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Media Blotch features a string of hopefully witty, sometimes perceptive, often ridiculous posts about idiocy, corruption, suspicion, scandal, confusion, sexy paradigms and pop culture observations.
Today, my friends, it is me who will abuse the power of this very form of media... Spurred on by a delightfully increasing readership, I am now a case study in my very own subject matter: blotchy, blotchy media.
Without further ado,
In extremely well-intentioned though entirely egocentric enthusiasm,
I bring you,
The details of the saucy comedy cabaret show I'm in at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It's "pacy, cheeky and a lot of fun" (The Age). It's "racy, freaky and a job well done" (Me, for the purpose of rhyme).
All your childhood favourites - Barbie, Polly Pocket, Porcelain Doll, Wind Up Doll, Bratz and Cabbage Patch - have climbed down from their shelves and are ready to hit the real world. Or are they....?
For a fragmented, witty and altogether delightful tale of dollies all grown up, pop along to the show!
From the girls who brought you the hugely successful Princess Cabaret
Proudly presented by Tumbleweed Productions
DOLLS CABARET
7pm, Every night except Mondays
The Meeting Room
Trades Hall
Cnr Lygon St and Victoria Rd
Melbourne, Australia
If you're not around personally in the area, let's celebrate the wonder that is Word of Mouth. Take a gamble, tell someone (or everyone) you know. It's a fantastic show, we just need your help to recover from being listed at the wrong time in the guide.
Visit comedyfestival.com.au for further details.
I am both sheepish and hopeful as I sign off on this post, the most personal one I have written for this blog.
If you like funny things, or know someone who does, send them our way!!
Carrie Fisher: Space Princess, Loving Mother, Alcoholic
[Book Review] Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher
Carrie Fisher is many things to many people: a mother, an ex-wife, a grieving best friend, an in-patient, an out-patient and a damsel in distress. Her iconic croissant-like hairdo and gold bikini have ensured that space geeks and moviegoers will always think of Carrie as Princess Leia, but she went on to battle demons far worse than Jaba the Hutt.
Carrie Fisher has drunk, snorted and pinged her way through years of psychological anguish. The wry and endearingly bitter offspring of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, she delights in her own disfunction and makes superb use of the material her parents have provided. (Eddie Fisher ran off with Debbie's best gal-pal Elizabeth Taylor, before tallying up a string of pretty Hollywood ladies and forgoing all paternal duties).
"Wishful Drinking" is a triumph in cynicism. It is an honest, hilarious, disarming memoir. Carrie Fisher turns a phrase so exquisitely and so cleverly, her work is a joy to read despite its oft-tragic content. She covers a spectrum of devastating events; her husband leaving her for homosexuality, her best friend dying in the bed beside her, her admittance to hospitals, the disintegration of her relationship with Paul Simon (twice). But she does it all with such charming jest and such sharp wisdom you cannot help but enjoy the ride.
This memoir, for want of a less dull term, is everything an autobiographical piece of writing by a celebrity should be. It is short and sweet, at 162 pages. It is candid without being self-indulgent, it is entertaining without being gaudy.
Earth to Carrie Fisher: Keep writing babes, the literary world is a better place for having you in it.
Seoul Subway Suicides Not An Accident
For four Korean men, the year’s most affectionate holiday was the Valentines Day to end all Valentines days.
On Valentine Saturday four Korean men died on the train tracks. Aged between 30 and 71, their deaths were reported as “subway accidents”.
As far as I can tell, throwing oneself in front a train hurtling full speed towards you does not constitute an accident. (With the exception of one man who was killed trying to salvage a body from the tracks). This languid approach to ‘accidental suicide’ in Korean media and the preoccupation with safety precautions has meant the real issues have been, ah, railroaded.
Screen doors on the platforms of subway stations are a novel idea, to be sure. With swarms of people spilling from platforms onto trains at peak hour, it is only sensible that some form of physical barrier is made between vehicle and crowd. Only 89 of the 265 stations in Seoul have these screen doors, and it’s not good enough. But the idea that these deaths might inspire authorities to install doors but not to address the incidence of suicide is truly terrifying. If screen doors were in place where these men jumped to their deaths, I imagine the will to die would carry them to another location, inspire them to try another method, transfer the problem from Green Line, Line 4, elsewhere.
Putting doors in place will not prevent suicide. It will relocate it.
Suicide is a peculiar thing. It’s the most perverse execution of free will imaginable, and the messiest. Overdosing on sleeping tablets or drinking poison is a quiet plea to slip away into non-existence. Train-track suicide is not something you do when you want a quiet death. It’s a statement. It’s a desperate act made very public because the perpetrator wants to force onlookers to share in his pain. The train-track jumper sacrifices himself in front of hoards of people because he wants to leave a message. And I’m pretty sure that message is not: “Put more doors on subway platforms”.
When victim and murderer become one, anger and grief and sadness are splayed everywhere. We don’t know what to do, who to blame, who to be angry with. What we must do is pause, consider what horror might bring someone to take their own life and concede that it might be more than an accident.
These suicides were on Valentines Day. Someone who chooses the most love-filled, rosey-pink holiday as the day of their train-trodden suicide did so for a reason. Irony, loneliness, dramatic effect, desperation – I don’t know. Doors or no doors, these men were tortured enough to end their lives, and that’s the part we should be concerned by.
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.
[Film Review] He's Just Not That Into You
The phrase "He's just not that into you" brought Sex and the City's Miranda a great deal of clarity in her relationships. Women everywhere who fancied themselves as a Carrie Bradshaw, a Samantha or a Charlotte made it their mantra, as if acknowledging that someone does not like you is empowering. People spoke about this concept as if it were new. They spoke about it and they spoke about it. Presumably people made their own observations, told their own stories. Then they realised it was a pretty empty one-liner and moved on
[ Click here to read more ]
Despite his pelvic-thrusting, peroxide curly, Britney-snuggling ways, Justin Timberlake has long been the King of Pop. He ascended to the throne post-NSync, with sweet sweet dancing skills. He was the only man-boy on the scene to tap into the teen heart-throb market and still pull girls like Cameron Diaz and Jessica Biel. Since Backstreet Boys, Westlife and Human Nature have faded into irrelevance JT has stormed through with contagious beats, helped of course by his black-man connections to increase his rap-time credibility.
[ Click here to read more ]
I've long wondered what it would be like to be a foreign diplomat. There are such stories of glamour interspersed with dire responsibility that it's hard to discern whether it would be terrifying or fantastic or both, to represent the government in a foreign land, deciding on policy and relations.
Sure, diplomats are wined and dined, they swirl wine in deep glasses as they converse with leaders of the world and they occupy sumptuous apartments if they are posted somewhere with a semblence of luxury. Their meetings often take place over delicious meals and they can siddle in closer and closer still to the ear of the prime minister, trade commissioner or ambassador
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You may remember Kim Jong-Il from such satirical cartoons as 'Team America' and such news coverage as 'Nuclear Fears in North Korea'. He is the leader of somewhat ironically named Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and he has just announced his successor.
Kim Jong-Il has dismissed his eldest son as heir, presumably because he once tried to enter te country with a fake passport. Apparently Jong-Il thinks his Sushi-Chef second son is not masculine or aggressive enough. So the great honour and burden of North Korean leadership will be bestowed upon Kim Jong-Il's third son, Kim Jong-Un
[ Click here to read more ]
After a fragrant plane trip and a high speed taxi ride, I am now in Seoul. Thus far I have nibbled on a peanut sandwich, been given home-made soap by a kind host and set up my internet connection. I'm here for 5 weeks. I start work at the Australian Embassy day after tomorrow and then I will work in a paper, the JoongAng Daily which is part of the International Herald Tribune.
I am here with two other girls; three Australians navigating this infinitely fascinating and numbingly cold city, scavenging news stories and adjusting to a place where the English is sparse and the eye contact is sparser
[ Click here to read more ]
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