Count Olaf

Count Olaf - Official Site of the Famous Actor

Olaf Unleashed

Actor Humanitarian Heartthrob Ultimate Dad

ISS Creative Eyes Competition

ISNEWS, UNSW International


Theme: "Australia through my lens"

An affected paradise
by Clayton Kai Xian Cheng

An oasis in the city's heart
For its parched inhabitants

To escape to the quietude of the gardens
From the bustle of the city centre

See.
The vividity of the rainbow in nature's palette
The blacks, greys and blues of the office suit

See.
The trees gently kissing in the breeze
The clandestine activities of couples in the bushes

Hear.
The merry laughter of the kookaburra
The chatter of abrasive mouths on mobile phones

Hear.
The fluttering flight of a thousand birds
The motor boats and aircraft screaming by

Smell.
The fragrant bouquet of kaffir lilies
The sweaty stench of Homo sapiens

Smell.
The aromatic elixir of herbs
The odorous poison of cigarettes

Taste.
The purity of morning dew
The artificiality of sweetened drinks

Taste.
The saltiness of the sea in the air
The bitterness of beer hop

Feel.
The soft grass under your feet
The sharp glass of broken bottles

Feel.
The delicate caresses of falling rain
While faceless throngs brush rudely past

See. The flashes of feathery fire.
Hear. The natural symphony of the finest orchestra.
Smell. The heady perfume of flora exotica.
Taste. The spice of life.
Feel. And be touched in return.

The Royal Botanic Gardens
An affected paradise

OMGLOLX!

The Life of Todd Parkis

Today is a fictitious day in the fictitious life of a fictitious person.

Madeline Lee (Haddock/Campbell)

Madeline Lee - A new opera by John Haddock & Michael Campbell

Opera Australia

Sydney Opera House > What's On > Box Office


World Premiere

Lost in the distant memory of men at war, the truth emerges like a desert vision - with shattering consequences

Madeline Lee is not an opera about war... In this opera none of the battles are won side by side. The only battlefield here is memory and how we manipulate it to survive.

JOHN HADDOCK
Composer

This opera is about sons looking for their fathers. ... It is about how men deal with their emotions and with each other. It talks of grief, anger, denial and loss. It is about memory and the construction of our individual realities.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL
Co-writer and director

Madeline Lee reaches beyond realism to become a metaphor for a deeply human dilemma: the discontinuity between memory and fact, and the painful process of reconciling our subtly edited version of the past with what really happened.

...

Its primary concern is the way we use dreams and delusions to manage our experience of human frailty, both physical and emotional, both in ourselves and in others.

JANET HEALEY © 2004
'A new opera for a new century'

The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart)

Opera Australia

Sydney Opera House > What's On > Box Office


Passion, politics, deception and cross-dressing - all under one roof!

In a word the merit of my libretto consisted, according to him [His Majesty the Emperor], in a pretty line here and there, or at most in a few happy arias...

Memoirs of Lorenzo da Ponte, translated by Elisabeth Abbott, 1929.

[Pierre-Augustin Caron de] Beaumarchais sums up his play [the comedy La folle journeé, ou le mariage de Figaro (1784)] in few words: "A great Spanish gentleman, in love with a girl whom he wishes to seduce, and the efforts that this fiancée, the man who she is to marry, and the wife of the seigneur unite in, to bring about the collapse of the designs of an absolute lord whose rank, fortune and prodigality make him powerful enough to accomplish them."

...

Le nozze di Figaro is above all an opera buffa, a work that sets off supremely those central concerns of humankind: love as opposed to lustfulness, generosity and loyalty rather than selfishness.

PETER BRANSCOMBE © 2001

wordiQ.com

Definition of S*** happens

"S*** happens" is a common slang phrase, used as a simple existential observation that life is full of imperfections

The Barber of Seville (Rossini)

Opera Australia

Sydney Opera House > What's On > Box Office


The celebrity snipper meets the Keystone Cops - it's enough to make your hair curl!

The whole joyous point [of Il barbiere di Siviglia] is that all the characters are opportunist monsters; this is why, gazing into the proscenium mirror, we all love it so much.

Rodney Milnes
'Barber black sheep', Spectator, 30 March, 1985

chanadeline

chanadeline's Xanga Site

Adeline!!(the mighty intelligent one)

Jazushi

A fusion of Japanese and French


. Soy-sauce popcorn
. Salted peas
. Sushi roll platter
. Miso soup
. Tempura platter served with chilli mayonnaise, green tea and salt, and mustard
. Teriyaki chicken on mashed potato
. White rice

eBay item 5527572589 (Ends 21-Oct-04 18:26:32 BST)

one girl friend not ford vw bmw fiat vauxhall peugeot


More proof that some people clearly have too much time on their hands

Australia Ensemble

Concert 6: Saturday, October 16

Congratulations Australia Ensemble

Saturday, October 16


150th Subscription Concert
Milhaud, Mozart, Schoenberg & Edwards
including 25th anniversary celebrations, 2005 season launch and complimentary supper

The Awful Forums

Reveal horrible things you've done in your life!


Testimony to the fact that dysfunctionality exists

happytamponfriends.tk - home of the FFS movement

Little Ironies - Stories of Fairfield

Someone obviously has issues

[The linked website above has already been de-registered by its original registrant and all content is now no longer accessible]

Teacher's Day gift ideas

Bibliomania: Free Online Literature and Study Guides

Chapter Preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Preface
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.

The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.

This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.

No artist has ethical sympathies.

An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.

Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.

From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.

From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

OSCAR WILDE


Copyright Bibliomania.com Ltd 2000

Muses...

My words today will be in honour of...


An excellent article arguing that the sanctity of human life should be respected and hence valued above conducting a realist National Service programme, the temerity of which may result in consequences more unnecessary than those of a war

Honey of Soft Power Will Catch More Flies: Joseph Nye

Harvard University | John F. Kennedy School of Government


Fatal attraction

Getting to Know You - Filipino Information Night

Randwick City Council > Council Information > News & Events : Media Releases


Armchair Travellers rejoice - the Philippines is coming to Randwick City!

Vanity Fair

The sumptuous new film from Mira Nair


All's fair in love & war

Mental Health Hotline

~*^All Hail The Princess^*~

Courtesy of Hns:
Hello, and welcome to the Mental Health Hotline.

If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.
If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5 and 6.
If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Stay on the line so we can trace your call.
If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mother ship.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press - no-one will answer.
If you have a nervous disorder, please fidget with the hash key until a representative comes on the line.
If you have amnesia, press 8 and state your name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number and mother's maiden name.
If you have post-traumatic stress disorder, slowly and carefully press 9.
If you have bi-polar disorder, please wait and leave a message after the beep or before the beep. Or after the beep. Please wait for the beep.
If you have short term memory loss, please press 0.
If you have short term memory loss, please press 0.
If you have short term memory loss, please press 0.
If you have short term memory loss, please press 0.
If you have short term memory loss, please press 0.
If you have short term memory loss, please press 0.
If you have low self-esteem, please hang up. All our operators are too busy to talk to you.