[JUST ABOUT NOW IS A COLLECTION OF THINGS HAPPENING IN OUR SPACES & PLACES, PHYSICAL & DIGITAL, intersecting past, present, future, CREATIVITY, CULTURE & COMMUNITY INTO the NOW. STITCHED TOGETHER BY GEROME FOR WSKRA.COM]
ART ETC. Melbourne Fringe opening night gala at The Capitol, Tuesday 1 October 2024. “To celebrate the 2024 Festival theme ‘Eat Your Art Out,’ the dress code for the Gala is ‘Culinary Couture.’ Whether it’s your chef whites or an inflatable hot dog costume, we want to see your best food-themed finery.”
Melbourne City Lord Mayor Nicholas Nick Reece declares the 2024 Fringe open for consumption.“Nicholas Reece (born 1974) is an Australian politician and policy activist, currently serving as the 105th Lord Mayor of the City of Melbourne. He is a senior executive at the University of Melbourne and a principal fellow at the Melbourne School of Government. He is the chair of the board of directors at the Movember Foundation, and a commentator at Sky News Australia.”–Wikipedia
Melbourne Fringe | Finucane & Smith’s Global Smash Club, 16–19 October 2024, Trades Hall. The Burlesque Hour turns 20! “Twenty years after Burlesque Hour rampaged into life and burnt cabaret to the ground, toured 18 countries, won 13 awards and rave reviews in 9 languages, the diehard divas are back! Living legends ripping off their own legacy in a club night of fabled acts and what the f*ck was that?!
“Moira Finucane. Maude Davey. Yumi Umiumare. Mama Alto. And so much more. Part club. Part happening. Part party. Part transcendent ritual. Part self indulgent crap. All history in the making. Get up, dance or run! Finucane & Smith take over the ETU Ballroom for the last week of Fringe in an unmissable legendary future-spective.”
Instructions for laptop and desktop users
for maximum viewing pleasure:
1. Play Keating first.
2. Play Global Smash Club
as Keating shoots his now very famous retort
“Because mate, I want to do you slowly.”
3. See how you go.
Melbourne Fringe | Creatures of the Blak Lagoon by The Motherless Collective. One night only, Friday 4 October 2024, 10pm. “Join this Murky Mob for a night of freaky frivolities… Emerging from 2019, this drag collective is entirely First Nations Trans/Gender non-confirming; they have been reclaiming space throughout the ever expanding drag scene. Drag is in dire need of Blak queer representation, which MoCo provides while offering a wide range of refreshing acts. Each drag performer presents their own personal styles – an amalgamation of their art, history and Blak perspectives on popular culture.”–MFF
Melbourne Fringe | The Winner Takes It All by The Huxleys, 6–12 October 2024. “A grand slam queer takeover of the sporting world. Part art happening, part grand final, part disco! With a special focus on the LGBTQIA+ community we invite you to be part of a large scale photographic series exploring the many ways we struggle and succeed to perform ‘sport’. Part performance, part art happening. This will be a unique community engaging event for anyone who loathes or loves the ‘art’ of sport. To find out more and to sign up to participate, check out The Winner Takes It All hub.”–MFF
Melbourne Fringe | SUGAR by Tomas Kantor, 16–20 October 2024. “Inspired by the obscene riches of Australia’s Sugar Baby culture, SUGAR takes on the bangers we love and smashes them into a poignant, sexy and hilarious story about being a kept Sugar Baby.”–MFF
Melbourne Fringe | Design Fringe: Curator Tour, Linden New Art, Acland St, St Kilda, Saturday 5 October 1pm. “Join Linden New Art’s Curator for an exclusive tour of the 2024 Design Fringe exhibition.”–MFF
Melbourne Fringe | Chasing Dick: A Love Story by Dax Carnay, 8–12 October 2024, Theatre Works St Kilda. “Chasing Dick tackles significant themes such as the intergenerational gap in views on sexuality, gender identity, and expression, along with the universal search for connection and understanding within families. Through its heartfelt dialogue and poignant interactions, the play offers a profound commentary on the evolving nature of love and identity in contemporary society.”–TW
Melbourne Fringe | Hyacinth by Jake Stewart, 15–19 October 2024, Theatre Works St Kilda. “Kissing Booth’s work fixates on the darker regions of the contemporary human experience, while never losing its taste for sweet glittery gayness. We have a focus on queer Australian texts, the relics of traditional romance, the state of modern masculinity, and the epidemic of heartache. We strive to bear witness to the amorphous notion of being a queer Australian today.”–TW
BOOKS | MEMOIR. From The Top by TLW [Tom] Robb. Available at Hares & Hyenas, Victorian Pride Centre. “A magnificent, astonishing, moving, and vivid account of a life that transforms from the bleak misery of 1950s orphanages into the glittering universe of top-level entertainment. The style is relaxed and conversational, giving readers a frank and privileged experience of a life lived to the full, from poverty and abuse to the almost unimaginable glamour of the world stage.”–Carmel Bird | Booktopia
ART. COMMUNITY. Vent by Giles Duley x OPX Studio. “Art has always been at the forefront of revolution and social change. NOW is the opportunity for us all to collaborate and create change through our creativity and passion.”
Nearly a year ago now since the 2023 referendum that could have accelerated the Australian peace process of reconciliation between and among Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, which would have been–is also–a further step forward in the call to justice for all Indigenous peoples of our planet.
It’s also nearly a year ago now since the outbreak of ever-increasing violence in the Levant, on the eastern Mediterranean shores, and over two-and-a-half years since the explosion of more violence in Europe, between two of their largest countries to the east. These are but two of the 110+ violent conflicts raging at this very moment –people killing people, brothers killing brothers– an ongoing fratricide on a global scale on our fragile planet on the verge of collapse. How could we possibly address effectively our planet’s changing climate amidst all these murderous hostilities?
It’s true: Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is not the outcome of a ceasefire. Peace is not a balance-of-power by-product. Peace is not achieved through subjugation or oppression or the threat of annihilation. Peace is the hard work of love, each one actively caring for the other despite any differences today and any hurt from yesterday. “No blaming, no reasoning, no argument — just understanding.”–Thich Nhat Hanh
Gerome Villarete, Secretary
30 September 2024
Art Saves Lives
POST-SCRIPTUM: “It is only through beauty that man makes his way to freedom.”–Friedrich Schiller
Paul Keating in conversation with Kerry O’Brien | Sydney Opera House, October 2015
[Excerpts transcribed by Gerome Villarete]
Kerry O’Brien quotes Friedrich Schiller to Paul Keating: “It is only through beauty that man makes his way to freedom.”
Kerry: “People wouldn’t often associate beauty with politics.”
Paul: “Yes, but beauty is about the honed resolution of the ideal. It is the search for perfection.
“And, you know, our minds are wired for beauty. I don’t mean just physical beauty, but I mean beauty of ideas, beauty in truths—what is true and what is good.
“It’s only I think–also–through creativity, which I associate with beauty, that new paradigms are revealed to us. So, one might not associate [with beauty or creativity] the long straight lines of policy logic in my years as Treasurer or Prime Minister, but the idea of beauty is definitely in there; that is, no second-rate solutions, no corner-cutting, no dodging the real matters. Now in the end keeping a Cabinet up to that standing is hard to do, but you get a choice in this. You can be in the sort of mediocre department, or you can climb above it, and this is why I think that the notion of the search for the ideal, as it was called in other days, is just as apposite in public policy or economic policy or social policy or foreign policy, as it is in a picture, or in music, and other things.
“So, the best place for the integrity of the Australian political system–the best place to begin with–is to take the public into your honest confidence. Tell the truth and explain the problems to them. I think they’re so willing to take on remedial changes, they will reward the party that does it most earnestly and best. I still think that’s there.”
Paul Keating in conversation with James Curran | La Trobe University (Sydney Campus, October 2022)
“La Trobe University’s Ideas and Society Program is pleased to present an online discussion between former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, and James Curran, a Professor of History at the University of Sydney and author of Australia’s China Odyssey, on a question fundamental to the future of Australia–our relations with China and, thus, the United States.”–La Trobe University
“Paul Keating, visionary, reformer, true believer, rabble rouser, polymath, and our most intriguing prime minister bares his soul to the country’s sharpest political interviewer, Kerry O’Brien.
“Kerry and Paul wrestle with history to produce a tour de force of political wisdom and personal insight that weaves through the Keating years in a unique and compelling way. Building on the transcripts of the must-watch ABC TV event of 2013 – Keating: the Interviews – Kerry has gathered an enormous bank of new material, gleaned during many hours of further conversation with Keating, to create a book that is more forensic and all-encompassing than the very successful TV series. (…)”–Sydney Opera House
Paul Keating in conversation with Kerry O’Brien | Wheeler Centre (Melbourne MCEC, October 2015)
“In this fast-moving conversation, Keating dives into his relationships with US leaders, British monarchs and their silverware; the pleasures of acupuncture and classical music; Keating’s assessments of past and present Liberal leaders; the need for a treaty with Australia’s Aboriginal nations; and the former prime minister’s evaluations of his own political legacy.”–Wheeler Centre
“You don’t have to be a true believer to recognise there are few in public life who make an idea sing the way Paul Keating does. And here, in this Sydney Writers Festival special event, he’s in full stride speaking with the ABC’s Kerry O’Brien.
“Known as much for his acerbic tongue as for his economic reform, Paul Keating lives up to his reputation at this Sydney Writers’ Festival Special Event. (…) In a wide-ranging conversation with the ABC’s Kerry O’Brien, the loose focus is After Words, Keating’s new collection of post prime ministerial speeches.”–Sydney Writers’ Festival 2011