Subtitled – The Street Art of Slinkachu – Will Self.

Bin Day by Will Self. Look at this Carefully. Apols for the scan quality.

Some of us may have encountered the miraculous super-realist mannequins of Ron Mueck on display at the NGV or at the MCA in Sydney.

Some of Ron’s work is HUGE – in the Sydney Exhibition there was a heavily pregnant woman who must have been over ten feet high and a half of Ron’s head was taller than a man.  The detail is incredible with whiskers as thick as your finger and perfectly in scale with everything else.

On the other end of the scale was an old woman under a blanket.  She was about 18 inches in length, but she was so realistic I saw two children standing and watching her for minutes on end – debating whether or not they could see her breathing.  They were debating whether she was alive.  Not whether she was real – whether she was alive.

Convincing ?  Eerie ?  You bet !

Now, yesterday I found in a bookstore  an expensive but brilliant counterpoint by Will Self – “Little People in the City – The Street art of Slinkachu” (2008) Boxtree – an imprint of Pan Macmillan ISBN 978-0-7552-2664-4.

I’m sure they wont mind us borrowing two pieces – you should buy the book.  It’s amazing.

And you can see some other interesting street art here

Grist for the milling throng

Mr Chip Rolley

Artistic Director

Sydney Writer’s festival 2010

Dear Mr Chip,

Isn’t it exciting to know that the festival is coming again in May – and the program will be announced in April ?

Thank you for your kind letter giving me the opportunity to donate money to bring more international writers to the Sydney Writer’s Festival this year.  I note that you say that it costs between $5,000 and $25,000 (depending on where they are coming from – surely you meant to say ‘from where they are coming ?’ – and the class of travel).  Roughly $10,000 per writer.

Well, I found this just a tad rich, Chip.

Last year I managed a return airfare to Europe for $1,380 – lets call it $1,700 including insurance and bits.  OK, I admit, I was travelling cattle class.  And I certainly wouldn’t wish any writer worth his or her salt to fly all the way to the antipodes in anything less than a personal Lear jet fuelled by single malt whiskey and lubricated by Krug and Beluga.  And nobody expects them to camp out under the stars, sleep under a bridge or dine alfresco de Macca when they get here exhausted from their trip in from Pluto.

But the thing is, Chip, that the point of the appearance  of megascribes down under is that fans will line up for hours to have a copy of the magnum opus signed by their favourite literary giant.  You know, the copies for which they paid artificially inflated prices because of the ‘controlled’ import of books still famously protecting the top end of the Australian publishing industry’s authors.

Oh, and did I mention that these same faithful readers are expected to pay to get into the session so that they / we can get the opportunity to take a punt that an author might also be an informative and / or entertaining speaker ?  Such persons – writers who can speak entertainingly as well as write well do exist, I know, but in my estimation they’re rather few in number, Chip.

So, for my generous tax deductible donation, what might I expect ?  To subsidise the struggling Clive James’ whistle stop return to Oatley ?

And whom else ?  Might we fly in an unpaid ABC contributor from the Inner west and put him up at the Hilton ?

Or should we expect the TV and radio stations, newspapers (do they still exist ?),  magazines etc to offer a few bucks up as a kind of investment in their own bottom lines ?

Gosh, does the patient,  munificent and cashed-up reader’s generosity know no bounds ?

Perhaps you might consider renaming it the Sydney Reader’s Festival since we get to pay for it at every opportunity ?

If I wasn’t such a generous kind of cove, I’d think you were trying to have a lend of me, Chip, and I’d have to ask you to give it a rest, mate.

L'indolente

We visited the National Gallery against all advice not to attempt it during week-end. We arrived about 11.30 and the queue overhead the roadway did not look promising. We clambered up some stairs amongst the rubble of a large extension, plywood panelling on both sides with scaffolding. Upstairs and outside under a tent-like galley we joined a queue. There was some queue confusion when it became clear you first had to get tickets. We joined a new one, bought our tickets and returned to the original file. Towards the entrance the line of keen art appreciators was compressed into a zig-zag line-up, giving hope and revival of spirits to all and sundry.

It was moving along   nicely and we were finely ticketed inside and moved into room NR 1.  It was well worth it and the crowd was filing pensively past each and every painting.

George Seurat’s three little paintings of his frontal nude girlfriend in room NR 2 were outstanding . I took note that she appeared underage but it must have past the classification board at that time.

In room NR 3 was a large painting by Gustave Geffroy of a man in front of a large bookcase. I did not realise that penguins were already available then. Please also notice the Dutch tulips with the plasma telly just above them.

Cezanne certainly loved his onions with beautifully coloured plates of fruit as well. A beautiful monochrome coloured painting by Edouard Vuillard was outstanding.

Gustave Geffroy

A crackerjack painting of a fat cracking portrayal of a mouthwatering and beautiful sprawled on bed nude was Pierre Bonnards ” woman dozing on a bed” with the very suitable French title L’indolente, was in my opinion the most outstanding of the lot.

This is a must see exhibitions. Come on piglets. Go and see it, even on a Saturday.

Sorry, this is a bit of a ramble – so if you can be bothered, get a cuppa and a comfortable chair.

Sometimes I try to write a review with a positive slant – even give the show the benefit of my doubt.  But today I’m failing miserably.  Apologies up front.  No, never apologise.  Grahame Bird style.  No, not that either.  And I know that we have a new festival director and I want to avoid raising Voice’s ire about ugly personal abuse because that’s not what I intend.

Sometimes a bad entertainment experience comes from within.  Bad attitude going to a show is often rewarded accordingly.  On reflection I think an unhappy review is as much a reflection on the reviewer as it is on the show.  OK, I’ll admit some culpability here.

This was our fourth Sydney Festival in a row; 1 Magical; 2 Amazing; 3 Curate’s egg; 4 Mostly disappointing.

For me the 2010 Sydney Festival was in trouble when the program was released last November.  The First Mate and I pored over the paperwork with the usual expectant excitement – and after an hour or so we exchanged  “Oh Dear” looks.  Very little seemed interesting.  But like troupers we re-applied ourselves to the task and agreed on:

• Smoke and Mirrors in the Spiegeltent – Adult Circus/Cabaret/Vaudeville
• Toumani Diabate – West African kora player extraordinaire and friends and relations
• Circus Oz at Tumbalong Park
• Giselle at the Carriageworks – Redfern – walking distance from home
• Dirty Three and Laughing Clowns at the Enmore Theatre – also walking distance from home
• Optimism – after Candide at Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre
• The Fence –  a late booking to Urban Theatre Projects (about whom I’ve previously written at the Pig’s – challenging theatre al fresco) – this time in a constructed outdoor theatre in the old King’s School grounds in Parramatta.

The deal is that if you book five or more gigs you get a 20% discount.  But not all gigs can be booked this way and you must do a separate booking for some of the others – this is how I forgot to book the Brazilian Dance gig.  Also I was a bit festivalled out at this stage.

We gave the German Production of Hamlet a miss after a really disappointing, dull and very boring (coarse but accurate) experience with Sydney Theatre Company’s War of the Roses last year.  It was as I said at the time (another Unleashed sat-on piece) –  blood death and boredom times four.  Unrelenting 4 X 2 hour sessions over two days on a bare set stage.  Not saved by Cate Blanchett.  We were looking for relief as Australia followed the rest of the world into recession – and we got grim, grim, grim.  Pity, the reviews this year said the German Hamlet was a Festival Highlight.

So the summary reviews ?

Smoke and Mirrors - Comic Genious and Two Ducks - Photo by Jamie Williams

Smoke and Mirrors – was arguably the best thing at the festival this year.  It was scary, funny, riveting dirty cabaret at its best.  The small cast – especially the MC Joel Grey character was talented beyond description – bad, bad and hilarious.  And did we love singing along to his version of the lewd Eskimo Nell – Irene Iray ?  You bet !  The acrobats were simply unbelievably good – doing impossible acts of wry daring and strength.  The bearded lady with the voice that soared like an angel was wonderful.  I was in love.  And the First Mate swore we saw her again at Yum Cha in Erina – but that’s another story – about hallucinogenic prawn toast.  Todd McKenny (you know the gay dance dude who pegged out in Rushcutter’s Bay park) tapped up a miraculous storm.  The magician was sufficiently barely competent so I was spellbound waiting to see whether he was going to screw up.  I wasn’t disappointed with some poorly concealed sleights (spelling ?) of hand.  All up – Fabulous.

But the timing of Spiegeltent and the other gigs prevented us from going to the allegedly great Indian music and show troupe in Hyde Park – ah compromises, compromises.

Toumani Diabate - West African kora player extraordinaire and the Symmetric Band

Toumani Diabate and his band at the lovely State Theatre  were really very good too.  He DID seem to play the same piece three times with variations – Opening solo, then again with full band and once more for luck in the closing encore, but hey – it’s a great sound and the piece goes for about 12 minutes.  Sample some of his music off the web or see if he shows up in the Nathan Rees Memorial Dance Club at the Pig’s Arms in the near future..

.

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Barely Contained

Circus Oz was pretty much what Circus Oz is – one more time around.  Some hilarious stunts, challenging if not exactly death defying acrobatics, slick tumbling, a strong woman who was really extremely fit (Pins of Steel) and a midget (are we OK to say this these days or am I supposed to say “vertically challenged person” ?) – were clever, funny and quite entertaining.  If I’m damning them with feint praise, perhaps that’s fair enough.  The crew are multi-talented performers and they did a workman-like if not astonishingly novel job.

Giselle –  I was looking forward to Giselle.  Pity that we had had a huge day at work and a family disaster that same day – and we flopped in front of the TV – exhausted – completely forgetting that our tickets to Giselle were for that night.  oops !

Dirty Three - sure were

Dirty Three and Laughing Clowns at the Enmore Theatre.  An ’80s band reprise for Bands that I missed in the 80s but who carried some cult following cachet.  The Sydney Morning Herald daily review of the Festival poured scorn on this gig.   Fair enough.  It was without a doubt the worst gig I’ve been to for a very long time.  I remember Ed Kuepper – formerly of the Saints being regarded back then as a brilliant but irascible guitarist musician composer.  The music was a wall of hard driven, monotonous, repetitive rock punctuated with some fiercely passionate saxophone work.   The Herald critic bucketed the Enmore Theatre as a really shit venue – it was monsoon hot or worse, crowded and acoustically ordinary.  He /she said that if the Enmore was the best they could do for a venue for live music in Sydney, that is the reason why live music is dying.  Amen to that.  We headed to the bar after three mutually indistinguishable songs with unintelligible lyrics.  You had to be a die-hard fan.

Relieved to go back into the sauna for the second half, we were met by a hippie  Charles Manson in stove-pipe pants with an electric violin, attempting to do kungfoo kicks and play – seemingly like a dude on lsd.  “Hey man, this song is about the 2% of the time when you fall in love that’s not all fucked up”.  Well, that’s an elegant and perceptive take on love !  No, well, at this point I have to loosen myself up and say I cannot remember a performance more crapulous than this trio.  I’m absolutely certain that they were playing the 98% fucked up bits.

Optimism - well, maybe

The Herald panned “Optimism” saying that it was neither optimistic nor particularly funny.  I like Frank Woodley and I thought it was funny – kind of, but I was trying pretty hard to adopt a positive attitude – after all, it was my dough going down the gurgler at an alarming rate.  Alison Whyte did a convincing job, Francis Greenslade was as goonish as his name suggests and Barry Otto played Barry Otto (score: one all).

Urban Theatre Projects' "The Fence"

Now, to the Fence.  I have come to expect the unexpected from Urban Theatre Projects and I wasn’t let down expectation-wise.  The play explored (really more like “toyed-with”) the difficulties of a mixed race family in domestic tension.  An indigenous man.  A white woman.  Both from tough circumstances.  His family, a neighbour and for some unknown reason an obese Greek boarder,wandered around their living room and backyard, wandered on and off set.  Had a few blues, played a bit of Paul Kelly and Willie Nelson music and for me left me with the feeling of waiting for Godot, western suburbs style.  It’s not PC to bag out indigenous performance, so let’s just say that perhaps I was having another flat night by bringing along a worn out unresponsive attitude.

This year we spent roughly half of the usual budget on tickets to the festival.  It was hard to decide what was worth going to – and we went anyway out of loyalty to what had previously been much needed nourishment for the soul.  Maybe the flat program was a reflection of a lack of support from the famously broke NSW Government.  Maybe it was a reflection of a tired festival in general or the real face of the global financial meltdown.  The tickets were mostly – but not entirely more reasonably priced but the quality of events was also toned down.  I gather that some other big ticket events – $145 for some (according to the Herald) vastly under-rehearsed sea shanties on the Opera House forecourt) were true stinkers and I have to say that my days of speculating $300 the pair for tickets to see whether Marianne Faithfull can still cut the mustard with the Ballad of Lucy Jordan after ALL THESE years – are well and truly over.

Next year, I’m afraid, if the program smells like Stilton, I won’t be paying hard cash to be cheesed off.

Now, fingers crossed that the forthcoming Sydney Writers’ Festival will be another boomer.  And that the Sydney Film Festival will rise out of the ashes  of last year’s hole.  I’m hoping to feel just a tad more festive real soon now !

By Helvi Oosterman

Whilst you were all waving your flags and having your barbeques, I was running into the Norton Street Cinema in Leichhardt. It was a humid Sydney day, but I did not care: it was my second last chance to see Almovodar’s Broken Embraces; it was going to start at twelve midday, and I was not going to miss it, I was going to run for it.

Most movie lovers were blown away by Pedro’s previous master piece: Hable con ella, ‘Talk to her’, and after seeing something so sublime, I was worried about his latest offering. David Stratton on Movie Show gave him four stars for this one, and explained that even lesser films by Almovodar are heads above the rest.

I wasn’t disappointed. Almovodar is something else, he’s creative, he’s funny and, he’s over-the –top, but it all works. His talent brings to mind another eccentric and brilliant movie maker who also was gay, the German Rainer Fassbinder. Fassbinder had, as his  muse, the beautiful Hanna Schygalla; Almovodar’s is the equally stunning Penelope Cruz. Under his guidance Penelope shines; to watch her walk up the stairs in her red peep toe high heeled shoes and wearing a red suit is a scene to remember.

Google the critics if you want to know more about the film, but please go and see it, it’s definitely worth it.