Filed under: Uncategorized
Stay tuned. Long hot Aussie Summer 08-09. Will be back.
Love.
I just wanted to take this opportunity to mourn the recent passing of the man whose experience the book, and subsequently film, The Killing Fields was based on. While there have been many stories released, each as heart-rending as the other, it was the movie based on Dith Pran’s time under the Khmer Rouge regime that put the tragic recent history of the Cambodian people in the mainstream. The publicity generated by this film, which was awarded three Academy Awards, undoubtedly led the way for many other stories to be told, and opened the doors for action in the Western community.
Pran was dedicated to raising the awareness about the horrors of genocide. With his true belief that education and awareness would prevent such atrocities from happening in the future, he founded the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project. The program continues to educate American students about the sufferings that occurred under the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979.
In his own words,
“I’m a one-person crusade. I must speak for those who did not survive and for those who still suffer. Since coming to America, I have visited Cambodia three times to evaluate the ongoing Cambodian crisis. The problems Cambodia faces are not only political but also economical and social. The Khmer Rouge have brought Cambodia back to year zero and that’s why I’m trying to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders to the World Court. Like one of my heroes, Elie Wiesel, who alerts the world to the horrors of the Jewish holocaust, I try to awaken the world to the holocaust of Cambodia, for all tragedies have universal implications.”
“Part of my life is saving life. I don’t consider myself a politician or a hero. I’m a messenger. If Cambodia is to survive, she needs many voices.”
It is true that Cambodia needs many voices. The saddest thing about The Killing Fields was that there are countless other stories like it. It is one thing to roll out statistics like, “Humans oppressed, 1.7 million killed, families decimated,” but another to be able to empathise with real human stories. It is the latter that creates understanding by those who were unaware of it, but also healing for those who experienced it. And I have the highest respect for Dith Pran, who did all in his power to help heal Cambodia.
Dith Pran. September 27, 1942 to March 30, 2008
RIP Om.
Notes: “Om” is a respectful term that is used to address anyone of your parents’ generation who is older than them. It means “uncle” (but can also mean “aunt”).
Many thanks to http://www.cambodian.com/dithpran/ for the photo and quote.
Filed under: quote of the month
Michael Evans, the author of one of my textbooks, Equity and Trusts (Butterworths 2003), trying too hard to be poetic:
“It is also difficult to see how the toothpaste of estoppel as a cause of action might be put back into the tube.”
This is referring to the expansion of the doctrine of estoppel, estoppel being a legal mechanism that prevents a party from backing down from previous assertions. Originally used as a defence to an action, it has recently expanded to become a viable cause of action; available to plaintiffs, not just defendants. Don’t really follow? I BET THE TOOTHPASTE METAPHOR DOESN’T HELP AT ALL THEN DOES IT.
Anyway, since that wasn’t really written this month I thought I’d leave you with another one, also Equity-related because being a full-time student destroys your soul like that. My Equity tutor explaining to the class what a “chose in action” is (for the record, it’s a type of intangible property that you don’t physically own but have to do something to reap the benefits of, for example shares, or a debt that is owed to you):
“Now, what’s a chose in action? Well, chose is a French word. It means ‘thing’. But as lawyers we’re not going to tell our clients they have a ‘thing in action’. They don’t want to pay us $200 an hour for us to tell them they have a ‘thing in action’. So we tell them they have a chose in action.”
And that, my friends, is what they teach us in Law School.
The following songs are songs I have actually heard played at wedding receptions:
1. Kanye West – Gold Digger
“If you ain’t no punk, holla we want pre-nup, we want pre-nup!”
Implies bride is only after the groom’s money.
2. NeYo – So Sick
“Cos I’m so sick of love songs, so tired of tears / So tired of wishing you were still here”
Break-up song.
3. George Michael – Careless Whisper
“Time can never mend / the careless whispers of a good friend”
4. Billy Paul – Me and Mrs Jones
… For heaven’s sake, the song is about a man having an AFFAIR with a MARRIED WOMAN. They’re really not sending out a good projection of their happy future together, are they?
Filed under: quote of the month
Michael Mansell, of the National Aboriginal Alliance, in his response to opposition leader Brendan Nelson’s speech following the Federal Government’s apology to the Stolen Generations:
“I wasn’t sure whether he was apologising to the Stolen Generations or the people who stole them.”
That is all.
Filed under: music
It was by impulse, spontaneity and dumb luck that I got to witness Melbourne band Little Red play two shows in two different cities. After they impressed me so much at the Northcote Social Club (5/2/08) that I had to make them my myspaz friend, I saw on said myspaz that they were to play in Adelaide – the city I had just landed in – the following night at the Grace Emily.
Little Red have been the subject of much hype around music circles (particularly in their home town of Melbourne) of late, having had their single Waiting given exposure on alternative youth radio station Triple J, and with their inclusion in such summer festivals as the Meredith Music Festival, the Melbourne leg of the Big Day Out and St Jeromes Laneway Festival, which has this year expanded into four cities (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide).
Supporting Little Red at the NSC were Spun Rivals, a Melbourne act of whom I had never seen or heard but managed to very quickly get into. the three boys were more commanding of the audience than most support acts I’ve seen, and their energetic, Brit-rock influenced, half-danceable/half-moshable sounds filled the NSC with hype (though not in the wanky NME sense). With tongue-in-cheek song titles like The Ballad of Adam and Steve, a tune about intolerance in the 21st century, and an adorable Scottish frontman with Jarvis Cocker glasses and a killer accent, how could they go wrong? Oh, and, um, bonus points for the bassist who looks like Dean Geyer… only not a twat.
Feeling alive and buzzing with anticipation, I was delighted to see five young men in matching white shirts take the stage. One would expect such a combination to come across as somewhat twee, but the moment they started playing their opening song Witch Doctor, the entire audience at the NSC started moving. It became apparent that this was a group of lads rocking out just enough to cause a crowd to dance – whether it be self-conscious teenagers wiggling their shoulders or pretentious indie types jiving. (Okay, so the jiving only happened at the Grace Emily, where the venue wasn’t packed full…)
The boys worked their way through the sets with gorgeous harmony and schoolboy innocence, and their drummer Taka Honda was lovely to watch as he smiled and bopped his head the entire time. It would probably have been better for the band to use Tom ‘Angel Eyes’ Hartney on vocals at the start seeing as his other instrument was the tambourine; I spent the first four or five songs thinking, “Does that tambourine guy actually DO anything?” Nevertheless, the boys took their turns singing and moving around the stage in a wonderfully eclectic manner, swapping and sharing the microphones throughout each show. Sharing mics was a little awkward on the miniscule 3×2 metre Grace Emily stage, but it adds so much to their charm that they can be forgiven.
Admittedly the band was prone to occasionally sound like a sixties pop cover band. Lyrics in the vein of, “She was only seventeen / if you know what I mean” and the occasional whining of a girl’s name in songs (eg. Nadine) are perhaps not the best exploitation of the boys’ talent, and frankly, it’s unoriginal. But I’m willing to forgive them for the quality unique rock and roll pop sound that they produce in their non-sixties-cover-band songs. Besides, even if they do play some uncannily retro tunes, the crowd never gets bored and always keeps moving. Like these pretentious indie types:
Pretentious indie types jiving to Little Red at the Grace Emily, 6th Feb 2008
The closing song Coca-Cola filled both audiences with energy and glee as the band invited everyone to clap along with them, Taka even jumping onto the drum set to lead the clapping. I mean, I hope the boys usually give better advice than “Coca-Cola and ice” (constantly name-dropping a multinational brand isn’t very indie, is it?), but it’s so catchy, and besides, we can all work off the syrupy soft drink by dancing along. Little Red make me move and they make me smile. They give me a fuzzy positive feeling and something to rave about for 700 words. Most of all, Little Red prove that it is indeed possible to develop a crush on five boys at once.
Filed under: Uncategorized
So in my general perusal of all things Cambodian, I was pointed to a Khmer glitter text code generator. I thought to myself, “Cool, people can leave pretty text greetings on myspaz pages in Khmer now. The Cambo kids’ll dig that.”
Of course, in my browsing I came across the usual ‘Miss you!!!’-s and ‘Be my Valentine’-s but amidst the sparkling greetings was this:
Get cool comments in khmer at
www.imisskhmer.com
I don’t entirely trust the translations they have on the site but the strobe-esque text sets back my already basic Khmer reading skills by about seven years, so I can only speculate on what the text actually translates to:
“Life is struggle, but at least colours are pretty!”
or
“Life is struggle – how hard is it to read this comment – see, I told you so.”
… but the colour and vibrance of it all really suggests something like:
“Life is struggle, hello happy sunshine yay!”
I might try this next time I have to disillusion some poor soul. Just be glad I’m not a doctor.
Filed under: commercial tv
So I turned on my TV not too long ago in anticipation of a morning news bulletin. Being a little early, I managed to catch the end of 9am with David and Kim. The presenters were doing their usual presenter “be friendly to the viewers” thing, saying goodbye and wishing them well, &c.
And then David pipes up, “Have a salacious day.”
Now, I like to pride myself on having a relatively broad vocabulary… I was pretty sure I knew what the meaning of “salacious” was until this morning television presenter cast some doubt in my mind. So what else was I to do but consult my trusty pocket Oxford. I came out perplexed, but at least with the knowledge that I had been right about the meaning:
-
salacious adj. lewd, erotic.
I’m just not sure that’s an appropriate way to greet your viewers. No-one’s watching mid-morning television in anticipation of a salacious day. They’re hoping for nifty new food processors and exercise machines that don’t work and new cyclone vacuum cleaners… none of which really scream out “SEX!!!” if you ask me. Someone needs to buy David a dictionary.
Filed under: music
10. Tegan and Sara – The Con
It’s not profound, but it is solid, uncomplicated, well-excecuted, catchy pop music.
9. Operator Please – Yes Yes Vindictive
Admittedly, their lyrics are quite juvenile in places, and if I were any older I might not be able to relate to a lot of what they sing about (eg. Cringe, a song about awkward people at teenage parties – even though we’ve all been there). I hate to focus on the age of a band’s members, but I think that a lot of their fresh dynamic and energy does come from the fact that Operator Please are essentially a bunch of schoolkids. I find it odd that the lead single of this album was Just a Song about Ping Pong. It’s not at all representative of the album, which shows a surprising musical depth beyond the novelty of the (really, really annoying) single.
8. Angus and Julia Stone – A Book Like This
Brother and sister. Peaceful, gentle, rootsy pop. How could one not love it?
7. Kanye West – Graduation; Lupe Fiasco – The Cool
Grouping these two albums together in the same place blatantly uncovers my lack of hip-hop sensibilities, but I knew it had to be one or the other. I couldn’t decide between them because while Graduation has the high-quality production and smoothness that hip-hop seems to be all about, The Cool seems to have actual substance to it. It’s more original in that it’s tracks aren’t just samples of other people’s tracks with someone rapping over the top (which, let’s face it, is what Kanye is all about). And on a quick Google search of the lyrics - none of which I pretend to understand – it seems that Graduation is mostly about how good Kanye is while The Cool is about… well I actually have zero idea, but it wins points for the chorus line to Gotta Eat: “My man said life ain’t easy, when niggas gotta eat that’s when shit get greasy”
… What the fuck are these albums about? Let’s put my justification for top 10 solely in the production area. At least it’s evident that there’s quality in that.
6. Simian Mobile Disco – Attack Decay Sustain Release
I’m not usually a fan of any dance or techno music, but this album somehow sets itself apart from a lot of the generic club trash there is out there. The different beats they sample and the variety of the vocals (and sometimes tempos) between the tracks really helps this. And points for the hip-hop influences in the second track, I Got This Down.
5. Urthboy – The Signal
One day I’d like to head down to Elefant Traks HQ and give everyone there a great big hug. I love this label because the Aussie hip-hop they release is just on a higher level than all the other stuff out there. This album is great because it’s not about nothing, and the Aussie accent rapping is not in some juvenile bogan voice. The variety of sounds incorporated into it and different collaborations work well, especially in Over Before it Began with the very bluesy Mia Dyson. It’s not expected to work, but it does. Especially great about this album (and incidentally my favourite thing about The Herd) is the way it communicates social and political issues, such as depression in Black Dog and the treatment of David Hicks in Not Brave. It’s done in a way that doesn’t sound political or preachy, it’s just hip-hop. With a message.
4. Mark Ronson – Version
Original spins on existing songs. Great collaborations. Makes horns sound good.
3. The Panics – Cruel Guards
When do these guys ever not release a great album? Great vocals, very musical, unique sound, just wonderful.
2. Josh Pyke – Memories and Dust
He’s neither a prodigal singer nor guitarist, but oh my he is a sublime songwriter. It’s rare to find singer-songwriter guitar pop that actually communicates to the listener. Even though his songs generally follow a conventional pop structure, there’s something about the melody that sets it apart from others in his field. Josh tells simple stories in a simple way and I dig that.
1. Bloc Party – A Weekend in the City
Indie. Progressive. British. Rock and roll. Whatever umbrella you want to cast this band under, this album tops the class. All of its classes, for that matter. It would have been so easy for Bloc Party to fall into the “Just Another British Rock Band” category following its debut album, Silent Alarm, but Kele Okereke and the boys would never let that happen. I usually struggle with concept albums but this one manages to keep its concept intact while remaining accessible to rock fans. The boys continue with their distinctly Bloc Party sounds while they explore the themes of city landscape and lifestyle, and the personal conflicts associated with a missing sense of belonging. It is raw and honest (being the daughter of migrants gave me a special meaning to Where is Home), and not afraid of being a little bit jaded sometimes (as in Uniform, where the observation of generic teenagers is described). This album, in a slightly geeky, introverted, non-confronting way, has more balls than all the other British rock bands put together.
Filed under: first post
I feel as though I should write some sort of introductory/greeting message to kick off this blog. So… here it is, I suppose. I guess all I have to say is welcome, and if you’re scrolling back through posts, stop here because IT DOESN’T GO BACK ANY FURTHER THAN THIS.
Hello!
