Satima's Blogspot: June 2011

Tuesday, 14 June 2011

Back on the reviewing trail

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

Regular readers will know that for the last few years I have been Reviews Editor for The Specusphere, a webzine for the SF community. Friends of long standing will also remember that at one time I garnered a fair proportion of my livelihood by writing reviews and feature articles for arts-oriented journals such as Music Maker (which later became ArtsWest), Dance Australia, and others and also for newpapers incuding The Australian and The West Australian. Not only did I get paid, but I got free tickets to many fabulous shows.

Since I've been on the pension there has been no money for such frivolities as theatre tickets, so when a friend recently pointed me in the direction of ArtsHub the lure of free tickets led me to investigate.

Artshub is a kind of clearing house for all matters pertaining to the arts. It is a very comprehensive site, and well patronised. Their articles and reviews are of a high standard. So I thought, "Why not", and asked to be added to their list of reviewers. Now, for the first time in years I am going to the theatre again!

I've reviewed three shows so far, two of them marginally related to matters Shakespearean, and the third a wonderful dance performance by Daryl Brandwood, a fellow WAAPA graduate. I hadn't seen Daryl dance for about fifteen years, so it was a joy to watch the show, Helix.

And the two Shakespearean ones were very, very funny. You can read my reviews of all three shows if you're interested:

The Enchanters

Helix

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)

While it's fun to be reviewing again, I feel a bit uncomfortable about the fact that I am doing it gratis - apart from the free tickets, that is! When I was writing for print journals, I would be paid anything up to about $350 for an article. But web sites simply can't afford to pay people. The Specusphere, for example, is run completely by volunteers, and, in fact, our editor-in-chief has to cough up the necessary to have the site on line at all. We tried taking advertising, but it brought in little or nothing. What's more we had no control over the content, and some of it was dodgy, to say the least. (Be published today! It will only cost you an arm and leg and last year's income...)

I suspect this is another sign of the amateurisation of so many things that seems to be a result of the internet. Maybe it is not such a bad thing - it means everyone's voice can be raised.

But in the cacophony, who is listening?

Labels: reviewing |

5 comments

Sunday, 5 June 2011

Common misuses - confusing words

Sunday, June 05, 2011 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

Some words have two negative forms, which can be confusing. Two such words are "satisfied" and "interested". Both have two negative forms: one starting with dis- and one starting with un-. These negatives, in both cases, have very different meanings.

Dissatisfied/unsatisfied

If a person is dissatisfied, he or she is feeling upset or disappointed in some way. For instance “Cheryl was really dissatisfied with the service at her hotel.”

But someone who is unsatisfied hasn’t had enough of something: “I was still unsatisfied after the meal.” (You might say this after going to a posh restaurant where they served you miniscule piece of salmon and an artistic trail of sauce, garnished with some unidentifiable herb.)

Disinterested/uninterested

These examples show the difference:
“We need a disinterested party to adjudicate the competition” (i.e. someone who has no vested interest in the outcome. A parent of one of the competitors would not be disinterested!)

He or she might, however, be uninterested. E.g. “Our daughter likes to compete in gymnastics competitions but her father is totally uninterested.” (In the vernacular, he couldn’t give a stuff about gymnastic competitions even if his daughter is competing!

In neither case are the two negative forms interchangeable, because each has its own clearly defined meaning.

Labels: word use |

4 comments

Back on the reviewing trail

Common misuses - confusing words

Goodreads reviews for The Dagger of Dresnia