Being fully middle-class with fully middle of the road tastes I occasionally listen to NPR’s All Songs Considered, which fits snugly amongst Stuff White People Like, being self-consciously mainstream alt. In the sonic arena I must be whitish as I find their selections tolerable and every now and again appealing; luck prevents me from regular [...]
I recently attended a Gloriana concert where the highlight was Ariel Ramirez’ wonderful “iconic” Misa Criolla. It was just fantastic and we, the people, forced the choir into a gratifying encore of the “Gloria”. I was just sufficiently conscious to switch on my kneecam. I was familiar with this piece in a recording where the [...]
March 28, 2011 – 11:39 am
On Sunday in a quiet inner city church, the Gloriana chamber choir sang Arvo Pärt’s Da pacem Domine. And I was reminded of Gorecki’s No. 3, of lying on the carpet in an apartment above Lavender Bay in Sydney, very late one night in the mid 1990s. The soprano was Dawn Upshaw. It was like [...]
November 9, 2010 – 9:39 am
Her name is Ree Dolly, and her address is Winter’s Bone. As a movie, Winter’s Bone is the kind that kills chatter, providing the deep, disturbing pleasures of American gothic. It was filmed within an Ozark community — that’s hillbillies, bluegrass country, finger-plucking banjos. Ah, banjos … we know where that is: And, pedantically, we’d [...]
October 22, 2010 – 9:59 am
I mean, John Cale is 68(!) and he’s got fluoro pink dye in his hair; plus, he’s actually got hair. The concert (because Josh asked) My country friend Josh asked how I liked the John Cale concert. This was last Saturday as part of the Melbourne Festival. I’d been lured there by a fan in [...]
October 21, 2010 – 10:09 am
It’s a cool night and leaving the car you walk to St Carthage’s, a small church in leafy Parkville. A smallish group is converging, stamping their feet and turning their heads to the sky. You wait a few minutes until the usher beckons you forward. I hear a muffled thunder as if many people are [...]
October 19, 2010 – 10:12 am
Interviewer, posh rounded accent: ‘When you were starting out as a writer you were black, impoverished, homosexual. You must have said to yourself, Gee how disadvantaged can I get?’ (Watch his face animate) James Baldwin, replying: ‘No, I thought I hit the jackpot!’ (Audience laughter) ‘It’s so outrageous you could not go any further, you [...]
October 13, 2010 – 10:02 am
Joan Sutherland, opera singer, born 7 November 1926; died 10 October 2010 The Celebrity Demise effect Unfortunate old joke: ‘I heard he died last night.’…’But I didn’t even know he was sick.’ Tony Curtis. Walter Cronkite. Er, Don Lane. A great fame is like an immortality, making static the old and famous while the rest [...]
By W H Chong
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Also posted in music
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Tagged Australia Council, Ben Eltham, Brian Wilson, Dame Joan Sutherland, Jennifer Maiden, Lucia di Lammermoor, Marcus Westbury, opera, Pavarotti, Philip Larkin, Wordsworth
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October 12, 2010 – 2:38 pm
I was lurking about Slog where I stumbled across this item from earlier today/yesterday: Someone Is Writing a Novel Right Now It started this (yesterday) morning in Seattle. As I watch Stacey Levine has typed out a bit of Chapter 6: Alexis waited for Linda, who had texted her as soon as Alexis had switched [...]
I never really loved — not loved — that old school rock and roll. It tended to grate on my latter day sensibilties: this taste for more ratio of roll to rock. But the King overcomes. In this 43-year-old clip (colourised) he builds the sub-three minute Jailhouse Rock into an epic epitome of all that [...]
