bottom-line + finishing-line = headline

bLOGOS/HA HA + Olympics = many late nights

All is matrix detail. Just now on the radio this social anarchy /chemical alchemy / punny poetry : 

The crowd's gone berserk -
Da Silva wins the Gold for Brasil.

Thiago Braz da Silva Wins GOLD for Brasil : Olympic RECORD 6.03m

Muybridge in the slo mo 

Memories in the hurdles . . .

Fifty years ago, October 1966, your correspondent in 100yd hurdles final at Olympic Park, Melbourne - photo Bernard Higgins

Malevich in the costumes 

and on and on . . .


Usain Bolt wins the 100m at 2016 Rio Olympics in 9.81 sec

TAR : they're lining up . . .

Kasimir Malevich, The Sportsmen, 1928-30 (Russian State Museum, 
St Petersburg). Photographed at Tate Modern by Guy Bell, 2015.
Theatre of the Actors of Regard

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LOGOS ON AIR

bL/HA staff are dedicated wireless listeners. Most of us have been so for a long time. From serials and music to The Goons (highpoint!) and matters serious. Wireless World meets Art, even : and the winners of our 'Draw Willie the Wireless Bird' competition are...
         

               
We listen to lots of Radio National here. Regretfully, there's one RN show we can't endure - Books and Arts.

When it comes to a visual arts assignment, the gushing inadequacy of the show's presenter has us mouthing "Chagrin!". Listen to him this morning ( click here to listen ), not so much interviewing or engaging as asking a basic research questionaire of the knowledgeable curators of Howard Arkley (and friends), the exhibition at TarraWarra Museum of Art that he has not seen.

MC : And how did he die?  

VL :  It was an accidental overdose and it was very tragic because he had just come back from representing Australia at the Venice Biennale, in the Australia pavilion. 

MC : Oh, that's right, he represented Australia, I'd forgotten that. The Venice Biennale. 

VL : He'd reached the absolute heights in his career and yes it was just one of those terribly tragic stories. He was only 48 years old. 

MC : ...and the drugs got the better of him. Hmmm, that's a sad ending. 

MC : Well, thank you so much for coming in. I feel quite exhilarated, you know. I've been looking at Howard Arkley overnight, and watched the little YouTube video on how to do airbrush painting - learned something. So, I'm looking forward to seeing the show. Thank you so much for coming in. It's been lovely to meet you both.

Other RN programs have knowledgeable or well informed, genuinely interested presenters - The Music Show (Andrew Ford); The Science Show (Robyn Williams); The Spirit of Things (Rachael Kohn); The Philosopher's Zone (Joe Gelonesi); Health Report (Dr Norman Swan) and many more. Fran Kelly, Geraldine Doogue, Mark Colvin. Why can't the national visual arts audience also be treated with proper RN seriousness?


        

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Judging a cover by its cover : continued

Stop the presses, everyone! Gerald's on the radio.

What a pleasure it was this morning to listen to Gerald Murnane's every thoughtful word.

Last month we posted some review links (here) when his latest book A Million Windows was published. We also made mention at that time about the book's covers. Covers, plural. So it was of interest to hear Gerald comment about the cover at the start of this morning's interview.

.  .  .  .

Michael Cathcart : Some music there by Brian Eno, which seems a nice way to set the scene for our  next discussion. 

The reviewers think the world of the Australian writer Gerald Murnane. One calls him a genius, a writer widely considered to be the next Australian winner of the Nobel.  Peter Craven, who is one of our best literary critics, says 'No living Australian writer has higher claims to permanence  or a richer sense of distinction'. And a bloke called Blair Mahoney, who's a reviewer on Goodreads, just says that 'Gerald Murnane's a treasure'.

He's 75. He's here with his eleventh book. It's called A Million Windows, which comes from a line by the American writer Henry James : 'The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million'.

Well, it's a strange and dreamlike book about a writer who is constantly reflecting on the act of story telling even as he tells us a story. 

Gerald, good morning. Welcome to the show.

Gerald Murnane : Thank you, Michael.

Michael Cathcart : Nice to have you here. Congratulations. It's a lovely book. It's actually a lovely book to handle. Did you feel that when it arrived? It just had this lovely weight to it.

Gerald Murnane : Everybody praises the cover. I had a different cover in mind, but that doesn't matter.

Michael Cathcart : Publishers are like that. They say, mate... the cover is our call, I know.

to listen to the full interview click here
'Books and Arts Daily', ABC.RN
31 July 2014

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Things have turned around a bit

     

Noted this morning in Andrew Stephens'

'Visual Arts: A feast for the eyes' (The Age) :
           
Monash University Museum of Art :

It doesn't sound exciting - concrete - but curators at MUMA are looking at this material through the prism of World War I in an international group exhibition examining ''our propensity to memorialise'' by exploring the monumentality of concrete and the politics of memory - how we erase and shift different parts of history. 

Monash is also mounting an ambitious project called Art as a Verb: How to Do Things with Art, whose starting point is the concept of art as action, drawing on the rich history of conceptualism and minimalism, as well as Fluxus and performance art.

Concrete, May 3-July 5
Art as a Verb, October 3-December 13

   

      

Noted this afternoon during the ABC Radio cricket commentary (Sydney Ashes Test_Australia vs England_Day 2), this sequence of observations from Jim Maxwell (ABC cricket commentator for 40 years) in conversation with Kerry "Skull" O'Keefe (with this match, concluding 13 fun-filled years as an astute ABC cricket commentator). 

     
JM : that 8 of the 11 in the present English side are left-handed batsmen

KO'K : that 5 of the 11 in the present English side have surnames starting with B
KO'K : that 3 of the 5 in the present English side with surnames starting with B are left-handers

JM : "Things have turned around a bit since there were 3 verbs at the top of the order."

JM and KO'K : "Cook... Root... "

We are following the cricket, listening to the radio with the TV sound turned down. Frequent images of the Theatre of the Actors of Regard at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Media self-love finds the 400 Richie Benaud meta-commentators irresistible. They verb!

      

From our broadcasting box you can't see any grass at all. It is simply a carpet of humanity.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/richiebena308152.html#6mIDT4apfk2PQGGV.9        

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Diogenes still looking...

     

A few days ago we caught up with Diogenes still looking for an honest man.

We followed him from Washington and a meeting there with the US Press Gang ...

          

 click image to enlarge                                 collection: bLOGOS/HA HA

             
... to Sydney, to observe a gathering of Rupert Murdoch and his attendants.

This was not Diogenes first visit to Oz. 

He was here in July 1974 when the Sydney Press pissed-off Sinatra with an article about his mafia connections and another on the women in his life, this latter headlined : 'Sinatra's molls'.

Diogenes was in the stalls of the Theatre of the Actors of Regard at Festival Hall, Melbourne a few days later when Sinatra hit back.

The verbal bombshell heard around the world was about to drop.
         

Referring to Australia's journalists, he said: "They keep chasing after us. We have to run all day long. They're parasites who take everything and give nothing. And as for the broads who work for the press, they're the hookers of the press. I might offer them a buck and a half I'm not sure."
    

Next morning the Australian Journalists' Association demanded that Sinatra apologise for his remarks and Hawke quickly became involved.
       

By noon it was announced on Melbourne radio that airport workers would refuse to refuel Sinatra's private jet. And it kept on snowballing.

Sun-Herald, The seige of Sinatra, 22 April 2002 

And was still here a few weeks later when Lou Reed arrived. 

Again, the self-regarding press turned out to impress this latest blow-in with their erudition and virtue. Diogenes with his light stood with the fans at the back of the room.

Transcript of interview
Sydney Airport, 14 August 1974

Press : You said a little while ago that you sing mainly about drugs. Is that right?

Lou Reed : Sometimes

Press : Why do you do this?

Lou Reed : Cos I think the Government's plotting against me.

Press : Why do you say that?

(laughter)

Press : You like singing about drugs : is this because you like taking drugs yourself?

Lou Reed : No, cos I can't carry when I go through customs, I  figure somebody in the audience...

Press :Were you searched by Customs Men for drugs?

Lou Reed : Oh, no, because I don't take them?

Press : No drugs at all?

Lou Reed : uh uh

Press : and yet you sing about them...

Lou Reed: I'm high on life

Press : You want people to take drugs themselves : is this perhaps why you sing about drugs

Lou Reed : Oh yeah. I want them to take drugs

Press : Why is this?

Lou Reed : Cos it's better than Monopoly.

Press : Why do you think your music is so popular, Lou? 
Lou Reed : I didn't know it was popular.

Press : You've got two sell-outs in Sydney before you've even come here, so it is popular apparently.

Lou Reed : I didn't know that.

Press : Lou, do you think it's a decadent society we're living in?

Lou Reed : No.

Press : Would you describe yourself as a decadent person?

Lou Reed : No.

Press : How would you describe yourself?

Lou Reed : Average.

Press : It's said in your release that we were given this morning that you like lying to the Press. Why is this? and are you doing it now?

Lou Reed : I didn't say that; the release did.
Press : is it true?
Lou Reed : No
Press : Is your anti-social behavior just part of your show business gimmick?
Lou Reed : Anti-social behavior? What's that?
Press : You seem very withdrawn.
Lou Reed : Introverted, you mean?
Press : Lou, you're a man of few words. Why is this?
Lou Reed : I don't have anything to say.
Press : Do you like meeting people, talking to people?
Lou Reed : Some.

Press : Do you like talking to us?

Lou Reed : I don't know you.
Press : Do you like press interviews in general?
Lou Reed : No.
Press : You shun publicity?
Lou Reed : No.
Press : Do you tend to keep to yourself?
Lou Reed : No.
Press : Why are you attending this one, Lou.
Lou Reed : They told me to come in here.
Press : It's just part of show business, is it?
Lou Reed : I'm not in show business.
Press : Not in the entertainment game?
Lou Reed : The entertainment game? No.
Press : Do you do everything people tell you to?
Lou Reed : Sometimes.
Press : What message is it that you're trying tpo get across?
Lou Reed : I don't have one.
Press : Most singers do. They usually sing about something and have some kind of way of getting through to the people.
Lou Reed : Like who?
Press : Well, most singers.
Lou Reed : Like who?
Press : Well, I ...
Press : Would it be right to call your music 'Gutter Rock'?
Lou Reed : Gutter Rock? oh yeah.
Press : It's been called Underground Rock and Roll...
Press : Andy Warhol, Lou. Are you still friends with him?
Lou Reed : Oh yeah.
Press : Has he been very important in your life? Did he make a big difference to you?
Lou Reed : Oh, he's everything. Still is.

Press : Lou , you sing a lot about transvestites and sado-masochism: how would you describe yourself
IN THE LIGHT OF THESE SONGS?

Lou Reed : What does that have to do with me?

Press : Well, could I put it bluntly, and pardon the question : Are you a transvestite or a homosexual?

Lou Reed : Sometimes.

Press : Which one?

Lou Reed : I don't know. What's the difference?
Press : Why do you like describing yourself... as this; why do you think you fit into this type of person?
Lou Reed : It's something to do.
Press : Is life so boring forv you then?
Lou Reed : No.

Press : What do you like most in life?Lou Reed : Everything.

Press : Is there any things you like better than others?

Lou Reed : No

Press : Where do you spend your money?

Lou Reed : On drugs.

Press : For other People?

Lou Reed : Right.

Press : It's been said that in your early days you were quite a wild performer. Is it true, for instance, that you attacked your fans in England and were arrested for obscenity on stage?

Lou Reed : No.

Press : This is again false publicity?

Lou Reed : (nods)

Press : Well, who writes these things about you if they're not true?

Lou Reed : Journalists.

(laughter)

Press : And is this perhaps why you don't like journalists?

Lou Reed : Oh, I love journalists.


VALE LOU REED

2 March 1942 - 27 October 2013


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No More Slogans! No More Slogans! No More Slogans! No More Slogans! No More Slogans! No More Slogans! No More Slogans! No more Three Word Slogans!

      

Yesterday, over lunch, we were watching the Alan Saunders Memorial Lecture on ABC 24. 

(Alan Saunders died in June 2012. For many years, he presented The Philosopher's Zone on ABC Radio National.)

Well into the lecture, it stops mid-sentence...

as an excited ABC24 presenter tells us "We are just breaking into that program because Kevin Rudd has left Brisbane and is currently in the air, heading to Canberra...". 

Election Fever! 

They never did return us to the philosopher. Before his abrupt dismissal, Simon Blackburn had already noted the general lowering of regard for the role and contribution of philosophy. Below science... below politics... below entertainment...

In place of the lecture, we were now shown LIVE! imagery of the closed gates of the Governor General's residence at Yarralumla. Homage to Andy Warhol. Intermittently, we were also shown LIVE! images of the TV crews who were filming the closed gates of the Governor General's residence at Yarralumla. All this as back at the studio the political journalists wet themselves in anticipatory speculation.

Anything yet? 

Nothing yet.

Several hours later we turn the telly on again. Now, in place of the lecture, LIVE! images of a lectern in front of a door at the Governor General's residence at Yarralumla.

After 15 minutes of this LIVE! still-life, Kevin Rudd appeared and announced what the journalists had already told us would be announced: an election on September 7.

Being grumpy, we had the sound off/spectacle on. A screen sub-caption quoted the politician :

"Three word slogans

one two three 

don't solve complex problems

one two three

they never have

one two three

they never will."

one two three

 K. Rudd : Count my lips : No More Slogans!

Earlier, the cut-down philosopher had broached the pecking order of power and influence: science and politics above philosophy...  Whither the Arts?

Yesterday was a Sunday. 

On Sunday nights, when most have surely gone to bed, the ABC presents/ranks it's best Arts programs.

Sunday Arts Up Late is ABC Arts weekly arts documentary showcase on ABC1 hosted by highly regarded playwright and director Wesley Enoch. Every week, Sunday Arts Up Late features high end, cutting edge arts content from Australia and around the world including feature-length documentaries, short run series and one off specials.

Last night it was Soundtrack for a Revolution (a history of the 1960s Civil Rights struggle in the United States, and the music associated with that) ending at 11.45pm; and Trumbo (about Dalton Trumbo, an oscar-winning screenwriter who was blacklisted and jailed during the period of McCarthyism in the US) ending at 1.20am. Such a cynical contempt for the ABC arts audience. Excellent programs, but who can watch them late on a Sunday? And they are not available on iView. So why do they bother at all? Perhaps it looks good on some Arts stats chart when the ABC reports to the politicians in Canberra.

Go figure!

The thinking of the ABC : this image is from the web-page for the Alan Saunders Memorial Lecture

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'Blowers' sets the scene

     

The Ashes

England versus Australia

Day one at Lords, 20 minutes into the opening session.

On the radio, Henry 'Blowers' Blofeld is describing the scene.

"One or two pigeons cavorting away over there...". 
     
This is standard opening fare for Henry, and much appreciated by his legion of fans.

    

        

His eye now in, he fixes on the white chalk marks of the bowlers' run-ups at either end of the wicket.  

"It's like a crossword puzzle that had, perhaps, a drink too much." 

           

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 Admirer with banner at Headingley, Leeds, 8 August 1996

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semioLOGOS/HA HA

    
Yesterday morning, we turned on the office radio to hear excited discussion about the merits or otherwise of a photo in the Australian Women's Weekly that pictures Julia Gillard knitting. Orgy of the semiologists (continued)...
     

     

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A favorite John Cage anecdote came to mind. We read it aloud, replacing Jean Erdman with Julia Gillard :

"Alan Watts gave a party that started in the afternoon, New Year’s Eve, and lasted through the night and the following day. Except for about four hours which we spent napping we were never without food or drink. Alan Watts lived near Millbrook. His cooking was not only excellent but elaborate. There was, for instance, I forget just when, a meat pie in the shape of a large loaf of bread. Truffles ran through the meat, which had been wrapped first in crepes and then in the crust, in which had been inscribed in Sanskrit “Om.” Joseph Campbell, Jean Erdman, Mrs. Coomaraswamy, and I were the guests. Jean Erdman spent most of the time knitting. Alan Watts, Mrs. Coomaraswamy, and Joseph Campbell conversed brilliantly about the Orient, its mythologies, its arts, and its philosophies. Joseph Campbell was concerned at that time about the illustration of his Zimmer book, Philosophies of India. He was anxious to find a picture which would include certain and several symbols, and though he had searched his own library and several public ones, he was still looking for the right picture.

I said, “Why don’t you use the one in Jean Erdman’s knitting book?” Joseph Campbell laughed because he knew I hadn’t even seen the picture.

Mrs. Coomaraswamy said, “Let me look at it.” Jean Erdman stopped knitting and gave her the book. Mrs. Coomaraswamy began interpreting the picture, which was of a girl in a sweater standing in a landscape. Everything, it turned out, referred precisely to the subjects with which Joseph Campbell was concerned, including the number in the upper right-hand corner."

John Cage,
Indeterminacy      

        

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WE COME NOT TO BURY MEDIA

.

BUT TO PRAISE COLVINIUS

   

It was a black tie and evening gown affair in the office of bLOGOS/HA HA last night when past and present staff gathered around the telly to honour one of our battler inspirations Mark Colvin aka  Colvinius (Twitter) as he delivered the 2012 Andrew Ollie Lecture.

We were not disappointed. 

If you have any interest in the past present future of journalism(s), do yourself a serious favour and listen to or read the transcript of Mark Colvin's lecture on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for journalism : HERE
  

Mark Colvin
@Colvinius
Presenter of PM & Friday Late, ABC Radio.
Lifetime Lance-Corporal in the Awkward Squad.

   

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NGV Recidivism

.

This morning a flurry of emails from free pencil movement friends about a letter in today's The Age, which Red Symons then discussed with his listeners on ABC 774 (Melbourne).

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Everything I have looked at

.

We listened to Parliament today, to the Maiden Speech of the newly appointed senator Bob Carr.

One of our senior staff has been an on-and-off listener to federal Parliament since 1965. He recalls hearing Barry Jones' Maiden Speech in 1977; it has stayed with him that Barry quoted this from John Donne :

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."

That's from Donne's Mediation XVII (Devotions upon Emergent Occasions). Less well known is what directly follows it :

"Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security."

. . . .

The newly sworn senator opened with deprecating good humour.

Senator BOB CARR (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs) (17:00): Mr President, I am advised by the Parliamentary Library that I am Senator number 548. All those senators, of course, are household names, their likenesses hanging like relics on the walls of a thousand schools, their names tripping to the tongue of a grateful nation and their public service celebrated in every corner of Australia. But you might suspect I jest!

Just as our staff member recalls the 1977 broadcast of Barry Jones' maiden speech (such an antiquaint expression), Carr referred to a similar experience of his own:

A friend of mine, John Wheeldon, served in this Senate - the late John Wheeldon, who represented Western Australia in this Senate. I remember listening to the radio as a student and hearing his maiden speech in the Senate in 1965 when he was opposing waterfront legislation introduced by the Menzies government.

In the guts of his address, deadly serious, he said :

"Everything I have looked at in all those years has strengthened my belief that this is the truth."

If you're interested to know what Bob Carr was referring to, read the Hansard transcript of his speech here.

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Authenticity when viewing art...

.

We do miss listening to The Book Show (ABC Radio National) with Ramona Koval and her knowledgeable team. What a loss! (Here's the link to Don Watson's comments about this at The Monthly.)

In place of The Book Show is an arts mix, Books and Arts Daily.

One of yesterday's items was right up our street :

NEW STUDY SAYS THE WAY WE VIEW ART IS IRRATIONAL

Imagine this. There's a picture you love. Suppose it's a Picasso. Or a Sidney Nolan. You just love it. Then one day an expert tells you that it's a copy. Or a fake. How do you react? What happens inside the wiring of your brain?

Martin Kemp is professor emeritus in Art History from Oxford University and a leading expert on the Italian Renaissance, particularly the work of Leonardo do Vinci. Telling authentic works from copies is his bread and butter. Now he's got together with a couple of neuro scientists to explore this fascinating question about how our brains respond to fakes and the genuine article.

Click here for that program

The article discussed, as listed at Radio National :

Title Authenticity when viewing art
Author Martin J Kemp et al
Publisher Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 28 November, 2011

The blue link above will take you to the abstract. From there you can link to the original research article. It's full poetic title is :

Human cortical activity evoked by the assignment of authenticity when viewing works of art

Mengfei Huang1†, Holly Bridge2†,
Martin J. Kemp3 and Andrew J. Parker1*
1 Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
2 Department of Clinical Neurology, FMRIB Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
3 Trinity College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
† Mengfei Huang and Holly Bridge Joint first authors.

"The expertise of others is a major social influence on our everyday decisions and actions. Many viewers of art, whether expert or naïve, are convinced that the full esthetic appreciation of an artwork depends upon the assurance that the work is genuine rather than fake. Rembrandt portraits provide an interesting image set for testing this idea, as there is a large number of them and recent scholarship has determined that quite a few fakes and copies exist. Use of this image set allowed us to separate the brain’s response to images of genuine and fake pictures from the brain’s response to external advice about the authenticity of the paintings....


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bLOGOS/HA HA wonders if the core of the reality-instability problem might lie in the persistence of our self-cherishing integrity delusion; in our general refusal to wholly appreciate and practise a view that is not based on a notion of fixity and singularity.

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