Afghan Star

Review in the New York Times of Afghan Star, a documentary about the Afghani television show 'Afghan Star' produced for Tolo-TV.

The documentary is excellent (especially its first three-quarters) and deserves an audience. It won a couple of prizes at Sundance earlier in 2009.

Afghan Star” subverts the cliché image of Afghanistan as a nation of intractably primitive, superstitious tribespeople who have little in common with Westerners. Most of the Afghans in the film speak decent English, and the kind of hysteria kicked up by the show is identical to the hoopla surrounding “American Idol.” The popularity of “Afghan Star” among the country’s youth is presented as a hopeful sign that Afghanistan is ready to exchange “guns for music,” to quote one talking head.

...

Daoud Sediqi, the show’s presenter and director, is as gung-ho a television personality as Ryan Seacrest. Near the end of the film he declares, “The Taliban is finished.” But what does it say that after attending the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where “Afghan Star” won the directing and audience awards in the world documentary competition, he didn’t return to his native country and is thought to be seeking asylum in the United States?

Cretinous

Very funny review of Transformers 2 in the New York Times.

The creative people behind the cretinous “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” the second blockbuster inspired by the popular Hasbro toys, have segmented their demographic into four discrete categories:

1. Young teenage boys who still play with Transformer toys (or keep them under the bed).

2. Older teenage boys who identify with the professional doofus Shia LaBeouf.

3. Somewhat older teenage boys who would like to play with the professional hottie Megan Fox.

4. Boys of all ages who think it would be cool to go to war and run around the desert shooting guns.

and

Of course, viewers can embrace several categories at once; say, those who collect toys and liked Mr. LaBeouf in the last “Indiana Jones” movie. Or those who fantasize about having sex with Ms. Fox while shooting guns, a vision that distills the auteurist ambitions and popular appeal of the movie’s director, Michael Bay.

Is it even possible to have liked Shia LaBeouf in the last Indiana Jones movie? I guess almost anything is theoretically possible - but it never occurred to me, having seen the film.

and

There’s a serious disconnect in the movie between the image of power that those GM brands are meant to convey and the bankrupt car industry they now signify. That disconnect only deepens with the introduction of two new Autobot characters, the illiterate, bickering twins Skids (Tom Kenny) and Mudflap (Reno Wilson), both of which take the shape of Chevrolet concept cars. The characters have been given conspicuously cartoonish, so-called black voices that indicate that minstrelsy remains as much in fashion in Hollywood as when, well, Jar Jar Binks was set loose by George Lucas. For what it’s worth, the script, by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, also includes a crack about Simmons, who’s coded as Jewish, and his “pubic-fro head.”

Towelhead

Recently saw Towelhead (AKA Nothing is Private) , an awesome but extremely difficult film about a confused half-Lebanese teenage girl growing up in Texas and - particularly- her sexual confusion and distant parents.

It had a cinema release in the USA in 2008 and did miniscule business - unsurprising given the subject matter - but great performances by (inter alia) Aaron Eckhart, the teenage girl (Summer Bishil) and Toni Collette. It was written for the screen (adapted from a novel) and directed by Alan Ball (6 Feet Under, True Blood, American Beauty, etc).

Aaron Eckart has an absolute lock on playing seemingly all-American but rotten-on-the-inside characters (In the Company of Men, Thank You for Smoking) and he is perfect in Towelhead.

I recommend it next time you're in the mood for something malignant but sort-of-beautiful-and-hopeful.

People suck

From The Age

More from Cannes and the world of celebrity irony, brought to you by blonde actress Hayden Panettiere - a woman described by some as a less attractive Miley Cyrus, which presumably means more genes from Billy Ray.

She has spent the past few days on the French Riviera, cuddling Pamela Anderson's former lover, Steve Jones, on a boat owned by Elton John and David Furnish.

But the names are not the news - it's the tattoo spilt down her left flank.

The Heroes starlet and sometime singer has no doubt spent a lifetime spelling out the preponderance of vowels in her last name, but she seems to have been less careful in directing her tattooist.

Panettiere, 19, got inked late last year but it was not until she lay out on the yacht that we could read the elaborate script. Vivere senza rimipianti, it reads, with an extra 'i' in rimpianti. The phrase is Italian for "live without regret", but one cannot help imagining she would be feeliing a liittle of the stuuff.

USVI

Pretty excited to be heading to the US Virgin Islands in a couple of months as part of our July/August American trip.

According to the official USVI website:

Our long standing, enviable international reputation is not solely based on our pristine beaches, warm weather, and crystal-clear waters -- we're also the most culturally diverse, ethnically rich, and artistically vibrant society in the tropics.

If you're an American it's probably like going to Bali - but not that many Aussies make it to Saint John et al.

How heavily retouched does this picture look?

The queen of dogs

Firepower

A surprisingly emotional outburst from Paul Sheehan in the SMH about the Firepower debacle:

It is difficult to exaggerate the scale of the lies, the extent of the damage, the trail of destructive bastardry left behind by Timothy Francis Johnston, who lied to everyone, cheated everyone, and, as you read this, lives in luxury overseas because the Australian authorities are too stupid to charge him with fraud and thus be able to seek his extradition.

...

Since Johnston graduated from St Laurence's College, a Christian Brothers school in Brisbane, he has become an increasingly deluded, reckless, pathological and criminal predator. His exaggerations accumulated until they became a pyramid of lies which became a pyramid of frauds, built on pyramid selling. Almost nobody checked the detail, and there were so many details which would have exposed the lies.

He could never have wreaked the damage he did without the active support of the Australian government, and the passivity of regulators and police.

Johnston had no patents. No intellectual property rights. No scientific evidence. No factories. No prospectus. No audited accounts.

No large export orders. In fact, he had almost no sales. He spoke of a global company but in reality it was a handful of people in an industrial estate in Perth. The unprecedented scale of this horror story has never been fully understood, and never been available to the public, until today.

Because today is the publication date of a book, Firepower, which lays out the magnitude of this fraud and the depth of its implications. It has to be mandatory reading for the Trade Minister, Simon Crean, and his senior departmental officials. Crean will enjoy the discomfort it brings to his Liberal predecessors in government, but not for long, because Johnston is now his problem.

...

It is the missing due diligence, the prosecutorial zeal, the big picture. It presents the events that should have animated every agency that came into contact with Johnston and his idiotic narcissism. Instead, the job has been done by Gerard Ryle, a journalist.

Firepower groans with a mass of damning detail, the work of someone who has won 15 awards for investigative journalism, including four Walkley Awards. Ryle has been a Walkley finalist 11 times. He is the news editor of this newspaper.

Given that I haven't read it, of course it may be true that Ryle has written the greatest book of all time - somehow displacing Infinite Jest from the top of the list - but the above is fairly heavy praise!! And it even manages to include flattering details about Ryle's career. And amazingly the greatest investigative journalist of all time is the news editor of the SMH, the paper which published Sheehan's story. Admittedly, this fact is fully disclosed about half-way through the article - but for my money this is not enough. If the SMH wants to run an article so strongly praising a book and the man who wrote it - and that man is a senior editor of the SMH - then the disclosure should be upfront in big bold letters.

Having said all that, I do want to read the book.

Aghan Idol

An open letter to my many loyal readers.

Everyone should watch SBS at 7:30pm tonight for the Australian premiere of Afghan Star, a documentary about the television show Afghan Star shown on Tolo TV. It won an award at Sundance earlier this year and is meant to be v good. Plus one of the Mohsenis is a close friend.

Tolo is an Afghani TV station owned and run by the Melbourne/Afghan Mohseni family.

SEE this article from The Age.

Still on Koh Phangan

Still having a great time here on Koh Phangan. 
Lots of swimming in the pool, massages, great Thai food, frisbee on the beach and not that much else.

Yesterday a fun snorkelling trip on the 'No Woman No Cry' boat (?)  Great snorkelling, lunch at the very beautiful Bottle Beach and a very rocky hike to some waterfalls.  Lots of anenomes, multi-coloured fish, hard and soft coral and much more.

One more day at Salad Beach, then we head to Thong Nai Pan for our last couple of days.

Koh Phangan

Today arrived in Koh Phangan via ferry from Koh Samui.  Fairly stress-free logistics, although the trip was (enjoyably) delayed by Songkran (New Year) festivities.  Lots of water being thrown and/or splashed on cars driving past (and from cars driving past onto the many revellers on the street).  Simultaneously, Bangkok is in crisis - the country looks to be in the midst of revolution and/or military coup. 
Luckily we have a TV in our room at Cookies at Salad beach.  Unfortunately, the English-langugage channels consist of an english-langugage German general-interest channel, and an english-language Russian news and sport channel which is headlining its latest bulletin with a story on possible voter fraud in Moldavia (Moldova? who knows and/or cares).  Events in the pacific are a fairly low priority for the Russians and Germans.  We also have HBO - which also gives events in the Pacific a low priority.
Otherwise, all is good.  M is having fun.  Very hot.  Chang is still a good beer.  Thai massages remain great.  Our hammock is comfortable.  View from our deck is incredible.

timing

good timing by M and I - we managed to time our visit to Thailand with the (now cancelled) ASEAN summit, massive protests and the declaration of a state of emergency.  All calm in Koh Samui as far as we can tell...

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/12/world/AP-AS-Thailand-Politics.html?_r=1&hp

 

In happier news, just had an amazing massage. 

Having a great time and managing to endure the soothing music which seems to play constantly.

Thailand part 2

Still having a great time - Zazen is fantastic - www.samuizazen.com - and yesterday we watched a buddhist wedding for 2 middle-aged heavily-tattooed Germans with heads shaved at the sides and long on top.  The tattoos on the sides of her shaved scalp were very fetching and spoke of a deep inner serenity.  Otherwise - good food, massages, heat, humidity, backgammon, the Bangkok Post (a really good paper), wandering along the beach.

Singapore

Had a great day in Singapore as day 1 of our Thailand trip.  Enjoyed the qantas Melbourne first class lounge (nice work Marc Newsom) (sp?) and its excellent restaurant, then the upgraded premium economy seats (the benefits of being married to a platinum frequent flyer).  a good flight (loved the Wrestler), then a day in Singapore.  Ate 3 amazing meals at hawker centres.  I'm yet to discover food better than Singaporean hawker centre food.  It's just incredibly good.  Wandered around Singapore.  Sweated.  Some beautiful old buildings and some interesting new ones.  Now at the airport for our flight to Koh Samui.

M.I.A. goes huge at the Grammys

U2 was upstaged by one of the most unusual spectacles in the history of the awards, as M.I.A., the outspoken Sri Lankan-British rapper, performed while nine months pregnant — indeed, she had been due to give birth on Sunday. She joined the rap dream team of Jay-Z, T. I., Kanye West and Lil Wayne, whose song “Swagga Like Us” samples M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” which itself had been up for record of the year.

Gyrating across the stage in a sheer black costume with her protruding belly wrapped in black and white polka dots, she shared the stage with four of the most popular rappers in music, although most eyes in the arena were surely on her for much of the performance.

New Lily Allen

Looking forward to picking up the new Lily Allen album, It’s Not Me, It’s You - she is so good at being a pop star that I really want to like it.


Great article in today's NYT. She really gives great interview:

At the restaurant Ms. Allen rejected the maitre’d’s offer of a discreet corner table; we were seated in the middle of the room, facing the door. She walked in as if she would turn a few heads, and she did.

Dinner was lavish and fun. Ms. Allen is the right kind of girl to drink wine and talk about boys with. There is, especially in her case, a lot to say. “I don’t really go for hot guys,” she said. “I go for old men, as you may have noticed.” In the car on the way over, she’d devoured a Look magazine her driver bought because she was on the cover. “Agony over married lover!” read the headline, detailing her latest holiday fling, with Jay Jopling, 45, a recently separated gallery owner and buddy of her father’s. (Yes, she acknowledged, she has some daddy issues.) Does she mind that her relationships are so gossiped about?

“It’s ironic because I’m not very good at them,” she said. “I’m good at having sex.”

She had more to say, but nothing that could be printed here. This is the kind of irresistible frankness that has gotten her, time and again, in trouble. But as she grows up and builds her creative niche, Ms. Allen seems unlikely to manage being buttoned up. (At the end of the meal she went over to greet Lucian Freud, the 86-year-old artist, sitting nearby. What did he say? “He said he wants to. ...” Ah, unprintable.)

King Abdullah

Was at the Wye River pub this Australia day long weekend when I was mistaken for King Abdullah of Jordan. Harsh but not totally unfair. M was, however, not mistaken for Queen Rania.

Devastating review of 'The Man Who Owns the News'

Have recently read The Man Who Owns the News, Michael Wolff's new biography of Rupert Murdoch. It is definitely a gripping read, though far from a definitive biography.

As is standard for Wolff, much of the book is a reflection of Wolff and his 'big picture' views rather than a reflection on Murdoch and News Corp.

The New York Times published a fairly devastating review of the book here.
Excerpts below. I agree with many of the criticisms, but the author of the review (David Carr of the NYT) has missed a key point: the book is a triumph in the sense that it is a biography of a business figure which is fun to read and which has a clear and unambigious point of view.

Wolff makes no pretence that his biography is an objective, disinterested piece of writing. His views and prejudices are all over it - which means that it is no Shawcross (the definitive - but very dated Murdoch biography) but it is a fun read with lots of interesting (and presumably mostly accurate) anecdotes and snippets about Rupert and the Murdoch clan.

The book is a strangely alluring artifact, with huge gaps in execution and stylistic tics that border on parody; it will nonetheless provide a deeply satisfying experience for the ­media-interested.

...

They are a pair, these two. Both adore gossip and revel in their unpleasantness, and neither gives a rip what anyone else thinks of him. Murdoch has achieved improbable business success, and Wolff has made no secret that he covets same. In a hybrid career that continues to this day — Wolff is a columnist for Vanity Fair and a founder of a news aggregator called Newser — he has somehow managed to both float above a demimonde of wealthy titans and seek to enter at every opportunity.

...

“The Man Who Owns the News” attacks its subject with casual delight, but contains shockingly few actual quotations from Murdoch himself: a snippet here and there, nothing more. He remains disconcertingly spectral, even though Wolff spoke with him for many hours over many months.

...

But the moment the reader is tempted to leave Wolff to marvel at his own de­vices, the author steps in and reminds us that his primary value is to speak the unspeakable. As he did in his delicious and prescient “Burn Rate,” an early book about the dot-com fantasia, he often just says it: “Every second working for Murdoch is a second spent thinking about what Murdoch wants. He inhabits you.”

...

Much was made of Wolff’s alliance with Murdoch, that it would lead to complicity and sycophancy, but Wolff remains true to his nature, which is joyously nasty. It is a baked-in reflex of a kind that Trollope described: “His satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.”

Wolff takes no specific offense at Murdoch’s willingness to use his media properties to cold business ends, but depicts him as a cranky, monomaniacal newspaper hack, a con man with bad hearing, no interest in new media paradigms and no real friends to speak of. It is also pointed out that he is “a good family man — even if he has three of them.” Like the man he writes about, Wolff is a gossip who is very skilled at extracting information and sensing weakness.

...

Obsessed by newsprint and digitally clueless, Murdoch is depicted as a remarkable modern figure. The issue of succession is dealt with in the book as it is at the company: people either put their fingers in their ears or cross them in hopes that Murdoch, who was born in Australia in 1931, will live forever. His unusual relationship with a crew of very talented, able children — pull them close in business matters and then humiliate them — is artfully described in the book, as is his somewhat henpecked relationship with his third wife, who reads his e-mail messages after business hours because he doesn’t use a computer.

Should I/we/you feel dirty for enjoying a little quality time with a man who believes that giving the impression of morals is better than actually having them and whose atavistic corporate impulses are put to contemporary, acquisitive ends? Probably not. Many before us have covered their eyes and waited for Rupert Murdoch to go away. Rupert Murdoch does not go away.

shaped

Shaped for the first time ever on my home broadband and hating it (thanks Internode!). Much sympathy for Ben Barren, for whom it seems to be a permanent condition.

Internet is still usable - probably still quicker than dial-up - but there won't be any streaming going on in my house until the month ticks over.

Murdoch miscellanea

Cruden Farm last Sunday - looking beautiful in early Summer ... a picnic by the lake was a pretty good way to spend a Sunday lunchtime. And Dame Elisabeth, Australia's only true royalty, was there signing autographs and generally spreading good cheer.

Just picked up a copy of The Man Who Owns the News, the new Michael Wolff biography of Rupert Murdoch. A Rupert biography by the author of Burn Rate - I'm expecting good things - and a very different tone to the 1997 Shawcross biography and to Chenoweth's Virtual Murdoch from early in the millenia.

DFW Rolling Stone article

Excellent (and very sad) article by David Lipsky in Rolling Stone - The Lost Years and Last Days of David Foster Wallace.

The first few paragraphs are reproduced below - but I encourage you to read the full article.

He was six-feet-two, and on a good day he weighed 200 pounds. He wore granny glasses with a head scarf, points knotted at the back, a look that was both pirate-like and housewife-ish. He always wore his hair long. He had dark eyes, soft voice, caveman chin, a lovely, peak-lipped mouth that was his best feature. He walked with an ex-athlete's saunter, a roll from the heels, as if anything physical was a pleasure. David Foster Wallace worked surprising turns on nearly everything: novels, journalism, vacation. His life was an information hunt, collecting hows and whys. "I received 500,000 discrete bits of information today," he once said, "of which maybe 25 are important. My job is to make some sense of it." He wanted to write "stuff about what it feels like to live. Instead of being a relief from what it feels like to live." Readers curled up in the nooks and clearings of his style: his comedy, his brilliance, his humaneness.

His life was a map that ends at the wrong destination. Wallace was an A student through high school, he played football, he played tennis, he wrote a philosophy thesis and a novel before he graduated from Amherst, he went to writing school, published the novel, made a city of squalling, bruising, kneecapping editors and writers fall moony-eyed in love with him. He published a thousand-page novel, received the only award you get in the nation for being a genius, wrote essays providing the best feel anywhere of what it means to be alive in the contemporary world, accepted a special chair at California's Pomona College to teach writing, married, published another book and, last month, hanged himself at age 46.

"The one thing that really should be said about David Foster Wallace is that this was a once-in-a-century talent," says his friend and former editor Colin Harrison. "We may never see a guy like this again in our lifetimes — that I will shout out. He was like a comet flying by at ground level."

His 1996 novel, Infinite Jest, was Bible-size and spawned books of interpretation and commentary, like Understanding David Foster Wallace — a book his friends might have tried to write and would have lined up to buy. He was clinically depressed for decades, information he limited to family and his closest friends. "I don't think that he ever lost the feeling that there was something shameful about this," his father says. "His instinct was to hide it."

It seems clearer than ever that DFW put a huge amount of himself into Infinite Jest - and completely unsurprising that he did not complete another novel.

Excellent casting

From Variety

Tiffani Thiessen

Tiffani Thiessen ("Beverly Hills, 90210") has been cast as an accountant in USA Network pilot "White Collar." Her recent credits include "What About Brian" and "Good Morning, Miami."

More dfw + death in the kimberley

see BB at tumblr. See some guy. there's so much out there on the web about the sad news.

See below from today's The Age
In July M and I were on a helicopter operated by the same company, in the same location. They seemed very safety conscious. Scary. And sad.

Four die in Kimberley helicopter crash

• September 15, 2008 - 7:04AM

A male pilot and three young women are dead after a helicopter crashed in Western Australia's north yesterday, sparking a one-kilometre-long bushfire.

The tourist flight ended in tragedy when the aircraft, operated by Slingair Heliwork, crashed on level ground just before 1pm (WST) and burst into flames.

The three female passengers, aged between 19 and 20, and the 40-year-old male pilot died when the chopper went down 12 km from the Bellburn air strip in the Purnululu (Bungle Bungle) National Park.

The crash sparked a fire that grew into a blaze with a one-kilometre front, which park rangers have been trying to control into the night.

Police say two other helicopters flying in the area raised the alarm after they saw smoke and were unable to make radio contact with the downed chopper.

"It is not known at this stage whether there was any mayday call or any reason for the crash," a police spokesman said.

Slingair Heliwork, which operated the helicopter, has not been available for comment.

Its fleet of 50 aircraft are used for transport and scenic flights in the region, famous for its spectacular natural beauty.

Police and air safety investigators were at the scene and were being helped by Purnululu rangers.

Forensic investigators could not reach the area before nightfall, requiring that the bodies remain in the wreckage until daylight.

Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) fire duty officer Murray Carter said firefighters were battling the blaze in 40-degree heat but with little wind.

The department has four ground crews with water tankers on the scene but has had to suspend operations until first light.

"We're still hopeful that as the night cools and if things stay steady there will be no further problems with the fire side of things tomorrow," Mr Carter told AAP.

He said it's a difficult area for ground tankers, which is delaying firefighters getting the upper hand.

"We'll just try to get the fire out as quickly as we can."

Bellburn airstrip, where the helicopter went down, is a bush camp in the park, about 55 km by air from the township of Warnum, also known as Turkey Creek.

dfw RIP

The world is a less interesting place - David Foster Wallace is dead.

He was the author of Infinite Jest, a novel that changed the way I saw the world and that inspired me with its raw creativity.

He was the author of brilliant fictional short (and less short) stories: Philosophy and the mirror of nature, ...

He was a phenomenal essayist: Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley, David Lynch Keeps his Head, Host ...

He was funny: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Consider the Lobster, ...

He had greater insight into the male condition than anyone else I've heard or read: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Adult World (I), Adult World (II), A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life, ...

See the LA Times. See Salon. See NYT. See Silicon Alley Insider. See a 1997 interview. See a transcript of his 2005 commencement address at Kenyon.

He can no longer be my favourite living author. I loved his short stories and essays, but was still waiting for the follow up to IJ. It will never come. 46 was far too young.

My words are inadequate.

Blogstats

Blog stats are funny/weird. And very much so at the tail end of the long tail.

Feedburner tells me I've had 1,440 visits in the past 30 days and that I have had 21 subscribers (on average) over that time.
Sitemeter tells me that in August 2008 I had 702 visits, with 81 thus far in September.
Technorati still tells me I'm pretty much irrelevant.

Feedburner also tells me that 758 visitors came via a google search for "Rachael Taylor" (ie the Aussie actress who's girl #2 in Transformers).

Nice to know people appreciate my political insights and miscellaneous rants.

Google just totally dominates. I know that's trite but it is still true. Well over 90% of visits to my blog, it appears, are derived from google searches. Well well over 90%.

From Feedburner site analysis:

Top Search Engines

Search Engine	visits	Trend
Google Image Search	991	+325%
Google Search	84	-43%
AOL Search	5	+67%
Google BlogSearch	3	+200%
Yahoo Search	1	-90%

Cruden Farm

M and I visited the Garden Open Day at Cruden Farm in Langwarrin last weekend.

Cruden Farm was bought in 1928 by Sir Keith Murdoch for his wife, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. She still lives there and has nurtured a beautiful garden. Much of the garden was still asleep for winter last weekend, but there were beautiful daffodils by the lake. I think M and I single-handedly brought the average age down by decades. But I didn't particularly care.

Given my fascination/obsession with Rupert, it was fascinating to walk the paths trod by the Murdochs over the decades.

The origins of the garden date back to the late 1920’s when Keith Murdoch bought the farm for his new wife, Elisabeth as a wedding present. He suggested that they get the most notable of contemporary garden designers to redesign the garden. It then existed as a cottage with a small suburban garden containing garden beds that surrounded the house. It was Dame Elisabeth’s first garden, which she adored, and from then on they continued to develop it. Elisabeth was only 19, and her husband Keith Murdoch was a perfectionist and thought that they should have the most expert advice, so they called in Edna Walling. She was pioneer of landscape gardening in Australia and very gifted, but was not easy to work with and did not consult Elisabeth, much to her frustration.

...

Until recent years, Dame Elisabeth was intimately involved in the garden doing practical tasks like the planting, but perhaps her greatest achievement has been the creation of a beautiful lake in a parkland setting, which has become a habitat for the local wildlife, where willows grow and bulbs have naturalised to give a strong visual impact to the area. She had always wanted to have a body of water in the garden because she felt that water was an element that the garden needed to complete the landscape design. Observing water runoff coming into the property and flowing out of the paddocks again, confirmed her idea that it could be captured and saved and used to great effect to make the garden so much more beautiful. She confirmed this by getting an overview of the property from a helicopter, where she could see that this element was lacking in the landscape and that a lake would complete the circle of the garden.