Meanjin's back!

Cameroonian balafon cover of "Hit the Road Jack" from 1979 www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA7w...

It's probably bad that our attention economy incentivises full fash clickbait (aimed squarely at Gen X men)?

Reading Marx and drinking Guinness

A significant portion of Dracula (1897) is just tracking parcel deliveries. It's ripe for the Amazon Prime Video treatment.

i can’t help but think how much he would hate all the fuss but guess what you grumpy bastard you are so incredibly loved by so many people. rest in power jon ♥️ www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

Cartoonist Jon Kudelka has passed away, his wife Margaret has confirmed. www.facebook.com/margaret.kud...

Nice poster by Kudelka. Thinking of him.

Doing God's work (explaining to angry boomers that capital gains have nothing to do with hard work)

I love my wife

So it looks as though you can access my new book already if you’re subscribed to OUP. Here’s the link :) 🎉✨ academic.oup.com/book/62228?s...

Stumbled upon Andrea Tarrodi's String Quartet No.3. A happy accident 👍 www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8y6...

Michael Mann's cinematographer, no less! From Heat to Melania!

Another piece of writing from yours truly. Might be the weirdest thing I've written? This is what happens when you agree to write about a US work of criticism for a publication about Australian writing! openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/articl...

If you studied the Humanities: Looking back, what do you wish you knew coming into your first year of an Arts degree?

Alice Coltrane's PTAH, THE EL DAOUD (Impulse, 1970) in an episode of M*A*S*H

Reading list for my Gothic unit, broken up into three chapters: I. Domestic Horrors II. Haunted Empire III. Creaturely Others Starting soon soon soon very excited

I reviewed Kristin Grogan's brilliant new book _Stitch, Unstitch: Modernist Poetry and the World of Work_ for The Space Between scalar.usc.edu/works/the-sp...

Now listening

Whiskey Friday with Greg Bovino

The six figure guy in question also wrote “Whence comes this uncanniest of all guests”

the moment the second person comes into the frame to stand with his neighbor is so incredibly beautiful

I watched a bunch of AI sessions at the WEF so you wouldn’t have to. But you should read this.

NY Post headlines have very slowly walked backwards from "Man waving gun at feds ... fatally shot" to "Armed anti-ICE disruptor fatally shot after confronting fed agents"

You could actually structure your moral code around the idea that law enforcement doesn't exist to execute people. You don't have to create perfect victim narratives, you can just refuse to accept that the state gets to kill people.

They murdered Good and Pretti, a poet and a nurse, one whose last words were “I’m not mad,” another whose last act was shielding another. Because of course that’s who they killed. Everyday people.

Personal favourite Bowie

Tag yourself, I’m 800 to 1,000 bone-grubbers and mud-larks

Street professions in 1840s London (as documented by Henry Mayhew)

Aurora australis streaming over central Hobart/nipaluna

Happy Release Day! 🎉🍾🥂 Buy now. @sauutiverse.bsky.social, @flametree.bsky.social 💞 www.flametreepublishing.com/sauuti-terro...

15 years in jail for telling the truth would present the courts a bit of a legal conundrum wouldn’t it

Modernism/modernity seeks a Book Reviews Editor (3-year term, 2026–2029). The role involves commissioning and editing reviews for both the print journal and Print+. Deadline to apply: March 16, 2026 Please share widely.

Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1944), for no particular reason

Over the last 18ish years I've been listening to 20th/21st century string quartets and making a big list of good ones. If you're into that. rateyourmusic.com/list/rm508/s...

Stranger Things S5 is a chore, sadly. Already-bloated IP expanded into a joyless, airless, all-encompassing multiverse. What if worldbuilding was the enemy all along?

Chaïm Soutine, "Windy day in Oxera" (1939)

The internet is amazing because you can go from “I know nothing about the 1986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme” to “Christer Pettersson was the fall guy for the South African Security Branch” within ~15 minutes

Back in my day, we didn't have "On the Nature of Daylight" in every movie. No sir! We had "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" in every movie.

They should all know, with the certainty of Cassandra, that people will line up to toilet on their graves; that if there's security, people will fly piss-drones, or Big Bertha piss-cannons ... whatever it takes

Behold, a 'fluencer:

The word “influencer” is immensely sinister. Are we sure it wasn’t invented in dystopian fiction

Proposals invited: special issue: *Feminist Modernist Exiles*, to show how women’s ongoing experiences of transnational, transcultural, and translingual experiences in voluntary and involuntary exile continue to generate new forms of feminist modernism. Info: phyllisl @ northwestern .edu

What happens to the Craig Silvey-Industrial Complex now? Belvoir are in the middle of adaptating Runt for starters

Few words. My @smh @theage cartoon

This is a huge loss for Australian arts. Louise Adler has resigned, after years of racist campaigning from Murdoch’s hate machine for her continued audacity to have 1-2 Palestinian writers in her festivals. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Got vertigo. Miserable. Sitting motionless looking out the window at neighbouring apartments. How many other Hitchcockian maladies can I get.

I need a materialist theory of complicated 70s chord progressions

Bowie has been gone for a decade. But the dank apocalyptic glamour of his 70s work seems made for this moment. You can hear it in Cate Le Bon, who borrows his police siren sax lines youtu.be/SS5Jj2B3RXw