Great F... Scott - Life after Lurid Luhrmann

All that Glitters is not Gold

Your Tireless Correspondent has not seen the latest filmic fantasia from The Great Luhrmann and has no intention of doing so. Body and soul can only take so much and this orgiastic glitter-fest will break me as surely as the rack.

I know this because I was roped to a chair, eyes propped open with some infernal eye-widening apparatus, in order to endure the abominable film Australia, merely to satisfy my loving family that I had a credible basis for criticism.

My terrifying experience inspired the copy-cat Clockwork Orange

I've served my sentence. I've done my porridge. I've suffered.

So, I'm going to fall back on the reliable old method of delivering a balanced and fair assessment, by avoiding nearly all personal knowledge of the subject in my stampede to lay on the assault and battery.

Moulin Rouge -reeled out of the room after 30 minutes with video clip overdose, fighting off  epilepsy;

A Luhrmann work of genius, as perfected

Australia - see above, but note that I am now convinced that the dazzling Baz has privileged access to a secret bag of gimmicks (sorry, unique technologies) to ENSURE that his works of genius are as crude, arrogant and repellent as galactically possible;

The Great Gatsby - my exacting analysis of this ... thing ... (as argued persuasively in my foregoing treatise) leaves only one conclusion - DON'T.

And so, to the real hero - F. Scott Fitzgerald

As a quasi-scholar (the most dangerous and deluded kind), I can say that there are distressingly few writers of whom I can say 'you are a bona fide genius'. We all have our opinions, and yours is clearly inferior to mine, but whenever I take up FSF's slim volumes the truth of this bold statement of writing mastery is confirmed.

It's bloody impressive. This takes some saying, as a professional cynic like myself is constitutionally disinclined to praise anything much. But, putting it another way ...

it's bloody impressive.

At fourteen I didn't think so, I must admit. Some imbecile slapped The Great Gatsby on the required reading list at high school. I cast it aside roughly, discerning correctly that it was deficient in the explosions and mayhem department.

Gatsby, as envisioned by The Great Luhrmann

There was one kid though, Loman, Lehmann, Leibling ... something like that ... who was unfazed. If the stuff lacked punch he'd damned well put it in. What a kid.

Now, a little older than fourteen, I am re-reading The Last Tycoon. It reminds me of Monty Python's assessment of Shakespeare's plays - all the right words AND in the right order.

Re-reading some books assessed as phenomenal in starry-eyed youth leave me convinced of only one thing - what a twat I must have been. FSF's books are not among the condemned. The reason I see more to admire is simple - there IS more to admire.

The learned, the cognoscenti, the faithful will tell you why this is so. All I know is that Baz and his dubious vision will take a back seat to the author of The Great Gatsby, ....

The Great F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

The Great Fitzgerald

English as She is Spoke

The Adventures of a Pedant Dick - you're mangled-English detective

This is a dangerous game.

I relate to you (with spluttering dismay) a litany of crimes against the English language and, for your part, you discover (with smug delight) a shower of indictable offences in my ravings. Naturally, as a crusader of the correction pen, you have already made a start on the above.

Delicious. A pedant hoisted on his own petard.

Soooooo, to reduce exposure to the cold winds of criticism, I'll rein myself in with a brief  attack. Oh yes, I would consider it a favour (or is it 'favor') if you'd note that I live in a far flung convict-stocked land where English is the Queen's and not the President's.

It can be no surprise that I'm like that with Lynne Truss about apostrophe sins. You know her, the revved-up author of the wonderful Eats, Shoots and Leaves, her blitz on ignorant, casual and mystifying punctuation.

People tell me that this or that is a must-read. Well, most of them aren't. But THIS, Truss' ESL, this is a MUST READ. And that's an order.

Where were we? Oh yes, applying the cattle prod to the apostrophe.

I will not bore you with interminable examples. Righteous indignation has only so many friends. How about just a handful from the plural-deficit syndrome bag.

'Beautiful photo's here' - what a relief; that gorgeous girl with the weird name has finally turned up, at the Blandville fast photo emporium of all places.

I suggested grovellingly to the owner of the premises that he may have wanted to indicate the plural and thus modify his sign ever so slightly to 'beautiful photos here'. Dear reader, what a fool I am. This noble merchant took umbrage. I had slurred him. I had offended him. It was a bloody outrage. 'Get out', he screamed politely.

'Blandville-on-Sea Welcomes Senior's' - seniors what? Their elbows, their blue rinses, their wallets? Perhaps their entire person. It was hard to tell from the gigantic banner strung across the main thoroughfare of this friendly metropolis.

I giggled, of course, and tried to engage passers-by in sharing the municipal embarrassment. They were baffled. 'Look out. He's a nutter' they said, as they shepherded their children away from the loony raving at the nice sign. Poor old senior that I am, despair engulfed me.

'Wednesday nite's schnitzell's' - oh God, a quadruple whammy. But staff were on the ball. A week later modifications had been made to the banner gracing the railing of The Ferret's Ruin, a local watering hole - at least the ancient signwriter knew his stuff.

'Wednesday night's shnitzels' - two steps forward, two steps back. It's progress, if viewed generously. They knew something was wrong but what the heck was it?

'Wednesday night's snitzels' - it works, sort of. Someone should be congratulated for trying.

Your Tireless Correspondent knew by now, from episodes short of physical mauling, that if action were to be taken it should be done surreptitiously, by dead of night, balaclava-clad, with hooded torch, wielding squeakless marker in rapid corrective movements.

Today people, NOW people, think that punctuation is, like good manners, optional. (What a magnificent generalisation; so good I can't bear to throw it away.)

Well, it's easier to understand the importance of punctuation if you imagine sentences as a piece of music. Go on, there's the music written out on it's funny little lines with all those squiggles of notation. But wait, let's see what happens when we chuck out that pesky notation. How come Moonlight Sonata now sounds like Born in the USA?

OK, it's a slight exaggeration. The point is, Moonlight Sonata would not sound like Moonlight Sonata without those little squiggles, the musical punctuation. It becomes nonsense without them. Beethoven knew this so he wrote it complete with little squiggles. So did Bruce - he knew it and used them too.

And it's the same for written English (probably Sanskrit too, but I wouldn't know). Without proper punctuation the message becomes something else. 'Eats, shoots and leaves', or is that 'Eats shoots and leaves'? See what I mean.

And now, a final classic:

Caesar entered on his head

A helmet on his foot

A sandal in his hand he had

His trusty sword to boot.

You work it out, if you care.

Grammar Warrior - hot on the trail of split infinitives

 Here endeth the lesson

What Kevin McCloud REALLY Thinks - scoop No. 2 from a Grand Designer's Secret Diary

Sickening Success and Magnificent Miss

There must be times when Kevin McCloud is racked with battling emotions.

I hear him hiss, 'if there's anything called justice in this world, these savages and their execrable house will vanish from the face of the earth ...

... and then, whispering on the wind, comes his despairing plea in response to another project, 'they're mad, they're infants, but please, oh please, let them finish this dream'.

Here's how it comes about in scenario 1:

Take one thrusting, ignorant, self-made legend of commerce (they're always self-made and stunned by their own glory); add one shallow, compliant spouse; season with a pale child or two designer dogs; throw in several shiny German cars, a furnishings train-wreck, a pea-sized imagination and a vat of cash - and, hey presto, there stands a brutal new monument to mediocrity, just begging for a visitation from Bulldozerman.

Sweet revenge - if only!

But no, it won't happen. Sir Kevin weeps inwardly while somehow calling on deep reserves of personal decency to salvage merit from the pointless structure confronting him.

I'm a professional, he'll say. There's got to be something here that isn't stupid or wasteful or gross. They seem to like it. Yes, there, that light works well, that room might get some use, the dogs and the sofa pretty much match, and what about the view! They didn't touch that.

Manfully grasping at straws, Sir Kevin withdraws from wankersville, leaving the noble impression it is a richly deserving creative expression. It must be so for someone, surely.

And on to scenario 2:

Enter the penniless crusaders, the visionaries brimming with ideas and other intangibles. They're determined to have what they want too, but in a hopeless, helpless, low-fat, lovable way.

Home sweet home - as planned

God, if only they could pull it off, they and their five kids and mini zoo, their biscuit barrel of savings (or alternatively, their tenuous treaty with the bank), their earth roof and wind turbine and macrobiotic walls.

Told you so - macrobiotic walls

Things look bad and KMac salts the wound with dire warnings of imminent disaster at the hands of  malevolent forces.

But you can't fool us, Sir Kevin.

Behind your presenter's facade you swell with admiration. Yes, you are anxious for the future of this modest home but we know you'll muck in for them - lime plastering in the fog and tamping mud bricks till the sweat fills your boots. You'll probably throw in a hundred quid if it comes to that.

You desire beyond reason for the project to succeed but, true to form, you must appear the balanced man.

With what result?

Well, this place was tragically a bridge (er, house) too far; this one's on hold - it's a wonderful 'watch-this-space'; but this, well this, I knew it all along - no high street furniture, no glistening limousine, no echoing caverns of space, no grid-sapping panoply of electrical toys, just - how shall I put it - a GRAND DESIGN.

Home sweet home - as finished

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Fear and Loathing in Lost Pages *

Your Tireless Correspondent fell over this limp lead buried in the dead heart of a suburban newspaper:

'A minor dispute over a runaway dog has resulted in the arrest of a Hell's Angel sergeant of arms, the alleged assault of a grandmother and a drug bust.'

As an attention-grabber, it's about as exciting as cold porridge.

But think of the story; envisage the scene. They had, and commenced to bore the pants off their innocent reading public by plodding through a shopping list of downward spiraling dullness, working hard to crush the colour from this local news gem.

And YOU'RE bored !!

Pausing to renew my tirade against this criminal waste of journalistic opportunity (no-one was listening anyway), I found myself confronted by an unsettling thought. Raving's one thing; writing takes a bit more effort. OK blabbermouth (it was safe to chat to myself), you reckon you could do better?

What an embarrassment - I'd challenged myself.

So, of the scores of ways the story might be approached, I foolishly wrote this (ignoring the conventions of news reporting):

A runaway ex-customs sniffer dog ‘missing’ for three months provoked the arrest of his bikie owner, the alleged assault of the bikie’s grandmother and the seizure of her crop of marijuana, in Sydney’s southwest today.

In a successful escape bid from the Casula backyard of Hells Angel sergeant at arms, Nigel Golightly, the dog he affectionately named Mortein hightailed it to the nearby home of Mrs Pearl Pounder, Mr Golightly’s grandmother.

A canine custody dispute ensued.

‘You should have heard the language’ said neighbour Cyril Savage. ‘I’d just parked the tow truck and whammo, Nigel’s fist smashed through the fibro. That stupid mutt Mortein squeezed out the kitchen cat flap and shot into the shed full of weed. I called the cops.’

Police in a patrolling vehicle were quickly on the scene and arrested Mr Golightly, a former state representative rugby prop forward, alleging he assaulted his pensioner grandmother.
 

BEWARE - vicious criminals

Senior Constable Hannibal Stamper clarified the situation.

‘The suspect reportedly of male-type gender who I suggest is the subject of the arrestive process appears to possess a preponderance of weight and height such that a reasonable person might theoretically assume his inclination to indulge his alleged advantages. Besides, the poor woman was in a terrible state.’

‘So was the dog’ added Constable Stamper’s colleague, Probationary Constable Slocum, who had searched the property’s outbuildings. ‘He was getting high in the dope, er, cannabis shed.’

Mr Golightly is reported as saying: ‘I’m innocent. I love that dog. He has such kind eyes. She was going to pinch him. Look at him – high as a kite on the hash she grows.’

As Golightly and his grandmother were invited to accompany the constables to the police station to assist with their enquiries, Mr Savage explained exclusively for our reporter.

‘That bloody geriatric was laying into Nige with a meat tenderizer, in the backyard. Where’s the respect, eh? I’m gutted. The neighbourhood’s gone to pot.'

I could have used THIS

Police praised Mortein for his natural talent and on-going persistence in carrying out his former public sniffer duties, which resulted in a haul of supply-quantity marijuana estimated as sufficient to keep the entire population of Liverpool high for a month.

Mr Goligthly and Mrs Pounder will appear at Parramatta Local Court next Wednesday morning.

Customs officials have welcomed Mortein back to his previous role in airport drugs detection.

We're all doomed I tell you, DOOMED

* Apologies to Hunter S Thompson

 

Liars and Thieves

 Fooling the People

 

Pulped Fiction - destroy to create

I read a book the other day. It was a tour-de-force, a stunning debut from an inspired mind, powerful, resonant, an unforgettable and timeless classic.

I know all these things because the publisher’s marketing department told me so in the breathless plug on the back cover. Their praise was supported by extracts of critical analysis from sources as notable as the Thespian Writers’ Collective and Dare to Write (formerly Write Now, until an unfortunate legal action).

Opinions from these and other highly esteemed directions had me panting to get at it.

Dear reader, they lied.

But wait, maybe it was a printing house error. Maybe they’d just glued the wrong cover to the body text.

No, they lied. They lie often. I suspect there is a whole ghost-writing industry built up around the cover blurb scam ... er, commercial translation ... er, creative interpretation of authorial concept.

So, about this scam.

With the noble intent of marketing success firmly in mind, the massaging committee of Smoke and Mirrors Inc. meets under the chairmanship of the veteran commissioning editor, a nineteen year old business legend whose name bears an uncanny resemblance to the publishing conglomerate’s owner.

Our august committee vibrates with exhilarating debate.

The Brains Trust - commissioning editor in green

‘We’ll make a motza.’ ‘Yair, recycle that crap you ground out for dumb ol’ Dan Brown.’ ‘Punters couldn’t empty their wallets fast enough.’ ‘A lie well told is worth a thousand truths - that’s what your old man used to say, boss’ – and similar profound observations as to the integrity of the literary work at hand and the honourable profession of publishing.

But they’re clever devils, these teenage tycoons.

I’ve met some of these lovers of literature who, God's truth, really think the book had been assembled correctly; that in its pages (cover and all) there really existed the secret to life, the universe and everything; that if indeed one had to be picky, it was at least a bloody fantastic read.

And they’re right.

Revisiting this ‘brilliant’ tome (aren't they all) which had so moved me to harsh judgement, I was blessed with enlightenment. The marketing hype could have been true, of that sentence half-way down page 683. I now saw merit in the claim ‘the best thing XYZ has ever done,’ as clearly his previous outpourings left much development room.

And finally my shame was complete.

Only a crabby old pedant would imagine that the blurb was a statement of balanced fact, the assessment of an incisive and experienced critic. No. it’s a fluid world, dynamic and responsive. Yesterday's thoughts are old hat; it’s what our marketers believed then; it’s merely a critic’s suggestions. And besides, they’re all otherwise employed now.

See what I mean? Fast moving.

The modern need to read – what would I know? But, recollecting the famous quote of American satirist Ambrose Bierce, ‘the covers of this book are too far apart,’ I consigned the work of genius carefully and deliberately to the shredder.

Wonderful stuff - best you've ever written

 

What Kevin McCloud REALLY Thinks - scoop No. 1 from a Grand Designer's secret diary

Derelict Irish Church awaiting Idiot Irish Restorer (photo by Lesley)

Close Encounters of an Architectural Kind

All those opportunities to interpret a ruse, down the plughole - damn, why didn't I think of it earlier, that is, before the 17th re-run of the collected box sets of Kevin McCloud's Grand Designs.

I've been sitting dumbly bemused through countless scenes of crimes against architecture imagining Sir Kevin condoned these dismaying acts when, had I perceived the obvious, I might have stepped up (in my characteristic modest way) and enlightened my reader as to KMac's true feelings.

He's been designing episodes grandly since post-and-lintel construction burst upon the unsuspecting world of hunter/gather. He has presented indoors and outdoors, in a place near you or a pinprick on a foreign map, from submerging basement bedrooms to blistering terraces, always affable, agreeably argumentative, brimming with saintly tolerance for all but the most gross blunders and their perpetrators and, in an eloquent closing nutshell, impartially appreciative.

How does he do it?

Well, he's faking it.

In direct proportion to the featured-owner-idiocy-index KMac assumes the temperament of the reasonable man. As their naivety / arrogance / imprudence / crassness increases so does KMac's professional balance and just assessment. But look past his mild qualms as expressed to the camera: underneath he's boiling.

You see, if it appears too good to be true, chances are it is too good to be true. The normal mortal can't stand being so nice and fair for so long. KMac really wants to tell them what wastes of space they are, whilst texting for the urgent on-site presence of the nearest demolition contractor.

For instance, take these twits (the bloke really) hell bent on converting an innocent ruined church in the far reaches of Ireland.

The Great Architect - in jocular mood (rare, early photo)

What a super home it will make, he intones, with all the pomposity of the born-again architect - you know the sort, doggedly defiant in the face of his portfolio of past excrescences now regrettably gracing the built environment. Trouble is, he was an architect.

God help the little church.

And so it began, the usual building saga. Sir Kevin was very positive, so positive it just had to mask his growing loathing. I began to feel sorry for the twit's wife, trivialised and marginalised by her Great Inspiration-struck Master.

'It seems too small' she pleaded. 'Nonsense' he condescended, 'look at that height, three storeys of it'. What was she supposed to do? Cook and serve meals vertically?

Cut and diced, the poor structure blossomed into a pastiche of design mediocrity.

I just know Sir Kevin itched to scream:

• this is a nasty warren of rooms for underdeveloped pygmies;
• with bathrooms thoughtfully two floors distant from bedrooms;
• linked by bland slabs of white plaster of silo-like appeal;
• featuring a tower retreat making a subdivided phone box look spacious;
• cleverly permitting a woman to up-skill to gymnast-chef;
• courageously unheedful of imminent hospitalising incidents guaranteed in traversing the precipitous two level sitting room (itself a triumph of miniaturisation); 
• embellished with rails and balusters fresh from a failed Woodwork 1 class project;
• the kitchen a forest of timber supports further encouraging the cook-if-you-dare principle;
• and about as airy and welcoming as a morgue.

Yes, I PLANNED this.

But did he give his real feelings away? Not one bit. He's too polite for that. He's too generous to mention  the assault on his own proven design sensibilities. Anyway, how many hopefuls would entrust their dreams to a presenter who told the truth?

He's trapped, poor man.

Mercifully, there are two confidants to whom KM can lay his soul bare - his good wife, who is wisely keeping schtum, and your tireless correspondent, who labours in the service of his reader.

This Christmas I fully expect to receive a complimentary copy of Lord McCloud's 33rd series of Grand Designs.

Life, the Universe and the Why of Blogging

Your Tireless Correspondent - photo Roman Bonnefoy

WHY? Why am I doing this?

A fair enough question – picture its relevance when attached to 100 metres of rubber with only a teenage bungy master’s breezy assurance that ‘nobody’s died yet’; when sitting the practical examination in Crocodile Wrangling 1; when agreeing to judge Best Bikie Gang tattoo.

Surely, the sedentary sport of blogging is harmless enough: a few words on a page, a generous scattering of wisdom, the odd bon mot, not to forget a splash of paint stripper on the richly deserving. Easy.

Well, here’s the news. YOU MUST BE DREAMING.

Easy is volunteering as a crash test dummy; easy is standing naked in the men's locker room; easy is your first speech for election to office.

I’ve been told that some people would rather lose a digit than speak in public and it seems to me that blogging is a bit like that:  full of terrors. Think of the exposure, the humiliation, the ridicule awaiting your every post, your trivial thoughts, your juvenile analysis, your pitiful expectations, in fact, your entire life and work. And it’s so public. Better to just curl up and die.

So, in a tiresome repetition of the question, why blog? Obviously it’s an experiment, or possibly a dare, maybe my half of a diabolical bargain. Rubbish. Clearly it’s the lesser of many unappetising evils and anyway, I might be in the power of a higher authority, a guiding light pointing the way to redemption via blogging. No?

I can dodge and weave no longer, dear suffering reader (if there be such a paragon in the vast halls of blogdom). It’s ‘fess-up time.

I am, in fact, the victim of simple and brutal blackmail. Blog or I’ll fail you. That’s pretty much the short-short version. In my innocence I signed up to do a perfectly amiable course in media stuff only to be ambushed by this smiling fiend.

He ordered me to tell you things - if I lie I’ll be punished.

I’m interested in too much about which I know little and too little about which I know much.

Apart from that, it’s the (here we go again):

• writing-authors-books bit;
• the my-riveting-travels bit;
• the politics-in-minute-doses bit;
• the history-especially-maligned-warfare bit;
• the quirky-tangential-scatological bit;
• the how-do-I-know-until-I-trip-over-it bit;
• and the directionless-life-full-of-events-I-don’t-understand bit.

Somehow I think that most of it will be the last two bits.

Thrilling. Where will it lead? Who cares?

Like creative hopefuls everywhere, staring at the stage 1 mess they’ve just produced, I describe my efforts as ‘a work in progress’ and pray to the elusive gods that something worthwhile (maybe even readers) will emerge from my labours.

But what if there’s no-one out there? Tell me I’m not alone.

Annual gathering of my enthusiastic followers