ThreeThousand

LOOK: Pinku Eiga

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000

What:
thevine.com.au presents Pinku Eiga

Where:
Don't Come Gallery, Lvl 2 Royal Arcade, 314 Lt Collins St, Melbourne

When:
Launches NEXT WEEK! Wed July 30, 6-9pm
Exhibition runs until Aug 9

How much:
Free!

Japanese dude: Oh hello, can I please have a DVD of locally produced soft porn?
Japanese porn purveyor: There it is man. Over there next to Astro Boy.
Dude: No. It's not.
Japanese porn purveyor: Yeh. It is.
Dude: But there's no pubic hair on the cover! I'm looking for genitals here.
Japanese porn purveyor: You have to imagine the genitals.
Dude: Oooh, kinky.

Due to censorship laws, Japanese soft porn produced from the ‘60s to the ‘90s featured no ‘working parts'. Pink Film, or Pinku Eiga developed into a genre of subtle inference, sidestepping (in a way that Sam Newman will never fully grasp), the ugliness of pubic hair. Curated by Misha Glisovic, this exhibition of vintage Pinku Eiga posters allows you to dip your toe into the twisted-though-weirdly-clean world of Japanese soft porn. They're in Japanese too, so you'll have to imagine the titles (think Go, Go Second Time Virgin, and Terrifying Girls' High School). Dirty, yes. But only as dirty as you are.

HEAR: Dynamite in Black and White

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000

What:
Dynamite in Black and White

Who:
Hot Little Hands

On:
Rubber Records/EMI

MySpace:
Here

It's hard to imagine a tougher task than capturing Hot Little Hands on disk. Their sound ranges so much: one minute it's swimming with swampy cymbally synth, the next trumpets are blaring and you're at the fair. You could almost argue that if there was a signature HLH moment, it would be the sudden, and wonderfully nonsensical shifts in tone, pace, tempo, everything.

A standout Jekyl and Hyde moment like this is in 'Easy Way Out', when they break out of a nice, smooth, precisely syncopated synth/drum machine beat and sweet harmonised vocals into a deranged echo wall of sound that it's impossible to find all the instruments in, and that Phil Spector would be intimidated by.

I'll come clean. There is nothing objective about this review. I've been listening to the hands for at least a couple of years. Since they started really. And I love them. In that time their sound has evolved and become more complex and interesting in a way that is testament to their imagination, curiosity and the hard working, consummate musicians they are. That's why I think it's such a miracle that Dynamite in Black and White not only does them justice, it truly captures what they are about.

READ: Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness)

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000

What:
Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness)

Where:
Here or secondhand bookshops or eBay

How much:
New around $12
First edition $30-$1000 on eBay

First editions are like virgins in a brothel: sought after, rarely fondled and destined to live out their days in a basement somewhere. Thankfully, these beauties can still be found in second-hand bookstores, or if you're lucky enough (hint), will come to you from a dear friend...

Bonjour Tristesse takes the reader to the South of France through the scheming eyes of Cécile, a 17-year-old hedonist on vacation with her father Raymond, the sensual and fetching widower, and his conservative mistress, Elsa. However, a third person is introduced into the otherwise routine romance between Raymond and Elsa; an old flame, Anne. Oh, that's original, a ménage à trois ... merci, Sagan.

Assuming the role of Cécile's surrogate mother, Anne pressures her to spend the summer studying instead of fornicating in pine needles with her first love, Cyril. Infuriated, Cécile plots Anne's demise, using Elsa and Cyril as pawns, and ruining her father's only chance of finding true love, in Anne.

Beautifully written by an eighteen-year-old Sagan (who, ironically, failed her Sorbonne exams and chose to write this book), Bonjour Tristesse is for the pessimist, romantic or adolescent at heart.

Sex and pine needles, sex and pine needles.

STRAY: MAX GRR!

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000

What:
MAX GRR!

Where:
Centre Place (off Flinders Lane)

When:
Wed July 23 and Thurs July 24

How much:
Free! Bookings essential. Request invitation by emailing max@theintervention.com

A Melbourne-shot adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are has been postponed to be ‘lightened up' but artists have meanwhile banded together to fix Sendak enthusiasts with the wild. MAX GRR! is brought to the Melbourne International Design Festival by an architect, a choreographer and a dancer. Revolving around Sendak's famed children's fable, this installation of melded art forms in Centre Place will be filled with as much narrative as it is medium.

Architect Ben Edwards, choreographer Kate Stanley and dancer Fiona Bryant have played with Centre Place's dankness, it's high-walled shadows and natural nightly eeriness to pull Sendak's story of Max's mischief and his monstrous encounters out of the pages and into a choreographed performance. The experiential nature of the piece means there'll be a restricted number of audience members circulating at any given time. So you'll need to book.

OUT: Is Not Senior Prom

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000

What:
Is Not Senior Prom

Where:
37 A'Beckett St, Melbourne (it's a warehouse-cum-school gym)

When:
Fri July 25, 6pm-1pm

How much:
$5 at the door, cheap beer, wine and punch

Description:
If you only ever read about tulle skirts, corsages and slow dancing in Sweet Valley High books, Is Not Magazine are giving you two more days to find a date for the Senior Prom. The brains behind Is Not have rolled out their very last issue and each moving on to other, more economically reasonable projects - call it a rite of passage if you like. So it's only fitting that the final fundraising party is a prom complete with pole dancing courtesy of Tin&Ed and friends, a semi-professional prom-portrait photographer, SEXFACE live, DJs Manchild, Opulent, Bromance, Plump 'n' Rosie and ThreeThousand. The best dressed / best dancers of each gender will be crowed prom king and queen. Tears will spill. Corsages will fall in the toilet, but you'll remember it for the rest of your life. - ID

OUT: Sweet Jelly Roll

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000

What:
Sweet Jelly Roll

Where:
Bella Union, Trades Hall, 54 Victoria St, Carlton

When:
Sat July 26, 8pm

How much:
$10 at the door

Description:
Words cannot describe the shake-your-tail-featherly gorgeous woman featured on the flyer of this next episode of Sweet Jelly Roll. She's bare-bellied, clad in a pointed bra - she's shaking to something that'll be played on the night of Sweet Jelly Roll, no doubt; something swingable, something straight out of Memphis. One can only dream the woman on the flyer will come to life, stamping her pumps on a tabletop at Bella Union. - ID

OUT: Cut Off Your Hands

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000

What:
Cut Off Your Hands

Where:
The Corner Hotel, 57 Swan St, Richmond

When:
Fri July 25, doors 8.30pm

How much:
$15 +BF

Description:
If you can imagine the beginning of Hard Days Night and combine the heady mass of women with the wrestling boys featured in the ‘This Boy's in Love' clip, you're kind of imagining the kind of slamming bodies at a Cut Off Your Hands gig. Or, for a visual that's much easier to imagine, watch their ‘Expectations' film clip. Nick, the lead boy, attempts to climb rafters, throw himself mercifully on the floor and dances an entangling performance with the microphone lead. It's no wonder that each time these kiwi boys come to Melbourne their fan base multiplies threefold. - ID

GOODS: 3D Notepad

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000

What:
3D Notepad

Where:
Here

When:
All the time

How much:
Around $8 + postage!

RB: Can we write a 3D review within a 2D template?

NS: We aren't writing in 3D. We're just reviewing the 3D experience, in 2D... hmm.

RB: But will people be able to get a feel for the experience? I mean, reading this now, everyone is probably going "ho hum". But if they were wearing the glasses and I was writing this on a 3D drawing pad, they would be like "HOLY CRAP! HE'S WRITING IN 3D!!!!'

NS: But what if you're colour blind? Can you still wear 3D glasses?

RB: I believe you can. The lenses filter out the light reaching each eye, so it does not matter what color the viewer perceives once the light gets to the eye.

NS: Did you just google that?

RB: Yes.

EATDRINK: Cumulus Inc

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000

What:
Cumulus Inc.

Where:
45 Flinders La, Melbourne

When:
Mon-Fri 7am - 11pm, Sat 9am-11pm

How much:
Kinda pricey but manageable in small doses

It is said that there is a point in anyone's success when your formula is known (1). Seinfeld in season 7, The Simpsons since Homer stole Bart's limelight (2) or Alex Perry having his sunglasses surgically implanted on his head (3).

Chef Andrew McConnell is certainly en route to such success, based on a foundation of undeniably fabulous food served in designed spaces courtesy of wife Pascale Gomes-McNabb (who was clearly christened with profession in mind). Cumulus Inc. is their latest, and devotees and the epicurious have already started congregating en masse, though it's an orderly, intellectual, curatorial masse (4) it must be said (this is the arty end of Flinders Lane after all).

Whether food or alcohol is the fetish, Gomes-McNabb has got your back, as one bar allows drinkers to ogle barmen working with liquor and another sees diners facing the open kitchen, as chefs shuck their oysters and slice their slow cooked pork. No longer a word only for the mouths of Rob Gel and occasionally Mike Larkin, Cumulus may soon well be a part of the vernacular for everyday folk like you and I.

1. James Cameron, breakfast, July 18th 2008
2. ibid
3. You know it's true.
4. Cameron, op. cit.

SHOP: Sunshine & Grease launch festival

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000

What:
Sunshine & Grease launch festival

Where:
Bus Gallery, 117 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne

When:
Launch festival: Sat July 26, 2 - 11.30pm, Sun July 27, 2-9pm
Shop hours: Thurs 12-6pm, Fri 12-8pm, Sat 12-6pm

How much:
Cheap cheap! $7 on door

There was once a certain rock band who intentionally produced an album that was so left-field that their heavyweight record company, Virgin, had to break their contract and pay them a cool million under the table just to prevent it being released. These talented swindlers released a song called ‘Sunshine & Grease' and this is the name of the print, music and film store opening up within the intimate walls of the Bus Gallery this Thursday (at midday).

It may be on level two, but S&G is all for the underground - that means new and second hand art books, fanzines, comics, novels, records and dvds that come from the more obscure corners of culture. These guys think locally not lucratively, but are in need of some green to get going. So they're throwing a fundraiser festival this weekend at the gallery with nineteen Melbourne music acts, including Always and JK Fuller, and as well an artist raffle full of works by Melburnites like Dylan Martorell and Harriet Morgan. Throughout most of the merriment the store will be open for perusal.

Sunshine & Grease deserves your attention; much more so than strychnine and geese.