Sat 8 Dec — Angie Hart, Skipping Girl Vinegar

i know barely anything about Angie Hart’s music, so i could enjoy this without expectation.

The band is really something .. she has Cam Butler and Dan Luscombe both on guitars, keyboard etc. I don’t know who the drummer and bass player were, but as an ensemble they created a warm and vibrant soundscape for Angie to shine on vocals.

She doesn’t dance or perform really, just sticks to singing the songs in a simple and engaging style.

A lovely evening.

After a delicious day in the park for Louise’s birthday (languorous mojito picnic at a super long doors-on-milk-crates table)

.. the gang decides to head off to see the very amazing Vulgargrad at melbourne’s own Spiegeltent.

When we get there, we find out it’s the very last night for our famous tent .. and the crowd is pumped up like a football on grand final day. (hmm)

Vulgargrad? Oh they’re funny, they’re energetic and they’re playing dirty Russian criminal Gypsy punk .. or something like that. All i know is they’re good to dance to, and one of their songs sounds a lot like Rawhide, in Russian.

Apparently the lead singer has a Polish accent, but i can’t pick it.

Joy and delight all round.

So yes, i had an interview with jon faine (a month ago now). It was a strange experience for me, as i don’t often appear on radio. You can hear it all over again .. right here.

Or tune into his more recent work on the abc site.

provided by ODEO

Listening back, i mildly regret implying that people in the bar were not likely to be literary critics. It was funny at the time, a standard knee-jerk dig at people you don’t know, insinuating a lesser intellectual sophistication, and flag-flying the stereotype that “rednecks can’t read and probably wouldn’t want to anyway“.

(When in fact a whole heap of well-educated people are ignorant and prejudiced too.)

However i have worked for many years with people whose self-worth has been destroyed by the stigma of low literacy. Believe me, if you can’t read in this society, you get looked down upon by everyone.

On top of this, having a low level of literacy is about more than your own personal abilities; in fact the overall levels of health, wealth, employment and social cohesion in the local community all contribute to a person’s ability to learn at school. There was some great research recently that highlighted the interconnectedness of all these factors.

Apart from that, i’m okay with the interview.
i’d recommend following up that research – Tony Vinson and Peter Norden. Brilliant.

Related: Research on Social Disadvantage in Australia.

(image: thanks mrtwism)

Throughout this bizarre saga, i have found colleagues, friends and family to be wonderfully supportive, and genuinely hilarious. So thanks to all of you, especially:

Tim – always on the lookout:
“Did you say fertiliser? Michael, you don’t know who’s listening! (Louder) i am not associated with this person.”

Bushy for his crack-up comments:
“Think we got ourselves a reader“, “Whatcha reading for?” and “Read any good books lately?”

Amarina for leaning across to the window of her ute and drawling,
“We don’t like your type around here.“

Gayle, as i was dancing in the doorway at the launch of i dream a highway, northcote high st.
“I’m sorry we’re going to have to ask you to leave. Heard about you and your inappropriate dancing.“

Rhi and Ben:
“Gotta get you a t-shirt that says ‘Northcote’s favourite terrorist’”

My fabulous sister for sending me the “I’m a tourist not a terrorist” t-shirt from amsterdam.
Lou for reading through the first letter to the editor.

Plus thanks to people who’ve joined in this online storytelling experience:

• Rhi and Jo for posting brilliant comments to the blog, and twice!
• Katie, A.Duck, BiddyB, Howard, for their delightfully supportive comments.
• Susan for her limerick all the way from Canada ..

Colleagues who applauded my entrance at a work celebration day, the morning after this whole thing hit the headlines.

My mother for showing her protective side and saying, “I just want this to go away. i think it’s over now.”

Okay mum, i’ll write about other stuff now. Hope, the future, and being polite.
i won’t talk about the fear and hysteria gripping the western world, or the possibility that governments are using this fear to destroy civilian freedoms. No no no.

I’ve found some references to Naomi Wolf’s latest book, and it is scarier than the one by Richard Flanagan. “The End of America” is apparently about the ten steps any would-be dictator can take to rapidly shut down a democracy. She’s done her research on the early years of several dictators .. and here’s the crazy stuff – she suggests that Bush’s US government has taken all ten steps.

This caused a storm earlier in the year, but i missed it. There’s an article in the Guardian, and some youtubed interviews with Noami, including this one:

In this interview she speaks mainly of the first four of the ten steps:
1) Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy (Osama, Saddam ..
2) Create a gulag – an off-shore prison with different laws (Guantanamera ..
3) Develop a thug caste – a paramilitary force not answerable to the people (apparently a private army called Blackwater already operates in the USA?
4) Set up an internal surveillance system aimed at ordinary citizens (make sure everyone has a fridge magnet, break down trust and stir up discontent between different social groups ..

Having a vote doesn’t mean you’re living in an open society with the underpinnings of civil rights and freedoms; because closed societies (countries without freedom) do have elections, and they do have newspapers.

Why does the President have the right to federalise the national guard, to torture people, to detain citizens without charge? Naomi sees this as a war on the citizens of democracy.. that our apathy and our terror has blinded us to the rapid onslaught of tyranny.

People in Alabama being put in prison for donating to the Democratic party? Time to wake up, says Ms Wolf. Now! Every day counts. Let us restore the rule of law.

Blimey! Surely it can’t be that bad? I mean America is land of the free, isn’t it?
You don’t think we’re going to see vigilantes in the streets? Concentration camps? Invading other countries for colonialist gain .. oh ..

When the First Tuesday Book Club on abc.net.au reviewed “The Unknown Terrorist”, the book didn’t come off so well.

• Marieke said it was “Earnest” and would only convert the true believers (the people who don’t need converting).
• Jason Steeger enjoyed the book, and said it was more of a tragedy: “Not a thriller, it’s dressed up as a thriller .. it’s more of a contemporary horror story.”
• The other guy (?) said it was “Too stark, too stereotypical .. but a bit too raw,” although “the Flanagan brothers are very good news for Australia.” More like a film script in novel form.
  

But Germaine stole the show with her wild and angry commentary, calling the preface “infuriating, pretentious bilge” .. to begin the book with a weave around Jesus and Nietszche. Ms Greer found the narrator and The Doll to be “inextricably tangled”, and the plot to be nonsense: “couldn’t have got it past a harlequin editor”.

“Greatest load of old nonsense!” Germaine says she will cut her throat from ear to ear if this book wins the Booker (she toned this down when asked to compare Flanagan’s supposed exaggeration with her own). Oh Germaine, your vitriol is unsurpassed! What a delightful roller-coaster!

i’m glad i’m not the author of the book. i felt nervous enough just having enjoyed it. i’m also glad i can enjoy reading a book without having my internal critic give me angst all the way through. Must be awful being a critic.

Ooh, look, they’ve reviewed Chris Womersley’s new book, The Low Road. This won a premier’s award for unpublished manuscript, and my mum gave it to me for my birthday. I wonder if it’s the sort of book i can read in public places…?

all the best, and happy reading 🙂 !

Hasan Elahi – the Visible Man – found himself on the wrong side of federal government agencies. “Where were you on september twelfth?” they asked him, before grilling the guy with nine lie detector tests.

So Hasan decided to publish every tiny morsel of his life. Many times during each day, images from his location are broadcast live in the name of art and safety.

Will this transparency be required of all citizens in the future? Are we heading in the Right Direction? Would you be prepared to wear a GPS Ankle Bracelet for your own safety?

Here’s an interview with the artist.

(Read more on this fascinating suspect: Wired on Elahi, Live tracking, article in World Changing, Wikipedia, CBS News, Wired article about Sousveillance)

(image: thanks for what are you looking at by nolifebeforecoffee, and under Surveillance by Naccarato at flickr)

Enough reacting to the desperate and vicious attitudes of media commentators!

.. here’s some good news. Unfortunately i missed the SBS documentary, but Martin Flanagan (Richard’s brother), demonstrates his delightful flair for interviewing Aussie sporting greats, in this piece on Mecca Laalaa.

Mecca has hit the headlines because she represents a change in attitude at Cronulla Beach, Sydney. Following the riots of 2005, the local council decided to encourage non-anglo people (especially Muslim people) to become lifesavers. But they only invited the men. Ms Laalaa however has always wanted to be a lifesaver. So she fought the discrimination, and joined the lifesaving forces.

Now she’s pioneering a new Australian fashion .. the “burqini”, which is a wetsuit with a hood. Yeah! Go Mecca!

Let’s all keep an eye out for the positive and healthy changes in our cultural environment. It’s not all bad, is it!

More from the media: book reviewer Rosemary Sorenson, writing in the Weekend Australian Review (02 dec), reckons that it (that Cairns pub incident) all depends where you were standing at the time, and regurgitates the patrons’ version of events.

(.. a version i heartily disagree with ..)

Rosemary also claims that management have declared they were acting to protect the ‘provocative interloper‘ from potential violence.

Well a blessed relief. Good to know that any (allegedly) potentially violent people are left inside the hotel, where they can’t do any damage. Wouldn’t want them out on the streets.

It’s an interesting version of events: i’ve read similar things on comment pages all around the country. One web cruiser wrote that Queensland must have gone soft because “a few years ago he would have been shark bait“.

I guess that the security workers were protecting that Indigenous woman too. She was probably escorted to the door for her own benefit. Don’t you reckon?

Still i’m glad to learn that management didn’t seriously think i was a security threat. Because it would be disturbing to learn they let a potential threat go to the next pub down the road. Wooden it?

ugh, i’m sure i’ll get over the whole thing very soon. Smile.

Love to youse all.
from the unknown reader

(thanks a bundle for fighting statue by mmarchin, and the attacker by kodama (home); both from flickr, licensed under Creative Commons.)

Do the Nut Bush. Do the Funky Gibbon. Do the Expressive Chicken. Yah!

Or .. Do the Motionless Standstill.
It’s the latest craze.
Mm-hm, the Stock-still (apparently).

Would you believe the Very Slow Robot?
The Freeze Frame? The Matrix Slow-Mo?

Sigh! Will i ever live this down? Standing still on a dancefloor !?
No way .. i wasn’t .. i didn’t .. those people, they’re being disingenuous!


Look i’m sorry you got called ‘paranoid’.
i know you’re just Normal within a Paranoid Society.
Can’t we just be mates? Maaaaate?

That’s it for me and dancefloors, we’re over!
I’m just going to sit still at a table with my beer and a my mates,
staring at the chicks on the chequered squares
.. like a Normal Aussie Bloke.

“You say, Everything’s All right. I Say, Nothing can go right Babe. Chequered Love.”
Yah. Right.

(images: thanks Carf and aardvaark)