Happy Australian Library and Information Week! We’re wrapping up Library and Information Week here in Australia. This year’s theme is “Imagine.” Help us celebrate all of the fantastic libraries and librarians doing great things over on that side of the world. Oxford University Press has put together a quiz about all things Australia and New Zealand. Once you’ve made it through the quiz, reward yourself with a dollop of Vegemite or catch a Russell Crowe flick to get your fix of the good old outback.
The post How well do you know Australia? [quiz] appeared first on OUPblog.
Mozart wears ear muffs and slippers. Ha?
Mozart plays the piano backwards. Ha?
Mozart wrote his first musical score at 4. Ha?
Mozart’s a GENIUS and composed Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Did he?
The brilliant directors of Monkey Baa Theatre – Eva di Cesare and Tim McGarry (of ‘I Am Jack’ fame) with the gifted pianist Simon Tedeschi wrote the BABIES PROM.
The audience was babies to littlies under 5 years old and it was gorgeous as they were transfixed by the show, the music and the hilarity of it.
Of course they all twinkled with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star created by Mozart.
Simon Tedeschi who played Mozart was hilarious.
Fabulous – take your kids and they’ll start the wonderful journey of classical music.
The post Babies twinkle at Mozart’s Babies Prom with brilliant Simon Tedeschi and Monkey Baa Directors appeared first on Susanne Gervay's Blog.
‘
Why did you do this play?”
Michael Cera ‘ ‘Love the script’
Emily Barclay – ‘Love the script’
Kieran Culkin – ‘What they said.’
Sometimes you think film actors aren’t real actors. Theatre is a serious testing ground. These are REAL actors – giving powerful, brilliant and gripping performances.
Michael Cera said he loved the chance to perform on the stage where there are no cuts, breaks, 5 minute slots, but serious, consistent acting.
I have a new found respect for both Keiren Culkin and Michael Cera.
Emily Barclay is different as her acting is grounded in theatre.
Their performances ‘knocked my socks off’ – I was wearing joggers too!
Their raw exposure of youth searching for identity in New York was real, powerful and permeated by a deep sadness of loss and being lost. It is a world of disconnect with drugs, broken relationships, desperately grasping for love and purpose. In the tradition of ‘Catcher in the Rye’, it is timeless.
As a young adult writer, I feel connected to ‘This is Our Youth’. All young adult writers should see this play by award winning playwright Kenneth Lonergan.
The season is short, unexpected with 15 performances between 14-25 March. See it if you have a chance at the Drama Theatre Sydney Opera House.
Don’t miss out!
Thanks to Zoe Toft at Playing by the Book for alerting me to this video of Shaun Tan’s award winning book The Arrival set to a musical score on the Sydney Opera House’s website.
Watch highlights of Shaun Tan’s visual masterpiece The Arrival featuring a live score by Ben Walsh and The Orkestra of the Underground.
The Arrival is a migrant story told as a series of wordless images. With his Orkestra of the Underground, Ben Walsh pooled a diverse range of musical talent and composed a score to accompany Tan’s beautiful illustrations in a rare and unique audio-visual experience.
Click here to watch
This Day in World History - One of the twentieth century’s most recognizable buildings, the Sydney Opera House, officially opened on October 20, 1973. The Opera House, situated on the shores of Sydney Harbor and with a striking roof line, has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with the comment that the building “brings together multiple strands of creativity and innovation in both architectural form and structural design.”
posted by Neil
Arrived in Hobart yesterday afternoon, and shortly after was reunited with Amanda.
We saw Amanda's Lexington friend (and, these days, my friend) Ron Nordin, and my Tasmanian friends (and, these days, Amanda's friends) Dianna and Mark for a drink.
They all drank wonderful things like honey martinis with honeycomb in them while I drank English Breakfast tea in the hope that it might keep me awake. Then Amanda and I went off and had the first meal together we'd had since we've been married, while I tried to stay awake and enjoy it all properly.
I woke at 6 am to the patter of rain on the hotel roof with a new wife fast asleep beside me, and I was amazingly happy. I let her sleep until I decided, a couple of hours later, that unless I had breakfast the world would end, and then I woke her.
Went for a walk together. I love Hobart. First came here in '98, for an Australian National Convention, and decided it was one of the fine, secret places of the Earth. And I'm still convinced that this is true.
I came back in 2008, and loved it again. We got back to the hotel to hear Amanda being interviewed on Triple-J, and dedicating The Magnetic Fields song "The Book of Love" to me, because it was played, by Daniel Handler, at our wedding.
I know. It's all sort of sweet and a bit melty over here in my blog-land right now. It'll go back to normal soon enough, I expect.
Tonight Amanda plays a secret midnight practice gig as a rehearsal for her new Australian band (it's at the Brisbane Hotel. You didn't hear it from me), and she's invited me along to do something onstage, but I suspect that if I've been up since 6 am, I may not feel like performing or even feel like being awake at midnight. We'll see.
Tomorrow both Amanda and I play at the Mona Foma Main Stage (it's on the other side of the white building in the photo). I go on at 8 pm to read THE TRUTH IS A CAVE IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS, with FourPlay accompanying me, and Eddie Campbell paintings (and, I hope, Eddie Campbell there too, but am not yet certain about Eddie: he's coming from flooded Brisbane, after all).
Amanda goes on at 9:30pm.
We get to grab a couple of days of honeymoon, then to Melbourne for a couple of days to see friends, and then on to Sydney for a concert.
Amanda's playing Sydney Opera House Main Stage on the 26th of January, and she's decided she wants other people up on the stage, for guest spots, and, because I loved playing the Opera House last year, I've agreed to be one of them.
Not sure what I'll do yet -- either some "Best Of..." moments, or something completely new.
Then I go home to the snow and to the dogs.
Amanda goes to work, once I've gone, and will play gigs in Brisbane, Melbourne, Byron Bay, Adelaide (at the Fringe, as herself and, with Jason Webley, an Evelyn Evelyn show), Perth, Canberra, Newcastle and, in New Zealand, Wellington, Christchurch, Auckland.
0 Comments on I took my love to Hobart in the rain as of 1/1/1900
posted by Neil
If you're wondering what the reading at the Sydney Opera House of "The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains", with the FourPlay String Quartet, and Eddie Campbell art, was actually like, here's an "Edited Highlights". Five minutes out of 90 minutes (the story was followed by an interview by Eddie and "In Relieg Oran"), courtesy of the
Sydney Morning Herald.
I hope that one day the whole thing may be available.
posted by Neil
Everything is moving along towards tomorrow night's Sydney Opera House gig. There were about 100 seats (out of about 2000) left the last time I checked, and if you're thinking of coming tomorrow night, you should grab them fast.
http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/neil_gaiman.aspxThe Opera House had wanted a signing, but hadn't really thought through the logistics of 2000 people, or if even only half of them wanted something signed, or the keeping on of staff, or keeping spaces open for hours while people lined up and shuffled forward, and when they realised what was involved very sensibly decided that no, they wouldn't have a signing on Saturday night.
So I went to the Kinokuniya bookshop yesterday afternoon after the Triple J interview with The Doctor (it's up at
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/thedoctor/) and I signed 2000 books by me. Everything they had. EVERYTHING. So anyone coming on Saturday night can get a signed book. Probably anyone in Sydney who wants anything signed by me next week will just have to go into Kinokuniya and take your choice.
This is some of them, when I was done (they'd already wheeled some of them away).
