Ozlit Blogs of note, my A list
In my day job as an arts and humanities librarian I’ve been gathering links to Australian literary blogs, so we can recommend some of these blogs to students and link to them from our library website.
Of course there is a wide range of literary blogs: blogs about Australian literature and writers, book reviewing blogs, newspaper literary blogs, writer’s blogs, group blogs, and blogs devoted to particular authors, or types of literature: poetry, young adult literature etc.
I have come up with my A list of the most influential Australian literary blogs.
ABC2's dawn of a new era
When it comes to news and breakfast TV, the commercial networks have almost had a monopoly on it - with various versions of Today and Sunrise, and not forgetting Ten's 6am news and the old Good Morning Australia - but from November not only will our ABC be delving into this arena, it will be doing so with an innovative format and as an investment into its digital channel ABC2.
From Monday 3 November, ABC News Breakfast launches with four hours every weekday of news and current affairs with Virginia Trioli, Barrie Cassidy and Joe O'Brien, but don't expect any "Mel and Kochie"-type nicknames for this group, this will be serious stuff for those that don't prefer the froth and bubble of the Sunrise set or Today.
Bob Dylan: Tell Tale Signs
Bob Dylan’s forthcoming album, Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased, 1989-2006, is now available for free online listening – a week ahead of its release!
When selling coffee is not enough
On 3rd August, American giant Starbucks closed 61 of its 85 shops in Australia. After over a month and hundreds of jobs lost, I and many other coffee lovers still think about what went wrong and why did Starbucks fail to break the Australian market.
Chillax: if it works like a word, just use it
Funner. Impactful. Blowiest. Territorialism. Multifunctionality. Dialoguey. Dancey. Thrifting. Chillaxing. Anonymized. Interestinger. Wackaloon. Updatelette. Noirish. Huger. Domainless. Delegator. Photocentric. Relationshippy. Bestest. Zoomable.
What do all these words have in common? Someone, somewhere, is using them with a disclaimer like "I know it's not a real word ..."
Peter Bjorn and WHAAAT!?
You may not realise this, but Peter Bjorn and John have a brand new album. Whatever you do, don't go out and buy this record based on the merits of their last one, because I can safely say this album is nothing like it. No, I don't mean that they've changed their style. Instead, they've gone out and created something that can only be described as utterly bizarre. The album is entirely instrumental, other than occasional snippets of foreign-language speech.
Notes on a Scandal
One of the things Aussie critics often say about Cate Blanchett is that although she is undeniably a good actress, there has been no movie of hers that has been truly memorable. Not even her role as Elizabeth makes you think of her the way one would think of, say, Harrison Ford and Indiana Jones. Notes on a Scandal sort of goes to prove this theme: Blanchett throws an excellent performance, but the result is nothing you wouldn't forget about shortly after the DVD has been returned to the rental store.
Multiprocessor Deep Delta
Chessbase better watch out. It looks like there's a new player on the loose. Some outfit called VersaGlobe is aiming to design what may become the world's most powerful chess program. Dubbed Deep Delta, it is "being designed to run on eight 64-bit processors and will be able to analyze millions of positions per second."
Australia: Twitter statistics
Twitter hitting the mainstream? Surely not?
Twitter Up 518.2% in Australia
Laparoscopy
Next Thursday I'm scheduled to undergo a laparoscopy. I was referred to a gynaecologist after having constant, unrelenting (albeit fairly mild on a scale of 1-10) pelvic pain and abdominal bloating for nearly a month, which I assumed was another ovarian cyst. An ultrasound revealed no cyst, urine tests revealed no chlamydia or gonorrhoea or urinary tract infection, so that left the possibility of endometriosis.
|
