The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 21

TODAY Thursday ARTS ENTERTAINMENT FILM TV LIFE This Life Danny Katz Thursday 2 DECEMBER 3 Wonka wonka burning love f'i mr aT 1 6 days until Carols by Albert Park ELakC Birthdays of Georges Seurat, OMaxahder Haig, Gianni Versace and rrica Seles. 27 years since Gough itlam was elected PM in the first 1 Victory in 23 years. r'The thing with high-tech iis that you always end up using scissors. David Hockney WHO can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with couer it In chocolate flt(da miracle or two. I'm standing' in a line waiting to see the Myer Christmas windows and this song keeps playing through the speakers, over and over again, it's on some kind of tape loop, it never stops thecandyman, the candyman can cause he mixes it: with love and makes tiie world taste good it's because the windows are doing a Willie Wonka therpe -this year, so thy're using one of the songs from the movie, but I've been standing here for 45 minutes and I've heard it 15 times and I'm getting worried because I'm starting to know the words who can take a rainbow, map it in a sigh, soak it in the sun and make a strawberry lerAon stop the song, please stop the song, I'll stand in line in the hot, hot sun with hundreds df screaming kids and shitty parents and everyone shoving and prlshing BUT NO MORE CANDYMAN, THAT'S people into the line.

1 say to hen "Excuse me, that's notfair, I've been waiting here for ages, you can't do that" and she says: "But they're my children" and I say: "I don't care, they'll have to go to the -end of the line and she says: "But they're only three years old" and I start feeling a little bit of pity and compassion sol say: "All right all right, they can go in" and the woman says: "Thankyou so much, thankyou" arid then she lets in her grandmother, an unde, two more kids, a complete stranger off the street, and a dog without a tail. The candyman, the candyman can cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good The line has stopped; we're not moving, nothing's happening. I run up ahead to see what's going on; there's a group of selfish htUe kiddies holding things up by spending up to 20 or 30 seconds on each window, just standing there looking and laughing and enjoying' themselves. I start telling them the Myer GoodLife Christmas window rules: "You've got to" keep walking at all times, you glance briefly at each JUST BEING CRUEL Thecandyman makes, everything he, bakes, satisfying and i window, you make a little time's j-l' li if a -Mil Five things to do today ROLL: For Bladenight St Kilda. assemble at Pier Road at 7.30pm (between Catani Gardens and the beach) on in-line blades, skates, bikes or foot, until 9.30pm.

READ: Visiting author Joan Nestle is Earewelled with a celebration of lesbian erotica, featuring readings, prizes, competitions, special guests and more. At Barracuda, 64 Smith Street, Collingwood, jfrom 7.30pm. Bookings: 9824 0110. life DANCE: Four choreographers use yCA dancers to showcase contemporary ptnc Rumble is at the Malthouse, 1 1 3 Street, Southbank, until Saturday, petals: 9685 9379. READ: Rod Quantock muses over 20 $fors of "development" in his book 'awwwwww' noise, then you llClltlUUO, II4IH about your childhood wishes, you can even eat the move on -NO HOVERING, ALL RIGHT?" Then I go back to my place in dislies.

Waiting in line to see the tne line, but the woman with the kids and the Myer Christmas windows is a long, grandmother and the uncle and the dog won't let me in so I have to go OouWe Disillusion. He speaks at Readings, back to the end slow procedure and I get a lot of time to think about things, particularly things todo with Myer and Lygon Street, Carlton, at 6.30pm. MUSIC: Jackie Gordon performs Li Ul Stock Peon's and Strange Fruit, a tribute to take a sunrise. female American singers, at the ice of Wales Hotel at 9diti. Bookings: i.

flPjjJ MM. My Life en minutes of fame The Knowledge VI Your i TP BackPage i Frequent flyer Careth Evans's comprehensive collection oi VK-1 airline toiletries finally comes out of the closet. 'L Report D8 ff'jTf0mmm primalgplto A sprinkle it with dew, cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two? The candyman, the candyman can Two hours later, I've done it, I've reached the windows and they're lovely and enchanting all these litde moving figures telling the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-but I can't enjoy myself because I've just noticed a whole bunch of people looking at the windows AND THEY'RE NOT STANDING IN LINE. Bad people have gathered outside the roped-off area where the rest of us have been queuing -and they're trying to take little peeks between our heads. I'm livid.

I'm furious. I'm pulsing with rage. I try to block their view by jumping up and down, flailing my arms around, spreading myself across the windows so they can't see a thing. And I don't see a thing either because I'm too busy peering over my shoulder with a fierce mean look that says, "GET STUFFED YOU FILTHY BUNCH OF WINDOW I love the Myer Christmas windows; they're a celebration of the spirit of Christmas -peace, love and goodwill to all mankind. Christmas and i windows.

One of the things I start thinking about is: Why does Myer have a Christmas window in the First place? I mean, Myer is a Jewish name, shouldn't it be a Hanukkah window? They should have animatronic presentations of Jewish bible stories, or Woody Allen films, or maybe a puppet version of ScJundler's List with Oskar Schindler played by a big fluffy bear. And the other thing I'm thinking about is: is the store called "Myer" or I'm nof sure so I ask the man standing behind me in the line and he says: "I think it's Myer's" and then the woman standing behind him says: "No, it's Myer" and another woman says "MYERS" and someone yells "MYER" and then someone shoves someone and someone pushes someone else and an old lady bites someone on the arm, then I go back to the end of the line because it's safer there. Wlio can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream, separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream candyman, thecandyman can A woman standing in front of me does the unthinkable: she lets primer If lull I I is an adult r-. A il female JL gorilla? i What's a gorilla's favorite tood? What; color are their eyes? These questions and more answered. jack Barton, 32, North Melbourne J'm a journalism student at RMIT, but Report 2 Television FuturamaCurse of the Blair WitchGeorge VI The Reluctant King Creator's future is assured International Year of Older Persons Concert at Melbourne Zoo.

igoday I'm running around preparing for a (documentary I'm helping to make in 'Thailand this month. I lived in Thailand for jjrmr-and-a-half studyingall sorts of itfKngS massage, Buddhism. In fact, I Originally went over there as a Thai ffipxer. I'd been doing it in Melbourne and 'wentthere to train. But back to the it's focusing on Lbackpackers budget travellers, the that it is.

We're looking at bifckpacking and its impact on Thai ertture looking at backpackers as a group-of people who'don't inject a lot of cash into afl economy, but nevertheless have quite big impact on the local jftilture. We're off (to Thailand) in the rnext couple of weeks and will be there filming for two months. TOBY HEMMING fcallard Street a Today's Pick Preview Green jerry van Amerongen AND just how could you top The Simpsons anyway? We're talking here of the pop-cultural equivalent ot Coca-Cola or bowel cancer. Something universal, something more common than a distaste for those pickle things in Quarterpounders. it a show, a merchandised consciousness, that girdles-the globe: rural African communities destined to succumb to AIDS decades before they ever see reticulated drinking water are, In all likelihood, on nodding terms -with Bart and Lisa.

That's just the of our world, kids. So now, with The Simpsons and its printed twin Life in Hell still extant, we launch on the next stage of the voyage we are sharing with Matt Groening, a man most often described as Futurama (Seven, 7.30pm) makes its Australian debut tonight, and much as I'd love to despise the spawn of someone whose works intrude so rudely on what might 'once have passed for imaginative, individual, civilised culture, I have to admit it's funny. On 31 December 1999, Fry, the pizza deliverer, stumbles back-Ward into a cryogenic chamber. What happens to the pizza is lost to history, but Fry wakes to find himself thawed and bemused on the eve of Y3K with the fizz still foaming in his soft drink. Before this half-hour has passed he7 will have: spent, oh, 15 seconds watch Futurama tonight, which makes it the biggest thing since Noni Ha.lehurst and pinking shears.

Oh, the humanity. Futurama is as innocent and unaffected as a Mr Sipiiggle blooper reel beside Curse of tlw lilitir Witch (Nine, 9.30). Now, I'd be the first to reassure any young reader that, yes, there most certainly is a Santa Clans, and I can also attest with absolute confidence that there is no Blair witch. (Oh, my god, what was that? Hang on, I just heard something outside .) Nup. No witch.

Never was. Can there truly be anyone left to fool with this coy faux doco in the week of the film's preview release? Is there no end to this hype? Can you people stop messing with our minds? So far, this year, we've sat through the laborious foreplay that preceded the Stars Wars prcquel, Fyes Wide Shut, Sixth Sense and Pokemon. Now The lilair Witch Project. Haven't we suffered enough? Far better to spend the hour watching George VI The Reluctant King (ABC, 9.30), the tale of a monarch's monarch, a man who took the crease in England's moment of dire need, compiled a crisp captain's 75, married Elizabeth (heir to the Gordon's fortune), rode out the Blitz and did it all- with only the faintest hint of a German accent. Well played, sir.

In commemoration of the International Year of Older Persons The Age and Melbourne Zoo are providing Big Band Jazz Afternoon of Swing featuring fhe Port Phillip Showb'and Introduced by i Alan Attwood TheAge. On Sunday 5 December from 12 noon to 3pm at Melbourne Zoo Elliott Avenue, Parkville. Bring this c6upon to the boxoffiee at Melbourne Zoo and get one grandchild ntry FREE. Limit one coupon per adult. For more information call (03) 9285 9300 bemoaning the loss of whatever people and places constituted his reality; avoided the implanting of a career-determining computer chip; had a chance encounter with automated suicide (Stop and Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2()0a); buddied up with a dipsomaniac cyborg; been savaged by the head of Richard Nixon: and been blasted into space with a distant relative, a one-eyed romantic interest and the stomach contents of a ravenous space wasp.

Futurama follows the house style of multi-layered gag placement, cute cultural references and recurring comic motifs and it'll be a winner, but it won't shift the goalposts of culture. The Simpsons could do that, first, through the then near novelty of adult-orientated animation, and, second, because its themes and characters had familiarityjjn their side. It was, sad to report, a show about every-us. 'Whatever. One tiling is certain, you and more than half-a-million other Melburnians are going to Futurama Seven, 7.30pm Fry? Bender? Leela? Farnsworth? Here we go then.

A whole new language to learn, a whole new joke to get It's TV event time. Just think, in years to come you'll remember where you were and what you were doing when the debut screened: sitting on the couch watching television. A defining 20th-century moment vivw life with a good deal of I Full program: T8 It 2 Hi-.