December 15 – 21, 2018
News
Comment
Comment
Anne Summers
The dead policy scrolls
“Australia needs government. Unless there is urgent action, we will be entering the third decade of the 21st century more directionless and unfocused than we have ever been, at a time when global politics is in chaos. This is not the time to be drifting, hanging on to hope that our (economic) luck will continue to hold. If it is the case that these feckless and mostly fear-based politics have really taken hold only within the past two federal election cycles, they should not be so difficult to dispense with. Especially as voters now seem able – and willing – to apply the bullshit detector more liberally than they were inclined to in the past.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Profile
Author Melissa Lucashenko aims for the heart
Melissa Lucashenko’s latest novel, Too Much Lip, exhibits a sharp defiance inspired by the author’s discovery of a gutsy family matriarch. She talks about family, country and mysterious mergings of fact and fiction. “I’ve only once started a novel I didn’t go ahead with. A novel is a huge undertaking, so I’m loath to rush in. It’s like waiting for fruit to ripen. There’s a certain berry that ripens at Easter, and there’s no point looking for it at Christmas time.”
Music
Revisiting 2018’s best albums
In his final review for the year, Dave Faulkner looks back at the best Australian albums of 2018 that he missed along the way.
Portrait
Artist Oki Sato
“The exhibition has been living and evolving in Oki Sato’s mind for an intense 11 months. ‘We had to work on every single aspect,’ he tells me. They designed the exhibition furniture, the layout of rooms and even the soundscape. This, on top of creating large-scale, intricate and ambitious original artworks to complement Escher’s. ‘It’s all about details.’ In some ways to see his design made real, to be sitting in the middle of it, is like having his mind turned inside out, his inner world flipped. When I ask him what it’s like to see his art realised in this way he can’t put it into words. ‘I’m still trying to understand what’s happening,’ he says with a laugh. ‘I don’t know. I think it happened the way we wanted it to happen. Yes.’ He pauses, and the gap in our conversation is filled by Bach’s Goldberg Variations – a favourite of Escher’s and the only music not created by Nendo to feature in this exhibition. ‘I think I need a bit more time to digest what I’ve made.’ ”
Books
Life
The Quiz
Quotes
COURTS
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APPROPRIATION
“Originally it was going to be HoMo (Hotel MONA); after consultation with the MONA staff force, and with the community beyond, we decided to ditch it.”
The Tasmanian gallery opts to name its new hotel Motown. They might not be comfortable with queer slurs, but they are A-okay appropriating black culture.
PROTESTS
“I’m all for this kind of stuff but when they do it and ruin my show, I’m really mad.”
The Bourke Street busker vents about her set being interrupted by Indigenous protesters commemorating deaths in custody. George later apologised for being “ignorant, narrow-minded and self-centred” but not for her acoustic cover of Sia’s “Chandelier”.
TRANSPARENCY
“WTAF???”
The veteran investigative journalist, whose reporting exposed Eddie Obeid’s corruption in New South Wales, responds to the news Scott Morrison’s proposed federal anti-corruption commission won’t hold public hearings for politicians. For those wondering, the abbreviation stands for “What the actual fuck”.
AMERICA
“It’s like a manhood thing with him – as if manhood can be associated with him – this wall thing.”
The Democratic house minority leader derides Donald Trump after a televised standoff in the Oval Office. To be clear, the wall is half as long as he said it would be and he lied about someone being willing to pay for it.
FAITH
“If you support a multicultural Australia, you’ll be a supporter of religious freedoms.”
The prime minister announces his plan to defend religious freedoms. Someone should tell him the Trojan Horse wasn’t filled with Christians.
