Category Archive: POLITICS
Paris – The Moveable Feast
How to take the gloss off the Eiffel Tower
June 23, 1940: Herr Hitler strolls around his shiny new toy, Paris, taking in the architectural marvels under the tutelage and guidance of those well-known art lovers, Albert Speer and Arno Breker; the former a drawer of nightmare-constructions that never took shape, thank goodness – the latter a grafter of dubious, neoclassical trash that would make Phidias and Alexandros laugh (we except Breker’s bronze bust of Wagner at Bayreuth). The Nazis represented the worst threat in memory to art. They were thieves, of course. And what they did not understand, or disliked, they simply destroyed. They spun idiotic theories and practised…
Continue Reading →An American Deity
Young he was and sound ‘in wind and limb’, Fit and tanned, bareheaded, toothy, slim, Rich he was of vocabulary and purse, Bore away he be in a wagon, not a hearse, Draped in a flag his form, of garish stripes and stars Followed slowly by lesser men in motor cars. It all began they say, in a killing frost, A cold replicated later when he was lost, Abbreviated poesy marked the spot On which commenced the reign of Camelot, Where a bogus royalty came into view As desideratum, thus embraced as true. …
Continue Reading →Dami wuz robbed
Eurovision Song Contest, May 14/15 2016 Dateline Stockholm: in the biggest heist since Brinks or Lufthansa, Dami Im, representing Australia for only the second time in the history of the venerable competition, was pipped for first place by a last minute ‘flurry’ of ‘televotes’ that recall the Illinois fraud of the 1960 US election, or the hanging Floridian chads of 2000. We confess an indulgent attitude to winner Ukraine’s “F.U.” to Putinland with their song, 1944, apparently a lament for Crimean Tartars deported by that great guy, Josef Stalin, but we must honour Dami, who had the best song and act…
Continue Reading →The Fine Arts Party
A Fine Arts Party (Pieter de Hooch)
It being Friday 13th, The Varnished Culture will break from its traditional disdain of party-politics and weigh-in to the current imbroglio. There’s a federal election in Australia set for 2 July 2016, when we will have to watch the skies (it being World UFO Day as well). Recently, P suggested, innocently, that only a terrorist could enthusiastically, seriously, cast a vote for the Greens. Whereupon my two very reasonable and intelligent interlocutors informed me that they would be likely to vote for the Greens. (I am certain they are not terrorists). So ended my brief role as a pundit. Be that as it…
Continue Reading →Safety Last
Safety Last...Todd Russell 'clocks off' (checks in his personal safety tag)
9 May 2016 10 years ago today, Todd Russell and Brant Webb left the Beaconsfield mine in northern Tassie, where they had been trapped for two weeks. We honour them and their not-so-lucky comrade, miner Larry Knight, who perished far underground. However, their dramatic story remains ripe for political and commercial exploitation – there’s a TV mini-series in the offing, and a photo-opportunity has already availed itself on the campaign trail. See our updated link to Ace in the Hole for more details.
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