Monthly Archives: August 2010

untermenschen baby

Posted on August 18, 2010 by rustichello

The horrors within Joe Cinque’s Consolation and Killing for Pleasure are not the crimes of individuals with jobs, or decent schooling, or much to hope for, or even much to do. The perpetrators, accomplices, victims and witnesses of the crimes … Continue reading →

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no real consolation

Posted on August 17, 2010 by rustichello

Some years ago I read Helen Garner’s extraordinary book Joe Cinque’s Consolation.  In that book a middle class girl murders her boyfriend, Joe Cinque, in a Canberra flat by injecting him with heroin after sedating him with rohypnol. The book … Continue reading →

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archaeology of disappointment

Posted on August 16, 2010 by rustichello

The early Beatle material is not hard to adore. There is a puppy like quality about the albums from Please Please Me to Beatles for Sale which has a surprising endurance, surprising given the pop core of the songs. These … Continue reading →

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can’t love

Posted on August 16, 2010 by rustichello

Those records that I tended to overplay were usually the tapes I played repeatedly in my bedroom and on my walkman as a teenager. The most potent of these, the most wallowed in, was The Beatles Rubber Soul. I’m still … Continue reading →

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nothing else…

Posted on August 15, 2010 by rustichello

Sometimes my favourite records never get played. I don’t even think about them in that strange little space in my brain where I decide what to listen to. I can’t tell you the last time I played Mars Needs Guitars … Continue reading →

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1988

Posted on August 15, 2010 by rustichello

1988 is a quiet novel. It does not shout, it doesn’t dance. It isn’t flash or big-noting. It is laconic and understated. It is full of the silent work of uneventful days. It is the antithesis of “look at moi, … Continue reading →

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something to talk about

Posted on August 13, 2010 by rustichello

Legend has it Don Walker hitchhiked the trans-Siberian highway but I think that is mostly bollocks, the general consensus is that he spent a lot of the time drinking his royalties away but this too is pretty questionable. Don Walker … Continue reading →

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nick of time

Posted on August 13, 2010 by rustichello

For Cold Chisel Don Walker was mostly the silent brooding beer drinker at the rear banging away on an electric piano (I always thought this was a moment of Ray Charles hommage) but he wrote most of the songs and … Continue reading →

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thinking ’bout a love letter

Posted on August 12, 2010 by rustichello

Don Walker was once a star. He was once screamed at by teenage girls with damp knickers and no sense. He played in sell out tours and was on the television all the time. Not that he was really a … Continue reading →

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julia and tony

Posted on August 12, 2010 by rustichello

Yes the election, it is all pretty soporific. Abbott is unelectable, half of his team don’t like him and the other half just hope he might land one winning punch. Gillard looks bad, says scripted things with eyebrows that scream … Continue reading →

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