, which incidentally has had no fatalities since it commenced operation in 1988. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH-q2qytA2BFHSV6tXVVLx8QyFhK-ixN-oVvIBGdK_tiDLH6Iu66ycPdDG1Kz_j2HDriF1GS9btvX-J5caFyR2osaUo9PdFzawqn4QwwfVeqVWklHml1O1Ig6eu53du_6ulnrV/s1600-h/domodedovo-il96300-1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 230px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH-q2qytA2BFHSV6tXVVLx8QyFhK-ixN-oVvIBGdK_tiDLH6Iu66ycPdDG1Kz_j2HDriF1GS9btvX-J5caFyR2osaUo9PdFzawqn4QwwfVeqVWklHml1O1Ig6eu53du_6ulnrV/s320/domodedovo-il96300-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320967385951611170" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>But anyway. I'm actually sadder to think of the Australian goings-on you'll miss while abroad. Yes, you'll have lots of rich culture to observe, but you still may miss Australiana such as <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Joe Hockey </span>accidentally threatening to block supply on <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Meet the Press</span> this morning. I will attempt to keep you updated.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-64989816484828733482009-04-04T22:00:00.007+10:002009-05-04T18:08:24.528+10:00Where I will be for the next two months<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9TV2A7diF__ydllTl_cdy47GhNvGI6ohuLf_kDaSTWsDbuBTTweaWcQ_APbxnFxVzR6Mh77DRGzUQWm4A6dE4djrjOGuLclTkgjkrOxbORKoJt9se4CxcbEUAlDlx5sLHTAftOw/s1600-h/suitcase.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320444047203402626" style="WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 386px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9TV2A7diF__ydllTl_cdy47GhNvGI6ohuLf_kDaSTWsDbuBTTweaWcQ_APbxnFxVzR6Mh77DRGzUQWm4A6dE4djrjOGuLclTkgjkrOxbORKoJt9se4CxcbEUAlDlx5sLHTAftOw/s400/suitcase.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sunday April 5</span><br />On some aeroplanes<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Monday April 6</span><br />Moscow, Russia<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Friday April 10</span><br />St Petersburg, Russia<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Tuesday April 14</span><br />Warsaw, Poland<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Friday April 17</span><br />Krakow, Poland (and Auschwitz-Birkenau)<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Monday April 20</span><br />Berlin, Germany<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Saturday April 25</span><br />Prague, Czech Republic<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Monday April 27</span><br />Budapest, Hungary<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Thursday April 30</span><br />Venice, Italy<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sunday May 3</span><br />Florence, Italy<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Wednesday May 6</span><br />Rome, Italy<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Saturday May 9</span><br />Madrid, Spain<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Wednesday May 13</span><br />Avila, Spain<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Thursday May 14</span><br />Madrid, Spain<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Friday May 15</span><br />Toledo, Spain<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sunday May 17</span><br />Valencia, Spain<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Tuesday May 19</span><br />Barcelona, Spain<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sunday May 24</span><br />Avignon, France - also a base for trips to Nimes, Arles, Aix-En-Provence, Marseille...<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Saturday May 30</span><br />Paris, France<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Wednesday June 3</span><br />York, England (including Castle Howard, ie. BRIDESHEAD)<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Friday June 5</span><br />London, England<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Thursday June 11</span><br />Hong Kong<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Saturday June 13</span><br />Melbourne<br /><br /><br />Any suggestions about things in these places what are good?Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-63868067173082292462009-04-04T02:30:00.007+10:002009-07-14T20:55:35.300+10:00The week of no sleepI haven't slept since Tuesday night. It's not a whole week of no sleep, I know. Only <span style="font-style: italic;">four days</span>. But before I slept on Tuesday night, I hadn't slept since Saturday night. See, I've been finishing an editing project that is very time consuming, and requires extended hours in the studio that you can only really secure at 3CR at night.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX6gd6O7mXu2R27bJZDEZWIE9SSL5Zw1D-iMOEDiSN6myHlRrupoMhmBPJxh2eRKTY9DdLmahHT8rxVJPAU9COfyy8sy02gHDpawpwTC2XV0Hav14zg0C6kUZHnKtQMfC1mjwyVg/s1600-h/Zelda+D%27Aprano.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320507818245472418" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 193px; cursor: pointer; height: 200px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX6gd6O7mXu2R27bJZDEZWIE9SSL5Zw1D-iMOEDiSN6myHlRrupoMhmBPJxh2eRKTY9DdLmahHT8rxVJPAU9COfyy8sy02gHDpawpwTC2XV0Hav14zg0C6kUZHnKtQMfC1mjwyVg/s200/Zelda+D%27Aprano.jpg" border="0" /></a>Anyway, before I went to blessed bed on Tuesday night, I went and recorded the <a href="http://www.womensweb.com.au/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Women Working Together</span></a> book launch, hoping for some sterling <span style="font-weight: bold;">Zelda D'Aprano</span> action to gift me with a bit of useful pre-produced content to tide over my share of <a href="http://www.womenontheline.org.au/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Women On The Line</span></a> shows, because I'll be absent from pitching in once my travels begin on Sunday. But it was not exactly what I had hoped for, in that it exposed me to the contradictory glibness of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Moira Rayner</span>, who did an A to Z of the enemies of feminism that included pot-shots at Paris Hilton's wish to have a child, followed by "J, is for judgemental. We shouldn't be judgemental of other women." Stellar. All hopes then rested on Zelda D'Aprano, who I had really enjoyed listening to and including in the <a href="http://www.womenontheline.org.au/audio/ontherecord/femwaves.mp3">Feminists Making Waves</a> archive program I made a few years back as part of a series we did <a href="http://www.womenontheline.org.au/projects.html">to mark <span style="font-style: italic;">Women On The Line</span>'s 20th anniversary</a>. I died a little inside as I listened to Zelda say sentences like, "In low-cut tops, how can women expect men to take them seriously?" OH. DEAR.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2vtOFPYuH6XOtemecEMWH8ewmQNVXEI0sypZT5WKCQmUyR4zWeXME0BZoJVZGL9EkIm4K3MzRaVts66eNFVEt-FmKHqqIc231AFsFVkqJ9lRJX1vAn42gGjV6FtnbcX0PpC2QQQ/s1600-h/Bob+Ellis.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320507931878440194" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 96px; cursor: pointer; height: 116px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2vtOFPYuH6XOtemecEMWH8ewmQNVXEI0sypZT5WKCQmUyR4zWeXME0BZoJVZGL9EkIm4K3MzRaVts66eNFVEt-FmKHqqIc231AFsFVkqJ9lRJX1vAn42gGjV6FtnbcX0PpC2QQQ/s400/Bob+Ellis.jpg" border="0" /></a>On Thursday evening, went to the State Library to record <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bob Ellis</span> speak at the launch of <span style="font-style: italic;">Overland</span> 194, on the topic - <span style="font-style: italic;">I </span><span style="font-style: italic;">had thought</span> - of his essay that appears in the publication: Ruddism. But... no. He read from his diary. At length. It will apparently be published in book form in May. So instead we were treated to his musings on the death of Heath Ledger and some other things of which I have an incomplete memory. I was in a fog, fighting to keep myself conscious. I had not slept since Tuesday night, remember. And the thought that <span style="font-style: italic;">this will not do</span> for my <a href="http://www.3cr.org.au/sticktogether"><span style="font-style: italic;">Stick Together</span></a> radio purposes could only keep me roused intermittently. Andrew was there too, but the same night that was such a complete failure for my own purposes suited perfectly well for <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090403-Ellis-crucifies-K-Rudd-in-Overland-broadside.html">his article in <span style="font-style: italic;">Crikey</span></a>. Something I do remember very clearly, though, is that the man <span style="font-style: italic;">fucking loves</span> Kim Beazley... but not so much as to hesitate to bring 'father issues' to public notice. Question time was definitely the most interesting part of the evening - because the audience questions were good (which can be so rare at a public meeting, you know) and tended to prompt Bob to talk about what people had <span style="font-style: italic;">maybe </span>come to hear him speak about. ie. THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY. Anyway, Ellis stated in passing that he thinks Penny Wong "has never drawn an honest breath" ... which shocked me a little. He seems to vehemently dislike her. Now, I don't like her emissions reduction target either, but I had always thought that Rudd's fault. He doesn't like Rudd either, of course. And yes, Andrew's <span style="font-style: italic;">Crikey</span> article accurately stenographs Ellis' line that Penny Wong is the "lesbian Chinese bureaucrat Rudd wishes he was." Anyway, Ellis has "got a hell of a lot of time for Shorten" (compares him to early Hawke), and thinks "Maxine McKew is the best Prime Minister we'll never get." My head was cocked quizzically at this point, and my face scrunched to express an "Eh?" I mean, all I remember of Shorten's electoral campaign was his excessive use of football analogies. And did you see how bad Maxine's first appearance on <span style="font-style: italic;">Q&A</span> was? We do not love the same people, Bob Ellis. But he was making a wider point, really, that Rudd might be keeping talent down at the voiceless Parliamentary Secretary level because he's a bit petty and doesn't want to foster others who could reasonably be expected to shine, or something. And Bob knows who loses in that equation: THE LEFT.<br /><br />Anyway, here are some Bob Ellis quotes from the night:<br /><br /><ul><li>“Rudd is so competitive, he would put a <i>waste of space</i> like Penny Wong in charge of the most important issue on earth, and sideline and humiliate – and daily humiliate - a man who’s cause it was. You know, it’s a terrible fate and it speaks ill of the Prime Minister and I would not be surprised if Garrett walks out of Parliament in the next election.”<br /></li><li>When asked what he thought about the Greens: “Well, Bob Brown has never been wrong about anything, that I can think of, in about 35 years. And I can’t think of any other politician like that. It’s an extraordinary Party. I mean, that being said, there are an <i>amazing</i> number of not only Greens but Green candidates who are mentally incompetent. And, ah, beyond neurosis. And, ah, so far into early dementia that they cannot be readily invited to dinner in even McDonalds without humiliation. They are not, not a bright bunch as a rule. But the ones that were there twenty years ago are fantastic, I think. And history has shown how tragic it is that we weren’t listening back when Al Gore was. And that, ah, a corrupt judge put Bush not Gore in power, and <span style="font-style: italic;">the world will therefore end very soon</span>.”</li><li>“The thing to say, I think, is that um, if we’d had our druthers there would have been a Green/Labor Party coalition fifteen years ago. Of course there would.”</li></ul><strong>UPDATE:</strong> <a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/crikey/2009/04/07/exclusive-bob-ellis-audio/">Andrew has put my Bob Ellis recording on the Crikey blog</a>.<br /><br /><br />After Bob Ellis, I went to Hamer Hall to see <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lucinda Williams</span>. We were hanging out for "Atonement" and "Sweet Side", but they were not forthcoming. There was, however, my singalong favourite, "Drunken Angel", as well as the excellent "Joy". But a bit too much samey other material. Her voice is bloody marvellous.<br /><br />Then I went home to have a shower, because I stanked, having been editing in a studio since the early hours and then a day of more editing / hot weather / farewell afternoon tea / Programming Sub-Committee meeting / Bob Ellis / Lucinda Williams.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.womenontheline.org.au/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320519959631284722" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 80px; cursor: pointer; height: 80px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2sU4zTmtcPAt697lKHLAlUqsZWFj5GAWlZxv22m412Iwy2wyB9B3OaFM297Hatpz-S4Fw5LheHTjkemoucz7Nr7B6Wsk8qboqXLPhxvoPVAsUZS9-XpQ1-VM3e36W0IuXbRtgaA/s400/WOTL+girls.gif" border="0" /></a>Anyway, once I'd had my shower, I went back to 3CR to produce this week's <span style="font-style: italic;">Women On The Line</span>. Used my recording of <a href="http://palestinesolidaritycampaign.net/?p=41">Rachel Johnson's report back from Gaza</a>. The show will be available at the <a href="http://www.womenontheline.org.au/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Women On The Line</span></a> website shortly, if I get around to updating it. Or, more definitely, as a <a href="http://www.3cr.org.au/aggregator/sources/813">3CR <span style="font-style: italic;">Women On The Line</span> Podcast</a>.<br /><br /><br />After completing <span style="font-style: italic;">Women On The Line</span> overnight, I went shopping yesterday and finally got me a winter coat to meet Moscow on its own terms. Then I went back to 3CR to continue the edit-a-thon. I'm at 3CR now. I really should be editing.<br /><br />Anyway, I'm having some drinks with friends tonight to farewell myself and bid myself a good journey, and I doubt I will have slept by then either. Sleeping is what long-haul flights are for, right?Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-42274385907832647022009-04-01T13:51:00.001+10:002009-04-01T13:51:23.048+10:00<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/01/guardian-twitter-media-technology">April Fools.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-2483285712243758592009-03-31T20:54:00.004+10:002009-03-31T20:59:14.307+10:00Thanks Centrelink.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-rhS8wsN66bZYD-bq2CDqWB4t0rfW682pf3W1gmBdX90kEE8AssuNwcYn6rjfZwDGyyF_VL-DE98iomsOnoDxK2CIGk0dzhCD-nov4p3VtOx7f2Z8WKwrKhHYcPUA8CLB2lN/s1600-h/31032009.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-rhS8wsN66bZYD-bq2CDqWB4t0rfW682pf3W1gmBdX90kEE8AssuNwcYn6rjfZwDGyyF_VL-DE98iomsOnoDxK2CIGk0dzhCD-nov4p3VtOx7f2Z8WKwrKhHYcPUA8CLB2lN/s320/31032009.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319303679585360162" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Way to spoil the party. A bit revisionist though. Because couples weren't couples before, apparently.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-11869999374129085382009-03-31T12:30:00.003+10:002009-03-31T12:43:27.105+10:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy7pzod6-gDd6qTHVhjMNYDjFVLp6z6csGx9hZmMUDTUUnYWZWlgGE5rtyGpeXwhHwFvfwKXftC6m_1BqMuS0o1Q03QPN0NBisbPNXuwM6DNlPxepF7-dVcluPHeRCGleiHefD/s1600-h/0220doud.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy7pzod6-gDd6qTHVhjMNYDjFVLp6z6csGx9hZmMUDTUUnYWZWlgGE5rtyGpeXwhHwFvfwKXftC6m_1BqMuS0o1Q03QPN0NBisbPNXuwM6DNlPxepF7-dVcluPHeRCGleiHefD/s320/0220doud.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319176339258653986" /></a><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>It's nice when a study day accords with some prime-time quality <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Oprah</span> -- something to look forward to indeed. So anyway, today they're showing O's interview with the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Octomom's</span> father,<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>Ed Doud (how much does Octomom sound like a Bond villain). There's been quite a bit of press about this interview, as it's supposed to herald the return of Oprah's tough journalist instincts. But I don't see any evidence of this so far. All I do see is how power works. In that Oprah is being tough on this guy because he's a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">normal</span> person and not a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">celebrity</span>. This has been mistaken for tough journo instincts. I am however reminded of a few more annoying things about Oprah:<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">1.</span> She introduces stories along the following lines: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">"For SOME reason the press is ALL OVER this issue, even though it's COMPLETELY trivial, so we've decided to get to the bottom of it OURSELVES and see what all the fuss is about..." </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">2. </span>She presents certain points of view as if they're commonsensical, and then bullies her guests until they agree with her.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">3.</span> She brings up God in topics that don't have anything to do with God.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">4. </span>Dr. Oz.</div><div><br /></div><div>That's all, but I've still got 20 minutes to go... I did support her once, you know. So sad.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-35765794181396967512009-03-31T11:12:00.005+10:002009-03-31T11:47:52.427+10:00Blog Birthday: 6 Years, 1000 Posts<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVspsA8h10Fnh-BXEi2e7YX-9WxbDuNdhPbBU8FJ2Au7CtggWRwo3kV0LkTjSjPqUTa_p9R7VhkUHgMX6DmyAEMEDwKNmSkzkUYxEFqXNECGSEPtbfGmLZ4cquiajl6LbiDtVLFw/s1600-h/six-birthday.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVspsA8h10Fnh-BXEi2e7YX-9WxbDuNdhPbBU8FJ2Au7CtggWRwo3kV0LkTjSjPqUTa_p9R7VhkUHgMX6DmyAEMEDwKNmSkzkUYxEFqXNECGSEPtbfGmLZ4cquiajl6LbiDtVLFw/s200/six-birthday.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319159193422747730" border="0" /></a>Yes. This blog <a href="http://symposiasts.blogspot.com/2003_03_01_archive.html">began</a> six years ago today.<br /><br />It took six years to reach 1000 posts.<br /><br />You are now reading the 1000th post.Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-29768814714829387232009-03-31T10:40:00.003+10:002009-04-04T03:29:36.005+10:00<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >LISTENING Tuesday March 24-Tuesday March 31.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/elanorruth">Last.fm</a> says this week was spent in the company of:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Strange Boys</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">And Girls Club</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">PJ Harvey & John Parish</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">A Woman And A Man Walked By</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mozart</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major, K.331</span><br /><br />My favourite song on <span style="font-style: italic;">A Woman And A Man Walked By</span> is currently "April".<br /><br /><br /></span><a href="http://3cr.org.au/tuesday-breakfast"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >3CR Tuesday Breakfast Show</span></a><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Tuesday March 31</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span> <ul><li><span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.3cr.org.au/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271782073741028722" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 71px; cursor: pointer; height: 92px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8MdBD3iFJFJka6zt-cYiYy8A-n4Bl34fYsGH0XTQPYhW3gbuigfKVrTqHXJC-4KHr1MU34k-0KRuSNoGrvxEf24ZT2ETJ-PS8OzKEKYoQcgu_KOsgBNm-3rBI2nUMiPJqkP9UA/s200/logo.gif" border="0" /></a></span>heard my recording of the talk last Wednesday night by <b>Catherine Deveny</b>, comedian and writer, who is on strike from her opinion column at <i>The Age</i> because of a wage cut. She spoke about women's representation in the media. She was speaking as part of Underground Talks @ the <a href="http://www.newinternationalbookshop.org.au/" target="_blank">New International Book Shop</a>.</li><li>heard - in two parts - Lucy's recording of <b>Sheela Patel</b> speaking on the politics of housing in India and grassroots activism around pavement dwellings in Mumbai. Sheela Patel is the chair of <a href="http://www.sdinet.co.za/" target="_blank">Slum Dwellers International</a> and founder of the Mumbai based <a href="http://www.sparcindia.org/" target="_blank">Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC)</a>. She spoke as part of the Melbourne University School of Architecture, Building and Planning <a href="http://www.abp.unimelb.edu.au/aboutus/deans-lecture-series/" target="_blank">Dean's Lecture Series</a>.</li><li>heard Lucy's interview about human trafficking with <strong>Thetis Mangahas</strong>, Program Manager of the <a href="http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/bangkok/child/trafficking/index.htm" target="_blank">ILO Greater Mekong Sub-regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women</a>.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">BREAKFAST PLAYLIST:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">PJ Harvey & John Parish</span> - Black Hearted Love - <span style="font-style: italic;">A Woman And A Man Walked By</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fulton Lights</span> - The Way We Ride - <span style="font-style: italic;">The Way We Ride</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Palms</span> - Our Home - <span style="font-style: italic;">It's Midnight In Honolulu</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bachelorette</span> - Down In The Street - <span style="font-style: italic;">The End Of Things</span>Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-59038678251706315492009-03-30T22:32:00.005+10:002009-03-31T00:01:38.129+10:00Critical RevisionismA <a href="http://symposiasts.blogspot.com/2009/03/late-january-13-march-2009.html">few weeks ago</a>, I wrote that the first episode of <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://dancingaboutarchitecturetv.com/">Dancing About Architecture</a> was terrible, but that the second episode was way better. I just want to take this opportunity to emphasise the second point. Like, WAY. Because, while I still think you couldn't call that first episode good, it's now just a distant memory that has been overtaken by how KILLER the show has been Every. Week. Since. Then.<br /><br />Now, I began watching <span style="font-style: italic;">Dancing About Architecture</span> because I am an unabashed fan/acquaintance of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tim Finney</span>. But the show would not be able to be as great as it now <span style="font-style: italic;">is </span>if both<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Clem Bastow</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mia Timpano </span>weren't regularly achieving Tim-level excellence. Which they are. Also, I like that the underlying approach of the show is music appreciation beyond the strictures of 'cool', which is a) how most people engage with music, and b) more interesting. See, even if the specific bands/musicians that people make their 'I love this. Why isn't this valued?' arguments <span style="font-style: italic;">for </span>aren't bands/musicians that I can credit, I nonetheless enjoy hearing about how/why other people credit them. Especially if this is done intelligently. Which it is on <span style="font-style: italic;">Dancing About Architecture</span>. That thing Tim said tonight, that 'not everything is good, but anything <span style="font-style: italic;">can be</span> good', is kind of a neat summation of the pleasures of musical curiosity/massive levels of consumption. Tonight I also enjoyed Clem's shout-out to a guy she regards as a formative music-criticism-influencing spectre, 'now tragically lost to acadaemia', who also happens to be my friend Leah's boyfriend, Ramon. But anyway, <span style="font-style: italic;">Dancing About Architecture</span> is the one show I look forward to every week, and if I am unavoidably out on a Monday night, I make sure that it is taped. Which makes me a little sad that next Monday night I will be in Moscow. I mean, I'm not sad exactly, it's just that one of the trade-offs of a lovely travelling spree is it requires that you suspend the regular pleasures of home. But I will leave strict instructions that <span style="font-style: italic;">Dancing About Architecture</span> be taped in the two months that I am away. Because AH LUV EHT. And I just wanted to underline that. <u>AH LUV EHT</u>.Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-11319132201467264502009-03-27T19:53:00.003+10:002009-03-27T20:01:19.545+10:00My DarlingWe have a new addition to the family. Let me introduce <span style="font-weight: bold;">Pioneer DV-310-S</span>. She has a USB port.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Ooid6fqOt4P3LG-kmbCkqd1Vg8wGJp8OkBxP84ZgVjQhgUR6MKztmrkT-aKq_eksTipmv8OkB6OiWL4DJDLbDH0JN17WHaD_yS8gSR1WdhvaZnERAVrY1-IkPLiBoyfGhLTO4g/s1600-h/DVD.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 64px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Ooid6fqOt4P3LG-kmbCkqd1Vg8wGJp8OkBxP84ZgVjQhgUR6MKztmrkT-aKq_eksTipmv8OkB6OiWL4DJDLbDH0JN17WHaD_yS8gSR1WdhvaZnERAVrY1-IkPLiBoyfGhLTO4g/s400/DVD.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317804800545302290" border="0" /></a><br />Because of you, dearest loveliest Pioneer DV-310-S, I will never burn or convert again. I will simply watch things on my television from my removeable hard drives. Sigh. You cost $99, plus all the available space in my heart. I love you.Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5225893.post-74842386601725555422009-03-26T16:26:00.007+10:002009-03-26T18:36:59.346+10:00I want that<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMYkd_uTfwdk4ZLZcluk6NWHWQitNx3HbRM7SsMdoj071wweOrSqqfzNyJgGTN8wvQMUqnjTlEnvTP56ipRg4e-ofAsGKVoHPyFNt_n_v_U4RC-_EAxcX_GYWhwzaH9DeTmXCMjw/s1600-h/Rudd+Obama.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMYkd_uTfwdk4ZLZcluk6NWHWQitNx3HbRM7SsMdoj071wweOrSqqfzNyJgGTN8wvQMUqnjTlEnvTP56ipRg4e-ofAsGKVoHPyFNt_n_v_U4RC-_EAxcX_GYWhwzaH9DeTmXCMjw/s320/Rudd+Obama.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317381509443931154" border="0" /></a>I almost feel a bit jealous.<br /><br />I want Obama to look at me and behave as if he's listening.<br /><br />That would be nice.Elanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17164153221377785216noreply@blogger.com1