The Rob Blog: www.shoalhaven.net.au/~mwsmith/wesaga.html
The Sheila Blog: www.shoalhaven.net.au/~mwsmith/sheila.html

* Tuesday May 01 - May Day: From an internet site whose URL I can no longer find (sorry!): In 1884, unions declared that eight hours would constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886. When workers went on strike at a factory in Chicago on May 3, 1886, police fired into the peacefully assembled crowd, killing four and wounding many others. The workers movement called for a mass rally the next day in Haymarket Square to protest this brutality. The rally proceeded peacefully until the end when 180 police officers entered the square and ordered the crowd to disperse. At that point, someone threw a bomb, killing one police officer and wounding 70 others. The police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one and injuring many others. Eight of the city's most active unionists were charged with conspiracy to commit murder even though only one even present at the meeting was on the speakers' platform. All eight were found guilty and sentenced to death, despite a lack of evidence connecting them to the person who threw the bomb. Four were hanged on November 11, 1887, Louis Lingg committed suicide in prison, and the remaining three were finally pardoned in 1893. Lucy Parsons, the widow of Albert Parsons, traveled the world urging workers to celebrate May Day and to remember the events of Haymarket and the subsequent government-sponsored murder of those fighting for the rights of all workers. Over time, May Day grew to become an important day for organising and unifying the international struggle of workers and their allies. * music & politics: Open Letter to Red Hot Chili Peppers: Please cancel your gig in Israel Wednesday April 11 2012 Dear Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith, and Josh Klinghoffer, In 2005, Palestinian Civil Society called for a cultural boycott of Israel. Red Hot Chili Peppers, as artists of conscience, please don't ignore the nonviolent approach of Palestinian people by breaching the boycott. Your solidarity with the cultural boycott is needed. The boycott call by Palestine has become a global movement, and with good reason ... * Last Wednesday's ANZAC Day prompted memories of the impact war had on my family, including the death in an aircraft accident in 1942 of my uncle Robbie (my father's brother). I've come across the official telegram: Robbie died in a training accident prior to combat duties in the Second World War. * Sunday April 29: music & politics: I see that Bob Dylan, who wrote and performed Masters of War and other classic anti-war songs, "is accepting a Presidential Freedom Award from a cynical if affable, still, to many people, master of war. What is Dylan thinking?" (from Make Love, then War by Linh Dinh, Information Clearing House, April 27 2012). Read more here. MiKi67 responded: Please Mr. Zimmerman. Don't. I just re-bought two of your classic albums. Don't kowtow to a Master of War. Don't. It'd kill me. Let's hope Dylan turns it down. If he doesn't then he will be revealed as a hypocrite. * Wednesday April 25: Today is ANZAC Day in Australia, the anniversary of my father Harry's death (in 1986) and the day before my mother Sheila's birthday. I acknowledge the extraordinary sacrifices made by Australia's service men and women - including my father - in various wars, but I feel that the day has been cynically manipulated by politicians, particularly J. Howard, to become a celebration of militarism. I guess I'm more a And the Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda' than a National Anthem sort of bloke. I like this comment, which I saw this morning: I actually get pretty angry over the spectacle people make of Anzac day. It seems to be in very poor taste. If I want to remember/honor my grandfathers, I will do it in a manner and at a time of my own choosing. They were much more than soldiers. To let their manner of death define their lives is disrespectful. I also saw this: (Am) pausing a moment on this rainy, wintry day to remember all the service men and women who have given and who continue to give a massive amount for our country so that we might live day to day in relative freedom and security with our families. Lest we forget. In some cases, Australia's wars have contributed to our "relative freedom and security". In others - e.g. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq - they haven't. In fact our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have threatened our freedom and security. My problem with ANZAC Day is not the glorification of the soldiers and others who put their lives on the line, but the glorification of war itself. * I have a covered garden, designed to keep bower birds, wombats, wallabies etc from whatever I manage to coax to grow there. Unfortunately it doesn't keep out rats, who have prospered on my sweet corn, apples, zucchini etc. A few days ago I discovered a large python in there, which I warily welcomed. A Korean member of WWOOF (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) was too frightened, however, to do his designated weeding, claiming that the snake had been chasing him (next morning he left, several days before the due date). Today I found the python trying to leave via the chicken wire fence. About half-way through, it got stuck, a bulge in its belly suggesting that it had consumed one of my rats. A pair of tin snips, cautiously applied, snipped the wire, allowing the snake to live another day. * Tuesday April 24: Came across this photo on facebook today. It's of some of my favourite percussionist friends with, third from left, American composer Steve Reich, currently in Sydney. From left, Rebecca Lagos, Bree Van Reyk, Alison Pratt & Timothy Constable. The bloke on the far right is Joshua Hill, whom I don't know. The musicians are rehearsing for a concert at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday on which they will play Reich's Music for Eighteen Musicians. Reich was a huge influence on me as a student composer, his electronic piece Come Out changing the way I looked at - and listened to - music. Alison, Becky and Tim have all played my For Marimba & Tape. As far as I know, Bree and Joshua haven't. What's going on, guys? C'mon! * Sunday April 22: If you're a Bible-thumping Christian, ignorant of the notion of separation of church and state, you will enjoy an article published in today's Sunday Telegraph, Sydney. Written by Barclay Crawford, it is titled the Bible can teach our children the essential lessons of life. What really grabbed my attention was the conclusion: To me, people who view the Bible and Christ with disdain are sneering at the very foundations of our society. These are the same people who end up seeking solace in macrobiotics, transcendental meditation and voting for the Greens. And there's more danger in all of those than anything contained in either Testament of the Bible. [more] Crikey! I'd better watch my step. I no longer do macrobiotics or transcendental meditation, but I'm not averse to voting for the Greens, despite having attended Religious Instruction classes (Christianity Instruction classes, actually) throughout my school career. Speaking of the Greens, I pay tribute to Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens, who recently announced that he will be resigning from the leadership, and from the Senate, while he is still young enough to pursue other interests (such as bushwalking). Read an excellent article about him - Bob Brown hikes off into his political sunset by James Norman (The Age, April 15 2012) - here. * The Thirsty Night Singers - the a cappella vocal group I sing in and direct - has recently recruited a new soprano, Jo Stirling (left), to replace Nell Britton (right), who is having to spend a lot of time away as part of her nursing studies (next year she will probably have an outback placement). Now begins the long process of rehearsing with Jo and finding a good balance between our voices. We're currently learning and rehearsing some light pop stuff, including Lennon & McCartney's Blackbird, Yesterday and In My Life, The Beach Boys' God Only Knows, Paul Simon's Bridge Over Troubled Water, the classic Irish song Danny Boy (whose melody was collected at Limavady in Northern Ireland, where my paternal grandmother was born), and three songs of Peter's and mine: Freddie the Fish (a conservation song), the ambiguous Lollipop Man (claimed by some to be about oral sex, although this is denied by its lyricist), and a moving though funny love song from parents to their gay son, We Thought We'd Lost You, Johnny. When we've got these down, I want to explore some more-adventurous repertoire. We've entered the 2012 Shoalhaven Eisteddfod, and have several gigs coming up, including the Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival in October. * I've just read an article by Adam Brereton in April 17's New Matilda.com called A Decade of Failed War. Here's an excerpt: Last night on the ABC's 4 Corners former PM John Howard repeated a claim he had previously written in his memoir Lazarus Rising: "I mean, I want to see democracy everywhere, but I'm not starry-eyed enough to think you're going to have it flourish in Afghanistan in ten years time. We were never into that - we were always into retaliating [for the September 11 attacks] and denying the capacity for al Qaeda to come again, and we were successful in that. Very successful." So much for the assurance in his original moral justification for the war, outlined in an address to the Australia Defence Association in October 2001: "The cause with which we are allied is just. It is no simple act of revenge. It is no knee-jerk response to combat terror with terror in return." The problem that all liars face is remembering which lies they've told when ... See the entry for April 12, below. * Surely the last word on the occupation of Afghanistan must come from former Afghan MP and democracy activist Malalai Joya, who says "In the Taliban time, we had one enemy. But after 10 years of war, we have three - the warlords, Taliban and occupation forces." See here (an excellent article - Leave Afghanistan, Urges Joya - by Pip Hinman in New Matilda.com). * Australian human rights lawyer and activist Jennifer Robinson was about to board a plane to fly from London to Sydney a couple of days ago when she was tapped on the shoulder and told that she was on an "inhibited" travel list and was therefore unable to enter Australia without permission from the Department of Foreign Affairs. Read the story here (Assange-link lawyer on 'inhibited' fly list by Henrietta Cook in The Sydney Morning Herald). Ms Cook writes: Greens Senator Scott Ludlam fired off an angry tweet to the Department of Foreign Affairs, requesting information about why the human rights lawyer was allegedly placed on a watch list. "@DFAT care to explain why @suigenerisjen is on your watch list? what kind of threat do human rights lawyers pose exactly? #auspol" ... Ms Robinson is the director of legal advocacy at the Bertha Foundation in London. She advises WikiLeaks and (Julian) Assange and acted for Mr Assange in extradition proceedings in Britain. Suddenly everything becomes clear: despite official Australian Government denials that it knows anything about any watch list that Ms Robinson might be on, the word "Assange" sparks such hysterical reactions from politicians the world over, including from our Prime Minister (who declared Mr Assange "guilty" without being able to say quite what he was guilty of) that they will do anything they can to put him away, including harrassing members of his legal team. Ms Gillard stands up for an Australian boy caught with drugs in Bali, but appears to be quite happy for Mr Assange to be officially persecuted by foreign governments. This is reminiscent of Howard's and Downer's abandonment of David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay ... Meanwhile, Julian Assange's mother Christine Assange has demanded the resignation of Australian Attorney General Nicola Roxon. Read all about it here (WL Central). Read the Crikey report here. Note that Ms Robinson is also a staunch advocate for the people of West Papua. This alone makes her a dangerous person subject to bullying from governments anxious to appease Indonesia. She'd better watch out. * Last Tuesday night I sang a couple of songs at a 60th birthday party in Kangaroo Valley for Tall Poppies Records head honcho Belinda Webster. They were both specially-written. Words by Peter Wesley-Smith, music by me (actually, one of them, written ten years ago for her 50th birthday, used the tune of Galway Bay, which I wish was mine). Here's the first verse and chorus of the recent one: I sing this sad lament for dear Belinda's vanished youth we're witnessing the start of her decline she'd still look fresh and maidenly, alas but for the truth: she'll never ever again be fifty-nine Belinda, oh Belinda she's such a wondrous beauty to behold Belinda, oh Belinda trouble is she's sixty years old It got worse from there, descending into slander and smut. The music, however, was as clean as a whistle! Click on the photo of Belinda above to see a larger version. Graphic by Diana Jaffray. * At last an establishment figure has decried the stationing of American troops on Australian soil. In an article called China will 'take us as a prize': Fraser (The Australian, April 12 2012), Bernard Lane writes: AUSTRALIA could end up "taken as a prize" by China if a US policy of military containment leads to defeat for our American allies, former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has warned ... He argues that Australia's decisions to welcome US troops to the Northern Territory and to entertain the idea of US surveillance drones in the Cocos Islands were part of a bigger picture of Australia as a subservient partner in an attempt to contain China by military means. Yesterday he told The Weekend Australian he believed hostilities between China and the US were likely within the next 40 to 50 years unless the US abandoned its policy of containment ... "If (the US) couldn't win in Vietnam, if they couldn't win in Iraq, and they can't win in Afghanistan, how could they possibly win against China?" ... He says the stationing of US troops in the NT is "a major and significant mistake". US marines arrived in Darwin this month for training with the Australian Defence Force ... "If the US wishes to conduct a hostile action from Australian shores we are complicit in that action and party to it. The Americans will not ask our permission first before the troops are used." The US embassy spokesperson said these claims were "absolutely false" because US troops would be on short rotation in various locations and the US "would not do anything from Australia's bases without full knowledge and concurrence". Yeah, sure. Read the whole article here. Good on you, Malcolm Fraser. Once a leader of the Liberal Party (a conservative party not at all liberal), he has moved slightly to the Left while everyone else, it seems, has moved massively to the Right. He is a clear voice of reason and compassion, and is criticised, therefore, by both major Australian political parties. * Saturday April 12: I recently came across an address by ex-Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, to the Australian Defence Association, October 25 2001 (six weeks after 9/11). Excerpts: The cause with which we are allied is just ... no simple act of revenge ... no knee-jerk response to combat terror with terror in return ... We waited until the evidence showed beyond doubt where the guilt was hidden. When convinced by the evidence, we gave more time than was necessary for the Taliban regime to give up bin Laden and the other leaders of the Al Qaida and to dismantle terrorist training camps. Nearly a month passed before those supporting and sheltering the terrorists were brought under attack ... [My understanding is that the Taliban asked, not unreasonably, for the evidence that bin Laden was ultimately responsible for 9/11, but the only reply they received was a cruise missile. As far as I know, that evidence has never been made available to the public.] The immediate goal is to seek out and destroy Al Qaida and ensure that Afghanistan can never again serve as a base from which terrorists can operate ... [I wonder what hubris drove the USA and its allies to think it could achieve victory in the "graveyard of empires" when no-one else - not the Persians, not the British, not the Soviets, not many others - had succeeded before them. It was clear from the start that the response under the coalition of nations involved in the campaign was not at all "proportional", contrary to Howard's claim: the full gamut of modern weaponry was used in response to a few men armed with box-cutters. Some of us argued at the time that patient diplomacy and police work were likely to be far more effective - and much cheaper in terms of blood and treasure - than a military response. In fact, Howard says:] (This war) will not only be fought through military action but through concerted international action on the intelligence, law enforcement and financial fronts. And it will also need to feature effective diplomacy and international aid to address the serious inequalities that the terrorists seek to exploit for their own ends. [But diplomacy with one hand while the other is blowing up whole villages, wedding parties etc is always going to be a tough task.] [more] Now, more than ten years on, countries still contributing to the invasion forces are talking about "peace with honour" (where have I heard that before?) and preparing to withdraw. When they've gone, the Taliban will move back in and life will continue as it was before the invasion - after score-settling massacres, no doubt, of those who worked with the coalition forces. Howard: "There is no doubt that the coalition forces will win" - but how do you define "win" in this situation? The same way we "won" in Vietnam? I detest the Taliban, just as I detest all authoritarian governments. The treatment of women in Afghanistan is particularly appalling. But the response to 9/11 had to be what was likely to be effective. A decade of war, with its frightful cost, on all sides, might have stopped more 9/11s. For now. But it has generated many more terrorists whose time will no doubt come. Thank you, Mr Howard, for your un-thinking "all the way with the USA" response. Your blinkered fawning of Dubya, and of America generally, blinded you to the real instigator of 9/11: American foreign policy in the Middle East and the building of the American empire. In an article in Rolling Stone called The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to Read (Feb 10 2012), Michael Hastings writes: Earlier this week, the New York Times' Scott Shane published a bombshell piece about Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, a 17-year Army veteran recently returned from a second tour in Afghanistan. According to the Times, the 48-year-old Davis had written an 84-page unclassified report, as well as a classified report, offering his assessment of the decade-long war. That assessment is essentially that the war has been a disaster and the military's top brass has not leveled with the American public about just how badly it's been going. "How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?" Davis boldly asks in an article summarizing his views in The Armed Forces Journal ... [more] * Monday April 02: Yesterday I bought an EP ("extended play" record) on eBay: I've lost most of the recordings that I made with the folk group I was in in the 60s, so I'm gradually trying to acquire a complete collection. I was hoping to have to pay a high price after a fierce bidding war, but I regret to say that I was the only bidder: I got it for a measly $12. In a separate transaction I also bought an LP we were on that I'd never seen before: Spirit of Australia, a compilation of songs from us, Gary Shearston (whom I bumped into a couple of years ago, quite by chance) and Redgum. I wonder if we were paid for it? Almost certainly not. Now, 45 or so years later, it would be impossible to check, much less recoup, any monies owing ... I gather that CBS in Australia was eventually acquired by Sony. I've written to them several times re possibly rescuing the master tapes - if they still exist - and re-mastering them, digitising them, and releasing some on a "Best Of" compilation. I suspect the original recordings no longer exist, for I'm pretty sure that they used Ampex 406 tape, which after a few years deteriorated quickly ... Later: I've just found a copy of our second LP, City Folk, on eBay, going for USD69.99 - now that's more like it! * Sunday April 01: Chrys Stevenson writes an excellent blog called Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear ("Assorted Rants on Religion, Science, Philosophy and Politics from a Bear-of-Very-Little-Brain"). Today he's talking about gay marriage in Australia: This week, bishops from the Victorian Catholic Church distributed 80,000 copies of a pastoral letter, condemning same-sex marriage. I have never read such a load of bigoted, small-minded, passive-aggressive drivel in all my life. The letter reveals the Catholic Church in all its hatefulness, pettiness, out-dated, wrong-headed, unsupported thinking and purely evil desire to control the lives, not only of its followers, but all of us ... [more] We've come a long way, socially, in Australia during my lifetime. For example, who would have thought, a few years ago, that we would ever have a Chinese lesbian as a cabinet minister? Or an openly-gay man being Leader of a major Australian political party. Or a female atheist Prime Minister "living in sin" - in the Lodge, no less - with her male partner? The majority of Australians have no problem with gay marriage, yet our politicians, even those benefitting from today's relaxed attitudes, still carry on about it, calling for a conscience vote (as I see it, this has nothing to do with conscience) and running scared of the big churches and their power to indoctrinate their congregations. Australian parliamentarians should put aside their conservative, mean-spirited and timid views and stand up for the civil rights of gay and lesbian Australians. They could then put their energies to more urgent ends. * Saturday March 31: Have just come across this: Before the sun and the night and the blue sea, I vow to stand faithfully by all that is brave and beautiful; to seek adventure; and having discovered aught of wonder, or delight, of merriment or loveliness, to share it freely with my comrades, the Band of Happy Rowers. This was the pledge, written by Nina Murdoch, of The Argonauts, an ABC radio program for kids (1939-72). I was a happy rower back then, #8 in the boat named Ocnus. Aaaaaah, how innocent we were! American composer Laurie Spiegel (left, photographed in the early 70s), whose 1972 tape piece Sediment is heard in the film The Hunger Games. From an article by Geeta Dayal in Underwire, March 29 2012: A strange and fascinating piece of abstract electronic music ... used to great effect during the movie's "cornucopia scene" ... analog synthesizer and old-school tape machines ... "I didn't have multitrack recording," (Ms Spiegel)said in a phone interview with Wired. "I had to do the mixing with two stereo reel-to-reel decks, and the only way to mix was to play something live, where one deck was playing audio while the other deck was recording the other machine. You piled the tape hiss and noise for every generation you added." [more] While I have a certain nostalgia for those halcyon days, I have no wish to return to the tape hiss that plagued most of us back then. I remember falling in love with dbx noise reduction and, later, digital recording ... I was remembering just the other day the effort required to supply performers with the tape parts for my instrument-plus-tape works (such as For Marimba & Tape and White Knight & Beaver): tapes could be recorded (and hence played back) at 3 1/4 or 7 1/2 or 15 inches per second, with or without dbx. I would spend half a day in the studio, cleaning, de-magnetizing, lining up etc the tape machines required then making half a dozen dubs according to the orders, then splicing in paper leader tape and labelling the boxes. Then it was off to the post office to send them into a void from which I rarely received thanks or - God forbid! - money. Still, the pieces were performed a lot (some still are), so I would get lots of warm runny feelings ... * Wednesday March 28 2012: Last night I went to see a one-person show - I Wish I'd Said That, written and acted by Henri Szeps (who - full disclosure - is a friend of mine) - at the Shoalhaven Entertainment Center in Nowra. It was excellent: funny, poignant, sad, witty, well-paced, an entertaining and moving show powerfully presented by an actor whose time has come just as it has been and gone (meaning that he's at his best as an actor at an age - 69 - when fewer and fewer stage roles are available). Critic Bob Ellis wrote that Henri "is a formidable actor in his prime": (His acting is) so close-in, so empathic, so unemphatic, so searchingly arrived at. He doesn't say a line, he admits it. He slides from accent to accent without us ever noticing the border-crossing. He has the concentration of Tendulkar, or Rostropovich, or Elgar. Or Ralph Richardson. Or Russell Crowe. It is impossible that each line he says could be any other ... [more] The blurb says: Witness the touching story of failed actor Joe Bleakly performing for his inmates in a retirement village come to life through Szeps performance. Witness full excerpts, anecdotes, jokes, songs and observations about life, family and getting older. A review by Lauren Sherritt in Australian Stage, March 4 2012: It is a remarkable actor who can introduce you to the likes of Lear, Vanya and Tevye all in one night, a challenge which might automatically scare some actors away. Nevertheless, it is this feat which Henri Szeps (well known for his role of Robert the dentist in Mother and Son) attempts in Wish I'd Said That, as with ease he conjures up these and the many others characters that make up the list of roles he wishes he had been given the opportunity to play ... [more] What I particularly like about the show is Henri's ability, as writer and actor, to switch from profundity to farce in just a few words, or to have you still laughing while he's telling you something tragic - both the humour and the tragedy are somehow enhanced. I think the show is particularly suited to people - e.g. me - in Henri's own age group. But the young people there seemed to get a lot out of it. Recommended! The show is now going to Canberra and other places in New South Wales. * Friday March 23 2012: An email received from one of the great fighters on behalf of the people of Timor-Leste: Dear Friends, I would like to have it explained to me why the Attorney-General has chosen to block the release of 37 year old cables relating to East Timor. Please read this link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-21/roxon-blocks-release-of-east-timor-cables/3904532 Best wishes, Sister Susan Connelly Mary MacKillop East Timor Mission In the ABC News article - Roxon blocks release of East Timor cables (March 21 2012) - Matt Peacock writes: "Federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has blocked the release of cables about East Timor, despite the fact they are up to 37 years old. (She) decided to keep the documents secret on the grounds that opening them up would prejudice Australia's security. "Associate Professor Clinton Fernandes of the University of New South Wales believes the documents are being kept secret because they would reveal Australian complicity in concealing the mass starvation of 100,000 East Timorese." Read more here. After 37 years, yet more appeasement, this time from a minister from whom some of us expected better. Once again, Australian democracy is at risk. What's more, concealing whatever it is that Ms Roxon doesn't want us to know only encourages present-day appeasers and the thugs and murderers who are currently being protected. In a separate article, Our Money Helps Kill, Intimidate And Torture, published today, Marni Cordell, editor of New Matilda, writes that Australia plays a key role in training and funding elite Indonesian counter-terror unit Detachment 88. "(There) is growing evidence" she writes "to suggest what was once solely a counter-terror unit is now moving into counter-separatist operations. Activists in West Papua claim the squad is being deployed to hunt down civilians aligned with the independence movement in a growing campaign of intimidation." "According to Eric Sonindemi, a participant in last October's Third Papuan People's Congress, ... Detachment 88 personnel were involved in the deadly attack on Congress in which six people were killed and many others wounded." Read more here. Our money is used to fund an Indonesian terrorist unit - but we will never know for sure. Not now. Not in 37 years' time. Not ever. Nicola Roxon's email address: Nicola.Roxon.MP@aph.gov.au. * Wednesday March 21 2012: Today in Perth the Australia Council for the Arts announced the winner of its Australia Council Don Banks Music Award: violinist, composer, educator, lecturer, innovator, inventor, writer etc Jon Rose. I nominated him for the award, and was asked to write an appreciation of Jon for the Australian Music Centre website Resonate. Read it here. It starts: (Jon's) work flows across different media and art forms: improvisation, composition, performance, performance art, radio programs, radiophonic works, environmental events, soundscapes, theatre pieces, images, graphic design, Super 8 films, videos, websites, instrument design and construction, choreography, installations, multimedia, political art, texts, books, CDs, DVDs, and more. With enormous energy and originality, well-honed organisational and practical skills, good humour, healthy irreverence, and a constant stream of ideas, he moves freely between and over the fences we build between art forms, stopping along the way to play them. I know of no other Australian musician whose output is so enormous, so eclectic. Who else is equally at home with and excited by high-tech instruments, like the interactive MIDI violin bow he invented, and found object instruments like bones and bottles? [more] Goodonya, Jon! He and I collaborated in the early 80s - he on violin, me on Fairlight CMI - as a free-form improvisation duo doing concerts in Sydney and Paris and making an LP called Tango, released by HOT Records. * Saturday March 17 2012: This weekend, Timor-Leste goes to the polls to elect a President. Incumbent José Ramos-Horta is up against 11 other hopefuls, including Fretilin's Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres and former armed forces chief Taur Matan Ruak, a guerrilla leader during the occupation. I was there in 2002 when resistance hero Xanana Gusmão was campaigning for the Presidency against the very first President of the Democratic Republic of East Timor, Francisco Xavier do Amaral, left, who recently died of cancer. (The Republic was declared on November 28 1975, nine days before Indonesian forces invaded (Dec 7)) In the photo, do Amaral shows his dye-stained finger as proof he voted at the 2002 presidential election. Photo: REUTERS/Darren Whiteside. On May 20 this year, Timor-Leste will celebrate ten years of independence. In June, a general election will be held. see here (AlterNet) and here (Aljazeera) To learn more about do Amaral, read A charismatic revolutionary, an excellent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, dated March 15 2012, by Damien Kingsbury. * Sunday March 11 2012: The following excerpt from an interview with Lyndon Terracini, Artistic Director of Opera Australia, appeared on the company's blog: MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2012 Leaping ahead Lyndon Terracini on giant OA initiatives coming to fruition Q: In previous centuries, thousands of operas were created and staged, and never heard of again. Yet if it weren't for those unsuccessful operas, we might never have had the masterpieces of the repertoire. It would seem that the international opera community can no longer sustain such a volume of creative activity; it's simply too expensive to produce opera. How do we solve this dilemma? LT: It is indeed extremely expensive to produce new opera, and very difficult to find a substantial audience for it. This will continue to be the case if we keep creating and producing these pieces in the same way as we always have. We've been throwing huge amounts of money at new operas, and they're still playing to very small audiences. So it's my view that we need to rethink how we approach them. Q: There is a view that OA has not been doing enough to educate audiences in the appreciation of contemporary opera. What is your response to this? LT: Actually it's the other way round: opera composers need to write music that appeals to audiences. Mozart, Verdi, Rossini, they all wrote for their audience, and if they didn't have an audience, they didn't have a show. The Magic Flute played 100 performances in its first run because the public wanted it to see it. We're flat out trying to fill the auditorium for four performances of a new opera. To me that says that we need to develop and workshop new pieces, so that by the time they are performed, the audience is able to connect with them. The feedback that we get unequivocally shows that if people come to a contemporary opera and dislike it, they never come back. And the most common criticism of new opera that we get is that people hated the music. [more] My response, in part: [a] Opera doesn't have to be "extremely expensive to produce". Sure, if you have a huge cast and orchestra, with elaborate costumes and sets, a complex, difficult score, and major international stars demanding huge fees, then of course it will be expensive. But opera can be lean and mean without expensive trimmings yet still be effective. [b] I have no problem with composers needing "to write music that appeals to audiences". Those that do, however, are branded within the new music scene as populists and therefore not taken seriously. To be a composer is to be attacked from some direction or other on the grounds of idiom - as if there were a correct idiom and lots of incorrect ones. I love a wide range of music, from tonal children's songs to wild free-form improvisation, with classical music, jazz, folk music, computer music, and more in between. I don't love all music within those categories, of course, but a lot of it, and I've tried to compose in a lot of different idioms (hence the adjective "eclectic" has often been used to describe my output). Now just about every piece I've ever written has been attacked by someone, usually because they don't like "tune-less, form-less rubbish", say, or they can't stand "music in this day and age that uses tunes and conventional harmonies" i.e. on the basis of idiom. One needs a thick skin to be in this "business" (as it is sometimes laughably called): you have to get on with what you do and hope that at the end of the day there are a few people who think that what you're doing is worthwhile (and, hopefully, worth a little bit of funding and/or other support). A quarter of a century ago I wrote an opera-sort-of-thing called Boojum!, which was produced, controversially, at the 1986 Adelaide Festival of Arts. Its music does, from my observation, genuinely appeal to audiences. To most, anyway. An excerpt from it was performed at an Opera Australia concert in 2001, receiving an enthusiastic response. A new production by Chicago Opera Vanguard in Nov-Dec 2010 received twenty four performances and a dozen or so of some of the best reviews anything of mine has ever received. But Opera Australia seems less than interested in mounting a full production. No reason given, even though I believe that Boojum! ticks all the OA boxes, could be inexpensively produced, and would be a hit with OA audiences. It's a funny old world ... Here are some of the cast of the Chicago production: photo by Jon W. Sisson Jr * Saturday March 10 2012: According to an ABC news report - Gunns deal off, boss blames green groups - Tasmanian logging company and would-be pulp miller Gunns "has notified the stock exchange that potential investor, Richard Chandler Corporation, has pulled out of its bid to buy a 40 per cent stake in the company." This is good news for those who feared an ecological disaster in the Tamar Valley, for there's now a chance that Gunns will not be able to proceed with the planned pulp mill there. Not good news, however, is the attitude of Tasmanian Labor premier Lara Giddings, who was quoted as saying: "I believe it certainly is concerning that it would seem as if some of the meetings that they have held with environmental groups in this state have had an impact on their thinking. "This is quite alarming, I think, for big business across Australia in terms of their role and what can be undermined by small minority groups." You mean, Ms Giddings, that it's concerning that groups with a different view from yours have exercised their democratic rights? And it's alarming that a business has changed its mind after considering an alternative point of view? What I find alarming is a State Government leader clearly having no commitment to democratic procedures or their outcomes. Out, Ms Giddings, out. * Wednesday March 7 2012: Here's a telegram - recently unearthed by Clinton Fernandez - sent by my brother, East Timor activist Rob Wesley-Smith, to Andrew Peacock, Australia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, on Dec 2 1975: Indonesia invaded a few days later (just after US President Gerald Ford and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had flown out of Indonesian air-space). Note the scribbled "No action required". If Australia had taken action, perhaps the disastrous - from most points of view - Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor could have been averted. * Tuesday March 6 2012: The first President of the Democratic Republic of East Timor, Francisco Xavier do Amaral, died today in Dili. He became President of Timor-Leste on November 2, 1975, just a few days before the Indonesian invasion. In the photo at left, he is in the middle with Alarico Fernandes and Rogerio Lobato (click on the photo to see a larger version). I'm currently reading a book called Dancing With the Devil (Monash University Press, 2002), by David Savage, who was a police officer in East Timor during the 1999 referendum. He writes: "(The Indonesian police) would spin the most incredulous stories and expect us to believe them. With hindsight I suppose that foreign governments had for years accepted any ludicrous account that the Indonesians would put forward, and the troops weren't expecting us to question them as closely as we did." (p274) There you have it: give in to them, time and time again, the result being that they have no respect for you and feel free to continue their murderous ways. Again, there has not been a single conviction of an Indonesian soldier for any crime committed in Timor between 1975 and 1999. Timor Leste: Open letter to all members of the Security Council regarding justice, truth and reparation in Timor-Leste Download: PDF Index Number: ASA 57/003/2012 Date Published: 20 February 2012 Categories: Timor Leste In this open letter The Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP), KontraS (the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence), and Amnesty International write to urge the Security Council to take immediate and effective steps to address the continuing impunity for crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations which occurred in Timor-Leste (then East Timor) under Indonesian occupation (1975-1999). This is a crucial time for such action as the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste is due to expire on 26 February 2012. see here, where you can download a pdf of the letter * Monday March 5 2012: From an article titled Fate of East Timor's stolen generation in Indonesia finally coming to light by Lindsay Murdoch in today's Sydney Morning Herald: They were East Timor's stolen generation. Between 1975 and 1999 about 4000 young and vulnerable Timorese were secretly taken to Indonesia where some of them were forced to work in slave-like conditions while others were educated and grew up with the families of soldiers. Until now little was known of the fate of the children, some of whom were abducted and others whose parents were coerced or deceived into giving them away. Following research in Indonesia and East Timor an Australian academic, Helene van Klinken, has published the first detailed account of the practice she says was an example of "hegemonic power using children in its goal of dominating the subordinate group to which the children belong". [more] As not a single Indonesian has been found guilty of crimes against people in East Timor during the Indonesian invasion and occupation (1975-1999), as a result of which 200,000 or so people died, no doubt no-one will be punished for stealing East Timor's children ... * The Thirsty Night Singers did two gigs last weekend: a bracket at a fundraiser for the refurbishment of Upper River Hall in Kangaroo Valley (the venue for many wonderful concerts, film nights etc), and a bracket at a birthday party in Berry. We're now having a short break before continuing to learn new repertoire and auditioning new singers. * Sunday Febuary 26 2012: In the early 80s I bought, for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, a Fairlight CMI ("Computer Music Instrument"), using it for such pieces as For Marimba & Tape, White Knight & Beaver and Snark-Hunting. In 1986 I took one to China as a gift from the Australian government, installing it at the Central Conservatory in Beijing and teaching local composers how to use it (at the time I was dubbed "The Father of Chinese Computer Music", but I suspect that someone else has now claimed that title). A few years after that, Fairlight Instruments went belly up. Just recently, however, Peter Vogel, who was one of the geniuses behind the machine, has put together a 30th anniversary machine called the CMI-30A. Check it out here. The other day I was reading the Fairlight Forum, and came across an article by Tom Stewart, a student at the Con at the time, in which he describes the genesis of the voice ARR1.VC, which he created in the Con's Electronic Music Studio with his girlfriend Sarah: The vocal sound sample "ARR1.VC" was included in the CMI Sound Libraries. There have been some queries and theories about how it was made so here's the story. Background In 1980, I was a poor jazz music student at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Dr. Martin Wesley-Smith was the head of Electronic Music there and had one of the early model Fairlight Series I CMIs ... [more] Tom explains that ARR1 went viral, with other manufacturers blatantly using it in their products. It's a breathy sound, a touch of pan flute mixed with traces of a female voice (you've heard it many times, even if you didn't realise it at the time). I remember first hearing it in the Studio; after that it seemed just a few weeks before it was in just about every film score, every jingle, and a lot of pop records. I don't think Tom ever made any money out of what was a magnificent achievement, although he did get a job with Fairlight partly, I suspect, as a result. On the original CMI and on the IIX model, there was a software package called MCL ("Music Composition Language"), which for some entailed a tedious way of getting music into the machine. Hence it was not popular, the legendary Page R garnering all the attention. But MCL enabled a composer to achieve things that were either very difficult or impossible to achieve with other sequencers, and hence it was popular with so-called "serious" composers like me. Alas, the 16-bit Fairlight CMI Series III abandoned MCL, as has the CMI-3A. If I can find an external MIDI sequencer that gives the control that MCL was able to, I will start saving for the new version of The Legend! * I recently went to a concert in the Sydney Opera House by a cappella group The King's Singers. I've been a great fan since they began, but while they sang superbly, and I enjoyed it enormously, I had the odd criticism of the concert: While The King's Singers sing a wide range of material, the repertoire that most people love them for is their close harmony and light pop stuff. That's why most seats in the Concert Hall were bought (for up to $112 each) and why the lighter fare attracted the most applause of the evening. There is not that kind of audience for madrigals, say. Nor for contemporary Australian work. If there were then local group The Song Company, which is in many ways better than the K's S, would get much larger audiences than they do. Like it or not, most people were there for the lighter fare, which attracted the most applause of the evening. By all means sing some madrigals, I say. But don't open the program with eight of 'em, some quite long and in Italian or Spanish, sung without amplification in the cavernous Concert Hall of the Opera House. I was a few rows from the front, yet I had to strain to hear. Why not subtle amplification to give the music a presence that it simply doesn't have in that space? Aaaah, the purists say, in their ignorance, you'll destroy the integrity of the listening experience, or something similar. Never mind that most people these days hear music up close and personal, in their face, pumped directly into their ears, and that six choristers, singing softly, are always gunna sound tiny and tinny in that place. I bet that when the madrigal section of the concert was over, most people breathed a sigh of relief: Phew! That's the 'serious' side out of the way - now we can enjoy ourselves. Don't get me wrong: I generally love madrigals. It's just that their time and place is not eight in a row at 8pm on a Thursday night in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House at $112 per ticket with no amplification. Perform them in a small specialised venue somewhere singing to afficionados. And not very often. I mean, there's an enormous amount of good contemporary music not being sung, not getting a look in, while the K's S sing, again and again and abloodygain, like lots of other groups do, 16th century stuff from the museum. Then we heard Greensleeves. Excuse me? That's Mr Whippy's song. Can't we have something a tad more interesting? Next: Danny Boy. Now I happen to think that that is a most beautiful song, despite it being crooned by just about every pop singer since Bing Crosby. In fact I recently arranged it for the Thirsty Night Singers, partly 'cos the melody was collected in a town - Limavady - in Northern Ireland where my paternal grandmother was born. But, again, there is more interesting stuff in the K's S' vast repertoire. Then Dance to thy daddy, which was a promotion for a recent CD of theirs. Nice song nicely arranged, but nothing more than that. Then Botany Bay (we'd better give 'em some of their own - that'll keep 'em happy). But there is Australian stuff that's much more interesting, and which they could sing much better, than Botany Bay. The next sop was The Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda'. Magnificent song, but I found myself wishing for Roland Peelman's arrangement ... Interval. Then Elena Kats-Chernin's River's Lament. In a serious concert of contemporary music in an appropriate venue, this piece would've fitted right in. But in this concert it was yet another piece delaying what most people came for: "close harmony". In four movements, it was far too long for this concert. Not Elena's fault, of course. It was ignorant, unintelligent programming. They should've commissioned a 5' piece. The piece itself set words, by American writer Charles Anthony Silvestri, about a river. It was an enjoyable piece of earnest new music. Elena is, after all, an excellent composer. But while I admire the K's S for commissioning a local work, its idiom and length weren't appropriate for this concert, the group's first in Sydney in 27 years. I got the sense that most people in the audience merely politely sat through it as they waited for ... wait for it ... "close harmony"! By then there was time for about four songs. A couple of Beatles' songs (Penny Lane and, would you believe, Obladi, Oblada - I mean, probably the least interesting song of the Beatles' entire catalogue), a couple of other things that I can't remember, but no real "close harmony", and suddenly it was all over. Three encores, and exhortations to go out and buy their CDs and give them yet more money. The audience loved them, but [a] of course they did: they'd paid $112 and weren't gunna admit that they'd done their dough; [b] the group is famous, and is from overseas, so it must be good; [c] the group is fabulous, doing what they do very well, and [c] they didn't know what could've been. I loved 'em too, 'cos I'm a fan and have been forever. Their intonation, ensemble, balance etc are exquisite. But I do know what could have been: an intelligently-chosen, better-balanced program that worked on many levels and which could've turned a nice night out into a great night out. Their spoken introductions were generally stilted, amateurish. While this had some charm to it, for $112 I expect something a little more professional. And a decent informative printed program! The one we got was pathetic. And the bass's mother would have been appalled had she seen his hair. Anyhow, that's what I think. I suspect that I don't have a career as a music critic coming up ... No sour grapes in there, incidentally, although no doubt I'll be accused of 'em. * Talking of vocal groups, I was asked the other day to write a short article about the group I sing in and, sort of, direct, The Thirsty Night Singers: The Thersty Sight Ningers In 2007 a bunch of singers who'd been in the Courthouse Choir in Berry decided to form a smaller, Kangaroo Valley-based group. Various songs and styles were tried, people came, people went, till eventually a regular seven-member line-up had established itself. They rehearsed on Thursday nights - hence their name. At the beginning of 2010 soprano Alex Holliday, who left to start a family, was replaced by Nadia Intihar. Other members of the group are Nell Britton (soprano), Janette Carter and Patsy Radic (altos), Martin Wesley-Smith (tenor), and Peter Morgan and Peter Stanton (basses). The Thirsties sing without instrumental accompaniment. Their eclectic repertoire includes traditional songs (e.g. A-Rovin'), contemporary folk-songs (Hey Ho Cook and Rowe), jazz songs (When I Fall in Love), political songs (about East Timor, West Papua, and the Stolen Generation), kids' songs (Shut the Gate), and pop (including several Beatles songs and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, which has become the group's pièce de resistance). Martin Wesley-Smith does some of the musical arrangements. He also modifies existing arrangements to suit the Thirsties' voices. In 2008 he and his librettist brother Peter Wesley-Smith composed a piece called Seven Widows at the Gates of Sugamo, for choir and an ensemble of seven harps. In 2009 the Thirsties recorded it with SHE (Seven Harp Ensemble) in a local recording studio for local record company Tall Poppies. It is available on a CD called Bolmimerie (TP204). While the group does not generally seek out gigs, it has done various concerts, including private functions, performances in Canberra and Sydney, at River Music in Nowra, and at the Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival. They are widely regarded as one of the finest seven-member a cappella vocal groups currently based in Kangaroo Valley. Recently, Nell announced that she will be leaving the group before the end of the year, meaning that we're looking for a new soprano ... Here's a recent photo of the group as it is: l to r: Patsy Radic, Janette Carter, Peter Stanton, me, Nell Britton, Nadia Intihar & Peter Morgan * Tuesday Febuary 14 2012: My Resident Lyricist Peter Wesley-Smith (and Spare Tenor in the Thirsties) has written a poem especially for today: I love thee for thy beauty, dear, I love thee for thy mind; Thou'rt luscious, hot and fruity, dear, And generous and kind. For now and in the foocher, dear, My troth will e'er be thine; I want thee as my smoocher, dear, My lovely Valentine. I'm reminded of a poem that I read in a Bluey and Curly cartoon when I was a kid and have remembered ever since. A lonely lovelorn cowhand has written a poem to his loved one: You're more to me than all the butter Mother ever churned You're more to me than all the money Father ever earned Just like a lonely poddy-calf I feel when we're apart For you're the Friesian heifer in the cowyard of my heart In 1988 I was commissioned to compose a large choral piece for the Intervarsity Choral Festival of that year. It was Australia's Bicentennial - two hundred years of white settlement - and I wanted to do a piece that looked at Australian society from different angles, some nostalgic, some loving, some critical ... This poem seemed to fit right in. I set it to music, then sought permission to use it in the piece. Well, after a long process, during which executives of The Herald and Weekly Times, which owned the copyright in the Bluey and Curly cartoons, went through every one they'd ever published - but couldn't find it. Someone else must own the copyright, but I now have no idea who does or where I got it from. The song went into the piece - Songs of Australia - with a note asking any aggrieved copyright owner to get in touch (no-one has). Here's the melody: A version exists for six voices, sung by The Song Company. * Friday Febuary 3 2012: English composer and one-time coleague of mine Jonathon Harvey has motor neurone disease and is in the final stage of his life - see this article in The Guardian (UK): Jonathan Harvey: Touching the Void by Tom Service. * Sunday January 29 2012: American William Blum is one of my favourite critics of American foreign policy. In an article called Iraq. Began with big lies. Ending with big lies. Never forget (Information Clearing House, Jan 03 2012) he noted ... how the modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a quasi failed state; how the Americans, beginning in 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one dubious excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly, ... how the people of that unhappy land lost everything - their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives ... More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The air, soil, water, blood, and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lying anywhere in wait for children to pick them up ... a river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again ... [more] It's hard to see that the people of Iraq are better off now than they were before the USA and its allies, including Australia, told great big lies and invaded their country. * Tonight in Chicago there is a reunion of everyone involved in the brilliant November 2010 Chicago Opera Vanguard production of my piece Boojum!. I would love to be there! * Friday January 27 2012: Oigle and Mum Zorro Dad Dave with Auntie Chuck shots taken a few days ago click on photos for larger versions * Tuesday January 03 2012: music and politics: It's an old story, but for some reason there was a reference to it on my facebook page this morning: it's Krystian Zimerman's shocking Disney Hall debut, in the Los Angeles Times, April 27 2009: Poland's Krystian Zimerman, widely regarded as one of the finest pianists in the world, created a furor Sunday night in his debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall when he announced this would be his last performance in America because of the nation's military policies overseas ... About 30 or 40 people in the audience walked out, some shouting obscenities. "Yes," he answered, "some people when they hear the word military start marching." Others remained but booed or yelled for him to shut up and play the piano. But many more cheered. Zimerman responded by saying that America has far finer things to export than the military, and he thanked those who support democracy ... [more] Those who walked out have no problem with music that supports, directly or implicitly, the status quo. It's when it presents a contrary view that we hear that "music and politics don't mix!" * In Seize the Chance to End the Craziness in North Korea (Information Clearing House, Jan 1 2012)), Eric Margolis writes: The US has hinted it will consider using tactical nuclear weapons against North Korea in the event of war. Nearly 30,000 US troops garrison South Korea; 70,000 more could swiftly intervene there along with powerful US naval and air units. North Korea keeps asking the US to sign a non-aggression pact in which Washington pledges not to attack the North. The North's modest nuclear program is mainly to deter a US attack by threatening a counter-strike on South Korea, Japan and Okinawa. Washington has long refused such a pact. Instead, it has ringed North Korea with military forces and imposing a punishing trade embargo that has played a major role in keeping the North in dire poverty. The US says North Korea's regime is brutal, illegitimate despotism with which it will only deal with the greatest reluctance and disgust. Yet the US supports many nasty dictatorships around the globe, such as Uzbekistan and Ethiopia. If the US really wants to end North Korea's nuclear program, the solution is to sign a non-aggression pact and end US trade sanctions. Both the US and South Korea should end their provocative military war games on North Korea's borders. Such posturing led to last year's military clashes. North Korea will have to end its nuclear program, agree to cease threats against neighbors that are a form of financial blackmail, reduce the size of its huge armed forces, move them away from the DMZ, and divert resources to feeding its people ... [more] A reader, Izrael Finklestein, responds: ... I must disagree that north korea dismantle its nuclear devices - we all saw the reward Qaddafi received from doing the same thing. Do not expect anyone to be that naive ... the dprk is starving because of the vicious trade embargo imposed upon it by usa ... this is economic warfare bordering on genocide ... Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction but pretended he did so that his enemies would not attack him. They attacked him anyway. * Sunday January 01 2012: A new year, a new blog ... For my 2011 blog, click 2011. Come back here in a few days' time for news, rants etc.

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