The Business End

If anyone's been wondering where I've been (I doubt it :P), I've pretty much spent the last week furiously trying to write two chapters of my thesis for The Boss to read on a plane to Fort Lauderdale.

Okay, so huge swathes of what I wrote this week is in dot-point form (the most important parts) but after I printed out the forty pages (about half of which are for figures and not text), I started to realise that the end really is in sight...and I might not actually be in such a bad position. Sure, I'm not in the position I thought I would be - there are still some experiments that need proper analysis and I'm contemplating repeating some experiments, but I've got an idea on how things are going to fit together now.

Anyway, I have one month to complete a whole first draft so wish me luck!

Friendly decadent catch up

I am cursing not bringing my camera with me last night to chronicle the dinner and dessert that suling and I shared last night to catch up and moan about our respective PhD woes.

Our plans were hastily cobbled together seeing as neither of us had any idea where to eat and thus didn't make any reservations. We decided to try our luck at Cumulus Inc. where we knew you couldn't book a table but worried about how long we'd have to wait given that we were hungry and it was bloody cold out - we didn't really want to have to exit and look for a new place. Luckily since it was still pretty early and it was only the two of us, we took a table at the bar and after a short perusal of the menu, got ordering and griping about our respective positions.

Sometimes, one eats a meal that changes their perspective. Sometimes, you'll eat something that makes you realise all the woes that assail you are fleeting and somethings are far more important. I had that last night. Maybe it was the wine speaking (just one glass of a French Chateau Riotor grenache) but during my meal last night, I could not help turning to suling and declaring, "You know what? Life is glorious!"

So what did we eat to inspire such ecstatic feeling within me? After much discussion, the two of us decided to order four dishes to share, abstaining from any charcuterie since we couldn't decide on whether we wanted proscuitto (suling) or foie gras (me, obviously). As our starter, we had the slow-cooked octopus with aioli, dehydrated olive, floating in olive oil. This was alright. Good, but not the highlight. I liked dipping the grainy sourdough bread into the oil. This was followed by a salad of shredded confit duck leg, roast & pickled beetroot, French breakfast radish and walnut. Suling said she generally doesn't order or eat salads at restaurant on principle, but agreed that this salad was pretty good. I still had to eat pretty much all the *green* bits though.

Since the salad had beetroot in it, our plates got pretty pink by the time we had finished. The waiter manning the bar noticed this and said, "You'll want to have clean plates for the seafood escabeche." He was so right. A concoction of red mullet, scallop, mussels, clams, carrot, dill, saffron, and olive oil (as far as I can remember), the two of us sat there and looked at the plate and then turned to each other and said "Oh my god. This is good." I would like to equate the feeling this imbued in me with the first time I felt foie gras melt in my mouth, the first time I ate truffles, the first time I realised how good wine could be. On continued eating, I upgraded the rating to GLORIOUS! The joy I had as the flavours seduced my senses was like an epiphany. I realised that while the wondrous feeling generated from the party in my mouth may be fleeting, so too my PhD related woes will pass. But I will be able to recreate or remember that moment of pleasure from the escabeche whereas I will only complete one PhD (if I remain sane and don't do one in arts). We also ordered extra bread so as to wipe up the saffron-flavoured oil. The couple sitting next to us followed suit.

To finish, we had the cassoulet - white beans braised with salt pork belly, smoked Lyonnaise sausage and roast pork strap. It too was pretty damn good but not as ground-breaking as the escabeche. Nonetheless the salty-sweet combination of the pork and beans was completely fulfilling and enjoyable. The big queue at the door made us decide to forgo the madeleines filled with lemon curd and we braved the cold winds to go sit in the Hyatt Bar for tea and dessert.

Here we shared a dessert tasting platter for two, which consisted of chocolate fondant, apple and rhubarb crumble, lemon tart, and cup of pistachio ice cream, lemon sorbet, and coffee ice cream. As I nestled in my comfy chair, cradling a cup of lemongrass tea within my hands, I repeated. Life is glorious.

Painting of the Week - The Lamentation of Christ by Giotto

Giotto de Bondone, The Lamentation of Christ (Fresco number 36, Scenes from the Life of Christ 20), 1304-06
Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel, Padua, Italy
(Image Source)

Since I've been struggling for subjects to cover, I will be covering key pieces of the Early Italian Renaissance for the next few weeks. Giotto (1267 – 1337) was active nearly a century before the Early Renaissance and other than influencing artists of the later Renaissance, most notably Michelangelo, as an artist he is recognised as a huge turning point. Giotto's fresco cycle in the Scrovegni/Arena Chapel in Padua is considered one of the earliest masterpieces and most important works in Renaissance Art.

It might not seem that fantastic now, but his paintings was a huge break from his contemporaries, moving away from Byzantine style art towards a more naturalistic depiction of characters. In Lamentation we see not only the emotional sorrow of Mary and the various saints crowded around Christ's body but also that of the angels, some of whom are physically contorted in despair. In addition, Giotto has modelled his figures to be recognised as multi-dimensional solid beings as seen in the shadows of their drapery which falls in a realistic manner from their limbs and the attempt at foreshortening on the saint with dramatically outstretched arms.

You can imagine the effect of being confronted with such drama in a painting and how that would influence art for centuries to come.

Emo is not a new phenomenon

"Beautiful young men with long hair

who skillfully turned their curls

into a fringe along on the forehead."

Jean Lorraine c. 1904-10 on the type of people who preferred Debussy to Wagner.

(Spotted in another book I'm reading, Gregor Dallas' Metrostop Paris.)

P.S. Feliz Aniversario, Kaka! Welcome to BA27!

Decline

I was once the spectator of a heated debate about the values of music and comparing whether Radiohead was better than Red Hot Chilli Peppers between Mischka and Dave G. I say spectator to rather than participant because I literally just sat there and watched them verbally duke it out. As I listened to how each lined up their arguments and rebuttal, I found myself becoming increasingly apathetic about the entire issue. When asked what I thought, I said, "I don't particularly like either band," to which I received an eye roll and the disparaging comment, "Well, I suppose you like Maroon5."

I suppose you're wondering what the point of that anecdote was. In a nutshell, I'm finding myself increasingly saying and thinking things such as, "I don't care, I have no opinion on that, I'm not interested," and so forth. And then last night, a character in the book that I'm currently reading said "You have to be interested to be interesting," and it made me seriously wonder - "What was the last thing I was interested in?" As in, really interested enough in something to dig up information and absorb as much knowledge on a topic as possible? Not something like "I wonder what Yoann Gourcuff's brother is named?" When was the last time I fulfilled what was said about me at my 21st birthday party - that I had an opinion on everything?

This might seem like over introspective, highly self-indulgent claptrap but I really am concerned that, at a point where I should be questioning and dynamic, I instead seem to be devoid of intellectual passion. My last hope is that this is a byproduct of concentrating too long on the PhD that has become increasingly frustrating and crushing my cheer the way the senior academics said it would. So people, how do I increase my interest in things and thus, become more interesting?

Sculpture of the Week - Lego sculptures by Nathan Saway

I'm feeling lazy this week so just check out this site that tells you about Nathan Sawaya who makes sculptures out of lego. Enjoy!

My dream date with Niko Kranjcar

Normally I don't post about my dreams unless they are super weird. This one wasn't super weird (well, mostly) but it will give me the opportunity to post screencaps of this hottie:

Niko Kranjcar in all his tongue porn goodness.

So, a bit of background. Before I went to sleep last night, I watched the English Premier League round-up show. One of the featured goals was the penalty taken by Niko.

It probably didn't help that Ven had also sent me a video of Niko after the match on Monday morning where he looked pretty sad while walking around the pitch shaking hands and then a post match interview where the sadness continues. Some more caps of Niko looking sad.

Niko and his hair which is worthy of AC Milan.

Ven explained Niko's facial expression thus, "If you were in a team surrounded by incompetent people, you'd be pretty sad too." Anyway, the dream pretty much consisted of Niko and I going on a dinner date. Oddly enough, he was wearing his blue Pompey kit in which he looked pretty hot, and hot isn't an adjective normally applied to Pompey's uniform. He was sad and I was spending the date trying to cheer him up and make him laugh...and then I think my radio went off because I remember singing Leona Lewis' version of Run.

So yes, that was it. Poor Niko. Cheer up, sweetie!!! Move to AC Milan, take Gourcuff with you and form the WORLD'S HOTTEST MIDFIELD!!!

*EDIT* I found the vid!

Crimes against Fashion

This country has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. Among other thing, it is recommended that you wear a hat and sunglasses to shade their faces and eyes when outside so as to decrease exposure to cancer-causing UVA and UVB radiation. Some people really hate wearing hats because they don't think they have a *hat face*. Some people (like me) find it difficult to find an appropriate and fashionable pair of sunglasses. And then some people just wear these:

This is not the person Mischka and I saw casually walking down the Italian strip near Uni.
(Source)

Apparently these full-face visors are popular in China! And if it's not that sunny, they can always double as up as liquid nitrogen face protectors!

This person however is contravening EHS regulations by handling liquid nitrogen while wearing birkenstocks instead of closed shoes (Source)

Painting of the Week - Dynamism of a Dog by Giacomo Balla

Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
(source)

This week's painting is something fun from the Futurist movement. Active in the first half of the 20th century and primarily Italian, Futurism was a movement that celebrated the technological and societal changes contemporary to the early 1900s, advocating the rejection of the past and moving to the future - and using violence to get there if necessary. Unfortunately something they also celebrated was nationalism and the movement became associated with Fascism; the writer of the Futurist manifesto, Filippo Marinetti, was one of the first members of the Fascist Party and although he later left it, he remained a supporter of Fascist ideals.

Anyway! Dynamism of a Dog is a more playful example of Futurist work and displays several things the Futurists celebrated (and not just cute little dogs). The dog has multiple feet and tails, the chain is swinging around, and the legs of the person walking it are blurred indicating that they're moving forward, not static or stuck in the past. There is also the allusion to modern technology - the blurring such as that Balla has shown here is reminiscent of photography of movement. Lastly, although there's not much to see, you can tell the scene takes place in an urban environment, celebrating the modern city.

Fugly World Cup!!!

The profiles have already been posted at http://hottieworldcup.blogspot.com/
Voting starts April 12 but be careful not to look for too long in case your eyes burn out.

Shopping fail

Earlier this week, we had a nice cold weather blast. Thumbs up, I say, it means I can drag out my cold weather clothes! Thumbs down from Ma though since it means that when she goes out for her morning walk it can be pretty nasty and cold. And it can be really uncomfortable since she only has unlined suede gloves.

One morning she asked if I could find some cashmere-lined leather gloves knowing that I owned a pair. No probs. The next day, Pa asked me to make sure I went to a restaurant in Richmond by 7pm for Mum's bday. No problemo, I said. Later that same day, a thought struck me. It was her bday. She'd asked me for gloves. I hadn't bought them yet.

Shit.

I furiously chucked out my analysis plans for the afternoon, and grabbing Mischka for company, we trundled down to the citeh to look for gloves. Unforch while I could find leather gloves, none were lined with cashmere. Understandably since we're only just getting into the season and it never really gets that cold here. But then I was stuck with the dilemma - do I get her something that she needs (any gloves) or what she wanted (cashmere-lining).

While I contemplated this, I went off and bought myself a pair of patent leather slingbacks.


Then I decided the best course of action would be to lend Ma my own gloves and in the meantime contact Pooey in Meldon to get some appropriate gloves there! So in the end, I didn't manage to get her a present and ended up with shoes I didn't really need. Fail.

The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflote)

I'm not happy. I feel bad about it, but I'm not happy! I wanted to love it. It's Mozart, it was opening night, it's got two of my favourite arias - I really wanted to be blown away. Maybe I wanted to it too much. Maybe that's why I feel so sorely disappointed.

First the good. They've clearly spent a lot of time and effort in the production. It really is quite nice to look at and there's stuff like revolving rooms, giant puppet dragons, acrobats, fancy entries and exits - the Queen of the Night floating in on the moon is really cool.

Tamino (Andrew Goodwin), Pamina (Sarah Crane), Sarastro (Daniel Sumiegi), Monostatos (Kanen Breen), the Three Ladies, and the Three Boys were really good in their roles, I have no complaints there.

So I guess that brings me on to the bad.

I read an article a few weeks ago about where someone complained that they believed the opera company was concentrating too much on the production and not on the singing. I'd like to think that both are important as opera is about the acting and the singing. But in this case, I really had to agree with the article. As great as the set looked, sometimes it was just distracting. Did there really need to be aerial acrobatics going on over the singers? Sometimes watched them rather than the performance.

What the hell was with the recitative being in broad ocker English? It was jarring to reach the end of a song then get *Strine* spoken. This applies to Papageno (Andrew Moran) in particular. I know he's meant to be comic relief but the bogan direction was too much. Ditto with Papagena who was described by one of my party as a *Franga Hanger*. Think about it.

This next bit I feel really bad complaining about. In 2004, I saw the Agnes Letestu dance Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty ballet. In the Rose Adagio when Aurora meets her four suitors, there's a bit where the ballerina has to stand en pointe while the four guys spin her one by one. Letestu wobbled a bit in her effort to do the move. I was okay with it due to the difficulty but others the others were like "But she was selected at audition! She should have been able to do it and do it properly!" That's how I feel about Lorina Gore's Queen of the Night (or Queen of the Stars, which was how she was called in the production). QoN is probably THE most difficult role in Opera. There are two arias with 5 high Fs, one in O Zittre Nicht and four in Der Holler Rache. You can imagine my horror when Gore's voice cracked and didn't hit the high F in the first aria. No one around me seemed particularly concerned though so I thought I imagined it. It bothered me enough to ask the others during intermission when it was confirmed that they too heard it. I was so worried the same thing was going to happen in Der Holle Rache, truly my heart never beat so fast during an opera before. I'm pleased to say she did manage to get them although she wobbled other bits. But this brings me to the anecdote at the start of this paragraph. If her voice couldn't handle the colouratura, why was she selected at audition?

Arrrrgh, I feel so bad for not loving it! And for complaining about a soprano not being able to pull off the hardest role in opera repertoire! But.....argh!!!

So here's a very poor quality recording of Sumi Jo doing Der Holle Rache in 1992.

(photo source)

Bouldering!

After months of saying it would be done, I finally went indoor bouldering with dancinghula and The Pom. What can I say? It was tough! It was a lot tougher than indoor rock climbing despite the walls being only 3m tall. Alas no photos were taken of this event because we were too busy trying to conquer the wall to take any. That and our hands were covered in chalk.

When you're standing at the base of the wall, casually bouncing on the crashmat looking up, it looks pretty easy. When you're watching skinny girls and buff shirtless guys climbing without too much visible effort, it looks pretty easy. When The Pom demonstrates how to do it, it looks pretty easy. But when you're clinging onto the wall looking up at the next handhold and wondering how you're going to get there, *phew!* Luckily both dancinghula and I are pretty stubborn people. You want me to hang upside down and try to propel myself around a ledge? Hell yeah I'll give it a shot! (I couldn't do it, but not for want of trying!)

So what did I learn? I need better upper body strength for one. It's been about 3 days and my lats, traps, and delts still twinge a bit! I should probably try to drop a few kilos as well or make myself into a little ball of muscle. Either way, the bug his bit me hard. We're going again in about a fortnight! In the meantime, I'm going to do more chin ups in the gym!

Movie review - Gran Torino

A curmudgeonly old Korean War Vet - and not curmudgeonly in a lovable way. He's a grizzled, grumpy, racist old man with a collection of guns in the house and whose own children try to avoid him. A Hmong gang trying to force their young cousin into their crew by getting him to steal his neighbour's prized 1972 Gran Torino. Said neighbour is the war Vet. Oh yes, somethings are gonna change in this neighbourhood.

There are some movie roles that make a movie. And there are some roles that can only be played by certain actors. One could argue that in casting himself as Walt Kowalsky, Clint Eastwood gave himself a plum role. On the other hand, how many other 78 year old actors could stand around growling at people or say "Get off my lawn," and let you hear the unspoken words *Or I will shoot you in the head.* As the recently widowed blue-collar worker comfortable in his ways and not liking the changes he sees occurring around him but secretly being eaten from the inside over things he's done, the changes in Walt's attitude could have gone so wrong in the hands of the wrong actor or the wrongly cast actor.

The Hmong supporting cast were not actors and it shows, but the two that Walt interact with Thao (Bee Veng) who attempted to steal the car and forced into restitution by his mother and sister Sue (Ahney Her), do well despite times where they're not quite convincing. Her as the one who draws Walt out of his shell by showing genuine concern for him (compared to his own alienated sons and horrid grandchildren) is quite promising.

A commentator on the IMDB board for this Gran Torino pointed out that men of a certain generation like Walt only really knew how to work, instead relying on their wives to help them interact with their family and often expected less from their daughters which conversely led to easier relationships compared to their sons. This is clearly seen through how his relationships with Thao and Sue changes him in a way that some people think unbelievable. From being forced to work for Walt, Thao's respect for his knowledge and experience (the garage scene), compared with his son's derision at Walt's career as a factory line worker, results in a mentor-protege relationship. Likewise, Sue who views Walt as a lonely old man who manages to draw him out by integrating him into her family with cheerfulness and flippancy. The genuine affection two have for each other is evident through their interactions and comes to the fore with Walt's obvious distress when Sue is assaulted in retaliation to his actions taken against the gang. Through them, while he retains his flippant racist remarks (probably out of habit), he comes to know that for all their differences, they are people dealing with similar issues as himself.

While possibly not the most original of stories, Gran Torino is a great showcase for the absolutely bravado performance of Clint Eastwood. It establishes that even with hitched up pants and wrinkled arms, he is still The Man. Sean Penn better have been freakin' awesome in Milk to have stolen won that Oscar.
8-9/10

Notte Sento

Painting of the Week - Little Fur by Peter Paul Rubens

Peter Paul Rubens, Little Fur (Portrait of Helene Fourment), c.1635

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
(source)

In 1630, Rubens shocked the world by marrying Helene Fourment. And when I say shocked I mean it because he was a 53 year old famous painter and diplomat who had served at various courts in Europe and she was chubby 16 year old blonde. Despite the huge age gap, it was a happy marriage by all accounts and Rubens produced this portrain while Helene inspired more chubby blondes in his later works.

Little Fur is an extremely intimate painting in which the artist has clearly put in a lot of care in presenting the image of a loved one. From Helene's smile to her pose which hides nothing and suggests a lot, it is clearly a work that was meant for private eyes only. The work itself is also notable for presenting her body as a non-idealised nude. Although it may not appear so because of Rubens' nudes usually are pretty chubby, closer inspection reveals that Helene's skin is sagging, her ankles are swollen, and she has varicose veins on her legs. Love with imperfections, if that's not true, I don't know what is.

Movie review - Watchmen

In an alternative 1985, Richard Nixon is in his third term as president, the Soviet Union are stock piling nuclear warheads and Superheroes are a reality. Or at least they were because masked vigilantes have been outlawed, so they now walk un-masked among the general population. I had heard a lot of buzz about this movie, mostly mixed but ranging from approval to downright negative, so here I go.

Based on the 'comic book' by Alan Moore (j0sh, if you still read this blog, that's a shout out to you and your thoughts on my review of V for Vendetta), Watchmen has an interesting Hollywood history as it was considered nigh on unfilmable partly due to the complex nature of the story with all its violence, nudity and politics, and the effects required to make the story plausible.

Firstly to the good things. This was directed by the Zack Snyder who did 300, and as you can imagine, the visuals are pretty darn great. Seeing it at IMAX probably helped but even so, the opening credit sequence that people have raved about was pretty darn amazing and would have looked great on a not-so-big screen! Other highlights were the attention to detail in recreating the flashbacks to WWII, Vietnam War etc. I also really liked seeing Silk Spectre's (Malin Akerman) hair swish. And I didn't find Dr Manhattan's (Billy Crudup) glowing blue penis too distracting (Link is safe for work).

Although I knew who they were, the cast is pretty much devoid of any *big names* but I think the actors were pretty spot-on for their roles, if not for their acting then for their looks! Carla Gugino and her bonestructure in particular is great as the original Silk Spectre, bitter at having to give up her crime-fighting ways to have a family and glorying in her past as a 40s sex symbol. In fact, I reckon she would have been better than Akerman as the current Silk Spectre! Patrick Wilson does well as the meek Clark Kent-type who doesn't know who he is without his mask on. But the real star would be Jackie Earl Henry as Rorschach. Possibly benefitting from having the most background info, Henry really gets across the uncompromising to the extent of crazy aspects of Rorschach and does a great gravelly voice that is kinda funny when you see it coming out of the face without the mask

So the bad. It is really long. Not unexpected given that how thick the comic is, but given the cuts and compressions, there were points when I did sit there thinking *how much longer is this going to be?* I know it was necessary to run through the backstories in order to get to why some characters have taken the position they have but sequences like Dr. Manhattan dressing could shorter?

Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias annoyed me. From his voice to his looks but particularly his hair. I know it's 80s hair. But he just annoyed me in every scene he was in.

The ending was changed from the comic. I won't say what it was to try and avoid spoilers but immediately afterwards I thought I preferred the movie ending. Now I'm wondering whether it might be too 'neat'. I'm not going to go on, psycho-fan style, about changes to the work because I think the finished product is pretty good even though the really complex philosophical aspects have been trimmed.

Then there's the statement that people have that Watchmen is an effects-bloated, ultraviolent, ultralong overly reverent mess. It's kinda hard to argue with that. Okay it does have a lot of special effects. And it is both really long and really graphically violent - more violent than the comic, actually and in one scene in particular. I'll just say *meat cleaver*. Mess...I do wonder if my having read it prior helped me keep track of what was going on. I didn't love it enough to be all *hey, that's different!* so that probably also helped.

A *superhero movie* in that it has superheroes, I wonder whether the many people who told me the movie was an incomprehensible load of crap walked in expecting something like Batman or Transformers where the good guys are sympathetic and win, and instead got a story about the political and moral complexities of being a hero - after all, how do you choose who is 'good' when everyone is willing to do some pretty bad crap to get their way? For example, Rorschach is pretty much a psychopath but he's the one who will not compromise on doing the 'right thing'. Does that make him the 'good' guy despite also being a brutal murderer? Or is 'Villain' who is willing to sacrifice millions of lives in order to save billions doing the right thing?

I fully expected to hate it and while there are definite provisos, I still say it is pretty good.
6-7/10

Signs

Signs - Blog

Filmed in Melb, this kinda makes me wish I worked in one of the Collins St skyscrapers. Except not really. I know they're too far apart in reality for this to work without binoculars.

Reality bites again. *sniff*