
Dog day afternoon
Animal welfare concerns have long plagued the greyhound racing industry, but in Victoria a campaign from covert investigators now has a parliamentarian leading the fightAugust 2021
Arts & Letters
Time remaining
Like rolled beads of mercury
silver bubbles fly up silently
in the mineral water by my father’s bed.
A bag of Hartmann’s solution
hangs in the air like a sling
of trapped rain.
A chartreuse teardrop
blinks on the infusion pump’s screen.
The gauge reads Time Remaining.
In this void of time
in which my father remains—
I want to say, is remaining—
present continuous—he returns to me.
Hello sweetheart, he says blurrily.
I’m just trying to get the damned thing working.
And as if I can see what he’s seeing
I ask, Is it plugged in?
He says, I’m beginning to wonder
and he’s gone again, eyes swivelling
through the morphine, rolling
in the mulberry velvet of it
and I can see it’s true: my father is beginning
to wonder, he is at the verge
of something he is only starting
to comprehend the shape of
as if he’s standing at the delta
of a huge muddy river mouth
where the mackerel-backed sky and water
mirror each other’s enormities
and the eye cannot find the horizon
between them—a demarcation known only
to those who wade in, full immersion.
It is right that at the end of his life
my father’s final feeling is wonder—
not awe, not joy, but wonder—
cousin of astonishment and doubt,
which in the Old English
also means to magnify—
the way his time remaining
dilates and shrinks, is made
both infinitesimally small and infinite:
a day, an hour, a minute.
Dog day afternoon
Animal welfare concerns have long plagued the greyhound racing industry, but in Victoria a campaign from covert investigators now has a parliamentarian leading the fightMars attracts
Reviving the Viking mission’s experiments may yet find life as we know it on Mars, but the best outcome would be something truly alienHow to change a bad law
The campaign to repair the single parenting payment was a model of how research and advocacy can push government to face the cruel effects of a policy and change courseKandinsky at AGNSW
The exhibition of the Russian painter’s work at the Art Gallery of NSW provides a fascinating view of 20th-century art’s leap from representation to abstractionBreathless spaces: ‘The House of Fragile Things’
James McAuley’s examination of four great art-collecting families and the French anti-Semitism that brought their downfallForebodings and a funeral: ‘Shiva Baby’
Emma Seligman’s funny but tense film is a triumph of writing and performance over spectacleTip of the pops: ‘This Is Pop’ and ‘Song Exploder’
Two Netflix documentary series only manage to skim the surface of pop music historyThe coward’s pulpit
Scott Morrison is a leader who not only fails to accept responsibility but continually abandons his postA clear view: Emily Kam Kngwarray at the NGA
A major exhibition of the late Anmatyerr desert painter is welcome, but the influence of the rapacious art market on Aboriginal art is inescapableThe rule of threes: NGV Triennial
The sprawling show’s exploration of technologies and pressing politics takes in artificial intelligence and deep-fake photojournalismAnimal form: Sigrid Nunez
The celebrated American author’s latest book, ‘The Vulnerables’, completes a loose trilogy of hybrid autobiographical and fictional novelsA house provided: Preserving public housing
The architectural practice proving that refurbishing public housing can be less expensive and disruptive than demolition for new projectsKandinsky at AGNSW
The exhibition of the Russian painter’s work at the Art Gallery of NSW provides a fascinating view of 20th-century art’s leap from representation to abstractionThe unsung career of Margret RoadKnight
Little-known outside the Melbourne folk scene for decades, singer Margret RoadKnight’s 60 years of music-making is celebrated in a new compilationBeyond the Voice referendum
Looking towards the next 65,000 yearsGuarding the power of the court in our democracy
The hidden forces agitating at highest levels to undermine judicial independence