December 19, 2020 – January 22, 2021
News
Comment
Comment
Neela Janakiramanan
A health system exposed
“Victoria, a state that had as many as 700 new daily Covid-19 cases at the peak of its second wave, has gone many weeks without community transmission of the virus. Yet it now seems the health system is at risk of being pushed further beyond capacity than ever before.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
Big holes in the Coalition’s pre-election bucket list
“As the year like no other draws to an end, the challenges and crises it presented have highlighted the nation’s strengths and dramatised its weaknesses. Facing up to these realities will be particularly daunting for our political leaders as they ready themselves for the next federal election.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
Film
A year without cinema
In 2020 we mostly had to watch films at home, and the most exciting possibilities still emerged from independent cinema.
Music
Music’s year of reckoning
In 2020, the inequities between major-label artists and indie musicians became untenable – and it has led to a surging politicisation of the music industry.
Poetry
Ideas of travel
“It wasn’t the stars that frightened them. / It was the stairs. / You could climb to the height of the sky / but there were more than a thousand steps / and each one took a year off your life – / you would soon be lost in the time / of your great-great-grandparents / and before you knew it / no one would speak your language. / You would be shovelling snow off a hillside / and hunting for turnips, the unborn image of yourself / spitting curses and alone / in the fiery darkness.”
Visual Art
Making sense of a changing world
We must support Australian artists in their most ambitious visions to understand the seismic shifts of our time.
Life
The Horne Prize: There and here
“What am I doing in someone else’s house on the other side of the world, looking after someone else’s mother? I should be home. Every time I hear that word, or even think about it, I’m knocked back with a symptom I haven’t seen in the literature – a kind of vertigo. That’s not it. It’s not in the head. There are no tears, no outward indication of full-blown expatriate failure.”
In Progress
Garth Nix
Garth Nix, one of Australia’s most internationally successful authors, says lying on the couch with his eyes shut is a crucial part of his working life.
Fiction
A saltwater to watch
“The light in Young Tom’s eyes suggested a grand life waiting in the north for any who followed him, if they were game for the adventure. Mulanyin had heard many dagai boast about the fortunes waiting to be made in what they confusingly called the ‘new country’. Everywhere white men gathered, he heard them dream aloud of runs, and gold, and sheep. A land of plenty, they boasted to each other, hoicking their britches up and laughing too loud, to show that no spears and waddies would stop them.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
