It’s summertime in Melbourne and as the city begins to resemble an oversized convection oven I, like many others, hanker for the cooling breezes and soothing water of the seaside. As one of the few places where it is acceptable to disport yourself in the nearly nude, the beach presents challenges for the feminist bather….
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Nodding towards minimalism, conceptual and process art, the ideas behind Magda Cebokli’s Drawn Out, currently showing at the Counihan Gallery, Brunswick are difficult to reconcile. For one, each is too complex an idea to explore properly through just a nod. For another, trying to survey them all at once makes things far too convoluted to…
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Valentine’s Day is upon us once more. I’ve never really understood its significance. No really, never. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been single since before I was born. There’s a great misconception that the only people who can hate Valentine’s Day are the bitter and twisted double X chromosomes…
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This article was first published on PortWhine.com. So, we all know what’s up with Django Unchained (and if you don’t, read this). Tarantino has another hit on his hands: the reviews are good, the best actor/script/picture nominations are in, and the internet is abuzz with cool film cats singing the praises of the film’s “awesome…
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Granta is one of those literary journals you’re told to subscribe to when you study writing. It publishes the full gamut of linguistic genres – poetry, prose, fiction, non-fiction – in quarterly instalments. Usually the writing it features kind of makes a budding writer ashamed to call themselves a ‘writer’ while the understated beauty of…
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Cafe Shenkin, Erskineville 53 Erskineville Road, Erskineville 2.83 ‘Listen to Timeout, go for the Israeli salad’ Shalom, Shenkin. You are a groovy Israeli haunt with funky music, friendly service, great Mecca coffee and one heck of a breakfast knife. I thought I was onto a winner with you, until my eggs arrived. I know Timeout…
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I absolutely love salty food. I have been known to add salt to everything, even when it really isn’t necessary – margaritas, fish, olives – the list goes on. I remember discovering Puttanesca pasta when I was a teenager and thinking it might be the best pasta ever created. The salty flesh of olives was…
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It’s coming, guys. That one day of year where every Facebook status is either a profession of love or a profession of love for the single life. Whether you love it, hate it or couldn’t give a flying hoot either way, you’re going to be hearing a lot about St. Valentine, Aphrodite and Venus on…
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British MPs have voted in favour of legislation allowing same-sex marriage in the House of Commons, despite many Conservatives breaking ranks and voting against the Bill. The legislation convincingly passed the second stage of the legislative process. MPs from Labour, Liberal Democrats and a small selection of smaller parties supported the legislation. The final vote…
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The Haute Couture presentations for Spring/Summer 2013 came to a close in Paris recently, as 33 design houses continued the tradition of lavish and exclusive showings of unthinkably expensive garments. Strictly regulated by the Parisian Chamber of Commerce, the title of Haute Couture is awarded only to designers who show collections of more than 35…
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By now, we all know the story of JK Rowling, who, at the request of her publisher, published the Harry Potter books using her initials, instead of her full first name. Her publisher believed the book would appeal to boys, and thought boys wouldn’t want to read the book if they saw a woman’s name…
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I grew up with Desiderata on the back of the kitchen door. My friend Lara had it on the back of her toilet door. We both memorised it, as you do when you are a kid, in much the same way that you would memorise the text on a Weet-Bix packet or every word in…
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After 23 years I have finally given up hoping to be bitten by a radioactive spider and/or waiting for my mutant powers to kick in, and have grudgingly resigned myself to the fact that I will actually need to exercise in order to be fit. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried. Every so often…
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Take a good hard look at your lives, single twentysomethings. The independence you’re enjoying is a ruse. At least that’s what Margaret Wente thinks. ‘At 36, being me was not so thrilling anymore,’ she writes. ‘Eventually it dawned on me that unless I took drastic action, I faced a future as a cat lady. That’s…
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