It’s often said that the younger generation of today is politically apathetic. This doesn’t change the fact that a large percentage of this generation is now reaching or is above legal voting age. This fact means that politicians can’t possibly just ignore this vote anymore, causing them to stoop to the levels of You-Tube and Facebook to engage with their younger constituents. So if the leaders of our political parties are desperately trying to win the favour of our younger Australians by invading the new culture of communication, perhaps it’s time to go a step further and listen to the political opinions of this generation’s journalists.
Enter electiontracker - home to election reportage and commentary by young writers aged 16-30, self-professingly ‘actively engaging a young audience in the democratic process’. The brainchild of youth arts and pop culture website Vibewire, electiontracker is giving four young journalists the chance to join the political campaign trail as an official journalist alongside the rest of this country’s political media greats. Stay tuned for their reports on Kevin Rudd and John Howard as we cross the days off our calendar towards what could be one of the most important elections this country has seen for at least a decade.
And make sure no promises go undelivered…
While my title line still conjures up the sound of Ewan MacGregor’s voice singing to his ill-fated courtesan in Moulin Rouge, and I Am Sam’s soundtrack introduced a new generation to The Beatles, their music and unforgettable lyrics are about to be taken one step further.
Hitting Australian cinemas on Thursday, this new movie by Frida director Julie Taymor is set to take this country this universe even, by storm. Across the Universe is a modern movie musical (a genre seeing a comeback after recent movies like Dreamgirls and Hairspray) which pushes the envelope into strawberry fields, skies of diamonds and colour and choreography the likes of which haven’t been seen before. Telling the story of two star-crossed lovers amidst the turbulent, experimental years of the 60’s, the film plays like a psychadelic journey with an infectious soundtrack made immortal by The Beatles but here telling the story within their lyrics.
Starring unknown Jim Sturgess alongside Evan Rachel Wood, the movie also features Bono and Eddie Izzard along for the trip. The excellent interactive website gives a mouth-watering taste of the film’s promise and makes you reach for the dusty Beatles’ records lying in your dad’s closet, in wait for yet another timely revival.
The echo of what was an interesting yet ultimately inconclusive debate rings in our ears today. Yet despite the continuing scepticism around those already leading the country, it seems that the community at large wants to look to the future and prematurely test the mettle of my generation; Generation Y.
Books have been written about it, conferences and workshops are held over it and yet still people look at Generation Y as some kind of threatening enigma of political apathy and high expectation of workforce perks. And tonight, The Brisbane Institute is presenting another inquiry into whether we are fit to be the successors of Gen X and the Boomers in the workforce, as part of the Our Future, Your Say series. On at Brisbane Powerhouse from 6.30pm, ‘Generation Y: Is the future safe in their hands?’ is also presented in conjunction with The Courier-Mail, Channel 9 and Griffith University’s Centre for Urban Research.
It offers a line-up of ‘high-profile’ Gen Ys, including Aussie Idol Bobby Flynn, Courier-Mail’s Trent Dalton, Rave editor and writer Alasdair Duncan and Triple J reporter Vivian Hogg. While this panel might be there more for the benefit of the older generations, I think it is important that the Y’s represent, and make sure the voice of the majority is being heard. Maybe then people will realise that the members of this generation are more different than alike and should be considered individually rather than as a stereotype. My advice to older employers? Talk to your Gen Y employees themselves, they’ll appreciate it.
Tonight’s presentation is a free public seminar, but you can RSVP through the Brisbane Institute website.
While popular press continues to imply that Brisbane residents of other ethnic backgrounds are only here to cause trouble, litter, spit and smoke, celebrations this weekend in Roma Street Parkland may offer you a different viewpoint from which to look at your newer neighbours. On Sunday October 14, Multicultural Affairs Queensland delivers the fourth annual Queensland Multicultural Festival, a celebratory melange of foods, cultures, dance and music styles, community associations and craft that on any other day might seem worlds apart.
The festival boasts Deborah Conway and Willy Zygier as a headline act, as well as Brisbane ‘idol’ Bobby Flynn. Also featuring local favourites Doch and Flamenco Indo Jazz, this day is more about what you don’t know than what you do. Be mesmerised by the hypnotic sounds of the Indian tabla, listen to the crooning notes of an Eastern European lullaby, learn to dance like a Bollywood starlet. There is so much to learn about all the people of this world, and the cultures that make us so different. A celebration like this is crucial in appreciating this diversity and you can only come away feeling humbled by the depth and tradition that exists in this world.
I may regret what I’m about to do. If I do in fact know a secret that few of my peers are privy to, I am about to let the cat out of the bag.
A year ago I felt like I was wandering in the mist of the job world, not sure what section of the careers paper I should be looking at in order to find things I might be suitable for. Has anyone ever seen an ‘interdisciplinary creative half qualified to write, act and speak French’ column? Us in the Arts world, we are told that jobs for us are as rare as hens’ teeth. And indeed, I believe ‘Arts’ has only recently become an industry choice on Career One or Seek. Even now when I bother to look on the afore-mentioned sights under Arts/Entertainment, I must sort through 10 pages of ads offering nude model, ‘dancer’ and bit part auditions before finding that, yes, there is nothing for me.
Then last Christmas, a friend said to me, ‘Have you heard of Arts Hub?’ Well, ladies and gentlemen, now I have and there is no turning back. Apart from being a central hub of jobs specifically in my industry (whatever that is) and other creative disciplines, Arts Hub collates new jobs in an email bulletin once a week, delivers interesting and otherwise unheard of industry news once a day, and goes a step further to organise industry cross-promotion and special offers where previously there was none. Continue reading ‘love the hub you’re in’
From the name you might think there is not much to choose from, but the annual In the Bin short film festival screens the best short films in Australia - without the trash.
Since 2000, In the Bin Short Film Festival has been offering an avenue for aspiring Australian short filmmakers to have their work shown around the country. From over 600 entries, 16 are chosen to comprise the night’s screening schedule which premieres in the beautiful parkland opposite Currumbin’s Wildlife Sanctuary to keen crowds. Since its inception, Festival Director Jed Cahill has extended this original vision so that the festival now comprises 4 different mini-festivals (including Board Shorts, Cart-orts and School Shorts), lasts almost a week and actually tours the country - screening in up to 50 regional and semi-rural areas and some capital cities along the way!
This is almost a belated post, as In the Bin 2007 was supposed to kick off on Saturday night. However, it was postponed due to inclement weather so we all still have a chance to get to Currumbin for tomorrow night’s Launch part 1, gates opening at 4pm. If you need a bit more notice, perhaps a trip down the coast for Friday’s Retro Night, which screens the best of the last few years’ festivals as well as the picks of this year, might be a welcome diary addition. Continue reading ‘the best in the bin’
While non-French audiences would recognise his name as director of The Fifth Element, Luc Besson’s film credentials were also in part responsible, along with Jean-Jacques Beineix and Leos Carax, for a whole movement in French cinema in the 80’s, the cinema du ‘look’. With his most recent film, Angel-A, Besson introduces that genre of film into the new millenium.
A black and white montage of Paris, Angel-A is visually beautiful, constantly intriguing and, while serious, retains an undercurrent of humour throughout the whole film, probably due to Jamel Debbouze’s comic talents (he is the gorgeous moroccan-frenchman who plays the grocer’s simple assistant in Amelie). Debbouze’s character Andre is down on his luck and owes money to what seems like most of the dodgy characters of Paris’s gangster scene. Feeling at a loss, alone, and being chased for his life, Andre contemplates jumping from Pont Alexandre III, one of the bridges which crosses the Seine. The moment before he does so, he looks to the next pylon and sees the stunning Angel-A, played by Rie Rasmussen, about to do the same. When she jumps, for some reason he is over his death wish and decides to save her instead, jumping after her. In return for his efforts, Angel-A offers to help him out with his problems and using her feminine wiles, takes on Paris’s underground scene with style. As the story develops, we learn there is a more ’saintly’ reason for Angel-A’s sudden presence in Andre’s otherwise messed up life. Continue reading ‘cinema du ‘look’’
A simple weekend away can do the world of good. We could not be luckier in Brisbane to have real paradises about an hour away from us in any particular direction. As warm days and cool nights lull us into a spring-time reverie, head to Springbrook, just inland of the Gold Coast, for an opportunity to relax, reflect and respect the amazing natural world that grows high around us.
Accommodation-wise, just a few seconds on their website will tell you The Mouse’s House is one of the best rainforest retreats on the ridge - with cosy wooden chalets, simple yet stylish furnishings, fully equipped kitchen and big bbq, spa (and bathrobes!) all the thinking is done for you and eases you into a relaxing, stress-free weekend. Just don’t forget the champagne, because the closest bubbly can only be found in Nerang.
While listening to the sound of the stream that runs past your deck, lounging in your rainforest surrounds or borrowing the pushbikes available at Mouses House can easily fill in your time, Springbrook offers some other experiences worth investigating. Continue reading ‘if you need to get away’
If you’re like me and have had an argument with your significant other atop Mt Coot-tha at night, Refidex in hand, about what suburb is where and which direction is what…and I’m sure there are a few of you…then it might be worth getting up to watch the sun rise next Sunday, September 23.
The Spring Equinox, when the sun can be observed to be directly above the equator, falls on this day, its precise moment being 9.51am. On this day, due to the sun’s positioning, it will rise at true east and set at true west which, despite popular opinion, it doesn’t actually always do.
I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to settling this argument.
My mind thinks back to the campaign of a few years ago - ‘Pete’s Pointy Pencils out of stock - the writers are in town’ - and a sense of excitement and awe takes over. The Brisbane Writers’ Festival 2007 begins today, once again making a valiant effort to introduce to Brisbane what is emerging, controversial and noteworthy in the literary circle. I mention excitement and awe because that is what the writing world instills in me - I regard those who can make a 3D movie world appear from lines on a page as nothing less than brilliant, and I am proud that a group of people in Brisbane see the need to devote five whole days to discussing the different variations of writing.
As a throughline for this year’s festival, the team at BWF have focused upon the emerging field of the graphic novel, introducing writers like Shaun Tan, Bryan Talbot and Manga expert Philip Brophy (who will focus on the work of Tezuka Ozama - creator of Astro Boy) to the people of Brisbane and exploring how this storytelling medium just keeps growing and growing in its popularity.
Continue reading ‘brisbane in so many words’
According to the tagline, ‘a lot happened before Dorothy dropped in’. In a new musical hitting the Australian stage in 2008, Wicked tells the otherwise unknown story of how Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba, Wicked Witch of the West, came to be who we know them as from the classic childrens’ story, The Wizard of Oz.
What a novel concept for one of the best new musicals of the last decade or so! What intrigues me is why the author of the book by the same name is only being discovered now? Gregory Maguire wrote Wicked almost 10 years ago, and has delved further into the private lives of some of fairyland’s darkest characters than anyone else before. With titles like Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Mirror Mirror, Lost and Son of a Witch, Maguire brings a contemporary and rather ingenious spin to the classic tales of the last few centuries.
Shining a spotlight directly on the ‘evil’ characters of our childhood culture, like the wicked stepmother of Snow White, the nasty stepsisters of Cinderella and of course Oz’s bad witch, Maguire gives a complexity to their nature - for once not writing them off as just evil, but perhaps misunderstood. These new age versions of the classics we know well perhaps demonstrate that there is always another side to the story, even in a fairy tale.
If you were actually surprised that Brisbane has an independent theatre scene, then you should see this play.
Co-written by two of Brisbane’s freshest playwrights, Dan Evans and Rebecca Meston, The Reunion weaves the story of five high school friends gathering for their 10 year reunion, when they are suddenly faced with their 17 year old selves. In an exploration of reconciling who you were and who you are now, breaking free from the hierarchies of high school and the release of 10 years of building tensions between ‘friends’, The Reunion captures both the raw pain and the carefree existance that high school wavers between. It is the Berocca and greasy bacon burger that cures your 10 year post-high school hangover, brought to life by an amazing crew of new Brisbane theatre talent. With the dry and kooky wit that is characteristic of Evans, and Meston’s articulate writing style, this is new theatre at its best.
One night. One hot cast. One killer soundtrack. The Reunion plays at Metro Arts’ Sue Benner Theatre from September 5 to 22, tickets $18adult/$12concession.
It is building awareness of the good quality institutions among us who aim to deliver a hit of entertaining/ethical/technological/educational love to Brisbane’s arts and cultural scene. Brisbane’s annual Riverfestival floods our city’s cultural and academic crevices from this Friday August 31 to Sunday September 9, once again improving on its ability to draw together both local and international talent to demonstrate our love of the river through many mediums.
Show your support for the festival at events like the Liquid Lens short film awards, goa’s Advertising Challenge - pitching the concept of Odds & Evens Shower Days to the public, the Greening our City tree planting day, Pieces of a City program art exhibition by Jonathon Oxlade, Surf ‘n Symphony at the River Stage and the high-tech treasure hunt - dubbed The Amazing Race for mobile phones - Scoot, played at the South Bank Precinct. The International Riversymposium is in its 10th year too, welcoming around 1000 international delegates who are experts on the world’s water management - that is something to be proud of.
Sure, there’s the fireworks. But I assure you that’s only the beginning.
Not many authors enjoy success like J.K. - few would expect this kind of celebrity and wealth in their lifetime and are usually happy with the little amount of commission that trickles through their door every so often from sporadic booksales. Even more so, the Australian literary climate is one that allows the big international sellers to hit the shelves and walk out the door before national authors get their 15 minutes with the die-hard fans.
So what happens when one of Australia’s largest bookselling chains asks for a substantial payment from the distributor of this year’s Miles Franklin Award winner to keep their products in stock because their turnover is not rapid enough?
Tower Books, distributor of Carpentaria, by Alexis Wright, as well as other high quality Australian and European fiction has been given marching orders by Angus & Robertson unless they agree to pay $20 000 to remain in the 182 stores, as well as giving an almost 50% discount to their stock. Continue reading ‘where is carpentaria?’
There is a reason why I like watching the trailers before a movie - and that’s because every so often (if you’re in the right type of cinema) a 3 minute gem will appear before you which takes the opportunity to tug at your heartstrings right then and there and still deliver a promise of so much more.
One such preview which has stirred me lately is Once, an….wait for it… Irish musical starring lead singer from The Frames, Glen Hansard, and young Czech actress and musician, Marketa Irglova. Apart from falling into a very rare genre, this movie has earnt a World Cinema Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and looks to be a very special insight into two fairly ordinary lives made special by their relationship with music and with each other.
Hitting select theatres on August 30, the movie Once is definitely a one of a kind.
She may have been the bad guy, but she was still a hero. Glamorous, cunning and clever, Carmen had the world in the palm of her hand as she disguised herself in countries I had not even heard of at 10 years of age. With nothing more to go on than the name of an obscure currency or the colour combination of a foreign flag, I developed a lasting awe for the diversity of cultures around the world.
So why, in these age of ease of travel and frequency of crossing cultural boundaries, does it seem like the countries of the world have become a commodity with not much besides their age old landmarks offering a distinction? It seems like people only go to Thailand, ‘South America’, London, Prague or ‘Europe’. It seems like there is no glamour or glory in travel unless you’re doing a fast track world tour which could only be a blur of highlights by the time the weary traveller returns.
I guess this post is a reminder, if only to me, that there is nothing less glamorous in taking the world a piece at a time and really sitting with the culture of a place until it means something to you. And there is nothing less adventurous in crossing the Tasman instead of the Atlantic. As Irish author George Moore once said, ”A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it‘.
Who could have believed that wooden computer accessories could be a sign of what would otherwise seem to be a very plastic future?
Set to launch in October, the UK’s PC World announces the first truly carbon-neutral mass-market PC, which is said to use between 13 and 17 % of the energy consumed by a standard desktop PC. And its manufacturers hope that its release could signal the reverse of our growing trend to embrace and devour power-hungry appliances, with little thought to their environmental effects.
Bringing back last century’s ‘push button’ technology, this PC negates the need for LED power lights. The hard drive doesn’t contain an internal fan, as the power pack sits externally like a laptop, reducing the need for cooling. External casing is made from recycled materials like aluminium drink cans and used plastics. And the piece de resistance is the wooden screen, mouse and keyboard casings, made from plantation beech, ash or sapele grown in Africa, Germany and the US. Continue reading ‘e co-mputer’
Anyone who adores the richness and diversity of French cinema, which seems to present a difference side with every film produced, should make an effort to experience the multiplicity of one of its favourite femme fatales.
The result of a partnership between Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Alliançe Française Brisbane and the Embassy of France in Australia, Isabelle Huppert: A Woman of Many Faces profiles the film career of one of France’s leading ladies from its origins in 1971 to her most recent offerings this side of the new millenium. Working solidly through the richest time in France’s film industry, Huppert has been a chameleon of talent in over 80 feature films, a lot of them making their way to an English-speaking audience with varied success. Titles like Madame Bovary, Story of Women (Affaire des Femmes) and The Piano Teacher are well inside any movie connoisseur’s film vocabulary, even if the chance to watch them has never arisen.
This exhibition consists of a film program at GoMA’s Australian Cinemathèque from this Saturday, July 14 to August 2, with tickets costing $9 ($7 concession). Don’t miss this weekend’s special lecture by Prof. Barbara Creed, who will discuss the sexuality and subjectivity of Isabelle Huppert, on Saturday at 1pm. To get you in the mood, rent out 8 Femmes over the weekend…quirky French doesn’t get much better.
Deep in the bowels of Australia’s arts scene lies something edgy, unpolished and previously unseen. In the vein of a recent post on original and cutting edge theatre, I introduce you to Underbelly public arts lab + festival. Bringing 100 Sydney fringe artists together for a 10 day period of collaboration and creation, Underbelly takes over Redfern’s CarriageWorks performance space from 3rd to 14th July. Comprising the public arts lab, where artists devise and practice new artworks in front of audience for participation and feedback, a music and arts festival and the Underbelly TV social experiment ( footage shot on Nokia NSeries mobile phones, edited and uploaded daily on the festival website), this fringe festival is definitely one of a kind.
One artist collective featuring at Underbelly is Token Word - an ever changing group of individuals who challenge conventions of the spoken work form through prose, poetry, rap and multimedia performance. Other items on the program include The Vespertine Project, Entropic and Gangways.
So while you’re in Sydney checking out Earth from Above, investigate art’s Underbelly for a real experience.
The post-it phenomenon. In an attempt to help us keep track of those little odd jobs we need to accomplish, we attained the ability to stick reminders wherever we wanted. But with a mass of yellow squares across your monitor, they can start to become part of the scenery and their relevance is forgotten. Back to the notebook, where each day starts a new to-do list, putting the unfinished list of yesterday to the depths of pages past.
We have PDAs, Outlook calendars and diaries which manage appointments rather well, but what about the little things along the way that get left to the last minute? Can we consolidate everything in our lives we have to do?
As long as you Remember the Milk, you might have more success. A free online to-do list creator and task manager, there’s something fun and unique about this approach. I’m just wondering how much of my time I spend on updating the list, where other things could be done. Everything in moderation, I guess, even milk 
