Friday, April 29, 2005



The May edition of the Sydney Magazine that work of art insert inside the SMH this week is peppered with fascinating stories: ‘How Do I get One of Those?’ - The wizard, Mark Bouris, streches his answer over 7 pages. The famous poet and painter, John Hatton, and his wife Vera must be pleased with the apolitical Herald story as on page 120 Bonnie Malkin is on the husking at Huskinsson. The best kept secret is described as a place you do not want to leave in the hurry. For two decades in 1980s and 1990s my in-laws provided us with a cosy Batehaven weekender to travel to places like the Husky Pub - from dolphin watching to memorable walks along the white beaches.
In another master images Natalie Boog unveils Cronulla in her eagle eye lenses. Anneli Kinght deserves to be knighted for her suggestion that Cronulla is in the midst of a Velvet ‘(peaceful) Revolution, slowly blending a cosmopolitan cafe culture with its image as a lazy surfside locale ... a lifestyle that was immortalised by the 1981 Australian coming-of-exile (age) film Puberty Blues’ While Cronulla remains permanently soaked in a holiday feel the Grind expresso is in the honeymoon fever ... Richard gets a out of this world write up - ‘Grind, a tiny street-side cafe, wears its cult status on its walls in the form of hundreds of photographs of patrons at tourist spots across the world holding placards scribbled with I’d rather be at Grind.' Creative Spaces

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Reel of Seed Funds
Officials looking over filmmakers' shoulders is unlikely to improve Australian films

The Film Finance Corporation's new requirement for active involvement in the production of films that receive funding has been greeted with concern by the artistic classes. Some see further evidence of the Howard Government's crushing of dissent. Less paranoid filmmakers fear an intrusive corporation will impede their work and compromise artistic integrity.


Less government help may be better for the box office ; [Lord knows I was frustrated enough to kill someone. Joshilyn Jackson's Backstory for gods in Alabama ; Have you seen Consumating.com? It's a Whole New Internet; New libraries turn tide of decline Who Knew? Great Libraries Draw Readers ]
• · Did Michael Chabon invent a personal Holocasut history to "fashion his previously banal suburban persona into a more complex Jewish identity? Anatomy of a hoax ; Calling upon writers to do more of their own promotional The Hype Debate ; An Argument for Writers' Taking Charge ; Today's corporate weather-makers hate "book-lovers", as they sneeringly refer to them.Against Good Books
• · · Slavoj Zizek's rock-star status brings out adoring fans. The intellectual giant ; Samuel Taylor Pooter at your service. High as a kite and mad as a goose. Emerson and Coleridge: never meet your heroes
• · · · Yeah, but who makes more money? ; Gimme A Pound Of The Roast Beef, And One Of Those Tom Clancy Things Attention, Shoppers: Sale on Fresh Books in Aisle 3; Even well-established writers with great reviews are having difficulty getting their books sold these days He's a Literary Darling Looking for Dear Readers
• · · · · While in Australia Book Chain Collins Booksellers Goes Bankrupt - in the Us independent bookstore's last chapter Another Indie Bookstore Gives Up The Ghost: Bound To Be Read ; Getting Foreign Lit A Place At The Table Found in Translation ; For the first time, print-on-demand companies are successfully positioning themselves as respectable alternatives to mainstream publishing and erasing the stigma of the old-fashioned vanity press Self-Publishing Finds Its Legs
• · · · · · E-books have yet to crack the publishing industry Books Get Wired (As A Plot Device) ; Word Associations: The wicked allure of lit blogs - Blogging The Written Word ; From coast to coast, budget strains and tax pressures are forcing cities to make hard choices about how to spend limited money, and libraries, much to many residents' dismay, are taking the hit. The Endangered American Libraries