Pretty Vacant A letter from New York
Are luxury stores the victims of success? Our most fashionable neighbourhoods appear like they’ve been looted: a third of the stores in the heart of the city are empty! This retail rot is a new form of urban blight.
The Allergic Frontier A case study in video game addiction
“The veneer of fun erodes over time. When you become sicker, you use more – to detach from reality.”
The Singer and The Song A conversation with Rickie Lee Jones
"Rich people never look happier once they come home from shopping. It's all there in the mirror and it ain’t going nowhere."
Suggested
Stumbling Across Stones in Berlin Terror and Art: Unlikely Companions
I appeared to be standing in the midst of a mass grave. The endless rows of cold, grey, concrete steles resemble a procession of coffins...
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."
The Story of Beatriz Exploitation of migrant workers in Sydney’s local suburbs
Beatriz* migrated illegally to Australia so she could send money back to her family in the Philippines. There, you have to pay the hospital a deposit before they will treat you. In Australia, Beatriz doesn’t have Medicare – when she needed an operation, friends helped her find a discreet doctor, and she paid in cash.
Features
This Perfect Day Losing Anthony Bourdain
Call someone you haven’t for a long time and tell them that you’re thinking about them. Invite someone over for a meal and cook for them. Let them know they can tell you anything.
Something Better The old masters give Beck’s sound a new shine
“Great music can create some great perspective shift. Like a sudden stunning view. Or a moment out with friends when you’re all laughing. Where life opens up and everything is bigger and brighter.”
Heroes Just for One Day A new skatepark opens in Sydenham
Maybe like the art of skateboarding itself one can hover here on the fine and happy edge of this camaraderie and something messed-up and free-falling in at least a few of these youths’ lives.
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.
Culture
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.
In the Zone Sam Doctor’s images from Fukushima
“It’s like when parents have a missing child and they keep the bedroom in the same way.”
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.
Radio Free Alice Darlinghurst
Located in a small cluster of shops on Darlinghurst Road, between the Jewish Museum and the Darlo Bar, 'Alice' is the mother lode for indie kids.
Food
Boon Cafe Instant karma in the city
“We were the weird kids. Everyone wanted to see what we were having for lunch, so they could tease us for the rest of lunchtime."
Bilson at Table My Favourite Duck
"I often view with evil intent families of ducks walking towards the ponds in Centennial Park."
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."
Getting Southerly Busted At North Bondi RSL
The image of Bondi is one of glitz and glamour… But the salt-blasted reality is somewhat different; the old weathered remnants of what was known locally as Scum Valley still often win out.