Public Address - Heat (Home)

McCahon in Melbourne | Sep 01, 2003 00:10

A Question of Faith, Federation Square, Melbourne.

A few weeks ago, after my visit to Canberra, I lamented the absence Colin McCahon's "Victory over Death II (I Am)" from the National Gallery of Australia. Now I know why. The painting was on tour, on its way to Melbourne, along with many others from all over Australia, New Zealand and collections around the world as part of a the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam's McCahon retrospective, "A Question of Faith".

And "Victory Over Death" was worth waiting for. I've only ever seen it in small reproductions that simply don't convey how rich it is. This exhibition allows you to study the themes and styles that, combined in that one painting, were developed separately over time. These are landscape themes, the development of texts and McCahon's attention shifting towards that dominant "I Am" as seen in this painting, "Practical Religion".

Time was limited, unfortunately, my visit squashed between a business lunch and a return flight to Sydney. I would have liked to linger. Never mind, the show comes to Sydney in November.

Despite that constraint I saw enough to confirm, as if that was needed, just how great and unique McCahon is. What is really striking is the spiritualism. Now we all know that McCahon was a spiritual guy, but that's something that is rarely expressed in modern art and especially in Australian modern art. And McCahon doesn't just express it. He explores it deeply, incessantly, and sets these explorations in wonderful renditions of the New Zealand landscape. These landscapes over time become rendered almost as pure mood, with a severely constrained palette and attention to the subtleties of paint that is reminiscent of Rothko.

Taking the paintings individually the effect is tremendously powerful, but with so many gathered in one place it is overwhelming. One critic here said he found the show so strong he had to leave, take in some of the other exhibitions and then return.

This exhibition has already passed through Wellington and closes in Melbourne on the 7th. But if you do happen though Melbourne there is another magnificent later McCahon in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, "A Letter to Hebrews (Rain in Northland)", from 1979. I saw this one by chance a couple of years ago when I went to the Gallery to see the Dead Sea scrolls. Somebody had a bright idea of exhibiting paintings featuring text on a mezzanine above the scrolls. McCahon, with his religious themes, was a natural choice.

The painting ambushed me. I confess, I got quite emotional.

Meanwhile, those lefty commies at Time Magazine are trying to undermine President Bush again, with headlines like: "Who Is Losing Iraq? Retreat is not an option, victory is elusive and the cost of staying the course is rising fast. Iraq is our greatest crisis since Vietnam."

Columnist Joe Klein highlights the limited options the US faces:

"A Pentagon official told me the idea of reactivating the [Iraqi] army is "naive"—which is ironic, given the Pentagon's willful naivete about postwar Iraq. But I suspect that all these options will be attempted in the coming months, lest George W. Bush face the electorate in 2004 as the President who presided over a severe degradation of the U.S. military and the diminution of America's reputation in the world—as the President who lost Iraq."

Another correspondent, Tony Karon, says Iraq is now pumping around half its pre-war levels of oil and, as we know, supply is continuing to be disrupted by sabotage as guerrilla attacks continue.

A typical day's incident report: "One U.S. soldier killed and three wounded by an improvised explosive device in Fallujah; another soldier killed in an ambush on a convoy in Baghdad and two of his colleagues wounded, four soldiers wounded in two separate ambushes in Baqubah and Ramadi. The U.S. is facing a guerrilla insurgency capable of mounting multiple simultaneous attacks in different locations, high profile terror attacks that spread panic in the civilian population and systematic sabotage attacks on oil, water and electricity supplies."

Over here the opposition is reminding Howard that as one of the coalition of occupiers, Australia too has an obligation to ensure security in Iraq. It's not an argument the government wants to hear.

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Fly time | Aug 25, 2003 09:40

I don't know how it happened but I'm on an Air New Zealand flight on the way home for a lightning visit - and somehow we managed to book tickets for $A399.

Pretty damn good. Dontcha love competition?

I haven't flown Air NZ for yonks and it was pretty good. Anyway, for some reason the airport was deserted, which is unusual for a Friday, and I steamed straight through check-in with an hour to spare. A couple of chardonnays, a couple of magazines and things are looking sweet.

I love flying.

Naturally I picked up a handful of papers on the way in including the Friday Australian Financial Review and the New Zealand Herald to add to the Bulletin and a copy of Time bought at the newsagents on the way out. I bought the Bullie, as it's called over here, because its cover headline shrieks about the fall of Fairfax. I bought Time because the cover is "Cool Kiwis: Why it's suddenly hot to be on the edge of the world". I got the AFR because on Friday it has the Review section, which is often brilliant and stimulating in very un-financial ways. I picked up the NZ Herald because I haven't seen it in print in ages, though I go to the site most mornings.

The AFR this week was a little light on items of interest to me personally, but I picked up some stuff that I will follow up on at work when I get back. Pitched as "your Guide to the World of Issues, Ideas & Opinion" the Review section features something on a WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico, which I can't be bothered reading, another on the appeal of Six Feet Under, which I've never seen, an item on the philosophy of science and some stuff on the Australian judicial system. For me a bad week, except for an article on Michel Foucoult's deconstruction of "society".

(The nice man is about to offer me a beer. I have a choice of Export Gold or Steinlager. How wonderful. Make mine an Ecky, kind sir.)

The Bullie was interesting, though pretty disparaging to anyone living sout h of Taupo.

The discussion about Michael Cullen's role is interesting too. He treats "the revenue" as if it was his own money.

Time's NZ feature was a bit too sweet to be believed. Sure, New Zealand is performing well, and it really is a great place. These articles are great PR, but not much else for anyone connected to the place.

Now, the New Zealand Herald. Hmmm. This one's a bit problematical. First the Friday edition:

What have they done to the design! Is it a broadsheet that thinks it's a tabloid, or is it a tabloid printed as a broadsheet? I can't work it out.

And why do we need those bold pointers on the introductions? An item on Virgin Blue has the intro "AVIATION: Airline says…" Oh, so Virgin Blue is an airline. I see. Or, even more stupidly, under the headline "Telecom offers farmers speedy internet deal" we have an intro that reads "TELECOMS: Broadband plan could…" So Telecom is a telecoms company. I might have missed that.

(The Chicken Kiev's just arrived!)

Also it looks like each section heading has a slightly different style with some using narrow fonts and some normal. The plugs on the front page are too overpowering using too many fonts.

SuperSPORT
With OnForm

Hmm.

What that "SuperSport" refers to is the sports supplement. Now here's a section that really knows what it's about and does it well. Looks right, reads right.

As to the content, there's some pretty decent stuff in the Herald though clearly some non-news. Take the business lead on Vector: "Vector has finally…" That "finally" is a dead giveaway: everybody knew before the story was written. A few lines down: "Vector's canning of the float came as no surprise…" Right.

I always find "Small Business" sections a bit patronizing and to have a review of a digital camera in the middle of your IT page is a bit crass too. But when you've only got one page what can you do? Chris Barton's column on Microsoft was nice and lively though.

The second lead on the front page is an item on the closure of water birthing pools in three hospitals. Only in NZ.

(Ice cream and a wee bottle of wine!)

After stepping out on the town at midnight and catching some zzzzs I checked out the Weekend edition, and it's a totally different beast. Good reading and much cleaner. The teaser panels are bigger but much better executed. I didn't like them devoting the whole front page to GM (and the illo, a piece of corn with Helen clark's face, was a tad amateurish). The profile on Tony Timpson by Paul Panckhurst was a bravura piece of weekly business writing. Excellent, in-depth work on a really interesting guy.

Then there's Gordie in the middle of the opinion page… don't get me started.

To draw the weekend to a close, the Sunday Star-Times steps up. It also looks much better than I remember and knows its job as a weekly, though I found the arts/books coverage a bit lightweight.

The Star-Times is nice a contrarian, stirring the pot with stories like the one on how the Lord of the Rings films didn't really benefit NZ and Rod Oram's prediction that the Qantas/Air NZ merger would go ahead.

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Bush, bacon and Butler | Aug 20, 2003 21:06

I'm just back from the bush, having had my car serviced at about half the price it would cost in Sydney, fired a few wayward rounds at some wascally wabbits (my mate, farm-boy Nigel, reckons they've never been safer), and generally had a good relax.

Having left strict instructions with the Girlie that there were to be NO PARTIES, I got out past Forbes in central NSW a bit late for the annual Bedgerebong Show, which was a shame, but just in time for kick-off in the final Bledisloe, which was superb. We were going to chase kangaroos on motorbikes at some stage, but somehow ran out of time.

Never mind, I did that last time I was out there and here's a little known fact: kangaroos, especially big ones, can't change direction when in full flight – there's too much weight, momentum and time in the air to turn sharply, or even bluntly. So you can ride right up beside them and have a good drag. Some larrikins, I hear, ride right up and push them over with their boots, but of course I would never…

Eventually, even here, you have to reach a fence. The roo bounds over effortlessly, you slam on the brakes, roo looks around, give the finger and disappears in a cloud of dust. Great fun.

The farm I was on, Caroboblin, features the remains of what was the world's largest shearing shed. It's about a quarter the size it was in years gone by, but still in use. Inside the shearers have stenciled their names and the year they worked there, going back to the 30s and beyond.

Huntin' is a feature of life in the bush. They even have a range of specialist magazines catering for the hardcore set. Bacon Busters is our favourite, featuring three pages of girlfriends draped over bloody pigs. The girlfriends are the ones in the bikinis.

Anyway, while out there we heard the ubiquitous Bondi-boy Richard Butler had been appointed governor of Tasmania. Now here is a man on the make. Butler is one of the most subtle shape-shifters I have ever seen. His changing stances on Iraq's WMDs have been staggering and are matched by his acceptance of the governorship. Now the Queen's man, he was a staunch republican.

(My God, I just linked to Miranda Devine!)

But when you see Butler justify these U-turns, he is almost believable. Almost, but not quite. On the ABC's 7.30 report, when Kerry O'Brien asked how he had the gall to accept the position, Butler defended superbly: He's a democrat. The people have had their say. He supports the constitution.

Let's look at it another way: When offered a cushy number Butler seemingly decides a republic isn't worth fighting for any more. Obviously it's not a matter of principle.

My guess is he hasn't yet saved enough for his retirement.

Butler concedes he won't be able to engage in politics as much in his new role and will have to tone down some of his public statements. The good news is, even without that, we should see a lot less of him. I mean, let's face it, name the last governor of Tasmania.

Go on.

Meanwhile, Pauline Hanson's chances of a governorship took a bit of a setback today.

Spooky update, 21 August 11.15

My off-the-cuff comment about Richard Butler's retiremnet savings gets an echo from Crikey:

"A pensioner writes:

"Sorry I cannot be more positive about Richard Butler but the appointment made me recollect the article by one of the more cynical commentators less than two years ago that Butler needed to get some money behind him as he had dependents and not much in the way of assets and income.

Lo and behold, he gets the Governorship of Tasmania - in mainland states the benchmark wage is equal to that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State and after five years service, the ex. Governor gets a pension of 75 per cent of the wage of the Chief justice as it is from time to time, for life.

Not a bad stipend that.

Might be worth checking up on the remuneration of the latest member of the Bill Hayden coverts to the benefits of monarchy club.

The jealous pensioner"

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Right-wingers are dirty pervies | Aug 14, 2003 12:07

That got your attention. But, like the dastardly bastard I am, I've buried the evidence at the end of this post so you'll have to read through the rest of my dross to get to it.

Aussie comedian Wil Anderson's comments on ABC offshoot Triple J a couple of weeks ago also attracted a bit of attention. Communications minister Senator Richard Alston was having a good go at the ABC over bias when Anderson on his drive-time slot quipped, "but that's just because he's a right-wing pig-rooter".

Oh how we laughed.

This morning "Professor" Anderson answered a Dorothy: "Why can't we remember when we were babies?"

His theory: As our mums had to go without drink for nine months when they were pregnant, as soon as we were born they went straight down the pub (that's why there's always a pub near a hospital) and got pissed. Breastfeeding, we were all loaded too and that's why a) we can't remember when we were babies; b) babies don't drive; c) babies fall over; and d) babies throw up all the time.

Simple really.

Okay, down to business. Right-wingers are dirty pervies.

We've always suspected, but the evidence was just anecdotal. A dodgy vicar here, a seedy scoutmaster there, guys in suits ducking quickly into massage parlours and strip joints everywhere. Then there was Herkt and Marshall's faux tabloid scoops about pollies and prostitutes.

There was something there. A pattern. But nothing you could build a case on. Just suspicion. We needed facts.

Hard facts.

Now here it is, quantified: according to Australia's most comprehensive government-funded study on pornography (how many have there been, for God's sake?) Liberal/National voters are porn fiends. Australia's most upright citizens may go to church on Sundays, but when they get home they slap a porno in the video and...

Well, let's just say Sunday is the day of wrist.

Among other interesting findings, the fact most porn video users find the plots realistic and 20% of porn users are women.

Any bets on how Shane Warne votes?

Meanwhile, the leader of this suspect crew, John Howard, a regular church-goer himself, has once again won the trust of the electorate. You thought his promise not to introduce GST was good. You gasped at his children overboard accusations. You thrilled at his evidence on weapons of mass destruction. Now, surpassing all, he's managed to dig a hole for himself over, of all things, Brazilian ethanol imports.

He denies he misled parliament, but nobody believes him, not even well-known ABC rent-a-redneck Andrew Bolt.

Mind you, Johnnie can do what he wants as long as Simon Crean sits across the way.

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Russell Crowe: actor, musician, insomnia cure | Aug 12, 2003 02:03

God Russell Crowe is boring.

I've been watching him being interviewed by Andrew Denton. Now Denton is a great interviewer, but even he can't pump any blood into this one. Not only that, Crowe is obviously too big a star to share the programme with anybody else. So we have to put up with him for a whole bloody hour.

Last week Denton challenged Mark "Chopper" Reid, Australia's favourite earless criminal maniac. Reid challenged him back, joked wryly, used Aussie understatement to devastating effect and still gave half the programme to someone else. Great TV.

This week Russ drones on and on. Girlie declared him a wanker and went to bed, asking on the way that I not mention her in my blog.

Russ has got a new song, a duet with Chrissy Hines of the Pretenders- who really should have known better. He's not very good. The song stinks too. To Denton, Russ rightly points out he isn't one of these tossers that puts out a CD just because they've had a bit of film success. He's the kind of tosser that put his first CD out in 1981.

While Russell is big enough to admit he was pretty bad back then, he isn't big enough to give it away now. And he certainly wouldn't be doing a duet with Chrissie Hines if it hadn't been for his acting. More likely he'd be doing one with Chopper.

Yes, the Chopmeister has also been known to bless Aussie airwaves with his two EPs, "The Smell of Love" and "Get Your Ears Off". According to his site there is another on the way. I can't wait.

Back to 1981. That was quite a year for NZ music. The Clean, Toy Love, The Androids at the Rumba Bar, The Newmatics, Sneaky Feelings, Verlaines and the band that kept Auckland pumping when there was nobody else around: the fabulous Furies. And then there was Russ le Roc.

I never went and saw Russ le Roc and I guess I now regret it. I never went because so many people told me he was crap. Mind you, them were judgmental times, them were. Far more than now, and maybe more than anytime before, what you listened to determined who you were.

But just about everyone agreed Russ le Roc was crap.

Russ reckons he was tired and mourning the passing of fellow actor and part-time crooner Richard "MacArthur Park" Harris when he tried to lay one on local hero Eric Watson a few months ago. (Right, and there I was thinking they were in the dunny debating the meaning of insider trading). Fair call, Russ, but what we want to hear about is the ex-girlfriend you and Eric reportedly had in common. At least that won't send us to sleep.

C'mon, for God's sake, let's get tabloid here.

No. He drones on.

I'm going to bed too.

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One big cuddle | Aug 05, 2003 19:51

Proof, Sydney Theatre Company, at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House.

Proof, by David Auburn, has been a startling theatre success across the world and has won full houses here over the last few weeks before departing on a broader tour.

However, it has also attracted some criticism as being an easy play, a play designed to please without really challenging or stretching the audience. In other words, the dialogue sparkles, the characters are rounded, the acting is superior and the plot is fully developed.

Many of the write-ups emphasise that the play is a mystery. Catherine (Jacqueline McKenzie) has been caring for her mathematician father. After his death a post-grad student is going through her fathers' notebooks, pretty much finding the ravings of a deranged mind. Catherine gives him the key to a drawer in her father's desk and in it he finds one last notebook, this time containing a "proof", a brilliant mathematical proof.

But who wrote it?

However, the play isn't really a mystery at all and if you go along expecting some sort of whodunnit you will definitely be disappointed. Instead Proof explores relationship issues, and aspects of genius and madness.

It may seem an unlikely vehicle for comic writing, but there is a large amount of humour in this play. Writer Auburn began his career with comic sketches, a capability that leavens what otherwise could have been quite a dark story.

It is telling that Auburn has formed a company to revive some theatre classics. This play has a classic feel about it, a family saga with a sort of Tennessee Williamson realism. He likes the "emotional availability" of these classics, their lack of cynicism.

In that sense Auburn and Proof, at this point, represent a turning back of the theatre clock, a reaction to high art in theatre, to postmodernism and multiple layers of irony. There isn't a jot of cynicism in this play, and that, frankly, is refreshing. But it is also a form of escapism. I had a strong feeling the play was answering an audience need in that regard.

Just how much does Proof relate to and explore what it is like to live in the early days of the third millennium? Not hugely.

The characters are all appealing in their own ways. There are no nasties and no unpleasant surprises. It is all set on a back porch and we, the members of the audience, want to be there on that porch with the very appealing characters. We want to meet the physics geeks that cause havoc at Catherine's father's wake and hear the maths department band. I at least (and I suspect I was not alone) wanted to cuddle up to Catherine big time.

This is definitely a play that draws you in with its warmth. It has a veneer of big ideas, but it is really about families and about romance and a bit about melancholy.

Jacqueline McKenzie is superb, but won't be accompanying the play when it tours – she has to go back to the US. She oozes personality and vibrancy. Jonny Pasvolsky was also very good as the post-grad student. As we were with the sponsors, JD Edwards, the cast joined us for drinks afterwards. Pasvolsky's transformation from nervous, stammering geek (and suiter to Catherine) into his real persona was truly startling.

Barry Otto is a stalwart of Australian theatre, but I found his accent a bit odd. I'm not sure what it was meant to be.

Anyway, Proof: it's really nice.

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Naughty they're not | Aug 04, 2003 15:33

It started off well. I was on the roof of my apartment with friends and family, drinking champers and watching the sun come up over Rangitoto while some loon made the first water-ski of the new millennium along the harbour. We were all feeling rather mellow.

That was January 1, 2000. Around 5 am.

The coming decade had already been dubbed the "naughties". We were going to shake off the constraints of the 90s and P-A-R-T-Y like it was 2099. The boom would go on forever and we'd all skive off for long lunches and shag each-other green. The long boom would just get longer.

Well so far I'm damn disappointed. The boom has fizzled out globally but, let's face it, Australia and New Zealand are trucking along okay, for now.

Leaving the shagging aside for a moment, everywhere you look there's a spirit of meanness and cheapness. Corporations have screwed down their costs totally and still search for further efficiencies. Profligacy in government certainly isn't tolerated. We are all working our asses off with half the staff we used to have, no downtime, wage freezes everywhere, no chance to look up and check the scenery. We go home tired and grumpy.

Apparently Australians are increasingly in nesting mode. They invest in their homes rather than in holidays or getting away. Fear of global terrorism? I don't think so. They're just plain buggered.

Maybe it's my energy levels…

My mate Angus got hit with that one in an interview recently. Now if there's one person that doesn't have energy issues it's Angus, he's a bit like the little Energiser man. What he does have a problem with is a) having me as a mate and b) being 44. That's what the recruitment toady was really saying, you see (being 44, I mean). I have to wonder from some of the stories I hear whether so-called HR professionals in corporate organizations know what their outsourced recruiters get up to. These guys are almost totally unaccountable. The applicant has no comeback whatsoever, not even knowing who the client is.

Here's an idea: every recruitment ad has a unique hotmail address listed where the applicants can communicate – or at least vent – direct to the client about the performance of their agent.

Anyway, I felt my age on the weekend too, playing cricket out at Burwood in the inner west. Glorious winter's day, ground like concrete, very small pitch, we chased 290 off 30 overs and didn't really get near. I'm sore all over.

It was interesting to note the obligatory war memorial in the corner of the park listed the NZ Wars as well as the usual suspects - Boer, WWI and so forth. I haven't seen that before.

Anyway, I was never a great cricketer but I like to think I was a handy social player. Well, it's all gone to pot. My bowling was inoffensive when it wasn't wide. Batting my feet don't move any more – not even a little.

The guys I was playing with are computer industry types. I don't want to say geeks because they were all much more capable than me, even in my prime. But when your most effective bowler is nicknamed iMac and your skipper is Webco, there's really only one place this is going: retirement.

Angus may not have "energy level" problems, but I sure do.

Ciao.

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