Overland literary journal

fight for your right to stupidity

Below is another Crikey piece from a few days back, on the media career of a certain 'Joe the Plumber' and what it says about contemporary conservatism. It should, however, be updated by the inclusion of Joe's remarkable statement outlining the role of the media in times of conflict:

To be honest with you, I don’t think journalists should be anywhere allowed war [sic]. … I liked back in World War I and World War II, when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for them. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to down soldiers — our American soldiers, our Israeli soldiers. I think media should be abolished from reporting. You know, war’s hell, and if you’re gonna sit there and say ‘Well look at this atrocity’ — well you don’t know the full story behind it half the time. So I think the media should have no business in it. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 14-01-2009, No comments

tasers: sexy, futuristic and lethal

From Crikey, last week:

If you want to see George Bush get tasered (and let’s face it, who doesn’t!), check out Huffington Post today. Actually, that’s not quite right: it's the luckless Colin Powell who receives the volts while Bush just gets pepper sprayed. OK, so it’s not really Powell and Bush but Jeffrey Wright and Josh Brolin, the actors who play them in the Oliver Stone film W.

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 13-01-2009, No comments

call for submissions

A new publication searching for writers:

Wai is a new quarterly newspaper looking for contributions. Wai means 'hey' in Pitantjari. The aim of Wai is to raise attention to issues that aren't written about enough on a national and regional level. This means the contents of Wai are predominately focused on human rights, social justice and environmental issues. Wai also features a lengthy campaign and events section. Articles for Wai are should be between 800-2000 words. Wai will also publish art, poetry, fiction and examples of alternative ways of living. The next issue of Wai will be out in mid-March. The deadline for articles  is 28 February. Wai has a print run of 3000 and is distributed free around all major cities of this continent. If you would like to check out Wai for yourself go to waiquarterly.wordpress.com. If you want to contribute email waiquarterly [at] gmail.com. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 12-01-2009, No comments

‘like a headbutt to the chest’

That's Angela 'Literary Minded' Meyer on Eva Sallis' story 'Death Sentence' from Overland 193. You can read the story here. Meyer's review begins:

Another stimulating issue of a journal that dares to challenge you. By this I don’t mean just political stimulation (thought there is plenty of that there) but through non-mainstream points of observation.Overland generally gives you a variety of pieces on topics you may not have even thought of thinking about, if you know what I mean. In my review of 192 I wrote about how much I enjoyed the piece on women’s boxing, something I had known nothing of previously. This issue, the standout nonfiction pieces for me were ‘The Last Fanzine’ by Andrew Ramadge, an interesting and informative piece about a provocative underground rock zinester; and ‘Death of the Father’ by Sandy Jeffs, a clear insight into schizophrenia. With the latter, I felt again that Overlandhad published something that everyone would benefit from reading - for a better understanding of people and their world. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 12-01-2009, No comments

‘this war-crazed Pig had your brother killed’

In the New York Times book pages, Caleb Crain reviews Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children's Literature by Julia L. Mickenberg and Philip Nel, two American academics. He writes:

the tentacles of the left reach deep. Crockett Johnson, creator of the innocuous-seeming “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” was an editor at The New Masses, a Communist weekly. Syd Hoff, known for “Danny and the Dinosaur,” wrote for The Daily Worker. Environmentalism is more or less explicit in such crowd pleasers as “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 11-01-2009, No comments

Gaza: the Australian connection

Who knew? Mark Regev, the man who pops up on your TV to suavely justify each fresh atrocity in Gaza, hails from Melbourne. His Wiki entry runs:

Born Mark Freiberg in Australia to Martin and Freda Freiberg, he is a graduate of Mount Scopus Memorial College, received his Bachelor's degree in Political Science and History at Melbourne University, and a Master's degree in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as a Master of Science in Management from Boston University.

Regev's not, it turns out, the only Australian forging a career as an international apologist for war crimes. You might recall Captain Benjamin Rutland, whom we last encountered explaining how ordinary policeman in Gaza were legitimate targets. Captain Rutland, it seems, was born in Paddington, raised in Bondi and studied arts-law at University of NSW. He's also good friends with a certain Guy Spigelman, also from Sydney, and now the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson. Indeed, Rutland describes himself as part of an 'Australian mafia' working in Israeli PR, an unwittingly accurate phrase, since, according to the Oz, Rutland spent the last week explaining why Israel killed forty people in a clearly marked UN school in Gaza - an eminently suitable occupation for a self-styled mafioso. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 10-01-2009, 1 user comment

Guernica, Gaza and the disappearance of shock

As everyone knows, in the wake of the bombing of a small Basque town by German and Italian planes during the Spanish Civil War, Picasso produced the painting Guernica. This astonishing three-dimensional rendition of his canvas allows us to see anew a perhaps overly familiar image: the screaming mouths, the outstretched hands, the horror and anguish of people and animals.

... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 9-01-2009, 3 user comments

another one gone

Ron Asheton, RIP. The bizarre contrast between the announcer in the clip below and the act he's describing perfectly illustrates the Stooges' significance.

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 8-01-2009, 1 user comment

literary liar, pants on fire

Literary Hoaxes are so old hat...but in the spirit of the recent Quadrant hoax, here are some of the most scandalous:

1. Best-selling 'Native American' novelist Nasdijj (The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams , 2000) is in fact Timothy Patrick Barrus, a white gay-erotica writer.

2. In the early to mid-nineties, in what has become known as the Hiroshima Poetry Hoax, American poetry journals such as Grand Street and Conjunctions ‘post humously’ published the poetry of Hiroshima survivor Araki Yasusada, reported to have died in 1972. Biographical notes included insight into Yasusada’s life, such as his daughter’s death from radiation poisoning. Said to provide a revolutionary new voice bridging the gap between Japanese and Western poetics, it was eventually revealed that there was no Yasusada, and the most probable, though officially unconfirmed, perpetrator of the hoax was Kent Johnson, a 41-year-old professor of English at a Community College in Illinois. ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 8-01-2009, 3 user comments

state of Australian culture

Someone just alerted me to the fantastic series New Matilda has been running on the state of Australian culture, a discussion that dovetails nicely with some of the pieces Overland has published recently. The most recent piece by Ben Eltham is particularly good. He writes:

The consistent issue running through the "state of the cultural nation" series published here on newmatilda.com has been that of transformation. All of the sectors discussed are facing significant changes of various kinds — and in general, cultural policy has failed to keep up. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 7-01-2009, No comments

round-up of Windschuttle discussion

I don't think this thing's nearly as important as what's happening in Gaza but, still, in in these times, it's good to have the odd  laugh. The mainstream media discussion includes articles in the Oz, the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. In the SMH, David Marr opens memorably:

AFTER a terrible two hours, Keith Windschuttle convinced himself he hadn't been hoaxed at all. He was greatly relieved. How embarrassing such a stumble could have been for this fierce nitpicker, scourge of sloppy academics and current editor of the conservative Quadrant magazine. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 7-01-2009, 3 user comments

the biter gets bit

Margaret Simons has a corker of a story in today's Crikey:

Keith Windschuttle, the editor of the conservative magazine Quadrant, has been taken in by a hoax intended to show that he will print outrageous propositions.

This month’s edition of Quadrant contains a hoax article purporting to be by “Sharon Gould”, a Brisbane based New York biotechnologist.

But in the tradition of Ern Malley – the famous literary hoax perpetrated by Quadrant’s first editor, James McAuley – the Sharon Gould persona is entirely fictitious and the article is studded with false science, logical leaps, outrageous claims and a mixture of genuine and bogus footnotes. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 6-01-2009, 2 user comments