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Gaza flotilla massacre: a Sharpeville at sea [UPDATED]

More than ten people have been killed after Israeli forces attacked a flotilla bringing aid supplies to the besieged people of Gaza. Details are still sketchy – some sources claim twenty people are dead – but it seems that IDF commandoes stormed the vessels and then opened fire with live ammunition.

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Written by Jeff Sparrow on 31-05-2010, 44 user comments

When the moment seemed right – Exile on Main St

When the moment seemed right, punk rockers The Clash drew battle lines by declaring, ‘No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones in 1977’. I first heard that blunt statement of intent sometime in the early 1990s when anti-establishment vibes were riding high in the record charts via the grunge scene, which was really the culmination of an alternative aesthetic that had first become pronounced in the 1960s.

I figured there was something a bit subversive about The Clash bagging out baby boomer heroes while more challenging musical innovators like The Velvet Underground and The Stooges remained on the margins of popular taste. In retrospect, this was a rather precocious way of looking at things which stemmed from a somewhat uninformed view that anything that sold millions of records was a bit suspect, even though a band like The Beatles was at least as artistically innovative as The Velvet Underground. ... read more

Written by Dan Bigna on 31-05-2010, 6 user comments

The price tag for the forever war

At the Emerging Writers’ Festival on Sunday, I mentioned that the US had spent 900 billion dollars on its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As it happens, my information was out of date. Actually, the bill now stands at a round trillion dollars.

Yep. A trillion. That’s a one and then twelve zeroes.

To put that in perspective, the cost of ending world hunger comes in at approximately $30 billion per year. In other words, for the money already spent, the US could have wiped out starvation across the planet for the next thirty-three years.

What did the money go on instead?

Well, here’s Wiki’s tabulation of the various casualty estimates from Iraq. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 31-05-2010, 10 user comments

Binge drinking and the Sydney Writers’ Festival – the hidden link revealed

Perhaps it is because I don’t get out much, or perhaps I am just reckless, but by the time I returned home on Sunday after four glorious days brain-binging at the writer’s festival, all I could do was fling a signed copy of Josh Neufeld's A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge at my beloved before passing out on the couch. Yes I was drunk, but alcohol wasn't the cause of my euphoric addlement (definitely not a word, but what can I say? I was at the writers’ festival). It was ideas, dear Overlanders. Ideas, I say!

For those of you unable to make the perilous journey beyond Central station to Circular Quay via rail-bus, it is my solemn duty and privilege to report the wonderful and terrifying things I have witnessed. Let’s begin with the ominously titled ‘Can Literature Survive the Digital Age?’, a panel discussion between Meanjin editor, Sophie Cunningham; Granta editor, John Freeman; and author, Cate Kennedy. The verdict? Going from what Cate Kennedy had to say, the question should be: ‘Can writers survive the digital age despite all the tw**ting distractions?’ ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 28-05-2010, 8 user comments

Non-fiction review – POMO OZ: Fear and Loathing Downunder

POMO OZ: Fear and Loathing Downunder
Niall Lucy
Freemantle Press

POMO OZAh, postmodernism. The word makes us shudder, or cheer or jeer or laugh or roll our eyes. The multiplicity of reactions it engenders surely reflects the multiplicity of meanings it has accumulated. Reading Niall Lucy’s POMO OZ: Fear and Loathing Downunder, one is by turns entertained, informed and at a few points, I am sorry to say, indifferent. This minor quibble has nothing to do with the writer’s skill – the prose is lively or what I would tentatively and wankily describe as ‘sparky’ – and all to do with the topic itself. Is not postmodernism a little bit, you know, done? ... read more

Written by Matthew Sini on 28-05-2010, 5 user comments

Poetry review – Music for broken instruments

Music for broken instruments
A.S. Patric
Black Rider Press

'Music for broken instruments'Music for broken instruments, an e-book by Melbourne writer A.S. Patric, has already been endorsed by a formidable group of writers and poets, including Aural Text’s Alicia Sometimes, and Page Seventeen’s Tiggy Johnson. Reading the collection, this comes as no surprise.

Each page of the book has been beautifully typeset by Black Rider Press, against their trademark olde worlde crumple-watermarked pages in typewriter font. The tactility of the collection is frustrating, in part, for a digitally delivered book: Music for broken instruments begs to be printed on thick recycled paper, ribbon-bound and covered in leather or cloth for those winter afternoons with blanket, cat and cocoa. On the other hand, the aesthetics of the book cleverly serve as an enticement to press print. ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 28-05-2010, 8 user comments

Muttering to ourselves in the dark: on writers and madness

A few weeks ago, following a link posted on a comments board at Overland, I encountered an essay by the US writer Robert Cohen, ostensibly on literary style. As far as I can tell Cohen seems to be trying to get his head around what style is, and particularly ideas of ‘middle’ and ‘late’ style, and what they both might mean in the shadow of the inevitability of ageing and our inevitable deaths. To this end Cohen looks at the work of (mostly white) male writers: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Cheever, McCarthy and so on, though Flannery O’Connor does get a look in at one point.

Though I’d like to, I’m not going to look at literary writing as a gendered thing. A lot of other people can do it a lot better – ... read more

Written by Stephen Wright on 27-05-2010, 33 user comments

Thanks, newmatilda

Tragedy strikes Australian independent media: newmatilda will cease to publish in a month. As the editorial states, the reasons are financial. Advertising has not risen to meet the losses from subscriptions.

The publication has gone from strength to strength in every other way, with readership doubling every year for the last three years. NM has consistently tackled the issues that are being overlooked, and rapidly become one of the few outlets for investigative journalism in a changing media climate.

I started writing for NM in its early days around 2005, and have always felt very loyal to the site. Not only because the editor, Marni Cordell, is a friend, but because the editorial vision, genuine support for media diversity and quality journalism, and humour have been such a wonderful staple in my media diet. I have also appreciated the fearlessness and willingness to take risks – with content, structure, and delivery. Plus they paid me. Which is important as hell. ... read more

Written by Jennifer Mills on 27-05-2010, 1 user comment

Review – Known Unknowns

Known Unknowns
Emmett Stinson
Affirm Press

'Known Unknowns'Known Unknowns is Emmett Stinson’s debut collection of short fiction. His work first came to my attention when I reviewed Issue One of Kill Your Darlings, in which Stinson’s stand-out story ‘Clinching’ was published. That story is included here along with 13 others of varying length.

As any writer will tell you, beginnings are everything. The opening line is the story’s bait. It must entice you, get you caught on that hook. And Stinson is a master at this. After putting this collection down I found that many of the opening lines had made such an impact that they were still dancing through my thoughts. Here’s an example: ‘I never wanted to be a murderer. You see, my mother drove me to it.’ The clever beauty of these lines is loaded with more meaning than we initially understand. ... read more

Written by Irma Gold on 27-05-2010, 3 user comments

Meanland extract – What is it that makes the web so amazing?

‘Fess up: who remembers a time when there was no internet?

Once upon a time, if a child, student, writer or reader wanted to know something, they would have to march off to the library* – a day’s hike to the great metropolis on the horizon, for some – and physically track down obscure and tangled information that lay hidden between pages, at the back of shelves and relied primarily on one’s ability to navigate the Dewey decimal card catalogue and microfiche machines. It was often laborious, sometimes frustrating and could result in getting lost for days in the wrong terrain.

What is it that makes the web – a living library – so amazing? First and foremost, the answer would have to be information, and an almost universal access to that information. Traditional libraries also offer this, but the beauty of the internet is the ability to link to a resource, and immediately see it, providing the reader with a knowledge architecture that the singular text from the library can never have. ... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 27-05-2010, 2 user comments

Review – Quarterly Essay 37: What’s Right? The future of conservatism in Australia

What’s Right? The future of conservatism in Australia
Waleed Aly
Black Inc.

Quarterly essay 37Malcolm Fraser has officially resigned his membership of the Liberal Party, believing that the party has moved too far to the right, claiming it is no longer a liberal party, but a conservative party.

Waleed Aly might disagree. In the latest Quarterly Essay, What’s Right? The future of conservatism in Australia, Aly questions our use of the terms ‘right’ and ‘left’ in daily political discourse, arguing that they are meaningless terms. He provides an outline of the history and philosophy behind conservative and liberal politics, and wonders at how far they have come today from their roots. It is an engaging essay. It is intelligent and restrained, but impassioned and considered. ... read more

Written by Louise Pine on 26-05-2010, 4 user comments

Our synthetic future – where politics and science collide

Synthetic red blood cellsIn the wake of Synthetic Genomics’ dramatic achievement, ‘playing God’ was the predictable cry in the media.

The verb is misleading. It implies that whereas God works, Venter and his colleagues are merely playing; a blasphemous mockery, the trifling mimicry of a monkey, carrying out the form of creation while missing its content of the original – the ineffable master plan, the solemn and mysterious ways in which He moves. In fact, the comparison between this human achievement and the processes that led to the existence of the human species would be better understood in the reverse. Not just human evolution, but the series of events that led to the conditions in which the emergence of life was possible – the distance of the Earth from the sun, the gravitational pull of the moon steadying our orbit – are contingent on an interplay of factors of immense complexity. This cosmic dynamic, if we are to anthropomorphise it, would be more aptly described as whimsy than as work; or, the better to appreciate its radical difference from human activity, as the kind of explosive creativity we witness in storms and volcanoes. What we have done in synthesising life is to copy the effect of that play by means of diligent work. ... read more

Written by Joshua Mostafa on 26-05-2010, 1 user comment

Meanland extract – Poetry, gaming, science and more: reading in a time of technology

Heading to the @wheelercentre for @Mean_land Reading in a Time of Technology. Should be interesting.less than a minute ago via TweetieSuzanneSteinbruckner
OfficialSuze

Apologies to anyone unable to attend last night’s second official Meanland event at The Wheeler Centre, because it was a fantastic adventure. Not only was it riveting and engaging, it was positively electrifying; every panelist, a captivating speaker with a unique perspective and relationship to possibility and exploration in reading, writing and creating with technology.

As Overland editor Jeff Sparrow said as he launched the ‘Reading in a time of technology’ panel, the time has come to move the discussion beyond a resistance to technology and the digital medium because of an attachment to the smell of old books. This panel was about thinking about how reading and writing has already exceeded the expectations of the ‘book’.

You are your own audience. First take home message from tonight's #Meanland.less than a minute ago via mobile webAnne Treasure
annetreasure

Writer, editor, performer and technology pioneer Klare Lanson immediately threw the audience in the deep-end with her poetic rendition of ‘the talk’, an amazing performance. As Jeff left the stage, his voice lingered, on repeat, and was then interwoven into a soundscape of the previous Meanland panel’s speculation on the future of reading (Marieke Hardy, Peter Craven, Margaret Simons and Sherman Young).

Mixed with sound, this aural landscape became the background for Klare’s performance. (Unfortunately, not all technology was on her side last night and the audience was deprived of the accompanying visuals). This landscape evolved into her poem, ‘Whatever’.

Klare explored how reading shapes us, makes us do things. ‘The screen wants us to do things with words and it’s hard not to feel like a machine in this day and age.’ She focused on cut-up, mash-up, reforming, on all of this concern about the misrepresentation of the individual book. About the fear that the digitisation of a singular book will result in all of the books in the world merging into one, a kind of collective consciousness with no beginning, no end, no individuality.

Read the rest of the post over at Meanland.

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Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 26-05-2010, No comments

Polanski, Gaddafi and the hypocrisy of the Swiss cross

Last month in Switzerland, a mountain guide owned up to desecrating crosses along the mountain trails near Gruyere and was subsequently arrested.

The mountain guide declared he acted because he wanted to start a public debate about the relevance of crosses in the mountain setting. He believes the cross to be a symbol of death, power and violence and should not be in the greatest of communal spaces: the mountains. He asserted that crosses no longer possess common cultural glue and it’s time to take them down – time for a culturally neutral landscape where peoples of all beliefs can walk unhindered by images of other peoples beliefs. At one level this resonates with me. I find corporate advertising, symbols of death, power and violence offensive in public spaces and the problem for the Swiss is that the mountain guides argument is similar to that which propelled the minaret ban – freedom from other people’s sacred symbols. ... read more

Written by Bronwyn Lay on 25-05-2010, No comments

Review – Neon Pilgrim

Neon Pilgrim
Lisa Dempster
Aduki Independent Press

'Neon Pilgrim'I have never met Lisa Dempster, nor spoken to her. I’ve never written her an email and only recently subscribed to her blog. But I know Lisa Dempster very well because I just traveled 1200 kilometres with her through the mountains of Japan. Such is the intimacy of Neon Pilgrim, Lisa Dempster’s account of her pilgrimage along the henro michi, visiting 88 temples in the footsteps of Kobo Daishi, a ninth-century Buddhist monk. ... read more

Written by Mark William Jackson on 25-05-2010, 5 user comments