The Thousands

We drew a mind map of the issue this week. Things got linked like this:

Community: Film Club --> The Internet
Travel: Engadine --> volcanos
Grizzled old genii: Warren Ellis --> Buck the Horse Whisperer.

Basically our mind map got us lost.

Cover shot by Chloe Nour. Send your photos to alex@rightanglestudio.com.au, they could be one too!

My first memory of the Dirty Three was when they played live on ABC’s Recovery program. It was off the back of their fourth release Ocean Songs and I vividly remember a beardless Warren Ellis deep in concentration, back to the audience, in some sort of celestial conversation with his violin. At the time I didn’t know that you could even amplify a violin, let alone produce the crunchy, powerful, soulful sounds that Ellis produced. Four albums and fourteen years later, the Dirty Three are back with Toward The Low Sun, and they have once again produced an album cinematic in its scope and heart-wrenchingly beautiful in its execution.

The first song on Toward The Low Sun, ‘Furnace Skies’, gives the impression that Ellis’ violin has been usurped to support Jim White’s scatty drums, Mick Turner's unfailingly subtle guitar, and whomever is playing the keys of a wonderfully fuzzed out organ. However, tracks like ‘Rising Below’ - with its slow build into chaotic, distorted violin - show Ellis’ utter mastery of the infinitely minute textures, tones, and drones of the instrument.

From repeat listens of Toward The Low Sun it’s apparent that Ellis, Turner, and White have created a synopsis of musical experience: the heavy-hitting guitar track ‘That Was Was’ is contrasted by the plodding, bluesy ‘Rain Song’, which is offset by the delicate piano-based track ‘Ashen Snow’.

Dirty Three are one of the few bands that can convincingly create emotive, musical story-telling without the aid of a singer. All that’s left to say is: buy the album and go see them live. You will not be disappointed.

Act One Scene One. Exterior, Darlinghurst. A beautiful-yet-weathered (with character) old art deco shop front. The camera pushes forward and we see a smattering of film-related t-shirts, postcards and DVDs through each bay window. A smart 'Film Club' logo is painted on one window.

Film Club is the latest incarnation of what was Darlo Video, a long-running Sydney video institution - their former shopfront further down Darlinghurst Road was the video store in Muriel's Wedding.

Film Club is a fitting name, as this is definitely a cinephile's wet dream. The staff are knowledgeable and personable, and the selection is well-curated and well-arranged (many films arranged by director, yes!). The selection isn't enormous but then that's also less intimidating (and time consuming). Everything's on DVD - sorry VHS nostalgia hounds! FC also sell used DVDs and a handful of film-related t-shirts (they quickly sold out of the spoiler alert shirt), and have a regularly updated blog.

With the outpouring of grief over much-beloved Mondo Video shutting down in Annandale - and some 5+ years on from Video Shift in Balmain closing up shop - the brick-and-mortar video store experience is becoming an endangered species. Support Film Club or one day in a dreadful future you'll end up pounding a fist on the ground, Charlton Heston Planet Of The Apes-style, crying, "you maniacs! You didn't rent enough! God damn you! God damn you all to hell!!"

Welcome to the future. It's 1994 here and gender (socially defined differences between men and women) doesn't exist. In Teen Witch, 'The Crush Issue', printed on full-on colour, glossy pages (formatted as annoyingly/amazingly as Duke magazine), are the stories and artworks of neon-online-beings.

The first article 'Too Hot For Youtube' is about Rhonettahot. A recently-purged Youtube account that was a 'camwhoring-as-an-artform' video diary of a failed American Idol star, who turned into a truck stop prostitute with purple lipstick and a blonde fright wig. She mostly filmed herself yelling about how famous and beautiful she is. There's a spot-the-difference with a picture of the #HDBOYZ. Hatsun Miku gets a shout out, and there's the long awaited 'Teen Advice with Molly Soda'.

This is all the brainchild of Zain Curtis, a young Chicago club kid who oozes creative juice all up in the Internet; he's kinda like if S4LEM, Nicki Minaj, and Ryan Trecartin had a gay baby but left it in the trash can at a 90s rave, where it was raised on smart juice and Special K. The authors and subjects are all crazy-good writers, musicians, performers and tweeters who're all seemingly best friends. I can't tell if they've met IRL or not, but it would be cooler if they hadn't. So deeply dialed into their virtual-mall-goth world, I wonder if they realise how incredible they are? Of course they do.

Gay Christmas, i.e. Mardi Gras, is almost upon us. But before you madly text your personal trainer and drug dealer, buy some Mardi Gras Film Fest tix. This year's program is huge, varied, and promising. I've extracted the best looking prospects from the program so you have more time for spray tanning, chest waxing or a quick anal bleach.

Dirty Girl and Au Pair Kansas (featuring former porn star Traci Lords) look like promising indie comedies. A few incredible underground features are screening including the feminist-porn-art flick Community Action Center, 1991's Flaming Ears (mixing super 8 and claymation), and the early 80s NYC feminist experimental rock sci-fi film, Born In Flames.

In Their Room Berlin shows real male couples having sex (part of an ongoing series featured previously on Butt). Circumstance follows two teenage girls coming out within Iran's underground youth culture. Gun Hill Road examines homophobia in the 'hood when a gang-banger dad comes home from jail to an openly gay son.

Queerdoc, the documentary section, has so much great stuff it needs its own review. I've seen We Were Here, about the effect of AIDS on San Francisco, and it is really fantastic. And the film about New Orleans gay Mardi Gras in the 70s, Sons of Tennessee Williams, looks awesome.

There's also Francois Sagat, that gay porn star who looks like a GI Joe doll with his ridics sculpted muscles and hair tattoo, in Man At Bath with Dennis Cooper. And a retrospective screening of Fassbinder's Querelle.

It's going to be super gay.

Marco Fusinato's 'THERE IS NO AUTHORITY' has dimensions of 9.25 x 12.04 metres, and is made from "100% New Zealand Wool rug, monitor, camera". A giant reproduction of a slogan the anarchist punk band Crass would DIY in black paint on white cotton to stick up behind the stages at their shows, Fusinato's version has been hand-woven by people who are expert at doing that. It takes the subversiveness of the message into contention with a different set of power relations - that of the gallery and the viewer.

It's a message in black and white, alright, but that doesn't make it clear. There's a choice of either squeezing into the tiny space of the floor left clear at the top of the carpet and squinting to try to read it upside-down; or shuffling awkwardly down the also-tiny space at the sides into the huge amount of bunker-like gallery floor that's left free; or walking across the carpet feeling like you might get in trouble. We're not here to tell you what you should do, because, you know, 'THERE IS NO AUTHORITY', but your choice will say something about you. And, speaking of you, go and have a look in that monitor.

Ok hypothetically:

If a barista were to hand-pick beans in Australia and roast them in hot air, rather than with gas, AND if they were to choose the daily blends based on the weather that day (light and sweet on humid days, rich on cold days), AND if they could offer you a side of chocolate, ricotta and blueberry cake or Nana's passionfruit sponge with Kate's home made jam and freshly whipped cream - how far would you travel for this cup? Brew on that a bit.

NEXT: if a chef were to cook organic sweet potato with thyme-buttered mushrooms and organic kale topped with persian feta, on organic sourdough; or a Coota Valley Scotch fillet steak sandwich with caramelised onion, organic beetroot, tomato, avocado, vintage cheddar, organic greens, Dad's relish and Rhys' shiraz jus; or a ploughman's lunch of Matt Alewood's smoked leg ham, vintage cheddar, pickled onions, and organic apple and pear - how far would you travel for this? Marinate on that a second.

FINALLY: if a cafe were staffed entirely by a local family, AND if it were outfitted solely with furniture which was once sheeted beneath the family home, AND stocked full with mostly-organic produce (which may be bought raw on their occasional Produce Market days), AND home-baked everything - how far would you travel for a seat at this table?

Would you travel to Engadine for all this? Yes. You would.

The term ‘horse whisperer’ carries faintly ridiculous Dr Doolittle connotations, but there’s definitely something beguiling about horse trainer Buck Brannaman’s cowboy drawl. Brannaman, who consulted on Robert Redford’s film The Horse Whisperer and was one of the models for the title character, is a legend in ‘natural horsemanship’ and travels America holding clinics. Cindy Meehl’s documentary is a study in his wry, blunt charm; only a total dickhead would emerge from the cinema not liking this guy.

Rather than ‘breaking’ horses, Buck ‘starts’ them, using empathy and kind authority to inspire a seemingly uncanny transformation. Meehl shows Buck shrewdly sizing up clients along with their horses. Some are amazed, others ashamed. Some cry. Some hug him.

It could’ve been a cheap, melodramatic revelation that Buck’s sensitivity to abused horses springs from his own childhood – he and his brother were cruelly beaten into becoming child rope-trick prodigies ‘Buckshot’ and ‘Smokie’ – but Meehl lets the full picture emerge gradually. Buck’s deliberate choice to be gentle in his family life as well as his work is very moving. His foster mum is another inspiring presence – stay for the end credits to see her tell a very funny joke!

There's a volcano rim on the border of New South Wales and Queensland, and when you stand on its edge you can see the entire coast from Byron Bay to Surfers Paradise. You're so high, almost 1000m above sea level, that perspective is lost and trees turn into broccoli heads. It's awesome.

The ancient volcano is the Tweed Volcano. What's left of the rim makes up the southern cliffs of the Springbrook Plateau - a subtropical national park held together by incredible waterfalls, really fresh air, eucalypt forests, sugar gliders, and glowing mushrooms.

There are a few swank homes and bed-and-breakfasts which you can stay in, but camping at The Settlement should be the reason for your visit. Despite it being fairly recently established, the vegetation is off its head. Each of the 11 sites are completely privatised by trees, and back onto a view of the plateau. There are toilets, drinking water and free electric bbq's, but open fires and generators are prohibited, showers don't exist and phone coverage is poor (bliss). From Springbrook, there's no direct through-road access back into New South Wales so you'll have to return via Nimbin, if you decide to return at all.

Youth Lagoon copped a Best New Music on Pitchfork in September, in a review that accurately described the "fabled VHS glow" of his record - though that doesn't capture the epic highs many of the tracks build to. And a more appropriate guest than Oliver Tank, with his delicate but gutsy melodies, cannot be found. Revel in these sounds while you simultaneously curse their precocious talent.

Balam Acab - a name pulled out of Popol Vuh, sacred book of the ancient Quiché Mayans. This witch house is one of the best things that could happen in a nightclub. Guerre gives it a soul side and Thomas William (ex Cleptoclectics) synths and staggers. Goodgod will be Mayan temple in full bloodbath; come, offer yourself.

If you're the kind of person that needs some bonus material with your musicians, then Cass McCombs comes with one such lucky charm in his cereal box. Not only is he a lyricist of dexterity, chewing through hope and tragedy, but he done gone and made his own font out of a crossed out peace sign. He'll tell you about it on his website. Or you can go along and chat about it (between songs) when he plays The Standard, with support from local types, Songs and The Singing Skies.

Personally, I think David Bowie is scary enough even without a Goblin King costume. For those of you who disagree, head along to the Bondi Open Air Cinema to experience “the imagination of Jim Henson, the wizardry of George Lucas and the excitement of David Bowie” in the cult classic film, Labyrinth. Added extras: the beach as the backdrop, and live solo sets from Richard In Your Mind and Spooklyland. Nice.

Broken Stone Records are packing up their entire (almost) roster of artists and touring them to far-flung rural hamlets such as Byron Bay, Katoomba, and Kyneton. They’re also stopping off at most capital cities, including Sydney. Check’em out!

Marie Tussaud may have thought she was the ultimate wax when she decided to make life-like sculptures of Rousseau, Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin in the 1700s. But here we are in 2012, in need of some wax stimulation yet again. And you will find it in these here candles that become massage oil that become body balm.

Yes, the Kindle Kandle is a massage candle designed and made in Melbourne from a natural blend of cosmetic-grade soy wax, scented oils, shea butter and vitamin E. It can be used in three ways: As a regular candle, available in six scents including Orange & Mango, Shannonpea, Tahiti Rosette, Cane Sugar, Gardenia and Butter Bean; As a massage oil for yourself or your significant other once the wax has melted; Or as body balm once the wax cools down.

A list of Kindle Kandle stockists is available on their Facebook Page or you can enter to win a Butter Beans one right here! As always, you must answer the cryptic question.