All posts by stevestevelovellidau
When the Night Comes – Favel Parrett
At some stage in the future the coming of age of the city I adore will be marked as being the opening of Mona (Museum of Old and New Art), that Disneyland for adults on a suburban peninsula jutting out into the Derwent. All of a sudden my little gem of an island, Tasmania, has become a destination for something other than wilderness and gothic history, particularly so its capital. The eccentric gambler’s cornucopia of delights has been so successful it is now the state’s number one attraction, a must for those into subversive art. Then, a mere few weeks ago, a Hobartian was adjudged the author of the best novel written in the English language for 2013. For a while, for those in the know, this isle in the southern seas has been hitting above its weight culturally, but now that has been certified globally by Lonely Planet magazine. Along with the recognition of the quality of our wines, ales, whiskeys and seafood, as well as other niche tucker, Tasmania has much to hang its hat on.
Are we able to claim Favel Parrett as part of this renaissance? She certainly spent much of her childhood under Kunanyi, with her first two books being set in the city flanking its hills, as well as further south.
The city Parrett takes us to in ‘When the Night Comes’ is yet to transform itself. Back in the last decades of the previous century Hobart was largely a backwater, lagging well behind its mainland counterparts in the major indicators of progress. Isla and her fatherless family unit are escaping troubled times on the big island, hoping for sanctuary in pre-yuppified Battery Point. Here housing is attained and a room rented out to Danish sailors from the ice-breaker Nella Dan – well, one in particular. This ship was a frequent visitor to Hobart, being the means of supply for the research stations down on the frozen continent. The one particular seaman was Bo.
For a young girl struggling with a substantial relocation in her life Bo brings a certain colour to drab days – and to her mother. Through a child’s eyes we are not privy to the exact nature of that relationship, but by the end of the tale there is a sense that the Dane had to make a choice between to islands – his own in the Baltic or this one in another hemisphere.
This very different Hobart is also a major character. This is a town of watery, silvery winters and constant chill – not one of brightly sparkling summers for, at this time of season, the Nella D is facing the challenges of the Great Southern Ocean. The warmest months are the time of re-supply and change-over. The ship is also central to this tale and its controversial fate forms the climax of ‘When the Night Comes’.
This tome has a defter touch than Ms Parrett’s novice offering; but this was very well received by the critics, attaining much gushing acclaim. For me this is a more mature effort, far lighter in tone. The author would seemingly have a springboard for a sound future as a novelist now that the tricky sophomore book has been negotiated.
For this reader there were some magic moments in this book. When a boy from Isla’s school is tragically killed in an accident, we are taken to the following day and the means by which the teachers coped with the situation. Having been through similar in my own career, the paragraphs concerning the heartbreak were truly moving. Paralleling this, there is a death on board the Nella Dan that has a profound effect on Bo. The still ticking dead man’s watch comes into his possession – ‘Shouldn’t a watch be more fragile that a man?’ There is the image of a long time traveller to Antarctica’s bases leaving it all on the Nella, knowing he’ll never see that land of awe, white-out and silence again. Then there were her vivid descriptions of a Macquarie Island that figures so poignantly in the saga.
These are all atmospheric passages from an author with the ‘write stuff’ to carve a solid career going forward – what a cliché; but nonetheless apt. The island she spins yarns of is my island – a place that, like Ms Parrett, can now proceed into the future with some confidence.
As well as Hobart, my home town of Burnie also seemed to be a regular port of call for the Nella Dan. I remember her being there, as do several of my acquaintances. I do wonder why? The ether has not provided an answer.
Ms Parrett’s web-site = http://www.favelparrett.com.au/
The Hobart Docks03
Super-Gough
“I had today a message received from the Gurindji,” Mr Snowden said in Federal Parliament. “It says: ‘Very sad we lost that old man, but good because now people all over Australia will be reminded of his great legacy and the great thing he did with our leader, Mr Lingiari. That old maluka, old man, understood our important role in land rights. We will meet today to plan how we will mourn him’”
We did. We really called him Super-Gough back then. Just for a very short, blindingly bright moment in time we thought that he could walk on water; could part the Red Sea if he put his mind to it. And we, as Australians, could follow him in doing so.
Except for a few mean-spirited Murdochites, all sides of politics have come together in tribute at the great man’s passing. So too have us ordinary guys who can remember him putting our giant red soporific ship on a brand new course. He changed lives – he changed a whole nation for the better. To me the best of the reported tributes is the above. Of all the iconic snaps taken of Super-Gough during his brief time at the helm, one linked to these words is clearly the stand-out. Sure, it’s not the one of a t-shirted SG flanked by a buxom young pop-starlet telling us all ‘It’s Time’. It’s not the one of him sitting, chewing the fat with Chairman Mao on his ground-breaking visit to China whilst Leader of the Opposition. Remember our odious political midget of a PM back then telling us all how inappropriate this was as Communist China was a pariah-state. He did this on the very day President Nixon announced he was about to follow in EGW’s footsteps. It also isn’t the one of a stentorian SG standing on Parliament steps, behind David Smith as he read aloud that infamous document. Whitlam was about to unleash his contained rage. No, for me the image I cherish most, from those heady days, is a handful of red dirt being poured from a white hand into a black one – two mighty leaders of their people finally being on the same page. In Vincent Lingiari’s words, ‘We can all be mates now.’ If only.
Sure, as some witless souls have printed in recent days, the cabinet he presided over became more and more shambolic as time headed towards November, 1975 – a new week, a new scandal. There was the Loans Affair, as well as an affair of a very different nature featuring femme fatale Junie Morosi – just to cite a couple. So it was possibly appropriate that SG was unseated in a similarly outrageous manner, a way that we will never forget, by ‘Kerr’s cur.’
It says something of the man that he is now, or was, best of mates with the ‘cur’. For several decades together they became the conscience of our land. I have no doubt Malcolm Fraser wept again when the news reached him of SG’s passing. It is ironic that he is now the venerable figure on the landscape that points us towards ‘the light on the hill’. He leads the railing against the deplorable policies of Abbott and his abysmal cronies, as SG would surely have done in his pomp.
I remember exactly where I was when that other, earlier news reached me. On that eleventh day of an eleventh month I had finished my morning’s teaching and was heading for the staffroom to enjoy a break. A colleague, Sandra Skeels, passed me, coffee in hand, on her way out for duty. ‘Have you heard, Steve?’ she intoned. ‘They’ve sacked Gough.’ There was little enjoyment for me in that room of refuge back in ’75. All teachers then were Labor to their bootstraps.
No doubt, up there beyond the silver lining, Super-Gough will seek out Vincent Lingiari one more time. ‘Walk with me a little old fella comrade – talk with me. Remember a time when you and I sat down together as one. We started something, you and I. From that little thing, that pouring of dirt, something big may yet grow.’
The Hobart Docks02
Adelaide
Not since a teenagerhood visit to the Somerset Drive-in to see Hitchcock’s ‘ The Birds’ had I viewed a movie to give me the heebie-geebies like it. After ‘Jaws’ I found I had an immense fear of entering the ocean. Admittedly Taswegian waters are quite benign when it comes to man-eaters, but not where I discovered myself to be later that year.
I had visited Adelaide previously as teacher to students visiting the Arts Festival, but this time I was solo, staying with my good friend Andrew. He had a new found passion and was keen to show off his skills in it – yachting. He asked me to view his prowess first hand on his brand new purchase out on St Vincents Gulf. He wanted to teach me a thing or two about his fixation. I gave my usual excuse when invitations to share the attractions of over knee-deep immersion were offered – that I couldn’t swim. I thought that would be a polite, inoffensive way of declining – but mate Andrew persisted – ‘You’ll be right, Steve. You’ll be wearing a life jacket. Don’t be such a wuss.’ With this affront to my hairy-chestedness I could but only accept. Unbeknown to my host, it wasn’t my lack of swimming ability that was my real problem. Hadn’t I read somewhere that the waters of South Australia were simply teeming with great whites. But soon I was flying through the water, seemingly kilometres off-shore. Initially, I was out of my skull petrified.
Andrew proved to be an able instructor and I was soon feeling more comfortable – maybe a little too comfortable. Eventually my captain determined it was time to make a turn – to tack I think is the nautical term. He patiently explained to me what that involved. What he omitted to say – or perhaps, in my usual vague fashion, I hadn’t clearly picked-up – was that in this manoeuvre the boom would swing from one side of the vessel to the other. You no doubt can guess now the outcome. All of a sudden I heard a whoosh, then the pain of a severe clout to the back of my head and in the next instant, I was in the drink with Andrew’s yacht quickly disappearing towards the horizon. It was at that precise point in time that the opening scenes of ‘Jaws’ took over my scrambled thought processes. As I strove to tread water, I had the sensation that there was a massive pair of jaws about to rise up from the deep with the intention of snapping me into numerous bits of edible morsels, or – even devour me whole! Does one splash or remain as still as possible in that situation? My over-loaded, rampaging grey matter couldn’t quite sort that conundrum out. I was probably only in the briny for a few minutes, but time stretches in periods of ultra-terror. Soon, though, I espied my rescuer heading back from the horizon. His sheepish deck-hand was soon being hauled on board and taken to nearest terra firma. Thus ended a fleeting yachting career – I had lost all desire to ever set foot on another boat under sail. Those flashes, in vivid cinemascopic intensity, of the gory highlights of Spielberg’s horror classic, still haunt me. For thirty-eight years the possibilities entailed by my close encounter with the salt water off Adelaide remained the enduring memory of my previous excursion to the South Australian capital.
‘It really is a city of churches,’ remarked my DLP (Darling Loving Partner) as we swooped low over the metropolis, preparatory to landing at Adelaide International. And so it appeared to be on the ground as well. We discovered a leafy city of architectural pleasantness – including some easy on the eye parliamentary, university and religious structures, particularly those aligning North Terrace. It was here our accommodation was sited. Finally, I was sure, those hellish images of my last visit were soon to be erased. Now, looking back, I can safely write that that has come to pass.
People, of course, always provide the best memories. As with most trips there are the random meetings that stick. A large, bullish man with an unusually non-grating American accent kindly gave up his tram seat to ‘Madam’ (DLP). It turns out we had something in common. We were both islanders. He’d never met a Tasmanian nor we a Rhode Islander. I shook his hand on that fact. There was the lovely older fellow in the Information Centre on the Rundle Mall, who, as well as informing us of places to visit, charmed us with his life story as well. There was the Indian cabbie who saw us safely from the airport to our accommodation. He and I soon struck up some common ground – what else, but courtesy of cricket. He was so effusive he overshot the turn to our hotel, telling us of his memories of cricket on the sub-continent. ‘You Aussies,’ he reckoned, ‘only like test matches because you get to drink beer for five days. Us Indians can only handle that for one day!’
Cookie of Hahndorf deserves a scribbling almost to himself and that is my intention in due course. There was the beautiful young lady (wo)manning a souvenir shop in the glorious olde worlde Adelaide Arcade who heartily chatted with me as business was slow. She felt that, for her, Adelaide was a fairly boring town compared to the life she had previously in the US on a tennis scholarship – to a Michigan college to be exact. Well yes, I could see that. In retrospect the city does not seem to have the fizz of the mainland eastern seaboard capitals. Its pace appeared almost leisurely – one would hardly know Adelaide’s population was approaching a million. I think it’s the parklands that completely enclose the CBD that may be to blame – they soothe; create an element of quietude. It did have a certain Hobart feel – both cities have been at pains to give nature its due. And, continuing on with our theme of encounters random, then there were the waiters….
Meetings of an organised nature came with the old friends DLP and I delighted in catching up with. Leanne and Rob, our Bali mates, had a round trip of ten hours to accompany us on a foray into the Glenelg night-life, as well as to deliver us to our Hahndorf experience the following day. Anne took us to the Adelaide Hills. At the Norton Summit Scenic Hotel I supped on a Swell craft golden ale that matched the Gulf Brewery offering from that iconic Teutonic village in the same general locale. High above the city, enjoying buttery spring afternoon sunshine, life didn’t get much better. Anne is DLP’s cousin and hails from Burnie in her distant past. How random is it that her debonair son knew that my brother Dean’s favourite song as a child was ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’? Together we dined at a gem of an eatery, tucked away in an arcade – the Seoul Korean restaurant. Here I sampled my first kimchi (fermented cabbage) – I’m hooked. On our final day Chris and Frances took us to Lochiel Park/Wetlands for an amble. Its bird life, native flora and sculpture installations were salve to the soul.
Along North Terrace the art gallery, museum and library also were attractions not for me to miss. The first had a room almost totally devoted to Tasmaniana, including my favourite Glover. The Australian Geographic ANZANG Nature Photography Exhibition at the South Australian Museum was inspiring to this devoted happy snapper. In the State Library’s Mortlock Wing I wandered contentedly into the past. With its displays one may forget to look up. It is the view of on high that truly amazes.
Jamie (Oliver’s) Italian Restaurant attracted the attention of my DLP. She felt a good night could be had there and she was not wrong. Highlights of this eve abounded. The couple we were eventually placed next to, after a ninety minute wait, were what must be for the City of Churches an anomaly – she was fervent Port, he a committed Crow (we later realised that there is a formidable line running through the town when it comes to footy allegiance). Another unplanned encounter, they turned out to be delightful companions for the floor-show that came with our waiter. He was earnest to the max, determined to give us the provenance of every morsel that glistened tantalisingly on our plates. We almost felt we had personally met the beasts giving up their existence for our gastronomic pleasure. We wanted to get to it, but we indulged him and he proved to be inadvertently hilarious – such a lovely, passionate young man. I trust he goes a long way in hospitality. My wild boar sausage in fragrant lentils was terrific and this popular eatery was not at all overpriced. Well worth a visit – and please, a peek into their downstairs loos is a must. DLP was the first of our foursome to heed the call. I’ll say no more, other than the fact that when she returned to the table, DLP collected her camera and disappeared down into the bowels (pun intended) again. La Boca (North Terrace) is a developing franchise in Argentinian tucker that I feel sure will catch on when it expands to a city near you, dear reader. They know their meat, these guys from the pampas. Our lovely, lovely waitress was friendliness personified as she explained how they do things in regards to food – well beef actually – in that South American country. Yet another pleasurable repast was partaken of.
There is a solidity to Adelaide that I like. Its stolid architecture appeals, its people were friendly and approachable and there was not a great white in sight. Can’t wait for a return visit.
Jamie’s Italian website = http://www.jamieoliver.com/italian/australia/adelaide
La Boca website = http://www.stamford.com.au/spa/adelaide-restaurant-bars/la-boca-bar-and-grill
Seoul Korean website = http://www.seoulrestaurant.com.au/
Gulf Brewery website = http://www.gulfbrewery.com.au/
Swell Brewery Website = http://www.swellbeer.com.au/
The Hobart Docks01
Barracuda – Christos Tsiolkas
It’s just a little word – just four letters. It stars with a ‘c’ and ends in ‘t’. Why should such a small word be so off-putting to me, so abhorrent? I am a man of the world, aren’t I? Even after sixty years on this planet, this little word still makes me flinch. It makes me flinch when I espy it in print, or hear it uttered on-screen, in the street or, back in my teaching days – in the playground. The word itself has various meanings, but is rarely used in a positive context. It’s a word of anger, in the real world usually fouling out of the mouths of the articulately challenged as a put down. I could never write it in my scribblings – I have enough trouble using the f-bomb.
But there are no inhibitions with either word with Tsiolkas in ‘Barracuda’ He uses them with abandon; with pungent frequency right from the get-go. And he soon had me recoiling with distaste. Now don’t get me started with the sex in it. That it was between men of the homosexual persuasion had me coming over all squeamish. I insert a coda here that I am all for gay marriage and all that – but please spare me having to read of or see their intimate activities. I even have to turn away from the tele when two men have a pash!
But, being an avid review reader, I did know what was coming. I’d put off taking the plunge for a while, seeing the book sitting up there on a shelf in my man-cave, seemingly saying to me, ‘You thought ‘The Slap’ was the best book written in the first decade after the turn of the millennium, so you really do need to read me – my masters follow-up.’ So, against my gut instinct, I did. I am proud of myself – I made it through to the last page – but very little pleasure was had in doing so. Whereas ‘The Slap’ grabbed me and held me from go to whoa, despite just about every character being quiet detestable – ugly people leading ugly lives. ‘Barracuda’, to me, was just plain boring – when I wasn’t tut-tutting about that word. ‘The Slap’ did have its detractors too, but I thought it was magnificent – and it’s visual interpretation was pretty damn impressive as well. Praise be they don’t do one of this.
If anything there were more positive beings in this novel than in his previous, even if they all seemed to have a flawed side still. As for the hero, he only grew on me when Tsiolkas introduced a softer aspect to his character once he was through with the tumultuous ride he had during his teen and young adult years. It’s only when he meets cousin Dennis that the book fleetingly came alive for me. This occurred on a pretty wretched family trip to Adelaide, but sees our hero take Dennis under his wing. His cousin has an acquired brain injury – but is by far the author’s most sympathetic creation in this offering. The fulcrum of the novel are the travails of Danny Kelly, in his own mind, destined to be an Olympic champion in the pool with the natural talent he possesses. This, though, isn’t your typical tale of sports-person from the boondocks conquering adversity and attaining a shower of gold. No, Danny succumbs pretty quickly as he hasn’t the mental toughness such success requires. He is partial to major meltdowns, one such landing him in the clink. For most of the first part of the novel the whole world seems agin him. It’s only after he reaches his lowest point does there seem some hope of scaling back up to some sort of redemption – though never to the glittering heights he once imagined for himself.
To be frank most of it was pretty turgid going. There’s no doubt Tsiolkas possesses unquestioned talent, just like his protagonist, but, unlike with ‘The Slap’, it just doesn’t gel here for me. The narrative flip flops also became pretty tiresome by the conclusion – too smart by half is Mr Tsiolkas in this regard, methinks. I do love to look forward to time with a book, but I was constantly returning to this reluctantly. Admiring an author is one thing, liking what he/she produces is another.
The Guardian on Tsiolkas = http://www.theguardian.com/books/australia-culture-blog/2014/may/25/christos-tsiolkas-do-the-first-draft-orgasm-and-start-editing
Spring Bloom03
Leigh P and Indie Heart
She likes Zach Braff, does my DLP (Darling Loving Partner). She was an aficionado of ‘Scrubs’, a tele show that passed me by – possibly unfortunately given DLP’s descriptions of it. She waxed lyrical on the hilarity of the situations its medical practitioners found themselves in, but also commented that there was much pathos to be had with it as well. My love reckoned the writing in it was first rate, but the star attraction for her was Mr Braff.
So when a trailer for ‘Wish I Was Here’ appeared as a prelude to another movie we were seeing, DLP expressed the desire to make it our next foray to our local art house. For me Braff was an unknown, but as the offering also contained two favourites in Kate Hudson and Many Patinkin, Besides, I adore accompanying DLP to the cinema. With those two actors on board, surely the movie wouldn’t be too bad in any case – and it wasn’t.
So I was intrigued when the Sunday Tasmanian’s film reviewer, Leigh Paatsch, came out and called it ‘…faintly disappointing’, awarding it a paltry two stars – thus, I would imagine, putting plenty of punters off a viewing. Now if one is looking for something with a bit more ‘heart’ – something Leigh P does grant ‘Wish I Was Here’ begrudging kudos for – than the usual generic tinsel town product of comic book heroics and inane rom-coms. you may look to Mr Paatsch for guidance. This being the case, then you would surely opt for ‘The Skeleton Twins’, reviewed on the same page as WIWH. Our esteemed critic accoladed this with four twinklers. So, having immensely enjoyed the underdog, I thought that the higher-rater must truly be superb, it being something that promised a ‘…tale that will resonate (hate that term!) with the perceptive viewer.’ – is he having a go at the average cinema goer? This then was obviously worth a squiz. Neither I, nor LP, were let down by it. ‘The Skeleton Twins’ amply deserved his praise, but I still do not concur with his reticence over the Braff vehicle. To me it wins by the shortest of half-heads.
One ‘Twin’, Milo (Bill Hader) and WIWH’s Aiden (Braff) are both portrayed, initially, as two of life’s losers. As it happens the duo are also failed actors, but Aiden has his old man (Patinkin) providing him with enough of the readies to help support his family whilst he chases his dream. I don’t think Braff, as an actor, is any great shakes, but it was a delight seeing Hudson in a less overt role than her usual ditzy blonde or femme fatale shtick. Mandy P is as reliable as ever, but the role that gave the film extra lustre was that of Joey King as Grace Bloom, the feisty daughter who has to cope with her world being turned upside down when her grandfather’s money runs out. This is due to his battle with cancer/the American health system. Paatsch accuses this movie as being contrived, as it surely was in places and yes, the Hollywood ending can be seen a mile off. But, unlike the product he praises to the hilt, it doesn’t goes beyond the bounds of credulity.
That word – contrived – in my view, would have been better being attached to LP’s more endorsed film. Just how did Milo know where she was and be able to find her in time?. You’ll know what I mean when you see it – and I do encourage you to do so. It was the only jarring note in a great piece that started bleakly, with both Milo and his sister, Maggie (Kristen Wiig), in suicidal frames of mind. Each major protagonists, for various reasons, are overloaded with self-loathing and their means of coping with it are at the centre of TST. Sis is a serial adulteress and gay Milo was involved in something rather tawdry back in his home town, back in the day. It’s to this up-state New York locale he returns to get his shit together under Maggie’s supervision – the blind leading the blind, so to speak. Gradually we, as an audience, warm to these two battered souls. Their duetting and dancing turns are scene-stealing gems. I enjoyed Wiig in this immensely, with there also being an attractive performance from Luke Wilson as hubby Lance – a nuanced turn.
Nah, for my money it’d be hard to separate these two watchable visual creations. Both are loaded to the gills with positive messages about the ‘silver linings’ being there if one is willing to do the hard yards. And so, I am in discord with Leigh P – for each it’s three and a half stars from me.
Trailer for ‘Wish I Was Here’ = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCponfeWNOI
Trailer for ‘The Skeleton Twins’ = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhULZJDXLaE
The Blue Room, Riverside Drive 