What If the Future Never Happened? The Daniel Johns story
1 June 2022
To accompany his latest album, Never Future, Australian musician Daniel Johns, formerly of Silverchair, will be releasing a short film (trailer), set in 1994, based on his experiences as a fifteen year old fronting Silverchair, which will feature orchestral reinterpretations of the band’s hits.
In a press release, Johns described What If The Future Never Happened? as “a grunge, sci-fi short adventure inspired by the pop culture I was immersed in before a curious case of child stardom”. It follows a hypothetical timeline wherein Johns’ trajectory was interrupted by “a mysterious figure from the future”, presumably stopping him from making the leap to stardom.
Johns, who will be portrayed by Australian actor Rasmus King, in addition to making a cameo appearance himself, describes the film as “at once the most honest and most fantastical thing I’ve ever done”.
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Daniel Johns, film, music, science fiction, trailer
Star Trek’s Wil Wheaton did not want to be a child actor
1 June 2022
American actor and later blogger Wil Wheaton, whom I came to know through his roles as Gordie Lachance in Rob Reiner’s film Stand by Me, and later Wesley Crusher in the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series, says he did not want to be an actor as a child, and writes that it was a choice his mother made for him.
I can’t remember specifically when I first said “I just want to be a kid,” but I can still see the late 70s smog, and smell the exhaust all around us as I begged her for what feels like years to stop making me do this, while we sat in traffic on the freeway after school, going to and from auditions, day after day after day.
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science fiction, Star Trek, Wil Wheaton
Male authors name their favourite woman writers
1 June 2022
Men don’t seem to read too many books written by women. Why this should be, who knows. But if I were to take a guess at it, I’d say men are more likely to be given recommendations for books authored by men, from their male friends. Then there’s also the point that it may not occur to men to read titles written by women in the first place, which is unfortunate.
Some of my recent reads include novels by Sally Rooney, Sophie Hardcastle, Susanna Clarke, Jane Caro, Holly Wainwright, Katherine Brabon, and Madeleine Watts.
British author and journalist Mary Ann Sieghart, writing for The Guardian, notes “studies show men avoid female authors,” while “women read roughly 50:50 books by male and female authors; for men the ratio is 80:20.”
To redress the imbalance, Sieghart spoke to male writers including Ian McEwan (who I’ve read), Salman Rushdie, Richard Curtis, and Lee Child among others, asking them to name their favourite women authors. There’s some solid reading ideas here.
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What did Earth look like in the distant past?
1 June 2022
A fantastic visualisation of ancient Earth, as it is thought to have appeared in the distant past, going back 750 million years, created by Ian Webster, based on plate tectonic and paleogeographic maps made by C. R. Scotese.
Even better, type in your location’s name and see it where it was in the past, relative to the landmasses of the time. 750 million years ago, during the Cryogenian Period, the major city nearest me, Sydney, sat in the ocean. Might’ve been the best place to be, given glaciers covered the then landmasses, and the world was in the grips of the biggest known ice-age.
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A Kind of Magic a memoir by Anna Spargo-Ryan
31 May 2022
Speaking of Australian writer Anna Spargo-Ryan, her new book, a memoir this time, titled A Kind of Magic (published by Ultimo Press), which explores her mental health journey, arrives in bookshops in October 2022.
Anna’s always had too many feelings. Or not enough feelings – she’s never been quite sure. Debilitating panic. Extraordinary melancholy. Paranoia. Ambivalence. Fear. Despair. From anxious child to terrified parent, mental illness has been a constant. A harsh critic in the big moments – teenage pregnancy, divorce, a dream career, falling in love – and a companion in the small ones – getting to the supermarket, feeding all her cats, remembering which child is which. But between therapists’ rooms and emergency departments, there’s been a feeling even harder to explain … optimism.
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Anna Spargo-Ryan, Australian literature, non-fiction
Degree course pricing unfair to humanities and arts students
31 May 2022
The Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH) is calling for reform to higher education fee structures, which appear to be skewed against students wishing to study humanities, arts, and social sciences degrees. DASSH says recently released statistics show the cost of arts degree is up to three thousand dollar more per annum (PDF), compared to medicine or dentistry courses.
81 per cent of the nearly 14,000 Year 12 students interviewed for the report said passion would guide their choices for further study. The Universities Admission Centre Student Lifestyle Report shows only 35 per cent of students consider the cost of education when choosing their degree, and only about 40 per cent consider employment outcomes. These statistics fly in the face of the face of claims fee increases would guide student preferences under the former Government’s ‘Job Ready Graduates Package’.
Given many students are making study choices based on their passion, or what they’re really interested in, rather than the cost, or potential employment outcome, of tertiary education courses, DASSH wants to see more equitable degree course pricing.
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Ray Liotta pitches a surprise in Field of Dreams
31 May 2022
I know nothing about baseball, let alone who the legends of the game are, or were, but after seeing Field of Dreams, I learned of one, Shoeless Joe Jackson, an American Major League Baseball (MLB) player one hundred years ago.
Shoeless Joe, depicted by late American actor Ray Liotta in the film, is the first player to appear in the baseball pitch Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) cleared part of his cornfield to create. Following news of Liotta’s death last week, Costner posted a scene of Kinsella pitching to Shoeless Joe, which includes a moment that was not scripted, but ultimately included in the final cut.
Some of the best moments are unscripted.
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film, Kevin Costner, Ray Liotta
Small independent publishers dominate Miles Franklin longlist
31 May 2022
Six of the titles named on the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award longlist were published by members of the Small Press Network, a Melbourne based organisation representing more than two hundred and fifty small and independent publishers across Australia, and include one self-published title.
- One Hundred Days, by Alice Pung, published by Black Inc
- After Story, by Larissa Behrendt, published by University of Queensland Press
- Grimmish, by Michael Winkler is self-published
- Bodies of Light, by Jennifer Down, published by Text Publishing
- The Magpie Wing, by Max Easton, published by Giramondo publishing
In much the same way small businesses are a vital component of the Australian economy, so too are small and independent publishers to Australian literature.
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Australian literature, literary awards, Miles Franklin
Future Superhuman, our transhuman future by Elise Bohan
30 May 2022
Like it or not, as a species we are eventually going to take control of our evolution. Unless we destroy ourselves first, that is. The early steps towards what some call a transhuman future however will doubtless be mired in difficulty and uncertainty.
Still it’s a topic that’s always fascinated me, and while I’m not the biggest reader of non-fiction books, Future Superhuman Our transhuman lives in a make-or-break century (published by UNSW Press, May 2022) by Elise Bohan, a senior researcher at the Faculty of Philosophy, at the University of Oxford, is one title I’m looking forward to reading.
We’re hurtling towards a superhuman future – or, if we blunder, extinction. The only way out of our existential crises, from global warming to the risks posed by nuclear weapons, novel and bioengineered pathogens and unaligned AI, is up. We’ll need more technology to safeguard our future – and we’re going to invent and perhaps even merge with some of that technology.
What does that mean for our 20th century life-scripts? Are the robots coming for our jobs? How will human relationships change when AI knows us inside out? Will we still be having human babies by the century’s end? Elise Bohan unflinchingly explores possibilities most of us are afraid to imagine: the impacts of automation on our jobs, livelihoods and dating and mating careers, the stretching out of ‘the-circle-of-life’, the rise of AI friends and lovers, the liberation of women from pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, and the impending global baby-bust – and attendant proliferation of digital minds.
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Elise Bohan, non-fiction, technology
Mental health, well-being, prime concerns for music workers
30 May 2022
A recent survey of people working professionally in the Australian music and live performing arts industries makes for grim reading. Conducted in March by Support Act, a charity assisting artists and workers in the Australian music industry, the findings reveals many are fearful for their livelihoods and mental health:
- 66% of participants had high/very high levels of psychological distress, more than four times the general population
- 59% experienced suicidal thoughts, which is over four and a half times the proportion of the general Australian population
- 29% reported having a current anxiety condition and 27% reported currently having depression, both more than twice that of the general population
- Over one third of participants reported incomes from their work in music/live performing arts as less than $30,000 per annum, which is below the poverty line
- Just 15% said they felt safe at work all of the time, with 35% saying they were exposed to unsafe working conditions in the last year
- Over 47% lost their jobs due to the pandemic
The full summary of survey findings (PDF) can be read here.
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