September, 2009

Quick, who are these six people? ____ Apparently, it’s all in the eyebrows. In an MIT study subjects were asked to identify celebrities by altered photos: without eyebrows, and without eyes. With eyebrows, but sans eyes, celebrities were recognised 60% of the time. With eyes but sans eyebrows, only 46% of the time. So, stop [...]

Only 9 months into Obama’s term the the enthusiasm gap has gone the south on the Democrats and even the 2010 midterm elections are, amazingly, looking rather painful. Thank goodness one other American measure of public feeling is going his way. I’m guessing that’s a certain Ann Coulter above, with her Barbarian slaying sword, and [...]

___ The Amen break To talk fascinatingly about 40-year-old drum break you don’t know that you know. Brilliantly oblique! This is the apparent subject of a fantastic youtube recording of what amounts to an art project, but which is also a dissertation or argument for open copyright as an essential ingredient in the health of [...]

___ Last weekend I went to see my friend Andrew Raiskums conduct his terrific choral outfit Gloriana in one of their quarterly performances. It’s an amateur group – the thirty or so choir members (one of whom rejoices in the name Kate Gondwana) do it out of love and desire; you can tell. The drawings [...]

If for no more reason than the new Dan Brown has just been published, today’s post nods back to books. (‘The [Dan Brown] books came straight off the printer, went straight into boxes and were then wrapped in black plastic and sealed,’ Random House spokeswoman Ms Reid said.) +++ To a book with a cosmically [...]

The language we speak ___ Ah, that Julia Gillard. She’s hotter than swordfish on a bbq. In case you missed it last weekend, she said this of John Howard: ‘In politics, the fish doesn’t so much rot from the head as from the heart.’ (Think I’m kidding? Check out the context.) +++ A few days [...]

Postmodern Writer Is Found Dead at Home Headline, New York Times, Sept 14, 2008 Interviewer: ‘What does postmodern mean in literature?’ Foster Wallace, smiling: ‘After modernism.’ ‘… I think that postmodernism has to a large extent run its course.’ This, in 1997. He doesn’t loom large in the Australian landscape as he does in the [...]

“Ninety percent of everything is crud.” Sturgeon’s Law On a roll – we follow on from yesterday’s post about the theft of Damien Hirst’s £500,000 pencils. You may recall: the reputedly richest artist in the world (pictured left, poss. net worth £200 million) is in dispute with an 17-yr-old graffitist, Cartrain, which will end up [...]

Long story short: teenager steals a pack of pencils (above) from multi-millionaire artist, is arrested and up to be fined £500,000. Slightly longer story: 18-year-old graffitist Carwreck, sorry – Cartrain – arrested by the Art and Antiques squad from New Scotland Yard for the theft of a packet of pencils from Tate Britain gallery. Currently [...]

On my morning surf, I found buried deep in The Age‘s website this fascinating article by Paul Kalina. (Micro-rant, rhetorical query: Why are the arts sections [not even dignified by the word "Arts"] of Fairfax websites so shite?) Kalina has written about the indie doco Into the Shadows, recent joint winner of Best Australian Film [...]