When I would remark to a friend about how eerie everything looked during “lock-down”— vacant parking lots and streets, closed businesses downtown—I would often get the response of “But think how clean the air is! They can see jelly … Continue reading
Let me start off with today having been the coldest May day in a half century in the same part of Australia that had the worst fires. If I walk out onto the road and look south, I can see … Continue reading
I’ve been trying to explain today all day. My moment of epiphany came when I said to Brenda Clough that today was “…a day.” It was the closest to a normal Monday in a long time. I’m still stuck at … Continue reading
The Arts have been suffering under our marvellous Coalition government for a long time. Until now, literature copped the biggest hiding, but now, small companies in other sectors are joining us and we really don’t want company in starving in … Continue reading
My grandmother was a dressmaker. I’m not. She taught me how to sew, and I did sew because I liked having cool clothes. I still do like cool clothes, but I gave up sewing decades ago for the ease of … Continue reading
When we shifted realities about September last year, the seasons changed. Canberra moved out of Firetime very quickly. Honestly, we had no choice. Even before the fires were out, we were preparing for Crowtime (I made a pun COVID-19 as … Continue reading
I’m on a lot of email lists. A lot. I go through every month or so and unsubscribe from as many as I can, but they proliferate. Some of them are sales emails that come from e-commerce sites I may … Continue reading
We were all so sane and calm and efficient until now. An exemplary people doing amazing things in a terribly trying time. My friend Conor, who visited his parents for Christmas and spent the early part of the year defending … Continue reading
World War II cast a long shadow, and my generation was born in the aftermath. Then the shadow burgeoned into a decades-long frenzy of terror of communism. The Soviet Union was the incarnation of evil, of course, and war was … Continue reading
“Burn! Burn! BURN!” “Wait! Stop!” Gaia reached out to gather a gasping koala into her arms, looked up into a sky which was an improbable shade of dark red and empty of birds. “What are you doing? Who are … Continue reading
