To Read

I decided not to go to the Tom Cho book launch at Planet Books tonight. This may be a decision I regret, but I've never been to a book launch before and I was too scared to go by myself. What if everyone there knew each other, and it was just like an industry catch-up? What kind of behaviour was expected of me if I attended? In short, I'm a big fat chicken who might never experience anything new, if I keep this kind of logic up.

Anyway, after way, way too long I finally finished reading A Confederacy of Dunces- The Pulitzer Prize winning, much loved book which had written the cover:

'Every reviewer has loved it. And for once, everyone is right.'
-Rolling Stone

And at the risk of sounding stupid I have to say: I didn't get it. In fact, I came very close to hating it. It made me angry, having to read about an obese, flatulent man's masturbatory habits, knowing they've built a goddamn statue of this guy in New Orleans. It annoys me that I didn't enjoy it, knowing so many other people did and I can't work out why I found it such a chore to turn the pages. It doesn't help when you really hate the main character. I guess you've got to feel some kind of sympathy for a character to enjoy reading about their adventures, but I think what perhaps was supposed to be amusing about him - his misguided attempts at inciting political movements for all the wrong reasons, his holier than thou attitude even though he couldn't hold down a job etc. etc. - I just found super irritating. Maybe if I hadn't had such high expectations this wouldn't have happened. I don't know. Someone please explain.

One of the main reasons I chose to read that book was because of the comparisons (which I can understand) between that and A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz which I love, love, loved. I hadn't laughed out loud so many times while reading for so long. But since the the Confederacy of Dunces Disaster I've decided to give up on laughing for a while. So now, after a Saturday night of perusing bookshelves (I think in a future entry I'm going to have to put up my top five bookstores in Perth) I'm reading The Boat by Nam Le. So far I've read about ten pages and have felt no burning hatred towards any of the characters.

Another thing I realised while book shopping was that I think I actually haven't read Murakami's The Elephant Vanishes. I thought I'd read most of his books that had been translated into English, but that one seems to have escaped my grasp so far. Not for long. It's going on my List of Books to Read. Also on this list, (apart from Look Who's Morphing which I think was kind of implied by the first paragraph of this entry) I'm thinking about tackling Rushdie's Midnight's Children, even though I could barely get fifty pages into The Satanic Versus. At least the first page of Midnight's Children makes sense. The first page also reminded me of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which conjured up images of Brad Pitt, which, I hate to say, instilled in me positive feelings towards the book :P

If anyone is actually reading this and has read any of the books on my list of wants to suggest something new, let me know.

Post Script (12/06/09)
Well, I think I've redeemed my non-attendance-of-booklaunches slightly by attending Cottonmouth last night. I was a bit anxious about how the night would turn out, since Daniel came along and I've made him suffer through a terrible French film before (although I may possibly have redeemed myself on that as well, since the next film we saw was Let The Right One In, which I feel might almost make my list of all time favourite films... if I ever had to write one) but it actually turned out to be a winner. It was
a) obviously where all the lovely freaks and geeks of Perth have been hiding, and it made me feel nostalgic to see so many arts students in one room
b) the kind of night where even the terrible performances were funny, and therefore of value and
c) possibly where Kate from Masterchef was last night. I swear it was her!

The Horror

I recently caught someone looking up something inappropriate in a search engine on a computer at a location I will not disclose. I won't go into any more detail than that, because for the most part in order to get on with every day life I have had to put the memory of it out of my mind as best I can. But I think this is another example of how search engines are a window to the soul of humanity. I love it how people ask search engines direct questions, as if google is a connection to some higher being. Most of what this reveals about people is horrifying.
SO, it came to my attention that some of my friends were not aware of the AOL logs that were accidentally made public a few years ago. If you're prepared to lose all faith in humanity, read on for Something Awful's Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the worst of 3 months of internet searching. Definitely the most frightening and hilarious stuff I have ever seen in my life.

High Rotation

I'm exhausted after a weekend of staying up late, drinking modified 'fruit tingles', sleeping on the beach (actually a really beautiful beach, pity I thought I'd forgotten my camera) and watching boys dig cars out of the sand and while going to bed early would be the obvious remedy, youtube offers irresistible distractions.

I know we've all seen it before, but I love this Lionel Richie video - what were the producers of this thinking? Stalking blind women and heavy breathing on the other end of their telephone line may not be as romantic as they had intended, but it sure is entertaining. "Hello!" has never been so poetic.



And I've always loved the Midnight Juggernauts remix of this song, but only recently heard the original. This clip makes me smile, it has some kind of absurd Frank Bennett/Richard Cheese vibe to it. I dig.



And Sebastian Tellier is a talented man, because he also did the following song, which doesn't have any of those supermarket musak elements, but is a song I've never become sick of. The clip reminds me a lot of The Smashing Pumpkins' 1979... Metronomy also do a great remix of this song.



James comes home tomorrow, which is exciting. I'm not sure how this being-away-for-half-the-year thing is going to pan out. I could get used to living alone (with Anne), or living with James but trying to get used to both interchangeably feels bizarre.

Very much looking forward to seeing people in Melbourne this weekend, as I mentioned before, although almost feel like it's going to be some kind of hideous teaser since I'll just have to say goodbye to everyone again after 72 hours.

I finished reading Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Obviously the nature of the book is different from his others, and I didn't enjoy nearly as much. It was bizarre hearing him talk about himself, when I've just pieced together how I imagine him to be from so many of the reoccuring characters in his books. A lot what I had guessed what right - he loves jazz, is somewhat socially awkward but he also seems so much warmer than any of his slightly aloof male protagonists.
I really feel like he's a typical Japanese person when he downplays his ability to run, yet continues to call himself a 'runner'. I always wonder at what point a hobby turns into a defining characteristic. When does someone go from just mucking around playing power chords and tabs downloaded from the internet to being a 'guitarist'?
When I started riding my bike to work everyday, I felt worlds apart from the assholes who rang their bells at me and overtook me down Swanston St, but as I grew more and more fond of riding I wondered if riding a bike an hour a day through rain or sunshine didn't make me a 'cyclist'. I don't dress up in skintight clothing and get up early on a Saturday morning (I'm not sure if any hobby in the world could make me do that), but it's my chosen form of transport and one of the highlights of my day. I don't ride to work much anymore, but when I do I always feel like it's the closest thing to flying besides skiing and... actually flying.

OK! In the top ten things I must do next week is actually put some photos up on this thing, and go some way to fulfilling my promise to Steph to start a photo diary.
Note: I rarely achieve anything on my list, and always achieve a whole lot of other shit.

dobu nesumi... mitaiiii

I have been meaning to start this for a long time. Since I left Melbourne.I guess it's a combination of being lazy and not feeling very creative that's stopped me from starting a life as a blogger. I guess if I wait around until I feel creative this thing will never get started, since the grey mush that I feel my brain has turned into rarely has bolts of inspiration anymore. But while I was walking home from work today, listening to Puffy AmiYumi, I remembered the song that this blog was named after and felt egotistical enough that I thought maybe it's time to impose my thoughts onto whoever dares to read... again.



Ah man, that's a great song.

Anyway, I was going to start with our whole journey to Perth etc., but I really can't be stuffed right now. So here are some things I am looking forward to when we go back to Melbourne:

- seeing friends and family (obvious, but should be mentioned)
- having coffee made by Liz at Eurodore in Port Melbourne
- having some sickly sweet Castro's coffee (accompanied by Mr. Lobov)
- maybe dropping in on Joe at Switchboard and getting him to make me some coffee
- doing things on a Sunday
- going out in jeans and thongs and not feeling like a social outcast

What I would really love is some of this:



(not actually the MSTRKRFT show i was at, but we were well and truly involved in the next video)

or this:



In other words, some really trashy good times that don't involve being confronted by a wall of skinny girls in teeensy tiny dresses. Honestly, if anyone thought Prince was bad, Perth would blow their minds. It makes me feel like an old woman, tutting about how much time they must spend getting ready and how much precious cashola they must be spending on their threads. It's a shame they're not even nice threads. And what's the shamest is that now I feel as if maybe I should buy some just to fit in.

Argh, I can't even work out how to change the font in this blog. Pathetic.

Week 2: machine

Culture is not neurtal: whom does it serve?
National cultural screen productions and their address of the local within a global commodity industry context.

The belief in an objective truth and reality is particularly pervasive when it comes to the news media, despite a long history of efforts to expose the machines which operate in the production of news, and the fact that video production ‘necessarily entails editing, cutting and so transforming and even deforming’1. The importance and emphasis placed on the perception of truth is illustrated when Al Jazeera English asked for youtube video feedback shortly after they began broadcasting.





This demonstrates the fact that the ideologies and values that create truth are seen as universal and unproblematic to many people. In the case of the first video response, ‘truth’ is seen to be an apparently lack of bias, or the representation of a variety of different points of views and reporting of events that may not have received coverage in the US for political or commercial reasons. Obviously political and commercial considerations in decision making at Al Jazeera have been rendered invisible to this viewer.

Stations such as Al Jazeera and CNN arguably operate to not only to serve slightly different markets, but also under different paradigms when it comes to the placing of local and global, and this effects more than just the aesthetic of their broadcasting.

In Acts of Memory: Topolitics and Teletechnology Jacques Derrida talked about ‘a technology that displaces places: the border is no longer the border, images are coming and going through customs, the link between the political and the local, the topolitical, is as it were dislocated.’2 This is, in part, due to an increase in accessibility of media from a variety of sources, that has tended to de-territorialise viewers’ interests and politics. Certain news media seem to have embraced this fluidity of borders and interests, such as SBS World News Australia’s use of the tagline “News from home, if you live in the world,” which without thinking about news media in such a context seems to locate ‘home’ at such low resolution as to seem nonsensical.



What stands out on first viewing of the launch of Al Jazeera English is the heterogeneity of reporters, suggesting fluency not only in English and Western cultural practices for broadcasting in English, but fluency in native language and culture. One reporter talks of international conflict being largely a result of people not understanding each other, and Al Jazeera's role in bridging the divide between cultures and civilizations. This is in stark contrast with the way in which CNN presents itself.

"Inside CNN Baghdad"

While Lisa Parks wrote of satellite images of the Bosnian war, the ideas she presented are easily applied to the case of CNN and the war in Iraq, as well as a variety of other global news coverage. There is a very real colonial aesthetic in CNN broadcasting. Western Imperialist notions still seem to ring true in the way in which CNN operates, the outposts of US journalists suggest an Orientalist ideology, where the practice of “othering” is still heavily relied upon in the conception of self. Incomprehensible and unfathomable events overseas need to be mediated through US journalists to be received by the “civilized West”3. The journalist even talks of “the two worlds of the US military and the Iraqi culture.” There are clear distinctions between “We” and “They” situated in a discourse of inclusion and exclusion that demarcates the nation and community.

This kind of attitude is also evident in the following video, although framed as comedy.



Other translations indicate that this conversation was actually about the execution of Saddam Hussein. Although the source is unknown, this video highlights in a crude way a perceived juxtaposition between Arabic, or even just ‘foreign’ culture, and world media under a US cultural hegemony. This also exposes that often techniques such as what Roland Barthes describes as ‘anchoring’ are needed to attach meaning to an image so that is signifies in a certain way. This not only mediates but restricts the meanings which the viewer can assign to an image.

As is also evident from the advertisement at the beginning of the ‘Inside CNN Baghdad’ piece, there are conflicting interests at play as Parks describes war coverage as a “product of military-information-entertainment complex, which is a hodgepodge of conflicting agendas. Commercial broadcasters claim they have the right to profit by televising world events. Citizen-viewers insist they have the right to know about American intervention in the activities of other nation-states. The U.S. military wants to maintain what is called “Information Dominance” by continuing top-secret intelligence activities. These agendas of state intelligence, public knowledge, and corporate profit are constantly (re)negotiated in the kinds of war coverage that appear on American television screens.”4

These theories are significant considering it is impossible to divorce our understanding of events and the world from the media coverage we have been exposed to. Very few people read Hansard to find out what went on in parliament, and instead rely on the media to select what it considers to be significant for our viewing. It is also worth noting that events that are not captured on camera often do not qualify as news.


John Ellis states “As we emerge from [the twentieth century], we can realize that a profound shift has taken place in the way that we perceive the world that exists beyond out immediate experience. We know more and have seen more of this century than the generations of any previous century knew or saw of theirs.”5 However, as pointed out in several of the articles in this week’s readings, the average viewers’ literacy in the creation of video and images is limited. This may be part of the reason the ideas of truth and reality remain important for so many news media consumers.

references:
1. Derrida, Jaques and Bernard Stiegler (2002), ‘Acts of Memory: Topolitics and Teletechnology’, Echographies of Television Cambridge: Polity: p. 60
2. Ibid. p. 57
3. Parks, Lisa (2005), ‘Satellite Witnessing’, Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Televisual Durham and London: Duke University Press, p. 90
4. Ibid. p. 92
5. Ellis, John (2000), ‘Witness: A new Way of Perceiving the World’, Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty London: IB.Tauris: p. 9