August 2007
POLITICS
Arthur Calwell & Peter Kocan
In the lead-up to a federal election, the Labor Opposition leader is shot at point-blank range as he leaves a rowdy public meeting. The...
More ...ENVIRONMENT
Embers Re-Flamed: Meg Baird’s 'Dear Companion'
Robert Forster
In the tangled undergrowth of the indie-rock scene there are certain musical genres that re-emerge with some regularity. New wave, no wave...
More ...The Nymph Calypso
Clive James
Planning to leave Calypso in the lurch,Odysseus snuck off to build a ship.He found the right-shaped boughs of larch or birch Or spruce, for...
More ...MEDIA
The Velvet Shackles of a Reputation
Clive James
In Dr Johnson's little novel Rasselas, the Poet tells the Prince about the psychological requirements of a poetic career. The poet,...
More ...CULTURE
Songs of Innocence and Experience: John Carney’s 'Once' & Tony Ayres’ 'The Home Song Stories'
Luke Davies
The opening scene of the new Irish film Once (released nationally on 30 August) is an extended long shot of a busker standing on a Dublin...
More ...CULTURE
Ein Schwindel!: Norman Lebrecht’s 'Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness'
Anna Goldsworthy
Classical music is dying again. It's a morbid habit that it just can't shake, at least according to Norman Lebrecht, who has built...
More ...CULTURE
Faith Healing: Tanya Levin’s 'People in Glass Houses'
Craig Sherborne
What a stirring notion it was, that old Christian edifier: the poor would ascend Heavenward as if on a spaceship called Getting Even, while...
More ...SOCIETY
A Husk of Meaning: What Happened to Community?
Drusilla Modjeska
Thirty years ago or so, the word packed a punch. It's hard to imagine now. In London during the '70s, I fell in with a rather wonderful...
More ...POLITICS
Pearson’s Gamble, Stanner’s Dream: The Past and Future of Remote Australia
Robert Manne
It took a decade and a half for the first positive policy to be formulated clearly. It was labelled assimilation. The postwar Minister for...
More ...WORLD
Timor's Future: Xanana Gusmão and José Ramos-Horta
Mark Aarons
Young boys stand forlornly, holding phone cards for sale. Skinny men carry bamboo poles over their shoulders, dangling fruit. Others weave...
More ...
SOCIETY
Live Long and Prosper
Christopher Scanlon
Noam Chomsky aside, Mark Okrand is probably the world's only celebrity linguist. Okrand, whose dissertation focused on Native American...
More ...
WORLD
The Optimist
Nicholas Brudenell
In March this year Herman Wainggai caused a problem at an ALP branch meeting in the outer-Melbourne suburb of Eltham. His speech on West...
More ...
SOCIETY
Trunk Call
Gideon Haigh
A story is told of the young Tom Stoppard applying for a job in Fleet Street. "It says here you're interested in politics," said the...
More ...
ECONOMICS
Throwing the Book
Alice Pung
The Old Man is sitting on a plastic chair outside the room, his hand resting on his wooden cane. His left leg cannot bend at the knee...
More ...
POLITICS
Comment
Raimond Gaita
More even than Margaret Thatcher, John Howard is an ideologically driven prime minister. At the 2006 dinner celebrating Quadrant's fiftieth...
More ...
Twitter
@THEMONTHLY @SLOWTV
