Arts and culture
Succession’s only real flaw
It’s strange to reach the end of something you’ve relished with a sense of relief. HBO’s Succession has given me…
One kind of masterpiece
It’s strange the world of classics and demi-classics and popular classics we inhabit. Right at the moment there’s the chance…
Indiana Jones and the Cesspit of Woke
The adventuring, treasure-hunting, ultra-manly Indiana Jones franchise has defined large portions of story-telling history in Hollywood. Not only did it inspire…
Strange bedfellows
What a whirlwind the world of the arts can be. Gabrielle Carey who changed forever the image of teenage girlish…
The ultimate symbol of Sisu
For Finnish people, the concept of sisu cannot be directly interpreted. Roughly translated, it means strength, perseverance, and a firm determination to…
Rattle and HM
It’s funny to think that at the very moment when King Charles was going through his Coronation, pledging service and…
Dragons, broomsticks and whatnot
It was saddening to hear of the death of the poet John Tranter the other week. For those of us…
The preternatural nature of his genius
Is it being a dominion country, a well-heeled colony, that makes this country good at comedy? The death of Barry…
A ravishing sensuousness
What a world of paradox painting confronts us with. The death of John Olsen is a reminder of his stature…
The pity of war
‘My subject is war and the pity of war,’ Wilfred Owen wrote in the poems which Benjamin Britten set to…
Erotic intensity
We think of television – even in this age of a thousand streamers – as something we pig out on…
Searching in vain for The African Queen
What a weird world we inhabit when it comes to popular culture or indeed to any culture high or low.…
Brooding beauty
The prospect of a revival of Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote by the Australian Ballet in Melbourne is a reminder of…
Deathless dag
You need only pick up Tim Robertson’s Reliques/Pomes to know that you’re in the presence of a man with an…
Shining in the mind
How many people have sat watching something stream (or whatever) on television and found themsleves incapable of turning it off…
An ecstatic torment of self-delight
What a week of music. On Thursday night we listened to the Chamber Philharmonia Cologne do Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at…
Shy old charmer
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra kicks off its 2023 season with a sumptuously ambitious gala concert on the evening of Friday…
Aristocratic panache
Last week saw the streaming of the sixth and final episode of Happy Valley, the Yorkshire policier with the great…
Serious music
The other week this column blithely announced that the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra would be performing live that mighty and mightily…
Snatches of poignancy
Some decades ago when David Foster Wallace was proceeding to write the great confounding masterpiece of his generation Infinite Jest…
Rite of summer
It’s a strange period of relaxation, isn’t it? The post-Christmas and New Year period in the lead up to Australia…
Cardinal virtues
George Pell is dead. Although he was 81, no one would have predicted it. The Cardinal who had had to…
Feast of epiphanies
January 6, the end of the twelve days of Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany when the three wise…
I, Spy
Is the new year a time to reflect on the misjudgments of a life spent opining? Thirty years ago, when…
The intensity of Christmas
What a box of contradictions Christmas is. There’s the quest for presents – which can get urgent and exhilarated in…
