Welcome to GR Online, a series of short-form articles that take aim at the moving target of contemporary culture as it’s whisked along the guide rails of innovations in digital media, globalisation and late-stage capitalism.
Young lady, that’s inappropriate
AFTER GRADUATING FROM law school, I spent a full and disturbing year working as a judge’s associate in the District Court of Queensland. The role required silence and discretion, and each week I sat, mute and powerless, watching things unfurl in front of me – both in and out of court – that made me want to get up and run. Forever the youngest in the room, often the only female, things that were normal to the seasoned lawyer unsettled me. I used to think all the time: Is anyone else seeing this?
Measuring imperfection
IN RETROSPECT, IT was always a stupid idea to buy a Fitbit; I’m still not entirely sure why I...
So dry a homeland
THERE ARE STILL some hot summer nights when I can tool around Adelaide with the windows down and feel...
Stormy times
IN SEPTEMBER 2016, South Australia was buffeted by the most ferocious storm in half a century. Apocalyptic clouds gathered...
In the dark
A CELEBRITY CHEF declares dairy causes osteoporosis, and cholesterol medication is bad. Parents shy away from giving their children...
Diminishing city
EXACTLY FIFTY YEARS ago, in the spring of 1966, my family left the Pennington Migrant Centre in Adelaide to...
Radical roots in Fiji
SOUTH AUSTRALIA’S REPUTATION for progressive reform extends back to its origins in Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s scheme for imperial systematic...
Behind every story
IT MAY NOT be the best painting in the Art Gallery of South Australia, and it may not be...
Remembering Roxby Downs
IN 1842, THE mainly British and German settlers who had arrived en masse at the beginning of South Australia’s...
God bless the footy
WHEN IT CAME to colourful and controversial views, the long-time mayor of Port Augusta, Joy Baluch, set elite standards:...
The value of culture
PICTURE ONE: THERE are eight people sitting around a table on the top floor of a high-rise building in...
Intercultural futures
‘SO WHAT? THERE’S no story here,’ the marketing consultant snapped down the phone. ‘I mean, bloody hell, the premier’s...
