Last Tuesday V and I walked through Thornbury at dusk towards a not-so-secret rendezvous. Our course took us through gentrified back streets and lanes where a great deal of renovation of Victorian and Edwardian houses was apparent. As evening fell, householders turned on their lights, illuminating stained glass windows in both modern and traditional designs.

Arriving at the crest of the incline in G street, where the land begins to slope down to the valley of the Darebin Creek, we reached our destination. It was a friend’s place and this was our traditional Scrabble night. Joined by three other players, AC, CC and RF, we decided to play an unusual form of the game involving one board but two sets of tiles.

We consciously tried to open up all sectors of the board, but even so it became crowded very quickly. Crafty players who saw opportunities to infill with small but high value words began to creep ahead in the scoring. No sooner had I successfully placed a Q and an X, I was landed with several other high-rating tiles and no room to discharge them. Result: at the end of the game I had to subtract 14 points from my score.

Our game with two sets of tiles

This didn’t matter because Scrabble is one of those utterly addictive board games that I enjoy just as much when I lose as when I (rarely) win. I’d like to have another go at the double-tile version, but I’ve heard on the cyber-grapevine that RF might be designing a giant board for us. That sounds like fun. Maybe I can repeat one of last year’s triumphs and place a word like ‘vortex’ on a triple word score…

Credits: Scrabble (R) is a Hasbro game. Stained glass entrance panels: Pater Leadlights. Scrabble tiles: here

In the welter of pre-launch promotions for the stylish and spectacular new Taiwanese police drama, Black & White, it was confidently predicted that viewers would find the acting debut of Mark Zhao You Ting very impressive. Zhao, despite having no previous experience acting in television dramas, had been selected to play the ‘hero’ of the drama’s Chinese title, Ruffian Hero (Pi Zi Ying Xiong), opposite high octane celebrity, Vic ‘Zai Zai’ Zhou, who plays his ‘ruffian’partner.

Mark Zhao (left) and Vic Zai Zai Zhou star in Black & White

And indeed only a few episodes in, it had become apparent to most viewers that the role of Wu Ying Xiong was well written: he was a tough, principled cop who could nonetheless suddenly and unexpectedly act in hotheaded and impulsive ways. Moreover, Zhao was proving capable of delivering a restrained and nuanced performance much enhanced by his chiselled profile and trademark ‘Korean’ eyes. His popularity quickly overshot the most optimistic predictions of the early hype. As the series soared in the ratings and myriad television variety shows, tabloids, fan forums and blogs all entered the race to find out more about him, he quickly fulfilled the Byronic cliché of becoming famous overnight. By all accounts, however, he departs from the image of Byron and of many other contemporary celebrities in that he’s quiet, rational and not at all dangerous to know.

Biographical details about Mark Zhao in English, however, are still scant. He was born on September 25, 1984, and is a Libra, but devotees of Western astrology may be quick to detect more than a hint of Virgo in his character. He studied at the University of Victoria in Canada, and had only recently returned to Taiwan in time to start eight months of filming for Black & White. Mark’s father is Zhao Shu Hai, a well-established character actor who also has a role as a district police chief in the series. In June, Sina reported that Mark had auditioned for a supporting role in the 2008 sports romance series, Hot Shot, in which Zhao senior also had a part. There are two versions of the outcome circulating in the blogosphere. In one, Mark’s father counselled him against taking the role because the story arc didn’t go anywhere, and in the other, he simply wasn’t offered the part. In any event, Zhao Jr duly returned to Canada to resume his studies. Since then, his heartfelt performance as Wu Ying Xiong has more than confirmed his star qualities.

Mark Zhao protests to Xiao S that he did indeed try to help her when she fell over.

In dozens of mass media appearances since the series began screening, Mark has seemed untouched by the worst showbiz excesses, appearing sensible but not naïve. Under the expert needling of acid-tongued compere ‘Xiao S’ Xu (Hsu) on a recent episode of Kang Xi Lai Le about his attitudes to women and dating, he answered calmly that he did not like the idea of one-night stands unless he was becoming very interested in the girl involved. But hadn’t he studied in Canada, she then asked him. ‘Is Canada so noted for one night stands?’ he retorted. He later admitted that although his father had not warned him to steer clear of particular people or places in Taiwan, he had advised him to keep a check on his actions. ‘He brought me up well,’ acknowledged the filial Mark.

Mark Zhao looks less than enthusiastic about the hair styling experience.

As he has been taken through the usual idol-maker treatment, Mark has consistently appeared dismayed–charmingly so. A number of magazine and newspaper articles give us the sense that he thoroughly dislikes the hair styling and makeup routine. He looks downright embarrassed in the shots that are supposed to be sultry and much happier and at home in the casual, sporty ones. When a recent Liberty Times article revealed that an effort had been made to give him a cooler and edgier image in torn leather when he recorded the series’ opening theme with the band Color, it is clear this largely failed: he still looks like the boy-next-door in fancy dress. When probed by UDN on 2 July as to what kind of girls he likes, he came across as very 1950s, maybe too much so: his ideal mate does not have to be thin, he said, but should be able to cook and adjust neckties. (Warning, potential girlfriends, go and read Betty Friedan about this particular take on gender roles before going out with him! Also, he has been photographed smoking.)

Mark Zhao in a promo for the OST of Black & White

Nonetheless, Mark Zhao has made a sudden and powerful impact in the idol-drenched world of Asia-novelas. He plays a character of great integrity with a matching romantic idealism. He seems a nice, conservative guy and he’s cute. Neveridol predicts we will see more of him in future series.

SOURCES

Image credits: Black and White promo: here and Kang Xi Lai Le: here and  Hairdresser: here and  In leather: here.

Translation credits: Liberty Times, 27 May 2009 and Sina, 26 June 2009, Elevenstar@AsianFanatics UDN: FewFew@ AsianFanatics.

Kang Xi Lai Le episode: Fufu at SUBlimes Fansubs

Additional sources: Profile from AsianFanatics thread. Black & White star search.

Having confessed a few posts back that I once watched an entire season of Smallville, I must now admit to a further collapse into the abyss of popular culture: I have now seen most of Season One of BBC One’s Merlin. My viewing of the last few episodes coincided with the end of term and the winter solstice. All this had an unhappy impact on my state of mind.

From the title sequence of Merlin

A few days ago I was as usual walking to work in the half-light before dawn through the old Whelan the Wrecker tip, now a park. Before Whelan took over this location, it had been the Wales bluestone quarry. My local historian friend, AD, remembers that as a schoolgirl, she sometimes leaned over the edge and peered into the pit, which by then, not long before the bluestone ran out, was more than one hundred metres deep. Before Wales had begun its mining operations, this site in its turn had been the territory of the Wurundjeri-willam clan and the realm of their creator spirit, Bunjil. And it still is.

Nimueh (Michelle Ryan) from BBC One's Merlin

Caught up in this swelter of competing—or perhaps complementary–histories and mythologies, I was overcome with the sudden compulsion to text a close friend in Chinese, to tell her that I thought I had seen an afanc, but was mistaken. Fans of Season One of Merlin may remember the appearance of this Welsh mythological creature in Episode 3. It was summoned up out of a boiled egg by one of the series’ more interesting characters, the striking, raven-haired sorceress, Nimueh. The monster, which can only be destroyed by the supernatural application of fire and wind, had poisoned Camelot’s water supply, causing the outbreak of disease.  After European settlement, the pollution of the  once-pristine waters of the Merri Creek had also gone on apace, but it didn’t take an afanc to do it—it was human agency all the way. However, I digress.

The afanc from Episode 3: it's vaguely humanoid, but I thought of it as an animal.

I quickly texted ‘Wo yi wei kan dao…’, and came to a halt. What was the measure word for an afanc? I was sure there were dragons and other Chinese traditional supernatural monsters that might have the same measure word, but the later perusal of a fat dictionary of measure words left me feeling uncertain. The following day, while everyone else at the Park was listening agog for the announcement of the name of our new director, I was quizzing my friend EW, ‘What’s the measure word for an afanc? It’s a Welsh mythological monster.’

‘An animal monster, or a human monster?’ asked EW.

Although the creature from Episode 3 had clearly been played by a human in a monster suit, I thought of it as a kind of swamp creature, hatched from an element of Nimueh’s breakfast.

‘An animal monster,’ I rejoined.

‘It could be zhi or tou,’ she said.

The next day while walking through the old Whelan site, I confidently texted, ‘Wo yi wei  kan dao yi zhi afanc zai yanshi shangmian’ (我以为看到一只afanc在岩石上面): I thought I saw an afanc on top of a rock, but I was mistaken…

In our globalised world, where cosmologies, languages and dreams collide and overlap and mesh, this could be a useful thing to know how to text.

Image credits: here and here and here.

Merlin official site: here. Wikipedia article on afancs in popular culture: here.

In June 2007 when Jacky Zhu was expelled from glamour singing act 183 Club and his management company, Jungiery Stars, after a conviction for marijuana use, one of the numerous adverse consequences for him and his family was that Jacky and his serious-minded elder brother, James, found themselves marooned in different agencies. Jacky quickly signed with Tangerine, while James stayed behind with the J-stars.

James Zhu (right) and Victor Lau

 While following their respective careers since 2006, I had enjoyed the brothers’ collaboration in front of the cameras in a few memorable J-stars New Year extravaganzas. Moreover, behind the scenes, James and his songwriting partner Victor Lau had written at least one of 183 Club’s hit singles, and James had also served an exacting producer of several of their MVs. I was disappointed to think that James and Jacky might never work together again.

James, however, by reputation always fiercely protective of his uber talented but volatile younger sibling, soon found ways to try to assist him in his recovery from drug abuse and months later, with his comeback as a singer. As reported previously on Neveridol, in November 2007 James went on Taipei Superidol as a contestant, and progressed quite a long way. In one  memorable episode he sang his brother’s signature ballad, Gao Jie, and afterwards reduced some of the judges and most of the audience to tears with a heartfelt personal message to Jacky, then in still in compulsory rehab.

After Jacky’s release from rehab in November after forty-seven days, he opted to take a full year off before attempting to relaunch his singing career, and it was only in a series of interviews in the tabloids late last year that more details of James’s positive intervention in his brother’s life came to light. Conditions inside the rehab centre (part of a prison complex) are notoriously severe, and in October-November 2008 Jacky told both the Liberty Times and Baidu that when he had to sleep on the floor with (an unspecified) backbone infection he had suffered thirty days of severe insomnia. Then there was the shame of constantly being pointed out as a celebrity. The worst torment of all, however, the singer admitted to the Times, was seeing his mother’s distress when she came to visit him. ‘She cried coming in and she cried going out,’ he said. There was a glass or hard plastic partition between the inmates and their visitors and the singer found the lack physical contact between himself and his family devastating.

A Liberty Times article of 20 October  went on to recount under a subheading, ‘Big Brother’s Big Heart Made Jacky Burst into Tears’:

‘After Jacky got out of rehab and went back home, his big brother went to him and gave him a big hug and a pat and said, ‘Finally you’ve come back!” So Jacky felt his family’s warmth. Jacky cried and couldn’t talk. Finally he found the things he had lost.’

 Two months after Jacky’s successful comeback appearance as a PK singer on One Million Stars in December, James once again took on a central role in a piece of television theatre seemingly designed to set the seal on Jacky’s reformed character and eligibility for readmission into respectable society and the world of entertainment. This was on a popular variety show called Wang Pai Jian Ding Tuan, on an episode stacked with Tangerine artists as guests. Jacky was the last guest to be featured and he had to guess the identity of a mystery person hidden behind a screen. This person had already revealed two of Jacky’s bad habits (and given his playboy past, they could hardly be more innocent): his tendency to scrunch up handkerchiefs when anxious and his hatred of anyone stepping on his feet. (Apparently, the singer loves running shoes and doesn’t want them ruined by being trodden on).

Jacky Zhu and some of his sneakers: he hates it when people step on his feet.

Invited to guess who this person who knew so much about him was, Jacky first missed the mark by saying Sam Wang Shao Wei of 183 Club, but then correctly concluded the holder of family secrets was his devoted brother. James soon launched into an account of his brother’s privations in rehab, while Jacky looked chastened. Meanwhile, a piano softly played variations on the song, Yuan Liang Wo (Forgive Me) in the background, and in a reprise of SuperIdol, a photo of the brothers as Vancouver schoolboys, this time in winter jackets with a background of snow, was projected at the back of the stage.

James Zhu supported his brother on Wang Pai Jian Ding Tuan

Before long, James could hardly speak, and tears ran down his face. The Tangerine guests on stage and much of the audience were also much affected. Just when it seemed that the scene could not become any more emotional or melodramatic, someone handed Jacky a book, he opened and in a choked and hesitant voice read out a heartfelt letter from his mother. Then the compere asked him to sing Yuan Liang Wo. He quickly got over some initial croakiness and quietly took control of the song.

Jacky read aloud a letter from his mother.

A cycnical viewer might feel that all this teariness was manipulative, but this is decent and respectable James we’re talking about here, and Neveridol is inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. There are a couple of truths about the brothers, underneath their showiness: one is that Jacky is a versatile and expressive singer, and the other is that James has a generous heart.

The brothers and a tall friend after the Rock Anthem concert.

And the brothers have recently appeared as singers on the same live show after all: a Rock Anthem concert last month in Taipei. Meanwhile there is a lively subtopic on Jacky & James on the vibrant new fan forum Hong Ju Zi Fans. Check it out!

Translation credits: Liberty Times article: Emily Wang; Baidu: James Tian; Wang Pai Jian Ding Tuan: Tammiest

Image credits: 1 and 2 and 3-4 and 5.

A note to regular readers of Neveridol. Yes, I will post this week. I am about three-quarters of the way through the draft, and have most of the images and sources assembled. I’ll work on it again tomorrow night. My quest to be the Peter Craven of Taiwanese pop culture continues…

One January night in 2008 when V and I were in Taipei, we had to cross a major intersection near the Zhongshan metro station via an underpass. When we reached the below-ground level at the bottom of the stairs where the ramps from the four street corners met, we spotted a sad looking busker sitting in a corner playing a mandolin. He had a dreary, hoarse voice that was in strong constrast with the sweet, insistent strumming of his instrument. The song was full of melancholy and resignation, with a sense of longing only rekindled in the chorus.

A few nights later towards the end of one of our epic shopping and sightseeing expeditions (or it might have been when we once again got lost looking for that elusive vegetarian café in Tianjin Street), we happened to walk through the underpass again. The busker was there, playing the same sad song. I wondered if he had only a narrow repertory or if he somehow knew that this was the only song suitable for a grey, wet and opaque winter night. We passed on, and I thought no more about it.

On a weekend day a month or so ago when winter had finally set in around Melbourne, V and I went into the CBD. Wandering along Bourke Street, I insisted we buy yet another Mandopop karaoke compilation. I argued that singing along would help me learn to read Chinese characters, but in reality my principal motivation was that I liked a lot of the songs. I have often found it somehow endearing and reassuring how badly some of them are sung. If these singers can do what they do so poorly, yet be successful, then so can I.

Back home, as we watched the new collection, V skipped through several tracks that fell into the usual irritating categories: the ones with a song played over the wrong video clip, the ones with still photography or very primitive animation rather than moving images and the ones sung by dull, anonymous boybands with too many members.  All too soon, V sannounced, ‘This is the last track.’

Chen Chu Sheng: melancholy, stay awhile

A quiet acoustic guitar sequence began to play over still images of a young pop idol. Just as I was about to complain that this was yet another of those MVs with just stills, a filmed section began. It featured the same handsome, painfully thin youth, austerely clad in jeans and a white shirt, carrying a guitar case. He sang verses quietly in a strong but harsh voice. Finally, as he reached a chorus full of desolation, he posed against high rise blocks of grey flats with low ceilings that looked like honeycombs of claustrophobia, and later among weedy deserted blocks awating their turn to be engulfed by imminent urban sprawl. Or later still, he leaned against a chain link fence above a freeway choked with cars that seemed to stretch back to an invisible far horizon. ‘You mei you ren ceng gao su ni, wo he ai ni,’ he sang: Has anyone told you I love you very much? He sang mournfully as if expecting the answer no, no one has ever told me.

‘It’s that song,’ said V. ‘The song from the underpass, remember? The one the busker with the mandolin sang.’

I soon found out that the singer on the MV was Chen Chu Sheng. Born in Guangdong province, he had grown up in Hainan. ‘Maybe that’s why the song was so popular when I was in Guangzhou,’ commented V.

When I revisited the clip on YouTube, I became caught up in the story of the song: not the real story, which I think is about a footloose wanderer in search of warmer weather, who addresses the girlfriend he has left behind, but an imagined story. I thought it was about someone like Chu Sheng who lived in one of those flats and had fallen for a girl, but his affections were requited only with ambiguity. It seemed impossible that love, however troubled, could ever spring forth in such a setting, but it had. At the same time, those scenes of rampant urbanisation had become a backdrop for universal feelings of chronic, low grade loss.

So here’s the view from Neveridol: listen to this song in winter, then go and buy the EP. I came to it late and by accident, but I still remember it. 

Sources:  In 2008, E. E. Media brought out an album, 13,  featuring the finalists in a singing competition, with Has Anyone Told You? on it and later an EP by Chen Chu Sheng called I‘m actually not alone along the way 原来我一直都不孤单 in which the song also featured. Chen has since parted ways with the company. See also his Wikipedia entry.

In recent days I’ve been reading the AsianFanatics thread devoted to singer and actor Joanne ‘Qiao Qiao’ Zeng (Tseng). I was surprised to find that there were quite a number of fans who assumed she was signed with management company Jungiery Stars—or wished she were. Let’s set the record straight: Joanne is not a J-star; she is a Tangerine (Hong Ju Zi). This is a  small but quietly successful agency whose artists are the subject of a vibrant new fan forum called Hong Ju Zi Fans.

Joanne 'Qiao Qiao' Zeng in 2004

Joanne first caught the eye of a music producer in 2003 when at the age of only 14 she won a singing contest. That same year she met another Tangerine protege who was also very talented and only 14, Esther Liu Pin Yan. They formed a teen-oriented girl group called Sweety. In the next few years, the two girls brought out three lightweight but very pleasant albums, culminating in 2006 with the popular Sweet Talk, Vol. 3. Some fans, with some justice, said they were the answer to Hong Kong’s highly popular singing duo, Twins.

The false identification of Qiao Qiao as a J-star, however, probably did not first take hold until she began to get work in television drama series. In the 2004 dance-based romance, Top On Forbidden City, she played a leading role in a large cast featuring members of two prime J-star boybands, 5566 and K-One. (In 2006, K-One signed with Wingman, managed by former band member, Rio Peng). In Mr Fighting (2005), Qiao Qiao shared her second screen kiss with Zax Wang Ren Fu, stellar lead singer of 5566. Qiao Qiao explained in a 2006 interview that she was so young when she entered show business, and thereafter was often too busy to have boyfriends, her first screen kisses were also her first real life personal kisses. (Her first screen/personal smooch was with sultry dancer Gino Cai Shang Fu in Top On Forbidden City).

Qiao Qiao’s fate continued to be linked to the J-stars when she won the lead female role in the full blown and much hyped idol drama, Magicians of Love (2006). Her character, apprentice hairdresser, Xiao Bei, became caught in a romantic quadrangle with three characters played by members of J-stars boyband, 183 Club, then at the pinnacle of their fame: Ming Dao, Sam Wang and Ehlo Huang. The trio, who played high fashion hairdressers and the boy next door, respectively, were all in love with her at the same time. On Qiao Qiao’s thread in January 2006, a fan called .jaevia summed up the fangirl take on this ‘predicament’: “QQ is so fortunate to have to have so many hunks beside her! im sure QQ can pair up with anyone and look great.”

Joanne Tseng with (clockwise from back), Ehlo Huang, Jacky Zhu, Ming Dao and Sam Wang from 183 Club.

Widely considered to be the better singer of the Sweety duo, Joanne had in Magicians the opportunity to develop skill and range as an actress. Her breakup scene with Richie, played by the genial Sam Wang in his best role to date, was truly heart wrenching, all the more so as it was underscored by the 183 Club power ballad ‘Affective Line’. As is often the case with TW dramas, whose plotlines seem to respond to each other across the years, and interesting pairings of actors in one series are given roles as couples in subsequent ones, Joanne found true love with Sam the following year. She starred in Mean Girl Ah Chu, in which Wang played a dull but decent country boy with ex-Tangerine Andy Chen Yi as his rival in love. The view from Neveridol is that Mean Girl was both boring and silly: I have a low tolerance threshold for frequent, fake martial arts scenes with supernatural elements. Many fans, however, really enjoyed it, and it was a reasonable success.

Sam Wang and Joanne Zeng star in Mean Girl Ah Chu

The next phase of  Qiao Qiao’s career forced her to deal with several rapid changes all at once: Esther’s decision to spend long periods of each year studying in France, a certain decline in her popularity as she took supporting roles in B-grade series, and the departure of Tangerine leading man, Chen Yi,  from the agency. Nonetheless, very recently it was announced that she has won a role in an interesting new drama, Love Buffet, starring boyband members who are neither J-stars nor Tangerines. For Part II on Qiao Qiao, the girl from Tangerine, watch this space!

Image credits: here and here and here.

Additional sources: Belle Charlene Kwan, ‘No Time to Date, New Paper, September 2006 and Kuek Lin, ‘Everyhting’s Sweet with Sweety,’ StraitsTimes, 2006.

It must have been some time last year not long after I took the job at the Park, aka, the Chalk Face, when I first realised that the old milk bar opposite Merri Creek Primary School had become a little neighbourhood cafe. Only five minutes’ walk from the Park through a system of lanes and then a right turn into Miller Street, Julio’s soon became a regular haunt of colleagues and family members seeking to ‘de-institutionalise’–as a friend in my office puts it.

The place appeared to have a loose connection with Spain: Spanish tortilla (the one that’s like a potato and egg frittata, not the Mexican wrapped variety), with tomato rubbed bread, flan and Portuguese tartlets were usually on the menu. In winter, to the delight of us vegetarians, soups involving chickpeas usually turned up. The atmosphere was cordial enough, and with inside and on-the-footpath seating and wireless internet connectivity, Julio’s soon attracted young parents flaunting  babies like fashion accessories and the local bohemian set nursing lattes while talking about The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. 

The menu, however, always struck me as pricey for off-Brunswick Street. You can certainly do better in those few unpretentious ethnic cafes that still exist in High Street and Northcote Central–or for that matter, in Syndey Road, home of the Lebanese A1 cheese-and-spinach pie that is also served at Julio’s. But the table service was cordial enough, the coffee and green tea were all right and then there was always the location, location, location. 

I think I first noticed Julio’s standards slipping early this year during the unrelenting heat wave that led to the Black Saturday bushfires. Several items went off the menu and customers suddenly had to order at the counter because the staff claimed to be to hot to be bothered. Then in subsequent visits even in cooler weather, the quality of the food became very uneven. One day recently when I met V there for lunch, the chickpea soup looked–and probably was–the dregs of the pot. It was wanly accompanied by a small slice of dry bread. Two days later when I went there with a smartly attired and personable young male colleague, however, we were served at the table and the soup arrived in massive bowls with several slices of excellent sourdough bread and chilled butter. Yesterday D and I actually got table service–but it was 12:40 and the soup wasn’t ready yet! We settled for the zucchini tortilla and the goat cheese, spinach and red capsicum sandwich, respectively. Not bad.

My doubts concerning Julio’s apparent tendency to devalue women costumers had first set in about a month previously, the morning that three high-powered, articulate, clever and well dressed middle managers turned up at Julio’s at 7:30 am for a power breakfast: T, M and I (in case you somehow did not recognise us from the description). I arrived first in one of my best Anglican grammar school suits, though admittedly I was towing a shopping trolley full of Year 12 SACs.

‘Good morning!’ I said cheerily to the saturnine, designer-stubbled youth behind the counter. ‘I’m waiting for friends, but meanwhile I’d like a cappucino’.

His response, and I do not exaggerate, was: ‘Grrrr. Urgh.’

When my colleagues arrived soon aftewards, both the barrista and a mean-faced waitress studiously ignored us. When our orders did finally somehow arrive, the serves were insultingly tiny or poorly thrown together–much diminished in quality and quantity since the previous year. Throughout the meal, the waitress was as slow, rude and dismissive as Mr Nice Guy, who was still glowering behind the counter.

Notice to Julio’s: we are clients you should try to butter up and keep on side. We are bellwethers from the Park and the local community and people follow our lead. And I happen to know that one day last week another colleague and a close friend managed to catch the tram to the Tin Pot in North Fitzroy and back during the Park’s lunchtime. And anyway it’s only a ten minute walk for the fleet of foot. Julio’s, lift your game or location alone may no longer save you.

On 6 May I went by bus with a school group to Toolangi Forest. The temperate forest was impressive, with mountain ash rocketing towards the sky. The bottom halves of their trunks were covered with bark, but the tops were bare, with long, coarse strands of bark hanging down from mid-section. Our guide explained that during the bushfires the hanging bark had acted like kindling and had accelerated the spread of the fire into the canopy.

When we reached the rain forest the temperature suddenly dropped. It was colder by several degrees than the mountain ash section, and it was dark. In the crepuscular light, tree ferns marched upon tree ferns and a secret dark stream flowed at the bottom of a gully. There were trees with massive boles more than five hundred years old. It was a scene from a creation myth, a cold and still Garden of Eden.

We don’t have anything like that in Northcote yet. We Friends of Merri Creek–and its forerunner organisations– only began planting trees along our stretch of the creek about twenty-five years ago. We’ve also put in some shrubs and understorey to provide habitat for birds and other small creatures. Just lately some of the trees have finally become tall enough to make the landscape seem less like an urban parkland plantation and more like the bush. Occasionally, if I happen to look in the right direction, I catch sight of  a view reminiscent of 19th century lithographs of the creek.

Night fishing on the Merri. Charles Troedel, 1864. VSL Pictures Collection

On cold autumn mornings, when mist further transforms the landscape, the connection to a forested past is even more secure. 

21 May 2009

It’s our own local Toolangi.

What’s happening to Neveridol? Once again I am obliged to start a post with a confession. If I want to discuss how I first heard about the ’slash’ fan fiction phenomenon, I am forced to admit that I once watched an entire season of Smallville. For anyone who lives on some kind of higher plane insulated from the vexations of US popular culture, let me inform you that Smallville is a television series, originally produced by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, that centres on the early life of the fictional Clark Kent, before he became Superman. (Although shot in British Columbia, the series is set in the fictional middle American town of Smallville). This flaccidly written, boring and repetitiously plotted show is so dire that a former colleague of mine at the Hill eventually prohibited her young teenage daughters from watching it on the grounds that it was rotting their brains.

If I continued viewing it for any reason other than inertia, it was in genuine  appreciation of the reflective and nuanced performance of Michael Rosenbaum as the young Lex Luthor. When I once admitted this to a friend, H, she suggested I might be interested in Clex fan fiction.  Clex? I asked. H explained that the expression ‘Clark/Lex’ or ‘Clark slash Lex’ has been condensed into ‘Clex’. The word ’slash’ (as in forward slash) was an indicator of a gay relationship between the two fictional characters, inspired by a few scant clues to a possible homoerotic subtext in the storylines, and (in my view) a great deal of fantasy-driven wishful thinking.

Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) and Clark Kent (Tom Welling) in Smallville

Eventually H put me onto Clex fan fiction sites. What astonished me was the superlative quality of some of the writing. Couldn’t these clever amateur authors who routinely came up with tongue-in-cheek erotic scenes, some genuine suspense and various sci-fi contrivances about assisted reproduction, get out there and write the great American novel, plant some trees or work on world peace? Well, I mused, maybe Clex is their escape from more difficult and meaningful undertakings. Or maybe not.

Then H and V let me into a wider secret: there is a whole wide world of slash fan fiction out there. One of the prototypes of the genre is Star Trek based: Captain Kirk/Mr Spock. Of course, why hadn’t I thought about that before?

Mr Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Captain Kirk (William Shatner) in the classic sci-fi series: subjects of slash fan fiction

By this stage I had begun  to wonder about the ethics of all this. Was the world of slash fan fiction, that sometimes overheated and stereotypic fantasy land, insulting or injurious to gays? I hastily canvassed a few friends in same sex relationships and came up with mixed results: some thought it was stupid and ignored it, whereas others thought some of it was funny and cleverly written. ‘That’s like Kirk and Spock, right?’ asked J. ‘I always thought they were gay, anyway.’

It then occurred to me that slash fiction has an even more venerable precedent than the Kirk/Spock relationship. It is the well-known story of celebrated novelist Gore Vidal’s famous additions to the script of  the 1959 Biblical epic Ben-Hur. As recounted in the Epstein and Friedman documenatry, The Celluloid Closet (1995), Vidal was concerned that there was nothing other than the usual Judaeo-Roman politics in the script that could account for the suddeness of the transformation of Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and Messala (Stephen Boyd) from boyhood comrades to the bitterest of enemies as adults, so  he wrote in some steamy yet heavily coded scenes suggesting they had been lovers in their teens. Hilariously, hunky Boyd played up the gay elements, while  stiff-jawed Heston remained oblivious.

Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Ilya Kuryakin (David McCallum) in the Man from UNCLE

So recently, after having watched a few old episodes of 1960s spy spoof, The Man from UNCLE, I did not hesitate in seeking out some Napoleon Solo slash Ilya Kuryakin material. It was out there all right. Within minutes I’d uncovered a very amusing short, PG-13 rated piece by Ceindreadh entitled The My Partner the Gorilla Affair. It is apparently based on an episode invoving undercover work in a gorilla suit. What follows is only an extract:


‘Napoleon glanced over at the passenger seat and tried to stifle a smile as he looked at the disgruntled gorilla that was sitting in it. “It won’t be so bad you know,” he said. “All we have to do is stand around and keep an eye out for trouble. It’s not as if Mr. Waverly is expecting anybody to raid this Halloween party, but when there’s so many diplomats kids attending, he’s just taking every precaution necessary.” 



The gorilla stared out the window, pointedly ignoring his words. 

Napoleon tried again. “It’s only going to be for a few hours. And then we’re off duty for the rest of tonight and all day tomorrow.”

Still no reaction. “If you behave, there could be a banana in it for you.” 



The gorilla turned to look at Napoleon with baleful blue eyes. “Very funny Napoleon,” it said in a Russian accent. “But a single banana can not make up for this…this costume.” He gestured at the hairy gorilla suit in disgust…’

Source: Written for the MFUfic@yahoogroups Halloween Challenge. Collected here.

Has the slash concept ever been applied to Taiwanese drama series and popular music, I wondered. I soon discovered to my alarm that there is at least one thread on a fan forum alleging a gay relationship between two members of a prominent boy band. I read a few posts then decided that where fictional characters might be fair game, this sort of speculation about idols’ personal lives was out of bounds for Neveridol. But, speaking of fictional characters, I was reminded of the last episode of my favourite of all Taiwanese drama series: Heaven’s Wedding Gown. This was, after all, soap in which the male leads seemed to have spend more time trying to impress and outdo each other than they did pursuing the ingenue heroine.

Chen Hai Nuo (Ming Dao) and Lu Zihao (Leon Williams) exchange confidences in Heaven's Wedding Gown.

 

Chen Hai Nuo and Lu Zi Hao seem to plight their troth at the latter's wedding reception.

Dedicated followers of slash fan fiction would hav e no difficulty in recognising the screen captures above as evidence that the motorcycle racer and the fashion designer were more than just rivals in love. Chen Hai Nuo slash Lu Zihao, anyone? Come on, I dare you!

Image credits: 1 and  2 and 3 and 4-5.