Cory Doctorow’s book defines enshittification as: ‘when you combine the banality of evil with an internet-connected device and a federal law that criminalizes doing anything with that device that the manufacturer dislikes.’
I’m holding a new creative writing series of workshops soon. See the poster for details and booking. It’s for the usual eight weeks but this time I’m experimenting with a new afternoon time slot of 2.00-4.00 because some people asked for that alternative to the evening one. I’ve been reading some books on writing and some books on art. I’ve been painting papers, doing basic print-making and making collages, preparing for a couple of group exhibitions this year, one the first week in July, the other not finalised. The book that really stands out for me is Belle Burden’sStrangers (Penguin,…
Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism The key to thriving in our high-tech world is to spend much less time on social media. This is Cal Newport’s persuasive message in his Digital Minimalism: Choosing a focused life in a noisy world (Penguin Business, 2019). Newport is a succinct, logical writer who presents irrefutable evidence for his argument and outlines a feasible strategy with clear steps to follow if we want to reclaim (as Freedom app calculated) an extra 2.5 hours of productive time per day. The evidence of the detrimental effects of social media have been accumulating steadily for years and Newport…
Why haven’t I written a blog for so long? It’s because I’ve been teaching another creative writing course and because I’ve contributed my collages to two more exhibitions (the one still on till the end of the month is in Dojo’s bread shop, main street of Braidwood) and I was cheered when one man stood in front of them for ages and said that my sense of colour was ‘superb’ (but he still didn’t buy one). Ha. Plus I have to spend time on knee exercises (El Paso clinic’s online ones – https://epmpt.mykajabi.com/knee-arthritis-recovery-program – are fantastic and also the Daily…
No doubt this letter below that I wrote last month will fall on deaf ears at the Australian National University but I had to say something. The corporatisation of ANU has been going on for 26 years. Labor’s John Dawkins started it and when John Howard got in he radically intensified the destruction of higher education, appointing people in key positions who were actively hostile to academia. It’s been horrible to watch this process unfolding and tragic for our country. Vice Chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell et al Subject: Proposal Document of 3 July 2025 Dear Professor Bell, Prof. Parry et…
Oliver Burkeman’s new book Meditations for Mortals and the answer to not enough time Like many of you, I feel the lack of time to read as many books as I want to. Oliver Burkeman, in his new book Meditations for Mortals, presents a way to resolve that constant tension. It just takes a different perspective from the one pictured! That’s me a few years back, posing with an jokily exaggerated pile of TBRs (to be reads). First, some history about my problem. Acclaimed Turkish writer Elif Shafak describes her Substack offerings https://elifshafak.substack.com/ as ‘vignettes from a bookish life’. That…
‘The world is our house. Keep it clean.’ That’s a Chinese proverb. The world is sliding into the mud of 1930s fascism, sleep-walking into Dystopia on a burning planet and Trump the puppet of various people even more malevolent than he is, with Elon controlling everything. (And that name? I imagine his parents liked the name Leon but were dyslexic. Apologies to anyone to whom I caused offence with that bit of facetious frivolity.) Where we are now (for instance, did you know that the average American child, by eighteen years old, has watched 16,000 murders?) is the ultimate result…
My blog, this past decade and a half, has been focused on writing and creativity. An argument about the monster trucks that are taking over our towns and cities in Australia might seem a departure from this theme. But no. First, my article is an example of creative self-expression, albeit non-fiction and based rigorously on the evidence, and second, the noise-pollution, air-pollution and visual-pollution made by these over-engineered juggernauts is antithetical to everyone’s creative needs and creative pursuits, as well being antithetical to our physical and mental health. I haven’t written a blog in a while and it’s been because…
Expanding the moment Annabel Abbs wrote Windswept: Walking in the footsteps of remarkable women (Two Roads, 2021) about some famous and not so famous women who were serious walkers at times when that was unusual and often dangerous. (It’s back in the library before I took a photo, so another of her books I discuss below features in the picture.) In Windswept she explores the lives of Simone de Beauvoir, Daphne Du Maurier Frieda Lawrence, Clara Vyvyan, Nan Shepherd and painters Georgia O’Keefe and Gwen John by travelling in their footsteps. In the spirit of Gwen John she began sketching…
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