Back to Perth

I'm back to Perth on Monday - in the meantime there's heaps to do at uni, in the lab, measurements, cleaning, etc. I'm looking forward to visiting, catching up with family and friends and maybe even going for a climb or two. Tomorrow night is Ali's gig, which will be very exciting too - hope to have a photo or two up sometime...from Oz?? Ciao, Paul.

Moving/Trasloco

Hi folks,

No photo at this stage to confirm that Ali and I have moved to Castello, you'll just have to believe us. So we no longer live on an island next to Venice, we now live on the (an) island of Venice. It's a cool spot, near shops and a great bar that's open late (Il Refolo) and has great snacks (Cicchetti), so we're happy with the move, and our new italian housemates. The downside is that we have limited guest space now, so all you suckers who haven't visited yet will have to make do with floor space, or the crib in the lounge/dining room. I'm off back to Oz after one more week of measurements, and Ali's gig next friday. So, as usual, it's all happening. Ciao, Paul.

Back to Venice

The holidays were very successful - Ali and I had a great time travelling about Germany and the Czech Republic, learning heaps about Berlin and recent history as well as just having a fun time in museums, pubs and various public spaces. Berlin highlights included the TV tower, 6 hours in the jewish museum, tacheles artspace, the day of terror (visiting consecutively the eastside gallery, topography of terror and the memorial to murdered jews) and an awesome ramen bar just off Auguststrasse. Prague didn't offer an interesting tv tower but new years celebrations were fun and the snow was pretty. I really enjoyed visiting the jewish quarter, josefov, as well as the kafka museum and some really really well-stocked english bookshops. Cafes were plentiful and cheap, as was the beer! We spent a wonderful christmas in the company of Sonja and Stefan, their parents and families out in Gifhorn/Halberstat and were treated very well, apart from the virus - Final note is the german virus we picked up between christmas and new years, which knocked us out for two days but we were well enough to travel on the third...now it's back to work with no heating! and snow still hiding in little pockets here and there. So it's cold cold but nice, and we're looking forward to a new living situation as of next week! Ciao Paul.

Back to Germany

Long time between posts. Been to Naples/Pompeii/Amalfi coast and the edge of reason in the meanwhile. Aqua alta, flooding in Venice and conference madness all has happened in the last two months. Now we're gearing up for a christmas trip to Berlin and NYE in CZ. Should be grouse. Also thinking Perth in Feb (am I still mad?). Photos on the intermaweb-thingo. Paul.

Cricket bat

Hi everyone, getting excited about a trip to Munich for Stevie Wonder and Oktoberfest - we're going on Thursday. Incidentally, I should mention that here in Italy "Munich" is called "Monaco di Baviera" - Monaco of Baveria - it always gives me fear when I'm buying tickets for Monaco di Baviera because I worry that I might end up with a ticket to (just) Monaco. 

More importantly, I saw this First Dog on the Moon cartoon on the www.crikey.com website and couldn't help but spread the lovin' around...yes, I'm missing references to cricket bats. If it's too small to read then have a better look at it here and I'd like to repeat that it's with thanks to Crikey that the cartoon exists and I got a cricket bat-related laugh today. 

Ciao, Paul.

The nothing month

September is the nothing month - it seems to be the last sigh of procrastination before settling back into something like a working schedule from October through November until the second half of December - and then everything closes again for Christmas! Do these Italians ever do more than three consecutive months of work? Probably not...So Ali and I find ourselves in the situation of Ferragosto being well and truly over - it was August 15 - yet the music bars and the gyms and the african dancing courses are only just starting to re-open, get started, be announced. What was everyone doing during September?


At least October is when I can look forward to regular time in the climbing gym, and Ali can look forward to having a teaching schedule that's regular enough to organise some free-time activities among the choices of joining a band, african dancing, venetian rowing, and "contemporary" singing...


Next week we're off to Oktoberfest in Munich, and Stevie Wonder - should be fun.

Review "The Wrestler" by Darren Aronofsky

This film is tough. Anyone who's seen "Pi" or "Requiem for a Dream" will know that Aronofsky doesn't hold back when it comes to telling a story, and "The Wrestler" follows in that tradition. I can't comment on "The Fountain" because I haven't seen it, and only found out about it last month.

"The Wrestler" tells the story of Randy "The Ram" Robinson, 20 years after his peak as a pro-wrestler. He still wrestles on weekends, in the local scene, but he's a shadow of his glory days - emotionally, financially, physically. The Ram works out the back of a local supermarket, lives in a caravan, has trouble keeping up with the rent, is a regular at the local strip club, lives from day to day, weekend to weekend, fight to fight. Things change when he has a heart attack and is told he can't wrestle - this brush with death leads the wrestler to think about what he is left with when wrestling is taken away. He also seeks to re-establish contact with his twenty-something daughter who has long since moved out and moved on from a father who was never there for her.

This story is paralleled with that of an aging stripper at the club that Randy frequents. Once again, the film explores the options of people who have been used up by their occupations, and are rapidly approaching the point at which they're about to be spat out of a machine that has no more need of them. In the case of the wrestler, there's no plan, no idea and no opportunities - just a big black hole of a world that has moved on way beyond his 80's cock-rock glory days. The stripper has it together and plans on a different job, moving into a house in a different suburb and finding a reasonable school for her son to go to.

The film doesn't go into much of the detail of the wrestling world: very quickly it comes out clean regarding match-fixing if you could even call it that - performance is probably a better word - and doesn't go into the financial exploitation of the wrestlers at all. All of the wrestlers who have it together certainly aren't relying on the sport as their main income. Instead the main theme of the film is that of people who are capable of maintaining control over their circumstances, adapting to change and challenges and not being consumed by their weaknesses, flaws, doubts, fears and addictions. "Pi" and "Requiem for a dream" have already covered that territory well enough, and in a way it feels that perhaps "The Wrestler" hasn't sufficiently distanced itself from that familiar territory. Perhaps after "The Fountain" Aronofsky decided, or was persuaded, to go back to what works and/or what he's known for.

Make no mistake that "The Wrestler" is a fine film and Mickey Rourke's performance is visceral and splendid. The film is violent in parts, not when you expect it to be, and it sets itself in Aronofsky's familiar territory at the unacknowledged and unmentioned fringes of society. There is an abundance of hand-held camera scenes following the wrestler about - giving a similar feel to "Rosetta" or other dogma-influenced films - but the editing is spot-on and the score will remind you how far the rock guitar has gone since the 80's (depending on what you're listening to now...).

Did it deserve to get the Leon d'Oro? Having missed Miyazaki's "Ponyo by the sea" and Barbaret Schroeder's film, I can't say - although as far as displays of filmmaking go, Takeshi did just as well as Aronofsky in my opinion. Mickey Rourke did deserve some acknowledgement of his sensational performance, far more than anybody associated with the terrible "Papa di Giovanna". Based on the few films I saw, I'd have to accede to the viewpoint that the 65th mostra features some fine films but nothing really new (perhaps Schroeter's impenetrably dark queer-fetish "Nuit de chien" came close as a contribution but it leaned a little too heavily on "Eraserhead" and "28 Days Later..." for my liking).

Now that we've figured out the abbonamento system and the "four different ticketing arrangements for three cinemas" anti-system, I think I'm actually looking forward to next years' film festival...