tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75023237796362109572024-02-02T16:46:43.822+00:00Chatnoir: A Mumbaikar in MelbourneI travelled the world and then landed in the furthermost corner of it: Australia. This blog is about politics, culture and media as seen from a global-Indian's perspective.globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.comBlogger231125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-78551858226154499172018-01-02T02:27:00.000+00:002018-01-02T02:42:27.455+00:00Come on New Yorker, I expect better<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It was inevitable that any article looking back on 2017’s best Hollywood films would refer to Harvey Weinstein as this <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2017-in-review/the-best-movies-of-2017">New Yorker article</a> does. But what took me by surprise was the leap of logic taken by Richard Brody from there.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Brody dedicates the article to all the men and women who were silenced and had their careers curtailed through Hollywood’s sexual and systemic oppression. And what is true of gender is automatically true of race as far as systemic oppression goes. So he makes a special mention of black women stating that black women in particular have suffered from such oppression.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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As evidence, he presents “One Way or Another: Black Women’s Cinema, 1970–1991” – a repertory of films by Black women filmmakers from 1970 to 1991. He states: “These filmmakers, among the best of the time, responsible for masterworks in their youth, haven’t had the careers that their early work promised—or haven’t had careers at all.” The fact that they didn’t fulfil their early promise is all the evidence Brody provides of the systemic and sexual oppression faced by these women in Hollywood. By simple extension, same’s true of white women and men of colour who have had “slighter” careers as filmmakers, he argues.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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He then goes on it say that this absence of white women, and men and women of colour from Hollywood's ranks is the reason by why Hollywood’s films have become increasingly vapid and superficial. If only they were included more in the ranks of the industry, great depth of art would follow.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Here are a few things I don’t understand.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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If sexual harassment and abuse didn’t keep film actresses from building a body of work, why has it stopped women filmmakers. One can only surmise that many actresses simply played the game, and got the roles in return. It wasn’t right that they had to do that, but either way, sexual harassment by itself didn’t stop women actors from building a body of work. Why didn’t the same phenomenon occur with women film makers?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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I raise this – not because I think sexual harassment is right in any way – but to ask why one section of women continued to produce a body of work and not another, if sexual harassment was equally applicable to both groups and equally debilitating. May be there is an explanation but Brody doesn’t bother asking himself the question.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Second, women not fulfilling their early promise is not just a Hollywood phenomenon. Women across industries tend to thin out with time. It happens because women have children, and to maintain a balance between the demands of a career and of growing children is very hard. Some women manage. Many, many women don’t. This must be harder still for Hollywood filmmakers who have to spend large periods of time away from their families. Even many Hollywood actresses tend to fade out after having children. Filmmaking is a still more stressful, engrossing and all-encompassing exercise.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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If this is true across industries today, it would have been far truer of the period Brody presents as evidence ‘1970 to 1991’. The likelihood that women filmmakers would have entered relationships and had children would be higher than today. It would have also been far likelier, that they would choose to focus on their children than their careers.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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One could argue that this, in itself, is systemic oppression. But this is certainly not the kind of systemic and sexual oppression that Brody is talking about where women filmmakers have been intentionally kept out of power and abused. If it is motherhood that has kept women out of Hollywood’s creative ranks then the problem we are talking about is a societal question, not one limited to systems and sex. Moreover, the question is not limited to women because it cannot be easily decoupled with what is best for our children.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Then there is the question of commerce? Brody doesn’t even mention it once – not once – in any of his rationalisations. The budgets of Hollywood films have bloated beyond recognition in the last thirty years. Such heavy investment would naturally come at the cost of edginess and risk taking. Is it any wonder that black subjects and lives find it harder to come to fruit? Most audiences like to see versions of themselves on screen. Given the massive investments, is it any wonder that executives opt for the lowest common denominator – they choose actors and actresses who are most likely to appeal to the largest demographic of audience. For the US and the markets Hollywood targets that would be white middle class.</div>
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Let’s step away from the US and the race debate there. Let’s look at India, which is the only other country with a privately funded film industry of a size and output that could somewhat compare to Hollywood. Even the educated, well-travelled cosmopolitan Indian class consume far more Bollywood films than Hollywood, despite Hollywood films being technically far superior. The few white actors who have appeared in Bollywood films (yes, they have because Bollywood pays very well) have always been relegated to second leads or villains. That is because Indians – like everyone else – is looking for a version of themselves in the culture they consume. If Nigerian film industry was to truly take off, we would find black Nigerian actors and actresses and subject matters that appeal to black Nigerians dominate the industry, not the lives of other ethnicities who also live in Nigeria.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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This is a problem for minorities every where. Their culture remains on the margins because cultural consumption has a lot to do with finding a personal connection. When items of mass cultural consumption like films are concerned, we have to content with commerce. Casting minorities or making films about their lives means running the risk of your audience going ‘meh… this doesn’t resonate with me’ and walking off. As investments rise, it becomes harder and harder to take that risk.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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But Brody doesn’t at all consider commercial realities in his analysis. Perhaps he thinks that Hollywood executives should do it anyway because it is always easy to ask others to risk their money. If that is the case, perhaps Brody should first demand that Vogue and GQ – the sales of which subsidise the New Yorker and pays for Brody’s remuneration – start equally representation of coloured and white men and women on their covers, and in articles and advertisements.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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I am open to the idea that what Brody says is indeed true. Maybe it is all about carefully crafted systems of oppression. But what I am not open to is Brody asking me to accept the absence of a strong body of work by women and men of colour as evidence of “systemic oppression” without presenting and disproving all the other factors that could lead to the same result.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-34393284788382637662017-11-15T03:15:00.004+00:002017-11-15T03:41:48.150+00:00When Feminist Mothering is Easy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US">Today, a friend sent me this self
congratulatory article <a href="https://feminisminindia.com/2016/12/27/feminist-mother-liberating-experience/">Being a Feminist Mother is a Liberating Experience</a> and I
just had to take it to task. It irritated me and I wanted to understand why. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Using free association between terms such
as patriarchy, agency, intersectionality, racism and gender bias, the Indian
immigrant writer asserts that feminist mothering has helped her protect her
daughter from society’s patriarchal expectations, especially that of immigrant
cultures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">However, apart from broad general assertions,
she quotes only three specific instances where she felt that feminist mothering
gave her the tools to help herself and her daughter navigate a patriarchal
world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Her Indian mother questioned
her decision to send her daughter to an expensive private school.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">A boy questioned her daughter’s
interest in politics because girls are only interested in fairies and cakes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">When her 17-year-old daughter
wears short dresses, the Indian within her baulks but feminism gives her the
tools to let her daughter be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Since she pompously starts the article by
presenting herself as someone at the intersection of race, gender and ideology
– an Indian immigrant mother in the UK with a mixed race daughter (half white,
half Indian) with feminist leanings – I’ll use intersectionality to examine her
conflicts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The first thing to be said is that she
misses out on one critical intersection of her identity – class. As someone who
is married to a white British person and can afford to send her daughter to a
private school in the UK, she belongs to the educated professional class of the
UK at the very least. So we can’t ignore the impact that belonging to this
class would have on her own and her daughter’s conflicts and experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Giving the best possible education to your
child, boy or girl, among this class is a norm – in fact, it would be frowned
upon to visibly discriminate between your son and daughter in providing the
materials of education. (In fact, it is a norm even among the equivalent
classes in India, and would have been 12 years ago when the writer placed her
daughter in school). A passing patriarchal remark by her mother who had no
control over her decision making, when the weight and fashions of the class
that she belonged to strongly supported her decision in favour of her daughter
doesn’t amount to a hard-fought conflict. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Ditto, a passing remark by a boy about
girls liking fairies and cakes and not politics. If you belong to white middle
class in the UK and are sending your daughter to a private school, she is
already being exposed to a whole range of women role models and feminist
ideology (from classroom discussions, literature, films, TV, media to more
immediate examples of successful women role models). Surely, all that armour
would weather a chance remark by a boy without any lasting impact. Even without
the benefit of feminist mothering, her daughter would have enough strong women
role models to be inspired from and to aspire to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Feminist mothering would have surely had a
stronger role to play had she belonged to white working class because even if white
working class girls are inspired by women role models in society, economic
considerations do not support their aspirations to become one. Having a feminist mother to bolster your dreams and support them would indeed be a huge advantage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Finally, we come to the writer’s daughter’s
short dresses. I truly feel for her here because her immigrant background and
her feminist beliefs would be at complete odds with each other here. Indian
cultures place all the responsibility of sexual control on women and bestow all
the privileges of sexual provocation and exploration to men. Mainstream western
feminism loathes placing any responsibility of sexual control on women – from
clothes to conduct to consent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
writer’s choice would have been particularly hard given what was at stake - her
daughter’s emotional and physical safety and security. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The writer doesn’t really tussle with the
two oppositional stances though. She looks around and sees that short dresses
are the norm as is holding men responsible for sexual transgressions, and takes
comfort in the belief that her feminist daughter will be ok. However, that
doesn’t answer why despite decades of feminist demands on the subject, sexual
assault remains common in the West and its aftermath on women as traumatic as
ever. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Perhaps a more fruitful discussion wither
her daughter would involve the role of shifting contexts, places and power in
sexual dynamics between men and women, and how to remain alert, aware and
sensitive to them even as we assert our rights to live and experience life
freely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Words such as patriarchy, racism,
intersectionality, gender discrimination have meaning and value. But every time
we use them slavishly and sloppily to find comfortable, convenient and
self-congratulatory positions, we rob them a little of their power and meaning
and end up empowering our opponents. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Being a feminist mother is liberating
indeed, especially when it gives you a comfortable look out post to view the
world and asks nothing of you in return. In other worlds, it is called
entitlement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0Melbourne VIC, Australia-37.8136276 144.96305759999996-39.415753599999995 142.38127059999997 -36.2115016 147.54484459999995tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-53126797347085788872017-02-13T11:58:00.002+00:002017-02-13T11:58:58.565+00:00Searching for Saloni: My StoryCity fiction is launched at the Jaipur Literature Festival Melbourne<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOvArSXZqcf_hpkjbDVbCxckyLPnoNmv3uHlib0OIFbSyyFSfNLUjVu2s10Wyy2aXowfJ10P0SrFJARQg7F2xpr2QN3Zb-Ta0ISdEb9LbaiRC-yMm7Qt5F-kdONNnKOEGom62K14YasbdN/s1600/jlf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOvArSXZqcf_hpkjbDVbCxckyLPnoNmv3uHlib0OIFbSyyFSfNLUjVu2s10Wyy2aXowfJ10P0SrFJARQg7F2xpr2QN3Zb-Ta0ISdEb9LbaiRC-yMm7Qt5F-kdONNnKOEGom62K14YasbdN/s320/jlf.jpg" width="271" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On February 12, I went
public with my fiction. For most people, that means the launch of a book or the
publication of a story in a magazine, journal or book. My experience was
different. My fiction was published on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/StoryCityAdventures/">StoryCity</a>, an app that takes you on innovative,
adventurous city tours using stories and narratives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My fiction was
commissioned by the <a href="http://cityofliterature.com.au/">Melbourne City of Literature </a>to coincide with the <a href="http://mwf.com.au/whats-on/jlf-melbourne">JaipurLiterature Festival</a> that was brought to Melbourne for a day (Feb 12). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My story "Searching For
Saloni" is fast-paced adventure filled with riddles, codes, art and lost
histories connecting Melbourne and India. The story revolves around Indian
artefacts being stolen from the NGV International, which you – as the
protagonist in the story – have to collect from different locations across
Melbourne CBD. The answers to all the riddles are hidden in the architecture
and sculptures of the city. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At the festival, I chatted
with Meelee Soorkia, the editor of the stories, about the experience of writing
the stories and about being an Indian immigrant writer in Melbourne. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Meelee</b>: Your story
involved bringing historical connections between India and Melbourne together. How did you go about finding them?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Chetna</b>: When I was
first invited to write a story for StoryCity, I was a bit stumped. First these
are adventure stories, and I had never written adventure before. And then, I had
to bring in some Indian element into a story set in Melbourne. I found that
challenging.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So I started thinking
what is it that I enjoy, I am interested in. And I enjoy art and history. Following
that train of thought, I recalled a conversation I had had with a historian
Cherie Mckeish a while ago about the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880.
A number of Indian artefacts had been brought to Melbourne for display at the
exhibition, and they were still on display in Melbourne at the NGV
International and Melbourne Museum. So I knew I had to somehow make them the
focal point of the story – to bring them to light. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But once I started
researching a number of connections came to light. Just between Federation
Square where my story starts and State Library of Victoria where it ends, I
found five locations which had an Indian connection, and that was amazing. We
tend to forget that India and Australia were colonial cousins, and there were
interactions between the countries through the 19<sup>th</sup> and early 20<sup>th</sup>
century. Many Australian settlers from Britain would often live in India before
coming to Australia, and there is a gold mine of stories to be mined in those
connections. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Meelee</b>: What were your
first impressions of Melbourne when you arrived here?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<b style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt;">Chetna</b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt;">: I didn’t come
to Melbourne straight from India. I actually first lived in Europe – I did my
masters there and lived in Europe and then in London for a few years before coming
to Melbourne because my husband is Australian and I was pregnant, and we wanted
to raise our children in Melbourne.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So my understanding
and experiences of Melbourne start there, as a middle class family. One of the
first things I noticed is that Melbourne, and by extension Australia, has a bit
of an identity crisis. We can’t make up our mind whether we want to be fully
public or fully private, and it drives a lot of anxiety in the city. For
example, when I arrived here pregnant and I was often asked where I was
planning to have my baby, and it is only after sometime the penny dropped that
they were fishing for whether I was going public or private with my delivery.
As soon my daughter was born, the next question was which schools I was putting
her name down in – was I going to go public or private? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These are big
questions for middle class Melburnians, and they drive all kinds of anxieties
and mannerisms in people. Some hide the fact that they studied in private
schools, others flaunt it, those who studied public wear that as a badge – but
everyone is aware of it. And I found that very interesting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The only other country
where I felt this tension, and not quite to this degree, was England – from
where of course we have adopted this system. The Middle Class in India had
largely adopted the private model, whereas Continental Europe is loudly and
proudly public. But Australia cannot decide which path it really wants to take.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Meelee</b>: Was leaving
India difficult? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt;"><b>Chetna</b>: I am a part of
the second wave of Indian immigrants to Australia, who have come here post
1990s. As was discussed in one of the earlier sessions at the festivals, we
left India by choice. We didn’t leave India because we felt we had no
opportunities there. So I had agency in my decision to leave India, and I was
aware that there would be loss involved in the process.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In India, I was a
journalist. I knew where I was going. I had social capital. When I left, I lost
my social capital. I also found myself lost as a writer because how can I write
about places for others when I am myself still discovering. But then, my
writing and stories became my way to explore the places and to understand them
better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Meelee</b>: So how has
Melbourne influenced your writing?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt;"><b>Chetna</b>: I am writing a
set of short stories, which loop around Melbourne’s South East. They start in
the CBD and then move to Richmond, then Kew, then Balwyn and then sort of loop
back. That’s the plan. They are loosely connected, in the sense one story
begins where the other is left, but are completely different set of characters.
And again, I am interested in the specific characteristics of these
neighbourhoods.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For example, the story
in Richmond is set in a pop-up linen store. Now pop-up shops is a real trend in
Richmond, we have pop up design stores, pop-up jeans stores, everything is a
pop-up. And often the people working in these stores are poorly paid artists
and designers – very fashionable – but struggling to make ends meet, and
Richmond is full of them. So I bring that into my story. The story set in Kew
is about a working mother who has just gone back to work after her maternity
break and is struggling with the idea of building her career afresh – because I
have met such Mums.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So I am trying to
explore life and people in the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne through my
stories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Meelee</b>: Thank you so
much Chetna. We look forward to reading your stories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Chetna</b>: Well you can.
Because some of them have been published as greeting cards with short stories
in them, which are available at the festival bookshop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>The app StoryCity is available on iOs and Android
smart phones for FREE. Chetna Prakash’s story Searching for Saloni is among
Melbourne city stories. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Melbourne Noir greeting cards with Chetna
Prakash’s short stories in them are available at <a href="https://avenue.circlesoft.net/pages/908-Richmond">Avenue Bookstore</a> (Swan Street,
Richmond), <a href="http://www.paperbackbooks.com.au/">Paperback Bookshop</a> (Bourke Street, Melbourne CBD) and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/elthambookshop/">ElthamBookshop</a> (</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">970
Main Rd, Eltham). </span></i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-74954129293383278582017-02-10T01:56:00.001+00:002017-02-10T01:56:34.815+00:00Celebrity, Superheros, Social Media and Trump<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinqtubvOI3B4CZPh3xOtZqDvvPCVVOS3gZUEzV1g28Cv9fgPC7efpcKg0Iw_UJfTuEbb7ccYyEmqEJCz_FGY7TvSBv6XZmQ3SHNY0sRm6FMRRjhU12bZkS7LwsLgMBlmoYlcjWxpE4PAcC/s1600/donald-trump-kim-kardashian-large-640x360.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinqtubvOI3B4CZPh3xOtZqDvvPCVVOS3gZUEzV1g28Cv9fgPC7efpcKg0Iw_UJfTuEbb7ccYyEmqEJCz_FGY7TvSBv6XZmQ3SHNY0sRm6FMRRjhU12bZkS7LwsLgMBlmoYlcjWxpE4PAcC/s320/donald-trump-kim-kardashian-large-640x360.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<i>This article was first published on The Big Smoke on November 17, 2016. </i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Now that the unexpected and the horrible has happened, it’s time to make the initial cut in the post-mortem of the cadaver called “liberal politics”.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
The question that all liberals are asking is: How is it that a <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-bolt/andrew-bolt-donald-trumps-idiocy-is-not-the-question/news-story/4862a17a08710f9cc719a8260cfa6da6" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">vindictive, sexist narcissist</a> has become the leader of the free world under our watch?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
How did we not see this coming?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
The factors that have led to this outcome are complex, interconnected and multifaceted. Many of these are already being discussed robustly – globalisation, an over-emphasis on political correctness, the Clinton baggage, the role played by third-party candidates.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
But I want to explore three less-discussed factors that I think the intellectual classes should have picked up on. They relate to the culture in which we live, and each have unwittingly done the groundwork for Donald Trump.</div>
<h4 style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; font-size: 16.25px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 10px 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
<strong>The cult of the nothing celebrity</strong></h4>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
I came across the Kardashian phenomenon eight years ago in London, when I encountered a long line of very young girls queuing up to meet Kim Kardashian, who was there to launch a line of perfumes. They were clearly excited to be meeting their role model.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Reality TV stars used to be second rate celebrities but Kardashian changed that. She is a phenomenon built brick-by-brick through one objectifying selfie after another. And at the foundations of this phenomenon lie a sex tape (possibly self-leaked) and a reality TV show. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
What appalled me was the failure of our intellectual class to critique the phenomenon. Some merely saw her as an entertainer. Others saw her ability to control and use her own life and body as entertainment for people as pure genius. In the meantime, she amassed millions, proving to the world, and most dangerously to our children, that success lay in relentless, blithe and shameless self-promotion.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2016/11/17/popped-culture-entertainment-dish-grew-trump-analysis/">The Big Smoke</a>. </div>
</div>
globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-45832600621481605292017-02-10T01:48:00.002+00:002017-02-10T01:48:36.128+00:00Author Interview: Vulnerable children need our engagement<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6U6VTkxco-O_uiemIJ98Fg_5oq9DjkGwpoAB2q-hMmnBhV5qtVSgt68sFCp52PctDeONja968Ut5AJ1QwEqmllXDkvZId3IXUH62X9lZSUe5ZuM6FmoSVSG1mKvYqEGpSNkbmi62hKfVq/s1600/reading-to-class-770x432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6U6VTkxco-O_uiemIJ98Fg_5oq9DjkGwpoAB2q-hMmnBhV5qtVSgt68sFCp52PctDeONja968Ut5AJ1QwEqmllXDkvZId3IXUH62X9lZSUe5ZuM6FmoSVSG1mKvYqEGpSNkbmi62hKfVq/s320/reading-to-class-770x432.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<i>This interview was published on August 30, 2016.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Every Tuesday over the last month, a unique experiment has been taking place at Seaford Park Primary School in Melbourne. The best-selling children’s book author and publisher <a href="http://www.susannahmcfarlane.com/" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">Susannah McFarlane</a> has been getting together with Grade 3 and 4 students at the school to explore their inner authors. They have been discussing story ideas, getting them down on paper, working on illustrations, and learning to edit and then market their own writing. On September 6, each child will celebrate their books being “published” with a celebratory book launch at the school.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
The setting wouldn’t seem unusual were Seaford Park a school in one of Melbourne’s more affluent neighbourhoods. However, nearly half the children at Seaford Park belong to the lowest quarter of socio-educational advantage. Many children start school behind their peers around Australia, and continue to lag behind in their literacy skills. Improving the students’ reading and writing skills is one of the school’s top priorities, which is why it partnered with <a href="http://ardoch.org.au/" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">Ardoch Youth Foundation</a>, an education charity that supports children and young people in disadvantaged communities.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Ardoch brought the school and Susannah together. Susannah is one of the charity’s ambassadors and a long time supporter, and her book series such as the <em>EJ12 Girl Hero</em> and<em> EJ Spy School series</em> (for girls) and <em>Boy Vs Beasts</em> (for boys) are staple with primary school children across Australia. For the school, to have Susannah – also a former publisher and Managing Director of Egmont Books in London and Hardie Grant Egmont in Melbourne, as well as an author of over 50 children’s books – meet its students and work with them was a coup.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
For <a href="https://www.literacyandnumeracy.gov.au/" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">Literacy and Numeracy Week</a>, we caught up with Susannah to find out why she cares about the literacy skills of Australia’s vulnerable children.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; font-size: 16.25px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 10px 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
<strong>What spurred you to become a children’s book author?</strong></h4>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
I started my publishing career as a book editor, and went on, over 13 different jobs in marketing and publishing, to become the Managing Director of Egmont Books in London and then co-found Hardie Grant Egmont in Melbourne. The thought of turning to the author side and writing my own books was inspired by my own children. The first series I published back in Australia was <em>Zac Power</em>, a spy series for reluctant-reading boys, inspired by my own reluctant-reading son, Edvard. Similarly the first series I wrote, <em>EJ12 Girl Hero</em>, was inspired by wanting to boost the self-confidence of my daughter Emma, then 10.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2016/08/30/vulnerable-children-need-engagement-susannah-mcfarlane/">The Big Smoke</a>.</div>
</div>
globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-33846662974056795552017-02-10T01:41:00.001+00:002017-02-10T01:41:28.514+00:00Why cultural appropriation of Yoga doesn't apply to Indians<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqljMN05rqGdbD_BXdgp5IFEXih79oElbzUPu9GGVSPpgQRzzuxvLWxP1tbhVoyzgvRZtsRDHkC4YLaGaA5sHg2Q_t6dubbibnzEWZzcQ-QlLnF76wwA4EVaXwDjK4dRNtB2pNof0C1PdR/s1600/Screen-Shot-2016-04-08-at-2.03.28-PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqljMN05rqGdbD_BXdgp5IFEXih79oElbzUPu9GGVSPpgQRzzuxvLWxP1tbhVoyzgvRZtsRDHkC4YLaGaA5sHg2Q_t6dubbibnzEWZzcQ-QlLnF76wwA4EVaXwDjK4dRNtB2pNof0C1PdR/s320/Screen-Shot-2016-04-08-at-2.03.28-PM.png" width="320" /></a><i>This article was published in The Big Smoke on April 8, 2016.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
I woke up today to an email by my mother-in-law, who loves stirring me up. It was a Fairfax article by a Melbourne-based lawyer of Indian origin, Kamna Muddagouni, lamenting the cultural appropriation of yoga by the West. Provocatively titled “<a href="http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-culture/why-white-people-need-to-stop-saying-namaste-20160401-gnw2xx.html" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">Why white people need to stop saying namaste</a>”, it railed against the commodification of y</div>
oga, which she saw as just another example of the West’s wider ignorance about Hinduism and South Asian culture. She felt much “othered” by it.<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Her argument neatly fell into the tried-and-tested post-colonial framework, which goes something like this. We, the Indians, were colonised by the West. Cultural domination was a big part of it. The selective cultural appropriation that we continue to see with “white people” wearing bindis, practicing yoga and eating Indian is a continuation of that domination and oppression.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Now, our culture will be converted into something that it is not, and peddled back to us. We must control how our culture is practiced, and anyone modifying it to make it more relatable and suitable to himself/herself, is not just being inauthentic, he/she is being offensive.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
I find such arguments difficult to swallow because of a particular French lady who once came to Mumbai and gave my younger sister a hard time.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2016/04/08/cultural-appropriation-plenty-room-yoga-mat/">The Big Smoke</a>. </div>
</div>
globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-14345775647718655002017-02-10T01:33:00.001+00:002017-02-10T01:33:39.459+00:00Writings of Warhol and Weiwei<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhshj3SXeuSWTJrTHQCyWER77UDDl6tYDycd06C1lTgdLl2yv3kpqQU6nLYemYkorGjpLq69EwX8TxHVKitgXB81sAdaUIm77a_BiMUB2kdoqibeLGGQWeGcDkwwMZ_D15FzfVKAgvtO_3r/s1600/STILL-3-770x432-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhshj3SXeuSWTJrTHQCyWER77UDDl6tYDycd06C1lTgdLl2yv3kpqQU6nLYemYkorGjpLq69EwX8TxHVKitgXB81sAdaUIm77a_BiMUB2kdoqibeLGGQWeGcDkwwMZ_D15FzfVKAgvtO_3r/s320/STILL-3-770x432-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>This article was published on The Big Smoke on February 27, 2016.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
I had an odd thought as I was walking home after viewing the <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/12/19/warhol-wei-wei-introspective-introduction-art/" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei exhibition</a> for the first time last December. The massive exhibition brings together nearly 300 works of art by the two artists, including paintings, photographs, prints, sculptures, films, documentaries and music, to name a few.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
As I walked, I suddenly wondered if I too was an artist? I had never thought of myself as an artist. I write. I usually write blogs about art created by “real” artists, but what if my writing was a form of sculpture? After all, it involves expressing an idea. It is about evoking an emotion. It involves many tricky decisions towards those two ends. What words to use? How many? Should I keep this sentence to one word? Or do I let it flow and flow? Both will evoke a different response in the audience. One will stop them short and make them think. The other will carry them along on a journey. Each decision makes my writing a unique piece of work because no two writers will ever discuss the same idea in exactly the same words.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Hallelujah! I, too, was a sculptor. I make word sculptures.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2016/02/27/warhol-weiwei-words/">The Big Smoke</a>.</div>
</div>
globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-20178020159264191252017-02-10T01:29:00.001+00:002017-02-10T01:30:13.634+00:00Ai Weiwei takes on the West<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwXmnxyVlI7dI2j96AKQXypcP6ZIs4Ba5kHLWTLUef5Hbnl1cHgxrEFM-BXBzlUxHfn3px-Gw4KZ-8E9w9sIwgvFXT0ZIMrmTHssPoAi8-YOEah3OeqGUMwj2dskXMB_R7AnEgn6tnaxmm/s1600/Weiwei.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwXmnxyVlI7dI2j96AKQXypcP6ZIs4Ba5kHLWTLUef5Hbnl1cHgxrEFM-BXBzlUxHfn3px-Gw4KZ-8E9w9sIwgvFXT0ZIMrmTHssPoAi8-YOEah3OeqGUMwj2dskXMB_R7AnEgn6tnaxmm/s320/Weiwei.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: 'GFS Didot', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<i>This article was first published in The Big Smoke on February 13, 2016.</i></div>
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Ai Weiwei is in the news again. Only this time, it is not for criticising the Chinese government; instead, turning his focus westward, to critique the European countries for their policies toward Syrian refugees.</div>
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In January, when the Danish government ruled in favour of seizing the assets of asylum seekers (mostly Syrian refugees) to pay for their resettlement, he <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/ai-weiwei-closes-denmark-exhibition-refugee-laws-160127153929884.html" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">closed down</a> an ongoing exhibition in Copenhagen in protest. A week later, he <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/feb/01/ai-weiwei-poses-as-drowned-syrian-infant-refugee-in-haunting-photo" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">posed</a> on a Greek beach in reference to the drowned Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi. </div>
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As is common with Weiwei, the image quickly went viral on social media.</div>
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The photo marks a big shift in the life of Weiwei, an artist most known for his outspoken criticism of the communist government of China. Last August, he moved to Berlin with his family after more than 20 years in Beijing. The image marks his first strong political statement against his new home, and with it, shifts his somewhat cosy relationship with the West. He is on to us, and we are on to him.</div>
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Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2016/02/13/weiwei-turns-art-against-west/">The Big Smoke</a>.</div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-33958744972805948702017-02-10T01:13:00.002+00:002017-02-10T01:13:23.588+00:00India, Australia and January 26th: Contrasting Views on Colonisation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_TbJZnR7ivpp3s8mgIIVsI2_TGB3-r7Tk42tZR0mvy4xwXkvnQzYAfL746Y71ZC_xpvmOe-yb6mQqy57M6n5T4z-rusfsftny6JBzNsyo16oyYXITX0OJDmetkdKWlONGK1K3cA6ht5Wy/s1600/Untitled-design-6.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_TbJZnR7ivpp3s8mgIIVsI2_TGB3-r7Tk42tZR0mvy4xwXkvnQzYAfL746Y71ZC_xpvmOe-yb6mQqy57M6n5T4z-rusfsftny6JBzNsyo16oyYXITX0OJDmetkdKWlONGK1K3cA6ht5Wy/s320/Untitled-design-6.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>This article was first published in The Big Smoke on January 26, 2016.</i></div>
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Becoming an Australian after 34 years of being Indian has mostly involved progress for me. On most social and economic indicators, Australia beats India hands down. My family is safer and healthier in Australia than it would be in India. Unfortunately, politically and ideologically, I have regressed. And January 26th forces me to confront this regression.</div>
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As an Indian, I used to celebrate January 26<span style="font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> as the Indian Republic Day, the day on which my country declared itself a modern democratic republic (in 1951) after more than 200 years of British rule. Instead, as an Australian, I have to celebrate the day on which my new country started on the path of colonisation.</div>
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Don’t get me wrong. I have no axe to grind with the white people of British descent. I am honestly over colonisation of India. Yes, it was a general nightmare for my people but unlike in many other countries, when India gained independence, most British people upped and left, mostly back to the UK.</div>
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Growing up in India three decades later, I only saw a sea of brown faces around me. If colonial history existed at all for me, it was in textbooks, charming old buildings and occasional street names or public statues. It is rather hard to remain angry at buildings and statues (especially good looking ones), when the people behind them are long gone.</div>
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Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2016/01/26/jan-26-india-australia-two-colonies/">The Big Smoke</a>.</div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-20457635104872141992017-02-10T01:09:00.000+00:002017-02-10T01:09:01.144+00:00How the childhoods of Weiwei and Warhol inspired their art.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcIfbOaU09yCSGjYloHpDEZwclCRQXv1g7DcwNA6DGbDgOyh2w98p8AzXLoI4NXs3WyGFZh3bg886dzbJ9TnFeGXRdRL9wIr5ZfoKR_vX2QxWZa5RBtlClHbv4Y91Qw9ASPljO9d0K1CH3/s1600/Untitled-design-10.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcIfbOaU09yCSGjYloHpDEZwclCRQXv1g7DcwNA6DGbDgOyh2w98p8AzXLoI4NXs3WyGFZh3bg886dzbJ9TnFeGXRdRL9wIr5ZfoKR_vX2QxWZa5RBtlClHbv4Y91Qw9ASPljO9d0K1CH3/s320/Untitled-design-10.png" width="320" /></a><i>This article was first published on The Big Smoke on January 16, 2017.</i></div>
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Viewers and critics love going Freudian on artists, digging into their childhood and personal lives in search for clues that may reveal new m</div>
eanings in their works of art. Sometimes, the connections between their life and experiences are strong and visceral. Other times they are not.<br />
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In this article, we will look at where and how the childhoods and personal lives of Ai Weiwei and Andy Warhol have influenced their art. (Their works are jointly <a href="https://connect.ngv.vic.gov.au/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=84" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">on display at the National Gallery of Victoria</a> until April 24).</div>
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Weiwei’s childhood can be described by one word – traumatic. His father Ai Qing was a celebrated Chinese poet. Though a fervent member of the Communist Party, he fell victim to Mao’s infamous purges of the intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution of the 1950s. His crime? He wrote a poem calling for greater tolerance for different voices.</div>
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Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2016/01/16/first-steps-genius-warhol-weiwei/">The Big Smoke</a>.</div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-14600038331666366182017-02-10T00:59:00.003+00:002017-02-10T00:59:56.608+00:00What does Warhol and Weiwei's Art tell us about America and China?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHQ5_07A97PofQ48tlrAUefJwyhIhjzHfMGJoqGU0S6BLGohyupfFQjzohmwAbyPJXN0APBFw5f4lnPRWNbbFj4DkzpXnalXrA544GqbufvNfii1RGX4DYK3VocBVb4fdQyWIdQwOvW6Bt/s1600/EXHI031936_RGB-1-770x432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHQ5_07A97PofQ48tlrAUefJwyhIhjzHfMGJoqGU0S6BLGohyupfFQjzohmwAbyPJXN0APBFw5f4lnPRWNbbFj4DkzpXnalXrA544GqbufvNfii1RGX4DYK3VocBVb4fdQyWIdQwOvW6Bt/s320/EXHI031936_RGB-1-770x432.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>This article was first published on The Big Smoke on January 2, 2016. </i><br />
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What if I told you that Andy Warhol predicted that the crude, brash, look-at-me Donald Trump would one day be a popular candidate aspiring for world domination via the American presidency?</div>
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He didn’t. But his art did. The story goes that an art dealer Muriel Latow told Warhol: “The thing that means more to you and that you like more than anything else in the world is money. You should paint pictures of money.” Warhol said, “That’s wonderful”, and he did. Over the years, he created several stark paintings and prints of the dollar symbol and dollar bills. There is nothing subtle about these works: they are literally large dollar symbols painted on canvas and prints of one and two dollar bills.</div>
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Later in his book <em>THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)</em> he explained these works. “I like money on the wall,” he wrote. “Say you were going to buy a $200,000 painting. I think you should take that money, tie it up, and hang it on the wall. Then when someone visited you, the first thing they would see is the money on the wall.”</div>
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In recognizing the crass love for money in himself and others, and confronting us with it in all its crudeness, he revealed something about America. The unabashed reverence of money above everything else. Many films, books and works of art have explored this love but none as crudely as Warhol and his dollar paintings. It is a crudeness that is only matched by Donald Trump and his vulgar references to his billions. That he is the leading Republican candidate is a tribute to Warhol’s America.</div>
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Good artists invariably capture something intangible about the societies they live in. Sometimes, it is direct and intentional. Other times, it appears unconsciously in their exploration of society and of themselves as a product of it.</div>
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Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2016/01/02/warhols-america-vs-weiweis-china-gallery/">The Big Smoke</a>.</div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-66353807931407495852017-02-10T00:54:00.001+00:002017-02-10T00:54:59.089+00:00The history of mass media through the art of Warhol and Weiwei<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC4zjg1_fgjAE4jf01HFj3Fz5gki48lKsd5RE3DYSgBtF6ziFd6kSHOs4pp3jehFEiYKTANwkoO-_krDscYCvblzfiz4E6ofmeiX7uzBlU2K8KnQVDukcl1ywoCmvRLTVN2i5Qt3HclwW0/s1600/EXHI037687_RGB-1-770x432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC4zjg1_fgjAE4jf01HFj3Fz5gki48lKsd5RE3DYSgBtF6ziFd6kSHOs4pp3jehFEiYKTANwkoO-_krDscYCvblzfiz4E6ofmeiX7uzBlU2K8KnQVDukcl1ywoCmvRLTVN2i5Qt3HclwW0/s320/EXHI037687_RGB-1-770x432.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>This article was first published on The Big Smoke on December 26, 2015. </i><br />
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Have you ever stood in from an artwork and just thought “What the fuck?” I have. I have often wondered what I’m doing here – I have two kids, a full-time job, a full-time husband, and a full laundry basket, kitchen sink and rubbish bin waiting for me at home. So, why am I spending my time blinking at this… thing?</div>
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I don’t know about you but, over the years, I have found my answer.</div>
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I’ve stood in front of <a href="http://www.moma.org/collection/works/79879?locale=en" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">Mondrian’s cubes</a> (1920s), <a href="http://www.moma.org/collection/works/78386" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">Pollock’s drips</a> (1950s), Koon’s shiny <a href="http://www.jeffkoons.com/artwork/celebration/balloon-dog-0" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">balloon dogs</a> (1990s) and Delvoye’s giant shit-making machine <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVyhGNMMgvo" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">Cloaca</a> (2000), not just because it was a sensory experience (including watching food being digested in a machine and coming out as poop) but also, because upon reflection, they invariably help me understand the times we live in a bit better.</div>
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Mondrian’s neat cubes capture on canvas the coldness of modernism: the idea that there exists some form of supreme, machine-like, timeless, spaceless, context-less beauty that works for all. Pollock’s mad drippy paintings speak of America’s individualism, where individual achievement and self-fulfillment trumps all. Koon’s shiny balloon dogs show how we have embraced child-like silliness as a legitimate emotion for adults. And Delvoye’s shit-maker literally symbolises post-modern irony, where everything is shit, but it’s ok as long as we can smirk about it. That I can have these profound reflections in a matter of minutes, accompanied by a sensory experience, is an intellectual high.</div>
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Of course, some artists do it better than others. Both Warhol and Weiwei are masters at it. So how what epiphanies can we have from the massive <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/andy-warhol-ai-wei-wei/" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">Andy Warhol-Ai Weiwei</a> exhibition at the NGV that brings together 300 works by the two artists? In this article, I will discuss one.</div>
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Warhol and Weiwei’s works are 3D representations of one the biggest disruption of our times: why new media powered by the Internet hit mainstream media in the gut.</div>
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Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/12/26/warhol-weiwei-essential-history-mass-media/">The Big Smoke</a>.</div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-23093941144202062522017-02-10T00:48:00.000+00:002017-02-10T00:48:46.751+00:00Warhol, Weiwei and Me: An introspective introduction to Art<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipGbVb3sO2CSmrzeyRN_7RMstjCYZhBB7aDZs_OO_X_o04h7iqHPjvhP-oFux2Yl4U1TlOnp6BFWlACnF8dHnCRIZnSUMgP2-ScHtLZJanNlyESdCBXHoZ9PIbkCzdxzEPF5aKCmoQkur1/s1600/andy-warhol-ai-weiwei1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipGbVb3sO2CSmrzeyRN_7RMstjCYZhBB7aDZs_OO_X_o04h7iqHPjvhP-oFux2Yl4U1TlOnp6BFWlACnF8dHnCRIZnSUMgP2-ScHtLZJanNlyESdCBXHoZ9PIbkCzdxzEPF5aKCmoQkur1/s320/andy-warhol-ai-weiwei1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>This article was first published on The Big Smoke on December 19, 2015.</i></div>
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A week ago the National Gallery of Victoria did something uncharacteristic. It put on an exciting show. Added to which, it isn’t a show curated elsewhere and then shipped here. It is a bona fide NGV product. It has been conceived, conceptualized and curated by the gallery, and it brings together the works of two giants, the American artist Andy Warhol, who died at the age of 59 in 1987, and the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who enters his 59th this year.</div>
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This venture is entitled simply Andy Warhol – Ai Weiwei.</div>
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Warhol requires no introduction. Even in the unlikely chance that you have not heard of him, his aesthetics and philosophy touch every life experiencing American soft power, that is, the allure of its culture and values. He lives in our embrace of a brash consumerist, media-driven American culture; in our love for money, fashion, media, brands, celebrity, and above all, self.</div>
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Every time you gorge on a celebrity’s divorce, near-divorce, plastic surgery, and other miseries while chomping on a packet of chips, you live Warhol’s art. Every time you buy a limited edition Coca-Cola glass and give it place of pride on your desk, Warhol grins in his grave. Every time you vote a participant out of a reality show, fashion quixotic attire from jumble sale odds and ends, or capture random, mundane details of your life on camera and share it with the world, you are acting both muse and protégé to Warhol. You are participating in art, pop art to be exact.</div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: GFS Didot, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/12/19/warhol-wei-wei-introspective-introduction-art/">The Big Smoke</a>.</span></span></div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-79809863162069401872017-02-10T00:39:00.000+00:002017-02-10T00:39:19.317+00:00A mum’s guide to geopolitics: How to get Japan to stop whaling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzfIyUb61peNtNRPHAiHR0Q3mGjyRh-kAQP32wKlIIP6YkInwr3Ff-TZulkOpOJQ650fp0Muwj5MirbNATUAySUqHkbdnMm_tNHYmmIXKgvHAozjA0lKK8elRoe64F040VvXGC3pNSmHBI/s1600/20151201001204998154-original-770x432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzfIyUb61peNtNRPHAiHR0Q3mGjyRh-kAQP32wKlIIP6YkInwr3Ff-TZulkOpOJQ650fp0Muwj5MirbNATUAySUqHkbdnMm_tNHYmmIXKgvHAozjA0lKK8elRoe64F040VvXGC3pNSmHBI/s320/20151201001204998154-original-770x432.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>This article was first published in The Big Smoke on December 10, 2015.</i></div>
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Japan is at it again. After a short hiatus, they’ve <a href="http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2015/11/28/australia-slams-japan-s-whaling-resumption.html" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">announced</a> the recommencement of their whaling for scientific purposes. Greg Hunt, our Environment Minister, has strongly condemned the announcement:</div>
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We do not accept in any way, shape or form the concept of killing whales for so-called ‘scientific research.’</div>
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I wonder why Japan insists on killing whales, despite a lack of a rational reason to keep at it.</div>
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The “scientific research” is a total fib. It is not just Greg Hunt and Greenpeace who say so. Last year, the International Court of Justice <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-31/ijc-japan-whaling-southern-ocean-scientific-research/5357416" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">ruled</a> that that Japan’s scientific whaling program is a way to carry out commercial whaling and is not intended for research. In fact, it was out of sheer embarrassment at the ruling that Japan cancelled its annual whale hunt last year.</div>
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One may argue that Japan wants to whale for commercial reasons. But this doesn’t hold true on inspection. The whale meat is obviously not for export, unless countries around the world are secretly organising raucous “minke whale meat” orgies behind our backs.</div>
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Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/12/10/a-mums-guide-geopolitics-japan-whaling/">The Big Smoke</a>. </div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-18355198202981853252017-02-10T00:35:00.000+00:002017-02-10T00:39:29.709+00:00TPP for us latte-sippers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiutwhjlLacMQ3xfM14e7ihEd7djsVU0jcWVwyFBajcj5Hl5RHJI-sUZpp7KgPKxMH9oemDGUdspMY13i3NoK0Tp51R9VL_tt0FXpSTVefh5dDMseg27WtZ1sCLdgGOkI0auhwOcmUXCWS9/s1600/20150915001177433773-original-770x432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiutwhjlLacMQ3xfM14e7ihEd7djsVU0jcWVwyFBajcj5Hl5RHJI-sUZpp7KgPKxMH9oemDGUdspMY13i3NoK0Tp51R9VL_tt0FXpSTVefh5dDMseg27WtZ1sCLdgGOkI0auhwOcmUXCWS9/s320/20150915001177433773-original-770x432.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>This article was first published in The Big Smoke on October 14, 2015.</i><br />
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Last week, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had some “breaking news” for us. The PM introduced the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal as “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/06/australia-and-the-trans-pacific-partnership-what-we-do-and-dont-know" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">the gigantic foundation stone of our future prosperity</a>.” The TPP deal had all the necessary sound bytes to dominate the media.</div>
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First of all, it could be reduced to a catchy acronym (TPP), which as we know, determines whether or not it makes it to the realms of the water-cooler discussion.</div>
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Second, it involved some heavy sounding numerals to back it up: 12 nations forming 40 percent of global GDP came together to sign the TPP.</div>
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To top it all, the Trans-Pacific Partnership involved the dramatic story of our Trade Minister, the Honourable Andrew Robb, staring down his American counterpart to deny big-pharma companies extended protections on patents. As we know, big-pharma companies are evil; denying them anything can only be a good thing.</div>
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But what exactly are latte-sippers like me to glean from the trade treaty? How would the crumbs from the global 40 percent make their way into our wallets?</div>
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So, latte in hand, I decided to wade through some industry and trade data.</div>
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Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/10/14/trans-pacific-partnership-for-the-latte-sippers/">The Big Smoke</a>.</div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-53168185912363359272017-02-10T00:31:00.001+00:002017-02-10T00:39:39.694+00:00Exciting times: Why Turnbull's words matter?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBkA0eWY5eTPIqEVDyDwnJ7QjLiHZ-dbQ7bcHWJ6T5NH0_NX3nP32N_X33GheMT0zB3EPAN4rpuWzEJDwE-9owGmF_g3RdM6oJck81jnCQQdjBpYOJ3xv7cE5WGeQOvwsE4hB3SfJWbvNE/s1600/20150915001177433773-original-770x432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBkA0eWY5eTPIqEVDyDwnJ7QjLiHZ-dbQ7bcHWJ6T5NH0_NX3nP32N_X33GheMT0zB3EPAN4rpuWzEJDwE-9owGmF_g3RdM6oJck81jnCQQdjBpYOJ3xv7cE5WGeQOvwsE4hB3SfJWbvNE/s320/20150915001177433773-original-770x432.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>This article was first published in The Big Smoke on September 16, 2015.</i><br />
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“Now, we are living as Australians, in the most exciting time,” espoused Malcolm Turnbull during his press conference to announce the challenge on Tony Abbott’s leadership. It was September 14, 2015 at 4:04pm. I felt compelled to record the date and time, for Turnbull’s words have stuck with me. Why? Because it is the first genuinely positive statement I have heard from an Australian (let alone an Australian politician) on what the future holds for us, since my arrival four years ago.</div>
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The curious absence of excitement was evident to me long before I moved Down-Under. I married my Aussie husband in 2009 while he was living in the UK, and through him I befriended some Australians. I was instantly struck by the palpable sense of negativity in regard to the future. The Internet, too slow. The distances, too far. The population, too sparse. The costs, many. The labour laws too harsh. The unions too strong, China too dominant, and coal too abundant for new business to thrive in Australia.</div>
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I was spared the full force of pessimism and negativity until I moved here at the end of 2011. It bowled me over. Julia Gillard was too busy fending off Rudd to set any agenda, positive or negative. That gap was filled by Tony Abbott and his “direct” agenda. No matter what was being discussed – carbon policy, the refugee problem, NBN, budget deficit – he would shred the policy to pieces without offering any viable alternative. If he could get personal and vicious in the process, it seemed to drive him further. (e.g. Why miss the opportunity to link Gillard’s childless status to the government’s baby bonus cut?)</div>
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Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/09/16/turnbulls-words-first-time-hope-this-country/">The Big Smoke.</a></div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-84233331417594766072017-02-10T00:26:00.002+00:002017-02-10T00:26:47.674+00:00Home, Identity and Citizenship - Thoughts on the day I accept Australian citizenship<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikhe7d4NU2msOibZCoyKe_vND68cqYhnCx7_DCnIrB5Hy5YE4XFbzM-TVj7gGt_t5FFiXirXD0dmtCU-NQwsaj0gJlht0nTQ8F-97klE2srccfBuC3ochrTv8MjU4bh3OO9ANfTUiFT8HO/s1600/AUSTRALIAN-CITIZENSHIP-770x432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikhe7d4NU2msOibZCoyKe_vND68cqYhnCx7_DCnIrB5Hy5YE4XFbzM-TVj7gGt_t5FFiXirXD0dmtCU-NQwsaj0gJlht0nTQ8F-97klE2srccfBuC3ochrTv8MjU4bh3OO9ANfTUiFT8HO/s320/AUSTRALIAN-CITIZENSHIP-770x432.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>This article was first published in The Big Smoke on August 24, 2015</i><br />
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Filling out official documents for the last eight years has been a pain for me. Between my country of birth (Zambia), my nationality (Indian) and my country of residence (Australia), something invariably goes awry. Last Thursday, I made my life easier. I bumped off India out of the equation by taking up Australian <strong>citizenship</strong>.</div>
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Do a new passport and voting rights make me more Australian and less Indian? What about Zambia? Where does it fit in into my view of myself?</div>
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Zambia is just a distant memory to me. I was born there while my Dad, an Indian doctor specialising in communicable diseases, was on a mosquito-killing jaunt. He would travel deep into the bush and build malaria prevention plans for hyena-eating tribes. Seriously. Somewhere in between, he and my Mum produced me.</div>
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I was five when I moved to India. Relief was my chief emotion. Through the last five years, the running joke in my house had been that since I was Zambian, I would have to be left behind when my family moved back to India. I am not exactly sure why they found it funny (early childhood psychology was not their strength). I found it terrifying and it made me hate Zambia, a rain-drenched, leafy country overrun with mosquitoes.</div>
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Read more on <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/08/24/a-new-australian-citizens-crisis-identity/">The Big Smoke</a>.</div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-65079048123113011522017-02-10T00:19:00.002+00:002017-02-10T00:20:36.587+00:00Dear Jonathan Jones, why shouldn't the Royals appear vapid?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn-EITy6_xaNQm3MduYUx7cT6yqFh44e8IiNSG29xnCQOiKujDyu4Ir1NDBa8r4NE3hf5Lh1UVeHRD_taY3q4q4AZfDs7DF8E9KmEkdDnbvhaPqHZNOxsXWpkUtGqDeGFbNaMPOKqGZ9kB/s1600/20150710001153855958-original-770x432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn-EITy6_xaNQm3MduYUx7cT6yqFh44e8IiNSG29xnCQOiKujDyu4Ir1NDBa8r4NE3hf5Lh1UVeHRD_taY3q4q4AZfDs7DF8E9KmEkdDnbvhaPqHZNOxsXWpkUtGqDeGFbNaMPOKqGZ9kB/s320/20150710001153855958-original-770x432.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>This article was first published in The Big Smoke on June 30, 2015.</i></div>
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So Princess Charlotte was christened. Kate wore an <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/kate-middleton-retains-status-most-6008197" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">Alexander McQueen coat</a> and the family trapezed about pushing<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3150740/A-regal-carriage-Princess-Charlotte-enjoys-ride-royal-heirloom-christening-Harrods-launches-range-bespoke-5-000-coach-built-prams.html" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">“that” pram</a>. The <strong>royals</strong> then dutifully got their <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3154787/Princess-Charlotte-official-christening-photos-Kate-Middleton-Royal-Family.html" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">official portraits</a> taken by the celebrity photographer <a href="http://www.mariotestino.com/" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">Mario Testino</a> and released four: one formal family photo and three intimate ones. Back at the venerable offices of The Guardian, Jonathan Jones, the resident art writer, took one look at the photos, vomited all over his keyboard and pressed <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/09/mario-testino-portrait-william-kate-children" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">publish</a>. Jones’ main complaint is the vapidity and emptiness of the photos.</div>
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The intimate – supposedly honest – photos particularly got his goat. Testino, in his efforts to present the Royals as impossibly perfect, had missed the opportunity to present something authentic, real and complex. After all, authentic and real would invariably mean revealing imperfections because who is perfect, after all? Jones draws a comparison between a painting by Zoffany of the sons of George III, which I assume is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Zoffany#/media/File:Charlott_buckingham_house1765.jpg" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">this</a>, and Goya’s portrait of the family of <a href="http://www.franciscogoya.com/the-family-of-charles-iv.jsp" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">Charles IV of Spain</a>. He praised the first for showing “the burdens and stresses of royal childhood in a genuinely humanising way,” and the second for revealing the subjects as “mortal and fallible human beings.”</div>
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I completely agree with Jones on Zoffany and Goya’s works. Yes, they gave us a glimpse of the humanity behind the glamour: the burdens, the pains, the expectations and the inevitable failures that they carried on their selves. I still steadfastly prefer to see Will and Kate as glossy, pretty creatures of magazine advertisement variety.</div>
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Read more on why on the <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/07/13/royal-christening-photos-why-should-monarch-appear-mortal/">The Big Smoke</a>.</div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-85973826209569032012017-02-10T00:08:00.003+00:002017-02-10T00:08:50.316+00:00Ditching the Lazy Girl's Guide to Climate Change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>This article was first published in The Big Smoke on June 30, 2015.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq4L7PC98yuRq04Cg2gKvULykyOypX87jvHIdQa4ceY0il5Be04AgARxa_lDOe-h0BIAOMgwDdt4fn3h7XL_tRXoDg4n-6U4Ert28rNLxaVpZVCLIAc3sNLEM044JlSitfZ1i7ksSkDuXU/s1600/20150616001145180390-original-770x432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq4L7PC98yuRq04Cg2gKvULykyOypX87jvHIdQa4ceY0il5Be04AgARxa_lDOe-h0BIAOMgwDdt4fn3h7XL_tRXoDg4n-6U4Ert28rNLxaVpZVCLIAc3sNLEM044JlSitfZ1i7ksSkDuXU/s320/20150616001145180390-original-770x432.jpg" width="320" /></a>I was in second grade when I first heard of the term “global warming”. A friend and I were poring over maps and wondering about the polar ice caps when someone – it may have been my friend’s elder sister – mentioned it to us. The earth is warming because there is more CO2 in the environment, eventually it will cause the polar ice caps to melt, and the earth will be submerged. I didn’t find it a very difficult concept to grasp. (Yes, I was a terrifyingly bright kid.)</div>
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My seven-year-old self thought it entirely plausible. I wondered how long it would take. I was absolutely convinced that that I’d have nothing to worry about during my lifetime. I also figured at least four generations after me would be safe. I bandied a few numbers around and decided that five million years is how long it would take for humanity to be in peril, and calmly went back to finding Poland in the Atlas.</div>
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I guess I wasn’t that bright a kid after all, because here I am ,all of 35, reading about how the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/22/the-earth-is-on-the-brink-of-a-sixth-mass-extinction-scientists-say-and-its-humans-fault/?tid=sm_tw" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;">earth is on the brink of a sixth mass extinction</a> event thanks to climate change (the term into which “global warming” has morphed). The article didn’t arrive on my FB newsfeeds via Global Green & Left Fortnightly. No, it can be sourced to Washington Post and it has forced me to contend with the fact that I am doing next to nothing in this fight for the very survival of our planet – of our beautiful, bountiful, gorgeously green, blue and pink planet.</div>
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Read more at <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/06/30/lazy-girls-guide-climate-change/">The Big Smoke</a></div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-74616088385141818842017-02-09T23:31:00.000+00:002017-02-10T00:03:12.157+00:00Nela Trifkovic and Saray Iluminado bring Balkan Music to Melbourne<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>This article was first published in <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/06/20/music-interview-nela-trifkovic-saray-iluminado/">The Big Smoke</a> on June 20, 2015.</i></div>
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I’ll start with a confession. I had no clue what “Sevdah” or “Sephardic” meant when I went to a performance by the Melbourne-based band <a href="http://www.sarayiluminado.com/" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">Saray Iluminado</a> on a mild, breezy evening last month. It is my aim to attend one artistic event a week, and the performance was described with words like “Balkan”, “folk”, “Sevdah” and “Sephardic Jewish Romances” on the website of <a href="http://www.fortyfivedownstairs.com/" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">fortyfivedownstairs</a>, an independent performance arts venue. Intrigued, I decided to give it a try.</div>
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The performance started out as unfamiliar and oddly discordant to my ears, especially with Nela Trifkovic’s singing in Bosnian. But before long I found my fingers drumming along involuntarily. My foot joined in just before the interval and by the end, every cell of my body seemed to be singing along to Trifkovic’s intense, melancholic melodies. She seemed to carry us all across time and distance, into a world entirely made of her haunting voice.</div>
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Upon my return home, I started looking up Saray Iluminado in earnest. The four-member group plays folk music from Bosnia and Herzegovina (part of ex-Yugoslavia) and Sephardic Jewish romances. The music, called Sevdah, goes back to medieval times but it particularly came to life during the cosmopolitan Ottoman era between the 15th and 19th centuries. In Bosnian, the word “sevdah” refers to longing for a loved one or place. The music itself is characterised by slow tempo overlaid by fervent passionate singing about love, longing and loss.</div>
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On June 20, 2015 the group will premiere its first original composition <em>The Song Boat</em> at the Richmond Theatrette in Melbourne. On behalf of TBS, I reached out to Nela Trifkovic – the group’s artistic director and lead vocalist – to chat about being an immigrant, singing Balkan folk music in Melbourne, cosmopolitanism and her original composition.</div>
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<em>CP: Tell us about yourself and your music.</em></div>
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NT: I was born in Bosnia, and arrived in Australia as a refugee with my family in 1996 as a 16-year-old during the Bosnian war. I had been studying music from the age of 13. I continued my studies in Western classical music at university in Perth, studying piano and classical singing and composition. I earned two bachelors’ and a master’s degree there. Ten years ago, I moved to Melbourne to do a PhD in classical music, met my now husband, the theatre actor and director James Adler, and stayed here. I come from a very musical family, particularly on my father’s side. They were all involved with the traditional Sevdah music back in Bosnia.</div>
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<em>CP: So when did you start playing Bosnian folk music here?</em></div>
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NT: After I finished my bachelors’, I sang some Balkan folk in Perth music events, and it was noticed by theatre directors. Some of them approached me to sing live during their shows. Even though I was singing in a completely different language, they said they liked the tones, both the melancholy and the upbeat aspects of my singing. So it is really through theatre I started exploring my Balkan musical roots professionally. The funny thing is that when I was trying hard to be Australian, cut off from my own music, I felt more foreign and different. But as I started playing Balkan music, I started feeling more comfortable here. Now I just feel like another ethnic girl in Melbourne.</div>
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<em>CP: How and when did Saray Iluminado come about?</em></div>
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NT: I met William Thompson through another music project. He is English but was very well versed with Mediterranean guitar instruments. Like me, he was also highly trained in classical music but we both wanted to do something world music-y with our classical musical selves. So we just started doing gigs in art galleries and cafes. Kelly Dowall, who is New Zealander with a real passion for Turkish music, met us at one such gig and soon the three of us started playing together. Ernie Gruner, who is the established Melbourne musician in our troupe, joined us towards the end of 2013. He and I had met during a theatre project, when I was still doing my PhD from the VCA, and he had suggested we do something together. So when a musical grant opportunity came up, which required us to find a mentor, I asked him to join us.</div>
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We got the grant in 2014. The money and Ernie’s network within the Melbourne art scene has really helped us go beyond casual gigs. We could approach venues such as fortyfivedownstairs – a well-known independent performance arts space – for concerts. We have just recorded a full 10-track CD of traditional Balkan folk music, which will be released in September. It has also allowed us to explore our own original compositions, like the one we will be performing on June 20.</div>
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<em>CP: What is the Balkan music scene in Melbourne like?</em></div>
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NT: As immigrants in Australia, we all have our individual communities, the Bosnians, Croats and Serbs. But there is a lot of interaction, particularly at a musical level. Music and food are really the two mingling factors for the community. Music, in particular, is quite strong in our community. There are a number of cafes that are hubs of Balkan music and food. There is also a strong Turkish, Greek and Middle Eastern scene in Melbourne, which intermingles with Balkan culture. However, our band doesn’t particularly play to the Balkan community. I feel I sing in memory of Yugoslavia and Bosnia but not to the Bosnian community.</div>
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<em>CP: Is it hard singing in Bosnian to a non-Balkan audience?</em></div>
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NT: I believe that if I sing with integrity and conviction, we will find our audience. Moreover, any folk music plays on universal themes of birth and death, love and grief, requited or unrequited love, and these exists in every culture. So from that perspective, the repertoire is really easy. I just feel I must sing from my heart and it will appeal to many people.</div>
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<em>CP: Cosmopolitanism is a theme that overlays a number of your songs. Why is that?</em></div>
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NT: When this music was written, Balkan people lived very different lives (and many still do). Bosnians were marrying Serbs, Muslims were marrying Jews, and this music was born out of that variety. In fact, Germans, Turks, Hungarians all contributed to this music, even though it is considered Slavic today. In comparison, our national identities are a lot more rigid today. In my music, I want to emphasise cosmopolitanism because it is an important thing to show to Australia. That allowing different traditions to co-exist and intermingle is a great way to build new expression. It helps people assimilate better.</div>
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<em>CP: Is that where your new composition, which premieres on June 20, arose from?</em></div>
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NT: The original composition is a song cycle inspired by the traditional folk music, but the lyrics belong to Bosnian poets of the 1950s to the present day. Through our songs we explore the story of a boat filled with Jews named St Louis, which in the 1940s was turned away from every country it approached, and the people eventually returned to Germany to be sent to camps. I guess in exploring it, we are trying to draw a parallel with what is happening to asylum seekers today. Being an immigrant whose application was successful, this is a personal journey for me as well. I want to bring out how powerful and overwhelming it is to beg for your life, or to be in a position to say yes or no. I want to bring out how one person’s yes or no is another person’s finality.</div>
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In our premiere performance, we collaborate with other artists. A video installation will accompany the performance, and there are spoken parts too, for which my husband James Adler collaborated. We are exploring stories of refuge and how you find a home.</div>
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Facebook page: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/SARAY-Iluminado/728313850553905" style="color: red; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none !important; transition: 0.2s;" target="_blank">Saray Iluminado</a></div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-62844259917764622132015-06-07T08:11:00.002+01:002015-06-07T08:44:43.927+01:00The Stella Prize-winning "The Strays": A Book Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgveeo1HB_6rFcYM9DHAZL46zJKbNR1AzMyz0lTzZ3_aVzH4ljbstyy4u458Lc5y-erhQpn9uRPMZlFOjXvSZ2eZdHwPy1Er_LU7SV3JWmPrk0h3ghTwSGZn4Oe6NgHo65-Kg_kyt5bw3lY/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgveeo1HB_6rFcYM9DHAZL46zJKbNR1AzMyz0lTzZ3_aVzH4ljbstyy4u458Lc5y-erhQpn9uRPMZlFOjXvSZ2eZdHwPy1Er_LU7SV3JWmPrk0h3ghTwSGZn4Oe6NgHo65-Kg_kyt5bw3lY/s320/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The book on display at The Book Cafe, Swan Street Melbourne</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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It always feels terrible tearing apart
someone’s debut novel. Most are just the first step in a long journey, and all
you want to do is applaud the author for even trying.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">But what if it is a decisive step in the
wrong direction? Worse, what if she is being egged on? Is it not your duty then
to step-in, nudge her shoulder and point out her mistake?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It is with this spirit that I am taking to
task <a href="mailto:http://thestellaprize.com.au/the-stella-prize/2015-2/">The
Strays</a>, Emily Bitto’s debut novel. Because this poorly characterized and
badly set novel has just been awarded this year’s <a href="mailto:http://thestellaprize.com.au/about-us/about-the-stella-prize/">Stella
Prize</a>, a literary award of $50,000 for Australian women writers. In
particular, the prize aims to “provide role models for schoolgirls and emerging
female writers” and no, this novelist is not ready to become a role model yet. She
has a lot to learn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Bitto’s novel is the story of a bohemian
art commune set up by an avant garde artist couple, the Trenthams, in 1930s Melbourne.
It is told from the perspective of a young girl, Lily, who as the best friend
of one of the couple’s three daughters, is one of the “honorary strays” in the
commune. The other strays are the Trentham girls – Bea, Eva and Heloise – and
the men and women artists who inhabit the house and create its bohemia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lily is the only daughter of a working
class couple in Melbourne, who is cherry-picked by Eva Trentham for friendship
on her first day at a new primary school. There is an immediate attraction
between them, according to Lily, which is akin to a connection from a past
life. And yet, we are never quite sure what exactly is the basis of this
friendship. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Eva is an independent, imaginative,
free-spirited creature, evidenced from a number of events: the way she speaks
to her father as an equal, her adventures, her rebellion against her mother, her
secret love affairs, her running away from her parents and then from her lover.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lily is the exact opposite. Not once, does
she show any signs of independence or imagination. All she ever does is trail
Eva, bask in her reflected glory, follow along in the mischiefs plotted,
planned and executed by Eva. She lives off the scraps of excitement that come
her way by existing on the peripheries of the Trentham household. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lily’s true role is that of Eva’s shadow.
But Bitto, the author, wants us to believe otherwise. Early on she emphasizes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">“What
drew Eva and me together was our shared sense of imagination. Hers was formed
from rich materials, mine from poor; hers developed over endless hours in the
exotic garden kingdom she inhabited with her sisters, mine over hours alone.
But the end result was the same, and each recognized it in the other”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I challenge the readers of this book to
present any evidence of Lily’s imagination. There is none. Imagination implies
being able to see things beyond the obvious, and Lily never sees anything but
the obvious. If she has a rich internal world, we are never made privy to it.
Even her infatuation of Jerome Carroll, one of the artists, is timid and tepid.
All her dreams have been handed down by Eva and she freely admits to it. The
word that jumps to mind with respect to Lily is “dull”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Which brings us to the biggest puzzle of
this book? Why has Bitto chosen such a dull, unobservant, unquestioning
narrator to tell us the story of big, bold characters experimenting with big,
bold ideas, as the artists of this story are supposed to be. Lily has nothing
interesting to say about them other than the obvious - that they are
iconoclasts, a conclusion that she doesn’t even come to herself but absorbs
from the surrounding gossip, conversations and events. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This big story contains men and women who
broke the conventions of their times and paved a new road for a whole
generation of artists to come, we are told. And they paid a price for it by way
of the destruction of their own family. But when presented through the lens of
such a dull narrator, it becomes not about the clash of ideas, conventions and
personalities or about the art produced and consumed, but about the superficial
gaiety of their lives, the parties, the clothes, the celebrity, the glamour,
and the bohemia of their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Using a child as your narrator can be a
powerful tool. As <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Kill The Mockingbird</i>
showed us, intelligent children can be sharp, observant and questioning of the
events around them. Their untutored gaze can crack open and question the
prejudices that we adults have come to internalize. Imagine the possibilities that
an intelligent child could bring to this setting of artists trying to create a
whole new visual language in Australia and living lives that defied the conventions
of 1930s marriage, parenthood and family. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Instead, we get a child who instead of
questioning the ideologies of the adults, actually absorbs them. Does it matter
that she is absorbing the ideologies of unconventional people, because such
unquestioning acceptance doesn’t allow us to dig beyond the surface. Lily has
no insightful questions to ask about anything because she is so in awe of all
the other characters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">She fails to seriously question the Trentham’s
neglectful parenting. Of course, she tells us that the children are mostly left
to their own devices. But other than for the youngest, Heloise, we don’t see
any real consequences unfolding for the others. And while Heloise is slowly
turning trenchant, uncontrollable, and possibly vicious, Lily has no time to
share her dilemma with us. Cruelly shunned by her sisters and largely ignored
by her parents, Heloise is a very lonely child who feels strongly about her
situation over which she has little control. It is a traumatic childhood. But
through Lily’s shallow narration, the failing almost seems to lie in Heloise
for her lack of self-control and for feeling so intensely about her situation.
After a particularly traumatic episode in young Heloise’s life, here is what our
empathetic Lily has to say about her:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">“When
Heloise talked about that night, even years later, it was with a bitter
seriousness, a complete inability to see the events other that as they occurred
to her as a seven-year-old. It became a foundation myth, a lasting symbol of
the troubled nature of Heloise’s childhood, the real sufferings she endured,
but also the way she experienced these sufferings, reliving them over and over
until they wore away their own caged-animal paths within her.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">With this Lily shifts the blame of Heloise’s
tragic life from her parents to her own self. Yes, her childhood was troubled
but the real blame lied in the way Heloise viewed her own childhood rather than
with her parents. Leaving aside Heloise’s decline, their neglectful parenting mostly
came down to boiled eggs that the children ate for dinner, which Lily mentions
on at least three occasions as a symbol of the sufferings of the Trentham children.
Other than that, they have a rather grand time left free to do as they pleased.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Another opportunity for Lily to question
Trenthams’ disregard for conventional parenting lay in comparing them to her
own conventional and loving, if a tad dowdy, parents. But Lily has no time for
them. If they exist at all for her, it is to present the Trenthams as
glamorous, confident and attractive in comparison. Even when her father almost
loses a leg in an accident, through Lily, the event comes across as almost
celebratory as she now gets to spend an entire summer with the Trenthams. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In fact, to Lily, her own parent’s lack of
glamour and sophistication is a blight that she never forgives them for. Even
when she is well and truly dumped by the Trenthams, and is back living with her
own parents, she never reflects back at how the steadiness of their temperament
compared to the Trentham’s fickleness. Instead, she wallows in grief at her
sudden drop of status – as she is no longer Eva’s chosen one – and at the loss
of all the dreams that Eva had fed her of a glamorous life ahead. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Another trouble with Lily is that she is not
observant. Mind you, she sees and hears, but she doesn’t observe. We have a
houseful of young men and women living together, but Lily doesn’t sense any
illicit undercurrents and is as shocked as everyone else when such liaisons are
exposed. If there were personality clashes of any consequence, we are not told
of them – except peevish Heloise’s fights with everyone. Instead, Lily floats
along giddily on the surface of this glamorous bohemian commune. But what is a
Bohemia worth unless we are allowed to dive into the undercurrents that
eventually break it apart. When the blow-up happens, it is swift and not
terribly scandalizing, and not much is discussed of its aftermath. All we learn
is that the unconventional sisters come to a bad end, and the artists mostly
flourish. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Which brings me to the artists. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This book is presented as peek into the
1930s Melbourne art world, when modern art was struggling to find a place for
itself in Australia. But this book is not about the art or the ideas that
underpinned the new form or for that matter any serious challenges the artists
faced. In the entire book, Bitto mentions three artworks specifically – as
works that struck Lily in some way, though how exactly she never explains – and
the artistic debates of any length are limited to two, both of which are filled
with clichés on capitalism, artistic freedom and artist as a madman. The art
world is presented with all the insightfulness of a society magazine: the gay
parties, Evan Tretham’s loud, sexually charged personality, Emily Trentham’s
bitchiness, the nude models, and the mention of a lawsuit of obscenity brought
against Evan Trentham. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Without any serious discussion about their
art or their ideas, what we are left with are caricatures of artists. We have
the persona of an artist – the erudite books, the sunny communal studio, the
European foods, the clothes, the disregard for social conventions – but without
the actual art, we can’t fill these personas with any substance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Of course, one can argue that the narrator
was a child so to expect her to pick up on the intellectual debates would be unrealistic.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">No, in fact, an intelligent child can become
a very resourceful channel to examine artworks, ideas and social mores because
they can question anything without the author having to justify their
questions. A child’s clear-eyed gaze would have been a great way to examine
what people hated about this new form, and an intelligent child’s language
could have presented the sheer genius of modern art in a way that a layperson
could understand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The problem, as I have mentioned before, is
that Lily is a dull child. And by creating her, Bitto has outed herself as a dull
author.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">At the end, we have to wonder what this
novel is all about?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Is it about friendship? It is not because
there is no equal friendship at play here. We are never really told what Eva
likes in Lily, except her unquestioning loyalty. But unquestioning loyalty,
unless brought into question and tested, is uninteresting. In this story, that
dilemma is given all of two pages. Instead, reams and reams are given to
discussing the surface details of the Trentham lives and those of the artists,
what they liked eating, reading, wearing and talking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Is it about parenting? After all, the
Trentham daughters suffer and we can squarely blame the parents’ failure to build
any trust or reliability with their children for it. But as illustrated above,
Bitto doesn’t really delve into what good parenting means or what trust and
reliability can lead to. After all, Lily never recognizes or discusses the role
that her own conventional parents played in the person she eventually became
and the life she built for herself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So is it about the art world? It is and it
is not. It is certainly not about the art or the intellectual, political and
social debates that went with it. It is about the superficial trappings of the
art world – the glamour, the scandals, the larger-than-life personalities. In
fact, long after Eva has disappeared from Lily’s life she continues trying to
find a place in this world, falling in love and having a child with an artist
before finding a happy balance as an art historian married to an economist and
living a conventional middle-class life. But again, this transformation is not
something that Lily is necessarily at peace with. She sees it as a lacking in
herself, a failure to embrace, accept and rough out the emotional fickleness of
an artist’s life (though of course, such fickleness is as much a myth built by
society pages as anything else). In fact, when her daughter rebukes her for the
safe choices she made, Lily smarts and starts questioning herself instead of correcting
her daughter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">There is a word used to describe a person
who exists on the peripheries of the art world, basking in the natural charisma
of artists, hoping that some of it would rub off him or her too. He is called a
hanger-on. This book, at the end, is not about “The Strays” but about “A Hanger-On”,
and we are asked to empathise with her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">And we would, if only Bitto would be honest
about her narrator’s shallowness. Instead, she keeps trying to imbue her with
false dignity. But this is precisely what makes her weak author: her own inability
to see her own narrator for what she is, a pathetic, shallow hanger-on, who
never grew up to become something more.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>A shorter version of this review was published on the online Australian cultural magazine The Big Smoke. You can view it <a href="http://thebigsmoke.com.au/2015/06/06/book-review-the-strays-bitto/">here</a>. </i></span></div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-62920715022781043942015-03-08T11:22:00.001+00:002015-03-08T11:41:49.848+00:00Mr Spock, Star Trek & the human dimension of science<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi92vVJufLlwb4axJBdJ-r_7G52ee2RqKhL7n_FC83cyyiMEvZPnRxHpmPCwAhiMTCaRwJQ3uLQQPvjn7KrzDVKmhCiOEO-MPS1ajrZqEYMULTPkKC2nvTXYDe4bdtb9Vs8h_tsVN0sjzfj/s1600/live-long-mr-spock-tobias-woelki.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi92vVJufLlwb4axJBdJ-r_7G52ee2RqKhL7n_FC83cyyiMEvZPnRxHpmPCwAhiMTCaRwJQ3uLQQPvjn7KrzDVKmhCiOEO-MPS1ajrZqEYMULTPkKC2nvTXYDe4bdtb9Vs8h_tsVN0sjzfj/s1600/live-long-mr-spock-tobias-woelki.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy: <a href="http://africashispring.blogspot.com.au/">African Spring</a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Leonard Nimoy is no more. Star Trek - The Original Series - was my pre-physics tutorial fix through the last two years of school (and of physics as it turned out). </div>
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To me, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series">Star Trek</a> was everything that my school science never managed to be. It was about the the excitement, possibilities, processes and ethics of science. I loved it not for the black holes, the time travel, the nifty uniforms and warp speeds but the way it explored social issues and universal human emotion<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">s from a futuristic point of view. The sense of distance - both in terms of space and time - helped explore the prejudices and mores of today with greater clarity. And that was the beauty of it. In that sense, it was like exploring social issues from the fictional perspective of a child who can question everything without being called to account. </span></div>
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Leonard Nimoy, aka Mr Spock - half human, half Vulcan - was that child. His role was to use logic to question all the inherent assumptions of human beings.</div>
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Somehow, it was this human dimension that I feel got lost in all the subsequent franchises. It just became about black holes, time travels, nifty uniforms and warp speed. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Leonard Nimoy may be dead. But Mr Spock will live long and prosper, I reckon.<br />
<br />
***<br />
Here's an episode from Star Trek in which Mr Spock fell in love (albeit with the help of some flower spores): This Side of Paradise<br />
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-62809022409005375372015-02-14T06:34:00.001+00:002015-02-14T06:34:01.497+00:00Happy Valentine's Day: Or What Sid Will Never Find Out<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The words with which Sid proposed to me were simple. "I want to marry you because I really love talking to you". Here was someone willingly signing-up to a lifetime of my incessant chatter. How could I resist? </div>
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Six Valentine's Days later, we can still spend hours just talking about completely irrelevant things: Abbott vs Turnbull, The Mindy Project, Gaultier's bras and the pros and cons of moving to Scandinavia (free childcare, old age help, fantastic state schools, free universities vs ridiculously Gi-normous taxes).</div>
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Dear Sid, on this Valentine's Day, I gift you Ronan Keating's cheesy " You say it best when you say nothing at all". 'Cause, poor baby, I'm not sure you'll ever find out.</div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-46975249311311149382015-02-13T13:30:00.002+00:002015-02-13T13:30:26.564+00:00The Tale of Chook-Chook, Dorius and the Pink Lion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last Monday, as soon my 3-year-old daughter got into the car on our way back from daycare, she said: "Dorius hit me." I inquired into it, and she insisted that some boy called Dorius had hit her on the head. I spoke to the carer in charge of her room the next morning, and she said she would find out and report to me in the evening. </div>
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No one had seen Dorius hit my girl. So it must have been a minor skirmish. But what the carer said about my Chook-Chook gave me immense reassuran<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ce. She said Chook-Chook is an amiable girl but she never lets any other child get rough with her. In a firm voice, she will tell them "Don't do it. I don't like it." It is enough to dissuade most kids. I know she was speaking the truth because she has used that phrase in front of me before. </span></div>
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If she can keep up this attitude, I know she will do alright for herself.</div>
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I must be doing something right as a mother. </div>
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To mark this episode, Chook-Chook and I made this pink lion today. Indeed, she is my little lion in pink.<br />
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7502323779636210957.post-40030214873784764022015-02-13T13:21:00.001+00:002015-02-13T13:21:38.054+00:00Bra basics: Or how Gaultier became a part of my life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="430" scrolling="no" src="//www.cincopa.com/media-platform/iframe.aspx?fid=AgKAcQsEvgaV" width="600"></iframe><noscript><span>Jean Paul Gaultier Show 24/01/2015</span><span>Gaultier: the transgressive, the funny and the beautiful</span><span>sailor strip ball gown</span><span>because sailor stripes and haute couture goes together ;-)</span><span>flash</span><span> 24</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 3264</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 69</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 22</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822700</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969025</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 6:49:41 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 2448</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 24</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 2448</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 329</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 21</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822894</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969008</span><span>orientation</span><span> 1</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:18:28 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 3264</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 24</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 2448</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 329</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 21</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822894</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969008</span><span>orientation</span><span> 1</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:18:28 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 3264</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 24</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 3264</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 68</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 20</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822883</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969025</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:27:11 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 2448</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 24</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 3264</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 74</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 20</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822881</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969008</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:28:56 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 2448</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 24</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 3264</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 58</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 20</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822894</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969025</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:29:08 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 2448</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 24</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 3264</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 258</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 20</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822883</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.968994</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:31:19 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 2448</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 24</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 3264</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 220</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 20</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822892</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969039</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:32:05 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 2448</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 24</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 2448</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 291</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 21</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822872</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969039</span><span>orientation</span><span> 1</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:36:28 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 3264</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 16</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 3264</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 297</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 20</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822833</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969025</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:41:33 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 2448</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 16</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 2448</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 264</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 20</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822861</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969131</span><span>orientation</span><span> 1</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:44:53 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 3264</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 16</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 3264</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 84</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 20</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822864</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969147</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:50:25 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 2448</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 16</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 3264</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 232</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 19</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822850</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969161</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:52:58 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 2448</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span><span>flash</span><span> 24</span><span>cameramake</span><span> Apple</span><span>height</span><span> 3264</span><span>dir</span>:<span> 284</span><span>alt</span>:<span> 20</span><span>lat</span>:<span> -37.822881</span><span>long</span>:<span> 144.969008</span><span>camerasoftware</span><span> 8.1.2</span><span>originaldate</span><span> 1/24/2015 7:30:26 PM</span><span>width</span><span> 2448</span><span>cameramodel</span><span> iPhone 6</span></noscript><br />
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I loved this dress made out of a garbage bag by Jean Paul Gaultier which I recently saw at a retrospective of his works. (No. 3 on the slide show)</div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It accompanied his other creations like denim ball gown, an evening gown in military camouflage, a dress with its own faux tits and pubic hair (I kid you not) and of course, the conical bra that Madonna wore during her Blonde ambition tour.</span></div>
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It also finally dawned on me that it is thanks to Gaultier that we women have become so cool about our bras peeping out of our dresses. It was Gualtier's famous conical bras that finally destroyed the "hush-hush" associated with it. He made exaggerated gorgeous bras and put them before our tops. He made us confront them, and suddenly they became just another piece of clothing. </div>
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Thank you Gaultier. I may have never worn one of your creations. But you have made your presence felt in my life.</div>
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globalbabblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03943342464554767429noreply@blogger.com0