Jamie Marriage

Jamie Marriage is an Australian speculative fiction writer based in Sydney. Find out more about Jamie’s work at his website.

Dystopia is a prevalent theme in the modern world: environmental collapse, political upheaval, economic degradation, and uncontrollable technological evolution. These topics are difficult to ignore, and even more difficult to acknowledge.

Wolves isn’t a novel about the Big Bad Wolf coming to gobble up fairy-tale animals and children; it is about far darker creatures…the black prowling creature that lives within us all, awaiting the opportunity to escape, awaiting release–lies, misdeeds, hidden truths that lurk and feed in the dark.

Set in a real world on the brink of collapse, Wolves is a novel about how change is both beautiful and sad, euphoric and brutal, afraid of the dark but turning to face it head on. The setting of a placid English town is already fractured for the young protagonist, Conrad, and his father. Living in a hotel purchased by his bi-polar and financially incompetent mother, Conrad and his father Ben are trapped in a life of inconsistency. Conrad tries to live his adolescence through his best friend Michael. He seeks a sense of stability, something he doesn’t receive from a father caught up in his work running a hotel and assisting with the recuperation of soldiers blinded in a unexplained military conflict; and a mother who spends half her time creating commercially un-viable products to sell to hotel patrons, and the other half in a women-only protest camp.

Conrad is soon confronted with the suicide of his mother in bizarre circumstances, and in his panic he commits guilty acts that stalk him for decades to come.

The story often flashes between Conrad as he ages, and himself a young man–a flowing narrative that builds his own story and that of those around him. We see Michael and his growth from paranoid survivalist to celebrity author, cashing in on his fears of the coming apocalypse; Hanna, Michael’s partner, who Conrad spends a night of uncontrolled lust with after being abandoned by Michael at a party and the unexpected child that results; and the world itself, as it comes to term with evolving technology that changes both how humanity perceives the world, and how it perceives itself.

Nothing is simple in the world of Wolves. Simon Ing has drawn a world complicated in the extreme, with layers of depth under every paragraph and within every conversation. Yet the difficulty is not in understanding the tale, but in the realisation in that we are already on a course similar to that which Ing has penned, on a ship impossible to steer.

Wolves is a dark book; it’s not friendly. It’s not a tale of non-stop action or steamy romance; important plots are not met with a grand upheaval, but rather with an uncomfortable feeling in the gut. Sexual encounters between Conrad and other characters are awkward and confused. Conversations are raw, emotional, and realistic affairs that more often than not, leave the characters worse off.

This being said, it is also deeply enjoyable. Realism and speculation meld beautifully in this novel; each character is deep, and sadness is often drawn tight with a silver lining. This is a tale with a message that needs to be fully absorbed before it can be comprehended: a message of loss, and hope, and change, and fear.

A message of the future, for the future.

I went to see Jersey Boys because I’m trying to be less insular in my movie selections, and Clint Eastwood directed and produced it. He seems to choose stories that deliver decent characterisation and a certain wry humour (after seeing The Other Woman recently, I vomited stereotypes for a week).

I didn’t know a lot of background about the stage version, other than it had been very successful, but I’m old enough to have heard all the Four Season’s music, especially the seventies hit December 1963–which is kind of a legendary song.

Here’s the premise: The story of four young men from the wrong side of the tracks in New Jersey who came together to form the iconic 1960s rock group The Four Seasons. IMBD

So the film…set and costume design was stylish, the acting was decent, and some of the musical moments were sublime. It felt like a gentle movie, a loving rendition, not something truly raw and insightful. Metacritic summed it up well: “Jersey Boys is neither as inventive nor as energetic as it could be, but there’s no denying the powerful pleasures of its musical moments”

I found John Lloyd Young’s reprise (from the stage show) of the Frankie Valli role to be lovable but a little dense. Erich Bergen as Bob Gaudio couldn’t transform his suave 2000’s looks to fit into the ’50’s period–it was like watching Gabriel Macht (Suits) in the part. Vincent Piazza as Tommy de Vito had the most impact, but that may have been to do with the fact that his character was so lively. Christopher Walken looked like he was having a grand old time playing the revered mob boss, Gyp DeCarlo

The storyline in very poignant and all about honour among men, and, to a degree, about reaping what you sow. I can appreciate the former, but honestly, I’m not sure that I really relate. For me, the highlight was hearing this…

Movie Trailer

This gal sure has them talking! I’ve listened to a lot of interviews with Iggy Azalea and just as many opinion pieces about her, and I can say with conviction that the girl’s got metal. People are either hating her for her accent, her rapping style, the fact that she’s a white woman, the fact that she’s an Australian usurper, the fact that she’s got a signature booty, the fact that TI’s her mentor…the list goes on. And despite all of that, she’s selling tunes and kicking heads. More power to her!

Though I don’t like some of her hyper-sexualised video imagery (Pussy for one), and (not surprisingly) most of her lyrics are about sticking it to the man (or men and women) who’ve made her journey so tough, I LOVE Iggy’s beats, and I’m super impressed with her stage confidence.

It makes me cringe to listen to some of the crudely personal questions she’s asked about her body and private life, and yet she seems to handle it with adroit deflection. I can’t even begin to imagine how tough it must have been/still is for her trying to find a place in a corner of the music world that is determined to expose her as phoney and talent-less.

I think she’s a determined young woman who’s worked incredibly hard, has a passion for hip hop, and an ear for the best way to pop it up. I also think it’s completely irrelevant whether she writes her own material or not (a matter for endless/pointless discussion on the ‘webs). It’s all about the delivery, and she sure knows how to do that. The Clueless-inspired video for her single Fancy was…well…inspired, and the Bollywood Bounce extravaganza was hectic fun.

New classic, old classic, no classic…Iggy is boss! Music folk: there’s room for everyone.

Change Your Life

Bounce