The long awaited appearance of Peter Garrett talking about his favourite book Cloudstreet on the ABC’s First Tuesday Book Club was last night. Peter I believe claimed it was one of the best books of all time. Every guest tried to outdo each other in uncritical fawning. Was quite sickening. No-one called Cloudstreet “fake nostalgia”, “overrated” “cringeingly indulgent” or that the “local colour was sickeningly gratuitous”. Not one critical comment. They all agreed that you would be missing out on an important part of life if you hadn’t read it. Bleh.
On the upside, the iphone did manage to grab some wonderfully distorted pics of the screen. 
The Worst of Perth 
Let the Wintoning commence.
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Your screen caps are so beautiful TLA that I’m not sure I can do them justice in Wintonian prose, not without studying the program (which I dutifully taped) several more times. All I can say is phwoar mate, too right.
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I did like the way they were barely able to fill 10 minutes, and half of that was filled with the sound of semi-articulate panelists re-gushing their mispronunciations, I think Garrett may have even said ‘pacifically’ at one point. Thought that bit about ‘the physical landscapes of the setting going on at the same time as, well the landscapes of the characters themselves being contrasted against the landscapes of the place, cos y’know water is just such an obviously important metaphor here’ was extremely down to earth.
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Also, Jennifer Byrne appears to have spent the summer at the George Donikian Academy of Sultriness, very interesting development there.
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Bit late on this one, but Jenny Byrne – phwoar, eh? Up there with all my fave Aussie brunettes: Gerry Doogue, Claudia Caravan, Siggie Thornton. Man I am gonna have some BAD dreams tonight. Only two more Jack Daniel’s and Colas to go – just enough to feel like I’ve done some work on this shit essay I’ve been writing since 6pm.
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Yeah, and I got a Valentine’s card from Gerry, with a photo circa 1972, with my initials and hers inside a big love heart. Beat (off to) that, cunt.
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Please Pfortner, tell me it wasn’t Marieke who said that.
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No it was old Loggerhead himself.
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Reckon we could commission the Smiths for the bus driver statue, TLA ?
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haha lol that ole chestnut. It seems that every Wintonite who doesn’t have a windsurfing story of their own eventually falls back on the ole spanish bus incident
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I have to confess, I have never read a Winton novel. I feel like I’m missing out. Next stop, Clodstreet.
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Don’t. You’ll be spewing if you like it.
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I’d never tell you pigs if I did.
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Oh Shazza, you just have to start with “The Riders”.
“Wot I done on my holidays plus spooky bit at start and end”
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Start with “An Open Swimmer.”
It goes down in Ennui and Up in Nostalgia from there…
Haven’t read the last couple, but I can only imagine.
Actually, can I make a case for “In The Winter Dark.”
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I’ve heard that Dirt Music is realy bad, so start with that. You don’t want to read hundreds of pages and then not have your predjudices confirmed.
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I suggest starting with Breath, that way you will only have to read about twenty pages.
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richard do you lips move when you read?
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your
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Fail
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tard
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UR!
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ya mother!
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So THAT’s what that was all about?! It did have a bit of a whiff of “here, Mr ATO Man, here are my receipts, and this is why I needed to be here, and there, and then again there…”
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You are missing out on life. ON LIFE.
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i am yet to sip from the Winton cup too Shazza. have not been previously compelled and since playing here am more determined than ever not to.
i recently saw winton interviewed by denton and thought he seemed like a half decent guy but the gushing over his work deters me from investigating further.
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it’s a bukakke cup, best left alone.
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Not my CUP of tea.
Yes. Best Left Alone.
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indeed!
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To be honest, I really don’t know what it is.
It’s enough for me to know what the ingredients are.
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WAtching, are you thinking of the two girls and a cup posted by onninator? that ingredient is certainly best left unmentioned.
http://bit.ly/dgsnah
Bukkake : When a Mommy gets down and a Daddy and a Daddy and a Daddy and a Daddy and another Daddy and yet another Daddy all decide that Mommy needs some special facial moisturizer. (urbandic)
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Not MY carpet.
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Don’t do it shaz! Your Wintginity is worth preserving.
If I die a Wintgin I will die happy.
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I got all giddy this morning when I saw that Marieke Hardy had sent me a private message on Twitter. Then I realised it was actually a spammer.
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I’m sure Mem Fox will fix you up. Is she too old to be a cougar? maybe old panther.
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If it’s critical comments you’re after, TLA, then look no further than this guy for their guest reviewer. He doesn’t rant and rave.
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Speaking as an amateur phrenologist, that screen cap of the Minister for Not Much has made me visibly erect.
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know what u mean natto, feels like my pineal is about to rupture
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That hunk of bald spunk has given me priapism.
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Perhaps he should be re-christened ‘The Penomonster’.
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“Penominister”
Now, Ron Peno in Labour, that would be interesting!
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He’s certainly dorky enough
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Yes he is dorky isn’t he? This realisation has occurred to me somewhat late in the day, but now that the last shreds of rock star cool have blown away it becomes obvious that if he hadn’t joined the Canberra Club he wouldn’t have any friends at all.
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yes maybe he had burnt too many beds behind him
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Who’s speakin for the defence here ? It’s a one sided debate. After all the old bald headed loon is the minister for teh Yartz I tell you . Yartz. Admittedly he couldn’t find his Yartz with both hands or anything else practical for that matter but never mind. The prime minister K-Droid has promoted him there. And Winton loved the Oils “the house is burnin”.
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He also loved “UN Forces”
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not to get all ‘current affairs’ or anything, but I love the way teh minister is a) sensationally demoted from the environment portfolio for something that b) wasn’t really his fault while c) a nuclear waste dump gets put on d) Aboriginal land and then e) he’s a lanky hairless cave troll and f (f for FAIL) Clodstreet is his favourite book evarr and he’s like totally read it and shit. Of course it’s equally about the rhythm, it’s the rhyverm arm rhyvem um *hem* rhythm of the river, of the relentless, surging tidal flow from point a) to point b). Odd that those for whom the flow has ceased are often the gushiest.
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There’s precious little Wintoning going on here, and far too much Garretting.
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Shreiking Wombat slammed his fist down against the keyboard. ‘Damn,’ he panted, ‘damn.’ It wasn’t worth it. He’d come in early, hopes high, repeatedly hitting refresh, tapping away like a Kunnunura catflap. But there was nothing – just a hollow dusty echo, the blogroll jangling to itself like a dunny in the wind. ‘Cunt,’ he said, louder this time. When was the Wintoning going to begin? It reminded him of those sunny afternoons, long past, waiting at the Attadale busport, waiting for the Doctor to come in. It was like waiting to come home. It was like waiting for the rain.
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Can I just say, “Thank god for pfortner”.
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Is Pfortner the new skink?
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Pfortner has just won himself eleventy-billion whorediamonds!
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Shucks. I have great admiration for skink, but would happily settle for ‘the new tapas’.
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That’s what’s missing. These need the Xtranormal treatment.
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not the new black?
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where is skink lately?
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Garrett is an easy target. No literary sophistication necessary.
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Yeah. Garrett’s a cunt.
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bald cunt
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Tall bald cunt.
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This is eaxctly the sort of glittering commentary that reminds me what it must have been like to sit at the Algonquin Round Table.
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Or the Sitwells. Edith Sitwell to guest: “I come from a family of geniuses. You come from a family of cunts. Pass the sugar.”
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So we start referring to Garrett as The Brazillian?
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I was going for The Dick With Ears but The Brazillian is good too
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Well there’s always the Brazil Nut as a compromise Mez.
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very good shaz – he now is, for me.
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I like that shazza.
I was thinking about Skull Walking Penis Monster. Does that work?
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My rule of thumb is, if it’s more than three words it has to make a funny acronym. SWPM isn’t working for me.
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Meh.
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Epic Bald Guy ?
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Cunt?
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tim winton fails at life.
cloudstreet is possibly the most hated novel amongst year 12 lit students.
horrible, indulgent, pretentious, overrated, bourgeois drivel.
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And long. If Grahame Greene can do it in 60 000 words, why not Winton. A year 12er would be saying get fucked before even opening the book. Instead of opening the book.
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Year 12 lit students ? That seals it. I have to read it again.
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Dude, check out how phat that fucker is before committing to a reread.
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I’ll take Leo over Matsuo anytime, TLA.
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Leo’s stick point and boots suggest very low mileage. This is his rough trade outfit worn when visiting Yasnaya at hovel 5158 behind the carriage house. Apparently she likes rye bread crusts with a vodka chaser.
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Yeah, I’ve never seen them all so unanimously laudatory before. Maybe I should read some Winton, even though I prefer my books to be written in the 19th century and as far away from Australia as possible
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I finally got round to watching Book Club, and was shouting so loud at the TV that I woke the kids
Garrett’s comment that Clodstreet was one of the greatest works of literature in the world was outdumbed by Mem Fox suggesting that your life was deminished of you had not read it, and then she was gazumped by Marieke Hardy who suggested that it should be part of the citizenship test.
Jennifer “beddsa” Byrning said it was Australia’s favourite book, as if that conferred great literary status. The UK’s favourite book is Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter placed higher that Catch 22. So fucking what.
just who the hell is Marieke Hardy? She describes herself (frequently) as a writer but doesn’t seem to have published anything. By that criterion I am a writer as I am just about to start my first novel just as soon as I find a crayon.
five minutes of watching her and I had the overwhelming urge to slam her head in a car door
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That’s the spirit
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Marieke is a very groovy chick with an arty pedigree.
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did you get that from her own website?
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How can you not love Marieke?
http://reasonsyouwillhateme.com/impressions-of-the-2020-summit-1
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I’m with you skink, she looked every bit the essence of burlesque, tapas and quasi feminism rolled into one
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Marieke is fazzo. I love her
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it seems she is quite a lightning rod for hatred, there seems to be large chunks of the intertube devoted to mocking her, and idolising her breasts
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i think frank is her grand father.
frank hardy, that is.
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in common with Frank, Marieke doesn’t shave her pits
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That’s my understanding too vegan.
And she has a fine rack? That’s my girl.
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Here it is: as much of the transcript as I could be bothered transcribing, with every false start, every needless repetition, and every unintelligible drunken slurring faithfully preserved for youse cunt’s pleasure-
JENNIFER: And now (CLAPS) to Cloudstreet, our national book in a way, isn’t it, which er- which has clearly found a place deep in our hearts, but worship is so boring, so we decided to reread it, and who knows? Maybe reassess just what it is that makes this book so very special.
VOICEOVER TELLS WHAT HAPPENED IN CLOUDSTREET
JENNIFER: There it is, there’s the man who brought it, Peter, how
PETER: (NODDING) Yup
JENNIFER: -how does it stack up?
PETER: Look it stacks up fantastically, Jennifer, and when you asked me which book I wanted to recommend, I recommended this one because when I first read it I loved it, I thought I’d read a great Australian novel and I like Tim Winton’s writing a lot. But coming back to it the second time has been an extraordinary journey, it’s better than I imagined, there’s much more in it than I imagined, I think it’s a true classic, and, to be honest, it’s great literature which is very readable, and it touches chords very deep inside of all of us I suspect, and difficult to find the words really, it was a wonderful wonderful experience
JENNIFER: mm
PETER: sitting around for a week or two in January and getting into it again.
JENNIFER: Did you cry? When you wen-
PETER: Oh yes, and uh – huh- look it’s community, it’s the community of these people, and their character, and the characters he draws out of them, and it’s the way in which they confront their own humanity and their limitations, and it’s ultimately about the fact that this thing goes on you know, this young boy is born, and they have the barbecue and the picnic down by the river, but there’s so much more in it, ah the writing is extremely powerful, imaginative, evocative, but not showy – ah it’s got a really gutsy, sort of Australianness to it, I think in a real sense, without being corny or clichéd, and ah, yeah I think it’s going to be one of the great books of all time.
JENNIFER: Hm. Mem.
MEM: I couldn’t agree more, I could not agree more. When I said I hadn’t read any books since October of course I read these two books, and I read them both in, in three days because I just immersed myself in them
JENNIFER: Well you read the right hand side (?)
MEM: cos I need to, ha! ha! really need to read those books, and when I saw this, when I looked at Cloudstreet, which I remember loving when it first came out, it’s thick! It’s a really thick book, and I had to read it for this program, and it felt like homework for half a second, OK, until I started to reread it.
(she PAUSES)
If you have not read Cloudstreet, your life is diminished. Diminished! If you have not met these characters, this generous community, these tragedies, the humour – it is so funny – every so often, there’s this sentence where you just burst out laughing, and it could be in the middle of a tragic paragraph – and you just howl, you just literally laugh aloud, it’s so wonderful.
MAREIKE: Awr ar I agree your life is, would be less for not reading this book but I also agree that the rereading was so much richer than I remembered-
JENNIFER: Wasn’t it?
MAREIKE: or imagined so I think read it, and then just really enjoy it when you reread it’s just, it is, it is, it is Australia it uh – but really it felt like coming home (JENNIFER and MEM CLUCK appreciatively), it feels like looking through the plane window when you’re flying back into the country, it really does, I mean it feels like, bugger the citizersh- citizenship teff with know Don Bradman’s birthday, give everyone a copy of Cloudstreet and get them to read this before they, they enter the country
PETER: (DUCKS his head and waves a broad HAND) It’s a really good suggestion, though.
MARIEKE: I think so, because – maybe if it is how we want to be then why not aspire to that sense of community and maybe that’s all we are yearning for, and I think to have that heart, and that sense of family coming first, I mean, that’s no small feat I think, that’s something for us all to aspire to.
(she is a FASCIST.)
JENNIFER: You know I – I haven’t read it for years, y’know, since it first came out, and, and I was – y’ say – and I got fla- five paragraphs into the first and then all of a sudden I remembered, cos it starts where it finishes, so in reading the start, I remembered the end, I just burst into tears…
MARIEKE: Yeah, there’s lots of crying isn’t there, yeah.
JENNIFER: Jusen! (she GIGGLES drunkenly)
JASON: Mm, it’s a book that just gives you huge amount of pleasure, there are few books that have given me as much pleasure as reading Cloudstreet, and the first time was wonderful, and then reading it again, as everyone here has agreed, is fantastic – I, I mean I think it’s really about connections, connections family connections, connections with the past, Australia’s connections with indigenous people, with, with personal histories, and I think he does it in this, just in this wonderfully erm gentle, compassionate humane way, and it’s all in this fantastic language, I mean this is, this is, this is, I think it’s Tim Winton at his best, and I I I I I talked to him er a couple of months ago, and I asked him whether he thought he was onto something special when he was writing Cloudstreet, and he said well – one thing he did notice was that he was in this sort of rhythm, when he was writing it, but he also told me (HE TELLS THE SPANISH BUS INCIDENT STORY WHICH SHAN’T BE REPEATED HERE) so we owe an awful lot to that bus driver. (MEM LAUGHS sarcastically having heard it no doubt a million times.)
MARIEKE: They should build a statue of him somewhere I think.
JENNIFER: They should! ‘The Man who Saved… Cloudstreet but-
JASON: There are bits that are just wonderful in the book and-
JENNIFER: Well when you talk about rhythm, it’s the rhythm of a hymn almost isn’t it, it’s the rhyvm the rhythm of a river, it’s the ahh- and what struck me reading it and I’d be interested to see what you think Peter, is like- there’s the top layer, which is beautifully constructed the characters are so, wonewer, all that – but there’s this – under, as John Irving would call it, the undertow, the undertoad, and but there’s this thing pulling through which is visceral, which is deep, which is partly about the rhythm, it’s partially about – it’s quite Christian a lot of its symbolism isn’t it, with the fish, and the lamb, and the rebirth-
MEM: (SIGHS) Yes.
JENNIFER: But whatever it is – d’you see – it’s there’s another level that it’s getting to you?
PETER: Yeah well I think there is, um – he- he’s a great writer about our landscape, and I mean he’s written really well about the coast, and of course water is one of the big metaphors here, but he- he writes about the physicil- physicality of our landscapes, and whether it’s sort of you know railway cuttings, or bits of the desert or the coast or the estuaries where they go fishing occasionally, and he casts that landscape across the top of the lives of people living and their emotional landscapes are sort of contrasting against the landscapes of things that they’re doing at different times, what I also think is incredible about the book is clearly that ….
(I GIVE UP and go to SLEEP)
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Marieke Hardy is dead to me.
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it’s amazing that throughout the ten minutes spent on Clodstreet, she barely said anything, but it was nearly all spectacularly stupid.
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I’m a bit worried about the statue proposal. It’s likely to get taken up by those peddlers of criminal statuary, the Smiths.
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Pfucking hell pfortner. Is that really the transcript or did you pfort it?
“Landscapes… rivers… emotional landscapes…. you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you”ll make a water metaphor, as Australian as glassing someone in a pub, yearning for a sense of community, that connection with indigenous Australia.. ” If this is what passes for literary discussion on the ABC I would rather watch the footy show.
I had never heard of Marieke Hardy before, possibly because I’m not that interested in racks or checking out women’s armpits, but I hate her now. Oh and the rest of them.
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I spent a considerable amount of time last night re-watching it in ten-second chunks. The transcript is pretty much word perfect, down to the last fumble. Your pforted ABC gushing is pretty on the money though :)
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Well your commitment to our united cause of irrational hatred of Winton is unbounded. Respect.
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to be honest I don’t know if I could just conjure up some dialogue with this degree of insipidity. Truth is stranger than fiction and all that. Let it never be said that Winton wasn’t loathed by his contemporaries. TAKE YE HEED FUTURE CUNTS.
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Isn’t that just the normal verbose venacular of the arty literary types?
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You do realise that the ABC transcribes most of its programs for you, right?
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/s2795575.htm
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You’re right, of course. But I had to be sure – and their transcript is kinder than mine. (plus I’m a masochist.)
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goddamnyou Ljuke, you made me go and watch it again
I went to check out the rack on ‘tatts ‘n’ tits’ hardy, but had to listen to them drone on.
thankfully I was saved from committing violence by remembering that line of LA’s about Macca’s stalker having a well thumbed copy of Cloudstreet, which was smarter and funnier than anything these gushing muppets said
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hey skink, the breasts in question can be found here
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thanks to the miracle of the internet, I had already visited them.
she needs that tight T-shirt that says ‘if only these were brains’
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I DUCK my HAND and wave a broad head.
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Mem Fox:
“If you have not read Cloudstreet, your life is diminished. Diminished! If you have not met these characters, this generous community, these tragedies, the humour – it is so funny…”
She needs to get a dog up her.
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Fucked up the response. That was in reply to pfort a few up.
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“She needs to get a dog up her”.
SW, it’s time to up your medication.
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I’m looking at one of her latest right now, it’s called ‘Hello Baby’. I concede you may be right.
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I’m not sure Pfort. After shazz’s admonitions I feel I may have encunt myself.
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Admonition? Consider it just a friendly piece of advice.
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“why not aspire to that sense of community?”
as I recall the two families hated each others guts. One family was full of workshy bludgers and the other were socially inept god botherers with a mad woman living in a tent that was at war with the world.
I certainly wouldn’t aspire to live next to them.
if they were around to day they would be living in Midland and pushing a baby in a shopping trolley
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Yair nicely said skink
What’s the bet that Garretty, Hardyy, Foxy and Byrnesy all live (not too close) next door to commodities traders, cardio thoracics, qc’s and pr lovvies, and not only do they not live next door to ‘real Aussie characters’ with a ‘sense of community and landscape’, they sure as hell don’t aspire to either. This whole cloudstreet thing is fake nostalgia for something that never existed and they would run a mile from if they happened to meet.
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Reading these comments has arrested any thoughts of reading Clodstreet. After surviving a few years in Hilton I can see the possibility of Winton induced flashbacks.
Think I’ll stick with the kids stuff.
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I hear ya shazz. I hear ya.
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That screencap of the minister for teh yartz reminds me of the closing sequence of Star Trek the original. There was a shot of an alien with a large head that bears an uncanny resemblance.
From memory the actual episode involved an unseen and obviously frightening entity with a booming voice scaring the beejusus out of the crew who, when revealed was nothing more than a angry dwarf with a huge head. Hmmm… perhaps there are more than visual similarities.
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Indeed it does Clavdivs I.
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Okay, all you tutors and academicky types: Pop Quiz.
Louis Nowra has written a piece slagging off Germaine Greer. As I recall, Louie himself took a reviewer and/or publication to court several years ago for a negative review of one of his plays.
Am I right?
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Can you reference said piece of Germaine slagging? I’d like to read it before passing comment.
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http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/03/03/germaine-greer-trashed-in-the-monthly/
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Crikey.
I loved reading the The Female Eunuch many moons ago. I don’t care how deranged and socially inappropriate she becomes I think she’s a fascinating character. Go the Greer!
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Just in case you decide you need a new face after reading it…
http://kspf.iinet.net.au/katharine/
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That’s kind of you gregoryno6 but I’m sticking with the loon. Bless her.
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STOP PRESS “Male writer trashes internationally famous feminist houshold name”. Wow. Yes bless her shazza.
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Of course, I meant to say “obscure grant-dependent male writer who’s never been asked to appear on commercial telly”.
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If it was Nowra who took legal action over a dud review, it would be only fair if Germie threw a lawyer at him for his sledging. Fair and funny as hell.
That’s basically my point with this.
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I’d never heard of Nowra before today, so was gratified to see Germaine is still winding up the cranky blokes. Reading the comments on TLA’s link made my day.
Normally it’s ixnay on the eministfray around here. I thankyou for bringing it up gregoryno6.
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I’m dissapointed that “Nowra… lives a studiedly bohemian life with his writer wife, Mandy Sayer, in Sydney’s red-light area, Kings Cross…” I’ve always had the vague romantic idea that he lived in Nowra. It would show more integrity on his part.
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Hey Mez don’t suppose you attended the auction on South Terrace today?
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South Terrace prices are WAY above my head
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You really are an artist.
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I always get Nowra mixed up with Cowra
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I think that’s a bit like “living a studiedly bohemian life in Mt lawley”. Actual bohemians live in Embleton, WGV and Hilton.
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3. Razer: The Monthly’s Louis Nowra needs a good vajazzling Helen Razer writes: FEMINISM, GERMAINE GREER, THE MONTHLY, WOMEN’S DAY
Generally, International Women’s Day is an occasion to which I pay little mind. In 1979, Brown Owl flashed my non-regulation underwear as a caution to all assembled Guides. I have since reasoned that it is better to wrap one’s self in solitude than risk being multiply stung by the hive mind.
As I am terrified that the Sisters’ Army might want to examine my underwear, I tend to avoid IWD. The past week, however, has upchucked surprises sufficiently nasty to rev my angry parts. And these all, by chance, involve the feminine form.
I learned recently of the aesthetic practice: vajazzling. This, it seems, is an elective for those who have passed Advanced Brazilian. The female s-x organ, bereft of its hair, is encrusted with crystals; Swarovski, of course. Apparently, demand outstripped supply when Jennifer Love Hewitt, a woman unencumbered by talent or charm, told press that she needed to paste jewels on her v-gina in order to feel good about it.
Here, there are two salient conclusions to which one might be led. These are (a) the desire for visual perfection has become unmanageable and (b) any b-tch who dislikes her own c-nt so much as JLH needs to go to hospital.
As tempting as it is to disburse all time and thought on Love’s poonanny-loathing, it’s the broader implications of this tw-t-ritual that concern us today. Vajazzling has been greeted by many “liberated” women with the sort of You Go Girl finger snapping normally reserved for daytime television. Blogger Bryce Gruber is among the women who casually confuse sparkly flaps for “empowerment”.
I shan’t go on. Except to say, it makes Carrie Bradshaw read like Solanus. SCUM and the city.
Then, I learned of My New Pink Button. This v-ginal pigment has already exploded online and unchained a tsunami of disgust. So, I shan’t go on about that much longer either except to say: is there no feminine crevice immune to pimping?
Which brings me to the third, and final, thing that prompted me to thought on IWD. Forty years ago almost to the day, the scholar Germaine Greer showed us a new site for insurgency. It was on the female body. “You might consider tasting your menstrual blood,” she dared her readers with The Female Eunuch. If in performing this test the revolutionary wannabe felt ill, she had “a long way to go, baby”.
A confidence that baby would go a long way informed this scorching, funny polemic. When Greer wrote about the yoke of grooming or the fear of menses, she did so with a purpose in mind: to move the body and, by extension, identity to the hub of discourse. The refusal to relegate the self and its associated flesh to absence was, and remains, a central project of feminism; or of gender studies, as the specialty is now more broadly known.
To sound less like my failed undergraduate self, Greer said: I’m a woman. Here’s my t-ts and bits. Now that you’ve seen them, can we please get on with the business of living outside of “man” and “woman” as we have known these categories? This fixation on the body was, in my reading, a project intended to remake woman as more than the sum of her looks; to free us from the fairytale idea that the true moral register of a woman is her appearance.
Last Friday, Australian magazine The Monthly published an essay on The Female Eunuch to “commemorate” the book’s 40th anniversary. Here was an opportunity to contextualise what is arguably the most popular work ever written by an Australian public intellectual. Instead, they decided to talk about how ugly Greer is. Which she isn’t. I hope I’m that hot at her age.
But THIS is not, at all, the point. This piece was written by a guy called Louis Nowra. And it was commissioned by Ben Naperstak, a 12-year-old whose stewardship of the august periodical might be kindly called uneven.
Basically, Nowra says: Greer bangs on about the body too much. Also, she is ugly and looks quite old. Besides which, my mother never read her book. And neither did a lot of other people’s mothers. Because, look, women are still obsessed by their own appearance. Did I mention that Germaine Greer was ugly?
If you don’t believe me, look here, here or here . But don’t, whatever you do, buy this effing magazine. I want Naperstak sent back to nursery school for not only defecating on his intellectual heritage but saying crap such as “political correctness is the enemy of intelligent debate” in Nowra’s defence. No, you’re the enemy.
And your mate, Louis Nowra, who goes on and interminably on about Greer, who looks like a “demented grandmother”, being too optimistic. How could she possibly think women would change their attitudes viz. “young women today love shopping more than ever”.
Seriously. Nowra is saying: the world didn’t change, so she shouldn’t have bothered. Should we apply this logic to Kapital and b-tch that Marx ever wrote it because, clearly, expansionist capitalism was just going to get more and more complex? Should we fling a big old poop on the Gettysburg address while we’re at it and say: well, Abe, things are still pretty f-cked for African-Americans, you should never have said any of that?
As for going on about Greer’s appearance? Wait until I have vajazzled in order that you may choke on the Swarovski crystals of my feminist unease. How dare you not accord this writer and thinker her due without resorting to cheap jibes.
In this forum, by the way, I can be cheap. You, however, were paid, at the rate of $1 a word, to write for a periodical that purports to be the voice of leftist erudition. And what did you do? You did what all your blokey mates have been doing with a little more elegance for years. To wit: you have reduced Greer to a desiccated caricature while claiming the detonation of “political correctness” to justify your out-and-out misogyny.
Greer attracts violent spittle of the type not because she is a polemicist, but because she has a c-nt. Her every utterance or teeny, tiny op-ed column is the subject of scrutiny and fuel to the flame of what is, let it be said, pure hatred of feminism. I mean, Bob Ellis can vomit ad infinitum anything his cut-price shiraz provokes. And everyone says: Dear Old Bob. As much as I adore him, Clive James can write an entire work while pulling his pud and his sanctity and his oeuvre remain intact.
Greer DARES to say what we’d all be thinking several months later on the occasion of Steve Irwin’s death and she is called a hag. She DARES to write an informed history on the young male as visual object and she is called a dried-out old cougar.
F-ck off. She’s a bright and occasionally charming old ratbag who is far more erudite than most of what passes for an Australian “public intellectual” and should be revered. Greer may have done her utmost to change the world. Sadly, she was unable to undo the boring s-xism that drives so many Australian female thinkers into silence.
Or vajazzling.
F-ck off. I’m going to paint my v-gina. We love doing that, we ladies. And shopping, too.
Happy f-cking International f-cking Women’s Day.
*This piece first appeared on Helen Razer’s blog Bad Hostess.
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thank you orbea.
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wow, i have never had much respect for razer but all that has now changed. great piece.
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its a cracker of a piece of writing isnt it?
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Thanks so much, orbea. Best thing I’ve read in ages. Timely, lucid, and spot on.
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This is embarrassing to admit, but that bought a tear to my eyes. Thankyou orbea.
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As great as this piece is, it’s actually a lightly edited version of the original, which you can read here for the full effect. And how good is it that Nowra’s piece was in The Monthly ?
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Jesper really had an impact as he was my immediate thought on viewing the link snuff.
Thanks for the full version, I’ll grab the tissues before I start.
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Jesper always was, and always will be the undisputed champion.
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Yeh no6 I was not having a go and enjoyed the story.
I guess my point was, to someone like Germaine Greer bad publicity (esp from obscure grant-dependent male writers who need to state that they know a lot of women therefore have feminist credentials) is oxygen and she doesn’t need to sue Louis Nowra or the Monthly. Would you break a butterfly on a wheel etc.
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….it’s better than I imagined, there’s much more in it than I imagined, I think it’s a true classic, and, to be honest, it’s great literature which is very readable, and it touches chords very deep inside of all of us I suspect, and difficult to find the words really, it was a wonderful wonderful experience…
Didn’t see this, haven’t read the full transcript or the book for that matter, but I think they failed to ask Garratt the all important question: Did any of the houses on Cloud Street have pink batts in their ceiling?
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‘Cloudstreet’ segment youtubed at about the quality it deserves here
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If you have not read Cloudstreet, your life must be diminished.
Meh.
Did you upload this clip, JJ?
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Yup
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Nostalgic bogans.
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uploaded through bubble wrap filter I see
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Photoshop?
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