Category Archive: LIFE
An Evening with Oprah
Oprah (photo by Alan Light)
Oprah Winfrey, Adelaide Entertainment Centre, 4 December 2015 (reviewed by Lynette Pugh) Advertised as ‘An Evening with Oprah’, there should have been no doubt that it would be all about Oprah, but in anticipating the evening I kept thinking ‘Oh God’ I hope she tones the narcissism down for the Australian setting – or she will face walk outs and tut tuts from the Adelaide crowd. I need not have worried! She had the delivery down pat, with the balance of celebrity, egoism and humble authenticity, exactly right. I was totally engaged for the whole 2 hours, with her story…
Continue Reading →General Relativity
In 1915, Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity. I have no idea what it means. Something to do with nothing being straight, the universe being finite, and rather than having a fence, it closes on itself. So space and time are relative and can only be measured by magic rulers and Dali clocks. The universe has no universals. But at least the General Theory didn’t lead to a bomb – merely the event horizon. I don’t know what I’m talking about. My random words don’t satisfy the theory of descriptions (linguistics’ homage to relativity). Einstein knew what he was talking…
Continue Reading →Grey Gardens
'Don't need men if you have cats.'
(Dir. David and Albert Maysles) (1976) Lifestyles of the squalid and shameless…Edith and Edie Beale live in their ramshackle mansion in the Hamptons, cats lolling about, voiding, and racoons climbing through great holes in the roof. Daughter Edie swans about, recalling an interrupted career on Broadway; mother Edith (aunt to Jackie Onassis) sits in bed, watching, like a big spider. Two years of footage has been distilled into doco-length, where not much occurs beyond regular ranting, but try to look away. This eye-view seems like exploitation to us, but, nevertheless, of definite morbid interest. For this reason, it has since been filmed…
Continue Reading →“Marriage Equality”
The Marriage Settlement by William Hogarth
Rather, it appears to me As special pleading, don’t you see, Equality is not the name For making difference all the same And social change, go carefully About your task, respectfully; If to shadow-lands dissent Is forced, we’ll find new ways to vent And those could sting. For social concord, here’s a thing That could restore freedoms of old – Instead of choosing to be told What’s right, equal, or ‘appropriate’; Perhaps we should de-legislate And banish State from communal bed, Let couples choose to state instead What they are or wish to be – Let clerics moot matrimony.
Continue Reading →Stuff We Hate
You know what we hate? :- Quizzes involving flags. Excessive celebrations by athletes. The Age (of recent times). Fitted sheets with narrow walls. The paper on which UK Grazia is printed. Alcohol-free wedding receptions. Expensive compacts (I’m looking at you, Lancômbe and Chanel) designed so that the application sponge presses against the mirror when the compact is shut – smudging and smutting the mirror. The much cheaper Revlon compacts are designed so that this doesn’t happen, people! Christmas wrapping paper on those annoying, inconvenient rolls. Why does it never come flat and folded up like other wrapping paper? The conversation-starters…
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