Matilda Munro
, May 3rd, 2021 11:54
Matilda Munro reviews Mark Mordue s new book on the early life of a Bad Seed
Photo by Bleddyn Butcher
To write about Australianness is a contradiction in terms, as one of the country’s effects is to rob you of all will to put it into words. It tends to be only those who leave that get anywhere near laying out the truth of the place. It’s the case for many of its major wordsmiths over the past decades: Patrick White, Peter Carey, Clive James, David Malouf, Tim Winton, Robert Hughes, as well as for painters Brett Whiteley and Sidney Nolan. The bass notes of the place rumble out and away from the coastal cities, beneath the unforgiving sky, and through an eternal California of the intellect, where addiction is endemic, threat of violence constant, and the blood of all the convicts and all the natives lies in the dust. There is all the quiet horror of the Church, and the contradiction – through the sheer distance itself – that Australia enf
- In these days of 24/7 bad news, it s easy to foget what its like to be fully and joyfully surprised. But when Urbana-based multimedia artist and writer, Marc-Anthony Macon announced the arrival of his self-published book
Under the Oyster Bar, a collection of short plays, I started to remember. Artists like Macon, who work in Dadaist and Surrealist traditions, know a thing or two about good surprises. And about the power of rejecting reason, which seems as appropriate a response now as it did after World War I. And because I had questions, lots of them, I reached out to Macon to learn more about his foray into this form. I hope you will enjoy his rich and revealing responses as much as I did.
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