Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Of course I was sceptical when I learnt that Tom Ford was the director for this film which is based upon a novel by British author Christopher Isherwood. I don’t think you should hold that against me: Ford belongs to a very glitzy, polished world, and the artform we associate him with is different enough to filmmaking.

I knew nothing about the film but good friend @coliwilso had mentioned that he loved it, and he watches a lot of film. I figured it would have stood out for him for very good reasons.

An English expat literature professor living in LA is coping with the sudden death of his partner Jim. We learn about Jim through flashbacks that George (Colin Firth’s character) has – his tragic death, their meeting, their love.

George is an isolated man. He has one close friend Charley (Julianne Moore), who is a link to his past in London. Naturally, the loss of his life partner has taken a toll on his mental and physical health. The surroundings filmed appear very monochromatic or contain little colour variation to reflect this.

In what seems to me a very Death In Venice-type theme (both Thomas Mann’s novella of the same name and Visconti’s glorious film), George is partially restored to life and vigour by a young, somewhat inquisitive student of his, Kenny. This youth looks like he’s stepped out of a Tom Ford fashion shoot, and this is exploited in the film. But rather than just looking like a model, Kenny is a pensive young man, and he seems genuinely concerned for his teacher’s well-being.

There is so much in this film that normally I would dismiss as indulgent, and clichéd: the colour saturation when the camera closes up on beautiful young faces. The dullness of the environs to help us better perceive George’s despair. So much care has gone into the composition of this film – in what the characters wear, lighting – in fact, I find myself wanting to use the term mise-en-scène. Just when the film starts to feel or look excessive, the excessiveness stops, as if to trick you into thinking that it couldn’t possibly be perceived as corny.

I’ve personally never seen Colin Firth in anything appalling (no, not even Bridget Jones’ Diary or St Trinian’s) and this film is a fantastic reminder that he is a consummate actor. My only real complaint was that ageing him for his role was a tad unconvincing. I need more than a dab of grey in his mop! But still, I might even be compelled to get the film on DVD…virtually unheard of for me.

I was lucky enough to see it in the Sun Theatre in Yarraville. It’s ages away from where I live, but so worth the trip. The cinemas are so sumptuous. We were in the Davis room, which has a beautiful leadlight above.

Sadly, I do not think Disney and Tim Burton are two entertainment institutions meant to coexist. I didn’t actually realise that this new venture of Burton’s was a Disney flick.

As an Alice lover, the film disappointed on a few fronts. Yes, it was utterly gorgeous, surreal and visually sumptuous, but I went in thinking it would be a fairly straight-but-awesome adaptation of Carroll’s book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Not so. The ideas are, however, unmistakably original – a girl named Alice Kingsley is plunged back into a world that she thinks is part of her dreams after trying to escape societal pressures placed upon her.

When she falls down the rabbit-hole, she seems to spend a lot of her time proving that she is indeed an Alice, not necessarily the Alice, in a very confused mish-mash of Carroll’s oeuvre – both the Alice books, and the delicious poem ‘Jabberwocky’. I’m trying to determine whether or not Burton has any references to ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ but I think I’d need to rewatch the film.

It’s definitely worth a watch if you enjoy the Alice mythos as of course there are some brilliant bits. Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter is spot-on, though I really adored Alice. Helena Bonham-Carter’s Red Queen seems to have shades of Miranda Richardson’s Queenie (from Blackadder II).

I like that it raises a few interesting issues or concepts for consideration, though perhaps to a very specific (read: wanky) audience. For instance, what is in a name? By extension, what is in the name of an author? Alice constantly has to prove herself, and acknowledges that she is not the Alice this Wonderland wants, or needs. A scroll telling of the ‘Frabjous Day’ has already ‘written’ Wonderland’s history and fate. As a former lit student, I was naturally reminded of Roland Barthes’ ‘Death of the Author’ and Michel Foucault’s ‘What is an author’ essays – both of which are shoved down every first-year lit student’s throat.

We also get a dose of watered-down Freudian psychoanalysis with the Red Queen’s obsession with decapitation (which one supposes translates to Freudian castration). Yawn, yes, I know, this has been pointed out ad nauseum in relation to Carroll’s text. It is extended to include the rather surreal and grotesque practice of pricking in this particular film, and the taking out of various characters’ eyes – this to me reeks of Burton proper, none of this candy Disney stuff. Poking out eyes is disturbing, and its use in the film is deliberate.

The Red Queen makes an interesting point to her knave (who accuses the object of his desire, ‘Um’ of making an unwanted sexual advance towards him), about how one must decapitate or kill those whom she fears, so that she cannot be let down by them. Both of these characters have very unusual and unconventional modes of acknowledging their sexualities. A straight Freudian reading would intimate that they fetishise, and therefore are deviant in their sexuality.

A very sad way to live one’s life, killing those we fear, but not dissimilar to America’s modus operandi in regards to world politics. Yes, yes, us arts grads are an annoying lot when it comes to reading metaphor in any text.

Edit: @coliwilso has kindly pointed out to me that the poem ‘Jabberwocky’ is in fact in Through the Looking Glass, or, What Alice Found There. Cheers, old man!

What awesome luck it was to not only get a half-decent parking spot near the place, but as I walked to the Corner, I saw two musicians sitting on a park bench, playing softly to one another. The man had a guitar, and the girl had a keyboard with a mouthpiece.

It was just perfect, and I very much wanted to take a photo, but felt this would intrude upon their intimacy. Later on, as I surmised, they were on stage as the support act Tenniscoats, for Deerhoof.

I struggled very much with the first support act Minimum Chips who are from Australia. They had given a copy of their CD to the drummer of Deerhoof and all band members fell in love with unanimously, they claim. Nothing was wrong with Minimum Chips as such but something was missing…they didn’t enthrall.

Unlike Tenniscoats. As soon as this duo walked onto the stage and began to play, the crowd hushed and seemed enraptured by their playfulness and child-like innocence. I loved them, more so than Deerhoof, actually.

Deerhoof were very cool and ridiculous fun to watch on stage, but I felt like each band member played for themselves, rather than as a tight band. The drummer chatting to the audience was nice, but disrupted the energy of the gig – the band is frenetic on stage, and the drummer was a stammering, rambling mess. Maybe the fans loved him, but I was kind of glad when Satomi, the lead singer told him to get on with it. Don’t get me wrong, the drummer is freaking ace – pretty sure he made some sort of mad pact with Mephistopheles.

I am ashamed to report that when Satomi held out the microphone to the dirty hipsters around me, I was the only one uncool enough to shoot ‘woo!’ into the microphone. There’s my five seconds of fame.

It’s quite hard to believe that The Forum didn’t want Amanda to play at this venue because they didn’t believe in her ability to gather the required numbers to fill the space. Incidentally, her gig last year was at The Corner Hotel in Richmond – a much more intimate space (yes, way smaller). Thanks to my chum @maxcelcat, I was able to get tickets to go to her gig tonight. She even did a secret gig at the Butterfly Club a few days beforehand!

Amanda personally introduced all her support acts, which was quite sweet. We were greeted in by a song by a local band called The Jane Austen Argument. The male vocalist apparently picks up Amanda from the airport every time she’s in Melbourne town.

The main support act, however, was Mikelangelo, a fellow she’d met at the Spiegeltent. That was where I first saw him, a few years ago with back-ups the Black Sea Gentlemen. Mikelangelo is old world sex and sings with gusto such songs about cannibalism and attraction. This time around he had the One and a Half Night Stand to back him up. Mikelangelo also plays the clarinet for a dose of schmaltz (quite well too!).

When Amanda came on stage, it was just her and a keyboard. Very early on, the keyboard accidentally slipped into harpsichord mode and Mikelangelo gallantly hopped back on stage to fix for her. As a performer, she is very generous – not just in performance, but to her audience. One gets the impression that she really is glad you came out to see her. She signed a copy of her book when asked (she wanted to see a copy and a fan got it passed up to stage. She was asked to sign it and she happily obliged).

She played songs from her solo album, as well as a couple of Dresden Dolls ones, and a new song slipped in. At one stage we were all treated to Paul Kelly and Mick Harvey (of Bad Seeds fame) as special guests. Ace.

Just when you thought the concert was finished, Amanda appeared in the upper level, spotlighted, and played a cover of ‘Creep’ (ya, Radiohead!) on the ukelele. The audience was thrilled. Corny, but we all sang along.

Amanda even managed to march along in the SLAM rally a few days earlier. Perhaps all performers feel obliged to say it, but she professed to love Melbourne, and is coming here next year for a few months.

The very first time I went to Sydney, it was pretty boring. I was with an aunt, who was excellent company, but we knew no locals and let’s face it, hotels everywhere all look the same. It’s not really an ideal way to get to know a city.

One of my closest friends, L, was kind enough to put me up for a few days when I went to Sydney in late January. She is owned by a certain Ms Monkeypants, or Monkey for short, who is a rescued cat. As you can see in the photo, she’s got very long fur.

L tells me it’s taken a while for Monkey to open up – not unusual for rehomed cats. I was pretty nervous about meeting Monkey, because…what if she didn’t like me? My own cat is very wary of strangers and I was expecting the same from Monkey. I would’ve understood, but still been a bit sad…

She was guarded, but kind. I tried to be respectful of her and not too crazy-excited (which I was). There was one day that she forgot I was staying at L’s and jumped at first seeing me. She got her own back when one morning, she came and cat kissed me – I sat bolt-upright in bed wondering what on earth the cold wetness on my nose was. I turned to see an inquisitive creature, observing me, a little puzzled. Not even my own kitty greets me with cat kisses.

Monkey and L let me into their lives and most intimate living space. I could not have enjoyed Sydney as much as I did without either of them.

You probably think I’ve slowed down with my reading but nothing could be further from the truth! At the moment, I have taken a breather from books to catch up on a large backlog of issues from The New Yorker. I was a ridiculously lucky/spoilt thing and received a gift subscription. It makes for excellent, provocative reading but it’s pretty hard-going!

Tonight, I thought I’d set aside my mags for the graphic novel version of Coraline. I’d seen the stunning film adaptation last year but still hadn’t read the book. I know it might be biased to say so, but Gaiman can’t disappoint.

Coraline Jones is a sullen girl with parents who largely ignore her for their work. Not wanting to wallow, she takes it upon herself to keep entertained by exploring her new environs – an old house divided up into flats. She has wonderfully quirky neighbours who insist upon getting her name wrong and who seem to inhabit another plane of existence.

It all starts with a door that is bricked up. Somehow Coraline is able to go through this door and finds creepy alternate reality versions of her parents who seem terrific compared to her actual reality. She soon learns that they are not all that they seem and her parents disappear. Coraline ends up having to rescue them and other lost souls, all with the help of a cheeky but very clever black cat.

This is the kind of book that would scare the shit out of you, but you would not be able to stop reading, as a child. There are great elements of horror, and some of sadness – the phenomenon of parents not having enough time for their children is all too common these days. Just the other day I heard one of my brother’s in-laws telling her four-year-old to go and stop bothering Mummy and play his Nintendo DS.

It’s nice too because it allows us to imagine what escaping our authority figures might be like, and hints that responsibility is actually pretty hard. After all, parents are too busy for good reason, most of the time.

The book isn’t long, and absolutely well worth reading. P. Craig Russell’s illustrations do it justice – evident from small things like the drawing of the black cat in characteristic poses, and smatterings of Poe-like horror (detached hands creeping about the place). My largely grown-up mind did not want it to finish.

Recently, @halia reminded me that I wrote a post once, about a year ago on meeting a cat that belongs to a beautiful old cinema in Melbourne called the Astor. Her name is Marzipan. She is lovely – keep an eye out for her if you see a film there, as she’s not afraid of people and happy to mingle.

I thought it might be nice to recount parts of my Sydney week-long holiday through the felines I met and fell in love with. I know, you’re thinking for me, not hard. It’s true. Both of the cats I met I missed as much as the people to whom they belong.

Chloe is an old lass, but in good health. She’s got the colouring that means that in Japan they call her mike-neko, or roughly ‘tricoloured cat’ – which are only ever female. My human host at her house was @deconstructo, though oddly, Chloe does not formally belong to him.

He explained that Chloe adopted him, and her actual owners are a lovely couple with whom @deconstructo lives. But who can argue with a cat? Chloe sat on @deconstructo’s feet, and it was decided that the three humans, and cat would all live together.

As is indicative of Chloe’s nature, the people who live in the house are warm, generous and open. My memories of the house include good food, beer and excellent conversation. All three humans in the house looked after me, as did Chloe. She basked in the extra attention lavished upon her while I stayed there, apparently, and I missed her very much upon my return to Melbourne. She likes to be near you, is quite talkative and looks after her humans well who reciprocate in like fashion.

I look forward to @deconstructo visiting Melbourne, though he will need to give me warning so I can make sure I buy enough cider and perry for us to guzzle. What luck to find wonderful new friends.

Not half an hour ago, my mother came home with some shopping. She beckoned me into the kitchen after my stint on the treadmill, and showed me a beautiful gold pendant, with a guardian angel.

She then said to me that this was a present from me to my newborn nephew Leon. She said she would buy me a card and then asked me if she would like me to give it to him tonight, or when I next saw him. I faltered and said decided it was probably time to speak my mind.

I very, very gently explained that I wasn’t fully well yet (just a flare-up of my chronic illness – nothing major, but draining nevertheless), and that when I could, I would indeed organise to visit Leon and parents. I said that my brother would know that the present she bought for me to give to Leon would be recognised as something that I would never pick out because:
- I very rarely shop for jewellery made of anything precious
- I would never choose anything with a religious symbol – my brother was very well aware of my atheism (something my mother chooses over and over to ignore)

I said that I had spoken to a good friend @lluke and explained that I’m not close to my brother, and even less so to his wife. After Luke’s excellent advice and upon hearing that the mother was really struggling with her new role in motherhood, I felt it best to wait a month or so before visiting again (as it happens, I did get semi-bullied into visiting when the new parents were in post-natal care at the Grand Hyatt in the city centre (!!!)).

My brother’s in-laws are very flamboyant, and not particularly welcoming. They are also quite xenophobic and have taken the view that they have welcomed my brown brother into their family as some sort of act of superlative charity. At the end of the day, I am extremely happy that they do accept my brother and do not make his life hell. In fact, they rather like him.

They like me less so, which is fine by me until I am in the same room. My brother’s wife is extremely close to her parents and though my mother cannot admit it, she is struggling for a place in their new family. She struggles to do things to show that she is, essentially, just as good as them. I told her she doesn’t need to be so performative, but she insists she is not. My partner and my father have both noted at some stage that there are elements of her behaviour that betray her in this respect.

So, what to do? How am I to display in a manner that is both true to myself and takes into consideration what the new family want? I have bore my mother’s insinuations as best I can that I need to visit Leon NOW NOW NOW. After the somewhat explosive ‘chat’ in the kitchen, I think she will give me a bit more leeway, but not for long.

A sad world where one constantly needs to demonstrate one’s love materially. If I could be left alone with Leon, I would just hold him, and stroke him every now and then, and tell him I hope the world won’t be too rough with him. He would have no right to believe me – I who spend so much time in the realm of the unwell. Why can’t we love on our terms, and ours alone? Who is my mother to tell me how I should demonstrate my love to my nephew? Of course at this stage, my father piped in and then went on to tell me that I was sorely lacking in comparison to my partner.

All this over one gold charm meant for my nephew.

I forgot to post that at the end of January, I went to see the Horrors live (thanks @tephdee for selling me a ticket!). It was the same day I got back from a week in Sydney – my first proper time there.

Crowd-wise, I had a terrible experience. I was bullied by this horrible drunken yob who thought it fine to tell me off because he was thrashing his ugly body all over the place and right into my elbow. But cheers to the lovely strangers who stood up for me. Most of the folks there were respectful and stuff.

I couldn’t really see much from where I was, but holy fuck the lead singer. Lovely hair, eyes that draw you in…I was mesmerised by his stage presence. He’s a very charismatic lad. So much so that I must confess that I didn’t really pay much attention to the rest of the band members, and that’s very unusual for me. It was a damned fine gig.

The support act, the Fabulous Diamonds, took a bit of time to warm up to. Long, instrumental, psychedelic tracks. Eventually vocals would come in but not after several minutes. I liked that the drumming and keyboard parts were so minimalist – I mean in the classical music sense.

Got a few gigs coming up from next week onwards. Should be ace fun.

I thought these would be Potter’s take on various nursery rhymes but instead, they are portions of nursery rhymes illustrated, interspersed with Potter’s own. I didn’t find them particularly enthralling, and I really like nursery rhymes and the like. These two books really could have been just one, as they are really very short. Was she doing it for the money by this stage, assuming that I read them in their publication order?

Another Potter book about bullying! A cat gets teased by a mouse, so she teases him back. Not really sure how I feel about that. Again, not one of the greatest in the Potter tales – they’re a bit downhill after The Tale of Little Pig Robinson which was really good.

I warn you in advance, I’ve read the last four of the Potter books but I promise I have been doing some ‘real’ reading – I’m finally halfway through The Duchess, the biography upon which the film was based. I really wish I was ploughing through a novel at present, but I’m trying to get through my unfinished books.

Potter’s running out of ideas, it feels. I didn’t quite expect this to be as short as it was: basically a ‘fierce bad rabbit’ bullies a good rabbit but he gets his just deserts! Serves him right.

If you’re expecting more, that’s it. Of course the rabbits are exceedingly cute.

Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy is probably the most intelligently written children’s fiction/fantasy I’ve ever read. I didn’t find the first one The Northern Lights as easy to read as this one – it’s fast-paced and thoroughly interesting.

It can be confusing at times too – Lyra and Will live in alternate Oxfords and somehow end up in each others’ worlds and move between the two. With this, we also have a thinly veiled critique of the Catholic Church and some concepts relating to physics. Pretty heavy stuff. I read on Wikipedia that Pullman weaves Milton’s Paradise Lost through the trilogy. Sadly, I’ve not read Milton, so I can’t quite identify this.

Gobbled up two thirds of it one insomniac-riddled evening, or rather, morning. I honestly don’t know what took me so long to pick this off my shelf. Can’t wait for the third one, though I’ll be really sad when it’s over…will probably buy those other smaller companion books.

It’s also fantastic to read books for children that doesn’t talk down to them and treats them as the beings they are – capable of extreme intuition and intelligence.

This is the longest story out of all the Beatrix Potter tales. It starts off innocently enough – a pig goes to market to run errands for his aunts, as he is a sweet-natured little piglet. Alas, the market is riddled with dangers that a naive pig might not be ready for.

It also makes references to other famous literary works – poor Pig Robinson gets pretty much abducted by sailors and meets a cat that helps him escape – the cat of ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ fame. Pig has further adventures on Bong Island, and the reader is told that they should read Robinson Crusoe to find out more.

Anyway, it’s delightful and you should all go out and read it. It proved to be excellent respite from the postmodernist text I’m currently making my way through.

No one likes Ginger and Pickles and they are determined to run their store into the ground, despite their store being cheaper, and letting people buy things on credit.

Perhaps I’m just being a grumpy pseudo-Marxist, but what is wrong with these people/animals? Ginger and Pickles work hard and are generous to their customers. Their shop eventually folds and the townspeople are forced to shop at Tabitha Twitchit’s more expensive shop and she does not offer credit! Ginger becomes stout and Pickles becomes a gameskeeper (which immediately made me think of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, another novel about the difference between the various social classes).

Not one of my favourites from the Potter collection.

This is one of the sillier Beatrix Potter tales.

A cat invites a dog over for a party. The dog worries that she will be served mouse pie, and so sneaks her own pie into the cat’s oven to cook. Dog ends up eating cat’s pie, but then worries she has accidentally eaten a metal patty-pan in the process. Cat’s party is thrown into disrepute as she has to call the doctor for the idiotic dog.

I’m sure that this is all just a comedy of manners and very much indicative of the time Potter lived and for this reason, I’m not sure it really works as a story for children. One of the Potter tales I’ve least enjoyed, but then that could be because I was taught to suffer whatever the host(ess) served up.

Excellent revision and introduction on this important facet of Western cultural theory, with great everyday, down-to-earth examples. I already knew Catherine Belsey, its author, as an esteemed critic and am really pleased with how approachable she made everything sound. As a result, I now have passing knowledge on Lacan (less so on Lyotard, but that’s due to lack of exposure on my part).

I’ll be buying up more of these beauties for reading. It’s a great series.

I might have to start a new blog category just for the good Luke.

My brother’s wife just had a baby, and I have no idea about etiquette (one might argue I have no idea about etiquette full-stop but that’s another issue altogether). Are you supposed to visit them in hospital? Do you wait till they’re home? I’m not close to either my brother or his wife, and both her mother, and mine are going to be all over them both.

So I decided to ask Luke for his advice, seeing as him and his wife have just had their second child. The beauty of IM.

(15:35:09) me: i need baby help!
(15:37:54) the good Luke: hahaha
(15:37:56) the good Luke: sure
(15:38:10) the good Luke: when two people love each other very much
(15:38:15) the good Luke: …
(15:38:22) me: ROFL
(15:38:28) the good Luke: dammit, your silence called my bluff
(15:38:32) me: i was being serious!
(15:38:33) the good Luke: i got nothing

Like I said, funtimes.

Last year, I bought a joint subscription to the Adelaide-based Wet Ink and Melbourne-based Overland journals.

I’ve received all four issues of Wet Ink and must say the first issue was appalling. I didn’t find any of the contributions engaging, professional or enjoyable. The second issue is much better but there are still several pieces which have that not quite professional feel about them.

Overland, however, is a completely different case. All the pieces in the first issue received – fiction, articles, poetry, reviews – are of an extremely high standard and very thought-provoking. The piece I liked the least was one about blogging. The writer took a tone that I felt a little inappropriate – he was some sort of self-proclaimed expert on blogging and tried to explain the merits of blogging to a wider audience, but in so doing, came off as patronising. Especially when it can be assumed that Overland’s readership would be pretty intelligent and tech-savvy (for instance, the writer attempts to explain ‘trackbacks’ but not once does he actually identify them as such. Even the most basic of bloggers would be familiar with this term, surely?).

Am hoping to do another post on other Australian literary journals I’ve had the pleasure of reading a bit later. There are quite a few excellent ones about.