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About the author

Isabella G Mead

Isabella G Mead’s debut poetry collection, The Infant Vine, was published in 2024 by UWAP. Her work has appeared in Meanjin, Island, Rabbit, Westerly,...

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Non-fictionDuring my pre-teen years, I amassed a large collection of animal plushies and figurines. I loved collecting different species, different families and different genii. I didn’t just want a generic teddy bear, I wanted specific representations of the animal kingdom: grizzly bears, black bears, sun bears and so forth. (FYI: in earlier decades, it was hotly contested whether giant pandas were true bears or were closer to their raccoon relatives, so my panda plushie split its time between families.) My plushies were ‘decluttered’ when they were no longer ‘age appropriate’. I was expected to become a different kind of person – one who doesn’t think about plushies. One who can get by on utility, with no need for art, beauty or whimsy. One who can use their perspicacity for something sensible. It wasn’t to be. My dad’s influence failed miserably – emphasis on misery. Or, arguably, it swung me further away, back in the direction of my grandparents, imbuing my possessions with sentience, value and personality. I find it unbearable to let anything go.

Culture warrior

Non-fictionIt’s safe to say, then, that Star’s protagonist is not a carbon copy of Mishima, despite the novelist’s status as Japan’s first Sūpāsutā (superstar). Twenty-three and blindingly gorgeous, Rikio Mizuno, known by the anglicised monomer Richie, is a Japanese James Dean. ‘I am a speeding car that never stops,’ Richie muses, conflating the icon with the instrument of his death. ‘I’m huge, shiny and new, coming from the other side of midnight… I ride and ride and never arrive.’ Unlike Dean, Richie survives past his twenty-fourth birthday, the addition of a single year weighing on him like a death sentence. At the story’s conclusion, when Richie is confronted by the crinkled visage of a matinee idol of yesteryear, he realises that having celebrated the twenty-fourth birthday Dean was denied by his Porsche 550 Spyder, ‘Little Bastard’, he has missed his chance to, as Dean said, ‘Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.’ Anyone who has been to a gay guy’s thirtieth birthday party will recognise the sentiment.

Trip Advisor review of a protest

Poetry Firstly, what’s with all the footwork? A downward slope would be an attribute. There’s enough gory fundamentalism without toe jam. On that note, can...