Taffy #01

By Gerald Fie

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Okay, Zeitgeisters, that’s as shallow an attention-grabbing start as one could ever want, but I really want to know. And sure, I’m really talking about Josh Lyman’s hair. (I’m like one of those people who insist on calling an actor by their character’s name – only in reverse. e.g. “Go Knight Boat!”) Whitford plays Deputy Chief of Staff, Josh Lyman, in the Aaron Sorkin -created, NBC television series The West Wing . He plays this part to a tee and now he’s set to do great things in the new Sorkin drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip . I know this last bit because the Angriest Ex-Video Store Clerk in the world told me. Oh, and Whitford ’s married to the awesome Jane Kaczmarek who plays mom, Lois, in the series Malcolm in the Middle. So Mr Whitford’s your regular pop-cultural icon and yardstick for excellence. We’re here in this, frankly, puzzling cultural landscape, because I’ve just finished watching season four of The West Wing on DVD. And Josh Lyman’s hair has bothered me througho...
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"I'm going to burgle the heck out of this place," Leon said. Zeitgeisters, I have been listening to a burglar alarm ringing for the last two hours. I’d say it was one building across, two max. It makes a swirling howl for five minutes, stops for one minute then starts again. Clearly its doing a bang-up job. Worth every cent the owner paid. And now, the guy in the flat, two floors up, has his stereo on loud, possibly to drown out the burglar alarm. Right, I can hear the bassline ‘doofing’ through the ceiling. Good. I’ll meditate through it. * * * * * Oh Good Grief. There is a fireworks show by the river. Doof Dooof. Screeeeeeeeeeee. Pop. Pop. Crump. Crump. Crakka-keracker-cracker. Crump. Doof. Doof. Doof. When they prise me out of this flat, white and shivering, I will utter a wordless doof, by way of farewell. * * * * * Couldn’t meditate through it. So I turned up my muted telly. The PRINCESS DIARIES directed by Gary Mar...
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Self-Paced

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When I was in Primary School back in the 1970s in Western Australia, I went to a school that taught reading comprehension in all the usual ways but also used an American teaching aid that we referred colloquially as SRA cards, but an hour or research on the ol’ internet has persuaded me that I was, in fact, one of millions of Gen X (and 2nd Wave Baby Boomers) who encountered the SRA Reading Laboratory Kit.  SRA was Scientific Research Associates a Chicago based publisher of Educational materials (thank you Wikipedia). But their tautologically named teaching aid was kick-ass for a word nerd like myself. I recall it as a box stuffed with cards. Each card had a short segment of writing on it and then some comprehension questions. You’d answer the questions on a separate sheet they provided and if you were correct you got to move on to the next card. This was self-paced learning at its best as far as I was concerned. Boring, si? NO! Because the genius part was this – the whole sy...
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Logie Rhymes With...

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Zeitgeisters, It’s fashionable in certain types of blogs to be snarky about Australian television’s night of nights, the Logie Awards. Mr Trivia’s Tract will do nothing to reverse this trend. However in the interests of full disclosure, I must admit, that I only occasionally flicked over to last night’s awards show. It just wasn’t that compelling. If you don’t watch something from end to end, then it is quite possible that the bits you missed were brilliant, funny, witty and truly entertaining. If switching over is a matter of timing and accuracy similar to throwing darts, let’s just say I didn’t get near the bullseye all night. The red carpet was brought to us by cosmetic giant Maybelline. Austereo Network’s Jackie O was out-there ‘interviewing’ with a bold look that might be described as ‘exploded Barbie’. Channel 9’s Jules Lund, whom I’ve been very snarky about on occasion, was quite good. He seemed to understand the gig wasn’t too serious. When he interviewed Network 7’s Son...
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Guten Abend Zeitgeisters, I work in an open plan office (it’s a loft or mezzanine style of thing) and it is a common occurrence to hear other people's mobile phones going off. Graeme downstairs has a “My Sharona” ringtone and Liz, with whom I share my office, has a Madonna ringtone. Like any other oft-heard sound, these cut into my brain like brick-saw into concrete. To be fair, my own ringtone is just as bad. If you have a Nokia 3120 , then you can sample the twittering cacophony that is “Urgency”. Imagine the sound of a finch caught on a length of razor wire, then amplify it. What I love is the reaction when anyone hears it for the first time. “Is that your ringtone?” they ask, as though I might have programmed it by accident. I have very purposely chosen a high, “top-endy” sound so it cuts through the background noise. I propose a new piece of cell phone etiquette. Much in the same way that one doesn’t comment on how other people raise their children – especially not ...
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Gorby's back in the day, rockin' hard at the 2006 Million Paws March, St James Mitchell Park, South Perth. Or maybe not. Zeitgeisters, I’m afraid the rumours are true. My band, Dancing With Gorbachev (DWG) have split, owing to irreconcilable indifference on the part of Society. Was our rock too confronting? Was our truth too hard to bear? Were our harmonies just too sweet? The best review we ever got was this: “Youse guys are 100% uncompromising, four on the floor, straight down the line, meat and potatoes, balls to the wall, pedal to the metal, rock and f**king roll.” That was our drummer Vik Suprotik’s gran. Thanks for that! Let me leave you with the lyrics to a song that Pedrag, Zlatko and I wrote. It’s in the style of Cheap Trick’s “Dream Police”. It’s called “Depthy”. It’s time to put out the garbage. It’s time to put out the trash. Say goodbye to yesteryear. And flick off the cigarette’s ash. Goodbye you losers, We’re so dep-thy! Goodbye kind friends, W...
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Hi Zeitgeisters, From 1986 to 1993 the whole planet rocked with laughter as it enjoyed the mirth-filled antics of Balki Bartokomous (Bronson Pinchot) and Cozzin (Cousin) Larry in 150 derivative, yet formulaic episodes of the sitcom Perfect Strangers . Balki, a “sheepherder” travels all the way from the Mediterranean island of Mipos, in order to live with his Cousin Larry, a would-be writer in Chicago. It soon transpires that Balki is a screw-up in his native Mipos and basically has no where else to go! Cousin Larry (Mark Linn-Baker) is fussy, stitched-up and an order freak. Balki (Bronson Pinchot) is a crazy, out-of-control, good-hearted, funny foreigner. Yes, indeed, it’s The Odd Couple meets Mork and Mindy . And only about one-quarter as funny. Series creator Dale McRaven was actually one of the creators of Mork and Mindy and had writing credits on television’s The Odd Couple , so clearly it wasn't a stretch to bring together these elements and twist them slightly in...
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