justice (society) for all

Geoff Johns' lengthy run as writer on JSA and Justice Society of America comes to an end (for now) with the release of this week's Justice Society #26.

This series has been one of the few to have kept me consistently interested for the past decade. Teamed sometimes with terrific artists, and occasionally with some mediocre ones, John's stories have always been faithful to the concept and legacy of the JSA, and he has brought the series back to the forefront of the modern comics world. I'll keep following his work on Flash and Green Lantern, and hope for the best from the new creative team on JSA... they have a hard act to follow!

you swine!

Every year when the time comes to get a flu shot, I find an excuse to avoid it.

I'm needle-phobic; no matter how many people tell me "it doesn't hurt", I can't overcome my dread sufficiently to front up for a needle to protect me from a bug that I've been fortunate enough not to have encountered for at least the past 15 years or so.

This year was no different.

2 weeks ago, the notice came around that we should book an appointment with the nurse for a shot. By amazing coincidence, this year, I was already booked on an off-site training course on the day that the nurse would be present, so it looked like I was once again presented with a perfectly rational excuse to avoid the shot.

Then came the news from Mexico. And then it came from the US. And then from New Zilland. And then they started quarantining people here!

When I got to work this morning, I decided to check the booking list, 'just in case' there was an appointment left before or after my training course. Remarkably, there were several available during the lunch break. So taking a deep breath, I signed myself up.

I still wasn't sure I'd actually turn up, but at least I was going to try! (and yes, I know this jab wouldn't protect me from the swine flu, but I figure that it might make me more susceptible if I had already contracted a different strain.)

When the lunch break was called, I raced out into the street and headed back to my office for my date with the pointy doom!

All morning, people had been telling me "it doesn't hurt", so as I removed the shirt from my arm and the nurse got out the cotton swab and the needle, I looked away and told myself "it's not going to hurt, it's not going to hurt, it's not going to hurt"... and by golly, that needle went in and did it ever HURT! OMG... I swear I felt that bastard every millimetre of its journey into my arm, and for every hour that it stuck there pumping my arm with the vaccine! (Well, it felt like hours, but it was actually only seconds!)

So it hurt. But afterward, I felt better for having done it. No other symptoms apparent so far, other than a little soreness in my arm, and the satisfaction of having overcome that stupid fear... for this year, at least!

elusive perfection

I picked up a bunch of the most beautifully-coloured carnations I've ever seen, at Prahran Market last weekend. Fresh flowers don't last that long, so I've been trying to get a photo of one of these that does it justice, while I can... but it seems to be impossible with my little compact camera. No matter what I try, I can't capture the vintage cream-lace colour of the petals... this is the closest I've been able to get.

your shout

Had dinner with some old friends tonight at the Thai Garden cafe in Glen Waverley. The food was good, but the place was... umm... compact.

As it was also fully-booked, it became very noisy at times, with people at a couple of larger tables yelling and raising their voices. You could sense some other people becoming a bit agitated by the noise. Then, the guy sitting at the next table to us raised the stakes by literally shouting at other people at his table... making it even more difficult for the rest of us to hear each other speak over him.

That competitive spirit seems to show up in the most unlikely of places! At the next Olympics, I reckon Australia could field strong teams in both the 'out-shouting' and 'queue-jumping' competitions!

fun's over!

I'm not going to try to rate the shows that I saw at this year's Comedy Festival, 'coz I enjoyed them all, to varying extents.

The standouts for me were the Kransky Sisters, Judith Lucy, Stephen K Amos and Denise Scott, but I also enjoyed Sammy J, Felicity Ward, the Axis of Awesome and Dave Jory. The Delusionists were a bit of a let-down this year, but only in comparison to their earlier shows. I've seen them in each of the past 3 Festivals, and love their skit format shows, but this year's experiment with an ongoing 'plot' thru the Show seemed to rob it of variety and the element of surprise... but I'll still probably go see them again if they're back next year!

SO the dark clouds rolled in today; the wind sprang up, and the rains came (not that the rain is likely to hang around for long!). The days are shorter, Winter is in the air, the Comedy Festival is ending, and it's time to snuggle up with indoor entertainment for the next few months.

a funny thing happened on the way...

Speaking of queue etiquette, I wonder what the 'rules' are around queueing for Comedy Festival shows?

The Comedy Festival staff at Melbourne Town Hall do a wonderful job of directing all the people to the large number of shows at the different venues at the Town Hall. Everyone is directed to appropriate queues, and the staff wander around to make sure that everyone is in the right queue for their show and that the queues stay... um... 'ruly'.

When I went to see the Kransky Sisters, I arrived at the Town Hall a few minutes before the friend that I was meeting there, so I hopped into the queue. When she arrived, she waited with me. I guess that, technically, that means that she's jumped the queue ahead of the people behind me who were waiting before her, but I figure that one person is ok to 'hold' a place for a friend; that won't make much difference to anyone behind.

When I went to see Denise Scott, even tho I arrived 15 minutes early, I was a long way back in the queue. I should have guessed, since her show had been selling out, that the fans would arrive early (especially the competitive ones who don't like to be behind other people in queues!!).

There was a couple in front of me, talking on the mobile to someone whom they were apparently expecting to meet at the show. A few minutes later, their friends, another couple, arrived, and joined the queue in front of me. Ok, so two people have queue-jumped to be with two others... no biggie; I can deal.

The queue started to move towards the entrance, and as it did, two more friends of the same couple appeared, and duly slotted in ahead of me as well! hmmm... now it didn't seem to be quite fair, somehow.

Then, as we shuffled towards the door to enter the theatre, I noted a rush of movement out of the corner of my eye... and there was another two friends of the 6-person group, running up alongside all the people queued up, to slip in front of me and join their friends! So the two people who had waited in the queue had blown out to 8, with six of them queue-jumping, even at the last minute!

So I wonder... is that fair? Should people be able to queue-jump at will to join a sole place-holder further up the queue, or should they all have waited their turn? Or should people up front be made to drop back in the queue to join late-arriving friends? (Now there's an idea...!)

the far queue

I was standing at the stop waiting for my usual bus to work yesterday, when, a few minutes later, a young woman walked up.

"In my day", when you went somewhere and saw someone already waiting to go to the same place, you would just fall into line behind them, and politely wait your turn in a queue. These days, tho, different rules seem to apply.

She did something that I've observed in other situations as well recently... seeing that I was already standing at the front of the notional 'line', she walked 4 or 5 metres down the road, in the direction from which the bus was coming, and then, when the bus approached, she attempted to hail the driver to stop where she was standing! Hellooo? Rude, rude, rude! Whatever happened to waiting politely in a queue??

Some people seem to have so much competitive spirit that they can't bear to let anyone else be ahead of them.

Happily, most bus drivers don't fall for that stunt, and this one drove up to the stop, where I was waiting. Jeez, if she had waited there behind me, I might even have let her aboard first, but there was no way I was waiting for her after that inconsiderate stunt.

losing the history wars

It frustrates me to observe the way that Anzac Day has been hijacked by conservatives and ultra-nationalists to encourage a false pride and arrogance about Australia's position in history, especially among the bogan class.

I was amazed, while watching an interview with a footy coach on tv before the big game tonight, to learn that his team had used the example of the tragedy at Gallipoli as an inspiration about how to win in the face of adversity. Huh? Did we win at Gallipoli? That's not how I learned about it! In the years before the Howard History Wars in the early 21st century, Anzac Day was a day to commemorate our honoured war dead, not to glorify our war 'triumphs'!

The focus on Gallipoli has obscured and, by comparison, belittled, the efforts of our military across all of the other theatres of war where they have defended our country's interests (and sadly, been sacrificed to the interests of foreign powers).

There's no doubt that the Gallipoli expedition was a significant campaign in our military history, but it was not the only important one, and it was not even conducted in defence of our country. Its legacy has unfortunately come to be as a rallying point for the political Right... and as such, I feel a little reluctant now to participate in the hype.

aspirational hell

So a week has passed since my 'sudden' visit to the HIA Home Ideas Show at Jeff's Shed, and the pain has passed sufficiently that I can finally bear to think about it again.

I went along as a favour to a friend, who wanted company, but it held little interest to me. After all, I no longer have a home of my own (as recounted in painful detail in my other blog, which I won't link to here, because I don't want to have to think about how my greedy cheating ex-wife conned me out of the house that I had paid off over many years when she shacked up with her two-time loser lover!) But enough of that!

The thing I don't get about the Home Ideas 'Show' is that people actually pay money to go into an 'exhibition' that is little more than a huge barn full of salesmen trying to sell them expensive things that they really don't need! Why don't they pay people to go in, rather than make people pay for the honour?? It was a scary experience to be lost in that huge barn with hordes of roaming aspirationals looking to fit out their 'dream homes'.

The excursion lasted almost 90 minutes; I couldn't believe how big that place is and how far it is to walk up and down every aisle. It was like being trapped in an endless maze from which there was no turning back. By the time I staggered home, footsore and exhausted, I had decided that all I could reasonably do was sleep and try to forget the whole thing ever happened. You have been warned! :-)

beam me up!

Well, Denise Scott was worth the wait! The small (well, narrow, at least) cramped room at the Melbourne Town Hall didn't detract from the pleasure of her raucous performance. Performing in a large white dressing gown, Denise kept us entertained with stories of her house at Number 26, her family, and her dreams (of winning an academy award, or the Nobel prize for curing eczema!), the mums at clown school and more, and brought tears of laughter to the eyes. Great show!

I was also interested to see some familiar faces in the audience; one, the celebrity former football champion, Ron Barassi, and the others, two people I used to work with, what seems like a lifetime ago (but is probably only around 12 years back), at a time when I would never have expected to see them as a couple!

...before things make the most of you!

Did I unintentionally save the best for (almost) last? The Kransky Sisters show, Three Bags Full, was hysterical. It's like Emily the Strange grew up, became Mourne Kransky, and took her two weird sisters (Eve and Dawn) on tour. Musically brilliant, fabulously strange versions of familiar rock and pop songs (especially Stayin' Alive, Born to be Alive, and my favourite, Dirty Deeds - the Kranskys do AC/DC!), and clever comedy make for a perfect evening's entertainment, in yet another secret stage in the Melbourne Town Hall. As Mourne says, "Make the most of things, before things make the most of you!"

Tomorrow night, at long last, it's Denise Scott, the last show I'll see in this year's Festival, and maybe the most anticipated!

two people, one language

Oh putain, it's happened again!

After the problem with Faubourg 36 not having English sub-titles, I ordered another film that I wanted to see, from Amazon France - La Personne aux Deux Personnes, featuring Daniel Auteuil. The description in the catalogue clearly says 'sous-titres en Anglais', so I was astonished to load the disc and find that once again... only French sub-titles!

It's one thing to watch a drama in a language that you don't understand well... but a comedy?

Well, it was a great-looking film, with a neat twist in the plot, and a few chuckles, but I'm sure I missed most of the fun in the words that I couldn't understand and in the time it took me to read and translate what I could. Too bad; I hope a version with English is released some time, because it definitely seems to be a good movie.

great scott!

Day 1 of the new working week over; busy but productive day at the office, but the best news... stopped at the Comedy Festival box office on the way home and finally got a ticket to see Denise Scott's show (on Thursday night). That's my 5th attempt to get a ticket; every other time, she's been sold out.

But before then, hoping to get to the other 'must see' on my list that I haven't caught so far... the Kransky Sisters! Stay tuned...!

finding judith

The second show that I caught at this year's Comedy Festival was Judith Lucy's "Not Getting Any Younger". I've been a fan of Judith's for yonks... she's one of those comedians who can make me laugh just by the expression on her face. It was a typically *great* show from her, and I laughed til I cried.

She revealed in the course of her performance that she lives not far from me, in Balaclava, and she doesn't drive a car... so now I have a new mission in life - I spend my weekends sauntering up and down Carlisle Street or sitting in my favourite cafe (Lava) in the hope of spotting Judith and getting a photo with her! (OK, maybe that's too much to hope for... I'll be happy just to stargaze if I see her! :-)

mais, what if you don't parler Français?

I've become a big fan of modern French cinema over the past 18 months, getting by on English sub-titles and the meagre remnants of my schoolboy French.

I only managed to see one session at the recent French Film Festival (Summer Hours), so I decided to order a couple of the films that I missed, on dvd. I was especially looking forward to the movie that opened the Festival, Paris 36 (original French title: Faubourg 36).

So I was pretty excited when my parcel arrived from Amazon last week containing a copy of Faubourg 36... until I scoured the case and discovered that this wonderful French film only came with sub-titles... in French!

So I watched the film and tried to understand what was happening from the combination of the pictures and my basic understanding of written French. I understood the gist of the story ok, but I know I missed a good few of the fine details. Now I'll have to wait and hope that a version is released for English-speaking audiences so I can find out what *really* happened!

(Oh, anyway, the film looks fantastic; the story is pretty good as far as I could understand, the cast is great, and there's some good music as well - I'd give it **** on the David and Margaret scale!)

beautiful

Best story I've seen in ages. Susan Boyle sings like an angel and she's as cute as a button... forget about the competition, she's already a winner!

oh, ha ha

And it wouldn't be April in Melbourne without the Melbourne International Comedy Festival! This is my favourite event of the year, and I try to get to as many shows as I can.

So, not content with putting in my eight hours at the office, punctuated with a two-hour trip to the Flower and Garden Show, I fronted up on the evening of the 1st with a couple of friends to the first Festival performance of British comedian Stephen K Amos (Find the Funny), at the Comedy Theatre.

It was worth the effort to see this funny and polished performance by a fine comedian. Despite leaving it almost too late to buy tickets, we had good (albeit high) seats, in the middle of the row in the Dress Circle, with a clear view of the stage, and we thoroughly enjoyed the show.

floral tribute

April has been a busy month.

April Fool's Day was also the first day of the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, and since I didn't manage to get to it last year, I was determined to visit this year. I didn't have any time free during the five-day event, so I had to conjure time, by taking an extra-length lunchbreak on the first day of the Show.

I left the office around 11:30, and walked over to the nearby Carlton Gardens. It was a beautiful 30-degree Autumn day, ideal for strolling around under the huge shade trees and soaking up the garden displays. As always, the flower show inside the Exhibition Buildings was a highlight, featuring a riot of floral colour and imagination; the historic venue itself an attraction as important as the displays.