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.
Radical love
People ask me how to manifest their greatest desires because I am clearly living the life of my dreams. I am renowned for my healing work and own a vast business empire connected to it, although this has not always been the case. Prior to my unlimited success, I dabbled in various careers but never settled on any, feeling there was more to existence if only I could grasp it.
Lunch at the dream house
There were columns. It was white. Palatial. ‘Just smile and nod,’ Paul said, as he drove towards the fountain where a replica of Michelangelo’s Bacchus stood in all his glory.
The long supper
Nadia herself was unremarkable. She spoke little and staked little claim. She ate in moderation (always in private). She exercised moderately (always indoors). Books were the exception; those, she binged.
The party for Crabs
As she lists the night’s specials, Claire attempts to figure out the party’s dynamic. Shared complexions make the elegant woman the little girl’s mother, surely. It’s the women’s relationship she can’t figure out. University friends? Distant cousins? Their conversation seems too polite for either. Unnatural.
Quinoa nation
We don’t stock Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook. I know this because Amanda thinks Gwyneth Paltrow is goofy, despite Amanda and Gwyneth Paltrow being the same person. Our customers are Gwyneth Paltrow’s target demographic. If Gwyneth Paltrow wrote a novel our book club would literally devour it.
Old stars
I found Archie by the shallow end wearing a short terry-towelling robe open to the waist. Time and tide had left him shipwrecked and bloated, but you could still recognise him from the pictures on his album covers: same dark pouf and ducktail and duotone tan, only now he got his colour from a bottle and his hair from a can. He’d been drinking gin and tonic since happy hour started, brought out by an over-attentive waitress.
Last of the rational actors at the end of the unnatural world
Was it Douglas Mawson who compared Antarctica to Mars?... 'Outside, one might be a lone soul standing on Mars', or something very much like that. 'All is desolation and hard.'
Convergence
The holiday brochures talk about ‘the sound of silence’ in Antarctica. That it is an experience, elliptical and expansive. This has become a long-running joke at the base. Everyone knows that life here relies on making noise.
Hope sends a message
I am here to get the feel of the place; to understand why they are here, at the edge of the world, keeping hope alive. I need that hope and I think I am not alone in that sentiment. That is why I was sent, why I agreed to come, why this piece is being published – unless it has been suppressed. I am displaced as much as the people here; my family have not been to our homelands for generations.
Mud reckoning
THERE IS NO such thing as bad Country; there just happens to be bad custodians.
Beating the bounds
‘LIKE THE BROLGA Dancers at the Mullet Run,’ Murree grinned, squatting easily against the base of a gum tree...
The Terrible Event: A Memorial
I OFTEN ASK myself: had we simply stuck with The Memorial’s original name, would things have taken such a...
