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other people die, too

You might have heard that Michael Jackson died recently. No, really -- he did. I was of the generation that had Thriller shoved down our throats, and that's spoiled any appreciation I might have had of Jackson's talents. People say that Off the Wall is a good record and maybe that's so. As for his personal life, well, David Walsh of the WSWS wrote a quite sympathetic obituary that's worth reading.

Anyway, the coverage in recent days got me thinking about musicians whose deaths really did affect me. Our reaction to pop music is very personal, perhaps more so than other arts. It's difficult to think about a song or a band without remembering the first time you heard them, and thus a whole raft of other associations. Quite possibly, the list below will leave everyone else cold. Well, so be it. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 30-06-2009, No comments

Time to study Australia’s role in the tragedy of Iraq

From Crikey today:

Our arrival into the military airport in Baghdad was like something from the ‘Charlie Don't Surf’ scene in the movie Apocalypse Now -- US air force jets taking off and landing, Iraqi forces with a heavy presence, US helicopters flying low and loudly across the skies, and the four Australian light-armoured vehicles waiting in the distance.

That’s the Australian -- "the only media outlet invited" -- reporting on Julia Gillard in Iraq, visiting the 90 Australian soldiers still there.

Apocalypse now or apocalypse slightly later? Tomorrow, US combat troops will leave Iraqi towns and cities, under the Status of Forces Agreement negotiating the US withdrawal. Already there’s been an uptick in violence suggestive of how very fragile the relative calm of the last months remains: a truck bomb in Kirkuk last weekend killing almost 70, a bomb attack in a Baghdad motorbike market killing 15 and wounding 50, a bombing in Sadr city killing 76. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 29-06-2009, No comments

overland underground

hawthorn

Under Hawthorn with @Sophiec and Doug.

... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 27-06-2009, No comments

Stuff I’ve been reading this week

We don't have quite the room in our print magazine for reviews that we'd like, and I am rather lacklustre when it comes to regular blogging...so I'm going to try and write a weekly post about the books I am getting into. Needless to say these aren't reviews proper, just the scattered associations of an idle reader. Jeff got me thinking with his post about Australian landscape in literature and music. I can't be near a surf beach in Sydney without thinking of Puberty Blues, and can't lie on the concrete in a glaring summer day without thinking of Garner's Monkey Grip. But both of these are essentially forms of nostalgia for the never-experienced for me, published so many years ago, typifying aspects of the end of the seventies and eighties. These days I wouldn't be surprised in Tsiolkas has got Preston/

Written by Kalinda Ashton on 26-06-2009, No comments

5400

One year (Individual) AU$54

... read more

Written by Alex Skutenko on 24-06-2009, Comments Off

Australian places defined by music or books

That's Nina Simone's 'Baltimore', and when I was briefly there last year, the words kept going through my head. In fact, you can't travel anywhere in the US without hearing music, since just about every place name has a song attached to it. Anyway, I was wondering about local equivalents, in either books or music, and so far have come up pretty well blank. There's this, of course. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 24-06-2009, 10 user comments

There Goes the Neighbourhood Book Launch

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Captain Rumble and I ended up at a party in Sydney after a writers' festival dinner. The party followed an exhibition curated by a friend of mine, Zanny Begg. Well, the book that emerged from the exhibition is being launched in Melbourne: There Goes The Neighbourhood: Redfern and the Politics of Urban Space Melbourne Book Launch & Tea Party Saturday July 4th 2- 4pm Guest Speaker: Gary Foley Brunswick Bound 361 Sydney Rd, Brunswick, VIC 3056 E: info@brunswickbound.com.au P: 9381 4019 Worried about the gentrification? Rising rents? Apartment blocks popping up on every corner and yuppies taking over your local neighbourhood? Well you’re not alone… There Goes The Neighbourhood: Redfern and the Politics of Urban Space is a book produced in

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 24-06-2009, 1 user comment

‘Laughing at the Disabled’ goes to court — again

The Australian reports that Michael Noonan, a Phd student at QUT, is now suing two academics over comments they made in the Oz about his thesis. It's the latest development in a long-running saga that throws up a bunch of questions about disability, humour and the academy.

Noonan's thesis, you see, was entitled 'Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains'. Gary MacLennan and John Hookham are well-known leftist activists and academics. They saw  footage from the work in progress and were outraged at what they perceived at its cruelty and insensitivity. In an interview with the 7.30 Report, they explained: ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 23-06-2009, 7 user comments

Still Aiming at Mockingbirds

mockingbird_rev

Last week I had the stirring experience of watching my mother Claudette Clarke perform as Calpurnia in Christopher Sergel’s theatre adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird in Sydney.

Although Sergel’s play is well-written, particularly the lengthy courtroom scene, it deviates considerably from the book most notably, for me, through the dilution of the black community’s part in the story. Although there was facility in the play for the utilisation of black actors, in the form of courtroom extras and members of Reverend Sykes’s (played by eloquently by Ken Bernard) church congregation, it appeared that practical difficulties of accessing these actors prevented this actualisation. ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 22-06-2009, 3 user comments

more on digital content and copyright

There's an increasing urgency to arguments about the digital revolution and the publishing industry. The Age today concludes a survey of the local uptake of e-books thus:

Sherman Young, acting head of the department of media, music and cultural studies at Macquarie University and author of The Book Is Dead (Long Live the Book), says that this year the e-book has finally begun to move out of "geek territory" and into acceptance as an inevitable publishing development.

But the academic believes that the e-book will not kill the paper book until the experience of reading one is better, cheaper and more convenient. "An entire electronic book ecosystem needs to evolve — involving publishers, retailers and readers," he says. So far, he says, Amazon's Kindle store is an early version of that ecosystem, but still confined to the US. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 21-06-2009, 7 user comments

Big Red Book fair this weekend

A reminder that the New International Bookshop takes over Trades Hall this weekend for the annual Big Red Book Fair.

books-image

Details below:

Are you stimulated by Kevin’s package, but lacking the appropriate retail outlet for your consuming passion?

The Big Red Book Fair offers an elegant and discreet solution. For one weekend only, this 20 and 21 June, the New International Bookshop fills Trades Hall with a tantalising display of every literary genre imaginable. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 18-06-2009, No comments

Guy Rundle launches Killing

On the subject of book launches, the details of mine are below:

Guy Rundle launches Killing: Misadventures in Violence
by Jeff Sparrow

6 for 6:30pm Thursday 16 July
Bella Union Bar, Trades Hall

HOW HARD IS IT TO KILL, AS A HUNTER ON A KANGAROO CULL, AS A WORKER IN! AN ABBATOIR, AS AN EXECUTIONER IN A PRISON, AS A SOLDIER AT WAR?

Ninety years after World War I, police in a Victorian country town uncover the mummified head of a Turkish soldier, a bullet-ridden souvenir brought home from Gallipoli by a returning ANZAC.

The macabre discovery sets Jeff Sparrow on a quest to understand the nature of deadly violence. How do ordinary people - whether in today's wars or in 1915 - learn to take a human life? How do they live with the aftermath? ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 18-06-2009, No comments

the novel has landed

the-danger-game

Congratulations to Overland's Kalinda Ashton on the publication of her novel The Danger Game (seen here artfully posed here in the Overland photo studio). More details of launches and such soon.

... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 18-06-2009, 3 user comments

Fragments From June

1. At the soccer with D. His father is the perennial optimist. D takes the stand that Kennedy is no good as a striker. At each moment that Japan attack, a girl several rows back shrieks like a siren. As we leave, Australia having won the match, I wonder if there a more odious sound than the chant of "Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi." I doubt it. How did we get here? I think of it inextricably linked with all those youngsters who wander around festivals with Australian Flags draped around them, saying, "It's the best country in the world," despite the fact that they've never been to another one. 2. I'm participating in a 20 000 word in a month challenge with a writing group. I'm keeping my end up, but it's early days. I usually find the first four o

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 18-06-2009, No comments

a mag on your iPhone

A week or so ago, I posted a link to an experiment conducted by Ann Kirschner, in which she compared the experience of reading Little Dorrit as paperback, audiobook, on the Kindle and on the iPhone. Rather surprisingly, she came down on the side of the iPhone, largely on the basis that it was with her wherever she went. Having become a recent convert to the iPhone cult, I've been experimenting with the Stanza book app and largely agree with her. It's not the greatest reading experience in the world (the screen is very small, for a start) but it means you have a selection of books with you whenever you are on public transport or getting lunch or whenever. It's more suited for genre writing than literary fiction, I think, cos the format rewards reading small snatches in a context full of distractions: it's better suited, in other words, for a strong narrative than a text where you're savouring each line. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 18-06-2009, No comments