Author: admin

Book Review: The Emperor of All Maladies – a biography of cancer

Book Review: The Emperor of All Maladies – a biography of cancer

admin

This is less a review and more of a birds nest.

The book opens with a terrifyingly beautiful epigraph from Susan Sontag:

Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship.

Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom 

of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.  Although we all

prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is

obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves in that other place. 

each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves in that other place. 

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Lessons from music #1: Stay the course

admin

I was discussing the slings and arrows of artistic fortune (or lack thereof) with my friend Bernard in Manly last Thursday night. We went round in circles for awhile. I ate too much, we both gave the claret a wee nudge and then we began to hone in on something.

To create is to expose yourself to judgment, and for those of us familiar with the arctic wind of anxiety – judgement, depending on your state of mind – can be a helluva thing.

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Resist.

Resist.

admin

The following was written by Timothy Snyder, Housum Professor of History, Yale University,
15 November 2016.

Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

 

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Advice For New Dads

Advice For New Dads

admin

Advice for dads. Here’s the benefit of my very limited wisdom from a heterosexual point of view.

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Tour de Tore / A fooking denim soot

Tour de Tore / A fooking denim soot

admin

Then from the back of the room. “He’s wearing a fookin denim soot!” A commando had picked up on Tom’s strong double denim game. “Look, he’s WEARING A FOOKING DENIM SOOT!”. Laughter erupted. I thought I head a musket shot and like the ANZACs at Gallipoli, we cut our losses and made an extremely successful tactical retreat, pushing north along the ‘highway’, one lane either way. No overtaking.

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Lessons from my kids #3: Try Again.

Lessons from my kids #3: Try Again.

admin

Fear not, dear reader. This lesson is not about what you think it’s about.

I’m not going to fling a bowl of warm, semi-regurgitated apple puree at you and weepily recount the profoundly goopy wisdom that dawned on me as little Starman managed to spoon slop into his mouth, as opposed to his ear, after trying and then trying yet again.

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The Yurt

The Yurt

admin

The frogs are loving this weather. It’s been raining and blowing on the coast here just out of Sydney for three long days and each night as I lay down to sleep beside my daughter in this yurt the frogs sing us into the stormy night with the insistence of Steve Reich.

I love this place but it’s not always easy being here. On the first night of this trip I was spooked by the ghost of my father. His ineffable presence was everywhere in the decaying wood of the place. I see his ambition in the grand aspect of the land looking down the coast to Sydney. Naturally he’s indistinguishable from the fact of my presence here and the soft breath of my sleeping children.

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