Mars Junction, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’ new band
14 June 2022
If you know the Facebook origin story, and or saw David Fincher’s 2010 film The Social Network, then you’ll know who Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are. Long story short, they once tried to hire a young Mark Zuckerberg to help them build a social network called originally called HarvardConnection, but later renamed ConnectU.
Short story really short, Zuckerberg liked the concept, but didn’t think much of the Winklevoss twins, whom he studied with at Harvard University, and quietly began developing Facebook. The Winklevosses accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea, and launched legal action against him. But watch The Social Network, it may not be one-hundred percent accurate, but it’ll give you an idea of what happened.
Following the Facebook debacle, the Winklevosses went on to establish Winklevoss Capital Management in 2010, a company offering seed-funding to start-ups. Several years later they founded Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange.
And in July 2021, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss formed Mars Junction, “a hard-hitting rock band”, and if this footage from a show recorded by Arch Nem a few days ago is anything to go by, they’re going off. The mosh pit is chock full of fans wearing Mars Junction t-shirts. Truly, how many other bands can boast similar such images from their gigs?
Between being at Harvard, their start-up experience, rowing for the United States in the 2008 Olympics, cryptocurrency, and now hard-hitting rock, it’s about time the Winklevosses were given a movie of their own…
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The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner a memoir by Grace Tame
14 June 2022
The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner is a memoir by activist, advocate for survivors of sexual assault, and former Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, being published by Pan Macmillan Australia in September 2022.
From a young age, her life was defined by uncertainty – by trauma and strength, sadness and hope, terrible lows and wondrous highs. As a teenager she found the courage to speak up after experiencing awful and ongoing child sexual abuse. This fight to find her voice would not be her last. In 2021 Grace stepped squarely into the public eye as the Australian of the Year, and was the catalyst for a tidal wave of conversation and action. Australians from all walks of life were inspired and moved by her fire and passion. Here she was using her voice, and encouraging others to use theirs too.
Tame is also a talented artist, having illustrated the artwork for the cover of her book, “using a cheapo $1 ballpoint pen from Woolies,” and in the past has accepted commissions from John Cleese, and Martin Gore of Depeche Mode.
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Australian literature, Grace Tame, non-fiction
Be sure to read the small print of writing competitions
14 June 2022
Writing contests are a great way for an emerging writer to get their work in front of a wider audience, possibly take home a modest cash prize, and maybe even pick up a publishing deal.
But carefully reading the terms and conditions each time you submit your work to one is essential, as you may end up signing away far more than you realise, when ticking the “I have read and understood the terms and conditions of entry.”
For example, some competitions place restrictions on your ability to submit your entry to other competitions, some require the first option to publish the entries of the winners and runners-up, and some unscrupulous players may even require you to assign your copyright to them.
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Robert Lukins speaks with Corrie Perkin about Loveland
14 June 2022
Melbourne based Australian novelist Robert Lukins, speaks with Corrie Perkin on her Spotify podcast The Book Pod, about his recent book Loveland, a title, incidentally, I finished reading a few days ago.
When a man writes women in domestic noir and gets it so right he’s one to watch. Corrie chats to Melbourne writer Robert Lukins about his long and winding road to to getting Loveland published, and also how he managed to inhabit his, female characters with such clarity.
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Star Wars tops the ABC Classic soundtrack music poll
14 June 2022
The soundtrack for the Star Wars series of films, by American composer John Williams, has been voted the number one favourite by listeners of Australia’s ABC Classic, in their recent Classic 100 poll.
Despite spanning forty-odd years, Williams’s Star Wars scores are a coherent, singular musical project. ABC Classic’s Screen Sounds presenter Dan Golding described the music’s timeless appeal: “John Williams’s music emphasises what is emotionally familiar about this young boy who dreams of saving the galaxy. It is much more myth than metaphor, more Camelot than Brave New World.”
In addition to the Star Wars soundtrack, other works by Williams also featured in the top ten of the poll, including Schindler’s List, the Harry Potter films, and Jurassic Park.
While there’s only one hundred entries though, looking through the full list seems to reveal the presence of just about every known film or TV series. How can that be?
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Used disposable coffee cups could be a concrete ingredient
11 June 2022
This might be the breakthrough coffee drinkers have been waiting for. Yanni Bouras, a Melbourne based structural engineer, thinks there might be a way to recycle the single-use takeaway coffee cups that Australians can’t seem to live without. Bouras has devised a method of replacing some of the sand used in concrete mix, with used, broken down, disposable coffee cups:
The cups are ground up and mixed in as a substitute for a proportion of the sand that goes into a typical concrete mix. So far, testing has found the material is weaker than standard concrete but has a higher thermal performance. That means it could be useful for non-structural purposes, like footpaths or even insulation. If 10 per cent of sand was replaced by takeaway coffee cups, there could be up to 700 coffee cups used per cubic metre of concrete.
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Could your morning cup of coffee reduce your risk of death?
11 June 2022
I’ve always heard drinking too many cups of coffee could be a health risk. But “too many” must be defined. One hundred cups a day might pose a risk, in the same way excessive consumption of anything can be detrimental to our health. Recent research though has found drinking coffee in moderation, about four cups a day, may have health benefits for some people.
Compared to people who didn’t report drinking coffee, the researchers found, people who drank coffee (up to and above 4.5 cups a day) were less likely to die of any cause over a seven-year follow-up period. This pattern held true after accounting for other factors like a person’s lifestyle, and even when people reported drinking sugar-sweetened coffee. “Moderate consumption of unsweetened and sugar-sweetened coffee was associated with lower risk for death,” the study authors wrote.
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Julia Garner takes lead role in Madonna biopic
10 June 2022
According to Empire, American actor Julia Garner has been offered the lead role in the upcoming Madonna biopic. I always say you know you’re doing something right when a biopic is being made of your life, but the difference here is Madonna herself is behind the production.
Biopics are often subject to greater critic scrutiny than other features, because of the way they deal with their subject matter. Filmmakers have the difficult task of selecting which part of a subject’s life to include, and what not to, and can also be chastised for appearing to show bias of any sort.
In many cases the subject of a biopic has died, which can result in further complications. Not this time though. But the story of Madonna, by Madonna? That will be something to see.
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2022 Australian Book Industry Awards Winners
10 June 2022
Love & Virtue by Diana Reid won Book of the Year, and Literary Fiction Book of the Year, in the 2022 Australian Book Industry Awards. In other categories, Before You Knew My Name, by Jacqueline Bublitz, won General Fiction Book of the Year, while the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year went to Amani Haydar for The Mother Wound.
Books + Publishing have posted a full list of ABIA 2022 winners across all award categories.
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Amani Haydar, Australian literature, Diana Reid, Jacqueline Bublitz
John Hughes plagiarised Svetlana Alexievich without realising
9 June 2022
A Guardian Australia investigation has turned up numerous similarities — fifty-eight in fact — between The Dogs, the 2021 novel by Australian author John Hughes, and The Unwomanly Face of War, a 1985 non-fiction title, written by Belarusian journalist and Nobel laureate, Svetlana Alexievich.
After uncovering some similarities between the books, Guardian Australia applied document comparison software to both texts, which revealed 58 similarities and some identical sentences. Guardian Australia also found conceptual similarities between incidents described in the books, including the central scene from which The Dogs takes its title.
Yes, there’s a lot of published fiction in the world. Many authors, just about all I’d think, are influenced to some degree by the work of other writers. From time to time then, some comparisons may be drawn between two quite different titles, and one or two minor overlaps may also be observed. But fifty-eight instances? That’s quite a stretch.
In a statement to Guardian Australia Hughes offered an apology, saying he’d started writing The Dogs — which has also been included on this year’s Miles Franklin longlist — fifteen years ago. Part of this process involved talking to his Ukrainian grandparents, whose accounts of the Second World War where similar to some of the testimonies Alexievich gathered while writing her book.
He had first read The Unwomanly Face of War when it came out in English in 2017, he said, and had used it to teach creative writing students about voice, acknowledging Alexievich as the source. “I typed up the passages I wanted to use and have not returned to the book itself since,” he said. “At some point soon after I must have added them to the transcripts I’d made of interviews with my grandparents and over the years and … [had] come to think of them as my own.”
Update: a joint statement from Hughes and his publisher Upswell in response to the Guardian Australia article.
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