On Pseudonymous Blogging

Every now and again the issue of pseudonymous blogging gets thrown around. For or against! Why aren't you 'accountable' etc? I've had that a couple of times - and I've seen it laid on other noms-de-plume when things get heated in blog debates. I'm not sure its a very good line of approach with anyone in that situation. I mean, who the crap is "Harry Smith" (his own ACTUAL name etc), after all?

I certainly don't criticize anyone who chooses to blog under their real name - I admire them in fact. It shows a certain durable surety of personhood: i.e. in all weathers I will write exactly as I will be pleased to account for in the cold light of day, tomorrow morning.

Screw that! I blog pissed too often to want that sort of straitjacket, thanks. And to be honest: I work as an academic, and would certainly be a lot more restrained on some issues, if blogging under my own name.

Is that inauthentic of me? I don't think so - in fact, I rather think the opposite. I work all day in an environment that requires some methodological rigour. I might be good, bad, or indifferent at it, but as you might imagine, I don't write like this in journal articles. Nor do I rant at max velocity (of four spelling errors per line) at my students, like I sometimes will on the big blogs. Me, I come blogward to blow off steam, relax, shoot the shit, have a larf. And sure, to say what I really think - albeit in a bone lazy way.

And that's my point, against the occasional charges of inauthenticity: blogging under my own name would, I fear, ultimately make me less honest. Precisely because it would make me more 'accountable'.

And you know, I didn't come here to be brought to account. So sue me!

That said, any moniker does tend to have the effect of creating a character over time. In my case, Lefty E (formerly know as Lefty Elitist, before the forces of evil were routed in the culture wars *wink*) is probably more of mannered, idiosyncratic character than I am in person. But hey, I've grown to like him - and the Keating Towers of his mind, in which he dwells.

Incidentally, he's not so big on Portuguese Forts in Asia - the wanker! That's me. Whoever I am. Not that its that hard to find out, I imagine. But lets face it, its all more fun this way, wouldn't you say, Harry?

April March - "Chick Habit"

You know, sometimes I don't feel quite so culturally adrift in this world when groovy, kismet-style shit like this comes to my attention. A memo from emissaries in the land of popular culture landed on my desk recently, and from it I learned that Tarantino's film Death Proof (2007) has in its soundtrack none other than an English adaptation of my very fave France Gall track Laissez Tomber les Filles. Posted previously here at BmL.

Its by groovy April March, a big fan of 60s French Pop herself, and its rendered in Anglais as "Chick Habit". Not a direct translation, and not as good as the Gall original (as if!) - but still a corker!

Plus, if you've always wanted to see a bunch of hot babes beat the living crap out of Kurt Russell, this clip's for you.

Update: Cha! I just watched the DVD, and aside from one slow patch in the middle, where you meet a whole new set of characters, its a riot. The last 10 minutes ought to be sent into space on one of those intergalactic messenger craft. Wooohah! Oh, and you get April March's version of the French original too, which of course, rang my cloches.

Oh Myanmar

Um. Learn more about Burma. The van Halen way.

This will go down on your permanent record.

Frost/ Nixon

If anyone was thinking of giving this movie a miss, perhaps thinking (as I did) that it was just some rehashed historical drama with B-plus grade actors, and a ready-made script, I'd urge you to think again. Its completely riveting!

It made me want to search around for snippets of the original interview (now out on DVD, I hear). Some of the original money material is below.

New Year's Resolutions

In 2009, I promise to:
* listen to more France Gall
* watch more 70s Australian film
* visit more Portuguese forts in Asia

Hoho! No, but seriously, I resolve to:
1. Argue less, and yell less when doing so (born and bred on conflict models, you see)
2. Lose weight; though losing height might be as realistic.
3. Live to the point of tears (Camus); or at least to the point of mild chafing.

Happy 09, punters! Aos fortalezas!!

Magic Realist Moment

You know, I'm a bit of a fan of magic realism. Not as a genre, really. Its more that I happen to be a fan of both Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jose Saramago, and both authors happen to be - more or less - in the magic realist realm.

And here's a magic realist moment, from my own back catalogue. In 1998, after training a few disability support workers in Toowoomba, I was driving back home, down the mountain towards Brisbane. As I passed through Gatton, or thereabouts, and the only car on my side of the road, a huge cloud of white butterflies emerged from the fields and floated across the highway. Sheets of fluttering white wings in the yellow sunshine. There were literally thousands of them, tossed like flotsam on air currents, a mass folding in on itself, expanding, contracting, swerving, fleeing, like an airborne school of fish.

There were so many of them that after about ten seconds, I could no longer see, and had to switch on the windscreen wipers. Driving at 100 kilometres per hour, wiping away white butterflies like snow.

True story.

Grandfathers and War

I don't know if anything particularly profound will emerge from writing this, but, inspired by Pavlov's Cat, I offer this reflection on my grandfathers. Seen here enlisting for service in 1941.

On the left, my paternal grandfather, who I never met, though he survived the war. A sapper in the 9th Division, he was wounded in action at the 2nd Battle of El-Alamein in 1942. His casualty record blithely states "Cas Sect. 28-10-42 wounded in action. Confusion, hallux. Evac 2/3 AFA". The 28th October was a critical day in battle against Rommel. He had two shrapnel wounds from a shell, and was evidently found disoriented.

More mundanely, and no doubt demonstrating the constancy of stress, his record shows he was sectioned several times with hemorrhoids. Jesus, I can well imagine. By 1943 he was in Port Moresby, having returned on the fleet that Curtin brought home for the Pacific War. My dad recalled hiding under a bed when his father returned in 1946, yellow with malaria, and scary to behold to 6 year old eyes.

His occupation was listed as 'labourer' upon enlistment. He ended up life as a publican, however. According to my Aunt, he rescued a young solider at El-Alamein whose old man was a Brewery magnate. She remembers their family pulling up at their house after the war to give my Grandad a chance at running a pub.

It has occurred to me before that this near random chance event just might be one key reason I was born securely middle class. He certainly wasn't. Born in Bolton, Lancashire, to cotton mill piecers. The twisted sea of fate!

On the right my maternal grandad, the one I knew and loved all my life. He died a few years back at 91. I met his older brother at his 90th birthday, and also met his near-centenarian mother when I was very young. A teacher, and a Captain in the Australian militia (Citizen's Military Forces), he was transferred to the AIF when a friendly doctor reversed an earlier decision on a childhood spinal injury. He served in Bougainville and once fled his tent on instinct in the dead of night to see it explode seconds later. A grenade had been rolled in. He mentioned the war only twice in the thirty odd years I knew him. Once was that grenade story. The other was when he was a bit tipsy and maudlin, and before he shook it all off, quietly let out that he had found himself covered in a dead mate's blood and body parts after one attack.

He was allergic to any and all tropical foods. "Only since the war", said my grandmother.

No wonder they wanted a quiet life.

Boom Boom

Well, muchachos, it's that time of year isn't it. I must admit, I'm quite pro-December. End-of-year get-togethers, and seasonal pissups, as summer's long nights and social calenders collide in that month-long inexorable charge to..... the eruption of barely suppressed family tensions over Xmas lunch.

Its been a splendid time blogging in the company of such fine compañeros this year. Why, I even received my first Viagra spam on the blog today. And they said we'd never make it!

So, here's cheers et salutations saisonnières from BmL, home of the France Gall Appreciation Society (Bureau de l'Australie) wishing all of you un gran latte for the party season. Personally, I've been warming up for seasonal soirees with this track, one of my France Gall faves, and a splendid piece of 60s jazz-pop: Boom Boom (1966).

Entonces, felicidades a todos.

Credits roll until 0.30.

Seasonal Cheer

It would appear one of my local neighbours is somewhat cool on Yule.

Lusobeats#2: Nara Leão sings Insensatez

If you're at all interested in Bossa Nova, you'll dig this clip. First, you not only get to listen to Nara Leão's utterly beschmoozling interpretation of the standard Insensatez (starts at 0.45), but you also get to hear her speak a little of the history and milieu of Bossa Nova. Frankly, the mere sound of her Brazilian Portuguese beschmoozles yours truly - but the history she alludes to is interesting.

Its a softly spoken style of acoustic jazz / samba, pioneered by João Gilberto, Tom Jobim, and herself, among others. Its grew up among the middle class of Rio De Janeiro - and all the genre's proponents speak of a great flowering of Brazilian culture and music from 1957 through to 1964 - until the coup leading to the dictatorship lasting until 1985. Like so many Latin American countries, the populist import substitution regimes of the era created a middle class that was later squeezed by dictatorship (and alternative 'economic medicines') in the years that followed. She is missing João Gilberto (Bebel's Dad, and first hubby of Astrud) because like many Bossa Nova artists, he was in exile in this period.

Anyway, its a beautiful song.