June 2010
SOCIETY
Count Paul Strzelecki & Lady Jane Franklin
Paul Strzelecki had itchy feet. The son of a minor nobleman, without land or title, he quit Poland aged 33 and headed for England. There,...
More ...SOCIETY
'The Family Law' by Benjamin Law
Linda Jaivin
Tolstoy was wrong: not all happy families are alike. As portrayed in this very funny collection of personal essays by Benjamin Law, the...
More ...SOCIETY
'War' by Sebastian Junger
John Birmingham
It might seem strange and contrary, but among the many surprising truths in Sebastian Junger’s brilliant evocation of 15 months, on and off...
More ...SOCIETY
Body of Work: Antony Gormley’s 'Firmament IV'
Robyn Davidson
Like all stereotypes, “stupid as a painter” – intended to cover visual artists of every persuasion – reveals itself as a truth via its...
More ...Artful Excess: The 17th Biennale of Sydney
Juliana Engberg
The marketing material for the seventeenth Biennale of Sydney displays a lusty engagement with the semiotics of font. Using the agitprop...
More ...SOCIETY
Out on the Weekend: Vampire Weekend at Brisbane’s Tivoli
Robert Forster
The big discussion has been about Ezra’s hair. Recent photos have had it fluffy and a little out of control. No problems tonight, though;...
More ...SOCIETY
My Three Sons: David Michôd’s 'Animal Kingdom' and Banksy’s 'Exit Through the Gift Shop'
Luke Davies
First-time director David Michôd, whose Animal Kingdom is one of the best Australian films in years, served notice in 2007 that something...
More ...SOCIETY
State of Tomorrow: Tony Judt’s 'Ill Fares the Land'
Robert Manne
Tony Judt, the historian of the French intelligentsia and postwar Europe, has been suffering a ferociously debilitating motor neurone...
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Writing from the Grave: Eugene O’Neill’s 'Long Day’s Journey into Night'
Peter Conrad
Eugene O’Neill thought of his Long Day’s Journey into Night as a posthumous work. Completing it in 1941, he decided that it should only be...
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Something about Mary: PL Travers and Mary Poppins
Alan Saunders
“I’ll stay till the wind changes,” says Mary Poppins to the Banks children after she swept in on the east wind and, overwhelming Mrs Banks...
More ...The Absent Heart
Amanda Lohrey
The Powerhouse is not atypical; it exists within a broader museum culture in Australia that tends toward the lacklustre and the disjointed...
More ...POLITICS
Life of Brian
Paul Barry
Burke struck me, during those two off-the-record conversations, as a rather pathetic figure, a man in denial. He seemed to be living in his...
More ...Gendercide
Anne Manne
The boy’s twin also sits on mother’s lap, but this baby is tiny, its emaciated form one-third the size of the thriving boy. The infant’s...
More ...From the Chrysalis
Don Watson
FIRST PUBLISHED IN JUNE 2010. It was a bad night for neo-cons, neo-liberals and neo-Hobbesians, the last being those wiseacres in and...
More ...Links
Catherine Ford
Every evening before dinner, I escort my infinitely forbearing dog out of the house and into the world on his nightly constitutional. Lance...
More ...SOCIETY
Domestic Spectacles
Kirsten Tranter
At first, it looked like the spine of a small animal lying in the long grass out the front of our noon inspection appointment, 2br orig....
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Confidence Trick
Anna Funder
It’s dusk at the crossroads in inner Sydney. Tom Wright, associate director of the Sydney Theatre Company, and I are returning children...
More ...ECONOMICS
The Hard Stuff
Malcolm Knox
It was a recession; that’s my excuse. A friend got me a job interview with the world’s second-biggest management consultancy. A man and a...
More ...POLITICS
Comment: UK Elections
John Keane
Last month’s hung parliament in the British election confirms a basic rule of modern politics: whenever markets fail, representative...
More ...Comment: Water Policy
Mark Aarons
When Malcolm Turnbull announced his retirement from politics in April, he trumpeted his achievement of “a truly revolutionary reform of the...
More ...The Shortlist Daily
9 February 2012
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