Showing posts with label Pink Batts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pink Batts. Show all posts

Tuesday, 24 December 2013

with a Xmas of Spirit


G’day Possums,
 
Shane and Shai
 
Red Sails Poster



The new ballet from Ballet Theatre Australia, “The Red Sails” was a sort of “Red Shoes” meets Fellini tripping over “The Red Poppy” in its eclectic musical and choreographic mix. 


 ...and congratulations to Shai.. on her way to dance in Canada











 
BTA Red Sails: Lawrence Winder, Photography
Arabesque
 
BTA Red Sails: Lawrence Winder, Photography
Olivia G
I have probably said before that the number of shots  taken during a performance often indicates a visceral response to its aesthetic and technical worth. 
 
BTA Red Sails: Lawrence Winder, Photography
Shai T
Similarly when doing the post process: you see somewhat more clearly how the performers responded in detail and you gain further insights into the idea of the work.

 
BTA Red Sails: Lawrence Winder, Photography
Pas de Trois
Perhaps it was the costumes or the groupings but I kept being reminded of Poussin
and, to a certain extent, Caravaggio so have determined to organise a shoot mid January to realise some of the ideas floating about that all this has stimulated.

 
BTA Red Sails: Lawrence Winder, Photography
Circus Scene

 
BTA Red Sails: Lawrence Winder, Photography
Stephanie G and Olivia G

BTA Red Sails: Lawrence Winder, Photography
Laura and Emma

BTA Red Sails: Lawrence Winder, Photography
OliviaG

BTA Red Sails: Lawrence Winder, Photography
Laura, Jack and Emma

BTA Red Sails: Lawrence Winder, Photography
Three Delicious Divas



Wombat Droppings or Low, Down-Under Politics


Very, very interesting is the almost total lack of Liarbril objection/refutation to any number of severely critical articles in blogs various on this incompetent rabble of a government.... are their nostrils finally filling with the stench of a rotting body which was once a social entity or are they just shielding themselves from the searing glare of their own choice?

In an appointment (without interview) Tim “Twat” Wilson has been made a Commissioner for Human Rights by alleged Attorney General, George “Library Rorts” Brandis. What this “Coot-With-Queer-Ideas-from–a-Parallel –Universe (aka the IPA) knows about humans is yet to be ascertained, as do his qualifications but he was consoled by his friend for giving up not only his Liarbril Party but his IPA membership too.  
 It would look odd taking $300,000.00 a year in a job you vehemently argued should be abolished!
The free speech thingy matters little in the context of these Bolt "Dolt" types; there is no point in having them removed by a tsunami of reaction. Better to keep their ilk in place as a poignant reminder of how stupidly fallible paid apparatchiks can be.


We are now to have Codes of Conduct for priests and asylum seekers… the first category indicates, how morally bereft Australians society has become and the latter, how intensely cruel and uncaring we are.

The Spirit of Xmas was evoked when Prime Miniature “Rabbott” heart-warmingly congratulated Holden workers on being “liberated from working” but declined to say when, economically, the country will be fully devastated and there will be liberation for all. 
What they are doing is  “Bully-Boy” Kennett (The Dorian Grey of the Tardis State “Where-all-Goes-Backward”) writ on a larger scale: obliterate the workforce to fragment the Unions, privatise everything within reach, allow the new bosses to introduce low wages and strip back penalty rates, introduce more draconian anti-demonstration legislation …as their hero Menzies once said “A stable economy is one where there are two workers outside the factory for every one inside.”

“I am absolutely determined to change... and we will change within 12 months." A statement ostensibly made regarding the adoption of overseas children but sounding more like one of “Rabbott’s” Freudian slips concerning his rabble’s plummeting poll ratings. A smiling photo op with a celeb or two and attempting a kindness for once that costs nothing whilst slashing and burning everything else:  pardon me for my cynicism.
It all comes down to what is "vision" and "Rabbott's" character is the controlling factor in that.   
Take that, as you will….
Then, if we look at the Corman's, Bernardi's, Ciobo's, Brough's, Pynes' Cash's, Brandis' and Abetz's et al, of this rabble, the vision "thing" is decidedly bleak and it will make no difference if "Rabbott" gets rolled in six months and "von Ribbentrop"Turnbull is voted office boy for the BCA & IPA, as the aforementioned rabble still sit there festering within the remnants of democracy.
One thing they do well though is to clear the "grey" areas... one is seeing with a simpler clarity.

“Rabbott” is prepared to spend $25,000,000.00 of taxpayers’ money in a vicious little political witch-hunt over the “Pink Batts” issue. Called a “Debacle” by Murdoch’s minions, this economic stimulation scheme saw 4 young male employees die from either eletrocution or Heat-Stroke when installing the Batts in ceilings. Blaming the Federal Government of the time for the failings of the employers or the State Occupational Health and Safety Authorities is an interesting move.
Apart from ignoring the 128 other workplace deaths in the past 12 months it also ignores the stimulus to the economy, the ongoing benefits of lower power usage and more energy efficient homes.
Perhaps we could have a Royal Commission into the 2 military deaths caused by “Little Johnnie” Howard’s foray into Iraq to look for what he said were “weapons of mass destruction” or perhaps one into politicians rorting their travel and electoral allowances or better, one into the role Alex “Fish-Nets-That-Batter” Downer played in the Timor Sea Oil and Gas negotiations with Woodside?
I have a feeling that this tactic by “Rabbott” might be over-reach. Ashby-Gate and Thommo-Gate are being found more and more spurious and having brought  Government ministers into the firing line, “Rabbott’ is lining his own side up for the inevitable and bloody pay-back.The Spirit of Xmas.
 
Keating in suit Abbott in Lycra
Pick the Prime Minister
Scott “The Drone” Morrison in deciding that Orwellian language alone is not sufficient for his “stand-up comedy act” has incorporated “Catch-22” into his repertoire. Refugees in the country (all Labor’s fault, of course) who co-habit to stretch their munificent $250.00 a week benefit whilst not being allowed to work; and who make too much noise, look different, speak a language other the Liarbril-ese or cook anything other than chops and three veg will be deported to Manus Island for re-education and more appropriate summer co-habitation in tents.
The Spirit of Xmas.

 It has not been announced if the rules of the The Augustine Cup cricket match at Lords of Anglican clergy vs Catholic priests from the Vatican are to be amended re: the Vatican side bowling a maiden over!

Cheers Petals and Seasons’ Greetings,
Shane


Sitedfigures

Sunday, 7 July 2013

...seeing the cat belled.

 G'day Petals

Shane in the mix


We've been working on a new book of the last performance photographed... it was also meant to be entered into a competition as part of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale (17-8-13 to 15-9-13) but I have decided that as the end result was probably not really worth the effort....I'll give the comp a miss.... but here are a couple of shots from what should be at the printers tomorrow

Visually, this book is I think, one of the nicest I've put my name to and it will have the intermission video included as well.








I have presented some of the shots, like this one of Bec R, according to the idea that all theatre is a "conceit" that our willingness to participate in the conceit is where we derive our pleasure in  performance.

Bes Reeves
Bec Reeves, Triptych

Bec Reeves.
 It is interesting to note too, how the performance predicates the presentation of a book and its layout according to shot selection and story.
The rhythm of the performance is similar to the dynamic of the class and what you shoot to a great degree is informed by this.

It can often become more than the mere recording of an event. 

Olivia and Gus ABT
Olivia and Gus
 And there are some other things that have happened as a result of taking some people for classes in "Looking at Photographs"....

Cup and Egg

light
Light

Cafe Table
Cafe Table



Wombat Droppings


Well, that’s been a week!
Starting off with Judith Sloane’s blog troll-ism ( re: degrees for child-care workers being only for “….dim-wits from second or third rate university’s”) being queried in public and her inability to effectively defend herself and further credibility as the “Q and A” audience groaned with disbelief at her assertion that ex PM “Little Johnny” Howard had suffered vilification equivalent to Julia Gillard!
View the compilation below to see how low the “right” have sunk in this country and do a “compare and contrast” Sloane’s oft repeated assertion.
I searched for the site to read the article ..something called Catalepsy …or something… and was astounded by the comments supporting the honoury profs’ troll-isms. It was full of the most bilious malevolent, vitriolic and noxious rantings. And woe-be-tide any who dared disagree or criticize in this troll kingdom; they were immediately attacked and vilified. I could only visualise it all as a Hieronymus Bosch painting with the “…weeping and gnashing of teeth” of the damned and forgotten.  A very nasty place.
Then “Big Red”Gillard gets rolled and Kev’s back as PM!
Oi!
An immediate 16% jump in the for Labor only goes to show that it’s all about personality, not policy and how politically sophisticated the electorate isn’t.
But Kev did a couple of things: first he makes a joke of the Tow-back-the-Boats idea forcing the Liarbrils to attempt explaining their policy (they can’t) and secondly: he invites “Rabbott” Abbott to a series of policy debates that has the Liarbrils all running for cover in fright at having to publicly explain anything in more than a three word slogan.
Labor has finally “Belled the Cat” and the Liarbrils smell of funk!
Julie “Death-Stare” Bishop spits that Kev’s joke on the Boats is the most dreadful thing since the crucifixion which oddly enough is exactly the line played in Rupert “The Ugly American” ( He-Who–Lies-to-British-Parliamentary-Enquiries) Murdoch’s rag, The Australian… but this ‘aint news, they’ve been writing the script for three years!
Joe “Oh- What-a- Feeling” Hockey (opposition treasurer) ties himself up in knots again and looks suitably and unimaginatively Liarbril-ly stupid in interview, opining that Oz doesn’t have the population to support a “Very Fast Rail” system, which, being said immediately after a French fellow involved in this infrastructure in Europe thinks that Oz is ideally placed right now to benefit from this development, indicates where this country will head under the Liarbrils.
Sophie “Pit-Bull” Mirabella is verbally and conceptually mauled on “Q and A” by Tanya Plibersek, particularly after her “…total solution” to the refugee problem; Tony Windsor awarding “Pit-Bull” The-Most-Unpopular-Woman-in-Parliament prize was very funny; and given a straw poll Mrs Wombat and I held yesterday at lunch with 8 men and women, we did, too.  I wonder if she goes to a lonely home to cry herself to sleep.

Oi, These coarse women….!!

Leigh Sales (7:30 Report, ABC), was positively ugly again, salivating over tragedy, confusing being a player with being a reporter. In feeding the parents of a young man who died installing Pink Insulation batts in a Government sponsored work scheme, prompting them every opportunity to swipe at Rudd, “Do you want to say more?” ….”What would you like to say to PM Rudd?” etc , Sales’ crass tabloid techniques again dilute the quality of ABC journalism.
A coroner’s report three years after the event? Timed to co-incide with an election?
Where the management and work practices of the business owners and the OH and S in Queensland barely rate a mention in reporting? Give us a break!
Sales’ puerile question: “Do you think you get better at acting with experience?” to Russell Crowe, “belled” that cat, too.
New minister in Rudd government, Ed Husic takes Oath of Office on the Koran: which releases a tsunami of mis-spelled Bogan vitriol on FB which not only shows a frightening lack of knowledge of the country’s constitution; the embarrassing level of cultural sensitivity and awareness current in Australia but also how the conservative’s attitude have legitimised these morons’ comments. 

Below is a pic of local federal member Catherine King (Minister, Regional Development) officially opening the local landmark, The Half Church with the owners Kathy and Marlene.

Catherine King opening local landmark

Cheers Possums…. and to finish with a feline metaphor… I hope the poll results are not a “Dead-Cat’s-Bounce”.

Shane.






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