Birthdays 2.0

The other day I crossed the big 4-0. It was less traumatic than I'd expected, which might have been helped by it falling on a Monday. These days though it's hard for a birthday to go unnoticed, especially for those with Facebook profiles. A few years ago, it was really only family and close friends who would remember the exact day. If I organised a party (which I often did), or someone at work managed to find out, then a few more people would find out and maybe wish me a happy birthday in person, but that was it.

This year I was struck by how many different ways there are to wish someone a Happy Birthday ! In fact the most frequent way I was wished a happy birthday this was via people scrawling on my Facebook wall (36 in all), a method of felicitations that didn't even exist two years ago. Facebook (for those who aren't familiar with it) gives you 3 days notice of impending friend's birthdays, which is enough to ensure that most people are aware of it. At the other end of the scale, I received exactly one card in the mail - kudos to my cousin in England who managed to time it to arrive on the exact day. The next most common method was text messaging - a grand total of 8 messages, or 9 if you count the text from my local pub, telling me they'd added $10 to my card for my birthday (at least 0.1% of my annual spend).

Apart from that, just a couple of in-person greetings (maybe helped by being out of the office for most of the day) and surprisingly few emails (4, mostly from family) and phone calls (3 to fixed lines and 2 to mobile). Quite a contrast to only a few years ago. Despite having recently signed up to Twitter, I'm still not active, so there's a possibility of yet another new means to be commiserated with next year.

Below a summary of Duncan's 2008 greetings !

Facebook Wall	36
Facebook Message	2
Normal Email	4
Snail mail Card	1
Text Messages	9
Mobile Phone Calls	2
Home Phone Calls	2
Work Phone Calls	1
In Person	5

Creative Graffiti

There's someone (presumably a Newtown local) who goes to quite an effort to create some cleverer than usual graffiti. The first effort was on the safety sign outside the substation in the car park behind Vintage Cellars, creating a more literal warning in the process:


The good folk at Energy Australia didn't take to kindly to that, and sadly the sign was returned to normal shortly after I took the above snap last year. However, our mystery tagger has recently struck back, albeit with a slightly more paranoid tone:


I'm assuming the same person is also responsible for this postural advice, several of which have appeared in the same area.


There are a few more pictures of Newtown graffiti here, and a collection of some of the Wilson St artworks, mostly near the rail sheds here. Anyone interested in random Newtown bits and pieces should head on over to Nosey in Newtown.

Final Reviews - Sydney Film Festival 2008

All in the fullness of time ... or not. Time has got away from me once again so the final Sydney Film Festival reviews for 2008 will be in semi note form !

In Bruge was always going to get mainstream release and commercial success, and certainly pleased the full house at the State Theatre. It's hard not to like this intelligent crime buddy movie from Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, although the ending could be considered unnecessarily graphic. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson match the razor sharp dialogue with pitch perfect acting and there are enough non-PC, Belgian and American jokes to keep even the grumpiest bum happy.

Lake Tahoe is - well, a different kettle of fish. Slow moving but moving, beautifully shot Mexican story of a young boy dealing with loss. Not a lot happens yet this film held my attention effortlessly.


Lemon Tree has also since earnt a wider release. It tells the story of the Palestinian neighbours of the newly appointed Israeli defence minister whose centuries old lemon grove is considered a security risk. With elements of The Castle (!), Lemon Tree uses human stories to tell a larger political story, without resorting to stereo-typing or over-sentimentality.


Stop-Loss is Kimberly Peirce's long-awaited follow up to the hard-hitting Boy's Don't Cry. The title refers to a little-known clause by which the US Army can over-ride the standard break between tours of duty and send recently returned soldiers straight back to Iraq. This film, inspired by Peirce's brother and his friends experiences in the US Army, un-ashamedly takes the side of the soldiers while sensibility avoiding the subject of the war's validity or otherwise.

The opening scenes, showing US soldiers responding to an attack on the roads of Baghdad, use a clever mix of actual war footage and shot film, to deliver a frighteningly view of the complexities of the war in an urban setting. The rest of the film doesn't move at the same pace, yet still delivers a rivetting story. Highly recommended.

Cuba in 1932

My grandfather Charlie was a keen photographer. Rummaging around his belongings the other weekend I found some old photos from an early trip of his to Cuba in the 30s. They were old, scratched and faded but had a certain charm, so I thought I'd scan them and see if they were salvageable. Age has done some damage, but you can still see some of what grandpa was trying to capture ...



Ok, so that's not strictly true !

What really happened is not quite so interesting, but nevertheless merits some explanation. Firstly, my grandfather was a keen photographer - as an explorer in the New Guinea highlands in the 1930s (including accompanying the Leahy brothers on their famous 'First Contact' trip) he documented everything he saw; and donated his photographs to the Australian musuem, as well as his journals and collected artefacts. One day I'll go through his collection and scan some of the best ones to share with the world.

I inherited his Pentax K1000 in the 80s and I've always used it as my 'Black and White camera' - being fully manual it's better suited to more arty shots, though of course it's a great camera whatever the film. Once I shot a roll in Paris mistakenly thinking i had black and white film in the camera. The resultant prints were better than any I've taken with my automatic Canon.

I took the Pentax to Cuba, but, as the heaviest of my three cameras (the Pentax, the Powershot Digital and the Canon SLR), it often got left back where I was staying, and I only managed to shoot two rolls. Unfortunately, for one of those I had the film speed incorrectly set on the camera - 400 ISO instead of 100 (all cameras these days read film speed automatically) so all my shots were over-exposed. In 2003 I tried to find a camera shop that could develop the prints compensating my mistake, without luck. Even the good folk at the aus.photo newsgroup (remember them) couldn't recommend a solution - short of using a darkroom.

Fast forward to this year and I found the roll unloved in my draw. Hoping that developing technology had improved, I tried my luck at the local shop in King St (who do at least do develop black and white film on site). The lady there claimed that they could compensate the 2 stops needed; nevertheless the photos came back looking like they were 70 years old. Whether that's a result of the age of the film (5 years), or her not understanding my request (or both) I'm not sure - nevertheless the photos still have a certain charm so I thought I'd share some of them.




I also had some issues with the scanning (while I'm being vaguely technical). I use the Vuescan product for scanning (rather than proprietary software that comes with the scanners and is usually shit), and although the menu system is clunky and counter-intuitive, the resultant photos have always done the trick. However I now have a new printer (all-in-one with fax and scanner) and I was struggling to force the programme to generate decent sized files. Even on the archive setting - which normally produces multiple MB files, I was getting 200k scans. I guess this is probably because black and white scans store a whole lot less colour information - but these files weren't zooming in to the level I expected.

To get around this, I tried scanning one photo as a colour photo rather than black and white. I got the resultant larger file I was after, but it seems to have injected a pinkish tinge that really wasn't in the original at all !


I guess I probably need to get an upgraded and dedicated scanner if I'm going to continue with scanning black and whites.

There are a few more photos here.

More Splinters

Day 2 of Splendour in the Grass dawned with more talk of early starts, but in the end the beach won out over the charms of Van She and British India, and by the time we got there Vampire Weekend were half way through their set. I'd listened to their self-titled album a couple of times during the week, and the general impression was of up-beat Afro-pop, with a couple of stand-out singles. It's a style of music that translates well to the stage, and the big blue tent was packed with kids happily bopping away, without going really ballistic apart from for the main single.

No such problems for The Wombats though, whose high speed pop-punk had the crowd going nuts from beginning to end. They've had a lot of air-play for the catchy ditty Let's Dance to Joy Division, and judging by their gig and the crowd's reaction to it, there are plenty more hits when that one came from.

I had time for half The Grates gig and I have to say I was disappointed. There's no doubting the energy and enthusiasm of band or their fans, and I really wanted to like them, yet the songs don't really do them justice - at least yet. Anyway, Robert Forster was up next, so there was no need to hang around.

I'd had great expectations for seeing Robert Forster - at the G.W. McLennan tent no less - and they were more than met. Probably the only disappointing factor was the small size of the crowd, however that was mostly a bonus as it meant I could get up the front and still enjoy the gig without being knocked over by drunken dick-heads.

Forster covered his entire catalogue from early Go Betweens to his most recent solo releases. The sound was crystal clear and his voice was strong and clear. Particular highlights for me were Spring Rain, one of my all-time favourite songs, which I hadn't heard live in close to two decades, and Surfing Magazines, for its sheer cheesieness (especially when sung along to by a crowd of mostly 40 plussers). I traipsed back to the main stage with a huge smile on my face.

The night's finale was a strange triple-header in the Supertop: The Vines, Sigur Ros, and Wolfmother. On paper, it resembled the ridiculous to the sublime, and back again. The reality was no different, and ideal scheduling would have had us leaving after the near perfection that was Sigur Ros, rather than with the ears ringing to Wolfmother.

It was hard to imagine how Sigur Ros's ethereal music would translate to the stage, but I was blown away by the clarity and dynamics of the music and the soaring vocals. How singer Jonsi can speak after a gig is beyond me. It wasn't all operatic however, several tracks on the most recent album, including the aptly named Gobbledygook, are pretty poppy and the crowd responded in kind. A magic experience, and the highlight of the festival.

The Vines, back together after singer Craig Nicholls' much publicised difficulties, threw together a patchy set. When they rocked they really rocked, yet some of the more psychedelic numbers were just too self-indulgent, losing the good will of the crowd.

No such subtlety for Led ... I mean Wolfmother, of course. It turns out this was their last ever gig, the band announcing their break up shortly after Splendour. The music, as derivative as it is, makes for a great head-banging and body-shaking experience, and despite the protestations of my ankles, I got right into my first slam-dance in years ! I'm not convinved though, that it's practical for one member of a three piece to play both bass and keyboards, often in the same song, as Chris Ross attempted to. Anyway, lucky to see them before the end.

I decided not to risk my camera on day 2, so no photos this time round, sorry !

Sydney Film Festival 2007 - Final Reviews

Originally posted 24th July 2007 on last.fm.

Here's the final batch of mini-reviews / notes from the 2007 Sydney Film Festival. First the worst - Don't Touch the Axe - a slow, boring, pretentious, try-hard French film. I lasted longer than it deserved before walking out because I couldn't believe that it wasn't going to get better and reward me for my patience; but people I spoke to later who went the distance want that part of their life back. Gerard Depardieu jnr (his parents call him Guillaume) has the distinctive facial features but none of the acting talent of his father; and hobbled (literally) through the film with a single pained expression on his face as he attempted to justify the absurd story he was trapped in. An unbelievable (in the literal sense) love affair between unsympathetic characters; I'm not sure I've ever seen a worse film, at least not with the same pretence of being worthy.

Luckily I didn't know much about Black Snake Moan, although the presence of Justin Timberlake in the cast didn't really give me much cause for optimism. However this is a surprising and powerful story; inspired and driven by the blues. If you get a chance to see this, do. If you can, avoid the trailer, which puts a misleading slant on the film, and destroys the surprise of one of the scenes with the greatest impact. It's also highly recommended to see it in a cinema with the best sound system possible. I'm no Blues fan, but the music makes this film, and I ended up buying the Soundtrack, in which Samuel L. Jackson demonstrates an impressive talent as a Blues musician.

My other unexpected highlight was Beaufort. I didn't have high hopes for the story of an Israeli army camp, and I only attended reluctantly. The press attaché of the Israeli consulate in Sydney had been invited to speak on behalf of the Consul General; and, demonstrating a woeful ignorance of his audience; launched into a political speech defending Israel's recent (2007) incursion into Lebanon. He was roundly heckled for his troubles; but most of the audience remained and were rewarded with an intensely powerful (again !) and tense personal story. Almost documentary like; the film focuses on the young commander of the Israeli military base - Beaufort - built on an old Crusader fort, and his relationship with his team. The commander had the challenging job of attempting to motivate his soldiers to defend the camp with their lives, given the knowledge that his government was contemplating abandoning the camp to give the peace process a chance. Politics was by definition present in the story but the film maker chose not to take a political position; instead focusing on the personal impact of the situation on the soldiers. In doing so, the audience was left with far greater sympathy for the plight of those soldiers than any propaganda piece (or ill-considered speech) could have done.

Danish film After The Wedding is a taut modern mainstream film that will certainly get wider release later in the year. Starring 'Maddie' (Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen) popular in Oz due to the SBS hit Unit One (and now a Bond star), the film follows the story of a Danish volunteer teaching working in India who is lured back to Denmark with the promise of funding for his orphanage. Highly recommended.

Finally, another episode in the Sounds on Screen series, Scott Walker - 30 Century Man, a bio-pic of former The Walker Brothers member Scott Walker. My knowledge of Walker came mainly through his covers of Jacques Brel songs; although I was also aware of his earlier fame, and vaguely that his later work was non-prolific and 'difficult'. This film covers the full range of his career and gives a great picture not only of the artist and his music, but also an insight into his motivations and extreme difficulty in concluding any artistic endeavours as he gets older. Other artists such as Jarvis Cocker, Radiohead, and importantly David Bowie (his involvement released much needed funding for the film) spoke of Walker's influence on their career. And the pig carcass slapping scene is not to be missed !

Sydney Film Festival 2007 - More Films

Originally posted 16th June, 2007 at last.fm.

It was a triple header at the Sydney Film Festival last night on a rainy, stormy Sydney Friday. My wish for rainy weather for the film festival has been amply rewarded - and it can stop now. Please. Sorry to anyone inconvenienced by the storms - I'll be more careful with what i wish for in future.

Before I get to last night's films, here are some more notes on films seen and half a real review.

Two films I omitted from my first report were The Dead - John Huston's last film, and All In this Tea. The latter is a moderately interesting documentary about Californian Tea enthusiast David Lee Hoffman. I was expecting a more general documentary on tea in China (and no price jokes) so to me this was a slightly lazy effort - telling Hoffman's story without any further research or perspective. Maybe my disappointed expectations were the fault of the promoters. The other notable point (again, made in the publicity) was that it was shot exclusively digitally. Unfortunately that equated to washed out and blurry on the large screen at the State Theatre. Hopefully that won't be such a problem on television, which is where it really belongs. As filmmaker Les Blank was a guest after the presentation i feel like a bad host to be critical of his work - so sorry Les.

The Dead, on the other hand, surprised and moved me - a gentle, small scale film, shot almost exclusively at a genteel dinner party in Dublin at the turn of the century (19th to 20th that is) and based on a story from Joyce's The Dubliners. Although the setting represented a fast disappearing world, and Irish politics (the film is set only a decade before 1916) rate the barest of mentions, the final scenes pack a powerful punch and the entire film was engrossing. The Dead was only released in 1987 but its languid pace is from another era altogether.

I was apprehensive about Half Moon (Niwemang) as Iranian films have not exactly been my cup of tea. After a hard day's work and a hard week's film watching I was worried I'd get an attack of the nods, no matter how stunning the scenery and unusual the story. I needn't have worried though - the only people suffering attacks of the nods in the theatre were characters in the film itself - a beautifully filmed road movie, with impressive performances from mostly non-actors. Half Moon is about a family of Kurdish Iranian musicians travelling to newly liberated Kurdish Iraq for a music festival. Being a road-trip you won't be surprised that we barely get to see the destination, but on the way we are treated to a fascinating insight into life in those parts, more than a few laughs, as well as a serious story. Although the realities of the political situation were ever-present in the story (the film is set on the Iraqi/Turkish/Iranian border) they never get in the way of the human story being told.

Kiwi cinematographer Nigel Bluck was presented before the film (as an Australian - much to his displeasure !) and told us how director Bahman Ghobadi wanted an outsider as cinematographer in order to get a different perspective on the Iranian landscape. What Bluck couldn't admit was that his cinematography was inspired by Iranian cinema, and thus he was not ideally suited to deliver to Bahman's vision. Thankfully he still got the job as it is beautiful looking film, on top of everything else.

Life Is All About Friends has a pretty twee title that seems to have been chosen just for this Festival - it's known as Unni in IMDB. The story of four primary school boy friends set entirely in their school and surrounding village, it is a mostly light-hearted look at childhood in rural India, with darker themes such as the caste system and alcoholism lurking in the background. It's a very funny film, with beautiful scenery and endearing characters, so it's hard not to like this film (although the 'festival virgins' sitting next to me weren't so impressed!)

The first film in the Friday trifecta was from Spain - Mallorca to be precise. Yo was classic festival fare – dark, complicated and slightly obscure ; basically about melding/losing identity. At some stage during the film it really annoyed me but it was certainly original, and by the end of the film i was converted. First time director Rafa Cortes was there and spoke afterwards. He's quite a charmer and even resorted to a self-contained Q&A when questions from the (slightly bemused) audience dried up.

Next film was pure pop, a great English comedy – Death at a Funeral, which will definitely be a mainstream hit. Despite it being completely predictable and somewhat derivative, I haven’t laughed so much in ages. Perfect for a rainy Friday night and a great antidote to the seriousness of Yo.

The last film of the night was Shut Up and Sing, the Dixie Chicks film. I’ve never been a fan, but those girls are pretty cool – especially the lead singer – Natalie Maines – who is feisty-ness personified. I have to admit it’s always fun to laugh at rednecks and GWB as well, and there's plenty of that on offer here. A well made and surprisingly interesting documentary, Shut Up and Sing following the girls from the fall out over their Bush/Texas comments to the release of the recent album, Taking The Long Way. Am I tempted to listed to more Dixie Chicks ? Almost !

Great Australian Albums - Born Sandy Devotional

I knew him as a gentle young man,
I cannot say the reasons for his decline
We watched him fade before our very eyes
And years before his time, and years before his time.

With these sadly prophetic lines from Tender Is The Night, the moving Great Australian Albums - Born Sandy Devotional concluded with a dedication to David McComb (17/2/62 - 2/2/99). The film, which tells the story of The Triffids, in particular focusing on their classic album Born Sandy Devotional, is part of the Sounds on Screen strand of the Sydney Film Festival, and screened to a nearly full Metro Theatre, more traditionally a music concert venue.


It will also be the last episode in the Great Australian Albums series to be screened on SBS (Australian television channel) from late July. The series features one classic Australian album per decade, the other albums to be featured being:

Silverchair - Diorama
Crowded House - Woodface (not the most obvious choice of album, IMO)
The Saints - I'M Stranded

After the screening tonight, there was a Q&A featuring filmmakers Martin Fabinyi, Toby Creswell, Danielle Kelly, and Larry Meltzer, hosted by SMH music critic Bernard Zuel. Hopefully a sufficiently enthusiastic reaction to the series (and DVD - good news for overseas fans) will encourage SBS or others to document more of Australia's music heritage.

The film itself has a low-budget, home movie feel, which tied in with the home made aesthetic of the Triffid's album (if not reflecting the production values, which are excellent, especially obvious in last year's re-mastered release). As well as some great archival footage, it features interviews with remaining band members Robert McComb (David's older brother), 'Evil' Graham Lee (described as the keeper of the The Triffid's flame), keyboardist Jill Birt, and finally drummer Alsy Macdonald, who got the laugh of the night describing his isolation stuck with his drum kit in the attic at the Mark Angelo studios in Farringdon as the band recorded the album (and had all the fun) downstairs.

Also featured are Australian musicians such as Paul Kelly, Steve Kilbey from The Church, and former The Go-Betweens Amanda Brown and Robert Forster. Paul Kelly describes how he has tried and failed to cover Wide Open Road, unable to find a new angle on the song, considering it perfect as it is. Steve Kilbey, a passionate fan, described it as Australia's Born to Run, but I guess he doesn't share Paul Kelly's opinion on covering the track, given there's a version on the Church's latest album, El Momento Siguente.

As well as focusing on the music and making of BSD, the documentary delivers a brief history of the band and its position in Aussie rock history. Much is made of the sense of light and space in the Triffids music, and many of the fans and friends of the band recalled how evocative of an Australian childhood the music is.

In that sense, much is made of how Born Sandy Devotional is not just a great rock album, but a Great Australian Album; but this tribute (really the best term for the documentary) is for all fans of great song-writing and great music, whatever nationality.

Originally published 13th June, 2007 on last.fm.
The DVD has now been released; and all 4 documentaries can now be purchased as a box-set. At the 2008 Festival, the first instalment of Great Australian Albums Series 2 screened, featuring Nick Cave's Murder Ballads. Other albums in series 2 are:

Powderfinger - Odyssey Number 5
The Go-Betweens - 16 Lover's Lane
Hunters & Collectors - Human Frailty