Friday Five: Super Heroes!

Last night I went to watch The Dark Knight Rises. With the exception of Anne Hathaway, everything about it was brilliant, and, in her defence, she does have a nice bum. It got me thinking about the whole super hero thing (Super Hero is actually a trademark co-owned by Marvel Characters Inc and DC Comics, but I'm sure they won't mind me using it here). I asked Him Outdoors who was his favourite super hero, and he said Thermoman, so I stopped asking him.

According to Wikipedia, a super hero is 'a type of stock character possessing extraordinary or superhuman powers and dedicated to protecting the public.' Although there is no specific mention of 'human', let's assume this is so, and therefore rule out Danger Mouse and Hong Kong Phooey. They also 'do not strictly require actual superhuman powers' and can be 'costumed crime fighters'. So that includes Ironman, but I only like that (and I do like that) because of Robert Downey Junior's performance.

Now, I know he's up there on a lot of people's favourite superhero lists, but I just don't get the whole Spiderman thing. I mean, he's nice enough, but what's he got that you can rely on in a crisis? He spins webs, he catches flies... why is that a good thing? I'd take Bear Grylls over Spidey any day. In fact, I'd just take Bear Grylls.

5 Favourite Super Heroes:

1. Batman - It's not just the outfit (although that's pretty fine); he's dark and disturbed and has great toys and fast cars and a mansion with a cool butler. His moral sense of justice and defence of his fabulous city are legendary.
2. Superman - He was the first. In the Great Depression era, America needed heroes, so they invented them. Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1932. This era is excellently described in Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Superman is 'faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.' Of course he can fly, has super strength, speed, vision, hearing and even breath. His main failing for me is that he is too perfect, and good.
3. Wonder Woman - Okay, so who didn't play at spinning round and repelling bullets with magic bracelets? The truth-lasso was a thing of beauty. And those boots! Lynda Carter was a wonderful feminist icon of the 70s. We loved her.
4. Dr Who - Well, maybe he doesn't count as an official superhero, but he can travel through time and space, has amazing geeky intelligent powers, can regenerate, and has a charming determination to save the human race for all the evils that beset it.
5. James Bond - And while we're on the subject of stylish dudes with fast cars and flashy gadgets who selflessly defend the world (and specifically Great Britain) from evil, I would happily put my money on Bond, James Bond.

Books read in March 2012

The following are short reviews of the books that I read in March 2012. The marks I have given them in the brackets are out of five.
 

The 10pm Question – Kate de Goldi (3.9)

Frankie’s mother doesn’t leave the house because she suffers from depression. Is it hereditary? This is one of the many things that Frankie worries about, but is unable to ask her with all his other questions, which he poses each night at 10pm before he goes to bed. Frankie seems to be a normal, inquisitive 12-year-old boy. His aunties come to visit regularly; he leads a terribly active life playing cricket and taking lessons for everything from trampoline to trumpet; he has a cat with the fabulous name of The Fat Controller, a big brother, Louie, and sister, Gordana, with whom he has the usual sibling spats, and a best friend, Gigs, with whom he shares a secret vocabulary named Chilun.

Frankie worries about almost everything and mentally recites lists to keep calm and stop him worrying. He likes order and routine. And then he meets a new friend, Sydney (her sisters are called Galway and Calcutta), a girl who has lived everywhere, can play cricket, and asks even more questions than he does. He enjoys her company and, despite guilt that he may be disloyal to Gigs, shares his secrets with her, although he withholds the details of his mother’s illness because he doesn’t understand it himself.

When Sydney’s mother (who chooses not to work but relies on rich boyfriends to supply her necessities – such as a Porsche) decides they will move on, Frankie is devastated by the loss of his friend and withdraws into a self-obsessed bundle of anxiety and misery. His own mother isn’t much help, but his siblings come to his assistance.

Someone who has or knows someone with depression or anxiety will understand the mental health issues in this novel. Someone just reading it as a story, waiting for something dramatic to happen, (and De Goldi’s target audience is young adults) will be disappointed, because it doesn’t. Frankie himself notes, “It really was a continual disappointment, how all the little pieces of story magic were eventually crushed by the weight of reality.” Frankie is a normal child in a typical world, but the prescriptive nature of modern society insists that everybody has to be diagnosed with something to make them feel special.

The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection – Alexander McCall Smith (3.6)
This is the latest (thirteenth) in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. I have missed the last eight but it doesn’t seem to matter because all the characters have been previously established and they remain true to their attributes. The storylines are not as important as the style and tone of the novels with their strong sense of morality and understated humour. In this particular instalment, one of the local mechanics is accused of handling stolen goods, Mma Potokwani is summarily sacked from her position at the orphanage, and, most thrilling of all, Mma Ramotswe and her (recently promoted) associate, Mma Makutsi, meet Clovis Andersen, the author of The Principles of Private Detection, by which they have devotedly run their agency.

This is a world where loyalty and polite manners are paramount; Botswana stands for “decency, quiet, courtesy – the things that were slipping away in the world but that were remembered and pined for.” McCall Smith fills in all the small-talk, and random pleasantries of daily communication, which gives his dialogue authenticity. People like to know family links or have at least a tiny bit of personal knowledge of a people or place. Mma Ramotswe is patient and tolerant, Mma Makutsi loves shoes, and imagines that they talk to her, and inanimate objects take on personalities.

The laconic style is full of deliberate contradictions. Chapter headings such as ‘A Lawyer Spills Tea Over His Shirt’, ‘There Are Some Nice People on the Road’ and ‘I Shall Simply Look Up in the Sky’ could be intellectual profundities or empty aphorisms, or perhaps both. In many respects, this is a calm and gentle vision of Botswana, but we are reminded of the inhospitable land in which they live. “A journey out into the Botswana bush was not something that could be undertaken lightly” featuring pitted roads, limited fuel and water, and the possibility of being stuck miles from civilisation in extreme temperatures with wild beasts. Once again, Alexander McCall Smith draws us into his charming world, but there is always an element of danger lurking beneath.

Witch Light – Susan Fletcher (4.3)
Corag is a legendary figure, who was accused of being a witch, but also warned the MacDonalds of Glencoe to flee before the king’s soldiers, so many of them escaped massacre (although many others were killed). In this novel, she relates her story to Charles, a fanatic Jacobite from Ireland, who interviews her in prison. He also writes letters to his wife, Jane, and slowly his feelings towards ‘the witch’ alter and soften until he pities her plight and attempts to prevent her from being burned at the stake.

The novel is atmospheric with the mists, mountains, forests and lochs of the Scottish Highlands. Corag escapes here, to avoid being taken as a witch as her mother and grandmother both are before her. She loves nature in all its guises: the curl of a leaf; the movement of a snail; the majesty of a stag; the patterns of the clouds. Her weather is winter, for she was born in the winter and seems impervious to cold. It is her friend as she waits in her cell, for they will not burn her until the snow and ice thaws, and she sits listening to the drips in fear.

Originally Charles is anti-witchcraft and believes Corag is a heathen. Through talking to her over time, however, he comes to realise that she merely has a different attitude to God and prayer to his limited strictures.

If there is a criticism of the novel, it is that it is too childlike and simplistic, with irritating passages of over-explanation and repetition. Perhaps this would be an ideal introduction for a young adult into a shameful period of history in which horrors were inflicted on brave, solitary women who loved the outdoors, practiced traditional medicine and lived simply with the seasons. It offers no great insights, but is written in a calm and fluid, almost Zen style that calms the reader with a gentle embrace.

In the Sea There Are Crocodiles – Fabio Geda (3.8)
This is the story of a young boy, Enaiatollah Akbari, who escapes from Afghanistan to Italy to find refuge. He travels as an illegal immigrant in horrifically dangerous circumstances, and his plight reminds me a bit of The Silver Sword, or I Am David although I read both of them a long time ago so perhaps I am wrong. Just before Enaiatollah goes to sleep, his mother tells him three things: don’t use drugs; don’t use weapons; don’t steal. When he wakes up the next morning, she is gone and he must fend for himself (he is about ten). She has returned to his younger siblings and started him on his journey through Asia and Europe.

The story is told to an Italian (Fabio Geda) and then translated by Howard Curtis. Enaiatollah Akbari explains to Fabio Geda, “I don’t want to talk about people, I don’t want to talk about places. They aren’t important. Facts are important. The story is important. It’s what happens to you that changes your life, not where or who with.” This might be the voice of youth (albeit told by an adult through his childhood reminisces) or just an excuse for the lack of detail, but either way, we could do with more padding, as the bones are extremely bare.

As promised, he doesn’t dwell on anything but the linear narrative, which is certainly tough as he journeys through freezing mountain passes without food, hides in the fake bottom of a lorry packed in with others so he can barely breathe, and stows away in a container on the sea. As well as hardship, he encounters great kindness but there is no time for introspection as he struggles to stay alive. He merely seeks out shelter, food and work.

Enaiatollah uses references both from his rural Afghanistan childhood, and his Americanised present – even though he lives in Italy, MacDonalds and baseball are ubiquitous, which is sad in itself. When he meets some lads from France and Brazil, he can’t speak their language and they all try to get by in English. All he knows of their country is Zidane and Ronaldinho respectively: the language of football is universal. All they know about Afghanistan is Taliban. History precedes him.

He decides to stay in Italy because of the kindness he has been shown there and because he is tired of travelling. His physical journey may have finished, but one suspects his inner searching has just begun. With very little descriptive colour, Enaiatollah Akbari presents us with a very different kind of travelogue through some countries we may have heard a lot about, but from a wholly different and starker perspective.

Friday Five: Bears!

I love bears. Since the turn of last century, inspired by President Theodore Roosevelt, thousands of toy bears have been produced so that children can cuddle them, talk to them, take them to tea parties and rely on them for safety and protection night.

They are perfectly suited to this role, being round, cuddly and just a little bit rough. I would have to say that cats are my favourite animal, but they are largely indifferent and affection towards them isn't always reciprocal. In the words of Elvis Presley, 'I don't wanna be a tiger, cause tigers play too rough, I don't wanna be a lion, cause lions ain't the kind you love enough.'

5 Favourite Bears:

1. Winnie the Pooh - obviously
2. Paddington Bear - I just loved how he was always 'accidentally' getting into trouble and he had the best hard stare. I'd like to think we would still look after a hapless refuge if we found one at the station with a luggage tag around their neck.
3. Barnaby the Bear - Originally French and slightly bonkers in translation
4. Lars the little polar bear - so cute! The eternal dilemma; to travel and seek out new and potentially challenging adventures, or to stay safely at home?
5. Bear Grylls - don't tell me you didn't see that one coming...

Automatic for the People

According to a recent 'fact' I heard on morning television (so it must be true), nine out of ten new drivers learn to drive in an automatic car. They can't actually drive a manual.

Now, I know I've gone on about this before, but I don't consider sitting in a seat and looking out of the window occasionally, so as to know where to steer or turn on the windscreen wipers (although some cars do that for you autonatically too), to be driving.

The breakfast show interviewed an 'expert' about this issue. He claimed that one in ten people like driving and they probably drive a European car. The other ninety percent just want to get from A to B as quickly and comfortably as possible. If they don't have to change gear or worry about the clutch pedal, they can enjoy their coffee more.

I'm sorry, what? Aren't they meant to be driving? Aren't there places where you can pull over and stop for a rest and a coffee if you need/ want one to break up the journey? Are you going to say they prefer to have their hands free so they can do their hair or play games on their i-Phone?

This is the unfortunate legacy of the dreaded multi-tasking; the scourge of the twenty-first century. We expect to be able to do more than one thing at once, which is fine if you are watching morning television and eating your breakfast, folding the washing, getting dressed or cleaning your teeth.

But when you are driving, you are supposedly in charge of a potentially lethal weapon and you should be giving it your full attention.If you have to remain alert to choose which gear to use, then so much the better. If you can't drive a manual, you can't drive.

Friday Five: Local TV

Moving to another country is weird in all sorts of ways. Even (or perhaps especially) if you're in a place that speaks that same language and is similar in many ways, you can still get thrown by everyday events, such as 'what's on TV'. Australia appears to be three years behind New Zealand in Coronation Street and, as New Zealand is already at least eighteen months behind Britain, it can all get a bit confusing. Charlie Stubbs popped up the other day, large as life (and twice as ugly)! The second series of Downton Abbey (which I saw in NZ last year) has just begun.

We have got repeats of Doctor Who from the Rose days through the Martha Jones/ Torchwood debacle and the Donna Noble days. I love David Tennant and I really enjoy the Doctor Who Confidential, which strangely manages to add to the magic as it demystifies the secrets. We're also getting old runs of Remarkable Vets, which make me feel nostalgic for the many times Chester visited and was so well looked after. Plus a couple of friends works there, and it's amusing to watch one try and dodge the camera, while another seeks to hog the limelight.

5 TV Programmes I'm Watching:

1. Silk/ Harry's Law - It may not be fair to put them together, but they are both excellent examples of legal dramas in their own way and representative of their county. Silk is intelligent, well-written, and well-directed, highlighting persoanl, political, and legal concerns. It features great acting from Maxine Peake (Veronica from Shameless and Twinkle from Dinner Ladies), Rupert Penry-Jones (Adam from Spooks) and Neil Stuke (Paul from Grafters) and seems real. As a compariosn, Harry's Law is yet another legal drama by David E Kelly, this time starring the inimitable Kathy Bates with good support work from Nathan Coddry and Mark Valley. It's a lot neater and slicker with jump cuts and obvious musical overlays, and you don't have to think much to follow it, but it's fluffy emotional legal drama and I like it.
2. Episodes - Relationships, writers, actors, relationships between actors and writers, anglo-American co-operation and miscommunication - it's all there, and it's funny. And Matt LeBlanc is the perfect foil to Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig (both from Green Wing among countless other things).
3. Tricky Business - worth watching for Antony Starr and the scenery (Wollongong), it's billed as 'an Aussie family drama' about a debt collection company. As it's pretty good, and involves real actors, it will probably be axed in favour of yet another reality cooking/singing/home rennovation/ dancing programme.
4. Once Upon a Time - Everyone is actually a fairy tale character in a parallel universe, and the evil queen prevents them from knowing the truth. It's as fun to imagine which character you might be (I think I'm the gingerbread house witch) as it is to watch Robert Carlyle play Rumplestiltskin.
5. Death in Paradise - Ben Miller is a stiff-upper-lipped policeman trying to battle island crime while sweating in a suit in the French Caribbean - kind of like Bergerac with better weather, or a cross between Wild at Heart and Doc Martin. An excellent excuse to film somewhere exotic, and fill the screen with sun-drenched clichés.

Portrait Gallery - Part Two

The 'Australia Now' gallery features those of current importance, figures in leadership, business, sport, science, medicine, literature, performing arts, film arts, and visual arts.



Fred Hollows by Kerrie Lester

Fred Hollows' portrait by Kerrie Lester is a fabulous image of oil on hand-stitched canvas. The bold, cheerful colours and sharp creases befit someone so instrumental in the treatment of eye disease and improvement of sight.

Jane Campion by Peter Brew-Bevan

The photograph of Jane Campion by Peter Brew-Bevan (1969) really stands out as she sits in front of a bookcase, and her image is reflected in a shiny table, looking at us twice over.

Keith Urban by Peter Brew-Bevan



Peter Brew-Bevan is also responsible for the 2007 photograph of Keith Urban. This is another classic, depicting him slouching against the wall, hands in pockets and looking down as though slightly self-conscious by the celebrity side of musicianship.

David Campese II by Paul Newton

In contrast, Paul Newton's portrait of David Campese (2000) is astonishingly direct. Also dressed in casual black shirt and jeans, he leans against a wall with his arms folded. It's a similar pose to the one adopted tby Keith Urban, but he looks straight at the viewer and, although not arrogant, he seems very confident and comfortable.



Neil Armfield by Adam Cullen

 In Adam Cullen's portrait of Neil Armfield (2010) the theatre, film and opera director is rendered in vibrant oils against a sage green canvas. The vivid colours of his bright pink flesh, blue jacket and yellow dog drip down the canvas as though anxious to escape their artistic confines. Although they are both sitting, it is not comfortably.

Angry Anderson by Sally Robinson

Angry Anderson by Sally Robinson (2006) is an intriguing acrylic on canvas. Although wearing a black singlet and covered in tatoos, he is smiling and looks far from angry. His flesh (both the painted/ inked variety and his naked bald pate) is comprised of coloured dots like an example of pointillism or a pixellated version of an identity-supressed subject, while conversely featuring him in microscopic detail.

Robert Drewe (In the Swell) by Nicholas Harding

Robert Drewe in the Swell by Nicholas Harding (2006) is a fantastic work of oil on Belgium linen. The author is painted in slithers of pastel paints like gelato, looking good enough to lick.

Glen McGrath by Sally Robinson

Glen McGrath by Sally Robinson (2003) is made up of stripes and dashes of synthetic polymer paint on canvas conveying an attitude of movement and deceptive motion as he strokes the ball almost imperceptibly with two long fingers.

Cathy Freeman by Kerrie Lester

Cathy Freeman's portrait by Kerrie Lester (1999), rendered in oil on harnd-stitched canvas, is almost naïf art in style with the black outlinesserving to enhance the power and the strength in the long limbs. Smiling and stretching against a chain-link fence, there is a suggestion of explosive speed and wild spirit wild spirit about to be unleashed.

Eddie Mabo by Gordon Bennet

Newspaper print and aboriginal symbols against a skyline of modern buildings make the perfect background for Eddie Mabo's portrait by Gordon Bennet. The passion of the land rights decision with all its inherent shame, hurt and justice is evident in this synthetic polymer paint on canvas.

Senator Neville Bonner by Robert Campbell Junior

Senator Neville Bonner was Australia's first indigenous parliamentary member. In this 1990 portrait by Robert Campbell Junior, he is surrounded by stylistic depictions of animals with the red, black and gold flag of the aboriginal people.



Patrick White by Brett Whitley

The 'star' of the show is a featured exhibition of portraits of author Patrick White by artist Brett Whiteley to coincide with the one-hundredth anniversary of White's birth. There was an artistic and ideological stoush between the pair, which gives this exhibition a particular edge.

Portrait Gallery - Part One

When I go to a new country, one of the things I love to do is go to their national portrait gallery. I think you can learn a lot from these places, such as who is important to the nation and why.

The National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, contains a visual snapshot of Australians. The portraits are predominantly of politicians, athletes, generals and soldiers, activists and Indigenous rights' campaigners, chefs and restauranteurs, newsreaders, fashionistas, artists, authors and musicians, architects, doctors and scientists.

Some are against blank backgrounds; others have elaborate settings, which can be as significant as the subject themself and can help you guess their occupation.

Dr John Yu by Ah Xian

A glazed ceramic head of Dr John Yu by Ah Xian was my starting point. Dr John Yu was Australian of the Year in 1996; as a paediatrician and administrator, and noted for his collection of Chinese ceramics and love of art and music, this torso with little child figures crawling over it makes perfect sense, and it is the first 21st century porcelain bust in the National Gallery's collection.



HRH the Crown Princess of Denmark by  Jiawei Shen

I love this portrait of Mary. She stands in a stunning blue gown with a sash, accessorised with a Danish elephant, looking frankly at the viewer. On one side is a Danish column, and on the other is an open widow, through which can be glimpsed the Opera House which, as it was designed by Dane Jørn Utzon, cleverly combines her background with her future representing the two countries.

George Tjungurrayi by Matthÿs Gerber

George Tjungurrayi was an artist, of the Pintupi/ Luritja/ Ngaatjatjarra language group from Kintore, NT. He has become one of the masters of Pintupi art, and his huge dazzling paintings of the Tingari Cycle are represented in the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, as well as European collections. Matthÿs Gerber has painted his image as a series of coloured planes, contour-mapping the artist's face as a cartographer might, to evoke Tjungurrayi's colourful depictions of the country.

Nick Cave by Howard Arkley

Howard Arkley's synthetic polymer on canvas portrait of Nick Cave (1999) is one of my favourites. It combines bright colours and bold sweeps of spray paint with the singer's uncompromising glare. The two knew each other vaguely in Melbourne in the late 1970s. Arkley came to see no sense in the Australian preoccupation with paintings of the bush, when such a small percentage of the population engages with the bush itself.



Instead, over twenty years of experimentation, he developed a distinctly psychadelic and incandescent airbrush style, which he employed in immaculately finished depictions of suburbia. After representing Australia with such works at the 48th Venice Biennale in June 1999, he travelled to London to plan an album cover for Cave, and then to Los Angeles for a sell-out show of his paintings. He died a few days after his return to Melbourne, and this was one of his last completed works.

Christos Tsiolkas by John Tsiavis

When you look ast the photograph of author Christos Tsiolkas by John Tsiavis, the first thing you see is your own reflection against the black background covered in glass, and then you notice his judgmental look as he seems to lurk in sepia in the top corner. Unnerving.

Simon Tedeschi unplugged by Cherry Hood

The giant canvas of Simon Tedeschi Unplugged (by Cherry Hood) in watercolours that run down his bare torso makes him look more like a swimmer than the pianist he apparently is, so you can't guess them all!

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu by Guy Maestri

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu's portrait (by Guy Maestri) is another huge and powerful work. He was born blind, learned guitar, keyboard, drums and didgeridoo to play in The Saltwater Band. His debut album in 2008 (entitled Gurrumul) won four ARIA awards. The portrait seems to reflect depth and harmony.

While I was roaming aimlessly between galleries, the chap I had previously left my stuff with in the cloakroom approached me. He was finishing his shift and said he wanted to show me some of his favourite works in the gallery. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a euphemism, because the first thing he showed me was Ned Kelly's death mask!

Captain James Cook by John Webber

Next he showed me a fabulous portrait of Captain James Cook by John Webber. It used to hang on the wall of Alan Bond's office until he was declared bankrupt and it was given to his liquidator. The National Portrait Gallery bought the painting for $5.13 million - it is the most expensive art-work in their collection.

Deborah Mailman by Evert Ploeg

The guide also showed me the People's Choice Award, which is a portrait of Deborah Mailman by Evert Ploeg (1999). She is an actor of Maori and Aboriginal parents, and the rendering of oil on jute makes for an interesting background.

Nora Heysen self-portrait

His own favourite is a self-portrait of Nora Heysen which he points out (correctly) has a 3-D-like effect, and wherever you stand in the room it appears as though she is watching you, and her image stands out from the canvas.

Still of Cate Blanchett from a video by David Rosetzky

Finding out what I liked, he took me to a video by David Rosetzky of Cate Blanchett explaining her acting process, and he left me to watch the ten-minute documentary. She explains that acting is a "constant pull between wanting to be seen and not wanting to be seen." To assume a character you've got to get to a place of neutrality; to see the horizons of a character and know you won't fall off the edge. Characters are there to do something, like figures in a dream. They are real, but when you wake up... they're shadowy. "Who I am is constantly changing." She stands, sits and dances in an empty warehouse, and it is entirely compelling.