Killing Joke
There was a Monty Python skit about a joke that was so funny, whoever heard it, or even read it, would keel over dead. Similarly, David Foster Wallace’s epic novel, Infinite Jest, had an eponymous macguffin film that did the same.
There’s an amateur short film contest here in Sydney, called “Tropfest”, and back around the time of all those Japanese ghost story movies and Hollywood remakes, I suggested to someone trying to think of an entry that she should spoof The Ring, but instead of a videotape, it would be a cellphone call – “The Ringtone.”
It seems, however, that real life trumps art. It's a science fiction aphorism that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, although we may tend to lose sight of just how far apart our various societies are from one another in the latest stages of globalisation.
26 March 2009
21 March 2009
Stage Door
It's been a busy weekend already, with the Rabbitohs last night and then today, only enough time to get the laundry out, before going to a matinee of The Removalists, a play by David Williamson, playing at the Sydney Theatre Company, down in the Rocks. For a 1970's play, it's surprisingly undated, although there is a tone there yet, both in its focus and in its language, but as it's set in Melbourne, maybe there's enough regionalism that I oughtn't to be too hasty. (Still, for all the wide distances that separate the major cities of the country, unlike America, there's little difference in accent, tone, or culture, Queensland under Joh not withstanding.)
This is a brutal work, and for the life of me, I can't see how the actors overcome the difficulties of the play or the production. I guess that's just what they do. The stage is no larger than my lounge room, and surrounded on three sides by tiered seating. It was not a sold-out crowd, maybe just 85-90%, but still, with the lighting, this is not a case of the actors unable to see the audience. Nevertheless, the operated without undue acknowledgment.
I say "undue acknowledgment" because the play itself is one that very much seeks to engage the audience in a knowing, if passive participation. In many ways, like the professional removalist brought it during the action, and, even, like the other major participants in the action onstage, one way or another, we are complicit in what occurs. This is a play of witnessing, much in the Christian sense.
It's terrible, fierce, brutal, and very challenging, and the humor throughout only makes those elements that much more difficult to address, walking out into the harbour ambiance.
The Brooklyn Academy's "Next Wave" festival was always my way of ensuring I got enough dance and drama and music experientially, as opposed to my more "passive" intake of books and CD's and movies, and I haven't found anything really comparable here in Sydney (although Nick Cave's "All Tommorrow's Parties" would have been an excellent equivalence if I hadn't been in Melbourne at the time), so it took the fact that my upstairs neighbor is a lead actor in this play for me to get out to it, even though the mere fact that Cate Blanchett and her husband, Andrew Upton, are running the Sydney Theatre Company ought to have been reason enough to go. Ash was terrific and took a horrific beating (yeah, stage-y, but it's on-stage, isn't it, not like the movies). The performances weren't all around great - I didn't think the women were notably good - but the Sergeant and Ash, as Kenny Carter, stood out.
It's been a busy weekend already, with the Rabbitohs last night and then today, only enough time to get the laundry out, before going to a matinee of The Removalists, a play by David Williamson, playing at the Sydney Theatre Company, down in the Rocks. For a 1970's play, it's surprisingly undated, although there is a tone there yet, both in its focus and in its language, but as it's set in Melbourne, maybe there's enough regionalism that I oughtn't to be too hasty. (Still, for all the wide distances that separate the major cities of the country, unlike America, there's little difference in accent, tone, or culture, Queensland under Joh not withstanding.)
This is a brutal work, and for the life of me, I can't see how the actors overcome the difficulties of the play or the production. I guess that's just what they do. The stage is no larger than my lounge room, and surrounded on three sides by tiered seating. It was not a sold-out crowd, maybe just 85-90%, but still, with the lighting, this is not a case of the actors unable to see the audience. Nevertheless, the operated without undue acknowledgment.
I say "undue acknowledgment" because the play itself is one that very much seeks to engage the audience in a knowing, if passive participation. In many ways, like the professional removalist brought it during the action, and, even, like the other major participants in the action onstage, one way or another, we are complicit in what occurs. This is a play of witnessing, much in the Christian sense.
It's terrible, fierce, brutal, and very challenging, and the humor throughout only makes those elements that much more difficult to address, walking out into the harbour ambiance.
The Brooklyn Academy's "Next Wave" festival was always my way of ensuring I got enough dance and drama and music experientially, as opposed to my more "passive" intake of books and CD's and movies, and I haven't found anything really comparable here in Sydney (although Nick Cave's "All Tommorrow's Parties" would have been an excellent equivalence if I hadn't been in Melbourne at the time), so it took the fact that my upstairs neighbor is a lead actor in this play for me to get out to it, even though the mere fact that Cate Blanchett and her husband, Andrew Upton, are running the Sydney Theatre Company ought to have been reason enough to go. Ash was terrific and took a horrific beating (yeah, stage-y, but it's on-stage, isn't it, not like the movies). The performances weren't all around great - I didn't think the women were notably good - but the Sergeant and Ash, as Kenny Carter, stood out.
20 March 2009
Blackout
There’s censorship everywhere. I remember a documentary film about censoring “adult” movies in Canada, where a small group of people would gather to screen blue movies and decide whether they could be released to the public. From my recollection, there was little that didn’t pass.
Since coming to Australia, I’ve seen a couple of cases, involving movies, that have become celebrity events, and they’ve highlighted this country’s rather strict regulatory approach.
One of the present Labor government’s promises has been a nationwide internet filter, which approaches implementation. So I’m rather thankful to Wikileaks, a site devoted to exposing the kind of national censorship proposed, for posting the ACMA’s list of banned sites. I disagree with imposing national firewalls, outside of protecting national security – this isn’t China, for goodness’ sake; we’re supposed to be a free country, even if we don’t have a bill of rights or anything like it. While I can fully support policing websites that violate the law, but I don’t support this kind of totalitarian nonsense. Look – some Queensland dentist is on the list (not to mention Wikileaks.org itself (oh, I’m in trouble now, aren’t I?) It’s like the no-fly terrorist list in the States. What else don’t we know about?
There’s censorship everywhere. I remember a documentary film about censoring “adult” movies in Canada, where a small group of people would gather to screen blue movies and decide whether they could be released to the public. From my recollection, there was little that didn’t pass.
Since coming to Australia, I’ve seen a couple of cases, involving movies, that have become celebrity events, and they’ve highlighted this country’s rather strict regulatory approach.
One of the present Labor government’s promises has been a nationwide internet filter, which approaches implementation. So I’m rather thankful to Wikileaks, a site devoted to exposing the kind of national censorship proposed, for posting the ACMA’s list of banned sites. I disagree with imposing national firewalls, outside of protecting national security – this isn’t China, for goodness’ sake; we’re supposed to be a free country, even if we don’t have a bill of rights or anything like it. While I can fully support policing websites that violate the law, but I don’t support this kind of totalitarian nonsense. Look – some Queensland dentist is on the list (not to mention Wikileaks.org itself (oh, I’m in trouble now, aren’t I?) It’s like the no-fly terrorist list in the States. What else don’t we know about?
10 March 2009
Pets Peeve
Oh, the cats hate me now. I'm working back so often, they're unfed for many hours beyond their expectations. Here it's 7:30 already, and no way I'm done here before 8:00, with another forty minutes or more to get home, assuming there's a bus still running at that point. I don't like them being out after dark, not least for the one who sits patiently and invisibly outside the door until I get home, which isn't a deliberate act of ambush, but might yet come out that way some night. Sometimes I think it was a mistake to leave my last job, which always finished up by five.
Oh, the cats hate me now. I'm working back so often, they're unfed for many hours beyond their expectations. Here it's 7:30 already, and no way I'm done here before 8:00, with another forty minutes or more to get home, assuming there's a bus still running at that point. I don't like them being out after dark, not least for the one who sits patiently and invisibly outside the door until I get home, which isn't a deliberate act of ambush, but might yet come out that way some night. Sometimes I think it was a mistake to leave my last job, which always finished up by five.
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