disassociated

Last month the winners of the Lyttle Lytton Contest were announced. The Lyttle Lytton is a literary prize, but not of the usual variety. Instead of celebrating the good or excellent, Lyttle Lytton honours the worst of the worst. In this case bad, or terrible, would-be opening sentences from novels that will likewise turn out to be awful. The lines are not taken from actual published works though, instead they are devised by contest participants vying to write the best bad sentence they can think of.

Image courtesy of Lumina Obscura.

Is your dead grandmother… still alive? The answer is…

… yes…

… in a sense.

That’s if information in the cosmos is never destroyed, but rather… rearranged. In this case the information I refer to are the atoms, sub-atomic particles, and who knows what else, that make up everything in the universe, including us, and our predeceased family members.

Interaction with this information, which over eons diffuses into the cosmos after our deaths, may then be possible if cosmic consciousnesses, being ours — somehow — comes to be one day, and are able to envelope the universe, and eventually encounter your late grandmother’s information.

This is the understanding I took away from this Big Think video featuring German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, which I saw on Open Culture. Best you watch for yourself though, and see what you make of it, as matters of maths and physics are not my thing. Otherwise, some fodder for a little contemplative thinking this weekend, perhaps?

Melbourne based Australian musician Deborah Conway has been writing and recording rock and pop music in her inimitable style for over four decades. Her hits include It’s Only the Beginning, Alive and Brilliant, and Will You Miss Me When You’re Sober? In 1992 Conway won an ARIA award in the best female artist category for her album, Strings of Pearls.

But Conway is more than a musician. Other claims to fame include a role in the John Clark made film Running On Empty, and some eye-catching work as a model. In October this year her memoir, Book of Life, will be published by Allan & Unwin. This is a title not only for fans of Conway, but anyone with an interest in Australian music history:

If you have listened to any of Deborah Conway’s songs and were half curious about the origins; if you have ever wondered whatever happened to that chick who covered herself in Nutella and was photographed shovelling cream cakes in to her mouth; if you gave a nanosecond of thought to whose bare arse adorned the giant Billboard ads for Bluegrass jeans in the 1980’s and how much someone could get paid to do that; if you liked Tracey Mann’s vocals in The Takeaways but asked yourself, “did she really sing them?”; if you were a movie buff who thought Running On Empty was a classic BEFORE it became a cult phenomenon and need behind the scenes gossip, now’s your chance to find out all this and so much more.

I mention Emilio Estevez’s 2010 movie The Way one day, and the next I learn the American director is working on a sequel to the film, which was set on the Camino de Santiago, in Spain.

I also discovered The Way was re-released in American cinemas last May. Estevez describes the film as being more of its time today, than when it was made thirteen years ago, given people’s desire to embrace travel again after the Covid lockdowns. There’s clearly something in that sentiment, as I know of several people who have spent time walking the Camino this year.

Martin Sheen, Estevez’s father, and star of The Way, has indicated interest in being involved in the sequel, but aside from that little else is known about the proposed new film, with Estevez still to work out the finer details of the story:

We’ve been talking about doing a follow up, a sequel of sorts. Martin says he’s up for it and I’ve cracked the code for what it would be. I will go to Spain to do promotion for this, but also testing the waters for what a sequel might look like.

As of time of writing, there’s no mention of the sequel on Estevez’s IMDb page, meaning the project isn’t even in pre-production yet, so fans of The Way will be waiting sometime for it to arrive.

Australian discount chain store Big W has withdrawn copies of Welcome to Sex from bookshelves, following repeated instances of staff being abused by customers angry that they stock the book.

Co-written by Melissa Kang, a doctor and associate professor at the University of Sydney, and Australian writer and broadcaster Yumi Stynes, Welcome to Sex, is, according to publisher Hardie Grant, a frank, age-appropriate introductory guide to sex and sexuality for teens of all genders.

Critics of the sex education book claim Welcome to Sex strays well beyond being a guide to reproductive sex, by discussing of a number of other sexual activities, even if only briefly.

Having concerns about certain of the merchandise a shop sells is one thing, but being hostile to retail staff, who are only doing their jobs, is unacceptable. While no longer available in store, the title remains available for purchase through the Big W website.

Update: 9NEWS reports that Welcome to Sex has topped the Amazon Best Sellers list, and sold out in some bookshops, since the controversy surrounding the title’s content flared up last week.

A biennial event, the Asian American Literature Festival (AALF) was first held in Washington D. C., capital city of the United States, in 2017, and then again in 2019. After Covid lockdowns put paid to the 2021 event, organisers and participants were keenly anticipating the 2023 festival, scheduled to take place in August.

But two weeks ago, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), producers of the AALF, abruptly cancelled the 2023 event, citing “unforeseen circumstances”, says Sophia Nguyen, writing for The Washington Post:

The event, produced by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), was relatively new. But it had already gained a loyal following for its intimate feel and experimental bent, hosting themed escape rooms and calligraphy tutorials alongside the more standard literary fare of readings by best-selling authors. The 2023 iteration was expected to draw thousands of attendees to Washington in early August. But just weeks before writers from across the world were due to land, the Smithsonian abruptly canceled the event, citing “unforeseen circumstances.”

Unforeseen circumstances.

It defies belief an event of this scale, with many people travelling a distance to attend — including a number from Australia and New Zealand — were offered, at least initially, such a feeble line. I can’t imagine anyone not expecting better of an institution such as the Smithsonian.

When contacted for further clarification by WTOP News about the “unforeseen circumstances” resulting in the festival’s cancellation, an APAC spokesperson appeared to imply preparations for the festival were behind schedule:

Linda St. Thomas, chief spokesperson for the Smithsonian Institution, said the event planning process “did not meet Smithsonian expectations” and the institution’s “goals for an in-person event.”

But AALF partners and participants rejected the suggestions, in an open letter sent to the Smithsonian, written on Monday 17 July 2023:

On July 14, The Washington Post reported on the cancellation, including an official statement from the Smithsonian alleging that the festival was canceled due to failures in preparation by the planning team. We must rebut this immediately: from the partners’ perspective, everything was on track; we had no concerns with putting on our programs in a month’s time. In fact, many of us have participated in AALF in years past and have returned due to our confidence in working with this planning team. The article itself confirms that the allegations are false.

The letter goes on identify what AALF partners and participants see as the actual cause of the 2023 event being cancelled: concerns the Smithsonian have with what they see as “potentially sensitive or controversial content”. In particular, a program exploring the work of trans and nonbinary authors:

Additionally, we are deeply troubled to discover that a driving factor behind the festival’s cancellation might have been the Smithsonian’s desire to censor trans and nonbinary programming. A program intended to celebrate trans and nonbinary authors, as they face unprecedented levels of violence, book bans, and anti-trans legislation, was set to take place at the festival. The Washington Post article reported that the Acting Director instructed the planning team to submit a report under Smithsonian Directive 603 to identify potentially sensitive or controversial content, which she received on July 5.

If correct, this is a disturbing development, at a time when civil liberties are increasingly being questioned, and some minority groups are experiencing elevated levels of vilification. While it is unlikely the cancellation of the 2023 festival can be overturned at this stage, if you feel strongly about the Smithsonian’s decision, you can add your signature to the open letter here.

Still from Camino, directed by Birgitte Stærmose.

When I first saw the trailer for Camino, the latest feature by Danish filmmaker Birgitte Stærmose, I couldn’t help but see parallels with The Way, trailer, a film made in 2010, by American actor and director Emilio Estevez. At first, some of the similarities made me wonder whether Camino was a remake of The Way, which I saw in 2012, but likely that was my imagination running away with me.

Certainly though, both stories feature a number of commonalities.

The first, and indeed most obvious, is their shared setting, the Camino de Santiago, or Camino, which is sometimes referred to as the Way of St James. The Camino is a network of pilgrimage routes spanning the north of Spain. The networks, or pathways, lead to what many believe is the tomb of Saint James, an apostle of Jesus, a preacher and religious leader, who lived in the first century of the Common Era. Some of the Camino pathways can take weeks to walk.

The family dynamics in both films are also comparable, with a father-adult child estrangement being a central plot point. In the case of Camino, this is discord between a woman, Regitze (Danica Curcic), and her father, Jan (Lars Brygmann). Both stories feature a death in the family, and a subsequent obligation to walk the Camino, or at least part of it.

The protagonists in both movies frequently encounter other Camino walkers, who often seem to be possessed of strong, or colourful personalities. And finally, both stories are comedies, infused with elements of drama and tragedy. But despite these similarities, Camino is not a remake of The Way.

For those who want to see for themselves though, Camino premieres in Australia as part of the 2023 Scandinavian Film Festival, with the first screening taking place in Sydney on Sunday 31 July 2023.

Brisbane based Australian author Sarah Holland-Batt, winner of the 2023 Stella Prize, is working on a new book, which will published in Australia and New Zealand by the University of Queensland Press (UQP). A work of creative nonfiction, the new title will be a follow up of sorts to Holland-Batt’s award winning collection of poetry, The Jaguar, which explored her late father’s struggle with Parkinson’s disease, and subsequent death.

In my new work of creative nonfiction, I consider the unsettling question of what a personality is, if it can be changed as profoundly and completely as my father’s was after his brain surgery for Parkinson’s Disease… I am deeply interested in the question of who we are when we are in cognitive decline, and what it means to become other to ourselves.

The curious joined, looked around, and then returned to what they were doing before. Daily active users on Threads, Meta’s answer to Twitter’s micro-blogging platform, declined by twenty percent in the days following the app’s red-hot launch, while time spent by users on Threads fell from twenty minutes per day, to ten.

This is probably par for the course though. It’s not as if Twitter, and other social networks vanished, leaving Threads users more time to spend on the app. While not the most active on social networks, I’m on a few, and as much as I like Threads, there’s only so much time in the day that can (or should) be devoted to activity on social networks.

And although there might have been one-hundred million sign-ups for Threads, the people many of these new members follow may not be among that number, necessitating visits to wherever those followers are. And that might remain the case. For instance, Threads does not have the same news and politics focus as Twitter, meaning the platform won’t be for everyone, meaning some people will be spending their time on multiple social networks, not just one.

In other Threads news, member badge numbers, which I wrote about last week, are no longer visible on the Instagram app profile pages of those who are members of both Meta platforms. The badge, indicating what number member someone was on Threads, has been replaced by the Threads logo, linking to that person’s Threads page, and right now is only visible on the Instagram website.

How unfortunate. I had high hopes for those badge numbers, some of which were surely collectable (and subsequently worth paying good money for). It looks like I won’t be buying that villa in the north of Portugal, to summer at, after all…

The winner of the 2023 Miles Franklin literary award will be announced in just over a week, on Tuesday 25 July 2023. Ahead of the presentation, The Bookshelf and Book Show have recorded interviews with all six shortlisted Australian authors. View the shortlist here.