So, what's up?

Quite a lot, actually.

I haven't posted much in recent weeks, as you might have noticed. It's been a strange month all considered. Two friends died - Leigh from cancer, Josh by his own hand - which has left me in something of a solemn and contemplative state. Consequently, compared to April, when I was seeing comedy several times a week, in May I've been spending a lot of time at home, reading, drinking, brooding and watching DVDs.

Both the guys' wakes were held last weekend, one on Saturday and the other on Sunday.

I like wakes. They're much more preferable to the glum solemnity of most funerals. As you'd expect from such occasions there were tears, but also laughter aplenty, and the opportunity to catch up with an array of old friends, some of whom I've slowly drifted apart from over the years for a variety of reasons...

Josh's wake was the same day as the Eurovision final, which I watched in the company of my friend Sam and a gathering of like-minded souls at the Bella Union Bar at Trades Hall. It was Sam who introduced me to the kitsch delights of Eurovision some six or seven years ago, and I've taken to it like a duck to water.

Unfortunately on Sunday, to continue the animal metaphors, I was also drinking like a fish, which meant that the last half hour or so of Eurovision is something of a blur. That will teach me to go straight from a wake to a Euro-party. To say I was sozzled is a major understatement; on par with saying that the surface of the sun is a little bit hot. On the other hand, I did rather need to blow off some steam, which I proceeded to do in a somewhat raucous fashion.

Drinking certainly isn't the best way to deal with grief, but fuck, it sure helps.

Speaking of Eurovision, once again my favourite entrants - which this year again included the Ukraine, as well as Armenia (pictured) and Turkey - failed to win. Sigh.

In other news, I started a new part time job at Arts Hub - one of Australia's leading websites serving the creative and arts industries - two weeks ago. I'm working there two days a week, with the official title of Arts Editor, essentially as a journalist; generating unique content for the site, including analysis of issues of concern to the arts industry and the cultural sector in more depth and detail than you'd find in the arts pages of a daily paper. That's the idea, anyway.

So far I've written about the federal budget in depth over two features, and explored the impact of a new partnership between the Australia Council and the Queensland Government on the regional arts community in that (currently waterlogged) northern state. It's a great opportunity, and a good job. I'm looking forward to getting to know the sizeable Arts Hub team better in the coming weeks, too - there's quite a few of them!

Let's see, what else has been happening?

Heaps. Some good, some bad.

For starters, Melbourne University is fucking around with the Victorian College of the Arts, to the point where VCA staff and students are seriously concerned about the institution's future. There's already been one or two articles in The Age about the situation, which you can read here and here; and the issues as stake are discussed in depth on the Save VCA website - please visit, read, and consider signing the petition.

Equally concerning is the fact that the City of Melbourne - despite having a surplus of almost $8 million this year - is cutting its arts funding by 20%, or $300,000, which will have a major impact on the independent arts sector in the coming months. Essentially it will result in 25 less exhibitions, events or arts jobs in the next year, which in the middle of a recession, which usually sees people flock to the arts to escape the grim reality of their everyday lives, is a thoroughly fucked situation. I'll be writing about it for Arts Hub this week, and cross-posting some of the details here.

I've only been to see one theatre production so far this month - highly unusual for me - Red Stitch's production of Leaves of Glass, which I'm going to briefly review later this afternoon. The show closes at the end of the month, so you still have time to see it. There have been at least four other shows I meant to see, but as I mentioned at the start of this post, I've not really been in a going out mood lately.

That will change, starting this week. There's so much to see and do in the coming few days and weeks! The Emerging Writers' Festival, which I helped found, is now in its sixth year and bigger and better than ever. The St Kilda Film Festival opens on Tuesday night! The new Circus Oz season is coming up!

In other good news, last week I was overjoyed to hear that an old friend whom I deeply admire, Preston author Christos Tsiolkas, was awarded the prestigious £10,000 (AUD $20,018) Commonwealth Writers' Prize (which means he also gets to meet the Queen - mad!!) for his latest novel The Slap, ; and then to top it off, this week fellow blogger and theatre critic Alison Croggon won Australia's only critic's award, the $15,000 Pascall Prize.

Hurrah, and congratulations to you both!

Now, if you'll excuse me I have lunch to prepare, a flat to clean, dishes to wash, a review to write; and then I have to put up another, well overdue blog post about a series of forums I've curated and am facilitating at the Arts Centre, starting in a couple of weeks.

Time to put my brooding behind me and re-engage with the world.