Dust Echoes is a series of twelve beautifully animated Aboriginal Australian dreamtime stories from Central Arnhem Land. The themes of these stories tell tales of love, loyalty, duty to country and aboriginal custom and law. Each story comes with descriptions on its history, what the story means and the text of the original story as told by local story tellers. Be sure to check out the
downloads section for free desktop wallpapers and
MP3 bonus tracks.
posted by Effigy2000
on Nov 26, 2009 -
13 comments
Australian television show "Hey Hey It's Saturday" is currently back on the air after a few decades, running a series of reunion shows, and the other night a group that had been on the show in the 80s came back with the same act,
in blackface. [more inside]
posted by barnacles
on Oct 8, 2009 -
216 comments
Mr Squiggle, the Man from 93 Crater Crescent, the Moon,
turns 50 today.
Created by cartoonist and puppeteer Norman Hetherington, who would take children's scribbles and then craft it into a drawing,
Mr Squiggle, along with friends
Gus the Snail,
Bill the Steam Shovel and the ever grumpy
Blackboard (whom Mr Squiggle would use as an easel, being told to "
Hu-rry u-p, hu-rry u-p" as he did) has been something of an institution for generations of Australian kids.
Relive some of the magic...
posted by Effigy2000
on Jun 30, 2009 -
18 comments
"
How do black women fight crime? They have abortions." "
How do you stop a poofter from drowning? You take your foot off his head." These and other 'jokes' featured in an advertisement on
The Gruen Transfer, an Australian television program focusing on advertising. The ad, part of a segment called 'The Pitch' which usually produces humorous ads, was banned by the ABC, but the national broadcaster has still allowed it to be viewed online, and hundreds have now seen it. The ad was designed to sell "fat pride", with creator Adam Hunt explaining his motivation behind the ad being to say "if you discriminate against somebody on the basis of their shape then you are no different to someone who is racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic."
Debate has raged online if the ad is offensive and discriminatory, as the ABC has declared, and whether or not it was effective.
Watch the ad and judge for yourself.
posted by Effigy2000
on May 15, 2009 -
157 comments
"Normally subcultures in Australia are taken from other countries and just reproduced here.
Sharps or sharpies are an Australian specific subculture, developed in Australian specific conditions." Sharpies were members of suburban youth gangs in Australia mainly from the 1960s to 1980s,
particularly in Melbourne, but also in Sydney and Perth to a lesser extent. "Everybody was in a gang. Everybody. Every second street there was a gang. Um --
there was like you were either in a gang or you were the victim." The time of the sharpies is part of Melbourne folklore. Forget JFK. Where were you when Frankston erupted after the
AC/DC concert in 1977? While the violence was legendary, so were
the fashion and the music.
Lobby Loyde and the
Coloured Balls,
Buster Brown,
Skyhooks, Fat Daddy,
Hush. And nobody
danced like the sharpies (which resembles
skanking of
some sort).
Anyone over forty who grew up in Melbourne has at least one story to tell about the sharpies (PDF). Some stories are about
gang leaders with missing teeth and shit-eating grins, while others
look back with some sort of fondness.
posted by filthy light thief
on Apr 14, 2009 -
23 comments
The Best Job in the World. Would you like to be paid AUD$150,0000 to live for free in a three-bedroom villa on an island in the Great Barrier Reef for six months, simply in exchange for blogging about your experience? Yeah, so would I. Submit your application before February 22nd, and see if you make it through the other millions of people who are sure to apply. And no--it's not a joke.
posted by schroedinger
on Jan 12, 2009 -
70 comments
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard was booted out in the 2007 elections. He had been Prime Minister for 11 years and in that time he had taken the country to war and divided the country on issues like Aboriginal reconciliation and workplace reforms.
The Howard Years, a four part documentary originally screened on the ABC, is now online and available to view for free and takes a detailed look at the legacy of his Prime Ministership. The four part series explores in greater detail than ever before Howard's fractured relationship with his deputy and heir apparent, Peter Costello, and also contains some startling revelations from Howard Government ministers that many candidly admit they would never have told you while they were still in Government.
posted by Effigy2000
on Dec 8, 2008 -
32 comments
"We don't vote for them, we don't even know their names and we're not quite sure what they do. But they wield enormous influence.
They are the power behind the power. They are The Hollowmen." You can watch the Australian Broadcasting Company's new political satire
The Hollowmen [warning: sound] on the web. Or you can find it via Bittorrent. (Or if you live down under I suppose you could watch it on ABC 1 Wednesdays at 9pm or ABC 2 Thursdays at 8:30pm.) It's worth a look because it may be the funniest new satire on any English-language network.
[more inside]
posted by sdodd
on Sep 12, 2008 -
18 comments
Twelve Canoes - a beautiful & media-rich site presenting the stories, art and environment of the Yolngu people who live around the Arafura swamp in north-eastern Arnhem Land, Australia.
[more inside]
posted by UbuRoivas
on Sep 8, 2008 -
5 comments
"Why the fuss? Well, Colin's a baby whale..." Oh no. They named the doomed little thing ('little' meaning about the size of a large car). Mal Holland's report from the Daily Telegraph gives a very illuminating rundown of the nervous breakdown that "Sydney's booming whale watching industry" is experiencing right now...
[more inside]
posted by ZachsMind
on Aug 20, 2008 -
78 comments
