Popular culture | The Monthly

David Bowie’s ‘The Next Day’

Falling Back to Earth

By Robert Forster

True to the spirit of The Next Day, David Bowie’s first studio album in ten years, one should jump straight in at track one and describe proceedings from there. Bowie’s brusque manner on the opening title track, and the stomp of the 13 tracks that follow – some tipping just three minutes – signal that the great man is impatient to impress and keen not to linger on the past. Any way yo

Grace Kelly’s Gowns in Bendigo

All Frocked Up

By Catherine Ford

On a recent March morning, the air over Bendigo Art Gallery turned suddenly noisy with lorikeets. Wearing ’70s day-glo capes and clocking delinquent speeds, the birds screeched past the gallery’s giant publicity billboard: a winsome come-hither headshot of Grace Kelly. Had she ever made it to Australia in person, Kelly would have loved the chutzpah of those fashion-backward parrots. Insid

'The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia' By Bill Gammage

By James Boyce

Modern environmental sensibility has not increased the number of Australians who are able to imagine what our dominant homelands – the coastlands of the temperate zone – were like before European settlement. Such has been the transformation of the vast grasslands in particular that little cultural memory remains of the old landscape; many of its diverse plants, animals, flowers and even colours and sounds have been forgotten. This a

Recent books about raunch culture

Embracing the Inner Bunny

By Linda Jaivin

Society was awash in filth. Young women chased fantasy and titillation at the expense of their mental and physical health, not to mention proper relationships. And they couldn't keep their hands off themselves. Something new had appeared on the scene, something dangerous. Respectable commentators agreed it was the source of all this trouble.It was the novel.

‘Big Brother’ Channel Ten

By Rowanne Couch

Board Shorts on Sunday

By Celina Riberio

Rebecca Smith, 16, broke curfew. She knew she was going to be late and she knew her mother, Janelle, would be sitting at home waiting. She knew her mother would not understand. She didn’t care. She stayed at her church youth group until the last prayer. And