Hi Ho (Leaving Carthage)

Destruction of Gomorrah in deep waters (Pieter Schoubroeck, c. 16C)

TVC is off to Gomorrah (well, Sydney) tomorrer to apply some cultural varnish to its faded monolithic charms.  So we are doing a random stock-take.

1. MoMa is having a retrospective of the films of Wim Wenders – the time is apparently ripe.  Wim deserves a walk in Paradise’s verdant lane at least once for Wings of Desire (1987).

2. Guy Maron’s AAA Building in Canberra and the Bicentennial Conservatory in the Adelaide Botanical Gardens have both been heritage listed.  The Conservatory is an exciting modern work, which has been described as looking like a flying saucer that has landed on its edge so heavily 2/3rds of it are buried in the gardens.  “Architecture shouldn’t shout at you”* he says – hear hear.  [*The Advertiser 2/3/15]

3. Baroque Opera lives on, in…Brisbane. Faramondo, written and staged by Handel around 1738 with Xerxes (featuring his ‘Largo’), is being staged in a production from the Gottingen festival (the first modern production was in George Frederick’s hometown of Halle in 1976).  TVC won’t be there but many should!

4. We mean to see and do big things in the big City on the Plain, taking the waters, looking up at the buildings, spurning devilish voices in our ear…P hopes to get some structural and emotional inspiration for his much-delayed play.  One influence to be violently resisted is Sam Beckett, part of whose oeuvre has been showing in Adelaide and Perth.  TVC caught McKellen and Roger Rees in Waiting for Godot at Her Majesty’s Theatre in June 2010 and it is frankly hard to disagree with John Gielgud’s verdict: “A load of old rubbish!” but Krapp’s Last Tape is a different kettle and demands canonisation.

5. Well then.  Our FiFo begins.  We depart like Dido, nary a wave goodbye.  Of which, more later….