Bernard Zuel
@bernardzuel.bsky.social
Writer & critic (SMH, Guardian, Rhythms & everything found at bernardzuel.net) teacher (Sydney University), podcaster, host/facilitator (anywhere you want me), media trainer (you talk, I help). Opinions definitely are those of my employer - moi.
i blindfolded a 7yo and gave him a bat and stood right behind him while he tried to take a swing at the t-ball and, my nuts got owned it’s made me rethink standing behind blindfolded kids with wiffle ball bats fr
Damon Young@damonyoung.com.au · 11h ago“My personal AI agent posted my bank details on company Slack. It's made me rethink how I use it.” These titans of business. These masters of the universe.
She fought apartheid, defended Nelson Mandela, and helped change how the world prosecutes sexual violence. Today, at 85, Navi Pillay was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. What an extraordinary woman. 💜 #SheShed #VivaHerAlliance
When you haven’t got the Rubber Soul box set yet but you want to spread your wings. #morningpop #blackamericasingslennonandmccartney #beatles
Saturday read (& listen) #5. The weekend's music sorted with a playlist veering from Urge Overkill & Thin Lizzy to Julia Jacklin & Matt Berninger, from Pat Benatar & Nicole Atkins to Sarah Blasko & Big Star's Chris Bell, from Tom Morello+Kneecap to .. ? www.bernardzuel.net/post/gasolin...
GASOLINE BRIDE: A PLAYLIST
Fill up! The music looks expensive but it's free fuel for the brain and soul. CLICK HERE TO LISTENTake a ride on hundreds more playlists driven by me. Scan through this website, it's got 'em all.
bernardzuel.net
Saturday read #4. The rooms are a mess, the lock-up even worse, the music never stops, the opinions ever ready, & a lot of people hate you - is that a good way to live? The Last Critic, about music critic Robert Christgau, says yes, sort of. If you're him. Hmm. www.bernardzuel.net/post/the-las...
THE LAST CRITIC: FILM REVIEW
THE LAST CRITICDirected by Matt Wishnow. Screening as part of First Films festival. DON’T LIVE WITH A music critic, I strongly advise you. Just don’t.Yes you may be tempted by their general handsomene...
bernardzuel.net
Saturday read #3. It's feverish, brilliant at times, mostly in control & always in demand, but is Fanny Lumsden's brain easy to understand - for her or us? Part two of an interview that slices through more than a new album. www.bernardzuel.net/post/the-ene...
THE ENERGY THAT NEVER ENDS FOR FANNY LUMSDEN part two
IF TRADITIONS, Fanny Lumsden’s fifth album, has a subtext beneath its close examination of what and why we choose to cherish and what think we should jettison of our family’s past and our culture’s hi...
bernardzuel.net
Saturday read #2. History never repeats but it echoes for a woman with expectations. Fanny Lumsden's new album checks in on what we're prepared to do. "We all have to bend, to decide what’s enough to have or give up," she says in part 1 of our interview. www.bernardzuel.net/post/fanny-l...
FANNY LUMSDEN DOESN’T WANT IT ALL, BUT SHE’LL HAVE A LOT part 1
AS THE LINE CONNECTS, the camera boots up and the sound eventually works, I am greeted by Fanny Lumsden singing. Not one of her own songs, not even the new single, Traditions, but a jaunty little melo...
bernardzuel.net
Saturday read #1. Follow the garden path as Paul Hester seen (in a robe) & unseen (on the harbour) helps me focus on a pal who everyone loves to enjoy but who might just need a turn of his own. What Comes To Mind taps friendship. www.bernardzuel.net/post/what-co...
WHAT COMES TO MIND … PAUL HESTER AND THE WOUNDS WE SHARE
Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence, whose not-so-secret goal ...
bernardzuel.net
awarding the nobel to navi pillay is 100% merited. her career/views is a rejection of trumpism, eg: - international law at center of her career - deep commitment to human rights institutions - leadership of int'l justice (ICC, ICTR) - foreign student earned JSD at Harvard so much to celebrate.
David Kaye@davidakaye.bsky.social · yesterdayactually . . . wow! navi pillay, one of the most prominent human rights leaders of our time, former UN high commissioner for human rights . . . so richly deserved. three cheers!
Firmus has been telling an obviously absurd environmental / efficiency story and because Business Men genuinely have no critical faculties they all just believed it unquestioningly
Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · 5mo agoAmazing story here about how data centre company Firmus has been quietly deleting a huge raft of environmental claims from its site, including correcting its unauthorised use of a United Nations (!!!!!) sustainability logo www.smh.com.au/technology/f...
Histories & traditions are complicated & Fanny Lumsden once thought it wiser to avoid or even repudiate them. “Then I was like, no, I can celebrate these parts of me that are not quite fitting into my ambition or not fitting into the woman I want to be." www.bernardzuel.net/post/the-ene...
THE ENERGY THAT NEVER ENDS FOR FANNY LUMSDEN part two
IF TRADITIONS, Fanny Lumsden’s fifth album, has a subtext beneath its close examination of what and why we choose to cherish and what think we should jettison of our family’s past and our culture’s hi...
bernardzuel.net
Whoa. @haleaziz.bsky.social has the scoop on a truly insane plan to use some military training ships for deportations, with people presumably shackled or locked in cells for days at a time as they transit to Central and South America. Each journey would be staggeringly expensive — and dangerous.
Trump Administration Considers Using Ships to Deport Immigrants (Gift Article)
Journeys to destinations including El Salvador and Venezuela could take days and cost millions. Officials cautioned that discussions are still preliminary.
nytimes.com
Young Fanny Lumsden was marked as hyper, including being a hyper-achiever. Older Fanny says that's ok: “I am wildly optimistic, to a fault though I have no shame about optimism; I am constantly coming up with ideas; constantly listing & doing new things." www.bernardzuel.net/post/the-ene...
THE ENERGY THAT NEVER ENDS FOR FANNY LUMSDEN part two
IF TRADITIONS, Fanny Lumsden’s fifth album, has a subtext beneath its close examination of what and why we choose to cherish and what think we should jettison of our family’s past and our culture’s history, it might be the way one woman came to grips with the life she very clearly chose.That woman is Lumsden herself, self-described as a high achiever, a term loaded with connotations both positive and negative, and attached to her since school days. Attached and lingering, like something she is n
bernardzuel.net
Accused of domestic violence choking & beating the victim’s head against the floor, our TV man claims depression, financial stress & that she was yelling at him. Defendant bingo! Truly, he is the victim here.
Anything but a trad wife, Fanny Lumsden might still turn the other cheek, but don't bet on it every time. "I think that’s why I get called a difficult woman," she says in part 1 of our interview, talking ambition, tolerance, bookstores in Dublin & control. www.bernardzuel.net/post/fanny-l...
FANNY LUMSDEN DOESN’T WANT IT ALL, BUT SHE’LL HAVE A LOT part 1
AS THE LINE CONNECTS, the camera boots up and the sound eventually works, I am greeted by Fanny Lumsden singing. Not one of her own songs, not even the new single, Traditions, but a jaunty little melo...
bernardzuel.net
Reading Deniz (Radio Birdman) Tek's memoir & amused. Sceptical of the offer of a lift by blokes off their tits at an early 70s festival, his band's assured by "Beetle": 'I'll drive. These blokes are drunk, stoned & tripping. I'm really drunk & stoned but at least I'm not tripping'. Ok then!
Two words missing here: “Harvey” and “Weinstein”. Maybe two more: “Brittany” and “Higgins”. Interesting who it’s ok to work with & why. if.com.au/the-set-up-t...
The Set Up to adapt Lisa Wilkinson's 'The Titanic Story of Evelyn' for television - IF Magazine
Newly formed production company The Set Up has announced a television adaptation of Lisa Wilkinson's historical non-fiction book 'The Titanic Story of Evelyn' as its first project.
if.com.au
Music comes spilling out into the street, colours go waltzing in time. #morningpop #thursdayvinyl #jonimitchell #songtoaseagull
Self-managing, world-touring, Paul Kelly-tapping, new album-making Fanny Lumsden wisdom? “I heard someone say recently that having it all is just doing it all & that’s why we’re burnt out! I think I’m learning to define what your ‘all’ is & what’s enough.” www.bernardzuel.net/post/fanny-l...
FANNY LUMSDEN DOESN’T WANT IT ALL, BUT SHE’LL HAVE A LOT part 1
AS THE LINE CONNECTS, the camera boots up and the sound eventually works, I am greeted by Fanny Lumsden singing. Not one of her own songs, not even the new single, Traditions, but a jaunty little melo...
bernardzuel.net
It is this kind of searing insight, backed by irreplaceable depth of knowledge, that justifies Hockey’s high consultancy fees and reputation. What a man! What a brain! What a con!
ABC News Australia@news.abc.net.au · 3d agoUS corruption allowed to flourish in Washington during period of second Trump presidency, says Joe Hockey
Nudge, nudge ... your reminder to check out this week's playlist which gives you Pat Benatar & Kneecap+Tom Morello, PJ Harvey & Go-Betweens, Sarah Blasko & Marsha Hunt, Urge Overkill & Folk Bitch Trio, Catholic Girls & Speedways, Julia Jacklin & Thin Lizzy, & more. open.spotify.com/playlist/5vj...
"because when I swerved into that ditch isolating at first ... he popped up to say “I know” & to listen & only then to show me more of the scars of his own – not as a medal but as a shared wound, that common gulf in our makeup." On smiling friends hurting too. www.bernardzuel.net/post/what-co...
WHAT COMES TO MIND … PAUL HESTER AND THE WOUNDS WE SHARE
Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence, whose not-so-secret goal ...
bernardzuel.net
A Stuart Spence portrait of Paul Hester in full Noel Coward-on-the-lawn mode sends me down paths of opera house angles, laughter hiding as well as helping, & the complementary nature of friends. What Comes To Mind is in the trough & in infinite blue skies. www.bernardzuel.net/post/what-co...
WHAT COMES TO MIND … PAUL HESTER AND THE WOUNDS WE SHARE
Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence, whose not-so-secret goal ...
bernardzuel.net
The years as a removalist were hard but rewarding. #morningpop #wednesdayvinyl #barbrastreisand #stoneyend
Don't put your daughter on the stage Mrs Worthington. Don't go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Don't marry a music critic. A new documentary about "Dean" Robert Christgau brings some truths to the fore. So live long, listen as long, & prosper. www.bernardzuel.net/post/the-las...
THE LAST CRITIC: FILM REVIEW
THE LAST CRITICDirected by Matt Wishnow. Screening as part of First Films festival. DON’T LIVE WITH A music critic, I strongly advise you. Just don’t.Yes you may be tempted by their general handsomene...
bernardzuel.net
