In This Issue
May 2005 in brief
John Birmingham in “So Happy We Could Scream”.John Harms in "Run and Hide".Margaret Simons in “Fear & Loathing at the ABC”.Helen Garner...
More ...The Nation Reviewed
Comment
Don Watson
Early in the new year I entered a hairdressing salon in the main street of the Victorian Wimmera town of Horsham (not “Hers and Sirs” but...
More ...The Nation Reviewed
From Nation To Now
Mungo MacCallum
When a new Australian magazine invites me to reminisce about old Australian magazines I have worked for, it has either a lot of courage or...
More ...The Nation Reviewed
Freedom
Chloe Hooper
In the early morning of March 2 a smoking ceremony took place on Palm Island, north Queensland, to release the spirit of Mulrunji, who died...
More ...The Nation Reviewed
Scrumming It
Tim Lane
Crisis came early this football year. Round one of the pre-season Wizard Cup was scarcely complete, the home-and-away competition still...
More ...The Nation Reviewed
Hardships of the Desert
Azhar Abidi
On a Saturday morning in Marree, south of Lake Eyre and on the fringe of central Australian desert country, four generations of cameleers...
More ...The Nation Reviewed
Money
Brian Toohey
John Howard, a prime minister who supposedly yearns for the days when fathers went to work, mothers stayed home and families lived behind...
More ...The Monthly Essays
So Happy We Could Scream: Still comfortable but relaxed no more in John Howard's Australia
John Birmingham
The feeling that it was a good town to leave was only confirmed when I returned a decade later to cover the freak show that the rest of the...
More ...The Monthly Essays
Fear & Loathing at the ABC
Margaret Simons
The working day is infused with the irony of the clever, their undercutting humour, and the slight sense of disappointment that always...
More ...The Monthly Essays
Run and Hide: Ken Trewick and the amazing race sting
John Harms
Ken Trewick is late. Which is very unlike Ken Trewick. He told me he’d pick me up at 9.30. And as I stand in the sunshine on the footpath...
More ...Story
Wild Dog
Julienne van Loon
The stray animal rounded the corner of Rose-dale Road and Thomas Street at a slow trot, his bony hips tilted slightly to give the effect of...
More ...Books
The ExFactor: BookScan and the death of the Australian novelist
Malcolm Knox
Back when I was careless about what I wished for, someone asked a fanciful question, redolent of hope and innocence, about my up-coming...
More ...Books
Explaining the Unexplained: Cameron Forbes's 'Hellfire'
Phillip Knightley
There comes a moment after a war when the politicians who made it and the generals who fought it and the soldiers who survived it have died...
More ...Film
Large Splendid Empty Rooms: Nicole Kidman in 'Birth'
Helen Garner
A light snow is falling. A runner in gloves and hooded black tracksuit goes pounding away from us along the curving paths of Central Park,...
More ...Television
Getting Human: Andrew Denton and the art of interviewing
Kerryn Goldsworthy
It’s well known that Andrew Denton is the son of Kit Denton, author of the book on which Breaker Morant was based. It’s less well known...
More ...Music
Delirium in the Temple: 'I Am a Bird Now' by Antony and the Johnsons
Robert Forster
I first heard this record coming in from the airport in Milan. A taxi ride, ancient four-storey buildings, thrusting billboards, the...
More ...Art, Noted
'3 Decades of Photography by Bill Henson', National Gallery of Victoria
Justin Clemens
A young man masturbates, his face and torso scattered across a sequence of photos. Blurry and disjointed, you never see the act itself....
More ...Books, Noted
'Brotherboys: The Story of Jim and Phil Krakouer' by Sean Gorman
Paul Daffey
As footy-mad youngsters, the Krakouer brothers’ inventive quest to improve their Aussie Rules skills included practising over the kitchen...
More ...
