By Mark Butler* FARRAGO 9 – Waterman: A Picaresque Tale of Old Sydney I HAVE always wanted to write something to live up (or down) to that headline which, throughout my many years as a newspaper subeditor never lost its place as one of the top five banned hackneyed puns, so i hope this makes [...]
FARRAGO 8 – A guest post by Peter Solness, artist, teacher, traveller and sometimes Henry Beaufoy Merlin* impersonator. As a young photographer in the 1980’s the jingoism of Australia Day back then never convinced me. I was looking for stories that would engage more fully with our journey as a nation. At 26 years of age in 1985 [...]
This is a guest post by legal commentator Hector Lung. Jack Karczewski KC was admitted to practice in the NT in 1984 and provided almost 40 years of service to the Territory’s criminal justice system. He passed away in late 2023. In early 2024 a few rather brief and underwhelming notices appeared to mark his [...]
By Mark Butler.* SOME time in 1970, while I was still pretending to be a student at Macquarie University, I gave a lecture outlining my belief that Bob Dylan would one day be seen as a great poet on the same level as Eliot, Yeats and Auden, at that time my touchstones for poetic greatness. [...]
By Mark Butler* OUR town’s book nook (motto: “Leave a book, take a book, or both. No batteries required.”) is snugly tucked away in the vestibule of the community hall, and was set up by my wife Mary and me not long after we had moved here in 2016. We maintain and curate it, and [...]
By Mark Butler* THERE are two ways to survive while working for a toxic media organisation such as News Corp: either be a fully paid-up member of the team, which means parking your integrity and your soul outside the building, or take drugs. Or both. There may be a third option, but thinking about that [...]
© K Roussos, 2023 This is a guest post by artist, curator and barrister-at-law Koulla Roussos* I watched “Barbie” the other night. I took my mother, sister, nephews and a 5 year-old niece and two friends, and left the cinema with a brain in toxic shock convulsing with mixed messages. It has taken a few [...]
Koulla, Anna, Eirini Roussos (mum) with Emmanouel, George, & Maria This is a guest post by artist, curator and barrister-at-law Koulla Roussos* Here is a photograph of my first passport pic, taken in 1973. My mother and four siblings a few months before we went on our return trip to Greece. I can remember where [...]
Denise Officer. Tanked. Pitcairn Station SA (2023) Are we there yet? takes its name from the incessant question from kids in the back of the car; the upcoming referendum; and/or from Ithaka, a poem by the distinguished Greek poet C. P. Cavafy. Are we there yet? features the work of three artists based in and [...]
Warren finally succumbed to his alcohol abuse. He was a benign, permanently shitfaced presence who had found his role as the town drunk.
