make-believe.org
I have to make a confession. I am somewhat cantankerous. Now I know this will be surprising coming from one of such a sunny disposition, like discovering that Father Christmas isn't real. And sure, like anyone I'm animated by romance, good cheer, fine beer, intelligent conversation, and oxford commas. But mostly I'm burning with unbridled rage for inanimate objects and abstract concepts, and not infrequently, humans.
For a while now I have been documenting these furious obsessions on Twitter. But we all know that Twitter doesn't scale, and it surely doesn't scale to my intermittent infernos of pique.
So I have built a tool. I call it What's Annoying Joseph. Colloquially it is known as The Fuck Off List, or FOL. Check in occasionally to commune with my spiteful side. You can even subscribe to the RSS feed for regular and pithy servings of bile.
Joseph |
17 Jun 2009
| 0 comments
I'm back in the United States of America, seven months to the day since my last visit. The first time it took me thirty years. The flight was 23 hours long. All durations are interminable in some way or another.
If you enjoyed American Diary, I humbly present American Diary II: L Train to Brooklyn. You know what they say about sequels.
Joseph |
27 Oct 2008
| 6 comments
Written for The Business Spectator, where it may appear in edited form.
The first debate brings to an end the silly season in every US Presidential election year. The trash-talking at the weigh-in is finally concluded, and the boxers are called to engage. 60 million citizens tune in, some clutching their tickets, some waiting for particular key assurances, some just wanting a winner to be declared. The climactic denouement to the election cycle is begun.
This debate was supposed to be on foreign policy. There was a rare consensus a week ago between the candidates — McCain hoped begin with his undeniable strong suit, and Obama was happy to have the focus narrow on domestic issues in October. Then, a crisis on Wall St intervened, and suddenly McCain wanted out. He ‘suspended’ his campaign, called on his opponent to do likewise, postponed the debate, and charged to Washington. Of course, his ads continued to air, his running mate was actually more talkative to the press, he himself held numerous TV interviews, and posed for photographers on Pennsylvania Avenue. Other than failing to appear on Letterman, and almost dodging this debate, it’s difficult to determine what was actually suspended.
But this was supposed to be his night, and though his pre-conditions (a word to which we’ll return) for enjoining the debate were not met, it surprised few when some hours beforehand he confirmed his attendance. He needed to: having consistently tracked several points behind in the polls since the start of the summer — short-lived bounces in dramatic news cycles notwithstanding — and after trampling across the delicate bailout negotiations in Washington yesterday, this was his big opportunity to lay a claim on the presidency, debating in the area of his clearest advantage.
So how did he do? Okay, given that the topic took a while to arrive. This debate was inevitably hijacked by the financial crisis. Almost half of it was consumed by the pressing economic questions. The candidates were invited to stake out a position on the bailout, and neither exactly did. Obama put forward some constraints on the release of federal funds, arguing for greater regulation, declaiming the economic management of the Bush administration and tying McCain to it by his voting record, and cautioning against golden parachutes for executives while Main St was hurting. McCain said “sure, I’ll vote for a measure,” but what was the measure? He meandered into populist pastures, attacking the rising trend in Congressional earmarks, which while politically sensitive have a very doubtful link to the causes of the country’s economic plight. When the topic is a US$700 billion subsidisation of Wall St, it seems naively disproportionate to be railing against a $3 million earmark for the study of bear DNA in Montana.
Somehow from this extended diversion into earmarking, a productive discussion of tax policy was salvaged. Obama reiterated the middle-class support he intended by his taxation reform, and goaded McCain into an unabashed defence of his proposed $300 billion in tax incentives to business. They traded the first direct blows (“Ask him about his definition of ‘rich’,” McCain muttered without elaborating), with Obama appearing to score most of the points. Asked to explain how the $700 billion would affect near-term budgets, McCain delivered a startlingly specific proposal: a ‘spending freeze’ on all government programs other than defence, veteran’s aid and legal entitlements. Obama’s answer was more equivocal — some budgetary expenditures would have to be delayed until this investment delivered returns.
Renewable forms of energy exercised much of the candidates thoughts on the future of the economy. After the home foreclosure signs, the ‘pain at the pump’ is the presaging symbol of economic concerns in this election year, and Obama in particular spoke at length on the promotion of these industries. McCain underlined his opposition to ethanol subsidies — in doing so perhaps ceding the swinging mid-western cornfields of Iowa — and his newfound embrace of off-shore drilling. Before the Republican refrain of ‘Drill baby drill’ could get a real airing however, Obama brought it into stark relief. America has 3% of the world’s oil reserves, and consumes 25% of the world’s production. “We can’t drill our way out of this problem,” he announced.
Oil was the unifying, understated theme of the debate that followed, which was the debate McCain originally wanted: foreign policy. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Georgia dominated the discussion; other areas of particular American interest — Israel, North Korea, Latin America — drew only tangential remarks. Cuba went unmentioned, and though China’s emerging influence was addressed in the context of America’s ballooning debt, the wider implications of that relationship were largely ignored.
McCain claimed Iraq and the success of the surge, and Obama sought to emphasise the centrality of Afghanistan in America’s attempts to curb terrorist activity — that Bin Laden had not been ‘captured and killed’, that Iraq had been a misadventure, that Pakistan was a recalcitrant ally in controlling Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Here the candidates each found the slogans for which this debate will likely be remembered. McCain began sentence after sentence with “What my opponent doesn’t understand...”, underscoring the perceived experience gap effectively. Obama took McCain to task for supporting the Iraq war: “You were wrong. You were wrong. You were wrong.” Probably the hardest hit and the best sound-bite.
Though at times irritable, it was a substantive discussion. McCain was nuanced in describing the ground situation in Waziristan, north-west Pakistan, where local leaders had largely ‘inter-married’ with terrorist organisations. Turning the tables, he managed to portray his opponent as too gung-ho about American intervention in the region. Arguments over the Georgian crisis were not as varied as they were fierce: McCain’s support for Georgia was blunt, and he perceived that the Ukraine might ultimately be the real epicentre of the ongoing tensions among the former Soviet states. “An aggressive Russia is a threat,” declared Obama, one that demands “a sharp international response.” But the United States needed to avoid a Cold War mentality, to recognise some shared aims — particularly the management of nuclear armaments, which should not find their way into terrorist hands. You don’t look into the eye of Russia and try to find its soul, he said. McCain was incendiary: “I’ve looked into Putin’s eyes and seen three letters: KGB.”
On the handling of ‘rogue states’, specifically Iran, the answers revolved around a willingness to sit down and commence some level of negotiating. It all hung on the distinction between ‘pre-conditions’ and ‘preparation’. The Republican saw any presidential contact with rogue states that was made without pre-conditions as legitimising. The Democrat argued that a lot of low-level preparation would necessarily precede any meeting between heads of state, but that imposing US will before agreeing to commence discussions was ineffectual. This is perhaps the most substantial ideological distinction on foreign policy posture between the candidates, and the debate grew heated over Henry Kissinger’s views on the matter, but it’s unclear whether it’s a vote-swinger. Americans tend to let their President assume whatever stance he thinks befits the international situation. But McCain’s play is narrowly directed at Florida’s pro-Israel Jews, and Obama is making a more blanket appeal to common-sense. It’s likely to be a wash.
One of the surprising aspects of this debate, and of post-debate commentary, is how substantive it has been. Appearance and ‘electability’ assessments took a back seat. The height disparity was voided by camera angles, both men wore bad ties, McCain in particular struggled with eye contact, and wore no flag pin on his lapel. Obama had a habit of grinning at McCain’s criticisms that may have been ill-advised. US presidential debates are commonly processed this way: often the analysis that emerges, that propels the media narrative forward through October, concerns demeanour. And this debate was not completely high-minded, there was squabbling over voting records, and glossing over important issues. Nonetheless, after a week at the circus, this was a business-like rendevous.
The initial reactions were mixed. Trading markets like InTrade and Iowa Electronic Markets awarded points differently and barely significantly. The CBS News post-debate poll gave it to Obama by 18 points — 22 points on economic issues, but McCain claimed a six-point edge on Iraq policy. Commentators sat on the fence, declaring a ‘tie’ and a ‘draw’. This is probably how it will be received by the voters. But the question remains for McCain: after a bad ten days, does playing to a no-result on his home turf work in his favour, given his persistent gap in the polls? It’s hard to see how.
Joseph |
27 Sep 2008
| 0 comments
Black Cat, Friday, 9pm
(Taxi for one from Brunswick — $13 + $7 tip.)
1 stubby of Coopers Green, 1 magnanimous stubby of Melbourne Bitter for the guy talking to you when I arrived — $9.50
Bar Open, 10pm
2 x Mountain Goat Hightail — $16
2 x Mountain Goat Hightail — $16
1 Mountain Goat Hightail, 1 glass water — $8.50
Cafe Romantica, Saturday, 2am
2 glasses the Pinot Noir, sorry I'm afraid we are out, okay the Burges Shiraz, there is also the Cab Sauv, that doesn't have a glass price, it is the same sir, very well the Cab Sauv... ahem... you know it is cheaper by the bottle if you are intending to stay around sir, 2 glasses please, no problem — $15
1 small mushroom pizza, 1 small bocconcini pizza, token gratuity — $18.50
East Brunswick Newspower, 10am
Copy of The Saturday Age (woohoo) — $2.40
Lygon St greengrocer, 10am
2 bananas — $1
Artisan Espresso, East Brunswick, 10am
Soy latte — $3.50
No. 1 Tram, Lygon St, 10am
2 hour Zone 1 full fare — $3.50
Farmer's Market, Collingwood Children's Farm, 11:30am
Raspberry jam, spiced apple and rhubarb relish, 1 rhubarb & cream tart — $12
Sticky malt sourdough loaf, fruit sourdough loaf with caraway seeds — $13
Bottle of Limoncello — $15
Persian Fetta in a tin, goats' cheese medallions in a jar — $26.50
Dight's Falls, shying from the midday sun
Call goes through to voicemail — $0.30
Lofty Mart, 2:03pm
1 longneck Coopers Green, 1 longneck Coopers Red — $9.50
Outside the former Cafe Dreams, 2:06pm
Taxi for one to Sydney Road — $15? No tip; rather, a tale worth telling.
Disparate locations, 2:30-7:30pm
5 SMS messages, $0.50
4 SMS messages, $0.40
Brunswick, 8pm
Taxi — $15?
The Labs, 9pm
1 bottle The Wanderer 2007 Pinot Noir (tab collected by Inventive Labs)
Chemist Warehouse, Sunday, 9am
Hayfever tablets, 4 x Kleenex tissue packets, 1 misc — $33
Upmarket Aquariums, Queen Victoria Market, 10am
(Avoided purchasing Eastern Longneck turtle — note to accountant: saved $125)
(More narrowly avoided purchasing 2 seahorses and tank — note to accountant: saved further $380)
Fruit and veg aisles, Queen Vic, 11am
Half dozen long red chillies, hunk of ginger, hunk of red ginger, 6 birds-eye chillies, paper bag of button mushrooms, paper bag of portobello mushrooms, 6 sprigs basil, tub of cherry tomatoes, paper bag of baby spinach — $15, give or take
Deli section, Queen Vic, 11:30am
Tub of giant green olives, spoonful of green olives stuffed with fetta, tub of mascarpone figs — $8 dollars exactly
Ball of buffalo mozzarella, large wedge of Watsonia cheddar — $12
1 bag crostoli — $3
Polish deli, deli section, Queen Vic, 11:30am
20 slices of sopressa, 20 slices of salami, 1 round of black pudding — $18
Mildly disapproving looks from vegetarian party, shrug from unrepentant carnivore — on the house
Bratwurst shop, deli section, Queen Vic, 11:30am
$0. This is remarkable.
King and Godfree's, Lygon St Carlton, 12:30pm
Bottle of pasta sauce, sixpack of Razorback Red Ale, wafer biscuits, bottle of champagne — $39
* * *
Then, I suppose to the great relief of Mr Bretherton CPA, we put our wallets away. Sometimes I feel sorry for accountants, whose receipts are this slender window.
Joseph |
17 Sep 2008
| 2 comments
Speaking of those United States, the latest edition of Meanjin appears on the streets tomorrow, and carries an essay I wrote back in May on the presidential election. It's called 'Even in Kansas' — ostensibly a review of Don Watson's recent book on America.
Here's a snippet from near the end of the piece:
Part of the enthusiasm derives from the slate of candidates: the studious former First Lady and a visionary African-American, competing for the right to take on the decorated former prisoner of war. Of course there are plenty of citizens caught up in the Hollywood storyline. But greater energy stems from the sense that a series of fault-lines that have increasingly divided the country are being sealed over by this campaign, that the fortresses of the red-state/blue-state years, which by 2004 seemed like a sectarian cold war, are crumbling in fits and starts. McCain and Obama are tussling over independent voters, taking a different tack to the Rovian philosophy of energising the base, and both could lay some claim to post-partisan political outlooks, if the term weren’t mostly meaningless in an active Western democracy. McCain, in fact, has had to back-pedal from his monicker as a maverick, to prove his Republican heart, and he will have to wear the charge of Bush Mk II from Democratic campaigners, though it’s not entirely a fair one. Obama has a surer base, although he too has to mend the rifts of an arduous primary season. His proclivities lie in reconciliation, even to the detriment of his political fortune, as when in January he found himself under pressure in Reno, Nevada, for telling a newspaper’s editorial board that “the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time” and that “Reagan changed the trajectory of America... in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” They were reasonable, even illuminating observations, but Hillary, campaigning to a more traditional wisdom, turned them to her advantage.
The entire edition is exceptional — my part the least of it — and I'm excited that with Sophie Cunningham at the helm, Meanjin seems to be turning a corner.
Joseph |
31 Aug 2008
| 0 comments
Introducing 'These United States' — a Melbourne Writers' Festival panel discussion with Dennis Altman, Don Watson and Philip Gourevitch last Friday night — Peter Clarke noted with a glint in his eye that Hurricane Gustav is scheduled to crash into New Orleans around the time President Bush will give his speech at the Republican Convention. The audience chortled merrily.
It's important to get this right. You can say that the United States exercises undue influence over Australia's actions on the world stage. You can say that Australian culture is unreasonably dominated by tablets handed down from that foreign mount. I think it's vital that you say these things, that they're not said enough.
They weren't said much on Friday night. When a man like Philip Gourevitch (with whose oeuvre I'm only vaguely familiar) is launching repeatedly into an impassioned defence of his nation's role in the world, against a string of barbs and unironic comparisons with China — you have to realise that your taunts have become extreme, if not idiotic. Absolutely, wish for freedom from our cultural and political fawning. But don't relish schadenfreude.
Joseph |
31 Aug 2008
| 1 comment
Yes, he's packing heat.
Recipes are presented in comic-strip form. To take a sequential sample from, say, page 144 onward:
- Partridge
- Steak and Kidney Pie
- Tripe and Onions: A Stirring Tale
- Boiled Leg of Mutton with Caper Sauce (to feed over a dozen)
- Osso Buco
- Sharp and Sweet Tongue
- Gird Your Loins (here Len explains various cuts of lamb)
- Corned Beef and the New England Boiled Dinner
- Pork Loaf
- Ris de Veau a La Creme (veal throat, in case you were wondering)
A perusal of Wikipedia indicates that Len is now looking forward to his eightieth birthday and has not yet succumbed to heart disease or assassination. Eat that, nutritionists!
Joseph |
23 Aug 2008
| 0 comments
She is a noble soul, that is what she tells me, in no fewer and no more words, in those very words. This is in the context of the bumblebee. The bumblebee, which was really just a bee, so we will call it a bee, landed on her person. It took shelter under the collar of her coat perhaps. The point is that she is the bumblebee, but then this is a true story, and we should imagine the curious bee stumbling around her shoulder hunting down the promise of her sweet scent, which is pollen as you know, but since we have rendered and bottled it and thereby deceived the bee, it is hopeless. She is hopeless, no of course she is not, for she is a noble soul. That much is clear.
With the bee thus tucked beneath her lapel, wandering hopeless but cheery in pursuit of her promise, so she boards a tram and validates her ticket with a beepity beep. And sits down, and some time passes, and she becomes aware of the buzz of the bee, and surprised, she might in your imagination suddenly move, disturbing and distracting that hymenopteran mind from the tryst she never intended to make. Perhaps a flick of the hand. Let's say a reflexive flick of her hand. So now the bee is in the air, and finds itself upon a tram.
That didn't happen, not immediately. Instead, as you've surmised, she sat still and considered that the bee might become airborne, and find itself upon a tram, and this troubled her more than the possibility of a painful prick, for she is a noble soul. So she sat still, and glared balefully at anyone who thought of taking the seat next to her, giving the wrong impression but for a greater good she hoped they would never know. See? Already there is hope, and it relies not on heroism but quietitude and stillness and sacrifice. I think it often did for her.
But she had many stops to go, and some things are inevitable, and one of them is that a bee, given pause, will eventually realise it is on a tram. Of course a bee has no conception of trams or conveyances of any kind, being possessed of wings, and only dimly perceives a prison, so I'm really just saying that the bee knew something wasn't right. The world was moving and its wings and hairy legs were not. There was a discernable absence of flowers.
So it took off, up from her garment into the air, to what it knows best, which is the promise of freedom, and all promises seem alike to a bee, for it can only smell them. So it headed for the smell of flowers. You and I both know that nothing (but flowers) smells so much like flowers as old women, who shroud themselves in the mist of English gardens. The bee made a bee-line for the promising cloud.
"Then I thought," this is what she said to me, I am merely recording it, she said "I thought I'd better do something to try and get it off the tram because I felt a little responsible and I am a noble soul." This is a true story, and all the parts of it are true, except what you and I imagine of it, which merely contains the possibility of being true. But we know what she said.
Rummaging in her bag, feeling pangs of conscience for having brought the bee onto the tram (but to whom did she feel guilty? The bee? The old woman in her miasma of roses?), she found a tin of Wintergreen Altoids. The mints fell into her hand and she put them in a safe place, perhaps because she liked the taste of rootbeer, perhaps because her mind was on the bee, which was on the tram and whose own thoughts were full of roses and the unthinkability of windows. She folded some paper. By this stage a rough-headed Preston guy (we are proceeding on her descriptions, for we have nothing else but ghosts) had replaced the old woman in her seat, presenting a dilemma that is hard to articulate but easy to understand. She pressed her thumb and forefinger against the fold of paper and watched the bumbling bee.
Then, and again I have to quote, she thought: "Sod it, I'll just go for it." This bit she had to explain to me, and the mechanics of it require some precision: "The tin goes over the bee against the window then you slide the paper in so you can move the tin away from the window." At that moment, the rough-head stood up and the bee fell neatly into another enclosure.
She wasn't sure, but she thought that the other people on the tram were impressed.
What you don't know of heroes is the agonism that comes after. We all imagine ourselves performing good deeds, normally in hindsight, and rarely do we consider that the aftermath is difficult. What she felt was the buzzing of the bee against all sides and corners of the Altoids tin. For many stops, until her stop came, it beat itself against the night and the cruel betrayal of rootbeer, which to bees makes no sense, being sweet and useless. But it's not a bad thing, because the bee is therefore alive, and has not succumbed to menthol. It struggles and struggles and in the struggle it remains a bee, a living bee.
Her stop comes and she disembarks and feels the bee smashing against the metal box in her hand. There is row of planter boxes before a cafe. They are full of Liriopes.
"Perfect." That's what she told me.
She kneels down and prises the tin open. The bee tumbles out into the grasses. It's coated in white Wintergreen Altoid dust. Landing on a blade, it shakes itself clean. A moment, and it zigzags into the air.
Maybe she wasn't the bumblebee. Maybe that was you and I. It hardly matters.
Joseph |
19 Aug 2008
| 2 comments
The thing that goes wrong will activate your contingency plan for what you expected to go wrong, which it never is. This will have disastrous repercussions.
Also: fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Joseph |
7 Aug 2008
| 0 comments
I ate alone at Sahara, where four years ago I wrote about the view from a cracked window. The vista has changed — then it was a deep hole in the ground, now it is another city mall. The window is still broken. I liked that.
Joseph |
4 Aug 2008
| 1 comment
