My friend (and collaborator when I used to make music), Nick Mariette has co-produced a program which will be on Radio National tomorrow night, it is called Sound Transit, details are on the RN website. It will also be available as a podcast.
My friend (and collaborator when I used to make music), Nick Mariette has co-produced a program which will be on Radio National tomorrow night, it is called Sound Transit, details are on the RN website. It will also be available as a podcast.
Not too much new, except that on Friday 23rd Feb two of my favourite local bands, No Through Road and Straight to Video, are playing at the Electric Light Hotel with Sub Audible Hum, who I’m not familiar with.
Meanwhile this week don’t forget about Damo Suzuki at the Rocket bar on Friday – this is not to be missed. On Saturday there is a choice of Macromantics at Rocket or The Evens at the urtext ballroom. I’m leaning towards the latter.
On the stereo
Amon Tobin – Foley Room cd (Ninja Tune)
Roots Manuva – Dub Come Save Me 2LP (Big Dada)
Skream – Skream! cd (Tempa)
Jackie Mittoo and the Soul Brothers – Last Train to Skaville 2LP (Soul Jazz)
Plaid – P-brane EP (Warp)
Plaid – Peel Sessions EP (Warp)
Prefuse 73 – The ’92 vs ’02 Collection EP (Warp)
No Through Road – Too Much or Not Enough cd (Unstable Ape)
Ninetynine – Worlds of Space/Population/Robots cd (Unstable Ape)
Various – Tales from the Australian Underground Vol 2: 1977-1990 2cd (Feel)
The editorial in todays Australian misrepresents the recently released summary of the IPCC AR4.
This misrepresentation forms the basis of their claim that no drastic action is required in response to climate change, and to essentially endorse the Howard government’s position. In the editorial they point out that they accept the reality of climate change, yet it seems that they get their information on it from denialists.
In particular they say
The IPCC report suggests that sea levels will rise somewhere between 0.18m and 0.59m over the coming century – hardly the sort of thing that will see skyscrapers swamped, islands sink or even low-lying poor cities inundated. To the extent that dislocations will be caused, they can be dealt with, and it is far from clear that hobbling not just the Australian economy but those of China and India is the most appropriate response. To take the IPCC’s average sea level rise of 38.5cm (which, six years ago, it tipped at 48.5cm) as a starting point, this would mean, according to some of the world’s leading scientists, that Al Gore, who in his movie An Inconvenient Truth dramatically shows what the worlds coastlines would look like were sea levels to rise by 6.1m, is off by more than a factor of 15 times.
They even use a variant of the old “global warming ended in 1998” rubbish that has been doing the rounds in denialist circles for some time with the following comment:
The world may be getting warmer at the moment – though temperatures have been pretty stable since 1998 – but humans have thrived in hotter conditions than these and they have certainly survived colder periods
Note that they have toned it down a bit to fit in with their acceptance of global warming.
These arguments have already been dealt with by Nexus 6, who came across the same arguments elsewhere, but here’s the gist of it:
Also, they have a front page story which comes out in support of coal mining … coincidentally they also have a liftout (of the special advertising feature variety) with lots of stories about how we should all go to Queensland to work in the mining industry, and which, judging by the advertising, seems to be largely paid for by Rio Tinto.
Update: Nexus 6 has also written about this.
Update II: They’re at it again.
Watch the adventures of Tek Jansen, a superhero who sounds rather similar to Phil Ken Sebben, here.
I particularly recommend the latest episode which I first saw here.
A few new albums to watch out for:
Adelaide cyclists might be interested in the Coast to Coast ride from Glenelg to Victor Harbor which is coming up in a couple of weeks. I’m considering it but I don’t know that I’m sufficiently prepared – after being sick last week, and then with hot weather this weekend, I haven’t been out riding much, and I haven’t done a ride of that length before, and haven’t done riding in the hills … but I should start on that this week at least. So anyway, Coast to Coast is looking unlikely for me but I’ll report back when I’ve conquered Mt Lofty by bike!
Update: The forecast is for 40 degrees! I’m glad I decided not to go. Good luck to my almost-teammates: The Don, Beetroot & Scares.
Update II: Sensibly the event has been cancelled due to the extreme weather.
The summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change‘s Fourth Assessment Report has just been released. I’ll leave the commentary to some of the excellent climate change blogs:
RealClimate – The IPCC Fourth Assessment SPM
Open Mind – Summary for Voters (here’s my own shorter summary for voters – vote Green)
At DeSmogBlog they are all prepared for the attack of the think-tanks
Eli Rabbett is up for some bingo
For a local reaction head over to Road to Surfdom where the Australian Climate has no greater friend …
(with apologies to Tim Lambert)
The full program is out for the Adelaide Film Festival, as usual there is lots of interesting stuff. I had some admittedly unrealistic hopes for My Name is Albert Ayler in the music docs section, and for something new from Eric Rohmer in the World Cinema selection, but neither of those was ever really likely. If you have the time I suggest a 5 or 10 film pass (which come with 1 or daytime tickets respectively), though individual session tickets are also available.
Here’s some of the films that have caught my attention:
Bamako puts the World Bank and IMF on trial
The Bothersome Man “Not far beneath the clever surface of this film, you will find a cry of despair that will be familiar to anyone who has ever spent more than an hour in an Ikea showroom.”
Infamous the same story as Capote, which I thought was excellent. I’m curious to see a different account of the same events.
Lunacy, it’s years since I’ve heard anything about surrealist animator Jan Svankmajer. I really loved his versions of Alice and Faust, though this one doesn’t sound quite so appealing to me.
Modern Love, gothic Australiana. Could be worthwhile.
One Fine Day offbeat French comedy. I need to get to a at least a couple of French ones to help with my efforts to learn French.
Private Fears in Public Places new film by Alain Resnais, the Nouvelle Vague director who was responsible for the brilliant Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour
Special “A very select group of people in life are truly gifted. Special is a movie about everyone else.”
West drama set in the “suburban badlands west of Sydney”. I come from the western suburbs of Sydney … don’t know about “badlands” though! Might check this out.
Dr Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb truly one of the greatet movies of all time. I’ve probably seen it enough times that I’ll not see it here, but anyone who hasn’t seen it should!
First on the Moon I’m quite curious about this unusual sounding film about the Soviet Union and the space race.
What the Future Sounded Like documentary about pioneers of British electronic music, sounds great.
Black Gold a look at the global coffee trade that should have you buying fair trade from now on.
A Sunday in Hell one for the cyclists.
I do have one gripe about the festival – all of their advertising is a huge rip-off of The Residents who, while not exactly a household name, have been around for over 30 years, and have been using the eyeball masks for around 25 years.