Recent intellectual triumphs in Melbourne

[timothystevens]

The Age is a very fine newspaper with some particularly intelligent and discerning journalists aboard. Witty, too. And just look at how they champion the noble cause of recycling.

www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/04/28/1209234762373.html

[ironguts]

That was a lot of effort not to be funny, could actually get a laugh out of Jazz but this is trollop. Maybe it wasn't even supposed to be funny? Ow.
All this just before the Bells too? Who will take it seriously now?

[isaacs]

These are just cheap and nasty laughs from The Age, the sort that one finds on those execrable TV panel shows.

There's nothing wrong with a satirical lampooning of an art form if it's funny and clever. And that's definitely neither.

Years ago there was a piece of writing satirising the world of jazz doing the rounds internationally. It was brilliant. I remember John Clare writing that it was great, but then adding somewhat defensively that after all you could do the same with classical, rock or world music. I would have said "Yes of course you could.... let's bring it on!".

One of the best lines from that jazz lampoon was "An artform that has two Herbies should know that it's in trouble".

Now that's funny.

[aj]

Note that whichever cretin wrote this garbage didn't put his or her name to it.

[shaggaz who should login]

It was Jim Schembri! A film writer!

The thing that upsets me the most about this garbage is not the countless hours the committee just put into the jazzfringe fest, it's the fact that we paid nigh on $600 for some 'jazz' ads in the age and this guy can get 900 words in no problem.

[gator]

Go The Age.. never one to let a lack of qualified personnell get in the way of consistent spam production...

[ironguts]

Bloody good point shaggaz who should log in. Where is the balance in that? What a total bunch of fucks. Shows where the advertising money goes, one assumes he got paid something for this shit.

[guest]

What are we going to do about it? Post ourselves to death on here, where noone will read what we say or feel our anger and disappointment or something more concrete and practical? Email The Age expressing outrage and the arsehole Schembri, too. Challenge him to a debate on the issue at Bennetts or anywhere. Stone him, turn up at The Age offices in numbers. If 100 musicians and fans did that they'd notice.
DON'T JUST VENT YOUR ANGER HERE. THAT WON'T ACHIEVE ANYTHING.

[peterk]

Jim Schembri is like the Andrew Bolt of The Age, like Mark says, it'd be fine if he was funny but he's not. He's an apologist for crap cinema and when he comments on more serious issues oh my god does he get it wrong... check out excerpt from article posted below, it was written in 2005 about the hanging murder/execution of the young drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van. Can you imagine a more distasteful analogy to base a pro-capital punishment diatribe around?

And don't get angry here though, contact him and tell him what you think of him:
Jim Schembri C/- The Age Phone:
[phone] E-mail: [e-mail]

"Many citizens are fine with Nguyen's execution because they fervently believe what Sammy Davis Jnr sang in the theme from Baretta, that you "don't do the crime if you can't do the time". And it is Sammy who now leads us to a frank consideration of the essence of risk-taking, and its one immutable law, which states: If you knowingly undertake a high-risk venture, you must accept, without complaint, the consequences if things go badly.

To illustrate, let us bypass the usual gambling metaphor and use, instead, one of the stupidest forms of recreational risk-taking yet devised - bungee jumping.

By leaping off that bridge, you seek to defy the laws of physics and thumb your nose at nature. However, if, perchance, the bungee cord snaps, what happens to you from this instant on is something you cannot have any argument with. We shall call this moment the point of no complaint. (see Fig. 1)

As you fall you can say "oh blast" or "dagnammit" or "uhoh". But what you absolutely cannot say (or scream) is "I did not sign up for this!". Because you did.

Regardless of whether you think it is just or fair, what is happening to you now as you plummet towards the valley floor is precisely what you knew would happen if that elastic band failed. Understandably, you may not like gravity very much at this point, but you can't blame gravity for anything, much as you'd like to.

So, if a country tells you that it executes drug traffickers, and they catch you trafficking drugs, then your ears will ring with the unmistakeable sound of a bungee cord giving out. You have nobody to curse but yourself.

This is why so many citizens have so little time for Nguyen Tuong Van. Plenty of things deserve their sympathy, but somebody trying to get 26,000 hits of heroin onto Australian streets is not one of them. If you book bets and lose, you have to pay."

[shaggaz]

Dear guest,

I'm in a particularly bad mood today. I VENTED MY ANGER HERE AND THEN I WROTE A LETTER TO THE AGE, ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT?

[isaacs]

By contrast.

I picked up The Australian today to read a decent, serious piece by Ashleigh Wilson on Tord and the Melbourne Jazz Festival, treating general issues surrounding the art form with respect and making all sorts of interesting points arising from an an obviously thoughtful interview with the man.

Whatever one might think of News Limited's political positioning, its music coverage is light years ahead of the populist celebrity-driven Fairfax stuff (SMH is just as bad as The Age seems to be).

There are great feature pieces on classical music and jazz regularly in The Australian.

[isaacs]

I left a politely scathing phone message for Jim and wrote him this email:

Subject: "article" on jazz in The Age

Dear Jim

I think it is a great shame that you are so destructive about people's life work and the genuine passions of many of your readers in your article re jazz in today's The Age.

If it was actually funny - a genuine lampoon - then that would be another thing.

Jazz - along with film - is the major artform to emerge in the last 100 years. Since you are not a genuine satirist, you simply read as an ignorant philistine.

Regards
Mark Isaacs

[trumpetguy]

I am now going to write a letter of complaint to the age - full dissapointment will be voiced. I urge you all to do similar - Don't let Jim Schembri get away with it!!!
At the very least they will know there are people offended by this sort of crap.

[e-mail]

[aj]

It's disappointing that this comes a week after the EG devoted 2 pages and a cover graphic to jazz. I thought that might signal a seachange in the way the EG has approached jazz over the l;ast 15 years or so, ie they studiously ignore, or else diss jazz ; for too long, the EG has been run by rock-worshippers who regard jazz as daggy and unhip, and undeserving of the editorial coverage they routinely assign to all manner of rock, pop, dance & hip-hops performers. Schembri's witless piece of satire typifies this attitude.

[isaacs]

I just got this reply from Jim Schembri. Did I miss something? Should I re-read the article? Is he deliberately going to the extreme to subtext the opposing point or something?

Dear Mark Isaacs,
you really need to discuss this with the organisers of the jazz festival, who have formally thanked me for the piece. They got it. You didn't (unfortunately).

You're also better off sending this missive to the letters page, with full address etc. I'd forward it for you but my inbox is blocked with vi@gra spam.

Best to you.

Jim Schembri
The Age