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A tragic end to 2009

Wendy Cooper — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:18:32 +0000

It was a shock to discover that Rowland S. Howard died today. This is the man who shook the world with the song Shivers and it is what echoed in my head when I read about his lost battle with liver cancer at aged 50. It will be a sad end for the year, particularly hash for the local Melbourne music scene to loose such an inspiring talent. May Melbourne cried at the top of its lungs in his rememberance that “sends a permanent shivers down my spine”.

Source: Herald Sun

Nick Cave & Rowland S. Howard by Bleddyn Butcher

Yo La Breakout

Wendy Cooper — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:43:17 +0000

I lost an hour of my life because of this!

Truth or Fail

Wendy Cooper — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:24:01 +0000

Truth or Fail is the most awesome and addictive weekly entertainment to come out of YouTube. And you thought Fail Blog was epic. Find out how it’s so clever. Go on, I dare you.

Nocturnes

Wendy Cooper — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:18:00 +0000

When I think of Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go potently resonates like that rekindle of the smell of last night’s dinner as you wash the dishes. It forms through senses that enraptures me back to the place that once was and no longer exists. A film version by Mark Romanek, notably for his visionary experience in NIN’s Closer, with Alex Garland adapting the screenplay is currently in post production. My judgment will be reserved but it’s a mighty high bar they will have to meet and to achieve that it will have to deliver a visceral experience that the book cannot in its medium.

Not many books have made that impact on me and I am looking forward to plunging into his latest, Nocturnes. Faber & Faber has gone all out in marketing this book with a surprising, poetic video by a newcomer named George Wu.

The art of mating

Wendy Cooper — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:04:09 +0000

The footage of nematode mating is strangely mesmerising and surprisingly elegant.

The male presses the front side of his tail against the hermaphrodite, while he backs along and searches for the vulva. The tail, controlled by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, embraces the hermaphrodite, curling round in its quest for the vulva.

On finding it, the male inserts copulatory structures called spicules and mating commences. There are six steps involved in worm mating behaviour.

Source: BMC Biology, New Scientist

Mind fields

Wendy Cooper — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:23:01 +0000

The enveloping and violently red installation of Yayoi Kusama, Dots Obsession, immediately caught my eye to The Hayward Gallery’s newly opened exhibition, Walking in My Mind: Adventure into the artist imagination. As the naming aptly conceived, this collection reflects the artists’ conscious mind. But isn’t that the nature of art and this curation an overt statement of self-indulgence?

This international affair gathers Charles Avery (UK), Thomas Hirschhorn (Switzerland), Yayoi Kusama (Japan), Bo Christian Larsson (Sweden), Mark Manders (The Netherlands), Yoshitomo Nara (Japan), Jason Rhoades (USA), Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland), Chiharu Shiota (Japan) and Keith Tyson (UK). The installations appeared generally impressive at first sight but only a few was matured enough to eloquently convey recherché messages—not only in visual terms but spacial and psychological—leaving a last memory.

Source: Art Daily

The monolith and the minotaur

Wendy Cooper — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:51:54 +0000

As time passes and careers fade into history, musos will capitalise by having a reunion tour and/or release a definitive collection to commemorate their glory years. My dear and ol’ time favourite The Pixies have hopped onto that bandwagon to collect their retirement fund again in releasing an undeniably in your face box set titled Minotaur. The limited edition contains a monolithic two feet tall hard cover that is reminiscent of Kubrick’s 2001 and it’s designed by A+R; curated by Vaughan Oliver; shot by Simon Larbalestier. Needless to say that no-one else can ever take on this task but the original team of Oliver and Larbalestier. A+R is a justifiable choice especially with their recent folio of NIN’s Ghosts, Beck’s The Information and Sigur Rós’ In A Frozen Sea. To bow at this feat is to willingly forgo your wallet and drown in the pool of commercialism with your feet in the air and head on the ground. Then again, who wouldn’t try this trick when put into their shoes.

Déjà vu

Wendy Cooper — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:17:43 +0000

Sometime words cannot describe the experience, so you just have to listen—Let the percussion and the organ/synth speak.

Yo La Tengo – Autumn Sweater

Low – Breaker

This video is still close to my heart. It poetically captures the greedy in American politics during the Bush era.

And today is Tetris’ 25th anniversary! Three cheers for Tetris and how you’ve saved my life during those experiences of bad inflight entertainment.

SXSW 2010: 12–21 March

Wendy Cooper — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:59:46 +0000

Today I’m excited about SXSW 2010. Largely it is to do with the simple fact that I have remembered this annual event and have marked it in my diary to prevent missing it for the gazillion time. Hooray!

SXSWeek 2010 12–21 March
Interactive 12–16 March
Film 12–20 March
Music 17–21 March

5 minutes of fame or a trip down memory lane

Wendy Cooper — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:48:19 +0000

Masters of Apprentice, a 70s Aussie band, on was the radio this morning. “A blast from the past”, it’s what we say to capture that sentimental Sunday morning feeling. There are songs which are from my childhood that are probably not very good but I love them and make me think of those corny, magic moments.

Not because we’re far apart, and this is not so far apart from Oz. It always reminds me of primary school, standing out on the stage and singing this in front of amused parents.

In my heart and in my mind, this recalls guitar lessons during my primary years after school. When I was a little girl I loved the guitar riffle in this, how it weaves in and out of the main rhythm and I did used to mimic the guitar wawa with my mouth.

Right there on my TV was my first Nick Cave experience. It was my anthem in high school, being your typical teenage of angst and melancholy.

Down my spine and into the 80s was The Church and the Hunters and the drives of endless miles that I have traveled with my mother and my aunt, to countless engagements that rests no memory in my mind, but the journey, starring out the window listening to the radio or my walkman, reflecting on what it means to be here in a society that is all about fending for oneself.

Wish I knew what you were looking for, rummaging through the glove compartment for tapes during road trip with friends. Of drinking too much and eating too much junk, Crowded House was always the majority rule of soothing those belly aches and heavy heads.

I fall… singing the rest of my day away.