Archive for the Whispers Category
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Nice piece from the Economist’s Prospero blog on artists in Japan thematically linking to fears and memories of nuclear holocaust. Always interesting to see how artists in Japan work to take on the system while still maintaining a very Japanese conformity with wider norms – grafitti art on sticky-tape for example. When I lived in Japan, I was always fascinated by how dissent and counter-culture behaviour dives underground and where... Continue Reading
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I was very pleased and honoured to be invited to talk at a local event as a means of participating in the global initiative for Liu Xiaobo on March 20. Jared Genser, founder of Freedom Now and Liu’s international legal counsel, with whom I have worked in raising media interest in Liu’s plight, also added a few words, which I read out to the students. The event was excellently organised by... Continue Reading
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This little puff piece in the WSJ is the kind of thing that gives media a bad name. Perhaps it’s a sign of the decline of the WSJ – always a fairly boring, right-wing, corporately anal rag – under the reign of King Rupert. Perhaps it’s crap journalism. Or perhaps it’s just a sign of how powerful the anti-Palestinian lobby is in the US. You read it and it all... Continue Reading
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Interesting piece in Salon on the development of gay literature – focussing mainly on US output – since WWII. Like feminist literature, or other forms of literature that writes from the perspective of a repressed and/or marginalised group, gay lit has found a way to become part of the mainstream, to the extent that the genre itself is dissolving. Gay characters are accepted and “gay” story-lines are relatively common. There’s good... Continue Reading
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Those I can remember: Reading: Paul Brannigan’s Dave Grohl, His Life and Times Reading for review for the New York Journal of Books. Very enjoyable. New York Review of Books (Kindle Edition) New York Times Book Review (Kindle Edition) Martin Meredith’s State of Africa For review in The Australian. Excellent Slate (Kindle Edition): Good piece by Troy Patterson “The Year in Boredom” New York Times The Guardian Times Literary Supplement (Kindle... Continue Reading
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Wonderful piece by the always excellent Rebecca Solnit in TomDispatch as a coda to 2011 and as a lead-in for 2012. I visited the Occupy Sydney folks while I was in the city a few weeks ago (see photo) and had a chat. There were just a few hardy souls there in the light sprinkle of rain, but their enthusiasm and energy, as well as their knowledge and intelligence was... Continue Reading
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Lot of people who’ve had something of an external, distant impact on me are dying lately: Vaclav Havel (For whom I did some media work indirectly in relation to his work on North Korea), Artie Beetson…I tend to avoid reading obits like the plague, but I found this piece by Ian McEwen in the New York Times on the death of another influence: Christopher Hitchens, particularly emotive. Beautifully written of... Continue Reading
