Twenty Third & Seventh

Sienna No Longer 'Muse'. Journalist finds new adjective shock!

I'm utterly stunned.  It became tedious reporting on every incident of Sienna Miller portraying Andy Warhol's muse Edie Sedgick, even I can only push tedium so far.  In this telling, and a shocking development in the field of journalism, a new adjective to describe Edie has been offered.  We now find out Edie was a DOOMED muse.

Just imagine, we'd all be cultural illiterates if it weren't for Sienna.

Approach with caution- high puke factor:

FROM: Pearce has worked on films where the actors realized the director wasn't going to be any help, so they learned to rely on each other. And he says there's nothing wrong with that.

"On the job I've just done, the Warhol movie -- and I don't want to talk too much about it because it's still being put together -- but Sienna Miller is so switched-on that it's remarkable," Pearce says of his co-star, a tabloid staple for her tumultous relationship with Jude Law after he had an affair with his kids' nanny. "I want to say Sienna is remarkable for a [24-year-old] but, really, age is immaterial. She's this beacon of brilliance. Both of us had moments where we felt insecure, but we knew we could look to each other for help."

Talking Shit

What better way to start afresh after a spell of illness than a pedantic piece about sewage? If forced to explain this blog, “I just write shit” would be as good an answer as many others I might offer.

We’ve been having a miniature media brouhaha in this city about the possibility that recycled sewage has ‘contaminated’ the water supply. As terrible as that sounds, it only demonstrates that very few people bother to pay any attention to the shameful quality of the water we consume in this city for the other 51 weeks of the year.

We also learned, with some amusing imagery along the way, that Sydney journalists cannot distinguish between the urban waste called sewage and the product carried by the infrastructure called sewerage. More reports than warrant compilation had us drinking bits of recycled infrastructure out of bits of recycled infrastructure. Or worse, we had infrastructure in our waste product. In some scenarios it seemed that Sydneysiders shit a terribly large amount of plumbing.

Yep, I’m back.

Manhattan Memories. Hot Dogs and Pretzels in Washington Sq Park

I've been negligent in reproducing posts from last year's pilgrimage, looking back is bittersweet.

Herewith an amusing entry from Sunday, May 16, 2005.

Hot Dogs and Pretzels in Washington Sq Park.

I like Washington Sq park, there's always something interesting happening. Today I sat down to drink a coffee and see what was happening.

Who could have predicted... the Hotdog filming?

Strecthing is key to portraying a realistic hotdog.

God bless NYU Drama Dept!


Only in New York. A hotdog eating a pretzel.



This is Showbiz, act serious!

Washington Sq Park on a Sunday. Note that the Hotdog man is still doing his thing.

Going Salon

Just as the phrase 'to go postal' starts to lose the lustre of immediacy, we have a potential replacement, going salon.  We love this story, a drunken hairdresser in a rage at the mere suggestion that his crimping skills aren't up to speed.  Never piss a hairdresser off, I say.

Salon wrecked in stylist's strop

A HOOLIGAN hairdresser, ticked off by his boss for his poor crimping skills, wrecked the salon during a drunken rage.

Nicky Cranston caused more than £20,000 damage when he smashed up McAuliffe's in Peterlee town centre during the late-night attack.

Durham Crown Court heard the 19-year-old flooded the first-floor shop – and pharmacist Savers below – by leaving taps running and ripping water heaters off the walls.

When salon manageress Maria Arnell went to open up the next day she was greeted by the police who had been called to probe the break-in.

Cranston told detectives and told them he had been at the shop on the night of the attack – but only to get a plaster after cutting his hand on a night out.

He later confessed to wrecking the salon in a text message to Mrs Arnell which read: "I have ruined everything. I am nothing, I realise that now."

Cranston, of Welland Close, Peterlee, admitted two charges of criminal damage in Upper Yoden Way, on November 5, last year.

He has a previous conviction for criminal damage.

Mitigating, Stuart Graham said: "While he had been told off during the course of this employment, this was not a grudge or revenge attack.

"He was very drunk that night and was genuinely shocked when he realised what he had done.

"He says he will never, ever, offend again."

Judge Tony Lancaster passed a 30 week sentence, suspended for 12 months, but Cranston must carry out 150 hours of community work and pay £500 compensation to the salon and £250 to Savers.

The judge told him: "You must learn to deal with your problems in an adult way, and not behave like an undisciplined child as you did on this occasion."

Culture Club in Sydney, 1984.

Omigod. 

This night was one of the most exciting of my sordid little life.  I was at this concert in my Boy George bowler-hat and eye makeup.  Life as an excitable early teen to whom English popstars were the most revered of untouchables climaxed this night.  All I recall now is staying up to see the band off at the airport and crying for hours on end with other angsty fans.  I haven't seen this footage for the best part of twenty years.

I think that it was the next day that I started to become cynical and grow up.

-----------------------------

note: The point that this reviewer has totally missed is that this night was effectively the last time that Culture Club would perform as a functional unit.

Culture Club's "Live In Sydney" flat

  RON HARRIS

Associated Press

Culture Club, "Live in Sydney" (Eagle Rock Entertainment)

The mystery success that was Culture Club is on full display in this newly released concert DVD from 1984, the height of all things pompous, hairy and reeking of alternative rock bombast.

We find Boy George and the boys performing to a huge audience in Sydney, with a bag full of hits under their arms and at the pinnacle of the band's popularity. Culture Club, at the time, had just seen the "Colour By Numbers" album reach No. 1 in several countries.

But none of that success translates well in this concert footage, which is sorely hampered by lighting and focus problems throughout. A strange pink tint looms throughout the concert, whether from bad stage lighting or a lack of quality post-production tools. It's harsh and annoying.

Equally poor is Boy George's normally magnificent voice. Here, it is warbled in parts, trailing off instead of soaring in others. He hits some horrendously odd notes on songs that didn't deserve them, such as "I'll Tumble 4 Ya" and "Karma Chameleon."

The other band members look like their simply going through the motions, and we are left realizing this is a radio hits band, and not a stellar set of live performers.

So what's to like? Helen Terry, probably the best back-up ever. On the lone highlight, "Black Money," Terry's soulful rips make you wonder why any lead singer would allow her on the same stage with her blow-away power.

Terry's back-up vocals are the only reason to buy this DVD. She's that good, and on this night in 1984 Boy George was not.

The Space Cowboy Swallows

The Space Cowboy

This video stream is worth a look.  A young man who performs a modern variation on sword swallowing.  Listening to him talk about it is fascinating- very zen.  Watching the fluorescent glass tube he swallows glow through his skin is pretty freaky.

One rather imagines that this young man might make the perfect friend for a few hours of exploring adult concepts.

In pictures

The demolition of my neighborhood.

In Pictures

1.  Cloud of Suspicion.  I spotted this strange looking streak in the sky a few mornings ago.  At first glance, I took it to be a plane falling out of the sky. That I was looking toward the very busy flightpath reduces the rashness of this assumption but...  21ST CENTURY PARANOIA!!!!!!!!!!  The streak is nothing more than an unusually shaped cloud caught in the dawn light.

HAL2000

a brief notice that we are experiencing intermittent computer difficulties. services will be restored when my webserver becomes reliable again.

Dee Dee Would be Horrified!

Admittedly dodgy snapshots, I had to find a gap in traffic on a busy road to get this image.  Something about this shop makes me feel a strong urge to vomit, it's so symbolic of the yuppie infestation of my neighbourhood.  I try to imagine the real Dee Dee confronted by a shop selling ugly handbags and twee paste jewelery that cost more than the average person's weekly income.  I think he'd have the same impulse that I do. Throw a molotov through the window!

 

   

Since when were over-priced handbags innovative, anyway?