Jon Fosse’s Slow Prose, 2023 Nobel Prize for Literature
The 2023 Nobel Prize for Literature is announced. Relive world literature’s night of nights with this…
culture / history / literature
New Article: Reflections on Patrick White’s Nobel Prize and Australian cultural history
My thoughts on Australian cultural history on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Patrick White’s…
Russian Ark, yes. American Ark? Unlikely.
The great Russian film, Russian Ark, is a deep meditation on the treasures of culture and the tragedies of history. Will there be an American Ark 100 years from now?
culture / history / literature
Endurance in War and Politics for Non-Political Souls
I wrote in my previous post about the rhetoric of “as long as it takes” on…
Latest podcast: Can we cope with the pace of change?
Change is part of life and central to history. But has the pace of change accelerated over the last 50 years beyond our capacity to cope?
Day Three of Thirteen Days of Looking at a Bureaucrat
The third chapter of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat is the title essay, ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat’. It plays with Wallace Stevens’ poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and seeks to open up the reader’s mind to the many unexpected, even poetic ways you can look at this plain, humble, even despised personality, the bureaucrat.
NEW BOOK! Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat
My new book, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat, is now out! Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat: Writing on Governing, is both memoir and essay collection. I think it breaks new ground because bureaucrats don’t publish memoirs. It will change how you see government, politics, working life, and bureaucrats.
When Melbourne Spurned St. Petersburg
Melbourne City Councillors should reflect on the reality of its long pretence to be a sister city with St Petersburg. The ‘sister relationship’ always flattered Melbourne.
Memory, History, Forgetting, Macron and Ricoeur
Towards, the end of Memory, History, and Forgetting, indeed, Ricoeur evoked the famous angel of history from the painting by Paul Klee, described in Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History. This image also inspired my poems, blog, podcast, YouTube and now Sub-Stack newsletter. It marked a deep, unexpected bond between Ricoeur, Macron and I.
culture / history / literature
Rabindranath Tagore. The Nation is an anesthetic.
Tagore’s essay, ‘Nationalism’, was published in 1917. It is a scathing denunciation of the war of Western nations who controlled empires that raged in Europe at that time.