Lesley Truffle's Blog, page 17

The Perils of Television

 

I don’t own a television. I only ever used my TV to watch DVD movies and most of the time I preferred watching movies at the cinema. I love the occasion of going out to the cinema with friends and being part of an audience.

I sold my television some time back when my favourite video shop closed. It was a sad business; they had a phenomenal range of movies from every era and a sensational European arthouse section. Being egalitarian they also discreetly housed an erotic section up the back of the store – behind the comedy section.

My TV was an elegant piece of equipment with superb clarity and high definition but it had to go as it was hogging premium space in my apartment. So one fine day a fishmonger from a seaside township responded to my ad, picked up my television and carried it off.

The fishmonger was stricken with grief when he told me that not only had his wife left him, but in she’d made off with his pride and joy – his expensive, technologically advanced television with superb ‘surround sound’. I got  the impression that he was more upset about the loss of his viewing pleasure than he was about his absconding wife.

It’s a strange thing television. I know quite a few people whose lives revolve around television shows. A neighbour falls into something of a slump when her favourite show goes into seasonal remission. She’s inconsolable and has to make do with boxed sets until her favourite characters return.

Frequently on public transport I overhear conversations about various television shows. These chitchats are usually conducted on a phone at full volume and concern who did what to whom and why. It’s always about deception, rapaciousness, deceit, flash lifestyles, blatant narcissism, backstabbing, avariciousness, mean women, cruel men and an extraordinary amount of sexual activity. Honestly, you don’t need to own a TV to know who is going down on whom.

It can be quite comedic and I get the impression that most suburban lounge-rooms are awash with the worst of human nature. But what I find more disturbing is that these fictional characters – or over-groomed ‘reality stars’ – are treated with the sort of respect that folk usually accord to their nearest and dearest.

In the novel Fahrenheit 451, first published way back in 1953, Ray Bradbury presented a dystopian future where books are banned and specialist firemen are employed to burn any contraband books that are found. The novel’s title refers to the degree at which paper burns – 451 degrees Fahrenheit. Bradbury also predicted the rise of flat television sets that could cover an entire wall.

The main character – a firemen called Montag–  tries to reconnect with his wife after she survives an overdose. But he discovers that not only is Mildred addicted to speed driving, sleeping pills and interactive entertainment but they no longer have anything in common. For Mildred lives her life vicariously through the ‘family’ screening on her parlour wall.

The late great British Naturalist, Sir Richard Attenborough, observed beasts of every species for nine decades. He frequently questioned what it means to be human. In a BBC documentary he coolly noted,

‘If we [humans] disappeared overnight, the world would probably be better off.’

At the same time Attenborough thoroughly enjoyed mocking his own pronouncements,

‘I’ve been bitten by a python. Not a very big one. I was being silly, saying; ‘Oh, it’s not poisonous …’ Then, wallop!’

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: Smiling female lion. Melbourne Museum have been preserving specimens from the Melbourne Zoo since 1862.

 

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The Legend of Cleopatra

CLEOPATRA

Cleopatra V11 – born around 69 BC – was an object of fascination and gossip even in her own time. She was a child goddess who was married off to her brother and became Egypt’s queen at eighteen. After many poisonings, killings, plot twists and turns, Cleopatra went on to control most of the eastern Mediterranean coast. She also cunningly expanded her empire with the backing of of Rome.

I wish that Cleopatra’s Alexandria still existed. It’s architecture, ship building, culture and devotion to the arts was unsurpassed in the ancient world. Alexandria had colonnaded streets to supply shade even at midday, a shimmering lighthouse, well-appointed gymnasiums, magnificent theatres and the most extraordinary library of its time.

Unfortunately the entire city of Alexandria is now buried under the sea. Following a Fifth Century earthquake, Cleopatra’s palace collapsed into the Mediterranean and vanished forever. And strangely enough, the Nile River changed course.

There have been several films about Cleopatra and to date they have been fantastical epics. Despite what we have been led to believe, Cleopatra was not beautiful.

In the biography, Cleopatra A Life, author Stacy Schiff does a great job of bringing Cleopatra to life. Cleopatra comes off as being an enormously gifted ruler: shrewd, pragmatic and well able to hold her own against the domineering Roman warriors who were sent to control her and claim the phenomenal wealth that Egypt possessed. Neither Caesar not Marc Anthony could resist her charm.

It seems that the real Cleopatra had little in common with the voluptuous beauty, Elizabeth Taylor, who appeared in one of the costliest and most derided toga dramas of all time. Cleopatra – made in 1963 – nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox. The Shakespearean actor, Richard Burton played Marc Anthony; the barrel-chested, Dionysian character who denied his Roman self in order to further his own career while pleasing Cleopatra.

Much fun was had over the amount of thigh Burton revealed in his exceedingly short Roman tunic. Both actors were already married but during filming Burton became Liz Taylor’s lover. Even the Vatican became involved and in an open letter to the press, hotly denounced her for ‘erotic vagrancy‘. Taylor wept but quickly recovered and sportingly went on to marry Burton not just once but twice.

Taylor admitted that at one point, during a riotous procession, she thought hundreds of film extras were going to turn on her and things would get nasty. They didn’t, because like the rest of the world the extras were entranced by the Taylor-Burton debacle and the awe inspiring legend of Cleopatra.

In Cleopatra A Life, Schiff assiduously sorts through the historical data on Cleopatra and comes to the conclusion that she was frequently represented as an objectified woman. Everyone from Cicero to Shakespeare used her to their own ends and in the stoush Cleopatra was defamed, reinvented, abused, sanctified, venerated and scorned in equal measures.

Cleopatra took a thrashing from poets, politicians, historians and writers. To Lucan she was a woman who ‘whores to gain Rome.’ And to many historians she was simply ‘a Royal whore’. It was in the Arab world that she was given a fairer viewing. And there she’s described as: a philosopher, scholar, physician, scientist and Egypt’s mightiest queen.

There is a long-in-development Sony biopic based on Stacey Schiff’s book. If it eventuates, it will be interesting to see how Cleopatra is represented. Will she still be depicted as the Royal whore?, the temptress?, the audacious scheming femme fatale who ‘ruined’ Caesar and Marc Anthony? Or will Cleopatra become something much more interesting?

Ah, Hollywood! At least if Bollywood got it made we could have some fun in the cinema again. Hrithik Roshan could curl his luscious locks and sort out Marc Anthony. And Salman Khan would look swell shimmying around in white toga and gold laurel leaves as Caesar.

According to Schiff, what Cleopatra had in spades was: wit, personality, charisma, intelligence, playfulness and a heart that had been steeled by the vagaries of life within the Ptolemy dynasty.

Cleopatra V11 was a survivor, a dealer in poisons who knew how to play the Romans to get what she wanted for Egypt. Interestingly enough rather than being Egyptian, Cleopatra descended from Macedonian Greeks.  And no – it probably wasn’t a delinquent Asp reclining in a basket of plump, ripe figs that got her in the end.

I’d love to tell you –  but it would be a spoiler.

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: Theda Bara vamping it up in the audacious 1917 silent film, ‘Cleopatra’. It had lavish sets, sumptuous costumes & was filmed in California. Unfortunately Fox’s last two prints of the film were lost in a fire in 1937 at Fox Studios. Only a few brief segments of the original film are known to exist.

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The Hair Business

 

There is a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo perched on the American throne. Nobody – not even the CIA or the FBI – is entirely sure how he got there, but nonetheless there he roosts.

It seems that the entire world has become fixated on the Commander in Chief’s goddamn hair and trying to work out what the hell it is about. But at last the secret of all secrets is out.

The Commander’s beloved daughter boldly revealed the secret in Michael Wolff’s new book, Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House. Apparently the Commander has a bald dome, surrounded by a circle of hair. Every morning all the ends of his hair are pulled up to meet in the middle and then skillfully swept back and lacquered with hairspray.

Furthermore, the sensational sulphur colour is due to a product called Just For Men. But here lies the problem – if the hair colour is left on too long, it results in a sultry orange-blonde colour. Which of course perfectly complements the Commander’s heavily tanned face.

It’s unusual in modern times for a man’s hairdo to attract so much attention. Usually it’s women in the public eyeball – such as female film and television personalities, models, female politicians or world leaders – who have to bear the brunt of scathing critiques about their personal appearance.

In the surreal world of TV journalism, a female news anchor’s hairdo is frequently considered Twitter fodder, whereas her male colleague can be as grey, bald or as unbecoming as he damn well pleases.

I’m currently reading Stacy Schiff’s marvellous biography, Cleopatra A Life, and was surprised to find Marc Anthony’s luxuriant, plump curls get a few mentions. Mind you, the man was also blessed with a bull neck, broad chest and a Dionysian personality which always helps in the charismatic stakes.

Schiff also does a nice job of drawing attention to Caesar’s thinning locks. Shortly before he was clumsily and brutally stabbed to death by his Senate colleagues, his hair morphed into a balding dome topped by a laurel wreaths. This regal getup complimented his white toga, man booties and purple cloak.

Now here’s a thought. Perhaps the Commander could enhance his reputation with a few well-placed laurel leaves, calf-length Roman booties and a sweeping purple cloak. His attire would then audaciously whisper of political power, military precision and manly strength.

After all – as the supposed Leader of the Free World – surely a bloke is entitled to do whatever is required to look the part?

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: cropped version of ‘Birds Strutting at Beacon Point, Victoria’ by Christopher Neugebauer 2012.

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Travelling with Casanova

 

 

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was a gambler all his life, despite having numerous other careers including that of: a soldier, a spy, a preacher, a professional writer, a violinist, a silk manufacturer, a lottery director and an alchemist. Frequently he was so broke that he had to gamble and he was very good at it. He loved to spend, so he alternated between extreme wealth and genteel poverty.

Casanova met just about everyone who had power or reputation in 18th century Europe including: Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, Rousseau, d’Alembert and Crebillon in Paris, King George III, Louis XV, Catherine the Great and Frederick the Great.

Casanova first met Madame de Pompadour – Louis XV’s most famous and powerful mistress – in 1750 at Fontainebleau. His witty asides made her laugh and promptly bought him to the attention of the power brokers at Louis XV’s court.

The Marquise de Pompadour (see image above) was a cultured, intelligent woman who’d managed to raise herself above ordinary beginnings. She gained enormous power and thereby acquired extreme privileges. Pompadour impressed Casanova much more that the Queen of France, whom he found excruciatingly dull. By contrast, Pompadour was a fascinating woman and she achieved a lasting influence on French culture, politics, fashion, architecture and the decorative arts.

Unfortunately, Casanova’s name has become synonymous with womanizers, man whores, philanderers and rakes everywhere. He openly admits in History of my Life, to being ‘an unrepentant libertine’.

In Casanova’s memoirs there are many incidences when he recalls unleashing his charm, with the sole intention of bedding a woman. I’m using the term bedding somewhat loosely, given Casanova’s ability to fornicate just about anywhere. Frequently the situations he finds himself in are comedic, but he had the ability to laugh at himself and his wicked sense of humour permeates his writing.

Casanova found lovers in every social class: servant girls, dancers, countesses, shop girls, duchesses and aristocrats in all the European courts he visited. Some of his women preyed on his natural generosity and ruthlessly fleeced him.

He usually accepted women as equals, made sure they were satisfied sexually and was remarkably nonjudgmental – unless his lover or mistress was stupid enough to double cross him.

But Casanova was so much more than an opportunistic seducer. His intelligence, charm, wit, deviancy and many talents set him apart from his contemporaries. When he fled from his creditors in Paris in 1760, he adopted the name Chevalier de Seingalt.

Born April 1725 in Venice, he graduated at seventeen with a law degree from Padua University. He’d also managed to find time to study chemistry, medicine and maths, moral philosophy and the rudiments of gambling. It’s highly probable that he was an accomplished cheat – even though he doesn’t openly admit it. Indeed, spies connected with the Venetian State Inquisition believed him to be a cardsharper.

Casanova revelled in the high life of Europe’s royal courts as well as having genuine friendships with those deemed to be social degenerates – actors, dancers, musicians and other creatives. As Casanova noted in his memoir, after dining with a group of actors.

‘The company … was far more likely to give pleasure than one made up of persons of quality, where gaiety freezes in the chill of etiquette.’

He was a man who lived by his wits and because he had a tendency to speak his mind, banishment and imprisonment became a regular problem in his life. Casanova was the first prisoner to ever escape the notorious prison in Venice, The Leads. He’d been incarcerated there by the Venetian State Inquisitors for his numerous ‘sins’. The story of his escape took over two hours in the telling and all over Europe, many were eager to hear Casanova’s story in full.

Having decided early on that, ‘Marriage is the tomb of love’ Casanova never got married and in old age he writes of having regrets. Many historians have asked, was he really the cold-hearted seducer of his legend? If his memoirs are to be believed – and to date they have largely been verified –  he was an astute observer of his fellow human beings and the portraits he draws of his mistresses are very much in the round.

Casanova brings his mistresses to life for the reader. He lets us know that is his lover’s conversation, charm, beauty and character that brings him to his knees. And by his own admission, makes him their dupe. One of the reasons he didn’t fancy most of London’s renowned courtesan’s, was that he didn’t speak English when he first visited London. Sparkling conversation was of vital importance to him, ‘The thing is to dazzle’.

His pride frequently got him into dangerous situations. But Casanova had a wonderful sense of the ridiculous and he freely confessed his personal failings. Casanova used his sharp wit to rub his enemies up the wrong way and he was quick to draw his sword on those who’d insulted his honour. ‘Pinking’ them on the arse with his sword was his way of letting his anger be known.

Many of his dealings are dodgy and the reader gets the distinct impression that Casanova isn’t owning up to all the immoral things he did for money. He wasn’t above utilizing his extensive knowledge of the Cabala, if it meant personal gain. And the chapters dealing with his fleecing of a gullible aristocrat are deliciously wicked.

Casanova wrote constantly: on the run, in prisons, carriages, palaces, low dives and grand hotels. So it wasn’t until 1789 in retirement, at Count Waldstein’s Chateau in Bohemia, that he began writing his twelve volume memoirs.

I’ve read all twelve volumes and my personal preference is for the Williard. R. Trask translation. It’s Casanova’s wit, intelligence, humour, cunning and humanity that keep me coming back. He was a true intellectual and an 18th century Enlightenment polymath, in that his expertise spanned a phenomenal number of subjects.

His tales of life in eighteenth century are totally engrossing and there is nothing finer than uncorking a champagne, sitting back and recklessly travelling in a carriage with Giacomo Girolamo Casanova across Europe.

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: detail from Portrait of Marquise de Pompadour by François  Boucher 1759.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Murder on the Orient Express

 

I made a discovery the other day – new born babies don’t enjoy going to the movies.

I’d dropped by my local cinema to catch Kenneth’s Branagh’s, Murder on the Orient Express and didn’t realize that I was attending a ‘Babes in Arms’ movie session. It finally dawned on me – when I stumbled over a whole bunch of prams parked inside the door and wedged down the aisles – that I should have read the fine print.

My first impression was that all would be well. The newborns were quiet and happy in their mother’s arms, sucking down bottles or slyly observing their neighbours from the security of their parked vehicles.

Kenneth Branagh playing a very sophisticated Hercule Poirot went down well with the babies. And they were chuffed by the ensemble cast of A-grade actors including: Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, Josh Gad and Derek Jacobi.

But all hell broke loose when an avalanche swept down the mountain. Shot on old school 65mm film, we were treated to panoramic views of the brutal winter landscape.  When the train derailed, the volume increased with dramatic music and loud crashing and grinding noises. Then all the passengers got terribly excited and lost their cool. And the babies in the cinema became very, very alert.

One babe started mewing plaintively and soon they were all crying. More dramatic mood music ensured the crying escalated into wailing – it’s a marvellous thundering score – and the gloomy jump cuts of the derailed train threw strange shadows.

When the Orient Express passengers started rushing about all over the goddamn screen, the mothers picked up their babies and tried to soothe them. This meant that by the end of the movie, several mothers – and one father – were standing at the back of the cinema, rocking their offspring while keeping their eyes fixed on the screen.

But here’s the thing. Despite the crying babies and the general mayhem, I was transported by the movie. Branagh’s film pays homage to Agatha Christie’s style of mystery. Her tale  Murder on the Orient Express is supposed to be engaging and entertaining. The Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas wrote,

‘Poetry is not the most important thing in life … I’d much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.’

I really liked the movie. Branagh directed the film as well as playing the lead, and he did his homework in reading all 33 of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot mysteries. There are some very negative film reviews being published but I think those film critics missed the point.

In a recent interview Branagh stated, ‘ There is a passionate depth to Christie, even though she sometimes said her writing is merely entertainment‘. ‘There’s quite a moral brood in Murder on the Orient Express as well.’

When directing the film Branagh retained Christie’s whodunnit recipe, while enriching the character of Poirot and drawing attention to what it meant to be wealthy and privileged in the 1930’s. The fact that luxurious trains such as the Orient Express even existed, is testimony to the power of the elite who could afford to travel in such splendid style.

Branagh retains Christie’s wicked humour and so Poirot’s moustache is huge. Christie was disappointed by Poirot’s modest moustache in the 1974 film, she wanted it bigger and more extravagant. She probably would have approved of Branagh’s moustache – it’s so heavily styled it requires its own brassiere when Poirot is sleeping.

Unlike Albert Finney’s Poirot, in the 1974 film of the same title, Branagh’s Poirot is conflicted. The detective is forced to abandon his belief, ‘There’s right, there’s wrong and nothing in between’, to acknowledging that he will have to learn to live with imbalance.

Justice, Truth and Peace remain Hercule Poirot’s core values but because ‘murder fractures the soul’, there are serious implications when an innocent child is the victim. And as Poirot discovers, sometimes compassion and leniency must be shown to those who commit murder.

I’d like to mention that Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 film, Hamlet is brilliant. Branagh directs a terrific cast and also plays Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet.

by Lesley Truffle  

Photograph: detail from a 1910 magazine advertisement for a theatrical french farce. There was rampant public speculation as to what happened on Orient Express trains. Sex, scandal and bad behaviour was rumored to be commonplace in the sleeping compartments of the trains.

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Loving Vincent

 

When Vincent van Gogh committed suicide in July 1890, aged 37, he’d only been painting for about a decade. He was immensely productive, despite suffering acute nervous attacks and paralysing depression. Vincent willingly spent money on art materials but he ate poorly and had lost most of his teeth by the time he was thirty.

Van Gogh was supported financially and emotionally by his devoted younger brother, Theo. In one of his many letters to his brother, Vincent wrote,

‘It is true that I am often in the greatest of misery, but still there is within me a calm, pure harmony and music.’

He lived in a small rented room, above a cafe in Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris. At the time of his death, Vincent was under the care of Dr Gachet, a passionate art lover and amateur painter.

When the movie Loving Vincent opens, van Gogh has already been dead a year. The story is narrated by Armand Roulin, the postman’s son from Arles, who is tasked with delivering a letter written by van Gogh. Armand’s father, Joseph Roulin, cared deeply about Vincent as did many other folk. Despite this Vincent sold only one painting in his lifetime. However, since then his genius and influence on modern art has been widely acknowledged and his work highly esteemed.

Loving Vincent is an unusual movie but despite having won prestigious awards, reviews have been mixed. I found the film visually stunning and very moving but I was a bit disappointed that some of the French characters spoke with pronounced Cockney accents.

But I figure you either surrender – and let Loving Vincent sweep you into van Gogh’s astonishing world – or you resist and miss out on a wonderful experience. I don’t think it’s possible to be half-assed about such a unique and beautifully crafted movie.

Loving Vincent runs for about 90 minutes and it’s composed of animated paintings created by 125 professional oil-painters. There are two distinct styles – black and white flashbacks interspersed with coloured animated versions of the actors. These scenes are painted in van Gogh’s distinctive style utilizing thick brush strokes and textured oil paint.

The co-writers/directors – Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman managed to stayed true to Vincent’s statement, ‘We cannot speak other than by our paintings’.

I was intrigued by the professional artists who arduously painted all 65,000 film frames by hand. How the hell did they do it? Apparently the painters had a monitor set up at eye level with their canvas below, and they then painted each scene by reimagining it into van Gogh’s distinctive style.

The film took ten years to make and there were many setbacks and difficulties along the way. But this hasn’t deterred  Welchman and Kobiela from planning a painted horror film, based on Francisco de Goya’s extraordinary paintings. It’s a daring idea and I hope it happens soon.

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: Detail from ‘Starry Night’ by Vincent van Gogh, June 1889.

Vincent wrote, “But the sight of the stars always makes me dream. Why, I say to myself, should the spots of light in the firmament be less accessible to us than the black spots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to go to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to go to a star.”

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Men in Codpieces

I went to a girl’s high school and was lucky to have a wonderful literature teacher in my final year. She was an intellectual who really knew how to lever Shakespeare off the page and into our devilish imaginations.

I well remember the night the whole Literature class went into the city to see a brilliant international cast perform Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’. Oh my God, the swooning that went down when wicked, wicked Edmund was physically bound to the wheel of fortune. The wheel was a huge wooden prop that had already been used as both bed and table.

So there we had the very evil Edmund – the ‘bastard son of Gloucester’ – sweaty, shirtless, with muscular biceps and skimpy tights barely concealing his pronounced assets. We schoolgirls all morphed into Shakespeare groupies that night.

The actor playing Edmund  – like the rest of the cast – was classically trained and he ripped through Shakespeare’s rich prose, bringing it to life and effortlessly defying the shonky acoustics of the grand old theatre.

I was not the only young lady present who promptly shifted her loyalty to Edmund and dumped his kind, nice brother Edgar. We didn’t give a damn that Edmund had already had his way with the cruel and capricious sisters, Goneril and Regan. Nor did we care that Edmund was playing them one off against the other. For having been introduced to Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff, a few of us had already developed a taste for bad boys.

The Pop-up Globe Theatre is currently in Melbourne and at the weekend I saw Shakespeare’s play ‘As You Like It’. It was brash and loud with clever slap stick and physical comedy in the tradition of Jerry Lewis and Jim Carey. As it was in Shakespeare’s day, the actors referenced contemporary culture.

There were hipster dance moves, street posturing and raucous renditions of I Want to Know What Love Is and My Heart Will Go On. The audience was encouraged to sing along and those in the mosh pit were treated to verbal sparring and sprays of fake vomit and urine.

Two of the cast appeared smearing their faces with Vegemite – straight from the jar. I idly wondered what foodstuffs would be utilized if the cast performed in other countries. Nutella in Italy? Wasabi in Japan? The mind boggles.

Back in the 1600’s Shakespeare had to please royalty, gentry, trade folk, the bourgeoisie and the groundlings; those who filled the standing room front of stage. While the upper classes expected to be stimulated intellectually by universal truths and allusions to historical events, the groundlings just wanted to have fun and be entertained. Romance and bawdy sexual references cut it with all factions and love, revenge and tragedy are dominant themes in Shakespeare’s plays.

According to historians, if the groundlings got bored and out of hand, the actors would be given a verbal bollocking or else get pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables. Apparently the polite reverential clapping, common to contemporary Shakespearean theatre, was largely absent.

Shakespeare’s plays have been successfully adapted to suit different audiences all over the world. The bard was a prolific playwright and has been credited with 37 plays, numerous collaborations on other plays and about 154 sonnets. It’s an astonishing feat that more than four hundred years later, Shakespeare’s plays are still in demand

Mind you, some historians dispute not only the number of works but whether the bard actually wrote them. Various other playwrights have been put forward as contenders. But can the mystery ever be solved? And in the scheme of things, does it really matter?

Vive William Shakespeare!

by Lesley Truffle

photograph: Reginald Denny (wearing a very dashing codpiece), John Barrymore & Basil Rathbone in the lavish film, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ directed by George Cukor 1936.

 

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La dolce vita

 

I’ve already owned four Italian Fiat cars – and three were Fiat 500’s. The other Fiat was a second-hand Fiat Sports and it had been driven to the brink of ruin.

The previous driver was a nurse with a taste for speed and an acute disbelief in professional car repairs. Subsequently the wiring under the bonnet was strapped up with ordinary tape and rusty wire. It didn’t inspire confidence.

I loved my Fiat Sports but soon discovered that the only thing that worked was the premium sound system. This proved quite useful because I was forever sitting in the damned car waiting for a road service repair guy to arrive and get me going again.

The consultation usually involved triage. The repair guy had to consider all manner of mechanical problems and try to determine the most likely suspect. For some reason this mostly occurred during torrential rain.

But my God, you should have seen the Fiat Sport’s interior – it was all red leather, dashing James Bond-style  dials and elegant wooden trims. The Italians understand style and the art of living (arte di vivere) just as well as the French.

Known as the Bambino, the original Fiat 500 is renowned for its utilitarian, compact design. Please note, I didn’t use the word small, tiny, cramped, microscopic, nanoscopic or minuscule.

These words have been used – even by good friends – to disparage my vehicle of choice. But to dedicated Fiat 500 aficionados such as I, calling the Fiat small is nonsensical. As a motoring journalist once wrote, ‘Only buy as much car as your ego requires’.

My current Fiat is a recent model which helps to discourage the naysayers. For Marcello is a handsome beast with a black soft top. I named him, Marcello, in honour of the late, great Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni, who starred in Fellini’s brilliant film, ‘La dolce vita’ – the sweet life.

Marcello Fiat has what is known as dual logic. This means that I can cruise around with the roof down using the economy drive or switch over to sports drive.

When I asked the Fiat rep why my new Cinquecento had a silly looking pair of racing gear paddles attached to the steering column, Roberto murmured, ‘Because we Italians like to drive fast.’ We grinned at each other, because nobody could ever accuse the Fiat 500 of being a muscle car for petrol heads.

However, I soon discovered that the contemporary version of the Fiat 500 is a gutsy animal. It also has a loud, rude horn. This is useful when dealing with arrogant road bullies who fail to give way, cut me off and seem hell bent on mercilessly crushing Marcello beneath their big fat tyres.

The current Fiat 500 model has all the accoutrements of modern cars while retaining the basic body shape of the post-war original. Subsequently I was a tad shocked by Marcello’s Sport’s mode acceleration speed at traffic lights.

My other three Bambinos only had 499cc of power under the bonnet, the heater was an open hole that could be uncovered providing warmth from the engine and the sunroof had to be manually unclipped and folded backwards. This then provided an open invitation for truck drivers to lean down from their mountain beasts, peer through the Bambino’s open roof and make witty/flirtatious remarks.

Interestingly enough, truck drivers are unfailingly polite about giving way to Marcello. Recently I was blessed by the driver of a monstrous rubbish truck. He braked noisily on the main road, gave me the sign of the cross and sportingly held up the peak hour traffic, so I could reverse park safely. Nice.

My first second-hand Bambino, went like the clackers and was as hardy as a mountain goat. Even with three people and a large dog crammed into the tiny seats. When I was acting with a theatre troupe, we’d finish rehearsing, pile into my Fiat and head into the Adelaide hills to visit the fantastic wineries.

It was a golden time – kicking back, sipping young wines and laughing about everything that could possibly go wrong on opening night.

La dolce Vita indeed.

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph:  screen shot of Anita Ekberg in Frederico Fellini’s masterpiece, ‘La dolce vita’ 1960.

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Urban Cowboys

 

Melbourne’s Deakin Edge is a strange venue. The whole blonde wood, minimalist construction slopes precariously down to the stage area. Vertigo was apparent on the faces of those pioneering their way down to the front rows during the 2017 Melbourne Writers Festival.

Rock icon, Tex Perkins (born Gregory Stephen Perkins), was onstage being interviewed by radio producer Elizabeth McCarthy about his memoir, TEX.

McCarthy was somewhat breathless and she informed us it was due to all the stairs she’d just climbed. McCarthy is a highly skilled interviewer with an extensive knowledge of the music industry, and she facilitated some great responses from Perkins.

We sat up back, near the bar which operated during the event. Ice cubes rattled in the background as women in skyscraper heels – clutching Gin-ger Sea cocktails – approached the stairs. Their faces registered dismay, on realizing that the only way they could get to their seats was by navigating the slippery wooden steps.

For those blessed with curious minds, The Gin-ger Sea is a classic Gin Buck with a sly reference to Perkin’s band, The Cruel Sea. When Tex sampled the cocktail made in his honour, he pronounced it ‘drinkable.’

Tex was louche, witty, layback and very much the urban cowboy. In front of me, a posse of forty-something blokes – in sharp leather jackets and expensive watches – listened intently as they sipped their designer beers. They sniggered and chortled as Tex described the insular lifestyle of Brisbane in his youth. But what really cracked up the blokes were Tex’s wicked tales of bad behavior.

When Tex described himself as a drunken lout, falling downstairs at a music venue and challenging everyone to a fight – while still flat out on his back – the blokes nudged each other and laughed.

Then, as Tex went on to narrate how this hard-core punk performance led to an on-the-spot offer to join the band, no audition required, his abrasive personality was deemed sufficient, the blokes became so exuberant that they damn near fell off their perches.

I couldn’t help but wonder – do musicians such as Tex, Kurt Cobain, Iggy Pop, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull and Courtney Love, inadvertently aid and abet the midlife drift to risk-free living?

In other words, do the actions of punk/rock musicians, renegades, revolutionaries, nonconformists, dissenters and creatives – who push themselves to the limit – provide the means for others to live vicariously while still enjoying safe, uneventful lives?

This line of reasoning becomes distinctly comedic if you apply it to the Bieber/Swift/Perry/K-Pop juggernaut. There’s not one anarchist or flame thrower among them.

But let’s face it, as Thoreau wrote – ‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.’

To my mind, the great appeal of Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western films comes down to the charisma of the lone wolf, the outlier, the maverick, the cowboy who might be more corrupt than the Devil, but remains true to himself.

Very few of Leone’s cowboys allow themselves to be compromised by social niceties. In Leone’s world, moral complexity permits all sorts of sexual and criminal transgressions. But more importantly, no central character is permitted to live a small life.

In the opening chapter of TEX, Perkins describes a scene at Melbourne’s Lava Lounge when he told the audience to quit throwing bottles at the Beasts of Bourbon. ‘DON’T THROW BOTTLES AT THE BAND – THROW THEM AT MEEEE.’ They did.

Tex copped one right in the middle of his forehead and went down like a sack of potatoes. Bloodied, battered, roundly abused, dragged offstage by security, hospital and stitches. His response?

‘What had just happened left me totally exhilarated. I’m in a good mood, a very good mood…’

So, there you have it. Most aspire to a safe, tidy life in suburbia with a grim mortgage, while urban cowboys just want to burn their own goddamn ranch to the ground.

 

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph:  ‘Desert Diorama with Laughing Snake’, from JimB’s studio.

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The woman who astonished Picasso

Marchesa Luisa Casati

When I was doing research for my novel, Hotel du Barry, I read up on luxury European hotels in the early twentieth century. The London and Paris Ritz became my favourite hotels and I discovered the Marchesa Casati because she was a devotee of the Paris Ritz. Her nickname was ‘Medusa of the Grand Hotels.’

Born into Italian aristocracy in 1881 and heiress to a fortune made in cotton, Luisa managed to run up personal debts of $25 million. She died in poverty in London in 1957. She and her sister had been orphaned when both parents died and Luisa was only fifteen years old.

Luisa Casati seized my imagination. Her behaviour and lifestyle were outrageously hedonistic and she lived recklessly, giving little thought to either the future or the past.

The Marchesa became a muse to Jean Cocteau and Cecil Beaton. She modelled for photographers such as Man Ray and Baron Adolf de Meyer, and inspired many other artists, renegades and designers. All her life Luisa fought against convention and she was immortalized in photographs, art and print.

The Marchesa’s sartorial style was sensational and bizarre. She wore creations made by the avant-garde designer, Léon Bakst and declared, ‘I want to be a living work of art’. It was said by the Surrealists that the she succeeded brilliantly in her quest.

Jean Cocteau swore that the only time he ever saw Pablo Picasso astonished, was when they visited the Marchesa Casati’s palazzo, in Venice in 1917. Luisa was devoted to surrealism and infamous for her devotion to the black arts, the occult and spiritualism.

Cocteau liked to regale his friends with stories of the goings on at Luisa’s palazzo. Occult rites and aberrant pleasures were the basis of her unique hostessing style. Naked footmen, gilded with gold paint, tossed copper filings into the open fires. The filings flared blue-green in a hellish manner, while guests lounged around smoking copious quantities of opium.

Luisa’s six-foot frame was very lean and mostly sustained on gin and opium. Although not an acknowledged beauty, she was strikingly handsome. With her skin powdered white, her hair dyed a fiery red, her pupils darkened with Belladonna and black velvet false eyelashes, she did not go unnoticed.

The Marchesa had a menagerie of animals that included snakes, cheetahs and peacocks. At the Paris Ritz, her boa-constrictor was fed live rabbits by the maître d’hôtel, Olivier Dabescat. Olivier maintained the social fabric of the Ritz hotel and he knew everyone’s secrets including Marcel Proust’s.

While living in Venice at the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, she was often seen roaming the city in the middle of the night, dressed in nothing but a black velvet coat and mother-of-pearl high heels. She liked to create a sensation by walking her two cheetahs on jewel-encrusted leashes. Frequently she would be applauded by late night revelers.

Luisa’s rages were legendary and when she awoke at the Paris Ritz – late on the afternoon of August 4 1914 – she threw an epic tantrum. Why? Because nobody was around to make her breakfast. The staff had more immediate concerns for Germany had declared war on France, and the German army was marching to take possession of the ultimate European prize – Paris.

According to another Ritz guest, the sculptress Catherine Barjansky, ‘I found the Marchesa Casati screaming hysterically. Her red hair was wild. In her Bakst-Poiret dress she suddenly looked like an evil and helpless fury, as useless and lost to this new life as the little lady in wax. War had touched the roots of life. Art was no longer necessary.’

(from The Hotel on Place Vendôme by Tilar J.Mazzeo).

When Luisa died, she was buried dressed in leopard skin and a thick pair of false eyelashes. In the coffin, at her feet, lay her beloved Pekingese. She’d had the dog professionally stuffed at the time of his death.

There are so many stories and myths about the Marchesa that she’s become increasingly more mysterious, exotic and unknowable as time passes. I wonder if maybe that’s exactly what she’d hoped for?

Luisa Casati’s simple tombstone at Brompton Cemetery is inscribed with a quote from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.

 

Photograph above: Portrait of Marchesa Luisa Casati in Egyptian costume.

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