Prince Goes Uptown
(photo by Jimi Hughes)
Vale Prince Rogers Nelson (7/6/1958 – 21/4/2016) Pardon the painful allusion, but a lot of his songs, technically superb as they are, were strictly elevator music. But there’s Pop Life, Let’s Go Crazy, 1999, Nothing Compares 2 U, Raspberry Beret, Kiss, Sexy M.F., Peach and Cream. Many of his songs had production touches frankly reminiscent of novelty songs, but he had je ne sais quoi – he had the power – he was virtually a cult. And now he’s gone uptown. Vale.
Continue Reading →Miguel de Cervantes
Cervantes (portrait attributed to Aguilar)
The creator of Don Quixote died 400 years ago today in Madrid, a day before Shakespeare (or perhaps the same day, or maybe 10 days before – it depends on your calendar). All Spain celebrates the Don’s anniversary publications of Part I and the much more laboured but somehow better Part II; we expect today will effectively be a National Holiday in Spain, although perhaps we won’t be able to tell. In October 1947 there were special celebrations to mark his 400th birthday – a nation that venerates its geniuses might have a deplorable GNP but still be worthwhile. We expect…
Continue Reading →Ubik (by Philip K. Dick)
Philip K Dick's android head on the subway
Mr Philip K. Dick does not need our praise, but he’s going to get it anyway. Written in 1969, Ubik envisages a 1992 in which there is no internet (thank goodness, it would have only slowed things down) but there are “Psis”, (telepaths, precogs, animators, para-kineticists) and their nullifiers, called “inertials”. A powerful telepath (S, Dole Melipone (don’t bother, it’s not an anagram)) is no longer on Terra and does not appear to be on any of the world colonies, either. The counter-Psis employed by Glen Runciter, of Runciter Associates (an “anti-psi prudence organisation”) lurch and lope into action. It is their job to know where every one…
Continue Reading →Machu Picchu
"I swear too much" (Lisa McCune as Gabby)
(Dir. Geordie Brookman) (SA State Theatre Company, 16 April 2016) (written by Sue Smith) By Guest Reviewer Emma Machu Picchu, a destination dreamt about at Uni and never realised. Two young architects, who are madly in love with each other and the possibilities of life ahead, see their dream shattered and their love tested. The play starts with the couple projected about 25 years forward. Conversing while driving home from a health retreat, they reveal the complacency & irritation that comes with time spent together, the competing directions of their architectural interests, and the stresses of life. The romantic beginning and…
Continue Reading →Perpetual Rome
The digs of Octavian (Caesar Augustus) on Palatine Hill (if you look carefully, is that the cave of Romulus nearby? No?)
21 April, 753 BC – The traditional date for the founding of the Eternal City. That makes Rome 2769 years old, roughly. And on this same day in 43 BC, Marc Antony was spooked to a draw by Octavian at the Battle of Mutina, which eventually paved the way for the Roman Empire (not so eternal). Appian, in his The Civil Wars (Loeb edition) describes the game of chess the embryonic triumvirs played: Octavian and Antony composed their differences on a small, depressed islet in the river Lavinius, near the city of Mutina. Each had five legions of soldiers whom they stationed opposite each…
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