Culture
Previews, reviews and interviews
Fear rules. Fear explains. Fear predicts. St. Vincent on charity, love and light
“I think we should do enough soul-searching to… know when we are being guided by fear or guided by something brighter.”
Comfort in Conspiracies QAnon and ‘Westworld’
“In America now conspiracies are a form of currency – belief is sold in public transactions that stretch plausibility. The measurement system is online obsession…”
Living Colour ‘Virtual Vibration’ on MCA’s facade
“Colour is on the surface of everything around us. It’s the filter between seeing and experience.”
Wipe My Mind With Your Heavenly Powers or Take Me to Edge City, You Fraudulent Corpse-Dandy A plea to the late, sometimes great Tom Wolfe
White as Snow, Red as Blood Snow White at the Sydney Opera House
You’re a teenager and your mother is dead. Your father marries a narcissist who hates you for your beauty…
Publish and Be Damned The story behind ‘The River Ophelia’, a post-modern novel about domestic violence
"Many writers say they can never go back to a novel once it’s been published. But it’s been over 20 years since my bestseller, 'The River Ophelia' (1995), shook the literary scape."
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.
Unsane You will never leave this place
More than a desire to upend conventional practice, director Steven Soderbergh seems motivated by wanting to do everything himself, and at speed. ‘Unsane’, his latest film, was shot in 10 days on iPhones.
Books That Change Lives, Apparently Iranian existentialists, chick lit grandmas and spitting in Morse code
How to win the Facebook competition to see who has the most exotic home library.
Playmaking in Pyrmont Bringing history to life in ‘The Sugar House’
“My own grandfather, Roy, had worked as a fitter and turner at the Colonial Sugar Refinery, which dominated this peninsula for so long.”
Here be Monsters ‘Exclusion Zone’ at the Griffin Theatre’s Batch Festival
Inspired by ‘Stalker’, the classic Andrei Tarkovsky film, ‘Exclusion Zone’ is a theatrical expedition into the unknown heart of Kings Cross, inviting audiences out of their seats and into the streets.
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.”