I'm not thrilled with this week's questions. They're not my cup of tea - but that's okay. It's lovely that somebody sets the questions every week, and for this I'm grateful.
According to the blurb it says:
Back in 2007, Sparky Duck at Philly Transplant played the $50,000 Meme. That was nearly 20 years ago. To make it more relevant to our day and age, it's been updated and is now the ...
The $80,000 Meme
Premise: A philanthropist awards you USD $80,000 with the stipulation that you must spend half on yourself and half for the benefit of others. This translates to around AUD 114,000.
a. First you throw yourself a lavish birthday party. Tell us about it.
If I'm honest, I'd take a few friends to Paris, business class flights, for a few weeks. No party, just hang out in Paris, in style. That sounds like fun.
b. Then you take off on a cruise. Where are you headed?
You have two chances of getting me on a traditional cruise. None and f*ck all.
If it was a small charter cruise then either a luxury cruise around Australia's top end, or may down the Croatian coast - but it would have to be a small boat with fewer than 50 people on it. Cruises sound like a fantastic way to get COVID or gastro. They're not my thing, even though I love boats.
2. Of the $57,000 you must spend for the benefit of others:
a. Who would be on your gift list? What would buy them?
It's too late to think about this stuff. I'll give the money to charity. Most of my friends have everything they want and need, thank goodness.
b. Which charities would you support?
Here are some of the charities who would receive money from me:
The Play: Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith
The Company: Melbourne Theatre Company
The Space: The Playhouse at the Arts Centre
Runtime: Two hours 15 minutes
Stars: 4
Uncle Vanya is a favourite play of mine. I know I'm not a fan of Russian literature - but Uncle Vanya is the bomb.
I saw Derek Jacobi in the title role in London in the 90s. Andrew Scott made it a one-man show in London three years ago, which I enjoyed immensely. And of course there's the 1994 film version, Vanya on 42nd Street, which you can view on Youtube. Adapted by David Mamet, directed by Louis Malle and having Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore and Brooke Smith in the cast (among others) it's amazing, and well worth the watch.
This version of Uncle Vanya has been adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith, one of Australia's leading playwrights. Nothing has changed other than some of the language has been updated from a more staid version, to adding bits of Australian vernacular - and it is great. It's one of the good things about working in translation.
The story doesn't change, the themes staying as universal as ever. Familial duty, unrequited love, family dynamics. Vanya (Daniel Henshall) and his niece Sonya (Philippa Northeast) live on the family farm,
Walking to the office on Wednesday, I looked through the Docklands wind tunnel that leads to Marvel Stadium and looked at the twin columns of the Bolte Bridge. They often remind me of Twin Towers in New York, but they're slimmer and shorter and they're holding up a bridge that you have to pay to use.
For the last few years, Pam has been turning up in all sorts of strange places. On factory walls, the back of road signs, on the sides of buildings. People, particularly in the West, keep an eye out for her.
Technically, she's graffiti. But as graffiti goes, she's a happy little (big) sod who brightens people far more than any tag or cock and balls will every do.
My other thought about her arriving on the Bolte was how the hell did anybody scale the 140 metre column and paint her on overnight? Unfortunately, the artist was found sitting on top of the pylon first thing in the morning, paint in hand.
He's been charged with a litany of offences.
The powers that be started painting over her today. They say that it's going to cost around $100,000 to remover her, also saying that it should be 10 degrees warmer so the paint sets properly (Sounds like elements of Trump's botch job on the Reflecting Pool in Washington.)
Regardless, I know she's graffiti, but I reckon she's art. She makes people feel something. She's inoffensive (if a little inconvenient) She's unexpected. And I wish she could stay.
I was going to find something to write about. Something that got my goat up. Pauline Hanson. Not writing. Being stuck in front of a screen all day. Getting rained on as I walked out of work at 5.15.
Nope.
Tonight we found out that the gym is closing.
My lovely community gym that I've been going to for 20 years. My wonderful gym that has normal people in it. It's always been like this. Posers don't go to my gym, which is tucked behind a shopping centre, out of sight and mind. There's not an influencer to be seen. The same people go week in, week out. Some I've known for over a decade. Jay and I are the scary birds who put many men to shame with the weights we lift. We know the receptionist and trainers. It's great.
And they're bloody closing it. It's not a part of their 'brand' which is now high-end and marketed to the poser/influencer types who want to film themselves with their ring lights. The nearest we get to a camera is when we talk to Cleo in Barcelona as she gives us orders on what to train next.
And sure, the writing has been on the wall for a while. Diminishing classes, staffed hours, the lack of maintenance, but still, my convenient gym, which has well-lit access and great parking, is closing.
So, what will I do after 21 August - which we're told is the last day the gym is open - I do not know.
I feel I'll end up wherever Chuck plants himself. Chuck's my Wednesday trainer and he's done wonders for me - I'm more flexible and stronger under his tutelage. He's one of the best trainers I've had - and I want to keep him. He only got the news at lunchtime, so he's looking at what's best for all his clients. I'll have a chat to Hamish, who's been at the gym as long as I have - see what he's doing. I think he and his girlfriend will follow Chuck too.
I mean, there's the other Fitness First site down Church Street, but getting there is a bastard as you often get stuck behind a tram, the parking is variable and it's full of posers.
There's the 24/7 gym on Victoria Street where some of the old trainers from where I am now train. It's a bit cheaper and easy to get to, but a bit smaller.
Richmond has a plethora of gyms, but this has been my gym for 20 years. It's my haven, my home.
And it will all work out, because whatever happens, I need to have access to a gym because it's cheaper and easier to work out than to take anti-depressants and go to therapy. And it keeps my arse harder than a breeze block.
It's mason's talk for a short talk. I won't go into why it's called what it's called, but the Grand Poobah called (not the official name, but The Flintstones made it popular, so I'll use it) and asked if I could string together a five-minute talk about stuffs.
In the past, I've done talk on things like Masonry and Tarot - which happily go hand in glove. I've done talks on conferences I've attended - all sorts of things.
This time around, I'm going to bring in the chat I went to the other night, with Stan Grant talking about his book When Words Fail Us.
I should have known this was going to happen. When something triggers you, it will come back to bite you in Masons.
While I was sitting there listening to Grant, my head was pinging all over the place. Grant has a Doctorate in Theology. He's also a veteran journalist and writer, and activist and all-round deep thinker. His talk the other week was on the philosophies of Simone Weil, communication and silence.
The talk was awesome, but there were a few things that set me off on various paths. Underpinning the talk was Simone Veils philosophies, particularly around life and silence. This is interesting also how both Grant and Veil see silence as a way to truth - not through complicity, but by allowing we in the human condition to actually listen and absorb rather than judge.
Then, my monkey mind starts to think about masonic ritual, and how silence is used there.
Anyway, I'm trying to gather my thoughts as to what I'm going to say on Sunday.
Some books you have to be in the mood for. Some books deserve to be read on paper, rather than by audiobook. Some books have been sitting in your bookshelf for years and you've never got around to reading them.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is one such book.
I know exactly where it is on my bookshelf (sitting next to Love in a Time of Cholera) behind my hairbrushes, near the Rushdies and Atwoods. I've had it for well over 20 eyars. Who knows where I picked it up, but it is there. Unlike the Rushdies and Atwoods, I've looked at these books and never got further than page 30.
This time I tried listening to One Hundred Years of Solitude.
I know it's a good book. I know it's a great book. I get that people have this as their favourite book - but I'm not going to be one of them.
There's a few things I know. For one, I'm not really big into magic realism. It's okay - and a little bit of light literary magic realism is fine. I love the way Salman Rushdie does it. Laura Esquivel is another who uses this literary trope well. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is next level. A lot of South American authors use it - and along with the foreign-ness of it all, it makes it hard to navigate the next.
The more I got into it the book, the more I got it. Keeping track of all the characters, most of whom had similar names, but with differing circumstances was hard.
In the end, I got the point that keeping a village away from everything for a hundred years, letting little in or out is going to be bad for the town.
I also get that the book is covering up a heap of political unrest, junta action and all sorts of things somebody living in Australia will never gel with.
I read one comment that said, "Come to Colombia, you will then understand."
Interesting thought.
For me, I reckon in a year or so, I should pull out the paper copy and wade through it again, on paper, using different synapses - maybe then I'll understand what I read a little more.
(and before you ask, the writing, even in translation, is delicious - it's also very opaque.)
I'm also coming at this from a different perspective than most people, as, see, my bachelor's degree is in Classical Studies. I've read The Odyssey a couple of times, that epic poem of Homer's that provides the story of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, who is trying to make his way back home from the Trojan Wars, but after royally pissing off Poseidon, it takes him another ten years to get back. I wouldn't call myself a purist, but it gives you a different view on things. Jay said she was going, I said I'd come along, particularly as it was showing in the 70 mm format.
Surprise number one for me - how much I could remember from university.
Surprise number two. This was excellent.
It's a long film. Nearly three hours - but they go by quickly. (If you need to take a pee, near the end of the second hour when he's on the beach with Calypso - nip out then).
To go into a bit more detail, at the start of the film, Odysseus (Matt Damon) in on a beach with Calypso (Charlize Theron) wondering how he's going to get home. He has no idea where his crew are or how long he's been there.
Meanwhile, back on Ithaca, Odysseus's wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) is trying to keep things out of the hands of some suitors, who've basically moved in. Their son, Telemachus (Tom Holland) is forced to go out to try and find his father, while the chief suitor, Antinous (Robert Pattinson) keeps making a play for Penelope. Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), a loyal servant keeps watch over the place, with Odysseus's loyal dog, Atlas (I've always had a soft spot for the dog).
From here, we look back on the sacking of Troy, meeting up with the Cyclops, going onto Circe's Island (A brilliant Samantha Morton), going to Hell to talk to Tiresias, facing off with Scylla and Charybdis, then being one of the Lotus Eaters with Calypso.
Finally, after being away for 20 years, he makes it back to Ithaca, only to have to fight off the suitors.
Looking at this now, the lessons of the story are all there, but they're not shoved down your throat, which is good. The fight scenes are brutal too. At times, this isn't an easy watch.
I'm glad I saw this in the 70 mm format. Made for the IMAX format, any way you can see this in the biggest screen you can is a bonus. You get to see so much more detail. It's very cool. I'm also told that the IMAX cinema in Melbourne is one of the few in the world that has the technology to show this as intended - but seats are hard to come by and are over $50 for the screening.
Christopher Nolan has adapted the original epic poem as well as directed this monster of a film - and it's been done with the same grace, detail and excellence as his other films. Sure, it's nothing like Tenet, Inception, The Batman or Oppenheimer - but it has most of Nolan's hallmarks. Great settings, a forboding soundtrack, composed by Ludwig Goransson, with whom he worked with Nolan on Oppenheimer. The cinematography is phenomenal too.
To coin a pun, this is EPIC.
Bravo, Mr Nolan.
And no, you don't need a degree in Classics to understand or enjoy this. It's film making at it's best.
But remember - the bigger the screen, the better. You want to take this in and savour it for what it is - a great film, done well, with a superb cast.
It's Saturday morning. I've changed the bedding, had a good chat to Reindert in Colorado, fed the loaner cats (cat sitting is fun) and now I'm waiting for the washing to finish. What a weekend!
Now feels like a good time to get the weekly questions out of the way. As always, these have been provided by Sunday Stealing.
I'm glad I've got all of this done - I owe a friend 5000 words on Wednesday. Getting these out of the way is critical.
Answer these questions with anything from a single word to a paragraph or two. It's up to you.
A is for Age.
It's just a number that gets bigger every year.
B is for your Booze of choice.
Gin - particularly gin and tonics. The more interesting the gin the better. Life is too short to drink Gordons (or base level Tanqueray).
C is for Career.
I have one. I write for a living. On my contract at the moment I'm called an Instructional Designer. Really, I'm just the person who translates nerd speak so ordinary people can use computer systems.
D is for your Dog's name.
I don't have a dog. I have a cat. His name is Lucifer.
I love playing pool. I used to be not bad at is. For bigger sports, Australian Rules Football is the best. As much as I've enjoyed watching the fans of the World Cup, I've not watched a minute of it.
H is for your Hometown.
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
I is for an Instrument you play.
I played the flute at school. I still have the instrument in my cupboard - I think I could play it but I'd have to teach myself how to read music again. It's been a long time...
J is for your favorite Jam or Jelly flavor.
Oh, Coles Cherry Jam - like their cheap homebrand version, is the absolute bomb - on toasted Turkish bread with heaps of butter. Yum. Roses Lime Marmalade is great too.
K is for Kids.
Don't mind them but I couldn't eat a whole one. (I forgot to have them. Oops).
L is for the Last show or movie your watched.
The last show I watched was something called The F Ward - local medical show. The last movie I saw at the cinema was The Invite, which I really enjoyed.
M is for your Most prized possession.
My cat, Lucifer. He's awesome. And a cat.
N is for the Name of your first crush.
Mark Holden. If you're Australian, you will know... I was six. No taste.
O is for what you Observe from your window.
Next door's car park, magpies, the fish factory on the next block. Some trees. Antennas.
P is for Phobias.
Huntsman Spiders. Snakes. Open water swimming. Being locked in rooms.
Q is for your favorite Quote.
'If it be now, 'tis not to
come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now,
yet it will come. The readiness is all.' (Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2)
R is for Regret.
I try not to have them. A waste of time and emotion.
S is for Sweets.
Yes please. Vanilla or lemon, any day over chocolate. Hot puddings - even better.
T is for the Time you wake up.
Sometime around seven, or when the cat says it's time for his breakfast.
U is for Underwear.
Utilitarian. Bamboo or cotton. Clean. My bras are like industrial scaffolding. Nobody seems them so they're not an issue.
V is for your favorite Vegetable.
POTATOES
W is for your Worst habit.
Procrastinating.
X is for X-rays.
Are strange. I haven't had one in years - actually, the last time I had one was in the 90s - I was in Dublin and I had a bad chest infection. I remember being slumped over the machine coughing. It was awful.
Actually, no, I had one two years ago on my leg. At least they don't hurt and are over in minutes.
Y is for your Yummiest recipe.
My grandmother's recipe melting moments are awesome - the secret ingredient is the custard powder.
Z is for your Zodiac sign.
In layman's terms, I'm a Leo. From an astrologer's perspective, I'm a Leo/Virgo with a Cancer Moon, Capricorn rising and a five planet stelium in Virgo. This makes me an exuberant, pain in the butt, who's stubborn, but with a marshmallow centre who likes making lists.
Stan Grant: When Words Fail Us - in conversation with Sally Warhaft
Capitol Theatre, Swanston Street
As a part of the Wheeler Centre Fifth Estate series
One of the best gifts I've ever received was a voucher for the Wheeler Centre. A gift from a friend, she regifted it to me after it was gifted to her by her daughter. Neither of them would use this. I do hope they know how thankful I am for this gift. This voucher has got me in for free to see all these amazing talks. Zadie Smith for one. Unfortunately, Florence Knapp and Salman Rushdie have had to cancel upcoming talks.
On the back of Florence Knapp cancelling, I booked a ticket to hear Stan Grant speak - he's a journalist, media presenter, academic. I've followed his career for years. So, I thought - I don't do much on Thursday nights. Sit and listen to some ideas for an hour.
I've walked away with my mind blown.
Something I didn't know about Grant is that he holds a PhD in Theology. He was asked by the Australian Catholic University to give a series of lectures for the Simone Weil talks - Weil, being a French philosopher and mystic. His latest book - When Words Fail Us reflects on how we struggle to speak to, and listen to, and hear each other in today's world.
So much was covered in the conversation with Sally Warhaft. How we can find truth in silence. How the cacophony of daily life has impeded on our ability to understand one another. How those who have nothing have a clearer, easier relationship with the truth. Of how faith can be manipulated (see America at the moment). I was sitting there with my head taken in 15 places at once. Masonic ritual, poetry, politics, indigenous affairs, becoming quiet, the rise of the right, consumerism.... My poor brain barely kept up with the fifteen other conversations which were sparked in my head from the words coming from the stage. (By 7 pm my Ritalin has worn off),
But sheesh - I walked away with a heap of ideas for Masonic website blog posts (The bit about humans, ritual and silence set off an earthquake in my brain.) I've been challenged to now read Simone Weil. My brain's been set off on a heap of different paths.
And I've come away in awe of Grant's humble, ferocious intelligence and understanding. I also bought a copy of the book - a small, hardback volume which sits nicely in the hand and is baying to be savoured while being read.
This was a seriously great night. I love when I'm challenged to think and feel. Especially when the subject hits as hard as it did tonight.
How lucky we are here in Melbourne, where we get access to this sort of thing.
I've got custody of two more cats this weekend - Irene and Philip. Their Dad is going away for the weekend, so I'm on feed, water and cuddle duty. I've met Irene before, but Philip, who's fairly new is a ginger. This should be fun.
Their dad and I had a chat about a few things - what to feed them, when to come in etc. Then we got talking about the state of the block.
I've lived in this place for a very long time. There's been a lot of changes. Being two floors up and at the back of the block, I'm lucky - it's quiet, secure and I have lovely neighbours.
Across the other side of the driveway, things are not as good. There's been problems with the hot water, the plumbing. Land recession has meant the building has needed to be repinned, and walls reinforced, plus there are ongoing dramas with gates and the body corporate... which I don't have anything to do with.
Another thing that happens occasionally, cars get broken into. In the last 20 years I've been done twice. But I make an effort to ensure the car is locked and I don't leave anything of value in there for just this reason. In the past, cars were robbed more regularly. It was also worse when there was an active drug dealer across the road. We'd often find people shooting up in the car ports - that hasn't happened in years.
My neighbour was saying he was wondering if he'd made the right move moving here. He said about some local shops being fire-bombed, the dodgy neighbours in the next block over (there are some trippers over there) and a few other things.
Oh, I should mention, he's in his twenties.
"So, are you scared?"
"Not really."
"Are you running a bootleg tobacco shop, with some stand over men wanting safety money?"
"No."
"Do you check your car is locked before leaving the carport?"
"I'm getting better at it."
"Do you walk down the street at night and feel unsafe?"
"Not particularly."
"Then what are you complaining about? It's only the dodgy tobacconists who are getting fire-bombed - though I feel for the shops next door to them. You're taking your personal safety seriously. You're a young bloke. Why move? It's just as bad everywhere else - if not worse. Crime happens."
"You're awfully blase about this," he told me.
"Mate, I lived in London in the 90s when the IRA bombed indiscriminatingly. I've been here when junkies left their syringes in the hallways. I was here before the injecting room cleaned up the streets. I've travelled the world alone. I like living here. I'm also happy that I'm not in the other block."
The youth of today - utter snowflakes. Little resilience.
Or am I just a Gen X woman who gives few fucks and doesn't get phased?
Maybe I'd feel the same if I was in my 20s.... but I'm forged from sterner stuff.
I spent this film thinking 'This would be great as a play." It turns out that this is a remake of a Spanish film, The People Upstairs, which is based on the play of the same name. I mean, the action takes place in one apartment and there are four characters. Easy. Yes. And it seems it's very transferable to celluloid.
There were other things that went through my mind - like Penelope Cruz still looks like an ostrich and why do I want to sort of punch Edward Norton every time I see him on stage, but these didn't stop me from enjoying the film.
The imdb.com blurb reads, 'Joe and Angela's marriage is on thin ice. When they invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors for a dinner party, the night spirals into unexpected places.'
Joe (Seth Rogan) is a disillusioned teacher. Angela (Olivia Wilde) is not enjoying her marriage, and you get the feeling early on that she wants to pull the pin. Annoying them both are the couple upstairs, whose apparent loving relationship, noisy sex life and other traits drive them crazy. The couple invite Pina (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton) over for dinner, with the intention to gently confront them with a few home truths.
And that's where the fun begins.
The Invite is laugh out loud funny in many places, with unexpected twists taking the plot in many directions that you'll never see coming. Will McCormack and Rashida Jones have done a great job in adapting Cesc Gay's original script. It's fast-paced, wise and very cool in many ways. I like the films emotional intelligence, which goes well with the adult humour.
My only small reservation is some of Olivia Wilde's direction. Some of the camera work is quite jarring - especially at the start of the film. It settles down once Pina and Hawk enter the room. Wilde has some directing kudos - the work she did on Booksmart was fantastic. This is nearly as good.
This is definitely worth a look. In my opinion, you can't beat smart funny - which this has in droves.
Derryn Hinch I could understand and process easily. He'd lived a good life, an interesting life, he'd had a liver transplant and had various health complaints over the last decade. So mote it be and all that. Rest well, Derryn.
But Sam Neill?!
No.
I'm sorry, Sam Neill is an Australasian treasure, despite the fact that he was born in Northern Ireland and emigrated to the South Island of New Zealand as a child - like all things good from New Zealand - read pavlova, Split Enz, Russell Crowe (but you can have him back, please), Sam Neill was ours.
The news came through about his passing mid-afternoon. It's sad news. He was a legend.
Sam Neill has been on our screens since God was a boy. I remember him as Harry in My Brilliant Career. He was the awful husband in The Piano (must watch that again). He was in the Australian classic, The Dish. He played Norman Lindsay in Sirens. I'm not counting his work in the Jurassic Park movies or his better-known television appearances.
Most particular, I loved him as Hector in The Hunt for the Wilderpeople - one of my most favourite films.
Sam Neill (originally named Nigel John Dermott Neill... nah, he's not a Nigel) has been around since the year dot on our screens, and he was reliably good in most things.
Adding to this, word on the street was he was a thoroughly decent bloke. My friend Geetangeli used to run into him at the farmer's market in Christchurch. During COVID, he made videos of him roaming around his acreage with this animals. He had a dry wit and a lot of charm. He had been battling a blood cancer in recent years, but appears to have beaten it in the last year. He spoke openly and honestly about his possible demise with a huge amount of grace.
And he will be sadly missed and remembered very fondly - and can you want much more than this.
However, it seems the rule of threes is taking out people of New Zealand origin. I mean, Derryn Hinch - Sam Neill... if I was an octogenarian Kiwi I'd be looking over my shoulder - if I were Dame Kiri Te Kanawa I'd be a little worried.
Regardless, Sam Neill - thank you for all the joy you've brought us over the years. May you rest in power, and may heaven be exactly how you wanted it to be. Know you are very well loved. Thoughts are stretched to your large whanau.
This was fun. Good fun. And relatable. And lovely to look at. And very funny. A little bit of light relief after the serious matter that was Retrograde and the classical drama we're seeing in a few weeks when Uncle Vanya opens.
Losing Face is a girl's own adventure.
According to the MTC website, "Travel writer Jo is turning 50 and has invited her two ride-or-dies along for an unforgettable celebration: an all-expenses-paid visit to flashy new wellness resort, The Royal You. Expecting a long-overdue catch-up in steam rooms and infrared saunas, they instead arrive at a high-end medispa, where supercharged cosmetic procedures are upsold to unsuspecting guests. When a medical mishap turns disastrous, the women are left with some wildly unexpected and gravity-defying side effects."
Although this bordered on pastiche in places, the first thing I loved about this was the friendship portrayed between Jo (Michaela Banas), Lauren (Kristy Whelan Browne) and Simone (Madelaine Sami). The three women were all hilarious in their own way, with a lot of pathos mixed in for good measure. Looking after them at the medispa is the Nurse (Genevieve Morris) and the medical director, Tomas (Wil King).
The play is souped up for laughs. Marieke Hardy's script, which draws out the nuances of the women's friendship while providing insights of what it's like to be a perimenopausal woman in these times. The twist in the play's end put another layer on this tale of women's friendship and the search for what is perceived as eternal youth.
This was a very enjoyable night out, funny and thought provoking. You can't ask for more than that.
I look at this and I see a lot of red flags - I mean, here are people's passwords there and ready for the taking. But as I've moved on to double authentication and I'm going to do some lying here, I'll play. I have to get ready to go to the theatre in a bit anyway, so it's good to get the questions out of the way. I need to have a shower, because I smell like dog - was cuddling a toy poodle at the hairdressers today. He was adorable and fell asleep on my shelf, but still, I smell like dog and the cat doesn't like it.
Questions come from Sunday Stealing - but know, they're not going to be quite correct. So a big ner ner raspberry to the scammers out there.
What Is Your ...
1. ROCK STAR NAME (current pet and first car)? Example: If you have a dog named Max and your first car was a Chevy Malibu, your rock star name would be Max Malibu.
Okay, this one is public knowledge. My rock star name would be Lucifer Holden. That's pretty cool. We'd be on the harder edge of rock, but not death metal.
2. RACECAR DRIVER NAME (the first names of your grandfathers)?
I'll use my grandfather's middle names for this. Elliot Llewellyn. That sounds pretty good. Mind you, I think that's more suited to racing of old-time race cars. Can see myself in an old MG or Caterham jaunting around the back roads of England.
3. SOAP OPERA NAME (your middle name, town you were born in)?
I'm going to use my preferred name and place of birth here. I'd be Arcadia London. I could see myself being able to sing with a name like that.
4. WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM NAME (your parents' middle names)?
Neither of my parents have a middle name so I'm going to have to make this one up too. Mum has always said that if she had a middle name it would be Elizabeth. As for Dad, we'll I'll give him a generic one. His middle name can be John. So that would make me some derivative of Elizabeth John. Maybe Lizzie Johnstone.
5. ROMANCE AUTHOR NAME (favorite flower, favorite season/holiday)?
Ah, see this one is far enough removed not to be used for a password. And again, I'm going to lie.
Jonquil Rose Winters would be my romance writers name - though I still think that my other writerly name, Trelawny Thom would be good too.
I'm trying to sort out a heap of documentation, helping another project get their resources in order. Get to use my rather critical eye to do the finessing. Oh, what fun. Don't millennials have an eye for detail? I ask myself.
Boom boom
Boom boom
Boom boom.
I ask the guy next to me if he can hear drums.
He can.
- They're getting ready for Modi's visit. He's talking to the masses at Marvel at six.
- Oh, joy. So, the Indian diaspora is converging at marvel this afternoon.
- Yep.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
- Those drums are starting to give me the shits.
I should mention that the person next to me is a dapper, middle-aged bloke of Indian extraction. Lovely guy.
- Me too. I don't want to celebrate Modi.
- Really?
- He's evil, he tells me.
- Okay. I can't comment on Indian politics. I'm staying out of it. I don't know anything to have an opinion.
He smiles at me and nods.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
- Those bloody drums.
A colleague excused themself from the office a little earlier. They didn't feel safe. And fair enough.
But I've worked down in the Docklands for long enough not to rise to the bait of a little political insurrection. I was in the building when riot police were called in to babysit Christopher Pyne (yes, really - it was the only book launch I've been to where riot police were involved.) I was in London when the IRA were regularly bombing the place. I wandered the streets of Hong Kong during the protests. A little bit of political unrest doesn't phase me.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
Yet the drums were unsettling.
- Those drums are annoying, I said to my colleague.
- I don't find them a celebration, not for this man. But what are we to do?
- Maan nahi janti! I responded in the only bit of Hindi that I know.
- You do that well.
I know nothing other than the drums were driving me spare. A harbinger of who knows what.
Leaving work a few hours later, the front doors were locked on the building. There was a police presence - nothing over the top. No horses. No riot squad. We could easily leave by a convenient side door.
Everything was calm. The locked doors were a precaution, nothing more. They do that for Friday night football matches.
We were safe. People made their way to Marvel Stadium. It was quieter than a football match. People were orderly.
I'm not holiday planning. I'm thinking about holidays, but I'm not actually holiday planning.
There's a couple of things that are coming up when I thinking about holidays.
Where do I want to go?
What do I want to do?
How long will I go for?
Being a contractor, you have to get things planned and paid for.
Also travelling alone, what option to I take? Solo travelling? Go on a tour? Do I go somewhere I've been before? Do I stay at home with the cat?
If I'm going on tour, Vietnam and Cambodia are high on the list. I'd do a tour. Intrepid have a good one that takes in a lot. I really want to go to Angkor Wat. And I love Vietnamese food.
Japan is also high on the list, but everybody is going to Japan. But Japan is safe and fairly easy to get around, from what I'm told.
Then I could go over to the UK, hire a car and go Cathedralling. Poking around cathedrals makes me happy. Maybe hire a car and go down to Cornwall and have a good look around St Michael's Mount, Truro, Wells, Exeter, Bath, Salisbury, Gloucester. Of course a visit to Stratford-Upon-Avon to visit Shakespeare, and maybe a trip down to Canterbury Cathedral to go and visit St Thomas a Beckett - and maybe then up to Lincoln to see Richard III (They hadn't dug him out of the car park last time I was there.) And of course, I could go to my favourite of the English cathedrals - Ely.
Okay, you're seeing my eyes light up.
Or do similar in Scotland.... so much to explore.
Then there's France. I'm nearly 1400 days into my daily French practice. There's so much in Paris I want to see - so many places in France to explore. And more cathedrals.
Travelling alone, there are considerations. How do you get there? Who will look after the cat? How long do I go for.
Or do I visit my uncle in Tijuana - though there is no way I'm going to America at the moment.
Or maybe do a long weekend in Hobart to go roan around MONA, and then up to Uluru, because I've never been there and I rather like the Territory.
If you ask me what I think about 'football' - which is normally known as 'soccer' here because we have lots of different football - as in Australian Rules Football, which is what I call football. Up in New South Wales and Queensland, they have Rugby League, which they call football. Then there's Rugby Union, which is different again, but that's rugby not football.
Regardless, if you ask me what I think about football/soccer, I will normally come back with the adage that if I want to see eleven people not score, I'd organise a group of mates to go down the pub.
I'm not really a football person, of any code. I like watching the haka before rugby union games. I'm a nominal Adelaide Crows supporter. I can tell you where we are on the ladder (Currently 5th) and if we won the week before (we did). I can normally tell you what North Melbourne and Hawthorn are doing as well, as friends are footy tragics and they don't shut up about it, so I make sure I know what's going on to be polite.
I go to the footy (Aussie Rules) once every two years where I'm told off for taking a book or my knitting with me and then I tune out until the last quarter.
Then there's this World Cup thing going on in America, and I prick up my ears.
It's like an election. There are tables and statistics and all sorts of things that appeal to my fizzy brain. The least of the things I'm interested in are the actual games.
I've loved watching the fans show the Americans how to have a good time.
The Dutch:
(I love the English translation.... skip your medication, so you can lose your mind...)
There's the Norwegians:
And the Scottish drinking every pub dry in their wake, complete with kilts and bagpipes:
Even the Aussies got in on the singing:
We also keep hearing of little towns being wonderful to the visiting teams. Case in point, the Algerians went to Kansas, and the Kansans took them on as one of their own.
This is joyful stuff.
Then you hear about the Americans, who have every right to play a team and do well. But when their lead striker was red carded, rightly or wrongly, and the U.S. President calls up the head of FIFA to get the red card revoked. It just stinks.
Even I've heard about how corrupt FIFA can be.
But that just sucks.
So today, I was an honorary Belgian.
Sitting in the office next to a colleague of Spanish extraction (he's happy) we kept our eye on the United States vs Belgium match.
"It's 3-1 with five minutes to go," I told him at one stage.
"There's 15 minutes to go."
"Really - I thought they were 40-minute halves."
"Nah, 45 minutes."
"Goes to show that I don't like soccer."
"Football."
"Whatever. The Belgians are winning and long may that remain. Today, I'm an honorary Belgian."
"Indeed. Me too."
I reckon that a lot of people were honorary Belgians today.
The final score, 4-1, felt a little like a cosmic reparation.
Well, it will be until the Orange Buffoon / Cankles McTacotits / Daddy Dumpy Pants / the Overinflated Ooompa Loompa / (insert your favourite name for the current US President here) demands of the FIFA president that there's a rematch....
Time for some Leffe and chips with mayonnaise I reckon.
Friday was doctor day. It had to be done. It's time to go back on a mental health plan. I think it's a good thing to talk over your mental health needs with a professional when you're in a good place.
So, I trudged over to the doctors, spilled my guts, worked out that I no longer have anxiety, but some lingering depression is there (yeah, yeah, we know) and thrown in the neurodiversity crap. All fun.
I get my mental health plan. I'm about to leave and she brings up the bear in the room.
"Have you thought about going on weight loss medication?" she asked.
"Umm, we tried Ozempic - I didn't like it. Made me feel awful."
"The drugs have changed a lot. Montjaro and Wegovy are much better than Ozempic."
"Really. And they're still expensive."
"Not as bad as Ozempic," she tells me.
"And they make your hair fall out..." I ask.
"Yes, that is one of the downsides." she tells me.
"Well, count me out. If it's going to make my hair fall out, I'm not interested. I'm a Leo. I need my mane."
"It's not a great side effect."
"Definitely not interested. Besides, the Ritalin drives down my appetite. It's a good thing."
We left the conversation there.
You can't part a Leo with her mane. It's not going to happen.
I went into this film blind and was blown away. I love when that happens. I knew there was a good chance that I'd like it. I mean, I like Leo Woodall and Dustin Hoffman. It's a New York story - and it's a bit offbeat. What I didn't see coming was the movie's soundscape, the soundtrack and the brilliant pace of this heist / thriller / drama. It's got a great pace and a huge heart.
Yet, Tuner has so much more. I love how this film was made, the story, the condition which makes Niki (Leo Woodall) both a character of sympathy, but this condition provides his special skill.
And the film's soundscape is extraordinary.
\
p]+2
At the start of the movie, we meet Niki working with Harry (Dustin*9 Hoffman) in Harry's piano tuning business. Harry is a lovely octagenarian wide boy services the pianos of New York - well, Niki does the work, Harry naps.
We soon find out two things about Niki. Firstly, he has a condition, hyperacusis, which makes him hypersensitive to sound - almost any sound. Quiet sounds are fine, but anything louder than a couple of people talking and Niki's in pain. He wears earplugs most of the time - noise cancelling headphones for the rest.
When Harry falls ill, Niki makes it his mission to pay his hospital bills. Having found his super-sensitive hearing allows him to crack safes, he falls in with a dodgy security firm, who use his talents an pay him well.
In the background, he meets Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), a music student at the conservatorium, who he meets on a tuning job. Ruthie is initially prickly, but things happen.
And of course, the safe cracking jobs are fine until they're not.
A wonderful set up for a heist movie.
A couple of things stood out for me. Firstly, the movie's soundscape. We get a good insight into what Niki is hearing - and it's amazing. I'd be putting this one up for a Best Sound Oscar. The sound track is also great, being a mix of original compositions, classical and jazz standards and a bit of Nina Simone for good measure.
Daniel Roher's script is punchy but laced with pathos. He also directed the film - and has done a great job with it, keeping the pace going while not overegging the sentimentality.
As somebody who sometimes struggles with noise sensitivity, I got this film - and left me feeling being seen.
It's seriously a great concept and a thoroughly enjoyable movie. It's on at most of the art house cinemas, but it's coming to the end of its run. Check it out when it gets onto the streaming services and thank me later.
1) If you could attend a 4th of July fireworks display anywhere in the United States, where would you choose?
Sorry, I'll be blunt. I'm not a fan of fireworks - the noise and the light trigger me. Also, as an outsider, with some fairly defined views about the current administration, I highly doubt I'd get through immigration and customs without being locked up or turned around at the border (if they gave me a visa at all.)
I suppose, if I had ear protection and a reasonable vantage point away from the action, I'd like to watch the fireworks next to the Charles River in Boston. I love Boston.
2) What book are you currently reading?
On paper, I literally just finished Matt Haig's The Midnight Train. It was alright - I preferred The Midnight Library a lot more - this came across as a bit preachy.
I will start Amor Towles' The Lincoln Highway when I get back from the gym. It's our book group book for this month.
3) What have you been listening to?
If I have music on it's normally 80s and 90s alternative music, lots of Talking Heads, The Pixies, Bowie and The Rolling Stones.
I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I finished Kate Atkinson's Life After Life last night. It was excellent. It was so good that I picked up the audiobook of A God in Ruins, the follow-on book. She's a great author.
4) What shows or movies have you been watching?
Today, I went and saw Tuner, a movie about a piano tuner who finds his way into some very dodgy operations. It was fantastic. One of the best things I've seen this year.
As for televisin - It's the normal rotation of Netflix and family history docos.
"Tell your friends, get on the socials. Let them know there's a trans woman doing Hamlet. It's gotta be pissing somebody off somewhere." These were Suzy Izzard's parting words.
Them's fighting words. Good on her.
Suzy, as she likes to be known, along with using she/her pronouns, is phenomenal this a one woman working of the Bard's seminal play.
Yes, a solo show where the performer takes on Hamlet. Who knew?
This was mesmerising.
Regular visitors to this blog know that I'm a Shakespeare boffin. I've probably seen Hamlet a dozen times over the years. I love a good lugubrious Dane taking arms against the sea of a family shit show (see what I did there?)
Of course, an unabridged Hamlet runs to around four hours - and you can always hunt out Branagh's 1996 masterpiece for that (Anybody up for seeing that next time it's on at the Astor?)
This is a one-woman abridged version of Hamlet.
It is stunning.
There are no sets. There are no props (Izzard's amazing manicure the only bit of extra) There's a spotlight with some shadow tracking from the front of the stage. For the next two-and a-bit hours, she plays all the characters.
Yep. One woman and one of the Bard's most complex plays.
And she is magnificent. Flicking across accents and scenes, Izzard is a professional of the highest order. The funny bits stay funny. The poignant bits tug at your heart strings. She navigates this monster of a play with skill and seeming ease.
I loved that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were portrayed as sock puppets (that was genius). Her mad Ophelia was heart rending. She got the ghost just right. She's amazing.
The thing that makes Shakespeare is a lot of its back and forth, which is what she did, flicking between characters, accents, gesticulation and mannerisms with a jump. Having watched her on stage for decades, I was aware of her stalking around the stage. For this, with the absence of props, sets and costumes.
It's exactly in this stripped back performance where the brilliance lies. You listen for the words, wait for the soliloquys and anticipate what will happen next.
If you're not familiar with Hamlet, this may not be the performance for you. It definitely helps if you know the play and its intricacies.
We had a discussion at interval. Only one of us had never seen Hamlet before, but had some knowledge of the main speeches.
"But what's going to happen next?"
"Oh, you know, they have to have Ophelia go mad, top herself, everybody gets in a tizzy, Hamlet comes back to Denmark, they bury Ophelia, there's a big fight and they all end up dead."
'Oh. In 45 minutes?"
"Yep. And she's broken for interval at the normal place. That bit with Polonius - they extract that for laughs. The "Goodnight, Mother," is in the text."
Which is harder to do when there is only one of you on stage.
Which, when you think about it. Izzard has absorbed a four-hour play, distilled it and played it in a theatre with the lights turned down, but not off, so she can see our faces as well as we can see hers.
This is a treat. I feel honoured to have seen it.
And to those unhappy people out there that there's a trans woman playing Hamlet - seriously, I mourn for your world view. We need more genius, compassion and excellence like this.
(And I'd love the name and number of her nail technician)
Go if you can. Is it the best Hamlet I've seen? No. But it is a brilliant performance all around.
We've had this conversation before. I don't know how the topic came up, but like many of our conversations, we ramble, go in and out of all sorts of subjects. Maybe I was talking about friends and friendship, or what was planned for the weekend. Maybe they were talking of their regular rituals. We have different lives, different circumstances. I know that we don't understand each other's lives. Different states, different set ups, different views.
"You could make that when you entertain." they said.
"I don't entertain."
"But don't you have people over?"
"No."
"But if people come over.."
"We meet at the front gate and we go to one of the umpteen Vietnamese restaurants around the corner."
"But you're a good cook..."
"Who doesn't have the set up to have people over. I can't remember the last time I had a friend over." (Actually, that's a lie, but it was about two years ago.)
"You have a table and chairs."
"My laptop lives on my table. The chairs are in the spare room."
"But.."
"I have a disparate friendship group. If you're out of a 30-minute radius, they're not going to come over. Also, being single, you're often a spare leg."
"But..."
"I don't entertain. I don't really know how to. And I'd have to clean up. That's hard. "
"How strange."
"Welcome to my world."
But it's not so strange. I've never entertained, choosing to meet at a nearby location - if not, it's takeaway on your lap, after I've dug the couch out from under the crap. I look at the wine glasses and extra coffee mugs and the like, knowing that they've been carted around from share house to share house. Glassware, napery, crockery, that were bought with the thought they'd be used for 'entertaining', rather than for collecting dust.
I haven't done this for a while, but as I feel like I need to get myself back on track - so goal setting it is.
If I'm honest, I've felt like I've been treading water for the last few months. My job, though fine, isn't that fulfilling and there's things I want to do and I need to put my mind to it.
I like achieving my goals, so here we go.
1) Back in the gym four times a week.
I'm in the gym two to three times a week. I also get a bit of incidental exercise in lugging around my work backpack. But I want more - I like my gym membership - I need to use it more. Not doing classes any more as the noise and the crowds get to me should not be a deterrent for going.
2) Read 50 pages a day
Again, I read a lot, but I want to get the works I read on paper or my kindle up. I've also got a thick book for book group. Must get reading it soon.
3) Strip the sugar out of my diet
I know I feel better without sugar. It's slid back in, it's time it went away again. Same goes for gluten, dairy and caffeine. I run better without all of these things.
4) A daily dose of Metamucil
Maybe file this under too much information, but the stuff does make you poo good. It goes well with the no sugar goal.
5) Write fiction
After the last Writer's Retreat, I'm all pumped about getting the first draft of this novel out the way. I've written nearly 90,000 words - there's about 30000 to finish it. It's just a matter of a lot of bum glue and getting over myself.
As there's no way I'll finish another book before the month turns over, I thought I'd do my monthly reading review tonight. I read seven books in June, and I'm well into another two which should be read by the end of the week.
So, without further ado, here's what I read. The great, the okay, and the well.... yeahs.
1) The Frozen River by Arial Lawhon - Paper - 3.5 stars
This was our book group read for the month, and while a lot of our group loved this I was left underwhelmed. This is a historical crime novel, based on the life of a midwife, Martha Ballard. As it goes, the book is very readable and the action keeps you going. Where it lost marks with me is that I found the characters two dimensional, and it had the Outlander mentality of having to put in every last detail of the research, making this a little overblown in places. As popular historical crime fiction goes it's great. For me - I prefer literary historical crime fiction. Give me Geraldine Brooks, Hannah Kent or Umberto Eco any day. It certainly wasn't a bad book - it just didn't meet my expectations.
2) Last One Out by Jane Harper - Audiobook - 3.5 stars
I've read most of what Jane Harper has written. Nobody does the Australian landscape like her. She also writes crime novels. Again, not normally my genre, but going on the strengths of The Dry and The Lost Man, I decided to give this a go.
Like the last book, it's not a bad book, but she has better. I mean, it's the story of a dying town. Ro, who was the local doctor, has come back on the anniversary of her son's disappearance. The town has been taken over my a large mining consortium and nobody is happy. Ro, of course, is discovering the town's secrets. Maybe it will lead to some answers at to what happened to her son.
As Jane Harper books go this is middling. I didn't mind it. I certainly liked it better than Exiles, but The Dry and The Lost Man remain my favourites.
3) Trust by Hernan Diaz - Audiobook - 4 stars
After two middling book, I wanted to read something that might have a bit more weight. Trust was long-listed for the Booker Prize and it won the Pulitzer Prize along with Demon Copperhead.
It was a good move. The writing is spectacular. It's intricately plotted. The characters are incredible. Wikipedia describes this as such:
"Set predominantly in New York City and focusing on the world of finance, the novel is a metafictional, fragmentary look at a secretive financier and his wife."
I loved this. It kept the brain working while the story grew layers and layers of meaning. It's not for everybody, but it fulfilled my literary needs.
4) Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes - Audiobook - 3.5 Stars
Another favourite author, but not her best book. Anybody Out There? is Anna Walsh's story. I'm slowly working through the Walsh Family books. I've always loved Rachel's Holiday. Watermelon was good. The Mystery of Mercy Close was not bad. There's still a couple in the series I have to read.
Anybody Out There? focusses on Anna Walsh, who's moved to New York, has a great job, and is fantastic at faking her way through everything. How she's ended up sleeping in her parent's front room, with major injuries and no idea how she got them is the story.
In many ways, this is a book about grief and healing. It's also laugh out loud funny in places. You want to slap Anna a lot of the time.
Otherwise, this was as enjoyable as most of Keyes' other books. It was taken on as light relief after listening to/reading Trust.
5) I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman - Kindle - 3.75
This took me a long while to get into, and when I did get into it, I was wondering where it was going. Written in French and first published in 1995, its English translation has recently been rereleased.
As short, dystopian fiction, it's great. The synopsis is simple: Wikipedia describes it as such:
"Thirty-nine women and a girl are being held prisoner in a cage underground. The guards are all male, and never speak to them. The girl is the only one of the prisoners who has no memory of the outside world; none of them know why they are being held prisoner, or why there is one child among thirty-nine adults.
One day, an alarm sounds, and the guards flee; the prisoners are subsequently able to escape. They find themselves on an immense barren plain, with no other people anywhere, and no clue as to what has happened to the world.
The women form a community, build dwellings, and one by one mourn the deaths of their group. Finally, only the narrator is left living. In her wanderings she affirms the planet has “almost no seasons,” and decides she is no longer on Earth. After many years exploring, she discovers an underground bunker with lushly-appointed furnishings and a variety of inscrutable scientific equipment, some of which she associates with the bunker’s books on Astronautics. In this luxurious bunker, the narrator sets down her memoirs (the text of the novel), as she prepares to die of uterine cancer."
I can't say much more about it, but it stays with you. Academics write about this. It's stark and bleak. There is no reason why this is happening to the women, but the women are resilient.
I'll keep thinking about this for a while. I'm glad I had a plane trip to finish this one off. I've been trying to get through it for months. I'm glad I did.
6) The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne - Audiobook - 4.5 stars
This is my pick of the month. I know John Boyne is a problematic author, but his work is amazing. If possible, I like this more than A Ladder to the Sky. The Heart's Invisible Furies follows the life of Cyril Avery. The son of an unmarried girl cast out of her village for becoming pregnant, his birth is fraught. He's adopted by an unconventional pair - a charlatan and an reclusive author. He befriends the love of his life at boarding school, but goes on to marry his sister,
Cyril is also very good and making the worst of decisions.
This is brilliant. Densely plotted, hysterically funny, tragic, finely drawn and very, very human.
I loved this. I know Boyne is retrograde in some of his views, but I'm choosing to distance the author from his works. This book is amazing.
7) Him by JD Kirk - Audiobook - 4 stars
This was a freebie from Audible - and a very timely and enjoyable one at that.
From what I can see, this is only available on audiobook.
From the author's website, the story is described as such:
Just because he sounds real, doesn’t mean he is…
"When Sarah’s husband, Nick, is killed in a car accident, her world shatters. Facing a future without him seems impossible.
But maybe she doesn’t have to.
When Sarah discovers EternaTech, the AI program Nick and his business partner have been working on in secret, she is given the chance to speak to Nick from beyond the grave.
It sounds like him. It feels like him…
As Sarah becomes consumed by her connection to this digital Nick, she begins uncovering secrets about his final days. But as she digs deeper, the lines between what’s real and what isn’t blur, and Sarah must confront a chilling, terrible truth.
Some things may be best left buried."
Mostly thriller, part cautionary tale, this looks at how AI can mess with your life. It's highly entertaining and thought provoking. Louise Brealy and David Tennant bring the book to life. It was worth my time.
And now, I'm off to bed, hoping that the cat doesn't wake me up at 4.30 again.I'm buggered.
The Show: LoveMusikbased on the book by Albert Uhry, Music by Kurt Weill
The Theatre: Downstair at the Belvoir Street Theatre
The Company: Neglected Musicals
Stars: 5
The limited run ends tonight. (24-28 June)
A couple of things happened last night. I caught up with a friend from my writing retreats. We went to see a show. I got to see a phenomenal piece of theatre. What more do you want?
Seeing this was a pure fluke. I like to see interesting theatre, but Sydney can be a bit of a cultural backwater. The one show that mildly interesting me was David Wenham in The Iliad, but the ticket prices were too steep. Then I looked up what the Belvoir Street Theatre was doing and this came out. A musical about Kurt Weill and his wife, Lotte Lenya. It had a four-day run in their smaller space. At $70 a ticket, it fit the bill. Even more so, my friend is a German teacher and there were some German themes that ran through this.
We turned up. the 80-seater theatre was full. On the small stage there were a number of chairs, with some props underneath and a keyboard.
For the next two hours we were mesmerised.
What I didn't know before seeing this was that the company behind this performance, Neglected Musicals, is a company that does just this - it takes musicals which are rarely performed, or never been performed in Australia. They go on a very limited run. The cast get one day's rehearsal, they go on, script in hand with a piano accompanist.
Theatre by the seat of your pants stuff.
A very talented professional cast.
Utter magic.
The musical revolves around the lives of the composer Kurt Weill (best known for writing the music for Mack the Knife) and his wife, Lotte Lenya and Weill's relationship with Bertholt Brecht.
Weill and Lenya's life is striking. Fraught, poignant, and incredibly interesting. The musical takes them from the excesses of the Weimar Republic, to their escape to America in the 1930s, to Weill's burgeoning celebrity, to life in New York and Hollywood, to Weill's death in 1950. This musical covers a lot of ground.
I was blown away within minutes.
The music was great. The story cohesive. The fact that the actors had a day's rehearsal to put on a musical of this calibre is incredible.
This is theatre by the seat of your pants. Looking at the cast's bios, there was a lot of musical theatre experience. This shone through. This was performed by a group of actors at the top of their game.
Most daftly, the cast wouldn't take a second curtain call. No idea why. They had the whole audience by the heart.
In some ways, this reminded me of shows that La Mama or The Red Stitch Actors Theatre put on. It's great to know that Sydney has such an outlet.
For me, I'm just honoured that I got to see this on this limited run. As somebody who doesn't normally like musicals, this one fit the bill.
I'm just back from the theatre. Normally, I would be making a go of a review of this play, but I really want to mull this one over a bit more. It was fantastic.
Regardless, here are the Sunday Stealing questions for this week. It's easier than writing about the incredible piece of theatre I was lucky enough to see.
I LOVE TO be in water. Be it a bath or a shower or a swimming pool or the sea or jumping in puddles or getting caught in the rain. I love being in water.
I SOMETIMES wonder what would happen if my hard won, oft used filter left me and I got to say exactly what I was thinking when I was thinking it. I do have a filter. Some might think that I don't have one, but I do - and I know I only use it selectively anyway, but yeah... that could be fun.
I FEAR this romp towards the right. The Christian Fundamentalist lurch to controlling women's bodies is absolutely obscene.
I MISS living in England. I loved it over there. I know it's a very different place from when I left it over twenty years ago, but I still miss it. Britain is far more accepting of the barking mad - of which I class myself. I fitted in better there.
I CRAVE lots of things. Ice cream. Sex. The turn of a beautiful sentence. Long, slow kisses. A holiday. Bahn Mi for lunch. A wander around a cathedral. Rain. Kinder politics. Better journalism... want me to go on.
I CHERISH time with friends. Education. Kindness.
I AM IMPATIENT WHEN _people walk slowly in front of me. I'm just back from Sydney. Sydney people do this all the time. I want to slap them about the head.
Argh! The first Toy Story movie came out in 1995 - 30 bloody years ago!
Now, in the age of tech and devices, will a Toy Story movie stand up?
Yes, it does. This is delightful - with some great messaging, a lot of laughs and a comfort factor. This is a kid's movie adults can happily watch, get a hit of nostalgia and wonder at the creativity of some people.
The premise is fairly simple. Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the rest of the gang's jobs are challenged when they're introduced to electronics, a new threat to playtime.
Jessie (Joan Cusack) is still leading the charge with the toys. Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) is still pining over her, and Woody (Tom Hanks) and Bo Peep have retired nearby. But when Bonnie's parents succumb and buy her a Lily Pad tablet (Greta Lee), the toys feel they've been made redundant, being relegated to the garage or the opp shop.
What follows in an hour and three quarters of delight, as the toys try to get back together and find Bonnie some friends.
The film has a lot to say about kids today, the dependance on devices and the seeming lack of imagination kids have today.
I won't say much more. Written and direct by McKenna Harris and Andrew Stanton, they know what they're doing. This will appeal to kids and much as it will the adults who are taking them along - as well as the couple of middle-aged women looking to see something light on a Friday night.
I'm very lucky with my neighbours. They're nice people. They're quiet. And we all have a chat in the stairwell every so often. Easy neighbours. Helpful neighbours. We don't live in each other's pockets, but it's good that we are friendly enough to say hi.
Tonight, I ran into Ross, who lives downstairs.
He's a long, stringy country boy from rural Queensland. He's in the process of changing careers, as being a mechanic wasn't working for him anymore. He's currently got a warehouse job at a high-end French bakery down the road. Lucky bloke.
Being from rural Queensland, there's no flies on Ross. He's lovely, and willing to learn. He admits that his tastes aren't refined, but he's open minded. I love this about him.
We had a chat about tea. He spent the day sorting out a bulk order of French tea.
"I thought there was two types of tea - English Breakfast and Earl Grey," he told me.
"Nah, there are lots more to see and try. Doesn't matter if you don't like them all, but if you're willing to try, then good for you."
"Yeah," he said, "It's like the macaroons..."
"You mean macarons - macaroons are made of coconut but your nana. Macron is the French President. Macarons are the things your bakers make."
"It's so hard, this French stuff."
"You'll learn. If you want a hand, I can give you some tips."
We then got onto the subject of dinner. He was heading out to the supermarket.
"I've got bogan nachos for dinner tonight."
"Bogan nachos?"
"Easy dinner, because I'm wiped. You get a packet of Doritos, tip a can of baked beans over then, and some grated cheese. Chuck them in the oven for ten minutes, and voila!"
"But isn't that how everybody makes nachos?" he asked. "By the way, Doritos - corn chip of champions."
Today was my monthly engineer lunch day. I went into the office because of this - otherwise I could have worked from home. But as it was engineer lunch day, I dutifully went in.
Engineer lunch?
I have lunch with an engineer. We've been doing this for the best part of years.
Dave and I were in the same team at a Telco back in the late naughties. Yes, I was working in an engineering team.
Dave is one of those quiet people who normally doesn't say boo to a goose. He's universally respected across whatever company he works at, but he's one of those typical engineers that normally look down when speaking to you... you know, complete introvert, a cow lick, wears lots of blue, grey and brown and is generally nondescript.
Except, being on this strange team, we got to know each other.
And after I got made redundant at the back end of 2010, we made a promise to meet for lunch once a month.
15 years on, we still meet for lunch once a month.
Other than we're both well into our 50s, think similarly on most things political and laugh at the youth of today, we have very little in common. Other than we have lunch with one another once a month.
Today, we talked about lots of things over Grill'd burgers. His daughters finishing school, aging parents, possible holidays, and my last writing retreat.
"I read my book while I was down the Great Ocean Road. Read my book and patted the dog and that was it."
"No naked swimming?"
"Nope. I was tending the fire that I'd lit. For a change, I was happy on the couch with a coffee, a crochet hook and a spare dog."
"Heaven?"
"Yeah."
"And the book?"
"Not awful. I now need to find some accountability monitors?"
"Somebody to check in with?"
"Yep. I've set myself a goal to finish the first draft by the November Gunnas. Wanna be my accountability monitor. You don't have to read it, but you can see that there's progress."
