Finding the right phenotype

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War of words

GR OnlineDuring my first news break at 6.30 am, I read the news reports about Israeli airstrikes out verbatim. But as I spoke into the mic, I felt unsettled by what I was saying. I had naively thought that this kind of bare-bones style of ‘raw’ AAP reportage is simply factual, and free from linguistic sleights of hand. But of course, I was wrong.

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Joker in the pack

IntroductionStatus itself is a little like a riddle: a code to be cracked, a hand in which you can’t see all the cards. Unless you’re Batman, however, the stakes for solving riddles tend to be comfortingly low, whereas the pressures of deciphering status can occupy a far more consequential role in our lives (it’s all fun and games until somebody loses their cultural capital).

The inspirations of radical nostalgia

Non-fictionEnvironmentalism, like history, is a civic discourse that critically engages with change in the world, contemplates the nature of limits and challenges ahistorical self-absorption. Like all good historians, environmentalists create recognition that the structures and conditions of today are not natural, inevitable or preordained but thoroughly contingent. The study of history and ecologically motivated advocacy also both demand reasoned scepticism towards the ideological claims of the powerful.

the road of ghosts

FictionGraeme works with me almost every day of each school holidays. He conducts sessions that stretch from an hour into two. He teaches me how to shoot; he splinters my form down into nothing and then restructures it until it is exact. Fingertips: the ball slides through the air into the ring. He shuffles after each rebound, his returning pass precise. Graeme pours himself into me. He is patient. He is generous. He is firm, like a grandfather.