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Posts from the ‘Stuff’ Category

Nov 29

3 Comments

I’m baaaack . . .

My apologies if things have been a bit quiet around here. As I said a couple of weeks ago, I’ve had a few things on (moving house, new baby etc etc) so my posting’s been a bit curtailed by more immediate demands. But since we’re now in the new house and the baby’s born I’m going to tempt fate by declaring the worst of the interruptions are over and I’m ready to resume normal transmission. I’m also prepared to tempt fate by saying I’m planning to post a bit more regularly than I was in the lead-up to the recent hiatus, but time will tell whether that’s an idle boast or not. Either way, it’s nice to be back online, and I’ll have my first posts up soon.

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Sep 23

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My face, my valuable (and immobile) face!

botoxYou know those moments you don’t think celebrity culture can get any more absurd?

“Dannii Minogue has revealed how she became addicted to Botox injections while her sister Kylie was battling breast cancer.” (from news.com.au)

I’d complain, except the subject of plastic surgery allows me to bring up two of my favourite subjects. First, the always entertaining AwfulPlasticSurgery.com (go on, you know you want to take a look). And second, that most misunderstood and delightfully, shamelessly trashy of shows, Nip/Tuck, a confection which, aside from giving Dannii’s ex-husband, Julian McMahon, the role he was born to play (don’t laugh, he’s scarily good) manages to somehow combine the most lurid and fantastical melodrama with an uneasy and often quite unsettling meditation on the illusions of beauty and the decay of the body. No doubt its unevenness of tone and quality has something to do with the fact it’s never quite found the audience it deserves, but when it’s good, it’s great.

(And yes, ten points to anyone who picked up the obscure Simpsons/Sideshow Luke Perry gag in the title).

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Sep 7

4 Comments

That old black magic

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The swearing-in of the NSW Government

So I’m reading the front page of this morning’s Sydney Morning Herald, trying to make sense of the increasingly bizarre circumstances surrounding the gangland-style execution of Sydney property developer, Michael McGurk, a scandal which already boasts an alleged tape of senior members of the NSW Government accepting bribes, blackmail and links to everyone from Socceroo Captain, Lucas Neill to former ALP powerbroker, Graham Richardson, and there, alongside the revelation that Michael McGurk was not actually Michael McGurk, but a New Zealander Scot named Michael Rushford, who boasted several identities, is this marvellous titbit:

“Private detective Warren Mallard said yesterday that McGurk had hired him to go to a property near Bathurst to ensure the owners had vacated. McGurk had acquired the property when the owners fell behind in their repayments.

“Mr Mallard said he was aghast to find that the owners had been devil worshippers who had a pit filled with blood and surrounded by bones.”

Say what?

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Aug 29

Three things

Three things I've liked this week.

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May 7

3 Comments

Flu-like symptoms

fluIn my last post, a week and a half ago, I was banging on about how much I had planned for the next few weeks. A site rebuild, I airily promised, more links, high quality posting, and all soon. And then total silence fell.

Those who know me well will probably just shake their heads. But this time there’s a reason, and it wasn’t (sadly) that I’ve been busy crafting the first Ulysses of the digital age, it’s the rather more prosaic fact that I’ve been sick as a dog for the last week.

I’m not going to bore you all with the lurid details of my symptoms, but I did want to say sorry for the silence, and to say I’ll be posting again soon. And to apologize to all the people who’ve commented or sent me messages over the past ten days or so for my non-response, which was simply a function of being in no condition to even think about sitting up at a computer (or indeed sitting up at all a fair bit of the time). But I’m still here, and I hope things will be flowing again soon.

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Apr 26

12 Comments

Depression, creativity and some more linkage

coming-soonI’ve not seen it yet, but the print edition of Saturday’s Age has an extract from my Griffith Review piece on depression and creativity. If it ever turns up online I’ll link to it, but in the meantime, just a reminder I’ve posted the complete, unedited version on this site, or you can download it as a pdf from the Griffith Review site. And please remember you can subscribe to Griffith Review by visiting their website, or purchase individual copies of Essentially Creative from Gleebooks, Readings or bricks and mortar bookshops everywhere.

Meanwhile, following on from Friday’s post about The Second Pass, I thought I’d link to another site I hadn’t seen until very recently, The Millions. A group blog with a very impressive list of regular and guest contributors, it offers intelligent – and substantial – commentary about books, arts and culture, and has recently offered a series of excellent articles about the future of book coverage.

That short piece about The Second Pass (and more particularly Genevieve, of Reeling and Writhing’s characteristically generous comment on it) reminded me that when I set this site up, one of my aims was to share links to articles and sites I thought were worth reading. That ambition rather fell by the wayside, largely because I found the tone of the site as it developed didn’t really suit a lot of linking and aggregation. I’m currently working on a major redesign which will allow me to aggregate links more effectively (a redesign which may also involve a name change, since I’ve rather taken against the name), but in the meantime, I though I’d offer a link to another site, and in particular a piece, I think everybody with an interest in the future of media should read, which is Clay Shirky’s ‘Thinking the Unthinkable’. It’s a month or so old now, but if you haven’t read it you should – it’s probably the most significant piece of writing the blogosphere has seen in the last twelve months.

And finally, my apologies if the content on the site has been a bit rackety recently. I’ve had a bit of a messy few weeks health and work-wise, so I’ve not really been on top of things (the WordPress system’s decision to eat my long post about the death of J.G. Ballard didn’t help either). But I’ve got good things planned for coming weeks, so stay tuned.

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Apr 15

1 Comment

Grieving for Dummies

I kid you not . . .

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Apr 11

3 Comments

The truth about Area 51?

area51Today’s LA Times has a story which purports to explain the truth (or should that be “Truth”?) behind that Holy Grail of conspiracy theories, Area 51, and it’s almost as improbable as the crazy talk of flying saucers and alien technology. That crashed UFO? A disk shaped, Lockheed-designed stealth aircraft called OXCART. Those reports of secret engineering? True, but they were reverse-engineering Soviet technology. And there’s even sodium pentathol-fuelled interrogations and men in black dumping drug-addled test pilots on their wives’ doorsteps. And why are we hearing this now? Because the US Government wants to set the record straight. Hmm.

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Mar 19

Please do not adjust your console

abc-patternApologies for the silence – I’ve been in Beijing, and though I’d been hoping to do some posting from there the moment never came.

Normal service will resume shortly . . .

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