The Curse of ”The Sound of Music”

(Dir. Robert Wise) (1965) We’re sorry, but we can only watch The Sound of Music in 15 minute increments.  Any more attracts a risk of type-two diabetes.  This cloying, sacchariferous, candied, 174-minute dollop of goo would have received one or less review stars from us, but for the superb cinematography, sweeping over and around the chocolate-box town of Salzburg and its surrounding mountains, and the overall production values, which are first-rate. The (bizarre and stupefying) success of both the stage musical and the film have led to endless revivals around the globe, the mawkish meld of Nuns, Nazis and warbling infants a seemingly irresistible combo.  We are…

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Great Hall

June 21, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Ulalume |

Ceiling of the Great Hall of the People (Photo by Forezt)

Late editions The Great Hall The Varnished Culture‘s nourishing mother has sent news it will build a Great Hall by 2017.  This Maoist-sounding edifice is to have courts for various ball games, a swimming pool, a yoga area and gym – all the things a world-class university needs.  “The Great Hall has been designed to artfully blend into the streetscape.”  Alumni, staff and supporters are invited to “embed themselves in the DNA of the Great Hall” and have your name woven, etched and displayed in 3 dedicated spaces and sculptural forms, together with three personally chosen inspirational words. It seems appropriate…

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Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam

June 3, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Ulalume |

I recently received two emails.  The first was a pleasant surprise, concerning a slightly unorthodox dealing with an intestate estate: “Please accept my apology.  I am a personal account manager to one of our foreign late customer.  It is my interest to contact you in respect of this our client who opened a draft account in my bank.  It is with good spirit of heart I opened up this great opportunity to you….After his untimely demise, I sent a routine notification to his forwarding address, but got no reply.  He died without making any WILL. His draft account opened in…

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Magna Carta (800)

May 30, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | HISTORY, Ulalume |

"You want me to HONOUR this scrap of paper?"

On 15 June, 1215, at Runnymede, a reluctant King John, under coercion from unruly barons and the ruly Archbishop of Canterbury, ‘signed up’ to Magna Carta.  John was a crafty bastard: a couple of years earlier, with French wolves at the door, the King submitted to Papal authority and bought himself some miraculous breathing space. That summer morning in 1215, the King rode to the meadow, absorbed the terms and agreed on the spot.  He needed time (again) and may have not intended to comply.  John was dead (of dysentery – ecch!) by the next year, and by then, no one was getting specific…

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“Trust but Verify”

May 25, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Ulalume |

In the past few weeks, we have discovered (in John Gerarde’s 1598 book The Herball) a true contemporary portrait of William Shakespeare….Apparently! An excellent new book of poems, by a promising newcomer, called Waiting for the Past…This promising newcomer is, perhaps, unlikely to win any awards, but he is full of promise nevertheless. Les femmes d’Alger (Version O) (1955), one of Picasso’s ugliest, ickiest, run-of-the-Matisse grotesques, sells for $US179m, proving again that money can’t buy brains.  And one of Pablo’s intrinsically worthless and ugly series of ceramic tiles was expected earlier this year by Christie’s London to fetch up to £50,000.  O Tempora, O…

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