An Ode to Campbelltown It’s nice to be home
There used to be a suburb called Claymore in Campbelltown. They’ve knocked most of the housing commission down now, rebuilding and changing the name so that new buyers can’t research the history of the place. It was full of houses with boarded up windows and sheets for curtains, front yards littered with glass bottles and ripped furniture, flag poles with the Aussie flag flying tall and proud...
Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of Bill Henson’s photography is losing its way
Henson likes to quote others in the genius mode and settles on Einstein’s idea that “the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious”. But now, with these latest images, there is no mysterious threshold.
Another Side A conversation with Tanya Plibersek about rock ‘n’ roll, democracy and family car trips
After 20 years in the job, Tanya Plibersek is not slowing down. Our profile of her, featuring rock ‘n’ roll, Jeremy Corbyn and speculation about a second female Prime Minister.
Suggested
Winter in the City All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
I was walking somewhere between Crown and Oxford streets when I got news that my friend had taken his life. The urge to cry began to violently climb my throat. I held it in as best I could; I made it all the way to Taylor Square – then I just let it all out.
The Unwitting Addict A struggle with Benzodiazepine dependence and withdrawal
The normalization of prescription medication can have a placating effect... coupled with my desperation to rid myself of debilitating anxiety, I fell into the trap of quick-fix society.
Dead Ladies’ Dresses A feeling for what is left behind
This was no ordinary debris and this was no ordinary wardrobe. This was the stuff dreams are made of.
Features
Sleep Well Beast How The National brought me back from the dead
‘Let's just get high enough to see our problems, let’s just get high enough to see our fathers’ houses.’
We Need to Talk About Teenage Sexting I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours
"If she says no, he’ll wait a bit...until she says yes."
Caught in a Trap Sydney’s rat-runners are just another sign of a city being crushed by obsessive plans for a Big Australia
It's 9.30am, I’ve just left home, and I hit a 100-metre queue at the lights. My pulse quickens.
The Slap Our Poker Machine Addiction
Like many young Australians, I have grown up with the pokies.
Culture
Kazuo Imai The People’s Republic, Camperdown, Wednesday 12.06.2019
With his woolly grey hair and bow-legged gait the legendary improviser seems more like some kind of cosmic fisherman than an avant-garde musician. Perhaps in Japan this is one and the same thing?
Drug dealers and drive-bys, gang rapes, and the war on terror Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s ‘The Lebs’
“The problem is some people think the dumb Leb in the book is the dumb Leb who wrote it.”
Waiting for the Man Louis Theroux and heroin addiction in America
In Huntington, one in ten babies is born with an addiction to heroin. Theroux is a proverbial Virgil guiding us through the American inferno.
When It Is All Just About Okay John Cheever and his flower of confusion
Maybe there is the warm, uncomplicated glow that comes over us when, after so much time and so much hurt, things are finally just about okay.
Food
Sweet Dreams A letter to Nutri-lame
So we got the cereal. We returned home. My kid sat at the kitchen table and began shovelling the cereal into his mouth. He shovelled one bowl. Then he shovelled another...
On Hospitality A philosophy on dining behaviour
"Much of the romance of food is generated by people with idealised versions of what their childhood meant... Their hospitality industry becomes Rosebud; a nostalgic rendering of what unconditional hospitality looks, tastes and smells like."
Bilson at Table The Death of Paul Bocuse
Once Bocuse perfected a dish it remained unchanged on his menu:“If a dish was worthy of three Michelin stars in 1963 it should be worthy of the same accolade in 1993!"
Down The Hatch Market City Tavern, Haymarket, City
A good gaming lounge is likewise camp beyond its awareness, and the Market City Tavern is glitz and glamour and gayer than Mardi Gras.