The rally for David Hicks

Posted by hil

Bring David Hicks Home rally

Last Tuesday I went to the David Hicks rally at Parliament House. I don’t much like going to protests, but sometimes you just have to? I wasn’t sure whether to take my vigil puppet, because although I knew he would attract attention, I didn’t want to imply that I thought it was a okay to wish that fate on the prime minister, much as I despise his politics. The point to me is that no-one should be treated in the way that David Hicks has been. I thought about this aspect when putting up the vigil blog, too, but I hope the understanding is that it’s a request to imagine this happening to anyone.

In the end I took the puppet and hooded him, so he was anonymous, and when I saw the cage protest I was glad I had. It made me a bit uncomfortable for just that reason, as did the the various calls to send various ministers to Guantanamo Bay. Having Ned Kelly as the jailer was a strange choice that I didn’t understand. It just seemed bizarre! Ampersand Duck has the best photo of him!

But overall it was a good, if small, rally. Natasha Stott-Despoja gave a fiery speech, and Andrew Bartlett and Kate Lundy were also good. Mamdouh Habib was the most impassioned, with reason. Loadedog, whom I met for the first time there, gives a good rundown on what Habib said, and I agree with him that what Habib says carries weight because he alone has been there and experienced it. The rally organizers messed up by not announcing ahead of time that he would be speaking, and it was amazing to see how all the reporters and photographers who has wandered off came running back to record what he had to say.

I wandered off myself after Habib’s talk. I find my tolerance for the inevitable speakers who want to jump on the bandwagon is close to zero these days.

On the way to the rally I had noticed a cool painted car, and, while I was parking close by, it had dawned on me that it was Ampersand Duck‘s car! I’ve been enjoying her blog for quite a while now. So I scrabbled around to find a scrap of paper and left a scrawled hello under her windscreen wiper. As I was leaving, she was getting into her car, so I jumped out and had the pleasure of meeting her. It seemed to make the whole day a lot more worthwhile!

Here are my photos from the day at Flickr.

Heart Made Of Sound

Posted by hil

Were

I came across a lovely stop motion animation yesterday, the Softlightes Heart Made of Sound. It’s directed and made by an Australian animator, Kris Moyes, who has done some other cool videos, including (Wolfmother’s White Unicorn (defaced), and the The Presets’ Are You the One?.

Presets

This caused me to revisit Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer, which I just loved at the time. It was made in 1986, but it still stands up pretty well; not too surprising considering Aardman’s successes since then.

Sledgehammer

It’s one of those classics you assume everyone knows, but I’ve been realizing the older you get the less likely that is to be true! The other day I posted Jan Lewis’s Execution Row (postcards of the hanging), a current and clever borrowing of Dylan’s Desolation Row, at my local discussion forum, and the only response was someone young saying they hadn’t heard the song before but I liked it…

Theatre of Image’s Lulie the Iceberg

Posted by hil

Lulie

Kim Carpenter’s highly regarded Theatre of Image has a new production called Lulie the Iceberg, an international collaboration featuring the shadow puppetry of shadow puppet masters from Tokyo’s Kagebushi Theatre Company. You can see a cool behind-the-scenes video of one of their development workshops if you take the ‘teachers’ link on their site. (Sorry, it’s not possible to give a direct link.)

The show is running at the Riverside Theatre Parramatta, 22 February to 3 March, and there are early bird deals and associated exhibitions and demonstrations. More details here at Unima Australia.


Ronnie Burkett is coming to Sydney

Posted by hil

Ronnieburkett4

Ronnie Burkett’s new show 10 Days on Earth is coming to Sydney in from 15 February – 3 March, and there is an early bird special of $38 for tickets bought for any performance from 15th to 20th February (a saving of $10 on a normal adult price). The offer expires at 5pm on Friday 9th Feb, so get in quick! If you get a chance to go, grab it; I saw Burketts’s show Tinka’s New Dress in Melbourne in 2002, and it was truly amazing theatre.

Bookings can be made on (02) 9250 7777, or at the Sydney Opera House website. They also now have an information page about the show. Burkett will also give a free post performance discussion, on Tuesday 20th Feb. I’ve heard him talk in person, and thats not an opportunity to be missed either.

Vigil for the fair treatment of David Hicks

Posted by hil

one

Vigil for the fair treatment of David Hicks.

Bread and puppet

Posted by hil

Bread

Take a look at this really silly advertisement for Noble Rise breads. I mean, why would you bother, when he is so obviously satisfied with a puppet? ;-p

(The clip only worked in IE for me)

What a beat up!

Posted by hil

The Fairfax papers are running a curious 3-page story today saying Justice Michael Kirby ‘has been vilified and defamed by fraudsters who have stolen his identity to post offensive material on the popular internet site MySpace,” and implying it is a first case scenario. Good grief, what a beat up!

Is this just lazy or out-of-touch MSM journalism? A very quick perusal of My Space gives you hosts of fake identity pages, and sometimes more than one for people with high profiles. There are numerous bogus identity pages for many of Australia’s political players, and if you care to look further afield, identities such as the Pope, the Queen, and Rupert Murdock himself. Most of them are crude and lame attempts at satire. The jabs on the fake Kirby page are not much different to ones on the fakes for Amanda Vanstone, or Alexander Downer, for example. It sounds as if MySpace will take the Kirby page down if approached. The comparison to real cases of stolen identity at the end of the article is nonsense.

If it’s not laziness, why highlight Kirby? Is it another instance of smearing Kirby (while appearing to do otherwise)?

The article also says ‘The case… underlines the flimsy or fraudulent nature of much of the internet’s so-called “citizen journalism”.’ The MySpace pages are attempted spoofs within a social networking site rather than citizen journalism. While there is plenty of lively discussion about issues surrounding citizen journalism, this appears to be an uninformed and broadsweeping (or flimsy and fraudulent?) smear on new media.

My feeling is that the only thing to be trusted here is that Michael Kirby will deal with the issue with his usual dignity, intelligence, and allegiance to free speech.

(cross-posted)

Look what I found…

Posted by hil

Two video clips at YouTube of that cool puppet in Berlin that I blogged about in October!

Puppet Run
Titere Andante

Still no clue as to who the performer group is.

Sesame Street is deployed

Posted by hil

Elmos_dad_deploysthumb

I’ve never been able to stomach the sentimental side of the Muppets. That, and the inevitable connection with the madness that is the Iraq war, and its release coinciding with the 3000th US military death there, makes me feel pretty down on the Sesame Street production When Parents Are Deployed, despite understanding that it is designed to help families deal with the anxiety of separation and deployment.

There is a constant unspoken shadow – ‘so what if Elmo’s dad doesn’t come back?’. The makers acknowledge that a parent being injured or killed is undoubtedly the biggest fear of military children, but say it was unaddressed ‘because grief brought with it issues entirelydifferent from absence and would change the show’s focus.’ They add they are ‘open to doing another special where this issue is addressed, provided funding could be secured’.

I think we should instead teach people not to participate in war.