There is a persistent quote that stalks all music writers. Its provenance is disputed – Thelonius Monk? Clara Schumann? Laurie Anderson? Elvis Costello? – but it is widely held to settle everything: ...

That’s when I first heard the Gaza Strips. It says something of these four young men and one woman that their eponymous debut album announces itself with the left-right-left knockout punches of those ...

Many years ago in Sydney, moments before I was due on stage, the stage manager breezily mentioned that the composer might be in the audience. I fled to the bathroom and locked the door, scanning the ...

The year was 1990. It was the “Third Summer of Love”, the Happy Mondays were chanting, “It’s gotta be a loose fit”, and it looked as though high heels would never again be worn by anyone under 30.

Peter Mares is a journalist and contributing editor at Inside Story magazine. His books include No Place Like Home: Repairing Australia’s Housing Crisis.

Luke Beesley is a poet and singer-songwriter. His latest book is In the Photograph.

Humans, they say, have a bias towards the negative – a residue from our evolutionary path through the African savannah, ever on the lookout for predators. Wary dread is wired into a consciousness ...

Andrew Ahn’s remake of Ang Lee’s breakthrough film stars Bowen Yang and Lily Gladstone in a story of lesbian fertility quandaries and commitment phobia Desperate to avoid living an inauthentic, ...

Cape York’s palm cockatoos teaching drumming techniques to their young are an example of the emerging field of animal cultures ...

When I moved to Australia from Canada as a child, I was struck by the shape of my new home. In Canada I had to draw maps of my native land in exacting detail. This skill atrophied at my Sydney primary ...

Paul Kelly and the Dots. Turns out they’ve got the residency, every Friday night at the Kingston Hotel. And Friday night rolls around fast, so before you know it you’re back there checking them out ...

In the '70s, when Robert Hughes recapitulated and refined his ideas about Australian art in an ABC TV series, the brio and drama he brought to it were as dazzling as any Brett Whitely painting, any ...