Last year, my friend Paul Haines (paulhaines) was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

As uncool news goes, this was pretty high, but Haines and his wife and young daughter, however, worked through the months of treatment to pull out of it. Take a tour through Haines' blog to see how he dealt with it--it's the sight of a much stronger man than me, I assure you. At any rate, after this time, all things seemed good, until spots appeared on his liver, and further treatment is required. Now, here comes the important bit: though most of his treatment is covered, a large portion of it is not. To quote Haines himself:

He [his oncologist] still wants to wait a couple of months (ideally he wants even more than that) to see how the cancer in my liver is behaving. He also understands our fear, our need, to not be sitting around waiting to do nothing. So in those couple of months we will try the other two forms of chemotherapy for cancers like I have and to combine that with a monoclonal antibody called Avastin. Chemo fights the tumour, the antibody fights the blood vessels feeding the tumour. Unfortunately, Avastin is not part of Medicare or the private health system's funding at this stage, so we're having to come up with $20,000 to do it. Our parents have said they will help us here, which is a great relief.

Twenty thousand is a lot of cash, and there's a paypal fund put up so people who want to kick in a few bucks can do so.

I can't force you, obviously, but I'm going to kick in some, and I like Haines personally, so while no doubt he'd appreciate it, so would I if all you know from the pair of us is me.

Michael Cisco, the author of the Traitor, has just written about his experience with Prime Books:

d) What was it you published again?

Prime's idea of publicity is sticking your book under a rock and informing the wind. You will have to do absolutely everything yourself. Blurbs, getting your text to reviewers, everything. Prime takes authors they believe are already being talked about precisely to as to avoid having to do publicity. I firmly believe Prime's neglect helped to scuttle my last TWO novels.

How many novels do you have to burn?

Prime is an attractive publisher for a variety of reasons, and I would advise any new writer to consider submitting material thereto, but do so forewarned and forearmed. You will not be told what is going on, your requests for information will be met with stalling, ignorance real or feigned, or - most often - silence. All the real legwork will be left to you. Payment will involve unnecessary headaches and a whole lot of waiting - if not outright defrauding (which has yet to be seen).

Sounds familiar, huh?

In fairness, I should point out that my payments from Prime came pretty quickly and easily, be it with short fiction or the novel. I whole McDonalds Meal could I buy with the cash, but cash it was, and I had no hassle.

However, based off my experience of a print run, then no print run, of the book being tossed out suddenly, of it having errors, of the drama, of the headache, and so on and so forth, which you can check by following the tag at the bottom of this post... however, based off all that, there's not a whole lot to disagree with in Cisco's post.

No doubt someone will be along shortly to set him 'straight', of course.

(In other news, I appear to have discovered a cold in the last thirty minutes.)

I lied.

I said it would return today, but Anna and I aren't ready, and we'll be back on August the 20th.

I actually do have today's comic in my inbox, but we haven't built up a lead yet, on account of the real life issues of babies, moving, babies, moving, and more babies. I might've decided to finish a book somewhere along the line there. Anyhow, the end of it is that the break will go for a touch longer, and then Nowhere Near Savannah will return for its second half of odd humour and autobiography.

If you haven't read it, feel free to follow the tag below. If you have, hey, follow it again.

Until then, here's my favourite:



I don't care what any of you say, this here is the funniest thing I've ever written.

Big Brother has been killed, finally, and Lynda Hawryluk (lyndahawryluk) offers commentary:

146 housemates, 8 seasons and countless amounts of phone calls and SMS votes later, Big Brother is finally over. And it took two people to euthanaise it. Two people effectively killed off a tried and tested, albeit increasingly tiresome formula: Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O.

Any retrospective of Big Brother will show clearly where the show's demise began: while the first four seasons successfully combined unique personalities with a den-mother like host (Gretel Killeen) and less focus on gimmickry, the subsequent seasons changed in tone and mood. Post-Season 4, the downhill slide began, precipitated by a stable of housemates chosen for their looks, youth and willingness to stoop to any level to garner attention. Personality went out the door, replaced with the overwhelming feeling that each housemate spent most of their time preening and posing in self-conscious preparation for a Ralph or Zoo magazine cover. The prizes became the main incentive to participate; that and the potential for ongoing fame of the Paris Hilton variety: famous for being famous.

The content of the show changed too: tasks and challenges were less focused on cooperation and more on financial gain. The voting system aptly summed up the cynical tone: instead of voting for your favourite housemate, why you could vote against your least favoured housemate too. Twice the number of votes; twice the amount of revenue.

I was never a fan of the show, myself. Lynda's superhero power, however, is the ability to justify her love for trash culture through the socially aware gaze.

I saw the show a few times, but the image that stuck with me was in season one, where an old girlfriend made me watch it one night, and we spent half an hour watching people paint a wall. I was, literally, watching paint dry. I don't think I ever forgave her for that, and when we parted, the memory of it made that time a little easier. Of course, that was before I'd found myself with one of the ratings boxes attached to my television, and the power to decide what continues to exist (or at least that's what I'm told I have the power for, and who am I to argue with this?). Now, having avoided the show the entire season, I can just take pleasure from the fact that I contributed to its drop in ratings, and that I am one of the people responsible for it being tossed into a deep, deep pit with all those who worked on it.

Well, with any luck, I suppose.

Considering I didn't love Batman Begins, I wondered at the wisdom of going to see The Dark Knight, but when Cas said we should, I didn't have anything to turn it down with and so I found myself standing in a line on Sunday evening in Blacktown. I knew I'd made a mistake when people started talking to me about Jesus.

It was probably because of World Youth Week that that had happened. There was a morbid display of Christianity during the week, where the crucifixion of Jesus was shown in a massive, multi-staged play that ended on the Harbour with the old boy being strung up. Some woman was singing and the question, 'Where were you when they crucified our lord,' and I suddenly realised I had an answer for that: my living room. Well, how nice. But it was a little ridiculous so many people watching that when they don't give a toss bout the very real hardships going on in the world, so I flipped the TV off and continued to ignore the week. Of course, there is a vague similarity here to the Dark Knight, because people have been sitting around and telling me that Heath Ledger is the second coming as the Joker, and the film itself is unbelievably awesome and so on and so forth. At the end of the two and a half hours of this flick, I thought, yeah, Ledger was pretty cool in the film, but he is the only bright spot in it, and when he's not on screen, the whole thing is a rather limp and dull affair.

Kinda like Christianity.

Drum roll, please.

Anyhow, back to the film, one of my biggest complaints with the Batman films is that they're so unnecessary. Each film essentially repeats itself, having Bruce Wayne face the question of being Batman, the origin of a villain (and Batman himself, though this is not always the case), and some new gadgets which you can sell to folk. At one stage in this new film, the Joker, strung up hi and laughing, tells Batman that he has the feeling that they could go on like this forever, and he's quite right. They can go on forever, unchanging because that would ruin the franchise, and forever delivering on something safe for an audience to lose a few hours in. Which is fine, to a degree, but the real problems begin when I start to look at the money that lies behind the film, and the things that money could do to make the world a better place, to actually go towards stopping the social conditions that form crime, for example, and which leaves me at the end thinking that if so much money is going to be dropped into such a project, and if so many people are going to rush out to see it, then it ought to be fucking awesome, and not give the impression that a bunch of people paused to earn some cash, before going on to their more interesting projects.

Part of the problem with the film comes from the director, Nolan, who has delivered what I would say is his least stylish film to date. He has never been a hugely stylish director, but there has been a certain quality to his films that, I would argue, has been diminishing of late. In The Dark Knight, it can be seen mostly in the action scenes, which are a painful, almost uncoordinated mess which seem to focus on Christian Bale grimacing as he hits things. Nolan feels a lot stronger in the scenes that--perhaps ironically--happen in the daylight, where characters interact, and plots are laid out. Perhaps his best scene happens in the police holding cell where the light is a bright, clear whiteness, an attempt to convey to the audience that what they are seeing is the characters in their most stripped back, true light. But there's no denying the fact that huge set pieces, such as Batman vs the Swat Team vs the Joker are a muddled affair, without any timing, grace, and sense of flair. I'll give him the small prop he deserves for the use of sound before the Joker strikes, but it's a tiny touch, a start, not a finish.

Still, I don't want to suggest that the film is a complete waste of space, since Ledger is quite good in it, and provides the film's true life. It's unfortunate that the film didn't actually focus on him more, and push into his background, and build him, but I got what they were trying with the opposite, where they tried to create a completely unknown individual, having just appeared out of nowhere, a figure who wants to watch the world burn, as Michael Caine says at one stage in the film. Still, I do think that Ledger is ultimately let down by the script, as he is ultimately surpassed in importance by Harvey Dent, who exists to provide the film's true closure. In a way that is problematic, as the film never truly lays out why he would pick Gordon to focus on, and Gordon's final words, as Batman rushes away, pursued by dogs and Police, is a little preachy, and I could have done without it. But, hey, I'm on the negative again--what is it with me and that--and the film does have a few nice twists and amusing menace given over to the presence of the Joker.

So, is it worth sixteen bucks?

Probably not, but then what is? A whole bunch of people are going to tell you the film is awesome, including Q, who is twelve, and maybe I'm just not that twelve year old any more, and maybe I've seen all this shit one too many times, and I just want something new, which is exactly what this kind of film won't give.

That's the official trailer for Watchmen. It has a Smashing Pumpkins song.

Personally, there's not much to say about it: it's a mash up of images that has the same feel as 300 did, and that film was pretty goddamn awful, not to mention racist. I notice that Asian people are being blown apart and killed. Sure, it's in the original text, but I'm just planting seeds, planting seeds. What it does bring to mind, however, is just how poorly previous Alan Moore written projects have been turned into films. V for Vendetta missed the point, From Hell was a shadow of its intelligence, and The League of Extradordinary Gentlemen was a shadow of a film.

Maybe I'm just cool if none of this stuff becomes a film.

Last night I sat round and watched Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa's ninety fifty film based off the short story, 'In a Bamboo Grove' by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, and staring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura, both of who would star in a number of Kurosawa's films throughout the years.

The film concerns itself with the murder of a husband (Masayuki Mori) and the stories that are told, in court by the bandit (Mifune), the wife (Machiko Kyo), and the husband's spirit through a medium (a very creepy Fumiko Honma). Narrated from each point of view, the film unfolds in misdirects and misinformation, leaving you to pick your way through to the truth, where, at the end, the woodsman, Shimura, reveals that he saw the entire incident upon the road.

The film suffers from being a touch heavy handed, in that it wants, through the woodsman and priest, to make a statement about the quality of human beings, and its final scenes don't ring true with what the rest of the film has laid out: why would such a poor man, who is reduced to stealing a pearl inlaid dagger after witnessing the murder, suddenly take the child into his care? Perhaps it's selfless, perhaps it shows how affected he has been after witnessing the mismatched stories, but the final steps of the film, where Kurosawa wants to make a happy statement about the quality of human beings, simply doesn't ring true in my admittedly cynical opinion. Outside that moment, however, the rest of it is done well, and the film unfolds nicely, giving enough screen time to the bandit, wife, and dead husband to create the mystery and sustain it for each part to provide a surprising twist or addition, without relying on shock or stupidity.

The true attraction of watching Rashomon is the joy in how this is done. Truthfully, I probably I enjoy other Kurosawa films more: Seven Samurai is one of my favourite epics, and Yojimbo, and even it's sequel, Sanjuro, show a more amusing, charismatic Mifune. But none of them have the layering technique that Rashomon does. It's an interesting trick to watch--one that I can watch over and over again, in fact--to see a narrative laid out in false moves, but to yet keep the viewer there, and to create, through the characters, a sense of expectation that when the final story is revealed, it will resonate the strongest out of the three while still providing an element of surprise and satisfaction. There a films in which the technique doesn't work. Take the Usual Suspects, for example. The end of that film is telegraphed very early on--so early, in fact, that you'd have to be both blind and deaf not to figure out that disabled Kevin Spacey was in fact the great crime lord in disguise. The mistake in the narrative is by making Spacey's character important to the criminals at the centre of it. Since, given the characters limitations, and the very unnecessary way he contributes to the crime that unfolds, he can only occupy a twist space: an empty narrative space that the audience will, if given the time, question the importance of right until the final reveal is given, and that space is shown to occupy the villain or hero. Kurosawa's film, in comparison, neatly avoids this by giving each character an important space to occupy within the narrative from the beginning, which allows for the characters and the story to evolve out of their roles, rather than to have the role dropped onto them at the end.

Anyhow, enough of that. It's a cool film, and if you've never seen it, do yourself a favour and find it. Here's the original trailer, courtesy of youtube:

Contents & Contributors

* Susan Fedynak: (Floating) Armor of the Dark Blue Heart, Armorea Navum
* Alexandra O'Neal: Attercopp Plant, Chelicereae Telacaulum
* Andrew Nicolle: Avian Trumpetflower, Trochilium avifructus
* Jay Lake: Baby Cabbage, also regionally referred to as The Leaf, Squallroot or Mother's Little Helper, Cruciferae Brassica homogenesis
* Elizabeth Langford: Big Yellow Flower of Unnecessarily Obvious Information, Explanatum obviosis
* Steve Himmer: Bitter Mortar, Cucurbitaceae Marah
* Eric J. Millar: Bone Garden, otherwise known as Adam's Ribcage, Aloe skelaphalia
* John Bowker: Burning Bush Fungus, Encephalitozoon Elysium
* Ann Leckie: Clickweed, Everricula Pilolaqueus
* James Trimarco: Cloud Anemone, Bromeliaceae Tillandsia nebularia
* Jonathan Wonham: Couch Kelp, Siturfatarscea velvetorleva monthlypaymentis
* John Black: Devil's Pork, Tuberaceae Tuber
* Jon Hansen: Dream Melons, Melo somnio
* Steve Berman: Esemtep, Unclassified
* Lucy A. Snyder: Fairy Apple, Timewarp Lemon, Atlantis Mandrake, Podophyllum sidhe
* Francesca Forrest: Firefly Bellflower, Tintinnabulum photuris
* Matthew Baugh: Flame Lily, Nymphaeaceae-flammiferum
* Elaine Clift: Forget-Me-Bastard, Myosovictimis uncertae sedis
* Patricia L. Havis: Giant Cloud Lily, Liliaceae Lilium
* Mark Teppo: Haunt Vine (also known as Ghostroot and Spirit Creeper), Ipomoea Umbris
* Mary E. Lowd: Kitty Willow, Salix ambulara
* H.F. Gibbard: Kvetching aspen, Populus kvetchis
* Brendan Carson: Lautokan Ear-blossom Plant (Tautau e vata), Auriculula cosmetales
* Adam Nakama: Leonidas' Bloom, Campanula lacedaemia
* Merrie Haskell: Library Plum, Bibloteca prunus
* Kris Dikeman: Nightmare Lotus, Nymphae somnium maledictus
* Cassandra Phillips-Sears: Ozymandias-Plant, Lamiaceae (Genus unknown)
* Shveta Thakrar: Padmamukhi (the Lotus-Mouthed), Nelumbonaceae nelumbo
* Victoria Elisabeth Garcia: Poliphila, or "Shriner Vine," Unclassified
* Eric Schaller: Queen Victoria's Bloomers, Monkey Ho, Caligula homocopulus
* Yvonne Pronovost: Screaming Mimi, Datura clamo
* Darja Malcolm-Clarke: Shade's Globe (also: Sibylwort), Umberia medianus
* David Kelly: Singing Grass, Unclassified
* January Mortimer: Stag-Eye Nettle, Urtica aboculus
* Suzanne Palmer: Swift River Hopping Pitcher Plant, Pseudosarracenia verdeverminus
* Livia Llewellyn : Teslated Salishan Evergreen, Cupressuceaohm salishan nikola
* Philip J. Lees: The Faerie Hogweed, Heracleum ignotum
* Stephanie Campisi and Ben Peek: The Nabokov, Unclassified
* Toiya Kristen Finley: The Poseur Nosehairs, Animaceae Sominus
* Matthew Kressel: The Sembla, Spasmodicus plasticosa
* Catherine Gunson: Thuringian Shade-tree, Umbropsida noctalus
* Christopher M. Cevasco: Time Cactus, Chronocactus hematophageis
* Vera Nazarian: Twilight Luon-Sibir, Russica spectrata
* Tom Pendergrass: Ugly Tree, Medusa's Hairbrush, Acer horrendoturpis
* Erik Amundsen: Waterbaby Cress, Nasturtium Charleskingsleni
* Shweta Narayan: Whistle tree, Catalpa musicalis
* Alex Chambers: Wild Homilywort (var. Speechtree), Quercus loquatium
* Dave Coulter: Wind melon, Saturn melon, God's Eyes, Cucumis melo helioaero

Link.


Above is the cover and table of contents for A Field Guide to Surreal Botany, and it contains the piece that Steph Campisi and I wrote, called 'the Nabokov', which is of course, related to Vladimir Nabokov. It continues my trend of naming stories after real life people (I only just realised it was a trend) and starts the new trend of making authors more talented than I do all the work while I take large portions of the credit (always a plan, difficult to execute).

The book promises to be one of those groovy little indie projects that will, I suspect, sell quite quickly. It's being illustrated by Janet Chui, and having seen the work done on the piece Steph and I wrote, I reckon it's going to be quite a lavish project. Something to keep an eye out for and snag early on, I'd say.

On Saturday night I went out to dinner with Cat Sparks (catsparx), who I convinced to eat 65 day old chicken. As anyone who has grown up round the stories of salmonella poisoning, she was naturally resistant to the idea, but I wouldn't be turned away. If I'm to die, let it be because I ate the wrong food.

Turns out Chicken 65 (as it was called) was quite nice, and made me think about just how you can have sixty five day old chicken. I mean, if you freeze it, it's not so much of a challenge, right? I reckon I have sixty five day old chicken in my freezer right now. Also, I think I'd be disappointed if that's how it went. I have this whole image of chicken left out in a special room, turning green, then black. No one can enter the room, for it smells that bad, but the chef, in a sealed suit, braves it once a week to find the choicest cut of 65 day old chicken. He used to make whiskey, this chef, so he knows that time is a factor no money can buy. Also, he's drunk, because that explains most of this passage.

Years ago, I saw a cooking show in which the host of it drunk the still beating heart of a snake. Since then, I've always used that as my bar for people and their food: if you turn down the chance to drink the still beating heart of a snake, I feel as if you haven't properly embraced life to its fullest, since if I found myself in that position, I'd do it.

In fact, here's a vid of someone doing that:



As you can see by the look of his face at the end, it promises to be tasty.

Finished the novel last night, and have been kicking back ignoring things since. Going to give it one more read through, clean up tonight and tomorrow, then off to the agent it goes.

At the end, I reckon it's come out alright, this book. The fold back I wanted with the end, where essentially it loops back to the beginning, works well, I think. I even like the final line, which I thought of months ago, and I kept tacked at the bottom of the file until I got there. Hopefully the editors who want it are going to think the same thing, and shower me with wealth, because that would be just super, thanks. Likely, I'll be able to lower my expectations to a print run and appearing in bookstores, but I'd hate to give in to easily, especially when there are midgets with bowls of cocaine roaming around to be had as well. That, incidentally, is an image that has stuck in my head from an old Queen documentary I saw years ago, in which the band members were talking about things they had reportedly done. "A party where midgets with bowls of cocaine on their heads walked around," said one of them (I forget who). "I wish we'd done it."

Well, he might not have said that final bit. But still.

In other news, Bill Congreve and Michelle Marquardt have picked up my story 'John Wayne' to be reprinted in The Year's Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Volume Four. Sweet, hey?

From Ellen Datlow (ellen_datlow):

I've just found out that Tom Disch committed suicide in his apartment on July 4th. He was found by a friend who lives a few blocks away.

I'm shocked, saddened, but not very surprised. Tom had been depressed for several years and was especially hit by the death of his longtime partner Charles Naylor. He also was very worried about being evicted from the rent controlled apartment he lived in for decades.

I last visited with him about a month ago, when I ran into him shopping at the Greenmarket across the street from where he lived (he rarely went out because he had trouble walking). He invited me up for cheese and bread which we bought together at the market and I visited for an hour or two. He seemed more optimistic about his work than he'd been for at least a year as he had three books/novellas coming out over the next year.

Tom wrote wonderful stories (I only read one or two of his novels but kept meaning to read more) and if you haven't ever read the collections Getting into Death or Fundamental Disch you need to find and read them.

This'll be my last post till sometime next week or so, just as this is the last day or work for that time.

Here's a thought to end on, though:

A couple of days ago A was talking to me about publications with audiences, and just yesterday, T told me I was on my way to becoming a writer's writer. For some reason, the two have combined in my head, and I can't shake off the belief that being a writer's writer is code for a writer without a very big audience, and thus without a lot of cash, and thus, without a Lamborghini. I think we'll all be in agreement that I deserve a shiny Lamborghini, and that most authors do, if only so they can appear on Top Gear and do that racing contest they have. But still, it got me thinking that, really, at a certain point in the 'career' of a writer, it stops being about whether you're a good writer or you're not, and instead becomes a question of what kind of audience you have. Do you have the kind that follows you just because it's a genre thing, do you have one that follows you to the point that they have an interest in your evolution as an artist, do you have a big audience that allows risks, do you have a small, but dedicated one, do you have any, do you have none, is it just your friends. The answer to all those is one each writer (or musicians, or artist, or whatever) has to give to his or herself, but there comes a point where the author has to look around at the publishers and books that they appear in and work with, and decide if these are going to help them grow the audience that they want. The work that you put out is essentially a product, after all, and you have to be able to put it in the right place for the right consumer, to use such disgusting retail terms.

The thing about this thought is, I find, that it doesn't influence the creation side of writing, but what you do with it once your finished. It can be a bit of a hassle--in fact, I know it is, especially if you feel your work is becoming more and more difficult to fit the markets you were previously interested in, which is sometimes shown by people who call you 'hard to classify'--but it's how you get the best mileage and how you grow.

I dunno, thoughts for the day. Me, I'm quite happy with the audience I have, though if you want to bring your friends with you, I won't object, because the truth is, that's the area of growth for me. But it's my concern, and no one elses, and time will tell if I can get it right.

In other news, if I may say so, BBQ Beef Fantastic Noodles are really kind of awful. Stick to the chicken or vaguely racist 'oriental' flavour while writing your blog posts.

Okay, I'm out.

"This is my novel. I found it in the street outside my house. It had been out drinking again."

My novel doesn't look like that, but I think I do.

I'm near the end now and, in a desperate attempt to be free of it, I've taken advantage of the upcoming school holidays and made what will be a week and a half off to finish the fucking thing. Come Thursday, the blog will probably shut down till it's done, and if you see me replying to email, talking to you, or playing video games at any time that isn't one am in the morning when I'm brain dead, some gentle abuse will not be appreciated, but likely needed.

After four novels, I can now say this the hate I feel now is the normal course of events, as will the sadness I feel once it's finished and I have a big empty hole in my life where a book once was.

Weird, hey?




(The above sad, but very amusing photo comes from Andy Macrae (andrewmacrae).)

After my last post, I followed a few links and ended up at a shoddy video of Arcade Fire and U2 doing a version of Joy Divisions' 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. Now, I like the first band quite a lot, and think the second band sucks in equal amount, but even I'll admit that U2 can do a passable song when needed, but fuck me if this isn't just awful.

However, this comment by Enrieby, some random poster on youtube, just make me laugh and made it all alright:

Now we know the reason Ian Curtis killed himself, after writing and performing one of the best songs ever, he looked into the future and imagined a day like this when a total dick like bono would do this to one of his songs.

From Deborah Layne (wheatland_press):

From now until July 4 (at midnight Pacific Time), if you buy any two Wheatland Press titles at the regular price, you'll get one copy of any volume of Polyphony free.

Just order as usual using Paypal and in the comment box of the order form for the second title, indicate which volume of Polyphony you would like to receive.

Of course, I love Wheatland Press, and endorse such a sale.

The disclaimer is, of course, that Wheatland Press is the publisher of my short novel, 26Lies, and you could, conceivably buy it as one of your two books, but even if you're not into that, one of the reasons to try any of the other books published here is that Deb Layne likes to do books that push the boundaries. Polyphony, the collection I recently sold a story to, and which will be in its seventh volume, has made its name on pushing the boundaries on literary speculative fiction, and the kind of work that appears there is always questioning the lines of genre boundaries, forcing you to look outside the simple and mainstream interpretations. There were five volumes doing this way before I managed to sneak into the last volume, and you can find authors such as Bruce Holland Rogers, Lucius Shepard, Robert Freeman Wexler, Ray Vukcevich, Leslie What, Diana Sherman, Jeff Ford, and more throughout the volumes, all doing this.

Do you need more incentive?

Well, how about this: it was Deb Layne who introduced me to Nouvelle Vague, the band below:



How could you doubt any publisher with fine music tastes?

Link.

Via Cat Sparks (catsparx)

Lynda Hawryluk (lyndahawryluk) is writing about the documentary about Schapelle Corby, and while I haven't seen the film, her write up makes it sound like fascinating stuff:

This week has seen the premiere of Schapelle Corby: The Hidden Truth, a documentary detailing the incarceration and trial of one Schapelle Leigh Corby, a woman defended and derided in equal measure in Australia and abroad.

The documentary uses undercover footage from inside Kerobokan Prison, Bali, where Schapelle has been since being found guilty of drug trafficking in 2005, as well as behind-the-scenes interviews and glimpses of the legal team and her family. Schapelle Corby: The Hidden Truth will probably be described as 'warts and all' but the truth is far more complex and so much less aesthetically pleasing.

The guilt or otherwise of Schapelle aside, the documentary gives us an inside glimpse of a family out of their depth and mired in their own vortex of self-induced hopelessness. The Corbys are apparently described in the promotional material for the series in the US as 'a family who couldn't find their way to the beach, much less around the Balinese legal system' and that's about the most polite thing you could say about them.

...

Schapelle's father Michael is another larger than life and excruciating to watch character, that kind of bombastic bogan who decided early in life the best way to make people listen was to enunciate each word like it hurt to say it. He glares menacingly into the camera and declares 'weeee nevah fucken saaaaaaw the baaaaag. No-one fucken tooooouched iiiiit' in the most exagerated way possible. I'm thinking if this is the tactic he took in interrogation rooms it's no wonder he gets busted every time he takes a wrong step.

His wild-eyed hoarse rants are cut short only once by a self-conscious Mercedes who makes the very canny decision to ask the camera crew to stop filming: it's the last we see of Michael, who passed away earlier this year and the image we're left with is a self-described ratbag who has probably been described as far worse by associates and family, and deservedly so. His appearance in the documentary wouldn't help change the minds of the growing number of Australian re-forming their opinions about Schapelle Corby's guilt.

Early on he admits being the carefree type who often 'went out for milk and didn't come back for two weeks'; watching him and the rest of the Corbys you realise what Schapelle's been up against from the start.

Me, I've never really been into the Corby case. It seemed to me that she was either incredibly stupid or incredibly guilty, and perhaps both. Personally, I think any jail sentence slapped on you for the possession of pot is a little on the harsh side, but at the same time, there was something about Schapelle and her family that just stopped me from having any sympathy for her (or them). Sympathy translates to interest for me, since, if I don't like something, I tend to just skip it. In reading Lynda's write up, however, I had a sudden realisation of knowing that, yeah, it was the site of her family that led me to disinterest: their denial of legitimate help and instead turning to Crazy Ron's mobile phone guy just seemed to strike me as an almost admittance to guilt, and the whole thing just had the look of a train wreck happening, and which would end up in tragedy. Which, ultimately, it has--by the time 2024 rolls around, a lot of life will be done, and you don't get those years back.

Anyhow, what you want to do is follow the link and read Lynda's piece on it, for it is both insightful and funny, and explains why you should be reading her blog if you're not.

Link.

You know, I don't think I've ever given Paul Anka the props he deserves:



A lot of people seem to hate this version, but me, I kind've like it. In part it's because I would never have imagined that you could turn 'Smells like Teen Spirit' into this tune, and in part because by doing so, Anka has taken an angry song and made it, well, happy. There's something in the part when he sings out 'Entertain us!' that conjures up the opening of some kind of freak festival, where down from the ceiling are going to come conjoined midgets, women without legs, men whose heads have been attached to mechanical spider legs, and so on and so forth.

Plus, I like seeing sacred things trashed and completely reworked into something new.

I'm that kind of guy.