Brow beaten

"The middlebrow rarely consider themselves as such and, the mediocre, almost never..."

Whereas, presumably, the highbrow have attained such clarity of perception that not only can they assess themselves as being above the herd, they can also access the thoughts of the cretinous middlebrow masses: "...quite a few of John Irving's, or Toni Morrison's, fans probably think of themselves as highbrow readers; I'm willing to bet a night with William Robins that the authors themselves would agree."

Look, you'll get no argument from me about the existence of a middlebrow "literary fiction" mainstream supported by a well-lubed marketing and media machine. You'll also get no argument from me that this entrenched system results in a lot of bad art, non-art, and Ian McEwan profile pieces. I do however tire of the middlebrow-baiting in which some of our more venerated lit bloggers consistently indulge.

I'll win no friends by saying this, but the constant reiteration of highbrow gripes against the middlebrow mainstream is redundant and often overlaid with a generous glaze of self-congratulatory smugness. It stuns me that Dan Green, who has been blogging at The Reading Experience since January 2004, thinks it worthwhile to once more point out that mainstream "literary" culture is lazy, lacking critical judgment, driven by marketing, and little concerned with formal experimentation. Is this really news to anybody? It can't possibly be news to Green as he has been riding this hobby horse for years.

Green's post does not build upon previous arguments, it merely restates them. Green's position has become a pose and his commenters are ready to vogue to his rhythm: "The mediocre is the medium in which a lot of people live. They don't know how literature is more interesting; they've never experienced it"; "always slam the mediocrity that capitalism continually elevates and valorizes--its part of any intellectual's duty"; "Why do we continually find it shocking that most people are mediocre and like mediocre works? That's the very essence of mediocrity!". Here we see the same blithe, breathtaking arrogance and certainty that one often finds in the middlebrow criticism Green disdains.

Channel Ten News To Be Replaced By High-Pitched Buzzing Noise

The Ten Network has announced that its nightly news bulletin will be replaced by an hour of static accompanied by a high-pitched buzzing noise.

Network spokesman James Maneri says that if the experiment is successful other shows could be replaced by so-called "minimal sensory stimulation programming".

"We're certainly trialling different things. For example, this week's episode of Rove was canned in favour of a continuously looped twenty second video of a polar bear excreting a garden gnome. The ratings were actually higher than Rove's recent figures, while the quality yield remained much the same with far less cost to the network. Our research indicates that many viewers felt that footage of a large mammal expelling a garden ornament from its anal sphincter made for a refreshing change from Rove's tiresome schtick."

Maneri says that despite the changes, Ten is still devoted to delivering a high quality news service.

"Our commitment to journalism hasn't changed; what has changed is our approach. The era of tv news as a slick, researched, scripted package of coherent sounds and images presented by authoritative newsreaders and trained reporters is over, and the era of the high-pitched buzzing sound has begun. This is going to be good for Ten, good for television, and, I think, bloody good for Australia."

Ten's High-Pitched Buzzing Noise News will broadcast at 5pm weeknights from next Monday. Network insiders describe the noise as "Eeeeeeeeee!"

Booker Idol

The Best of the Booker shortlist has been announced:

The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1995)

Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey (1988)

Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee (1999)

The Siege of Krishnapur, J. G. Farrell (1973)

The Conservationist, Nadine Gordimer (1974)

Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie (1981)

The public/publisher marketing departments now have until 8 July to vote for their Booker winner of choice.

BoB is a flawed, cynical concept, but it's still good to see the wonderful and neglected J. G. Farrell on the shortlist. Nadine Gordimer? Not so much.

What I did on my holiday from blogging

Looked for work, mostly, but unfortunately I didn't find any. I've had a few interviews but mostly I've encountered indifference, insincerity and incompetence. (Three "in" prefixes in one sentence? No wonder I'm unemployed!) If I had a soul or believed in the existence of same I'd say that it has been comprehensively crushed. I'm not eligible for the dole because Belinda earns above the threshold and therefore I am (apparently) her responsibility. I can't put into words how wonderful it is to be a physically and mentally competent twenty-nine-year-old with a university education and almost fifteen years of employment experience who is living as the dependent of another adult. Well, not entirely dependent - in a further indignity I have returned to my previous job to fill in for a co-worker (and friend) who came down with a slight case of malignant-tumour-on-the-spine a couple of weeks after I "left". Although my friend's health issues certainly put my own problems in perspective, it's still discomfiting to think 1) that I am back doing a more limited version of my old job, and 2) that my friend's cancer is essentially paying my half of the rent.

Speaking of rent, our landlord is selling up, leaving us up a certain well-known creek without a certain well-known propulsion implement. The house is being sold with us in it but Denver, the real estate agent who pops up every few days to quote Dale Carnegie at me, reckons the buyer will knock the place down to build a brace of townhouses. Given how crappy the house is, I reckon Denver (mention of whose name inevitably invites a mental rendition of that 80s classic, "Theme From 'Denver the Last Dinosaur'") is spot on. So we're looking for somewhere to live as well as dealing with frequent visits from Denver, the landlord, and various tradies who have been engaged to spruce the place up as cheaply and tackily as possible. (Did you know they still manufacture mission brown?) No open house inspections yet, but it's on the cards. I plan on cooking fish, garlic and onion wrapped in a wet sock the night before.

Recent Acquisitions

Clockwise from top left: Lanark, Alasdair Gray; Pump Six and Other Stories, Paolo Bacigalupi; The Essential Ellison, Ellison, et al; Strange Things In Close Up, Howard Waldrop; Slouching Towards Bethlehem and Sentimental Journeys, Joan Didion.

Pump Six arrived in today's mail courtesy of its publisher, Night Shade Books. I want to get back into reviewing new/newish fiction and I'm looking forward to writing about Bagigalupi's debut collection.

*Shuffles awkwardly into the room*

Um, hi.

I know I said was going to set up shop elsewhere but every time I began jotting down ideas for blog names, possible content, layout, etc, I felt a longing to be back here at Sterne, where life is simple and expectations are low. I feel more kindly towards the place than I did in the dark days of Feb/March; in fact I feel more kindly towards most things than I did in Feb/March. The main reason I've decided to return is that instead of allowing me plenty of time to write non-blog stuff, not blogging has had the opposite effect. Aside from job applications the last time I wrote anything longer than two sentences was on March 9, which is a pretty piss poor effort by anyone's standards. So I'm back. Again. For now.

Ok.

/sheepishness