Saturday, April 09, 2022

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular

Julie Trethowan - Kerry Packer's one-time mistress splashes out $24MILLION


Nearer to Gods


SPOILER: IT’S EXERCISE.  There’s an Activity That Improves Mood With Lasting Effect in People With Depression.



How to Love: Matthew Strohl and Rax King on Bad Movies Los Angeles Review of Books


Haunted by Venus Alpinist


America’s Sexual Red Scare Matt Taibbi. One correction: the Puritans get a bum rap on sex. They advocated lustful sex….between married people. It was pre- and extra-marital sex that they opposed




“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” 

- Adlai Stevenson


“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” 
– Malala Yousafzai, activist


You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty. 
~Jessica Mitford, Deep Blogger who penned The Hons and Rebels


The former long-term mistress of late billionaire Kerry Packer has splashed out on a $24million pad at one of Sydney's most luxurious complexes.

Julie Trethowan has acquired a unit at Crown's One Barangaroo tower, four months after she put her waterfront penthouse in Elizabeth Bay on the market.




       Stiliana Milkova Q & A 

       Stiliana Milkova recently published a monograph on Elena Ferrante as World Literature -- see the Bloomsbury publicity page -- and at The Smart Set Brianna Di Monda talks to her: "about Elena Ferrante, acts of translation, and leaky bodies", in Elena Ferrante and Feminine Creativity


       David Peace Q & A 

       At The Guardian Anthony Cummins has a Q & A with David Peace: 'Publishers should be less risk-averse'. (Amen to that.) 
       The only Peace-title under review at the complete reviewis Tokyo Year Zero but I've read several more and am an admirer of his work. 
       Among his responses:

What have you been reading lately ? 

Vladimir Sharov, who won the Russian Booker and passed away in 2018, has been a big revelation for me this past year. His novel Before and During, published by Dedalus and translated by Oliver Ready, is narrative within narrative within narrative; it’s very stimulating in structure, voice, and in how it engages with memory, and Soviet and post-Soviet history. Finding a writer like this is what I live for



       Lyudmila Ulitskaya Q & A 

       Among the Russian artists who have left Russia in the past few months is The Big Green Tent-author Lyudmila Ulitskaya, and at Deutsche Welle Sabine Kieselbach now has a Q & A with her, in Russian author Ulitskaya warns of 'terrible' consequences of war
       Among her observations:
100 years ago, many from Russia's cultural elite emigrated. Is history repeating itself ? 

For me, it's mainly an interesting situation: in 1922, Russian Berlin was an extremely exciting cultural phenomenon. I recall Viktor Shklovsky's novel Zoo or Letters Not about Love. Today, exactly 100 years later, one could have written a text entitled Zoo 2. It's intriguing.


 


Who said romance was dead? 3 AMClassics

Using traditional crafts to comment on digital phenomena is always going to get everyone’s attention. Combining the two in a meaningful and pertinent way is much harder though. Éva Ostrowska achieved the tricky balance with a series of tapestriesthat hold a facetious and slightly cruel mirror to our new dating habits. Her woolly compositions lay bare our insecurities, little infamies and anxieties.


Concrete evidence

Have you ever met Nicolas Cage? / still life photography by Nick Dunne / Sun 13, new writing about music and culture, e.g. ‘The Absurdity of Fandom: Slint’s Spiderland 30th anniversary’ / this is the best I know of [this thing] / the 10 strangest artefacts in Australian museums / Bored Panda gives us 15th century Flemish-style portraits recreated in the airplane lavatory / a list of notable fraudsters / excellent observation: All the F*cking Books You See at the Bookstore / The 15 most beautiful songs under 2 minutes / How Defamatory Is “Goblin Mode” to Real Goblins? / beautiful brutalism for sale in south-east France (via Wowhaus) / a profile of Candida Höfer / Like something from a Kubrick film – the hunt for Britain’s best modern buildings’, ahead of a new gazeteer by Owen Hatherley.