Monday, January 31, 2011

The Punch

The Dawn Blog: "An Indian boy decides to come out of the sandooqcha with his British boyfriend to his middle-class Indian parents. They drop hint after hint to the clueless parents, who keep missing the lobs like Maria Sharapova on clay, until the gay couple declare the full nature of their relationship. The parents forbid him from being gay. Desperate for his parents to accept him, the boy goes up to them and says: “Look, I’m still the same person.” The mother hisses to her son: “You couldn’t have found a nice Indian boy?”"

Monday, January 24, 2011

Gill & Golden Cockerel


The Four Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ According to the Authorized Version of King James I with Decorations by Eric Gill.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

De flesch











A children's picture book from the Memory of the Netherlands: A respectable family man, who after winning the lottery blows it all on drink. It's got it all – poverty, domestic violence and finally insanity. 'A rollicking bedtime read for the kids.'

Monday, January 17, 2011

The… 40 Mile Pub

I came across a slim volume in my recent travels and thought to reproduce some of it here for you. Warning: Some readers may find it offensive for its racism and condescension and maybe even for its jingoism. It is a product of the times.

Reproduced here under fair dealing but Copyright until 2033 [Created/Published Date + 70 Years]

Ashton Murphy

(Sketched by Vasco Tourerio [sic], Bulletin Office, Sydney, 1906.)


Memoirs of the late Ashton Murphy as told by his son, Bert Ashton Murphy, to Edgar Hawthorn.
First Edition - 1963
Short stories written by Ashton Murphy are re-published from the Steele Rudd Annual, produced by Arthur Davis and Ashton Murphy.

Published in association with the erection of a replica of the Forty Mile Pub in front of the G.P.O., Brisbane, which served as an Information Bureau for the Warana Festival 1963, linking the Capital and the West in the Annual Celebrations of South-east Queensland.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


The… FORTY MILE PUB
INTRODUCTION


I'm a bushman in every sense of the word. I love it, you can have the concrete jungle of the city, its towering edifices, its long dark hustling corridors with their dark tributaries, its tense, nervous, endless movement, its rank atmosphere, its heavv mantle of lethal haze. When I cross the border from bush to city. I step from Spring to the depth, of an overcast and bitter mid-winter's day, from Mardi-Gras to the monotony of the work-a-day world, from buoyancy to depression.

The scent of gum leaves wafted on the breeze stirs a sudden sweet sad longing — a flood of memory, as the call of the bush birds conjures each its picture on my mind.

When I hear a mopoke crying eeriiy, I see vividly a scene on the open space in front of the Nindy Gully Hotel on the Moonie River — a great fire of logs and brush, flaring up into the night, crowds of shearers, shed hands and followers fresh from the cut out at Bullamon shed.

Everyone has a cheque in his hand, in his hat, in his boot, in his hip pocket, in his waistcoat, in his coat, in his bluey, in his billy , somewhere, anywhere, you'll find he has a cheque and quite a substantial one at that and he is a man of substance. Ragged though he may look, dusty though his clothes may be and no matter how ragged at the edges he may seem, with a bushy countenance, unkempt and untrimmed. Reeking though he may of a perfume that could hardly be likened to eau-de-cologne and could perhaps be better tolerated by a sheep than milady at Her Majesty's Court, he is yet ten feet tall and ready to take the nearest town by storm.

He is eager to sweep the nearest suspecting or unsuspecting lady off her feet and fill her ears with bold romantic and almost true tales from his recent adventures, her tummy with the warmth of wine and her heart with tenderness and generosity. That is up to that delicate point where danger lurks and he might find himself snared and hear the distant sound of wedding bells, by that time his money has gone, his outlook on life takes a turn for the better or is it worse, and he takes off in haste making a bee-line for the next shed and freedom. No girl, no town can hold him, the bush is in his blood.

Even the local gins are not forgotten and queue up to get their pay. I recall one scarlet clad gin coming into "town" one day with a bundle of notes fluttering between her fingers. She swings the kip before eager upturned faces and shouts "Sydney or the Bush. Which do you think won."
They have made it this happy breed. No thundering transport, no bills to meet, no thought for tomorrow. There's only today and the peace and tranquility which only the bush can give.

A cockatoo screeched from somewhere, and straightaway I forgot the streets and saw a homestead with golden sunset dying out behind the gums, while great sun-bleached stacks reflected the ruddy gold and flock after flock of white cockatoos flashed suddenly in the sky, returning from the wheat fields to the gums along the creek.

Let a crow caw harshly, and I am back again in the great drought with the sun throbbing from a brazen sky on a land that is one eternal sameness of choking dust and twanging wire fences.
The white calico wings1 pegged out like an immense circus ring, the sheep streaming in, filling the break thousands upon thousand, giving the impression of a gargantuan cotton wool ring set with twinkling fires. No matter where I hear the jacks2, I remember that scene.

In the city a bell chimed, the city dissolved, and the bellbird's note floated over the bush, giant gums silhoutted against the sky — walls of green slender saplings waving their tips of fire in the soft breeze — sunlight and shadow; hand in hand, dancing merrily with a setting of wattle in all its golden glory.

When i hear the liquid joyful carol of the magpie. I am back on the Dawson side, on Clifford station [currently offline due to floods] where I was born. It is sundown and the black stockmen are throwing boomerangs in the station paddock. Bare legged lubras are bringing black swan eggs in woven reed baskets to barter. There is a charm for me in the faces of these children of the bush, with their expressions, of mingled melancholy and fun.

The wild note of the curlew brings back Eurombah and its lagoon in the old days, with its herd of brumbies, the largest in Australia.

I'm going back one day and it will take a herd of wild brumbies to drag me away. I'm going back to where the colourful history of South West Queensland is epitomised in a unique and perhaps obscure hut made of weatherboard and slabs which was the haven of hundreds of travellers from all walks of life, the pioneers who built the solid foundations on which this vast and vigorous country stands today. This was a place of rest, a place of conviviality, a place to meet your mates and spread the news, a place to forget the toil and the tears. This was the 40 Mile Pub.

[1] Tents.
[2] Jackdaw [sic] perhaps?

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Aussies





















Captured by: "De Berquelle, Raymond".

Monday, January 10, 2011

An Asia Pacific Online Film Library

I'm sad to hear of the impending end of The Asian Studies WWW Monitor - but this cheered me up no end. The films are quite good. Take advantage of this generous preview offer. You never know, you may end up a subscriber.

The Asian Studies WWW Monitor: Jan 2011, Vol. 18, No. 1 (320)
--------------------------------------------------------------
10 Jan 2011

AsiaPacific Films.com - An Asia Pacific Online Film Library

iFilm Connections Asia & Pacific, Honolulu, HI, USA.

Supplied note:
"Dear Matthew [...] By now you must have received many warm and
appreciative comments from readers across the globe about your
contribution to our collective knowledge about Asian resources to be
found on the Internet. In honor of your services, I'd like to offer
your readers free access to over 500 culturally and historically
important films made by Asians and Pacific Islanders.
Usually people subscribe for $8.99 a month. However your readers can
stream them for free for two months on "www.AsiaPacificFilms.com" by
using this following login and password:

LOGIN: cioleks-gift@asiapacificfilms.com
PASSWORD: thankyou

You and your users can cancel subscription at anytime.
I hope you will check AsiaPacificFilms.com out by streaming some films
for your own enjoyment [... for instance, you might] enjoy A SONG of
TIBET, directed by the master Chinese filmmaker, Xie Fei.

Here are some other film suggestions: http://www.idaconcpts.com/email/AsiaPacificFilms-January.html
This link is to an advance copy of a newsletter we are sending out
this Friday [i.e. 8 Jan 2001 - ed.] to subscribers. [...]
Jeannette Paulson Hereniko, President, AsiaPacficiFilms.com

Self-description:
"What are we?
AsiaPacificFilms.com streams culturally and historically significant
films from Asia and the Pacific that entertain, educate and inspire
viewers to think beyond boundaries. With the latest streaming
technology, subscribers have unlimited access to our films in DVD
quality.

Who are we?
We are an experienced team of Asia and Pacific film programmers
working in concert with notable scholars, critics, and curators who
carefully select our films. Our curators and AsiaPacificFilms.com's
president Jeannette Hereniko are members of the Network for the
Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC), a well-respected international
organization. Every year NETPAC awards prizes at major international
film festivals."

Site contents:
* Search;
* Login;
* Explore Film Catalog (Browse By #Theme [All Themes, Aging &
Mortality, Animals, Art & Music, Communication & Media, Ecology & the
Environment, Ethnicity & Cultural Identity, Family & Relationships,
Gender & Sexuality, Globalization & Modernization, Health & Disease,
History, Human Rights, Law, Politics & Government, Mental Health &
Psychology, Philosophy & Ethics, Religion, Social & Economic Issues,
War & Military, Youth & Coming of Age] , # Genre [All Genres, Action,
Animation, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Drama, Experimental,
Experimental, Fantasy, Horror, Mokumentary, Romance, Sci-Fi, Short,
Thriller, Suspense, Youth, Children], # Filmmaker [there were 402
films listed in Jan 2001], # Country [All countries, Australia, China,
Fiji, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kyrgyzstan,
Lebanon, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore,
South Korea, South Korea/Japan, South Korea/Kazakhstan, South Korea/
Singapore, South Korea/Thailand, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, United
States, Vietnam]);
* About Us;
* Featured Film Festival;
* Sign Up Benefits;
* Contact Us;
* Copyright Information;
* Privacy Policy;
* Legal Statement.

[A very fine and rich site indeed - ed.]

URL www.AsiaPacificFilms.com

Internet Archive (web.archive.org) [the site was not archived at the
time of this abstract]

Link reported by: Jeannette Hereniko (jhereniko--at--asiapacificfilms.com)

* Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]:
Documents / Online Guide
* Publisher [academic - business - government - library/museum - NGO - other]:
Business
* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]:
[Essential, regardless of presence/absence of this most generous gift
to t.m. ciolek and other readers of the MONITOR]
--------------------------------------------------------------
Src: The Asian Studies WWW Monitor ISSN 1329-9778
URL http://coombs.anu.edu.au/asia-www-monitor.html
URL http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/asia-www-monitor
The e-journal [est. 21 Apr 1994] provides free abstracts
and reviews of new/updated online resources of interest to Asian
Studies.
The email edition of this Journal has now over 9,240 subscribers.
The AS WWW Monitor does not necessarily endorse contents,
or policies of the Internet resources it deals with.

- regards -

Dr T. Matthew Ciolek tmciolek--at--coombs.anu.edu.au
Head, Internet Publications Bureau, RSPAS,
ANU College of Asia and the Pacific,
The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
ph +61 (02) 6125 3124 fax: +61 (02) 62571893
also, Asia Pacific Research Online at www.ciolek.com

[You may freely forward this information, but on condition that you
send the text as an integral whole along with complete information
about its author, date, and source.]

_______________________________________________
asia-www-monitor@anu.edu.au
http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/asia-www-monitor