Coded child pornography and torture.

mattd mattd at useoz.com
Tue Jan 1 23:34:33 PST 2002


The drachma was the standard silver coin of antiquity. Commerce and 
conquest, particularly by Alexander the Great, took the coin as far east as 
Afghanistan, where it became the model for another coin - the dirham - a 
measure of currency still applied in the Islamic world, Mr Tzamanis said.
The drachma later disappeared until 1832, when Greece gained independence. 
The modern drachma was intended to revive the spirit of classical Greece.
Instead, said Athanassios Tarasouleas, a currency authority, "It's no 
wonder we feel so sentimental about the drachma. It embodies 170 years of 
contemporary Greek hardship and survival."
In 1942, inflationary pressures forced Greece to issue the largest note 
denomination in European history - a note for 100 billion drachma, which at 
the time was the price of a loaf of bread. In 1953, the state ordered 
Greeks to strike three zeros off every note they owned.
Still, the vulnerable drachma was regarded with great affection, and Greeks 
call it "drachmoula," likening it to a feisty woman. Not surprisingly, some 
were put off by the appearance of the euro.
Daft Punk gets best album nod
Wednesday 2 January 2002
Dance duo Daft Punk have beaten acts such as Basement Jaxx and Radiohead to 
the title of best album of 2001 in a year-end UK poll of polls.
The French pair's second album Discovery topped a list compiled by music 
retailer HMV for its consistent plaudits from music publications in their 
reviews of the year.
Daft Punk - who have taken to dressing as chrome-plated robots to avoid 
having their photos taken - have been acclaimed for their retro dance sound.
In-your-face with a bum
By SOPHIE BEST
Wednesday 2 January 2002
Bum jokes, as every five-year-old knows, are a crack-up. From Chaucer's 
bawdy Miller's Tale to Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo from the South Park 
cartoon, the humour of bums and their odorous side-products is, well, 
bottomless.
Hence the giggles as commuters pass the enormous pink bum outside RMIT 
that's promoting The Day My Bum Went Psycho, a children's theatre 
production based on the best-selling book by Australian author, Andy Griffiths.
The Day My Bum Went Psycho tells the story of 12-year-old Zack Freeman and 
his runaway bum. Zack's bum has been enlisted in a guerilla army of bums, 
led by the elusive and sinister Great White Bum, who leads Zack and his 
crack squad of bum hunters on a merry, smelly chase.
It's the kind of zany, gross-out humour that kids love, even if grown-ups 
sniff at the "snot, bot, grot" genre of children's literature.
"I don't have a problem with snot, bot and grot," says Griffiths. "That's 
partly why I wrote Bum - people are branding me anyway, so I'll own it!"
Some people, however, do have a problem with bums. In August, The Day My 
Bum Went Psycho was withdrawn as the Literacy Week drawcard when the 
federal Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs deemed its 
cover - with a picture of a toddler's backside - might offend "certain 
sections of the community".
Griffiths' dementedly silly brand of humour - part whimsy, part wild-eyed 
anarchy - exudes a punk defiance, evidenced when he used to front a band 
called Gothic Farmyard.
Now a full-time writer and father of two girls, Griffiths' love for 
alternative music still informs his work. "Music feeds everything I do," he 
says. "I take that rock'n'roll energy, and try to bring it into a story."
RMIT Union arts director, Lynne Ellis, shares Griffiths' passion for music. 
"Theatre is rock'n'roll, in a way," she says. "Especially with kids' 
theatre, you have to go at such a pace, with fast sequencing, and all that 
raw energy - it's very in-your-face."
The "in-your-face" nature of Bum, the play, is achieved on a low budget. 
"We don't have the facilities to make huge bum puppets," says Ellis, "so we 
have fibreglass bums, painted bright pink."
A live soundscape by sound designer Daniel O'Shea includes an electronic 
kaleidoscope of fart noises and a theremin-like "wind machine".
Ellis, who has directed the RMIT children's shows for 15 years, 
collaborated with Griffiths last year to produce Just Andy!, based on his 
popular Just! series (Just Tricking!, Just Annoying!, Just Stupid! and Just 
Crazy!). "We've got a reputation as the only group that involves 
multimedia, cartoon imagery, up-to-date music, lots of lights and 
soundscapes in kids' theatre," she says. "I'm really hot for that, because 
(it's) where the next generation of theatre-goers comes from."
Griffiths' fans also represent a new generation of readers - particularly 
among boys, although he receives as many fan letters from girls. "There 
does appear to be something that happens around grade 6, when boys don't 
want to be seen reading," he says. "They want to be seen as active, to push 
away the feminine, and reading is seen as passive and introverted and 
characterised as feminine - quite unfairly, I think."
Together with influences such as Monty Python and Enid Blyton, Griffiths 
cites Joseph Campbell and his studies in comparative mythology, which 
identified the archetypal hero's journey as a universal pattern in 
storytelling.
"My aim was to tell a heroic story, based on an absurd premise," says 
Griffiths. "I'm very aware that Zack is undergoing a hero's journey, 
discovering powers he never knew he had."
Ellis was initially unnerved by the book's military themes, coming so soon 
after September 11. "With all the imagery kids were getting on television, 
I thought, 'How am I going to approach all these terrorist bums?' " she 
recalls.
For Griffiths, humour is a perfectly sane response to terrorism. "We spend 
so much time preparing kids for life, but one of the best values you can 
teach children is humour," he says. "A punchline jolts us into a different 
way of interpreting a situation, and protects us from fundamentalism at a 
deep level. It's hard to be fundamentalist when you can see there are other 
ways of seeing the world.
"The fundamentalist Christians who are complaining about Harry Potter 
obviously can't make sense of the books, and I suspect they can't make 
sense of the world."
The Day My Bum Went Psycho, from today at the Kaleide RMIT Union Theatre, 
Swanston Street, city, Tuesdays to Saturdays at 1.30pm until January 19. 
Griffiths will do readings and book signings after the January 5 and 12 
shows. Book on 9685 5111. 





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