Saturday, September 08, 2007

Random Shorts

In my sport post; I forgot the Hit and giggle Cup (yawn!).

There's an article in today's Age about Sporting Tribalism (or, why neutrals will watch Sydney v Collingwood; fans are desperate to see opposing teams they particularly dislike lose).

In interesting piece about the impact of 9-11 on art, music, literature and film, also from The Age:
According to Chris McAuliffe, such work [that is Political Art] has been in the ascendancy this decade, though curiously it has focused not on the big item - September 11 - but on consequent events: Iraq, migration, inhumane acts.

"Events of a world historical scale are beyond us but if we can return it to a human scale we can start chipping away," he says, noting that events such as Abu Ghraib, the children overboard affair and the injustices at detention centres have produced more artwork than September 11 itself, possibly because their scale was more comprehensible, more human.

I recall thinking on September 12, 2001, in some naive fantasy, that perhaps this was a chance for rich, powerful nations to do some fearless self-appraisal: what had caused this shocking thing to happen? Instead there has been arrogance, aggression, greed and truculence.

But it is heartening to know that potent cultural expressions - art, literature, films, the things said to each other - are made by individuals, who are perhaps better at self-appraisal than governments, nations and organisations.

We all make our cultures: what a freedom to have the choice to consciously engage with its positive transformative process, to be empathising creators rather than passive recipients."

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