Category Archive: LIFE
South Australia Venerates the Maestro
12 September 2016: Thirty Years of the Richard Wagner Society of SA Inc. 1986: what a year! South Australia’s 150th birthday. John Bannon was Premier – remember him? Ronnie Reagan was U.S. President; Bob Hawke was Prime Minister. Glenelg won a stirring Grand Final against the odds. And SA State Opera, eclectic as ever, staged Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, at Her Majesty’s Theatre, then the Opera Theatre, which inspired three men of letters, Professor Andrew McCredie, Malcolm Fox and Ralph Middenway (with spiritual father Brian Coghlin absent but there in spirit), to convene a hasty public meeting on 20 June 1986, in…
Continue Reading →Vale Gene Wilder
Jerome Silberman (Gene Wilder) (11 June 1933 to 29 August 2016) He was a great understated comedy star, a master of timing and amplified understatement. Best moments: as a very overheated Dr Frankenstein (make sure you pronounce that correctly) in Young Frankenstein; a great 2nd banana in Blazing Saddles, a superb put-upon pie in The Producers (“I fell on my keys”) and Rhinoceros, and an agreeable leading man in The Silver Streak, as well as in good work in many other films and TV productions [check out his great work as Bernard in the late 60s Death of a Salesman, or…
Continue Reading →Stalemate
"Okay, Professor, so we didn't beat Sturt...but Sturt didn't beat us." (Frederick Stuart Church's rendering of the Tiger and the Professor, after lunch)
Glenelg v Sturt at Peter Motley Oval, 27 August 2016 Major round contender Sturt led us all day. The Double Blues moved through their mid-field with a dazzling series of handballs, cutting our defences up and looming as big winners. Yet the home side squandered the best of the breeze in the first quarter, by over-use and inaccuracy before goal, yielding them leaders by 17 points despite having 11 scoring shots to 4. Beard and Evans looked dangerous up forward for Sturt. But for sterling work in ruck by Warwick McGinty and great defence by James Sellar, the margin would have been bigger. The…
Continue Reading →Arthur Hiller Streaks Up and Away
Arthur Hiller (13 November 1923 to 17 August 2016) was a journeyman director, an old pro, product of the later Golden Age, who could, from time to time, rise above his material. Obviously, we will pass over the bulk of his films, which were from hunger. We make no shot at him for this – after all, only the folks at The Varnished Culture are completely disinterested, But we honour Arthur for his staunch work down the years, and particularly The Americanization of Emily (1964), Popi (1969), The Hospital (1971), Plaza Suite (1971), The Man in the Glass Booth (1975), The Silver Streak (1976),…
Continue Reading →Das Ende
"Wakey, wakey Brunhild!" (Otto Donner von Richter) (c. 1892)
17 August, 1876 In Bayreuth, Wagner’s great dream of a music festival playing nothing but Wagner (specifically, the Ring Cycle), concluded today 140 years ago. How many in the crowd cried “Danke Gott!” Or maybe, being mostly Bavarian and made of sterner stuff than most, many said “Grüß got!” For it had been a good day, a great week in fact. The Twilight of the Gods ended some 16 hours of music drama that left the audience drained and etiolated, but in a good way, like a pious married couple on the morning after the wedding. For his part Wagner…
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