Ludmilla leading the MUP Board. Before it walked off into the sunset.
Dear reader, this explosive piece has been edited to preserve us from the taint of slander. For legalistic purposes the names of the principal characters have been altered to protect the value of philanthropy, vanity projects and self absorption. Names changed beyond recognition have been marked with an Asterix.
There’s a lot of people who have Ludmilla Acton* stories.
Whatever you say about Ludmilla, there’s just about as many people who’ll describe her as a bit of ratbag as will describe her a saint. In balance we suppose that’s what happens when an ambitious enterprising individual puts their weight behind an organisation in the cultural sector. Ludmilla likes power. Just ask Rosa Storelli. Reminds us of a mate who’s a designer. He pisses off just as many people as he infects with his enthusiasm. In the end he’s a doer. He’s a firebrand. The silly Design Institute kicked him out because he ruffled their feathers. He accurately described one of their supine, lick spittle feather bedders as indulged in a “vanity project”. It was his forensic detection of a conflict of interest that got him into trouble. A member of the Institute, caressing Institute funded pet projects from which to award prizes and citations. He was quite right. But the bloodletting took him down. His reaction? “Stuff em”! A good fighter, who claims responsibility for making his own decisions and upsetting comfortable people in safe places. They accept their responsibility, and when shown the door, instruct their assassin to emphatically and without contradiction to “GET FUCKED”.
Airport reading for Dummies
MUP Titles. “Airport Trash”
WE admire that, because most of us are so terrified of losing our peg on the ladder. Acton’s power was in exercising the freedom to make her own publishing choices. To own the publishing brand and bugger the consequences. Her enemies gathered and warmed themselves with simmering discontent. Universities are like parliament. Full of ambitious people who live in burnishing their skills for discontent. But not firebrands. Being a firebrand gets you sacked. And sadly since the era of Horne, etc Universities daren’t challenge the status quo. They want to become heart and soul of it. They are businesses with strict rites of patronage and enshrine the principle of the pack. And consequently we have humanities that don’t challenge the system. Arts institutes that produce patron friendly installations. The questioning, the challenging of societal ‘Norms’ is left to the graffiti artists.
The other contender, the man who is purported to be Chancellor of the University has done very well. He made his money defending Alan Bond. It is alleged by some, before Bond went bust he made damn sure all the money Alan siphoned from enterprises and dodgy deals and shareholders was re-directed into his personal estate. From this he built an Alan Bond type empire. Uncannily similar, of overseas breweries and trophy properties in very desirable places. His was a quest for another kind of power, The power of the unquestioned exercise of authority. In short, Immortality.
Failed Archibald contender Rosa Storelli titled: “The reader”. (with draft copy of “Airport reading for Dummies”, permission MUP)
Alternative title read; “Could’ve been Chancellor”.
One can’t help feeling that Murchison*, as the defender for Pell, and Acton’s decision to back the Pell Bio by Milligan their courses were on collision. Acton though did not know that Murchison would soon be Chancellor. His energies, at that time were directed to crafting the national culture as chairman of the NGA. But a lot can happen in a year or two. For whatever reason the Chancellor represents the culture of contemporary university, self censoring, sanctimonious and unassailable. The firebrands, that activated university culture are all from the era of Germain Greer. Murchison’s influence, (though emphatically denied) over publishing represents a pure conflict of interest. Murchison has made his mark by being interested in everything within his power. His exercise of power is found in the tradition of the renaissance Papacy. Power is all that counts. Absolute unquestioning power. The old Voltarian, “defending the right to say” has nothing to do with contemporary universities. They are Businesses, Pure and Simple. And since siphoning Bonds money he has made his own authentic conversion as pillar of the establishment, leader and power-broker on the ultra conservatives. Murchison is a businessman. Or more aptly, (as he likes to see himself) a modern day Medici. In which the arts, books and ideas, are corralled and pigeon-holed into a decorative niche.
Acton’s sin was cardinal. She challenged the orthodoxy. She’s gone. Some academics have said it’s a chance for them to publish. But, what, and when in the current climate will they ever publish something that will give us food for thought.
As the sign at Melb Uni says; “Believe”.
Believe in what?