Fixing Cat
I don’t see any good reason to deny the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens a visa. I also don’t see any reason to reward him by attending any of his concerts or buying any of his music, past, present or future. He supported the fatwa on Salman Rushdie no matter what he claims now. He wasn’t joking, he wasn’t taken out of context, but he is an ass for trying to avoid saying he was wrong and apologizing. Let him go where he wants, but let him play to an empty hall.
28 May 2010
18 May 2010
SMH Half Results
2:02 clock time and 1:59 chip time is much better than I had any reason to expect. I'll take two weeks to rest before training for the half in October and see what kind of result I can manage then.
2:02 clock time and 1:59 chip time is much better than I had any reason to expect. I'll take two weeks to rest before training for the half in October and see what kind of result I can manage then.
17 May 2010
It Can't Happen Here
From the Department of Good Thinking, 31 new offshore drilling projects for Australia. I guess it'll be o.k. so long as we don't use BP.
We have more solar energy beaming down you'd think we could make a go of that, but I guess we'll keep digging coal and pumping oil until every last molecule is expended. Thank goodness the ETS was abandoned until 2013.
From the Department of Good Thinking, 31 new offshore drilling projects for Australia. I guess it'll be o.k. so long as we don't use BP.
We have more solar energy beaming down you'd think we could make a go of that, but I guess we'll keep digging coal and pumping oil until every last molecule is expended. Thank goodness the ETS was abandoned until 2013.
15 May 2010
Around the World in 210 Days
Phileas Fogg's got nothing to worry about, but all props to Jessica Watson, sixteen years old and alone on a pretty small sailboat for all that time. What do you bet she tends to wobble a bit for a week or two now on dry land again? She doesn't get a record - some miles short and the category "eliminated" - but it's quite an accomplishment. I won't go into the whole "what were her parents thinking" trope. That's nonsense, clearly, now. And whether or not technological assistance made this possible only in the last twenty years hardly matters either. Good job, kid. What next?
Phileas Fogg's got nothing to worry about, but all props to Jessica Watson, sixteen years old and alone on a pretty small sailboat for all that time. What do you bet she tends to wobble a bit for a week or two now on dry land again? She doesn't get a record - some miles short and the category "eliminated" - but it's quite an accomplishment. I won't go into the whole "what were her parents thinking" trope. That's nonsense, clearly, now. And whether or not technological assistance made this possible only in the last twenty years hardly matters either. Good job, kid. What next?
12 May 2010
Iron Man, All Jets Ablaze, He Fights & Fights with Repulsor Rays
And not just Iron Man, because Iron Man 2 features 'Rhodey' Rhodes as War Machine (basically Iron Man's suit with additional guns). Best of all, it's got Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, and he's about as menacing as you could want in a villain. Sam Rockwell slimes his way through the picture as the egomanicial and ultimately incompetent corporate bad guy so well it hurts to watch him, kinda like Ricky Gervais in "The Office", and Garry Shandling is perfect as the sleazy Senator. The rest I could take or leave. Scarlett Johansen's pretty, sure, and I'm sure she enjoyed flying around on wires as the Black Widow, but that's about as far as that goes, and don't get me started on Gwyneth Paltrow, stuttering her way through every movie I've ever seen her in like she's desperately seeking a good ad lib. But so what? People complain about the Hollywood blockbuster like it's a bad thing. It's not true; they should all go back and watch Sullivan's Travels.
And not just Iron Man, because Iron Man 2 features 'Rhodey' Rhodes as War Machine (basically Iron Man's suit with additional guns). Best of all, it's got Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, and he's about as menacing as you could want in a villain. Sam Rockwell slimes his way through the picture as the egomanicial and ultimately incompetent corporate bad guy so well it hurts to watch him, kinda like Ricky Gervais in "The Office", and Garry Shandling is perfect as the sleazy Senator. The rest I could take or leave. Scarlett Johansen's pretty, sure, and I'm sure she enjoyed flying around on wires as the Black Widow, but that's about as far as that goes, and don't get me started on Gwyneth Paltrow, stuttering her way through every movie I've ever seen her in like she's desperately seeking a good ad lib. But so what? People complain about the Hollywood blockbuster like it's a bad thing. It's not true; they should all go back and watch Sullivan's Travels.
06 May 2010
Minimal Maximal Marimbas
Synergy Percussion put on a program of Steve Reich compositions at the City Recital Hall tonight, including Part 1 of "Drumming", one of my favorites, and a new piece, "Mallet Quartet". The highlight of the evening, however, was "Sextet", a piece involving four different marimbas, two of which were, over the course of the piece, played with violin bows. I attended on the mistaken impression that Reich's "Double Sextet" would be performed, the one he got the Pulitzer for last year, confusing it with the "Mallet Quartet", due to my usual vagueness, but that hardly matters, as it was a highly enjoyable evening. The one non-Reich piece, "Kalabash", by Nigel Westlake, was very funky, as advertised, but put me in mind of nothing quite so much as music from "West Side Story", whereas the Reich pieces, for all the staccato sections' resemblance to newsflash dit-dit-dit-dit-dit, really sounded like nothing but themselves, unique compositions finally, not lacking in any way any complexity for all their "minimalism". An excellent evening worth staying up for.
Synergy Percussion put on a program of Steve Reich compositions at the City Recital Hall tonight, including Part 1 of "Drumming", one of my favorites, and a new piece, "Mallet Quartet". The highlight of the evening, however, was "Sextet", a piece involving four different marimbas, two of which were, over the course of the piece, played with violin bows. I attended on the mistaken impression that Reich's "Double Sextet" would be performed, the one he got the Pulitzer for last year, confusing it with the "Mallet Quartet", due to my usual vagueness, but that hardly matters, as it was a highly enjoyable evening. The one non-Reich piece, "Kalabash", by Nigel Westlake, was very funky, as advertised, but put me in mind of nothing quite so much as music from "West Side Story", whereas the Reich pieces, for all the staccato sections' resemblance to newsflash dit-dit-dit-dit-dit, really sounded like nothing but themselves, unique compositions finally, not lacking in any way any complexity for all their "minimalism". An excellent evening worth staying up for.
04 May 2010
Swing Votes
I’m not surprised that PM Kevin Rudd isn’t polling so well lately. Backing off on even a bad choice on carbon reduction was enough to get me seriously thinking about going Green. Even though, as usual, tax reform gets me nothing, I’m not unhappy with the cherry-picking and slow pace of implementation Labor conducted following the Henry Tax Review, I am unhappy with other, more or less consequential implementation failures. Do we have hospital reform yet? What about water management? Whaling? Getting scared out of the home insulation scheme was just stupid, not to mention ineffective communications management. (I don’t blame the government for contractor errors; I do blame them for letting the Liberals control the message.) A one-term Labor government wouldn’t make me happy, though. If the Coalition does come back into power, and worse, under Abbott, we’d be reverting to anti-labour schemes and the culture wars altogether too soon.
I’m not surprised that PM Kevin Rudd isn’t polling so well lately. Backing off on even a bad choice on carbon reduction was enough to get me seriously thinking about going Green. Even though, as usual, tax reform gets me nothing, I’m not unhappy with the cherry-picking and slow pace of implementation Labor conducted following the Henry Tax Review, I am unhappy with other, more or less consequential implementation failures. Do we have hospital reform yet? What about water management? Whaling? Getting scared out of the home insulation scheme was just stupid, not to mention ineffective communications management. (I don’t blame the government for contractor errors; I do blame them for letting the Liberals control the message.) A one-term Labor government wouldn’t make me happy, though. If the Coalition does come back into power, and worse, under Abbott, we’d be reverting to anti-labour schemes and the culture wars altogether too soon.
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