Rebirth

I want to resurrect this blog.

I want to do it by running a section about something that interests me. I want to do a list of soundtracks that were better than the actual thing they were supporting. This may have been done as a triumph of artistic purpose or savvy marketing. I will spotlight a work every time I add to the list. This idea came to me while researching an artist I was fond of (Ryuichi Sakamoto) but never heard a large body of his work which involved several soundtrack works for films of varying quality (both the movies and his soundtrack works).

What I found was that Ryuichi Sakamoto with the help of David Byrne created the soundtrack to 1987's The Last Emperor and it was highly rated. The movie on the other hand, which I have seen years ago, kind a leaves people a bit cold as the events of the protagonist's life are recounted in a way that seems like a high school book report, no depth to the way he feels or the motivations which define him as a character. The visuals of the film are quite pretty. The cast make do with what little they are given. I believe the director Bernando Bertolucci wanted to show a person who had his life planned for him and everything that he could ever want for no effort and then see that all slip away because he never learned how to take any initiative or learn what he wanted. The main character is a spoilt brat who moves around aimlessly in a privileged life not learning anything special until too late then he moves off to somewhere else to meander around until the other characters get tired of meandering. Then he meanders back to China in an ill-fated attempt to grab power being aided by some Japanese who are simply portrayed as power hungry genocidaires. Then he meanders in prison meeting someone who teaches him to be a normal citizen and then he meanders to his death. There is little to no humour to any of the proceedings. The problem is the execution; it simply isn't an engaging watch over 163 minutes. It takes too long to go anywhere and when it has got somewhere we don't learn anything or care about who it's happening to. It makes an okay history lesson but it doesn't make an engaging film. I can recall things happening but I cannot recall what the driving force of them happening was past simply saying 'history' or 'war'. The only moral I take from the story is that today's revolutionaries become tomorrow's oppressors, which is not a startlingly new premise for a film.

The soundtrack is a wonderful blend of film music orchestration and Chinese music. The main theme motif is catchy and memorable. The pieces have longing autumnal quality that the movie never elaborated. Sakamoto and Byrne find a good mix of presentations that allow the music to breathe. The tracks are concise and carry to required gravitas that would be required for telling a very serious story. It is as if all the emotional content was meant to be displayed by the music rather than the actors. This could be a novel way of visual story-telling yet the script happens in an unnatural rhythm with too much excess baggage that doesn't take a concise route. It takes a circuitous route that gets bogged down in trying to recount too much. The music does no suffer from trying to say too much, it works as background ambient music and rewards close listening.

I highly recommend the soundtrack. Only see the movie if you're doing a report for school on China.

Drown in the now

I wish there was something more to talk about. I have been locked away doing assignments for my university diploma and then locked in at work on weekends. For weeks it's been the same routine but still I lag behind the rest of the class and act as a journeyman at work. It's not that what is going on is hard or grim but rather that it's so mundane. I picked up the CD boxset of 20 Years of Discord the other day and I'm slowly working my way through its three discs. I'm enjoying the energy of the music but the songs, usually just over a minute in length on the first disc, blur together before the time Rites of Spring appear in the chronology. It's still a pretty fun listen.

Progress

I just wrote this on a Reddit post and thought I'd share to get your insights...

It is in relation to this Arthur C Clarke vid... the discussion turned (as it often does) to politics and government and the economy and the best mix of them all.... anyway, this is what I wrote....


"Progress is fueled by many things and ruthlessness and greed are simply the extreme expression of passion and ambition.... and passion and ambition do not need to be fueled by an unrelenting desire to beat your fellow person and amass great fortune and are often driven by just the opposite. Your example of pseudoscience actually disproves your thesis. Science is a great example of altruistic collaboration for the betterment of humanity (generally speaking , that is the purpose of science, Hiroshima and Nagasaki aside). Scientists collaborate across nations, across universities, across town and while the grant system feeds a competitive spirit, the scientific process and science's "raison dietre" is strong enough to resist this imposition. ....I think there also needs to be a clarification amongst posters about what we are prepared to sacrifice for "progress". Personally, my happiness and the happiness of my family comes before anything else, and that happiness is not contingent on "progress". Therefore, I would sacrifice progress before I would sacrifice happiness (although I think it's on a continuum, not a binary decision)..."

The Killing Floor

The 2010 Australian federal election was somehow incredibly close and incredibly boring. There has been to date no clear winner between the over-managed Julia Gillard and a man I thought un-electable, Tony Abbott. How this became true is from both major parties standing for slight differences in approach and that's about it. The National Broadband Network will either get heaps of federal funding or put out to the market for more affordable options. The boats carrying asylum seekers will be stopped but will be sent to different ports depending on who you voted for. The mining tax will not go ahead with either party. Big business rules and the banks will be saved if they collapse as they are too big to fail. Both parties were micro-managed to make sure the least amount of people were offended and only fourteen million out of twenty-two million votes actually counted. There were many protest votes that went to the Greens, the Sex Party, Independents, One Nation and others.

I voted for the Sex Party and the Greens but not in protest. The Sex Party were the most honest about their focus and having the Greens as holding the balance of power in the Senate is something I approve of. The Greens now have one member in the House of Representatives and the option to put forward bills instead of simply reviewing them.

A twenty year old Liberal National candidate from Queensland made it into the House of Reps. It staggers my thinking as to how someone so young would support the conservative Liberal Coalition as youth is meant to be radical rather than radically boring.

Throughout the campaign I learned more about the personal lives of the political leaders rather than what they stood for. Gillard did the right thing by calling an election on her leadership after Kevin Rudd was taken out of the Prime Minister's seat but she did nothing to differentiate herself from him or the feeling she could be thrown out if her polls dropped like his. Tony Abbott on the other hand did differentiate himself from previous leader, Malcolm Turnbull, as being a wonky reactionary nerd. This didn't make choosing between them easy.

So the choice of who governs comes down to a few marginal seats, alliances with Independents and the prospect of a hung Parliament which hasn't happened in Australia since the second World War. The Second World War was gigantic and a deal breaker on the approach any goverment would take. In 2010 Australia is involved in Afghanistan but while that costs a lot it isn't a major issue. Australians have gotten used to the fact that we live in times of periphery wars. This was not a deal-breaking issue.

It's hard to get motivated about this political squabble, we either voted for Julia's red-hair or Tony's red speedos. What's scary is that who will actually have power is very important. The pandering to the lowest-common denominator shows how little respect the media and the political parties have for the Australian public.

A recent political conversation on MSN with a friend

Friend says:
No sorry, the Building the Education Revolution. You know, providing the finest quality toilet block sized libraries to every school in Australia that never asked for one at quadruple the price. And the PD is now our fucking PM. Life is a circus, is it not?

chrisdbarry says:
not a fan of the Labor party then?

Friend says:
Very balanced view I think. I mean they basically saved us from the GFC, but then proceeded to hugely botch some really major exercises like a kid that can't wait to spend my pocket money on lollies. The kid, not me.

chrisdbarry says:
interconnected exercises
i would agree that they botched the insulation thing and mismanaged the schools thing but the report that came out recently showed that mostly, the schools got value for money and there was always going to be inflated prices when you poured so much money into the system all at once
supply and demand
I know not much about economics but I know that
If they could have dribbled the money out slower it might have been better, but then maybe not enough to stave off the GFC, but maybe it would have been good for us to go through some pain
I really just wish the system was more equitable, and didn't reward wall street fuckwits
in my mind this is how it is:
wall street fuckwit : "let's gamble - I have great rewards and if I fail, the gov will bail me out"
and also
"I'm a bank and can make HUGE profits post GFC, mid GFC, pre GFC... I don't mind, I have a virtual monopoly"
and also
"We're the mining companies who also have a virtual monopoly - we don't want to have our profits reduced so we'll run a scare campaign on the entire country, which the libs will pick up on, meanwhile depleting the country (and its people) of a natural resource that can never be renewed"
and also
"I'm Tony Abbot, I'm no tech head, but I still think it's a good idea to not invest in a broadband network that could assist Australia to develop new industries post-mining boom"
and also
"I'm a politician, I can't look further ahead than 2 years"
I think Kevin Rudd had a lot of faults, but I think he had a better vision for Australia than either of the leaders today.
it's a shame that politics killed him
that's all I got

Triple threats

All the posts that preceeded this one were spastic jokes and anrgy observations by me. This means everything was a bit insular. This is why I have recruited two new 'crack' writers with talent and intellect to spare = you guys!

The angle for this blog can be anything as long as it's 'cool' or really 'hot' - do you guys understand?

We could write about whatever book/album/show/movie/etc. that you just experienced or you can write pithy observations on the world...or both ... your choice, really...I'm pretty free and easy on content. I gave you both administrative priviledges. This blog hasn't had an art students touch added to its layout so you guys can go-nuts with it or offer up a few sane suggestions. The sidebar is just some newspaper sites, music blogs and few other pages that I like - pretty bare.

When we figure out an angle - If you know someone who needs an outlet for their thoughts and would be interested in something like this you can bring them on board.

The title of this blog was 'Pimp my Asylum' then it was 'I will be Light' and now it's 'Culture Thug'. Obviously it's a work-in-progress.

Tell me where you're at on things. We'll work something out.

Giving art a bad name

I recently took my band Spermicide and the Blunt Force Trauma on the road. We play a sort of post-jazz-post-noise-anti-folk brand of melodious electronica-pop that can only be understood as a live act. Attempts to harness the 'sound' in studio have proven fruitless but nonetheless we came off as nought but professionals. World, come get a load of us! (no pun intended)