Old Master Cheese

When asked what kind of cheese he would like, my son Sweeney (two years old) stipulates “Old cheese. Like a grown-up”. This must be what he means: Old Master cheese.

The Banquet of Cleopatra

The Banquet of Cleopatra by Giambattista Tiepolo (1743-44)

The episode represented in Tiepolo’s The Banquet of Cleopatra is drawn from the Roman historian Pliny’s Natural History (written in AD 77). Here Pliny recounted the tale of a famous contest between the Egyptian and Roman rulers (who became lovers), whereby Cleopatra wagered that she could stage a feast more lavish than the legendary excesses of Mark Antony. Tiepolo’s painting shows the dramatic moment at the end of Cleopatra’s sumptuous repast when,
faced with a still scornful Mark Antony, she wins the wager with her trump card. Removing one of a pair of priceless pearls that adorn her as earrings, Cleopatra dissolves the pearl in a glass of vinegar and drinks it, an extravagance that causes Mark Antony to lose his bet.

From a text by Ted Gott on the National Gallery of Victoria’s website.

A billboard off Smith Street, Fitzroy.

Pump that Expressionist bass!

“If they were alive today, what speakers would Max Beckmann or Edvard Munch buy”? I know I’ve asked myself this questions thousands of times.

Question no longer. The Altec Lansing Expressionist Bass FX3022 Speaker has arrived.

Forget about bass booming at your shins. The Expressionist Bass features twin desktop speakers with subwoofers built right in the base of each one. Separate 1.5-inch drivers deliver mid and high frequencies so vocals and details come through with brilliant clarity. And an auxiliary input gives you the convenience of connecting any MP3 player.

And what sound should I play through my Expressionist Bass speaker? Why, a scream, of course.

Never take a bad picture again!

Something about the more things change? George Eastman pitched the first small portable camera to the world in 1888 with the slogan “you press the button, we do the rest”. It was given the onomatopoeic name ‘Kodak’.

Samsung are trying the same message, taken to the most extreme, unbelievable lengths with their latest lines of digital cameras. We are informed that the NV100HD contains a feature called ‘Beauty Shot’:

Make every photo perfect. Improve the way you look – without surgery. The quick and easy way for a better-looking you. The Beauty Shot feature is like having your own make-up artist-right in your camera. It automatically identifies imperfections such as blemishes and dark spots on the face, and retouches them so that faces appear brighter and smooth. And with different level settings, you can control the amount of retouching that takes place – it’s that simple!

Smoke alarm

‘The Australian’ reported today that 40% of American kids who try cigarettes do it because they saw it in a movie. A Dartmuth Medical School study, described as the first national examination of the influence on youths of smoking in movies, urges Hollywood to cut back in depictions of smoking in movies.

I remember years go when I was teaching Media Studies students about the concept of product placement, their first reaction was to disbelieve that such a thing existed. Once I had convinced them that it did, mainly through a demonstration of the most outrageous examples of disguised advertising that I could find (like Marlboro advertising in ‘Superman II’), their next reaction was to say basically so what?

I had a lot of trouble getting over the idea that such a thing was potentially corrupting, both of a film or a TV show’s credibility as an artistic enterprise, and of the people and companies that made them.

I think of them every time I see characters in movies or TV shows light up, because I’m absolutely certain that more people in movies are shown smoking than is the case in every day life. I know that the studios do deals with cigarette companies to pad their budgets, and the cigarette companes look to enterprises like Hollywood movies and reality TV shows to sell their product, especially as more and more avenues of traditional advertising are closing to them.

Howard’s Five-Year Plan

I couldn’t help but see some of the Government’s industrial relations advertising campaign over the weekend, as the commercials ran at one stage during every ad break. Apart from making me vaguely ill, like I was being made to swallow something disagreeable, I couldn’t help but think of Stalin.

Specifically, I was reminded of those bits of stock film from the deepest darkest days of the Soviet era, with smiling happy peasants waving to the camera from the backs of their tractors, surrounded by waves of gently swaying wheat. See the happy peasants, as Comrade Stalin ushers us into a glorious future era of prosperity for all!

I couldn’t help but laugh sardonically as we were treated to images of smiling happy blue-collar workers with their arms around their bosses as they share a laugh on the factory floor. Presumably, the moments of hilarity were being docked from the shoppies’ pay.

God knows how this is going down with the Herald-Sun readers.