Welcome to VISUAL STIMULI , a critical perspective on the eyeball-friendly side of music: the humble and oft-overlooked Music Video with MICHAEL PINCOTT. Now showing on your favoured televisual device or YouTube platform…

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The MADMAN REEL ANIME 2008 FESTIVAL begins in Brisbane this week, bringing the best of recent Japanese animation to the big screen for a limited season. TOPHER HEALY looks at the highlights of the special selection.

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A retrospective drawn from ZEN ZEN ZO’s Butoh-inspired dance-theatre works, ZEITGEIST reflects upon the physical theatre company’s rich history as well as the pressing contemporary social issues of our time, as reviewed by SEANNA VAN HELTEN.

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BENJAMIN LAW tells JODY MACGREGOR about GROWING UP ASIAN IN AUSTRALIA and writing for the anthology of the same name.

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Roleplaying game designers and guests of the inaugural Gen Con Oz ROBIN D. LAWS and STEVE DARLINGTON level with JODY MACGREGOR about the gaming convention that is geek valhalla.

The very first Gen Con was a meeting of 50 wargamers held at the Horticultural Hall of Lake Geneva in 1968, coming together to talk tactics and do battle over tabletops. It was popular enough to repeat, and at the next year’s Gen Con one of the organisers, Gary Gygax, met a fellow proto-nerd named Dave Arneson. The two of them went on to create Dungeons & Dragons. Robin D. Laws, who has written a book about the con’s history, takes over the story. “As the game took off, Gen Con gradually became not only a gathering of wargamers, but the central destination for roleplaying. As D&D exploded, so did the show, outgrowing a series of venues to eventually become the gigantic event it is today, with an attendance the size of a small city.”

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GENEVIEVE PARLEY

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Thursday will see the fourth instalment of the hugely popular annual skateboard deck art show, I USED TO SKATE ONCE. SUSAN MILANOVIC speaks to one of the featured artists, ELANA MULLALY, about why the exhibition has become such a Brisbane institution.

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Behind every clown is a story and comedian AKMAL SALEH is no exception. The product of a strict religious household, he grew up with an Arabic heritage in an unforgiving society – all of which left him with a questioning character and indirectly led to his career in comedy. BROOKE MCMASTER explores the comic’s serious side.

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TIM MILFULL sits down with UNFINISHED SKY star WILLIAM MCINNES.

Not many people will argue that 9am is the most civilised time for an interview, but when the lanky Queenslander William McInnes eventually ambles into the cocktail bar at the Emporium Hotel, orders a long black, and plonks down next to me, he’s looking quite chipper. Yes, that cotton shirt looks impressively rumpled, but it’s nothing compared to our first glimpses of his bedraggled farmer John Woldring in the new local film Unfinished Sky. The publicist and I are a little worried when another journo barges in unexpectedly and the pair launch into a conversation like they’re old friends – well, actually they are – they shared a house together … The journo eventually back-pedals after she realises it’s actually my interview, and McInnes offers an embarrassed apology. It’s impossible to hold a grudge, though – this feller is just such a nice guy – charming, self-effacing, and something of an everyman, a quality that shines through in many of his films.

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Brisbane’s famed local, the Waterloo Hotel, will toss out regulars and welcome in renovators next month when its doors close until October 2009. The new-look Waterloo will surrender its rustic value for a veneer more fitting of this era: but will lose a live music venue along the way. Steeped in musical history, the venue has acted as a launching pad for some of the city’s best-known talents, and its last hoorah has even called for the reunion of local rockers THE TENANTS. After three years of watching every wanderer, musician and drunk to breeze (or stumble) through the hotel’s doors, JESSICA POOLE steps out from behind the bar to pass her memories onto AINSLEY DOBSON.

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