The Big Issue Australia #616 - Kermit the Frog

17 OCT 01 NOV 2019

Ed.

616 17 JUL 2020

28.

MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM

THE

EW INTERVI BIG

!

W O N S T MUPPE

D HE BAN T G N I T ON GET ER F OR H T E G O BACK T

32.

MARK BRANDI

and

40.

MIGUEL’S PAELLA

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Contents

EDITION

616

24 LETTER TO MY YOUNGER SELF

Wizard of Oz Reformed rock star Ozzy Osbourne recalls the gift that changed his life, the day he would like to relive – and offers one very special piece of advice.

28 SMALL SCREENS

Greed Is Good

12.

Kermit’s Great Leap Forward

Director Michael Winterbottom and sidekick Steve Coogan are causing trouble again, and this time fast-fashion moguls and their dubious practices are in their satirical sights.

by Aimee Knight

Sixty-five years after his TV debut, the world’s best frog, Kermit, and his Muppet mates are back, as whimsical, wise and witty as ever.

32 BOOKS

THE REGULARS

04 Ed’s Letter & Your Say 05 Meet Your Vendor 06 Streetsheet 08 Hearsay & 20 Questions 11 My Word 20 The Big Picture

26 Ricky 27 Fiona 34 Film Reviews 35 Small Screen Reviews 36 Music Reviews 37 Book Reviews

39 Public Service Announcement 40 Tastes Like Home 43 Puzzles 45 Crossword 46 Click

BEHIND THE COVER

If you want harmony then “stay calm,” says Kermit. “Let everyone have their say.

Listen. Then, try to figure out what’s going to make all these different voices and ideas come together. It works for us.” photo courtesy © Disney. All Rights Reserved.

In Praise of Praise Mark Brandi met fellow author Andrew McGahan just the once, but the meeting left an indelible impression, as he recounts in this moving tribute.

Ed’s Letter

Your Say E FO RT NI GH T LE TT ER OF TH

Over the Rainbow

by Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor

I

can’t think of our cover star Kermit the Frog without ‘Rainbow Connection’ playing in my head. The song is so much Kermie’s that Muppets creator Jim Henson, who is also the voice of the famous frog, couldn’t nail the vocal for the song without him; to get things right, he unpacked the puppet in all his felty splendour, and gave him a shot at the mic.

Since then, various iterations of the song have been a comfort and a salve for lovers and dreamers world-over – most recently in April, where it was recorded in selfie-mode from Kermie’s isolation swamp and broadcast over YouTube. My favourite version is a duet he sang with Debbie Harry for The Muppet Show in 1981. Even tough, tousled Debbie is totally disarmed by the banjo-playing amphibian, and how couldn’t you be? He’s gentle and wise and when he looks out into the world it’s with wonder, and possibility. As we continue to adapt to this new normal, we need Kermie and his ragtag troupe more

than ever. It’s an especially tough time for our Melbourne vendors, who are currently unable to sell due to COVID restrictions.

And so, in this very special three-week edition, our Small Screens editor Aimee Knight gets deep and meaningful with our favourite frog ahead of his new show Muppets Now – he has some advice in this tricky time. “Stay calm. Let everyone have their say. Listen. Then, try to figure out what’s going to make all these different voices and ideas come together.”

In Big Issue land, we’re pleased to announce another way you can support vendors, if you’re working from home or unable to access a vendor: the magazine is now available at selected Woolworths supermarkets in suburban and regional areas around the country. Woolies are stocking it on a pro bono basis, and half the cover price from every magazine sold will go to our Vendor Support Fund.

So make like calm, kind Kermie, and keep looking out for the rainbow connection. Someday we’ll find it…

04

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

The Big Issue Story The Big Issue is an independent, not-for-profit magazine sold on the streets around Australia.

It was created as a social enterprise 24 years ago to provide both a voice and a work opportunity for people experiencing homelessness and disadvantage. Your purchase of this magazine has directly benefited the person who sold it to you. Big Issue vendors buy each copy for $4.50 and sell it to you for $9, keeping the profits. But The Big Issue is more than a magazine.

I wanted to say that Lynn R’s poem ‘After the Storm’ in Ed#613 was so touching. It brought tears to our eyes as we read it, safe in the knowledge that we have weathered the storm and arrived safely. We hope the same for Lynn. She is a true poet. We are long-term readers of The Big Issue. usually through Eddie at Kelvin Grove, but during iso we bought through your online shop.

MICHELLE DAVIS SOUTH BRISBANE I QLD

Two pieces really touched me in Ed#614. The first was Alan Attwood’s conclusion to his article ‘Life Lessons at the Farm’: “I now knew that the most satisfying work is about so much more than money. And that all people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.” And what a wonderful world it would be if we all heeded Cameron Daddo’s advice to his 16-year-old self: “Life is amazing when you are kind to people, when you’re grateful for what you’ve got and when you listen.” Thank you for these gems!

ELIZABETH HARRINGTON MILTON I QLD

• Our Women’s Subscription Enterprise provides employment and training for women through the sale of magazine subscriptions as well as social procurement work.

• The Community Street Soccer Program promotes social inclusion and good health at weekly soccer games at 19 locations around the country.

• The Vendor Support Fund will offset the cost price of products for vendors, allowing them to earn a larger margin on their own street sales.

• The Big Issue Classroom educates school groups about homelessness.

• And The Big Idea challenges university students to develop a new social enterprise.

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As winner of Letter of the Fortnight, Michelle wins a copy of After Australia, edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad.

Check out our review on p37. We’d also love to hear your thoughts, feedback and suggestions: SUBMISSIONS@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

YOUR SAY SUBMISSIONS MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY AND SPACE.

Meet Your Vendor

interview by Matt Stedman photo by Nat Rogers

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17 JUL 2020

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05

Jason L

I was born on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia and grew up on a farm that Mum and Dad ran. Had a brother and sister, both younger, and went to a primary school with just 10 pupils. I was good at maths, and loved sport such as basketball, tennis, table tennis and cricket.

High school was a difficult transition; it was a much bigger school with lots of students and I had a really hard time. High school was where a lot of my mental health issues started. Teachers were quite hard on me and I lost confidence. I was still good at maths though.

When I was 17 my family moved to Adelaide, which was another scary change. My parents bought a seafood restaurant on Gouger Street. I used to work there, helping run the front of house, greeting and meeting guests. It was so busy, but I made some great friends and really liked the atmosphere. I did that for eight years but then stopped working. I decided to go and see a psychologist and was diagnosed with anxiety and schizophrenia and I received medication for it.

Eight years ago I got my own house in Norwood. I love it. I have my own space and I love the area. I go for lots of walks. Shortly after that I joined the mental health service Mind Australia and they have been supporting me ever since. Since joining I’ve done so many great things, like self-development courses, and have also learned how to garden!

My dad passed away three years ago, and I still see my mum who lives near me now. My brother is a builder, and my sister is a mum to a family.

My wife Mayuree is from Thailand. I speak a tiny bit of Thai but not heaps. We also have a daughter together and I love her. They live with me now. I go with her to school, the playground and sometimes shopping – we have heaps of fun.

I was looking for work when my support worker suggested I give The Big Issue a go. I liked it; I started selling well very quickly. You have your tough days and weeks, but it’s been fantastic. I just keep positive and smile – perseverance! I sell a lot of my mags by tap and go, which has been fantastic for me as I’m near the KPMG building and a lot of businesspeople prefer using tap and go.

It was a pretty quiet pitch before and I’ve managed to sell heaps there!

Since joining The Big Issue I have gained confidence, and love talking to and meeting different people.

It means I have a bit more money to do things I want to do, like help my family, go see AFL games (I support Power!) and watch movies. I’m hoping to help and inspire others to join as well.

I want to thank my Big Issue customers for their continual support.

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

Saving Goals

I

first came to the Community Street Soccer Program in 2015. I’ve been a goalie for about two years. I’ve got a nickname: one of the commentators at Cardiff, where we went for The Homeless World Cup last year, he called me The Brick Wall.

Going to Cardiff was heaps different. I hadn’t been anywhere out of Australia before. On the first day I was a bit nervous, but one of the Welsh fellas who was watching our game came up to me and he said, “Mate, you’ve done a fabulous job. We need another good goalkeep like you for Wales.” That brought me up to the next level – it was really good for someone to give us that feedback that we’d done a good job.

When lockdown first hit and it got really bad down here, I’d been watching TV, and my mood was getting worse and worse because you just had to stay still or go for a walk and you weren’t really able to be social around people, which is really hard. But our coaches would text and call us, and we’d go on Zoom. I’ve been using the Street Soccer Facebook page and I’ve been keeping in touch with the fellas and the ladies from Cardiff on WhatsApp. It’s good, having people around you that will look out for you too.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of walking, going to the community centre and back home. I’ve been using the Ab Circle Pro and dumbbells as well, and I’ve been working as a butcher at Trendy Cuts. I’m really looking forward to going back to face-to-face training – seeing new faces and old faces and getting to know what everyone was up to during the time when we haven’t seen each other – a little bit of talking and a little bit of a game.

T ST R E E IN H IS C O R E Y E R O O S K IT SOCC

STREET SOCCER'S

COREY

Whenever the weather is good, we go watch the sunset RYAN I PERTH

Sweet Hearts

Life Under Lockdown

I want to write a message to Davina who runs the chocolate shop I sell magazines outside the front of.

Davina recently closed the shop.

Thanks for all your support over the last 10 years, Davina. It has been a pleasure to work with you. You have supported me in good times and bad. You will be missed by all in West Perth. I wish you all the best for your next journey in life. Many thanks.

This is one of your favourite vendors, Ryan. Over the last few months it has been really hard. The bowling tournaments have been cancelled for this year except for one I did at the beginning of March, before the borders closed. I did really well and came back with four gold medals and a trophy. The last few months I have struggled with losing a couple of friends.

Over Easter, I lost my friend, my

BRETT HAY ST I PERTH

PHOTO BY TATE NEEDHAM

06

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

COREY IS A MEMBER OF THE BIG ISSUE’S COMMUNITY STREET SOCCER PROGRAM IN HOBART. HE PLAYED IN THE NATIONAL STREET SOCCER TOURNAMENT 2016 AND THE 2019 HOMELESS WORLD CUP IN WALES.

Warmer Times Ahead I feel like I’ve lost myself during COVID-19. I lost my routine.

The restrictions made me feel lost and unbalanced. I have been self-isolating and I feel damaged from it. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel the same again.

It will take me a long time to get back to normal. All the rules and restrictions have been really confusing. I’ve had to get used to them all. It’s been a lot to take in. To start with I was exercising, shopping and doing things. Then the restrictions kicked in and affected me emotionally. I usually don’t sell much in winter – I find it too cold. I’ll likely start again in September when it warms up.

I will enjoy getting out and seeing my customers.

LUCEIL WATSON SHOPS I CANBERRA

I was hoping for at least a few zombies! Perhaps their absence was the indicator that this wasn’t the end of the world after all – just a sample of what could be.

The term “social distancing” will forever be burned into our minds. Someone somewhere made a fortune printing those stickers for the floor – the ones that tell everyone where to stand.

Governments used a tried-and-true political tactic to deal with the threat of an outbreak: they threw money at the problem.

Everyone receiving benefits suddenly had a “bundle” of extra cash. Of course, there was a bundle of new recipients too, with the closing of any businesses deemed to be “non-essential services” – another term we have become very familiar with.

It’s interesting, how broad the term “essentials” turned out to be. Bottle shops were an obvious choice, if for no other reason than to avoid mass civil unrest. McDonald’s, however, isn’t the first place to come to mind when I think of “essential”.

The homelessness problem was solved virtually overnight. And it remains solved – for as long as the hotel rooms continue to be paid for. What was that mad rush on the toilet paper though? It’s a flu-like virus, not a rampant gastro bug!

It was, however, a good excuse to charge $7 for a 50ml bottle of hand sanitiser. Yes folks! As long as there is a threat to humanity, there’s someone looking to cash in on it.

The streets looked like a scene from a post-apocalyptic disaster movie. People were only supposed to be out and about for a particular list of reasons. And only in groups of two. Personally, I enjoyed all the quiet. I also liked that the police were rather chilled through the whole ordeal – one even bought me a Slurpee on Chapel Street.

Then there was light at the end of the tunnel... Unfortunately it was that of an oncoming train, bringing a further six weeks of lockdown for Melburnians. How will further lockdowns affect society? Or us as individuals? For this individual, it has meant reworking the end of this piece.

But on a positive note though, perhaps all hope for a few zombies isn’t completely lost. After all, what’s an apocalypse without zombies?

SHELDON ACLAND ST I ST KILDA I MELBOURNE 17 JUL 2020

RYAN ROYAL PERTH HOSPITAL

Dawn of the Dread

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

07

dog Cracker, and then on Mother’s Day I lost one of my good friends who taught me lots of good stuff.

Apart from that, I am trying my best to do things like exercising and just talking to people on the phone and having my support staff to talk to as well. I cannot wait to be back at work as I am starting to run low on money and I am getting bored. Over this period, I’ve also helped look after my mum and my dad as Dad’s got a crooked leg and Mum is not that well. I have been catching up on lots of my TV shows. With one of my support workers, whenever the weather is good, we go watch the sunset in different places around Perth, like Mandurah and Kalamunda. Hope to see you all very soon!

Hearsay

Andrew Weldon Cartoonist compiled by Michael Epis Contributing Editor

“

When I’m president, let’s also have some fun.

Let’s get past all the racism conversation, let’s empower people with 40 acres and a mule, let’s give some land, that’s the plan.

Rapper and would-be president Kanye West, revealing his plan to remodel the US after Wakanda, the fictional land where Black Panther is set. Surely the American public is too wise to elect a billionaire with no experience in governance or any record of public service?

FORBES I US

“As you can imagine, the preparation for the role will be insanely physical. I will have to put on more size than I ever have before, even more than I put on for Thor. There is the accent, as well as the physicality and the attitude.”

Australian actor Chris Hemsworth on preparing to play Hulk Hogan in a biopic of the wrestler. Sure, but can he grow that mo?

08

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

THE INDEPENDENT I UK

“I just climbed a few stairs every day until I got to the top, 282 times.”

Ninety-year-old Scottish grandmother Margaret Payne on following in the footsteps of military veteran Tom Moore, who completed 100 laps of his garden just before his 100th birthday. Mrs Payne scaled the stairs at her home to the equivalent of 731 metres, enough to reach the peak of Suilven, one of Scotland’s highest mountains. It took her 73

days and kept her busy for 10 weeks while the UK was in lockdown, raising £416,000 (A$752,000) for the National Health Service.

ABC.NET.AU

“The feeling that we’d been abandoned during COVID really stuck in my craw. I saw things like death notices on some of our shop windows and I thought, Our community deserves better than this. We were left without a credible source of information. We can’t leave our community just relying on the government and social media for its primary news source.”

In the wake of mass closures of regional newspapers across the country, former television journalist Jasmin Jones has established the Yass Valley Times to replace the New South Wales community’s former local weekly newspaper.

ABC.NET.AU

“I’ve been getting more involved in the tech space. I’m a huge undercover nerd and I’m obsessed with anything to do with technology, so it’s really fun and interesting to find different companies to invest in. I’m working on a lot of really exciting, innovative projects… I’m also working on my new fragrances, my 26th and 27th fragrances that are nearly here… I’m working on my albums, coming out with new designs for my clothing line – jewellery, and shoes, and handbags, and sunglasses – I have new products coming out for those all the time as well.”

The fabulously busy Paris Hilton on her many quarantine projects.

VOGUE I US

“Generally, it felt like customers were trying to follow the rules for the first few hours, but as they stayed, and got more drunk, everything got worse and worse.”

An anonymous pub worker in London, on the night the pubs reopened after lockdown.

VICE I US

“The idea was that it was sort of like feminist punk rock.”

Actorpreneur Gwyneth Paltrow on a candle she sells called “This Smells Like My Vagina”. Her newest release is “This Smells Like My Orgasm”. For reals. It even has pictures of fireworks on the box.

THE GUARDIAN I UK

“Dare we compare the five notes of his famous ‘coyote call’ in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with the four opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony?”

Musician and composer John Zorn on film composer Ennio Morricone, who has died aged 91. That spaghetti western was but one of 500-odd films the Italian scored, and his work has been repurposed by Metallica, and in

20 Questions

by Little Red

01 How many permanent or adult teeth

does the average person have?

02 What is the name of the river that

runs through Berlin?

03 Which country produces around 75

per cent of the world’s soccer balls?

04 Which colour was French artist Yves

Klein associated with?

05 If equine refers to horses, what does

ursine refer to?

06 What is the name of independent US

presidential candidate Kanye West’s new political party?

07 Which Australian airline ceased

operations in March 2002?

08 In what year did the television show

Sex and the City premiere?

09 Which country was named after

Philip II of Spain?

Syndrome, on the post from her campaign shoot. The post is Gucci’s most-liked on social media.

THE NEW YORK

VOGUE I US

“So I’m sitting in this car wash, washing this car, and suddenly all these police converge on me with guns drawn…

So I get on the ground…[one of the police officers] had a knee on me as well and he’s pulled my phone out of my pocket and thrown it across the floor and smashed it. And I was like…dude ‘What have you done that for?’ He actually had the gun pressed into my forehead… I could feel the metal of this gun.”

Guy Sebastian on police in LA, where he had earlier reported his car stolen.

NME I UK

“I love this. Thank you for this amazing opportunity and a fabulous day shooting.”

Gucci Beauty’s newest face, 18-yearold Ellie Goldstein, who has Down

translates from the Latin for “apple with many seeds”?

12 Which tech company did Indian-

TIMES I US

Emily, 5, overheard by her dad of Earlwood, NSW.

Grip?

11 Which fruit’s name roughly

“We were literally teenagers when we picked that stupid name.”

Martie Maguire, who played in a countryish band called The Dixie Chicks, now known as The Chicks, as they distance themselves from any association with redneck culture.

American businessman Sabeer Bhatia co-found in 1996?

13 What plant was aspirin originally

derived from?

14 In which Bond film does Joanna

Lumley appear?

15 How many seconds are in a day?

a) 24,150 b) 66,870 c) 86,400

THE NEW YORK TIMES I US

16 ‘Suicide Is Painless’ is the theme

“There’s a general perception of dinosaurs as being giants.

But this new animal is very close to the divergence of dinosaurs and pterosaurs, and it’s shockingly small.”

Christian Kammerer, from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, on the discovery of a dinosaur ancestor found in Madagascar that stood only 10cm tall – more Spinal Tap than Jurassic Park. The pterosaurs, by the way, was a flying reptile, from which evolved people called Terry.

17 What is a symbiotic culture of

song of which famous TV show? bacteria and yeast more commonly known as?

18 Which high-profile Coalition

senator recently announced their retirement?

19 Khmer is the official language of

which country?

20 When viewed from above the North

Pole, does the Earth spin clockwise or anticlockwise?

17 JUL 2020

“I don't want to sleep on a pillow tonight.

Pillows are so last season.”

The Simpsons and The Sopranos, to name just a few.

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ANSWERS ON PAGE 43

09

EAR2GROUND

10 Who wrote the 1977 novel Monkey

My Word

by Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor

I

t was 1989 and I was barely four years old when I first met Miss Piggy. She called to me from a low bookshelf in the spare room of my grandparents’ house. I was flopped in a corner on the floor at the time, running my fingers through the plush velvety carpet, imagining. I was a serious-faced little kid, lanky and lost-looking with a heavy fringe and a prairie dress, the first grandchild and prone to hanging out alone while the grown-ups talked downstairs.

Miss Piggy reached out to me from the spine of her bubblegum-pink tome, which glinted magically in the afternoon sunlight. If I wanted to be a real ham, I would describe the moment as Hallowed.

“Call me Moi,” begins Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life: From Moi to You (as told to Henry Beard). First published by Muppet Press in 1981 and dedicated – obviously – to Kermit (“My Life, My Love, My Frog”), I was enchanted: the frilly cursive handwriting! The itty-bitty love hearts!

The xx kissies! And pink! The colour of lollies, sunsets and big feelings!

“Here is the book that everyone has been looking for,” reads the endorsement on the dust cover. “Woven from the very fabric of life itself it has heart, soul, body, shine and bounce. It is a kiss on the hand, a port in a storm, a seat in the aisle. With the publication of this MAJOR OEUVRE nobody need ever again be overweight, under par or overdrawn.”

But of course I couldn’t read back then – I just looked at the pictures. And what pictures! Miss Piggy dressed as prima ballerina in tutu, strings of pearls and silk‑ribboned pointes; Miss Piggy as underground restaurant critic in headscarf-under-hat and indoor sunglasses – looking poised and judgemental over a glace-cherried gateau and a shining red lobster. There’s Miss Piggy as French chanteuse; Let’s Get Physical Piggy; Karate Piggy; Streisand Piggy; Guess Jeans Piggy; Tammy Wynette Piggy (Stand By Your Frog); and my personal favourite: Biker Piggy (Piggy on a hog! Delightful!).

Do you remember a time in your life when you looked at the adult world and thought: that looks cool and fun? A friend of mine used to strut around in her mum’s high heels as a kid, talking into a plastic phone full of lollies – “Cool meeting! Great sex!”

I’ve been an adult for a long time, so I understand that these childhood moments are both precious and ill-informed, but back then – Wow! My future! Imagine!

I could fall in love with a left-handed banjo-playing frog!

I could ride shotgun in the sidecar of his exercise bike while eating a jam-drop biscuit! I could smear molten chocolate all over my face for self-care purposes! I could ooze what the Queen herself calls glamorositude. Ooh la la! I was a fledgling quasi-French pig-valentine, a pre‑reader who would one day be an adult – and the world was my oyster (kilpatrick).

Over the years I continued my solo visits to the spare room and to Miss Piggy, and she taught me almost everything I know, including how to read the room, (“Moi speaks body language fluently (although with a slight French accent)”); how to keep the blues at bay (“Misery loves timpani… Bubble that bathos away”); and how to stay fit and fabulous with a busy career schedule (“There is a perfectly charming young lady who comes in twice a week to do yoga for me…such a help”).

As a teenager she taught me about personal hygiene and good grooming – “Hair isn’t a hat you just happened to grow,” she advises. She also shares this perfume tip, which I adapted for my Impulse body spray regimen: “How much? A lot. Where? All over. When? Any time”.

Hear, hear! She taught me how to style a pair of elbow-length purple satin gloves, which I’m wearing at my writing desk right now – can you tell by my ultra‑glamorous prose?

These days, if there’s something going wrong in my Fabulous Adult Life, it’s usually because it’s been too long between reads. I’ve strayed too far from the Miss Piggy philosophy – I’ve become too shy, too serious, too boring. More often than not, it’s just been too long between meals. I whip myself up a yummy treat such as Miss Piggy’s Thursday dinner menu of choice – shrimp cocktail, fettucine Alfredo, filet of sole meunière, whipped potatoes, Napoleon pastry, and champagne (“mostly bubbles anyway”) – and I feel much better.

So here’s to you, Miss Piggy. Thanks for teaching me how to live, laugh, and love with a cherry on top.

Kissy kissy xx

11

Melissa Fulton seeks self-help advice from a famous pig, and finds that living a Successful Adult Life is easy – just be fabulous, full-bellied and maybe a petite bit French.

17 JUL 2020

With Love from Moi to You

12

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AL L TH E GA : TH E MU PP ETSNG NO W

Kermit the Frog tells Aimee Knight about his secret for staying young, his advice on how to create harmony – and what being green means today.

Aimee Knight is Small Screens editor. She’s writing a book about Jim Henson’s cultural legacy.

he says. “But be forewarned, the swamp water may turn you green.” And you know what they say about bein’ green…

Before Kermit was green – and, for that matter, even a frog – he was but a humble, bit‑playing lizard on a black-and-white skit show called Sam and Friends (1955-61). He then spent the swingin’ 60s paying his dues on late-night TV talk shows before growing his signature frill and moving to Sesame Street in 69. Mr the Frog really hit the big time when his vaudevillian variety program The Muppet Show (1976-81) sent that star soaring, and his celebrity has since been, more or less, evergreen.

But in 2020, Kermit and his troupe are ready to do something new.

Muppets Now is a six-part sitcom in which the gang’s bespectacled gofer Scooter rushes to upload hot new Muppet content for the dot com. Like The Muppet Show and Muppets Tonight (1996-98), it’s a show-within-a-show.

Each episode features three segments – a game show, a cooking show and a talk show – all of

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n May this year, the world’s most famous frog celebrated the 65th anniversary of his television debut. Sheesh!

Time flies when you’re having fun, and time’s fun when you’re having flies.

In Kermit’s case, it’s both.

Since 1955, Kermit the Frog has starred in eight feature films and nine TV series. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and an honorary doctorate of Amphibious Letters from Southampton College. He’s best known for teaching several generations about the healing power of hope. Today, he and his ragtag pals the Muppets await the premiere of their new Disney show Muppets Now. But for all the decades and accolades under his felt, Kermit doesn’t look a day over 30 – a marvel he attributes to a “Dorian Green-type situation”. He reckons the secret to ageing well is actually quite simple: soak daily in swamp water, play the banjo to relax and spend lots of time with friends. “Try it,”

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@siraimeeknight

JI M HE NS ON AN D HI S BE FR IE ND S, W ST HO BEST FR IE CA N BE YO UR ND S TO O

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them unscripted. As celebrity guests like Seth Rogen, RuPaul and Linda Cardellini improvise with the likes of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and Gonzo the Great, hijinks naturally ensue.

“It may be hard to believe,” says Kermit, “but we’ve always worked with a very detailed script before this.” For the Muppets, he says, a screenplay is like a GPS. “We don’t look at it much, but it’s nice to have around in case we get lost. Which happens a lot.

“With Muppets Now, we threw caution and the script to the wind. Sure, it’s challenging, finding your way with pages blowing in the wind, but we used our wits, our talents, our experience and a lot of very good editing and strong duct tape to create a new kind of Muppet entertainment,” coming soon to Disney+.

Over the years, Muppets have made magic on screens of all sizes, but this is their first original title for a streaming service. Is it the foam-rubber equivalent of Martin Scorsese’s

The Irishman? Would Kermit, like his contemporary, get hopping mad if he thought folks were watching it on their phones? “I’m not as demanding as [Scorsese],” he says.

(He suspects that’s why Marty never moved forward on their project Raging Bullfrog.)

“You can watch Muppets Now anywhere, on any device… But it’s really best when you watch it with friends and family. There’s safety and laughter in numbers.”

And while this is the Muppets’ first streaming show, it’s certainly not the first time Kermit’s worked a stream. “As a tadpole, I started in ponds,” he says. “But as soon as I dropped my tail, I was working streams.”

Sources say this is where he first met filmmaker, artist and friend, Jim Henson.

Born in 1936, James Maury Henson was raised in rural Mississippi. There are clear parallels between his early life and that of his amphibian avatar. Both grew up around creeks and swamps, nurturing a fondness for nature, music and quiet contemplation. Both found their calling in film and TV, where each would lead a company of raucous performers, keeping proceedings rolling by treating their teams with respect, understanding and compassion.

Journalists often asked Henson if Kermit was his alter ego, and The New York Times once quoted him as saying, “I suppose... But he’s a little snarkier than I am – slightly wise.

Kermit says things I hold myself back from saying.” The frog, along with Henson’s other conduits like Rowlf the Dog and Dr Teeth, helped the mostly serene, peaceful puppeteer channel a little trickster energy, especially when paired with creative partner Frank Oz. With sensational comic timing born of a once-in-a-lifetime bond, Henson and Oz vivified such enduring characters as Ernie and Bert, The Swedish Chef (Jim performing the head and voice while Frank provided the live human hands) and – cue the music – Kermit and Miss Piggy, whose tempestuous romance has spawned news headlines, gossip columns, fan fiction and feature films. In 1984, it culminated in a puppet-studded wedding: the centrepiece of The Muppets Take Manhattan. Despite the scene featuring a real-life celebrant, Kermit has always insisted that the ceremony was purely fictional.

Piggy, however, spent the following years convincing her press and public that their wedded bliss was bona fide. Perhaps tiring of the frog’s perennially cold feet, in early May 1990 Piggy announced that she was leaving Kermit, as per her publicity campaign “The Pig of the Nineties”. But the roll-out was paused

MUPPETS NOW PREMIERES 31 JULY ON DISNEY+.

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views on YouTube, with many users agreeing that Kermit was the only celebrity they cared to hear from in these tumultuous times.

Kermit’s other anthem, ‘Bein’ Green’, is a similarly poignant song that crystallises his sagely disposition. First performed on Sesame Street in 1970, it’s a delicate ode to introspection and self-acceptance. Fifty years on, what does bein’ green mean to the frog today?

“It still means spending each day the colour of leaves,” says Kermit. “But nowadays, it also means being part of a wonderful world where folks are really doing their best to keep the planet green. And that means a lot to me – not just as an amphibian, but as a spokesfrog for all species lower than people on the food chain.”

In this dog-eat-dog world, the Muppets are vectors of empathy and optimism. Of course, the diverse menagerie is prone to flights of fanciful madness, energy and imagination. It’s Kermit’s job to keep that Muppet ecosystem balanced, and he has some words of wisdom for anyone wanting to create harmony amid chaos.

“Stay calm,” he says. “Let everyone have their say. Listen. Then, try to figure out what’s going to make all these different voices and ideas come together. It works for us. And if it works with an odd assemblage of pigs, frogs, bears and whatevers, it’ll probably work for you, too.”

We could ask why the Muppets remain relevant today, these felt and glue relics of a pre-CG landscape. Perhaps we should ask why they remain irrelevant today, still speaking to society’s oddballs and eccentrics (or “lovers and dreamers”). Nostalgia nudges us to believe that the grass – or the frog – was once greener, but you know what they say about bein’ green.

In this cultural climate, Muppets Now is a chance for Kermit and friends to make another generation of free spirits feel seen.

To finish up, Big Issue vendor Rachel T from Sydney has a question for Kermit – one that truly distils the Muppets’ emotional purity: how can we help you smile more, like you helped us as kids?

“Just you asking that question made me smile,” says Kermit.

“When I started out, I had a dream of singing, dancing, making people happy and doing it with others who shared that dream.

I’ve been able to live that dream for quite a while and it’s all thanks to folks like you.”

The lovers, the dreamers, all of us.

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Stay calm.

Let everyone have their say. Listen.

Then, try to figure out what’s going to make all these different voices and ideas come together. It works for us.

a few days later when the Muppet family was struck by a loss that no-one saw coming.

In the early hours of 16 May, Jim Henson died from complications caused by a bacterial infection. Aged 53, he was survived by five children, hundreds of collaborators, countless fans and one frog left grieving for his absent other half. Kermit’s first public appearance after Henson’s death was in the CBS special The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson (1990). He closed the show, saying, “We’ll be seeing you soon with more Muppet stuff because that’s the way the boss would want it.”

So the Muppets carried on without their founding father, but Henson’s death stalled talks with The Walt Disney Company, which had planned to acquire Jim Henson Productions for US$150 million. A revised deal came through in 2004 when Disney bought the Muppets, as opposed to Henson’s whole empire, for US$75 million.

In those initial years after moving to Disney, Kermit and co were uncharacteristically quiet, save for a string of YouTube morsels, including their viral cover of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. The gang finally returned to the big screen in 2011 with their seventh feature film, The Muppets, loved by critics and the public, then Muppets Most Wanted (2014).

Then in 2015-16 came an attempt to reinstate the gang as primetime staples, the muppets. The mockumentary series saw the characters stray a little too far from their path of childlike innocence, into the PG woods. With unprecedented focus on the Muppets’ personal lives, the sitcom lacked the wholesome whole‑family appeal that made The Muppet Show appointment viewing, back in the day.

“So far the writers Disney has employed don’t know how to write for the Muppets,” Oz tweeted in 2018. “I imagine their hubris makes them believe they can. But the characters need writing that has depth and honesty.” Oz has not worked with the group since they moved to the House of Mouse.

Given the critical and audience responses to – specifically – the writing on recent projects, it seems an unscripted series like Muppets Now, laid literally in the hands of the performers, should see the Muppets put their best feet forward.

Wouldn’t Planet Earth benefit from a wave of Muppet mania right about now?

Back in April, Kermit released a new version of his cherished tune, ‘Rainbow Connection’, recorded live from the swamp where he appeared to be self-isolating. The video soon amassed more than a million

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FINDING HOME In the face of coronavirus, thousands of rough sleepers have been provided temporary housing. As Katherine Smyrk discovers, the crisis presents the opportunity for even bigger change for more than 116,000 Australians experiencing homelessness.

Katherine Smyrk is a former Deputy Edtor of The Big Issue

“Staying in emergency accommodation is hard,” says Warner. “It’s just better than having no accommodation.”

As the dust settled a little, Launch went back and did vulnerability assessments, working to ensure people were getting the support they needed. And there are some real positives to having people in one place, safe and accessible.

“A lot of our clients are getting some of their primary health needs met for the first time,” says Warner. “Some are taking advantage of the stability to activate reconnections with family, or employment, or training, or dentistry.”

He says the main aim, though, is to use this opportunity to try to migrate people into more permanent accommodation.

“We have a wonderful opportunity to not only provide the services that they need, but also to pull them straight through to a permanent housing option, so they don’t have to live a life of uncertainty, not knowing where they’re going to sleep or how they’re going to be safe tonight,” explains Warner. “The grand plan would be a permanent housing exit for everyone.”

When the virus first started to rear its head, Brisbane Big Issue vendor Les wasn’t too worried about his health, but he was worried about the closure of public toilets. He was living on the street, and used to shower every day at his gym. But that had closed, too. When he was offered a hotel room in the city he jumped at the chance. He stayed there for three months.

“It was too good to be true. It even had a laundry, a dryer, a dishwasher; I was cooking a lot. And I could charge all my stuff,” he says.

When his time at the hotel came to an end, he was offered a room in empty student apartments in inner suburb Toowong. “It’s really small, but it fits me good,” he says. He can stay in the apartment for up to a year, and caseworkers are trying to find him something more permanent.

Les is back selling The Big Issue in Brisbane, and has been happy to see some of his old regulars: “I just wanted to focus on getting back to work. When I was in the hotel room I was like, Man this is boring, I want to work.”

Homelessness services are desperately hoping to get everyone from emergency accommodation into something more permanent, just like Les. But their resources are already buckling under the weight of the need.

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ukuf can remember it clearly. It was a Friday in early March, just past eight in the morning. He was in Melbourne’s Flagstaff Gardens, where he has been sleeping for a few years now. A woman pulled up in a red car, came over to him and another man who was sleeping rough in the area, and asked them if they would like some accommodation. Less than half an hour later, it had all been sorted – two weeks in a motel, paid up by the government.

“I couldn’t believe it,” says Tukuf, who has been a Big Issue vendor since 2003. “I thought it was a dream or something.”

The funding was soon extended and Tukuf is still staying in his room when we speak – a little bit bored, but enjoying the safety and comfort.

“It was a really good change when I moved in here,” he says.

“I’ve got my own toilet; I can shower when I like. It’s got a TV on the wall and a DVD player. It’s really good.”

When COVID-19 arrived on Australian shores, there was deep concern for what would happen to disadvantaged people in the community, particularly those sleeping rough. As a Victorian Council of Social Service report put it: “People who are homeless or transient, and people living in poor quality housing, are more vulnerable at all stages of a disaster – before, during, and after it strikes.”

Different state and territory governments reacted in different ways, but one widespread course of action was to move rough sleepers into hotel and motel rooms that had been left empty by the sudden absence of travellers.

It’s estimated that about 7000 people around the country have been housed since March.

“Our response, with government support, was to quickly put people through into emergency accommodation, hotels and motels, and to keep them there for as long as possible,” explains Bevan Warner, CEO of Launch Housing. “Because a) there was the threat of community transmission, but b) because it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? People can’t selfisolate in the absence of a home.”

He describes those first weeks as “organised chaos”, where they were just responding as best they could to the crisis. They got people housed, and tried to help with the whiplash of the new circumstances.

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@ksmyrk

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The day before we spoke, Tukuf was given a letter saying his stay at the motel would come to an end on 31 July. It’s unclear if that will change now Melbourne has gone back into lockdown. He’s anxious to get back to work; in the meantime he’s staying inside as much as possible. Smith has seen this “terrible uncertainty” all around the country.

“People are wondering which day it is that their stay will come to an end,” she says. “They’ve come in from the cold, they already know what the options are for them out of the hotels, which is not very much. In the end, we’ll just keep going round and round with people experiencing homelessness, unless we build or provide more homes that they can afford.”

Warner believes that, perhaps for the first time in a while, there is wider community support for investment in social solutions. He points to an Essential Poll in May, which found that there has been a 21 per cent increase in positive feelings towards people experiencing homelessness since COVID-19.

“There’s been a reckoning in the general community about job security, economic security, housing security; whether it’s for themselves, or their loved ones, or their neighbours, or their colleagues. Everyone knows someone who’s lost their job, or whose business has closed,” says Warner. “And I think that translates to maybe a bit more generosity of spirit for people who are without a home. The virus reminded everyone that our own health is intimately connected to the health of the person next to us, and that everyone needs shelter.”

But without more affordable housing, the options are limited for the 116,000-plus Australians experiencing homelessness every night.

“As a country, we still have the potential for a different response to homelessness than we’ve had in a long time,” says Smith. “The most sensible stimulus for our community in all sorts of ways is to spend money on social housing. We saw that after the global financial crisis, we saw it after the Second World War: it is a time when governments recognise that they do need to spend money on things that are going to stimulate the economy.”

As well as long-term plans to build more affordable housing, organisations are calling on all levels of government to rapidly acquire existing housing and make it available for the most vulnerable right now.

“Hotels are not a home,” says Smith. “It’s been a fantastic response, but it has been a health response, and we need to translate that into a humanitarian response. We have to spend money as stimulus to solve this homelessness problem. Now is the perfect time to do it.”

Warner is hopeful that increased community awareness and support could convince government that affordable housing is something worth investing in.

“Before we had a health crisis we had a housing crisis. That hasn’t gone away. We need to aim higher, and not concede that a certain level of homelessness is inevitable. Because if it’s inevitable, it’s therefore tolerable,” says Warner. “Lots of people have been saying it, but we don’t want to waste a crisis, do we?”

Meanwhile, people are working hard to find a place for Tukuf to stay after July. It’s likely to be a rooming house, and he says that’s better than nothing. But for now, he’s just appreciating what he has.

“The virus is so horrible, but before this I was getting Centrelink and living homeless down by the tram stop,” he says. “And now I’m living in a motel, I’m getting an extra $550 a fortnight, and it’s just been completely different to what it was. I don’t know how to explain it. A big change.”

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Warner says Launch Housing has seen a 10- to 15-fold increase in demand since COVID-19 hit, without extra staff.

“We’re not coping,” echoes Jenny Smith, Chair of national peak body Homelessness Australia. “Before the pandemic struck we were turning away 253 people a day from our homelessness services across the country, and it would be a great deal more now.” And she predicts things are only going to get worse, as more and more Australians need help.

“It’s only just starting. JobSeeker and JobKeeper and the eviction moratorium and some of the rental concessions have all played an enormous role in staving off disaster for so many families,” she explains. “But we are looking at a very steep cliff face for middle Australia at the end of September if those payments are withdrawn.”

Even before the coronavirus crisis, there was a national shortfall of 200,000 social and affordable homes, with more than 1.5 million Australians living in housing stress – spending more than 30 per cent of their household income on rent or mortgage payments. From April to May, an ANU study found that the number of people unable to meet their regular housing costs rose from 6.9 per cent to 15.1 per cent.

Bevan Warner says the increase in unemployment benefits from $40 to $80 a day has been monumental, enabling recipients to resolve debt, pay bills and get their heads above water.

“I think it’s well established that Newstart was not even a survival payment,” he says. “For a brief period of time, people who were experiencing homelessness have suddenly had a little bit more money in their pocket and the safety of a bed and a bathroom.”

The Big Picture

series by James Mollison

Stuff and Things When James Mollison photographed collectors and their treasures, he got freaked out by antique dolls – and real nervous about breaking the props.

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by Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor

O

GAIL COOK “There was something quite scary about them,” says Mollison of Gail Cook’s antique doll collection, one of the most valuable in the world. “They left an impression on me that reminded me of The Shining or something – the way they looked at you.”

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FOR MORE, GO TO JAMESMOLLISON.COM.

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KIM HASTREITER Doyenne of New York’s art, fashion and music scenes, Kim Hastreiter says her art collection – which includes works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Vivienne Westwood – tells the story of her life.

Many pieces were gifts from the artists themselves.

ne thing I remember reading when I did the project is that collecting is an acceptable form of greed, which I feel is an interesting way of looking at it,” says Venice‑based photographer James Mollison. He first became interested in collectors in 2014, when approached by auction house Christie’s to take photos for their magazine. His project – diptychs of collectables and their collectors – has taken him inside the homes of some fabulous people – and shown him some extraordinary things.

Like Gail Cook’s antique doll collection, for example – one of the largest and most valuable in the world – which she stores in a coolly lit, temperature-controlled, wood-free bunker in her Dallas home. “I mean there were thousands of these dolls,” Mollison reflects. “There was something quite scary about them…the way they looked at you.”

Or the New York apartment of nonagenarian fashion icon Iris Apfel, who had very particular ideas about the way her wardrobe should be styled: “I remember suggesting that if we used jewellery that was a different colour to the jackets that they would stand out and you would be able to see it better… She put me down straightaway – she was like, ‘I would never wear that with that.’”

His project introduced him to the fanatic and the playful, and to those who see their collections as an extension of themselves. For some it’s a way of connecting with history, or with childhood, or with a scene. No matter what drives the collector though, these objects are precious to them. “You’re picking up things that can be worth millions of pounds,” says Mollison. “There’s a kind of nervousness as I move around these expensive objects.”

LIU LAN

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“What appeals to me is that when we own a work of contemporary art, we can also communicate with the artist who created it,” says Beijing entrepreneur and collector of contemporary Chinese art Liu Lan. “We can step inside the spiritual world of the artist and make friends with them in real life.”

CRISTIANO SPILLER DJ and record producer Cristiano Spiller has collected LEGO since he was a kid. “There’s someone showing their willy in there!” says Mollison of this shot. “It’s hard to see – it takes people a long time to notice there’s a flasher.”

PAUL SMITH

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IRIS APFEL “She’s really built up a character,” says Mollison of Iris Apfel’s extraordinary wardrobe and fashion sense. “What she wears is really part of her identity.

I’d say the collection is almost a side product of it.”

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“This is a tiny fraction of what I have, but I’ve never bought a cycling jersey, and I never thought to myself: I am going to collect these,” says fashion designer Paul Smith. “People know I’m an enthusiast, so they give them to me.”

Letter to My Younger Self

OZZY, OZ Z

Wizard of Oz Legendary rocker Ozzy Osbourne on a life-changing microphone, the drug and booze years – and what happened on his wedding night.

by Jane Graham The Big Issue UK @janeannie

Y, OZZY,

OI, OI, OI!

TOP: WITH THE BAND, 1970 ABOVE: WITH SHARON AND THE KIDS BACK IN 1987

Do I feel ashamed of things I've done?

Every day. The last time I got loaded, I came back minus a Ferrari.

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for a treat and I would see the most beautiful woman in the world. And later he put on the TV and it was Elizabeth Taylor reading a poem – the woman my dad thought was the most beautiful woman in the world. Years later I was invited to some charity do and who was I sitting next to? Elizabeth Taylor. I just thought, Oh if my dad could only see me now. Unbelievable.

What would surprise the younger Ozzy most would be he’d stayed alive this long. I wasn’t a violent person, but I did some very stupid things in my life. I could have killed myself a thousand times before I even got a microphone in my hand. I had some crazy years with drugs and alcohol in the 70s and 80s. For about 20 years I was drinking a lot of booze and doing a lot of drugs and living the lifestyle. Then it stopped working for me, so I had to get help. Now I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs. But I’m definitely living on borrowed time.

Looking back, I feel very, very lucky. I’ve had a great life. There’s something bigger than me. I must be here for some reason. I still do stupid things. But I don’t get in my car drunk any more. I used to say to my wife Sharon, “I won’t do that.” Then I’d have a few drinks and wake up the next morning and she’d say, “What did you want to go and do that for?” But I’m clear-headed these days. Though, typical of me, I’ve fallen down stairs, fallen out of windows all through my career, no big deal. But when I fell off my quad bike [in 2003], I broke my neck. I was going about four miles an hour. Typical.

One day I’ll be going for a walk and a rare bird will fly over, take a dump with a rare virus in it on my shoulder and I’ll disappear.

I wouldn’t give anyone any advice about anything. Especially my younger self. If you asked me to help you out with something I actually knew about – which isn’t much to be perfectly honest – I might give a suggestion. But I’d say, if you want to try something go ahead, but remember every action has a reaction.

Do I feel ashamed of things I’ve done?

Every day. The last time I got loaded I came back minus a Ferrari. I’m lucky to have Sharon in my life because Sharon has given me proper telling-offs that I sometimes used to resent.

I’d think, Why is she so down on me, I’m alright now. But there were times I wasn’t alright, and I plagued everybody. I was crazy.

If I could live one day of my life over again it would be the day I got married to Sharon. I was off my face and I didn’t make it to the bedroom suite. They found me face-down in the hotel corridor unconscious. I’d like to go back to that day and go to bed with my wife.

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was a rebellious kid. I didn’t like commitment; I couldn’t hold a job down. I was always being yelled at by my mother for not bringing any money into the house. I was a bit of a drifter really. I left home but I didn’t really have anywhere to go. I used to doss around on people’s couches. I was a bit of a social butterfly in a working-class environment.

I’m extremely dyslexic, but they didn’t understand then what dyslexia was. I went to school in Birmingham, where there were 49 kids in a class, all boys. The kids used to mess around, smoking behind the toilets. It wasn’t the best if you wanted to be taught anything.

I was the crazy guy. I made the big tough guys like me by making them laugh.

I tried to find things I was good at. I tried a bit of burglary, but I was no good at that.

Fucking useless. I didn’t do any major burglary jobs. It was less than three weeks before I got caught. My dad said to me, “That was very stupid.” And I did feel very stupid. I didn’t pay my fine and I got put in jail for a few weeks.

That was a short, sharp lesson. It certainly curbed my career in burglary.

Someone recently asked me what the best gift I ever got was, and it suddenly dawned on me that if my father hadn’t bought me a microphone when I was 18, I definitely wouldn’t be here now. He saw that I was really interested in popular music. My bedroom wall was covered in pictures of The Beatles. So he bought me a microphone and it was shortly after that I met the guys who would become Sabbath. It was the fact that I had my own microphone and PA system that got me in the band. If I hadn’t had them I would never have got the gig.

First it was just me and Geezer [Butler, Black Sabbath bassist]. We put an ad up in a music shop in Birmingham and Tony and Bill [Iommi and Ward, guitarist and drummer] turned up. They’d just been busted for smoking dope in Carlisle with their band Mythology. It all fell apart because back then a drugs bust was major news up and down the country. Now they just give you a kicking. Tony’s face fell when he saw me; he didn’t like me. But we started jamming. Tony had a reputation in Cumberland, as it was called then, so we got some gigs there. And in Inverness, just over the border in Scotland.

The teenage Ozzy would never believe, not in a million years, he could have the life I’ve had. How did that kid get from living in Aston, Birmingham, to a house in Beverly Hills? I don’t understand it. I’ll never forget one Christmas Eve, my dad said I could stay up late

Ricky

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I don’t blame anyone for never wanting to run anywhere again, especially after all the banana bread we’ve been baking.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

Cult Friction

T

here’s a slightly masochistic thing I like to do every winter. I’ll monitor the weather forecast and identify the coldest morning predicted, and set my alarm to get out of bed to be there waiting for it. Working from home, you can become conditioned to comfort. It’s easy to shut out the outside world, to keep the curtains drawn to whatever menace rages out there.

So every once in a while I like to be reminded of what other people have to put up with. To understand what willpower means you need to understand what it’s like to extract yourself from a toasty bed at 6 o’clock on a below-zero morning for no good reason.

Those of us who live in coastal capital cities – which is me, and most likely you – only get a small taste of what a real winter’s morning feels like. To get the real deal you must head inland. I remember one such morning in Jindabyne last year. It was so cold up there in the Snowy Mountains that the car windscreen had entered an ice age. Hosing it off wasn’t an option because the water in the hose had frozen. It was only by boiling the kettle that the ice sheets could be melted and the car extricated. The crazy thing was, this was another example of me getting up early voluntarily.

It was all to take part in that other famous masochistic activity enjoyed by middle‑class people the world over: parkrun.

Oh, the painful memories. This organised weekly 5km run (it’s okay to call it a cult) was shut down when COVID-19 hit, leaving its followers to their own devices when it came to running in circles. In the absence of cult leaders (otherwise known as run directors) instructing us to get moving every Saturday morning, parkrun disciples instead used the lockdown period to take up baking and get fat. So in an effort to get people running again, the cult leaders came up with an idea. You would do your 5km

run in your own neighbourhood of your own volition, time yourself and report your obedience and result to Dear Leader. In a sentence that shows just how crazy this cult truly is, participants were advised “You can run around the block 50 times.” Sign me up, Scotty!

The thing about fitness is that it hurts.

And we generally won’t do it unless we’re tricked into thinking we don’t have a choice.

That’s why gym classes, CrossFit and personal training squads do so well, because you get given a time, a place and you had better be there or else.

As the longest-ever undefeated Brimbank parkrun participant (the last event was 14 March), I feel I’m qualified to say I don’t blame anyone for never wanting to run anywhere again, especially after all the banana bread we’ve been baking.

But on the other hand, COVID-19 has seen neighbourhood exercise take off in a big way, anecdotally at least. At the height of lockdown we were still granted leave to escape our homes for exercise, so we did.

The streets were apparently filled with bike riders and walkers and for all I know people running around the block 50 times. Exercise went from being avoided to being a celebrated freedom. It would be a bit like if they told you the only TV show you were allowed to watch from now on was Escape from the City – it would suddenly become popular and revered and you’d pretend it wasn’t a painful waste of time.

If the urge to exercise can get me out of bed on a minus-10 degree morning, it must be a pretty powerful thing. But only when the middle class are allowed to run en masse will we know that the world has returned to normal. Let’s get the cult back together.

Ricky is a writer and musician running for his life.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

H

ello all! How goes it in these turbulent times? I live in Melbourne, so, could be better. Still, it’s been heartwarming having the rest of the country pull together behind us. The Daily Telegraph gloated that the “Mexicans” are shut out, and the wags on Twitter hashtagged us as “sicktorians” (which is, to be fair, top notch wordplay). We’ve been dropped like a bucket of warm spew.

Cancelled! Still, serves us right for getting up people’s noses with our ristretto-sipping ways.

Being cancelled, of course, is par for the course these days. Harper’s Magazine published a letter bemoaning cancel culture, signed by literary heavyweights, which, depending on your perspective reads as a call to arms, or severe tone policing. As a translucently white person, I presume the clock is ticking on my own cancellation, as it is for all of for all my fair‑skinned brethren. There will be something.

A post will surface from 2007 when you reckoned that Chris Lilley’s Jonah from Tonga was hilarious. Or you’ll offer your considered viewpoint on All Lives Mattering. Or you’ll lament that You Can’t Laugh At Anything Anymore, what with the iconic ‘The Germans’ episode of Fawlty Towers being taken offline by the BBC for review. Or you will unwittingly use outdated, now offensive, terminology for First Nations peoples, and when challenged perhaps you’ll double down and defend. Social media will lop your head off, spit down your neck, and stick it on a spike.

And for good reason. Black Lives Matter is having its centuries-overdue moment, there is a hurricane-force headwind behind it, and now is not the time for Whitey McWhiteface to be centring themselves in the discussion. Our hot take on the relative merits of the classic film Gone With the Wind, sidelining the stereotyped representation of the character Mammy, is not sought nor required. Even the wokest of us is thinking, Okay, good time to zip it.

It’s exhilarating times; I wouldn’t be

missing this for quids. The carapace of white privilege is cracking, and we’re in the midst of a seismic cultural shift. What a privilege.

A footy commentator and professional controversialist has “mutually” parted ways with a TV broadcaster – after a podcast rant where he called George Floyd “a piece of shit”. While another political commentator has been dropped by a morning show as a regular contributor for her “divisive” comments concerning the residents of locked-down tower blocks in Melbourne. The Simpsons will stop using white actors to voice characters of colour. They’re 31 series in, but sure, nice to have you on board.

It’s easy to rejoice when blatant racism is addressed. Comfortable, even. Because it’s clear cut, and definitely Not Us. For the longest of times, we’ve presumed that racism is “active”. Racists have a white hood in their bedside drawer. Racists are pro-slavery.

Alas. If we’re white in a Western culture, our privilege is embedded and reflex. The system is racist. White folk are the default gold standard. We have a blind spot the size of Everest, and as a result scream censorship when episodes of Little Britain, The Mighty Boosh and 30 Rock are removed from screens due to using blackface. They’ve not been censored. They still exist – no-one is going door-to-door and burning comedy box sets.

The shows are brilliant, and they’re exploiting racist tropes. It’s okay to not normalise that.

Breathe. Thank It Ain’t Half Hot Mum for its service, and let it go.

White folks will inevitably say the wrong thing. We’re white and clueless about racism.

We got it hideously wrong in the past. We’ll get “cancelled”, we’ll learn, and we’ll move on. Take it from a “Mexican”.

Fiona is a writer and comedian who is all for the hurricane.

17 JUL 2020

Wind of Change

The carapace of white privilege is cracking, and we’re in the midst of a seismic cultural shift.

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Fiona

Michael Winterbottom

Small Screens THE M A K ET H IE , C LOT H ESH A R D M C C R EA DA L IC R IO N M O G U L: B OT TO M ’S FI CTIS W IN T EREAT IO N , W IT H H IE N D R CR D EL G IR LF SU P ER M O

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Greed Is Good Director Michael Winterbottom and comedian Steve Coogan are at it again, this time skewering the exploitative world of fashion.

by Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM

ex‑wife and accomplished fraudster Samantha (Australian Isla Fisher, stealing every scene).

McCreadie may be a swaggering, lurid fictional creation, but he’s also painfully familiar.

“The starting point is obviously Philip Green,” says Winterbottom, referring to the British billionaire whose retail empire includes fast-fashion brands like Topshop, and whose behaviour has seen him dubbed “the unacceptable face of capitalism” by British MPs. More recently, 14,500 workers of his Arcadia Group were furloughed due to COVID-19 closures, while Green called for taxpayer support to prop up the business.

“Green is very famous here; he’s a colourful character. You know, he’s king of the high street,” says Winterbottom. “But really, the film is not an attack on an individual… Philip Green is rich because he’s successful in that system – but he’s not as rich as Amancio Ortega who is worth US$60 billion from the clothes he makes at Zara, or Stefan Persson with US$22 billion from the clothes he makes at H&M – all by women workers in Myanmar or Vietnam or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, who get paid very low wages.

“I hope that when you watch the film, it makes you feel that what it’s an attack on is the grotesque inequality between the billionaires who own retail fashion brands and the workers who actually make the clothes for them.

GREED IS NOW AVAILABLE TO RENT OR BUY FROM APPLE TV+, GOOGLE PLAY, TELSTRA TV BOX OFFICE, YOUTUBE MOVIES, FETCH AND FOXTEL.

17 JUL 2020

The one thing about fiction is that you can have a bit of wish fulfilment. That was one reason why I fancied it’d be good that he has his comeuppance.

“Any system that allows that gap… Surely we can come up with a better system.”

Winterbottom is a prolific filmmaker – perhaps best known for The Trip series, whose recent fourth outing also ventured to Greece. He’s partnered up with Coogan many times, including for biopics of other skeezy figures, such as Factory Records’ Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People (2002) or entrepreneur Paul Raymond, the “King of Soho”, in The Look of Love (2013).

McCreadie, being the particular shade of orange that he is, also evokes another certain tycoon.

But Greed is more interested in the wider and far more complicated story that hides behind the success of a man like Green. The film visits actual garment factories in Sri Lanka, ambitiously opening a window to critique that system, to talk about wealth inequality and “show those connections in a way that is kind of funny but makes you think about them,” he says.

“For me, part of the attraction was that we could have women workers in Sri Lanka in the same film as glamorous people at a birthday in Mykonos or luxury yachts in Monaco – because in reality those things are connected, but we just don’t think about them at the same moment.”

That reality is rammed home by the statistics cited in the sizzling end titles, which inform us that those workers in Myanmar and Bangladesh earn as little as A$5.20 and $4.10 a day.

“The sad thing is apparently you could double the wages for the workers and it would have a very small impact on the prices in the shops. So it’s not even as though it would make it harder for us to buy clothes…

Changing the system is a better way of thinking about it than thinking, What can I individually do, which shops should I go to? Because all the shops, all the brands, do the same thing.”

With the phenomenal success of class satires like Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (2019), or the HBO series Succession, it seems audiences right now are craving stories that trouble the status quo.

“McCreadie, our fictional character, his career starts in the era of Thatcher, Reagan and the beginning of the free market. I think, yeah, after 40 years of that, since the financial crash in particular, people do want change.”

But it’s not all so sombre. After a spate of ludicrous cameos from celebs-for-hire – most amusingly James Blunt – Greed builds to a deliciously wicked ending. The farcical Gladiator-themed birthday takes a brutal turn; hubris inevitably leads to a fall.

“The one thing about fiction is that you can have a bit of wish fulfilment. That was one reason why I fancied it’d be good that he has his comeuppance,” laughs Winterbottom. “Unfortunately, in the real world that doesn’t really happen very much.”

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S

teve was nervous about the teeth, but we decided to go for it,” laughs English director Michael Winterbottom.

Joining the pantheon of characters boasting cinema’s most memorable chompers – in company with Mrs Doubtfire, Austin Powers and, more recently, Jonah Hill’s stockbroker in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) – comes Steve Coogan as Sir Richard McCreadie, a fake‑tanned fashion mogul who sports a luminous set of dentures, in Winterbottom’s new satire Greed.

“When people have a lot of money, they seem to like to do quite a lot of work to their bodies,” Winterbottom says. “It seemed like a good place to start.”

Looking to shore up his wobbly public image, McCreadie is throwing a lavish 60th birthday party on the Greek island of Mykonos. Meanwhile, his shady rags-to-riches exploits are recounted via flashbacks, as his official biographer (Peep Show’s David Mitchell) interviews McCreadie’s friends and family, including

Lianne La Havas

Music

Getting Real After a stratospheric rise, Lianne La Havas has re-set, making no compromises on her long-awaited third album.

by Izzy Tolhurst @izzytolhurst

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Izzy Tolhurst is a writer and editor, working on Wathaurong country.

It’s amid this struggle that La Havas talks about the personal awakening captured on her new album, a record that, she says, started to reveal itself back in 2015.

“I knew I wanted to call [the album] Lianne La Havas five years ago,” she tells me. “I knew as soon as I started, this had to be the one with my name on it. Calling it my name, it stuck, because it’s about my growth and who I am now – and getting there.”

For La Havas, “getting there” included the death of her grandmother and great-grandmother, both of whom she lived with while her parents divorced.

“I was lucky to have all my grandmas in my life for a long time. They taught me everything I know,” she continues. “All the wisdom that I was

LIANNE LA HAVAS IS OUT NOW.

17 JUL 2020

This album is my favourite. It’s the one that means everything to me

absorbing was from them. As an only child, they were like my best friends. I lost one grandmother when I was 13 and I don’t know if I ever quite got over it – it’s something I got used to, her not being there. Their teachings meant the world to me. I take them everywhere I go. They help me remember what’s important in life.”

While some of life’s doors closed, others opened for La Havas, and in recording a cover of Radiohead’s ‘Weird Fishes’ after her 2019 Glastonbury performance, she found herself regenerated. This experience, an affirmation of what she could and must do, set the pace and tone for Lianne La Havas, compelling her to bring her band back together and centre the recording in London.

Barely out of high school when discovered, and able to name Prince among her early fans, La Havas spent much of her twenties focused on defining herself. While past albums have detailed emotional extremes through more jarring musical moments, the 11 songs here seem considerably more settled. In giving her name to the album, La Havas has imbued it with a pure self and unbridled confidence.

“It was important for me to do this. The desire to have it be my voice. From what people know of me, it seems like I’ve always been able to do what I wanted, but it’s simply not the case. I have to work with a big label, and for that I’m very fortunate, but it comes with a lot of compromise sometimes. I wasn’t willing to do that with any aspects of the record this time.”

A glance at song titles on this album confirms it as an anthology of identity and renewal. The opening track is ‘Bittersweet’, and in it La Havas affects perfect control over a refrain musically bright, but tinged with sadness: Bittersweet summer rain/I’m born again/All my broken pieces/ Bittersweet summer rain/I’m born again/No more hanging around/Now my sun’s going down/Telling me something isn’t right.

‘Paper Thin’ is sympathetic to vulnerability and pain, and La Havas, either to herself or another, or both, urges self-care and healing. In ‘Can’t Fight’, she hands herself over to love, carrying a message of confidence and commitment on a charming funk beat and melody.

Love and identity are well-trodden themes for La Havas, and as staples of life, they will likely appear again. But this self-titled album is a fork in the road, and the steps forward are marked by their honesty and conviction.

“This album is my favourite. It’s the one that means everything to me, because I stand by every decision made on it,” she concludes.

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I

t’s been five years since Lianne La Havas released her last album, Blood, and a lot has happened since then. The London‑based songwriter moved back and forth between her home in the UK and the US, lost two close family members, and finally overcame the imposter syndrome that had consumed much of her twenties.

But such personal change, while transformative, feels dwarfed by the events of 2020. A global pandemic and the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in the US have together created a world hungry for action and systemic change.

This sits heavily with La Havas, as she prepares to release her third album.

“The last few weeks have been so raw,” she tells me from her home in London, where she was born and raised in a Greek-Jamaican family. “I’ve been feeling the weight of it...feeling extremely sad.

I see small things but lots of things changing. I see awareness all over the world. It’s not a new thing, but the amount of allies is really astonishing.

“But it’s a long road,” she continues. “There are so many little things we have to unlearn. It’s just disappointing that we even have to talk about this in 2020! There are lots of things we can do; lots of education we can give ourselves in order to bring about some kind of meaningful change. We must start from the bottom.”

Mark Brandi

Books

In Praise of Praise Best-selling author Mark Brandi honours the memory of fellow novelist Andrew McGahan.

by Mark Brandi @mb_randi

Mark Brandi is the author of Wimmera and The Rip. He is currently working on his third novel.

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L

ike every veterinary emergency, it happened late on a Saturday night.

My girlfriend noticed our little red staffy, Bridie, dripping blood from a deep wound on her cheek.

“Must’ve caught that stray cat,” I guessed.

“Or maybe it caught her.”

We rushed to a 24-hour animal hospital in Flemington, inner Melbourne, and a matter-of-fact vet listened patiently to my explanation.

“Nice theory,” she said. “But it looks like a tumour. A mast cell. She’s tried to dig it out herself.”

I liked the vet’s manner, her directness – confronting and reassuring all at once.

“Mast cell?” I said.

“Cancer.”

I rubbed Bridie’s chest and she looked up at me brightly.

“I’ll stitch her up for now, but you’ll have to get it removed. Sooner, the better.”

“Then she’ll be fine, right?”

She shrugged.

“Could be benign, could be malignant. But

knowing the breed, it’ll probably kill her in the end.”

A year later, I’m speeding up the Hume Freeway on a Friday afternoon. I’ve got a story shortlisted for a prize at a regional writers’ festival, and the organiser reckons I should be there.

“Might be worth your while,” she said. Might.

The judge was esteemed author and Miles Franklin winner, Andrew McGahan. I’d never read his books, but knew him from the gritty film adaption of his debut novel, Praise.

My shortlisted piece was a fictionalised account of my father’s dementia diagnosis. It was a subject I struggled to talk about, the emotions too raw. But I could write about it – life’s tragedies often make more sense on the page.

The ceremony was already underway when I arrived, with bashful schoolkids getting gongs in the junior categories.

It was a good crowd – mostly their parents, I figured.

I spotted McGahan up front. He looked younger than I expected, approachable.

The announcement of the adult prize came quickly, and I got edgy. Anxiety had always been an issue, crowds even more so.

Third and second places were announced.

People applauded, politely.

McGahan introduced the winner by reading an extract from their work, and I’ll never forget the feeling as he performed my words.

I clumsily made my way to the front and mumbled an acceptance speech, lips quivering with nerves and emotion.

People applauded, politely.

Andrew shook my hand. He introduced me to his partner, Liesje.

“You look familiar,” she said.

“Likewise.”

I’d worked in pubs for years and met a lot of people. The accompanying substance abuse meant I’d forgotten most of them.

Andrew chimed in, saving me from my awkwardness.

“Should we get a beer or something? Celebrate?”

This was unexpected. My plan had been to check into a cheap motel for the night, with wine and trash TV for company.

“Sure,” I said.

We picked the first place we found, an Iris‑themed joint. While Andrew got the first round, Liesje and I made small talk.

“What do you do for a living?” I said.

“I’m a vet.”

Andrew’s eyes lit up. “That’s brilliant!”

When Liesje got the next shout, he raised a toast.

“Really hope it goes well for you,” he said. “And you’re welcome to join us for dinner, if you’d like.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I’ll leave you two in peace.

I’m almost there on a draft, so I should stay with it.”

This was true. It was also true that the evening had gone unexpectedly well, and I feared fucking it up if I stayed any longer.

Andrew shook my hand.

“Great meeting you,” he said. “And I hope everything works out with your dad.”

“Thanks.”

“And good luck with the novel. What was it called again?”

“Wimmera.”

“I’ll look out for it.”

As it turned out, he’d have to wait a while.

That publisher didn’t take it on, and there’d be many more rejections before it made its way into the world.

But I never forgot Andrew and Liesje’s grace and generosity that night. They gave me hope I’d made the right decision to leave my day job, that the literary world could be somewhere I might fit in.

So when my second book was due out, and my

Hi Mark, Liesje and I do indeed remember you, and that very pleasant night in Albury. And it’s wonderful to hear of your success with Wimmera, which sounds far beyond the mere “reasonable” as you described it (we’ve been googling you).

Congratulations.

And many thanks for your kind thoughts. If you heard of my illness through the Murdoch papers, which sensationally declared I had “weeks to live”, as compared to the more sensible Fairfax article, then be assured that things aren’t quite that bad just yet, though they are certainly serious enough.

For the time being though my health is relatively stable, and I’m lucky to be spending plenty of time with family and friends and with Liesje, and even getting a bit of editing done on the new book. All of which is a bonus at this point.

Anyway, we wish you lots of luck with the career from this point on, and I’m very pleased that Liesje and I feature in a good memory of yours.

All the best, Andrew.

It was just a couple of months later, in February last year, that he tragically passed away, far too soon at the age of 52.

I’ve since read Praise and it’s brilliant and darkly funny. It may be a terrible cliché, but he truly does live on in his words, his books. I could hear his voice so clearly on the page.

And it was only when immersed in the booze‑soaked world of Praise that I remembered something – I never got my shout in Albury.

So maybe this piece is an attempt to make amends, to right that wrong. Even if, sometimes, not even writing can make sense of tragedy.

MARK BRANDI’S NEW FICTION WILL BE BROADCAST ON ABC RADIO NATIONAL’S UNTRUE CRIME SERIES ON 1 AUGUST.

17 JUL 2020

I spotted McGahan up front.

He looked younger than I expected, approachable.

agent asked who I’d like to endorse it on the cover, I was ready. A long shot, but worth a crack.

“Oh,” she said.

“Oh?” She told me the terrible news – Andrew had pancreatic cancer.

Shortly afterwards, a newspaper ran an article saying he was close to death. I hastily penned a letter, asked my agent to pass it on.

A week later, a response arrived.

33

“Whereabouts?”

“Flemington.”

“The 24-hour place?”

“That’s the one.”

As it turned out, Bridie died about six months after she’d seen her, but not from the cancer. It was old age in the end. Her organs started failing, and we’d made the devastating decision to put her to sleep.

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “Staffies are great.

And she seemed like a lovely dog.”

When Andrew returned, I shifted the topic to writing, and the saga of my unpublished novel manuscript. I explained how a publisher was finally interested and had an exclusive option.

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

C

inemas have reopened – well, for some lucky states – bringing Bellbird (2019), an understated charmer to lift any lingering winter ennui. The directorial debut of New Zealander Hamish Bennett, this bittersweet and often funny drama is set on a working dairy farm where a son (Cohen Holloway) dutifully comes home to lend a hand to his recently widowed father, who is locked in grief (Marshall Napier, McLeod’s Daughters).

For Melburnians, or those not quite ready to get back inside a cinema, Stan hosts the premiere of Japanese-Australian director Natalie Erika James’ Sundance‑approved debut feature Relic – an intergenerational horror story set in rural Victoria that left me shaking under the doona.

A different type of thrill is on offer at MUBI: Werner Herzog’s new doco, Family Romance, LLC (2019), which examines a bizarro modern phenomenon, the Japanese rent-a-family business. The titular agency hires out performers as stand-ins for any person the client wants – for example, a father for 12-year‑old Mahiro, who can’t remember her dad. Shot in Tokyo by the 77-year-old German wunderkind, the documentary continues Herzog’s signature use of staging and artifice; it eventually becomes clear that the film we’re watching is scripted. In a deeply satisfying galaxy-brain moment, it makes us ponder the ritualistic roles that are performed by family figures – especially in public ceremonies such as weddings and funerals – and ask just how real or how fake it all is. ABB

DEAR DAIRY

SHIRLEY 

The life of novelist Shirley Jackson is a vehicle for dark, delirious psychodrama in Josephine Decker’s Shirley. Best known for her 1948 New Yorker short story ‘The Lottery’, the film picks up in the wake of its publication, and as (fictional) young couple Rose and Fred move into Jackson’s rickety residence. The women, initially repelled by one another, grow dangerously entangled as Jackson works on her novel Hangsaman. Elisabeth Moss, skilled at playing horror heroines and women on the brink, makes for a perfectly volatile Jackson: huffing on cigarettes, slugging scotch and delivering withering one-liners (“A clean house is evidence of mental inferiority”). Playing loose with biography, Shirley is a pungent brew of claustrophia, erotic tension, psychosis and brushes with the occult – charged by gothic imagery and a discombobulating rhythm. But it’s underpinned by a more pedestrian, more malignant horror: domestic duty and male dependency. “Little wifey,” seethes Rose, about her time playing house, “that was madness.” ISABELLA TRIMBOLI A WHITE, WHITE DAY

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

Travelling along a winding road on a misty day, a car goes through a railing and down a cliff. A year passes. Since the death of his wife, the police officer Ingimundur (Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson) has thrown himself into renovating the family property. The only source of warmth in his life is his relationship with his lively granddaughter (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir). But as Ingimundur comes to suspect his late wife of having been unfaithful, all that he has is put at risk as the anger inside him builds. Icelandic writer-director Hlynur Pálmason (Winter Brothers, 2017) constantly grounds his story in the physical, creating a deeply felt world of wind and snow, where horses wander into the kitchen. The slow accumulation of detail and occasional surreal touches (watch out for an extremely creepy children’s show) only strengthen the impact of this look at a man torn apart by a past he can’t face or move beyond. Ingimundur is an open wound; will he find a way to heal?

ANTHONY MORRIS

BABYTEETH 

Earning praise at last year’s Venice Film Festival, Australian Shannon Murphy’s feature directorial debut is an affecting coming-of-age story about Milla (Eliza Scanlen, Little Women), a terminally ill private schoolgirl who falls for Moses (Toby Wallace), a charismatic, 23-year-old drifter with a drug habit. Her parents – psychiatrist Henry (Ben Mendelsohn) and neurotic pianist Anna (Essie Davis) – are barely holding it together. Yet despite their better judgement, they allow Moses to enter their lives. Such a premise could easily fall prey to cliché, but this gently offbeat “girl with cancer” story is irreverent about the chaos, defying the usual sappy conventions. Murphy is unafraid of quiet moments and lets her spirited characters breathe. This is just as well, as all the performances are strong – particularly Scanlen’s, who deftly balances the angst and yearning of first love. Dancing between moments of pain, lust, teenage rebellion and joy, Babyteeth is an intimate portrait of life on the brink, sure to break your heart. CLAIRE WHITE

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

P-VALLEY  | STAN

SHAUN MICALLEF’S ON THE SAUCE

 | SBS ON DEMAND

 | ABC TV + ABC IVIEW

Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry’s newest piece of suburban pulp is flawed and camp-ish – and yet, if you give yourself over to it, these facts might not bother you.

The darkly comedic series tells the story of three women, across three decades, linked by their shared experiences of infidelity, marital collapse and murder. In 1963, housewife Beth Ann (a very Stepford Wives Ginnifer Goodwin) grapples with her chauvinistic husband’s adultery. In 1984, histrionic socialite Simone’s (Lucy Liu) “perfect” public image is threatened by the fact that her husband is gay. And in 2019, working woman Taylor (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) and her “male feminist” husband attempt to convert their open marriage into a polyamorous throuple, with disastrous results. Situating all three stories in the same house, the parallel lives illuminate how marital dynamics have evolved, but also all the ways in which they haven’t, suggesting that gendered oppression has become more insidious. Why do women kill? According to Cherry, there are too many reasons to count. IVANA BREHAS

His humour may be drier than a Clare Valley cab-sav, but comedian Shaun Micallef is, in fact, a wowser. He hasn’t had a drop of the devil’s drink since his fleeting but dedicated binge-drinking days as an emerging satirist in the late 1980s. Yet Micallef, bound by blood to the ABC’s educational charter, here plumbs the depths of Australia’s drinking culture.

Mixing quaint archival footage of mid-century pubs with sobering observational sequences at B&S balls and emergency departments, this three-part series demonstrates how grog is infused into our national identity. Settling down on a psychologist’s couch, the host mulls over alcohol’s symbolic role in cinema, advertising, sport and society. His teetotalling position means he approaches the topic with anthropological interest, but Micallef is genuine and genial. Inebriated or not, people want to open up to him. Likewise, the typically measured, meticulous presenter shows rare vulnerability, even sadness, as he tries to rationalise a world many folks seek to forget, albeit temporarily, by drinking. Premieres 21 July. AIMEE KNIGHT

I

f our interview with Kermit the Frog has you primed for a continuing stroll down memory lane, I can tell you how to get there – to Sesame Street, specifically. The ABC is screening the show’s landmark 50th season, which kicks off with a nostalgic variety special honouring the series’ hallowed history and radical present.

Hosted by the charming Joseph GordonLevitt, Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary Celebration sees the known Muppet fanboy arrive at 123 Sesame’s brownstone steps for a big party (and a sneaky selfie opp under the iconic street sign). The ensuing hour is packed with cameos and performances from celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg, Patti LaBelle, Nile Rodgers and Sterling K Brown. Like Sesame’s resident saxophonist owl, it’s a hoot.

If it’s been a while since you tuned in, you may not recognise the fresh faces, human and Muppet alike. But viewers of a certain vintage will be pleasantly surprised to see characters like Don Music, Harvey Kneeslapper and Lefty the Salesman – all retired on account of their dubious educational value – get a run.

Even Kermit returns for a Disney-approved appearance to sing ‘It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green’ with Elvis Costello.

As all of the show’s original performers have now moved or passed on, Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary Celebration is two cups party to one cup memorial. Still, it’s infused with the joyful flavour that’s made Sesame a television staple for half a century, and counting.

Sesame Street screens on ABC Kids, the ABC Kids app and ABC iview. AK

17 JUL 2020

WHY WOMEN KILL

SESAME STREET-PARTY!

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Down in the Mississippi Delta, life bumps and grinds for dancers at the Pynk exotic club. By day, the women mend their lives, but by night, club mystique settles in, as Mercedes (Brandee Evans, The Bobby Brown Story) and Miss Mississippi (Shannon Thornton, Power) work their regulars and thrill patrons who shower them with cash. Meanwhile, newbie Autumn Night (Elarica Johnson, A Discovery of Witches) stuns at the Booty Battle contest, earning her place on Pynk’s stage, but owner Uncle Clifford (Nicco Annan, Claws) notices there is more to this woman: is she a spy, a criminal or a scammer? Adapted by Katori Hall from her acclaimed stage play, P-Valley is hypnotic, luring viewers in with melodic trap beats, rich lighting and couture wigs, without losing focus on the women’s inner lives. Following Ava DuVernay’s precedent with Queen Sugar, P-Valley features an all-women directorial team, including Karena Evans (Drake’s ‘Nice for What’). They transform this “strip club” story into a bold and colourful exploration of gender, class, sexuality and hidden identities. SYDNYE ALLEN

Music Reviews

R

Sarah Smith Music Editor

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THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

ight across Australia the arts industry remains one of the hardest hit by the global pandemic. And while everyone tries to adapt, it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s going to be much tougher for some than for others. One of the hardest areas hit is undoubtedly our clubs and live music venues, whose existence requires bodies to be jammed into rooms.

Over the past few months, venues have been calling on their state governments and Canberra to lend a helping hand. In Victoria, the Save Our Scene campaign was launched to draw attention to the reality that venues, bands and workers are facing in this new socially distant world.

Since Save Our Scene tabled a recordsetting e-petition to Parliament asking for financial assistance, the Victorian government has announced a $15 million program to support the music industry in the state – specifically live music businesses and venues.

As Melbourne enters its second full lockdown, this is a much-needed life raft for the city, which boasts more live music venues per capita than any other city in the world: 700 music venues put on roughly 100,000 gigs a year, with an economic impact of close to $1.42 billion.

Save Our Scene organiser Simone Ubaldi recently told The Age that, without assistance, 45 per cent of the state’s venues would close by the end of the year. And this is just in Victoria; venues across Australia are all facing similar fates. SS

STAND UP AND BE COUNTED

@sarah_smithie

NYAARINGU MIIESHA 

Every once in a while there comes a new voice that captivates, matching understated grace with powerful impact. This year, that voice belongs to Woorabinda artist Miiesha. Her debut collection of music, Nyaaringu, introduces the audience to an R&B artist who utterly commands her space on record. Nyaaringu is a deeply personal album, a reflection of the struggles of First Nations peoples here in Australia. A timely release given the current social climate worldwide, the album has many moments that could relate to the unrest internationally.

Musically though, Nyaaringu shines with its traversing of genres, bringing soulful piano-led moments (‘Broken Tongues’), together with pure vocal power and confidence (‘Black Privilege’, ‘Drowning’). As she delves deep into the issues that plague Indigenous communities, Miiesha refuses to be held down and instead propels through the album with strength. Miiesha has most definitely arrived with Nyaaringu, and in refusing to shy away from speaking her truth has delivered an album of resilience and empowerment. SOSE FUAMOLI

OUR TWO SKINS GORDI

DISTANCE JESS CORNELIUS

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Sophie Payten, better known by the moniker Gordi, follows her 2017 debut with Our Two Skins, a deeply personal album written in a period of significant change for the Sydney-based musician. The album’s central themes are articulated simply, yet poetically, with Payten writing about the emotional journey of falling in love in her first queer relationship while also grappling with the loss of her grandmother.

In the space of the first four tracks we hear Payten’s musical range: from the bare bones production of opener ‘Aeroplane Bathroom’ through to the upbeat ‘Unready’. Payten’s voice serves as the record’s cornerstone, with its extraordinary delicacy morphing into a dominating, almost unrecognisable force on the track ‘Volcanic’. Piano-based compositions form the basis of most songs to great effect, but it’s in the pop sheen of ‘Limits’ that we get a better glimpse into the formidable artist that Gordi has become.

Half a world away from Melbourne where she established respected musical project Teeth & Tongue, Jess Cornelius has created a home. The Kiwi-born, LA-based musician has released her solo debut Distance, with stripped-back vintage R&B at the heart of its songs. There’s an honest stocktake of lessons learned: “I can’t get over how little I knew,” she recites in ‘Love and Low Self Esteem’.

Fearlessness is projected with simple and effective hooks – the bellowed “walk walk walk” of powerhouse lead single ‘Kitchen Floor’; the hand clap exclamation marks on proto-punk indebted ‘Banging My Head’.

There’s dexterity with ornate arrangements such as ‘Born Again’, reminiscent of Joanna Newsom, and high-altitude melodic exploration on ‘Here Goes Nothing’. Distance is a celebration of serenity – a rationalising of the complexity of external and internal forces, of the past into the present – and finding a place of comfort to call one’s own.

HOLLY PEREIRA

LACHLAN KANONIUK

Book Reviews

Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

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SEX AND VANITY KEVIN KWAN

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Ashley Kalagian Blunt’s memoir begins in 2011 and ends in 2016, charting her emigration from Canada to Australia with her new husband. As they familiarise themselves with their new surroundings in Sydney, navigating cultural quirks and appreciating the wildlife and landscape, Blunt is startlingly honest about her struggles with anxiety and the difficulties faced in the first few years of marriage. This book seamlessly walks the line between light‑hearted (unravelling the mysteries of the flat white), and earnestly self-aware (her discovery of Australia’s treatment of refugees and our history of largely unacknowledged colonial atrocities), and doesn’t skip a beat in weaving between them. This balance makes the book easily readable, but not at all flippant or heedless in its assessment of modern Australia as a nation with much work to do in healing and growing. Her blend of patient cultural analysis, personal problem-solving and sober self-awareness, makes this memoir an interesting and thoughtful read. JEMIMAH BREWSTER

Those who binged the confectionery trilogy that began with Crazy Rich Asians will be delighted to know that Kevin Kwan’s latest novel offers more of the same: yes, the same generational smorgasbord of super-affluent gadabouts who assemble in impossibly beautiful places and indulge in the latest and the priciest luxuries – and yet still manage to suffer from the same kinds of problems as the rest of us. This time, however, Kwan has decided to do a tribute to A Room With a View. Sex and Vanity uses the same narrative scaffolding as EM Forster’s novel, although he moves the action to the island of Capri.

His protagonist is the winsome Eurasian Lucie, who’s been invited there, along with her chaperone-cousin Charlotte, to attend the wedding of a Taiwanese heiress and the son of an Italian count. Lucie meets another guest, George, and their love dalliance proceeds through the requisite number of stumbles. If you like pure escapist melodrama, full of designer gear and gossip, Sex and Vanity will deliver.

AFTER AUSTRALIA EDITED BY MICHAEL MOHAMMED AHMAD 

When creatives abandon their designated cultural silos to work together on a project, something magical and transformative happens to the Australian literary voice. After Australia, an anthology of speculative fiction created in collaboration with Diversity Arts Australia and Western Sydney’s Sweatshop collective, exemplifies this. The anthology centres refreshing, rich, vibrant, nuanced and complex perspectives. It’s timely and speaks to that question which now nags at all of us, globally, in this present moment of rising fascism, pandemic and climate catastrophe. Released from the white gaze and framed

by First Nations and POC-writing, a chorus of unfettered literary voices narrate their visions of the future, often bending linear time. While After Australia boasts literary heavyweights (Claire G Coleman, Michelle Law, Omar Sakr), that is not the only reason to read it. Its breadth and experimentalism mean there should be a pristine copy for the bookshelf and another dog-eared one for your handbag. Each story demands a revisit. SISTA ZAI ZANDA

THUY ON

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HOW TO BE AUSTRALIAN ASHLEY KALAGIAN BLUNT

17 JUL 2020

es, I know, you’re all probably sick to death of hearing about this virus, as it continues to rage across the globe. Even so, COVID-19: What You Need to Know About the Coronavirus and the Race for the Vaccine is a timely overview of the corona pandemic, written by award-winning science journalist Dr Michael Mosely. In clear, simple and accessible prose, the book provides a summary of the probable origins and trajectory of the coronavirus, with plenty of advice about how to keep yourself and your family in good shape to fight it. Opening chapter ‘Portrait of a Serial Killer’ details the nature of the disease – how it spreads and infects your body, and the ways in which your immune system tries to fight back – while following chapters outline ways to live with the pandemic until a vaccine is found and becomes readily available.

Despite the devastating repercussions of COVID-19 – and the fact that it will be “a long, hard road back to any form of normality” – Mosely is an optimist, as he happily admits. He believes that the virus may make us, paradoxically, more communal, not to mention more concerned with the state of the planet, more politically active, more invested in stamping out the illegal trade of endangered species, and more appreciative of health-care workers. And hopefully we’ll keep washing our hands more, too. TO

Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

Life includes the people you watch while you’re waiting for the lights to change. There’s a charming barista who works in a cafe that’s on a corner I regularly pass in the car. I’ve never met her, but I see her twice a day on my kids’ school-run while waiting for the lights to change.

We look for her now: making old ladies laugh; diving out of the street window to present small children with babycinos; leaning in the doorway listening to the locals, nodding, making them laugh. Never once has she noticed us. She has no idea we squeal There she is! when we spot her and watch her every move with a distant affection.

Life includes memories that surprise you in the middle of nowhere, nudged into your consciousness by a smell or a colour or the way a shadow moves.

A half‑remembered conversation. The way a ramp sloped on the way up the steps to a school excursion.

A painting. A parent’s wristwatch.

We often judge ourselves (How you holding up?) in comparison to other people. Did you know that magpies recognise people? Heaps of birds do. They see you coming and think This one’s okay, but look out for the one with the hat. We don’t like him. Dogs pick up on all kinds of human traits, and so do cats. We have no way of knowing exactly how we feature in the lives of animals, but because they’re not in charge of our performance reviews we tend not to place their opinions of us at the centre of our life narratives. My grandfather had a way of saying up (it was more of a heYEP!) that every dog I ever saw him with completely understood. They knew it was coming too. They expected it. They did not try on anything stupid. They bided their time for the heYEP. And when that heYEP came, so did they rejoice. My grandfather achieved lots of things in his life but this ability to communicate with animals – to seek them out and make himself known to them – was a very important mark of his character.

Sometimes, even if you are a tiny outlier in someone’s life, you can be a main character without knowing it. Once, when I was waiting to cross a road, deep in thought about the things I hadn’t done and the sleep I hadn’t had, an annoyed man in a suit rode his bike past me just a bit too close and fast, shooting back a look of fury and shouting something into the wind. I had no idea what he said but I hadn’t spoken to another adult all day. I stared after him. An older woman appeared next to me. “In a big hurry I think,” she said, nodding after him. “I expect his many friends can’t wait to see him.” She grinned at me, sideways, and I laughed out loud. I think of her sometimes. Something like that can really change how you’re holding up.

Public Service Announcement: life is bigger than you think. Look at the very edges of things. You might be surprised what you find.

Lorin Clarke is a Melbourne-based writer. The second season of her radio series, The Fitzroy Diaries, is on ABC Radio National and the ABC Listen app now.

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sn’t it great how humans report to each other?

We say things like How was your day? which is both a time-specific report (1x day only) and requires specific agency (it was your day). Americans say things like How are you holding up? (no time limit but a qualitative assessment of your circumstances – you’re probably struggling in an unnamed context completely out of your control). The idea that today is yours gives all the power to you. The idea that you may or may not be holding up gives you none.

In a way, though, they’re both kind of true. Isn’t life kind of everywhere, happening to all of us – and also specific to you? Where does your life start and stop? I read a story the other day about a couple who had been together for years. They were looking back through old family photo albums, and figured out they had met on a summer holiday when they were teenagers. There they were, standing on a rock together. She had thought that was another story. Another boy. He remembered it too, but thought it was a different girl. So how do we know which bits are relevant? Public Service Announcement: your life is bigger than you think.

17 JUL 2020

Living on the Edge

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THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home Miguel Maestre

Seafood Paella à la Maestre Ingredients Miguel says…

Sofrito 3 large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped 5 large roasted red (piquillo) peppers and their liquid from the jar 6 garlic cloves, peeled ½ bunch parsley ½ bunch chives 25ml extra virgin olive oil 1 teaspoon saffron threads 2 tablespoons smoked paprika

Method To make the sofrito, place all ingredients in a food processor and process until chunky. If you don’t have a food processor, roughly chop the tomatoes and peppers, finely chop the garlic, parsley and chives, and combine with other sofrito ingredients.

Heat a 30cm-wide fry pan or paella pan with a splash of olive oil over high heat and add calamari and prawns, stirring until they begin to colour. Add the sofrito and cook until it’s mostly reduced, 3-4 minutes. Add chicken stock and bring to the boil. Stir in rice and bring to a simmer. Now add mussels and fish evenly. Continue simmering for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile season stock to taste with salt.

When rice is tender and liquid has mostly reduced, add peas or green beans and cook for a further 2 minutes to achieve soccarrada, the crust on the bottom of the pan.

Squeeze over lemon juice and garnish with chopped chives just before serving.

F

or me, paella is everything. It’s what made me fall in love with food. When I was growing up, my mum would cook paella for the family a few times a week, and my grandma would cook it for 100 family members at our big social gatherings. It’s about celebration and bringing people together and sharing that meal and that experience with the whole family.

Spanish chefs in Australia make paella feel like a restaurant dish, but back home in Spain it’s an everyday meal that is accessible and affordable. It’s home cooking at its very best.

People say there’s only one way to cook paella but that’s rubbish! It’s so versatile, you can use chicken, chorizo, squid ink, snails, rabbit or scrambled eggs.

Travel around Spain and you can tell which produce is the best in each city based on what they put in their paella. That’s why there’s so many variations.

My own interpretation of paella is heavily influenced by my family back home. Now that I live in Australia with a beautiful family of my own, it means so much to be able to teach my wife and kids how to cook it with me. Everyone in our kitchen is always involved in the cooking. Everyone always has a job to do because cooking shouldn’t be stressful, it should be a celebration that brings us all closer together.

The most important thing to remember when cooking paella is that colour means flavour, and the soccarrada caramelises the flavours from the garlic and paprika. In every home in Spain, kids always fight for the soccarrada and the oldest brother always gets the most!

Bomba is the ultimate paella rice because the starch is so strong that you can cook it and cook it and it holds its shape. The most common mistake when cooking paella is to use the wrong rice. Why? You wouldn’t use Singapore noodles for fettuccine, would you?

Aussies get so stressed about paella. I’m here to say, relax. Cooking paella should be a creative process. Use whatever you want to. Throw out the rule book and just cook and enjoy!

YOU CAN CATCH MIGUEL ON CHANNEL 10’S THE LIVING ROOM, 7.30PM ON FRIDAYS.

17 JUL 2020

Splash of extra virgin olive oil 100g clean calamari rings 5 large prawns (keep the heads and shell for flavour) 750ml chicken stock 250g bomba rice (use arborio if you can’t find bomba) 10 black mussels 200g white fish (such as snapper, barramundi or flathead), sliced and cut in 5cm pieces Salt, to taste ½ cup peas or green beans ½ bunch chives, finely chopped Lemon wedges, to serve

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Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

PORTRAIT PHOTO BY NICHOLAS WILSON

Serves 2-4

Puzzles

ANSWERS PAGE 45

By Lingo!

by Lauren Gawne lingthusiasm.com DAISY

CLUES 5 letters Back of a boat Locomotive Page within a page Sand particle Trap, enmesh 6 letters Cattle trough Choir member Length of twine Lodestone Puzzle, mystery 7 letters Article of dress Audience capacity Odd, weird Sizzling, scorching 8 letters Emitting water vapour

E G A S N M R

I

T

Sudoku

by websudoku.com

Each column, row and 3 x 3 box must contain all numbers 1 to 9.

6 5

3

7 1

1

2 1 5 3

4

1 5

8 9 7

9

5

3 6

7 8 5 4 2

9

8 2

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD PAGE 45 ACROSS 1 Cyborg 4 Smashing 10 Voicemail 11 Yodel

12 Role 13 Bronx cheer 15 Platoon 16 Elapse 19 Stream 21 Maestro 23 Tie the knot 25 Anti 27 Tubed 28 Whimsical 29 Sideways 30 Bellow

DOWN 1 Cover-ups 2 Brilliant 3 Reel 5 Melange 6 Skyscraper 7 Indie 8 Galore 9 Macron 14 Foreshadow 17 Satanical 18 Son-in-law 20 Make way 21 Myopic 22 Status 24 Embed 26 Isle

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 32 2 The Spree 3 Pakistan 4 Blue 5 Bears 6 The Birthday Party 7 Ansett 8 1998 9 The Philippines 10 Helen Garner 11 Pomegranate 12 Hotmail 13 Willow bark 14 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) 15 C 16 M*A*S*H 17 SCOBY (acronym) 18 Mathias Cormann 19 Cambodia 20 Anticlockwise

17 JUL 2020

Using all nine letters provided, can you answer these clues?

Every answer must include the central letter.

Plus, which word uses all nine letters?

by puzzler.com

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Word Builder

Compounding is a way English can make new words by putting together two existing words. Many compounds are obvious, although we’re so used to them we might not think about them as compounds anymore: words such as seagull, lunchbox and smartphone. Some compounds are so old you can’t even tell that they’re compounds anymore, like daisy.

About a millennium ago the word was Old English dæges “day’s” eage “eye”.

The flowers were called “day’s eye” because the petals opened to show the yellow centre during the day. By the 1700s daisy became the standard spelling and the original meaning was obscured.

While daisies have a long history in English, the first reference to the compound daisy-chains was in 1841.

Crossword

by Chris Black

THE ANSWERS FOR THE CRYPTIC AND QUICK CLUES ARE THE SAME. ANSWERS PAGE 43.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Quick Clues ACROSS

9 10

11

13 14 16

17 18

19

20

21

DOWN

22 23

24

25 26

27

28

29

30

Cryptic Clues

Solutions

ACROSS

DOWN

1 Perhaps Steve Austin upset by corgi with no tail? (6) 4 Carol devoured M*A*S*H and Wicked (8) 10 Express reported bloke cached messages here? (9) 11 Harry Doyle’s Alpine call (5) 12 Job in petroleum (4) 13 Raspberry beer contains corn treated with hydrogen

1 Camouflages deliveries in cups (5-3) 2 Brian nabbed crook, time to be clever (9) 3 Recorded authentic dance (4) 5 Gleeman danced to medley (7) 6 Giant building and repairing ark with cypress (10) 7 Popular gaming accessory not “commercial” (5) 8 Elevated silver legends (6) 9 President starts making a connection with

and xylitol primarily (5,5)

15 Overly into design company (7) 16 Pass by the Spanish church recess (6) 19 Current master switch (6) 21 Reassigned as metro conductor (7) 23 Take the plunge and prepare tent to hike (3,3,4) 25 Opposed to mercantile group (4) 27 Debut novel circulated London’s underground (5) 28 Fanciful wish: claim resolved (9) 29 Doctor is swayed indirectly (8) 30 ‘Howl’ author (6)

1 Concealments (5-3) 2 Shining (9) 3 Stagger (4) 5 Mixture (7) 6 Tall building (10) 7 Not mainstream (5) 8 Aplenty (6) 9 French president (6) 14 Augur (10) 17 Diabolical (9) 18 Relation by marriage (3-2-3) 20 Move aside (4,3) 21 Short-sighted (6) 22 Position (6) 24 Put in (5) 26 Small piece of land (4)

Howard (6)

14 Herald had worse of amalgamation? (10) 17 Upgrading Catalina’s diabolical (9) 18 Relative is on lawn starkers (3-2-3) 20 Step aside,*rouse former PM* says Spooner (4,3) 21 Pumping Iron (1977) not 2020? (6) 22 Ranking sculpted figures without finishing

piece (6)

24 Alien beamed a missing implant (5) 26 Perhaps Tasmania mislead insiders (4)

SUDOKU PAGE 43

8 6 9 5 4 7 2 1 3

3 4 2 8 1 6 9 5 7

1 7 5 2 9 3 6 8 4

5 1 6 3 8 9 4 7 2

4 3 8 6 7 2 1 9 5

2 9 7 1 5 4 8 3 6

9 2 1 4 3 5 7 6 8

6 8 3 7 2 1 5 4 9

7 5 4 9 6 8 3 2 1

Puzzle by websudoku.com

WORD BUILDER PAGE 43 5 Stern Train Inset Grain Snare 6 Manger Singer String Magnet Enigma 7 Garment Seating Strange Searing 8 Steaming 9 Streaming

17 JUL 2020

15

45

12

1 RoboCop,* for example (6) 4 Cracking (8) 10 Answering machine replacement (9) 11 Call of the mountains (5) 12 Part (4) 13 Sound of derision (5,5) 15 Army group (7) 16 Go by (6) 19 Small river (6) 21 Baton wielder (7) 23 Get hitched (3,3,4) 25 Against (4) 27 Took the underground (5) 28 Capricious (9) 29 Laterally (8) 30 Shout (6)

Click 1940s

Mahatma Gandhi

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

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THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

N

o-one made a fashion statement quite like Mahatma Gandhi. His dhoti was a conscious rejection of the West, by someone conversant with the social significance of clothes. But as a young man arriving in England in 1888, he tried hard to fit in, particularly by dressing as others did. He even wrote a pamphlet, unpublished, advising other Indians how to dress in a European style.

When he went to South Africa, where he practised as a lawyer, clothes again became an issue. On his first day in court there in 1893 the magistrate ordered him to remove his turban. Gandhi refused. He pondered wearing a hat instead. A friend explained that if he did, he would be mistaken for a waiter.

As a man of means, Gandhi at that time customarily travelled first-class, but later that year was booted off a train at Pietermaritzburg after a white passenger objected to his presence. He wrote a letter of complaint, proposing that “properly dressed” Indians be allowed to travel first-class – but the loophole that any official could deem you not correctly attired could not be overcome.

After a year of correspondence with Leo Tolstoy, whose creed of love and non-violence influenced him,

Gandhi’s political ideas were crystallising. The Swadeshi movement – “Make in India” – began in earnest in 1905, and Gandhi supported it, more so when it became a boycott of English goods, including clothes and textiles.

While touring south India in 1921, he realised people could not easily dispose of Western clothes, because khadi – handloomed cotton – was so expensive.

He decided to set an example. He abandoned Western clothing and spun his own cotton, with his spinningwheel, a charkha. Everything in the photo above is political, including his posture.

When he met King George V in 1931 to negotiate India’s future, he wore his dhoti. British journalists asked him if he felt underdressed; Gandhi replied that the King was wearing enough for the two of them.

The charkha was also meant to be a means of self‑sufficiency, a way to sidestep mechanisation, which Gandhi could see entailed enslavement. The charkha appeared on the provisional Indian flag from 1931 to 1948, where the dharma wheel now resides.

In light of Gandhi’s legacy, the present-day employment of Indian women and children at below poverty wages in death-trap clothing factories is even more abhorrent.

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17 APR 2020