the plot is not the thing

Jinx and I had the privilege of watching a dress rehearsal of Aladdin on Sunday evening. When you describe a pantomime to someone who isn't familiar with the tradition, I can imagine they would look at you strangely and wonder what on earth there is of entertainment or interest to be found there. Surely, they might ask, the pantomime is a dated and anachronistic mode of popular entertainment?

Well, let's see. The central character is the "dame" - a man playing a big, blousy, slightly camp female character - in this case Widow Twankey. And then the title role is usually a male played by a female - in this case Aladdin. And then there are other clownish roles (here two policemen - Bamboo and Typhoo) and an evil Egyptian magician fella (whose name I forgot because it doesn't matter) who is after the magic lamp that Aladdin ends up with, allowing him to marry his princess. There are jokes galore, usually localised within the script, lots and lots of audience interaction, singalongs, chases round the theatre and my favourite of all - the audience screaming "Look behind you!". To enjoy it you must find the child within who has no preconceptions about how the world actually works, and enter a chaotic world of slapstick, colour, movement and dancing. The plot is always thin to non-existent...but the plot is not the thing that's important here.

When I was growing up in Bundaberg we lived in the same street that the Playhouse theatre is now still in. Every Christmas we would troop down in the stinking heat of summer to see the matinee. This was in the days before the theatre was airconditioned, but we would spend a raucous (and sometimes I must say, very long) afternoon doing all the things just described. The most exciting part was when it was all over and the actors would remain in costume and go outside to meet all the children as they filed out the theatre. This was a real thrill, and having been involved in Jack and the Giant (a previous panto production) in 2006, this joy has not changed in the intervening years. Kids are always fascinated (and sometimes I must say, a little freaked out) to see the actors come down from the stage and mingle amongst the audience.

Twenty five years later it's no different. Surprising as it may seem I found myself laughing at the jokes, singing and clapping along, and screaming quite loudly, "He went that way" during the chase scene. I hadn't laughed out loud that much for quite some time. What could be better than that?

"It's been a week, it's up to the cat now": Seinfeld Series 2, Episode 3

The Busboy is another of my early Seinfeld favourites, giving us the opportunity to see Julia Louis-Dreyfus's capacity for physical comedy, and the developing the awkward relationship between Kramer and George.


Food is one of the recurring themes in this episode, with Jerry's first stand up deriding contemporary culture's obsession with food and foodie culture.


Nice too, is the opening scene with Jerry, George and Elaine eating out at the restaurant. George is lamenting his poor choice of pesto, "why do I get pesto?", "where was pesto 10 years ago?" - yes, good question George. I have always found pesto an unsatisfactory meal. Here the Elaine storyline for the episode is also introduced. She's borrowing Jerry's car to pick up her new flame, Ed from Seattle, at the airport.

Jerry: Everyone's moving to Seattle

George: It's the pesto of cities.


Anyway, after learning that Ed is coming to visit Elaine for a week, we witness the real turning point for the episode, when George (somewhat uncharacteristically I think) bravely puts out a fire at the next table, caused when the busboy puts the menu too close to the candle. A sequence of events quickly follows, the busboy is fired, George freaks out because the restaurant manager tells the busboy that George is the one who alerted the manager, and put out the fire, and Jerry reassures George in his inimitable fashion, "He'll probably kill his family over this...lots of excons become busboys".


Back in the apartment George is still hassling over his possible role in the busboy losing his job. Elaine arrives to get the car keys, also bearing the busboy's address. George is now a man on a mission, off to the busboy's apartment to apologise. Jerry thinks it's a bad idea, especially for George to go alone.

Jerry: "Take the K man"
Kramer: (entering in a timely fashion for this suggestion) "Take me where..where??" - in the manner of an excitable five year old, or a puppy that sees its owner get the lead out and realises it's walk time.

So the odd couple of George and Kramer set out for the busboy's apartment. Upon arrival, George nicely asks Kramer to refrain from speaking when they get inside. It's hard to take George seriously here, as he's wearing a cute bobbly beannie. He timidly knocks on the door. Kramer pushes by with a great big confident knock and the busboy appears.


The actor playing the busboy Antonio (and if you're really interested you can look who this is up on wikipedia yourself) does a great job as a silent, threatening presence. George turns to jelly and gives a wussy apology. Kramer makes himself at home, asking if there's anything to drink. And then, the worst moment of all...someone left the door open and the busboy's cat "Perchita" (I'm guessing the spelling here) has disappeared. Now Antonio explodes in anger and rage and George and Kramer are looking in vain for the cat.


Sometime later, the cat has not reappeared, Antonio, George and Kramer are sitting round the kitchen table in some more awkward silence. Kramer gets up to leave, trips over the cord of the lamp and breaks it. He carefully repairs the broken lamp base and he and George make their escape, with George in a characteristic ineffective gesture leaves his business card with Antonio.

Back at Jerry's apartment, he's chatting to George onthe phone as Kramer arrives. On his way through the door he buzzes up Elaine from downstairs.
Jerry: George wants to know when you're going to look for the cat again.
Kramer (typically unconcerned): It's been a week, it's up to the cat now.
Elaine arrives frantic, and desperate to get Jerry's car keys and send Ed packing back to Seattle in the morning. It has not been a successful week. An ensuing discussion about alarm clocks, and the best route to take the airport sets up the following scene, where Elaine and Ed oversleep and Louis-Dreyfus does a crazy comic turn to get Ed up, dressed and out of the apartment. She leaves still in her nightgown, throwing a giant red parka over the top.

Return to Jerry's, where Jerry is testing George on his boast that "Anywhere in the city, I'll tell you the best public toilet". This fascinating discussion is interrupted by Elaine, dejected and drained with a tale of woe after failing to beat the traffic and get Ed on the plane. Then the mood quickly turns to one of glee and excitement:

Kramer: The busboy's comin', The busboy's comin'

George is terrified, imagining Antonio coming for revenge for the loss of his job and his cat.
As Antonio enters in his usual swaggering, threatening manner as George futilely backs away into the corner of Jerry's kitchen. But Antonion arrives bearing good news. The night after he was fired there was an explosion in the restaurant. George getting him fired has saved his life. He has now found a new job and best of all, the cat has returned.
Awkward hugs all round.
But of course, there can be no happy ending.
As the busboy leaves we hear him meet Ed in the hallway. The following confrontation and fight leads us to a final scene in the diner.

George can't stay, he has to go and feed Perchita until the busboy gets out of hospital.
Elaine has to go and feed Ed who is still staying with her until he can get back to Seattle.
Jerry, unaffected by both of their plights, remains enjoying his dinner.

And in a cute final touch, the diner's busboy comes over to clear the table.

stripey shirts and electric typewriters

Inspired by a friend on facebook reminiscing about 1927 (the band, not the year) I'm remembering the late 80s and early 90s, which for me was the end of high school and the beginning of university. Remember when those stripey shirts looked cool. When we were only just beginning to hear murmurs about Nirvana. When REM's Losing My Religion shifted them firmly into the mainstream. When you couldn't listen to Triple J outside of the regions of capital cities. When I dyed my hair black and in the cold Toowoomba winter wore a black duffle coat (for some reason the term for this look favoured by arts students was "swampy"). When I really wanted, but couldn't afford a pair of doc martens. When I was practising the piano for hours every day. When CDs were new and I paid 120 dollars for a huge and clunky hitachi cd player that could feed into my twin cassette stereo (which was huge and clunky in itself). When the only people I knew with desktop computers were those actually studying IT (and at that stage I'm not even sure if it was called IT. To do my music history assignments I had a fantastic electric typewriter with a very small amount of memory (like a line of text or something that you could see on a tiny little display). When we hadn't heard of the internet (well maybe some people had but I was studying music so the most technical we got was the hifi record player in the music library which didn't have any cds). But we did have to do a compulsory computing subject in our first year where among other things we learned to do very basic programming in DOS, and save things on those huge big floppy disks. When I wouldn't miss The Late Show (with the D Generation), listened to Helen and Mikey's breakfast every morning, and Roy and HG on the weekends. When my favourite shows were Northern Exposure and Seinfeld (and still are). When Cheers finished and I had to miss it because I had an orchestra rehearsal. When the Simpsons was new and I didn't recognise it for the television icon it would become. Best of all, when pop music actually had some hooks and a mild amount of substance even in the one hit wonders.

Wendy's Week of TV Part 20

Saturday: Gardening Australia

No matter how hard they try it's just not the same without Peter Cundall and his blooming lot for the week.

Mountain with Griff Rhys-Jones

I thought we would actually watch Griff climb a lot of mountains, but with the exception of the beginning and the end of this program that didn't seem to be the case. Snowdownia is certainly beautiful and the entrepreneurs making recycled paper out of sheep poo were interesting but low marks for the hour seeming to pass so slowly.

Iron Chef

I watch it because there is nothing else remotely worth watching. The scallop battle. This show is rigged I'm sure...does anyone ever beat the Iron Chef? The panel (including an actress with bizarrely long pearl earrings) seemed to dislike most of his dishes, yet still he was the winner. How does that work? Intriguing - in a non-intriguing kind of a way.

Tuesday: Father Ted

Aaah, Ted and Dougal attempt to rig a raffle for a car to fix their leaking roof. Surely there can't be any comic potential in such an innocent and straightforward storyline. Wrong. I laughed out loud on a number of occasions, particularly at the dancing priest. And, when Dougal finally realised he had the "winning ticket" no. 11. He was just holding it upside down so took a moment to realise it was in fact 11.

Hamish Macbeth

You know in another setting we would have sympathised with Alex, because her cheating, no good policeman boyfriend was in love with Isobel, had been unfaithful and made her look like an idiot for sticking around so long. But when she had the accident in the radio van and died, it was Hamish I felt sorry for. And just a little bit relieved that they finally got rid of such an annoying character. I wonder if that makes me a bad person.

Wednesday: It was my Grandma's birthday which required dinner and more Andre Rieu unfortunately. I've never seen a 45 minute encore before. What I really object to here is that these concerts totally devalue the standing ovation. A standing ovation is for something special, not just playing each song and finishing it. To most likely completely misquote Blackadder the Fourth's telegram to Charlie Chaplin, "please, please, stop".

Thursday: The Amazing Race

Finally, just as I learned their names (Kelly and Christy), the divorcees were eliminated. How ditzy were they in that paintball challenge though? Nearly as stupid as Dan and Andrew and that's saying something. It was pretty funny though when those same two couples kept doing the bleary eyed test and not even seeing the numbers they had to hand to the man with the sewing machine. How nice for Ken and Tina to give them a little hint. Tina's green hair looked great and Dallas and Toni (?) were legends, taking it right up to the perfect siblings Nick and Starr. I'm excited about next week!

Friday: Muhammed Ali documentary on SBS

Now this was interesting, particularly in the setting of Ali's achievements and his journey from Cassius Clay to Ali against the background of the black civil rights movement in the 1960s. The drama of the initial fight with Sonny Liston was exciting. And (as it was all happening before I was born) I hadn't realised the extent of the relationship between Ali, Malcolm X, and the Nation of Islam more generally. Not sure if there is a part 2 next week but I'll be watching.



Note of little excitement: the original BBC adaptation of Brideshead Revisited with Jeremy Irons starts tomorrow night on ABC2 at 7:30.

I am all waltzed out

I went to work.
The day was turned upside down - administrivia in the morning, book writing and filing of readings in the afternoon
There was pavlova and profiteroles at morning tea - a farewell for a corridor colleague.
I ate both pavlova and a profiterole.
I reviewed two course profiles for Term 1 2009.
I taught my lovely piano student this afternoon. She brought me a bag of tomatoes and homegrown cucumbers.
The whippersnipper -debussy incident (see post below)
I chased the cat off the christmas decorations for what seemed like the millionth time.
I'm not sure who will break first - me or the cat. The standoff has been going on since Saturday.
It was my Grandma's birthday so she came over for dinner with the family.
There was more Andre Rieu after the cake.
I am now all waltzed out and drinking chamomile tea in recovery.

modern gardening equipment vs piano impressionists

Why does my new next door neighbour feel the need to whippership right next to our boundary fence while I am trying to search iTunes for Debussy's Prelude "the sunken cathedral". It's a very quiet and atmospheric piece. I can't remember the French and so am relying on the little iTunes previews. Whipper snipper is drowning them out because of my computer's fairly ordinary sound system. He has a whole acre of backyard. So why my fenceline at this particular moment in time?
Whipper snipper will win out every time.

rhubarb and apple crumble

It's been a pleasantly productive day. The morning zipped by with a few inquiries and telephone interviews with prospective external students - all of whom were enthusiastic (as usual). I also managed to attend a learning and teaching seminar about theories of leadership and management where it seemed everyone there came to the same conclusion about our institution (I shall leave this implied I think).

Then a quietish afternoon where I waded through some more of the book editing and continued the filing of readings. Big achievement here was staying awake.

All that plus leftover rhubarb and apple crumble for afternoon tea from last night's Christmas celebration made for a lovely day!

pink rose

Finally, my pink rose has produced a flower.

Wendy's Week of TV: Part 19

Sunday: The Einstein Factor

The Einstein Factor is really heating up now with the grand final for the year tomorrow night. Sadly, the contestant with Insane Clown Posse as his special subject didn't get through, but his hair was entertaining nonetheless. Please, please, please let Barry Jones be on the brains trust. Please, please, please don't let Jennifer Byrne be on the brains trust. That's all.



Who do you think you are?

Carol Vorderman, not particularly well known in Australia I would imagine, but still an interesting subject given that she knew nothing about the Dutch side of her family. Apparently, one of her ancestors was a potential Nobel Prize recipient, something about discovering vitamins, which as we all know are very important.


Tuesday: Father Ted

Distinguished by an appearance from a younger Graham Norton as a crazed, singing, guitar playing, youth-group leading priest. Ted, Dougal and Jack find themselves sharing a tiny caravan with him and his followers as they try to have their yearly holiday. Hi-jinks galore.



Hamish Macbeth: Isobel has a makeover, Alex becomes even more annoying and the villagers think for a brief moment that they have won the lottery. Thanks to Lachie snr losing the ticket while trying to fix the village bus they haven't. Oh, and something about an evil car manufacturer testing cars in the Highlands woven in there as well. All very satisfying.



Wednesday: This was the night of the Andre Rieu marathon (6-9:15 with no breaks). Schmalzy is an understatement. Sure the guy plays the violin very nicely and his orchestra plays some jolly popular classics and well known show tunes. But do we really need this set against the backdrop of an actual fairytale castle, complete with clowns, dwarves, elephants and all manner of other bizarre props and costumes. Also, note to Andre: less with the narration about how life is a fairytale and just get on with the music. This was especially annoying when the subtitles stopped working and for the last hour we had to guess what the Dutch might be meaning. Please let's never mention this evening again. Ever.


Thursday: The Amazing Race

Gosh it was touch and go there for Ken and Tina.. They really should have chosen the Indian laundry challenge rather than the money necklace at the Indian wedding. Trust Nick and Starr to have gloves in their bags to cope with the heat of he coal fired irons. I do like how the divorcees (whose names still escape me) have started calling frat boys Dan and Andrew "Dandrew". Lucky for Ken and Tina this was a non-elimination round. Phew!



Friday: A mish-mash.

The last half hour of an SBS documentary on the Summer of Love in San Francisco was very interesting and made me wish I'd realised it was on earlier and seen the first half hour. Instead, I was watching Stateline on the storms. I've had it with news of storms (even though it looks promising for one later today here). I then saw Fast Ed and Johanna Griggs make three salads that looked easy and edible (unusual for TV cooking shows). Hmmmm...I might have to buy that edition of Better Homes and Gardens. Later, Harry Potter ate some kind of weed recommended to him by Neville Longbottom (?) and turned into a fish while searching for something in a lake. Then I went to bed. Goodness knows what happened next because I haven't read the book or seen that movie before.

Making plans and doing the sums

I have been doing some sums this morning. If I am going on official holidays on December 15th this means I have about three weeks to get through my book edits once more if I am to holiday without it hanging over my head. So if I have about three hundred pages still to get through, and work on the premise that I can find time for it five days out of seven, then I need to do 30 pages or so a day. That doesn't sound like much. Does it? Actually, 30 times 15 seems to be 450 (according to my trusty calculator). So what I have really done is factored the usual procastinating time, as well as unforeseen events such as getting up in the morning and thinking, "I don't feel like looking at that book draft today". And the fact that when I'm at work I might actually have to do the job they are paying me for (which sadly is not research...don't get me ranting on this).