Nauseating Parental Interlude

Hey look, my daughter drew this groovy picture. It's so mature, you'd never guess she was only 14.
Hoho! Actually she's only 4, quite wee. Of but 4 summers. I totally love it. Better than I can do at 40. I will write a song about it and be famous. As soon as Macca drops around I'll play it to him. Ruby in the sky with ladybirds. Aka the moment my blog really went off the rails. But bugger it. Four year olds' pictures are so sweet. This picture makes me as happy as the purple cat. And check him out - he's one gato feliz.

60s French Girl Pop: #3

And so we end the series with my favourite 60s French Girl Pop song: Jacqueline Taieb's 7 Heures du Matin (7:00am). The original French version is the shiznitz, the real deal. However, because the film clip is so good, I'm going to post the English language version below, released the same year (1966). Personally, I think the French version a far better song than the Anglais; but I suppose the medium here is visual.

Incidentally, Taieb was born in Tunisia. And from what I can gather, this is the French-language equivalent of Wild Thing. Every guitar band starting out in a French-speaking garage learns this track. Un corquer!

60s French Girl Pop: #2

And now my favourite France Gall song, Les Sucettes (Lollipops), composed by that depraved and wicked genius Serge Gainsbourg. Which can only mean two things.

60s French Girl Pop: #1

Ok, so the thing is: I'm a bit of a fan of 60s French Girl Pop.

And since c'est mon blog, well ... voila! It's a new series. Hope you enjoy.

I think we'd best kick off with France Gall's Laisse Tomber Les Filles, non?

Summerfield (1977)

You know, I was going to write a post on the excellent Australian film Summerfield (1977) - from the same writer and producer team of Picnic at Hanging Rock, but I then realised I couldn't do better than refer Oz film pundits to this review.

Suffice to say it's a corker, with some groovy twists, and should be better known. Set on Churchill Island, near Westernport, Victoria, it has something of an Antipodean Wickerman vibe, though without the supernatural pretensions.

I'd only add that you should watch for the product placement of a more simple age. Frankly, Milo and Castrol GTX made me feel more warmly nostalgic than irritated.

More generally, I love Australian films of the 70s. What went wrong?

Quiz time!

Guess where I took this photo. (Click for hi-res).
Winner will be declared November's Capitão do Fortaleza, here at BmL.

UPDATE: Hordes of disgruntled NCOs denied as Capitão Fyodor seizes the parapet; correctly identifying the Comunidades dos Países de Língua Portuguesa (Community of Portuguese Language Nations - CPLP) office in Rua de São Caetano, Lisbon. All hail!

Coal-Eating Surrender Monkeys

With props to Tim Hollo over at LP for the inspiration, "coal-eating surrender monkeys" are what we here at BmL will be calling the new breed of climate denialist: that is, those who accept the science, but now say "its too late to do anything" and/or "we wont do anything until everyone else does". For example, the Australian Liberal/ National coalition.

When the call for action came, they immediately surrendered. When the global threat arrived, they vacated the field. When others made a stand, they ran a mile. We found them huddled and crying behind the coal sheds. They are the enviro-cowards.

They are the coal-eating surrender monkeys.

What if Churchill had done the same, hmmm? "oh, we wont be fighting them on the beaches unless everyone else does first.... and its probably too late anyway...(etc, whine whine cry)"

Pathetic. Fortunately, people with some semblance of backbone are in charge now. The main game is making sure they don't cop-out under pressure from the carping surrender monkeys, currently flinging their poo from the safety of the treetops.

The Wreck of the Batavia: why no film?

White settlement of Australia first took place, inadvertently, on June 4 1629 when the Dutch East India Ship Batavia was wrecked on Houtman's Abrolhos (which means "open your eyes" in Portuguese), a small group of inhospitable islands off the West Australian coast. Three hundred civilian passengers were left to wait as Commander Pelsaert and most of the officers sailed in a small boat to Batavia (now Jakarta) for help.

Left under the command of the deputy VOC commander, a psychopath called Jacob Cornelius, the passengers entered a three-month living hell of murder, rape, enslavement, and deranged tyranny under Cornelius' gang. Only 116 survived.

This story has it all. There's even good guys - Wiebbe Hayes, a Dutch soldier who resists Cornelius' thugs after being marooned with other soldiers on a nearby island.

And how's this for a gripping climax? Cornelius is captured by Hayes, but the rest of his gang a still at large as the Dutch rescue ship comes over the horizon. There's a desperate seaborne race to get there first, to win the authorities to their side of story.

SO WHERE'S THE FILM, Australia???? This is sheer madness. This story is unbelievable - and true. Why the constant failure of the imagination in this country? The failure to see how great, how universal even, some of these magnificent tales are.

And I've been watching the fantastic The First Australians series. Same goes for that - perhaps more so. Ok, so we've had The Tracker, yes, but where's the movie about Pemulwoy and the resistance around Sydney? He and his warriors took Parramatta! Its an incredible tale. And Jandamurra in the Kimberleys? The Kalkadoons at Battle Mountain in Queensland? Why are we so pathetic at this? New Zealand is way ahead on this score.

Is it that we daren't offend the pathetic denialist sensibilities of certain high profile culture warriors? Or is it a deeper malaise, a cringing disbelief that any story taking place here is worth telling? Or worse - are we just plain scared of the truth? That we might displace Cap'n Cook from his endless victory in grade 7 social science texts? Or demonstrate how constant was the Indigenous resistance?

Honestly, I'm sometimes genuinely embarrassed by this country's never-ending adolescence. Here's hoping it changes with the apology. I think it might, actually. I'm optimistic. Now, a good start would be some quality films on key episodes of our history - exciting, wild tales, like those above. Do I ask too much?

UPDATE: Hooray! Some googling suggests there may be a film about the Batavia (starring Vinnie Jones) underway. I'll believe it when I see it. This project has been mooted before. But still.... no Aboriginal resistance movies? Come on!!

The Magnificent Gene Clark

You know, The Byrds had some luminaries as members: David Crosby, and Roger McGuinn. But watch their early videos on Youtube, and the only fully-fledged musical genius in that band is the guy playing the tamborine. The magnificent Gene Clark.

Any hit the Byrds had, if not composed by Dylan, you can bet it was written by him. Try "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", "She Don't Care About Time" and "Eight Miles High" on fer size. All Clark compositions.

And if "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" isn't objectively one of top 5 greatest songs of the 60s, I'll personally eat your hat. Sometimes, when it's late at Keating Towers, and I'm ferreting away here with headphones, while the world sleeps, I believe it to be the finest pop song ever written.

And how many other native American pop stars were there? If anyone knows others, comment away.

Anyhoo, if you like 60s west coast sounds, get yourself his solo album from 1967, after he left the Byrds: its sometimes called Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers, other times known as Echoes. It's truly a forgotten gem. In mon humble opinion.

Through fields of cane....

It may not surprise you to learn I'm really not much of rural type. But last night I was staying at Ms LE's ancestral German -Australian farm just outside Brisbane, where her Prussian antecedents settled in the 1860s. Her sister and brother still live there; though they don't farm or anything earthy like that.

Anyway, the more genuinely rustic neighbours were burning their cane crop. I watched for an hour, and it was magnificent. Fire licking the sky, cane bark flying high over bulging smoke clouds, big bursts of flame followed by low crackling subsidence, then another rush of hot flame leaping skyward.

In the morning I could see why the method was once favoured (I'm told its used less now, for reasons I don't get). The cane was so clean, black and straight, ready for easy harvest. Awesome!