Ron Mueck

Attended his exhibition at the NGV featuring a series of disconcertingly large or small life-like humans made of silicon and horsehair and one rubber chicken in mostly near-death poses (the giant chicken hanging upside-down had had its throat cut). The ones who were not dead or close to dying were either just born, naked, disgusted, sleeping, paranoid or both! Few — like the dude chilled out on a lilo at the pool Jack Nicholson-style or the kid peering down to examine how severely he’d been knifed — did none of those things, while one humongous lady lied in bed looking fluey. Ah, the rich tapestry of life.

Eeriest part was how much more authentic the models were than the assholes taking pictures of the naked and the dead on their mobile phones. Who are these assholes going to show these creepy photos to? Other assholes, I guess.

Also got a guided tour from Beckett on the AUST/NZ fashion collection at the Ian Potter that she had a part in curating, as well as Ricky Swallow’s handiwork, two more shows I can recommend.

Saw Rentboy the other night and put a review of it up on this

From 'Palimpsest'

Bird (Gore's nickname for Tennessee Williams) hitting bullseye as JFK and Gore look on, 1958.

"When Jackie heard that we were in Miami, she asked us up to Palm Beach for lunch. The Bird had no idea who they were, but took my word for it that Jack was running for president. We arrived an hour late. Jack was firing a rifle at a target on the lawn. He was not a very good shot; and I was as bad as he. The Bird casually took the rifle from him and shot three bull's-eyes, "Using only my blind-eye," he cackled.
Jack knew exactly how to flatter authors. Always say you admire their least successful work. He praised Summer and Smoke and the Bird began to find him presidential. He also found him sexually attractive.
"Look at that ass," he said thoughtfully, as Jack led us into the damp, moldy-smelling house.
"You can't cruise our next President." I was stern.
"Don't be ridiculous. The American people will never elect those two. They're far too attractive."

- Gore Vidal

Key post

I'm on the computer updating our company newsletter listening to Viva-Radio's Public Sensory Radio Program (tagline: Music to make mutant babies to) play a song by the Master's Apprentices' called Fresh Air by the Ton that's a pretty good blues jam and blogging about my minor experience of it all.

Vacation snaps

De Campo and I went to Bright for four days after Christmas. Bright is three and a half hours by car. These photos are from that trip.

Pit stop in Glenrowan to extend a few vertebrates (old mosh pit injury) and to eat some average tucker. Got our photo taken with Ned Kelly, outlaw who only stole from the banks. Where are our heros now, dare I say?

Our digs.

We slept on that.

We balconied and bbq'ed on that thing there.



Vicky, the masseuse at Bright Massage, applied her elbows firmly into my gluts and drew us a map to a swimming hole far off the beaten track that was every bit the idyllic picture of youthful innocence that is the final scene of Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. Thanks to Vicky I can get out of a chair now with considerable more ease.

Blissed out set-menu at Boynton’s. Champers to begin.

This mustard pickle butter number was fricking tops.

I had ocean trout with their sav blanc and it bleeping ruled.

De campers went for the pork belly and apparently regretted it a little afterwards. “No you don't,” I said. “YES, I do,” she answered.

Duck salad and the merlot for moi.

De Campi took to the whole snapper like a frenzied sea devil.

Cannanes will play here and it will be awesome we decided (Wandi Pub, Wandilogong)

Year in Reading

I told De Campo to look real purdy whilst reading Fred Exley's gut-wrenching 'A Fan's Notes' on vacation and dammit if she don't pull that off right good

Books I’ve read in sequence, and in brackets, how I’d rank them. Below that is a short spiel.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (35)
Homeland by Sam Lipsyte (34)
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanel West (3)
Hunger by Knut Hamsum (8)
Wait Until Spring, Bandini By John Fante (21)
Untitled by Gavin Butler (22)
Cadence of Grass by Thomas McGuane (9)
The Savage Detectives by Bolano (33)
Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (20)
The English Major by Jim Harrison (19)
Will it be funny tomorrow Billy? by Stephen Cummings (29)
Burnt Orange Heresy by Charles Willeford (24)
Sport and a Pastime by James Salter (30)
The Sporting Club by Thomas McGuane (5)
Returning to Earth by Jim Harrrison (27)
House on its Head by Ivy Compton Burnett (18)
Middlemarch by George Eliot (6)
Aja by Don Breithart (31)
Nobody’s Angel by Thomas McGuane (14)
Old School by Tobias Wolff (26)
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (1)
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower (7)
Who will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore (25)
Less than zero by Bret Easton Ellis (28)
Vineland by Thomas Pynchon (13)
Sam Fuller by Nicholas (32)
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (23)
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (12)
Laughing Gas by PG Wodehouse (17)
Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson (11)
Three Men and a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (10)
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates (2)
The Lazurus Project by Alexander Hemon (25)
True Grit by Charles Portis (4)
Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan (15)
Captain Maximus (stories) by Barry Hannah (16)

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
A second-hand account of a ludicrous character. My feeling is that this novel that took Diaz eleven years and won the Pulitzer Prize shouldn’t have been written.

Homeland by Sam Lipsyte
A sarcastic bag of lame.

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanel West
Short and sharp. After the shitty start, I needed to regain my reading rhythm and what better read than this dependable masterpiece. Gets a little darker and a little less funny each time, but it’s considerable genius festers inside me, haunts me down, gets in my dreams. Wow.

Hunger by Knut Hamsum
This actual Nazi was a favourite of Fante and Bukowski, they themselves starving writing non-Nazi’s. What I loved most about it was how the Hungry could go from euphoria to despair in the space of one paragraph. Hamsum was really keyed into man’s fragile mental state in a world gone mental. How a gust of wind could turn a lovely day reading the newspaper at the park into a risible state of outer turmoil under the most desperate of circumstances!

Wait Until Spring, Bandini By John Fante
A loosely autobiographical novel about growing up in Twenties small town Colorado. A young Fante imagines his buff brick-laying Dad hooking up with a wealthy widow. Lays more than bricks for her. Heartbreaking.

Untitled/unpublished by Gavin Butler
A loosely autobiographical novel about waking up in Canberra in the foetal position and going ‘Dude, I’m a 40 year-old public servant.’ Brims with a fierce hilarious anger reminiscent of Amis. Birthday milestone prompts a reflection on growing up on punk rock. Includes some of the best, brazen, most satirical attacks on pompous ex punkers and the journalists who get a woody over them. Plus some original thoughts on pop cultures’ “thinkers” — you know the guys who spend Mondays around the photocopier discussing the latest middlebrow horror from Africa. This book has it all - even a three-dimensional female character. Even though the main guy is a little unsympathetic you get over that when the style and humour is this good. But who will ever get to read it? Appalling that this book is not fought over by Australian publishers so the people can get on with reading it and raving about it.

Cadence of Grass by McGuane
Among McGuane’s very best. Word of warning though: there’s a soporific scene early on that goes on forever describing the repetitive work of a cowboy. Bored shitless from it, I looked into it out of curiosity and found that that scene fulfils McGuane’s interest in the Zen-like methodology of Japanese literature. Personal points awarded for creating a gigantic transvestite farm-hand who lives with his parents and has a penchant for cranking Beefheart in his bedroom. The book closes with a haunting tone poem/elegy to the cowboy that seems to reside more on the astral plane than the Montana soil it makes footprints in.

The Savage Detectives by Bolano
A new voice in literature, but also an infuriating one.

Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Touching novella beautifully told. Does to suburban LA what Yates and Cheever did to those places in Connecticut.

The English Major by Jim Harrison
Top shelf Harrison.

Will it be funny tomorrow Billy? By Stephen Cummings
Memoir by local rock and roll singer about his new wave meltdowns. Talented writer who goes next level when he goes unhinged, but then he tends to upset a lot of people. Still probably worth it. The writing about touring the US should at least be anthologised.

Burnt Orange Heresy by Charles Willeford
In slimy tropical 1970’s Miami, a devilishly opportunistic art critic plots an elaborate scam on a legendary French painter who’s been silent for years. Seriously creepy pulp by a master of the form.

Sport and a Pastime by James Salter
Strange novel about relentless, imaginative sex in Paris. Chilling in parts.

The Sporting Club by Thomas McGuane
McGuane’s debut is a literary pissing contest tour de force if that makes sense. Not for girls.

Returning to Earth by Jim Harrrison
Three perspectives centred around a 45 year-old Native American father dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Richness and humour of life one moment, gently preparing you for death, the next.

House and its Head by Ivy Compton Burnett
Burnett’s known for putting her sting on the English aristocracy and does so brilliantly here. Her dialogue is deliciously ironic.

Middlemarch by George Eliot
An entire world is encased in this massive marvel.

Aja by Don Breithart
Fun read about the inner workings of Steely’s celebrated album.

Nobody’s Angel by Thomas McGuane
My hero with another solid effort.

Old School by Tobias Wolff
A private school with literary prestige holds writing competitions for the chance to pal around and pick the brains of visiting writers: Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, Ernest Hemingway, et al. Terrific premise that in retrospect perhaps tries to do too much.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Flawless head-spinning evisceration of middle-class pretensions.

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
Modern guy working Yates’ territory very well.

Who will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore
Most exceptional thing about this book is I cried at the end. Pretty wild given she’s best known as a comedian. A minor work.

Less than zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Against all odds, the nagging surface level tedium of LA’s lost souls achieves a poignancy in this insidious first novel by the well-deserved writing star

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
There’s a race of people — although that designation is perhaps too generous — they-re stiffs, zombies; I don’t really see the point of them in this novel. They live in the woods off the coast of Northern California not far from where a lot of the action takes place. Are they information burn-outs? The book basically asks what if the hippies pulled a Rip Van Winkle on us and woke up in ’85 with Bonzo in the White House. In addition to the Thanatoids mentioned above, there are anarchists, ninjas, psychedelic and bubblegum and surf rock bands, hilariously bad TV show ideas, copious acid consumption and doobies galore. Bret Easton Ellis seemed to execute this theme a little better in Glamaroma, but Pychon’s artillery is so deep. A perpetual stoned belch of funky prose.

Sam Fuller by Nicholas Garnham
My only non-fiction read if you don’t count Didion and I don’t — too allusive. Read it in anticipation of the Sam Fuller retrospective at Cinemateque. Author makes gnarly claims to Fuller and Norman Mailer to being all but separated at birth.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
The heavily medicated California in Less than Zero was seemingly hi-jacked straight from the pages of this collection, particularly the titular essay about nomad teens in Haight-Ashbury around the time their vibe got crushed by dystopian come downs, bad acid, paranoia and whatever.

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
Even non-tokers cant help feeling a little baked trying to keep up with Pynchon’s steady stream of wacky characters. It’s actually not a whole lot of fun trying to keep up with all of them, there are possibly too many to begin with. However I totally dig Pynchon’s anthropology of early 70s LA surf culture and genre-aping pulp. Contains the funniest anecdote ever about a giant burrito.

Laughing Gas by PG Wodehouse
P.G.’s pitch-perfect prose has a parade on Hollywood and it’s preposterously hilarious.

Cooking with Fernet Branca James Hamilton-Paterson
Dazzling comedy. Could lose the whole spy angle though.

Three Men and a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Indoor types, pasty shut-ins rather, attempt to cure their vague malaise by boating up the Thames. Funny as hell with a suppleness of prose.

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates
The best short stories I’ve ever read.

The Lazarus Project by Alexander Hemon
Originally from Bosnia, Hemon visited Chicago in 1992 and then when Bosnia went under siege he got stuck there. Picked up English and has since written a number of books in it. Has some cool ideas. This one is a about a writer, a Bosnian expat in Chicago, researching this Lazarus feller, victim of an unlawful murder at the hands of the police chief in early twentieth century Chicago. The writer traces Lazarus back to his home country accompanied by a bonkers photographer and learns who he really is. Fine meta-fiction. Dumps on Auster's work rather savagely.

True Grit by Charles Portis
Pays a kind debt to Huck Finn with a 13 year-old narrator whose precocity will knock your socks off. With a suspense-filled heroic finish.

Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan
Fresh prose for 1964.

Captain Maximus (stories) by Barry Hannah
Swaggering short heavy stuff, except for the notes from the unmade Altman film at the end, which is swollen, tedious and hurty.

View last year's.

100 Fantastic Things About Fantastic Mr. Fox (However Redundant)

1. foxy
2. fantastic
3. cuddly
4. clooney
5. streepy
6. schwartzmannish
7. inventive
8. witty
9. ironic
10. adorable
11. droll
12. urbane
13. fashionable
14. stylish
15. architectural
16. comic
17. profound
18. animal-friendly
19. artful
20. uplifting
21. charming
22. family-friendly
23. funny
24. cute
25. rocking
26. stonesy
27. musical
28. folky
29. Jarvis cockery
30. ratty (as in willem dafoey)
31. swift
32. super
33. zen-like
34. twinkly
35. scrappy
36. warm-hearted
37. lovely
38. Murray (as in Bill)
39. actorly
40. scientific
41. canny
42. creative
43. human
44. humane
45. game
46. well-dressed
47. delightful
48. compassionate
49. silly
50. caring
51. imaginative
52. romantic
53. wistful
54. heart-aching
55. blissful
56. nutty
57. alcoholic
58. athletic
59. winsome
60. enchanting
61. wonderful
62. dashing
63. clever
64. sly
65. sublime
66. winning
67. emotive
68. entrancing
69. extraordinary
70. heartfelt
71. superb
72. splendid
73. literary
74. dreamy
75. flawless
76. cunning
77. thoughtful
78. modest
79. endearing
80. entertaining
81. mesmerising
82. joyful
83. charismatic
84. magical
85. poised
86. pitch-perfect
87. life-affirming
88. scientific
89. sporting
90. suave
91. scheming
92. well-structured
93. rip-roaring
94. sui generis
95. chic
96. masterful
97. exuberant
98. inspired
99. elegant
100 sweet

Andrei Rublev is a pussy

Now that you know that, you can go back to sleep in the cinema where the movie is playing. Tristan and I are asleep. I’m writing this on my phone asleep, even though you are not supposed to use your phone at Cinemateque (it’s distracting for others and can lead to brawls), but how am I to know – after all, I’m asleep.

I’ve slept through a lot of this three and a half hour movie. Tristan has to, but his excuse is that he took some hay fever medication beforehand, but I know the real reason, he thinks Andrei is a pussy. I wake up during a raid and see a panicky horse attempt to descend a flight of stairs covered in blood. The horse slips and falls off the stairs lands on its back and I shudder! I can’t believe I just saw a horse do that and think maybe that’s why it was banned in Russia for five years and then I go back to sleep. I wake up and the raid is still going. The Asian enemy (Tatars) are pouring boiling oil into the mouth of a decent fella.

Rublev is not shit, but it’s overrated to the max, a masterpiece of tedium and as beautifully sterile as you can expect from someone who gets eye-popping visuals and a laborious mise en scene without any real emotional pay-off.

Gawd could Andrei be more of a sad sack loser? The second I saw him, I thought cool, we’re in for some art-is-taking-it-to-the-Church punk rock because the actor playing him smouldered a little bit like our man Viggo. Wrong. As this boat of a film demonstrates, Andrei has not much backbone. He’s a passive putz pussified to the hilt, brooding about the miseries of life in the medieval mud-splattered suburbs. Fugg do I tire of films that Bible-spank that churchy heaviosity. For Andrei's sake, I'd much prefer it if this was movie was set in 1995, the year Pavement released Wowee Zowee.

Dude you make a three and a half-hour movie about a guy who weeps when a hot witch throws her naked body at him and you got problems. Roger Corman should have remade this as drive-in smut just to make Tarkovsky’s piles twitch.

I would not watch this again if you tied me up and threw a naked witch on me! My favourite scene is the one where the horse itches its back in slow motion (pictured).

If you see this movie on DVD at a prospective lover’s house run like that shithouse is going up in flames!

Goodtime Glen

He came out and did his little song and dance. Jig was kinda up as his joints needed a few icy hot applications. Multi-tasking: he sang the tunes we sing along to on a regular basis very well, while he dug into his pocket for an acorn repeatedly (to no avail).

He forgot the words to Gentle on my Mind, his first song, even though there appeared to be one of those autocues on stage. Between song chatter was limited to garrulous rambling. Then he’d get songs mixed-up and stories would end abruptly. Not only did we excuse these missteps we encouraged them. We thought they were awesome.

Six piece band surrounded him like a gridiron line would a quarterback. Only difference was they were behind him. The grey balding piano player looked like one of those guys with a pristine 78 collection. Glen when he was introducing Classical Gas goes to him you know this one and the guy says yeah it’s great. Glen almost seemed disappointed that the guy knew it.

Glen was so good on the guitar you questioned whether he ever played the same song twice. Once he strapped in to the device and got his hands near it, the sound travelled from it instinctively, rhythmically like the whole operation was out of his hands. Potential headline: Huge blocks of chocolate baritone melted by finger picking hot fudge on Sunday.

If any hearts had stopped beating (and I’m sure some did, average age last night: 87), then Glen’s Lone Ranger theme would have made them feel like they were on top of Silver all over again.

Glenn was a little too goofy to cry a tear to last night. But that’s okay we got to meet his daughters, Debbie and Ashley, one of whom he sang a lovely duet with about doing the wild thing with her. The floodgates almost burst on that one let me tell ya.

The Mortal Storm

Innsbruck, Austria is a mountainous, yet feasible cross country ski trek from the German village where Frank Borzage’s Mortal Storm (1940) is set in.

Here Viktor Roth, on his 60th birthday, is about to be honoured by the university he lectures at for achievements in science, except he doesn’t know that yet. Anyway, he’s a jolly good fellow, dignified and old, as Jonathan Richman might say. We meet his family at breakfast. Two energetic young boys (one played by a 21 year-old Robert Stack) bound into his room and wish him a happy birthday in a sing-song fashion.

A tender moment between them is shared. Viktor tells them they mean as much to him as his own flesh and blood. The boys turn around and say we don’t think of you as our Stepfather. Victor gets choked up, and so do you (and it’s not like you are the bastard son of anyone or anything).

The Father and his Sons do look nothing alike. The Dad is hard-lined and severe, while the boys are perfect Nordic blondes and blue-eyed. We also meet his stepdaughter — the great Margaret Sullavan. Her gift to him is a cashmere scarf that she ties around his neck as he heads out the door.

His lecture turns out to be a surprise party. A German song is sung. Two students approach the lectern and say a few kind words. They are played by Jimmy Stewart and Robert Young. A gift is presented. The audience, made up of students, peers, and his family, who are located in the balcony of the lecture hall — applaud with collective vigour.

Evening comes and we’re back at the Roth’s for a family dinner. Jimmy Stewart is also here. Cut to the servery where Robert Young is stealing a kiss from Margaret as she adds candles to the birthday cake. He threatens to announce their engagement and she appears to be in two minds about it, but ultimately feels it would be hard to resist (also to be in two minds about it: Jimmy Stewart). Cake arrives and Dad makes a fine speech about good humour, tolerance and other virtues that underpin their family and reinforce their position as a well-refined and progressive unit.

Robert Young proceeds to steal some of Dad’s thunder by announcing his engagement to Margaret Sullaven, while they both get upstaged by Adolf Hitler whose ascendancy comes over a radio news bulletin. Allegiances are quickly established. Young and the two Aryan-looking sons are thrilled with the country’s new direction and keen to make Germany a force by any means necessary.

In opposition are the Dad, Jimmy Stewart and, you could say, Margaret. Not that they are pacifists so much, just free thinkers. After all the Dad is a bloody scientist who can prove that blood doesn’t mean shit! You can imagine what happens. The poison of the Third Reich’s doctrine, led by sweaty, scar-faced and hideous Nazies, begins to spread. Even the most functional families get torn apart. Absolutely harrowing.

This was the second masterpiece of 1940 starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. Ernst Lubitsch’s Shop around the Corner was the first, a charming romantic comedy about small business capitalism (also starring Viktor Roth).

Not surprisingly Germany banned the importation of MGM products upon the release of this, a masterful film whose shadow looms large (two great recent flicks: The Lives of Others and Inglorious Basterds are hugely indebted to it). I love Margaret Sullavan. She is great. She went deaf in her late forties and no longer could act and then committed suicide.

The Unicorns

It was another vastly overrated day for Stroke Clapton, eavesdropper for Terrorism Taskforce. At a secluded hut inside the Queensland rainforest the special agent was twiddling his thumbs. Officially bored out of his brain, he searched frantically for a paperclip, overturning a filing cabinet and two plastic trays. He unbent the bit of metal and used it to swab his ear, gaining ample relief.

He then unwedged his Speedo and walked outside into the hot, humid morning to feed Maurice. Maurice was an ugly lizard recovering from a collision with a motorbike. It glared through one puffy eye. Stroke yawned. All night Stroke had been sitting at a giant switchboard, eavesdropping on international calls, trying to snuff out suspicious dialogue through selective surveillance. As the western world teetered on a timorous knife edge, it was up to guys like Stroke to prevent another 9/11-type thing from happening. He was doing his best. But over the past week there had been nothing. No potential terrorist threat at all. Stroke dropped a small rodent into Maurice’s deformed maw.

In a few minutes, this would all change. A red light on the veranda would flash and a horn would sound. This would signal Stroke into the control room to strap on some bulky headgear and listen in on a call from Montreal to Melbourne. The conversation would be between two men about an upcoming tour. A trio of rambling musical geniuses called The Unicorns who were intending to visit Melbourne.



The music, as Stroke would later discover, was a tragicomic masterpiece, containing sing-along lyrics about living, dying, necrophilia and crying, all backed by classic melodies and loopy effects, fantastically scratchy guitars, sweet as liqueur vocals and cannibalistic keyboards driven ravenous by musky aromas. But the conversation would be eerie, with answers coming courtesy of Nicholas "Niel" Diamonds, a Unicorn himself. Stroke listened and he learned…

What are you doing now?
"We're just making dinner".

What are you cooking?
"Alden made this crazy like pizza out of eggplant and flax and a human placenta ".

No.

"Yes, in Canada it's a little bit more common. But what we do here is we get a placenta from after the baby thing happens and you can eat them and they're actually full of protein and so we've made this pizza".

Pause.

"I know that that might freak you out. Jamie and I used a bit of placenta and made a salad. We made a salad dressing sauce with some of the umbilical cord".

No.

"No, what?! Now you think I'm bullshitting. My mother's a nurse, she has access to that kind of stuff and Jamie's mom's a midwife. We can get other stuff too". Like what? "Nail clippings. The dirt under the nails we clean off. Canada is all about being resourceful. We try to make do with what we have here. There's a lot of tundra. Every month we are required to kill at least one buffalo and what you have to do is make it last all winter. There's one in our household right now. It's a pet buffalo, we don’t eat that one. We ride it around. Slappy. 'Alden don’t, get off, you're going to hurt his back!' "

How did you meet?

"I met Alden when I was 16. We were both dating the same person and didn’t know. It almost came to blows. She was neat. She was really nice and neat and tidy. She liked Frank Zappa and smelled really good. She smelled citrus-y. It was a natural scent. She showered three times a day and still smelled like oranges. She is our muse… I met Jamie at a bridge building tournament. We were doing engineering at a school for mildly retarded people. We really admired each other's bridges and that kind of bridged the gap. I put a peanut on my bridge and it collapsed. Jamie managed toothpicks and olives".

"I'm six feet tall, Alden, at 4'11", is the shortest. He is a gymnast and the bar is his specialty. We bring the bar with us on most of our tours. It's a real spectacle. We wear nice clothes on stage. We like Armani suits. We believe in looking good. We come from a very Aristocratic background. We've also got a funny terrorist costume, but we're wondering if we can get that through customs".

Stroke stopped eavesdropping there. His ears promptly gulped shut as he pondered the recent exchange. It was disgusting, derelict and most of all, unAustralian, he surmised. These dangerous punks needed to be stopped and Stroke decided he was the man who could do it. He planned to close in on them with incredible force, perhaps removing their pants from their travel bags after they check in at Tullamarine, or redirecting their guitars to Shanghai. Just because The Unicorns are devilishly smart, pretty and elusive doesn’t mean Stroke will be denied making a capture. At any rate, the concerned citizens of Melbourne await the exciting conclusion.

(2004)

New Interest

I added breast pockets to the Interest section on my profile only because there isn't a section called Necessities. Check it out!

Thomas McGuane, Tennessee Williams, and James Kirkwood ca. 1975, at Louie's Backyard in Key West

''In Oakland, he saw slum children sword fighting on a slag heap. In Palo Alto, a puffy fop in bursting jodhpurs shouted from the door of a luxurious stable, 'My horse is soiled!' While one chilly evening in Union Square he listened to a wild-eyed young woman declaim that she had seen delicate grandmothers raped by Kiwanis zombies, that she had seen Rotarian blackguards bludgeoning Easter bunnies in a coal cellar, that she had seen Irving Berlin buying an Orange Julius in Queens.''

- Thomas Mcguane, Bushwhacked Piano (1971)

Third Act Twist

Story I’m writing has one of these.

link

Husker Du cover band name possibility

Hart of Mould

The Movie at Nine

“The Movie at Nine, more than the usual basketball epic, was a story of transcendent courage on the part of the gallant but doomed LA Lakers, as they struggled under hellish and subhuman conditions at Boston Garden against an unscrupulous foe, hostile referees, and fans whose behavior might have shamed their mothers had their mothers not been right there, screaming epithets, ruining Laker free throws, sloshing beer on their children in moments of high emotion, already. To be fair, the producers had tried their best to make the Celtics look good. Besides Sidney Poitier as KC Jones, there was Paul McCartney, in his first acting role, as Kevin McHale, with Sean Penn as Larry Bird. On the Laker side were Lou Gossett Jr. as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Douglas as Pat Riley and Jack Nicholson as himself.”

— From Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

Coincidence, I think not

A Pavement song is used as the headline for an article on Rush Limbaugh, the same day it's announced that they are starting their world tour here.

Coincidence, I think not

A Pavement song is used as the headline for an article about Rush Limbaugh on the same day it's announced that they are starting their world tour here.

New Built To Spill doesn't suck...

...a return to form after a decade long hiatus. Warm and mature gooey gobs of tumescent masturbatory guitar wankery. Did I mention mature? just finished the Moviegoer (weird little existential book) and every short story Yates has written. Try to get your hands on the short story "Saying Goodbye to Sally" (Liars In Love collection). 40 pages of Yates doing Nathaniel West better than West. Picking up Lethem's Chronic City on Tuesday.
We booked our trip last Monday. Tsunami warning was issued on Tuesday. The islands know that we are coming.

- email from H

Malkmoosa’s Revenge

For the sake of posterity t'would be remiss not to disclose my recent volcanic bought of gastronomical disorder that erupted on the eve of the gold-shitter himself's visit, Stevie M and the Jicks rocking our shores. I shriveled up like a shrink-wrapped twinkie on a bonfire, a human stain boogying down like a diarrheic clown in Melbourne and then on to Adelaide subsisting on dry biscuits and the odd cookie crumb. We fled South Australia for Port Campbell in a robust rental the day after.



Anything less than muscular than the Henry Ford Falcon and we would have hydroplaned into a ditch as the rain was operating at plague proportions. I drove the leg that got us way off-track, but op shop serendipity came a-calling and I wouldn’t have procured a beautiful-fitting jacket and shirt without taking a wrong turn to that remote outpost.

On Sunday me and my new jacket, now freshly dry cleaned, got shat on big-time by a seagull and this is after I spent three hours waiting to get into the Dali thing — I mean who waits three hours to get in to anything anymore? If I had known it was going to take that long I would have walked. I’m sort of happy I stuck around, I only wish I had brought something to read. Three hours is a long time to be alone with your thoughts.

- photos de campo

The rare write-up that is factually accurate

New Estate gig this Saturday @ Cobra

Since 2002 and via three stunning albums and numerous EPs and remarkable, intense live shows around Australia , the quartet forever to be known as New Estate has been acknowledged far and wide as a miracle of modern life.

Marc Reguiero-McKelvie, also known as Popolice; Mia Schoen, she formerly of bands as diverse as Perth’s Sleepy Township, Melbourne’s Huon, and Flagstaff Arizona’s Possum Moods; Larry G, of Brunswick Savers and new man on the rig Toby Dutton (ex-Flywheel), add up to a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

New Estate, with the Inevitable Orbit and Sun of Clark, will blow you away at the Cobra Bar (the cocktail bar upstairs @ The Tote) this Saturday, 10 October. $7. 9pm.