RMIT Panel on Writing · 27 August 2008
Out and about this week:
This week I’ll be speaking on a Panel on writing at RMIT in Melbourne. The talk will be this Friday for final year media students.
I’ll be bleating on next to actual interesting speakers like TV screenwriter Katherine Fry, Film screenwriter Robert Galinsky and journalist Andrew Murphett.
[Genius Ben] Episode 4: "Liam Neeson" · 22 August 2008
Sure enough, it’s happened again. If you missed Episode 1, click here. The following audio is disturbing at best. And funny at worst.
This week, Ben takes the guise of Irish Academy Award nominated actor, Liam Neeson. Ben has a problem – I’d say “see the person, not the disability” but I fear the result would frighten you.
Ben does actually have his own curiously entertaining blog, called, Genius Ben.
If you’re weird enough to subscribe to MY blog, you should could be weird enough to subscribe to his. Almost.
A Peek Inside the Mind of Searle · 21 August 2008
One of my all time favourite cartoonists, Ronal Searle (and I’m sure I’m one of a bazillion cartoonists whom Searle has had an influence on) wrote an article on his process a while back.
It’s an incredible insight into the man’s thinking, and reveals the secret of his unmistakably unique line work.
Signed, Searled, Delivered:
Aauerrgh! That was an awful pun. Noone deserved that.
Sorry guys.
Read the article here
Walkley Freelance Panel · 21 August 2008
Out and about this week:
I’ll be speaking on a Panel for the Walkleys’ MediaPass Student Industry Day at the Trades Hall in Carlton (Melbourne) this Thursday from 1:30pm.
I’ll be imparting my endless wisdom ahem…cough on being a freelancer, alongside Defamer’s Clem Bastow, threethousand.com.au’s Penny Modra and editor of Frankie Magazine, Jo Walker.
[Genius Ben] Episode 3: "Future Ben" · 14 August 2008
Sure enough, it’s happened again. If you missed Episode 1, click here.
If you missed Episode 2, Keep up. Or click here.
This week, Ben takes the guise of himself for a change. Only 15 years from now.
Ben does actually have his own curiously entertaining blog, called, Genius Ben.
If you like MY blog, you should could be weird enough to subscribe to his. Almost.
Why are there so few women cartoonists? · 13 August 2008
Jen Sorensen has posted her thoughts on the problem (below).
Personally I always scratched my head at the reasons there were fewer women in cartooning; political cartooning in particular. Some of the most incisive and biting cartoonists I’ve met in Australia are women, yet I could count all of the women working professionally in political cartooning in Australia on one hand.
To date, the consensus when asked is that the Aussie political cartooning industry (like that of its American and UK counterparts) are just a big ‘boys club’; like many of the old newspaper art rooms.
I haven’t sensed a shift in the phenomenon, but I do hope more women consider cartooning as a career when they leave school. Whenever I teach cartooning to schools or school holiday courses I encourage all kids to consider it as a job option, and make a point of saying “It’s not just a job for boys.” Because it’s not!
Here’s a byte from Jen’s post:
“Why are there so few female political cartoonists? I’ve been asked that question many times over the years. It’s OK, I don’t mind. We’re something of a rare breed. Exact statistics are difficult to find—even the national group Association of American Editorial Cartoonists can only estimate the national number of political cartoonists, let alone break them down by gender, ethnicity, or class. But to give you a rough idea, of the association’s 185 current regular members, only 15 are women. I’m one of them.
My short (and admittedly Zen-like) explanation is that there are so few female political cartoonists largely because there are so few female political cartoonists. Drawing cartoons and comics has traditionally been a guy thing—a somewhat nerdy guy thing, but a guy thing nonetheless. Without role models who look like you, or friends with similar interests, any activity becomes less inviting. It might not even cross your mind as a possibility.
But when did political cartooning first become the province of dudes?”
Click here to read the rest of the article.
The Astor to Close · 11 August 2008
The curtains are about to close on the Astor Theatre, ending a 97-year history of movies and entertainment.
The Astor Cinema on Beaufort St, Mt Lawley, will shut in less than three weeks because it is no longer profitable.
The Dark Knight, starring Perth’s late Heath Ledger, will be the last screening on August 27. Cinema manager Tania Ilarda said her father, Bruno Zimmermann, the owner of the building, could hardly get the words out when he told her he planned to close.
I’ll personally really miss the Astor – I had some great times there. I recently went to my good friends’ (above) wedding there (they were both ushers and met there, so they decided to have their ceremony there.) I even met MY girlfriend there!
That’s two Perth entertainment icons closing within a week.
I was upset to hear that one of Perth’s oldest icons is to close within a few weeks.
Interesting to note that the Astor Cinema in Melbourne went under too in December.
- – -
Art-house cinemas are fast disappearing thanks to money and shifting tastes, writes Kate Shaw.
The sale of the Astor on the heels of other independent cinema closures – the Lumiere, the Longford, the Valhalla, the Carlton Moviehouse and the Trak in Melbourne, and the Valhalla and probably the Chauvel in Sydney – comes as no surprise to anyone into city culture. The usual suspects have been lined up: DVDs, home-entertainment systems, internet downloads and the recent spate of ordinary films, and they’re all partly guilty, contributing as they do to the absence of audiences.
So to people into art-house cinema: get out more! But there is more to the problem than the inconstant market for left-of-field entertainment. In the gentrifying city the pressure for highest and best (economic) use of land is phenomenal. The potential return to a landowner from a multi-residential development or shopping complex is much greater than the rent any single-screen cinema can pay. Even the most committed owners, such as those behind George Florence at the Astor, must find the economics tough in a slow period. As the owner of the Bullring in Fitzroy said last year when he closed the music venue for conversion to apartments, “the land value was too great to run it as it was”.
Read remainder of article here
[Genius Ben] Episode 2: "Sigrid Thornton" · 11 August 2008
Sure enough, it’s happened again. If you missed Episode 1, click here. The following audio is disturbing at best. And funny at worst.
This week, Ben takes the guise of Australian actress ‘Sigrid Thornton’of “Man From Snowy River” and “Seachange” fame. Amongst other roles. Like ads for vitamins. I should note that Ben couldn’t sound any less like Sigrid Thornton if he tried.
Ben does actually have his own curiously entertaining blog, called, Genius Ben.
If you’re weird enough to subscribe to MY blog, you should could be weird enough to subscribe to his. Almost.
Humanity freezes in trade winds after Doha failure · 11 August 2008
(A great article by Hugh Evans in today’s Herald Sun):
THE inspiring display of human harmony at the Beijing opening ceremony was a welcome fillip after the less than dignified breakdown in global co-operation recently.
Among those with more time than they would like to watch young Australian athletes competing at the Games will be the young Australians who had jobs at Starbucks.
Surprisingly enough, the closure of most Starbucks stores in Australia had more to do with global trade’s problems than the quality of the coffee.
It was proof as clear as the high-definition pictures from Beijing of how economically interconnected our world has become.
A decline in coffee production in Vietnam and Brazil, along with the subprime mortgage crisis in the US, combined with other factors to throw hundreds of young people out of work.
There are some who will point at the Starbucks failure as an example of the failure of globalisation, as if globalistion is some sort of ideology that we can choose to adopt or reject.
In fact, globalisation is a tide of history we could not turn back, even if we tried.
The challenge for us is to set in place the rules to ensure that the benefits of this globalised economy are shared as far and wide as possible.
That’s why the recent failure of the Doha round of trade talks really was such a significant setback.
For all its faults, the World Trade Organisation is designed to impose rules that promote free trade and minimise its abuses.
It is sometimes said an effective political argument is one that takes a few words to construct, but hundreds to tear down.
It’s also said that a contest between a simple lie and the complicated truth is not a fair one.
Nowhere is this more obvious than with global trade.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW REST OF ARTICLE
New and Improved · 9 August 2008
I’ll admit I’m a bit of a pedant at times; but I’ve always been a bit baffled at the term ‘new and improved’. How can something be new and improved?
What’s to improve on? It’s new!