tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2010://1 2010-02-19T03:11:30Z Movable Type 3.34 tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2010://1.40 2010-02-19T03:10:00Z 2010-02-19T03:11:30Z

Check out the Monthly's website....

the Monthly's website.]]> tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2010://1.39 2010-02-02T01:42:00Z 2010-02-02T01:44:26Z

The Edge is opening in three and a half weeks and everything is hugely flat out with tons to do in not much time. Actually, it's been like that for a while. Like since I started in mid-November. The launch...

The Edge is opening in three and a half weeks and everything is hugely flat out with tons to do in not much time. Actually, it's been like that for a while. Like since I started in mid-November. The launch party is going to be awesome. Seriously. But right now I'm kind of looking forward to it because I can't wait until it's over and we can start business as usual here. If you want to hear from me about it, sign up for the enews because it and the other official Edge stuff is the only think I really have time to write just now!]]> tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2009://1.38 2009-11-11T00:30:00Z 2009-11-11T00:30:00Z

1. Couples Facebook pages 2. Giving up gluten when you’re not intolerant/coeliac (not including giving it up to see if you are or not!) 3. Fundamentalism 4. The idea that watching TV doesn’t use your brain 5. Bed sheets with...

1. Couples Facebook pages 2. Giving up gluten when you’re not intolerant/coeliac (not including giving it up to see if you are or not!) 3. Fundamentalism 4. The idea that watching TV doesn’t use your brain 5. Bed sheets with brand names on them 6. Spoilers on non-turbo charged four cylinder cars 7. Being proud of monolingualism 8. Slagging off abstract art because ‘I could do that too’. You don’t though, do you? Huh? 9. Single ply toilet paper 10. Office politics tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2009://1.36 2009-10-30T02:20:20Z 2009-10-30T02:28:08Z

When he first took the stage last Wednesday, Paul Barry seemed pretty sick of talking about his latest book, Who Wants to be a Billionaire. He was speaking at its Brisbane launch hosted by West End’s Avid Reader book shop....

Paul Barry seemed pretty sick of talking about his latest book, Who Wants to be a Billionaire. He was speaking at its Brisbane launch hosted by West End’s Avid Reader book shop. It seemed reasonable, really. Who wouldn’t be sick of it after the media stormlet that centred on it over the last few weeks? (The whirlwind subsided once the book was released and people actually read it.)]]> Packer family — The rise and rise of Kerry Packer and its uncut version, and Rich Kids about the One.Tel debacle. This one, he says, is an exploration of what drives James, the current patriarch. At this point, I wondered for a second why anyone would care, beyond standard curiosity about the rich and famous. But seeing as what businesses the Packer family runs (several major media outlets and casinos) and how they run them (with a stark lack of what us ordinary folk would call either ethics or morals) any insight into these things is a matter of public interest. It took Barry three years to write this story and to build it he says he interviewed about 230 people — teachers, schoolmates, friends. From these conversations, a picture emerged of a man burdened with the responsibility of maintaining the family’s billions and growing them into more. Of a person who grew up overshadowed by a harsh and egotistical father who constantly put him down and wouldn’t let him go to uni because he’d pick up crazy left-wing ideas. The interviewees collectively created a portrait of a desperate man. Barry tried to talk to Packer himself to get his input into the book that was, after all, about him. What does it say when someone raised in the lap of media conglomerates won’t talk to the media because he doesn’t trust them? But then, when you make most of your money from casinos which in turn make about 40 per cent of their money from problem gamblers, you’d probably want to stay out of the spotlight and its pesky tendency to illuminate dark corners. I don’t normally read books about rich yobos, but Barry convinced me his might be worth a look. Brisbane Square Library here I come.]]> tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2009://1.35 2009-10-26T05:10:00Z 2009-10-26T06:10:42Z

I'm just as surprised as the rest of you. Let me know what you think and where it could be improved!...

I'm just as surprised as the rest of you. Let me know what you think and where it could be improved! Unlove She mourns that she is inexplicably drawn to unavailable men. To everyone else it’s perfectly explicable: Her objects of yearning are charming golden boys that all the women want. Unsurprisingly, the men are drawn to her ostensibly reluctant attraction Her non-hesitation to sacrifice herself to the insensibility of the impractical love That she invariably inconveniently finds herself in. It’s love; it’s undeniable, she tells herself and everyone else. Isn’t it tragic? Everyone nods in sympathy… to a point. A point she overtakes without a thought. While in everyone else unsympathy grows followed by indifference. They don’t see the situation’s inherent unavoidability; love is inescapable, she tells herself. Everyone else can see that to her its inconvenience is irresistible. One by one they recognise she is irredeemable, and drift away. Alone with her inopportune love, romance sharpened by an un-understanding world, Soon she is crying to him uncontrollably that she can’t help loving him unrestrainedly And she wishes it wasn’t so inexorable, her heart so incorrigible. In the face of such unarguable helplessness, seduced by such unashamed self-unrespect He unamazingly, unabashedly helps her consummate her love While her tears of weakness and capitulation stream unhindered. Life is now unfettered by any unhappinesses Merely occasional unsurety on the days he is home late unexplained And when he unexpectedly can’t meet her and her friends, and glances are exchanged. When at last he tells her he has inadvertently fucked someone else While she progresses from enraged to inconsolable to inflexible unforgiveness She knows that her love is so absolute that her life is unworthy without him. At her door a few unsleeping nights later, he says loves her unequivocally, misses her unbearably That if her love was truly inconquerable she wouldn’t let this unmake them She wouldn’t so quickly unremember what they had. In the face of his unassailable logic on the illogic of love She can’t help but unfreeze and water drips from her lashes They seal the end of unforgiveness with lovemaking on the floor. There are bright spots when she has his attention undivided To balance the nonappearances and delays. Still, never has she been so alone, although with love for company She mourns that she loves this unavailable man so incapacitatingly That he is so often unavailable to her and recklessly available to others And she accepts what seems unacceptable because of the unreasonability of love. She settles to a life of uncertainty, irregularity and unspoken fears Because true love is immoveable, unyielding, endless No matter how uncaring, insensitive and mistreating its object All those things are external, inconsequential, immaterial against her immeasurable love.]]> tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2009://1.34 2009-10-23T02:09:00Z 2009-10-23T02:11:19Z

1. Personalised number plates 2. Chart music ring tones 3. Throwing the bouquet 4. Technophobia. Particularly dissing social networking websites because you feel pressured by them 5. Calling your mobile phone your ‘moby’ 6. The assumption that there’s only one...

1. Personalised number plates 2. Chart music ring tones 3. Throwing the bouquet 4. Technophobia. Particularly dissing social networking websites because you feel pressured by them 5. Calling your mobile phone your ‘moby’ 6. The assumption that there’s only one path to fulfilment/enlightenment/spiritualness 7. Teetotalling for non-medical reasons 8. Hen’s nights that involve veils or any kind of retarded headgear 9. Linguistic snobbery 10. Any form of evangelism, religious or no tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2009://1.33 2009-09-10T06:30:00Z 2009-09-11T07:42:04Z

The cabbie who drove me home after a late night at work the other day was a terrible, terrible driver....

The cabbie who drove me home after a late night at work the other day was a terrible, terrible driver. He was always at least 15 km above the speed limit, hestitant when merging, dangerous when changing lanes, punched my address in the GPS and still missed my street. Then he almost forgot to give me my credit card back. tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2009://1.31 2009-07-22T01:00:00Z 2009-07-22T01:57:20Z

here.]]> tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2009://1.30 2009-06-03T07:30:00Z 2009-06-03T08:21:46Z

In fair Verona, in the Veneto region of northern Italy, a famous play is set. A famous scene in the famous play figures as its main prop, a balcony on which two lovers play out their most famous and romantic...

Verona, in the Veneto region of northern Italy, a famous play is set. A famous scene in the famous play figures as its main prop, a balcony on which two lovers play out their most famous and romantic scene. Apparently the balcony was based on an actual balcony in the actual city. So the balcony's famous too. ]]> Romeo and Juliet and the balcony is Juliet's balcony to which Romeo climbs to discuss how he's blinded by the light of the under age girl he's got a crush on. The balcony, owned once upon a time by the Cappello family (rumoured to be the real life Capulets), has just had its very own PR campaign launched. It's being billed as the perfect place to get married. Given that most couples about to get married are hoping quite fervently not to be star crossed, one can't help but wonder why anyone would want to get married there. Romeo and Juliet is famous for being about eternal love and for being super romantic. I've never really managed to see it that way. For the first half, it's a gigglesome comedy of thumb biting. Then a series of people make a series of bad decisions and most of them die. In between, a short sighted, horny young couple get married but don't tell anyone — even though the very fact of their marriage could have solved a lot of problems and averted a death or three. Then they have sex, part ways for a bit, and reunite just in time to die violently at their own hands. It's the stuff dreams are made of.]]> tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2009://1.29 2009-05-11T08:34:32Z 2009-05-11T08:47:07Z

In our house, Monday is Sarah’s TV night. The line up starts with Top Gear, moves through Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters, and culminates in the brilliance that is Boston Legal. Or at least it did until last week....

Top Gear, moves through Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters, and culminates in the brilliance that is Boston Legal. Or at least it did until last week.]]> Crane, Poole and Schmidt have closed their doors for good, and the landscape of our television is that much bleaker. My love affair with the program began, as many affairs of the heart do, accidentally. I caught an episode or two as they followed my regular viewing and one day I found that I was a fan. It wasn’t just the quirky characters (although they’re awesome) or the issue-of-the-week storylines (although they’re fascinating); it’s the whole packages of smart plots played out through interesting people; fun, playful direction and cinematography; and the coolest theme song on TV. But a week into the mourning period, it’s the characters that I’m reflecting on the most. While Boston Legal was an ensemble production, there were two characters who were very definitely the centre: Alan Shore (James Spader) and Denny Crane (William Shatner). Towards women, both are essentially complete pigs. But juxtaposed with their bluster and brashness is an unapologetic refusal to pretend to be anything other than themselves that I can’t help but admire. Plus political incorrectness is funny. And let’s not forget the stroke of genius that was casting William Shatner as the legendary lawyer Denny Crane (he’s never lost a case and has beaten Big Tobacco). He was the gift that kept giving with a finely honed combination of earnestness and tongue in cheek. Token female Shirley Schmidt was played by the accomplished and poised Candice Bergen, who was clearly much happier playing a powerful, capable woman than the whiney, insecure character she was given by Sex and the City. The program was also full of surreal moments, but in different ways from Ally McBeal and Scrubs. In those shows, moments of surreality are presented as the fantasies of individuals. On Boston Legal they’re a fully integrated part of the universe. Alan and Denny really do shoot each other with paintball guns over 2008’s presidential candidates; Shirley really does find a friend’s severed head in a Halloween house of horror; Jerry actually leaps over his desk when asked out by a beautiful colleague; and Denny seriously keeps a life size model of old flame Shirley in his office. Its post-modern self-reflexivity gave some heavy handed hints about why such a clever, entertaining program was pulled, such as network–producer vendettas, censorship gone haywire, the alleged general dumbing down of all TV leading to intelligent programming disappearing, and several of its regular cast members being over 50. Whatever the reason, there is now one less show to provoke and inspire on a weekly basis.]]> tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2008://1.28 2008-09-17T05:00:00Z 2008-09-17T05:32:02Z

Tim Rogers from the band You Am I was on Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope interview show this Monday, and he was a delight. Jittery and self-effacing, he gave the overall impression of being a disastrously flawed, yet perfectly whole human...

You Am I was on Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope interview show this Monday, and he was a delight. Jittery and self-effacing, he gave the overall impression of being a disastrously flawed, yet perfectly whole human being. ]]> Denton, as usual, calmly and politely asked awkward personal questions with lovely results, Rogers played Dilettantes, a song from You Am I’s about-to-be released album. As soon as he faded into focus, it was plain that he was doing the thing he was meant to do. So I concluded that Tim Rogers is an extraordinary person in two ways: one, he does what he’s supposed to be doing with his life as his day job; and two, he is reconciled to the flawed and messy person he actually is. I don’t know many people who can claim both of those, and I know lots of people who can’t claim either. I’m starting to wonder if I’m one of the latter. --- For a transcript of the interview, go to Enough Rope's website ]]> tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2008://1.27 2008-07-13T23:00:00Z 2008-07-14T00:11:48Z

The recent calls for Australia to legalise polygamy to accommodate the country’s Muslim community have sparked some interesting discussions in the media. There have been a lot of statements about the issue of polygamy — a word that covers both...

The recent calls for Australia to legalise polygamy to accommodate the country’s Muslim community have sparked some interesting discussions in the media. There have been a lot of statements about the issue of polygamy — a word that covers both multiple wives and multiple husbands — and how it relates to the “Australian way of life”. One camp says it threatens or is counter to it and therefore should not even be considered. The other camp says that it is rare for Australian Muslims anyway and that there are polygamous marriages here already so making it legal wouldn’t threaten anything. No one is talking about what the Australian way of life actually is, and why it is feeling so threatened. From this framing of the debate, I’m forcefully reminded (again) that the Australian way of life is steeped in fear and loathing of all things non-Anglo-Celtic in origin. Modern Australian culture grew from and is based on British culture; there is no argument against that. There is also no need for this basis or beginning to be the end of its development. The Australian way of life has managed to expand over the years to include Mediterranean and Asian cultures (although the beginnings of these expansions were admittedly rocky) so it seems to me that the Australian way of life is intrinsically elastic. Notwithstanding, there are always people who just don’t want any change at all, and there are always those who think everyone should want exactly what they do. Looking at the downsides of polygamy laws in other countries has been the rebuttal of many pundits arguing against legalising polygamy here. For them, highlighting the degradations and injustices that wives in plural marriages suffer in countries where their situation is legal is the basis for an argument against creating laws here. Yet finding out about the flaws in other systems should be a starting point for formulating a fair, workable framework allowing Australians to choose with whom they spend their lives and allowing them to publicly declare their loving, lifelong commitments to each other and ensuring that all parties are protected and cared for. An Australian model of polygamy would need to give equal rights and responsibilities to men and women, including the ability to take additional spouses. It would need to have some requirement that all existing parties in a marriage need to consent to a new spouse. It would probably make life easier for everyone if all parties had their own prenuptial agreements, but that would need to be worked out individually. When you resolve the issues of women being forced to live in unpleasant situations or being financially powerless, the only objections left are the weak cries of “it’s just not right” and “it’s always been done this way here”. These cries are coming from Australians who can’t stomach the idea that there are actually people who want different things from them, and from those who just can’t handle any change at all. If these people scream loudly enough it will seem that they are the majority. How long they get to look like the voice of the mythical “ordinary Australian” depends on whether the rest of us are happy to be told how to live — and with whom. tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2008://1.26 2008-07-04T07:00:00Z 2008-07-04T07:44:27Z

In 1937 the Japanese invaded China and began to systematically exterminate the people they found as they moved across the country from Shanghai to Wuhan. They hadn’t actually declared war on China, claiming they were helping the country, which gave...

Shanghai to Wuhan. They hadn’t actually declared war on China, claiming they were helping the country, which gave them more freedom to play outside the rules for things like the treatment of POWs and the admittance of the press. This is the setting for Children of the Silk Road, a film centring around the true story of one journalist’s experience of the eastern beginning of World War II. Desperate to get into the city of Nanjing, Japan’s latest conquest, and report on what’s really happening, George Hogg poses as a Red Cross delivery driver and makes it into Japanese controlled territory. What follows is not what he expected, but that’s what happens when life takes you in hand and points you in a different direction.]]> Children of the Silk Road was clearly made by people who revered Hogg, and this is not a weakness of the movie at all. It is a brutal piece of work, as full of violent and disturbing images and ideas, as any truthful story of any war must be. The children of the title are war orphans, irreparably damaged boys from toddlers to teenagers. On the whole, the young actors portraying them hit an authentic note of scary blankness that shields savage fear and anger. Playing Oxford man Hogg, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers puts in a decidedly average performance with moments of unforgivable woodenness. The only times he shines is in moments of pure visceral fear, pain or shock. His co-stars, Radha Mitchell (Finding Neverland), Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) and Chow Yun Fat (Anna and the King, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) have a handful of wooden moments as well, but theirs are mostly due to having to say some truly appalling lines. And some of these are really terribly dodgy. It’s a trap of retellings of factual events: the urge to make sure the audience has all the information and doing it by giving the characters all sorts of unnatural exposition dialogue. Thankfully, Silk Road’s historical factoid chats are mostly limited to the first act. Zhao Xiaoding’s cinematography is one of the film’s best features. It brings out the harsh majesty of the mountainous regions of China and the Silk Road itself to the edge of the Gobi Desert in the country’s east. The story is a catalogue of the cruelty human beings constantly inflect on each other, offset by the noble heights the same species can reach to help others in need. It is the heights reached by one man who stepped up (after some prodding by a pretty girl and an enigmatic freedom fighter) that the film focuses on. It is a starkly individual story in a great big global context. The idea of war as a human activity is an even larger context that could have been explored more, and with great resonance for those of us who are citizens of countries recently and currently engaged in activities that have killed half a million civilians of the country we’re trying to help. It’s also quite interesting that this film, portraying the Chinese as a people threatened and abused by outside forces is released in the year of the Beijing Olympics. It’s a fairly safe bet that films based on the more recent tribulations of the Chinese people at the hands of internal forces will not be appearing anytime soon. That aside, Silk Road is neither particularly anti-Japanese nor pro-Chinese. It is pro-pacifism, but active pacifism; constructive resistance rather than conscientious objection. Blowing up records rather than people. Teaching children to grow vegetables rather than fire a gun. Leading them out of conscription’s and bombs’ way rather than cowering in a bunker. For all its flaws, it is watch-worthy if only to be reminded of the extents of depravity we as a race can sink to and the heights of honourableness to which we can rise. And the scenery is well worth seeing on the big screen. --------------------------------------------------------- Children of the Silk Road opened yesterday. Starring: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers Radha Mitchell Michelle Yeoh Chow Yun Fat Writer: James MacManus, Jane Hawksley Director: Roger Spottiswoode Executive Producer: Lillian Birnbaum Producers: Arthur Cohn, Wieland Schulz-Keil, Martin Hagemann, Jonathan Shteinman, Peter Loehr Line Producer: Eryong Wang Zhang Composer: David Hirschfelder Cinematographer: Zhao Xiaoding Production Designer: Steven Jones-Evans Editor: Geoff Lamb Art Director: Xinming Huang Costume Designers: Gao Wenyan, Kym Barrett]]> tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2008://1.25 2008-07-01T22:00:43Z 2008-07-01T23:03:35Z

Although he’s the current it-boy of the next generation on classical music’s world stage, Pekka Kuusisto doesn’t go in for all the rock star gimmicks his peers seem to resort to. There’s no designer punk hair style, fluorescent instruments, or psychedelic suits; just plain matte black two piece suits for Kuusisto, pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips, and the page turner du jour; standard haircuts and clean shaven chins; standard wood violin and glossy black grand piano.

He’s a classical musician with a talent for improvising. A concert violinist who decides his playlist moments before taking the stage. A baby-faced professional. An outgoing Finn. Although he’s the current it-boy of the next generation on classical music’s world stage, Pekka Kuusisto doesn’t go in for all the rock star gimmicks his peers seem to resort to. There’s no designer punk hair style, fluorescent instruments, or psychedelic suits; just plain matte black two piece suits for Kuusisto, pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips, and the page turner du jour; standard haircuts and clean shaven chins; standard wood violin and glossy black grand piano. Musica Viva's website.]]> tag:www.sarahjansen.com,2008://1.24 2008-05-04T04:39:02Z 2008-05-04T04:45:48Z

By all accounts, the Australian film industry is under the pump. Apparently, independent Aussie films are lucky to pull $3 million at the box office and usually cost between $3 million and $10 million to make. Not difficult sums to...

By all accounts, the Australian film industry is under the pump. Apparently, independent Aussie films are lucky to pull $3 million at the box office and usually cost between $3 million and $10 million to make. Not difficult sums to work out. Those films that do manage to get close to that $3 million mark are the relatively big ones like Romulus My Father that have actual marketing and publicity budgets. This situation leaves the others to survive on word-of mouth. Only they don’t usually stay at cinemas long enough for word to get passed through enough mouths that are attached to bums which will end up on cinema seats. People in all sections of the industry seem to agree that the business model is faulty. Although it isn’t as faulty as the one Australian independent theatre makers are currently negotiating. Independent films at least have budgets that include paying cast and crew, whereas it’s pretty rare to find an independent theatre production that manages to pay for its public liability insurance and time in the performance space, let alone its director, performers, and the myriad of highly skilled behind the scenes players it takes to put even the most humble of shows on the boards. The comparison may not be that of apples with apples, but the two are related artforms: both tell stories through image and sound; both need collaboration between several people; and actors, directors and writers often cross over and back from one form to the other. Film and theatre are two of the more expensive artforms because they take a lot of equipment and a group of people to create a piece. To practice as an actor or director or lighting designer, you need a specific project to work on. It’s not like being a writer, musician, dancer, painter, sculptor—those forms of expression you can practice on your own with a pen and paper, instrument, the right shoes, canvas and paint, clay or wood or a piece of rock and a chisel. If you’re moved to express what’s in you through one of those mediums, you can do so by yourself, in your own time, outlaying no more than a couple of hundred dollars, and without needing to relay on convincing other people they want to consume what you produce. Sure, you don’t make any money off it unless you convince someone that they want to swap it for your art, but you can still do it. And doing it, in the end, is what allows an artist in any medium to hone their craft, get better at expressing themselves in a way that resonates with others. Many of the old school artists who are still revered were either supported by aristocratic families (Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson) or had wealthy, often royal, patrons to support them (Shakespeare, de Vinci). Not having to hold down day jobs to pay the rent freed their schedules up for study and practice in their chosen fields—the stuff of the most luxurious dreams of most contemporary Australian artists. But given the relative lack of old money in Australia, wealthy patrons interested in plonking money down on theatre and film productions are a little hard to come by. There really is nowhere for theatre and filmmakers to turn but government funding schemes. There are heaps of public funding bodies—federal arts body Ozco, all the state and territory based agencies—but arts makers shouldn’t have to be supported so heavily by taxpayers their entire careers. Film and theatre makers need somewhere to mature to once their craft has been nurtured through its infancy to take its first steps. Right now they are left to stumble through the rest of their careers with no directions, no signposts, no map to point them towards sustainability.