Brunswick Heads Fleet has been awarded the title of top regional restaurant in NSW. The scores are in and the results are official – the Byron Shire is home to two of Australia’s top restaurants, with the recently released national Good Food Guide awarding both Brunswick Heads Fleet and Byron Bay’s The Byron at Byron Resort hat status.

The Byron at Byron Resort received one hat, while Fleet received two hats and was the highest scoring restaurant in regional NSW with 17.5/20

The Guide of independent, anonymous reviews is written by a panel of trusted restaurant critics and recognises the best Australian restaurants nationally with ‘hats’, symbolised by a chef’s toque.  To secure a coveted spot in the Guide, restaurants in New South Wales and Victoria must score at least 14 out of 20, while all other states must score a minimum of 15.

Neil Perry says his best meal in 2018 was at Brunswick Heads Fleet restaurant which now has two hats.

To achieve a hat is a pinnacle of a chef’s career and a restaurant’s history, with the term ‘hatted’ becoming embedded in the Australian lexicon. More than 500 restaurants from across the country were reviewed for this year’s Guide, with 264 of these receiving hat status, ranging from one to three.

Only seven restaurants nationally achieved the top accolade of three hats, and they include Attica (VIC), Brae (VIC), Momofuku Seiobo (NSW), Minamishima (VIC), Quay (NSW), Restaurant Orana (SA) and Sixpenny (NSW).

The catalogue of influential Guide editors includes founding editors Claude Forell in Melbourne and Leo Schofield in Sydney – along with Terry Durack, Jill Dupleix and Matthew Evans – all of whom have helped shape and chart the growth of the restaurant industry in Australia.

Dessert from the Byron at Byron restaurant.

It is this rich 39-year tradition that the 2019 Good Food Guide editor Myffy Rigby upholds, ensuring the Guide remains Australia’s pre-eminent restaurant bible.

“The Good Food Guide is a reflection of the thousands of voices that make Australia one of the most diverse and delicious places to eat in the world,” says Rigby. “The Guide is a celebration of the industry as a whole. Every one of the restaurants featured is a summation of all those moving parts. We recognise the hard work of all those Australian restaurants and everything they do to enrich the scene.”

Some examples of the delicious meals that have earned Fleet two hats.

The Good Food Guide is the perfect Christmas present for those that love to travel and eat!

The national Good Food Guide 2019 is out now and retailing for $29.99.in newsagents and online at: www.thestore.com.au/goodfood

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 One thing I love about Viv, who’s been my beauty therapist for as long as I’ve been in Byron is that she never minds getting me a lavender-oil soaked tissue to smell before she starts my waxing routine.

Over the years I’ve seen her practice grow into a gracious salon – equipped these days with some of the latest state-of-the art therapy equipment including colonic hydrotherapy; oxygen facial therapy; removal of fat by cavitation and painless hair removal.

But it wasn’t always like that. “Byron has always been my spiritual home,” she tells me. “Beauty therapy really began as a hobby to support my ballet dancing. I studied beauty therapy  in Byron, on the Gold Coast and in Sydney, and had a small studio at the back of my house, and of course, like everybody else I had to work as a waitress to support myself, but beauty therapy paid for my dance tuition at the conservatorium. I went through all the grades and danced full-time, and gradually made the transition from dancing into beauty therapy.”

Vivienne Freeman runs Azula Beauty and Body Cleansing Clinic in Byron’s Industrial centre.

For Viv one of the main things has been to continue her education. “I never wanted to just run a beauty salon,” she says. “I wanted to understand how people’s psyches work around their health and beauty and be able to help them function at optimal health.”

To that end she enrolled at Southern Cross University to study a Bachelor of Naturopathy and Complementary Medicine degree. “That was really just the start of it,” she says. “It’s been a lifetime of learning. Modalities I’ve studied include yoga, homeopathy, herbs, colon hydrotherapy, cranio-sacral therapy and Oriental medicine.”

Over the years she’s come to the conclusion that there are eight principles of life to observe – and if these are in balance then life works. “Nutrition is number one,” she says, “then sunshine, breathwork, fresh water, exercise, loving relationships, meditation and sleep.”

Although she loves living and working in Byron, one thing about the Byron lifestyle disturbs her. “I have to say that I’ve seen a vast increase in the amount of alcohol young women drink,” she says. “They don’t realise the damage they are doing, it destroys the liver, and brain tissue, it affects the skin, and new studies have shown it’s a possible cause of cancer. The problem for young women is that they are often underweight, or at least, very slim, as well and that makes the effects of alcohol on their bodies even worse.”

I wonder how she feels on the subject of that now widely-accepted beauty treatment – Botox? “We’re moving away from the Botox revolution,” she says, “and into healthier ways of keeping the skin taut, young and beautiful like radio-frequency and oxygen therapy. After long-term Botox use, and if you suddenly stop the skin begins to sag. Why not grow old gracefully? When practising the Eight Principles we will look and feel fabulous inside and out.”

Vivienne describes her salon as an “holistic beauty centre. They’re not just with me for treatment, I advise them and I give them some education on their bodies and their health. What they do with that advice knowledge is their choice, but I feel it’s important for them to know that they can make very important changes which will have long-term beneficial effects on their lives – and it’s not that hard! I like people to take their health into their own hands.”

I can certainly vouch for Viv, her treatments, her wise advice, her laughter and her warmth. So if you live in Byron, or are passing through make sure you a book an appointment to visit her at her welcoming and warm salon in Byron Bay’s Industrial Centre.

Just remember to ask for the lavender tissue.

You can contact Viv on https://azulabeauty.com.au/

Call her on: 0413898999

Instagram: azula_beauty

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/azulabeautybyronbay/

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What’s in a name? Plenty, for an author writing a novel or a short story. As any armchair detective reading newspaper reports readily understands, just a character’s name can indicate their ethnicity and age. And where they live (whether Byron Bay or Mosman). Maybe even their wealth and social status.

Of course the sky is the limit if you’re writing something more fanciful. But if you’re writing a realistic Australian story with a character you want to portray as an average middle-aged Aussie bloke, you’re on safe ground calling him Craig, David, Michael, Greg, Steve, Darren or Brett. Throw in a Wayne, if you wish.

But forget naming him Jaxxon or Danyel. Or Atticus, no matter how much you enjoyed To Kill a Mocking Bird at school. For female characters, if you want to win the Miles Franklin award, please note that there are very few Patrick White-type aunts (or real-life grandmothers) named Savannah, Harper or Madison. Especially Maddisons with two Ds.

Similarly, for middle-aged female characters, Sharon, Janice, Rhonda, Karen, Donna, Georgina and Kylie are now safe picks, if no longer applicable for any woman under 50. For really elderly characters, however, you can safely use names like Jack and Charlotte, Ben and Alice, Thomas and Emily, William and Grace, Henry and Rose. And, name-fashions being what they are, they’re perfect for young characters as well.

Characters’ names have always fascinated me. Editing the proofs of a new book of short stories the other day, I found I had to change many people’s names because I’d liked them so much I’d used them over and over in vastly different stories and roles.

I don’t imagine Charles Dickens had such a repetition problem. Not with characters with such wildly cartoonish names as Wackford Squeers, Luke Honeythunder, Harold Skimpole, Polly Toodle, Silas Wegg, Mr Sloppy, John Podsnop, Mr Wopsle, Smike, Bumble, Pumblechook and Paul Sweedlepipe. Or David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, for that matter.

If no one could ever accuse Dickens of subtlety, you certainly knew where you stood – and still do today — with people called Ebenezer Scrooge and Uriah Heep, two Dickensian characters whose names have forever entered the English language as representing meanness and snivelling connivance.

It seems rather lame nowadays, but Dickens’ thousands of Victorian readers liked his Good Guys and Bad Guys being sharply defined by their names. Take Polly Toodle, for example. What better name for the rosy-cheeked wet nurse in Dombey and Son? Or Wackford Squeers, though a little obvious for a cruel orphanage school master.

Then there’s Silas Wegg, the one-legged shyster in Our Mutual Friend. And Mr Sloppy, the disabled fellow of the same book, not to mention Daniel Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop, who’s described as “a malicious, grossly deformed, hunchback dwarf moneylender”, which seems to tick all the boxes of Dicken’s very Victorian sympathy/disgust for the physically challenged.

A less reliable behavioural and physical clue, perhaps, is the name of the same story’s “good-natured but easily-led lad”: Dick Swiveller, a modern online probe into whose name might accidentally lead the innocent literary inquirer down unexpected byways.

The names of some fictional characters, however, have captured the public consciousness well beyond the books that gave birth to them, in many cases more than a century before.

Any reader’s selection of famous book characters would surely include Robinson Crusoe, Huckleberry Finn, Sherlock Holmes, Jane Eyre, Dr Frankenstein, Gulliver, Count Dracula, Anna Karenina, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Lady Chatterley, Jay Gatsby, Hannibal Lecter and Scarlett O’Hara.

Then there’s James Bond, Svengali, Lolita, Miss Havisham, Emma Bovary, Tristram Shandy, Peter Pan, Sam Spade, Tarzan, Harry Potter, Molly Bloom, Alice (in Wonderland), Dorian Gray, Philip Marlowe, Holden Caulfield and Winnie the Pooh. And you’d probably have to include Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Rapunzel.

I’m often asked where I get my characters’ names. For the surnames, usually by flipping through the phone book or classified ads. Then I choose a first name to fit the age, nationality and class of the character. I never knowingly use the name of an acquaintance, no matter how tempting it might be for an unpleasant character. Sometimes too tempting.

But if there’s even a hint of a real person identifiable in the story, I change their hair colour and physique and age just to make sure. And their nationality. And place of residence. And occupation. Maybe even their gender.

Then, when someone I don’t much like sidles up to me, frowning but clearly delighted, and says smugly, as they sometimes do, “I see you’ve put me in your book”, of course I deny everything.

Robert Drewe’s latest book is The True Colour of the Sea (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin).

penguin.com.au/books/the-true-colour-of-the-sea

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Janet De Neefe is pounding fresh spices in a mortar and pestle in her kitchen in Ubud, Bali. There’s candelnuts, and coriander seeds, black peppercorns, red shallots, garlic, chillies, lemongrass stalks, galangal, fresh turmeric, lime leaves and palm sugar.
The aromas have my tastebuds on fire.
The Melbourne ex-pat is about to make one of her favourite Indonesian dishes – a mouth-watering golden kare ayam (chicken curry) as well as an assortment of other spicy and fragrant side dishes.
On the other side of Janet’s kitchen bench, and looking somewhat out-of-place, is a large jar of Vegemite – a reminder of Australia and her home for the first 25 years of her life.
“Vegemite reminds me of home – of course – and I love it on toast for breakfast,” Janet says, “but it’s the exotic Indonesian cuisine that’s captured my heart.”
From the moment the Melbourne teenager stepped off a plane in Bali in 1975 she was fascinated with the food and culture of The Island of the Gods. “I was besotted with the mouth-watering cuisine. It was just so different to what we were used to in Australia,” she says.

Janet De Neefe surrounded by some of her favourite Balinese ingredients.

Janet returned to Bali in 1984, and on only the second day of her holiday, she met her future husband, Ketut Suadarna. One chapter of her life closed and another opened and five years later the couple were married. Over the next 30 years, and with no formal culinary training, Janet (with the help of Ketut and her family) has built a food ’empire’ in Ubud of which many successful restauranteurs would be envious.
In 1987, and after learning as much as she could about Indonesian food from her sister-in-law, the couple opened their first restaurant – Lilies – in the famed Monkey Forest Road. In 1990 they established the Honeymoon Bakery and Guesthouse and in subsequent years Janet and Ketut opened two more restaurants – Casa Luna and Indus – as well as the Honeymoon Kitchen which operates from their guesthouse.
There’s also the popular Casa Luna Cooking School that attracts tourists from around the world keen to learn about Indonesian cuisine; the highly successful Ubud Food Festival which Janet started in 2015 and more recently, the exotic Spice Island Cruises.
Janet and Ketut also own a homewares store – Casa Luna Emporium – and in 2002 Janet started the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival as a way to draw tourists back to the island following the Bali bombings.
And if that’s not enough on their plate, the couple also have four children – Dewi 27, Krishna 25, Laksmi 22 and Arjuna 20.

FAMILY AFFAIR: Janet De Neefe, her husband Ketut Suadarna and children (from left) Krishna, Dewi, Laksmi and Arjuna at a recent ceremony in their Ubud home.

“I’m crazy about Indonesian food, which I feel is totally underrated,” Janet says. “I want to put a spotlight on this exotic spicy cuisine, which I describe as the ‘Italian food of the east’. It nourishes you from the inside out and is very medicinal. We don’t used canned or processed food and all our spice pastes are made from scratch with fresh ingredients sourced daily from the local markets. At the moment I’m crazy about jackfruit curry, I love smoked duck and my passion is baking sourdough bread with a host of different and unusual ingredients.”
Janet’s baking obsession has led her to invite sourdough ‘guru’ Chad Robertson from San Francisco to attend next year’s Food Festival, which will be held on April 26, 27 and 28.

An Indian Feast at the Ubud Food Festival.

Since its inception four years ago, the festival has grown into south/east Asia’s leading culinary event, showcasing Indonesia’s diverse cuisines, extraordinary local produce and shining a spotlight on culinary heroes – both new and established.
From the opening night party to the final mouthful, this year’s event held in April and presented by ABC was enjoyed by more than 12,000 hungry foodies – a 30 percent increase on last year’s attendance.
“The festival has seen enormous success and even though it’s mainly an Indonesian audience, it’s also attracting lots of westerners as well,” Janet says.
Janet’s latest food adventure, her famed Spice Island Cruises focuses on a small, but lucky group of foodies and adventurers who set sail on the high seas on an old-fashioned teak Indonesian pirate ship across stunningly clear tropical seas from Ambon to Banda Neira. Banda Neira lies in the middle of 10 small, sun-drenched volcanic islands scattered in the wind-swept Banda Seas, 200km from Ambon. “To arrive by water makes it nothing short of magical,” says Janet.
From snorkelling and diving in pristine waters full of some of the world’s most diverse marine life, to onboard cooking demonstrations led by Janet, to visiting the famous Run Islands which were home to the best nutmeg plantations in the world in the 16th Century, passengers are taken on an odyssey to a part of the world that still remains largely untouched. (The next cruise, by the way, is scheduled for November.)

SET SAIL: Janet and her son Krishna enjoy life ou on the high seas, on a Spice Islands cruise.

So what’s next for Janet De Neefe?
Well, there’s cooking tours to the Komodo Islands and other eastern regions of Indonesia, and knowing this indomitable woman, probably a few other secret plans as well.
With such a hectic schedule, how does she find the energy to keep going?
“Daily yoga and the gym keep me physically fit, food nourishes my body and the spiritual side of Bali keeps me grounded and centred,” she says, before she shares one more secret: “Oh and a glass or two of wine is always a good idea.”

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For Mullum Music Festival Director Glenn Wright, when it comes to creating events it’s about keeping it ‘small and beautiful’. In fact, this humbler, and quieter approach to the big personality world of Festival Directors is the hallmark of Wright’s creative stamp. He loves making little festivals, and the model is paying off, with Bellingen’s signature event Bello Winter Music about to hit its fifth year and a new festival for Bendigo in April 2019.

This year, he says, he’s excited about Bombino coming to the festival: “I’ve been working on getting Bombino out for a few years now. Earlier this year the New York Times wrote an article on Bombino and announced him as the next biggest thing on the international world music scene. Back in the early 90’s I remember the same heralding of Youssu Ndour in the same way. I”m just over the moon that they’re coming to Australia.”

Glenn Wright – Director of the Mullum Music Festival

After 16 years of running the Harbourside Brasserie – one of Sydney’s most iconic venues through the 80’s and 90’s – Glenn is passionate about music. In fact when he moved to Mullum with his partner to have their first child in 2003, he was still running Vitamin Records, the label he had created for artists he believed “had fallen through the cracks”.

“I took on artists who hadn’t had much traction, their work wasn’t mainstream, so it wasn’t pop, it was across genres, and it was building,” Glenn says. “Then digital downloads hit the music industry and finally subscription music, significantly changing the role of the record label.” It was this change in industry, his long history with the Sydney music scene and his experience creating Live Bait back in Bondi in 2003 that seeded the First Mullum Music Festival which is now in its 11^th year. “In Sydney when I was booking the Brasserie, there were lots of great venues, like The Basement, and the Landsdowne,” he says. “I thought wouldn’t that be fun to mimic that in a small regional town, having all those venues in one precinct – you could have a music party each day!”

Although it was the advent of the digital era that really slowed down his record label, Glenn saw this as an opportunity to build a festival to offer people something real. “In this modern day people love the real thing,” says Glenn. “They love to touch the real thing, everything is so digital or it’s on Youtube – so to put on a music arts festival and have people see feel and touch music is very special. I think its more important than ever because of the way most people tend to live their lives through a screen. A music festival succeeds best when you put your screen down and get up and dance.” A good festival, according to Glenn, is a digital detox.

Glenn believes that smaller events like Mullum Music offer something different to the big events. “Small Festivals can really put love into particular interesting and fun aspects of a festival,” says Glenn, “whether it’s comedy sessions, or outdoor theatre or small piano bars of that kind of thing. If you try and do that at a massive festival of 50 000 it just doesn’t work. It only works when you have a smaller audience. Woodford is the only large festival that still really manages to profile small and beautiful performances.”

Mullum Music Festival operates for four days in November –usually the third Thursday to Sunday, attracting around 8000 people with about 2500 in attendance each day, with 500 on opening night. What is different about Mullum Music is that it engages people from the community to participate, even if they haven’t purchased a ticket. “Around 2000 people come for the free events at the farmers market to the pop up performances, the markets and the Sunday street parade,” says Glenn.

The Sunday Street parade is something special. It’s not like a usual town parade where you stand on the sidelines and watch. This one is New Orleans inspired and features a cacophony of horns that invite thousands of passerbys to come together and dance. “I love the authenticity of the street parade,” says Glenn. “I’m an old trombone player and we bring together musicians from the festival, and community members. The parade is an invitation to get involved. People do it because they love music and want to be part of it. A couple of years ago the street parade got rolling and the California Honey Drops turned up and joined in, Harry Angus plays with us most years. There is this incredible connection between fans and the people working on the festival and the festival artists – there’s this powerful inclusiveness and enormous respect.”

Mulum Street Parade. Photography: Evan Malcolm.

Each year Glenn programs a festival that not only reaches out towards international and national profile acts, but also draws down on the strong base of local talent. “I watched the Sydney festival and it was always disheartening to see the lack of local artists perform at that festival, and it was almost a month where local musicians had to go interstate to find a gig, I don’t know if it’s the same now, but putting on a concert you can put on your internationals and nationals, but if you put on a festival you have to engage your local artists – otherwise it seems opportunistic and a bit mean, artists in a regional area want to get their art out and playing Mullum Music Festival gives them a chance to meet artists from other regions and get out and perform in major cities.’

One of the key features of Mullum Music Festivals is its knack for booking emerging artists just before they break through on the world stage. Tash Sultana played Mullum just two years back, now she’s in demand on the World stage. Parcels who came through the mentorship program are playing shows in Europe to hundreds of thousands of people.

“We focus on career artists who may have been through it and artists who may be about to go through the next step,”  says Glenn. “If you’re a music lover and you want to find the next Tash Sultana, then a boutique festival is a good place to start, if you are a real music fan and you know all about the music scene you’ll know Susannah Espie is one of the best singers in the country and she’s playing Mullum this year. We are not guided by who is the most popular act of the day but who will be in the future and who has an impressive career already. We delve into a lot of different genres, if you like diverse genres of music then this is the festival for you.”

Bombino – on this year’s list for Mullum Music Festival.

Mullum Music Festival 15 – 18 November. For line up info and tix go to Mullum Music Festival

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UK-based poets and film-makers Chaucer Cameron and Helen Dewbery wanted to create a project with Wild Whispers which would explore the concept of adaptation and collaboration through ‘poetry film’, by sending a poetry film across the world, which was then re-created into a new poetry film and then passed on. The films, in different languages, were all ‘whispered’ from the previous one with the aim of tracing how poetry film crosses language and cultures.

The project travelled from the U.K. to India, Australia, Taiwan, France, South Africa, Belgium, Sweden and the U.S.A., creating poetry films in English, Malaylam, Chinese, French, Affrikaans, Belgium, American Sign Language, Navajo, Spanish, and Welsh.

Ye-Mimi from the Wild Whispers project invited 55 strangers in the park to read the Chinese version.

The Journey

Wild Whispers first port of call from the UK was India, before going on to Australia and then Taiwan. In Taiwan, the poetry filmmaker and artist Ye Mimi, invited 55 strangers in the park to read the Chinese version, their facial expressions, eyes, voice, and gestures all interpreting the poem. There are humorous moments when the handwritten poem led to unintentional phrases.

In France, the narrator creates a whispering fairytale-like soundtrack to the idea that ‘generation after generation, children vanish, replaced by adults who vanish at their turn…’.

After receiving the Urdu version of the poem from India, Australian filmmaker Marie Craven arranged for it to be translated into English by a professional translation agency. Marie was then keen to work with the writer Candida Baker, with whom she had already made two previous poetry films, and had established a working relationship.  Says Candida: “I was honoured to be asked to collaborate with Marie.  I took a very personal approach to this poem – I grew up in the country in England, and these days I live near Byron Bay, and green tree frogs have been a small but constant presence in my life.  I imagined these two very different landscapes, and I wondered what it would be like if, because of war, I had to flee the countryside for the cities.  If I had to lose the presence of the frogs, the lakes and the woods.  The ‘original’ words spoke to me of loss, war and death – of the pointless ongoing tragedy of Syria.”  The poem became global rather than personal, and gradually the final version began to emerge.

Helen Dewbery image from the Dewbery/Cameron poetry film.

Every country involved in the project had a different interpretation – the Afrikaans version juxtaposes the industrial world of the city with nature. The narrator yearns to be close to nature and mourns the separation from their roots. In New Mexico, the poetry film combines native American Navajo and American Sign Language, showcasing the resistance of the Native American peoples against centuries of cultural genocide, settler colonialism and violence. In Sweden the poem took on the issues of faith, love, suffering and death – and of being lost and confused in a highly technical world that has created confusion and solitude.

The project has also highlighted the challenges, and richness, of translation for poetry film. In India the translator was given the poem in Malayalam to translate into Urdu. As Malayalam is a highly Sanskritized language, she first had to translate it into Hindi and then from Hindi to Urdu before it was translated in Australia into English. The text.doc approach used elsewhere was an attempt to translate the poem into abstract digital field recordings by using Google Translate to create a chain of translations from English into every available language, described as ‘working with a software collaborator that can produce, but not understand, language”.

Wild Whispers was launched in the UK in early October.  You can view it here:   https://elephantsfootprint.com

The project is also available for touring: https://elephantsfootprint.com/contact.

The project premiered at the Swindon Poetry Festival in the UK.  The Australian poetry film is viewable to the public: https://vimeo.com/187257017

________________________________________________________________________________The Participants

Country of production: UK

Language: English

Title: Frog on Water

Filmmaker: Chaucer Cameron/Helen Dewbery

Editor: Helen Dewbery

Country of production: India

Language: Malayalam/Urdu

Title: Vellatthinu Mukalile Thavala/ Paani Par Mendhak

Filmmaker and editor: Rajesh James

Translators: Malayalam, Jose Varghese. Urdu, Jhilmil Breckenridge

Country of production: Australia

Language: English

Title: Shadow Lullaby

Filmmaker and editor: Marie Craven

Translator: Candida Baker

Country of production: Taiwan

Language: Chinese

Title: 綠金色的陰影躍進我的眼睛

Filmmaker and editor: Ye Mimi

Translator: Ye Mimi

Country of production: France and Morocco

Language: French

Title: Une ombre vert mordoré est entrée dans mes yeux Filmmaker and editor: bobie (Yves Bommenel) Translator: Marie Laureillard

Country of production: South Africa

Language: Afrikaans

Title: ’n Brons-groen skaduwee in my oë

Filmmaker and director: Erentia Bedeker

Editor: Diek Grobler

Translator: Erentia Bedeker

Country of production: Belgium

Language: Dutch

Title: In het woud

Filmmaker and director: Judith Dekker

Translator: Judith Dekker

Country and place of production: New Mexico, USA Language: Navajo, American Sign Language, and English Title: Wild Whispers: New Mexico

Filmmaker and editor: Sabina England

Translator: Meryl Van Der Bergh (from Afrikaans to English rough translation), World Translation Center for Navajo, Sabina England for American Sign Language and improved English prose.

Country and place of production: Berlin, Germany & Austin, Texas

Language: English

Title: frog_poem_text.doc

Filmmaker and editor: Annelyse Gelman Translator: Annelyse Gelman / Google Translate Music: Annelyse Gelman

Country of production: Sweden

Language: Spanish

Title: La búsqueda

Filmmaker and editor: Eduardo Yagüe

Translator: Cristina Newton

Country of production: U.K. Language: Welsh

Title: Chwiliad

Filmmaker and editor: Othniel

Translator: Sharon Larkin

Country of production: USA Language: English

Title: Sea Change

Filmmaker and editor: Dave Bonta

Translator: Sharon Larkin/Dave Bonta

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The guest of honour and lecturer of the Byron’s Chess Camp is Adrian Randazzo. Adrian works directly for FIDE (the international chess federation created in 1924) with the first official chess academy in Latin America. They organize these types of events in Europe and train chess coaches in Latin America to teach in schools. Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Spain are some of the countries where these trainings have taken place. In July 2018, he has been invited by the president of the chess coaches federation and participated in the chess camp of Maribor, Slovenia, together with the best chess coaches in the world.

Children getting a chance to hone their chess skills.

Byron’s first chess camp was created to increase awareness of chess and the active participation of our local community. In Australia chess isn’t as popular compared to other countries of the world. Adrián has lived more than 10 years in Spain where chess is very popular. For example, just in Barcelona itself, you can find more than 100 chess clubs and academies. In Valencia, Adrian gives high-performance chess classes in a popular club that has more than 92 schools. He has been teaching for more than 20 years and has extensive experience in chess camps and events. In the past few decades, thanks to the Chess in Schools Commission, clubs and schools have been using chess for educational purposes, not for the sake of teaching chess and not to create better chess players, but to improve children’s educational outcomes. The objective is to use chess in ways that provide benefit in education, social development and health from childhood to old age.  Chess – A Tool for Education & Health <https://cis.fide.com/images/stories/OGF3/ogf3en2-180322.pdf>  (2018) https://cis.fide.com/images/stories/OGF3/ogf3en2-180322.pdf

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Amongst the incredible line-up are British India, Ash Grunwald, Jeff Martin (The Tea Party), Lloyd Spiegel, Hussy Hicks, Opal Ocean, The Fumes, Dallas Frasca, Steve Edmonds, Joel McDonald, Nathan Kaye, Tullara, Minnie Marks, Shai Shriki, and many more.

This local festival prides itself on being accessible to all – add on the impressive guitar market, masterclasses and workshops worth their weight in gold, major raffles, brewery atmosphere, an intimate setting in which to rub shoulders with heroes of the guitar, and charity support offered by this event, and it’s one festival not to miss.

After rocking out to shredders and getting inspired by British India, The Fumes, Dallas Frasca, Legs Electric and more on Saturday, guitar lovers and aficionados will have the opportunity to really indulge in this ‘guitar lovers heaven’ on Sunday. As well as a guitar market (bring the credit card!), and performances from more legends including Ash Grunwald, Steve Edmonds, The Soul Movers, Nathan Kaye and more, get up close and personal in the guitar masterclasses.

Jeff Martin: Giving a Masterclass at the Byron Bay Guitar Festival.

SUNDAY MASTERCLASSES & WORKSHOPS

SAE Qantum Byron Bay is presenting a series of intimate theatre-style masterclasses and workshops with some of Australia’s masters of the six-string, and featuring some of the world’s moist celebrated guitar brands. This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity for beginners and advanced players alike. Here’s just a taste of what you can expect:

Jeff Martin presented by Byron Music

Jeff will be talking through guitar ‘alternate tunings’ that he has created and used throughout The Tea Party and solo works. These alternate tunings have been used to create the multi-faceted soundscapes that have become a renowned signature for Jeff’s music. Jeff will run through some of the Tea Party’s most intricate songs and discuss the method behind the music.

Lloyd Spiegel presented by Wazinator Stompboxes

Join Lloyd Spiegel (AU blues legend) and Warwick Porter (Wazinator Stompbox founder) in this rare discussion and demonstration of acoustic guitar technique. Lloyd will reveal his secrets to playing fast, singing loud and his methods of connecting to the audience. Warwick will introduce the range of Wazinator acoustic stompboxes and their different features. This workshop will be fun and informative and offer an up close and personal experience with one of Australia’s greatest blues players.

Joining these legends are flamenco freaks Opal Ocean presented by Yamaha, Angus Marshall presented by Fender, and a special workshop by Pro Music. Stay tuned for more info on these.

The masterclasses are extremely popular and there is limited seating available, so get in quick.

Byron Bay Guitar Festival is an all ages event, and supports the charity Be Happy Music Club.

Tickets are $50 for one day or $90 for two and are ON SALE NOW at www.byronbayguitarfestival.com

Full 2018 line up:

British India I Ash Grunwald I Dallas Frasca I The Fumes I Jeff Martin I Hussy Hicks I Lloyd Spiegel I Opal Ocean I Jimi Hendrix Show w. Steve Edmonds Band I The Soul Movers I Murray Cook I Southern River Band I Flying Machine I Joel McDonald I Frankie’s House Band I Andy Jans Brown & Cozmic I Tullara I Malcura I Legs Electric I Dan Hannaford I Jereome Williams I Martin Lartigau I Shai Shiriki I Nathan Kaye I El Dorado I When Hawk Met Sparrow I Taj Farrant I Jordan McRobbie I Byron High School Students + more!

General festival info:

The 2^nd Annual Byron Bay Guitar Festival

Dates: Saturday 6 & Sunday 7 October 2018

Venue: Byron Bay Brewery, Byron Bay

Tickets at: https://www.byronbayguitarfestival.com/

 +61 400 354 095

#BBGF2018

Official website: https://www.byronbayguitarfestival.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/byronbayguitarfest/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/byronbayguitarfest/

The post Byron Bay Guitar Festival Rocks Around Again appeared first on .

My wife Lynne and I recently completed our nineteenth trans-continental road crossing between Lismore and Perth, each one via the 1675k Eyre Highway which links Port Augusta (South Australia) and Norseman (Western Australia).

The return journeys, depending on which of countless route options we choose either end of the Eyre Highway, usually end up around 12,000ks over six or seven weeks.

Unfortunately, because these are family-focussed trip, photography can’t have priority. Budget and time restrictions (and often school holidays) compel pre-booking and sticking to a schedule.  No exploring curious side-tracks, or waiting around to get the right subject in the right light. They’re for dedicated photo trips.

Instead, I always revert to one of the basics – and fundamental pleasures – of photography: however restricted the time and location, you still continually look for THE shot that will change the world.
I haven’t found it yet. But the effort greatly enriches the journey; aka, it’s not the destination itself but the getting there that’s important.

The photos which follow are the result of that approach. They aren’t linked thematically, I’ve selected them from several dozen possibles from this year’s seven-week journey, using just one measure: they please me!

Captions: 

1. EYRE HIGHWAY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 2. SERIOUS OUTBACKER KIT SEEN IN FREMANTLE, W.A. 3. THE NULLARBOR PLAIN. 4. HEED THE ESCORT VANS AND GET OFF THE ROAD! 5. SAND DUNE REFLECTION NEAR POINT SINCLAIR AND PORT LE HUNT, SOUTH  AUSTRALIA. 6. FRESHWATER BAY, MOSMAN PARK. 7. JOURNEYS START WITH FAREWELLS AND END WITH GREETINGS. THIS SIGNIFIES BOTH FOR OUR 2018 ROAD TRIP. 8. CONTRAST. FREMANTLE HIGH STREET. 9. AT THE BALLARAT ART GALLERY, VICTORIA. IF THIS WAS AN EXHIBIT, THERE WAS NO ARTIST CREDIT. BIZARRE PLACE FOR A TAP. 10. AT THE NEW YORK CITY’S MUSEUM OF MODERN ART EXHIBITION, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA, MELBOURNE. 11. A VISUAL JOKE, SEEN IN MONA VALE, NORTHERN BEACHES, SYDNEY. 12. ON THE WAY HOME – BETWEEN TAMWORTH AND TENTERFIELD. A REMINDER OF THE SAVAGE 2018 DROUGHT.

You can see more of Andrew Sooby’s work at: ANDREW SOOBY PHOTOGRAPHY luminousmudbrick.net <https://luminousmudbrick.net>

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Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda

Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto’s search for new sounds – especially natural or “found” sounds – leads him to standing outside in the rain with a plastic bucket over his head, listening to the noise the drops make as they land.

The film Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, screening at the Byron Bay Film Festival, documents that obsessive search and how it fuels Sakamoto’s compositions, along with much else about the innovative musician, activist, writer, actor and dancer.

We watch – and listen – as he slides a violin bow across a cymbal’s edge, pounds a hollow log and plucks away at a piano that has been “warped and frayed” by its drowning in the tsunami that devastated Fukushima in 2011 – the focus of Sakamoto’s other preoccupation, the insanity of the world’s embrace of the nuclear option, be it for power or weaponry.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Searching for new sounds.

His artistry and activism are intertwined and the search always uncovers something more than sound: in the film it takes him, thrillingly, to the Arctic and to Africa. Seeking to answer the question “why are we such a violent species?” he travels to Northern Kenya, to the site where Turkana Boy – the oldest human remains – were found. “It’s where we all came from,” he says. “The African Exodus started with a family group of about 30 – our universal ancestors. We are all ‘African’. So the notion of race is a false concept.”

And in music he finds a commonality: “Africa is a vast continent but it has one universal rhythm pattern. That family shared one language, one music … the first sounds we made as humans, our original language. What songs were sung? What was our first language?”

He is struck by the “minimal and modest” community living there still, and gleefully reports recording “some great sounds” at the site, and using them “at length in my song Only Love Can Conquer Hate”.

Sakamoto is fascinated by water and in the Arctic Circle he tramps across boulders and snow to drill down through the ice to locate water running below – the sound of snow melting. He is “fishing” for the sound, he says, and records it, capturing “the purest sound I have ever heard”. He incorporates these pellucid tinkles into a later work, Glacier, along with the tingshas, or Tibetan hand cymbals he plays within that wind-swept realm.

This mixture of natural sounds and instrumentation creates “a sonic blending that is both chaotic and unified”, and segments of it within the film, alongside his calm and modest musings, make Coda an enriching aesthetic and meditative experience. For the sounds all have a significance beyond the merely aural – in the Arctic he is “at the frontlines of global warming” the melting snow below the ice a sound from a pre-industrial age, when the Earth was a healthier place. Footage of these expeditions pre-dates a diagnosis of throat cancer in 2014 – something that made him put a compositional project on hold, and indeed stop playing altogether.

But in their expansiveness – in the breadth of Sakamoto’s curiosity and wonder at nature – they mirror the expansiveness that comes as he re-emerges into creativity, into composition once again, despite the cancer.

Despite a diagnosis of throat cancer Sakomoto keeps creating.

A humble heroism is revealed: while ill he remained active in the anti-nuclear fight, and towards the film’s end he is brave enough to enter the contamination zone around Fukushima, and walk along the seafront, his Geiger counter going off the scale. The camera circles him repeatedly, expressing the giddy sensation of absorbing the unbelievable reality of a radio-active ocean.

It is a gross example of humanity’s impact on nature: Sakamoto sees that impact everywhere, even in the magnificent piano he composes on – an instrument only made possible by the Industrial Revolution which created machines capable of exerting the tremendous pressure needed to bend the wood out of its natural shape to suit the tastes of humanity.

The tsunami piano takes on a new significance: a chord he has played on it leaps out as he is listening to his latest composition. It sounds damaged, melancholic – a bit like the composer himself – but fits perfectly into the musical work. And, he suggests, the piano’s transformation in the tsunami is one in which nature reasserts itself, slowly taking the man-made object back to its natural state.

Sakamoto is probably best known in the West as the composer of scores for films such as Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, The Last Emperor and The Sheltering Sky, and these are lovingly referenced here. But his work since, and even very recently, is more significant: richer and more meaningful.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda will be of interest to anyone concerned with current Japan, or with nuclear power, or even those interested in witnessing a man’s response to cancer. Fans of his music will gain an understanding of the beautiful spirit of its creator.

For them, and all music lovers, and anyone interested in the creative process, it is especially mesmerising.

By Digby Hildreth

The Infinite World of Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama is revered the world over for her extraordinary repetitive patterns and her ‘dotty’ paintings.

Kusama – Infinity, a 17-year project conceived by American filmmaker Heather Lenz, brings Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s fascinating journey to life through rich imagery, archival material interspersed with great snapshots from 1960s America—media imagery, archival video footage and photographs—together with short interviews with key museum figures and Kusama’s long-time friends and associates. Importantly, the narrative includes readings and interviews with the artist and revealing insights into her art practice. The film presents a chronological overview of a colourful life—a story of struggle, of hard times and above all, one of fierce ambition.

Today, Yayoi Kusama (b.1929 Matsumoto, Japan) is the most successful living female artist, although this is a relatively recent accolade. It is only in the past 30 years of her prolific career that she has gained greater recognition for her contribution to contemporary art. Her practice is far-ranging: painting, sculpture, fashion designer, installation, collage, performance art, film, poetry, novels and anthologies. In 1968, she starred in her award-winning film Kusama’s Self-Obliteration (directed by experimental filmmaker Jud Yalkut). In 1969, she opened a boutique and in 2012 co-created the Louis Vuitton + Yayoi Kusama Collection.

Kusama – Infinity affirms the artist’s important contribution to the story of art; her unrelenting desire to succeed (against the odds)—with little support from her family (and eventual repudiation), many years of patchy interest from gallerists, ongoing illness and intense competition from the male-dominated art scene in 1960s New York.

Yayoi Kusama and some of her more recent Infinity Nets…

Central to the narrative is the formative New York years (1958–73). Lenz acknowledges Georgia O’Keeffe’s importance and the adoration Kusama received from the reclusive genius Joseph Cornell. While Kusama failed to achieve the fame she so eagerly desired in the 1960s and a fraction of that enjoyed by her male counterparts—Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Jackson Pollock— she remained loyal to her practice, consistently depicting her obsessions and inner torments.

Following her move to the United States, Kusama began producing Infinity Nets paintings; in the early 1960s, soft sculptures (continuous productions of her fears—the phallus—in an attempt to self-therapy); in December 1963 her first installation Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show (which inspired Warhol); and less than three years later, her ground-breaking Peep Show/ Endless Love Show (first Infinity/mirror room). From the mid-1960s Kusama was staging Happenings (often anti-war/pro-peace performances incorporating her trademark dot painted onto naked performers) that attracted much publicity in the US and Europe and a backlash in Japan.

Lenz’s film begins and ends in Japan—from a prosperous, dysfunctional family, having a troubled childhood and experiencing frightening visions from a young age, to her return to Japan in 1973, decline in health and self-hospitalisation (to this day her place of residence) and return to a fervent art practice and ultimately global recognition.

In the years following her move back to Japan, Kusama’s work received little attention. In the 1980s there was renewed interest in her work and this increased in the 1990s. The final chapter of the film outlines some key exhibitions: from ‘Yayoi Kusama: Retrospective’ at the Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York in 1989; to the 45th Venice Biennale in 1993 (Narcissus Garden was her unofficial entry in the 1966 biennale) where she was the first artist to stage a solo exhibition in the Japanese pavilion; and ‘Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama 1958–1968’ a major retrospective, which opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1998) and travelled to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Walker Art Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.

An Infinity Room – Lithoar, the Spirit of the Pumpkins.

Today, museums are eager to exhibit her work: high visitor numbers are guaranteed. Her Infinity rooms attract long queues and when on display her work The obliteration room (2002–present, in the Queensland Art Gallery’s collection) is obliterated in days as visitors clamour to stick coloured dots to a white room filled with white-painted furniture. Her audience is far-ranging, and her work lends itself well to an ever-increasing world of social media users—museum visitors eager to capture themselves in her wondrous infinities.

Kusama tells the story of climbing the Empire State Building soon after first arriving in the city in the late 1950s and there deciding to conquer New York. Whilst she did not achieve the success she craved during this stage of her career, Kusama: Infinity is proof that now she has conquered the art world. With her ever-increasing popularity , the release of Lenz’s film is timely.

Emily Gray

The Byron Bay Film Festival runs from October 12-21. Kusama: Infinity screens at 7.30pm on Thursday, October 18 at Byron Community Centre. Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda screens four times at the Festival – in Byron Bay, Brunswick Heads and Murwillumbah. Program and tickets at BBFF.com.au

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