Only in New York – Lily Brett

March 20, 2015Book Reviewsstevestevelovellidau

Did you know this about the Big Apple = It can cost over $289,000 for a one-year hot dog stand permit in Central Park. The city of New York will pay for a one-way plane ticket for any homeless person if they have a guaranteed place to stay. On Nov. 28, 2012, not a single murder, shooting, stabbing, or other incident of violent crime in NYC was reported for an entire day. The first time in basically ever. It takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday edition of the New York Times. There is a birth in New York City every 4.4 minutes. There is a death in New York City every 9.1 minutes. There’s a man who mines sidewalk cracks for gold. He can make over $600 a week. Women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business. Albert Einstein’s eyeballs are stored in a safe deposit box in the city.

In ‘Only in New York’, Australian ex-pat Lily Brett provides some more interesting facts about the city these days she calls home. For instance she reports there is another Aussie, the for us ubiquitous flat white, that is now all the rage in Brett’s metropolis, There are Down Under themed coffee hangouts, such as ‘Flinders Lane’ and ‘Little Collins’, introducing New Yorkers to Melbourne coffee culture. Did you know that ‘…everyone who shops in New York is called a guest.’ causing our Lily to question ‘When did we stop being customers? And when did we metamorphose into guests?’ And incredibly, in the Big Apple, there are people actually hiring themselves out to cash in on another ‘…new phenomena sweeping through New York.’ These souls have transformed themselves into space cleaners who ‘…clear and scrub homes and offices psychically. Not physically, psychically…Space cleaners cleanse your home of undermining and enervating energy, bad vibrations and negative spirits.’ This can be even done remotely by said space cleaner – he/she doesn’t have to visit. This is much cheaper than the thousand green ones required up front for their presence in your actual abode or work space to put matters right.

All of the above says something about that particular city, as well as its shakers and movers. If the latter two trends catch on here then I feel we’d all better sit down and take a long hard look at ourselves. So the book is not a hagiography, but even so it does make living in this megalopolis seem pretty cool – especially now the murder rate seems to be markedly diminishing. Did it make this reader want to hop on the next Q-Bird and head for JFK International? Well no. To really get into a city requires being able to do something like our author who, because she lives there, can immerse herself in it. With the tourist weeks available to most of us one could only scratch the surface. Despite the amount of time I’ve spent in out closest big smoke, Yarra City, I still don’t feel as I really know even that enchanting destination.

But no matter, we have Lily Brett. She regales us with tales of her neighbourhood in a series of vignettes – most of them fascinating, all very readable. She has a selection of in places to tempt us to visit through her erudite descriptions, so she is obviously in the know – and they’d be as far off the tourist radar as you could get, I’d imagine.

Back in the sixties LB was the epitome of the chic rock chick about town – writing for ‘Go-Set’ magazine. For those of us of the age who can remember, to be ‘with it’ one had to read that publication from cover to cover. Then she headed overseas to continue to ply her trade interviewing all the greats when rock was in its pomp. She is also the daughter of Holocaust survivors, her attitude to her Jewishness being a constant theme in her tomes. Her nonagenarian dad is still around and still quite the ladies man, living near to the wordsmith’s SoHo home. He’s partial to pastrami from Katz’s Deli on East Houston, she and hubby love the family atmosphere of Hiroko’s Place, a restaurant on Thompson and a throwback to another era. Its about these sort of New York establishments that our guide writes so enticingly. They’d be the types of places I’d love to visit, if the opportunity ever arose.

However the most startling of Lily’s revelations had nothing to do with her city of choice, but my own island. Turns out she is allergic to us. It’s the world’s cleanest air and our eucalypts you see. She took one breath of our ‘… fresh, crisp, unpolluted air and started coughing and wheezing.’ She couldn’t step out on any Tasmanian Street without her nose and eyes running – although neither the carbon monoxide fumes of NYC nor the noxious smog of Beijing have ever presented her with a respiratory issue. And as she simply abhors trees, I doubt if we’ll ever see her again for a book launch in this neck of the woods – good pun there, what!

‘Only in New York’ was a true page-turner for me – and even if I cannot see myself ever getting there, I enjoyed visiting vicariously.

And now, here’s some more interesting snippets about the city on the Hudson = About 1 in every 38 people living in the United States resides in New York City. It is a misdemeanour to fart in NYC churches. The first pizzeria in the United States was opened in 1895. In 1857, toilet paper was invented by Joseph C. Gayetty in NYC. Up until World War II, everyone in the entire city who was moving apartments had to move on May 1. There are tiny shrimp called copepods in NYC’s drinking water. There’s a wind tunnel near the Flat Iron Building that can raise women’s skirts. Men used to gather outside of it to watch.

Lily Brett’s website = http://www.lilybrett.com/

Joe and Douglas

March 13, 2015Music Reviews, Photographystevestevelovellidau

He’s gone now – but he has been captured for all eternity a thousand times over – in voice, the moving image and in photographs. It is Douglas Kent Hall’s take of him with the latter I love. It’s of Cocker in his prime, his mouth open in guttural growl, his hands poised in the spasms that came to be the idiosyncrasy most associated with him – his stage paroxysms. Of course we cannot see his jerking in all its glory – in Hall’s image they’re inferred, just as the monochrome infers all about the man in his pomp – the Woodstock Cocker, the ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ Cocker, Cocker in the period he used to confess he could never remember, so strung out was he in his golden age. So legend goes, during this time his mother, in sorting his laundry, found a cheque in his pocket for a cool million or so. When she asked the obvious, he had no recollection of the person it was from nor what service he had rendered to earn it. Sadly Cocker and that voice was lost to the world last year.

And what of the man responsible for this image, as well as so many other memorable ones of the gods and goddesses during rock’s wild years– what of him? Well he preceded Joe to beyond the silver lining by six years, but he too has left us with an indelible legacy.

Of course, for me, it is all about those rock photographs. They include multiple takes of the Lizard King, Jim Morrison, some of which are legendary. But none the less atmospheric are his stills of Hendrix, Tina Turner, Daltry, Jagger and so on – you name them – he snapped them.

To Americans Hall is also revered for his shootings of ‘real cowboys’ – those that, ‘…as opposed to urban cowboys, drug-store cowboys, rodeo cowboys, or movie cowboys, stay on horseback all day long working cattle.’ (Mark Strand). But Hall himself didn’t knock the rodeo cowboy. – in fact he lauded them, both in word and image in publications such as ‘Let Er Buck’ and ‘Rodeo’. He had a love of this form of ‘entertainment’ since his childhood days growing up in Mormon territory, Utah – although he didn’t abide by that latter persuasion. In the eighties he finally settled down in one place – that place being a small hamlet in northern New Mexico. Prior to that he had roamed the world on assignment once he’d established his credentials. These took him on photographic journeys that were outside the realm of music and cowpokes. He travelled the West pointing his camera at the US’s indigenous tribes. Then there were the body builders such as Lou Ferrigno, Lisa Lyon and Arnold Schwarzenegger when they were in peak condition. After his constant wanderings were over and he was finally semi-stationary with his second wife, he took to photographing the churches of his local region, before travelling to South America for two iconic portfolios – the miners of Minas Geras in Brazil and Peru’s Zen ghost horses. He also had a spell in St Petersburg, capturing Russian life.

As if all this wasn’t enough, Douglas KH was an exponent of various martial arts and a well read novelist – his first employment on leaving college being a teacher of creative writer.

But it’s his early photographs, his rock oeuvre that I am fascinated by. He commenced these way back in 1968 with a move to London, continuing his own fascination in NYC in the early seventies. These images he published in collections such as ‘Rock: a World Bold as Love’.

As with Hall and his photography, Cocker took his music into the new millennium. He’d had sporadic hits later in his career such as ‘Up Where We Belong’ and ‘You Are So Beautiful’, but nothing to match his earlier Beatles covers, ‘Delta Lady’ and ‘The Letter’. He had some great later albums too, such as the gloriously evocative ‘Sheffield Steel’, but could they match ‘Mad Dogs…’ or ‘Cocker Happy’? Joe, though, for this punter will forever be that belter of songs that Hall perfectly captured, sweat and spit flying, face and body contorted – gravelling it out from some repository deep inside with every ounce of effort his mistreated body could muster.

A portfolio of Hall’s images = http://www.photographersgallery.com/by_artist.asp?id=173

Exhibition – Essie's Dad

March 10, 2015art and photographystevestevelovellidau

You notice it as you drive up Sandy Bay Road and come to stop at the lights where this thoroughfare intersects with Davey Street – or, then again, maybe you don’t. It’s kind of muted, as befits the period in which it was made, with 123,000 Italian glass tiles. It took him two years to create it. When it was finished, in 1960, it was an early harbinger of the symbol that went on to be now instantly recognisable as that representing the organisation for which the mural was laboriously pieced together – our ABC. It’s on the street-face of the building that once housed Hobart’s vibrant branch of Auntie – vibrant until Abbott and his cronies finally gutted it in the state by dispensing with its long standing current affairs show. These days 5-7 Sandy Bay Road is the home of the Conservatorium of Music, still flanked by that mosaic, now over fifty years standing. It is a tribute to the artist who painstakingly put it all together – Essie’s dad, George Davis.

Essie, of course, is the locally produced star of stage, small screen and international film – most prominently, in recent times, as the lead character in ‘Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries’ for none other than the ABC – another season coming soon. Essie was with her old man at the opening of an exhibition in tribute to George at the TMAG late last year. Present, gracing the walls, were his original designs for that mural.

Our city once more turned to George Davis after the 1984 fire that almost led to the destruction of Hobart’s shining symbol of its colonial heritage – the remarkable and irreplaceable gem that is the Theatre Royal. If you have reason to visit this wonderful little centre of our burg’s cultural life, look up to its dome and note the ten composers featured there – restored by Davis after the almost fatal inferno.

GD, in his early days, was a student of Jack Carrington Smith, head of the Tasmanian School of Art from 1940 till 1970 – a local legend. Early on Davis’ skills were recognised, so much so that the state government awarded the youthful dauber a travelling scholarship, to London, to further hone his talents. There are some works from this early UK period on show. On his return George took up various contracts with governmental organisations, these taking him to places such as Macquarie Island – on the Nella Dan no less – and remote islets of the Furneaux Group. He then sketched and put to canvas scenes, particularly of the wildlife, he witnessed at these isolated locations.

George Davis is a bit of a throwback to another era and one can discern this by the exactness of his sketching – he was/is a meticulous practitioner. He was also a popular portraitist – there is nothing flashy or eye-catchingly ostentatious about his work, either, in this regard. It’s all calm and precise – just as his mosaic. It’s the type of art you’d maybe notice on the wall in one of the offices of the ‘Mad Men’ alumni – designed to not only to enhance but fit in, not to steal the show by shouting back at you.

In truth, my visit to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery was for another reason – to view the cricket memorabilia, from the likes of Boon and Ponting, open for display there to celebrate the World Cup games soon to get under-way across the river at Bellerive. That, when I entered, was all tied up with its official opening – so I beat a hasty retreat and soon found myself lost in George Davis’ world. I stood, looking at his loving sketch of his daughter, so pleased that, in the end, he had waylaid me for an hour or so with his albatross chicks and penguin skulls. Matters cricket can wait for another time.

Florence, Maude and Camille

March 8, 2015Photographystevestevelovellidau

Florence. I didn’t think chasing this image through the ether would end up causing me to run slap bang into Florence – but there you go. We all know Florence – Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp, the heroine of the Crimea, the godmother of nursing. Most of us, with only the merest knowledge of history, would know those details of her. But delve a little deeper and there is much more of interest. She was an early advocate for feminism, but not quite in the way one would suppose in these modern times. She believed that it should be male driven, rather than being championed by her own gender – women, such as those pesky suffragettes, had no business meddling. Still, she used her influence to improve the lot of her gender. She was also a dab hand at the old mathematics and experts have concluded that she was almost certainly a virgin till her dying day in 1910. From her time tending to wounded troops till the day she passed she was invariably in fragile health – and as she aged, so the amount she was bedridden increased. At the end she was glued to her London bedroom, but before she left this world an unlikely event occurred – an event that links her with that photograph sent on to me.

This image also led me to Maude. What a stunner! Even by today’s standards she’s a head-turner, an exquisite beauty. Look at her face, framed by the voluminous locks popular at the time. Wow! This gorgeous woman was born Maude Mary Hawk in Memphis, Tennessee – a long way from the Crimea or London, in 1883. Her folks had a theatrical bent. It wasn’t too long before she became better known to the world as Maude Fealy – star of the stage and for a time, the silver screen. She featured in eighteen silent movies between 1911 and 1917. But treading the boards was her first love. As well as performing in plays she also scripted them. There is evidence she also invented the first wheeled travel luggage – but even all this couldn’t save her from a troubled marital history and she bore no children.

But let’s take a step back to Fealy at the turn of the century. Now look again at the accompanying sumptuous image of her. It happens that between 1901 and ’05 Maude made several tours of the UK. She acted for companies that were prominent at the time, such as those under the auspices of William Gillette (for whom she performed in an early production centred on Sherlock Holmes as hero) and Sir Henry Irving. And it is during this period her paths crossed, indirectly, with Florence and Camille.

The latter was born two years later than Maude in another faraway location, Antwerp. And it was her image that started this whole process. This was dispatched to me by my writerly darling daughter with the words, ‘Here Dad, see what you can do with her.’ And she certainly piqued my interest – just look at that hair! Her investigation resulted in the coming across of that other damsel, as well as the redoubtable Florence. I do wonder if Ms Fealy and Camille crossed paths – perhaps they even knew of the other.

In the early 1900s Camille managed to win $2000 in a magazine contest. This, in turn, led her, by 1902, to also becoming a popular actress, performing tours of the US – and later the UK. And here comes the rub – the linkage. In London she paid a visit to the same establishment as our Maude.

But first things first – back to that couple of grand – a tidy sum in those days. That takes us to a gentleman by the name of Charles Dana Gibson – his surname may give you, dear reader, a clue to her claim to fame. If we add that this gentleman was also an illustrator may help enlighten as well. Gibson loved drawing the women of his era – women with largish bosoms, slender waists and ample posteriors – and disporting thems in the latest fashions. The woman thus portrayed would be calm in a storm, sporty, independent and confident – and of a mental make-up that definitely would not lead her to embrace the suffragette movement. These creatures, both on the page and in real life, became known as Gibson girls. Gibson himself felt that his creations should be equal partners in any relationship with the male – but always a teasing, coquettish equal. She would be inspired by such luminous beauties of their times such as Evelyn Nesbit and Mary Astor – but soon, in the public’s eyes, all others would be overshadowed by our statuesque Belgian delight – Camille Clifford. With her high coiffure and elegant gowns, wrapped around an hourglass figure, once she attracted the judges’ eyes and won that competition for the best real-life miss to represent the ideals of a Gibson girl, she became the model for their creator’s vision. In this Camille was in two-step with Mary Pickford. What esteemed company.

So sometime, in the period under discussion, both Maude and Camille, during their Old Blighty tours, were chaperoned into the Gainsborough Photographic Studios at 309 Oxford Street to have their beauty captured for all time by its proprietor, Lizzie Caswall Smith. From her sessions with this talented duo, and numerous others, hundreds of post-cards would be produced – huge money-spinners for above and below board professional camera pointers in their day. Lizzie was one of the best in a game – a game largely dominated, as in most areas, by men. Celebrities of those Edwardian days flocked to her premises. Lizzie was a woman ahead of her era, but, contrary to the ethos of the Gibson Girls, was also a strong supporter of suffrage. So there’s the tangible link between Camille and Maude – but what of Florence?

In 1910, for a very rare occasion, Lizzie left her studio for an assignment. And with it our tale comes full circle. She travelled a short distance from her base and set up her equipment in that afore referred to bedroom of the now close to death Florence Nightingale. We are not sure why this came to pass, given the subject’s hatred of posing for the camera. She was also, in her later years, gun-shy of publicity. The resulting images have only recently come to light, having remained all the intervening decades in the care of Lizzie and her descendants. The camerasmith, having retired in 1930, died in 1958. Lizzie once confided to a friend that her time with Florence was so remarkable that, ‘I shall never forget the image.’ And now this photograph has become famous in its own right, be it as it was taken just a few days before the iconic figure’s last breath.

So my gratitude goes once again to my dear Katie for her supply of another enticing image, leading me to a fascinating journey of discovery through the ether. The only disappointment in the whole process was that, about Lizzie herself, I only encountered scanty information and no portrait. I guess back then selfies had not been thought of. It’s left me wondering ever since.

YouTube tribute to Camille Clifford = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmdJvyuCWIc

The Story of the last photograph of Florence = http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2776782/Rare-photograph-of-Florence-Nightingale-for-sale.html

Funny Girl – Nick Hornby

March 5, 2015Book Reviewsstevestevelovellidau

10. Mr Bean
09. Outnumbered
08. Lead Balloon
07. The Office
06. Yes Minister
05. Men Behaving Badly
04. One Foot in the Grave
03. Father Ted
02. Fawlty Towers
01. Royle Family

Yep, for me the Brits do it best. Sure the Americans had some classics in the early days of television coming to Oz – such marvels as ‘The Honeymooners’, ‘Father Knows Best’ and ‘I Love Lucy’. But really, since the Dick van Dyke/Mary Tyler Moore franchises were put to bed, I cannot remember any Yank comedic series I religiously watched. I know these days my darling lady adores ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and my writerly daughter remembers ‘Friends’ with much affection – but these and many other US sit-coms bypassed me entirely. And yes, Australia has produced some efforts that have tickled my funny bone in the years since ‘My Name’s McGooley, What’s Your’s?’ – titles such as ‘Mother and Son’ and ‘Kath and Kim’ come to mind. I am also quite partial to local stuff like ‘The Games’ and ‘Utopia’. But for me it’s UK half-hour comedy for the small screen that really does it – and as you can see above, I had a stab at producing a Top 10. It wasn’t an easy exercise. I couldn’t find a spot for such diamonds as ‘Absolutely Fabulous’, ‘Keeping Up Appearances’, ‘The Young Ones’, ‘Episodes’, ‘Gavin and Stacey’ or my current fav, ‘Derek’ – although there would be those that argue that the latter is anything but funny. And true aficionados would shake their heads in horror as to how I could possibly leave out what many consider to be the greatest of all – ‘Barbara (and Jim)’!

And this is the iconic show that Nick Hornby has written about in his latest tome, ‘Funny Girl’. It is the series that proved to be such a step up from the glum fare, such as ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’, that the English were glued to before it arrived, all bright and sparkly, on the scene. It put the light back into light entertainment and first brought an England in transition into our lounge rooms. As well, this is the gem that introduced the world to the delights of Sophie Straw, the UK’s buxom challenger to the stranglehold Lucille Ball had on the title as world’s greatest comedienne. This voluptuously gorgeous woman, as we know, then went on to such hits as ‘His and Hearse’ and ‘Salt and Vinegar’, before closing down her career as the much loved matriarch of the long running soap, ‘Chatterton Avenue’.

In Hornby’s ‘Funny Girl’, the author takes us behind the scenes to the making of the four rib-tickling series of ‘Barbara (and Jim)’, now repackaged for our viewing pleasure, all these years on, in a box set, currently available at JBs for $49.95. This is extraordinary value considering most of the master tapes were thought lost until re-discovered by mysterious uber-fan Max. This release also celebrates last year’s golden anniversary of the comedy’s first emergence from the BBC and into the homes of Britain. It was also shown here in Oz, but was not the great hit it was back in Old Blighty. So if you were maybe a fan back in the sixties you will be delighted how well its humour still stands up – sort of timeless in the manner of Fawlty or Mr Bean. If you are too young to remember it in its heyday, you could do worse than the show’s box set as a suitable gift for the woman/man in your life. But it would be an advantage for them to read this book first, to place it all in context.

Our author is best known for his fiction, having produced such best-sellers as ‘High Fidelity’, ‘About a Boy’ and ‘Long Way Down’. He has also delved into non-fiction before with his classic memoir ‘Fever Pitch’, as well as scripting a movie – ‘An Education’. It has been recently announced that Mr Hornby is about to write a television series of his own, ‘Love, Nina’.

Nick H commences his tale with the genesis of the show. Two tele writers, struggling for an idea, are inspired when they first come into contact with the alluring Ms Straw – the freshly minted winner of a Miss Blackpool pageant. She has come south to London to try her luck, just as the Swinging Sixties are getting underway. What follows is an in depth look at the four seasons of ‘Barbara (and Jim)’, with some emphasis placed on the personal lives of those involved. This includes the supposed romance and subsequent engagement of Sophie to her leading man, played by Clive Richardson. He, Hornby claims, was none too happy with getting second billing to an unknown – with his name in brackets as a sort of afterthought. It seems he must have quickly mellowed towards his co-star, although I do remember at the time wondering whether the affection between the two was a media beat-up to improve ratings. Its number one status, around then, was being challenged by ‘Steptoe and Son’ and ‘Till Death Us Do Part’. It wasn’t long before it turned out she was wedded to her producer, the somewhat lesser-profiled Dennis Maxwell-Bishop. Their union was, considering the business they were in, long and happy till his passing a few years back.

Finally, Mr Hornby takes to the underwhelming attempts to capitalise on the nostalgia for the show with the original cast and writers being enticed to get back together for several ill-conceived projects. Of course they are now a mere shadow of when they were in their pomp – Clive R appearing as if he’s already in la-la land. You can’t turn back time and to my mind Nick H should have left this sorry spectacle well alone. I’d prefer to remember them when they helped take the minds of the British away from post-war gloom to the brighter future that lay ahead once the Beatles and Stones made London such a happening place. Later that decade one of the writers, Bill Gardiner, bravely announced that he was homosexual with the publication of his ground-breaking ‘Diary of a Soho Boy’ – still in print.

Illustrated with period images, Nick Hornby, on the other hand, breaks little new ground with this work, but it is an amiable and in places, quite an enchanting read.. For those of us with enough years under our belts to remember those times it is a valuable account of the optimism that came with so much societal change and I know, as a young man, the delectable Sophie Straw sure had an impact on me. Happy memories – so thank you then Nick Hornby.

Nick Hornby’s website = http://www.nickhornbyofficial.com/

‘Love, Nina’ article = http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/16/nick-hornby-writes-first-tv-drama-love-nina

Exhibitions – Nudes and Landscapes

March 4, 2015art and photographystevestevelovellidau

It was not the deliberate visit many others were. I like exhibitions at Salamanca’s Long Gallery, visiting them reasonably often, with the neighbouring Sidespace also featuring as well due to its proximity. On this occasion, adored granddaughter needed a pit stop, which just happened to be opposite the latter viewing space so, whilst waiting, I wandered towards it.

Initially, standing on the outside looking in, I took what hung there to be photographs, so realistic they were from that distance. Suitably enticed, I entered the space and was surprised to discern the stunning nudes were wrought, so deftly, in pastel.

Stephen Firth completed these exceptional renderings, of an array of wonderfully local models, between 2011 and 2013. He’s an architect, resident in Hobart for some forty odd years. He has been participating in life drawing classes for thirty of these – and clearly has honed his skills to a very fine degree. I was impressed. Such a collection of naked or scantily clad feminine flesh could appear confronting on first take, but there was nothing salacious about what was on offer to the eye with this the artist’s second exhibition. What I espied there, in that gallery, that day I’d best express, in words, as being just simply beautiful.

As the artist was in residence and with the bulk of Hobart’s population either at the Wooden Boat Festival nearby, down at the docks, or at Salamanca Market immediately below, his exhibition was hardly drawing a bumper crowd at the time of my presence. The Long Gallery was also devoid of an attraction and I asked Stephen if this was affecting his own prospects for sales. Her reckoned that was possibly the case, but as something was due on show next door in the oncoming week he was hoping it all might improve. Although I didn’t query him on it, I did wonder if his choice of subject matter may also be be a limiting factor – even in this day and age. In an ideal world I would have added a red dot for my favourite, but there’s no surfeit of wall space in my household. He’d sold a couple of works on his opening night and professed contentment with that. I thought, at around the $1500 mark, they were good value for those with space (or cash) to spare. I went on to ask a couple of questions to which he responded in artists’ speak, but it was clear he was serious about what he hoped to achieve by having his models make ‘…eye contact with the viewer.’ He praised the virtues of the Conté crayon as his medium and I congratulated him on his skill with them.

My conversation with Stephen Firth then moved on to the last showing at the Long Gallery where, again in my dreams, I would have been making purchases to grace the walls of Lovell’s Riverside Gallery.

Our beloved island, as well as producing beguiling subjects for figure studies, can trade, as well, on its unique natural panoramas – panoramas that are attracting overseas snappers to our southern shores as well as giving the local brigade ample subject matter. Held from the 22nd of January till the 5th of February, ‘Island Light’ was curated by prominent camerasmith Wolfgang Glowaki and featured the alumni of the local landscapists’ scene – such names as Mathew Newton, Dennis Harding and my personal favourite, Luke O’Brien. As well as those I was already well familiar with, there were a whole array of up-and-comers whose work, well, lit up the walls on the day I visited. Mr Firth was of the same opinion that with Arwen Dyer, Kip Nunn, Joshua Vince et al, the legacy of Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis is well in hand. With the opening of Wild Tasmania, replacing the old and perhaps tired Wilderness Gallery, around the corner, as well as with tourism booming, the future for these gifted people being able to turn a buck would seem considerably enhanced. Glowaki himself has a new publication worth checking out – I am particularly partial to his macro work.

Eventually precious granddaughter, with parents in tow, returned and so I departed Mr Firth and his engaging ladies. I followed up by examining his web site, readily available to all those not adverse to slightly NSFW material.

All this led me on to reflect on Kirsty Pilkington who has melded together both aspects mentioned above – she’s bought her nudes directly in contact with the Tasmanian landscape. Her ‘Bare Winter’ series – in book, card and print formats – has been around for some time – the tome gracing my own bookshelves. She also is a dab hand at animal photography, having a popular range of product in that genre also available.

I wonder if Stephen Firth has any notion of publishing his nudes in book form. Those struggling for wall space would be a ready market – his nudes are every bit as appealing to one’s senses as the island’s glorious natural sea and land vistas. I trust he gained many more attendees to his exhibition in the days after I attended and made a few more sales to make it all worthwhile. His labours certainly gained my attention. Long may he render our womanhood in such an appealing manner. And long may the Salamanca Arts Centre attract us to diverse and stimulating artistic showcases. It is a valued adjunct to TMAG and MONA, helping make to our magical city an artists’ haven with increasing clout.

Stephen Firth’s website = http://www.stephenfirthartist.com.au/

Luke O’Brien website = http://www.lukeobrien.com.au/

Wolfgang Glowaki website = http://wolfgangglowacki.com.au/

Kirsty Pilkington website = http://www.kirstypilkington.com.au/

Transportation : Islands and Cities – edited by Sean Preston and Rachel Edwards

February 23, 2015Book Reviewsstevestevelovellidau

Following, as I did, the gestation of this fine collection on Facebook, it did have an entry into the world that garnered a few bumps along the way. A crowd funded project, it is a tribute to its editors and backers that a successful function at Fullers Bookshop saw its emergence with a degree of fanfare. At its southern end co-editor Rachel Edwards did a magnificent job to carry it all through to fruition. It was an ambitious task to group

Rachel Edwards

together an eclectic range of Taswegian and Old Blighty contributors to examine the notion of island and city. As one would expect, what has been produced will see some efforts not to everyone’s taste in the mix. I must admit there were a couple of short stories I struggled with. Taken as a whole, though, it is a most worthy compilation – with local wordsmiths more than holding their own in comparison with the Londoners in quality of product.

Ben Walter continues to impress with his alluringly dense, articulate prose – with so much of the outstanding artistic endeavour on our island always being ‘…something to do with the light.’ We have had a recent example of this these last few days as dusk has settled over Hobartian hills after a spate of unusually, for this summer, warm days. Oliver Mestitz’s original take ‘How to Pick Up an Echidna’ also delighted. For my enjoyment the pick of the bunch was Claire Jansen and her atmospheric rendering ‘Manhattan is an Island’. This up-and-comer recently graced the pages of the Mercury’s Saturday Tasliving feature and, if her story is any indication, she would seem to have a bright future in writerly pursuits.

Claire Jansen

Her story, as with many of her character’s generation, is a tale of participation in the Tasmania diaspora to the four corners of the world – a theme reflected, as well, in other offerings here. For these people, as well as often those that choose to remain, the magnetic pull of our island in the southern seas becomes stronger as years pass. We know we inhabit a unique place – despite its economic and social woes we eventually come to conclude there is none better to be found at those four corners. I know that, as my years gather up around me, I find it harder and harder to contemplate leaving it, even for relatively short amounts of time. The pull of London, Paris or NYC cannot match what we have here. As Ben says – it truly is ‘…something about the light.’

Congratulations Rachel. Like our island, you too are a gem.

Transportation Islands and Cities Facebook page = https://www.facebook.com/transportationbook

Charlie Goodnight, West Texas Heaven and a Stripper

February 22, 2015Music Reviewsstevestevelovellidau

The Jigglewatts are here. They’ve arrived – all the way from Austin Texas for their tour Downunder, starting in Perth – and sadly, from what I can discern, ending in Perth. But on show at that city’s Fringe World ’15 Festival they will bump and grind their way around several stages. They’ll strip, tease and set male – and female – hearts a pumping with their displays of sumptuous flesh – all very tasteful, mind you.

Charlie Goodnight – ever heard of him? No, nor had I. But he’s famous enough for the US Postal Service to issue a stamp in his honour. What a man he, as a result of my investigation, turned out to be. But my research of the ether didn’t commence with him as a starting point – in fact it was a present day chartreuse I was interested, but it’s with Charlie I ended up – with a comely stripper in between.

But let’s start with Charlie. They don’t breed ’em like him these days. Imagine this – he was renowned for his swearing and cussin’ – think ‘Deadwood’s’ glorious Al Swearengen. He smoked fifty cigars a day, realised it was doing him no good, so switched to chuggin’ on a pipe in his later years. Those mature years lasted till the grand old age of ninety-three. And he was, let us say, very vigorous. He remarried at ninety-one, going on to produce a child. His wife was sixty-five years his junior. As I said – what a man!

If you think our Kidmans and Duracks, Charlie Goodnight was a Yankee equivalent. He was a cattle baron of the Wild West, blazing a trail across West Texas to get his beef to market as quickly as was conceivable back then. In doing so he won and lost fortunes several times. He wasn’t going to die wondering, was Charlie Goodnight. When he was done with redefining the map of the harsh lands of Texas territory, he found time to invent an effective side-saddle for women, established places of worship around his local areas for churchgoers of denominations other than his own, became part-owner of an opera house and built schools for the education of drovers’ sons and daughters. But it remains his first passion that built his lasting fame – cutting new trails where white men hadn’t ventured before. If you think our own Canning Stock Route or the Birdsville Track you get a notion of what he was about. For the Lone Star State it was the iconic Goodnight-Loving Trail that enabled Texan cowboys to eschew the Kansas railheads in favour of opening up new routes and markets to the west instead.

The story of how this was achieved won a Pulitzer Prize. Larry McMurtry based his character Woodrow F Call on the West Texan drover for the novel ‘Lonesome Dove’, which garnered the prestigious award. When Call’s partner McCrae is ambushed and killed by the Indians during a cattle drive in the book, it is exactly what happened with Goodnight and his mate Oliver Loving. Charlie pulled a poisoned arrow from the chest of the dying Loving and rode the dead man back up the trail for a burial in his home town.

Goodnight was born in 1836, never learnt to read or write, fought in the Civil War and was known to one and all as the Colonel. All his employees were prohibited from drinking, gambling or fighting – but he inflicted the strongest punishment on anyone who mistreated a horse. He was no doubt a man of his age with many of his attitudes, but by any measure was a force to be reckoned with. He was also the forebear of Kimmie Rhodes, the subject of my initial foray into the web – the name Goodnight being passed on down through the generations to Kimmie and beyond. And it is through this singer I discovered the amazing, superlative Townes Van Zandt.

I picked up Rhodes’ ‘West Texas Heaven’ way back in the mid-nineties, probably attracted to it by the words beckoning on the CD’s cover – ‘Featuring Willie Nelson (and) Waylon Jennings’. Like TVZ, Ms Rhodes is songwriter’s songwriter, with her tunes having been recorded by a disparate selection of greats – everyone from Emmylou, Mark Knopfler, Peter Frampton, Trisha Yearwood right through to Oz’s own John Farnham – as well as, of course, Willie and Waylon.

Kimmie grew up in Buddy Holly territory. She was a Lubbock lass. Singing on stage since the age of six, she moved to Austin in ’79, becoming a vital part of that city’s outlaw country scene. There she met long term partner Joe Gracey, a music producer who passed in 2011. In ’81 she recorded her first album in Willie’s Austin studio. She has issued a plethora down through the years since, both in solo and collaboration form, but for some reason WTH is the only one I own. Must do something about that.

Although a legend in her own state and popular in parts of Europe, Kimmie has never caught on in this market. Her product only seems available on import. Like her ancestor Charlie, Kimmie is also a bit of a jack-of-all-trades being, as well, an author, playwright and producer. Rodney Crowell describes her as having,’The soul of a poet and the voice of an angel.’ Sweet Emmylou states, ‘Kimmie has the voice of a beautiful child coming from an old soul. She touches us where the better angels of our nature dwell,…’ Country music folk are really into their angels.

Her duet on the album with Townes VZ, ‘I’m Gonna Fly’, opened up his own oeuvre to me – his tunesmithery and his sad, sad life. She tells the story of how that collaboration all came about on YouTube – look it up. Like many of our musical heroes, Townes did not live long enough to enjoy any measure of the fame he now holds – had he done so he’d probably have drunk it all away in any case. Kimmie is made of more resilient stuff, although she too continues to fly under the radar in many parts. Her time will come. I still play ‘West Texas Heaven’ and ‘I’m Gonna Fly’ still gives me goosebumps, bringing a tear to this old fella’s eye.

Kimmie and her hubby of twenty-eight years produced one daughter, although she has a couple of sons from her first marriage. The daughter is also pretty special. She is Jolie Goodnight and she takes her clothes off for a living.

‘If you want to see strippers in Austin,’ trills the Austin Post, ‘you can head on over to the Yellow Rose and buy yourself a lapdance, but if you want to see burlesque in Texas, you’ll have to look a little harder. If you’re lucky you might find Jolie Goodnight, a dish-water-blonde-turned-flame- haired-beauty who dazzles audiences as she sings jazz standards and does a striptease at the same time.’ What Jolie does to entertain is part strip but mainly tease – its an art form currently enjoying a world wide revival under the broad banner of burlesque.

Jolie became hooked on it as a youngster during her mother’s tours of Europe, where it has always been held in high regard. What she does is not for the raincoat brigade as it’s classy, albeit undeniably sensual – with a soupçon of bawdiness as well. Ms Goodnight is set apart by the fact that it’s her own voice that is singing as she dispenses with her garments. Check her out too on YouTube. You’ll only need to be moderately of broadish mind.

This burlesque queen loves what she does and claims there is absolutely nothing salacious about it. She reckons for five or six minutes she gets to be a goddess up there on a pedestal. Sure she’s ogled at, but by a far more appreciative and discerning audience than would inhabit the Yellow Rose. For her, it’s all about the tease, aided by black stockings, pasties, and feather boas. Together with her fellow troupe of ladies of similar ilk, the Jigglewatts, she may one day come tour our eastern states as well.

I wonder what the Colonel would have made of her?

Kimmie Tells the story of how ‘I’m Gonna Fly’ came to be on ‘West Texas Heaven’ = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSQiy_4A6LA

Jolie Goodnight puts a spell on us all (NSFW) = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wemb-g2flTM

The Jigglewatts in action (NSFW) = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqPMyNKaQwc

Billy

February 20, 2015Movie Reviews, Uncategorizedstevestevelovellidau

Not everybody loves Billy. I accept that. Maybe it’s those f-bombs he so liberally peppers his comedy with. Yes, they grate on me too – but I forgive him. I forgive him because of the joy that he expresses for life every time he takes the stage. To my mind Billy is a one off, a planetary treasure. How can a man (or woman) go up to a microphone, with no idea what they’re going to roll with and then entertain – no – have them rolling in the aisles – for several hours? Unfortunately though, for all his genius on this platform, ‘What We Did on Our Holiday’ proves what I’ve thought all along – Billy can’t act.

This is a movie with faults on many fronts. There’s the miscasting of David Tennant – brilliant in such vehicles as ‘Broadchurch’ – but in this comedic role he is all at sea. Unlike Billy he is not a natural comic. Many scenes seemed overly staged in the very worst way – so much so they resembled a series of skits from the ‘Paul Hogan Show’. It was that bad. David S had it in a nutshell when, in his recent review of in the Weekend Oz, he opined on the movie’s ending ‘…the film-makers opt for the feel good rather than embracing the astringent mood of the rest of the movie. Everything is wrapped up just too neatly, and that’s a pity.’ On top of this there’s the problem with the kids. The offering comes to us from the same people responsible for television’s glorious ‘Outnumbered’. Over its five series its three youngsters were unscripted, with the adult actors having to carry on regardless with the general direction of each episode despite the red herrings their mini-tyros threw up at them. By the time the show had its legs all had their place in proceedings down pat. Compared to the joys of that modus operandi on the small screen, the new configuration of Emilia Jones, Bobby Smalldridge and Harriet Turnbull just simply were not in the same class. What was so natural in ‘Outnumbered’ here was clunky and forced. At times Ben Miller also seemed very stilted in his role as Doug’s (Tennant) miserly, insensitive brother. And on top of it all, then there’s the issue that Billy can’t act.

Yet, despite all of the above when it’s examined forensically, like David, I was still pretty rapt in this BBC production. The audience that shared the viewing room with me laughed in all the right places – and I, at times, struggled to keep my mirth in check. Billy, despite his thespian shortcomings off the stand-up stage, still enhances any film he’s involved in simply by just being Billy. And as staged as they might be, some of the scenes with the children are still delightful – particularly if Billy is there too. Rosamund Pike, completing this before her game-changing star turn in ‘Gone Girl’, lights up proceedings whenever she’s in shot. The movie is an affirmation that life is for living for its pleasures and we’re not to be distracted by its silly, mundane minutiae.

What’s it about? Well a dysfunctional – I hate that word but listen closely in the film – couple decided to try and hold it all together one last time for the sake of the dying Gordy (Billy Connolly), Doug’s father. Gordy resides in far off Scotland and is having his very last birthday on Earth. The road trip there is a train wreck, but that’s nothing compared to what happens on a Scottish beach after arrival. Here, I must say, you have to put the practicalities of how the kids actually achieved what they did to one side and simply go with it. Also featured are an ostrich, a lesbian and a Viking ship – so from all that you can gather you are in for a fair amount of mayhem and that is duly delivered. And even if she’s a bit like Billy in the acting department, if you are anything like me, you’ll be simply enamoured of the notebook addicted eldest child. I hope I see plenty more of little Ms Jones.

As most of us are aware, in real life Billy is not a well man. He is battling the ravages of time on several fronts and, touch wood, to date winning – he’s still touring the world presenting his captivating shtick of crazy patter and making movies – in which he defies acting. I fervently hope She up there, beyond the silver lining, gives him a little more time with us.

The Official Trailer = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUY23_cfI4o

The Lake Shore Limited, The Senator's Wife – Sue Miller

February 17, 2015Book Reviewsstevestevelovellidau

Women give with their breasts in so many ways – some of these ways are involved with their exposure for the deliberate appreciation of males. As the latter gender move towards their terminal years, so that giving is even more appreciated and certainly not just accepted. In Tom’s case it was cherished. Neighbour Meri gave him her gift – and in doing so he gave her much in return. ‘If someone had asked her (Meri) about the nature of what happened between them, of course she would have had to acknowledge its eroticism, its sexuality. But it was more than that. It was a charge between them. Or a recharge she thought.’

Very much in decline, Tom received from Meri what most in his position could only dream about. I would have no idea how easy it would be to give such a gift – Meri didn’t seem to have too many problems with it. But Tom was able to give back – and now that is something worth staying on the planet for.

I like the tale Sue Miller tells of her days as a struggling single mother, before literary fame and (one assumes) some fortune came to her. It needs to be told against her upbringing with a father an ordained minister and both grandfathers also of the church – as were great-grandpas too. And there she was, working in a seedy bar – ‘…think high heels, mesh tights and the concentrated smell of nicotine.’ – being ogled at by leering men.

It is reported that many of her works are indeed semi-autobiographical. Miller’s formative years, as well as being of an ecclesiastical nature, were also severely academic. She went on to Harvard. But later still she also went through the marriage wringer, produced a child that she had to raise fettered by not having a partner. In doing so, she was simultaneously attempting to establish herself as a wordsmith. Thus she struggled, working base-rate jobs such as the afore-mentioned to support her son. Her eventually successful efforts to improve herself have shaped her and given her an ample dollop of life experience. As a reward, along came grants and at age 43 she struck gold when ‘The Good Mother’ was accepted for publication. It shot into the best seller ranks, Hollywood came calling and she was on her way. Since then her novels have been gonged many times and she is regarded as one of her country’s leading practitioners of domestic fiction – what the Brits would term the aga-saga. It is the richness of her prose I succumb to – the descriptions in detail of the minutiae of any dramatic setting. I have had two of her recent novels sitting on my shelves for a while and decided to tackle them one after the other. It didn’t take me long before the first and the most recent, ‘The Lake Shore Limited’ had me in its thrall as it took me to WASPish middle class America.

At this tome’s core is the eponymous play. Around it Ms Miller builds a saga of falling in and out of love in several of its variations. It is cleverly constructed from the perspective of several souls connected with the stage production – an actor, the playwright, her boyfriend’s mother, this mother’s would be lover and so on. It’s post Twin Towers, but nonetheless very much in the shadow of that event. It is a deeply satisfying work, one that is sad to depart from on completion – a tribute to Sue M’s skill in unravelling the various entanglements of her characters as they come to terms with an unexpected, high profile loss.

Now back to Tom. Was he the most fortunate of men? Well, in one sense he managed to luck in throughout most of his adult life – as he continued to do so with the neighbour right at near life’s end – but at what cost? He had the ability, deep into a marriage, to still enrapture younger women, such as his daughter’s bestie – who ultimately caused his political downfall – he was the Senator in ‘The Senator’s Wife’ – but not him to change his philandering ways. But we have more questions. Who was this Alison Miller who was with him when his health finally crumbled? Why did his wife remain devoted, contriving an unconventional arrangement with him on top of her own affair with Paris? She continued to have satisfying intercourse, at regular intervals, with him throughout their long estrangement. Then, most poignantly, at the end – there was the question of what was ailing Meri when she gave him the gift of her breasts? The story of the Senator is related to us through the mouthpieces of both Meri and his long, not-so-suffering wife Delia. The time frame is from the seventies till near present day, but concentrating on the last decade of the previous century.

Of Miller’s two offerings and despite the attractions of the first reviewed, it is this second tale that had the most impact – an absorbing, unputdownable page-turner. Neither of the novels strayed too far from the author’s own Bostonian home – although she has had flirtations herself with northern California. Miller writes of her New England region with much affection – and similarly of the type of people who reside there. She has them down to a tee. Progressing through her seventies now, her own talent displays nary a sign of being in decline.