01. The Melbourne Theatre Company 2022 program (don’t talk to me about Opera Australia – I’m fuming). So much to look forward to at MTC, including some books transformed for the stage (Touching the Void by Joe Simpson; Fun Home by Alison Bechdel; Come Rain or Come Shine by Kazua Ishiguro; and Laurinda by Alice Pung).
02. A bunch of author talks this week (and more planned for next week) –
- Helen Garner in convo with Charlotte Wood, talking about Wood’s new book, The Luminous Solution.
Charlotte on ‘objects’ in fiction (she credits Helen for ‘making objects work for you if you just respect them’) – “…you have to choose an object that doesn’t have all this freight around it… and you give it meaning by placing it in relation to emotional things.”
- ten years of the Stella Prize (Sue did a wonderful summary);
Carrie Tiffany on press coverage after she won inaugural Prize, “The headline was ‘Mitcham Mum Wins Literary Prize’. If a male had written the story the headline would have been ‘Forensic Look at Nature and Desire.’”
- and Iris Hanika and translator Abigail Wender talking about the nuance in the translation of The Bureau of Past Management.
03. Guessing everyone has read Bad Art Friend by now? It is fascinating, and I’ve already talked about it with friends for hours. (Noted that someone on social media labelled it the ‘Tiger King of Lockdown 6.0′)
04. Barry reacting to the viral Mandy videos 🙂
05. …and that Barry has a musical, Harmony, coming to Broadway. Planning a trip to NYC now, obvs.
06. Film festivals are coming. Looking forward to British Film Festival – high on my list will be Mothering Sunday (based on the book by Graham Swift).
07. Watching: Scenes From a Marriage (Foxtel/Binge) – soooooo good; and The Father (via Palace Cinemas at Home) – not what I expected, and told in a very interesting way.
08. This article about what happened when Gen X grew up (link via Book Jotter).
09. …. so the bit about Deborah Levy’s banana plant in that article is the perfect segue to an avocado update 😉
Always pleased to see how the avocado’s doing
Two big leaves and one tiny, tiny new one.
Looking forward to pix of guacamole
Thank you for the mention, Kate. 😊
As always, thank you for the most thorough weekly literary round-up!
Ooh, look at your avocado plant – thriving!
It’s doing very nicely – not at the re-potting stage but getting there.
Oh Mothering Sunday movie – thanks for the heads up.
Look at your avo plant! 👏
Planning on watching Scenes from a Marriage.
I’m caught up on Scenes, so now hanging out for new episodes each week!
That’s the only reason I’ve waited…it’s so hard waiting for weekly episodes.
I’ve never forgiven Opera Australia for the debacle of The Ring Cycle. A subscriber for many years, I found that by the time I got home from work, all the tickets were sold.
By the time they’d found the wherewithal to meet the demand, my friends and I weren’t interested, We had had four weeks of top class opera with the world’s best principals at my place, courtesy of the New York Met. We frocked up, drank champagne, had much better nibbles than ever you’d get at the arts centre, and because it was on DVD, I’ve been able to watch it again and again and again.
I do love opera at home 🙂 I never even attempted OA’s Ring Cycle. I had kids and work to manage and from memory it was in December – I simply couldn’t commit the time. I have a vague plan to do one of those Ring Cycle opera tours overseas one day.
My peevishness (fury) this year is the imbalance between the Melbourne and Sydney programs. Melb gets two productions and two concerts, Sydney TEN productions and four concerts. Honestly, how are places like the Arts Centre to revive with that sort of programming? I’ve subscribed for over thirty years (half of that with the same friend) – we’ll go to the paltry two productions but will be looking at Melbourne or Vic opera companies as our main subscription going forward.
Melbourne has always had a second-rate program, less of it, sets that look lame on our bigger stage, less of the great singers, and all of it packed into a too-short season so that you are exhausted if you try to see everything you want to. My love of opera stems from the days of the Victorian State Opera Company and its demise was a cultural disaster IMO. It fell prey to the opera is for the elite narrative…
I really miss VSO (my first opera experience as a 15yo, and was able to benefit from their youth subscription for many years).