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Okker Chic: The Joyboy Journalism of Michael Thomas
219 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
2 people want to read
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Michael Thomas
644 books40 followersLibrarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 7, 2015
A wonderfully energetic collection of essays, most of which were published in Rolling Stone between 1971 and 1987.
The title piece, "Okker Chic," is dated Sydney 1984 and brilliantly recalls to mind that moment in March 1983 when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister and Australia won the Americas Cup and briefly became the flavor of the month. Remember Paul Hogan? Thomas observes: "They found him painting the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The way he speaks, that dinkum larrikin adenoidal vibrato, is the way whole suburbs in Australia...have been doing their best to stamp out in their sons and daughters ever since the Second World War. But that was before Okker Chic." (pp. 11-12) At the height of Okker Chic, "everything home-grown became precious, achingly significant, invested with mystical patriotic magic: Namitjira, Banjo Paterson, Violet Crumble Bars, Arnott's Sao biscuits, Sergeant's pies, Ayer's Rock, The Harbor Bridge, the Op'ra House [sic], the Aeroplane Jelly song, 19th century paintings of gum trees, 20th century paintings of gum trees, gum trees themselves...." (p. 19) Australia can still feel a bit like that, I think: devoid of self-doubt, everything "proudly Australian."
Other essays are set in New Guinea, Addis Ababa, Panama, Paraguay, Italy (the "Shroud of Turin"), and the US (a revival meeting in New York, Tammy Wynette in Florida), and Jamaica. His flamboyant style won't be to everyone's taste, but I'm game for more: if anyone knows whether the author survived to write again, do please drop me a line!
The title piece, "Okker Chic," is dated Sydney 1984 and brilliantly recalls to mind that moment in March 1983 when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister and Australia won the Americas Cup and briefly became the flavor of the month. Remember Paul Hogan? Thomas observes: "They found him painting the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The way he speaks, that dinkum larrikin adenoidal vibrato, is the way whole suburbs in Australia...have been doing their best to stamp out in their sons and daughters ever since the Second World War. But that was before Okker Chic." (pp. 11-12) At the height of Okker Chic, "everything home-grown became precious, achingly significant, invested with mystical patriotic magic: Namitjira, Banjo Paterson, Violet Crumble Bars, Arnott's Sao biscuits, Sergeant's pies, Ayer's Rock, The Harbor Bridge, the Op'ra House [sic], the Aeroplane Jelly song, 19th century paintings of gum trees, 20th century paintings of gum trees, gum trees themselves...." (p. 19) Australia can still feel a bit like that, I think: devoid of self-doubt, everything "proudly Australian."
Other essays are set in New Guinea, Addis Ababa, Panama, Paraguay, Italy (the "Shroud of Turin"), and the US (a revival meeting in New York, Tammy Wynette in Florida), and Jamaica. His flamboyant style won't be to everyone's taste, but I'm game for more: if anyone knows whether the author survived to write again, do please drop me a line!
December 6, 2015
Collection of articles written for Rolling Stone, dated but well worth reading imho,covers quite a lot of ground from Jamaica's political battleground zero, Kingston town as well as Papua New Guinea, the Shroud of Turin, Tammy Wynette etc. It's a diverse collection indeed and some will appeal more than others depending on your proclivities but this collection deserves more than 2 readers!!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews