July 2010
SOCIETY
The Next Chapter
Malcolm Knox
The scene is being played out across Australia, parents unable to get access to their new iPads, Kindles or Kobos because the digital...
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Life Sentence
Victoria Laurie
His father, Anthony, has since graduated to one of Perth’s higher security prisons, which is also where Malcolm’s 21-year-old brother,...
More ...POLITICS
Fire Walk with Me
Paul Barry
The fictional version would have been far more fun: a factory burnt down to claim the insurance, politicians and businessmen cashing in on...
More ...Hair Apparent
Alice Pung
Mr Abe Lourie is 81, and tells me that he is in perfect health. Every morning he walks up two flights of stairs to open his store. The lift...
More ...POLITICS
The Battle for Bennelong: Round Two
Nick Bryant
An affectionate type, she embraces a couple of familiar-looking locals and sits down for a quick natter with a group of elderly ladies...
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SOCIETY
Douglas Mawson & Scott of the Antarctic
When Douglas Mawson turned up at Robert Falcon Scott’s London office in January 1910, Scott assumed that the 27-year-old geology lecturer...
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SOCIETY
'Ilustrado' by Miguel Syjuco
Linda Jaivin
The body of Crispin Salvador, a somewhat passé Filipino writer living in America, is discovered floating down the Hudson River. His student...
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SOCIETY
'Indelible Ink' by Fiona McGregor
Geordie Williamson
On meeting Marie King, the heroine of Fiona McGregor’s fourth novel, I was reminded of Brett Whiteley’s painting of an ageing society...
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Rock and Roll Babble On: Nick Kent’s 'Apathy for the Devil: A 1970s Memoir'
Robert Forster
To read the New Musical Express (NME) in the ’70s was one of the great joys of the decade. It was an insider’s choice and the seriousness...
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SOCIETY
The Public Mind: Bret Easton Ellis’ 'Imperial Bedrooms'
Delia Falconer
“Yeah!! Thank God he’s finally dead. I’ve been waiting for this day for-fucking-ever. Party tonight!!!” Bret Easton Ellis posted this Tweet...
More ...Family Intelligence: Mark Aarons’ 'The Family File'
Martin Krygier
Aarons is a name associated more than any other with communism in Australia. As Marxists used to say, that is no accident. For communism...
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SOCIETY
Births, Deaths and Marriages: Claire McCarthy’s 'The Waiting City' and Mona Achache’s 'The Hedgehog'
Luke Davies
In 2004, the UNICEF report Children on the Brink estimated that there were 35 million orphans in India and that nearly 4 million children...
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SOCIETY
Food for Thought: The State of Design Festival
Alan Saunders
In discussions about contemporary Australian design, the name of the nineteenth-century American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce is, it’...
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SOCIETY
Primal Scenes: Tim Burton: The Exhibition
John Baxter
When I taught at an American college in the 1970s, my students asked if I’d mind finishing my afternoon lectures early: local TV was re-...
More ...A Green Balance?
Guy Pearse
Having moved so far to the Right, both major parties are perceived by many to have lost touch with their political roots. On one side, the...
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SOCIETY
Heart to Heart
Gail Bell
My sister is in town, on leave from her burn-out job and hankering for family. We both work in health provision, which is to say, we serve...
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SOCIETY
Jewel of Melbourne
Catherine Ford
If ever I’ve been in Melbourne’s CBD and gripped by a raging depression there – the sight of the city’s lonesome downtown mall can do it to...
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SOCIETY
Tuckshop Duty
Benjamin Law
Someone should make a reality TV show called Tuckshop Ladies. The drama would be explosive. Elimination episodes would take place at...
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SOCIETY
The Only Things I Remember From School
Murray Bail
1) the geography teacher, Mr Sullivan, loose cheeks, throat and bottom lip, and trousers too loose – always hitching them up; a general...
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SOCIETY
Comment: Rudd's Collapse
Robert Manne
The story of the Rudd government falls rather neatly into three discrete chapters. The first involves the fulfilment of promises and the...
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