Gallipoli

March 31, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Australian History |

No soft landing (Painting by George Washington Lambert, 'Anzac, the landing 1915')

About 4.29 am on Sunday, 25 April 1915, Australian troops disembarking from several warships and transports in the Dardanelles, learned the answer to their unspoken question: had their approach been detected?  It had. As the Official History of Australia In the War of 1914-18, by the not always reliable C. E. W. Bean, states: “The first bullets were striking sparks out of the shingle as the first boat-loads reached the shore.” Many, many thousands fell (Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, Englishmen, Turks).  The ANZACs tasted hell.  But Constantinople was the real prize; with the Ottoman Empire crumbling away, the strait was its gate, but as narrow…

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Divina Commedia

March 29, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Classic Books, DANTE, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

See for yourself, or read the Book (painting by Domenico di Michelino, 1465)

(by Dante Alighieri 1/6/1265 – 14/9/1321) (completed 1320)

[Note: extracts are from, and reference is to, the John Ciardi translation]

The greatest epic poem of all time (and we can say this with confidence, despite the dodgy standard of TVC’s latin).

It has a brilliantly (classically) simple structure – Recounting, in terza rima, how Dante spends the 1300 Easter vacation on a salvational tour of the worlds of our minds (and souls), guided through Hell and Purgatory by his poetic mentor, Virgil and accompanied by his poster-girl, Beatrice, in Paradise. There they meet Dante’s fiamma benedetta a flame of heavenly wisdom, S. Thomas Aquinas. S. Thomas was a formidable thinker but no great writer. Dante, taking hold of the 13th C theologian, supplied the art. “it is the flame, eternally elated, of Siger, who along the Street of Straws syllogized truths for which he would be hated.” (Pa. X) But he did something more: he created a new universe. And it was a universe that left Aquinas and Augustine, the best of the ancient Christians, pounding in the wake of something strange and monolithically modern. As Harold Bloom said with his usual wisdom in The Western Canon, “The Comedy…destroys the distinction between sacred and secular writing.”

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Iron Man

March 27, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | HISTORY |

Arthur Wellesley and Waterloo (18 June, 1815) Of the 1st Duke of Wellington (1/5/1769 – 14/9/1852), Philip Guedulla asked “How many English streets, squares, monuments, and licensed premises bear the name of Wellington?”  TVC would extend this fame phenomenon to the whole Commonwealth: its once favourite pub in Melbourne was the D of W on Flinders Street, the oldest mainland tavern in Australia, now renovated beyond memory.  He was born in the same year as Napoleon, and after a stint at Eton, entered the lists of war and politics.  He saw action in the Netherlands, India and in the Peninsular…

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Aboriginal Art

March 27, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | ART, AUSTRALIANIA, Non-Fiction, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

(by Howard Morphy) A sumptuous, encyclopaedic and expert review of indigenous visual art from ancient to modern times, from representative to decorative to spiritual to political, covering all mediums; yet another beautiful Phaidon addition to the good art libraries.  Published in 1998, it could do with a new edition (to cover ‘newbies’ such as the contentious Sally Gabori, 1924-12/2/2015).

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Duel

March 24, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Drama Film, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

Goliath & David: Peterbilt 281 tanker vs Valiant Plymouth

(Dir. Steven Spielberg) (1971) TVC’s all-time favourite trucking movie.  Even with the padding of additional scenes to lengthen the story for theatrical release after its debut on U.S. television, it is still a masterwork of ruthless economy in its staging, editing and plot.  Dennis Weaver is the perfect Mr. Average who plays a little chicken with a foul, evil-looking old rig, and gets a hell of a lot more than he bargained for.  Everything hangs together – everything is plausible – the tension is built up seamlessly and then, “there you are: right back in the jungle again.” Spielberg is…

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