Lukewarm reaction to Bumpkin Highway sculpture yesterday, but how about this one in Forrest Place? This one is actually pretty crap. Inside the sticks though there was a machine you could blow giant smoke rings with. More interesting. Thanks to several people who suggested I get this one. 
Worst Talk
paulie48406 on Pizza Showtime! AHC McDonald on Pizza Showtime! Anonymous on Pizza Showtime! Anonymous on Pizza Showtime! Anonymous on Pizza Showtime! AHC McDonald on Pulling Off Trucks AHC McDonald on Alexander The Great’s… Anonymous on Alexander The Great’s… AHC McDonald on Private Dancer Anonymous on Private Dancer Anonymous on Private Dancer Anonymous on Private Dancer Anonymous on Is Australian Silo Art Ra… Anonymous on Pulling Off Trucks Anonymous on Rap Mobile Online Now
The Asia Beat- Museum of Winds Opens
- Vagina Steaming to go on despite diarrhea outbreak.
- Dog movie “racist”.
- Liquid food blogger enrages Sing. Chef
- Sushi Train Wreck
- Snake of the year spat turns nasty
- Aussie icon may cure sick
- Singapore admits, “National Service all about shooting Malaysians.”
- Asian firm sparks “wife beater” brawl.
- Actors protest over MH370 delay
The Worst of Perth 
i hope this looked more effective in real life because it looks pretty naff from the photo. did the title of the piece help to add any value to it?
LikeLike
Actually it looked terrible.
LikeLike
Giant alien toothpicks from the same guys who left the paddle-pop sticks on the Bumpkins Highway.
LikeLike
I like it, if we combine it with the Melbourne ball of string we’ll end up with a Forrest Place sized macrame. So very Perth
LikeLike
I’m quite surprised the homeless and downtrodden who frequent this location haven’t managed to wreak havoc with this yet.
LikeLike
how would you tell if they had?
LikeLike
ashes would be a dead giveaway
LikeLike
Yes your’e right, perhaps that explains it.
LikeLike
I’d like to see the kids in enourmous flouro pants try to pick their way through this mess.
This sort of thing never happened back in the late eighties.
Back then there was barely enough room for the ennui on those steps.
LikeLike
Yesterday it was cones and hose segments, and today it’s Thai Buddha sticks. These WA artists are deadset mullpigs, TLA.
LikeLike
Next week will be a sculpture consisting of giant Coke cans, slightly flattened, and short lengths of stolen hosepipe.
Speaking of which, any news on Colon’s bong eradication program?
LikeLike
The value of art (like beauty) is in the eye of the beholder and as a world renowned art critic, I can only say; that shit is fucked up!
LikeLike
loving the Banned by the West tweets
The Libs are comedy gold at the moment
I may have to borrow that Brownian Motion gag for myself
LikeLike
Jeez, how much gold do I provide you pigs with? TWOP is value added from arsehole to breakfast.
LikeLike
Me too re. tweets, very, very funny LA.
Tony Abbott, youv’e got to be fucking kiddin me. This is the the guy who gave us the ‘things that batter’.
LikeLike
Thanks mates. Apart from my efforts, twitter has been fantastic for following this drama. Has left the papers and even the blogs way behind. The perfect medium for fast developing shitstorms.
LikeLike
i’ve been enjoying them all week, not just the libs.
LikeLike
the peter cundall tweets were fabulous.
LikeLike
They have all been very entertaining. So much so that the ABC has started interrupting programming with that ridiculous news feed line of type running along the bottom of the screen that went out of fashion in about 2002.
I really love the libs assertion that this is not a political but a policy matter and then following up with “We just don’t want Rudd to gain any kudos out of it in Copenhagen”.
LikeLike
teh most fantastic development today was the next ex-leader of the Liberal Party, Joe Hockey, tweeting:
“Hey team re The ETS. Give me your views please on the policy and political debate. I really want your feedback.’’
no, really
policy decisions via Twitter
he should have added:
“also, if any of you guys have got a spine, could you mail it to me?”
LikeLike
Not that it matters, but that was actually Downer, shaz. The mad monk gave us people skills.
LikeLike
Shit your’e right. How did I get that mixed up?
LikeLike
Maybe because Abbot has a past as a boxer & trainee priest. Sounds like an oscar flick starring Matt Damon.
LikeLike
Abbot the Abbot?
LikeLike
That is why he’s known as ‘the mad monk’. He is not just an extreme Catholic, he actually wanted to make a profession of it. He had a ‘celibacy adviser’ during his priest training. Wonder what the advice is. Tie a knot in it. Think about Bronwyn Bishop. etc.
LikeLike
LikeLike
I actually feel sorry for poor old Malcolm. I think it’s finally dawning on him that he is leading a bewildering array of lunatics. He’s abandoned all diplomacy, and appears to be only a few hours away from pointing out that Tony Abbott sincerely believes the invisible sky grandpa is going to sort out global warming.
LikeLike
Apparently Turbull is the one with mental health ssues according to (insane) insiders.
LikeLike
this is more fun than a barrel full of monkeys i reckon.
LikeLike
I too have moments of genuine sympathy for Turnbull.
Tony Abbott however can’t possibly consider he is ncapabloe of leading the Libs to an election victory. His views are too antiquated to grant him any relevancy to mainstream folks. That aside, he comes across as such a smarmy arsehole. (Like Downer which explains my mix up above I spose). Rudd must be sleeping well at the moment.
LikeLike
try capable.
LikeLike
I much prefer ncapabloe Shazza sums them up perfectly I think.
LikeLike
Me too. Ncapabloe is much more onomatopoeic.
LikeLike
Antony Green astutely discusses why, if Turnbull gets rolled and quits, then a Wentworth by-election would be a disaster for the Libs:
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2009/11/a-wentworth-byelection.html
LikeLike
Antony’s rarely far off the mark, skink. I particularly liked “It is an electorate where the number of baristas is neck and neck with the number of barristers. The seat has sweeping views of the harbour as well as Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach. It also contains one of Sydney’s larger sewage outlets at north Bondi, meaning this is truly an electorate where the effluent meets the affluent.”
I do think his perspicacious assessment is fairly generous, however. It seems the only aspiration they have at the moment is to take out as many of their dear colleagues with them as they can.
LikeLike
When did ‘craft’ become ‘art’?
LikeLike
They are not necessarily mutually exclusive Bento.
LikeLike
I agree. But a pile of stick glued together (whether to form a photoframe, or a pile of crap in a mall) is craft, not art. If I’m right.
LikeLike
No I don’t think that is right. Craft has to have an element of purpose – even if the purpose is dubious – like covering your spare toilet rolls in crocheted pink ribbon. This has an element of purposeless to it which puts it firmly in the art department.
LikeLike
Hmm. I think I might have to try to find a way to slowly back away from my hastily formed, ill-considered opinion. The trick is to do it incrementally, so one can eventually adopt an entirely opposite opinion to that first espoused, without giving the appearance of flip-flopping.
Tony Abbott taught me everything I know.
LikeLike
in this case it is neither art nor craft,
just rubbish.
LikeLike
when did art become business?
LikeLike
It’s because some of the sticks are painted green.
LikeLike
This has potential. All they need to do is glue some sea shells to it. Maybe run a few squiggles of Uhu down the sides, then dust it with glitter. Or, maybe we should all descend on them and write the names of 1980s hair metal bands all over them, so that they resemble high school rulers.
LikeLike
Are you referring to Tony Abbot Ljuke?
LikeLike
tony abbot was a ruler in high school?
i guess he peaked early.
LikeLike
Guy Rundle in Crikey commented that “the problem is that most of the electorate think that Abbott is a prick.”
is prick a euphemism for Ncapabloe?
LikeLike
Skink, there was a story about Perth’s Sunday independent that folded years ago in Crikey, a couple of days ago but story was blocked. You don’t have access do you?
LikeLike
Happy birthday Perth Sunday Independent
by Welsh Pool
The year should not be allowed to pass without mentioning the 40th anniversary of the Perth Sunday Independent, a weekly newspaper that was founded in the glow of a mining boom and died in ignominy.
The Independent was a dream of Western Australian mining entrepreneurs Lang Hancock and E A Wright, who imagined it would be slammed down on the desks of quaking Canberra moguls on Monday mornings. Said moguls would immediately wake up to the potential of the West, repent their east-coast-centric ways and give Sandgropers the recognition they deserved.
Who did Hancock and Wright choose to set up this mighty organ? None other than Maxwell Newton, first editor of Murdoch’s The Australian. He moved to Perth and set up office behind an old petrol station in Adelaide Terrace, opposite where the Sheraton Hotel is now located. Newton hired the cream of Perth journalism and some from further afield. The first issue came out in April 1969.
It was not difficult to get good writers. So many on the West Australian were frustrated from years of unexciting, establishment biased work. They included Duncan Graham, John Slee, Peter Ellery, Peter Beck, Don Lipscombe, Lloyd Marshall and Vincent Smith. Later, Geraldine Willesee. Good photographers, sports reporters and sub-editors followed. Newton had his own people in Canberra contributing. Unfortunately, almost all of these bright sparks contributed views and pet stories they had been saving up for years. In many cases, there were good reasons why their former employees had not run their pet stories.
The paper was printed offset, quite radical in those days. It smelt and felt odd. Worse, the register was always slightly off, deliberately, we were told, because it made pictures look 3D. The things we believed. I was a junior contributor to the paper. It was fun, if erratic. Type was produced via golfball typewriters. Advertising staff worked their arses off trying to sell space in an increasingly sceptical retail market.
It’s probably safe to say the Sunday Independent never made money — but that was never the intention. It would have struggled to reach a circulation of 150,000 at its best. Wright’s son, Julian, ran the place for a while.
By 1973, under the weight of R F X O’Connor and the Whitlam government generally, Hancock and Wright decided to go daily. That would scare those Canberra bastards. They hired seven more reporters to take the paper from a once-a-week issue to seven days a week. The Age supplied foreign news — until the West Australian told the Age to stop. It did and the Independent Sun folded after about 29 issues. By this time it was run from a sub-standard prefab-type building in the industrial suburb of Welshpool. The building is now home to a farm newspaper.
Newton departed ignominiously — he ended his career running a brothel in Melbourne — within a few months of the paper’s start, followed by most of the other stars. There was a succession of personalities around the place. Staff turnover was high and sackings were common. I worked there in 1969 and during the daily newspaper period. We hated it, but, looking back, I wouldn’t have missed it.
The Sunday Independent was the first major newspaper in the state to use colour extensively, and the first to go to computer typesetting: “What’s that little green square flashing in the corner of this black screen?” “That’s called a cursor.”
Some time in the early ’80s the paper was bought by Rupert Murdoch and shifted to the Sunday Times building in Stirling Street, central Perth. It faded away. There was a reunion of former staff in the late 1980s, where somebody crept up behind a former editor and set fire to his jacket. It was that sort of place.
LikeLike
Excellent. My uncle was the cartoonist for quite a while.
LikeLike
My thoughts precisely. He’s a sneering buffoon.
The other petulant front benchers who joined him in the walk out must by now be wondering what they have done.
LikeLike
with abbott as leader the libs can say goodbye to 50% of the vote
LikeLike
Closer to 51% I think Orbea. That was the stat a few years back anyway. But I absolutely agree he will lose the female vote with his poxy, patriarchal, policies.
LikeLike
oh i don’t know, there are a lot of women (perhaps i should call them ladies) who are quite happy with that old-fashioned shit.
LikeLike
There’s a few of the blue rinse set left who might endorse his views, but not many I’d say curious. Not enough to win an election anyway.
LikeLike
not enough to win an election, but more than we might like to believe. and not all of them blue rinse.
LikeLike
Costello must be kicking himself.
LikeLike
i’d pay good money to see that.
LikeLike
On the contrary, I suspect, Bento. All tip and no iceberg didn’t even want the gig when it was handed to him on a platter, so I’m sure he’s smirking more than ever at having got out before it got really ugly.
LikeLike
Still comfortable in his hammock you think, Snuff?
LikeLike
I’d wager a guess there’s been a few calls to Pete as he swings in his hammock.
LikeLike
Lazy, indolent, unimaginative, Bento ? Sure, but not insane.
LikeLike
Gillard came out of Parliament and praised Turnbull for his proactive engagement with the Government over the CPRS, and quoted him directly about how important it was.
she then praised Joe Hockey for his support of Turnbull over the CPRS, and similarly quoted him in his support for negotiation with the government
and she roped them both together with John Howard, who had developed the Libs climate change policy in the first place.
magnificant wedge politics from the Powerfox
LikeLike
macaroni and gold spray paint FTW
LikeLike
did you see the photos of Joe Hockey squeezed into his wif’es yellow mini leaving Parliament today?
i couldn’t find a link, but I found this:
LikeLike
I see what you mean, skink.
LikeLike
LikeLike
You got the fatness but what about the stupidity?
LikeLike
Never any shortage of that around, Bill.
LikeLike
This actually looks great in real life.
I know, my taste in art is better than anyone else on earth.
LikeLike
I know a lot about art
but I don’t know what I like
LikeLike
Inspected it at lunch. It’s shite. Was unable to resist wondering wether it had been certified as safe by a structural engineer. Possible career change advisable.
The real worst though is the associated mystifying hanging hay bales of foreston.
LikeLike
I think you could play a game where you take turns removing a stick one at a time until it collapses on top of you.
LikeLike
Extreme Jenga?
LikeLike