Overland literary journal

Kindle 2.0

As far as I know the Kindle, Amazon's e-reader thingo, isn't actually available in Australia. But in the US, the second generation Kindle has just been launched. Here's its features:

Version 2 is sleeker, 25% thinner, Bezos said, than the size of the #1 bestselling phone (probably an iPhone, but of course, Bezos doesn’t name a product from his rival, Apple.) Its buttons are less obtrusive and more easily manageable – removing the Fisher Price See-and-Spell feeling of the original. It offers improved graphics and more storage – up to 1500 books, Bezos says. And the battery – which seemed weak in the old version – will reportedly hold its charge for two weeks.

The biggest advance, without doubt, however was the audio feature. Apparently now, “when you’re cooking in the kitchen,” as Bezos said, you can push a button and have the book that you were just reading read itself to you. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 10-02-2009, No comments

literature and parallel importation

Below's a piece about parallel importation that appeared in Crikey yesterday.

The kind of 'free trade versus protectionism' arguments that parallel importation raises will become even more important for the Left in the context of a recession. But they're not easy, especially in a short article, and in some ways the thing yesterday was a bit of a mess. But for what it's worth:

It's the Terminator of the Australian book industry: regularly dealt deathly blows but somehow always back, red eyes aglow. Even in these times in which neoliberalism is officially "A Very Bad Thing", the Productivity Commission's inquiry into the Copyright Act has once more opened the debate about the parallel importation of books. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 10-02-2009, No comments

from the intuition of babes

Well they say that, when it comes to judging people, animals and children never lie. Spot the odd picture out and you'll know the maxim still holds true.

... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 9-02-2009, No comments

hell in a handbasket

Here's the figures for US jobs lost in the current recession (green line) compared to the previous two downturns. How's that capitalism working out for everyone, then?

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 7-02-2009, 5 user comments

dunno which makes me feel older …

... that Lux Interior is dead or that he was sixty when he died.

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 6-02-2009, No comments

Whaling in the Southern Seas

At the Age there's a report on the ongoing (and it seems yearly) stoush between Japanese whalers and Sea Shephard anti-whalers:

Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said the 8000-tonne factory ship Nisshin Maru repeatedly tried to ram his vessel Steve Irwin, and three harpoon boats trailed ropes to entangle its propeller.

In the five-hour conflict, Captain Watson said sonic devices were used against a Sea Shepherd helicopter, forcing it to retreat, and resulting in the injury of another activist. The fleet's response came as the Japanese entered a fifth day under an increasingly tense pursuit by the Steve Irwin that was still under way last night.

... read more

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 6-02-2009, 3 user comments

paolo put the kettle on

My three year old is aching to read and as the time fast approaches I’ve been worried, rather than pleased. Below is an extract from an article I wrote last year for a parenting rag which fairly describes my anxiety:

As a young child I was always highly suspicious of fairy-tales. Not because I knew they were fantasy but because I realised, at least on some level, that the outcomes and insinuations of many of them had negative implications for me. I was the child of a Jamaican-born father and Guyanese mother, and fairy-tale heroines had golden locks and skin as white as snow. I didn’t look like Snow-white or Cinderella, but didn’t consider myself an Ugly Duckling, and certainly wasn’t about to go through a hundred year slumber waiting for my prince or pucker up anywhere near a toad. And never in a million years would I have stood for being loaned to a beast in order to repay family debt, or being forced into slavery by an evil step-mother.

I could never understand (and still don’t), why the little Mermaid changed who she was for ‘love’. It seemed to me that in fairy-tale land, in order to finally live happily ever after, young women must first be preyed upon by witches and wolves, sit biding their time until a young man got his act together enough to organize a rescue party or be forced into servitude by the mistakes, sins or failures of their parents and trust in fate for a happy and speedy resolution.

...In the way of role models for my son, there was Georgie Porgie (Pudding and Pie), who in the adult world, beyond the age of criminal responsibility, would almost certainly have been charged with sexual assault. And not only were his advances unsolicited and traumatic (the girls cried when he kissed them), but he was also too much of a coward to accept the consequences of his actions (he ran away). Next there was Peter (Pumpkin Eater), who was not only expected to ‘keep’ his wife but in the end put her in a pumpkin shell’ in order to do so, which smacked of false detainment.

...I listened, mortified, as my son was introduced to animal cruelty (the four and twenty blackbirds were baked alive in a pie and not only were the three mice too blind to see where they were running, but they were also savagely butchered for it), and gender stereotypes (Polly is the one who puts the kettle on and little Miss Muffet is frightened of spiders). I began to wonder about the Grand old Duke of York, who marched his army of ten thousand men up and down aimlessly, presumably passing time until a war broke out, instead of disbanding them to go and spend time with their families or do something else constructive...

My concern about nursery rhymes reinforcing outdated societal prejudices was re-ignited several months later, when a family friend innocently gave my son the present of a beautiful designer bib with the words ‘eeenie, meenie, miney , mo’ embroidered beautifully around the edges over and over (the second line of the original nursery rhyme being ‘catch a nigger by the toe’)…I cringed almost audibly as the present was fastened around his neck and admired by all.

... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 4-02-2009, 3 user comments

just punishment

I'm at the best phase of a new project -- the reading aimlessly stage.  Am trying to think about religion and last night started reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion.

If you pardon the pun, it's like the curate's egg -- good in parts. Obviously, his stuff on Darwin's really powerful -- he cuts through your unthinking acceptance of natural selection, and makes you see how powerful and shocking the theory is. Oh, and who knew Dawkins had a sense of humour? (That's a rhetorical question -- I'm sure lots of people did know.)  The book's full of irreverent, chatty little asides, and so the narrative persona is pretty endearing.

On the not-so-good side, his arguments about politics and religion are way too simplistic, and he tends to see belief as simply a matter of intellectual laziness or cowardice, which doesn't seem very helpful. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 3-02-2009, 5 user comments

Don’t hate me because I’m different

Last week might have been perfect for bananafish but not so much for chickens. Despite being regularly soaked with water (and eventually ensconced in the shower cubicle), they spent much of the heatwave panting. And, when they weren't panting, they were attacking the weakest bird in the flock (pictured over the jump), which eventually lost most of its feathers. You can see in the photo that it's got a deformed beak and so is smaller than the others (I guess it can't eat as much).

In chicken society, one response to hard times is, it seems, a recourse to scapegoating. One suspects we'll see more of this (amongst people, not chickens) as the recession properly begins.

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Written by Jeff Sparrow on 1-02-2009, 9 user comments