When I used to work in the web design shop, the announcement of the Pantone Colour of the Year was always highly anticipated. Mainly because everyone hoped their personal favourite colour would be chosen. It never happened to me, but I wasn’t fazed, there’s seldom a COTY I don’t … | Continue reading
Instead of roasting some coffee beans, the more usual process for preparing beans for brewing, British coffee connoisseur James Hoffmann decided to deep fry a batch. Like Hoffmann, I was unsure why anyone would actually, or ever want to, deep dry coffee beans, but his experiment … | Continue reading
Hopefully by making gaslighting their word of the year of 2022, online dictionary Merriam-Webster increases awareness of the the insidious practice: Psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of t … | Continue reading
The stunning new Sydney Modern Project, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, opened to the public for the first time today. Replete with glass, metal, light tones, and large open, naturally lit spaces, on the upper levels at least, Sydney Modern was designed by Tokyo based Japa … | Continue reading
Spotify Wrapped for 2022 has dropped, and once again the music streaming service is bamboozling listeners with custom genre definitions and statistics that apparently place some listeners into what appear to be elite music listening categories. And it also looks like we have list … | Continue reading
And before another Ausmusic month, and November for that matter, falls behind us… Western Sydney based Korean rap act 1300 have won the music video of the year award for 2022, with their clip Oldboy in the 2022 J Awards. The video was directed by long-time collaborator Raghav Ram … | Continue reading
Moja Vesna is the slow-burning, deeply affecting, debut feature of Melbourne based Slovenian-Australian filmmaker Sara Kern, which premiered at the 2022 Melbourne International Film Festival. The trailer is certainly gripping. In Melbourne’s outer suburbs, reticent Moja, her well … | Continue reading
Antigone Kefala, an Australian poet of Greek-Romanian heritage, has been named winner of the 2022 Patrick White Award. In 1973 Patrick White became the first Australian author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and he used the prize money to create an award for Australian writ … | Continue reading
Gravidity and Parity, written by Eleanor Jackson, and published by Vagabond Press, has been named winner of the Small Press Network (SPN) Book of the Year award. Gravidity and Parity is a poignant and intricate collection of poetry that guides the reader into the journey of mothe … | Continue reading
In five billion years, hopefully long after a, hopefully, still extant humanity have departed the solar system for a new home somewhere among the stars, the Sun will become a red giant star. In this late phase of its life, the Sun will expand in size to engulf all the solar syste … | Continue reading
Nine months have passed since Russia commenced its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Despite the brutality of the aggressors, Ukrainian defenders have steadfastly resisted Russian attempts to deprive them of their sovereignty. And while many of us empathise with the struggle of the Uk … | Continue reading
Tegan Jones, writing at Crikey, on Twitter owner Elon Musk’s… vision of the social media service being some sort of start-up, as of the minute he assumed control. Twitter was established in 2006, so we might be a little passed the development phase of the operation by now, no? So … | Continue reading
Melbourne based Australian indie pop musician Vance Joy has won the Best Video award for his 2022 single Every Side of You, which was directed by William Bleakley, at Australian music’s night of nights, the ARIAs. Meanwhile fellow Melbourne music act Baker Boy also known as Danza … | Continue reading
For about thirty years, until the mid-seventies, tropical cyclones were relatively regular weather events in the Sydney region, but now meteorologists are concerned they may return. But climate change is not behind their possible re-emergence, rather changes in the Interdecadal P … | Continue reading
Penguin Random House, one of the world’s largest book publishers, has called off a proposed merger with Simon & Schuster. Last month, a United States court blocked the proposal, on the grounds competition, and remuneration to authors, stood to be adversely effected. Initially Pen … | Continue reading
The Australian federal election, held in May 2022, saw a record number of teal, or independent, MPs elected to the Australian Parliament. Their strong showing has variously been labelled a teal bath or teal wave, after many teal candidates unseated a significant number of sitting … | Continue reading
The McDonagh Sisters, Isabel, Phyllis, and Paulette, were Australian film producers active almost one hundred years ago. Based in Sydney, the trio made six films, including two documentaries, in an age of filmmaking that saw the transition from silent features to sound, or talkie … | Continue reading
Inconvenient. Difficult. Different. Resilient. Social network Mastodon — viewed by some as a Twitter alternative — as seen by American author, entrepreneur, and master of short-form blogging, Seth Godin: It’s a network in the real internet sense of the word. It’s not just a netwo … | Continue reading