Ulalume
Robert De Niro’s Waiting
"You talkin' to me?"
Yes, he’s waiting…for a decent script or at least a decent role. Unfortunately, however, he is not lazy, which means that De Niro has made almost 100 films (and we must admit to not having seen all of them). Great film stars manage to accumulate half a dozen classics in their careers and on this scale, Bob is right up there…but what a waste of talent most of the time, and particularly lately. Actors apparently have to eat and have a nervous imperative to keep working while the luck holds, but there is something a bit sad about the number of…
Continue Reading →“A Vast Scene of Confusion”
"the tide of popular fury returned..."
On the eve of the ides of September 2015, Monday 14th, the Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, was assassinated in the Liberal Party room and his usurper, Malcolm Turnbull, assumed the imperial purple. One hopes this will end a strained period in the nation’s body politic – over the last 6 and a half years, there has been blood in the corridors of power, and 3 serving Prime Ministers elected by the people have been boned. 1/12/2009 – Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, is defeated by Tony Abbott by one vote. Mr Abbott becomes leader of the Coalition opposition….
Continue Reading →The Earthquake in Chile
Apart from Japan, Chile is Earthquake Central. The main picture accompanying this post (by Carlos Varela) shows accumulated rubble about the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago in 2010. There was another big bad quake yesterday, reportedly one of a recent series, and one of increased magnitude. It is hard to imagine the experience of an earthquake, along with its equally dangerous sequelae, such as tsunamis, fires, disease and so on. To get a taste, in safety, read the superb short story by Heinrich von Kleist, The Earthquake in Chile (1807), an account that while fictional, is so rich in nuance and matter-of-facts that it amounts…
Continue Reading →Winningness
It's About the Journey (from "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?")
Marcus Aurelius said “To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.”* Such a relief, then, to see that the Australian television industry is free from all malice, as they join hands and combine to serve us a homogenous array of competition drama. These are not reality shows, but rather a kind of existential reality where you idolise the biggest master who’s talent rules and mark their dance card with an X. These realities simulate contests but actually are, like life, far more varied, subtle, oblique, unfair and satisfying than any staged match, and describe life in their arbitrary and pre-ordained outcomes, which are classified and ritualised according to…
Continue Reading →Stop Mucking About
A terrific and informed wrap-up of the Sydney Symphony orchestra’s Tristan und Isolde concert is to be found in the Richard Wagner Society of SA Inc’s August newsletter. The Varnished Culture did not attend the evening in Sydney, but we commented on some of the issues in our wrap-up, Great Hall. The general consensus is that the placement of the singers at the back of the hall, behind the orchestra, was an acoustic mistake, and the video projections a profound artistic error. The adverse effect of this mucking about is obvious; the motive is unclear. Lee Brauer’s perceptive account of the recent RWS…
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