‘Two in the Top End’ series on ABC: episode review

3rd episode: across the Savannah and up to Darwin

The two travelling friends, Tim The Future Eaters Flannery  & John ‘Rampaging Roy Slaven’ Doyle, spent the bulkof the episode going through the massive savannah landscapes in the middle of the Northern Territory, while trying to make sure they reached more sealed road before the Wet season started properly.  Features of this episode included: smart new ways of managing cattle stations, billion-year-old stromatolite fossils near the roadside, a ‘dry’ town featuring a pub with no beer -due to restrictions on sale of drink for public policy reasons, and even the issue of scrapping 130kph speed limits. Tim isn’t convinced the road is really up to the demands of traffic at 130kph+, even putting safety and individual state-based rights to one side for a moment.

While Tim takes a rest during a town stop, John meets a local Aboriginal elder who has seen the local river rise 8-10 metres, nearly covering medium-sized gum trees. He believes the nearest mining company is kidding itself about being able to really control the waters during a full flood.  Further along the road, and heading into the Darwin area, the crocodile issue becomes significant re: built-up areas, so Tim and John swap croc stories, history of casualty statistics and uneasy jokes about not being the one to change a flat tyre.

On the way in to the capital, Tim becomes gloomy about the expensive Darwin real estate built in former mangrove areas. After that, it’s time to check out the croc-farming business and go out on the river with a local ranger who is missing a couple of fingers on one hand, thanks to being surprised by a croc “doing something a bit different from other crocs.” Back on land, the workers in the shed where the skinning/hide preparation work is done have all their fingers. So far.

Near the end of the half hour, the oncoming monsoon is making the climate very uncomfortable, so once they swap notes on ‘mangrove madness’ and ‘going troppo’, the two decide to take a month-long break from travel… which is where the next episode picks up.

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Viewer fyi: the series screens 8-8.30pm on Tuedsay nights in eastern states, on ABC.

Series site: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/documentaries/interactive/twointhetopend/

‘Top Gear Australia’ – a promising first ‘lap’/episode

First up, I’m no petrol-head, not even close, so any driving-oriented tv show that keeps me watching past half an episode must be doing something genuine and unexpected about trying to cater for a wide audience. I was introduced to the original Top Gear series by a couple of colleagues at work, and one of them was possibly even further from being an octane addict than me. She loved it, so I gave it a go and soon became a semi-regular watcher. The ads for plans for an Australian version eventually started to show on tv and I was slightly curious, but also wary -if the producers didn’t get the facilities, locations,  budget and have the connections to do a really good job right from the start, it could suffer badly and screech into no-ratings territory within the first series.  As a comparative example: remember what happened a few years ago to that under-supplied Oz version of ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’? Exactly. [And I promise that's the first and last time I'll refer to that...broadcasting experiment.]

First reactions: a promising first ‘lap’/episode, with some seriously expensive cars on show (good sign, even if they did depend heavily on the UK connection) that included a new-model Lamborghini, some outdoor tests, a dare or two, plenty of Australian scenery and a mix of presenters who seemed to hit it off well. I only knew of one of them, the cartoonist Warren Brown from ABC shows, and wondered if he might have been pushed into a token “here’s our version of James May” role. Warren is the non-specialist/non-professional driver of the trio, and not a columnist either, so in this respect the Australian show actually has a wider range of backgrounds among the host team than the parent production.  I think this could be a real plus.

Warren: he kept his place in the team by bringing his own cartoon energy, and a few cartoons. His moke-being-poked-by-Great-Whites stunt off Port Lincoln is not something you’ll see James do, possibly not even ‘Hamster’, so top effort there. Steve the driver/instructor and Charlie the writer/driver had the detailed-knowledge background and road/test time skills plus a lot of energy and they all had fun laughing at each other, just like the original trio.

Celebrity Lap: getting the actor Vince Colosimo (The Secret Life of Us, Underbelly) on as the guest rates as  another smart move, as he clearly had a big audience appeal straight away and really went along with the spirit of it.

The Stig: definitely good news to see him included, and after a joke from Charlie about the Rainbow Serpent, obviously to ‘provide some Australian flavour’ to the intro spiel, Stig worked hard on the test circuit at an aerodrome. He has my sympathy re: being asked to test the stretched Hummer; so do the Cessna pilots and ground crew.

I’ll give the new show another go in the next week or two, for sure. SBS can stop repeating 4-year old UK episodes now.

Starting some new reading in September

Within the last several days, l’ve started reading two new novels by Australian writers: a science fiction post-apocalypse story called The Daughters of Moab, by Kim Westwood, and Matthew Condon’s epic The Trout Opera. Both novels show plenty of detailed description, consistent control of material and evidence the writer invested a substantial amount of thought in creating the characters and the environments they move in.

Some passages in Daughters are bleak enough to make Frankenstein look like light drama, but the overall story shows some strong vision, especially for a first novel, and I’m curious about what the main characters do later in the story.  The Trout Opera has a strong ‘pastoral epic’ feel to it, balancing hard-won wisdom with lighter lyrical touches. In that respect, it has a bit in common with Tim Winton’s earlier success in Cloud Street, but with a distinctly different setting of the Snowy River rural areas instead of rural & suburban Western Australia. 

I bought my copy of Westwood’s debut novel  -and had it signed, of course – during a busy cafe book launch on a weekend afternoon in August, in my home city.  Winter was still well and truly in force, so any book-related event in a cafe/bar seemed like a good plan.  Condon’s book was in the National Library’s book shop; bought it as the next one for my shop-based book group.

Out and about today: Floriade and photo exhibition

Saturdays in Canberra during Spring are often ideal for spending the day at outdoor events and also catching up on exhibitions. The annual garden/flower show, ‘Floriade’, supposedly had some records of Vietnam War photographer Neil Davis on display, so I curious to see what that looked like. The ‘Picture Paradise’ photo exhibition at the Gallery (National Gallery of Australia) was on show for its final weekend, so today was my last main chance to see it before other jobs/tasks took up my time. This show is part of the multi-site ‘Vivid’ photographic exhibition program that has been running for a few months. The combination of 120+ years of photographic history and settings in Asia, Pacific Islands, S E Asia, Australia, New Zealand  and western coast of Nth America made it a must-see for me.

1. Floriade: couldn’t get a finer day for it, but unfortunately it was a disappointing experience in a way because it turned out the Neil Davis records were not at the Floriade site at al but at in a related exhibition either at the War Memorial (not according to my in-house information) or National Library. (?!) Also, I wasn’t really convinced that some of the flowerbed displays were convincingly tied to the film/cultural icon theme for what is meant to be a significant 21st-anniversary show. To be fair, though, I rushed through some of it with an eye on the time, so that I could still walk over to the photo show at the Gallery. On a positive note: the ‘Crocodile Dundee’ lagoon display was good fun.

2. ‘Picture Paradise’: this exhibition is worth much more time than I gave it, and a solid two hours of looking at hundreds of photos, ranging from dark & tiny daguerrotype portaits to a massive wall-length panorama of Sydney, meant I had a major case of ‘museum feet’ at the end of afternoon. The Gallery’s show covers the earliest days of photography in 1830s-40s through to 1940s, ranges across a vast geographic territory and surveys many different styles of taking photos. There are formal and informal portraits, documentary works, romanticised travel scenes, early ethnographic studies and ‘tableaux’ style of studio photos full of biblical references and dolled-up servants. Movie stars and rajahs share wall space with gold miners and young boys in sailor  suits.

Professional photographers extend the artistic and technical range of the artform and enthusiastic amateurs -both indivduals and groups, from various social and economic backgrounds – help ensure photography also becomes entrenched in popular culture.

To complement the awesome range of images, there is an interesting short film about the exhibition, featuring some voice-overs to present personal histories, give a general historical context and highlights various individual photos the visitor/viewer might not have yet seen. It also provides some commentary that in a different show could be in an audio guide or tour. I think the Gallery’s exhibition team made the smart choice in simply producing this short film.

fyi: To find out more about ‘Picture Paradise’, there is an article at: http://my247.com.au/canberra/National-Gallery-of-Australia/whats-on/Picture-Paradise and the Gallery’s own promotion at: http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/PictureParadise/

Retro Science Fiction movie: ‘The Brain from Planet Arous’

For fun:

Yesterday evening at home, well set in my easy chair and feeling like a change from a novel or whatever was offered on tv,  I had great fun watching a hilariously corny b&w 1950s sci-fi movie called ‘The Brain from Planet Arous’.

It was in a branch of my city’s library network, and with a major fantasy/sci-fi/horror convention coming up in early October (Conflux5), I couldn’t resist the chance to take a quick look at the “plot summary” (and tried really hard to not snigger too loudly), which even the jacket blurb rates as “and no, we’re not kidding. This one has to be seen to be believed”.

So, here’s some of what was ‘on offer’ : a giant evil brain with eyes and impressive levitation ability, called ‘Gor’, escapes from Planet Arous, comes to Earth, chooses a hiding spot near a nuclear test range in the US desert. It then possesses the body of a curious nuclear scientist, so it can start taking over the world and basically destroy things for fun as a “so there!” gesture. It also has an evil master plan. Naturally. The scientist’s all-American sweet-as-a-peach fiancee, her dear old dad and the faithful family dog all get creeped out by the scientist’s weird new behaviour and startling career ambitions …cue 2nd brain from same planet -’Vol’ – on a good guy mission to capture ‘Gor’ and take him back to Arous for punishment. But ‘Vol’ needs to get help, i.e unquestioning co-operation and a certain level of willingness to sacrifice their life if necessary, from the anxious family (volunteer, anyone?), to trick ‘Gor’ into being in a vulnerable situation.

Unofficial bonus features -the stuff the movie studio didn’t list as highlights: liberal use of pith helmets, gadget looking suspiciously like a hair-dryer, mysterious fascinating light in cave tunnel, boofhead offsider (but really, he’s also a scientist), the fiancee’s struggle to retain faith while escaping from her possessed beau, and the possible entertainment value of a nuclear test followed by a few days in Vegas…priceless!

Filmed 1958; dir. Nathan Hertz; 70 min.

Other ‘gems’ in same series are: ‘Project Moonbase’, ‘Plan 9 from
Outer Space’, ‘Destination Moon’, Flight to Mars’ and ‘Invaders from
Mars’.

At last! T-shirt weather in Canberra!

After months (going back to mid-May for me) of wearing long-sleeved shirts, overcoats, jackets, gloves etc, I celebrated a warm Saturday in early Spring by getting a t-shirt out of wardrobe for the day ahead. OK, today isn’t actually the first day in Spring that I’ve started on t-shirts, since I used them, and shorts, last week in Blue Mountains without going blue in cold air ; but in Canberra this hasn’t really felt like an option until the work week just past. It wasn’t an option for office wear either.

Equipped with trusty day-pack, I enjoyed several hours outdoors, including a walk around some of the shoreline of Lake Burley Griffin. I didn’t realise just how long it had been since my last walk near the National Library and Gallery part of the Lake shore, until noticing a whole set of snazzy new stand-alone signs and maps for visitors.  Further along the shore, near Aspen Island, there was a late-afternoon wedding party having photos taken.  Spring in Canberra can be an idyllic time for weddings and is one of the best seasons for them, but can also produce difficult gusty days and quick, heavy showers. This time the bride, groom and chief photographer only had to contend with a strong breeze playing around with her dress.

For some photos of Canberra in Spring time, here’s a url to try: http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/490317744KAFBdI?start=0 [copy and paste for now]

Watching ‘Igby’ movie on a Friday

When I first saw the ‘Igby’ movie at a cinema, I really enjoyed it -enough to get the DVD when it came out – but wasn’t too convinced it would make a good choice as a Friday night DVD after work. It starts with a pretty grim family situation, has plenty of more of them to follow, Igby is often a hapless drifter who loves tormenting people with his studied indifference to achieving anything. He meets a similar spirit in Claire Danes’ entertaining eccentric character, ‘Sookie’, another on again-off again student who has her own issues about escaping pressures to perform, and for a while they are fun as company and good friends for each other.

It says a lot for the performance of Kieran Culkin (a younger sibling of ‘Home Alone child star Macaulay) that he can not only keep his own place among seasoned actors, including Susan Sarandon and Jeff Goldblum, but that during the course of the story he makes the title character likeable, smart and witty. Igby is also a more believable person and much less likely to put on a  fake front than so many of the fakes, hypocrites, pompous school principals, dodgy relatives, sleaze artists and wackos who go to his godfather’s lavish parties, and those who he comes across at the military academy he briefly attends.  Igby’s godfather ‘DH’ and older half-brother Oliver are two of the standout hypocrites in a big cast, but although they both inflict a bit of pain in their own ways, Igby’s resiliently sarcastic wit, and willingness to separate himself from others, helps prevent them from managing to mould him in their or his mother’s image.

After seeing the DVD a few times now, including this evening, it has become a Friday night choice for me; that’s an occasional Friday night, not a regular standy-by sort of comedy. Thanks to a well-balanced script, smart camera work, excellent supporting performances and strong roles for the central characters, it it has enough humour to not feel “too serious” for the end of a work week.

Recent reading

Blogging time again!

My just-finished Spring holiday was a great chance to finally read some books that had been on the ‘why I haven’t I read this yet?’ pile, ‘plus a few old favourites and find some new magazine content. A last Winter cold shortly before the holiday was another unexpected bit of extra book time.

The ‘why I haven’t I read this yet?’ pile: Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet; Zen Poems (Everyman edition, 1998): these two both gave me the “why didn’t I read this years ago?” feeling, and long-term reading experience has taught me that’s the best time to actually read them, not years before. Reading these books during my time in the Blue Mts added to their appeal, as I could both dwell in a philosophical mood and at same time have the natural scale and variety of Mts life all around me.  

A few old favourites: Agatha Christie’s Three Act Tragedy (ideal for when I was at a hostel in Blue Mts), Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull; a little bit of Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals.

New books (bought and/or borrowed): Michael Robotham’s intense new crime thriller Shatter; his two earlier novels The Suspect and The Night Ferry; Mitch Albom’s Five People You Meet In Heaven; Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach; Worlds of Wonder – a guide on writing sci-fi and fantasy fiction, discovered in my city library.

Magazines: Dumbo feather, pass it on; latest FilmInk issue; a UK wrietrs’ magazine -Writers’ Forum; latest issue of goodreading; Sept/Oct issue of Poets & Writers (a US magazine).

I’m looking forward to finding more fantasy books at upcoming convention, Conflux 5, on Octeber long weekend in my home city.

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Spring-cleaning the blog; holidays

Hi

I didn’t expect my blog would hibernate during the Winter in Canberra, but somehow, despite having a plan for contents and a copy of Blogging for Dummies to provide technical help and hopefully some inspiration, other things and people kept demanding attention. At the end of two weeks’ leave from work, I’m remembering that there’s nothing like an annual holiday at the end of Winter to give the time for ‘taking stock’ and coming up with new ideas and/or renewing focus on some start-of-year goals.  One of those goals is to invest much more time (on a daily and weekly basis, not hit-and-miss on a monthly one) and effort in my writing and really work on creating publishable material then ‘getting it out there’.

When I checked my e-mails, forums etc yesterday, after coming home from a week in the famously scenic Blue Mountains, I realised it was time to give my blog a Spring clean while I’m still on holiday.  So, I scanned the pre-set options and decided this new look, with the tree and suggestion of a place to walk towards and make discoveries along the way, was worth a try as a new template. A bit of tweaking could also help, but the main thing is to have a fresh ‘page’ for making new marks. I’ll also work on the technical process to ensure I can load some of my Blue Mts photos onto my blog.

After 15 years in the ACT area, I really do feel that Canberra is at its best in Autumn and Spring, so look forward to a lot of activities in the months ahead.The days are steadily becoming longer, too, and warmer.

All the best for your own Spring.

T