Resurrection by Count Leo Tolstoy
Federation Square book sale 2016. Image courtesy of Nick-D.
When in Melbourne, we of TVC attend the Saturday morning book sale at Federation Square. There, in the dank central court, eccentric sellers of very good used books sell classics and books which have just appeared in the shops. Amid these booksellers who know their stuff and their customers, lurk a few grim self-published authors who sell nothing and look on sadly while pretending to work on their next badly-illustrated but politically-correct slim volume for children. One of the sellers of very good books is a handsome, red-haired Russian woman of whom we at TVC are terrified. (Let us call this stern and tenacious…
Continue Reading →How Much I Lied
(Image by Jo Kuehn)
THE LIEDER TRADITION Schubert’s Winter Journey – Anatomy of an Obsession by Ian Bostridge (2015) Deborah Humble sings Wagner & Brahms (Adelaide, 11 February 2017) The German lieder tradition sets romantic poetry to music and performs it with raw emotion, usually to a very simple musical accompaniment such as piano or guitar. It is a broader part of a long line of love songs, from the French troubadours like Villon to the German lieder composers up to and in the nineteenth century, all the way to Tin Pan Alley and the torch songs floating out the windows of the Brill Building. And beyond – modern pop songs have often…
Continue Reading →Sweet Gene Vincent
Gene Vincent (February 11, 1935 – October 12, 1971) was a rockabilly king and a really unlucky motorist. Coming from a generation that lived fast, died young and left a beautiful memory, he had a fresh face and voice. All but forgotten now, his songs never played, he still lives in many hearts: e.g. in Ian Dury’s 1977 song, Sweet Gene Vincent (see below). Be-Bop-A-Lula!!
Continue Reading →Newton’s Law
“Newton’s Law” TV series, ABC, premiere 9 February 2017 The Varnished Culture viewed the first episode of this pilot series about a passionate, caring, fast-talking, salt-of-the-earth, working mother who drives a pristine, beautifully restored, maroon Valiant Charger (why?) and is either a fearless suburban solicitor or a high-flying barrister – it’s hard to tell. In considering this wafer-thin yet impenetrable show, we had recourse to Newton’s famous physical laws. Newton’s Third Law of Motion: A body exerting force on another meets a simultaneous force of equal magnitude. Josephine Newton (a reasonably engaging Claudia Karvan) briefs a drunk for a bail application,…
Continue Reading →Ruskin’s Rocks
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 to 20 January 1900) was one of the last great aesthetes. He was a hugely influential critic and the first Slade Professor of Fine Art. His best pronouncements come from the near invincible confidence he had in his own taste – later events, such as a barren marriage and a nasty libel suit, destroyed that early assurance. But he retained the sensible aesthetic view that “Taste is not only a part and an index of morality – it is the ONLY morality.”* He took advantage of his…
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