Songs of August 2005 at Elementary Funk
Scheming plans run down a nine course meal
Aftermath of a flooded presence down at the local. Downing a few pizza slices more than the garlic bread would reasonably allow, ample time after a shaving expedition afforded a chance to catch up on some comics. A long and winding road of reason this. Nothing more to be said or heard from once the chain ran it's allotted course...
Ultimate Spider-Man #75
As Harry finds out what really happened to him and his father at the Osborn plant they invoke the use of "Cellar Door" to knock him back out. Poor Harry, no choice but to fall asleep on what is supposed to be the most beautiful phrase in the world. Harsh and comforting. Spotted in the lair of the Green Goblin, masks used in the regular version of the Marvel Universe as well as that worn by Wilhelm Dafoe in the movie. And that does appear to be Alien versus Predator playing on a big screen.
Astonishing X-Men #10
Cerebro in a full fighting figure tackles the X-Men with such apparent ease it's a wonder they ever really played nice in the first place. Pedestrian in style, the fight scenes appear to be a little more brutal, more bone crunching than at first glance. Children of the atom fighting against the child of their teacher. Students lose.
The Hunger #2
Apparently, conscientious zombies who still harbour flints of human emotion and respect the family model do exist. They also need to feed on brains. Wiping out the romp a nauseating trawl through police babble toward the end drowns out the blood and guts of earlier. The back-up story with Captain Dare is a flat effort that doesn't really go anywhere or do much beyond prancing around and running off not far enough into the distance.
Ultimate Spider-Man #76
Fight issue. Spider-Man versus the Harry Osborn goblin. Hobgoblin? Can't recall much.
Trigger #5
Carter Lennox takes to walking in his own shoes that aren't his own. In but not in, on the outer. Dealing with a slight twisting slate on the role of identity and morality, it doesn't come off entirely fluid. The very nature of his actions and consciousness doing little to suggest he would actually be anything but in total control of his body. Cute use of the Ethicorp morality block out in a scene.
Ultimate Spider-Man #77
Get thee back into the shell. The Hulkbusting unit of SHIELD lets loose and puts Harry out of his misery. On the surface, a clean wrap up. Lingering asides from Fury and Spider-Man put doubts on that claim though.
Ex Machina #11
Mayor Hundred comes up against the gypsy and fortune teller element of New York City. Sheisters and scam artists as they are, the whole September 11 recall thing gets a mention in an issue that looks like it got darker and darker with each turn of the page. Clouds of worry? Shades of uncertainty?
Ultimate Spider-Man #78
Scanning the pages from left to right and up and down, orientation misses a few scenes. The lay out of pages spanning the fold make for a little trying effort in this. Finally at least, Peter ditches MJ for her safety. Though, that she never really was much of a listener, tensing the strain from the start.
Amazing Spider-Man #520
Years wallowing in their own petty inadequacies and misdemeanour crime hits, the crazy villainous folk of HYDRA let loose with big carbonic charges wearing clothes that would not look out of place on any Australian sporting team. With four copies/clones based off of the four founding Avengers members they really hold their ground against Spidey and crew. And it's then that this reads more like an Avengers book than a comic from the point of view of Spider-Man. The scenes where Aunt May stands Logan down and cooks for Jarvis are refreshingly foreign.
Monday, 29 August 2005
DDH 56: Title deeds and (in)finite leases
Clarity of decisions and reasons behind the curtains remain a right of privilege for the very few. Even those within the inner circle find themselves face-to-face against an ever-shifting funhouse mirror.
People and places are trading places when changing faces.
Exit strategies are comprimised when differences of opinions battle a furious war over semantics and logistics while swimming mouth wide open in the blood bath of office politics.
Nothing of late appears direct.
Saturday, 27 August 2005
Drawing Breath with the Song Company
Experiences will come to know more like this. Of times and events devoid of others. Schedules never mixing and matching to the greatest of appearances. Nor even that of aligned frequencies.
Thinking that with any minute a hit of Nintendo would erupt merely put a mind on question on alarm. Holding a back seat in the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, there on the stage with microphones dangling from the ceiling, the Song Company.
Drawing Breath is a compendium of songs, harmonies, hymns and hums.
To an audience respecting the silence enough not to applause each segment, the looks on the performers asked several questions as to why.
Fruity, funny and feverishly floaty, the first half of the night proves that the injection of mirth and a wry sense of humour does well in any crowd. Even of those shy of slapping palms together. After the break, and with no indication or news as to the use of photography, they play a far more mediaeval set, a Celtic tone, of French television commercials in operatic fashion.
Deeper meaning and appreciation is lost when the sameness of each section glazes the eardrums into a outside and foreign state of mind.
Saturday, 27 August 2005
Cadbury chocolate cannibals at the movies
Wouldn't it be nice if the world was Cadbury?
Going to the pics would so sweet
There'd be no need for munchies
Cadbury dairy milk is the perfect treat
If someone came and blocked your screen view
You could eat a hole to see through
Wouldn't it be nice?
On the heels of dwindling independent film theatres, art houses, quality Australian cinema production and the ongoing aberrations of Hollywood, comes another startling look at a supposed Utopia crafted entirely out of chocolate.
Despite previous outings and depictions as a homely environment for families, the latest in the line shows the callous act of biting off the hair of a fellow cinema patron. Wanton acts such as this are often first provoked by the incessant lights of a mobile phone or the rustling of foil crisp packets.
With only a difference in height sparking this most extreme answers to a lingering question, it does not bode well for the Chocolate Utopia.
Eating animals, metal and flora is one thing. To feast upon another being is a step toward fewer arguments in the long term.
Wednesday, 24 August 2005
Three of three and down by two
Craving nothing more than to witness a victory along the sidelines of a netball game, curses would replace what happened to be. Curses from others and disheveled looks for all around. Quiet picks up a quick pace on the end of a game.
Of three appearances in objectionably mute support, silently stammering through the rules and regulations, three losses.
Concerns and questions of jinxing and bad luck dispelled in an instant of nervous laughter. With no more beyond the semi-final match, here endeth the season.
As averages of wins hold out better in the long term, next year's season will begin a new slate. And perhaps the conflicting messages and feelings of alienation against the rules will be more likely to subside.
Sunday, 21 August 2005
DDH 55: Food for nought
Sleep was so close to making another appearance in the middle of the week and in the middle of that day. Fluborious be the annual update on strategy, direction and movement between the means. Found after the hour, ten minutes past the actual ruse, platters of leaves and thick straw with breasts of chicken slashed into slithers and tuna mashed into fists. Reward for two hours of inspecting walls and ramrod spines.
Filled with sugar and icing upon a cake, knives serve as forks when caught off guard by a shortage. The week end's celebrations shower streams in a celebratory absence. Food for the sake of food and nothing more. Cake abounds and surround the tables of the kitchen. Not for breakfast, not for lunch, but chocolate, carrots and strawberries slabbed in between.
Closing out with a group in the dim lights of the Malaya, an actual combination of reward and celebration. Feast as they might upon chasms staring back at entrees into the belly of the main. Short and quick in designated portions, longer pauses and heftier chunks late into the night make for the swelling and breaching of allotments.
Manners are sacrificed and tortured in the face of food. Gasping breaths down choking necks the only indication of presence.
Saturday, 20 August 2005
Prometheus Unbound
Aeryn Sun makes an appearance as Vala in Stargate SG-1 and kicks in perhaps one of the more slapdastic fight scenes seen in a long while.
Friday, 19 August 2005
NUMB3RS - Pilot
Applying the sexy style of CSI and its many offspring, NUMB3RS tarts up numbers, digits, integers and fractions with a slick execution of zooms and flashing all sorts of relationships in time, rational and quadratic existences.
Instead of focusing on the blood, sinew and matted hair embedded deep within the fibres and grooves of blunt weapons, the glory of mathematics and equations strut centre stage.
Numb3rs is without a doubt, or at least in the pilot episode, a haven for spotting actors from all sort of shows and character roles. Sliders, Northern Exposure, The O.C., Ally McBeal and Dear John. That's too many times and years in front of the brain warming machine. Too many.
Cracking the case of a serial rapist, it's all wide open with the first episode nailing the location of their perpetrator. So why bother making any more equations for the police cops and federal agents? What other applications can they find?
"On the next NUMB3RS..."
Tuesday, 16 August 2005
Turtles Can Fly
For were it not the hand of another, asking to make waste a free preview screening, a gem such as this would have been missed. An Iraq/Iran collaboration about the Kurds on the border of Turkey, it's a film that is there to sit stunned at the sheer calmness of it all. Calm with all the surrounds blaring out a sense of impending doom and danger. The children who star and shepherd the film really do some fine work.
Despair and fear linger ever over the heads of those caught on the sidelines of the war on Iraq. The funnier moments at times doing little to allay any real lasting sense of peace and comfort. More joy for the moments that can be had. The here and the now.
Satisfying for the stomach that eats away at itself.
Monday, 15 August 2005
Here ends The Amazing Race
With the final three of Rob & Amber, Uchenna & Joyce and Ron & Kelly stepping foot upon the giant mat, so ends another Amazing Race around the world.
Like all those since the second, clues and directions were plain and simple. Apart from the stopover in London and tracking down Sherlock Holmes, the tasks were more directives than Carmen San Diego like.
Scouting the seas, finding a copy of The Amazing Race proved a wait in agony. Already aware of the winners, the ecstasy of the agonising final few minutes proved again that it was all about the human drama.
Dire and so close to the end, the winning couple nearly fell apart and short of the million dollar prize. All due to a simple void of one factor while holding on to copious wads of another, namely "doing right" by people.
Of all things considered, the final three were particularly colour coordinated with their final run attire.
Monday, 15 August 2005
The Parting of the Ways
Doctor Who picks up right from the massive tension left lingering from Bad Wolf and ushers in the new Doctor with The Parting of the Ways. All things fell apart to make way for a Saturday in front of the television, supping at the radioactive aura emanating from the tube.
Slightly jarring having to watch the Christopher Eccleston Doctor regenerate standing upright. And with the same clothes for the incarnation.
"Before I go, I just want to tell you: you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I."
Indeed he was.
Monday, 15 August 2005
DDH 54: Lockdown
Once, doors to level seven were free and easy. Their swinging nature making the transition between lift shafts between the breaks slightly less encumbered. No need for the beeping of the personnel tags, no need to hit the metal exit nipple for a button. Walk in. Walk out. Nothing in the way to stop the movement of even those not signed in for the building.
And now, lock down. Hard shunts with magnetic security panels making their use during the business hours. Tight and severely restricting the flow of swinging, the reinstatement of purpose for the security panels beggars a question with ratty garments dripping wet of a sports change room. Disinfectant in the air, of bleach and something strong.
As the replacement stakes her ground and sets up a post, it would seem as though the timing is all of a coincidental nature.
Saturday, 13 August 2005
Onna No Honour - Darlinghurst Theatre
Were it not for the deeper, more inward turn of the second half of the show, Onna No Honour would be a mere comedy of flat jokes and tense moments. Instead, and with this turn and inspection on identity, reality and honesty, it's warm and heartfelt performance theatre. Naked with emotion and questions, it is a revealing exploration of what it means to be free and honest.
Friday, 12 August 2005
Superman Returns to Martin Place
Drowning in flood lights bright enough to warm the cold city streets, if not for the freezing of the blood, Martin Place once again saw madness with Red Sun aka Superman Returns filming back on location. With the Martin Place amphitheatre a classy cafe and a cherry picker untangling tangled flags from the CBA façade, it was all hours on set up and nothing else.
A sweet turquoise mustang hanging in the air gets a ride up and down and down and up most of the night. Bryan Singer steps out, rugged up and warm while a woman in a flimsy dress sits in the car. He's pulling off some moves and showing them what for. Throws a pose not unlike the cover to Action Comics #1.
Closer to midnight, and with far fewer gawkers-on, a truck strapped with a camera runs down some of the suits standing around the buildings next to the International Bank of Metropolis. Smoke/mist pours out of the street vents with a moderate rankness about it. Vile and hopefully non-toxic. Black shades and breakers around the set made spotting Brandon Routh a tough and pointless challenge. Especially with a burly bloke tapping shoulders of those getting way too close to the action.
Thursday, 11 August 2005
Chasms across quips in time
Even in the void of emotion, despair and distress are enough to cause disorientation.
Tuesday, 9 August 2005
Winging through a passive attack
Inextricable twigs of fate enjoin with one another through mystical voodoo forces. Watching the second ever full court press action of a netball game, the result merely followed suits to that of the previous week.
Presence spoils the after party. Connections cannot be far from sight or close to right. Feeling nothing within and more of a scraping void around. Hollow and empty at another painfully quiet defeat at the hands of the other team.
Spectating is an awkward endeavour in a foreign land.
Sunday, 7 August 2005
Drumlines with Synergy Percussion and Fritz Hauser
Dripping copious after pasta sweat and hiking over a bridge with ample rock swing, the doors to the Old Chapel of Newington College were still open. Short cause for pause and a little uncertainty on their end sees tickets won finally make collection. No cameras allowed, they plea, fearful of souls being captured, even without a blinding flash.
Quiet stays the hall for an inordinate amount of time. Voices whisper in another room entirely. The faint echoes of their voices revealing a look at the shadows. Crashing through the silence, timpanis and cymbals gently crack the air.
Playful and with a sense of one-upping, the two front and centre bring channel about the next iteration of wavering ripples of sound in the tight and stuff air. Chains over the floor, thunder rumbles over a big bass drum and the chaotic smashing of a monster instrument not unlike a xylophone or glockenspiel feature during the night's main course.
Smells within the walls irradiate to a strange behaviour, religious of note and hinting of a particular sandalwood riff.
Unknowing is key with many of the beats and taps on metal and wood following a structure not entirely clear. Blathering gibberish toward the end is a most exotic feel toward the whole concept of percussion. Of vocal flexing that is rudimentary, devolved and intrinsically interesting in its execution.
Quite the interesting night of sounds. Strangers step aside on invitations and avert looks of awkwardness leaving open the chance for another attempt.
Sunday, 7 August 2005
DDH 53: Dead man walking
Expecting nothing out of the pre-destined path, helped magically by vacuum drying particles in the mouth and brain, the ordinary casually stepped up to the desk and slammed a soft brush down on the tabletop. With it a gentle nod toward the door and solid ream of confidence.
Two months remain until the final walk is made complete and final. Indifference is the state of mind. Nothing is really set into motion outside the now expected truth and opportunity of chance lying ahead in the burning fields of a freelance endeavour.
Saturday, 6 August 2005
Blue Love at The Studio
Blue Love is a wry examination of the conventions and society's conditioning of love, emotion and marital throes. Hilariously entertaining, Glenn and Rhonda know only too well the failings of their union and are quite happy to subtly undermine each other for it.
Saturday, 6 August 2005
One step closer
Calm steps in the morning soon give way to the slashing of the Achilles' heels. Running foul of a wash and the purity of leather, the cold air warms quick as it bathes in the blood. Fury and pain rage through the nerves, skin sliced away on each and every step. Grey socks blackened with a hint of red.
Friday, 5 August 2005
Soaking sultanas with bullets of blood
Breaking out with the return of the blood stream, tapping direct from the nose, a change reeks in the air. Years of forever and ever on the dry and stable wheat biscuits, over and done.
Once and empty spaces previously held by the massive armies of plain wheat surrender to the forces of sultanas and pieces of petrified fruit. Perfect for those with imaginations, the biscuits could not hold on as the oncoming advances of moderate flakes made their presence felt.
Different textures to be sure; to be had, to wake the day.
Thursday, 4 August 2005
Marilyn, Marilyn
Following on a footnote from an article in SX Weekly, a Sunday morning into a major artery of Newtown.
Movie Trade on King Street, with the palsy afflicted proprietor at a loss and looking overseas, on its last hours before final close of doors. Dead on arrival, the man working on the outside chips a mighty load from the corner of the footpath. The stink of old is rampant inside, dust jumping up at the turn of a shelf and look over the cards. Day final no longer, popular demand extending the life of the dying shop for one extra month. Typical fashion accessory to liquidation.
Expecting nothing, the eyes swim through an astonishing abundance of Marilyn Monroe. Posters, birthday cards, black and white glossies and a few reproductions from cinema lobbies of old times.
One hour and more later, rocking back and forth in the tiny dimensions, the slurring owner threatens to call up the police cops for assistance. Freaks abound with fear and are harried with a dash off toward the register.
A luscious black and white glossy of Marilyn Monroe blowing a kiss, a poster featuring The Seven Year Itch, a movie poster of The Matrix Reloaded featuring Neo and a full colour glossy of Brandon Lee striking a defiant pose as the one and only Eric Draven, The Crow.
By day's end, sweating palms see the glossy of The Crow face off against the white paper bag and whimpers away a loser in the exchange.
Monday, 1 August 2005
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