‘The people have spoken but what did they say?” The Sunday Times, 9 May 2010
The song of Seikilos is the oldest complete song – music and lyrics – in the western canon, carved in literal stone. The pillar (in Turkey, dated c.200BC–100AD) announces itself: I am a tombstone, an icon. Seikilos placed me here as an everlasting sign of deathless remembrance. This is the melody: And the lyrics: Hoson […]
Above: Nick Clegg in a production of Beckett’s Waiting for Goliath, featuring Sir Ian McKellen. Nick Clegg – likely very soon to be the kingmaker of David Cameron and the kingkiller of Gordon Brown – is also evidently the most culturally interested of the three. +++ In a Guardian q&a his answer to when and […]
The UK Sun, Rupert’s red-top, has always been winningly subtle in its political support. It was, of course, “the Sun wot won it” for the Tories in 1992, and then thoughtfullly awarded 10 Downing to Blair in ’97. This year’s model is the pink, glossy-faced (that’s a literal description) David Cameron. It’s refreshing to see […]
The Crikey culture blog
In a recent New Yorker (yes, the Mulcher refers to them constantly – it’s like the Mulcher is their bitch; and you know what – referring to The Monthly doesn’t do the business). Oh yes, anyway in the NYer they had an article about these hairy ex-surfer dudes who have opened a cultish restaurant in […]
. I.M. Peter Porter 1929 – 2010 . I was flicking through Porter’s Afterburner (2004), his penultimate collection of poetry, and on the back page I came across this sketch above – he had read from the book at the State Library. (He had aged since I last drew him in 1990, blockier somehow, and […]
Last night in the drizzle darkness, Ramona Koval and the crew from Radio National trundled into the Wheeler Centre at Melbourne’s State Library. They came to record an audience session for tomorrow’s Book Show (April 30). Part of the series ‘Reading on Vocation,’ this one interrogated the lawyers. On the panel was Robert Richter QC, […]
. I.M. Peter Porter 1929 – 2010 . Poetry is the art of constructing a trap of words – when tripped by its prey, a curious human, it triggers a rush of thought and feeling. Peter Porter was a master trapmaker. It was as a witless youth in the ’80s that I stumbled upon one […]
Our Germs, Germaine Greer, National Living Expat Treasure and our greatest culture critic*, has decided to join in the Wynne prize fracas (see here) in an article for the Guardian titled: “So an artist found a work on the web, copied it and won an award. Why the fuss?” (*Just last month she won that […]
Anne Bancroft’s Yma Dream: My wicked friend David said to look this up, so we can thank him for this link to Bancroft’s superbity in this bit of surreal wackiness. If only more shrink sessions were like this.
