Culture

  • Wollombi Folk Festival

    A fantastic line-up of artists with a diversity of talent will make this year's Wollombi Folk Festival "the best yet", organisers say. Some 100 artists will be performing over the weekend of August 30-September 1 in the scenic village of Wollombi,

  • Capitalism without work?

    The End of Work: The decline of the global labour force and the dawn of the post-market eraBy Jeremy Rifkin Tarcher/Putnam, June 1996350pp., $26.95Reviewed by Dick Nichols This is a fascinating and maddening book, chock-full of contradictions.

  • Censorship, pornography, feminism

    Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures: The Challenge to Reclaim FeminismEdited by Alison Assiter and Avedon CarolPluto Press, 1993. $32.95Reviewed by Patricia Brien Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures is a collection of essays by women about pornography. The essays

  • On the box

    Actively Radical TV — Sydney community television's progressive current affairs producers tackle the hard issues from the activist's point of view. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), every Thursday, 7pm. Access News — Melbourne community TV, Channel 31,

  • Radio highlights

    The Port Chicago 50: An Oral History — On July 17, 1944, two merchant marine ships in Port Chicago Munitions Base near San Francisco exploded, killing 320 people. The majority of the casualties were African-Americans who loaded ammunition onto

  • A Baldwin for the '90s?

    RL's DreamBy Walter MosleySerpent's Tail, London, 1995266pp., $19.95Reviewed by Norm Dixon RL's Dream reminded me of the first James Baldwin novel I ever read, Another Country. Certainly Mosley, best known for his terrific noir novels set in black LA

  • One woman and her car

    Car Maintenance, Explosives and LoveWritten and performed by Donna JacksonDirected by Andrea LemonLonsdale Street Power Station, MelbourneTues-Sat 7pm, Sun 5 pm, until August 25Reviewed by Bronwen Beechey The connection between the different

  • Opening frontiers in the age of imperialism

    Einstein: A LifeBy Denis BrianWiley, 1996. 509 pp., $49.95 (hb)Reviewed by Phil Shannon Albert Einstein is the name most associated with science, at its intellectual best (probing the deepest mysteries of the cosmic and subatomic worlds) and its

  • The population bunk

    How Many People Can the Earth Support?By Joel E. CohenNorton532 pp, $30Reviewed by Chase Madar In 1798, a dour young cleric named Thomas Robert Malthus invented overpopulation. The growing numbers of poor, he wrote in Essay on the Principle of

  • Poem: The Social Worker &&

    The Social Worker Years ago in Glasgow callow youth from troubled folk and folks in trouble I made my crust. As Canutian agent I turned no tides but sometimes struck a chord. I recall a twelve year young car rustler, an

  • A myriad of voices

    The CrossBy Mandy SayerAngus and Robertson Pyable, 1995296 pp., $14.95 (pb)Reviewed by Tony Smith Don't be deterred by cover notes which hail a "thriller, love story, tale of the city". The Cross is none of these. Rather than hybridise banal

  • Poem: Hotel Suharto &&

    Hotel Suharto Who put the durian in the air conditioning system? What is that fetid odour in Hotel Suharto? Are you sure it's a durian? It smells like decomposing flesh. Could it be the stench of death? What does it represent? The