February 2008 | The Monthly

Johnny O’Keefe & Jack Benny

By Shane Maloney

After more than 50 years in the business, Jack Benny was nothing if not a trouper. When CBS dumped his long-running television show at the end of 1963, he pursed his lips, packed his violin and took his schtick on the road. In Australia, a consortium of promoters packaged him into a variety show that included acrobats, a popular chanteuse and, improbably, the country's paramount rocker, Johnn

‘Time and Materials: Poems 1997–2005’ by Robert Hass

By Greg McLaren

Sunshine On My Brain: The pop genius of The Monkees

By Robert Forster

Sometimes I play a game in my head: name the five best American rock bands of the '60s. My list goes: The Velvet Underground, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Doors, and then I stall on the fifth. Creedence? The Band - although they're mostly Canadian. Simon & Garfunkel? Jefferson Airplane? The Lovin' Spoonful? But I plump for The Monkees. Song for song they are the best pop group of the period, and their story is one of the most intr

James Boyce’s ‘Van Diemen’s Land’

Before Little England

By Nicholas Shakespeare

Denton Corker Marshall’s Manchester Civil Justice Centre

Northern Light

By Deyan Sudjic

The idea that courtrooms should have distinctive architecture has been remarkably persistent in almost every culture since at least the days of George Edmund Street's Gothic court complex in London. It is a way to celebrate the state, as Mussolini's architects

Julian Schnabel’s ‘The Diving Bell & the Butterfly’

Eye Witness

By Luke Davies

In the Jorge Luis Borges story ‘The Secret Miracle', the protagonist, Jaromir Hladik - a writer who, "like every writer, measured the virtues of other writers by their performance, and asked that they measured him by what he conjectured or planned" - is sent

Peter Carey’s ‘His Illegal Self’ & its antecedents

Fugitive Days

By Janette Turner Hospital

Unforgiven

By Craig Sherborne

The Official History

Australia

By John Hirst

Howard adopted narrative history as part of his political program in a speech on Australia Day 2006, when he attacked the current practice of history teaching in schools. He wanted students to be offered a "structured narrative" instead of "a fragmented stew of themes a

A Profile of Senator Milne

Green Christine

By Amanda Lohrey

Milne is delayed, which gives me a moment to enjoy the view from her office. It's a big glassed-in semicircle that looks down the Derwent River towards the Great Southern Ocean, where ice is melting at a more accelerated rate than was predicted even five years

Ivy League

By Kate Rossmanith

Our continent has a wretched history of invasive species. Ecosystems have succumbed to exotic animals such as foxes, rabbits and carp, while at the same time being beset by strange, virile plants. "Whenever I travel, I'm always amazed by the hold that exotic s

The Perfectly Bad Sentence

By Clive James

In writing, to reach the depths of badness, it isn't enough to be banal. One must strive for lower things. Almost five years have gone by since I cut out from a British newspaper the article containing the following passage, and I think I am finally ready to examine the

Mane Attraction

By Ashley Hay

Under the spreading shade of a gum tree at the Mogo Zoo, just down from Batemans Bay, a furry cluster of lion cubs is at play: batting at a red ball hanging from the tree, swiping at each other's tails, worrying at their father's mane. They have handsome noses and compact ears, chunky feet and paintbrush tails, but what makes these lions extra special - apar

Monkey Business

By Gideon Haigh

A couple of days after the second Test between Australia and India ended at the Sydney Cricket Ground amid acrimony and indignation, I boarded the tram for an evening's practice at my cricket club with 15-year-old Bill. A bright boy, Bill. I knew him to be keen on his cricket, and was interested in how his career had progressed since last I'd seen him.I found that Bill was no longer quite so keen

Changing of the Guard

Comment

By Robert Manne

There are two distinct questions concerning the political events of late last year which it is important not to confuse. Why did the Howard government lose office? What does the Rudd victory mean?Attempting to find an answer to the first is the far easier task