Culture news
Today of course will forever mark a turning point for Australia; the day that Prime Minister Rudd - on behalf of all Australians - apologised to and for the Aborigianal people's Stolen generation. I went down to the Redfern community centre this morning to watch the speech with four hundred or so other locals. What a beautiful start to the day (and hopefully the start of big changes in Australia too). Many people were emotional - including Mayor Clover Moore, who gave her own lovely, teary-eyed speech after the official one. She concluded her speech with a poem by Michael Thwaites that had almost everyone in tears:
You, last of all that knew your tribal tongue,
Sleep now with them in this ancestral ground.
Above your grave the towering, ancient wrong
Speaks in a silence pregnant and profound.
Beside your grave I stand, among your folk
Who loved this land before the white man came,
Burned by the burning words you never spoke,
I ask for forgiveness for my people's shame.
For named and nameless ills your people bore
From us, who killed by bullet, axe and pride.
For our stone blindness; for the day we tore
In kindness' name your children from your side.
What could we answer if your ghost should rise
To curse our children's children from the grave?
You rise - but with redemption in your eyes
Before we knew to ask it, you forgave.
It's that time of the year again, Latin beats on Bondi's streets...well actually in the
pavillion
but you get my drift.
It's the 28th South American Festival held at Bondi this Sunday, February 17. If I go by its preceding years of festivities, it's going to be a lot of fun in the sun (that's if the sun shows its face this weekend). Celebrations start at 1pm and finish at 7.30pm. There's going to be South American cocktails, food and Brazilian dancers, Capoeira, salsa and samba. I urge you to join in, have a laugh and work up a sweat on the dance floor with the South American community. Entry costs $20 and $15 concession, or if you're like my best friend you could probably get away with telling the cashier you're 10 years old and get in free.
I went to the theatre in Melbourne tonight at the last minute invitation of a friend, to the opening night of a local production by Company 13 called D.E.A.D. - Department of Existence and Death. Six people on stage with minimal props doing what good actors do best – transporting the audience to another time, another place...and another plane, in the case of D.E.A.D. This hour long play visits the office of a gaggle of officious, confused, and nutty bureaucrats responsible for processing people from life to death, where even the post mortem needs a post mortem. It’s clever, funny and very tongue in cheek. On until February 16th at the Carlton Courthouse.
"As of the 1st of January, 2008, Big Coronas or Tiny Men(?) will be changing formats. Rather than a (pretty much) weekly blog, BCorTM is becoming a weekly club/party night to be held at Oxford Arts Factory. I can't reveal too many details, but the first show is going to feature some pretty big names: bartender from Cricketers Arms Hotel who always wears tights, Surry Hills Skater #3 (the aloof one that wears the lovely big hat). Does anyone know who books these people?"
One of my favourite young writers is Sydney's James Ross-Edwards. If you like the work of David Sedaris, I guarantee you will love Big Coronas Or Tiny Men; James' blog which he keep regularly updated with his sardonic, funny and talon-sharp tales. Together with fellow writer Stephen Lloyd and artist Jess Sutton, Ross- Edwards also creates a 'zine Called "As Curious An Entity" which can be purchased here. Mad good, I promise.
Creations such as the Ipod, Wikipedia and YouTube have made open sharing second nature to the technology savvy generation. But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are uploading something far more valuable than ringtones and home-made stunt videos; they're sharing their courses - all 1800 of them. Yes, no matter where in the world you are, if you have an internet connection you can view lectures from some of the best professors in the world, listen to podcasted lectures and download entire course frame-works...for free. The idea is called "Open Coursewear" and, although it was initially launched for university instructors, it's estimated that around half of its users are just normal folk wanting to learn about more about stuff. I think it's a pretty amazing idea and - even though you can't actually earn a degree by using Open Coursewear - I'm going to stock up on the 60c mee-goreng and get all over it.
There may be a lot of backward things about America but one of it's more forward qualities is the fact that, since 1996, at least twelve of it's states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes. As any warrior for the multi-pronged leaf will tell you (often for hours on end), marijuana is quite the effective painkiller and its well-known hunger-inducing effects are also known to be helpful in treating sufferers of anorexia and those who have lost their appetite due to treatments like chemotherapy. In states like L.A, those with chronic illnesses can legally obtain the drug through a doctors prescription and there are hundreds of natural medicine stores supplying it in all sorts of strains and guises (brownies etc) but now LaLa land has taken it a step further with vending machines that will provide the seriously pained and ill with 24 hour access to their medication of choice. Not anyone can press C3 for a tinny though; not only does the marijuana come in capsule form but the machine will be guarded constantly in an enclosed room where customers will have to provide I.D, fingerprints and a doctor administered pre-pay card before getting their dose.....and heading off in search of a regular - Dorito holding - vending machine.
