Guy Pearce vs Canberra
Guy Pearce understands the currency of late night talk shows: convivial irreverence with a dash of self-deprecation. And just with theatre sports, you never shut a good riff down. So when US talk show host Craig Ferguson began making a sport of Canberra
Sin & Crime: The Church Inquiry
In early February this year, Catholic Church leaders met in Rome for a four-day symposium on sexual abuse. Called “Toward Healing and Renewal”, the event was intended to help the church prevent further abuses…
The Grim Reaper & the Health Minister
It lasted only 60 seconds and ran for just three weeks. But 25 years later, we’re still talking about it. The most famous ad in Australia’s history: AIDS and the Grim Reaper. It terrified nearly everyone. A Gothic Grim Reaper…
Mike Daisey Goes to the Pain Factory
On January 6, award-winning radio show This American Life devoted their hour to the appalling working conditions of a Chinese Apple factory. Much of the episode comprised of performance artist Mike Daisey’s stirring monologue of his time in China.
“Booger Ball” Trial Fails
NBA Commissioner David Stern was forced last night to make an embarrassing admission: that the trial to replace regulation basketballs with boogers had failed. At a packed press conference in New York City, a nervous Mr. Stern, 69, admitted that the trial period
Fear & Loathing in the Public Service
Troy Buswell changed my life. Seriously. If he had never sniffed that damn chair, I’d never have moved to Canberra. It’s a hilarious exercise, and I encourage you all to do it: toss away any sense of agency and speculatively map the influence of external events
“The Fighter” & “Blue Valentine”
We see Bale’s Dicky Ekelund straight away: a manic jester slouching towards catastrophe. A former welterweight champion, Dicky’s wider celebrity has receded, existing now only in his native Lowell, Massachusetts, a grimy, blue-collar suburb of Boston.
Occupy Melbourne
Walking home late last night, the park’s canopy broke and the city came into relief: dark giants wearing neon headbands. My God, it was beautiful. An unabashed declaration of civilisation, not at war with the stars, but in a defiantly awkward choir with them.
Bob Brown & Sexism
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Senator Brown’s claims of sexism this week is that, in the absence of examples, he appears to suggest that the frequency and force of criticism is itself sexist. It’s nonsense, and will come as a great surprise