Sunday 28 February 2010

Brisbane YouTubers - vids from last night's AC/DC Brisbane concert

AC/DC played the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre in Nathan, Brisbane last night, Saturday February 27 2010, as part of their Black Ice world tour. Here's a couple of the videos already on YouTube:


This video by YouTuber GOFF52 is of the opening number, "Rock 'N Roll Train", from the album Black Ice.


And this track by YouTube user MMblahMM is a clip of AC/DC playing "Highway to Hell"

Brisbane Art Discussions: Ranjit Hoskote speaks at Gallery of Modern Art, 5.30pm Thu March 4



[Photo of Ranjit Hoskote by flickr user mshilman]

Griffith University's Griffith Asia Institute is putting on a free seminar with Indian poet, writer and curator Ranjit Hoskote at the Gallery of Modern Art this Thursday, March 4th 2010 at 5.30pm.

Hoskote will be talking about what creative artists are doing in India right now, and how they are thinking about their art. Hoskote is an Indian poet and art critic who writes in English. He's been critical of Western media and culture ignoring modern thought in the Islamic world:

The denial of contemporaneity to the Islamic world can sometimes proceed from the best intentions, as when invited experts cite and discuss the Holy Koran and the Sayings of the Prophet as the ultimate and armatural texts for present-day political choices. This approach creates the impression that Islamic civilisation has made no further contribution to the history of thought since the 7th century; it also negates the role of secular philosophies in the evolution of the Muslim or Arab political consciousness. For instance, this writer cannot recall a single reference, in mainstream-channel discussions during the last 17 months, to Ali Shariati, the political visionary and critic of consumption capitalism whose teachings provided the stimulus for the first, 1978 phase of the Iranian Revolution. Or to the historian of science and gnosis, Seyyed Hossein Nasr; or the Egyptian secular revolutionary, Gamal Abdel Nasser, or the Algerian socialists Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumediene. The Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi is usually mentioned only in the context of the Lockerbie case or dismissed as a maverick; his contribution to post-colonial praxis goes unremarked. These and many other thinkers and political figures from the world of Islam have been consigned to oblivion by the global media; the modernities they symbolise, their conceptions of freedom, justice and the scope of human possibility, are rendered invisible.
Hoskote has also been strongly critical of attacks on cultural expression by religious mobs and bigoted police:

The outrageous arrest of Chandramohan, a final-year fine arts student at the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, on May 9, has confirmed that the only right that is taken seriously in India today is the right to take offence. The right to take offence is not a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution, but all the same, it is the most easily enforced of all rights. All you need is a local demagogue with a taste for publicity, a few rampaging goons, policemen who favour the violent over the reasonable, and a lower judiciary that is reluctant to defy the mob.
Chandramohan, who was taken into custody by the Baroda police without a proper warrant, after he had been roughed up by a gang of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activists, has been charged with public obscenity and an attempt to incite communal disharmony. The images to which such turbulent opposition has been mounted show a woman, perhaps a goddess, birthing a man (which is no more fearful than the Lajja-gouri of Hindu sacred art), and a crucifix with a penis (this, an obvious homage to Robert Mapplethorpe). Both images retrieve the passionate human dramas that lie at the core of sacred narratives. Both images insist upon the artist’s right to revisit inherited lore, to reinvent images and narratives, to integrate the sacred as an element of secular experience.
And also here:

The Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists who attacked the Garden Art Gallery in Surat, on January 29, appear to have taken destructive criticism to its extreme. Labouring under the delusion that the Hindu pantheon required defence against artistic blasphemy, these ruffians destroyed eight works by distinguished contemporary Indian painters including M. F. Husain, K. H. Ara and N.S. Bendre, and the younger Kolkata artist, Chittrovanu Mazumdar. This manifestation of a terrifyingly illiberal tendency, which has come to dominate our public life, flagrantly challenges the Constitutional right to the freedom of expression. Conversely, it champions the self-arrogated right to take violent offence at affronts, real or imagined, to belief or identity.

The Surat outrage follows the model set by the Sambhaji Brigade's rampage through Pune's Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute on January 5. Far from being aberrations, these incidents are continuous with a shameful series of violations of artistic and scholarly freedom in the recent past. These precedents include the vilification campaign launched by various Hindu-majoritarian organisations, during 1996, against Husain for his alleged portrayal of a nude Saraswati; the disruption of the Pakistani vocalist, Ghulam Ali's Mumbai concert by the Shiv Sena, in 1998; the demonstrations by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) auxiliaries in Varanasi, which forced Deepa Mehta to stop work on her film, Water, in 2000; and the withdrawal of an exhibition by Pakistani artists at Mumbai's Sakshi Gallery in 2001, under Sena pressure.

(Shiv Sena is a right-wing Indian political party allied with the Hindu-supremacist movements in India.)

In this interview with Clark Blaise of the University of Iowa, from 1995, Hoskote reads some of his poetry and discusses what it's like to be an Indian poet writing in English when there's pressure to not use this language:

Ranjit Hoskote interviewed by University of Iowa's Clark Blaise 950101 by djackmanson


If you'd like to go to the seminar, email Natasha Vary at n.vary@griffith.edu.au. The Gallery of Modern Art is in the Cultural Centre at Southbank, and the seminar is in Cinema B. The best way to get there by public transport is to catch a bus to the Cultural Centre bus station or a train to South Brisbane train station and walk to the Gallery - click here for a Google Map. To check bus and train timetables, click here to use the Translink journey planner.

Saturday 27 February 2010

Brisbane Tsunami Warning! State Emergency Service number is 132 500 - listen to ABC Radio Brisbane 612AM @612brisbane

After the earthquake of the coast of Chile about 6 1/2 hours ago, the Bureau of Meteorology has issued a tsunami warning for Queensland coasts from Point Danger to Double Island Point. This includes Brisbane's coast. There is also a warning for New South Wales from Broken Bay to Double Island Point

Keep checking this warning site for updated warnings. You can also listen to ABC Radio Brisbane on 612AM for updates, and put the State Emergency Service number - 132 500 - in your phone.

The specific safety advice in the tsunami warning is:

Tsunami waves are more powerful than the same size beach waves, with the first wave not always the largest.

First tsunami effects are expected as follows:

Coolangatta after 08:15 am Sunday (Eastern Standard Time - NOT Daylight Savings Time)

Maroochydore after 09:00 am Sunday (Eastern Standard Time - NOT Daylight Savings Time)

Brisbane after 09:15 am Sunday (Eastern Standard Time - NOT Daylight Savings Time)

Do not go to the coast to watch the tsunami. Check that your neighbours have received this advice.

Boats in harbours, estuaries or shallow coastal water should return to shore. Secure your boat and move away from the waterfront. Vessels already at sea should stay offshore in deep water until further advised.

Do not go to the coast to watch the tsunami, as there is the possibility of dangerous, localised flooding of the immediate foreshore.


For emergency assistance, call EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT QUEENSLAND on 132 500

Brisbane Exhibitions: Guided tours at the APT6 art exhibition at Gallery of Modern Art @QAGGoMA

You've probably heard by now that the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art is on at the Queensland Art Gallery's Gallery of Modern Art. Just in case you don't know, there are guided tours of the free exhibition every day at 11am, 12 noon, 1pm and 2pm. The tours are free - just meet up at the information desk near the gallery entrance.

You can take photos of the exhibition: here's a slideshow of some of the photos people have already taken:



If you can't see the slideshow, click here to see the photos.

The Queensland Art Gallery's Gallery of Modern Art is in the Cultural Centre in Southbank - click here for a Google Map. Public transport info is in the map - click here to use the Translink journey planner to find out public transport route and timetable info.

Friday 26 February 2010

Brisbane Museums: Talk at Police Museum on writer of Aboriginal "Protection" Act Archibald Meston, Sun Feb 28

This Sunday, February 28 2010, the Queensland Police Museum has its free monthly lecture at 11am. This month's lecture is called "The Sacred Ibis", about Archibald Meston, best remembered for being the inspiration behind Queensland's Aboriginals Protection And Restriction Of Sale Of Opium Act - you can download a pdf version of the Act by clicking here.

The Act did great damage to the rights of Aboriginal people - for a start it allowed bureaucrats to force Aboriginal people to live on reserves, even if they didn't want to.

The lecture, by Dr James Lergessner, will also discuss Meston's work in history and journalism. There's an article about Dr Lergessner here at the ReadersVoice.com website.

The Queensland Police Museum is on the ground flooor of Queensland Police Headquarters, 200 Roma St, Brisbane City - click here for a Google Map. Public transport info is on the map, and you can click here to find bus or train timetables and routes using the Translink journey planner.


Wednesday 24 February 2010

Brisbane YouTubers - vids from Soundwave 2010 Brisbane

Soundwave was on last weekend at the RNA Showgrounds in Brisbane, and here are some of the videos that are showing up on YouTube:



Faith No More performing "Epic" and also "Just a Man" from their album "King for a Day...Fool for a Lifetime", taken by PhilTovo.




Jane's Addiction playing "Jane Says", recorded by J450N24.




Placebo, doing their song "Infra-Red", video taken by J450N24.




Paramore performing "Careful" from the album "Brand New Eyes", shot by sjarhead1978





All Time Low with "Lost in Stereo" from their album "Nothing Personal", videoed by mishymooo




Rolo Tomassi, recorded by hysteria1




Jimmy Eat World play "Bleed American/Salt Sweat Sugar", taken by davidsauer.




Anvil with their song "Metal on Metal", from the album of the same name, shot by lainemichelleallen.




Emarosa playing "Heads or Tails? Real or Not", from their "Relativity" album, taken by hysteria1.

If you want to find more videos from Soundwave 2010 in Brisbane, click here to have a look on YouTube.

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Brisbane photographers - shots of Whitney Houston in Concert Feb 22nd 2010

The first set of photos from Whitney Houston's concert last night at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre have been posted, by Flickr user [J.Y.].



Whitney Houston


This photo was from the first half of the show


Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston

And these two photos were from the second half of the show.

If you want to see [J.Y.]'s entire set of 18 photos of the concert, just click here.

You might also want to see the YouTube videos from the Whitney Houston Brisbane concert.

Brisbane YouTubers - Videos from Whitney Houston's concert in Brisbane Feb 22 2010

Brisbane YouTuber yenyongming took these two videos at the Whitney Houston concert last night at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.

The first video is of "I Love The Lord":



and the second video is of the song "Nothing But Love":



Another Brisbane YouTuber, katrinagunders, took this video of Houston singing "Greatest Love Of All" and was critical of her singing:

Has the diva lost her diva-ness? Watch this video and judge for yourself. I vote yes.





You might also want to have a look at the photos taken by a Brisbane Flickr user of the Whitney Houston concert.

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Brisbane Anime Society screening Saturday February 20th @basanime

The Brisbane Anime Society is having a screening this Saturday February 20 at QUT Gardens Point campus. The screening starts at 4pm and goes to 8pm, and it costs $3 - only $2 if you're a member of the BAS; you can sign up as a member at the screening for $10. The screening is in D Block - see below for a link to a Google Map showing how to get there.

This Saturday you'll see the first Kochikame movie.



This is the opening of the TV series (not the movie), but it gives you an idea of the style of show it is.

Also showing this Saturday are episodes 5-8 of "11eyes"



You can follow the Brisbane Anime Society on Twitter, or join their Facebook group here.

The best way to get to QUT is to catch a City Cat to the QUT Gardens Point ferry terminal, then walk along Alice St, turn right past Parliament House then turn right when you get into the QUT grounds - click here for a Google Map. The other way is to catch a bus to Adelaide St in the City and walk down George St till you get to Parliament House and turn right to get to D block - you can also see that route on the Google Map. If you want to look up City Cat or bus timetables, click here to use the Translink journey planner.

Tuesday 16 February 2010

Brisbane comedians at Brisbane Comedy Festival @briscomfest - at Brisbane Powerhouse @Bris_Powerhouse Feb 23 - Mar 21

The Brisbane Comedy Festival is on at the Brisbane Powerhouse from Tuesday February 23rd to Sunday March 21st 2010.

The full line-up features comedians from right around the country, but here we'll focus on the Brisbane comedians appearing in the Festival.




Melinda Buttle - Sista Got Flow

Tuesday March 2nd - Sunday March 14th 2010, $15 - $17.

Twitter - MySpace - interview at thecomedians.com.au

Click here to hear Melinda Buttle debate Kelly Higgins-Devine on ABC Radio 612 Brisbaneon the topic "That people had more fun in the 70s"




Josh Thomas - Surprise!


Tue 2nd, thu 4th, Sat 6th March 2010, $24 - $39

Twitter - Website - MySpace - Facebook - subscribe to podcast in iTunes






Greg Sullivan - Antisexual

Tue Mar 2nd - Sun Mar 10th 2010, $20 - $22

Twitter - Myspace - Facebook

There's plenty more interstate and overseas comedians appearing, including Peter Helliar, Wil Anderson, Adam Hills and Frank Woodley - click here to see the list of all the acts at the Brisbane Powerhouse website.

The Brisbane Powerhouse is at the end of Lamington St, New Farm - click here to see a Google Map. The map also shows the nearby CityCat terminal and the route 196 bus stop on Brunswick St, New Farm, which are the nearest public transport stops. Click here to use the Translink journey planner to find CityCat or bus timetables.

Monday 15 February 2010

Brisbane Photos: new Brisbane photos from DeviantART

These are some of my favourites from the recent photos from Brisbane posted on the DeviantART site.


brisbane river by night by ~robbiemoffatt on deviantART

I like this one because it's from a different angle to most of the "Riverside Expressway at Night" shots.


Boy, it's hot today. by =champir on deviantART

Cute!


Little One by ~Rizubesu on deviantART

Even cuter!


Garbage Prison by ~CarosKnight on deviantART

A little different. What really happens in a city.


VooDoo Lulu Promo 28 by =DJColdfire on deviantART

I normally get bored by photos of models, but these clothes are awesome.

Friday 12 February 2010

Brisbane Media - Murdoch newspaper @CityNewsBris uses Twitter content from @beautiful_alone without credit

UPDATE:

The second comment on this post was made anonymously, asking "Who cares?" . It was posted by someone posting from a News Limited network.

Also, Luke Royes, the apparent City News reporter whose tweets I have linked to in the post below, has now made his Twitter account private. He may not be aware that Twitter Search will continue to display the tweets he made before he locked the account down.

Since Twitter Search only lasts for a couple of weeks, click here to see a screenshot I just took of the Twitter search screen, showing the tweets that Luke Royes posted that I quote further down in the article.

Next!

END UPDATE

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and managing director of News Corporation, is angry at companies who make it easy to find his content on the Internet. Last year, in a speech at the World Media Conference, he called them "content kleptomaniacs":

The Philistine phase of the digital age is almost over. The aggregators and the plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content. But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid-for content, it will be the content creators, the people in this hall, who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs will triumph.


However, it seems when it comes to his papers, taking the content of Twitter users and publishing it without saying who its from is perfectly OK. Yesterday, February 11 2009, Twitter user Erik Veland posted a message about a post from Twitter user Sarah Fallon (who uses the nickname @beautiful_alone). Erik Veland's post said:

There's been a rash of uncredited tweets in the news lately. Here's @beautiful_alone's from last week in City News http://yfrog.com/4emxqcj


This is a screenshot taken by Erik Veland of what the City News published:



Click here to see the original message posted by Fallon on Thursday February 4th. As you can see, the City News didn't bother to credit Fallon by name, calling her a "Twitter fanatic", which she objects to:

Thanks City News for printing my tweet without crediting me: http://yfrog.com/4emxqcj (via @erikveland). Hmpf. 'twitter fanatic' my arse.
The Brisbane City News is part of Quest Community Newspapers, which is owned by News Limited, News Corporation's Australian arm.

Naturally, when the City News was alerted to this failure to attribute the author of the tweet they republished, they immediately apologised and offered to make restitution to Fallon. Oh wait, sorry, this isn't Bizzaro World. In fact, both responses to Fallon were a joke. First of all Twitter user Luke Royes, who appears to be a reporter for the City News (a story under his byline appeared in yesterday's City News here) replied to both Erik Veland and Sarah Fallon:

@ErikVeland @beautiful_alone Thanks for reading @BrisCityNews tell all your friends to pick up a copy each Thursday!

(Mr Royes got the name of his own newspapers's Twitter account wrong, it's actually @CityNewsBrisbane).

It's unclear if this later tweet posted by Mr Royes is a threat relating to Ms Fallon's complaints about the Brisbane City News' failure to attribute the source of their story:

Not sure if there has been a previously proven case, but defamation on Twitter is possible. Clearly some forget that.

Ms Fallon also received an email in reply to a complaint she sent to the City News:



Clearly News Limited policy does not currently state that the authors of material quoted in full in their newspapers should be credited or paid.

Sure, it's a storm in a teacup. There are a hundred stories more important than this one. But just remember that the next time you hear Mr Murdoch complaining about content being stolen, that he's perched at the top of an organisation who doesn't respect the work of others.

Thursday 11 February 2010

Brisbane Festivals: Lunar New Year celebrations in Chinatown Mall, Valley, Fri Feb 12 2010

The beginning of the Lunar New Year is on us again. It's celebrated in many East Asian cultures including Chinese, Korean, Tibetan and Vietnamese, and Brisbane's celebrations will be centred in the Chinatown Mall in Fortitude Valley.

Lion Dancing, Chinatown Mall, Duncan St - Chinese New Year, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia 070217-3

At 6.30pm there will be Lion Dancing by the Khuan Yee Lion Dance Association.

At 7.15pm a Cantonese opera will be performed by the Multi Arts Association

Yabin Huang plays the erhu, Chinatown Mall, Duncan St - Chinese New Year, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia 070217

Yabin Huang (shown above) will play the erhu at 8.15pm

At 9pm soprano Hong Yan will perform Chinese folk songs and there will also be provincial dancing: This video of Chinese provincial dancing was taken by YouTube user missmardi81 at the Lunar New Year festival in Brisbane 3 years ago:





At 9.30pm traditional cries of Gong Hei Fat Choi will be heard. This means "Congratulations and be Prosperous!", and is also highly effective for defeating the final boss in the legendary role-playing game College Saga.

For a slideshow of photos from the 2007 Lunar New Year celebrations in Fortitude Valley, click "play" on the player below, or click here to visit the set on flickr:



Celebrations continue throughout the weekend on Lunar New Years' Eve on Saturday, and Lunar New Year's Day on Sunday. Restaurants in the Sunnybank area, where many people of East Asian descent live, are also expected to be busy.

Tuesday 9 February 2010

Brisbane Art Exhibtions: War Photos and Creative Communities at QUT Art Museum

There's an exhibition of war paintings and photos on right now at the QUT Art Museum at Queensland University of Technology's Gardens Point campus in the city - click here for a Google Map.



"Portrait, Dr Jeff Brock, AME Surgeon, Kandahar" (lower panel).

The Framing Conflict exhibition is presented by the Australian War Memorial and is the work of Lyndell Brown and Charles Green who travelled in the Persian Gulf, South-West Asia and Afghanistan as the Memorial's official war artists.

This video shows Brown and Green being interviewed about the work that led to this exhibition:





"Afghan National Army Perimeter Post with Chair, Tarin Kowt Base, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan"

The Framing Conflict exhibition is on until Sunday February 28th 2010

Another exhibition is opening at the QUT Art Museum on Tuesday, February 9th 2010 and runs till Sunday March 7th - the KP11 Producing Communities show. This shows off work from 11 organisations that have been working with the cast-offs and people on the edge of society to help them grab hold of some power by using art. There's an essay about the exhibition by the curators, Malcolm Bywaters and Dr David Sudmalis, if you click here.


The art works involved are from:

The Tutti Ensemble, seen here performing "How Beautiful are the feet" and the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's "Messiah", with the Norwood Symphony Orchestra


For more work from the Tutti ensemble, click here to visit their YouTube channel.

Dadaawa's work "Diatribe" tries to explain what it's like to live in a house that isn't really a home:



ICE's "Urban Jungle" shows young people in Western Sydney getting a new view of the world through parkour/freerunning:




Somebody's Daughter Theatre is displaying art by women who've been in prison.

Beyond Empathy is showing an exhibition connected with its Postcodes from the Edge project:





Contact Inc has videos of their Common Ground project:



Feral Arts will show off some of the stories from their PlaceStories project.



Shopfront Contemporary Arts Centre have displays based on their (lost toy story) festival held in Hurstville, Sydney in 2008:



Shopfront's Soundcloud page is here.






The (lost toy story) Flickr account is here.




Click here for Shopfront Arts' YouTube channel


The Footscray Community Arts Centre will show photos from it's Crowd Theory projects:





Barkly Regional Arts are going to set up a listening post where you can hear the recordings they do of music from the Northern Territory through their Winanjjikari Music Centre. You can click on the player below to listen to a podcast they did in October last year, and you can click here to see their podcast page and subscribe to it in iTunes.







Arts Access Victoria are displaying videos of their Warm Hearted Bastards project:



The QUT Art Museum is free to enter, and it's closed on Mondays and public holidays. From Tuesday to Friday it opens from 10am to 5pm, except on Wednesday nights when it's open late till 8pm. On Saturday and Sunday it's open from 12 midday to 4pm.

The best way to get to the QUT Art Museum by public transport is to catch a clockwise free City Loop bus from George St near the Treasury Casino, Adelaide St near King George Square or Adelaide St near Anzac Square. This Google Map shows those three bus stops. You need to get off the bus once it turns into George St from Alice St - click here to see the QUT Art Museum and the George St/Alice St bus stop on a Google Map. You cna also catch a CityCat to the QUT Gardens Point ferry terminal and walk to the Art Museum - that terminal is also shown on the second of those two Google Maps. You can click here to use Translink's journey planner to find bus or ferry timetables.

Monday 8 February 2010

Brisbane Tunnels: Clem7 Tunnel Open Day, Sunday February 28th 2010

The Clem7 Tunnel, running from Bowen Hills under the Brisbane River to Woolloongabba, is opening to cars soon, and before that happens there's an open day on Sunday February 28th where you can walk, run or ride a bus through the tunnel to have a look at it.

It's free to visit the tunnel, but people are being asked to book free tickets to manage visitor numbers and avoid queues. Click here to visit the site where you can book your free tickets.

If you're the sort of person who thinks running is something to be done for pleasure, instead of, say, escaping from a sabre-toothed tiger, there's a "fun" run which costs $30 to register. This will start at 6am. On a Sunday. When normal people are in bed. But if you like that sort of thing, click here to find out more.

For the rest of us, the open day runs from 9.30am till 3pm. You can enter at the Bowen Hills end of the tunnel - there are three different entrances. Click here to see a Google Map showing the entrances.

At the open day, you'll be able to walk to the lowest point of the tunnel, 60 metres under the Brisbane River. From there you can walk back to Bowen Hills, catch a shuttle bus back to Bowen Hills, or walk to Woolloongabba and catch a bus back to Bowen Hills from there. At Bowen Hills there will also be a display of vintage, hot and luxury cars, face painting, music, and displays about the tunnel and food and drink for sale. There will also be giveaways, apparently.

Be warned that bags (and quite possibly clothing) will be searched before you're allowed in.

Free shuttle buses will run from the Cultural Centre bus station and the King George Square bus station to the Bowen Hills entrances - click here to use Translink's journey planner to find out which buses or trains to catch to get to those stations.








Sunday 7 February 2010

Brisbane Photos: Taylor Swift in Concert February 4th 2010







These photos of Taylor Swift in concert last week on February 4th 2010 at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre were taken by Flickr user BonjourHepburn.

For a slideshow of all of BonjourHepburn's photos of the Taylor Swift concert, click the play button on this player:



If you can't see the player, click here to see all of BonjourHepburn's photos from the concert.

Brisbane YouTubers - Taylor Swift Concert February 4th - "You Belong With Me" and "Should've Said No"





These two YouTube videos are from Taylor Swift's concert last week, on Thursday February 4th at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. The first video is "You Belong With Me", shot by TheCoolestDorkEverrr, and the second one is "Should've Said No", shot by 29Fliss.

Saturday 6 February 2010

Brisbane Art: Sam Blanch's "cross a fake" exhibition until February 19th at the tidy, wolloongabba



Artist Sam Blanch, whose Bridges to Elsewhere exhibition I wrote about last year, has another show on right now at the Tidy art space at 27 Logan Rd, Woolloongabba - click here for a Google Map.

The new show is called "cross a fake". Blanch  says:

This work comes out of 18 months of art therapy
sessions with Cathy Condon a Coolum artist/art therapist.  The sessions
delved deeply into the layers of my consciousness and produced a year’s
worth of experimental works one of which was in this cross style. 
After sifting through the mammoth amounts of information that came
through my sessions, crosses came up time and again.  

Crosses
have a symbolism that predates the familiar Christian crucifix and it
is these kinds of crosses that I am interested in.  For me the cross is
an important symbol of the centring of the universe, the ability of
humanity to fix things in place using mind and hands, to find meaning
in the patterns of nature (like the southern cross) and the potency of
the spirit world (the power of the use of symbols).  The process of
producing each cross is a synthesis of these above traits, with each
brush stroke and block of colour a meditation on these themes.


The exhibition runs from now until February 19th 2010. The Tidy is open 9-3 Monday to Saturday, and the best way to get to there by public transport is to catch a bus to the Woolloongabba bus station and walk from there - it's only a few minutes walk away. See the Google Map to see where the bus station and the art space are, and if you need to find out public transport times, you can use the Translink journey planner.


Friday 5 February 2010

Brisbane Music Videos - See http://brisbanemusicvideos.com via @POTRM

I just found out through Facebook about a site that's been going for a while, dedicated to finding music videos of Brisbane Bands. It's called, simply enough, BrisbaneMusicVideos.com

One of the songs the site has found is the classic punk anthem Pig City by The Parameters, written back in the bad old days of the early 80s where being even a little bit weird was enough to get the police beating you up, or planting drugs on you:



If you'd like to follow the creator of Brisbane Music Videos on Twitter, his name there is @POTRM.

If this isn't your thing, there's plenty of other styles of music, from The Go-Betweens and The Saints to Custard and Kate-Miller Heidke. And if you can't see a song you think should be on the site, just request it.

Brisbane Meetups: #btub Twitter meetup is on tonight, February 5th, @greystonebar

If you're a Twitter user in Brisbane, you might have heard of the monthly #btub meetups. #btub stands for Brisbane Twitter Underground Brigade, although it's not very underground any more.

If you'd like to meet some new people in Brisbane you should come along. The #btub meetup kicks off at 6pm and usually goes through till 2 or 3 on Saturday morning, and it's at the Greystone Bar, 166 Grey St South Brisbane. It's just across Grey St from the Southbank 5 Cinemas - click here for a Google Map.

Here's a slideshow of pictures from the last btub meetup night in early December 2009. If you can't see the slideshow, click here to see the photos:



I won't be there till maybe 1 am this time, because I'll be at work then I'm going to see The Lovebuckles play at 11pm at the Music Kafe, but if you want to know more about the event, feel free to send a reply to either of my Twitter accounts, @brisbaneblog or @djackmanson, or of course you can leave a comment here. You can also follow the Greystone Bar twitter account, and the btub twitter account if you like.





BTUB regulars The Lovebuckles will play at the Music Kafe in West End at 11pm - some people will be walking up from Greystone Bar to West End.


The best way to get to Greystone Bar by public transport is to either catch a bus to the Southbank bus station, or a train to Southbank train station, both right near Grey St. If you catch a train make sure you don't get off at South Brisbane, which is one stop north of Southbank. Greystone Bar, the train station and bus station are all shown on this Google Map if you click here. If you need to know bus or train times, you can use Translink's public transport journey planner.

Thursday 4 February 2010

Brisbane Superbowl Party - Grand Central Hotel, Central Station from 8am Mon Feb 8 2010

The 44th US National Football League Superbowl is on Monday morning, February 8 2010 (Brisbane time), and the Australian American Association are holding a free Superbowl watching party at Grand Central Hotel in Ann St, Brisbane City.

The party starts at 7am on Tuesday February 8 and goes through till 1am. There will be plasma TVs to watch the game on, and you'll be able to buy breakfast at the hotel. And if watching the game makes you want to play or watch American Football in Brisbane, you should have a look at the Gridiron Queensland website.

Grand Central station is the hotel actually opening onto the footpath of Ann St. Once you get to Central, walk to the lift near the escalators and go down to Ann St. Turn left out of the lift and the hotel is just a few steps away, on your left hand side.

Click here for a Google Map showing where the hotel is on Ann St. The best way to get there by public transport is to catch a train to Central Station - click here to use the Translink Journey Planner to find train (or bus) timetables.

Now, a rant:

It's quite common for Australians, especially fans of Rugby League and Rugby Union, to sneer at US pro footballers for wearing helmets and padding. So let's put this pathetic crap in context. Willie Mason is one of the largest and heaviest men in Rugby League in Australia. He's a forward, making him roughly equivalent to a lineman in American football - that is, someone whose job is to smash into other big people, wear them down, break through them and bring down the ball-carrier. According to Wikepedia, Willie Mason weighs 115 kilograms. Now, let's have a look at the current players in one of the top teams in the NFL at the moment, the Indianapolis Colts. If you look at the Offensive Linemen and Defensive Linemen you can see in that link, you'll notice that of the 19 linemen, 17 weigh more than Mason. Thirteen of them weigh more than 130kg. So one of the hugest players in Rugby League in Australia would be on the small side in American football. Anyone who ignores this fact and dribbles on about helmets and padding is welcome to try having a fit, powerful, 130kg man smash into them five or six times and see how they feel about it.

Mind you, Rugby League is a faster game, better to watch on TV IMO. But don't be fooled - American football is a very hard, violent game to play, so don't give me your moronic anti-US snobbery. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Wednesday 3 February 2010

Film Review: Daybreakers courtesy of @reviewbrisbane

I've just been to a review screening of the new vampire film Daybreakers, filmed in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. I got the ticket from the ReviewBrisbane.com website (actually from their Twitter account), so if you'd like to see movies for free in return for reviewing them, you should check them out.

Anyway, the movie. Daybreakers is set in 2019, and almost all humans in the world have been turned into vampires. A large corporation™ is harvesting humans kept in suspended animation for their blood, but blood stocks are running very low which means there are plenty of starving vampires (or "subsiders") around, causing more and more social problems. Ethan Hawke's character is in charge of finding a blood substitute that the corp can sell to keep the vampire population fed and the corporation rich. Unlike most vampires, Hawke refuses to drink human blood for ethical reasons and doesn't like the idea of the human race being totally wiped out.

Hawke bumps into some renegade humans, led by Claudia Karvan and Willem Dafoe who are hiding from the vampires. Dafoe's character used to be a vampire, but he stumbled on a cure for vampirism, and Hawke realises that rather than search for a substitute for blood, the world can be rid of vampires altogether.

The rest of the film shows the humans fighting back, set against the background of blood getting scarcer and scarcer, leading to blood riots and a fascist crackdown against the hungry subsiders. This side of the story was interesting, and could have been played out in a lot more detail if the film was turned into a novel (or series of novels) - there would be lots of scope for alliances and double-crossing between the powerful vampires, the subsiders and the humans.

Since a lot of Daybreakers was filmed in Brisbane, it was good to see familiar places posing as Any Generic American City. Some of the places I recognised were the Old Museum, the Riverside Expressway, Adelaide St, the subway running between Central Station and Anzac Square, the GPO and the large apartments next to it, and one of the big foyers on the Riverside Plaza near Creek St. Oddly enough, the Batman Building didn't get a look in.

If you like vampire movies, or if the story appeals to you, see Daybreakers in the cinema.

Brisbane Auditions: The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco at @artstheatre Sun Feb 7 10am - midday



After the success of the revival of John Birmingham's He Died With A Felafel In His Hand at the Brisbane Arts Theatre in January 2010, director Natalie Bochenski is putting on the sequel, The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco. Auditions for The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco are on this Sunday, February 7, from 10am to 12 midday at the Arts Theatre, 210 Petrie Terrace, Brisbane City - click here for a Google Map. The play has been specially adapted for the Brisbane Arts Theatre by playwright Simon Bedak, who also helped to adapt "Felafel" for the stage.

If you'd like to audition for a part, call 07 3369 2344 or email natalie@girlclumsy.com . Audition will be by a cold read, and knowledge of John Birmingham's "Felafel universe" books will be an advantage. There are roles for males and females under 40, and the play contains strong language and adult themes, so don't auditon if you're uncomfortable with that. There's a Facebook event here for the audition if you like to keep track of what you're doing that way.

The best way to get to the Arts Theatre by public transport is to catch a bus to the Normanby busway station and walk about 250m down Petrie Terrace - click here for a Google Map. For bus timetables you can use Translink's Journey Planner - just click here.