I saw Florentina Holzinger's A Year Without Summer last night. Exhilarating, funny, savagely intelligent, surprisingly tender and joyous, perfectly poised - it's so many things. Felt so lucky to see that work. Anyway, here's my profile of her. thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/prof...

Choreographer Florentina Holzinger is out for blood this Rising

Choreographer Florentina Holzinger, the 21st century’s premier artistic iconoclast, is returning to Rising, swapping body horror ballet for a bloody musical.

thesaturdaypaper.com.au

Frederick Wiseman was perhaps the best chronicler of Modern America in any medium, full stop. RIP.

Our nation’s finest hard at work protecting citizens

Senator David Shoebridge@davidshoebridge.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Shared with us from Sydney happening now. He had his hands up.

Living and working on unceded Bunurong and Wadawurrung Country. Always was, always will be.

Ah yes, famously events with interstate attendees, book sales, coffee carts, wine bars, hundreds of employed artists, dozens of staffers, thousands of daily visitors to the city and, yes, ticketed events, generate "zero revenue". www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in...

Apparently we have to destroy the arts to save them. Though as we all know by now after more than a decade of hostile arts policy, what "we" want is a culture with no memory, no freedom and no conscience, endless reruns of a starveling so-called western canon, background noise for the suits

I think the fundamental gap here is that non-creative people think that creative people make things for the end product, when in fact it’s the act of creation and not the end point that makes it worthwhile.

Robert Komaniecki@komaniecki.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I have grown to believe that excessive wealth does something to your brain that is analogous to a serious head injury

My heart goes out to all those affected by the Bondi shootings. Words feel useless right now. Hold your loved ones close

I went to a Chabad high school. People I know are affected by events at Bondi today. Please follow instructions from police and refrain from live tweeting unverified information

"It is, when you consider it, a profoundly bleak view of romantic love. What are we to make of a supposed ingenue who grows up when she blinks at murder?" Me on the MTC adaptation of Rebecca www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/thea...

Shiels and Rabe shine in Anne-Louise Sarks’ Rebecca adaptation

Anne-Louise Sarks’ production of Daphne du Maurier’s subversive Rebecca swaps melodrama for an exploration of subjectivity.

thesaturdaypaper.com.au

Me on the Australian Ballet's joyous program of contemporary dance, Prism. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2025/10/04/t...

The Australian Ballet’s Prism has moments of pure joy

The Australian Ballet’s latest production, Prism, is a triple bill that brings moments of austere beauty and pure joy.

thesaturdaypaper.com.au

What a ride. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

Writing the book on Robodebt drove Rick Morton mad. Now it's won him $80k

Journalist Rick Morton didn't want to write a book about Robodebt. Now that book, Mean Streak, has won the Prime Minister's Literary Award for non-fiction.

abc.net.au

"Gamergate never ended. It put on a tie and went to Washington."

Mo Ryan@moryan.bsky.social · 12mo ago

I wrote about the firing of Alan Sepinwall, which is awful. And I tied it into what's happening all over in the media, why it's scary & what we can do to help. I used my words, but it's definitely Hulk Mo dialed up to 11, if that's a thing you would like to experience: www.moryan.com/on-the-firin...

A really great piece from @nickfeik.bsky.social.

Who killed Meanjin?

And why won’t Melbourne University Publishing engage with efforts to save it?

crikey.com.au

If Melbourne University Publishing doesn’t want to keep publishing Meanjin, they should hand over the journal to someone worthy of the responsibility. Me in The Conversation theconversation.com/the-decision...

The decision to close Meanjin misunderstands its wider importance. Australian culture deserves better

The decision to close Meanjin is the latest in a string of recent decisions that suggest universities are not safe harbours for priceless cultural institutions.

theconversation.com

Why should accountants, human-resource managers & real-estate developers be interested in promoting Australian literature?

Crikey@crikey.com.au · 12mo ago

Opinion | Melbourne University Press says it shut down Meanjin for "purely financial reasons". Perhaps the university could have used some of its $273 million surplus to safeguard the seminal journal, @catrionamp.bsky.social‬ writes.

Well worth the read: a report on contemporary dance and censorship in Viktor Orbán's right wing Hungary, where independent artists are struggling to survive. A situation unsettlingly parallel with what is happening in Australia. tanz.dance/the-city-of-...

The city of open wounds - Shifting the arts

It was actually an inspiring few days in the Hungarian capital: invited by Lena Megyeri, a dance writer living in Budapest, I gained an insight into the deeper layers of the independent scene in Budap...

tanz.dance

“In Della’s contradictions, Marillier portrays the internalisation of decades – nay, centuries – of brutal authoritarian power. Apartheid was, after all, only the culmination of a process that began with British and Dutch colonisation.” www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/thea...

sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/bast...

Bastards! | Sydney Review of Books

From economic rationalism to libertarianism, neoliberalism appears under many guises. Reviewing Quinn Slobodian’s new book on neoliberal thought, James Ley shows that what its founders share with latt...

sydneyreviewofbooks.com

So much I could say about the Robodebt Class Action re-settlement. But I am tired and in another time zone and will simply leave this here instead.

Rick Morton@squigglyrick.bsky.social · last yr.

Commonwealth Ombudsman already smashed them and now not even govt's chosen auditing firm can say if the house of cards system of punitive mutual obligations is legal. Quite literally, they say, it is indefensible. Yet it persists. Even after Robodebt. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politic...

It is easy to dismiss this as a single publication ending, but it’s a wider _infrastructural_ loss - and as Louise Adler says, easy to close, very hard to rebuild. These decisions have disastrous long term consequences beyond a single slice of the cultural sector

Alison Croggon@alisoncroggon.bsky.social · 12mo ago

This is shocking news. Literary magazines - and all the other small orgs now under pressure or closing or gone - are the bedrock of culture and their ongoing costs are barely a blip in any institutional budget. Melbourne University ought to be ashamed www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/04/m...

I was Meanjin's Designer in the early 00s for years. Laid out and typeset every page and cover. Tiny budget but a great opportunity for young me and for those who came before and after. Even then Melbourne Uni was an existential threat. They'll save very little and lose a great deal through this.

Alison Croggon@alisoncroggon.bsky.social · 12mo ago

This is shocking news. Literary magazines - and all the other small orgs now under pressure or closing or gone - are the bedrock of culture and their ongoing costs are barely a blip in any institutional budget. Melbourne University ought to be ashamed www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/04/m...

The loss of Meanjin is devastating news for Australian writers and readers. Always meant so much to see my work there. Some of my best experiences of being edited. An entirely avoidable disaster.

This is shocking news. Literary magazines - and all the other small orgs now under pressure or closing or gone - are the bedrock of culture and their ongoing costs are barely a blip in any institutional budget. Melbourne University ought to be ashamed www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/04/m...

Literary journal Meanjin to close after 85 years of publishing

Meanjin, a mainstay of Australia's cultural landscape and the nation's second-oldest literary publication, is shuttering after Melbourne University Publishing decided to cease financial support.

crikey.com.au

It would be a massive mistake for progressive folk to convince themselves the March for Australia was a bust, or can safely be ridiculed. It was an alarming escalation of far-right action, and we need to reckon with it. More thoughts (un-paywalled) here: www.lamestream.com.au/how-mainstre...

How mainstream media and politicians fuelled Australia's biggest far-right rally

Six takeaways from the March for Australia and why it should be a wake-up call.

lamestream.com.au

This is a set of screenshots of an astonishing "conversation" between writer @guinz.bsky.social and #ChatGPT. "What ultimately transpired is the closest thing to a personal episode of Black Mirror this lifetime." ‪h/t @dranitaheiss.bsky.social #writing #AI /... open.substack.com/pub/amandagu...

Diabolus Ex Machina

This Is Not An Essay

open.substack.com

Broken Forms by Franz Marc, 1914 #artbots #guggenheim https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137374

#FreePalestine BRI: 10-50K MEL: 100K SYD: ? ['tens of thousands'] CAN: 2K HOB: 'thousands' PER: 25K ADE: 15K plus numerous other towns & regional centres www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

Tens of thousands protest in nationwide action against war in Gaza

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations were held across the country today, with organisers claiming crowd numbers to be in the tens of thousands.

abc.net.au

Absolutely epic crowd at the Melbourne march for Palestine

“I must admit: I write this piece while starving – too hungry to think clearly, too weak to sit upright for long. I do not feel ashamed because my starvation is deliberate.” www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

‘Too hungry to think, too weak to sit upright. Concentration slips away’: the struggle to stay focused as an academic in Gaza

It is hard to keep the mind sharp when the body is thin and dehydrated, but solidarity is teaching starving students their thoughts still matter

theguardian.com